anti hero

HIATUS
a gap or passage in an anatomical part of organ.

The anatomy lesson reads like so: opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one.

AMC's highly regarded Breaking Bad ended its run last night. I have no input on the matter. I never saw more than a scene or two from it, thanks to promos here and there on awards shows and about the internet. My dark, twisty, anti-hero show of choice, Dexter, ran it's course the week before. I tend to keep my eyes off boards of this sort or another, especially as they relate to television programs.

Dexter's swan song was different, however. I couldn't get away from heavy handed remarks made by friends on their Facebook pages. And by that, I mean downright mean, uncharacteristic, and at times judgmental commentaries. The nifty hide and block features allow for a smoother road trip, but without these sort of personal designations the internet is rampant with unchecked aggression. We are overly inundated. Since everyone has a forum of one sort of other, it seems many people would prefer to simply yell the harshest, loudest thing possible to gain notice.

HIATUS
an interruption in time or continuity.

I have been on a lengthy hiatus from this forum on which I have been known to unload etchings of my lizard brain from time to time. Writing, like most pursuits, have consequences for absence. It is all too easy to lose the habit of it, allowing any number of other things to take precedence. I have a lot of almost books and other such material ferreted away that represent dropping the proverbial ball.

After a viewing of the surprisingly effective and engaging biopic Hitchcock, I caught a forty year old interview with the man himself in an appearance on the Dick Cavett Show. Essentially making reference to all art forms, he stated how he is always in the midst of directing. It's simply a part of his being. I can relate to that in a variety of ways.

I've been over this territory before, but I will decree here and now that there's no such thing as writer's block. That's not why I didn't post in here. I haven't been without words, or without expression, I've simply been putting all of that energy to better use elsewhere.

dirty laundry.

I like to keep my issues drawn
But it's always darkest before the dawn
Shake it out. Shake it out,
Shake it out... Oh-woah!!
  ~Florence + the Machine (2011)

When I was just shy of six-years-old I propped myself up on the counter of the second floor bathroom of the family's townhouse. Taking scissors in hand, I did my damnedest to straighten out and clean up what I perceived to be an unkempt mop atop my head. In the meantime since then I have spotted only a mere one or two ugly images from then bearing evidence that foretold of the sophisticated British hairline I would later develop.

Although these are hardly concerns I bother with given the '70's rock star beard and tresses I wear about town these days, the simple fact about hair cuts remains the same about many other aspects of life: there's no taking back too much.

The bane of the social media explosion of the past ten years is that of a pulpit open twenty-four hours a day. The expense of self-expression that unlimited is the construction of endless entitlement, whereby your concerns must be my concerns, your woes are now my woes, your sadness and dwelling shall be my cue to remedy, and so forth. I'm not above being there for a friend truly in need, but there's a harsher judgment to be shown toward those who have no ability to hold their tongue and must air out every thread of their laundry, no matter how snotty, how stained, how bloody, or seriously none of my business.

I take my art creation and consumption to visceral extremes, seeing the daring of new and unsettling exploration. I am not one to be easily offended by these things, but instead find the challenge invigorating. There is certainly a contradiction. I spent part of my morning performing an autopsy on our Amana clothes dryer trying to conclude what killed it. Maybe it's not so much what you do with your dirty laundry, as much as how often.

counter requiem

Lewis Carroll suggested we weave our tale by starting at the beginning. Shifts in narrative taste and the translation of truth into prose offers alternative paths to explore. It is often a better idea to jump into the deep end of the pool rather than talking yourself out of the whole swim knee deep in cold water, still holding onto the railing.

I have not written in here for months. This has hardly been due to a lack of words, which spout from my salivary spigot at a high rate on a daily basis due to necessity of rote oral defecation brought on by maintaining a talking job. Over the years, I have fine tuned my mode of delivery to avoid the robotics of many of my compatriots who have passed on, and those of the nervous newbies who've only recently joined us at the front. But half of what transpires is mindless at best and misleading at worst. The other fifty percent is made up of under-appreciated, under-valued quality information and of course plenty of one liners. My need for psychological exposition has been great. And dammit all, I have been hard pressed for quality creative outlets, or more than the occasional one night stand with the writer in me, because writing the most interesting, eloquent, grammatically correct work-related emails hasn't been cutting it.

My inner photographer hasn't let up, however. My aging companion of a camera travels with me nearly everywhere I go like some ventriloquist's dummy, countering my thoughts and echoing my visions without my needing to say a single word. I have captured thousands of images in a reasonably short time. The barrage of inspiration has been so strong. I have recognized the need and more importantly the ability to never put away the aching artist side of myself. With or without reward or note, it doesn't only have to come out to play on the weekends, but can remain in everything I do.

fail blog.

In November of last year I put myself up to the challenge of posting:

314 posts with 314 photos with 365 days to accomplish it.

This is image 235. I have been posting chronologically since I started, to maintain a semblance of structure even as time passed. I took this at the end of August. I have likely taken the remaining eighty photos that I'd like to share on here, but I don't have the time. Last week I worked seventy-six hours, the week before didn't kid around, and this week won't be much better. There's no way I can find the chance to finish this challenge. Oh, and my computer's monitor is starting to give me seasickness.

On the plus side, I'm gaining lots of material for future creative projects.

(235)

look away!!

hell - 43
damn - 23
god damn - 5
pussy - 2
dick - 1
shit - 11
fuck -25
c<>t - 0

total # of posts: 481


When I was in middle school, I found Peter Benchley's original novel of Jaws at one of the many bargain bin garage sales my local branch of the library had. This was during an early surge of insatiable curiosity and avarice for all things storytelling. I had seen Spielberg's movie adaptation plenty of times, but I had never read it's source material.

It was a thick, daunting book that turned out to be a swift read. By the time I got around to reading it, at any rate. In the meanwhile it sat with hundreds of others, collecting dust on my shelf as I tore through library book after library book, often at the neglect of the ones I actually owned. But then my honor's English teacher offered us the chance to pick a novel to read for which we'd do an oral and visual presentation. I decided to go for this one.

I thought it'd be a breeze. I'd be able to tie it in with the movie, since my facination for film was advancing exponentially, during this time as well. But then I actually read it. And for a kid at that formative time, I was quite taken aback when I realized just the sort of elements Popcorn Steven had omitted in his version of the story. I can assure you there were certain key passages that found themselves read again and again, from specially dog earred pages.

When it came time to put together my presentation, I went artsy and nostalgic on the visual presentation by creating a newspaper from 1974 from scratch (no small feat in a time that seemed to pre-date everything I would use today to create the same thing), and a bit of a bullet-like retelling of key points of the shark tale. I skipped the whole matter of the sex, the nudity, and the graphic descriptions of things I had only begun to truly piece together. It became my dirty little secret from the class.

There is something thrilling about having an extra ounce of knowing. It's the excitement one gets from leaving the panties in the hamper when they go out or from whispering something off-color in a stuffy setting. Truthfully , it's our human ability to have whatever kind of thoughts we desire whenever or wherever we are. There's a gratification in that.

There are alternate, often unseen sides to most of life. I certainly think about that in context with this blog. I have been posting and posting pictures and observations for six years now. One could create a whole other page from all of the things left unsaid. There's so much buried within the phrases I have chosen or between the images posted. Somewhere between the combination of the two, the full story is transmitted.

More and more, especially over the better part of the past three years, what I've shared has been to the extent to what I would care to share. Fewer thoughts have been redacted. And it has taken me far less time to scribe the message. Words have flowed much, much faster. I believe it's because the life I live now has fewer barriers.

But then there's the pictures. My current series of images have just kept coming, as I end up snapping pictures nearly every single day. But still not everything seems appropriate for posting. Is it because this blog is still suggested for general audiences? I know a lot of people to whom the word mature would not apply, though they are considered adult. I think some of the concepts and ideas I spin here have a, pardon me, depth not found in most underage folks.

Is it merely the sight of nipples and not the suggestion that makes something adult?

(208)

= 64%

π challenge.

On November 11th, 2011, I began a new blog challenge, as a means to further hone my photography skills and to place additional pressure on myself to become a tad more prolific. The challenge is simple and open-ended: post 314 newly taken pics in one year's time.

(as of this posting, I just passed #201)

My earliest memories flash before me like a photographic flipbook. This is much like an occasion when a dream is being recalled. The brief bursts of significant moments reveal themselves a few at a time. As we retell it we weave it into something else entirely - a new thing. It's got some structure and it's got flow, unlike the film school avant-garde of our more daring dream space. Our brains don't require this as we sleep. I believe this is something pertinent to our awakened state, however.

When something already exists, we tend to take it a little bit for granted. It becomes part of our pre-packaged idea of how things are. Our recognition of the things that are and the things that seem not to be become very distinctive. This is why a moment like riding your bike out of eyesight of mom or off the block entirely is something I recall being quite powerful.

It's the realization that something more exists. And this something is far more captivating than what is present now. Many people fear it. Expanded horizons are so full of unknown. We don't tend to partake of very much unknown, since the known looks so good on our mantles just the way it is.

Ultimately this creates stagnancy. It breeds unpleasant relations that harbor resentment and complacency.

I was given my first quality camera when I graduated high school. Before that I had borrowed the family 110 camera or would use that cheap 35mm I was given for an eighth grade overnight field trip. My true passion was filmmaking, but I made the most of the point-and-shoot experience I had with this above average 35mm with adjustable settings.

This was a time that pre-dated even the most primitive household digital cameras by several years to say nothing of social media. It was a time when people would still shy away from the lens of a camera. I wonder if it has anything do with the contemporary instant ability to veto shots as they come.

Whatever the case, this was a particularly formative period for my creative juices. As an aspiring filmmaker, I saw photographic images as pieces in a larger visual puzzle. At least that was my hope. But my comfort level and skills were still at such a pedetrian level, I was a long way from connecting meaning into my pictures.

Since that time, I have actually had the chance to create extensively, in a variety of forums. It took me a long time to recognize the fact that no one project really had any more importance than any other. For an artist, what matters ultimately is a body of work.

The debacle from one year ago at my theatre led me to turn my back on the place that did me likewise. As is the running theme of the past couple years, I have grown up far beyond what it currently offers. There are other horizons for my artistic contributions.

Toward the end of last year, during a year when my writing had been at a particularly prolific high, I decided I wanted to tune up my photographic powers as well. So many people who post on blogs have attempted to knock out a picture a day for a years time, or some variation therein. I am not like most people. I decided to be honest with myself and curtail the number of pictures to 314 (based on π, which carries certain significance for me) within the span of one year.

As of this post, I have posted 201 pictures to this challenge. (Sure, there are a few freebies along the way that I haven't applied to this for one reason or another.) Even though they may at first seem like a potpourri, scrolling along should tell a number of continuing stories, full of my usual dose of subtext.

I also feel that I have become far more comfortable with creating something from nothing. Most of these pictures were taken completely on the fly.

Sometimes overthinking can ruin the best things.

(-113)



an in

I was recently told a theory on memory. Pick a year from your life. Now try to recall x, y, z details about it. Each recollection is said to unlock another piece, until you really start to uncover key parts of the story.

Sure, not all of life is worth reliving. At least not our own. There's too much pain, too much uncertainty, too many dead ends, but living it secondhand through the words, images, or sounds of those works that we return to again and again. That's not a problem. It's vicarious living. And it's safer.

I am sure you've done this. You've found yourself flipping through television channels, stumbling upon a familiar movie well on its way. And then you get caught up. You might have even been watching something else, currently on a commercial break.

A story well-told unfolds in such a fashion that each piece overlaps the last as well as the following. The mosaic it paints makes so much sense that we become enwrapped within it. This is true of books, movies, theatre, or even within our favorite music. Each time through we begin to recall how perfectly the next part follows.

The pieces of our life make similar sense, in retrospect. Each event eclipses the next. Over time, the more we look inward, the more noticable the saga becomes. If the universe can be expanding then the same can be true of our human lives. Personally, I can see it on my slight scale how each piece of my life has led to the next. Even simply reading back through this blog, new things reveal themselves. What's revealed and what's absent certainly tells quite a tale.

One of the key shifts I've recognized is a change in dynamics. Each person who enters and leaves our life readjusts the tone of it. We all can have such great affect on one another, whether positive, detrimental, or somewhere in between. Like attracts like, separating the honest from the false. Old friends return, holding new meaning. New friends are created as families expand.

And thus, we enter a new chapter.

(190)

static. eclecticism.

As attributed to Albert Einstein insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. We've all been there. It's learning to walk. It's going to the DMV. It's waking up the next day, still trapped in a dead relationship. It's the spin cycle of our existence.

I know we've all played for the hamster home team a time or two, sprinting along that möbius strip to nowhere. The secret is to trace your path around the edge, find your exit to the wild and undercharted, and wave your adieus to Jareth on your way out. If life were literally a game, a requirement for continued play simply must be to continue attaining higher and higher levels.

Screw the mansion, forget the stocks, forgo birthing the same plastic color-coded children, and instead suck the umami straight from the marrow of life and write your own guidebook. If variety is the spice of life as seems to be the word on the street, then I'll take a full rack. Everything we do should be a little bit better, a little bit different, and more seasoned than the last.

(113)

super 8.

move·ment (n.)

• an instance of moving; a change in place or position
• the suggestion or illusion of motion in a painting, sculpture, or design
• the progression of events in the development of a plot
• a self-contained section of an extended composition
• a mechanism, such as the works of a watch, that produces or transmits motion

Movement.

The word flows through your lips with such power, only to be unceremoniously scrubbed at launch time. Its lifespan appropriately works in similar starts and stops. It is a concept that comes to my mind quite often. My soul was born at the wild intersection between artist, gypsy, drifter, dreamer, and being relatively undefined.

I remember a hastily assembled piece of prose I wrote for my sixth grade English class about my life at thirty. It was etched in the penciled shorthand chicken scratch I used to convey my ideas at the time. It involved a world far from the one I was presently living in, due changes in time, location, status, and level of hope. The actual details don't stand out this far down the road, but it brings to mind a level of longing I have always had. Not coincidentally this was the time that my passion for writing, filmmaking, music, and sex were building up momentum. My tastes were more fully finding foundations, and my sensory development was enhancing.

June 10th of this year, J.J. Abrams new film Super 8 found its way to theaters. My girlfriend and I dropped in on it during opening weekend. Wrapped in a veil of Spielberg worship and with throwaway thrill ride sequences that recalled Cloverfield was the story of innocent burgeoning filmmakers trying their hand at the craft in the brilliant beige of 1979. It was unexpectedly a great work of cinematic entertainment and one that touched me deeply.

Dreams grow old with us. They evolve, find better music tastes, have children, lose aspects of themselves, but never fully disappear. Unless we do.

(30)

seeking: balance

Many musicians have fielded the question about whether the music or the lyrics come first. It's another variation on the egg-chicken riddle. Like dreams, inspiration comes to us piecemeal, which we glue together after the fact in easier to translate fashion. In life it becomes a matter of finding the proper measurement of looking forward and gazing backward to create the complete image of the present.

(2)

mixed metaphor.

I loathe stating the obvious.

I am fascinated by the power of images. And I adore spinning words into tasty phrases. As should be clear upon reading this blog, I prefer to let them meld on their own. The connection between my choice of imagery and the associated wordplay is yours to make. As I undertake another photo journey, I don't predict a commentary track, but I do expect a deeper exploration of both of these passions.

(1)

π challenge.

(11.11.11, said I) - I am considering committing to another blog challenge. Many others have attempted to undertake a post a day for a 365 day period. I tried two 30 day challenges earlier in the year. I still have a few remaining ideas from bursting those at the seams. As November 10th is the 314th day of the year, and has a bit of multi-layered significance to me, I am leaning toward challenging myself to a 314 photo effort.

The main reason anyone ever undertakes something such as write a novel in a month, or take a picture a day for a year, or drink eight glasses of water each day is to create a verifiable commitment with more likely results. Vague ideas like wanting to write more or exercise more are certifiably the worst ways to ever do something.

So, here goes:

314 posts with 314 photos.
And since I know I can't possibly post every single day,
I'll give myself 365 days to accomplish this.

gimme π.

I am considering committing to another blog challenge. Many others have attempted to undertake a post a day for a 365 day period. I tried two 30 day challenges earlier in the year. I still have a few remaining ideas from bursting those at the seams. As November 10th is the 314th day of the year, and has a bit of multi-layered significance to me, I am leaning toward challenging myself to a 314 photo effort.

demonize me

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” Lyn Yutang

Closure.

Closure. I've started this way before. Every writer knows the most unenviable obstruction for their craft is an empty page. And the rule book would suggest that every story begun requires an ending. Though it's true in dramatics, this is less true in life. Each tale we weave is far larger than our prediction and much of it goes on under our keenest radar. Most of the points of passage we tend to spotlight are but transitions and not the key beginnings or endings we convince ourselves they'll be.

My sister and parents have been having a veritable war of veiled diplomacy for some time now. A turning point in their relationship left all of the chaos, all of the drama, all of the unresolved feelings up in the air, and in their ways and from their individual perspectives they await the crash landing. Missing that clean ending puts all three of them on edge, and heightens their need to be in the right.

I once heard it said that there are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth. My parents are convinced of one set of stories and my sister assures herself there is another. She is certain to recount these tales again and again ad nauseum on most occasions that she and I get together. It's one of the more frustrating things about spending time with her. One thing that never changes is her perspective. It is forever stalled out in bitter tragedy.

If I had it to dictate now, perhaps I wouldn't have lived the childhood I did or I wouldn't have dwindled under the shadow of those formative years, but every life has its share of stumbling blocks and inevitable potholes. We have to off-load the things that make our journey unbearable. Eventually we just have to bid farewell to that drugged up, useless passenger, that monkey on our back. Turning inward is the only way the outward will ever change. You can't force the hand of others, you can't correctly suspect the motives of others, and you certainly can't alter who someone else is, except yourself. You only get one lump of clay to play with, alter and morph. It might get brittle and it might get dented, but those are the places we find character, art, and meaning.

The empty page suggests that every road leads everywhere. As a writer, the possibilities are dizzying. Every possible outcome can come of this. What is true in art echoes in life. I used to get caught up in future thought. I would seek results of actions, trying so hard to choose the ones that would bring me to my goals, avoiding those that would lead me away. We can't choose our strings. We just have to learn to navigate them, and pluck despite the rhythm caught in the tether, fighting against the power of accidental frets.

These are our demons. I don't mean the Paranormal Activity brand of demons. Well, not exactly. I once thought we had to travel with them. I figured we had to tote them wherever we went. They were our crux, our Achilles heel, the bane of our existence. Well, I say, set that funeral pyre aflame with all of the things in your life, in your soul, in your heart, you don't need that don't help you thrive, that don't motivate you, that just don't matter.

I've had my fair share of monkeys, clawing at my back, weighing me down, pinning me to the past. I say, excise your demons. They are your responsibility. When it comes to these things people like to project blame. It's similar in a fashion to guilt. People may send you on a guilt trip, but you're the one who packs the bags. Own up.

Be your own solution. Poison that monkey and feel the brutal pain, the emotional exhaustion, and then the relief of having cut that umbilical of sorts, the thing that's cutting off your life energy, and sapping your spirit. There are myriad ways things manifest in your body over time. Just let that dead zombie monkey corpse that means you harm punch its way out of your body however it will.

What outcome do you want? In contrast, while a writer begins with endless possibilities, endings need to be bought, raised, owned, and earned. We allow beginnings to start nearly anywhere, but we need to be convinced and sold the safety of the foundation at the other end of the arc.

Closure doesn't always wear the colors you expect it to. It doesn't always show up on time. Sometimes it rears its head in those quiet moments between notes. It comes when the silence is comforting and allows for more than an opportunity to hear that cacophony of disconcerting white noise that muddies everything. And it comes when items of nostalgia begin to take new form, or consequently none at all. The same can be said for the people in our lives. We only get one chance to live this life. Do it with vigor. And prance along to what's next.

♫ enjoy yourself
take only what
you need from it ♫
-"Kids", MGMT

medusa ode

give me head with hair -
long beautiful hair

Our culture has a peculiar fixation on hair.

How we wear our collective hair is trended by the up and comers, those trailblazing follicled fools, whether they be the Fab Four, Kid, Play, Jennifer Aniston, or that Bieber boy. Flip through old pictures or magazines, and immediately the heads act as a date stamp. Without fail, unkempt hair is uncouth and faux-pas, unless you're Robert Smith, Tim Burton, trial VJ Jessie, or post-jizz Mary. Bald is beautiful when it's not busy being sad or pitiful. Tell us culture at large, whether our sisters and wives be shaved, shaped, or merely maintained.

Skip the shower, bypass the shave, put away those tools of torture, says one set of multi-generational pseudo-political motivations. One era is replete with baby-faced fellas and another finds beards galore. I have heard it said that in an economic downturn, the beards grow in counter-balance. However, living in a town with so many indie kids buying their holed ball busting denim and manicured personalities at retail, those beards just become an ironic addition.

The carbon copy look is quickly called personal expression. Show me a tattoo and I'll show you a parlor offering BOGO to get the preachers and extreme couponers through the frosted front doors. Piercings, tattoos, weird and wild hair are all passé. There's no rebellion, no revolt anymore. People don't express anything new in these means. Now it's all become passive aggressive tendencies on social networks.

wu wei

Funny how I blind myself
I never knew if I was sometimes played upon
Afraid to lose,
I'd tell myself what good you do
Convince myself

It's my life
Don't you forget
It's my life
It never ends

- Talk Talk "It's My Life", 1984

Intersections can be fascinating. I have found myself watching the flow of traffic moving in those four distinct directions, everyone intent on leaving this place and moving on to the next, recognizing that the destinations of some are remarkably similar to the recent location of several others, and noting that within all of that shuffle so many are really in the same place. In metaphors by-ways, highways, crossroads, and other means of point A to point B are used to signify one's present position in life. Here is never good enough.

Today I find an intriguing intersection of time. I see these quite often, but usually keep them to myself. I find significance in measuring and taking note of time, as I see it, whether or not there's anything tangible about it. I grew up listening to "Time in a Bottle" and watching Quantum Leap, so my concept of time has a wide birth. Only with our conception of time can we view synchronicity and supposed coincidence. We need such borders to see the overlap.

One month from today my play opens. For me that's crunch time. We are getting down to the wire. I see all of these dots bouncing about throughout my mind, and slowly each becomes connected, and together we are creating more and more viewable images. But there's so much more work to do. Last week the poster was completed. This is the first line of attack in any promotional campaign, and I think of the difficult trek it was to even get there. The original poster designer became revved up by the idea of working on the show, back in early June, but all subsequent communications lacked response. The second choice artist wasn't even known to me until after that struggle of wills and patience, but the end result assures me that she should have been first.

Today also marks ten years since the completion of my first feature length screenplay. I had dabbled in writing scripts for many years prior. I ran out of interest for many of them after about ten or fifteen pages. This was the first one that involved extensive research, revision, and revelation. This was my baby, and the one that got whipped the most by the Hollywood perspective. It was deemed many harsh things, all of which became badges of honor that I would ultimately wear happily. It was accused of being too rough, too raw, too edgy, too left of center, and maybe appropriately too long. I did have some cheerleaders and fans, who wanted to work with this ballsy novice, and a couple interested investors, but I had a really poor business execution given the faith I put in an enthusiastic, charismatic, but ultimately flaky partner who was intending to help me get the film made.

What did I know? I was still grappling to find my voice. Translating it from my mind to the page never quite came across how I wanted. About five years ago, I completely dismantled the material and started to develop the more comfortable novel version. It languishes with many other original bits and bauble, awaiting the intersection of time, interest, and inspiration.

This morning I had a brief Facebook chat with a good friend who I met at the height of the above script's fateful trip to the screen. He sold his first play, a Civil War musical that uses royalty free period music and is geared toward kids - his preferred audience. I updated him on the progress of the current play. I recounted the time when I was anti-theatre and could only see myself working in film. I viewed theatre as musically cheesy and dramatically boring. My theatre experiences were clearly narrow, but I also wonder if I might just be a really bad audience and far better suited for the other side of the stage.

third prelude

As I look forward to the remaining thirteen song challenge posts, I see three that seem to wrap around the same general idea. For that reason, today I present a song challenge trilogy.

part one: play me.
a song that you can play on an instrument

Like many people my age I grew up in a time when music and art were two offerings during the regular school day, albeit still ones that would often feel like recess-lite. In elementary school art would have glitter, glue, and gray blocks of clay and music was code for recorders and piano led vocal instruction of some sort. I listened to far different music outside of school then in. Even then the music felt childish and pedestrian.

After the six month elective sampling during sixth grade we were supposed to select our track, whether it was art, music, or some third one I can't for the life of me recall. It was probably back alley smoking and impregnation 101. I liked art class, but the teacher was a bitch to me and I really hadn't honed my drawing or painting skills in the way that the top two or three prodigies did, so I picked band. No one went in with any fore-knowledge. It seemed to put us all on equal unsteady footing.

It was the eighties, so the saxophone seemed like an obvious fit to me. As awkward and insulated as I was at the time, I still wanted to pick something that might be hot with the ladies. If it was good enough for a Mickey Rourke movie and Baker Street then god dammit it was going to be good enough for me. I rarely liked any of the musical selections. I grabbed songbooks from the public library full of pop hits and even had a Best of 1987 collection for sax that saw some play until I started to realize that the echoing and honking of mistakes and learning alto sax from my upstairs bedroom was irritating my family.

I wouldn't practice at home very much after that.

But music has always been in my heart. I would pump our harmonium (aka small pipe organ) around the holidays, playing what turned out being some of the easiest music around. From this I essentially taught myself piano, or at least a vague sense of it. It's been nearly twenty years since I dropped out of band and quit playing the sax and probably a dozen or so since I tried piano. I tried to learn other instruments too, but evidently to no avail.

That being said, I don't know if I can reasonably play anything on an instrument anymore. With the loss of that part of me, I have strengthened any number of other skills, artistic and otherwise. Maybe with some sheet music reminders I could play a few bars of Angels We Have Heard on High or the excruciating Indiana Jones theme song that was our halftime show in the ninth grade.

Then again, maybe not.


part two: chop sticks.
a song that you wish you could play

I wish I could play guitar.

I tried to learn on a few occasions. At one point I felt hindered by my left-handedness, because no one else in the room was hexed in the same fashion. This was before I started to fully embrace my ambidextrous tendencies and ability to express different things with varying halves of myself.

If I could play guitar I would be able to be one of those people who could have an acoustic guitar sitting idly by when the whole gang is gathered around a campfire. It could be Indigo Girls and John Denver until sun up! Then again that guy is often a douche bag. Why is it that so many people who can play an instrument like that always seem to have this holier than thou attitude? Not all of them, mind you. I know people who can create music that aren't, but so many are, however.

We all have gifts to share. I have often wished mine to be the ability to hold a guitar and make more than racket emote from it. For those who can't the world has created Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Sure, I have had great fun with those, but to a point they are glorified air guitar. I see the romance in the instrument, though. Writing a poetic serenade for the love of your life or soothing the baby to sleep with its soft vibrating hum.

Instead I have words and image. And a recently discovered voice. And who knows what else.

part three: sweetest perfection.
a song that you wish you had written

I don't write music. I have tried. When I was a kid I would scroll out lyrics to theoretical songs, always pounding out ideas of how the other instruments would join in, leaving space for unforgiving drums and the timely and consummate guitar solo. These songs ranged from love songs to protest songs to completely esoteric babblings that sounded like pop songs to me. When I actually learned to read music I tried to write some melodies, but I became instantly bored with the process and really grew respect for blues and jazz musicians who could just jam off the cuff.

As I turned my guise more and more toward film and the creation therein, I became very envious of great writing and clever ideas. I went through all of the trials of any burgeoning creative, feeling threatened by the greatness of others and seeing only the paleness of self. I got over that concept over time and began to recognize that no one would ever assemble their ideas in quite the way I did and nor would I do like others, so what would be the point of seeing competition where there is collective.

So, I think the concept of wishing to have written a song, at least for a songwriter, could have similar dizzying effects. Or there is also the lighter thought that it could just spotlight one's fix on what makes for a great composition. I have many favorite songs. There are songs I like because of the way they make me feel, the texture of the craft behind it, the intelligible lyrics that overshadow the elementary melody, and on and on. There's just not enough space for all of that today.

Instead I will put the song that the iPod shuffled to on my way home from work last night and I was instantly gratified of its sheer existence. It has a complicated melody, beautiful lyrics, and a dark spirit with a positive intent and is indeed one of my favorite songs:


KING OF PAIN

There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black cat caught in a high tree top
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's my soul up there
It's the same old thing as yesterday
It's my soul up there
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
It's my soul up there
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
It's my soul up there

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall
It's my soul up there
There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall
It's my soul up there
There's a blue whale beached by a springtide's ebb
It's my soul up there
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web
It's my soul up there

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

King of pain

There's a red fox torn by a huntsman's pack
It's my soul up there
There's a blue winged gull with a broken back
It's my soul up there
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

King of pain
King of pain
King of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain

{fades}

I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain

tear jerker

I've had a thing for sour candy since I was a kid - Sour Patch Kids, Sour Straws, and the list goes on - anything harshly acidic and tart. Perhaps it was originally to prove my tolerance level was high, but ultimately out of pure enjoyment. Publix grocery stores used to stock big ol' bags of sour gumballs called Tear Jerkers that were all the rage with certain demographic. My response to atomic fire ball cinnamon candy was always a bit more heated.

I can equate my attraction to the intense, lip wrenching candies to my taste in film. I like 'em dark, harsh, and visceral. There's something amazingly pleasurable to me about the squirm factor. However, as I ponder my ability to digest flicks with edge, especially those that are rife with the controversial, mature, and often graphic material, I wonder whether they would warrant the tear jerk response.

Tearjerkers make me think of that gender debate during Sleepless in Seattle wherein it was An Affair to Remember versus The Dirty Dozen. Stereotypes, anyone?! What I realize is that many of my favorite films are several steps beyond that response. They are in ways so painful and saddening to watch that you simply can not respond that way.

The Ice Storm, Dancer in the Dark, Away from Her, and Maria, Full of Grace come to mind. These are pure, devastatingly beautiful films. I know I'm just not quick to emote in this way, but Kramer vs. Kramer hit me that way. On TV it was various episodes of Rescue Me and Six Feet Under that left me numb from empathy. I think it comes down to how much you allow yourself to fall into the world being created. I don't think we need to find ourselves in the characters so much as the potential that we could.

turn on

my turn-on's include molotov cocktails, long walks on the beach, & people who don't litter

The concept of turn-on's stirs up myriad responses and yanks at the repressive strands of my youth. Our culture has always been lost somewhere between the Meese Commission and Mary Carey for governor or Janet Jackson's unadorned tit and Hooters family restaurants. We've clearly all got our proclivities. Some choose to advertise and others are simply in denial.

As someone so far from prudish, the inclusion of anything remotely sexual in this blog is still a completely new prospect. I know there's a whole different person behind these words than the one who started to write five years ago. Over time, I have found within myself a man far more comfortable with many more facets of himself than ever before. I'm not saying that I am about to adjust this blog's settings to block youthful eyes, but I also wouldn't neglect the idea of starting such a page either.

So, what turns you on?

It's one of the seven questions all of the great (and tepid & bland) actors have been asked on Inside the Actors Studio. I don't believe Hugh Grant said hookers in parked cars nor do I recall Gwyneth Paltrow answer the sound of my own British accent, but then again candid honesty is sometimes in short supply.

For someone who has spent so much time behind the scenes, behind the camera, and quietly observing from a distance, it should come as no surprise that I am full of voyeuristic intent. Perhaps sociologically and maybe for entirely perverse reasons I adore things like the blog, 25 Things About My Sexuality. And I love seventies music with its sauntering rhythms that subtly eke out sexuality, signifying round asses in hot pants and sexual freedoms. But turn-on's comes in loads of shapes and sizes. What are those things that wake you up in the morning or disallow you from sleeping at night? They can be your kinks, or merely your passions and pleasures.

A lot of times it's those things we do in secret or what we choose to do when we have a few minutes to spare. I remember as a kid hiding underneath my blankets with a flashlight so I could hustle my way through yet another book. Lately I've been writing more than I have in years, resurrecting long forgotten stories and obviously keeping up with this page a hell of a lot better. I feel totally inspired, turned-on, and my soul's valves feel fully open.

So, what does it for you?

coming soon

We're having technical issues. Will return shortly.

(01) Introduce yourself - INTRODUCE YOURSELF
(02) Your first love - FIRST LOVE
(03) One of your scars - DELICATE SCARRING
(04) Moments that changed your life - PLOT POINTS
(05) Lyrics that apply to your current situation - LYRICALLY SPEAKING
(06) You truly being yourself - I ALONE
(07) Your beliefs - MICRO-COSMIC VIEW
(08) Your special someone - MON AMOUR
(09) Most stimulating thing you've learned this week - BOUND LESS
(10) Favorite smell - FAVORITE SMELL.
(11) Picture of you from your younger years - MINUS TWENTY+


(12) Something that turns you on - TURN ON (editing)
(13) A movie that makes you cry - TEAR JERKER (editing)

(14) Love
(15) Your last night out
(16) Favorite fruit
(17) 5 things you've lost & where they might be
(18) Picture of your handwriting
(19) Something you don't like
(20) Big purchase you'd make if you won the lottery
(21) Celebrity you'd like in your bed
(22) Something you bought from an adult store
(23) Your side of the bed
(24) Five things in reach of you right now
(25) List of songs that make you emotional
(26) Anything
(27) Photo of you from your last social event
(28) Something irrational that you think or do
(29) Song you want played at your funeral
(30) Your favorite place