Are You Kamphey Approved?

Dr. Fizz

kamphey — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:23:49 +0000

Could you call a soda machine repair man a Fizz-ician?

Hunter

kamphey — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:25:35 +0000

Hunter S. Thompson has got the Write Situation!

Ideally

kamphey — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:21:29 +0000

The ideal situation would be high on a cliff with a small wooden table of my own making with a slight wobble but not enough for me to do anything about where upon a typewriter sits. I should have the technology enough to be able to type but then have it also scanned into a computer for digital editing. So why not have a typewriter that does actually work but also is connected through USB to my laptop which sits whirring very gently in the hot sun. Ideally waves would be crashing along the bottom of the cliff but it doesn’t necessarily have to be close by. I can sit amongst the trees with a hammock nearby even if it’s not the caribbean. Caribbean may be too hot. I’m thinking like Virginia weather in spring, or Chicago in fall, or French Riviera in late fall. Something with cool nights and warm days but not too hot. If it’s too hot then please give me lots of shade to sit under but also plenty of sun drenched space so that if I choose to sit in the sun I can but also quickly get out of the sun when I tire of it. I’d also like to be with in 5 minutes of a beach. I get these ideas in my head that I’m a swimmer, they come quickly and I wish to tear off my clothes almost fully and swim easily. If I have to go to a public beach or a non private area then I’ll wear a swim suit. But if I could ideally it would be a private beach, or at least a beach only a few people know about. It doesn’t have to be perfect, the sand doesn’t have to be completely white with a nice slope into the water. It could be rocky and actually I almost prefer rocks. Not all rocks mind you but at least a lot of rocks. Rocks that I could possibly climb on from time to time and if I were one day to have kids, they could also climb around on and at the end where the rocks jut out into the water, they could jump into the water. The very first time I do it I would be a little scared that I would be pushed, crushed against the rocks but once I did it a few times I’d be comfortable and then when those kids go out there, the first time they might not know to be scared, I would be scared. See this beach should be close by also in case of an emergency. I’d love to have a part of the house where I could see the entire beach. I could let those kids go out and play at the beach while I wrote and then when I want to check on them I could go to the area of the house, maybe a lanai or patio that overlooks the beach. Ideally here there would be two places that look out over the beach, one inside and one outside. The outside one have a table, and chairs that could be used for dinner times and when we have company. We could set out a nice family dinner any night of the week. Of course also have along the edge a high table with bar stools that a few people could enjoy the view and look down on the beach and also have a few drinks if they so wish. But the writing spot shouldn’t look over the beach. It could if it had to but I’d like it to be a little like a nest. Definitely this needs a hammock and a good firm chair. As I said before the table doesn’t need to be firm but almost firm but the chair needs to be firm. I’d like the table to have a bit of the wobble so I can always have something to complain about. Living in such nice weather, with a great view and a great wife and with work as a writer, what else would there be to complain about? It would be this damn table. I’d put folded napkins underneath the shorter leg but it would always have just a little bit of a wobble no matter what I did. Eventually maybe I would replace the table with someone else’s table. But I’d like the fact that I built it myself. I’d like to make brackets and fittings and saw down the legs to the right height. work with the table for a week and then make the necessary adjustments. Maybe the wobble is there so I always have something to work on. If I have a table too well made then I can’t work on it. Now come to think of it I’d rather have a wireless typewriter. The typewriter should be connected wirelessly to the laptop that sits inside always plugged in. I can go inside if I want to make edits or do any editing but the wireless typewriter is outside to do the hard part, the actual writing. The typewriter is where the greenery is. Where the house is most alive. The trees making shade and the look out on the water, out to the sky. I should be able to look straight up and see sky, with maybe a retractable roof. This retractable roof should be manually adjustable but it could be electronic if needed. I’d really like it to be on rollers and I can reach up, or pull a cord, or a rope, or pull a large lever or something so that I could see the sky straight up, also at night this is important. When it’s late, or a sunset everyone looks out to the sun while I’d love to see the clouds above reflecting the glow of the sun. The three dimensional form above me instead of the two dimensional seeming sunset in front. There should be plenty of small plants around as well. It doesn’t need to be a rose garden or anything like that but at least a few pots that I need to water each day. Each day as I water them I’m doing a physical action of watering while my mind prepares to water the seeds of ideas. I’d also love there to be a series of small speakers around the writing area that I could set to play random music. I’d probably by that time have a good playlist of music that I always like but whenever I’m writing about a theme I try to create a thematic playlist of songs I don’t normally listen to or of songs that have been recommended to me. It’d be great to hear them but not really have a speaker directly in front of me blasting the noise. The sound should come from all around, fill the air with sweet or sad songs. It doesn’t have to be very loud or clear. Just needs to fill the air with something. It needs to shake the still air but also be able to be turned of easily as I sometimes need to concentrate on the task at hand. I make no bones about writing for a living. I didn’t want to write to live. I never set out to write as a living and I don’t think I will. It’s just that the stories I want to tell I haven’t heard, or seen anyone write them. Nobody else can write the stories I wish to tell. Looking at it now I don’t think I will ever write for a living so this ideal writing space doesn’t need to be large. It just needs to exist. Ideally it exists in a beautiful house, or apartment , or shack somewhere in the world. I’ll find it one day. It doesn’t matter if it takes a long time to find. It might be more about the journey to find it than finding an ideal place to write.

A Year Of Old Things

kamphey — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:15:02 +0000

This last year the world saw an influx of new things, new habits, new new things. Twitter this and Google that, Twitter my facebook and Google a Yahoo. We’ve had the iPad but the iPad2 came out to dominate markets. New kindles and other small tablets that are cheaper have made tablets ubiquitous. A year of the world’s technological extremes will be followed by a personal journey of mine to the old world. I may be a hermit or a kind of retired old man sitting in the grocery store lobby waiting for the day the meds run out. But I like it. I like sitting with those old men and hearing them wheeze and whine over their heart conditions and arthritis. My time spent at horse tracks has usually been sitting within ears distance of a group of old men who come every day. I hear the banal, the mediocre, the absolute inane things about the world passing by them by.

At the end of the end of 2011 I told myself I would become a man of letters. I had a few famous people I wanted to write letters to and see how it went. I only got one of those written and it was sent by email. The other is still waiting for me to stop fretting and just start writing. I’ve allowed myself time to procrastinate but that time was well spent making a Holiday card and sending it out. Now I’m addicted to the post office. Bringing a stack of letters to be sent out has captured my attention.

The Letter writing Campaign of 2012 has begun!

What else can I adopt this year besides an iPad2? My goal might be to take the money I would have spent on an iPad2 and instead redirect it to material, old things. But I haven’t been successful at keeping good accounts. I want something more than an iPad, something that is tactile, that uses more senses than just touch and only the tip of my finger. Call me old fashioned but I think I will get a lot more out of this than a few hours spent destroying pigs with birds. I think I’ll get lost a few times without a map, I’ll be carrying a poorly drawn map on a piece of paper that gets wet when my water bottle sweats in my backpack. But I’d rather get lost and see something new than to get there and see something everyone else has seen. I’m not giving up all the things of modern ways but I’m just adopting some old things that people may scoff at. As the other tourists pass by with their gps orienting maps. I’ll be trudging along looking for the street signs to point my way. I might end up tired and exhausted in an alley way cafe while others find the famous restaurant. But I’ll be with the people I know… the unknowns.

Here’s to a Year of Old Things!

Join me, or watch me fade into obscurity. Come along on the horse drawn carriage ride or wave to me from your corvette speedster. Imagine a world of hand written letters being picked up and taken somewhere far away or twitter your 3pm diet coke drinking habits yet again. It’s your choice and it’s mine!

If My Plumber Were on Facebook

kamphey — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:59:14 +0000

If my plumber were on facebook would I have to read his status updates? Did he update his status when he worked on my leaky toilet? “Nick is in the bathroom fixing yet another leaky toilet.” and then maybe he starts to read my awesome library of bathroom books I have. “this dude has some serious literature in his bathroom. Must stay here for a while.” And start to read through the silly stuff first. “Dude has Thus Spake Zarathustra, gives me an idea for a bathroom book This Shat Zarathustra.” And now if he gets this idea in my bathroom and then writes it do I get any claim for it? I mean I’m the one who clogged the toilet that led to him finding my copy of the book in my bathroom. Does my plumber also tweet this stuff? @NickThePlumber found Moby Dick in this dude’s bathroom, the book not the turd”

What does this do to our relationship? Now if I friend this guy on facebook and find out that he also enjoys Bad Movies do I invite him to my weekly Bad Movie night with my friends? If he hangs out a lot and maybe comes for a potluck but has some serious shits and clogs my toilet, will he fix my toilet for free? Or even if he wasn’t the one to do it. Maybe he comes over for my birthday party without a gift but I end up tearing the faucet off my sink. Will he fix it for free for my birthday? How do I ask him a question like this?

Facebook is really messing up my normal relationships with regular people.

A KamphYear In Review

kamphey — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 03:59:11 +0000

Not your typical Year in Review.. this is a KampheYear In Review. Here’s a list of stories that I came up with this year and ended up not finishing. The biggest problem with these stories may be that I don’t know if they are short stories, novels, novellas, short scripts, feature length scripts, or just silly ideas.

53rd Ninja

The Pitch: An American living in Tokyo has been a background martial artist for various ninja films for the past few years, dejected and rejected he plods his way through teaching English to Japanese kids and getting beat up in the background of epic ninja movies. When he meets a single mother of one of his students he ends up saving her from the Yakuza and getting into a world he thought only existed in the movies.

Some Notes: Came up with this during my visit to Yokohama and Tokyo, was going to write it out on my 2nd trip this year to Japan but never did… Have a few gags in mind for various parts of it. Only got as far as figuring out what the first scene would look like and some gags along the way. The beginning is actually the epic finale of a movie, director calls cut and then the camera follows as the background actors get up and go on break, we end up following one of them into the dark recesses of the studio and then out the back door into the bright light of industrial Tokyo, where he takes a drag. That’s as far as I got. This one in particular really would make a great feature length script if I could figure out the story.. all I have is a background character. At one point this was going to be a faux-documentary. Maybe it would work best as a short story. I just love the visual of the beginning, a huge epic ninja movie turns into a piece about an American living in Japan.

Holiday in Arizona Sector 53

The Pitch: A father must take his robot daughter to the factory she was made in in order to get her upgraded to teenager.

Some Notes: It’s supposed to be a short story, only wrote the first page. It’s got a lot of back story of how Koreans ended up producing very life like robots that American started to adopt. The only way you can tell they are robots are that they all have silver colored eyes and are very very calm. It’s got a lot of things in it like the father and daughter getting lost because he can’t read a map. It all takes place over the course of one afternoon as they go from breakfast at a cafe to the factory and should end when she comes out as a teenager. It’s all about a father going through his daughter’s puberty.. even though she’s a robot. this only works as a short story, lots of stuff that is said in the father’s head. Problem is I’m not a father and don’t have a pre teen daughter. do I need to know preteen females? I’m a man.. I can write angst. well maybe.

Under The Waterline

The Pitch: Three couples who work aboard a cruise ship must overcome great obstacles in their relationships. A) A woman is pregnant but doesn’t want to tell the father. B) The man has been offered a job on land and must leave but doesn’t know how to tell his girlfriend. C)Two guy friends want to be more than friends but don’t know how to tell the other one that he’s gay.

Some Notes: Only got as far as those little descriptions. Lost interest as it’s just not interesting. Never had a really good take on these stories. Couldn’t imagine the characters more than just Man, Woman, Girlfriend.. etc. Never even had names. Really wanted this to be a short script, with three intertwining vignettes. Maybe this works better as a short story. doesn’t really matter because I never could flesh out the stories or the characters.

Around The Sun

A group of astronauts are sent into space to travel to a planet that is on the other side of the sun as our planet. Half way through the trip the sun has increased it’s pull on the ship. It goes off course and will end up crashing into the sun at some point.

Some Notes: I went on a quick search to find other stories of this kind and found some pretty famous movies and stories and novels. I lost interest as I read more of these accounts and how they handled the material. I only had a grip on the essence of a year long trip trapped in a space ship. That experience alone couldn’t propel the story. There needed to be some major characters and interactions. The whole story was to take place on this space ship but the other materials had gone to the planet and had some interesting elements. I still like this idea but don’t know the characters who are in it.

Cemetery Beach

The Pitch: Two buddies on a cruise with their wives go to Cozumel and visit some Ruins. While there they inaverdantly are possessed by a Mayan God.

Some Notes: Thought it would be like Bubba Ho-Tep. Maybe a fun romp through the ship as one friend tries to kill the other or something. Maybe a funny horror/thriller kind of thing as they try to get de possessed by the time they get back to Florida. Wanted this to be a funny script… just don’t know what that looks like. Maybe I’ll go read the script to Bubba Ho-tep now and see what that looks like.

Sunny Faraway Places

The Pitch: A private eye from Chicago goes on a cruise to get away from his previous business. He ends up getting caught up with exactly the kind of thing he is trying to get away from. A dame A case A headache.

Some Notes: I love these private eye kinds of things. Watched The Big Sleep and wanted to place it on a cruise ship. Thought it would be great to have a piano bar entertainer in the background and have a PI asking questions of crew and stuff. Never figured out the case, never figured out the dame, never figured out the story.

Johnny Holiday

The Pitch: A Hitman who only works on Holidays

Some Notes: That’s it.. that’s all I got. Thought it was a funny title.

So that was yet another year of false starts, failures and figments of imagination.

One good thing that happened… out of all that there was one story that was completed. Want to know what it was? Here it is.

The Honeymooner

The Pitch: On their wedding night a young woman dies in an accident, the man ends up going on their honeymoon cruise alone, with her ashes.

Some Notes: The entire story is told through phone messages left on his phone while he is on the cruise.

but how do I make a success into a failure?

The Honeymooner as it is right now is a 13 minute short film, shot in Europe and completed. But I’ve gotten the bug to turn the short film and short script into a full length feature film. It can be expanded with a few more scenes in the present and then intercut with scenes of their budding relationship. A cruise along the Mediterranean goes from Barcelona to France to Italy. Each day he goes out in a port and goes to a certain place to drop some ashes where their relationship had started three years before when they met during a backpacking trip from Italy to Spain. So we see the present day cruise in forward progress but the past is told in reverse to when we finally get to the place they first met, on the isle of Capri. The present is almost all silent, with voice mail messages while the past is when we see full scenes of him and her talking and chatting and becoming a couple. Since I know all of the places intimately, I know the restaurants they would go to, the hidden corners of the port cities and a lot of cities that aren’t very near the port. I can really sculpt this script out to something really incredible. But alas… Just haven’t put my pen where my mouth is.

Let’s see where 2012 gets me. Any comments on these stories?

New Year’s Checklist

kamphey — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:47:23 +0000

Here’s a rundown of the creative process I went through for a New Year’s Checklist advert to make people phone their families on New Year’s day.

Two days before New Year’s Eve I got and email from Marketing and Revenue Manager:
do you have a appropriate backdrop we could use and fill text prompting guests to use their cell phones to call home and with their loved ones a happy new year.

I asked if he could give me exactly the copy he’d like to have and his response:
For the evening of NYE this…
Bring in 2012 in style onboard Liberty Of the Seas!

Formal Wear….Check!
Formal Photograph…Check!
Champagne…Check!

Don’t forget to make a phone call to your loved ones back home to wish them a happy new year!

But in the early (or very late!) hours, to switch to just
HAPPY 2012!

Have you phoned your loved ones back home to wish them a happy new year?

I went through in my mind the various ways we have to display information. I could have an image of New Year’s fireworks or something to the right and then this text to the left. but that would be boring. I started to think of the various ways that I could literally show this. I saw that he had a list there a check list to fill out. so why not show a literal checklist and in fact it could be seen around the list the various things that have been done already. So a formal wear could be seen as the cuff links of a tux on the hand holding the list and a champagne glass in the other hand.

I looked around a quick images.google.com search to find some hands holding paper and then some champagne glasses that I could put together to show this idea. the ideal would have been to take a picture but I thought I could just put it together using stock images. I didn’t find any that could work but I did find some cartoons. Putting together the cartoons and the text I created at least a mock up of what it would look like.

After this I got approval for the concept from the Marketing and Revenue Manager. He contacted the photo department and told them that I would be by to do this. Setting up the shot was simple, i grabbed a sheet of paper from a housekeeper, the same paper that is left in a guest’s stateroom and could possibly be used for a to do list like this. I had the idea to actually write it on the paper and take a photo but made sure to get plenty of blank paper and use at least a few blank shots to add the text later in photoshop.

Getting the champagne was easy. I went to the nearest bar to where we were shooting and asked for something that looked like Champagne, they gave me Ginger Ale. I had a female photographer with nice hands be the model and the big lug of a Bulgarian was the photographer. Ideally I would have liked a photo studio behind the paper to make it look like the person in the photo was just in the photo studio but when we lined up the shot it didn’t look so nice. So we went to a rainbow colored bridge and set up a beautiful shot.

After getting all the pictures. I selected one that had enough white space to do some text on. I wrote in a hand writing font and then added a few underlines and check marks with a brush tool. Tried to use a brush that looked like a sharpie and like the handwriting font as much as possible. Then rasterized the text and distorted it to match the angle of the paper.

finally getting this simple way to communicate that people can call home on New Year’s Eve/Day.

All this was done in under 24 hours from instigation to conception to publishing. Yet another Kamphey Approved design!

It’s Been A While…

kamphey — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 08:04:27 +0000

It’s been a while .. so let’s begin.

Recently in my personal life I’ve dug up old demons, scanned through the skeletons in my closet and openly discussed the 600 pound Gorilla in the room. I’ve Spent most if not all of my time hashing through all I’ve done wrong… the little I’ve done right and the reasons for doing each and every one of those things in horrifying detail. and then came to the awful classic conclucion that I’ve been afraid. and Scared. and a wuss. A mouse among men and that I didn’t know I was. That my work and personal life have been intertwined for so long that I didn’t know I was lacking both a personal life and a work life. I never needed a career because I had projects. My projects would get me through to the next level and the next level would bring happiness to me personally. Involving the two have made me who I am and made my family what it is. A heaping sack of crying in the corner because the emotional pressure is too much.

Let me bare to the world my failures. My many starts and inevitable stops.

I will present my favorite failures which I must deem now failures. For the past few years I’ve held these things close to my heart because that is the only place for them. I should have been working but I’ve been playing. These next ideas are all just that.. ideas. with no power behind them or in them or much invested. I haven’t gotten much out of them because I didn’t put enough in them. I had for the longest time hoped that these would be my inevitable savior. That one day I may have time to make them awesome but it’s not time I need. It’s a backbone. With all the time in the world I’ll never get to them.

so let’s begin together, going through my past work. We may end up getting the longest piece of fiction I actually completed by the time this is done.

Pachinko

kamphey — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 02:18:25 +0000

The new year brings new luck.. maybe. We lost our money at the Pachinko slots. But it wasn’t a lot. the room was smoky and these Pachinko machines seemed so complicated. They weren’t as complicated as I thought but we still lost money and it wasn’t as fun as other gambling types.

Smoky the Bear says, “Only lung cancer can prevent gambling addiction!”

Japanese New Year

kamphey — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 09:51:24 +0000

If you haven’t noticed then please check my youtube daily to get the Doc A day. Because I’ve started it doesn’t mean I’ll keep up with them. The first few days have just been getting acclimated to the time change and New years. Starting tomorrow and the next few days will be whirlwind tour of friends and family, Yokohama and Tokyo. Hopefully I’ll take time out of my day to update these little videos and hope you enjoy them.

Check out today’s video which got a lot sillier than the first two.

If you haven’t seen the first two then here they are.

Ohiyo is spelled wrong apparently. I find this out the day after I made this. but okay. I pronounce it like Ohio but again I think I’m wrong and it’s not really pronounced like that.