I feel too lucky sometimes.  It's a hard feeling to reconcile, because I'm not a very religious person.  I once wrote somewhere, "I enjoy my life so much, but I don't know who to thank."  I think about that sentiment a lot.  Although I am mostly a skeptic and I am very opposed to not a big fan of organized religion, I can't help but believe in some kind of universal power or direction that seems to guide me.  I don't know.  I don't even want to know, honestly.  I'm happy not knowing.  I am, however,  open to wherever the road leads.  My whole life, I've just assumed it's headed towards the right place.

I often catch myself wondering: what else?  What else can I achieve, or get, or succeed at, or gain respect in, or just GAIN.  How can I WIN?  It's a fool's mentality, because there is never a way to satiate that force that keeps us all moving forward in our lives.  The tricky part is allowing ourselves to pause and look around and remember, "Hey, life is pretty goddamn good right now.  How about you just chill and enjoy the amazing things all around you." 

I have two beautiful, healthy kids.  I have a job that I love, and a wife I love more than anything, and a house in a city that I love.  I thoroughly enjoy my career.  I feel very thankful for all of it and I promise you, I'm not gloating or bragging.  I worked a million shitty jobs with no real guarantee that I'd end up on the other side with anything but a bunch of good stories. Why did I move here?  Because I blindly believed in my own ability to succeed.  I had no proof, nor experience to back up that faith.  I just HOPED that I was making the right decision.  I hoped that the path that seemed to lead West... was the right path.

It was something I was forced to question in mid 90's, as I served prime rib to Mel Gibson at an Oscars afterparty (back when Mel Gibson was the toast of the town).  I was a lowly caterer, and I remember being in that room full of successful, glamorous, famous people and thinking to myself, "This is not where I planned to be.  This is not what I moved 3,000 miles across the country for."  I stole Mel Gibson's fork and mailed it to my sister (true story), as proof that I had at least grazed the town I was chasing.  I felt like an utter failure.

When you're slogging your way through the years towards a destination, it feels like rock climbing in the dark.  You keep moving up, grasping at holds and cracks above you, terrified of crashing backwards into the place you are trying to escape.  But time has a way of transforming all of your struggles into a massive nostalgia quilt that's much easier and prettier to look back upon.  Gone are the memories of biting your tongue when an event coordinator at some shitty premiere party tells you to work in scullery(dishwashing) because you forgot a tuxedo jacket and, "all of our servers have to look elegant... and you look like a wedding DJ."  Gone are the days standing for eight to ten hours at the back door of the Regent Beverly Wilshire, holding cars in the fire lane for guests, or opening and holding the door for princes and celebrities, hoping for the rare $20 tip.  Gone are the days of wondering if it was all worth it.

Because right now, it was all worth it.  I am not stupid, nor ignorant enough to believe that a happy life remains happy forever.  I understand how quickly things can change and how fickle the winds of fate are.  But, I'm not a big believer in jinxes either, so I don't write these words worried about the consequences of my willingness to stand up and look around and like what I see. 

I may one day return to passing trays of shrimp wontons at some shitty fancy party.  Who knows?  All I know for sure is that I'm looking around right now and wishing I could live here forever.  These are the days I will look back on and wish to gods (nerd reference) I could return to.  If right now is this good, even as I climb away from it, imagine how amazing right now will be when one day, I look back upon it?

Until that technology exists, you'll have to rely on your own knowledge of where you might find your likeness and remnants on the web.  Or, if you're lucky, someone you work with will point you towards some embarrassing extra work you did back in the 90's for a Star Trek CD-ROM called "Starfleet Academy."  I always thought the only part of me visible in that game was my shoes (designed to match Shatner's, since I was his stand-in), but I've recently been alerted to the fact that I am visible in at least one scene. 

Here's the link, if you want to see some embarrassing "extra acting" (not to mention some pretty lazy "Shatner Acting.")  YouTube is incredible.  This crazy little stand-in gig made me eligible for my SAG card.  It also afforded me the opportunity to take a tour of the Star Trek wardrobe storage building, which had every single costume from every single episode of every incarnation of Star Trek ever.  This jumpsuit I'm wearing was a vintage Star Trek II era jumpsuit, I believe.  I'm sure if it's not, someone will smack me down in the comments.

That picture up there?  That's what I was doing 12 years ago.  Turns out, the internet likes to maintain a bread crumb trail of all the things we do.  I guess I'm okay with that.

I am withholding information from you at the moment.  It doesn't make for a very honest or open dialogue between us (you in the comments and me in the space right here), but I'll do my best without the specifics.  You'll be okay filling in the gaps and the fuzzy areas with your own similar secrets and stories.  It's not the what, after all, but the why.  What leaping off points?

I went out with some friends last night.  We stopped at a hip, somewhat kitschy spot in Hollywood called Kitchen 24, and drank a couple of Dark and Stormy's before heading over to Largo to see some stand up comedy.  There were paparazzi stationed outside of Largo, but I'm guessing they were there a night too late.  Two nights ago, there was a star-studded line of people waiting to see Sarah Silverman's benefit show for Haiti.  Last night, it was just a bunch of other unimportant people like us trickling in, hoping some comics would make us laugh.  The rogue photographers looked through us as we walked in, unimpressed by our non-BradPittness, non-Angelinaness, and non-anyonethatmattersness.  I was again reminded of how much I love obscurity.

The show was funny.  Afterward, we went to Swingers to enjoy some late night food (and a PBR), and to postpone the end of the evening.  All three of us work on the same show, so we're all in for a gear change next week as we begin four months of shooting for our third season.  It's going to be fun, yet entirely grueling.  Nights like last night will be harder to pull off in the thick of production, so we stretched it out until 2am.

I have two major projects about to begin in my life, with a possible third that is so big I can hardly get my head around it.  I love moving forward and getting better at my job and progressing as a person and as an artist.  Sometimes, though...I try to linger in that place where nothing is happening...just for a moment before I turn to face everything head on.

I lingered there, as we drank dark, stormy drinks in dimly lit refuges around LA.  I can't hide in the pre-storm calm forever, but since I'm about to jump back into an insane schedule and a hectic life for quite a long while, I sure took my time there last night.

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Every now and then, I read old entries from the archives of my blog.  They provide me a glimpse back at not only where I was in life, but WHO I was.  We move through life making a series of small decisions and simple choices that have a cumulative effect on the direction our path leads.  For that reason, I think it's easy to lose sight of progress.  Old goals seem less important as we silently achieve and quickly surpass them on the way to newer, bigger, better ones.  Shifted perspective makes old gripes less valid, and old struggles less frustrating. 

Though I promised myself I wouldn't blog about why I decided to bring this blog back to life after so long away, the short version is that I miss writing for writing's sake.  I want to write entries like this again:

Hollywoodland

or:

Aging Hipsters

or this, from LA Metblogs:

Bullets over Sunset

I remember the feeling I had after writing all three of those pieces: pure release.  That's what I miss.  I'm sure an English teacher (or editor) would have a field day cutting them apart, but I'm not claiming they're perfect.  I like them because they are stream of consciousness entries that made me feel like I was on the right path to discovering my own writing voice.  It's a constant quest.  I'm trying to get back there, I think.