Saturday, February 12, 2011
My Stomping Ground
Devotion Tattoo Setup
This is one of my favorite parts of the process. I think it goes back to my drawing and how much I love to do it.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Chapter Five - Fiber Shredding and Workout Plan - Nine Years To Live (Commentary)
You don’t know how out of shape you are until you start running and I’m not talking about a stair climber or treadmill. I’m talking about actually shoe to road pounding.
I always hated cardio. Course I was a smoker so running was my least “tangible” way of getting fit. I had cut smoking out three weeks prior to stretching my legs for the first time to do the “unthinkable.” I knew I couldn’t expect much and it was a good thing. I made it about two and half home lengths before I was buckled over gasping for air. Then I walked two and half houses then would run for a house length then repeat process. I was frustrated that I wasn’t getting further but accepted that it was a work in progress.
Within a month of this process, I was doing a mile before falling to my knees and was managing two miles on a treadmill.
I had always been fascinated with Bruce Lee’s philosophy, and mind. I had adapted his philosophy of mind and body after my wife had left. I had already adapted his philosophy on work years before. I had read some of his early writings and after High School adapted the art of “writing everything into words,” until present. Bruce Lee may be the reason I write so much to be honest. His raw approach to how he studied and worked his trait, I also carried over to my life too.
My camera work and editing comes from his philosophy of, “Be water. Be shapeless and formless in your approach.” There is no “format.” This practice has helped my company be successful with the diverse jobs we do. One day a corporate detailed infomercial, the next day I’m on a skateboard following kids off a flight of stairs, the next day, we’re making a film. I become the job I was doing as Bruce taught me to do.
Now his philosophy on training may be a little far fetched for me. His workouts obviously involved a lot of martial arts. Sure if I was going to do it then, “DO IT,” but at this venture into the journey, just rebuilding and then building from the rebuild would be the primary goal.
Here was a typical work out day for the legend to give you an idea of why, I wouldn’t be able to adapt to this.
[[posterous-content:pid___0]] Have you seen Rocky? Well hitting a big slab of beef may look over dramatic but I can assure you it is murder. The same concept goes for a heavy bag. Even the best of shape will feel their body’s fail after ten minutes of forcing themselves on to it. Heavy Bag There were a million ways to approach and work a heavy bag: Combos, straights, hooks, one handers, whatever. To start I just punched the crap out of it. As I started seeing results I toned it down a bit, working on technique. This consisted of one handed taps using each fist until my shoulders melted off my body. I found this method although not as “active,” worked my body even more thoroughly. Jump Rope This was another high cardio anytime kind of workout. Even if you are new to jump rope and only manage 10 to 15 rotations before tripping up, it was a great “in between” exercise I could do whenever I found a couple of minutes. Speed Bag Not much of a heart worker but great for hand eye coordination and shredding your, (shoulders and biceps,) with optimal work. Underneath the new layers and fat pockets on my mass of waste, there was muscle. I wasn’t starting from scratch so I guess from a “vanity” point of view, it wouldn’t take but six months to get back to where I was. I was ten years older though so muscle memory may be a little slower. Within the first 30 days I began noticing a difference. Of course, I was bombarding a haggard body with force it had not with stood in a long time. My workouts were clean. There were rare times, “I didn’t feel like doing anything, ” and those were usually days where I had been sleep deprived from some random wake ups by my restless son in the middle of the night. My workout plan faltered many times due to time. I was logically only allowed about an hour and a half to devote to my new way of life at an actual facility. Twenty five minutes would be devoted to running so that gave me an hour for “fiber shredding.” My original plan from many moons ago was a three day spread. But I also would work out 6 days a week because well... I had nothing better to do. Now that I had a business to run and a couple of kids to keep straight even 5 days would be stretching my limits. The challenge was to try and get all muscle groups in twice a week leaving the weekend to rest. Sure I don’t get all of them in but my weak point, (chest and shoulders,) get the commitment needed. On Day 1 Workout, I do all machine builds. The stress isn’t quite as bad making me less sore the day after but the Day 4 workout or 2nd Rotation, I do free weight builds which gives me a very sore day after but also gives me a 3 day turn around to rest. Still being impatient with the result process, I began the supplement stacking. I never just do anything to do it. I do things to get what I want out of it, this was no different.[[posterous-content:pid___1]] [[posterous-content:pid___2]]
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Chapter Four - The Diet Plan - Nine Years To Live(Commentary)
I have my mother’s metabolism. She’s as skinny as a rail and could eat three double cheeseburgers without so much as a fart... But even with her heredity I manage to push the limits of fatness. I took my “luck” for granted for many years even in conversation sometimes bragging that I couldn’t gain a pound. And yes, I should be 60 pounds over weight or more with what I did to my body from 1992 - 2010 but somehow am only about 27 pounds over instead. If I wouldn’t have done anything it would have only been a matter of time.
The way I managed it... Simple.... I did nothing and ate and drank everything.
There were “glutten pockets” everywhere. The Movies, fuhgeddaboutit- Large Coke, Large Popcorn. Guys night out- Beer, Hotwings, Artichoke Dip. Dinner Out - Biggest Steak on the menu, fries, Blue Cheese dressing on the salad.
It never failed. If I was hungry on the go, Frito Lay chips and coke. When the kids wanted McDonalds I almost got excited that I’d get to smash an extra value meal super sized.
When I was on the road, it was the biggest meal possible when I could eat to tide me over through the 16 hour day shoots and sometimes more. I ate and it always the biggest portion the establishment could give me.
I hated pills. You would be hard pressed to get me to take an aspirin unless it was in powder form. There was a reason I hated them which i will not share in this memoir but let’s just say, I detested them like a sickness. I would with ease be able to get Adderalls through my doctor. I hated them too, but found when I took them, I would transform into a one track beast if I was in front of an editing bay, so when big edit jobs came along a trip to the doctor and a 120 count of Amphetamine Salts was nabbed to “get me through.” When I was on these monsters, I wouldn’t eat at all.... Literally. In fact, I would wait and eat one big meal usually thirty minutes before I went to sleep.
(The digestion would dull the Adderall edge enough for me to fall asleep.) It was horrible. I lived atrociously and my diet was a disgrace. Days and Nights I would sit in front of that edit bay for 14 hours sometimes more and drink a two liter of Coke, chew on sunflower seeds and stuff tobacco in my mouth. And smash a Whopper Value Meal at 12:30am at night. That was my diet.
When the job was done, I’d flush the Adderalls that were left over. There would be a two day hangover that rendered me dead for 48 hours. The worse feeling in the world and I would normally time the “wean off,” for days when the kids would be with their Mom because I was almost worthless literally during the “detox.” That third day, I would feel like a million dollars but would binge on food, sweets, and soda to make up for the 8 day famine I had done to my body just days before.
All the while the kids ate what was easy for me. Chicken Nuggets, Burgers, Pasta, and Pizza. Everything was cooked, (some of it from scratch,) some of it “quick dinners.”
I hated myself as I got bigger and bigger over time. I stayed in denial as I got bigger. I swore I still “looked good” despite being very self conscious about the sags and “bitch tits,” that were forming. Yet with all that, my health was the least of my concern.
Upon the beginning of Project Nine Years To Live, I knew I would not only have to change my ways, but worse, somehow retrain the kids to eat better. That was to be the challenge. There was no question that talking to a professional Health Consultant would be my first step.
Lisa Kemerait was my only choice. She had been a vegetarian since she was thirteen and had saved her own life by becoming very aware of “good health.” She was brilliant and better than that, a friend of mine.
Here is ten minutes of our meeting. It is very minimally cut but the information she gives about Diets and Diets for Children is very insightful.
I left there overwhelmed. I didn’t feel my kids would go for any of the changes.
And I was right. Three nights in a row, they turned their nose up to a healthier dinner. I tried everything. (They did enjoy the honey Cheerios approach.) See below.
I thought maybe I would wean the new diet on little by little. Maybe try one night a week for a bit and slowly add days.
I ditched a day at work to spend all day at the grocery store. I looked at everything and bought the healthiest “kid friendly food” I could find, exchanging bi-product hot dogs for the Kosher ones, Tyson’s Kid Nuggets for frozen, (but raw,) Chicken Strips with breading separate-- Just to state a couple.
I felt proud of myself until I got the bill and my grocery budget had soared an extra $70 dollars with the change.
My first thought: No wonder America is overweight. They can’t afford to be healthy or at least eat it. Nonetheless, the trick worked. The kids and I were eating a meat, vegetable, fruit every night.
That was enough for me to figure out that re budgeting for a healthier lifestyle would have to be a must at this point.
With all the elements in place, it was time to get this fat ass in shape....
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Chapter Three - The Tao of Time Management
My time management was impeccable until I had children. Of course when I first had children I was working for “the man.” I had big dreams, but was small time. My life was as simple as it could be. I would wake up at 6:00am, walk my dog, get Payton out of the crib, feed her, wake my wife up, hand Payton to her and I would go to work. At lunch I would come home, walk my dog, cram a sandwich and go back to wok. At five I would rush home to get Payton so that my wife could go to work. Then I walked the Dog, carried her around in my arm and almost every night, it was my daughter and I and when she would use her rocker, I could hone my craft. When she didn’t there was nothing getting done. I remember getting so frustrated some weekends because Payton was not a big sleeper and had to be rocked, (which I said I wouldn’t do.) I could have her asleep and the minute I placed her in the crib, she would pop back up again. She didn’t leave Daddy’s arms very much which I believe is where our strong bond comes from.
There were many nights spent staring at the computer screen, holding a pen in my hand looking at a blank piece of paper, while I threw a ball to Vinny and rocked Payton.
It was real rough on the schedule when I would occasionally get a “side job.” It was normally a wedding or an occasional small corporate job but still nevertheless would take all the time alloted to get done because there was never any time to begin with.
I suffer from O.C.D. I’m not just self diagnosing this to be funny. I am full fledged diagnosed and all. It cripples me every day and I refuse to be medicated for it. I choose to fight it with my mind. Some days I win. Some days I do not. In some of my idiosyncrasies it helps..... Others it kills.
Time management/Planning was one of the good traits of my illness. My schedule whether busy or slow was always planned down to the minute. If I kept the schedule I would be fine. If I couldn’t then my O.C.D would send me into panics and confusion. Just as I began to get busier, “bumps” in the road or “distractions” in the schedule, made things very tough on me.
My wife was a conductor of that distraction and dysfunction. She never cared what or where I needed to be so communication on times and places was never utilized. As far as she was concerned, I would have to drop what I was doing no matter where I was just so long as it didn’t interrupt her schedule. By the time we had River, and I had decided to make this business work full time I was already turning down work , (not out of being busy,) and canceling them because I couldn’t get her on board and could not utilize enough time to put my name and ass on the line for a job.
After the split, my “Tao of Time Management,” went back into effect and it changed my life and my career forever and as business began to boom there became only so many minutes in the day even planned.
I had always complained to everybody that it wasn’t that I was too busy, but it was the fact that I never was granted a full day of work. Where I worked “for the man,” at an office, I was allowed from 8am to 5:45 every day and somebody always helped if there was an issue and there was never a question of me being anywhere but work, because I “worked.”
Being that I worked from home, most people assumed that I was not doing anything therefore getting assistance was murder. So I was on my own and had accepted it over time.
More work came in and I began expanding hours after the kids went to bed which would keep me up and sleep deprived. I skipped meals, outings with friends, dates, just about anything that would allow me more time. Then I began outsourcing some of the work which posed another problem because nobody was doing the caliber of work I was accustomed to so I would find myself having to do it all or worse than that, do it over.
Month after month, my work day would be stretched out a little more until I was averaging 3 hours a night which in turn would lead to more stimulants to keep me going.
My normal day schedule played out like this:
This schedule has not let up as far as workload even in the change of life. This was where a new plan would have to be made in order to utilize all of me and my responsibilities.
The new plan would have to allow more time for work AND to complicate things I would have to find 2 extra hours for the gym throughout the week. I would have to utilize day care a little more and subsidize my planning.
The new schedule would be as follows:
This schedule would not allow for much “me time,” but it would be sufficient to start and would keep me fresh with rest and exercise.
Taking a pay cut to hire out extra help when the times were tough would be a must with the new program and training people to do what I do would have to be done.
My workflow would have to be prioritized down to the second now.
My former way of living would be doing the Mr. Mom thing as I went while the kids were there which took a lot away from them and out of me.
A good work out energizes you. You may leave the gym feeling wrecked but thirty minutes following the gym, you just get this burst of energy, (or at least I do.) That would be the time to be productive if I moved around so that was clean, laundry and yard time. One hour a day devoted to this I found a little more time for what was more important: The kids.
The schedule may not work for everybody. You may have to adjust and work out a plan that best suits you.
A time journal was utilized to keep me on track and keep all the little things in order such as school plays, doctors’ appointments, and other parenthood elements that can not be avoided and often just come out of thin air.
If I didn’t make it to the gym, the 9:30 - 11:30pm slot was devoted to it, The Nine Year Gym, (the garage for anybody that hasn’t been keeping up.)
With a schedule in place, it was time for the hardest transition of them all, The Diet.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Chapter Two - Finding and Building Facilities For Growth - Nine Years To Live(Commentary)
I knew the home gym would never be a replacement for the real thing. The key was to put enough weights and resources in it to make it a close second to an actual facility because it was to only supplement days I would never make it to the gym due to parenthood or deadlines beyond my control.
I would sink a little bit of each paycheck into what I called, “The Nine Year Gym.” I was bad on spoiling the kids. In fact, horrible.... Movies, clothes, furniture-- what ever the kids wanted they got if there was money left after loans, bills and other expenses. This would have to stop for a little bit which would put them out, but hopefully, make them more grateful for what they have and if Daddy lived longer.... Well, then that would be great because there would be more years of me spoiling them than all at once like I was doing at that moment.
I wanted to build a little on a very worn body before touring back to a gym so the home gym was my first plan of action.
I would rely strictly on running the neighborhood for my cardio session, so the first things to be installed would be some overall strength enhancers. I found a used heavy bag, speed bag and reflex bag and immediately purchased it with some of my profits from the football season. Then with some of my Nike perks and “fundages” would get some work out clothes and a couple additional free weights. My arms needed extra stimulation to grow so a curl bar and forty five pounds of free weights were purchased to start the process. From there, benches, barbells, mirrors, and medicine balls but that would have to come after the holiday season and my father and my “private investor” were paid in full for the loans given to me throughout the year.
Here is a blueprint of what I planned with the garage:
The re-attending a real gym was going to be work in a sense too when dealing with my pysche. I needed a gym that mimicked the gym I worked out in when I lived in Los Angeles. It was the perfect gym. My OCD did not allow chaos and disorganization. My poor kids have seen many days of me having to walk out of a room during an attack so they would not have to see it, only to have to compose myself long enough to go back into the room and clean the disaster they made. If a place was disorganized or “cluttered,” it became very constrictive and overwhelming to me. It’s a neuro handicap that I have dealt with for about four years and seems to be getting worse which scares me.
Gyms like the YMCA were that kind of gym to me and were no good. This place was enormous, but the actual weight room was a closet packed in with old rusty cluttered machines and free weights with handles loose. On top of that, if I was working out after work hours, I couldn’t so much as bend over without taking a twenty pound weight between the knees.
I chose a membership there because of the kids and the indoor pool and also because of the distance to the house, (under five minutes.) Then I realized after working out a week there and not being happy, that I had again broken my rule. I realized that I had compromised a decision based on convenience and my children. Sure most of the the time, that should be considered but this part was for me and me only to an extent. This part of my life was mine and I should do what I feel makes me happy.
Let’s be honest, it would be another year before I would take these kids to the indoor pool. My son was not at a reasoning point quite yet which made even small trips to the grocery store a workout in itself. I immediately pulled my membership at the YMCA and would be “gymless” again at the end of November.
I began touring other gyms looking for a home, working out my final month at YMCA and supplementing at the ever growing Nine Year Gym in my garage. All my cardio was running the neighborhood or thirty minute blitzes on the heavy bag.
Then one night, (right before realizing I would have to make a decision on a gym,) I went to eat with my mother at Panera Bread. Upon getting in my car a neon light behind me caught my attention. It was a new gym. I had not seen it before. Of course, I didn’t make it to Hickory all that much lately due to work and distance either.
I got back out of the car and walked into the gym. It was the four month old, Snap Fitness 24/7. I was in there for five minutes and knew this was it. It was a new, sleek, gym that was small but roomy. It was stocked with Cybex machines, medicine balls, and free weights. I had access to it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and it was not jumbled with meatheads and fat people who screamed too loudly or spent twenty minutes holding up a station out of exhaustion in between reps. It was my place and my new home.
The only negative was that I would have to adjust the schedule being that I would have a forty minute round trip on top of the two hour regimen to squeeze into my busy day which would really make my work schedule tight during tough work weeks.
I took a chance and signed up. I would figure out a way to make it work, somehow..... Because that’s what I did best.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
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.....
Monday, December 13, 2010
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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