Alexander Horst 1968 - 2008

I know there is something poetic about leaving this world doing what you love.

And by many accounts, Alex Horst had made it clear that he would have preferred to go out riding his motorcycle, which is exactly what happened two weeks ago in Southern California on the 10 freeway. He was on his way to work at 4:45 AM.

Alex is a member of my extended / in-law family. His appetite for life was unrivaled. The guy always had a gigantic smile, helpful advice, and a generous attitude toward anyone he encountered. He liked to drive fast, ride fast, fix things, build things, collect things and to basically embrace the entire world with both arms and squeeze it hard.

There were a few news stories last week locally covering the accident.

Services were held last weekend. He will be missed by family, fellow riders and co-workers, all of whom admired his spirit and passion as he lived and now as he enters the next world.

God bless you Alex and much love to you my friend.

That's Right, Dwight!

Compare / Contrast

McDowell's Joins Dumbin' Donuts In Making "Idiocracy" Come True

No second language required, bro!



Photo Credit: Don Clark.

America's Aversion Toward Intellectualism

I've blogged about my fascination with the movie "Idiocracy" before. This morning, I was forwarded a fantastic essay in SLC Today about how brave it was of Obama to make a speech at 10:30 AM on a weekday, which he wrote himself, about race that referenced Jim Crow and William Faulkner; brave because people have become aggressively anti-intellectual. Here is a great excerpt from the essay:

"Here is a nation founded by an eerily atypical cadre of intellectuals — Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin and their ilk — who not only had read the Greeks but also had absorbed them, who had read Locke and Voltaire and were building a nation along Enlightenment principles.

Here is a nation that has been led by that archetypal American hero, the self-made man: the Lincoln who strides out of the backwoods with an ax on his shoulder and a book in his hand; the Truman who failed as a farmer, failed as a haberdasher but somehow, because he read widely and deeply, had the wisdom to help rebuild a shattered world.

And now, here is this same nation, led by a man who can't correctly pronounce the word 'nuclear' and who once told an interviewer that he avoids reading newspapers because they're full of 'opinions.'

This is not to say that President Bush is stupid, only that he is profoundly intellectually incurious, willing to substitute belief for science, ideology for fact. And in this, he is typical of his age."

READ MORE.

MySpace.TV: Bamboozle Left Interviews

This past weekend, I interviewed several bands for MySpace Music at Bamboozle Left, including All American Rejects, H2O, Bayside, Hawthorne Heights, The Starting Line, The Cab, Valencia, Alkaline Trio, The A.K.A.s (Are Everywhere!), Anti-Flag, MxPx, Dillinger Escape Plan, From First To Last, Chiodos, The Color Fred, A Cursive Memory, Saves The Day, Face To Face and more. You can watch all of them by going HERE and clicking around.

Samah Tokmachi's Missing Pieces

I had the privilege of getting to know Samah Tokmachi when he was a film student in Chicago. We were quite close for a long time, both members of a shared community of musicians, activists and students united by common values and the search for truth. We lost touch for a bit, but we both ended up in California. He worked at MTV News in Santa Monica in the same building where I worked, but a couple of years after I had moved on to other things. Now he's got a movie starring Jordan Belfi ("Entourage") and Rainn Wilson ("The Office") called Missing Pieces in the MySpace sponsored Now Film Festival. Check it out.

FEARnet: The Ruins Interviews

Last week I interviewed the cast of "The Ruins," which Scott Smith adapted for the screen from his novel as he did for his debut, A Simple Plan. Check out my interviews with Jena Malone (who I interviewed once before for MTV News when she was promoting "Saved!" at Sundance), Shawn Ashmore (aka "Iceman" from the "X-Men" movies, who has been an acquaintance of mine since we met on the set of "X2: X-Men United" in Vancouver), Jonathan Tucker ("In the Valley of Elah") and Laura Ramsey ("Lords of Dogtown") by visiting FEARnet.