Sitting in the Park, July 22, 2008

Right now I'm sitting in the park, a notebook on my lap, taking it all in as I wait for the first sentence to spark in my mind.

It's speckled with people, first the park, then my mind. They make me a bit lonely and give me company at the same time.

I look around and I see a man painting on an old style wooden isle that folds into case. He's aimed at the Hell Gate bridge and what a worthy landscape that is for canvas.

There's a trio of teens in front of me. They're seated in the grass. Their worlds are so small right now, with worries of prom and sports and grade averages and even sex. It's such a larger world than I had at that age.

The Creep type-cast passes me. He has a mechanical kind of gait and a suspicious glance. He passes around again.

Two dogs have come and gone. One resembled the owner as they both struggled with a light walk. Finally he squatted and gave her a gift, which she quickly wrapped up for him. Is he walking a little less weary? She isn't.

There's another man like me. He sits high on a bench and watches people.

A pair of dogs as separate as siblings can be - one ready to obey, the other not understanding the concept at all.

A couple, one plays the guitar. (That's three people - me included- in this small patch of park practicing an art in one form or another.) They sit in the grass and look in love.

3 more dogs. It finally dawns on me - they've all come here to poop after having been stuck inside for the last 9 hours. It's 6pm.

A corporate man in a stiff, humorless suit waits for his dog to drop one. A laugh at the thought of him picking it up. What a reversal. Dog's are fucking celebrities.

There's an incredible breeze in the air to an already perfect day. The wind whistles and barely muffles the laughter of the children far behind me at the public pool. There's a bit of shade that I hide under and it keeps the sun from reflecting off the notebook's white pages. A bright tall city peeking behind my left shoulder. I didn't even know it was a perfect day until I walked out here.


- Later the idea of a perfect day was exactly what I needed for the next sequence in my story. Go figure... I ultimately however went another direction, showing Airi at her worst moment instead...but there's still room for the original somewhere else. This shit might actually work! -

The Warm Up

Well, well, here I am again. I'll explain quite briefly. Though I no longer have an interest in blogging over my days, I have been trying new ways of ridding myself of writer's block. One method is to start things off with some free-style writing before I actually get into my story. I'm finding it helps, and as a believer of wasting as little as possible - I decided that I'd just post those its and bits of literary warm-up on here and record a slightly more aesthetic version of my life.

Failure is almost certain.

So There's No Assumption of Exaggeration

Projects and the End of Things

So here we are. Between the growing friction of Iran, and even China I wonder a little bit if we are all doomed. There are so many clashes and conflicts these days, how could one not consider this? And then you look at the Cold War and the general perception of people in that time or WWII or directly after the JFK assassination. It was pretty close to what it is now, average citizens preparing on some level to be blown the fuck up, either by invasion or nuclear threat. And that makes me think, am I really doing what I want with my life?? I think mostly yes. I would certainly like more travel before our borders are sealed up and we're not allowed to leave. But I'm doing what I like mostly and I'm enjoying it. I guess that is most important. Eh, anyway...

So it's been busy around these parts and I haven't really had the energy to blog. We recently finished filming the movie, not on the day I last reported but the following day, because the principal was suffering a hang-over (nothing unusual for this production). Sunday we did something of a sound mix and now my partner is scrambling to do the finishing touches in time to submit it into a Brooklyn film festival that seems anxious to see it.... Perhaps I should go on about the actually movie first. It's called Amerika das Geistes, or put more simply, America the Mental. Two friends and I started filming it a couple of months ago during the writer's strike. It is a fake documentary about a man whose day job is a drug enforcer. Meanwhile he is striving to be a comedy and so it follows his journey of self-discovery. The whole thing is utterly ridiculous. there is no script, it is all improv. The main character is deplorable, yet charming in some way. The main concept was disturbing violence meets comedy basically. We shot it leisurely, sometimes for a few hours a day, sometimes all day, and whenever we could all meet. It was a "great joy" as they say in the biz. It was fun to film with friend, it was fun to not have to deal with lighting really cuz I ended up behind camera for the majority of it, and it felt good to be making a film again and to actually finish it. My two friends were great to work with and did an amazing job for their parts. All in all, good times. So now we have to strike up a one of the actor unions so we don't get in trouble for making and maybe if fortune is with us, we can sell it. If not, oh well, nothing lost. I have about a million other projects in my head at the moment which is always a good feeling. But certainly my next concentration is getting the Paparazzo script out there, and possibly filming a scene from it to present to production companies. And of course there's Deadland, which is slowly being prepared for presentation. It is a little harder with this project because I am depending on others to do what I would hope they consider to be "their part" and it might just not happen, but I will try nonetheless. And so yes, life is quite busy. And then there is work. Yesterday I froze my ass off for most of the day, only to have my head completely covered in blood at the end to play a dead guy on Law and Order. Oddly enough that was when the day started to get a lot better. However it is good to have today off. So last but not least a couple of stills from America the Mental...

Last Day of Filming

It's called America, the Mental. And today we wrap principal photography. Details to come.

Find Cover

It's been a busy week. Today was the first day, I've had to relax. I spent it working on a map of the United States for Dead Land, which is a tad different than our current map, in time I will post it. It needs a lot more work. Monday and Tuesday I worked on something, don't remember what it was at the moment, don't care. Was work is all that matters. Oh shit, wait, I worked today too. It was such an early call and such a short day (3 1/2 hours) that I forgot about that. Wednesday I continued to film the movie I am making that I have yet to detail officially. I'm trying to keep as busy as I can, because when I'm not (like today) I hate my life, at least a good part of it. Maybe I'm just exhausted. I finally got some sleeping pills, because I haven't slept well in over a week, in that I wake up about every 10-30 and dream non-stop. Plus I've had a headache for about 4 days now. I kind of resolved a major issue in my life. It feels good not to be angry at her anymore, I don't want to be angry at her. But now it seems that it's harder, because I miss her more and that anger isn't there to help with the not talking. So I just need to focus on the things that I do have control over. Work, writing, film, exercise, hanging with friends. What a drab entry this is. It's night, what do you expect? I'm going upstate tomorrow to visit family. I decided that today. I need it. Goodbye NYC, for a few days anyway.

Fuck you world, just keeping spinning without me.

Jewinated

Work is certainly picking up. I really hope it stays this way. I need to restore my financial situation big time. Yesterday I received a last minute call for a promo at Madison Square Garden. Nothing about it was too appealing, but money is money and I had no work booked for that day. So I took a quick shower and hopped on the train. There's been some juggling this week with gigs, and yesterday I was trying to book Thursday and Friday before working the promo, otherwise I was going to stay with the promo work until Saturday. I don't like doing this, because I need the union work for my health insurance. It seems like everything lately have been multiple day matching shots. This is nice because it gives us a few days on a project instead of one, but it's also harder to schedule stuff because often times you're not available for every day that they want you. Anyway I started the promo hating it. I didn't like the vibe, it was too uptight. It's a fucking promo, come on! I'm not going to put my heart and soul into it. I'll work, but I'm not going to really care. There was one moment, where me and this girl were passing out crap a couple of levels away from home base and I caught the supervisor spying on us from behind a column. I was ELATED to find background work for today. Anyway the people gradually became more tolerable as the night went on and we started talking about movies and actors. I also stopped in to Borders and picked up Oil! by Upton Sinclair. I can't wait to read it. There was a brief moment of actual fun when we figured it was more fun to throw the rally towels were passing out to people rather than handing them out. People usually caught them in passing, sometimes it didn't work out.
So today I was supposed to be a waiter a Jewish wedding, but because I didn't bring black pants, I was transformed into an Hasidic Jew....once again. Fortunately they didn't put a beard on me. It was a crowd full of jerk-faces and I spoke out a good many times during the course of the day. The perk however, was Natalie Portman. She was there and she was gorgeous. Oddly enough I JUST watched The Darjeeling Limited the other day. Which by the way was a great movie, perhaps one of Anderson's more abstract films, but also strangely parallel to things in my life. Ahhh... but isn't that what movies and music do best? Fuck you all.

More Cowbell!

Here it is. Proof that I tell no lies, I make no exaggerations. Video from Kalju's party. Because I initiated the dosey doe, they missed my dance. But there is plenty of footage of me banging the tambourine and plenty of everyone else making for a hell of a night. One thing I forgot, I started a glow stick gang, we were marked by the green glow sticks we wore around or on our ears. Later on the kids got their hands on the glow sticks and the gang became less reputable. Anyway, without further ado.

Kalju's Party

Welcome Home

I have been looking forward to Kalju's homecoming party for quite a while now. So when I received a call for work this past weekend, I was certainly conflicted, but work as I said before is top priority. There is no choice in it, if I am offered I MUST take. So I did, but I was bummed that I would not be able to make it to the bash. And then the rain came. And when I called in for my start time for Saturday, there was a message saying that the shoot was pushed back to Sunday. The next hour was a frenzy of packing and getting to Penn Station bound for the Jersey shore line. Dave, who was coming for Mass. showed up at nearly the same time as I did. Drinking began and did not end until 5am. Probably not the best plan for the night preceding a long party, but what the hell.

*Note to self: Never drink gin again.

The party wasn't entirely what I thought it would be. There were so many old people! And I'm not sure they were prepared for a group of silly youngsters. So we all kind of played in cool for a few hours, letting the more formal part of evening happen. I think what probably started the REAL fun was when Kalju's mom wanted to dance with me and I got her to dosey-doe, others in the group of course joined in and the dosey-doe competition began. Then I somehow got hold of a tambourine. Anyone that knows me, knows that that is like opening the flood gates. A couple of dudes on guitars had been performing all night, with a brief break by Kalju's brother's pop-punk band, which I think opened the night up to the right vibe. WE ARE NOW GOING TO GET A LITTLE WILD. I made it up on stage and performed a song, a song I don't remember and then more and more people climbed the stage. We performed one song after another. Percussion instruments passed from one person to the next. I myself hopped from tambourine, to guitar, to piano, to drums. I don't really know how to play drums, but I managed alright I think. We gained or two more drummers through the night, including a two little girls that double teamed the set and didn't do a half bad job. We played played until the night was done. I remember a lot of smiles, it was a fantastic night and I feel really fortunate that I was able to be there. The coming back to NYC however nearly killed me. I had to leave by 12am that night, with the daylight saving I did not arrive back to my apartment until 4am. 1 hour and 45 minutes later I was waking up for work. There is a pain to that that can't be really related unless you yourself have been in the position. BUT i did it and I live.

I'm just trying to keep my life as busy as possible right now, trying to surround myself with people and more importantly good people. It is the only thing keeping me from sinking into a deep hole. I keep having dreams, cruel dreams that show me and that person I spoke of before reconciling. I had one the other night, she whispered into my ear that she loved me. That is a hard dream to wake up from.

The Wind Chill Factor

Some days...most days... we background don't do too much in the way of work while at work. We sit in holding, occasionally napping, reading, writing, bullshitting, taking trips to krafty or to the john. Though are the days a sensible actor realizes that this ain't a rotten deal. But then you have the days from hell, when no one wants to be you. And that was yesterday. Outside all day, hanging out in a wind-tunnel of a street, taking my coat off every couple of minutes and playing summer fun for the camera as the freezing air and wind chilled me to the bone while on the shady side on the street. It was complete torture. To make matters worse, I had only slept for an hour and 45 minutes and I had a hang-over. Ugh! Fortunately I knew someone there and gained a few allies and we passed the day with the usual joking and making fun of weirdos. And the weirdos were out let me tell you. There is this particular casting office that tends to book more freaks for work than any other. I pretend like I hate the freaks, but in truth making fun of them really helps to pass the day. I think Bill Cosby should host a show called, "Freaks Say the Funniest Things" because really they come up with some crazy ass shit. Case in point, "I don't know why that man doesn't smell like old woman." Yup some one said that to me, well to someone in my group, they rarely talk to me, it's probably cuz of the furrowed brow I sport all day. I will say there were 2 genuine highlights of the day. We were filming in Long Island City and in the morning the already spectacular view of Manhattan was illuminated by the rising sun. The second was lunch, which featured King Crab. Coincidentally enough, as we were stowing away down in the basement stairs of a building to avoid the killer wind I made the statement, "They better have some mother-fucking king crab at this lunch." By the time I got home, I was wiped out, my body was done. I was just elated to be warm. The simple things in life.

The best part: 2 more days of this shit.

New Leaves

Okay, so I have barely worked since Thanksgiving. The writer's strike, which I was in support of, crippled me financially. My bank accounts have dwindled to nearly zero. It has been very scary. Fortunately the government has helped keep me afloat. Still my resources are scarce. To make matters worse, that government help ended last week. So now I am just not making any income at all. WELL, was anymore. Fortunately this week has been bright. I have booked five days of work for the next two weeks. This may not seem like a lot. But for me to have 5 days I KNOW I am working, well that is just a great thing. After spending two horrible days in Rhode Island, I'm very glad to be working in Queens this weekend. Unfortunately I will be missing Kalju's homecoming party, which I was looking extremely forward to. But work is priority one at this point. And apparently they are trying to save the show, "New Amsterdam" which films in NYC, so hopefully they will start shooting that again. I am actually hopeful for the first time in a long time, that I will be working a lot in the coming months and getting out of this hole I am in.
Lately I have been looking to make certain changes in my life, maybe not changes, but more effort, more assertiveness. Fun, productivity, exercise. All my days need to contain at least two of those elements. It's nothing too different for me I guess, I am just going larger scale now. For fun, well in the last week and a half I think I have been doing alright. I spent a few days in Salem, MA. with Dave going out and getting all kinds of wasted. A quick run down of that time... bar hopping in the cold, shouting, Dave slapping me across the face for motivation or inspiration (one of the two), running into building windows, sneaking into the back door of a closing bar and getting them to serve us more drinks, actually I was not served, but the others were, piggy back riding and latching onto tree branches, skating on streets at three in the morning while being up to no good, taking pictures to prove it. Rinse and repeat. Then I hurried back to NYC so my hands could audition for a role. Then filming a scene for a movie I am making with some friends, and which will be discussed later. It was a crazy night of filming, there is behind the scenes footage, which will be provided at a later time. So yeah, I am trying to just keep busy day to day. I am coming up with new ideas, new ways to get my work out there, and I'm not afraid anymore to go beyond the standard of submitting your work. Hell, this is my career, I need to start building my life on it, and before any of that happens I need to be noticed. I am not running for office ever, if I get arrested for trespassing, so what. At least I am making an effort, at least I won't have regrets 20 years from now that I didn't try hard enough.

Wonderland

So, its March 7th. Hell, it's 2008. It's been a few months since I've last done this. There were a few reasons why I stopped blogging. The one I am going to talk about though is this: When I started writing here I was honest, I was open, I wasn't censoring for anyone, I didn't feel like I had to omit sections of my life. Whether that was a mistake or not, I really don't feel the need to consider at this point. But writing here slowly became an empty practice. There was so much of my life I felt like I couldn't discuss, even in a mostly anonymous forum, that writing about my life seemed to be pointless, because I wasn't really doing that. I was talking about what was safe to write about. Here is the truth, even if I still keep some shred of ambiguity to it. The last two and half years have been filled with extremes, a roller-coaster relationship that after all this time has exploded into a horrible situation. When the relationship started, it was fun, it was crazy, and I instantly fell in love with her. We had a connection I had never before felt, on every level we seemed to be made for each other. But there were always complications and there was always inevitability. I know the mistakes that I had made in the course of those two years. I know they didn't help matters. Some of it was just me having to grow up, some of it was because I was facing an extremely trying relationship and all my hope was put into someone who swore love to me, but never promised an intention to make changes so that we could actually truly enjoy what we had. And perhaps it was that more than anything else that slowly has worn me down to the point I have been at for the last several months. A mess. An unstable, emotionally-drained, insecure, dependent mess. Fuck, I would cry at television programs and be like, "holy shit, this shouldn't be making me cry! What is wrong with me?" It is difficult to describe such a mental state. I guess to simplify it, I'll just say I was depressed. There were a few times that I honestly thought about ending my life, because it was such a terrible feeling to endure. It felt like I had no control. My actions could push this person away, but they could never bring her closer to me, they would never cause her to make the change that we needed. I am not blaming her for this, she was honest about it, but then again, fuck, it is just too complicated to go down that road. I am not going to try to reason her side, right now this is for me. The internet is the bane of break-ups, isn't it? Myspace, facebook, blogs, all that shit, how do you stay away? Maybe some people just can. I went to her blog once after we finally split, she wrote about her relief that it was over and that her life is on the upswing. And that was it, it was the last time I said, the last time I would let her hurt me. It was my fault for going there. I am quite sure she won't be here, she is better at stuff like that than I am. Anyway, I am not writing this to retaliate, but I do feel like I need to write this down and just put it out there. I wish I hated her, I wish really that I felt nothing for her. It would make this all so much easier. And though there is still part of me that is mad at her, more than anything I miss her. I miss many things about her. And I doubt I will ever be completely over her as much as I try. The end was a disaster, maybe it had to be a disaster, maybe that was the only way it could truly end. I was an emotional wreck, she was mostly angry, it was the result of an endless cycle of "what are we." It is so difficult to love someone who feels guilty for loving you in return, someone who is constantly pushing away, and trying to simplify things by omitting a part of the relationship that you don't want to let go. I was always hopeful for some reason, and I think back now and just wonder why. All I was relying on was love, and in reality that is just not enough. And for some reason people who want to split with the other person find insult or assume you don't really care if you say you can't be friends after they've broken up with you. I don't quite understand that concept. You left, you wanted out, you're the one breaking my fucking heart every time you push away, but I am the bad guy because I don't want to continue a friendship that will only hurt me as I quietly want us to be together? It may work after some distance, after people have moved on, but it was never a good idea for the immediate plan. I've heard enough already that I am overly dramatic from her. Which to me is perplexing, when the entire relationship was always going to be dramatic or serious, especially as more and more time passed. Two and a half years! I remember thinking I can't let this continue more than a year unless things change. But I just kept hoping the more time passed, the longer were stayed together, the better the chances that we would make it. I have become a mess. Yes. But to ignore the situation and the impact that it has had on me, to ignore the fact that I have ALWAYS given this person all of me, that I moved what ever I could around for whatever time we could get to get together, that this person was my world and that I would have waited for her as long as it took just as long as she could accept what we had, to me that is either denial or indifference. And to twist shit around and make me feel like a pussy for feeling for someone that deeply and showing that, well that is just mean. I guess that is where my anger comes in. I don't know if I have anything else to say about this. I am just kind of free thinking.... And so the next step is to move on... I am trying... but I love her still, but I am trying.