Dorkman

I am a blogger

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 23:05:48 GMT

So, I went and moved to Blogspot. I've had an account there for a while, but nothing to write in it. I've decided to do a more professional-minded blog over there. I may occasionally still use LJ to get all emo (since I said I wouldn't do it there).

If you want to keep up with me in my more-frequent musings on blogspot, check in at:

dorkmanscott.blogspot.com

Here's hoping I don't go fizzling again.

Been a while...

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:36:52 GMT

Hello to anyone who still reads my LJ.

It's been a busy couple of months, all in a filmmaking way. I was in Florida for the months of June and August shooting a Star Wars fan film. It's not my script and I wasn't directing (officially), but I did shoot it and co-choreographed the lightsaber fights with Ryan here in L.A.

I really don't want to get into it too much right now, but it was a nightmare shoot (due to negligence on the part of the producers and "director") and I'm glad to be home.

In July, on the other hand, I worked on another project that was also kind of a nightmare, but still a great experience. I had the pleasure of directing Ray Park (Darth Maul) in a concept teaser for a comic book adaptation called The Descendants.

I couldn't post the trailer when it was done (ComiCon), because there was a website that wanted exclusive distribution of the trailer and the eventual series. But the deal's off and so I can post it wherever I darn well please.

And so, I give you the teaser trailer for The Descendants:

In one last, unrelated bit of news, I'm considering leaving livejournal and starting a professional blog, probably over at blogspot, where I already have an account. I'll let everyone know if that happens so you can keep up with me, but even if I do, I'll keep this account so I can check up on all of you. :-)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 11:51:30 GMT

The most satisfying reading experience I've ever had. I am overwhelmed and can't say anything more at the moment.

Emo post alert

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 01:01:16 GMT

Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend
Somewhere along
In the bitterness, and
I would have stayed up
With you all night
Had I known
How to save a life.

On the one hand, I'm intentionally being stereotypical here by posting emo song lyrics before a downer emotional post, and enjoying the humor in it. I will continue the theme by interspersing certain verses throughout the post. At the same time, it's actually cathartic to do every once in a while.

The song lyrics, if you aren't familiar with them, are from the song "How to Save a Life" by The Fray. The lyrics above are the chorus of the song, and while the opening verse is a little too free-verse and cliched for my taste (for example, the first two words of the song are "Step one" -- there's no step two mentioned in the song), and the rhyming throughout the song is lazy at best (most of the words are "rhymed" with some version of themselves), I find the verses moving and insightful:

Let him know that you know best
'Cause after all, you do know best.
Try to step past his defense,
Without granting innocence.
Lay down a list of what is wrong:
The things you told him all along.
Pray to God he hears you,
And pray to God he hears you.

The people reading this probably know who I'm talking about. If you don't, you'll get the gist. I'm not going to use his name here. For any readers who don't know who or what, let me say this much: although this person was never a romantic partner of mine, nor someone I had any interest in being so partnered with, I loved him very much. If we're being honest, I still do. And I probably always will. That's just how it works, I think.

There was a time when thinking of him, of the friendship we shared, could make me feel happy and proud. Even after things went sour, I was able to hold on to that feeling, and remind myself of how great our friendship could be if we could just get through the rough patch. One of the things I resent the most about the way he's treated me for the last few years, is that he's managed to make me forget what that felt like. I remember that we were amazing friends. I remember the event, but I've lost my memory of the experience.

I believe that for a time, until he realized that accepting love meant letting go of his pain, he loved me too. I think the part of him that loved me, the part that I loved most, is still in there somewhere. But there's some other person now with his face and his voice, whose sole purpose is to cast himself as the victim in any situation and make others suffer for it. He's got loads of excuses -- his father was abusive, his mother was emotionally absent, past girlfriends, high school social disasters. His life is everyone's fault but his own.

I thought I could help him with that. More importantly, I thought he wanted me to help him.

As he begins to raise his voice,
You lower yours, and grant him
One last choice:
Drive until you lose the road,
Or break with the ones you've followed.
He will do one of two things:
He will admit to everything,
Or he'll say he's "just not the same"
And you'll begin to wonder why you came.

When our friendship began, we talked about everything, all the time. We stayed up late nights, trading off which one took the bed and which the floor, or each taking one of the futons in the living room. The fact that we talked is what made our relationship what it was. When things soured, we tried to keep talking. But everything I said got twisted and used as fuel, used to drive the wedge deeper.

It got to the point where we couldn't speak to each other without having a liaison present, and even then most of the time the things said meant nothing. What I said fell on deaf ears and what he said was designed only to hurt as much as possible. Nothing I did was right. If I suggested something we could do to fix it, it was the wrong thing. If he suggested something, and I did it, it was the wrong thing because he "doesn't know what's best in this situation". If he suggested something and I didn't do it, it was my fault for not trying hard enough.

This has been going on for two and a half years.

I can say I understand from a psychological perspective. Intellectually I understand why someone really caring for him frightened him. I could write a book on how much I understand about what he's done. But emotionally it still tears me up. My brain understands why my heart is broken, but that doesn't make it better. I think it makes it worse.

After this week, I don't know if I'll ever see him again. The part of me that loves him hopes I do. That part of me wants to take him in, forgive him and ask him to forgive me. I want to tell him that I love him and give him a hug to prove it, but I haven't even looked him in the eyes for nearly a year. And that's because the rest of me knows that the friend I had is gone.

It's hard for me to cry about this. I cried all my tears years ago and my heart has hardened against the pain. I'm so used to it now that it's hard to get "upset" at the norm. Despite the unlikelihood that "How to Save a Life" will be remembered for its literary merits, when the lead singer sings the chorus (which is repeated about eight times over the course of the song), I can hear in his voice that he knows exactly what every word means. He has felt the same helplessness, the same desperation, and at the bottom of it all, the same hopeless love.

This song matters to me, right now, because it makes me cry. And I desperately need to cry. Crying lets the pressure out, helps me wash the pain away, and lets me say goodbye. After all the hours, the years of talking, I think that's the only thing left to say.

Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend
Somewhere along
In the bitterness, and
I would have stayed up
With you all night
Had I known
How to save a life.

LAWL

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:20:51 GMT

Anyone seen Princess Mononoke?

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 00:30:56 GMT

Can someone explain to me

Wed, 30 May 2007 17:06:36 GMT

...just what is so damn special about the case of Madeline McCann?

Don't get me wrong, the fact that a child was abducted is heinous and I hope they find her and catch the ones who did it, and if there's a Hell I hope they burn there. But when children go missing every day, why in the blue fuck has this particular case got the whole world jumping up and down? I just read that the parents of this particular child got a personal audience with the fucking Pope so he could offer his condolences. WTF!

How many parents of missing children have gotten the help of maybe their local police force for maybe a few weeks before the case is given up for hopeless? How must this make parents like that feel?

It's a good thing the world cares this much about this little girl, but I want to know why it doesn't care this much about EVERY little girl and boy.

New Harry Potter Trailer

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:53:45 GMT

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/harrypotterandtheorderofthephoenix.html

Can I get a "fuck yeah"?

Survey like burning

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:29:22 GMT

Questions courtesy of oneperfectverse

1. What do you want to be known for as a film maker?

I'd like to get the reputation of someone like Spielberg. Not necessarily in terms of fame and recognition, though that'd be nice. But I want people to see my name and say "He makes good movies. I'll check this one out." I don't want to be the guy who makes good horror movies or good action movies or good fantasy movies, I want to be the guy who makes good movies whatever the genre.

I'd also like to be known as a filmmaker who supports new talent. There's a lot of kids out there even now with amazing talent, and I'd like to help talented young people of the next generation the way I wish someone rich and famous would help me now.

2. What talent that you do not possess would you like to have most?

I would like to be telekinetic. Superpowers are talents.

Barring that, I'd like to be able to draw.

3. What book or movie has inspired you most? How?

I like that you used the word "inspired" instead of "influenced". It's still a difficult answer, but the question is more appropriate.

I guess I'd probably say Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. It just blew my mind the way people say Star Wars blew their minds in the 70s.

That and Kill Bill, Vol. 1.

In different ways, I consider the two of them to be perfect movies. There are a lot of movies I really love, but those two are really just so, so great. To the second part of the question, they showed me what movies could be, the kinds of visual and visceral power that the cinema can have.

4. Say you end up getting a job teaching at B--. (Everyone's doing it!) Describe your coolest English lesson/activity (so I can steal it).

Oh jeez. I hadn't even thought of this kind of stuff.

Off the top of my head, I'm always interested in the idea of books like "Wicked", so probably I'd do a creative writing assignment where they have to re-tell the story from the point of view of a minor character. It would make them consider the point of view and assumptions of the narration, at least in the good cases. In the bad ones it would be a plot summary that says "me" instead of "he" occasionally.

You know the main thing I'd probably do, though? I'd explain to the class, before assigning any reading, why this particular book or story is on the curriculum. I think the biggest problem I had in high school, which was remedied occasionally in college, was being given historical and literary context for the work, but not personal context.

Why should I care about this book? What should I learn that pertains to my life and my understanding of the world? Those are answers I wanted to know and I think kids still will. I think if I spent a day, even half a day, communicating the value of the book and what they should be looking for and wrestling with as they read it, there would be a higher turnaround of actual reading being done, than in the cases where they're just going to be called upon to remember details and arbitrary symbolisms.

I can tell you one thing that won't fly with me, though: video assignments as a means to an easy A. Every class I was ever in -- and everyone I've known who went to high school -- it was the case that if you had a "creative" assignment, as long as you pointed a camera at something and made a videotape, the teacher was floored and just gave an A regardless of content. Likewise with Powerpoint.

Not with me, kiddos. You do a video, I'm not going to be distracted and amazed by the newfangled technology. There'd better be something creative and interpretive happening in that video or you get the same grade as if you wrote a paper of comparable content.

5. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

I've done a lot of travelling, so the idea of travelling somewhere doesn't really hold a lot of intrigue for me. As such there aren't a lot of places that I really think, off the top of my head, that I'd really like to go visit. I guess the idea of travel is too accessible to me and doesn't really get me excited.

So I'm going to pretend instead that you asked if I could live anywhere in the world, which to me is in the same spirit but a question I can answer more affirmatively.

I'm a city boy, so most of the places I want to live are urban areas. I love Los Angeles -- you can find anything in this city -- but other cities I would be interested in making a home include:

New York City: A completely different experience than Los Angeles. I've visited New York once and I loved the vibe. It's a little dirty, a little dangerous, and I don't think I'd want to spend more than a year there, but it's got a great social atmosphere and it's a city just designed for night owls. Plus I feel like living in New York, even briefly, is an experience every American should have.

Sydney, Australia: I'm not really sure why, but I've recently become kind of obsessed with the idea of living in Australia. They've got a burgeoning film industry (Fox Studios spent an enormous amount of money to build a massive studio complex there) with lots of tax breaks for productions shot there. No unions, either. I've met a lot of gay Australians and they're always hot, especially when you factor in the accent. The cost of living is cheap (checking Craigslist Sydney on a whim I found 4 bedroom, beachfront houses for $2800/month American) and the city is active and beautiful.

London, England: Just a great city. It's easy to get around (I heart the Tube) and similar to L.A. in that you can find just about anything if you look hard enough. Like New York, London stays active late into the night. Unlike New York, London feels safe to walk around at night. The downside is that the cost of living in London, or even within a train's ride of the city, is incredibly high. Everything costs the same as it does here, except in pounds instead of dollars. So you pay £4.99 for a combo at Burger King that costs $4.99 here. Sounds find except that the conversion rate is around 2:1. Your money only goes half as far.

Vancouver or Victoria, B.C., Canada: Basically London, except cheaper, no Tube, and minus the sexy accents. But Canada is a nice laid-back country that also has tax breaks for filmmakers. Canada's, like, my "safety" country if all else fails.

Want me to interview you?

1. Leave me a comment saying, "I too am an egomaniac."
2. I'll then respond by asking you up to five questions. You will answer them, because you like talking about yourself.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them up to five questions.

Also on that note...

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 07:38:30 GMT

Does anyone know how to make an LJ "friends only"? I've seen people do it.

Going back to early entries, I've made some posts that are just emo as hell, and I'd rather people not run across them if Googling for me.

Short of manually setting every post to "Friends only", is there a way to apply it globally?

Help me get on TV!

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 23:22:50 GMT

Attack of the Show on G4TV has us in the running for "YouTube Star of the Moment" against two other vids. And we're in second place!

Go here and register and vote so we can be on TV:

http://forums.g4tv.com/messageview.cfm?catid=59&threadid=699528

Votes have to be in by 4PM PST, which is when the show starts. HURRY!

Pan's Labyrinth can bite my ass.

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 10:17:19 GMT

What over-rated bollocks. I'd seen it already and I didn't like it, nor see how people kept calling it a "masterpiece" of fantasy cinema. Tonight I thought I'd give it another chance. Ryan hadn't seen it and we wanted to get out of the house. I thought maybe I'd like it better the second time around. I really tried to convince myself it was great.

Couldn't do it. Can't understand the hype. Shocked it was nominated for so many Oscars. It's just badly-written and poorly-paced. It's heart's in the right place, but that only counts for so much.

Speaking of over-hyped and over-rated, my new lightsaber fight is out for those of you who didn't know. Go here to add YouTube hits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-is63goeBgc

And here to see it in Good-O-Vision:

http://stage6.divx.com/content/show/1137289

RvD2 Premiere -- February 24

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:34:16 GMT

All my friends in L.A. have to come.

We're getting flyers made. Anyone good to pass some out, let me know.

Ryan vs. Dorkman 2

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 20:11:55 GMT

The folks at Mo's last night have already seen this, but Ryan and I have put up a sneak peek of our upcoming lightsaber sequel on YouTube.

Go watch it. Then make all your friends watch it.

If you haven't seen the original, you can find it (and future updates on the sequel) on our website, RyanVsDorkman.com.

Terrorism? Bullshit.

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 22:50:21 GMT

So this terrorism thing is totally going to fuck with my and Ryan's flight to Georgia, and you know what? I'm not entirely convinced it's even a real threat.

Bush's approval ratings are lower than Nixon's, public opinion is starting to turn against the Iraqi War, what better way to get people back on his side than another dose of "OMG TERRORISM!!"

The biggest issue is that there's no evidence that the terrorists who were arrested even exist. No names, no descriptions, nothing. For a HUGE arrest like this you'd think that'd be everywhere. No pictures of the arrests, which happened "off location" -- the arrests didn't happen at the airports and they won't specify where. "Maybe al-Qaeda affiliated, unknown origins, possibly Pakistani..."

It doesn't sound to me like they were "tailing and waiting for these guys to make a move" like they claim. They don't seem to know anything about them. Sounds like bullshit scare tactics to me.

To say nothing of: what kind of moron, oatmeal-brained terrorist cell decides to target AIRPLANES? The one thing people are watching CONSTANTLY for terrorists on? They didn't feel like going for trains, or a heavily-populated public area? Oh no, they went for AIRPLANES.

This whole thing smacks of just plain shoddy bullshit fabrication.

Also interesting to note, in the five years since 9/11 there have been no significant attacks on American soil (my whistling keeps tigers away). There have also been almost no attacks outside of the Middle East. The most recent attacks/attempts have both been in Great Britain.

We know that Tony Blair and Bush are in the same bed when it comes to this bullshit war on terror, interesting that England should be the sole target. Now, you could always argue that it's that way BECAUSE of their outspoken stance against terror...but I dunno.

I'm not 100% conspiracy theorist on this right now, but it doesn't sit right with me. I don't think I buy it.

Gay Bar Follow-Up

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:10:00 GMT

So it's been like a week since the excursion to Oil Can and I'm sure you guys are all wondering how that went.

Well, Ryan and Brian both came along to keep me company at my first gay bar. When we got there they were teaching line dancing, so there was no music, just a lispy guy on stage walking them through "kick-ball-chain" over and over. No one there was under 40, nor particularly cute. Although there were some REALLY hot pictures on the wall, which were pointed out to me by Brian, as even he was impressed by them.

I didn't really want to have to deflect any come-ons by any of the patrons (or, worse yet, not get any at all and feel all rejected by a bunch of middle-aged homos), much less subject my supportive-yet-awkward straight friends to it, so we left after like three minutes. The doorman, a large hairy man (what my people call a "Bear") on the way out called after us in THE fruitiest voice I've ever heard "What, you don't like cowboys? Well, tomorrow's disco!"

So, being in a bargoing mood as we were, we decided to try to find something else. Leah was on her way up to join us for the gay bar, and when we told her we bailed and decided to go to another bar, she suggested Amagi's, a karaoke bar in the area. We first went back home so Brian could change out of his cowboy boots (he got hisself ALL dolled up), and when Katie heard we were doing karaoke she decided she wanted to come after all.

And Amagi's was awesome. Soooooo much fun. Of course I wound up getting up there after a few drinks. I sang Blind Melon's "No Rain" with Leah, and then towards the end of the night I sang Santana's "Smooth" flying solo. I love you Leah!

There were some real characters there. I loved it. We're totally going back. Unfortunately, starting this weekend and through August I'm going to be out of town every single weekend. But in September, we're going to Amagi's again! Stay tuned...

Gay Bar Update

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 19:20:56 GMT

Okay, the bar is called Oil Can Harry's. It opens at 9PM. Line dancing lessons start at 9:15PM. No cover charge.

Dress code does not HAVE to be Western. My friend tells me jeans and a T-shirt or button-up are fine.

11502 Ventura Blvd
Studio City, CA 91604

Their website is amazing just because of the embedded music.

http://www.oilcanharrysla.com/

We can meet at my place or at the bar. Leah at least is confirmed. Be glad to see you there, Greg and Brian. And of course anyone else who feels like it.

This is my "Retirement Party" in a way, since it'll be the night after my last day of work. So big fun!

I want to go to a gay bar this weekend

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 23:09:41 GMT

I found one near where I live. Like, two miles away. A friend of mine tells me that it's a friendly atmosphere, and it's a Western-themed bar so he says there's hot cowboy-types all over.

I don't want to go alone, though, and my friend says he probably has plans for Friday (when I plan to go). I've never been to a bar -- even a straight one -- and I'd be way too nervous if I went alone. Anyone want to come with me?

Two other things about the buyout

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:52:49 GMT

1) One of my coworkers called me over to his desk to ask if I knew how to erase webpages from showing up in the browser drop-down menu (like, when you type in a URL, ones you've been to before pop up below it as suggestions for what you might be trying to visit).

Why did he want my help? Because he needed to eliminate worldsex.com from his browser's memory.

Awesome.

2) My new supervisor is actually pretty cute. Late 20s/early 30s. I keep forgetting to check if he has a ring on his finger. Probably straight anyhow. Still, another bonus from this situation.

So I'm totally going to get fired soon

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 03:01:15 GMT

Like the subject line says.

See, back in April, another engineering company announced their intent to acquire Sweeney Engineering, where I've been working for the last year. The company is based out of Cleveland, Ohio, and intends to merge Sweeney into their Cleveland facilities. Today was the official transfer of ownership, and the announcement was officially made.

The office jobs, which I assume includes mine since I sit at a desk at a computer, are going to be transferred to Ohio over the next 45-90 days. Now, that means that's how long it will take to FINISH the transfer. No less than 45 days. But that doesn't mean they won't START well before. By this time next week, I could be unemployed.

Now, I've never posted about my job. Ostensibly, I'm a drafter there. I'm supposed to either draw the parts that we make for manufacture, or, more often, make amendments to existing drawings. That's the job description in theory.

However, the other guys have been there for 10 years or more, and I'm only just coming up on one (I started in August last year). Basically, for the most part, unless it's a really simple change, they tend to see it as being easier to do it themselves than to take the time to explain to me what they need.

When they DO give me work to do, it's so simple I typically get it done in an hour or less. Two hours if I REALLY stretch the time.

What that means is me sitting at my desk, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, being paid full-time wages ($18/hour), and receiving full medical and dental insurance benefits, and doing absolutely nothing.

Now, that probably sounds like a pretty sweet deal, and in a lot of ways it is.

But at the same time, it's in Gardena, 26 miles away from where I live, and the exact stretch of 405 I take (from the 101 to around the 91) is said to have the worst traffic not in the city, not in the state, nay, but in the ENTIRE COUNTRY. And when I go in, I'm not even doing work, and I still get paid. I get bored. I feel like I've exhausted the entertainment possibilities of the internet.

I really have no motivation to go in. It's all kind of a charade.

I was told when I got hired that sick days are unpaid. Yet I've taken dozens of sick days and been paid for every one. Even less motivation to go in.

Frankly, I'm ecstatic about this. I'll be getting a severance package equal to 4 weeks' base pay (a bit over $2800) and any unused accrued vacation time, which I think is only two days so far but hey, that's another $300 and change. Additionally, I'll be eligible for unemployment, which is calculated as about 60% of my current income -- the equivalent of $11 an hour, full-time.

I figure I'll cruise on that for a little while while I figure out what I want to do next. Do some writing. Watch some movies. Get more exercise. Maybe take some unpaid internships in the film business just to build my resume. Make a visual effects demo reel and see if I can shop it around. Take some freelance assignments as a cameraman or a writer or heck, see if I can get some acting work.

Or something else, we'll see.

Anyway, that's coming up.

Crisis of Faith...sort of

Mon, 01 May 2006 22:35:12 GMT

Okay, so I'm in a really weird place right now. Anyone who reads this journal is probably well aware that I've very strongly internalized the beliefs and faith of Christianity since I became a full-blown, hard-core Christian about 4 years ago. Though I still believe they have great ethical value, for the past few months I've been in a strange kind of crisis of faith.

I say strange because although "crisis" is probably the most appropriate word, it has a negative connotation, and I don't really feel that this is necessarily negative.

So I've always wanted to keep an open mind about all of these things. I wanted to know the truth, whatever it was, and for a very long time I've felt that it was Christianity. But now I'm not so sure.

First of all, I read the Da Vinci Code. Just let me say, for the record, I really hated that book. It was one of the most poorly-written things I have ever been unable to put down. The story outline itself was masterful and fascinating. It's just the book read like a brilliant outline with prose by a fifth grader. Just awful. And while I refused to let that book change my views on religion on its own (it is, after all, a work of fiction), some of the ideas did stick, and intrigued me enough to research and analyze and consider it further.

I also recently ran across this little "conversation", and while I don't believe that it's a true account (although as you will see, he didn't expect me to), it did present a lot of very interesting food for thought.

Additionally, I've been a writer for a very long time, and I've been examining and analyzing more and more the "monomyth", the singular
story structure that all myths, legends, fairy tales, and memorable books and films follow (whether they realize it or not, sometimes). Otherwise known as the Hero's Journey and credited most frequently to Joseph Campbell, who did not discover all the information but was the one who put the pieces together.

Star Wars is such a perfect example of the monomyth structure that whenever the Hero's Journey is taught, Star Wars is the example. Literally. I defy you to find a curriculum on the subject that does not include Star Wars. And there's a reason for that; Lucas worked directly with Campbell to make the film so perfectly structured, to resonate with us.

Anyway, that's off the subject. The point is that there are certain mythic themes that appear in almost every myth and all religions -- including Christianity.

Leaving the ordinary world of man (Jesus goes on his ministry). Temptation from righteousness (the time in the desert). Death and resurrection for the greater good of all (sometimes symbolic, in this case literal). The return from death with something that will save the village (called the "elixir" in symbolic terms, in this case the literal salvation of all the world).

J.R.R. Tolkien knew all about the monomyth when he was writing Lord of the Rings, and followed it quite faithfully. He knew that there were so many other myths that had this structure, but as a staunch Catholic, decided that Christianity was the "true" myth, and all the others were reflections of it. He was firm and persuasive enough in his faith to convince C.S. Lewis, an avowed atheist, to not only convert to Christianity but become one of its most intelligent apologists, possibly the most intelligent and persuasive of the last century.

That's fine for Tolkien and Lewis, and they were brilliant men and storytellers, but I still have to ask the questions if I want to say I'm pursuing the truth. How can Christianity be the true myth from which others derive when the Norse myth of Odin, pinned with his own spear to the tree Yggdrasill to attain ultimate power, predates Christianity by hundreds of years? When the tale of the Buddha predates it equally? When the story of the Great Flood appears in every religion, all the way back to the Epic of Gilgamesh, dating back to 2000 B.C.?

I've come to the point where I think I "get" Christianity. I understand it, I can explain what appears to be God's plan for us, for the universe. People say that the Christian God's plan is too complicated for us to know, but if you really do your research, weigh different philosophies, and think about it a bit, it's really not that difficult. Most people just say that because 1) they don't have an answer because they haven't actually given it any thought, or 2) the answer contradicts their own preconceived prejudices and therefore they ignore it.

I can describe why a seemingly loving God would allow tragedy in the world, I can explain most of the more complex ideas of Christianity -- and I've realized recently that I SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO DO THAT.

The Christian layout is too sensible, too comprehensible, and too human. I am a finite creature, barely over 20 years on this Earth. I shouldn't be able to wrap my mind around the smallest fragment of the divine. Yet here I am, explaining it confidently and believing that I know which one is most true, and why. That's not right. It can't be right. No one should be able to do that, not me, not the most brilliant minds of theology. It should simply be beyond our grasp. But it's not. People understand. And that doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things.

The last real landmark for me came last night. Some of you know the story of the moment I came to believe in God, and specifically in Christianity. Long story short, I was suffering spiritually under a great emotional weight and I cried out to God to comfort me, and in that moment I believe He did. I felt a deep spiritual warmth, and a comfort, as though I had been enfolded into strong, loving, protective arms. I had a thought that felt like it had come from outside of me, as though someone were speaking to me in a way beyond hearing; it used no words but it said essentially: "All you had to do was ask."

I believed, at that moment, that God had answered me. And in many ways, I do still believe that.

Since that time, I have heard of other people's experiences with such a euphoria. Buddhist and Hindu monks are said to experience it in meditation. Even Scientologists are said to experience it in their "auditing" sessions. Which led me to thinking, maybe it's not a matter of praying specifically to the Christian God at all. Maybe it's a matter of stripping away your conscious blocks, making yourself receptive to your spiritual self and thereby being receptive to communion with God.

I know, I know. I'm a New Age hippie bastard.

But when I had that thought -- immediately upon having that thought -- I felt the warmth again, the comfort. And I heard/sensed/thought/whatever that "voice" again, that comforting communication from outside of me, and this time it wordlessly said: "Now you're getting it."

Now, had I been raised in a Muslim environment, not devout but aware of it as the primary religion around me, and had I called out to God in my time of need then and gotten the response, it's logical to assume I would therefore have assumed instantly that I had been touched by Allah and begun planning my Hajj the very next morning. Or Vishnu, had I been surrounded by the Hindu belief system.

I was answered by God, yes, but I latched onto the representation, the myth, the avatar with which I most closely identified. Instead of seeking the truth continually, I assumed I had found the truth of the myth I had lived with.

What does this all mean? Well, first of all, I'm not an atheist, in case it's unclear. I don't think I can ever be -- although my sabbatical from Christianity was rather unforseen as well, I admit, so who knows where my spiritual development will take me.

But when it comes to the non-existence of God, there's too much evidence to the contrary. Too much evidence that God exists. The monomyth alone proves it to me as empirical evidence: how could all human consciousness revolve around the same structure, the same essential belief system (with the names changed), unless on some level it was the truth? The notion of leaving what you know to discover something greater for yourself and others, to die and to be born again, this is the center of all stories and the center of our life stories to boot.

Philosophically and logically I can't find my way to denying the existence of God, either. The universe is too splendid and too beautiful. The fact that I have a sense of beauty, of love, of loss, the fact that I can care about something besides my immediate gratification and needs proves to me that there is a transcendent quality to me and all human beings that goes beyond our flesh.

I believe unequivocally that the spirit exists, and so a spiritual being who exists on a higher level than we have yet achieved is not only plausible to me, but the next logical progression. I also believe in the benevolence of higher spirits -- or failing that, indifference -- because harm and malevolence involve a struggle for power, something in which already powerful beings would have no interest. But the universe feels benevolent to me, on the whole, so I'm willing to believe in that.

I have always believed that heaven is our union with God. Perhaps, as the philosopher above postulates (or as God informed him, whichever you choose to believe), it is really first and foremost a spiritual unity of humanity with each other, and then perhaps at that stage we shall be ready to meet others who have passed through that phase themselves.

It's what we call love and it happens on a small scale all the time, the problem is that currently we're locked into doing it 1:1. Boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife (or same sex if, like me, you're so inclined), we seek out one person to share ourselves with instead of sharing ourselves with each other. And I don't mean sexually, physically, I mean spiritually, emotionally.

I want that connection. That's why I've been so desperate at times to find a boyfriend. It's not about physical intimacy, or sex, it's about opening myself up spiritually to someone who is opening themselves up to me.

I think that's also why I've always been so interested in raising a child. A child wants to love you with everything they have, and they want -- they need -- for you to do the same in return. A child isn't afraid to see you, and let themselves be seen, for who you are and who they are. They learn that later.

Why do we fear that so much? When do we learn it? How do we unlearn it? That's the real pursuit I've been after as a Christian. I think that's what religion is designed to do, is help you find your way down that path -- if you allow yourself to be guided by your faith, and not guide your faith to excuse your own prejudices.

I have found that spiritual intimacy in some of my friends over the years. And lost it again. In most cases, the other person wasn't ready for it, was too used to having learned that it was only supposed to happen with your husband or wife. They panicked and things fell apart. In a few cases it was salvaged. In most it was not.

To be fair, in a goodly number of those relationships, I wasn't ready for it either. I assumed it was something it wasn't (romantic attraction, in one regrettable case), or became frustrated when they didn't understand what was happening and got jealous or hostile. In a few cases, very early in my life, I was the one who panicked. I was wielding a very powerful and dangerous emotional entity, and I didn't know what I was doing.

This is all an unbelievably freeing revelation for me. And it's not to say that Christianity was imprisoning, or the wrong direction for me to have taken. In the same way that Christianity gave my spirit a freedom it had lacked, so too does this feeling make me feel like I've simply taken another step in the same crucial direction. I would not have gotten here without passing through Christianity.

I don't know anymore if there's a heaven waiting after I die, in the strictest sense. But, that doesn't make me afraid. What it does is it gives me the freedom to find heaven (spiritual communion and joy) on a day-to-day basis. The promise of an afterlife makes one too willing to ignore the possible joys of this life, to let the little things bother you here because better things will come later. Now I know to stop waiting for the better things to come, to find the good things for myself and those around me immediately.

And I'm not talking about instant physical gratification, I'm not talking about sex drugs and rock and roll. I'm talking about finding the spiritual illumination and the profound joy of living and loving at every moment, instead of waiting for the "proper time", or for the afterlife. Instead of waiting for things to get better so I can enjoy them, I'm just going to start enjoying things as they are.

The pursuit of connection and compassion I followed as a Christian is the same pursuit I will continue to follow now that I'm setting Christianity aside. I don't feel right calling myself a Christian when I'm not committed to that singular notion, or its details, exclusively.

And additionally, right now there are too many "Christians" making fools of themselves out there, and travelling in the exact opposite direction of where I'm trying to get, for it to be helpful for me to carry that sign myself.

Not all Christians are like that. Most of my friends who are Christian genuinely know what it is to live in that path of faith, to show compassion and concern for others. And as I said at the beginning, they are tenets that have a great value in leading down what I feel is the ideal path for human connection and compassion and which I still intend to follow.

I do not believe Christianity is at all a lie. Quite to the contrary, I believe it is true at its core, but as Paul himself said, it is the truth as seen "through a glass, darkly". I now believe Christianity, like other human religions, is a mask that the overwhelming, beautiful, and potentially terrifying truth wears to make itself accessible to us, until we are ready to pry beneath and discover its true face.

Am I really ready to do that myself? Probably not, but I'm young and foolish and planning to try.

And if, in my pursuit of the truth, I find myself circling back to discover Christianity is not the mask but indeed the face, well then, I can accept that. Happily so.

What am I now? I don't know. But I think that's why I'm sure it's the right thing to be.

Wow, my brain

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 20:52:28 GMT

Sometimes, my brain says things that make me laugh, completely without my involvement.

Yesterday afternoon, I took a nap and had a dream where a little girl got really pissed about something (I don't remember what), so much so that she felt like she could "punch a lung out of God." I woke up laughing.

Also, I was reading an article about the visual effects in Harry Potter 4, and one of the vendors by the name of Double Negative has an in-house program called DNB.

I sort of idly thought "I wonder what that stands for" and instantly the response my brain sends is "DOUBLE NEGATIVE, BITCH!"

I amuse me.

Quick updates

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:45:12 GMT

-Shooting a film all this weekend. Based on the short story "The Monkey's Paw". It'll need one more weekend's shooting but you're all going to watch it when I'm done whether you want to or not.

-Met a boy, again. More information forthcoming soon. It's already lasted about a month, we talk regularly and all, so I think it's going along well.

-Seems like I'm about to get my first "professional" screenwriting job on a low-budget direct-to-video production. I'll do it for the credit (the director is a friend) but since it's not his money funding it I'm going to see if I can get paid.

-Took my first paying freelance FX job. I'm adding stars and a comet to a black sky. $500. Not a lot, but it's a start.

-Also about to take on my first second freelance visual effects job. More complicated, and these guys have financing, apparently. I asked for $8,000, and it sounds promising. I'll be splitting that with Ryan, since he'll be on board with me.

-Things are improving with Oscar, for those who knew anything was wrong (which is probably everyone). It seems like we take three steps forward and then the very next day two steps back, but at least there's a little progress maintained.

-Becoming completely obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft.

-So, so busy. For reals. I've got work 9-5 (or thereabouts), I moderate the message boards over at TheForce.net, I'm running a writing contest over there, working on Monkey's Paw, working on a non-paying FX gig as well as the two paying, I'm trying to write some scripts (Solitary in particular), I've got Kung Fu three days a week still, and I just joined the PixelCorps "Theory of Visual Effects" team which requires dedicating 9 hours a week (in three hour shifts) for the next 9 months.

On the upside, if these other things continue to pan out, I'll be able to quit my job and will have much more time for these other things. Not before, though. This job is quite cushy.

The tragic emo set will hate this post...

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 07:56:36 GMT

I just realized that it is, in fact, possible to have too many friends, and I believe I may have reached the saturation point. I've reached the point where I have so many people I like very much, but not enough time in my life to give all of them equal consideration or time to see or talk to. And it makes it hard for me to open up to meeting new people, having the fear that either I'll go pushing them aside eventually or push someone else aside to make room for them.

This realization comes on the tails of two events. The first, having a long-overdue talk with Oscar that went, I think, quite well, and has instilled me with new (if perhaps temporary) appreciation for the people in my life. The other getting an e-mail from a guy I met a few weeks ago telling me he can take a hint and won't bother me anymore. (You know who you are, if you're reading this. I'm sorry, man.)

While I must admit, realizing I have an abundance of friends is rather ego-boosting, at the same time it does present some problems, and I feel bad about all the people I know care about me but whom I rarely get to see or appreciate, mostly due to distance.

So I give you a terrific shitload of praise for a few of my assorted and vastly underappreciated friends, in no particular (alphabetical) order:

Greg: Man I'm glad you joined BUICK for, like, a week, so I had the chance to get to know you. Comparatively speaking, we've never spent a whole lot of time hanging out at a stretch, but every time I do get to see you I ask myself why in the hell that is. I really admire the fact that, even in those fabled "hard times", you have the strength to not only put on a laugh and a smile, but to genuinely mean it and to spread it around. You let me know if you ever need a place to crash or move in, my door is wide open to you.

Leah: You can't move in with me. Only because it's already such a mess, if you moved in it would be a national health crisis. I adore you, Leah. You have such a beautiful heart, and it never seems to matter if you had a great day or a shitty one, you always take it as motivation to be wonderful to everyone you meet. The world is lucky to have you in it, and I am extra-lucky to have you as a friend. I love you.

Mo: What can I say about someone who opens up her home once a week, at minimum, to all her friends, just to get together? Who doesn't just throw parties, but THEME parties, no matter the occasion? Who calls, e-mails, or otherwise goes out of her way to invite me to any gathering that isn't on the normal Thursday schedule, insisting that it'll be great to see me, even knowing that it's far less than a 50-50 chance that I'll manage to put in an appearance? Mo, you make me feel wanted and appreciated, without flagging in your enthusiasm, and even though that's less flowery than I wrote to the two before you, I know that you understand just how huge that is. Thank you.

Pippi: It's such a comfort to know that if I'm having a bad time of it (whatever "it" is) and just need to feel comforted, I can show up at Thuper Thursday and cuddle up with you, without having to be straight or fight off a jealous Rob. Like the others, I know that when you ask me what's going on or how I'm doing, you aren't just making cheap conversation, but you really want to hear it. I can't possibly over-express how much it means to be not just heard, but listened to.

TJ: You so cray-zay. You and I also don't get a lot of time hanging out and whatnot, but there are a lot of things that you are uniquely capable of empathizing with in my life and experience. The time we do get, in group situations and whatnot, is never wanting for laughs, and that's really the only thing I ask for in any of my friends. You don't give yourself nearly enough credit for the thoughtful and amazing person that you are.

If I didn't give you a shoutout, either I feel I see you often enough that I (hopefully) express my appreciation for you regularly, or I don't truthfully feel that I know enough about you to say something thoughtful, and I don't want to say something cheap and vapid. Or I just didn't realize/remember that you read my livejournal. :P

You all mean a great deal to me, regardless of whether I singled you out tonight or not.

Damn it's late. I'm going to lay down.

LOL

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 21:27:53 GMT

So there's this news story where a convenience store clerk beat up an armed robber with a bat. For no apparent reason, I pictured Samuel L. Jackson playing the role of the clerk in a movie version.

The gunman goes "Don't be a hero!"

And Jackson quietly goes "Nah, I'm no hero."

Then when the gunman gives him an opening, he grabs a bat from under the counter and WHAM!

And with the gunman on the floor, Jackson starts screaming "Don't be a hero?" WHAM! "I ain't no hero!" WHAM! "I'm a goddamn SUPER hero! I'm motherfuckin BAT MAN!"

And then beats the gunman within an inch of his life.

I crack myself up.