Man do I have
a bunch of randoms floatin' around. We'll start off
with my cousin Bernie.
1) My Cousin
Bernie
His real name is
Nick, but after a 5 gallon pot of boiling water tipped
over on his side giving him intense 2nd degree burns
and a few nights in the hospital, he is burny.
Changing that to Bernie was to keep the suspense for
you.
:-)
As you can see
from the picture, he's going to be fine. That was of
course taken after massive amounts of pain medication
and something I'm sure he thought he was only posting
to his facebook friends. But sorry, cuz - PIMPIN ain't
easy. This had to be shared. Get well. And thank you
for inspiring my very own 2nd degree
burn...
2) Arrogance
Burned
I have long
giggled at the silly white people in my life loading
up on sunscreen and never tanning. I was blessed with
greek skin, and didn't even use sunscreen in AFRICA.
I just don't burn. I get a little pink
(which makes those around me point and say aha! You do
burn!) which in a few days becomes a nice deep tan.
Everyone sighs and walks away when this happens. It's
one of the few areas I can gleefully enjoy my
Greek heritage. Because along with that, comes the
ability to gain 40 pounds in a month.
Fuck.
I haven't however,
come to think of it, spent more than 1 or 2 hours at
the beach. Well last saturday I spent close to 6.
And true to form, I shunned the sunscreen. A few
days later, true to form, the bit of pink I had
became a nice golden brown on my entire body and Talya
was indeed annoyed at me. This is ignoring what
happened the following morning...
I woke up and
noticed the right side of my nose was oozing. One spot
in the middle. My nose wasn't red at all, but it had a
bit of liquid coming out right in the middle, and a
little near the nostril. I dabbed it and then
googled it. It seemed like I had a 2nd degree
burn... but I had no pain and no redness.
?!?!
That night we
cooked out at Talya's grandparents and I ended up
manning the grill. After 45 minutes or so in the heat?
My face was REALLY red and the right side of my
nose hurt. Clearly my face was indeed burnt as any
amount of heat really affected it. By day 3 it was
clearly a 2nd degree burn on the right side of my nose
that was pretty nasty.
It's so crazy to
me. The sun burned holes into my skin. My nose is
finally scabbed over, but it was bleeding. Because of
the fucking sun. Like, I know most people are aware
that the sun can do this, but it's just never happened
to me. And again, the rest of my body is a nice golden
brown. So bizarre.
What this does
mean however, is that my days of gleeful arrogance at
all you white people is over. I will be wearing
sunscreen on my face from this day forward. Apparently
your skin changes as you get older and I am most
certainly older. Ha. This is the start of several
parts of life that I will now have to think about
differently over the next few decades. But I've never
been happier. <smiles>
3) Seriously,
giddy.
Lost in all the
ridiculous drama of defending my past to complete
strangers is that the people who actually know me are
so, so, happy for me. They see the twinkle in my eye
and they understand, I mean truly understand, how
fortunate I feel. To have the scars I have
from the past 15 years of my life and still be able to
go through this? To feel this relationship from the
perspective of a wonderful woman in her 20s who is
going to have the wedding of her dreams and the family
she wants and where each day really is happier than
the next? You want everyone to feel this way. I think
I see what we have most in my friend Laura's
relationship with her husband Mike. There's a calm,
float downstream, easiness in how they interact. It
feels like one person. And so many people who are in
relationships think what I'm describing is some sort
of fairy tale. I'm not describing never disagreeing,
what I'm describing is simply maturity. Knowing
yourself well enough that you're comfortable in your
own skin (even if there's holes in it...
FROM THE FUCKING SUN). HA. There's a
calmness when you know who you are that I had at an
earlier age than most. When I was 19, on talk radio,
succeeding? Being extremely vulnerable to thousands of
people, attempting bit after bit and it working? I was
me. It made my relationship with Burgundie extremely
smooth. Same with Jess. The unease comes when you're
out of place. When you feel uncomfortable. To be able
to find that ease and calmness with someone Talya's
age is extraordinary. It has everything to do with her
own marriage and divorce as well as her career ups and
downs. They define her and make her as appreciative as
I am. How lucky I am that I walked into
that Starbucks...
4) Oh yeah, the
Starbucks
I've never
mentioned on this site how we met have I? The one year
anniversary is only 3 months away so I'll just save it
for that date, 'cause it's a pretty incredible story.
Speaking of saving the date...
5) Save the
Date!
We have a date.
December 28th of this year. Gasp! So soon! Listen,
when you have a pregnancy scare as soon as Talya and
I did
(1117-1119),
not only does it bring you closer together (or rip you
the hell apart)... you start doin' the math. Ha. Even
though it'd be somewhat humorous, no one wants to have
a shotgun wedding. It doesn't have the stigma it used
to, but you want to at least try to do it in
the right order. For no other reason than to chastise
your children if they fuck it all up. LMFAO. So
there's a bit of an itch to not prolong everything if
it's clear what you both want. It doesn't seem soon to
those around us who have spent time with us. Both of
our families are pretty thrilled.
6) And about that
pregnancy scare...
I can't emphasize
enough what a moment like that will do to the
foundation of a relationship. Talk about a mirror. You
want a litmus test of how good your relationship is?
Thinking she's pregnant will do it. A moment that has
happened with Jess and Donna with drastically
different outcomes. With Donna I was in "grin and bear
it" mode. I had a great job with CBS and could
financially afford it, and hoped Donna could just
settle down a bit. With Jess? It absolutely ripped our
foundation apart. Crazy isn't it? Not because we
didn't love each other, but because it put a mirror on
an issue we had ignored for far too long: Jess didn't
want to be in LA and I did. The baby meant she was
gonna win the argument, and I was gonna be an
angry young man in Columbus. Jess told me after she
knew she wasn't pregnant and it started us discussing
everything and within a few months we announced our
split specifically to AVOID that nightmare
scenario.
With Talya?
Absolute calm. We told her mother and... continued
calm. I was where I wanted to be, Talya was where
she wanted to be, and I went into preperation
mode. Reading everything I could about how to
deal with morning sickness, cleaning the house,
cooking... just taking over. I was having a baby and
I was freaking giddy. We were trying to plan out
when a wedding would be, we had to deal with the fact
that she was legally still married (HA! Not me this
time!) and it was a whirlwind of drama... but we all
rolled with it like it was meant to be. Those 10 days
cemented our "family" to such a degree that when
I signed Talya in the emergency room a week or so
later (a stomach virus was to blame) it felt laughable
that I signed in as her "boyfriend". The good news
from her not being pregnant, was that of course we
could do things "the right way" and we have continued
on that path. So believe me, no, December 28th doesn't
feel too soon at all. It feels perfect. It was the
date last year we made it "official" on Facebook.
Ha. It's also smack dab in the middle of Christmas and
New Years and an incredible way to celebrate the end
of a year, every year for the rest of our lives. We
adore the date.
6)
CARMAGEDDON
Speaking of dates,
the dreaded carmageddon weekend is almost upon us. If
ever a freeway closure should make national news, it's
this. This is fucking ridiculous. To those in
Columbus, just imagine if they closed 71 and 315 in
both directions in between 270. The clusterfuck on 270
and surrounding roads would be remarkable. That
is what closing the 405 between the 101 and the 10 is
like. And no, I have no idea why they add "the"
to the freeways out here. That's just the way it is.
It's to take down
a bridge, but my question is... how the hell are they
gonna have a new one up and ready for Monday morning?
And holy fuck, what if they don't? It already takes an
hour to go those 10 miles during rush hour (that is a
nice estimate by the way)... this just seems
like an absolute disaster. The majority of people have
decided they're just not leaving their house. Which,
in most cases, Talya and I do anyway - HA - but it
just so happens we have tickets to see The Monkees
with her father on Saturday. I think we're going to
leave tonight. (sigh) Expect an entry on that
fiasco.
7) Political
fiasco
It's almost
unwatchable. We're so far away from actual intelligent
conversation about things that matter anymore that I
actually long for the 90s when a presidential blow-job
was news. 'Cause that sucked in a totally different
way.
People, we know
what happened. This isn't some "theory". And leave it
to the people that think creationism is an actualy
scientific "theory" to not understand this. The
economy worked swimmingly for about 70 years. From the
crash of '29 to the crash of '87 there was barely a
peep. The tax rates for the top 1% were outrageously
high, but that's only if you actually believe they
paid them. Because of course they didn't. No, the
system was set-up so those people would re-invest in
the community, jobs, etc... and get tax breaks. So
yes, even when the tax rate was 90% - no one ever
really paid that. And it worked. The wealth trickled
down because the other choice for the wealthy? Was
giving it to the government. Guess what they
chose.
And though people
went apeshit about Medicare and Social Security when
it was introduced, it didn't hurt anything. In fact,
the people quite dig those programs.
Incredibly, even with all the unbelieveably bad
legislation that went through in the 80s that lead to
the destruction of the middle class (which you could
argue was the democratic congress as much as the
republican president), during the Clinton years we
were still able to keep the economy going. Then
Clinton signs NAFTA and Bush eviscerates the tax rates
for the rich. Jobs go to other countries, and
suddenly, there's no incentive for anything to trickle
down... and it doesn't. No economists (those without
agendas of course) are wondering what the difference
is now compared to the 1950s. You know, back when
households can run easily on one income?
What's happening
now is, as I said, unwatchable. Negotiating with
crazy people. Jon Stewart had a great line last night
that it's like a doctor talking to a patient that
believes completely in magic. This rang a few bells
for me as I grew up with a Christian Scientist
grandmother. All you can do is make jokes because
you're not dealing with reality. The Tea Party whack
jobs actually believe health care is to blame for
this. They actually don't understand history because
they don't want to READ. I wasn't alive in the
1950s, so how the hell do I understand it? That's
why I long for the days of actual liberal vs.
conservative arguments because what we have now? Is
literate vs. illiterate. You can't debate history with
someone who won't read it or who literally makes it
up. It's like talking over the first scene of a movie,
watching another 15 minutes and then writing a review
of it. There's no debating that.
8) She is
fine
The last time
I mentioned Donna I said that I had no idea
if she was even alive, so I wrote to one of her
friends and he was kind enough to say "she is fine"
and nothing else. I actually do appreciate that.
I honestly do not know the cultural differences
between South Africa and here when dealing with
situations like that. They were intimately involved
with the really, really bad times with her and
understand explicitly what we both went through... but
it's particularly cruel to the person who lent their
nervous system to their friend/daughter to cut off
with zero explanation. I understand Donna's need,
knowing her history, but I guess I'm still
baffled that the people she was closest to could cut
off without one sentence of gratitude for what
I gave. Especially considering Donna's
overwhelming apology letter to me in 2009. It all
stings. It all feels surrounded by lies. It all makes
me over joyed at the honesty, love and support with
Talya and her family. It's the definition of "what
doesn't kill you makes you stronger". You simply
appreciate life a fuckton more when you've been hurt
to that degree. Goddamn am
I fortunate.
9) All that and
career news...
You know you've
been in this town a long time, when you're happy just
to have a meeting. You enjoy the run-up to the moment
and then usually walk away from it with zero
expectations. It's a bizarre defense mechanism, but
one that people out here grow to embrace. You do it
enough times, you cherish the little things. And with
that ROUSING open, a week from today Laura and I are
meeting with the head of casting at HBO to give her
the Blu-ray/DVD combo (which is ready to ship
now! Entry tomorrow!!) and generally explain the
monstrosity that is "The Journey". It probably won't
be until August until we get any feedback and assuming
it isn't an absolute jackpot, I will have to
painstakingly change the melodies of a couple songs
(including Let's Bomb Iran) in order to submit it to
film festivals. Man do I want HBO to just love it and
take care of all that... there is hope. And I love
that. I present this video to show me being
excited for my last big meeting in 2009 with Comedy
Central, and will follow that with a random as to why
it isn't me jumping around now.
The cool thing is,
that video was never uploaded. Too embarrassing
I think. Ha. And too many other things going on.
I love finding strange little moments that never made
it to primetime.
10) Camera go
Boom
So goddamnit, my
luck with HD cameras has hit an all-time low.
a) My very first
Canon HV20 from 2007 suddenly stopped accepting tapes
in late 2009.
b) My friend
Andrew had given me his old one earlier that year, but
that one had a broken firewire port - so you couldn't
get anything off the camera. So now both were
useless even though I could techincally still "use"
one. He ends up giving me another old one, that worked
fine...
c) ...but
I have all these old tapes from the HV20, so last
December I buy another HV20. Works great, then
about a week into transferring the old tapes? It has
the same problem as my FIRST HV20! Won't accept
the tapes anymore. What the fuck? It won't accept ANY
tapes and I'm screwed again. But at least I have
the one Andrew gave me.
d) I borrow
one from Paddy for my trip to the Channel Islands and
when I come back it suddenly doesn't work. I assume it
got sand in it 'cause it was windy as fuck, but either
way... gotta get that repaired and Paddy was cool
enough to split the cost with me.
e) Then finally,
the last one I got from Andrew is (sorry Talya)
dropped by Talya... but seriously no more than 2 feet.
And the strange thing is? It works fine except it
can't record. LOL. It can't read the card for VIDEO...
it reads pictures fine. In fact that picture of my
nose was taken with the camera. It can capture it to
the card, move it to the computer no problem - but it
cannot record any video. <throws hands up>. What
sucks of course, is I'm generally pretty anal with my
stuff. It's kinda my whole life. I still have, in
perfect working order, the camera I bought for
the original 4tvs stuff in 1999, and the couple
SD cameras I bought since. This whole
HD thing is baffling.
So now I'm gonna
take all these bitches to a camera store and see what
I can get fixed. And most likely it's "new
camera" time. But now of course I'm thinking about the
wedding, kids... I know what I want, and
every professional/amateur filmmaker knows exactly
what I want. 'Cause it's how nearly everything is
being shot: The Canon 5D Mark II.
The best deal
you're ever gonna get on it is $2000, but to say it's
the last camera you'll ever need is to say the least.
Besides being able to do still and video at an
unbelieveable quality, the versatility with the lenses
makes it capable of everything. YouTube
the camera
and you just can't believe it's possible in a prosumer
world. How do you not want your wedding on that, or a
video like this?
Wow. That is still
one of the sweetest videos I've ever seen. Anyway, I
doubt this will happen as a cheapie replacement for
what I have is only $3-$400, but it is certainly
a goal.
11) Blu-ray
ready
I couldn't be
happier with the quality of the blu-ray and will write
all about it in the next entry. As a techno-geek, it
is really exciting to have my film alongside my other
blu-rays. It's cooler than DVDs because it's so
commonplace to make those now. It's a feeling I've had
at every stage of my career, and unfortunately the
last because of the death of all physical media. I
don't forsee a format past blu-ray that will ever make
it to a consumer "burning" level as we'll all
have digital collections. But this is my 5th entry
into a medium (cassette, cd, vhs, dvd, blu-ray) in the
last 17 years and it's just total geek stuff. You put
it in your PS3 and it just works. Blah blah blah, more
in the next entry. I need to go grab some more coffee
and prepare a couple of packages.
Yay randoms. Glad
I could get all that shit out of my head. If only
it was actual art and communication instead of
masturbation.
Haaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Adam
PS - wow, this was
my death date anniversary for over half my life, and
I totally forgot now that I'm trying to push it
to December 2061. Ha.
