Worlds Collide

I’m sitting on the miniature trading floor on the 38th floor, waiting for the phone to ring, and it will. Donning an operator headset, I feel like I’m on a stock photo shoot for anything telemarketing. Smile and enjoy the call like you never enjoyed a call! Say “A” with a smile as the camera flashes, and it opens your mouth like your having a satisfying conversation. “A.” Oh yes, I’m a professional.

Phones chirp, buzz and ring while printers hustle and shoot out paper. Male voices overlap and laugh, as the traders on the floor rib one another. Female assistants with New York drawls, “tawk” on the phone with cell phone companies, husbands and other assistants tawking, sounding like a New York movie, but it’s not. It’s real. They stand like prairie dogs over their cubicles to have a conversation about the season’s new TV shows. They cover the spectrum, from Brad Garret’s new show to Grey’s anatomy. Did you catch it last night? Yeah, it always runs over. Did you see Ugly Betty? No. It takes you a while to get into it, but it’s good, kind of sad. Isn’t Brad Garret married to Joely Fisher, yeah. What’s that show called? ‘Til Death do us part? ‘Til Death? But did you see the commercial for Ugly Betty? If you see it, it’s on the same channel as Brad Garret is on. Because Mike and I saw the commercial for Ugly Betty and we started laughing. You gotta watch it. Joe So-and-shmoe’s office?

The phone rings for me. Kevin Kakawakas office (not his real name)? Is Kevin there? One second, I’ll check. I look for him. I don’t really know who he is. I interrupt the ladies, Is Kevin here? They look. Pointing at an empty seat, He usually sits there, you know, the bald guy, all-the-way bald. But, oh, there he is. I yell, Kevin? No response as he walks to his seat. My look to the women says, Is that Kevin? They all yell Kevin! Without acknowledging us, he grabs for his phone, then gives a slight turn and nod, like, Yeah, I know, and answers the phone.

One assistant says, What? Like we can read your mind. Like we know that you heard us. We share a laugh, and one says, Don't worry, Jon. We got your back. Thanks.

Their phones start ringing and the prairie dogs go back into their holes. I look across the floor to see sunlight peaking through gray, hanging clouds. No walls give me an un-obscured view through distant conference room windows. Nothing to block the sun or the shouting of names over cubicles and long desks. Two computer screens per person. One screen normal Windows, the other usually has a graph or a chart in red, green, blue, and black. The energy is exciting, and I don’t mind all the noise around me, as long as my phone bank isn’t ringing. They may ring around me, but my little cube is quiet. The phone bank I’m covering consists of four bankers today, and can be as many as six, minimally one.

That’s the job. and I appreciate the laissez-faire attitude of my bankers. No reports, no scheduling, no travel planning. Nice and smooth, so far. Don’t want to jinx it, though. That’s the best part of temping. They don’t expect too much from you because you’re only here for a day or two. And if they do give me a lot of busy-work, I feel betrayed by the code of temps. Make copies for you? Dude, the code. Print out stuff for you? The code. I can only do as little as possible.

Sure, I say that, but I’m more than willing to do the busy-work when I’m not writing. It makes the time go by so much faster. If I could write all day consistently, without interruptions though, that would be ideal. But sporadic freedom isn’t bad. Not for long, though.

I’m saying a partial good-bye to the executive assistant life and sharing it with retail. But not just any retail store. Gone will be the days of writing during work hours. Welcome to the days of standing on my feet for eight to ten hours, talking to non-technical customers about technical toys. It’s been keeping me up nights. Will it be enough money? Is this the right decision? I’ll be working late nights during the week, and will I spend enough time with my wife? Am I going to be able to continue blogging?

Setting up my new website is the most stressful for me, right now. There’s so much to learn about which site-tools to use, which web hosting has enough storage, costs the least, is the easiest, the best customer help service, what name I should choose for the website. should I keep the one I have now, or should I get rid of it using the new one exclusively?

Looking at photos of children on today’s desk, I wonder when we’re going to have our own. So many unaccomplished goals and debts aren’t shrinking in our current situation. This assistant has two boys on a giant button, probably printed at the mall’s photo shop. The adorable little girl, around two years old, smiles in black and white, on the beach, in her one-piece bathing suit, framed by pink, blue and white horses. They are all so beautiful, and if we had the money, I might want our own now. How does she do it on assistant’s pay? What does her husband do? I’m sure he’s not an actor.

It will have to wait as we figure it out. Although it feels like there’s an urgency to fix it now, I know that we are actually hyper-aware of the challenge to overcome the past. I lean back in the reclining desk chair, and take a breath. I have to trust that things will happen, and sleep through the night.

Now, excuse me while I internet surf at work.

Zip Line Monkey Boy

Gray clouds hover over Central Park to the northwest, sunbeams peak their way through, slicing the air into tasty bites of floating freedom. I want to pull a James Bond, and bust my way out of here, down a zip line of light, leaving this tower of banking terror behind. Reach the trees, bounce off the leaves, because they look soft, and hang like a monkey on a limb and eat spicy tuna hand rolls with my plush wife-monkey. Our fur isn’t itchy like a beard, so holding each other is like laying on a bear-skin rug, but we’re monkeys.

We’ll learn to use our tails and hang above park walkers, dropping acorns on their heads, watching them freak out at the size of those monkeys. That’s right, point and run away as we pelt you with natures weapon, and tasty seed. Yum. Crunchy.

We’ll elude the zookeepers and animal control, pulling a King Kong on Yoko Ono’s building, the Dakota, across the street from Strawberry Fields, only after dancing a jig with the local, ex-hippy, guitar resident, playing “A Little Help from My Friends.” Arm-in-arm, tail-in-tail, we’ll get tourists to pay the axe-man, theN flee to the heights of Yoko’s white sanctuary.

Our nimble fingers will unlock the windows, and we’ll climb in, ready to play a sonorous swing on the white piano. We like to swing. The pounding of animal angst will echo the hallowed halls of John Lennon, in our "Ode to Bread-making and House-Husbandry." Hopefully she’s not home, and we’ll go through her sunglasses collection, place Terminator-style shades on each of our flat faces, and walk out the front door. If she is home, we’ll leave her a script to read about spirit-swapping, and souls transgressing into other mammals. She’ll enjoy our swing in her reserved Japanese way, smiling behind her shades.

She’ll thank us, pleasantly, and we’ll bow, tails high, followed by our quiet and zippy exit down the private elevator. Slip past the doorman, after dropping a 20-spot, we like to tip, scratch my booty on the street, but dammit, I can’t get it. Agh! Can you get it, love? And my wife picks off a nasty little bugger of a flea, sniffs it, then eats it for a post-lunch snack. Tasty and symbiotic of you, dear. Thanks. Anytime, monkey-love.

With that, the clouds will part, and a shimmering sedan will lower it’s hermetically-sealed wing, and we’ll hitch a ride back to the loony planet of Jon on the 37th floor atop the investment banking corporation.

What the hell just happened? The jell-o in my neck hardens, and my eyes focus on the Nortel phone in front of me, screaming for an answer, flashing a caller’s name and a badge, credentials to boot, at me, the lowly temp.

I’m nothing but a guy who dreams of being a monkey on a sunbeam. Can’t even dream about flying or floating my way out of here, still hindered by Newtonian Law. Snap out of it! Free yourself, bound-boy. Unshackle the dream, and the reality will palate better.

Take a swig of Poland Springs water, masquerading in a Fiji bottle; refills are free. Rub my face and eyes with palms and fingers, filling each crevice of nose and eye sockets with a digit, while inhaling a cleansing breath.

Let it go.

I feel like a trained monkey, ready to dance for the peddling banker, organ grinder in hand, hanging over his billion-dollar account statement.

Maybe the corner of 57th and 5th is better. At least it’s not in a cubicle. Although the whole roof is a glass cube. Hope I don’t have to dance there. At least the other monkeys there dress like me, jeans and a T-shirt.

It could be worse. I could be a trained seal, paid in tuna.

Roll in the Dirt

So exhausted. I’m a good husband and waited up for the wifey to come home from a bachelorette party. Nothing like women and plastic, penis pacifiers masquerading as party favors. Oops, the secret is out.

Ok, the job that I was hoping for, and thought I didn’t get… I got. I’m proud of me, and so are the tiny sparrows that lie in the dirt of Bryant Park. Somehow, discussing my shift requirements and possible salary hike with the HR peeps, although nerve-racking – I’m usually a fairly composed person out in the world, but when it comes to this job I get like a 13-year-old talking to a girl for the first time – was massaged away by watching the little birds sit on green, park chairs, drop to the gravel pathway, and hop with other palm-sized, billowy buddies. It’s so Zen following these animals in their semi-natural state, a park within a city, taking me away from the horns, grumbling engines, sirens, and falling construction equipment booms. Although, those booms are pretty scary, and then I remember where I am. But then I look at the little, feathery cuties and I’m okay .

Look to the birds. Their little world, centered within landscaped shrubbery and fragrant flowers, stops time for me and reminds me that I’m a part of the big picture. Some big, ugly mug is out there in space and beyond time, looking at us little ants go, thinking, “they’re such little cuties. I just wanna squish ‘em all” . Some are squished and some squish themselves, but eventually the earth becomes re-landscaped by a passing contractor, a comet or meteor, and the little ant farm has to start from scratch. The roach farm will still be there though, but there not as cute as us.

Reading Ghostwritten by David Mitchell and watching Heroes last night got me thinking on the Universal level. Are we in control of our lives or are we pre-determined to be squished when crossing the street? Maybe both .

Sure, we all think that at one time or another, but I am the only one who has the answer. Just stare at a little birdie and you forget the question. I’m sure you can stare at a little baby too, which I’ve done recently with my niece, and that is the same feeling. She cried and cried and cried…at first. But then she got used to it. After that, I was infinite.

Ok, so there are a lot of different things you can do to forget the question. Go for a run, stare at the Grand Canyon, have sex, eat an egg pizza at Otto’s. All things, if they’re good, that help you to experience the moment and “forget about life for a while” [Billy Joel]. Maybe forgetting is the wrong word. That’s when you can simply be. I don’t know, sew a sweater, saw a branch, smell the breeze as the leaves fall and the chimneys light up.

All the things that you want, all the goals, the almost-haves, the weighing-you-downs, are keeping you almost squished all day long, which adds up to weeks, months, and years of squish, unless you push the squoosh away to freedom. Ah, freedom. Free as a bird on chair in the grass in Bryant Park in New York City. He doesn’t fly south for the winter, I’ve seen him, so is he free? Can he choose to leave or is he just a New Yorker who loves this city? Snowbirds with thick feathers can make it through the Arctic gusts along the Hudson, between the buildings, even as small as a sparrow.What if I choose to shoo him away? I, the outside, unforeseen force, affecting the sparrow’s life in a traumatic way. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t understand how, and I’m sure it never becomes a question in his mind. But if it happened to you, you would surely ask why? Why? Why?

Birds don’t have it that good. They don’t own property, cars, insurance, Social Security, they don’t pay taxes for government programs and services. No stability, for that matter. Birdbrains rolling around in the gravel and dirt, that’s what they are. But Woodstock was a bird and a festival of love and muddied, dirty people rolling around. That was so fun they did it three times in 30 years.

This is going nowhere.

I felt remorse yesterday when I completed the novel, separation anxiety from Wife after quality time came to an end due to the work week, and emptiness from not having worked on that Monday. I feel hope for the new job and potential of a dream job.

Holding me back from writing more eloquently is feeling powerless and pointless in what I’m writing. Who’s going to read this? Can I really get paid to blog one day? How easy is it to set up a real blog, that looks nice? Find the best deal for web hosting, transfer the few blog entries, learn how to design the website, understand the software. All I want is for the writing to be read from a cool Domain name, not jonsalkin.com, in a community of writers.

If I keep writing, taking control of my actions, then one day, something beyond my control will take over and set me into motion. That’s what I was looking for in the bird. Something so fragile, yet in control of its life, up to a point. That’s what I am right now, fragile and rolling around in the dirt.

Ay, naku! Clear the head. Take a breath, or vice versa. Sanitize and soften my hands with Purell, just cause it’s there… and I can. Now I’m softer, and fragile-er. Look at the baby pictures of the women whose cubicle I’m covering. Funny looking kid. Attempt to close the imaginary door of the office behind me because I can hear every word of their phone call, which is drowning out my own, tired thoughts, not allowing them to surface.

“…this is how I recommend handling it… you and Mike make a phone call to the bankers and get it listed.. and whoever you decide, should be along for the whole ride, and it’s easy… bring ‘em along on this one… what he’s going to do is write a whole semi-conductor slant…this is the listing hedge clause… I wonder if we need to go to equity…”

Ay, the ringing in my ears, trying to gain control over the situation, as outside forces inflict their soundwaves upon me. Must overcome it. Must hop around the Great Garden and roll around in the dirt. Ah, yes… dirty.

Tale of the Review of the Daily Summation

I'm wondering if you always have to be suffering to be a good artist. I, actually, know the answer to this, but sometimes the question arises when I'm not creating. Usually I'm not creating when I'm enjoying my life, and enjoying one's life seems to get in the way of artistic creation. Even so, there's always the tug of “I”m not writing” when I'm enjoying, so I stop enjoying periodically until the writing has been achieved.

I've never published anything except this blog, but I consider myself a potential writer.

I'm making a choice now to diverge from simple, straigtforward blogging to a chosen topic under anonymous pretentions. Keep the name blog, jonsalkin.com for promoting me, but have a blog set up under a pseudonymn, without photos of self, purely devoted to writing.. That seems to be the way to go. Leave the photos for the actor-promotion.

Next: Osama may be dead... maybe not. Pakistani president Musharraff was interviewed on 60 minutes, but I wasn't listening as I read my email.

Closer to home: The wife and I re-organized the apartment, put up pictures, did laundry, and rested so nicely after long Manhattan commutes to the banking Bear. What a simple way to achieve peace. Clearing the cobwebs from the undusted soul, not to mention cleaning out one of my inbox's 200+ unread emails.

I'm making a decision to take a job that pays half of what I make now, but the potential with what I can learn is what draws me to the position. This company doesn't hire just anyone, and I have my foot in the door. If I'm going to go in the direction of survival jobs, this is the company I'd want to work for, having a basis in the creative and technical. I'm being vague, but it's a financial and spousal dilemma. The part-time hours will overlap the $20/hr corporate bank hours, taking away rent and bill payments. I'd work from 7/9pm to 2/3am, opposite of my wife's schedule.

A lot of negatives, but the potential of the job made me immediately say yes.

I hope it's the right decision. It'll be a struggle, unless we get our delayed tax refunds back soon. If that happens, at least we won't have to worry for a while, I can train, thrive, and impress and eventually get more money and better hours.

The script says, yes, I am willing to do it because I truly believe in the product and the company's philosophy. Funny what one has to do to get by.

The time will come when I get paid for passion, and that day will be soon...er or later.

Space and a Breath

Sometimes you need some space to breathe before you expel any expletives, or rather so something less vulgar will come out your mouth. That can go without saying, and when I’m saying nothing, something is building up and waiting to explode on the person next to me. Married people know the drill, or so I’ve been told. Spouse make good target. But not for the enlightened and able-minded, in control of their emotions and purveyors of bridled passion. Spouse make good sounding board and not emotional projectile receptor.

Maybe Iran needs some space to breathe, and for all better purposes, maybe we in the U.S. do too. And it looks like Pakistan might need a breather after letting the world know how close it was to being bombed "back into the Stone Age" by the U.S. Bush is "taken aback" by these comments, and denial isn't just a baby-floating river in Egypt.

One side is saying one thing but hearing something else, and because they heard something else, which so happens is interpreted as offensive, that side responds with a deliberate verbal attack, and, oh look, they just verbally attacked us! How dare they, when we were saying this, and ‘that’ is what we were trying to avoid, but they want to bring it up. Sheesh. And we don’t understand that what we’re saying is offensive, and the cycle continues, then escalates, and then there’s nuclear war. Problem solved, no one is saying anything now.

At least, that’s how emotionally unhealthy people attempt to communicate. I do that sometimes. I won’t see that what I’m saying or doing is pissing someone off and an argument ensues about one thing, when I was talking about another. But my point that I was so eloquently trying to make, no matter how valid, is now lost in the horrific display of miscommunication through a downward spiral of name-calling and feet-stomping.

That’s when I should look for space and breathe. That’s when the healthy people know to walk away and not say anything at all. But not everyone is healthy one hundred percent of the time, no matter how much progress one has made towards becoming stable human being. We’re only human, after all.

Not human enough, is not recognizing this about one’s own human nature. We’re going to get mad once in a while, and that’s normal. It’s what you do with it that counts. I like to smoosh it up into a little ball and throw it at oncoming traffic, preferably taxis who honk at walkers with the right of way. I also tend to be a forgivable arse to my wife. I’d like emphasize forgivable.

But that’s just me. Others like to hurl themselves into crowded shopping areas with dynamite duct-taped around their chest. To each their own. I guess it’s hard to really discuss anything when there’s the threat of weapons-grade uranium enrichment, suicide and roadside bombers, bus and train explosions, and exchanged rockets over borders by nation-sponsored terrorists. But who’s really listening when your ears a ringing. And who was the terrorist first?

Colonial revolutionaries having a Tea Party were terrorists. Arafat was once considered a terrorist, up until he won a Peace Prize. Funny how history re-writes itself, or time brings redemption. Copernicus was ridiculed and considered a blaspheme, but now he’s a visionary and pioneer. But he wasn’t blowing stuff up, though the Church might have liked to burn him up.

It’s all how you look at things. After seeing war for five years, maybe all parties involved, even the proximate observers with a stake, want peace. That’s what Bush and the Iranian president said this past week in interviews and speeches. Maybe they really want peace, and I hope they do. No matter how evil the other one says they are, humans all want peace and to be left alone. Hey, if it goes on long enough, and it’s still a stale mate, they may agree to disagree and go about their business.

The Crusades took a breath after centuries of civilizations clashing. Let’s hope, before the Pope puts his foot in his mouth again, that the War on Terror won’t become another Judeo-Christian-Islamic battleground lasting a millennium. Maybe it already is though, and we don’t know it yet. Give it a little space, take a breath, and who knows what history will call it?

Composure and Cube-haven

I’m here at the Apple store on 5th Ave and 57th St at the corner of Central Park in NYC. Ironic that the store that refused to offer me a job is my day’s sanctuary when my floating job leaves me high & dry. No work today. No money. Paid bills are like bad grenades, exploding on you when you least expect it. Then when you check your account after leaving the office building and find a couple more paid bills have gone through and you have nothing to live off of for the next two days until Payday because the Payroll department screwed up once again, and leave me hanging without two days pay yet again, then i begin to freak out a little bit and call up my other temp agency agitated and angered, powerless and attempting to regain control by asking for someone I know at the temp agency, and they’re in a meeting and i don’t know the name of anyone in the office anymore b/c i haven’t been there for months and months since i relocated to this internal office at the investment banking firm, and i have to give the receptionist a name otherwise she can’t help me, and i say i just want to talk to someone and she repeats herself and says she can put me into voice mail for the women that i asked for, but i don’t want voice mail, i want to talk to someone b/c it’s better to speak with someone and let the agents get to know you otherwise they forget you exist and never use you for any work and then you’re shit-out-of-luck again for this week’s bills and especially next week’s because you’re not getting paid for sitting in the temp office waiting for no work, so I exclaim, I want to speak to someone now, and the already agitated receptionist, who is obviously overwrought with other callers and a phone that never stops ringing gives the button a push and i’m sitting in silence.

Take a breath. I call back and ask to speak with someone and says she’ll transfer me to Val who’s in another office and she does, and i explain my story that i have executive assistant experience now, assisting investment bankers and lawyers that are Senior Managing Directors in multi-hundred-million dollar deals, I schedule meetings and travel, take their shit and smile and i’m looking for more work and i was working with ANgela for a while but, oh you’re working with Angela, i’ll transfer you to her line, but she wasn’t there, thank you too late, and Angela’s voice mail comes on and i explain myself again to the temp agency boss who knows me and will hopefully get me work for next week, otherwise my wife and i are screwed for rent.

So i stand in my corporate attire at 10:52 am surrounded by students, the unemployed, retirees and tourists at a common terminal, entering my life for the non public public to invade me freak-out, this is my freak out and i don’t mind leaving it out there. why not, it’s real, and once it’s written it becomes more real for the reader as if you’re in the writer’s head.

these crystalline white iMac computers, with everything contained within a stand up monitor, reflect back at me how i can’t afford you at home, but here on 5th avenue i can at least stand, hunched over, wrists gaining pre-carpeltunnel pain as gravity holds my wrists to the oversized oak table holding 10 computers around me. email and stock quotes are checked as a young black man blasts R&B or Beyonce from the mac along the wall, drowning out the iPod area of overlapping sounds and songs, a cacophony of commerce and technology overlapping with art and culture.

i love this glass cube of a store protruding from the street sidewalk, a 21st century landmark and haven for the weary dreamers and toy-seekers. i want a new iPod. i want a new computer. But i’ll settle for a free test drive on the mac heaven.

it all gets better i know that, and Bob Marley and internet radio overlap, and the man dances in front of the computer, checking is Yahoo account, swimming in an emptied Starbuck’s Large iced Americano. My former drink of choice in the Philippines after a night out until 6 am and a casting session the next day.

The man sings off-key to an R&B fave, and I wish i could be that care free, and maybe i will one day, b/c we have a plan. The plan will save us, the plan will eat at our pride but it will be worth it when we return triumphant and partially debt-free, the bad ones anyway. Leave the city of dreams to the Latin Riviera of topless models, dead fashion designers and a football team lost in their heyday of the 70’s and 80’s. Miami will heal us with family and the plan.

Fear has grown in me today and yesterday as Bush speaks to the UN General Assembly today, while Iran’s president resides in the same building, and i fear a car bomb, though i doubt it will happen, it’s just my imagination wondering if it could happen, and i know the dangers of this city of my dreams, and i’m willing to leave it for a time, and re-gain my composure to take it on again.

I laugh to myself as the black man sings Nickelback off-key, and I love that he knows every word. Something about rock and culture transcending racial stereotypes in my generation and lifetime. I still wish he’d change the internet channel, b/c his taste sucks.

i’ll just have to finish this up and take control, and leave this place on my own for some street silence and purposeful resolve to get through that moment and leave it at the store and in this mid-day September blog.

He's the Olber-Mann!

Four days after 9/11, Keith Olbermann’s address is still ringing in my ears. I was so blown away by the courage and conviction he put forth. His speech clearly represents an American voice that has finally been heard. I’m reminded of the Vietnam era, when criticizers of the war were told to “Love it or leave it.” And that’s precisely the kind of attitude that he's facing in this climate of war.

Before I utter my humble opinion, here are my disclaimers: I’m a moderate. Much of my knowledge of the Vietnam era is through the many movies made in the 70’s and 80’s, like many others in my generation (I’m 31) – although, I took a Vietnam history class in college. I’m not one to worship any human being, despite how much I agree with their ideas. I haven’t lost anyone close to me in 9/11 or the ongoing wars, although a close cousin was seconds away from riding the burning elevators in Tower One.

That said, I love Keith Olbermann now. Not like a lover, but like a fighter. A fighter for integrity in our presidency, demanding that Bush live up to his promises. I’m happy I read about Olbermann on a large-scale website like Yahoo! comparing him to Edward R. Murrow and his attack on Joseph McCarthy during his Communist witch hunt. I’m happy Olbermann is getting so much press. Of course, that’s to be expected when a liberal media sees one of their own attacking the Republican president. Hell, fine with me. I’m happy I saw him on the Today show yesterday morning, one of the biggest television platforms in the country, maybe the world, advertising to all to take a look at what he said on MSNBC.com.

Everyone should hear it. I feel hope in my heart, a warm and throbbing sensation, when I think about what he said. It feels like a turning point for me on a massive scale when it comes to criticizing the Bush administration and W in particular. All the politicizing and Machiavellian fear-mongering needs to be placed in check, and that’s why we have a free press as our fourth branch of government.

I want to rally around Olbermann, not the man, but the ideas. And maybe I don’t agree with everything he has said, although I probably do, but that’s not the point. There are ongoing wrong deeds that have been done, and so few out there have articulated as eloquently as Olbermann, how these wars came about and why there is still an emptiness in our hearts, as well as in lower Manhattan’s earth.

I’m scared every other day riding the subway into Manhattan (Mom, don’t read this), especially from where my wife and I live in Brooklyn. One of the more recently-publicized homegrown terrorists frequented an Islamic Center in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a bomb’s throw away from our apartment. The fear disappears quickly when I think about the Russian mafia keeping our streets safe, but the state of our times is a reality worth remembering in the morning. We now carry flashlights in our bags in case an emergency happens while in one of the tunnels. It’s not like I carry a bomb-sniffing dog in there, a counter-terrorist Chihuahua in a Louis Vuitton canine-purse, but preparation for darkness is a safe touch. The fear leaves like a daily tally of things to do on my list – pay power bill, do laundry, worry about suicide bomber, recharge iPod – and we head to work like any other day, trying to make ends meet, and coming home still sane.

Although the effect of the War on Terror on my daily life is small, I would still like to feel a growing sense of hope, a tangible sense of progress towards a goal instead of this lost powerlessness when I think about our world and the hole in the ground. That’s why I love what Olbermann said. Stick it to the Man is as patriotic as flag-waiving and apple pie, so what’s wrong with a little direct confrontation of a president who has manipulated so many truths, mollifying us into compliance. It’s healthy, it’s natural, and it’s American.

Maybe I’m getting too political for someone trying to start an acting career. It’s better to save some mystery, and let audiences make up their minds for themselves. But I’m not famous yet, and I am an audience member not jumping a couch. One day someone will read this blog besides my wife and parents (I wonder who that will be) and my views may come to haunt me, but hey, opinions are like arses, and I have a plump and juicy one.

For now, I encourage more heartfelt annunciations of their own truths, and I look forward to the ripple effect of Keith Olbermann’s editorial. Let a unified understanding sweep over our country, and an empathetic ear listen to what is right. Rock on man-sticker!

Fake vs. Real - For the Naive and Easily-Hoodwinked

After a difficult week building up to 9/11 and everything surrounding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the global War on Terror, it’s a sharp contrast to read about the light deception that has bamboozled the general YouTube population of viewers.

“Lonelygirl15 is a FAKE.”

These words have rung out beyond the vast webscape of isolated computer geeks, techno newbies, and porn-seekers, into the valleys of Hollywood and the potential market of web drama. The summer soap of a would-be 15 year old and her buddy Danielbeast, suffering from a teen’s syndrome of unrequited love, drew hundreds of thousands of viewers weekly, waiting for the next installment of underage self-disclosure, in the form of a video blog.

I admit it. I was suckered in for a couple of weeks. I first discovered it with my wife while browsing the many “Most Viewed” videos regularly uploaded to the free video site, while trying to upload my own video/demo reel. It’s our new model of home entertainment and multi-tasking, that I’m sure is pretty common these days; TV on, sometimes music too, and laptop for alternate viewing pleasure. So my wife said it was time I put my own video out there, which I did, with the hopes of high view count, and potential employers beating down my door to host their TV show. Little did I know that the Tube waves were monopolized by one popular lonely girl.

But I uploaded it anyway, despite my no frills approach, with little hype, except for an email blast of my entire address book. I wanted all the buzz of Lonelygirl and thought of possibly casting a pretty young starlet to play myself. My wife disagreed. She actually said we should create our own fake parody of the young pair and their pseudo-confessionals. Oh, how prophetic she was.

Being that Jessica Rose is the actress that plays Lonelygirl15, this first-wave materialization of a soap opera blog has killed the model for “is it real or fake?” the way The Blair Witch Project killed it 7 years ago. And it’s dead before it even hit the mainstream population. It’s been done, the hype will always be questioned, so what form of hype will be next? Sure there’ll always be young, naïve entertainees out there waiting to be duped, in the next incarnation of fake vs. real version 29, but all my belief in the internet is gone. If you can’t believe in blogs, what can you believe in? Maybe I’ll turn to our politicians.

Crossing the line between reality and fiction seems to be the ongoing theme these days in all forms of media, a la James Frey’s much-Oprah-ed (it is now a verb, folks, right here, first), fictionalized memoir, A Million Little Pieces, creating so much buzz-turned-controversy. Are we all a little too naïve to even go out in the world anymore? If we’re not safe in our own homes surfing the internet, reading a book, or watching a movie, where can we be safe?

Although, according to the vast amounts of comments regarding the Lonelygirl out-ing, many of the viewers doubted the authenticity from the beginning. But what about me and my trusting nature. Those producers have executed on me confidence-theivery. I want to wash it all away. Wash the dirty, grimy trickery from my computer screen and look at safe and predictable, virus-laden porn like the old days of internet yore. But then I have to face whether or not those girls flaunt breasts of fake or real. Agh! I’ve been lonelygirled and I feel out of control. The only way to bring the control back, to gain a little perspective from it all, is to, wait it’s coming to me, yes… turn off the computer…turn off the TV… get out of my pajamas and go for a walk out in the ever-fabled world. Maybe a little fresh air, a gentle stroll and, quite possibly, get a life of my own. Ah, yes, that feels better. I'm not living in my mother's basement and I actually have a woman. Life is real again.

Remember and Build On It

After working my paid standby position - waiting until 10am to see if the company will use me as a temp for the day, then leaving promptly from the building at 10am – I spent the day wandering the streets of New York, but not aimlessly. Julie suggested I go to Ground Zero and pay my respects, so with nothing but a rolling backpack and a half-smile – half happy from not working, Yay, and not making money, Boo - I headed down Fifth Avenue.

Coming from 47th Street, I imagined where the Towers used to be visible, all the way downtown. The Twins and the Empire State Building used to be my compass. I’d walk 20 minutes to school from Port Authority, green to New York in ’98, cross Fifth Avenue at around 30th Street, look up to see the Empire State, remembering my dreams and why I was here in New York, then look down Fifth to see the World Trade. That was my daily ritual and reminder. That’s why I chose Fifth Avenue, to remember.

Crossing 34th Street I looked up in awe of the tallest building in New York, the Empire State. As I watched a distant plane shining amid clear blue, my fears grabbed hold and I envisioned that plane drawing the same fate upon our remaining landmark. I shook it out of my head, literally shaking the horrible thought out, as it disappeared behind the building.

Keep walking, past the sample-sale shopping, past the Flatiron building, through more shopping a block over from Union Square, and down to Washington Square Park. Washington’s Arch, viewed from the north, used to frame the Twins when standing below its vaulting marble archway. All I could see now was the crystalline glass of Seven World Trade Center, newly rebuilt, and one of the taller structures surrounding the empty hole.

Past the students, past the speed-chess players and grizzly men selling weed – they don’t approach me like they used to, decked out in my corporate-wear – Fifth becomes Thompson and I walk below the trees, using Seven World Trade as compass to navigate.It feels like a neighborhood now, void of shopping, and lined with bohemian restaurants and the academic bars of NYU. A block down to the right, West 3rd Street is barricaded off to traffic, but not pedestrians. Groups of men in their dress blue uniforms and caps, gathered in front of Fire Patrol House #2 on between Thompson and Sullivan Streets. An elderly women in a light blue dress, with white embroidery, held flowers and a solemn face. Conversations flowed from the street into the fire house, as they held their own private memorial for their fallen brothers. A sign posted in front urged passersby to contact your local councilperson to help keep this fire patrol house from officially closing its doors on October 15th. Their website outlines the details: http://www.fpny123.net/.

I pause to reflect, and continue walking. These are real people with real lives, who were affected by an attack on our country, casualties of war, in the first battle of the 21st century. The affects are still felt here in this neighborhood street five years later. On Sullivan, I lose sight of Seven, but lead myself to Tribeca, finding Varick, then Hudson. Chambers lets me know that I’m close, and I turn right to the West Side Highway, looking left to see my first view of pilgrims and mourners. I feel the weight in my chest grow. I’ve been here every year since the attacks, but today feels different.

I follow flag holders, people in black “Investigate 9/11” t-shirts, uniformed police, and tourists in sunglasses, carrying cameras towards the pedestrian bridge, south along West Street. Approaching, I hear echoed names of the deceased being read off by family members, each set of names punctuated by personal pleas to their loved ones. I take the escalator up onto the bridge, crossing West Street along Vesey, and seeing the voices’ origins. Squeezing between others witnesses, I catch a glimpse of the multitudes of uniformed officers, firefighters and their family members, in a procession down the great ramp onto the dirt of Ground Zero.

The night before, President and Laura Bush placed wreaths in a pool at the footprint of Tower 1, now overflowing with flowers from the procession. I look around me on the bridge, and head down stairs for a better view. Telephoto lenses of roving press and regular photographers alike, line the stairway. Is this obscene? Last time I was here, without a ceremony going on, it felt disrespectful that so many tourists were taking pictures of this giant gravesite. But this is history today. I and everyone else there are witness to a remembrance of five years ago.

It has been five years. It’s hard to believe. I wasn’t even here. I’ve faced that guilt each year, that I wasn’t here when it happened. My New York, my home, and I wasn’t here. Not that I could have stopped them, nor do I have any EMT skills, but just to be here while my dear home suffered so much… I’ve never quite forgiven myself. Over time, Julie and I have shared these same feelings, not that it compares to the survivors’ guilt of the many firefighters being honored today. But over five years, we’ve come to realize that maybe we were fortunate by not witnessing first-hand, the terrible devastation. Insulated by distance and TV-filtered coverage, we could merely tour the aftermath, and delve within ourselves to make sense of it all.

Watching all the news coverage leading up to this year’s anniversary, seeing the children of 9/11 loss, and how they’ve coped without fathers and mothers, they speak of being lucky. Lucky to be alive, lucky at having known their families, and if they can feel lucky, then it’s okay to put things behind.

I pull out my cell phone camera, and I take a picture for my future children. I want them to know that I was there, a part of history, and I want to teach them about our times. That’s what shifts in me, and I continue across to Church Street. The name reading ends, and at the entrance to the PATH station, the true public event is taking place. Silent protesters, camera crews, people holding flowers, Iraqi vets, all nationalities, all cultures, with and without cameras stand without a view of the bottom, and listen to the official choir of the ceremony, filling the air with “Raise You Up.” Tears form in my eyes. Once a kitschy song to me by Josh Groban, in this context, I feel the need for purity and a straightforward, uplifting message through music. It’s followed by a lone trumpet’s rendition of “Taps.” Once again, movies have worn it down and I normally am not moved by this overplayed fixture of a dramatic mechanism, but in this moment, when the song suits its true purpose, solemn remembrance of the dead, I am stricken by more tears.

I follow the fence barrier. I hear deep, individual rings, and see three giant bells lining Liberty Street. Below each suspended bell are the names of those lost. People walk up, read the names, tug a thick rope attached to the clapper, and release. A man gives a short silent prayer, pulls the rope, rings the bell, and repeats three times. Three friends that he knew, and I decide not to take a picture of him. I regret raising my camera-phone. That was his moment, and I almost violated it.

It feels like all these people are violating this private moment of mourning for the families and friends, but this was a public event. It didn’t just happen to the 3,000, it happened to our country, and as countrymen and women, we can publicly mourn for their loss. And the mood around is not all mourning. There’s anger and confrontation between protesters and so-called patriots. There is a war going on because of this place, so people try to redirect their pain. And there are shoppers heading to Century 21, “New York’s best kept secret”, according to the building-wide banner topping the retailer’s façade.

A male news reporter fixes his wind-tossed hair, like a Pantene commercial, makes a joke about it, and I see his glowing ego shimmering in his pretty, brown hair. In his vantage point, sits a blue monster truck, at least two feet off the ground, bedecked in American flags, stickers, firefighter license plates, and magnets reading “We will never forget.” I can’t help but chuckle at the sight, and somehow it seems okay here since it’s owned by a firefighter. Why not be patriotic like that? It’s a nice contrast, but surprising to see in New York and not in some muddy, Southern pasture for off-road muddin’.

Along Liberty in the other direction, I continue circling the site, and I’m met by a collection of dress blues, followed by what seems to be the procession, entering from a gated area that leads from the Ground below. The procession converges on the newly rebuilt fire house of Engine 10, Ladder 10, and I finish my lap of the Hallowed Ground, by entering the World Financial Center. Inside the air-conditioned building, windows overlook the east, so I sit and take in everything, wanting to leave, but feeling the need to look, and look some more. I have an insatiable appetite for imagining the events, viewing the people, scrutinizing the remaining rock walls, holding back the Hudson from flooding the earth, and wanting to head home for comfort and rest. It no longer looks like devastation, as they repeatedly showed us on TV leading up to this day. It has a fully constructed PATH train to Jersey, a below ground facility for train entrance, and a clean dirt floor and walls. It will be rebuilt, and New York will be renewed.

I came here to remember and, also, to see the progress. I want the tallest building in the world back in our borders. I want the dream of New York back, as I enter the City from across the Hudson River, with Lower Manhattan bookmarked by the Freedom Tower. I want glowing glass, and human-lit sky to bare the torch of liberty, along Liberty Street. I want the Memorial built, and the dirt floor to be covered with man-made heights and accomplishments. Five years have gone by, and it feels like it’s time to move on, not just as myself, the individual, but as a unit, a whole, a City that deserves to be great again. That is what this day means to me, not like last year, not like four years ago, but what this present day means now.

Leave it Behind

You can go months without seeing anyone you know, much less, see someone famous walking down the streets of New York. And I'll admit, I've had plenty of celebrity sightings in the past eight years of being here, but Thursday and Friday I saw five. Later on Friday evening on Julie and my walk down Manhattan together, we saw the beautiful blond prosecutor with glasses from Law & Order/Conviction around the Flatiron area along Broadway. As we approached Bleecker along Lafayette, we passed by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard's producing partner for Imagine Entertainment, and that's when I freaked out a little more.

Prior to that, I can't even remember the last sighting. This may seem like I'm celebrity-obsessed, and I do watch Access Hollywood regularly to keep up with the business. Yes it is mostly gossip, but it just seems a little odd to see fame so often and all at once.

This blog is focusing my goals. I'm putting myself out there, working out regularly and I can feel the energy shift. It's going to happen, and I am predicting it here folks.

What an amazing night, Friday. I don't want to reveal too much, because it is a bit personal, but I'll just say that Julie and I go on walks in New York; two to four hour walks down Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge, and we hadn't done that in quite a while. After work Friday, we walked from work to Brooklyn on Jay Street, and caught the F train home from there.

The golden full moon hung above the eastern sky, clear and black and open as we approached the Bridge. A single beam of light shot up from Lower Manhattan, not exactly at the World Trade Center sight, but in remembrance nonetheless. It's blue hue reaching for the heavens, connecting the earthly to the infinite. Maybe on the 11th they'll place two beams, but I know the cost to the City is too much to keep all week.

We had the option after eating three roasted pork tacos with chunky guacamole, rice, beans, and sour cream at Chipotle – it may be a chain, but it hits home for us – to watch a movie at the AMC Times Square. We checked out the times on the outdoor board at around 7pm. The throngs of passers-by along 42nd Street were too much, bumping and avoiding, so we ducked by oncoming people-traffic and entered the building.

The line to the front ticket counter reached the doors. Each automatic ticket vestibule had a line of four or more. The chatter and the proximity of an entire floor occupied with moviegoers squeezed me into a private knot. I looked at Julie and said, after telling her earlier that I really wanted to see at least three different new movies, “We don't have to see a movie. We could just walk?”
“Yeah, it's such a beautiful day, I just don't feel right spending it inside all night, then having to go home.”
“You want to just walk downtown?”
“Sure, sounds good.”

And with that, we exited the horde into the Great River of People, east to Broadway. We made our decision. It was for our New York couple adventure, a substitute for working out.

This is when we have our best conversations, expressing our dreams and immediate concerns, flushing it out with each step down, and pouring it on the sidewalks. Julie will do the window shopping and once in a while we'll enter a retail dwelling, but it's onward and southward despite our corporate attire and my non-walking-dress shoes. Doesn't matter, just walk, push forward and manifest the metaphor for life.

We do it together. We do it with love.

The pounding of feet, the burden of over-the-shoulder bags, the constriction of tight clothing means nothing, O' Twin of the Walk. There's levity in our load, and gravity is but a foreign concept as our spirits soar along avenues and above the edifices, into the night and Golden Moon.

Triumphant Two, defending the soul from stagnation and desktops, affidavits and offer letters, voice mail and Blackberry prisons. This is our time, to leap from the banking towers along Park Avenue to the suspension heights of the East River.

We can see you there, on the Bridge, from a distance. We walked from you, lit and distinguished, and placed beside Chrysler and MetLife. You're so tall standing next to us, and I feel small in your shadow, but we have walked all the way here, and you are just another silhouette, topped with a shimmering candle among the other thousand slhouettes and candles. You are now in our night-shadow as we stand above the world, boats passing below us, putting you far behind our steps.

During the day we feel bound, but this night we are free, and this perspective has freed us. This is where we share our dreams. This is where we share our reality. This moment, in this present Now, is our world, and you are but a part of it.

Wipe it off on Me

Yesterday, I didn’t write a blog because I didn’t have work. That’s what happens when you’re a temp. I show up for work, bedecked in corporate-wear – slacks, button-down, tie – with no guarantee that I will be getting paid. On better days, like Wednesday, I showed up and within a half-hour, my temp agency let me know that I could go upstairs to 40 for my assignment of the day.

Thursday, though was a different story, and the decision to leave work is usually made at 10am. I could stay there all day if I want, but realistically, if there isn’t a call by 10, I’m done for the day. Instead of leaving though, I took care of bills on the computers in our waiting room. We wait in the bowels of the building, sub-floor 1, no windows, no natural light, no idea what the outside world might look like. I feel bad for my temp agents, spending their days in a single large room, no cubes, only desks, no privacy, forced to deal with the others neuroses and loud voices. But that’s their choice to stay there. Like I said two days ago, we all have choices. Brilliant.

After an hour of phone calls and payments, I fled the bowels, and headed south on a half-hour walk to a “Go-see”, or a modeling casting call for Hispanics… I can pass, and being of mixed-nationality, I can justify it too bitch! It was for Microsoft, a year of print ad usage of my image for $1,500, with potential for an additional $1,500 depending on my role in the photo shoot. If they didn’t want me as a principal, I had the option to be an extra for $500.

I used to live off of these shoots, getting one of those every month or two, and not needing to be a sucker in a three-piece, but as pounds are added, jobs are subtracted. I know the drill, so I’m in the process of dropping my fat-suit at the local McDonald’s and leaving it there for tourists to snack on during their Times Square visits. It’s good for egg rolls, fried chicken and funnel cakes. Maybe I’ll sell it to Six Flags and make an extra buck.

After the go-see, it’s uptown to check our P.O. Box, Jules and my last connection to the Upper West Side. We were forced out of our apartment, as the owners converted it into a hotel behind Lincoln Square, used formerly for students of Julliard and used presently for tourists and very vocal one-night stands and working girls. I should have recorded it for a no-fee sound byte on my website. Maybe I’d get more hits. But our PO Box keeps us hoping that one day we shall return to the comforts of Manhattan and the chill family life. Unless we move to LA, but Village living is over for us.

No mail. No checks, more importantly, at the PO, so it was time to feed the beast with a couple slices. Mind you, I’m on four hours of sleep per night, with early morning workouts before the no-job job, so I’m fading fast, stumbling for a break. I sit among the pigeons and cobblestones below and across the street from the massive Barnes & Nobles on 66th and Broadway. Fruit and vegetable stands surround me, metal tables and chairs, fixtures to this outdoor, street sanctuary. It’s no haven from New York noises, but it'll do to rest my feet and gorge myself on pepperoni and sausage. Delish… and wholesome too. Wholesomely dripping with animal fat.

Filled with guilt for consuming twice the slice, I set out on foot for a grand adventure back down the Broadway, and this is where I begin my run-ins. Let me preface this by emphasizing my consistent fortitude lately, at speaking to the Universe or God or the Infinite Is, whatever you prefer, about my desires for wealth and comfort through showbiz. When the lights go down, and the quiet of Bedroom Peace comforts me in the arms of my best friend and wife, I’ve been giving a vocal, “I’m going to land a series of national commercials, Law & Order spots, a hosting gig on MTV or VH1, E!, Fuse, or anything that will take us out of our current situation.” And I’m believing it. It will happen.

So my first encounter as I pass the outdoor restaurants that face Lincoln Center along Broadway, was with the guru of books on improving your wealth, Rich Dad, Poor Dad himself, Robert Kiyosake. I’ve read the book, and I’ve seen the infomercials. I also read his articles on Yahoo!. He’s a big guy.

I forage on, reaching Columbus Circle, joining the hordes at the corner entrance of Central Park. A Jazz group rehearsed, or conversed rather, for their later performance, as stated on their 12-foot banner, which sectioned them off from the passers-by, all sporting black T-shirts and instruments of choice. Watching them was a gray, slightly bald bulldog-man in a suit. His presence made me stop to watch the rehearsal near him, giving myself time to place his face. To my right a man stared at the bulldog, wielding a toothy smile in recognition, confirming my own.

A black T-shirt-clad woman crossed the space to shake hands, “Commissioner Ray Kelly, good to see you.”

Ah-hah! That’s what I thought, as I gave myself a pat on the back. NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, whose face is consistently featured on the evening news. They chatted for a moment, until they were interrupted by a man reaching to shake as well, “Commissioner Kelly, just wanted to say you’re doing a great job. Thank you.”

The toothy-smile man took the cue and crossed next, “Just wanted to shake your hand, sir.”

Searching myself and my true feelings of my perception of him, I thought about the last five years after 9/11, and how there haven’t been anymore attacks, so far, and hopefully forever, and I found myself crossing to him, hand extended, shaking the hand of a man I had not met. “Your doing a great job.”

I laugh now as I hear the words coming out of my mouth. What a dork who’s publicly aware. But I really felt it. Why not offer up gratitude? Although as I shook his hand, I imagined a world of corruption, power and money, ever so brilliantly portrayed in Training Day with Denzel. A world where people like Ray Kelly enforce their Machiavellian will on the populace, telling stories of heroes, arrests and medals to the media, while they stuff their pockets with illegal money. I envisioned a young cop from one of the boroughs, working his way up the ranks, learning the reality of how law and order is dealt, being disillusioned by this truth, then accepting and thriving, no longer listening to the voice of conscience, while rules are enforced.

Of course, he could be a completely ethical and moral man, with a strong family and honorable life. I've read about his program creating NYC's own CIA/FBI unit that protects our City. My imagination likes to flex its drama muscles and summon outrageous scenarios, so I'll give Commissioner Kelly more than the benefit of the doubt. It's all in my head.

I left to pick up my headshots, and my final encounter was a fellow actor and photographer friend at Reproductions. He said we should do a shoot next week. I need to get to the gym every day before that. He's building his portfolio, so he gives his actor friends free shoots, and that’s why I have my new headshot. Thanks.

Then this morning, leaving the N train along 49th Street, going east to Madison, , about to hit Rockefeller, Julie and I are holding hands on our daily stroll to the office. I catch a glimpse of a young man with a slight entourage approaching, give Julie’s hand a squeeze to look up, and Zach Braff walks by us to enter the black SUV’s, those used to transport celebrities and politicians.

Julie and I smile at each other, and I say, “I am so jealous right now. I feel it in my chest how jealous I am right now.”

He’s a young man, about my age, who has a hit comedy show on NBC, a successful writing and directing venture cum generational film - Garden State, not to mention wealth and fame. Ah, yes, Grasshopper, it will happen to me. Oh yes, it will happen...

And I believe it. All these run-ins in the last two days must be signs, and I must be acutely aware of the famous energies out there, demonstrating my energy's "takes one to know one" level. And why not? I'm putting it out there like never before, posting blogs, videos, photos, resumes and anything to get me more work. So I'm happy the Universe is listening.

A Choice to Change

It’s a strange feeling when you finally decide to work out again. My wife and I woke up at 4:55 AM, before the alarm, and asked in darkness, “Should we go work out?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m so tired. I hate showering at that nasty gym.”

Then we laid there for five minutes more, holding and enjoying the shared moment of peace and bodily comfort, before the alarm announced our good intention of working out before work. Snooze.
“Should we work out?”
“I don’t know. Should we?”

Silence.

“Should we work out?”And the skipping mp3 continued: hold each other in comfort for nine minutes more, alarm, snooze, ask the questions laden with guilt and hope for a better body, silence…

At 5:27, the cycle repeated, followed by a plea bargain, “We could walk for 20 minutes today. We just need to walk more anyway.”

Silence, except this time, my wife reached over and blinded me with the lamp’s hideous fire. I cringed and clenched my eyelids, fighting off the impending alertness, which aimed to melt away my drowsy peace. She has made the decision for us… today. Mu-wahahahaha!

Why is it so difficult when we know it’s so good for us? It’s not like we haven’t gone on the workout kick before and lost 20-35 pounds through months of dedication and diet. We know we can, but it’s that requisite, initial decision to make that commitment which causes the bedroom-alarm-clock dance. A choice to change.

Who can blame us? It’s ridiculously early, and we don’t like our new gym. We actually like certain locations better, but this particular Bally’s on 55th and 6th is most convenient to our day jobs. We loved New York Sports Club during high times, and miss it now, but there’s no way we can afford that without knowing for sure that I will even have a consistent day job. Summer’s over and vacations will be less, so as a temporary worker, a floater, I am not guaranteed work. So how can we plan and be responsible without knowing.

But who out there ever really knows anyway? I’ve never been a planner, always priding myself on spontaneity, carpe diem, and living life to its fullest. When facing up to my financial past, I initially balked and avoided calling up the Bill People, leaving that fearful task to my wife. I eventually chose to take some of the burden off of her and participate in my own, our own, financial life. But I had to make a choice. Now I see the big picture, and will not shirk my responsibilities. I’ll ask for help, but I won’t ignore and avoid them any longer… good for me!

It’s a tough choice to make. Well, any hard choice requires mulling over, but somehow, some way – it’s unclear to me why certain choices are made – the right choice for the right time will happen. And I’m all the better for it, for now.

The choice to help Julie rose out of her exhaustion from her workload, lack of sleep, ongoing stress of money and not having a consistent performing gig. My general love for her and wanting to make her happy also had some effect, no matter how minute. As I witnessed my damsel suffering, the burly, masculine hero decided to take over, and I grabbed the bills out of her hand and made the calls myself. Impressive.

Now, we share that responsibility, although, she is much better at budgeting than me. I’m working on it and learning the way. I’m a long way from clubbing ‘til 9am, to hear Paul Van Dyk spinning at Twilo. No longer closing down bars, we choose to have a couple drinks only, maybe three if we’re feeling cuckoo crazy. Wow, wild ones.

But I like our choices. I don’t have to feel like I’m keeping up with my younger brother, who is 8 ½ years my junior. I’m done with my twenties, and the twenties’ lifestyle is done with me. The road of excess, leads to some golden, shimmering tower of, what was it, oh, wisdom or something.

So my next wise choice, earned by experience and gratitude for life, will come at an inopportune time when an unforeseen, barren crossroads arises. I’ll look down one end to find a cul-de-sac. The other side will be a YouTube account, and I’ll choose to upload my face onto the great abyss, with hopes of hits and grandeur. Then I’ll go work out.

Learn How to be Schooled

I continue from Sept 1st: Living in NYC is slightly different, where even $20/hr won’t get you by, but at least I’m getting by, slightly, for once in my life. And I’m proud of that accomplishment. I’m actually attempting to tackle the great beast, one body throw at a time. I just hope that I book something soon, or the beast will step on my head and pin me to the carpet. Donations from bankers or investors are accepted.

Sept. 5th: Today is a new day, and the city buses are now filled at 7:30am with students, teachers and administrators making their way to a new year. The air is filled with dread for some, excitement for others. I always enjoyed the first day, because work was sparse, the reunion began, and it was the promise of no mistakes made… yet. I had a clean slate, with new opportunities to shine or get by doing homework during lunch before next period.

But that excitement is only project-specific now, and not related to a school year cycle. And it’s been a while since I began a new project. I might have even felt that excitement my first day at my current survival-job at the investment bank. Oo, I got nervous to be an assistant.

My wife calls it the First Day of School whenever she starts a new show or project, because that feeling doesn’t really change with age or experience. She still gets nervous after performing on Broadway and working with famous performers, and the most brilliant singers in New York. It’s the expectations, and the hope that you’ll do well and make new friends, that gets your insides churning…

…I’m not feeling rather entertaining right now. I actually wrote a nice piece about my memories of Manhattan, pre-9/11, but it was erased while trying to publish it. Lesson learned, save the damn work before pushing the publish button.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I feel like I can move on.

The school year may have started, over a million students are back at school in New York City, and over six thousand new teachers are in place, but can we fix the problems of our age with education? Look at our society. We’re at war again and wagers of war have studied history. The Gulf Coast region still looks like a warzone, yet there are plenty of studied engineers and architects around. Mathematicians and economists have yet to figure out our re-grown national debt. AIDS is the new plague that has yet to be cured by science, not to mention cancer. People of the arts and journalists document our times, the good and the bad, but is anybody listening?

Fear is everywhere, swimming in the streets and floating in the fields, yet are we facing what it is we are truly afraid of?

At its root, all conflicts can be resolved, if both parties are willing to listen. But nobody is listening right now. They’re too busy firing bullets and exploding bombs to hear each other. And the leaders of every one of these conflicts comes highly educated. That’s why there is a call to ideals. We’re in... another… ideological struggle, so says both sides. Our highly evolved and educated societies stand for different things, therefore, our societies must attempt to destroy each other.

I know I’m wrong about that, but that’s what it feels like right now. Osama was educated but he became disillusioned and pissed off enough to hijack planes. Bush was educated at Yale, albeit C’s were common, but a C at Yale is better than an A at some Universities (I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt to W, because I sure as hell am not a W supporter).

And I’m one for education, I’m a product of it. I have learned quite a bit about the material world and the history of it, but there is so much we don’t know, or rather, choose to remember. There’s something out there that we’re not learning, and each generation isn’t learning in turn. Everyone in their heart knows these answers already, but what we've learned or failed to learn, is to listen to the true nature of our humanity. To listen to the child inside of us that is afraid of the first day of school because he or she wants to make friends and be accepted. But the child is also excited, because she has a chance to start over, a chance to make better on the mistakes of last year.

Let's start over and make friends.

School Children, Al Basrah, Iraq: Photo by Jane Sweeney

Will Work for Art

I answer the phone, on average, once every 20 mintues. For a total, so far, of 9 times in the past 3 hours. Do the math, that's three per hour. It is the Friday before Labor Day, the Real World's last hurrah before the onset of returning to Normal Times, school, and the harder grind. People are reminded that it's time to labor, once again, as the onslaught of cold weather brings us back to more productive lives. Produce more, vacate less.

That's no excuse for what I do. I get paid $20 per hour, to answer a phone with a quick and clever whip, "Freddy Banker's office... Sorry, he's unavailable at the moment, may I take a message, or would you like voice mail?"

After the caller's needs aren't met, she settles for voice mail, and I transfer her away while I face 20 more peaceful minutes of solitude. Before isolation, however, I am endowed with the difficult task of creating an email, and typing in the subject line "Pls call She Banker; x1234", then sending a blank message to the vacated banker. Yep, that's it. And it's back to reading the New York Times online, Google News, and scanning for Yahoo! Most Popular photos of the day, which usually consist of the previous night's skin, a Lebanese city destroyed, or a baby panda that fits on one finger.

This is what I do, and I feel no shame. I'm a grown, married man who makes choices of his own volition, although heavily-influenced by aforementioned wife, and I choose freely to be here in this haven of phone etiquette and billion dollar investment funds. I haven't ventured into the billion dollar fund, as of late, but I've decided to focus on the telephonic side of things. Some people can multi-task, but I choose to hone in on the most relevent first. Triage, baby, triage.

Hey, I need the money. I'm an artist, and bankers have subsidized artists for centuries, although, they haven't handed me my commision yet. But that is why I write freely today, and yesterday. They're money gives me this pre-paid computer, with a great deal on internet access, which is free-to-me access. And off I go into the wild, net-yonder.

Granted, there are a great many who don't make what I make, and do much more work, meaning physical labor, constant mundane tasks, watching the streets, putting out fires, or teaching children. Fulfilling, I'm sure these occupations are, and at some point in life, I've questioned whether or not I wanted to participate in that side of life. The choice is obvious: to enlighten the world of the plight of the Bartleby's of the 21st century.

No, things haven't changed much since businesses consisted of the boss, a sole worker, and a coal oven to heat the two in one room. Well they have, with electricity, phones, the internet, minimum wage, 401k's, Dental plans, Social Security, Income tax, among other small accomplishments in the last two centuries. But other than that, you still have the basic priciple of boss and worker. Worker earns much smaller amount than boss, in exchange for handling the tedious, repetitive, unchallenging business demands, on a daily basis. Ah, yes, things haven't changed.

So, am I complaining about my position in business-life, despite the many less-paid, overworked souls out there, relative to me? Hell no. I appreciate the time I have to write and read. I am thankful for the laisse-faire attitudes of the bankers I work for, with only a few who are particular with their needs.

If I didn't have a monolith of debt from 3 school loans, now consolidated, 3 credit cards, and a generous gift from a our former subletter, whom we owe the final month's rent, not to mention the regular bills of rent, food, utilities, clothes, travel, etc., etc., then I would be in a great-paying job that would lead me to a life of savings in fianancial baby steps toward owning a house and starting a family. But like I said, I am in debt, at 31 years old, upwards of $65 thousand. It happens, and you get used to it, but that monolith can't be knocked down in one giant swoop with a $20/hour job.

That's where the art comes in. That's where the I-better-land-a-national-commercial-soon comes in. If I land one, that runs for six months, extended from the average three months, I could topple $50k of the mountain, and almost begin to save for things to come.

Debt is personal, so is money, but truth is the only way to liberate myself of this dillema that I placed myself in over the last 13 years. From undergraduate school, to acting school, a trip to Europe in between, and a few months of rent on the credit card when I didn't have a job, I have created this monolith, and I can't seem to see the top of it. Maybe if I step far back.

But still, it's all relative. The poverty line grows, and people earn $10 thousand per year. I don't know how, but they do. Living in NYC is slightly different, but...