I haven’t touched the sound for WGC in over a month.....The Alley wins for now, hopefully after the next two big collabs at the Alley I will be able to return to WGC

Yeah? Patching in the sound. This is taking some time. How my dumb-ass living wage job helps inspire me.....

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Ahhhhhhhhh, working at the Secret Alley...Awesome but taking so much time out of doing sound....



Cody’s gotta go bad.......

The Secret Alley has taken over all of my time to finish post.....however I will not quit.

Santa Cruz was once a very different world, of relatively cheap living and mellow lifestyles, retirees, college students, hippies, surfers, drug addicts. Then the hippies became yuppies, the college students dot comers, the drug addicts, retirees died. The surfers are still surfing. Silicon Valley and Los Angeles money seeped in boosting property values, and expanding the simple town. This is growth, the way towns become cities........ The way the metropolitan monster walks faster through the lands as population grows. Santa Cruz has continued to morph through out the years.
Still though, there is a strange resin I think that will never leave, bless their little hearts.

Miss Ai Kuwayama Von Joo, my brothers better half, did the voice for the squirrel. She also did the translation of my nonsense english slang dialogue to Japanese.






I did the recording for Bob Listman (voice for Bill the Fetus) in his small office/studio. Between takes we caught up, smoked cigarettes, talked about what was going on in our crazy lives, girls, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, fetuses, motivation for fetuses, and playing in a blues band.

Bob was a pro....Being a disc jockey for years and doing voice overs for other various projects.







The last night before I left back to San Francisco we had a burrito feast. The Burritos came from an old taqueria in Santa Cruz called El Paisano Tamales. The burritos here are damn fine, this coming from a guy who lives off burritos in San Francisco’s Mission District, the seasoning they use is all around is amazing. If you ever get a chance you should check this place out. It’s right across from the Boardwalk, if I remember right it’s operating days coincide with the Boardwalks, so much of the year it is closed, but if you time your visit just right, you may enjoy one of the greatest burritos I’ve ever had.

After a good night sleep I awoke in Santa Cruz, made a list checked it twice.




Sarah and Jacob, had recently commissioned Jesse and Ken to build a sound proof room in their garage. I called them and asked them if I could use their rooms for a few days. Being the super awesome cool people that they are, they said of course I could use their space, they were very accommodating.




Due to technical difficulties, sometimes the signal wasn’t making it’s way through Final Cut’s Voice over tool which was only solved by restarting the program. Which left the first recording session with Mr. Ross at a whopping 45 minutes..... This was going to be trickier than I originally suspected.
The problem was I believe a common short in the mixer, Joel had warned me of this.




Trying to manage schedules with Mike was a doozy, it just so happend to be his Birthday weekend, also the same week he became employed for the first time since he moved back to Santa Cruz, as well as recently falling in love in a dedicated relationship, and adopting a cute as hell puppy.
His schedule was not flexiable to say the least. So I got a few other voice overs out of the way, fetus chatter and zombie moans and groans. Did some solo foley work.




While in Santa Cruz my good friend and brother Lucius had collected some giant objects which included a giant Foster’s Freeze sign and a humungous heavy shipping scale.




Above is Mr. Morgan Boyd recording voice for the fetus chatter then a little zombie moaning and groaning.
During the down time I ended up soaking up the time playing a little croquet, and catching some sun.

Hung over and readjusting after a late night drive back and forth from Sac to Grassvalley back to Sac. My head ache decided to subside, the road beckoned.


said my farewells to Sacramento, hopped into the Subaru and headed back to San Francisco to drop off the captured audio. Making sure that multiple copies of the media exist. It sucks when you loose shit...I’ve learned this the hard way, a few times.


Back on Highway 80, I got bored of driving with the herd so I veered off and got lost on the back roads. Pulled over in the middle of nowhere and played guitar for an hour or so. Kinda just took in the breath of the sights, relax,


Coming through Berkley, on an over pass was a giant upside down American flag alongside was a banner that advocated for the freedom of a certain someone that I couldn’t completely catch. It made me feel at home, especially after being in Sac and Grassvalley where patriotism, and American pride is high. Sometimes I think being a citizen of this country comes with a load of guilt, knowing that you were born into a civilization that plans to span and grow with out limits, like a corporation, always thinking of the benefits for itself.....Knowing that there is a side of the coin that is set on the adjusting morals of our ways, and fine tuning the evil of an empire, remembering that humans are humans, and that is a good thing to remember.



Ahh San Francisco, you will always be my mistress, though through life I’m sure i will have many affairs with many other metropolitans, you will always be my firstest.




Back in the city I saw that the police had set up camp on Mission street. There was a new police cheif being sworn in the next couple weeks who was suppose to clean up the system, on top of being an election year coming up and the mayor Mr. Newsom runing for governor puts SF under the microscope, and all combined with the record of no homicides in the Mission District to date this year(that may have changed in the recent dog days of summer)Had the cops on full alert.





Around dark I departed for Santa Cruz. As I love doing I drove down Highway one. Which is one of the most beautiful drives night or day. The fresh ocean air, the sound of waves crashing. the lighthouse, the memories, the light traffic (at night). Before I hit “Devil’s Slide” I decided to go by the house in which I originally wrote the sum of the movie script that had consumed my life in the recent years.




A small little cottage on Freemont street where my aunts, granparents, and father had resided for much of their lives. I had the privilege and curse which had led me to take up residence here for about four or five months. At which time i worked at a movie theater during the afternoon, worked on the house at night and in the morning, painting, sheet rocking, cleaning the lifes collection of things my relatives deemed not worth keeping on to. This was the nightmare that provoked me to write the story in which a man with a clinical mental illness finds himself in a house that he inherited from his recently deceased mother. Already a prisoner of the house the man due to his illness the man now finds himself a complete prisoner during the rise of the living dead, which he has prepared himself for. Creature comforts, living on the roof of his house with talking road kill, still taking his meds, he is enveloped into a world that no longer has use for the current being of humans, and the rest of the story is not to be told at this time. I got into Santa Cruz late. My brother and his better half (Ai) were watching cable as late night tends towards in the suburban Santa Cruz. Hello and Goodnight, and we’d all see each other in the morning.

So you don’t always get an early start exactly, but you get it pretty close enough.
Now it was time to take off to Sacramento, where we’d set up the first recording session with Mike of the Bananas. I’d casted him years earlier, and I believe he thought I forgot about him, or just gave up on the movie...this however was not the case and I’d have beer and pizza to prove my point.. We picked up Jesse (Set builder foreman in Sac) near the Arden Mall, where he’d just gone on a shopping spree. Stopping for a stint at the capitol of California for this sweet photo opportunity.
...
So arriving at Giles recording palace, behind infamous Dad’s Sandwhich shop in sacramento, Joel unpacked the gear as I commented and took pictures, gabbing on about beer and pizza, I’m good at that.

We set up. Mr. Ken Medenhal (built shooting platforms for roof scenes in Santa Cruz) showed up, then Matt Maxwell. I got both Joel, Ken, Jesse, Keith, Matt Maxwell doing voices for the fetuses and zombies. Keith busted a six minute groan session, Ken and Joel did an eight minute moan and groan collaboration. Then the man arrived Frank er Mike R Mike(aka Mike). Like a jock on a date rape, he walked in like a pro, though he claimed to have never done it before,.


It took two days to get all of Frank’s dialogue, turned out pretty sweet. Between the two nights, on an overnight stay in Grassvalley, I decided to explore the late night world which was dead, spooky, mountainy. I drove into the middle of the woods and set up a few mics and sat there in the dark capturing ambient wilderness sound. In the dark, the silence, an occasional dog bark. Being in the middle of the woods and having a car repeatedly pass you is a creepy thing. This happend and finally it pulled up to me.
“you alright?” an old man peaked his head out of a minivan.
“Yeah, I’m good. Just recording some of the wilderness sound.”
“Alright then. Have a good night kid.”
I sat in the dark, on the side of the road, with mics on stands reaching out for the sound of the wild. Thinking of goblins, werewolves, spirits and creatures of the unsung night, which mutated back into the reality of crazy woods people, and what the hell was that guy doing out here at three thirty in the morning? Perhaps he was doing the same thing I was?

By the time I left Sacramento I had one of the first lead voices done and a sweet ass hang over. Sacramento will do that to you. I headed on my way back to SF then to Santa Cruz.

Grassvalley. Setting up the microphones, and laptop almost immediately as I got there, and Joel rummaging through various boxes looking for cords and trying to figure how we would rig the mics. For the most part we went from a RODE NT1-A Condensor mic (Courtesy of Mr. BP) to the mixer (Spirit Folio Notebad by Soundcraft), then into the Mac Power Book using the FCP software and the tool “voice over” recording at 48000 HZ. Away we went following what I’d made of a folley script/list, slicing through the list. Joel as the foley artist and I as the tech.


We went on recording late into the night, rattling pill bottles, cutting through air, lighting lighters, ruffling magazines. Then we hit the hay it was going to be an early morning(or a late one).

Good to go, finally out of San Francisco, traveling across interstate 80. Witnessing the familiar industrious sights. Passing the oil refineries, remembering my dad smoking a cigarette, and saying when the “big one” dropped he’d like to be right here, watching the madness go up in flames. I just always think about that whenever passing the refineries.


Driving along in that subaru, driving through day dreams of what was to be, blasting Los Straight jackets, and Joao Gilberto. As temperatures hit triple digits Mr Gilberto sang of a girl named Rosa Morena, and how everyone waits for the girl with the rose in her hair. Drifting into a town I’d moonlit with many of nights.



Stopping through for just a second, examining the sights, that I was most familiar with. Ahhhhhh, Sacramento, makes me wish I was sitting on a porch with an ice coffee spiked with whisky.
Drifting from freeway to freeway (though I was still on 80 till the 49).

Passing Newcastle on the way. Remembering the summer Keith and Jesse were subletting a huge house in Newcastle. Remembering the auditions with Mike Ross(For WGC), the late night swim sessions, late night shoots(Also WGC), late night billiards, early morning hangovers, at the house that can only be dubbed “El Casa de Porno”(for it’s decor that was almost in every 70’s porno flick). Equipt with multiple bathrooms, shag carpet, swimming pool (accessible from roof), intercom system, billiard table, fireplace/bar-b-Q, multiple ponds, wild turkeys, and a bushel of friends.

My mind sweetly reminisced of the “When Gravity Changes” shoots, the final scene.

On the 49 I chilled the speed at a cool 55 mph making the locals who drove the road like pros a little pissed at me, but hey, whatarya gunna do, drive faster and stupider? Rather drive slow and stupid, soaking up all I could from the sweet air of highway 49.

The signs were all around me when I got to
destined address where Hilary and Joel resided. I knew I’d reached the correct address. Turning off the car with a sigh from the engine and my chest, cutting off Joao in midst of such a mesmerizing tune. Grassvalley.

There’s something about the last hours of work before vacation. Something magical…..

ahhhh, that moment when you just plainly remember,,,,a shitty job is just that, and you don’t have to be back for a while




My horoscope read-
There’s a difference between a job and a career. The first promises a steady paycheck the second will give you purpose. Aim for the higher ground.-

Can’t say I care much for astrology, but hey, everyone needs a little bullshit.

It was a regular night in SF so I spent sometime warding off the evil work spirits walking/skating the streets of the Mission District..

(good luck watching this and not getting sick/bored)

Walking around sipping on whisky, thinking good thoughts. Watching the police do there thing.
Stopped by a hookah lounge, a small dank storefront on 22nd. I found my friends there doing “whip it’s” and smoking flavored herbs. The joint was run by a russian electronic techno hippie, playing with a novelty instrumental wooden frog. He seemed like a cool enough cat but the techno said it was time to go.
Thought I’d get an early start in the morning….didn’t go to sleep till about 5:30AM, woke up at 10:30AM. Checked out the Bike film fest festivities. They’d blocked off Capp Street between 17th and 16th.


















I said my farewell to sf and hit the road for Grassvalley/Sacto
next-”when I actually left SF”

Post continues....Like a dog that needs to be shot, we linger around in the world of post in it’s third year


Most recently the project went through a four month lull, when, three hard drives decided to burn out in one week.
The burn out was due to a power surge, switching to a new computer flopping files via Firewire.
I couldn’t find any back ups for over half of our special effect project files. “The post crew might kill me?”

Two were completely dead. Tried the freezer trick (on all three), paid a guy to replaced a logic board on the Maxtor.
I watched the guy replace the logic board on the failed Maxtor, he showed me how he was doing it. How easy it was, just five screws no wiring or soldering involved but, no luck. We were about ready to pick up the scraps form the old back-up files, and re-do over 90 motion tracking w/ masking shots. We were all a little sad, lost.
Then taking the last stab in the dark, the Seagate hard drive with physical burns on the logic board and hard drive. I ordered an identical hard drive through e-bay (30 bucks cheaper than buying a brand new logic board, but with a wee bit of a risk attached). Cleaned the melted junnk off the three connector prongs put the new logic board on the dead drive, threw it into a external case. Fuck yea presto. I was able to get most of the lost files back. Back to finishing up, and reconnecting.
Sound Recording is currently scheduled Late June early July. Some will be done in Grass Valley, Sacramento, and Santa Cruz.
We will be contacting the casted voices, and setting up recording sessions. Anyone interested drop an e-flail.