Download this Song: Mp3 | AAC | .FLV | iPod Video | Apple TV
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This is a mash up of real hate comments and hate mail I got in reaction to my last video. The 4 places I collected the hate comments were Williamsboard, Gawker, YouTube comments and my own blog post.
In addition to a parody video, a confession video has also appeared in which the creator anonymously claims to have met me at the party introducing himself with his real name and shaking my hand. According to a commenter on this guys profile posted back in August, the individual behind this account might be named, “Adam Pearse”.
Going through these comments looking for leads on the stolen bike and coat was sometimes hilarious but left me feeling kind of depressed. Until I had the idea for this song which has made me feel way better. To create this song I pasted any good lines into a document that I then tweaked to add rhythm and rhyme. Here are the lyrics and chords.
Tech Notes: I filmed on the HVX-200 with a soft light above the camera and a back light you can see hidden just behind the de-popper. I always try to use a fast shutter speed for web video because you don’t want motion blur, compression doesn’t like it. So I went with 250 or 120, I forget. I used a Shure KSM27 Microphone hooked up to mic input 1 and a 1/4 to XLR cable to go out of my guitar straight into the cameras mic input 2 of the video camera. I recorded in 720pn making sure I had the entire song down in one single take, which took a few tries, most of which I deleted after trying it. Also I re-wrote the lyrics slightly after each take to fix what was tripping me up. Then I used, “log and transfer” function in FCP to get the footage in. Then a color correction filter to crush blacks, boost mids and drag the color temperature towards a cooler less red tone. Then I used sound affects provided in Sound Track Pro for the gun shots and bullet landing on the ground. But I didn’t use soundtrack Pro, I just found those files on my drive and pulled them into FCP. Then I added a slight delay using an audio plug-in to my singing voice and compression using an FCP default plug-in on my voice and guitar. That just generally smooths out the volume change as I’d move closer and further from the mic. Then I chose export to compressor and selected iPod 640 by 480. Because the video was 16:9 compressor knew to actually make a 640 by 360 video and I double clicked on the settings to insure that was the case. Then I hit “submit” and waited for it to encode and then I posted to YouTube. Then I used senduit.com to get a copy over to susan and she suggested i take out one extra line I had at the intro and I agreed so I re-exported the same way and posted to YouTube. Then I used compressor to make an Apple TV version which I posted to TubeMogul.com which cross posts to all my other video accounts including blip.tv which means this video is freely downloadable in iTunes and Miro in HD.
Arin Crumley 
Man, I saw 4 Eyed Monsters and I was pretty sure you were talented but it could have been a one-hit wonder sort of thing because it was about yourself, and then I saw all the little films about trying to promote 4 Eyed Monsters and I realized you probably couldn’t string all those gems out without some real talent, and then I saw that weird whine about losing your stuff and I thought there was a good chance that you are a talentless twit or at least that you might be on your way to being one . . . but this song is just BRILLIANT. You are totally wild, guy, and there is no doubt that you are the real deal and going somewhere interesting. I hope that people can take you because you’re all the good and bad and weird and prickly and bizarre things that go with being an artist. Best of luck to you.
Bad ass pants 🙂
And yea, YouTube is kinda full of people who have nothing better to do all day but to talk shit to a person they’ll never see face to face… *shrug*
Here’s to hoping you get your stuff back.
Nice projecting with your voice. I’ve never heard you sing like that. Good to put all that bullshit to some good use.
Also,
Remember one of the most important rules of old-web:
normal person + anonymity + audience = total jackass
-Andrew
Hi! So! You don’t know me–and I hate to add my voice to the chorus of bullshit that you’re not doubt being inundated with–well, no, because if I really hated to do it, I wouldn’t, so I guess.. never mind. I’m not gonna try to justify these words on any kind of moral or cosmic plane. I’m an ape and I feel like acting like one. So I found you via Gawker, and then I watched your movie (Four Eyed Monsters — dug it, by the way, whatever that’s worth), then I said a pointless thing at the Gawker page, and I _think_ I get where you’re coming from. Honest true. But this balance thing you speak of? Is there? Balance, I mean? That we can hope for? One that would make sense to us as living things? I mean, I hope you get your stuff back. But I dunno.
For a few months I was hanging out pretty exclusively with this friend of mine who’d moved away to New York, played at doing the junkie/whore thing, then come back to Iowa, to live in a trailer park with her mom and brother. She was struggling in various ways, and I was enamored with her situation, or at least amazed, or fascinated, something, anyway: so I videoed her a lot, and she got off on this because it fed into her personal mythology, so we both benefited. But one night we go this party and we both get raging drunk and she does this fantastic-never-will-be-seen-again freakout version of some song in the basement of the party (aided by a sound system, even), that I gratefully, gleefully stole on video. The definitive moment. Ended with her writhing around on the floor, everybody leaving, embarrassed for her, her still slurring into the microphone. Or so I remember: I don’t actually know that this is how things went down, because I ended up stumbling home, and then it started raining–like, biblically raining: thunder, Lear shouting sound & fury about sound & fury, all that–and my camera got totally fucked and the tape was ultimately ruined. (I also lost some footage that I remember being pretty great of her driving us drunk through the trailer park.) My friendship and voyeurism with this girl ended when she showed up some days later at my place demanding $80 I owed her and didn’t have so she could go buy some cocaine.
The moral of the story being, that I’ve never been able to see any kind of moral to the story.
I hope you get your shit back. But if you don’t, the equation will likely balance anyway, just beyond our point of view. Not that you will benefit from any of these words; I know even really smart people rarely write useful things. But I guess the internet is the new talk radio, and you’re a radio host. So! Anyway! Good luck.
Bravo! You’re scrappy, man.
Yup still a d-bag
Get a TV show. Then you can make videos like this that make me happy and you can buy yourself new things to replace the old stolen ones. It’s practically a win-win situation
That was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. EVAR! I think I pissed my pants a little.
I’ve noticed the world to be angry of late, like Daniel Day Lewis screaming I’M OSCAR WORTHY in that movie. The point is sometimes we just want to be heard. You were a little angry about somebody taking your stuff, and then they were a lot angry because you’re in the box. Now you sing their anger, and everything seems to be in balance for me now because you’ve got the unexpected American pants and the cool, fake, red cut up material. You’re an artist and they’re probably still angry about something. p.s. Thanks for posting the tech notes.
hahaha. nice new vid. arin. the song and the ending are well worth the watch.
still hopin’ for you.
That was the funniest thing I have seen in awhile. Thanks for coming up with a creative way to respond to all the haters out there.
Haha, thank you so much for that.
I think anyone who’s had their important expensive shit taken at a party will appreciate that. (I know I did) I like how everyone complained about your video, saying you were being whiny, but in doing that, they were being a lot whinier than you were. The video was a good fuck you. Good luck in getting your stuff back.
Fantastic ending, PS.
Arin, that was fucking hilarious. I think you have restored balance: you have taken a material loss and transformed it into creative capital, which is really the story of your life.
Oh, and I second what Andrew said: I have never heard your voice sound like that and I love it. It has incredible depth, either puberty finally hit at 26 or years of practice is finally paying off!
I read Williamsboard before watching your video and that made it even more awesome. The parody and confession were decent too–walking into this scene a full month later I have to say this was all worth a stolen bike, passport, and video recorder. The coat though…that was the coat you wore to the premiere of FEM at Slamdance, wasn’t it? I hope it turns up.
I’ve been following you guys for a while and been inspired the whole way. I have a really hard time with people being mean. I take it on way too easy and that concerns me since I’m also an artist and the nature of the gig sets you up to be exposed to all sorts. But this is such a brilliant way of responding back. Bravo! What a gift for you to respond to hate in a way that allowed me to laugh out loud. I have no doubt abundance will return to you tenfold the value of what you lost.
Peace
God, that made me laugh.
Hey man,…
I’m a good friend of Sara’s. I’ve always dug the four eyed monsters movie and the episodes. I’ve just discovered your sight – btw, the tech notes are rad, thanks for taking the time to do that. anyway, i never felt it necessary to post any response or anything, but after seeing you’re “give me back my shit” video i wanted to suggest that you do that full-time; ridiculous DIY videos with lots of fresh and spontaneous freaking out of the squares. Love and the struggle to understand life and cool music cues from new hit internet bands, thats cool too, but seriously, let yourself go more – its extremely entertaining.
-Mike