Update

My little world's been in a bit of upheaval as of late, as I'm getting ready for a move, looking for a new job, getting ready to open a show, and starting a new writing project. 

The final part is very exciting to me, as I discovered this online workshop through Scriptworks, (a terrific support group for Texas writers) at the perfect time.  And having just finished one project, I had a bunch of ideas flitting in and out of my head, none of them hanging around long enough for me to grab onto them and make something out of them.  So I'm hoping this five week workshop will inspire me and get a first draft out of me, as is the goal.  It started Friday and I dove right in, am journaling, watching the video links, doing the homework, but am finding myself conflicted over the constraints of the assignment, and their seeming flexibility.  But, in the vein of something I said recently about the merits of sticking with a project or idea to its finish as long as it contains enough "heat", I'm going to go ahead and start the first ten pages of it tonight and see what happens. If it sucks or I can't think of where it's going??  Maybe then I'll reconsider.

In the meantime, I move in 8 days!!!!  I haven't been prepping like I should, have found myself very unmotivated since I was let go from my job (long story, but believe me, pride will force me to elaborate) but I'm so excited about my future roommate and the fun times we will have, so I allowed that to spur me on and I started the packing process.  It's hard to ignore the inevitability of something when the evidence of it is staring you in the face.

That's all for the moment, as I'm racing off to see Man of Steel!

Wisdom From the Sage

I've been scavenging through writing prompt books as of late, to encourage my writing and  wanted to share one I completed recently.  I highly recommend it as it helped me put a lot of things in perspective.

From The Writer's Idea Book:  Prepare a list of interview questions for someone you admire.  No question is inappropriate.  Try to really find out what makes them tick.  Now look at the questions as if someone was asking them to you.  Answer them. 

Here's some of my response to the prompt (heavily edited, believe it or not, to spare you too much boredom and pomposity) with a caveat.  I do not in any way think I am all-knowing and accomplished enough to be answering some of these huge questions, but I do think it's fun, and worthwhile to try.

     (Everything I ever needed to know about life, I learned from this book)

Do you believe things happen for a reason?  That there’s some kind of a plan?

I do, with emphasis on the word "believe".  And I hope they do.  But I could never begin to understand what that reason things happen is.  

Do I believe there is a set plan, and that I’m like a pencil performing a dot-to-dot by rote,  going from one predetermined point to another?  No, I think life's more open than that.  I think that life is for us to grow, to keep becoming ourselves until we reach an apex.  The world/universe/God keeps putting experiences in our path for us to learn from until we've gotten from them what we were supposed to.  Can we avoid some experiences?  Yeah, but new ones will come to us with the same purpose in mind.  And they'll be more and more obvious what they are supposed to be teaching, until finally we are hit over the head (if that's what we need) and say "Oh, ok, I get it."  So, yeah, I think there are plans, many plans, all for our ultimate good.  And I think we can make it easier on ourselves, or harder. 
 

 

Are you grateful for the bad things that have happened in your life as well as the good?

No.  Not all of them.  Am I grateful that I was held back in the seventh grade?  Yes, because it altered my life completely and I met some very different, very wonderful people as a result.  But if I hadn’t?  If I'd gotten my act together and passed on, Mightn’t those people I met have been equally if not more wonderful?  And do all paths end up leading us as people, to the same point?  I don’t know.  I’d like to go back and make different decisions just to see what would have happened, what else I might have experienced as a result.  Am I grateful that my grandmother died?  No.  I dealt with it, and everyone has to go at some point, but I’m not grateful. 

 

 Do you think it’s possible for you to change at this point in your life, or do you think your flaws are your flaws for better or worse and there’s no getting around them, just dealing with them?

I think that yes, it’s possible to change and grow, or what’s the point?  But I also think that some challenges are with a person for as long as he lives.  They may go away for a bit, but they are just a breath away from coming back.  Sometimes I'll be in charge of my issues and other times not.  Some of them I will have beaten eventually, according to other people's definition of that word, but not my own. 
 
Take our addictions.  We may come to a point where we don't succumb to them every day, or ever, but they still have a pull on us, and sometimes a very strong pull.  With hard work we might get to the point where we learn to control and manage our dark cravings, but those demons don’t ever really go away, or if they do they are still closer than we may think. 

I think we each have a certain set of challenges in our life that are ours.  And they define us.  They are uniquely ours and we can make them tools or obstacles.   

 What kinds of stories are you attracted to?  Stories with magic.  Because magical properties are a great way to illuminate or point up the truth.  Magic is one way of raising the stakes.  It makes anything possible.  You can raise to greater heights or lower depths when magic is involved.  That’s why I love these stories.  One of my favorite movies is  Bell, Book and Candle with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak, partly because it stretches the boundaries of what is possible.  What happens when a beautiful bohemian witch, who physically cannot cry, learns how?  A really good story, in my opinion.

 

 

 

 

"Thoughts on A Creative Career"

Found this video really thought provoking, and think it pertains to anyone who has that innate desire to write, paint, act, or create and not just the young ones.

Happy Birthday, Judy!!

My obsession began early, and except for the short period of time between age ten and thirteen when I did my best to put away the pursuits I considered less than masculine, I have been faithful.  For me, she is my guiding star, the wounded healer who worked through the wounds to find the joy, and who was courageous enough to share all the longing, giddiness, conviction and radiance she possessed.  

There's a clip I can't help but share every year, as for me it simply captures her like no other video.  It's a performance of "When the Sun Comes Out" from the first episode of her short lived television variety show.  I've paired it with the Jack Parr interview that showed what a charismatic raconteur she was and made the series that was to follow this appearance possible.

 

 

 

 

Happy 91st, Judy!

"Stories We Tell"

Until today I was only familiar with Sarah Polley as a Canadian actress and I'm so glad I got over my sour grapes attitude which at least aided to my subconscious avoidance of her directorial debut, Away From Her,  and its follow-up, both of which have been critically praised.  Last month, however, I saw a preview for her latest film, a personal documentary which explored her family's history and the story of Sarah's birth that had long been joked about.  I was instantly drawn in, not by the possible salaciousness, as much as by a sense of longing and nostalgia for stories and people lost to us.

 

I found the complete film profoundly moving, and it has been playing in the back of my mind for the rest of the day and into the evening, needling and poking at me with it's not completely answerable questions about truth, and memory, and fairness.  It's playing at the Regal Arbor 8, and The Violet Crown here in Austin, and I highly recommend it.  

Creepy Kid's Stuff

This video is both awesome and creepy to the highest degree.  If I'd been these kids I'd have been terrified.  Hum Bear and "Melody Mouse" are getting a surprise ready for Sally in the middle of the night.  Just in case you didn't know that toys like to party, too.  Really starts about 2 minutes in.

Judy and Avedon

I'll admit it.  I am completely obsessed.  And as the days get closer to what would have been Judy's 91st birthday (June 10th), I've been inspired to drag my sorry butt back to the blog and share the obsession.

Today I want to focus on the Richard Avedon portraits.  Avedon was a high fashion photographer for Vogue, and is one of the best portrait photographer out there.  His series "In the American West" is brilliant, and his celebrity photos are so intimate and truthful.  He took many photos of Judy throughout the fifties and sixties.  Below is just a sample: 

(Judy and Richard, 1956)

Stirred, Not Shaken

The tricky thing about the distractions and diversions in my life is that, in most cases, I put them there.  No one else. And sure they can soothe me, and calm me, but more than anything, they can waste my time.  I can while away the entire evening with a pointless iphone game and the next day feel this funny ache, this regret, this knowledge that I should have manned up and done some writing, or exploring, given up on instant gratification to feel some long term gratification.  It can be a fight, all the harder now that I have a full time, stressful new job, my attempts to wrap my brain around which are keeping me in the office long past the time I'm required to be there.  And when I get home the last thing I want to do with my time is exercise my fucking mind.  And yet...

It was a wonderful weekend full of inspiring theatre and magical friends and affirming time with my mom and dad and a couple of those bubbling up warm fuzzy feelings thrown in for good measure.    It's also been "stirring".  The job mentioned previously takes a lot of faith that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel once these lessons have sunk into my brain.  And the fact that this job is not very artistic, in some ways not at all aligned with my natural tendencies, it makes me wonder if it's worth the time and pain.  However, these challenges, as they say "strengthen" us.  Remind us that we can get through if we trust.  And if we don't trust and we give up?  Then we reinforce the negative message that we will not make it and the things that seem so wonderful at the beginning will inevitably turn sour.  But if we DO trust, then the sour things turn back to sweet (oh lord this is one lame-ass analogy, but you get the point...right?) and you can feel good about yourself for not giving in to the momentary weakness.  

Or...have I jumped from one dead-end job to one that may have a clear path, but a path that I don't particularly want to travel down?

And yet, as my friend Mark reminded me, it's not boring.  And in a lot of ways, these moments of life are exactly what he hope for during the lulls.  I'm right in the thick of life, feeling emotions, figuring things out, experiencing.  And I am being creative.  I'm blogging, I recently finished a screenplay which I'm submitting to competitions and festivals, and I'm gearing up to be participating in a pretty unique multimedia stage piece which explores some of the myths that fascinate me through a modern sensibility.  And, it's nice to be reminded occasionally that pleasant surprises can find you without your working so hard to find them, as long as your opening doors and walking through them. 

Things are happening, inside and out, and right now it's enough to know that.

The "Extras in the Movie of Your Life"

It's a concept I was introduced to a while ago through a podcast called "How Much Do We Love".  They talked about the people you we run into on a semi-regular or sporadic basis, who inform and entertain our lives in some relatively small way, and I think it's a pretty lovely way to look at them.  You couldn't call them friends, or even acquaintences, they are just...extras in the movie of our life. Here are a couple of my more notable ones.

The Lady in White-  When you live in LA you are always about two blocks from a crappy neighborhood.  I was no exception.  There's a strip of PicoBlvd  that is populated by faded business that are barely hanging on, but somehow manage to stick around:  a nail salon, a palm reading shop, a perpetually empty Jack in The Box.   It was in this neighborhood that I would see the Lady in White.  She was in her mid-thirties, beauty faded, white robes, white leggings, white high heels, frizzy bleached hair (Think Elayne Boozler, circa 1983) Even her lipstick was white.  She was so thin and angular, you'd expect her to walk sharp, or even to stumble as if in a daze, but no...she glided effortlessly down the street like Glinda the Good Witch gone to seed.  Her white robes always seemed to flow behind her as if accompanied by a perpetual breeze.  I imagined a life for her, like you do, and imagined that she'd fallen into drugs and prostitution from a life as kept woman, from a life in the corporate world, and she was holding onto her lost virginity by cothing herself in the colors of purity that were yellowing, though she pretended not to see it happen.

Dreamy Starbucks Barrista-  I have a favorite Starbucks where I go to organize my thoughts, to read, and ocassionally write when I'm able to power through the doubt, and it is graced by the Dreamy Starbucks man-child.  He's in his mid to late twenties, and I think he's only there when they need a little help so he strays from the Starbucks he manages to pick up the slack at this one.  He's slender, with an effortless beauty.  He doesn't seem to work at it one iota and I picture him tumbling out of bed and his thick black hair tumbling right along with him.  I've always had a weak spot for incongruous pale skin and dark hair, and the black button down he wears accentuates the contrast.  Add to that his extremely helpful demeanor (also effortless) and a deeper voice than you would expect to come out of his pillow lips, and you can color me happily uncomfortable any time I see him.  Uncomfortable because I don't want him to think I'm looking and noticing him, so I just take tiny little glances in his direction when he's not looking, in a way that is hopefully not creepier than if I openly stared.  After all there's no pressure.  I don't expect to date him, don't think about him outside of the Starbucks, but he is pretty...even more so for the fact that he doesn't seem to know it.

The Best Song You Are Not Working Out To

My friends make fun of my work-out music, but I truly do not know better way to run than accompanied by showtunes in my ear to keep me going.  Dream Girls???  That sound track is full of songs that start with a beat and just build til I can hardly staaand it.  "Move"?  Yes, please.  The disco version of "One Night Only"?  Fuh-get about it.  And who wouldn't run (as my Dad used to say) "full-tilt-boogie" when listening to the theme song from Wonder Woman?  You can always surrender to the power of thigh high red boots for the two minutes it takes the song to run its course. 

But my favorite... my go to song... the one that I play when I'm just about tuckered out and I don't think I can make it to the end end of my regularly scheduled work-out...is from the musical version of All About Eve, a little show called Applause, which featured Lauren Bacall's Tony winning tenacity and foghorn voice.  Said voice is prominently dispayed in her tour de force song "But Alive". 

Imagine yourself on the treadmill for a moment:

It starts out like they often do, nice and easy, a saunter really, a stride.  But one minute into it and we're cantering, trotting, energized.  The anticipation is palpable and so we've sped up the treadmill up a couple levels.  Then, 2 minutes-  We're up to a nice run, nothing we haven't done before.  We listen to the chorus of disco chicks and dudes scatting the nonsense words "Tralla- Shaba-Daba-dada" and can imagine Lauren throwing down some sassy dance moves.  3minutes in you feel like this must be the mecca!  The high point of the song.  Lauren is braying "ALIIIVE" over and over again at the top of her leather lungs and the chorus of gay boys (this scene takes place in a gay bar in the Village, btw) is chanting "Margo!"  You unflinchingly add another level to the treadmill.  It's done right?  That's it?  But no!  3:24. Key change!!  You are kicking it at a 8 or 8.5, nothing can stop you!  You feel brilliant and brash and bombastic, limp as a puppet and simply fantastic, but alive!  Even when Lauren is done singing the chorus goes on and on and just when you think you can't go any longer they finish it off with one last rousing "MARGO!!!!!"

If you're ass isn't kicked by the end of the song, you didn't do it right. 

Here's a clip from the televised version of the musical to give you a visual, and if you know where to find the full version of this little gem, lemme know, will ya??

 

 

 

And Oh and yeah, while searching for this video I found another treat.   The same song as lip synched by a rather zaftig drag queen lip-synching in front of a chorus of well-built tight shirted "sailors".  I post this only on the condition that you watch the legit version first.  And don't bother thanking me.

 

   

Marilyn, Marlon, and Truman

It's not new to say that film stars are the Greek Gods and Goddesses of our time, but I can't think of a better analogy to explain why they hold such a fascination.  Movie Stars fulfill the same purpose for us in a lot of the same ways that those ancient beings did.  They represent giant ideas and emotions in a comprehensible, human package.  This is especially true of those stars from the mid-twentieth century.  Not only because their stories are complete, with a beginning and an end, but because their images were so concrete, shaped by themselves and by some of the best PR people in history.

Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart.  These are people we think we know.  We can reduce them in our minds to one image, to one adjective even.   We place our hopes and dreams upon them, see our struggles in theirs, find hope in their triumphant moments.  It's almost religious, and sometimes their...people hood... can be usurped by what we need and expect them to be.   

In keeping with my current interest in long form journalism (albeit, entertainment journalism)  I found two features on two of the great stars of the past, as seen by the fractured and mischievous sensibility of trickster, Truman Capote.  Both of them made me rethink what I thought I knew.

The first one is a 1980 article by Truman in which he recounts an intimate encounter with Marilyn, and it's a tellingly different look at someone who often gets reduced to a wispy, powder faced baby doll.    The second, is a profile of a profile, the story of how Truman Capote seduced Marlon Brando into giving up more of himself than he'd planned.  The resulting piece premiered in The New Yorker in 1957 and was the forerunner of the current trend in celebrity journalism.  Both articles are juicy as hell. 

For those of you who are also interested in longer articles, and like me were having trouble finding them, longform.org culls some of the greatest pieces on the web, old and new, and will surely provide you with hours of reading pleasure.