Flame Style

"Fuck her," said the actor I recognized most recently from his stint on "Lost". He drunkenly shook my drunken hand and left. It was a nice thing to hear. Whether I agreed with the sentiment or not, hearing someone else badmouth some of my pain's source felt good. It was a tough weekend packed full of sympathetic words from both friends and strangers and something about the simplicity of "Fuck her" seemed most helpful. It may have been the (in)famous margaritas (specially infused with comedy) I had imbibed, but not feeling like a victim for a second was nice. You can't fuck a fire, but you can fuck an ex-girlfriend.

Sometime between the evenings of August 29th and August 31st, The Ranch- my home for the past four years- burned down in "The Station Fire" in Los Angeles. Over the same weekend I was informed that my ex-girlfriend (thus far the proverbial love of my life) was moving in with her new boyfriend. It was the most thorough two day life cleansing I have ever had- though it should be pointed out that I've never had a colonic.

One year prior we had been evacuated for a local fire, so when the time came to evacuate for this one, I didn't take it too seriously. Despite evidence suggesting more deliberate and serious packing was necessary (the atmosphere was orange and it was raining so much ash that you could literally hear it hitting the ground), I grabbed my laptop and some hard drives and that's about it. I drove out to Bakersfield that night for a fantasy football draft. I returned a day later with some questionable wide receivers and no access to my street. I had left my cat(s), guitars, clothes, pictures... really everything I have accrued over the last 32 years, in the middle of the largest fire in Los Angeles county's modern history.

On that first week of September, a few of us Ranchers went up to assess the damage. We had heard all kinds of rumors about the condition of our street and went up looking for either something to salvage or some kind of closure. We apparently took a wrong turn and ended up in Hiroshima. The entire street was decimated. The four of us split up and sifted through our respective fallen cabins, which were still smoking and smoldering.

I can't say that I'm intelligent, complex or advanced enough to know exactly what feelings I was feeling, but I can say that the feelings I felt were feelings I've never felt before.

Walking through the ashes of my home was surreal. Almost everything had lost its form. Metal had melted and re-hardened, forming some new and entirely unrecognizable object with all sentimental value boiled out of it. Everything else had turned to white ash. At one point I found the remains of my biggest regret other than the cat(s). I found the pile of notebooks I left behind. It was ten solid years of writing, never backed up onto a computer. You could see the shape of the pages clinging to the metal spiral, but once my fingers touched them, they floated off. I now claim that each screenplay, note and sketch in those pages was the most brilliant thing ever formed by human hands. Go ahead and argue. You really want to punch a refugee in the heart like that?

Feeling my walls and TV and student films fall through my fingers like they never existed made it hard to grasp how, just a week earlier, these things had so much meaning to me. I couldn't connect to what had happened. Then I looked up at everyone else sifting through their ashen memories (which, coincidentally, is the name of my new emo band: Ashen Memories).

Watching my friends stand in the middle of nothingness, looking for anything that still resembled meaning, was what made me realize that this stuff really was gone. Everything I had placed value on and carried with me for so long was absolutely gone. This place that had housed so many parties and served as the location for so many shoots, was now only a memory. We were all standing in the center of a life altering experience.

No matter what happens from here, this is something none of us will ever forget. It's a hard thing and the worst moments- for me, anyway- are when I find myself in the middle of a conversation and I suddenly realize, "Oh shit! The Buffalo Bills hat I got at my grandfather's funeral no longer exists..."* I suppose that will be happening for some years to come. A lot of memories will be forgotten simply because the object that memory lived in was gone. Without those little, physical reminders, my swiss cheesed brain will probably never recall certain moments again. It's depressing for obvious reasons, but it's also a great perspective builder. Much of what we hold onto is fleeting.

I'm not sure how the rest of the Ranchers have been feeling, but I've felt like a ghost the past week. I'm trying to turn this all into a grand life adventure, but I'm having trouble starting. There is also lingering evidence that my mind is still not all there (please read this article to the end for a quote spoken by yours truly on the day I saw my burned possessions [hint: it has to do with how strong I am]: http://www.northcoastjournal.com/blogthing/2009/09/02/orange-and-raining-ash/).

Who knows what will come of the next hour or week or year. I just hope I mine this situation for all the silver linings it may or may not have. Like it or not, I don't own anything anymore. That's the deal. So I say, "Fuck fire," and why not have a tet a tet with the ocean, plow through a bottle of wine (Fuckass! I just realized I lost a case of wine Glen and Anne gave me in the fire. Assblankets!), yell at the moon and couch surf in Malibu? In a way, the world is my delicious, salty oyster right now. Just as I am jealous of you for still owning the things you find precious, I want to win at life so thoroughly over the next few months that you find yourself feeling tiny pangs of envy in regards to my freedom. That, or I want to try and be drunk for 400 days straight. Either way, I win.


* No, they do not sell Bills memorabilia at funerals in Buffalo. **

** Who am I kidding... yes they do.

For Ranch stories, go to the Ranch facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=149622974991

For Ranch videos, pics and love, go to the Ranch blog:
http://www.ranchredemption.blogspot.com/

T. Alva Edison is Yelling at You!

Thomas Alva Edison once said, "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." Now, I'm the first to admit that I'm no mathematician. However, I did score higher on the math section of my SAT's than I did on the reading/writing section, so I think I know a thing or two about percentages. In addition, I have a calculator on BOTH my computer and my cellular telephone. When I, an obviously astute observer of the numerical form, take a look at T 'n' A Edison's quote, I see a truth so true, it out-trues other truths. Follow me to the next paragraph and I'll explain in further, full color detail.

I reside in Los Angeles and, like every other amazingly awesome sucker, I am pursuing a career in the film industry. I have been here for so many days that I can't even count it on all my digits put together (including toes and naughty parts). I share the same struggles and frustrations with everyone else and most assuredly understand why people drop out of this particular rat race and look back with bitterness. It's tough. It's tough like Steve McQueen's face on Sylvester Stallone's body. 

One thing that I do notice in all of our struggling artist hearts is that complacency can sometimes run rampant. "You have to know someone to even get a meeting with an agent." "All they make is crap anyway." "My face deserves money for how awesome it is." etc., etc...

We blame outside forces for our lack of production and opportunity. While there is certainly some truth hiding somewhere in that spicy frustration burrito, it's not necessarily honest. I once saw Chazz Palmenteri speak when he was more famous (so it was more true then than if he said it now) and he said (heavy paraphrase coming), "Just do something. Write something and perform it on the street if you have to. People can't know how good you are if they can't see you." He's right. It's difficult as hell to get something off the ground and get it going. Writing, finding performance space, getting costumes, filming, makeup, kraft services, lighting, singing, luring an audience and so on and so forth. We see the daunting task ahead and assure ourselves it's a ridiculous venture in the first place and we stop before we've even begun. However, if you don't love your art enough to sweat for it, do you really love it? If hard work is the thing keeping you from your goals, are you sure you want to choose something with such low odds of success? The arts are hard- and they should be! If it weren't difficult, there would be no struggle and if there were no struggle, there would be no art. "Following a pipe dream will lead you through the sewer." That's a quote I just made up, but it fit my point, so screw you. I'm keeping it.

Now, I don't mean to sound like a downer. In fact, I mean to sound like the exact opposite. An upper. Ritalin, let's say. I do believe that there is an element of magic in simply doing. There are so many reasons not to do something, but it's in the doing that you find yourself. Wait, that was confusing. Here's a real quote from a real person with real intellect:

"whatever you can dream 

or think you can do,

begin it.

boldness has genius,

power and magic in it."

-Goethe

I really believe that the universe bends to positive action. There are so many wonderful coincidences that occur around progress. I could meet a producer in a spaghetti shop and tell her that I'd make a great movie if only I were given the chance. I could also meet a producer at a taffy booth and tell her I've already made a wonderful short or written a wonderful script and would she look at it if I bought her some taffy. Which one of those me's has the better shot? The moral of this story is that spaghetti shops are a preposterous place to do business. There's sauce everywhere, ready to stain any contracts that might be drawn up. It just doesn't make sense.

Okay, I've prattled on and I haven't even begun to get to the point of this whole damned blog (that's an internet word. it means "well structured and edited article stemming from the professional minds of the interweb."). What I want to talk about is the show I went to see for the second time this past weekend. The official title may or may not be:

"The Loft Variety Hour

featuring

Naughty Nancy"

It is essentially a two-part show running in downtown Los Angeles. It is live theater that includes, but is not limited to: comedy, music, nudity, puppets, love, dancing, glow sticks and Telemundo. I would love to talk a bit about the group that put this show together, but I have wasted time with my extremely important introduction. I will provide you with a link (another internet invention that means, "portal to time.") that will lead you to their site at which they provide actual information:

http://loftensemble.com/variety_hour.html

Shame on all of us for not attending more theater and shame on all of us even more for not attending more original theater and yes, shame on us even the most for not attending original theater that is actually fluid. The first half of the show I'm currently yelling at you about is a wonderfully mad-cap comedy adventure. A group of actors dance, sing and play on stage, exuding such energy that it actually made me sweat through my shirt and into my seat (so if you go to the show, you can soak some of my old back sweat back into your pores). Part of what is so fun about the show is its fluidity. As with any live performance (music, theater, stripping), there are numerous adjustments that occur based on audience reactions, actor energy, pole slickness. With this particular variety show, there is something more. I saw this back in October when our president was a lame whitey and then again this past Sunday when our president was black. There were some new actors, new skits, new songs and new puppets. It was an exciting treat- not unlike some hispanic snacks that my white-boy palette finds frightening and sexual- and I dare you to experience it for yourself. While I fully support theater in the classic sense of performing a play, I can't tell you how cool it is to see something that has changed and will continue to change over time. It's a living thing. Pieces get cut, pieces get added. Where a performance of "True West" is always going to include lots and lots of toast, this variety show may have an Ohio Jones sketch one month and then a murderous pizza sketch another. 

-- Wow. Hold on. This blog is far, far too long by my standards and I still have a few brilliantly idiotic and disjointed things to say. What I'm going to do is talk briefly about the second half of the show and try to wrap this up. Are you ready? I don't care, I'm going either way. Plus, I have no way of knowing if you said, "Yes, I'm ready now, Andy," or, "Hold on just a second as I do this thing that I have to do before I continue reading."

The second half of the show is far different than the first. It is a one act featuring Christina Howard as the titular character, Naughty Nancy. Nancy is a prostitute living and working in the red light district in Amsterdam and we follow along as she discusses and lives a life that has worn her down. She's a fascinating character who reminded me far too much of an ex-girlfriend for me to discuss for too terribly long. Ms. Howard puts in an amazingly strong performance as a woman who won't allow herself too much pity, nor will she allow herself to walk away from this life. I'm likely butchering this as I try to explain the nuances of a piece that should be seen and not read about on a douche's blog. What I will say is that going from the wackiness of the first half to the progressively sobering and sad story of Nancy is a strong experience in itself. It is a rare opportunity to watch an ensemble give you two different flavors in the same evening and with such dedication that you can't help but feel just about every emotion in the rainbow. Naughty Nancy is the Yang to the Variety Hour's Yin. 

It is an impressive duality that this group lays before you. I feel as if it is perhaps your duty as an artist struggling and/or succeeding in Los Angeles to see other artists throwing their genius at a wall and seeing what sticks. They put in the all-important perspiration after the inspiration came and they invite you to witness their creation. To see other artists put in the work might perhaps inspire you to put in the work for your creation living somewhere in your brain. Go see it, then be inspired and create your own genius and then show that to the world and give me a 5% cut for giving you the inspiration to be inspired in the first place.

"I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident. They came by work." - TnA Edison

Come on, be serious, Andy.

I have been putting off a task that I shouldn't be putting off. I have a serious blog inside me, I swear, but I just don't seem to want to let it out. After all, isn't a "serious blog" an oxymoron? It is a contradiction in terms if ever I saw one. Given, I have a tendency to bend a few too many things into some sort of joke. Without laughter there's just... a space that I have little interest exploring. I have trouble craving anything without a smirk. It's not that I can't take anything seriously. I can and I do. Its just... Even now I can feel my own interest waning. Why analyze it at all? The point is, I feel like a toolbox trying to put any deep, dark thoughts into the form of 'blog'.

However...

I have a serious blog inside me, and I know it. It's a great big serious blog with feelings and emotions and blah, blah, blah. I had a life adventure recently and I'm scared I will forget it. It seems to me the only way to make sure I remember it is to talk about it or write about it. The problem is, whenever I start to talk about it, my voice cracks and I no longer want to be wherever I am. I skirt around the issue, diminishing its importance to me and look to move on as quickly as possible. Writing about it is not out of the question. Perhaps a journal entry or something? But there are people I want to know about this. I want to share this and I am not a strong sharer. In fact, in almost every way, I'm a fairly terrible sharer. I just want to lay it down and see what happens, but when I think of someone reading about it, reading about anything serious I may have typed onto an internet page, it makes me cringe. Maybe I'm too old? Maybe I feel like a fourteen year old girl scribbling poetry into my goth-y blog... 

"Oh assblankets!" I exclaimed in frustration. I just want to write a story about my experience taking care of my grandfather in his last days, but I haven't mustered the mustard. It's been over a month and I'm sure there are already details that have slipped through the disturbingly large cracks in my brain, never to be seen or heard from again. That's what I want to avoid. I want to type the details out so that I can look back at something I did that was actually good. I don't do so many good things in my life and I don't want to dismiss it the way I dismiss anything I fear can be later viewed as pretentious. I want to talk about the fears I had while by my grandfather's side. I want to talk about the awkwardly humorous moments, the experience of sitting with a man floating toward death who had accomplished so many things in life, traveled the world, survived a concentration camp, sang in a world renowned choir, been a surgeon in a community that embraced him as a celebrity... 

I haven't spoken much to anyone about my father and he's almost two years gone and now I can feel myself not wanting to share anything about my grandfather. It's as though--

Wait a minute! Is this blog a bit on the serious side all of a sudden? Did I ramble and rumble my way into a serious blog? Is that how the transition is made? Am I a goth-emo kid now? Do I want everyone around me to know how sad I am? I feel dirty. Filthy and dirty. And not in the sexy way.

Thunder-Face Alley

I'm out of Los Angeles for a spell. Where am I? I can't say, but using my mind-camera, I've snapped a quick pic of me in action in the most secret of secret places. Click on the picture and examine the adventure!

Me & My Mustache

My Mustache and I...

My mustache and I are more powerful together than we are apart.

My mustache and I have met briefly several times over the past several years, but really connected for the first time this last week on the set of a Matt Damon, Steven Soderberg movie.

My mustache proves people wrong with confident and gentle jabs of love.

My mustache and I are going to work toward an NBA Championship for the Boston Celtics while sitting in the midst of Mordor (Los Angeles).

My mustache and I welcome you to touch my mustache.

Bill & Andy's Pirate Journey!

This past week I had the adventure of a lifetime! Well, the adventure of an afternoon, at the very least. Under the clever pseudonym of Andrew Ryz, I journeyed to a far away land called Marina Del Rey to join forces with Alex Winter (of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" as well as the cult favorite, "Freaked") and fifteen other sea-faring Pirates. What was our meeting for? It was a shoot for the upcoming "Flapjack" cartoon on Cartoon Network.

 

Now, you may wonder why a guy like myself, who is particularly live-action, was involved in an animated show... Well, you'll just have to wait for the air date to find out. When is that air date? I don't know. The rumor going around the pirate bar was within 3 weeks.

It was a fun day, though. Lots of food and interesting Pirate conversation. I even found a Wench who offered to smoke me out with some special Pirate Herb. I did not, however, partake because I may or may not be taking a "break". It's not something I want to discuss at this time. Perhaps the next blog. For now we will focus on the fact that it was a wondrous day that even gave me a good look at the new indie-film-techie-nerd-item-of-the-moment: The RED Camera.

The on-site techie was kind enough to discuss the camera with me and even show me a reel of footage taken from several projects with varying conditions. It did make my loins ache. I have been trying not to think too much about the camera, but what's a guy to do? It's here, asking to rock my film life! I found myself a nice position behind the monitors as we were filming, too. The feed from the Steadicam looked like an already color-timed, finished product on the lovely HD monitors. Oh, the fun people will have with this camera.

Well, time is short, so I will wrap this up. Overall, things are all quite good with me. Several projects are rocking right along and I have been busy, busy, busy. I'm happy to report that along with cinematography gigs for others and my own writing and directing, acting has now become a happy little time consumer. It's a funny thing being on set as an actor. I have not yet been able to shake free of the immense guilt I feel when watching the crew fly in Four-By's or Tweenies. I keep wanting to let them know that I'm a G&E crew guy in my bones. I watch with guilt as I bask in the sun, drinking my second cup of coffee, eating

 several delicious cheeses and munching on anything I can reach with my new, actorly, Pirate hand. The life of an actor on set is not quite as challenging as the life of a crew member. At least when you're a background Pirate.

Sky Tubes to Boston

I am sitting above the clouds. Where are you sitting, coward? Probably somewhere below the clouds, like a square. Don't fret. I shan't judge you too harshly. Not from up here. Not from the sky. The sky is where I am. In a tube. Inside it. A tube of metal. Metal and wires and fancy signals that may include, but are not limited to:
Code secrets
Cross- Galaxy text flirtations
GPS locations
GPS directions
Secret marketing plans
Public marketing plans
This list is a small sampling of all the signals that may or may not be floating in and around this metal tube of mine*. This tube heads due east, my friends. It uses some of the aforementioned signals to guide me home to the snow, which I haven't seen in far too long. I don't think I can feel or read the signals, but it is entirely possible that if I reached out the window, I could grab one. So many signals. Like fish in a healthy, pre-industry river. Signals, signals, signals...
I am beginning to worry. Because of all this free signal sharing, there is an excellent chance that someone else is reading what I am writing right now. While it may not seem to you and I that this message contains anything of drastic import, it is possible- likely, even- that there is some subtle thread of ultimate truth that dances at this very moment between my words and your face. Our connection is too strong, I fear. If only we were less charmed by each other. If only you had a bag over your head so as to cover your mustache that you may or may not have. Then we might be safe from our animalistic desire for eachother. What is the danger of revealing ultimate truth, you ask? I don't know. Maybe nothing. But when anything is "ultimate", I hesitate to let it roam free. Like issues of "Ultimate Spider-Man", I feel as though we should charge somewhere around $1.75 per issue for this ultimate truth that may or may not exist.
In order to keep this exchange of information between you and I as secret as possible, I will leave you with a word/shape puzzle that you will need to decode:



(HINT: use your soul as a decoder ring)

End transmission.

* "Mine" does not indicate in any fashion that the tube belongs to our hero. However, since payment for this trip was made, one could argue that there is some bit of possession inherent in the experience of tube travel. Our hero will not make this argument now, in fear of being dropped from said tube without due process. In this day and age one should not assume that one is safe from becoming "tube droppings" with distant, fading calls of "Patriot Act!" as the only explanation or trial. One should always remember that we now live in a nation where the law is Robocop. It is judge, jury and executioner. Not unlike Judge Dredd. But remember that Robocop is, at his core, human. We can still play to our nation's heart and hope that in its moment of harsh judgement, Robocop/America will have mercy and shed a half-robot-half-human tear. If the country appears to be more like Judge Dredd, do not have the same hope. In the film, Ever-So-Sly Stallone wears blue contacts to cover his deep, human, emotional brown eyes. One cannot trust a nation that no longer trusts Rocky's eyes.