Mike profile picture

Mike

I am here for Friends

About Me

Humor - first and foremost, if you can't laugh, you're going to be a pretty sorry person in life. I find a sense of humor almost as nourishing as a good meal. After that, compassion for your fellow man (or woman). I suppose in the grand scheme of things, the order of those two should be reversed. Compassion, then humor. I mean, if my butt was on fire (or something similarly horrible), I'd hope that someone would come along who'd put it out first, then laugh with me about it. But I think you get the picture.

Go here to see some of my video work and maybe, like, hire me for your project.

Then, go to Tats4You and get some cool tattoo flash!

 



OK, now go to my YouTube page!

My Interests

I guess I could be classified as 'the creative type.' I like to think there's still a bit of musician left in me (I haven't seriously played keyboard for many years but I still have a few, and there's a baby grand piano waiting for me as soon as I have a big enough place to keep it), but until such time as I can really get back into playing, I do other things.I produce and edit video productions mostly... a cable-TV show called "The OtherSide" as well as a series of TV and radio commercials for Jade Dragon Tattoo in Chicago with my partners Mark and Paul. We also do industrials, music videos, and whatever else comes along that looks like it will challenge us creatively. Most of the time, if I'm online, it's because I've been editing for awhile and need to look at something different.I wish I was more artistic in terms of being able to draw. I can't, but PhotoShop helps me do some cool stuff nonetheless. You'd be surprised how handy a still-artwork program like that can be when you're creating video.I'm a collector by nature. Movies, records & CDs, antique technology like old audio and video equipment (know anyone else with an Edison cylinder player, a wire recorder, a CED videodisc player, AND a laserdisc recorder under one roof?) and musical instruments (a euphonium and an accordion - do they really go together? Idunno).I do enjoy video and photography for fun, too. Thanks to digital cameras, I can now shoot pics of just about anything (within reason) and shoot until I get something I like. That's really great, compared to the expense (and waiting) of shooting film, although I still do like film cameras.I love getting out to see live music; friends who perform in theater, bands, and improv; Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and various American foods; good movies (although frankly, I find them to be few and far between these days); and - recently - outdoorsy stuff. Lots of good photo-ops in the Great Outdoors. Give me my iPod, a camera, and a big space to explore - that would be really cool.Specifics, as far as particulars of music, reading, etc. are all listed elsewhere on my profile page.

I'd like to meet:

Oh, just about anyone who loves music or - on a less-common tangent - video production. I can converse on just about any topic, but those two get my interest most easily.

Music:

.. width="425" height="350" ..Billy Joel, Jellyfish, T-Ride, Queen, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Joe Jackson, Butch Walker, Roger Hodgson, Way Moves, Barenaked Ladies (through "Gordon," anyway), Randy Newman, Z, Cathy Richardson, Johnny Clegg, Ralph Covert, Enuff Z'Nuff, John Fournier, Squeeze, Billy Squier, Brave Combo, Larry McCray, They Might Be Giants, Cars, ELO, Dio, Raymond Scott, Sonia Dada, The Good, Kansas, Mindbomb, Gorky Park, Cathy Richardson, Yes, Lightning Seeds, Marvelous 3, Gary Hoey, Frank Zappa, Ambrosia, Aerosmith, Huey Lewis, Edgar Winter, Tom Lehrer, Travis Shredd & the Good Ol' Homeboys, Sass Jordan, The Elms, Danny Elfman, Brian May, Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, Leon Redbone, the Rembrandts, Saigon Kick, Meat Loaf, Police, Henry Phillips, Traveling Willburys, Harmony Riley, and a zillion more. I'll add to the list when I can't fall asleep sometime. Let's put it this way - as of this writing, my iPod has over 4,600 songs on it.

Movies:

In no particular order: The Commitments, Fight Club, The Wizard of Speed and Time, Almost Famous, Wizard of Oz, UHF, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Memento, West Side Story, The Abyss (Director's Cut), The Blues Brothers, Being John Malkovich, Penn & Teller Get Killed, Snatch (and Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels), the Mariachi trilogy of films, Ice Age, Monsters Inc., Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, Chicago, Frisco Kid, Litttle Shop of Horrors (the musical version, although the original has its moments), and many more to be added at a later date.
.

You are the king of smooth -- enough said.

Take the What Pulp Fiction Character Are You? quiz.

Television:

In no particular order (again): Soap, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Muppet Show, Mythbusters, The People's Court (the other TV judges don't do anything for me), The Sopranos, Deadwood, Dream On (perhaps the best show EVER on TV - certainly the most creative - and I finally have the first two seasons on DVD!), Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, Whose Line Is It Anyway (either version, although I must admit I prefer the American version), anything on PBS HDTV, Are You Being Served, The Simpsons, Futurama, Iron Chef, Trauma: Life in the ER, OLD Saturday Night Live (original cast through Eddie Murphy/Joe Piscopo), the Three Stooges, and way too many more.

Books:

First novel I ever loved as a little kid was Wilson Rawls' "Where The Red Fern Grows." Years later, I developed a taste for Stephen King (my first book of his was "Pet Semetary" and I've read almost everything else, including several readings of "The Stand"). Also quite fond of my American Heritage Dictionary of American Slang, Volumes 1 & 2 (haven't found 3 anywhere yet although I know it's come and gone in print).To this day, I read constantly - sometimes two or more books at a time. Novels, biographies, technical manuals (literally - things like complete technical descriptions of how DVDs work - they're amazing things, actually), magazines, whatever I can get my hands on.

Heroes:

Jim Henson, Ernie Kovacs, Raymond Scott, Carl Stalling, Dr. Demento, Billy Joel, Freddie Mercury, The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Spike Jones (the real one from the 1940s, not the newbie who does fantastic work but really should be more creative about his name), Thomas Edison, Philo Farnsworth and everyone who simultaneously worked on the earliest forms of television, George Lucas (before he became a revisionist and recut "Star Wars"), Robert Moog, Leon Theramin, Georges Milies, and anyone who dared to be different and changed the world through innovation. It isn't always serious stuff (Kovacs, Spike Jones) but it's always a value to society.

My Blog

Well, it's about time!

Well, it's time for all my friends and family to settle up old wagers. I've gone and gotten myself engaged! I met Holly back in September via an online dating website. Turned out she lives about ha...
Posted by Mike on Sun, 22 Jan 2006 01:50:00 PST

People who should be punished

I've come to the conclusion that there are a lot of people who need to be punished. The short list would include: The guy (or woman) who invented spring-loaded public bathroom faucet handles... yo...
Posted by Mike on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

Funny, he didn't LOOK Jewish....

Went to a friend's wedding last night. He's not Jewish, but the bride was, so as what I can only assume was a comprimise, the ceremony was officiated by a judge. At the start of the ceremony, the j...
Posted by Mike on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

I'm now officially sick of...

...the kid in the commercials for that stupid movie "Hide and Seek."
Posted by Mike on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

The...

So why is everything these days a "The?" The Rock. The Edge. (Those are people, not things... gimme a break - you really must have a gigantic ego to call yourself "The" anything.) The O.C. The ...
Posted by Mike on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

Great quote overheard at work

I was moving my office yesterday morning (long story - not happy) and I heard some radio chatter among the maintenance crew. Here's what I heard: "Could you repeat please?" "I said it's missing....
Posted by Mike on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

One-Man Star Wars Trilogy

OK, I had a total geek experience tonight. I went to see the "One-Man Star Wars Trilogy" here in Chicago. One Man Star Wars Trilogy Website I must admit that I went into this expecting to sit th...
Posted by Mike on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

Rockin' show!

Just got home from the Butch Walker/American Hi-Fi show at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago (although I guess everyone just calls it "Metro" now). The show was awesome, and I daresay it was the first time...
Posted by Mike on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

Stupid car horn....

So, can a person's car be as stupid as they are? It's 2:45 am. My neighbor's horn started to honk spontaneously. Almost more annoyingly than the kind of "Honk! Honk!" one would expect from a car al...
Posted by Mike on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

The music police

For someone who claims to love music as much as I do, I sure do find a lot to hate about it these days. That's mostly because consumers have let standards slip drastically in terms of what qualifies a...
Posted by Mike on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST