The Life of An Individual

Often times, I write in my thoughts. I seldom can explain sitting down what I write within myself. I realize this. I need to buy a voice recorder. Outside just now, I explained to myself what I'm feeling. What I'm going through. The cycle that is occurring for me in this place and time. 14 years is a long cycle. Drumming up the past. Solidifying what will come in the future. I know very well what I'm going through. These times are the only times when I am truly afraid. I keep everyone on the outside of the truth. They know some of what I am feeling but the deepest points are never reached. These are only for me. Somehow, I feel special. I feel like no one will understand. I don't even know how to begin an explanation. These pivotal points in my life are times when I can't and won't explain it. I take solace in books I've read and experiences of others who help me push through. The mundane bullshit is just the cover. The loves lost and the trivial malaise of gratuitous nonsense that simply gives a focal point to our madness. I'm really beginning to understand how I think. I'm also understanding how that process differs from others. Life is not an easy thing. Understanding why parents protect their children from the truth of life. To shelter them as long as possible. That time is the best of one's life. Any arguments on that point are mute. As an adult, one lives for those rare moments of happiness. The best of us do I guess. Those moments where the future is bright. When life is overshadowed by joy. You wish they would last forever and they never last long enough. And you become a little stronger. A little more bitter. And after you realize, you try with every ounce of yourself to push that bitterness away. This is a much more honest thing I'm' writing now. These times it's all I can muster. With tears for life. I really need to write. I'm not weak. My feeling is a conscious choice. I've lived the other side and it's much easier. The more honest I am, the more bullshit is cast aside. The conversations are much more meaningful. These are the things we should be discussing. This is the life we should be thinking about. Our goals and happiness given priority. Not settling for anything without weighing the options. And when it's enough, we leave it. We throw ourselves into the abyss for yet another time. And we will see where this one takes us.

late night

I was about to go to bed. Those times where you are very comfortable. I didn't want to turn on my computer. I wanted to drift into sleep. Happy. Warm. I looked at the footage I've shot over the years today with a friend. Christmas time it seems very fitting. And the thought I didn't want to let go. The thought about why I do what I do. I document life. What I do is save pieces of life. It is based in the medium of what I am interested in. Half asleep. Ending sentences in prepositions. Fuck! This is what I do. I shoot and save these things. I shoot and maybe only save on facial expression. 10 hours and 3 seconds seem important to me. I see a moment. It's different than a photo. It's not an interview. Nothing is being said. I look for a moment being lived. It's not sugar-coated. It's a real fucking moment. I can look back and see what it meant to me. They can look back and see what it meant to them if there is a human subject involved. I am keeping these things for me. I store them up and reflect. It is a moment of my life where I see something in someone. Or when I see something of beauty. This is the way I see my world. This is how I shape it. This is what choose after so much scrutiny to put into some form that will sustain. I can look back and see a short glimpse of someone's life that hold a great deal of meaning to me. I knew in that moment that I wanted to keep that memory. That is why I do what I do.

I just can't help it

A friend of mine, my first girlfriend actually, set me some of my old stories and poems. A was a sick little puppy to say the least. Here is something I wrote in 90. I looked through my old shoe boxes today with all my old photos and misc. writings. Fitting that's it during a time that is really difficult. It felt good. It also felt horrible. Letting go of people in my past. Memories of good times and bad. I guess I'm feeling a little older. I'm feeling like my youth is fleeting and eventually I will be old. I apologize for my elementary speech but I'm really feeling more than elaborating. This human experience. This looking back. It changes the way we move forward. It's essential. It tells us who we are and how we came to be that way. This shit is fucked up. My mind and the way I thought. Holy shit.

1990'(exactly how I wrote it)
Hi, how are you doing I'm not doing so good. I think I am going to kill myself. I do believe that I am going to torture myself first though. I want to feel the pain of m arm being stretched until has popped out of it's socket. I believe that I create the pain then I can ignore it. I am going to cut off my eyelids. I will then swallow them. When I throw them up I will stick pins in them and poke them back on. When I start bleeding I will the blodd run down my face into my mouth. I will then stick my fingers inside a clamp and cut into the bone in my arm. I will then get to the highest place I can and jump and land on my feet. When my legs snap like toothpicks I will sand my legs with a steel file until they bleed. With my one movable arm I will pour salt onto all my cuts and then pry them apart until all the salt is devoured into my skin and when it does it will turn red, blood red. I will then laugh at the excruciating pain. Then I will pull myself out into the road where my body will be run over until there is nothing left. I will then be happy because I am dead and no one person can cure me.

(I was a pretty happy 13-year-old I guess)

Times past and memories revived

Today, I walked outside to a pool of oil surrounding my car. After 3 hours of clean-up, I realized that I'm fucking stranded in the valley. I decided to open up my shoe boxes of memories and scan some photos. I also found some of my old writings and poetry wedged and tattered in the boxes. This one seemed fitting so I thought I'd start it with this. I think I wrote this when I just turned 19 or so.

Evil Aspirations

What is your motivation
To feel unwanted, illegitimate, unreal
And the new day comes
The night pushes in and your lust for blood
Abnormality never looked so good
Destined to be fucked because you're fucking yourself

Choosing the darkness because you think it's cool
The things you do, not felt but pictured
Contrived images, conjured, a construct
You're a falsity, a lie

I don't want to be the one to tell you you're wrong
Because it's a fact that I'm anything but perfect
I just want you to know that this path is obviously a wrong turn
You have no idea of where you'll be buried
After a year's time
We've come too far to give up
To turn away from the light
the darkness is so enticing
Because you never have to fight

Matters of the heart that are just becoming palpitations
Weaker, automated, and you are determined to turn from inspirations
The decisions you make and their purpose of distraction
And the construction of your possibilities added to the mix

Isn't it great to be numb
To turn your head from everything and subdue yourself with poison
You used to want a new perspective and so there was a new beginning
To the end that came without your recognition
Turn back because it's never too late, but we all know that what has passed is gone

Does it ever end?

Picturing this scenario at this time. Picturing this life. Picturing this day. What do you dream? What becomes of those dreams? And when you reflect, how do you feel about what you've become? When you are home and all the noise goes away, what do you really feel about your accomplishments? Have you made any progress? And as your look to the future, does it look more bleak than it did in the past? Are you more tainted than yesterday? My release is in my writing. On one hand, I should be writing this for no one to read. That is the thousands of journal entries I've written in the past. A living memoir of pain is how it would read. There are good times also but they get swallowed by the bad times. I think maybe I know that in part this is just me. This is the way I react to life. This is the way I over think everything. But that's the only way I will ever do it. Seeing five steps ahead. Seeming like an asshole and really I'm just trying to make my way. Feeling uncomfortable in public. I hate lines. People stand too close. Uncomfortable laughs because I don't know how to react. Mumbling because it just isn't worth it. And somehow, this is my life. And I search for the fire that lights me up. The conversation where I can't believe that someone could be so insightful. The connection that I see in another that makes everything else disappear. I think this is the human condition. This is what we all feel in our own way. The older I get, the more I understand. No shit right? But I thought I knew it all...the kid said. You don't know shit...the man replied. I'm still having new experiences. I'm still growing. I don't want to know what the future holds because of the progression to where I am. The weight is added. It's harder to carry now. And we carry it all with us. Whether we like it or not. Each passing day, it's more difficult to get out of bed. It's more difficult to shake it off and view the world with fresh eyes. That's all for tonight.

I've been looking through my old videos lately and this one always sticks out in my mind. Although I want to shoot myself for how I film some things and the fact I didn't color correct shit during this time, this is one of my favorite experiences editing. I was editing on the beach. I'd walk down to the water and take breaks. My friend's wife would cook for us and we'd all drink beer and have a good time at night while editing. We cut most of the parts for this video together. This was difficult and I wouldn't recommend it, but it worked out in the end. I still smell the air and remember that time so clearly. Super 8 projector and this ghetto ass transfer system. Fuck man, I wish it could always be like that.

It's all an experience

My emotions are always so mixed. Gemini I guess is the culprit. I listen to lyrics that define what I'm feeling. I suppose that is why I love music so much. A Kashmir song "california" explains exactly how I'm feeling, what I'm learning in my life about relationships, and points me in the right direction. I picture myself going insane singing this song in front of an audience and them watching me to the point of disgust. Disgust that I really don't care at all what they think of me. In general, I really could care less about what strangers think of me. It won't have any effect on my life. The people I care about are the people I choose to care about. The people worthwhile in my mind and judgments. The people who are worth my time and energy. I'm so fucking fortunate to have these people. I realize that most people really don't. Not like those who care about me. Maybe that's why I try so hard. Maybe that's why I am the person I am. A good person. These people are responsible for making me who I am. Reinforced my compassion and kindness. Then I am faced with the other side. Basically, this whole city. I can't remember the last time I saw a smile returned from my uncomfortable "hello" into a face of disgust. Instead, I get a "what the fuck are you saying hello to me for" look. I can't pass someone and look into their face without saying something. I've resorted to looking down and not having to worry about relating to humanity...because I don't relate here. I live in uncomfortable skin, but it's just the way I am. I won't let this place break me down and turn me into one of them. I don't know why someone would. They lose sight of any truth they had in themselves. Day by day, they fail themselves. Convert and become that way. Busy. Insincere. Ambitious. Opportunistic. Disgusting.

Short and Sweet

I've noticed I tend to be a tad long-winded...no shit right? Was going to write an email and decided it was a much better idea to write here instead. Fuck it is the phrase I guess. Ride it out because I must. Look at the horizon and all that bullshit. I'm better off this way. I forget how decent of a person I am sometimes. How much I'm worth underneath the sea of self-deprecation. And against the bombardment of judgments. It's all going to come back to me. This time my focus and drive is much stronger. Lately, I've been feeling like I'm actually growing up. It's about fucking time.

How I'm feeling

Sometimes, everything feels bland. You turn the music up as loud as you can because you think you might be able to feel something. You don't eat for a couple days because it just doesn't seem to be worth it. You stay in bed all day because why would you want to get up anyway. Instead, you pacify yourself in a half-awake dream state because that's the only time you dream. Somehow in the back of your mind, you tell yourself that this is for the best. Even though your experience is like a blaring siren about what the future now holds. Revisiting the pain of the truth. All the worries and self judgments becoming exposed as the blanket of emotion is slowly removed. When you focus on the end in the beginning, you cut yourself off. How do you change the way in which you think? How do you become oblivious to things that are sitting right in front of you? Is it really possible to just close your eyes...to close your thought? How do you do that? The best that one can do is just decide to go ahead with it. To hope that you're wrong even though you are never fucking wrong. To try and enjoy what you have until the day comes when it disappears. When your vision becomes truth.

It's really just for me

I've been trying to write more lately and this seems like as good as place as any. The majority of my writing lately has consisted of sustaining my fucked up sense of love. My failing inadequacies as they become more apparent and persist in a way that I cannot change...or will not I suppose. Anyway, I'm breaking from that mode. Tonight, I'm thinking about the state of things and how we have as a society and world really broken away from the past. My thoughts come in waves and I reflect on earlier thoughts. This way that we are really not condemned to repeat the past as an ideal is so flawed. Nothing is new and that is why I am so damn bored! I'm sick of the punk on the corner without any idea of where his angst should be coming from. No idea where his style originates and how he is responsible for pushing it to where it is now. I know I'm sounding like some old fuck whining about changes. I'm not. I'm always aware of changes and I usually embrace them as they propel us into something new. This is not the case right now. We don't care and the apathy is growing. It's overtaking us and it's overwhelming. As a collective body, we as people are coming into something dangerous. We don't care anymore. We can't keep up with the atrocities and have no real control anyway. Write your congressman. Fuck your congressman! When you hate your president, how is your congress going to change anything? I feel this general malaise that shadows everything I see or hear. I don't think I'm alone. Obama is one good conquest but it's still on the same destructive path. I hear every optimistic thought coming at me right now because that's what they should be doing. I'm no longer optimistic. The malaise is like the ether. The "stuff" that just exists. It's woven itself into everything. A general distrust. A failure in ability to act and make a real difference. The repetitious art that is drawing from the past and not pushing forward. Playing into our emotions because that's all that is left. We need to feel good because we can't look outside without knowing it's disgusting. I really hope I'm wrong about all this and it's just me in my corner watching with a fucked up and out of touch perception of things. I really doubt it. Fuck, the art is still happening. It still inspires me but I really have to search for it. There's so much bullshit out there. I guess it's the fucking value being associated with art. If it's really great, it's instantly turned into a marketing tool. Music becomes a commercial. Visual art is associated with whatever brand. Collaboration is a bad word. It doesn't stand on its own and the starving artist is quickly learning how to make money. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying I don't like it. Nothing is autonomous. It's all woven together into the malaise and the capitalist ideal is making it worse. It's time for bed. I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be a little bit worse. Just like yesterday. Just like last year and the year before. I'm really hoping that the day will come when it's a little bit better. I haven't seen one of those days in so long. But I really am hoping, for all of us, that they day will come when I wake up and it's a little bit brighter.

Love and Truth

I really don't know how I want to start this. That all too familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. While Driving home, I was thinking about how the words would fit together to describe what is happening to me but it just isn't working that way. I'm at a point right now where I don't want to reveal anything to anyone. I want to wallow in self pity and self disgust. I want to stare into the mirror and question my validity as a human being. To reflect on the whole of humanity and question any relation one person has to another. To feel this archetype of a siren and a serpent. To realize some truth so this could never happen again. But that would not be correct. This won't be the last time. This bipolar outcome of the quest for what I was feeling not so long ago. That just amplifies where I am now. Questioning as always because that's what I do. Somehow, this image of woman is in my brain. It's cloudy and the figure is dark. That feeling which I have felt for so long. That feeling in all of us. The one you can't describe and yet drives you to long for the other side of this outcome. To dream that after the enamored feeling subsides that the final sustainable feeling will reflect that place that I long for. As I sit here, thinking about what could have been, and know what will never be, I am learning. This time I put both feet in and committed in the way I never do. Maybe it's because I knew it would fail. I'm thinking that is probably the case. And now the pieces are scattered. I've learned how my emotions boil my actions into sometimes what seem to be the unthinkable. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that all of this must be. I also know how I need to trust my instincts because they are very correct. And now, I know this is the best outcome because I really see the truth. This truth is dangerous and I don't use that word lightly. The dream is there in my mind on a pedestal. This day I learned that love does not conquer all. And yet again, the search will continue for that sustaining point. The real problem is that this time my feeling would have sustained. My attraction would have endured. And the dream could actually be realized. Now it's gone.

Pluto is almost gone and I don't want to be stuck for 14 fucking years

It's all fun right? This life as we work and live. As we write in two syllable words to try and connect with one another. To dumb down our mentality and try and persevere in an environment determined to break us down or kill us. So, this week is an important for me. I have this fire inside me that won't back down. I'm sitting here writing after a 14 hour day and am so flooded that it's ridiculous. I'm trying to determine what I really want to do right now. What I really need most of all. I'm looking and evaluating my decisions and what I know I must do in the future. It all sounds so fucking dramatic. The point is that the only way I live is to be dramatic. I annoy the fuck out of some people to the point that they hate me. Some people annoy me in the same way I suppose. I write this shit to get it out of me. I always feel that somehow I'm better. That somehow I don't fit into the same mold as those around me. Maybe one day I'll learn that this idea is not the truth. I haven't learned it yet though. With each passing day, I feel that I become more distant from those around me. I can't see myself doing what they do or thinking how they think. I can't just go along and not see how uncomfortable people are in general. How they are constantly judging each other to avoid being evaluated because they already feel they are better. I'm going back to what I said before about how I don't fit into that mold really. I really don't feel I'm any better but I do feel very different. I really don't care about this world and I truly believe it's lost beyond the point of repair. There is no going back anymore. I look outside and it just doesn't feel like it used to feel. I look at the art and music and understand the future. It's a looking glass and always has and will be that way. I've given up on it. My angst is gone and it's turned to a general disconcerting feeling. This might turn into a novel as my typing skills have improved and I really don't feel like stopping. Relationships are tainted and the older I get the worse they get. Just add and worsen. Add and fail. Add and hurt. Cheery isn't it? Trying to develop some emotional state that is functional but it just doesn't happen. It's always too heightened. I always think too much. I never stop. From the time I get up it's a constant worry. Sometimes 10. They don't go away. They just get replaced. Am I alone in this? Seems like people deal with this in a normal way. I don't dream anymore and I believe that is my fault. Fuck Rogue Wave is so damn good! It's nearing midnight. Could really be hell. How can I tell the difference? I'm getting worse living here and it's time to leave. I have no idea how long it will take me to return to normal or if that time is gone. I am motivated more now than any other time in my life. I have confidence. I know my worth. I also am finally figuring out what I want out of this life. It's something I have always known and denied. But I would have never figured it out without shedding all my comforts. I have no one here. No one I can trust. No one I can rely on to help me no matter what. That is a horrible feeling. I've always been around a few of those people because I'm one of those fucking people! Even here I am. I've been taken advantage of so much and learned that I can't let that continue to happen. You can't be that kind of person without those people around you. People end up knowing they can rely on you when they can't even rely on themselves. They wouldn't do it for you but they're happy taking it. They delude themselves by thinking somehow the small things they do that doesn't take anything is somehow equal. I've stayed up so many nights and forsaken plans because they needed me to do it. I'm sick of fucking do it! You don't deserve it. That is why I have to leave. These people don't deserve me anymore. Time to sleep and not dream so I can get up and start it over. Another 15 hour day to build a company, finish a website, help some friends, help push a film, and try and salvage a relationship.

Fuck

Just wanted to put something together from my mass of media that I'm too busy to touch.

I'm missing home right now so much I can barely stand it. This always makes me feel better. It's the view at my parents house in the country.

Photoshop Is The Devil's Tool

Sometimes

I need to write but it all seems like garbage right now. Like the textbook (not literally) writer who is throwing away reams of paper because they can't start something of worth. They write and throw away. That sums up today and how I feel about my general state of being. It's not worth starting. One has to be sick of reading my madness. I over think everything and things linger for too long. My distractions are the only things that keep me sane. I have no idea how one can live without distraction. There are those who can but it seems that their focus determines their whole lives. Instead of distraction, they live for that end. Disregard a normal life and substitute one for another. It's a rule for me that I have to live this life. I have to make mistakes and I have to forsake my safety for this lust for knowledge and experience. I feel like I'm aging at an amazing pace and pretty soon it's all going to be over. When it's over, I want to feel like I tried. No matter how I feel in general, and it's not good, I want to feel satisfied that I did everything I could do. That I tried to push this weight...up. Friends who are distant. Life that is forsaken. It's really time for change. A miserable life is not what I want. A hard life is what I definitely want.

My general disposition

Let me set a precursor here. I set myself up for disappointment. I search for despair. I look for the ways in which I can be hurt the most. That is who I am. In some fucked up way, that is the only way I feel that I can learn. I don't learn from happiness. Yes, I realize I am writing like a fucking monosyllabic idiot. That's how my whole life feels right now. It feels as if I am just without thought and perpetuating some feeling I have for pain. I picture these things in my mind before they happen because I picture all scenarios as I think way too much. I can't sleep. I always need distraction to fulfill some escape from a life and more so a world I don't want to face. I brighten this world and I know that. I'm nothing to be scoffed at and in the past few years I have come to realize my worth although there is no high horse in this picture. I've never been one to settle although it seems that settling is all I do. I freak the fuck out and disregard everything that I feel is beyond saving. That's Mars for you. At these times, like right now, I feel compelled to write. As if someone might actually understand what I'm feeling and learn from what I'm saying. The majority who read what I write seem to already know these things I am learning. In some ways, we all know the same things. I guess it's the voicing and reading that put it in perspective. Anyway...blah blah blah...Tonight really fucking sucks and I knew it would because that's how my life rolls. The problem is that I'm picturing this alternate reality, the one that would be normal in everyone's eyes, where tonight would be very comforting and giving me some sense of stability. It's always upside down, I thrive on it, and it beats the shit out of me every single day.

Are you fucking serious?

I'm taking a break at hour 10 of my day to realize how much I did today. It's just a rant really and a good way for me to vent because today, like yesterday, is going to be a 15-hour day. I designed a presentation in InDesign to be sent out to an agency consisting of word documents, pdfs, and a customized cover with logos as well as customized dividers reflecting the color scheme of the client as well as the agency. During this process, I set up a workstation to work with the RED camera. I created a workflow for that edit to be put on the web. I designed and built a Webpage for the edit to be shown as well as an alternate version to be downloaded as a zip file. Then I redesigned the page to display multiple versions and back to the original again. I created a password protected directory structure for the page so that it requires a username and password. I authored a DVD for a new director with customized menus built in Illustrator as well as overlaying buttons. I downloaded high quality quicktime videos of his reel and converted them for web as well as for DVD. I made him an intro tag for his reel and uploaded a new version of his reel to be viewed for a potential job. I duplicated 15 dvd's for one of our reps. I authored 3 additional dvd's to overcome a shortcoming in DVD player design. These are the highlights. Now, I'm going to begin a red carpet edit for a non-profit organization.

Corysco has a good idea

He made a shirt design and inspired me to do the same.

SF Seasons premiere drops me off the deep end

This is the highlights of the night I went to SF for the Seasons premiere...or maybe the lowlights. I must provide the set-up of this night correctly. I had a flight at 9:00. Started taken shots of Tequila and drinking beer at 4. Left for the airport at 7. Took a nap on the way. Hour delay on the flight so free wine on the plane. Into SF at 11. Planned on taking the Bart into the city but it was now too late so cabbed it. Already way passed tipsy. Subsequently, I left my board in the cab at what was supposed to be the beginning of the night. These are Nick's photos that pretty much have become my surrogate memory...because I don't remember most of it.

THIS IS THE BEGINNING




A LITTLE LATER-THESE GIRLS WERE NOT PLEASED





I'M SOBER HERE





YEAH GOTO



DEVIL INCARNATE






ROCKING OUT BY MYSELF




PASSING THE FUCK OUT AND GETTING LEFT ON THE COUCH IN A STRANGE PLACE



THIS IS ACTUALLY THE MORNING FOLLOWING THE NEXT NIGHT BUT A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE AFTERMATH




After I woke up....unaware of where I was or how I managed to get there, I called Nick and he basically had to explain where I was in the city and a brief recap of the end of the night. The girls in the house, were discussing the previous night's festivities....actually their previous night's encounters. I don't think they knew I was there. I contemplated talking to them but instead I just left without saying anything. What was I going to say? Hi, my name is Chris? I called a cab and took it to the hotel for a much needed shower and WTF contemplation.

My new look