The Paul Simon Pumpkin.

          Paul Simon has been one of my favorite recording artists for as long as I can remember. Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits was the only tape my parents had when I was a young boy that carried over into my personal collection years later. When I heard that Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were reuniting for a tour for the first time in twenty years, it broke my heart that I also learned at the same moment that it was already sold out. With ticket prices in the hundreds I knew I couldn't have afforded it anyway so when I got a call from my friend Steven concerning an opportunity to go to the show, my ears gave him their full attention.
          In an excited voice, Steven explained to me his predicament and where I fit in to the scheme. Earlier in the day he had called a radio station holding a competition and got through in time to earn himself a spot at an exclusive pumpkin carving competition held by the station for later in the week. One hundred people including Steven were slated to compete for a single grand prize of two tickets to the sold out Simon and Garfunkel show. Steven went on to explain to me the strict parameters of the contest. The tickets were to be awarded to whoever could carve a pumpkin that possessed the closest likeness to Paul Simon himself. No pictures for reference were allowed and the carvers must use the tools provided at the location which were a standard set of pumpkin carving tools that you can get in the Halloween section of your local drug store. Each person who called in to the radio station on time was allowed to bring one friend. Steven, being an expert wood carver himself could have easily taken on the challenge solo so why was he calling me? It turned out that the event was scheduled in the middle of the day in the middle of the week and Steven's boss was not going to allow him to take the time off to attend. Before calling me he had already asked the radio station if his friend he picked to assist him could come alone since he had to work. They had granted his request and now he was asking me if I was up for it. I understood why he called me first since I was clearly the next best pumpkin carver he knew. I accepted and that evening we started our preparation.
          Steven showed up to my apartment with two large pumpkins to practice on. It was like he was the coach in "Rocky" and every ten minutes I doubted myself to which he would raise his voice instilling confidence with a stop watch next to my temple as I carved away. We selected the cover of the album "Bookends" as our model after we both decided it was possibly the most recognizable photo of the man. I measured the distance from his lip to the bottom of his nose with the tip of my thumb to the first crease in my knuckle then repeated that procedure for all of the key facial features. We decided that the most impressive result would be imploring a tactic known in the pumpkin carving community as "gradient carving". This style of carving leaves the shell in places that you want to look black and carved out sections you want to look bright with thicker and thinner exposed pumpkin meat in places you want the gradient from light to dark to occur. It doesn't look like much during the day but once a candle is placed inside and it's dark out, if done well, the pumpkin comes alive and looks more like a painting than a festive gourde.
           Steven came over at least three days during that week leading up to the competition to practice on more pumpkins and it was beginning to be clear that the preparation was paying off. I was ready. We read on the website that the radio station encouraged people to show up in costume for the event. Not wanting to hinder our chances for any reason, it was agreed that I would attend as a "pumpkin-witch". The get up was basically a combination of a few Halloween artifacts we both had lying around and was pretty funny looking. I dressed in all orange clothing with a matching long messy orange wig topped with a witches hat.
          The night before the competition I got some bad news. I was called into work as well. The good thing was that I worked mere blocks away from where the carving was to be held. Furthermore, I was scheduled an hour after the contest started giving me time to still attend although cutting my carving time in half. Steven encouraged me that with our practice, he was sure I could crank it out within that time frame and still walk away with the win.
          The next day, I showed up on time and began nervously grinding my teeth as the organizers bantered on over the P.A. system gouging into our precious carving time at least fifteen more minutes. The first unforeseen obstacle I noticed was all the pumpkins sitting on the tables were a third of the size of the ones I practiced on, this was going to throw off my measuring system greatly. The next thing occurred to me was that it was the middle of the day and one whole wall of the room was windows. I didn't see any candles anywhere, how was I going to show the judges the final result? Without a light inside my creation and darkness outside, it wouldn't look like anything! With time slip sliding away, I decided to deal with the light issue later and stick to plan A.
          I carved away for about a half hour before I determined that nothing else could be done to improve it any further. It wasn't my best version of the likeness I had rehearsed but it was still pretty good. Since I had stuck to plan A (mainly because there was no plan B), the light issue still remained. It didn't look like much without the candle and a dark room to be placed in. In fact, in regular light the gradient technique almost looks like a negative of a photo.
          As everyone else carved away, I approached the judges' table. I asked them if there were any candles or dark closets nearby so I could show them what it was supposed to look like and they just shook their heads in unison. Frustrated and running out of time I resorted to desperate measures. I had an idea. It was a long shot but I was out of options. With the judges still looking at my masterpiece with perplexed faces, I knew I wasn't going to win unless I did something else. I quickly sawed off the entire backside of the pumpkin using the small serrated blade included in the kit they had provided. I then brought it over to the large wall of windows facing the sun opposite the panel of judges. I proceeded to triumphantly thrust the figure above me. I held it as high as I could so the angle of the sun would shine through the carefully carved out holes and exposed pumpkin meat. I immediately heard a chorus of ooohs and aaaahs from the judges and the sound of an electronic camera shutter. I turned around to see them all huddling around the digital photo continuing their musings. When I looked over one of their shoulders I saw a perfect Paul Simon likeness with rays of sunshine bursting outward in all directions appearing to beam the inspiring folk music out of his pores. The picture alone could have started a religion.
          I was now becoming late for work so I told them to call me when I win and left abruptly. That night I received a call from the radio station confirming that I had placed first place and won two tickets to Simon and Garfunkel along with an eight CD collection of their albums including all the officially released live performances. I called Steven with the news and was delighted to hear him laugh with joy. We went to the concert together and had a blast. The show was beyond awesome and it certainly made the whole experience more enjoyable knowing how we got there.         

How I Passed High School Then Almost Killed All My Friends.

          When I was seventeen years old passing high school wasn't high on my priority list, I'll admit that first and foremost. In fact; Snowboarding, hanging out with friends, and making silly videos were much more important to me. I knew that I was not planning on going to a four year college and that I would most likely end up in a community college if I ended up anywhere at all. I was confident of this because I knew I wasn't going to get the kind of marks that earned a scholarship and paying for college with loans was a terrible idea. Furthermore, I knew that I wanted to do something in the arts and that art school couldn't even guarantee me a job making chalk menu specials. I also knew that community college didn't give two flying shits about your GPA as long as you gave them money for classes and bought their stupid books for a hundred dollars a piece. I took all this in and weighed it against my passion for skipping class to ride down the mountain and decided that I would aim for my diploma and nothing more. I researched what the absolute minimum required grades were to accomplish this and discovered that straight Ds with a C in math for some strange arbitrary reason was what was needed.
          Everything went as planned right down to the wire except for my government class. My government teacher was known to run a tough class with no slack. She was an outspoken member of the NRA and talked with a booming voice through her wide mouth. Like most classes, grades were based on a point system and the final project made up half the points in the whole class. I needed to pass it with flying colors to make up for the lack of points I had not accumulated throughout the semester. The problem was I had procrastinated even on this dire project and was faced with only a day left and I hadn't started. Buckling down and working through the night was not going to be enough so I decided to exploit a loop hole in the system I had figured out a few years back. If I were to do something that got me a multi-day suspension, the teacher has to accept my work late since I'm not allowed on school grounds in the mean time. I didn't like going to school anyway so I decided to go for it.
          Getting a three day suspension was my goal. This was a tough situation. I Had to do something clearly worthy of more than a single day suspension but no where close to permanent expulsion. One sure fire way to do this was to get in a good 'ol fashioned fist fight. I considered a short list of guys that deserved it but couldn't rationalized hurting someone just so I could circumvent the system to graduate. To be certain, I had to find something that had been done multiple times by different people that always earned three days. After revealing my plan to my lunch table, it was unanimously decided that starting an epic food fight was pretty reliable especially since it had become a thing that year and the staff had had enough of it. Also, food fights are awesome. Cameras were recently installed in every corner of the cafeteria to assist in the prosecution of the perpetrators so I knew I would have no problem getting caught.
          That day at lunch I went through the line at the sandwich bar. Standing shoulder to shoulder with six or so fellow sandwich artists, I began loading up with everything piled way higher than a normal portion.
          "Are you gonna eat all that?" asked a geeky dude standing across form me.
          "Nope. I'm going to throw it" I calmly replied. Now I had the attention of everyone around me.
          "I'm going to start an epic food fight" I continued, "would any of you guys like to help out?" I went on to explain my plan to be a martyr and told them where to stand to be out of range of the cameras if they wanted to help initiate the chaos. I recruited two guys and then returned to my table.
          My friends saw the tower of lettuce and tomatoes and without speaking cleared out immediately leaving me all alone. I knew it was time so without aiming, I launched it over my head behind me and immediately heard screaming. The return fire happened fast and in mere seconds the cafeteria was a haze of muti-colored flying food. Girls ran down the isle to escape only becoming prime moving targets. Someone threw a chocolate milk carton and it exploded on the glass window with a sheet of brown. It was the third or fourth full out food fight that year so people knew the drill. It was; forget your hunger and throw what you are eating. Hit somebody. Anybody. It's worth it.
          As I expected, an hour later I was sitting in a chair in front of the principals desk while he and two of his cronies stood above me. One of them pressed play on a VCR plugged into a television they had wheeled in on a cart. There I was, easy to spot at the one table with no one else sitting at it. In choppy twelve frames per second I got to see the replay of my glory through the cockeyed fisheye lens. They stopped the tape when they saw the slight smile forming on my face when the fight started erupting.
          "Well Jon, we have no choice but to suspend you for three days" one of them said. I sat there quietly for a moment before I broke the awkward silence to ask if I could go home.
          With phase one of my scheme to graduate complete I was faced with another problem. The project was so huge that even though I had plenty of time to do it, I still really didn't want to. Senioritis was kicking in pretty seriously now that I was not at school and it was hot and sunny weather. I went back to the drawing board to see how many points were necessary to barely pass within the project itself. I checked the fine print of the syllabus and discovered that the visual aid was 30% of the grade. This was way out of proportion compared to other similar projects I had that year so I thought if I could ace the visual aid part then I could almost fail the other sections and still scrape by with a C. My topic had to do with Bovine growth hormones so I did what I do best and made a paper mache cow that stood about 4 feet high. It was obnoxiously huge and painted well. It commanded the room's attention during my presentation a week later and earned me my C I needed to get a D in the class. I successfully graduated highschool.
          "Bessy" became a mascot of several parties that ensued during the weeks that followed graduation. The fourth of July was coming up and I was about to make my yearly visit to Boom City to prepare Bessy for her final hurrah. Boom City is the name of a large collection of firework stands on the Indian reservation an hour north of my house. A few years earlier while haggling at a stand and probing for the big stuff, I met a seller named Jimmy who invited me to the trailer he lived in for a more serious consultation. He had tennis balls with long wicks coming out of them and red tubes the size of toilet paper rolls. Some of them had duct tape on them. The first year I bought a couple of the smaller red tubes and was delighted by the results. This year, I bypassed Boom City and drove straight to Jimmy's trailer. He remembered me and invited me in. I explained my plan and upon his recommendation I bought a tennis ball.
          I made an incision into my flour and newspaper friend and installed a small system of fireworks. It started with a Roman Candle firing out her ass and ended with the wick tied to the tennis ball. Bessy was now more than a mascot for the 4th of July party I was attending. She was a bomb.
          The location of the party was ideal. It was in an old house that existed at the end of a long road in the woods. Developers were planning on building many houses on the street but all they had installed at the time was a larger than usual cul-de-sac. When the time came, Bessy was placed in the center and I instructed all my friends to stand on the perimeter. I emphasized the importance of not stepping into the cul-de-sac during the demonstration. Everyone was making wagers to what would happen. Some suggested the head would reach the grass, others were not so optimistic and pictured it just ripping out the center. I was hoping for a good show but I personally had no idea what was in Jimmy's tennis ball.
          I lit the small wick sticking out of Bessy's ass and ran to the driveway. After a moment of tension she started shooting out multicolored balls that looked like psychedelic farts. The force of the shots were just enough to hilariously scoot Bessy forward a few inches with each shot. Everyone was laughing hard, then it stopped. What seemed like an eternity passed as she silently stood there for the next 30 seconds. I began to wonder if my wick tying strategy had failed and how long it would be before I would be confident enough to approach her. Then it happened. There was no spray of sparks or crackles just one large BOOM! The blast was much larger than anyone had hypothesized. There was no head left to discover later on the neighbor's lawn. In a fraction of a second there was nothing left of Bessy that could be measured larger than a quarter. The shock wave hit people in the chest and knocked a few down. After a small awkward moment where everyone panned the scene to make sure no one had lost an arm, everyone cheered.
          I was the hero that night. Bessy not only helped me graduate high school but delivered a spectacular show for my friends for which I am grateful for.               
                 

Mister Liberty.

          If the Earth was an orange and people were a type of mold then New York City is where it turns from a black sticky dust into a protruding white fuzz. The fungal hairs would be growing the highest in the center of Time Square which is preciescely where I stood. I didn't plan on standing at the epicenter of man made industry to ponder my existence when I woke up this morning. I didn't come here to see a Broadway show or get my picture taken with a Muppet. I travelled here for a doctor's appointment concerning my over sensitive right ear. As it turns out, not only does Manhattan boast the biggest and best in entertainment and economics but also is where one goes to visit the smartest man in America concerning the inner ear. My problem is frustrating and unique so regular ear doctors have had trouble figuring out what my issue is and have yet to assign a name to my condition.
          I'm staying with my cousin Michael who lives in the city. He told me to meet him when he gets off work in Time Square. So here I am, alone in the center of it all contemplating my ear problem with two hours to kill and I hear a strange yet familiar sound. It's coming from below me and sounds unmistakably like a didgeridoo. A few people I know play the instrument well so I am certain that is what I'm hearing. The buzzy drone echos through the underground maze of subways and utility shafts and from where I'm standing provides an odd juxtaposition to the hundreds of theater sized screens silently vying for my attention. To the left, there is a stunning time lapse video of the skyline of New York rushing from sunrise to sunset in a few seconds. To the right there is an image of a teenage girl buckling her bra behind her back while giving the camera "the eye" in the mirror she stands in front of. This scene is actually depicted across three large screens that stand about sixty feet high.
          Countless other screens can be seen for blocks in all directions, some on the very tops of the buildings around me and from where I stood, they all seemed to be pointing at me. It's as if all the screens in the world from cell phones to stadium scoreboards are fruits of the constantly growing technology tree. Here amongst the densest part where the skyscraper leaves are the most voluptuous they grow to county fair proportions. These fruits aren't meant to be bought, sold, and consumed. These ones are the ones the farmer sets aside to compete with and win.
          The synchronicity with the didgeridoo soundtrack is odd and appropriate simultaneously. It puts me into a primal state of mind where I can see things for what they really are. Suddenly, I break my gaze from the perimeter of glowing technology, refocus my eyes, and realize that I'm not alone on the droning grate.
          A masked person, who I'm assuming is a man based on his height and build is dressed as the statue of liberty and is patiently waiting for a tourist to come get their picture taken with him. His mute demeanor and hidden identity only adds to the mysteriousness of the moment scored by a tribal hum.
          As I studied the details of his costume another metaphoric epiphany hits me. If the actual statue of liberty was the geographic north pole of American ideology, this man who stands before me disguised as liberty so he can get you to give him money is like the magnetic north. The one that is close but not quite the axis of which all rotates around but nonetheless is where you will end up if you follow your compass alone. The real statue stands by herself on an island nearby with her solemn vow to never put down her torch while the country's citizens are drawn to the glitz and glamour of showbiz and are thrilled to get their image preserved in digital film with a poor imitator of the famous lady.
          I found out later that I was right about the sound being a didgeridoo but there wasn't anyone below me playing one. It was an art installment of a few speakers temporarily placed underground with a didgeridoo playing on loop to be heard from exactly where I stood. I can only imagine this blog post is precisely the reaction the artist was hoping for. When I found out that it was art I wanted to declare it pretentious and stupid but it only took me a few seconds to reconsider and realize that all my thoughts about life in metaphors were prompted by the ominous and unexpected sound. Maybe Mr. Liberty standing silently on his grate in the middle of the screen forest in his cheap costume was the inspiration for the installment. Who knows, does it matter? I think I'm going to move to a small town on a tropical island now.

Hooters, Tequila, Poop, and Deception.

          I once worked as one of those annoying street canvassers standing on both sides of the Starbucks enterance who "just wanted a minute of your time". It was a tough job getting total strangers to give me their credit card info and social security numbers to help save starving children in Africa but I was fairly good at it and the commissions were high. It was an interesting gig to say the least however it's not this job that I want to write about today. It was only because of the non profit job that I even dared consider the job offer I got about a year later. It was at this next gig that I was exposed to how seriously corrupt the telecommunications industry was.
         The five or so major companies that vie to be the one that sends you a bill for your phone, internet, and television service are always at all out war. There's nothing they won't pull if they think they can get away with it. The first rule in the phone wars playbook is to get someone else to do your dirty work. They all contract smaller companies to cover their door to door sales so they can wipe their hands easily if anything goes a foul on someone's front lawn. I'm not going to name the parent company or the contracted one because I have reason to be genuinely afraid of the latter. Let's call it "Phonco", a contractor for "Varbizon".
          I was recruited the standard way, it was someone I barely knew from my childhood acting like he was the buddy that would have been my bestie if things were just a little different. I saw through his act and figured he would get some sort of level up or commission if I joined the team (he did), but the numbers caught my attention. It sounded to me like I could make about four times there for doing the same thing I did for the nonprofit a year earlier. He invited me and two other recruits to meet him and his field manager at a restaurant to go over what the job was all about. I talked to the other two guys for about 30 seconds before I had correctly determined that they were going to fail at this job. It takes a certain personality type to be a successful door to door salesman and unfortunately I was blessed with this specific strand of DNA so here I was....again.
          As instructed, I met them in the parking lot of a nice looking but slightly sleazy place called Joey's in downtown Seattle. Upon entering, my friend's manager was asked to take his hat off by the host. He got mad so we left. He took us next door to Hooters instead. I couldn't decide if he was treating us or not but I was starving so I ordered a Barbecue burger without probing. As I chewed the layers of beef and onion rings, I listened to the exciting spiel that was told to us as if we were all spys getting our assignment while bond girls got us more ranch sauce. It ended with promises of swimming pools full of cash, shaped in the likeness of our own profiles (well at least enough money to frivolously buy one). I knew it was all hype while watching the other recruits slack jawed and starry eyed. I also still thought I could make a decent amount at this gig anyhow so I signed on, even though I had to pay for my burger.
          The first week was actually kind of nice, it was a lot like my old job -just selling people internet instead of rescuing children in Africa from a life as a diamond mine slave. The commissions were great as promised so I did some recruiting myself and brought on two of my friends, Jesse and Justin, whom I had met at the nonprofit job. I knew these guys would be able to sell like I did so I didn't feel bad.
          When they got there our field manager's boss had just arrived from Texas. We had been warned vaguely that this guy could be described as unique at best. Tom Coopers stood about 6 and a half feet tall and looked like a fat Apple with tree trunks for legs who just got back from basic training. He squeezed himself out of a tiny Dodge Neon every morning to join us in the office for a pep talk before we hit the streets. The first highly questionable thing happened right away. He placed my two friends in a different zone selling a different communications brand, in fact it was a direct competitor to Varbizon and they were selling it in an area Phonco had previously sold Varbizon packages to. It was clear how the company worked, They would just push which ever company had the best promotion for temporarily cheaper service in that area. After about six months they send out the same people to convert everyone back to the other company for more commissions. I later found out that this is how the whole industry functions and that there are thousands of smaller companies that do this all over the country with varying business ethics.
          Jesse and Justin made several sales right away as I knew they would but it was weird when we would go out for beers at night knowing we were rivals by day. The first round of paychecks came in, which were 100% commission based by the way, and we all got one except for Jesse and Justin. It was explained that the system was a little backed up and they would be coming shorty. About a month and a half went by and Jesse and Justin were about to quit because they still hadn't received a single paycheck. Thousands were now owed to them. Instead of letting them go, Tom Coopers switched them to our campaign and they began receiving paychecks weekly. They never saw a single dime from the other company they sold for. Pressing charges for the missing money was decided unanimously to be dangerous and not worth the risk. The reason for our fear was because Phonco was run like a mafia. Every week we were sent a newsletter from the corporate office that featured a picture of two thugs covered in bling with expensive sports cars parked behind them. On the surface it was supposed to inspire us with all the money we could possibly make but the secondary message was "You fuck with us, we will find you and break your legs". Jesse, Justin, and I were all making good money now and actually getting our paychecks so we put it all behind us for the time being and kept working.     
          Tom Coopers was one of the most annoying men I've ever had the displeasure of meeting and lied about everything. Whenever he opened his mouth, it was a pep talk. It didn't matter what it was he was saying. I'll admit that I've always been annoyed by the Texas accent but it was listening to Tom yack on and on about nothing that has left me wincing now every time I hear that familiar drawl in a sarcastic condescending tone.
          The worst thing about Tom wasn't how he talked, but how he got his sales. If you were new or not producing high numbers Tom would join you for a shift so you could watch how it's done. He was open and unashamed about his tactic of preying on the elderly and people who could barely speak English. When someone from either of those categories would open the door he would pretend he was a technician rather than a sales rep and act like he needed their signature to keep their phone and television from going off. Fast talking and deception was the strategy and it worked. Jesse, Justin, and I did the opposite. We applied our non profit skills and were able to effectively communicate with people on their door step. We would even walk away if we discovered that they had a better situation going on than the one we were offering. Overall we sold more than Tom Coopers and the rest of the office this way and made a decent amount of money without ripping anyone off. It wasn't enough for Phonco. In fact, it was never enough. You should always strive for more. More recruits, more hours, get your recruits to recruit, build an empire of door to door sales with you sitting on the golden throne. Sacrifice your time, health, and morals to get there. These were the ideas being hammered into our heads every morning while we rolled our eyes.
         Despite the drawbacks there were little things here and there I appreciated about the line of work. One thing that made the job slightly interesting was every day was different. Each neighborhood had different types of people in them and I talked to them all. What I found most interesting were my encounters with the reclusive types. The types that no one ever sees because they never leave their house. The nature of my job had put me in the very small category of people who ever have conversational contact with these folks. I discovered that there are so many more of them out there than I ever would have thought before doing door to door work. I also ran into very friendly highly social people quite often. Occasionally I would get invited in for a beer or a shot of tequila which I always gladly accepted. Whoever offered it would always act shocked that I accepted as if I was breaking my vow of sobriety after four tough years before their very eyes. It must have been the Varbizon embroidered windbreaker that made me look too official to drink on the job.
          I once was invited in to what looked like a small frat house on the inside complete with five slightly underage morons in oversized mesh shorts shooting tequila in the kitchen at 11:00 am. "The Varbizon dude is gonna take a shot with us!" announced the bro who answered the door. Cheers ensued and a shot was poured. I kindly rejected the salt lick and the lemon wedge which caused them to quiet down and watch a little more seriously. It was Patron so I knew it was going to go down easily. I threw it back without a wince which caused a stir among the group. "This is the coolest door sales guy ever," proclaimed one of the bros as if I were a new keg tap they just got in the mail. I tried one more time unsuccessfully to sell them internet before heading out again.
          One sunny day, I was walking through sprawling suburban hell when my burrito lunch decided it was time for a bowel movement and gave me a short timeline to find an adequate place to shit my brains out. I realized I was about a mile and a half from my truck and there were cookie cutter grey houses with darker grey trim for as far as the eye could see in all directions. I was already having a tough time that day getting people to open their doors and talk to me, I wasn't about to start asking if I could destroy their toilet. I began to sweat profusely as time was running out fast. I found a bush about five feet high between fences where the power lines ran. I decided that crawling into the bush and squatting was not a great option however was also my best one -so I went for it. The second I got my pants down and assumed the position I exploded. It was gross but I successfully avoided getting any on me. Like a scene out of a bad Seth Rogan movie, as soon as it happened I heard voices coming my way. They sounded very close so I just held my breath and froze. I was still inside the bush with my pants around my ankles when the two women walked by getting about about two feet from me at the closest. I had no choice but to not move and hope that I would evade discovery. It worked, but just barely. While they stopped and stood next to my bush I heard one of them say to the other, "Oh my God do you smell that?!" to which the other replied, "That's awful, it smells like it's from a human not an animal, it must be a broken sewer line." Although I was petrified with the fear of getting caught I also simultaneously was biting my lip to hold back my laughter as I already couldn't help but think about how funny this story would be later. They moved on and I wiped with the paper in my binder that had of all the names and addresses of the people who lived on the block who were Varbizon customers. I left it next to the bush on the sidewalk to severely confuse the next person walking their dog.
          After about six months of working the mandatory six days a week, the reasons to quit were adding up rapidly but I was still making more money there than my last job so I kept at it. Living in Seattle was becoming a drag for me as most of my friends had moved away and the traffic was only getting worse. My sister Anna was living in Portland and every time I visited her I was more envious of her life and the city she lived in. My wife and I had been living separately for about six months. She was in and out of a few rehab centers and we almost called it quits but after a few great reconciling talks, we decided to give it another go which ultimately did not pan out but not for a few more years to come. Moving to Portland seemed to be a great plan for a fresh new start so we did. I reluctantly asked Tom Coopers about transferring to the Portland office. My logic was it would be nice to have a job lined up down there, even if I didn't like it. Tom called me up a few days later and told me his final lie. He said that he had arranged for me to be general manager down there and that a team of salesmen were waiting for my arrival. When I got there and asked where my team was, they all laughed hard and long at me. The new equivalent to Tom Coopers was even worse in Portland. He began his first pep talk by pointing to his watch and asking if anyone could guess what it was worth.
          I stayed for two weeks and quit when the new uniforms came in. I arrived one morning to see all the obnoxious salesmen laughing and opening up several large boxes in the middle of the office. They were pulling out orange construction vests and these stupid white full brimmed hard hats that said "Varbizon" on them. Our new tactic was to approach the doors with the same paperwork but act like we were service men and that the switch was mandatory. "Forced Migration" was what it was called. The corruption had long ago eclipsed my morals so with the uniform overhaul I quit. I didn't give any advance notice and swore never to do door to door sales again. The unfortunate reality is I found myself selling satellite dishes door to door a month later. It wasn't as bad as the Phonco gig but still sucked hardcore. Although I was a couple years shy of getting rid of all my possessions, the perpetual string of shitty jobs was turning the Van life into something larger than a glimmer in my eye.



        

All for Corners.

          About one year after I moved to Portland, I rode my bike down one of the many bike paths and passed a lovely old movie theater called the Clinton Street Theater. It was hosting a local film festival called PUFF (an acronym for The Portland Underground Film Festival). I saw the name of the film that was headlining the fest written on the marquee and whispered to myself, "Next year that will be my film." I then peddled ultra fast for a few blocks as if to solidify my internal pact with a quick burst of physical exertion. I did so to remind myself of the pain I knew it would take to get there.
          The year was 2009 and the only thing on my film resume was the first ten episodes of a web series I directed called "The Free Box". As I've mentioned in prior posts, The Free Box was made for absolutely zero budget, in fact Drew and I fed the cast and crew each week with our food stamps. Regardless of my grim financial situation, The Free Box kept getting made week after week almost solely because of the dedication of the cast and crew. It was because of this that I felt like anything in the word was possible and I wanted to make a feature.
          The problem now was not only did I have no money but I also had no script. I didn't even have any ideas for one. Through networking with cast members of The Free Box I was introduced to a few other aspiring filmmakers at various parties around town. One of them was Keith Apland. He had a short film that he directed on his computer half way edited. He explained to me his frustration with it and told me he considered it a failure. We kept chatting about it over a few days and eventually he took me up to his apartment to show me the 40 minutes of the work in progress in chunks on his editing timeline. Sure enough there were lighting problems, poor sound here and there, and glaring continuity issues. Although I could see why Keith considered his first filmmaking effort doomed, I told him I could cut it and that I see it as a twenty minute piece. He hired me for the gig and payed me with his bar tips over the next month while I sat in his apartment cutting away. The end result was a little different that what Keith initially set out to make but turned out pretty good and an official collaboration between Keith and I had been born.
          Having his first short film done and looking spiffy, Keith was inspired to do more. About a month later he took Drew and I to a bar and pitched us his idea to make four short films that had intersecting story lines each about twenty minutes and asked us if we were willing to help. Drew and I liked his idea and agreed to take on the project but we both had the same question; why not just connect all the stories into a feature length film with multiple characters? Keith exclaimed that he had not considered a feature because features cost money and he had none. Our experience with The Free Box and general lack of knowledge to how things usually get done gave Drew and I the confidence to talk Keith into taking on a feature with absolutely no financial support. I'm sure the round of whiskey shots played a part in our decision making at that point in the night but it was all for the better.
          We decided that in order to pull this thing off with no budget at all and still have a high quality product, we would do everything that didn't cost money to accomplish as professionally as possible. Basically, treat the project like we had a budget so that the only things lacking would be minimized to what we could not afford. It didn't cost anything to write it and Keith had done that already. It didn't cost anything to put an ad on craigslist and hold auditions at a coffee shop, Drew took that on. It wouldn't cost anything to edit it, I had the software on my computer, so I assumed that task in advance. That just leaves shooting it. Keith was able to secure a camera to borrow from a friend. It was the absolute top of the line prosumer choice......fifteen years prior, but hey, it was a camera. Paul Anderson, who volunteered as a sound recordist on The Free Box caught wind of the excitement brewing about a possible feature going down and quickly stepped on board with his sound equipment. Things were falling into place but with the ambitious script, there was still a laundry list of locations and props yet to be secured. Furthermore, the large cast were all working for free so they all had jobs they had to go to at different times. Juggling schedules alone was enough reason to pull all your hair out while doing the Homer Simpson-walking-in-a-circle-on-the-floor-chanting-gibberish-between-slamming-the-production-binder-into-your-forehead-dance.
          A month into pre production: The alcohol was long out of our system from that initial celebratory cheers that commemorated our commitment to the project a few weeks earlier. The pressure was weighing heavier and heavier on Keith who was managing it all between his own shifts at a bar he tended. Fall was here, winter was on it's way and one cold evening I got a call from Drew who told me that Keith had just lost his job and was backing out. He had confided to Drew that adding up the potential costs and trying to find a new job was becoming overwhelming. The idea of shooting such a large movie without even the means to feed a crew that is expected to work through the night and into the next morning on multiple occasions was absolutely crazy. I look back at it now and Keith was absolutely right. Any outsider looking in on this situation would easily deem Keith the clearest thinking one of the three of us. That sensible thinking quality Keith possessed ended up helping us tremendously on multiple occasions throughout the making of the The Corners but it wasn't helping at this moment so I gathered a four person coalition and staged an intervention. Without calling ahead of time, the four of us showed up to Keith's door and invited ourselves in. Keith was clearly not happy with this tactic and began raising his voice in defense to the four of us surrounding him on his own couch immediately. It was a rough night but it worked. After breaking it down we convinced him that the whole cast and crew were fully aware of the situation, that we were up front about the lack of budget, and they all still wanted to be a part of it. The cast and crew added up to about thirty people at this point, we were all feature hungry, and Keith was their captain. In retrospect the incident although tense, bonded us in a way that a round of whiskey shots fell short of. We were inexperienced, cold, hungry, and poor but the seed of determination had been planted.
          The first day of shooting was a complete chaotic disaster that went through the night and into the wee hours of the morning. We ended up scrapping all the footage and one of the lead actresses quit. The Corners almost fell apart again. More arguing ensued but against all logic, we rescheduled and started over. After that there was an unspoken realization between everyone in the project that we wearn't going to let anything stop us which reassured us all that there will be a completed film at the end of all this. As a result all further clashes ended a little quicker and easier as we were learning how to communicate with each other under pressure.
          We started production in the fall so each shooting day was colder than the last and most of the script was written to take place out doors at night. That winter was far and away the toughest winter of my life. Things between my wife and I were being put to the ultimate test. She was relapsing into her drug addiction while I ran around the city unemployed trying to shoot a movie. Our relationship had turned into two opposing forces filled with resentment for whatever the other did. I did not have her support for my filmmaking ambitions which were ramping up considerably at the time. I never planned on divorcing her, it just happened one day. Things just came to the ultimate point of no return and there seemed to be no other option. I was going to loose the apartment, the van life was just around the corner and there was still a third left of the film to shoot. Instead of adding stress to my life, the production of the corners provided an excellent distraction and gave me purpose. I was more determined than ever to put my all into it and see it through to the end. Durring post production I got a few jobs editing wedding videos so I would often stay up very late editing the Corners after five hours of editing weddings. I slept on Drew's couch so often during that time, I gave him a hundred bucks for allowing me to temporarily move myself in.

     Almost ten months in the making with a budget of right around $300 total, the Corners was finished. Keith submitted it to a few local festivals and got into a couple. The biggest one, the Salem Film Fest placed it right around the middle of all it's entries which was a huge victory for us since all the films below us had budgets of at least twenty thousand dollars each. To my great satisfaction, it was also accepted into the Portland Underground Film Festival at the Clinton Street Theater. Seeing the name of our film on the marquee in the same font as the film that was there a year before when I made my promise to myself was a moment I'll always remember. Although there was no awards or placements given at the fest, The Corners was selected as the weekend long festival opener friday night. It was the only film that played that night and had a party sponsored by a Vodka brand afterwards. Needless to say, it was a victorious night.
          Most of the actors have gone on to do noteworthy things in film and television. Three of them moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full time. The Corners will always be the first for me. I'm simultaneously torn and happy that I'll never make a movie under those conditions again. The film is now available to watch in it's entirety on Vimeo and is posted below. The Password is: night

www.vimeo.com/74019397

My Goodness, What a Story.

          I Recently heard My friend Joel Schneider reveal a few personal details about his past that included his time living with me on a radio interview. I figured since he broke the ice, I can now write about my relationship with him and tell some stories from my perspective. For those who don't know, Joel currently fronts a band called "My Goodness" in Seattle. They aren't on the cover of Rolling Stone (yet) but are doing quite well these days and are about to release their official debut album. My filmmaking has blossomed into a professional realm over the same timeline that Joel's music has and that's no coincidence. It's because the top three milestones that represent clear leaps forward in my art were all music videos for My Goodness. This wonderful artistic collaboration that has benefitted both of us wasn't just a chance encounter. Joel was the star of my first short film over ten years ago and I directed his first music video for his first band while he was in high school. Those projects never went very far but they were the building blocks for what was to come. Looking back now the stories that fill in the blanks are full of hilarity, humility, and inspiration.
          I might as well start from the beginning, I've known Joel all my life, well...all his life. I'm four years older. Our parents were friends and My mom often babysat Joel when we were young children. When I was ten and he was six our dads took us up to Alaska for a fishing trip and that's where this story really begins. There's something about Alaska that will drop your balls. It's like a country within a country. A land that's mission is to make men from boys. When I got off the plane in Anchorage I was welcomed by a taxidermied Grizzly bear standing on his hind legs about 12 feet tall permanently frozen in the "I'm going to eat you now" pose. Next to that was a video playing on loop of a bear chasing down a Jack Rabbit in a field and catching him with ease. The message I got: "Welcome to Alaska, if you plan on going hiking here, you better be faster than a Jack Rabbit, good luck!"
          After a couple of days we camped one night in a field on Kodiak Island where true to the warning in the airport, a bear had shredded a cow a few days before. Although any size bear that was charging at me would cause me to brown my pants, it's important to understand that bear hierarchy goes like this; Polar bears are bigger than grizzly bears. The only bear bigger than a Polar Bear resides exclusively on Kodiak island and is fittingly named the Kodiak Bear. Guns are of little use when faced with a charging Kodiak bear because bullets only slightly slow them down. We first heard about the cow incident from the locals then on our way to pitch the tent we saw what was left of it. It looked like someone tried to make a rug with a chainsaw. To avoid a similar fate, Joel's uncle (who was a resident of the area) took the next half hour to catch about 40 salmon, which is not hard in Alaska. He didn't even use bait in favor of the more efficient Alaskan weapon of choice: the "snagging" hook. He proceeded to place them in a circle around our camp creating a 50 yard perimeter of tempting snacks to distract the bear if he returned. Somehow this gesture genuinely made me feel better.    
         While the adults were fishing the next day, Joel and I invented a fantastic game that looking back was something so ingeniously gross, only six to ten year old boys would be able to come up with it. We first caught two bullheads (a common bottom feeder fish). We then whacked them dead like we were taught to do at the beginning of the trip. The next step involved our newly acquired responsibility of wielding survival knives. After a brief scientific dissection we discovered that bullhead intestines were very tough and could be pulled out about six feet or so. As the fish dried out they became quite sticky. We already had our shirts off because of how warm the day was so it was the logical next step to wrap the end of the strung out intestin around one hand and start swinging the dead bullhead club around in an effort to fish-slap each other. Come to think of it, that might have been the name of the game; "Fish-Slap". If contact was made the fish would slap onto our skin and stick. Once pealed off, it would leave a red fish stensil welt as a badge of honor or a score for the other person (I feel like that last detail was less clarified). Needless to say, It was certainly more about the thrill of playing the game than who won although I'm sure Joel's version would end with me hand carving him a trophy and kissing his feet begging for mercy.
         Joel and I stayed close over the years and as we got older, as most kids do when they reach the age of rebellion we clashed more and more with our parents. Our shared religious upbringing multiplied the clashing and gave us a struggle even more in common than typical teenage angst, especially when we developed our mutual love for metal and punk rock. I remember getting in trouble for lending Joel a Greenday CD that my parents didn't know I had. As I got older, my parents gradually accepted my interest in alternative culture and gave me more freedom to make my own choices. Without going into further details, it seemed that Joel's situation was not improving when he entered his high school years as mine had. It finally came to a point where he could no longer continue to live at home but he was still a year shy of 18 (and graduation). I was 22 at the time and had an Apartment in Seattle. My roommate was gone for six months so I invited him to live with me. He accepted and finished out high school by commuting across a few towns while working almost fulltime at a construction job. Somehow we balanced a regular routine of partying almost every night amongst all this. I should mention that his friend Evan became a permanent fixture in our living room during this time which didn't bother me. I had just quit community college film school not having passed a single quarter because I felt it was a waste of my time and money (I still do). I knew if I was going to quit school I would have to do it on pure self motivation so I began shooting music videos for punk rock bands on VHS tapes. Even early on I was pretty ambitious given the lack of any budget whatsoever because I really wanted my video concepts to stand out since nice equipment was out of the question. Joel and Evan were always eager to assist often appearing as extras. One video involved building a set with large sheets of wood painted to look like an office that the characters could break into. When my roommate finally came back from his trip and reclaimed his room, we kept Joel around and built him a bedroom in our living room with the fake walls from the office set. Joel didn't own a guitar at the time so he would borrow my acoustic frequently. I knew if he had been playing it because he never tuned it back to standard when he put it down. This was annoying at the time but was laying the foundation of an innovative sound that would years later be fully realized as My Goodness.
          I eventually got married to my longtime girlfriend and moved out. My wife had drug addiction issues that would come and go throughout our marriage and would eventually lead to the end of it. About half way through my five year marriage, my wife and I moved out to the small town of Deming, Washington to get away from the city after a particularly terrible bout with her substance abuse. I quickly realized that moving to a small town does make it harder to score but it does not solve the problem when someone's facing addiction. A few incidences later she was court ordered into a rehab clinic which left me broke, depressed, and all alone in a small house with no neighbors. My Pizza delivery job that was 40 minutes away left little to spare after it paid for the commute. I spent a lot of my time during the days walking my dog along the river bank near my house. There was a particular bend in the river next to an open field very near my house that was a popular spot for Bald Eagles to fish aptly named "Eagle Park". One time I decided to count all the Eagles I could see from a single vantage point and got to around 70 when it started to get confusing. The breathtaking nature I was surrounded by wasn't enough to distract me from the turmoil in my life and I usually sobbed myself to sleep in a half panic attack.
          When she got out of rehab she introduced me to a guy she met in the clinic who needed a place to stay. I reluctantly granted him our spare bedroom because we were going to be evicted without some financial help in paying our rent. I found out later that he was an Iraq war vet that suffered from PTSD and claimed to be who one of the characters in the book "Jar Head" was based on. Anthony Swofford, the author of Jar Head was near the top of a "People to kill" list I found in his bedroom once.
          Things between my wife and I didn't improve and I couldn't handle my helplessness over my life situation anymore and told her we needed a break from each other. I left without a plan and drove the two hours to Seattle where Joel and Evan took me into the house they were renting without a moment's hesitation. A few weeks later I returned to the Deming house to collect the rest of my stuff and my psycho ex roommate pulled a gun on me and for a second I was certain he was going to pull the trigger. My wife had moved out leaving him there alone, it wasn't long after that incident that he defaulted on the rent and left the place. A few months later the Earth swallowed up the vacant house with a tremendous landslide that came off the over-logged hill behind the property. We all would have been buried alive had we still lived there. I saw it in a newspaper and recognized the yard, did some research and found out it was in fact the same house. It was almost like a mysterious force beneath the Earth was causing opposing energy in the house, dramatically driving the three of us away in separate directions before it got to the breaking point where it could hold on no longer.
          Due to the struggles in my life that led to me moving in with Joel and Evan, I had not made any videos in a while. Evan had been pursuing a career in sound mixing and landed an impressive job at a popular club that booked well known touring bands almost every night. Joel fronted a band playing organ instead of guitar and was writing tons of songs. Their positive artistic energy motivated me to pick up the camera again and I made my first short film "Secret Agent Shopper". It was a comedy based on my experience of being a secret shopper who got fired because another secret shopper was appointed to follow me secretly to make sure I did my secret shopping correctly. Secret shopping secret shoppers was such an absurd and hilarious concept to me that the script basically wrote itself. Joel was cast as the lead and Evan ran sound naturally. I cast my friend Felipe and a guy named Michael from craigslist as the other two actors. We shot the entire thing in one day for about $50 with a borrowed DV camera. I showed it later at a filmmaker open screening and got a great response from the crowd, much bigger than they guy who spent ten grand on his short that played before mine which made for an awkward Q and A. It was a huge motivator for me to keep going with film and to start taking it more seriously. I recently reminisced over this film greatly because tragically, Felipe passed away because of a serious heart condition he had been battling for years. Joel and I ran into him a few months ago as he was loading his band's equipment into the very club that Evan ran sound at years ago. We had a good laugh and talked about Secret Agent Shopper for a moment on the street. It was a brief encounter but I'm glad I got to see him one last time.
          I lived at Joel and Evan's for about six months before repairing my relationship with my wife who had proved herself clean over that span of time. Together, we moved to Portland for a fresh start. To make a long story short, we struggled considerably financially, most of it being my fault for not being able to hold down any job for more than a couple months. I blame my chronic back pain as the main culprit but there certainly were other responsibility/maturity issues I needed to conquer in addition to my poor physical condition. My wife, relapsed a few more times and by the last time, I could tell that it was a pattern that wasn't going to have a happy ending if things kept going the way they were. I left her when I found her stash after warning her that I would if she relapsed again.
          I was in the lowest place I had ever been. I told myself the only way to go from here is up but I knew it all had to be different. I could not go along anything that resembled the same path that led me to where I was so I bought a van and moved into it. I hadn't seen Joel or Evan for a couple years so I drove to Seattle and found out that they were both in new bands and were booked one after each other for a bar show that night. Joel's new band was My Goodness. There was only a handful of people there when My Goodness took the stage as the first band of the night. The show was incredible. I knew from the first song that there was something special in front of me. I confessed to Joel when he got off the stage that my socks had been officially blown off and that I think he's going to make it big with this new sound. Joel shook my remarks off humbly but I could tell that he recognized the potential as well.
          I knew that even though Joel was my good friend, I would have to act fast to make the first music video. I also knew that I would have to follow in Joel's footsteps and up my game considerably if I didn't want to get left in the dust. With no budget for a video between us, I had to think outside the box and ambitiously. Instead of thinking reasonably because of our lack of funds, I came up with an idea that involved 40 cameras and a warehouse. Joel told me he could afford to pay me $200 to do it. Since I needed all $200 for survival money I decided to try and make my concept happen without spending a single dollar. I did some research and found a small community run warehouse that had art workshops and gymnastics throughout the day. When I went to inquire about usage I was greeted by a man wearing a full body dog costume who claimed to be the operations manager. Talking to him about rental fees was difficult because along with the dog suit I was constantly being distracted by his ten year old son who was cheering loudly while driving large holes into the wall behind him with a fork lift. I called it to his attention a few times but I could tell that the man-dog-dad was more annoyed at me for pointing out what was happening than what was happening so I did my best to ignore it. He was very excited about the idea of a music video being shot there and told me he would waive the rental fee before I could ask him to. The only stipulation was we couldn't turn on the heat.
          My next stop was Widmer brewing. I had heard that Widmer had supported local film events with free kegs before and if I was going to ask 40 people to show up with cameras for no pay; I needed to give them beer, bill it as a networking event, and get the vid shot in under an hour. Widmer provided the keg with hardly a question asked so I started littering facebook and craigslist with cameraman recruitment ads. I was completely honest about what was going down and that the pay was in beer. Instead of 40 I got 20 which was still quite impressive. Twenty proved to be a more ideal number once I got to post production anyway.
          As I predicted My Goodness got signed to a label three days after we shot the video and they were already trying to hook him up with different filmmakers. I finished the video a week later and the label loved it. They didn't give me any money for it but down the line My Goodness became involved with a different label that saw it and ended up funding the next one.
          The band wasn't officially signed to the new label so they gave me a very small "starter/tester" budget to see what i could make with it. Once again I decided to over shoot my means and make it a period piece that took place in the 1940's. One week after I wrote the concept it was cast, shot, edited, and delivered for under a thousand dollars. This was an unbelievable feat for how good the video turned out and I owe at least half of that success to my newly acquired powerful teammate who has worked with me closely on every film project since. That person is going to be my wife this fall and goes by the name Rachel. The label was so impressed they gave me an additional stipend as a reward.  
          When it came time for the next music video, they approached me again, this time with a typical professional indie rock video budget. This made me happy but I also knew that expectations were increased as well as funds. With pen in hand staring at a blank page, I found myself second guessing wether making the last one so good was such a good idea after all. The new song had a deeper more emotional tone than the last two which helped guide my inspiration. I decided to reach within myself to come up with a meaningful story that was mostly fiction but based loosely on a series of otherwise unrelated events from my past and then spice it up to cinematic proportions to match the intensity the song had. I sent the overly complicated treatment to Joel for his approval and to my dismay he responded by telling me that he liked the idea but since he had replaced his drummer with a new one he wanted a video that showcased the band to introduce the new lineup visually. His logic made sense to me, you don't want two videos floating around youtube as you climb the charts with an old drummer especially since My Goodness is only Joel and a drummer. I told him that I could incorporate both the concept and the band. Given the complexity of the story, I really didn't understand how this would work as this new plan would cut my already pinched time in half to tell my story. However, I also knew that Joel knows what he wants and compromising was the only way I was going to be able to execute my idea. He agreed but made me promise that I was confident I going to be able to pull it off.  
          Rachel and I spent a month in preproduction this time. We cast my cousin John without an audition because I was already familiar with his stage acting talent which ended up working out great. Somehow, we pulled it off and the video has gotten some great write ups including one from a DJ I used to listen to religiously when I was younger.
          The same label sent Rachel and I on a complete U.S. tour for two months with two other bands they also represented. By coincidence or fate Evan was hired to be our tour manager and we were reunited once again. My ex wife got clean for good the day I left her and is currently leading a much healthier life as an exception to the statistics, thank God. Joel is my best man in Rachel and I's upcoming wedding and I'm sure we'll be close for the rest of our lives. One of the most powerful lessons in maturity I've learned from growing up with Joel was how to make the transition from big brother figure to an adult with equal standing. I feel if I had not humbled myself in those crucial few years I might have missed the ambitious wisdom that he had been dying to share with me and now together we bring each other up to higher and higher levels professionally and beyond. If I could sum this whole story into some advice, I would say to surround yourself with people full of capability and ambition who aim higher than what seems feasible and make sure you listen as much as you teach. The best part about writing this all down and reading it back is I know that someday it will all be considered chapter one in a much longer story.
          I referenced a lot of videos in this post, instead of listing a ton of links I'm going to leave you with one. I've chosen the first My Goodness video because it has been removed from Youtube recently to not be confused with the new version of the song (this one features the original drummer, Ethan). It still lives on my personal account on Vimeo and is a lot harder to search for.     www.vimeo.com/22049997       

The Power of Free.

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
-1st Timothy 6:10

          Money sucks. Some people think that it only sucks when you don't have any, but I say it sucks all the time. I'm not advocating Communism, that sucks too. I'm just saying that Money dictates far more of our lives than it should. Money starts wars and then sustains them. Money rips families apart and creates classism. Money breeds jealousy, greed, and depression. That's why I love when things are free, not because I'm a cheapskate or even "thrifty", but because free is just that; it's freedom. A transaction, or should I say an acquiring of something that does not involve money is a temporary release from the binds of the financial system we're so caught up in day after day weather we like it or not.          
           My uncle once told me there is a great power in giving something away for free. He was speaking from a marketing standpoint within the context of our conversation but I'm sure he would agree with me that the statement can be applied to an idea larger in scope as well. For me, and this is all intertwined with the van life, it's a philosophy. Maybe it's because I've struggled considerably with money over the course of my life but I absolutely hate being nickel and dimed for petty things. I can't stand getting ripped off on any scale. I could get a bad deal on a car or a sandwich and I'll probably be just as pissed. I am always on the hunt for a way not to pay. Over the years of getting into concerts for free, free haircuts, free dental work, and countless things large and small I've realized that there really is a power in "free" that super cedes the notion of simply getting a good deal.
          One of the powers of getting something for free is it completely eliminates the chance of getting ripped off. You can't get mad if your sandals fall apart after a month if you found them on the street corner. Even though managing my finances hasn't been a strong point for me, I feel that it doesn't really matter if you're rich or poor when your wallet is being taken advantage of. It's the principal of getting what you paid for that matters. If I were a millionaire, I'd still get angry over an eight dollar beer at a music festival served to me in a plastic cup that's mostly foam. Someone at the same festival tosses me a warm PBR because I sat near him -highlight of my day (Free beer = new friend).
          Which brings me to another power of free, you never forget the things you get for free (well not as easily at least). It's always special to get free stuff and a lot of my best memories are when I didn't have to pay the fee. The cost of something doesn't just set an arbitrary expectation (usually too high) for what you paid for, it sets a negative precedent from the get go that must be then turned positive if what you paid for delivers. Let's say you ride a roller coaster that cost fifteen dollars then another one that's thirty and you decided you had more fun on the fifteen dollar one. Most likely, you'll find yourself frustrated that you paid too much for the second one instead of relishing the fact that you had a lot of fun on the first. If you just rode two roller coasters without forking over any dough you probably wouldn't even be comparing them. The memory would play out in your brain as two rad roller coasters, and maybe if you were being really analytical that day, one ever radder than the other. Which makes the day the raddist! (sorry I couldn't help myself once I got to "radder" there was no going back).
          At this point in my speech I can almost hear the nay sayers thinking to themselves in a condescending internal brain tone "well Jon, you can't just get everything for free, we live in a capitalist society, people need to make a living, how do you think they built that roller-....bla bla bla". Guess what? You're wrong! If you are an optimistic opportunist who believes in yourself you can get just about anything you want without paying for it. You've heard it before, Oprah has her vision boards, there's that cheesy DVD "The Secret" stacked on a spool underneath your soon to be outdated DVD player but the message is true; you are the master of your own destiny. If you want something bad enough, remain positive, and always assume you will get what you want, somehow it will come to be. Don't dwell on the question of "how" too hard but still consider it. The universe will conspire to make your dreams a reality. Now it's time for some great stories about free stuff.
       
FREE SNOWBOARD
       
          I grew up in a house with a modest income, my parents weren't broke but because of the neighborhood we lived in, I was the poor kid by comparison. It hardly ever bothered me, I was always happy with what I had for the most part but certain things came up now and then that made me feel pretty left out because my family just couldn't afford it. The biggest one of those things was certainly snowboarding. In seventh grade, I did everything with my group of best buddies. Weekends were especially good hang out days except when the bike riding and swimming bliss days of summer turned to winter, I was alone. I would reunite with my friends on Monday at school where I had to hear about all the fun stuff that happened on the mountain during lunch. Sure I wanted to fit in but even more so it just sounded like a blast. I wanted to snowboard with my friends very badly but with all the gear and lift ticket prices, it was way out of range for my parents to just foot the bill and I understood that.
          My wonderful mom was aware of my longing and one day she told me she heard on the radio that a local snowboard manufacturer was looking for kids to demo their new boards. The ad went on to say that they would also provide a ride from the factory to the mountain with a lift ticket voucher. She bought me some cheap gloves and goggles and drove me down to the warehouse to see what it was all about. The radio message reached a handful of kids but shockingly, there wasn't an overwhelming response so I called up my buddies and instructed them to join me as fast as possible. The people running the program immediately took a liking to me and my eight or so buddies because the rest of the kids were horribly disrespectful and acted very entitled to their free stuff. A few of them were caught stealing boards almost right away and almost caused a shut down of the whole thing before it even launched.
          Once I was hooked up with a board to demo I asked them if I could borrow some snowboarding pants, and possibly boots as well. They informed me that it was just a board demo and that I should have brought my own. It was then that I informed them that I was not actually a snowboarder...yet, but that was all about to change. The timing was perfect as I was already their golden boy for bringing the cool kids. One of the guys disappeared for a moment and returned with pants, a jacket, boots and even gloves as mine were clearly not adequate. I found out later that he was the official brand photographer and regularly snapped shots for posters and magazines of all the famous snowboarders of that time. I just remember his first name was Pat.
          We all piled on to a school bus with a driver named Butch who wore a huge cowboy hat and blasted AC/DC from a boom box he had duck-taped to the dash. Once on the mountain Pat gave me a two hour lesson which I appreciated greatly. I learned quick and was flying off jumps within the day (I didn't say I landed them). The mountain was pretty empty and was magnificent all lit up at night. I was captivated from my first day. Even from the top of the chair we could see Butch doing donuts in the empty parking lot with the school bus. The revving diesel engine echoed loudly across the whole mountain. Pat and the rest of the brand reps hung out and took pictures of us sporting the new boards for their catalogue. I was the hero among my friends the next day at lunch and we continued night boarding with Butch, Pat and the whole crew every Wednesday night for the duration of the two month program. At the end of each night I thanked them profusely and returned all the borrowed gear. On the last day after everyone piled into cars to go home, one of them motioned for me to come back in to the warehouse. I opened the door to see everyone who worked there standing in a half circle around a snowboard and a pile of gear. They told me it was mine and that they had a great time hangen with me over the last two months.
          I continued snowboarding for years barely paying for anything, always finding a way around the fee. For lift tickets, Shell gas stations had a great promotion they ran all winter for a few years. The deal was if you spent more than $30 to fill your tank they would give you a voucher for a buy one-get one free lift ticket. I would pick up a voucher on my way up then find someone in line to purchase a lift ticket and ask them to use the voucher to help me get one since they were going to buy one anyway. It never took me more than five minutes as people in the mountain sports community tend to look out for each other and are generally in a pretty good mood once they're about to get on the lift.
          Snowboarding had become an important part of my life and it never cost me more that what it would have to have taken up tennis instead.
       
FREE SUSHI

           I was living in Seattle in my early twenties bouncing around different low paying jobs and money was usually scarce (OK, always). I caught wind from a friend that there was a bar at the bottom of one of the ritzy hotels downtown that served free sushi during happy hour on Tuesdays. My roommate Kenton and I decided to go investigate. We came in dressed in T-shirts and torn shorts, sat down at the bar awkwardly, and waited. After about ten minutes I built up the courage to ask the bartender if in fact sushi was going to be served to us at no cost. He told us that the rumors were true but it wasn't entirely free as there was a one drink minimum to partake. Just then a few workers from the kitchen started bringing out trays of not only sushi but pot stickers and noodles as well. We each ordered our over priced drinks deciding that it was clearly still worth it. After attending this event a few weeks in a row, the bar tender who was also in his early twenties confided to us his disdain for the gig and started hooking us up with free drinks. He explained to us that he hated that wealthy people were being treated with free gourmet food while the homeless people outside couldn't afford a granola bar or something vigilant like that. I really didn't care if he wanted to be the Robin hood of beer or our friend or both, I was just thankful that I got my buzz on and a delicious meal just for tipping the guy every Tuesday.
          Kenton and I agreed that the first three rules of free sushi was that you don't talk about free sushi. We had the awareness from our first visit that as soon as a few more tools like us found out about it and started infiltrating the country club atmosphere, everything would come crashing to a halt. We both showed up every Tuesday for months like we were monks and the bar was our temple. It eventually got to the point where I would starve myself all day just to be able to gorge on more sushi during that wonderful happy hour. Sure enough, true to our predictions one by one the riff raff were wandering in and exploiting what we pioneered. One day we arrived ten minutes early as usual and not to our surprise, it was announced via a note on the door that the complimentary sushi happy hour had ceased.

FREE MUSEUMS IN CANADA

          The longest job I ever had before I started filmmaking full time lasted nine months before I got canned. It was working as a Deck hand/Server/Bus tour salesman/Luggage attendant for the Victoria Clipper, a high speed ferry that went from Seattle to Victoria, Canada and back once daily. I have a lot of crazy stories from this job involving everything from Whales to a dumpster full of puke that I promise I'll devote an entire blog post to in the future but for now I'm going to explain how I used my employment there to get me free stuff in Victoria that helped me develop a skill for getting free things elsewhere as well.
          One perk of the job was a four hour layover in the very touristy town of Victoria. All crew members were given ten dollars for lunch and a membership to an upscale gym in the harbor. Victoria is known for a plethora of museums that range greatly in price and size. A wax museum, a bug museum, and a museum of history were just a few that were all a few blocks from each other. They all charged anywhere from $8 to $30 to enter and with four hours to kill every day, I wanted to go to them all. Over the summer I managed to visit every single one including Miniature World for free.
          I came up with a monologue that I delivered to whoever was selling the tickets that I honed a little better each time. I would begin by making small talk and being sure to include that I was an employee of the Clipper who tended to the passengers for two hours every day on the way up from Seattle. I would go on casually about how people were always asking me for recommendations for how they should spend their time (time is code word for money of course) in the harbor. Since all they had to do was wave me on and it was clear I wasn't going away, inevitably they all did. I even rented a moped for two hours this way.
          The experience got me thinking about how if I was clever enough I could probably get into anything anywhere if I knew exactly what to say. Since then I've talked my way into a lot of places including several concerts over the years or gotten in for a fraction of the price at the very least. I've become so good at this skill that when I go to a large concert with friends, I instruct them to not buy tickets ahead of time and to give me a chance to score them for free or incredibly cheap once we got there. I've never failed.

THE FREE BOX

          My love for free eventually crossed paths with my hobby for filmmaking when I moved to Portland and became addicted to the show "Arrested Development". I desperately wanted to make a clever comedy web series about zany people in Portland but as usual, I had no money. Furthermore I also lacked a camera, a cast, experience, and when I say no money I mean the $200 a month I got in food stamps was the only way I stayed alive and even that ran thin halfway through each month. For some reason I still thought I could pull off producing a web series and owe a lot of that determination to the encouragement of Drew Hicks who co-created it with me. I had met Drew only a month before through my first attempt at networking with actors around Portland and we quickly found that we shared similar unrealistic ambitions and a lack of a bank account.
          To make a long story short, we found a guy to lend us a camera and got all our props for free including a sixty dollar bong just by explaining to businesses what we were up to. We put a very official looking casting call on craigslist and scheduled auditions in a room we checked out for free at the public library. We called it "The Free Box" in reference to the popular Portland pastime of putting free boxes on every corner of the city during months of good weather. Of course The name of the show meant a lot more to Drew and I. We made the show for three years totaling 27 episodes and never spent more than ten dollars on any installment. It was rough around the edges but I learned a ton and each episode contained at least a few moments that were actually funny. It never got any sponsorship or picked up by a network but we did get a few great write ups from the local press and the five main actors would always get recognized around town.
          Producing The Free Box week after week while paychecks were non existant really enforced my belief in the notion that anything is possible. Drew and I would show up to film industry networking events like celebrities and people would grill us with questions about where we got our funding. After explaining it to people without embellishing anything the response was usually negative as I could tell they just thought we were being jack asses and lying to them. Looking back, it was pretty unbelievable given what I now know about the industry but that's just the reason we were able to do it. We didn't know anything so we just figured it out as we went along our way instead of the way they tell you how to do it. The money saving lessons I learned while making The Free Box are applied in some way to almost every project I work on to this day and those episodes will always remind me of good times. I'll leave you with episode thirteen; "Free Beer". If this is the first episode you've seen, I'll catch you up a little. Lisa/Moonshadow is a twenty year old girl who accidentally turned herself into a Genie a few episodes back and is played by a man in his forties. You can watch them all in better quality than the Youtube uploads here: vimeo.com/user4781378/videos/sort:alphabetical/format:thumbnail

   

Living in the Now.

          Over the thirty-one years I've been rotating around on this giant ball suspended in space I've been given the suggestion by various types of individuals I've encountered to "live in the now". They all had their own unique take to what that statement meant to them, from career advice to a spiritual and/or philosophic approach to life. However, the theme that seemed to unify all points of view was simply because; the present moment is in fact all that exists at any given moment. The past is always the past, it can't be altered, and the future is always unknown no matter what educated predictions one might make. Even simpler yet; Neither the past or the future exists, ever. By definition the present moment is the only thing that is actually there since the words "past" and "future" are words created within our language to reference something that no longer exists or has yet to become real.
          The concept of "living in the now" is an extremely important goal to me, possibly the most important of all goals. Furthermore, it's one that I have come to accept; that constantly getting a little bit closer to understanding it is the most I can ever hope for. The way our brain is designed to function doesn't allow an utterly complete understanding of the now, and that's a good thing. Not only does that allow us to progress in life but it makes it a little easier to deal with. The ongoing mortal quest for the now doesn't bother me, for now. It used to, but that's the past, you see where I'm going with this? I'll divert for a few paragraphs with some stories pertaining to this matter that are mildly relevant at best because of course, they are now just stories of the past after all.
          When I first moved to Portland I saw a sticker that caught my attention. Well, maybe it didn't catch my attention the first time but I remember the moment it finally did very well because there were about twenty of the same sticker all over a bus stop and I realized that I had seen it a few times before. It was the simplest sticker in design and message I had ever seen. It was black with white text using a bold but unassuming font and in all caps read: NOW IS ALL YOU HAVE. Whatever the motivation was for whoever put the stickers all over town was irrelevant to me at the time. I did not try and guess what type of organization it was trying to promote within Portland or elsewhere. It did cause me to pause and consider what the phrase meant to me at that moment -which I found out later was the first and foremost motivation for the stickers. The second motivation was in fact band promotion for the Portland based psych rock group "NIAYH" (N-eye-yah). I was in a band-with-a-message myself at the time called "The Repair". It was a three piece all vocal group comprised of two female singers one being my sister and me doing human beat box. About a month after my moment with the stickers, The Repair was invited to perform at a small music festival called "The One Family Gathering" located in the desert about a seven hour drive from Portland. It was there that I first met the guys from NIAYH. I was quite impressed by their show and later sat down at a community fire pit where the band was relaxing at and after introducing myself I suggested we make some videos together when we got back to Portland. A week later I went to a show of theirs that happened to be at a venue only a few blocks from my house and filmed it. The only camera I had access to at the time was a cheap little digital handy-cam I got off Craigslist for fifty dollars. I wanted to impress them so I turned the footage into a psychedelic music video comprised of some home made effects using multiple televisions feed-backing light into each other.  The result was a huge success given the limited tools I had to work with and subsequently started an artistic collaboration with the band that lasted over the next several years.
          It was apparent from the start that this group including the bigger circle of friends and friends of friends that partied together with the band were not my typical type to be associated with. In fact, is was quite awkward at times. In the beginning, besides having a mutual love for music and anything that pertains to expressing one's self (art in general), we shared very little in common. I didn't dress like them, I didn't talk like them, I really didn't even behave like them for the most part. I stuck around for two reasons.
          The first is that despite our clashing cultures, the group accepted me instantly which is very unique in a divided youth scene in a city that prides itself on being particularly hip. I hung around a group in Seattle briefly years before that appeared similar in style on the surface but I quickly found out that I was not welcome at their exclusive social gatherings.
          The second is over time we learned from each other that underneath all the perceived social laws that often times seem to govern, we shared an attitude of progress and striving to become better at our art. It was the idea of not settling for anything less than the best you can be and within that taking specific effort to appreciate the process and not just the result.
          Over many parties that included everything from 50+ person jam sessions to a human cake, one by one I asked each member of NIAYH what "Now Is All You Have" meant, each time acting like I never had asked anyone before. Instead of a common mission statement delivered as if it were rehearsed like one of their songs I got five different insightful answers from unique perspectives. I'm not going to try and recall those five accounts of what was said to me, rather I'm going to take this next paragraph and try to explain what it means to me currently.
          To live in the now isn't just about appreciating the present moment for what it is. It's much more than that. It's about dealing with anxiety and depression. it's about achieving happiness through being content. It's feeling a sense of belonging, a sensation of oneness to the Earth including everyone and everything on it. When broken down, meditation is basically deciding to take a moment and relish the now. All the other benefits of meditation will be learned naturally if you do this. I have to admit that for years I struggled with the concept arguing that if I ignored the past and the future then my life would be in shambles. What I've come to realize is that living in the now is not about ignoring the past and future it's about appreciating the present moment no matter what it is and thus you can appreciate the past and future as wonderful moments you appreciated and will appreciate. If you didn't appreciate them when you had them they wouldn't be remembered as moments you appreciated. The same goes for the future; if you don't anticipate that you will appreciate the coming moment, you probably wont when it arrives. You don't have time to decide to appreciate a moment, you just do or you don't. The present has nothing to do with time; time doesn't exist in the present. Time doesn't freeze or slow down when you reach this level of understanding, it quite simply just doesn't apply. If time were a factor in the present, it wouldn't be the present at all it would be somewhere before or after it.
          I've learned a very simple way to remind myself to feel the present moment throughout my day without causing my head to spin with the physics and philosophy behind it. It's simply to breathe, and not just any old breathing but taking a long controlled deep breath and exhale slowly. While doing this I think about nothing else but how wonderful it is to be a human being on planet Earth taking in air provided for me to be alive. On the inhale I concentrate on the feeling of all my organs including my heart and brain responding subtly to the new oxygen and how dependent they are on that single breath. The small increase in heart rate. The feeling of being slightly more awake and clear in my thoughts. Even the muscles in my back doing their small but necessary job in assisting to the expansion of my torso in just the right way to allow my lungs to inflate. Then I exhale and leave all those thoughts behind and just be.
          Another thing I often think about to raise my awareness of the present is time travel. I find that thinking about something impossible helps me have a better grip on the possible. Also, taking myself intentionally out of the present helps me realize it's there in the first place. The way my little mental exercise works is instead of thinking about what it would be like to travel into the future or past, what I would encounter, and how I would deal with it; I pretend that I am from the past and just traveled to here and now. That way it's much more real. Everything I see and hear around me is from the future and is absolutely stunning -good and bad. I see a coffee shop absolutely full of people glued to their laptops and smart phones and wonder what a person (me at the moment) would say if he just zapped here from the seventeen hundreds. There are positive and negative reactions that conjure up. For instance I think about how much less connective conversation we have when electronic devices are with us at all times and what effect that has on society. At the same time I think about how much more valuable information the technology is allowing us to receive and how it's rapidly expanding our knowledge and overall interconnectedness across the internet. At least I think that's what seventeen hundreds Jon would think. That's just one small example of course. Most importantly and amazingly, playing this silly little mind game allows me to feel everything around me easier. Think for a moment how different it would be to actually travel through time and be in another era as opposed to watching a movie about it. I can guarantee you that if we could travel into the future, as soon as we arrived and stepped out of the time machine we would instantly have a whole new feeling and meaning of what it is to exist in that very moment. Everything from the air we breathe, to the speed people walk and talk, to the collective human consciousness frequency would be different. If I concentrate hard enough I can almost feel the unique sensation of right now, right now -and it's absolutely incredible. Which brings me to one final example of why time is meaningless and a flimsy framework for us to exist in at best.
          The speed at which we live at can often times be overwhelming. As I said before, time doesn't really exist like we commonly think of it. It's all relative to what you're comparing it to. A year to a five year old seems longer because it actually is. It's one fifth of his or her entire perception of time. A year to an eighty year old is one of eighty others by comparison and thus is actually shorter, not according to simple math but according to that individual's perception (more complex mathematics can account for this). I believe the same is true for the Earth and even the universe. As time passes it essentially creates more of it and by comparison seems to travel faster and faster. Instead of panicking that I'm not using this precious ever increasing time wisely, I think of it as more evidence that we are infinite beings that aren't actually bound by the laws of time at all, and that makes me happy to be here right now.  
          I could write about this subject for many more pages but I fear my tangents would start to loose focus fairly quickly. I'll leave you with a short video I shot a while ago of the band NIAYH. It documents when they drove their bus to the County fair in Eugene to put on a renegade show in the campground. It was supposed to serve as just a teaser for a feature length film about the band and the meaning behind the statement "Now is All You Have" but because of lacking funds the project got put on hold and then the band dissolved over the next year. The good thing is, it isn't cut like a teaser and the piece stands on it's own quite well. Here's the link: