My iPhone just buzzed, alerting me to the fact that tonight is exactly 3 years since I smoked my last cigarette. I remember it. I was sitting on my living room couch, alone. It was 11 at night. I specifically left my room to smoke it. The TV wasn’t on, the apartment was silent. Just me and the cigarette. I hadn’t fully formed the thought of quitting yet, but was very aware of this particular cigarette. Very aware of my relationship with the cigarette. I hadn’t fully committed to it being my last so the moment lacked gravity. It was serene actually. A calm before the storm. I didn’t have another cigarette that night and when I woke up the next morning I thought, “I could do this. Right now, this moment… I could do this.”
About MorrisonFilm
Hello, my name is Shawn. This is where I put things. This site has been active since 2002. A lot has changed since then but basically I'm still writing ridiculous articles about ridiculous things. You can also look at my Flickr photostream which is a lot of fun if you aren't blind.
This site uses Simplelog, a simple Ruby on Rails weblog application. I explain why I use it in this entry. This site is hosted by Dreamhost.
I've made 4 short films that are currently available online. I also host a semi-regular comedic podcast with Garrett Murray that has a 5 star rating on iTunes!
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Now that it seems at least a little bit official I’m comfortable telling the world that 6 weeks ago I quit smoking. I had certainly been thinking about it for at least a year. And one day… I just did it. Like that. No gums, pills, seminars or deprogramming. Well, aside from regular sugar-free gum which I was chewing like the dickens for the first two weeks.
Other than the fact that I quit it’s pretty much been a non-story. I feel great and have three times the energy I used to but that’s all for me. Other people seem to want some Trainspotting-esque tale of extreme withdrawal.
Wow, 6 weeks huh? So you haven’t had one?
Um, no. That’s the whole idea of… quitting.
No slip-ups? No intense moment of extreme craving?
Nope. Well, actually, two weeks ago I woke up at 3AM in the middle of the street without any pants, cars honking, all that nonsense. I accosted a homeless lady then lit up three Malboro Reds and ran to Queens screaming something about my bacon being burnt. NYPD picked me up near Shea and threw me in the slammer for the night. Curiously they didn’t give me new pants…
WOW, that’s intense. Good luck with that.
Thanks.
Maybe I should start telling people that. After all, the truth is nice but nothing beats a good story.
I’m fairly certain it’s part of the MovableType user agreement that when you are at an airport, you must use the free Wi-Fi and post to your blog. So be it. I’m currently on my way to Columbia, South Carolina to go to my grandmother’s funeral.
South Carolina can be a strange place with all it’s y’alls and hush puppies, but I always enjoy it quite a bit. Everyone’s always so friendly. And hush puppies are the best food ever. When I stay for more than a week I start to pick up the accent.
Whoops, we’re boarding. Gotta go.
I’m always brainstorming ways to make my life better. I guess everyone does that, but it’s a pretty constant preoccupation of mine. I’m specifically talking about personal habits and daily routines. I’m well aware that if I want to “make it” as a filmmaker I have to be focused, dedicated and diligent. Scratch that, I have to be voracious in my passion. Take no prisoners. Leave no second unused. I have to need it like air.
I’m also well aware of the fact that I am very lazy. I can burn up vast quantities of time on the internet. Ol’ WWW is my biggest downfall. From cycling through my favorite blogs to picking through Red Sox stats I can toss away whole days.
OK, so I’m reading a lot, absorbing a lot of information. Right? Not really. The internet being nearly infinite, I can easily read endless quantities of entries and essays that simply reaffirm what I already know. I’m not necessarily thinking or being challenged. Just sort of clicking and clicking… “Yup, I exist… yup, I exist…” Sure I’ll end the day knowing Bill Mueller’s OPS and that QT is going to be in a Muppets movie, but that’s getting me nowhere quick.
I’m not too troubled with the fact that I wasn’t born with a genius’ obsession. Probably because I firmly believe that that is irrelevant. Hard work makes up for anything.
Some very small habits I’m going to try to adopt:
- In the 30 minutes I have to myself in the morning, read a book instead of turning on the computer.
- Do crossword puzzles on the way to work.
- Whether I’ve worked on my script or not, jot some words down before I go to bed.
- Use NetNewsWire
How To Use NetNewsWire
Over the past two years I’d installed NetNewsWire countless times, thinking it might be a better way to browse. I never got into it. A few things have changed recently. First, more people have RSS feeds and more people are including full entries. Second NNW 2.0 beta is out and it has an embedded browser. I really didn’t like this idea when I first read about it but it’s absolutely essential. It allows me the web experience I didn’t like giving up with news readers. It also makes it a lot less frustrating when a site only includes headlines in their feeds.
How does this relate?
Rather than opening up my blogs tab group, scanning through each site for changes and then repeating this for my Mac and Politics bookmarks, I can only concern myself with new entries. This saves a lot of time. New content seeks me out instead of the other way around. I can also read more sites, which is nice.
Baby Steps
So yeah, none of this stuff is going to make me a better filmmaker, but (if I follow through) it’ll make me just a bit sharper. Just a tad leaner and meaner. If I succeed then I’ll make another list. I want to keep challenging myself, whether it’s to write, make movies or do crossword puzzles.
I’m not going to change my life overnight, but that doesn’t mean I have to make due with the crappy motivation I was born with. I want to use every precious second of this life I have. I’m ready to begin.
I really really love coffee. I thought this today. Those words were actually spoken by the inner voice. “I love coffee.” I always have but still. I love the crap. Coffee has never been a mere tool to make waking easier. It is the reason for waking up. I gave it up once for one year. Drank green tea. The first cup I had after the hiatus, summer ‘02, I sipped and thought, “Fucking Jesus in the ass this is good.” Haven’t missed a day since.
The RNC heads into NYC and word on the street is a potential week off work. Rumor mind you. This right here is jinxing it, surely, but still.
There is bright glaring truth to that scene in Adaptation when Charlie Kaufman thinks, “To begin… To begin… How to start? I’m hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. So I need to establish the themes. Maybe a banana nut. That’s a good muffin…” So I finished my vacation with 60 pages. Added another 15 since, then deleted 10 and added 3, but I still feel strong about it.
This month I wrote the most entries since last December. Which would be five. I’m disappointed in that but what the hell, it’s progress.
We made a rough edit of our next short movie, so, like, you know, it’s coming, for real. Soon, soon enough.
How do they get away with synchronized diving? Couldn’t one theoretically double up any sport? Synchronized discus. Synchronized long jump. Synchronized women’s volleyball. How about Olympic free swim? Cannonball!
My summer vacation officially starts today. I took the week off. I had wanted to do something interesting with my time but due to a combination of procrastination, fretting and indecision, I settled on “taking it easy.” Not to say there won’t be plenty to do. I have one major goal which will be discussed shortly.
I allowed for this past weekend to be pure unadulterated laziness. Get it out of my system. Most of the time was spent in front of my computer, re-redesigning this site. I also viewed every single web page that exists at least once. You know you’re in trouble when you say to yourself, “Well… I guess I’ll check the weather… again.” Sad. This life is too short for that.
So I’m finally going to finish this script. This script that I have been chewing on for two years now. This script that should be done by now. I’ve started and re-started it six times. Six folders on my HD. One megabyte of writing. That’s approximately 190,000 words, give or take. Even if you’re one to argue that a lot of that space is occupied with meta data or what have you, I’ve still basically written a novel with nothing to show for it.
The promise: I will have a rough draft of my script by this Sunday. That’s the goal. Twenty pages a day. I make the promise to myself, to you, so that if I succeed, I will be good and true. If I fail I will be shamed. I think these are good incentives. Not to say this promise is that exciting to you. The chances of me posting it online are as good as my voting for Lyndon LaRouche in November. But at least if I fail you can point your finger at me and say, “Liar! Dirty, dirty liar!” That’s always fun.
And away I go.
p.S. The title of my script is, “D4: A Mighty Ducks Hanukah Story.”
p.p.S. The picture on the left is a penis, not a brass-fastener. Or… wait…
Just in time for my weekend birthday I got a nasty cold. Oh well. Such things happen. I was more disappointed by the fact that the cold stopped my momentum for various film/writing projects I am trying to get moving. Self motivation is HARD. Even harder when torrents of snot are flying out of your face. But alas, just a temporary setback.
So anyway, my parents sent me this picture along with a birthday card. There are so many things I enjoy about this picture. First, is the pure and genuine joy on my face upon seeing my cake. Second is the number of candles on the cake being accurate. The cake I received at work the other day had one candle. It’s still sad to me to be at an age where you only get one candle. Third is the Dukes of Hazzard themed plates and napkins. It’s weird to think that I was obsessed with the Dukes of Hazzard at the age of four, considering I remember being obsessed with the Dukes of Hazard. Forth is the extremely huge butcher knife lying on a table surrounded by a bunch of toddlers.
Ahhh the innocence of it all.
Wham, bam, my taxes are done. I just payed H&R Block $144 to prepare my taxes for me. It seems like quite a lot, but I’ve had tax trouble in the past. Something always goes wrong and I basically would do anything for it to be painless. Being one who thinks that all taxes are inherently immoral (and dumps tea packets in the sink every day as a mini protest), tax time is particularly painful. It would be like any of you pro-choicers being forced by the government to shoot two abortion doctors per year. Well, almost like that.
The only depressing thing about shelling out the money is that basically you’re paying to watch someone else use TurboTax. But I’d have to say, my agent’s tax troubleshooting experience allowed us to plow through some minor issues that would have caused me to jump out a window.
My excitement over a $500 federal refund was quickly extinguished when I found out I owed New York City $500. Since the address on my paycheck never changed from NJ, they hadn’t been taking out city taxes. A ‘Thank You’ goes out to the payroll person at work who assured me, “Oh it doesn’t matter what the address is, but I’ll change it if you really want.” So if you’ve moved to NY recently, for the love of God, get that address changed.
In the end I broke even. Fine. I’ll take it. Better than owing money. I guess. Though if I refer friends to my H&R Block agent, I get ten bucks per friend. So if 50 people would kindly e-mail me, that’d be fantastic. Thank you in advance for that one, guys.
OK, yeah, so I’ve been really busy lately. I’ve been putting all of my non-dayjob time into a comedy show here in New York. We just put up one of our videos, so, I figure, hey, let’s link to it. I didn’t shoot it but I edited it, and actually, we did this over the summer, but it’s a nice taste of what I’ve been up to, and well, I hope you enjoy it. There’s tons tons more that will make it online at some point, and at which point I will, you know, let you know.
And also, if you’re in the New York area you should come down to our show. We’re back in the first weekend of December at which point I’ll post full details. It would blow my pants off if you could make it. Yes. Indeed. Ta ta.
The security guard in my work building is quite a character. I’m not sure how I haven’t written about her before. Probably because I only see her in the morning and do all of my writing at night. She’s one of those “same shit different day, why is life so hard?” kind of people, but I enjoy listening to her complaints and rants. She also always has crazy stories about all the trouble she finds for herself. The off-hours goings on of the building are one such daily rant.
The top floor of my building is occupied by a recording studio that caters mostly to the rap music scene. The third floor was, until recently, the home of a psychic (who employs near-homeless people to wear sandwich board adverts). So, I was never too shocked when walking through the stairs my feet would stick to the floor in a pool of dried beer, or vomit. Butts everywhere. The smell of pot. Black marker graffiti. That kind of thing.
So anyway, today I walk in:
“Yeah so I just called Emergency Services, yeah, figures they weren’t going to show up. Why would they care? Now I’ve got to deal with this mess? No thank you. I think it’s a crack pipe. Guy’s probably on the roof. Dead. I ain’t looking for no dead bodies, that’s for sure.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, you know, in the stair well. Found a crack pipe. At least I think it’s a crack pipe. Never seen one but it’s the kind of thing you know when you see.”
“Oh. Jeeze.”
“I should call the cops. Want to see it?”
“Sure.”
In the stair well right at the first floor. On the stairs are: a baseball cap, an empty gold can of beer, a blue ID card, a crumpled brown paper bag, and a crack pipe.
“There it is, there’s the crack pipe.” Pointing.
And indeed, I’d have to say it was. Never having seen one myself, but it was a small test tube type deal, all burnt black and brown.
“Yeah, that’s a crack pipe. Unless this guy’s real into chemistry.”
“Ha, right. I gotta call the cops. This ID card has his name on it. Idiot. And that brown bag? I ain’t touchin’ that, god knows what’s in there.” Probably a gun, or more crack, or an alien baby, she was right to be cautious.
“That’s evidence… can I come upstairs to use the phone?”
“Sure thing.”
And so we go back now to March of this year. Winter is pissing out the embers of hope and joy. I am not happy. I am complaining, whining, scratching, clawing for the summer. For New York. For not-snow.
Now here it is, the last week of August, the last week of summer as far as I am concerned. Here I finally arrive at my randomly chosen vacation wherein I get to send the summer off. One week to soak in the remaining stale sweaty steamy summer air; to absorb the lazy dreary apathy; to live it up in that do nothing way that you can only enjoy in the summer.
We begin this week with S.W.A.T. The summer movie extravaganza commenced for me with X-Men 2. A fine fine piece of comic book movie. I was fired up. “Oh what a fine movie summer it will be!” I screamed to the streets. Oh what a fine movie summer it did not end up being, but here, at the wee end, here I find S.W.A.T, a damn tight little film with all the summer explosions you could ever want, all crammed into a juicy PG-13 package and boy I’m happy.
But like I was saying before, like I was trying to get at, here I am, standing at the top of 10 days off. The last 10 days of the summer I had so hopelessly fantasized. The last ten days of the carefree. The last ten days Matt will live in New York City. Ten days that are mine to do as I please. Ten more days of summer brutality to make me crave the fall (which has already begun, the craving that is). Ten days to do some reading, some writing, some planning. And some relaxing. At which I have never been very good. But I’ll give that a try.
Anyway, enough of this, the boys are coming over.
Here we go.
Today was one of those alarm-not-working days. It is irrelevant whether:
- The alarm truly glitched and somehow didn’t ring because of aligned planets, solar flares, Pauly Shore or what have you.
- I sleep walked and turned it off.
- I simply slept through the damn thing. Slept through three full hours of extreme-decibel Spanish music.
Irregardless of it all, I was two hours late for work. There is a dreamy quality to days like this. I was entirely too rested. The sun was in the wrong position upon arriving at each of my commuting land marks. I was (still am) four cups behind on coffee. Everyone looked at me funny with that “What’s wrong with you?” smile/frown. It was assumed I had one too many gin and tonics the night before, which is not true though would have been a much better excuse. And now, here it is, 4:45 and it feels like noon. That’s the good part I suppose. Thankfully I arrive at work 10 to 15 minutes early every day, a habit which in my opinion makes up for radical lateness events like this.
Tomorrow I leave for New Jersey to attend my cousin’s wedding. Not sure how that will be. The ceremony will be on the beach, which poses all kinds of logistical issues. I keep thinking that I will need some form of hat or protective shield from the sun. Now that I have no hair on my head, it burns easily as it did last weekend. Two hours in beach sun might actually cause ignition. But what hats can you wear with a suit? Am I limited to the fedora? Baseball cap is out. Fisherman’s hat is out. Skully is out. But I don’t own a fedora. Black umbrella? I like the aesthetic but it’s a bit spooky for my taste.
What oh what am I to do?
What do these three men have in common with me, you ask? We all celebrate our birthday today! And we will all be getting together at the Times Square TGI Fridays for drinks! (except for Sir Lawrence Olivier, who is dead). You haven’t had a birthday until you’ve watched Morrissey kill a Friday’s Spinich Dip in under a minute (and he never buys a round).
Happy birthday guys!
So there I was, two drinks down and one to go. Grab the gin, a brand I’ve never heard of, glug glug glug. Too much gin. Grab the tonic, glug, glu—too little tonic. Only a teaspoon or so left in the bottle. I had in my hands a gin and nothing. I sipped. Way too much gin and too little tonic. So, I added coke. I then had a gin and coke. Not highly recommended unless of course, you have already had two gin and tonics. Parties where you don’t know anyone are good for one thing. Getting to know better the people you already know. Highly underrated.
Good night.
Wait, you didn’t know that yesterday was Matrix Day? The day the new Matrix came out? You sod. Well I knew, oh yes sir. We had pre-ordered tickets and all. Actually seeing the movie ended up being quite an ordeal, but I won’t get into that.
On our way from the rejected, problem-creating theatre to the newer, better, more downtown theatre, we passed by the World Trade Center site. Last night would mark the first time I had ever been there. I don’t think it would be possible to be there for the first time and not be hit with it all in some way. Even though we were briskly walking by, even though it’s a year and a half later, even though it was Matrix Day, it gets you. This vast empty space in the middle of this very dense city.
How was the movie you ask? It’s exactly what you’d expect. It was fantastic. And I think that’s enough of a review.
So this cock sucking popcorn chewing douche bag was sitting next to me during the movie. I’ve been annoyed by people in a theatre in just about every way you could imagine. The people talking behind me, oh the people talking behind me. The kicking, the kicking on the back of my chair. Such occurrences make me hate humanity. But last night was something new. No one talked, no one kicked but this guy, this normal enough looking guy sitting next to me couldn’t find the hole. The soda hole, in the arm rest. He would sip and then smash his eight gallon tub of coke onto the arm rest, sending vibrations of annoyingness through my chair and me. He would twirl it around, scraping plastic on plastic until the soda found the hole and sunk in. More annoying vibrations. He would then jam a fist of popcorn into his mouth and immediately pull out the soda again. And immediately replace it. Slam, scrape, thud. Popcorn. Slurp. Slam, scrape, thud.
Over and over and sweet jesus over again.
One time it took him so long to find the slot, he just gave up and took another sip. Couldn’t he have god damned just held onto the soda? you ask. No, no he couldn’t. That would have been too fucking sane.
So I grabbed the fucking soda and tossed it into his feet sending the carbonated syrup water spraying and fizzing all over his ugly face and shoes.
(No I didn’t.)
Last night I got drinks with the guys at work. One of my coworkers is leaving so, well, we drink. We nearly never go out after work so I really enjoy the chance to bullshit without restriction. I had no intention on getting drunk, but having three beers before dinner and only a lone Hot Pocket in my stomach pretty much guaranteed it. Now maybe I’m getting old, but I realized last night that I really don’t enjoy being drunk. Sure, it’s nice when you’re in the bar and it makes your volume increase, gives your stories more punch and lets you say and do things that might otherwise be filtered by your brain. But once you’re back at home, sitting in front of the computer, still drunk, it’s just a big let down. Suddenly nothing can happen fast enough, you have all this energy to do something but can’t really do anything. It would be like getting all coked up and then going to the library.
If I were in college I would have done the only thing that seemed appropriate, the drunk e-mail. Those always seemed like a good idea at the time. Being drunk gives you the illusion that you’re suddenly very creative and funny so sharing that with someone is only logical. But the novelty of the drunk e-mail is appreciated by exactly one person: the sender.
So not doing much e-mail anymore I considered posting a drunk blog entry. Thankfully for you people, it didn’t happen. I decided sleep was a better decision. I had all sorts of things planned. I was going to go on a 5000 word diatribe about those people with butt chins and ask such questions as “what’s up with people with butt chins?” Oh, it would have been so great. I assure you.
But like I said, I must be getting older, cause I didn’t do the drunk post, I realized it was a bad call, and I went to bed. And got eight hours of delicious sleep.
And right now, I have to go to work, and cannot figure out how the hell to end this entry. I should stick with lists.
For all the complaining, crying, aching, philosophizing and foofaraw that you endured regarding my imminent move to New York, you’d think I’d have posted something by now. I moved. I now sit in Brooklyn as I write this. But priorities shift slightly when you are moving all of your known possessions in a rented truck through lower Manhattan (when you have never driven through Manhattan before).
But the cool thing about not posting in a while is that I get to simmer my life on low heat, boiling it down to a delicious syrup for you all to enjoy. It will be delivered in my favorite form: a list.
›› They installed cable the day I moved, which is very nice for someone like me, though I was looking forward to spending a week without TV or internet to force myself to be an interesting person. So much for that.
›› Every once in a while I smell gas in the kitchen. Is that bad?
›› In Jersey my washer and dryer were in my room (one of two perks of living in a basement). I have never been to a Laundromat in my life. I am very scared.
›› I am also used to grocery stores the size of football fields with the resources of Biosphere II. The grocery store down the street has only one of each item. And absolutely no Amy’s Pockets. Though they did carry a frozen Boca pizza and banana Kozy Shack pudding, two items I did not know existed. I guess it’s a trade.
›› Completely unrelated to moving, I finally saw The Rules Of Attraction on my last night in Jersey. A disturbing uncomfortable movie, but one which I liked a lot. I found the characters are sticking with me as the days pass. A notable accomplishment for such a ruthless movie.
›› I will miss ellieg and stevenellison as daily pieces of my life. I hope that we visit often.
Up until yesterday, if you had asked me about colds or flus and the like, you would have been greeted with a nauseating display of bravado on my part. “Not for over one year have I been sick of any kind!” I would have stated with an upturned index finger and an 1800s British affectation.
Yesterday I got sick. My accomplishment so thoroughly ruined, I have much less tolerance for this cold than previous ones. I feel that it is my fault. After moving I lost track of my vitamin C tablets. I stopped taking them for two weeks and bam, cold.
So I turn to natural herbal therapy. I had only dabbled in it with my vitamins in the past. But this time I went all out. I’m a huge fan of Dr. Andrew Weil. Yeah, yeah, you probably saw him on Oprah, but really, he’s a genius and is responsible for convincing me that some herbal therapies aren’t all flim flam.
So I found this potion. That’s what I call it cause it’s fucking ridiculous:
Grate a 1-inch piece of peeled ginger root. Put it in a pot with 2 cups of cold water, bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Add 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more or less to taste) and simmer 1 minute more. Remove from heat. Add 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, honey to taste, and 1 or 2 cloves of mashed garlic. Let cool slightly, and strain if desired.
Did it help clear up my nasal and chest congestion? Fucking sweet jesus it did! This stuff is brutal and mean, but the kind of brutal and mean that makes you think, “oh god, sweet and wonderful god, this must be working.” I feel like I’m a regular fucking Harry Potter.
I’m also trying out zinc lozenges, which according to studies is the only treatment proven to reduce the duration of a cold. Yay for that.
I’m also taking mad quantities of Vitamin C and a little Echinacea sprinkled in there for good measure. I’ll let you know how it works (or if the potion turns me into a cat).
Be damned you god forsaken cold, be damned!
Really rapid fire before I go to bed:
1. Spring is officially here. I got off the train, there was sunlight, I rolled down the window, a warm breeze, I turned on the radio, an 80s era Tom Petty song. Smile.
2. “Moving – Phase One” has been completed. I am now official roomies with stevenellison. And, for you blog trivia buffs, this is the former room of blogging celebrity Garrett Murray. Oh what a small blogging world we live in! (the exclamation point is for extra exclamation!)
3. This is really quite a fantastic game for you physics heads. I’d buy it if I was the kind of person to buy games. But I’m not. OS X only. In your face Unreal Tournament 2003!
4. The murder mystery plot that is my NYC apartment hunt just gets thicker and thicker. Long story extremely short: I finally got through to my non-English speaking landlord via the bassist of a local band after attempts to get a fax from the landlord’s 17 year old daughter proved unsuccessful. Yes, yes, I know…
5. Adding to the unimaginable joy that is June, is more unimaginable joy.
6. When you link the last word of a sentence, do you link the period as well?
7.”Seven’s the key number here. Think about it. Seven-Elevens… Seven doors… Seven, man, that’s the number. Seven chipmunks twirlin’ on a branch, eatin’ lots of sunflowers on my uncle’s ranch. You know that old children’s tale from the sea. It’s like you’re dreamin’ about Gorgonzola cheese when it’s clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office, ‘cause you’re fuckin’ fired!”
So I’m cleaning out my room, packing it really (no better reason to clean than if you’re moving) and I found some things.
Film
Two rolls of undeveloped film that I have been looking for for about two years. There is nothing quite as exciting as undeveloped film. The older the better. Sure, I remember a picture or two. But what hidden gem awaits? We shall find out.
Quiz
Found some study flash cards from my senior year criminal justice class. Which trial set limits on stop & frisk? You guessed it: Minnesota vs. Dickerson.
Writing
My room is filled with scraps of lone paper. Most of them contain phone numbers without names or lists of things to remember when I leave the house. One in particular caught my attention. Five lines written hastily on a mini notepad page. I have a habit of jumping out of bed seconds before sleep kicks in and writing down some phrase I think is a gem. This must be one of them. Circa I-have-no clue, but probably college days. Reads like it.
You are a monument to what means my soul
a national park
a nature preserve
closed on weekends
and every day is a weekend
Oh boy…
The move is imminent. New York is soaring on the horizon; New Jersey is sinking into the past. Soon. Apartments have been visited, handshakes have occurred, phone calls have been made… yet I wait. Soon.
And of course, the weather is mirroring my trials and tribulations Shakespeare-style. Winter is clinging to me like a belligerent bully, and he ain’t goin’ nowheres until I put ink to paper and fucking move. For this I apologize to those of you on the east coast. For the snow. The godforsaken fucking snow, Jack frost you cocksucking bearded bastard.
The heat broke again. The red button has been pressed and the clanky old 1920s oil heater is sputtering again. One last time. Things won’t get better before they get much, much worse.
On a positive note, I just finished The Quiet Game by Greg Iles. What a fucking fantastic thriller it was. Deep, rich characters, a serpentine plot, and a universe that you wish you didn’t have to leave after flipping past the last page. Read it.
· I have apparently decided to drive myself crazy. I am attempting to learn Cocoa. If you don’t know what that means you can still instantly appreciate the ridiculousness of it. Cocoa is the language in which Mac OS X programs are written. Why, you may ask, am I devoting time to learning a programming language when I could be, say, learning how to write screenplays, my supposed real passion? I have no fucking clue. Apparently I enjoy derailing my own life goals.
· Ellie is moving out of the apartment this Thursday. I have another three weeks here, so that will be strange. In addition to herself, she is also taking the kitchen table (and chairs) the entertainment center, the patio table (and chairs) the kitchen phone, the answering machine, all the plates and 20 of the 25 glasses. She is not merely being cruel, she does own these things, but after Thursday this house will scream, “something is drastically wrong.” The floor and I will have to get acquainted for a bit.
· In two thank-you-fucking-god-you-sweet-and-awesome-god-weeks Jenel will move out. Gone will be those frequent looks I’d give Ellie and those looks she’d give back that said, without words:
“She’s totally fucking lost her mind this time right?”
“I’m as clueless as you.”
For one last week I will be alone, amongst boxes of my own things in a very big and empty house. This house will scream, “the end is near, and until then, it will be depressing.”
· This house is also screaming, “Please leave now, you have been warned.” Example: the rapidly breaking dryer is now eating socks. Not in the classic “Where did all my left socks go?” kinda way. Literally eating. The barrel-thingy that the clothes actually sit in and go roundy-round is falling out of alignment, causing each and every single one of my socks to get caught between the barrel-thingy and the inner-workings of the dryer. The result is that all of my socks are torn to shreds at the top and stained both black and brown. Why these colors and the violent shredding? No clue. My only theory on the problem is that the orifice of Hell (real capital-H Hell) is slowly opening within this house Hellraiser-style. Starting in the dryer.
· Supporting this theory is a new basement sound (I live in the basement) that now accompanies the rest of the clangy-bang basement sounds. This one sounds like a motor whirring, but it ends up sounding like an alarm of sorts. Rrrrer, rrrrer, rrrrer, rrrrer… Constantly, all the time. I can tolerate the car-exploding-esque bang of the heater starting and the tsunami-esque sound of water cascading down pipes, but this sound is un-get-used-to-able. My theory on this is that it is some sort of undead dog or horse that represents the first soldier of the army of Hell that will soon pour into the basement. Let’s hope that takes longer than three weeks.
· For all you crazy fans of the MorrisonFilm Weekly Question (of which there is exactly one) this feature is being cancelled. For you experienced bloggers, you will observe this with a wry smile, I’m sure. I now know not to make promises about what goes on here. Oh, oh I’ll still ask questions baby. Just whenever I feel like it. Indiscriminately and without notice.
· Note to Paramount: No matter how hard you try, The Core is going to suck. It’s going to be really really bad. Oh don’t get me wrong, Paramount, I wanted to be on your side. I said to myself, “How could Aaron Eckart involve himself in a project that seems to go against his entire previous body of work? Ditto Hilary Swank. The oddness of these actors in a special-effects extravaganza must mean it is actually good.” This argument is historically false. I once said “Bruce Willis, Steve Buscemi, Billy Bob Thornton! Bub-blub-blub!” And Hollywood shat out Armageddon. The preview shows a man running away from a bolt of lightning for Christ’s sake! Running!
· Way to fucking go dumb ass. You’ve stayed up until 1 am again. You fucking fucking dumb ass.
As I mentioned earlier, our heater was broken. I woke freezing my fucking god-forsaken ass off. Literally chattering and scrapping off frost as I broke free from my comforter. I finally get around to calling our oil heater company. They promise to send someone. No more than 30 minutes later there is a knock on the door. I open the front door and am hit with divine beauty. No, not the oil service repairman, the warmth.
He stands there just staring at me. After a full ten seconds he says, “A day like this and you’re complaining about your heater?” I felt like a reclusive ass, but I didn’t care. Oh my sweet Jesus. The first warm day of the year.
So now, I sit, not trapped indoors on the internet, but trapped outdoors on the internet. But then I get to thinking… this, right here, is the perfect opportunity for senseless driving.
See ya later suckers!
Seasons are lifetimes for the impatient. It seems as if new universes bloom each time the earth makes a full pass around the sun. Perhaps this is why the changing of the seasons is notable, each and every god damn time.
I saw daylight upon leaving work for the first time today. The first as I don’t remember the last time. I forget what Times Square looks like in early evening light. I forget what not being frigid feels like. Reflections on the changing of the seasons has been more than done, but I go here because I think this spring will be a particularly potent one for me. It’s more than a move, this is very much a new chapter. I feel I can say this without being over dramatic.
That’s all.
In some instances, an event occurs and writing commences. In others, the writing comes first, and nothing has happened. Not much at least. This is one of those. A collection of things.
This Sunday I am doing a lot better than last Sunday. Dramatically so. I feel content and relaxed and willing to smile. I think part of the key to feeling this way is seizing a weekend, which really, doesn’t take much more than getting good sleep. Sleep is highly underrated, especially in my life. Two nights of a solid eight hours combined with waking before Noon is really the ticket.
My parents came down to visit this weekend, which also may explain my pleasant mood. I don’t see them nearly often enough, so these rare weekends are a pleasure. They are also filled with excessive eating out, which also adds to a favorable demeanor. The food-highlight was a return visit to Liberté, a French restaurant in Montclair, New Jersey. Never have I experienced a more consistently delicious meal at any other restaurant. Every time we visit the menu is entirely different but the food is always unbelievable. I had escolar, which I was worried was some step-brother of escargot. The waiter assured me that it was not snail, rather a meaty white fish not unlike sea bass. It was extraordinary. This is also a place where the entree, when presented, shines of craftsmanship. The taste and construction are equally brilliant. Point being, dinners like these are a welcome departure from diner food (though diners and their food will always have my heart).
Saw Tears Of The Sun. A very good movie. It wanted to be great, and it showed, but it just wasn’t, though I won’t take points off for that. Highly watchable and engaging. I am fascinated by modern special-ops best-of-the-best subjects like this, and if you are too, you will like it for that alone, though the movie gets very moral. Which only bothered me in that I didn’t feel that the moral turnaround was demonstrated adequately by Bruce Willis’ character. His stone-faced, cold as steel lieutenant morphed into a stone-faced cold as steel lieutenant with a heart. It was also good to see a convincing war movie that didn’t feel the need to be a shock-fest à la Blackhawk Down. For a while I thought that every war movie after Saving Private Ryan would be required to suddenly cut to a shot of a shrieking man with his guts splayed out. I was also rather shocked by a quote at the end of the film which steered the moral of the movie into an endorsement for the war on terrorism. And it didn’t feel cheap.
Last and far off topic I saw a piece on the local news which may be a sign of good things for New Yorkers. Apparently, because Grand Central Station is state owned, not city owned, it does not fall under the jurisdiction of the upcoming city-wide ban on smoking. So you will still be allowed to smoke-indoors-at the bars in Grand Central. I see this is a means to make our point. If the bars at Grand Central are flooded, maybe, just maybe, fuck-ass Bloomberg will take notice. It’s worth a shot.
And, as these entries go, there is no proper way to end them. Like a grocery list, after a certain amount of head-scratching, it must be folded in two and stashed in the pocket.
I feel like I am losing myself. For friends and family my plight is very familiar and approaching “enough already” status. I complain about it a lot. Essentially I have no personal time. My commute has always been an issue. I’ve always complained about it. And finally, I am doing something about it by moving to New York in May. But the schedule has really been troubling me lately. I desperately look forward to weekends. And when they arrive, I am more stressed out during them than I am during work. I feel this pressure to make the most of them. ThereÃ?s so much to do, so much “me-time” to accomplish. I want to read, I want to write, I want to scour the web, I want to go shopping for something, I want to work on my site, and then, after that’s all done, I want to just relax.
Instead I end up sleeping late, payment for all those lost weekday hours. I wake with guilt. An instant seizing pressure on my chest that I have already let precious personal moments slip away. I make coffee, do some online reading and then itÃ?s somehow 5:00 PM. I eat dinner, maybe see a movie and it’s back to bed. This repeats on Sunday but it’s worse. Monday is eminent. Monday is pressing on me. Scramble, scramble, scramble, get it all done. This is free time, do not waste it. But oh fuck: bills, laundry, food shopping, correspondence.
Feeling like this for a while now, I decided that tonight I would cook. I hadn’t done anything more than heat frozen meals in months. There can be something zen-like about cooking. It is fun, it is a nice distraction and I can get wrapped up in it. So I decided to make Chicken Quesadillas. There was nothing zen-like about it. I got home from shopping rather late, suddenly it was 7:00 and I had a whole meal to prepare. I was a mess while cooking, constantly triple checking the recipe, juggling three stages at once. Halfway through I realized I had forgotten a key ingredient. I ran out (rushed out) got it and returned. Time ticking away. By the time we sat down for dinner it was past 9:00 and nearing bed-time. The quesadillas were very good, but it was lost on me. My weekend was over.
And now, I sit here, it is 11:14 PM on Sunday night and my chest is compressed with stress and anxiety. Another seven days of endless commuting. And work is great. I’m really enjoying work right now, things are smooth there. It is entirely about not having my own time. I am drinking Chamomile tea in vain. It is supposed to calm you and settle your stomach, but it is not. It’s just not, and I hate this feeling. I needed to expel it somehow. This right here is an attempt, though I donÃ?t know if it will work.
I want to be more zen-like. More in control of myself and my environment. I want people to see me and see a calm, pleasant smile on my face as I stroll, not run. I want to notice this life, experience it in vivid colors, not these running gray sleepy colors I see. I’ve got to harness this volition of mine, grab the steering wheel and make this happen. I will try. Living in New York will help. But in the meantime, I must try so bloody hard. It’s important.
I conclude by realizing what this site does for me. It’s excruciatingly important to me. It proves I exist. It proves that I can create something outside of work; outside of the pressure. It’s small but it helps.
I leave, trying to breathe, trying to slow down, and trying to sleep more. Trying to seize control and make this work a little better. I’ll try to remember those things. How do you do it?
This is one of those terrible mornings. This is anger and anxiety setting the trend. Setting the pace for the day. And so I have to release it. And so thus you have to read this. It starts with the sounds of my magnanimously annoying and oblivious roommate (hereby referred to as Lady Jenel of Parsippany or The Princess for short) making all sorts of noise as she prepares for work. Some sort of arc-welding on her face, it would seem from the sounds that where emerging. She must juggle bowling balls as she readies herself, and she also must be bad at it.
It hits me moments before I hear her dreadfully loud pounding on my door that I am parked behind her in the driveway. I contemplate ignoring her, purely out of spite, but her thrashing and clawing at the door is not unlike the freak-out scene from Pi.
I run outside, throw the key in the lock. And nothing. Lock’s frozen. Solid. Very solid. I try the other side. Same. I do this, alternating doors, twisting and struggling with the lock. Finally I manage to open the passenger side door, crawl in, get the car going, move it, wait. I figured the standard drill, I move my car and she leaves. No, no, of course not, that would be convenient for me. She’s nowhere to be seen. I had thought she was in her running car waiting for me to move. No. No, she must be high-pressure spraying that last coat of perfume. The one that will cause me to pass out upon re-entry into the house.
So I curse and park on the side of the street, which really isn’t much of an option given the snow banks. God forbid someone needed to use the road. But fuck all, I needed to get that last 5 minutes of sleep.
When I get back to bed I look at the clock and realize, there is no time for more sleep. I am officially awake now.
Flash forward 40 minutes and I nearly miss my train. Nearly miss it because some douche managed to lodge his car on top of a snow bank. Causing all sorts of police inconvenience.
Flash forward 5 minutes, me, severely late for the train, forgetting the driver side door is still frozen shut, finding my legs in the air, the gear-shift lodged in my back, attempting to exit on the opposite side.
Running, panting, frantically scurrying to make it onto the train, cursing my ideal past-self for making the promise never to run for a train. Now I’m out of breath and a hypocrite.
And now, I sit, on the train, squeezed between too many people. The man behind me is coughing and phleming with some sort of Congo-born virus.
But the train is on time. And coffee is now only minutes away. It is days like these that I must struggle for the positive. Grope and scrape for it. Otherwise the day is ruined and some poor Dunkin’ Donuts employee will be yelled at.
Breathe. Deep breath. And… begin.
Think about it for a moment in different terminology. It’s freakin’ weird, really. Don’t think, “It snowed and we got 2 feet of snow.” Think, “Flakes of ice fell from the sky and buried everything.” How weird is snow? When you get right down to it? The shit falls from the sky unannounced and just fucks everything up. Suddenly all of your familiar landscapes are layed out like battle scene aftermaths. Tunnels carve through our paths of priority. Walls of white outline streets and sidewalks. There’s now only one way to go. And, for the most part, we don’t even blink. Most won’t understand, but I find snow freakin’ weird.
People handle snow differently. Some get grumpy, let their car be, and call in sick.
Other people finish shovelling early and have time to spare.
I fall somewhere in between. At 3:00 PM on Monday, we spotted our cars.
At 3:07 I started to shovel.
As did Ellie. (What’s up with those socks!)
182 hours and 20 feet of snow later (give or take) we had finished.
I’m just glad I’m not the guy who had to shovel Times Square.
It’s amazing how easily a fairly put together person like myself can completely fall apart in mere moments. I left work after a late night at 8:30. I was experiencing mild heart burn. I decided some food might help, as I hadn’t eaten since 1:00pm. Perhaps Penn Station soup was my critical mistake. Or perhaps nothing could have saved me. Halfway home on the train I was a wreck. First, I was that guy who suddenly bolted upright and ran into the train bathroom, causing some staring and squirming-in-seats from the rest of the car. I knelt on the beyond-dirty bathroom floor, wondering how exactly I would vomit into the thimble-sized toilet, while maintaining balance and not touching a god damned thing. Somehow it passed, despite the presence of sprayed feces everywhere. (Clarification: Not mine, already there). Second, I was that guy, sitting hunched over, paled-faced, catching the menacing stares of old people who clearly assumed I had drank too much. There was this one guy. Every time I looked up in his direction he was concentrating on me with a very disapproving stare. “One wrong move kid, and I throw you off the train.”
I finally make it to my stop, feeling somewhat OK, wondering how far I’d make it. (I briefly pictured myself vomiting while on the highway, sticking my head out the window). Standing and disembarking the train, I finally realized there was no stopping it. My hand clenched over my mouth I knew was a feeble attempt at stopping the inevitable. I shuffled to get as far away from the other passengers as I could and finally, horribly, the opposite of elegance, I collapse into the snow and puke. Just horrible, blurburing noises. I imagined, in slow motion, the surrounding people turning in horror to see me on all fours, half buried in snow, vomiting everywhere. I wonder if they all just stood and stared or if they all turned and ran, screaming.
As I got up, my pants soaked with snow, my hands frozen, my glasses covered in the fuzz of snow flakes, my nose running, walking back to my car, I felt like the most pathetic human ever. Who the hell am I? Who does that? I guess, me.
I got my hair cut the other day at the usual place I get my hair cut, and also as usual, from a completely new person. For whatever reason, I never go back to the same person twice. That said, as I sat into the hydro-lift chair, my stylist-of-the-month was finishing a conversation with her previous client.
“People deal with it in different ways. I was 15 when I lost my mom, 10 years later I lost my brother. Everyone’s gone. No parents, no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles. Just two brothers I don’t talk to.”
A moment or two of polite goodbyes and the man leaves.
“That man, he reads cards. I love having my cards read, I’m way into that. Get them read all the time. The dead love me. They just follow me all over the place. They’re here right now. My medium always tells me how she’s surprised so many people are with me when I get there. I just really need to talk to my dead family. Last time I went I got my dead brother. You know, it was nice talking to him, but I was like, ‘OK, enough, I want to talk to mom!’” She chuckles to herself.
“I only got an hour with my mom, at least I got to talk to her. I really need to go back to my medium. It’s funny, I take care of my brother’s dog now, still alive, beautiful thing, and I never knew how much he loved that dog. I mean that dog was his life. Never knew that when he was alive, didn’t have a clue, but his ghost told me all about how much he loved it–still loves it.”
“I was down in Florida at my cousin’s condo, last summer, and the lights kept flicking on and off. Turns out it was my mom doing that. She told that to me when she visited me. I guess she was also responsible for this other thing, this stuffed thing, like a talking teddy bear, you know? You’d squeeze it’s tummy and it would say something? Well it started saying things when no one was touching it! That was mom too.”
I ask, “How long ago since your last… well… visit, with…”
“Two years. Two years now. It’s been too long, I really need to do it again soon. That man, that gentleman who was just here, he says if I can get 10 people together to do a séance at my house, 50 bucks a head, that he’ll give me my reading for free.”
This was one of those non-life weeks. Pure coasting on caffeine fumes. One of those weeks where I sleep four hours a night. I wake on the train ride into work with my neck bent 90° and drool all over my face and jacket. My hair is too long. Head and facial. I make my public appearances as brief as possible. You don’t want to see me and I don’t want to see you. I ignore my phone calls. I can’t talk. I get home and click for hours, endlessly, blog to blog to blog. I drink fantastic quantities of coffee, not because I want to. I am cold. I feel like my body is just a shell that I use to cower, not fearfully but apathetically, from the world.
This, I have finally identified, is something spectacular. Something I’ve been waiting for. The transition from left brain to right brain. This week being the void in-between. And this weekend being my departure from head scratching PHP code warrior to pen-scratching-on-paper-screenwriter.
I’ve been at home (my Connecticut home) for two weeks and my mind has been completely away from the internet. But now. Alas. I am back. Lots of stuff to take care of here, we’ll make it brief and to-the-point. Rapid fire.
New Years was fun, if uneventful. It was the first time I actually paid to be somewhere on New Years. Odd how I’d pay to be at a place that is entirely the opposite of my being.
I’m moving in April and am looking for a nice, safe place to live. How ‘bout here?
The Two Towers: just a solid medieval action adventure. Lots of swords, horses, wizards, fighting, tough guy brave stuff. And Gollum alone is worth the watch. We’ve finally arrived at seamless 3D.
Far From Heaven: Just a fantastic picture. It’s really fascinating how it made issues such as racism and homosexuality completely fresh by setting it in the 50s (and flawlessly adopting 50s film style).
Catch Me If You Can: Exactly what you are expecting in every great way.
All three are highly recommended but the last two you really shouldn’t miss.
Also, I am officially announcing the termination of my friendship with Snow. Snow and I go way back. When he first entered my life, I didn’t think it could get any better. Not only did he cancel school, but he somehow got Mom to make me hot chocolate and covered the far too steep hill behind my house with slick speed goo. Sledding, after all, is possibly the best thing a small boy could dream of. But lately things have soured. Turns out Snow was just a stranger with candy. Now he coats the roads with slick death goo, he for some reason isn’t canceling work, and he’s constantly messing up my car. Not to mention that he doesn’t make Mom drive to Jersey to bring me hot chocolate. Snow can eat my ass.
Have I become one of those guys? (Note: It was a gift and I really need a calendar.)
Oh my oh my oh my. My my my my my. Fucking Fantastic. Chills. Kill Bill. Watch it.
Last but not least my new year’s resolution is summed up by one fortune.
I am cold. Always. The summer months kind of wash my brain of exactly what it is like to be painfully cold. As do the winter months of what it is like to be sticky, hot and sweaty. In my room, there is no heat. None. The natural coolness of a basement is delightful in the summer, but in the winter I am left with not much more than a meat locker. I wake in the morning, balled up in the cocoon of my comforter. Frost covering my east side. My only source of warmth will be the shower which luckily gets piping hot quickly. Perhaps the single advantage of living alongside the water heater.
The shower is bliss. Warm, hot bliss. I wonder why I’m running for the train in the morning when I spend a good three hours in the shower. It certainly feels like it. Then, inevitably, sometime after cleaning the hair, I realize I have nothing left to clean. It must end. The moment scalding hot water is no longer spraying against your skin, good ol’ evaporation kicks in. Thanks physics. My next and only other source of heat is this archaic infra red beam from my bathroom ceiling. It’s something I had only seen in hotels until moving into this place. It’s this odd red glowing bulb that cooks me much like those heat lamps you see over the french fries in a cafeteria. In fact, it is exactly the same thing that keeps the french fries warm. So I’m there, evaporating and slowly cooking, maintaining some kind of half-shivering balance between good and evil. I change in the bathroom. The 5x5 ft. square bathroom. To leave the bathroom at this point would be murder. Hypothermia would set in immediately and one of my roommates would find me, dead, naked, limbs and face blue in some kind of embarrassing position on the floor.
And this is as good as it’s going to get. This is the warmest I’ll be. To and from work my face and fingers literally go numb in the piercing New York City wind. As in no feeling whatsoever. Sometimes I want to cry it’s so cold. The only thing that keeps me going is the sight of some middle-aged business lady in a skirt, hummin’ along like it was 70 degrees out. Shame keeps me from crying. You’d think work would be warm. And then you’d be wrong. The heating is broken, so it’s nothing but god forsaken coldness there as well. Except for two rooms which are too hot. You kind of have to balance your day by going from the too-hot room to the arctic rooms. Invariably this will give me a headache and an extremely poor disposition.
Always I am cold.
Someone once said places like San Diego are boring because they’re always sunny and 70. That someone is a god damned whore.
Two days at Short Hills Mall, Christmas Shopping. Mostly done.
The fattest woman I have ever seen: My most accurate estimate: 400 lbs. So bloody fat she no longer uses legs to get around, rather a motorized cart. Apparently there is actually money to be made in the “people too fat to walk” industry. Whirring around the store in automated bliss. Also, screaming to her husband (shudder) on the phone, complaining that he left her with that “obnoxious sales lady.” How does one judge obnoxiousness when one defiles oneself just by existing? Did I mention she was screaming? With that sloppy lisp you get when your cheeks are too fat for your face.
Abercrombie: A man, with no shirt, a santa hat and red boxers standing in front of a picture of himself with no shirt, a santa hat and the same red boxers. As if bringing in the one guy these clothes actually look good on will help sales. NOTE: “Abercrombie & Fitch” is for grown-ups. “abercrombie” is for ages 7 and under. Learned it the hard way.
If you plan it just right you can eat an entire bar’s worth of Williams-Sonoma Peppermint Bark, one delicious free sample at a time.
People: walking in the opposite direction of the direction in which they are looking. (Old news, but still depressing).
Girls in mini-skirts: It’s December. I’ll say “Thank You” but really… honey. Even Britney is wearing pants this time of year.
Products that are only gifts: Things that have never ever been purchased by the person who is supposed to use it. Example: Fondu set. I think there was one fondu party in 1984, but aside from that, these things only have meaning when wrapped in red and green foil. Can you really imagine anyone seriously committing to the idea? “Honey, instead of pizza tonight, lets spear tiny morsels of chicken and dip them in melted cheese. If only someone would invent some machine to make this easier!”
Walking into the Apple store, just because it is there.
Gift receipts placed inside the box. Am I the only one nostalgic for the day when people were stuck with the gifts I gave them? Fuck you, you ain’t returning shit. It’s just a depressing concept. It’s so “worst case scenario.” It would be like a car coming with body bags in the trunk.
I think I’m done. So check out Ellie’s site. She redesigned–Weblog on main page and all. And please comment on her entries, it makes her smile.
Lordy Lord Lord.
Him, in the booth, singing, sounding exactly like Elvis, fat, gay.
Me, at the console, doing my job, finding it odd he sounds exactly like Elvis, not fat, not gay.
So it was my first music session. Simple as it gets really. Record singing over pre-done instrumentals. A voice demo. Every session is still an adventure for me, as my transition from “video guy” to “audio guy” approaches three months. So I’m very concerned, very focused, very attuned to details and constantly repeating in my head my boss’s most important advice “Keep the clients happy.”
He didn’t mention that being overly polite could translate into “I want you in a gay way.”
Who knows, I could be completely wrong about the whole thing, but more on that later. This particular crooner had only been in a studio once before. The experience of a recording session can be quite overwhelming and awe inspiring the first time. For me it’s work, but I can understand the excitement. Lots of flashing buttons, audio cutting and flying left and right.
It was a free job, so he kept saying “Thank You,” and “You’re so wonderful for doing this.” I was burning the CD when it all went wrong. It was a blur, it happened too fast. I was trapped really.
“So where do you live, Shawn?”
“Jersey. Quite the commute.”
“Oh wow, I imagine. What time do you normally get out?”
“Oh you know, around 6.”
“Perfect. You’ll come see me sing this friday night. At a nice Italian place in the Village. You can take the N or R train right down there. I’ll meet you at the subway stop and I’ll buy you dinner, then you can stay and watch me sing.”
*completely blank, scared*
“Oh…yeah…um…OK”
Dumbass. Once in my life, can I please think on my feet? A simple “Oh sorry, I have plans.” Or “I only have 2 more days to live, sorry.” But no. I have to say “OK.”
I do my best: “Really, you don’t have to do that, it’s OK.”
“No, I absolutely insist.”
I rapidly change the topic, hoping he’d forget he asked. No dice. When he leaves he says, “I expect you Friday. See you then.”
OK, so he might not be gay. He’s an effeminate singer and interior decorator but we here at morrisonfilm don’t promote stereotypes. He might just be really appreciative. Wanting to thank me for my magical audio skills. Or I might have a gay date on my hands.
Needless to say, I ain’t goin’. For 2 milliseconds I said to myself “Well, it could be an odd adven–” BUZZER wrong answer. Ain’t goin’. So now I have to call, and lie, and I hate doing that. I mean why do people do this? How dare people put me in these awkward situations? Compete strangers no less! Even if he was the manliest straight man in America, he still, like all strangers, has the potential to be a psycho-killer. When I go, I don’t have many requests, but one is for my head not to end up in a refrigerator.
Why don’t super hot (FEMALE) singers or VO talent ever ask me out to dinner? Why doesn’t my politeness translate into “I want you in a man-woman kind of way?” No. I am me. I get the gay date.
Lordy Lord Lord.