The Song of a Weary Sherman Oaks Resident

"The Love Song of Joe College Student" revisited as "The Song of a Weary Sherman Oaks Resident"





(after T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")





Come with me, dear lady mine,

When the night is fixed on the demon's eye,

Like a small boy enchanted with ancient fables;

Let us wander down paths of decadence,

To question their intents

Of restless wand'rings in sordid, base affairs

And crumbling sidewalks with stories to share:

Sidewalks that drop off like the ebbing sea

And dreams that kill men like me

To lead you to a doubtful depth . . .

Asking now for us to prove it,

We take our faith and quick remove it.


On the street the girls come and go

Talking of Aaron Spelling shows.


The nicotine stench that flows up into our aging veins,

The skunky nicotine stench that flows numbingly over our pains,

Lapped its tongue into the bowl of thirsty water,

Lingered within the backed up sewer mains,

Let swirl into its soul the alcoholic fog,

Tripped by the balcony just jumped,

And knowing that the spring is done,

Wound itself tightly around the apartments, slouched and slumped.


And sure there'll be some time

For the nicotine smoke that rises from the street,

Numbing our pained vessels;

There will be time, there will be time

To remove yourself from your studies to study the self that you see;

There will be a time to break up and to date

And plenty of time to do your studies

To lift your essays high to find your fate;

Time for us and time for we,

And time of course for hesitations,

And for endless altercations,

Before the falling of our innocent tree.



--Nathan MacFarland Rodgers

On Strange Coincidences

during a lecture in a college film theory class, the professor challenged us with a new idea. as we attempted to make sense of a bizarre experimental film by asking ourselves what each scene meant, our prof told us:

"when it comes to film, and art in general, it has never been about 'what does it mean?' . . . it's about 'what does it do?'"

meaning: what does it do to you, the viewer? how does it make you feel? often times art is not meant to convey a specific message, but it is meant to convey an emotion or feeling or a new perspective on life -- something that can't be articulated in words -- which is precisely why film or photography or painting or sculpture or song was the medium of choice. if what the artist was trying to communicate could easily be expressed in ordinary prose, they probably would have just written it in their journal!

artists save these unusual, inexpressable notions for their particular medium.

when strange coincidences happen to me in life -- when i meet people who are good friends with my good friends from back in pennsylvania, when i wind up on an airplane flight next to a complete stranger who grew up with people i take classes with, when people from my hometown pop up on the other side of the world, when i run into people i know from penn state and north carolina in hollywood on half a dozen different occasions, when people i know show up at diners, starbucks', runyon canyon, the egyptian theater, venice beach, gordon biersch, quizno's on sunset blvd . . . the temptation is to ask "why did this happen? what are you trying to say? what does this mean? everything happens for a reason, right?"

but when i ask myself "what does this do?" the answer is clear: these situations give me a vague notion that the world is small. they remind me that God is always in charge, that nothing is left to chance, and that, although i am far, far away from my home, God will never allow me to be completely alone -- the great Artist's love is woven into the fabric of His masterwork; us.
we are His medium; we are the screens upon which He projects His love. and we are also His audience.

God is an avant garde artist. when life is strange, don't ask what it means -- ask yourself what God is trying to do to you. how is He trying to change you? how is He trying to make you a better person?

and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.
--Romans 8:28

My Poor Brain

there are important thoughts rattling around in my head all day; cool ideas, new concepts, fresh ways to perceive the world; epiphanies. most of the time, they are silenced quickly, pushed aside by bigger thoughts -- the ones that seem more "real" and urgent -- the ones that deal directly with work or career or money or food or the promise of a fun night out with pretty girls.
even now as i write this, all the brilliant musings i was going to type are being pushed aside, as i am being i.m.'ed by a couple friends -- what the hell are they doing up this late anyway?

the point i was eventually going to make was that i used to have beautiful thoughts -- and i had the ability to write most of them out and share them with people, and i totally think i've lost that talent. and things that used to inspire me to write and be creative simply don't anymore. maybe i'm just out of practice, maybe i'm all caught up with my "worldly worries" more now than ever, or maybe i'm just getting old.

whatever the reason -- it makes me sad -- as many things do these days...

Officially Old

i felt my first earthquake on thursday. and i heard that there was a tsunami warning on tuesday. luckily, i have a friend in arizona who says i can go stay with him when southern california falls into the ocean, whether by natural causes, or by some nuclear strike, or what have you. somehow i doubt the 10 will be free of traffic if any of those events come to pass. at least the 405 will be the first freeway to get sucked under if socal ever actually does take the plunge. that'll be one thing we can all be thankful for. i don't mean to be so dark, but i just turned 26 this weekend, too. i recently heard about this poll where people between 18 and 36 picked 26 as the age when you are officially a full-fledged adult. it seems really arbitrary. why'd they pick 26? just to depress me i guess.

on friday, i saw my last piece of youthful hope run down a dirty alley in hollywood. before he left, he told me he was just gonna grab an l.a. weekly and meet me back at the car. but he made a break for it.

good riddance, i say. that guy was holding me back.

Blogblog

is there any other city in the world where you can see an audioslave concert for free, walk down the boulevard with a couple dozen stormtroopers, catch a highly insightful bible study, and run into about 20 friends and co-workers while doing so -- all between work and bedtime -- in one evening? i don't think so. L.A. rocks sometimes.

Bloggy McBloggerton

so i am in our "ready-to-rent" department now at work. which is good. i mean, it's trading in one set of frustrations for another, but at least i'll get my learn on down there. we basically quality check all the gear, give it minor adjustments and, well, get it ready to rent again (hence the name "ready-to-rent"). we checked panatapes and cinetapes today. (if you wanna know what they are, ask me -- you should know if you're into camera stuff). it's so funny how they put us in a cold, sunken, dungeon-like room, no windows, black paint on three of the four walls, and our only ventilation comes through this nasty, filth-covered screen. it's like they're encouraging us to go insane. the fools. we were insane way before they stuck us down there.

The Everlasting Bloggstopper

just so you know, i'm not a complete loser. the reason i'm always on here on friday nights is cuz i work late usually (lots of camera packages going out for weekend shoots and stuff) and it's too late to go home and get changed and then go back into hollywood or somewhere fun. ok. i am a complete loser. but i'm a complete loser that would totally be out having a blast if he weren't completely drained by 10:30pm on friday.

Bloggetization

nobody's freaking reading these blogs of mine, so i guess i can write whatever the heck i want in here. i'm just gonna rant and trash talk about everybody i know. not really. i love you all too much. so i've figured out that one red bull equals about 2 hours of sleep for me. if i get 6 hours of sleep and have a red bull, i'm about as good as i am with 8 hours of sleep. if i only get 4 hours sleep and have 2 red bulls, i'm still about as good as i am with 8 hours -- but much more twitchy. i spazz a lot when i do that. and then a few hours after the red bulls comes the dreaded caffeine crash. some other people have tested this theory and pretty much agree with it. i haven't tried 2 hours and 3 red bulls yet. it's probably not good for you. have you noticed that all these energy drinks are chock-full of b vitamins? did you know that drinking alcohol depletes the body's b vitamins? our society is draining everyone's b vitamins by night and then selling them back to us the next day. the beer companies probably own all the energy drink companies, too. pretty tricky. have a blessed day, all.

More Bloggage

it just dawned on me that all my social awkwardness would be greatly alleviated if all communication in the world were via email. i am so much better at writing emails than i am at talking. talking in person is such an impure form of communication . . . there are too many distractions . . . like the other people standing in the room and the stuff they're saying that you can overhear . . . even talking on the phone sucks . . . especially if you're driving . . . or wishing you were doing something else or talking to someone else . . . now if you find yourself talking on the phone with me and realize i'm not paying attention, don't go thinking it's because i'm wishing i were talking to someone else . . . it's just 'cause i'm a space cadet . . . and i know i have A.D.D. or something. did anyone see that intro to the simpson's this past week where the shot keeps zooming out and out and out and you see the simpsons' house and then an aerial view of springfield and then the whole earth and then the solar system and then the galaxy and then the whole universe and then it turns out our universe is part of an atom which is part of a cell which is part of homer's brain and homer goes "coooooool." and then they play the rest of the simpsons theme and show the "created by" credits on their TV. anyway, i thought that was funny. i'm up too late again. red bull for breakfast tomorrow.

My First Adventure in Blogging

so i can't sleep because i am on a caffeine high. i usually don't drink caffeine late, but my friend and i were headed down to el segundo to hang out with some people and i thought maybe some caffeine would make me more fun to hang out with (it seldom does, but it's worth a try, right). so anyway, the people we went to hang out with down there were in fact, much to our dismay, not doing any hanging out . . . AND their not-hanging-out-ness was occurring in burbank, not el segundo, as we had been led to believe. had any hanging out occurred, i surely would have burned off my caffeine high much sooner and been ready for sleep by now. so now i find myself wanting to sleep, in the face of not being able to sleep, because this other friend is getting a "you rock the house" thing tomorrow at the 9am service and i was supposed to go and support her and clap and scream and act all boisterous when they tell her that she rocks the house. i suppose i will try to do that still -- only on 6 hours of sleep, i totally won't be as convincing as i am on 8. but maybe 6 hours sleep and a red bull will at least resemble 8 hours sleep . . . or 5 and a half hours and an acai supercharger . . . or something. it's fun being addicted to substances. i can't believe caffeine is legal, really. ooh yeah, there it is. i'm crashing. time for bed. caffeine crash. i love it.