(Mr)Arash

Tumblr Feed

2010-02-18T13:55:00.001-08:00

Since I'm mostly using Tumblr these days, here is the feed.

Tilt Shift Video

2010-02-05T13:59:00.000-08:00

_
On top of my wish list is a tilt-shift lens for still photography. A close second would be one for my video camera.

"Tilt-shift" actually encompasses two different types of movements: rotation of the lens plane relative to the image plane, called tilt, and movement of the lens parallel to the image plane, called shift."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography

Via The Vital Thing

Via Tiltshiftphotography.net

Helpless from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Hulkamania from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Everyone loves creating imagary consisting of high angle city life but I actually perfer to use the look for portriture. Of course, I say "the look" becasue this is all done post shoot.

See more great examples: Smashing Magazine

How Far Technology Has Come...

2010-01-07T19:09:00.001-08:00

... In such a short time!

Was MMA Fighter. Is jPop Star.

2010-01-05T22:38:00.000-08:00

I love this video and love the song even more.

Genki Sudo was a Mixed Martial Arts champion in the Japanese version of UFC and was knows for his flamboyant (and inuslting) entrances and taunts. Aperantly he's a singer now. Anyway... I ran across this video on the Doobybrain.com blog.

Some translated lyrics here: Liquid Poker

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

2010-01-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

In Case They Didn't Hate Us Enough...

Check out this NY Times article about the recent turn of events in the Blackwater Iraq massacre case from 2007.

New York Times: Iraqis Angered as Blackwater Charges Are Dropped

Long story short:

Blackwater was protecting a deplomatic envoy when they were led to believe that they were under attack. They open fire in to a crowded city square. Many killed and wounded as they tried to escape the chaos.
Anti-American sentiment goes through the roof in the region. For lack of a better discretion: Everything gets even more fucked up as a direct result. The general belief is that Americans suck (because they can't tell the difference between Blackwater and US Soldiers).
Investigators deterimine Blackwater did, in fact, commit murder.

Fast-forward to today...

"On Thursday, Judge Ricardo M. Urbina threw out manslaughter and weapons charges against five Blackwater guards because he said prosecutors had violated the men’s rights by building the case based on sworn statements that had been given by the guards under the promise of immunity."

There you have it. Gung-ho prosecutors pushed the envelope too far and the judge, no matter how sympathetic he might have been, simply could not find a legal justification to allow the case to continue.

Here is the kicker, speaking as someone from that part of the world... That part of the world has no frame of reference for what I just described to you. What they see is black and white: The Americans bribed the right people and protected their own. Period.

So sit back and relax... With the US troops pulling out, Iraq is just going to get worse!

Where does this hit a personal note for me?

A lot of people don't realize that the major turning point in pre-Islamic Republic Iran, under the Shah's rule, was when American contract workers in Iran were given immunity from being prosecuted in Iranian courts. That basically meant that if an American contractor in Iran hit an Iranian with his car (and killed him), he would be expedited to the US rather than be charged in Iran. Thus, solidifying the Iranian peoples' suspicions that the Shah was a willing puppet of the United States' campaign to rape and pillage Iranian resources.

James Cameron is an Asshole?

2009-12-25T20:55:00.000-08:00

So there is this firestorm around this video of James Cameron dissing
an autograph seeker and eveyone is going off about what
an asshole JC is.

Let me tell you what I saw...

JC comes out of the terminal and sees a camera shoved in his
face and a Paparazzi looking dude waiting for him
READY WITH A FULL SIZED AVATAR POSTER.

What average joe is walking around with a poster with the hopes of
running into James Cameron?? The whole thing was so obviously
staged and the autograph seeker and the camera guy obviously knew
they were going to get the reaction they wanted out of Cameron.

Cameron and this "average joe" obviously had a history between them
that TMZ doesn't show you.

And now everyone is going off about what an asshole Jim Cameron is.

I don't know the guy. He just might be. But fuck, people are such
sheep!

Then again, who am I to complain... My career path is in
marketing; a business banking on sheep mentality.

Muse Mag Starring Lilo

2009-12-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

________________________________________

Well dammit if Lindsay Lohan aint good something: Heroin Chic.

And I mean... Really really good at it!

Check out this really great, sexy video for Muse Mag...

Lindsay Lohan - “Lindsay’s Private Party”

BeatBox 2.0, Full Body Version

2009-12-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

___________________

Since I just wasted an hour watching James Ha do his singing/body beatboxing thing instead of doing the work I sat here at the computer to do, I'm going to have to share it with you with the hopes that it's as addicting to watch for you as it was for me... So I don't feel like the only addict.

Attn: Wine Lovers in the San Diego Area

2009-12-08T19:20:00.000-08:00

http://apluswinedesigns.com/

I'm Not Here To Make Friends!

2009-12-08T18:17:00.000-08:00

______________________

I love This American Life on NPR.

Bianka and I often listen to it on road trips to LA. Their podcasts are great for road trips because they're leanghty, meaty, interesting, funny, fascinating and all around amusing. And they fill up an hour, no problem. The last one we listened to was all about the US government setting up an idiot Pakistani man to take the fall as a terrorist. They watched him for a year and when he could'nt come through with a bomb sale, they set it all up for him and then used that as evidence that he's a terrorist. It played like a Cohen Brothers comedy.

Here is a great bit for a recent show...

More on that here: FourFour.Typepad

Something Fun To Do

2009-12-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

t.y.p.o.r.g.a.n.i.s.m.

Killing Ideas

2009-12-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

I'd love to give credit to this artist but I don't remember when/where I ran across this image.

It's ALL an illusion... And that's OK!

2009-11-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

Today's pop culture scandal: W Magazine manipulated that image of Demi Moore on the cover.

Seriously, people. Movie stars and "beautiful people" are only beautiful for two reasons:

Limitless access to million dollar stylists, makeup artists, personal trainers, personal chefs, personal masseuses and personal therapists to keep the stress wrinkles away.
Photoshop.

They're not trying to pull a fast one on you. This is not illicit behavior. It's called SHOW BUSINESS for a reason. The business of putting on a show. Let's face it; no one wants to watch ugly people on a 45 foot screen. Ugly people included. The way that you check your emails in the morning, read up on new trends in the market and take meetings with your boss, movie stars do their morning yoga routines, have an egg white omelet made to order for their body type and take meetings with their personal trainers. It's their JOB to look good FOR YOU.

Take a look at these links and tell me, honestly, that you prefer how Beyonce looks before being Photoshoped....

Glenn Feron Portfolio

More Examples...

I've been asked on several occasions how I feel about the "ethics" of Photoshoping. I'm indifferent. As far as I'm concerned, a digitally captured image is not a direct representation of what you look like anyway. I've known many people who are not considered particularly attractive in real life who look amazing in pictures and I've know people who turn heads at the clubs who just aren't photogenic. It's not black and white. As a photographer - an image creator - my job is not always to show the true you but to create a great image. The image - the art - will outlive you. You might be depriving future generations of a moment in time if you protest the manipulation... Which, by the way, no one ever does.

The only thing W Magazine is guilty of is being sloppy. REALLY sloppy. Unethical, though? Nah....

Read the whole article here: The Frisky

And does anyone wonder how Demi feels about all this???

Point of clarification: I see beauty in all things and people. I DON'T agree with the Hollywood standard of beauty. This blog is not about "beauty" as a whole but about image manipulation and entertainment. If you want someone to blame for the media's unrealistic portrayal of beauty you need only look in the mirror. WE'RE the ones buying the product they produce.

I love this picture!

2009-11-23T23:28:00.000-08:00

Jesus: Yo, homie, you gotta step off, the lady aint interested no mo.

Chewy (drunk): Nah man, that's my lady man! Jus... Jus lemmi talk to her for a quick second man.

Jesus: Nah 'lil homie. You gotta step off 'fore I loose my cool

Yvonne: YEAH YEAH, FUCK THAT MOTHER FUCKER UP, CHEWY!

Jesus: Yvonne, chill, I got this.

Chewy: I LOVED YOU, MONICA!

Yvonne: MY NAME IS YVONNE, MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Chewy: YOU'RE JUST A HOOD RAT BITCH. I WAS GONNA MARRY YOU AND BUY YOU A MANSION.

Yvonne: WITH WHAT MONEY YOU BROKE ASS LIL-

Jesus: Hey hey hey, Yvonne, get back in the igloo 'fore I beat you're little penguin ass!

How Songs Get Radio Play

2009-11-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

Read this excerpt from Dirty Little Secrets of the Record Business: Why So Much Music You Hear Sucks by Hank Bordowitz.

Every time I hear that god-awful, piece of shit Mylie Cyrus song on the radio, I think of this little story.

You can read the whole book here: Google Books

Vintage Lady Gaga Live at NYU

2009-11-21T17:00:00.001-08:00

Social Media IS NOT damaging real life relationships...

2009-11-21T16:48:00.000-08:00

It's just streamlining them.

I've been saying for a long time that Facebook, MySpace, etc. is just Email 2.0. Instead of targeting recipients so you can update people about your life, you keep an online profile. It's a way to stay connected with people and saves you the time of having to feel people out before figuring out which of your life's updates they'll be interested in and which they could care less about. You post a picture, for example, and people who have something to contribute respond and those who don't, wont!

Check out this interesting new study: Social Media Users Really Are More Social

The beauty of it is that you end up finding more people that think the same way you do. Instead of a lot of the fained interest that people show in your day to day life, people come out of their shells more and say what they really think and relationships are built based on your "real" thoughts rather than the more politically correct ones you express in public settings.

Larry King is a Pussy.

2009-11-13T13:38:00.000-08:00

Yeah, Yeah... I know no one has respected Larry King as a journalist in quite some decades but that interview with Carrie Prejean the other day put the last nail in his long overdue coffin for me.

At the gym, I happen to pass by a TV that's showing the Larry King v. Carrie Prejean interview. I continue about my way because, really, who gives a fuck about Larry King? The man is basically a glorified fluff girl. I'm sure his severance package, if he ever decides to retire, will include a gold rolex and a shiny new set of knee pads. Carrie is going on and on about how the world hates her, capping every catty/bitter sentence with mock positivity statements like "but I don't judge" or some shit. Then, Larry says something that catches my ear: "Did you disclose the existence of the video tape to the pageant officials?"

I'm stunned. Larry just asked a really great question. After her going off on a long tirade about how mistakes can come back to haunt you and that she didn't think she did anything wrong, he caught her. If she didn't do anything wrong, then did she disclose the existence of the tape to prove that she didn't think she'd done anything wrong?

Carrie is taken aback. She was not expecting that question. She responds, with the professional expertise of a seasoned politician, that she did not get fired because of the sex tape but because she didn't show up for some event. She goes on and on. Larry nods and responds, "that was not the question." He repeats his question. Carrie proceeds to give the same non-response which is not addressing the issue Larry is raising.

A tingly feeling of joy runs down my back. I feel excitement in my stomach. My mouth is open and I'm grinning. Has someone, ANYONE, in the American media actually grown a pair of balls to ask questions AGAIN? Has someone finally had enough with subjects dodging questions and decided to take a stance? Has Larry King, after all these years and now nearing retirement, had enough and said to himself, "fuck it?" I watch in anticipation as Carrie's mouth stops flapping.

Larry looks down at his papers and... Moves on to another softball question and changes the subject.

Larry, YOU BITCH! You had her! And she's not even important! I could see you not wanting to loose access to a powerful politician but CARRY FUCKING PREJEAN?? You let HER get away with dodging??

Sigh. Thank god for the Daily Show; it's almost our only source of hard edged journalism.

Internet Porn stats by GOOD!

2009-11-09T23:51:00.000-08:00

Interesting...

2009-09-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

They located that gene that makes us creative types all nutty.

The Daily Telegraph

My Life As Fiction: Being Let Go

2009-09-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

I pretty much had my bags packed. Psychologically anyway. It was just a matter of finding a job in a new city. That would be difficult enough in a normal economy. It would be difficult enough finding a job in a city where I’m not even networked the way that I am here, in Paradise City. It didn’t matter. I pretty much had my bags packed. Psychologically anyway.

I’d been looking for a job (and a sense of purpose) in Paradise City for months. I’d lost hope and faith. Hope in surviving and faith in the people of my hometown.

There is a new email on my computer screen from an address which I’m not familiar with. But the preview asks if I’m interested in coming in for- I click on OPEN and smile: I’m being asked if I’m interested in coming in for an interview. All the doors knocked on and all the contacts exhausted have come down to this. Not only am I finally getting an invitation for an interview (finally) but it happens to be for my dream job. It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with widgets and widget production. Here is an agency whose job it is to promote widget production in Paradise City. The job is the perfect combination of marketing, tourism and widgets; my three areas of expertise.

The interview goes swimmingly. We review my marketing portfolio and all the great marketing projects I’ve headed. In the morning I get a call to come in and get started on Monday. On Monday I’m at the office, in my office, gazing out at my ridiculous 30^th floor view of the downtown skyline. I immediately sit down and work up a priority task list.

My coworkers are a motley crew of personalities. Duke, the tall, handsome widget wiz and traveled widget expert in his late 40s.. Michael: Young, fashionable, Duke’s apprentice. Lily, the 40something lefty left-brainer with organic tastes, bohemian style and VIP membership to the Trader Joe’s mailing list. Bambi, the 33 year old executive assistant. And, of course, the personality and local force to be reckoned with, Barbra. At around 60 years of age, she’s survived many a local political upheaval. The rest of the employees work offsite. The 30^th floor is our domain. We’re the brains of the operation, if this could be considered a brains kind of operation.

I’m reviewing my priority list when Bambi pops her head in through the door. “So, you’re pretty free over here. There isn’t much supervision. You make your own schedule, though you’re expected to keep 40 hours. You’ll be reporting to me-“ She chuckles at this. “Well, not really reporting to me, Barbra is the boss. You just check in with me if you’re taking off or anything like that.” I smile, we joke around and she returns to her office. I stare out the window some more. Now what do I do?

It’s Tuesday and I’m in at 8:30 am. I wonder around the halls, alone. There is no one else here. Around 11 am I end up in sitting in Bambi’s office with Lily. We’re chatting and joking around. “Oh, these halls are pretty damn quiet before 10:30!” We laugh at this concept.

It’s Wednesday and I’m in around 9:00 am. It’s lonely in the office. I walk across the street and get some breakfast to go. I eat alone in the office and then work on my priority list, working off some notes that I’d taken the night before, at home.

Barbara is walking by my office and I ask her in. I begin to tell her that I’d like to review my priority list with her. She nods furiously, cuts me off and communicates to me that she trusts me to supervise myself. She leaves. I sit in my office, a bit perplexed. How do I work for a director who refuses to give me direction?

As the days go by, a routine develops. I come in around 9:15 am, wander the halls alone, eat breakfast and work on my priority list & project plans. I approach Barbara several more times. Every time I do, she nods furiously and cuts me off, not wanting to hear the rest of what I have to say. I try not to think of her as a bobble head as I desperately attempt to decode her codes. “You need to be ready for sudden changes around here,” she keeps telling me. I bite my tongue, fearing that I’ll come off as a pretentious little shit if I try to explain the importance of a priority list - as I try desperately to get some kind of direction from my boss.

Everyday I come in to work, I take the same elevator which is decorated with a peculiar smell. Is it urine? Kinda smells like urine. Or homeless people. I can’t tell.

At week two, I manage to schedule a meeting with Barbie and Bambi, hoping that they’re finally ready to shed some light on what I should be working on. I have pretty photocopies made of my outlines & notes and am prepared for a real professional presentation. Barbie is stressed because she committed the agency to a project which none of the staff is responding to. I begin to talk. Bobble head ensues. She cuts me off and informs me that none of my priority lists or projects matter right now. Right now, the only thing that matters is this particular project that the whole staff should be working on (which they aren’t, because everyone thinks it’s retarded) and that if I don’t get my shit together, my job will be in jeopardy come next fiscal year as my job was made possible by a grant from the City of Paradise City. I shut my mouth. Barbie doesn’t seem at all interested in anything I have to say.

I bust my ass on the ridiculous Paradise City promotion project. The same one which everyone else is avoiding like the plague. Barbie and myself are literally the only people working on this project. It occurs to me that Barbie's staff doesn't really respect her. They spend a lot of time making fun of her about an advertisement which her husband designed for the agency, which looks like it was done by a middle school graphic arts student. For reasons too numerous to account for right now, I have an overwhelming drive to please my elders. I work hard to make Barbie happy and to prove my worth. I resist the urge to vent to her about the fact the she and I are the only ones working on this high priority project. It seems to go OK. Members of the community who work with us on the project say great things about me. Barbie smiles big at meetings when others say good things. I have the pat on the head I needed.

Over the next couple of weeks, I decide that getting a direct meeting with my boss is pointless. In fact, no one else seems to ever meet with her either. Everyone sort of does their own thing and everything sort of seems to go smoothly. I guess this is the way this office runs. OK. Maybe I’m just not experienced enough with this style of office. I decide to stop pushing for meetings and just keep my ears open. Every time I run into Barbie in the hallways, she drops snippets of the kinds of things she hopes I’ll be doing for the agency. I run back to my office and write everything she says down. She’s a powerhouse, I figure. I’m not about to try to change the way she runs shit. This must just be how it’s done around here. She spouts off a bunch of things and people get on it. She’s much too busy to sit down and give formal directions. At this agency, you just keep your ear open and Barbie will let you know what you need to do.

Another week goes by and Barbie is singing my praises to a local politician that visits our office. Lily’s contact, a local widget expert, makes it a point to tell me on the phone that she’s hearing wonderful things about me and about how great it is to have this young guy in the office with all these great ideas. Bambi and I joke all the time. I’m always popping into Bambi’s office and asking her how I’m doing on so-and-so task that she asked for help on. She’s pleasant, albeit stressed. Duke and I get along great. I love Duke’s war stories and he is an unintimidating wealth of knowledge. Michael is incredibly pleasant. I help him out with a project and he is impressed at my input and contacts. Lily seems to be my office soul mate. I’m still not sure what the fuck I’m doing here but everyone seems happy so I must be doing something right. Right?

By the end of the month, I’m empowered. The training wheels are off and I’m working an average of 60 hours a week because I LOVE what I do. Barbie had said to me that she wants me to get my face out there and get to know other widgeteers since the rest of the staff is too busy to do PR. I’m out there meeting other widgeteers who tend to respond with great enthusiasm and positivity, delighted at the fact that someone from our office is reaching out to them. I have several projects in the planning stage. Files, notes and folders everywhere. I’m loving my job so much that I get off work around 6pm (an hour late) only to head to a local Starbucks so I can continue working on my ideas and projects. Since I’m working till around 7pm every night, on my own time, I feel less guilt about coming in around the same time everyone else does; 10am.

Monday of week four, I get an email from Barbie: “It’s important that you’re here at 8:30 am every day. The rest of the production staff is on call 24/7 so they get leeway. Thank you.” I’m tempted to respond with the fact that Bambie is in around 10:30am everyday and that she is not production staff. I passive aggressively follow orders, without hesitation, but don’t respond to her email. Actions speak louder than words, I tell myself.

I pop in to Bambie’s office for the 6^th time with the same question. “When does my health insurance kick in,” I keep asking her. “Soon. It’s weird, with our insurance, you have to wait till you get the paperwork or something. This week.”

When Barbie speaks, 95% of what comes out of her mouth is trash talk about other agencies in town. She has nothing positive to say about anyone unless they’ve directly and specifically helped her out. I keep my mouth shut though I have a difficult time disguising my disdain. I choose to simply not join in on the “conversation.”

Another week goes by. I’m in at 8:30 am, usually an hour and a half to two hours before everyone else in the office (including Bambie) and I just swallow my pride. Days are filled with meetings, projects which I’ve managed to throw together based on Barbie’s passing directions (comments) and bonding with the staff, learning about the business.

Monday of week six, I have an email which reads: “Meeting with Barbie and Bambie at 3pm. Location, Barbie’s office.” I respond that I have a meeting at 3pm with another widget office. At 2pm, I’m grabbing a quick bite across town when I get a voicemail from Bambie telling me that I have to cancel my meeting and come meet with her and Barbie. It sounds ominous. I race back to the building, up the uriney elevator to the 30th floor and into Barbie’s office. The instant I walk in, I know something is off.

Bambie is sitting at a chair facing Barbie. They’ve been chatting and abruptly stop when I walk in. “I’m so sorry, I just got your voicemail and came back. What’s going on?”

In terms of physical anthropology, many would say that the definition of beauty in human beings comes down to one thing: Symmetry. Bambi is –shall we say- asymmetric. Her lack of symmetry never struck me with such intensity as it did at this particular moment, as she sits next to me, scowling.

Barbie sits at her massive, messy desk facing the door, her outline interrupting a backdrop of floor to ceiling windows which invite in intense sunlight over the downtown skyline. As I walk in, she smiles big and waives me in, as she always does, communicating an openness to her office.

“Come in, come in,” she invitingly demands. Her voice does not shift as she continues speaking while I take my seat. “I just wanted to let you know that today will be your last day with our agency…” I don’t hear the rest of what she’s saying. My heart sinks to my stomach. I look over at asymmetric, scowling, Bambie who sits silently watching me. I’m being fired. Barbie is saying something about me not fitting in. Suddenly, I’m 12 years old and my mother is expressing her disappointment in me for letting her down. I’m nine years old and my dad is angry that I’m not being productive. I’m 25 years old and my dad is disappointed in me and telling me I should just give up school. I’m 8 years old, at the beach in northern Iran, and my mother is ripping my kite apart, because I keep crying that the kite won’t fly. I’m 22 years old and I’m leaving my first out-of-high school job and my brother is deeply disappointed in me. I’m six years old and my dad is whipping me with a belt for stealing money. My boss from my night job is standing over me, disappointed, that I’m not producing. Barbie is still talking. I fixate on her scalp. Her hair is thinning. There is a ringing in my ear. Tears are welling up in my eyes. I’m being fired from my dream job. I’m being fired from the job I stayed in Paradise City for. I’m being fired from the job which the obtaining of caused problems in my relationship at home. I’m being fired from the job I’m working 60 hours a week on, much to others' ridicule. I'm being fired from the job which I was convinced, on an existential level, was going to be the next major milestone in my life. I'm being fired after six weeks.

I loose control of what’s coming out of my mouth. I’m crying and telling Barbie and Bambi about how hard I’ve been working. About how passionate I am. About how I didn’t throw Bambie under the bus for the coming-in-late thing. Bambie starts to talk. The subject I started to brush on hit a nerve with her. Bambi confidently proclaims, “you knew this was coming.” How the fuck could I have possibly known this was coming? I’m ranting. Bambi is jumping at me, in a pitbull like manner I've never seen from her before. She's trying to keep me from talking too much. Everything she says sounds as if they are things she'd been warning me about for weeks and weeks, when in reality, she hasn't. There is sudden moment of clarity. Barbie never flinches. She is calm the entire time. I’m an ant. She has stepped on many ants. “Are you just humoring me right now,” I ask. “The decision has been made,” Bambie replies. I fall into an accepting silence. I feel so silly. I feel angry. I feel angry at myself for letting them have this vulnerable piece of me. I should not have shown these whores my tears. There is talk of a severance package. Barbie tells me I’m not following directions. There is a little me sitting inside of my head, telling the full sized me to scream at her, to call her out on her inability to provide direction. It occurs to me that Bambi was supposed to be my “supervisor.” Through my tear covered vision, it becomes clear: Bambi has been throwing me under the bus. Barbie may have been directing Bambie to direct me. The messages were getting lost. Bambie has no business managing an ant farm, much less a living, breathing human being. Bambie is protecting her own ass. Now, after I've given up, Bambie speaks in this mock sweet voice again, the fakeness of which ads oh so much more insult to injury.

I walk to my former office and get on packing my things. I call my brother and tell him what has happened. He is outraged and can’t put together how someone can get fired, after only six weeks, without any sort of warning. No letter, no official meeting, no email, nothing. The only justification for this rapid a dismissal, he tells me, would be if I was stealing.

I break the news, still in tears, to Duke, Lily and Michael. They are speechless. No one was consulted. Not even Duke who is supposed to be the second in command.

Outside the office, down the urine smelling elevator, my girlfriend meets me with her SUV. Everything from my office is now on the sidewalk. Humiliating. Barbie comes down to retrieve the office cart, not making eye contact with me or showing any sort of emotion. I’m an ant. She’s just walking along and I should not have been in her way.

Getting fired feels, in almost everyway, like getting dumped. The confusion, the anger, the frustration.

Over the next few days, I discover a new emotion. It is a jarring thing, to discover that at the age of 27, there are emotions you have not yet experienced. This new feeling is frightening and liberating in the same breath. Pure, unadulterated, unapologetic hatred. I want horrible things to happen to Barbie and Bambie. I want Barbie to have a car accident. I want Bambie to develop pancreatic cancer. I want to read about it in a newspaper. I consider using my network to spread the dirt I learned at the agency. I consider using my PR knowledge to bring them down. I reconsider when I remember Duke, Lily and Michael. I don’t want to hurt them. I want Barbra and Bambie to hurt. But if it comes from me, the looser who got fired, it can only reek of pettiness.

I call the health insurance company about the coverage which I'm supposed to have till the end of the month. They have no record of me. Bambie never turned in my paperwork. This, along with several other coincidences, brings me to the following conclusion... Best case scenario: I was fired because my "supervisor" was a gutless vulture who dropped the ball (continuously) and blamed me for it to a boss who didn't seem too crazy about me from day one. Worst case scenario: The struggling agency needed any grant they could get and to get this particular grant, which was supposed to pay my salary, they needed a warm body to fill the office until the check was signed. After it was cashed, the warm body was no longer necessary.

I conclude that I’m not made for office politics. I conclude I don’t even want to be good at office politics. People smile in your face while slowly inserting the dagger in your rib cage. People, whom you might know outside of the office, become totally different people when inserted into those hallways.

I decide to label myself as an artist. Good riddance. I'll gladly take the delusion that I'm the future Diego Rivera over the delusion that I'm the future Richard Branson.

"I'd Gladly Do It For Free!"

2009-09-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

The battle cry of many an athlete, musician and artist. The ones, of course, that aren't getting paid billions of dollars.

It's clearing house time, ladies and gents!

Lily Allen has apparently quit her fight against piracy. And music. And… Good riddance.

She, like some other recording artists (not shockingly, a lot of country singers), have been very outspoken about online music piracy and how downloaders are stealing from them. Well... Can't really disagree with that. It's a finished product and we're downloading it for free, regardless of how we justify it for ourselves. I saw a statistic somewhere; the majority of youth from this generation does not equate music piracy with theft from - say - a retail store.

As far as I'm concerned, art is life. It can not be a controlled commodity. The more you control it, the more you corrupt it. Art is thought. Art is creation. The packaged, finished product is simply marketing. Make money from the marketing, the packaging and the shows… Fixating on making money from the art is hypocrisy 2.0.

I'd do it for free.

Many artists of much higher caliber would agree with me. If you're an artist, what would you prefer? Getting paid $70k/year to work an office desk or $70k/year being left in peace to create your art?

That’s the question one should ask him/herself when deciding whether or not to embark on this path: Do I want to live the life of art, creativity and emotional freedom or do I just want to be rich and famous?

If you’re in the former group, you’ll gladly bust your ass on the graveyard shift, serving tables at Denny’s just so you have your days free to work on your paintings. If you’re in the former group, you’ll daydream about being rich and famous but it won’t be your absolute drive, it will just be more emotions to use in your story.

If you’re in the latter group, you don’t care what you do. You’ll apply for every reality show that comes to town, you’ll sell yourself to the right people on every ethical casting couch and finally, when you’ve made it, you’ll publicly bitch that people are ‘stealing’ from you.

I’d gladly do it for free.

Is it ethically wrong to pirate music? Sure. I’m not arguing that at all. I, however, question the sincerity of an artist who looses motivation and drive over it. Especially when that artist gets a never ending supply of free clothing, free jewelry, free travel and free accommodations all over the world, not to mention the massive paychecks that come from advertising and endorsements.

I’d fucking GLADLY do it for free.

It's clearing house time, ladies and gents!

This is the future of the art ‘industry.’ By that I mean music, film, everything… Those who have the passion and the talent will produce. The technology is more easily accessible and art marketing has evolved to social networking because people want to feel like they’ve made the discovery and not been sold on it. The markets will flood. There will be way too much shit out there. People will not know where to look. Then, they’ll get used to it and discover their own niches. Instead of 3 billion people watching the same summer movie, 9 or 10 different, smaller movies will be watched by a respective audience of 500,000 each; audiences from different social classes and subcultures. Instead of EVERYONE listening to the new Black Eyed Peas album, some will listen to the new Diego Brown Project and some the new Psycho Realm.

Non of this is a jab at pop culture. I LOVE pop. I love to have fun, to let go and I love “I Got A Feeling.” I’m going to be fucking sick of hearing it in a week but I love the song after a couple of shots of Jaeger.

Just the other week, I was at work, assisting DJ Marc Thrasher at Whiskey Girl in downtown San Diego, and we were taking in the irony that the pre-Fergie Black Eyed Peas used to perform on that exact stage to the right of the DJ booth in which we were standing. Back then, a prolific and respected Hip Hop group, the Peas were struggling and working the local scene. Flash forward a few years and there we are, watching the crowd go nuts to a post-Fergie Peas’ “I Got A Feeling,” literally dancing on that exact stage they used to perform on every Thursday night to an audience of 40-50 drunks, back when the building was occupied by Buffalo Joe’s. I love that track, it’s a lot of fun. It’s just that the pre-Fergie Peas were like a juicy Filet Mignon while the post-Fergie Peas are more like 39cent cheese burgers from McDonalds. Man, I do love me those cheese burgers: Processed cheese, imitation meat, that delicious chemically tasting ketchup and onion mix… But is it a juicy Filet Mignon from Flemings? The real question is: If the peas got their start today, developed a following and made a respectable living doing what they absolutely love, would they have ever become the quintessential poster boys for “selling out” today?

The problem with commercial Hip Hop and pop R&B is that it’s junk food. There is a lot of amazing Hip Hop artists out there whom you’ve never heard of but who are also making a respectable living while continuing to be respected. I think they sleep easier at night. The crap you hear on the radio is a result of directions given by executives; the fat, bald white men on the 60^th floor. I’m all for taking influence from different genres but what they do is this: Locate a style of music that kids today aren’t familiar with and rape and pillage it till the kids get sick of it! A few years back, it was disco and funk. Today, they’re raping European electronica. The sweet irony of it being that when I listened to this stuff in high school, people called me gay. Now Pit Bull "raps" over it and OK!

There is a natural progression to things. With the rise of the music video, the uber-corperitization of the studio system and the Clear Channel Communications monopoly factory, the 80s and 90s definitely saw the peak of uber-mass consumption. The internet, and the peoples’ progressive second nature reliance on it, have opened doors for artists who may have never even been allowed on to the studio lot.

Light a candle for the end of that era. The talent-less hacks who’ve been shoved down our throats and the greedy motherfuckers who have lost their artistic vision and are only in it for the paycheck shall not be welcome anymore. It's clearing house time, ladies and gents.

Because we’d fucking GLADLY do it for free.

My Life As Fiction: A Journey Into My Insignificant Mind On An Insignificant Day

2009-09-18T00:49:00.000-07:00

The following post is pure brain vomit on paper. It’s frantic, inconsistent and possibly pointless. But I decided to post it anyway. I dared myself to put myself out there and I’m not going to back down from my own dare. So here it is…

I wake up late this morning. Was up till 4am frantically typing to finish the first draft of my screenplay last night.

Went up to La Jolla to meet with Kiki, the director of the film I worked on. I’m working on some more posters from the movie. He tells me that we have to incorporate some cholos into the cover design, even though cholos appear in the movie for all of 30 seconds. He tells me that the distributor he’s working with advised him to put cholos on the cover because at Wal-Mart, one of the potential outlets for DVD sales, research has shown that when there are cholos on the DVD cover, a high number of customers immediately purchase the DVD without even doing previous research on it.

I drive to meet with Bianka at Krakatoa in South Park. It’s a beautiful coffee shop. I’m tired and have decided not to go to the gym today so I smoke. I have this obsessive compulsive belief that I can’t go to the gym after smoking. After I’m done with the coffee shop, on the drive home, I decide to go to the gym anyway. I feel anxiety the entire time I’m driving there.

When I get to the gym, I go to the bathroom first. I barely have to go but I go anyway because I worry that I might have to go later and it will interrupt my workout. Right now, as I type this, it takes me a few minutes to think of the word “interrupt.” It’s a word I use 100 times a day but I couldn’t think of if right now for some reason.

I carry this little notebook with me in the gym so I can write down ideas when they come to me during a workout. Most of what I consider to be my best ideas come to me in the gym, for some bizarre reason. On my way out of the restroom, I suddenly feel like a small child. I grip the notebook as if I’m an abused five year-old and it’s my personal diary. I’m staring straight down at the floor and avoiding eye contact with everyone, fighting back nonexistent tears which have no apparent cause. I have the overwhelming urge to crawl into fetal position right there on the floor. I feel intensely sorry for myself and loose any and all interest in the opposite sex. I force myself to be “normal” and stretch, as I normally do at the beginning of a workout. Next to me, there is what could be described as an 8.5 brunette in tight workout clothes, doing stretch poses that boarder on pornographic. She could put strippers to shame. I don’t even take a second look. As I type this, I feel anxiety about people reading it and feeling annoyed. But I type it anyway. I feel silly for worrying about it.

I drive home in silence. When I get home, I frantically make sandwiches for myself and Bianka. We watch an episode of Firefly. We laugh and have a great time, chowing down on turkey and watermelon. After the episode is over, my mood does a sudden 180 and I become irritable for no apparent reason. She is making jokes and talking to me and I’m irritated for no logical reason. I feel guilty for being irritable because I know how unfair it must be to her, having to deal with this emotional roller coaster. Or she’s used to it by now; I can’t be sure.

There is a helicopter flying overhead, searching for a suspect. Seems to be a regular occurrence in our neighborhood.

I step outside to finish my first glass of wine and have a smoke. This has become my ritual when I want to get in the mind frame to write. If you ever drive through Pershing Avenue on a Wednesday or Thursday night, you might see an unshaven 6’5, 250lbs guy in shorts and cut off sleeves standing on the side walk, wondering around and trying to keep his knock knees as straight as possible. He’ll be holding a glass of red and a long & thin brown cigarette.

I get lost in day dream world, trying to finish the red and the cig as fast as possible so I don’t forget the things I want to write when I sit down. I dream about drinking this same glass of wine on the patio of my mansion on the Hollywood hills, overlooking the city lights. I day dream about my friends being there. In my day dreams, I’m the same age as I am now even though in reality, IF I ever make it to that patio on the Hollywood hills, I will most likely be in my 50s. Key word: IF. I think about how I don’t really dream of vanity and riches. My attraction to that life is simply not having to worry about money. I don’t dream of owning the country, just my freedom to lounge around and create.

I think about all the people I have to call back. My cousin text me earlier tonight, asking how I’m doing but by the time I noticed her text, it’s almost midnight and I resolve to call her back tomorrow. I will make notes as reminders to do so. Tomorrow, I will probably forget. I feel like a shit. I have all these good intentions and want to be a good brother, lover and friend but I seem to keep fucking it up somehow. I used to feel shame and rage. Now I just feel confusion. There is some life equation I haven’t been able to figure out. What is it that others seem to know that I don’t?

I want to call my brother as well. It seems so easy to just pick up the phone. Come tomorrow, however, I will try to do it and I’ll keep talking myself out of it for some inexplicable reason. He wants nothing but my happiness but I have a hard time accepting his love. I can’t figure out why. Other people call me to ask how I’m doing and I keep forgetting to call them back. I think back to a time when a therapist of mine assigned me homework: Write down a list of your accomplishments, no matter how mundane. Next week’s session comes and it turns out that I have completely deleted the memory of her having assigned said assignment. She laughs and says, “very interesting!” She explains to me that I always remember everything else we talk about and that I even follow up on important points and do research on specific subjects relating to our sessions, and yet, this one simple thing, listing my accomplishments, is the single thing I completely delete from my memory banks.

I get lost in this daze of thoughts before running back inside and sitting at the keyboard, trying to expel them from my mind as fast as possible before they vanish like a shadow you might see from the corner of your eye, turning your head as fast as you can to catch it. But when you turn your head, the shadow’s gone. Maybe your place is haunted, you joke to yourself.

I write best when I’m punching keys as hard as I can. My keyboard can’t possibility have too much life left in it. Will probably have to buy a new one soon.

I type the title: On Being A Late Bloomer.

I want to write an entry about starting out late in life. About how I started working out late, focusing on me late, focusing on art late, learning how to push myself & work hard late, doing more blue collar-ish jobs late, not giving a shit and drinking wine on a weeknight late, letting loose late and... Late. It all feels late. It feels like I should have done all this stuff in my teens but I was too busy being proper and creating a respectable image. I spent all this time being a grown up when I was a kid and now that I’m a grown up I’m trying to be a kid. Life is a book. When you skip five chapters in a row, you’re bound to be confused and feel the need to go back when you realize you’ve missed the introduction of an important character or a plot twist.

I manically race to the restroom, piss as fast as I can and race back to the computer to write. My heart is beating. My pulse is racing.

When I write, I get distracted the instant someone talks to me. Can’t seem to multi task. If I’m writing, and the phone rings, it feels like there is this ridiculous lag time between my brain accepting the information (someone is calling) and switching away from auto-pilot frantic creative mode. Then, it seems to take a long time to switch back.

I envision living in a world where I don’t have to apologize for my emotions. Where I can just say I’m irritable and people will respond with, “cool, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Where people can just tell me they’re irritable and I understand without judgment or hesitation.

I write all this and consider not posting it. Then I remember my resolution: I will put myself out there. I will not hide anything anymore. I will share my insides and innards without shame or hesitation. This mask that I’ve been wearing for god knows how long must come off. I can’t be the artist I aspire to be while wearing it. Anyone who looks down on me for doing this doesn’t need to be in my life anymore. I theorize that they must have grown fond of a character which I invented in order to be accepted. The real me is a frantic mess. Take me, the good, bad and the ugly.

I’m convinced that all these idiosyncrasies and eccentricities serve a purpose. I can’t simply be cursed. I’m too optimistic to accept that they’re all weaknesses. They are strengths. They must be. They are what make me an “artist.”

I’m stripping naked. These clothes they put on me are too tight. They’re suffocating. They make me wear a tie when I go to work. I’m a fashion nut and yet, I hate wearing a tie to work. I want to wear a t-shirt. I want to wear whatever I god damn well please. When they tell me to wear a tie, even though I love ties, I hate the tie. I like to wear a tie when I go out to play. Why? Because fuck them, that’s why! I smile at the thought of channeling Matt Damon from Good Will Hunting. Did you know that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were offered large sums of money to sell the script for Good Will Hunting so that other, bigger stars could be cast? They refused. They fought, stumped their feet and held out until someone would offer them a deal to let them star in it themselves. It paid off. They’re superstars.

I chuckle that today was actually a very very tame day. I know that because on the real dark days, I’m way too lost in the abyss of my insanity to be able to gather my thoughts enough to actually write them down. Today was a very tame day, indeed.

Looking at me from the outside, you see a smiling, happy, sociable guy. You’d never guess. None of us ever do. So many of us look like tame lakes but are, in reality, a stormy ocean complete with lightening and thunder. Maybe that’s the gift of the artist: His utter inability to keep the storm hidden. We put the storm out there so that others may watch, read or listen to it so that they don’t feel alone in the world. If the artists didn’t do it, who would?

Josh Olson On Assholes Who Don't Respect Your Profession

2009-09-13T14:02:00.000-07:00

Josh Olson, writer of A History Of Violence and the forthcoming Halo, wrote a really great piece about annoying "aspiring" writers who ask him to read their scripts. Assholes who think it's OK to ask a professional to do free work for them. A lot like assholes that hit up their web designer friends for free web design, because since they can't physically see the designer toiling away, assume that it's not "too much work" or "too much to ask" to just request a "little basic website, nothing fancy." Sure, let me get on coding that for you on my lunch break at 12am. You've sure figured it out, we work from home for a couple of hours and charge for 25 hours of labor; it's all a scam.

I agree with 95% of what Josh says except for this one part: "It only takes a sentence to know you're dealing with someone who can't [write]."

That's bullshit. The journey of ALL ARTISTS is a long one. It takes ALL OF US a lot of work to discover our voices and to clear out the grime and gunk in our talents and abilities. Dismissing someone's talents with one sentence is pompous and screams of insecurity on the dismissers part. I have known many creative professionals who cut their potentially more talented aspiring apprentices down (very obviously) because they are threatened by them. I had a graphic design teacher who could barely veil his petty selfishness, refusing to give credit where credit is due and "encouraging" students to make changes which actually HURT their work and drove there projects into the ground. He didn't want more competition in his day job: Professional graphic designer.

So read this great column and skip over that part. Or rather, don't skip it, but know that it's just one man's opinion. The rest of the article is pure gold and Josh Olson is a talented man.

The Village Voice - Josh Olson

My favorite snippet...

There's a great story about Pablo Picasso. Some guy told Picasso he'd pay him to draw a picture on a napkin. Picasso whipped out a pen and banged out a sketch, handed it to the guy, and said, "One million dollars, please."

"A million dollars?" the guy exclaimed. "That only took you thirty seconds!"

"Yes," said Picasso. "But it took me fifty years to learn how to draw that in thirty seconds."

My Life As Fiction: Adventures In Job Hunting: Group Interviews

2009-09-03T01:37:00.000-07:00

Let me get right to the point... Fuck group interviews.

I scan the room while asking myself repeatedly, “Is this what I’m reduced to?” Braces Boyface walks past me, then steps back to ask, “Do you work here?”

How did I end up in this room with these people?

It all started two weeks ago on one of my weekly strolls through the online job fair that is Craig’s List. Ask anyone who’s been on a job hunt (a serious grown up one) and they’ll tell ya: Fuck group interviews. You’re bound to run into quite a few B.S. “opportunities” out there and the one sure fire road to not making any money is getting suckered into a group interview. The word “interview,” in fact, feels insulted when it is associated with this bizarre practice where salesmen try to sell you on the excitement of being a salesmen. Your resume could list you as the ex-Secretary General of the UN and they’ll still stick you in a room with two 17 year olds and an ex convict, pitching you the same way the do every other poor sucker who happens to walk through their doors.

The red flags that give them away are fairly consistent. They spend the majority of the posting selling themselves, they upload eye catching logos, show off their NASDAQ listing, promise you ridiculous riches with minimal hours… They try to make it sound like they are going to be really selective in their process . I saw one post that actually said, “Sorry! This not a telemarketing job.” Sorry? Nothing can be more off-putting than feeling like you’re the employee they’re suckering in rather than the ones who had real interviews and now have real offices upstairs. In this economy, no real employer offering a real job has to sell you on working for him.

I’d rather not reveal the real name of the company I’ll be gossiping about so I’m going to change some of the details of this story…

I scrolled across a posting titled: “Widget Enthusiasts Wanted!!!” Three exclamation points? Wow, this one must be a good one! Everyone knows that I love widgets. When I’m not making widgets in my spare time, I’m either reading about them or discussing them with other widget enthusiasts. Many people tell me I’m a pretty good widgeteer myself. I click on the link and read through the posting. “Great new service… Customer service involved… Yada yada yada… Fifteen openings?” There is only one kind of job which has fifteen openings these days and that’s door-to-door sales. I know this, but for some reason, I click on the email link anyway and send in my resume. I think to myself, “Fuck it. I’ll just apply and see what happens.”

A couple of days go by and I get an email from Santos@WidgetsXpress.com with a long description of the interviewing process. The second major red flag should have been the fact that the email noted: “Dress appropriately.” It is no secret in the hospitality industry that the stricter the dress code at a nightclub, the more likely it is that the venue is used to dealing with a certain audience which requires a strict dress code. A club that says “no denim” on their door should be avoided at all costs; you might get stabbed in there. I should have applied this same principal to the office world. The email tells me to be there Monday at 3pm and that “late arrivals will be turned away.”

Monday rolls around. I’m busy with work and personal issues. Time has passed since that initial excitement of talking myself into just throwing caution to the wind. The caution has, in fact, blown right back into my face. I skip the interview.

On Tuesday, another email form Santos: “We missed you yesterday. I take it you’re not interested then?” They actually emailed me back! I felt terrible! I imagined poor Santos sitting there in his office, with a shiny new tie and hot Columbian roast, eagerly awaiting my arrival and I, the pompous asshole that I am, totally standing him up! I replied with an excuse filled apology, promising to make it up to him. Luckily, Santos can meet with me later that night. This can’t be a group interview, I thought. There is no way that they would have even noticed a missing man if it was. I’ve seen these things before; they’re used to people not showing up.

So come the evening, I put on my most appropriate slacks, button up shirt, tie and jacket. I arrive at the address which Santos had emailed me a half hour early. It’s an industrial looking office park off Miramar road. I pull into a parking spot and hop out of the car. It’s damn hot and I’m looking forward to an air conditioned office. I walk in the front door and my heart sinks. Sitting in front of me is a stack clip boards with applications and a note to sign in and wait. FUCK! It IS a group interview!

I grab a clip board and sit at a chair, filling in the information, pouting all the way. Looking back now, it was actually kind of liberating as it was the first time that I could have cared less how I filled out the application. On the job history part, I put “see resume.” I didn’t even say “please.” That’s right, I was a rebellious badass for that seven minute window.

I step back into the parking lot and consider taking off. Then I feel bad that I had this whole exchange with Santos where I promised to be there. I’d look like a total asshole if I left now. I should at least hear him out. A car drives past me a couple of times, looking for a parking spot. It is covered in US Marine Corps stickers, complete with a Marine license plate. I walk back into the office, like the obedient pussy that I am.

A few minutes go by and a girl in her Sunday best walks in. We’ll call her Geek Gurl. “Do you work here?” she inquires. I reply that I don’t. She then notices the stack of clipboards and grabs one. We sit in silence.

The next to walk in is Oorah, whom I recognize from the parking lot, concluding that she was successful in locating a parking spot. She’s actually smoking hot and very well dressed. A fat rock blings on her wedding finger.

A few more minutes pass and in walks Braces Boyface. He looks like a little boy and has braces. I knock my head back, taking in the humiliation of being in a group interview with a kid coming out of high school. I scan the room while asking myself repeatedly, “Is this what I’m reduced to?” Braces Boyface walks past me, then steps back to ask, “Do you work here?” I tell him I don’t and direct him to the clipboards.

A few more victims walk into the fun house. Everyone is dressed up the way kids dress up when they don’t know how to dress up. We sit in silence. I’m texting my misery to my girlfriend when the infamous Santos calls my name, introduces himself and asks me to his office. He seems like a nice guy. He’s dressed like a salesman; slacks and a shirt that don’t match with bulky black boots instead of proper dress shoes. I barely make eye contact with him, continuing my texting. Take that, asshole! That’s what I think of your group “interview” that you’ve duped me into!

In his “office” we chat for a bit. He asks some basic questions and concludes that I have a good resume and am “eligible to meet with the CEO of the company for a second interview.” I’m so good, in fact, that the second interview is in five minutes in the conference room. He leads me there and I sit. Ten minutes later, every single person who was in the waiting room is now in the conference room. Not just everyone who was in the waiting room with me, but also a couple of late comers as well. What the fuck happened to “late arrivals will be turned away?”

So there we are, sitting around this conference table in a place that looks like a community college class room. There is Braces Boyface in the corner, with the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up above his biceps. Next to him is Shy, an Asian girl who looks uncomfortable in her own skin. Then Oorah, sitting very properly with an arched back. Next to her is Phoenix, the spunky read head. The shaved headed late comer sits to her right, a Mira Masian who we’ll call Thug Love, wearing a baggy polo shirt and Dickies. Geek Gurl separates him and I. To my right is Mary Jane, bubbly and ditzy. The group is capped off with an older, very well dressed black man with a passing resemblance to Ving Rhames, who we will call Ving. We exchange stories, waiting for the CEO to show up. The other students seem weary of the ad and a bit suspicious of the “opportunity.” I am relieved that I’m not the only one. Geek Gurl tells me she worked in IT until she was laid off and that she wouldn’t have come in to this interview if she knew if was a group interview. Others agree. I wonder to myself how an office with seven cubicles in an industrial parking lot has the bureaucratic structure to necessitate an actual CEO. Someone asks me if I’m into widgets and if that is why I came. I tell them that I am and it is. Upon hearing this, Thug Love informs me that he thought I worked there.

Fifteen minutes later, we are graced with the presence of the CEO, John. John is a very handsome man in his 40s with a square jaw and sun kissed skin. He wears the uniform of the straight, hip, well off older man: Bright colored, floral patterned, button up designer shirt with big cuffs (not tucked in) and expensive flared jeans accented by pointy dress shoes. He is tall, confident and energetic. I’m reminded of Tony Robins telling people half his size and twice his weight to be more confident.

John sits at the front of the table and spreads out the resumes in front of him. I spy a very professional looking four paragraph cover letter among them. Another application is stapled to a three page resume. Either that particular applicant is the actual ex-Secretary General of the UN or he just doesn’t know how to change font sizes in Microsoft Word. John calls out individual names from the resumes and asks, “So what do you like best about our company so far?” The ancient sales trick of getting people thinking positively. Everyone in the room feeds right into it. People who just a minute ago were telling me they were weary of the job were now sucking up hard enough to put Hoover to shame. Almost everyone’s answer was something to the effect of wanting to be involved with a “growing company.” I wonder if there was some job interviewing advice book which had been passed around by the group without me noticing. Thug Love is still filling out his application. I mentally note that he has shockingly immaculate hand writing. John asks me what I like about the company. I reply that I like widgets.

John is now standing up and in full swing of his sales pitch. He’s writing stuff on the board and asking totally obvious questions designed to get us physically involved and invested. Questions as obvious as, “who drove their car over here today, show of hands!” I don’t raise my hand. I hope he calls on me so I can tell him that I rode my magic carpet instead. John tells us that there are three kinds of widgeteers in the market, the professional widgeteers, the widget enthusiasts and the average widget lovers - widget enthusiasts being the ones we’re targeting. If you ask me, widget enthusiasts are just bitches who don’t have the balls to follow their passion of being professional widgeteers.

Jean smiles enthusiastically, literally the entire time. She nods at all the right junctures. Oorah never un-arches her back and answers with “yes sir” when asked direct questions. Thug Love is that guy in presentations who responds to every point as if the presenter is talking directly to him. Geek Gurl is The Agree-er; nodding and agreeing with everything John says. Phoenix is surprisingly quiet. Shy doesn’t say a word.

As the presentation -I’m sorry- “group interview” gets to the 35 minute point, John is getting into an excited frenzy, telling us about his company’s widget product. Even though his widget product is a total rip off of another widget product I personally own, he’s hyping his brand with no shame. It’s getting out of control. “Take a look at our widgets!” he’s almost shouting, “without a doubt the most revolutionary and original widget product on the market! This other widget that’s been around for many many years is totally bullshit. Our widget is better in every possible way! Our widgets will change the widget landscape! Our widgets will anally rape any widgets that dare get in our way!” Everyone in the room is worked up into a frenzy as well and joining in the chant to burn the homes of all other widget makers. Ving sings John’s widgets’ praises. “In fact,” Ving says, “I heard those other widgets kissed a girl… And they LIKED it!” I fear that any second now, the group is going to tear their clothes off and storm the halls, bludgeoning anyone who stands in the way of this amazing new widget discovery. I tighten my grip on my Bic pen, preparing myself for the possibility of having to use it as a stabbing weapon for self defense.

An hour passes by and John has still not gotten to the part where he tells us what the fucking job actually is. At this point, I’m thinking that this whole thing might not even be about jobs but about just selling the widget product directly to US. As I’m starting to doze off, he finally gets to the point and it went something like this: “So the job is… Selling cantaloupes!” Huh? “Well, we know that people who eat cantaloupes also love widgets. So our plan is to sell cantaloupes to widget lovers.”

The frenzy comes to a pause. “We will make appointments for you and you will go to people’s homes to sell them the cantaloupes.” Ving’s face and tone suddenly changes dramatically. “Wait, this job involves going to people’s homes?” John confirms and quickly prepares himself for anything Ving might throw back at him. The dreaded standoff between the puppet master and that one puppet who just discovered that he has a soul and free will. Ving shakes his head, stands up and walks out the room. John doesn’t miss a beat and continues. I sit there, stewing in envy. I should do that! I should get up and leave this ridiculous charade! Fuck; how come I’m still sitting here? How come my testicals didn’t drop when they were supposed to? I pass on taking John’s business card which serves as my silent rebellion, but can’t muster the strength to just get up and walk out. Partly that, and partly because this whole experience has been such a comedic adventure that I continue writing notes in my calendar to use for future stories and screenplays.

A full two hours have passed since I entered this damned office. John is now doing the thing where he keeps emphasizing “IF we select you for this position, blaw blaw blaw, IF…” The company is pretty exclusive, you see. We are to email John if we are interested in continuing and IF we’re selected, we will be invited to a third “interview.”

When John’s speech is finally over, I’m the first one sprinting for the door. In the parking lot, Thug Love calls out to me. “Aye, homie – you gonna come back for the third interview?” I channel my inner street cred. “Nah.” That’s it – that’s the extent of my street cred. I continue to explain, “He spent an hour selling his brand and five minutes actually telling us what the job is. I’m not feeling it.” He nods, hops into his lowered Chevy and peels out of the parking lot.

Fuck group interviews.

Our cats, our kids. Our Chids.

2009-08-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

As the real world shifted from blurry soft focus to a clear sharp image this morning, I started to turn my body to the right, kicked my left foot forward and was halted by Bianka’s alarming announcement: “Careful, don’t kick Dolce!” The fat cat was sleeping at her feet and she didn’t want his comfortable slumber interrupted. Never mind that cats sleep an average of 13-18 hours per day.

I rolled back to my side and, in my foggy haze, felt a desire to grab one of the cats to cuddle with à la teddy bear. Thus began the avalanche of thoughts… Our cats are like our kids, here in referred to as our “Chids.”

Here are the vitals: We believe the cats to be from the Bombay breed; black, muscular and larger than the average house cat. The original breeders were actually trying to create miniature panthers. “Jesus, what do you feed your cats,” is most often asked (exclaimed actually) by house guests.

Dante is the alpha male. He beats up on Dolce (the fat one) all the time, gets to eat first and thinks this is his apartment. As soon as an unknown entity enters our home, however, he’s the first one to run hiding, He is thin and loves to play and explore.

Dloce is the submissive one. He’s fat, more cuddly and less afraid of guests. He has to wait for Dante to finish eating before he can eat, or he’ll deal with Dante’s wrath.

People who say cats have no personality have never had one. If anything, Bianka and I have discovered that, emotionally, cats are much more similar to humans than dogs. This observation is the reason, we theorize, dog-people detest cats so much; if a cat doesn’t like something that you’re doing, he’ll tell you (in his own way) rather than a dog who will get kicked in the face by his owner and continue wagging his tale and enthusiastically asking for more. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE dogs. All I’m saying is this: Dog-lovers tend to passionately hate cats. Cat-lovers, on the other hand, tend to either love dogs as well or be somewhat indifferent. To us, cat-lovers, it feels like dog-lovers are insecure people who desperately need constant validation from their pets rather than being able to love their pets for who they are and being able to respect their pets for needing their own individual space.

Much like our kids.

It occurred to me that our relationship with our cats is a total reflection of our parents’ relationship with us. I want to hold the cats close and squeeze them, but they pull away, feeling claustrophobic. My divorced parents, both independently of each other, have always dreamt that I would move in with them and we could live together. My dad wishes that he and I were buddies, living together in sunny Orange County and (when feeling crazy) hitting the Mission Viejo Soup Plantation where he can treat me to a buffet of soup and salad. He’d even purchase me a drink so that I would have all the refillable Diet Coke my heart desired. He would use his senior discount. We feast and talk about life, politics and women till the night's end (10pm). My mom, on the other hand, always wished that we could live together so that I could continue my roll as her surrogate partner, which I have been learning is not uncommon in our culture. She could cook every day, clean my room and we could see movies together.

Most of the time, when we try to hold the cats close, the freak out a bit, feel overwhelmed and push away. When my parents call me at all hours of the night and keep trying to see me, I push away, feeling overwhelmed and angry that they are not respecting my space. One or the other has been on the other side of the planet for a significant part of my life. I feel rage, push their love away and ask, “what the hell gives you the right to ask me for a detailed daily itinerary NOW?” Never mind that most likely, they are trying to make conversation; I hear it as they are trying to control me.

When we sit on the couch, Dante likes to pop his head up from time to time, be petted, and then move on his merry way. He doesn’t like to just sit on our laps for hours at a time. We used to try picking Dante up and putting him on our laps but he would take off the second we let go of him. So now, we try to coax him into sitting on our laps by sitting very still, doing whatever we can to entice him. When I see my parents, I enjoy a couple of hours of banter and dinner. When I try to leave, they keep trying to get me to stay and to “talk more about what’s going on in my life.” I take off running as soon as I hit the parking lot. They have since re-engineered their efforts. My mom now tries to be very pressure-free and let me be the one to go to her. My dad, the financial wiz, likes to give me money; his form of positive reinforcement. Not a lot of money, just enough to make me hungry for more. Then, when they’re not calling to check up on me (answering MY request to be left alone) I feel unloved and hurt that they are not reaching out to me. When Bianka and I leave the cats alone for a weekend, we come back to a disaster area. Things have been trashed, food dishes flipped over and walls scratched… Our Chids want to be independent but when we leave them alone, they respond with anger.

Dante, the alpha, talks a big game about running this house (in cat, of course) but as soon as an “intruder” hits his turf, Dante is the first one hiding under the bed. One inebriated Saturday night, we had a cute little female cat as a guest (long story) which solidified my view of Dante and the perfect reflection of Alphas in our society. I’m sure even Dante was forced to ask himself how he had been reduced to hiding from this cat-fetale who was nearly half his size. Dolce, on the other hand, stayed in the living room, hissing at the little girl kitty. Outside, in the real world, I was reminded of all the alpha conservatives who considered water boarding to not be real torture. When Chicago radio personality, Mancow, accepted the challenge, he lasted six seconds. A liberal policymaker once said that the reason conservatives think that torture works is because it works on them. I have no doubt that Dick Cheney would gladly spill all the states secrets if he was hung upside down in a dark room. An alpha like him can’t conceive of the level of passion (mislead or not) it takes to accept the pain because you believe in a greater cause. As a beta male, myself, I felt much like Dolce. A “threat” enters my domain and I’m the one that stands my ground while all the alphas I know are nowhere to be seen. The alphas get all the credit for having obtained the high paying jobs and the trophy wives while I’m the one who has the balls to be honest about human emotions and feelings, I’m the one who is not so easily threatened by dealing with the “real issues” of the human condition and yet I’m the one that gets no credit from my parents… I’m the fat one, I’m the emotional one, I’m the one that has to wait for the alphas to finish eating before I get a chance.

Dante loves to explore the outside world but only on his terms. When we leave the front door open, he slips out to the courtyard of our apartments but only goes a certain distance. When I pick him up and try to walk him further, he starts freaking out. Growing up, I bitched about curfews and wanted to be left alone to discover the world. When my mom enrolled me in a new school as a child I cried and, today, when my dad tries to push me into a career path which is not on my terms, I freak out.

When we pet one, the other looks over a bit jealously. When we try to give equal attention, it’s either wrongly timed or is received with a lukewarm response from the respective kitty who is accepting the attention only because he doesn’t want to pass it up, not because he really wants it at that particular moment. Been there, done that.

Our Chids scratch up the carpet, pee in weird places, get sick, fight like banshees, make up five minutes later, jump on the table when they know their not supposed to, get mad at us, hold grudges against each other, hold grudges against us, freak out, cry and sneak out without us knowing, accidentally getting locked out for the night and crying till the next morning till we let them in. Sometimes when I work from home, Dolce randomly decides he needs attention and jumps on my lap. I try to type around him and he keeps trying to distract me, hitting the key board, trying to jump on the table (which he knows not to do) and then looking into my eyes and purring when I cave in. I used to joke that now I know what it must feel like for parents who try to work from home. I didn’t think, at that time, that living with our Chids would be the catalyst for my own reflection of my relationship with my own parents.

Congress Deadlocked Over How To Not Provide Health Care

2009-08-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

The Onion rocks. And that's all I've got to say about that...

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/congress_deadlocked_over_how_to

Elitists Suck / Movie Critics

2009-08-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

I was reminded of a magnificent film I watched last year by a recent Facebook exchange with my friend, Jenna. The film is The Lives Of Others. In brief, it is the story of a spy following the lives of an artist and his lover in East Berlin in the 1980s. As I conveyed to Jenna, "It hit all the buttons I like in my art: It was exciting/well paced, emotionally captivating, intelligently written, educational and on top of all that it was sexy, chic and elegantly shot/directed." This prompted me to look it up on the Tomato Meter.

http://tiny.cc/MAsKD

It is "Certified Fresh" clocking in a rating of 93%. Not shocking. It is an amazing film. The thing that prompted me to write this entry, however, was not the positive reviews but the handful of negatives.

I wonder... Do the handful of critics that give negative reviews to a film which is overwhelmingly positively received ever consider that maybe they were just in a bad mood when they gave the negative reviews? Or that they have some sort of personal bias against the director? Or the story?

Seriously, when you're in a room and EVERYONE around you agrees that the sky is blue, wouldn't that make you think maybe they might have a point? I'm sure the critics in question would argue that they're not going to just follow the sheep. A sharp critic might use Gigli (http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=gigli&x=0&y=0) as an example. Gigli, starring Ben Affleck and J Lo was, without question, a bad movie. The critics' responce to it, however, was very obviously pandering to that era's Beniffer bashing frenzy. Gigli had become the Frankenstein's monster of the film community. I was actually surprised that Ben Affleck was not chased down in the streets by an angry mob wielding torches.

Examples like Gigli aside, my personal experience with Rotten Tomatoes has been this: When everyone overwhelmingly agrees that a film is good (really really good), the few descendants tend to come off as total curmudgeons, reaching desperately to find reasons to justify their negative reviews. Joe Esterhaus (writer of Basic Instinct) would surely argue that it's because the film critics in question are actually aspiring screen writers, bitter at the world and trying too hard to show off their knowledge of film. I would take it a step further to say they are the elitists within the elitists; maybe they are thinking to themselves: "It is not enough that the masses are responding favorably (so it MUST be low quality) then if even the critics are responding favorably (those corporate sheep) then I must stay above all that and call this out on the trash it really is!"

One critic complained that the ending was too sentimental, a common complaint of elitists who don't like happy endings. They bitch that happy endings are very Hollywood. Though I would not argue this, I would argue that there would be no point in making movies about the status quo. If the movie is about a German spy, why would the story teller want to tell the story of the 453 other German spys who followed all the rules and led an unremarkable life? How interesting would that story be? I want to hear the story of that one random renegade who broke the mold! That's the one worth telling a story about! Why do I want to watch a movie about a guy that just goes to work every day? I want to watch the movie about the guy that goes to work at it turns out that his boss is dating his daughter; THAT is the story to tell!

Elitists suck.

They suck because they hold art hostage for themselves because they feel less special about their "ownership" of it because now "everyone else" has discovered it.

Elitists can come from many walks of life... They can be the high society art flunkies who host private exhibitions of some hot new artist in Soho (whom someone important has said that they're the next big thing!) which they charge ludicrous sums of money for attendance or keep the invite list down to only a select few other "important people to know." They sneer at the hip hop artist down the block who speaks poetry to millions. Elitists can be the coffee shop hipsters who loved Jason Meraz when he performed at Lestat's and have since, branded him a sellout because he's on a big label. Or the Ravers who liked a DJ before he "went mainstream" by using vocals on his newest tracks (not considering for a second that he might be evolving as an artist and has always wanted to use vocals but couldn't afford it). Elitists can be the independent movie goers who refuse to see any film which gets play on the big chain movie theaters. These same movie goers are the ones that go to see a comedy from Spain but watch with intense seriousness because they mistakenly believe that "good" art must be very very serious art indeed. This one hit me personally... The last time I went to see a Pedro Amadovar film at The Ken, I laughed at some parts (because they were fucking funny) and was given dirty looks from other attendees who felt that I was perverting their cultural outing. A buddy and I had a similar experience when watching Sideways (a full on comedy!) at the Landmark in La Jolla.

There is so much great art out there that the masses don't find access to because they are intimidated by the elitists who guard the gates. They conclude that if you prefer Budweiser over Heiniken, than you must be a flunky who just won't "get" the art they hold so dearly (as a status symbol). They guard the gates by serving only wine and asking you to order it for yourself. They haze you by forcing you to pronounce the kind of wine you want and correct your pronunciation when you do; a very subtle "fuck you" if you ask me. They talk about you and that cheap suit you're wearing and the shoes that don't match your belt. The pattern of your tie is out of style because someone important said so. They make it so you will walk away thinking you'll never be caught dead in another gallery opening so that you'll never have to wear the monkey suit on a Friday night again. They breathe a sigh of relief because secretly, they are terrified that you can kick their ass. They were bullied in high school, physically, so they grow to bully you, intellectually.

The elitist is a bully, plain and simple.

Elitists suck. When I call someone an elitist, it is the equivalent of calling their mother a @#%^ loving #$%@ who loves to #$^% their own *&@#.

The Lives of Others is a near perfect film. See it. Laugh at the funny parts and be moved by the emotional parts, in whatever order you choose. Don't make it an important cultural outing... Just grab a beer from the fridge and watch it casually, in your boxers. Fuck the gate keepers. You don't have to go past them to enjoy great art. The gate only exists in their imagination.

The Artistic Temperament

2009-08-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

"I'm an artist... I'm an artist... This comes with the territory... I'm an artist..."

This is what I keep chanting when facing a total emotional/psychological breakdown over something very (I'm told) simple. I get worked up in weird situations like having to pick up the phone to call a family member I haven't talked to in a while. It's ridiculous. Believe me, I'm well aware of how ridiculous it is, but I can't help it. Meds? Out of the question.

I create hyper detailed scenarios in my head of people's reactions. When I try to lie, I imagine the person I'm lying to catching me red-handed in a million different ways; everyone else in the world is Perry Mason and I'm the witness. So I just gave up lying. Then I get into trouble because I'm too honest so I come off as aloof and pompous. So I stop talking. The rage internalizes, festers and spews out in totally bizarre situations. They suddenly get channeled at a friend who makes a little joke. Then everyone is confused. Then I purge with yoga or meditation. Then the cycle starts over again.

Hypo-mania, depression, anxiety and bipolarism. Anger, lust, rage, drop dead insane kicked in the teeth love and then sudden complete detachment. Repenting, lying, crying, cheating, fantasizing and happy endings. All of these in a manner of a few hours.

I had a really great therapist last year who concluded that I have what she referred to as "The Artistic Temperament." "Let's face it," she would say to me, "all artists are a little... different." Took a while for that to sink in but over the past few months, I've come to embrace it. Because, let's face it, I'm either a total fucking looser/whack-job OR... I'm eccentric. Since I don't really want the former as my identity, I resolved to stand on rooftops, shouting my personal proclamation of the latter.

These days, I spend more and more time with other artists. Musicians, DJs, rappers, painters... Yeah, everyone is at least just a little cooky. It just comes with the territory. Artists can only BE artists by stepping outside of what my friend, Brent, refers to as "The Drone World." The Drones wake up every day at 7am, read the same paper, eat the same breakfast, take the same road to work, work the same 8 hours, kiss the same asses, one up the same coworkers, politic the same departments, come home the same road, sit in front of the same TV, watch the same reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond, eat the same dinner, pay the same bills and go to sleep in the same bed dreaming of purchasing or maintaining the same house, the same white picket fence and the same car. They think they "own" their home (the bank owns it). Then, as soon as they pay off that house after a 40 year mortgage, they get back into debt to get a new home. Everything I just described is pure bliss in The Drone World.

Fucking... SHOOT ME.

Let me live happily in a studio apartment for the rest of my life if it means I get to go on adventures in South America, meeting new friends from Australia in a hostel in Madrid, making movies, acting, writing things that will be treasured by others (Even if it's just a handful of them), contributing something to this world other than my broken back. Easier said than done? Always.

The Artistic Temperament is what keeps you from successfully maintaining employment. Sure, you can charm your way into the job but the instant you're in there, it becomes immediately apparent to your colleagues and superiors that you do not belong there. You question everything, not necessarily due to a lack of respect for authority but a constant lack of acceptance for that status quo. The Artist is constantly asking, "Why?" He doesn't do it to be an asshole; he just can't understand. The Artist's brain is wired to create things from scratch. The idea of doing something just because it's always been done that way seems impossible. The Artist genuinely tries to understand but he just can't. The sooner The Artist accepts this, the easier his life will become.

The Artistic Temperament is that thing inside that makes you cry at the sight of a beautiful sunrise or a certain cord on the violin. It's the thing that makes you feel totally crushed at a small set back and yet totally untouched and aloof at something that should be devastating. Everything the Drones tell you about what you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to feel just doesn't pertain to you. You keep trying but it just doesn't fit.

If emotions were sound, then there would be a loud speaker jammed in the artist's ear. When people whisper, The Artist hears a scream.

Art is a demon. It is a curse which inhabits your body and doesn't allow you to follow the Drones. If you don't comply with the demon, the demon turns on you. If you don't use a pen and pad to write your stories down, the characters stay in your head and find ways to manipulate you, turning you against your loved ones. You'll create stories about them, thing that they do behind your back and ways they are planning to fuck you over. If you're not channeling your creative energy into your art, it turns on you.

Art is a demon, cursing your ability to simply "be normal."

Art is a gift to the world.

Accept The Artistic Temperament as something that comes with the territory. Once you figure out how to do this, tell me how.

Exactly What Iranians Need

2009-08-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

Jake Gyllenhaal.

He will be starring in the forthcoming action adventure based on one of the most popular games of all time, The Prince of Persia. The jest of the story, according to the Internet Movie Database: “Set in medieval Persia, the story of an adventurous prince who teams up with a rival princess to stop an angry ruler from unleashing a sandstorm that could destroy the world.” It’s from Jerry Brukheimer and Disney, the same team that brought us the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

I’m feeling a mixture of emotions. On one hand, I’m excited beyond belief that we get to have a Hollywood style rebuttal to 300 and scores of other movies where we’re the bad guys. On the other hand, I’m so disappointed that the wave broke before I event got a chance to steady my surfboard! The latter, of course, being totally selfish. I have been day dreaming, planning, writing, sketching and musically scoring my own Persian action adventure for many years. Who knows, maybe that means that once TPOP is made, it will just be that much easier to get my baby produced. But I digress…

Why It’s Important

Beyond the pettiness, my dream has always been to make it in Hollywood so I can tell stories that get people to change their perceptions of us. The fact is that emotional memory (and not so much logical memory) resonates at a much more intense level with the majority of people in the world. People's perceptions of history and different cultures rely more on fond memories of their favorite childhood characters in books and less on an intellectual understanding of sociopolitical intricacies that divide us.

Imagine teenage girls dreaming about being Persian princesses and boys being embedded with images of the Persian hero as a rock star badass. Man, you just can’t buy this kind of PR. You know when the air force had it’s highest level of enlistment? After Top Gun came out.

IT’S A MOVIE, NOT NEWS FOOTAGE!

I’m already expecting the waves of bitching and moaning from Iranians everywhere who will no doubtedly be shocked and disgusted at the historical inaccuracies and that an Iranian was not cast as the title character. The hyper-sensitivity of my people, coupled with our culture wide lack of imagination (and sense of wonder) can be a real buzz kill. More than anything, it comes down to the Iranians’ lack of respect for The Arts and by that I mean popular arts such as film and music.

You think Catholics are big on sin? I bet you we’ve got them beat! Black is our favorite color, we mourn deaths longer than even logistically necessary and our TV shows are so god damn depressing that by the end of the half hour drama you feel like popping a xanax. There is this crazy view that Iranians have about the popular arts; that it simply can’t be “Respectable” or “real art” unless it’s “sad and serious.” The Pop music coming out of LA is collectively considered junk food regardless of how masterful and expiramentry the production quality of individual artists might be. If Iranians voted for the Oscars, a movie like Little Miss Sunshine would never even make it past nominations.

Our stories don’t get told because we take ourselves just way too seriously. We’re so drab and dreary that no one wants to listen. That’s why, the very few artists that make it past puberty still dreaming their dreams are the uber-serious ones. If you have enough ‘umph’ to get kicked down and still keep going, you better be one amazingly tortured artist who simply can’t function in a normal plane of existence. The kids who like telling funny stories (and have the talent to do it) just don’t receive the collective cultural support to keep going. Judd Apatow could never have been Iranian. If he was, he’d probably end up having been “a doctor or a lawyer.”

To those waiting to bitch I’d just like to say, relax for a second. Let’s get the world listening to us and enjoying our company before getting into all the political stuff we want to get into. We are now on a date with the world. Let’s seduce the world with our sex appeal and charm first, we’ll have plenty of time on our 4^thor 5^th date to jump into telling them about the emotional baggage we have.

Iranian's Could Stand To Be A Little More Jewish

I’ve always been envious of Jewish culture for this reason: They promote art.

I’m not talking about telling your kids, “Go be a lawyer and do your little drawings on the side” like Iranian parents. I’m talking about the community getting together and telling their kids, “Go out and tell our story to the world!” Think about how many TV shows and movies you watch every year, which have a predominant Jewish character. The character is usually not necessarily political or screaming statements at the audience; he’s just there, existing, and happens to be Jewish. So the audience develops a kinship with this character and the fact that he’s Jewish is not something they’re even conscious about. Then, when we learn of controversy hitting the international community (such as Israel leveling Beirut), it triggers that emotional fondness we feel for our favorite Jewish characters which leads us to sympathize with the Israeli cause just a tad bit more rather than the Arabs in Lebanon, whom we mostly see as terrorists in movies.

Consider that Jews makeup 1.7% (CIA World Fact Book) of the American population. Usually when I tell people that, they respond with shock. Their perception is that there are a lot more Jews in America because they have an emotional memory of there being so many more due to the disproportionate amount they see in movies, TV, music and literature. I might venture to say that I may actually know more about Jewish culture than my own!

Is their some Jewish conspiracy? Absolutely not. Middle Easterners (Arabs and Persians alike) have no one to blame but ourselves.

My experience has been that we come from a culture which does not promote The Artist as an important member of society. An artist is generally seen as a leftover, someone who couldn't quite cut it doing something more important. My mother is a beautiful, vibrant and talented woman with an incredible singing voice. When she was young, my grandmother would secretly take her to talent shows and singing competitions. My grandfather’s attitude (a very common attitude in Iran) was that a respectable woman does not perform for people to gawk and stare at. Now, mind you I have not lived in Iran for a very long time and, from what I hear, there is a new wave of young artists living the Artist’s Life very openly which can only mean that this attitude towards artists can/will change in the future, but I can’t speak to that quite yet. What I have seen, however, is that this attitude towards art has existed all around me. Googoosh is famous in Iran the way Madonna is here. A singer, actress and pop superstar who is loved by so many… I have overheard conversations between older Iranians saying in one breath that they love her music and in the next that so-and-so’s daughter is singing in “some restaurant” with contempt in their tone. Was Googoosh born a superstar then? Everyone has to start somewhere.

I know the point gets lost in my ramblings but here it is: If we promote the popular arts more, if we push our children to go tell our story, then maybe the world can relax a bit and root for the Persian hero. The only thing stopping the world from having that emotional connection to the Persian character is us and the walls our culture puts up for those wanting to pursue the creative path.

I cried for a good half hour after watching The Kite Runner. Freaked out my mom a bit. The major part of that story that I really connected with the main character wanting to write fiction, and everyone responding with “a writer? Well, why not something important like a doctor or a lawyer?”

MrArash Gold?

What’s the common thread I see as an outsider? The sense of community, the promotion of arts and the tradition of healthy debate… The thread seems to be a common contempt for censorship. After all, art is, in many senses, the emotional vomit of a human being. The less the artist sensors himself, the more powerful the art becomes.

Full disclosure... I’ve been dabbling in the idea of converting to Judaism for some time now. I’m agnostic myself, but find the Jewish promotion of communication, art and debate deeply attractive. It would be really nice to finally feel something, spiritually. I’m just not sure if I want to convert for the right reasons. Maybe I'll see my own burning bush one day. For now, I just daydream and dabble.

Blogger's Block

2009-08-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

It's different than writer's block, you see? If I had writer's block, I could not have written about where the nickname (MrArash) had come from and I could not gather the energy to write this blog even! What I have is a blogger's block Don't even think about it, kids - I'm in the process of trademarking that phrase as we speak!

A blogger's block is when you have a tough time transferring you writing ideology to a blog. For the past few months, I have been writing three different things: 1) A screenplay about men behaving badly, 2) my life's manifesto and 3) my personal journal.

I keep sitting down to write a blog entry and it ends up looking a lot more like my personal journal entry than a blog entry. Then I go to write in my personal journal and nothing comes out! This, I imagine, is a big chunk of the creative lifestyle: Learning how to switch gears!

I'm working on it, though. Good times.

Starting The Journey (Again)

2009-08-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

This is a reposting of a blog entry I made a few months back on Blogger. I didn't follow through with that blog theme and it just sat there. This posting, however, gives a good snapshot of where I've been and where I'm tryig to go.

~

“What the hell am I doing with my life?”

I ask myself this question, while sitting at a coffee shop, gazing out at the parking lot. It was during a lunch hour while at Maryland Avenue Elementary School (quite the creative name for a school, I know) where I first had the realization that I want to be an artist. As with many kids, I was fascinated by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As I put a pencil to paper and attempt to draw my favorite character, Donetello, in an action pose, the kid next to me peers over and (with the kind of blatant honesty only children have the capacity for) commences to ostracize my abilities by bringing to my attention that what I had illustrated looked nothing like a ninja turtle. I had just moved back to the United States from a 4-year stint in Iran. I had a very limited understanding of the English language but, for some reason, that kid’s message resonated. I began to stare at the details of my drawings: Why was it that it looked like a Ninja Turtle in my head but when it made it’s way through my brain, into my eyes, through my hands and down on paper, it came out looking nothing like the hero in a half shell? I made it my mission to understand. During this time, my big brother worked for the City of San Diego. He would bring home stacks of used computer paper, the backs of which would become my canvas.

After two years of personal scrutiny, I made some small advances. During my three years of elementary school in America, I managed to write many short stories to great reviews from my classes. I won many writing contests with my broken English, even moving on to win the all-school D.A.R.E. (Drug Awareness Resistance Education) speech contest in the 5th grade. By the time Middle School rolled around, the turtle was looking a lot more like the one I was seeing on TV. This is when the realization hit me: I am not necessarily meant to be an illustrator but a storyteller.

Storytelling can take many forms whether they be visual art, poetry or film. The first time filmmaking popped into my head was when I was in High School, sitting in a nearly empty theater and watching Bad Boys. I have no shame in admitting that Michael Bay was an instrumental part in my personal development. The visuals blew me completely away! The musical score, the movement, the colors and the energy… The film bug hit me. During this period I started to dabble in music, creating hip-hop beats for my friends and drawing t-shirt designs for our school teams. I took drama; this was without a doubt where I felt most at home. In early college, I collaborated with a friend on a combination art piece which fused music, poetry and performance art. At a KPBS awards ceremony, we relieved the longest standing ovation.

As the years went by and life started to pressure me into looking at more realistic ways to make a living, something got lost. There was a deeply personal drive inside of me which screamed from the debts of my soul with an earth shattering demand that I must create – create for the sake of creating because if I didn’t I might just physically burst. That scream started to get muffled by the setting fear. Fear of lacking credibility, fear of poverty, fear of loosing face and fear of loosing respect. I sat on the bench at Mesa Community College’s lunch area and looked on as my friends moved on to bigger better things like med school and fraternity life at San Diego State University. They were having the time of their lives while I worked full time for a major insurance carrier and keeping the heel of my boot on that screaming voice. The Voice began giving up.

Feeling the intense weight on my chest, I made the decision to follow a creative professional path. My theory was that if I was a professional graphic designer, I could satisfy both sides: My personal need to be creative as well as society’s pressure to be a professional. I decided to transform my passion into a job. After interning for the Port of San Diego and working directly with graphic designers, I realized that creative work is still just that: work! I took on some side projects and watched other graphic designers around me, coming to the bitter conclusion that the creativity part of the industry is only about 25% of the job. The rest is deadlines, business management, office politics and appeasement of clients. Graphic design in a nutshell: You give the client four incredible options and one you threw together quickly just so you can show an even five and he/she invariably chooses that last one which you could have created in Microsoft Word.

I looked around and felt that everyone had left me in the dust. I imagined my most talented friends from drama class acting in stage plays and my Iranian friends starting their own medical practices. At this time, I dabbled heavily in entrepreneurial endeavors such as trying to start 2.0 web services and even a beauty supply shop, which my father was willing to fund; a brick and mortars business which he understood. Two or three years of my life was spent in these kinds of startup environments. Then the economy crashed. Two or three years of my life wasted away. Everything I had been working on came to a halt, just like that. For some bizarre reason, I had this tiny twinkle of relief underneath the crushing depression. What is this weird feeling? Where is it coming from?

A few months ago, I sat down to coffee with an old friend from drama. She was, without a doubt, the most talented actress I personally know. During our chat, she reveled to me that she never followed up on acting after high school and currently worked in an office. I noticed something familiar in her eyes. Call it personal projection or intuition but it looked eerily similar to that same longing which I felt. There was a Voice somewhere inside of her which she had managed to muffle as well. We sat in silence for a moment, acknowledging each other’s blood stained boot heels and the hemorrhaging Voice underneath.

The world felt like a daze. I began reaching out to old friends, going on coffee dates and browsing MySpace & Facebook profiles. Simultaneously suddenly and progressively , I realized I wasn’t alone. There were many out there like me. We were all walking through life, taking steps towards our respective & “respectable” career paths with one foot and using the other to curb stomp that Voice, periodically stopping to wipe the blood off and then continuing on. We look like professionally dressed zombies and talk like young go-getters. You would not know we exist unless you are one of us. You wouldn’t notice that moment of sadness and acknowledging silence that we share unless you had a Voice inside of you. The closest frame of reference I could give you was a scene in Brokeback Mountain where Jake Gyllenhaal's character non-verbally communicates with a man he briefly meets at dinner with his wife. They make eye contact, not a word is said but the implications are very clearly made; they share the same crushingly closeted lives.

I made the decision that I would follow my dream. Filmmakers are real people and becoming one, difficult as the journey may be, is not impossible. After all, look at how much crap Hollywood produces on a regular basis! Like any industry, it’s about marketing, networking and follow-through. There are people that talk and people that do – all I have to do is switch from seeing it as a dream to seeing it as a goal. That tiny twinkle of relief was my subconscious preparing me for this decision.

Coincidentally during this period, I was offered what I assumed to be an absolute dream job, which gave me an opportunity to use my professional background while working directly with the film industry. It very quickly turned out that it was not going to work out. I walked away from my stint at this organization crushed yet again. The job was completely not what I expected it to be and the organization not what it claimed to be.

A week or so later, after wrapping up a meeting with the founder of my fraternity, the conversation drifted towards the driving question: “What the hell am I doing with my life?” Chris, my fraternity’s founder, runs a record label on the verge of hitting it big. He works during the day for the government and spends all of his free time updating his website, scheduling shows and organizing photo shoots. The conversation went late into the night and ended with an epiphany: As long as I am making creativity my job, it will never be MY art. Masturbation cannot substitute making love and low-carb sugar-free cake will never take the place of real chocolate frosting. All of a sudden, all of those discussions in art school about the difference between art and graphic design made sense. An artist creates and then people buy his/her work. A creative professional is commissioned to bring to life the client’s vision. Where the seed is planted… that’s the X factor. I realized I would not be happy as long as I was waiting for others to plant the seed. The day-job would have to be just that: A job to pay the bills. The passion: To create for the sake of creating even if no one ever pays you a dime for it. Back to the coffee shop… I realize that to go where I want to go I need to go back to the beginning. I need to find that Voice. I must help him to his feet, bandage his wounds and apologize profusely for keeping my boot on his neck for all these years. I will hold him and comfort him. He has known what I am meant to be for all these years. I should have listened to him long ago. He is going to help me unravel the layers of this blanket of fear, which I have wrapped myself with.

So, why this blog? I am making myself accountable to you, the reader. I figure that if I have a place to share my journey, then I can learn from others. A place to archive my achievements, my education and my progression. This is a place where everything I am learning on my journey can be categorized, dated and archived.

Beyond that... In my upbringing and culture, it has been beaten into my head that we should keep family matters private and not air our dirty laundry. That attitude is what I believe is holding me back. It is what I believe holds our culture back.

An artist must above all else be totally honest. Honest with himself and honest with the world.

He must wear his heart on his sleeve. He must not be afraid to air his dirty laundry. An artist must have the strength to reach into the darkest parts of himself and tell a story without fearing public humiliation. That is the artists’ duty: To jump into the deep end of the pool of introspection in a way that normal people can’t bring themselves to do. Society needs us to strip naked and show our warts, disfigurements and insecurities. People need this because they can’t do it themselves. Sitting alone in a dark room, watching a film, reading a book or studying a painting, people need to see that they are not alone. People need to see that there are others out there who have been sexually molested, feel rage towards their mothers and have done things which make them ashamed so that they can gather the strength to wake up in the morning to drive our busses, fix our roadways and attend to our children’s medical needs. They need us to be honest in a way which society will not allow them to be. My quest is to find that artist within. I hope that you will join me on my journey. Let us all help each other find our Voice.