The Hidden Bridge

A small stone footbridge, hidden deep within the ravine. I had a glimpse of it then, what could've been close to 20-25 years ago. My dad was taking me for a drive in Mill Creek Park, a huge expanse of trails and Washington State-like wilderness buried in Youngstown, Ohio. It's the city's gem, really. A maze of steep ravines, waterfalls, lakes, and hemlock groves where one could get lost among the many twists and turns within a variety of trails.

I remember it vividly. He was driving me along a road alongside one of the many gorges, showing me the spot where he used to park his car and give it a good wash. A little odd, I know, but he was reminiscing, and it made perfect sense at the time. I was after all, barely in elementary school. The park was enormous to me. It had no end, and offered nearly limitless opportunities of exploration. We were heading around a curve when I saw it: the bridge. Trees and the surrounding hills had eventually overwhelmed it. It was fairly dilapidated, even then. The small stone footbridge lay isolated and buried between the walls of the gorge. It came out of nowhere and before I could realize it was there, it was gone. I asked my dad to stop and turn around, but he had an agenda. I had never seen the bridge again since that day, often wondering if it was nearly a figment of my imagination. If maybe I had seen something else and pieced it together as an image that didn't really exist. I had spent years searching for it, learning that park backwards and forwards, but had never again caught a glimpse of it again. Until today.

Ruins fascinate me. As a kid, I had explored Mill Creek Park thoroughly for the treasures that it hides. First with my grandpa, who did the same thing when he was a kid, and then with my friends, whose love of rock climbing and the outdoors had gotten us into many, many memorable situations. The Park is old, founded by a man name Volney Rodgers. He bought the land in the mid-1800's and set it aside, untouched, with the vision of exactly what it is today: a wilderness preserve. Walking through the park is in a way like traveling back in time. Gone are the sounds of the nearby city and churning steel factories, traffic and the bustle of everyday life. As you walk through the park, it's not uncommon to come across a building, pavilion, or ruins of a house that could be close to 200 years old. When Rodgers bought the park, he didn' purchase it uninhabited. There was a hydraulic flour mill on the property (which still exists as a working mill to this day) and local pioneers had already started building on bits and pieces of the land, remnants of which you can still find today. This environment enthralled me throughout my childhood and well into college. In fact, I still go down to the park to just walk around, soon finding myself off the trail and clamboring my way through an empty ravine, just to see what comes up next. Today, was one of those days.

I was walking Kino in the park, along a trail known locally as the East Cohassett trail. It begins by the famous Silver Suspension Bridge, and follows the eastern rim of Lake Cohassett all the way to Pioneer Pavilion. About 100 feet above the trail is an all-purpose trail, a seasonal paved trail that is only accessible to hikers and biking enthusiasts. It used to be a road at one point, but closed down due to frequent landslides. Kino and I were about a mile in on the trail when he darted off and up the side of the ravine. He was following an old staircase that hasn't been really used in years. It's one of the many unkempt trails in the park...there are dozens.

Up he ran and then down into the gorge. I bounded up trail after him, skipping every other step along the way. As I reached the top, I saw what he was following, a spry young doe that had absolutely no intention of letting him get an inch closer than he was already. She bounded around another corner of the ravine, where Kino followed, as did I...sliding down the loose shale walls of the gorge, across the stream at the bottom, and into a side gulley where I last saw Kino turn. By this time he was trotting back to me, well aware that the doe was well out of his range. That's when I saw it, the hidden bridge, just...sitting there, exactly as it was 20 years ago. I had a different perspective on it now, being underneath it as opposed to driving well above it, but...I immediately knew it was the bridge that I had seen during that afternoon drive in the park, just by the way it was nestled in between the hills, by it's dilapidated state, and by the very stone it was molded from.

Without wasting any time, I was gripping my way up the side of the ravine, away from the trail and towards the edge of the bridge. The soil was loose and muddy, the effect of a day's worth of rain and sleet. After some effort, I made it to the edge and finally got to take a good look at the bridge that I had been casually searching for since I had been allowed to explore the park on my own. There are many footbridges just like this in the park, but most are still in fairly good condition, and actually connect two paths, or two sides of the ravine as a footbridge is supposed to do. This one...well, it was different. The distinct difference that I remember from my first sighting of it was that it seemed to lead to nowhere. I wasn't sure if that's just the way I perceived it to be, but now I know that it was true. This bridge lies smack in the middle of a ravine, halfway down into the gorge, with all traces of a trail on each end being completely absent. Its rails were rusted and half hanging off the side, a "no tresspassing" sign attached to the southern end. I climbed up the rest of the side of the ravine to see where I had seen the bridge from before and upon reaching the top, immediately realized why I hadn't found it before now. The road I was standing on was the All-purpose trail, the very trail that had been re-paved and re-routed after a series of landslides back in the late-80's. I had always been looking for an existing, functioning road, not one that had been closed to traffic for the past 20-some years. On top of that, since the trail had been re-routed, you're not able to see the bridge from the paved trail, but you can see where the road used to wind, and on that one missing curve is a direct view into the gorge, and of the hidden bridge itself.

I know, I know, big deal. I found a bridge. Let's have a parade over it and move on. I get it. But this was a really cool experience for me today. That one sight from the car so many years ago had stimulated years of imagination within me. I'm not sure why...maybe because it was so surreal...like it didn't belong in our time, in our world. I can't help it. It was fascinating. And what's even better? It exists. I didn't dream it up. I didn't piece together random memories to create something that wasn't actually there. I looked for it for a long time, years even. And at the single point in time where I wasn't looking for it at all, there it was. Funny how those kinds of things work.

Missing Homecoming

Each year I run into a problem. No matter how much I prepare for it, there's always some issue or conflict that comes up keeping me from the one thing I look forward to between October and October of the following year: Homecoming at UC.

Since I've graduated, I've been able to attend one. Yes, one. I graduated six years ago, and as far as I'm concerned, that's an unacceptable ratio. This year, I'm attending the wedding of my old next-door neighbor, Scott. He's a few years younger than me, but we pretty much grew up together since before kindergarten (for me). It'll be a reunion of sorts, because everyone from the old neighborhood is supposed to be going, and I'll get a chance to see his brother for the last time in God knows how many more years, but there'll be that nagging thought in the back of my head. ...Homecoming.

Let me give you a quick background on my relationship with Homecoming. Yes, it is a relationship and at this point, if Homecoming was a beautiful woman, I'd be out on my ass by now. Actually, I would've been out on my ass four years ago and would now be demoted to the sad, pathetic crooner who wants what he simply can't have.

When I was in college, Homecoming was the biggest, most exciting day of the year. Every fall season I helped work on constructing the float and most times ran the simple machinery behind the scenes during the parade. Friends whom you haven't seen all year come out to partake in the festivities, as do people who normally wouldn't attend a campus function at all. We drink, we laugh, we have Kegs & Eggs, we catch up, we watch UC get smacked in football by some half-bit team and we go out and drink some more. It's a big kumbaya, and I look forward to it every year. ...and every year my schedule says, "NO! No, Homecoming for you this year! It's not allowed." So let me retrace the past six years to illustrate further my bad luck with attempting to make it to Homecoming...an event only three short hours away from where I live now.

2002: Down in Cincinnati for a huge freelance project, staying at my (now ex-) girlfriend's house just off of campus. Was able to attend the first hour of the parade when *BAM* I get a call from work that one of the servers crashed, the one with all my work, and what wasn't lost was corrupted. I had to leave the parade and work the rest of the weekend on redoing EVERYTHING that I had done in the week before the crash so as to make the Monday deadline. So long Homecoming 2002.

2003: Living in Cleveland. Had plans to leave on Friday and spend the entire weekend with friends and the celebration of life. Was told on Thursday by my boss that he scheduled us to fly to Memphis to take pictures of a car accident. I told him that I had plans to go out of town, that it was on the office calendar. He said that he didn't care. I tried to plea bargain. It didn't work. I spent the most miserable weekend of my working career watching him take pictures of a car accident in Memphis.

2004: The date of Homecoming was switched from mid-October to mid-November, the week before Thanksgiving. Due to family conflictions that entire week, the last minute re-schedule ruined the day for many people. Frustrations ensue.

2005: UC didn't feel the need to release the date of Homecoming until mid-September for whatever odd reason. It happened to fall on the one day that my Cleveland friends and I were planning a white water rafting trip in West Virginia...the one weekend I had a conflict in the entire month of October, which was actually at the beginning of the month, earlier than UC had ever held Homecoming throughout the entire time I've been affliated with the University.

2006: In California for one of my best friend's weddings. For the record, that one was worth missing.

2007: Able to attend for the first time since graduation and I got to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in over five years. Yay.

2008: UC's calendar stated that Homecoming was actually scheduled for Monday, Columbus Day. I flipped, questioning why they would actually do that. Turns out their calendars were wrong. My mom overheard me complaining about this and told some distant relatives that I could attend their wedding. When I found out that Homecoming actually was on Saturday, it was too late. The RSVP was already sent in. Once again, I have to wait until next year to see what kind of creative slap from kharma keeps me from heading down to Cincinnati once again.

And now, because of the time I took to type this, I'm running late for the wedding. Brilliant.

Hollywood Comes to Cleveland

So it started with Spiderman 3 as the first high-profile film to use Cleveland's streets and available warehouses as studio space. Now, it looks as though Cleveland will once again be used for the production of one of the more fascinating legends to ever have taken place here: The Torso Killer.

In 1934, the first of a multitude of decimated bodies started showing up in what is now the flats of Cleveland, an area known by that time as Kingsbury Run. Just around that time, Eliot Ness, organizer of the legendary Untouchables, came into Cleveland as the new safety director. As he was unable to solve the mystery of the serial killings, his career plummeted, and he left Cleveland in shame. The murders were thought to continue over the next 20 years, only not in Cleveland, but over 70 miles away towards the swamps lining the Pennsylvania border.

In a few short months, as it's currently planned, David Fincher and Matt Damon are supposedly arriving into town to start filming the movie Torso, based off the graphic novel of the same name, which was partially based on the events of the serial killings in the 30's. Damon will portray Ness, which i'm interested to see as the two have absolutely no likeness of one another.

This will hopefully lead to more productions coming into the city over the next few years. Cleveland's landscape, although industrially rustic and worndown, would be fascinating to film. There's a lot of forgotten history here and what better way to start displaying that, than to start with one of the areas' most intriguing legends.

The New Idea

So it's been awhile, and I've been lazy. Go figure. Between a broken shoulder and two bouts of pneumonia, I probably should've had enough time to write, but I didn't, and I'm the first one to accept blame. The whole idea of starting up the Conti Contemplative was to get back into the writing fix, something I've long abandoned for way too many years.

But today, something came to me. I was fiddling around on devientART.com and came across an image that sparked my imagination, leading me to a new idea for narrative. It was of three children, very gothic in appearence, as if they'd come straight from the seed of Billy Joe Armstrong. They were standing in a tree and each had a peculiarity to them...the small girl had a ragged teddy bear that seemed itself to be alive. Little Billy Joe had an arrow going through his head, Steve Martin style. And the older girl had a very long heart-shaped yo-yo that hung straight down from the branch she was resting against.

The illustration was very dark in tone, with moss green undertones amidst the foggy background. It was eerie, but it was fascinating. And that's when my idea came to me.

So, I've been trying to come up with an idea for a comic. Not so much a super-hero kind of comic, though that would be fairly cool, but a very intimate graphic novel comic, pieced together in strips, or vignettes. There are a few things that inspire me towards this...Calvin & Hobbes for one. I was addicted to that comic as a child, and that's had a heavy influence on not only my illustration style, but my sense of humor as well. Another source of inspiration for me is King's Quest, an 80's-era action-adventure series that I couldn't pull myself away from. I spent hours, if not days behind the computer as a child playing these games. Even looking at them now, brings me back to childhood.

So what's the idea? Expect in the upcoming week or two a few short stories with some possible accompanying illustrations. I want to try and develop the idea before I bring it too far, but I need to start somewhere and I figure this'll be a fun way to do it. It won't be long before you meet Kinook the Traveler, and his friend Jack. Hopefully they'll have some great adventures in store for you in the times to come.

The Superbowl TV Spots

I haven’t spoken to one person within the last 12 hours that has said that this year’s Superbowl spots were interesting. In fact, I’d go so far to say that for the first time in recent memory, I actually enjoyed the actual game more than the highly anticipated commercials that annually fill the void in between plays. Although there were a few highlights, it was painfully obvious that the FCC’s growing strangle-hold on our 1st amendment has produced a somewhat more cautious and tame approach to Super Bowl advertising. While they’re at it, why don’t they yank away our 5th, 6th, 7th amendments as well, or maybe even the repealment of amendment 18. That’d be awesome.

Regardless, the strong-armed tactics forcing media into working within the constraints that have been established since the infamous “wardrobe malfunction,” shouldn’t have hindered the advertising agencies from coming up with something that could be catching, witty, and follow a coherent narrative. Instead, we get a Bud Light Fire-Breather, a Budweiser Clydesdale ripping off a Rocky montage (a poor continuation of the Donkey-who-becomes-a-Budweiser-Clydesdale storyline) and Carlos Mencia trying to convince us that he’s should be giving out pick-up advice. I don’t want to even get into the CareerBuilder commercials that were, suffice to say, plain creepy. Bud Light was particularly disappointing, especially due to their high record of winning commercials during the game. A guy who hides a six-pack of Bud Light in a block of cheese so that his wife won’t know he’s drinking in the other room? C’mon…

The 2008 Super Bowl Spots – Advertising Age
The 2008 Super Bowl Spots – MySpace.com

I will admit there were a few good ones out there that made me laugh a bit, but nothing that I thought was Super Bowl quality. Specifically, the FedEx Carrier Pigeon commercial and the Bridgestone commercial with the screaming squirrel were favorites of mine, as were the Cars.com spots and the Doritos ad with the giant mouse. I also enjoyed the new take on the consistent heart-warming campaign that Coca-Cola tends to follow, with Stewie and Underdog the balloons, battling it out for a giant inflatable Coca-Cola bottle amidst the skyscrapers of New York, only to have it lost to none other than Charlie Brown. Honestly, I would love to see this continue in a battle of wits between the three iconic characters, whether they stay in balloon form or not.

However, I’m not going to lie to you. My most anticipated spots among the game were mainly saved for the first half…the movie trailers. As a movie junkie, and more specifically a comic-book movie junkie, finally seeing new footage of the recently released Iron Man movie got the blood moving again. The imagery from the film seems to be everything that a fan of the comic could ask for, along with the inspired casting of Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Tony Stark and Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, aka Iron Monger. The new Wall-E spot only further convinced me that Pixar is near perfect when it comes to character animation, and the Prince Caspian trailer was nothing more than a new edit of old footage, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Basically what it comes down to is that when Super Bowl time rolls around again next year, and the first spot airs, I’m not going to wonder if they’re going to outshine this year’s ads, but instead pray that they’re simply less forgettable, and that maybe next time that Audi will actually hit Richard Simmons instead of turning to avoid him.

Will Ferrell is my Hero

1.) That male anchor had no idea who Will Ferrell was, and he was a stale, condescending fuck. I'd shove my dick in his face too. Learn to laugh, asshole.
2.) "Roy" Burgendy? Seriously? Fuck.
3.) Had anyone else done this, they would've been immediately committed. I worship this man.

The MacBook Air: Thinnovation

.76 inches thick of pure bliss. Released by Apple just a few short weeks back, the MacBook Air is the world’s thinnest notebook. So thin, in fact, that you can only connect it to the internet via wireless as its frame is too thin to accommodate an Ethernet port. In fact, the only ports that it does contain are a headphone jack, a usb 2.3, and a micro-dvi, all three of which are located on a fold-down hatch near the right side of the unit. A separate power port can be found along the bottom left.

I haven’t used it yet, but aesthetically, it’s gorgeous. Then again, are we surprised? Apple has built its reputation on releasing dependable, yet visually-pleasing products that we in the design, advertising, and film industry practically drool over. Have you seen their headphones? For Christ’s sake, even they’re freaking beautiful. Each day that Steve Jobs walks out on stage with that “I have a surprise for you” look on his face, we treat it like a holiday. 2007 gave us the iPod Touch, and the iPhone, and even Apple TV which may not have amounted to the success that it was anticipated to have, but still proved to be a pretty kick-ass product. Now, less than a month into 2008, we’re introduced to the MacBook Air, as it was slyly removed from an office-standard manilla envelope.

So what’s missing? Not much. Aside from the fact that it depends solely on a wireless network, the Air still contains everything you would expect from a MacBook product. The screen is a bit smaller the the MacBook or MacBook Pro options, but at 3.0 pounds and 13.3 inches with a 1280x800 resolution, it’s still impressive for its size and weight. It has a full-size keyboard, and a large multi-touch trackpad, with the addition of backlit key illumination, allowing for easy work in low-light settings.

Then there’s the balls of this machine. The elements within it that basically say, “fuck you, man. I may be little but I can still kick your ass.” Somehow, Apple’s engineers treated us to 2GB of RAM, an 80GB harddrive that I swear must retain the technology we have seen since Inner Space, and the choice between a 1.6 or 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo processor, custom built to fit within the compact dimensions of the Air. A built in iSight camera and 5 full hours of wireless battery life are bad perks either.

Will I get it? Probably not. I have a MacBook Pro that I use through work and my own MacPro tower at home that keeps me company in the long wee hours of the night. So, I’m good right now, but to students who are constantly racing around campus and high schools, or writers and casual users that want to introduce themselves to the wonderful, wonderful world of Mac, this is perfect. My only concern is that although they say it’s “ultrathin, ultraportable, and ultra unlike anything else you’ve ever seen,” they don’t say it’s ultradurable. So, knowing me I’d set it somewhere where I’d end up sitting on it and breaking the tiny thing in half. Then again, maybe that’s what that big fat glowing apple on the lid is for.

The Dark Knight Viral Campaign Continues?

For those that have followed the viral marketing campaign for this summer’s upcoming blockbuster, “The Dark Knight” may have some serious doubts about it’s future. Between the months of July through December of last year (with a short hiatus in September) fans of the film were introduced to an underground recruiting crusade led by the Joker (played respectively by the late Heath Ledger). It all started with a countdown to Comic-Con, the famous California convention that hosted geeks and nerds world-wide, where “recruits” were led around the city in an online/real-world scavenger hunt in which the payoff turned out to be the first teaser trailer. It was just the beginning, but it left those participating waiting for more.

Soon after came the pumpkin, which day-by-day gradually started to resemble the famous cover from “The Long Halloween,” a graphic novel from which Christopher Nolan has stated The Dark Knight draws the majority of its inspiration from. Soon after, cities around the globe found themselves surrounded by people in joker makeup in front of various landmarks, the outcome of the November challenge, which revealed The Gotham Times, a newspaper that brought the campaign to an entirely new level and opened up the fan-base to a larger-than-life-scope ARG (alternate reality gaming) world. Fans were exposed to a variety of sites, from The Gotham Police Department to a memoir page dedicated to a girl caught in mafia cross-fire. Each site (over two dozen in total) contained clues and hints on how to get to the next level of the game, a progression of puzzles and riddles contained on the Why So Serious? site. The final step of the game required participants to race against each other to track down an assortment of bakeries in cities across the U.S. Once there, they would acquire a cake under the name “Robin Banks”, a cake inside of which held a plastic bag containing a joker card, a list of instructions, and a cell phone with a charger. The cell phone contained messages requesting that it be kept at the finder’s side 24/7, to await further instructions. Once all the cell phones were activated via voicemail, the site revealed the new teaser poster, tickets to the 7-minute prologue sequence shown in IMAX theaters before I Am Legend and the very first theatrical trailer for The Dark Knight.

That was the middle of December. Aside from a text message notifying the carriers of the phone that the lease was being extended through January, fans haven’t heard a word. And then, last week, Heath Ledger tragically passed away in his NYC apartment.

So where does this leave the marketing campaign? Unfortunately, the Joker’s game may be over. And understandably so. For one, the trades report that there’s been a shakeup of sorts in the Warner Bros. advertising division that’s been leading the campaign so far. The Creative Department has undergone a major restructuring and most of the team responsible for the creation of this campaign are no longer active in its continuance. Also, it’s a touchy decision to maintain the project directly on the heels of the death of the actor whose character is driving the entire campaign. Could it move forward effectively without exploiting his loss? Or could The Dark Knight marketing drive pay homage and respect to an actor that poured his entire being into this character. I believe it to lean somewhat closer to the latter, under the notion that the fans out there truly respected Heath and his devotion to the film and the performance, driving them to become even more dedicated to the campaign and the film that will stand as Heath Ledger’s final completed work.

And so it seems, the campaign will drive on, as just as recently as last night, I received word from a recent friend whom acquired the Cleveland phone that text messages have sprung up again, renewing the phone’s contract through the end of March. Whether the focus of the campaign is to sway more towards the Gotham corruption and Harvey Dent character has yet to be determined, but in all respect, “the show must go on.” For whatever reason, I have a feeling that Heath may have agreed.

Getting Started Again

So here we are again. I would say it's been about two and a half years since the last time I updated this thing...hopefully I won't wait that long again. Actually, I'm planning on getting this thing started as a regular activity as I've found it important lately to record my thoughts and opinions on the events and people that surround me. I don't want to be so egotistical to think that you or anyone else would feel it necessary to hang on my every word, but at the same time, I don't see how a little personal insight could cause any harm.

That said, here's what I have planned. Being involved in a creative industry, I see the importance of voicing an opinion on the evolution of that world on a daily basis. We've crossed this threshold of communication and we're watching the world change before our eyes, and at an alarming rate. It's overwhelming, exciting and absolutely insane all at once, and we're seeing it everywhere. In advertising, in film, in music and within our own homes. I love it.

I developed the bjc creative outside of this blog as a mode of thought, a process, and so much of the unexplained that we, the imaginative, depend on. Here it exists as 'the conti contemplative,' an extension of that philosophy which approaches that world in a certain state of mind. Enjoy.