Ten - Thirteen

NYE 2014 - 2015

Ten years ago yesterday I moved to LA from NYC.  That also means that in 2 days, if all goes well, I will be sober for 13 years.  Those are pretty decent sized numbers if you ask me.  For about 8 years I was saying that I lived in LA for 5 years until I realized that I had been spouting that fact for at least 4 years running.  I'm not great at math but I came to the conclusion that I had been here longer than it seemed.  Sometimes I feel as if I just got here and it definitely does not feel like a decade has passed.

     I had been mulling over the prospect of "go west young man" for a few years but I just couldn't decide.  I asked other people what they thought and no one else had any satisfying answers either.  I waited until I had been sober for several years before I decided to uproot my life and go to the furthest coast away from the East Village.  It's suggested that you don't make any radical decisions in the 1st year of recovery because it's simple too overwhelming, stress inducing and, often, can trigger relapse.  Because of that I stayed working as a bar tender 5 nights a week while I was a newcomer to recovery.  The weird thing is that I became the best bar tender ever because all of the sudden I was focused on my job and concentrating on making money for the club and myself and not distracted by partying behind the bar.  Funny how things work.

     Once I made the firm decision in my mind that I was "Hollywood or bust" it seems that all of these doors magically unlocked.  The whole time I was hemming and hawing all of my plans and ideas seemed hazy but the moment I decided for sure doors sprang open.  A friend contacted me out of the blue because he had been traveling for over a year and was coming back to NYC in Jan. with just a backpack and no other belongings.  He needed a place to stay and I just happened to be leaving my apartment fully furnished.  Perfect.  

     Then, I had decided I should take an acting class in LA but the task of finding a good one seemed insurmountable.  One day I was out and about on a snowy, NYC afternoon and I stopped at one of my favorite places for lunch.  I heard a woman talking and her voice was instantly recognizable.  It was my Grandma's friend Jean-Ann who has a very distinctive, bold, boisterous, NY voice.  I approached her table and was going to ask if she remembered me (hadn't seen her in a decade) and she immediately looked up and proclaimed "Gregory!"  She said my grandma had mentioned my plans to relocate and then for no apparent reason I said I was going to look for an acting class.  Well, lo and behold her sister Robin was a working actress in LA who, it just so happened, was starting an acting class in the new year (2005).  She said I would love Robin because they had similar personalities and I always loved Jean-Ann!!!  Again, crazy how stuff works out. 

     To be quite frank I moved to LA because I wanted to be on TV.  I mean, I had already appeared in a national Always Panty Liners (no joke) commercial and played a - wait for it...junkie on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."  But, I wanted to do a lot more of that.  I easily signed with an agent out here because, like I said, things were all falling into place and I started booking more national commercials.  Most of you already know the story but a few years later seemingly out of the blue I got a call to come meet Kat Von D ASAP to discuss the possibility of being the new shop manager on LA Ink.  Of course, that's exactly what I did and there it was - I was on TV regularly and it was tons of fun for a while.

     Now, it's a new year and I realize that I haven't set any new goals for myself lately.  Looking back it seems like most of the goals that I did set came true in one way or another.  The thing about making goals, writing them down, saying then out load, shouting them to the universe is that most often they do materialize!!  They usually don't happen in the manner or time frame in which you expect though which is why its important to keep expectations in check.  You absolutely can create the magic that you desire in your life and be the alchemist of your own destiny.

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” 

― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

High Voltage

Many of you probably already have heard the terrible news that my beautiful home away from home High Voltage Tattoo caught on fire at 4am on Thursday morning.  I had closed up the shop on Wed night around 10:30, turned off all the lights, had one last look then set the alarm and locked the door. All was peaceful and calm and, I assumed, I'd be back in the morning to do it all again.  That's not quite how it went down.  I had slept a little later than usual since I closed the night before and caught up on all my work so I thought I'd saunter in a tad later than usual.  When I woke up and checked my phone I had 14 missed calls from a bunch of my co-workers and I knew something was up.  When I got Adrienne on the phone she sounded very somber and said "you haven't heard?" what she said next floored me.  High Voltage had burned down.  Stunned.  Paralyzed.  In shock.

     I got up and went over there as fast as I could and it was all really happening, this was a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from.  The fire started in the back corner of Kat's beautiful office in an area that there really isn't much going on.  It had to be some kind of electrical thing but whatever it was the fire consumed the whole back wall of the shop and even burned a hole clean through the ceiling so you could see the sky from inside Kat's office.  The 1st thing I noticed when I entered the parking lot was the beautiful and charred frame of what was once a gorgeous Kevin Llewellyn painting - an piece of art that I looked at almost daily for many years and was so engrained in the visual landscape of the shop that I never in a million years would have thought it would be gone.  The silver lining here is that no one was hurt since it was 4am.  I absolutely have to look for positive things to grab onto like a giant bouquet of helium balloons that will lift me outta the charred remains of so much love and labour lost.

     I somberly walked through the darkened shop and it was eerie, depressing and felt like a toxic wasteland.  Everything was covered in soot and smoke damage, there were puddles on the floor and the outlines of all the art and guitars on the walls from where the fire fighters had removed them.  Kat's office is pretty much destroyed but the rest of the shop is structurally in tact albeit visually ruined.  It was both better and worse than I had imagined if that makes any sense.  When I heard that HVT had burned down I assumed the entire building was gone.  When I heard it was just the back I naively assumed that the main shop would be untouched - I hadn't accounted for all the water and soot.  Luckily, this is my 1st and hopefully last experience with fires.

     High Voltage has been much more than a job to me these past 6 + years.  The people I work with are much more than co-woekers, they are family.  We have all been so blessed to work and hang out in an environment that is so cool and unique.  Kat, no matter how the salacious media portrays her, is one of the most generous and talented people I have ever met in my life.  The shop is her baby, her life and you can tell when you walk in that all her blood, sweat, tears and love have gone into every piece of it.  The 1st comment most people make about the shop when they walk in is about how freaking beautiful it is and how different from a typical tattoo shop.  Kat sees things in a different way from most people - she is creativity incarnate and she gazes at the world with an artist's eye.  Even the way she takes an Instagram picture is on another level than most.  It is the most heartbreaking thinking about how she must feel during this ordeal.

     I never knew I'd end up working in a tattoo shop - especially one that was on TV.  When I walked into that door for the 1st time many years ago I felt pretty at home.  I had no idea what to expect the day I met Kat but stepping into her office for the 1st time I knew immediately that the person who created it was bad ass and that she was one of my peeps.  I also do not know what comes next.  I'm sure Kat will rebuild ASAP, could take weeks, could take months.  I'm still a bit in shock and on top of all that has gone down this week it is also my BDay today which, for me, is always a time of intense reelection.  Must be a scorpio thing.

     What I do know for sure is that these past years at High Voltage have been amazing and magical and I have made some of the greatest friends ever through working there.  I have made a big, extended family and for an only child that is kind of a big deal.  I certainly hope that HVT is back up and running really soon and is bolder and better than before.  Until then...?

Goals

Me before an audition on 6/26/14

My life is pretty surreal.  Basically, I get to play dress up for a living and it's usually really fun.  The other day I had one of those crazy days where I had so much going on and, magically, it not only all worked out, I even got to my job early that night.  I'm an actor so I audition all the time and I always say that it's like playing charades with strangers.  I get a text and an email saying where to go and who I'm supposed to be and then I put on the appropriate outfit and go act out scenes on camera mostly with people I have never met.  It's a trip.  Living the dream, isn't that what they say?

     I have to remember how much crazy, fun, exciting stuff I do and have done so when the slow times happen I don't get bored or feel useless.  I basically moved to LA because I wanted to be on TV and that's exactly what happened.  I had already done some commercials and a few other acting gigs in NYC but I decided that I would make the move out west and join the modern day Gold Rush and pursue a career in Hollywood.  I got an agent, started auditioning, booked a few gigs and then I got a crazy phone call out of the blue.  My friend Adrienne called to say that the TV show LA Ink needed a shop manager right away and asked if I could come down and meet Kat Von D at High Voltage Tattoo ASAP.

     Strangely, I had so many connections with Kat but I had never even been in the same room with her and, honestly, don't even really know who she was.  I had seen the billboards all over town for LA Ink but they made everyone look rockabilly and I didn't really know what they were for - I mean, I got that it was a show but I never really looked into it.  When Adrienne called I was working a temporary job downtown for a fashion show room, just filling in for market week and I was all dressed up in a wild fashion style wearing my favorite Ann Demeulemesster sweater.  I thought that I didn't really look suited to work at a tattoo shop even though under my outfit I was covered in tattoos.  When I got to the shop the 1st thing Kat said to my was that she loved my outfit - we got along immediately and I started working at the shop and on the show a few days later.

     A lot of magical things happened when I made the decision to move to LA.  For a while I was very wishy-washy about the whole thing, I kept asking people if I "should" move out here but I was unsure.  The moment I made the definite decision to go for it the universe helped push me along and a series of doors opened up for me.  Crazy how that happens.  They say that the whole universe conspires to help you when you really know what it is that you want out of life.  I'd say that's pretty true.

     I was bar tending in NYC and I really didn't want to do it anymore in LA.  It was super fun and lucrative but I just didn't want to be up all night in loud clubs anymore.  I was also DJing from time to time and I still really enjoyed that.  I decided that I still wanted to DJ but I didn't want to work in clubs and even as I was thinking that I was wondering how that could ever happen.  Well,  I ended up DJing for photographer David LaChapelle, who had recently moved his studio to Los Angeles, for all his big photo shoots.  For the most part the shoots were during the day and they were super fun and lucrative!  Somehow, I had manifested that job even though when I had said my goals out loud I didn't really know how they would happen.  I did that for about 2 years and a bevy of well know folks moseyed through LaChapelle Land while I was there - Paris & Nicky Hilton, Courtney Love, Betsey Johnson, Christina Aguilera and, of course, Pam Anderson.

     When you make goals and are firm about your decisions you'll realize that most of them are actually achievable - even the ones that seem outlandish and impossible.  You also have to be open to where your journey leads you.  I had no clue or desire even to work in a tattoo shop even though, obviously, I love tattoos and had spent a lot of time in tattoo shops.  Still, it never was something that I thought would happen and yet working at High Voltage with Kat and our whole awesome crew has been the best job that I have ever had in my life and it has lead to so many other things.  Realizing that I had ended up here because of who I am and not in spite of it was a real turning point in my life.  I never have to hide or disguise who I am to get where I want to be in life.  In fact, it's quite the opposite -  stay true to yourself and amazing things will happen.