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Mike's Interests
General
I love my woman, love my daughter, love making movies, love cats, dogs, and animals in general, hate commuting, like seeing organized systems failing and disolving and forming newer more robust and interesting systems, like working with both my hands and mind, like natural building (straw bale, rammed earth, cob, adobe, etc. Ask me about it - I'll talk your damn ear off ), I'm a shameless and unrepentant fan of environmentalism and sustainable living, hate consumerism and all its vile fruits, like art (esp. Franz Marc and other members of the Blue Rider Group)
I don't always like to rescue stray animals because I usually have to give them away, but I tend to do it a lot anyway - I'm a total softy when it comes to critters, and cannot abide seeing them suffer. I've been known to run to the store for paper towels and yogurt and come back with paper towels, yogurt, and a stray cat (true story).
I love setting things on fire and seeing things burn (feeds into that whole re-organization of systems thing from paragraph one), love the outdoors and nature in general but rarely get to spend enough time there, like Illuminati references, like travelling - especially meandering road trips with no goal other than to see stuff, like to read, write (mostly screenplays these days), explore, work out, dumpster dive, bicycle, pet cats and dogs, cook, jog, make found art & plaster cast sculpture.
I love working and living within a strong community. I love seeing responsible and worthy people having lots of kids to counteract the knee-jerk breeding that happens when less responsible and worthy people have too much money or not enough. A part of me secretly enjoys being in car crashes. There's something liberating in the breakdown of man made laws and distinctions and just watching raw, impartial, elegant physics take over. I like guns for similar reasons, but only if they aren't used by idiots.
Hate commuting. Like repeating myself. Like paranthetical statements (helps organize my stream of consciousness style blathering). I like simple, elegant mechanisms like good luggage clasps, well made single action revolvers, UNIX, Honda Civics, oshihiki nokogiri (a type of kickass Japanese wood saw), Sachtler tripods, and so on. For most work I like hand tools more than power tools because I like feeling that direct connection with whatever I'm working with - your muscles move your arm, your arm moves the saw, the saw cuts the wood - the transmission of potential is clear and uncluttered.
I'm a shameless roleplaying game/D&D dork, (though I haven't had time to play for years) and love all manner of general geekery. Recently started semi-seriously practicing Aikido, which feeds into the simple/elegant thing.
I love doing 12-18 hour film shoots if I have a good crew to work with, I love looking at dailies and seeing the footage we got kick ass, I love doing hand held camera work, love shooting fight scenes, I just love making movies. It's the only thing that keeps me from chucking it all and living in a cottage in the middle of nowhere for the rest of my days.
Also I like ducks. They're the cutest goddamn birds on the planet, with chickadees coming in a close second. Again, more to be added as I think of it and/or have time.
Music
My concession to orderly thought is that this is alphabetized. But I made UNIX do it - I'm not that bored or organized.
Adam Ant, anything with an accordian in it, Add n to (x), Amon Tobin, Angelo Badalamenti, Angry Johnny and the Killbillies, Aphex Twin, Armen Ra, The Art of Noise, Atari Teenage Riot
Bad Religion, Barenaked Ladies, Bauhaus, The Beatles, Bessie Smith, Big Black, Billie Holiday, Black Sabbath (right up until Ozzy walked, anyway), Black Uhuru, Bollywood musical soundtracks (esp. anything from the 60s-70s)
Calexico, Carla Bruni, The Chieftains, Chris Isaak, The Clash, any pre-20th century classical (esp. Rosinni and Puccini - yeah, he's like the Danielle Steel of opera but Tosca kicks ass), The Cramps, The Cure, Cop Shoot Cop, c17h19n2o3
Dead Can Dance, Dead Kennedys, Delia Derbyshire, Devo, Dick Dale, Dimmu Borgir, The Dittybops, Dresden Dolls, Duane Eddy, Duke Ellington, Dick Curless
Erasure, Einstürzende Neubauten, E Muzeki
Fad Gadget, Firewater, The Fixx, Flipper, Fluke, Frank Sinatra, Front 242
Garmarna, Gene Krupa, The Germs, Gogol Bordello, Go Betty Go!
Hank Williams Sr., Hanzel Und Gretyl, Hedningarna, The Hellbenders, Helvetica, Hildegard Von Bingen, Holly Cole, The Horrors, Hooverphonic, Huun-Huur-Tu
Iggy Pop and.or The Stooges, any indiginous folk music (esp. Laotian & eastern European)
J.G. Thirwell and any of his bajillion Foetus incarnations, Johnny Cash, Joy Division
KD Lang, Kaizers Orchestra, Kate Bush, King Tubby, Klaus Nomi
Laibach, Laurie Anderson, Lee Perry & the Upsetters, Link Wray, Loop Guru, Lords of Acid, Lydia Lunch
Magnetic Fields, Manitoba, Mayumi Kojima, M.C. Chris, just about any medieval European music, Merzbow, Moby, The Monks, Moody Blues, Morcheeba, Motherhead Bug, Motorhead, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
Negativland, Neko Case, Nick Cave, Nomeansno, Non
Oingo Boingo, The Orb, Orbital
Patsy Cline, Perry Como, The Pogues
Revolting Cocks, Regenerator, The Rolling Stones, The Roots, Roy Orbison
Scientist, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Shizuo, Sisters of Mercy, 16 Horsepower, Skinny Puppy, Slim Whitman, The Specials, Funboy Three, and anything else Terry Hall had a hand in making, Steeleye Span (only the stuff with Maddy Prior though), Survival Research Labs, Skinnerbox, The Stanglers
Talking Heads, Terje Rypdal, The The, They Might Be Giants, Thievery Corporation, Throbbing Gristle, Tom Waits, Trip Tone Theory, Turkish pop music
Wall of Voodoo, Weird Al Yankovic, Wendy/Walter Carlos
.....and way *way* WAY too much more to list here. Just about everything. And I mean *Everything* dammit.
Movies
Kurosawa, escpecially his samurai films, Akira, Brazil, Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns, Evil Dead 1-3, The Princess Bride, The Day the Earth Stood Still, just about anything by Alex Cox, The Passenger (naturally!) Versus, The Lost Boys, El Mariachi, any of the Pink Panther Movies with Peter Sellers, Running Time, La Femme Nikitta, Galaxy Quest, Reservoir Dogs, Heat, Unforgiven, Tron, Chung King Express, The Professional, The Searchers, The Thing (either version, but I prefer John Carpenter's), Dr. Strangelove, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead (either version), Red Dawn (yes, it's childish, but my 12 year old self still cries out for it sometimes. And Powers Boothe, dammit!!!!), THX 1138, American Dreamer, Saving Private Ryan, Krull (go ahead and laugh, pal. It's another holdover from my childhood), La Dolce Vita, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai, 12 Monkies, Good Fellas, 24 Hour Party People, Manhunter, Max Headroom, Ghengis Blues, Spell Bound, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Ghost in the Shell, Being There, The Fifth Element, All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone's 1930 version), and so on...
To be honest I don't see nearly enough movies. Influences in my personal film-making: Sam Raimi's early films, Michael Mann, anything that Bill Pope was the director of photography on, Robert Rordriguez (more for his process and approach to making movies than anything else), Terry Gilliam, Josh Becker, Joss Whedon.
Television
The best thing you can say about 90% of television programming is that it's awful. At its worst it actively grinds away anything that could better our species - COPS, Nanny 911, Sweet Sixteen, and so on are prime examples of this.
The only TV I watch comes on DVDs. Firefly, Band of Brothers, Monk, Lost, Max Headroom, The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr, Black Adder, Babylon 5, Star Trek (Original and TNG), Red Dwarf, The Young Ones, Lex, and The Prisoner make up most of my favorites.
Books
I'll be the first to admit I'm woefully under-read. Sci-Fi (and some fantasy) mostly - I read primarily to escape. I also like a good biography and occasionally social, cultural, and/or scientific theory. "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!" by Richard Feynman comes immediately to mind.
Film making books also make up a chunk of my reading: "Rebel Without a Crew" has some very good stuff about Rodriguez's trials and triumphs making "El Mariachi". "Directing Shot by Shot" by Steven Katz is great book for anyone who's even thinking of directing anything visual. I just finished "Directing Actors" by Judith Weston and found it amazing. I would highly recomend it for anyone who directs or wants to direct for film or stage. Not a bad read for actors, either.
A good (albeit geekier) read is Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown. Other good books in the geek history vein are The Cuckoo's Egg (mmmm.... cyber crime), Hackers ( it's more about the classic "hackers" than the modern type), and Crypto.
Recently I was reading a lot of early Norse narratives about pre-Christian viking antics - "Njal's Saga" was the best of the bunch.
"The Hand-Sculpted House" by Ianto Evans, Linda Smiley, and Michael Smith, "The Owner Built Home" by Ken Kern, and "The Natural House" by Dan Chiras are fantastic books if you're even curious about lower cost alternatives to the ticky-tacky tract home bullshit that has filthed up our nation and doomed people to 30-50 year stints of indentured servitude (i.e. mortgages). "The Hand Scultped House" in particular is amazing and can change the way you look not just at architecture, but at housing, consumer culture, and the world in general. You can order it from The Cob Cottage Company.
Heroes
My mom and dad. My sister. Abbie Hoffman. Ken Thompson. Ianto Evans (look him up). Delia Derbyshire. Fred Rogers. Anne Bonny. King Tubby. Richard Feynman. Lloyd Kaufman. Senator Robert Byrd. Nikola Tesla. Albert Einstein. Everyone in the Bruce Campbell/Sam Raimi/Josh Becker axis of filmmakers. Mae West. This ballsy, crazy girl. Mark Pauline. Robert Rodriguez. Annie Sprinkle. Han Solo. Richard Stallman. Mick Farren (look him up). Marvin Bram (look him up, too). Jon Postel. Dame Judi Dench. More as I think of them.
Internet engineer by day, film-maker by night (and day), natural building enthusiast um... also by day. And sometimes night. Pyromaniac most of the time. I'm in a relationship with a maddeningly amazing woman whom I love bunches. We had a kid and everything, and I also love her bunches. I'm kind of a hippy, but also kind of not. I'm kind of a gun nut, but also kind of not. I'm silly, nearly invulnerable to cold and booze, vegetarian, the sanest person you'll ever meet (although it'll take a while for that to sink in), and a jaded, cynical optimist. Infernokrusher culture facinates me.
As far as film stuff goes, I was the cinematographer for The Passenger, an independently produced film shot in and around Detroit. I also helped write the script and did a goodly chunk of the editing as well. My background is in horror films, and I'm looking to do something in that vein soon. Maybe a nice zombie flick....
Up until a few months ago I was working on a passle of short projects and am doing cinematography, lead writing, occasionally directing, and filling in on any of a dozen other jobs for In Zer0 , an upcoming pilot sci-fi TV series about a near future Detroit, complete with political intrigue, decadent rulers, urban squallor, aliens, and gunfights. We wrapped up the project having reached our goal of shooting 12 short episodes (15-35 minutes each) back to back for 12 months, and never missed a deadline. It was the most incredible filmic experience in my life - grueling, fun, exasperating, inspiring, and flat out amazing. Our cast and crew performed like champs and created some of the most noteworthy indie film to come out of Michigan since Evil Dead. Thanks to all who threw down and stepped up! The adventure doesn't end there, however. Having secured a budget from several investors who, like us, want to put Detroit on the movie-making map, we shot a feature length InZer0 film this summer. Editing is underway and we've already garnered interest from composers and producers in Hollywood. More to come on that!
Here's Mission 9 of the episodic version of InZer0. It's the second full episode I directed:
Behold! The Greatest Musical Number of All Time EVER:
Note the guy trying really hard not to laugh at the 20 second mark
Ramstein ist der beste Polkameister überhaupt:
More to follow as it occurs to me.
..
“A tranquil City of good laws, fine architecture, and clean streets is like a classroom of obedient dullards, or a field of gelded bulls - whereas a City of anarchy is a City of promise” -Mark Helprin
(What can I say? That quote just reminds me of Detroit
Who I'd like to meet: Jesus (because hey... Jesus. You could ask him to straighten things out with those Religious Reich Right types). Or possibly zombies. Either would work really well, actually. Both at once would be ideal.
On a less necromantic/ecclesiastic level, meeting film-makers, artists, Tuvan throat singers, geeks, drivers who know how to use their turn signals, mime baiters, animal rights fans, sesquipedalian octagenarians, culture hackers, or generally interesting people would be nice, too.
And Eli Whitney. He invented the cotton gin, you know.
What? . . . What? You changed your profile song?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO(deep breath)OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Yer still awesome though . . . even if you do make mistakes, Mi'wacki. ;)
I finally had my speakers on while I was looking at your page . . . . Would I be totally weird if I said this was my new favorite song? It's one of the best things I've ever heard, Mi'wacki. . . , and yes, I do mean that.
Hey Mike I'm coming home in August. I look forward to seeing you and your family! I'll be there for a few months so if I can offer you blood or something just let me know...I would love to help out!
