Make It Happen

   

  People put too much emphasis and expectation on numbers and years.  For instance, they say "2013 was the WORST year, good riddance," or "2014 is going to rock, I can't wait for it to get here."  I understand the ritual of the new year - saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, turning over a new leaf, wiping the slate clean, what have you.  But, really, it's like Janis Joplin said "it's all just the same fucking day, man!"
     I try to live my life with the philosophy that the best is yet to come.  Not to say that I'm not fully living in the moment and enjoying the now, but I never want to think that my glory days or golden years have already passed.  I want to believe that life keeps getting better and better and that there is always more to discover and experience.  I heard someone say once that happiness is always having something to look forward to - I love that.
     That being said I still fall into the trap of expecting or maybe hoping that the year to come is going to be prosperous and full of opportunity.  So far 2014 has been a slow moving year for me with seemingly nothing happening.  One of the many hats I wear is actor.  So far this year I've only had about  2 auditions, it's just slow for me.  There's not really much I can do to change that - it will turn around, it always does.  In the meantime, though, I often find myself waiting for opportunities to arise  and then feeling stuck when they don't.
     It's interesting how just a slight shift in energy can change all that.  A few weeks ago my fiancé and I had dinner with a good friend.  This friend is a hair hopper for a lot of celebs and pop stars and pretty connected with that whole world.  I thought I'd ask him if he knew of any modeling agencies that would be good for me - I had just done a print job that I had booked on my own and thought that I should be doing a lot more of that.  I haven't had an actual modeling agency since I moved to LA in 2005 but I've still managed to book quite a few modeling gigs.   Turns out one of his best friends owns a great agency and he said he'd send her my pics.  He did and I called her and now I have a meeting set up with them next week.   I suppose thats how "networking" really works.
     The other day I was at work at http://www.highvoltagetattoo.com and I was compiling an album on my iPad of all my best modeling pics to bring to my meeting (my old, janky portfolio is definitely not agent worthy.)  A woman walked in and I was prepared to talk to her about a tattoo idea when she asked me if I knew of any fully tattooed men that would be interested in a modeling gig.  My iPad with my modeling pics was literally in my hand and the screen was opened to that album.  I showed her my pics and she immediately had me email some to her so she could consult with the photographer.
     The woman is the amazing designer Julia Clancey http://www.juliaclancey.com and the photographer is the amazing Jen Starr http://www.jenstarrphoto.com. They emailed me back and a few days later we were shooting some awesome pics for Julia's jewelry line at Jen's all white oasis of an apartment in Hollywood. I was mostly naked and we had a total blast!!
     See how the slightest change in energy can make things happen? I haven't even met with the agency yet but I already booked a gig just from getting the ball rolling.  when you take steps toward any goal you move closer to achieving all your goals. The universe doesn't compartmentalize energy, once you tap into it in a positive way you move in a positive direction.  Essentially, you gotta make it happen!!

     So, since I started writing this I had my meeting with the agency and the women that run it are fabulous and they loved me.  They said some of my pictures reminded them of Tony Ward http://models.com/people/Tony-Ward - um, HELL yeah huge compliment.  I always thought that we should do a shoot together, just putting it out there.  Anyway, I now have an awesome print agent called M Model Management http://mmodelmanagement.com/home.html and it feels like a door opening!

PS I got Kate Bush tickets for 9/16/14, 6th row!!!

Top photo cred - Mario Testino http://www.mariotestino.com, can you tell which one is me?

Kate Bush

     Today seemed like a good day to start a blog.  It's something I've wanted to do for a while now and after receiving a rather exciting email this morning I thought "today is the day."  Yesterday was a crappy day both figuratively and literally.  I've had an upset stomach all week and I was having a real pity party about my whole life in general - often, I tend to get too inward when I'm not feeling well and I start judging myself harshly.
     After an entire day of feeling hopeless and unaccomplished I woke up to an email from Kate Bush! Well, not actually Kate Bush but an email from her fan site stating that she would be playing a series of shows this summer after a 35 year absence from the stage.  If you are asking yourself right now "who is Kate Bush?" please, I beg of you, PLEASE Google her, download her albums, look on the interweb - educate yourself to this mystical, musical master (http://www.katebush.com)!  After the shock of the news, and the fact that I'm a big enough nerd to be registered on her fan site, wore off I felt a strange feeling of elation and excitement and, well, hope.
     People always say that music saved their lives and I really, truly must concur.  As an awkward and strange, gay child growing up in upstate NY I didn't have much to identify with or look forward to.  Discovering music was like opening a magical Pandora's Box (not the drag queen) and riding on a magic carpet to amazing new places where there were like minded souls - and unicorns, of course!  When you "discover" a new band as a kid you feel like you have found the key to something special that no one else has.  Listening to an album for the 1st time makes you feel like you are the only person who has ever been lucky enough to hear these particular sounds.
     Kate Bush is a strange and magical creature.  She's the strangest kind of strange because she looks pretty normal but, in fact, is kookier that the kookiest.  She's kind of like the Marilyn Munster of music.  I use words like strange and kooky as a reverence because I LOVE the strange, the kooky, and the queer.  She found a way to express outwardly the swirl of kaleidoscopic emotions that I was feeling inside even though I was a far cry from an English, country girl with a seriously musical family.  That's the thing about music, it's universal.  Kate could play a heartbreaking melody on the piano and sing words that caused tears to spill and then switch to a braying donkey howling in possession.  Perfection!
     I even used to perform lip synch numbers of her songs when I was a young drag queen in NYC.  For a while I worked as a waitress at a place called Stingy Lulu's on St. Mark's Place in the East Village.  One time I was performing "Wuthering Heights" (a song Kate wrote at school when she was like 16 or something crazy like that) and I decided to run out the front door of the restaurant onto the icy, winter streets wearing a see-though, flow-y gown.  Right on queue I pressed myself up to the plate glass window from outside just in time to lip the words "Heathcliff, it's me -- Cathy. Come home.  I'm so cold.  Let me in-a-your window." The patrons of the restaurant went wild as I ran back inside, teetering on strappy-stilletos, onto the stage in time to finish the song!
    Some people don't "get" Kate Bush or they feel like she's too much of a girly, emotional singer.  She clearly didn't fit into the punk scene at all - I mean, she trained under Marcel Marceau and is probably the only person ever to make mime not detestable.  That being said her album "Hounds Of Love" is on every single list ever compiled of the best albums of all times.  I would have to say that "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" is the most perfect song ever written, or one of them at least.  Personally, her album "The Dreaming" is my favorite because it is, well, the weirdest one.
     The tickets for her upcoming 15 shows in London have not even gone on sale yet.  She does not travel and most likely will never play in the US.  I may not even be lucky enough to score any tickets for those gigs.  The idea that she's playing and the possibility that I may actually see the only living idol of mine left that I have not seen live yet fills me with hope.  Just receiving that email alone gave me the nudge I needed to realize that life is a grand and awesome journey.  Music really does save lives.  It sure saves mine.