Athenaverse

Wednesday, February 15th

716.8 miles later...

On Monday morning, I began the drive from McKinleyville back to Hollywood. It took me 14 hours or so, with only one major detour (I just had to check out Confusion Hill). After I rolled in, I got some ox tail pho at good ol' Pho2000. Yesterday, I took a walk around the neighborhood, talked to a guy about jobs in film distribution, roasted a chicken, had a gin & tonic, and went to bed.

In the past few days, I have felt better than I have in a long time. Maybe it is all of the positive thinking I have been doing, or the movement toward a new goal. My friend Scott mentioned that I was in a period of my life astrologers refer to as "Saturn's Return," a difficult growth period where you finally become more of an adult. I still have a few more months to go here, but my 28-30 period has been marked with change, questioning, difficulty, and growth. I am trying to be more lucid as well, and to not get distracted by the small things.

For instance, I was sitting in traffic on Highland, listening to K-JAZZ. Instead of saying, fuck fuck I am stuck in traffic, I was trying to soak in the moment. It was so easy for me to obsess about one small thing that wasn't going right and let it ruin my life. I had a bad attitude. I moved to Humboldt to sort everything out and while nothing seemed to work out the entire time I was there, the experience was positive for me in the long run.

The job and the place to live will fall into place as long as I have faith in myself and God. It is so easy to let the negative voice in my head tell me that everything is messed up, but I just have to relax...
santo26 on 02.15.06 @ 12:39 PM PST [link] [No Comments]

Saturday, February 11th

Things I Will Miss About Humboldt County

I had ordered some CDs by a local (Humboldt County/ Northern California) alt.country band called theSlewfoot String Band. I had heard an MP3 track on their site, so I ordered both of their CDs. I sent them a check and got emails back from Jaybird, one of the band members. He sent another email when I did not get it right away apologizing and promised to send me a free ticket to an upcoming show.

Since I am moving back to LA on Sunday, I got a little worried when they still didn't arrive, so I sent another email asking if he had mailed them yet. I wasn't mad, bcause I knew that their music business was spiritually akin to the old athenaverse site, true American entrepreneurship in the best sense of the words.

Yesterday afternoon I was packing up all of my books, CDs, videos and DVDs to mail down to LA in the living room when someone pulled up and knocked on the door, which was the first time in the whole time I have lived in McKinleyville that an unexpected "stranger" has knocked on the door (since I am at the end of a dirt road with a No Tresspassing sign). It was Jaybird, and he came by personally with the CDs (plus a third by his grandfather, Grampa Bud Swanigan!), and an Admit Two ticket to his show to-nite!

I had become completely disgusted by the music industry and don't really see the need to help them by buying any more of their product. Thanks, Jaybird for single-handedly restoring my faith in music. It's about buying the music directly from the people who make it, getting it fresh from the CD burner as opposed to getting it pre-packaged from a faceless multinational corporation. Long Live Slewgrass!
santo26 on 02.11.06 @ 11:08 AM PST [link] [1 Comment]

Thursday, February 2nd

Learning To Focus

In less than two weeks, I will be leaving Humboldt County and moving back to Los Angeles. Despite all the stuff that has happened to me up here, it has only made me stronger. I have rediscovered my long-ignored spiritual side and it is giving me strength and focus. I came up here to figure out what I wanted to do and it turns out it was what I had been doing before- film. I have been writing about the "Athenaverse" characters, and I have a script in the pipeline based on my experiences working night crew.

I considered going back to LA when things went awry with Laura, but it felt like I was running away from something, so I decided to stay up here and make a stand. I wanted to sort myself out and start a new life. But something was never quite right, which I chalked up to relationship ending fallout and the stress of being literally nickel and dimed by two low-paying jobs. I stayed around here and made an honest effort to become a citizen of the Humboldt Nation, but then last week when I couldn't sleep due to overwork and a prescient cockatoo, I realized I was trying to be something I'm not. I'm not a student, a hippie, or a local. Still, I could have made a place for myself around here.

Or, I could go back to Los Angeles. I'll never have a better chance to do this.

santo26 on 02.02.06 @ 01:48 PM PST [link] [No Comments]

February 2006
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