Tag: 2022

Pain Remains, But Music Helps

I’m a bit late to the party on this one. For the last few months, I’ve known of a band called Lorna Shore. I also knew they were deathcore, a genre of metal I couldn’t listen to. It was way too extreme for me. I first heard Lorna Shore in a TikTok video. I thought it was a video about Call of Duty zombie, but I found out that it was just the end of the song “To the Hellfire.”

Fast forward a bit. I still refused to listen to them, but that all changed in the blink of an eye. They released a song called “Pain Remains I: Dancing Like Flames.” And yes, it was very much a deathcore song. What’s interesting is that it quickly became one of my favorite songs.

Eventually, they released the other two parts (“Pain Remains II: After All I’ve Done, I’ll Disappear” and “Pain Remains III: In a Sea of Fire”). I listened to both, and I was hooked. The album, Pain Remains, came out in October, and I listened to it from start to finish. I’m not saying I’m a deathcore fan now, but that album was truly something special. It was definitely something I needed at that time.

It’s true, I can’t understand what’s being sung because of the screaming deathcore vocals, but I can read lyrics. And the lyrics are incredible. Mix that with some insane drumming and fantastic guitar work, and you have a killer album.

Pain Remains found me. I didn’t find it. It started on TikTok when I was scrolling. It was almost as if I needed to listen to Lorna Shore and that album specifically. I truly believe that I found it when I did because I needed to. It’s a very emotional album, and at the time, I needed an album like that. That album spoke to me in a way no album before it has.

I still listen to it along with their EP …And I Return to Nothingness. It was a combination of Pain Remains and the addition of Will Ramos (who I didn’t know at all before he joined Lorna Shore), which really brought me into listening to Lorna Shore.

As a result, I want to see them live. They are playing with Mastodon and Gojira this year, and that’s a show I really want to go see. I’ve seen both Mastodon and Gojira once already, and I’d love to see them again.

Taking a Long Weekend

The other day I was thinking. Usually nothing good happens when I think. But sometimes, some good comes from me thinking. I just contradicted myself, I know. This time, though, I came up with a pretty good thought.

I am writing this on my tablet from O’Hare Airport. I’m going on a little long weekend trip to Hilton Head in South Carolina. Nothing major. Just a chance to get away for a few days. The funny thing is, I burned up my vacation time by the end of July. But I also feel burned up, myself. The great thing is that, even though I’m full-time at work, I can rearrange my days off in most cases to go and do things. It’s basically flexible full-time.

I got to the airport at about 11:00 am. My flight was at 1:05 pm. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the flight because I’m flying standby and the plane was full. The next flight is about 5 hours later, at 6:10 pm.

But back to the original point, I was doing some thinking and I decided that I need to travel more. Like a lot more. And the best way to do that is to just go on my days off. I usually get 3 days off in a row. What do I do during those 3 days? Play Apex Legends and a whole lot of nothing. I think it’s time to stop playing games and do some exploring.

I’m not getting any younger and I want to explore places while I’m still somewhat young. I can always play games whenever. But there will come a time when I won’t want to get on a plane.

I would like to go to all 50 states. I’ve only been to a handful so far. Which ones? Let’s list them. I’m from Illinois. Then there’s Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Virginia, Kansas, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, California, and Hawaii. I’ve been to 15 states, 16 if you want to include the hour I was in Texas for a connecting flight. To be in 15 states at the age of 30 is pretty good. I just feel like I could do better.

I know for a fact that when I go back to Hawaii I’m going to be there for a week. And when I go to Alaska I’ll be there for a week as well. But the United States isn’t the only place I want to travel. I want to travel all over Europe as well as Canada and Asia. I also have to go to Australia at some point.

I know it seems like I’m rambling, and I probably am, but there’s just a lot I want to do. For a long time, I felt confined because of work. I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere because I was worried about making sure I was always there for work. But recently, that’s not the case. I’ll probably work until I can’t anymore, but I only have a limited time to travel while I’m young.

We were put on this planet to enjoy life. We aren’t here for long, and we shouldn’t spend it all working. We should spend it enjoying life, enjoying people, enjoying the things around us. I heard this line in the song called Enlightment? by While She Sleeps the other day. It was “Our mortality is the key to our freedom.” It’s 100% true. We’re all going to die one day, so why can’t we live freely? Why can’t we do the things we want to? What holds us back? Fear? Anxiety? Stress? Maybe all of the above?

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that we should go do the things we want to, because one day, it’ll all be over. I’m going to South Carolina because I want to. I’m also going because I need a break from Illinois. I’ve been here too long. A change in scenery and pace will be nice. My only issue is that when it’s time to come home, I know I won’t want to.

Living in a Post-Covid World

While Covid isn’t technically over with yet, it has slowed down enough for the world to return to somewhat normal. We don’t need masks anymore. We don’t have restrictions on where we can go or what we can do. Life is back to how it was…or is it? With cases on the rise again, we might wind up doing this whole thing all over again.

Looking back on the last two years, all I can think about is how weird it really was. We all essentially lost two years of our lives. It’s like two years just didn’t exist. We couldn’t go anywhere. We couldn’t do anything. Nothing was open. We were confined to our homes.

While Covid did mess a lot up, (like my trip to Germany that’s been put on hold for over two years) it also showed us that there is still good in the worst of times. Because I was required to sit at home when Covid started back in 2020, I met some really awesome people through Twitch and Discord and through playing games like Fortnite and Apex.

But this blog post isn’t about a time during Covid. This is about after it. Basically, my life is back to normal. I’m working full-time. I can go and do whatever I want when I want. I can try to regain some of what was lost over the last two years. I’ve even gone to a few concerts recently.

But going back to normal also comes with a price. I don’t have as much time to play video games. I don’t have as much time to just hang around on Twitch or Discord. And sadly, I don’t really talk to most of those friends I’ve made during the pandemic. Life just got too busy it seems. I do hear from a few every now and then, but we don’t talk like we used to.

The two years we weren’t able to do anything were truly some of the weirdest moments of my life. The world came to a halt and it’s something I never thought I’d see happen. It’ll be interesting to think about Covid times again years from now. How we reacted. What we did. What it was like. It was just such a strange time, and one I won’t forget.

Writing Comedy

There are always TV shows and movies that we find funny and even sometimes hilarious. I always enjoyed comedy and I still do. I’ve always wanted to write comedy too. The only problem is, I could never figure out how to write comedy. How do you write jokes down and then make sure others find them funny? Well, I think I finally figured it out.

I’ve always loved shows like Arrested Development and The Office. Movies like Deadpool or Game Night. I feel like the comedic writing in those examples is fantastic. Then you have people like Ryan Reynolds who are seemingly funny without even trying to be. That’s a talent in itself.

The thing is, I think I’m funny. I tell stupid jokes. I act goofy. I generally don’t care what people think of me. But still, I struggled with trying to write that on paper. I finally realized that it’s a combination of things. I need to write the jokes, and then, when I go to film it, make sure that it’s delivered in a way that’s funny. Comedy is just as much performance as it is writing.

So that leads me to the point of this post. For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on my own comedy series that I will film and then post to YouTube. It’s an idea I had a long time ago that I sort of forgot about. I had filmed one episode for it before the pandemic and it can be found here. I have rewritten that episode and I’ve written another episode to follow it. My goal is to film at least three episodes over the summer that I can release over the rest of 2022.

I just want to write and film something that’ll make people laugh. Comedy can be used as a healer. I’ve always liked making people laugh and I always will, even when they didn’t really want to. I think it’s a gift being able to make people laugh and I’d hate to waste it.

The Movies That Inspired Me

Over the last 30 years, I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of movies. So many, I can’t even remember them all. But within the last few years, some of them have had a major impact on me personally. These are the films I credit with my decision to pursue a career in film-making.

One of the first movies that influenced me was Logan. To be completely honest, I never got into the X-Men. Never cared for them. Never really understood them. Logan was a movie that forced me to look into the X-Men and what they were. And as a result, Magneto became one of my favorite villains in Marvel.

The way Logan was put together…written, filmed, the acting, it really did inspire me. The storytelling is some of the best I’ve seen. I loved every bit of that movie. To this day, Logan is still one of my Top 10 favorite movies of all-time, maybe even Top 5. I’ll still go back and watch it from time to time too.

The second movie that really influenced me was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The first one was great, and it was a nice addition to the MCU. The second one took a more emotional route, and I felt that was the right call. I loved the theme of it, and James Gunn is an absolute genius when it comes to making films that are both funny and heartfelt. While it did have fancy effects and cool sets, it also showed me that movies can be character driven. And when starting out with a low budget, you need characters to carry films.

The third movie I’ll talk about is Inception. While I didn’t understand the movie at first, I came to love it. The first time I saw it, I was very confused. I didn’t understand what was going on at all. Since then, I’ve come to love the movie. I’m super fascinated by the idea of controlling dreams, running missions in other people’s dreams, and just the idea that people got hired to implant ideas in other people’s heads. Inception solidified my love of Christopher Nolan movies, and as a result, he’s become my favorite film director.

If I’m being completely honest, Marvel has had a huge impact on my desire to make movies of my own. Everything they do is just so exciting and fun to watch, and that’s the stuff I want to do one day. I love the stories. I love the characters. And most of all, I love seeing these characters come to life. My ultimate goal is to make a Marvel movie one day. Will it happen? Probably not, but I can dream, can’t I?

I’m forever grateful for the films I’ve seen over the years, especially the ones that truly inspired me to take this path. Being a successful filmmaker is going to be tough, but I also don’t see success in dollar signs. If I make a movie, released it, and a couple of people see it, that’s success. I did what I set out to do. I made a film and released it.

But, as Saito, a character from Inception said, “Don’t you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone.” Eventually, I’ll have to take that leap of faith. I’ll have to jump into unknown territory for a chance at something more amazing. If I don’t, I’ll be stuck in the same spot forever. I have so many stories to tell, and I hope that one day, I can share them with the world.