Birthday

Baby G in Schenectady, 1971

Seeing as my birthday is Monday, Oct. 26 I figured it was a good time to reflect on the past year.  Almost exactly 1 year ago there was a fire at my job at High Voltage Tattoo.  It seemed, at the time, like it was the end of an era and that I'd have to embark on a new journey of, gulp, job searching.  Never been my forte.  I made a few resumes and applied for a few interesting jobs and even had an interview for a very high-end clothing store.  I didn't really want to be looking for another job but I wasn't sure when and if i'd have a job at High Voltage - if it would ever reopen.  

    As luck or fate or destiny or all of the above would have it we were able to stay open at our space next door and, really, I was only out of work for a very short time which I treated like a summer vacation.  The actual shop is just about to be finished being renovated and it looks so friggin beautiful I cannot wait until I go to work everyday in that space.  Luckily, the high-end clothing store didn't pan out because no one really wanted me to leave, nor did I.  I am blessed with a large amount of freedom that my job affords me.  Freedom I would never have in a corporate environment.  I am able to go away whenever I want and even leave work to run to an audition - it's pretty awesome.  I even booked an awesome Slim Jim commercial which is currently airing.  It was a super fun job and the 1st commercial I booked in a while - hopefully, the start of many more bookings.

     Unexpectedly, the year started out with me falling in love with someone 1/2 my age that I met on the interweb.  I broke all my own rules with this one but it taught me a valuable lesson - rules are for chumps. LOL.  Really, though, never say never because I stated out loud after my last break up that I would NEVER do a lot of stuff and I had to eat most of those words (at least words have no carbs or calories.)  This relationship is the opposite of my last one in all of the best ways.  There's a level of intimacy and passion that I was lacking for a very long time.  The kind of intimacy that I craved even though it scared me senseless.  It's hard to admit or even realize that we are the authors of our own destiny and all those jillion years when I was single and miserable I was unable to see the cause - me.  It's hard to work on yourself and to look at the past and see how it affects the future.  Hard but necessary to progress and to free yourself from the baggage that weighs you down.  The good news is that it's always possible and never too late to make positive changes in life.  That's one of the beauties of being human.

     A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing Grace Jones at The Hollywood Bowl for the 2nd time.  She is an astounding and gorgeous force of nature and a true inspiration.  Sexier and wilder and more fashionable than ever and she's somewhere between 60 & 70 - she states in her new biography that even she doesn't know her exact age and also that she doesn't care.  Who says we have to slow down and give up as we age?!  Those are some archaic and outdated ideas for sure.  I will be 45 but I feel like in 25 most days - except when I have to wake up 2 times a night to pee which is the only post 40 thing that I have noticed!!  On good days I still look 32 also - at least that's what my "people" say, hahaha.  People love and respect Grace Jones for who she is & she has never wavered or shrunk away from expressing herself,  All I know is that after that show I have totally redefined my definition of 'aging Grace-fully!"

Gratitude

Throwback Thursday - me in 1976

The law of attraction is whatever you put out into the world comes back to you.  It's similar to Karma and other such spiritual beliefs.  It also means that what you focus on grows (insert sexual joke here) so your mood has a lot to do with your circumstances.  At the beginning of the summer when I was having a rough time due, mostly, to my broken engagement I kept saying out loud that I felt like I was drowning.  I had this distinct image of myself in my brain of my body suspended in liquid, limbs akimbo like those haunting scenes in "Under The Skin."  I couldn't figure out why I couldn't shake the feeling.  Now, looking back I realize that I was manifesting and perpetuating it.  Thinking about myself not doing well was part of the cause of my not doing well.  Nearly impossible to realize this as it's happening though.
     Last month I was talking to one of my best friends, Theo, on the phone and I was saying how this year had been so terrible.  She astutely and positively said that there was still time to turn it around.  My reaction was not one of the glass-half-full mentality and I quickly shot down that notion.  Something happened later that week though and I decided to take some action to make things happen in my life.  I wasn't necessarily trying to change my mood but I thought I had better change my circumstances before I create a real shit storm in my life.
     At the time I didn't know what was going to happen with my job at High Voltage Tattoo so with the encouragement of another great friend of mine I sat down to write a resume and apply for this job at an art gallery.  I don't know about you but the idea of writing a resume and cover letter and applying for a job makes me want to crawl into the corner in a fetal position and rock myself to sleep in tears.  I'm just not cut out for that kind of thing and I also sell myself short thinking I have no skills to mention (insert another sexual joke here), at least on paper.  I finally just bit the bullet and did it and, guess what?  It was not only pretty easy to do but I realized that I have a ton of experience doing all kinds of things and I'm highly employable and maybe even desirable to possible employers.  I completed a task I set out for myself and I sent out the email with both a kick-ass cover letter and my new resume.  It felt awesome to do.
     I was fully aware in that moment that it didn't even matter if I got the job I was applying for because I know that when I get into the mode of sending forth productive energy into the universe that somehow it will come back to me - usually in a way I was not expecting.  That's pretty much how I ended up working at High Voltage in the 1st place.  A few days after I did that we found out that we were approved to open High Voltage again temporally next door in our Wonderland Galley space so I didn't even need to continue looking for work.  I also got a call out of the blue from SAG about some money possibly owed to me for a commercial job I did 2 years ago saying that they had finally settled the case and I should be receiving a pretty decent check before the holidays ( go union!!)
     It's hard to feel grateful when the shit hits the fan but, of course, it's the only way to get back on your feet in a timely manner.  You have to actually feel your emotions before you can move on from them and sadness and anger are necessary to acknowledge and accept.  The famous saying goes that "pain is inevitable but suffering is optional."  All you have to do to feel OK about your life is to actually look around the streets or turn on any news station.  I know that I am truly blessed even though I don't own a mansion and a yacht.  Happy Thanksgiving.

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.