Pen

The tease of inspiration,
Of art held at pen's edge,
Struggling to stay distant,
Begging to be intimate
With the paper.
The pen drifts across the sheet
Lazy.
Willfully aware of its limitations,
Fearful of muddying the waters of inspiration
With so dull an instrument
As its own hand.
Guiding but not grasping
The depth of its own desperate genius.
Letting it happen of its own accord
As all art must for those without the gift
Of conscious talent.
Drifting, dancing,
Reckless but free.
Flitting and teasing
Gently and awkwardly caressing
Like a hand in the dark reaching for a body
Waiting for the electricity
To strike
To heave up and explode
Like the birth of a
Universe.

Water

Tripping light across the water
Bubbles burbling, gurgling,
Living and dying on the surface -
Scratching at the air
Before retreating to the depths of their own ego.
Existence passing below them as they
Transition willfully
Futile in their hope to move beyond the water's scope
The world they'd know if they could only
Know consciousness.
But alas . . .
Impossible for something that fails to exist
Longer than it does not.

This Temporary Life

Your life, and mine, and all lives in fact are, by their nature, anomalous. When you think about the sheer amount of circumstances needed to fall into place for you to exist . . . well let's just say that's it's a lot more likely that a particular human being won't exist than will.
Not a single one of your ancestors failed to breed.  Each one of them survived infancy and childhood.  Every one one of them lived to adulthood.  Don't get me started on the math required to demonstrate that you exist solely because each one of your ancestors mated with your specific other ancestor (out of a smorgasbord of other potential mates) at that exact moment back to the beginning of time.

You are the product of countless generations.  You are at the sword's point of evolution.  You are an anomaly.  We all are.

So when you consider the actual living miracle it is that you're here, don't forget that every other one of your planet-mates is in the same boat.  From your family members, to your neighbors sure, but also to those starving children in some far away land that you've seen pictures of but would rather click past than be troubled by.  It's not just you.  None of us likes to be sad, and thoughts like that make us sad.

We occupy our little place on Earth for a time so quick, it's practically over the moment we realize it is.  When you're a kid, a hundred years is a thousand lifetimes away, when you get a bit older you realize it's just one.  At a certain point, your vitality is behind you.  Your youth and energy are trapped in photographs yellowing in an album somewhere.

If you're of the fortunate ones, you get to see your skin sag and hair whiten, you're blessed with memories that may need a jump-start every once in a while but are long and rich.  My Dad has always said "Age is a gift denied to so many".  Ain't that the truth.  As much as we shake our heads and feel sympathy for our elderly brethren, they are the fortunate ones.

This life is temporary no matter how long we shuffle this mortal coil.  Just being here is a miracle left unfulfilled by literally trillions of other potential people - who knows how many geniuses we're never to hear of.  Every decision you make in your life should honor that evolutionary miracle that puts you behind a computer reading this.  Every choice you make for your own life should also take into consideration the fact that every other being on this Earth is as much of a miracle as you and should be treated as such.

Your whole life is spent in transit - from the moment you slip into the world to the moment you slip out.  It's easy in this make-believe world of ours to put so much importance on details that we forget the big picture.  We spend so much time living our lives that we forget to be alive.

In this temporary life of yours remember to live.  Stopping to smell the roses was a cliche to me until I moved into a house with rose bushes.

Rain

Rain falls from the heavens
Misting sheets like curtains
Wash the roads
The cars
The people's crowns.
It clouds his life
Depresses him
Uncleansing drizzle
Tripples, freezes his hands
A cigarette comforts him
Smoke wafting past his face
People hurry past hunched
Stooped in an effort to avoid
The downward plummet
Liquid clouds falling to Earth.
Buildings rush skyward
To meet the droplets.
Millions, like an invading force
Invading his world, his thoughts.
Consumed with Rain.

Stand Alone On A Stage

Stand alone on a stage and be.  Be that person deep inside that yearns to break free, to exist, to breathe.  That person that yearns to surface.  To lurch from the yoke of the water's grasp and gulp down lungfuls of acrid air - heavy in the incense of a ritual to be observed yet not obeyed.

Stand in the light and be seen.  Seen for the most vulnerable face of you, made raw in the spot's light.  The honey glow of truth and redemption and fear.  Numbing fear of failure to be ignored and trampled on, trounced, made ready for the purchase of a new grasp.  A new grip.  A handhold on the granite face of that thing you call life.

Stand with nothing.  Nothing but your honesty.  Your honesty that in that moment alone you are true and real and strong and nimble.  Feel that mutinous heart beat from deep within that cavernous chest and answer back with a quiet calm and resolve born of redirected fear.

Stand and see.  Not the audience or the curtains or the stage, but your own hands and feet.  See what you inhabit and own.  What you control.  What husk you are and will leave.  But for now, here you are.  In this moment.  On this stage.  See with the eyes of ten thousand men and women what space you occupy and in whose body you live.  See the mirror in your own mind and adore that shell of yours for the vessel it is to guide you through this pain and love and peace.

Stand in that pool and feel.  Feel that charge, that electricity, that inspiration, that perversion of a talent that you have at your disposal and stand in awe of what you will spend a lifetime seeking and chasing and yearning and loving and being in deep addiction to.  That resonance that feels so good and seems so hardly out of reach.  Be lifted to your toes by your own inspiration.  It bubbles to the surface.  You part your lips.  You open your mouth.  And you . . .

Stand alone on a stage.

What The Hell Is Wrong With People?

A bill was passed in Michigan today that started life as a piece of anti-bullying legislation despite the fact that it ended up being opposed by all of Michigan's State Democrats and the father of the boy who inspired the bill.  Why the opposition to the bill after wanting it to help the young people being bullied across Michigan?

Because of a last minute addition to the bill:

      "A last-minute addition to “Matt’s Safe School Law” protects “sincerely held” religious beliefs or moral convictions from being considered bullying. Critics feel the language will give anti-gay bullies a “license to bully” by providing an exception. ”This is just unconscionable,” said Matt’s father, Kevin Epling of East Lansing. “This is government-sanctioned bigotry.”"

In other words, if your religion tells you to hate people for being different, then it's a-okay to bully them.

This of course prompts me to ask:

WHAT THE F*** IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?????

Not that I don't like a choice bit of hatred . . . no, wait, scratch that - it's the opposite, right?  I really can't stand this level of government and church sponsored hatred.

There is something broken in our society these days, and it's not the other guys.  It's us.  You know why?

Because we as a society have no balls.

I really don't believe that the majority of folks are a**h***s - I truly think they are the minority - it's just that the majority seems to have absolutely no balls when it comes to standing up against them.

It's time for the rest of us - you know, the good ones - to stand up to these morons, these dunces, these sacks of human effluence, and tell them to shut up, sit down and let the smart ones drive for a while.

I'm Not An Artist Anymore

I have a confession to make: I'm not an artist anymore. 

I've always been an actor. I've always needed to perform.  For all intents and purposes, I've been doing it as long as I can remember. 

I remember the moment my mother looked at my father after I had finished performing yet another little "skits' and said to him, "we should get him into theatre".  I remember my first class, my first presentation, and my first show.  I remember the audience.  The applause.  It appeared as though this was what I was and had ever been. 

I was 9 years old. 

I continued down the path, gaining experience and praise until at 14, I was invited to join a local agency.  The first parts came, and then the first series: "The Adventures of the Black Stallion".  Three years we shot - in Canada, France, and New Zealand.  Some amazing times and memories were made.  I loved working.  I loved earning money.  The show ended after 78 episodes, and I chose to stay in Vancouver rather than head south to LA, to sun, and to bigger and better.  I picked home over away because I had spent so much time away, that I wanted to make a home.  I thought I would grow here.  Other series came and I worked a lot, but plateaus were reached.  A friend of mine has said that Vancouver is less a springboard and more a diving board.  And although many exceptions have proven the rule, in my case it seems that the rule proved the rule. 

I'm happy with and proud of what I've accomplished, but the artistic element in me has remained unfulfilled.  To be fair, I have brought it on myself.  I've long regarded what I do to be the business that it is.  I'm not in the scene anymore.  I checked out years ago.  I'm not a very "actor-y" actor and am a solitary one at that, and with a family my priorities have changed.  But I do feel that I may have done myself a disservice.  I don't feel connected to what I do anymore by doing it.  It is - in my opinion - supremely difficult to be artistically fulfilled as an actor in the film industry without having long term projects - at least the fulfillment that I want. 

My artistic connection to acting is maintained by the teaching of it.  I've been instructing people in the ways of screen-acting for some 19-ish years.  I've been accused of being a good teacher, but I would argue that I'm not such a good teacher as I am a good director.  I can read people, notice their foibles, tell when they're lying.  I love the psychology of acting and bringing students to new breakthroughs.  I love showing people how deep and difficult acting is when done right and how brilliant and rewarding it is when submerged in it. 

I'm approaching forty now.  Sure I'm aging gracefully, and while my children make me old before my time, my wife keeps me young with her own youth.  Age tends to sharpen one's focus though, and I've realized I don't want to be just a businessman actor, I want to be an artist again.  I need to stretch, to shake off the rust.  I need to go back to my roots - I need to go back to the theatre.  But I also need to go my way.  Honestly. 

I love acting.  Always will.  I also love directing.  This is why I've decided to start a small - some might say tiny - theatre company in the new year.  Original material.  Brilliant young actors.  A long journey.  I have no idea of the details (yet) - only that it needs to breathe.  Bigger and better.  Always bigger.  Always better.