{"id":1502,"date":"2016-03-21T19:29:24","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T19:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2016-03-21T19:29:24","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T19:29:24","slug":"been-takin-a-look-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/?p=1502","title":{"rendered":"Been Takin&#8217; A Look Back&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Tony Soprano said it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XhTuYKR-ejo\" target=\"_blank\">best<\/a>: &#8220;Remember When is the lowest form of conversation.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Now as much as I agree with T, I still can&#8217;t help but reflect on my 45 years of life thus far&#8230;mainly because I am now focusing hardcore on an\u00a0autobiographical graphic novel-type project I&#8217;ve been starting and stopping for years. I don&#8217;t have a title for it yet&#8230;but just know that I&#8217;m having a pretty good time putting it\u00a0together as of this writing. It&#8217;s finally found it&#8217;s groove. It&#8217;s structure. It&#8217;s point. It&#8217;s purpose. Of course, knowing me, that all could flip over tomorrow and I&#8217;ll be cursing my lack of motivation and abilities again.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I dunno. Maybe it&#8217;s a &#8220;middle-age&#8221; thing, this looking back nonsense. I mean, my future certainly feels VERY uncertain. That&#8217;s not\u00a0necessarily\u00a0a bad thing. But it can be a little daunting. Unlike my wife and friends who basically have\u00a0guaranteed work for the rest of their days&#8230;my employment can be a little&#8230;spotty?\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Spurt-y! Let&#8217;s say spurt-y. That&#8217;s more fun. And it would just be so rewarding to have a new Max Koch &#8220;product&#8221; out there. Something tangible you could hold in your hands to pair with\u00a0your vino. Not since the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gramps-Beneath-Surface-Max-Koch\/dp\/B001R23G6A\" target=\"_blank\">Gramps: Beneath the Surface DVD<\/a>\u00a0have I had anything to offer on, say, Amazon. I&#8217;ve been told to start a line of t-shirts or greeting cards, but&#8230;that just doesn&#8217;t grab me like a book or video does.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Which is why it&#8217;s so important that I take FULL advantage of these down times as an opportunity to create. I also got hooked up with some seriously nifty software my friend <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Nsaiqlh9dwA\" target=\"_blank\">Steve Epstein<\/a> sent me called <a href=\"https:\/\/handbrake.fr\" target=\"_blank\">Handbrake<\/a>, which essentially allows me to rip old footage I had earlier transferred to DVD from VHS into new video files I can edit into iMovie and post online. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>So, for starters, I have been uploading clips to my main <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/BowlerHat\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube channel<\/a> from a solo show I wrote and\u00a0performed\u00a0back in 2000 called <em>The\u00a0Uncompromising Pain Continues: A One-Man Agony-fest with Cartoons. <\/em>The clips are\u00a0accompanied by new introductions to the stuff I&#8217;ve\u00a0recorded, explaining the context of it. My half-baked premise with these has been that I have an actual wine cellar, and behind one\u00a0particular rack of bottles, I found a box containing a bunch of old tapes&#8230;footage I had long forgotten the existence of. Something like that. Look, it&#8217;s really\u00a0just a goofy excuse to scatter some golden\u00a0nuggets from my past out there. I hope you go and check them out!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1545\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/title-card.jpg?resize=581%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"title card\" width=\"581\" height=\"780\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/title-card.jpg?w=581&amp;ssl=1 581w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/title-card.jpg?resize=112%2C150&amp;ssl=1 112w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/title-card.jpg?resize=223%2C300&amp;ssl=1 223w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 581px) 100vw, 581px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>You will definitely be hearing more from me on this blog as I&#8217;m spending more time than ever at my desk these days. I&#8217;m also re-doing my\u00a0workspace (AGAIN) so I&#8217;ll <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">like<\/span> spending more time in here. Why, just this weekend, I unloaded an Ethan Allen hutch I&#8217;ve been keeping since I was born. It just wasn&#8217;t me anymore, man.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>So there ya have it. For right now, once again, creating alone is my\u00a0full-time job. Listen, it beats the crap out of <em>drinking<\/em> alone&#8230;sitting on the couch watching horror movies, feeling sorry for myself. I&#8217;m sorta sick of that pattern, I think. I&#8217;d rather earn that kind of reward.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s funny. My life has\u00a0sort of ALWAYS been a one-man show. I just hope to keep my\u00a0audience coming back for more. \ud83d\ude42<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>WINE PAIRING: The filmmaker\u00a0David Lynch once said, &#8220;Ideas are the best things going.&#8221; He also wrote a fantastic book called <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Catching-Big-Fish-Meditation-Consciousness\/dp\/1585426121\" target=\"_blank\">Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>which I recently re-read in\u00a0preparation for this graphic novel project of mine. So I think you should\u00a0definitely\u00a0reflect on YOUR life with a glass of 2013 Mystique\/Big Fish Zinfandel from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rabbitridgewinery.com\" target=\"_blank\">Rabbit Ridge Winery and Vineyards<\/a> in Paso Robles. Who knows. YOU might even get inspired to create something&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1608\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/BigFish.jpg?resize=846%2C635&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"BigFish\" width=\"846\" height=\"635\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/BigFish.jpg?w=3264&amp;ssl=1 3264w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/BigFish.jpg?resize=150%2C113&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/BigFish.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/BigFish.jpg?resize=768%2C576&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/BigFish.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/BigFish.jpg?w=1692&amp;ssl=1 1692w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxkochuncorked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/BigFish.jpg?w=2538&amp;ssl=1 2538w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 846px) 100vw, 846px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tony Soprano said it best: &ldquo;Remember When is the lowest form of conversation.&rdquo; Now as much as I agree with T, I still can&rsquo;t help but reflect on my 45 years of life thus far&hellip;mainly because I am now focusing hardcore on an&nbsp;autobiographical graphic novel-type project I&rsquo;ve been starting and stopping for years. I don&rsquo;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[445,449,448,444,443,446,450,447,314],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amazon","tag-big-fish-zinfandel-2013","tag-david-lynch","tag-graphic-novel","tag-handbrake","tag-middle-age","tag-mystique","tag-reflection","tag-youtube"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4VgPA-oe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":108,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1612,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}