I PROMISED MYSELF

Thought I'd share something interesting with you that I experienced in this last year.

Since the day we moved to California my health went into a steady decline. Aches and pains in my neck, back, joints and weird places, headaches, insomnia. I was starting to feel like I was 80 years old.

I began exercising, eating better and quit drinking for a couple of months, but I still felt like shit. I’d wake up fatigued and foggy headed. I’d get dizzy from time to time and just couldn’t “tune in.” My eyes would black out on me, and I was having occasional anxiety attacks.

I attributed it to too much caffeine. Pain relievers helped slightly. I resorted to sleeping pills just to get something that resembled sleep, but I would still feel tired during the day. Then, one day, my stomach cramped up something fierce. I had the shits so bad I thought my guts were going to explode out my ass. It was awful and painful.

Now, I’m sure that I had a stomach bug of some kind, but “that” on top of “everything else” was more than I could stand. My Uncle Norman and his wife Cindy had invited us up to the Pismo Beach area for the weekend. I gave him a call, and we talked.

I told him that I thought I might have “Fibromialgia,” that it was hereditary, and had he experienced anything like this with age? He said, “only once- When I was 28 and wanted to get the hell out of Wyoming, but it all went away once I moved to California.”

“Odd.” I thought.

When I told him about the projects I’d been working on, and the pressure I was under with a new job, he hit me with something I didn’t see coming.

He said something to the effect of... “Sounds like you made some promises to yourself that you haven’t kept. That’s the thing about promises (expectations) that you make to yourself throughout your life- Your mind and body don’t forget it. And if you go long enough without fulfilling those ‘promises’, (those expectations) that you made for yourself for so long, your mind and body are just going to say, ‘Screw you! We’re out of here.’ Stress sets in, and that fuckin’ stress will kill you.”

A bell went off in my head. For over thirty years I’d dreamed of what it would be like, and who I would become, once I arrived in Hollywood. Over thirty years of promises.

I had lost site of my original intention, my romantic, childhood dream. I had forgotten why I came out here in the first place. I lost track of who I was and what I wanted to do.

I had applied so much pressure to myself since the moment I’d arrived in California- Writing, buying equipment, arranging what studio space I could, planning the next move, establishing myself financially, meeting people, putting more and more pressure on myself to make things happen. Man, I got SERIOUS!

So... What happened to the FUN?!

Actually, what happened to the mystery? My personal magic show? The passionate dream? The fun projects that were fun because they were FUN?! What happened to the joy of being an artist?

...And, for God’s sake, since when did it all start to kill me?

Okay, so maybe I’m drooling on a bit. But let me say this- I realize now that I have a responsibility to the ten year-old who dreamed, the twenty year-old who dreamed, the thirty year-old who dreamed, and the forty-something year-old who now sits at my desk. They are all me, and none of them dreamed of chasing a goal so hard that I would suffer on a daily basis. That’s not how I envisioned it... For the last thirty years.

That following weekend I found myself paddling out to the waves at Huntington Beach. Afterward, Terry and I sat on the open bed of Clifford (our jeep) listening to music and watching the sun set over the horizon.

Over the period of a couple of a couple of weeks all the aches and pains slowly went away.

One could say, “chasing a dream can blind you from living it.”

One could say that, but I probably wouldn’t remember it very long. Truth is, I’m just learning to enjoy the process more, and let the outcome arrive on it’s own. That’s the reality of it.

I make films because I enjoy the hell out of the whole film-making process. It’s the same with music, art, writing, working out, having sex or eating pizza. The process has gotta be fun, or fuck it...

...I’m going surfing.

SUNSET GOWER

My thanks go out to J.P. for allowing me to check out the back-lot operation at Sunset Gower Studios. It used to be the original “Columbia Pictures Studio,” and where they filmed most of the “Three Stooges” and “Alfred Hitchcock” pictures. They mainly film series episodes now, so I was able to check out the sets of “Heros” and “Dexter”.

The studio’s back-lot drag aims right at the Hollywood sign about three miles away- A big, white beacon at the end of the road.

ECO-FREAKS

I’m not an eco-freak by any means, but a couple of weeks ago Terri and I headed over to the beach in Santa Monica for a day of R&R. When we arrived, we were blown away...

Garbage!!! It lined the beach for miles. Surfers were wading through it. Kids were playing in it. It was sick! The people from around the area said, “It’s always like this after it rains. The city gutter garbage washes into the ocean.”

Every time it rains? Every time?

So, Terri and I, being the avid beach lovers we are, joined a group of local volunteers to clean up the beach near venice this morning. It was both disgusting and rewarding. I highly recommend it. It’s a drop in the bucket, but “doing a little something” is better than “doing a lot of nothing.”

Afterward, Terri and I went for bloody Mary’s on Venice Beach. Like I said. “Rewarding.”

You can check out this eco-group at www.healthebay.org