Thursday, April 29, 2010

kite flying

Today I went running, through the streets of Pasadena down the olde town main drag, over the bridge that crosses next to the Ritz Carlton, onto the trail next to the riverbed and into the vast Brookside Park that rests, cultivated, alongside the monstrous Rose Bowl. As I walked off some of the jogging, I noticed a baseball diamond where a game was being played, so I climbed the staircase to the bleachers and sat in the sun amongst the players' family and friends to watch the game. Suddenly a shadow darkened my vision and moved across the ground, I thought it was a bird until I heard a flat plastic crash in the bushes behind me. I looked to see what it was and saw a run of string tying the trees together, leading to a little triangle of colors upside down on the ground down the stairs from me. The kite just lay there, like a lost child, it's string drifting in the wind. I figured someone would come find it, so I turned back to watch the game. A few minutes passed, and I realized nobody was coming. Maybe I could bring it to them? So I stood up and descended to the thing. I picked it up and felt it's plastic body immediately press against mine as the wind caught its wings. I had to push it off, but it persisted to wrap itself around me, his new master. I found the string and began rolling it around my palm, pulling it from the twigs of the bush and the tree which it had tied together. Eventually I had to pull the string and break it free. Wrapping it up completely, I ventured back down into the fields to find his true owner.. but nobody was around. Nobody owned him. He was a lone-flying bird, free but lost and stuck without a helping hand. So I crossed the street, extended a stretch of string for him to hang onto and let the kite raise up into the windy blue sky as I walked. I'd given maybe 10 feet of slack and he instantly pulled up to the edge of it like a freed eagle! I had to hang on tight as I walked and let him ride the gusts as I crossed the expansive field. Still, nobody came to claim him.

Soon I got to a bathroom that had four metal garbage pales around it. I unraveled some more of the tangled string to give the kite a good 50 feet of flying room. Tying the end of the string onto the handle of one of the pales, I began dragging it towards the center of the field. I stopped to let the kite loose into the fierce winds, and he took quickly to the skies. Letting him dance, I continued to pull the garbage can, with a bent back, hanging onto the metal handle and looking for a good spot to leave it. The kite danced and danced, in long curves and dives, soft turning into sharp drops and raises, playing with nature's invisible swirls. Pulling along, I found an open dirt patch in the sun that seemed to give the kite plenty of room to be seen and dance in the afternoon. I pulled out a little more string, let him raise up higher and stood there to watch him fly. For minutes he just climbed and dipped, his wings sputtering. I was happy to have given him a home.

Walking back to my house I listened to a Ricky Gervais podcast, thinking about George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and their dedication and passion for creating the visual and performance art that we've all loved for years. We need more of that, more fun heroes and aching mythologies to help us define things. That's why I'm here, the same reason they were here. I need to find the George and Stevens so I can work with someone like them, where are you guys? Anyone out there as obsessed with making audiences amazed as I am?

Ah, and I got cast in a play for the Hollywood Fringe Festival called Elevator. I've got a good feeling about this one. You'll get an update or two.

farewell
Mikie

Monday, April 26, 2010

Dr Jones

Just when you think nobody's reading..

Well the question that was faced yesterday was this:
(thank you TJ and Jason's dad)

What did you want to do when you were 5 or 12?

Basically, when you played before you had to filter everything through societal pressures and notions of money$$, what did you do? How did you play? what did you want to imagine yourself doing the most?

That's called a career choice. Money will follow it, rather than following the money. How many kids when asked what they wanted to be when they grew up said, "insurance broker" or "real estate salesperson"? When you were a kid and dreamed of playing in the grandest way possible (ie pursuing some kind of dream job/life) What was it? What kind of play did you aspire to get to do?

I wanted to hunt archaeological artifacts. learn the ways of the Force. be a paleontologist and dig up dinosaurs, backpack across the world in search of the perfect beach, fight with Gollum, be a Goonie. I am going to marry Natalie Portman.
This is my play, I am Beowulf! and to this day I watch pieces of entertainment that I love and copy, and think through. I just finished the second Indiana Jones last night, and was so inspired by Harrison Ford and Speilberg's passion. Such awesome filmmaking.
I think we'd all give anything to be Dr. Jones.

Thing is, this is an ageless human experience. There is evidence of humans "dreaming" and imagining since the beginning of written history. I mean, look at religion! It's a dream, beliefs that people live and die by!! That's a hell of a game right there. Look at Shakespeare, he wrote down his meticulously contrived dreams and created imaginative and timeless works of language art. Look at the Golden Gate bridge, somebody's dream, now a fixed symbol in American life. Look at Steinbeck's writings, automobiles, colorful dresses, entire cities founded on a people's ability to dream and pursue that dream. It's play, and look what it gives us. We collectively dream, we always have, and I think every childhood dream is worth fighting for. We live in a society where we can pursue what we love. It's like our duty, almost. It sets an example: that you don't have to stay home or in a job that you don't believe in. If you believe you can build the next Golden Gate bridge, then by god go out and learn about it and fall in love with it and build it! If you have always had a dream of being a pilot, you can work hard, get your license and fly! You are free to live it. It's like popping your back into place after years of a kink.
A quote I used to love is this:

"I don't care what you believe. Just believe it"
It's from a movie. A sci-fi at that.

Sorry this was a cheesy rant. and I know how some of you despise my "preachings".
But deal, you know this one's for good.

;)

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Brain clog

I have plenty to say right now, but the words are all constipated up inside my brain, jammed together and the pressure's getting intense. I need some mental drainage. Some release, an opening of the brain gates. Like Brain-o, urging the clog, cleaning it out. I want to speak but the filter's all thick and nothing's coming through.

There's piles of stuff, from Ewan McGregor's acting career to Candice, Andrew and Megan, my new friend TJ, strip clubs airports salmonella Indiana Jones Stephen Speilberg Stella Adler Hollywood Drai's Tiffney kidneys Acting School parking cars Kate Meryl Joe Daralee Hamlet Sherman Oaks climbing hiking trees dancing Harrison Ford Fair Trade Emma Stone sunshine late mornings moving USC beautiful mountains Paul Wheeler Dillons Dave Pasadena ruins sunsets Mt Baldy Lodge. I could toss out hundreds more, thousands and still not piece together one interesting idea. Just labels, each packed with it's own; far too much ammo at the shooting range but the gun's jammed. Brain jam.

The beautiful thing is this: I'll have actual stories to tell while sitting on the back of my boat this summer, between Troublemaker and camp. Finally.

Ok well I got some more crap to fill my head with. If you know any cleansing exercises, I seem to have forgotten all of mine. Let me know, clue me in.

In the meantime, here's a couple pictures








All I want to do is make movies and go rafting.

The End

Monday, April 19, 2010

Beirut

Old feelings. Attached to old thoughts and old memories. Old adventures and good old mornings, long mornings in peace and warmth. Old comfort for an old love. Old friend and an old laughter, old hugs and old moments. Old and ageless certainty.
New vacancy. New sunshine. New uncertainty and new faces. Old rain and old hills. New mountains. New buildings. Old memories. New pain for old feelings. Old pain for new feelings. New books. New banality. New hope. New clarity for old desires. New reality. Old body. Old face. Old love. Old friends. New work. New bodies. New trust. New letting go. Old mornings. Old battle. New direction.

New sun.
New smiles.
New loves.
New stories.
New food.
New names.
New ideas.
New sky.
New beauty.
New future.
Old music.
New morning.
Old self.
Old abuse.
Old regret.
Old thoughts.
New future.
Old self.
New friends.
Old self.
New world.
Old search. The oldest search.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Health, Friends, and Love

Last night I worked for a solid 9 hours parking cars. Ahh The labyrinth of Hollywood Blvd's subterranean garages. It was a long night, some stuff happened.

First of all: I started work recognizing how wonderful my life is, a result of focusing lately on the things that truly matter in my future. So I'm running through the canyons walls of buildings and greeting the super-rich, with the hugest smile on my face. I ended up talking to Merrill, this very cute cashier that does our computer work, about life and theatre and how wonderful we have it. She's a fellow theatre student, so it was nice to talk about voice and diction and language again with someone who actually listens and responds. (believe me, there are few who care about whether you say "the" pronounced "thee" or more like "thu".. or "for" pronounced with a soft 'a' so it sounds like "far" and not "fer"). As I was standing there, I also looked around Hollywood and realized I'm becoming a member of its community. I thought back to my days in Santa Cruz, and how I forever felt disconnected from the community there. Like I was standing on a mountaintop overlooking everybody and despite my tries and calls I could never become a part of it. It's refreshing to know I live in a place now where people don't think they're better than the rest of the world...Hollywood's pretty humble and accepting in that way. Totally an unexpected surprise.

Then: people start rolling up. And by people, I mean the crazy rich young people who live to drink and ejaculate. And every move they make or conversation they have must relate back to that in some way. Now this is all well and fine, if you watch these people from a distant perspective and not try to ask them questions. But when your mission in life is to feel pleasure and you do so without any thought for the consequences, from the sober outside it is painfully obvious how, um, unsuccessful this lifestyle it. It hurts a little, seeing humanity in this state, although I'm pretty numb to it now. Now it's just funny, watching these people scream and fight, girls in uncomfortably high heels falling face first over the curb, men pushing each other around pointing their thick fingers and shouting angrily, women taking their heels off and screaming at their boyfriends but slurring every word, bros making show after angry show like blind 4-year-olds in desperate crying fits. Girls pulling their breasts out and shaking them around, guys puking and pissing in front of everybody while stumbling backwards..

Driving a black Benz around the backside of the hotel, I was at one point talking to myself, "I'm really healthy. There is very little wrong with me." Which led me to the recognition that I was in the right place and the right time. I'm stable, I'm energized and I can't wait to work more and harder. In other words, their debauchery was my inspiration.

The night ended with a 4 am breakfast with Andrew Fisher, at the Kitchen 24. He's a friend I've made here that's more honest with me than anybody I've known since college. And to boot, he's big in the acting thing. Excellent. Like I said earlier, my life is pretty wonderful.

But what about Love then? Where does that fit in?

Well..it doesn't. Not yet. I mean, I love my car, I love my iPhone, I love my home here and my family up North, I am in love with this gorgeous city and the mysteries I've began to unravel beneath it. And I love my prospects for acting. But I have no love. And I definitely want it, like I always have. There's plenty to do as it is, but I hope that on this train of work-for-reward that some good love will come along with it as well. If Andrew Fisher's any example, there just might be hope for me.
:)

Mikie

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

I remember a couple years back standing in the Coloma Club, wondering what the dusty world was like beyond the bulwarks of my grand imagination. Now here I sit, in a foreign city in a tropical place far away from the people I love and that wooden cabin by the river, still wondering what life would be like beyond the bulwarks of my grand imagination.

We're all cowboys. And Gyspies. And the soldiers that guard the palace. We are tailors who'd love to dress the King, Natives dancing for grain, wandering fools who carry the keys to the labyrinth under the mountain, dangling them over the grate under our drunken gaze.
Time has taught us nothing. The society we worship today is no better or worse than a thousand years ago when the world was smaller and more divided. Something isn't right, or we'd value the aspiring artist and pity the market money-launderer.
Something isn't right or we'd love each other unconditionally..

Maybe that's why I continue to look. It doesn't feel right yet, it's too early to stop searching for a better way to live.
All I need is a path, a mountain and a door

Friday, April 9, 2010

There's so much beauty it'll make y'cry

Last night I greeted David Spade and couldn't remember his name, but played it off. He was shorter than me, with a little goatee, and as I was opening his car door I knew somebody interesting was about to step out.

Is that to say that anybody else I greet isn't interesting? Nah, just that in my short-lived celebrity-loving life, he (David Spade) is one of the lucky ones that actually made it deeper into my subconscious than the impenetrable surface.

It's summertime. I can feel a warm breeze blowing through my mesh window, the sun illuminating tops of buildings and swaying palm leaves. My white shorts over tan, hairy legs crossed, on my queen-sized mattress. It is summertime, starting now.

I also greeted Audrina Patridge yesterday, a girl I've had a little celebrity crush on for a little over a year. She stepped out of her white Mercedes and I was like, 'hmm...' so I walked over to see if my suspicion was correct. David Spade had nothin on her, and for once since Wes Anderson I was admittedly starstruck.
Of course when she was walking back to retrieve her car I made sure I was the one running down the three flights of subterranean stairs to pick up her keys and bring her car back to her. I remember getting in her door, sitting in the seat and thinking, "wow. I idolized this girl from Santa Cruz while seeing her on television, and now I'm sitting in her car." I enjoyed the little moment of serendipity and then took it up to her and her friend. She told me to hold on and ventured through her vehicle to grab two bucks for a tip. I was subtle but beaming. I said goodbye, and that was that.
See?


Modest Mouse does something to me. If you're not a listener of Modest Mouse, I recommend starting out as soon as you get a chance. I don't know which album would be best to help assimilate their "different" style into a conventional life, maybe pick a few songs from iTunes that are their bigger hits, since they're more easily accessible to the un-Modest-Mouse-tuned ear. But once you get the hang of their swinging, changing tones and melodies, their screech and harmonize vocals, you might start to recognize the absolute brilliant consistency through which these guys create...so much of the music is driven by the lyrics, rather than the other way around. In my small amount of education for the timelessness quality in human creation, when it comes to music and movies/TV the longest-lasting (albeit best) stuff starts with the lyrics or dialogue. And goes from there. Shakespeare had almost nothing but dialogue. The Beatles were all lyrics to melodies. Decemberists, perfect example. Lady GaGa lives and breaths by her lyrics; they drive her music into existence. Modest Mouse is an artistic group that makes music because they are poets who can put their words to fantastical melodic dissonance. I am in love with what they create, as I am with any true poet who goes beyond the boundaries of just the well-written word.

Guess I'm going on a cruise next month. My other employer gave me a phone call yesterday to confirm, and now it's set. Good thing I got a passport when I did, as odd as it seemed at the time. Talk about serendipity, isn't it funny how you find yourself doing things that don't always make sense at the time but you have this inkling that later on down the line you will have needed to do it for some reason, so you do. Story of my life, doing things that don't seem like they make sense in the moment but later on are greeted with "Ahhhh. THAT'S why I needed to do that." You know?

Well my anonymous reader made a pretty solid point in their comment (for which I thank them whole-heartedly) about variety. If you're reading this, I suggest you read their comment as well, on my previous post. So I'll stick with my variety for now, maybe cling to a lack of specificity for a little while longer. Too much beauty to pass anything up, might as well notice it all.

Well California is amazingly beautiful today. Wherever you are in the world, I hope it's just as. Here's to meeting celebrity crushes, aged stars, booking cruises, parking cars, music makers, making a living and having an iPhone.
Yes, buying the iPhone was one of the smartest and most exciting purchases of my recent life. Just next to drinking at Dillon's after work and chatting with the bartenders. ;-)

Alrighty, you should be outside. as should I.

Mikie

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

My plea for Thee!

The problem with this blog is that I write in in when I'm, sad, passionate or overtly happy. I need structure, a formula that I can fill and build upon. And so I'm reaching out to you. Do you have any ideas? I
mean, up to this point it's been a lot of rants. Human rants, personal rants, nature rants, love rants, you name it. But I wouldn't mind delivering for you guys in a way that you can mildly come to expect and enjoy the consistency of..right?

In brief, I need your help.

I need criticism. I am stagnant and need a direction to grow, I need to see a potential future for this thing, no more random rants. Think of me as a naked soul that must be clothed in style, and order. I just need a channel to limit my mind to so I can create within bounds and get something meaningful done.

Lend me an idea for a blog that would mean a bit more, to me and maybe others. Help me organize my thoughts into one specific realm that's even slightly predictable. Because nobody likes a wish-wash, and I understand that's sometimes what this blog (and the rest of my life) can be!

Got it? Help me organize. Give me some creative ideas to work from. I'm askin, don't be shy! Shred me a new future.

Thanks guys. Definitely appreciated.

Love Mikie