#16: "The Unbearable Dish"

it's over. 48 hours of controlled chaos resulted in a little film titled "The Unbearable Dish". http://youtu.be/mnU4nG5nDrs

what a trip... the team we built was an amazing collection of creativity. experienced and newbie alike ALL kicked ass. my friend teresa (TS) had never acted before, on stage or screen, and she KILLED it! god i'm proud of her. i flew her in from boston to participate. we hadn't seen each other in 2 years, though we do keep in touch regularly. i wanted her music she wrote for my film... she began a new song about hotdish but we ran out of time. no matter. everything else she did was incredible. the rest of the team was amazing as well. travis' performance was nothing short of brilliant. zilah was... zillah. enough said. julie, our DP, shot the film just as it should have been. it was a mockumentary, and her shooting style meshed perfectly with the genre. karrey ran her ass off to wrangle up paperwork and brought TS to the airport so i could stay and help finish the flick. kelly and marco 'volunteered' their house... or more like allowed us to INVADE their home for the entire weekend. if we hadn't had their home to gather, work, live, sleep, etc... i doubt this film would have been made. or, at the very least, made in the same way. here are some highlights from the weekend:

• No one on the team ever made a short film. Z was in a short, but she didn't take part in the creative process.

• No script was written. All lines/dialogue were improvised on the spot while filming, and I believe all of the shots we used were 1st takes as we shot very few 2nd takes.

• Nobody knew Adobe Premiere well, yet 4 of us managed to piece together a 6 minute, 42 second film.

• We (Zillah) finished the movie on the way to Minneapolis on my macbook while i drove 90, and we finished it and turned it in with no time to spare. we didn't get it entered in time for the prizes, but we made the public viewing deadline.

• i drew the genre 'mockumentary'... my friend eric was an actor in a 48HFP movie back in '08, and it was a mockumentary. it is because of eric my movie was made, and the main reason i entered a team this year. it is in his name i dedicate my film.

• I lost my iPod.

there's a lot more but you get the gist.

now that it's over i feel this void... i have nothing to work towards right now. i was surrounded by a group of artists who gave off so much creative energy it recharged my batteries. when our group departed my energy dropped. i feel i really need to surround myself with creative minds and energy. it's something that was sorely missing from my life for the last few years, and now that i've had a taste of it again i want more. MORE! unfortunately our group is split apart in various ways... geographically, time and commitment-wise, etc. Zillah leaves for the left coast in mid-july. TS is back in boston. the rest of the team's in mankato and i'm in eagan. i suddenly feel alone. isolated. sequestered. i don't know what to do with this feeling of emptiness right now. i feel GREAT, yet i feel alone. a mixed bag of emotions, as usual.

what's next?

#15: 48 hours

man, life's been great. i mean, really great. i've entered a team in the minneapolis 48 hr. film project. i'm in over my head and loving it. no expectations. my 'company' is called 'Feral Art Productions'. FAP. yeah, FAP! in case you don't know, the term 'fap' is slang for masturbation. i had no idea until i learned it in a webcam girl's room a few months ago (hi BUNNIE!). yeah, i fap. and so do you. get over it. anyway, FAP will attempt to write, film and edit a short film in 48 hrs. i'm building a great team so far. my friend karrey, whom i've known since college. she's... how do you describe karrey? wow. she's a pistol. a doll. and a hell of a person. my friend zillah, who has so much experience in writing, acting, filming, editing, idea-ing... we spent 5 hours brainstorming on friday. i'm learning to clear blocks from my thought process; to not be afraid of asking or doing anything creatively. zillah is... man. how does one describe zillah? my plebian vernacular could do her no justice. ha... i was about to say, "well, in a nutshell...", but there's not a shell big enough. easily the greatest actress known by me personally, one hell of a singing voice, a lust for life that rivals few, yet as vulnerable as a child's trust. then there are a few more people, some i know, some i just met, and some yet to meet.

OK, so my life's going along great, when all of a sudden, from out of a blind spot it smashes into me... that OLD, CREEPY, SICKLY feeling. the feeling that, no matter how bad it makes you feel, you're compelled beyond reason to wallow in it. i'm soaking in it now. self-pity. loneliness. unrequited love. whatever you call it. it's a feeling i thought long dead in me. being sick, doped, depressed for so long dulled me to ever feeling interest in the opposite sex again. and having to scrape up change to buy a day's meal on a regular basis does wonders for your libido. you wonder if you'll ever see it again. but it IS there, lurking, skulking in the dark recesses of your psyche just waiting to pounce at the first sign of weakness. then the battle between libido and reason begins...

luckily, reason usually wins. usually.

#14: Lazy haze

OK, so much for regularly blogging. I've turned into an even lazier bitch than before. With money in the bank I don't have the daily worry of finding income, food, etc., and so I've been decompressing. I don't think it's possible to decompress any more... if I do I'll liquify. I need focus, drive, and will. Anyone have a cup I can borrow?

#13: The Feral Artist REBOOT

Hi. Remember me? I haven't posted in nearly a year. in between post former and latter my life's... wow. Fuck. Seriously. Where do I start? OK, between April, 2010 and July, 2010... a lot of the same (unemployed since May '08, no health insurance, no income whatsoever unless you count all the CDs and DVDs I sold). Oh, with the exception of going to see "Tool" with Eric, and it kicked ass! How do I get the following story out with any sense of lucidity when every time I think of July 16th my mind blacks out and I stare blankly into the ether? A mutual friend of Eric's and mine, Rich, emailed, texted, called me all within a few minutes with a message to call him. The warning light in my mind began flashing. Rich doesn't call, email and text me that often... maybe a few times a year. So I pretty much knew it was about Eric. Was he in an accident? Did he have a relapse and go back into alcohol treatment for the third time in as many years? Was he in jail? Was he sick? I called Rich immediately... there goes my blank brain stare again... Eric... died. Eric is... dead. He... killed... himself. His sister Lori found him the day before, and from what I understand, Eric had been there, dead, for at least two days. He had a relapse, binged all weekend prior, and in my mind, couldn't bear the thought of going through the whole fucking treatment/relapse/addiction/depression shit anymore... he found his final solution in pills and a blade. And you know what? I don't blame him. I can't blame him, especially when the same solution had crossed my mind more times than I could calculate.

Between 2005 and 2008 I was on opiate painkillers for my chronic pain, namely oxycontin. A schema-mutating drug which is twice as potent as morphine and can and does fuck people up in a myriad of ways. I felt physically ill for two years straight, from the pain, from the meds, from my job. So what was my solution? Take MORE painkillers. "You need to get to work, bitch!" I'd say to myself. So I'd set my alarm a half hour before I needed to get up so I could dose up on oxy and adderall. When the second alarm rang, the meds had kicked in and I'd be feeling pretty good. No pain. No nausea. Is that a burst of energy I feel? WTF is that?! Chronic pain AND chronic fatigue, all fixed with a few pills. But in the end I felt like I had lost my balance running down a hill, and as I'd attempt to right myself I would stumble even faster to the inevitable conclusion: hello pavement. So that's why, even though I never seriously planned it, suicide was another viable option to take. And that was Eric's choice. There have been moments in my life in the last year when my family would call to check in on me and ask "You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?" This was one of those moments. No. At least, not yet.

Over the course of the next few months Eric's family was in contact with me, mainly his sister, Lori. The family decided, and according to Eric's last wishes to make sure his friends were taken care of, I got to walk through Eric's townhome and basically pick, choose, and take anything I wanted. Even before his other friends. I was humbled. Eric keeps giving to me even after he's gone. So now, in my one room which I have to myself, I'm surrounded by Eric's 'earthly remains'. The artwork he bought from me over the years... meteorology books... X-Files DVDs... and his prized Simpsons sketches he fished out of the dumpster at Fox studios when he lived in L.A. Needless to say, I think of, and 'see' Eric every day. Lori even drove out of her way to pick me up, load her SUV full of Eric's things, drive me home AND unload everything. She did this on two separate occasions. Lori is easily one of the sweetest, selfless and genuine people anyone could hope to know. We vowed to stay in touch and try to get together again.

A little over a month ago I received a certified letter from a law office in Mankato, MN. I was foretold it contained a letter from Eric's family along with a gift in thanks for my friendship with Eric and the family. A gift? But I have my inheritance from Eric already. And as far as thanking me for my friendship? That's as necessary as thanking yourself for breathing, eating, etc. Eric was a true kindred spirit. He gave of himself freely. He was there for me, literally in some cases, every step of the way. So thanking me for that just seems unnecessary to the Nth degree. But nonetheless appreciated. I was... completely gobsmacked. Blank brain stare....... The Jacobson's gift has changed my life. For the first time in years I look forward to the future. I now have the tools to start the next chapter of my life. Thankfully I'm virtually pain free now without opiates. I feel better physically than I have in the last four or five years. That's not to say I don't have permanent reminders of my time immersed in opiates. My muscles atrophied. The big curve in my spine grew. I have hernias, and my memory is intermittent. The important lessons in life are the hardest to learn. Class dismissed.