Creativity Source and My Weirdness

I get asked a lot about the source of my creativity. Where do you get blog ideas from? Where do you get photoshoot ideas from? How about these posts status updates on Facebook?

Well, I like to be me. Have you noticed how my ideas are all over the place? I blog technology today then blog about honesty after three hours. That’s just me! Not only do you have to practice to be good, you have to keep doing something to keep it good! If you’ve worked out before, you’d know that you could work out daily and have ripped abs, but once that practice stops and you don’t keep up, it’ll all be gone no matter how much work you put in before. No more ripped. That being said, I love doing the things I love to do. I do things that you might laugh at or call weird, but I have my own rituals that I do just because. I’ve realized that whenever I do these things my mind clears up and I can do any creative project I have in mind with no worries. I touch objects, I isolate my self in an empty room with absolutely no noise and a lot of emptiness, if none of these are available for me at that moment then I tend to photograph insects or do close-up photography (macro), and do what my mind has planned until it’s all over and I can walk slowly back to my old position and pull what I had to pull off. I recently learned about Conan O’Brien’s rituals that include isolating himself at any empty corner of a room and that’s how he gets his thoughts straight. Just a different thinker here =)

What does that have to do with you? Well, a lot. Life today for everyone is based on what the other does, not based on what you do. I’m the center of my world. Everything revolves around me in my world. Why? Because it’s my world. It’s not my best friends’ world, it’s not my parents’ world. It’s my world. You should be yourself. If anyone around you is what you want to be then you’ve already failed. Your goal will become BECOMING them. Then once you achieve being them, what are you gonna do? “They” already moved on to new things and are accomplishing “their” goals. I don’t like sounding harsh with reality that just kills hopes, but I am a realist, and that just says what this all is about.

When I do my ‘weird’ rituals, I see stories in my head and I start envisioning scenery which deals as the purpose of reminding me later-on about the story, and no other purpose at all.

If you’re out there looking for someone to teach you how to be creative, I’ll be the honest one and tell you that you will not make it that way. Work hard, gain your spot, then work more. Once it’s all added up, you’ll get to experience what yourself enjoys, not what others enjoy. People don’t become famous before they are creative. Some do, *cough* Kim Kardashian. But unless you’re down to be best friends with someone who puts out more sex tapes in a year than Converse produces shoes in a life time *cough* Paris Hilton, then making your own sex tape, you won’t get enough attention. That bar is set too high. Lol. Sad reality of today. Congressman Weiner. Anyways, be creative. Kim Kardashian is one of the smartest business women I’ve ever heard of, with what she did to get attention and then showed everyone what she could do when she’s famous is just good enough. Do I agree with her “marketing” way? No. Draw and play the instrument you want to master and do what you do best, if it sounds and seems like you won’t make it because your style is different than others and yours sucks, that’s the sign for you to keep doing it and being different! One of my work for galleries involved a door picture taken upside down, and everyone went crazy trying to figure out why was a window put so down low? Turned out it was a door picture taken upside down. I laughed at the idea at first, but after execution that became one hell of a feedback magnet.

Be more, do more.

Good night,

Apo Avedissian

Chivalry You Say? Ladies? Gentlemen?

First of all, if you’ve driven in LA, you’d know chivalry is dead. Well, welcome back to Apotize.com (See what a gentlemen I am? Uhm.)

I just wanted to talk about driving generally, and in Los Angeles specifically. People, fellow human beings, why is it so hard for you to let somebody in front of you, who has been signaling for at least 5 seconds ahead of their turn, go in peacefully?

Why do people have to cut you off on purpose? Well here’s how I deal with things. When I need to change my lane, I turn my signal on, and after about 5 seconds, I turn. (No people, turning the signal on WHILE changing a lane will not prevent an accident. Neither will it prevent a law suit coming at you.) Now, if the 5 seconds have no cars coming at me speeding, of course, that’s when I make my turn.

I realize what an asshole I am as well. Maybe just a kid. But you know what? I never do it to people unless they really piss me off. You know those drivers who drive right next to you all the time? Like they’re your bodyguards? I’d go faster, they automatically speed. I’d slow down, they’d just start braking out of no where! Only then, I might need a lane change, and if they’re still doing the same thing, they won’t have a happy ride, and I will make sure they notice it.

A while back, around 11:00 PM, as I was driving back home from a long photoshoot day, I noticed a car on my right side, driving at my speed; I slowed down so the car can stay up and we both have empty sides, but the car wouldn’t stop being next to me. I finally took a look out of my car (notice I have a full bass system with high volume on, distracts you from those crazy friends yelling at you from the car next to you) and I see a car full of young girls, about 15-16 years old, in revealing clothes, aka bras or off-shoulder-shit-crap, waiving at me. I turned and looked forward again and kept driving, trying to ignore the fact that we now not only have 15 year old annoying hookers in the neighborhood, but ones who control something that can go up to 120 mph. A fucking car.  I looked again after their car kept getting closer and closer to mine, and noticed one of them waiving a tiny dildo, laughing, and I believe, pissing her self from laughter. I figured she was drunk. Or was she? I remembered she looks like she’s barely 15. Well, as Dave Chappelle said it “How old is fifteen really?”. Let’s not get there now. Moms, check your daughters. That’s all I gotta say.

I looked forward and now thought “15-16 year olds, in a car that can kill somebody, playing with a dildo in the backseat, then hysterically laughing while half of her body and hands out of the window waiving at me with a dildo” I didn’t want to call the cops since the driver did nothing wrong, and wasn’t showing signs of danger, at least not yet. Right then the car swerved around a couple of times (nothing dramatic), and I’m not sure whether the reason was alcohol or just, teenage hormones causing these massive shifts, COUGH, but all I know is that’s when I made my turn, I parked at my house and made a phone call reporting the car.

If you were one of those girls, I’m sorry but I’ve lost not only one but many friends in accidents happening because of others being drunk or stupid on the road. You can waive your dildo around, but that shouldn’t come close to endangering a life. All of that sounds cheesy to teens until someone dies. Also, you’re probably still alive because of me. So, cheer up. Oh, and, mm, find a bigger dildo. Come on now.

Drive safe ;)

Good night,

Apo Avedissian