an epic entry on stagnation
Okay, SO
I went to see Converge with Ryan the other night. We rode to downtown Hollywood to see them, which in itself is a strange concept...i mean, if you can picture a girl with long blonde hair and huge dior sunglasses, wearing a shiny black clubbing kind-of top, and short jean skirt at an east coast metal-core show, you can kind of picture the atypical mix of people in the crowd.
Nothing can really describe the feelings that sweep over you while rocketing down Hollywood Boulevard on a Friday night on a fixed gear bike. A cacophony of other peoples' music blares out of every open window of every car you slip past, blending together in punctuated waves; flashing lights bathe the streets from countless different assemblies of differently sized and colored bulbs, blurring together and losing their projected messages until signs and neon somehow just become light again; at stop lights you watch throngs of tourists trip down the walk of fame when their toes catch on the chipped and protruding edges of the stars, and street performers dressed like spiderman and charlie chaplin pose in front of the assaulting flashes from a handful of digital cameras. It's kind of beautiful.
No, it is beautiful-- very.
I danced and screamed and threw my fist in the air, and clawed my way over other kids to scream into the mic with this band I've been listening to since I was 17 years old. It's funny to think that when I put on a nice shirt and pants on monday to wear to work my thighs, shoulders, and throat will still be sore. But that dichotomy has always been an enormous part of my personality i guess-- I want that beautiful apartment with wine glasses in the cupboards and sharp suits in the closet, and a nicer car...but there's the other half of me that wants to sell off all the responsibility I have and get more tattoos and ride my bike all day.
And speaking of work and responsibility:
My non-stop stretch of back to back jobs continues, and everyone is probably sick of hearing about it. Compared to this time last year, I have very little free time. The freelance lifestyle has essentially backfired on me now that I barely work on set and primarily in the office prepping and wrapping each job. It means a multitude of days, whereas a set PA has to link together a bunch of jobs in order to stay working with any semblance of consistency, since most jobs only shoot for 3 or 4 days. So, instead of making ends meet and having 3-5 days off a week, I know work at least 5 or 6, all of the mover 10 hours...
But anyway, I can't be an office PA forever. it makes me miserable, and at the same time the prospect of moving up to the next rung on the production ladder feels like the most horrible prospect ever. I mean, Coordinating a commercial seems to be the most joyless job possible in the industry, requiring so much more investment on my part to the lame, money driven aspects of the business. I don't care about deal memos, and budget overages, and filing the insurance certs, and PDF-ing the fucking PrePro book. I want to make something. I'm about to turn 25 and I can't imagine pegging away behind the curtain as Coordinator and eventually a Production Manager; $500 a day just isn't worth the disillusionment that would come with waking up one morning, 32, and realizing that I had let my creativity take a back seat to the grind. What would that mean to a person that spends most of his day in his head, imagining new scenes and different angles and different routes to take the story? When I went home for christmas, Zac said to me that he remembered me once saying that I'd "kill myself if I wasn't a famous director by the time I turned 25"...It's funny how that kind of foolish ambition and confidence gives way to minute amounts of real progress.
I went to see Converge with Ryan the other night. We rode to downtown Hollywood to see them, which in itself is a strange concept...i mean, if you can picture a girl with long blonde hair and huge dior sunglasses, wearing a shiny black clubbing kind-of top, and short jean skirt at an east coast metal-core show, you can kind of picture the atypical mix of people in the crowd.
Nothing can really describe the feelings that sweep over you while rocketing down Hollywood Boulevard on a Friday night on a fixed gear bike. A cacophony of other peoples' music blares out of every open window of every car you slip past, blending together in punctuated waves; flashing lights bathe the streets from countless different assemblies of differently sized and colored bulbs, blurring together and losing their projected messages until signs and neon somehow just become light again; at stop lights you watch throngs of tourists trip down the walk of fame when their toes catch on the chipped and protruding edges of the stars, and street performers dressed like spiderman and charlie chaplin pose in front of the assaulting flashes from a handful of digital cameras. It's kind of beautiful.
No, it is beautiful-- very.
I danced and screamed and threw my fist in the air, and clawed my way over other kids to scream into the mic with this band I've been listening to since I was 17 years old. It's funny to think that when I put on a nice shirt and pants on monday to wear to work my thighs, shoulders, and throat will still be sore. But that dichotomy has always been an enormous part of my personality i guess-- I want that beautiful apartment with wine glasses in the cupboards and sharp suits in the closet, and a nicer car...but there's the other half of me that wants to sell off all the responsibility I have and get more tattoos and ride my bike all day.
And speaking of work and responsibility:
My non-stop stretch of back to back jobs continues, and everyone is probably sick of hearing about it. Compared to this time last year, I have very little free time. The freelance lifestyle has essentially backfired on me now that I barely work on set and primarily in the office prepping and wrapping each job. It means a multitude of days, whereas a set PA has to link together a bunch of jobs in order to stay working with any semblance of consistency, since most jobs only shoot for 3 or 4 days. So, instead of making ends meet and having 3-5 days off a week, I know work at least 5 or 6, all of the mover 10 hours...
But anyway, I can't be an office PA forever. it makes me miserable, and at the same time the prospect of moving up to the next rung on the production ladder feels like the most horrible prospect ever. I mean, Coordinating a commercial seems to be the most joyless job possible in the industry, requiring so much more investment on my part to the lame, money driven aspects of the business. I don't care about deal memos, and budget overages, and filing the insurance certs, and PDF-ing the fucking PrePro book. I want to make something. I'm about to turn 25 and I can't imagine pegging away behind the curtain as Coordinator and eventually a Production Manager; $500 a day just isn't worth the disillusionment that would come with waking up one morning, 32, and realizing that I had let my creativity take a back seat to the grind. What would that mean to a person that spends most of his day in his head, imagining new scenes and different angles and different routes to take the story? When I went home for christmas, Zac said to me that he remembered me once saying that I'd "kill myself if I wasn't a famous director by the time I turned 25"...It's funny how that kind of foolish ambition and confidence gives way to minute amounts of real progress.