Dispatches from the Island of Misfit Toys

I have always been convinced Ani DiFranco was thinking of me when she wrote this:

…and you are so lame
you always disappoint me
it’s kind of like our running joke
but it’s really not funny
and I just want you to live up to
the image of you I create
I see you and I’m so unsatisfied

For those who don’t get the reference, it’s from Star Trek. A “dunsel” is a part which serves no useful purpose.

As I near the end of my interminable, self-imposed exile in the wilds of Alabama, I’ve been reflecting on my life. Being on the wrong side of forty, this tends to happen more often than it should. Contemplating the accumulated consequence of my life’s work to date, the words “insignificant,” “trivial,” and “irrelevant” come to mind.

As a filmmaker, my career consists of bad, unfinished, or embarrassing mainstream films, and a laundry list of inconsequential porn films. My career as an actor stalled years ago. As a writer, well… I write a lot of porn scripts. Case closed.

As a person, I’m not doing much better. I recently had another girl I was banging (that’s five in two years for those of you playing the home game) decide to stop seeing me because she was falling for me. In this particular girl’s case, I would never have dated her. But the two previous girls who made this same decision were absolutely girls I would date, so it isn’t a commitment issue, at least on my part. Apparently, the consensus is I’m just unworthy of affection. It’s like a scarlet letter, but in reverse.

That might be the worst analogy ever coined in the English language. But you take my point.

To make matters worse, lately I’ve been a truly miserable fuck. Yes, I’m always bitter and angry, but this has been bad. I’ve been avoiding contact with my friends as much as possible because I don’t want to inflict myself on them. Alice has made a creditable attempt at reaching out, but I know I’ve been driving her insane. And Mischief, if she understood me better, would do anything to make me happy, but I would never let her because she’s supposed to be gaining distance from me.

Until very recently I was actually formulating a plan to simply vanish when the Alabama job was finished, starting a new life under a new name (don’t ask how… I have my ways) and beginning again. Except for cats, and several girls who don’t want to fuck me lest they catch a bad case of the Bryn, there is very little tying me to L.A.

I think the idea sprouted out of the hurt stemming from this (seemingly) constant rejection of me as both a worthy companion (whether I want to be or not), and the more recent, implicit, rejection of my worth on a professional level. I got replaced as the DP on two porn gigs a few weeks ago, and not only did the shoots go smoothly, several people were genuinely relieved to be rid of me.

Given my current mindset, it was an easy leap to make from there to just removing myself from the entire equation, because the fact is, I really wouldn’t be missed. Not for long. I’m not being melodramatic, I’m being logical. People adapt, and move on.

K has her own life and a budding career as an artist. Hollywood, like me, is a pragmatist, and after some initial angst, would conclude it was my decision to make. Alice would feel obligated to miss me, but it would pass pretty quickly (I’d like to think her feelings wouldn’t become actual relief, but it’s possible). Red recently told me to go fuck myself. Blue and D and the rest would mentally shrug and get on with life, as would my old friends and exes. Mischief would be more crushed by my disappearance than anyone, but frankly, my absence would be the best thing for her.

But I can’t. As tantalizing as the notion of running away from home is, I can’t bring myself to do it. It’s cowardly. It also wouldn’t solve anything; as I said to Alice, my biggest problem is myself, and I’d just be schlepping that around with me.

So, instead, I’m going to not give up.

Here’s the new plan: Unpack in my “new” apartment and make a fucking life there. Focus on the steampunk short, Cowboys & Engines, I’m going to be doing at the end of the summer with CM50 (a moviemaking colleague) producing, which is something I’m really excited about. I’ve got lines on getting both The Blood of Virgins and Director’s Cut off the ground that I’m going to pursue. I’m hoping iKllr, the micro-budget horror film I shot last November, will open some mainstream doors. I’m going to start submitting to auditions again. And I’m going to re-establish myself as a porn director, because that chapter of my life has been pretty good to me, and I need to begin respecting it.

In short, I’m going to try… try… to be happy. It’s not my best talent, but I’m gonna have a lash at it anyway.

And maybe, along the way, I’ll find some filthy little hooker who likes dirty old men. And maybe she’ll want to hang around for a while.

Just a thought.

To Captain Dunsel.

There’s a thing on movie sets; it never changes, and it’s the same all around the world. The guys on the crew are trying to fuck every remotely attractive woman on the crew. Or the cast. Or both. From day one on, every woman who steps foot on set is discussed, debated, critiqued and flirted with mercilessly. It must be incredibly tiring.

I’m slightly less guilty than most in that stupid women, or vanilla women, no matter how attractive, are of no interest, even for a quick movie shoot fling. At my age, I’m all about quality over quantity.

You also have to understand that there are usually very few attractive women working on a set, at least behind the scenes. It’s just a fact. Our camera department has a couple of fairly interesting blondes (I have a weakness), but one is very immature emotionally, and angry about everything, and the other is… well… a Mormon. And, having gone to high school with tons of Mormons, I Just Can’t Go There.

We have three attractive-ish PAs… Lindsey is the most classically pretty, but has obviously never, ever had good sex in her life. She might even be a virgin (creeeeeepy). Grace, pictured below, is bright, but not particularly sexual, and has zero interest. Katy, the third PA, is cute, blonde, wants to come to LA and act. But she’s a good girl at heart, and very young, and I think I would A: scare the shit out of her, and B: break her heart.

More trouble than it’s worth, frankly.

However, two days ago, during the rain, I spotted a very attractive extra in the crowd. She’s a redhead (another weakness) with tattoos (very rare in Alabama) and piercings (ditto), and unlike 99% of the women I’ve seen since leaving L.A., she doesn’t have an ass the size of Kansas.

I pointed her out to Hollywood, and he declared her “an Alabama 9.” During the rain, I managed to peel her off from her mother, and we hit it off. Alabama 9 is extremely geeky, and, as I’ve discovered while texting with her over the last few days, a serious perv who watches a lot of hentai. And she might be moving to San Diego or L.A. at some point this year, which could be a good thing…?

We’re supposed to go out Sunday; dinner, movie, etc., except she’s nervous because she has a boyfriend. Strangely, I’m not nervous because she has a boyfriend… hmmm….

While I have an ample supply of bruises, cuts, scrapes, burns, etc., to show for my week-and-a-half on set in Alabama, the title actually refers to my ego. Since K left me, about this time two years ago, it’s taken a few major kidney punches. My psyche is pissing blood.

Some is from women; girls I wanted who didn’t want me, or for whom I’m fine as a fuck buddy, but not relationship material (not that I’m looking, but desire is always welcome). I was told a couple weeks ago that “I’m nothing but a bad habit that’s really easy to break.” I think I might get that tattooed on my face.

Professionally, being trapped out here in Possum Fuck has really magnified the sense that the world back home moves on without wanting or needing me. Terminator went off without a hitch at Hustler, largely because nobody involved gave a fuck.

Also, on that set, several people I consider friends had a grand old time sitting around mocking me for a good long while. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t butt hurt to discover I’m nothing but a punchline to people I have a lot of respect for — and whom I thought respected me.

Now, after the plan being to push the last two days of Dark Knight XXX so I could shoot them (I shot the first two before coming to Alabama), it’s simply too much trouble and the shoot will go on as scheduled. This is particularly disappointing because I think that’s going to be a great movie, and I’d really like to finish what I started, whether my co-workers like it or not.

Instead, here I am, working a grunt job for grunt pay and bitching about it on my blog. How emo.

I feel a million miles away from everything I care about.

I violated a trust with my last post. Alice is extremely private, and even though that isn’t her name, there are more facts and particulars than I should have included. I can make all kinds of excuses; I was hurt, I was angry, I was confused.

I was a dick.

That seems about right. At any rate, here’s where things stand; we talked. It was really good. I don’t know where things will go from here, but you will likely not hear much about it, except in the vaguest of terms, because I’m not going to violate that trust again. It’s hard to earn, and I’m tired of being a fuck-up.

In other news, Hollywood got me a gig working as Best Boy Electric on a small film in Alabama for three weeks, and I’m flying out Sunday. It’s a crappy day rate, but a lot of them. Politically, it’s a dangerous move for me here. I’m asking Vivid & ABP to move two days of a shoot so I can finish the job I’ve started as DP. I think they will, but il Douché doesn’t take kindly to people asking for things being adjusted to accommodate them. I also had to cancel three days for Paul Fishbein, but he is much more understanding as x3sixty is still in its startup phase.

Either way, I have to take this job. It’s a decent amount of money, and I’m in a decent size hole.

I’m going to try to update more frequently, starting with that work & career blog I promised four months ago. Until then… Alabama… ugh…

Where to begin? A few months ago, I was seeing four girls. As of yesterday, I’m seeing… wait, let me count…

Zero.

Given the way my life has gone over the past few… well, hell, years, really… it isn’t surprising.

LL and I decided to take a run at actually “dating,” but the distance, and her prior preoccupation with another guy, one whom she eventually got, derailed that.

Red is on a whole other path that only includes me as a friend and confidant.

Blue became very distant, and when she again contacted me, seemed to have redfined our relationship in her head, as one that consist of texting pleasantries, and never actually making contact.

D has been on hiatus for a while; she fell in love with a guy she was banging on the side, and isn’t ready to play the field yet.

And then there’s Alice. She’s young, incredibly cute, very hot. Smart, a lot smarter than she initially lets on around people.

We first met over the internet, exchanged a lot of frustrating texts and pics and e-mails. Then she moved to LA to get into the business proper, and we started doing just a few of the things we talked about. She’s the first girl in ages who is a match for what I want. She’s completely fearless (well, except for germs and intimacy), incredibly dirty, and likes a lot of the same extreme things I do.

But there’s a problem; I like her. And she knows it. And it freaks her out. Or maybe she likes me, and that freaks her out worse. Whichever it is, yesterday I got word that she “needs a break from all the sex stuff.” Wants to just be friends… this, despite the fact that she admitted — in her sleep, ironically — that she thinks I’m boring. I had assumed she didn’t mean in bed, but perhaps that isn’t the case.

It’s true that our relationship was never supposed to be anything but sexual; she hasn’t violated any trust, or been anything but very straight with me. I cannot be angry at her. But I’m very confused about the why of it, and the timing. And, yes, I tried to get her to discuss, but she doesn’t want to. I think she doesn’t want to lie to me, and doesn’t want to hurt me. So there’s that.

The problem is, she only needs a break from sex with me. She’s currently enamored with a friend of mine, and flirting with everyone else. I have no problem sharing, but I think this is the first time I’ve been sexually rejected, and I’d be lying if I said my ego hadn’t taken a pretty severe hit. Now I’m awash in feeling as if I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life. Again.

My self-esteem is pretty fragile at the best of times, but I thought my sexual persona was pretty invulnerable. Guess it took a girl half my age to prove just how wrong I could be.

Now that I’m 44, one thing has become abundantly clear: women my own age want nothing to do with me. I currently have an eclectic collection of girls in my life, the oldest of whom is 30.

Fucking 30.

I know the immediate reaction is midlife crisis, but the fact is, I’ve never hunted outside my own demographic before. Historically, I always preferred women my own age or older. But when I stumbled back into the world of single men after 8 1/2 years with K, I quickly discovered that my female peers wanted nothing to do with me. Too much baggage, too much bullshit.

Young girls, however, seem to find my damage fascinating. They’re still ingenuous enough to find my brokeness deep and edgy.

So here I am. I shouldn’t complain; the girls I’m surrounded with are all fantastic, but none of them are – or can ever really be – mine, and I’m starting to weary of being, for all intents and purposes, alone.

Here’s the field identification manual, with the players nicknamed to remain anonymous:

LL
We’ve known each other for years. She’s hot, smart, talented and very sexual. The attraction between us is distracting, and we get along so well it’s almost eerie. And yet this is the girl who recently told me she realized she was avoiding thinking about actually dating me because she was afraid a relationship would really work.

We live 2 hours apart, which is an issue. We’re also both busy as hell, and I worry that I’m just too twisted for her. But if we could figure it out I’d love to give it a shot.

BLUE
Ah, chemistry. We have that thing that makes us stare at each other for long periods until it just feels goofy. She’s brilliant, and a total mess. Which, being a mess myself, I completely appreciate. Hey, whaddaya want? I’m the Crazy Whisperer.

BUT. For one thing, she has a live-in boyfriend. For another, we’re both tops and kind of unsure of what to do with each other in bed.

D
Sexy, dirty, submissive, geeky. Loves it when I hurt her. Willing to take whatever I dish out. Gorgeous. Has magical skin I can touch forever.

Also has a boyfriend, who is perfect for her except that he can’t hurt her, which is where I come in.

RED
To be fair, this is strictly one-sided. I am fiendishly attracted to this girl, and we’ve had some fantastic liaisons. But there’s nothing there on her end. I’m a creepy old perv who serves as a friend, occasional rescuer and shoulder to cry on. There’s a very, very dirty girl in there, but she’s still convinced that the white picket fence is going to make her happy, so I’m little more than an aberrant afterthought. Seeing this one is incredibly bad for my self-esteem.

There are other occasional partners and possibles; there’s Crazy Girl, who is a great fuck, but so looney I finally had to cut her off completely. KC, the whitest black girl in the world, who is stunning but purely casual. JJ, JG, AC, and others whom I flirt with, but have never made the timing work.

Lastly, there’s AS, who is about the most amazing woman I know. So smart, so gorgeous, so dirty. But she just doesn’t know what to do with me. We’ve known each other for years, have shared a lot of great moments, and one fantastic kiss. But NY is a long way from LA, and until we can figure out if she’s even interested, it’s not a commute I’m willing to make.

Today was my 44th birthday. Having not written here for nearly a year, it seemed as likely an event to warrant climbing back into the blog saddle as any.

It wasn’t a splendid day. In fact, without sounding too emo, I considered suicide more seriously tonight than I have in decades. I won’t do it, of course. After a certain age, willfully kicking off while all your parts still work just seems foolish. But tonight, the concept held the kind of peaceful allure it hasn’t had since I was a teenager. Tonight, an end seems fantastically desirable.

I’m not sour because I’m a year older; big fucking deal. By the time my actual age catches up to how old I feel, It’ll be well past time for me to go. No, it’s simply life. I’m fantastically broke, and day after day, prospects vanish like dreams at dawn. Contingency plans give way to furtive hopes, and there never seems to be a break on the horizon.

Creatively, I’ve been working for the last several days on a great gig. I’m the DP of a mainstream thriller that has the potential to lead to more real-world work. It’s been refreshing to shoot for a director who appreciates my skill. But, without telling tales, today the entire job went very, very sour, and the director and I are now sitting in a bucket filled with broken glass unsure of how to climb out.

It’s on the personal level, though, that things really fall apart. I moved into a new loft which requires more work than I can possibly complete. I had to put my favorite cat, Basil, to sleep. And day after day I feel utterly alone. The women I want either don’t want me, are already taken, or are unavailable for some other reason. One really fantastic girl told me, “I figured out why I can’t date you. It’s because I’m afraid it might work.”

As the kids say, fuck my life.

I do have friends. Some good, some annoying, some great. One of my best friends is a girl hopelessly in love with me whom I keep at arm’s reach because I can’t reciprocate.

This, dear reader, was NOT the plan.

Okay, so it turns out the weekend was a good idea. I managed to quell any sense of impending disaster for most of the weekend, and headed off to work yesterday feeling – dare I say it – fairly positive and energetic. I’ll check in with ya’all after I’ve been back in the mill for a few days, but right now the odds of my survival seem high.

Mischief & I got up Saturday morning and headed out. We had the only truly disappointing meal I’ve ever experienced at Hugo’s (stick with the pancakes, I guess…?), and then cruised up the coast. Allison diverted us along the way to take me to an old, abandoned oil refinery which we wandered around for a good while.

I have a serious fetish for decay and dilapidation; the structure is stunning. I could have happily wandered that place for hours, and I desperately want to shoot something there, even if I have to steal it. Our explorations ended when we climbed through a broken window into a building filled with documents being stored and an alarm went off.

Mischief’s face as she came bolting back around the corner was priceless. She would make an abysmal thief.

We spent the evening at a show featuring Beware of Safety, one of her favorite bands. There were three other bands playing, the first of which – The Victor Ship – was really good. The show was a haphazard affair held at the utility room of a tiny church, and had the members of the other bands not hung around to watch, I think the audience would have totaled 9 people.

Which is a shame because the 5 guys who make up Beware of Safety are truly remarkable musicians. It’s a post-rock band, which, to me, is simply a modern rock-instrumental version of program music. This lengthy dissertation on the nature and origins of post-rock doesn’t draw that distinction, but I’m not bothered. The guys in BoS are able to produce live music that is every bit as structured, intricate and layered as a small-scale orchestra. It was amazing.

The next day we drove up to Cambria, prowled through town and stopped outside Nit Wit Ridge, an interesting house built entirely from found materials. Unfortunately, we were 15 minutes late for the tour, and the fascist hippie that runs the tours wouldn’t take us through.

We stopped to eat Italian food that was only matched in its blandness by its mediocrity. Then we drove up to take the tour of Hearst Castle, which I had been to, but never in. I hate to admit it, but it was fairly breathtaking. It’s only regrettable that Hearst’s mansion is in California, which is the world paragon of poor museum science, presentation & preservation. If it were in France or the UK, it would be a real experience.

As it is, if you can forget being herded like cattle and treated like children, it is a really remarkable collection of antiques and artwork.

As we rode down the hill, our discussion – Mischief & I talk all the time, about anything and everything – turned to the shape and nature of our relationship. As I’ve written about, she’s had a rough time with a few previous guys, particularly the last one. There are a lot of trust issues, and we’re both wrestling with her residual neediness and occasional paranoia.

More than anything, this girl just wants someone to put his initials on her and let it rest at that, but getting to that point for her both of us is a process not unlike threading the winding hilltop roads near the coast… sometimes there aren’t signs; you just have to follow your nose.

Obviously, things have not been sparkly of late. Friday just put a fine point on the feelings of utter defeat and despair I’ve been struggling with since the spring. Or perhaps I should say an even finer point. Every single man who is at or near my age will understand when I say there is a strong desire in me to sell everything I own (and perhaps a pile of stuff I don’t own), and vanish into the Great Unknown, never to be heard from again by a single human I currently know.

Of course, this is a purely romantic notion. Right? I still have five little furry monsters I have to feed. Six, if you count Mischief.

On the topic of the Goth Biscuit, last weekend, she fell while attending Anime Expo and jacked up her right arm pretty successfully. Emergency room and doctor visits ensued, and we’ve discovered it isn’t broken. Just a major contusion and probably some muscle and tendon damage.

Kids.

She’s been fairly gimpy as a result, and I’ve learned to do things I never imagined, like how to properly brush and wash hair. For the first half of the week, she was pretty dependent, and I felt like a responsible adult. It was creepy. But it did net a great doctor’s office story.

However, since I enjoy telling stories backwards, let me drop a few details about this most recent weekend first. Having spent most of Friday crying my eyes out and trying to function, I was looking forward to being über-geek on Saturday night, playing Magic (I know, I know) with my friends Jim, John and Brusta, decompressing, distracted.

I hadn’t seen Allison for a few days, so I was thrilled when she arrived at my loft on Saturday night, looking great and equally happy to see me. I was even happier when she proudly slid my hand down her ass to find the butt plug she’d been wearing for the last several hours. She takes her homework very seriously, this girl.

You can infer the rest from there. I mean, I have an issue with being completely rude, so I excused myself from the game for a few rounds to indulge in an office & closet quickie. In my world, you just don’t waste a soaking-wet 26-year-old with a butt plug in her ass. But, eventually, I did return to my “guests.”

On Sunday, we slept in, completely failed to get out of bed about three times by my count, and then finally hauled our asses up to start the day. Mischief made herself extremely cute, and I did my best with jeans that no longer fit (I’ve lost a lot of weight this year) and a shirt I know she likes.

We made our way down to Venice beach to wander and people-watch. Personally, unless I’m in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic or somewhere equally resort-ish, I’m not a really “beachy” guy. As an abstract concept I love the beach, but in L.A., the beaches are cold, dirty, bum-infested and crowded. As a result, I haven’t been to Venice in, oh, five years?

We had a great time. We looked at clothes, books, art both good and bad. I copy-edited shop signs (including the hand-carved wooden sign which advertises clothing imported from “Katmandu,” wherever that is). We ate, snarked each other and argued about precisely how crazy Allison is (I’m gonna vote for somewhere between “Special Olympics” and “Batshit Crazy,” but well shy of “Nurse Ratched Will See You Now.”)

We stood for a long while at the drum circle, both trying to “get it,” but failing on some mutual lack of chemical alteration and/or spiritual depth. We watched a rumored former Solid Gold dancer do some amazing moves on roller skates, which only made me more disdainful of the small flotilla of self-important punks on skateboards whom Mischief was quite enamored with.

Ah, youth. Sadly, none of them seriously injured himself while we watched. (Hey you kids! Off of my lawn! GET OFF OF MY LAWN!)

We ended the day with Allison buying us dinner at a terrific Lebanese place where only one of the women truly looked like Jamie Farr. Over dinner, we continued a discussion about my personal brand of applied psychology and social anthropology, and the way I “read” people from a distance. Mischief is fascinated by this, and we’d been discussing how she presents herself in different situations.

On Wednesday, with her right arm still more-or-less completely KIA, I picked Mischief up from work and took her to see her orthapædist. This doctor’s office is in a very conservative part of the very conservative Orange County.

Since I probably haven’t mentioned it, overt PDA is one of Mischief’s favorite pastimes. Inappropriate PDA, even moreso.

Sitting in the OC waiting room were a thin, young, gay Asian sales rep for a software firm, a 40-something blonde real estate agent trying too hard to hit that “vaguely sexy but completely bland” look right in the center of the bullseye, and a burly, red-faced mid-40s contractor waiting for his wife; a guy you just know was climbing into a white F-250 with a crew cab and a bedliner when they left.

The main receptionist was a surly, sour-faced, Christian, Republican, 43-year-old single mother of four who was every inch the female version of the contractor in the waiting room. She stood about 5’ 11’ and had to be three bills. If you picture the feminized John Lithgow in World According to Garp you’re right on target.

Just seeing a man her age (and aren’t all fucking men just the fucking same!) with a girl Mischief’s age turned her bitter blood to cold vitriol, and if looks were daggers I would have left in a basket. Naturally, Allison took this as the signal that she should climb all over me in the waiting room. At one point, she even decided to sit in my lap. If it wouldn’t have led to police involvement and defeating the purpose of the trip (by getting kicked out), I’m sure she would have tried to blow me.

The realtor was scandalized. The contractor tried not to be envious. The salesman was oblivious.

Ms. Lithgow seethed hatred from behind the counter.

In a quiet attempt to keep Allison from alienating her doctor (I was imaging some first-generation Indian immigrant who can’t look a white woman in a bikini in the eye), I stayed in the waiting room while she went inside. At one point I caught the realtor’s eye, and I realized she wasn’t seeing me; she was seeing her husband, who coaches the girls’ volleyball team, and her imagination was running rampant.

When Allison returned from the bowels of the building, I joined her at the counter for checkout. She spent a few moments harassing the desk flunkies about details, doctor’s notes and appointments, and then asked the nurse, standing next to Ms. Lithgow, to clarify what she could and couldn’t do.

“No typing, no writing, no repetitive arm movements.”

“Oh, good,” said Mischief. “So I can still use my mouth.”

They’ll be scrubbing Ms. Lithgow’s brains off that wall for a week.