Rambo Van Halen
@RamboVanHalen • 21,212 subscribers
Unemployed Producer & Author of Hollywood Samizdat: Notes From Below the Line https://t.co/1oJe19q5bH
Videos
Make Shit Work Again People almost never come to our door after dark. Because we live in a (what used to be) a quiet place, and random visitors after dark are almost unheard of. So when the doorbell rang at 3:30am this morning I grabbed my shotgun. I racked the pump and shouted for the person at the door to identify themselves. Turns out it was a lady cop. Luckily the cops are used to armed homeowners around here. She shined a to flashlight identify herself, and I secured the gun and the dogs to see what she wanted. Turns out two people were shot across the street in the park. She wanted to know if your security cameras captured any footage of the incident. So I checked the app, and no—there was no footage (because our cameras point the other direction). And that was that. But I couldn’t get back to sleep—mostly because of the adrenaline. But also because I couldn’t help but notice that things are getting worse around here. This used to be a place where nothing happened. And now things definitely do happen. We used to live in LA. My wife and I did industry stuff. We had a good life as an urban childless couple, but then she got pregnant. We thought about the daunting challenge of raising kids in LA, and opted to get out. So we found a place in the Mountain West where nothing ever happens. It was a good place to raise kids. A place with good schools. A place where our children could wander the town by themselves. But it’s not that place anymore. Since Covid the schools have gone to shit. And a few weeks ago my son was at the neighborhood park (by himself) when a gang member pulled a gun on a parent at the playground. So early this morning I’m lying in bed, and I’m thinking about this. And I thought to myself, “We need to leave.” But then I had another thought—a disturbing thought. I thought, “But there’s no place else to go.” Because it’s almost everywhere now. Red State, Blue State, it doesn’t matter. And if it’s not there yet it will be soon. And if you think you’re safe, you’re not. Because this thing is coming for all of us. *** My politics in five words: I Want Shit To Work That’s it. I just want shit to work. And I don’t really care how that happens. I’m old enough to remember when shit did work. It never worked perfectly. But I don’t think shit has worked perfectly in the entire history of human endeavors. I mean, read the Bible—it’s all about shit not working perfectly. But I grew up in a time when things ran fairly well—far better than they do now. I’m not that old, but back in the day schools actually taught stuff. And there wasn’t choking bureaucracy in government and business and every other institution. And we could TRUST those institutions—because they weren’t rife with corruption. And if minor corruption happened to be discovered it was A BIG FUCKING DEAL—because the media wasn’t bent, and they’d actually report on the corruption. And things weren’t so expensive. A young person (me) could work a menial job afford a car and an apartment and still have money left over to take girls on dates. Because there was OPPORTUNITY for young people. Now I could go on and on, but I’m starting to sound like an old man shouting at a cloud, so let me just say, trust me kids: SHIT USED TO WORK. Spencer Pratt is about my age. He remembers when shit used to work. He remembers when you could count on the fire department to not let a giant part of your city burn down with residents inside. He remembers when you didn’t have to step over fentanyl zombies to take your kids to preschool. He remembers when there wasn’t human shit on the streets. He remembers when corrupt government officials were held accountable. He remembers when we could go about our lives and not worry—because shit worked. I can sum up Spencer Pratt’s campaign platform in four words: Make shit work again. So can he win the LA mayoral race? It depends on one question: Is it bad enough yet? I think it is bad enough. It’s so bad that it can no longer be ignored. And I think most Angelenos feel the same way. There’s a critical mass of people who remember when shit worked. They had no way to fix it. They couldn’t imagine a solution. And then one guy stood up and said he could fix it. Because none of these “intractable problems” are actually intractable. We know how to do this. We know how to fix things. We know how to Make. Shit. Work. Again. What was lacking was The Will to do it. And Spencer Pratt has The Will. No, I don’t live in LA anymore. But I’m pulling for Spencer. Because this election is so much larger than Los Angeles. Because there’s no where else to run to. Because we’ve got to make a stand. Somewhere. Anywhere. So vote for Spencer. And if you can’t vote then make a small donation. Because we have to make shit work again. Because we don’t have a choice.
Rambo Van Halen230,749 次观看 • 1 个月前
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The old Ad Guys used to call their profession "The Dark Arts", because nobody understood what they did. Nobody understands it now, because those guys--who were mostly white men--were pushed out of the Ad Industry. And the feminized risk-adverse "teams" that replaced them never bothered to learn it. The new "ad teams" were (and are) obsessed with data and metrics just like the rest of the corporate world. Data and metrics and logic and reason are essential if you're building a factory, or a software product, or sending a rocket to Mars. But all of those things are useless in creative fields. Because persuasion isn't rational or logical. If you find yourself using logic to convince the masses then you've already lost. To change someone's mind you have to go for their heart first. Their minds will follow, but only after they have a change of heart. The old Ad Guys knew this, because it's the key to the Dark Arts. And they had a formula. First, take universal truths--the deepest truth--and connect that truth with a story. Then (and this is key) present it to the audience in an artful and appealing way. If you pull it off--if you do it correctly--you can hack anything. You can hack any sort of skepticism, prejudice, or social conditioning. All those things get tossed aside when you speak to the heart. Even though it's gone out of vogue, we still know how to do this. There are still men who know and practice the Dark Arts. Many of them want revenge for what happened. This is how we change the world. This is how we win.
Rambo Van Halen43,417 次观看 • 13 天前
I was living in DTLA when they filmed the Inception train scene on Spring Street. Big scene. Big money. Lots of jobs (highly paid union labor). But you couldn't do this today. Mainly because of security concerns. Even with security guards and off duty LAPD on set it too sketchy down there. Also, you can't move the encampment tents off the sidewalk, and the police aren't allowed do anything about belligerent zombies.
Rambo Van Halen44,438 次观看 • 1 个月前
Thinking about Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Specifically the rouge HVAC tech Harry Tuttle, played by Robert De Niro. Tuttle, tired of government bureaucracy keeping him from his work, became an outlaw. He tells us he's "in it for the action". He loves fixing HVAC systems, and he's not going to let rules and regulations stand in his way. He continues in his work even though he's being hunted by the Secret Police. Why not hang it up? Why does he keep going? He doesn't stop because he can't stop. He's compelled to do it, and he couldn't stop if he wanted to. So he sneaks around in the dead of night, armed, watching out for ambushes, fixing heating systems--because he has to. Harry Tuttle cares about fixing heating systems more than he cares about his own life... A topic I keep returning to is the extreme amount of hard work and dedication required to make a movie. It's become a recurring theme of mine, mainly because it just doesn't seem to land with readers. That's probably due to my poor writing skills. But then again, maybe there's no way to explain it. Maybe to truly understand, it's something you have to experience for yourself. Like Harry Tuttle, the people who make movies will do whatever it takes to make their film. They do this because they care about making movies more than anything. They care more about making movies than their spouses, their children, or friends, or morality, or decency, or money, or anything and everything else you can think of. Not that they don't care about those things. But the work comes first. And again, they'll do whatever it takes to make it happen. They'll even risk their own lives (and the lives of others) to get that perfect shot. I've seen that many times over. I've even done it myself. Why do they do this? It's because they have to do it. They're compelled. When the urge to create hits--when it REALLY hits--you have to get it out. You have to make it REAL. And failure isn't an option. It's not about the money or the fame or the accolades. It's about creating the thing they've been inspired to create. And again, they do whatever it takes. They're not going to let anyone or anything stop them. This isn't something you can learn in school, or by watching Youtube videos. And it isn't something that's gifted to you by the "gatekeepers" (except by God maybe...) It's something you're born with. And it makes you abnormal--defective. Life is going to hard. Nothing will ever be good enough. It will be hard to get close to people. And any relationship you manage to build will be wrecked. But if you don't have it--if you don't have The Thing--if you don't have that compulsion, then don't even fucking try. There are easier ways to earn a living. Maybe you should go to Law School kid... So when I see online chatter about "Gatekeepers" or (most laughably) "The Joos" preventing them from making the things they want to make, I just shake my head. Because they have no clue what it is to actually create. If you're really a creator, if you're truly inspired, if you have what it takes (if you have That Thing) then you'll figure out a way. And you won't let anything get between you and your creation. Because you're not brittle like that. OR, maybe you ARE brittle. But that compulsion--That Thing--is going to glue you together. It's going to make you strong. It's going to make you unstoppable. But most of these people are just whiners. Posting--just typing shit--is a low effort activity. It requires almost no sacrifice. If they really cared about creating the content they want to see then they'd go out and do it. And I would invite everyone to try. But again, it's not easy. And you're probably not cut out for this type of work. So you'll probably give up. But that's fine. You can always just open the app and whine. And I'll be here too--probably still trying to get the point across. After all, I'm just in it for the action🤷♂️
Rambo Van Halen28,554 次观看 • 3 个月前
With all due respect to my friend Doomer, the reason they didn’t use selective focus on the Rocky stair shot is because they couldn’t. The tech wasn’t there yet. Rocky was the first film the use a Steadicam. This was groundbreaking tech and changed cinematic language forever. That's the reason the stair scene is so iconic--because audiences had never seen anything like it before. If we were doing that shot today, we’d have a focus puller (called a 1st AC in the USA) manually focusing the lens on a wireless follow focus. Because there’s no other way to pull focus with a fast moving steadi cam following a fast moving subject. With a shallow depth of field Rocky would have been running in and out of focus. But back then they had no choice. So they used the largest depth of field they could get away with so that Rocky stayed in focus the entire time. If they’d had the tech to do selective focus they 100% would have used it--because cinema is all about selective focus. Steadicam inventor Garret Brown actually shot a test with his GF running on the same stairs used in Rocky (see video). And again, he was forced to use a deep depth of field because there was no way to accurately focus the camera while he was moving.
Rambo Van Halen20,578 次观看 • 6 个月前
