Have you ever been gaily skipping down a street. Skipping high! Wonderful skips! Bouncing along. Picking up momentum. Skip on! Skip high! So young! So free! So… Clip! Curb. Path. Stone. Your own shoe. Fall. Dumble. Stumble. Down ape goes. Holding your knee on the path. Cursing the skipping. Dumb skips. Making me dumble. Should never have skipped so high, so quick! Perhaps I’ll just chill a while. Stay down on the path. By these gutters. Lost all my momentum. All that curb’s fault. Tut. This week has been kind of like that. Quite the ridiculously annoying successfully-frustrating week. Plus my man period (rent) on top of it all!?! Ugh boots have been on. What goes up… Sometimes keeps going up and up, to be true. Which is mighty and obviously ideal. But then other times… Stagnates and floats in exactly the same spot. Like a dead frog. Floating. Bobbing. Dumbling along. Going nowhere. Wasting time. Wheels turning. Barely churning. Well that’s if you had wheels. And you actually made the effort to churn them. Instead of just waiting. Highly frustrating. Immensely annoying. Kind of like this opening gibber… Continue Reading »
One week ago, I realised two things. One. My bedroom is the quietest place ever created. My pillow screams at me. That kind of quiet. Too quiet to sleep. That kind of quiet. Tough life, I know. Seriously though. Come sleep in my bed. The quietness is deafening. Tough life. Moving on. Secondly. I’ve slipped. Fallen. Into a routine. Step by step. Particularly mornings. Wake up. Get out of bed. Right side. Literally. Walk around my bed. Over to my laptop. Turn it on. Open the blinds. Open the window. Fix my bed. Pick up my laptop. Go to the bathroom. Surf. Hotmail. BBC Football. Gmail. Blog. Facebook. Twitter. Kitchen. Bowl. Porridge. Microwave. Drink some water. Drink some more. Ding. Porridge. Coffee. Chug. Water. Brush my teeth. Clothes on. And away I go. Continue Reading »
Sunday nights. Fun times. Numerous reasons. Need to postpone one thing in particular for as long as I can. Gibber on. Sunday nights. Time to look over the weekly to-do list. Usual. See what I managed to get done. Tick. What I did not do. Tut. Pity. X. Then write in random pointless stuff not on the list. But that I did throughout the week. Even things out. All aboot balance. All aboot fooling. For the past hour I’ve been trying to get one final thing ticked off before I go to sleep. Write an article for an Irish paper. Unfortunately. My brain has been distracted. Highly so. Waiting patiently. Waiting for them to show up. Bringing it with them. Distracting. As is. This imaginary goat. The one I can’t stop thinking about. Continue Reading »
Last night I made the conscious decision to do absolutely nothing. After a day of re-writing, I was fairly tired. Kind of. Decided to take the night off from the gym. The night off from doing the blog. As opposed to not being able to do them, for whatever reason. Usually involves a tipple or two. Thought it might be good, get an early night’s sleep, fully refreshed and raring to go today then. Nay. Worst call ever. Well, again, kind of. I believe, I might be addicted to the gym and the blog. For the simple fact, that I reckon the lack of endorphins being released last night, were a contributing reason, to a wall of something hitting me, out of the blue. Continue Reading »
My first few days back in L.A have been rocky to say the least. I was getting body blows from all angles. Firstly, I had to pay rent, blow to the stomach. Secondly, I now had to pay for the gym, that bastard, blow to the kidneys. All of this and still no job on the horizon. I was then told by someone in the know to check out if I could even act or audition here while not having a long term visa, cheap blow to the mid-section.
Finally, I was hit with some really hard news to take. While I was gone, I missed out on a big game of poker in Robbie Williams’ house, which was fine, until I was told Slash was playing! Slash, how many times would I get a chance to play poker with a Guns & Roses dude?! Upper cut to the chin, I was reeling and only back a day or two!!! I’ll ignore the fact that they were probably not all playing for the usual $10 a man pot I play, so not sure if my budget would’ve allowed me to take up the offer anyways. I’ll ignore that though.
I decided I would sleep the body blows off, it’ll all be rosy in the morning. However, it was then that I realized I need new sheets and pillows, the ones I had been using were no longer there. Using my great improvisation skills, I used a slightly wet hand towel as my pillow the first night, and my very damp bath towel as my sheet, almost covering me down to my waist, I was sorted! Although sheets and pillows were luxury items on my new budget, after that great sleep, I felt they would be a good investment. It was only when I got to the shop, saw the prices, and checked my budget, that the FEAR showed up and started to win the fight. I could afford one pillow, and a sheet. Maybe I’ll try to rob a homeless guy’s blanket on the way home.
Second night back in L.A, depleted of money (I bought food as well – a loaf of bread, 2 eggs, 1 can of tuna, a banana, handful of nuts, and a yoghurt, hopefully all of that will last me a week or two) and fighting the FEAR, I decided I would start being smarter with my money, start to economize, focus on what I could afford and needed. So, when my roommates asked me to join them in going to a jazz night at a club, I played my smart card, and declined. I was looking forward to trying out my new sheet and pillow anyways.
Woke up the next day, and I am informed I missed a great night, jazz was really good, place was cool, do I know Prince? Not personally, but yes, why so? Oh, he was there as well, jazzing it up. I prefer Michael Jackson anyways. For some reason, it was at this point when I decided to give up worrying. Funk the FEAR, I will beat you off (not in the West Hollywood way, but you know what I mean). I had missed out on poker with Slash, and now a night of jazz with Prince. I was resisting L.A, trying to be smart, use my head, think things through, economize, plan ahead. Thats not what L.A was about for me, I had to get back to basics, back to being dumb and going with the flow, stick to what you know!!!
Rent was paid for the month, I had bought time at least. I was in hobo heaven, a poor man’s paradise! So what if E.T was calling me to go home, I must plough on! Acting might not be the immediate route, but writing is free to do wherever. Looks like its back to getting free acting classes too, I could still do it! Who cares if the sheets I bought are actually meant for a single bed and my bed is a king size, so what if they don’t fit, it all be alright! The minute I stopped worrying about the funds, if I was goosed, how could I afford the acting classes, should I buy new sheets, etc., bits and pieces started to fall my way. Kind of.
While in the gym, after talking about music to the gay dude and how crap it is in the gym at times, there is now a chance I could get a job there as D.J during the day, ha, funking hilarious. I have to drop a demo in tomorrow. I also have a meeting with a guy about potentially running a night or DJ’ing in his bar/restaurant. I need to brush up on my mixing skills fairly lively. There is also now another possibility of selling Shamwows on the weekends, my career options are on the up!
More good news today. My roommate told me, if it ever came to it, I could act away as well without a visa, start off in non-union stuff, I should put up a resume on L.A Casting to get the ball rolling. Wuu huu, my acting career was rising up from the flames, Phoenix style! Seems I just have to remember to try not to be too smart and over-think things. I should have no problem with that so. L.A seems to have made me dumber anyways, or else I just get into more dumb scenarios when I go with the flow, or it could be a combination of all three. Wahey!
Song of this glorious, sunny day is I Feel It All by Feist, pump it up!!!
On my final morning in Mexico, I woke up surrounded and shrouded with the fear of God in me. What had happened last night, that little Canuck again! Usually, no matter how many Cosmopolitans I have had, ha, when I get in from a night out, I always manage to take off my clothes and fold them away, not sure why but always seem to do it. However, on my final morning, I woke up fully clothed, half on the bed, runners still on, the hotel phone ringing next to me in my ear. I did the quick check. Phone. Wallet. Passport. IPod. Laptop. Camera. Clothes. Runners. Hair. They were all still there. Something was wrong though, the fear was here.
The phone kept buzzing away, so I answered, and realized I could barely talk. “Senor, its almost 11, you have to leave.” I grunt out the information that my flight wasn’t until way later that day, couldn’t I stay in bed until the afternoon? “Yes Senor, you can stay if you like – Sound, nice one! – but it will cost you an extra $25 per hour after 11.” Balls. Up I get, head for the shower. En route I notice my credit card on the ground. Thats obviously a good sign. Here comes the fear some more.
The shower in my hotel is horrendous. Either that, or the Mexicans have thought of a great way to save water. My shower decreases in pressure, the hotter you try to make it. So I have been either having freezing showers, with the shower spitting water out at me. Or if I want a hot one , really only luke warm max, the shower barely drools out a few drops at a time onto my head. Either way you’re not using much water, so I’ll give the Mexicans the benefit of the doubt and applaud their eco-friendly invention. Nothing to do with the hotel actually being crap, nothing at all.
While waiting for about the fifth drop to drool out of the shower and onto my head, after being in the shower a few minutes at least, I remembered that I tried to pay the cab with my credit card, like an ape. I had no cash, so gave the cab man my credit card. I then also remembered there was no credit card machine in the cab itself, but he took it anyways, and held onto it for a good while. It got a bit hazy then, but I presume he took the digits down, probably bought himself some nice stuff online, and gave it back to me. Hopefully there was still only $24 left on it for him to splurge with.
So I get out of the shower, still no better after such a horrendous excuse of a shower. I’m completely goosed, hungover to funk, getting spins, need to sit down on the toilet before I fall over, towel over my head, trying to fully remember what had happened the night before. The bathroom door is fully open, Subway incident left me scarred. I half zone out of it, thinking I hear a noise, but take no notice, too hungover. I look up from under the towel, and see the cleaning lady has come into my room, the noise was her knocking.
She’s just standing there, looking at me. I’m just sitting there, naked, hunched over on the toilet, towel over my head. If I had my wits about me, and if she had been hot and younger than 40, I would’ve invited her in for a cup of tea. She was neither and I had no wits whatsoever anyways. I’m too hungover, tired and lazy to speak properly. My words are too slow coming out of my head so I sound like a caveman, grunting and ughing at her. I’m still with the towel over my head, too dumb and hungover to cop on she can see me in my birthday suit. I stand up, walk towards her, cop on, through the towel around my waist, it falls off, I almost slip on the floor, it’s just great.
By this stage you think she might have been apologetic, embarrassed, intrigued, disgusted, what with me being naked, hungover and acting so dumb and all. Instead she tells me “You need to leave, I must clean, now!” I’m thinking, still too hungover to actually say out loud… I need to leave?! You just walked in on me, in the kip, in my hotel room, and now, youtell me that I need to leave! (I was emphasizing left, right and centre in my head). Instead of saying any of that, all I can manage is an “Ugh, two minutes”.
She responds by pushing and shoving me back in towards my bed and suitcase. Towel is pushed off, my front is covered but she’s getting full view of my tan lines from behind. She wants me out, now! Im thinking will I give her a half Nelson, or body slam her. We’re facing each other, in a deadlock, my brain wondering what the funk is going on! Who will make the next move. Probably me, to pick my towel up off the ground and cover myself. Instead she barks out that she’ll ever so kindly give me five minutes to dry, dress, pack and be gone. How kind, such a good hotel I was staying in. It was a great start to the day, really great. At least it took my mind off the fear for a while I suppose.
I’d like to say my day was fine from there on in, nothing else really happened, but… let’s just say I might as well worn body paint instead of shorts on the flight home, a lot has been explained at least! First, here’s the great song that had me zoned out on the toilet… Magic Position by Patrick Wolf
Here are a few photos of my hotel as well, at least the place looks class.
Enough Talk, More Writing! 
