The Highlight Reel

Crossed the two month mark in the license suspension, only ten to go :)

Quote from Scott Pilgrim vs The World: "Scott, if your life had a face I'd punch it". Posted it on my facebook page and a friend immediately replied, and i'm talking like seconds after posting it: "Who said that to you?" Second friend replied: "God". The love flies around like bullets.

Almost pissed myself laughing when Robert Downey Jr wailed a 10-yr old in the stomach in Due Date. Todd Phillips is a genius. I find nothing funnier in movies and tv shows than random acts of violence.

Music tracks, in no particular order: Echoes by The Rapture, Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks by The Rapture, Creator by Santogold vs Switch and FreQ Nasty, Pictures (Tonite Only Remix) by Sneaky Sound System, Blue Blood Blues by The Dead Weather, Daylight by Matt&Kim, True Afffection by The Blow. I r diverse!

Pre-birthday fun with D. Absolutely loved that the reason both of us wanted to see the most recent Harry Potter movie was because Emma Watson's hot.

Leaving for Maine in six days. It really is like the Siberia portion of a Russian prison sentence. And I've talked to a couple of ladies who hail from Siberia and it doesn't sound to me like it's as bad as Maine in winter. This time around Maine is going to be work, exercise, continued studies in personal and business finance and Romanian. I've been a horrid slacker since returning to California from New York. Trips to Maine have become my way of slapping the blinders on. It forces me to right the course of my ship which is notorious for veering toward anything shiny. I really am like a 33 year old 6 year old.

I marvel every week now at The Misfits because it's British and hilarious and great. I would debate anyone that the trio have not met since the Monty Python troupe was at their best.

Reading: Bret Easton Ellis - Glamorama, Dubner and Levitt - Freakonomics

Movies: from Sweden, the Millenium trilogy, so I'm up on my shit when Fincher's American versions start coming out and now I'm absolutely in love with Mara Rooney. From Britain, the Red Riding trilogy about the Yorkshire Ripper murders and 20 years of investigations and trials. I think watching movies in foreign languages or with funny accents makes me more cultured :) I started the newest Nightmare on Elm Street remake but bailed 10 minutes in to watch the Sons of Anarchy season finale, which was great. I'm concerned the Elm Street remake will be the second of these horror remakes that I've disliked. Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 was the first. I've watched a lot of terrible movies in my day and it ranked way high up on the list of biggest pieces of shit ever. And I'm a big fan of his. Sons of Anarchy is still the greatest Shakespeare adaptation ever to be put on tv. Elm Street will eventually get watched because of the aforementioned Mara Rooney (head back, drool, mmmmm). And the only good movies Michael Bay has ever been involved with have been the recent horror remakes. Fucking hack.

After refusing to watch the final episode of Lost for almost six months I finally gave in. I didn't want the series to be over and now it is. And after hearing everyone groan and bitch about how terrible the finale was all I can say is: it was the perfect ending to the series and I loved every second of it. And I'm not ashamed to admit I wept like a baby at times. I'm always impressed when a series is so wonderfully constructed and written that the characters end up feeling like friends and you can feel their emotions. This was a wonderful example of television being a work of art. It doesn't happen often.

The Social Network was incredible. The exact same movie as Citizen Kane but much more entertaining and watchable. And I always love movies and stories where these titans among men have everything they could possibly want, the entire world in the palms of their hands, and the thing they desire most is something simple that they once had but lost while they were empire building. For Kane it was the simplicity of his childhood, for Zuckerberg it was his relationship with a girlfriend he lost (oh, Mara Rooney, now I'm convinced you're following me around). I think the relationship angle is much more poignant personally. Good on you, Fincher.

Looking forward to The Black Swan. Guaranteed to be the greatest movie ever about ballet dancers. Good on you, Aronofsky.

A recent Facebook quiz has revealed that if there was a zombie apocalypse I would survive. I'm a badass. The Walking Dead is the best new show on television. I love the fact that the focus is veering away from the big guns, big tits comic books to the stuff that has actual literary merit. Some of the best literature I've ever read has been in comic book form. Perusing IMDB seems to point to the Y:The Last Man movie falling apart. Pity. That is great literature.

Hmmmmm... I guess that's enough all-over-the-mapness for the time being.

Breaking my Silence

Just over half a year since last post, what a lazy bastard. Just to catch everyone up: license suspended, no work popping up, spend a lot of time hanging out. Life has seemingly again become eerily similar to a prison sentence. Wake up, exercise to sharpen body, tv, books and movies to sharpen mind, eat, sleep. I get out of the cage once a week for nfl sunday and drinks with friends. If all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, what does all play and no work make him?

I witnessed brilliance yesterday. I watched the first season of The Misfits. The premise of the show is simple: bunch of young felons forced to do community service together get hit by lightning and develop super powers. Whereas most mediums that tackle this subject go way over the top with the themes of right and wrong and good and evil, this particular show treats it in a very real world way which is refreshing. What would the weird, shy virgin kid do if all the suddden he could turn invisible? He'd go peeping. Obviously. And that is exactly what he did. Refreshing.

Final episode of the first season, the main characters run up against a girl who has developed the power to brainwash people and has used her power to start a born again-like youth group, leading all the young stragglers she can find down a righteous path of clean living and proper behavior and modest dressing. One by one she starts to turn the main characters until all that is left is wise-cracking smartass Nathan and socially awkward Simon. Nathan attempts to save the others by taking the leader of the youth group, she with the brainwashing powers, hostage at gunpoint. Finding himself surrounded by the group he makes his final stand on the rooftop of the community center where they work and gives the following impassioned speech:

"She's got you thinking this is how you're supposed to be. Well it's not! We're young! We're supposed to drink too much! We're supposed to have bad attitudes and shag each other's brains out! We are designed to party! This is it! Yeah, so a few of us will overdose or go mental. But Charles Darwin said, "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs". And that's what it's all about: breaking eggs! And by eggs I mean getting twatted on a cocktail of class A's. If you could just see yourselves. It breaks my heart! You're wearing cardigans! We had it all! We fucked up bigger and better than any generation that came before us! We were so beautiful! We're screw ups. I'm a screw up and I plan to be a screw up until my late twenties, maybe even my early thirties. And I will shag my own mother before I let her or anyone else take that away from me!"

The modern rite of passage perfectly summed up. I was elated. But it also got me thinking extra long and hard about how myself, a screw up in his early thirties, fulfills the rite of passage and comes out the other side as an adult. Obviously this conundrum isn't one that gets solved overnight but I was bolstered by the fact that I am just one of millions who is on this path. So far I've fared pretty well. I never overdosed. No STD's or kids. Make a decent wage. Things could have easily turned out different and a lot more horrific. I find it reassuring that now, at 33, I still have the majority of my life in front of me and have the intelligence and capability to do anything I want despite the fact I pretty much squandered the past decade. Had I existed one generation ago I'd already be married with 1 - 3 kids, a decade under my belt at some job, and a house. All of that will come eventually and it seems as though I am now starting to turn that corner.

The irresponsibility that thrilled me for the past decade is starting to get boring. Now I start to repair the damage that the lost decade has caused and start to lay the foundation on which I will build my perfect future.

Through the shit

Everything ended superbly.

The impossible set got built (at considerable extra cost in the end) and everyone loves it. The monkeys fucked the football one last time and made it unsafe so I fixed it and used it as an opportunity to get back every penny I had been lowballed for the run of the show. When I explained the situation to a coworker he looked at me with wide eyes and now assumes I'm a mad genius who orchestrated the whole event. Not true, I'm just a mad genius who saw a window open and used it to get my dollars back.

Now the past week has been wonderfully smooth. This trip to New York is turning out more like they should've in the past. Wake up, hit gym, get clean, go to work, go to sleep. Get a paycheck, pay bills. Very little drinking, very little going out, very little being irresponsible. At the moment occupying my free time with teaching myself Romanian. So buna zuia to anyone reading this here stream of consciousness. Eventually will also start in with french and gaelic and a refresher in spanish. Then the guitar. Hopefully all that will keep my head busy for a while.

The other day one of the biggest supermodels in the world told me I should frost the tips of my mohawk white. I told her she was f'ing crazy.

I don't know if its the luck of the irish or if Jesus smiles down on me every day but things always seem to go the right way in the end. Time to start buying lottery tickets. Except I'd be that guy who wins $250 million and keeps on with his day to day, just with a much fatter wallet. Nice to dream :)

monkeys and footballs

Once upon a time a genius coined the phrase "It's like watching two monkeys try to fuck a football" to describe observing something so retarded it would confound any logical person.

Every day I'm forced to work with union laborers is like watching eight monkeys try to fuck a football. It's easily four times as retarded as whatever the genius witnessed. Probably more.

Day 1 in the shit

The past two nights I have had dreams where I was in war situations. Night 1 I was involved in some clandestine operation where I stole upon an island dominated by religion and tried to take it down from the inside by causing mayhem. Night 2 I was chatting with a friend of a friend, all the while sizing him up because I knew he was an enemy combatant. When I went for the kill he jumped me and we fought. Both nights I woke up before either mission was succesful.

So going into day 1 of the shit I was not feeling at all comfortable that I had two straight nights of war dreams.

But the day went much better than I expected despite the fact that not a lot of actual work got accomplished. My anxiety always arises from walking blind into situations without being able to talk to everyone involved and get their input. I will listen to anyone's ideas. If it is better than mine, tally ho, congrats. If it is intelligent, I'll weigh it as if it were my own. If it sucks, I'll ignore it. Whatevs, I have perfect control of my ego and refuse to let it interfere with work.

So the first half of the day was troubleshooting. The original plans were laid out. They were all solid and logical, but issues I was having when concocting said plans were outed as bullshit so better plans were hatched. Long story short, by end of day all plans were either good to go or there was a better alternative reached. I am a happy man.

Retarded proud moment of the day: Coworker drops truck key down grate near Time Square, starts freaking out because truck is parked in front of fire hydrant. Another coworker comes out with wire hangar bent into hook and string to try to fish keys out. "I'm going to run upstairs to grab some washers to weigh it down. Might as well try to catch it while I'm gone." Why not? He came back five minutes later and in the midst of "Want to pull it back up and attach some washers?" I had it snagged and fished it up. I gots skills. Happy look on coworker's face priceless. No better way to alleave the pressure of a day than quickly perform a seemingly impossible task in front of an audience.

And I can break into a 15 passenger van in 2 minutes, 37 seconds, timed in winter '09. Better than police officer response time. Mad skills.

Tonight I go to sleep with the glorious nagging feeling that nothing can go wrong. Tomorrow I wake up and have at it take-no-prisoners style. I feel like a jungle cat stalking weak prey.

Don't look now! **BLAM** A new post?!

I got forshamed the other day for not posting since April 3rd so I have decided now is the perfect opportunity to dip my toe back in the water.

First thing that comes to mind is the "These things I've seen" speech by Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner. I'm still waiting to see starships on fire off the coast of Orion but a lots happened since last post.

April was a most disastrous month for my midsection. I decided I would forego the gym and let my bum shoulder heal so I could workout properly. Little did I know this meant I would do no exercise for the almost the entire month. I got soft. I hate soft. Before leaving for New York I ventured back out to begin cardio training anew and i am always shocked by how far one can fall when being lazy. First week in NYC, felled by a head cold. Pros and Cons are as follows: I hate being sick. I lose weight. Head cold now gone, I was going to proceed with rigorous and painful trips to gym but I think my coworker has the gym tag on her keyfob and she's currently arguing loudly with her husband in Italian, so I keep my distance. Only thing I keep hearing is "Shamo!" which I think I know the meaning of.

New York is the same animal it always has been and always will be. You run the race, if you stop you get knocked down and trampeled. It is a place I love but I can never relax here. There is always a million things pinging through my head like excited atoms, ready to explode.

This trip the problem is that the job I have done the same way five times in the past four years is changing. I had gotten to the point where I could sleepwalk through it. All of the pieces get prepared when we take the show apart the season before so it can be unpacked, re-established and voila! Done. This year everyone has decided they want to change one big part of it. I have had that part thrown in my lap like a flaming bag of shit. So all I do all day is think of problems that might arise and how they can be solved. Tiring.

I am expected to succeed in giving everyone what they want when I have less time than usual and no money. Failure isn't an option. I have a list of obstacles. Can't attach anything to anything is always my favorite. Can't touch anything myself is always particularly frustrating. And my minions: the union crew. The bain of my existence for a few months every summer. A band of douchebags who expend more energy creatively not working than they do working, complain about everything, and when they do work manage to do it around half the speed of a normal person.

For example. The space we use in New York exists, we just need to cover the walls and the stage and put up a runway. In New York it takes a lead man plus four guys each day five days to complete. In Los Angeles the space does not exist. In Los Angeles it takes me plus four guys who make significantly less money four days to do it from the ground up. Being forced to watch the guys do it in New York easily qualifies for deep levels of hell, maybe like eleventh or twelfth level. You know, the ones the devil refuses to go down to because they're too awful to bear.

Funny conundrum is I love New York but I think I like it less every time I come here to do this job. And I moved to Los Angeles specifically to work and I'm finding I like it more and more the longer I stay and it keeps getting harder to leave.

The shitstorm really starts tomorrow morning, in 9 hours. It will last two weeks. 14 days, up to 8 of which will be spent in union hell. My incredible powers of deduction already tell me there will be many days of biting my tongue and playing politics, followed by a few of not biting my tongue and unleashing an often scary pent up fury (go Irish!), followed by it all coming together one way or another and the storm subsiding and everyone becoming friends again.

Fingers are crossed. After this one I may need to rethink a lot of things.

Flailing wildly towards my 33rd year

That time of the year is nearly upon me, when every relative and friend crawls out of the woodwork to dote birthday praise upon me and try to get me to celebrate that fateful day in April when I was birthed. Funny thing is that for the past five years I have always worked like a bastard on my birthday. Three of those I probably averaged 18 hour work days as the art director of HGTV's Designstar. Nothing like being a one-man department to kill a day. I remember friends making dinner reservations at 8 in 2007. I called at 7 to tell them I wouldn't be ready until 9. Then called every hour on the hour to keep pushing it back until I was told at midnight that the party was over and they had celebrated my birthday hellaciously for me. I was proud of them. That day started at 6am and I got home at 2am. The following year I was in Las Vegas and raged at the bar nearly every night for two months, except on April 6th. I watched a handful of movies in my hotel room and actually got a few hours of sleep. Probably would have been at the bar if the bartender I was in love with had been working. Lucky me.

I have never been a birthday celebrator for myself. I'll celebrate anyone else's like a champ. Seems like every other day we're celebrating someone's at work. In college we used to celebrate everyone's birthday for a week, such youthful debauchery. When mine rolls around I go all ninja and creep around until I'm sure I'm under everyone's radar. Usually peeps don't pay such close attention to their facebook pages alerting them to it. I had some reason for initially putting the info there in the first place. Can't recall it now, may be time to erase the evidence.

Every year the joke is the same, another year older but still acting like a kid. I used to joke that I still acted like a 12-year old throughout all my twenties, just one with a big salary. This year feels different though. After coasting through the past five years without a care in the world I got caught by a few curveballs last year and finally had to do some maturing. About fucking time. I'm actually looking forward to the upcoming year in a new and exciting way, like a big ol', grand ol' spring cleaning of all the bad habits that have kept me from achieving any real goals. Hell, I think I might actually even remove head from ass long enough to come up with some real goals to focus on.

But first I need to do the annual "I've been buying myself presents for the past 365 days, Mom. There's nothing I want" speech.

Tentative counter begins now, ticking down the days until my return to the big apple. 35 days or so. I love tv shows that keep returning year after year, closest I'll ever get to having a real job again.

Until next time.