Echo

I got a call today from a guy at one of the companies we work with, and he was responding to an email I had sent them a few months ago. He said that the person I sent it to didn’t respond because she’s deceased. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with her because I was contacting her for my boss, but it made me really sad. Then Brian messaged to say that a friend of someone he knows hung himself on Monday.

I had a massive headache so I left early. I dropped by Starbucks to say hi to Whitney and Mul who were writing. Calvin was there and was wearing a hat that said, “It’s Not Gonna Lick Itself.” AWESOME.

I’m going to go to bed early today.

I read at the open mic tonight. I did “Prozac” and “One More Thing About My Mother.” It was cool because I got a lot of laughs at the beginning of “Mother,” and then when I get to the part about coming home to find my mother’s body, I got kind of emotional and people got really quiet and when it was done, the room was silent. Then I said, “My mother didn’t really kill herself.” And everyone just kind of breathed again and someone yelled, “You made all that up?” And I laughed and said, “Of course.” The host gave me props for doing well and being calm and composed for my first time, but I was totally shaking inside. But I’m glad I did it. Wow. Growing up, my shyness was damn near paralyzing. I’m amazed that I’ve managed to do what I did tonight.

There were some incredible performers tonight. A sampling of gems: “Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.” “A girl told me once that she doesn’t swallow because she’s Vegan.” “If you get your hand caught in the cookie jar, use it as a weapon.” “I hate my bed and I hate your bed, and I hate that I woke up in your bed.”

The last performance was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. This HUGE hispanic guy put on some gonad-shaking tribal music and tore up the stage with this rant that was the most fucking raw, violent, excruciatingly delightful output of emotion and rage that I have ever seen. My eyes must have been bugged out for the whole ten minutes. After he was done, the host went up and said, “I just want everyone to know that Manuel just had sex with all of you.” And it was true. It felt like I had just been raped by a chainsaw and the gaping, ragged hole it left in me was morbidly satisfying.

You know that moment when you suddenly realize you’re completely intrigued by someone for seemingly no apparent reason, and you find your mind constantly drifting off, wondering who this person is and what his life is like, and you have a deep burning curiousity to find out?

I briefly dated a guy once who wasn’t good enough for me. My friends and family are usually very supportive of the things I do, but for the first time, several of them pulled me aside on different occasions and told me that he shouldn’t be in my life. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t that physically attractive (which is subjective anyway; you’ll think someone is good-looking if you really like who he is), but he had a really ugly personality–incredibly insecure, selfish and sadistically cruel. But he played the victim well, which was how I got drawn into that mess. In hindsight, I learned a lot from those months–about myself, about what I want and deserve, and about not feeling obligated to take home one-eyed, three-legged kittens from the dumpster that keep clawing me when I can have a healthy one. The hardest thing to realize was that I was with him because I felt sorry for him, and that at no point did I ever LIKE him as a person; that made me really question myself. Regardless, at the end of the day, feeling sorry for someone is an absolutely terrible and destructive reason to be in a relationship and I’ve definitely learned my lesson.

So he broke up with me and gave me the same sort of bullshit statements that didn’t make a whole lot of sense given the context (sorta like what Amber’s blind date was spewing). The following weeks were difficult because I was trying to make sense of the rejection and pretty much beating myself up over it, forgetting that I was just letting my ego wrap around being rejected and taking it out on myself, rather than putting into perspective who that rejector was and realizing that it was actually AWESOME that he ejected himself from my life.

One day, Roxie and Lauren were over and I was being somewhat mopey. So Roxie tells me this story:

There was this guy who liked one of her friends. Her friend is really pretty, charismatic and fun and a lot of guys like her. So there was this one short, ugly Mexican guy who wasn’t in her league at all who liked her but she wasn’t interested. He was very persistent and really sweet to her so finally, she started hanging out with him. At the beginning, he showered her with attention, but the more she got into him, the worse he treated her. Finally one day, he broke up with her abruptly. Her friend became obsessed with him after the breakup and became a wreck, completely FORGETTING that she hadn’t even been that interested in him to begin with before he started taking away his attention! It was all about a wounded ego. The whole thing in her head wasn’t even about him. If it were about him, she would have seen that he wasn’t that great to begin with and whatever. But when ego got involved, it became this thing of, “This guy who isn’t even on my level just dumped me, so what does that mean about me???” In reality? It means nothing. But from the way she was seeing the situation, it wrecked her self-esteem.

It’s not worth it. Someone once told me, never date ugly guys. They’re the ones that treat you like shit. Some girls mistakenly go for less attractive guys because they think they’ll be easier to get. The first problem with doing this is that this action is indicative of low self-esteem. Furthermore, if these “ugly” guys are insecure themselves, they’ll fuck with the girls, especially when they think the girl is too good for them. So theoretically, the good-looking guys will actually treat you better.

It’s probably not so much about good-looking versus not. Again, it comes down to confidence and self-respect. When a person respects himself or herself, he or she will be capable of respecting other people. Those who do not respect themselves have no capacity to truly respect other people. Similarly, when people are confident, they can put things into perspective better and not let insecurities and competition run rampant. They don’t have black holes for self-esteem that end up needing to destroy anything that comes too close to them, or that shines brighter than they do (or shine at all, for that matter). They can handle conflict more productively because they understand that disagreements don’t threaten their sense of self and therefore, are not dangerous. Dr. Phil (I’m so sorry to quote him but a psychologist friend of mine told me this) once said, you can tell if a couple will last just by watching them fight. From all of the couples I’ve observed in couples’ counseling, this is incredibly true. You watch a couple that goes for each other’s throats, and you realize how destructive the relationship is for both partners. Versus, you watch a couple that can stay on each person’s respective side, and no matter how heated it gets, they understand that deep down, they respect each other and you can feel that respect anchoring them during disagreements and know that no matter what is said, nothing that was said or done was meant to intentionally hurt the other person, and that trust and respect is what keeps them together.

I’m finding that I’m spending most of my work day with my head in the clouds lately, just thinking about stuff. But I finished all my articles today so I’ve got some space to do that for a while.

I’m reading “Couldn’t Keep It to Myself,” which is an anthology of autobiographical essays written by incarcerated women. They were all participants in a writing workshop with my favorite author, Wally Lamb. These stories are incredibly powerful. The majority of women incarcerated in the United States have a history of being survivors of domestic and sexual abuse and the stories in this book contain examples of these common experiences. They show how abuse can really interfere and affect a person’s development and relationship to their environment. When the women discuss themselves as children, you can see how, with a more nurturing environment, the lives of these women could have very easily turned out differently and so much better. It’s really sad when some of them talk about how much they needed their parents’ love, how vulnerable they were to their parents, and the ways in which they were rejected and hurt, and how this need to be loved and subsequent rejection caused them to repeat patterns of getting into destructive situations or acting destructively.

Amber (www.ambernicole.blogspot.com) posted about a blind date in which, at the end of the night, the guy told her that she was awesome and the funniest person he’d ever met, but then goes on to tell her that he doesn’t want to see her again, citing:

when a guy gets to be his age (28, only three years older than i) they become very selective, and know exactly what they want and don’t want.

Amber was initially shocked but then appreciated his honesty and thought it showed his good nature and character.

************

FUCK THAT!

The guy is a narrow-minded, shallow, cowardly dick who was too scared to get to know you as a person. Because if you were as cool as he thought, he wouldn’t have minded getting to know you possibly as a friend or acquaintance, rather than saying that he never wanted to see you again. He sounds really insecure. He probably went on one date with you, realized how much more charismatic, witty and intelligent you were than him, and rather than saying, I can appreciate her qualities or admitting, I think I’m intimidated by her, he lied to himself and said, she’s not my type. [because she makes my penis feel small]. That’s why he didn’t want to explore this anymore at all with you. If you just weren’t his type (ie The One), he would still be willing to hang out, or at least put that out there. He doesn’t want to see you at all, stating high and mighty bullshit about marriage and selectivity to make himself feel better. I can’t remember which comedian said this, but let me modify this line to serve my purposes: Amber, I would never hit a coward, but I sure as hell will SHAKE the shit out of him!

Dumbass.

Through all my dating experiences, the one thing that I’ve realized to be a dealbreaker across the boards is insecurity. Now don’t get me wrong, we’re all human and no one is 100% confident all the time. Also, arrogance is just the disgusting, aggressive defense mechanism of inner insecurity so that’s the ugly end of the dog, too. But a guy who knows and appreciates his own qualities enough to be able to appreciate other people’s, rather than being afraid of anyone who is in any way better than him, is so much more attractive and so much more FUNCTIONAL to be around, be it in a friendship or relationship. There’s probably more insecure scrub than guys with healthy confidence out there, but it’s nothing to get down about. The good ones are out there and they’re great people and worth it. At the end of the day, the others aren’t even worth wasting your time spinning your head over.

Not to bring it back to “Room Raiders,” but…

So one thing that pissed me off about the show. This Playboy jackass explains to the two girls he didn’t choose why he didn’t choose them. Both of them blubber out defenses as they’re leaving, saying they just want him to know blah blah blah. What pissed me off was, YOU GIRLS SHOULDN’T CARE WHAT THE FUCK THIS GUY THINKS. They could totally tell when they went through his room that he was a vapid personality.

If I were one of them, I would have left saying, “Yeah…maybe I sleep in footed pink one-piece pajama suits on a cot in my parents room surrounded by stuffed unicorns and I collect Magik cards and have a shrine dedicated to Aaron Carter, but I don’t fucking care what you think of me because you’re a big fucking cheesedick loser.” I hated that these girls were apologizing to this stupid guy when they obviously seemed cooler than him.

So the problem with rejection is just ego. Whenever you get turned down, you go nuts because of the rejection. But you have to try to keep in perspective who is turning you down. If you’re a cool girl, then chances are, he was some little person who couldn’t handle you and wasn’t good enough for you in the first place. Good thing he didn’t stick around to bring you down!

Friday night, I went to the Max/Dave/Rebecca/Cody birthday party. These guys all have birthdays in the same week so we lump them together every year. This is the big party each year where U of M film people come out and have a little reunion. It used to be the Max/Dave/Rebecca/Rob Party, but Rob moved to New York recently, and since Cody just moved here and has a birthday in the same week, she took his place.

We went to Boardwalk 11 which is a karoake bar in Culver City. There was another birthday group made up of middle-aged people who obviously had boring day jobs, because they were horribly offkey and stiff onstage and rowdy as fuck offstage. Ran into most of the film/video kids and it’s always great to see them. AD asked if I was still getting my uncle’s Lakers tickets (16 rows up, center court…AMAZING. He sometimes gives me the Lakers/Warriors games which is really nice). AD starts getting excited, talking about “remember that one game…do you remember who it was against…I think it was Seattle, yeah…anyway, remember when Vin Baker was still on Seattle so that was during his ‘euphoric’ state and he gets fouled with a few seconds left, but he makes one of them but misses the other but then jumps and grabs the rebound and makes a slam dunk to force it into overtime and they eventually won, which was awesome because I thought the Lakers and Kobe would win and I was like, fuck, I hate the fucking Lakers, but then it was awesome when they lost?”

I think he’s drunk, so I’m like, “Was that a recent game?” AD says, “No, it was probably a few years ago.” I say, “I don’t think I saw it.” AD says, “You WENT to the game. You took me and we sat in your uncle’s seats.” I say, “I took you to a Lakers game? We’ve been to a basketball game together before?” AD kind of looks at me funny and says,”Yeah.” I’m going through my whole brain but I have no recollection whatsoever of ever going to this game with him so I just joke, “I must smoke too much crack.” I was kind of embarrassed. It’s such a weird feeling to have no recollection of something that had happened. In the same way it feels weird when you meet people and they swear you know each other but you can’t place them.

Max H. showed up and I haven’t seen him in years. We were so happy to see each other, big goofy grins and everything, but as usual, he acted uncomfortable and aloof so then I got uncomfortable and left to talk to other people. Finally, he comes over and we’re talking and I’m thinking, yeah, I’ve miss this guy but it’s always so awkward and it stresses me out. It’s mostly because he’s really shy and it makes me really shy and then we’re both aware of how awkward it is. But it was so good to see him and he says he’s shooting a lot so that’s really good. Oh, he’s the guy in my Match.com commercial. He’s great to work with and I hope we work together again soon. Great person.

I tried taking pictures but my camera’s battery crapped out, so I missed capturing any drunken debauchery. But then again, the worst of it was just when Cody and Josh went up and did Freedom 90 by George Michael and we thought she might take off her top. The party was pretty lowkey. And I didn’t drink at all so that took one drunken instigator out of the equation.

On Saturday, I watched Kill Bill, then went and saw Kill Bill 2. AMAZING. I love these movies. I like when she spanks the Yakuza guy with her sword in the first one, and I like the Uma Thurman/Darryl Hannah fight scene in the second one. And Quentin uses music so incredibly well. I dig that.

Sunday, I went out to lunch at Toast with Brian, Colin and Martin. We sat next to Marko Jaric of the Clippers, and Brian kept commenting on Marko’s hair. Permanent bedhead. Those in LA, get the red velvet cupcakes at Toast. I’m not a cupcake person, but they’re awesome there. Afterwards, I went down to Venice Beach and just walked around, looking at the art. Some guy drew a little sketch of me and gave me breasts bigger than my head. I wasn’t very impressed. Went over to that guy who sells propaganda fliers by the bathrooms to read that one he’s got about how Asian men have magical penii. It cracks me up.

Associated Press
EVERGREEN, Colo. — Colorado Rockies outfielder Larry Walker discovered the body of an unidentified man Sunday on his property near Evergreen. Walker called the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office after spotting the body while he was riding an all-terrain vehicle in the mountain community west of Denver, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Jacki Tallman.

The body was in a wooded area near a trail on his property and not near Walker’s home, Tallman said.

“Mr. Walker is not a suspect,” she said. “We don’t know if the person was killed at the site or if his body was dumped there.”

Walker is on the disabled list and not traveling with the team.

*****************

This news story is weird. It implies suspicious circumstances. When a body is found outside of cities in less developed regions, the first thought is usually that the person is a victim of circumstance. But by discussing the discover of the body with very little facts about how the person died and by following that statement with the comment, ‘Mr Walker is not a suspect…We don’t know if the person was killed at the site or if his body was dumped there,” it’s implied that someone believes this person did not die of natural causes or by accident. By using Larry Walker’s name in the same comment that attaches him to the shock words “killed” and “dumped,” anxious images and associations are produced in a reader’s head, resulting in these two things being associated together during the mental process of memory recall; the person making the comment subconsciously connects Larry Walker to the horrifying act of killing.

But I’m curious about this.

Did the AP writer subconciously or consciously include that idea in the article to create drama? Or did the person making the the statement, with her omission of facts and denial of a suspicion from a crime that was not even assumed, intentionally or accidentally allow a glimpse of their own suspicions?

Made myself an interesting little “recording” today. Let’s say, it involved a little suggestive spoken-word rendition of LL Cool J’s “Doin It” (and doin’ it and doin’ it well…………..) But I don’t have anyone I would want to send it too. There’s no one interesting. No one that makes that fire burn inside of me, the kind of person that sets me off to the point that, if that door opened and that connection was exposed, I wouldn’t be able to control myself to the point of having sex with him right there, public place, spectators and everything. Daaaamn. That’s awesome. Maybe that connection (that mind-blowing passion which leads to indescribable sex) can’t be maintained. And that’s why we all get so disappointed after the relationship runs through it’s honeymoon phase and the passion of discovery isn’t there anymore.

God. Seriously. This is why I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to give up the independence, the freedom to explore and discover new people, the rush of new experiences and new connections and the various forms that love comes in. I want to feel like I am free to give myself away and not have to feel beholden to anyone. A Morcheeba song, “Once a label is on something, it becomes an it, like it’s no longer alive.” My greatest fear is of getting pegged, getting cornered, having to be a consistent person who has to fulfill other people’s assumptions of who I am. I want to meet everyone, and be everyone, and play every single one of these ghosts and these visions. Fuck all this shit they dump on my shoulders and ask me to carry. I don’t ever want to get married. I hope that maybe one day I’ll find a partner who can walk by my side and explore this world with me and understand that our bond is made of the deepest, most purest love and respect, but I can’t have a partnership that entails the modern-day pact of physical commitment.

http://entertainment.msn.com/celebs/article.aspx?news=155828

http://endabuse.org/

I used to volunteer for Break the Cycle, a non-profit organization in Los Angeles that provided pro-bono legal services for women dealing with domestic abuse, and which also provided educational services to educate teens about what abuse is (physical, sexual, emotional). I was really disappointed because they only let the lawyers do the classroom presentations and I really wanted to work directly with the kids. But they let me run our booth at local events and I got to recruit high school interns and talk to people about what we did so that was okay. But I would rather work directly with educating and interacting with young people.

Over the years that I tutored high school kids for the SAT, I would go into their homes and really observe some of the things that go on behind closed doors. You really see a lot of things, both inspiring and appalling. I would always spend some extra time after sessions talking to my students, not just encouraging them to pursue their dreams and to stay strong through the difficulties because life gets better, but to let them know that they have an older supportive ally who would listen and be understanding, which many of them didn’t have in their lives. And those times were some of the most rewarding of my life.

Since I quit that job only months ago and am not allowed by contract to do SAT work for a year, I have to wait on this but what I would love to do is start a non-profit organization that provides not just academic tutoring but specifically, SAT prep for underpriveleged students. Most high school students prep for the SAT these days, pushing up average scores and it’s not fair to kids who can’t afford SAT prep. I want to level the playing field. Because I taught some kids whose parents were filthy rich and these kids just wouldn’t give a damn about anything, and I taught kids whose parents had scrapped together money to get them prep so they could compete for college. Some of my favorite students were in this latter group because they were motivated, good kids and you could just tell that they had the heart, drive and personal integrity to one day become amazing adults and productive contributors to society.

Someone once asked me if I thought that the problem with America is that we have too much freedom. I answered, “Yes.” But the problem specifically, is that we have too much freedom, and too little guidance. Good leadership is not only about making good decisions, but about guidance–letting the people you are leading understand where they are going, who they are becoming, what they want and how they can realize their potential. It is about helping those people make their own internal connections, not laying things down as absolutes that they need to follow, ignoring the fact that they may not understand.

My example is always this: As a parent, you don’t want your child to feel any pain. So you will tell him, don’t touch a hot stove. Now remember, a child’s #1 question is always going to be…why? Because he has NO IDEA WHY and needs everything explained to him because this is how he grows, and we, as adults, must understand this and have the utmost patience to explain in an open, gentle manner. Ultimately, it doesn’t do anything to set rules and limitations. You have to make sure that the child understands why it would be to his benefit not to do certain things (ie touching a hot stove is very painful), even though, sometimes these experiences will still need to be experienced first hand to be truly understood.

This is what I always thought the problem with religion was. Dogmatic rules and regulations but to be honest, often religions evolved to not be so much about spiritual guidance, but about power struggles and domination against other competing groups (not to mention the political ties and motivations). It’s bullshit.

Every person needs to understand why he should be a good person, who he is and what he wants to bring to the world and to himself, not to just be told. The fact that people have become so complacent in general has much to do with the fact that society has structured itself in a way that a small percentage is dominant and omnipotent just because, and thus, the rest must accept. People get lost along the way because there’s no guidance in dominance. There’s no guidance in having power. Power is selfish. Good leadership has nothing to do with power. Leadership is an unselfish responsibility. And if a person lives in a community where he can chose his leader, he must also be cognizant of this concept, and that it’s imperative that we chose a leader who understands that the basic tenet of leadership is the ability and understanding to guide magnanimously.

But I digress.

I would like to start a non-profit which provides SAT prep as well as gives the youth a safe, accepting place to find psychological and emotional support as well as healthy guidance. A place where everyone walks through the door as a human being, and will treat others and be treated respectfully as human beings. And with education about dating and family abuse because there is so much more of it out there than people realize. Break this fucking cycle and get these kids into college!

Oh, this is a really cool teen center in San Diego:

http://www.epicentre.org/home.html

The day’s recap…

Had lunch with Dave Stroup who edited both my commercials. Great guy who has a girlfriend named Happy. I hope they have hundreds of kids. Talking to him got me all psyched about getting back into the creative end of the film industry again. I left in such a fit years ago but it’s really time to get back on it. I’ve got this mystery/supernatural thriller all ready to go but I have to be honest…deep down, I don’t know if I’m scared to start back on it because of the dark places I’ll be going during the creative process, or because I’m afraid to deal with the heartbreak of the industry again. But I think it’s time I light a fire under my ass, because if I’m still refusing to work in the industry and I’m not doing at least a marginal amount of screenwriting, then I may as well move to a city that I like better.

At the very least, I should finish Iverson on Ice so I can take his picture down from my wall.

My cousin and her mom called me to say they were in town so I took them to the Beverly Center to help my cousin find a prom dress. I hate shopping probably more than most guys, but I’m willing to bite the bullet for family. My cousin is super innocent and super naive. I mean, she’s a big fan of Hillary Duff. The only colleges she got into were UC Irvine and UC Davis so I was trying to convince her to go to Davis because it’s the better school and I don’t want her in SoCal. I know there are predators everywhere, but I would rather have her at Davis then down here. So I was telling her all my SoCal horror stories, like about my first night here where I was asked out by that really nice boy-next-door UCLA student who turned out to have just gotten out of jail for cocaine possession or something and lived at a halfway house. Good times.

I took them to dinner at Lala’s on Melrose and we saw Stephen Baldwin there. I was so tempted to tell him that he was a crazy muthafucker on Celebrity Mole and to ask if he was actually retarded or just acted that way. But that would have involved a conversation and from the looks of the way he was talking to the waitress, he was a monster jackass.

Okay, the Adidas ad is up. Sweet. I’m off to bed.

Fuuuuck. My taxes are finally done and in the mail. And not only am I finally dissolving my corporation like I’ve been threatening to do for years, but I got out of the creepy and inappropriate hug that my tax guy likes to give me each year because I went in sick. Hell yeah, it’s a good week. Despite the fact that I owe this year. I had no idea I didn’t have 9 dependents. You would think that Peyote, my lazy ma’fuckin turtle, should count for at least 2 with how much angst he directs at me.

So it’s a little after 7am and I’m up, which is tragic. I can either go to the gym or get ready for work and go sleep at Coffee Bean like a homeless person for an hour.

I talked to Sarita yesterday about wanting to move back up to the bay area. I don’t think I would do it because I love my circle of friends down here and I go through this stage at least twice a year, but there are times when I really hate this town. Being in Seattle was great because of the sense of community and how friendly people were up there. I mean, down here, I’m so friendly, warm and sincere that I feel like people think I’m easy to take advantage of. Back home in the bay area, I would be able to help an old lady across the street without her thinking I’m going to ask for money or steal her purse, or smile at someone’s babies without her thinking that I was sizing up her kids, trying to figure out how much the little blue eyed one would go for on the black market. But of course, maybe I’m projecting. It’s probably true that I can be comfortable/uncomfortable anywhere. But I really hate how values are fucked up down here. And that I don’t feel comfortable being my natural little miss Helpy-Helpy self.