Prelude to the New Year...?

Wow. Time goes by so fast in between posts when I'm busy. It's nice, but I think I should post more often.

It's actually sucked having as much free time as I do. But the past week has been full of good times. It feels nice to be out doing things, and getting things done. I've made good use of a weekly planner I bought at Staples. The more I schedule things for the days ahead, the more I feel I have to do, and the more productive I feel when I get them done. Last Wednesday I went snowboarding for the day all by my lonesome. Why by myself? Well, all the buddies are busy with work and simply don't have the money and time to snowboard on a random weekday. Haha, the previous sentence makes me feel guilty. But hey, I took a break from school to be able to do things like this, and so I'm doing it. And no one I know is really as obsessed as I am about it. I had a good time and also made myself look sort of vain as I stood on the summit taking cell phone pictures of myself for facebook. I also took video of myself taking 4 jumps on a run. I probably looked weird holding a cell phone an arm's length away from my face as I flew through the air. But an AWESOME weird, which is in the end, just AWESOME.



I tried to go snowboard today also and try out a new ski resort that's only 45 minutes away from Los Angeles, but when I got there a lift had derailed a mere hour earlier because of high winds. Lame. So I drove back home. It worked out though because I grabbed my laptop and headed to the cafe I'm typing this post in. Happy face.

DATING...
So I haven't dated since I think... last Spring. The last girl was pretty cool actually. She was witty, smart, funny, and an avid skier. She travels, by herself, to a ton of different resorts in California every winter to ski(that's hot). In fact, our date was on the mountain, where we planned to meet for a drink after our respective days on the slopes were over. I knew her through a friend. She was about a year and a half older than me, but that didn't matter. Things were promising, and we continued to hang out and see each other. Things got a little complicated however when she turned out to be a boatload of self-sabotaging, crazy. She was like one of those people that need constant drama in their lives. Things will go smoothly, and that would be the exact point where they would try to add some UNSMOOTH into the mix, you know what I mean? I really have no tolerance or patience for people that can't enjoy life, so I broke it off pretty quick. It was pretty disappointing though, there was a lot of good qualities about her.

Anyway, my friend Bryan(Also the drummer for Morrownow) had a party last-last Saturday on the 12th. He was moving out of an awesome house he was renting a room in, and threw a moving-out party. The moment I walked in, a girl I recognized from one of his facebook photo albums(a very noticeable girl) was sitting on the couch with a friend I knew. I pretty much bee-lined to the couch to say "Hi" to my friend and took the opportunity to lock eyes with "noticeable girl"(let's call her "J"). We shot each other a long smile, and... I turned and left -- for the kitchen. Why did I leave? Well, my mentality was that I'd let our smile/moment marinate for a bit before I introduced myself. I know, I know, it sounds like some kind of ridiculous game. All in all, I think it is. So I saw the rest of my friends, and then worked my way back to that room and introduced myself. We had a little chat, and I told her I remembered her from Bryan's facebook albums. "Oh yeah? How did you remember me?" "You're pretty noticeable". *Giggle* Things went well besides the guy that she came with (that was supposedly platonic) that hovered around her every move. I left things off like that. The next day, I get a facebook add from her, and some back and forth chatting ensued. To fast-forward, we were supposed to have a coffee date tomorrow night at 8pm, but she suggested we reschedule to hang out on Saturday instead. And feel free to chime in with some advice or opinions, but Hmm... shall the coffee date turn into a dinner? Or should it stay a coffee date? The reason I even find myself wondering is because it's Saturday... and Saturdays are for you know, a more significant outing no? Should I suggest we do something more such as dinner and maybe a drink after?

12/23/09 - Update: Okay, so we both rescheduled tonight's date. It was mutual. She had some last minute shopping to do after she gets off work tonight, and I had a family dinner thing to go to. But now she proposed this:
"...it was busy which is good. Hey Bryan wanted to hang out this weekend should we all get together?"
-Bryan being one of my best friends, and both our mutual friend. He has a girlfriend, and his party was actually to celebrate moving out and in with his girlfriend. So I can only assume she means a double date. This suggestion kind of annoyed me honestly. It can either be read as just a simple suggestion, or beating around the bush. It's like if we're going to have a one on one date, let's do it and get to know each other, but now just it feels like hesitation on her end. OR maybe I'm just reading into it too much.

What do you guys think?

Baby steps...

Well, it seems that I'm on a new road. I think it's going to be filled with the usual potholes, turns, and speed limit signs life usually throws at us, but I think it'll always be heading in the right direction. That's all we can really ask for in life isn't it? To be facing and progressing the right way -- consistently? It's easy to spot certain people that most definitely took the wrong turn, and I don't want to be one of them.

I've taken the first baby steps in changing my life, and all I have to do is stay consistent. I've talked to my close buds about the crossroads I reached last week, and in turn they're supporting me and were also inspired. My most used line with them was, "I just don't want to be that old man that sits there regretting... not having done certain things in life, ya know?". That always hits home for them, and for me every time I hear myself say it. I think I'll write that into a script. It's good to see the people in your close support groups on the same page as you. It gives you confidence. I've written down the main goals and aspirations on a piece of paper and that paper is going to be in my face all the time. Literally, I'm going to tattoo it on my face. Just kidding. But if I did, that would be awesome... for a very short amount of time... like minutes... maybe an hour, at most. Anyway things are looking GREAT. It just FEELS great too. I've been running on my treadmill getting back in shape, which is a huge deal in my book by the way. I grew up an athlete, and for me having been idle for the past year without regular exercise, is as noticeable to me as a tattoo on my face would to you. A year and a half ago I was playing soccer 4 days out of the week at 3 hrs a day! And over the past year... I've done absolutely nothing. I surprised myself on the treadmill though because on my first day - Wednesday, after a 20 minute warm up walk, I pumped out a 10 minute mile no problem. And recently, I got through a whole chapstick without losing it! Clearly, I'm amazing. Clearly. I also have my snowboard waxed and ready to go, I'm going to start going to Sunday night soccer scrimmages again, I'm writing, I'm managing my friend's band, "Morrownow", etc.! There's a lot going on to keep me busy. I just have to ride this wave of activity and keep a focus of consistency... Wish me luck guys, and I wish the same for you.

Recent Progress with the band:
I got them a photo-shoot with a VERY experienced, and professional photographer, Joseph Linaschke. He just got done shooting the singer/artist Seal in Concert in Europe recently. Here's a couple of group photos of all of us together after the photo-shoot was done. Joseph is in the bottom-center holding the camera(of course). Yours truly, is on the far right (I'm the most yellow). If you're interested in the progress of the band, check out their blog (which is mostly written by me) at www.MORROWNOW.com

Crossroads...

(Long post ahead)

Crossroads...

Nah, I'm not talking about that shitty movie Britney Spears was in, I'm talking about those certain events in life that make you really think about your past, present, and future all at once to the point life itself feels overwhelming. I think the crossroads/curveballs life throws at you once in a while is what makes and shapes us. We've just got to figure out which road to take or whether or not we should swing the bat the way we've been swinging it. It's like life gets really smooth and consistent, and all of a sudden you're hit with some event that flips you upside down. Clearly, I'm at one of those times, or shall I say just now passed the crossroads, onto a... new road?

Life seems to plateau sometimes and that's when you know you need a change. For some people I believe, it plateaus and just stays there. That's sad to me. But when people do reach a crossroads, I think it forces them to reach some sort of epiphany, some sort of realization about themselves and it contributes to which direction they take their lives. I think that's what life is all about, always growing/evolving as a person. I've found the road I'm taking, I think.

A couple of nights ago, when I reached my own metaphorical crossroads, I found myself literally at an intersection on the streets of Los Angeles. It was 2 AM and the streets were empty. A significant and rare thing because it's LA -- there's always cars. I just thought of how common car accidents were for a second and thought, "If I were to die in a car accident... now or like tomorrow, what would people say about me? What would they read at my funeral? What would my friends say about me in the eulogy?" "...Oh Brent was an ambitious guy with lots of asipirations... etc."? Which made me realize -- Ambition and dreams. That's all I have. That's the problem. I would just be one of the few that get into fatal car accidents in big cities everyday. Insignificant. I mean yes, we're all pretty insignificant in this huge universe of ours, but I'd like to be significant to my friends and family, and I guess... leave something behind? A legacy perhaps? And that itself, made me feel insignificant. I have no legacy, no by-product of "Brent's existence", there is no end result of ME. I wouldn't leave anything behind besides the memories my friends and family have of me, and my carbon footprint(Sorry EARTH, I didn't live long enough to make it up to you. I meant to buy a Prius, I swear!). I want to leave something behind.

My epiphany was: I refuse to believe only certain people are talented/gifted in some way. I think every single person has a talent/gift proposed to them at least once in their lifetime that they are capable of. Maybe some people are walking around who would've had this talent of playing the piano, but never pursued the instrument besides that one month of piano lessons when they were a kid. If they had, they'd probably be amazing by now and realized it long ago, but their cards just didn't play out like that in their lives. Maybe they just grew up never realizing their talent because they never had the opportunities to pursue it, or even see the value in it. It could be a million situations. I just know that either way, all people have the ability to do something well. Sometimes people are just out there pursuing the wrong thing (i.e. 99% of American Idol tryouts). I feel lucky to have realized some of my strengths, and that's where my legacy fails. I'm not doing anything with it. I'm not practicing it. I think it's like a sport, you need to train, train, train, practice, practice, practice, until you reach that level where it's... significant? I mean, I guess it doesn't even have to be a talent, it can be anything. It's hard for me to see or hear people talk about how much they hate their 9 to 5's, or how they didn't go for their dreams in one way or another. I realized it's because we're all lazy. And by lazy I also mean scared. We might be the people that just didn't get that extra boost of confidence from some random, past, life event for us to just go for it. We just sat on it, burying it under our couch cushions and never made our move because we were afraid of getting up and failing. All that buried under our couch cushions along with some change. The way life has been zipping by for me, even now I can see how short life can be -- especially if a random car accident can take it away from you. I'm so afraid of being that old man that lives the rest of his days with regrets, but I'm also afraid of failing. But then again, never trying is failure in itself right? So that's like a... Super fail. I think we all just need to grow some huge mental balls/ovaries and just go for whatever we think will make our lives more whole. There are so many things for me and I feel like I'm wasting huge chunks of them. I have plans. I have dreams. I have abilities. I'm not using or acting on them.

I NEED TO. NOW. Do you?





Get crackin'.

Looking up...

Another busy week for me. It's been great though, I'm loving having something to do each day. It brushes the "monotonous-rust" away that's been building up during this past, uneventful, unproductive, summer.

I feel like I talk tons about my friends in my posts. I guess that just shows how close and how much a part of my life they are. My family for instance, I almost never see any throughout the year. I wish we were like the families in the movies where we would all see each other for the holidays, or at least on some random, consistent basis. But to be honest, and for example, I haven't spoken to my closest-located relative -- my cousin (also named Brent, I know, how original of my mother), since his brother's wedding this past June. I think I posted about the wedding too. He's busy with his growing toddler, wife, and new job. I understand. But that's where lies our family's characteristic of it "being ok" not talking to each other for however many months at a time. I always mean to call him, but simply forget. It's just how it is.

Be right back, steamed crab awaits...

Okay. So as I was saying... Since my family isn't the typical family, well... the bottom line is I appreciate my friends a lot, and I have a good group that I rely on, and can rely on for the rest of my life. We all go through our troubles and hardships, and we've been there for each other. It's just a naturally difficult period of time in our lives at the moment, and I'm glad I have them around. Needless to say, these close friends I'm talking about are also members of the band I am "managing". It just makes the situation all the more fun, exciting, and motivating. I love it. We hang out and do our normal thing, but all of a sudden, we have this major commonality between us to talk and get enthusiastic about together, besides the norm... girls. It's been tons of fun making things happen and setting things up. I got a band photographer, and now we're looking at a small club called the Dragonfly as their first gig in a few weeks. Also in a few weeks, they're going to record a three-song demo in a studio. With that, I can shop it around and get better gigs for them, thus increasing their fan base. That's all it is right now anyway, building up a significant fan base that will actually come out to shows.

We were filming a band interview video and they snapped this picture of me. They said I look very "Mr. Manager".





Not much else going on really. I'm going to get myself up in the mountains soon since it's snowing now, and surf the mountains a bit. The first snowboarding trip of the year will probably motivate a whole post, and will inspire the usage of a camera while I'm there of course.

Honesty Scrap Award #2...

Herro! Well I've been pretty busy and productive the last few days... and I LOVE IT. It's been a great change from the usual... nothing I've been doing a lot of. The managerial duties of the band has really been coming around full circle, and things are really coming into shape. We have all of our networking up, I shot about 2 hours of video footage last night at their practice, and I'm currently editing it into an Introductory kind of video for the sites/fans. It gives an inside-look to the personalities of the guys, and the group as a whole. The plan now is to make a 3-song demo which will be done in about a few weeks to a month or so, and with a studio we have previous experience with is already lined up and ready to go for that. Since the band's sound is so unique, we're doing our best to search for other bands as similar as possible so we can play a "premier" show with them. Needless to say, it's pretty hard looking for these certain bands. I've been so busy doing all these things in fact, I'm on TWO computers at the moment. I know, I'm pretty amazing. You know what else is amazing? I just recently got through my SECOND chapstick all the way through without losing it! Please, don't hold your applause.

Something else in my world of 2nds...



I've recently received my 2nd Honesty Scrap Award! The first time I received it was last January. What's with the "Scrap" part of the award? I don't get it. Anyway. From the last time I received the award, it was given to people who write honestly in their blogs. But from the rules below, you can see this has upgraded to "brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you". Cool. I must be the bomb diggity. Anyways, I'd like to thank Jill at her great blog, Life After College for giving me the award. Much appreciated, and I dig the acknowledgment whole-heartedly.

The Rules of the Award
1) Thank the person who gave the award and list their blog and link it.
2) Share "10 Honest Things" about yourself.
3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.
4) Tell those 7 people they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving the award.


*My 10 Honest Things About Myself*
(Dude. This is hard. I have to look at my answers from before so I don't write the same answer twice.But a lot has changed from a year...)
1. I'm almost always late. I'm never late to the important things, but usually to the "regular" things. When I say I'll be there at 10:30pm, expect me there 10:45pm. Depending on what we're doing of course. Just know I cut it pretty close.
2. I used to be very insecure about my looks in high school. Wasn't that the time almost everyone was though? I find peace in that, but I never found peace in how I was about 40lbs. overweight. So I lost it all in college. Now I'm sexy.
3. I'm a very competitive person and very team-oriented. I don't like to lose. It all stems from growing up playing team sports all of my life. I'm like... meant to succeed in team-dynamic situations.
4. I like "chick-flick" movies. I LOVE rom-coms(romantic-comedies). "The Proposal"? Watched it. "The Ugly Truth"? Watched it, loved it. I just think they're crazy entertaining. That's what they're meant for, so enjoy.
5. I have a promise to myself to one day perform stand-up comedy and invite all of my friends. They all tell me to do it, so one day, they're going to get a random, surprise invite.
6. I never get enough sleep when I'm in school. I'll stay up even when I'm tired. I feel like... bored or something. Like I'm wasting time, or didn't do enough with my day besides school to justify sleeping and wasting the hours. It's weird and I can't put a finger on the exact reasoning behind it all. But yeah, I'm usually running on only 6 hours of sleep at most when I'm in school. It's terrible.
7. The plan is to go to Cal-State Northridge. But I just can't see myself living out in the valley... Eww. If you guys ever watch the HBO show "Entourage" and they talk about the "valley", it's true. It's just gross out there to me. It's 10 degrees hotter, flatter, boring, and just, eww. I grew up in central Los Angeles all of my life, and can't see myself out in Northridge. Gross.
8. If I wasn't pursuing writing as a career, and screenwriting for my degree, I'd probably pursue something in Marketing. I know what the people want!
9. I can't stand rude people. Assholes, jerks, whatever you want to call them. I have absolutely NO tolerance. We come across people everyday, and you're bound not to like a few, and those are my few. If a person doesn't have the decency to treat people right, they don't deserve any room in anyone's lives. Bottom line.
10. This one is sort of recycled from the last year: My friends = family. I say this because I never grew up with much family around. Everyone was far away. It was usually just my Aunt and I. If you've been around my blog for even a few reads, you'll see how much I mention my friends. It's because they've been around since childhood. The closest friends I hang out with now, are truly the closest friends I've been around since childhood. Two I've known since I was 4 years old. I've known almost all of my closest friends since at LEAST 8 years old. That's a long time. We all consider each other brothers, and I love them all. They'll be around for the rest of my life. Just my friends in general, are good quality people. The weeding process just happens naturally, you know how it is. I surround myself with good people.

The 7 people/blogs I present "The Honest Scrap Award" are in no particular order:
1. Melanie at Melanie's Randomness
2. Jeanette at Cooler Ranch or Nacho Cheese?
3. David at The Rest Is Still Unwritten
4. Match me, please
5. Anne at stream-of-consciousness
6. Priscilla Ahn's brand new blog at Girl In A Tree (A crush on her helped with this choice. Refer to an old post: http://brentthewriter.blogspot.com/2009/01/windows-and-dreams.html)
7. Jen at Welcome to the Jungle - Another aspiring screenwriter in Hollywood. Cool.

Band Progress...

Wow, it's been a week already?! It only feels like a few days have gone by.

Well let me tell you, I've lived out a pretty exciting and busy past week. I don't have much of a productivity problem at the moment. Lots of free time still, but now I actually need the time. My friend's band that I've been "managing" are taking their first steps to getting their name out there and start gigging soon. We're not brand new at this in the least. Everyone in the band has had years of performance experience, and Josh lead a band himself for over a year. I was along for the ride since the beginning from where he first picked up a guitar, so I actually have an idea of what to do also. The book "All about the music business" the apparent "bible" to all things music business has been pretty helpful the past week too.

The band's name is "Morrownow". I've been setting up about 5 of their networking websites in the past week. It's actually a lot of work trying to keep up and network consistently on them. They also have a blog, under the newly purchased "www.morrownow.com" domain (We're pretty proud of that and giggled like little girls). I've been waiting on some personal bio info from the band members before I update their blog. Hmm what else... Yeah, setting up their facebook page, twitter, myspace, and youtube. The myspace existed for a long time before, but now custom HTML website coding is in the works for it. In fact, there's a whole list of "to-do's" for each of these sites that I had to write it all down. Either way, it's keeping me busy and I love that. This band has a lot of potential, and what motivates me the MOST, besides their blatant talent, is how we're all close friends already. Josh, probably my closest and best friend from childhood, Jason, whom I've known since high school -- also part of my "closest friends" group of buddies, and Bryan, also in that group. We all consider each other brothers. Tom, the bassist, is brand new to our group but is an awesome guy with the personality to match. He fits right in. I think all of us being actual close/best friends with each other makes us unique, and I think that quality will carry us a long way.

They want to start playing gigs in the next few weeks. I have my role to play for that. "Mr. Manager". But like I told them, I want/need to earn that title.

As for regular things, I think that phase of not going out to bars lately is slowly tapering off. I don't think I'll ever get back up to 4-5 nights out a week again, but I definitely will be using my weekends. There's just this "urge/craving" to go out again. I don't know what it was, but the bottom line is I went out both nights this past weekend. A college party on Friday ngiht, and then checked out a cool new bar in Downtown LA called the "Seven Grand" with Josh and another buddy on Saturday night. The place was really cool, and will probably be my default hangout from now on. It's a step up in maturity level too, and I think that's what all of us were looking for.

If you have facebook, myspace, twitter, and of course -- a blog, I hope you'll support Morrownow. We're just trying to get off the ground at the moment and network a bit. Plus, the blog should be interesting as it's a behind-the-scenes look to a fresh new band on the road to "making it".

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Halloween 2009...

I just went back and read my Halloween 2008 post. Wow. A year already. I love this time of year though. The holidays roll around, the weather gets cooler, and the colors of fall pop. Snow starts falling, and personally for me, it gets me way excited -- an erection of happiness in my brain for a new season of snowboarding.

So Friday night, the night BEFORE Halloween... My friend Josh, the one that subtly looks like Heath Ledger and can do the Joker impersonation, got us to be his bank robbing, clown posse from the movie, "The Dark Knight". Basically, the whole night was for Josh. We joked around with him saying, "Yeah man, you're going to need to buy us all of our drinks tonight because we're nothing but character support for you". Needless to say, we were a HUGE HIT on Cahuenga Blvd. Bar Row in Hollywood. We had plastic guns, and we would "escort" the Joker from bar to bar, clearing the way for him. We wore suits, and one of us was in regular street clothes (the clown that drove the bus into the bank). Yup, we went all out. We must be in 20 different people's facebook albums by now. We were taking pictures with random people everywhere. Josh had a makeup artist friend help him out with his makeup, and he looked the part. He didn't have time to go out shopping for real clothes to match the Joker's, so he just wore the parody costume from a costume shop. But it wasn't a big deal, he looked enough like him anyway. He got all of the attention of course, as we expected.


All of us.

Why so serious?

Josh

On Saturday night, it was slightly more toned down for some reason. I was an 80's Marathon Runner. I forgot to take pictures while I was at the party, but there are pictures below in the pre-party stages. It was a warehouse party in this industrial place in Santa Monica. It was cool. It was outdoors, and it was clearly in an actual warehouse that manufactured carts/bikes I think. It was an open bar for just a $10 admission fee. I came a little late and got in for free, SCORE. Anyway, it was super-crowded and packed and it was a pretty good time. We left at what we thought was 1:30AM only to be fooled by daylight savings time. We headed over to a friend's place right on the Venice Beach boardwalk, and hung out there for a small after party. Cookies, popcorn, and old school hip hop ensued. I called it a night not too long after I got there though. It was so-so. Overall, I had a great weekend. Here I am:






I think I'm going to hit the gym again, try to gain the muscle mass I lost over the past two years and then get additionally, super-buff so I can be a "300" Spartan for Halloween next year. Haha, yeah, not for health or any "real" reasons -- JUST to be a Spartan for next Halloween. That's New Year's Resolution #1.