There Was This One Time When...

...after a long day of feeling a bit yucky, Dave decides it has been quite long enough since his last blog post. So he lopes over to his blog, unlocks the front doors, flinging them open, and ambles in.

It seems musty and stuffy in his blog. The air is still. There's a mild, lingering odor; a strange mix of cheese puffs, BBQ corn nuts and unfulfilled dreams. Plus, methane. Or maybe he brought that particular scent along with him, I dunno...

Glancing up toward the vaulted ceilings in the blog foyer, Dave notices cobwebs. Plus... wait, what is that, way up there, stuck to the wall near the ceiling line? Good grief, is that a booger? Dave marvels at the dedication involved in that placement. Was it a 16-foot ladder, or a world-class fling, he wonders?

Dave sighs. Three paragraphs in, and already he's sunk to Jr. High School levels. Farts and boogers? Really? Good thing he's alone in here. No one to be embarrassed in front of. Unless, of course, the live web stream is still active. Dave walks over to the statue of Bill Murray by the entrance to the main ballroom and checks the hidden camera for the blinking red light. Nope. The webcam is dead.

Near the statue is a half-empty bowl of peanuts. Yikes. Probably long-since stale. He tries one. Yup, stale. He grabs a handful and munches on them as he moves into the ballroom.

Silence. He powers up the phonograph, and kneels down to grab an LP out of the nearby milk crate. He wonders what he should play to break the silence. Sabotage, by the Beastie Boys? Failure, by Breaking Benjamin? In the Air Tonight, by Phil Collins? He decides on something mellow... Marlene Dietrich's Favorite Poem, by the enigmatic Peter Murphy.



Dave shuffles over to the middle of the ballroom floor, lays down on his back and looks at the mural on the ceiling, as the haunting music plays...

Dave is amazed by the photography of Tim Flach. Then again, Dave is amazed by many things. He's childlike like that. Yes, childlike and childish, all in the same blog post. Dave spreads his arms and legs apart, like that famous drawing by Michelangelo, or DaVinci, or whomever it was, and lets his mind begin to wander.

He's letting his hair grow out. It's at that awkward stage that is best endured by employing a hat. He had a video-taped audition for an SDGE commercial today. He filmed it with his iPhone as he sat in his car during his lunch break. He hopes his awkward hair wasn't a minus. He loves his time in his car during lunch. Alone, windows open, a salad in his lap, an iced caramel macchiato in the cup holder, his iPad draped over the steering wheel, the Kindle app opened to whatever novel he is currently reading. Ah, a golden time. The only part of the day he enjoys more is climbing into bed each night at 2am to go to sleep. In the dark, exhausted, drifting off to sleep. Wonderful.

The Peter Murphy music stops. Dave tries to decide if he should put on another song, or just lay there in silence.

The silence wins.

Dave's mind continues to wander. His acting career is moving forward. He's going up to LA twice a week now for classes. He's slowly understanding the importance of "play" when it comes to acting. For someone who likes (needs?) to be in control as much as possible, it's been very difficult for him to learn to just cut loose and play with abandon, without fear of making mistakes or "doing it wrong". John Cleese spoke brilliantly about just that, in a video clip of a speech Dave watched recently...



Being re-wired on a foundational level has been a fascinating, occasionally-painful journey for Dave, but the results are tangible. He's working on the next script for the Beyond the Impact web series. The first 15-minute episode has been released to the public...

BTi EP 1. from ETCHED MOTION PRO on Vimeo.

The second 15-minute episode will be released on the 13th of this month, and the final 20-minutes will be released on the 26th. Dave is learning patience the hard way. It's hard to wait, but it's the right thing to do. Dave is learning.

[EDIT] Here is Episode 2:

BTi EP 2. from ETCHED MOTION PRO on Vimeo.

He sits up, sighs and glances about the ballroom. He remembers the last time people were dancing in here. It was fun to watch from a detached distance, but up-close mingling always unnerves Dave, no matter how hard he tries to blend in, and so that night Dave fled his own party and played Minecraft instead. He felt badly about it, but, hey, you are what you are, yes? Dave holds out some bizarre hope that somehow, some day, he'll magically transform into a Man, capital M. A heroic type. Someone people can rely on in a pinch, when things get rough, instead of crumbling and fleeing.

Dave pictures himself like this, humorously enough...

Is there a more manly picture in existence than that one, Dave wonders? That beard alone could rule a small country.

Dave hops up to his feet, stopping his mind before it wanders down that philosophical rabbit hole -- What is man? He strides across the ballroom, pushes the nose on the portrait of Matthew McConaughey, activating the door to the secret passageway, and enters his Snack Storage Room, grabbing a 1-pound bag of teriyaki beef jerkey and a bottle of water (he'd given up Red Bulls long ago), and continues through the greenhouse, up the spiral staircase and out onto the balcony, overlooking the city.

The sounds of the city soothe him tonight, reminding Dave that he isn't alone. For though he enjoys being by himself, he doesn't like being alone...

Well, it makes sense to Dave....

He sits on his director's chair, opening the bag of jerkey, and calls out to the night.

"Adios for now!"