I See Things in Widescreen...

Just bitching a little

2012-02-02T00:05:00.000-08:00

I have a pretty terrible reputation in the industry for being flighty, unavailable, difficult, and arrogant. But that’s just mostly because I despise what I do, and it has very little to do with my ego. I have always relied on the fact that I am extremely talented, creative, and charming to get work when I want it and to be left alone when I didn’t. The cool thing is I am just talented enough to get away with a lot more than your average Joe Blow with a bullshit film school degree but that’s also the problem. I know I’m good, they know I’m good, they know that I know that they know how good I really am; this kind of thinking seriously fucks with my moral compass and social conscience.

Years ago, when I first decided to work in film, I signed on with one of the biggest agencies in Hollywood for my representation. For a really long time I wore that as some kind of badge of honor. I kind of felt like everything in the industry would always be this easy for me whenever I decided I wanted it. When I was 19 I made a documentary that did well in some festivals and I painted some things that hung in famous galleries; SO FUCKING WHAT!? Its 7 years later and what the shit have I done since to deserve this cocky arrogance, open disdain, and bad attitude I project onto everybody!? I have no fucking clue how anybody puts up with my shit because if I had to deal with me, I would kick my own ass.

I feel like my biggest problem is my lack of growth as an artist. As a teenager I had this cool, unique and edgie point of view. I am no longer a teenager, my worldview has definitely changed a whole lot, but my art is still exactly the same! And that drives me fucking nuts! I am disgusted with everything I create so much that I can’t even deal with it. But it doesn’t even matter because I still have people kissing my ass and offering me buckets of money for more! And this is where the vicious cycle of loathing and self-hate begins…

I am starting to realize that the more time I spend in this industry, the less I like myself. I absolutely hate what my creative process has become. I HATE the way I have come to think about everything I do in terms of marketability. I feel like some kind of Art Center sellout and I just feel so dirty!

I am currently packing up all my shit and getting ready for my flight tomorrow morning. I am going to NY to attend this show where a few of my pieces are on display. They’re all going to sell, and I am going to hate myself even more. Then I am going to go home and be a grumpy asshole for a hot minute until Brad can pull me out of it with his kisses and hugs.

It’s time to shake things up a whole lot and see what happens…

It rains a lot in England...

2012-01-22T22:47:00.000-08:00

Production has always been a bit of a mixed bag for me. I am not the most organized detail-oriented person ever, so I have to always be careful to not overlook the small things. Also film set lingo bugs the shit out of me! I want to become a HUGE Hollywood director just so I can ban all that bullshit from my set and never have to hear it again. Well maybe with the possible exception of gary colemans because that tickles me just right.

Things went going surprisingly smooth for me on set. My producer is super duper efficient and really knows what he’s doing. I was a little surprised when I met him because he’s not at all what I was expecting. Whenever I think of British guys (EVEN though I know this to be false!) I always imagine a guy sipping tea pinky up and discussing the latest cricket match while doing one of those super effeminate Hugh Grant stuttering numbers. This guy is so not even in any danger of ever being mistaken for the swishy British men that live in my imagination. He’s so macho it borders on comical, and if it’s possible, I am pretty sure he walks cock first! It’s hilarious! Still he’s smart, quick, and really knows how to get shit done; he’s turning out to be the 3rd best producer I have ever worked with EVER.

A few nights ago we went out to a proper pub and I got to meet all his friends. The drunker they got, the less I was able to understand their crazy british talk. British people need to take some elocution classes stat because after a couple hours in the bar, it was like they were speaking a completely different language. Once their ability to speak English took a turn for the awful, that’s when the rowdiness began.

It started off with a couple of harmless “Americans are pansies” comments and then progressed into some “I know you are but what am I’s” and then it naturally progressed to the “No, I am pretty sure I could kick your ass with little to no efforts”. Everybody knows that you can’t call a man’s ability to beat the shit out of another man into question, without expecting some serious repercussions. So obviously, then came the inevitable drunken fights in the park. It was actually a lot of fun and in the end, exactly what I needed to break up all the stress and monotony that comes with working on these sets in foreign lands. Plus it just felt really good to stand up and say, “How’s it feel to get your ass kicked by a guy that’s 15cm shorter, 4 stone lighter, and AMERICAN!? Yeah I know the metric system! What now!?” The next night we all went drinking again and it was even more fun!

So I finished production, threw together a rough cut, and even sat down with a sound engineer and worked through all the more extravagant fx I needed, but I am still only a third of the way done! This is when things start to get really tedious and I need to take frequent breaks. I have been doing a lot of skateboarding with some of my new friends, I found a cool place to practice some hapkido, and I am also planning a 4-day mini-vacation to Barcelona to get my fun on (if I can finish all my work in time… I need to incentivize this for me if it’s going to get done! Don’t judge me.).

Acclimating and Venting...

2012-01-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

As I have stated before, the idea of moving first came up days after Brad injured himself back in September. Bradley’s only concern about moving so much sooner was me. We’d agreed after I moved back to SD to NEVER live apart because that’s just no fun and all kinds of wrong.

These last few months everything has been on my shoulders. From finding our new place, to packing up the majority of our stuff, to picking out the new furniture to replace the pieces that were too much of a pain to ship; I have been insanely flustered and overwhelmed for a while now. But I am THE MAN, so I got it all done and I made it look easy.

OK FINE, we already had a place to stay and we had a moving company pack and ship all of our stuff to our house AND most of the furniture that we weren’t shipping was already in the house that we were moving into. We even had our cars shipped because between the 2 of us we have 4, besides with my bad back and all of Brad’s ailments there’s no way we could survive a cross country roadtrip!

Our future home is still being renovated and won’t be ready for us to live in until mid-February. The neighborhood that we are staying in currently isn’t really the kind of environment that either of us would choose. I don’t know how to describe this area without sounding like a stuck up richboy… ITS FUCKING SCARY! I am pretty sure that our cars are worth more than the house we are in and I am not entirely sure what meth looks like, but I am pretty sure this guy down the street is selling it!

Speaking of cars, when the car shipper guy was dropping off our cars, it was kind of awkward and terrible. In LA and SD extremely expensive cars are a dime a dozen. It's not uncommon to see a Maserati or Ferrari driving down the street, or see a Cayenne or G550 parked in a driveway. Things are a bit different where we are now, I am pretty sure the nicest car on this block is a 2004 Honda Accord. Brad got a new car when he graduated high school because his parents were psyched that he was saving them almost $200,000 in tuition with his scholarships. Then they got him a car when he graduated college because they knew he was going to need something bigger with all the driving he would be doing. Then I have my car that my dad and I restored together and then the "loaner" from the tylers. THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD came out to see the mini autoshow as they unloaded the cars and I drove them into the driveway. First my Cayenne, then Brad's G550 (aka the nazi mobile, I don't know why, it just looks really menacing) then my carrera and lastly brad's TT coupe. I felt like a 300lb fat guy having a 1 man pie eating contest in front of a bunch of starving people. It was terrible!

I have this long business trip that I am about to go on and I am a little scared to leave Bradley alone. I know he’s 6’3 and solid muscle and pretty intimidating to look at, BUT he’s a rich white boy from Santa Barbara and I am a worried that he won’t be able to handle himself if something happens while I am gone. I mean, He has ABSOLUTELY NO street smarts, and this is the South AND the ghetto, AND he’s injured, there’s just too much to stress out about!

Things with Eddie and I have been tense for a while and they’re not getting any better. After we initially “made up” Eddie got really territorial and turned into a prick. At one point Eddie even suggested that there was no me in this business without him. It was all quite melodramatic and a bit immature for him. Especially since he was clearly trying to put me down because of how insecure our parting was making him! The truth is that whenever we collaborate the person that everybody always remembers the most, IS ME.

I don’t know why, but I needed for him to see that I have my own talent and reputation outside of his shadow. Eddie is definitely more talented than I am and he has a work ethic and desire to succeed that I just can’t touch, but I am charming and personable. When two guys have almost identical reels, the client is going to go for the man they like the most, and that’s always going to be me! So I bid on a couple of projects Eddie was currently submitting treatments on, I convinced my agent to get me face time with the clients, and wouldn’t you know it, I WON BIG TIME! In December I shot a music video for this band Eddie really wanted AND I got a $10,000 larger budget than he was offered! Now I am flying off to England in a couple days to direct 2 commercials for this very large company and I had my agent negotiate a much more enticing contract than Eddie has ever gotten.

I know this is immature and extremely vindictive, but all I want to do is rub all of this in Eddie’s face. Then I think about it for a little and I feel bad and petty and all I want to do is take it all back because the reality of the situation is that I don’t even care about this nonsense in the least! I can’t imagine myself still doing this 5 years down the road, actually I can’t even imagine myself doing this passed March. I just needed for him to know that if this all ended today, it ended on my terms for my reasons.

Life in the south...

2012-01-08T13:48:00.000-08:00

So Bradley and I have moved to New Orleans just in time to miss THE BEST SURFING OF THE YEAR back home! Fucking hell!! Being surrounded by water and not a surfable wave in sight. This is some straight up Alanis Morissette irony up in this bitch! I am totally being a whiny bitch about this because I was convalesced all last year and couldn’t surf! Then when I was finally functional enough to shred, the waves had been as flat as a Taiwanese lady boy! Now FINALLY we have WAVES! And guess what! I am in FUCKING New Orleans! UN-BUTTFUCKING-BELIEVABLE!

I feel like I have the worst case of blue balls since the beginning of time! I have spent my day smoking pot, having sex, jerking off, having more sex, and complaining so much that I wanted to punch myself in the face for being so fucking annoying!

We have been here 5 days and I am still not ready to call this place home. It’s kind of scary, the weather sucks, and the people talk weird. Seriously though, New Orleans is not what I expected. Not that I really had any clue what to expect coming here… What the shit does a surfer need to know anything about Louisiana besides the fact that you are 1000’s of miles from the nearest wave!

We’ve been planning this move since September when Bradley first got injured and decided that he wasn’t going to spend the next year sitting on his ass doing nothing. He actually wanted to start school right then and there! It took a while to actually get him to see reason and take the time he needed to recover properly! Who would’ve thought he’d be as crappy a patient as I am. I can’t help but feel like half a decade together has made all the worst qualities in myself rub off on poor innocent Bradley!

The neighborhood that we are living in isn’t really what I have ever experienced before. I have lived in big cities, small suburbs, and even what I considered “the ghetto”. Things are older here. I feel like everything has this weird worn down look to it, and I have no idea what half the people around here are saying! These next couple years are going to be very interesting… Here’s to hoping Bradley finds a school closer to an ocean when it’s time for his PhD.

Christmas fun

2011-12-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

On Christmas, when I was 14, I did what I always do and went to my father’s house to spend the day with him and my stepmom (and her family). See Christmas Eve morning was time with my mom, and the evening was with my dad's family, but Christmas day was always reserved for my stepmom's family. He met me at the front door and we went out for lunch instead of going inside the house. At lunch he told me that I was no longer welcome as part of my stepmother’s family, and since he always did Christmas with them I would no longer be welcome in his home on this day. Not going to lie, it crushed me. I felt like my world had ended because my stepmom’s family had been the only stable family I had known my whole life.

Then my dad dropped me off at my mother’s house with a brand new laptop and $500. I called Tyler and I hiccupped and cried my way through the ordeal that I had just been through and he was at my side immediately with Trip and Jane. It was decided that I needed to do something to cheer up FAST. So we all piled into Tyler’s new Christmas Audi and we went to Disneyland. Despite feeling like absolute shit, I laughed, I smiled and I had one of the best days I had ever had in my 14 years on this planet.

And that was the beginning of our Christmas tradition. Every year after that, no matter what was going on, we got together and did something spontaneous just so I wouldn’t be alone on Christmas. The following year we went to Mt. High, the year after that we went to Rosarito Beach in Mexico, the year after that we went to Bear, the next year we went to Magic Mountain, then it was Vegas, then Santa Barbara, then San Diego, then Laughlin, then San Francisco, then the Madonna Inn, then Solvang (we wanted chocolate), and finally this year we came full circle and found ourselves back at Disneyland like we did when I was 14. And that’s when it hit me, I have the best friends in the world.

What is so amazing about our trips, at least for me, is how long we have continued this tradition. 12 years of us banding together and celebrating Christmas as a family because I didn’t want to be reminded that I was alone. We have lives, jobs and families that have taken us all over the world, but for Christmas no matter what, we are always together. Just trying to even imagine all that my friends have sacrificed for me over the years is incalculable and completely overwhelming.

People always wonder how I was so lucky to turn out the way that I did when they look back at the life that I have lived. The broken homes and abuse, the drugs and alcohol, the abandonment; stronger people than myself would’ve given up a long time ago, but I never did. I never gave up because I always had my friends at my side and I KNEW they would never let me fall. I don’t know why or how I came to be this lucky. I guess it’s not for me to figure these things out. I just know that without them in my life I wouldn’t be the kind of man I am so proud to be.

I know this can’t last forever. One day we are going to have husbands and wives, then kids and grandkids. One day we are going to have to give this all up and just look back on all the good times we had and smile. But for now, they are my world and I love them more than I could ever put into words.

My favorite song...

2011-12-17T01:45:00.000-08:00

It’s funny how a single song can mean so many different things as you go through life. I remember the first time I heard this song. I had picked the CD up at this small record store in Hawaii the summer of 2000 while I was training. I popped the CD into my Walkman and pressed play. The second it came on I froze, it was just so haunting and beautiful. I never felt lonelier or more vulnerable than I did in that moment.

“Everyday I wake up alone because, I’m not like all the other boys…”

Right there. An indictment on everything I was just mocking me and calling me out within the lyrics of a band who was going to explain why it’s always raining on me. I can’t tell you how many times I listened to this song, ALWAYS focusing on that opening line. Sometimes while listening I would notice that there were tears coming down and I had no idea why. But there it was, a song about my loneliness and my hopelessness and proof that I was going to always be alone and hopeless.

Eventually my obsession over this song faded and I somewhat forgot about it. It wasn’t until a few years later after Eddie and I broke up that I found this album again. Hearing this song years later with a completely different worldview and a whole new perspective on myself and life in general, the message had changed…

“And ever since I woke up I felt the net, was lifting me out of the sea…”

And there it was! HOPE. Hope that one day maybe I wouldn’t be alone or misunderstood. One day I would be happy and stronger, and one day I would find somebody who could be all those things for me and I could do the same for them. This song no longer made me feel sad, it made me feel so warm and happy and ready for this future where things were only looking up!

Again, the song went away and I forgot about it until last week when I found myself humming it absentmindedly. So I grabbed my iPod and went through my extensive Travis library until I found the version of the song I wanted to hear. And there it was. My new message, my end to this journey I have spent the last 11+ years on.

“And ever since a long time I felt the rain, and there was NO danger, and NO MORE strangers. As you are…”

I was finally able to understand the whole message because of you Bradley. I am so happy and there’s no way things could possibly get any better between us because you’re everything I always wanted or needed and so much more. I know it sounds corny and cliché, but with you by my side I feel like I could do anything. Whether it be climbing the tallest mountains or fighting the fiercest armies, I could do anything with you by my side. I want to be with you forever, and that doesn’t even scare me in the slightest because I KNOW you and I KNOW what’s in your heart. I guess all that’s left to do is ask you to marry me so we can begin forever with each other.

SERIOUSLY!?

2011-12-11T17:30:00.001-08:00

A few years ago I wrote this blog post called “Hapa Pride”. It was a crass, stereotypical and narrow-minded indictment on Asian/Caucasian relationships, which I still completely stand by 100%. Over the years this blog post has completely taken on a life of it’s own. 3 years later if you were to type in “hapa pride” into your google search engine it will be the first entry. My words here have really made a much deeper impact than I ever really imagined they would.

On occasion I have been known to write things here on my blog where I have lost readers, gotten strongly worded hate mail, and even received death threats. This never really bothered me because this blog is where I go to vent, pontificate and be myself. I don’t do this so that I can have a million readers, I don’t need the hero worship and I don’t need people to like me ESPECIALLY if I am never going to meet them!

The thing about this one post that is so different from anything else that I have ever written is how it’s just getting more and more popular! From this one entry, I have been quoted, cited, and published other places: college essays, internet articles, ENTIRE FUCKING BLOGS WHERE THIS ONE POST IS THE ONLY REASON WHY THEIR BLOG EXISTS, etc. Recently I was even contacted by my Alma Mater asking if I could reveal myself to them and if I would be willing to come in for a little campus discussion on the matter. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE!?

I am completely at a loss for words. Firstly, the only reason why there’s so much anger on this subject is BECAUSE I AM RIGHT! Everybody getting their panties all up their ass really just need to take a minute and seriously take an honest look at the weirdo in the mirror looking back at them. I am not making you into something that you aren’t, I am just saying what everybody else is thinking. Don’t jump on my dick because you don’t like the truth.

WHAT THE FUCK IS ONE DOING WITH THEIR LIFE WHERE MY FUCKING WORDS CAN AFFECT THEM IN SUCH A DEEP AND INTIMATE WAY!? I get around 150 unique visitors a day and about 100 of them are all directly linked to “Hapa Pride” seriously people, WHAT THE FUCK!? Its BASIC COMMON SENSE! Your parents are socially inept and frail and weird, guess what YOU ARE PROBABLY GOING TO BE THE SAME FUCKING WAY!!! It has nothing to do with the fact that your dad is white and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that your dad’s JUST A BIG FAT ANTISOCIAL LOSER! Get over it! It’s not my fault! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!

Irreconcilable Differences...

2011-12-06T01:52:00.000-08:00

As you think, so shall you become.

- Bruce Lee

I guess it’s easy to look at the way things are and accept them. SLOWLY things could even be interpreted as getting better. Off the top of my head I can think of 5 primetime TV shows with an Asian series regular and only one of them has the kind of racist stereotyping that makes me want to punch a bitch (2 broke girls, I am talking to you!). I get that there are definitely people working within the industry to create a more robust and less stereotypical view of Asians in the media and I am grateful for that effort. But the very idea that Eddie has thought about this and dismissed it as something he should help with INFURIATED ME!

Throughout middle school and high school, I always loved to read and write. As an undergraduate going through my extracurricular literature classes, I became aware that the characters and stories I liked most (and wrote about) revolved around only white Americans, you know, like Aryan Jesus. Somehow, embedded inside my mind was the idea that white Americans were the better characters to read and write about because as long as I could remember, that’s what the world had me believe.

After I became aware of this fact I went out of my way to make attempts to find literature outside the white dominated culture but is still American. It’s so frustrating trying to find a character to relate to when they are all described with blue eyes, light skin and the such. As I began to delve into the wonderful world of “minority literature” the one thing that became EXTREMELY apparent to me was how few books and even fewer movies out there fit into this category. I think that was the first moment where I realized this was only going to change if people like myself were going to put in the effort to actually change it.

This was all stuff I tried to explain to Eddie as we sat down for lunch and tried to work through our issues. It just frustrates me so much because if anybody was going to understand how I felt about this, I would’ve assumed it was Eddie. He grew up with Amy Tan (one of America’s most well known Asian Authors of all time!) as one of his mother’s oldest friends! How could he not see the importance of carrying on the fight to create and be recognized after growing up KNOWING one person could make that difference!?

After I was done, Eddie apologized for letting things get so heated between us before. He told me that he completely understood where I was coming from, and has spent his entire career feeling guilty about this very argument we were having. But in the end he wasn’t going to change his ways because no matter how he tried, creatively, certain paths are just closed to him.

I could see it in his eyes. He wanted me to say that I was okay with it all and that I accepted what he was saying and was ready to move on. As friends, I was completely willing to accept his point of view and not hold it against him, but as his creative partner I was not. I don’t know if I want to pursue a life in film, or if I want to be a painter, or a sculptor, or even a cartoonist. All I know is that creating with Eddie really isn’t an option anymore because he and I are on very different paths now. He’s always going to be one of my best friends on the planet, but when it comes to matters of the imagination from now on one of us is always going to be holding the other back.

I feel like I am coming off a lot more rigid than I am actually being! It’s not like I want to start casting an Asian person in every role we have from here on out. It’s just the very idea that an Asian actor isn’t even an option JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE ASIAN really bothers me! I have fought too hard my ENTIRE life to be so much more than some token Asian guy, and to actually be a part of anything that’s going to reinforce this idea I fought so hard against… I just can’t do it! So I am not going to.

Bonding time...

2011-12-01T01:33:00.000-08:00

Last night Brad was feeling depressed and overwhelmed with being injured. This one injury is affecting his future in so many different ways and he can’t stop thinking about all of the possibilities that have just disappeared into the ether because of it. These are feelings that I can relate to so much that I can’t help but hurt for him because I know that I’ve felt almost everything he’s going through. We stayed up all night and talked, cried, and held each other. It’s so hard to see him like this. All I want to do is make everything better even though I know I can’t. The irrational part of me feels so helpless, but the rational part of me knows that being there for him is not only the ONLY thing I can do for him, BUT the BEST I can do to help him.

When the sun comes up I just can’t sleep; it doesn’t matter how tired I am, I just can’t do it! So I left Brad sleeping in bed while I went downstairs to make myself a large cup of Earl Grey. Brad’s mom was in the kitchen already with her pot of coffee brewing. She looked as tired as I felt and I knew that she hadn’t slept much at all that night either. I am really frustrated with the fact that I can’t figure her out! But she finally is starting to look like she might be ready to share whatever it is that’s going on in her head. So I let her know that Brad’s going to be out cold for at least the next 3 hours and I would really appreciate it if she bought me breakfast.

Brad’s mom and I never really had a lot of bonding time like I have with the rest of his family. It’s not that we don’t like each other; it’s actually quite the opposite! It’s just that up until now she’s just been so busy with work, or taking care of her sick daughter that we’ve never really had an opportunity for some one on one time. I felt like the majority of what she knew about me had come from Brad, his siblings or even her husband. I couldn’t help but feel a little suspicious that a large reason for her visit was to give me a thorough once over.

The second we got into the car she began to talk. It took her the entire trip to the restaurant, our meal, and our trip back to the house to say everything she had to say! A few times she got really emotional as she was sharing, which of course got me all emotional and it took everything I had to not start crying in public with her. It was a lot to take in, and to be honest I am still processing most of it.

Of course she had Bradley on her mind. Before Brad’s mom began, and every few minutes during her 3 hour dialogue she would stop and let me know that if I think she’s overstepping I should feel free to stop her. Of course I would never do that, but at least I was able to process that she'd be overstepping at some point! She told me how she always knew Brad was different from her other children from the moment she first held him. He’s way more sensitive than he will ever admit, he’s stoic to the point of it almost being mistaken as coldness, and he is just so brave. Brad told his mom he was gay when he was 13, but having raised two boys before him she’d already known for years. Her only big worry is how hard Bradley is on himself, which is actually a HUGE worry for her.

Brad doesn’t take failure well at all because he seldom ever fails. He put his entire life on hold so he could pursue a goal that he can now no longer achieve; obviously he’s not doing so great right now. But the thing that really surprised me was how much better she felt brad was coping with this disappointment than she thought he was capable of. She attributed his positivity and progress to me, which made me blush. The only thing she felt like she could compare this level of loss with was when Brad and I broke up for 6 terrible months.

I remember how that entire time I just never felt right because a piece of me was missing. It’s strange how just the memory of those events makes my heart ache all over again. Bradley has basically told me this was the most difficult time in his life too, but hearing it from somebody else makes me feel like a terrible and immature person for not staying and trying to work things out when clearly we were meant to be together through all of this anyway!

By the time she finished I didn’t feel like I was being judged anymore. I actually felt refreshed, renewed, and confident in myself and what I contribute to my relationship with Brad. All she wanted to do was thank me for the honor of watching her son become a man and let me know that I was the catalyst for his transformation. Yeah it was strange and a little bit too emotion-y for my taste, but it felt good to hear none the less.

I spent the rest of the day taking care of Brad and thinking about everything I had learned. He and I have been through so much together, and now we are stronger as a couple than we have ever been! Brad and I are about to go through a lot of changes. We’re moving, he’s got a long road to recovery, and he’s starting his grad program in January. I guess that now more than ever I want him to know that I intend to spend the rest of my life with him. Laying next to me at my right, this is my future husband and partner everything. I feel like when I inform him of these things, he's just going to roll his eyes and tell me he's been waiting a very long time for me to get here with him.

The houseguest...

2011-11-28T22:46:00.001-08:00

This year Brad and I decided that we were going to stay home for Thanksgiving instead of heading north to spend it with our families. We were planning on spending the day in bed eating take out and watching bad TV until we couldn’t deal with it anymore, then we were going to watch bad movies! Unfortunately we both have huge ass families that wouldn’t really let us do that…

Our original excuse for not being able to make it up for dinner was because Brad was in no condition to drive 5 hours both ways. That was when Brad’s parents decided that they would bring Dinner to us so we wouldn’t have to worry about getting up to Santa Barbara. Our next feeble attempt at an excuse was that we’d given the cleaning lady that whole week off to take care of her family and with Brad incapacitated and me in PT 5 days a week there would be no way to get the house ready for the whole clan. That’s when Brad’s mother took it on herself to show up a week early and stay until CHRISTMAS so she could help take care of her convalesced loved ones.

Brad’s mom is a sweet lady with a whole lot of energy. At 55, she’s a newly retired Dermatologist with too much time on her hands and still unsure of how to utilize it. We love her to death, but she’s driving us crazy! Just look at that picture of the inside of my fridge and you will understand exactly what I mean! Seriously, I woke up this morning, opened the fridge, then slammed it shut, then opened it again to make sure I actually saw what I ACTUALLY SAW!!! Between her and the cleaning lady constantly trying to out-clean each other and fighting over who’s doing the laundry to the constant over attentiveness, Bradley and I are about to have a complete mental breakdown!

The problem is neither of us are very used to being doted over like this. His mom worked 70hr weeks while Brad was growing up, and my mom was too busy dating and marrying strange men to ever be THIS CLINGY! We know she just wants to be helpful because she sees that the two of us aren’t at our best, and with intentions like that how could we be mad? BUT STILL, it’s only been two weeks and we’re already plotting our escape from our own home!! We’re pretty certain that there’s no way we are going to last until Christmas. I MEAN COME ON! LOOK AT OUR GOD DAMN FRIDGE!!! WHO THE FUCK LABELS CLEAR CONTAINERS!?!?!?!?

It's my birthday!

2011-11-23T20:58:00.000-08:00

I have been having a rough month. I got in a HUGE fight with Eddie a few weeks ago and I may or may not have blown it out of proportion. Usually we see eye to eye on everything, and the things that we don’t, I can easily get him to see things my way. It’s a gift of mine…

What happened was a few weeks ago Eddie and I (I AD on the majority of his projects) had a meeting with an actor who had a screenplay he wanted to produce and star in and was in search of a director. This actor has been in quite a few HUGE blockbusters over the years. But you would NEVER know it because even when he has lines, you NEVER see his face! Its really strange because this guy is quite handsome, very charismatic, and he’s also a pretty decent actor. The big hurdle that this guy had to clear was the fact that he’s Asian.

I looked over the script and it wasn’t terrible, Eddie actually really liked it. What Eddie didn’t like was an Asian actor in the lead. He passed on the project and we got up and left. In the car I asked him what the problem was. He told me that he just couldn’t imagine any situation where he could insert an Asian principle actor without making it feel forced and artificial. THEN he added that this was also the reason why he’s never directed anything with a gay character in it either!

This really frustrated and angered me for a plethora of reasons. Usually when Eddie and I have disagreements, there’s a very specific preordained series of events that happen. First we disagree, then I argue my point and he argues his, promptly afterward I say something snarky and pointed to which he usually acquiesces UNLESS he feels very strongly about it. At this point I concede because this only happens once in a blue moon and I know this is important to him if he’s going to risk my wrath.

This time things did not go according to plan. I just felt so betrayed by his words. When he said those things about Asian and gay characters and staying away from them, all of a sudden I felt like I didn’t even know who he was anymore. This was the guy who taught me what pride is all about! When in reality he has more internalized homophobia in him than a fucking ex-gay Christian! What the fuck is that about!? BUT even more than that, he’s the most talented and creative person I know, and if he can’t see a solution to this imaginary problem, THAT’S REALLY FUCKED UP!!

I think I realized things were getting out of hand when I realized that we were actually yelling at each other. I don’t even know what we were saying to each other, I was just so shocked by the whole scenario and how things were unfolding. As I am trying to describe what’s bothering me, this whole thing sounds ridiculous, but it’s not! This is a big deal because the only way to effect change in the world is to BE THAT CHANGE!

What I love the most about being a filmmaker is that we have the ability to create entire worlds in our minds that we can actually share with people that don’t live in our heads! James Cameron can take us to a world where there are 10ft blue people who commune with animals through a magic braid in their hair, The Wachowski’s can create a reality where all of mankind has become the energy source for millions of self-aware machines; however Eddie can’t envision a single scenario where it would be acceptable to show a gay or Asian person onscreen!?

I always thought of Eddie as this badass rebel who never gave a shit about what other people thought or said. He created how he wanted the way he wanted to and that’s what made him amazing! And now I know that I was wrong to think those things about him. He’s just a follower too scared to make ripples or step out of line. It’s just so sad and pitiful which in turn just makes me sad and pitiful for building him up so much in my mind to be something that he so clearly isn’t. At this point I don’t even want to associate with somebody who’s basically the definition of Uncle Tom.

Bradley says that I am being ridiculous and kind of an asshole right now for making a big deal over this. A part of me (probably the rational part) completely agrees with him, but this other side of me doesn’t want to let it go. I just can’t be creative with somebody who has such a limited imagination. I expected so much more from him and he let me down completely.

Baby RGB was a badass too!

2011-11-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

Johnny showed me this picture a couple weeks ago when I flew out to stay with him. His grandmother found it and thought it would provide him with a little inspiration and motivation while he was training. He keeps it on this huge ass bulletin board at the gym he trains at for all the other fighters to see! We were 9 in this picture in the middle of a Hapkido practice match. Obviously today Johnny is 10 times the fighter I am, he does this professionally! But this picture reminds me that there was a time when I could totally kick Johnny’s ass! And in the end, isn’t that all that matters?

More camp tales

2011-10-24T01:32:00.001-07:00

I know a lot of you guys are going to be sick of me ranting about summer, but I am not even close to done talking about it! Especially now that one of my summer interns has now become a permanent fixture in my life as an intern during the school year too, I gotta write the origin story, right?

I guess (at least at the beginning of the summer before our crazy economic disasters) the economy must really be getting better because this summer my program grew way larger than anybody ever thought it could. None of us were prepared for it and because of that, we lacked the staff to deal with the numbers coming in. My class alone went from 25 students the first week (the previous summer averaged 14 a session) to 40 for my other session AND they added 2 more sessions so I was teaching EVERY SINGLE WEEK!

At first I was nervous but I quickly realized that this was the kind of situation where I really thrived! I love chaos and planning things on the fly! I wasn’t going to have the time to hire and train any new staff for my sessions, so I requested I take on a couple of “interns” from my current class and have them help out since they already learned my teaching style and the basic curriculum.

When I asked for interns, I had already decided on the ones I was going to take with me. Things really started snowballing pretty fast way before I even asked them if they were even available for the entire summer! Obviously I asked the two guys that I have mentioned previously in my camp posts, the gay guy (who will now be known as Allan) and my partner in insomnia (Ben). They both had an entire summer full of plans, but they also both realized that they’d be stupid to turn down the opportunity that I was offering them! University credit and the honor to be in my presence, who the fuck could say no to that!? Obviously nobody, that’s who! At which point, I had me 2 new interns.

3 days after our session @ UCLA ended, the guys were spending the next 4 days at my house to get ready for assisting me and teaching my intense course load! Brad was in SB visiting family so we had a good time getting prepped for all the craziness that was in store for all of us without bothering him. It was awesome knowing that I had a great team where impressing me was their top priority! By the time our first session as a team had begun, registration had been capped at 64 students and the main office had hired 4 more guys with editing skills to assist with my class. I have NEVER ever EVER taught such a large class in my life! We were so HUGE that we needed to have the classroom in an auditorium instead of a normal classroom! Even then, 70 computers in one location was so difficult to set up that it took an electrician and half the UCSD tech support team 3 days to get everything set up.

I am not going to lie; it took a few days before I was able to find my rhythm. The thing that really shocked me was how awesome my interns were! Both Allan and Ben were not only great leaders, but they were also so knowledgeable when it came to technical issues about skating, filming and editing! I originally chose them because I KNEW they were smart, charismatic, and great leaders, but the most important thing was that I genuinely liked spending time with them. I knew they were going to excel at this, but I was just really surprised at how fast and organically it all came together.

Allan really was the superstar of the summer though. From the very first moment we walked into our massive lecture hall, he was in his element. While I was busy freaking out in the corner, he was starting icebreakers, meeting students, and getting a feel for the experience and skills of the students. By the time I got my nerves in check, he’d taken notes on dozens of students that really helped me break down the class into smaller more manageable groups. After an hour Allan had become completely indispensable to me.

There were a million things that could’ve gone wrong that first week. With 64 students there’s very little that could actually go right. But thanks to Ben and Allan I was able to achieve all of the goals I set for my class and myself. At the end of our session I after I was finally able to exhale and really take in all the craziness, I really began to appreciate everything that they were able to contribute and how in a lot of ways they made it all better!

It was in that moment where I stopped looking at Ben and Allan as my students and I began to appreciate them as my peers, my friends. And that’s when I did something I wasn’t expecting myself to do. I invited them back to my house for a special dinner to meet Bradley. I make it a point not to discuss my personal life in detail with my students. It just doesn’t seem appropriate to me.

I hate how no matter how I try and present this I always feel like it’s some kind of HUGE production. Everybody is just always sooo shocked that I like to stick dicks in my mouth that it always comes off as a much bigger deal than it should be! Ben played it cool, but Allan, not so much. Gays can be so freakin dramatic sometimes. Allan just felt a little upset because he’d spent the last month confiding in my about being gay and such and I guess he thought I should’ve shared that I was too.

Obviously after Allan stopped acting like a drama queen he was actually pretty excited. Sometimes being a butch gay guy who likes to surf and skate and spit and scratch inappropriately can be lonely. Not because we don’t exist, but because identifying each other is pretty much next to impossible unless we are constantly announcing it to everybody who walks by. So in moments like these where we can actually connect with each other, its really special.

The thing about Eddie...

2011-10-13T00:48:00.000-07:00

Eddie was my first love. I met him 16 years ago in middle school in art class. From the moment I saw him I was in awe! Aside from being the most creative and talented artist I have ever met in real life, he just always seemed so cool and aloof (that’s a horrible word for what I am trying to describe, but it’s the only one I can think of right now!). All through school we were never particularly close because we had a VERY VERY different set of friends, but I have always had a whole lot of respect and admiration for him because he’s just that awesome!

It took 11 years for me to finally make the first move on him. And after that it took less than a week to know that I had fallen hopelessly in love with him. He came back into my life in a time where everything seemed to be falling apart. He taught me to love myself and he showed me that it was possible to be gay and be happy. We had a year and a half of absolute bliss together, then I broke his heart. I was 20 and I had finally accepted that I was gay I wanted to go out into the world and be gay and do gay things and I couldn’t do that with Eddie. But even more than that I realized that I thought of him as my mentor more than I did as my partner. I have spent my entire life looking up to him and learning from him; being gay was just something else he taught me how to do really well.

Even after I ended things he loved me enough to let me go and he became one of my best friends. I whored around for a year and I even told him about some of my more unbelievable and exciting exploits, and he listened. Then I met Bradley. My love came a lot more gradually this time, but when it did the first thing I thought was how I could never explain this to Eddie. Even though neither of us had ever said it out loud, we both thought that after I got all this out of my system I would come back to him.

Obviously I eventually bit the bullet and told him. As I did I actually got to watch his heart breaking as I stupidly tried to gently explain that I was in love with somebody else. That was almost 5 years ago. It took him a long time before he started to put himself out there again. When he did, it was never anything serious. Then six months ago he met this guy. By the third date I could tell that things were different with this one.

At first I was relieved that he’d finally moved on and this was his chance to be happy again! He really deserves happiness because he’s the most amazing guy ever! Then out of nowhere I started to feel these mild pangs of jealousy. Eventually I really started to dislike this guy that was stealing Eddie from me, and these feelings really started to confuse and upset me. Intellectually I knew that this was a good thing because not only did Eddie deserve to be happy, but also I had no desire to be in a relationship with him, so there’s no reason to be jealous! But emotionally I AM JEALOUS!

Everything about this guy pisses me off! From his overly macho cocky ex-marine attitude to his stupid snarky sense of humor, all I ever want to do is pick the hugest fight with him and then knock him out! It’s really hard to hate this guy too. He has a great personality, he makes an effort to be friendly with me (even though I can see that it kills him to do so) because he knows how important I am to Eddie, and most importantly he makes Eddie happy. How can I hate anybody that makes Eddie as happy as I know he deserves to be!?

But still, I AM JEALOUS!!! What the fuck is wrong with me!?

Cuz I'm nuts like that!

2011-09-23T23:52:00.000-07:00

This last month has been pretty intense for me. Last minute (because isn’t that always the case with me!?) I was asked if I could volunteer my time with this special needs summer camp. The person asking was a very good friend of mine, and the organization she was asking for, I could never say no to either. How could I say no to kids with cancer!? I think that would make me some kind of evil super villain! So despite being physically and emotionally exhausted, would three more weeks really kill me?

Short answer: ALMOST

This summer camp was for entire families to come and enjoy the outdoors and really bond with each other and people in similar situations. The big challenge in this setting is trying to include everybody in good old family fun without it being overly cheesy and completely awful for everybody involved. All the activities were chosen long and the whole staff was all set to go well before I was brought into the mix. What they needed from me is to be the big personality that tied it all together and brought some fun and excitement to situations that really needed it. In case you guys didn’t know, I am really good at that!

I felt a lot of pressure to make this experience special. I miss those summers where I looked forward to all the amazing experiences I was about to have and all the fun and exciting people I was going to meet. I mean to an extent, I still have those things to look forward to, but now there’s so much more that goes along with it! These days I need to worry about the big picture. Pacing, logistics, liability concerns, and a million other things that the 18 yr old me didn’t even know were actual worries. On top of all this, these kids were all fighting life threatening illness and it was up to me to make sure that they had fun.

I don’t know what to say about my 19 day ordeal. I did it. It was awful for me, but I did a fucking fantastic job! I went into this with a game plan. I was going to keep EVERYBODY at arms length and be the most awesome MC anybody has ever scene. Keeping people away was impossible! Everybody was just so special, unique and so unbelievably happy! I can’t even describe how amazingly amazing it was to just be allowed to be around these kids.

But then I would go back to my room at night and think to myself how some of these kids weren’t even going to survive the year, and I’d just break down and be an absolute mess. Now matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking all these morbid thoughts, which was doing these kids such a huge injustice! These kids weren’t dying, they were living! I just couldn’t stop thinking about my brother and his death and it just made me so much more morbid than I had any right to be.

Trying to stay positive and happy when every fiber of your being is telling you to be the exact opposite is exhausting. All that faking has made me a million times more depressed than anything that is normal or natural. After I got home, I didn’t get out of bed for days. Then when I finally did, I didn’t leave the house for almost a week. I felt so lethargic and nothing I did really seemed to shake these awful feelings.

Then Brad came home. I don’t even know how to explain it. He just wrapped his arms around me and I felt all those negative feelings just dissolve. All he had to do was be there, and he made everything feel so much better. If this isn’t true love, then FUCK TRUE LOVE! I would take whatever this is any day of the week, EVERY day of the week.

The Break Through

2011-08-31T00:58:00.000-07:00

It took a long while before I finally began to feel ok about feeling ok. Even while I was enjoying myself, my heart still hurt. All during that first week, I would have these small moments where things were great but then I went right back to feeling crappy again. Every time I had a free moment, I was on the phone with Bradley on the verge of tears or bitching to Tyler. My brother had died only 6 weeks earlier and every smile or happy thought that overcame me felt like a betrayal to his memory. It was just so hard to let myself be happy when I know my little brother died miserable and alone.

So during the day whenever there were eyes on me I smiled from ear to ear, I cracked jokes, and I was more charismatic than I have ever been in my entire life. Then night would come and I would cry myself to sleep. I decided to follow through with camp because I have always believed in the age-old remedy of “fake it ‘til you make it”. But 3 days in and I was already completely burnt out from overcompensating way too much! On that third night I just went into my room and sat in my bed unable to sleep or cry or really do anything! I was actually starting to worry myself because there’s no way that this could be normal.

Around 1am there was a knock on my door. It’s really disconcerting answering the door to a 19yr old kid on the verge of tears when normally said kid is walking around with a cocky smirk on his face acting like the king of the world. I guess that’s when it first started to sink in that maybe I am not the only person in the world who is currently suffering. I could tell immediately that he didn’t want to talk about what was bothering him, but at the same time he didn’t want to be alone. I could relate to that, so I suggested that we go for a walk where awkward silences would be a lot more tolerable. At first he tried to apologize for bothering me and suggested we go back to the dorms. But I explained to him that I was just as sad as he was and he pretty much just saved me from a night of staring at the wall trying to stop the tears from coming.

Everybody knows that misery loves company, so that night we started a tradition. Every night after everybody else had gone to bed, we went around exploring the campus and had some deep conversations. During that first week we never really got into why we were both sad, but we did silently acknowledge that we were, and there was a lot of comfort in it. UCLA is MASSIVE and I know it well, so it was a whole lot of fun showing him all the cool things there are to see, and reminiscing about all the different ways I used to get into trouble!

One night on our way back to the dorms he told me why he was upset. When he was done it took everything I had to not start crying right along with him! But I didn’t, I was strong, and I just gave him a firm hug and let him cry until he couldn’t anymore. After he’d sufficiently recovered we’d both decided that there was no way we were getting any sleep after this break through. So being the couple of amnesiacs that we were, we grabbed a couple of surfboards, jumped in my car, and went down to my favorite beach. Somewhere between catching our last wave and some early morning chocolate shakes at my favorite diner, I told him all about my little brother. I don’t know how I managed it, but I didn’t even shed one tear. The thought of breaking down in front of one of my students just didn’t seem right to me, even though at this point I had started to think of him more as my friend.

As the sun began to rise I felt myself smile without guilt for the first time in a very long time. We got back to campus just in time to make it look like we’d been there all along. That whole morning I felt amazing! It wasn’t like I was magically better. My heart still ached and I still missed my brother, but I also finally started to feel like it was okay to be happy again.

It's been awhile...

2011-08-28T03:16:00.000-07:00

God damn I have been gone awhile haven’t I?!? This summer I have been all kinds of busy and I can honestly say, I haven’t had this much fun in a VERY LONG TIME! I have sooo much I want to talk about! So much so that every time I go write about it I get SO overwhelmed about all of it that I just can’t seem to get the words out! So here goes my first attempt…

At the end of May I selected a university sponsored film camp I have worked for over the years, but only for a couple weeks a summer. This summer I signed a 10 week contract for sessions on 4 campuses (UCLA, Harvard, Stanford, UCSD), as an instructor some weeks and an overnight director for the teen students the whole time.

The first week was the hardest. I had spent the previous few weeks going back and forth on whether this was something I could actually do. Smiling seemed to physically hurt me, but I did it anyway and at some point pretty early on, I really started to enjoy myself. What I like most about this program are all the international students we get to attend. That first session I had students from 12 different countries and it was a really awesome learning experience for everybody there! It’s so special to be a part of such a dynamic situation where there’s a free exchange of ideas from all these different cultures.

I specialize in action sports cinematography obviously, so the majority of my class time is spent at the skate parks and OBVIOUSLY all my students are skater/BMX/surfer douche bag teens. Something that I decided to address VERY early on is homophobia. This was something I went back and forth on in my head before camp started, and all through the first day of camp. Boys get frustrated and I completely understand screaming out a good curse word to ease the anger. In fact I have been known to ejaculate a good curse now and then too. I just feel really strongly about homophobic slurs being taboo. EVERYBODY says these words (ESPECIALLY athletes in these sports) and mostly nobody means it in homophobic way, at least not on purpose, but I feel like it’s also really important to educate these guys the best I can about these words and the effect they have.

In my head the whole first day I am going through this internal struggle on if and how I an going to confront this issue. Every time I hear one of the guys scream out “FUCKING GAY!” or “cocksucker!” or “Stupid faggot!” I feel like punching them in the face! But I bite my tongue and swallow my anger instead because I still have no idea how I am going to tackle this issue in a way that I can actually make an impact and get them to think about it.

We get back to campus, shower, cuz we’re all sweaty and disgusting, and I decide to order a few pizzas instead of going to the café, so we can have some good talk time. We talk about the awesome tricks we pulled off, the awesome shots we got on film, and the things that really frustrated us or the things that just didn’t work out the way we thought they would. For awhile I let this go on because it’s putting everybody in the mood to really listen to this exchange of information and opinions. While one of the boys was talking about his big fail of the day he says “fucking gay!” to describe his situation, and I use this moment to push my gay agenda...

RGB: Hey guys I need to have a serious talk about something very important to me. You guys are all here to learn from me, and I am SO PSYCHED that all you are here and all so eager to learn from me! But more important than learning from me, I want everybody here to have a fun and positive experience. It’s only been 24 hours, but I already see a bond forming between all of us and it’s awesome! Still, I think there are a couple of issues we can definitely work on. I want to talk about all these homophobic slurs all you kewl kids have been throwing around all willy nilly.

Instantly there’s a cacophony of righteous indignation and flat out denial of my claim from the most egregious offenders. So I do my best to plow right through it so I can get through it all before this devolves into a bunch of accusations and denials.

RGB: Chill guys! I am not going around and calling each of you out individually, but just in this last half hour, I have heard the words “cocksucker”, “faggot”, and “gay”. No matter how you slice it, that’s homophobic. Right?

This leads to a very quick debate about how nobody is using these words to put down gay people, they are just saying them because its what people say when they are angry and frustrated.

RGB: I totally understand that! But would you guys be using those words if you knew the person sitting next to you was gay? Of course not! So think about this, 1 in 10 guys is gay, and there are 25 guys in this room. Chances are there are at least 2 gay guys right here, right now. Think about that, and then think about saying those words again. We all have the same interests, and the same passion for our sport, and because of that we were all able to become friends really fast! You guys have all made it clear that none of you were saying these words to be mean, and I think that’s awesome. BUT if there are 2 gay guys in this room right now, after all the things we’ve said, do you think they've had as much fun as we did today?

It got really quiet after that. I could tell that the guys were honestly thinking about what I'd said. That alone was way more than I could’ve hoped for! A lot of the guys owned up to their behavior and promised to make an honest effort to filter what they say from now on. A few of the guys even made an apology to the anonymous “2.5 gay guys in the room” and promised they’d be more careful with their words. It was all very sweet and something I was very glad I decided to confront. But the coup de grâce
came much later in the evening when everybody was getting ready for bed. One of the guys walked into my room and thanked me, he told me it meant a lot to him that I brought this up because he’s gay and because of what I said he felt comfortable sharing this with me. I let him know that my door was always open if he ever wanted to talk, and I went to bed with the biggest smile on my face. There were 25 guys in the room and 2 of them were gay! Statistics don't lie, do they? I really do just want every one of my students to walk away from this experience with nothing but positivity and in that moment I knew they would.

My little brother

2011-06-10T23:22:00.001-07:00

I have 2 little brothers. One is my youngest brother and he’s the baby of the family. He and I are pretty much attached at the hip because we are so much alike. We surf together, we draw and paint together, and we have even been known to check out guys together. But being so similar to me also means he has a lot of the same flaws that I do. He’s loud, cocky and sometimes he can be a little insensitive to how he affects the people around him. He’s a HUGE slut and he will stick his dick in anybody who will let him. He struggles with boundaries and he NEVER knows when enough is enough! And the biggest problem is that, a lot like me, he gets away with it all because that’s just the kind of guys we are!

Even though my youngest brother and I are so close and SO SIMILAR, doesn’t mean that I don’t love my other brother just as much. He had a really hard last couple years. He spent a lot of time struggling with a way to be his own man with everybody around him telling him he wasn’t good enough. He had two brothers that the world always compared him to and he always seemed to be lacking in the eyes of “the world”. It wasn’t fair! Everybody always seemed to overlook all the things that made his brothers fucking awful.

He might not have been able to ace every test and join every after school club or sport. But he was an amazing person all the same! He had the common sense and common decency that his two brothers will never know. He was the most sensitive and caring man, always willing to go out of his way to help out the people in his life. He was funny and intelligent in a way that most people were never really able to appreciate.

These last couple of years he really lost his way. He started doing drugs and getting into trouble with the law. In rehab he figured out that he had a lot of resentment for his two brothers and how everybody always wanted him to be just like them. But still he was never really able to quite figure out how in so many ways, he was already a better man than his brothers could ever hope to be. Still when he came out of it, he was able to build a relationship with them in a way that he’d never been able to do before.

The road to recovery was a slow and painful process, and along the way there were more than a couple of setbacks. BUT he always was sincere in wanting to change and get better, so his brothers were always there to make sure that he got back on the right path. The last 6 months things have been going so well for him! He got into a very prestigious college to study music, and he was really coming out of his shell and becoming the man his brothers always knew he could be. They were so proud of him and really admired his strength and determination to make these changes.

On my 20th 2011 my brother overdosed and died, he was 17 years old. I have spent the last few weeks being angry and sad then angry all over again. I am pissed at my mother for being a raging Christian bitch! I am mad at myself for being so far away and not being there as much as a brother should. I am also so overwhelmingly sad and I just miss him so much. I will never get to see the man that he could have been and all the ways he would have changed and shaped the world around him. I love him so much. I have never experienced this level of hurt. Its been 21 days and I still can’t imagine my life without him in it. I just want to freeze this moment in time so I will never have to figure this out.

Foot in mouth

2011-05-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I made Bradley sad, which really sucked because we are both already sooo stressed out that this was just another thing that we really didn’t need to deal with! Bradley and I have been crazy busy scouring San Diego looking for our new home. Unfortunately I have been super duper busy juggling 3 projects, 2 interns and copious amounts of time in the gym while I agonized over my summer plans. All the while Bradley is super busy with his school requirements, and super preoccupied with getting his bachelor’s degree in a few weeks.

In our very nearly nonexistent free time we’ve packed up all the nonessentials and given away a shit ton of things we would rather replace than attempt to move. Sunday Brad and I spent our afternoon cleaning out our storage unit for all the new things we were planning to fill it with. It was basically 4 years worth of junk we should’ve just thrown away in the first place, but for some reason didn’t. There were a few piles of outdated textbooks, entire boxes full of old tests and papers we’d written, awards, trophies, other markers of honorable mention, in summary, just a whole bunch of shit that nobody could ever really want or need. I really just wanted to unload everything into the dumpster, but Brad insisted on going through all of it!

Then I opened a box with a couple of weird looking ragdolls in it. I can’t remember my exact words, but I made a “humorous” comment about how they looked a lot like the dolls the social worker used to bring over so I could demonstrate how and where my step parents were beating me. It was a completely inappropriate emotional reaction and I KNOW this! I have done this a few times over the years in a bunch of different scenarios and I always feel like such an idiot for the way some of these things come out of my mouth. There’s just this weird disconnect between my emotions and my recollection of the past. It’s really weird because I can remember my stepfather beating me and it doesn’t really spark any real emotion, but then if I were to think about how he used to beat my mother in front of me, I am ready to put my fist through a wall. It makes no sense, and it’s probably very unhealthy, but its just the way my brain works.

Of course Brad knows about my past, but every time I bring it up I feel like it hurts him more imagining it than it does me remembering it. He stopped what he was doing and looked over at me. His eyes were already watery and he was trying really hard to not show how upset he was after hearing what I’d said. I really just wanted to step back in time 5 seconds and slap myself just before I started to speak those words.

Bradley walked over to me and apologized. Then he told me that he was just caught off guard and didn’t mean to make this a big deal. Then I apologized for being stupid still not even sure why I said what I said. I make poor decisions when it comes to the things I allow to fall out of my mouth. Making jokes about child abuse is NEVER funny and ALWAYS in poor taste. I feel like such an idiot right now and I honestly can’t stop wondering what the fuck is wrong with me!?

Interns

2011-04-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

Being back in San Diego has been very good for me in terms of my sanity. But in order to stay down here and not have to travel as much, I had to take on a lot more fx editing jobs. For the most part it’s fine, but little by little I was drowning in work and spending way too much time on my fucking computer. This is when I decided I needed a couple of interns to lighten my load.

The thing about interns is they can really be hit or miss. Putting up signs at my local university wasn’t going to get me the best crop of slaves to do my bidding and posting an ad on craigslist was a headache that I didn’t even want to begin to deal with! So I did what I do best and I called somebody I knew who would be able to help me out perfectly in this situation.

A friend of mine just so happens to be a professor teaching Maya at a university in SD. I let him know I was looking for a couple of super duper talented minions to do my bidding for little to no money BUT have the opportunity to get some real life industry experience as well as some pretty decent connections for later. Lucky for me there aren’t that many opportunities like this for aspiring animators and editors so I basically had my pick of mostly all of his students! My friend suggested 5 and I picked the 2 I felt would be able to deal with my crazy ass the longest.

One of the guys I hired had a very distinct voice, and the second I heard him talk I felt like I’d known him for a long time. But no matter how much I thought about it I just couldn’t place how I’d known him because I didn’t recognize his face, just his voice! Towards the end of his interview he used some strange phrase that I can’t quite remember now, but then it came to me! A few months ago I was having HUGE issues animating dynamic hair; at first I couldn’t get the hair to look real, then the values kept failing when I went to render it and then the computer would crash and I would start crying! Anyway I’d watched and rewatched a bunch of this guy’s videos a whole mess of times to try and help me out! It was totally a meta moment, you guys don’t even know!! I kind of wanted to jump across the table and full on mouth kiss him for taking the time to make those youtube videos that helped me out in my time of need.

I feel so grownup now that I have my own little workforce of slave labor! They have really been soo helpful to me. I feel like everybody should go out and pick up a couple to take care of all the litte odds and ends you just don't want to deal with. I have interns, a home office with 4 workstations, an awesome boyfriend who’s insisting on paying my rent (because his name is the only one on the lease), and enough time to relax that I am not hating life nearly as much anymore. I don’t know what else I could possibly want at this point. Well except maybe a few million dollars and a house on the beach somewhere between Santa Monica and Malibu… Oh yeah! Also a hoverboard like the one from Back to the Future.

Another Coachella post...

2011-04-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

This year I have struggled with a lot of my decisions to do things that I have always done. Its not that I no longer want to do these things, its more that my body really isn’t up to letting me do them. I can’t go surfing, I can’t practice martial arts, and I can’t even go skateboarding anymore because my asthma will act up or my frail ass body will just give out on me again! It’s true that slowly I am getting better. Last Thursday I ran a mile in under 10 minutes, which is something I haven’t been able to do since this time last year (even though this time last year I would probably be very close to completing a second mile in that amount of time!).

I haven’t gone surfing in 10 months. I haven’t gotten on the mat to spar with a buddy in a year. I haven’t picked up a skateboard in so long that I am not even sure I still no how to ride one! I didn’t even get to go snowboarding during one of the best winter seasons of my entire life! Everything I do that makes me who I am, I can’t do it anymore, so who the fuck am I!? I know that to a lot of people this all sounds ridiculous. I have so much going for me that it’s pretty much disgusting how I can’t be satisfied with what I have. I am in love, I have the best friends in the world, and I make money being artistic and creative. I have a great fucking life and I KNOW that I should be satisfied, but it’s just not enough.

I needed some kind of return to normalcy! I didn’t care how small the gesture was, I just needed to do something that I have always done and get through it in one piece. Enter Coachella. For anybody that’s been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that I have gone to this music festival EVERY SINGLE YEAR it’s existed. It’s what I do. For a few years I worked for the festival, for a few years I worked at the festival, and for a couple years I just went to enjoy the festival. This year was going to be all about enjoyment.

On Thursday morning Brad and I packed up the SUV and headed for his uncle’s house in Palm Springs because there’s no such thing as a vacancy in Palm Springs during Coachella weekend and this was a last minute decision. Friday I got a little overzealous running around the fields to the different bands and by 6 I was in soo much pain that I just laid down right where I was and didn’t move until around 8 (but from where I was I did get to see the LEGENDARY Ms Lauryn Hill, she still has it!). After that I refused to leave because I still had to see The Black Keys, The Aquabats, break for some Heineken and a few friends in the dome, and then finish the night off with some Flogging Molly.

Saturday morning I woke up feeling like I had been trampled by a mob the day before. It was 12 before I got out of bed and 3 before I finally started to feel somewhat human again. We headed for the venue around that time, got there and parked ourselves in front of the main stage and just sat there the whole day. It was pretty nice and relaxing and I got to see about 80% of everybody I wanted to see that day anyway, so it was nice. We even called it an early night and left after Animal Collective around 10:30. I really wanted to see the Scissor Sisters but I knew I shouldn’t push it because I still had another day of this bullshit and I had to make it to the festival crazy early because I had a friend performing pretty early in the day who would KILL me if I wasn’t there onstage off to the corner.

Sunday I woke up and KNEW I was done! Even my hair hurt. I took a shit ton of pain meds and called a doctor friend of mine for a cortisone shot. This whole thing was turning into the worst kind of endurance test EVER! We got there just in time to watch my friend, as always he really was truly amazing. The fucker is so talented it kind of makes you want to punch him in the face even though he hasn’t done anything wrong! At that point I was done though. I like The Strokes SO HARD it’s not even reasonable. They have one of the top 5 the hottest drummers in rock music! Plus I love their new album. But I just didn’t have it in me.

Coachella kicked my ass. I really can’t do anything anymore. Intellectually I know that I am still in the process of getting better and becoming stronger, but I still can’t help but feel so defeated after a weekend like this! Its just really hard to think about how much work I have put into getting better and then realize how much more I have to do before I am where I want to be. I am just feeling sorry for myself and I really need to get over it, I KNOW!

I am being a spoiled rotten brat right now! I had a good weekend. I got to spend a lot of quality time with my boyfriend and a lot of my good friends like Tyler, Johnny, my little brother, and a whole lot of other people. I saw dozens of amazing performances that a lot of people will never get the opportunity to see. I laughed, I recreated and I enjoyed. I am going to focus on that and then deal with the rest later…

Reunion recounted

2011-04-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

So my oddly timed 10 year HS reunion happened over the weekend. I guess the thing that was most abundantly clear walking into event was that I had no idea who 90% of the people in attendance were! Unfortunately the inverse did not seem to hold true. Every two seconds my personal space was being invaded by some vaguely familiar stranger jovially screaming my name. There was way more people here than I ever imagined there would be.

Most people weren’t even wearing nametags so I had to give a whole lot of “Hey you’s!” to random people walking up and greeting me. For the most part it wasn’t too bad because I walked in with Tyler, Jane and Brad flanking me and they mostly provided a decent buffer from all the humanity that seemed to be coming at us from ever direction. Jane has this creepy memory where she can recall every single person in her homeroom class from all four years of high school, so she had no problem identifying all these strangers.

The first truly awkward and mostly terrible moment of the night happened almost right after we walked in. The girl I lost my virginity to (and she to me;)) walked up to me and gave me a HUGE hug. As we untangled she reached over to give Jane and Tyler a hug, then she looked at Brad and commented on how he looked much too young for this crowd… Moment of truth! So I introduced my 22 yr old boyfriend of 4 years to her… Her jaw hit the floor. She smiled and quickly walked away, didn’t hear from her for a few more hours as she took the time to really soak in this new info… We laughed heartily about that for the next few hours until she came around again.

Bulging eyes and awkward silences became the theme of the night as I introduced people to Bradley. It was really funny because nobody was being rude or offensive or anything like that, they were all just genuinely surprised and caught off guard with this new information. The girls were the best because they ALL did this thing where their voices went up several octaves and each time I was worried a window would shatter! Most of the guys just made crass and inappropriate sexual jokes about Brad’s age and his muscles and stature. All in good nature of course.

At the far end of the hall there were all these pictures on this massive display. There were all the different sports team shots, and candids during different events, etc. (standard yearbook crap) Brad had a lot of fun spotting me all over and commenting on my hair, clothing decisions and general cocky demeanor that seemed to ooze from each of my pics. And I really was all over that wall! Varsity Surf, Vasity Golf, Varsity Tennis, Class VP junior and senior year, Academic Decathlon, peer counseling, beach cleaning organizer, Asian/Pacific Islander Leader of the year. When the fuck did I ever find time to sleep!? Seriously looking at that wall made me feel like such a lazy underachieving loser! What the hell happened to me?

I don’t really know what the point of HS reunions are. I had a good time in HS, but I just don’t understand the point of reliving it. The people I still wanted to remain friends with are still my friends, the ones I wasn’t interested in back then, still not so much caring about them now. By the end of the night most of the people were pretty drunk and making out with each other all over the place. It was pretty sad and extremely uncomfortable to witness. All these people acting like teenagers when they are all closer to 30, it was all just really lame!

Eddie (HS classmate/former boyfriend/current colleague and very good friend) had the right idea avoiding this disaster like a twilight movie! I thought the night pretty much sucked, but Tyler and Jane really enjoyed themselves. Maybe I have a mild case of late onset autism setting in rendering me incapable of recognizing a good time. Maybe I had a lot of unconscious anxiety about coming out to all of my former peers in such a large setting. Maybe the whole event was just as sad and pathetic as I thought it was. Whatever the reasoning, that was such a waste of a perfectly good Saturday night!

Best Friends Forever

2011-03-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

Tyler and Jane asked me to make a short video as a tribute to Trip for our HS reunion this weekend. They shipped over like 6 hours of raw footage for me to work with that luckily for me, Jane had the foresight to digitize first. Going through all these memories has really put me through the ringer. Of course Brad insisted on watching all of the footage in its entirety under the reasoning that we needed to watch all of it to know what I wanted to use.

We laughed, a lot! I got to tell him a bunch of stories about my teenage years that I never really got around to sharing with him. We laughed some more. I took notes and began to pick out my favorite clips. By the end of our day long viewing party I had a pretty good idea of how this was all going to come together in my head. I proceeded to spend the rest of the night editing in my living room, and just as the sun was coming up I was finishing up my masterpiece. Our entire friendship was summed up in 2 minutes and 27 seconds.

I ended this video with Trip reciting his favorite quote, which I found oddly ironic yet completely appropriate for the occasion.

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

Then he grabbed his stereo and started blasting “Institutionalized” by Suicidal Tendencies. It was sooo perfect and completely Trip in every which way it could possibly be!

This morning Jane flew in from DC and Tyler drove down from LA to check out what I’d done and get in some solid hang time. We watched it together and had a really good cry and for a moment it kind of felt like we’d lost our best friend all over again. But then the sad feelings kind of just left us as fast as they came and we felt better again. There was a moment today during all of our afternoon shenanigans where it dawned on me that in 40 years after we are done raising our families there's a huge chance we are going to come together and find ourselves doing the same exact things we are doing now. We've been friends for almost 20 years, and we are going to be friends forever!

In SD for awhile

2011-03-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

I shot a music video in San Diego almost two weeks ago. Obviously I stayed with Brad during the production, but after I was done I found myself not wanting to leave. Then Brad asked me to stay and it was all the reason I needed not to go. I miss living with Bradley so much that being around him THIS much literally makes my heart ache!

Being home with Bradley has been so easy! I don’t even know any other way to explain it. Everything just fell into place so perfectly. We wake up in the morning and go to the gym. Then we come home and eat breakfast together. Bradley goes off to class and I spend my morning editing and working on fx. He comes home around 3 and we spend the rest of the day doing our “homework” and distracting each other until it’s time for bed, then he goes to sleep and I stress out over work for a few more hours. It’s so perfect that I never want to leave.

I currently have about 7 projects that I am working on simultaneously, and I ABSOLUTELY HATE WORKING ON EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM! Every time I even think about what I am doing I just want to kick the shit out of myself for being such a fucking loser/sellout! Without Brad keeping me sane and making this BULLSHIT tolerable I have no idea what I would do.

Lately I just feel so defeated dealing with all these businesses and advertising firms! I work so hard to make something tasteful and interesting and then they shit all over it with loud ugly nonsense AND IT DRIVES ME NUTS! Re-shoots, new animations, logos spinning in the wrong direction, clouds not fluffy enough, not enough gaudy flashing epileptic crap flashing all over, FUCKING MOTHER FUCKER GODMAN SHIT!! AHHHHHH!!! Little by little, it’s all slowly driving me insane.

My agent says I am feeling frustrated because I haven’t really set any clear career goals for myself. If I have something to work towards, it makes doing all this bullshit to get there a lot more tolerable. The idea of a future in Hollywood makes me sick to my stomach! I am just doing this to pay some bills and then I want out! I love film too much to ever really want to truly be a part of it; I hate actors too much to ever want to ruin my love of film.

I guess that the most frustrating thing of all is how easily I can make this whole nightmare go away. All I would have to do is call my dad and ask him to take care of it, and he would. I could go back to leisurely working on my art and designing surfboards and skateboards and just having a gay old time all day. But I am too proud to ever do a thing like that, so instead I suffer. I beat my head against the wall and I miss the love of my life because I am 100 miles away doing something I hate.

It’s time for a change! I just need to figure out how exactly I am going to do it…

Just a little complaining

2011-03-08T21:26:00.001-08:00

Another late night in the office and it’s really kicking my ass! Tyler turned 29 over the weekend, so you better believe there was A LOT of drug and alcohol consumption taking place! It all started and ended with a $3,000.00 bottle of cognac and the rest is pretty much a blur... It’s been two days but my kidneys still ache, loud noises make my cringe and my eyes still can’t deal with direct sunlight! I am getting too old to be partying like this! Not to mention the fact that by Sunday morning, I had to be back in the office editing.

Being over $310,000 in debt from medical bills has really instilled this insane work ethic in me that has kept me working nonstop for months! All this work also just seems so fruitless because no matter how much money I make, I still owe sooo much goddamn money! It’s been almost 4 months and after my agent takes his cut, I’ve accumulated just over $22,000 to pay my extensive medical bills with. At this rate I am going to completely burn out by June at the latest, at which point I will have to consider faking my own death to avoid the creditors!

Working for a non-action sports related production company has been a HUGE adjustment for me. There was a lot I had to learn in terms of the process from inception to execution, its sooo different from shooting an action sports vid. Music videos, commercials and film projects are all just so rigid and structured, and the job of a director is a million times more detail oriented and requires a certain level of anal retentiveness that I am still not sure I am capable of!

I have found myself spending a lot of time in NYC shooting for a few different projects because a lot of my contacts in advertising and music are out there. What’s the deal with NYC producers!? Ever since my first shoot, I’ve noticed a HUGE difference in the outward appearance of my producers from the opposite coasts. In LA my producers are always slightly overweight unshaven white guys in oversized hoodies and baggy jeans. In NYC every producer I have worked with was impeccably dressed for a day in the office, and sexy as all hell! You’d think people would be more vain about their appearance in Hollywood than they would be in NYC, but I have come to realize that’s just not the case.

I miss NYC and all the pretty people in their fancy clothes… I want my apartment back! I would also like to win the lottery so Bradley and I can just live our lives in peace at the beach, surfing all day and screwing all night. When you’re rich, you don’t need to sleep!

Relationship stuff

2011-03-03T22:59:00.001-08:00

Brad and I have never really had a normal relationship. From the first day we met we began living under the same roof, and for the next two years that’s exactly how it continued! The day I chose to move out, I basically felt like I had to learn how to survive on my own all over again. Going to the grocery store became a mess because Brad always made the shopping lists. Fuck shopping!! I couldn’t even cook anymore because Brad was my prep chef preparing all my meats and vegetables! And sleep, forget about it! My bed became the loneliest place on the planet and to this day I spend half the night just staring at the ceiling unable to fall asleep without Brad wrapping his arms around me.

Writing these things down, I cannot believe how codependent I have become! But it gets even worse! Even when we were broken up, for the longest 4 months of my life, we still spoke on the phone almost daily. No matter what is going on in either of our lives we always make time to call each other. Something we also do almost daily (this next part I have been told is really weird and I should probably see a professional about it, but I HONESTLY feel like if this is strange to anybody they are the ones that have an issue because they are most likely dead inside!) is video chat. At first we talk about our days and what’s been going on, but then we just leave it on and go about doing our work, watch TV, do laundry, we even have friends come over expecting to see us on the computer screen. I have no idea how people survived long term relationships before high speed internet!

Brad is in a 5 year program to get his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. If everything goes as planned, he will be done in a year and a half. The thing is life is already getting in the way of this 5 year plan! There’s some VERY SERIOUS talk of Brad being a real contender for the 2012 Olympics, which of course would mean time off from school. I don’t know if I can be away from him that long. He says the same, but I tell him we need to be strong and soldier through this. Everyday I think about packing up my stuff and moving back down to San Diego to be with Bradley. There’s nothing going on in my professional life that I wouldn’t give up in a second, to be with Brad. But I don’t! Because I hate the idea of being THAT guy! The needy clingy loser that couldn’t even take care of himself for a short time, while the man he loves took care of himself like he should be doing!

I am hopeless when it comes to Brad. And he’s hopeless when it comes to me. In most ways just knowing that he feels the same way I do, makes all this pain and longing from being apart, a little more bearable. But it’s also really scary that he would even consider giving up some of the opportunities he has before him just to be with me! The idea of me holding him back from his full potential kind of makes me feel like somebody ripped my heart out of my chest and showed it to me. It’s times like this that I wish we were both a couple of underachieving losers who couldn’t figure out a way to get our acts together. We could spend our lives in a dirty studio apartment somewhere in the valley living off our parents money and getting really really fat!! We would be poor and miserable, but we’d still have each other. Oh man, that would be perfection…

Just the 2 of us

2011-02-23T22:39:00.000-08:00

My high school reunion is coming up in 5 short weeks; which means two things: 1) I am old and 2) Life just got about 75% more annoying. I had 34 new facebook notifications in my inbox this morning. 34! Just take a moment and really let that sink in… 30 fucking 4!!! All of them were something along the lines of “OMG, SO EXCITED CAN’T WAIT TO SEE EVERYONE! WE’RE SOOO OLD! Well not you so much, but definitely the rest of us! LOL!”. Look, this is exactly why I got rid of my facebook account in the first place and EXACTLY why I am 2 seconds from shutting down my account again! I’m not trying to be a party pooper here. I plan on going. But can we all just slow our proverbial rolls for one hot minute? Elsewise I might end up murdering someone. And then how will I pick up my award for bringing the sexiest arm candy of the night?

Speaking of Brad, as usual he and I had INSANE schedules and neither of us had any time to properly celebrate VD with a crazy day AND night of sex and spooning that the day truly deserved. I was stuck across the country and Brad was cramming for midterms. So we skyped for a half hour and then we both went back to work. BUT we totally made up for it over the weekend with a 3 day trip to Palm Springs. We stayed at this amazing… I don’t really know what to call it… the brochure says “a Mediterranean-style romantic retreat unlike any other.”, which I would have to agree with whole heartedly!

I do have to say that I felt WAY WAY WAY out of place at this fancy resort. I felt like I was about 10 years too young to be anywhere near a place like this, but I manned up and dealt with it like the grown-up I am! We stayed at this amazingly beautiful bungalow, and it was like we were in our own little world. It was such an amazing space to just lounge around in, and enjoy each other next to a massive fireplace. We really needed it too. I had no idea how much I was missing Bradley until it was just the two of us and I really had the time to soak in the man I love. It’s been 4 years and its only getting harder to be away from him. Sometimes I can be such a fucking chick! Sorry about that.

What I know

2011-02-15T01:22:00.000-08:00

There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
But I’m too tough for him.
I say, stay in there, I’m not going to let anybody see you
…
There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
But I’m too clever to let him out
At night sometimes when everybody’s asleep
I say, I know you’re there, so don’t be sad.
Then I put him back,
But he’s singing a little in there,
I haven’t quite let him die
And we sleep together like that
With our secret pact
And it’s nice enough to make a man weep.
But I don’t weep,
Do you?
Charles Bukowski

In my eyes, my dad could kick the shit out of batman and steal James Bond’s girlfriend right off his arm all in the same breath. If I am brutally honest with myself, I can admit that my dad's opinion of me means more than the air I breath. I have never done things the way he wanted me to, but I have always done them in a way he could still be proud. Because even though I would NEVER admit this to him, I want to be just like him when I grow up.

In December I flew into LA for a couple days because my sister (my dad and stepmother’s daughter) was having this HUGE party for this massive award she'd won. She’s a senior in HS and an even bigger over achiever than I ever was! Growing up, she and I have never been particularly close, mostly because of her mother (my stepmother) wanting to rip my eyes out and my father taking her side. But in the last few years my sister and I been able to grow closer and connect after my dad decided to finally become human and let me see my sister.

The thing that I have come to realize is, even though my dad has allowed me to see my sister, he’s never really let me back into his family. Walk into his house and the proof is in every direction you could look. Family pictures, school pictures, family trinkets, search as hard as you want; in my father’s house, I do no exist. Even after we reconciled that never changed and I did my best to pretend I didn’t notice.

Right now my dad and I aren’t on speaking terms. It has nothing to do with the gay thing, and everything to do with everything else, but for my sister I showed up because she asked me to be there. I walked into my father’s house for my sister’s celebration and gave her the biggest hug a big brother ever gave because I was proud of her. I shook my dad’s hand, and I even gave a small wave to my stepmom before she disappeared into the crowd.

I hadn’t brought anybody with me and I was immediately uncomfortable in my isolation. I haven’t been a part of this family for over 12 years and everything about it was completely foreign to me. This is when people started walking up to me and introducing themselves.

“Hi we’re Mr. & Mrs. WASP! How are you!?”
“Hello, I’m RGB. I am doing well, how about yourselves?”
“Good, good! How do you know the family?”
“The host of the party of there; My dad.”
“He has a son!?”

I had that conversation 3 times with different people before I was practically in tears. I guess the thing that hurt the most was remembering all the times he told me how proud he was of me over the last few years, and the realization that he’d never meant it. I don’t know why I cared so much. My dad always says all the right things to me to make me believe in him, and he always lets me down. Every time he does I am always completely shocked.

I don’t know why I have such a hard time excepting that I am just his dirty little secret. His pubescent indiscretion that ruined the rest of his life. I can't ever be anything else to him. I really need to stop lying to myself and think things can be any different than how they are now. Why do I have to look up to my dad so much!? Why couldn’t he just hate me for being gay like my mom does? It would make things so much easier on me. Then I wouldn’t have to live with this reality, that there’s just something inherently wrong with me.

Busy as F*CK!

2011-01-20T15:14:00.001-08:00

I am EXHAUSTED! If I were to add up all the hours I spent on an airplane last month, I would be too depressed to even function anymore. HI, CA, and NY. I had been traveling non-stop from one place to the other, THEN BACK, and I had such severe jetlag that I found it easier to just take little power naps every few hours than just to try and get a full 8 hours because I just couldn’t get a handle on timezones for the ENTIRE month of December.

What the shit is up with people always trying to talk to me in airports and on the airplanes!? I have a laptop, and a WACOM tablet and the most intense look of concentration plastered (read meanacing scowl) across my face, and people still take this as an invitation to BUG THE CRAP OUT OF ME! I don’t fucking care that your sister, uncle, brother, or next door neighbor use final cut, photoshop, or maya! I honestly couldn’t care less that you think the 5 seconds of compositing I just finished was the coolest thing you ever saw! I’ve got shit to do, deadlines to meet, and I haven’t slept for days, SO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!

In NYC I shot a music video and a commercial, then I met with an ad agency for this new project a friend recommended me for. Back in LA I had to drive down to SD for Bradley’s big award dinner, and then back to Long Beach for my sister’s big award dinner. And in HI I was put in front of the camera to host a webshow for a couple of contests that were happening out there in December. The problem was that the way everything was scheduled I ended up getting on an airplane almost every 4 days until Christmas!

As always my holidays were hectic, awesome, depressing, exhausting, and amazingly fantastic. December in general was a pretty difficult time for me. Not only because of the endless travel and impossible list of things to accomplish, but actually just being able to deal with my life, family, and friends slowly took it’s toll on me. By the time I finally made it home for Christmas I was ready to lock myself in a room for a week so I could sleep, cry, scream, and punch the walls.

Lucky for me, it was December 23 and with all my family and friends expecting me to be around for the holidays, I had to push all that bullshit aside and celebrate properly. Being around everybody I loved was exactly what I needed! I finally was able to crawl into my bed and sleep for 2 days after 3 days of Christmas, and when I woke up I almost felt human again! I have got a lot on my mind, and now that I finally have a moment to really take it all in, I realize how hectic things have actually been for me. I have a lot going on in my head, and some free time to actually deal with it. The verdict is still out on whether or not this is a good thing...

My good luck charm

2010-12-01T13:27:00.001-08:00

I always keep a concert ticket in my wallet of the last BEST concert I have ever been to. Even though I go to over 20 concerts a year, the one in my pocket usually stays there for years at a time. I seldom ever take out this ticket and look at it, but just knowing it’s there always helps me to smile whenever I really need it. In order to be the concert ticket in my wallet a certain number of criteria need to be met to even be considered. Most of them are utterly impossible to define and would sound ridiculous if ever attempted to be explained by mere words. But some of them are pretty basic and are ideas that everybody can understand.

I remember when I started this tradition. I was 13 years old and Tyler and I had gone to see the Beastie Boys perform during their Hello Nasty tour! It was BADASS! Loud music, raucous behavior, hearing and vocal loss, all around awesomeness and being able to share this with my best friend made this the best thing ever. I was going through a lot of drama with my personal life (getting ready for life in jail was just one of many issues I was going through) at the moment and this was something that needed to be remembered.

So I put the ticket in my pocket to remind myself that at this moment I was happy and NOTHING could take that away from me. And over the next few years it really did help get me through a lot of bullshit. That Beastie Boys ticket sat in my wallet for 4 years. It became a sort of good luck charm for me and it eventually just became my Dumbo feather, where it would probably be impossible for me to “fly” without it.

This is something that I DON’T talk about. But I have been thinking a lot about lately. I think it was January of 2002. I was spending a lot of time with this guy I’d met at summer camp the previous summer. He was my “secret friend” and it worked out well because he lived in Chicago and I lived in NYC so there really wasn’t much overlap between he and I where our friends or social life in general were concerned. My secret buddy had flown down to LA to be with me for the week. I rented a hotel in LA proper far away from anybody that might have known me and we spent the week where for the first time in my entire life I really felt like I had connected both sexually and emotionally with another person.

It all culminated with a call from my agent and a couple of tickets to a very small Jack Johnson concert. He was on tour opening for Ben Harper and decided to do a couple of small shows on his own. This was his first. I had spent the previous summer around the campfire with my guitar singing Jack songs to my secret friend and we were both really excited to see Jack sing them himself. I think it was during, Posters, that my secret friend let his fingers curl into mine. A couple of tears fell down my cheek because it was right then that I knew the path I was heading down and there was no turning back. I was scared, elated, terrified, and so fucking excited!

After the show I dropped my secret friend at the airport, I put the concert ticket in my wallet, and I never spoke to him again. That’s where this ticket stayed for 8 years as a symbol of what I had to be hopeful for one day when I would be ready for it. For my birthday Tyler got me 4 tickets to Weezer’s memories tour, which of course meant one night playing the Blue album and the second night playing Pinkerton! Those two albums literally defined who I am as a person! I seriously don’t know how else to put it. I know every song from both of those albums by heart, and this was pretty much the most perfect concert experience of my quarter of a century on this planet.

I had my boyfriend, and my two best friends with me. We spent both nights screaming out the lyrics to each of the songs on both nights; laughing, reminiscing, and just experiencing all of this together. This was sooo special to me for so many reasons. The music, the company and more than that just knowing that I have finally made it. When the concerts were over, without hesitation, I took out my wallet yanked out my Jack ticket, still reeking of all that bittersweet nonsense, and replaced it with pure joy. I was so happy, I couldn’t stop smiling for days. Even writing this now I am smiling all over again. I really have accomplished something in my life, and I really am happy with how all of this unfolded. Today is a great day to be me!

Chicago

2010-10-25T00:41:00.000-07:00

I flew up to Chicago this Wednesday night to spend a few days with Tyler. I am not used to having my best buddy so far away from me! These last few days have been awesome to catch up with Tyler, we didn’t even go out and party that much. We mostly just hung out and talked, which is something the two of us seldom do. We are in each other’s lives enough to get the gist of what’s going on so mucking it all up with chick talk would’ve been pointless! But now that communication is vital to our friendship, it’s good to know we can actually do it!

The thing that really shocked me the most is how Tyler THINKS he is struggling with his social life (when I think the real problem is that he’s just crazy homesick). Tyler is and always has been the life of every party. He’s probably the most handsome heterosexual guy I have ever and will ever meet, plus he has the kind of personality that draws you in and makes you want to just gravitate around him. From where I stood, it pretty much seemed like Tyler has Chi-town wired! He knows all the cool places to hang, has a bunch of hipster/bro-ee friends to hang with, and there’s no shortage of barely legal hot girls who want to hook up with him. But for some reason he’s just not feeling Chicago. I think he misses me.

As much of an adventurer Tyler is, he’s definitely a homebody at heart. I think he’s slowly coming to realize that you can take the boy out of LA, but you can’t take LA out of the boy! I tried to explain to him how he’s here to learn, and maybe it’s good that things are feeling a little boring in the social department, but he wasn’t having it! So Tyler is going to just finish off his semester, drop out, and then apply to a graduate program at USC or Pepperdine, which I am all kinds of psyched over!

Having Tyler in Chicago fucking sucks! I have nobody to call at midnight on a Tuesday to go grab tacos and beer, or nobody to call me on my bullshit when I start throwing a temper tantrum for any number of reasons my spoiled ass throws them. I miss staying up all night playing call of duty or madden while smoking joints and listening to terrible reggae then walking to Roscoe’s and eating chicken and waffles until we feel like vomiting! But mostly I just miss having my big brother around for no reason at all. I for one am completely ecstatic that Tyler is coming home, but it will be a cold day in hell before I ever say that out loud, you guys didn’t hear any of this from me!

The Money Pit

2010-10-19T01:45:00.000-07:00

My Life, As Presented By Mastercard...

Multiple X-Rays & a new specialist for each part of my broken body: $6545
Pills, ointments, injections, braces, and monthly PT costs: $9925
Various corrective surgeries and other medical procedures: $198,000
Having the Doctor tell you your dislocated shoulder can’t be fixed and there’s a “chip” floating around in your ankle that will just hurt like a bitch forever: Priceless
There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s FUCK YOU SHITTY BODY.

These last couple months have been dedicated to my health and general well being. And I am starting to think it was all just a big fat waste of time and money! At first things were looking promising in terms of what I could realistically fix, and what I could learn to live with. Then as time went on things started piling up in the “learn to live with” category, while things that were supposed to get fixed got less and less realistic.

Meanwhile the medical bills started piling up and my agent kept hassling me to take on more jobs. Bing. Bang. BOOM. I have made 3 commercials in a month and a half and I kind of feel like a cheap $2 whore. The only positive thing to come out of this is that I have been able to collaborate a lot with Eddie lately and it’s been a lot of fun working with a friend! Somehow he makes selling my soul for a couple bucks feel not so terrible. Also he is literally the most talented artist and director I have ever met, and being in his presence has me constantly in awe of everything he does. I just always feel like I am constantly witnessing history in the making because he’s just that fucking talented!

I guess another positive thing that has come out of this whole disaster is that spending so much time in the studio has forced me into actually working on some personal media projects that I would have otherwise procrastinated out of existence. It feels good to be creative and it feels even better flexing those creative muscles while I am supposed to be finishing up lame ass corporate ads; cuz I am a badass like that. I have been tossing this idea around in my head for a shortfilm and in my head it’s AMAZING, but I am having the hardest time actually seeing it into fruition! It’s driving me nuts, but like I said, at least I have the time to be driven nuts by it.

But seriously, I still really fucking hate anything and everything about advertising. In just this short time I have already been able to break down the secret code that these agencies use when speaking to me. For instance, when they say things like, “We would like you to storyboard these ideas yourself so you can have full creative freedom to really let loose and make something special!” What they mean is, “we are going to get you to do this shit for free and then ask for a buttload of revisions and changes along the way because we are too cheap for an in-house artist!” Then when they sit you down for 2 hours discussing their “ideas” using keywords like, “dynamic, creative, and different” What they are really trying to tell you is that they have no fucking clue what they want, but it was imperative that they waste your entire afternoon pretending like they did. I could go on forever but I won’t because it will only make me more bitter.

I am currently responsible for 3 national tv spots that can actually be seen on primetime most nights and a couple of print ads that are pretty much everywhere too. There was a time when I would have been really disgusted with myself for being a part of the corporate machine like this, but I gots bills to pay and can’t afford no lame ass principals while being 6 figures in debt! Also, that small twinge of pride I am feeling whenever I see my work on TV and magazines; I am pretty sure is proof that I lost my soul when i wasn’t paying attention... It’s cool though cuz I’m gay and I don’t think I will have much use for a soul in the afterlife anyway ;o)

just a few thoughts...

2010-10-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

The news lately has been extremely depressing for me. All these gay teens committing suicide because of how they've been mistreated so badly, it breaks my heart. I will never understand the need to hurt and belittle a person because of their sexuality. I will never understand how what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms deserves such extreme scrutiny from "right thinking Americans" all over this great country. I will never understand how loving somebody can cause so much hate.

My brother and I have been spending a lot of time talking about what's going on in this country and how all this anti-gay nonsense affects us and how we view ourselves. It's hard to believe that with all the love we have and see and experience on a daily basis, there are people all around us that just don't. My brother is AMAZING in his ability to cope with all the negativity around him and find a way to come out of it all unscathed. I admire his strength as he deals with our crazy ass family, his teammates at school, and all the pricks out there in the ether that think they have a say in the way we live our lives. He makes me want to be a better and stronger person just so I can keep up with him and still be the big brother he can look up to.

The news has even began to have an effect on my mother who's been making it a point to tell me how much she loves and appreciates me despite how she may have felt in the past. It's nice to hear, but it's actually also really hard to hear because of how little it does for me. I closed myself off to her a long time ago and no matter what I do I just can't find my way back to accepting her into my life. I am pretty sure I am broken in a way that I won't ever be able to fix. But I do my best to fake all those feelings as well as I can for her sake. Even if I can't accept her love, it doesn't mean that I don't love her and I want her to be sad because of me. I am gay and now everybody knows it. I guess the hardest thing to reconcile with myself now, is how underwhelming all this actually is to me.

Not that things are horrible! On the contrary I think I am doing pretty well, all things considered. I have been in a relationship with the man of my dreams for years now. I have friends that I love as much as my own blood. I am finally on the road to discovering the man I will one day become. And I can finally look in the mirror and appreciate what I see, flaws and all.

Coming out is this continuous process that for me, started when I finally admitted to myself that I was gay. I remember it like it was yesterday because it was actually quite a shock for me since I have this amazing ability to lie to myself like nobody's business. I was a senior in high school, my math tutor was a sophomore in college. Looking back on it now, I was totally flirting with him from the moment I first laid eyes on him. I am shocked he held out as long as he did! 2 months after our first tutoring session, I was in his room commenting on his abs when he kissed me. It was the single most exhilarating and terrifying thing I had ever done in my life up to that point. Keeping in mind that I spent my days surfing 15ft waves, riding dirt bikes off ramps into foam pits, and having sex in VERY public places. But this single kiss was all it took to blow all that shit out of the water. Because that kiss redefined who I was and how I saw myself forever.

It's taken me 10 years to get to this point, but I now stand before this world as a PROUD out gay man. I look back on the road I took to get here and how hard I made things for myself, and it's almost laughable. But the most important thing is that I got here, and I am a better man for it! There were a quite few times when I seriously considered suicide. There was actually this special cliff by my house I used to get really drunk and stand at the edge of, crying and screaming out at the ocean thinking about how I could just make it all go away if I were to just take one step forward. But for some reason I never did take that step and I am so happy and thankful that I didn't! My life isn't perfect, and it's nowhere near easy, but I am so grateful for every moment I get to live it.

If you, or somebody you know is struggling with being gay, please know that it does get better! You are not alone and there are people out there who want to help you and make sure you KNOW that tomorrow can and will be better than today. You don't have to go through this alone, if you don't feel like there's somebody in your life you can trust, email me Fukgnar@gmail.com. Or call the trevor project @ (866) 488-7386. I used to work for a hotline similar to this EVERY person there cares deeply about what you are going through. You just have to put yourself out there and be brave enough to make that first step.

Reconnecting

2010-09-04T23:06:00.000-07:00

Brad decided to come with me on my little excursion across the Atlantic. I was super psyched that he asked to come, especially since things were still a little awkward between us after a month of me being such a prick to him. Brad’s amazing in his capacity to forgive and move on. He understands me in a way that really scares me because I never really thought anybody would be capable of knowing me the way he does and not want out. I knew he was special from the beginning; here we are 3 years later and I am pretty sure that he’s into me too.

Even though I was pretty sure that Brad had forgiven me and moved on from my month of being an asshole; I still felt like it was important to acknowledge his saintly act of forgiveness and really hammer in the fact that I am truly sorry for the way I acted. He told me he understood and that he forgave me. We ended up spending the whole night catching up with each other’s lives. It’s been way too long since the last we we had a conversation like this, and I really missed it! Sometimes I forget that Brad needs me as much as I need him because in my eyes he’s just so freakin brave, strong and confident. But every once in awhile he says something that really makes me pause and realize that he sees me the same way I see him.

Is it possible to fall even more in love with somebody you’ve already been in love with for 3 years? Fuck that! I know it is because last night I totally did. I have no idea what I would do with myself if I didn’t have Brad by my side.

The art show was awesome! It was an even bigger deal than I thought it would be. I even saw my agent there because apparently he represented a few of the people in the show. Seeing my piece here among all these accomplished and talented artists was both humbling and a HUGE ego boost. It really validated the fact that I am on the right path, but at the same time showed me that I still have a very long way to go before I am at their level.

At some point my agent cornered me and started doing that really scary thing where he intimidates and threatens me with compliments and menacing smiles. I am convinced that it’s an art form he’s mastered in a way no other man on the planet has! He’s been trying to get me to do some more commercial work and I have been passively resisting him (read ignoring his emails and phone calls) but I got the sense that if I didn’t accept some of these jobs soon he’s going to stop calling. So it looks like I am meeting with an ad firm at the beginning of next week, YAY ME(that’s sarcasm in case anybody out there in cyberspace missed it)!

Brad and I arrive home Monday morning. We’ve actually been here since last Monday but I didn’t publish my last post pre-Europe until Wed. because I forgot, then I figured I wasn’t going to NOT publish it, but I was too lazy to fix the post so it made more sence. So there you go! It’s 7 am and I am about to begin my one hour stretching routine and then begin packing all my stuff. It’s going to be a fun day traveling to the airport!

Rocky road to recovery

2010-09-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have been missing for so long, this month has been THE SUCK! I fully recovered from my shitty lungs at the beginning of the month, but then the real recovery process began. Being stuck in a fucking bed for a month, fucked up my body like you wouldn’t believe! I have bone and joint issues all over the place, then you throw in my sciatica and ligament damage in my knee, and now you should be imagining some of the most painful pain anybody has ever pained.

Every morning in order to keep from shooting myself in the head from all the previously mentioned pain, I used to go through an hour long stretching/yoga routine followed by a VERY hot shower and then copious amounts of bengay as needed. There’s also some super strong ibuprofen to reduce swelling, and the occasional cortisone shot when the pills just weren’t enough. A large portion of all that had to stop when I was bed ridden for one reason or another, so my body just became progressively more stiff and painful until I got to the point where I was on so many painkillers that there are entire days I don’t even remember.

The most frustrating thing about my life right now is how I want to do so much more than my body is willing to let me do. I want to touch my toes, I want to take my skateboard down to the beach, I want to catch a wave, I want to go for a jog with my boyfriend and my dog; but alas I can not do any of those things because I am barely at the point where I can walk to the bathroom without the aid of my walker! I have had all these ailments for a while now, it’s the side effect of living my lifestyle, but it’s always seemed manageable up until the point where it wasn’t. I am 2 months from my 25th birthday and I am pretty sure my skeleton more closely resembles a 76yr old.

Being stuck in one place has really given me the time to think about the fact that I’m not getting any younger, and this body of mine is the only one I am ever going to get; so it’s probably time that I start doing a better job at taking care of it. I have seen specialists for all my different issues, from my back, to my knee, to my ever so slightly dislocated shoulder that has since awkwardly healed over without ever being properly put back into place. I got fresh x-rays (by the way did you know that when you get x-rayed you can still VERY clearly see your penis in the x-rays!? It’s really funny and I ALMOST posted them because I got a serious chuckle out of that but then I realized that this is not that kind of blog and it will NEVER be that kind of blog. So sorry) and had them scrutinized by all the said specialists, and together we came up with several treatments to take care of most of my issues.

While all this was happening life still went on and now I am struggling to play catch up. I am currently making plans to go to Europe for a week because I have a piece that’s part of this HUGE collection and I absolutely have to be there to see it! Things with Brad and I are still a little bit tense and I need to figure out a way to smooth things out with him which means I need to figure out a way to get passed my huge ego and apologize. I have promised my services as a coder to a friend of mine for this massive computer program she’s designing. And I have about a dozen other odd jobs in completely random and unrelated fields that need attention yesterday. The medical bills totalled well into the hundred thousands and I have shitty medical insurance, so I really need to crack the whip and get some work done.

Sick days

2010-07-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

Usually when I end up in the hospital, it’s my own fault. It is not uncommon for the doctor to tell me I’ve broken, torn, dislocated or ripped something and am in need of stitches/x-rays/casts/MRI’s/etc. I am usually okay with these kind of trips to the hospital because I earned these injuries by being awesome and even though I was in pain, I was in control of how it happened so there was nothing to be frustrated or feel helpless about. That’s in sharp contrast to when I get sick, which always turns into a big production with me because of my shitty ass lungs!

When I was an infant I got a really bad case of pneumonia and I almost died. After spending over a month in the hospital I was finally cleared to go home, but the pneumonia had done permanent damage to my lungs and it’s effected me a lot the first 10 years of my life then it just went away. That’s when I started playing sports and going crazy with every single outdoor activity my parents would let me take part in. The year I turned 10 was big for me. It was the first time I went surfing, the first time I strapped on a pair of hockey skates, the first time I climbed a mountain, the first time I rode my bike to the beach without using my inhaler once. For 7 years I was on top of the world and never once did I get a single ashtma attack or come down with pneumonia.

Then it all started again. It never got as bad as it did when I was a kid, but it’s never been like it was for that short time when I totally forgot that I actually had a defective body. This last case of pneumonia and subsequent asthma attacks were a total flashback to the early days in the life of RGB. There was a moment when I was surrounded by a whole team of doctors as they were trying to stabilize my oxygen levels and failing miserably where I actually thought I was going to die. I felt (and still do) so betrayed by my own body that I became completely and irrationally disgusted with myself.

So much of my self esteem is tied into my physical ability that I don’t even know who I am (or what I will do) if I can’t be the man that I was. I feel so weak and feeble that I actually disgust myself thinking too much about it. I can’t even go a day without my inhaler or 2 days without having to pull out my fucking nebulizer. This is so fucking depressing to me that I have literally broken down in tears during my treatments on multiple occasions. I can’t stand having people around me right now because this isn’t me! I am not supposed to be this weak and pathetic! I am a trained deadly fighter, a pro athlete, and an ivy league graduate, but I can’t even walk myself to the fucking living room without 12 people tripping over themselves to make sure I don’t over exert myself and die of hypoxia in the hallway. This is embarrassing.

Bradley is still pretty pissed at me, but you wouldn’t know it because he drives over 100 miles on an almost daily basis to be with me anyway. I am acting like such a prick to him but I just can’t seem to stop myself. I hate letting him see me like this. Last night I stayed up all night with Tyler talking about this very issue I am having with Bradley, and we both came to the same conclusion. I am fucked in the head and I really need stop acting like a rotten spoiled 5 year old brat. I really need to get my shit together and be a man. I will just add that to my things to do list right behind "buy new lungs on black market".

Hospitals suck

2010-07-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

I just got out of the hospital after a little over 4 weeks of being stuck in one. Well I guess that’s not entirely true. I was in the hospital for a week and a half, then when they thought I was safe to go home BAM right back in for another week or so, back home for like 7 hours, and then another week in the hospital. I fucking hate my body because every chance it gets, it just stops working on me! It pisses me off to no end how many people out there take their functioning vital organs for granted and spend their days sitting on their asses watching bad tv and eating shit all day.

I am sick and tired of of this craptastic body of mine that keeps screwing me over every chance it gets! I’d like to go 6 months without seeing the inside of a hospital, but for some reason for me, it’s more likely that I will grow wings and fly. Just in case nobody could tell I’M FUCKING ANGRY! I am sick to death of all these people coddling me like I am some kind of helpless invalid, my whole body hurts all the time, and did i mention ALL THE FUCKING PEOPLE CONSTANTLY FAWNING OVER ME ALL THE FUCKING TIME!?

Brad is pissed at me right now, I feel crazy guilty because Tyler dropped his summer classes to come home and help take care of me, and I feel like a total prick because when my dad came to visit me I got so upset that it took the doctors almost an hour to stabilize my oxygen levels. I just wish that when I got sick like this I could be locked in solitary confinement and be refused any visitors what so ever! I don’t really even know what I am trying to say here. I am just upset and frustrated and it’s all just building and BUILDING with absolutely no hope for release.

Europe in a nutshell...

2010-06-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

I can now boast that I have had sex in EVERY COUNTRY IN WESTERN EUROPE (including the lame ones that people always forget about like Estonia and Malta)! I totally got to be a rockstar for a week when my friend's band needed somebody to sub for rhythm guitar at the beginning of their comeback tour. I came to terms with the fact that I am NEVER going to be a real rockstar because I HATE being in front of crowds like that! Brad and I got in a HUGE fight because I am kind of an asshole. We made up, then we made up some more, then we made up some more. I Got a taste of the French healthcare system when I dislocated my shoulder skating in Paris (of course it had to be Paris the fucking BUTTHOLE of Europe! I've mentioned that I really hate France didn't I?) and it really drove home how terrible healthcare in America is.

In Europe this friend of mine asked for my help with something he was trying to achieve. He presented it to me in a way where he was basically doing me the favor and this would be a really big deal for me if I accepted his offer. He wasn't lying, but I turned him down anyway because it wasn't something I was interested in doing ESPECIALLY when I was supposed to be spending time with my boyfriend I had just spent 6 months away from. Long story short, I was called an ungrateful little shit and accused of being afraid of success because of my need to be a big fish in a small pond. He pointed out how it was what I did with my athletic career, with my engineering career, and now I am doing the same thing as an artist. He basically went on to call me a loser with all this unlimited potential that has flushed it all down the toilet because I don't have the balls to nut up.

It really stung to hear these things, but not because they were true. It just is so frustrating to have a friend, who is supposed to know and understand me, accuse me of being scared. What the fuck do I have to be scared of!? I am not scared, I just know that society's idea of success is the least appealing thing on the planet to me. My friend was offering me an advertising/design job and I FUCKING HATE that shit! It's so fake and demoralizing and trashy. An artist doesn't sit around fantasizing about creating the perfect Toyota Prius ad or some lame generic beer commercial. I don't care how much money somebody is offering me, I DON'T FUCKING DO ADVERTS!

I still can't fully wrap my head around how or why I am so upset, but it definitely put this ugly dark cloud over my mood that I still haven't been able to shake. Of course there is always that small voice in the back of my head telling me that I really am scared of what's going to happen if I actually "try" at something. What if my best isn't good enough and I fail!? I have lived my whole life surrounded by people telling me how amazing I am and how I could be successful at anything I do if I try and then I fail, what the fuck does that say about me!? Or worse yet, what the fuck am I going to do if I succeed!? Is that going to be it for me? Am I going to turn into a douche in a 5 series and a pair of aviator glasses? But then I remember, that's all bullshit and I shouldn't let superficial pricks like that get in my head and try and get me to doubt myself.

So in the immortal words of one Mr. Cheech Marin, "Fuck it!"

Reunited! and it feels so good...

2010-05-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

I had all sorts of weird fears and insecurities before I flew out to Europe to see Bradley for the first time in 5 WHOLE MONTHS! Mostly all about how Brad was going to come to his senses and realize he could do so much better than me. I know it's stupid, but ever day I wonder how a guy like him could love a loser like myself. When I saw him at the airport all it took was one look to know nothing had changed and I was still his. God I can be such a chick sometimes!

Things have been really crazy since I arrived in Europe. Of course the first couple days Brad and I almost died of starvation and dehydration due to our reluctance to leave our hotel room. Then Brad had to get back to campus for finals and I had to get to the city because I had to get ready for my first art show outside of America. Brad the wonder kid totally aced all his finals, unfortunately my show didn't go over nearly as well as Bradley's finals, let's just leave it at that... Since then Brad and I have been gallivanting across Europe drinking and seeing the sights and hanging out with friends from school (both his and mine now since we've both gone to school in Europe).

Right now we are freezing our asses off in España with all this cold and rainy weather. But it doesn't even matter because I have my boyfriend and a warm bed and that's all I need. I am so happy I can't even put it into words.

Got lost. again.

2010-04-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

I can find my way to a beach 300 miles north of where I live, that I have been to once when I was 7 NO PROBLEM, but for some reason I can NEVER find my way back to the freeway once I have driven into LA proper! It's like every time I enter the city my internal compass thinks I am in the Bermuda Triangle and I lose all sense of direction and my ability to even read a map. Today was no different when I drove to West LA to meet with this guy that wanted to put on an art show for me and a couple of my friends. I found the place no problem, and I had a pleasant enough meeting with the guy. He seemed to know his shit and was very excited to be working with me, which totally stroked my ego in all the right ways... but I am always a little reticent to do shows like these because I secretly loathe anybody who is actually interested in my artwork because of how I like to think of myself as an anti-establishment/anti-capitalist/non-conformist kind of artist and the idea of some Joe Blow appreciating what I have to offer makes me feel like I have failed as an artist and a human being to properly convey what I am positive these people are not able to comprehend.

Anyway, after the meet and greet, I hopped in my car thinking I was driving back to the freeway (though I was completely guessing because my GPS had decided to stop working for some strange reason) and I ended up way off course somewhere deep in the heart of WeHo! As always I got really frustrated, pulled over the first chance I got, and just sat in my car as I tried to calm myself enough to not want to put my fist through the windshield for getting lost in LA AGAIN! I then grabbed my phone and proceeded to text every person I knew that lived in the area so they could come pick my up, take me to dinner, and then buy me alcohol until I was in a better mood. Long story short, I found a victim to take care of me while I regained my composure. We ate at this awesome Thai place on Santa Monica and then we hopped in his car and got some beers in Silverlake where we met up with a couple acquaintances and spent the night drinking and laughing. I think the moral of this story is that LA is stupid. Or maybe that I need a private driver, I am not sure... either way, I am extremely high maintenance and I am pretty lucky I don't have to be my own friend because I just wouldn't have time for a person like me in my life!

As we speak I am packing for my flight to Europe and I am crazy excited I didn't have to deal with any of those stupid cancellations because of the volcano. Figuring out my whole travel perdicament was a big enough headache without having to tack on a volcano cloud from Iceland. Apparently I am only allowed to stay in the country so many days ever 6 months and I was extremely confused if the 6 months were from the first day I arrived in said country or if they were kind of like set from Jan - Jun then Jul - Dec. I was also confused about what would happen if my visit started at the end of one six month period and then carried over into the next, would my time automatically start over or would I not get to restart my allotted time until I left the country and then came back again!? So I planned this trip to be exactly 6 months from the time I last left this country so I wouldn't have to worry about any of the nuances of travel at all. All that matters is I AM GOING TO GET TO SEE BRADLEY!!! Holy fucking shit I miss him soooo much! It's been 4 LONG and terrible months, but now the wait is over and I am very ready to be with my guy again. We talk almost everyday yet for some reason I miss the sound of his voice most of all. I know it doesn't make sense, but it's how I feel.

3 days!

2010-04-13T23:49:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in a gay coffee shop in Long Beach with a friend on Sunday when I noticed this dude sitting with his back to me reading my blog on his computer. It was weird. I know that people read my blog but its always so detached from my reality that it doesn't seem real, but actually seeing somebody read my blog is just strange. I wanted to walk up to him and say something, but I didn't because that would have just been, for lack of a better word, STRANGE! What really sucked was that my coffee buddy didn't know that I write a blog either so I couldn't share this really weird moment with him either, so I just had to sit there and be really uncomfortable for like 30 minutes.

Coachella is 3 days away! This is going to be the second year in a row where I am not responsible for anything or anybody but myself and I am so excited it's not even funny. I am really looking forward to Saturday because there are a whole bunch of bands that I am seriously looking forward to and there are a couple of bands that I just want to see because of the novelty of watching them perform. Some examples of the novelty acts would be bands like Die Antwoord (I honestly had no idea they were actually serious about music until I saw their name on the coachella line-up!), and Faith no more (You gotta give them props for being the original limp bizkit [did I spell that right?]).

Some acts that I am GENUINELY excited to see on Saturday are The RX Bandits (Progress is one of my top 5 alums on the planet! I could listen to it over and over and NEVER get sick of it, because it's just that good!), DEVO (I really don't think anymore needs to be said about this), Corrinne Bailey Rae (I am a big fat homo! Of course I want to see her perform!) and John Waters (I have no fucking clue what he's doing at Coachella but there's nothing on God's green earth that could stop me from figuring this one out!)

I am sooooooooo excited about this it's hard to put into words! I just don't get how after so many years this never gets old for me. I just really love music and I love the way this festival changes and grows every year. Pretty soon I know I am going to hate it though, because I feel that way about all things that get over hyped and commercialized. But for now, I am going to have a whole lot of fun and enjoy ever second of it.

Email response

2010-04-11T14:11:00.001-07:00

I guess I just wanted to preface this with saying I hate writing posts like this! I hate how sad and pitiful my life seems and how weak and vulnerable things like this make me seem. I have had a hard life full of abuse, neglect, and family that never quite understood me, but when it's all said and done I honestly feel like in my 24 years I've had a pretty awesome life. I have amazing people who love me, I've never had to struggle with putting food on my table, or figuring out where I was going to sleep for the night, because somebody has always been there to take care of me. As independent as I like to think I am, I know there's no way I could live the life I do without having many people around to support me and care for me every step of the way. What I have written below sounds a lot worse than it actually felt living through it. When you read what I have written feel free to feel however you want about it, just don't feel bad for me. I am the lucky one.

When people ask me about my ethnicity I automatically respond by saying I am Asian. The thing is I am only HALF, but ethnically, I don't really think about myself as anything BUT Asian! In yesterday's post I was accused of being ashamed of my non-Asian half and the emailer wanted to know more about why I never really claim my other half. I had to think about this because I never consciously tried to play down my other half, but for some reason I ALWAYS do.

Thinking about this I came to the conclusion that I have never really felt like I was accepted into my white/hispanic family the way I was with my Asian family. Growing up around the whipanics, from the time I was old enough to understand them, my cousins and uncles always used to call me "chinese fortune cookie" or "Benihanna" or they would stop on the Asian channels and ask me what the actors on the tv were saying. They always made it clear that I wasn't really one of them, so when I think about that half of the family, I never really think of myself as part of them. I have never been the type to show anybody how much they've hurt me, so this heckling I grew up with I learned to laugh about even when I wanted to cry. Sometimes I wonder if telling my family how much it hurt when they teased me would have been enough to make them stop. I wonder how I would see myself differently if they could have accepted me as one of their own.

I never really thought about this heckling from my family as being something detrimental to how I felt about my heritage, but in a way it really has tainted the way I have been able to absorb different traits and customs and how I see myself as a multi-ethnic minority. As recently as last week when having lunch with my Great Grandfather, who immigrated from Spain in the 20's, told me (in a very casual manner), "I love you but you should not exist. Mixing the races is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Especially the Asians and the blacks because you people don't have the word of God to teach you!" Then he laughed it off and we went back to eating lunch. Granted he has no idea I am a homosexual because then he would have a whole new reason to pray me into oblivion. I am sorry if some of you out there feel that this unacceptable and you see my perception of myself as disrespectful to my Hispanic half, but I really don't care. I am who I am and that's all I am ever going to be. Being Hispanic is part of who I am, but I am always going to feel like an outsider when dealing with that part of my culture.

killing time

2010-04-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

I am currently in the studio rendering my film. It keeps failing every time it gets to a certain point and it's driving me crazy because it takes about 30 mins just to get to this point! So I have decided to kill time by writing about how excited I am about Coachella.

As anybody who's been reading this blog knows, I go EVERY year. This year is no exception. One of the acts I am crazy excited to see is Calle 13. They are freakin amazing! I remember the first time I ever heard them. I was in Puerto Rico hanging out with a couple friends when their song Querido FBI came on over the radio. It was bad ass. I was instantly hooked by their eloquence, passion (bravery/stupidity depending on which side of the argument you may fall on), and ability to package all of this with some pretty awesome beats. Some people may consider them a little extreme with their lyrics and political views, but nobody can deny their amazing talent for making amazing music!

Growing up I was never really accepted by my Hispanic family. My eyes slanted a little too much, my hair was a little too dark, my skin was a little too dark. I was just a little too different. The cool thing about Calle 13 is that even though they have a very strong independent Puerto Rico message with some of their songs; they also have believe that as Latin Americans we are all so different and varied but there is something that unites us all. It's nice to be able to listen to an album and feel that thing that connects me to this entire world out there. This is my favorite song, it's a pretty powerful message about the struggle of so many Latin Americans all over this continent. On Friday at Coachella I am going to be standing there front row when they take the stage to perform it.

Now back to my rendering... It failed again just in case anybody was curious...

kinda sorta stressed

2010-04-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

I am working on this action sports film at the moment. We spent the last week shooting in the foothills and now we are in the studio editing the footage. It's coming together great and I was pretty excited to get the opportunity to work with the people that I did. This whole experience has been fun, exciting, and extremely challenging! From setting up cameras for the perfect shots to figuring out different and innovative ways to film some of the tricks, I have pretty much been in creative heaven since last Saturday. Even working in the studio has been a lot of fun because this is the first time I have ever edited for this sport in particular. I got to watch a lot of other films in the same genre and really get in the mindset to do this footage justice. I also have met a lot of cool and interesting people that do this sort of stuff all the time and they have all been super duper helpful and really cool to hang with.

But I guess I would be lying if I didn't say that I have been struggling with myself this whole time in a big way. But I am too ashamed to even blog about it because I would just sound like a spineless loser and there would be an anonymous commenter reaffirming exactly that and I would be in an even worse mood than I am now about it. I just need somebody to tell me where I might have left my balls so I can go pick them up and maybe be a man again... If not, this is fine too. I can just finish off this week and pretend it never happened. For some reason having one small issue tarnishing an almost perfect week long experience makes me feel even shittier. It's moments like these where all I want to do is tackle Bradley and make the kind of rough passionate love only 2 men can then rest my head on his chest and fall asleep to the cadence of his breath and the beating of his heart. 12 more days...

God damn those last couple lines were the cheesiest things I have ever written! Also I am done bitching!

Lunch

2010-04-06T00:53:00.000-07:00

An unfortunate byproduct of being an ivy league alumn is having a whole bunch of entitled republican asshats as semi (almost but not really!)friends. I had dinner with one of these "friends" of mine recently and at some point we started talking about the ass raping happening with the Texas school board and their insane attempts to rewrite history with an extreme right conservative viewpoint. From editing out Jefferson because of his support of a separation of church and state, to completely ignoring or marginalizing the roles minorities and women played in history, their disgusting narrow minded audacity has no limits! They are even putting in apologists for the McCarthy hearings! They might as well just set fire to all the history books and start teaching history from old episodes of "Leave it to Beaver".

We agreed that Texas is fucking crazy and we need to get those people building a fence around our borders to go ahead and build it around Texas too. But my ivy league republican asshat of a semi (almost but not really!)friend, wouldn't really be who he is if he didn't say something that would piss me off and make me want to punch him in his perfectly exfoliated and moisturized face! One of the crazy Texas revisionist's clauses had to do with the Black Panthers. I am not a fan of who they were or what they represented, but I sympathize with them and I realize they were just the product of the oppressive society they came from. If I were put in similar circumstances I would very likely join an organization like that and raise hell any way I could. Somehow this got my ivy league republican asshat of a semi (almost but not really!)friend, all riled up and he went off on a tangent about minorities and their need to show their pride for their races (black history month, Asian history month, BET, etc.), and how he has a white man would never get to do something like that without being seen as a racist.

I really fucking hate it when white people try spewing that nonsense about not being able to show their "white pride". It's total bullshit and I am not even going to pretend to tolerate it! If somebody wanted to be show their "white pride" in front of me, I wouldn't think they were racist as much as I would think they were comple and total entitled ASSHOLES! To me, when I say “I’m proud to be Asian” what I am affirming is that I love my ethnicity despite society’s inability to perceive me as a part of it. So in these terms, if a person were to declare "I’m proud to be white” what they would be thinking is that they enjoy the advantages of being white over the disadvantages of being a minority.

I don't actually think there is anything wrong with being proud of your whiteness, but to say that outloud to me, or any minority, is pretty much like kicking me in the nuts. Yeah, I get it! It must be fantastic turning on the television and seeing people who look like you, to open a magazine and see people considered beautiful who, again, look like you, or to be able to walk into an interview in your natural state without having to worry about being perceived as too ethnic; I would totally be proud of that too. But YOU DON’T HAVE TO RUB IT IN. Millionaires don't walk around celebrating their millionaire pride because they know it's not okay to rub their good fortune in everybody else's face! They understand that what they were lucky enough to have makes them intrinsically different from those around them, and while they appreciate what they have, there is no need to walk around shoving it down everybody's throats.

I hate having this discussion with a white person because no matter what I say, they will NEVER understand! As somebody who has worked in the entertainment industry for years, I know this is more than just a chip on my shoulder. It's real, and for some reason white people just can't see it. Me just trying to explain the advantages a white person has over everybody else is a perfect example of these advantages because they have the advantage of not seeing the struggles the rest of us go through, while we get to experience first hand exactly what I am saying!

Needless to say, our discussion ended with neither side feeling like the other had heard them. At one point I just wanted to punch him in the throat because he wouldn't stop "yeah but"ing me! So when the urge finally got too strong to ignore, I thanked him for his company and let him know I was late for an imaginary appointment I had just made up and left immediately. It wasn't until I got to my car that I realized the reason why we'd had lunch was never discussed and if I was going to want his assistance I would have to meet with him again! I am not sure if spending any more time in the same general area as this guy is worth it... I guess time will tell.

NERDgasm!

2010-03-31T00:26:00.000-07:00

As you all know, I am a CS engineer. Which means I grudgingly yearn for all things new and innovative in the tech world. See, I am what most people would call, a walking contradiction. Because while one part of me goes apeshit for tech (the part that ALWAYS WINS OUT!), another part of me wants nothing more than to become a staunch Luddite smiting anybody with a cellphone or iPod! But I have to say after viewing this vid of the interface in action, my inner Luddite killed itself after seeing the light.

I know that this is just a concept being kicked around by the Microsoft gods; still I seriously just creamed my pants thinking about all the practical applications I could use this device for in my daily life! The iPad, like 99% of apple's products, is overhyped and fucking stupid! Don't even get me started because this entry will be 40 paragraphs long by the time I'm done with my tangent! Let's just say I have no respect for the over-privileged hipsters in the coffee shops with their macbook pros. You assholes just spent over $2000 on a device you use to check your email, watch porn, and occasionally write a word document. It's too much machine for most anybody that buys one and honestly, you look fucking ridiculous using it!

Whoa, I totally let that get away from me. MY POINT! This device needs to be made into a reality ASAP. With some kind of specialized tegra chip and an OLED display the battery life on something like this could be totally doable. I seriously haven't seen a user interface that got me this excited (and wasn't in some awful futuristic sci-fi movie) in YEARS!

Dear Microsoft gods,

If you make this concept a reality, I promise to upgrade all my computers to Windows 7, and openly heckle any and all apple users (more so than I do already). Also, if I ever have kids, I will give them up to you (what the fuck is a gay man with the attention span of a cocker spaniel doing with kids anyway?)

Thank you for listening Microsoft gods.

As always, your faithful costumer,

RGB

I made a scene...

2010-03-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of anger in me. I spend a large chunk of my daily life forcing a smile that I plaster across my face to throw people off. For the most part 99% of the people around me have no idea how angry I ALWAYS am. When I was a boy dealing with family violence, this man once told me if I smiled when I was sad I would always feel a little better. He also told me people would like me more if I was happy, even if I was faking it. Smiling never made me feel better, but it did get me more friends. So I began to care a lot about what people thought of me. It's why I work so hard at maintaining this generic effervescence I have spent a lifetime perfecting.

The problem is it doesn't work on everybody. The longer a person knows me and the closer they get to me, the easier it is for them to see right through me. It's the reason why I keep most people an arm's length away. I don't like it when people actually get passed all of my strategically placed emotional barriers. It's like they have caught me with my pants down. Except I am actually quite comfortable with my pants down so maybe that's a bad analogy... The thing is I prefer people to assume my entire life is, and always will be, sunshine and daisies. It's a sick compulsion that I am doing my best to rid myself of, but find myself failing miserably at every corner.

Monday I was having lunch with my new buddy Ted. We were laughing and joking around @ fatburger when in walks my ex-stepdad. I was in his face before I even had the chance to process what was going on. When it comes to this man, I just can't seem to control myself. When I was a child I saw him as this unstoppable force of nature capable of destruction beyond my comprehension. Nobody in the history of my life has ever been able to make me feel as small and insignificant as this man has. When I see him now, I see him for what he really is. Not some superhuman juggernaut, but a weak cowardly man scared of his own shadow. It makes me sick that I was actually afraid of him and I let him rob me of my masculinity when clearly he never had any of his own!

I wasn't planning on beating the crap out of him, we were in a restaurant after all; but I did feel the need to put a little fear in him. Then a couple dozen teenagers walked into the restaurant in the asshole's wake. Turns out my favorite wife beating, child abusing, meth addict is now a youth minister for a major local church. With this week being spring break, he's taken this opportunity to run a day camp so all these teens can get their daily dose of Jesus. Even I was able to see that a confrontation in this scenario would be in very poor taste, so I changed tactics. From the time the asshole walked in, to the time I realized that beating the shit out of him was a bad idea, I'd say about 20 seconds had gone by. Up until this point, unless you'd seen the mood I was in right before he walked in, it didn't seem out of place or abnormal in the slightest. So I still totally had a chance to walk away without making a scene. Unfortunately once I've been riled up, I don't really know how to wind myself down. I needed to get some kind of resolution or it was very likely I would have exploded.

This is when I remembered the teens the asshole was in charge of all crowded together in one large group. I walked right up to them and I said, "Excuse me guys, can I have your attention real quick? My name's RGB and I just wanted to let all of you know a little something about the asshole (I used his actual name with the teens, I didn't want to come off like an overly bitter ass so I even used his honorific "pastor" but for my purposes here, he's just "the asshole"). He abuses women and children with extreme physical violence and he's a meth addict." I lifted up my arm and pointed to my scar and I told them how he'd burned the skin off my arm with a frying pan after I tried to stop him from punching my pregnant mother in the face, which he ended up doing anyway. I told the teens that if I were them I wouldn't want to be learning anything Christian from a person like this and I would call my parents and ask them to pick me up immediately.

Then I walked back to my table and sat down with Ted, who was quite understandably, speechless. I had just made a relatively large scene in a very small space, so EVERYBODY there was aware of my zany shenanigans. You could hear the proverbial pin hitting the ground it was so quiet. I wasn't embarrassed at all though. I was actually quite pleased with myself in a deeply perverse and semi-disturbing way. Right around that point was when the defecation hit the oscillation. A lot of things happened all at once. A few of the kids actually pulled out their cell phones to call their parents because of what I said. Some of them were looking to the asshole to give him a chance to explain himself. And then there were the other youth leaders that were there. They walked over to me and started harassing me because they felt what I did was highly inappropriate and uncalled for. I knew what I'd done wasn't exactly appropriate, but I felt like under the circumstances I'd actually shown a whole lot of restraint. So when they accused me of being innapropriate, I just countered with, "so is beating a pregnant woman and having an addiction to methamphetamines. But that didn't seem to stop him.". Saying things like that really throws pious douche bags off balance, so I took their silence as my cue to leave.

I was riding a wave of euphoria all the way to the parking lot. That's when I realized that Ted was my ride! When we got in the car I tried pretending that what had just happened hadn't actually happened. It didn't work. So I changed tactics and tried to brush it off with a couple of jokes that were in extremely bad taste. Also didn't work. So I then tried to play it off like it wasn't really that big of a deal. FAIL! So I did what I do, and I got angry. I told him to fuck off, and when we got to a red light I got out of the car and just ran off in the other direction. And that was the end of that. Because I totally know how to be mature and handle my business like a grown up.

I don't really know what to do next. Obviously I am embarrassed over the way I acted, but only because it was in front of a friend not because what I did was douchey and wrong. I am not really sure what the protocol is here for this kind of situation, if only I had remembered to ask Ted to put his ear muffs on before I began my tirade then all of this comfortableness could have been avoided. You know what they say about hindsight...

Don't make this a big deal!

2010-03-12T23:46:00.000-08:00

I was going for ironically terrible (to the point where it was actually cool), but something went awry and it ended up just being terrible. Which in a way is kind of ironic... or maybe just really fucking unfortunate! God dammit Alanis Morissette has ruined the definition of irony for an entire generation!

B-day Partying!

2010-03-08T22:41:00.000-08:00

I just had a really crazy weekend that ended Sunday afternoon, but for some reason I am still recovering from it even though it is now Monday night! Jane flew in Wednesday night from D.C. to surprise Tyler, who was flying in the next day for his birthday extravaganza! 6 months ago Jane sold her soul to the devil and joined a lobbying firm. Basically she's the really hot chick that corporate fat cats use to entice the politicians to take their meetings. It's all quite crude and slimy yet lascivious as the same time. But that's also probably why she makes more in a month than I do in a year; well that and her Oxford undergrad/ Cornell grad degrees (overachievers like her totally make me sick!)!

Anywho, Tyler turned 28 a little over a week ago, and the dude really needed to let loose because his advancing geriatric years are really coming up fast! The villa was rented, the bar was stocked, and the clubs had velvet ropes placed around our VIP tables all over the strip. None of us are very big gamblers, but that's never stopped us from having fun in Vegas. We danced, we drank, we went into the champagne room for "private shows", we smoked some J, we took naps, and then we did it all again, and again, and again. In between all that Tyler got laid, a lot, and then a few more times. Jane and I flirted with hot guys all weekend, but there's only one slut between the 3 of us and we both called, "not it", way back in high school, so Tyler had to carry that burden all on his own.

By Saturday night we were DONE! We are just getting too old to go 72 hours without sleep anymore. We checked out of the hotel and decided to head over to Johnny's house where I had a cake waiting for Tyler, which I had made myself! (Yeah... I'm conflicted... I am both ashamed and proud of my cake... Too much "Ace of Cakes" does things to your head... Starts to make you think fondant cakes really aren't all that difficult... Then all of a sudden it's midnight, you're feeling extremely tired and a little defeated and BAM! You have a cake that looks like it was made by a 9 yr old using paper mache and lumpy paste... Originally I was going to post a pic of the cake for everybody to see, then I sent the pic to a few friends including Matt @ DTB to see what they thought and Matt in particular was so patronizingly sweet about it that I knew it was even worse looking than I originally thought! So nobody else gets to see the monstrosity!) Johnny was really good at pretending to be impressed with my unfortunate baking debacle, but in the end it was alright because it tasted way better than it looked and we devoured the evidence quickly!

The next 24 hours were spent lounging around the house catching up with each other and our crazy lives. With all of us being in different time zones, it's been hard to set some time aside and just talk about nothing. This really allowed us to reconnect and just be our stupid selves without worrying about wasting time or any of the other normal nonsense life always seems to throw into the mix. It was definitely my favorite part of the weekend, and I wish there was a way we could manage to do this like once a month because it was seriously one of the best days I have had in months. I really fucking love my friends!

Me and Johnny

2010-03-05T01:01:00.000-08:00

A couple months ago somebody wrote me an email and asked me a whole bunch of questions. One of those questions was about how Johnny and I had become friends because ever since my “ass kicking Johnny” post people have always been a little curious to learn how we became buds. Now that I am spending the next 3 weeks here in Las Vegas with him, and I can't seem to fall asleep, I think I can spare the time to tell that story.

Johnny and I have known each other since we were 7, but we didn't become friends until well after I turned 13. Johnny is actually one of the very few friends that I have that is my age. We never really had much interaction with each other in school because we were in separate grades, but we did see a lot of each other in martial arts classes. So beside his name, and the fact that he was a very good fighter, I never really took the time to learn anything else about him. That all changed the summer of 1998.

The year preceding 98 I was getting into a lot of trouble. I was a very angry kid acting out against my parents by staying out all night, defacing public property, and drinking on a regular basis. By the time that summer came along I had been arrested 6 times for a plethora of reasons all of which I was extremely guilty of, but due to my stellar scholastic achievements as well as my Varsity extracurriculars, not to mention my very rich dad, I kept getting passes.

Finally all parties involved had had enough and they decided that I needed a reality check. So the juvenile court judge sentenced me to 6 months of incarceration at a juvenile detention facility that was to be reduced to 2 months with one year of probation so I could conveniently be incarcerated in the summer months where it wouldn't effect my schooling or my sports schedule. Looking back it's almost comical the way they basically bent backwards to accommodate me and make sure there were no real inconveniences to me or my life. From sealing my records so it wouldn't effect my varsity status, to letting me out in time for my academic decathlon summer training session the week before school started.

I noticed Johnny the very first day in “juvenile detention”. I walked right up to him and started a conversation, I don't even remember what it was about, but from that moment on we were best friends. That summer bonded us in such a deep and uniquely personal way that I will never be able to fully express with words of how grateful I am for the experience. In general, I look back at juvenile detention with fondness and view it as a very positive time. We went to group therapy sessions together where we learned each other's life stories and we discovered that we both came from a very similar fucked up family life. We cried, grew, and learned together, and by the end we weren't even close to the people we came into this situation being.

The one thing about my summer incarceration that I remember even more than Johnny was how Tyler and Mrs. Tyler visited me more than my own parents. I remember before I left to serve my time, Tyler was practically in tears because he was so scared something bad was going to happen to me. My entire life he was the guy that had my back in any and every difficult or socially awkward situation I had ever been in, but now he couldn't help me. He swore to me he'd be there every visiting day no matter what, and he was. After he found out that I'd found somebody that I have known for years there with me and we were now good friends, our visits even took on a fun and lighthearted mood that had been lacking the first few weeks.

Johnny finished serving his time a week before I did, and that last week without him was the first time during my entire incarceration where I actually felt like I was being punished. To this day, that was probably one of the longest weeks in my life. After I got out, Johnny and I got together a few times and we had problems clicking like we had before. We were in different grades, at different schools, and we lived in different cities, so we really had to struggle at first to maintain our friendship.

I can't really remember the point where it stopped being awkward and everything just fell into place, but eventually it did happen. And I know that I am luckier than any other man on the planet because of our friendship. More than Tyler, or even Bradley, Johnny and I can relate to each other like nobody else can, and it has nothing to do with being incarcerated together. Johnny knows what it's like to come from a home with an abusive parent, he knows what it feels like to be the oldest sibling doing everything he could to protect the ones he loves. He knows what it feels like to break under all that pressure and just want to die for not being able to be strong enough. I love him as much as I love Tyler, and I love them both as much as I love my 2 blood related brothers.

Matt, I just had an epiphany that I am now sharing with you as well as all my readers. I am not going to lie, your last post made me really sad for more reasons than I really even understood after first reading it. Whether you are talking about friendships or relationships, you can't expect to ever be everything to any one single person. Like parfaits, onions, and ogres, we all have layers. The goal in life isn't to find a person that can't live without you, but to find people that YOU could never live without! If Brad, Tyler, or Johnny ever asked me to choose just one of them over the rest, I'd probably die because I can't imagine my life without all of them in it. I have never been jealous or worried about them replacing me with somebody else because at the end of the day just knowing that I would be there for them when they needed me has always been enough. When I was in jail Tyler wasn't jealous for a second that I had made a friend that in essence had replaced him, he was happy I wasn't alone, and to me that's what friendship is. That's why your opening statement really bothers me so much! Anybody who tries to marginalize you as a person isn't really your friend, but at the same time investing in a friendship only to see what you can get out of it isn't a real friendship either. I don't know if I am anybody's favorite person, and I don't know if I am the one guy any of my friends would choose if forced to make that decision (because these are not questions I have ever really asked myself); but what I do know is I need them, and that's enough for me.

Seller's remorse

2010-02-28T21:32:00.000-08:00

This weekend I was part of a collaborative art show where a lot of artists put a few of their pieces up to be sold with a portion of the proceeds going to charity. I have known about this show for months and I have been slowly but surely working on what I would be submitting to the foundation for just as long. I had 3 completed and ready to go, which was exactly what I promised, but at the last minute the organizer asked me if I would be comfortable with submitting a 4th one if I received a larger percentage of the profit for my work. I told him that I didn't really care about the money and I already had something in mind for my 4th piece.

There was this one piece that I was extremely proud of, and it was this collage I made with found objects from the backseat of my car after Bradley and I took a long weekend vacation up north. The finished result looked really cool and super modern; definitely something that would be featured prominently in some NY hipter's loft right where the television should be. But more than that it was extremely personal and everything about that collage dripped with sentimentality in a way that kind of made it really difficult to look at, especially with Brad gone. So I packed it up and decided to sell this little piece of my soul for a little peace of mind.

I got as far as hanging it on the wall before I started to have regrets. At first I tried to ignore them, and as the regrets intensified I decided to go for a walk to try and calm my nerves. I was about 3 blocks away from Eddie's production company so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to drop by and say hello. By the time I got there I was practically hysterical! So I ran right into the building and straight up to his office, where luckily he was in the middle of some super intense project and I proceeded to incoherently babel on and on about this huge mistake I just made.

10 minutes later I was finally calm enough to actually explain what my drama was and began brainstorming ways to get myself out of this dilemma. Obviously the most logical thing to do was go to the organizer and just explain to him that I'd made a mistake and didn't want to sell that piece anymore, but I didn't really want to let somebody outside my circle of friends know how crazy I actually am. At first I tried rationalizing that my artwork was definitely not that great, and in this market the likelihood of me selling ANYTHING was slim to none. Then I thought that what if this was the day when all of a sudden people magically appreciated what I was trying to do here and everything sold in 10 seconds!? In the end my narcissism won out, so I decided that Eddie would walk into the gallery with me the second it opened and buy the piece back for me! That way the charity gets some money, I get my collage back, and nobody figures out that I am some insane freak with serious issues.

In the end it all worked out for the best. Eddie bought my collage like we planned, and I ended up making 2 legit sales that night! I didn't actually get to take my collage home with me because it needs to stay up for the entire run of the show. So I think I am going to be a little bit on edge until it's back home with me. Luckily for me I am taking off to Vegas for my visit with Johnny first thing in the morning and I won't be back until the day the collage is supposed to be delivered, so hopefully I will find enough things to do in the devil's playground to occupy my time! ;) My god am I crazy or what!? If I had to look somebody in the face while telling this story, it would never be told. It's just sooo embarrassing. I was sooo lucky Eddie was there to bail me out of my bad situation like that.

Just one more day...

2010-02-24T00:03:00.000-08:00

A couple nights ago all the cousins my age decided to go for a walk down this road out passed the rice fields and fish farms. The sun was just starting to set and the colors in the sky were ablaze with crazy purples and yellows at the horizon.

I haven't really had a lot of time to observe all the natural beauty that the Philippines has to offer because I have been to busy soaking in the humanity of it all, but watching this sunset was breathtaking. We sat on rocks around the water and we just talked about life and all the craziness that happens here and in the US. It was a fun evening bonding with my cousins and I really enjoyed it. Around 8 Enrique suggested we go out to the city and hit the clubs. Jordan HATES clubbing but I don't mind it so much, so I decided to go for it!

We got busted on the way out of the small village that night. We were pulling out of the gas station, and Enrique was still putting on his seat belt. We were flagged to pull over by a Policeman on the side of the road. Preparing for a true 3rd world experience I stashed my camera under the spare tire. I tried to look away so they didn't see I was white back there, but it didn't matter with the limo tint on all sides. Enrique and his girlfriend stood around and smoked with the officers while they were writing up the ticket, and then his girlfriend flashed her mom's business card, who works within the Philippine's equivalent of the Whitehouse. This improved our relationship with the cops, and reduced our ultimate payoff quantity. They ended up slipping him 200 pesos, or something like 4 dollars American, and we were free to go. I couldn't stop laughing at that. A couple hours later we were dancing to truly terrible pop and some very unique rap music. It was an all around fun evening out and I am really happy I was able to do something like that with my cousins whom I will very likely not see again for many years to come.

Yesterday I was starting to feel malnourished, and my threshold for exotic cuisine just got lower and lower. I'd eat some rice at each meal, but as hungry as I was, the sight, smell, or idea of more "main course" would ruin my appetite. I'd chew the garlic rice mechanically, just chewing and swallowing enough to be socially acceptable. So imagine my surprise when at the mall I saw that they had KFC... Unfortunately the chicken was disgusting, but edible. There was also a biscuit sized/shaped thing wrapped in biscuit paper but it was just too heavy to be a delicious biscuit. It was rice. In all of my travels all over the world I have noticed that if there is a KFC, they NEVER have biscuits unless that KFC happens to be in America! What the hell is up with that!?

Today the family had a medium come over to channel the spirits of family members past. My lola didn't want anything to do with it, so she stayed up in the bedroom while everyone was downstairs for the circus. It was crap, of course, but with so many suggestible Catholics around and pained sentiments of loss, the emotional effect of the spectacle was strong. The medium spoke in funny voices, imitated their great grandfather, but couldn't come up with the voice of my grandmother's brother. The medium just cried and cried, and said that in the night between 11 and 1 he would appear and do X number of creepy ghost things, like stroke their hair and so on.

Tonight the neighborhood was dark from a rolling brownout. So we lit a bunch of candles and heated some food. The big treat for me was that one of my aunts had made completely normal spaghetti with meat sauce! A few bites into it I looked closely, and there were tiny mosquitoes stuck all over the noodles! I realized that since they were just flying around at random instead of collecting near light fixtures it was only logical that they would end up in my spaghetti. I thought abstractly about how that would be off-putting to someone back in California, but I wasn't put off in the least. It was delicious. So sooooo delicious!

I am soo completely ready to go home and could not be happy that tomorrow is the day when my dreams will come true! I am sorry that I didn't like being here more I know that I am a terrible Filipino, but I am only 1/4 Filipino so I mean I should at least get points for speaking the language even though I am not so much a fan of the island itself... I am very glad that I came though because family is important to my grandmother and this gave her a chance to see all the people she'd left behind all those years ago. They were all just so open and giving! Even though nobody had much to give, they kept on sharing anyway, and it was a very humbling experience to be around people like this and be able to call them my family. Through all my complaining and misery I definitely got a sense of love and family through these strangers that I seldom experience with people I am related to and have known my entire life. BUT like I said, I am SOOOOOO ready to go home! I think I am getting a rash from all the bug spray I have been applying and I really need my tempur-pedic mattress and to never again have to share a bed with my cousin Jordan (he snores SO FUCKING LOUD!). Less that 24 hours to go!

Shopping for groceries

2010-02-22T00:21:00.000-08:00

To clarify, less than a week has passed since my arrival to the PI, but for me, it's felt like it's been about a month. By some combination of the heat, waking up at the crack of dawn, and the ordeal of trying to get through each meal, the days seemed to stretch FOREVER. I have been reverted to elementary school time, where everything is new and engrossing, and you say things like "I'm 6 and a quarter years old." It's very satisfying compared to daily working life, where a month can go by and you almost don't notice it. Back to the daily grind though, Jordan and I get woken up every morning morning at sunrise to a chorus of roosters and two-stroke engines so loud and comical that you're imagining it too conservatively right now. I'm going to keep the written descriptions short to save time, as they're useless without intense gesticulations and sound effects anyway. So everything that I have done since I have arrived has been done with very little sleep, a slight tinge of crankiness and severe hunger.

I guess the custom in these funeral procedures is to feed the whole countryside for a few days with these massive feasts that never seem to end. So on the first morning, after eating a hearty breakfast of some kind of fish with a nice warm glass of caribou milk, freshly squeezed... unpasteurized (just take a moment to let that sink in)...

Breakfast!

The first order of business was to pick up some fresh meat product, so Jordan and I joined a few aunts and a housekeeper on a trip to the "dirty market" (their phrasing). Jordan and I aren't completely culturally ignorant, we both speak Tagolog (though we both do have very heavy and easily heard american accents), and we've both clocked many hours of watching TFC with our grandmother so we felt prepared for this endeavor. The drive to the market, as with most experiences here on the island, defies description... you're breathing a combination of diesel, two stroke oil, general poultry smell, and the occasional trash fire blowing across roads choked with scooters, buggies, jeeps, bicycles, market stalls, and people just walking around. Lanes are created and dissolved dynamically, and intersections are a four-way game of chicken. The shock wore off by the second or third mile, but never the sense of impending doom.

The aunts were adamant about me keeping my camera out of view... I guess the general consensus of someone stabbing me to take it was about 50%. It was overcast that morning anyway, so none of the point-and-shoot pics were any good.

Like the picture above, which is just for reference-- it doesn't tell you ANYTHING about the place. You don't get the pungent smell, the water dripping on you from the awnings, black mud all over your sandaled feet and legs, or the weird things they were selling on either side.

YUM! Fertile mothers!

The butcher was in a warehouse off to the side, within a thousand square feet of butcher's stalls packed together. Sausage, entrails, and livers were hung on hooks above the working tables, and the hooks that weren't in use were caked with blood. There was an inch of water and whatever else on the floor, adding much to an atmosphere of which the picture betrays little.

The flash was fairly bold at that point because Jordan and I were already pretty much the center of attention by that point. Everything from our crazy american clothes to Jordan's super angloid features got more attention than that time I went streaking down Water St. in NYC. The people at the market were mostly old and weathered, and they stared at us with completely inscrutable looks. We were pretty far out from Manila, and I doubt a place even as cosmopolitan as the “dirty market” gets many westerners so I guess I could at least understand where they were coming from.

Butchers casually swatted these with their cutting knives.

Saying I am a bit culture shocked would be a huge understatement. In America we've become extremely good at creating this disassociation between that slice of bacon we fry up and the actual pig it comes from. In places like here it's really in your face and impossible to play those abstract mind games that make it possible to enjoy those slices of bacon. Everything is only one degree away from it's source and it's all way too overwhelming to try and absorb and be okay with all at once. I know that I am sounding like a whiny bitch, but I am doing this here so that nobody has to hear me complain in real life, which oddly enough is just cathartic enough to do the trick! I have gotten pretty chummy with Enrique these last few days so we are going to go out and have some young people's fun tonight, so hopefully things will get better.

A funeral across the ocean

2010-02-21T01:31:00.000-08:00

I am currently in the Philippines. I am here escorting my grandmother and my younger cousin Jordan to her oldest brother's funeral, a man whom I've never met. I am not really big on coming back to the motherland, and usually I do my best to avoid conversations even remotely related to visiting the P.I. but my grandmother asked me to come and there's no way in hell I could ever say no to her, SO HERE I AM...

I don't even know where to start with this whole experience! Sigh... Let's go from the plane. The flight was very long, but otherwise uneventful. We were made to sit through three bafflingly stupid movies, who's names escape me at the moment. One was about platonic teenage vampire/werewolf love in the northwest, or so it appeared without sound. Another was exploiting civil-rights struggles to a sentimental effect with more Dakota Fanning. And the other was about a roller derby and Juno.

We landed in Manila crazy late at night and we were met by my cousin Enrique (it was the first time I was meeting him) and he helped us gather our luggage and pack it into his crazy looking diesel minivan. The last time I was here I hadn't really hit puberty just to give you guys a reference point... I tried to get pictures of Manila as we were driving out but it was too dark and dusty so nothing really came out very clear. Manila was... I don't even have the time or words to describe it right.

My dead great uncle's house is WAY THE FUCK out in the countryside, so we had a 2 hour drive to contemplate the universe and such, as we all sat in awkward silence. At first we tried to make small talk, but it's really hard to not be awkward when a man that you've never met is dead and everybody but you is grieving about it. So I pulled out my ipod and I covertly slipt an earbud into my ear while I blasted some tuneage.

When we got to the house, Jordan and I were to be sharing a mat at the top of the stairs. It is extremely hot and humid here, so we each took "showers" before sleeping. The bathroom is completely tiled with a a central drain, and to shower you ladle water over yourself out of a 5 gallon bucket. It would have been off-putting, if it weren't so hot. It's actually very conservative, and since showering 3 times a day in the heat I've grown fond of it.

Mosquitoes above our mat

We have to leave now and meet the aunties in the mall. To be continued...

Making plans

2010-02-16T19:25:00.001-08:00

I am not going to spend an entire post talking about how I came out to my friend so I will make this short. I think I made the decision to tell Ted I like cock when he started referring to Brad using "they" and "person" whenever the subject was brought up and I realized that it just sounded ridiculous! I also felt like Bradley deserved a lot more than to be referred to as some androgynous nobody and that was just unacceptable to me. Why the fuck was I trying to dance around this like it was a huge deal when clearly it's not!? The more I heard the "they's and person's" the more I realized how stupid I was being so I just let him know that my "person" was a dude named Brad and that was that.

We hired somebody at the end of last week who will be trained to take over my position with the company. I really like him and I really enjoy transitioning out of this hell hole because I now will only spend about 20 hours a week in the office! Right now it's all about figuring out what I am going to do once I am free of the corporate strings that are tying me down. My first adventure is going to be a 3 week trip to Vegas to spend some quality time with Johnny. He's been living there full time since his MMA career started taking off, and we haven't been able to do anything substantial together in a really long time. I am pretty excited to get in the ring with him and show him some of the Muay Thai bad-assness I have picked up, so in the meantime I have been training (and will continue to train) extra hard until my trip to Vegas in about a month.

I was actually talking to Johnny earlier today and he told me that I should move to Vegas with him until I start my summer plans. But honestly, could you give up a view like this to live in a desert? I live in perfection and I don't think I will ever give that up for anywhere else in the world.

By the time I do get back from my Vegas trip with Johnny it will already be the end of March and it will already be time for me to think about summer camp again. I know I said that last year was going to be my last year, but I think I have one more summer in me, and I honestly don't have anything better to do, so why the fuck not? Right? I am planning a mid-April trip to Brad and I am trying to decide if this is a good idea or not. I don't want to come off like I am being clingy or anything, even though all I want to do is cling. Brad and I have never been about playing games or anything, but I would be lying if I didn't say that things are a little different the second time around in our relationship... I have already made up my mind to go, I just haven't decided how I am going to play it once I get there. Lucky for me I still have a few months to agonize over the finer details of that trip!

I made a friend.

2010-02-10T00:07:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago I decided I only needed to work a half day because I wanted to pick up a couple of parts for my vintage motor vehicle. I went down to San Pedro to this place that carries specialized parts that I needed, and on my way I passed by this martial arts gym with THE HOTTEST GUY I HAVE EVER SEEN hitting the heavy bag with some pretty impressive moves. Seriously, I almost crashed my car drooling over this guy! It was FREEZING outside, but in this gym it must have been hot because he was only wearing shorts and the sweat was just glistening all over his perfectly sculpted body. I immediately pulled my car over, cutting through 2 lanes of traffic in the process, just so I could walk into the gym and perve over this guy while taking my time.

Up close he was even hotter! I think I have said it a million times, I have no respect for "gym bodies", I like it when a man's body is a reflection of what he's passionate about; running, surfing, martial arts, cycling, etc. Gym bodies are all about vanity and that really just rubs me the wrong way! ANYWAY, back to this guy, and his muscles, and his glistening sweaty body, GOD DAMN I WANTED TO JUST LICK HIM HEAD TO TOE! After about 5 minutes of staring he stopped, smiled at me, and asked me if there was anything he could help me with. Of course asking him to keep doing what he was doing while I masturbated was out of the question, so I casually explained to him that I have always been fascinated with Muay Thay and I was really impressed with his form (which wasn't exactly a lie). An hour later (with his shirt off the entire time) I learned that his name was Ted, and he had the full history of my martial arts background and invited me to a couple of the classes at his gym.

As work has been winding down I have been spending more and more time at the gym to fill those lonely hours, so Ted and I have become fast friends. We've gone surfing, done some downhill mountain biking in OC, and we even had this awesome night of bar trivia over the weekend. It's not sexual or anything, because even though he's hot, he's not Bradley; besides I am pretty sure he's all about the kitty if his girlfriend of 10 years is any indication. What I am trying to work my way up to in this post is that I have finally come to the point that every gay man happens to find himself at when he's getting acquainted with new people, and that's the when and how to come out problem. On the few occasions we have found ourselves on the topic of significant others I have always found a way to strategically remain genderless and vague yet still express how I am in a deeply committed relationship with somebody that I love very much.

At this point I kind of feel like I am the one with the problem here. It's like even though I am okay with being gay, I am not okay with people looking at me differently because of this fact. Ted's a cool guy and I am probably doing him a huge disservice by not being honest and giving him the chance to be okay with it, but I feel like I have been burned too many times to really want to put myself out there like that. But in the end I think it's just all an excuse because I am really not all that comfortable with my sexuality yet. I sometimes wonder if this feeling of dread and despair ever goes away or if this is just a huge insecurity I am going to live with the rest of my life because I am weak. I shouldn't feel like telling somebody that I am gay is the equivalent to walking the plank, but the fact that I do makes me feel deeply ashamed. Am I being too hard on myself, or is this normal? I am kind of going crazy over this because each time when confronted with these situations I always have to deal with this crazy anxiety! I NEED TO KNOW! Does this ever go away?

It's almost over!

2010-02-04T00:04:00.001-08:00

Before I started my current job, my team of programmers had been working on this project for 6 months. In that time they didn't really get a whole lot done because they lacked leadership. They had a leader, but he didn't really have what it took to get things done. So the company decided to bring in a badass who knew how to make shit happen. Today at work I TOTALLY FINISHED THE PROJECT I HAVE BEEN SLAVING OVER FOR THE LAST 3 MONTHS!! And not to brag or anything, but I finished it 2 months ahead of schedule.

They've asked me to stay on with the company permanently, but I politely yet emphatically declined. It really blows being good at everything I try because every time I do a good job with it people assume its my calling! They didn't want me to go, but I didn't want to stay, so we worked out a compromise where I stay and help search for the guy who'll replace me. I'll be honest, the only reason why I didn't just quit immediately was because I didn't trust myself to NOT jump on a plane right that second and fly to Bradley. I need to make it at least 2 months before I jump on a plane or this is just going to be all kinds of unhealthy.

Today I left work while the sun was still out and I went for a run then I took a shower, AND THE SUN WAS STILL OUT! I know I am still chained to this craptastic job that I hate more than life itself, but now that I basically just have to sit around and watch youtube vids all day things are really starting to look up for me. I am completely wired thinking about what I am going to do after this programming shtick is over and done with. I have been getting a buttload of offers from art jobs, to production jobs and a bunch of offers somewhere along that spectrum. No sleep will be had in the house of RGB tonight because my brain is about to explode thinking about all the possibilities.

Care Package!

2010-01-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

The problem with masturbation and me is my crappy wrists and my inability to climax in under 10 minutes. After a couple of minutes my wrists start to ache, then after 5 they start to burn like they were on fire, and this is when I usually give it up with 2 burning wrists and a set of aching blue balls! So needless to say, January started off with lots of sexual frustration and unusable appendages. THEN, this week I received a care package from my boyfriend. In it was a fleshjack, a couple of really REALLY HOT pics of Bradley, and a time when I could get him on video-chat for some live action. Who knew there was a device out there that could alleviate all my pain and bring me SO MUCH GOD DAMN PLEASURE!?

There's something about being able to get intimate with my boyfriend that calmed me down even more than a good wank. I have been sooo stressed out by work and all my extracurriculars I have taken on so I wouldn't have any free time to think about how I have become a lonely spinster with no boyfriend and no best friend to pass the time with. Between my 60 hour weeks in the office, the 2 postcards I promised to design for my favorite nonprofit, and the recreational sports team I decided to join, I don't actually get to sleep anymore. But after Bradley's first video chat with me, I slept for 11 hours straight!

I don't really even know what the point of this post is, except to say that I was in serious need of some sexual release and I FINALLY GOT IT! SWEET SWEET RELEASE! Also the sex aside, it really made me feel good that Brad was all the way where he was and he's still thinking about me; taking care of me. I miss him so much it hurts. I know it really hasn't been that long since he left, but it's just the idea of how long he's actually going to be gone that's psyching me out. I totally understand that all this was was a sexual aid and some nude photos, but it was so much more than that to me. I am so whipped it's all kinds of pitiful! But I am damn proud that I am.

self-pity party!

2010-01-13T19:42:00.000-08:00

I have been listening to a whole lot of Say Anything lately. I swear, me and Max Bemis would have so much fun terrorizing the town it's not even funny! They would make after school specials warning all the other kids of such deviant behavior and our story would be told over and over each time growing more and more fantastic with each retelling until we became legends!

This month I said goodbye to two of the most important men in my life, my best friend and my boyfriend. Tyler is moving to Chicago for his Master's degree and I am freaking out a whole lot without my partner in crime. But compounding my heartache is my fucking boyfriend shipping off across the ocean to one of Europe's most distinguished learning institutions! I am trying to not make a big deal out of this. I haven't lost my best friend, he's just going to school in a different state. I haven't broken up with the love of my life, he just prefers to live in a different fucking continent than I do!

Tyler's been gone a week and I am already flying up to see him this Friday for the long holiday weekend. Before Tyler left we threw one of the biggest parties of our lives that culminated in a lost bet and crazy shenanigans in freezing cold water on a beach with no sand, just really sharp and jagged rocks! In the morning Tyler was so hungover he almost missed his flight, and we only had time for a brief hug and a good solid chest bump before he took off. LA hasn't been the same since he left and if it weren't for the fact that I am flying up to see him in 2 days, I would very likely be in the deepest funk of my life thinking about life without my number one homie.

Before Brad left we spent some serious time in bed before he put a ring on my finger. I was LIVID! Who the fuck did he think he was, thinking I was going to be okay with a FUCKING RING ON MY FUCKING FINGER!? I think my thoughts were written all over my face because Brad started explaining what it was all about real quick. First he started off by explaining that if 2009 taught him anything it was that if he liked it then he better put a ring on it. So I punched him as hard as I could in the arm and gave him one more chance to save himself from being murdered in my bed! So he began again but this time he was way serious. He started by bringing up how we never really talked about what was going to happen with our relationship while he was abroad. He swore to me that he had no expectations of any kind where "WE" were concerned, except that I keep him with me always and love him as much as he loves me. This ring wasn't his way of marking his territory with me, but just a reminder that he belonged to me and this is his way of acknowledging that this time apart isn't going to be easy.

The thing about me is when the emotions start to flare up I begin to shut down. It doesn't matter if these emotions are good or bad, they just have to be strong, and I am instantly rendered a cylon. Brad knew exactly how to approach this in a way that I could handle, which is NO EASY TASK; I am 12 kinds of crazy and not even apologizing for it! If that's not love then I honestly don't know what is. I will wait for him as long as it takes without breaking a sweat because this man is willing to jump through hoops just so he can find a way to tell me he loves me without me freaking out about it. I am a hard person to love, so of course I am going to hold onto him through this no matter what, because what are the chances anybody else out there is going to be willing to put up with all my shit!?

I know that I still have a million friends all around me, but for some reason I am feeling crazy lonely! Like all the people that matter in my life are off having adventures while I sit at home and slave away in an office. It feels awkward being on this end of a goodbye. I am usually the one taking off on some kind of adventure, it's like karma came after me with a vengeance! Like I said before, I am trying to not get too down about this because NOTHING has ended! There's just a little more distance between me and the people I love than I am used to.

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T10:55:00.000-08:00

FAVORITE SONG OF 2009!

This has quite possibly been one of the best weeks of my 24 years on planet Earth. I am ending this year with the biggest goofiest grin plastered across my face and it feels pretty damn good! For anybody that really knows me, they know goofy grins are like the opposite of who I am as a person; so it's kind of a big deal! This is one of those crazy moments where it actually feels good to be me. Happy new year everybody!

Give it up for the ladies...

2009-12-24T09:02:00.000-08:00

Taking Back Sunday: 12 Days of Christmas | Music Videos | SPIKE.com

This year has been crazy! Thinking about how it started, I feel extremely grateful it's ending in such a positive way. There's so much love in my life, from my friends, to my family, to my boyfriend. It feels pretty amazing to be me right about now!

I just wanted to wish everybody a VERY Merry Christmas! I hope all of you guys are with people that will make you smile this holiday and are getting ready for some crazy awesome festivities over the next couple days. Don't forget to pace yourselves and drink plenty of fluids! Once again, Merry Christmas!

long week

2009-12-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

This has been the BUSIEST week of my life! Last Saturday I drove up North to be with Bradley because he finished his semester and we haven't had a lot of time this last month because of his finals and my crazy work schedule. It worked out well that he and I take a long weekend with each other because I needed to be in NorCal for some business on Tuesday.

I am kind of known for my "action sports" (I fucking hate that label!) productions. I have a very strong idea of how I want things to be perceived when I am shooting and editing a project and I won't stop until I get EXACTLY what I want. I am known for my unique style and I guess it's pretty easy to spot me in anything I have done because, if you know what you are looking for, I leave myself all over everything I do and I guess people like that. What can I say? In those early developmental years I was seriously affected by Jason Lee's (Side note: Jason Lee used to be the most awesome guy EVER in my eyes! Both as a skater and a person I thought this dude was AWESOME! Then he had to go and ruin it with this fucking Chipmunks SQUEAKQUEL BULLSHIT! FUCK YOU JASON LEE! YOU CAN HAVE YOUR AIRWALKS BACK CUS I DON'T WANT THEM ANYMORE!) skate videos in the early 90's, and shit like that has stayed with me the rest of my life!

ANYWAY, this company up north asked me to meet with them because they wanted me to work with them on this MASSIVE project for this new series of related videos. They had a super impressive sales pitch and I got WAY excited listening to what was actually being offered to me. I have never been offered so much creative control with a company this large and at some point I am pretty sure I squealed out loud thinking about it! The issue is that I just don't have the time to dedicate myself to something like this. I am working 60 hour weeks and I am going to be tied down to this job until at least April. Yeah this new opportunity is crazy amazing, but I made a commitment and that's a lot more important to me than some bullshit job. Granted if I hadn't made the commitment to Mr. Tyler, I probably would have quit, but I did so now I am going to see it through to the end no matter what gets thrown in my face along the way.

After the sales pitch was done and I had regretfully turned them down (seriously I think I had to fight back tears at one point), I hopped on a plane and flew down to LA where Brad was waiting for me at the airport. From there we had 2 1/2 hours to get to my house, pack, and then get to the airport. Which basically meant I had 20 minutes to pack my shit into a suitcase or I would miss my flight to NYC, and seeing as it was the last flight to NYC for the day, it would screw up the rest of my week if I did! Somehow we managed to get home, pack, and then drive back to the airport in the time alloted.

We were flying to NYC because I recently sold a few painting at this gallery my friend works for, and the guy who bought them wanted to meet me. When it comes to being an "artist" I am torn on my feelings about it. On one hand I sometimes enjoy being artistic, but on the other I FUCKING HATE THE ART SCENE A LOT! It's full of overly pretentious fakes that all just need to get a swift punch in the face to knock their smug self satisfied snarls into next Tuesday. This kind of attitude makes it difficult to be a successful artist because 9/10 of being successful is networking in these circles and honestly I'd rather make a living giving hand jobs in an alleyway.

My whole NYC trip lasted a day and a half. It was short, unsatisfying and kind of sucked in every way it could. After we checked in, I decided to take a walk to my old apartment building. It made me a little sad walking passed the building and not really being able to go up to my old place, but it was also kind of important visually confirming that this was no longer mine. Next I met with my friend who sold the paintings and she briefed me on the guy who bought them and what he's like. She told me all about the questions he had as a buyer and what he was expecting from this encounter with me. I felt like a cheap whore. Afterward, I met the guy. I could tell I wasn't what he expected, I seldom am. Toward the end of our meeting he asked if I would be open to working on something personal for him. I told him I was booked solid until September, and politely declined his offer.

The next morning Brad and I woke up around 8 and had to get to the airport for our noon flight back to LA. By the time we got back to my house in LA it was dark and I was exhausted! I had work the next day and was completely dreading it because all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep until Monday! It felt like I had just closed my eyes when my alarm went off at 8am the next morning. Bradley was already awake and had made breakfast and a large pot of coffee. The lucky bastard was going to lounge around the house all day and then meet me at my office around 4pm for my office Christmas party. I was in a pretty bad mood when I got into the office, and it was only further exacerbated turning on the lights and walking into my office (this is going to get it's own post once I have had time to process what's going on in there, but for now let's just say its a shock to the system).

Though technically I only was in the office for 5 hours, it was a long day! Brad arrived at my office on time and upon seeing the newly redecorated space, began to laugh hysterically. I kissed him to shut him up and then I realized that I hadn't told anybody in the office I am gay so this was probably not only inappropriate, but a huge shock to anybody looking. Lucky for me I was so far passed caring that I just enjoyed the moment and filed it away to stress out about at a later time. We had a few hours to kill before the party so we went to a local skatepark and shred the gnar for awhile until we were nice and sweaty. That was definitely what I had needed all week long, because after we were done I was in a much better mood and actually feeling like smiling for the first time since the week started. We showered and went to the work Christmas party, had a decent time, then went home and had an even better time ;).

The office is closed until January and I am so elated that I keep on spontaneously screaming out in excitement whenever I think about it. I have no idea what I am doing this week, but I hope it involves long naps, lots of alcohol, and plenty of marijuana.

Part 2

2009-12-14T21:25:00.001-08:00

The crux of the drama centered around my mother and my sisters. It's been slow progress but I definitely feel like little by little they are opening up to the idea of having a couple of gays in the family. Through a combination of my patience and my brother's impatience, they have been gradually warming up to the fact that this isn't going away and they can't change it. Then I drop this bombshell on my little bro, also known as my blog, and my brother goes from being impatient with them to being DONE with them.

I know I have said that I could care less about a relationship with my mother and I still mean it, BUT it kills me that my little brother might be doing the same thing! Family is the most important thing in the world to me and I can't even deal with the idea that my brother might lose a part of his over me. We spent all night talking and crying, and arguing and crying some more. Outside of Bradley and maybe Tyler, Never in my life have I ever communicated so much of myself to another person in such a small period of time. It was quite possibly the most emotionally exhausting thing I have ever done EVER. In the end I definitely think we became a lot closer than we have ever been and it felt good thinking about my little brother as somebody who's there to look out for me like I do for him. We also decided that he wasn't going to read my blog anymore because we all need a little privacy and this is mine and he respects that.

Still he wasn't done. The thing about my brother is he's a spoiled rotten brat that doesn't really understand things like tact or respect for those who don't agree with him. He's the baby of the family and he's spent his whole life being taken care of by his 5 older siblings and dealing with 2 parents that have been worn down by the half dozen kids that came before him. Without my permission, he printed out that post from my blog and took it over to my mother's house. He read it to my mom and my sisters and in the process made them feel like absolute shit. Then he told them that if they ever did anything like this to him, or did anything that made him feel like less of a man than he is, he's not going to give them another chance to treat him like that again. He meant it and they knew it.

My sisters were calling me crying as they apologized to me for treating me the way the have been treating me and they all reaffirmed the fact that they loved me. I don't do well with emotions, both mine or other people's. They all make me feel extremely uncomfortable and all I want to do is find a dark hole and hide myself in it until people go back to acting like robots! After my 3 sisters that have been giving me a hard time called to apologize I was WAY PASSED my raw emotions threshold and I spent the next 2 days with my phone off getting wasted, skateboarding, and having a whole bunch of sex with my boyfriend; somehow hoping that this would all those icky feelings go away. The skateboarding and drinking helped, and the sex was great too, but even three weeks later I am still feeling a little burned out from all that BS.

I think I am broken because I am pretty sure I should be nothing but smiles after all this positivity and love and what not. But for some reason I have been feeling the need to be alone and I am feeling the opposite of happy. And if I am being honest here, I am almost dreading the idea of reconciliation with my family because that would mean I would have to spend more time with them which means more feelings and grossness I just don't want to be around for. Fucking hell! Now I feel like a total bastard for admitting that.

Brother drama

2009-12-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

I have been putting off writing this post for a couple weeks now, on the count of its serious subject matter. Usually I find writing these things down cathartic, but this time around it feels like pulling teeth and that's just not fun for anybody! I guess I should start off by saying this was all triggered by an old post I wrote on my old blog "The Underground Notes" and its also posted below just so you guys won't have to click a link to get to it. This old entry was probably written at one of the lowest points in my entire life and even now that I am in a completely different place mentally, it still affects me in a way that almost reduces me to tears every time I read it. Still I don't think I have ever received so much feedback over something I have written and even to this day I receive emails on this post and how it relates to the people who've read it, which is really kind of amazing when I stop to think about it. So obviously I have mixed feelings on this entry especially as it relates to recent events in my life.

Downward Spiral

My mother called me over to the house on Friday. Against my better judgment I decided that I should go. It did not go well. I feel like every time I start to feel good about myself, my mother comes along to remind me that I have absolutely nothing to feel good about.

I didn’t want to write about it here until I had a chance to talk about it with Eddie. I also had no desire to talk to Eddie about it right before our awesome snowboarding weekend. So I did my best to put a smile on my face and have a great time hanging out with my best friends and my man.

Eddie was asking me what was wrong while we were packing our stuff into the SUV before we even started our road trip! I hate the fact that he can read me so well. I was doing an excellent job smiling and cracking jokes, so I was more than mildly annoyed when the dude that I love figured me out. By the time Tyler and Josh showed up I was a mess! Complete with snot and tears. It was awful! Still I was determined to have an excellent weekend inspite of the drama that had occured a few hours earlier.

what happened...

I saw the preacher’s car in my mother’s driveway the second I turned onto the block. There were a few seconds where I debated turning around and getting the fuck out of there. I really didn’t need to listen to my mom and a hypocritical preacher tell me that I am going to hell! For some reason I still wanted to give my mother the benefit of the doubt and believe that she was there waiting for me to come in so she could tell me that she loves me and she always will.

Of course they weren’t there to support me. The moment I sat down they started to point out all of my flaws and how they had both seen this coming for awhile. At one point they started to get really mean, repeating how I was a sinner and how long ago I stopped being a worthwhile human being.

My mother looked and me and she told me how she was doing her best to love the sinner but hate the sin, but my unwillingness to change was making it really hard on her to love me. I did my best to sit there and take it. I honestly did. I bit my tongue, I squeezed my hands into tight fists, and I counted to 100. None of it worked, and before I knew it I was screaming at my mother and a holy man. I have never in my life been so blatantly disrespectful to an adult in my life, but I couldn’t help myself.

I stood up, and for a second, I was just going to walk out. Then my mom asked me if I was going to take off again. Just like I did when I moved out; abandoning my entire family and all of my responsibilities just to pursue a sin. I fucking snapped! How dare she try and lay a guilt trip on me after all of this bullshit that she’s put me through my entire life! How could I keep my mouth shut and let her walk all over me without saying anything to defend myself and how things really are!? I only have two speeds. Relaxed and fucking crazy. I went crazy.

It started off with me calling my mother sanctimonious because she had been married and divorced 3 times in the last 15 years but the only sin that she could identify is the one that I am committing. Then again, I called her a hypocrite because she was getting angry at me for abandoning my responsibilities, when clearly the kids weren’t taking care of themselves when she was out scouring the countryside in search of her next victim/husband! I have sacrificed my happiness, freedom and safety for my family because it was my place to do so. I wasn’t ever expecting to get a medal because I have bled for my family, but I did hope my family would give me the same respect and love that I have given to them. Then I told her this was the last time we were going to have this conversation. I can’t deal with becoming completely incapacitated every time my mother decides to tell me how and why I am going to burn in hell. I asked why she was doing this to me, but at that point she was crying too hard to answer me. I guess that I didn’t really need her to tell me that she was doing this because God hates fags.

So I left.

I didn’t have a good weekend. I drank too much. I was angry and snapped at everybody around me. Even when I was smiling and having a good time I found a way to ruin it and make everybody miserable. Nobody got mad at me though, everybody understood that I was going through something major. Of course, that only made me feel worse than I already did. So I took off on my own Saturday morning before everybody else woke up. By noon I was so messed up on a bunch of different pills and alcohol that I didn’t even realize I had lost my cell, my jacket and my wallet. My next clear memory was of Tyler crying as he helped me into the shower to wash all of the vomit off.

We were on our way home first thing in the morning. Eddie called my dad, and he was at the house by the time we got home. They think that I was trying to O.D. I can’t say for sure that at some point this didn’t become the objective. I only know that now that my head is clear, I don’t want to die. Everybody is in my house now. I can hear my aunts, my father, my friends and my boyfriend all talking about me in hushed voices. They are scared that I am going to do something like this again.

I have never felt as worthless as I do right now. There’s a room filled with people that care about me so much that they are all losing sleep trying to figure out how they can help me. For some reason that only makes me hurt more. It hurts so much and I don’t know what I can do to make it all go away.

During my birthday weekend extravaganza a few weeks ago, my buddy Trevor introduced my little brother to my blog. Of course my brother was instantly hooked on it and spent almost all his free time reading through my archives from the beginning. This obviously made me uncomfortable because he's my little brother and I prefer he see me a certain way and this blog doesn't always show me at my best. But short of deleting my entire blog and refusing to ever post again, there was no way from really stopping him from reading. A few days later is when he happened upon this post. He was upset. Actually, he was fucking furious and the shocking part was a little bit of that anger was directed at me!

My brother and I have very different ideas of the kind of relationship we should have with each other. As the older brother I feel like it's my job to protect him from all the bullshit and negativity I can, because life is hard enough without me adding my drama on top of his! He feels like he should know what's going on in my life as much as I know what's going on in his because it's his job to be there for me as much as I am there for him because he's my brother and he loves me. Sometimes I forget how mature he is and how he is actually equipped to handle a lot more than I give him credit for, but I stand behind not telling him about this incident because it happened when he was 12! Still my little bro huffed and puffed and pouted until I saw his point of view and promised to be more open with what's going on in my head.

The second part of the problem was a lot messier and not nearly as easy to deal with. I think my brother really felt my pain in a way that nobody but him could understand, and it hurt him as much as it hurt me when it happened. The thing about my brother is we cope in very different ways. I like to internalize everything and keep it bottled up way down until magically it all just goes away! My brother likes to do the exact opposite, and his way is probably a lot healthier but I just don't have it in me because it's also really draining!

I need to take a break from this. This shit is wearing me down like nobody's business. Sorry guys, more to come...

Playing Hookey!

2009-12-09T16:04:00.000-08:00

I need to get a tattoo somewhere on my body that says, "I make terrible life decisions!". This morning I blew off work to go surfing because the surf report said there were going to be 8ft waves breaking pretty far out! I couldn't pass that up no matter what! I didn't care that I had a HUGE project at work I was still trying to get a handle on, or that it rained a couple of days ago so the ocean water was still WAY TOXIC! All I knew was that there was some serious goings ons happening in the Pacific and I NEEDED to be a part of it.

So I went into the garage and I pulled out my 5/4 wetsuit and then I went through my box of swag and found this awesome electric warming vest (it goes underneath your wetsuit and is powered by a battery pack kind of jabbed up against your ribs) that I have been DYING to try out and I headed for the beach for some serious surfing! The waves were HUGE as promised, the yellow flag was up, and as the morning progressed the sets just GOT cleaner with the surf breaking several feet overhead! I was out there until the battery pack in my vest died, and then I started to get REALLY REALLY COLD, so I got out of the water for some food and a quick rest. I was exhausted and EXTREMELY out of shape after having done nothing but sit behind a desk for the last several weeks.

I ate and then I called all my surfing buddies to let them know it was imperative they all leave work and join me for the rest of the afternoon for some AWESOME waves. By the end of my meal Tyler and Johnny had joined me along with 7 of our closest friends and I got my suit back on and got ready for round 2! I lasted about a half hour before I was just soo exhausted I couldn't even paddle back to the beach. So when I eventually made it back to shore I just collapsed on the sand and stayed there for a very long time. Once everybody else had had enough, we all went out for some more food and then everybody headed off to wherever people go when they aren't hanging out with me. I went home and fell asleep immediately because I was so freaking exhausted it was the only option!

Two hours later, I have 5 voicemails from work and more emails than I care to count. Also my body aches all over and it feels like I have just ran a full marathon! Seriously it actually hurts to open my eyes too wide. Today I was reminded that I am no longer a teenager and if I am going to do crazy shit like surf in toxic waters with huge ass waves, there's a certain amount of conditioning and stretching I should do beforehand to not feel like a 90 year old arthritic man. Oh well! I always say that if you get to the end of your life and everything on your body still works as it should, then you obviously haven't lived much of a life.

I am still debating with myself whether or not I should go into the office for a few hours. I have a buttload of work to do and taking a whole day off isn't going to make my job any easier tomorrow. But on the other hand, the day is practically over and I don't really think I have much of a mind for work at the moment. I am leaning towards going to the sauna for awhile and then going out for a couple beers and maybe some grub with my homies. I have been working 60 hour weeks and everybody needs to blow off some steam every once in awhile. Like I said at the beginning, I make terrible life decisions, so it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody on what I am going to do with the remainder of my day.

Lies the valley told me.

2009-12-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

See the problem with the valley is it's overflowing with one uppers! The conversation starts off with, "I don't like french fries", and then all of a sudden, "Oh yeah!? Well I hate the art of fellatio!" Then BAM! The valley has struck again. I have heard some grandiloquent claims in my day, but that shit just took the cake! This dude just said to me that he doesn't enjoy blowjobs! What is it with people from the valley and their need to claim the most improbable of scenarios as their own!? I know this one chick from the valley who swears she went to kindergarten with this girl whom the little mermaid character from the Disney movie was based on! And this other dude who swears he's been to an honest to god midget colony somewhere around Arcadia. Usually we just sit their and nod our heads politely as they tell their fantastical tales of hobbit communities and hybrid fish ginger kids who's parents were Disney execs, but just under the surface we know the truth... LIES! ALL LIES!

I get it! They are stuck out there in the middle of the stagnant heat. There's no breeze or large body of water for them to cool off and relax so they all become delusional from BOREDOM, highly toxic landfills & water treatment centers! But still when is the madness going to end!? When is enough actually ENOUGH!? I'll be the one to answer my own question thank you very much. It's when some crazy valley freak makes the bombastic claim to HATE oral sex just because he read it was cool to hate it in his favorite hipster Zine with "Architecture in Helsinki" on the cover!

As an extremely sexual man this offends my sensibilities, the very core of my BEING! I mean REALLY!? It's like 1/3 of what sex is all about and by crossing that whole category off the list it kind of ruins the best part of sex. It's time the valley freaks go back to trying to impress people with their pocket mulching and stupid facebook quizzes that test their knowledge as level 3 vegans and stop trying to deface the sanctity of oral pleasure! Midget communities only exist on The Wizard of Oz. The mermaid was based off that little book written by Hans Christian Andersen. AND EVERY MAN ON THE PLANET enjoys a nice hot, wet, and wild mouth on his COCK! So get over yourself with all your tall valley tales, cuz nobody believes any of them anyway!

ROAD BLOCK!!

2009-11-23T22:22:00.000-08:00

I left work early on Friday when my stepdad gave me a call to ask if I could pick my brother up from school because he'd just been suspended for fighting! Long story short, a senior called him a fag, so my brother beat the shit out of him right there on the spot. To me it sounded like the other kid got what he deserved and neither of them should have been suspended because the problem took care of itself. Unfortunately the school has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to campus violence though, so my brother got suspended until after the holiday weekend.

My stepdad was on a business trip on the east coast until Monday and I had a HUGE party weekend planned for me big TWO-FOUR!. I was planning on getting my bro from home afterwork and we were going to drive up north go grab Brad and then keep going north to the beach house where Tyler was getting things ready. But now I had to make a decision; was I going to pretend like I was disappointed in my brother for not letting some loser punk him, or was I going to high five him and let him have a couple beers with me at my many parties over the weekend? I got to his school and I couldn't even fake anger or even minor annoyance. The way I saw it, the next kid was going to think twice before trying to pick on my brother after this!

Unfortunately the vice principal didn't share my opinion and wanted to talk with me privately in her office before she let me take my brother home. She basically wanted me to make sure that my brother knew this was unacceptable behavior no matter what the antecedent to the fight was, and if this ever happens again my brother is going to be permanently expelled from school. Then she got all funny on me recounting my many indiscretions as a student at this school and how she could tell we are brothers. She was joking, but I got the message behind her story and I decided that my brother and I did need to have a talk about this after all! FUCKING vice principals and there crazy ass elephant memories! I couldn't even remember her name and she remembered every little thing I did wrong the entire time I went to that school.

Basically what she was telling me, in an indirect way, so I would actually listen to what she was saying (once again because she remembered me and the kind of person I am), was that my brother wasn't exactly the victim in this scenario because he isn't the kind of kid that gets picked on. He's smart, funny, handsome and extremely well liked by just about everybody because of his all around charming personality (just like his big brother). Unfortunately this makes him a little bit of an asshole to some of the other kids on the playground, just like his big brother... Yeah that kid called my brother a fag, but my brother probably did something to get a rise out of him in the first place, so I probably wasn't going to be able to slip my brother a beer over the weekend and congratulate him for beating up a homophobe.

In the end I just thought to myself, "Fuck it! I can't tell him to be nice to people he doesn't like, this is one of those things he needs to learn on his own through living his life and taking some time to reflect on the things he's done. Besides, I am not his father I am his brother! AND it's my birthday weekend!". So we drove up north to Brad's house and talked a little bit about life and such. He admitted he'd been picking on the kid and that maybe this was all his fault, but he also threw in how NOBODY called him a fag he didn't care what the reason behind it was. I couldn't argue with that, so I just asked him to try and be a bit nicer.

The weekend was CRAZY! Nobody throws a party like TYLER! I am going to be recovering from this weekend for the rest of the month. Lucky me I have an extra long holiday weekend to nurse myself back to health.

some reflection

2009-11-18T23:36:00.000-08:00

I have been feeling inadequate for quite some time now. This is to be expected because it always happens to me when I get a lot of time on my hands and I have absolutely nothing going on. I have way too much time to think about all those opportunities I rejected, and all that time I spent going down the wrong path. I start thinking about where I could be or where I SHOULD be, and then I compare it to where I am; then of course the feeling of inadequacy sets in and I am done. There's nothing more crushing than the burden of all that goddamn potential!

Usually when things get as stagnant as they have been, I meet up with a bunch of skaters and we shoot some footage that I edit and sell to different skater sites, or I head off to NYC for a month or two and take some time to figure out my next step. But this time the skating didn't really pan out and NYC wasn't an option (don't even get me started on the waves that have been as flat as a 10 yr old girl), and all this was only further exacerbated by that awful cuntrag I ran into at the beach a few weeks ago who informed me of my impending 10 year high school reunion, NOT TO MENTION my 24th birthday. And it all just became way too much for me to even deal with! I needed some kind of escape, a way to make myself feel like I was contributing something "grown-up", a way to make myself feel like I haven't just spent the last 10 years of my life with my thumb up my ass!

So when Mr. Tyler asked me to come to work for him I jumped at the chance to prove to myself that I could actually do it. I think I needed to see if I could actually succeed or if all my excuses were just a defense mechanism because deep down I knew that if I really tried I would fail. I got off to an extremely rocky start. That first week I was a mess and my team saw it, so I didn't really get the respect I was shooting for. But it was okay because I hadn't actually earned it yet. I spent all weekend getting organized and creating an outline that went into detail on what I expected from each person on my team, and on Monday I sat them all down in the conference room and I explained to them WITH CONFIDENCE exactly how I expect MY team to function. There was no room for arguments, and though they tried, I made the decision to make this work and there's no way in hell I am going to throw in the towel this early in the game.

Last week I was freaking out because I was sure I wasn't capable of taking this challenge. I wore my fear on my sleeve and everybody saw it. It took a couple of friends basically beating some sense into me to realize that I was fucking up big time and being extremely self destructive. I can't say that I am going to get through the next 5 months without having another freak out or ten, but I do know that next time I am not going to be so public about it and only freak out in my head. At least I don't have to wear a suit to work there's something about a tie that feels a little too much like a noose...

REDRUM!

2009-11-11T23:05:00.000-08:00

Day three and I am still here so, yay me! I took an extra half hour for lunch today and I went to a skatepark hoping that some physical activity would save me from punching somebody in the face during our development meetings. I didn't punch anybody so DOUBLE YAY! Although there was this one moment during the meeting where this ass hole with a receding hairline wouldn't stop challenging every word that came out of my mouth! I couldn't just tell him to shut up, so I had to call a break, and used that down time so I could kindly but firmly let him know where he could shove it in private. By the end of the day I had wrangled that facetious prick with the receding hairline into submission and in a small way it felt like a BIG victory. It turns out they passed him up for a promotion and that's why he's being a little bitch about this. Everybody now thinks I am an asshole but if that's what it takes then I am fine with it. I don't actually want to be friends with any of them anyway. I am now going to go and smoke a joint then cry myself to sleep because tomorrow I have to get up and do this all over again.

the grind

2009-11-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

I have been struggling with trying to figure out how I fit into my life since coming home from Europe. I have absolutely no direction or drive to do anything! I spend my days watching TV, surfing shitty waves and playing with my dog, all the while slowly going crazy from boredom and a life of mediocrity. Wasn't I supposed to be the guy meant for something special? Wasn't I going to grow up with my face on the cover of magazines? What the fuck am I supposed to do now!?

I went to college to become an engineer. I traveled the world to become a better surfer. I accomplished both but really didn't find happiness or fulfillment in either. Out of boredom I have taken on a huge programming project that will eventually take up every waking moment of my life, just so I can stop thinking about how much of a failure I am. Today was my first day and I spent the majority of it refamiliarizing myself with the project because I was the guy who created the original program 4 years ago. Since then, it's gone through quite a few changes and tweaks from other professionals but now its time for a complete overhaul and the honor of this metamorphosis goes to yours truly.

At first it worried me that something this HUGE and important would be entrusted to me. But then I thought about how much more impressive I look on paper (Ivy League graduate, internship at one of the top corporations in the world, multiple awards and commendations for a plethora of programming challenges and events, etc), than the reality of ACTUAL me ACTUALLY is, and I was somewhat comforted. After I met all the people who were going to be working for me and was immediately relieved to discover they were all a million times more competent than I am! I spent most of my day getting to know my team and learning a little about each of them and what they brought to the table. I usually get pretty insecure when you put me in a room with a bunch of programmers because I am pretty atypical when it comes to your standard computer guy; i.e. I don't know how to play Dungeons & Dragons, I don't have a WoW account, I never held a Magic card, and I have had sex within the last week with somebody I didn't meet on the internet.

There's usually this HUGE disconnect when I meet other programmers and I am willing to admit that I am largely to blame for this. It would be a completely fair statement to say that I am the Elle Woods of the computer world. I stick out like a sore thumb and not in a good way! I am not a huge fan of using technical jargon when it comes to explaining myself and people initially misconstrue that as stupidity, which I completely understand! Also when I talk, with no exaggeration, I sound EXACTLY like Keanu Reeves so that's 20 strikes against me alone. So today as I was getting to know my team I got that same trepidation from them I ALWAYS get when meeting new people because they think I am in idiot.

Balding 30yr. old Man: How old are you!? (more as an accusation than a question)
RGB: I am 23, but I am almost 24...

I bring this on myself by not outwardly exuding the confidence I need to show in order for them to believe in my leadership. I am working on it! What I should have said to the fucker was, " I am 23. I graduated high school at 15 and university at 20. I could have finished in 2 years since I started University as a second semester sophomore, but I was too busy being a pro surfer and fucking my way through 5 continents and more countries than I can count." Fuck it! Tomorrow's a new day. If I have to pull out my cock and beat them with it to assert myself, I WILL! It just sucks working so hard to be good at a job I hate just because I can't figure out what it is that I really want to do with myself. Is this what it means to be a grown up?

The Cycle

2009-11-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

There are certain people from your life, more specifically your past, which you hope never to interact with again. You grow complacent with the fact that it has been quite some time since your last encounter. Then the Universe gets bored and decides that it would be fun to mix things up. And then you run into said person while playing with your dog at the dog beach while any other NORMAL person would be at work like a good respectable adult should be. And you avoid her for as long as you can only to have her come barreling down the beach right towards you. And now there is no escape; you are trapped in dithering conversation with this awful cunt rag, so vacuous and annoying that you are actually considering faking a seizure. At one point, you think she might invite you to have lunch with her. You start bargaining things you probably shouldn’t, like your soul or first born, in exchange for being transported anywhere else. You realize she is still talking and begin to make list of things that are more fun than engaging in this conversation: licking a frozen telephone pole; attending a human sacrifice; watching paint dry; sitting through an episode of The Hills. Finally, after the 20 minutes that seemed to last an eternity, she slowly begins to meander towards the ocean where the water breaks without so much as a goodbye. And with that, the terrifying experience is over as suddenly as it started. So you vow never to be caught unaware again. But then, of course, you spot your dog chasing seagulls and its really adorable, so much so you forget to watch out for questionable people, and the whole unseemly cycle begins anew.

Money on my mind

2009-10-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

This last week I have been taking a break from everything so I could get a good grasp on my finances. I am not hurting for money right now, but before this week I had no idea how much I had or where it was. I basically go through life writing checks and using my debit card hoping there’s something in my accounts but never really sure if there is. Getting a handle on my finances is very important to me because I don’t have a job and finding prospects for future employment is almost as likely as me getting struck by lightning or finding affordable healthcare.

The first thing I realized as I was figuring out if I had a pot to piss in was that I have way to many god dam pots! I have 8 fucking bank accounts that I use regularly and 4 accounts that haven’t seen any activity in years. I hate money, I have no idea how to manage it, and even though I minored in mathematics, figuring out how much cash I had was impossible and I ended up having to call a professional to come help me out! Lucky for me one of my closest friends is an accountant and took some time out of her busy schedule to set me straight. After 9 days of me bitching and her lecturing me for keeping such crappy records, we figured out that I am doing a lot better than I should for being a clueless moron, but I need to learn how to budget if I want it to stay that way.

Shit was consolidated, shifted and other stuff, so my money would work for me or something. After it was all done my brain hurt and I had no idea how anybody was able to do this shit without somebody like my friend doing it for them! I have never had this kind of control over my finances because I have always equated money with greed and selfishness so I would prefer to think about money as some abstract idea rather than something tangible that needs to be managed and scrutinized over. I am not being greedy or selfish by worrying about what’s in my accounts, I am being responsible. Is this what it feels like being an adult?

The good times.

2009-10-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

I was looking over my posts while I was in Europe and I realized that I never really got to post about my most awesome days there. So I thought I would take this time to talk about them a little bit because if I don’t I feel like my overall impression of my trip would be negative WHICH IT WASN’T! Even though I do in fact HATE FRANCE and I HATE WORKING, it really didn’t affect the rest of my trip which had a lot of amazing moments.

At the very beginning of my trip I took a rental car with a friend out to Stonehenge and it was probably one of the most heinous experiences of my life! I thought the day was unsalvageable, and then we decided to go to Bath. There I enjoyed a 9pc Chicken Mcnugget meal and my surly demeanor began to melt away, because nothing puts me in a better mood than some Chicken McNuggets! As we walked the streets of Bath we noticed there were a lot of street performers singing, dancing and just acting crazy in general. It was like being at the 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica only a whole lot bigger. As we were taking this all in we happened upon this ska-ish (but not really but it’s the easiest way to define them) band. They looked to be in their late teens early 20’s and I really dug their sound! So we stood and watched awhile. That’s when they started singing Estelle’s American Boy. Over the summer EVERYBODY knew I was going to the UK, so every chance they got they would play this song! I have the entire thing memorized by heart and here was a band playing it (and it was odd seeing a bunch of heterosexual boys singing “American boy” verbatim.) I casually mentioned to my friend that they were lacking somebody to do Kanye’s part and I really wanted to jump in! So my friend drops 10 pounds into their guitar case and asks the lead singer if I could rap for them, they agree, start the song over, and I do my very first gig as a street performer right there on a cobblestone road in Bath. By the end of the song we had a pretty decent sized crowd and we got some raucous applause when we were done. We ended up meeting with the guys later and having a few pints with them at a local pub and the day turned out to be a lot more awesome than it started!

Everything about Spain was just about my favorite part of my trip in every way possible! I got a little surfing in, I hung out with some amazing friends, I ate some good food, and I met some interesting people. Nothing really stood out because it was all just so much fun that when I think about it all I can do is smile and it’s all good! Everyday was fun and everyday was different but nothing really stuck out as exceptional because it was all just way better than average on a daily basis.

What guy in their right mind wouldn’t have the time of their life at Oktoberfest!? That week was FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC from beginning to end! There’s not a single moment that entire trip where I felt like the moment could be improved upon. However, the best time I had in Munich had absolutely NOTHING to do with Oktoberfest! The best time I had happened at the Eisbach which is a small stretch of the Isar! The first time I surfed this river wave was back in 03. I had completely forgotten what it felt like to be on a board and have no idea what I was doing, then BAM! The Eisbach happens and I feel like an 8 yr old grom all over again. This time around I had a little experience under my belt and I was ready to tackle this head on. Unfortunately there was a HUGE ASS line to get my chance to ride this wave and I had to wait awhile. The thing about Germans is they are probably some of the nicest most polite people on the planet. Anywhere else you would have the assholes trying to push their way up the lines to get a ride before other people or angry locals trying to bully the outsiders into leaving. Here civility is king, nobody’s acting like a territorial douche, and everyone just wants to share this awesome experience with everybody else. The only thing better than surfing this wave was watching the locals carve it up on these crazy weird fish twin-fin hybrids that I totally forgot to take a picture of! These guys are AMAZING and it’s such a unique experience that you can’t find anywhere else in the world. It was probably the best experience of my entire trip.

And now I am done talking about Europe! I am going to put all my memories in a box and stick it on a shelf to ameliorate for a few years and then go back and look at them again just because the experience was so awesome.

The Trifecta of Awesomeness

2009-10-12T00:34:00.000-07:00

What is the trifecta of awesomeness? A weekend of Brad, Incubus and Glee silly! I am a strong believer that we are all given a finite number of perfect situations in our lives so when we are old and reminiscing about them, we can recall every moment.

I have said it before, but it’s worth repeating; Incubus is the greatest band of my generation. Their musicality is in a league all their own they are innovative without being pretentious and Brandon Boyd is one of the sexiest men I have ever had the pleasure of meeting outside my dreams. He’s also an amazing singer and crazy talented song writer so that altar I keep a lock of his hair on that’s surrounded by a buttload of memorabilia is totally justified! Anyway, what Incubus has to do with the trifecta of awesomeness is I saw them at the Surfrider Gala in LA Friday night. This is where I could tell a truly embarrassing and slightly horrific story, but I have decided against it and will instead move on. Let’s just say fun was had and we left smiling.

Saturday was all about Bradley’s 21st birthday and his family celebrating it BIG TIME! They were all very happy to see me and we spent hours catching up on everything I’d missed over the last several months. There was tons of food, extremely delicious and expensive micro-brews, great music, and some awesome party games. The festivities commenced just after 1pm and we partied well into the next day with our raucous shenanigans. After sobering up around midnight we all went for a late night surf by the pier for a while and then called it a night once we’d finished. This next part is going to sound WAY GAY, so just going to throw that out there as a warning… We’d carpooled with one of Brad’s older brothers so we got to sit in the back seat together on the way home. All we did was hold hands and occasionally glance over at each other and smile, I can’t remember feeling this content in a really long time. There’s no way to say this next part like a gentleman, so I’ll be crass. The second we got home we ripped off our clothes and fucked until the sun came up. It was magical.

Then today after waking up around 2pm to the smell of an awesome breakfast being prepared by my very own nearly naked and well muscled man, I was introduced to the awesomeness that is Glee. This show makes my heart smile. I think I replayed Kristin Chenoweth singing, “Maybe this time”, like 5 times in a row. I am not really a fan of the lead choir guy Finn, because that whole awkward cute and innocent thing never really did it for me, but Puck really gets me going and that dude’s fucking HAWT! The quality of this show is above and beyond what I expect from something produced on television and I am a HUGE fan of this show as of today (or I guess yesterday since it is technically after midnight now). We spent all of Sunday on the couch snuggling and just being with each other. We laughed, a lot. We talked about nothing and we just stayed there, together, in silence, it was perfect.

He's finally legal!

2009-10-08T14:59:00.000-07:00

Brad’s 21st birthday party was last night and I have the hangover to prove it! I know age really isn’t anything but a number, but I finally feel like I am not robbing the cradle anymore. We went out drinking and he didn’t have to pull out his fake ID, and I didn’t have to deal with that tiny feeling of guilt for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. It was Fan-FUCKING-tastic to sit there and share a drink with my boy legally!

There’s a family dinner this weekend to make this whole birthday thing official and Brad really wants me to come. If I go then we’re really together again. Which I guess doesn’t even matter because if I am really honest with myself we were never really broken up. Still I always get tangled up in these labels and that’s exactly what I am doing here. WHATEVER! It is what it is and I am just going to deal with it like a grownup.

I am going to stay here through the weekend and then I need to find a place to live. I really hate looking for a place! All my stuff is currently at the Tyler’s back in my old room BUT I am WAY too old to be living at home with my kinda sorta parents! So the house hunt will begin IMMEDIATELY! Some of my friends are trying to pressure me into moving to the Santa Monica, but I’d rather shoot myself! I am thinking Long Beach/Seal Beach area would be perfect for me. All I know is I am definitely going to be walking distance from the ocean!

A good result

2009-10-05T00:10:00.000-07:00

It was a simple plan. Go to the team picnic and be Bradley’s boyfriend. No big declaration of any sort, just show up and be us. That’s Brad’s style all the way, and I really admire him for it. Before we left for the event I was pretty nervous about how people were going to react. I get extremely protective over my man and if anybody acted negative towards him there was a huge chance I’d be forced to kick their ass. Especially because I am still so drained from my trip that I just wouldn’t have the energy to curb my emotions. Just before we walked out the door Brad took my arm and turned me to face him. He looked into my eyes and he told me that he was so grateful I came because he needed me and he wouldn’t be able to do this without me. There was so much emotion both in his voice and in his eyes that I almost cried, cuz I am a bitch like that.

We got to the beach and I put my game face on ready to be Mr. Awesome and the life of the party before Bradley and I started gaying things up with all our gayness. I was introduced to all the guys and their lady friends, and then we settled into a rowdy game of ultimate. After an hour or so, we were all pretty chummy and getting hungry for some food. The burgers and hotdogs were grilled and then we settled down around the fire, cue the gayness. My “Babe, can you grab me a soda” got a couple of raised eyebrows, but I think it was the kiss on the lips as a thank you that really sealed the deal. I could tell these guys were surprised, but nobody really acted like an ass or anything and things went on with only marginal awkwardness.

Everybody had a million questions and I could totally see it on their faces, but nobody wanted to be the prick who asked, so everybody just pretended that things were normal. FINALLY one of the guys made the decision to point out the big ol’ gay elephant by asking Brad how long we’ve been “together”. That kind of opened the floodgates to a 15 minute Q&A session for Brad and I getting all sorts of questions thrown at us. They were genuinely curious and by the end of the evening I was cautiously optimistic (The real shit talking and negativity isn’t going to start until they’ve all had a chance to let it sink in and then have a chance to talk about it behind Brad’s back) that things were going to work out fairly well for Bradley.

They had an informal practice this morning and from all accounts Brad thinks yesterday’s bombshell hasn’t left any damage on his reputation. Good team cohesion and communication during the scrimmages, same amount of locker room nakedness, and guys not treating him like a leper. I am really happy for him. I still think it’s a little early to be completely out of the woods with this issue. But for now this was a very positive experience for both Brad and myself and I am honored and humbled he chose me to be a part of this.

Starting over.

2009-10-03T01:17:00.000-07:00

As I have shared a few times, Bradley and I have been spending a lot of time talking on the phone. We did it all summer long, and just cuz I went to a different continent didn’t mean we stopped talking. In fact , I can’t think of a single day this entire trip that I didn’t take at least 20 minutes to call Brad. He’s at a new school this year because he wanted to be closer to his family after what happened to his sister earlier this year. He’s been dealing with a lot getting acclimated with a new school, and a new team.

As a gay athlete there’s a lot of pressure to fit in with the guys but at the same time be respected for who you are as a man. It’s always a HUGE struggle trying to figure out if and how you are going to come out to your teammates. Brad has been struggling with the if, how, and when, since summer training back in July. Unfortunately being in this new situation really ate up his confidence and he really didn’t have the desire to add another hurdle to his ever growing list of complications fucking up his life. The problem is this isn’t Bradley! He’s not the kind of guy who can compartmentalize his life and be satisfied by his choices. For Brad it’s always been all or nothing, and so 2 weeks ago he finally came to the decision that he was going to make one BIG GRAND FUCKING statement about his sexuality and just move the fuck on. Cue RGB!

Bradley: Sup Babe?
RGB: Nada Mucho. You?
Bradley: I have this team picnic thing and I was wondering if you’d be my date…
RGB: You serious?
Bradley: You don’t have to if you don’t want to… I just wanted you there when I told them…
RGB: What are you talking about!? Of course I want to be there with you! Sorry you just caught me off guard but I REALLY REALLY REALLY do want to go with you to your picnic!
Bradley: (Mockingly) Really?
RGB: Yeah REALLY you fucking asshole!

Yesterday when I landed Brad was waiting for me at the luggage carousel. When I saw him I ran straight for him, jumped right into his arms, and wrapped my arms and legs around his upper body. I couldn’t believe that it had been 4 months since the last time I saw him. I missed EVERYTING about him! His smell, his skin, his body, his voice, his hot breath on my neck as I hugged him GOD how did I ever go a second without this man!? After about 5 minutes of making everybody in the airport extremely uncomfortable with our PDA (and seriously I don’t know what got into me because I FUCKING HATE PDA myself! I don’t even like to hold hands in public when I am with a girl because I just hate public affection!) we grabbed my luggage off the conveyor belt and then we GTFO’d.

I am not going to lie, over the last 24 hours, some sex has been had. Even with this mean case of jetlag and crazy German hangover, my penis REFUSES to take a break! Now it’s sometime past midnight and Bradley is out cold, but I can’t even close my eyes for a minute straight because I am still stuck on European time! I am not entirely sure what the plan is for tomorrow’s picnic outing (ha! See what I did there!? OUTING!? Get it!? OUTING!?), but if anybody is mean to Bradley, they are going to have to deal with me. But I am positive everything is going to be fine. Brad has always gotten a lot of respect from everybody around him because he’s the kind of man that deserves respect. Brad’s a strong guy and he only thinks that he needs me here, but really he could do this on his own and be amazing.

Back to my vacation

2009-09-24T00:03:00.000-07:00

Okay it wasn’t the end of the world disaster I thought it was going to be. There may have even been a few occasions where I might have actually smiled and enjoyed myself. Not to say that I haven’t had to deal with a butt load of headaches and drama from the very beginning, but most of it is what’s to be expected when you take on a project so late in the game. And it was kind of exhilarating to push myself and the people around me to get the best out of the project.

My first hurdle was dealing with the crazy time constraints. The way a shoot usually works is the director sits down with the skaters and they view footage of all the spots the scouts found and choose the ones they want to skate. Then they head out to the locations and practice some things, get the lay of the land, and shoot some b-reel for outtakes or credits. Once they are satisfied they take a day or two to let it all ameliorate then they all go back and do it for-realsies! We basically had to do all that junk in 2 day intervals and at the end of that second day pack up and start it all over in a new city. My second hurdle was my French camera crew. They all spoke piss poor English and I refuse to learn French. However one guy was fluent in Spanish and the other spoke German as well as I did, so we all became a fucking cultural amalgam of languages and exasperated gesticulations.

Anyway, we finished shooting almost a week ago and I have been stuck in post editing all this crap into something awesome. I have done all I can or will do at this point and am returning to my vacation. I am in Munich waiting for my friends from Spain to arrive for Oktoberfest. Side note: German guys are hot! I am sure this goes without saying, but I am going to be incommunicado until sometime in October after I have had a decent amount of time to recover.

More France!

2009-09-14T15:34:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago when I first arrived in Europe it was FUCKING cold! Like New York in November cold! I hadn’t packed for cold weather because I was under the impression that it was supposed to be relatively warm in Western Europe this time of year. We all know that I am allergic to shopping and would rather get a tooth pulled then go shopping so I did what any sane person in my situation would do. I called my friend\agent and had him pull some strings and get me some warm clothes ASAP. Long story short, I got brand new winter gear the next day never considering the strings that might have been attached to such a favor.

I arrived in Spain to great weather and awesome people that I haven’t seen in years. We hung out, drank, and partied until we passed out where we stood daily. On the 3rd day of my hedonistic adventures I received a call from my ex-friend\agent calling in the favor that I owed him. Fucking hell! If I’d known that a couple of jackets and hoodies and a few pairs of pants were going to cost me 6 more days in France I’d have told him to fuck off! Hind sight is always 20\20 isn’t it!? You better believe I am making the company spend well over their budget to put me up in fancy hotels and shipping all my private equipment from the states.

So now I am miserable and working during my vacation in FUCKING France! I am still a little fuzzy on what the overall objective is but I do know the itinerary; first Paris, then Marseilles, and then we are finishing up in Cannes. This shit is going to suck. I feel like such a ridiculous spoiled brat complaining about losing 6 days from my 5 week vacation across an entire continent, but I can’t help the way I feel! I really needed this time to rest, reflect, and recover, but now I have this whole THING to deal with.

I guess if I am truly honest with myself, the thing that bugs me more than anything else is even if I hadn’t called in that favor, I would have been asked to do this anyway and theirs a huge chance I still would have done it. It makes me wonder what my integrity and self respect is actually worth to me if I am going to keep on caving in like this every time I am asked. I did say I was done with all this shit, but it never really seems to work out that way. In the end I always come back because it’s what is easy and I am really good at it. I seriously need to go back to University and learn some new skills because I am starting to get sick of hating myself for all this hypocrisy all the time.

Actually i am just venting and this is all just me being ridiculous. It should all be disregarded as me being a crazy bipolar freak in serious need of meds.It doesn't matter, I'll probably get hit by a car anyway.

Closed on Tuesdays...

2009-09-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

I am not realy a big fan of France in general, so whenever I come to Paris I want to get in and out as quickly as possible. I speak 4 languages, have been to 5 continents and over 20 countries; so I feel quite confident in my opinion that France is my least favorite place in the world. My traveling buddy really wanted to see all the major tourist shit ie: The Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, etc. We decided on a bus tour to catch all the odds and ends and then left Tuesday open for going to the Louvre so we could spend the ENTIRE day wandering the museum without any time constraints. For all the things I DO NOT enjoy in Paris, the Louvre is definitely not one of them.

Who knew the Louvre was closed on Tuesdays? I certainly didn’t! I stood there staring at that god awful closed sign feeling COMPLETELY defeated with the knowledge that I had to spend yet another day in this god forsaken city! I seriously felt like somebody had just punched me in the face and I wasn’t able to do anything to hide it. Seeing that I needed some serious cheering up my buddy called a guy who knew a guy and ended up turning my frown upside down with a little afternoon sesh of shredding the gnar urban jungle style!

I have been to quite a few skate parks in Paris and they mostly all suck ass! I dunno who’s fault this is, but its true and the truth hurts so back off all you French apologists! ANYWHOW, back to my point, this skate park rocked my socks. It was perfectly planned out and executed for a ride that was both challenging and fun. I had my Sector 9 with me which really just added to the whole hang 10 mood I was trying to get into to calm my nerves. Eventually the Louvre being closed turned into this happy accident that I was really pleased with. But I would just like to make it clear that I still have a very strong disdain for all things French!

I am currently waiting to get on an overnight train to Barcelona. Spain! Now that’s a country I can definitely endorse! I am all kinds of excited for my week there because Spain is just fun.

Vacation fun

2009-09-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

Driving in England fucking sucks ass! FINE ! I can get used to driving on the wrong side of the road and shifting gears towards me instead of away from me, BUT what the shit is up with all those fucking traffic circles!? What the hell do British people have against a NORMAL GODDMAN intersection!? After two days of getting lost and almost dying in a plethora of near fatal car crashes all over the English country side, I am proud to report that I am not dead! But this has nothing to do with my proswess as a driver and everything to do with the rest of England being car ninjas with cat like reflexes and having the patience of a saint.

I am loving my traveling companion right now because of how independent he is! This trip I am feeling the need to wander the world alone and occasionally have a buddy to chat about it with. This week I am staying at a hostel while my buddy is busy hanging with friends on the other side of the city. We are meeting up at the end of the week and comparing crazy stories before we head off to our next destination and do it all over again. I just don’t have the energy to entertain my friends because I feel like that has always been my role and I am liking the solo time because it makes me feel like I don’t always have to put on a show.

Walking into my room at this hostel felt like stepping onto the set of a softcore porn shoot! As I opened the door all I saw was a flurry of naked men as they ran around the room snapping each other with their towels. Seeing me walk in did not deter them from their raucous nakedness and they kind of waved me off as they kept at it. Usually I would have just laughed this off and continued with what I was doing. However me not having had sex since June has made me a little bit of a horndog. So I kind of just stood there with a growing erection as these fit guys chased each other around the room. Once things settled down we were able to get the introductions out of the way and we ended up having a pretty decent time hanging out and having fun.

For some reason I am having the worst jetlag of my entire life. I have yet to recover from my flight and I haven’t been able to get a single night’s rest. Most days I end up taking a late afternoon nap and fucking up my sleep cycle all over again! I am extremely agitated and grumpy from not being able to acclimate myself as quickly as I normally do. I think this is the first sign of old age. Speaking of age, I have been carded at every bar I have been to in London the last 5 days! What the shit is up with that!? The drinking age is 18 and I at least look 18 if not older. But EVERY SINGLE TIME I ORDER A BEER, they want to see my ID! Seriously, its kind of embarrassing that at 23 I still can’t pass as a legal drinker in a country where 14 year olds walk into stores and purchase alcohol with no drama.

Nothing I have done on my “vacation” so far has been relaxing. This next part of my vacation should do wonders for settling my nerves. Its going to be all beaches, surfing, and lounging until I am so relaxed that I start to forget that stress even exists. Then and only then will I begin to tackle the big issues and life drama that I have been putting off all summer.

a little rambling

2009-08-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

So much has happened these last couple months that I don't even know where to begin! Despite the fact that it all started off kinds of awful, I really did have an exceptional summer. Splitting my time between two very different camps really gave me the opportunity to challenge myself both physically and creatively in a way that I really haven’t ever done before. The people I worked with were amazing and the kids at the camps were exceptional. It felt like everything was planned out ahead of time to assure I was able to enjoy myself as much as possible with as little stress as possible. Everything just flowed so perfectly into everything else that I never really felt like I was working.

This isn’t to say that my summer went off without any glitches or hiccups, FAR FROM IT! I had my fill of faulty equipment and camp shenanigans gone wrong, but overall I wouldn’t change a thing. Well maybe I would change that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach when I noticed that even the kids that went to the colleges I was staying at seemed to look like babies to me and it was because I was getting older and not that they were getting younger. ARGH! There’s still just WAY too much to say and I am having a hard time figuring out what to write because of it, so I am just going to list some favorites.

My favorite moment at camp was during the last week of camp. I usually get really hungry around midnight and NEED to eat a cheeseburger before I fall into a coma from starvation! So midnight In&Out runs weren’t uncommon for me and the select few campers that were wise enough to stay awake after lights out. One night at In&Out my campers and I were enjoying a delicious round of cheeseburgers and shakes when I accidentally drop my shake on the table. When anybody else on the planet, but myself, drops a milkshake it tips over and spills all over the table. Unfortunately I just don’t have that kind of luck! So when my milkshake it the table it landed perfectly flat, then the top shot up into the air as the contents of my shake flew through the air, between the heads of my campers sitting opposite me, and landed on this big fat ANGRY gangster black man sitting behind us. This dude was everything a stereotypical black man could be, complete with a basketball jersey, shaved head, 3 HUGE chain necklaces, and a Bluetooth in his ear. The sight of him with my dripping milkshake seeping down his face onto his jersey, Bluetooth, etc. was quite possibly the funniest thing I had ever seen, so I do what I do best and started LAUGHING! I was laughing hysterically and couldn’t stop even though my brain was screaming that if I didn’t there was a chance I was about to get my butt kicked. In between fits of laughter I did my best to choke out an apology, but somehow my laughter made it seem somewhat insincere. Long story short, the guy slapped my hand away as I tried to hand him some napkins and then had a few choice expletives for me before storming out of the restaurant as I was still laughing.

My favorite camper was a camper from the action sports film camp, Kelly. He was seriously one of the best skateboarders I have ever met and also an extremely talented boy ballerina (ballerino??). Not only did he have a great eye for setting up some awesome shots, but he was funny and smart and we spent a lot of time joking around and having fun. Kelly was there for my first 2 weeks back to camp after my incident and he never knew it, but just by being himself he really made my days sooo much better. This dude is going to make an awesome grownup.

My favorite song of the summer is GRUDGINGLY Slightly Stoopid’s 2am. After our midnight cheeseburger runs, and before we all went to bed, we would stay up playing Texas Hold’em and listening to music on my ipod. I let the kids pick the music just as long as the music came from my ipod and EVERY NIGHT at either camp, the number one song was ALWAYS 2am. It was oddly suited for our nightly rituals but at the same time it got old fast! However even though I am sick of hearing this song, I can’t help but smile from all the good memories I have while listening to it.

My favorite person of the summer was definitely Bradley. He was there holding my hand through all the hard parts. He’s the most caring and unselfish guy I have ever known and as much as it’s annoying being around a person like him, I can’t help but love him anyway.

I am leaving on a jet plane in a couple hours for a much needed vacation across the pond. I have a lot to figure out when I get back from my trip and I kind of want to do my best to put it off as long as possible. I guess that all I want to say right now, even though there’s still a lot more I want to get off my chest. These next few weeks will definitely give me plenty of time to get it all out, so let’s see how I decide to use it…

One more week!

2009-08-20T02:22:00.001-07:00

It’s no secret this summer kicked off with all kinds of personal drama for me. This summer was supposed to be all about me escaping all my problems and existing in this tiny microcosm where things like failed relationships and shitty parents aren’t included in my life story. Then this kid gets shot right before my eyes and all of a sudden I find myself unable to compartmentalize my drama like I normally do. The first week after it happened I slept a grand total of 9 hours. The following week I was in this crazy manic state where I just worked myself into the ground. The third week I drank a whole lot of alcohol and made ridiculously inappropriate jokes about the shooting to try and cover up the fact that I was still freaking out about it. By the fourth week I was finding any excuse I could to be alone where I spent WAY too much time crying uncontrollably where nobody could see or hear me. After that I finally started to deal and things actually got better for me.

Last week was my last week with both of the camps I work for. I was planning on taking these last few weeks of August and sleeping. I am crazy exhausted from all the work I have been doing and traveling that was a part of my job. Unfortunately I don’t know how to say no to people and an old friend called me up to BEG that I come work for his camp for the last two weeks of summer. This is a special session here at camp for children that are struggling with health issues. The kids are awesome and being here and knowing how much I have to contribute makes me feel really good about myself and extremely happy for these kids and the experience they are getting.

At the beginning of June I had no idea my summer was going to be so crazy and take so much out of me. I haven’t really had time to reflect on everything that has happened to me or how I feel about all of it, but I think things have turned out as well as they possibly could all things considered. At least the nightmares are gone and I don’t wake up in a cold sweat crying hysterically anymore, cuz that really sucked! I have another week here at this camp, then I come home for a week. This is going to give me just enough time to do my laundry and pack for my big relaxing get away trip! I will be gone for a few weeks and I am planning on staying away from all the evils of man i.e. cell phones, computers, guys, and your mom. I’ll try to get in a few posts before I leave.

Summer rush

2009-07-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

I’ve been busy. VERY BUSY. Surfing, skateboarding, getting in food fights and hanging out with my buddies hasn’t left me with a lot of time to blog about it. I don’t really have much to say except I am loving life and enjoying my complete lack of free time and personal space. It does a man some good to leave all that introspective reflection behind and just live. I hope everybody else is having just as much fun as I am. I am about to start the second half of my summer adventures skateboarding and such. Check back in a month and I will do my best to write something WAY more interesting!

I like to walk around in circles.

2009-07-06T23:41:00.000-07:00

Bradley and I have been spending ridiculous hours on the phone with each other lately. He was really there for me when I needed him and he reminded me how much I missed and needed him. I have been spending a lot of time with him in a nonsexual context and I think he and I could be amazing friends if he stopped looking so fucking irresistible to me.

I am working 12 to 14 hour days so I don't have a lot of time to dwell on this, but our relationship is all kinds of fucked up and confusing right now! We have moved passed the fucking and fighting and I am starting to feel a connection with him in a deeper way that I haven't felt with him in a very long time. We aren't going to jump back into a relationship because I still feel very strongly about the reasons we broke up. He needs his own life away from me. I am done being the guy that holds him back from fully experiencing everything that being in college has to offer.

Obviously Bradley and I have a strong connection and a deep bond. We started a relationship the summer before his freshmen year in college and despite all the craziness of him being a varsity athlete and me being a pseudo celebrity diva we spent the better part of 2 years making each other happy. I have no doubt that we could jump right back into our relationship and regard the last 4 months as indigestion, but I just don't ever want Bradley to look back and think, what if!?

I have had my chance to see the world and experience many different people. Why shouldn't Brad get the same chances I did?

It's been awhile...

2009-06-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago (But for some reason it feels more like a month) I had to deal with the most difficult experience of my adult life. It completely drained me both physically and emotionally but I had to keep going because crumbling into the fetal position and crying wasn’t an option. I did my best to help out but unfortunately this time my best wasn’t enough.

I am not at all squeamish when it comes to injuries. I have my Lifeguard EMS certification and I have worked at sports camps my whole life. I have seen broken bones, bloody gashes and a plethora of other injuries all in a day’s work. But this was different because of the intent behind the injuries. This was different because I had never been in a scenario where helping this person meant putting myself in danger. Okay that’s not true! I have put myself in danger to help others plenty of times, but I have never been scared to help somebody like I was this time. Total it was probably only about 3-5 minutes of me taking charge of the situation, but by the time the police showed up and they let the fire fighters in then finally the paramedics, I was completely drained.

It’s really hard for me to accept any type of emotional comfort from people because I always work so hard to make sure that everybody thinks I don’t need it. So whenever things get to the point where I can’t hide the fact that I need a hug I am so embarrassed that I could crawl into a hole and die. I tell myself and anybody that will listen that I would much rather sit in the dark and cry myself to sleep than have somebody hover over me and try to console me while I am inconsolable, but after these last few difficult days I am starting to realize this just isn’t true.

I don’t know how I ended up with so many amazing people in my life. Taking care of me is no easy task. I am a grouchy angry bastard and I hate it when people see me at my most vulnerable so when they do I can sometimes be a little bitch about it. I yelled at them, I kicked them out multiple times and I basically treated them like crap, but they all kept coming back for more. They made sure to be there to wipe away every tear or just hold me when words failed.

After it happened I was surprised by how much the whole experience affected me. I couldn’t go 5 minutes without completely falling apart. But my friends stuck to me like glue and they made sure I had everything I needed to get through this. Two weeks later and now I am shocked by how much this doesn’t affect me. Don’t get me wrong, I am still dealing and it’s still pretty difficult but I actually smile and joke around now and I am not doing it just to put on a show.

All this craziness really took the wind out of my sail and it seriously messed up my tight summer schedule. I have had to move a million things around to accommodate my little breakdown and I am going to spend the next 2 months paying for it! Lucky for me I love what I do and I honestly feel like this summer is exactly what I need to finish all that mental healing. I have never had to hold somebody as they took their last breath and I hope to never do so again, but I am glad I was there for him as much as I could be. Let’s all just hope this hasn’t fucked me up anymore than I already was.

Weekend hook up

2009-06-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

What I want is to be needed.
What I need is to be indispensable to somebody.
Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention.
Somebody addicted to me.
A mutual addiction.
— Chuck Palahniuk

Brad took his last final Thursday morning and was in my bed that very evening. We really need to stop doing this to each other. I am going to be a fucking train wreck for days! Lucky none of my new coworkers have known me long enough to see through my plastic smile and fake plastic personality I strap on whenever I don’t feel like dealing with things. That one takes years to figure out and is more complicated to read than the Da Vinci code.

As always my time with Bradley passed way too quickly and in the end it wasn’t the most pleasant of farewells. I’ve had worse, but I have also had much much better. It just pisses me off how after all this shit, just seeing brad makes me melt. Still I kind of feel like this cycle of self destruction and mind blowing pleasure is coming to an end. He’s changing so much so fast it’s scary. It’s only a matter of time before he won’t even be the Brad I spent the last couple years of my life with. And that’s a good thing! It really feels like both of us are getting to a point where we are almost ready to move on.

West Coast living!

2009-06-09T16:31:00.001-07:00

Since arriving in San Jose on Sunday night I have not stopped having fun! My friends from Santa Cruz picked my up from the airport and from there I proceeded to drink so much alcohol that my kidneys actually began hurting! Yesterday I met up with a few of the guys that were going to be taking on this CRAZY summer project with me and after figuring out they were just as hung over as I was, we went for a couple of $9 pitchers of margaritas and plenty of greasy foods. Right off the bat I recognized two of the guys as relatively successful men in the surfing community, and I am immediately aware that this is going to be one of the greatest summers of my life!

I am staying in Santa Cruz with my buddies while all the other guys are staying around San Jose with the housing the company is providing, so I invited all the guys down to SC for some fun in the sun and the ocean. Unfortunately this is NorCal and apparently God hates it here because it’s always gloomy and cold. So this morning I went to a surf shop for a new wetsuit because my fat ass couldn’t fit into my old one no matter how much you greased me up beforehand! Then I met up with all my new buds at the beach.

This was a great opportunity to really get an idea of what each of us brought to the table. Along with our surfboards we brought some cameras to get some footage and stills for our sample projects and talk about how we planned on attacking this summer. I am so impressed with my team I could cry! What I like about the organization I am working for is they only hire business professionals to lead all their workshops and I really like how they went the extra mile to find all these guys for me. First and foremost these guys are surfers, which is probably the most crucial part of this job, but they are also cinematographers, editors, and camp counselors. Trust me when I tell you how hard it is to find people that have all these crucial skills!

I am so psyched to start this summer I can’t even explain it! Two weeks of training and prep work and planning (days almost identical to today), and then the real fun beings!

Goodbye NYC!

2009-06-07T00:32:00.000-07:00

Usually when I leave NYC I get to say, “Until next time…” but not this time. This time it is goodbye. I was supposed to sleep in a hotel tonight and fly out to San Jose tomorrow afternoon to begin prepping for the camp I will be running. However I am pretty much dealing with the worst case of insomnia EVER! Maybe it’s all the left of adrenaline from all the crazy things I had to do for the wedding today, but I think it’s more because I am finally understanding that this is all really happening. The last of my belongings were shipped back to LA this morning and now the apartment is as empty as (according to some people who have been emailing and commenting lately) my brain, my heart, and my personality.

Right now, sitting here in my empty living room in the dark, if I close my eyes I can pretend that everything is as it was and nothing is about to change. This apartment and I have been through a lot together. Not even a month after moving in 9/11 happened. I was 2 months shy of being 16 and all alone in a city that felt like it was at the dawn of an apocalypse that was an awful day to be a downtown resident. After some time a few building inspectors, a few major repairs and some renovations I moved back into my apartment but this time feeling like a piece of myself went into making it my home.

For 9 years this little apartment in Battery Park has been my sanctuary. A place that I never had to share with anybody and I always knew it was there for me if I needed it. I can’t believe this is all coming to an end. I didn’t believe it as I was saying goodbye to all my coworkers and friends I have been with for the last 9 years at the runaway shelter. It didn’t feel real as I said my farewells to my teachers and my buddies at the martial arts gym. It definitely was extremely surreal to meet the potential owners of my new apartment. But nothing really hit me like it does right now looking around at my empty home and hearing how even the slightest noise echoes through this shell.

I know it’s not like I am never going to come back to NYC, but when I do it won’t be like it is now. NYC will never be the same again because I have no place here to call my own. I keep on trying to tell myself that maybe this is a good thing. Maybe I have gotten to used to running away to my “other life” in NYC whenever things get too difficult for me at home. I did it after I broke up with Eddie, I did it after I first started dealing with my homosexuality and most recently I did it again after I broke it off with Bradley. Not all 23 year olds have a little getaway in a sprawling metropolis they can pop in on whenever they feel like it, so maybe it’s time I start seeing how the rest of the world copes.

It’s 3:30 am and I have been up since 5 am the previous day doing all sorts of wedding activities a man of honor is supposed to do. I am not starting to feel the exhaustion that a wedding can create and my eyes are starting to feel very heavy. I am going to lay out on this window bench I built with my own 2 hands and spend my last night in NYC here in my home for 1 final time. If these walls could talk…

Swirlie time BITCH!

2009-06-04T00:26:00.001-07:00

The verdict is in, I AM AN ASSHOLE! But it’s okay because nobody’s really surprised by that fact.

On Tuesday afternoon and I am EXHAUSTED after a crazy weekend flying cross country YET AGAIN for a HS graduation and an impromptu party at the beach. I am sitting at a Starbucks with a couple of my friends and some of their friends and we are just having a nice relaxing time in our own headspace as we sip lattes and make small talk. During all this small talk I pick up my laptop and go online because I remember that I hadn’t had a chance to look at Post Secrets yet and I am ADDICTED to it like WHOA! Then I came upon this postcard…

This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine! Whenever I hear this ridiculous stereotype on television, the movies, or in real life, I kind of want to vomit! I mean seriously, HIGH SCHOOL IS OVER! If you really don’t care, and never wanted to be part of the cool crowd anyway, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL TALKING ABOUT IT!? Does it make all those screenwriters feel better knowing they got the last word by writing allegorical pseudo-biographies about outcasts outshining the cool kids in the end? The problem with believing what you see on TV all the time is that it’s not actually REAL! The losers in HS turn out to be the very same losers in college, and then they join the adult world never really learning the social skills to be anything else but what they are, because they spent too many years being bitter about not being cool! Like I said, it annoyed me but after a brief pause and a sigh of frustration I was ready to move on but then one of the guys at my table had to open his big mouth!

Guy: That one is so true! The cool kids in HS are all vapid losers, it’s like the only constant in this crazy mixed up world! The great karmic equalizer is that they all peaked at 17 and will spend the rest of their lives knowing their best days are behind them.

FLABERGASTED, I take a moment to really absorb what this guy is saying to me. As a former “HS cool kid” I took offense to this bullshit! I briefly considered putting him in a headlock and dragging him to the bathroom so I could dunk his head in the toilet and flush. I am sure that would have brought back some fond memories! But I don’t because I am a big boy now and big boys use their words.

RGB: That’s the biggest cliché in the book! And what’s worse is it’s not even remotely true! Face facts, when the popular kids grow up they are the ones running the world. Adults identify and elevate the assertive, charming, and personable guys in the real world just like the teenagers do in high school. You like clichés so much chew on this one, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” It’s not just the losers that get to grow up and become fully realized 3 dimensional human beings with thoughts feelings and desires, its EVERYBDOY! Just because nobody wanted to sit next to you at lunch in 10th grade doesn’t mean you have some special insight into the human psyche! Get over yourself and move the fuck on!

That was basically just a small excerpt of what I said to that poor poor guy! I am pretty sure I made him cry. I usually have a sense of humor about these things. Most of the time I laugh it off and I don’t even think about saying anything back. I think my angry tangent was based more on me being tired and stressed than on me being truly angry with what was actually said. It’s just at that moment I was sick and tired of being thought of as a joke because I was well liked as a teenager.

Overwhelmed...

2009-05-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

This week has been insane. A lot of different things have required my full attention at the same time and because of that nothing been getting done properly. I am feeling extremely overwhelmed and I am about 5 seconds from imploding under all this crazy pressure, self-imposed or otherwise!

So what’s weighing me down? I don’t even know where to begin! My duties as man of honor have seriously intensified in the final week of planning, I am currently packing up my apartment never to see it again, pre-camp prep has begun, Tyler and I are not getting along (its all my fault!), and my current job has seen a HUGE jump in clients these past couple weeks and I barely even have time to breath at work anymore! There are probably one or two of those grievances I listed above that you guys are going to want me to dwell on, but that’s probably not going to happen. So let’s move on!

Sleep may be a key problem in my failure to function with any efficiency lately. For some reason I just haven’t been able to do it! It doesn’t seem to matter how active I am or how early\late I choose to go to sleep, I can’t seem to stay asleep for more than 5 hours! I feel like a zombie all the time and I am constantly yawning or wearing sunglasses to hide the dark circles under my eyes! I have decided that this is all due to my ridiculously high stress level from the billion things I need to get done in the next two weeks and that awful feeling that not everything is going to get done.

I sound like such a whiny bitch right now that I kind of want to kick my own ass! The worst part of this whole situation is I could probably improve my circumstances tremendously just by swallowing my pride and talking about what’s going on in my head with the people in my life. But for some reason I am finding it impossible to admit to anybody in real life that I am drowning and I really need somebody to jump in and save me! Shit I am starting to make myself cry now so I am going to go and do something else now.

Guys suck!

2009-05-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

I am frustrated and angry and just soo AHHHH!!!! I got in a huge fight with Kevin this afternoon after we sat down to a late lunch about our “relationship”. He made me feel like such a heartless prick, but I was completely upfront at the beginning with what we were doing! I get that there’s no such thing as sex with no strings if you keep on hooking up with the same person over and over, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that there was some SMALL part of me that wants to be more than friends with Kevin. But what it comes right down to is that I still feel like I belong to Bradley and I am not ready to move on yet. I DON’T WANT ANOTHER BOYFRIEND! Not only am I going home in a couple weeks, but there are sooo many other reasons why this would NEVER happen from him being older than my dad to his incessant cattiness that drives me crazy! Don’t get me wrong, effeminate guys are great as friends, but if I wanted to deal with all that passive aggressive bitchiness I’d get a girlfriend! Umm no offense to the daintier gays, they smell better, dress nicer, and are better groomed than I have ever been in my life, it’s just not by thing…

SICK!

2009-05-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

Where to begin… Well I guess first of I would like to start with me being SICK! It fucking sucks and I know exactly what lead to the circumstances of me feeling like shit. See what happened was Kevin thought it would be fun to head up to Rhode Island and I decided, why the hell not! We were staying at a coworker of Kevin’s massive-assive house. And in the Parlor was a hollow wood board! It was fucking gorgeous! Hands down total surfboard porn. I didn’t recognize the board design but I could tell it was built for local conditions and I was aching to go out there and shred! So I did, and it was glorious. I’ve never been on a wooden board before and I was surprised by how well it handled. I thought the weight of the board was going to slow me down, but it was surprisingly springy and fast. Anyway, it was a good day. I was smiling from ear to ear the rest of the day. Sometimes a boy just needs to ride a wave, crappy conditions, and cold ass water be damned!

Kevin has been starting to act like my boyfriend lately and it’s starting to freak me out. I am leaving NYC in less than a month and I am not coming back any time soon I am really hoping he doesn’t think I would change my mind for him… I am really worried about how to approach this topic with him because I really like spending time with him, I just don’t want him to start getting some unrealistic expectations about what’s going on here. I was completely upfront in the beginning and I sincerely hope that he’s not thinking about changing the terms of our arrangement because that would make things uncomfortable.

In less emotionally awkward (but way more socially awkward) news I have seen Star Trek 3 times since it’s come out in Theaters! I am a HUGE trekkie like any self respecting guy with a B.S.E. degree, so of course I saw it at midnight in IMAX on Thursday. It was un-buttfucking-believable how awesome that movie was! I heart John Cho so much and after seeing this movie I heart him even more! It’s not like I went into last weekend with the intent of seeing this movie 3 times, but it was so awesome that when a friend called me Saturday inviting me to go see Star Trek with him I couldn’t say no! The second time around I was really able to take in how visually stunning the whole movie was. Those massive space scenes and gorgeous lens flares were works of genius! Mad props to ILM for their insane artistry because they totally outdid themselves with the VFX, a small part of me wants to work for them sooo badly it almost makes me wish I had some kind of work ethic to make that dream come true. The third time I saw Star Trek was to educate a heathen. We were having a casual conversation when it turned to movies and I told her that Star Trek was probably the most awesome movie I have seen in months. Then she said, and I quote, “I fell asleep during a lot of those star trek movies, I just like that R2D2 robot”. After taking a moment to fully comprehend what she had said to me, we went directly to the movies so she could learn the error of her ways. Which she did and once again all was right with the universe.

Being home SICK on a Saturday is, THE SUCK! The highlight of my afternoon has been reading the negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and then clicking on the comments and reading all the crazy Trek fans ripping the reviewers a new one! It’s really funny how angry these people are about the 5% of people who didn’t find this movie to be their cup of tea. Besides that I have nothing to do and nowhere to go, this is going to be a really long night.

I need help!

2009-05-12T23:40:00.000-07:00

Writing a speech for this wedding has been a pain in my ass! I have no idea what to say or what to write about. The following is what happens when I type whilst watching bad tv and only half pay attention to what I am doing. The wedding party is quite small, only about 40 guests. It’s safe to say that I know 38 of them and they all know me. I am trying to make this fun, light and personable. I suck at writing with a purpose and I am not entirely sure if there’s a format or style I should be trying to emulate here. What I am looking for is some help on completing this. I am not even sure if I am on the right track with what I have written so far. So yeah… comments, criticisms, questions, whatever! Just let me know what’s what.

Steph and I became friends quite serendipitously. We met on a night train in Europe on our way to Spain. With both of us facing the idea of wandering a foreign country all alone we seized the opportunity to do it together, and from then on we have been friends. Stephanie first introduced me to Will 4 years ago. At first he and I didn’t get along out of fear that I was there to steal his woman, but after coming to the realization that my preferences leaned more towards the masculine, we became fast friends.

From day 1 Steph and Will seemed like they were meant for each other, still I was pretty shocked when Steph told me she was getting married to Will! Not because she was marrying Will, it was because she was getting married! Before she spoke those words, in my mind, we were still teenagers living it up in the big apple. But afterwards we’d magically warped into a couple of 20 somethings with 30 lurking just around the corner… Somehow with this declaration we had become grownups! Talk about a rude awakening.

I am not going to lie. When Steph first asked me to be her “Man of honor” I was completely horrified! Awful visions of bridal shower games and trips to the salon to get pretty for the big day flashed before my eyes, and all I wanted to do was run! However this honor she bestowed upon me was something I tried my hardest to live up to because she is the kind of woman who deserves the best. So I quelled my reservations and over the next few months I was able to get a second chance to see what makes us such great friends and what makes Stephanie one of the best people I will ever know. As much as I would like to insert sarcastic and witty anecdotes that you have all come to LOVE & expect from me, this time words fail. Getting ready for this wedding was something I was so very proud to be a part of despite the week long debates on floral arrangements and endless hours at the dress shops, this experience helped me reach a new level of love and respect for Steph. She is everything that any man could hope for in a woman, and Will I hope you are aware that today you are the luckiest man on earth!

So on that note I would like to make a toast to Steph and Will…

Aint no rest!

2009-05-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

I went to go visit Eddie Saturday night on a whim. I haven’t spent any time with him in months and I really missed him so I decided, why not? Poor Eddie! He was fucking exhausted from not sleeping in two days. The second he saw me he ran over and hugged me so tight I could barely breathe, and then spent the next 20 minutes crying. It was quite the shock to the system to see Eddie unravel like this but at the same time it was quite nice to finally not be the guy falling apart over the world ending tragedy of the week.

After he calmed down enough to tell me why he was freaking out, I started to freak out for him! The dude bit off WAY more than he could chew and he was seriously paying the consequences for it. He had 3 projects in post, 2 music videos and a commercial, and they were all due on Friday and 2 of them were already extended from previous deadlines! Apparently there was some drama with this company he hired to work on the music video and the freelance editor he’d picked up completely sucked at his job so Eddie ended up doing all the work ALONE!

I dragged Eddie away from his office long enough to eat and with the goal of getting him to call it a night so he could at least get 5 hours of sleep. We ate at the Swinger’s Diner and I ordered the usual, but this night I decided to add a milkshake. Poor Eddie was falling asleep on top of his food! It would have been so freakin adorable had it not been for, wait what am I talking about!? It was seriously adorable watching him trying to fight his exhaustion off like a 5 year old trying to stay up to see Santa! By the time I got him back to his apartment it was well after 3 so I decided my only recourse was to crash at his place (on his bed).

We woke up spooning and when I opened my eyes and saw him looking back at me I wanted nothing more than to make sweet man love to him, BUT I DIDN’T! Because that’s just all kinds of fucked up that I am sooo not ready to deal with at this point in time. So instead we exchanged pleasantries and I forced him to accompany me to breakfast! In the daylight I was able to get a good look at him and I was really worried about what I was seeing. Eddie sucks at taking care of himself! For some reason he can forget to eat and sleep for days because he gets so caught up in what he’s doing. And looking at him I could really tell that his crappy lifestyle was catching up with him in a scary way. His hair was falling out, his skin was all weird and blotchy and even though he’d slept 8 hours his eyes looked almost black from lack of sleep.

After twisting his arm (almost to the point of ripping it off his shoulder) I was able to get him to agree to some help. I have a friend that has recently decided to take a break from his job at a MAJOR animation studio to cope with the disillusionment of life as an animator that would totally be willing to help out here. I also had time to check out what he was working on with his music video, I really hated the music track (it was some kind of pop-rock-electroni-emo awfulness that all the kids are listening to these days) but the VFX were right up my alley! I have been messing around with Autodesk Flame for awhile now (I have always been a HUGE 3DSMax user) and I KNEW I could totally continue what he was doing and I have been ITCHING to get my hands on a project that would really let me get right up in it! Eddie knows what I am capable of and he trusts me completely, so we called up my friend to give Eddie a hand in the office and he let me take the music video hard drive back to NYC.

When I get back to LA permanently my first order of business is to make sure Eddie never ends up like he did this past weekend. That was scary! I guess I am not one to talk though, because I haven’t really slept much since getting back to NYC yesterday. I have been working nonstop on the music video and I am LOVING the way it’s turning out! When I get in the zone like this I can go days without sleep, but that really wouldn’t go over well because of my need to stay alert at work. So I am writing this entry in hopes that it will wind me down enough to get a few hours of shut eye before attacking Eddie's project again in the morning.

Quick stop @ home!

2009-05-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

Thursday night…

Tyler: So… You are going to miss Jane’s Bday, Your uncle’s album release party AND the Stephen Lynch concert all because you don’t want to fly to LA since you just came down 2 weeks ago!?

RGB: It just seems like it’s a bit excessive and I am having some serious guilt about earning $20/hr and being able to afford to live in Manhattan and fly down to LA whenever I feel the need. ESPECIALLY when everybody I work with struggles to pay rent every month and they live in QUEENS! I just don’t think I have it in me to tell my coworkers that I, YET AGAIN, decided to come to LA on a whim and I spent the weekend doing unimaginably awesome things while they all shared a single package of Ramen and begged for change on the street corners! They hate me enough as it is.

Tyler: To bad! I already bought you a plane ticket home. I just emailed it to you, your plane leaves at 10am tomorrow.

RGB: I am torn between acting all butt hurt because you went behind my back and purchased these tickets after I already said I wasn’t going to be coming down, or thanking you profusely because I was kind of hoping you would do something like this therefore shifting my spoiled rotten rich kid guilt onto you!

Tyler: Well you always have been a manipulative little shit! But you aren’t as clever as you think you are. Don’t think I can’t tell when I’m being played by you! I’ll pick you up from the airport tomorrow.

Fast forward to the next day, I am in LA and thinking about how this is going to be a pretty awesome weekend! I had just enough time to run home and steal some of my little brother’s clothes because mine were too tight on my fat ass (Side note. Apparently some people have taken offense to me calling myself fat because they don’t think that I am. So let me clarify that I think fat is the when I flex my abs and the only way somebody can tell that I am doing so is because it looks like I am trying to take a shit! Plus I am starting to develop Buddha face. Besides I am totally fat by Los Angeles homosexual standards, just not so fat by Nebraska heterosexual guidelines.). I grabbed some basic clothes from my brother’s closet without asking and then I left for the Wiltern.

EVERYBODY told me that I should have gone with Tyler to the Wiltern. When it comes to navigating east of a coastal city, I have issues! Ask me how to get ANYWHERE on ANY beach city from Santa Barbara down to fucking Pacific Beach, and I will totally tell you how to get there. But head east towards the valley, and that’s no man’s land! I got really really lost and had too much pride to call my friends and ask for directions, so I wandered Koreatown aimlessly until I magically stumbled onto a street that was semi familiar. From there I totally found my way to Wilshire, and from there, The Wiltern.

Stephen Lynch is a down ass G! Usually when I tell people that I like listening to Stephen Lynch people go, “Oh the guy that sings My United States of Whatever right?” and I respond, “Hells mother fucking no! We all know that’s Liam Lynch!”

Then they ask, “Is he the guy that directs all those really creepy movies that I never really understand but for some reason I can’t seem to look away? I didn’t know that guy sang.” and I tell them, “Come on! What the fuck is wrong with you!? That’s David Lynch and to my knowledge he’s not a singer!”

Stephen Lynch is funny but in a really immature dirty frat guy sort of way…

The concert was the bees knees! I laughed until my throat hurt, then I downed a cup of beer and I laughed until I felt the beer coming up again! What can I say? I am a sucker for dumb jock humor! Afterward we hit Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles and ate until breathing became a problem, then we drove to Hermosa and stopped FFFF for some drinking and late night shenanigans at the beach. I am only going to be here for another 24 hours, but this is already the most fun I have had since the last time I was here! NYC sucks and I can’t wait to come home to LA permanently.

Rude awakening

2009-04-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

In the midst of all the craziness going on, that is my life, I had the most traumatizing experience of my 23 years at the tailor’s yesterday morning! If I didn’t have enough stress worrying about packing up my apartment, getting everything out of storage in Brooklyn, planning for this stupid wedding, and work, I just got another revelation thrown in my face that I now need to deal with! I am a fucking fat ass!

Of course since the bride works in the fashion industry, standard tux rentals just weren’t going to fly at this event. I needed to get something custom made just for the fucking wedding. After a month of comparing and contrasting Stephanie had found the “perfect suit” for me and arranged for me to meet with the person who was going to make it happen. I think I was okay right up to the point when he pulled out the measuring tape. I knew I had put on a few pounds since January because no running or surfing makes RGB a chubby boy (not to mention my atrocious eating habits and my affinity for dark beer). When the guy told me I have a 33inch waist I practically started crying right then and there! The last time I had my measurements taken was in November and I had a 28 inch waist. I gained 5 inches in 5 months.

The phrase “downward spiral of despair” doesn’t even to begin to cover my mood. A large part of my self esteem is based on my body, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I now look the way I feel, but still I am a little surprised! Physical manifestations of emotional problems always suck because nobody likes getting reality rubbed in their face, but it always just seems a little bit worse when those manifestations are happening with me!

Last night I dreamed I was on, The Biggest Loser, and when I stepped on the scale all the other contestants started laughing at me! It was seriously intense and I totally freaked out, woke up, and couldn’t get anymore sleep after that. The last time I gained this much weight I had injured my back, but the second I was better I lost all the weight in just over a month with a crazy no fat, no carb, no taste diet and a workout regimen that would have made an Iron Man competitor cry. But this time around I am just not motivated to put that kind of effort into myself. I feel like maybe being in shape at this point in time might actually be more trouble than it’s worth. The last time I lost all the weight it didn’t really do anything to improve my mood and it wasn’t until months later that I actually felt better about myself.

My fat ass is only going to last until the second week of July, by then all the activity from surf camp and skate camp will have totally burned it away. Maybe in the meantime I can work on the other stuff that has been bothering me. Until then I am hoping this Biggest Loser nightmare doesn’t start happening on a regular basis. That would be bad.

And ya don't stop!

2009-04-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

This has been one of the most hectic weeks of 2009! On Tuesday me and about 8 of my friends from NYC (who have never been to CA) flew to LA in hopes of me showing them the time of their lives with it all culminating at a weekend adventure at Coachella. I was especially excited for Coachella this year, not because of the line-up (which except for 8 or 9 exceptions was really quite underwhelming), but because this was going to be the first time in a while that I wasn’t actually at the event promoting the whole time!

Besides showing my NYC friends what Cali is all about and why it’s a BILLION times better than living in New York, I also had some business to take care of. I met with a few camp owners about a summer job in either LA or SD (I think I have it narrowed down to 2 camps and I am probably just going to split the difference and do them both!), I met with the guy that handles my money so we could finally get my taxes taken care of (My finances are sooo confusing and I have NO IDEA what’s going on with all that mess I just sign my name where he tells me and hope for the best), and I also had to get in touch with a moving company to grab all the boxes and furniture out of my house in SD in June when the lease is up.

So in between all that personal business I took my friends (along with Tyler, Jane and Johnny) kite surfing, sailing (to Catalina), skin diving, tidepooling, and dining at all my favorite restaurants (Like Brix @ 1601, r+d kitchen, and Typhoon [despite the insect menu its quite good!}). My poor friends couldn’t hang and by Thursday they were all sunburned and completely exhausted from all the warm weather and leisure activities! People from the East Coast are WEAK!

Thursday night we left for Palm Springs and checked into our hotel. I called up a couple of friends and found out where the parties were at, but my wimpy friends were still too tired to party, so me Tyler, Jane & Johnny decided to go and have fun without them. I don’t remember the night as clearly as I think I should, but I have a good feeling that fun was had by all in attendance…

Friday was a good day. I met up with a friend and scored us all some VIP passes and compound that with the mild (for indio) weather, it was perfection! I am not really that big of a Paul McCartney fan, but it was a lot of fun singing along with “Back in the USSR”. My friends really seemed to be enjoying all the crazy celebrities that were hiding out in the VIP section, but I am all about the music and spent most of my time running from stage to stage. At night after the day’s performances were over, I was pretty beat so we went back to the hotel and ordered a buttload of food and spent the next few hours eating and watching Slumdog Millionaire. I had never seen that movie and I really enjoyed it, plus the guy that wins all that money was really cute and I enjoyed watching him.

Saturday was FUCKING HOT! My poor friends were melting in the song and they totally couldn’t hang. Most of them went back to the hotel by 8 and they totally missed out on all kinds of awesomeness. I would have to say that with all the great music I heard on Saturday (and there was a lot of great music!) my favorite moment was running into David Hasselhoff! Jane and I were leaving the VIP area on our way to catch TV on the Radio and THERE HE WAS! DAVID FUCKING HASSELHOFF! The dude looked AWFUL! I mean he was sooo scary looking the phrase “Tranny hot mess” comes to mind… But he was also super nice and a lot of fun to talk to! He was with a lady friend who seemed nice enough and I totally got to shake the Hoff’s hand when we parted ways! He even called Jane, “darling” which made me chuckle heartily for a plethora of reasons that would only make sense after a half hour of explanation that I just don’t have the time for right now!

Unfortunately we had to bail on Sunday because my friends had to fly back to NYC. It was alright though because I wasn’t really too excited with the line-up for the last day. After we dropped my friends off at the airport, me and my local homies decided we needed some alcohol, with a side of lunch. By 4 everybody was passed out at the house except for me. So I decided to go for a walk and I ended up at my favorite beachfront Starbucks. I hung out there sipping my iced apple chai concoction and drawing in my sketchbook until the sun came down. There was also a texting incident that left me feeling like a jackass but that’s just going to be a story that has to be told on a future post.

My crazy whirlwind LA trip ended with me being shaken awake by Mrs. Tyler @ 6:30am to let me know I had to get going if I was going to make my 8am flight back to NYC. Which really caught me off guard because I was almost positive that I was flying home @ 10am. Of course she was right and I was wrong, and I BARELY made my flight back to NYC! Now I am off to work until midnight. Life’s just nonstop for me cuz I'm awesome!

Song of the minute

2009-04-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

3oh3 |MTV Music

A couple months ago I FINALLY got this song out of my head, but now its all over the place again! It's never going to go away! I find myself increasingly embarassed when I catch myself singing, "Shush girl, Shut your lips! Do the Hellen Keller, and dance with your hips!" as I am walking down the streets of NYC. Call me crazy, but something about the phrasing seems rather uncouth...

I do realize that my last entry was me kind of being a little nuts. Thanks for all the nice responses. As always I do appreciate all the nice emails, just give me awhile to get back to you guys because responding back to emails is more painful to me than explaining sinusoidal waves to a 4th grader. Because the easiest way to break it down is by explaining that a cosine wave is said to be "sinusoidal", because cos(x) = sin(x + π / 2), which is also a sine wave with a phase-shift of π/2. Now try writing a personal email to somebody you've never met! It gets A LOT more complicated than math!

Indecision

2009-04-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

If this past 10 days has taught me anything, its that I SUCK at life and I fail as a rational human being! I wish some of the people that read my blog could see me on an average day here in my life. I am a much stronger and confident man than I think I come off as on this blog. Out in the world when people see me, they would never imagine the self-doubt and FEAR that I express all the time here when I write. The image that I project outwardly for others is very important to me and an integral part of who I am as a person. So every time I post something that contradicts that outward image I am trying to project (read, EVERY TIME I POST SOMETHING.) I find myself in conflict over whether I should actually do it.

Bradley knocked on my door exactly 10 days ago, early Friday morning. I opened my door and when I saw him I was so happy I jumped directly into his arms wrapping myself around him as tight as I possibly could. I have missed him so much I was starting to think that maybe I should go and see a doctor about it for some heavy meds. But then there he was, and there I was, and we were together, and I was better. I have no idea how long we stood there hugging. Neither of us said anything, I think we both realized nothing good could come from speaking so as long as this embrace was happening things could be perfect.

Eventually we let go of each other and we walked over to the couch and sat down. After a few awkward moments of silence we started talking and we didn’t stop until we looked at the window and noticed it was night. The day had went by so fast that the second I’d realized it was over I started panicking over the fact that this was all over. I wanted him to stay, and he clearly didn’t want to go. What we had here was a disaster in the making.

He stayed. Saturday was even better than Friday. Shane (Bradley’s brother) started calling A LOT Friday evening, but we didn’t need a reality check from him or anybody. I texted Shane to let him know Bradley was in fact still with me and then we shut off our phones. Sunday morning was when things started to shift. The reality of him going back to SD for his last quarter of school was starting to sink in. I knew the question was coming from the first moment when I opened the door, and as much as I wanted it to, my answer never changed. The things that were wrong with our relationship when we broke up were still very wrong and I would be a fool to walk right back into the same minefield I left.

This euphoria that we had been feeling over the last couple days was wearing off fast because reality’s a bitch, and the more you try to push it back the greater the force is going to be when it snaps back! God damn did it snap! There was screaming. Lots of screaming. Accusations flying left and right. Crying. Still through all the unpleasantness all I wanted to do was go back to SD with Bradley and do our best to make things as they used to be. I was scared that I might actually give into this sad fantasy where everything could be good again, so I asked him to leave. There was a lot more screaming before he actually did go, and when it was over, IT WAS OVER.

The week that followed was kind of a blur. I haven’t left my place much or had contact with the outside world. All hundred hours of my unwatched Tivo’d programming is no longer unwatched. Kyle and I finished our project a few weeks ago so I didn’t have to worry about getting up to deal with him, but I had taken on more hours at my other job. After Wednesday I’d called in every favor I had and I finally had to go into work on Thursday. If it weren’t for work I think I would still have been a complete wreck. Because of the nature of this other job, I got perspective on life relatively quick.

My relationship with Bradley feels exactly like this song. The saddest thing is if he were to knock on my door right now, I would jump right into his arms and do it all over again. How fucking sad is that!?