venting/screaming at the ceiling

If having to look for a new job isn't annoying enough, having to look for a new apartment is even fucking worse.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I want to just give up on everything, but know that I can't. This is so frustrating and sometimes I know I am not really helping matters by being so negative. I can't help it. I feel so irresponsible and just plain out of controlable.

If it's not having to deal with the how's and the why's I am still unemployed, but having the uncontrovertible fact that I am in this insanely scary situation and I am not showing my mature side of trying to handle things.

The fact of the matter is when looking for an apartment a few factors are involved: proof of income and having a good credit score - both of which for me is sucking right now.

It sucks so fucking hard.

There are things that get me easily annoyed and frustrated and it doesn't take much for me to spiral into an emotional fit the size of Texas. I know I should be listening to my loved ones, but this is so - unfair. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for any of this. So when shit like this goes down, it just shows one how unprepared you really can be when life takes a turn and not for the better. I wasn't in the best of situations before, so having to look for a new apartment only complicates every detail of my life. I've been getting by on god's good graces and somehow a combination of pure luck and survival skills. Not a great claim to fame, but something I am holding on to.

I've been heavily avoiding things, but sinking myself into video games, because dealing with real life hasn't been the best lately, but even that's starting to take a different turn, because it's no longer helping, since it's getting closer to the time I have to be out of this apartment I've been in for the last 4 and a half years.

I told Travis yesterday about how I felt, like I don't feel good enough. He told me that he knows that, because I've had this conversation with myself and others before, so it's no shock to him. This is how I deal with things. This is how I cope.

I am utterly scared right now. I sit in front of this computer and search for jobs. Some of them I feel suitable for and others I don't. I feel like I don't even fit in for the jobs I've applied for. It makes me feel that I wasn't doing what I could when I was working to be better at my craft, but I can't look back on that now. I gotta get a new outlook and apparently some new luck. The luck I have is a little tattered, but it gets me by. Anyone can tell me what they think I should do and I hear them, I do, but in many ways I have to push myself. I gotta scare myself into doing things. Kinda like how you have to push someone in a pool to force them to swim. Unfortunately, when my dad pushed me into the pool - I just sank. Go figure.

Right now, I am praying that I find greater strength in finding a new a job and a new place to live. Other than that, I don't know what else to do.

Movie Review: Grindhouse

I had my first experience with this style of cinema when I was a young lad, living in California at the time. (yeah I lived in Cali on an Army base no less.) There was a drive-in theater I went to with my mom and I was subjected to two movies called I Spit On Your Grave and The Last House to The Left. Funny enough, I didn't actually see them until the late 80s. I saw the marquee for them on my way to see the original Day of the Dead with my mom, which was fine by me, but I was intriqued by the titles alone. So when I found them finally in a video store I frequnted, the guy told me to watch them "back to back" like the old days. And I did. Ideally, these films should not have been made just for the sheer audacity of the subject matter themselves. To sum them up in one word, I would say "sickening"

These types of movies haven't been made in a very, long time, but some of them are made more stylistic-horror, like for example, Eli Roth's HOSTEL recently. Grindhouse films are gritty, nasty and utterly dispicable, but you can either love them or hate them. They're apart of the cinema canon as anything else these days. Which brings me to the movie I saw over the last weekend, which is also called Grindhouse. It's an nod to the days of the early 70s when movies like this were shown in double-feature style. So when there's a grindhouse feature called Planet Terror and Death Proof, with Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriquez associated with it - I had to check it out.

If you're not old enough to remember grindhouse movies, Wikipedia has a lovely definition for it and highlights and expands on it perfectly.Given that it runs three hours and 11 minutes and comprises two feature-length movies along with an assortment of bogus trailers, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse might be called a cinematic Double Whopper with Cheese, oozing grease, ketchup and a dare to find a better bargain anywhere at the multiplex.

Grindhouse doesn't aim simply to re-create two 30-year-old movie types. It's also out to conjure a whole bygone movie-going experience: what it was like to see a genre double-bill in a seedy second-run theater in the 1970s. Artistically, Grindhouse turns out to be in its own deliberately way to be plain ole trashy. Teaming up for a double-feature tribute to '70s-style grade-B cult movies, Rodriguez serves up a zombie shocker á la Night of the Living Dead, which Tarantino follows with an offbeat car chase thriller in the mold, roughly, of Vanishing Point (which was even a plot device to move the story along and had alot to do with the last half of the movie). These are in no way spoofs, parodies or quasi-remakes. They are a double-barreled work of pop art whose success, paradoxically enough, results from filmmakers apparently operating in tandem perfectly.

This movie takes you back in the day. Tarantino previously tested many old school elements in the Kill Bill movies, so when he went all out with this one, it all felt right and familiar. So when you saw the vintage "Coming Attractions" and "Our Feature Presentation" light-show animations were insanely on point and authentic. Even down to the fake previews is part of this experience. So is the blizzard of technical deficiencies, i.e. scratches, blurs, jump cuts, audio pops, "missing reel" announcements—that's wittily and artificially applied throughout Grindhouse. I was in awe at just how the movies were excuted not even from the subject matter. I enjoyed every single, solitary crazy minute of this movie. I even felt that Fergie's scene was better than the whole Mariah Carey movie Glitter. It was that good. That should show you how much I loved this movie.

It's very, nostalgic. Like I said before, if you're old enough to remember the era of Night of the Living Dead/Vanishing Point, then you'll have a great time, but then you'll have those too young to recall it. As a member of the first group, I'll go ahead and say that I am a huge fan of the genre of films Rodriguez and Tarantino pay tribute to here, but if you're not, you're still unavoidably susceptible to the memory buttons they're pushing. But what about younger viewers? How can you be nostalgic for something you never experienced? Perhaps the easiest answers are that any viewer can be entranced by Tarantino's and Rodriguez's feel for these old movies, and that such films have long since passed into the collective memory anyway; even if you've never seen the original Gone in 60 Seconds or Day of the Dead, ya kinda have.

In effect, Grindhouse reminds us of what we've lost and it does so at the most basic of levels. It gives us the blotches, splices and glitches. It overheats and goes over the top. It transports us back to the tawdry, low-grade thrills once widely available in cinema's disreputable bargain basement. If I have to say anymore, then I'll say this - GO SEE THIS FUCKIN' MOVIE!!!!

Turning 30

For as long as I can remember, I barked repeatedly at the fact that I was turning 30. It wasn't going to be pretty for me, because I was one of those guys who fought everything about turning 30 and what evils would be bestowed on me. I guess it was the stigma attached to it and that got me all riled up. Turning 30 was not looking good to me at all. All I kept saying to myself was "30 was like 50 in gay years." My reasons for saying that was tied to the fact that I didn't want to get or feel old. If you knew how the gay community gets around getting older, you'd know what I am talking about. We're not revered, we're made fun. "Look at the old mad at the bar." I can hear them all now. So you could imagine my last few weeks before turning 30 were insane for my mental state.

So as the days got closer to the my birthday, I reasoned internally and told myself that I wouldn't let this get to me. I started to plan a party, a big one. One that would make me remember 30 and have good memories surrounding it. I decided to make an entire weekend of it.

My birthday was on a Thursday this year, which oddly enough coincided with the Easter season and specifically on Holy Thursday. I tried to make jokes that day about how I was synonymous with Jesus, but they all just came off being sacrilegious. I had lunch with a friend of mine, who I haven't seen or talked to in awhile and he ended up taking me to lunch that day. Then I met my boyfriend, Ricky at Union Square, where we ended up walking around a little and went to PETCO to get the our dog, Oscar some stuff and then we headed down to SOHO so I can venture a peek at the DC Shoe store. As we headed down there, we saw there were some people waiting outside a building, which had a limo parked outside. We waited 5 minutes in the crowd before we finally found out that Christina Aquilera might be in the building. So I said, okay we can wait, if she's coming out soon. Then it began to snow. (yeah, snow) We didn't want to wait anymore, needless to say she wasn't that important. We got over it very quickly and we headed a few more blocks down to the store where I got some really awesome sneakers. Then we went back home were Ricky made dinner and also made me a cake, which was so sweet of him. He made my night.

Then Friday night I had a Field Trip to the movies to go see Grindhouse. (Click here for a review.) I invited some friends along and we all had a good time. I even got a great birthday gift from Ricky. He got me Guitar Hero 2 for the Xbox 360, which is the greatest thing in the world for me. I love that game! Grindhouse was insanely awesome and anyone into grindhouse flicks or a Tarantino/Rodriquez collaboration then go see this film.

Then Saturday I had a party/dinner at Dave & Buster's Times Square. I was a little worried because alot of people were cancelling on me last minute. Who knew my friends were hardcore Catholic extremist who clearly were following the rules of the Easter season by not going out during this most holy of times. Who knew, but nevertheless the people who I wanted most to come, did arrive and we all had fun playing games, winning tickets and just overall have a great time. I only wanted to be there a few hours, but ended up being there until closing. I had beer and won a bear. I had so much fun that night.

Then Sunday afternoon, my mom and sister came through and my mom cooked dinner actually it was a feast. I had a few more friends over and we all ate and watched Happy Feet. After that I was really exhausted. There was a lot going on that weekend.

So my 30th birthday wasn't as bad as I thought. Nothing bad happened. No mythic Y2K-like disaster happened to me. I just got older. I was still the same person, doing the same things before I turned 30. I didn't learn anything new or suddenly become more wiser than I was. I did make this event memorable and it was good. Now I won't freak out at 35.