Curious.

I've just woken up from a sleep cycle after a full 26 hours of work/waiting for work with no sleep.

I don't feel sick, crappy, nauseated, or any of the other things that usually go with fatigue in me.

How is it that some days I can be up for 16 hours and feel like I'm going to die, and then turn around and hammer a ridiculous 26 hour marathon and not feel it?

Weird.

Going back to sleep now.

Seen recently, scrawled on a toilet paper dispenser in a Texas bathroom:

First, in black sharpie:

STOP BIG GOVERNMENT

Immediately beneath, in another's writing:

help each other then

I normally pass over toilet graffiti unmoved, but this one hit me so square on the nose I had to write it down. This seven word argument that smashingly undercuts a traditional conservative battle cry pretty perfectly sums up much of what I feel.

I'd love it if government institutions could be lean and un-invasive, and let us go about our lives unencumbered. But as the respondent on that toilet paper wheel so succinctly points out, we are not doing a good enough job of helping each other through difficulties and trials, sickness and disasters.

Some churches do good things, but as often as not, it seems, help comes with a hook. Those helped have to endure a proselytizing in the process. Free food on the condition of open ears is not charity, it's a sales pitch.

Individuals conversely seem to be accidentally or consciously swallowing Ayn Rand whole, looking out for number 1 and to hell everybody else. I can't tell you how many "stop big government" truckers I meet who, in the same breath, decry government intervention and panhandlers on the side of the road. The government's not supposed to step in, and damned if they'll spare a dime. Who's supposed to help keep these people from starving to death? I assume that the disease and death of these unfortunates while no help is offered them is not acceptable to you. If it is, I really don't care to discuss the social contract with you until you can pull your head out of your ass.

How can we have a society that protects its citizens from byzantine privation without either a government or a populace willing to make the investment?

A bleak scene from the Katrina aftermath is emblazoned on my mind. A string of people very vocally protested the fate of a poor elderly woman whose corpse was sitting in a wheelchair outside the superdome. The corpse was covered in a dirty bedsheet. "Look at the indignity of this" was the refrain. "How can people be treated this way?"

How indeed, when so many of those voices belonged to able bodied young people just as capable as the government of stepping in and taking a old woman's corpse somewhere decent to be laid to wait for its final rest. In that moment, I first understood the impossibility.

The government can't do it right, and the people won't.

This world is not a nice place to live.

Another, briefer gripe about misplaced American Christian zeal.

I have a little FM transmitter that I can plug into my iPod. It transmits a disappointingly wimpy signal on any of the four frequencies between 88.1 and 88.7, so that I can listen to the iPod over the radio in the truck.

An interesting pattern I've noticed in recent months is that often I'll run into radio stations whose signals will overpower the weak transmission coming from inside the cab. This is to be expected from Wimpy McTransmitter...however, what is not expected is the number of times I run across stations that absolutely blow out 88.5 or 88.3 (usually) and subsequently bleed signal onto the surrounding frequencies. These are strong towers, folks. A station booming on 88.5 will produce shadow signals on both 88.3 and 88.7, knocking down three of four of my choices to hear my own stuff. I'll hear the station on 88.5 as if my transmitter was not even on, and on .3 and .7, the buzz and rumble of the voices and music on .5 will overpower the clarity of what my iPod is quietly trying to play.

The common thread? All Christian stations, of one stripe or another. Since I started actively noticing this, it's been unfailingly consistent that if I lose three freqs, it's a Christian tower booming me out.

It's irritating, frankly.

And here's why. To me, this over-powered broadcast strength is a direct result of the misconception that people don't believe in Christ because they can't hear the message. Solution? Buy a tower that, like a blast cannon, launches the message a hundred miles in every direction. Then more people will hear it. Then end result is an extension of the functional stalemate between Evangelical Christianity and the Rest of Everybody.

Let me try to sum it up from the "Rest of Everybody" perspective: We've heard all of this. If we were interested, we'd listen. It just so happens we're not interested, and saying the same things you've already said, but saying them louder, and more invasively, does not increase the attractiveness of your message.

Let me also take a minute to point out that, in my opinion, Christian radio is dangerous. It goes out and honest, well meaning spiritual people listen to it, and because it got on the air, they take it for doctrinal truth. I've heard more things on Christian stations that are shaky, misleading, or just flat wrong than I can count.

So, if you happen to be thinking about buying a titanic broadcast tower in order to improve your evangelism, Mr. Christian Station Manager (and you happen to be reading this) let me make a couple of points.

1) The message of Christ is a message intended to be communicated from individual to individual, based on the way God uses the disciple to show the un-disciple how transformative redemption can be. Mass media will never replace this. Indeed it might be that mass media has made the individual completely oblivious to the need for personal relationship.

2) You overestimate your own role in God's purposes for redemption if you think that people are saved because they can't hear your programming. Very poignantly, I just heard today Magaret Atwood give one of the most concise (and deadly accurate) descriptions of Christ as the propitiation for sin I've ever hear anybody give, churchman or not, and she doesn't believe it personally for a minute. She understands the principle, but does not believe. It's not an issue of not having heard for her.

3) And I reiterate here, bits and blurbs of your programming, heard far and wide, taking out of context or in, can do damage the health of those on your own "team".

4) Always and always, a message delivered when the receiver does not desire to listen falls on deaf ears.

In the search for truth and ordered, responsible living, Christianity has a tendency to act like it has a leg up on the rest of the world.

Ostensibly, it does. Biblical texts speak unambiguously of God's Truth, and the veracity of scripture as the revelation of God. If you're starting from a place where a personal God can be relied upon to exposit the important points of His interactions with humanity, and what He considers critical to healthy, successful living, as well as lay down His very detailed description of the plan for your redemption...well, then that's quite the head start.

But there's a problem. It's a problem I see repeating itself (without exaggeration) daily. For some reason, perhaps just in America, Christian Churches have stalled on the idea that the Bible is Truth. The potential fact that the Bible is Truth is implicitly useless if you and your cohorts are totally incapable of or unwilling to keep to said Truth with integrity, and to spend time and thought on discerning its appropriate application in day-to-day life.

We're very classically spotting the trees and missing the forest.

On one side, there's politically active Christian task forces campaigning against gay marriage, on the other, massive mainstream denominations are giving the nod to professing homosexuals in leadership and ministry. What the hell? Have we gone completely insane?

On the one hand, anti-gay marriage is energetically co-opting what is a personal, relational religious ideal into a belligerent, populist moralism, that seeks to dictate behavior on the same grand scale as DARE did with "just say no". Don't-do-it-because-it's-wrong-because-I-say-so has always been a shitty reason to do (or not do) anything. It's a cop out. It's an easy exit for those in authority (or trying to exercise authority) to avoid justifying their mandates.

On the other hand, we have established, long-lived embodiments of Christian doctrine farcically ignoring the biblical exposition (in both testaments) that unequivocally outlines the fact that homosexual lusts (and in fact all extra-marital sexual lust, I might point out) are the end product of the corruption of the human spirit. These things are on the long list that includes greed, pride, deceit, malice and a whole host of other human behavior that often feels GREAT in the moment but does us damage in time. And these churches are very casually dropping this from their consideration of the qualifications for church leadership.

It's two sides of the same coin, really. Coming back to the original points about integrity and thoughtful application, you've got the political crusaders applying their beliefs in an unthoughtful and disintegrated fashion, trying to enforce behavior on people who have never felt any call nor made any commitment to follow God's instruction on how to live and Who to look to for salvation. On the other hand you have people opening their hearts and understanding that American Christianity has been, for decades, stuck in a morass of unsympathetic, dogmatic monasticism and in the alarm of waking up to this tragedy, throwing out basic Christian doctrine with the ugly, ungodly censoriousness.

So I suppose I can make sense of it. The point of writing this? Well, perhaps I hope some folks can get something useful from it. For those on the outside looking in, if you're thinking that Christianity is, by and large, a bamboozling maze of contradictions, you're certainly not far off the mark, given the external behavior of a whole myriad of different groups. It's not supposed to be like this, but then, when humans are involved, how often does anything turn out the way it's supposed to?

I have faith that God will preserve His Truth on through this spate of abject silliness, if maybe only underground and out of sight. He can see the end, I trust, so I'm not really worried...but I do feel very moved to point some of this stupid shit out.

As a brief PS, hypocrisy is built into any Christian's life. By the nature of the faith, we aspire to and exposit values and behaviors that we inevitably fail to observe and act out. Take, for instance, my nearly lifelong disrespect for the principle of the mouth reflecting the heart. Even this post is littered with a brand of coarseness most folks find incongruous with pursuit of God. Individual hypocrisy, especially the endemic type, should be pointed out, but also forgiven. For my part, I'm rotten and busted, and I know it. Group hypocrisy, however, of the kind I decry in this post, is a different animal altogether. I am a man with poor self-discipline and some terrible habits. Denominations have no such cover of individual failing...avoidance of this kind of group departure is the whole point of the body of believers.

I often go through days feeling on the edge of something. On the cusp. On the brink. On the verge.

In keeping with the spirit of my last post, I think a good visual came to me today. So run with me on this for a minute.

I feel as though there is a great bottomless abyss of Truth. Unlike most abysses that you might think of, this deep, endless drop is not a descent into hopeless blackness, waiting for thermal currents to push you into an unforgiving wall and crush you. It is, rather, well lit and beautiful, and best experienced in free fall, at terminal velocity, allowing the totality of it to sweep by you, confident that stepping off the ledge was the best decision you've ever made.

I see this freefall, and I stand at the edge, pacing around it endlessly, trying to make the decision to dive in.

But there's a wrinkle.

You see, around this abyss there's a fence, and the perimeter is a long walk around. So as I pace the long distances around the lip of this epic fall, I encounter high fence walls, edged with razor wire, keeping me from jumping in even when I most desperately want to. These are the days when my angst or my selfishness or my self-destructive behavior are such that to really sally forth into a routine of creativity is impossible.

Then there are places where the fence is low, easy to vault, or even gated for easy entry, and inevitably I'm so absorbed in the path right under my feet I traipse right past these free opportunities, and when I look up, I'm back at the razor wire again...so only by looking forward or backward do I see the places where it would be best to jump in. These low spots in the fence come when my life is ordered and consistent, uncomplicated and relatively untaxing. These moments would be a perfect time to add a new discipline and start writing a little each day. But I don't because I'm happy; I'm looking at the end of my nose and appreciating the fact that life is going smoothly.

I need to take this leap when I'm not getting in my own way. This post is a part of that razor wire fence. This post and anything else dated today. This is all necessity writing. This is just to keep me sane. It's precisely when I don't need to that I am best suited to leap into a lifelong spelunk of truth.

I go in cycles. I've known this for quite awhile. I suppose cyclical behavior is inherent in the human condition. Like seasons, we come around to similar places for similar reasons again and again, based on the influences and outlets of our day to day lives. But as the 4^th anniversary of beginning to write a novel (that I planned to hammer out in a year) approaches, I can retrospectively see the bubbles and busts of my behavior almost as clearly as if they were neat DOW Jones tracking charts.

The metaphor that came to me for this life cycle (which is mostly creative in nature) came to me today in quite stunning clarity as I negotiated the high country between Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming. I suffer from a sort of creative bulimia.

I understand that it's a graphic comparison, but it's pretty functional. I intake, and intake, and intake (a long binge process) watching the world and listening to it breathe and groan, an organism of humanity trying to sort itself out. It's fascinating to me. Sometimes enlightening, sometimes depressing, this intake angers me, excites me, stimulates me, shocks me, tears me apart...but always encourages the constant state of analysis, of critical thought, that I see as crucial to an open mind.

But there's a balance issue here. The intake is often unregulated, and the outlet is dangerous overkill. Like a bulimic, I will often go long stretches (days or sometimes a week or two) completely avoidant of sustenance. I go dark to the human world. I go about my business, do my job, and generally "veg out". This is because I've been through a recent binge. It's not uncommon for me to go through 4 to 6 hours of podcast material in a working day, often for 3 or 4 days in a row. When I say podcast material, I mean shows like "This American Life", "To the Best of our Knowledge", "Left, Right & Center" and other thought oriented NPR stuff, and Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History". I also blast through hours of lighter shows like "Wait, Wait, Don't tell Me", or "Car Talk" (probably the lightest of the fare).

Even the light stuff keeps my critical thought going, though. The jokes, the solutions to problems, the human interactions and ideas that are inevitably laced into any kind of talk show reach into my mind, and my mind digests them, picking out bits and pieces that I reject, accept, or ruminate on at length. The first four shows in the list are heavy artillery, though. LR&C is blatant political debate, and doesn't pretend to be anything else. TAL and TTBOOK are both news magazines, objectively offering stories of human nature on thematic strings, telling stories, and more often than not, vaguely suggesting and editorial position on what underlying truth might be. So I'm doing multiple things simultaneously during these shows. I'm not checking my criticism at the door, because even as much as I might love these shows, carelessness could easily leave me open to thoughtlessly swallowing a social or theological premise with which I don't agree, merely because it's subtle (and probably unconsciously) woven into the text of the presentation. I'm also imbibing stories of human nature, often in first-person interview, that shed light on the internal machinery of individual people, and give me very precious windows into the assumptions, beliefs and objectives of my fellow humans. Thirdly, I'm learning critical information about the way the world actually works...things that runs our day to day lives that generally get missed, misinterpreted, or ignored in most discussion and debate about "the way things are". TAL is especially good at this. Their shows on health care reform and the financial kaboom have taught me ten thousand little things that news blurbs haven't got the chronological budget to spend explaining.

And I'm not done imbibing. On top of the vast swath of Public Radio, there's "Hardcore History" that I've just torn through. Dan Carlin tries to make a point of manipulating what often becomes compressed recitation of critical events (history, that is) and unpacking it into human experience. He follows little seams of precious human reality that often get glossed over or forgotten in the grand sweep of thousands of years. To that end, I'm germinating and nourishing seeds of belief about human nature that have been (perhaps blissfully) undeveloped until now. The horrible brutality of human existence has seldom been so vividly unfolded in my mind's eye...and this even from me, a person who can humbly and honestly claim a broader and deeper understanding of military history than most.

And then...then I step back and set our bestiality against the beauty of our art, and the joy of our festivity...and I start to get a little dizzy trying to digest it all.

And I'm overfull. I've ingested too much, too quickly, and I've not even saved space these last weeks for Alistair Begg and the brilliant Biblical exposition he does on "Truth for Life". Add to the mix my fundamental belief that Jesus stepped in to pay human debt so that we can meet God judgment free, and you have an unlit Molotov waiting for a flame and a strong arm.

And now, not only am I mixing metaphors, I understand I'm in a dangerous place. I'm got too much in me. It's making me swell uncomfortably...

And the imbalance still reigns supreme. I purge. I either spend long hours at the keyboard, hammering away at something or other, this book or that essay, none of which ever survives the night, or I check out...listening to the best classic rock station I can find on the radio, or gaming obsessively, or just surfing the internet.

But even then, the cycle has begun again, because the games and music and websites all have messages too. Nothing that man creates is message free. It's a bold statement, but I believe it's true. Even the most practical of things transmits some information that the maker or harvester or gatherer values.

It's an issue of discipline, and I know it. If I were slowing my intake and regulating my output, I could feed and bleed my creative mind on a sort of predictable schedule that it could tolerate. Instead of puking out all of this half formed philosophy, I could actually digest ideas in turn, and spend unhurried days formulating a response that I could believe in.

It would make the blog more interesting, I'm sure (not mentioning that the whole point of the blog is to do exactly the kind of short form writing that keeps these disciplinary skills sharpened), and it would certainly enrich the longer term projects, not least that massive, hairy, Yeti of a book that keeps outgrowing my abilities. I might actually start new projects and feel equipped to come back to them again the next day, confident that they were begun on a critical and valuable premise, not on a vomitous blurb of pressure release.

And last of all, it would make me less dark of a person. Most of my adolescence and early adulthood is characterized by grim weariness, brought about almost solely by this very kind of unexorcized emotional response to my instinctive and constant contemplation of the human condition.

I'm a grump because people get to me, and I'd be less grumpy if I did something deliberate about it.

Now that I'm driving for a different company, and am sporting a slightly different attitude, I am able to realize that I like--really like-- doing this.

It's a bit of a heavy moment when it dawns on you that the all the reasons you shouldn't like your job are just somebody else's reasons. I shouldn't like this job, but I do. If I try to convince myself I don't, I'm just playing somebody else's game.

I came in thinking I would extrapolate on this for a few paragraphs. I don't think I need to.

It's 2241 Central Daylight Time. It's 2041 Pacific Daylight Time. It's 2141 Mountain Daylight Time.

I work on the first time, currently am parked in the second, and deliver in the third tomorrow. This is a long haul driver's life. Constant time zone math.

This was not such an issue just a few weeks ago. I had a different phone then. Now I have a new phone. It does not let me turn off the auto time adjustment. The best I can do is set the clock on the main display to read two times: the current time and the time in a large city of my choosing. Since Minneapolis wasn't an option, I went for Chicago.

So now, since I logged off for the day at 2145, I can start tomorrow at 745, which means I need to get up around 645. This used to mean I would set the alarm clock on my phone to 645. Now it means I have to do the same math for my alarm clock as I have to do for pickups and deliveries. 645 CDT backs up to 445 PDT. Which also, incidentally, gives my brain a chance to see an "early morning" time and try to convince me to fall back asleep.

Thursday morning, if I want to wake up at 645 CDT, I'll need to set my alarm for 545, because I'll be in MDT then.

At least I'm not in Arizona. They're on MST year round. So when everybody else changes, they don't. Half the year they're with Nevada and California, the other half they're with the rest of the mountain states.

I recommend every state take a page from AZ. Ditch DST, it's stupid.

In other news, if you've ever seen the box of 20 Mule Team Borax in the cleaning aisle at the grocery, and perchance wondered where it came from, probably it came from here:


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I was there today, and I go to Utah with what they gave me. What is it really? I don't know. It does not need HazMat Placards, and that's about as far as I care.

Big, Fat, Political Post of DOOM!

It's high time for this.

Instead of screaming and ranting and protesting with grammatically unfortunate, hand-sharpied signs, I'm going to try and work through all of this without getting too frustrated and with a healthy dose of self-criticism and devil's advocacy.

Frustrated is great place to start. I've been listening to the running debate about health care (and, by extension welfare, medicare, and all the other "socialisty" programs) and all it does is frustrate me. It seemed that all parties involved were incapable of slowing down long enough to give a reasoned explanation of their views. Then it occurred to me: it's not that most people are incapable of slowing down, but it is the case that most people are incapable of giving a reasoned explanation of their views. It's such a cataclysm of human problems that I barely know how to start sorting it out.

Fear.

Arrogance.

Ignorance.

Selfishness.

Lack of Empathy.

Lack of Perspective.

Censoriousness.

Pride.

Snobbery.

Elitism.

Exclusivity.

Condescension.

Stupidity.

Stupidity.

Stupidity.

Stupidity.

I'm honestly to the point where I don't believe we're a nation of people smart enough to have this discussion. (Refer to the above list of negative traits and check off how many I'm guilty of as I go.) I do understand the conservative government-theory position. Involving government in anything means they will never become uninvolved. Government needs to intervene only where absolutely necessary. Writing laws is a good way to bullocks up the efficiency of any organizational structure. Better to let private companies build structures that are the most efficient because they are the most profitable. Don't interfere with the individual's freedom of choice.

This is all valuable stuff, to an extent...but I seriously doubt that more than 5% of the anti-reform movement has any of this in mind when they go off half-cocked anywhere and everywhere they feel like it.

It's become clear to me that the outspoken protesters are of an ilk that, for the most part, has led comfortable, middle class lives and have barely ever, if ever, traveled outside their social neighborhood. By social neighborhood, I mean their socio-economic environment. They've not lived with or gotten to know anybody that makes significantly less than them, and they've long dreamed of and idealized the lives of those that make significantly more.

I understand, loud, angry people, that you don't want good coverage taken away from you. What you fail to understand, loud, angry people, is that the changes being proposed have nothing to do with your coverage! Have you ever dealt with being uninsured? No. Have you ever dealt with health insurance being prohibitively expensive? No. Have you ever been unable to get health insurance at any price because you happen to have a disease that insurance companies don't want to cover? No again. Have you ever gotten acutely or terminally ill only to have your insurance summarily yanked because the insurance company sics their agents on your life, finds and error on your application, and says you defrauded them? Absolutely not. And you would be horrified if any of this happened to you. But it hasn't happened to you, so anybody that can't get insurance is just a freeloader, or a slug, or a cheat, or illegal, right?

Dear God, it provokes me to violence.

I've actually faced all of the above, except, thankfully, facing the trauma of having my coverage rescinded in the face of horrendously expensive coverage. I'm a middle class, college-educated white male with a wife, a kid, and a "good, mid-western work ethic". I look like you, screamers. I talk like you. I identify with your cultural heritage. The status quo you want to preserve would gleefully hang me out to dry for the sake of some cranky shareholders.

This is the issue. Your coverage is fine, and You, Middle America, are so trained to covet your material prosperity that you foam at the mouth if anything might even hint at threatening it. And the conservative talk radio gasbags know this. And they have beaten you into a mindless froth about it. And we're off the rails on the crazy train. The reality is that there's a whole other America out there that doesn't live your life, and they're getting raped by a colossus of an industry that is so amorally and unethically seeking profit that it makes me physically ill.

Drug companies chase patents for the sake of marketing exclusivity and profit. Most "new" drugs are simply retools of existing drugs that warrant a fresh patent.

The fee-for-service model of medicine encourages doctors to do as many tests and procedures as possible in order to get paid more. The only thing stopping them from proceduring your bank account to death? Ethical responsibility. Have we not yet witnessed enough shameless amorality to convince us that personal ethics are dead?

The very fact that health care is non-negotiable and urgent discourages the usual free-market control of prices. You're sick, you don't want to get more sick, or die, for that matter, and so you don't often have the luxury of comparison shopping. Nor can you say to the surgeon, "That scalpel costs how much?? Jimminy Christmas! Can you use the number 3 instead of the number 6?" It sounds silly, but the insurance company gets billed for the number 6, at $1200, and you, consumer, the end user, are not participating in the selection of what you're paying for. You're not in control. Does this sound a little like what everybody is screaming about avoiding?

Here's a personal anecdote: I have Crohn's disease. It's chronic, non-lethal, and a nuisance. I can lead a perfectly normal life and am basically healthy, especially if I take the prescribed dose of medication on a regular basis. Easy, yes? Right.

When I was in a situation where I didn't have the benefit of group insurance through an employer (which has been a lot of my adult life, so far) I tried to buy insurance as an individual. No soap. At first, I was quoted outrageous prices, on the order of $800-1000 a month. Then, when the agent did some research, he realized that I was a reject. So even if I'd had the grand per month to spend, nobody would cover me. Why? I was too expensive. Crohn's isn't even big, fat and hairy like cancer or diabetes and the like, but there's a moderate risk that I'll have to have my small intestine "trimmed" at some point. Nobody that's trying to protect their profit margins wants to take on obvious risk. It's just business sense. The problem is that business and medicine don't blend well. Almost to the point of oil/water comparison.

So I couldn't get insurance, but I wanted to keep myself healthy, so that if ever I could get insurance, I wouldn't be maxing out my coverage because of all of the issues I'd developed trying not to go bankrupt while I had none. Well, good luck, son. The medication I take, Pentasa, is a brand name with no generic equivalent. 30 days' supply? In excess of $500 dollars.

Why is this? Because the vicious cycle of insurance payouts and greed have caused everybody to realize that there's no real free-market dynamics in this game. The insured never see the actual cost of the goods and services, so the prices go up and the payouts go up, and the insurance companies get hammered, and start (perfectly legally) cutting people off and literally leaving them to die to keep their overhead down.

Let me hear about these horrible death panels again, Mildred.

You see, angry conservative, the horrible underbelly of your glorious free market is treading out human beings like grapes in a vineyard...All so we can drink the draft of immaculate capitalism.

Now I wax melodramatic. But I think you might begin to see what makes me so angry. There are thousands of people fighting to keep us from having our health care taken away, and those very warriors are keeping thousands of others from having health care at all.

Don't talk to me about death panels. That's horse shit. Don't talk to me about NHS in Britain and socialized medicine in Canada. That's not what we're looking at here. Prove to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, why the dreaded single-payer system (which is a long way off, even if proposed legislation "opens the door") is so rotten and terrible and destructive of our American Awesome.

Here's how I see it. Somebody is finally pushing this hard. It happens to be liberals. It so happens that it's expensive, and it so happens that legislation is often fraught with bloat and pork. But by God it's about time something was done about the injustice of the system.

What's that you say? Social help should come from charities and non-profits and religious organizations and not the government?

Yes. Yes they should.

But I'm sorry, American Christianity, you've missed your chance. You want to legislate homosexuality and abortion out of existence because you think that living a virtuous life reaps the benefits of God's blessing. Read your Bibles, you hypocrites. Meanwhile, your precious Republican party, with Jim Dobson riding shot-gun, has whipped you into a frenzy of fear about losing your freedoms and your independence and your Christianity. Dr. Dobson, read your Bible. I happened to catch part of one of your shows that happened to discuss a political theory book of some kind, and I was horrified to hear you speak of how the thought of losing your freedoms kept you up at night. You have millions of Americans in your hip pocket! What god do you worship? Certainly not the God of the Bible, if you believe that you and the church are responsible for preserving a secular nation for God. What a heresy you've committed! Tacitly, you've approved of and encouraged the fear and the feelings of insecurity that millions of Americans are struggling with, even though they purportedly believe in the Sovereign, Providential God that works all things to His ends. He sets up the government and brings it down. The Church is His possession, not the Flag, not the Country, not Capitalism. Wake up! You and all of your followers. We live in a nation of man, not a nation of God. It is not ours to possess and manipulate and manage!

And the straying church has been so busy trying to pass laws that make the nation a theocracy that it's neglected the poor and the needy and all of the empathy and outreach and compassion to which it's called. Righteousness without compassion is failure, and the institution of Christianity in America gets a big, fat "F". For the very first time in my life, I saw a church do an act of charity to help someone in need. I happened to be the person in need. And I was provided for without judgement. How many churches would do this? Maybe most, but how many would do it without foisting a sense of shame on the recipient? Without clucking their tongues at what apparent irresponsibility has led the beneficiary to this deplorable place of financial failure? Not many. Not many at all. The glaring example of functional faith in my life just served to destroy the last illusions I had about the health of the American church.

The deception and misdirection runs deep. How easy is it for devoted, practicing Christians to spout theories demanding that beneficiaries of social programs prove their worth and their value to society before receiving or continuing to receive help? This isn't in the Bible. This kind of performance orientation is a deceit that steers us away from the propitiation of Christ. We're not acceptable to God because of how successful we are, nor is it evidence of our failure and sin if we find ourselves destitute. "Who sinned, rabbi, this man or his father?" No one, silly disciple. The world is broken and it is cruel to its inhabitants.

I wish I could mandate that people get some real life diversity experience before they're allowed to participate in national domestic policy debates, but I know that this flies in the face of the principles on which the government is built. It's exclusivity. But goodness gracious, the kind of exclusivity that says "You don't get a damned thing unless you work for it to my standards" doesn't do us any good either, and Christians have really been duped into buying this kind of philosophy. We, as Christians, have sacrificed and marginalized both our own dynamism and maturity as well as our message and beliefs out of a subtle misdirection toward self-preservation. We fail our lost friends and neighbors as we simultaneously fail to trust God as He intends us to trust Him.

I've digressed a bit. The broader point is that those who argue that it isn't the government's job to preserve people in times of difficulty are currently hard pressed to point out somebody else that's actually interested in doing the job. Private industry won't regulate itself. It hasn't the ethics to do so. Charities are falling flat, partially because of internal politics and tribalism, partly because those most inclined to donate to charities are clutching their Jeffersons and Benjamins as tightly as ever.

Something needs to give now, and the status quo has long ceased to be an effective answer. We're the richest nation in the world, maybe we got that way by capitalism, but we also got to this point through a carefully nurtured sense of Manifest Destiny, and that's not exactly a charitable, decent, upright heritage. The United States is not God's gift to nation-states any more than Britain was or Rome long before. His purposes are far subtler and far more eternal than the wealth of nations. It's high time we adjust our mentality. People are suffering and dying to preserve our twisted sense that unfettered individualism is healthy for a society.

And what's so wrong with Socialism anyway? I won't be easily dissuaded from believing that most anti-socialists think that Socialism is evil is because, to them, it correlates 1:1 with Stalinist Communism...and then we're right back to my assertion that, collectively, we're too dumb to think this through.

That's hyperbole, and I know it, but I've heard people my age say, "I don't want to be forced to pay premiums on insurance. I'm healthy. If something happens, I'll work it out and pay off the hospital on an individual basis." Naive. Naive. Naive. If these people continue to have their way, nothing changes, and we keep the bloat we have. If you've never seen uncovered bills, you can't know that an appendectomy costs $14,000 to start and just goes north from there. Major car wreck injuries? Cancer? Hello bankruptcy. These people need to be mandated to protect themselves. This is not in the spirit of the American Way, but the American Way coldly allows people to run themselves into the ground. That's not justice; it's uncaring at best, and malicious neglect at worst.

I know I'm wandering about, but this kind of stream-of-consciousness thinking has a certain value.

A final thought aimed at half-Christian philosophy. I know of people that are afraid that if the government socializes everything, people will never understand that they need God, and the Christian message will fall on deaf ears. Well, intentionally keeping people in poverty and hunger to prove that they need God isn't going to help them come to know a loving, omnipotent creator, either. The only problem with Marx's Socialism (as I understand it) is that it believes that if all of the material needs of men are met, they will be satisfied, content and functional. Well, if we did meet all of the people's material needs, they'd still need God. Even as it is, with have and have-not capitalism, people still think they'll be fine if they can get money. They're poor and hungry and troubled, and they're not looking to God.

Really, this is several separate essays about politics and religion and Christian doctrine all blended into one...so I'll end without really concluding:

There are far fewer freeloaders than you think, and there is far more injustice done in the name of our precious capitalism than most in the middle class can even conceive of. And, to make it all more fun, expediency on the part of a secular political party and misguided activism on the part of a cloister of religious leaders have conspired to railroad Christianity in America into a place that pretty heinously flouts well-defined doctrine about God and country and the balance between the two.

I have been an angry conservative. Then I actually spent time in the world with my eyes open. It doesn't work. Left wing idealism falls short as well. It's a complicated world, my friends, and there is more to America than you think. Let's stop pretending that there was once a good, Christian America. It's a lie.

I go to orientation for Marten tomorrow, and thenceforce I shall be "off the grid" for a few weeks.

We fully intend to set my laptop up with a mobile internet plan from one of the wireless providers, but until we do that, I return to my 'net-less ways. If I run across free internet access, I'll use it, but that kind of access is far between...and often unreliable (at best).

It shouldn't be too terribly long before I can rejoin the ranks of ether-centric humanity, and I'm glad of it, because with a wife and an ever-exploring 10 month old, it'll be really good to stay in touch via more than just a phone line.

The best to everybody until I "see" you again.

And Bye-bye car

I sold my first car today.

As in, it was the first time I sold a car and the car I sold was the first car I ever owned.

Not gonna lie, it felt a little like selling a family member.

But, we don't need it anymore.

So I posted it on craigslist and got a couple of offers, and one came through. So they drove away in my car (their car, I suppose) and I came back to the house with a wad of cash in my pocket.

I think the oddest part of the whole thing is that I didn't get "closure" with the car. That's a little misty, I'm sure, but it would have been nice to take a real, defined last drive with it. Knowing that I won't ever see the car again that I drove for basically all of its 100,000 miles is a bit strange.

That's all. I'll stop crying now. I sold a car and can save some money on my car insurance. I can also pay bills.

And...

I think....

Yes.

I'm over it.

Employment Ho!

I've been hired.

Conditional upon the usual pre-employment drug test, agility (read: not a broken down old horse) physical, and road test, I'm a new employee of Marten Transport out of Mondovi, WI.

Ironic somehow that the way I get back in to the business of driving is through a company headquartered 30 miles south of the college town I left to come pursue an acting career.

Still with me?

I'm quite [preliminarily] happy with them. I'll be an employee, not a contractor, so even if I have a low mileage week, I'll still be getting paid something (as opposed to owing for payments and fuel). They run a blend of make and model of '06-'09 tractors. And pretty much every tractor they've got has an APU.

An APU, or Auxiliary Power Unit, runs off of the primary fuel tanks and allows the A/C compressor, heater, and power accessories to run without idling the primary engine. This a) saves fuel and b) protects the average driver from an idling citation in the ridiculous states in this union (home sweet California home included) that think it possible for a grown man to get good rest (and not die, while we're at it) in 100+ degree heat without an air conditioner. Wildly proactive law makers have decided that not allowing trucks to idle their engines is a really good way to clean up the atmosphere. Turns out they wrote the laws and either forgot or ignored that truckers both sleep during the heat of the day sometimes and live in their trucks. This is not conducive to being disallowed climate control.

Anyhoo. APU. Cool beans.

Also, good fit as a company because I have HAZMAT, which they require. I have a TWIC, which they recommend. I have a passport, which simplifies the into-Canada deliveries that they do. They prefer fueling at Pilots, my favorite. Aaaand their health insurance kicks in after 30 days. Faboo.

I go to orientation in Ontario next week, and that's only 2 and a half days long...which is a huge step up from the 3 weeks of unpaid school the last time.

It's a pretty big company, and I've done my research, so I've necessarily run across a handful of negative complaints about this, that and the other thing. But compared to the flurry of cautionary tales I've seen for other companies, I'm not too concerned. I suppose they seem like a "value match" to me.

Of course, we'll see how things go, but I'm really prepared to take this driving thing seriously, and develop habits for the long haul...No pun intended.

It's a massive blessing to be within two weeks of paying work when I only applied a week and a half ago.

Background Endgame

In the process of transitioning back into trucking, I'm conscious that each background gig I do could very well be my last ever.

I've had one more since Friday, but Friday wouldn't have been a bad way to go out.

It was just down the road. And by "just", I mean, just. I drove exactly five miles to get there. We were filming a promo for the Las Vegas chamber of commerce or tourism council or something...but you could never have guessed because we were just a bunch of guys smeared with filth makeup and decked out in kilts and animal skins. There was running, there was grunting, there were war cries, and there were broadswords. There were also, I believe, tastefully clad male strippers. I worked with a stunt guy, I swung a styrofoam mace. I "played" a bagpipe.

So the next time you see a friendly invite to Las Vegas that looks like an excerpt from Braveheart, look for the scrawny white boy with the tousled scuzzy red hair. I'm in there.

If you're prone to noticing things, you'll have seen that the subtitle of my blog has changed.

The reason for this is because I've found what it was that ran me down.

It's hard to write about...not because it's painful, but rather because my perspective has so dramatically shifted.

If you're looking south and looking south, and suddenly you're looking north, chances are you can describe the old view from memory and you can describe the new view by virtue of looking at it...but how do you go about recalling the view as you swiftly turned from south to north?

Let's start with the old view.

Way back in the post college days (all of three years ago, my how long ago it seems) I believed that I had talent, and that it was a waste to not use that talent. To that end I was laser focused on getting my acting career underway. To that end, when I was presented with a small business opportunity, I didn't take the time to understand myself and determine whether or not I was the type cut out for small business, but instead focused exclusively on the potential returns. This was unwise, to say the least.

In all frankness, it was straight-up stupid. But, believing as I did then, believing that the only way I could get ahead in life was through the film industry, I charged ahead, totally unrealistic in my expectations of myself and my actual desires in life, and so filled with "momentum" that I either couldn't or wouldn't stop long enough to examine these things.

But it needed to happen.

We moved to California (on borrowed dimes) so that I could be right here when the time came to start acting. Again, unwise...but necessary. God was giving me rein so that I would be ready to understand the truth about myself, and what I really needed from life.

So we moved to California and I went to drive a truck. Another money move, because, by this time, I at least realized that the small business was never going to be something I could commit to.

So I went through the school and signed on to a lease--with the aim of making more money. Silly rabbit, leases are dangerous! I spent a ton of time and money keeping a truck up and running for no permanent benefit, including, as it turned out, no money bonus.

And all this time I was champing at the bit, convinced that if I could just get in there and start acting life would open up...things would be fine.

The grass was greener, I was sure, on the other side of the fence. Cut to January, when I came home...to the top of this blog. God was still giving me space to discover my limits.

So I hit it as hard as I could...believing that a miracle would come. And a few did. Money came in when it didn't have to, and I kept at it. But the doubt crept in. I discovered what a set was actually like. I discovered how many projects were just flat repulsive to me. The more I worked, the more I discovered just the size of the miracle that God would have to do to keep us funded and protect me from a bunch of work that I would regret doing. It was not impossible for Him to do, of course, but the logic of it happening dwindled.

May sucked for work, and I really started looking at alternatives. I "decided" to seek out a regular job to pay bills and write...but God knew my mind...He threw me bait and I took it. My manager emailed their interest in me, and I jumped on it. I wasn't ready to let go of the film career on the "right now" schedule--to the point where I abandoned the principle I'd learned from the business debacle. I used the last of our credit to fund the materials for the manager.

June got me Iron Man II, and I spent two and a half weeks understanding just how little I identified with most the people there, and how little interest I had in doing anything and everything to make a career.

All that work in June--13 twelve-hour days with O/T and bumps and everything--paid July's rent, and not much else.

The needed miracle got bigger. But the manager hadn't had time to kick in, and I got on Joey's list...maybe something could happen, right?

Then I read two books, back to back. One was spiritual and relational, and the other was financial.

This is the swift turn to the new perspective.

I realized several things of critical importance to the rest of my life.

To this point in my life I'd been working on unconditional commitments but making decisions on the fly based on a lot of conditions. I realized the danger of this when I viewed it from a parenting perspective. The example was this: if dad promises to go to Six Flags on Saturday, you go to Six Flags. Dad doesn't change his mind if the kids' rooms are messy Friday night. Even if the condition arises, you didn't set it beforehand, it's just inconsistent to add it later.

This does apply to my parenting, but more importantly to my immediate future, it applies to how I follow God. Once upon a time (and repeatedly since then) I made an unconditional commitment to acting...and then stuck to it or abandoned it as different conditions arose. This is no way to make a life decision. I've been pushed away and drawn back by every slight discouragement or encouragement (the manager's email is a perfect example). I couldn't make final decisions because I refused to apply boundaries to what would change my mind. I thought this was the best way to follow God. Not so. It just opened me to temptations.

So I realized that I needed to reevaluate my course based on pre-defined conditions so that I might actually be able to make wise choices instead of wondering perpetually what my responsibilities were.

Then came the financial book.

I think I finally understand just what, exactly, my role in my finances is. God provides, but I'm responsible to manage. I know it might seem blisteringly obvious when put that way, but I'd never considered it with that kind of blunt clarity. I realized how easily a small income can translate to great wealth over time. It was shocking, and invigorating. All this time I'd been either trying to control how much income I had or completely letting go to let God provide everything. But now I see the balance. Think of a farmer. He must plant and cultivate and harvest, but he cannot make it rain. I was either trying to make it rain or abandoning the planting and cultivating expecting that God would grant me the harvest if I hung on long enough. Those miracles I was waiting for I had no justifiable reason to expect. Why should God work a miracle when no miracle is necessary? Why should God give me my "dream" simply because I refuse to understand the peril of my situation?

I've been wondering why God has been making the path so hard...and now I realize He's made it quite easy. He led me to a place where I could see what a dead end my impatience and assumptions were leading me to. He has protected us from the bankruptcy and other things that could have derailed us for a long time.

The clarity has slammed home with all of the force and precision of a shell loaded into the breech of a howitzer.

So here is my new course, and my new perspective.

I have debts to pay and I have skills that give me access to work that will help pay them. I'm going back to the road, and this time I will not be looking longingly at Hollywood as the source of my salvation from debt and discontentment. This country provides a unique opportunity to have income and prepare for the future. I have control over whether or not I participate. So I'll drive, and by God's providence (on which we still have to rely) we will have the income to pay our way. I will work toward self-discipline to stay healthy and fit, and to write in my spare time. In five years, or ten years, if I've completed a book or a screen play I'm happy with, I will try to sell it for publication or production. Then I can be involved in art that I care about, and that I can believe in. By that time I should have enough to keep me from the peril of needing money so badly that I must take work that sells a message I don't believe.

Contrary to what you might thing, contrary to what I thought, this is not a disappointing change. I'm relieved. I'm happy. I'm looking forward to the future without frustration, anxiety or desperation for the first time.

Also a novelty: I don't feel as though changing careers diminishes or disqualifies my artistry. I'm still a gifted, skilled actor, I still care deeply about film, I'm still a writer and lover of music...but I am a trucker, too.

I am a Child of God, a Husband, Father, Trucker, and Artist, and none of those things will ever cancel out the others, nor will any of them cease to be a part of me.

So this blog goes on the road with me as I turn a new page in my life...As I, I hope, being to live life as it's meant to be lived, and enjoyed.

I think my wife and my son will thank me for it. I think I will be happy...at long last. I think my life will be my life and no longer anybody else's.

So I'm into the traffic, and off the curb.

Unemployment

Ten days ago, as you may have already surmised from previous posts, I filed for unemployment insurance from the state.

It was a detailed application, and took some serious organization of resources to complete. I didn't mind; I was doing this in an effort to take advantage of programs in place to defray the difficulty of unemployment and underemployment.

So yesterday I got my packet.

May I quote?

Claim Beginning Date: 6/28/2009

Claim Ending Date: 6/26/2010

Maximum Benefit Amount: $0

Weekly Benefit Amount: $0

Please note lines 3 and 4.

Do we notice a problem here?

California has granted me unemployment benefits in the amount of nothing. For a year. They even sent me a handbook entitled "A Guide to Benefits and Unemployment Services". Because apparently I need guidance and direction on how to collect zero dollars.

I'm seriously considering submitting a continuing claim every week for the next fifty-two weeks claiming my $0, and demanding a check be dispatched to my home for the sum of $0.00...but then I'd be wasting a stamp.

I'm not bitter. I just find it eye-rollingly bureaucratic that the state sent an entire benefit package to an applicant that was rejected.

But...even then...was I rejected? Or was I approved for nothing?

Maybe it's in the handbook.

Done Got Told!

Entourage shot its last day of this newest season last week Wednesday. I was there. It was filming in an airplane cabin. It was a fake airplane cabin...which, remarkably enough, was stuffier and hotter than a real airplane cabin.

I was seated between a friend and a random twelve year old girl, who turned out to be pretty cool (and who has two more years in the industry than I do).

We talked about random stuff, and I tried to keep the conversation orbiting around a twelve year old's universe. But one random exchange did catch me off guard.

"Did you watch the Michael Jackson Memorial?" she asked, as a prelude to a cool story.

"No," I said, being quite honest.

She was already prepared to launch into her story, and when I uttered the impossible response to her rhetorical question (namely, "no, I did not watch the thing") I was suddenly on the receiving end of an incredulous, wide-eyed double-take.

"Are you serious??" she stared at me for a moment, until, I think, I shrugged.

I think it's possible I was the offender in the Great Faux Pas of '09 for young Ashley. Never in my life have I heard such a simple question freighted with such disbelief, disdain, and judgement. Apparently, I am a Philistine.

The funny part is, she wasn't even around when MJ was making decent music.

My friend got a laugh out of it, and so did I.

After yesterday's posting, and some time spent sitting back reviewing my life as a whole, it's really really hit me how much Problem Focus is crippling me.

I'll have a problem the size of a dime and shoot for solutions the size of a dinner plate...only because I'm zoomed in too closely on the dime.

I am not the world's best storyteller.

I also tend to post only when I feel as though I have something "complete" to say.

The combination of those two elements tends to make this blog philosophy oriented, vague, and generally disinteresting, because the whole through-line of blogitude is lacking.

It's like, "Hey, Mark, great to see what you think about purpose and meaning, but what the hell is going on with you?"

It's been a rough couple of weeks. To say the very least.

I will give y'all the skinny, and try to avoid justifying my behavior or pontificating on the meaning of things.

So what is it? The 12th today? I feel like it should be August.

The month started on a high note. I got accepted to Joey's and my manager finally had me on his radar screen. The downside was that we had just paid rent and really didn't have any money to put toward anything else. But the best we could do was hold out and hope for improvement.

Things did not really improve...at least from a money stand-point. Boy, how do I describe the roller-coaster?

I got a part in a student film, then decided that it was best to tell the director of that film that I couldn't guarantee anymore that I'd be available to shoot it, because I was "at risk" of going back to driving full time. Of course he found another actor to take my place. I would have, too.

I got a single day of work on Entourage this last week. Hiatus is still heavily in place.

I got a call from another of the directors from the audition that got me the first part that I got kicked off of (still with me?) about being in her film, and I turned it down. I was pretty convinced I was going to go back driving.

I actually applied to drive for Interstate Distibutor out of Tacoma, WA. I did this because I decided (five or six times in as many days) that I was tired of the uncertainty and the debt and the heinous broke-ness...and feeling sure that God was pulling out the rug on acting. I was also feeling terribly sick of all of the grossness of Hollywood. The vapid people, the...disappointing...city, the heat, the dirt, and the money chase. LA is a pretty soul-sucking place if you haven't got a really, really good reason to be here. I applied to drive under the auspices of getting on with my life. Paying debts and focusing on family and being near family and friends seemed to take precedence (a move to Minnesota was also ultimately planned into the career shift).

But then came yesterday, and then came today.

Yesterday, I posted a remarkably vague status update on Facebook about how "changing course isn't quitting: quitting is quitting." Or something like that. While that's true in itself, and when I posted it, I was 98% sure I'd be back OTR by the middle of next month, it drew a simple question from a guy (a friend, really) that I've met in my months in the industry.

"What are you doing?"

Now, since inflection is lost in the ether via text, that question can be read several ways. In my state of mind (or perhaps because I needed to read it that way) it was delivered with a tone of failure-to-understand, and perhaps warning to think whatever-it-is through before you do something stupid.

And so the wheels came off. All the certainty I'd had about my decision (which wasn't ever 100%, because I'm a doubter like that) unravelled. What was I doing? I was planning on totally changing my life. Why again? I went back over it all again, in my head and out loud, with Alicia.

Now, in talking to our parents in the depths of our confusion about what to do at this critical point in our lives, they've both been generous enough to help us out with some money. Without the collection monkeys strangling us with stress (their computers auto-dial you every three days, *eye-roll*) the immediacy of "needing" money diminished slightly. That, combined with the long, long declension of reasoning that led me to understand that, mostly, I just want to stop doubting and find some joy and contentment in my life, left my in a place where, even though I don't know whether or not Interstate will hire me, the best course is to not take the job.

That long, long declension of reasoning was this morning...I think...it's all been bleeding together so much. If I'm chasing contentment and joy and I think making another career change is going to find me what I seek, I'm taking awful risks. As Alicia so astutely pointed out, there's contentment to be had in anything, and in any circumstances, and lacking it tends to be a problem that originates inside me as opposed to in my circumstances. So really, the most efficient (but hardest) way to find the contentment I'm after is to change myself.

This I realized on top of a few basic points about the physical situation we're in:

>Hiatus is ending soon. More work.

>The SAG contract is in effect. More work.

>My manager has new head shots of me to use in his submissions. More work.

>We've received generous gifts from our parents. Bills paid, and possibly rent paid for August.

>The state of California has programs to offset the hardships we're facing. We've applied to these, and haven't even given them time to "kick in".

Really, those last two words are key words. There's a lot of stuff that just hasn't had time to "kick in".

So we're at this just a little longer, then, and trying to keep our focus on God instead of on the problems. I don't know what the future holds. I really, really want to know what the future holds, but I'm not allowed that luxury.

All in all, this is hard. It's very hard. And it's so easy to see the driving and feel like it would be freedom because what I really want right now is relief. Read: I want a vacation. I want to get away and see the sights and have some time where everything is taken care of.

So this month, a driving job is a sore temptation. Come September or January, it might be what I really need to do. But not July. Not just yet. God is silent in this...and silent, I think, so that I could jump through these hoops and learn a few things (not least how to ask for help from the many different places it's available). I'll keep going until He speaks otherwise.

Case in point (as a reminder mostly to myself) when Alicia and I agreed to team up, get her a CDL, leave an apartment behind and make some money...we wound up pregnant. How's that for a change of plans? I can't see anything but God in that.

I'll admit, I don't like it that sticking with acting is the right thing to do. It's not fun. It's not easy, it doesn't make me "happy" right this second...but it is the right thing to do. Leaving now is trying to get God to work on my schedule instead of His...and turning a desire for a vacation into a desire for a different life.

See you next week, hopefully without another hurricane.

Here's a forehead slapper:

I got my first audition call from the Manager today. I was pretty excited. Good pay rate, would shoot Thursday, etc.

Then I got there. Because I signed a non-disclosure agreement, I need to be very vague. It's a dating show. As of this writing, the blogger in question (namely me) has been married for 4 years, 1.5 months.

Oy.

The irony of blogging is that the most interesting content is the stuff that rises out of the flames of adversity. The irony being that when life is hardest, I (and most folks, I think) want to blog the least.

In my case it has more to do with not wanting to "cry" in public than to do with my life being too busy or too complicated to sit down and write. And to say I'm embarrassed to cry in public is kind of wrong, too. I'm more afraid of detailing the difficulties and the doubt I have because of the difficulties. To do so would be to (in my mind) contradict the clear-headed confidence I've detailed in other posts and in talking to people.

But this is life, no?

[Edited out a mediocre first pass. Trying again later.]

[Second pass]

I've realized since I posted this at first, then went and excised a chunk, then let some time pass, that my posts need to be longer, more deliberate, more explicit, and less summary.

In my last blog I spent a lot of time philosophising, moralizing, pontificating and just plain bitching, and I notice that I border on that here. The problem is that to take the time to write thoughtful, honest posts (of the nature that would be really productive) requires more work and emotional risk than I'm immediately willing to give.

I've also remembered how effective a teaching tool simple exposition can be. Sometimes I fall prey to exactly what I dislike in others, the tendency to learn from my own life and immediately issue imperatives to others about theirs. I'm learning what I'm learning because I am who I am. If I tell you what I'm learning and why and you find application for yourself in it, isn't the learning more organic and dynamic that way?

So what am I learning? Where am I at?

I am at broke. Beyond broke, in fact. I'm very tired because of it. I'm tired of the stress and the wondering and the collections calls, as polite as the poor people on the other end of the line manage to be. I haven't even had that many calls and I'm tired of it. I'm weary of the confusion that comes from feeling and seeing God lead me to this place, and then apparently let us free fall. Does the free fall indicate that this path is ended and another is supposed to begin? Or is it indicative of God's method of teaching patience and discipline?

I'm still a licensed trucker, I could go back...even if, at this point, going back would mean needing to call up a relative or good friend for bus fare to Tulsa. It could very well be that God sent me on this adventure in order to teach me to let go of my own schedule and rely on His. I certainly am at that place where I've laid aside my desires. I don't care what it is that God wants me to do, I just want to know that He wants me to do it.

And there's a new, strange freedom in that. Not being so hellbent on any one thing that I refuse to give it up in spite of clear direction elsewhere...

But I have no clear direction elsewhere.

It could be that, in fact, God is saving a flush of success for just the right moment, so that in this dark hour, when there is no hope, He can rightly take credit for providing.

These things I do not know.

So what do I learn from this?

The best I can do is take the opportunities available to me to relieve my [our] current distress. They are few. In the meantime, I can research my options...and weigh the benefits of one against the other.

In the end, I could chose to follow one path over the other, because it seems to be the right thing...and God could again do what he has done so many times already...He could close that door right in my face.

I am not in control of my life. This is not surrender, apathy, fatalism, or laziness. It is simply true. I can lay plans and put out feelers and all the rest, but if God does not will it, it won't be.

So why am I so scared of making the wrong choice?

As much as there are a bunch of fun details about the Iron Man II shoot, out of respect for production's request, I won't divulge them.

I will divulge that a couple of people I got to know on set, who are on Joey's List (the highly reputable calling service), told me to resubmit with their recommendation. I did so.

Aaaand now I've got an invite to the List. This does not instantly solve my money issues, however, in May, when I only worked 4 days all month, a new friend on Joey's said he'd gone from 4 or 5 days a week to "just" 2 or 3.

So that's cool.
^Understated for effect.

I just finished working on Iron Man 2 for two and half weeks.

Long days, good to be working consistently.

However, we are very, very, very broke.

Something's gotta give!

(That was a song of some kind)

Man is born, man lives, man dies, and it's all vanity.

My Son

My son is teething. His top incisors seem to be trying to make an entry into the world. This makes life hard for him, but it has exposed one of his most shining qualities.

I've had a little bit of trouble adjusting to life as Dad. I didn't expect a pregnancy, nor, frankly, did I welcome it. I developed into the idea, though, understanding that it was God's will. Functioning as a parent has brought out all kinds of curious insecurities and frustration triggers long dormant or until now hidden, and I've had ample opportunity to be disappointed in my own immaturity or frightful streaks of frustration or anger.

That is the preface.

Here is the body:

I understand my son, for the first time, these last days as the Person he is, instead of as the crazy little animal (yes I said it) I'm responsible for. In his intense discomfort during the teething last night, he was in Mama's arms, gnawing on his Nubby Ring (a little gel-plastic ring with water inside that can be frozen). I hovered close to him to give him a little TLC and attention, and he looked at me, removed the ring from his mouth, and held it up to my mouth. He was sharing.

Now I understand where ye skeptics might tell me I'm reading too much into this moment. I assure you, I am not. He did this several times. He chewed, took it out, held it up to me, and would not take it back to his mouth until I had had the opportunity to bite it myself.

I realize he started doing this first with his Elephant Blanket, the trunk of which he sucks on to soothe himself to sleep. I sing him a song or two at night, and give him the blanket to start sucking on. A few days ago, he took the blanket and pressed it against my face. I had an inkling then that he was trying to share, but I couldn't be sure. Seeing the ice ring sharing convinces me.

It's cliche to say this, but those moments of connection make worthwhile all of the good work, and intensify the regret for (and the resolve to never repeat) the foolish lapses that have caused me to misdirect my frustration at him.

He's not an angel. He will prove to be a willful, trying little boy...if only because of his curiosity. But he is tender. He wants to give of things he loves to those he loves.

The Unions

Growing up (and growing into my adult opinions) I've done the tango with the concept of labor unions and whether or not they're a good thing in the contemporary market or not.

The short answer is that they are and they aren't. Because people are both good and bad.

They're bad because they encourage and reward tunnel vision and self-service when any union racks up a record of strong negotiations. It becomes more about getting every dime that can be got than securing decent, fair wages and benefits.

That said, they are still indispensable...especially in my line of work.

I've been out of work (if you except the 4 days of work I had in May) for almost 5 full weeks. To that end, I've been actively cruising for work anywhere I can find it...to a point.

I consistently find productions that want to pay $10, or $30, or $50 for 8-12 hours of work. I know, I know, y'all that do labor intensive jobs or remarkable tedious things like office tasks would like to contend with my labelling of movies and TV shows "work". Take it from the ex-trucker: it beats digging a hole for a living, but it's not like getting paid to go to the day spa. Anyway, I find myself needing to reject these laughable rates purely on principle.

What's that you say? "Work is work"? Well, maybe, but let me explain. Minimum wage in California is $8 per hour. At the cost of living in this state, even $8 per hour is woefully inadequate to make a living. So apply that to $50. That's 6.25 hours of work. And these folks might hang on to you for 12 or 15 hours (especially if they're newbies and don't know what they're doing...which is often especially the case with the projects that offer to pay these rates). I just can't justify to myself the rightness of taking a $40 or $50 flat rate job (read: no overtime) because I'm desperate for cash. It'll only perpetuate the mindset that says, "Movies are so cool, you should be thankful you get to be in one!"

This is where AFTRA and SAG come in. They've negotiated these things out, so that people who aren't starstruck, and realize that people make a lot of money off of actors and extras, and would like a fair slice of the profit, can have a chance at that.

So I got paid for the fitting today, because a long time ago, the negotiating power of SAG got the studios to acknowledge that a fitting takes time that an actor could be using for some other kind of gainful employment.

Again, this can be carried too far. But let me point out that the multi-million dollar figures that big-name actors haul down on their movies are not SAG contract issues, they're negotiated individually by agents. SAG has a thing called scale, whereby you're paid a certain amount for the thing you're doing...to the extent that even the non-union members (like me) are granted some protection by SAG contract rules on a SAG show. I can only imagine what sets would be like for actors working on making a career.

All of this said, one more thing on this post:

SAG Membership, ratify the contract! Now is not the time for penny grabbing. Let's go to work!

Thank you, that is all.

The Fitting

I got a call last night from my calling service.

I have work.

It's 9 [probable] days on Iron Man 2 next week and the week after.

There was also a fitting. I went to that today. Only in Los Angeles can one drive 80 miles round trip for routine business. And you know what? It didn't feel like a pilgrimage. Either I'm getting used to it, or the massive sprawl that is the Greater Los Angeles Metro Area makes the whole thing seem like a shorter trip than it is. This is the route to and from:


View Larger Map

By comparison, here is a similar distance trip in the Minneapolis Metro zone.


View Larger Map

Now, maybe it's just me, but driving from Lakeville to Lino Lakes and back for a half-hour wardrobe fitting would seem a little excessive.

But Santa Clarita to Hawthorne? Sure! And I'm really not bitter about it. Some very nice people attacked me with a tape measure and then gave me some clothes. And I got two hours of base pay for it. So I grossed $16 on the trip. What I'll net, I don't know.

Another curious thing about today. Iron Man 2 will be my first major movie. To this end, it was a first to witness the size of the crew and the racks of wardrobe for the fitting. It makes a difference when the production has an 8 or 9 digit budget.

I took Sepulveda back for half of the trip (another iconic southern California street name) because 405 was a joke...but that's one of the little triumphs of being comfortable with driving and direction finding. It might not be any faster in the long run, but at least I don't have to clutch through four gears for forty straight miles.

Lessons learned today:
Big movies are big movies. Their quality is not so important to those of us actually working them. They provide many days of work. I am in no way impugning the potential quality of Iron Man 2.
I must find an alternate route in order to avoid the 405 north/5 north connector. Awful. Just awful.
Unions serve a purpose. This will be another post.
God is awesome. This will also be another post.

I'm just gonna go ahead and do this, and see how it turns out.
(Also, I'm kinda curious how many canned Christian Vocabulary Words I can collect in my comments from people don't know (and people I do).)

Here goes:

In an effort to actually know the book that I claim as a foundational element of my spiritual existence and my understanding of the world (and also in response to a new found respect for and interest in God as a high priority in my life) I've taken to [mostly] daily bible reading. It's a touch ad hoc, the bible such as it is, and because I'm not doing the "powerhouse" thing I usually try to do (which would be reading the silly thing from cover to cover). So I've ricocheted around the smaller epistles [letters] in the new testament, and kicked around a few chapters in Isaiah and elsewhere in the old.

Today, I think I started to land on study that draws more than a cursory portion of my attention. I opened the letter of James (right after Hebrews and before Peter's letters).

Let me just work through the personal poignancy of this stuff piece by piece. [NASB, for those who care]

1:2-3 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

I have heard this passage before. It always struck me as curious, but there's much of Christianity that is curious and counter-intuitive to our natural human instincts. But reading this entire sentence shed a whole new light on it. Who doesn't like endurance? And, assuming that you're interested in having faith, who wouldn't like faith with endurance? Eh?

I'm certainly in trial land right now. The long, lonely days of truck-driving, followed by the frenetic, uncertain months of Hollywood have been nothing if not trying...spiritually, financially, and relationally. I knew that it was to my benefit (somehow, somewhere, deep in my subconscious) but I could never invoke any actual biblical truth to back up that nagging suspicion. But now, there it is. "The testing of your faith produces endurance."

It gets better.

1:4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Now, I'm not going to pull out the concordance here. I'm not a Greek scholar. I'm not going to belabor this dual occurrence of "perfect". Suffice it to say this: whether or not James means "perfect" in the literal sense, it dawned on my that the point he's making is totally clear. Endurance of faith, like endurance of the body, evens out one's experience, so that it's consistent. Imagine a marathon. If your endurance is trained into you, you don't deviate from your pace, and subsequently avoid deviating from your path, not needing to stop. You can complete the course (a predetermined amount of time and distance) without stopping or quitting. In the sense of a temporal, finite thing, your endurance has afforded you a perfect and complete experience, and you haven't found yourself short on energy or capacity. I know it's not a flawless analogy, but it illustrates the point, no? My life is a bit longer and a bit more metaphysical than a marathon, but it is a certain, finite period. 1:1 is the ratio of death. So in that finite period, enduring faith affords me a more consistent (more perfect, if you will) spiritual and relational experience. There's less wandering around, wondering if I've got things figured clearly.

Speaking of wandering, the biography continues:

1:5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

Pretty categorical, right? Such confidence is definitely not contemporary or popular. There's more.

1:6 But he must ask in faith without doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

If "driven and tossed by the wind" doesn't describe my life for the last half-decade, I don't know what has. I've doubted every decision I've made, to one degree or another, at various times, pretty universally to my pain and detriment (not to mention to the pain and detriment of others). Put 5 and 6 together, and you get a pretty amazing concept. It's a concept I hereby resolve to put into practice, with God's help. Driven and tossed is for the birds.

Also, as a closer to the concept:

1:7-8 For that man [who doubts] ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

This elicited a burst of laughter as I read it. It might, at first, sound a little chilly. But it's simply true. It's not a judgement that James is casting on doubters, it's an observation of what happens in the doubter's mind. "Unstable", or its Greek equivalent, penned two millenia past, hits me square between the eyes. When I doubt that God will provide for me wisdom, clarity, guidance, and material sustenance, I am the epitome of unstable. Literally: when I, the writer, doubt, I, the writer, am horrendously unstable. Also, "double-minded" is a paint of my particular shade. Let me review (I could go back to previous posts and actually quote myself, but I'll spare you that): "I want to act. Do I really? Yes I do. God built me to do this. Really? Yes. No. Maybe. Maybe writing is better. Should I quit the acting and go for writing? Maybe. No. Yes. No. Maybe. Maybe I should chuck it all and go for something stable and responsible. No. Maybe. No. Maybe. Yes--no--maybe. A day job in S.California with writing on the side! Yes. Yes. Yes...."

No. Is it any wonder that God has to drop bombs on my life to get my attention? A random email arrives from an agency and the whole shootin' match is turned on its head.

Says God:
Act, dummy, it's what I put you there for. Do it, following My Word and My guidance and My example. Look at Me, and learn about Me, and remember that My glory is the reason you exist. Quit looking for the answers for why I sent you this way. The answer is always apparent in retrospect. The more you search for The Answer, the less you're trusting me, and becoming the beacon you're supposed to be.

So the money is tight, and I don't know what's coming in the future. I do know that our church, the leadership of which barely knows me from Adam (if you'll excuse the phrase) has seen fit to give us gift cards for groceries and gas. I also know that yesterday somebody happened to cancel their photo shoot on the 27th, and I got the bump up to that date (a full week earlier than before)...and only because I happened to call earlier that day to work out final payment on the shoot.

The reassurance that this is our path, wherever it eventually leads, is so strong that, for the very first time, I ask for the wisdom and strength to endure, and for the resources to pay my debts with no doubts or double-mindedness...perhaps it is somewhat because of my confidence in God that these blessings keep raining down. It's a pretty glorious chicken-egg scenario.

There's a final bonus. I've always doubted whether I could give God glory for any accolades that I might receive in my life. Not any more. If soever I'm blessed enough to be honored for my work, God is the first One to get props for it. I cannot now nor ever in the future deny that whatever comes in my life, it's Him that made it possible.

To close, a quote:

He that does not see the hand of God in this is blind, sir...blind. - General T.J. "Stonewall" Jackson

The man fought and died for a losing cause, indeed, we understand a flawed cause...but he knew something that most miss. God directs the purposes and actions of all mankind, whether right or wrong, to the fulfillment of His plan.

I write these posts, like most things shorter than a few pages, in a completely linear fashion. There's no preparatory outlining. I sense that, perhaps, if I modified my writing "style" to actually include some kind of disciplinary formatting and forethought, I might just write a bang-up blog. That said, I don't yet. So, let this paragraph serve as the awkward, totally disconnected cold-open for the event related paragraphs that follow.

My Facebook status says "Mark Saienga is represented." That is, that is what my Facebook status would read if Facebook still had status updates instead of the stream-of-consciousness twitter-rivaling blurbs they've got now. If I want to do stream-of-consciousness, I blog (see above). The "is represented" part is the interesting part.

I went to the meeting at MMi on Monday. It went well.

It went well.

I had to stare at that sentence long enough that I needed to re-write it. It feels like one of those sentences that needs so much unpacking, the contents seem impossible to repack after they've been examined.

Alicia always says, "I want a play-by-play!"

Perhaps that's best.

I had to take the 405 to Santa Monica Boulevard in order to get to their office. It struck me on the way down there, again, that I find myself on these iconic roads and at these iconic places as a part of my daily existence. It's good that there's a certain acclimatization that happens. If I didn't get somewhat used to it, I'd spend too much time geeking out to get anything done.

I found a parking spot, covered a short walk, and hopped on the elevator to MMi's 6th floor offices. I hung out in the lobby for awhile, reading the LA Times. I was early, as I chronically am, and was thankful for the entertainment section. When I'm anticipating something, I have a tendency to start to wonder if I've been overlooked or forgotten. That was hellish in the trucking days. Seven hour waits at the dock often reinforced that paranoia. I digress.

It was a businesslike place. That was intimidating at first, but then it made me more comfortable. If I'm looking for someone to find me auditions for well-paid work, I'd much prefer somebody businesslike than somebody trendy. Another intimidation factor that I ran into, both last Thursday and Monday, was my response to the presence of "pretty" people. Being an agency (technically, it's a management company, but for simplicity, I'll use agency) with "Model" in the name, MMi nets its fair share of models. Well, those people you see in magazines are only airbrushed so much. When you see somebody that could have just walked off the set of a Cologne spread, it's a little surreal. My personal response to that experience is to snap out a quick mental, "What the hell am I doing here?" One does not have to be a serious student of psychology to notice said response indicates a number of things about my confidence in my own physical appearance.

So I'm sitting in the lobby, reading the newspaper in order to allay my sense of insecurity. Nicolas comes into the lobby to give me the dime tour. He walks me around the halls of the floor, where each office houses two people, busily going about their work. They find print ads, commercials, TV and Film work for their clients. I understand that this walk-around is designed to impress me with the inherent diligence of the whole place. Such is only expected. They stand to make 20% of whatever I gross. They're already interested in me, and they want to let me know they're serious about what they're doing. They'd like me to sign on.

I take the presentation for a presentation, but I'm also listening to the little speech that Nicolas is giving me. First, he's speaking to me with an earnest and connected honesty. It's not a sales pitch. Second, he's hitting me with numbers that I've heard before. He's quoting typical compensation for different kinds of projects. He's not overselling those numbers, they're impressive by themselves. Then I get why we're doing this. They take shots on people with a look. Experience not required. Hollywood will take a look and teach it to perform. I'm sure they see people every day that haven't got the first idea what they're doing in Hollywood. It's their business model. Net the looks, and those that can function will function. It doesn't cost them a dime to take chances.

Now, some people might find this a bit off-putting. I actually like it. They weren't trying to conceal their system, or selling me a shovelful of manure about how special I was. I'm exactly as special as they think I am. I'm worth the offer. That's all I need sometimes. I know what my skill set is like, both for auditions and for performance. I'm digressing again. I'm digressing on the border of justification...and I haven't even finished the story.

Anyway. This is a company that takes in a larger number of unproven candidates in order to offset the number of unprovens that wind up basically flaking out. Nicolas looked at my ten best headshots. He talked to me, and paid attention to me. He erred on the side of caution in explaining things to me. Obviously, he deals with a lot of unrealistic and star-struck folks in his working day. Essentially he went out of his way to explain that MMi is exactly what I hoped it would be. They find the opportunities. I show up and capitalize. They get a cut. Perfect. I can't tell you how many people claim to do this, and then throw a little lime twist in there to make an extra buck.

Speaking of making an extra buck, here comes the part that all of you scam alarmists will scrutinize.

There's a package. It's a full-day photo shoot with a photographer (I've seen and like his work), a make-up artist, hair-stylist, and wardrobe consultant. It's $900. Those are the facts, ma'am. I chose to go for it, without a clue where that money will come from. Here's why:

My headshots, while good, are not as diverse as is necessary to really be viable in a broader market of print and commercial, plus theatrical TV and film. I know this. I knew this coming out of that first shoot in January. What those headshots did do was get me the interest from MMi. In the industry sense of things (if not in real cash, yet) those shots have just paid for themselves. To be offered a luxury shoot of the nature offered, for the price offered...it's hard to pass up. This is obviously an at-cost arrangement. MMi is brokering all of the elements, and not taking a dime of it for revenue. They also didn't require that I opt in to the shoot. That would have been a deal breaker. They simply offered it as a way to get me in as marketable a position as I can be, so that they can sell me to CDs, and make their 20% when I'm actually working. This makes sense to me.

So I signed on the dotted line. It's a non-exclusive, at-will agreement. They agree to find me auditions, and I agree to give them 20% of what I get paid. Have I written 20% enough yet? Sorry about that. The nature of the contract is also a cool thing. It's not a term contract, I'm not obligated to a year or two years. I'm also not obligated to give them a commission if I happen to find work through other contacts. This they do not have to do.

So I'm represented. I have a photo shoot date set for June 3. We have bills to pay. And the extra work has been dismal these last weeks. The combination of emotions invoked by the facts covered in the preceding four sentences would be the reason for any lack of jubilance you may sense in this post.

I can look forward to a serious broadening of my professional possibilities. I can look at the present and notice that I'm facing one of the harshest challenges of faith I've ever been through. I need to avoid freaking out and trying to make the money come. I need also to avoid second-guessing all of this. I need also to remember that God knew the fabric of my life before the foundation of the earth...and that He means well for me, in spite of me.

Case-in-point: We decided to opt out of the new apartment. In fact, we'd be moving in there tomorrow if we'd followed through...or, rather, not moving in, because there's no money for it. We decided to stay here, and reorganize (really reorganize) our lives around the three-person arrangement. With a new lease, we get $1000 to apply to discounting rent. We hadn't signed the new lease yet, mostly as a matter of oversight (and we'd not really been told it was ready). After Thursday, and the new understanding of a coming expense, we were in a perfect position to apply that discount money to June's rent. So, instead of owing $1200 tomorrow and $1450 on June 1st, we owe about $200 on June 1st. What a pass!

I have less doubt than I've ever had in an eventual positive outcome (incredible outcome, if I want to pick a really representative adjective), but I still fight with doubt that can grow monstrous.

If I'm really going to be honest with myself, I think the reason it's so hard to post here (especially these days) is because I'd rather ignore all this uncertainty until the storm is past. If I sit down here and hash it all out--go back and recall it, surmise what it means, and what it might mean--I have to cope with the associated emotion. And I have to cope with the emotion in a totally eletric, immediate way. Because it's all right here. Right now. This is my life.

I'm so on the cusp. It's clear to the point of pain. The future is so near, and my grasp of my God and myself is almost in line. The mechanisms are almost in place. I might just be able to start living my life without paralyzing doubt, without looking over my shoulder, and without mistrusting my every perception. But it hasn't happened yet. The puzzle is incomplete.

But the picture on the box is starting to show up in the placed pieces.