Danimatian - Dan Boujoulian - All Dan, All The Time

My latest written stuff is at myspace.com/bojo or Livejournal.com/users/danimatian

I am a graduate of Grand Valley State University's Film/Video program.

I recently moved to Chicago, IL and I am exploring many new film/video/animation opportunities there. More on this story as it develops!

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7.28.2003

P H I S H T O U R / 2 0 0 3

BEGIN TRANSMISSION

Well I just went thru Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virgina and Maryland in 12 hours.

Before then I spent 2 nights with Rita in Milwaukee at a hotel so cool we were on the 19th floor and there was an indoor waterpark..

Then I did 3 nights on a farm outside Indianapolis with tons of Michigan friends before going to Charlotte, NC.

My friend Scotty couldn’t come from Detroit to Indiana or NC and the kids I was already with had to go back home so I went the next show alone.

Going to a concert alone sounds lame at first but I realized that alone is how I need to be sometimes and if you’re not comfortable alone then you can never be comfortable with someone.

Being alone on the road is enlightening and gives you an incredible feeling that you are capable of anything you put your mind to. I think my favorite show was the night I was totally alone. I was completely in love with life and nothing was gonna stand in my way of having fun watching Phish perform.. with or without friends around.

In Charlotte after the show I noticed my car stank of gas and towed it to the dealer. They said it could have blown up at any moment while driving thru Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, SC or NC. I guess I’m living on the edge these days... It would have been a fitting end as in middle school my clique used to make a LOT of spontaneous human combustion jokes.

I hitched a ride to Atlanta with some hippie types and had another great show there. Probably the best first set I’ve ever seen Phish play in the 36 shows I’ve seen. When you see Phish every night is different. I’ve only heard about 3 repeats in 7 nights.

The thing with hippies on the road is we can meet as strangers at a gas station and then drive together thru 5 states or party later in the night somewhere else. The guys call each other “brothers” the girls are referred to as “mamas”

Gothic people can’t do that. You don’t see a fellow Goth at a gas station and say ‘hey come over lets slit our wrists together!!!’ but hippies see each other and say “I love sex and bugs (VWs) and rock ‘n roll too.. lets hook up!!” BOOM.. instant friend

I just drove this kid I knew for 6 hours up to Maryland from Atlanta. He had no one else to turn to. He got beaten up and robbed in the ghetto and had no money to pay to drive his car home so I brought him home to Baltimore and paid for all the gas. He was staying in my hotel 3 doors down, apparently I was in a bad area, but it was only a few blocks from the venue Phish played at so I didn't think it was all that bad. There were no bars on the windows of the houses and no Church's chicken nearby. There was a porno store and a hooker I saw but that doesn't mean its a ghetto. Some of my best stories start out like that.

So off we went. My first stop for lunch was against my ‘anti-corporate’ chain stance (I’m all about local diners and things that represent the community I am visiting.)

So I go into Hooters. I figure. If I got my ass thrashed by some ghetto thugs and my life almost ended I sure as hell would like to see some cleavage.

We passed by the Oregon/Wisconsin hippies in the VW about 6 times since they only go like 60mph.

I stopped by Washington DC because I hadn't seen it since I was younger. Bryan was like "are we in Richmond VA already, that was quick!" and I said "look to your right..." The Washington Monument is NOT in Richmond.

WHAT ARE WE IN D.C. FOR? Because I felt like it damnit!! The car goes where I steer it.

He was asleep most of the time. He seemed little sketchy and not the
normal person I would associate with (i.e. into harsh drugs on the parking lot and not the music.) but I couldn't leave him stranded in a hotel in atlanta so I bid adieu to the hippies that were driving MY ASS around so I could drive to Baltimore and now he's sleeping and his mom is trying to convince him that we really should go to the hospital because his head is bruised and his leg has a huge gash.

I am going to Pennsylvania in the morning with some Baltimore hippies and will wrestle my way back over to North Carolina with some other kids to get my car when its fixed. I did some slolam baha action in an Indiana cornfield that wrecked the underside of my car.. lol. All because someone said “Only SUVs can go down that path!!! Well I am from Detroit and we make cars there buddy, The Focii can do anything your gas guzzler can do.. only faster!”

PhishTour Summary:
1) Life is grand when you are at a 4 star hotel with a girl and a water park.
2) Life is grand when you are in a cornfield with many good friends.
3) Driving through states alone makes me confident of my independence.
4) One day later, I need someone elses help to get by.
5) One more day later, someone else needs MY help to get by.
6) One day later I’m looking at the buildings that symbolizes the independence of our country thinking about my own independence.
7) Tomorrow could bring anything, but karma from yesterday will definitely come into play.

I recently read a bumper sticker that says
“Stop bitching. Start a revolution.”

Look for me on CNN… I’ll be the fuzzy haired blur running from Secret Service.

END TRANSMISSION

D
to the
A
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¶ 16:14

7.09.2003

I am finally re-doing the design of Danimatian.com, as it was initially intended to be the vehicle of Danimatian Studios it was too much about production and not enough about me. I took a lot of the "me" stuff off because I was paranoid about total strangers surfing in and finding out stuff about me when I don't know who is coming in and looking. I'm not totally over the paranoia, but I am devising a test where if you know enough about me you can get into the site and if you're just a casual surfer you can only view the links that I allow.
Now that VisualNoiz.com is the avenue for viewing my multimedia creations there is no reason to have two different websites about my productions. I will take off all the film & video stuff and put the Dan back in Danimatian. It was just too scattered out and too hard to navigate. Things will be streamlined before too long and much easier to navigate. Now that I think about it, making the website LESS scattered makes it LESS like me. But I digress...

So heres the rundown on the Dan dot coms:

VisualNoiz.com - A multimedia extravaganza. Jason & I will expose ourselves to the world thru this site. This is where you can view animations, download music I've recorded with my DAT, find out about interesting filmmakers and actors Jason and I are into through our appreciato obscuro section, or just read about how Jason and I made our films, videos, animations, etc.

Danimatian.com - All Dan, All the time. This is basically my personal website about musicians I like, concert reviews, websites I think you should visit, pictures of me and my friends and family or anything else I upload that will fall under the 'personal website' category. I promise, there will be no MIDIs that play over a hard to read background like all those people who have sucky personal websites at Angelfire. (My sister Chrissy excluded of course.)

ConfusedBoy.com - This will be an ongoing cartoon strip type of serial where there is always a boy being confused by the world around. Pretty vague description I know, but it's still a work in progress so bear with me. Everything written for it thus far has actually happened to me so its very true to life.

ItWillFail.com - Still technically Mike Murphy's site, but I've been active in its design and NOT active in writing anymore. We re-vamped ourselves earlier this year, but its about to be re-re-vamped as the blogs have died off. The blogs were actually part of my site before IWF so I will be re-implementing them into Danimatian.com as we finish our cleanup of ItWillFail.com. Another Work In Progress.

MichaelFuckingMartin.com / MichaelFuckingMartin.org - This isn't my site but I bought it for Mike as a birthday present. He is happy now because he can quote MichaelFuckingMartin.org in speeches now and since its a .org whatever he says must be true. If Mike's website is half as entertaining as him in person, there will be some zany stuff going on here when we're done with it.

That's all for now. Thanks for all the support.

Jason and I will be bringing you some new entertainment very soon, we may even have THREE whole productions out by the end of the year. Probably two, but I am geeked to get some creative energies out. I feel as if I've been stagnant and I aim to change that. I have much more to tell you about productions in progress, but the VisualNoiz news section is where I will post that.

¶ 17:31

7.02.2003

It's "over-the-hump" day, the 183rd rotation of planet Earth during 2003. The exact midpoint of the year occurs today at 1 p.m. local daylight time. Although there's no astronomical reason for noting this date, humans often find such divisions of time helpful in organizing activities and assessing progress. For better or worse, the year is half over. It's time to enjoy the downhill ride.

____________________________

Have you accomplished everything you've wanted to? I don't think I've done anything about reaching my goals this year.. but I've had a lot of fun NOT being productive:

Lets see , so far this year has held in store for me:

Jan - NAIAS Blitz - Long long hours working on videos for the detroit auto show. I slept at work a lot.

Feb- My social life returned for the first time since November I got to hang out somewhere besides my work. A Mini Phish tour thru Chicago and Ohio. First Phish show I got to see since Las Vegas in September of 2000.

March - Nothing happened in march. In like a lion, out like a lame! (not a mistype)

April - My favorite holiday 4/20. I saw Fishbon, the Flaming Lips and Medeski Martin & Wood but not together. I also saw Ministry at Detroit creepiest venue, Harpos. Oh and we moved my work to the new building.

May - Detroit Electronic Music Festival took place during my sisters birthday. When she bought beers, everyone would sing her happy birthday. Doc and I stayed at a 4 star hotel across the street from the festival. We would frequently call down to the front desk and demand rock star like requests, such as WE NEED A HIGHLIGHTER and then freak out on them if they brought a yellow one. WE NEED BLUE OR PINK.. NOT YELLOW

June - Bonnaroo Festival - 3 days in the hot Tennessee sun with some of the best musicians of the modern age.

The rest of the year holds what ? Seeing Radiohead on my birthday and then again 2 days later just outside of Milwaukee. I'm Seeing another 7 Phish shows in 4 states as well.

Is there more to my life than music and fun? Not this year.

Hopefully I can bust out some sort of animation or short film before summer is up so I can feel like I've done something worthwhile. OK. typing this out was the most exhausting thing I've done so far this year, I think it's time to go on sabbatical. If you need me, I'll be under my desk at work drawing myself a flowchart about how to get myself from Detroit to the UK. There's got to be some path I can work where I can go spend 2004 in Europe and still have a job in the US when I get back. Mike Murphy did it, I can swing it too. I've heard rumors of documentarians needing film crew members to wander Europe and GET PAID for it.. sign me up.

dan

www.danimatian.com

¶ 11:35

self portrait - 5/2/04

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