Ermey v.s. Ghandi

The film industry can be tiring. You work long days with other people who work long days. And it gets tense. Time is a commodity in high demand because there is never enough. And the movie business feels every penny pinched when you can break down a budget to how many thousands of dollars you waste every second you wait for a light to be set up or a camera to be built or an actor to sober up. With all that in mind, it’s easy to see why hot heads live on the front burner of the production oven, and why so many people in charge run things strictly and angrily militant.

A lot of guys I’ve worked or studied under seem to run things like R. Lee Ermey, that guy who suffers from voice immodulation and played a drill sergeant in “Full Metal Jacket”, as well as a drill sergeant in dozens of other movies, and for the first 20 years of his acting career (as well as being one in real life before the acting gig.) The way to get things done is to rule by fear. Verbally question the competence, intelligence, and ability of your underlings. Rarely compliment, but when you do, do so in an ambiguous way.

But it’s effective. Orders are followed. No one wants to be that one guy who screwed it up. So everyone works harder. And as much as the crew talks about how they hate the yelling, they come out better people in the end, and know what a hard days work feels like.

There are celebrities with similar traits. Simon Cowell. Chef Gordon Ramsey. Dr. Gregory House. All guys who come of as pompous and egomaniacal,  but are geniuses in their own right. (Come on, there has to be a real House somewhere in the world.) Guys who work by toughness and belittlement, but have that glimmer of kindness that squeaks it’s way through the slivers and cracks.

Is that how your supposed to lead? Does more get done when people are pushed to their limits, having a physical person to fear or hate that distracts them from the difficult tasks at hand?

What about people like Mohandas Ghandi and Mother Theresa? Those people who lead through quiet action, yet when they did speak it was like a spiral decaled pendulum swinging in front of your face; you can’t turn away and you can’t help but be mesmerized. It’s so radically gentle.

I think Jesus Christ was the perfect mix of lion and lamb. He thought through his actions and put an exclamation point down when needed (John 2:15), He knew when he needed time away to replenish (Luke 22:42) and He was confident and bold (John 8:12-30).

I don’t know where I lie in all of this. My strengths and weaknesses have shown up in clear view during my thesis project. I was in a position of authority on our set (whatever that means in a peer environment) and I learned a ton. I learned about my meekness and lack of defense. I learned about how I treated people, and the consequences of unclear communication.

I think it comes back to balance. Knowing when to be affable, when to be tenacious, and living in compassion the whole way. You gain support and you gain opposition. You screw up, and you admit it. At least that’s a starting point.

Filed under: Life , Balance, Chef Gordon Ramsey, courage, Film, Film Industry, Jesus Christ, Leadership, Life, Mohandas Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Movie Business, R. Lee Ermey, Simon Cowell

Good Presents: An Interview with Kate Lynch

An interview spot I did for the non-profit organization Good, a fair trade boutique still in the beginning stages.

The interviewee is Kate Lynch, an extremely talented writer and speaker from Orlando, FL.
She discusses her journey to Thailand, where she learned more than she thought she would about economy, poverty, and human trafficking.

As usual, clicking the “Personal Project” Category link or searching“Video Post” in my tags will take to you previously posted videos (with a little side information.) You can also take a mouse cursor drag over to the right column to find a direct link to my Vimeo.

Filed under: Personal Projects , Change, Community, Economy, Help, Human Trafficking, Non-Profit, Orlando, Poverty, Reaching out, Sex Slave, Thailand, Video Post

Blake Fawley at the Paul Mitchell Institute

It’s been awhile since my last edit. It’s good to feel that adrenaline rush again.

(Note: This embed is in standard definition and has an interlacing problem. If you go to my Vimeo, you can watch it in HD and the problems are gone)

My boy Blake asked me to do a behind the scenes doc on a photo shoot he had at the Paul Mitchell institute. So I did.

As usual, clicking the “Personal Project” Category link or searching“Video Post” in my tags will take to you previously posted videos (with a little side information.) You can also take a mouse cursor drag over to the right column to find a direct link to my Vimeo.

Filed under: Personal Projects , Behind the Scenes, Documentary, Editing, Hair Styling, Paul Mitchell, Photography, Salon, Video

I don’t want you to feel that way ever again.

I don’t want you to feel that way again
Ever.
May the tires of my bike deflate
and the laptop in my backpack brake
and the money in my bank account dry up
and the food in my kitchen spoil
and the people I know throw me out
and the safety I know be forfeited
and my hands and arms fold up
and my feet and legs curl up
and my breathing be cut short into gasps
and my eyes directed to the sky
If I ever make you feel
unloved
again.

May tragedy be my alarm clock
let me be thrown into catastrophy
and be reminded of what I am.
Let every ignorant ounce of my body
stand up and be counted
and be drained
to be heeded as caution
when I’m walking a path of
selfishness
pride
laziness
dispondency
selfishness
callowness
disregard
selfishness
obliviousness
selfishness
selfishness
selfishness
selfishness.

Let me always be thankful
for the once in a lifetime love you give
and the once in a lifetime hugs you give
and the once in a lifetime laughs you carry
and the once in a lifetime touch you wield
and the once in a lifetime heart you clench
and the once in a lifetime lips I’ve caressed
and the once in a lifetime passion you possess
and the once in a lifetime vulnerability you lay bare

I’ve wasted so much time
and I deserve to pay
let my first payment
be spending my time loving the life you live
and the love you give
and celebrating the person who you are.
and holding you up to those watching and when no one is looking
and breaking the bonds of egomania that tie me tight

Let my repetition stand as a notice
of nervous shame
of desperate pleading
of an honest pursuit
of hope and discovery
of passion and ambition
of a cost counted
of a danger indicated
of a life adventure with you
made known by my infatuation
and commitment
and the life long journey I hereby surrender

Filed under: Poetry , Change, Desire, Forgiveness, Ignorance, Passion, Poetry, Remorse, Repentence

“Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton

Just finished this book. I’ll share some quick reflections and excerpts from inside. Tons of huge philosophy in here. I don’t think I completely understand it yet. Chesterton turned out to be a pretty funny guy. If you dig C.S. Lewis, you’ll dig G.K.

“Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic; I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.”

“In one sense, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves.”

“Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity…The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand.”

“The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance.”

“Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, ‘Why should ANYTHING go right; even observation and deduction?’”

“Every act of will is an act of self limitation.”

“Free thought has exausted it’s own freedom. It is weary of it’s own success. If any eager freethinker now hails philosophic freedom as the dawn, he is only like the man in Mark Twain who came out wrapped in blankets to see the sun rise and was just in time to see it set.”

“Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in your bold creative way, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that ou are not free to draw a giraffe. The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world of limits.”

“A man is a fool who complains that he cannot enter Eden by five gates at once.”

“Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde.”

“The proper form of thanks is some form of humility and restraint; we should thank God for beer and Burgandy by not drinking too much of them.”

“A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absense, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father younger than we.”

“The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.”

“My haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe’s ship – even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.”

“All the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world.”

“Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.”

“Insincere pessimism is a social accomplishment, rather agreeable than otherwise; and fortunately nearly all pessimism is insincere. But if Christianity was, as these people said, a thing purely pessimistic and opposed to life, then I was quite prepared to blow up St. Paul’s Cathedral.”

“It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands.”

Filed under: Literature , Books, Christianity, G.K. Chesterton, God, Literature, Orthodoxy, Reading

Obsessive Compulsive Hypocrisy

I’ve been saying for quite some time now that I have some form of OCD, only half joking. It’s mostly been a glorifying and gratifying self-diagnosed garnish to make me look special.

I’ve always been in love with symmetry and vectors, and have found myself organizing table furnishings and collating desktop items into efficient and eye pleasing quadrilateral coordinates. Whenever I make or find a mess, it takes precedence over whatever task I was working on before, setting me back hours in a given day. I’ve forgotten to lock the door to my home a few times, and I punish myself every time now by checking my diligence a myriad of occasions whenever I leave a place I’m responsible to lock up.

But I don’t wash my hands over and over again in a single bathroom visit. If it doesn’t look like it’s dirty, I won’t clean it for weeks, maybe longer. I have no shame when it comes to eating the last sausage link alone on a dinner plate settled on the table behind me at Denny’s. This doesn’t line up with the usual OCD interpretation.

And it got me to thinking: What else in my life do I glorify about myself, even if it’s not really the whole truth?

When talking in terms of food, I say I subscribe to a healthy way of eating, but that grilled chicken sandwich today came with fries, and I ate them. I didn’t turn them away. I also ate half a Power Bar, 8 mini muffins, and a hand full of mini Snickers today that were provided by the crafty table on the shoot I worked on. I did not win the battle with temptation today.

I say I ride my bike 10 miles a day. And that was true – 2 months ago, before our final project started and ate up my priorities and idea of personal time. I’ve gotten in 10 miles about once a week now. But I still go by the old label, because it looks better on me.

I believe in the teachings and life of Jesus Christ and call myself a Christian, but how well has that translated in my life? I’ve harbored judgement, I’ve blown off friends and strangers in need, I’ve lived for selfish ambition and notoriety. I’ve taken the segments I like about me and applied them to the thermometer graph of growth, and cleverly left out the mistakes and imperfections in the statistics.

Life isn’t a movie. You can’t just make an edit of all the scenes you want to show. You can’t live a lie and not expect to pay for it someday, and the longer you wait the drier your pockets are. Honesty and integrity are lost when it’s easier to reconstruct and mold the way you want to be seen. And it’s an empty way to live.

Dying to glory is when true glory happens. True growth is acknowledging the existence of failure in your life, and being strong enough to know that you can overcome it the next time around. Let your actions do the talking about you, and let the stains and holes be seen. It will make it easier for everyone else with stains and holes. Which turns out to be everybody.

Filed under: Life , Change, Cleanliness, Failure, Garnishes, Glory, Gross, Growth, Hypocrisy, Lies, Life, Lying, O.C.D., Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Symmetry