Termite TV - Life Stories

Hello, my name is Michael K., and it’s Saturday, July 1st. Sitting here in Hilo, Hawaii, and it’s raining, kind of drizzling. Actually since we’re under this tarp it’s actually pretty nice. It’s not too hot. I guess I am thirty-three years old. I was born in Manhattan, New York and just lived there until I was about one and a half, and then we moved to Philadelphia. I guess I, most of my young life was growing up in Philadelphia. Let’s see, my parents separated and divorced when I was six years old. I guess that had a significant effect on my life in some way. I guess it doesn’t seem to be particularly strange at this point. It seems like the right thing that happened, and, you know, just part of my identity. I can’t even really see my parents together exactly. I think that would be more weird at this point than being apart. They both have separate good lives at this point, so that’s fine. I have a brother Dan who’s three years younger than me, and I guess during that time when we were young, we just hung out a lot together. You know, going through that sort of stressful time that we really bonded, I guess. Let’s see, then my mother and my brother and I, we moved to Madison, Wisconsin. I guess it was midway through high school. It was traumatic, but I really thought it was the best thing to happen at that time. The public schools in Philadelphia, at least once you reach the high school level were a bit (makes hand gesture). I wasn’t really learning a lot. I just finished going through a whole year without doing any homework whatsoever, so that wasn’t too good. Madison, I guess it was tough getting used to the place. I thought it was too much grass after growing up in the inner city of Philadelphia, but I guess I eventually really grew to like it. Met some really great people and made some life long friends. I was always interested in the sciences, so when I went to college in Madison, I studied meteorology. I was always interested in the shapes and formations of clouds and just sort of how that whole visual dance plays out. And so I was studying that, and I was also interested in filmmaking, so I started doing that in college. Took a super 8 class and after that really got hooked on it, got more into art and filmmaking. For graduate school, I decided to keep pursuing film, so that’s when I applied to a lot of graduate schools and for not particular reason except for loyalty to my friends back in Philly, I applied to Temple University in Philly and actually ended up going there because, mainly because they gave me the biggest stipend, and it turned out to be a great choice. Really had a great time there. Met my future wife on the first day of class there and a lot of great friends, and through that process of going there started this Termite TV Collective with other people at the university. Termite TV’s been a good thing, this is part of it, so get me in front of camera. That’s always the excuse of the thing. I guess it’s been great to be able to do a lot of traveling. I’ve been doing a lot of that over the last few years and seeing a lot of things, meeting a lot of people. Gets a little tiring sometimes, but it’s been great. I guess that’s just about it for my life, so thank you and I hope it’s a nice rainy day for you where you are.