(click the picture above for
the high definition
video - but also click
YouTube
for me!)
12:24 AM,
Saturday, February 9th 2008:
In the
short time I spent as a loan officer,
I proved one thing: I was a very good
actor. I dressed up in my shirt and
tie, played the part well, and was
successful. Only my license plate
(4tvs.com) ever gave away that it was all
a facade and I had no business being
there. Because of that my "role" I never
got a real sense of how different
I was just being me. That's
what I find so fun about things like
this in the midst of "The Journey". As
I've mentioned before I'm following this
goofy character of "Adam" the same way you
are, and the entertainment stuff actually
tends to bore me after awhile. Hanging out
in the business world with Dubya Drones is
a good reality check. And this time, I did
it as me. I was a complete alien and this
video is funny as hell to me.
To everyone there
(I was introduced to 'em), I was the artsy
guy from Hollywood. The backwards hat and long hair
helped further cement I was from a different
planet (LA), and once we really got to talk it became
quite clear just how different I was. They were
all certain I was A, B, and C and it was an
absolute joy to interract with them. The funny thing?
I didn't even know who "me" was after awhile.
I started to enjoy playing the little LA freak.
Ha.
The cool thing
was, everyone was awesome. I was roomin' with Tim's
brother, Jonathan and they grew up in Worthington Ohio
(a Columbus suburb). We all instantly knew each other
our whole lives. We were giving each other shit by the
end of the first day and none more ridiculous than the
prank they pulled on Jonathan the first night. For a
full month previous they told the man he was to room
with "Veronica" the Brazillian Realtor that also
dabbled in Yoga. He shows up, and it's me. He plays it
relatively cool when out of the blue he asks: "Do you
know Veronica?". I laughed at the randomness of the
question and he explained that she's staying at the
hotel and he thought he was gonna room with her. The
next morning at the hotel breakfast of course we're
both looking around to see who Veronica could be -
thinking we might as well carpool (oh and they booked
us at the wrong hotel, which is why it seemed so far
away. It was. LOL). Finally when we get to the seminar
they tell me the joke. What a dick move that only a
brother could pull off right? I was bummed though
- they should've let me in on it. I would've gotten
Donna's underwear, laid it all out in the room - set
up a camera. Sheeeeit. That could've been
AWESOME.
The
seminar itself was a 2-Day thingee and
actually had some great techniques to get
through, and actually thrive, in a difficult
market. Tim & Julie Harris run
"Harris Real Estate University" and help
teach and coach realtors on everything you
could think of. And their pitch is pretty
dead on. I'm the video guy and I was even
shaking my head a few times at how good some
of the info was.
But I kept
that to myself of course. What could the man
from La-La land ever do with all those crazy
numbers! Ha. It wasn't that bad actually.
I'll tell you what it was more than anything.
At dinner tonight Tim was asking about the
business and telling me he knew a friend who
had beenin LA for awhile and he was amazed at
how hard it was to make money as an actor. He
just coudn't believe how hard it
was.
So I jump in
with: "Yeah it took me 6 1/2 years before
I got a break". And he looked at me like
I was... well from another planet. They just
couldn't conceive of that. Then the kicker of
all kickers, my idea of a "break had nothing to
do with money. That was the holy shit moment of the
night man. I might as well have spit my kidneys
out of my mouth at that moment. LOL. I really realized
that many people think of Hollywood as another avenue
to the real goal - which must be wealth. People
see the world as "We all want to be wealthy, so we all
take our different talents and pursue that common
goal." It makes perfect sense. Tim & Julie wanted
a better life, they have an immense amount of talent
in this area and they have pursued it to an incredible
level and are acquiring their goals. They look at the
players in Hollywood and there are certainly
comparable stories. Huge movie stars that took
comprable risks and truly treated their skills like a
business and achieved wealth beyond their wildest
dreams.
Well then I come
along and they realize - we don't have a common goal.
Money literally has nothing to do with why
I continue this Journey. I continue it,
because it's what I do. It's the only thing that
completes me. Making songs, making videos, making
comedy, making any type of art I can think of...
it's what I will do until the day I die and
money has zero to do with why. I don't feel
I have a choice in the matter, it's inside me and
has to come out. Now I do think what I do is good
enough to actually hit a jackpot at some point,
so I do all this art in the biggest pond I can find,
Hollywood, but I do it because it feels good. If
I had all the money in the world, I would
simply build a bigger house, with more studios, to
create more art. And, uhm, that's it. The Journey
would look cooler 'cause I would have other people
deal with all the busy-work and I would just make
better quality stuff.
The cool thing is,
I don't think differently about the peeps in that
world at ALL. Especially Tim & Julie - how
ridiculously successful have they been? I want to
surround myself with successful people...but I want
them to know me. I want them to understand that
the world is full of different people and that your
personal experience is always limited. Always.
Impossible for it not to be. I mean when
I told him that it really has nothing to do with
money and that I'm creating all this art simply
because it feels good and makes me happy there was a
moment where I think he looked at me and processed
it... then thought I was completely full of shit.
LOL. Like, "Yeah whatever Hollywood." And the cool
thing is, he'll know the more we hang out and talk. He
actually lives in Laguna Beach and we're planning on
getting together later. Everyone I met was cool as
hell actually and I feel very lucky that I met up with
them. I miss the east coast mentality sometimes
so bad it actually hurts. An innate trust with the
person you're standing there with that we'd be having
the same conversation whether or not either of us had
any talent or could "help" the other person get
something. That is a difficult thing to come by in LA.
And it eats at your sould after awhile.
So I'm gonna be
filling up with some soul at the Martin Luther King
memorial tomorrow so there'll be a final entry from
Atlanta. Unfortunately the video won't be up for
awhile since my laptop can't pull off high-def video.
Grrrr. Every three years man. Your shit becomes
outdated every three years. I can't even update
my website on the road now.
