Chapter One - Build From The Past -Nine Years To Live(Commentary)

Chapter One - Build from the Past

 

The plan was quite simple. Cut all the the crap that makes me feel bad. At this point, that was just about everything.

 

I had to figure out a way to utilize my busy schedule yet not kill myself trying to do everything in an efficient way. The first plan was to assure I got seven to eight hours of rest a day. My father who always had trouble sleeping was ironically the biggest advocate of “rest” being the most important part of a healthy body next to water. I was well aware that my life always ran better when I had slept at least seven hours on a regular basis.  In order to rest, I would have to remove caffeine and “fake energy,” out of my diet. I have always been a Coca Cola junkie. The amount of money I had invested in the “brown bubbly,” could probably feed a large village.

 

Have you ever really looked at what they put into a Coca Cola? I hadn’t either ‘til I decided to kick it.

 

Nutrition Facts

 

1 Can

Calories 140

Sodium 50mg 2% of daily value

Carbs 39g - 13% of daily value

Sugars 39g -

 

Ingredients- Carbonated Water, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, “Natural Flavors” Caffeine 34mg/12 fl. oz.

 

Kicking caffeine was easy. I had one bad day where I felt lethargic and crappy and I was home free. My life with Caffeine and other stimulants was ridiculous.

 

For the past 2 years, I started the morning with a 20oz Coke and a little yellow over-the-counter pill called an 8 Hour Energy. This was daily. Another 8 hour pill would be consumed around 2pm.

 

I can only thank the government for outlawing Ephedrine because before they did, it was Mini Thins and Ripped Fuels that were a daily routine for me. (Both high in Ephedrine’s, ancient chinese stimulant, Ma Huang herb.) And this habit was an everyday thing from 1998 - 2007, How I’m not dead yet, I have no idea. I took them like a diabetic would do insulin.

 

Once they outlawed these “Heart Killers,” I went back to occasional prescription Ritalin, Stackers and other “Fat Burners” to give me that kick, my mind felt I needed to keep my edge. I was a speed junkie. There were times in my life where I was full of energy and most of my days were spent working on a goal. My life was full of productivity.  I rarely watched television, never napped, and felt if I was, “hanging with my friends,” I better be doing something while I did it. There were many moons growing up where I would hang out at some friend’s house, drink a couple of beers but would work on a script, drawing, shoot video or something while I did it. I don’t waste time. Life is short and I’m the poster boy for making sure every minute is utilized to doing something. Somewhere a long the way the non-chemically induced creative juices were substituted for the opposite. I cannot pinpoint the exact day but if I had to give it a time stamp, I would say it began when I decided to get “buff,” because I was tired of being a little scrawny, film nerd. I had been in Los Angeles for 4 years and was sick of being a little pencil necked geek.

 

I didn’t change any of my habits when I began working out. I just strictly wanted to get big. There was no diet with the exception of massive amounts of weight gainer, creatine, and protein shakes. I didn’t sleep much, partied in college and ate and drank whatever I wanted, writing it off as a theory that: “If I was working out, I could get away with doing anything.” 

 

Anybody that knows me, knows I don’t do anything half ass. If I say I’m going to do it, I do it and my will to achieve becomes almost an obsession even if unhealthy. 

 

My workouts were no different. They were 3 hour blitzes of my body. Heavy weights and thrashing the muscle fibers and joints of my body were the only way I knew how. What I didn’t realize was there was much more to body building than just “lifting weights.” Rest, good diet, cardio training and healthy practices went hand and hand. I blew up overnight it seems and went from a soft 160 pounds to 210 pounds of brick shit house. My arms looked like Popeye, but I was always exhausted and had hit a plateau in my training. A guy at the gym introduced me to the Ephedrine based pill, “Ripped Fuel,” and that was the beginning of the end. My workouts improved. My stamina on the weights expanded into another thirty minutes of vicious pounding and also curbed my huge appetite for eating. Those pills began to find their uses even outside of the gym. If I had to stay up all night for a test, I popped a couple of them. If I was tired from a shoot and the boys were going out, I took them to pep me up so I can withstand the late night of bar hopping on the Sunset Strip. 

 

Those pills had become a “take with me everywhere,” kind of thing. 

 

When I returned from Los Angeles to North Carolina, the pills came with me..... The working out.... Did not. And until a month ago, in some form or another the chemically induced pep whether it be prescription stimulants, Taurine, Ma Huang, Guana or whatever, my body got its fix every day of my life. AND I MEAN, EVERYDAY. If I didn’t take them by two in the afternoon, I didn’t function.

 

My heart only knows the amount of damage I have done to it through those pills..... I only hope I’m not too late to right the wrongs and put some life back into it.

 

Upon kicking the pills and caffeine it was on to Step Two. My plan had four steps in it.

 

1)Kick “Fake Energy”---- Check.

Begin Cardio Filled Workouts with emphasis on running and tone and core muscle workouts.

Adjusted Healthy Diet that would transform and develop over the first 60 days

Be gone with vices, (Occasion cigarettes, drinking beer, fast food, high sugar drinks and food, tobacco use.)

 

When these steps were made then adjust if needed to Get Well. Be Fit. Live Life.

 

My will never let me just “ween” myself off slowly on anything. Everything had to be done then and now so those steps were fulfilled within the second week of the plan.

 

The next step was Gym and Weight Utilization. 

 

There was a problem..... Being a single father and with the business blowing up bigger by the week, the 3 hour break each day to tour down to the gym may not be an allowance I could pay myself everyday especially during the “Red Zone Deadline,” times. I would have to invest in a gym, but I also felt I would have to invest some money and bring a gym to me.... About the time, the pre-planning for ‘The Nine Year Gym’ began, I signed a big contract with a small company called, Nike.... You heard of them?

 

It must have been fate.....

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Preface - Nine Years To Live (Commentary)

I woke up one day and realized I was never going to continue to live if I kept up what I was doing. My grandfather died of a heart attack when he was 45. That was nine years away for me and I was choosing that fate and welcoming it. I had out slept my kids for the first time since they entered the world and felt terrible about it. I had been pulling 20 hour work days and sometimes longer to keep my business momentum booming. I was counting solely on Carrie, my daycare/”nanny” to do the parenting of my children and was now relying on my prescription of Amphetamine Salts and massive amounts of “fake energy,” to push me through the grind of my responsibilities. On top of all that, it was much, much worse. I was overweight from years of consuming too much high sugar soft drinks, energy drinks and eating massive amounts of processed foods along with my children. If they were eating chicken nuggets, so was I. If they wanted McDonalds, that’s what I was eating.

 

The day before the “crash,” my son had begged me to hold him. And I couldn’t find the energy to do it. From five thirty to nine thirty I laid on a couch nearly unable to move. My life was over and my kids’ life was being compromised for my bad choices and all I could do was lay there letting the television babysit them for the first time in 4 years.

 

Sure, I was doing what not many fathers in the world are able to do and that is juggle being a single father and a business owner. In between jobs, edits, I was remembering to to buy gifts for birthday parties, go to the grocery store, clean their clothes, get them haircuts, coach their ball teams and do all the other little things that sometimes are missed when life is so chaotic. I was making enough money to pay the bills and give the kids whatever they needed without batting an eye, (even sometimes pay the ex-wife’s bills.) I was somehow managing it all which made me proud, but I had forgotten the big picture. The big picture of actually “being there,” mentally.

 

When my wife and I split, I broke the chains of negativity, constrain and a compromised life and my business blew up in front of my face and it never slowed down even as I did trying to keep up. My health was bad before success. My wife smoked. In fact, smoked through both pregnancies. I was a closet smoker. I hated it. Always did even before I realized how hard it was to kick. A heroin addict once said, “it was easier to kick heroin than it is to kick nicotine.” I have never done heroin but coming from a guy who has said, “addiction is not a sickness. It is mind game,” or a guy who practices, “there are no excuses only laziness,” I had become a hippocrite and had lost my battle with my fight on kicking cigarettes. I would lie to everybody. “No, I’m not smoking,” but I did. There were days I would buy a pack and smoke them all. There were days where I would just bum one on set here and there. My vice wasn’t consistent. It would just happen and if I didn’t smoke when my mind said smoke, I would sweat, crave and obsess about having one. The only times I never thought about it was when the kids were around. I would never, ever, smoke in front of my father or my kids. It was just something I didn’t do. Why? Because I was so ashamed that it was the only thing I couldn’t control or be strong enough to fix in my life. With every time, I vowed to quit would come another prescription to Adderall for a big edit, or a Red Bull buzz that would allow me to “postpone” quitting. I was a mess and as work got busier and busier, my habits worsened, and I was so wrapped up in the action and “awe” of what I had built, I never saw nor felt it until I decided to complicate my life even further.....

 

Life took a turn for the worse upon returning from New York from a 10 day stint. I had spent all 10 days sleep deprived but managed to stay away from fatty foods and energy drinks. I purposely left my prescription at home to keep me from relying on it and somehow managed to feel great the whole time. Maybe the aura of being in NYC was enough to make it work, I don’t know.

 

Upon returning, the hustle began. I got blitzed with work. Small jobs, but quanity over quality had suddenly entered my train of thought. Through all these, I decided to not only take on two big jobs, but become a boyfriend to a girl. The plan was to have all the jobs done by Football season and kick back. Well, that was hard to do when I continued to pick up every job that was put in front of my face. There were points where I didn’t eat because “I felt I didn’t have time.” When the kids weren’t there, I would eat one meal a day and it was Burger King, occasionally treating myself to my favorite Thai restaurant. In between it was 2 liters of Coca Cola, Adderall, Red Bulls, 8 Hour Energy pills, 5 hour Energy shooters, sunflower seeds, chewing tobacco and cigarettes. Some days when the kids weren’t there, I would down two 24 oz Bud Lights just to be able to sleep from all the stimulation I had served myself through out the day in order to sit in front of the computer and edit. 

 

My work was complicated. I acquired half of the cost upfront which normally would go to pay my people, buy the equipment we needed and then the other half would be paid to me upon completion. I paid myself out of the completion money. If I didn’t get the job done in a timely manner, I would go broke. And about a week before the football season started, I realized just how bad a hole I had dug myself in. I had seven open jobs that were not complete. I was out of money due to paying out my debts, extra child care, and honestly blown money from eating out, buying smokes, four dollar red bulls etc..... I was so tired that I just threw money at every problem I had. There was no way to stop it. When the kids were with their mother, I would work all day. Then take the work to the girlfriend’s and would just keep going. Then I would come home and do it some more and never realized that it was taking me twice as long to do everything because I was so mentally and physically exhausted. When the kids were there, it was “try to be Dad,” but there were days where I literally found myself, “just trying to get through the day.” As soon as I put them to bed, I was back at it until 2am and repeat the process. This would go on for weeks at a time and with every passing day, there would be more ingesting of stimulants, caffeine, crappy food. My body was shutting down. My muscles were quitting and the worst part of it, my brain had stopped working. I stopped answering the phone, stopped showering when the kids weren’t there. I would sleep in my edit chair some nights. Kids would come back a couple days later and I would try and go right back into Dad mode but it didn’t work. It would take me at least three days to recover from the work binge. I would have to do laundry and wear the “Dad Pants” and play catch up while the kids just wanted to play and hang out with their Dad. I remember one night being so tired, I put the kids in the car after dinner to go to the store for “ice cream,” but it was really so I could get a Red Bull and a pack of Goody powders. I didn’t have a headache, I just wanted the quick release of caffeine Goody’s gives you when you stick it on your tongue. I was up til 4am because of the stunt but to me, it got me through the night with the kids. There were nights I would hang with the girlfriend and it would be exhausting to crack a smile. A couple months earlier, our faces and stomachs would hurt from lauging and having a good time. Now, it was hard to strike up a conversation for me.

 

My wife had moved in with her sister and her two kids, which really “disrupted,” the routines and stability of the kids when they were not home with me and their behavior took a nose dive. My son had always been a problem. He was a boy. He wasn’t speaking like he should have been and we had some serious issues with communication. This move had made it worse on him and even worse than that, my perfect daughter had also acquired some bad habits, but I was too exhausted to even deal with it. I found myself the push over Dad who just tried to keep them happy to avoid  having to be consistent because I just couldn’t find energy to deal with anything. 

 

Anger set in and I found myself pissed at the world. Pissed I was broke. Pissed I couldn’t get any help. Pissed at my wife. Pissed at my girlfriend. Pissed at the kids. I was done. My gut overlapped my pants because I was on my way to upgrading yet another waist size for the second time in 3 years. I looked and felt terrible. I wanted to quit it all. 

 

The crash came fast. About two days before the girlfriend decided to get rid of me because well by this time I was a total wreck. I was home with the kids and we had the worst day we had ever had. It was a day that made me feel like I wanted to, drop them off at their mothers and be done with it. We were stuck at the house all day because I just couldn’t find the mental or physical fortitude to get these kids dressed and manage both of them outside of the house. They were awful to their Dad all day. So bad to the point that I put them both to bed without a story, and worse, without a kiss for the first time I could remember. I was furious. I retreated to my hole and turned the edit bay on and sat there for an hour just staring at the job in front of me. Couldn’t keep one thought in my head. My eyes burned. I opted to look at the other 3 jobs I had actually completed for the first time to run quality control and what I saw was sickening. The cuts were lazy. The effects were stock. The audio was not mastered. I had compromised it, just like I had compromised my kids the past 3 months. I had compromised it like I had my health for the past 10 years. I had officially become the guy I said I would never be. 

 

I walked to the bathroom and looked at myself. I had fallen apart. The circles under my eyes were horrible. The arms plump. The belly fat. I walked into the bedrooms of the kids and watched them sleep, remembering, how much they counted on me. I remembered how much of their life in their current parental ordeal was in my hands. Remembering, how much I wanted the life I made for myself. Remembering that I had fulfilled a promise to do exactly what I was doing with my career. I also remembered how my Grandfathers had had heart attacks young. One of them didn’t live through it. What would these kids do if I died? What would I do if I woke up in ten more years and their life was screwed because I had been too busy chugging Red Bulls and working to do my real job?

 

I stayed up all night. The kids got up the next morning smiling. I gave them both a real big hug and cooked them a big breakfast. I sighed in relief, I had not ruined their life in the past three months. I was still exhausted but knew what I had to do so my direction was back and when I have direction there has never been any limitations. The only thing left was to catch up on my rest and then conduct a plan. Payton saw I was tired and sad. I sat her down and gave her an abbrieviated version of my story. I told her that she would never have to worry about her Dad not being able to be who she wanted him to be again.

 

“So what’s wrong with your heart, Daddy?” She asked. I kinda’ laughed that the “heart attack” part of the story is all she got out of it. 

 

So I said, “well I don’t know but I want to keep it nice and healthy from now on for you guys.”

 

She walked out of the room and returned with a necklace I had given her. It was a hand woven necklace a friend in NY had made me to give to her. It had a beautiful pillow like heart on it that was woven into the string. 

 

“Then you wear this. It will keep your heart safe,” she said smiling. I laughed until I cried. I took it from her.

 

“OK.”

 

She ran into the the play room to hang with her brother. I looked at the necklace. Stared, at the heart and just like that, the plan came to me. I put the necklace in my pocket and beelined to the cabinet, grabbed the Adderall prescription- flushed it. Took the family sized box of Goody powders- tossed it in the trash. Emptied the Coca Colas into the sink.

 

Project ‘Nine Years to Live’ was on. From here on out Life wouldn’t run me, I would run my life......

 

 

To be continued.

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Saying Goodbye - The High School Football Story

In July 2009, I received a call from a woman who wanted me to film her son’s football season. Business was starting to pick up and I was concerned about taking a job so involved and relentless on schedules. We were talking every Friday from 6:00pm to 12 midnight, I would have to be at a football field somewhere in and around Lincoln County. Mandi, my wife, pushed me into the job and I agreed to take it on after days of deliberation. I am a huge football fan and loved being at high school football games even though it had been years since I attended one. 

 

The first night came and as I set up the camera a top of the North Lincoln High School Football Field’s press box. I checked my time, and still had about twenty minutes before the game started. It may had been the first 20 minutes I had, had to myself in sometime. It may had been the first time, I had slowed down in two years. And for one short moment, the world stopped. The sunset was beautiful. You could smell the hamburgers and popcorn cooking at the concession stand. The “Fat Boy Club,” or the announcers for the game were delivering their sponsor list. The breeze was relaxing and I realized, I had, (or Mandi had,) made the right choice. This was where I suppose to be....

 

And for two seasons that’s exactly where I was-- Shooting an Offensive/Defensive Lineman for his parents who had helmed his future in football and were not pulling any punches on getting him to college to play ball.  I, along with his personal trainer and several other people, were their investment. What they didn’t realize at the time, was they were my investment. The job they hired me to do, I had fallen in love with and during the off season I literally counted the days until the next season to be able and get that weekly escape to the press box to film the game. 

 

I also complicated the process by taking on not only him but two more of the standout players on the team. The pressure of keeping three camera men and their footage in order would suck the fun out of the process occasionally through out the week, but come Friday night I was always as giddy as a kid on Christmas Eve.

 

About midway through this past season, I realized that if I didn’t start advertising or finding a replacement player to shoot next year, this little addiction of getting out of the editing bay, or house, and escaping on Friday nights would end. 

 

Upon completion of the season, I was completely bummed but hopeful a family would find me and use my services next year. Clearly, the completed highlight reel speaks for itself and honestly, it will only be a matter of time before somebody finds me and uses me again. A friend at Fox Sports South said and I quote, “Those Highlight reels will change the way, recruiters look at players and that kind of coverage will allow the outstanding players on the smaller less competitive teams to be seen as well. It is a remarkable piece of marketing.” This quote and my theory didn’t settle things for me. My days, (for now,) at North Lincoln High School were over and over those two years, I had really grown attached the whole team. I had seen so many guys grow into better football players over those two years; Built relationships and friendships with coaches and parents and of course have grown accustomed to sporting my North Lincoln Gear around town with pride. Five days after the final game, I realized the only way I was going to be able to part with this school is make a “video piece,” chronicling the years I was there. A sort of Tribute piece that the players could take with them and I could too. Something I could look at down the road to remind me of my extraordinary, (and almost wasn’t,) time in Lincoln County. 

 

I will always remember the boys and their parents: Dillon and The Tuckers, Mitchell and The Gates and Mason and The Pirtles who trusted in me to get their boys to college and who I trusted in to keep me employed to come to the games Friday night. I will always remember putting on my NL hat and football shirt Friday Morning. Charging the batteries on Thursday night, looking over the great plays on Monday, the phone calls on Tuesday trying to acquire the game tapes and always, always remember the rattling of the blue cowbells and spirit that school had for the team even in the worst of situations. If it were up to me, I  would and will always rest easy to know my spot on that press box was reserved for years to come but I’m not counting on it. Will the next team capture the same excitement and peace I felt at North Lincoln? Who knows. For now, though I leave my post at North Lincoln with three kids going to college and a fifteen minute tribute film that I will always be proud of. 

 

Thank you to all who helped me along the way and allowed me to grow with the boys. I will always be in debt to Mandi, Renada, Kenneth, and Dillon who pushed me to pull the normal rates of my services and take a chance on something that seemed so trivial. My life because of it, will never be the same and with that, it’s back to business as usual until the next phone call in August, if one finds my ear.

 

 

North Lincoln High Football - A Tribute Film from ROADHOUSE PICTURES on Vimeo.

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Our Evening Listening - Black Keys "Keep Me" from the album, Rubber Factory

If it isn't in you iPod, then you are way behind. BUY IT IMMEDIATELY.

   (4099 KB)
Listen on posterous

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Back to the Fun of Filmmaking

With the grind of the corporate and television work coming to an end for the year, it gives us time to finish our "Labors of Love." Next week, will begin the Picture and Audio Mastering of our campy film, Bad A$$ Killers. With the end of the creative process near, the beginning of the marketing and packaging stage begins. We plan on doing a "graphic novel style," approach to the poster and DVD covers so the first thing is to beginning messing with layout. I photocopied all the promotional pictures from the film to give me angles to do a rough layout using all the characters.

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The Old Road Traveled. The New Ahead.

Two shots taken on the way home from Raleigh. I was in a sentimental mood. A picture of an old blurry life passing behind me and new clearer one ahead.

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Project 9 years to live

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Ugh

Sent from my iPad

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The Dungeon - My Swan Song

After 2 years of North Lincoln Football Film, I step down my post as "highlight" guy. It's been a journey and I'm greatly saddened, but I'll have 2 years of memories, still pictures, and some of the greatest football highlight footage ever seen to take with me. Cheers to the 2010-2011 North Lincoln Knight Football Team. It's been a hell of a ride!!!!

This shot, is the last minute before cameras starting rolling tonight for the final game.

 

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