SPEW :: to mugsy moss

Tis me, girl! It’s been long time, no? Christ, where do I begin? I dont even know the last time I saw you!! Must have been around spring of 91 when you were living with M. Klein…after the Campus House scene. A lot of time, Mugsy…many a moon. I’ll just start with a stream of consciousness, and hope that it ends with something that may or may not be susinct and to the point about how well I’m doing…here in Northern California. Here goes….

CHAPTER ONE: social life
From Spring 91 on, I was, what some people would call, a frat boy. Not in appearance or festive engagements, but I did buy into the whole thing. Literally. And it’s not to say that I was a loose cannon, but I was in dire need of some discipline. Pledgeship was pretty close to the hellish rumors that you’d hear, but that was alright. I was having a really good time and the cats that I was in it with were and still are some of my very best friends. Ever hear Michelle K. talk about her friend from NoCal named Zafo? Do you know him? He was in the house as well. Well, she introduced me to him, and we just hit it off. Did the whole fraternity thing FULL FORCE for probably close to a year. Lived in the house for a year. Dated me a woman who eventually became my best friend for years. I really was enjoying it. I still had my “other” circle of friends whom I saw very often, while I still had this “straight” circle with the house. And I was still VERY active with the vehicles for the expansion of my mind…a ritual that I (we) had begun back 3 semesters previous.

CHAPTER TWO: love
Things with the fraternity way of life started to wane when Zafo and I moved in together, and we started to date these two women who also became very good friends. Margo, I was in love for the first time, and I fell deep. Really hard. Her name was Andrea, and I met her over the summer while we both live at University Heights. That pool during those summers can really spawn some elaborate &/or decadent yarns. It was the first time that I poured myself into a woman and found, in addition to the whole return-ing of those feelings and all that goes with that… but I found maturity. A woman who knew what she wanted. Also, it was the first time that either of us went “exploring” …if you know what I mean. We were inseperable in every sense of the term… at least as far as our intellectual levels were capable of. How much of a long-view did we think we were capable of? Anyway, things went hinkey after about a year. We broke up violently in May, but continued to play with each other in an extra cirricular fashion all that summer… again while living at University Heights. She was graduating that winter. Things from the end of summer until she graduated slowly petered out. But the most expansive plus sign from all of this dragging out of our relationship was that we became very close… close enough to be giving advice to each other about issues that would’ve caused fights 6-8 months earlier.

CHAPTER THREE: career spark
I have no idea how my head got screwed on so tightly. I was not at all that geared towards any one thing, and my work ethic, as it pertained to the classroom and the collegiate environment, was C average. The SALT program said I had ADD. I told them to fuck off and attempted to prove them wrong. Still dont know the outcome of that one. Anyway, I was drawn towards all things audio/visual, so I declaired Media Arts and went at it like a rabid dog. I took intenships, I took student jobs as cameraman, sound tech for my friends band “Glass Candles” and “Common House” and I was to find out from my professors and the grades they gave me, that I had a knack for editing. One particularly hard-edged professor (Beverly Seckinger) was reported to be one who only gave out one A+ per semester on the grand editing project. I got an A+. It’s called “BULLET” I’ve heard that I should send it in to MTV or something like that, but I’m too humble… and its far too violent. Ask Fortin, he’s seens it. So with expereince starting to gather under my belt, I began to fill my head with History, which was my minor. History of England for 4 semester, Japanese cinema, German cinema, German documentary, etc. I finally graduated after the summer of 94. It was during that summer that a western was being shot out at Old Tucson, and I got on the set, and that very day, I had an intership with the Art Department building sets and helping out with the props department. That soon lead to a paying position as the Props Assistant for the overall shooting schedule. Most fun I ever had. They LOVED the way I worked. I would get their shit done before they ever asked and I would do it with a smile and a joke. Looking back on it now, that was the first time I remember me at work. I worked so fucking well and I never ONCE thought: “OH CHRIST!! this is hard.” or “this sucks” or “I wish I was elsewhere.” Even when I was doing the shit-work, I was doing it in a flash with a smile. I would almost look at it as a neurotic thing if i still didnt have this work ethic…having brought it to LA. See, it was born there…this idea that: if I dont bust my fucking ass at something, not only was it not done right, but it surely wasnt worth it. Besides, I was at a point in my life where I was avidly seeking communal with the desert… more so than ever in all my years of being raised in AZ. I would, drug-free sometimes, wander out into the desert at sunset with just the shirt on my back… foolishly without essentials for susstainibility out there after dark… for HOURS. The production company, which was based in LA, wrapped the western on the very same day that my summer school class… MY LAST CLASS had its final. So, it’s May 12, 1994… I’m at the wrap-party out at old tucson, and they’re all buying me shots… even the director… who hated everybody. And it was he that gave me the job. See, as the Props Assistant, I was under the Art Director, Dave Blass, who was always “right there” with the director, for his vision had to be authentic, and it was the Art Dept who had to make everything look “period.” Like all directors and art directors, they were perfectionists. They liked my eye for continuity. I mean, here I was a pee-on college film-school graduate working HARD for peanuts, and it would be ME who yelled “WAIT!!! He had the cigar in the other hand on the last pickup!!” I guess they appreciated how ballsy I was. They asked me my immediate plans… I said to move out to LA and find a calling in the motion picture industry… they said that I was to start mid-september.

CHAPTER FOUR: intentional community of angels ironically called a “city”
So I worked on their film for almost 8 weeks. I worked 15-18 hour days for two months on a non-union film… that means that I’m payed a flat-rate for my services no matter what kind of hours i put in. After 12 hours, california law would kick in demanding the production provide a second or even a third meal. The law also stated that no matter what hour the set wrapped for the day, we were to be given a 12 hour turn-around. So, picture this: Getting to the set at 6am, working until 11, Midnight, or later…and then having to come back to work at like noon the next day, working until 5 or 6am, and then repeating those same steps over again. Ever hear of “circadian rhythms?” Know what happens to the soul when they’re fucked with? But, the money was good, and the Art Director opened up his wing for me to get under… and I followed him (Dave Blass) to about 4 other productions. I cut my teeth so to speak. Little did I know, I was shedding those layers of the onion that I no longer needed, and getting to the core activities. I have an analogy for just about everything, and this was no exception: I’m on a highway driving along. Its pretty well fogged in. I’m driving at my own pace despite all the other activity and distractions on the highway and yonder. I keep taking a series of off-ramps… never the same one twice. The off-ramps, if nothing else, afford me the chance to look around… at how far I’ve come and just gain some supplies before I get back on…head back down that road towards….? See, the highway is my life: travelled at my own pace…. REGARDLESS. The offramps, are the punctuation marks of employment and experience in my life. These individual on-set motion picture jobs were individual off-ramps while I followed one little caravan. And once I realized, that after 6 months and 4 production schedules, that I wanted to be on the “post-production” end of the motion picture industry, I merged once again back on that hiway. What, according to the analogy, would be miles, I call resumes and interviews. This very computer allowed me to FAX 120 resumes to the multitude of post houses in the LA area. I had some amazing interviews… ones that raised my spirits and my esteem more than I can ever put into words. I mean, thats what “good” interviews are supposed to do, right? Even you dont get the job… the images that you put yourself into as you fantacize about your potential IN that job do wonders for the next interview. All this so long as you dont fawn over one particular position. NEVER let yourself be crushed.

CHAPTER FIVE: born to edit?
Of all those resumes and interviews, the one that hire me on the spot was the one that I really wanted. In hindsight, I really should have been more persistent at the ones where I KNEW they were doing more cutting edge stuff. If only I knew then what I know now, JUST about market presence, I’d have generated custom cover letters and told them I’d work for free. But as it was, this job, called E.P. Graphic Productions was where I was at that time. I wanted an environment where someone would let me off the proverbial leash and let me have at it. Those other hi-end houses would have me answering phones for 3 month before they EVER let me out of the cellar. So, my new boss, Eddie Pong (EP), a 6 1/2 foot millionaire Chinaman wise in the spritual ways of his heritage owned and operated an outfit of 5 people (including me) to produce commercials for the Asian market… both over there and right in LA… from pre to post production… everything. There was no stigma to the Asian-market nor was there any shame in the benchwarming I’d have to to inbetween covering multiple bases. I did so much for these guys that they just kept giving me more to do. It was a true symbiotic relationship. I would get paid to go spend the entire day scouting locations – from waterfalls in Topanga Canyon to house interiors in Orange County to Pub fascades in San Pedro. To price stock footage and to book telecine sessions. To hold casting sessions for Cantonese, Mandrin, Japanese, Korean, or Thai voice-overs. Oh yea, I also made the coffe and picked the Hong Kong Honchos up from the airport. Although the outfit was small, they were heavily funded. The accounts that we had just while I was there included Sprint, Northwest Airlines, Sumitomo Bank and Guiness Beer. There was even a time when Ogilvy & Mather / China (the Guiness chaps) were going to fly the 5 of use to Malasia to oversee second unit production. And going anywhere NEAR this guy’s homeland would have been a hands-on lesson in the ways of truly progressive travel. I took many a semester in Asian history, and he nudged my admiration for all aspects Oriental. Like I said, they loved the way I worked. I just love the what I was working. In my cover letter, I stated that I wanted to gain as much knowledge as posible in both 3D computer generated images/animation as well as non-linear editing, which is the process of “digitizing” film or video onto computer hard-disk and manipulating frames/scenes/sound in much the same way as a word-processor moves around blocks of text. He had both. And both were fairly state of the art. Best thing about it was that he was so damn wealthy, that he could buy everything outright and turnkey and have everything in-house…instead of having to buy time at these massively expensive editing and/or post houses. So, he basically opened up both doors, put his arm around me and said that I could pick. The animation was of massive appeall. Ever see Toy Story? Jurassic Park? The room and the equipment in it that I was looking at was the first step. Yet, for absolutly no reason other than an easier learning curve, I chose the digital off-line editing system… called it my own, poured thru it, took classes, asked questions, and before long, I was the in-house off-line editor for EP Graphic Productions… when they needed it. Thats always the catch isnt it? A title dont mean shit if you only get to flash it when you work. See, EP was so wealthy that he did all of this as a hobby. And, as a result, only needed to do 4 huge 2-month accounts for the year to write his life off in taxes for that year. While he would never let someone like me go hungry or broke, I was preparing myself for the enevitable. I had gained my first tangible skill on this Earth, and he was very kind in helping me off into that world without an ounce of regret. A truly spiritual stepping stone.

COMMENTS

Posted by: Dave Blass at March 15, 2005 10:01 PM