The Teachings of a Cup of Coffee

I don't think I'll ever understand your addiction to coffee. This morning I had my first cup in what must have been at least a year. I took it black because I feel like that's how you usually drank it. From my first sip I was immediately reminded why I don't often drink the stuff.

I find it interesting that someone with as large a sweet tooth as yourself could like a drink so bitter, though I suppose one could argue the bitterness made all those sweets you enjoyed taste that much better.

Perhaps that's one of the secrets all you coffee fiends shared amongst yourselves. Though I may be just missing the obvious reason of the energy kick it gives. I don't know, I wasn't a follower of yours in that regard.

Choice of beverage aside however, (I never got the Diet Coke thing either, but I'll concede that preference on behalf of your diabetes) you did instill in me the foundations for becoming a respectable adult. In that respect I was a follower of yours. This was a task you had striven to accomplish in most of your students, I'm sure. I'm also fairly certain you achieved that goal time and again. I would like to think, however, that I gave you more trouble than the average brat that walked through your classroom doors, which, of course, made the outcome all the more rewarding.

Through the 9½ years I've known you, I've come to understand a little more about you. Most of this can be summed up by simply saying "you never stopped changing,". With the courage to always try something new (we all uttered a collective gasp when we first witnessed your use of the common instant messaging shorthand "LOL") you continually planted and replanted yourself in the midsts of younger generations; building and maintaining a strong relationship with the mere seedlings so you could guide them as they sprouted, budded and eventually bloomed. Creating a relationship through mutual understanding, it was an action you performed seemingly instinctively and those lives whom you've touched because of it were introduced to its importance.

I still don't get the coffee.

F.A.N.G this Valentines Day

Here's a music video for Nyle Emerson that I produced with Jimy Shah, Richard Gianotti and Kent Hu. The director was Tahir Jetter and the Cinematographer was Fletcher Wolfe.

The Many Sounds of Jeff

When I was working as an assistant editor on the American Masters Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides film, I edited together this little sequence called The Many Sounds of Jeff just for fun and somehow it managed to become a little web extra. So yay for that.

The Old Man

It was about 4:30 when he got the news. He was dressed rather nicely: dress pants, black button-down underneath a red v-neck cashmere sweater. His attire, while entirely appropriate for the work related event earlier that day, was now completely inappropriate for the news he had just received.

The old man's apartment was hot and cramped. Strewn about were various sets of clothes and other junk. The old man had lived like a pack rat... for all the good that did him. Now the possessions he had refused to get rid of for so long were left behind for his family to clean up.

Our hero arrived shortly after he got the call. In the room next door lay a lump in the bedsheets. The room held an ominous and uninviting presence, but as long as our hero stayed away from the room none of it seemed threatening, as though it were radiated from a world far away. Perhaps it was this feeling that none of this was real that he was hiding behind, and as long as he didn't step foot in that room his fairy tail world would remain.

Ham

The short doc I started in college and finished in Oct. 09. I finally got around to posting it online like I promised so long ago.

Ham from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Spectre Corporeal Pt. 2 The Battle of Silence

It was a trap and he knew it. For the longest time he had successfully managed to evade the Spectre. This time, however, he was sent the challenge. Like Robinhood off to the archery contest with the sheriff of Nottingham, this was an invitation he could not turn down. And so, our hero suited himself in his some of his sturdiest arms and prepared for war.

The Spectre stumbled onto the battlefield. Perhaps he had actually caught it by surprise, but whether or not he did, it did not matter because immediately the battle began.

This game was certainly one he was not unaccustomed to; despite its deviation from tradition. This was a battle of silence and both he and the Spectre were masters.

The minutes gave way to hours and neither the hero nor the Spectre gave a fraction of an inch. They attacked and parried and guarded with the utmost precision, battling to a standstill until their time was up, and in the end, not a word was spoken and neither of them were the victors.

She told him to pack away all his valuables into his cabinet, as though a cheap particalboard door that didn't even lock could stop someone from going through his posessions and taking whatever they pleased. He supposed that wasn't so much the point as to just get it out of plain sight, not that it mattered either way; he didn't keep valuables in his room. Ultimately, his parents were just being paranoid, a characteristic of them which he had grown accustomed go over the past 23 years of his life. He didn't see any need to worry even if he did have anything worth taking in his posession as the reason for this particular bought of parental paranoia (though these episodes were rarely ever really justified) was that a contractor was coming tomorrow to replace the old heating system.

He was more concerned for the heating system than anything else, to be honest. It was quite funny, actually. His parents worried about his valuables dissappearing and the only thing he really was concerned about at the moment was what they were paying thean to take away: the radiator.

The radiator was an old cast iron steam-heat radiator that hissed, clanked and transmitted sound solidly through it's hollow pipes around the house to any of the other 5 heaters connected to it throughout the house. They were heavy and combersome things and to him they were objects of beauty as they appeared to be a part of a dissappearing world. The old and outdated was to be replaced with new baseboards; a heating system that lacked the character and history of the soon to be realics of the past. He wished he could keep one of the radiators, but he already knew what his mom's response would be; "Don't be stupid, what are you going to do with it?"

Indeed, she was right, there was NO use he would ever have for it N it would just take up much needed space and create an inane amount of clutter. He was already enough of a pack-rat without trying to keep a giant piece of scrap metal. Ultimately the message was clear; Accept the impending change or be burried in a large mound of junk as you futilely attempt to recreate what has already passed.