karaoke therapy

To my own surprise, I have been going out to karaoke on a regular basis for the last year. In that time I have performed - for better or for worse - over 175 songs. Given the roller coaster that my life has been on during the past year, I have found it all to hold a key for great catharsis and, by association, personal therapy for me.

Music has spoken to me on a very deep level since I was a child and as the undergrowth of turmoil has spread around the structures and foundations of my existence, it has all become that much more potent. Certain songs have taken on new meaning and new personal importance for me, as I heard them with new ears. Even other songs I once adored now make me shudder. There is something very affecting about releasing a myriad of emotions and feelings through this oft-derided past time. It can even give a seemingly joyless soul the chance to don a new hat and demeanor for three and a half minutes.

One evening back in July, I found myself belting out the Bowie half of Queen's Under Pressure with a good friend as the final song of the night. It was during this moment that all of the associations with Ice Ice Baby and other such popular culture uses fell away from my perception, allowing me to finally truly hear the intensity of the message of the song as well as this refrain:

Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love that one more chance
Why can't we give love, give love . . .
'Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves

Last night it wasn't even my own performance that offered the cathartic, connectivity to the music. And yes, it can be found in all sorts of forms for me. Hanging out with a small handful of friends at my second go-to karaoke spot, a couple of guys pulled up Linkin Park's In the End. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the chill in the air, or maybe it was the power of their voices, but I must tell you nu-metal insults aside, the damn thing really hit me.

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

Tonight, I will be off for another round of karaoke. I wonder what I should sing next.

hidden meaning

I sometimes take to seeking deeper meaning in objects, interactions, synchronicity, and sometimes simply words. My wallet is one of the few things that I take everywhere I go. It's such a frequent inanimate companion that I really notice the difference when I don't have it with me. I don't have much money, but I guess there is something about toting around one's presumed identity and access to at least a little cash that stands for something.

I used to keep pictures there. Older models had pictures of nieces and nephews, girlfriends at the time. More recently I had a few old pictures of my wife, although her image remained young while she aged. This is primarily because all of the photos of the last 6 years have found their way on to the computer and never into my wallet.

It's strange the things we decide to keep with us. Some of them are 'just in case' and others hold a personal resonance beyond words. For a while now I had been keeping an Oregon state quarter in there, since it crossed my path at just the right moment of heightened excitement about moving across the map to that place called Portland. It seemed to invite the richness of promise and hope where it was faltering. It seemed to be 'here' only better.

Today, while standing in line at the bank, I remembered that I had also kept a horoscope I had jotted down at my favorite local coffee shop where they often post the daily ones. I thought maybe it would tell me something about the present moment, since it was in that moment that I was reminded of writing it down in the first place.

September 16, 2009 - Aquarius
When faced with a haystack the only thing that matters is finding the needle. You have a tough task, but everything will be fine.

curtain call

There is an adage I discovered while working on a series of film and theatre productions. Only at the end, when things are wrapped does anyone really begin to know how to make that film or put on that play. If only you could go back, so many potholes could have been avoided. I know this speaks to experience and I realize it speaks to the vision of hindsight, but it never fails to catch you off guard when the production in question is your life.

If you'll forgive the metaphor, after thirteen seasons, my marriage is facing down cancellation. The show started out in the typical fashion with the main characters being clearly unwritten and only a cursory example of what was to come. The past several seasons, things really blossomed and got more interesting and varied, and for all intents and purposes, the show hit a real high mark. Last year, though, all the stops were pulled and things were clearly getting difficult in the writer room - main characters personalities started to change drastically, there was infidelity, illness, lies, and deception. It was clear the show might have reached its final note.

Yes, I know - me and my metaphors. If there's one thing that has been a consistent companion of mine on my journey, it is this manner of communicating in metaphors. Some times I think about my penchant for metaphors and the somewhat cagey and perhaps vague manner I write this blog and I wonder if I just can't think of life in concrete terms. Institutions have no standards and definition, emotions have no words or image, and the connections between people have no explanation.

doubt .

too lonely old souls -

connecting from afar

taste of youthful magic -

aging into a mature reflection;

a passion deepened and tender

waking to the unfamiliar -

a quilt unraveling, delicate

fabric tattered in the breeze -

threadbare fragments remain

the world dances about -

in an awkward rhythm,

familiar people tiptoe around;

elsewhere beckons - - -

yet this was once there.

never the same river -

now totally off-course

our parade knee deep -

in flood waters

words just tokens -

pained in their disguise

what was once -

tainted by review

nauseous from this -

amusement park of emotion

happiness and pleasure lost -

uncertain where they’ve

been found before - - -

symbolizing familiarity -

two rings of gold and tarnish

the power of two beaten -

by the strength of will

standing on opposite sides -

of the same point of view

casting doubt toward -

the circling tides of absolutes

two lonely soldiers -

returning from the war

wounded, empty, and scarred,

surrendering to the intoxication -

of the current moment.

too fragile

endless metaphor
my preferred beast -
to harness the vague
intangible reminder
of days passé.

clarified myopia -
my future recipe
to handle the now
in retrospect.

hateful wind -
a brilliant extreme
for collapsing it all.
world upturned -
this human disease
knows no bounds.

hands left empty -
fragile flesh marinated
in sorrow and regret.

on invisibility

Lying in bed, just like Brian Wilson did
Well, I’m lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did . . .
So, I’m lying here, just staring at the ceiling tiles
And I’m thinking about what to think about.
-Barenaked Ladies, “Brian Wilson”

I shared a duet of that song with the wife a few weeks back. Given everything I have been working through and contemplating of late, it stirs up thoughts about isolation and becoming invisible within one’s own life.

A couple nights ago I was clearing out my old Yahoo e-mail account as a final exercise to completely commit to the far superior Gmail. As pointless an exercise as it might seem to some, I wrapped up my general deletions and forwards process with the extended task of unsubscribing myself from all of the newsletters I was receiving.

Until I went through message-by-message I didn’t realize how many I’d joined and let pile up. Doing so gave me this strange satisfaction. In fact I peculiarly felt weight pulled from my shoulders. In some way I see all of those newsletters I was un-tethering myself from as a means to reconfigure my identity. Interests, causes, hobbies, and such do seem to be part of the recipe of self. It connects in my mind.

Now let me backtrack for a moment here. For the past several months I have given myself the opportunity to disconnect while remaining vaguely connected, hiding under the safe little bubble of “invisible” in gchat and on Facebook, leaving my phone on vibrate or silent, and on and on.

These were the concrete actions of someone who was holding in emotional pain, evidence of tectonic shifts of personal change, and damming up cathartic geysers. I found different versions of self-prescribed desert island isolation. Perhaps driven by survival instinct, or more plainly just hunting for whatever chance I could to quiet down the bevy of voices and the general cacophony of life to try and hear my own.

But as I write I recognize an excess of past tense, as I crane my neck to see the distant wreckage disappearing behind me. I can feel myself stretching in positive ways, pulling my theoretical bear out of its wintery hibernation, or as Gloria Estefan offered: I feel I’m coming out of the dark. It’s all future from here on out.

And I think about the thought of being an empty shell. This is no doubt an exaggeration, but it does evoke a lot of the true feeling. Maybe life just reached an inadvertent dead end or a chance roadblock. An empty canvas, a clean slate, or whatever you might want to call it is a wonderful opportunity. Having a fresh start opens up endless possibility and I intend to take it!

existential crisis

. . . But I suppose I am getting ahead of myself here.

The last nine months of my life have flowed through me like the flood waters following a tsunami. All of the extreme good and bad that have swallowed me haven’t left me much opportunity to breathe until now.

Words haven’t been expelled from my fingers in complete phrases and most have been left unconstructed. For someone who has spent a long time identifying himself as a writer there has been an unsettling loss for words. One exception perhaps is the occasional rambling left, unsupervised collecting figurative dust within the archival collection of unpublished blogs.

It’s these little morsels that tell the bigger story in my mind of this bipolar timeframe my life has labored through. Metaphorically speaking, I feel I reached new personal heights and quelled within surprising lows during this time. I have seen the uncontrolled burn of once beautiful landscape and saw shoddy temporary tenements built in its place.

Back in October things were rich with excitement, creativity, and passion! On camera I was piecing together spare moments from one of my strongest screenplays for use in a promotional trailer as well as seeing the first sparks of what would become a very successful local stage play. I was starting to find myself in a zone of collective artistic energy I hadn’t felt the warmth of previously. At last the building blocks in my life were starting to look like something vaguely recognizable as a finished product.

As a counter-balance, after closing my held-over play at the start of February instant karma seemed to kick me in the ass as I found myself involved in the “Man of La Mancha” (ala Terry Gilliam’s famed non-production) of theatrical messes as well as within deep mental brooding and emotional anguish I’d never known the likes of. This began to present me with the belief that my life had become little more than an arbitrary mess. Looking around at my life, everything appeared to be a complete accident. I don’t mean an accident waiting to happen, but non-contemplated choices and spurious whims played out.

When the rug is pulled out from under you in regular life, it makes you much more impressed by that old magician trick involving the table cloth and those fancy settings. The real world doesn’t work like that, because in truth all of the things in your life tumble to the ground and you scramble to grab for the ones that mean the most, the ones that you’re most likely to pull out of a fire.

Not surprisingly in times like these, I am again reminded of a favorite “Northern Exposure” episode. Chris Stevens puts it like this: “I've been here now for some days, groping my way along, trying to realize my vision here. I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight. I've come to find out that it's not the vision; it's not the vision at all. It's the groping. It's the groping, it's the yearning. It's the moving forward. I think Kierkegaard said it oh so well, 'The self is only that which it's in the process of becoming.'”

extraneous, i

There’s that safe old expression about waking up one day only to look in the mirror to see an unfamiliar face staring back. I contend there’s a different version of the story that involves getting hit by a figurative train only to survive to find whatever you once were propelled into the air several hundred feet. The old identity crashes to the ground into a million tiny pieces, offering up nothing the least bit salvageable. That shell of a person that remains has a sense memory for what once filled it and clambers to retrieve some semblance of what is recalled, but even the familiar pair of old shoes don’t quite fit right anymore. None of the steps they used to take feel appropriate, nor do any of the paths they have been travelling along.

The shell that I have become feels unfamiliar and extraneous. I have disappeared into the ether, but still retain the consciousness of whoever I was before. Sure, I too expect to know myself when I peek at the mirror, but am still surprised at my hairline, that extensive forehead, and these eyes that are starting to play tricks on me. Perhaps I have aged out of my own existence. Whatever I was before seems not to matter anymore. I have given up practically everything that interested me before. I don’t have the time or crave the time for it. I don’t know if I do anything to suit my own desires anymore. I only seem to choose things that boost, inspire, encourage, and please other people in someway. And that’s presuming a lot since I really feel incapable of maintaining any of my myriad relationships anymore. I just don’t have the energy to keep up with all of these people, their problems, or their minutiae. I feel like a pawn for everyone else to move around and place into whatever role they choose, or more significantly whatever roles are left over after they’ve chosen someone else in the place I thought meant for me.

I don’t think I really have a purpose or utility. For sometime I was a collection of things that represented life lived and that old proof of life. I have tried to whittle these down and focus more on memories as indicative of where I’ve been and what I’ve accomplished. This worked well for a while and I was even told I had a terrific memory. Now it seems as if erasing the past is the way to play this game. Looking back is all I get, however. As I search for a job I must constantly look backward to seize moments and phrases from thoughts and actions long gone to try and shine on paper. I do start to wonder, given the list of details about who I am, what I’m interested in, and the like, if I don’t sound more like someone I don’t know than my self.

last waltz

Thirty some odd years ago Billy Joel wrote "life is a series of hellos and goodbyes - I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again." Over the past couple months I have grown more and more cognizant of the truth in these words as the winter months have brought with them harsh endings and meaningful transition. Out of this change and with the slow dance into spring I have stammered to stir up my own proverbial pitcher of lemonade.

Until a couple of months ago my wife and I had been involved in a five year friendship with another married couple. Things took a turn about three years ago when the first of several major issues began to mar an otherwise enjoyable, comfortable situation. The discomfort these issues introduced slowly created a cancer on the relationship that started to manifest itself in passive aggressive behavior and the once seemingly normal friendship began to become one maintained out of guilt and obligation. As time wore on I began to pull back from the situation, dislodging my emotional connection and removing all but feigned interest, I began to better see some of the psychologically abusive behavior we'd become prey to. Efforts to continue the friendship in altered and less frequent ways showed themselves fruitless and things fully fizzled out two months ago with the simple return of a house key.

The weekend spring arrived this year was jarring and emotionally charged; full of finales and farewells. My wife and I bid adieu to our slight Florida winter with a dinner party focused around chili and hot spiked cider. My sister-in-law packed up a truck and moved away after three years rife with temporary triumphs and unavoidable heartbreaks. And finally, a close friend and complicated kindred spirit held a final hurrah upon selling his house, which is one step in a short list of motions toward his setting off to discover the world. And it is within all of these sea changes that I found myself face-to-face with my own urging for rebirth and renewal after the darkening winter. There's a classic "Northern Exposure" episode called "Spring Break" that portrays the heightened libidos and altered states of the quirky town's residents as the long winter's ice builds up metaphoric tension before officially breaking and releasing everything out of its staid, wintery cocoon. One subplot of this episode involves an unexpected rash of small electric theft - quite the anomaly for the little town. In the end, the culprit spells out his rationale for the crime as a reminder of our primal roots and that the world is chaotic and unsafe.

Often times, life grows stagnant. Stagnation doesn't take much effort, after all. If it's not about remaining involved in the present, moving forward, and evolving than what's the point of waking up in the morning. Sometimes all our lives need a kick in the theoretical butt. Like Anais Nin said: "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death." Maybe this is about breaking out of the office prison to be within the freedom of the open road, or maybe it's about moving home again to find out who you've become while you were away, or maybe it's about sifting aside the cold embers of an aging relationship to build up a new fire or passion. Whatever the case, poke yourself a little more out of that shell and open your eyes....

carbon copy

I completely stopped writing here a few months ago. It was a deliberate action, even though I'd been - for all intents and purposes - maintaining a personal blog for two and a half years. I've instead begun working on entries for a professional site that should be up and running in the near future.

In the meanwhile, though, "Pallid" has passed this along via their page:

“HAVE YOU EVER . . .?”

Underline the things you’ve done and will admit to.

1. Started your own blog

*twice, but this second one became an extension of the first.

2. Slept under the stars

*I can pretty well fall asleep anywhere, plus I was sent away to camp as a kid several times.

3. Played in a band

*not the cool kind, though - I was in school band from middle school and into high school when it morphed into marching band.

4. Visited Hawaii

*only in my dreams and my dreams of a close friend who lives there.

5. Watched a meteor shower

*on several occasions, although the most recent was not as astounding as one I saw in 2003.

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

*oh, yes! there's something about charity that always seems more important than the electric company.

7. Been to Disneyland/world

*Disney World - three times, I think. there are much better ways to spend one's time.

8. Climbed a mountain

*as long as hiking a mountain counts, because I can't say I ventured Everest.

9. Held a praying mantis

*I think so. it was a kid thing. I was more into rolly-polly's, though.

10. Sang a solo

*only in the shower.

11. Bungee jumped

*likely won't either.

12. Visited Paris

*I guess this is where the list depresses me.

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

*not deep into the ocean, but at the beach and on a boat in an inlet.

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch

*I've lost much of it, but I taught myself a bit of piano via a harmonium (basically a pipe organ).

15. Adopted a child

*a sponsor child like you see on TV.

16. Had food poisoning

*shut up.

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

*nope, but I have been to the top of the Empire State Building.

18. Grown your own vegetables

*in a plastic cup in fifth grade.

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

*ugh - stop it with the international stuff.

20. Slept on an overnight train

*plan to - it's very Hitchockian!

21. Had a pillow fight

*yeah, but can't remember what the point was.

22. Hitch hiked

*no, but held out thumb when my mom's car had a flat in the middle of nowhere many eons ago.

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

*from school, from work, from life . . . it's the oldest excuse in the book.

24. Built a snow fort

*ahhhhhhh. yes.

25. Held a lamb

*a lamb chop counts?

26. Gone skinny dipping

*hehe.

27. Run a Marathon

*don't foresee it either.

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

*damn Europe!

29. Seen a total eclipse

*yes ... and love the Bonnie Tyler song too.

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

*both!!!

31. Hit a home run

*in little league I was more a hustler than a consistent enough hitter for such a lineup, but I did get one in kickball.

32. Been on a cruise

*no thank you.

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

*nah.

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

*I barely know their names.

35. Seen an Amish community

*from afar driving through New England.

36. Taught yourself a new language

*still working on English.

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

*haha ... as if that was the point.

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

*again with the Italy! who wrote this thing?

39. Gone rock climbing

*and repelling ... great fun!!

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

*nope.

41. Sung karaoke

*only briefly ... it was a party pass the mic situation.

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

*that just sounds naughty.

43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant

*no, but that doesn't mean I've been stingy with strangers. I've given a stranger cab fare before.

44. Visited Africa

*not even the completely wrong Toto version.

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

*yes ... so much better than during sunlight.

46. Been transported in an ambulance

*no ... just the family car at high speeds when I was real little.

47. Had your portrait painted

*I haven't even had one of those caricatures done.

48. Gone deep sea fishing

*nope, but I've eaten plenty of its yummy offerings.

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

*some person who travelled to Italy wrote this, didn't they?

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

*oh, and they just went to France too.

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

*snorkeling in the Florida Keys and some springs where I lost my flipper.

52. Kissed in the rain

*for sure.

53. Played in the mud

*a lot as a child. in fact, went down a natural mudslide as well.

54. Gone to a drive-in theater

*never saw a movie there, but I do believe I've been to one.

55. Been in a movie

*nothing anyone has ever seen. I was an extra.

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

*no tour of Asia for me. it seems like it'd be quite a remarkable sight.

57. Started a business

*presently ... for maybe the third time.

58. Taken a martial arts class

*watched.

59. Visited Russia

*almost went to this place called Moldova in a student exchange thing in high school.

60. Served at a soup kitchen

*is there a strict definition of soup kitchen going around, because I definitely served soup multiple times at a homeless shelter. we also did spaghetti, but spaghetti kitchen sounds more like a restaurant than soup kitchen.

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

*bought-bought-bought. I want more now. thanks.

62. Gone whale watching

*no, but I hear Maine is a good place to do this.

63. Gotten flowers for no reason

*does this mean from someone or given to someone? either way, I think it's a yes.

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

*no ... I guess I'm selfish. I get all tense getting blood tests.

65. Gone sky diving

*it looks much better from the ground, I think.

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

*where the hell did this one come from?

67. Bounced a check

*I don't think I want to know someone who hasn't.

68. Flown in a helicopter

*I've always wanted to, although I hear it's unbareably loud.

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

*I actually have a strange collection of less than favorite childhood toys. I guess I could say yes, though. I could qualify a couple of those things like this.

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

*yes. it's one of my favorite places in Washington D.C.

71. Eaten Caviar

*sure. I could do without it again.

72. Pieced a quilt

*merely slept under one.

73. Stood in Times Square

*yup. until I was knocked down. nah, I'm kidding. I do love New York, though and it's so iconic, but it's hardly my favorite place in NYC.

74. Toured the Everglades

*this sounds like an airboat ride. hmm.

75. Been fired from a job

*not a pleasant experience.

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

*would love to go to London!

77. Broken a bone

*luckily not.

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

*only the video game simulator version.

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

*can't say I have.

80. Published a book

*no, but I'm copywritten several times over.

81. Visited the Vatican

*again!

82. Bought a brand new car

*yup, and just paid it off too!

83. Walked in Jerusalem

*is that safe?

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

*not the newspaper so much as a variety of little know rags.

85. Read the entire Bible

*I won't lie ... I skimmed, so I wouldn't say I've read the whole thing. what I do know is it sags in the middle and has a tacked on third act.

86. Visited the White House

*not inside.

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

*why does question 87 follow 86? is that coincidental?

88. Had chickenpox

*in kindergarten or first grade.

89. Saved someone’s life

*theoretically - in a counseling fashion, although I could hardly bold it just for that.

90. Sat on a jury

*was signed up for one, but we were cancelled.

91. Met someone famous

*as long as famous has a wide birth.

92. Joined a book club

*and realized I don't read enough books I also want to own to be in a book club. wait, this could also be construed as the reading circle type book club. I meant the buying books by mail sort. hmm, interesting.

93. Lost a loved one

*this can be taken in many ways and in many ways I can say yes.

94. Had a baby

*funny phrasing.

95. Seen the Alamo in person

*I have no interest in this.

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

*I've never been to Utah.

97. Been involved in a law suit

*just no.

98. Owned a cell phone

*yes. haven't we all at this point?

99. Been stung by a bee

*I actually don't think so. even as a kid.

SO NOW ... How about you?

bad date

Since I have a somewhat sizeable on-line presence, I feel it gives me the position to contemplate the "new age" in ways I wouldn't offer to people who sit on the sidelines, making judgments about the rest of us.

With over two years logged in on social networking sites, I had stopped casting doubts about the effects they were having on my life as I was remaining in touch with long distance friends, getting linked up with misplaced friends, and keeping up to date with new ones. For a time, I had this conception that there was something unnatural to being able to "stalk" the pages and pictures of old lost friends or even re-entering their lives and consciousness entirely.

I have found myself (in part) going through reunion after reunion seeing my roster of on-line friends swell like a massive movie trailer for "My Life Passing before My Eyes". One of the first long gone friends to re-enter my life I knew for a few years in high school - we were pretty good friends who got along together and were both positive spirits in one another's existences.

Starting up again was easy and pleasant and there seemed to be a mutual feeling of "why'd we let this fade?" We've since gone past the need to return to chats about high school and really connected via instant messaging and e-mails about the current events in one another's lives as well as a smattering of the lost time. To a point we are closer now than we were fourteen years ago. So, we'd been making some attempts to arrange visits to one another's town for a while now.

Such a chance for an occasion occurred for her and her friend to visit my town this weekend. The wife and I already had a longtime, good friend staying with us, but there was an embracing spirit of "the more the merrier", so we planned to meet up for dinner.

Dinner has since gone down - and oh, how wrong I feel things have gone. I don't even recall what any expectations were at this point, but they were hardly met. In fact, what happened almost felt like a really bad date. I am exceedingly bummed and I'm so lost about what to do about the way I'm feeling.

Now, there was a truly joyous moment when she and I saw one another again for the first time after so many years. The smiles, the embrace, and all of that simultaneously brought me back and bridged the wide gap of these years - like one might feel after long term distance. This is common for people who do stay in touch.

Dinner was a low-key, no frills affair that honestly can be seen as the good first act of the evening. It was the after dinner coffee at our favorite coffeehouse that saw our evening struggling for air. The place was unusually understaffed and conversations seemed to have stuttered to a halt, leaving only a vague suggestion of conversation over an ill-advised game of Trivial Pursuit.

I'm upset and I’m confused about how things turned out. Things felt awkward and out of sorts in a way that I don't feel my friend and my communications had been previously. I wonder whether it was the dynamic of our five-some or any of the variables beyond us two - who maybe should have grabbed some coffee alone for this first reunion. I don't know how but suddenly all of the communication we've had during the last two years disappeared and to a point it seemed no one knew what to say.

It makes me think about the way we represent ourselves in writing. I know this blog occasionally echoes of altered interpretations of self - sometimes a better, more assured, better edited version. I want to think that I was uncomfortable, nervous, and a bit regressive as so many different things were stirred to the surface from my youth. Perhaps she had her own version of this and maybe this evening represents an unavoidable hump that leads to better things.

I am certainly hoping...

foreign territory

I have found that the familial relationships in one’s life are some of the most peculiar and the most dysfunctional. Friends of similar connection and who may treat you with similar disregard might be told to hit the road or might become merely a mirage in our theoretical mirrors as we travel farther down our road away from them. This is not always true with family where bonds can hang by a thread yet somehow remain sustained and nourished enough for us to not lose title and a place in the family unit.

My brother and I have shared such a life for many years. I came into the world hindered by the nine years he already had on me. This says nothing about all of the myriad personality differences than became evident early on, even though we did have some periods of bonding over musical tastes and filmic interest. There’s not much more to share in together these days with hundreds of miles between us figuratively and literally.

As painful as the expectation that I will never have the sort of brother relationship “they” stack films, books, and television with, there are occasional glimmers of subtle change. The other night we were chatting on one of the on-line chat options and things felt somehow different.

As expected, things began roughly like the interactions between two people who encounter one another in a downtown plaza after many years apart. Perhaps the first strains of conversation have eloquence and excitement to it, but it doesn’t take long before the two people seem to run out of things to say no matter how much life has passed by. This is how things began for me. I wasn’t sure what to say or what to ask. Everything felt like an empty slate in certain ways. There was a foreign nature to the entire situation. I was reminded how little we really know about each other.

The wheels began churning with talk of his many children and I began to open up about some of the creative endeavors I have my dirty little fingers in. And it seemed that the only real commonalities we have are our steadily aging parents who recently dropped by for a brief visit. They were in their usual form, rubbing in their one foot in the grave status. This never comes off as some mid-sixties clarity about life and mortality, but instead as emo with an aged patina. They have been brooding in this way for years.

What really surprised was an unexpected interest in some of my artistic projects I have on the horizon. They have rarely diverted from their original “hope this is a phase” mentality, so as years have toiled on an upswing in interest and supportiveness always catches me off guard. I don’t know what to do with it. I know how to work with the resistance of the world and those in the presumed inner circle, but what do I do with an open door. My brother suggested I embrace it. I have to wonder what makes it worth it to just ride one of my waves when a small group of others have been by my side for the whole trip and should be the only ones who should bask in my positivity, or at least that’s how it appears right now.

At any rate, I found myself sharing things with my brother that I would not have normally. It was interesting and telling. As the conversation went along, I started to recognize how this – this instant messaging – might be the perfect forum for us to connect in some small way. With the distance and the conflicting lifestyle choices, in person seems unlikely. E-mailing tends to be much too inconsistent. Phone calling is completely out what with all of the uncertainty and quiet and impatience to hang up that tends to swell up within me. However, these words scrolling across the screen actually felt like a representation of both of us making an effort to hear the other.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s something. Or maybe I just want it to be.

the ceiling

My mind has been mulling lately over the concept of the figurative “ceiling”. Career-wise, I feel I may have seen all this town can offer me and what I can reasonably gain from it. I have slowly sloshed through several different spaces, putting my feet in shoes that barely fit, while looking for opportunities that allow me to do more than bide my time.

Whether it’s rationalization or truth, I think I have recently hit my head on the ceiling of this town. I mentioned this to a good friend and filmmaking colleague whose journey over the past two years has been nothing if not impressive and international to boot. So I wait to see what develops from the slow process of creating a business plan, followed by looking for financing, and then making my film should I have any energy or inspiration remaining in the vault. I don’t know what the other side will look like.

The way it’s seen, the ceiling is the visual metaphor for things when they have gone as far as they will. This is when we get too small for our proverbial box. I have thought of this a lot in terms of relationships, as they become less satisfying than they once were, or perhaps when they become plain weird. People drift apart. I suppose it’s how we react to this drifting that makes the difference? Is the answer in letting the connection take its natural course? Or is it important to put up a fight and likely create a more permanent rift?

What’s strange to me is how I have been feeling about someone I knew only vaguely, someone who I knew from parties and other gatherings, and who I first met randomly on my front porch. He was someone in the periphery of my life, part of one of the circle of friends, someone I might never have known any better, and now clearly someone I will never know more. I have just found out that he was tragically lost in a river boating accident. I am friends with several of his closest friends, so there’s a general energy around that is both disconcerting and revealing.

What can I take from this? Is it the lack of guarantees in life? Is it about standing up, opening up, spreading one’s wings, and breaking through those ceilings of life? Is this a reminder to find the adventure in life, one’s river to travail, one’s journey to take, and those passions that are approached with full gusto?

Probably.

trimming fat

My sister-in-law is considering selling her business. It's about more than merely an economic decision and one that I view as impulsive as the inspiration to buy it in the first place. I keep wondering why I take such offense at this prospect. I think I might have figured it out, though.

Recently I was reading through a ton of old e-mails during a purging effort and I came across one from February 2006. A friend of mine was talking about giving up writing. This is what I had to say in response:

"What gives, man?

You think you can escape the clutches of the writing bug just like that?

I remember a guy I met a year and a half ago who was all revved up and ready to take Hollywood readers by storm - by whatever means necessary.

Where is that guy?

Why did you pick up that first screenwriting book? Why did you start watching the movies on TBS in a different light? Why did you create a Yahoo group from the remains of that Meetup group? What was that guy all about?

It's because you got something out of the deal. So you hit a wall. So - the hell - what? Fine. Take a little break, but don't give up. Sometimes what you have to do is reassess your direction, but you - my friend - would be pretty starved without this thing you love so much. I'm sure of it.

I saw you on your really good days. This stuff kicks your ass in gear and shows you what you are all about. Don't put that pen down, because it's not the writing that costs money. You can sit down with pen and paper and write. For free!

Take a break from the screenplay game. Write something more personal, some story you already know about, something where act one-two-three is well-known in advance. I am sure you will be reminded of what drove you to pick up that first screenplay book, etc!

There are plenty of people out there to doubt you. Don't get their job done for them. Show everyone, including yourself, just what you can create from your fertile mind. People driven to writing stories are a special lot. Let that part of you be fully tapped! Just be honest to yourself and you'll know quitting is not what you really want."

I hadn't meant to, but as I look at it now I was encouraging myself to continue. I was almost defending that position. For the past two years since my sister-in-law has been running her business, I have felt much more akin to her as someone outside the box living their dreams - a fellow traveler, wanting to take the world by storm on their own terms. I guess when people choose to leave that behind, it makes the rest of us wonder what the hell we're still doing, dangling out here over this pit of uncertainty.

comfort zone

I have watched as old friends have children and shift into parents. They suddenly speak in a new tongue and participate in entirely different activities. The glimmer of the people I once knew barely shows behind that other entity. Slowly as they become a reflection of the events in their child's life and not their own, the relationship we had becomes a figment of the past. It is presumed that my only wish is a front row seat for the show over some coffee, a flurry of colorful pictures, and invitations to kiddy events.

Now, it has dissipated in recent years, but I remember every occasion my brother would visit he'd give me one of those big brother bear hugs, which would be promptly followed by the moment when he'd push down on my shoulders in an effort to get me to shrink. For a great many years he kept trying to have me remain ten-years-old. This was that me he knew best and the one he could maintain in his mind.

There's a lot to those little boxes people put each other in. It's an easy way to keep things organized, neat, and orderly. It's a way to keep time from getting away. It even helps us know who to invite to what sort of event. When people grow it complicates things, it seems to make others uncomfortable, and it shows wear in the foundations of relationships. Sometimes people get so cubby-holed and their lives become so stagnant that they have no choice but to change, to grow, and to do things that don't seem like them selves.

I'm sometimes seen as that quiet writer type with the little notebook, the cryptic responses, and supposed elusiveness. I definitely spent a good number of years camera shy, which may account for my pursuing a behind-the-scenes career. This last week, however, I was an actor. I can really only attest to this because I got up in front of an audience with three fellow cast members, memorized many of my lines, and got paid for doing just that. We were involved in a prepared stage reading of an award winning play.

Taking yourself out of your comfort zone affords you the opportunity to express parts of yourself others might be blind to. It also opens you up to see yourself better. Being involved in this was such a welcome change and seriously invigorating. I think sometimes we impose these boxes on ourselves. Sometimes we will only let ourselves reach a certain distance and grow just so far before we figure we're there.

take two

I've been here before.

I was six years younger and several shades greener, but this is hardly unfamiliar.

With the dissolution of that short film and the late-summer feature, the opportunity presented itself. It's time to seriously look for investors for a feature film - again. I had the first meeting with my producing partner yesterday.

The upward climb starts now.

When I tried this the last time, everything was riding on this for my business partner and me. He needed a financial miracle and I yearned to dive into the deep end of the industry. As the years have passed I've discovered that nothing is the all meaningful "IT". I've come to realize that IT is what you get when you put everything together. IT is always being created. This was a hard lesson to learn.

Here we go again.

okay, whatever

Don't get depressed about not being where you want to be. This nagging feeling of anxiety is actually called ambition. Ambition is your friend.

-Atom Egoyan, independent filmmaker

The short film came back into my life yesterday.

I had written it off. I was sure nothing was going to become of it at this point.

This gets me thinking about the strange ways I relate to projects and productions. Sometimes I feel as though I write about filmmaking like single people write about their myriad love relationships. Take for example how many ideas never get beyond that initial burst of inspiration. Maybe it was never meant to be. Then there are those projects that weave in and out of your life, but never get very far while still remaining significant and personal. Then there are the ones that wake you up in the middle of the night, because what they've got to say just can't wait until morning.

And finally there are the actual productions - the marriages, if you will. They fall apart due to poor planning, bad communication, money issues, and the like.

So, the short film was back briefly. I heard from the writer-director guy, who I'd recently written again. I wanted to hear about his abandonment of his own project. I was told he hadn't done so, he was planning on seeing it through, and that the script was almost done. Lies, lies, lies.

Oh, and now he isn't leaving town until the third week in August. That would have been fine information to have before, but after his three week absence from communication and somehow taking four weeks to edit thirty pages out of the script, I decided I'd had enough. "So you're bailing then," he wrote during our instant message session. Nice.

Creative endeavors are a nasty beast.

cleaning house

About eighteen months ago I was interviewed by a local grad student who was doing their thesis on a film-related matter. I didn't realize when I met her for that thirty minute chunk of time that the transcript of our conversation would be available on-line.

It is.

I just came across it.

And I decided to read it.

Without removing all of my surprisingly plentiful vocalized pauses, I initially found myself sounding like a lesser version of myself - less confident, less assured, less grounded, a bit nervous, and maybe a touch stoned. It took a second read-through to recognize that this objective, fly-on-the-wall stance I was receiving revealed that I have indeed grown in a myriad of areas personally and professionally.

Perhaps some of this has been evident in the writings here.

Paradox is the wrong word for it, but there's something startling about listening to oneself in this way, spending a few moments with a younger incarnation of oneself.


The person I was reading on that page is someone who I don't fully understand. I suppose I am more assured, more confident, and more grounded.

I've similarly been rediscovering my past against the better judgment of Don Henley:

a voice inside my head said don't look back

you can never look back

-"boys of summer", 1984

Even after a period last fall spent clearing out the clutter, then attempting to move into a more streamlined existence, I still look around the house and watch so many things collect dust.

And I hate dusting. It's nearly as pointless as owning a leaf blower.

There are so many facets of old me sitting around - the me that comes from a family of pack rats. I had a grandmother who had enough stockpiled in her basement for a couple nuclear fallouts. I have a dad who I watched continually fill the garage with random containers and whatnot. To his credit he was a re-user before it was cool and long before my parents became obsessed with watching and re-watching "An Inconvenient Truth". But it's the drive to accumulate that runs in the family. I know, I know - capitalism, consumerism, blah-blah-blah.

What I've got are neatly contained memories, if you will.

This is from the writer perspective now. I've been working on an old script. I hadn't tossed together a new draft of it in five years. It's always been very personal to me and quite painful to write. But it's got a lot of baggage and it has the burden of having been written by a weaker writer.

At this point, I've spent the last month and a half completely deconstructing it, shattering it into its finer pieces much like a film editor. Instinctually I feel that it's what it needed. What's interesting to me is that as I've been working on it, it's slowly morphed into something quite similar to what it was. So, it's been a cathartic experience to re-live this story, but also to re-live my own, reading old missives, excising old newspaper clippings, and digging deeper into why any of it matters to me.

Speaking of lightening the load, the short film seems to have hit a complete stop. To borrow a phrase, the ball has been in his court for nearly two weeks. I feel I've made my best effort to be supportive of this project, but after a while he's exhibited a lack of interest or commitment. I think I'm done with it.

I do have to wonder, though, how any of this will look in hindsight eighteen months or maybe five years down the road.

america is

It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall

-Phil Ochs, "I Ain't Marching Anymore" (1965)

It's July fourth.

The fourth of July. Independence Day.

It's a summer day that came and went throughout much of my childhood. I watched the festivities and celebrations from afar with underdeveloped and under-tapped critical thinking skills.

It was one of the three major days during the year that my dad would unfurl the stars and stripes from whatever storage place in the garage it called home. Depending on where we were living at the time, he would display it inside a prominent window, hang it from the roof near our balcony, or draw it up the flagpole like a lynching of a forgotten ideal.

In the afternoon we'd probably barbeque some dead animal, munch from the family size bag of potato chips, and quench our thirst on iced tea. There'd be innumerable treats to choose from, with the dessert being the booming, bright, and colorful fireworks display with the other hordes of the blanket spreading clan. This would be a rare opportunity to be out past dark. All of these celebratory things could surely give an impressionable child the idea that things are great in the good old US of A.

I come from a military family. My grandfather was at Iwo Jima. He was a marine. What I know of him wouldn't fill a chapter in a book, but I know he was a wartime painter who crafted many a battle scene in all of its wartime raw imagery. He was also a poet and author, who became the subject of a poetry essay I put together in ninth grade. Even though this was my dad's adoptive father and not a blood relative, the five dollars he'd give me for writing book reports for him when I was seven years old I call out as the reason I love writing to this day.

My dad was in the Air Force and then the Navy. My brother followed in the familial footsteps and has become far more career military than anyone suspected when he enlisted nearly twenty years ago. There was a regimented nature to our household complete with hospital corners on our beds and a need for my dad to come into our rooms on weekend mornings doing a loud rendition of revelry.

There was always this overwhelming threat when you pushed the limits of acceptable taste or behavior in our household. It always seemed to come up. Military school. I would be hard pressed to count how many times I was "this" close to being "sent away". Thinking about it now, I haven't a clue if these these things really exist. Whatever the case, I feel that I grew up in a microcosm of my perspective of America. We're in constant need of creating little soldiers to go off to war.

We just finished watching the recent John Cusack film, "Grace is Gone". It's an intimate, affecting drama about a conventional Middle American guy who's lost his wife in Iraq and can't muster up the strength to break the news to his children. There's an underlying anti-war message that shows the complexity of fighting for what you believe in, but then having to deal with the detrimental effects of believing in it on a more personal level. I found it to be quite powerful and I highly recommend it!

It should be clear from reading my blogs that I apparently loathe all holidays. More definitively it's probably more the blindness which people seem to approach them. Most of them become a consumer event. We are told to shop, shop, shop! Perhaps it'll keep us from realizing that the holiday we are shopping under the auspices of represents the death of soldiers or the pillaging of a Native Culture.

It's not as if I shy away from July fourth. I just don't like to celebrate it, except in contradictory ways. For example, last year we watched a documentary about the 2000 election. I guess America and I are in the midst of an angry argument. In the way that once things go sour in relationship it appears that the whole thing was always so bad. I know it's not the whole picture. It's the photo negative of that sanitized show we saw at Epcot Center last February. It's the one that has Ben Franklin chatting it up about the great history of the US. It felt like one extended euphemism filled patriotic propaganda show.

So, it's Independence Day. That should stand for something.

I have no answers.

Let's just say that freedom is more than just a figment of our collective imagination in need of pursuit.

Then, what are you doing with yours?

mini wheats

Dear Static,
Here is your Work Horoscope for Wednesday, July 2:
Sometimes being a brainiac is a liability, and this is one of those times. Go on instinct alone. Your emotions can overcome details that your intellect gets stuck in like quicksand.

There are so many unsettled and out of control things swirling about in my life at present that this could conceivably be applied to several of them. Food for thought.

Or perhaps not!

else where

I spent the better part of the evening in a tree house.

That's not something most adults can say. Not very often, at least.

It was one of those sturdy, well-structured affairs like they have in the movies. They're usually the "property" of some spoiled corporate brat. The key difference was a complete lack of children, slingshots, and "no girls" signs. In their place were the adult comforts like an excess of pillows, electric outlets, i-Tunes, and plenty of vino.

Oh, I failed to mention the frequent circulation of upwards of twenty people!

This gathering was in celebration of yet another friend's departure from town. Having lived here for the last five years and off-and-on another three years before that, there's always an exodus. Plenty of others get their ticket out. I sit back and watch this town become so many other's springboard.

So there we all were passing around the bottles of pomegranate wine, champagne, and some others, nibbling on the vegan scones my wife made, sharing close quarters with a few friends, strangers, and whatever lies in between. These are merely titles that we wear or brandish upon others.

During a localized lull in conversation I tuned my ears around the "house". Our departing friend is fresh out of college and several of the others have the same predicament. It didn't surprise me to hear somebody going on about not wanting to be represented by their major.

This feeling clearly doesn't go away. It changes shape as people yearn to be more than their job title or represented by more than their credit rating. I was thinking recently that there might be more power in recognizing what you're not than what you are. There's a lot to be said for negative space. It provides a new perspective at least.

Like a tree house.