Playing to the Back Row

I'm a creative person, but I don't flex those muscles on a daily basis. I do enough to keep me satiated, and frankly, my life is too complicated and busy to frequently feel the driving desire to be some sort of artiste.

For the past six months, I've been relatively creative in the workplace, as we've been building a new website for the past five months. It's been professionally satisfying, and this week led up to the public debut of our new URL. The CEO asked that we plan an event at our quarterly all-company meeting in its honor, and we ended up deciding on a "behind the scenes" farce video of the making of the new site.

Somehow, I found myself offering to write the script, knowing that too many cooks in the kitchen would lead to paralysis, and we had less than a week. A 7 page script was churned out that day, followed by rallying the entire team for two-days of shooting between meetings. Everyone felt silly and there was some initial skepticism, but people started to loosen up, and once the footage hit iMovie, I hit my stride.

If I would've considered other avenues in Hollywood beyond writing, I would've been an editor. I have a nice sense of rhythm, and screenwriting is its own form of editing. I used to cut on film, and though I spent a number of seasons in reality TV show editing rooms giving instructions and feedback, I was always in the producer's chair behind the editor and not behind the controls, clicking the buttons. My actual digital editing was limited to a few clip packages I threw together for awards shows over the years. But I certainly don't know the (better) technology like Avid to any real degree, and when it came to the user-friendly, for the masses iMovie, I didn't even know how to trim a shot four days ago.

Needless to say, iMovie is very user friendly, even with its somewhat limited toolbox, and it perfectly suited my needs. What was intended to be short, single shot scenes became multi-angle, cutaway-rich, audio-varied little vignettes. Not all of the scenes are good, but they generally click and shimmy, delivering the laugh lines I intended, and numerous ones that I didn't. Part of the fun became editing around the amateur actors. Not that I'm any kind of a pro, but storytelling was at one time my job, whereas none of these people wanted to be behind a camera.

By the end of the week, showing rough cuts to the team was garnering big laughs, excitement, and buy in for the final scenes. So I worked even harder on it. I put in a minimum of 2o-25 hours of editing for a seven minute piece, and the big debut was at an all-company meeting of 250+ people. And... it played. There was consistent energy in the room, chuckles and titters, and a number of scenes that got all-out belly laughs. The CEO loved it, and wanted it on YouTube, even though it playfully tweaks the execs rather than glamorizes them.

A creative itch was scratched, and I had an actual audience. An audience that liked and appreciated it. It was a good moment. One of those Mozart Moments.

This isn't to say that I'm spending my time dying to be endlessly creative, writing scripts, all that kind of stuff... but it was nice for a few days.

And, most importantly, the new site is pretty damn cool.

The Rock Wall

It's not often that a parent feels like they've really got it nailed. That they said the right thing, did the right thing... all those things that are important to create a next generation that's more evolved, more competent than we feel. 

Not that I feel like a fuck up as a parent. On the contrary, I think I'm doing a decent enough job, but it's so easy to hold the mistakes you make against yourself. The times you lose your temper, that you don't put enough effort into storytime, that you express just a little more dissatisfaction than is necessary. These moments add up, and part of parenting is grappling with the question: is it adding up more for your child... or for you?

I'd like to think it's the latter, but you don't know. Because, if it is the latter, maybe moments like today won't make the impact on Z that they had on me.

We had an evening at the park. Me, Z and L. It gives me no end of pleasure just how much Z wants to spend time with L, although there's no question, that brings up certain concerns as well. How much attraction is too much? How much intimacy? What should that relationship be like? As it plays out, it's absolutely wonderful, but I just want to be cognizant that both of them - all of us - are treading in previously uncharted waters (for us, at least). 

Z was climbing a rock wall. Not the typical park rock wall for kids, with its plastic hand and foot-holds, blazing like neon signs for where to step. Rather, this newly designed park (ironically, it's always been known to Z as "New Park") installed a faux-rock climbing wall. With gritty hand-holds and grooves, which really force children to figure things out on their own. 

Z failed to figure it out the first time, getting halfway up before calling plaintively to be helped down. A while later, he climbed to the top, but then realized that was quite a predicament - the pride of accomplishment was replaced by the fear of the unknown. Dad needed to scale his way to the top and one-arm Z down to another father. Crisis averted.

But, Z being Z, the first thing he did was climb right back up. This time, when he got to the top, I warned him not to crab-walk to the same place he got stuck last time. So he didn't. He made it halfway down the other side of the wall, my pride surging, until I needed to lift him off the remaining section. 

But, Z being Z, he wasn't done. Another trip to the top, and this time the allure of the crab-walk was too much for him to resist, even though I specifically told him this would end badly, and that I wasn't going to rescue him. I muttered to L that I knew where this was going, and I wasn't sure what the parenting response should be.

He did it anyway. And, predictably, he got caught exactly where I said he would. His eyes welled with tears, and he asked me to get him down. I told Z that this is exactly what I warned him of, and I couldn't help him. He looked right at me and said, "But you're a hero". If that isn't a moment that both swells and crushes your parenting instincts, I don't know what is. 

So I told him that I couldn't help him. He got himself into this mess, and he had to figure out how to get himself out of it. I helped point out areas that would be easier for him to cope with. He carefully - and oh-so-dangerously - shifted his body weight around, and skittered down an edge that he could easily fall off, but which led him to a slightly lower outpost... only 8 feet high, rather than 10. It was one of those scary parent moments, but one that I knew I couldn't rescue him from (unless things got legitimately dangerous for him), because all I'd be doing is proving that he can call on me for anything... even when he is the one who screwed up. Instead, I was trying to teach him that when you screw up (even in such a self-consciously belligerent way as he had just proven), it's often all on you to figure out how to solve the problem. 

And he did. He made it to the 8 foot outcropping, and... Z being Z, jumped off into the sand.  A perfect landing, incidentally. When he landed, he was clearly proud of himself, but I quickly got down on one knee and said, "Z, tell me... who was the real hero?. He beamed, and said, "I was", and ran off, excited just to be a kid.

The moment probably passed for him, unremarkable and forgotten. For me, it might be a moment that I'll treasure for the rest of my life. 

It's official

Despite the emotional upheaval of separation and divorce, from a purely practical standpoint, selling my home - a large but aging condo located in a desirable section of Los Angeles - has scared me more. Perhaps it's the fact that I know my ex and I are both reasonable people, and she's not going to try fucking me over, and I have proven again and again that I'm going to take the high road through all of this. 

But selling a condo in a down market, with all of that pent up fear that my home had come to represent, was crippling. It kept me from putting it on the market until after the holidays, and then this horrible, gut-wrenching process taking 12 weeks seemed to put me in an interminable limbo. Even though we found a buyer quickly, the daily uncertainty, the serpentine regulations was even more challenging than I envisioned the whole thing to be. I don't think I would've been able to handle it without L, who was just a complete buoy in so many ways. 

And today it's done. Kind of a Mozart Moment.

I no longer own property, and I now have a very large sum of money in my bank account. It's not large by Los Angeles standards, and the sad irony is that it's not even enough for me to go jump into another property if I wanted to (which I very much DON'T right now), but it's more money than I've ever personally had in my life. An interesting feeling, though also kind of a nervous one, because I want to kind of nurture that egg so it can be of greater use down the line. It's not something to crack open, though maybe I'll rub it a little bit here and there.

I can't even begin to express the relief I feel being on the other side of this. I am so colossally happy about everything right now, and most of it is because of L. Being on the other side of the house is just icing on the cake. Of course, I'd like to be on the other official side of the marriage too, but that feels trivial by comparison. Getting two people who philosophically agree on most things to sign a bunch of papers seems a lot less daunting than finding a total stranger in a colossally nightmarish economy to buy the home that often gave you nightmares for much of the last six years. Getting a divorce seems like a dance party in comparison. At the same time, as I told my brother, it's not high on my list of things to do right now. I feel like I just climbed a treacherous, ice-slicked mountain, and the last thing I feel like doing is strapping on some snowshoes. 

I'd rather relax, smile, be happy, be in love, and live. That sounds much better to me. And it feels just a little bit easier today.

Words are too small

It's been 8 months since I started writing down the experiences of the past year. Though there are sporadic readers from places as far flung and random as Utah, China or even Africa, this was never meant to be something that anyone other than myself was meant to read. A place to put down some of my most intimate, darkest thoughts as a way of both purging and understanding them. It's been immensely valuable too, both as means of coping, but also as a sort of marker. A gravestone of sorts, marking the before and after moments of my life. 

My life doesn't seem remotely the same as it was a year ago. There are throughlines, of course. My son, the company I work for, certain friendships, etc. Yet, I am not the same that I was a year ago. It's possible that fundamentally people don't change. However, maybe what changes are the fundamental aspects of our nature that we elevate or suppress based on our experiences, our interactions, or fears, our hopes. Maybe it's all deep down inside us, but we selectively choose what comes out, and what doesn't. And then, at a certain point, we seem to lose control over those choices; our bodies, our minds, our experiences start to make the decisions for us, and this becomes who we "are". But there are other sides of us still hidden there deep in the weeds.

I feel those parts of myself emerging again, that I may have suppressed along the way. Hope, belief, optimism, beauty, connectedness, peace. These are things that I always saw as fundamental parts of me, but somewhere along the way got pushed aside. I'm not blaming anyone for that, and ultimately, I'm responsible for letting that happen. I let the stress of life overtake those things that I was, and wanted to be. 

And now I find myself shown things in myself that I may have never even known were there, or if they were, they were long forgotten. But those are things that feel so utterly natural, or right, or... perfect, that it makes you realize that we all have Mozart in us, even if we're battling his and Salieri's demons along the way. 

And those things are emerging - and being brought out - in the most beautiful ways, that I don't feel like I've changed or that I'm a different person. I am becoming the person I originally saw myself as, and feeling myself connected in a way that I never saw coming, and may have never thought possible. I feel that certain words, like peace, or calm, make sense to me in a way they never did before. Peace is a really, truly beautiful word.

These are ramblings that likely make little sense. Sometimes words are too small to capture the feeling. 

No Parking: Special Event

I got a friend whose goal in life

Was to one day go down on Madonna
That's all he wanted, That was all

To one day go down on Madonna

And when my friend was thirty-four 

He got his wish in Rome one night
He got to go down on Madonna
In Rome one night in some hotel
And ever since he's been depressed
'Cause life is shit from here on in
And all our friends just shake their heads
And say too soon, too soon, too soon
He went down on Madonna too soon
Too young, too young, too soon, too soon

There are some events that are once in a lifetime deals. The above lyrics from Dan Bern's "Tiger Woods" is a playful tweaking of such an event, used to cast a light on how transitory, temporary great experiences can be. Who doesn't know the feeling of peaking too early? I had one of those last week, and no, it didn't involve going down on Madonna. I'm not sure WHO would really yearn for that anymore, but in Dan Bern's defense, the song's a good 15 years old. 

My once-in-a-lifetime event was getting to go to the Academy Awards, which was somehow more enjoyable an experience by virtue of no longer being part of Hollywood. If I would've done this 5 years ago, I would've held a private sadness at the thought that it wasn't ever going to be me in those front 20 rows. Rather, I was just a schmuck paying $10 for a beer while watching Sean Penn power by on his way to a umpteenth cigarette break. But since I stepped out of that world, I've been able to let go of so many of those obsessions and ambitions, and in all honesty, not feel bad about it beyond sometimes the aching thought of the years that I missed out on. So it was just fun to put on the wide-eyed fan cap and enjoy the big, broad absurdity of it all.

And it is patently absurd, although when you're actually there (past the spotlight glare of the red carpet with the shouting photographers, screaming fans and oceans of red), it's a strangely intimate affair. It's not a giant theater, and even though millions of people are watching the show, when you're in the room you're struck by the overwhelming sense of a high school theater production. Just with a really, really big prop budget. Granted, it's all very well orchestrated, but there's definitely a humanness to the preceedings when you're on the other side of the picture tube. 

There's a certain excitement, of course, to watching the show in the room itself. Our seats were solid though not spectacular. It was on the first level, so I could listen in on Richard Jenkins chatting with an old friend (he's more like an average joe than an actor, to be sure), but we were definitely in the back. Which gave a perfect perspective to walk out the doors as Seal and Heidi Klum walk in. Why were they there, incidentally? I wonder if he's in the academy from a nomination or something... 

The most enjoyable sequences were hanging out in the lobby bar, eavesdropping on conversations, watching Robin Wright Penn head in opposite directions of her soon-to-be-feted husband, seeing Viola Davis hanging out with friends to commiserate over her loss, and introducing myself to Peter Gabriel. I tried to rein in the adoring fan bit, and didn't want to lead with, "Dude, I love "Sledgehammer!". So I commented that his music just seems to get better with each year, and that I'd spent much of the last year listening obessively to "Father/Son". Which is true. He was polite, gracious, and eager to get back to talking to his girlfriend. But it felt good to introduce myself to at least one major name. A surreal moment was watching Brangelina stroll up to the bar, the crowd parting like the red sea, and then everyone in eyesight just not-so-subtly shifting to stare at them. Brad and Angelina acting like nothing was odd about any of this. Well, props to them.

Miley Cyrus. I don't understand why she's famous, but she's a relatively pretty girl in person. I suppose she'll mature and end up fairly attractive like the other Disney stars before her (et. al Britney, Hillary Duff, etc.). Women in general at the Oscars are fairly scary, with an overabundance of make-up, surgery, Botox and dresses that scarily blur the line between evening down and slut-whore. At least the famous people can pull off tacky without looking like skanks. Not so much with lots of the other women there.

The Governor's Ball was a delight, with free-flowing champagne and wine, and a spot near the door to watch the celebrities stroll past the paparazzi. Anne Hathaway trips on the stairs as someone steps on her train, and I gently move for her elbow (she didn't really need the help). She gives me one of those bemused looks of, "Ooh, that was almost a bad one". An amusing moment. She is pretty stunning in person. 

Others, not so much. Remember Bridget Fonda? Well, not many people do, and it might because she looks like total ass (married to Danny Elfman, who was nominated). Kevin Kline bumps me heading into the ball. I love that guy, and damn, he's actually really tall. Phoebe Cates still looks great, and was wearing red, by the way, which is a color that boys of a certain age will perpetually associate with her. Anthony Hopkins, dragging along a woman my age; you fucking cliche goofball. And what's with the fucking earring? What, you think you're Harrison Ford or something? Christopher Walken, not looking so good. The chick from "Slumdog", gorgeous in person, and still not making me believe her character.

We shared a table with Michael Shannon, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. A nice enough guy, though he definitely had the full on, "I'm an actor" thing going on. His theater actor wife was very nice, and more concerned about getting back to their 8 month old baby than sticking around the party, which is a humanizing experience. Shannon was sweet to bring both his mother and step-mother, who was a nice lady from Chicago, though perhaps overly irritated by her son being beat by an iconic performance by a beloved dead-guy. Uh, I hate to break it to you, Ma'am, but for four men, it was an "honor to be nominated" kind of night. The food was decadent though unspectacular, but P. (my patron for the night) and I had our eyes on the clock, because the Oscars were only part 1 of an epic night.

It's well-known by those who know me that I'm a little bit of a Prince freak. A white boy from Wisconsin who danced in his basement to "When Doves Cry" when he was 8, has been through the ups and downs of fandom with our most mercurial of musical superstars. But seeing him live - especially when up close - is as close to musical nirvana as anyone will ever get. Trust me on that. And Prince announced a post-Oscar aftershow, just blocks from the awards. Damned if I was going to miss that. 

Moreover, I had introduced my friend V. to Prince's live music on our trip to Twentynine Palms. He's since been obsessed with seeing him live, and he was so determined to pull it off, that he stood on the curb for 6 hours to get us tickets. One of the sweetest things I've ever seen out of a friend, even though V. never seems to believe he's as good of a friend as he really is. Another friend got cold feet at the last minute, not willing to stand on line, but V. stood for half a day on a dirty Hollywood street with a bunch of strangers to see a musician that he had barely given any thought of prior to a month ago. P and I roll up at about 11:30, concerned about the ealier text messages that there are no tickets being sold - it's just a door charge - but the friendly Prince fans let us into line (we were only 10 people back), even though they'd been there all day. 

In pure Prince fashion (meaning, heavily disorganized and running late), we don't go inside until 12:30, and stand just at the left hand corner of the stage. Perfect. And in even more typical Prince fashion, he doesn't stroll onto stage until 1:15, and then proceeds to... tear it up. It was cover night in Prince's house, and we were treated to three Stones tunes, a blistering version of "Come Together" that would make Paul McCartney blink real hard, and a fun version of the Cars "Let's Go". I mean, the Cars??? Prince only played 5 of his own songs, and definitely seemed more into playing the Time's "Jungle Love" and "The Bird", which had the entire audience bouncing up and down, doing a 25 year old dance. Amazing. I think he's just kind of bored with his own catalogue, and as much as that pisses off the old-school, obsessive fans, I say it's all good. C'mon, wouldn't you get tired of your own music after 32 years too? Cut the man some slack, and he puts on the most amazing, captivating live show around.

V. couldn't get enough from P's exit, throwing his guitar on the ground and yelling, "Don't mess with me! I got too many hits!". It's a well-worn line for Prince fans, almost a nervous tic of his of sorts, but to V., he had clearly just seen the coolest guy on earth stroll off stage right, even though he left us without the second encore. But it was past 4 in the morning, and an amazing day needed to come to an end, even if none of us wanted it to. 

And when my friend was thirty-four 

He got his wish in Rome one night
He got to go down on Madonna
In Rome one night in some hotel
And ever since he's been depressed
'Cause life is shit from here on in

Here's hoping the song is wrong.

Iranian poetry is great for drinking

Tonight was my second date, and we listened to Persian music from multiple eras, across numerous geographic borders, at the Hollywood Bowl. We also drank a lot of wine, had great food, and spent the night making amusing asides to each other. And we learned a lot about each other.

Most notably, we learned that we really see the world in similar ways. The way we look at our children, at other parents, at our backgrounds, there are so many similarities that it's a little intimidating.  She's a single mother with a successful career, and a gigantic heart of love for the most important person in her life, who she has been dedicated to from the moment she found herself a mother at a very young age. She's also well-read, with a great sense of humor, and engaged in the world. 

And I do think she likes me, which feels pretty great as well. At the same time, it's difficult to tell if she likes me or the idea of me. The devoted father, the caretaker, etc. That worries me a bit, I'll admit. We all have emotional needs that we need to fill somehow, and I just hope that I'm not servicing the emotional need, rather than being a person that is compelling and intriguing to her. And the insecure part of me fears that this is what I'm doing for her. Because I find her compelling. We'll see what happens next...

Another Mozart Moment

This year I was tasked with starting a new business vertical for my company. As a result, I divested myself of many of my other job responsibilities as this project grew and grew and grew in scope. The first route we took was very one-dimensional, and mid-way through the summer, we realized that monetizing this vertical was not as simple as slapping up a simple website and driving traffic in and out of it (what you would call a pass-through site).

We reset out ambitions earlier this summer, and then I spent the summer envisioning, designing, and devising a plan for where to take this business. Now, I didn't do it all on my own, but I was the driving factor, the one getting things done, creating ideas, building the designs and plans, and generally being the engine to this little engine that could.  Our goal by the end of the quarter was a full-fledged marketing plan - the vision of where this is going, what it's going to be, and most importantly, why it's meaningful. 

Today was the big day to present our whole year's worth of work and seek his backing to make this a larger company agenda moving forward. At stake is, frankly, my job. The reason goes back to that first point I made - as this grew more complex, I divested myself of so many other key elements of my job. If this doesn't get the green light and the doors get shuttered... uh, hello...? I'm still here, right? On the upside, I'm well liked at my company, and people would likely find some way to make me "of use", as Dr. Larch would say. But this is my baby, my project, and what I get excited about at work, and where I'm making a difference and a stamp. So, it's not hyperbole to say today was a crucial professional moment. 

And, in short, I nailed it. The company CEO came in a skeptic, and came out a believer. He frequently stopped me to bring up his own ideas, and to express how he thinks we've hit on what makes it important and valuable. You could see the twinkle in his eyes. Now, this doesn't make it a slam dunk, because we have some challenging headwinds as a company, and we have parent company concerns to deal with. But we got his emotional backing, and his commitment to find a way to get this done. 

Later tonight, the CEO sent me a note that says, "And best of all your passion for the initiative left me inspired and ready to join your team myself.  It was a pleasant reminder of one of the fundamentally great reasons why I love working here – there are smart, passionate people out there who can inspire me every day.  So thanks for that."

No, Mr. CEO, thank YOU for that.

Definitely a Mozart moment.

There are good days

It's Friday. After a very long week. Thank god it's over.

But Friday night turned into a delightful surprise. What was supposed to be a casual night out, with personal undercurrents that I felt, turned out to be a a fantastically wonderful night where it turns out I wasn't the only one on that page.

Feels like a Mozart moment. At least for the night...

Wolfgang moment on Friday. I'm involved in a new initiative at work where we are, essentially, creating an entire new business vertical - a new way to diversify our revenue streams for the company. A couple of months back, we were tasked with a very narrow sliver of such a venture, and we knocked it out, only to learn (perhaps predictably) just how hard this was going to be, and how challenging a vertical it would be to make money in the rather beautifully simple way our parent company makes boatloads of cash.

So a small group of us, including our very inspiring - but challenging - VP did a dramatic thing by tasking us to stop thinking about making money (initially we were told to think exclusively about making money), and to envision a product that's going to matter, to last. This is easier said than done, because it's a fairly competitive, saturated market already. But we spent a day hanging out in a park, diagramming ideas, getting inspired. But the next step was a mystery... which I cracked.

After a lot of research and pondering, I put together a Powerpoint presentation of data - and how to use that data - for the group, and essentially laid out a vision of where the product could go, and what it could be. And, for all intents and purposes, knocked it out of the park. The VP was inspired (just like he's inspired me), and most rallied behind the idea, even though it's not 100% there yet - it's the next big, bold step.

That felt pretty great.