rocky mountain way (pt.2) better than the way we had..

?                  .wow, never underestimate the ability to completely forget about your blog. oops. so… let’s see,,,, i moved to denver, colorado! since getting laid off, i made some decisions and took a couple gambles, and decided that maybe it was time for a change of scene. it is beautiful up here, there has been some crazy weather, but it has resulted in all kinds of green that i have seldom seen in my life. the people are an interesting breed, but they are nice. and i get tired about 10 times faster than i used to because there’s no oxygen up here. i’m a mile high!

kind of a lot has happened, but at the same time, nothing has happened. i’m watching a ceiling fan, and it is my life. circles, back to the beginning, revolving right back to where it was. air gets moved around, but nothing has really happened. i’m writing this late at night because i’m hoping not a lot of people in my life see this note right now. i’m not ready for that yet. it’s my pride. it gets in the way. i’m gonna be pretty vague for now.                ,i consider myself to be very multi-dimensional, to the point that the longer i live, the less i realize i really know about myself. i am very outgoing and personable, and it doesnt appear that i keep to myself, and i like to show that i’ve got everything under control. cool hand luke.       but i dont, really. inside i overthink everything, i am introverted, i am sensitive, i become discouraged easily, and i give up even easier.  i’m already talking too much.  certain personal parts of my life i like to keep secret, but sometimes i just need to express something and get it off my chest.  i guess i’ve almost done that tonite.

i’ll be more honest with you in a week, blog. you’ll get the whole story.

rocky mountain way (pt. 1) couldn’t get much higher

right before my layoff i had planned a little trip to denver to see some old friends, meet some new ones, and just get some fresh air.                     away from the city.

as the plane was starting its descent over denver, i grabbed my journal and started scribbling down words. this is what i wrote…

contour of ground below,    a wave of earth displeased with Gravity’s authority
/       and snow cover white, strike envy among the clouds
,                        while the trees battle for the view atop.

.                                                             valley east, retreat from the Monolith army
as if tired of its neighbor’s rebellious nature-
,settles to more relaxed terrain, stretching its legs and breathing deep

.                               .                                 .                                a long    sigh    of    relief

every one of you is fired, everyone of you is whoa whoa whoa whoa…

guess what happened to me?!  everyone is getting laid off in this economy, what made me think i was special?

.                                                                  so yes, i am out of a job.

but it’s not all 100% shitty.  there just may be a silver lining. i am working hard to find it, and lately i am more acutely aware of myself and my life.

every once in awhile something comes along and shakes us, and the foundations which our lives are built upon. i have never been the most static of people, opting more for a less stable, more mobile style of life. i like to move around, i like to find new adventures and i like to explore.  when i am doing something new, i feel alive, spurred by curious energy of what possibilities might lay in front of me.

-               for the last year, however, i have been relatively stable. working a job i love at a company i love even more.  when people would ask me what i would do, i often would tell them that i “Play!”  and i meant it.  then i would need to elaborate and tell them that i worked for a corporate teambuilding and DJ services company, which is to say that 20 years ago it started as a DJ company and then was parlayed into this whole other teambuilding thing.       “What is ‘teambuilding?”‘    no, its not a ropes course.

i’ll give you an example of how cool this job was.  a year ago microsoft hired us for 3 days to fly up to northern california and meet them and one of their support offices.  we divided a few hundred employees into teams and put each team on its own bus.  i was a team leader, so i had my team on my designated bus.  every team started out with a sudoku puzzle that revealed a clue as to what city to direct the bus driver to.  once the bus reached the location (a prestigious golf course) we were greeted by a man (my boss) telling us that hidden out among all the golf balls on the driving range were gold painted balls which we needed to collect 6 of to redeem our next clue.  once that was completed we were directed to a laser tag arena where we were to compete against the next arriving team.  from there we were given a clue that directed us to a small airport in a neighboring city where we went on a 15 minute helicopter ride over a large farm to look for a clue spelled out in a pasture. we then texted that word to a mysterious number and awaited a text back that told us to go to the famous Yosemite National Park where our hotel rooms at the Lodge awaited us, along with a very nice bar and welcome party.  That was Day 1 of 3.  imagine what else we did the following days.

so those are the kinds of things that i helped plan and participate in for the last couple years.  unfortunately, in this economy, the first thing a company cuts is its budget for employee fun, so we’ve been struggling

,                                         i know this post is already long.
=                                                                       and i’m almost done.

now that my job is gone, naturally i am in a place of evaluation.  what have i accomplished in my 2 years here in hollywood?  am i making progress on what i set out to do?  where do i go from here?  these are all questions i that i can’t get away from lately.  sometimes when something this big happens, it forces us to really step back and gain some perspective.  i’m being sort of vague right now, i know, but i think it’s because i know i need to make some decisions and i dont really want to divulge the subject matter until i’ve already made up my mind.
.                                    i expect that not having a job will give me plenty of time to blog, so i’ll keep you ‘posted’  …. aha, ahahhahah…posted…get it?!?

in the meantime, my cousin got married this weekend and it was a fun time. i haven’t blogged about the intracacies of my family yet, and i suppose i will someday, but for now, here are some fun pics…

look close and see our eyes, it makes the pic...

so i can’t figure out how to make those images sit right side up.  anyway, i’ll post more pics on the next update…

isn’t it ironic? don’t you think?

define irony: irony is me.  i’ll explain later, but for now look at this, it’s pretty funny:

(if you click on it you can see it better)

children, don’t grow up.

normally i dont really do the whole ‘song critique’ thing for a couple reasons. 1) i have this lifelong fear of being wrong, both in public and secret.  i like to pretend i know everything. 2) i don’t really think things should be ‘critiqued’ unless it’s some sort of contest. since most songs are not in a contest, they shouldn’t be ‘critiqued.’  you either like them or you don’t.  if you make a living telling people why something sucks, you’re a self-righteous ass and you should get a talent.

right here is where i normally do exactly the opposite of whatever it was i said above this line.
-         but i won’t.
.                      lately i’ve been listening to the arcade fire a lot, and i can’t stop listening to “wake up.”  it was prompted by me seeing a preview of this (which i’m REALLY excited about).  one thing i should say about arcade fire is that, for someone who prides himself on finding out about bands and music relatively ahead of the trend, i was really late on this band.  i didn’t really start listening to them until <gasp> (shock) -surprise-  like a month ago.  i’d heard the name years before, but i was always just kinda whatever about ‘em and never made an effort to hear their music.

anyway, this song is fantastic. i’d heard it before, but for some reason, it never grabbed my attention. often times in my life i ride along not noticing things, and then all of a sudden, something uncovers itself under the right light, and shows how truly beautiful it really is. it was there in my view all along, just waiting to be discovered.

i still don’t know exactly what he is singing about, and long ago did i give up on trying to figure out exactly what singers mean in their lyrics.  i think that happened one time trying to decode a beck song.  anyway, i know what the song to me means.
.                                                                                                       sometime ago i heard someone say they were in such a rush to grow up and leave their childhood behind that they totally missed out on how fun it was supposed to be, and they’ve been trying to get back ever since.      the song starts off with an ambitious straight forward 1-note riff that feels like 18 years old, trying to figure out where to go and what to do with life. the singer describes a feeling, a stifled emotion that he puts away and forgets.  and then he regrets.  his ambition got in the way of emotion and experience, perhaps love. or maybe it wasn’t ambition, maybe it was confusion.
he gets older and hasnt really figured out how to cope, because really, who ever does?  life is this ever-changing experience (experiment?) that is continually evolving and moving.        but something happens in the song, it changes, lightens. as if the person was able to re-discover life, the magic, the beauty.   it could be death.  or was it love?

and this is why i don’t try to interpret actual song meanings. because i find myself somewhere in the song.                         but i wonder, at what part of the song am i really in right now?  i guess we dont know until the song is over.

untitled

when the time is right
the stain will begin to fade
i will stand on the shoreline

,                                   and wait.

gee, baby, ain’t i good to you?

i always find it very strange when i have the most random songs stuck in my head right after i wake up.  does that mean my dreams have soundtracks?  this morning i woke up with this nat king cole song stuck in my head, and for the life of me i had no idea why.

it’s actually kinda funny to me how the process comes about that i realize there’s a song in my head in the mornings. usually the lyrics have been bouncing around for at least 5 minutes before i have any sort of idea.  those who know me well, know that i am NOT a morning person.  in fact it often takes me 2 hours before i am Fun Brandon and wide awake.  people at my old job used to call me Xavier until 10am.  apparently that was my grumpy alter-ego in the mornings.

anyway, i was in the shower humming “gee baby, ain’t i good to you” when i suddenly asked myself “why the hell is this song stuck in my head?”  and i started to remember parts of my dream…

i was in a bookstore, probably a barnes & noble, right next to the starbucks coffee shop which is usually set up in the middle of B & N’s, randomly perusing, when an older ugly fat man, on the other side of the coffee shop railing interrupted me.  he said “i would like to take you out on a date for some coffee, perhaps…” trailing off to glance at his watch, “right now?”
i was pretty shocked.  sonofabitch caught me off guard.  i just wanted a damn book.  plus, i dont even drink coffee. i’m more of a tea fan.  now i know that makes me sound gay, but i’m not. and i’m definitely not attracted to fat, hideous old men who look for young tail at the corner of starbucks & Noble.  all things considered, this wasnt even the shocking thing about my dream, even though it should have been.

as soon as the old man asked the question, i turned and looked at him, but what i noticed was actually standing behind him. it was paul rudd.  when paul rudd heard him ask me the question, he silently looked up with an expression of hilarity, laughed his ass off without making a sound, and then mouthed the words “you should do that” with a serious expression on his face. he then sat back down and returned to whatever it was he was doing in the starbucks in the barnes & noble.

normally when i’m put on the spot unprepared, i try to come up with something quick-witted to say, but it never works out. i always end up being the sucker. this time however, and i can only imagine that this is because it was MY dream, i did.  i looked at the fat man, looked at my watch and said “oh i’m sorry, i’m actually late for an appoinment.  but let me introduce you to my friend paul rudd, he was looking at you a minute ago.  he’s famous, you know.”  and then i exited stage left.

i’m not really sure who was the real victim in this scenario. i also have no idea why i woke up singing nat king cole.  any interpretations are welcome.