BEFORE THE MONTH ENDS

I wish I were a disciplined blogger but my blog started out chatting of nothing so I could just learn the interface of Blogger then I began chatting of the things I like to do creatively since that made sense to me.  Who would want to hear about my humdrum hourly wage life? So I wrote mostly about my arting and crafting.  Then my muse left town (hopefully temporarily) and now I am WRITING more and crafting only rarely until the creative muse comes back. In my head I want to make things but my hands seem to be unwilling.  So, I type.  I write.  I HAVE to do something that has nothing to do with what I do when I clock in and serve my 40 hours a week or I will simply lay down and die. Not that I hate the day job.  I don't.  It is semi-creative and I often have a very good time during those 40 hours.  I just know it is NOT my BLISS.  I think many can relate to that.  I have to pay the rent, ya know?

At the beginning of the week I was blessed to spend some time chatting with a friend I had not seen in months after a "day job" related meeting and she tells me to do just ONE THING creative each day even if it is just e-mailing a Craig's List job opportunity to myself or watching a film or even just writing a blog post.  So, here I am tonight struggling along with a post wishing for more discipline.

I had the day off today from the day job and did much of nothing due to battling a terrible sinus infection all week brought on by some insane allergies as Spring breaks and the Santa Ana winds kick up here in Los Angeles.  But I did sit on the couch with laptop in hand as well as one movie after another playing on my TV.  I discovered the wonderful world of "On Demand" and have been demanding one film after another absorbing as much as I can about the art of FILM.  I never studied it.  Just sat back & enjoyed or hated it.  Now I watch and take notice of absolutely everything.  Everything from the acting, the writing, plot devices, who cast it, who produced it to how much it might have cost to shoot the thing.  Cinema is simply MAGICAL to me.  It's like a 2 hour long painting, depending on the film.  Paint strokes that spark the imagination or feelings in me that make me FEEL, THINK and REMEMBER....

If not for cinema, my life would be a big fat void, I think.  I live vicariously through it.  I have fallen in love over and over again, died a thousand deaths, laughed a million laughs....I simply get inspired by it.  Moved to do things I never thought I could do.  It has kept me company when I had no one.  It is art, life and so much more.

I will shut my trap for now and hope to write just a bit more tomorrow and that, my friends, will be a miracle if I do.  Wish me luck.

BLIND FAITH

A song by Blind Faith came to mind after returning to LA from a recent trip to Texas.

Can't Find My Way Home lyrics
written by: Steve Winwood

Come down off your throne and leave your body alone
somebody must change
You are the reason I've been waiting so long
somebody holds the key
Well, I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time
And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home

Come down on your own and leave your body alone
somebody must change
You are the reason I've been waiting all these years
somebody holds the key
Well, I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time
And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home



Many folk close to me know that I am working on writing something that takes me back in time to pretty much when I began in this big bad world. I thought that I had to be in Texas to write it. And maybe I do. It would make some of the research easier to be able to sit with my brother who has very clear memories of events I was witness to only a small portion of. He has a sharp memory for names, places and tiny details of so much. He amazes me in that respect. I have strong sensory memories. I remember the way the sun was setting or the smell of the yard's fresh cut grass or the smell & color of the light mint green paint that was slapped across my brother's face to get him to quit running in and out of a door that was being painted...that's a funny memory for me by the by. Maybe not so much for him.

I aimed for my story to be a funny one...dark comedy at best based on the dramatic nature of some of the events. Striving for the funny in the story got me stymied. A very good friend had some sage advice for me a few evenings ago, "Your most honest writing may not be amusing. Doesn't mean there isn't a place for it, not an audience. Write one true sentence after another, and see where it goes." Then today as I sit on the couch with my laptop mustering up enough courage to use some new writing software and to write the first "true sentence", the film Antwone Fisher is playing on AMC in the background down low. Usually I have music on Pandora playing but not today for whatever reason. My ears perk up when the character of Antwone Fisher reads a poem aloud to his psychiatrist played by Denzel Washington. The poem jerked a tear or two from me and then afterward Antwone says, "I told you I was good" and then Denzel replies, "You are good because you are honest." I put the laptop aside and watched the rest of the film and was very moved by this young man's story and his courage to not only live it but to share it with the world first as a book and then as a screenplay.

It is hard to "go home" and sometimes it is hard to find one's way there but I am putting on some sturdy hiking gear and am ready to make the trip. I also have a hunch that I just might find some funny in all of the dark caves I am about to explore.