lishamatish asked:
Your "About" page is written in the third person... does this mean that people writing about themselves in the third person doesn't make you physically sick? Or did you have a friend write it for you?
Generally, I do hate third-person because it sounds pompous, but in this case it has become a necessary evil. In the past year or so, I’ve had to give a bunch of different sites/people/companies my bio and it made sense to start using the same one for everything. In most cases, when someone asks for your bio they’re going to use it on a public website or in a pitch and it doesn’t make sense for it to be in first-person. Rather than having a different, casual bio on this website, it seemed logical to just use the same one.
The Great Discontent is one of the best designed sites I’ve seen this year, and the interviews are in-depth and fun to read. From the moment I saw the site I was in love and wanted to be involved. Thankfully, Ryan and Tina gave me the opportunity and we spent an hour on Skype talking about life, the pursuit of happiness, and ABC’s hit-drama from the 90s, The Commish.
I was across the street working in World Financial Center 2 the morning of September 11, 2001. I heard the second plane hit, heard the explosion, and for a moment thought I was going to die. But I didn’t.
I walked out of the building alongside hundreds of others and looked across the street at two burning skyscrapers, amazed and horrified, confused and nervous. We watched as people leapt to their deaths to avoid burning and heard the sound of human bodies hitting concrete after falling 70 stories. We stood, unable to help, unsure what to do next. And then we fled the city. I was on a train in NJ when someone announced the first tower had fallen.
For the next month, I couldn’t sleep without nightmares. I became a news radio junkie. I developed troubling, severe anxiety. I wondered if I would ever feel comfortable on a plane or in a tall building again. I read countless stories about the day and couldn’t stop looking at photos that made me sob. I spent several months unemployed, sitting at home in front of my computer all day, truly depressed for the first time in my life. Everything felt broken and wrong and terrifying. I wasn’t sure how to get back to my normal life.
Little things helped. Spending time with friends, finding a crummy job that gave me somewhere to go every day, something to do with myself. Family. Eventually, I began to heal. I moved to Brooklyn. I passed the WTC site every time I went to see a movie at my favorite theater. I rode the subway without constant fear of terrorism. I flew more and more to various cities in the US, first with the help of large doses of Xanax and then more and more without it. I began to feel comfortable in the world again. I fell even more in love with the city I had always dreamed of living in.
I spent the majority of this past decade living in New York City. The same city I fled that morning, the same city I came back to a few months later, worried but defiant. The city I truly grew up in, for better or worse. I’ve moved away now, but New York City will always be my home.
Me in Sydney
Garrett Murray talks with Dan Benjamin about filmmaking, software development, inspiration, and the future of the web as a platform for creativity.
I had a lot of fun recording this episode and it’s apparent since I talk for about 43 minutes straight. I think Dan said a total of about 50 words.
Hidden amongst my long answers to Dan Benjamin’s questions in my interview on The Pipeline this week, there was a fairly major announcement. Or at least major for me.
In July of this year, we’re moving to Los Angeles. That’s the short version, here’s the slightly longer version:
These past few years I have grown as a developer, a designer, and more recently as a business owner and entrepreneur. I’ve spent the last 11 years busting my ass working for various companies, building various products, and then starting two businesses of my own, including my current company, Karbon. Things have gone very well and I’m proud to be able to say that. But, at the same time, this business, this work, isn’t my only interest.
Since childhood I’ve been enamored with television and film. My earliest memories are of making home movies, performing comedy sketches with cousins and friends, and watching hours and hours of TV. My fascination continued through high school, where I wrote a television pilot and several short films, and into college where I studied electronic filmmaking and acted in as many projects as I could find. After college, though, reality set in and I needed to make money. Luckily, endless interest in computers, the internet and technology allowed me to turn my hobby of web development into a full-time job and, eventually, to running my own company today. But during the past 11 years I’ve constantly wished I could focus more time and energy on film and really try to make a career out of it.
I’m very fortunate to run the kind of business that doesn’t require an office or a specific locale. My clients are all over the globe, and it doesn’t matter where our computers are so long as there’s a reliable internet connection. So, in July, Karbon is officially moving to Los Angeles. We’ll continue to do the same kind of awesome work we’re doing now, just from a different area code. But the huge benefit will be that we can also spend time trying to make our other dreams come true, by focusing our free time on television and film work.
You’ll note I keep saying “we” which actually has two separate meanings. The first is that Shawn Morrison, who works for Karbon and whom I’ve been making films and comedy with for years, is also moving to Los Angeles. This decision to move would have been so much harder had it not been for Shawn and his wife also taking the plunge. We’ll continue to work together both at Karbon and on new film projects as we attempt to navigate the Hollywood experience. The other “we” is that I’ve somehow convinced my girlfriend Stacey I’m worth the gamble, and she’s coming with me to LA as well. She has a real, serious, respectful career and so I cannot wait to hopefully become successful in a vapid profession to even the universe back out.
In fact, the process has already begun. This past weekend, I packed up the apartment in which I had lived for eight years—the longest I have ever lived anywhere in my entire life—and moved to New Jersey into Stacey’s apartment. Her spacious place will serve us well as a temporary home until we pack everything up and ship it all to the west coast in six months.
I love New York, and I cannot imagine not living in the city again at some point, but for now the time has come to be adventurous and try what I’ve never had the guts to try before. After all, time’s a wasting.
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