An Elk Is Born! Yellowstone Edition - Part Five

So where is the “documentary quality” video I promised I would make at the outset of my Yellowstone jouney? Patience. I am earmarking specific clips that are Discovery-Channel-worthy as I go through this process of combing through some 4+ hours of footage.


This little vignette will forever hold a special place in my heart. I was a mere 15 miles into Yellowstone when I came across this broad plain with lots of bison and solitary elk momma with her newborn calf…

Into Yellowstone! Tour d'Joko: Episode Four

I took the photo at the right whilst at work today. Unfortunately, the Pomeranian turned it’s head at the last minute, but as you might imagine, a little old lady ferrying her little dog AND cat around America’s favorite home improvement store was undeniably cute. Cats and Dogs! Shopping Together!! (as Peter Venkman sorta warned us of in Ghostbusters) 

 Still, people who do things like bringing both the cat and the dog with them in their power chairs are the types who would do things like keep track of their pets’ birthdays. On that note, my cat Bliss turns 6 years old on 6/6. Do the math and you’ll understand why her full name is Iblis.

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The 4th Episode of the Tour d’Joko: Yellowstone Edition ends with me entering the park. The lead up to that… well… I’ll say this, I was very judicious in my editing. The original version of this video was 9 minutes long and was composed almost entirely of me sharing rather uninteresting minutia into the camera. Worse yet, it was delivered rather blandly. 

See, I understand now why professional video productions have so many participants. You need a sound guy who can concentrate solely on the audio quality. You need a grip who will focus on the stability of the camera shot. Me, I needed a director who could tell the talent (again, me), “Joko, you’re not being as dynamic and exciting enough in your narration, let’s do it again.” In any case, Joko, the editor, was able to cut Joko, the narrator, down from 9 to 6 minutes. 

Please enjoy the Tour d’Joko, Yellowstone Edition, Part Four.
 

MONTANA! Tour d'Joko Yellowstone: Episode Three

Day two took me into Montana, a place I had never been, and one of our more unusual states.  

Physically, as you’ll see, the place is gorgeous (okay, most places are gorgeous in the month of May).  

Politically, although a “red“ state, they aren’t the invasive, up-in-your-business kind of conservatives. I was able to find NPR on the radio. Their Supreme Court recently upheld their own ban on corporate spending in political races, despite what the Citizens’ United ruling said. They have a Democrat as a governor, and he enjoys a 60% approval rating. Gambling is legal; it seemed like every other gas station had a casino attached. A Montanan transplant I spent an afternoon with later in the trip described the attitude of the state thusly: “As long as what you’re doing isn’t hurting anyone else, Montanans are okay with it.” 

That’s the kind of libertarianism I like.

When I’m out on a Tour d’Joko, I always record dogs when I see them in other people’s car windows. 

I was doing that when the guy pictured wandered into the frame. Like the Magpies I end the video with, this guy just seems to epitomize the state. He’s “Mister Montana”. I wonder if his first name is “Joe”.

Into Idaho on the Lewis & Clark Trail! Tour d'Joko: Yellowstone Edition - Episode Two

On the day before my vacation began last week, I was speaking with my manager at work about traveling and adventure and the like. He asked if I had ever read “Undaunted Courage” by Stephen E. Ambrose. It’s a history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, beginning with the politics of it, Merriwether Lewis’s relationship with Jefferson, and continuing with the expedition itself. My boss highly recommended the book. I picked it up on my lunch break to be my vacation read. Now, I am starting on the opposite coast that Lewis and Clark began, but a good part of my journey followed the Lewis & Clark trail. Specifically, the part that occurred in Northern Idaho. 

Given that I was allowing myself 2 days to go 800 miles, I had time to take the scenic route, US Highway 12, from Lewiston, ID to Missoula, MT. As I drove down US 12, I passed several famous sites from the Lewis & Clark journey: The Long Camp, where they stayed for 3 months; Canoe Camp, where they built the canoes that would take them down the Clearawater River, the Snake R., and finally onto the Columbia (which we saw last episode). I didn’t stop at these sites, and I regret that now that I’m done and continuing to read about their journey. I needed to get to my first campsite! It was first-come-first-serve at the place, and I was worried I may not get a site! Turns out, the place was mostly deserted.
   
See, this part of Idaho is a sparsely populated part of a sparsely populated state. I drove Highway 12 and saw 3 or 4 cars an hour in either direction. 

As you heard in the video, I was lamenting about the lack of my radio choices out there in the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains. Christian Country or Fox News radio were pretty much it. This theme continued as I traveled eastward. I listened to more right-wing Fox newstalk radio this last week than I had in my whole life. Now, this may upset some of my liberal friends, but I came to a conclusion after listening to hour after hour of this right-wing babble. It’s pretty much the same style and verbiage as left-wing babble. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Rush Limbaugh sounds just like Ed Schultz, but coming from the opposite side. Ann Coulter and Randy Rhodes say the same things. Bleep out the words Obama, Romney, liberal, conservative, Republican and Democrat, and you’d not know which political agenda the speaker was coming from.  

After the listening to this stuff, I needed to re-connect with my Progressive soul… so with nothing to do in my van in the middle of nowhere, I made this song, Romney the Bain Man. 
 

Bring It On! Yellowstone Trip - Episode One

I should have made a more comprehensive list of what to bring on my journey to Yellowstone. 

It was a six in the morning on Tuesday when I began my trip, and although I had loaded up the van the day before, I had to pack some last minute things.

  I was 3 miles from home when I realized I had forgotten my winter jacket. I turned around for that.

  I was 100 miles from home when I found that I was missing the “shoe” (the piece that connects to the camera to allow it to mount) for my better tripod. Grrr!! This was going to effect the quality of my videos.

  I was setting up my bedding for my first night’s sleep when I realized I had forgotten to bring a pillow. 

  Now, here in this first episode of the Tour, I set out on the journey. Most of this video takes place in the rather boring and very windy Eastern half of Washington State. I had never been on this road before, and despite some gruelingly barren terrain in the middle of the state, seeing the Columbia River, the Palouse and Snake River valley were quite interesting.  

The videos will get more interesting from here, although I do introduce a brand new special effect courtesy of Google Maps.  

Enjoy!

Bring It On! Tour D'Joko- Yellowstone, Episode One: To Idaho - The funniest videos clips are here

Introduction to the Tour d'Joko: Yellowstone Edition

Once upon a time, a man, halfway through his existence on this planet, began a new life. He told himself he would no longer live the life that others wanted him to live. He would not give in to his fears and let them hold him back. He would live the life he was meant to live…

 Over the course of a few seasons, this worked well. He was happy. He had found a way to express his muse in a way he enjoyed. A few others seemed to enjoy it as well. He had learned to follow his bliss.  

The man had learned to reject the demands of society and his fears, but he had not learned to control his desires, and his desires brought him low. He had planned an epic voyage to the land of the Yellowstone, but his desire for the drink prevented the quest from going forward. His chariot in ruins and taken away, stripped of his means of earning coin and on the verge of being sentenced to the dungeon, the man swallowed his pride, understood he was sick, recognized he was powerless in the face of the drink and sought help.
   
The man recovered. He continues to recover. He learned to understand the difference between higher and lower wants. The drink was put away. A new chariot was acquired. He stayed out of the dungeon. He remembered his bliss and began following it once again…

And the quest to the Land of Yellowstone was begun…

* * *

Hello, friends! I’m back! 

Yellowstone was magical. At times, I faced challenges that required heroic measures. It seemed to me that introducing the story as a fairy tale was the way to go. 

With 4+ hours of footage shot in high-definition (which means my 6 year-old computer has trouble processing it), I’ll be making videos from this journey for weeks to come. One thing I haven’t done in a long time is a “title sequence”; the following will start each episode in this volume of the Tour d’Joko. 

 

Off to Yellowstone!

An old friend of mine whom I’ve known since high school (who happens to live in Montana and I am going to visit in a couple of days) commented on one of my very first videos: “it’s amazing what one can get can get away with when one is completely unreserved about what one does”… 

Words to live by. 

Tomorrow, I depart on a thousand mile journey into the wilderness. I’ll admit, I have both a lot of fears and a lot of expectations for this week long journey. My fears include: What if my car breaks down in the middle of nowhere? What if I run out of money? What if the weather won’t cooperate? My expectations are ones I have self-imposed. I want to make the best ever Tour d’Joko videos I have ever made. What if I wuss out and am lazy about getting the footage I’ll need? What if I don’t spot a single bison, bear or wolf? Up until today, I feared I’d run out of memory on my digital video camera, but I bought a 32GB SD card today for $23... A couple years back, a 16GB card would have cost $100.… 

I’m heading off into the unknown, and to be honest, I am not 100% prepared for what might happen out there. I’m maybe 80% prepared. That said, I want to recapture the spirit of the very first Tour d’Joko, which happens to have occurred exactly five years ago this week. I spent a week on the road, and to my mind at least, what I captured on that journey was special. The first Tour d’Joko ended up being chronicled it 21 video parts. Here a couple of the early ones.

As a videographer, I have evolved since those days, so, content wise, there will be similarities but hopefully, some significant improvements from the first Tour d’Joko. Ack! How to balance spontaneity with direction… this is my challenge. Visiting another National Park that begins with the letter “Y”…

I’m going to be offline for the next week. See you all here in June when I start digesting the videos to come.

Mirrors in the Rain

One of the favorite things I made in my video making history was the Mirrors In The Rain series. It started out rather innocuously. I had made an acquaintance in the owner of my local music store. Back in 2007, I bought my first ukulele from this guy. We talked about making music, life and all kinds of things. One thing about his guy, Sam Bartelle is his name, is that he had achieved his life goal. He had written, produced and published his own Opera. It’s called “Mirrors in the Rain”, and I got a free copy of the CD with my second purchase at the Countrywood Music Store. One lunchtime, I challenged myself to record, edit and upload a new YouTube video during my hour away work. I lip synced one of the tracks from Mirrors in the Rain. After this innocent fun, I made one of my very first videos with this new thing I had discovered, the greenscreen and chromokeying. Mirrors in the Rain - Part Two! Five years ago tonight, I was looking for my next epic video project. I sent out an e-mail to everyone in my office. I worked as a mortgage loan officer at the time. I had one simple question: Who are your favorite singers? See, at the time on YouTube, lip syncing was very popular. Unknown people “sang” the songs of famous musicians. Why not turn it around? Let’s have famous singers, as represented by the favorites sent to me in the office, sing the work of an unknown, the Walnut Creek Opera, Mirrors in the Rain. This video was SO epic, it required TWO “Making of” videos. I think these are better than any if the actual vids, Enjoy!

Unite Against the War on Women

Why have the Conservatives launched a war on women this year? I won’t bother to list to you all of the recent legislative actions the states and US Congress have taken that target the rights and interests of women, some of which we thought were long decided matters in our political culture. Suffice to say that much of the right wing has seem determined to pursue an anti-female agenda that goes beyond any quasi-religious pro-life zealotry can explain.

  See, I think the “conservative” side of our current political spectrum is not accurately named. “Conservative” as opposed to “progressive” means that that side is interested in conserving the status quo, keeping things the same as they are now. That’s wrong. Today’s conservatives are more accurately labeled “reactionaries“. See, reactionaries want to turn back the clock. Reactionaries want to roll back the tide of progress in human rights, religious freedoms and formal compassionate social policies that have been an unstoppable trend in western society for 300 years.  

Paralleled by the gains earned by ethnic minorities, the rights and status of women have undeniable progressed in the last 120 years… Perhaps more than any other group… Consequently, as your advances have been so far reaching, perhaps it’s why the REACTIONARY elements of our political spectrum are willing and wanting to attack. To call what they’re doing as an overreach is an understatement. Even conservative women use birth control. “Welfare moms” were a convenient and easy target for attack in the 90’s, but fundamentally, the Republicans are skating on thin ice by trying to pay for tax cuts to the rich by stripping programs that help the poorest women with reproductive health and food for their children. The REACTIONARIES want to turn back the advances of our society 120 years.

 Although this is a really bad strategy on their part in the short term, and so as a progressive, I’m pleased on one level, on the larger level, I’m disturbed at where the boundaries of the debate are being laid. 

We can’t propose single-payer healthcare because its too radical, but conservatives can propose turning Medicare into a voucher system and allowing employers to deny coverage for birth control? If American politics were a marketplace and we were haggling over a price of produce, the Republicans are asking to pay 25 cents to buy a dozen avocados. Or they’re asking $100 to sell them. Whichever. Although this is far less of a case than in previous times, politics is about negotiation. Each side comes to a negotiation from a starting point. The Reactionary starting point has gotten to be SO FAR way over to one side, that I worry about where the reconciliation point is going to end up.

 Maybe we progressives should start proposing anarcho-syndicalist solutions to our nation’s ills; not because we believe in them, but to set a starting point that matches the anachronism of the reactionaries’ 19th Century positions…  
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!! DESTROY CAPITALISM IN THE NAME OF PROLETARIOT! (Short of that, we might accept universal health coverage). 

Now, I talk about the War on Women in the context of a video I made today. An acquaintance of mine, well, maybe after today, I can call her a friend, is an active member of various Occupy and other progressive movements. She called out on her Facebook page for anyone out there whose a videographer and is an owner of a truck or van for help. I happen to be both. I ended up being the videographer for today’s rally Against the War on Women… One of dozens of such rallies that were held nationwide today. 

Here's the video.  One of few on my YouTube page without me in it.  
 
 

Exploring an Urban Oasis

Last night, on Nova, I watched a nature documentary about a couple who went and spent a year in the Idaho wilderness. They lived in a tent most of the time, and the husband was a professional zoologist who studies and films wolves. Great film. 

Then I thought about my own Tour d’Joko films and the one I had just completed that day. Mind you, I’m not comparing as apples to apples something I, an amateur with consumer equipment, make in a couple of hours with an hour-long documentary that took a year to make. That said, there were imitable qualities to his film that I, with a little more patience than I normally have, maybe some better equipment and a firmer commitment to making something TV-worthy could replicate. Take inspiration from, at the very least, and that I have done.

 Next month, I’m going to spend a week at Yellowstone National Park. I want to turn that time into the best Tour d’Joko film I have yet made. It will require planning. It will require some kind of mission or narrative beyond just me going on vacation. I need to think on these things. Come up with a story that will hold the viewers’ attention beyond the five-minute limit that most people who watch YouTube videos will tolerate. 

 Joko goes… what? 
In search of bear cubs?
 Finding the wolves of Yellowstone? 
Discover which kind of ukulele song bison enjoy most? 

 Like I said, I got some planning to do. In the meantime, please enjoy my latest marching-through-the-woods video, Tour d’Joko, Carkeek Park Edition. 

 My thanks to Momma Bear for my new fancy walking stick. 
 

And Now, A Word From Our Sponsors

TV commercials have inspired me to cover songs on my ukulele. TV commercials they make me wonder. Really bad ones make me wonder who let these things onto the tube. Really good ones can make me cry.

I’m an observer and critic of TV commercials. Perhaps it’s because of my combination of a creative spirit with a natural ability to sell stuff that I always thought I could have been a Madison Avenue guy, and therefore am just a frustrated ad man.

Let’s take a look at three ads that caught my eye in the last week.

First, from the weekend, a short term TV ad from Burger King advertising a weekend-only promotion of Chicken Wraps for $1 each. First off, I’ll admit, this ad accomplished it’s primary purpose: if I had not seen this ad late, after dinner, on a Sunday night, I would have run right out to Burger King and bought a Chicken Wrap.. But not for the reasons the admakers might have thought… or… sinisterly, maybe they did.

Do you think I’m talking about the recent controversy involving Mary J Blige as a black woman selling chicken? No…

THE AD CLAIMS THE CHICKEN WRAP CONTAINS SEVEN KINDS OF LETTUCE! Okay..Wait… SEVEN KINDS OF LETTUCE?!?

I didn’t even know there were SEVEN kinds of lettuce!! Lemmethink.. Iceburg, romaine, leaf, red leaf, butter, umm… umm… that’s five… Arugula? Chard? SEVEN KINDS OF FREEKIN LETTUCE?!?! Okay, maybe there are seven different kinds of lettuce, but how could you fit all seven in a single, small, chicken wrap? One leaf of each kind? `

DANGIT!! I HAVE SEARCHED THE INTERNET AND THE AD IS NOT TO BE FOUND… Believe me. I saw it.

***


Next, from the inappropriate combinations of children and hardcore drug references, this ad for a the Honda Pilot featuring a classic Ozzy Ozbourne song.

Once again, great ad. Very well done. It makes the “crossover” seem cool and long road trips with children seem exciting. Well, the vehicle needs it. The “crossover” is a 21st Century term for what we used to call a Station Wagon.

Here’s my problem. The song “Crazy Train” is all about cocaine addiction. Going after rails… umm.. Yeah… “rails” are lines of coke. That drug does make you crazy. Believe me. I remember. That doesn’t make it a bad song; just not one you should be singing with kids in your freekin station wagon!!!

* * *




Lastly, again, perhaps this has something to do with my past history of substance abuse, but there is a particular line in this “Miller 64” commercial that makes me want to point out one thing… The selling line is “Beer with less regret”

“Less regret” means it still has some regret inherent in the very product!! Why should we be buying something that admits it comes with REGRET?!?

What’s next? Whiskey with less chance of you abusing your spouse? Slightly less liver-destroying vodka?

Tour d'Joko: LOTR Edition- TO THE FLAMING GEYSER!

As usual, things weren’t going all that smoothly on the Tour d’Joko. I had gotten lost whilst in search of a gas station in the Mirkwood….err…the Kirkwood… make that Kirkland. This put me behind schedule, and even after saving time when I discovered to the Visitor‘s Center at Saruman’s Lair (Microsoft’s HQ) to be closed for a private event, I still ended up 20 minutes late for the gathering of the Elves at the Al-Ano fortress…

What kind of claw?!?

EMUNCLAW!!






I swear, there really is such a place as the “Hobbit Forest” here in Washington State. It started out with someone placing a garden gnome along a trail at the Federation Forest State Park, and it just kind of grew from there! It’s supposed to be quite impressive. Here’s the link to article where I learned about it in the first place.

BUT WOULD I FIND THE ELUSIVE HOBBITS??!

Watch below in the third and final episode, where I also reach the Flaming Geyser of Emunclaw!!!






I hope you’ve enjoyed this edition of the Tour d’Joko! Make every day an adventure!

Tour d'Joko: Lord of the Rings Edition

I’ve made a remarkable discovery! I’ve found that anything and everything can be made more exciting when put into the context of a Quest. Imagine your daily commute to the office as an epic struggle to reach the Kingdom of Workplace. Picking up the kids from soccer practice as a search for Lost Children of Futbol.

Of course, this epic-ification of activities works really well with things like my ongoing series of video blogs, my travels known as the “Tour d’Joko”.

For yesterday’s Tour d’Joko, I had a series of objectives, interesting places I wanted to see. The last of them was the “Flaming Geyser”, which kind of sounds like something you’d find in Mordor, Middle Earth. So the rest of the adventure became Lord of The Ringsified too.

I captured a LOT of video in yesterday’s journey, so I’m presenting it in three parts.

First stop, Building 92 of Saruman!



Yes, this Tour d’Joko was proceeding like so many before it. I was having fun, but something happens at the end that keeps me from reaching my destination.

And yes, I really did ask the nice receptionist lady at Microsoft, “I am sorry, I do not speak Orcish, but I’m looking for Saruman?”

Wow... Five Years Later, and I've recovered my Blogger account!

Five years and two days have passed since I last posted a blog on this account. I went to MySpace and blogged there for many years. Ended up a couple dozen short of 1,000 blogs posted. When their format started to really suck, I moved over to a place called FriendBurst.com. I've got a couple hundred blogs posted their. I liked their WordPress platform. Lots of others tried FriendBurst, got tired of it and moved on. I still have hopes for that little social network, but the blogging community over there is really starting to thin out.

Are there blogging communities on Blogger? Can we subscribe to one another? Is anyone out there? I'm sure this place, where I started by blogging hobby, has changed a lot in the five years.

So, HELLO OUT THERE, BLOGGER!!! I'M BACK!!

Repeat

Once every three weeks, I have to work on the weekends. Today was my day again. Back on March 3rd, I made March of Joko #3. Since that time, my friends list has doubled, so I thought I would re-share my own personal favorite of the vids I've made this month. Tonight, I re-uploaded in a better format (MPEG-4 vs MPEG-1) because the scenery in this short deserves a better resolution.

A March through The City, Part One.

One of the favortie things about my job is that it brings me into The City once a week. For those outside the Bay Area, we call San Francisco "The City" here. It is a truly special place on this earth, and although its has its downsides and hassles, I will always look fondly on the days I lived there, which were probably the most creative, and fucked up, days of my life (so far).

I work in another office there. I like the people I deal with, and they like me. Even met a new one today and we got along well. But what's best about The City from my current point of view is that when I left work, its a great place to observe people, architecture, culture and the triumphs and tragedies of our capitalist society. I walked out of restaurant (after shooting some foottage) because I couldn't afford a $12 beer. I saw at least 30 homeless people in a couple hours...

I wandered around downtown and the Embacedero, recording video, until the battery died. The City makes you think. About yourself and the world...

I have to post this blog in written form for now because the most interesting things happened after the battery had died. On a very crowded BART train on the way home, I had a moment. Lately, my mood had been this odd mix of euphoria, desperation and incredible optimism. The desperate part took hold as I stood there in the overcrowded train, deep within myself and my own thoughts. The I looked up.

And saw a train full of people. I looked at each person in turn, trying to understand, empathize and feel waht they were feeling. It took me out of my own head for that moment, and that is what I was looking for. I saw different dreams, ages, genders, colors and social classes, but what I realized as I tried to feel each person individually, is that we all were going through the exact same thing. We were stuck somewhere, returning to our homes and lives, trying not to think, feel or be in that moment the best we could. That we all had in common. But even more so, what we had in common was that we were all human beings. We were all souls. We were all the same person, really.

How important were my traumas, dilemmas or problems when put in context of 50 other people going through the same thing? It wouldn't be accurate to say it made me feel insignificant, more like just part of a greater whole.

As we zipped under the Bay itself at 70 mph. I turned around and saw a man whose face was completely deformed. Some sort of birth defect. Elephant Man or the kid from Mask. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think to myself, "well, at least I don't have his problems." He was rapidly working a Rubik's Cube. It seemed hopelessly jumbled from my point of view, but he moved it with a dexterity and purpose that was indescribable.

The TransBay tube did something else to the train full of people, almost half of whom were checking e-mails on their Blackberries, talking or texting on their cel phones or had a laptop out. There is no wireless reception 300 feet underwater surrounded by several feet of concrete. People were cut off. The Rubik's cubes gears spun and spun faster and faster, and as seasoned commuters can tell just by the number of minutes that have passed, the train shifted into a gentle upslope as we approached the other end of the tunnel.

Rubik's Cube guy slowed the pace of his twisting. Each movement seemed to have more purpose, and there were even a couple of pauses as he analyzed his next move. One side complete.. then two then four, and with a couple last twists, the Rubik's Cube was solved just as we emerged into the twilight of West Oakland.

A dozen cel phones, including deformed Rubiks Cube guy's, announced new voice mails simultaneously.

I wasn't the only one on the train who was able to disconnect from our disconnected connectivity for just long enough to see this small, but amazingly huge human triumph of solving a Rubik's Cube in the time it takes to pass under the San Francisco Bay.

We are all one. We all triumphed in that moment.

-JL

Now, off to make a video.

How to Get a Head Without Hunting

I make this in tribute and in repayment to Mom.

How to Get a Head Without Hunting: The March of Joko 13

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March of Joko 12

The video bwlow this one is so bad, I had to at least prove I could play guitar if not sing that night...


March Of Joko 12. The Not So Bad Open Mic Guy - For more of the funniest videos, click here

Really Bad Open Mic Guy

All day today, after spending like 30 of the previous 60 hours producing videos, I had a content, worn out feeling. Y'know that one where you feel at peace and exhausted, usually brought on by a mind-blowing orgasm?

It's like I had sex all weekend with my computer.

Tonight, the creativity scrotum was drained. Not tonight, camcorder, I have a headache. Okay fine, let's make it a quickie!

Although part of me thinks I'm phoning it in, this self-depracating and dumb little short will probably get tons of views on Metacafe tonight. Quick and brainless, that's what the masses like.


Really Bad Open Mic Guy - Watch a funny movie here