From a great article in the Los Angeles Times

I’ve worked on Hollywood movie sets for over ten years and the last year, since living in the Los Angeles area, been more heavily involved. I started with the top people, met more along the way, work with a-listers, chat them up at the local cafe, wave hi to them in Brentwood and generally have seen pretty much everyone. The only time I’ve ever been tongue tied was meeting the Gilmore Girls Grandpa but I think it had very little to do with actually Hollywood and celebrity. I kid you not, with everyone else it’s literally been just everyone else.

I remember when the television show The Insider was first going live and I was brought down by their media department to interview. Seems my ability to write, work with people and who I knew was reason I was sought out. And whilst there on set, I remember an actor coming over to me and just demanding a crap load of stuff. I looked at him and said, “Are you kidding me with this?” And he replied, “Don’t you know who I am?” To which I responded, “No, actually, I don’t” and walked off. I ended up turning down the job because I didn’t understand the fascination with celebrities and I didn’t want to perpetuate it.

I’m all for giving respect but not giving out adoration or jumping just because someone’s been on some series. I do not read gossip mags, watch television shows about celebrities and I’m not on the up and up of who’s dating who. I love, adore, swoon over being on a film set. I adore great, wonderful movies and working with a cast and crew. But I am so unbelievably over and annoyed with the whole Hollywood Obsession.

This comes about because today I was driving through the back streets of Beverly Hills to get home and the streets were cornered off and police were everywhere. I was told I could get out through a barricade just down the road and while I was stopped, I saw what all the fuss was for.

There was a pre-Golden Globe even at the Beverly HIlton and in another back street beside me was all the limo’s coming to pull into the hotel. Limos and town cars with black rolled up windows and on the other side was a horde of people. Screaming. Waving. Crying. Pleading. Not for a specific car, but for any car that looked like someone. They just wanted to be seen by someone, recognised by someone, be acknowledged by someone. And not someone who seriously means anything, but by someone who lives in a make believe world that they fantatsise about joining.

And that scene made my heart break. Literally.

Months ago there was a woman visiting my neighbour. She sat outside to talk on her cell phone to her friends back home. “Guess what!” she cried with so much excitement, “You’ll never believe who we saw today! URKEL!”. I didn’t know who Urkel was but when I found out, I found it sad that that character and the person who played him, made this poor woman feel special. It made her whole trip out to Los Angeles worth it.

A few years ago, when I was receiving between 500-800 emails a day I did my best to reply to as many as possible. And 90% of the time when I’d reply, I’d get weird fan mails back saying, “I never thought you’d reply!” People had me on some kind of pedestal and some how received validation from me writing them back. It bothered me greatly to have fans or “minions” (the die hard people who live vicariously through my site, follow my every word and want to be me in ways that are flattering but scary. And they do this to a lot of people). I don’t want anyone to measure their life against mine. I don’t want anyone to think I can make things better by saying hi or that they are “cool kids” because they know me. That’s just absolutely retarded.

I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut about who I’m friends with and who I work with outside of the industry (inside the industry it totally works by who you know). If I say I am working on a movie set people always want to know who it’s with. When I worked in a corporate office no one ever asked me who my boss was or who sat next to me. Why does some celebrity make it cooler? Why does it make me special?

There’s a fascination with Hollywood that I just can’t accept – I understand it but I just can’t accept it. People reading Star Magazine and gossiping about people they don’t know – not taking two seconds to think about how they’d feel to have their life under a microscope or having to answer how they feel about politics when they know shit. I don’t understand looking up to Hollywood People. Trust me people, they don’t have the answers. They have scripts. And managers. And stylists.

Within Hollywood, I accept how it works. I accept the layers and the protocols and I go along with it because I really love the movie making process. I’m not out to change that, it’s an institution good and back, but I’d love more than anything to change people obsess and celebrate Celebrities. I’d rather people’s sense of worth come from within themselves and things they do – rather than against some imaginary or vicarious life of someone else.

Tonight I went to a special previewing of Pride and Prejudice where director Jo Wright and star Donald Sutherland spoke. By the end of it all, I had to tuck myself away to gather myself; it had been a roller coaster evening when all I was prepared for was a movie.

It began by hearing the director talk. He was quite young which surprised me, however, his ability to speak about the movie, why he did it, and what it was like helped me to believe in movie making again. I’m not one for “Hollywood” but I do adore being on a film set of a good movie – I love the process of it all. I don’t, however, like all the ass kissing, the show and tell, the being something that seems to go along with it. There’s a definite game that gets played in Hollywood and I’ve often wondered how to be a part of it without being a part of it. That struggle has kept me from doing as much as I want to do. However, Jo’s chat, combined with him being my age and just starting out and belieiving in what he was doing helped me to believe that aside from the politics of it all, there is still movie making going on and I can continue to work in it, somehow.

Watching the movie, memories I had long tucked away came back. I remembered my 18 year old self, living in England in a manor home on an estate and all that went with that – the politics, the decadence, the pride and prejudice (ironic!). There was good and bad to that time and it all came welling up at once. Sometimes one thinks they’ve changed so much but really, they’ve just changed locations and become a little older. When I thought of myself then, I didn’t recognise that girl only to realise that so much of her is still with me. It also reminded me that I’m not really one for the city, that I do enjoy a quieter pace with space but that I need some kind of sophisticated living. Cabin girl I’m not. French provincal, mais oui. The movie was a beautiful break from billboards, traffic and mini skirts at least. It reminded me of where I’m trying to get to, eventually.

And the last thing to hit me, well, it was perfectly timed I suppose. There is a scene at the end involving the father, Mr. Bennet (played by Donald Sutherland). It was the way in which he spoke to his daughter that caught me off guard – he was both sad and joyous at once. Proud of her getting everything that she was meant for yet sad because it meant her to be gone from him. It was an incredibly touching, well-acted moment that was so subtle that unless you were a father or a daughter you might miss it.

I didn’t.

After the movie, Donald Sutherland spoke; his humour and unpretentious, unconscious way of speaking just topped it all. He was really an actor in all good sense of the word. He was at ease and I think that threw off the Hollywood crowd that was there. Each time he was asked a question and answered it, people in the audience would laugh to which he’d have to say, “No really, I’m serious.” I think a lot of people in this town expect people to always be “on” or trying to be something or have all the answers. He was just he and often said, “I don’t know” or “I don’t care.”. And it was terribly endearing and really, really amazing.

As I walked home from the theatre, I had all these thoughts and emotions. I tried to contemplate them all, right foot – movie making, left food – family. Right foot – where am I going. Left foot – where I’ve been. By the time I reached my flat I thought there’s really nothing to sort or figure out. Everything is intertwined – movies, life, creativity, communicating, stirring, living, being – it’s all a part of life. Nothing more. Nothing less. The trick is to just do what you want, have a moment when you need and be what you can without putting too much effort into wondering what it all means. Otherwise you miss it all.

(Just a note about the movie – it was incredibly, incredibly beautiful but it should have truly ended at the scene that I mentioned above. In England it did but because American audiences demand it, the ending went on longer and was changed to give “closure.” It was more modern, contrived, forced and just rather out of place. And I think really good work – writing, art, movies, music – shouldn’t cater to the lowest common denominator but make people rise to match it. Dummying stuff, explaining it, making everyone feel happy at the end well, how does that really help people expand? Art isn’t about explaining.)

At the office today I was watching Faye Dunaway’s play “Master Class” based on the infamous opera singer Maria Callas (Unfortunately the play is no longer going and it’s not available on DVD – I only had access to it because Faye dropped it off. You’ll have to wait until she makes the movie). And of all the things I’ve heard about being an artist and what it means and advice given and stories told, I would have to say that this play is the only thing that ever shook my core and made the hair on my arms stand in attention.

“This is not an opera! This is LIFE” she says to a student who sings without passion, and sings because someone told him he could and he thought it’d be a great job to make him famous. She goes on to explain to him that because she was living every moment that she sang, she was great. Because he goes through the motions and removes himself from it all, he isn’t.

Why this struck me so was that often people tend to want to take on jobs that they think they should, or that they’re good at or that will get them somewhere. They tend to think of work as work, art as art, and life as everything that happens outside. But life is everything. Life is the act of living. There is no separation from work, art and life.

Later she says that a person should know what they want to do in life and live it. That to scatter the mind with half wants and ideas is a waste – choose something and go after it with life. And, when you subscribe to the theory that there is no separation between life and work then one really ought to only do what they love.

That, however, is often a double trick; figuring out what you love and then being able to do it.

The play deals a lot with the artist, the art, ego and life and intertwines it all so amazingly well. It re-inspired me at a time when I really need it. I’m creating a company and it often scares the bejesus out of me. It feels so internally right but sometimes I don’t trust that feeling, I don’t trust art, I don’t trust the passion, I don’t trust life. But after the play, I think I’m going to choose what I do and how I live.

No separation.

Fame is such a funny thing. For the last ten years I’ve had sites on the web, they’ve all been attached to the thing called fame. Even when I first began I had television shows from around the world wanting to interview me, “fans” emailling me like crazy and money being offered for this and that (even Jones Soda wanted to do a deal).

It became too much for me because I wasn’t doing what I was doing for attention – I just did it for fun. So I took my site down and went into hiding so to speak.

WHen I came back to the web I had a new address and didn’t mention it but again, the site became popular. And as I created new sites each one of them became almost instantly popular with absolutely no marketing on my end.

I began to become recognised when out, received hundreds of emails a day (good and bad) and lots of media attention. There were sites dedicated to gossiping about me and my career but I generally paid no attention to it. One thing I learned is that fame is not the goal and has absolutely nothing to do with me. If I start to bank on it on any level, I’d become addicted to it – I’ve seen it happen with others and knew it wasn’t pretty.

It’s one of the reasons why I’ve never had comments after entries, often do not share an email address and take my sites down several times per year. It’s not about what the end result is, it’s about the process for me. If I don’t enjoy it, if I don’t feel I’m doing good, then I don’t need it. Outside opinion doesn’t change how I feel.

As I begin to create a new business with a business partner and employees, I’m really thinking about what my intentions are with what I’m doing. It’s important to me to have creative and financial freedom but its equally important for me to do things that give to me as well as others. Fame doesn’t play any role in that. Adoration, attention, it’s not the goal.

I share this because I often find people searching for the fame and attention (and I receive a lot of email from people asking how to get famous or well-known sites) and I think it’s so side. Fame is just a byproduct that can’t be created so much by the person wanting to create it. Even more so, it can’t be controlled.

I have several friends who are very well known in the land of music and I’ve become acquainted with a lot of A-list celebrities while living here in LA. I’ve seen the benefits and the negatives of being famous and knowing famous people and I have to say, personally, that those whose intention it is to be famous aren’t the kind of people that are actually great people and whose careers generally don’t withstand the test of time. It’s the people who just do what they love and have the fame created outside of themselves that are amazing, authentic and have lasting power. They do what’s in them to do regardless of who is (or isn’t) loving them.

I’ve also seen people who started to get a little attention and how it’s changed their work (acting, music or writing). How they no longer create from within but create with an audience in mind. They became trapped into a pattern of doing things – things that “work” for attention. If they try something new and it isn’t well received then instead of continuing to push the envelope and evolve, they go back to doing what is safe. Their intents become hindered by fame. They need it more than they need to be authentic.

The fame that my sites and myself have received has been global, male and female, young and old. There’s something that I can’t even explain or understand that seems to connect with other people and creates some kind of attention that I don’t set out to create. I think one of the reasons why is become I’m not setting out to do it – it just happens. I have the freedom to keep evolving and being myself because I generally don’t pay attention to who people think I am. I don’t get trapped by it or feel the need to give into outside attention, become something, feed it. I’d keep going regardless if this site had 90,000 hits a day or 4. And I’m launching my new company to create projects in all mediums regardless of how I’ll be perceived. Because if I don’t make myself happy, it doesn’t
matter if someone else wants to.

After a busy day of hosting a garage sale yesterday and packing up this morning, we decided on a whim to dress up, go downtown, share a parfait and mocha and see the movie, Finding Neverland.

It did wonders for our souls on so many levels, I couldn’t even begin to tell you how. Here’s what the Director has to say:

So, if you find yourself in need of a little magic, a little comfort, or a little time to remember what it’s like to see the world in a different way, I encourage you to go. And let it change you a little.

Generally not one for museums or dishing about art work (Ah, yes, I see the history of humanities suffering in that yellow blob) I was unexplainably eager to see the van Gogh exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum.

Although I own volumes of his letters and writings, his artwork was a mystery to me. All I knew was he was it when it came to great artists. His works was posters for crying out loud! When people thought of important works of art his name would always come up. His work is so far up the scale that mere mortals were never supposed to do what he did. He’s an icon, a legend, a master.

Because of this, I had always had the notion he was born this way. He came out of the womb with a brush and went to work. His style was always there or so I believed.

The exhibit showed some of his famous paintings and portraits but what they also showed were his drawings. This is where I spent most of my time because this is where I received a lesson.

Van Gogh had tried several (unsuccessful) careers before he decided to pursue art at 27. And when he first began he made simple sketches of life around him. In the drawings on display one could see some of his mistakes, hard lines, and sometimes shabby movements. What struck me most about these images was how simple they were, drawn by a man who was trying to learn.

When he first began to paint he mimicked other artists and their way of doing things; he didn’t have a style, direction or vision. His way of painting – the greatness – would happen later on, after years of practice and confidence. It also wouldn’t be recognised until after his death for during the rest of his life, he was just a man who tried to paint.

Sometimes, we remove the humanity from great people; putting them on pedestals so high they become separated from us. We think we can never obtain their greatness because we aren’t where they are. What we should think is we aren’t where they are yet. For we all have to start somewhere to become something.

Although, far be it from me to encourage someone to watch television but the movie The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer that I worked on this past winter is finally going to air May 12th on ABC in America. Although I worked as a stand-in for one of the lead actresses, the little girl and the ghost (I hung like a madwoman and suprised all those movie boys with my strength) if all goes well, perhaps there will be a snippet or two of me in there.

Oh, the dish I could tell you about the movie, the actors and the creators. But that’d be bad breeding. But I will say this; the movie is quite different than the book and that if you cut a snooty actress down when she deserves it the director doesn’t fire you.

Last year when I went back to Europe, I was reminded how natural and accepted art is. In America, there tends to be a snob factor, or an elitist air about it. If not, then it’s completely scholarly or slovenly.

I’ve been afraid of art but over the past year I’ve gotten back into it – even docenting at an art museum. I purchased my second piece of art ever for my birthday and it’s amazing. It feels so good to have a peice of art that means something and from someone I’ve spoken with.

I believe that in order to be a part of art, I have to support it and that’s my intention when I buy things now or with the websites I create. My best friend is here and she told me how creative I was. "I am now I said," and then added, "No offense, but I never was an artist before becuase you were the arty and creative one. I didn’t think I could do what you do. Then I realised I could, if I just tried.

And I have been trying.