Responsibly Wild Blog

The "big bang" of my connection to local music dates April 22, 1999. Why do I know that specific date? Because the first local band I specifically sought out to see live (outside of my circle of friends playing music) was Grubby Ernie, opening for the Toasters at Val Air Ballroom. Thankfully the  website for Grubby Ernie -who called it quits over a decade- is still up and running with ALL their past shows , photos and links to their recordings. Grubby hit at the perfect time in my musical world; I was huge into Ska and pop punk and they put on a crazy fun show. I dragged about 10-12 of my friends to that show and we spent the night bouncing around and skanking like morons their entire set. A little moment in time that I have no pictures or video of (a rarity in my life). In a semi-related bit of trivia, a couple years later my old band High Jinx experienced one of its most fun shows opening for Grubby Ernie who had sold out the Maintenance Shop in Ames. Fast forwar...

Saturday, the Iowa State University Foundation held its family picnic at Center Grove Orchard in Cambridge, Iowa. How cool was it? I think these pics speak for themselves. Marieta and I have been to a handful of pumpkin patch/activity farms since moving back to Iowa in 2009, but this place takes the cake. Center Grove has all kinds of farm animals, a basketball court size corn pool, a giant jumping pillow, a 4 acre corn maze, tractor pedal carts, a huge slide, a apple sling shot range and tons more. You need to take your kids here!  And if you're wondering, Marieta did not spend the whole time behind the camera. So, yes I am 30 years old, and yes, I still love to be a big goofball in public. Talking with a few coworkers at the event I am pretty sure I was the only childless employee to bounce around on the pillow and cannonball jump into the corn pool. I wont let my age keep me from having fun. If there is one downside to Center Grove it is the prize you get fr...

Allow me two paragraphs you tell you the tale of a clumsy 30 year old guy. Monday afternoon while flying home from a 10-day vacation out west, Marieta and I found ourselves with a 40 minute layover at Denver Int'l Airport. In that short window I decided to stop by the bathroom and take care of some business. While I was washing my hands my cellphone -which I was precariously holding against my chest with my jaw- slipped into the sink, half full of water. As my phone fell to its death I yelled a rather nasty expletive quite loudly, upset that I had sent a rather young, and not cheap, cell phone to certain death.  See I've been in this situation before, 13 years ago I dropped my cell phone in to a bucket of water and ZAP! It was toast.  That's how this story should have ended but the design mavens at LG must have sprinkle some fairy dust on this pocket sized computer as it survived a 6 second dip. That's right, my LG Viper looked the angel...

In roughly 30 hours Des Moines will never be the same. Why? Because it will have experienced the demented short film "Trigger Words" produced by team Tiny Explosions.  Care for a taste? Good gravy was this weekend fun. Here's a few pictures I snapped to take you behind the curtain: First off, Tiny Explosions lucked out and didn't pull one of the harder genres; i.e. Drama or Film De Femme (don't ask), we pulled Vacation or Holiday Film. The guy standing next to me when I pulled the card laughed very loudly and said "Good luck!" Apparently his team hated it a few years back, luckily we didn't have the same experience. After every team found out the genre they'd be working in we got the standard elements: Character: Chris or Christina Samuels, a Musician Prop: a Coloring Book Line: "Let's Do It" We wasted no time the elements were announced, Brian and I packed up and headed for my basement. ...

This past Saturday night my good friends Handlebar played a show in at House of Bricks in Des Moines. Doors were at 9pm and I thought they'd hit the stage around 11:30pm or so... not the case, they ended up playing last, aka 1am. Once I heard the line-up had changed I grabbed Handlebar's lead songwriter, and my filmmaking compatriot, Brian Hogan to make an impromptu digital short film with our time. Here's the finished product: Ridiculous, but aren't they all? 

What now seems like a million years ago, three classmates and I made what can only be described as the second best visual aid ever produced ( the best being that dinosaur extinction video I shared ). A little context: In this class there were roughly 25 students and we were split into groups and tasked with giving a presentation to the class about a nonverbal subcode such as touch, physical appearance, body movements, gestures, vocal inflection and finally, space or proxemics. These presentations needed to fill the entire class time, 50 minutes. My group, Corey Orehek, Adam Bosman, and Kyle Gragert and myself had no intention of filling 50 minutes with us blathering on, so we made this video.  About a week before our presentation date, on a rainy afternoon, we ran around campus with a camera getting uncomfortably close to anyone within our line of sight. Ridiculousness and discomfort was had by both the unknowing subjects and group members in front of the camera. Still...

I used to have the well earned reputation as the kid who was always carrying a camera. Starting in about 8th grade or so I fell in love with videotaping all of the shenanigans my friends and I got into. Then in 11th grade I was introduced to the world of "non-linear editing" with programs like Avid, Final Cut Pro and Media 100 and my fate was pretty much sealed. This "Got Pat?" promo, along with its sister video , were the product of my video production education during my short stay in Grand Rapids and helping produce "Central Sights," the morning news announcements at Grand Rapids Central High School. My friend Chris Ostertag is the guy manning the camera here. After getting a well rounded feel for Final Cut I never put my camera down and ridiculousness ensued. Music: Homegrown's "Grow Up" One of my favorite memories of my Grandpa Joe was him telling me I could drive with as many girls in the car as i wanted, it was when you ge...