It’s the eve before I depart NYC. I’ve filmed for a month. I should know what I have, but I won’t truly know until I watch all of it. I took the last few days off and enjoyed what the city has to offer, namely Broadway. Saw Avenue Q, Forbidden Broadway: SVU, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and tonight Mamma Mia in as many days (my wallet is still smoking). I mostly saw the last one tonight because a friend of mine from UNC was starring as Sky on Broadway. 21 bucks for a standing room ticket wasn’t too bad.

On a discussion board I frequent, the question was posed, “Is MTV chronicling the demise of our society or assisting it?” and I suggested the reply: The original question suggests a larger question: does art immitate life or does life immitate art? I’m not calling MTV art (I never watch it but I am part of that generation), but being in film & video production myself, I have to believe in the latter. The filmmaker interprets life into his “art,” which is then reintegrated into his environment by those who view it.

The excitement and the bustle and the lights and the crowds. The energy of the city. The city that never sleeps. All of that gets a little wearing after three weeks. Then you start to notice the trash on the streets, the graffitti on the walls (and doors and windows and mail boxes), and the blank stares of oppressed apathy on the daily train commuters. Nobody smiles in this city. You either adapt or the city devours you piece by piece. Or maybe that is adapting. Some people love it here.

The Onion did a radio news segment recently on AOL e-mail. And although it was a joke there was a lot of truth to it. It’s unfortunate but every time someone gives me an e-mail address that ends with @aol.com, a little alert goes off inside my head that says “warning: this person hasn’t yet left their internet training wheels behind.” I used AOL at one time. It’s fine for anyone who doesn’t want to venture out onto the internet or for folks just getting started. But do not get AOL confused with truly being connected online.

We should stop giving hurricanes human names. It is most unfortunate for the people who happen to have the names of these storms. You can bet for sure that Katrina was not a popular baby name last year. The American Indians believe that naming something gives power to it. Just as Hitler ruined the name Adolph for a lot of people, let’s stop giving these hurricanes names that could give them more power and ruin the day for the people who have those names. I wouldn’t mind using the Greek alphabet to start, instead of using them as a backup in case we run out of “regular” hurricane names.

Do not take your video camera in there without prior permission. They will quickly ask you to stop, drop, and leave. It’s worse than trying to shoot in New York parks with a tripod. But seriously folks, everyone who works there says it’s next to impossible to shoot there. They offered no explanation as to why. I guess it’s just corporate policy. It’s not like I had planned on getting anything interesting there: just Rachel sitting behind her desk answering phones. But that restrictive a corporate policy doesn’t foster warm and fuzzy feelings in my corporation.