Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks.

 Yesterday was a whirlwind of travel and food, which was wonderful but exhausting.

 I was thinking on this yesterday, but taking the time write on it this morning. On what I am thankful for. Perhaps I've said this a lot previously, but I feel that it is something I cannot be thankful enough for, and that is the friends in my life.

 A life in entertainment can be jading for a variety of reasons. Maneuvering through intrigue and egos can be both jading and exhausting. Feeling like you're slowly being lost in the shuffle of deals and desires, and wondering if you're even losing yourself in the grind and hustle can be soul siphoning.

 So when you find yourself in the midst of intelligent, creative, ambitious people that have remained loving, kind, humble and gracious is rare and precious. I am thankful for the wonderful people in my life, both performer and non, (and for all of them putting up with me) and also realize how fortunate I am to have found the friends and comrades that I have in recent years.

 I am thankful for all of my friends that have been with me through good times and hard times. I am grateful that we've found each other, and for their presence in my life. For your presence in my life.

 I love so many of you here, too many to tag. But I sincerely hope that you know who you are. Even if we don't speak or see each other all the time.

 You were with me when I lost everything. You've been with me during the crazy journey before and the road upward since. I am endlessly grateful for my second (and third, fourth?) family, my friends, my colleagues and all of the people that make my life wonderful.

 Thank you.

A Few Lessons From Stan Lee

A Few Lessons from Stan.

From Peter Parker, I learned that with great power comes great responsibility. But that power can also feel small against the evils of the world. Spiderman often faces opponents more powerful than him in some way, and fights to overcome this. We all have abilities, things within our power, it may seem small against the onslaught of awful from the world around us, but we can never give up fighting.

From Matt Murdock, I learned that we do not have to let our limitations define us. We do not have to let the hardships or our lives keep us from doing great things. And that we do not have to let the evils around us dissuade us from what we know to be right.

From Bobby Drake I learned how important it is to keep your sense of humor, even when things are tough and going wrong.

From Warrant Worthington III, I learned that life can sometimes change, drastically and awfully. That we can feel like we’re going to die, and might wish we did. But when we come through the other side, we will be stronger than we ever imagined possible.

From Sue Storm, I learned that we don’t always have to be seen for our presence to be felt.

From Mastermind, I learned to not always trust the way things appear.

From Nick Fury, I learned that there are shades of gray in this world we don’t understand when we’re young, and difficult decisions to make in order to accomplish our goals.

From Bruce Banner, I learned that our rage can consume us if we let it, and actions taken in that anger can destroy everything around us. That even though a Hulk might manifest within us in reaction to the injustices we endure and perceive, we need to check in with the Bruce Banner within us and find a more logical way to work through things, rather than lash out in anger.

From Stephen Strange, I learned that although one path may end, our lives our not over. This was something that I needed in 2013 when I felt abandoned, alone, and that my lifelong dream had dried up and died. But even though one journey may end, it does not mean that we cannot find a new path, learn a new skill and discover a new purpose. Seriously Stan, thank you so much for this one.

Truth, Reason, Why

We plink and putter away each day. Often days merely trying to survive. To keep our heads above water, when it feels like there's a hard ceiling above us and the tide keeps rising each day.

There are other days, when we've left Maslow satisfied, and we have time to ponder and reflect.

And not the sort of pondering and reflecting that results in angry letters and moody poetry, but the sort of contemplation that leads us stealthily creeping or even stumbling backwards into a stone foundation surrounded by all this quagmire and bog and sand that we hope to one day call the truth. Our truth, at the very least.

Throughout history, truths have been very much opposed to one another and we called it war.

Today truths are very much opposed to each other and we call it politics or law or justice.

What is justice to one may be tragedy to another.

And still, we continue to strive in our failed human condition to appeal to higher principles, much like a toddler reaching for the top shelf to get at that cookie jar, hoping that through sheer force of will that we will attain that mighty summit. Cookies are a prize for children and philosophers alike after all.

Yet, as we grow and learn, it seems that that shelf just keeps getting farther and farther away. And as our child's eyes shift to adult's eyes (should this change take place, throughout the ages I've learned this is not as commonplace as I'd assumed growing up) that perspective comes into view. The top shelf is further away for myriad reasons that we did not understand as children, and we're left with an awful choice: to continue striving for that which we might never attain, or to walk away and give up.

But with that growth and gaining of wisdom, another thing changes besides perspective. Reason. And not just the lofty reason through which we work through the puzzles of life and society, but quite simply the reason why we bother at all. Why? The great Why. The reason we must have for the endeavors we take on. And at the end of the day, in the still quiet moments we can conjure away from the raucous and pedantic world around us, that is all we have. Our Truth. Our Why. Our Reason.

And we may examine and shift that reason if we are the type of person capable of doing so. We will reflect upon that high shelf, and daily decide if it is worth the climb and struggle, or if we are happy with our place here amongst the lower cabinets. Which, there is nothing wrong with the lower cabinets. Being short myself, I make sure there are still goodies accessible at the lower cabinets.

Yet even still, that becomes our Why. Our Reason. Our Truth.

And that journey, whether we struggle or coast, whether we ponder or party, whether we study or assume, becomes the story of our Truth.

Endlessly Re-mending the Past

Matt Murdock: "I'd take that back if I could."

Sister Maggie: "If God allowed that, there'd be no future. Just people endlessly re-mending the past."

This bit of dialogue shook me. I, like most people, have chunks of my past I wish I might have done differently. I've mapped it out in my head at times, how I could change things, knowing what I know now.

This line of thinking can leave us feeling trapped however, that we are constantly looking back on what you didn't do right, or what evils were done to us. And we might have every reason to do so. There's no harm in mourning, it helps us move on.

But that second part is key. Moving on. Moving forward.

We take what we learn from our mistakes, from our past injuries, from the mistakes of those around us, and if we can find the focus and the wisdom, we will make different choices and be better tomorrow than we were yesterday.

But in that one line, Sister Maggie jarred these endless reflections and what ifs inside me with the idea of this endless loop of trying to fix things only to have other things go wrong that I did not foresee. Then going back to mend or change those. Then seeing other ways, new ways I could change what's already happened.

But I'd never be moving forward. Just like I am when I dwell in the past.

And like the traveler in Pilgrim's Progress, I felt this huge weight roll from on top of me. I suddenly felt free of all of those endless looks backwards, because that's not my life. That's not my future.

My destiny lies before me, using the lessons of the past to forge something greater to come. And it is that for all of you.

That burden of the mistakes and hurts of yesterday do not have to be this endless dwelling place where we become mired in the what ifs, the "If I'd only done this", and I say this being one of the worst offenders.

Hopefully this realization, and this thought that this loop of regret and change of the past, seeing it for the endless circle going no where that it is. Hopefully this takes some weight off your chest too.

Thank you for reading.

~Gideon Hodge

Cats

To share home with a cat is to invite a little magic into your world.

Something fae, something that sees and touches between this world and the next.

A creature of fierce independence, but also a guardian and a companion.

A comrade, never a subordinate. They will share space with you, and if you win their affection, you will gain their friendship as well.

3 Body Types

There are three body types. Endomorph, mesomoprh and ectomorph. These are important in sports fitness and training because it helps you learn and understand the strengths and weaknesses of your body type to avoid injury in training.

It is also important so we can STOP TELLING ENDOMORPH CHILDREN THEY ARE OBESE!

They have a certain body frame. They are stockier in some places than the ectomorph, and they hold weight differently than the mesomorph. Read up about your body type and learn how to care for it.

There can be malnourished endomorphs and flabby unhealthy ectomorphs. I'm not advocating obesity. But tearing down a child's self esteem and having eight year old's counting calories because they're uninformed school counselor told them they're fat, is not okay.

I don't know where this wave of unread health workers are coming from, but it needs to stop.

Being an endomorph is not obesity. So, school nutrition and health counselors, kindly remove your cranial region from your descending colon before giving children any sort of nutritional or dietary advice. Do your research.

Thank you.

<End Rant Transmission>

Some One Cares That You Are Here.

Somebody cares that you exist.
I care that you exist.

In the day to day of life we can feel like everything is fixed against us. Like we're climbing up a muddy hill in the rain and we keep sliding back down in defeat and disgrace.

You're not alone.

It can feel like that little pebble you're trying to add to the world doesn't matter. That song, that painted figure, that poem, story, cake, dance, hug.

You sit and hear your mind echo endlessly that it's all useless and that the world won't change with your passing.

But you're wrong.

It does matter.

All of it matters.

Because if you are genuine, you will bring a smile to someone's face. You will gain their trust. You will be their shoulder to lean on when they feel like this.

If you haven't been genuine in the past, it's not to late to be honest with yourself and change. You can make the world better. You can be better.

You may be that one who convinces someone to put down the bottle of pills they planned to take the last sleep of their life, and you'd never know. You never will.

We can't ever see all the ways we affect the world around us. Especially when the darkness is creeping in. Whether a break up, job loss, a lost opportunity, a failed endeavor, bad news from the doctor, a battle with drugs or alcohol or any other of life's endeavors that just didn't go the way you wanted.

You figure, why bother?

I get it. I've been there. What took the blade from my wrist or got me to stop wandering dangerous neighborhoods hoping to run into the wrong person was a phone call. A message. A hand to hold when I needed it.

And if no one else is offering, than I am.

It's not that no one cares. I promise you. I know it feels that way sometimes, but more people care about you than you will ever fully comprehend, and that is part of the magic of life. All the ways we affect each other that we never see or hear.

The way you affect me.

If you're reading this right now, you've touched me in some way, and I am forever grateful for your contribution to my life.

We just get so caught up in our own lives that we forget to check in sometimes. I'm very guilty of this myself with each project I throw myself into.

But they still care. I still care.

You are loved. You are wanted. And you will leave an awful, bleeding, jagged hole in this world if you were to leave it.

And if you don't believe me, believe in me.
There's no hill I won't climb.
If you can't believe in yourself right now, just believe in me, believing in you.

Humanity or Righteousness?

I was watching Daria recently (dear heavens I had forgotten how funny that show was) and there was an episode involving a love triangle, when one character makes out with somebody else's boyfriend. Very typical situation, but they all managed to handle it with humor, though and a bit of grace. (I'm not saying who for anyone that hasn't seen the episode yet.)

It made me think of a conversation a friend of mine had in high school, lamenting the days on the playground in grade school where we could have a knock down, drag out fist fight and still play toys together that next weekend.

And in high school, it might not always work, but somebody might break up and end up with a close friend and people learn to adapt. Friends can have a huge fight or falling out and make up a week or so later.

Yet as we sink further into 'adulthood', we seem to lose that malleability. One argument can end a friendship. One disagreement or unfortunate situation can end years worth of trust, joy and friendship. And I'm honestly not sure why that is. Why do we lose that malleability of youth?

We may say to ourselves that as we get older, the stakes get higher. And that may or may not be true, but are the stakes of losing a long term friend any less?

I think our pride and stubbornness come into play. We don't want to lose face, or admit to being in the wrong (which, inside tip, not admitting you're wrong when you're actually wrong, does not save face) and thus we let a friendship that lasted years just wither and die. For what, pride?

Did pride sit with you during your last break up. Did pride help you out when you were between jobs? Is pride going to come pick you up when your car breaks down and you're stranded? You get the idea.

And I'm not saying that we should stay in abusive situations.

But I see this alarming repost of “leave a situation or relationship that no longer serves you.”

A relationship isn't there to serve you. Friends are not there to serve you. Lovers are not there to serve you.

And I know that in the fastfood, status update, Amazon delivery age we live in, that everything needs to be immediate and serve us exactly the way we want it. But like that woman that just got her ass whipped at a McDonald's after angrily throwing her milkshake at an employee learned, the world isn't always there to take your abuse and make you happy for it.

Anything worth while requires time, effort and dedication. We learn this in school, at work, as craftsmen(women/persons), as musicians, technicians, coders or anything else in life. And yet we forget to apply this in our social lives?

There are friends that I've lost to my own pride. There are friends I've lost to their pride. I've recently watched friends cut off other friends to assuage their own pride and largely just so they didn't have to admit to being wrong. (It didn't make them any less wrong, it did not in fact make them look “better” in the eyes of anyone, and it lost them a lot of friends for no reason, just to reiterate my earlier sentiment.)

I guess to a degree, we have to learn to forgive each other for being human. In this ever increasing political crucible all around us, fanned by “information” outlets clamoring for ad revenue and marketing dollars, we have to learn more about the shades of gray in the world and people around us. If we could do this, there might be less hostility in the world. We might lose less friends. We might lose less people in general.

Just something to think about.

Be right, or be human. Both have their benefits I suppose. But I've always found that the company of genuine people to be more pleasant and comforting than the heat of my own righteousness.

Whether or not you agree is up to you.

Back into the Fire

A year and a half later, and I find the stories of my home burning to the ground making its circulation once again.

And I get to see every millennial from here to Reddit telling "Cloud bro!"
I don't trust the cloud for my personal work. I didn't then, I don't now.
I've found other ways to back up and keep my work safe.

It's hard to understand that level of loss until you've experienced it. It's honestly too much to absorb at once. All the little treasures that matter to you. Your great grandfather's figurines from Japan, brought back from World War 2. Your grandfather's home movie projector with all your family's old home movies on celluloid. Books signed by your favorite authors. Costumes my wife had custom made for me. The list goes on.

And having lived in New Orleans for ten years, I know there are so many reading this that know exactly what I'm talking about. They're the ones not replying to this with "You didn't use the cloud?"
(Sorry, that was petty. But I'm not deleting it.)

That being said, as I look back on that awful day, I realize there was something else at work inside me when I went sprinting into the fire.
There was a meme that circulated afterward of me running toward a dragon.
In my mind, that became the most apt for what happened that day.

Not because I was any sort of hero that day.
What I did was selfish. It was for my work.
I wasn't rescuing a kitten or a child. I was rescuing something deeply personal that I had toiled on for years.

There was no hero that day.
(Save for the firefighters, those people are true heroes.)

The dragon was real though.
Joseph Campbell and many others have talked about how dragons were a representation in story telling of what we're afraid of, or of facing different sorts of obstacles or evil.
Throughout my life I've had my work stolen, plagiarized and shangai'd.

I've had colleagues sabotage projects. I've had agents hide auditions.
I've been publicly beaten and imprisoned by the police for protesting in favor of government support to education.
I don't know their individual motives and right now, I don't care.
(And yes, I am aware there are many others who have suffered in ways I cannot imagine.)

But that day, I drove to my home, to confront what I had hoped up till then was a small kitchen fire. When I could see the volcanic clouds of smoke looming from over a mile away, I knew I was headed toward something else entirely.

When I saw the fire, I knew everything I had ever worked for in my life was gone.
Every heirloom and treasure that had been entrusted to me by people that I will never see again was gone.
Everything. Ash.
That dragon was destroying everything I owned.

And I chose to fight.
I knew where my laptop was.
I knew all of my writing was on there and that any back up flash drives were deeper in the house.
(I don't know about you, but up till then, I never had a back up plan for my house burning down.)
So I ran. I snuck around the firefighters, and charged into the house. I could barely see. There was smoke everywhere and part of the ceiling was already collapsing.

But as I was escorted out by those brave souls who face these dragons daily I got to hold that one treasure in my arms.
Everything else was gone, but with trembling lip and tears in my eyes I got to stare that dragon in the eye and say "you didn't take this. You didn't get everything."

It's small, and I guess it doesn't make the same nice headline of "crazy novelist runs into his own burning house,", but it was the only small victory I got that day. After losing everything.

I got to steal that one thing from the dragon's clutches. It may not have made sense to a lot of people. It might have just been a fun punchline for others. But at that moment, it was all I had in the world.

Adventures in Writer's Block: 4.5.2018

I sat there in the cold morning. A faint mist crept along my back yard. Its fingers tickling at the edge of my porch, but never venturing further as if there were some barrier between the mist and the treated wood. Treated wood, no longer simply the growth from the earth it once was. Maybe that made it unnatural now and thus forever apart from the elemental world from which it came.

Yet as my fingers wrapped around the warmth of my coffee mug, I saw the longing there. The soft caress of a lover's fingers, mist gliding across wood like the lithe hand of a master pianist across the edges of my makeshift barrier between my home, my fortress and the wild earth beyond. Those tinkling digits toying with a lover it could never have. I took a sip and smiled at the overturning coal this image stoked in the back of my mind.

“I know the feeling old friend,” I said to just me, the porch, the mist, and my cat. She stared at me in that curious, judgmental way that only felines, dear friends and significant others are truly capable of. Its that look that seems to be in awe of your simplicity and simultaneously wondering when you're going to learn from your errant ways.

“Alright, alright, I'll get back to work,” I tease. But I know she cares not for what I do. Her interest in the squirrel currently offending her territory is of far greater interest to her than the simple clicking that comes from my office each day. I'm sure she finds what I do incredibly boring. That much time spent in one place is entirely wasted if it does not involve napping. I'm not entirely certain that she's wrong.

So I leave my little sphinx to stalk the backyard and remind the local vermin whose domain this truly is while I retreat to mine. The domain of the office worker, the entrepreneur (when they aren't busy making online videos to mentor the masses on glories they have yet to achieve), and the writer. The writer, of course, being the lowest of the three. What we do is a hobby, unless we're one of those magical creatures like Neil Gaiman, Stephen King or J.K. Rowling who managed to weave straw into gold early on in their careers. The rest of us are odd creatures with a habit of skulking in a room alone for hours at a time, accomplishing nothing and studying a variety of topics online that likely has us on an F.B.I. watch list.

I switch out my coffee mug for a fizzy energy soda. It was one of those nights. I listen to the tiny couples clink against inside of the can, creating some cadence that I might be able to discern were I more musically inclined. The atonal melody continues while I carve a hex into the wood of the desk and sacrifice a live chicken to conjure the spirits of creative writing. True creative writing, not the mind numbing “writing prompts” of college essays.

Write about a time when you were really happy.

Or:

A small boy's toy boat is washed down the river.

Or:

She tried to forget me, but I knew she never would.

I shudder and toss the third one back to the discard pile with the lyrics of washed up Emo singers and rapists to the trash bin where they both belong. The second one is only interesting if there's a man eating clown at the end of the stream, and I think somebody's already done that. And the first one, really? Happy? Could we be any more generic?

I toss the book into the same waste paper basket as the Emo careers of countless douche bags from the early 2000's and lament that the chicken blood has gone cold and the muses aren't coming. I've got feathers all over my office for nothing and my wife is going to be less than thrilled when she finds this. One of those judging looks described earlier is the best I could hope for. That and I think the chicken's wings still have to be flapping while the incantation is made to summon the divine power of story conjuring. This chicken isn't flapping anywhere, unless I were to charge a few hundred volts through it. Or is it a few thousand? I'm not sure where the cut off point is between dancing undead chicken and poultry-geist flambee.

I stare briefly at the wall socket, the image of the pop-n-lock undead chicken dance amusing me far more than it should, and I cast all the mystical implements aside, take a sip from the beat boxing soda can and resume my story. I lament that it doesn't involve undead chickens or the love child of morning fog and a sentient back porch that has suffered decades of suburban caucasity and now warns the world of the impending croc and polo shirt wearing Armageddon foretold by the grizzled, ancient charcoal grill. But perhaps the next one might.

To be or not to be - A part of the Rhythm Nation

To be, or not to be— part of the Rhythm Nation
that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler to break the color lines
And work together, to improve our way of life
Or to lend a hand against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No struggle —no progress to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
This is the test, No struggle, no progress
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
To help your brother do his best
Things are getting worse…
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
We have to make them better, it’s time to give a damn
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
Join voices in protest, to social injustice
A generation full of courage, come forth with me

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
Things are getting worse
It’s time to give a damn
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. –
Time to take action
People of the world unite
Strength in numbers, we can get it right

Be all my sins remembered.
To look for a better life
Strength in our numbers
We can get it right

One time
We

Are a part

,of the Rhythm Nation

Blank Page

There is a common misnomer that a writer's greatest fear is a blank page. There is some truth to it, but they don't understand the fear itself.

It's not from the daunting task of filling the page, or even the uncertainty of what to place upon that page. It's the reason writers get excited about something as mundane or silly as new stationary supplies.

It's because that blank page represents the limitless potential of what we could put down upon that page. That mixed with the limited time we have to place text upon said page means that we have to sift through all the potential floating around in our heads and decide what will actually see the light of day.

It's a daunting task because of the sheer responsibility of it all. And not to you, or the publisher or the editor but to the unspoken connection and agreement between writers and that other place where all of these stories and ideas and potentialities emerge from. It's a place seldom spoken of by writers, but we all know its there, and no, none of us truly understand it. Thus the magic. Thus the responsibility. Thus the fear that we're perhaps going to make the wrong choice somehow. Maybe.

But so too comes the excitement of what might be, of what will be, and the quiet reflection and joy of a job well finished. It's not the accolades of the athlete or politician who's victory is cheered in the streets and stadiums. It's not even the adulation some few of us receive that manage to cultivate a following.

It's that quiet moment in a room alone when set down the pen, when we hit save for the final time and smile, knowing that this particular journey is finally finished.

And then it's on the next one...