The Cliff

I am a coward. A lazy coward who refuses to do anything until the last minute. Jumping off cliffs is no exception. It’s not that I don’t want to jump off the cliff, but I don’t want to.

So we’re getting close to making a movie again. Got a script I like, a couple of good friends lending a hand for the crew, and I’m working on gathering actors. The first steps towards this very long journey have been taken, or at least the preparations are being made. Packing the bags, making sure we got enough food and water to last us however many miles it is to the next stream. But I don’t think I've jumped off the cliff yet.

There is a point of no return in film production where it’s too late to call everything off and hide in a bed, refusing to return calls. Where it ceases to be theoretical and schedules become real, other peoples time is being wasted. I think we’re getting close. I’m maybe a few inches away, a few phone calls away from the precipice. And once we do pass that edge it’s full steam ahead, I’m going to be neck deep in having this project consume me for months. And I dread that.

It’s not fun. Alright, those few hours where we’re rolling and creating things? That’s great, that’s a blast. But it takes a bunch of having to interact with people, spending money to get to that point. And I dread it. I'm not a people person. And then taking all that footage and endlessly editing it all together? Giving up the third of my life that isn’t work or sleep to this thing for months without knowing beforehand that it will be any good is such a scary proposition.

Jumping off that cliff becomes this leap of faith. You do as much preparation as you can to mitigate the risk, but you have to give yourself up to... whatever you want to believe. I choose not to believe in anything, so, so... I can only leave it up to myself?

In the end, do I trust myself enough to actually do this? That’s the question that hangs in the thin air a couple hundred feet above the rest of the earth I’m about to plummet towards. And if I’m going to be honest with myself? No, I don’t. But I gotta act like I do. Put on this act and fake it. Because whether I’m ready or not, I want to get there. Wherever there is. And the only way to get there is to jump.

No reaction.

It's been quiet lately. It's been slow, things have felt off-kilter. Perhaps the weather is partially to blame. New York's been stuck in an odd post-fall/pre-winter sort of mood. The leaves have fallen, but it hardly ever hits below freezing. Not that I haven't been productive, I've been doing things. But more than usual, I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen.  Like we're moving in slow-motion and I'm watching life pass by very slowly.

Starkly aware of how unaware I was until five minutes ago. Kinda feeling like a dick, feeling like I insulted a good friend and it took a few days before I realized that the confrontational discourse already took place. Well, of course that half of the mind would come to such an out there conclusion. The other half's trying to reassure, telling me that I'm being overwrought with excuses as to why there is no reaction yet. The explanation is always the simplest answer, right? They didn't get the e-mail, or haven't had the time. Reasonable explanations. Or it could be the ten other reactions that come to mind, that are being withheld either for lack of caring or caring too much. Or I have offended.

Much can be heard from listening to silence. Tangents are there to explore, to learn from. In silence, a deafening howl which much be endured in order to truly hear what is being said. Or I'm over-thinking this. What am I trying to say here? Thinking too highly of myself, presuming I can gather inspiration, perspective, enlightenment? By simply willing it into being using only my mind? Rather presumptuous, no? Of course, but that's what I do.

I had another realization a little while back.  I have lot of them, but this one seemed insightful enough to take note of. To waste brain cells typing about right now? I guess. Anyway, I think I finally realized that writing keeps me sane. Absolutely not to say that my writing's any good, mind you. Just that writing keeps me from absolutely losing it. The act of taking a pen to paper and concentrating so singularly on the ink being transferred to the surface of the plup, the mind focusing on constructing words and sentences in order to create any sort of narrative, be it fictional or autobiographical.

The day I realized that was a pretty shitty day. The lowest of points? Perhaps. Rescued by vomiting the rage and depression out onto a notebook. The simplest of acts on the surface, but one that makes us human more than any other. Despite not being very good at it, it probably defines me, in my own head at least. Maybe I've already said too much?

I never know what others think when I show them whatever I think is worth showing. Always afraid of what they see when peering into whatever small sliver of whatever I had running in there that happened to make it onto paper. That I'm wasting their time, or inadvertently insulting them with an unfiltered view through my eyes. I'm probably over-thinking this. But that's what I do. I worry and I write, even if it's not very good.

And it ends and it begins again

It is the future, once again. Those first few days of the year where you keep writing the wrong date on checks (people still use those?), where you still haven't broken your resolutions, and where you keep telling yourself that you're living in the future because it's past the year two thousand. Well, the future has become the present, as it always will. And we will always try to discard the past in chasing after that future, which will also become the past. Eventually. And it will end and it will begin again.

That Thing has finally ended, just uploaded the last episode the other night. And now I am truly done with it. At one point I did want to put up a blooper reel, had something half edited. However, the hard drive in which That Thing resided on died a few months ago. I had most of the important stuff backed up, but in order to finish that reel I'd have to recapture the twenty something hours of tapes again, and I just don't got it in me to expend that much time and effort on it anymore. Need to move on, discard the past and all that.

Twenty-eleven in general felt like a drag. I don't think I got much done. Concrete work on my own stuff at least. Wrote a few scripts, most of which died at the first draft. Did shoot some stuff at least, refueled my desire to make things again. So it begins again with a new script. This fifty page thing I finished a few days ago, that I'd like to make a twenty-something minute short out of. The real challenge is going to be to try and attempt to shoot it within the next month, which means there's a lot of work ahead that needs to get done.

I think I got the hardest part out of the way, the transcribing of the words from handwritten paper to a format that can spit out pdfs. Writing, I enjoy writing, most of the time. Sure, sometimes you get stuck and frustrated, but you put enough time and burn enough brain cells and the problem will be solved. And once it is, there's no better feeling than have your brain send those electronic impulses through the nerves to the hand, where a pen will turn ink into words. The sensation of those strokes must be what... each stride a marathon runner feels on the twentieth mile of a race. And when you cross that red tape? So nice.

 On the other hand, typing those words in again is about a mundane activity as I could think of. Utterly boring and near exhausting to do, but it must be done. It used to be that I'd revise while it's being done, but that just slows it down even more, best to churn through it and work it out later. But yeah, that's done. Now it is time to edit. Need to cut this script in half, and soon. Want to send a draft to friends eventually, then to actors and then? Production time. Edging ever closer to the edge of that cliff, near jumping off again. Haven't done it in years, hopefully I don't hit the ground too hard.

Buried Memories

No matter how much I disparage myself when reflecting on past works, I'm still glad I made them. Usually it takes a few days for that new project smell to wear off and I begin to hate it, and with That Thing I knew it was awful by the third month into editing. But I don't regret making it. Aside from the fun of taking part in the process, the lessons learned from the reflecting on the mistakes made afterward, there's at least one more good excuse for making something when it was made. It becomes a little time capsule, preserving a moment in time.

Much like a picture of yourself looked back on decades later, revealing stories told so long ago you nearly forgot them. I remember hearing somewhere that memories work like a record, as in the vinyl platters that spin around and make music when a needle is dragged across. The more times you play that record, drag that needle through and wear down those grooves, the more warped and noisy it becomes. A memory you don't think of is like that sealed album going for exorbitant amounts on ebay; when it's actually played back all these years later it's as beautiful and warm sounding as the day it was pressed, as faithful a reproduction of musicians playing fifty years ago as you're going to get. That dusty 45 you keep spinning every week? Full of crackles and pops, sounding like frying bacon. But it's yours, you know where every imperfection is, and if you hear the restored CD re-release you'll think it sounds like crap. That's not what you remember, it's too clean.

A roundabout way of going about it, but yeah. Film is kinda the same way, making one at least. That Thing was an attempt at trying to preserve a few of those memories. 138th Street in The Bronx, in particular. I've been walking down that road for decades, or at least riding the Bx33 on it. It doesn't feel like it's changed much, but when you walk that path every day you realize those grooves have worn into your subconscious. It's probably cleaner than it was twenty years ago, but I didn't notice that gradual change. It's the deep scratches that catch the eye, like when they finally closed down The Key a few years back. It was this roller skating rink, not that I went there much. The mother wouldn't approve, she was kind of overprotective. But it was this brightly colored building that was always there, until they painted over those pink and yellow walls. I think there's a window factory there now? It feels like a shame that it's gone, a place buried in the memories of the regulars and any photos living in a shoebox somewhere. A small unwritten piece of history, without anyone to tell the tale.

I guess I wanted to try and save a few of those memories in a form that's more permanent than a shoebox and hearsay. And sure enough, another scratch was made on 138th about a month ago. That Kentucky Fried Chicken on 3rd Avenue was torn down. The one featured in the second episode of That Thing. That story wasn't too far off from the truth; back in the days of the old South Bronx people did say that they sold pistols behind the counter of that place. The mother wouldn't approve of stepping inside that place either, though she never elaborated on why. I think I heard the story again when reading “Amazing Grace” by Jonathan Kozol, but it's been years since I read that book. They closed it down, then reopened years later only to close it again. Might just have been slow business that killed it the second time. And it stood there for years, until they knocked down those walls.

138th Street obviously isn't the same place anymore. I just tried to dig out what few memories were left of that childhood before it was all gone. And now that old fried chicken place, and a bunch of other little stories live on.

Impotent.

Can impotent be a feeling? A state of mind? Not just a sexual dysfunction? 'Cause I'm kinda feeling that way. The pipes are working, it's just the brain that's feeling limp and lifeless. I don't know, when your being revolves around something you're currently incapable of performing, it kinda gets you down.  Makes me feel like a waste of a human being.

Been hacking away at another idea for a script over the last month or two. A self imposed deadline for a first draft of a half hour short is about two weeks away, and I only scribbled out maybe three usable pages. Traveled to my usual spot today in hopes of churning a few more out, but only got through about half a page of the usual wrote and tired dialogue between the main character and a potential love interest before realizing that this was the crap I was trying to avoid. More of the same tripe. Ugh. Now I want to toss this idea in the trash, it's going nowhere. It would be the third script I've ditched in the last year, since I finished that feature length one that I wrote in two weeks and ended up hating.

Hating everything that your hands create, doubting every step. Makes you want to stop walking. Lying in bed doing nothing sounds like an easy life. Why can't I do that for a few years?

Feeling really useless right now. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I've practically resigned myself to the fact that I'm not going to have a normal life. Forever alone and all that. It gets lonely sometimes, but more than that it's like I have no purpose. I admire the 99% of Americans doing the nine to five, living life the only way they know how. Sure, a third of the day is given to the man, and another third is devoted to sleep, but the third left over? That's freedom right there. Not just economic freedom, but a mental freedom. You're reasonably assured a stable couple of decades.

Meanwhile, what the fuck am I doing aside from wasting time? Spending time in front of a blank page, wanting to destroy the pen in my hand out of frustration of not being creative enough to create anything. Or succumb to urges of substance abuse, but being too chicken-shit to even do that. Just end up pacing around for hours, thinking about entering that bar but coming up with a hundred and one excuses to do anything but. I'll do it tomorrow.

Today was a waste, I'll do everything tomorrow.