Highlight Films

// Den-neh-neh-Den-neh-neh

By Tristan Smith .
01.03.10 // Highlight Films

As wonderful as a good highlight is, alternately full of boom-shaka-lakas and did-he-really-just-do-thats, I can’t help but feel a little wistful over all the great highlights we’ve missed. The video recording device’s relatively recent invention means that for thousands of years of human history, highlights were going undocumented, unedited, and unuploaded to Youtube. I’m talking about some of the greatest performances of all time- some dude up in the crow’s nest of the Santa Maria seeing land for the first time, scrambling down and delivering the news in frantic, half-broken Italian (he was Portugese) that the times were a’changing. Capturing Columbus’ facial expression probably would have garnered a few million hits, plus the possibility of winning a Nabisco-sponsored competition for most radically chipalicious clip of the year, which may or may not culminate in an afternoon game of one on one with Shaquille O’Neal.

Or imagine squealing guitar riffs over slow motion footage of George Washington crossing the Delaware. That would be awesome.

View Comments / Jan 03.10 / Highlight Films / by Tristan Smith

// Twas a Good Year

By Charles Hodges .
01.02.10 // Highlight Films

2009 saw some momentus changes in my life.  There were highlights, lowlights and headlights going down the wrong way of a one-way street.  I have scanned the caverns of my psyche for what I thought were the turning points in the year for me.  I want to share them with you.  Because I love you.  Even though I don’t even know you.  Unless I do, in which case, you already knew that.  So, here it is: my highlights from 2009.

Saw Cat Dancers
I started the year off by watching the HBO documentary Cat Dancers.  It taught me three things: 1) you really can be whatever you want to be, 2) you can make a documentary about anything and 3) don’t keep tigers as pets because eventually they will rip the air pipe off from your wife’s neck and then maul the man-boy servant that you and your wife both had a relationship with.

Went to Canada
The land of long Os was the perfect place to take a family vacation.  We went hiking, rode in a sea plane and ate overpriced bison meat.  Everyone was really nice.  Like really nice.  Like too nice.

Won an Auction on eBay
My girlfriend’s father played basketball at the University of North Carolina.  I found his card on ebay.  I bid on it.  Well, actually I utilized the “buy it now” feature, but I am still counting it as a win.  I’m going to get him to autograph it then give it to him as a present.

Came to terms with my love for both Leona Lewis and Taylor Swift
I like to listen to weird bands that most people haven’t heard of because I am intellectually insecure.  I like to drop names like Cass McCombs and Deertick to show how I am really in tune with what is actually on going on, and, as a result, on a higher plane of intelligence than you.  That being said, I can think of no more cathartic moment than driving down the road screaming “Bleeding Love”, “Better in Time”, “White Horse” or “Fifteen”.  It’s the truth; I’m a huge fan of Leona Lewis and Taylor Swift.  Okay, enough of that – are you going to the Cotton Jones concert?  You really should.  They’re great.  I’ll burn you a cd because you have probably never heard of them, and I really care about YOUR music development.

Got a masters degree and became gainfully employed
After a quarter century of education, I finally weened myself off the proverbial teet of my father and got a big boy job.  This is good because I like independence and because my father’s proverbial teet had the paradoxical taste of cholesteral lowering medication and bacon.  Hey, Dad.

Moved to New York City
And grossly underestimated how expensive the damn place is.  At night, when I am asleep, with the animalistic sirens of the NYPD rushing past my window on 7th Avenue, my money crawls out of my wallet, jumps through the air conditioning unit and into the street.  Then, it blows west towards the Hudson river where it disappears forever.  Honestly, I have fallen in love with the place and am trying my best not to turn into a massive douche who lives in New York City.  It is difficult.  Being from the south, I have noticed that my gerunds are starting to grow their g’s.  Runnin’ is becoming running.  Doin’ is becoming doing.  Lastly, and most sad of all, “y’all” is becoming “you guys”.  It makes me sick, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.  The whole place is one pulsating heart of the world.  It has the best and worst of everything, and is a constant reminder of just how sharp the double edge sword of our culture is becoming.  Everything is cash only, the ATM fees suck, but damn the food is good.

Cried my fucking eyes out
On a friend’s reccommendation, my girlfriend and I watched the documentary Dear Zachary: A Letter to a son about his father.  I am not going to tell you what happens.  I am just going to tell you this.  It is, hands down, the saddest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.  I don’t remember the last time I cried (Cardinals over the Panthers in the NFC Championship), but this made me completely lose control.  If you watch it and are not moved you are either desensitized beyond all repair, or you never had a soul in the first place.  Watch it.  During the day.  With someone you’re not embarrassed bawling in front of.

Didn’t start flossing regualrly
A few years ago my dentist told me that people that floss live an average of five years longer than those that don’t.  It had something to do with bacteria in the bloodstream and heart disease and Cydni Lauper or something like that.  As a result, since that conversation, regular flossing has been one of my New Year’s resulotions for the past couple of years.  Well, I am here today to tell you that it didn’t happen in 2009.  Why do I count this as a highlight?  Because I am scared of being alone.  The regular flossers of the world are the ones who populate the far end of the actuary tables and, as a result, the extremely dependent care facitlities of our country.  They outlive their money, their minds and their friends.  So, consider this my own little plan for the future to allow nature to runs its course.

Went to Happy Hour at Sonic
I have been wanting to do this for years.  $1.06 for a huge lime slushie.  Awesome.  Some people’s bucket list require them to go sky diving in Switzerland.  Luckily, mine requires me to just stop at exit 212A on interstate 85.  Don’t bring that weak tot action!

In closing, you should know that I know that there is nothing more self-indulgent than assuming strangers are interested in your life or, even worse, the way you see things.  The Holocaust and the Jeff Dunham show are two examples that support this hypothesis.  Either way, I thank you for allowing me to break this rule.  As Walt Whitman said, “Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”  I thank you for reading these multitudes.  I wish you and that hooker in your trunk a safe and felony free 2010.  Godspeed, reader.  Godspeed.

View Comments / Jan 02.10 / Highlight Films / by Charles Hodges

// Like Only Eating The Marshmellows

By Joey Camire .
01.02.10 // Highlight Films

Watching highlight films is like only eating the marshmallows out of your lucky charms.  You only get the good bits.  But where is your fortification?  Your full compliment of vitamins and minerals?  Your balanced breakfast?  You forgot about those didn’t you?  Well great, now you probably have scurvy, or rickets, or a goiter!

Highlight films should be consumed the way fats and sugars are in the food pyramid.  Or heroin.  In small doses.  Oh sure highlight films are great.  They give you all the best parts of the game without the annoying announcers or the halftime show, but what are you left with?  Nothing you can really bite your teeth into.  You can’t make an emotional connection with a highlight reel.  You don’t want to settle down and get married to a highlight reel the way you do with Tom Brady or Derek Jeter or Tiger Woods.

That’s the thing.  Highlight reels truncate the storyline or remove it all together.  All you’re left with is the denouement.  The climax.  While that sounds nice in theory, just lots of climaxing, you lose the build up.  It would be like if sexual encounters were only as long as an orgasm.  Where’s the foreplay?  Sounds kind of boring.

This isn’t a ploy to ask you to stop watching highlight films or shows, or even getting highlights in your hair, it’s just a healthy way to consume them.  If you treat Sportscenter, for example, like sugar or masturbation you’ll be perfect.  Something sweet to hold you over and give you a pleasure spike, but not enough to get by on all by itself.  Watch the real event or game.  Kill an evening or a Saturday afternoon taking things in long form.  You’ll be healthier for it.  Well mentally anyway, I’m sure the beer and Doritos don’t do much for your physique.

View Comments / Jan 02.10 / Highlight Films / by Joey Camire

// Dear ESPN

By Alex Aloise .
12.31.09 // Highlight Films

View Comments / Dec 31.09 / Highlight Films / by Alex Aloise

// When Memories Become Highlights

By Jake Dubs .
12.30.09 // Highlight Films

Hi there.

Have you ever sat back and thought about your life from start to finish? Have you ever tried to piece together the mishmash of dreamlike experiences and faces still hanging on, refusing to be forgotten? Ever examined and analyzed your choices? The ups? The downs? The good decisions? The regrets? Ever wondered the significance of why you’ve held onto certain people and places and experiences for so long when there is no logical reason you should?

Of course you have.

We all have.

Now, imagine being able to compile all those bits and pieces—everything from childhood until now, starting with your very first memory—and play them out, one after another. A spring of experiences, life events, memories, mental images, sensations, emotions, and personal associations of particular places and times in your life, chronologically flickering before you on your television screen, computer monitor or mobile device.

Introducing HighLitLife(TM), the revolutionary new process that creates highlight reels out of personal memories.

For only $125,000 (*taxes, fees and airfare not included), you’ll be invited for a 2-day stay at our special care center and spa on the outskirts of beautiful Eugene, Oregon, where, after a deep tissue massage, hot rock therapy and facial, you’ll be anesthetized and our certified cognitive neuroscientist technicians will gently probe into the multiple subcomponents of your hippocampus and amygdala, retrieving every autobiographical memory you’ve held onto until this point—including the ones deep within your subconscious.

It’s important to note we only pull from what’s there. No more. No less. Any previous episodic or visual memories you’ve had that have since been lost before the procedure will not be included in your final highlight reel.

It’s also important to note we do not discriminate from good or bad. If you’re like 99% of the population, your highlight reel, like your life, will contain both painful and happy memories. Our customers have found the polarity between these two extremes is often more interesting and enlightening, creating a sense of balance they never realized they had.

Each memory pulled will have various views and angles. You’ll be able to see yourself and anyone else associated with the memory as if you were a third person observer, watching your own personal autobiographical movie.

Using an elaborate memory-streaming process, your memories are then scanned onto film stock and converted to a compact disc—akin to a DVD or CD (*extra discs available for an extra fee)

For an additional $25,000 (taxes and fees not included), we’ll also provide you with “The Soundtrack to Your Life” option. Upon completion of memory extraction, our technicians will probe your subconscious for favorite songs at the time a certain memory or memories were being created, with editors placing them into your personal highlight reel using Final Cut Pro technology.

We at HighLitLife(TM) thank you for taking the time to learn about this exciting new process. We hope you’ll grant yourself the exciting gift of reliving the life you’ve already lived.

View Comments / Dec 30.09 / Highlight Films / by Jake Dubs

// Highlight film hot air balloon with a basket that was originally a head.

By Ben Cheney .
12.29.09 // Highlight Films

Highlight films are nothing more than hot air balloons that attach their strings to the heads of those that have heads larger than really huge rock like formations to begin with.  And these heads become baskets that get carried away by these highlight film hot air balloons.  When the balloon is young and strong, it is taken by the wind and swept toward the sky, incapable of crashing.  Not dog fighting or nudie pic scandals or DUIs or gunfights or even really large diamond earrings can sink the floating ship.

But, eventually the balloon will begin to lose its steam, becoming old and weathered and shaky in flight.  Some balloons will correct themselves and soar to new heights, disappearing heroically at heights that are so high, so high.  While others will drift gracefully to the ground, landing with a gentle kunch on a patch of grass.  And others will drop from the sky in fiery bursts of catastrophic destruction.

Therefore, if your head should take flight, don’t be fooled by the early strength of the hot air balloon and always bear in mind the winds of the future.

View Comments / Dec 29.09 / Highlight Films / by Ben Cheney

// During this holiday season

By Jordan Childs .
12.28.09 // Highlight Films

During this Holiday season, it seems my family is the recipient of a multitude of annual highlight notices from friends and family. I am speaking of course of the annual tradition of over sharing through the medium of Christmas cards. Individuals who feel the need to share the most personal thoughts and details of the past year shower others with long, moderately articulated correspondence recounting the year that has passed. I am constantly baffled with these pieces of personal editorial and the amount of unnecessary candor each one brings. Below are the highlights of one such piece. The names have been changed to protect the authors.

Dearest Friends and Family,

I had decided that my phrase in 2009 was going to be…”It is, what it is.” Then I read somewhere this is one of the most annoying sayings of the year, so I am still working on a new one…lest anyone miss the significance of this year’s photo Christmas card, let me explain now.

On my fifth birthday, my Grandpa Schivitz gave me a newly hatched turtle. She was presented to me in a green bean can and I named her Little Bits. About three years later, my parents switched her for a turtle they found near our home and tried without success to convince me the imposter was my Little Bits. I knew better…I named the failed stand-in, Two Bits. If I had any foresight that I would be writing about this 50 years later I might have considered more creative tortoise names. I thought of having a 50th birthday day party for Little Bits, but things got off track. So I decided to feature them in this year’s photo in lieu of that party- truly whom would they invite anyway? There is a little more to it than that…I found it’s not as easy to corral everyone together for a group photo. I have also been told I have control issues, but I am working on that…

As I was considering how to segue from tortoises to my annual Christmas letter it dawned on me that we share a major commonality- both species dig holes. Turtles live in the holes they dig for protection. People too seek protection in caves and holes. Not being a biblical scholar, it was news to me that Baby Jesus’ manger may have actually been in a cave. I had always thought of caves as dark and frightening places with bats and spiders. What a wonder if the brightest light in the world shone forth from a cave. What a wonder it is too when we as people emerge from the holes we dig for ourselves.

We have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to highlight this year. I was especially thankful Alan took charge of the Thanksgiving meal from start to finish. He likes to keep busy since he retired in April. After the family shared lunch, we divided the feast sending food home with Jill and Eric and then Frank and I took dinner to Live Oak. Aunt Dorothy has an eight-month-old yellow lab that likes to dig holes too! Happee is a little too playful and big to suit Peaches who cowers and growls. I am still working and often have a buried under feeling. Jill and Eric celebrated their second wedding anniversary with their family of two dogs and two cats. Stewart is still a student and has traveled a little- I think he most enjoys his guitar, which also travels with him.

Alan and I need some expired warranty surgeries. Alan has curled toes and I have carpal tunnel and shoulder issues. It seems kind of like when you make that last car payment and then the repair bills begin to fill in the void keeping the world in balance. Stewart has some shoulder and knee surgery pending resulting from the activities of youth (which I equate to giving a new car a test drive to see how fast it will go).

As I type, I often think of who the recipients of this letter will be. I recall some of the highlights of life we have been able to share. I recall too the tears and prayers we have shared. It has been a year of gain and loss. For some of you this will be the first Christmas season without loved ones. I am comforted knowing that the ever-growing heavenly crowd of witnesses is cheering us on in our earthly trials and victories.

Although Little Bits and Two Bits hope you enjoyed their photo op, the birth of our Savior is our real focus this Holiday Season. Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below.

I believe this speaks for itself. No further comments from me needed.

Happy Holidays

View Comments / Dec 28.09 / Highlight Films / by Jordan Childs