I just finished working out. Today was cardio, so I did some running on the beach. One thing that I never do is work out without my iPod. I usually will make a playlist of songs each time I work out. I'm not like many people in that I need fast upbeat music to have a productive workout; working out is my time to think, to meditate, to wonder. My playlists help bring out those thoughts.
So, obviously today I'm thinking about the new year and what it will bring to my life. I really hate to be one of those people who are all about starting over or renewal just because it's a new year. But, I guess a new year's a good a reason as any. As long as the change is consistent and pure.
2009 will be the year that I finally finish undergrad and enter graduate school. I will be embarking on a number of new creative projects. I am also hoping to make huge professional strides now that I feel that I am ready and have more of a handle on what to expect from the film/television industry as a writer/director/producer/actor. This is also my year to stabalize my educational, financial and professional situations.
As of recently, I have made the permanent decision to remove meat from my diet. This is something I tried while filming my indie TV drama series project, MY BROTHER'S KEEPER, last summer. It was great. Now I know I've got the discipline for it.
I hope I make some great new friends this year. I got a message yesterday from a college friend of mine who is lobbying for me for an associate producer job for a TV show on a major network, so we'll see. I know that later this year I will be making the move to either New York City, Atlanta or Los Angeles, where I will settle for a few years.
This year I'm planning to kick up my interest in photography, embark on some new film projects, travel domestically and abroad and hone in on my interest in acting. I plan to sign with an agent by the summer and continue to write. I want to link up with some film friends of mine and collaborate on projects that we have been discussing for years, but can never find the time to come together to do them. I also plan to continue to make blogging a daily practice as I have fallen in love with this process.
This new year is all about being strong. That's my weakness. I need to work to be strong enough to leave the things and people behind who are detrimental to me. I need to learn to trust myself when I know that I deserve better. And to be okay with my decisions.
I am going to be a better brother, a better son, a better friend, a better boyfriend, a better man. To me. Like someone used to say to me when I was a kid: "Be good, for yourself."
The new year can't come fast enough for me. I am continuing my journey as a scorpion in flight. And this time, there will be no looking back.
Hmmmm....
I'm a little disturbed right now. I woke up this morning from what wasn't necessarily a bad dream. It wasn't a good one either, though. It was about my childhood. Again.
You see, sometimes I get these dreams about my childhood. One particularly annoying aspect of it was the violence that took place between my parents at the hands of my father. Well, last year my father had a brain aneurysm and I almost lost him. Now, he's "better", in everyone else's eyes but mine. And on top of that, we argued a couple months ago about the direction of my life (mainly over my pacing of my education). I will be graduating from college in '09 when I should have been done in '06 or '07. I haven't spoken to him since. At this point, myself and my two brothers are for the most part estranged from my father. He lives in Las Vegas and has for many years. I, of course, am in Florida. I think it is my mother who only communicates with him now, though they've been divorced for many years.
Well, I remembered when I was in Vegas alone while my father was in the hospital, I learned through my uncle that my father was an avid drug user, with his drug of choice being cocaine. For some reason, I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning with that on my mind. I started wondering if my father's drug use had been a factor in his aneurysm. I'm sure it was. I wish I had known that at the time; I could have been more helpful to the doctors. I also started wondering if my father was using drugs when he and my mother would go at it when I was a kid. So, I asked my Mom this morning. Her answer was easy and without hesitation: "Yes. And it was cocaine that he was using."
Hmmmm...
This bothers me. Not necessarily that my father is basically a drug abuser. But, that I wasn't told when I became old enough to understand. Being such an introspective person, I am always looking for explanations for things that happen in my life and what were the contributing factors. I, like many people, am on a journey to discover why I am the way I am and my upbringing is a large part of that. But, my parents kept a great deal from us as adults and that makes me angry. Like my mother, for example. She doesn't seem to understand that what we as kids, experienced as children still affects at least me, to this day. I want explanations. I deserve them. I probably wasn't ready for them as a kid, but as a 25 year old man, I need to know now.
I remember being in third grade and my Dad telling me and my brothers not to go to school and talk about what was going on in my household. I remember one incident when my parents left for work one morning (both of my parents were in the Air Force at the time), only for my mother to return back to the house as I was leaving for the bus stop. She was crying. And bleeding. My father had punched her in the nose in the car while driving to the base together. I remember walking to the bus stop and standing amongst the other children boiling on the inside but with no outlet whatsoever. And had to go the whole day like that. Never uttering a word to anyone.
Sometimes I hate my parents and their methods. Though I have a great relationship with my mother today, I hate how irresponsible they were when it came to our mental and emotional health and development. They worried only about fixing themselves (in my mother's case cause I'm sure my father is still secretly abusing drugs) and never seemed to worry if us, the children were REALLY well adjusted.
I wanna know more. I'm going to continue this conversation with my mother tonight. Stay tuned...
This is definitely a random musing type of post. SO, I was flipping through the channel earlier and came across Fat Albert, the film starring Kyla Pratt and Keenan Thompson. First of all, HORRIBLE film. Second of all, I saw my girl, Dania Ramirez in it. Then, later, I was reading one of my favorite blogs and came across another picture of her in Maxim. So, I felt compelled to blog about this beautiful, sexy and extremely talented woman.
I first noticed Dania in Spike Lee's She Hate Me which stars a host of my favorite actors (Kerry Washington, Woody Harrelson, Ellen Barkin, Q-Tip and, of course, Anthony Mackie). Well, in this film, Dania and Kerry play a lesbian couple trying to get pregnant, so they pay Anthony Mackie's character for his sperm, which he only goes through with when he loses his job and his financial situation becomes dire.
Now, the movie is worth the price of the DVD alone just to see the scene of Dania and Kerry have sex on the kitchen countertop. To see two of the most beautiful woman in the world making out like out...........man! And I'm not one of those guys that gets off on lesbian action all the time. But, it seems to me that some of the most beautiful woman in the world are lesbians. I'm very attracted to sexy lesbians. But, they have to be confident and don't take no shit. That's sexy as hell to me. But, for me, it wasn't just that they were beautiful. Both of their characters in the film were women who were what I call, "power women" in power careers. That's what made it so hot, to me.
Anyway, the movie also is a fave of mine because it contains some very touching moments. It's a great study in sexuality, politics and relationships.
And if you don't care about any of those things, buy it just to see Dania. ; )
Now, this post leads me to expand on what I find attractive in women. I seem to like strong and/or powerful women. That's sexy to me. When I was in high school, I was attracted to my drum major in marching band, not necessarily because she was hot, but because of how hot it was when she was yelling at us....lol. I have always been attracted to Hillary Clinton in recent years for that reason. There's something so sexy about a woman who knows her shit.
Currently, this applies to Mrs. Michelle Obama. She is very sexy. You can tell that she isn't a subservient women in the Obama household and that she knows when it's time to show strength and when to allow Barack to take the lead. Same with him. That's what makes him sexy as well; being comfortable enough to let Michelle take the lead at times.
I think that is why I've had so many more female good friends instead of men. I'm attracted to strength in women. But hate weak men around me. A lot of times, I've let weak men into my circle and then been disappointed because, even though they're men, they're not MEN.
It's different with women. When men try to exhibit strength or power it comes off as chauvenistic and/or arrogant, which are turn offs for me. But when women do it, it's sexy. I think that's why I love to see a woman doing a job usually performed by a male. The fact that they can flip it and still get results and respect is sexy to me. That probably explains why my best friend is a female.
My best friend is strong. Stronger than me even. Always has been. And as a man, I'm comfortable enough in my masculinity to admit that. There is something so sexy about my homegirl, not even just the fact that she is hot, but she is quick to tell you how it is, if the situation permits it. She's a professional woman, so she has a more classier and refined way of driving her point across and I have to say, I'm drawn to it.
If I ever choose to get married, my girl's gotta have the traits that I admire in strong women. Strong enough to know what she wants and soft enough to know how to get it.
I'm a photographer who is currently preparing to shoot my first set of headshots as a writer/photographer/filmmaker turned actor. Below is a portfolio of my photography work from last year! Thanks to all of my friends and models who allowed me to break in my beloved Nikon D40! Leave your comments!
So, I've spent the majority of my day doing a lot of random research and browsing on the web. I started out reading about the Kennedy family, which piqued my interest in Martha's Vineyard, which led me to remember that a film I love, was based on a segment of that island, The Inkwell. Upon journeying to IMDB to read more trivia about the film, there was a discussion on the message board about the film's director, Matty Rich, who, after The Inkwell in 1994, has mysteriously not returned to filmmaking since, despite a great start in the industry.
It got me to thinking about myself. Even though, I am nowhere on the level of such established filmmakers by any stretch of the imagination, I have spent the last three years of my life living the life of the starving artist/filmmaker.
With my recent interests in teaching and different avenues of writing outside of screenwriting, I was wondering today when, if at all, I would make my foray back into filmmaking.
In Winter 2005, I created an independent TV drama series project that lasted three years. I also produced a couple short films and got halfway through production of what was supposed to be my independent feature length debut. But, I ended up shutting it down. Partly due to exhaustion. Partly due to differences inside of my producing team. But, mostly due to the fact that I was losing my mind.
Today, only a few months removed from the situation, I look at filmmaking and my heart flutters. It's a fear I have of throwing myself out there again. As an independent filmmaker, I had become a hustler. That's what you have to be. Even moreso, when you're making controversial and socially conscious subject matter and your competition is, well, the fluff that television is inundated with today.
I would like nothing more than to spend my life making movies. But, the business of it, is not fun, is emotionally and financially draining and if you're like me and let yourself get too far away from yourself, it's psychologically scarring.
And, it's funny because the issue with me has never been lack of confidence. It's not that I don't think that I can do it AND be successful. I have extreme faith in my idea to dream up concepts and write compelling stories for television and the big screen. I even have the catalog of screenplays and teleplays sitting around to prove it. I mean, I'm the one right now who is hoping to be signed to an agent by summer of '09 at the latest.
But, I still find within myself a slight hesitation. When will I be ready to jump back in? To really helm a film project as a producer and/or writer and/or director.
And I wonder the costs to my well being. And will it be worth it in the end?
You have that person in your life who just loves to give you what I call "emotional fuckwittage"? Well, I have someone like that. My relationship with this person has grown extremely complex, which, to me, is the most dangerous. I characterize it today as a love/hate.
I had grown into the type of person who wore his heart on his sleeve when it came to love and friendship. My relationship with this person involves both. Now, at one point I fell in love with this person's representative. I say his "representative" because I fell for who I thought this person was. In the middle of one of our famous non-physical confrontations, I revealed my feelings. Ever since, I've been feeling like this person has been using my feelings against me. Something tells me he always had.
Now, my feelings are definitely in check now as I've moved on relationship-wise. I'm not gonna say I don't still feel for this person. I think that some feelings never really completely go away.
Now, he has said that he knew my feelings for him before I revealed them, but he was just waiting on me to say something. I personally feel I was led by him. But, that's another blog post.
Today I'm feeling like why does he choose to keep me inside of his web when he's the one who isn't sure how he feels? Like, why even try. This is someone who says he is straight. But, no matter how many times he says it, I believe otherwise. But, I've always respected the boundaries of our friendship until it got to the point where I was tired of pushing my real feelings aside, to make room for someone else's. I've tried to end the friendship many times because of what I've identified as my weakness for this person. Even though today, he's not anyone I would ever allow myself to fall for. But, it's too late for me to fix that, however. But he never lets me end it. He won't let us end.
And I know that this person is my cross to bear. After all, what I'm feeling is not exclusive only to me. Now, I'm not used to feeling like this, but he is a challenge for me to overcome. But until I do, I ask:
Why do you come here when you know I got troubles enough?
Why do you call me when you know I cant answer the phone?
Make me lie when I dont want to
and make someone else some kind of unknowing fool
You make me stay when I should not.
Are you so strong or is the weakness in me?
By the way, you're not that strong. Must be me...
Hmmm...
I felt compelled to show my appreciation and admiration of Eartha Kitt who passed away today, Christmas Day,
Like many people from my generation, I was first introduced to Eartha via the early 90s Eddie Murphy blockbuster, Boomerang, where she played Lady Eloise. Who could forget the infamous line where she purrs to Murphy's character, "I don't have any panties on." I also remember the episode of Living Single where she attempted to seduce Kyle Barker and ended up singing the classic, "Someone to Watch Over Me".
Of course, Eartha was an icon by the time I came to appreciate her and her work in entertainment will live on through her amazing work. So, while enjoying the company of good family and friends, take a moment to appreciate the life of an amazing talent and spirit.
Ms. Eartha Kitt.