Hoorah for Impulsive Decisions!

You seriously should have seen the post I did not put up on this website, Dear Reader. You should have read the thing. I wrote it at 2 in the morning while sipping on Glenlivet (not a routine for me, but a little helps me sleep when my schedule is off), patiently listening to a full-length preview of Green Day’s new album, “21st Century Breakdown.” As a lapsed Green Day fan who does not drink the Kool-Aid on the incessantly adored “American Idiot,” this new album was more ammunition for my curmudgeonly hatred. What occurred was five pages of absolute, merciless fury; I think by the end I was insulting Billy Joe Armstrong’s mother.

And then, in a rare moment of clarity, I hesitated. I’m getting to the age (listen to me, “I’m getting to the age.” I’m twenty freaking three) where I realize that my emotions invite me to write checks I don’t want to cash later on, that I routinely say things because they feel good and then don’t intend to stand behind them. There is nothing wrong with saying “Green Day has become overrated.” That is a simple statement, as non-confrontational as it can possibly be while remaining honest, and saying it does not commit me to a wide berth of ill-advised temper tantrums, which I would later have to defend while the point I was trying to make got lost. So I elected to save the draft, because it was well-written, and not publish it. In its stead, let me say the following:

Green Day has become overrated. Moving along,

This morning, I was walking down the sidewalk, headed into campus to run some errands. I was thinking about the fact that Nine Inch Nails, which I dearly love, is on tour right now for the last time; Trent Reznor (who is the band, everyone else is a hired gun) calls it the “Wave Goodbye Tour.” Gasp! Now, I had all but given up hope of getting to go to this thing, even though they pull through California several times, for a couple of reasons: first, no one on this Coast is interested. Second, the only date that doesn’t conflict with our anniversary is in three days, and is two hours away. Solid reasons both to abandon hope.

But I didn’t! I couldn’t! At the last second, I remembered a conversation with our good friend Jeff wherein he revealed to me his love of all things NIN. We had apparently just never realized our mutual feelings here, and the information was so new I hadn’t had time to process it. I called him immediately, and within a few hours, we were tickets in hand and planning a road trip. THAT is what I’m talking about, people.

Corelyn was easy to bribe on the matter, since Jeff and I gone meant she would spend the whole day with Jeff’s girlfriend, Jennie, and the two are quite close. Corelyn really is a great wife in that way, she makes the best of whatever you throw at her. If you’re around all the time, her response is, “Great! Let’s cook dinner together, let’s hang out,” or she just assigns you chores. If you’re gone, her response is, “Great! I’ll call the girls!” Even for her relaxed standards, my absence got a little out of hand this past semester, but it’s hard to imagine a more understanding person to be married to.

Which is good, because that brings me to my next topic. I went to an Entertainment Panel at UCLA (USC’s notorious rival), which featured none other than Ronald Meyer, the President of Universal Studios and one of the founders of Creative Artist’s Agency. This guy is the freaking rainmaker in this town. He was a great speaker, tough as nails and self-depracating, the only one of the three scheduled who actually showed up (he later told us he believes in doing what he says he’ll do). He drops a few F-bombs, tells it straight, and patiently shifts the credit for his achievements to the people around him. When asked what his biggest mistake was, he didn’t flake out with some cowardly answer; he looked the questioner dead in the eyes and said, “I passed on ‘Titanic.’ I’m only starting to forgive myself.” I’d like to somehow establish a relationship with this guy, some kind of mentor thing. He was amazing. Anyway, the point is, he has a family life in the balance with his career, and he definitively pointed out that you must have a spouse who “understands.” I felt very secure as I sat there, because I knew I had exactly that. I have some classmates whose significant others are becoming a bigger and bigger problem, but Corelyn is a support system for me. When I’m working hard, she has my back. When I’m working too hard, she puts me in line. I know a lot of people who go into this business ready to surrender their soul, because they think that’s what it takes. Being married is not always conducive to my line of work in the strictest sense, but it does protect my humanity in a way that I could not be trusted to do on my own.

I’m beginning to realize that I have classmates ready and willing to make deals with the devil for success, and fundamentally I just refuse to be that. I don’t care how many people tell me that I can’t make it without corrupting myself, I just don’t buy it. The Good Book says that if the Lord is for you, who is against you? If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it His way, on His terms. That way, if it doesn’t happen, I can be proud of how I went about it regardless. If I try this “surrender my soul” approach and succeed, then I can’t enjoy my success, because I just exchanged my Lord for a kingdom of air. If I try it and fail, I trade my dignity for nothing and get left on the curb, a used-up whore. Neither option is acceptable to me.

I receive a lot of threats from people, telling me “you’d better do ____ if you want to succeed,” and “this town will destroy you,” and whatever else. My old boss used to toss me the Director’s Guild directory just to frighten me: hundreds of pages of people who aren’t working. Maybe he’s right, maybe they’re right, I don’t know, but sometimes I just think they’re taking their frustration out on me, trying to scare me. I’m not really positive what I’m doing here, I just know the Lord has led me to it, the Lord wants me exactly where I am, and this is what I must do. Sometimes I’m so terrified about the future that I just stand in the shower, staring at the tiles on the wall, wondering where to even begin. And yet every time I want to give up, ol’ YHWH is there, patiently shoving me forward. I know in my bones that He would torment me every day if I walked away, that He would hound me constantly. He’s got it in His head that this is what I’m doing, so this is what I’m doing.

So talk to Him, man, I just work here.