“how much do I owe you?”

“don’t worry about it… just pay me in drugs“.

I would love to regale you with the following little story.

Just around the time this little blog was born, one could describe me as grey… exceedingly grey. The meth was gone, my head a cloud of dead synapses… um… just grey.

But because I am a jack of many trades within my given realm of interest, along-side my job-job… I decided to edit demo reels… for actors. A demo reel or show reel, for those of you who do not know, is basically a visual video resume. It may seem like a no-brainer or an unartistic venture, but the assembling of said reels takes a bit of skill and talent. Because I was drowning in the sea of name-dropping and kissing ass that is Hollywood, I thought why not inject myself with a bit of creativity? (pun intended) I thought ‘who knows actors better than an actor‘. No, you haven’t heard of me. ‘Who knows how to edit better than someone that understands narrative and flow? Someone that has made films’. …still haven’t heard of me. ‘Who would be able to showcase talent in  a visual manner better than a talent manager-ish’.

And so, even in my exceeding haze, I was able to, compile great reels in a casual manner.

What does any of this have to do with dysfunction and/or drugs? So, I’m working very closely with Actor A in order to compile a demo reel. It was alot of work… but I didn’t mind it. It is always, for me atleast, more interesting to have so many great scenes to work with and have to do more work consequently than to try to create something out of nothing (ie, actors with no material that want a reel). I’ll do either, I’m just saying.

Then, Actor A’s reel: done! My first, I would have to say, quality/professional job. It was great shit. And we both new it. And so, we come full circle:

“how much do I owe you?”

At the time, I didn’t even know. Again, grey/barely able to focus on one thing/this whole art and commerce dissident I’ve had forever. And so, “whatever” is what came out of my mouth.

“Whatever” is not what comes out of my mouth now, however.

Now, I, in fact was actually able to focus on more than one thing. Editing and during editing sessions, sort of softly directing conversation… ever so softly.

You see, Actor A and your author, here, have in common certain past experiences, allegedly. My job was to make Mr or Ms A aware of a general vibe of the aforementioned certain past experiences in your author’s experience. Now, “A” is a client, not only of mine now, but of the company for which I work, and though our policy on certain things are much more lax than anywhere that functions at this level… I still had to be careful.

It didn’t start out this way, but the idea slowly began snowballing a bit inside my head. What idea? Um… “…the just pay me in drugs”-idea. What I did have going for me was that “A”, at the time, did sell pot to one of my bosses regularly. This was no secret. Atleast among my boss and I and “A”.

Anyway, done! We were done. Ahhhh!!! Okay, I just had to do it. I had brought it to a nice awareness point… and in a joking manner, I say something to the effect of, “if you can get me some meth, it’s totally free…. ha ha ha ha…” sigh… Then, it was more like, “no, really.”

You must understand that I didn’t quit using meth the second time strictly because I was ‘over-it’…. though I must say that I was…. but because, for one reason or another, I no longer had a dealer. If I hadn’t been ‘over-it’, I would have gone and gotten one. Like I did the time before and the time before that. I believe that I must have had 5 or so different meth dealers in CA in two years. NY was only one, baby!… he still brings a smile to my face. Baby digressions aside, there is a strange sort of mini-high that comes along deciding that you are over meth and just won’t do it really. This strange sort of very very very mini-high lasts all of a few days, at the most. Now, you have to understand that this was just short of a year after “I’m over it”.

grey as hell and no end in sight. A bag of meth would have been nice.

And it was.

to be continued.

I must say that I might be impressed. This post is a throw-back to the beginning… you know, proper posts, when I wrote stories (semi-autobiographical, at that)… rather than stumbling around on the interwebs and re-posting interesting drug links. yeaaaaaayyyyahhhhh!!!

nostalgia

where ever I may be, currently….

and furthermore where I may have been in the recent past…

as much as post-modernity and computer-riddled ADHD children make it possible for me to continue to be a speed addict…

one thing is for sure.

I haven’t touched a needle… a syringe… the lovely… the wonderfully smooth new point that would slide like butter into my coincidentally or whatever wide… large veins… with the dark maroon anemic blood

since when?

I don’t remember!!!! when was the last time?

…I remember… somewhere early 2006… just before I officially started to work for todd and david and just after gio at louise’s planted the seed in my head.

the last time.

the last time i used a needle. the last time i needed a needle.

…yes, I convinced myself shortly after the fact that I realized that the crank I was getting was crank that it might be a nice thing to start a sort of snorting ‘bit. and, yes, that lasted 2 years and cost me a job and cultivated a white-wine alcoholism that has snowballed then waned then snowballed to this day…

but I hadn’t thought of this earlier…

…ever.

I haven’t touched a needle to my vein (and a medical syringe in general) in over four (4) years.

…my life is mundane laconic patheticness right now.

…but maybe we should recognize and celebrate these things.

 

pink elephants

save me

okay, so maybe addressing things that haven’t been addressed… in 100 or so, much-reluctant posts about things… about me… on a much-reluctant blog…

might

possibly be

helpful?

…yeah, I can drug-addict one to death. blah, blah fuckin’ blah.

but maybe…

…but maybe

…you know, it’s nothing. Those things that are more mundane. These things that I cannot WIN absolutely. …that I’m not so good at. that others could do with minimal effort and even more minimal care.

…these things that, at one stellar moment, I captured and, in turn, was. And these things that, in a naive thinking of immunity, I thought that I could never be. …but am to this day.

I’m sorry.

I’m really sorry. I thought that I would go there.

These things need to be said. Voiced. That’s what Americans do. They speak. And I’m the most  blue-class working artistic American…

and, again, I apologize that I even quote this, but:

from the most capitalistic american novelist that seems to have this need to work and work and work…

(and I’m, maybe 11, at best when I first read):

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them —  words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understaning what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”

Yes.

I don’t speak about certain things.

…certain major things.

and I did think I could just do it right here. Right now.

But I can’t.

or I wont.

I don’t see them as major, maybe.

Maybe it’s “pride”… whatever that is.

Maybe I don’t comprehend the aforementioned’s stamp on me. Maybe I think it’s ‘whatever’.

… but it’s becoming more and more clear that it’s not “whatever”.

and it’s becoming more and more clear that the pink elephant… will soothe and comfort and save me… but it will never come to the forefront.

…I mean, it’s the pink elephant.

It doesn’t exist.

Powers of Ten

 

freaks me the fuck out

 

And here I thought that I was all about, “The Nines“.

…I mean, which I am.

But…

then, there’s this:

As a genera,l though very flexible, rule, even numbers freak me the fuck out.

They are round. Or rounder… ish. Than numbers are designed by their very function to be?…

To explain-ish:

Numbers are numbers. Cut and dry. Scientific. Angular and speedy. Efficient.

When said numbers take on a sort of continuously graduated silhouette (as many even numbers do) this sort of compartmentalized disconnect between angularity/efficiency and a degree of feral humanity collide in a way that… I’ll say it:

“does not compute”

Yeah, I can’t deal.

And this is the latest and greatest.