locked until 08.15.04 - YouTube link added 02.09.09
 
1:15 PM, Friday July 30th, 2004:
 
Good lord am I ever going to escape this month? Is anyone EVER going to read all of this? Do I even give a shit?
 
Man - I got bitch-slapped last night. Hard. I was driving around up near where Jess and I first moved to LA and it popped in my head of showing our kid the area. And how driving in that car would be "family"...that it didn't matter where the road was. It occurred to me that at that moment, Jess may be sitting in Columbus thinking the same thing. My heart grew about three sizes. Kids are so damn important to me and part of me knows the rest of our problems will work themselves out with so much friggin' love between us. Even if at times it seems like only friends. I told myself that if Jess came home and said she truly believed after hanging in Columbus that she could handle having a family out here while only visiting Columbus - I'd believe her.
 
And that was weighing on my head too. She said she could before, and I didn't trust her. It sucks to not trust your wife. And she's made every effort to make a family out here work...I just don't believe once the hormones kick in during pregnancy that we'll make it to the second trimester without filling up a U-Haul.
 
So I called her up. Guess what she wasn't feeling. Ugh. She even talked about the apartments she saw and how much she wanted extended family part of her life and her children's life. I actually winced. It felt like someone had cheated on me. Felt mind you, I was the one who friggin' told her to go home and do this so she in no way cheated on me. But for a small moment I thought she would come back and say she coudln't possibly have a family in Columbus without me. It was the opposite. She wants me desperately to want a family with her...in Columbus. She even said what she hadn't said in a long time - that the other problems were worth working on...if we were in Columbus. And she said it right as I was saying that the problems were worth working on...if we were in Los Angeles.
 
Heavy shit. I tell Greg the animator dude who I've known since 2001 I believe. Story board guy for Family Guy. He's in a peculiar situation. He's successful. He knew exactly what he wanted to do out here, and did it. And is now comfortable, has a house, everything's kickin' ass...but he's still single. Still lookin' for that kick-ass person to share your time with. His reaction to all this?
 
GO THE FUCK BACK TO OHIO DUDE.
 
I mean from his perspective, I haven't done DICK out here and I'm gonna give up a precious human connection with someone for...for nothing? I asked him if he'd go back to Michigan (where he's from) and he said "no" but he's already successful. It's different.
 
Well he does have me here. But therein lies a major rub. If I was successful - say I got the G4 job, had my own show and was doing very well career wise....Jess would be miserable. I would be gone quite a bit of the time. She thinks she feels isolated now? Once I do get into the right project for my talents...look out people - I'll throw myself in it. She'll hardly ever see me and I guarantee Jess will want to go back then. It's lose-lose. I can't possibly save this unless I'm willing to go back...
 
...and I have searched the outer most regions of my soul I SWEAR TO YOU, for anything, anything that would fulfill me (other than Jess) in that city. If I had a baby in my arms at this moment, I could justify it. I could say "ahh well...I gave it a GREAT shot" and move back ready to enjoy all the comforts of home. But I can't now. Even though I have nothing tangible to show for my work out here in 5 years, other than some cool shows I could've just as easily created in Columbus, I know my talents will make it on a national level. I know, I know, I know. And if 5 years of this WRETCHED fuckin city hasn't dampened that, nothing will.
 
But it still keeps haunting me what Greg said man. He has what I want, and I'm basically turning my back on what he wants. It's amazing really. I forget what it feels like to be alone I guess, because I've only felt it for very short amounts of time. Months really. But what really haunts me about what he said, is that I'm not successful...so what am I doing sacrificing the good things in my life? But man, I don't feel unsuccessful. That's the point. I've never measured all of my worth on "making it". It is indeed the goal, and I will in time, but that superficial moment where I've made it won't make me feel like anything but a guy who worked the system to his advantage. The real success lies in me as an artist and what I've accomplished in ten years. When I look at www.adamazon.com I see a lifetime slammed into a decade and I can't wait to see what future decades bring.
 
...but those projects would never have been made if I knew my ceiling was DJ in Columbus. The things I've produced out here have a sense of ambition to them that only this struggle can provide. Even the stuff when I was in Columbus was me dreaming and driving towards a greater good. I fully believed "Stronger Than Before" was my ticket. That's what made it what it was. How could I have sung those songs, and written those liner notes if I believed I couldn't leave that city?
 
So I'm saying the love for my career is greater than my love for Jessica. That is the sentence I have to be able to type in order for this to happen. If I only had one love, this fuckin' city would be the one I would choose because I can't have both. For a romantic like me that is hard to swallow...but I'm afraid it has been digested and is the absolute truth. Yes, I may kick myself in a year when I'm alone, going nowhere, and hating the single life in LA...but in my heart of hearts - there is no compromise. I know it involves extreme projection to think of me sitting in Columbus in 2006 with a kid and a 9-5...but that is what I see and it is a nightmare. I will be a basket case.
 
So this has to be it. This has to be the last wrinkle in this story. This is like the last days of Palaur man. Where the story just kept on going, when the audience knew it was fuggin' DONE. If only you guys knew what this felt like...
 
Adam
 
PS - what a video. After I wrote this entry I went to my G4 meeting and took my camera "just in case". Ya never know what you'll see. Anyway as I was driving home I set up the camera behind my steering wheel in my dash and listened to "Impossible" from Hearing My Thoughts. It was about my divorce from Burgundie and might be the saddest song I've ever friggin' written.
 
However it had a whole new meaning as I listened to it. I was now singing FOR Jess, and I had become Burgundie. I started all this and she was the one getting wallopped as I was in 1997. Not like I'm not feelin' the same crap, but I just felt so insanely empathetic to her at this moment. Thus, the video. Lotsa symbolism stuck in there...