As your mother tells you, and my mother certainly told me, it is important, she always used to say, always to try new things.

The best part of any week has got to be going to see your therapist. It's like the day just goes from annoying to annoying and complicated. So many emotions swirling around in your head, so many different options to choose from, including not going back to your therapist. I don't know, I sometimes feel that my shrink isn't that interested in helping me to really unravel the grey matter. Maybe it's just me and I've watched too many movies with shrinks and I think that they're supposed to really get into your dome. Maybe my shrink is doing what needs to be done: prodding me along in the general direction of figuring out myself. How funny, the same mechanism that you're trying to figure out is the  doing the figuring. Odd little thing, the brain. No one really knows how it works or, more importantly, why it works but dammit if it don't keep hummin' along nonetheless. I sometimes think I should check out of the world for awhile and hole up in some sort of ashram and just sit for a year or two, just to see what happens to my brain. Will it stop bugging me? Will it calm down? Will I calm down? Who knows, but I'll never do it, I'm too responsible and boring to do anything that extreme although Patron comes close. Hmm, I need a new phone as I've just dropped my into the sink and it's now dead. Lovely.

Peace out, bitches!

Come and live with me in peace and safety, away from all the Wangdoodles and Hornswogglers and Snozzwangers and rotten Vermicious Knids.

Ah, vacations start and end so very quickly. I worked my ass off on Shrink, got insulted for $1600 on a commercial directed and shot by a couple of lame-ass Germans and then BAM! The next thing I know I'm at Disneyland with Melah, Bog, and Lazlo. Joy. Joy of joys we danced down Main Street straight into Tomorrowland and never looked back until we were dancing down Main Street back to the car, our pockets loaded with trinkets and our wallets all but ghost towns. So it goes in the Magic Kingdom®: Walt's dirty Nazi minions and assorted fascist followers wow you with the Indiana Jones ride and the Matterhorn and all the while they're taking money out of your pockets. Still, once every decade it is fun and this time was way more wholesome then the time I went in college on a head full of acid. Tea cups, hooray!

BAM! Next thing I know I'm hiking around the Los Padres National Forest with a gun in my hand tracking wild hogs. The dog did well in that he didn't get lost or die so what more can I expect from his first official hunting trip. It might have gone differently if we had seen any hogs but hey, that's why they call it hunting and not shopping. Melah hung tough out in the bush for two days as well. What a sight: high water floods and combat boots and a runners hat! That's my girl, no sense of fashion. We took a long walk in the mountains and I learned something: No hunting boars on steep hills again! Next time I'm finding some rolling hills next to some agriculture and posting up. There will be blood!

Peace out, bitches!

My god! Do we really suck or is this guy really that good?

This is a photo of me next to some sign, working on the second to last day of Shrink. The important thing about this photo is the hill behind the sign. Notice its steepness and distinct lack of footholds. Yes, it's a fine hill and we had to carry our gear down it and, more importantly, up it. Also notice the rather large camera the pot-bellied gentleman to my right is carrying. I humped that thing up and down the hill with what  was later called "mountain goat style." In other words, while everyone else was bitching and moaning and wheezing and using a climbing harness, I simply strolled down the hill and back up the hill like there were fucking stairs. I'm not writing this to toot my own horn but simply to illustrate that most of the people I worked with on Shrink were total pussys.

Thank god it's over.

Peace out, bitches.

Last night, Darth Vader came down from planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn't take Lorraine out that he'd melt my brain.

I am at my wits end with this fucking movie but I will refrain from freaking the fuck out because I know I'm short. Three more days counting later on today. Three more days and I can get back to The World. I've already hooked up a commercial gig for Monday and Tuesday and it seems so sweet: $575 for 12 and it's cash. Cold hard cash and in two days of work I'll get more than I've been making in a week on Shrink. Fuck features unless I'm shooting the damn thing.

I did do a shot that I'm very proud of: a long ass, complicated move on Steadicam and not only did I pull focus but we had six iris pulls that had to be hidden in the moves and whatnot. Not too shabby, kids, not too shabby at all. We were at a really cool Malibu house on the point next to Barbara Streisand's house and it was supposed to be an "industry" party complete with hippy drum circle, topless chicks (all ugly, oddly enough), and people being weird. Totally ridiculous but sort of funny. The shot is going to look awesome and hopefully someone will see it and think, "Hey, I need to hire me that their focus puller for my next gig!" Probably won't happen but I can dare to dream that some good will come out of having gone through the suck for five weeks.

Shower time and off to Beverly Hills for some more mediocrity.

Peace out, bitches!

He's been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far much more bitter, cynical sense of humour.

We wrapped Kevin Spacey today and I'm a little sad about that, he was cool. He's also one of my favorite actors. When they wrapped him today I told him it had been an honor and he smiled and gave me a hug and said thank you. Nice guy. A little bonkers but basically a nice guy. He will be missed.

Other than that I got run into a  couple pieces of furniture while running backwards on a hand held shot that should have been Steadicam and I got hit in the face with the camera. My whole body fucking hurts and I'd really love to have a couple of shots of Patron and call it a night but I have to be on Zuma at noon. Oh, it's 3am right now. Good times on Shrink. We decided the camera department shirt should simply say, "Off is better." As in "off this fucking job." Supposedly the last two days are going to be single camera and no one wants to do those days. We're trying to devise a fair method of deciding who gets to get totally fucked for two heavy days of shooting but I know it's going to be me. I'm the DP's guy so I guess I'm fucked. Par for the course and that's just how it goes.

Damn, my jaw hurts and the dog is whining so I'm going to bed.

Peace out, bitches.

This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Haven't posted in awhile but you haven't missed much: painful camera positions, painful scheduling, painful long days and painful poor planning and execution by the brain trust. I did manage to stay sober all week which doesn't sound like much but did take a bit of effort. This job is basically an affront to all I hold dear about the business I'm in and it hurts. I came home every night and did yoga and walked my dog and tried to read some good books. I'm currently mired in Pynchon's last book and it's kicking my ever wandering mind to no end. Anyway, Melah and Ani surprised me one night by randomly showing up and making dinner, which was nice. Most of time, however, has been spent getting peeled on Shrink, the little movie that couldn't but somehow, against all that is holy, managed to do it. And wreck everyone's lives.

I had a nice weekend which started off with Sandow (the A-cam 2nd) and I getting a little gacked out and drinking a bottle of damn fine chardonnay while waxing poetic about the world in which we work. Totally fun and ridiculous. I slept for the rest of the day and realized I really needed to do so as my body basically rebelled against the very idea of getting up and being productive. I think I'm slowly being killed by a movie, I think it's doing it on purpose. Shrink is a murderer! Eventually I got up and managed to make it out to the Lodge for Rock and Roll Bingo and dammit, that was worth it! I love that bar and its patrons. Bunch of scum bags and freaks and I miss them right now. Today was great- sleep in and then surf all day and polish it off with a delightfully silly dinner at Taylor's with Bean. Steak house frozen in time, eh? Sounds intriguing, let me get my cool hat. Too bad I have to work tomorrow.

So, that's the long and short of it as I'm too tired to regale all two of you with tall tales of stupidity and mendacity from the makers of Shrink. If I survive I'll fill you in on the stupid.

Peace out, bitches!

Hey, did you see th-the way he went SAILING right out there?

Oh my gawd! It's 12:40am and I'm a little ( a lot, who are we kidding!) buzzed on a school night and I just have to say: I threw a rock at sound department after they made us wait an hour because they couldn't sack up and push their cart up the hill we pushed our shit up, Kevin Spacey called me "the meanest 1st AC" he'd ever met (he was smiling), we schooled our annoying intern, I told the director I was going to quit if he didn't stop yelling at us for doing our jobs, and as I left the bar a song came on that said "What the hell am I doing drinking in LA." Oh my, oh my, life in LA on this movie, and in general in this business, is a collection of wonderful non-sequitors  and bullshit. I hate this movie, the director is a hack, I've missed out on about three thousand dollars and several days off and I'm so tired and over it that I don't care! I think I'm shell shocked or some shit. Ha ha haha a ahaha aha ahahahaha aah haaaaaaaa! Kill me now, you jackasses! Nice, the Sex Pistols just popped up on the radio. Also, I'm in the parking lot by Starfucks because AT&T still hasn't sent me my replacement modem. Life is good.

Peace out, bitches!