Letters From The Edge of The Galaxy

Life Is Weird and Cherry Garcia

2009-07-07T00:52:00.000-07:00

Weird actually is a pretty weird word to me. The I before E rule has never meant a whole hell of a lot to me. Well its important but its one of those rules you go back and recite when you've been jamming across a keyboard and the last few characters came together to looking like something you just made up. So I before E and except neighbor or weigh, mainly that "ayyy" sound but also except for weird.

If you've read this blog before you probably are confused as to why I suddenly care about spelling. And I still don't I guess. but life is weird and it occurs to me I needed an opening paragraph lest there be confusion. I mean without that paragraph this would have been the opening paragraph and this is a pretty shitty paragraph as far as paragraphs go. And now we have two paragraphs.

Betrayals of the fifth grade grammar laws and the money wasted on my private education aside, I'm going to continue with an update. Because it has been a while. So tonight, well this morning I find myself sitting at the same desk and monitor but with a new PC humming gently beside me. Here to my left in my small corner of this very small house is an adjacent monitor where shared internet connectivity and a smooth running and installed SIMS3 assures me: I AM BATMAN. On my right - my father.

...

Dad has emerged from his Never Never Land; more chipper than I remember. Time didn't stop but he learned something about how to laugh. Before the divorce I can remember a lot of annoyed looks from him while I goofed off for my sister. Since he's been back a lot of what he does is laugh. It's a new laugh, filled with base and iron chords that will make you uncomfortable should he choose to unleash it in public(IE on a bus or something). We hang out all day together; tell jokes, get annoyed, ride jokes and watch movies together. To say that it's weird doesn't really do the whole thing justice. It's been ten years since I've lived with him for any extended amount of time. It's been ten years since we've been okay or this 'complete'. I've learned afew things from my Never Never Land too.

I guess I'm going to admit here that my need for Zen or atleast a few filtered phrases and chants to get me through the day came at the simultaneous onslaught of atleast three women who will probably be reading this. I'd like to preface THIS paragraph as it may very well prove to be one of the more lethal things any man has ever put together, atleast for me. I'll let you know how that goes. Las Vegas with the girlfriend and family was fun but it did something to me that seriously forced me to rethink the parameters of living life. Because when you're at the mercy of triple sets of X chromies for four days you realize that life is fleeting. :D

It is fleeting and there will always be something [unpleasant] working on you. What I learned is that things are only what you make them. The vista stretches as far you venture out into it and when you feel like you're stuck it's only because you've stopped moving. It's not just poetry anymore. It may sound far-fetched but I know exactly how to put that into affect to get my book done or sign up for community college. ... I'm still working on those.

But hey this Update didn't write itself you know. You're lucky you got an update at all. Life's been really weird. I helped my sister move in the other day. That's right we're all living together for the first time since '99. It's cramped but fun for now and of course there's only right now. In this moment as I write this I breathe and I can feel the week that's coming up. Wednesday hangout with friends and the day after Justin's and my weekly hang out. We've found a way to keep each other in our schedules but sometimes it feels like we figured it out too late. Time is running out for these two pistoleros but we're gonna tear shit up while we can.

College looms and headshots call. It's time to start making money, time to start building who Frank the twenty year old is going to be when February roles around. I think I'm going to have everything in order. I think I'll be well into my book with some income flowing into my wallet. Its a very weird weird time but of course time is a myth. There's only right now.

... I'm intensely jealous. I learned that recently. If you're lucky enough to be more virtuous than myself then let me describe the feeling. To me its like someone has slid a sheet of fire beneath your skin. Time has sped up to a point where there's none left to think and you have nothing going for you anymore. Anything you've accomplished is gone because someone thinks they can take what you have. But she's not going anywhere. She's sure and you have never wanted to believe in anything more. She calls you Cherry Garcia and you know more than ever that you are indeed a vaporing, frozen slice of Vanilla and Cherry slices melting on her smoldering love. Love you don't even deserve. But you've got it, and you've been fighting for it since before you knew you were. If you're not as virtuous and you know exactly what I mean then a word of advice from Cherry Garcia; keep fighting for it, jealousy blinds, makes sure you know what you're swinging at as you fight isn't her.

And Then It Grew Up ...

2009-01-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

Because Neverland had long since turned cold. The flowers shut and the trees curled and went ashen. The Indian tribes no longer wished to war or hunt with It and the pirates had long since died in their disease ridden Jolly Roger. It was apparent to It one morning that there would be no more adventures to be had here. He left the fairy maiden who'd chased storms with him once and It wandered into a far more dangerous adventure than It had ever known.

The boy would wish for Neverland in dreams. Certain tunes find him and remind him of mornings spent climbing through Nevertrees. The chill of dawn and the heat in his chest as he pulled himself up higher or away from or after a Neverbeast; those feelings return stronger than provenance. But Neverland is only a day dream lost to this darker more menacing world; adventures here end and Time ticks a little faster than the boy can grow accustomed to. The tune passes over him and the pain fades like a forgotten thought: an idle wish to remember the melody - of Neverlion hunts and wars in dewey woods but it is better the boy forget It.

My Father was dead

2008-12-28T23:05:00.000-08:00

And I didn't know how he'd died. I didn't know he was even dead until I'd heard my last name used off-handedly in that context. It was a supermarket and very cold and one of the butchers was talking about all the men they'd lost this passed year. It's hazy but I can remember the list and all the bodies lined up in ice; their face covered. I found his name on that list and then they uncovered the appropriate body in the line. It was my face but bloated and aged.

I left for a while. I lived some kind of mish-mash approximation of what my subconscious had decided life in college would look like. I drove a jeep and shared the secret tragedy with only Justin. Between us we summoned a will to confront the fact that my father who had been missing for some hazy dreamscape decade. It was for me. Something I needed to do, no one else and so my family remained in ignorant bliss.

The body looked different and by all accounts he was a happy and good man when he'd died. I couldn't see his face, pieces of that description are missing from my recollection and in those moments I'm not sure I fully wanted to. I knew he would look like me and I had left it at that until I came face to face with him again. The butchers had offered me the chance to see him and maybe that was the true reason for that brief respite, summoning the courage to step into that windswept valley of sand. Here the butchers who'd died went on ignorant of their demise. They were building something, in the shadows of my mind I can imagine it's large and wooden a ship perhaps because they were on a beach. They didn't know they'd died but it seemed like my father had.

My face but fuller, older and maybe even stronger. There's always been something my dad has had that I've wanted. In life I move passed people with hunched shoulders and a relaxed posture; hoping that in all my psuedo-save demeanor I can skip by people's judgement unnoticed. I'm trying to fool them into thinking I have it together but even in death my father stands out in a crowd. His eyes are quiet and squinted again - the way I learned to squint them. His hair is longer than I remember it and his beard is coming in. His clothes catches the wind and all I can think is: if this is a dream, why is it only now I feel like crying?

I wake up to a world without that kind of symmetry. No amber-lit horizons in sight, only a long on-going stretch of painful dramatic nothings. He's not dead, he's in jail and I'm not feeling anything again. But I want to. I should write him. I feel the time slipping away but I can't bring myself to do anything but let it. It would be easier if he'd died to admit how I feel and I know I'm glad he's alive. But if he's not here and I'm not able to write to him to tell him how I feel - then what's the difference?

The Empire(s) In My Mind and how to reach it/them

2008-12-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of ideas. I'm trying to kind of stir them to a froth so that I can write. I'm most comfortable writing when I can draw from an unending well of bubbly creativity but lately I've had to scrape the bottom. It's like drawing with a dull pencil. Everything's easier when that pencil is sharp, the lead comes out darker on the page and it 'looks' good. Looking good, that sense of vanity might be where the confidence to continue lies in all art. But so much of art is technical, the gray dull place where what you're putting out does not look good. Where you aren't filming but trying to frame a shot in an alley way that's a bit to crooked or when you're not painting but trying to find a stroke that compliments that idea in your head. Life has this same technical flare to it and I'm stuck in that rut.

It's probably because I've recently finished high school. Yes, the perpetual independent studier has finished his time. He's done and has nothing to do but make a hundred choices that will immediately affect him. There is should I act, there is should I go to community college or art school. There's HOW do I do this? When will I do that? So creativity falls by the wayside as I struggle with the things I just DO NOT know how to do. But I need to, you can't stop in the middle of an unfinished, run, film shoot, or book. The story I'm trying to write are about the people whose dreams led them astray. Their wishes were granted but then corrupted. That's the essence of it. And now I return to the technical. Once more into the fray.

zoMG...

2008-11-20T16:55:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty tired. The week has been uncompromisingly difficult and I am going to sleep my troubles away. I am sure I'll get around to telling you lot all about it but its sleepy time for Frank right now.

it's like ...

2008-10-30T02:48:00.000-07:00

yeah... something akin to that. Thanks John

Huh.

2008-10-14T05:23:00.001-07:00

I can't sleep. I'm too tired and I keep thinking. I've been moving through this house like a ghost since to o' clock tonight and I can't find a way to end it. Actually I don't want to end it because it means everything will be normal again. If there's one thing Frank Mederos fucking hates, it is normal. I will fight to make this night crazy. Put my arm through dry wall if I have to.

And what's with this blog? It used to mean something. I noticed because I was reading my old posts. The last few posts is just a bunch of trivial crap. Maybe it's because life is better for me now. Those old posts were about a lot but mostly about isolation. I guess in some ways I'm not a lone anymore. I've got an awesome girl, a few friends and ... you know family. Just there's shit on my mind still. It's never gone away, I guess I found a way to force it all back. Maybe tonight I got too tired, maybe this is my old woes and worries fighting their way back at me - back into this blog.

It's cold, actually freezing but it feels appropriately dramatic to be writing in the dark when its cold. You know, there's strong possibility that I feel this shitty because of the way I spend my nights. A lone in the living room while the world sleeps, dogs included. Gross, I just thought of Brandy's big doofy horse-face... Thing is that's another thing on my mind. How what I feel really isn't valid. It's always circumstance. It's always physical. There's always a bright side to everything that starts to nag at me for my attention. I always feel too damn obligated to just exist in this darkness. I know why the darkness feels good, Baby. I know what you mean now...

It's because after fighting for so long, the darkness that comes with getting beat back is open arms for quitting. It's easy to sit and breathe when you focus on how bad you got knocked down. You feel like you deserve it and you probably do. Everyone else if fine, suddenly. You're in this alone. Screw them. You'll walk a lone from here, because they don't understand you, or your blogs or your music. Or the way soft rock makes you feel good because it reminds you of a quiet movie theatre interior where you sat with your complete family when the world was not cloudy and built on shit cakes, that made everything smell like shit.

Now you have a job, but fuck it, you don't like it there. And here is where it stops. Here is where I get off because I've got things going and if I take time to close myself away those things derail and life gets shittier. I can list atleast five things I need to not be withdrawn introverted and pissed about just so I can keep them going. I'm collecting my final high school credits this time next month. Kay so I'm going to name one because the others feel too personal to share right now. Even on blogger. This thing is so weird. How it's all connected, blogger connected to facebook wired in to everyone wired in to their lives now wired in to me. It's a good thing. It's just surprising.

Because I think of how cold the world feels right now. How easy it would be to shut it out for a while. To pull up my hoodie and turn up the music until it all dies down. But there's a probably a hundred blogs out there just like these. A hundred kids complaining about how hard it is, unflinchingly harsh this world is for them. And I guess when I tear away all my hurt and confusion I can't stand being someone's cold world. It sounds like hippie bullshit but it's the clearest most solid thing I understand right now.

I feel like I want to walk for a long time. I also feel like I'm not where I want to be. I feel aimless and I feel unmotivated. That makes me feel worthless and that makes me feel like I'll never know who I am or what I should be. I know that I feel like everything would be simpler if the world would just let me be. But it clearly has no intention of doing that seeing as how its dropped America's craziest presidential race right on my head my first year as a registered voter. I bet you didn't know I'm also registered with the United States military. Well it probably didn't occur to you. This blog is about nothing. My confusion clearly means nothing and I have to go. It is getting colder.

TEAM PWNGE

2008-10-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

That's right several years back Frank was the first to jump on DC's launch of D&D styled character battle dice game if only at the prospect to attain tiny figurines of his favorite heroes. Last night Justin showed me the game I'd forgotten and it's totally awesome. Like chess, but easier and no horsies. In ANY CASE. I remembered that in all those years back I obliviously stumbled on what is apparently one of the stronger characters in the game, SUPERMAN. He was in the first pack I opened! Which is probably why I never continued the obsession, that's what happens when your greatest desire is answered too soon, the flame of nerd-dom dies. My Hero Clix had been lost to the ravages of time but this morning my prolonged efforts of digging through shit in my drawers has afforded me the recovery of these proud soldiers!

They will never give up the fight!

An Amazing Thing! and other less amazing things

2008-10-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

There's a hot streak of responsibility and its counterbalance guilt running through my days lately. Hm. Letters From The Edge of The Galaxy, the title of this blog is the working title for a novel I'm writing. You might know this if we speak often and if you don't know this maybe it will come as an exciting surprise. The title is very literal to the story and as you can imagine it's a strange story; all mapped out and absolutely incredible in my head.

Bt it's still in my head. The six chapters that have been cranked out into my google docs file have been hit or miss with exciting pacing that really show off some of the twits I've put in but I've never written a full book. I usedto write fanfics (mostly legend of zelda) and before that my first attempts filled a tiny thirty page book and consisted of a particularly disjointed story about a dragon tamer or something insane like that. Keeping the writing production has never been easy for me so a full-length novel feels impossible.

Sundays I run. Or Sundays I usedto run; to Santa Monica's third street promenade. It might be five miles but in any case the last time I was there I caught an exciting bit of a heads up to a book signing by Neil Gaiman. If you don't know who Neil Gaiman is we aren't friends. Go away.

No, Neil Gaiman wrote Sandman. It's pretty much a ten year run on a comic book that focuses on dreams and the Sandman that makes them. It's a deeply philosophical book that mixes myth with a study of people and you could probably go on to tack whatever you like onto it. He's a big influence on the things I write and probably the most alive of all my favorite writers. (I like a lot of dead writers)

I got sick for about two weeks and spent one amazing night at Disneyland and a few days later Justin and I drove over to Lincoln Middle School where Mr. Gaiman was holding session. We weren't sure what to expect, and both giddy at a nervous "let's actually not go". We thought were going to embarrass ourselves face to face but he wasn't signing books so we were spared, he'd broken his finger luckily. In any case plopping down, each with a pre-autographed copy of his new novel The Graveyard Book the lights dimmed and out came the author. In the flesh, Neil Gaiman began to read to us.

That's what he read to us but it wasn't nearly as influential as the QA. QAs seem stupid, and like idol praise but as he came out hastily trying to put in order the cue cards he admitted to dropping in the dark I started to feel like maybe i could do this too. Maybe it wasn't so ridiculous of me to be trying to finish this novel and maybe some day I'd be up there dropping cue cards and reading chapters of my book to you. No autographs sorry, I've broken my finger. :D

A retrarded thing

2008-09-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

It's bad enough I have to do all these crazy ass chores with my grandma gone but today when I went outside to water her Jumanji plants I found my d-bag dog had taken a dump right on the hose! So obviously I took a picture and ran to my computer to write this blog about it. I should also post a picture of the shit head Dalmatian mix that did it.

There you go, you freak. I bet you like that...

Still kicking

2008-09-21T00:51:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say hello to Mr. Blog. I'm sorry I've been neglecting you. Life is busy beyond the confines of the internet and I'm just trying to keep up. There's a lot to keep up with. You have no idea.

You know if you put three cogs together you get a functioning mechanism? You can't have that with two.

I am stressed but the pain comes in waves. The hydroponic shower revitalizes me but there's nothing that can pull the dusty martian nightmares from my soul.

Good night.

Tropic Thunder

2008-08-24T00:11:00.000-07:00

Tropic Thunder Review!

Twenty year old idea Ben Stiller had while shooting Empire of the Sun.

"Nah, Steve listen! It's a movie about how stupid actors are!"

-"Yeah you guys are pretty stupid,"

"And they get lost making a Vietnam movie! But the danger turns real."

-"So it's going to be a big budget hollywood movie about how stupid the industry and big budget movies are?"

"YEah!"

-"That sounds ...awful. Good luck finding a director naive enough to try and make that movie work."

"...hmm."

NO REALLY. Not a good movie. Not bad but not good and so it falls uncomfortably in the middle where its not funny enough to be successful as a comedy but has enough going for it in the way of surprise cameos and fake trailers to make it kind of worth a dollar of your admission price. Owen Wilson's part taken by mcconaughey would have ruled in the hands of the soft-spoken texan. Tom Cruise's cameo does live up to the hype even though Maia doesn't think so.

Miss You

2008-08-22T01:47:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this for you and anyone that wants to read enjoy, you're a creepy person but I dig it and you're welcome here. I'm also kind of writing this for me...

I'm scared. Of a lot of things. Mostly my own failure. I'm not afraid of people so much as I am of letting them down. That's why I don't like the rules. That's why I'm timid when it comes time to committ to writing something important to me. Made me scared to write these blogs and then I realized it's throw aways anyway. It's not a big deal. I can make a new one whenever I want.

There's only one you though and we've fought pretty hard for what we have. To keep it and adapt it. Ugh I feel like a moron.

Tonight I wish I had superpowers. I wish I could fly and I wish I was Superman. Superman can take it. ... what if I miss this up man? What if I don't do anything with all this talent because I'm too scared to make any use of it. Nothing ventured nothing gained but nothing lost either.

Good night everybody. I'm going to Disneyland!

-Sniff kaff-

2008-08-19T01:10:00.000-07:00

Frank picks at the chalky substance in his ear. "Hmm," he muses.

I'm sick. My throat hurts and I have a face congestion I thought I'd killed and smote upon the molten boulders of oblivion weeks before. It's back with a vengeance like I threw his little brother off the 22nd floor of Nakatomi plaza in LA and this time it's personal.

okay I just spent a good twenty minutes trying to find a youtube video to clue the facebook generation into that movie reference. It's from Die Hard 3. -is defeated-

This is an update. So here's your fucking update America!

Sick
Bored
Lonely
Out of Shape

GTA4 has a working internet complete with blog sites and one of them chronicles the daily life of a serial killer you can find hidden in the game. If you find him you can do a mission for him. But the blogs are all incredibly pathetic and all the more sad for its commentary on mine. Damn you Rockstar games for making me love and hate you!

Update

2008-08-14T03:28:00.000-07:00

So maybe the key to this blog thing is updating frequently. Quantity without stressing the quality. I had a strange thought...

I hung out with the J-dog today, a lot. Probably too much because we got into some crazy shit. TWO MOVIES;

Pineapple Express

Memento

right?

Two very different ends of the movie quality spectrum.

Express wasn't bad but it means it when it says it's a stoner movie. It got so retarded right in the middle. Just very boring and then it all explodes with an amazing ending.

Memento is obviously Memento Christopher Nolan's UNDER-appreciated movie. ... as opposed to over. ... Screw Batman.

Things is that this time (my 3rd viewing pleasure) I had forgotten so much of the plot. So like the first time, I sat forward with Leonard as he tried to navigate the fragmented mystery of his wife's killer. AND THEN I REMEMBERED. toward the end. This time I won't forget.

Good night. I miss you. Oh and video (check out my blog if you can't see it facebook) synced on Youtube by Tschibo. Strange name.

A Vanilla Sky

2008-07-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

"It's hella hot." Frank tapped the declaration into the writing field with all the candor of a paraplegic on ice skates...

It's a funny thing. To be so good at something but only under certain conditions. I can write the hell out of a shoot out. A bank heist is fertile ground for charater development to me. I will write you the greatest description of the Santa Monica Pier at sunset, maybe even make you cry. But this fucking blog continues to baffle me.

I'm writing a story and I want to publish it. This story has been in development for maybe a little less than a year. I'm almost done but I'm scared shitless of messing up this last draft and I'm stuck on Chapter 3. The characters are moving through a train station toward a departing locomotive and I can't get them there. I've put it off for a week and I need some kind of spiritual kick in the head to get me moving.

That's how I work though. I guess. I can think of the most incredible story concept, draw you a map of the world and choose a likeable character to lead you through. I can know exactly what the story means and how it will end but I can't write it. Writing it. Laying down and committing to the meat of a story is the most terrifying thing you could ask me to do. I suppose I want it to go one way and I'm afraid I'll mistep and take it another. After all, words are the genetic make up to the overall tone of the story. Words. Do you know how many words make up a story? That's an infinite amount of chances to get it wrong. Even now this blog is derailing because of these few indulgent, unplanned words. I swear I'm making all of this up as I go.

So maybe I should change my thinking. Instead of words being building blocks; perhaps you (the reader) doesn't pay that much attention to words as I think. Maybe you read a book chapter by chapter. Maybe your one criteria is that each chapter significantly move the story forward. Then again what if I move the story too quickly forward and run out of things to write. It gets very complicated in my head but I love it.

I like creating pictures in my head and then using the words to move it forward. I like rereading that picture over and over and letting it emotionally reach me. That's the pinnacle of good writing I think. Moving someone to that level of "ness" like my girl friend says.

"Girlfriend you say?" The readers clambered restlessly, mustachios flailing on their upper lips.

Yeah I have a girlfriend and yes; I imagine all of you to have monopoly man mustaches. Very thick black ones. Even the ladies.

She's my good friend. My best friend both in very intimate ways. We've been together for a long time, not always together or apart. Just kind of coexisting in a very mutually fond way. The reason I am telling you about her is because I don't know who "you" are I guess and this is more for me. And I miss her right now I guess. I can write that because she doesn't read this blog. Otherwise I'd feel self conscious.

We're in that strange adjustment phase? Where you feel a lot of feelings but you don't really know how they would react if you told them all of your feelings. You do a lot of awkward things and a lot of hoping it's not weird, or "too much". That whole idea of them being perfect is long gone but the good thing is you don't need them to be anymore because you've been having moments together where everything just seems to click. You're both very unperfect people but you dig each other's unperfectness and that's kind of perfect in itself.

Sorry that's kind of a hippie concept but I've been getting into that kind of hippie magic lately. It's about acceptance I think. Everything just is and what's exciting about it all is that you have the chance to change everything until you're happy. I mentioned the running and that goes a lot to producing these thoughts. Thinking is good. It's made me feel healthy body and mind and THAT is something astounding to me. The big picture is that life is wonderful simply because it's there and you just have to look at it long enough to realize. The good with the bad makes sweet and sour sauce kind of mentality. Vanilla Sky is a good movie.

As I've changed things I don't like I find new things I do. New exciting things have been shooting up like flowers and it's scary but challenging stuff. National Geographic for instance I took the initiative to pick up because I felt uninformed and decided I didn't like the news. Reading the stories awakened in me an urge to become a professional field writer. War time correspondent kind of thing and I dig that idea. It challenges my "I need to be an actor and nothing else" idea so that's scary but ignoring it feels wrong and maybe I could come to do both.

I'm learning how to drive. My instructor says I make amazing turns but I need to not be afraid of using the gas. All this has been spurred by the buying a stick shift car. Well we've been very generously given a stick shift car and a younger more timid Frank would have turned up the offer. But then the more sensible Frank woke up and said "Idiot, it's a free fucking car!"

It's a real guy's car too. My girlfriend's family had it in the family for a long time and had to get rid of it for unfortunate reasons. It rumbles and is a fixer upper but it's going to be mine in a "I'm the only one that can start this car" kind of way. I'm very pleased to have it and I'm eager to rock it. It's got a clutch!

Boombiddy boom boom

2008-07-03T03:23:00.000-07:00

Hello. It's been quite a while.

directive....

....scanning

[boop]

...

ooooooo1

hah. *sigh*

I have a written permit test thing tomorrow. This whole thing is simply a ploy to delay that event by keeping me awake. Like Superman spinning Earth backwards. It could work. I just don't feel particularly eager to go and be hassled by disgruntled government employees. First person that gives me lip in that joint I'm going to drop with a nasty right hook and tell them to get a real job other than human sheep-herding. Such a power trip with those guys.

There's a cartoon action sequence in my head where explosions chase a man in a brown leather jacket through a corridor that blasts around him into tiny dust and debris. He escapes by jumping through a window. Lands on a car and topples head first onto wet pavement. Ironically this last fall of two feet snaps his neck under his weight and our hero perishes through no fault of the exploding apartment. Lawyers will later argue that had the building not been exploding our hero would never have been driven to jumping. Defense will put a PHD on stand to testify to the highly unstable parameters that would obviously constitute anyone living in a chronicly exploding building.

Sunday mornings I run to Santa Monica. I try to get up before noon and make me hour long dash through Los Angeles toward the beach. It's a helpful run, all cartoon demises aside. There's something about running yourself somewhere for no point whatsoever that is completely liberating. When you're running the week's aggression pours out of you while you pound the pavement hard. Like a bat out of independent study hell, eighteen years and going strong you over take the losers who walk Santa Monica for the sights. The people that move with kids and children hand in hand. They'll never know what it's like to be as free as you and you'll never be as trapped as them. When you run you know that you will make yourself anything. It's guarantee, sure as the music blasting in your ears from your hand-me-down MP3 player.

Ten years from now you won't know me. This computer chair will be dusty and empty. The blog will be abandoned. I'll be gone and I won't know me. Somewhere far away I'll look back and think about all the decisions I made. I'll weigh out wether they made me happy; got me where I wanted to be. But thinking like this is dangerous. Get's me crazy. That's like writing a book backwards. Unless you got a beginning you got no end. No writer wants to write a book backwards. And you gotta enjoy the process. The building, the running. You have to enjoy it while it's here because that's all it ever is. Right?

.... I have a driving permit thingy tomorrow. I'm going to go to sleep now. I'll write later. Promise. Something useful... review of a comic or something

If Life were an Ocean

2008-05-29T23:18:00.000-07:00

This is the tide. All this time I've been standing on the beach getting ready to heave-ho but everything before me has been hard and the ocean only promises to be harder. Everything before me was not hard. No, it was sheltered and warm and nurturing but it wasn't easy.

I can see the people leaving. Or I'm leaving them. Not a such a loud goodbye spoken between us. It's all in what we say and don't say. The things we do and don't do. How we disagree and how we get upset. All my friends, my closest friends are popping off my radar, one by one. I'm knocking them off like a boy winning at battleships. I can see through your veneer of feigned maturity and I don't like what I see. You're not who I want to be so I sink you. Or you are who want to be. You might have everything I want but there's no way for me to be a part of that, and so I'll sink you anyway.

You all got so much that I gave up. You got the close knit group of friends, the neighborhood for bike riding with the posse. You got the volleying between two parental figures and you got the girl. The girl with the close cropped hair and the shining smile who would always be there and always understand. You probably met her in an interesting and endearing way too. You have the football team and you have the math brains. You have the college future and career plans. I have nothing.

I have half -assed ambitions of hollywood glory. I have a bicycle and healthy figure I've worked the better part of almost a decade to achieve. I have the neuroses of being a lone, or becoming fat or failing my childhood ambitions. I have this blog. I have those ex girlfriends. Old flames that never quite managed to light in the force of their own turbulent winds. I have depression and I have push ups and masochistic will to run until I collapse and try and force tears. I have old commendations and praise from teachers, the laurels I rest uncomfortably on.

I have all this hate and fear and all this want and desire. I don't know what to do with it but ignore it.

-That felt good

George Lucas and the Undoing of any of his Cinematic Achievements - of Doom

2008-05-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

or He Must Be Stopped

Indiana Jones IV was ...pretty bad. It hurts to admit but it's just true. There's no misunderstood childhood whimsy. Do not listen to what Lucas says; you don't hate it because it's been 19 years since Last Crusade. Time isn't responsible for Episode 1 being a boring predictable mess either. The first three were fantastic adventures filled with wit and humor and story and heart done within the framing of a B movie. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull went for that and accidentally became a B movie. The most expensive B movie ever. Congratulations George Lucas, I hate you more than Brett Ratner. You've pissed off the Indy fans as well as the Star Wars nerds and now you're the most hated man in cinema history and even Hitler made movies.

What was wrong with the movie was probably George Lucas' infamous "MacGuffin". For the past ten years we've heard nothing but this great MacGuffin - the last workable story that's going to deliver us all to Indiana Jones-heaven. Instead we get a trip through Indiana Jones-hell with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg who somehow knew that crazy Lucas bastard would be the end of their careers.

The screenplay by Jurassic Park's David Koepp was adapted by the story written by Lucas and Nathanson and it tears itself apart from the inside out because the entire working idea is, "let's experiment with genre bending". Yes, Indiana Jones has aged into the 1950's and as a result it's all been shifted from 1930's Nazis and jungle excursions to all the stupid shit people were afraid of in the 50's, like Russians, giant ants, mind control and aliens. It's as confused as internet fan fiction. I dig the whole "it's a movie about the movies" but cinema in the fifties was the result of national retardation by the likes of Joseph McCarthy. So it seems like that was a bad call.

And so the story moves from an exciting set piece in the beginning with a decent promise of character work, humor and action but from there litterally rockets into set piece porn without regard for story, emotional development or the fans. For a moment life-breathes into the film when Marion and Indy are reunited and have a 2 second spat about him leaving her at the altar but then, presumably because old people have no self-respect she changes her mind and they spend the rest of the movie making kissy faces at each other. Character is completely gone from the movie. Even Indy's fire seems to be dying. Gone is the cranky, adventurer trying to get himself and his posse out of life and death scenarios. Instead he spits Connery's Crusade lines amidst chase scenes with Shia; occasionally bouncing back to "action" mode for the obligatory fight with a crazy military boxer twice his size who wants to kill him with his hands. The fist fight was one of the highlights of the movie but it falls far from redeeming or rekindling anything.

It didn't have to be like this.

Physically, Harrison Ford more than keeps up with the action (watch the warehouse scene, it's beautiful) and Spielberg could direct the ever-loving out of this thing with a good story. But Lucas' story took a very genre-centric hero out of his genre, it wasn't necessary. I don't want to hear it from Lucas that this was the last plot that could work in the fifties because it's not exactly like the Crystal Skull Expeditions were a marked staple of post WWII archaeology. If we're going to make up things let's make up interesting and vaguely relevant things, like the Ark of the Covenant that Indiana never recovered...

This may surprise you but I want an Indy 5. There's a masochistic streak in all of us, evidently including the creative team of Spielberg and Ford who keep coming back for more. Niether has ruled out the possibility of a sequel and that tells me that there was good intention behind Crystal Skull but also an unfortunate story. It needs to raise the bar higher. Indy first of all is going to have to drop this weird Ichabod Crane impersonation he's been saddled with. I want more backstory on where Marion has been and I want a deeper relationship between Indy and Mutt. And if George Lucas starts whining about lack of good mystical MacGuffins post WWII he can crack open a Hellboy comic.

Ugh!

2008-05-05T01:40:00.000-07:00

I realize it takes a certain kind of person to blog about thier day consistently. I don't seem to be that person. Not a lot yyyyyyyyggggyg sorry this keyboard is super grimy and I'm trying to scratch it away. Uhm, right. Not a lot of interesting stuff happens from day to day. Blogs should only be written by adventurers and explorers, maybe NASA technicians. I honestly have nothing of value to report.

But I found the GTAIII guy's leather jacket and cargo attire in GTAIV. That pretty much made my night and then my in game girlfriend called to hang out. So I took her to a dart game and she started being all crazy! Right in the middle of the game. She kept complaining and what not. And then she asked me where she could buy weed?? WTH. I'm not even a pusher in the game. I mostly kill for money.

Anyway. The dart game ends, I lose. We go to get into my car and I get this message in blood red that I've scared Michelle (my date). I scared *her*. So I'm about to drive her home when out of no where she says she's not putting up with this bullshit and she's walking herself home. As soon as she leaves I get another message in red. "Michelle has been killed."

The game is one of the best I've played but all the new features; intuitive enemy AI, sprawling "living" city, bitchy girlfriend, and taxi rides has changed the the vibe in some vaguely tangible way. I usedto walk the streets of GTA3's Liberty City because it was simply fun. Now I spend my time catching cabs and riding the train to make hits, meet with friends or put up with more of Michelle's shit.

Nah, she's usually not such an ass. I don't know what got into her.

See ya later. Hopefully.

I am Iron Man

2008-05-02T02:44:00.000-07:00

I'm doing okay. I feel a come back season starting for me. That whole downhilli-ness is ending and I can finally start to think again. I don't know what did it, maybe things just cosmically let up on me for long enough that I could realize my life is not that bad right now. Tonight especially, something about the mix of Grand Theft Auto 4 and Iron Man. I know that sounds stupid and juvenile but to me these are all big things. Things are not always this good for teenaged guys and I can think again about making things even better for myself. It's like a karmic boost to my self-confidence. Story pieces are coming together in my head, I know I can handle my monologue for the first time and Geometry will be easy with help.

People that aren't rooting for me are not my problem. Honestly, I'm glad they're out of the way. I never would have had the heart to distance myself from them. Retrospectively its probably good that they did it for me. Yes, there are still times I feel bad. Or am tempted to try and makeup but instead I'm going to take all that energy and redirect it to building something useful for myself.

Robert Downey Jr carries the movie, incase you were wondering. Maybe I'm a little biased but every beat of Tony Stark out of costume was fun and smart and that's what these movies need to be. Fun - explosive action adventures but also SMART. MARVEL has been doing a good job of keeping that mix going (save for the Fantastic series which is, pfft come on, anything but) and Iron Man follows the trend. It felt like Spider-Man, maybe not as close to my heart but definitely as polished. I think Robert Downey's excitement over the movie carried into the movie, you've never seen a guy so happy and excited to be a super hero as his Tony Stark. It's tons o' fun! Stay after the credits if you're cool, and not homo.

What's today?

2008-04-30T15:10:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you a little bit about my weekly physical activity schedule, because I do have one. Every week is seven days, on any of six out of those seven days I'll either be running or bike riding. I obligate myself to a minimum of 3 free runs and 3 bike rides every week because in independent study it's easy to became a couch potato. Today I headed toward redondo for my usual four hour ride there and back when I made a last minute decision to do otherwise...

Redondo out of Venice is to take Washington a block up toward the beach where you can catch the bike path through the Marina and onward. But today I took Washington all the way down and further until I found myself on the Venice beach bike path. I took that through Santa Monica and finally to Will Rogers where it ends and then took Ocean back home.

I've been riding like this to cut some kind of pain out of my head. There's a very difficult headspace I've encountered and it's slowing me to a crawl. I can't get any work done and I can't get over it. Sleep is erratic and I don't see the value of keeping my social relationships going. The truth is I've never been this badly hurt by anything and it feels like it's eating me from the inside out.

Oh yeah Grand Theft Auto 4 is cool.

Good Morning Liberty City

2008-04-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a while since I last blogged. Things are totally different. I guess that's what happens in two months and to be honest, looking back, I'd give anything to be back in February. You don't always get what you want but when you try sometimes you get hurt. But I'm not making this another of my four essay rants. What has happened since then has happened and I'm going to have to learn to work with the limbs I have left after the tragic and bloody LA Zoo stampede.

Grand Theft Auto 4 comes out today, in two hours when Gamestop opens I will attain my reserved copy.

I'm kind of excited. My dad introduced the mom embargoed video game GTA3 to me way back before I ever should

have been playing it. Something about the gritty east coast virtual world of gangsters and prostitutes

caught me and the world off guard. Before GTA3 video games held you to a linear sequence of thrills,

now Rockstar games has put us in charge of our own fun.

The truth is I can't wait. I have today off with the exclusion of some homework I should get started

on but other than that, this is going to be a long needed break from responsibility. Thank you Rockstar

for allowing me to take out my misplaced aggressions.

Efil is Life backwards.

2008-02-08T00:38:00.000-08:00

Because that's just one of the issues, man. Sometimes Life just is backwards. One week you're fine, you're an aspiring actor starring in back to back AFI student projects, going to Saturday classes with supportive teachers that have given you the tools to send you confidently into the biz. You're mostly a loner but you wear it well. You've carved out a nice little schedule that consists of visits with a stereotypically lewd and loyal best friend, work as a teacher's assistant that will someday begin to rake in minimum wage, and a delicate interplay of slacking off at home between completing homework assignments. That's Life as you know it (if you were me) but not for long...

SUDDENLY...

It's all different. You're not happy being the loner, filling your spare time with lonely bike rides. Your acting teacher isn't so supportive anymore and the lewd/loyal best friend wakes you out of an after work nap to tell you his parents will be picking you up to take you to his birthday dinner, he's turning 18. The is Efil. It's like the Twilight Zone only Rod Serling can't protect you anymore.

It's weird but that's a pretty accurate description it's all the same but different. Nothing's really changed, you've changed. Nothing's wrong it's just not living up to what you predicted. I was born nine days after the best friend. Sitting in the overpriced Italian restaurant in the sport's coat I bought for an acting scene and the Superman tie (he's saluting, it's pretty sweet) I couldn't help but think that I was following soon after. Well really I was thinking about how fucked the whole thing was. It was like a show they were putting on for us (the friend, me and his girlfriend, I guess his little brother too). But if it were a coming of age movie that's exactly what I would be thinking. I will be eighteen in (counts on fingers) six days from now. Screw you, I didn't get the math attention from the private school system I deserved.

Why do I care about turning 18? I do and I don't. It's kind of something I've decided I don't like in order to keep up that certain image of childhood whimsy people like to associate with me. But at the same time, what do I do now? I still have to finish up high school. But I want to leave, and I want a car and I want a career and a new family with a bitchin dog who watches tv. I want a fucking studio apartment and that leather couch every bachelor pad on tv has.

I guess there's also this girl...

All of you shut up. All of you who know the girl in question and are reading this, rolling your eyes you better keep that shit internal and never talk to me about this blog in real life or I'll kick out your knee caps and fight you like a tiger from hell.

This girl is someone I thought I was over. It was rough when it ended and we didn't talk for awhile. I became the loner seventeen year old who rides to Redondo when he gets sad and she did whatever the hell she does when we're not talking. And then we started talking again. And I started going to her house. She invited me my mom was like "That's fucking stupid, you're an idiot." and I was like "shrug. I don't like her anyway."

You could say that as much as you want but when you ride from Venice up through Santa Monica to Brentwood on a bike notorious for ditching it's front wheel and wait in the rain for her mom to pick you up after her job interview, its clear to everybody you're not over her. You're fighting for something you lost a long time ago. And then you go to a Superbowl Party when you didn't even know it was in season and you're standing in her kitchen and she's beautiful and not even trying to be. She's hobbling around damn near peg-legged in an old sweater cooking rangoons and you can't help but think about how awesome this person is. That's a sad kind of love. That's Efil's love and the only thing to do is get passed it.

And there are a million signs you can read into that say she's still just as secretly into you. The way she keeps her hand in yours after a tickling match and the awkward tension her mom points out in her with snide remarks and uproarious glee. But the more you push the more she holds back and a week's passed. Work as a TA has been particularly mind numbing and you're well into February.

The point is, I guess, I'm running out of time. I don't know what to do with the time I have. I don't know if I want to be an actor, or a writer, or a jet fighter. I don't know how I'm going to get out of this godforsaken house and I don't know when I'm going to give her up. I thought I had. Obviously I miscalculated that whole thing. I don't even honestly know that I want to give her up. This is so officially a rant. It's so sad. I can see the blogophiles sitting in the dark, glasses a light with monitor glow rolling their eyes in disgust. Whatever guys, I can run fast.

Experience tells me we get only what we build for ourselves. That's about as much as I've come up with since I've been atheist and thinking for myself. Some would argue to be atheist is to make a conscious effort not to think. The opposite is true for me. Sometimes I can't stop. I lose details in conversations, names and tasks get pushed aside for the careful monitoring of the storm in my head. That's probably why this blog is so long. A steady stream of chunky consciousness served warm.

Experience tells me we get only what we build for ourselves. So if I want her back I can't wait for someone to give her to me. But I've made such a mess I should honestly just leave her a lone. Let her do her thing and I'll go do mine. Whatever that is now.

To escape Efil you need to break out of it. Running with my ipod on loud did it for me. Life isn't much better but I know that I'm in control again. I don't know why running did it but I got this week's work done. I'm riding to work tomorrow morning and I'm going to learn my lines for saturday's acting class. I still don't know what I feel about eighteen, and I still don't know if I can handle just being her friend but Conan is running an audience member around the Rockefeller soundstages and stealing cafeteria food for the audience and that makes me happy.

Who the fuck is Tera Patrick

2008-01-20T23:02:00.000-08:00

I'm a TA. Teachers Assistant. Most of my career so far has consisted of grading papers, reorganizing bookshelves and other equally tedious work. Okay so you know what? Back off. I took the job to meet a girl and when I finally got to talk to her it turns out she's moving to Massachusetts. Or however the hell you spell it. Actually that might be right, I'm sorry Midwest, we are a nation divided by ignorance. I blame the school system.

When I'm not a TA, I'm an actor. Anyone will tell you very little of existing in the acting field is actual work. I have yet to get a call back but all my acting buddies are getting jobs so clearly something's wrong. Personally I'd say everyone's crazy to hell but maybe I should take a step back and look at me. The answer came to me watching Jack Black of all people. I'm going to try this. See what happens. My theory is as follows:

Kay, so my method teaches you to be innerly in line with the script its helpful but there has to be more.I'm a pretty charismatic guy at home and with friends but in an audition room it becomes about the craft being real and all that. But anyone who reads a book on method acting can be "real".

School of Rock is Jack Black's most critically acclaimed achievement in cinema. That's not saying a lot but its because he brought his signature eyebrow tweaking style to the script that would have otherwise been boring and heartwarming. As real life musician he had a comfortable handle on his character and was able to pepper it in a way that makes you enjoy watching him for an hour and a half.

So if I let the method work as a reflex in there, and pepper it with Frank style it should be sweet. The audition people will be like "Oh...shiiiit. Get him, that kid. Don't let him leave - we have his headshot? YOU'RE SURE. Yes? Yes? Yes? Okay good. Holy shit....what the hell did he just do? He did something to my thoughts...you know...(laugh) yeah. Rock and roll, huh guys?...wow."

It's basically how I write, and how I tell jokes. I'm just adapting it to acting. It's not fun for me if someone else is doing it. That's not really art. That doesn't get you noticed. Besides, auditions are a dime a dozen if this doesn't work I'll figure something else out.

The script is an odd one. I have a handle to it however. Once I learn the lines it should be easy smeazy. Just start adding layers and all that greatness. Oh and if you know who Tera Patrick is let me know. The thing makes reference to it and I need to know about her. I guess. Take your time, its only may career.

one "o" five

2007-12-06T01:05:00.000-08:00

So its December and the weekend and I'm absolutely stoked. I am aware that it is only Thursday for you but my weekends start today. I do independent study, the quickest way to screw up your biological clock short of drug abuse. The way this works is I go in pick up work for the week and pretty much procrastinate until the last minute and rush to turn it in the next week. My day is Thursday. Oddly enough I got all my work done this week without the procrastinating affording me a nice chunk of time to squeeze in some video game play time.

For some reason we've lately been into delivery rentals, Netflix and now Gamefly. Gamefly sucks. They aren't very dependable from the time we've spent with them. When they do drop off games I'm pretty happy with the merch.

So far I've played Mass Effect (10/10), Call of Duty 4 (8/10), and now Assassin's Creed (7/10)

The thing is the only game on that list that isn't on my Christmas list is Call of Duty 4. I'm usually pretty good about not spoiling my Christmas surprises that way but I've played through Mass Effect's single player campaign once already and I've started on Assassin's Creed and got hooked. I had to actually seal it in the mail-back envelope to stop myself from further ruining that gaming venture. That kind of thing bugs the crap out of me and now I'm just going to have to accept it.

This is a weird start to this blog... Well g'night.