Sembelence...

Well. I got and took the HBO job. It's great. The pay is not great, but fuck it. I like working. I like working on a movie where all I do is hang around the editing room. Sometimes I help out, most the time I fuck around on the internet. Wonderful. So what if I think I know more than the person above me. Everyone is super low matinence, the director is super nice. I am relieved and grateful. I'm glad to be getting some money to buy basic nessesities. I know better things are in store for me and I have to be patient. I am.

Other news: I almost got into a car accident a little while ago. Some lady totally ran a red light. Not a "just ran a red light" thing, but a "I was getting off the freeway and it was green all the way--HOLY SHIT--Why is that bitch not stopping?" way. Chris my friend/drummer (we were on our way back from band practice) acknowledged that the bitch had no reaction. Not a wave, thanks for saving my life thing even. I didn't care. I was happy my brakes worked. I don't drive fast as californian's do. I got my Washington instincts still. Well, thank god. I was saved. God was looking out for the mostly empty coors light case in the back seat. 2 Coors lights + 2 hours of band practice = ok to drive, but man would that of fucked up my new job if my car got hurt. God damn. Thank goodness for... for... whatever stopped the car. The combination of my brain, my vision, my car's brakes, the dangerously close behind me for ALSO slamming on his brakes. Whatever.

Thanks for keeping my driving record clean.
Thanks for saving my life.
Thanks for me looking forward to tomorrow for the first time in a long while.

Another Day at the Office

I got another ticket this morning. Yey. That son of a bitch officer Jordan this time decides he can't see my little sign/proof of registration in taped on my back window. I'm going to go down to where ever I need to go and get that all straightened out tomorrow I think.

This morning I got a called in for an interview from an assistant editor for a post pa position. And I went. My resume was good enough to inquire interest for a position equal to where I finished up two years ago. The funny thing is, I didn't know what the interview was, but I didn't care. I was excited. I just want to work on something. So, I go in for this HBO movie and they talk to me and are like, "you realize you are too qualified. You're going to be running erands and getting lunch and not getting paid much money." I was honest and said I just wanted to work on something. They said they'd have to check because I might not be able to work on a union show in a non-union position... So there you have it. I am not qualified enough to get a position I want and too qualified to earn enough to eat. The reason why I want to work on it? The editor edited The Reanimator!!! Heck yeah.

As I await to here back from these folks in an answer that will totally be depressing either way, I stopped sending out my newly redone resume. I spent about 6 hours yesterday and a few hours today sending it out and planned on calling up studios this afternoon/tomorrow morning. That is on hold. I'll just digitize some old tapes from OOP Not Not Fun releases and post them on this awesome new messageboard I found called Fawns & Arrows. Probably eat and play halo in there as well.

Oh, have I talked about the No Fun Zone show yet @ the tacky yet classy party? It went well I think. It doesn't really matter, everyone was drunk and most people seemed not to know what to think. We had fun. And that's what matter most. If you really want to hear. I posted our avirl cover of girlfriend up at www.myspace.com/nofunzone. On the sadder not I tried to record it but failed do to some technical difficulties.



There you go. I'm wearing my lets make out t-shirt and 'Shlee is wear a trash bag.

Tell that meter maid to calm down

This is what is now hanging in the back of my car. I came out yesterday and had a ticket. For expired tabs. This hit me as funny on a number of levels. I drove around for almost a year and a half with expired tabs and never once got a ticket. But unless February 2008 came without me knowing it, my car is registered. I got a good laugh. Until I got another ticket the next morning. And then the next. Is Officer Hernandez out to get me or what? Like are there that many people parking right that they have to hunt out me and give me a $25 ticket every day. Your normal parking violation is $70. Get your shit together folks.

Today, even as I writing this, I am paying bills. I downgraded my cable. Yey. I no longer have to solely pay $110 a month for HD cable I do not use. I want to collectively thank current and former roomates. Now I have to fight with my phone company to make them bill my landlord. Lordy. What fun. I have soooo many bills. My quartly union dues are do too. Ugh. I just got off the phone with AT&T who says that I have to pay their expensive bill and then talk to my landlord about getting paid back. On the other hand, At&t is giving me internet and not billing me for it... sweet?

Bought groceries earlier today. I broke down because I was tired of eating rice all the time. Anyways, I went out of the way to trader joes. It's a longer drive but it was like 10am so I thought what the heck. Truthfully I've always disliked trader joes. There isn't one close by. Everyone and their mothers f-ing loves it. For a place that's organic and shit, the produce generally sucks. I've been hard on them. That will change. I had a great experience today. I bought all my meatless pattys and salad stuff and it was much, much, cheaper. I'm still shocked at how much less it was. I hope this food will last me until the end of the month. That's all. I'm depressed be cause I still have plenty more bills to got through.

But this is a good pick me up:

Radiohead & the Girls who need to fuck

I break ground on the editing of my camp project. I've watched every ounce of footage. All twenty hours. I'm going to try and figure out where to go from here. But it's good. I'm on the schedule that I've set for myself. I'll work at it more or less into the afternoon.

You know after you have a conversation with someone and something comes out of left field and your view of them is changed forever? I am reminded of such an instance when watching this footage. There was this counselor who I rode home with from camp. She was friends with driver, one of the teacher counselors. It was just three of us. I was in the back of the van and it was almost like I wasn't there. Somewhere along the six hour drive the girl was talking about breaking up, going into detail here and there and then all of a sudden she said very desperately, "I need sex so bad. I just need to fuck." While the subject, the frankness may have caught me off guard, the thing that really stuck around was she was three years younger than me. This younger girl needed sex really bad. Badly enough to let me know. Year of Adventure folks. Young girls need sex. Who'd of thought? Anyway, now when I watch the footage and see her on screen that's the only thing that enters my mind. Hey, that's the counselor who needs sex badly.

While on the subject and as part of the year of adventure, this past summer was the only time I received a drunken phone call from a girl who was like "Listen, I really need something to fuck. That something is you." I played it off like, you are drunk and I'll give you a ride home, rather than to be like, you think of me as a thing? I'm not a thing. I'm not a piece of meat that will have sex with anything. I have standards. And we're friends. Right? I don't think of you as a thing or thingy. So now, whenever I talk to this girl, that's what I am reminded of. She fucks things. Not me. I am more than that.

I'm listening to the new radiohead album. (Who isn't right?) It's pretty good. I'm not a huge radiohead fan and didn't really know there was an album coming out so, without having any expectations, it sounds good to me. It's free-ish. I just googled: raidiohead rainbows rapidshare. Found it really easily. What I'm looking forward to though, is the new Carrie Akre album that's supposedly going to hit my mailbox this week. She's having a private show for people who pre-ordered the cd but I can't make it up to washington next week....

Tomorrow I think I'll have to start calling regarding some bills I need to pay. Man oh man how they are piling up. I really could use a chunk of money. I though about applying to the bakery around the corner? Did I mention that already. Wouldn't that be fun? Baking cakes for a living. With my luck and lack of confidence I'll probably won't even get that job. I probably would be rejected from the goodwill down the street.

I'm really into this band called Pocahaunted. They release cds and tapes usually numbered and limited to 100. I have all but two of their releases. I was on ebay like last week and well, long story short, their shit sells for a great deal. Each 3" Cd which contains 1 song, 10-15 minutes was going for like $40-60. That's crazy right? If I need to eat anytime soon, I'll digitize the songs onto my ipod and then turn around and sell them, make some quick cash maybe.

I've just spent an hour of my life writing is when I should be editing.

Daily Grind

I'm devoting myself this week to two things and neither one of them is finding a job. First off, I am watching all this camp footage for this promo/documentary thing I promised to do way back when. I didn't hear anything from the camp director and while it was in the back of my mind, it wasn't a prime concern. He emailed me to see the progress and I feel obliged to do something with it. It's so much work. I'm watching and logging the 15 hours of footage as of last friday and I should be finished tomorrow. On wednesday I will finally start editing it. So that if my first focus this week.

The second is practicing with No Fun Zone. We're supposed to play this saturday. I just finished mixing our Avirl Lavinge cover we record a long time ago. It's stupid fun. Great stuff. I will see if I can post it in the near future. I'm going over there in a few minutes I think to 'write songs'. That's the thing, we don't have many, but writing songs is easy. [Good ones maybe not so, but who's got standards?]

Oh, I was going to start posting my daily food intake per my challenge from my last post, but I broke it approximately a day later when I met up with Alica. I haven't see that girl since the superbowl and apparently she's going to a rough patch and she broke up with her boyfriend/fiance/whatever. She finally returned a phone call like after half a year. That's all I really have to report on that. I donno what the hell's going on with her, all I know is I dropped $10 on thai food. So I'm sorry. I am eating rice and beans and spending a couple bucks here and there when I meet up with someone I haven't seen since I was working. I think she's doing okay.

That's all to report right now. Maybe more tomorrow.

Bottoming Out

This year of adventure has been really fun. It's been really unpredictable. It's been really hazardous.

I've been trying to figure out my life--more specifically--my life without a job. I have been jobless for over 8 months now. That's a long, long time. I'm starting to freak the fuck out. Long story short: I finished a film at the end of January and then I was going to take some time off and then this director we love working with was going to be filming another movie in the fall. Time passed, adventures ensued. Fast forward to August, I meet with my crew and it's even better news, our director has two movies back to back, we're going to work on both, get promotions, work for a year and a half and I'd be getting paid dangerously close to six figures a year. That's a freakin' case for celebration. I needed to get back to work, my crazy hollywood lifestyle is starting to take it's toll. And now I can go out with a bang.

Well, all fell through. The movie got pulled a few weeks before production and my editing crew found another movie and they can't afford to bring me on. My how quickly one can fall. My life is kind of turned around. I've had another job fall through and my confidence is almost non-existent. And I'm broke. I'm lost.

That happened Labor Day weekend. I have had only one signifigant interview since then (I didn't not get it). I've been depressed. I've never felt more alone. I don't know who to turn to advice. Professional or otherwise. I don't have any close friends to confide in. I want a girlfriend.

Yesterday, I went out with Annie, who basically has disappeared off the face of the earth for a year and she wanted me to go running with her. Me? A running instructor? I donno. It was great though to complain to someone and then have them complain and then get the idea that everyone is in the same place. Life is a bitch. I should be impressed that I have been able to function on my savings. I should be impressed that I still have some and can probably last until christmas. But really what have I don't with my 8 months? I feel betrayed because 6 of those months were waiting for a job that didn't happen. I turned down jobs. I could worked on the sarah silverman program for gods sake. Now I'm just dying to work. I love what I do. I just want to have money to buy furniture, to get a bed. To buy a bookcase and unpack my boxes in the corner of my room. I want to feed needed. Ultimately, I'm frightened that I don't have anyone to fall back on. I don't have parents to support me if I fall on hard times. My aunt and uncle are family but it's not the same. I can't fail and I'm starting slip.

Worst of all is I lost my confidence. My old optimistic self has cracked and I am bi-polar like no other. I'm either super happy or depressed and a lot of times that happens multiple time in a day, with or without alcohol. It's a crazy peak and valley thing and I'm trying so hard to even it out. But, you know, I'm still here. I've decided to take baby steps. It feels so degrading to apply for a job that I got the minute I graduated college 3 1/2 years ago. The same job. It feels like taking 5 steps backwards. But, you know what? I've got friends working the same jobs and have been for the same time. I got lucky. I'm not starting over, I'm continuing to take it all in. It's okay to fail. I feel sometimes like I'm going to turn fucking 30 in january. I'm young. I'm not failing. Some things take time. But the bottom line is: I got to start making some goddamn money. I really do. I want a pay check. I don't care how much I just want something so I can stop worrying about money and concentrate on the things I love doing.

In other news, No Fun Zone might be playing the Classy but Tacky party next saturday. We'll have to see. Ruggs wants us to play our song "Hipster vs. Grampa?" but what she doesn't realize is that we haven't written it yet. This opportunity might give us a chance to get off our ass and actually play some songs and get them in a presentable form as opposed to us getting drunk and watching National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2 at four in the afternoon. Apparently bad tv is our only song writing inspiration.

Also, I'm trying a few new things. I've been practicing the previous weeks but I've set some parameters regarding my budget. A few weeks ago I went on an alcohol strike. I basically quit drinking until I got a job. The main factor is, I get more accomplished when I stop drinking. I'm more production and right now, it's too tempting to start drinking at daylight when you're unemployed. Then I encountered a gray area in the alcohol strike. I got a job. Or rather, a gig. And then another gig. I worked two days on a movie. So... it was earning income, but not accomplishing what I set out to do. The easy compromise would be to be like "a gig = one drink". But then what about football? I got peer pressured my maileen on monday.... anyways the new parameters are: I am not paying for alcohol until I get a steady job. Starting today. Yup. I can mooch all I want but I can't buy. That's the first experiment.

The second is to see how long I can go without buying food. (I can afford to buy food, but I'm seeing how long this can go.) What do I have in the kitchen? Nada Mucho. I have a large bag of rice. Like a five pound bag. I've got come cans of stuff. Maybe like two soups, some corn, black beans, tomatoes, peas, olives. I've got one boca patty left. And then I've got the wildcard which is my cubbord. God knows what's in there. Everything I never ended up eating like whole wheat pasta, maybe like a rice a roni, some homemade pad thai, I donno. That's going to be explored sometime next week. I'm going to see how long this can get me. I also have a few bottles of mead and my super dangerous for special occasion only bottle of absinthe.

So that's the current experiments. Tomorrow I'm helping Mel out on her movie shoot, which not paid, but there's craft services and meals. Might be my last quality meal for weeks to come. *Today I've had three bowls of rice flavored with soy sauce and tabasco...

I had a really amazing experience at the 99 cent store yesterday. I usually hit the one up right next to the goodwill and then I look at clothes and stuff before I go into buy batteries. If there's one thing I learned in my life, it's that you go to the 99 cent store for 9volt batteries. I was at target last week and 2 9volts cost like 5-6bucks. Not at the 99cent store. 99 cents. I decided to go on the other side of the tracks this time (both stores are a bit sketchy but hey, welcome to la and the dollar store) and got to store off of nomandie. Oh my god this dollar store is amazing. First off I got spices. Tyme, rosemary, basil, garlic? Red peppers? yup. I went nuts in the spices section. There was a seasalt grinder. 99cents baby. Those things are like 7 bucks at target. FU target! I got a ton of stuff including batteries, shampoo, gel, soda. I once bought mouthwash at the 99cent store and it was terrible. So I wouldn't be buying tampons and stuff there (you can)... I bring this up because I bought hair gel. I was out and it would save me a trip to target (FU).

I put some on last night before I went out and it smelled like, i donno. Smelled not good. Did not reek of heaven if you know what I mean. I thought, well, it's just needs a chance to dry and it will hold my hair in place and stop smelling. Not the case. I woke up this morning and it still smells the same. I have a headache from it. I might hit the shower before I head to the gym just to not smell like chemicals. Ugh. Some guy in the tribune studio parking lot--located outside my bedroom window decided to blast spanish talk radio at 7:30 this morning as he was--i donno-putting on his shoes or whatever. I almost started yelling at him.

About last night, I went to see some comedy for a short bit at the el cid. I like the el cid it's a cool place. I do NOT like their expensive drinks. I give a big FU to el cid for $6+ beers. Get a life. I can go to the 4100 and get better beer for much less. [It's right next door.] Then I went to sardo's for karaoke. Now, I'm very happy for Juror #4 and Mitzy. They met at sardo, through karaoke and are getting married. [Crazy things are happing at that place. Super crazy things.] And while love and karaoke are great I'm sad that Juror #4 and his soon to be wife are leaving us for the great Northwest. I missed his going away party on sunday. I might show up to his wedding at the Van Nuys court house, eight floor noon on friday. That too would be crazy. Me going to his wedding. I don't even know his real name...

I did it. I washed my hair just now. I feel 10 times better and am thinking about suing Suave. I think they might be closing that hair gel shit out a the dollar store because of it's harmful effects to the human body. I should probably lay off that seasalt.