Desmond Wilder

"

I AM JAMES HOLMES A STAFF OF NATWEST BANK LONDON

I HAVE A BUSINESS PLAN I WISH TO SHARE WITH YOU CONTACT ME FOR MORE DETAILS

"

— An email from James Holmes, a staff of Natwest Bank London. I think their caps lock key is stuck.

Backstory

I keep having to interrupt my anecdotes to explain to people that I’ve lived in Indonesia, France, Italy, China, and Venezuela. These diversions in narrative tend to lose my original intention (and emotional impact), so please, if you know me, like me, or hate me but have to associate yourself, here’s my origins story (minus Wolverine).

My family is pre-dominantly Caucasian. My father is from New Hampshire and a lineage of reticient mountain men and explorers. My mother is from affluent socialites in New Orleans with a rich Italian Catholic heritage. I, however, am an expatriate - a member of a global class of people who are simultaneously enlightened towards other cultures and ignorant of their own.

My Dad’s job sends him to foreign countries for six year assignments, which is why I spent the greater deal of my childhood in Sumatra, Indonesia, associating myself with cobras, elephants, and indigenous villages. When I turned thirteen, I went to a boarding school in the States, while my family moved to Tianjing, China. Then, approximately when I went to college, my family moved to Venezuela. 

My privilege, then, has always been as an American abroad. Sometimes I’m culturally associated with charity and freedom; sometimes qualities that are more negative, such as America’s imperialistic foreign policies. I’ve met a variety of people, some who’ve intended me great harm or disservice. Overseas, I come to symbolize disparate symbols of tyranny and democracy. I am ridiculed, subjected, praised, criticized, and elevated. But in the States, I’m generally incognito in the biased homogeneous identity of our culture. I am, as a Black Studies professor once put it, “just another white guy.”

Growing up I wasn’t colorblind. There was the wealthy International conglomeration and there was indigenous nationalism. My friends at Caltex International School (CAS) were of many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds but none of them were Indonesian. The local culture, which could be seen outside the boundaries of our “camp,” were poor kids in donated Disney shirts, young men and women working tirelessly in the fields or the sweatshops, and old men with machetes smiling through crooked teeth. There was always a distance between us with or without the barbed-wire fences.

In urban China it was different. Poverty was being swept up behind shiny skyscrapers and endless ranks of cranes. The Chinese people saw us less as bourgeoise and more as business partners. Sometimes we would get laughed at for our funny clothing or mannerisms (or blonde hair). An identity of cultural superiority permeated the forbidden palace, Tennamen square, Internet cafes and night markets. Our privilege could only get us so far. From there on, it was mostly luck.

Finally, Venezuela offered my family the most bizarre of circumstance. We live in Las Villas, in Lecheria, in one of the richest districts of the country. The neighborhood consists of fine mansions atop a canal system, which we use to transport ourselves not by car but yacht. I’ll take the boat out to the Mall, tie it up, and watch a movie. Or Mom will visit the other expatriate wives and make afternoon pear martinis. Because Las Villas’ demographic is mostly politicians, business men and celebrities, there is a large quantity of friendly affluent Venezuelan people in the community. While political aversion exists between el presidente Hugo Chavez and the USA, on a personal level we find our lives mostly unaffected by ill-sentiment. In Venezuela, my family is part of the fabled 1%.

My first name was picked out of Genesis. My middle name comes from a family ancestor who explored New Hampshire. A valley in a mountain range was named after him, Crawford Notch, where my father was born. My last name is a reminder of my expatriate status; once, long ago, a family of German knights exiled from the House of Brabant came to America to establish new names, and a new life. 

View high resolution

The Reel Loud Film Festival is UCSB’s biggest film festival (Santa Barbara’s being SBIFF to which real famous people annually attend). Reel Loud is best described here in an article asking for more money. To make it easier on your clicker finger, I’ll post the important stuff:

For 21 years now, Reel Loud has been a way for UCSB students to demonstrate their passion for filmmaking. We want to continue this tradition by simply allowing our student community to do what they do best: make fantastic films for a larger public upwards of 800 attendees. Reel Loud is unique in both concept and practice — it melds the tradition of silent films with the creativity of modern filmmakers and begs for a reinterpretation of a style that has lost popularity over time. As was the tradition in early theaters, Reel Loud requires that all films are shot on 16mm film stock and accompanied by live music, creating an ambiance that is unlike any other in contemporary cinema.

and

It is the 21st year of this prestigious festival.  We welcome you to join us in mourning the Death of Cinema.  Attend a wake you will never forget while enjoying some of UCSB’s finest students collaborating to create an amazing event.

Also, there’s a flashly but mostly useless website here.

View high resolution

My 16mm black-n-white short film “Bare Romance” was just admitted into the Reel Loud Film Festival 2012.

Bare Romance
United States
2:43 minutes 

SYNOPSIS An avant-garde comedy about a naked guy  (Zach Lemke) who shows up at a party and feels ostracized and different… because he’s naked.

“Cute” ~ UCSB Film Co-op
“I wish they’d shown more of Zach’s butt” ~ Reel Loud Film Committee

Anyway, come to the Reel Loud Film Festival on May 25th, 8 PM, at Campbell Hall, UCSB, and see my short. Or wait until I digitalize the film and put it up on youtube. Either way, you win. Thanks to all the wonderful peeps who helped out, but especially to naked people Zach Lemke and Ruth Luna, and the band Each Piece who’ll be playing live at the show. Here’s their soundcloud account.

A mockumentary web series about a musical director trying to show the “sexual side” of Spontaneous Human Combustion.

The first episode of Spontaneous Human Combustion, The Musical. We shot this over the Summer of 2011 with a Panasonic DVX100B, a Zoom, and $50 that I spent on a penis costume. I’ll be posting three a week so check it out and subscribe!

View high resolution

Pictures from It’s Only Human… (…If It Dies).

More here.

*Update

Sitting in my weekly Literature Symposium. Today’s topic is Marvin Mudrick, the sardonic founder of UCSB’s College of Creative Studies and winner of 1925’s Silliest Name Award. I like to think he was the secret fifth founder of Hogwarts, but that’s a joke for another genre. A big, round head, pink glasses, sandals with socks: Marvinknew things.

View high resolution

My latest (and longest) project.

Christine Rogers, one of the actors in my webisode series Spontaneous Human Combustion: the Musical, asked me to join an interdisciplinary course designed to create a staged musical by Spring. The program was comprised of music composers in dire need of writers.

Imagine a musical theater laboratory/think-tank within the confines of CCS! Giving birth to a hot concept, fanning its first febrile sparks, refining it in the crucible of two quarter’s feverish but fun work, and then moving to display it to the University community in early spring! Now imagine it taped by UCSB Television Services, produced for UCTV and uplinked on Dish Network!

The “CCS MUSICAL—Creative Team” will engage CCS writers and composers as lyricists as well as tunesmiths, discovering how lyrics and tunes weave inextricably together in this special art form. A talented, veteran performer will anchor the production crew and help recruit the cast.

NOW, our musical makes its debonair debut at the Old Little Theatre on the UCSB Campus, 8 PM, on April 4th, 5th, and 6th. $5 for students/$10 for non-students.

Wit to Twit

I put together a twitter account for It’s Only Human… (…If It Dies), this year’s pulpy CCS Musical. Yes, that is the actual title. Our gimmick is that four Cigarette Girls (our Les Blondes) open the show with a song to “keep everyone’s cell phones on.” It’s cute. I don’t know if that many people who come to the show will have twitter or care, but it’s an adorable touch.

The tweets are represented by the show’s villain: the evil inventor Roy Kinks, creator of robots. Check out his tweets here, written by yours truly.