Bret Easton Ellis

BretEastonEllis Bret Easton Ellis

The worst thing that can happen to an artist is to become afraid of his audience...

 

If anyone asked me where the seeds of my desire to write originated, it would have been soon after I picked up The Rules Of Attraction, in the fall 1988. Pre-Internet days, I only discovered Bret Easton Ellis was by seeing the book in someone else's hands, and asking about it.

 

Sophomore year of college, we were routinely going to the underground club right outside the town my school was located in. The club had initially started out catering to a gay crown, then as the late 80's progressed, it started having Goth/alternative nights, which moved on to eventually the underground/acid house/early rave scene. By October of '88, we were all quite interested in the house music scene that has recently come over from the U.K. to the U.S., so we went to this place, two, three nights a week.

 

I walked in with my friends around 10pm on a Friday - we came in early, as we were underage at the time, and the only way we were getting around being carded was by coming in before the crowds. The doorman sat on a stool, sporting a black eye, and reading a paperback. He was a budding acquaintance, so I asked him about both. He said the black eye was from a fight the previous evening, (Thursday night was the only night of the week the fraternity/sorority folks ever ventured out there - weekends were for their more "organized" binge drinking events). Some idiot had started giving him an attitude over a drink, and my doorman friend wound up fighting the guy with a bat. And hence, the black eye. I asked about the book, (I was intrigued by the cover), and he said it was good, I should read it. Rules of Attraction I thought, what the hell is it about? I had no clue. I initially thought it was a self help book, which I had a hard time imagining a doorman reading.

 

After picking it up at the local independent bookstore, (no Borders or Waldenbooks in small college towns back then), I read it from beginning to end, in about a day, stopping between classes to read a few more pages around campus. Although the characters had been in college a few years prior to myself, it was the first literature that was aimed at Generation X that I had come across. In the late 80's, prior to the information age, books and magazines were the only connection you had to the culture of other 20 something's.

 

I read how he interspersed the characters varying interpretations of the same events. I realized that B.E.E was clearly someone who had lived the story, while at the same time remaining separated, an observer to the events in his own college life, something I understood well. He was that guy at the party that was just as wasted as everyone, but didn't talk as much, because he was busy recording what was happening in his mind.

 

These were Generation X'rs I felt that I knew - smart, nuanced, flawed, experimenting with altering our consciousness - and definitively not a part of the mainstream stereotypical college experience.

 

I don't love all his work, (I'll withhold my commentary on American Psycho for another day), but I love that he tweeted the importance of an artist not being afraid of their audience. Whether you love everything he's written or not, he's clearly never let his fear of reader response halt the brilliance of his style. I wasted a lot of time *not* writing, precisely because I think I've spent more time worrying about how my writing would be taken instead of just putting words to paper, (so to speak).

 

There are probably many potential amazing authors out there who will never share their talent for the same reasons. I'm determined to always remind myself that that if I'm going to write, I must write what I feel first, and worry about its reception, (if I'm going to concern myself with it at all), later. Letting go of holding back on your art is probably something that contributes to your overall well being. If you constantly censor your thoughts, art, work, etc, for fear of not being considered good enough, appropriate, whatever, you're holding back on your development as a complete human being.

 

Cops and Survivalists

Because I am from Florida, I like to watch Police Women of Broward County. However, I despise the blonde cop with the pulled back hair. Every time she busts some "big" time dealer for a tiny bag of weed or a handful of pills, she acts like she put Al Capone away, or Jack the Ripper. I literally roll my eyes when she blathers on about "putting away another bad guy". I realize drug dealers are detrimental to society, but she acts like going undercover and baiting these poor fools into selling an itty bitty amount of narcotics or microscopic amount of marijuana makes her cop of the year. She may not look like your average cop on a power trip, but that's what she is.

South Florida has terrible violent crime, people shooting and killing each other constantly, major cocaine kingpins moving kilos of coke in through mules carrying up their butts, in exchange for getting to come to the U.S to avoid desperate poverty in third world central America, and she acts like she's doing something major to help put "bad guys" away.
Looks like this guy agrees:

http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2011/05/10/sister-wives-vs-police-women-of-broward-county/

Here is a promo, where she tells us there's always a good time to use a taser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2RBT6m0LHRM

I know some very upstanding, hardworking law enforcement officers, but I don't think any of them would be on a reality show, which tells you something right there.

Now, onto a much better show - Dual Survival! I absolutely love Cody and Dave:


http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dual-survival-2-penis-for-breakfast.html



Being a bit of a neurotic, I began initially to be interested in survival shows, just to be prepared in case either myself, or any of my friends were to unexpectedly find ourselves dropped in the jungles of Peru. Or, say if our helicopter crashes somewhere in the Andes. OR,  if I happen to be in the middle of the Pacific ocean and have to abandon ship and need to know how to survive in a lifeboat with no supplies for a month. You know, things that happen to me all the never.

So, now I've seen pretty much every episode of I Shouldn't Be Alive, I'm Alive, Dual Survival and Man Vs. Wild. If you need to know how to make a fire w/nothing but some sticks and elephant poop, ask me. If you need to know how to desalinate water with a tin can and some copper piping, ask me. If you want to know how to keep your head cool in the salt flats of Mexico, ask me, (hint: wear a bandanna, you may or may not have to pee on it, and then wear it on your head afterwards).

Too bad I am a huge germphobe. If I'm stranded on the side of a mountain during an avalanche, it will be difficult to hold onto my giant size package of Wet Wipes....

Tasmanian Devil Of The Recession

Getting squashed by the economy is not for the faint of heart. If you're quick to self pity, if you give up easily, if being forced to think creatively causes you to break out in hives....well, hopefully you had a mommy and daddy somewhere to move back in with early on in the game.

When I look back on the past two and a half years, I see myself as a whirling dervish. Constantly moving. Temping, "real" job searching, applying for food stamps, trying to fend off foreclosure for just a bit longer, putting out the fires that come along with life, regardless of the economy.

Just in the past couple of months, I've flailed from one thing to another - phone screens for jobs in two states, registering with the temp agencies, (once again), desperately looking for someone on Craigslist who will fix my air conditioning, (both car and home), when they both decide to bite it, within months of each other. And in the middle of all that, spending three weeks getting ready to appear on the OWN Network talk show. Quick 36 hour trip to Los Angeles, and right back to the merry go round that is my life, once again.

Me



Staying on top of economic crisis requires an immense amount of energy, something that depressed folk are not exactly known for having in abundance.

Back when I first found myself out of work, one of the first things that really hit me hard is that I was, for the first time in my adult life, overweight. I had somehow managed to put on approximately 35 extra lbs in the years leading up to the recession. A bad breakup in 2005 left me eating a ridiculous amount of chocolate ice cream and cake, late in the evening.

My once fiery metabolism had yielded to my mid 30's. I was no longer to process an enormous amount of empty calories and still effortlessly maintain a size 4/6 figure, with a modicum of exercise.

It would have been very easy to further drown myself in more self pity with even *more* garbage. But after bursting into tears in an Ann Taylor dressing room when a size 12 petite dress was too tight across the boobs, enough was enough. I decided I could be broke and out of work, or I could be fat, I wasn't going to be of all of them at once.

It took from around mid 2009 to mid 2010, but I managed to pull waaay back on the sugar, and ramped up the exercise again. It would have been nice to have had the benefit of a trainer or meal delivery service, but with no real income, I had to go without either weight loss luxury. I had started at a portly 164lbs, and ended up at 125lbs. (I'm 5'3", with an athletic frame).

While I was very excited to have lost the weight for all the usual vanity reasons, the unexpected benefit of that weight loss was that my energy levels went back up. The excess weight had crept up so slowly, it didn't even hit me how much it was pulling me down, literally. I knew I felt sluggish, but once I was back to 125, my knees stopped hurting all the time, I could get by with less sleep, and I even had more stamina for the job search.

And even in interviews, I didn't have to worry constantly that I looked like a stuffed sausage in my suits.

I don't think there is any magic recipe for keeping going when the going gets rough. But keeping your head above water, pretty much regardless of reasons for poor circumstances, requires energy. A *lot* of it.

T.V and movies in the ATL

I finally caught an episode of Single Ladies, on Vh1. Ok, so the acting is terrible, the writing is cheesy as hell, but it's nice to finally see a show about Atlanta where you actually see people doing things IN the city of Atlanta, even if it's all fictional. As opposed to the "Real" Housewives of Atlanta, where they spend 80% of the filming their homes way out in the burbs, (or restaurants/bars that most citizens who live inside the perimeter don't even recognize).

I've noticed in recent years, the number of movies and tv shows that use Atlanta for filming has picked up. No doubt due to cheaper location shoots. Drop Dead Diva shoots here five months a year, and I read that the main cast member stays in Peachtree City the entire time, (the area south of the city where they shoot). Margaret Cho and the other recurring stars come back and forth from L.A., as needed.

As a result, many of these shows need extras. Having done it once for a different show that filmed here in Atlanta, it's not something I can see doing again.

You have to commit to a 12 hour day, and they pay is usually $7.50 per hour. We had to be there by 7:30am, to check in. They told use there would be breakfast, but what they really meant was that there might be leftovers on the catering table, *after* the cast and crew of the show ate first. Same for lunch. So you spend most of the day sitting around, starving, thirsty or both.

I did find the shooting process itself pretty amusing. We were to be used on a bus scene, (supposedly this was a bus driving people around downtown L.A). When I got on the bus with everyone one, the director said I looked too nice to be a real bus rider in L.A., and that I looked like I was taking a bus to Beverly  Hills.

I got off the bus, then another director told me to get back on. The same director was inside the bus, (we rode around a real bus, this wasn't a prop), and the same director was there. He sees me and goes, "Oh great, Beverly Hills is back!". WTF? I guess they just needed bodies in there to fill up the scene, whether I looked too clean to be an L.A bus rider or not.

We eventually finished up the day, (after randomly being driven around midtown in a bus for a few hours, with a police escort, while everyone on the streets stared at us), and we got to go home. A couple of months later, I got a check for the day, which I think came to like, $60.00 or so. 

It was an interesting experience, and something to do for a little extra money since I wasn't working at the time, but I don't know if I would do it again. There are more profitable ways to "temp", and I think some of the people working as extras truly think it will be their break into show business. The directors are incredibly bossy and don't care that you're there all day making minimum wage.

I don't know how people pursue careers in acting for years and years, trying to get a break. It clearly requires a very thick skin, and an ability to not get frustrated with being treated like a commodity, both of which I do not have in ample supply.

From L.A to Hell No

Last week was interesting. I started out on Monday, flying across the country on Oprah's dime to be on one of the OWN talk shows that has been renewed for a second season. I flew there, stayed at the Hollywood Renaissance, was driven around in limos and ate all on the shows dime. By the end of the week I was at a crummy $12 an hour temp assignment, working a help desk for an enormous convention for top life insurance salesmen. Not just the help desk, but also the lost and found, so I got the pleasure of having to deal with frustrated non-native English speakers who didn't want to hear it when I told them no one had returned their lost wallet, IPhone, passport, etc.

The TV show was unexpected surprise. Many months ago, the OWN website asked for stories of people affected by the recession, lost jobs, losing homes, etc, and I had written about my experiences since losing my job with my long time employer at the beginning of 2009. I wrote about how I had thought that it would be two, maybe three months at the most before I found another job back at my former income. Instead, here we were, two and a half years later, and I've done nothing besides worked a series of either temporary or very underpaid positions almost at half my former salary, hanging on to my condo by a thread, credit completely trashed till who knows when. The producers apparently found my story interesting, and a month or so ago, out of nowhere, I got a call asking me to send them more info and pictures.

One thing led to another, and after what felt like a few minutes had passed, I found myself flying two thousand miles to spend 36 hours for the first time in Los Angeles. The stay was short, but it was nice to be driven by (a very nice and Hollywood savvy) Russian driver to the Renaissance:

I also got to see the sight of the Academy Awards, the amazing Kodak theatre, and adjoining Hollywood & Highland mall, as they were right next to the hotel:

This was the first time I'd ever been on a television show, and facing a host panel of Oprah's favorite advice givers was terrifying. I thought it would be a little intimidating, but my knees were so tightly locked before they took us all to our seats in front of the stage, I was truly worried about fainting.

Fortunately, my part was brief, because I don't think I could have stood talking about my impending foreclosure and crapped out credit with Suze Ormond for more than a handful of minutes anyway.

Overall, I'm glad I did it. The depression of the last couple of years has put me into an emotional rut that feel impossible to get out of. When they played the short video I made at home, talking about my situation, I cringed at seeing how depressed and worn out I looked. The person on screen has clearly lost her swagger.

Since I've been back, I've tried to use the momentum from the experience to pull myself out of the pit of despair. I know there are many people out there in the same situation as myself, or even worse. I think when the economy improves, there will be a lot of research and data about how the number of people who were severely clinically depressed during this time. Even the most optimistic person can eventually sink under the weight of constant interviewing, missed opportunities, ongoing funds for anything that is remotely fun, etc.

I'm hoping the process of writing about my thoughts and feelings will be uplifting, and maybe give me some perspective on life. Maybe sharing the experiences in words will open my mind to what direction my life really needs to head in.