The Wandering Monkey

These past two days have been a very big thing.  Starting with yesterday...

Thurdsday was the first day of filming.  We began by gathering at the film studio at 5am. Everyone was barely moving, quite tired.  We got into busses and drove to the shooting location, which was an old Shanghai dance hall which had since fallen into disuse and disrepair.  It had been partially restored for the shooting of the movie.

With about 50 foreigners and Chinese extras we went into makeup and costume, each of us getting a 1930's costume and hairstyle.  Some people who were taking the roles of sailor had their hair cut -- very short!  It was about 11am by the time everyone was prepared and ushered into the main dance hall.

The Assistant Director (A.D.) had everyone assemble and demonstrate  dance. The first song used was a fast-tempo dance to which we all did a swing dance style.  About eight couples were selected as 'good dancers' and featured about the floor in the most visible position. My partner Andrea and I were included on this list.  The director, James Ivory, took notice of us and complimented us on our skill and our help getting the others up to speed.  "I wish they all danced like you," he told us.

A bit later the primary actress, Natasha Richarson (playing "Sophia") arrived on set.  I had asked the A.D. if I were dancing with her, and before he said 'possibly so'.  As such, I didn't know what would happen.  When she arrived she stated her preference to dance with me, and so it happened!  This very unfortunately meant that Andrea and I would not be dancing together, and I could see she was dissapointed.  I found another male dancer who had not so far had a partner and paired them together.

From that point on the day changed very much for me.  Natasha and I began practicing our dance steps, and I started forming a strategy of what we would do that would look best on camera.  Then, the sound man came by and fixed me up with a microphone so that if the camera caught me saying something, it could be included on the audio track.  The costume guy came by repeatedly throughout the rest of the day, either to change my tie, fix my shoes or jacket, give me a handkerkcheif, as so forth.  Throughout the staff and extras, people began saying my name more frequently and asking me questions about how to handle certain things with the dance.

To give an idea of what this scene looked like, we were in a rectangular hall with a high ceiling about two stories in the air.  At one end of the hall there was the band stage.  Five Chinese players and one Westerner drummer pantomimed their music to the playback which came over a loud stereo system.  Behing the band were three very pretty Chinese girls standing on platforms, making poses and changing their positions occasionally  The center of the room was dominated by a wooden dance floor, which held about 30 people dancing.  At the edges of the floor were several small tables with chairs, all of which were occupied by people in costume - some sailors, some businessmen, many taxi dancers, and so forth.  And a few people were standing about, either a sailor talking to a pretty girl or several waiters who moved about.  At the end of the room opposite the band was the bar, staffed with several barkeepers and the bar manager.

Amongst all of this was the big crane which held the camera.  I don't know what you call it, but it was about the size of a small construction work machine.  It was like a big metal see-saw, on one end was a cage which held the camera and cameraman.  On the other end was a massive counter-balance, and on its base were four rubber tires.  It moved up and down and rotated by means of people holding the counter-balance side and moving it about by hand.  And the whole thing could be pushed backwards and forwards on its wheels.  This camera crane moved in sweeping motions during the dancing scenes.  It was a very solid metal contraption.  You had to take care not to be in its path when it came near!

Natasha and I went through our dance steps.  There was a lot of down-time.  We only got one filmed rehearsal scene completed before lunch.

Returning from lunch, we ended up shooting the same scene about six or seven times.  The people all danced on the floor, and the camera swept from the band, across the air to where Natasha and I were dancing, and into the table where Ralph Feines and another actor were sitting.  When the camera reached his position, the audio playback stopped and their did their dialogue.  Then, once that was finished the camera crane pulled back again and the music began and we all danced again.

This was shot in several times from at least three different positions.

By the end of the day, I was getting dangerously hungry.  I can deal with being tired, but if I get hungry there's just nothing I can do.  I could not find anyone to bring me any food and I did not want to leave the set because it would disrupt the work.  So I just did as best I could.

Natasha is a very nice person.  We had a few lines of improvised dialogue during our dancing, which may or may not be used during the final movie.  But the camera passed by us every time before it went to the actors' dialogue, so if the scene is used at all in the movie it is guaranteed that I will appear in the movie.

Between takes I went and talked to as many people as I could.  I met the guy who is doing the music, and we talked about doing some sort of swing dancing video for a jazz album he has been working on.  I talked with the director James Ivory a few times but tried to limit my contact so as not to be a nuisance during a very busy working day.

There was also a publicity photographer there, taking pictures for the movie.  Natasha and I were in a lot of these photos, and later the photog staged a picture with everyone dancing behind us and Natasha and I doing various still poses in dancing.  That was pretty cool, too.

It was soon 6pm, and I was getting hungry.  I asked Natasha, How long will this go?  And she said, Sometimes these things go very long, 16 hour days.  It was so cool to be chit-chatting!

It all wrapped up at 730pm.  By the time we got out of costume, it was past 8pm.

That was yesterday.

 

Today was not a filming day, but very interesting nonetheless.  A choreographer from New York was coming into town today, and we had a lesson with Natasha and Ralph scheduled.  I arranged to attend this with my dance partner.  In the morining I met with the music guy to pick up the soundtrack samples.  Then I went to the hotel where the stars were staying and waited for them to arrive.  I was very conscious that the professional choreographer may feel put off by our attendance, so I made it clear up front that this was her show, and we were present merely to offer whatever advice we might and to report the dance scene back to the extras to better prepare them.  This went over very well and we ended up cooperating just fine.

 

Natasha and Ralph both showed up and we said hello.  I had seen Ralph yesterday on the set, but I had not made any attempt to approach him since he appeared very occupied.  Now we were all meeting semi-privately for an hour or so of dance instruction.  I can tell you, this never would have happened back when I lived in Los Angeles!

 

The choreographer went ahead and told her vision of what she wanted the two to do together.  Andrea and I basically sat back and let her do her thing.  We two talked and agreed upon suggestions, then gave them to the choreographer first asking if in her judgement it was a good idea.  She was quite open to our suggestions, especially in the area of partner dance where we actually did have some good contributions.  Amongst the other things we did that day, I recommended to Ralph Feines a method to perform a dip and the way to spin a lady out of a cuddle-hold position.

 

About ten minutes into all of this, the director James Ivory also showed up and watched the entire rehearsal.  This was also very cool, of course.  The thing about this dance instruction which was different from all others I've ever done, is that the dancers actually stayed in character and performed their lines before and during the dance.  It was really an amazing treat.  Ralph is a stunning actor.  He plays a blind man, and he delivered his lines and even improvised accidentally bumping into people while on the floor.  It was breathtaking to watch him, and I really got a true understanding of why he looks so good on film.

 

Finally we ended for the session.  The actors left and the rest of us spent a few minutes talking with the director about what scenes we were filming over the next few days and what sort of dancing he wanted the extras to perform for the remaining dance scenes.

 

Then I headed out, got lunch, got home, and passed out into a very deep sleep!  We film tomorrow at 515am, and for the next four days.

 

I couldn't help but think today when I got home, how this time really must be included in the 'good' experiences in my life.  Just a few weeks ago I was really running out of steam and having thoughts of hanging it up for the dancing in Shanghai, and now this.  In a sense, I find this blog a motivating thing for me.  No matter what happens, good or bad, I can write it down and at least a handful of people will read it and think about it.  It makes going through the experience 'count' more for something.

 

Peace,

-J

So here's the latest news.  I have been taken on officially on the movie production in the capacity of a dance instructor and evaluator of dancers and music for the film.  This means I help train people a bit and help organize those people who are extras dancing in the movie.  Also, perhaps more excitingly, I am having some private dance lessons with the stars and I am scheduled to appear in the movie dancing with the female lead.

The appearances in the movie is always tentative.  It depends on what the director feels like the day he sees me and what he had in mind for the scene. But it looks likely that in some way I'll be dancing with the staring actress, even if just for a few seconds on screen.

 

We begin filming tomorrow at 5pm and go on through the night until 4am the next day.  So, ironically, I am staying up late tonight (playing computer games!) as a responsible way to prepare for my work day tomorrow!  Irony.

 

I dont want to say too much about the movie production because I think that might somehow be a bad idea or possibly hurt my chances of getting involved in further things if I blab my mouth.  I'll just say it looks really cool!  The work is hard, the environment chaotic, but for the moment I am having a good amount of fun.

 

My dance partner Andrea is also involved.  She's doing some of the same things I am doing, and we may or may not be dancing together on screen.  If I'm seen as a featured extra the director may not want to use me prominently again.  We'll see.

 

You may remember that I did a TV show last week with an actress from Beijing.  She's going to be dancing in this movie as well, or so she plans.  Since I was doing the evaluations for how good people are as dancers, I gave her good marks (as she deserves) and she's in the movie, too. 

 

I'm learning a lot about how movies are organized and how people end of getting roles.  There's a lot of "I'll help you and you help me" going on.  Information is very imporant, such as contact names and numbers.  If you share a valuable contact with one person, then they are obliged to help you the next time they have a potential opportunity.

 

I also learned a new term: "Squeeze".  This actually technically means blackmail, but it's not so drastic as that.  If you have something another person needs to complete their job, you have "Squeeze" on them.  For instance, I made a list of all the dancers and their relative skill levels for the different styles of dance.  I was asking the production guy to be brought on officially with a contract.  So if I make that list but I haven't given it to him yet, I have "squeeze" on him.  I thought that was pretty funny.  I didn't keep my 'squeeze' when I left yesterday.  I gave him the list and just counted on my future 'squeeze' of dancing in the show and doing more helpful things for getting my contract.

 

Anyhow, I guess that's all the interesting stuff for now.

 

Peace Out-

-J

I filmed a TV show today with my friend the actress from Beijing.  I have been used to being a night owl, and today's TV show began filming at 9am.  I came later, about 11am, and I didn't know exactly what to expect.

 

The location of the shoot was the historic Paramount Ballroom -- the same place at which Shanghai Swings had the 1930's Christmas party last year.  The actress whom I had been training for swing dancing was working on some dance moves with an instructor when I arrived.  I sat back and waited for her to take a break from her dance lesson, then I went to see her to figure out what my involvement would be.

 

The director for this episode of the TV show is apparently quite famous in Shanghai.  He had been brought in for this specific episode only.  My friend said the director did not know exactly what he wanted, and we changed from swing dancing to a variety of Waltz on that day. 

 

There were two Chinese dance instructors there to show us the moves.  We trained for about two hours, and most of the time I was thinking, How am I going to learn this new style?  Then I'm supposed to dance a scene in a style I never tried before today!  At times I was nervous, concerned.  But this was not like a live performance.  As the director said (translated): "Don't worry.  After editing and framing I'm going to make you look like master dancers."

 

It was about 3pm when we began the scene with the dance shoot.  There were at least 30 Chinese people dancing, all dressed up in 1930s era clothing.  There was also a band on the stage pretending to play along to the music, waiters, and a few extra foreigners as party guests.  Plus at least 20 people handing cameras, props, and so on.  And a few more in charge of makeup and costume.

 

When the music began, at first I tried the moves which we had been taught.  But when we began our planned dance, we kept on bumping into people.  The floor was pretty crowded, and the waltz we had been taught was full of big movements and reversals of direction.

 

In time the director told the extra dancers not to dance in a specific area so that my partner and I may dance freely.  In the second dance scene shoot, a camera was placed on a small portable "train track," and it moved with us while we danced.  At the end of that scene, we were to dance in one direction, parallel to the track, then turn in front of the camera and move towards the center of the dance floor.  I can imagine this would look pretty cool on film.

 

We finished the scene, I had used very little of what I'd learned from the teachers.  It all should look pretty cool, though, because my friend was in a very nice flowing gown, with hair that must have taken hours to put together.  I was wearing a tuxedo, with my hair slicked back and the usual makeup to hide those nasty zits and dark eye circles from last night's hangover. ;-)

 

It finished off pretty well.  I think it took about 90 minutes once we started, and about 12 different takes.  Every time we did a shoot all of the extras took to the floor dancing and the band did their mock-playing.  I kind of felt a little pressure to do the scene properly because so many people were involved, but fortunately this was not too nerve-wracking because this was not too very different from the the television commercials I'd done before.

 

I didn't have any lines, but at the end of our dance there was a closeup where my friend said she was feeling tired, and thanks for the dance, and I kissed her hand and tried to look a little longingly as she walked away.

 

There were many more scenes shot that day, both before and after we danced.  I have to give big, big credit to the actress. She was in most of the scenes all day long, and she had had to learn a new dance style, go through all the makeup, plus memorize her lines and babysit me whenever I could not understand what the director was telling me.  She got there at 9 in the morning, and it all wrapped up at 6.

 

Tomorrow is the first day of the rehearsals for the movie shoot.  This is completely unrelated to the TV show.  Just a massive coincidence both came on at the same time.  I have three days of dance rehersals (or more if desired) then six days of filming.  This is going to take over my life pretty much for the next couple of weeks, but it's just as well.  I'd just have been blowing my time watching DVD's or playing computer games or drinking with my buddies.

 

All for now. More updates as it happens.

-J

It never rains but it pours.  Lately I've been in the Blahs because not much seemed to be happening.  This week, if things go as planned, I will film a TV show tomorrow and begin training to be an extra dancer in a movie this weekend.  The TV show is with the Beijing actress I trained over the last couple of days.  I'm not sure what is going to happen, because she says the director can be unpredictable, but I'm going to show up and we'll see how much involvement I have.

The movie is a much larger production deal.  Its with a famous director who did Howards End and Remains of the Day.  That one looks like a done deal. I'll be training with them for three days or more, then shooting for up to six.  The pay is crap.  But this is really for the experience of it.  All the time I lived in L.A. I never worked as an actor as an extra.  I really wanted to, and it's not hard work to get.  So this time I'm doing it. 

The movie is set in 1938 Shanghai, which is perfect because that's the time when swing dancing actually WAS coming over to Shanghai.  Some servicemen brought it over here and tried to dance with the local girls. 

For this movie it looks now like I will be partnered with my regular dance partner.  This is a dream, because she's the most skilled dancer out here.  I'll be able to look like I know what I'm doing!

So that's right now. Good news always seems easier and shorter to explain, doesn't it?

-J

Today was Sunday, and it was much better than the beginning of the weekend.  Last Friday was supposed to be the second week of our regular Friday dance.   I knew attendance would be low because of the Labor Holiday.  (The entire country takes a week off and goes traveling.  Businesses close early, and so forth.)  70% of my loyal students were going out of town.  I had thought to cancel the Friday dance outright, but there was no way to reach the people who'd been given flyers or may have read about it on  the Internet.  So I went to the venue just to see what would happen.

As I neared the venue, I got a really dreadful feeling about the whole thing.  Then, when I arrived, I got a bad surprise.  Nothing was set up.  No banner outside, no tables cleared off to make dance space, no one at the door to take tickets, and so forth.  Moreso, the entire regular staff was gone.  Apparently no one told them what was going on.  The present staff was apparently Holiday-week replacements. 

I was really upset.  It was 30 minutes until start time.  The dance night would have probably flopped, but now it was impossible.  So, I canceled the night with everyone I could reach and counted on everyone else staying away.  Or -- if anyone did show up -- they would figure it was due to the labor holiday.  I left the scene and didn't look back.  As it turned out, no one called asking any questions.

That night got me rather upset.  It's when I did my last entry where I was mulling over my past.  My old dance partner calls these days "Bad China Days."  There are some days you just hate everything.  Happens to everyone.  Doesn't mean anything, really. It's just some days it all goes wrong.

 

Today, however, was different.  I had a private lesson with an actress from Beijing.  She's shooting a TV show in Shanghai and they wanted her to do some swing dancing.  She also said she may need me to dance with her on the show.  We'll see.  That would be nice.

This TV show is from the 1930's era.  This seems to be part of a trend in Shanghai.   There's a lot of nostalgia and events oriented around the 1930's.  This is fantastic since swing dancing is from that time. There's also a movie being filmed out here from the the same era which has posted ads looking for Westerners who know something about dance from that era.  I'm applying for that one.

After the private lesson, I prepared for our Suday evening dance.  This one is at another location, and the regular staff was there.  Since it was still the Holiday, so I told management that possibly no one will come.  Regardless, I did all the preparations with banners and music.  Then I sat on the rooftop terrace where we do our dancing and worked on my lesson plans. 

About 1 hour later a Chinese couple came up the stairs.  They peeked their heads through the door and looked at me alone on the terrace.

"Only two people?" the man says.

"Yeah," I laughed.  "Want a private lesson?" 

And they stayed.

The couple was a little older, he perhaps late 40s, she 10 years younger.  They learned well, especially considering they didn't speak much English.  It was easier for me to communicate in Mandarin then they in English.  Can you believe that?  I guess I have learned a little bit.

They stayed for 90 minutes of teaching and a full hour of dancing afterwards.  I used the ample spare time to finish the lesson plan and phone in an appointment with a Mandarin tutor.  Finally I told the couple I was hungry and must go. They said they'd be back next week!

I walked towards home and got some food from a street vendor.  I stopped by the internet cafe and played a game about 45 minutes (acceptable).  Then I went home, wrote the lesson plans into the computer, and now I'm just sitting at the computer, being a little insomniac. 

-J

 

Today is Thursday.  Tomorrow is our swing dance night, the regular Friday one.  We had 42 people last time, which has been about average.  The odd thing about it was that they were mostly Asian, non-English speaking people whom I had never seen before.

 

This time I did a lot of advertising.  I collected all of the emails we have ever assembled during our  year here.  It was over 800, of which probably 50% are still valid.  I put out posting with 12 different news media here, including the big two expat magazines plus any mailing list or website or other magazine that has ever covered us.  Plus, we collaborated with a guy who promotes special events.  He invited at least 400 people.

 

For the mass emails, he used eVite, so I used it as well.  It's not the best way to communicate with people.  A regular mass email would have been better, but this was the best thing possible on short notice.  Yahoo does not allow more than 100 emails out in a single hour.  That would mean sitting at the computer for 8 hours, doing one send... well... you get the idea.  Of the 800 or so evites I sent out, some 188 did not reach their recipient because the mail was invalid, or their server blocked eVite as spam, or another miscellaneous reason.  Of the people who DID receive the eVite, less than 25% actually went through the trouble to open it to see what it was.

 

eVite allows people to say they will be coming and how many friends they may bring.  But in reality, the people who said they'd come did not, and those who showed up I never saw before.

 

I don't really like teaching to an all-Mandarin audience.  I can use no aspects of my personality or humor in helping the learning process along.  That's the real joy in working in teaching; self-expression to help others learn.

 

I was exhausted by the time the day actually came.  I even took a day off on Wednesday before the party.  That was a mistake.  I should have taken Friday off and done nothing other than rest, eat, and mentally prepare for the event.  As it was, I was at the printers getting tickets created up until ONE HOUR before the event start time.  This meant that in that hour I had to go home, pick up all the essential things, take a shower, change into my zoot suit, then get another cab to the event location.

 

I showed up and I still had at least 30 minutes of prep work to do, but the people were already there.  I put up the large welcome banner and small posters of our media coverage inside the venue.  I gave the CD's to the bar staff to begin playing so folks had something to listen to, and I gave them a VCD of swing dancing moves so they could display this on their in-house televisions around the place.

 

It was about 45 minutes past start time when I had the time and energy to gather the guests together to do a basic lesson.  I had spent so much time in preparation of other materials (mentioned above) that I did not specifically plan how the lesson would go, though this was not a problem since I've done dozens of impromptu improvised lessons.

 

The people all liked it a lot, but when the more experienced dancers hit the floor they all backed out.  They didn't get back onto the floor again after that, and people began leaving within one hour of the completion of the lesson.

 

What went well:

The swing dance video disc, banner, number of experienced students in attendance, the printed materials, and my own zoot suit (which I had made from the tailors earlier in the week)

 

What was acceptable:

The general public attendance (I had hoped for 80-100, but 42 was more than break-even), the dance lesson (people had fun), and the service, location, and decoration of the venue.

 

What needed improvement:

First, my own punctuality. 

Second, the bar staff really did a very poor job of handling the music. They didn't understand how to switch from one CD to another without long breaks, and they didn't seem to care if there was no music for say, 2 minutes.  They also outright stopped songs in the middle of their play, and they adjusted the volume levels too high and too low during the middle of the song.

Third- Those people who did come left frighteningly early.  This lead me to think they did not enjoy themselves or feel they got a good enough deal.  I don't think TOO many of them will be repeat customers, so we will be starting over this week.

Fourth- The venue table setup was not done according to my specifications.  The venue is just too large to allow the tables to be spread out, and many of the tables were placed right in front of a pillar which blocked the view of the dance floor.  Thus, we had people in remote tables who did not socialize and we had people who could not see.

 

Tomorrow is the second week of our dance, and I expect the attendance to be very low -- not because of any problems mentioned above, but because this is the beginning of the China National Labor Holiday (or something like that).  Everyone gets an entire full week off, and 80% of my own loyal dancers are going out of town by Friday.  I expect the Chinese population to be notably absent, but in a sense this is not such a bad thing.  I needed some time to regroup and get a new batch of people into the venue.  The labor holiday is in a sense a convenient excuse of why we don't have big attendance.  I've already spoken to the venue management and they understand the situation and they aren't expecting much in the way of folks.

 

Part II: Personal Stuff

 

Merry came and visited me this week.  She (for those who do not know) is my former girlfriend and former dance partner back in the San Francisco area.  She is the one who invited me to go with her to China on a vacation, and had we not taken that trip it would have never crossed my mind to travel here when I moved.  She was in China with her current boyfriend, and they both looked a bit tired. 

I was expecting her visit on the previous Friday, on the opening night of the swing dance.  It turned out that this is a lousy time to be visiting Shanghai, because of the Formula One raceway opening.  People think it's a big deal (I think it's boring, but...) and they come out here in force. Hotels, in reaction, double or triple their room prices.  So Merry and friend were staying in Suzhou, 90 minutes out of town where her family lives. They missed the party, unfortunately.

I wanted her to see what I had accomplished out here.  I wanted her to see I was doing something, and doing it *reasonably* well.  Merry was there for me during my last year in the SF Bay area, which was a really lousy time in my life.  Not because of her!!! But I was going through a surprisingly painful breakup and I every day felt like I just lost more and more energy, with no signs of improvement or recovery.  I'd put that time as the third worst year of my adult life.

So she's the one who knew me best during a time when my life was in a shambles.  Which also means that's the ONLY way she ever knew me, because it was shambles when I first met her and remained in shambles until long after I left the Bay Area.  So that's all she ever knew of me, though she did understand the reasons why.  She still saw enough potential and strength in my broken state to remain in my life.  But I knew that it could never work in the long run.  The only way for me ever to fully recover would be if I left the entire area so that nothing would remind me anymore.  Lot's of people go through this. Some join the army (I have a friend there right now), but I just began my wandering.

I only had one hour with Merry.  It was midnight on a Tuesday, and she just called my cell phone.  She and her boyfriend were in a bar in a shi-shi part of town, so I joined them.  They were both exhausted, both from two weeks of China travel and also from a longer-than-planned extended stay with Merry's family.

She hadn't seemed to change much.  Still very much the "Full-speed-forward, uhh... THIS WAY!!!" type of person.  Still with a great deal of conviction and more energy than is fair for one person to have.  It seemed her new relationship suited her well, which was good.  Sometimes you have regrets after a breakup, but this time it looks like both of us have found the next appropriate places in our lives.

I told her I was happy to see her. Though in Shanghai I have many friends and acquaintences, when I left it drew a big STOP line in my previous existence and created a new BEGIN line.  Nothing carried through past this line in my daily life.  I still enjoy tremendously the emails and contacts I have with my friends back from the SF Bay area, but there's a big difference when you don't see them daily.  It's inevitable they, and you, will grow in some different directions and you won't know them so well. 

But here was the first crossover from my SF Bay life into my new Shanghai life.  And a good one, too.  A pity it was so short, but it did mean a lot to

me.  The was some sort of continuity. 

 

Part III: The Backstory

 

I've picked up and moved, leaving everything behind, many times in my life.  I first did this at the end of college, when my life was going about nowhere.  I had graduated, was working a temp job, and living with Mom (thanks, Mom, by the way.)  I had begun meeting all those other people who had never left my home town even since HIGH SCHOOL.  While I liked these people, I said to myself, This can't be your destiny.  I had $2000 saved up, so I put everything in my grandma's Chevy Citation hatchback and drove out to California, for the first time ever.

After a two week road trip, I saw Los Angeles and decided to just keep on going.  I landed in San Diego and tried to set down roots. 

There I met my friend Reuben, the one who joined the army after his painful girlfriend breakup and is currently serving in Iraq.  I only spent three months in San Diego, but it was a very significant time.  I still have two good friends from that area who I keep in touch with during my adventures.

After three months of temp jobs in San Diego, I flew back to my friend Scott's wedding.  When I returned, my temp agency representative had quit and the new one was settling in.  I was working on a razor-thin budget plan.  I had spent most of my money on the way here, and because of the delay receiving paychecks after you work, I needed to keep working continuously to have the cash flow to pay rent.  The new agent gave me a two-week lapse in which I received no work, and once that happened the math was easy enough to figure out.  Even if I'd worked constantly every day after that, the money would come too late to pay for rent.  My credit was bad then, and I had just the money I had earned, no backup and no cash inflow from anyone else possible. This meant I had to leave.

I called my friends and told them I was coming home, back to Addison.  They reacted as if I'd said my dog had died.  "Oh man, sorry to hear that...."  "Damn, I know how much that had meant to you..."  and so forth.  For the first time I realized, I COULDN'T go back.  I mean, I could certainly drive in that direction and go back to live with mom, but *I* could not go back.  This was my adventure and I had begun it, and my friends and family and even myself would not respect me if I returned.  Everyone said they would, of course.  Everyone said, if you don't like it, you can just come back.  But it's not the same when you actually DO it.  You don't realize it, but there is no going back.

I hung up the phone, feeling like I was about to return to a drizzling cloud of life back in Addision.  I thought about it a moment, then called up my crazy cousin in Los Angeles.  "Hey man can I stay with you a month or so?"  He said yes.  So I called back my friend Scott within five minutes of the previous call.  "Hey man, plan B. I'm going to Los Angeles."  He said, "Uhh.. really?"  "Yep!" and that was that.

I spent two years on Los Angeles.  It's nice to know what the town is really like.  The people are, in fact, largely narcissistic and superficial, just like they say.  Everyone thinks that their particular contribution is SOOOOO special and should be revered.  It's annoying.  Not everyone is like this, but a lot are.

I worked there in a computer game company, in the Operations division.  I had thought, Hey, I can get into computer games if I just work this other department for a while.  Well, just like everyone in LA wants to be a movie star or great director, everyone in this computer game company wants to be a game designer.  Me, the guy passing out mail, the guy in accounts receivables, and so on.  The company was divided rather clearly in two groups.  Those who make games, and those who to not.  I was in the "do not" category, though I had an important job.  I handled that computers which accepted incoming orders and sent out invoices electronically.  It was tedious, dull, awful work but it did lead to a career later on. 

Even within the half of the company who 'made games', many people had jobs which did not really have any creative input.  On the "Make Games" area, the most pretigious and sought after positions were Game Designer, or Lead Programmer if you were a super geek who could program really well.  Artists and sound people had their own goals other than Design, but most every miscellaneous person was shooting for game designer.  So competition was stiff.

There was a third group in the company, not quite in the Make Games category but close.  This was Q.A., or "Quality Assurance".  This means game testers.  It was in a sense the lowest job you could get at the company, but if anyone rose from the ranks to become a designer from out of the blue, they did so from their position within Q.A.  I guess it was a place you could prove your game competence, but also a position which you could vacate without creating any significant sort of vaccuum in the company machine.

My position, however, was not easily vacated.  As I said, I handled the incoming orders, the orders to ship product, the confirmation of shipments, and the invoices which eventually brought the money into the company.  There was only one person who understood how the whole system worked.  And this was not because I was being secretive.  I had documented everything in rather good detail, but the job encompassed a great deal.  You had to know how to program, how to deal with computers, the basics of computer networks, and most of all how to troubleshoot a problem.  Anyone could run the system if nothing went wrong.  Just follow the steps.  But what if the communications failed halfway through the receipt of a large file of orders?  What do you do with the half-competed file?  Import it into the system?  Delete it and start the import over?  That's a minor example, but the actual problems got excruciating sometimes, especially since there was no-one I could ask for advice.  No one else understood the system!!!  No one else wanted to.

I had an offer to join a game project in some capacity within the first couple of months there.  I wanted to jump over and take it.  I spoke to my boss.  He said this was not going to happen.  If the VP of Operations says not to take a guy on a project, no one in their right mind making a game would want to piss him off.  And so I also thought.  I didnt want to leave the company in a lurch, and I couldn't anyhow, so I made a deal.  I'd do about a year with them in my job, after which they'd find a replacement and I'd go on my own to locate a job within the Make Games side.

One year elapsed, and the company internal game design had not gone so well.  When I arrived, they had just completed a certain fantastically successful 'large robot game', I shall say.  This 'large robot game' was perhaps the hit of the year, funding the studio with massive cash.  This game spawned a lot of internal excitement and at least 11 internal game project when I had arrived.

Within my year there, none of those 11 projects had delivered any significant returns like the previous game had.  Most were outright flops, which was not surprising considering the very low bar required to become a member or even leader of such a team.  Many people in charge of projects had never done anything game-related in their lives.  They hadn't even PLAYED games obsessively (which was pretty much a requirement to walk in the door in any game company).

My year of service had finished, and I went to see what was available in the Make Games side.  Not much.  Only 4 projects currently in development.  The studio had gone largely with publishing other people's games rather than making their own.  This was a good business plan for them, since they hadn't the in=house creative vision to pick the developement projects.  But it was bad for me, because those people with years of game design experience could not find diddly-squat within the company.  What was available for me?  The position of Asset Manager was a possibility.  What's that?  An Asset Manager keeps track of all of the graphics, text, animation, artwork, level design, and so forth and catalogues and indexes all of it.  They ensure copyrights and ownership and maintain the integrity and organization of the files. 

Man, this sounded like another crap job.  And it would have been another year doing this.  AND, it seemed like it was even a step DOWN from what I had been doing.  Lord knows what the situation would look like after another year.  Could be nothing again was available, and "thanks for managing our Assets!" and see-ya.  I didn't want to take the risk. I'd put in my time, in the Operations department.  I'd proved my competency, but like I said, experienced people weren't getting the work.  So I left.

I did a little consulting in the same field I had been working, referred to generally as eCommerce.  I did a few small local jobs, then I was really bored and didn't know quite what to do. So at 3am on a Tuesday, I put my resume on the Internet.

By 8am, the phone had rang three times.  It continued to ring five times that day, plus at least 10 emails.  Inquiries continued for two full weeks, anywhere from one to five per day.  I did a small project in the California-Mexico border, then I took a longer term project in San Jose.  I had to fly to San Jose for the job, and rent a hotel room.  But they were paying so much money that it made sense to pay for the plane on my own and the hotel on my own and just accept their paycheck.

After a few weeks of travelling back and forth, I knew I was keepnig the job.  I realized this travel was getting silly, so I just rent an apartment and left the one in Los Angeles.  Two-thirds of the jobs in eCommerce came from the San Jose area, and the remaining one-third came from Los Angeles or other places around the USA.  So I figured it was a good bet to go there.

It turns out what I found (or what found me) was Silicon Valley.  I ended up in the most cutting edge, money rich, potential-filled place in the world.  It was also the capital of swing dancing in the United States, which proved to be very important later (as you know).

It was also here that I met -- at a swing dancing event -- the girl who turned out to be my first love.  You never know when you meet someone, what's going to happen.  I had been with lots of girlfriends before, but I'd usually been the one to leave.  Or, if it ended, I'd said 'good riddance' to the whole thing and gotten back on track within a few months. 

This one was different.  I did get a feeling in the beginning that something was wrong, and that I should get out.  I tried to, as well, but she seemed so CONVINCED that there was a huge potential and an almost Destiny quality to our meeting that I stayed on.  I thought, what if she is right?  What if I'm walking away from something really great?

In time, over a year, I fought again and again against my instinct to bail.  Eventually I had been donig it so long that my bailing instinct atrophied.  I was for the first time, not looking.  Not wanting anything else, really.  Sure, there were many problems.  But I considered this person to be profoundly unique and interesting.  My every thought during the day would somehow orient back to her.  I mean, a lot of it had been just me stopping resisting her persisent pressure to get INTO my life.  And also, she had networked closely with all of my friends, many of which had become OUR friends, or in truth, HERS, then mine.

I resisted her gathering of my friends.  I said to her, How would you like it if I started handing out with *name* and *name* and *name* in your group all the time?  She said, "I think it would be wonderful."

I've found it is always best to compartmentalize.  If some part of your life goes to shit, the others will keep you afloat.  Like the Titantic.  Or maybe not like the Titanic, but like a ship LIKE the Titanic which had better compartment seals on the top and didn't allow the water to flood in and wreck the whole design.

But anyhow, my life had become no longer my own.  She was present in almost every single aspect of it.  And those people who she could not charm or make her friends first, she did encourage me to stay away from.  There were some people who were not enchanted by her charms.  No one is universally appealing.  She would point out the reasons for not hanging out with those people, and the thing was is that her reasoning was quite sound. I had had my own doubts about the people she mentioned as well.

But in the end, the result was very unhealthy and very dependence-making on my part.  My best friend list had all either gone equally or mostly over to her side.  My Other friends list were still there, but I had had problems with these folks and I had wanted to make different friends anyhow.

I saw the breakup coming as she prepared for graduate school.  I saw the energy and effort she had put into making her weekly class schedule.  The thing was perhaps an example of how a perfect class schedule should be made.  Every class, in beautiful lettering and different coloring.  The name, teacher, location, time, probably even the textbook and location of the nearest water fountain.  I looked at this and said to myself, "Oh shit."

She had always been a person who could put fantastic effort and focus of energy into a thing.  It is this characteristic which I eventually found most appealing.  Granted, she moved into my life and took over management, but she was to me at the time the most interesting and most loving and caring person I had ever met.  With her I felt I could share everything, and she also had the amazing ability to know what I was thinking even when I didn't tell it to her.  I felt there were no secrets between us, necessary or attempted.

But then I saw her putting the effort into her grad school which had formerly been applied to me.  She had seen in me great potential and made me believe in this in many ways.  But now I saw her turning her energy into another project.  And I thought about how our day-to-day life had been lately.  Faced with the pressure of having no outlet in my life which did not tie back into her, I was getting very grumpy and feeling trapped.  Happily trapped, but trapped nontheless.  I felt like somehow she was the eventual authority and anything I said would eventually come back to her ears.  She would never compromise on this regard, either.  I told her I didn't want her present in every, EVERY part of my life.  but she never knew how to seek balance.  She didn't trust me, or thought I would leave her if she didn't keep me bottled up.

The end came.  There are some thing, even most things, about our relationship which only we would ever understand.  These things were significant, tremendously important, but they only existed for me and her.  I suppose people may call this love.  I remember thinking, if I lined up all of the things I had in my life in order of importance, at the very beginning would be her.

Betrayal has many levels.  There is outright betrayal which is easily understood and grounds for divorce in a court of law.  This was not the type which I encountered.  There is also betrayal of thought.  This is what happened.  There are some things which, in a relationship, you come to accept as a given.  You know the other person's stand on it and you don't press the issue.  It's been there so long and established so long that it's a background, a foundation.

When she posed the question which contradicted this foundation, my heart broke.  In many ways I felt it was over then and there, immediately.  It was not officially over, but even if somehow it held together the apparent trust and understanding had fractured.  Even if it continued, it wouldn't be the same.  Because the little heart which had so fully and unreservedly pledged herself to me had somehow no longer become my own sole treasure.  There was interest in someone else.  How was this possible?  No action, but interest, and expressed interest.  And, at a time of change in her life as well.

Suddenly day turned to night.  Warmth to chill.  I started taking a militaristic look at my situation: my closest ally's allegiance is in question.  How much to we rely upon this ally?  Wow, that's a lot.  If we lose this ally, who will we turn to for support?  Who else in this fucking world loves us and understands what is going on and can help us?  No one!  Not a fucking soul!

This only further caused me stress and further exacerbated the dissolution of our relationship.  I had become too dependent on one person, and me, without any friends older than two years in acquaintence and no family in the area.  I had become emotionally vulnerable.  Stupid mistake.  Granted, I'd tried to fight against getting into that position, but many time against my better judgement acquiessed.

So my own heart had been chilled, and I see the end a major possibility if not an inevitability.  What's more, our own relationship had not been all peaches and roses and such.  Granted the love and affection was there, but there was also the frustration and my own feeling that she would never compromise short of complete control, and whatever.

The last day we were together:

She knocked on the glass door at the back of my house.  It was 6am.  She had been visiting her mother, or something like this, and she drove down to my house for a visit.  I opened it up and let her in.  I hadn't expected her at all.

We lay together and slept a little, or just lay still and tried to do so.  Maybe an hour later, The Subject came up.  What do you want to do? I asked her.  She was not 100% in the direction of separation, at least not at the moment.  She said, "I'm still having my doubts..."  I suppose it was my time to pull her back from the edge.  It was my time to tell her not to doubt and that things would work out, and that I loved her and I've never seen anyone even close to being like her, and I will do whatever I can to make it through this time, and so forth.

But I did not say any of these things.  It was a mixture of two aspects which lead me not to.  One was my own wounded heart and wounded pride.  I was a lame duck since her previous hurtful probings.  I am perhaps a frail man in aspects of the heart.  When dealing with a woman you love dearly, you must dismiss certain things as said in impulse, or perhaps not in the clearest frame of mind.  You must sometimes make the decisions for both of you.

But I did not do this.  The other reason was that our relationship did have many really unhealthy components, like the complete surrounding and subsequent frustration.

So, I made a choice.  My heart knew that if I were to keep this girl, I needed to pull her back and tell her that part of her own mind which really did want me, and make that part live and flourish.  But I just said, "I have to make my own decisions on whether I am moving up closer to the City.  I need to know."

I knew what she would say.  In a sense I had corralled her into saying it.  "I think that we should take a break for a while..."

I knew what she was going to say.  I shed a tear, and said, "I understand."

 

Judging from the difficulty I had in the time after that, I would say that decision was not in line with the desires of my heart.  I thought I could just recover from this relationship, as I had six, seven ones before it.  I knew she was special, but everyone is special in their own way.  But I didn't recover from this.  I grew worse and worse daily, weekly, monthly.  I was filled with all of the negative emotions of life: despair, gloom, anger. And the weakest characteristics of man: fear, pettiniess, spite.

 

It was at this time which I wished I had a father figure.  Someone to explain what was going on, and to guide me through these pointless and destructive emotions and get me on my feet.  But no one was there.  Either no one understood it well enough, or they didn't have the capacity to tell me anything which could help.   I was, as I had been many times, at my worst point and with no one to help me show the way.

 

I did turn to prayer during this point, but my needs were much more practical and no so spiritual.  I had no one to turn to to cry on their shoulder.  Every girl who I knew well enough was first my ex-'s friend, then mine.  And guys are not so good for support in this kind of thing.  It was a full two weeks of this pain before I was in the position to release some of this.  I had first to make a friend, then cry on her shoulder.  Stupid.

 

I look back at it now, and if I heard someone telling it to me, I'd say, "Yah yah.  Life is tough."  I just don't care so much anymore.  It was ridiculous that my recovery time would have ran so long, and been so painful.  I would tell anyone else, Hey, get over it already.  But I think this was just simply my first love.  I'd never been in love in high school or even college.  And no one was there to help me with any recovery pointers.  You seen the movie Swingers?  Like that guy.

 

So, if you're still here through this long rant, thanks.  I had to move cities to get her out of my head.  And it's the only thing I can do now just to keep her completely out.  I can't see the point of trying to salvage anything out of what was once such a grand structure.  I know that I have become colder from this experience.  I don't let people, particularly girls, in so far.  This is just logical.  I don't have that much emotionaly support as most people due to living in another country and knowing everyone for just one year.  So I dont' make myself vulnerable so I'll be crying on the floor and useless for months at a time.

 

Part IV: Wandering

You know the rest of the story to date.

 

Peace,

-J