GregHowley.com

Otherwise known as "Stupid stuff my friends and I did when we were in high school". This is one of the music videos I threw together back in 1991 or 1992, using random footage we'd taken all over the place. I felt it needed to be documented for posterity. We did the video to TMBG's song See the Constellation.

This was my first experiment with dual-channel audio editing. On the old VHS editing machines I had at the time, the levels were just right. But somewhere along the line, probably when I used a VCR to move the video to a digital format, the balance got thrown off, and now the music is very soft. Apologies.

Things to notice in the video:

• My friends and I driving past a few random kids who were walking down the street and yelling loudly and wordlessly at them. We were hooligans.
• Talk of "Phlegm TV". This was our idea for a Wayne's World-like PBS show that never came to fruition.
• My friend Ryan sitting on top of the car as I was driving (I was the only one of us who'd hit 16 and gotten a license) pretending to shoot at things. This was for our parody show "The W-Team", which also never came to fruition.
• "My grandfather only uses the very best quality popping corn." - I'd borrowed someone's glasses, and been told I looked like Gary Reddenbacher. Remember him?
• Sven's evil laugh. Sven was one of my best friends in high school - a foreign exchange student from Hamburg, Germany. He comments on this blog occasionally.
• All of us doing stuff at the public access TV station, where we had ambitions of stardom.
• Doug actually picking the lock on Paul's car with a clothes hanger while Steve gives him direction from off-camera. Break in! Okay! Give me angry! Give me angry!
• Ken Ferris singing 500 miles and playing the guitar. Mr. Ferris was the most fantastic teacher ever, and an inspiration. We worked that clip into every video we could.
• Me throwing lots of kicks. I had a bit of an infatuation with martial arts, although I've never taken a class in my life. I used to joke that I was a master of "No Kan Do".
• Another teacher, Mr. Thereault, after receiving a pie to the face at a school fair. That wasn't whipped cream, it was shaving cream, and apparently it really stings your eyes.
• Steve and Doug operating a hair spray flamethrower. Indoors.
• Paul beheading a snowman. By charging it with a makeshift lance. We rebuilt that thing a half dozen times, each time destroying it in a new and creative way.
• Remember the tank I was on top of during the Rhythm Section Want Ad music video? Right after we got that shot, a guy came out of the VFW hall we were at and yelled at us. "Y'kids fall off... get hurt... you're gonna sue us!"
• Immediately after that last clip, you can see a sidewalk gathering we taped which we convinced ourselves was a drug deal.
• Me doing a split on the roof of a shed.
• Our idea for "Edward Sporkhands"
• The tennis ball cannon our friend Dave built.
• Me pretending to look at the sun through a magnifying glass.
• "I'm in Greg's shirt" - I put the camera in my shirt, looking up at my face.