BURNING dAN brightly embodied that bold beastly bliss sometimes referred to as "the creative spirit." He was my chief collaborator on the foundational incarnations of hitRECord.org over the years and continues to inspire us ever the more. He would absolutely positively insist that we not let this bad news deter us on our collective mission. That said, I might not feel up to it for a little while.

Watching this community blossom into what it has become never ceased to amaze him and me. We would regularly marvel at it and high five. Thank you all for that. There he is now pouring heaping hollowed watermelons full of love over each and every one of us.

Let's celebrate him, he's fucking awesome:
http://www.hitrecord.org/records/234697

See you real soon,
thanks again...
<3

1. Who are you and what do you do?

 I'm Joe.  I try to put myself in other peoples' shoes.

2. What's the origin of your artist name?

I find power in regular repetition.  And a lot of inspiration from rules and regulations, both followed and broken.  Rob Brown first named me Regular Joe around four years ago because I eat a lot of vegetables.

3. What has been your biggest challenge with your art so far?

 Being sufficiently selfish.

4. Who or what is your biggest influence?

 Mama, papa, brotha

5. What is your wildest story?

Definitely this one.

6. What is the last book you read?

 Franny & Zooey


7. If you could be any character in fiction, who would you be?

 Cupid

8. What couldn’t you live without?

That that that that that don't kill me can only make me stronger.

9. What is your secret talent?

 Wouldn't be much of a secret if I told you.

 

10. Tell me about the last dream you remember having?

 There was a mic input in a really high cupboard and only a very short mic cable.  But I did manage to monkey up there and address the unruly crowd.

11. What are you craving right now?

sex, I mean, love, I mean, death, I mean, you


12. What was the last song you fell in love with?

"Powerful Love" by Chuck & Mac


13. Can you hula hoop?

 Yes.


14. What do you like?

Alone time.


15. What do you dislike?

Long thought-out diatribes about something the diatriber dislikes.

16. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

Stay in character until after they cut.


17. How and why did you start RECording?

Well, well, well.  Depending on how I interpret the question, my answer could be simple and predictable or impossibly broad and far-reaching.

You've probably heard the one about how I started saying "hit RECord" to myself as a little motivational mantra and then named a website after it, which evolved into what hitRECord.org has now become.

I suppose my earliest RECords, like most kids, would be little drawings and stuff, but I don't connect with those much these days.  I do remember writing little stories when I was quite young, and loving that.  My first round red REC button was the family Hi-8 video camera when I was, I don't know, eight or so?  The 4-track cassette recorder (sorta like Garage band, but way shittier) was a turning point when I was fifteen.

Then there's another way I think of the word you mention, "RECording."  Sometimes I say, again by heart.  The syllable "CORD" is supposedly a variation on an ancient proto-indo-european root word -- the same as core, corps, cœur -- meaning heart.  "RE" is an old prefix indicating repetition.  So, in that sense, I've been RECording as long as my heart's been beating over and over and over again.  And so have you.

 

Hey MoiSanom, cheers for starting this one. Thanks again <3 

If I read our story backwards, it’s about how I un-broke your heart, and then we were happy until one day you forgot about me forever. 

I love happy endings.

 

somewhere... live two stories

one of hevn, one of urth,

who awake to find they’re hugging

with no knowledge of their birth.

 

this embrace invokes a balance

the two stories have come one.

no more fear and no desire

nothing done to be undone. (cont..)

 

but suddenly there is an urge

that shakes their tranquil state.

longing to understand themselves

and thirsting to create,

 

hevn, out of nowhere

tells a story of its own

and urth, beguiled by newness

acts this story out alone.

 

so with a song and dance 

a tiny story came to be

a star that lit their eyes up

and enabled them to see.

 

with this new light both hope and fear 

filled up their hearts with warning

this newborn tale was not alone

still many more were calling.

 

stories grew and blossomed then

sung in by hevn’s choirs.

they formed their shape aloft in space,

took life from urthly fires.

 

but stories are not set in stone

their shapes are always shifting.

suns lit up like fireworks

and mountain tops were lifting.

 

meadows stretched and liquefied

and poured into the ocean,

whose waves formed winged beasts that leapt

and fluttered into motion.

 

colours grew out of the ground

and spread into the sky

a watercolour world with rainbows

fifty stories high

 

great rocks rose to meet the stars

wishing a better view

the highest peaks were dusted white

each day, pristine and new

 

for everything a perfect place

a den, a hut, a hive

soon every thing the eye could see

came suddenly alive

 

with roots and shoots, with wings and feet

in flocks, in packs and swarms

a wondrous festival of life

of stories taking form

 

yet all these tales were merely sung

by hevn in collusion

with urth consumed with play acting

and plagued with mad delusion. 

 

in time, urth started to believe

in its own mind’s inventions

it saw stories as solid truth

and followed their conventions

 

instead of dreaming up new tales

urth stopped and took full measure

of every narrative of old

and clung to them like treasure

 

hevn, wary of this path

but loyal to its friend

kept quiet for countless years

but spoke out in the end

 

"i'm scared our stories roar too loud

and cause us to forget

that we were just playing pretend

now all is stuck and set!

 

i don’t like this game anymore

when we’re no longer one

let's fall into each other's arms 

and let the tales be done."

 

but urth, engrossed in its own myths

and certain of their power 

shunned the touch of its old friend

and things began to sour.

 

driven by a mad impulse

urth gathered up its tales

and forced them all to huddle close

surrounded them with rails

 

the tales that once grew legs and arms

that shape-shifted and tangled

now sat solid, static, locked

rough edges now right-angled

 

"this is no game," cried urth, "it's real 

these stories won't collapse! 

don't preach to me of harmony

i won't fall for your traps! 

 

our oneness is an ancient dream

this falsehood won't prevail

your words are trying to poison me

but all to no avail."

 

hevn wailed, heart torn in two

“can you not understand?

i only want us to be one 

forever hand in hand

 

i have no darker aim than that

my friend, I fear remorse

when a long and lonely age from now

you’ll see we ran off course”

 

so then from lofty heights urth shrunk

whom rage had made a giant 

now calmed and next to hevn stood

and no longer defiant.

 

"i mean you no distress, my love 

our playtime here was bliss 

our hugging time was harmony 

and though it will be missed 

 

the mystery of what we are 

is more than i can stand 

through stories only lived and breathed

will i ever understand.

 

i must let go and join our tales

and with this merging seal

a sacrifice so soon forgot 

will makes these stories real."

 

and as urth turned to walk away

hevn stood its ground

and watched as urth leapt to the skies

and hurled itself back down!

 

with this loud crash, a deluge 

swept up hevn in its wake 

and nearly drowned when all around

became a sudden lake.

 

 

so hevn looked with teary eyes

at what urth had become

across the shore for many moons

alone and growing numb.

 

by the waters urth had caused

the outcast hevn lay down

and wept remembering the days

when urth was still around.

 

 

but pining was not company

it only brought upset

hevn knew one thing for sure

this fact alone was set

 

no matter how the times had changed

despite their different ways

hevn and urth were meant to be

and with the passing days

 

the emptiness in hevn's heart

came all too much to bear

its other half was far detached

there was no time to spare

 

to find and join urth once again

within its solid rails,

hevn sung itself a boat 

and peacefully set sail.

 

so here i am across the lake

and left with little time

i look back on my journey here

and write this very rhyme

 

to tell you how it all began

as soon i will forget..

a sacrifice i have to pay

until all is reset.

 

i'll be with you again, my love

perhaps not as before

but i will find brief melodies

to break us from our chores.

 

a momentary lapse, perhaps

through lovers who can see

in moments of divine desire

the ones we used to be.

 

the sparks that flew in our embrace

remembered in a kiss

flickers of our ancient love

in these human blips of bliss.

 

and that will ever be enough

to keep us burning bright

an ember can ignite a fire

one flame can warm the night

 

it's time for me to let go now

and be carried away,

but i take this message with me

so it may find you one day.

 

through whatever way it chooses

through whomever it may find

to remind you in your darkest hour

that we were once entwined.

 

when tragic moments break your heart

when lost within a crowd

when fear has taken hold 

and when your stories roar too loud

 

just remember that it’s all a tale

a big game of pretend

and one day, as all stories do

ours will also end.

 

but we’ll meet again back at the start

with no knowledge of our birth

we'll do it all again, by heart

a new hevn and a new urth.

 

___________

 

 

 

note: the story was written by me without rhyme but then made to rhyme both by me and the wonderful Metaphorest.. who has been inspiring me an extraordinary amount lately. thanks for slaving over this with me meta. SLAVING i say!!

 

And in this vast universe grew a boy.

And in this boy grew a vast universe.

you can't sleep?

me either.

let's can't sleep

together.

Once upon a time, there was The End.

While little kids pray there are no monsters beneath their bed,

Do little monsters hope there are no kids above their head?

Hello again...

Well, it’s been a little while. Thanks to everyone who contributed their love and support this last month since dan died. I’m still feeling pretty low these days, but I’m looking forward to taking a few ginger steps back to work. I know that’s what he’d want.

So, without further ado, I’d like to finally announce a project that’s been in the works for a good six months or so -- HITRECORD.ORG presents Joseph Gordon-Levitt RE:Acting & RECording -- a college tour. We’re going to do live presentations at a handful of universities around the country to speak to young, talented, ambitious artists and invite them into our collaborative community.

Our initial plans had been grander in scope, but considering everything that’s happened in the last month, we decided to scale it down. I’ll only be going to campuses in L.A. and New York, and I apologize to the other schools I had planned on also visiting: Ohio State, University of Pittsburgh, Vasser and University of Rhode Island. I doubt this will be the last time we do this sort of thing, and I look forward to making up those dates in the future.

These presentations will be a bit less of a “rockin’ evening out” as were the Summer in the City and SxSW shows and a bit more discussion-oriented like the Sundance presentations. I’m looking forward to really delving into hitRECord’s collective creative process, the general state of mass media today, and the broader questions that have faced artists since forever. And I’m confident that we’ll all end up working with some cool and talented new hitRECorders.

The dates are: UCLA - Nov 8, UPenn - Nov 17, Columbia - Nov 19, NYU - Nov 20, and USC - Nov 22. Needless to say, we’ll be RECording the whole time so nobody will miss anything, and so we can all remix those RECords into new Results. And of course, as we play various exemplary RECords at these presentations, the contributing artists will share in the tour’s profits.

It’ll be a gradual process getting back into the swing of things, but the notion of working with you guys again makes me feel good and optimistic.

thanks again <3
J

When she died, they took her things:

necklace, watch & silver rings.

They slid them off with expertise,

then took her wallet, phone & keys.

 

They put them in a plastic tray,

with her book & body spray,

a pen, a comb, her fake ID,

a pin badge labelled "shop trainee".

 

They wiped down all the bloody splatters,

then folded up her shattered glasses.

They tucked them in a scrumpled note,

complete with David Bowie quote.

 

They found a lighter in her jeans,

lipstick, pot and jelly beans.

Last they found the dog-eared letter,

"My death will make your lives much better."

The right shoe left,

knowing the left shoe was right.

The saga continues.......


Twas a shinybright earthspin, and the upover was a sheeny, cobaltic bluefest. High uptop the bigsmoke, the zeppelin zoo whished through the geogas. It was a baloonic ark, a sky-safari, and extrafactily, on this specicated earthspin, it was the dateplace for our man Morgan M. Morgansen and his lovebuddy, Destiny.

The passionpair lovestrolled through the animalium, pawtangled. Their see-globes met flit-tweets barlocked, finbeasts tanked and primates prisonized. Destiny superlated the snuffalunks, lollified the longnecks and rapturized the blackmasked rarebears as they bamboozled.

Baghidden in Destiny’s pawpouch, Madame Ballofur, Destiny’s pamperfied purrpet, see-peeped overbag, then re-snuggled bagwards, disimpressed.

The lovebuddies proximated themselves to ‘Rarebears Treatbuggy’. And there, costumated as a monochromic rarebear, stood the foodpenguin, lemonfaced as ever.

The duo partook in a pair of pinkfluff-pops. Destiny masticated her sugarstick saxifragously, leaving Morgan habberdashed. So hornified was he that he was blinkerfied to the slinkish arrivement of Lionel; Destiny's pre-now lovebuddy and a cognified smarmorific lothariator.

Morgan spit-swallowed at the sight of this regalite, this masculate heartstealer. Destiny’s see-globes frizzled sparklish as she permissed this Lionel to liplock her personpaw smarmily.

Oh he was a brazeful and bashless califrag this one, a testosteronic alphabeast, a maxified and magnificious Morgan mimic!

Morgan was shockshook out of his glaze by a “Yeeek!!” from a flabbergastic Destiny. Madame Ballofur had dissapparated, fleed the refugous innards of Destiny’s pawpouch and gone cat-about!

“Oh tragedous, wronghap! woed Destiny. “What uber-humalian, what alphaknight will revicinitate my flitulous fluff-friend?”

The be-stached suitors locked squintish see-globes, duel-bound.

The competing califrags seeked up and downish for the cutish catcritter. Lionel dove and dashed while Morgan creeped and purrcalled. But the perduous purrpet was noplace to be see-globed.

Lucklacking, Morgan slomped, downbeat onto a longtree personholder, aside the foodpenguin, who so happed to be on his workgap. The gent was chomping a speary eatstick, a Mousecub-kebab of impaled fieldfurries, their pinkeyes, scarestuck, their ringlet tailstrings rigormortised.

Morgan hammocked his topbulb in his personpaws, and let a long stream of air out of his facehole.

“I see your perduous purrpet has enbuddied the purrbeast” benefacted the foodpenguin, a tailstring twingling betwixt his citrus lips.

Sure as earthspins, there, in the bigmaned purrbeasts barbox, was Madame Ballofur, cutish snoogled under the purrbeast’s enormopaw and jubbified to the max.

As Morgan fastly vicinitated himself to the barbox for his fluff-freeing feat, Lionel apparated, duel-ready. Bashless, the malsuitor uprolled his arm coverers and brawl-begged.

Someplace a dinger dinged and the leisurespot hencecame a duellish painpit.

The prized personette apparated. Her tumbox tumbled at the see-shock of her pre and present lovebuddies bashbrawning while her fluff-friend remained catnapped.

“Anyperson, deperilize my poorly purrpet” she worded, pleady.

The flabgabbets fapslapped, duckdove and flee-jigged, slam-bammed, limb-cranked and flankyanked, pridelocked in their duelling dance. Outmuscled, Morgan was fastly grounded. The opportunous Lionel backstepped, primed for a grandslam.

Sametime, the geishily pro-Morgan food’panda’ fastflung his yeuchstick into Lionel’s painpath.

Mid-murderous lurch, Lionel sillyslipped on the foody-trap sending the mousemorsels skygliding into the purrbeast’s barbox! Lionel yeeked, girlish, as he upfooted, then downslammed. (Gogglebirds tweeted circlish round Lionel’s dazed headfront.)

Morgan uprighted himself, pummelpuffed. He fastglance spied that the bigmaned junglegiant was now divertously nomming the catapultous yeuchtreat. The purrpet was guardless!

Morgan chest-puffed and perilpared himself. Destiny lash-flapped, butterflated, as her true alphaknight shimmied the barbox .

Our daysaver slinked into the dangerden and, padsoft, toe-stepped petwards. He pawscooped Madame Ballofur into his toplimbs and fastly exit-aimed.

Still groundbound, that dastardly dipstick, Lionel, catcalled, diverting the junglebeast from his eatbait and vectorizing his feline see-globes to our man Morgan!

Morgan fastfooted safewards, supernormal speedish, the agrowled purrmonster yappish at his leg-ends.

Destiny masked her see-globes with a personpaw, too tumtangled to spectize.

In an awefeat of wowness, Morgan springpulted somersaultish and downdropped to the safe and sound, with Madame Ballofur tightlocked underlimb.

Destiny quickish snoogled her freed fluff-friend then angled, bambi-eyed, Morganwards. Her headfront was awash with apprecious butterflation and fullheart lovelust.

Lionel, diminuated, and ungruntled, his alphastate debunked, slinked into the noplace, selfsaying some gibberjack about an afternow vengement.

Madame Ballofur frisbeed an infosquare to the blubtrolling junglegiant. The enormokitten liplifted - jubilated to have acquainted this new purrpal.

Destiny snooglebroke, suddenish and touched her bottom lip with her topchompers.

“Morgan M. Morgansen, you are my solo lovebuddy, my butterflative manpet, my testosteronic alphaknight!”

Morgan pinkified at this linguistic lovepouring, then fullface liplocked his lovebuddy.

Morgan shut a solo see-globe at the panda-dressed pro-pair person. The foodbringer liplifted, recapitated his rarebear headcover and disapparated, leaving the lovejoined duo to consommize their recoupling.

And, as the great balloonic ark whished upover the skags of suburban Sellosedge, little did they comprend that this enormoblimp entained not only a plethora of rarepets, but also, a duet of the most felicitous persons in the fullglobe infinispace; Morgan M. Morgansen, and his Destiny.