WATCH: The BBN Movie Trailer
Recapping 2022, the wildest year yet for Rare Americans, through the eyes of Jamesy Boy himself
It’s 2023 already? Wild. It’s fun to look back on a year and see everything you did. That’s what’s so great about iPhones, the notes and photos apps where you can re-live your year. I took a ride down the last 12 months for my own reflection and figured I would let you guys into it as well. Sometimes I give myself no credit for anything, I’m very much a “whats up next?” type of person, but that’s something I’m working on. Having gratitude for myself, being proud of what I’ve accomplished, and celebrating the little wins. So here’s a look back at 2022.
A Brand New Year - Part 1 - January 2022
READ THE FULL SERIES
July/August 2022 (Childish Gambino, New Balance, and Jessie Reyez)
November/December 2022 (Finding Myself Deep in the Costa Rican Jungle)
January 2022
The holiday season last year was pretty different. My family was supposed to get together like we do every year, but we cancelled last minute because of COVID. We went to Michele’s parent’s for Christmas Day and then spent the rest of the holiday season really just the two of us, Alfie, and Otis.
On New Years Eve I was feeling a little ill, so I did a covid test, and sure enough, it was positive. At least I had Alf to keep me comforted while I watched movies and slept on the couch for a couple of days.
Michele tested positive a day or two later and we had another 10 days of not leaving our house. I thought it was going to be much worse, but to tell you the truth, after about 3 days we were back on our feet, even doing workouts together to get our strength back. The 10 days also gave me the luxury of totally uninterrupted time, and that doesn’t happen often. I decided to take a crack at my first screenplay.
I wrote like mad, at the start not really knowing what I was doing. I didn’t study story structure or English in school, to be honest I’m not really formally trained in anything academically. I just watched some YouTube tutorials to understand how scripts are formatted and got to work.
It was really fun to put myself in the shoes of Nicky, navigating his thoughts and emotions. I was hooked right away. Something I can’t stand is leaving projects unfinished. The same goes for songs, I almost always will get to the “end” of them, even if its not my favourite song I’ve ever worked on. I was dead set on getting to the end of the screenplay in my time “off”.
I spent 10 hours a day working on Brittle Bones Nicky. It’s draft 1 so it needs lots of cleaning up, revisions, and polishing, but I’m really proud of myself for completing what seemed like such a monumental task. As I mentioned on tour, that project is well underway now. Here’s a snippet of the trailer.
We all got back together after my 10 day isolation and negative tests. The pressure was on because the first US tour was starting just a few weeks later in March and we hadn’t even begun practicing yet. We didn’t know it at the time, but putting together a live show is an absolute ton of work. On January 12th we got back together for our first practice, but unfortunately the next day Duran tested positive for COVID as well. At that point we knew it was a matter of time before Jongo and Lubo tested positive, and sure enough they did, 1 by 1. It would have been much better if we all got it at once, but that’s not how the cards were dealt. The staggered covid put us nearly a month behind on preparation.
Video from Jan 13, creating the “Cats, Dogs & Rats” moment.
Tour Prep Intro Creation
Finally we get it high def!
It must suck to have your plans halted due to Covid. I just hope that you guys are all doing better and are healthy now. The BBN movie looks great and I remember seeing it for the first time at the US show. I’m glad that more people get to see it now. The only question I have about the movie is if it’s gonna have Hank in it. I think I can die happy if I could see our green boi on the big screen.