Rayburn Easter 2010

I made an Easter home movie last year and I made a new one this year. This one took long since I didn’t have school computers to make it on. I hope you enjoy it.

BONUS: Mario Valentines

Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching and as if you didn’t know there’s a way to tie Mario 3 in.

X-Entertainment has a whole bunch you can download. Don’t forget to hand them out to the whole class!

Merry Christmas from the Rayburns

I love making these home movies. I turn off everything I learned in school about making a good video and just dump the parts I like into a timeline and go.

Top 5 Worst Lyrics in Christmas Songs

I'm a big fan of Christmas music and really just Christmas in general. For about a month now it's all I've been listening to. I'm also a fan of well written lyrics. Some people can ignore the words to songs and enjoy them despite their failings. I can't do that. So here I'm airing my grievances about the worse lyics in otherwise well loved Christmas songs.

5. The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick

Christmas comes this time each year
Oooooooo oooooooo

The biggest problem writers of Christmas music run into is having nothing to say. You know you want to write a Christmas song but you haven't thought of it past that. Here Brian Wilson, known for penning some of the most beautiful music of the past century and lying in bed, gives up and tells us that Christmas happens annually. A good Christmas song evokes nostalgia or hope or something. Little Saint Nick reminds us that Christmas will be here next year too.

4. Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?

Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you!

Bono is at his most Bono when he tells us off here.Oh yes, we're calling out Bono specifically here. Do They Know It's Christmas? is full of overripe lines but it's the conviction that Bono belts this one out that makes it suck most. The sheer amount of superstars singing on the track made it stupidly popular but Bono is what made it bad.

3. Elton John - Step Into Christmas

Welcome to my Christmas song
I'd like to thank you for the year

To be fair, Elton John doesn't write his own lyrics, Bernie Taupen does. Their relationship works thusly: Bernie spends an hour typing up a stack of papers that contain "lyrics" and gives them to Elton. Elton spends less than an hour trying to write music for those lyrics. If he can't think of anything right away he throws that page out. This is the process that results in Elton telling us that this Christmas song is his Christmas song. You can tell that Bernie's only order was, "Write a Christmas song for Elton" and he ran with it.

2. Run DMC - Christmas Time in Hollis

It's Christmas time in Hollis Queens
Mom's cooking chicken and collard greens
Rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese
And Santa put gifts under Christmas trees
Decorate the house with lights at night
Snow's on the ground, snow white so bright
In the fireplace is the yule log
Beneath the mistle toe as we drink egg nog
The rhymes you hear are the rhymes of Darryl's
But each and every year we bust Chrsitmas carrols

I've included a much larger portion of this song because there is so much wrong. Christmas in Hollis is easily the best Christmas rap song ever, and it's cheesy lyrics are a big part of that. The song is trying it's hardest to establish that it is all about Christmas while they are desparate to do RUN DMC's usual thing. This results in out of place ryhmes like the Yule Log/Egg Nog couplet. The biggest problem I have is the completely out of place "And Santa put gifts under Christmas trees." The worst thing you can do in a Christmas song is state what happens at Christmas litterally and RUN DMC delivers that here.

1. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

You know Dasher and Dancer
And Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid
And Donner and Blitzen
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?

Until now I've focused on pop Christmas songs but now it's time to take on a classic. It's as simple as this: If Rudolph is the most famous Raindeer of all, then why would you be askin if I can recall him? Conversly, since this song is what made him famous, how the heck is he the most famous of all when his wasn't yet? Clearly nobody thought this through.

Rayburn Family Thanksgiving

We're less than a week away from our big family Christmas but I'm just now getting around to posting the Thanksgiving pictures. What can I say, I'm a bad blogger?

We played a rough and tumble game of two hand touch. These pics are all from the start of the game when it was moving pretty slow. Eventually Uncle Scott busted his finger and I got hit on the nipple as hard as I ever have been.

I hate it when I mope

That was too emo. Here's a picture of me and Santa:

And if that isn't enough to recover:

Thanksgiving

I'm thankful that I get to go home for Thanksgiving. I haven't been in Indiana since June so you can understand how I miss it so much. Sorry I haven't posted here much. I'm in a turbulent time in my life so I haven't been the artist I want to be. I hate to post about my emotions (this isn't a live journal this is an art blog!) so I clam up during hard times.

I've been interning at AMS Pictures and I'd tell you all about it except I signed and NDA so it's a secret. It's a great place and if this results in a job I'll be living here in Dallas for a nice long while. If it doesn't then I guess it's time to move back to Indianapolis.

I guess it's time to post my LATE Halloween pictures now.


It's also prudent that I finally post my (not as late but yes they are) photos from the Whispering Pines excursion. They're pretty neat.


Moving to Dallas hasn't been easy. I've had to rely on people more than I'm comfortable with and give up a measure of my own personal freedom. I'm grateful for opportunities I've been given here but I'd give it all up to have control again.

More July 4th Fun

For the record this was the view of the peak before we climbed. Imposing, no?

I produced a video of the fireworks as seen from the peak. The music makes the shaky cam palpable.

Looking at explosions in the distance via a handheld camera looks just like Cloverfield.

4th of July!

We climbed Cahuenga Peak and then, at an altitude of 1,821 feet, watched dozens of fireworks shows from around the city. It was so beautiful up there. Truly the most fantastic view I've seen since the Grand Canyon. What a great way to spend Independence Day.

The climb up was long and arduous, with many stops as my legs couldn't go on. That said, we made it up and I didn't throw up any of the chili I made for dinner. Thank god for the full moon because we would never have been able to see on the way down. Too bad it was still really freakin' dark. I tripped and fell a few times resulting in a wicked cut. Yes I bled for America.

If you are brave enough to look, here is the picture of the wound. SCARY.

Cahuenga Peak

I just climbed to Cahuenga Peak to see fireworks all over LA. Being an American is rad as hell!

Rayburn Family Easter

I had a great time at the family Easter Party yesterday. This was the first time it's been hosted at my house. I shot a video of my cousin Eli hunting Easter Eggs. The music is Search and Destroy by Iggy Pop.

Want more Easter fun? Read my blog post from the 2007 Random Acts blog here.

Super Bowl

I am way behind in posting these. I shot them all at my Super Bowl party, but getting them developed and then scanning them and then posting them, was a real hassle. At least they're here now. It's great having memories of that night. I made my famous veggie soup and my famous chili. This is the first time I've made them both for the same event. In addition to this I had veggie con carne and veggie con veggie options. I was rooting for the Steelers but mostly because my roommate and on again off again nemesis Tom was rooting for the Cardinals.

As the game went on and I got out my Holga camera I became progressively sedentary, having found my spot on the floor and dug in. I'm afraid that makes my pictures less interesting than they could be. I'm also afraid that most of my pictures are from my apartment. I spend almost all of my time there. It's kind of a hang out spot so everybody comes and sees me instead. This fits well with my sedentary ways, but should sediment settle I'm certain I would fossilize. Oh, I guess I should mention that some of these pictures are from the night we tried out bruise makeup for the movie. They fit in pretty well.

PS. Cara if you read this: There is no good way to take a picture of you. You really do glow.

Valentimes!

Before it's too late hand these out to your classmates.

Don't forget to give one to your teacher.

New Years!

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup, and surely I’ll buy mine!

And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

I brought my holga camera to Cincinnati for my friend Tom's New Year's party. My third roll didn't develop but the first two are pretty wild. There's a lot of pictures, I know. But over a hundred pictures were taken on Joanna's camera so my thirty shouldn't seem too bad.

Have a happy new year everybody. Lets keep growing older together. Every year seems like more fun than the last.

Rayburn Family Christmas

I snapped some pictures with my digital camera while we were opening presents at my grampa's house. I'm not in any of these because I was the photographer. This keeps happening. It looks like I'm not at any of the events I'm at.


I also shot some video with my camera. I did a quick mix in Premiere so you can see what I shot. It's not a brilliant edit, but it's for the family.

Merry Christmas Everybody!