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.

Perfection

I started to write this entry and fast got bored with it, put it on pause and watched Youth in Revolt. There has never been a more perfect movie made about the crazy things a person does for love and how stupid those things usually are in retrospect but how justified they are when its the right person.

But it got me wondering about the couple girls I've fallen in love with in my days. You see, when I look back on the year I spent with Kati I never really loved her. I tried to and I wanted to and I did such a stellar job of convincing myself that when she cheated on me it screwed me all up. But I wasn't. I never completely opened up to her. I wasn't myself with her. I wouldn't let the defenses down for her. Most valuable lesson learned was when things fell apart and I kept calling, tried to maintain a friendship aspect, tried to cling to something, anything. I felt like I needed her. Thinking on it now raises the bile in my throat, it reaks of weakness. If this same situation was to play itself out today all ties would be severed. The guy that she chose over me had nothing on me so I chaulk it up to her being an idiot. And my superiority complex spits on the floor in disgust.

Kathy was a surprise and the scenario played itself out more like it should have. Worst thing I ever did to another human being was cheat with her on a close friend of mine. They were a doomed relationship from the start and she eventually realized she'd be happier with me so he got elbowed out. I was just being selfish because I loved the attention I received from her. I tried to convince myself she was the right one, she knew better. When she chose her current husband over me it was because she knew we wouldn't work together. I was convinced otherwise but now I cross myself every time I think about what would've happened had we ended up together. It would've been a disaster. Her husband is a good guy and they are a great couple with two beautiful kids now. Good for her. We would've been miserable together. Instead, we remain friends.

I like to think that as I get older I get closer to realizing what love really feels like. I do believe Christian is the closest I've come. But as of now I'll admit that I don't know if I can truly love somebody. I'd be more apt to say that I probably have the capacity of loving her. She remains the one person I have spent significant time with that I've never found something I dislike about her. This is a herculean accomplishment as something usually presents itself within a few minutes of conversation. Beautiful, intelligent, witty, funny, responsible and a little crazy. Everything I could possibly want. Chemistry from the first encounter. Since we met nearly three years ago I have been back for many visits and have cherished every second and she knows this. Only significant challenge here is geographic, which is paltry.

So questions arise. If I really loved her, would I be so hesitant about trying to overcome this single paltry challenge? Wouldn't there have been some kind of conversation about feelings by now? Do I reserve all this attention on her because she is remote as a bit of self-sabotage?

Am I a retard?

(Psssssssst! Answer: Probably.)

"I'm right on the edge. I don't know what happens next."

Corner of tub 3.3.10

I don't know what the hell happened when Iwas in New York but I'm suspecting that my roomate's rubber ducky has been banging. Early January, 1 ducky. Early March, 6 duckies. I can't figure out for the life of me why two of them are dressed as commandos. Ed Norton's immortal words come to mind: "I'm a 30-year old boy."

Today is merry movie marathon day. Title quote comes from Life Aquatic, one of my all-time faves. Now up Juno. I'm a huge fan of wacky writing and great soundtracks. After Juno, Orange County. If I last, Fight Club again. One word comes to mind - gloriousness.

I might have set a record over the course of the past two days for cookie dough consumption. I would wager somewhere in the vacinity of 7.5 - 10 million calories worth. Whatever possessed me to buy the world's largest log of cookie dough will forever remain a mystery but I soldiered through it. Back to the gym tomorrow, feeling guilty. Friend says that my voice pops into her head often and one of the things I say is "Gluttonous". The hypocrisy is scandalous.

Between the ducky mystery, the choco chip cookie dough log, hours of tv and movies and tens of thousands of rounds fired off in the Entropia Universe, nuthin' doing. Calls and texts to friends to try to drum up work have all gone for not so far. So's I dig in, tighten my chin strap, pile up the dvds and prepare for a long cold winter on the front lines of boredom.

Chin, Chin!

deceived!

at midday the rain ended and the sun came out and the day turned glorious so i rallied all my energies, donned gym clothing and began the walk to the gym. never clocked the distance but it takes 90 minutes so i estimate somewhere around five miles. it started pouring again 30 minutes in. i loathe getting rained on, especially just for a cardio day. hell, i could've run in place while watching a movie and been much happier.

bad flashbacks on the walk back when a driver stopped a little short to allow me to use the crosswalk and got superbly rear ended. and i was close enough that he would have hit me had i been two or three steps into the crosswalk. if he had only known that i was slowing my pace to let him make the right turn his day would be going much more lovely right now. the sound of the impact two feet away from me brought back all those unpleasant memories from December. and i was in a foul mood because it was raining twice as hard then and i was freezing and my joints were tightening up. then i got to wait 45 minutes to make a witness statement for cops who never showed. curse you, karma!

two hours later and i'm finally starting to thaw out. diving back into twin peaks and working on a new master plan: owning some sort of dubious bar/casino/brothel just across a border. haven't decided on which border yet though. hmmmmmmmm mexico or canada? rage onward debate!

The best laid plans...

I was performing admirably (minus being lazy with my gym visits) until last night but in the face of a coworker's bachelor party there is no saying no. Against all odds I still did ok-ish but my belief that hard liquor is evil is even more firmly entrenched now. Four or five beers on the west coast is nothing, but the shot of whiskey during the pre-party just makes for a terrible morning. What is one supposed to do when a host thrusts a cup in your face and says, "You have to drink this. I paid $50 for the bottle"? I was just being hospitable. Between the splitting headache and the inability to decide whether I want to play video games and watch twin peaks or watch a movie or finish the second season of dollhouse or take a walk, I really just wish that I could sleep for another four hours. The first four wasn't enough.

Add to the head troubles the fresh bruises from being punched half a dozen times by another coworker who doesn't understand the nuances of properly throwing a game of pool to get a stranger to buy rounds for all of us and it all equals another fascinating evening in the valley. That coworker is an amateur fighter too, no ground game, all stand up striking. I can take a punch, his hurt like hell. A decade ago I thought I'd be set with a family by now, instead I seem to have devolved into forever living like a twenty year old.

Since I returned to sunny California I've been having nightmares, most often work related nightmares. Exceptionally odd because I'm not working on anything at the moment. While working on my most recent job I did not dream of it once, which I usually do. Since coming back, twice. No reason, job's done, highest marks from everyone from whom high marks are required. But I have twice dreamed of being stuck in situations where I couldn't perform the tasks required of me and the dreams turn into nightmares when normal troubleshooting fails and the pressure to succeed builds until I wake up in the middle of the night pissed off that I couldn't solve whatever problem it was. And the dreams have been lucid. Nothing drives me crazier than waking up and being convinced that something that happened in a dream was real and having to take time to sort out the difference between reality and fantasy.

In spite of all this particular morning's handicaps I feel like today is going to be an exceptional day. Twin Peaks and video games it is, then off to meet a friend, then the sky, as always, is the limit.

Chin, Chin.

*Insert Catchy Title Here*

Last post January 3rd, eh? Lazy bastard.



Seems as though the car accident was the boot in the back of the pants that I needed to jolt me down the right path after all, at least for the time being. The trip to New York was very low profile. Took care of business, performed up to my usual high standards, exited. Drinking = minimal. Bad eating = minimal. Excessive stupid spending = minimal. I wouldn't go so far as to say I've gone from bad to good, but I'd say I've gone from bad to maybe-not-so-bad. Maybe like I'm acting now like a 12 year old instead of an 8 year old :) In an attempt to take the next step up I've decided to go hardcore, no drinking period, no stupid eating, daily trips to the gym. New regimine starting on Sunday, February 21st. Time to get down to a lean 150. Just enjoyed the last of the junk food stash, just polished off the last two beers in the fridge. Sayonara!

At the moment I'm watching one of my all-time favorite awful movies, SFW. At one point Jake Busey says, "Reality programming gives reality a bad name". Amen! The plane ride from NYC to Burbank was eye opening. Did the usual and slept for the first half of the ride and then suffered through the second half. What did I learn? A) Three out of four members of the Russian women's curling team are damned gorgeous. Yekaterina Galkina, lovely. Anna Sidorova, gorgeous. Lyudmila Privivkova, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Otherwise, no reason to watch curling for even two seconds. My attention was rapt for at least an hour. B) I've been part of some of the worst reality tv shows of all-time but 16 and Pregnant on MTV is terrible and pathetic. Who really gives a shit about pregnant 16 year old rednecks? Half the people I went to high school with fit that description and zero of them had there own reality tv shows. Yay Maine! C) Kevin Federline is a fat bastard now.

This is the first time I've ever returned anywhere and felt like I was coming home. I was elated when I touched down. Twice as elated when I got to clean up, shave and get out of dirty clothes. And even twice as elated again when I got to see a dearly missed friend. It's the little things that make life grand. But then she beat me at pool and now I owe a homework assignment.

So onto the business portion of the post. I owe a paragraph on why Help! I'm Alive by Metric strikes a cord with me. This feels so English Lit right now I'm getting all nostalgiac for the high school and college days where it was the only thing I cared about and, subsequently, the only thing I excelled at. It is a song about the fear one suffers when they put themselves out there for others to see, or in the case of the singer/songwriter, their work. Being a writer and a filmmaker is the same type of thing. When you show your work to someone to watch or read, you open yourself up to their praise or disdain. Praise feels wonderful. Disdain feels like shit. I've done lots of work that has been praised, I always love it. But every so often I've done something that has been met with complete disdain and there is no worse feeling in the world. I'll tell a personal story later on to put the exclamation point to that but now I'm drifting off topic which will probably score me low marks so back to it. Word has it the song was written when the lead singer moved from wherever to LA to make it big as a musician. I can relate to this move although mine was a little more calculated and safe, her's was more a "This had better work or I'm screwed" kind of thing. I find LA to be an easy place because I made a successful living for myself in the tv industry in NYC, much smaller pond with much hungrier fish. LA is a much larger pond with much lazier fish. Makes it very easy to be a shark. The same guidelines do not apply to musicians. Long story short, their album is fantastic, they have a popular track, the praise has been heaped upon them and all has worked out well. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. The fear sprouts from the uncertainty.

Thing is, when I think of fear I never think of work. I have always kept a cool head about work and believe in one truth: if you make a piece of art, there are people who will think it is great and there are people who will think it is bad. You will never be able to satisfy everyone. If a person praises my work, high fives and knuckle bumps all day, back pats and beers. If a person doesn't like it, fuck off.

When I think of fear I think about relationships. Nothing scares me more than the thought of putting myself out there to a person and feeling the disdain of rejection. For a long time it crippled me and I would almost refuse to meet people. Friends in college thought it was hilarious that I wouldn't have conversations with people until I had hung out with them four or five times. I ended up becoming friends with roommates and coworkers and classmates and only met people outside those circles when they were with friends often enough for me to gauge them and decide whether or not they were worth even investing the time to talk too. It still seems surreal to me because it walks the tightrope line between narcisstic superiority and crippling inferiority that I still can't put my finger on which it was more of, but it was definitely heaping helpings of both. I am barely recognizable now compared to how I was then, thank the good Lord.

Why be so afraid of relationships?, you ask. Never been in a good one is the answer. I was unlucky enough to have my formative years filled with horrible relationships amd incidents which have completely fucked me all sorts of up :) Being cheated on was the exclamation point because it happened when I thought everything was so good. What I really should have been thinking was that I was so young that none of it even really mattered. That everything that happens before you graduate college is temporary. Hell, I'm 32 now and everything is still temporary. The personal story I was thinking of before happened shortly after getting cheated on by Kati. I set my sights on another girl, one in my class, Kati was a year younger. I wrote this girl a love letter and had a friend of hers hand it off to her. I was remarkably proud of my work. At a school dance shortly thereafter she approached me, asked me to hold out my hands, and deposited said letter into them, torn to shreds. Thinking back on it now I find it hysterical. Not so much then. Turns out she had been dating a friend of mine and I had no idea. The devil's in the details, pays to find that kind of stuff out beforehand. That was the harshest example of both myself and my work meeting disdain. The funny postscript is that she was not smart, which means she I most likely still in Maine, married to a redneck, poor, with a couple of kids that are borderline retarded. Some would read that as me being bitter, perhaps it is, but in that I like to see the wheel of karmic justice spinning.

Back to the song though. The thing that strikes the biggest cord with me is the admiration I feel for anyone who has the sack to put their work out there to be judged by an audience. I used to want to be a writer when I was younger. After tasting those kinds of rejections a few times I turtled up and would never even think of putting my work out there. An actor going to an audition has my admiration. A musician getting on a stage to perform has my admiration. In the beginning I was horrified even about the idea of writing a blog, knowing that the person who suggested I do it would be reading it and might not enjoy it. It took a lot of energy to get over that hurdle and I'm very glad I managed it because it is wondefully therapuetic.

Thanks, D, for being an inspiration ;)

California Winters

The more winters I spend in California the more I adore it. The only times I ever spent January 3rd in jeans and a tee were when friends and I would try to prove who had the brassest balls by stripping when it got below zero to see who could tolerate the cold the best. And shovelling snow, the body gets incredibly hot so after a few heaves I'd usually start losing layers until I was tee-shirted and steaming. My new life resolution might be to never return to the east coast when its cold again. I'll start celebrating me birthday, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas with my family all in one grand party in June or something.

I burnt the shit out of my left bicep this morning on the edge of a toaster oven, the price one pays for being obsessed with Leanpockets. So tasty. Lovely blister that will eventually need to be tended to, small price to pay for deliciousness and being vertically challenged. Serves me right for completely ignoring the warning on the package that says not recommended for use with regular or toaster ovens. Damn your rules!

I'm enjoying a lazy Sunday in North Hollywood. Weather is glorious, probably low 70's. I spent all night and all morning blasting through the first 28 episodes of Californication. Great tv show. Now I'm all high on the idea of writing a novel. Regardless of the outcome (most likely another incomplete project on the piile) I think it'll be a fun exercise so I'll most likely start when I'm done here. This all ties into my Empty Shell Theory. If I spend a lot of time watching a movie or find myself invested in a particular character I'll pick up on their traits and mannerisms. Certain movies have become tools I use to steer myself in the right direction headpsace-wise. All in all it gets me more and more intrigued to actually try my hand at acting. Half the people I meet think I'm an actor anyway. No idea why. Hank Moody is probably not the best character to pick up the traits of but what the hell, should be fun. At least it'll fuel the battle between my furious inferiority complex and my raging superiority complex. Nothing quite like being a self-deprecating narcissist. Probably just further proof that I'm incurably bi-polar. Keeps the ongoing debates in my head interesting.

22 days til New York. Looking forward to seeing friends there. Hopefully still get to squeeze in the trip to Vegas next week. Lots of uncertainty now. Last August through November there was lots of uncertainty too and I failed to manage it and things spiralled out of control in my life. It will be intersting to see how I have learned from that epic failure.

It seems like I am only really happy with the way my life is going when I am angry with myself. How weird is that?