Suspended

Delivered: 1961 – Returned: Unknown

            Let’s not start at the tried-and-true beginning, but somewhere in the middle.  Funny how your middle can be the beginning for someone else.  This particular insight has love, loss, skepticism and the relentless pursuit of re-invention.  Having lived to be this age is not a surprise - as much as a gift.  A Trojan Horse perhaps?

Working in the entertainment industry has afforded me a look into most strangers’ psyche that is exhilarating.  You see, making successful movies relies on a single premise - the suspension of disbelief.  We have struggled to keep you, the movie goer, interested and entertained, never-mindful of your own life while you are in that theater seat.  Our job is to provoke, opine, intimate, educate, and surrender illusions manifest.  I have travelled to different countries in my efforts to accomplish these feats, thinking that I would learn something different in Prague, only to find out that “not quite” is the same in any language.  Still, I learned to love the lessons. I’ve also been blessed with great instructors.

Stuntwork, can you imagine me behind the wheel of a racecar – whizzing around the track, clocking straight-away-speeds of over 110 mph? Me neither. So I made it my business to go out and create that reality.  I broke my jaw doing it once – rolling that car end over end just off the third turn. Imagine, learning to trick ride and barrel race in the rodeo, just to have the experience.  I was tutored by Guillermo Del Toro (Director - challenged me) and Jeff Ward (Stunt Director Extraordinaire), both of whom were relentless. Yes, working in the entertainment industry requires you to be a risk taker, an inventor, a bean counter, have nerves of steel, and an appreciation of each and every day you get to live.  I’ve heard a hundred stories, constructed too many deals, and yet in the blur of these experiences, there was always the expectation of being here.

I’ve learned teachers are necessary in life, you can’t always learn by example. The painful truth is sometimes you ARE the example.  Perhaps my turn as instructor was successful for someone since one can only be confident of a single performance at a time.  Learning to create a limitation hurts, but you must learn this. Some, you do not need; especially the illusion that we are subject to terms and conditions of time and usefulness is unacceptable.

            Having been through all these experiences and more has possibly created an adrenaline junkie somewhere dormant within me – still waiting to be released.  In the meantime there is a hunger that never relents; to learn, to excel, to become, and yes – to suspend disbelief.  That is after all how it works.

Whisper to me

When they whisper in the day, it is just a small nuance of sound that takes flight. The shy words that mingle with the world almost conflicted with reason.  At night, it’s a different story. The lullaby of breath caresses the ear, nudging, and resonating within the soul. It’s as though a secret has been dispensed, and the recipient feels sacred in that moment… yet somehow confined by the tryst of the whisper.

I'm pulling a mean defense against the coming winter, you may have heard shrieking at dawn. No? Well, it's kinda hard to tell since you are obviously still working on "the end of summer" and those season tickets that are ever elusive. Still, I think we can agree on the fact that neither of us are intimately ready to hibernate. I'm talking about "who" you have to hibernate with. Let's take a look at the options. 1. Are you married or legally bound to your housemate? 2. Do you have more that 3  t.v.'s in your home ?  (You can stop reading here if you've answered "yes" - we don't like you, envy you and probably have your location on foursquare anyways.)
3. Is there a mini fridge in or near the "cave"?  4. Are at least 2 of those TV's directly connected cable?

The fall television season is upon us, Olympics, Football, Casino fights, (nod to De Niro) and the Reality doldrums (slap to Snookie) ... keep rolling. O.k. , I understand the need to create a schedule. Until this past late summer (sorry but it is over) I always had a younger mini- me around during crucial scheduling times who held down the main T.V. in the house. Oh yeah, if I wanted to watch something, we could pretty much agree on one live and one recorded. She went off to College. I smell smoke.

Enter the Dragon otherwise known as the 25k square feet of space surrounding the T.V., where damage is swift, the penalties severe and there are still no known prisoners

The man who spends most of his waking moments in complete Sports Network News and the other half on Law and Order has nothing to fear from me, since he will update me on the teams and know how to dispose of me "without a trace"  - he is my equal. The one who insists on channel surfing with me in the room is taking his life into his own remote-control hands. Which brings me around to the other area  - Arsenal. There are several things that you will want to have at your disposal and they should be no more than a 1/2 arms length away. THE EXTRA REMOTE is an absolute must. Sole possession of the "unlock code" (should it come to that) and a healthy dose of  denial. I anticipate coming up against "short term memory loss",  "I never said that",  "we needs mixers - could you run out?" and my favorites: IDK< IDC<KMA<LMAO<TYAO and finally WHO? in that order.