Picking through the rubble in my room I
think about the how and the why
the things that are saved the things
that go, the patterns in the dark corners
of my life and mind, the pieces that
keep me awake at night
The things I keep secret
the things I bathe in light
pushing the rubble aside I look
for renewal in a page turned
In with the new and Out
No.
I can’t throw that away
Not yet

(2010) epo

So, I kinda miss writing stuff. No I only end up writing when I get depressed about something. And that is kind of textbook emo silliness. So I think I am going to start actively writing again. Silly little poems for now. One a day here on the blog. If I am sad they will be sad but when I am happy they will be happy. I don’t pretend to be some fabulous writer or anything, and some of them will really be awful. But just like drawing regularly writing is going to open up that place in my head, and hopefully some nice stuff will come out here and there. So watch for more poems this year.

My blog automagically exports to facebook as well so they will end up on my facebook profile too.

Tell me your okay
are you okay
I just cant see if your okay
when I peer in from the light
the darkness is all I see
I have no statue to hold onto
no book to find glee
no stone to rest my knee
All I have is hope
hope that you are alright
hope that you are with friends
I want you to know that we
are okay. but we are not okay
we lost a friend
we lost a certain sensation
something died with you something
They won’t even let us, no flowers and things
they put you behind a wall of cold marble
the privacy and shelter of princes and kings
but I’m telling you I’m okay
I will be okay
I’m not okay
I’m not okay
I miss you.

–Eric Paul Owens (2010)

Bella Sin shot some video during our beauty shoot and she posted it online

Here is the photo we were making…

So This Is It comes out in theaters this week…

A friend asked me yesterday when I bought my tickets. This made sense of course, I am the biggest Michael Jackson fan most people around me know. And when the posters first went up I anxiously asked the theatre when tickets would be put on sale intending to be the first in line for the first showing.

But I have not bought them.

I have been thinking about why I haven’t ever since he asked me.  I think I am afraid of it.  I know I will see it eventually but I think I would just end up crying were I to go see it now.  And I don’t really know who I would go with.  I don’t want to be sitting in a theatre alone crying to Michael Jackson.

It kind of makes me think of after my father died.  They funeral home offered to let us go view his body.  Honestly, I can’t remember what my brothers did.  I think at least one of them went, But I just never wanted to see him dead.  I don’t think I could have handled that well.

With Michael, Sometimes I feel like pushing himself for this concert and all the usary people around him pushing him toward it is what killed him.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about the footage from it.  All of the little peaks from it are thrilling, but leave me with this ache in my stomach.  A similar ache that I had at the thought of seeing my fathers dead body.  I don’t know how I would feel about sitting through 2 hours of that feeling.  Especially surrounded by people who don’t have this weird emotional thing about Michael…

But then again its a chance to see him dance one more time.

I don’t think I will go, I definately won’t go alone.

This is the beautiful new Scioto Audubon Metro Park, it has been open a few weeks but it’s grand opening is this weekend. Right now it extends to the Red line in the map. It really is turning out to be a beautiful place and I will be spending sometime exploring it and hopefully taking lots of pretty pictures.

So why is it so scary to me?

See that Awkward white cutout that the title overlaps? That is my studio building. A really crusty old warehouse that is cheap to rent in because it is falling apart and the location sucks. Supposedly the rumor around the building is that the park passed on the land our warehouse is on for some kind of environmental reason. Undoubtably though this new fancy park is going to make the location of the land suck far less. Especially now that the Police Impound Lot is leaving. I regularly wonder now how long it will be before the land is sold and the building torn down for condos or something.

Love was taken from a young life
And no one told her why
Her direction has a dimlight
From one more violent crime

She innocently questioned why
Why her father had to die
She asked the men in blue
How is it that you get to choose
Who will live and who will die
Did God say that you could decide ?
You saw he didn’t run
And that my daddy had no gun

In the middle of a village
Way in a distant land
Lies a poor boy with his broken toy
Too young to understand

He’s awaken, ground is shakin
His father grabs his hand
Screaming, crying, his wife’s dying
Now he’s left to explain

He innocently questioned why
Why his mother had to die
What did these soldiers come here for ?
If they’re for peace, why is there war ?

Did God say that they could decide
Who will live and who will die ?
All my mama ever did
Was try to take care of her kids

We’re innocently standing by
Watching people lose their lives
It seems as if we have no voice
It’s time for us to make a choice

Only God could decide
Who will live and who will die
There’s nothing that can’t be done
If we raise our voice as one

They’ve gotta hear it from me
They’ve gotta hear it from you
They’ve gotta hear it from us
We can’t take it
We’ve already had enough

They’ve gotta hear it from me
They’ve gotta hear it from you
They’ve gotta hear it from us

We can’t take it
We’ve already had enough

They’ve gotta hear it from me
They’ve gotta hear it from you
They’ve gotta hear it from you baby

We can’t take it
We’ve already had enough

Deep in my soul baby

Deep in your soul and let God decide

Deep in my soul

It’s up to me and i’m still alive

They’ve gotta hear it from us

We can’t take it
We’ve already had enough

It’s going down baby
Just let God decide,

It’s going on baby
Just let God decide

Deep in my soul baby

We’ve already had enough

They’ve gotta hear it from me
They’ve gotta hear it from you
They’ve gotta hear it from us

We can’t, we can’t
We’ve already had enough

–Michael Jackson

ScriptShadow posted this article by Josh Olsen who wrote History of Violence.

It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you’re in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you’re dealing with someone who can’t.

(By the way, here’s a simple way to find out if you’re a writer. If you disagree with that statement, you’re not a writer. Because, you see, writers are also readers.)

You may want to allow for the fact that this fellow had never written a synopsis before, but that doesn’t excuse the inability to form a decent sentence, or an utter lack of facility with language and structure. The story described was clearly of great importance to him, but he had done nothing to convey its specifics to an impartial reader. What I was handed was, essentially, a barely coherent list of events, some connected, some not so much. Characters wander around aimlessly, do things for no reason, vanish, reappear, get arrested for unnamed crimes, and make wild, life-altering decisions for no reason. Half a paragraph is devoted to describing the smell and texture of a piece of food, but the climactic central event of the film is glossed over in a sentence. The death of the hero is not even mentioned. One sentence describes a scene he’s in, the next describes people showing up at his funeral. I could go on, but I won’t. This is the sort of thing that would earn you a D minus in any Freshman Comp class.
Which brings us to an ugly truth about many aspiring screenwriters: They think that screenwriting doesn’t actually require the ability to write, just the ability to come up with a cool story that would make a cool movie. Screenwriting is widely regarded as the easiest way to break into the movie business, because it doesn’t require any kind of training, skill or equipment. Everybody can write, right? And because they believe that, they don’t regard working screenwriters with any kind of real respect. They will hand you a piece of inept writing without a second thought, because you do not have to be a writer to be a screenwriter.

So. I read the thing. And it hurt, man. It really hurt. I was dying to find something positive to say, and there was nothing. And the truth is, saying something positive about this thing would be the nastiest, meanest and most dishonest thing I could do. Because here’s the thing: not only is it cruel to encourage the hopeless, but you cannot discourage a writer. If someone can talk you out of being a writer, you’re not a writer. If I can talk you out of being a writer, I’ve done you a favor, because now you’ll be free to pursue your real talent, whatever that may be. And, for the record, everybody has one. The lucky ones figure out what that is. The unlucky ones keep on writing shitty screenplays and asking me to read them.

To make matters worse, this guy (and his girlfriend) had begged me to be honest with him. He was frustrated by the responses he’d gotten from friends, because he felt they were going easy on him, and he wanted real criticism. They never do, of course. What they want is a few tough notes to give the illusion of honesty, and then some pats on the head. What they want–always–is encouragement, even when they shouldn’t get any.

I really know how he feels. A good friend of mine started doing photography last year. They asked me to look through their portfolio and I made the mistake of giving them full and honest feedback. They really did not respond well. I also really think the line about telling a writer from one sentence applies to photography as well. A single image says so much about the consideration, thought, and talent a person puts into their work.  When I look at a portfolio, one that is not really going anywhere, there is this face I make, I feel myself making it but to this day I don;t know what It looks like.  It is a mixture of disappointment, wondering what the hell to say now, and at times disbelief.

Then again on the flip side of this I have asked professionals to look at my port.  I am sad when they say no, but I do understand the imposition, and I also understand why they would not want to give an honest opinion.  And I do wondr if those far better at this than I scan over my book and make that same face I make over portfolios I find dreadful.  It really is so hard to objectively know where your work stands in all of this.  Sometimes I think it holds up and a lot of times I don’t.