A YEAR AGO

Baton Rouge is changed for good. The sleepy, quiet downtown and the local eateries are I am sure filled with many people now. A year ago we did Miss Teen USA there. The muggy heat and humidity from the mighty Mississippi river that flows ceaselessly just up and over the levi, added to my feeling of an odd comfort each evening as I walked along the bike path. It reminded me of Louisville, my hometown, a rivertown as well on the Ohio. Summers in the south make you long for winter. I breathe in the smell of the grasses and the trees. Something so familiar imprinted in my soul. August, hot, sticky hot from the humidity but oddly enough a cool breeze in the evenings. I alternated between the levi at sunset and then a hike/run around the lake at LSU. It is my quiet time after all the people from our crew and staff have arrived on the late flights from around the country.

In conversations I pickup on a dark forboding thought on different people's minds. Call it my deep intuition. It pops out in conversations with a local co-worker who tells me that basically if a big hurricane were to hit the area that Baton Rouge, being the main evacuation route for New Orleans would be screwed. Doing operations for the show I tune into the Weather Channel each morning. It gives me an idea as to what type of day I am going to have getting people in and out of the tiny airport that has only a dozen or so commercial flights.

On our last night in town we take the Aligator Bayou tour with the two daddies and mommie of Gucci the aligator. You might remember him. He made his network debut on our show and eyed all the Miss Teens. The owners of the place were very passionate about preserving the wetlands. There was a bill in the state legislature about giving the developers more opportunities to build, thereby further depleting the natural buffer against the storms off the gulf.

Two weeks after I left I made phone calls to all of my new friends. These local ladies insisted that I take a lunch on Sunday. These ladies who remind me of my southern manners taught to me by my Aunt Viola and my Aunt Ruth. I treasure them. The thought of them having to batten down the hatches and ride out a hurricane troubles me. To add to the stress, my Aunt and Uncle in Mississippi are only 30 miles inland and in a direct path with the eye of Katrina.

One year later I look back on the Katrina events as the beginning of my own personal year of transitions. The good news is that the ladies and their families are well. My Aunt and Uncle by a small miracle only had some roof damage to their house. For years they were right on the Gulf in Pascagoula.

Forever changed I feel we all are from what we collectively witnessed a year ago. And mother nature reclaims what is hers. In the comfort of the muggy heat of August I sensed it. It was that feeling that I needed to record in my senses all of what I was experiencing, because it would soon be changed forever.

Late Night In Culver City

Working behind the facade of the building that looks like 12 Oaks from Gone With The Wind is just a trip. A trip down a Hollywood history lane just blocks from where they created all those big MGM musicals. From the railing outside my new temporary edit bay/office I can see what was MGM Studios. It is now the Sony lot. I am working on a new gameshow called
1 VS. 100. Tonight I had to work late as Wexler our supplier of Editing Systems was about 5 hours late. Fun Times!

It is all quiet up here on the backside of Soundstage 4. They shoot the series VEGAS right below us, the editors work right down the covered walkway. I am hoping to see a ghost.

Friday night in POST HEAVEN

They are putting the final touches on this show. It is like birthing the baby, everybody has a say in what they think the baby will be like but we all really have no illusions to who really does the work. The mother and midwife on this one is our editors and the post staff. (Me!) It is at times like these (8:15pm on a Friday night) that I ask myself this one question....what the hell am I still doing this for?

Maybe the Universe will reveal that to me later. For now I know that I get up early tomorrow and go to my meeting, then off to Yoga Class at 10:15AM and then I will see a movie with my good friends Glenda and Larry on Saturday afternoon. There is a social event to attend later and then up early on Sunday to go to several meetings in Malibu. I have decided to expand my horizons as far as my sobriety is concerned.

More later.

Gerry

Turning a corner.

As I turned the corner at Robertson and Beverly walking back from my lunch in Weho it suddenly dawned on me that finally I was "literally" turning a corner emotionally. The past two months have been a roller-coaster of feelings from the past and dealings from the wreckage of my present life. "Enough already" I said to God. God and I have been having many conversations lately. Mostly late at night in the stillness when I tell her/him, "I surrender already! Show me what I am to do here!"

Three valuable lessons have come out of this time I have spent with God.

One: You can't take it with you, most of it goes to charity.
Two: Love the one's you're with.

Notice there was nothing in both of those about job, career, money, what do I wear to this club/AA meeting etc.

And finally number three.

The toughest lesson of all I learned...it's all an inside job. Only I can change me from being a selfish, self-centered asshole into someone who is a man who suits up and shows up for family, friends and work. All the work I have done lead up to my surrender the day after my birthday on June 19th. At 44 I realized that nothing and I mean "no thing" outside of myself will EVER fix me. Ever.

We spend most of our lives being very busy. Constantly doing things and being somewhere only to stress that we need to be somewhere else soon so let's get going to somewhere else.

I can't remember when I last sat and listened to music just for the hell of it. Have you listened to a good album lately? Oh yeah they stopped making good music somewhere right after the Bee Gee's hit us with a late Disco hit after hit. Except for Nora Jones and few others well these are the exceptions. Those of you who are musically inclined please enlighten me to some good stuff man!

Or what about just sitting and reading a really great book. Grisham is good for this. He is getting better for those of you who are not big fans.

Finally when was the last time you had a friend out for coffee just to spend time with them and have no agenda as to when you would be done with the evening?

Here at The Curly Word I am going to take my own advice and load a iPod with a good album, then read a great book while waiting for a friend at Aroma Coffee in Studio City and talk until the cows come home.

How about you?

The Curl

(This Blogspot is so named in honor of my best girlfriend Miss Tamblyn who nicknamed me this year's ago ya'll.)