Maybe I could stand to be even less polished, less put together, less correct. I could, for example, embrace more sloppiness——get my fingerprints all over the things I make and not spend much or any time trying to wipe them off. Why? Because I could run this text through a LLM and have it help me organize my thoughts better, improve my word choices, sharpen and make proper all the unfocused bits, all the clumsy bits——I could make this “professional” and bulletproof so I could better weather any critiques that come my way, internally and externally. Though if I used AI to help me write a personal essay on an obscure blog, the critiques wouldn’t really be able to reach me because I won’t really have written it. I’ll have sanded off my edges until I’m harmlessly round. I’d give up any sense of my own character so that I can’t be targeted, most of all by myself.

Well: no thanks to that.

AKA: fuck that noise.

I already know the power and the freedom of going in and going all out and being in the moment, but I have to remind myself on a daily (and sometimes hourly) basis. There’s a lot of outside and inside messaging that makes it easy to forget.

Alright, with that out of the way, welcome to the latest From The Finger! Happy 33rd Birthday 30MOM!!

I’m on the road. Within a month I’m in Fort Mohave, Arizona / Los Angeles, California / Las Vegas, Nevada / Lafayette, Louisiana / Durango, Colorado——then back to Vegas a few days more before returning to Arizona. And I’m happy to be doing this traveling, even if it’s got me off my usual rhythm and feeling like I won’t be able to write a worthwhile entry here——something that can encompass the last year, doing justice to the work I’ve done and matching the energy of my 2024 return to this forum. I want to cover all the ground and make sure I have some cool photos and artwork and animated GIFs. In competition with myself about something that no one cares about as much as I do. It’s weird; I’m weird about it. Hence the opening to this piece, because the ghost of the thought hit me that maybe I could use DeepSeek or ChatGPT to assist in writing this and even thinking of that bummed me out. So, I’ll just try to catch a flow, start cooking and throwing ingredients in as I go and see what happens because at least that’s fucking interesting——at least that’s real and human and specific to what I’m feeling and thinking.

I’m traveling first and foremost on official movie business. Heartstorm is screening at various festivals, universities, and community events. I’ll speak more on this later, but it strikes me now that a somewhat chronological approach to 30MOM-related happenings over the past year might be a good thing to include here. I’ll start by pulling from the UPDATES section of 30MOM.COM and share some of what’s been done here since the last FTF.

I’m tempted to write about each these pieces and what they mean to me, but there’s quite a lot here so that would take a long time. Suffice to say that I find all of those updates interesting and worthwhile——check ’em out if you haven’t already! Let’s go!

Over the past couple years there have been more blog updates than video updates on this site, but I’ve also made some solid progress on the moving image front. It just takes way longer than it used to and I’m juggling a lot of other projects. I’m happy to report that I shot new skits with Joe in the summer of 2024 and shot the final act of the Nymer movie, a project started back in the summer of 2007! This film has grown and evolved over the years——Andy & Dennis especially have been crucial in keeping this project alive. I’m really excited for this movie to wrap up and come out, but there’s still a good amount of work to be done on it. Fingers crossed for end of this year!

My main focus has continued to be on my first feature film as a director: Heartstorm. I’ve been going to open mics for over thirty years, starting with Gotham City Cafe in Ferndale, MI. Those experiences were transformative for me as a teenager and occurred alongside making movies and music with my friends. So while on the surface Heartstorm may seem like a departure from my 30MOMesque pursuits, for anyone who really knows me, the movie will track.

Since March of 2024 we’ve released the trailer, launched the website, crowdfunded post-production funds (doing forty nights of promotion for that), cut all manner of promos and various support imagery——including the beautiful poster drawn by Michigan artist Alana Carlson. We had our world premiere in LA in November and the screening was sold out! Last week, my producing and writing partner Arianna Basco (also one of the leads of the film), cinematographer Geoffrey Marschall, and I presented Heartstorm at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and spoke to their film students. So much great stuff!! I’m really proud of this movie and love how it was made with creative collaboration utilizing fair exchange in community which is something that connects to a lot of the stuff I’ve been doing since the 90s. And having a screening in Hollywood at the Chinese Theater complex was a milestone as well! I’m still processing what it means to have finally directed a feature and I could write a frickin’ book about this particular journey, but this ain’t the place for that. Check out the Heartstorm website for more info on the film and where to catch an in-person screening. Also: watch the trailer if you haven’t seen it yet.

In addition to Heartstorm & 30MOM work over the past year, I’ve made signifcant progress on an album which I plan to release later this year. There are currently eight mixed tracks and I plan to add a few more in the coming months. I had my first experience recording in a proper studio——Adam Cox’s excellent Hamtramck Sound Studios. We brought in Ben Briggance as a session drummer to help finish up tracks that include 30MOM-alum Shane Oesterling on bass as well as other great collaborators. The project is called Really Very, stylized also as RLYVRY. I plan to release the album through a label I’m creating via Vidlings & Tapeheads. The last time I put out an album was as The Ground Sound in 2000, so this has been a long, long time coming.

I’ll be back in Michigan during the summer and plan to shoot the final pickups and ADR for the Nymer movie, shoot some new stuff with Joe, edit some old stuff with Joe, and hopefully release some videos by the end of the year. It’s frustrating how long it takes, but at least we continue to make progress and create new memories hanging out and making things together.

Alright, this feels like a solid-enough entry. I ought to wrap everything up with a pithy callback to the opening salvo on embracing imperfections and sloppiness——something clever and ideally endearing that leaves the reader with the sense that this came together in a satisfying way and perhaps gives them a little spring in their step as they return to the world. Sprinkle in some creative inspiration and irreverent mirth that I’d like to believe is part of my signature style. An overlong clumsily meta conclusion that threatens to wear out its welcome before suddenly signing off without truly tying everything together in a cohesive way, since the charm and integrity of human imperfection is kind of the point I’m hoping to make.