..."Sometimes you gotta say "What the Fuck", make your move. Joel, every now and then, saying "What the Fuck", brings freedom. Freedom brings opportunity, opportunity brings freedom."
Ever since I've moved from 20six to Terapad, I've been a bit more cautious than usual. Now, I'm not saying I didn't censor myself to some extent on 20six. Unless I fully intend to, I try not to slander people, use real names when bitching about someone and if something is asked to be private or should very obviously kept private, I keep it private.
Then again, by that rationality, my bowel movements and strange boils should very obviously be kept private, but I wrote about them anyway, so the jury's out on that one.
In some of the posts on this blog I've mentioned this, talked about how I've got to get my voice back the way it was back on the Ballad of Justin Guber, but it's not gonna happen is it? That was the voice of a 25 year old with nothing to lose, taking on the world and not giving a flying fuck.
And that 25 year old is no more. That 25 year old grew up, and shit happened, and he retreated. He hid from the world and kept it all pent up inside so that when it came out it was like watching a 16 year old in a 28 year old's body. Believe me, I have witnesses, and it's pissed the shit out of at least one of them (more on that later).
But let's get back to the 25 year old. I can't be the 25 year old anymore. He's dead and gone and was supposed to be replaced with something better. What happened along the way? What turned him into this little bitch? Wasn't he the cynical motherfucker who couldn't write about a personal, upsetting day without off-setting it by referencing scatology or bestiality at some point?
Well, without going through too much detail, he got fucked in the ass.
...
...no, not literally. I'm sorry, no offense, but I just don't swing that way.
(Though drunk enough I may consider a Dutch rudder).
But yeah. He got fucked in the ass and had the rug pulled under him at the same time (and even though it's a metaphor, if you imagine having the rug pulled from under you whilst being fucked in the ass you can imagine it would hurt).
I trusted the wrong people. I made the wrong decisions. I believed in the wrong path and ended up at a dead end. I burned the wrong bridges and stood by the side of the wrong damn person and ever since I realized it and walked out of that door and told myself I wouldn't endure it anymore I've been left incredibly numb. An entire world, an entire life, turned into a lie.
(See? That's where all the Plato bollocks came from. Ah, the allegories...)
Now, that's still pretty vague, but not as vague as past posts have been. And why was I so vague about the past posts? Because last year I knew he was reading this, wondering what I was doing, perhaps telling mutual friends about it whilst taking the piss in a further effort to make himself feel that his cock was bigger than a dildo in a Tinto Brass movie. I knew that, even though he was no longer on my friends lists on Facebook and Friendster and MySpace, he was checking up on my pages. I knew he was asking about me, talking shit about me, telling the world that I was the most untrustworthy being to ever walk the earth since the serpent said to Eve in the Garden of Eden, "go on, luv, take a bite. I know the Big Man said not to but it's bloody tasty."
I knew this was happening, because the words came back to me and I would listen, and smile a quiet smile. I didn't want to talk about it here like this because I didn't want to give the dude the satisfaction of seeing me pour my heart out over here, crying over spilt milk and bitching and whining.
And, as we have seen over the past year, that really didn't work did it?
Instead, the readers of the Guber have slowly dwindled as the posts become more and more far apart, and when something does pop up, it's filled with ambiguity. More than that, it's filled with someone trying to emo out without being obvious.
What's the point? As the quote above says, sometimes you just have to say "what the fuck".
All that anger, that pain, that frustration and sadness has been pent up deep inside me like a fucking virus, slowly infecting every part of my body till it consumes me. And every time I've tried to put into words when talking to someone about how I feel about these events I censor myself just as much as I've been censoring myself here. And even when I try to explain those feelings and emotions swirling about within me and triggering all the fucked up emo moments I put the blame on something or someone else, I try and describe something else that may be bugging me, or blame the tiny moment that kicked it all off, but that's not what it's about.
It's been hard as hell trying to put it into words here. It's embarresing as hell too. All the confidence I used to have has dissolved into absolute self-hatred because ever since then I've blamed myself for everything. I hate myself for being so stupid as to have been suckered like that. I hate myself for allowing it to happen. I hate myself for not getting out sooner the second my gut told me something was wrong (and my gut told me something was wrong very early on). I can't help but think about how insanely stupid I was to have not seen what was starring me straight in the face and I've been punishing myself ever since, and every time those emotions all bottled up inside try and come out they come out hard, guns a-blazing, and shoots at all targets.
The fact that I've been turning to others to make me feel better isn't going to help. Me blaming it all on anyone else isn't going to help. And it's for the same reason that me being all twisty-turny on this blog in order to somehow subtlely express these pent up feelings on this blog doesn't help either.
Because where's the fucking truth in that?
This is a realization I've only known partly, but putting it in words here, like I used to back in the day, has allowed me to realize it a lot more fully and it's insanely fucking refreshing. I've been afraid of writing like this for the past year because it didn't feel right to pour all this out. I felt I didn't have the right to pour all this out, because I was so stupid, so make your bed and fucking deal with it. And how have I been dealing with it? By not facing up to it. How fucking stupid is that?
Fuck the Evil Fat Man. At the end of the day, from everything I've heard, his life has gotten way more shittier than mine will ever be. The Evil Fat Man can suck my dick for all I care.
Goddamn, it feels even more refreshing saying that. See, when I left that stupid situation the Evil Fat Man said to me, in between yelling at me, proving how good a 'friend' he was and blaming me for hurricane Katrina, that he knew exactly what I'd do after I leave. He said I'd be all depressed and emo and not do a damn thing and remain stagnant.
And I didn't want to prove him wrong.
But he was right about me in that respect. He knew me and he knew how I'd react. He knew I'd suffered depression, popped prozac and xanax and even hit up the valium at one point, and he knew that when the chips are down I wallow. Goddamn do I wallow.
I thought that by not letting myself wallow in my very obvious depression and keep moving forward by doing any filmmaking project that came my way that I would not only prove him wrong but also not be depressed.
How the fuck could I have not been depressed? How could that not have affected me?! It was good to move forward, but it wasn't good to keep all the shit pent up inside because now it's not only affecting me but all those around me. At the very least, he was right about that.
I was not, however, responsible for hurricane Katrina.
The shit's even affected my work, which just got me in even more of a rut. In my effort to 'move forward' I have done a lot of work, it has to be said. But am I proud of my work? Hard to say. I'm in my element when I direct what I write, because it's a story I want to tell and, more importantly, if it's shit, it's my responsibility and I'll bear that burden.
I remember the first time I shot something that I didn't write - it was almost three years ago. I'd been directing a few episodes of Dark City that I had written and the producers were pretty happy with the way I work. At the last minute, it turned out one of the directors couldn't direct one of the episodes and I shall not say who (see that? I just censored myself a bit in order to not bitch about someone). They called me two days before and I thought to myself, "what the hell. Work is work and I'll get paid".
My God, was that painful.
The production didn't allow much room for pre-production so, at the very least, I'd request to meet the main cast beforehand so I can gauge them, get to know them, and talk them through the story. To get to know them I'd usually ask questions about films, such as who are their favorite actors, what's their favorite movie, etc. One of them mentioned to local actors who I shall not mention here (see that? Protecting myself from slander... or is it libel?) and the other one mentioned her favorite movie was the 'Sound of Music' (nothing wrong with that, I guess. Just a weird point of inspiration for a budding actress. And I prefer 'Mary Poppins'),
The third one said his favorite actor was Sarah Michelle Geller.
"Really?" I replied.
"Yeah, I really liked her in X-Files."
God, help me.
And when it came to the production, I noticed I directed very differently from when I was directing my own scripts. When I directed my own scripts, I knew what shots were needed and what shots I wanted. I composed based on the story, what would work best, and shot nothing more than that. I shot what was required to tell the story well.
With this, my only thought was, "how can I make this shot cool so that I don't get bored directing this crap?"
That's how I've been directing for the past year. And whilst it's been a great free exercise on seeing what works and what doesn't with film equipment and filmmaking in general, it's incredibly depressing. There was one series I was shooting where every time I got the next episode's script my jaw would either drop down to the ground at its stupidity or the crew would find me unable to stand because I'm holding tightly onto my bulbous belly from laughing my bulbous ass off at its stupidity.
Yes, I have gotten even more bulbous by the day.
Making other people's stories come to life has been a painful experience and it's depressed me like fuck, true, but it was also the thing to blame for the week and my undirected emo outburst on the subject ended up affecting someone very close to me. That in turn led me to bouts of depression on that subject, and it's left me like the dude from the movie 'Pi', pacing around the room alone, my brow in a permanent position of absolute stress, frustrated as fuck with an extra dollop of down (and by 'Pi' I mean the math symbol, not a bad spelling for a tasty apple filled treat).
Though the strains between us upset me, that person isn't to blame for my emotional freak outs. Trying to create Tiffany cuff links out of the rancid turds that people pass as a screenplay are not to blame. Even the Evil Fat Man is not to blame (though he can go fuck himself anyway).
It's all down to me in the end, isn't it? And even though I've been blaming myself and hating myself and hitting myself every which way as every day passes more and more I've been going about it the wrong way.
Because blaming isn't really the way. Taking responsibility is.
The negatives are negative, I'm not gonna take that away from 'em. But there are positives too. The Evil Fat Man fucked me over, but I got out, didn't I? It took a fuck-of-a-long time but I got out in the end, thank God. And even though the scripts haven't been to my liking and the stories aren't the ones I want to tell that doesn't mean I haven't had a blast with the people I've been working with. Almost all the cast members I've met in the past year have been brilliant people (and I can't stress 'almost' enough) and a number of them have ended up being good friends. I've always enjoyed working with the crew I worked with last year and this year I had the opportunity to work with a brand new crew, which was a great experience. Sure, there was a teething period, but in the end I can honestly say I wouldn't hesitate to work with them again. And even though being a freelancer is a tough gig, especially in these Hard Times, but I'm my own boss and I earn my keep. I put food on the table and even enough to buy the things that make me smile and maybe even a little something for the people close to me.
The music side of me took a severe beating, that has to be said. Thanks to the events of last year and the bridges that had been burnt my band has suffered, and I really regret that, but we're taking steps to move forward and even in the dumb-ass state that I've been in I realized how much I neglected my Sixers family and have been trying to take the steps to rectify it and now we're recording and gigging more than we ever have.
One of my films has been affected big time by the bollocks, and even with this realization that one's still not an easy one to fix up because so much of the story is tied to my past, but it has to be completed. I can't allow myself to let it fall by the way side. It may not have come out the way I wanted it to but there's a story there, a real story that came from the heart and all it needs is to be put together the right way. One of my friend's films has been affected by this cock-and-bull too and buddy, if you're reading this, I'm sorry it's taken so long. I know I've been blaming the work but it's not really one to blame, is it? It'll be done, and sooner than you may think.
Things are looking up more than I could ever imagine. Good things have been falling on my lap one after the other but I've been too caught up in my own bullshit to notice just how good it's been.
Writing all this doesn't fix it all. I wish it did, but let's face facts, if all it took to get over something that's really deeply affecting you was to write something like this then give the world a laptop. This is just a realization, and a much needed one. I now know what ails me.
Some of you may ask, "so why are you writing it here?"
Simple. Because "what the fuck". Because writers write, and the very first intention of blogging from the beginning was to use it to write randomness when I had nothing else to write because at least I'd be writing. And I'm writing this here because the one thing this blog has been missing is a little more honesty. A little more nakedness. For a moment I thought of taking this and the last two posts off of the automatic Facebook notes thingey because it's a bit too public - so many people I meet and see day to day are on my Facebook and it felt like a "look at me, I'm so down, sympathize with me" type post.
Then I realized I'd done that quite a few times already.
So fuck hiding it from Facebook. That's not the point of typing something on the internet. You write something on-line because it's public and writing all this publicly is incredibly refreshing (whoah... that words been repeated a bit too much. Bad writing). It's like being a literary nudist. This post is like a naked Guber standing in your back garden, waving at you and dancing to 'In the Club' by 50 Cent and the mild censorship are the random leaves and bushes in the garden that somehow always end up covering the really naughty bits no matter where I turn like the orgy in 'Eyes Wide Shut'.
(In fact, you should be glad it's a post as opposed to me standing naked in your garden waving at you with only a shrubery to cover my naughty bits. You wouldn't want a big-bellied Malay man in your garden waving at you. Especially not at this time of the night. That's just weird.)
It all comes down to regret, and I've been regretting the Bad Days for too damn long. If there are any regrets I have over the events of the past year, it's the hurt that I've caused to those around me, especially those that really, truly didn't deserve it. You were affected in the aftermath and you didn't deserve to be hurt so bad.
I'd like to say that I am now 'cured' but that's still a long road ahead. I hope this nakedness was worth it, because it has never felt so good to write in this blog since the good old days, and to see my own fingers clickety-clack in tandem with my brain and to see my brain shoot off from the last paragraph I write to another direction I never thought of as opposed to following the prepared route that my scared side has decreed as the correct course of action when attempting to express myself is something I haven't done in a damn long time and I hope it's not all for nought.
I started off writing this post with a lot of fire in my belly, but as I continued writing the fire soothed and I didn't even realize which direction the blog had gone until I re-read it. And to all the friends that have stood by me through these tough times, I thank you, salute you, and wave my nakedness at you (in a good way). Without you guys, God knows what direction I may have ended up on this rocky road.
Here's to things getting better. Here's to hoping I get my shit togther. Here's to more nakedness.
P.S. I think the universe has a sense of humor. On that last line I realized what was playing on my iTunes - 'Free Falling' by Tom Petty. Appropriate? I hope so. Either that or I've misread the lyrics and the song's about jumping off a cliff.
P.P.S. Then again, the post opens with a quote from a Tom Cruise movie and after I finished writing it my computer plays a song made famous in a scene from a Tom Cruise movie.
P.P.S.S. It was 'Jerry Maguire'.
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