Words can't explain

Holy fuckin' shit! I can't find the words to thank everyone who has offered to help or simply sent helpful and kind words of encouragement. I promise I will reply to every single email, but as you can imagine my plate is full at the moment.

Many people have asked what they could do to help. Well first off, get yourself some insurance. We feel awful that we have become a burden to our friends and family in helping us get back on our feet. There's no excuse.

If you are still interested in helping after reading that and you live in Atlanta read on. Fellow filmmaker Dan Bush of Psychopia Films has gotten the forces together and organized a benefit for Hoa Mi and I this Saturday. Details on the attached e-flyer. May folks have offered to send clothes and housewares. Unfortunately, it is not practical to send things through the mail, because we get charged duty for things coming across the border and right now we are counting every penny.

On the Canadian side of things, the neighborhood were we lived has organized yard sales and collected clothes, appliances, furniture etc. for the 24 or so affected people. ATLiens Justin and Osha Roller have taken us in and treated us to some amazing southern hospitality. Our new found friends set up a website and have collected goodies for us. Strangers have looked for apartments for us. If I had lost any hope in humanity, let me tell ya, I got it back tenfold.

To wrap this up, I am so lucky to have married Hoa Mi. This experience doesn't feel that bad knowing that there's somebody that has my back 24/7. On Sunday we will celebrate our first anniversary, and toast to all of the kind people that we know and don't know, to life and to a new beginning.

Thank's Y'all

love//the_stimulator

A visit from Tyler Durden

It was about 3 a.m. Hoa Mi whispers, "what the fuck is that?" as we were both awakened by what sounded like a hailstorm. From our bed we could see a bright orange glow coming from outside our window. I get up and look out and sure enough 'The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is on Fire!' Hoa Mi and I go for our robes. Hoa my tells me to call 911 and then says 'But is it 911 in Canada?!?! What is 911 in Canada?!?' Hoa Mi runs outside, and I run to my office to make the call. Phone's dead. I grab my camera and hastily unplug everything that's hooked up to my computer. Once I close my laptop and realize one cable is sandwiched between the screen and the keyboard. I panicked and almost rip it off and then as calmly as I can, open the laptop back up and remove the offending wire. The 'CRASH!' My office window explodes and the smoke alarm starts to yell. That's when I decide to get the fuck out of dodge.

I knock on my downstairs neighbor's doors and Shelley is already outside. I knock on the basement neighbor's window and he comes out. We run across the street and the entire house is now ablaze. The houses to the left and right have already caught on fire. I go to my neighbor Lena's door and bang on it. She's already outside. I see Rachel, the neighbor behind our house and she says, 'Oh my God you guys, this is terrible, you can totally stay with us' She looks back and the fire had spread to her house.

All in all 4 houses were burned. All that's left from our house is a pile of burned wood. Just notice the empty space to the right of the picture. I can say without a doubt that we are lucky to be alive. Five more minutes inside and we would have been toast. Needless to say we lost everything except for my camera, my laptop and the robes we wore that morning.

But don't fear, my work with subMedia will continue. This little media hub will be rebuilt and the next issue of 'Molotov' will be out by the end of the year. I am looking for copies of my films that my be circulating around the Atlanta indy film community, preferably in DV format.

With that said, I leave you with my latest piece. I luckily uploaded my it before the drive it resided in burned down. I will link to it from subMediatv.com later this week. For now go to - this link - I encoded this with quicktime 7 so you will need it in order to view the clip - Quicktime 7 Download. People with windows machines will have to use the preview version of Quicktime 7.


love//the_stimulator