Sunday, October 28, 2012

It's a lot harder staying true to yourself than Disney would have you believe

It's a lot harder staying true to yourself than Disney would have you believe. Thats what I've been having to face over this past year.

Morning Party People, it's 1 in the morning here in Tempe, outside just a few blocks away there are a few thousand college kids hooting and hollering on Mill celebrating Halloween. In a few minutes some of them will be ecstatic as they will have someone to go home with, for others it will become painfully obvious that they will be going home alone.  That feeling of reality will cause a lot of people to panic, either they will start a fight with a random stranger or perhaps they will call up an ex for a booty call, either way the next morning is bound to feel worse than this moment.

I think there's something to that awful feeling of not being included. I think a lot of us have felt that at one point or another. I was talking to Jennie today and I said sometimes I feel like life has two teams and out of all the people being picked I'm the last. The funny thing about this feeling is tht that the more I think about it I fear the more power I give it. So fuck both of the teams =D

So as some of you know I've been driving a taxi for the past few months. I've done ok at it but only ok. I know there are a lot of cabbies who do really well at this gig but holy shit am I not one of them right now. I've been working an insane amount of hours with not nearly the return I'd hope for. I think this is Gaia's way of giving me a hint. I left managing to learn to live of my creativity, which I started to do but then I got behind on my bills and have been focusing on getting back to normal. since then I have spent little or no time on doing anything creative, hell when was the last time I wrote to you guys?

So this is me picking me first for my own team, followed by my Sweetie and anyone else who feels like playing! I'm going to try and only work three to four days a week and spend the rest of the week getting DisJointed Productions back on it's feat. That's why I left Host right? I mean otherwise this would have been a colossal waste of time... =)

I listen to the Joe Rogan podcast quite a bit as I have a shit ton of time by myself in a taxi. One of the things that he says that rings true to me is that we have the power to be the hero in our own movie. This could be the day that the hero wakes up and decides to change his/her life, confronts the lesser parts of themselves and truly starts living.

Till next time Party Poeple,
Keep on a Chooglin!

Monday, September 3, 2012

It's 3 AM yet I'm not lonely

Morning Party People!
         I woke up just before 3 am and it seems I have to whole world to myself. I'm thinking about the past few days and the subtle impact they've had on the world of me as well as DisJointed Productions. At this point those two things are mostly the same thing but I know that at some point they won't be.
         This Saturday my cousin,his fiance, and I filmed our first event that we got paid for. I've gotten paid for a few jobs previous to this but this was something much bigger than I had previously done. How did it go? It went as well as it could given where we are at in this new career. Did we make mistakes? Yes we made a few, I had my camera on the wrong setting for a bit but in the end we still go the footage that we needed to. There was a little issue on how we wanted to get some footage but I think a lot of that comes from my cousin and I being used to being the only camera men on the scene. Meaning that we got to learn how to work with multiple cameras.
          "I can't do this all by myself"
         At the end of the evening I was exhausted which was weird seeing as Tasha (Jim's Fiance) worked harder than both of us. As I was driving home to my sweetie I had such a wonderful feeling come over me. I remember that saying that goes by "If you find something that you love to do then you'll never work another day in your life", well that night we got paid to learn and we got paid to create and I've never been so happy to be so tired for something that did not feel like work.
         "I might not have to do this by myself"
         This Sunday Jennie and I went to a pool party that was thrown by our friends Stevie and Michelle. Stevie was nice and gracious enough to cook some barbecue for us and as always made us feel more than welcome. Our buddy Rick was also there, Rick is a guy I've known for years but I'd say that I didn't really get a chance to get to know him until a few years ago. He's also one of the best musicians I've ever met, both him and Stevie are two of the best guitarist I've had the pleasure to call friends in this life. I had asked Stevie to help me out with a song that I've been stuck with for a while. Stevie asked Rick to jump in and throw his two cents in as well and  I was hit by two emotions.
         The first one was worry as I feel I might be wasting their time with something that was on my mind. The other was gratitude because I have a tendency to forget that I have friends that are always willing to help out. I'm going to try and shoot for a Tuesday or Thursday to work out this song that's been stuck in my skull.
          "Why do you think you have to do this all by yourself?"
         That night Jennie and I were holding each other why we were in the pool. We'd look up to the stars and then into each other's eyes and I felt at peace. There are moments in my life that are so special, so intense, so important that I can't imagine my life being the same without them. Tonight I felt that way about Jennie being in my life. She's everything I've always wanted, even more so for all the things I didn't know I did.
         " You'll never have to do all this by yourself Dave"
         I tell you Party people, this world can be shitty, it can be cruel but if you work on yourself enough it all starts to make sense in the most beautiful way!

Till next time Party People,
Keep on a Chooglin!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

This is it!

Tonight's the night Party People!

            Tonight DisJointed Productions will be filming what hopes to be the first of many quinceanerras! We did the rehearsal yesterday and we have some great ideas of moments we'll be wanting to shoot and all in all I think we're ready.

            It's been a tough years for DisJointed Productions but at the end of it we've become stronger for it. We have a ways to go before I can feel comfortable saying we're a success but I can say I feel much more comfortable confronting anything that comes our way!


Saturday, August 25, 2012

An End to this Begining

Here lies the remains of the beginning of Dave's new life. It started out strong like most beginnings do, it had it's ups and downs but in the end all beginnings must blossom into an existence or fade back to whence they came. In this case the "beginning" left us last night as Dave went to bed. All of the things he had hoped for when he left his old life had finally come to pass. so it's with a full heart and a joy that resides in his once vacant smile we say good-bye to intentions and rest in the company of  pride and determination.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

stuck in the middle of want and need

Morning Party People!

        I'm in a wonderful spot in this life as of late. I have a job I'm not super thrilled about and two others that I'm insanely psyched about. The two that make me giggle are a quinceraerra that my cousin and I will be filming in September and the other is a comedy troupe that I'm putting together!

        I've already started on the pre-production for the quinceanerra and I have two writers in the troupe with another possible two more on the way. We have scripts we're working on and in two weeks I'll be scouting venues. It's only baby steps so far but I'm happy to take everyone.

        So far one of the more difficult things to do is fight the urge to ask everyone I know for help on this Troupe. I want it so bad and in my mind this is something that would make everyone I know very happy to work with me on, the sun will shine and birds will fly out of the buts of random hobos. Clearly everything except for the but birds probably wouldn't happen. It's ego trying to slam a monkey wrench into my plans again, it tells me that a world filled with friends will share and love an idea as much as I do, that way I won't feel so scared about doing all of this. In fact that's my ego putting the burden of hope and faith on all of my friends so I don't have to carry it. Sneaky bitch isn't it?

       I'm lucky enough to have some super supportive people in my life so perhaps I'm old enough finally to see that I don't need anymore no matter how much I want them.

Till next time Party People,
Keep on a Chooglin!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Evening Party People,

     I wanted to weigh in on the Aurora shooting in CO tonight. The whole thing pisses me off to no end for many reasons. I could go on and on about what a fucking psycho this guy is and how horrible it must be for all the survivors in this tragedy. I can't do anything for them sadly, none of us can for the most part, so how do we deal with this? Why did this happen? How come this guy was the one who snapped? What can I do?
      I think for a first step we can do the opposite of what this asshole wanted and show no fear. My sweetie and I were planning on going to the movies this weekend and we still plan to go. Fuck that guy!
      Maybe it was because of Sept 11 , or the anthrax scare, or the foiled bombers  we caught trying to light his underwear on fire but I've had enough of all of it. I'm tired of being scared, every time something like this goes down it turns into a 2nd amendment issue and we lose sight of what just happened.
      We as a civilization had someone slip through the cracks, another loner created, disconnected from the world as much as he was from his humanity. How'd that happen? Don't you think that should be the real question? How did this guy grow up? What was the environment like in his house from when he was a baby? Was he on any medication? If so for what?
       His mother is a nurse and his dad a manager for a software company. Was there anyone at home as he grew up? Maybe maybe not. If they were would it have made a difference? Once again maybe,maybe not.
       So enough with the hypothetical and supposition! How can we make this world a better place? I ask this because every time something like this happens I have to ask the question, is this the best we can fucking make of this world?
       I think about the family I want to have one day, the kind of house I want to live in, the kind of life that would make me happy, then I think about what kind of money I would need to make that life possible. We all do. The thing is most of the blue collar work out there won't provide for that kind of living anymore. Hell I made a few thousand more than my Dad did when he was alive and I would not come close to our former standard of living (upper lower class). The fact of the matter is that the "American Dream" now must rely on two incomes for it to come true. We all want a good life so we all work hard hoping that it'll all pay off one day, during that time kids are at home who were once raised by the TV have moved on to a different sitter, video games and the Internet.
        The children will be occupied, they will be entertained, and they will be educated in this digital age but they wont be loved.
         I'll say it again, they won't be loved. That one element of the human condition that propels us forward in the whirlwind of time, that what gives us cause to war as it does to heal. We all need it, we all have it to give yet it's the one commodity that we trade so sparingly.
        So what do we do now? Start hugging random homeless people and hope it all works out? I'm not sure, maybe we start by putting some more love in the life we have right now. How can we show our life that we truly love it and everyone involved? I think if we did it might set a better example for the generations  coming up behind us.
         I wonder if anyone told James Holmes how to love another human being. If anyone taught him about how wonderful life could be, or did they just teach him life was cruel and pointless? Or more than likely he was taught and shown nothing of any of these things and grew up alone.
         I feel this day was a failure on the part of our civilization.

Thanks for letting me vent Party People

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Another chunk of "WHAAAA?"

Ok I have no idea hat I want to write today. I had been doing "Morning Papers" which is basically stream of conscious writing for three pages every morning while trying not to use quotations for "everything".

I thought maybe I 'd try that here just to see what it looks like. I usually prefer to do this on paper using a no.2-7 gauge pencil with a soft mechanical grip and gps attached. Have you seen one of these? They completely revolutionized the pencil world when they were unveiled at the 2006 Pencexpo in Pancil Iowa.  If you haven't gone you need to check it out. Granted there is a bit of protest against the industry from environmentalist who argue that shoving lead into a tree is just an dick move and also from fringe ultra conservative group who think pencils are to uppity and prefer writing with those big crayons with the one flat side. If you go I should warn you not to be seen texting at any point in time while you're in the main hall as you will get kicked in the balls by an old lady. I'm serious, that's a paid position that many old ladies in the industry train for through out the year. You can spot these gals easily enough by there binoculars and there one steel toed boot.

Was I going anywhere with this? How the hell did I end up in Iowa? Sure I came for the pencil convention but now I'm just standing on the side of the road wondering where my car is, and for that matter what the hell does it look like? Iowa is a lot like my old marriage, there's no reason to ever go back there.

Hey back to reality for a bit. I went out dancing last nite with my sweetie! I usually go to a club that's geared toward bigger people like myself. When I say bigger I mean intellects...not wangs thank you very much! I used to have a blast every time I went there but for a few months now my ex wife has been going there with her friends and now it doesn't seem as fun to me. I think one of the reasons is that seeing her reminds me of the spineless coward I used to be. I wasn't able to stand up for myself for anything I held dear to me for so long, I cringe at every tear that ever rolled down my cheeks, I think how I'm glad my Dad wasn't alive to see me during this time of my life, it was that bad. You ever do that? Think to you past at cringe?

 I do that a lot these days. I think one of the reasons  why I do is that I know I'm moving into a different phase of this life, a lot of things that seemed to fit into my life no longer do, certain thoughts or thought processes are being rejected. Maybe that's why I cringe when I think of bad things in my past, it's like my soul is rejecting the idea in the same way a body might reject a transplanted organ.

Freedom, a buzz word as of late. It's also a word that people throw out there into the ether without knowing exactly what it means, much like disingenuous, literally, or proactive. What is freedom? More importantly, what is freedom to you? I think that's the most important question anyone can ask themselves. Some might say it's what they fought for and what the friends and family died for. Noble but it dodges the question. It's my right to chose how I live my life! Once again,noble but what have you done to build your life to your ideal of a good thing? Meaning, is the life you live now what you wanted or the best of what you thought you could get? If your life is the best of what you thought you could get then the question that no one wants to ask is ,"Exactly how free are you?"

There's a line in  the movie Easy Rider where Jack Nicholson says," ..Don't ever tell them that they aint free..." Is that the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about? How free are any of us? Do you live in the city and state that you always wanted to live in? Is the job the job you wanted to be doing when you were young and dreamed of how you wanted to contribute something good to this world?  For my life the answer was about 60% yes.

60% of a lot of the things I wanted in life, close but no cigar. I had a marriage, a house, and even a step kid. Should I have been happy? Sure, and even sometimes I was. I had accepted the best of what I thought I could get. I know that sounds mean and cruel and I don't mean it to be but that's the truth. Deep down I hated everything about me and my life so I broke the fuck out of everything in it. I wish I had made a better choice but it's in the past. Why am I going into all of this? I was still free to buy as many guns as I could, buy a Hummer and wear an American flag while protesting just about anything  but how free was I? I wasn't. I was enslaved by how this world works, by how it takes a young man or woman and crushes every bit of strength out of them and leaves them a fucking drone to live of credit and eat through fast food garbage. The fucked up part is that we do all of this to ourselves.



Now I need to think of how I can use my freedom in a way that exists in the form of a memory of what I do today as opposed to some bullshit potential though of what I might be able to do "someday".

Thanks for letting me babel random thoughts.

Till next time Party People
Keep on a Chooglin!