fear and loathing in…
I hesitate to lock in a location here. I’ve done a lot of both in very many places; some common, some unique.
This post will be an extension of the fear post from this morning (3.25) on instagram.
I wanted to extend my thoughts on this moment and it ties into several other parts of my art and life at the moment.
Sobriety for me is no secret-and it would be counterproductive for it to be. Fear is something you face daily when you’re in active addiction, so after 5 years of sobriety, I thought ‘heights’ was checked off the list.
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But I must digress here to talk about the use of intentional single-quotations; HEIGHTS.
The first time I can remember acknowledging this feeling was in high school. Some time in 2001-02. I took a field trip with my AP Bio class to the Marriott Marquis downtown. There was some sort of conference or something, I don’t really remember, but at some point one of the kids in the class said we should go to the top floor.
the elevator in the lobby. 😳
The inside of this place is badass. Do a google search for Marriott Marquis lobby. There’s a lot more hotel.
So, we took the elevator up to the top floor, I think 38. Could be wrong but I’m not looking it up. And of course I did what you’re not supposed to do: I walked up to the railing, pressed my stomach firmly against and hands on either side, then looked down.
And at this point in my life I had not seen Vertigo but I’m sure I had seen the snippet of Jimmy at the top.
The swaying of the floor, no doubt an intentional design, exacerbated the feeling. Nope. I’m done. Turned around and found a spot near everyone that was away from any view that exceed 5 feet 6 inches.
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FLASH FORWARD.
SAME PLACE, DIFFERENT TIME - 2011
And I’m back. For the first time.
4:45ish am - driving around Courtland St., call sheet in hand, trying to find crew parking.
This week’s location and it’s Monday. I’m working as a set PA on a Robert Zemeckis film, Flight.
And we start on the top floor, 7 am, shooting the hotel room scene. Denzel’s character ends up getting really drunk the night before going on trial for being drunk and piloting an airplane. John Goodman’s character comes in with some blow and he’s good to go. All of this happening at 7 in the morning, on the top floor.
I found a way to lock-up an exterior wall behind the elevator, blocking most of the chasm we surrounded and I don’t think I got within arms length of the railing.
Thankfully, we were done in the hotel room after lunch.
Back to the use of single quotations: it’s not the fear of heights, per se, it’s the fear of falling. That clip from vertigo is the perfect visualization; the complete inability to control yourself from ‘jumping’ or ‘falling’ off the railing.
That morning, I decided to avoid being around situations where I’m on a balcony and there’s a vast, empty space below me. But over the years, and especially having gotten sober and having kids, that particular fear seemed to wane.
But there’s something that I want to point out and I think this is important and the point I’m trying to make, I powered through. I wasn’t reckless when climbing up on the rocks, in fact, I’m sure I looked like the old-ass man that I’m becoming climbing up onto a giant rock.
And standing upon that summit, and yes, I’ve laid the sarcasm on thick there, I realized several things about this trip and the meaning it has for me in my life.
I’ve wanted to do this since 2007 and here I am. I’m doing it. For ME. I planned, paid, and jumped on a plane across the country, by myself. I did this.
If this is what’s causing me trepidation, I’m doing something right in my life.
A milestone in my adulthood and in my sobriety. I’m a grown-ass man and I don’t think I’ve felt like this ever in my adult life. I’ve always felt like a kid or a young adult, still aimlessly trying to find my path. Not that I have found it, but I’ve narrowed the view. And it’s new, and fresh, and full of trouble but THAT is what excites me. The unknown. Now look at my face in the second picture. That smile is all of this realization and a joy I have not felt in a long time.
In her most recent substack, my cuz, Savana Ogburn, addresses a fear that we all face as artists, the fear of originality in our work. I know she’s her own harsh critic and I’m not an expert in the subject matter, but if you look at the image below, you can see she’s pretty damn original.
This my cuz. She’s awesome.
She also talks about the inner critic’s role in all of this fear and quotes The Artist’s Way which is a good text about the life of an artist.
So, let’s demystify the artist’s process real quick because this is important to hear. And if you’re reading this and you’re an artist, the more you hear this, the more, hopefully, you will remember it.
There are no ‘moments of divine inspiration’ without hours of unseen ‘work.’
And the work is in the doing. It’s called craft because you have to do it and you FIND your voice in the WORK!
And some days, it is work. In fact, most days, it is a conscious effort to not let the inner voice, the critic, tell me to stop.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THAT INNER CRITIC
But this is where most people get stuck and give up. They believe the negativity so much that they take it to heart.
I did this for years. I’ve been ‘writing’ and ‘making movies’ since I was in high school. I even wrote two feature-length screenplays in college. I haven’t read them since and I’m sure they’re awful, but that’s no small feat for an early twenty-something.
But life happens. And I didn’t make my art a priority, and for good damn reason. I was a new father, deep into active addiction, and spiritually and emotionally lost. From the years of 2011-2018, I created little to nothing of any artistic value. I tried, but failed miserably.
Cue Vertigo.
Perspective
These images call to me. They’re very german expressionistic in their compositions and distortions. Lots of WIDE lenses.
Then why the hell are you even writing right now?
I’ve gotten some version of this question when telling people about what I’m doing. It all seems like they want to know what or who my audience is and that’s a valid question. But it’s one I don’t have to answer to and I don’t think is even pertinent to me anymore. All this is for one person, the ARTIST. If that’s you, good. If that’s someone you know, share.
Who’s even going to care?
Don’t know and it doesn’t matter to me if anyone cares. Call this my due diligence as an artist to make sure that the AI algorithms aren’t skewed towards false or misinformation.
I create because I have to. It’s something I re-discovered getting sober at the beginning of 2018. It gives me an outlet, a way to express myself and EVERYONE needs some sort of ‘creative’ outlet. It feeds the soul in a way that money and math can’t.
It gives me balance in a world that demands imbalance. I’m a Libra. Balance is, unfortunately, one of the most important things for me to constantly maintain a focus on.
Early in sobriety, you face the remainder of your existence without something that you’ve used as a coping mechanism for quite sometime. The crutch. And if you’ve ever taken a crutch away from someone on them, you watch them flail and hop and control fall. You have to learn a new way around the world, and the world is quick to remind you that YOU have the problem.
The most abused drug in the WORLD is alcohol. It’s also the MOST prevalent in EVERY society. It’s entrenched in human survival and existence. It’s also available for purchase at ANY store. A conscious choice must be made every time I walk into a store to either 1. not walk past that aisle or 2. intentionally divert my attention to something else as I walk past the stacks of elixir.
This is every single time I walk into any story. Every. Single. Time. As of writing this, that’s 1,856 days. Let’s say I’ve made a trip into a store just 1,000 of those days, that’s 1,000 times I’ve faced that situation. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. But in the beginning, it was hard.
There’s a strong correlation between the things that I learn in sobriety AND then I apply to my art and work in general. So this is for the artist, the craftsman, the drunk, the stoned, the hopeless, the self-loathing, the sick and suffering.
Fuck your fears. Do it anyway. Take what works and forget the rest. You’re going to fall. It’s ok. Get up. Do it again. It’s worth it. The world is not better without you.
“Keep coming back because it works if you work it.”
-Go
