creative director | writer
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Cartoons

Sometimes I doodle. It makes me happy.

 

Short Film

I always thought it’d be fun to drop a depressed clown into Dubai's absurd landscape. What started as a joke with a few friends over Shisha one night, turned into an ode to a city I came to love — not for the masks, brands and awkward egos – but for the family I found there. It’s story about connection, vulnerability and rebirth, and finding that feeling of “home” in each other.

Shot over a couple weekends in May, racing the heat with a tremendous student crew from S.A.E. Institute.
PRODUCTION: Keyframe Films
DIRECTOR/DP: Stefan Randjelovic
CD/AD: Breda Plavec
WRITER: Cindy Hammel
CAST: Deger Ozkan Cotelioglu, Mylène Gomera

 

 

Wanderlust - narrative excerpts

I travel between jobs to recover and stay fresh. Here’s some stream of consciousness tidbits from Instagram, and proof that flow (or possession) exists, and burnout can heal. I’m evolving this into a larger collection for a book of some sort.

Real question though - What is this stuff? Poetry? Short stories? Humor? Would love your take. DMs are open.

Yaowarat Road, Bangkok

Mr. TukTuk driver, the Purple Queen of “I’ve Had Enough” wants to go home. Onward Madam Fuchsia. Late night Bangkok will rise again tomorrow. The glowing, steaming, grilling deliciously affordable gastronomic center of the fire and wok universe will release you from her “ma pet” grip, so long as you agree to carry the glow of late night Yaowarat Road with you to bed.

“Chi,” she agrees. It’s a reasonable fare. And the seas of fried noodles and plastic finery part. We can take it from here, my dear. All the more crispy duck and noodley pans of sizzle gravy for me and Tess. Tess, my guide into the nine heavenly spheres of chaotic street food glory.

It must be around midnight in LA, which means in a few short hours, if I could only stay awake for it, the portal opens. If you close your eyes really tight between 3:14 and 3:1415 AM you’ll see the tinniest window. Throw it open and lean in till you tumble through. Hopefully you’ll land on a Klong boat and not in the canal. Follow the gilded temple rooflines, take a left at the Sky Bar, and a right at Wat Arun. Follow the varicose veins of power lines past the massage parlors and runners at Lumpini Park. At the end of the Sky Train, the Tuk Tuk with the purple haze will take you deep into the fiery belly of Bangkok’s Chinatown. Only then, in that sliver of time, can you smell the day’s first garlicky splash of fish in a wok, from wherever you are in this delicious world of sizzle and curry sauce.

Hoi An, Vietnam

Big Brother’s watching you, and so am I. He doesn’t give a shit what you’re posting or searching for. He’s just an old monkey like the rest of us, looking around, wondering “What the hell happened to us all?” Don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to judge. I’ve been sucked into the tiny screen vortex too. There’s nothing like a digital map telling you exactly where you stand.

“You are here,” says the glowing blue dot. Except you’re not, really. But if that glowing turd in your hand is what we’re all following, how can we be anywhere at all? Look around, my friend. Follow your nose. Jump on a bike, in a boat. Get lost. Put your feet on the ground, and your nose in some fish sauce. Make friends. Hell, start with the over stuffed primate behind you. I bet he has stories. Ask him where he’s from. What he loves. What does he think about all these tourists – with our backpacks, cameras and athletic shoes. With our glowing gadgets bobbing around ancient town, day and night, singing their erie chiming siren songs, hungry to snap 5,000 shots of the riverside lanterns, the weathered boat pilots and rickshaw drivers - these are the real floating gems of Hoi An.

I wonder how many millions of photos, posts, boasts are captured and frozen here in pixel time? How do we find the willpower to put the damn phone down? It’s the only way to stumble over the river and through the Night Market to the hidden streets where the locals eat, with Banh Mi and peanut sauce capable of changing your entire worldview. If you could just put the damn phone down. Cause those moments of lost, but really found, you can’t save to savor later, if you can’t even notice them now.

Sonoma County, CA

Hunkered down in Wine Country in a June downpour, the thunder rumbles in. You catch his eye.

“Need a ride?” he asks?

He smells like electricity and freedom and wet earth. He'll stop for just a moment to grab you by the heart and sling you up behind him, on his invisible beast. When you ride bitch behind Thunder, wheat fields turn to paint. Champagne falls from the sky. At the speed of thunder, his roar turns to whispers. He breathes deep, smelling your essence – of earth and berries and fog with a hint of chocolate hazelnut smoke, and late morning sleeps. The scent of seduction and balance, of sun ripened sweat and fermented joy.

"My God, woman. What a beautiful blend you are," says Thunder.

Thunder is right. He leans on the throttle. He swirls you in his cup. A kiss, a whispers of a vintage yet to come, seeps deep into your lungs. You fly across earth and sky, farms and vines, startled deer and tractors, overflowing rivers and forests drift by. Your cheeks flush Pinot. The sky rips open, and you hold on tight.


Humor

The family had gotten used to the ceilingquakes. Books had been tumbling off the shelves just about every day now. The light hanging over the kitchen table would sway violently. On Wednesday the living room ceiling collapsed completely and the family had to eat their way out from under the debris. For lack of any other explanation, they blamed their son’s bad behavior. It was God, punishing the family for raising him carelessly. After each quake he’d bravely endure their abuse and take the blame. The Earthworms would send him to bed without any dinner, never realizing it was just another soccer cleat.

CEILINGQUAKES


THE RASH

At first Anna thought it was a rash. It itched. It was red. She got a special pillow to sit on at work and insisted on eating in the kitchen standing up, which annoyed her husband Beau tremendously.

         “You’re not that busy,” he said.

         “Yes I am.”

         “Will you just sit down and relax?”

         “I don’t feel like sitting down. I’m restless.“

Beau thought she was avoiding him. He asked his friends for advice.

         “She’s feeling neglected,” they said.

         “Tell her she’s beautiful. Bring her flowers. Do the dishes.”

         “You need to switch up the cologne,” they said.

         “Yeah, that shit you wear smells like Grandpa.”

         “Make like you’re dating again. Women love the romantic stuff. Make an effort. She’ll come around.”

He followed their advice, and it all went marginally well. She liked flowers. She did hate his cologne. It did in fact smelled like her Grandpa. But at the end of the day, she’d still hide in the walk-in closet, change into her flannel pajamas and refused to explain why.

The Aloe Vera, the Hydrocortisone cream, the Shea Butter, salt scrubs, mud treatments, oil baths, baking soda baths, clay masks and herbal salves were all fabulous, except they didn’t work. She went to the doctor.

The doctor rubbed his chin, and stared at Anna’s backside. He told her it was razor burn. But that was impossible. She never shaved her rump-cheeks. Who does that? He thought it might be an allergic reaction. He gave her some ointment and sent her on her way. He’d never seen anything like it.

The red itchiness went away as soon as the feathers appeared. On Friday afternoon Anna got home early and had the flat to herself. Beau arrived not long after. He caught her by the front door in front of the full-length mirror with her pants down, staring at her rump… bursting with new plumage. Anna stared at him wide eyed. She was afraid her husband would be repulsed, horrified. She certainly was. But instead he laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

         “What’s up, Chicken Butt?”

For the first time in his life, that dumbass question finally applied.


LOST MAIL

Lara had trouble receiving kisses. She could mail them out all right, but whenever someone tried to send her a kiss, it would get lost in the post. One smooch ended up right back on the sender’s lips marked, Package Undeliverable.  At other times, depending on how much tongue had been included in the shipping, the sender himself could get lost in transit.

Lara couldn’t figure out why the kisses weren’t making it to her lips. Stumped, and a little bit sad, she went to the dentist to see if her mouth was miss-marked or if there was some glitch with her dental code.     

“I don’t understand,” she said. “This one time, the bloke who sent the kiss, he completely vanished too.”

“That’s terrible,” said the dentist.

And it was. Lara couldn’t just fly through good kissers like that. They were hard enough to come by. The dentist dumped his toolbox into her mouth and had a look around.

“Oh my. I see. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for you,” he said. “You’ll need to see a specialist. Or if you can live with it, just warn people there’s some risk involved if they try to send you kisses direct.”

“What do you mean, risks?”

“Well you see…”

“I mean, I can understand kisses getting misplaced, or put on hold, detained even! But to just up and vanish? That’s ridiculous. Kissing isn’t supposed to be dangerous.”

“Lara my dear, they fall in.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s quite simple. Before a bloke sends you a kiss, kindly remind him to Mind the Gap.”