I think I have grown to hate the great city of Los Angeles. Did I just say great? What the fuck was I thinking. There is really nothing great about it.
I think it is easy for people who have only visited or never been here at all to think L.A. is some sunny, star-studied paradise. A place full of beautiful people, beautiful places and beautiful weather. A place where dreams are realized and stars are born.
Think again.
I have lived now here in this City of Angels for 4 years. I moved down with a friend/business partner in an effort to explore the investment realities of getting an independent film, I have been working on since 1999, off the ground. Many experiences have been had in that time and it has yielded many stories. I suppose, now, at this moment in time, I am getting reflective towards it, since in a matter of a few weeks or months I will be leaving this smog covered berg to return to my home state of Oregon. Not any less driven to do my film then when I came here. I would dare say I am more driven than ever. But I am that much wiser and more sure than ever before, of how I need to accomplish that dream.
So as I enter the twilight time of my stay here, I wanted to jot down some of what happened here, if for no other purpose than as a way to understand it on the road that leaves this land of dreams shattered.
The Towers Fell
This story actually begins back on September 11, 2001. At 8:46 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center I was sound asleep. My head filled with thoughts that my lifelong dream of shooting a film that I wrote and would direct just might be happening.
A burning passion had filled me since I was young. I always walked my own road, regardless of the fact I wanted to walk the road everyone else was on. Fate, God or just plain Life had a different design for me. My journey of existence up until now had worked to pound this reality into my stubborn head time and time again.
It was in early 2000, with my head swimming in confusion and depression that this pounding won out. I had been working a very good job, for a very good company in Portland, Oregon. I was living in a nice suburb of Portland with an old friend of mine in a condo his Aunt and Uncle owned. I was single at the time, but by all accounts one would say I was living a good life. I made good money, had great benefits, a decent car, friends, family near, etc. But I was horribly unhappy. Actually unhappy really is not a strong enough word. I was living as if a robot. I was down to a careful ritual that involved getting up before dawn, showering, dressing, eating a sensible breakfast, heading to my bus stop, catching my bus for its dawn ride all over town to finally arrive at the heart of Portland. Sit, read a while, smoke some and finally go upstairs. After putting my bag away I would immediately write the opening stock market numbers on a board for the bond managers who were due any minute. I would then power up my computer and beginning bond purchases that would take up the majority of my morning. Lunchtime would find more reading, more smoking and some eating. Back from lunch I would fight the rest of the day to stay awake as I made up files and filed them, made supply orders and performed other general support to the investment team. Quitting time. Back outside, some more smoking, grab my bus, ride all over town, finally back home, change, make a sensible dinner, play some video games, watch some TV or a movie, falling asleep through it all. Finally go to bed.
Pretty routine really. Something most people do for a greater portion of their lives, right? Correct. Though most change this up with a spouse and eventually kids. So the above routine for many becomes secondary to an active family life. This is life’s reality.
Mine was a bit different. Though I had always thought of myself marrying and having a family, it became my reality that would not be the hand I was dealt. As I got through my pre-teen, teen and into my young adult years I came to terms with the fact I was gay. With that acceptance in myself, I knew my idea of having the “All American Family” died that day. Since I can not legally marry in this country, and homosexuality itself is still, for many, a “burn in hell” type offensive, I knew any type of relationship in life was going to be askew from the norm. Furthermore, I also realized that the realities of me every looking into a child’s face and seeing some of me in him or her was also quite unrealistic.
So for me, I threw a lot of myself into jobs that I worked. And, as with the majority of jobs I had, the daily grind of the same routine day after day after day was getting to me. And not just in a “I hate my job” kind of way, but it affects me in ways that is hard to describe. This is the double-edged sword of my being. I have been through more jobs than most people have in a lifetime. Many times, because of this, I have also been in bad financial times. Actually let me clarify that, my finances have basically been in an inferno since I moved from my parent’s house to attend college. The explanation of that is for another story. But suffice it to say, my revolving door employment has not helped dampen that raging fire.
For a year before this day in early 2000, though, I had worked the perfect job. Life should have been good. For the first time since having credit, etc., I was out of debt. I had stable income. Things by all accounts should have been good. But throughout 1998 I had been slowly losing control. And for the first time in 10 years I felt compelled to write about it. So I started to change up my routine. Instead of playing video games, watching TV or a movie and then going to bed, I began to take my dinner at my computer. I would spend my nights, until the wee hours of the morning writing. This was the beginning of “Sleepwalking”. At work I began to rush through my work so I could write. It had taken a hold of me, like a drug and I could not stop. I lived in the story I was writing. I walked in the shells of each character, felt what they felt and saw the world as they did.
After several months of writing my first draft was complete. I sent it to a few people I knew, one a musician who had worked on a few independent films and the other an independent filmmaker himself. Both respond very positively and even with some great constructive criticism. I sat down and read the first draft and my heart sunk. I thought it was terrible. Though the framework of the story I had in my head was there, the full life I what I saw on the silver screen in my mind was not. I was very shaken. I finally spoke to a friend of mine, a writer himself. I asked him if he ever wrote anything then went back and read it, only to find he did not like it. He said that it happened to him all the time and that I should just put it on a shelve for a little while and then, when the time felt right, read it again.
I did this. It was late Febuary 1999.
A year later I returned to my work and read it again. Upon reading it a second time, I realized, that just like a building that starts with a metal framework, that this draft was very much that….a frame. It would be this frame I built the rest on. I would erect the walls, cut out for and install the windows in those walls, coat and paint them and build into this building everything that would take it from a skeletal monster, to the architectural dream I saw in my head.
But it was in late February 1999, after completing that disappointing first draft that all went wrong. I had let my vacation time build up which enabled me to take over a week off during Christmas of 1999. It was a needed break, but unfortunately I would not be able to get my head back in the game of my job or my life after returning from that break. Prior to it, I was able to keep myself focused, stable and not let my overall unhappiness with my life get the best of me. But after returning from my vacation, all just was not the same. The feeling that what I was doing in my life took a serious strangle hold on me. Every day felt more overwhelmingly miserable than the next. One day, it all broke or should I say I did. Nothing particularly different happened that day. But maybe it was the sheer normalcy of the day that finally shattered my weak hold on it all. By the time the afternoon had hit on that day I knew I had to get out of there. I was aware that if I stayed any longer I was going to lose control. It was a terrifying idea. I have never lost completely control of my emotions. Especially not in public. What scared me so bad was I knew if it came on there I would not be able to stop it…so I excused myself from work and caught the nearest bus to get back home.
The bus ride itself was another ordeal. I can liken it now to riding in a car when you are sick and suddenly getting that uncontrollable urge that you need to vomit. Each time the bus stopped on this endless journey home I felt I needed to get off…again fear surrounded me that I would lose control, plunge of the cliff of emotional stability and find myself locked away behind carefully cushioned walls, talking to no one and sobbing.
Little did I know, this emotionally distressing ride home was just the beginning.
To Be Continued…
