So long, farewell, good night, 2012.

On this night one year ago I was at a party in New Jersey with my friend Anu, probably thinking 'wow, what a year.' That seems to be the running tag line for all of my end-of-year mental review sessions. The difference is, last year, I was at a crossroads physically and emotionally, the likes of which I'd never known before. I won't go into the details here, as I feel they have been better covered elsewhere. Quite frankly, I don't feel like rehashing it all. However, I do feel it's necessary to point out the obvious. What a difference a year makes!

I have had one of the most roller coaster years of my life, yet it's turned out to be one of the greatest in terms of growth. I approach 2013 with a new-found zest for my life that I haven't felt in years. The last time I can recall feeling this hopeful and committed to myself and my future was in 2006. It's perhaps no coincidence that, as I sit here typing this out, I am listening to one of my favorite albums from that time period. There's an old part of me that would feel as though sitting at home on New Year's Eve would be some sort of calling card of my loser-dom, but not now. Not this year. I can't think of a single place I'd rather be than sitting here, feeling good, reflecting on the things I've seen and felt over the preceding twelve months. It's been a time. And, so, after a year of many 'firsts', we come to this day. I say so long, 2012. It's been real. No, really. It has. And to 2013, I say: bring it. This is the year I turn thirty-five. This will be the year I start a new chapter with more focus and passion than I've ever had. This is the first day of the rest of my life...Happy New Year!

6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person

When I stumble across an article on Cracked.com via The Anonymous PA's Blog (http://www.anonymousproductionassistant.com), you basically know I have to pay attention. The parallels between the writer's soap-box heroism and the subjects of my coinciding weekly therapy visit today are also not lost on me. I think that's technically what they call 'a co-inky-dink.'

This article not only tells it like it really is, it also manages to inspire me in a way that not many writers can. This is the equivalent of a good, swift kick in the ass that so many of us need, but especially me. Read on, only if you truly want to take steps into reality and all its harsh light. As for me, it's time to let the great work begin. (I may have stolen that last line from Tony Kushner.)

The 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person

Lies I've Told Myself

Despite this entry's melodramatic title, this won't be a diatribe on how I've lied to myself or come to multiple 'a-ha moments' through the help of therapy and Oprah. However, I have come to some serious realizations lately that beg the question: why do I convince myself that my warped thinking is 'the truth?'

Most of us realize at one point or another that the way we view ourselves is really the way we view the world, and, in turn, the way we are viewed BY the world. The general rule of thumb goes something like this: if I think I'm not worthy then neither will anyone else. I have been giving these thoughts a lot more weight of late, and it's been interesting to watch them play out.

Earlier this week, I revisited an old friend of a thought that continually haunts me since I was about twelve years old. My company's holiday party looming, I had my +1 cancel on me a few days prior to the event. It was literally like a high school flashback to being dumped right before prom. (Except I went to both my junior and senior proms with dates, so this isn't a direct correlation.) But, I couldn't ask for a more tailored exampled of how my thoughts still play out like some after-school special, minus the drug pusher or abusive step-father. I was overcome with these feelings of sadness and concern nonetheless. 'I'm ugly.' 'Nobody likes me.' 'Why not just kill yourself and get it over with?' Then the thoughts: 'Why are thinking like this?' 'God, you're a winner, huh?' Even my thoughts about my thoughts betray me! Damn you, brain! Shut off already!

So, it turns out that I decided to buck the tradition of wallowing in my own self pity and I went alone to the 'prom' and had a great time. Surprise! The more we wallow in our own sorrow and focused lack of self-worth, the more we really only damage ourselves further. After all, in the game of driving our lives toward our future, who wants a twelve year old at the wheel?

What the f@$% do I know? Oh, there's THAT.

Since deciding to leave Austin and take my act to L.A., it's been an interesting experience when telling people about my new goals. Reactions have ranged from the enthusiastic ('You go boy!', 'It's about time!') to the incredulous ('What do you want to do all that for?', 'Have you really thought this through?') I did have one person say to me, "Wouldn't it be quicker and less painful if you just downed a bottle of Drano now?" But, in his defense, he has 'rage' issues and I'm pretty sure a mild case of Tourette's, so I tried looking at it more as a commentary on his thoughts on L.A. and less about my abilities.

This whole think got me thinking, however...why do people feel this need to tell us their negative opinions about our life choices? Now, before you get all 'but, Rob, maybe they're just trying to look out for you,' let me say, I agree. Depending on who this advice is coming from, it could be they just want to make sure I have thought things through, and that I don't suffer in the process. To which my reply is: my thoughts may actually be my problem. Let's face it. At this point, I have been living in Austin for nearly 7 years. It will actually be 7 years next April, if you want to get all OCD about it. I never thought in 2006, I'd be sitting here, years later, contemplating the Universe and my place in it so much that it literally sedates me with fear. If I really wanted to make Austin my home, wouldn't I have purchased a home by now? Settled down and looked for a mate by now? Wouldn't I actually have a group of friends by now whom I could call 'family?' After all, when I want something, I have always gone for it. Ask my 11th Grade Drama Teacher. I still think Mrs. Reed probably thinks I am the most cut-throat 'Bob Cratchett' to ever lay waste to such lines as 'But, Mr. Scrooge, it's Christmas!' I did rock that stage, and there are no small parts...

The bottom line: this is my life. I only get one of them. I can't live it for other people any longer, nor can I sit complacent, while every fiber of my being is screaming to get out and DO something with it. I honestly feel as though the last six and a half years of my life have been spent frozen with fear. Fear of failure, certainly. Perhaps  (Definitely) a fear of success. My therapist once told me that people often refer to the 'fight or flight' response, without regard to that third, and undoubtedly most common, response: we freeze. When an animal is unsure what to do, it does nothing. Welcome to the Jungle. I have been sitting here frozen in a state of limbo for years, paralyzed by the horrors I make up in my own head, and, I still ultimately have very little to show for it. Living a suburban soccer dad existence isn't really all it's cracked up to be when there is no soccer, and you have no kids, or a partner with whom to share all of it. It's sad. I've turned into my own worst nightmare. The experiences I've been through have shaped me into a different person, and for this I am extremely thankful, but it doesn't make the sting of regret any less painful to know that the one true love of my life got away.

What I know is this: I love movies and I love entertaining. Some might say I was tailor-made for it, what with my only-child escapist fantasy world, and absentee parents, but the truth is that I just love it. I've loved it since I was old enough to walk and recite the entire book and lyrics from 'Annie' to anyone who could stand to listen to a spitfire 2-year old boy doing 'Little Girls' while channeling Carol Burnett. I love it so much that it's all I think about most days, and if money weren't so damned necessary, I'd do it for free. Now that's passion. And it's time for me to start getting serious about this life I live, because I'm not getting any younger, and time wounds all heels. So those who care for me will be forgiving (I hope) when I say that I've woken up from this self-imposed nightmare. And, it's a new dawn, and a new day, and I'm feeling good. So won't you feel good for me, too? (And if you can't muster up a little support, then just fake it. I won't tell anyone. I'll tell everyone. Probably on here. So, there's that.)

The Power of Words (in Pop)

I came across this by accident tonight, and having done so, I can only say that I am a better man for it. I have never heard such simple pop lyrics profoundly affect me in a way that expresses the pangs of love for which I truly yearn. I want to feel like this about somebody, and, in turn, have him feel equally confused, maddened, and lost without me.

Rihanna - 'Stay' Live on SNL

'Stay' by Rihanna (featuring Mikky Ekko)

Music and Lyrics by Mikky Ekko and Justin Parker

All along it was a fever

A cold sweat hot-headed believer

I threw my hands in the air and said show me something

He said, if you dare come a little closer

Round and around and around and around we go

Ohhh now tell me now tell me now tell me now you know

Not really sure how to feel about it

Something in the way you move

Makes me feel like I can't live without you

And it takes me all the way

I want you to stay

It's not much of a life you're living

It's not just something you take, it's given

Round and around and around and around we go

Ohhh now tell me now tell me now tell me now you know

Not really sure how to feel about it

Something in the way you move

Makes me feel like I can't live without you

And it takes me all the way

And I want you to stay

Ohhh the reason I hold on

Ohhh cause I need this hole gone

Funny you're the broken one but I'm the only one who needed saving

Cause when you never see the light it's hard to know which one of us is caving

Not really sure how to feel about it

Something in the way you move

Makes me feel like I can't live without you

And it takes me all the way

I want you to stay, stay

I want you to stay, ohhh

This is the best thing that's ever happened to me...well, ok, Top 5.

While perusing through his vast movie collection, Rob Chenoweth ran across these gems. (And, yes, he likes to speak of himself in the third person.)


Perfect World

The Best Thing


In truth, I'd like to pen a movie about a 12 year-old boy who spent the summer of 1991 watching and re-watching (and wearing out the VHS) of one Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. It would end in 2012 with the posting of this blog, and it would all come full circle.

While, admittedly, these songs are a bit schmaltzy, I must admit, I always liked schmaltz. It's only as I've aged that I have developed this hyper sense of elitism, in which I tend to doubt my own taste levels, only to find that Stephen Herek had the same idea back in 1991, and he's probably still reaping the royalties. Nobody ever got rich from Grey Poupon. Well, perhaps someone did, but I bet his fortune doesn't hold a candle to the rich f***er who came up with French's.

Here's to the crazy ones. And to following your gut instincts.

Constitutionalism by the Numbers

I found this extremely well-articulated argument, while browsing through (of all places) IMDB.com. I had to re-post it. Thanks, IMDB user 'SonofKenny'!  

The founders themselves were not even sure how the completed Constitution should have been interpreted. The document itself was a massive compromise, with some language purposely left vague so as not to offend one faction or another. 

If anyone today believes the founders had a clear eyed, constistent view of the relationship between federal and state power, then they either have not done enough reading on the subject, or are taking a position for the purposes of winning an argument, without regard to its veracity. 

Take the Bill of Rights. Is it meant to limit the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution to only those stated, or to codify those they felt were most in danger? Because it wasn't specifically stated, does that then mean privacy is not a guaranteed right? Or were the founders so sure that it was understood to be a right, they didn't feel it needed to be specifically protected? It surely is implied in several parts of the document - in the prohibition on quartering troops for example, or the restrictions on illegal search and seizure. Yet so called strict constructionalists insist there is no right to privacy guaranteed. 

Look at the "general welfare" clause, the "necessary and proper," clause, and the "supremacy" clause, then look at the writings of the various founders, and tell me they had a consistent view of their meaning. You won't be able to. 

Look at the 2nd Amendment. A plain reading of the text clearly shows that it was referrring to "well regulated" militas. Yet strict constructionalists today ignore that portion to give nearly unfettered access to firearms. 

If the founders had been the strict states righters suggested by many today, why start the document "We the People" rather than "We the States?" 

Take that patron saint of strict constructionalists today - Thomas Jefferson, responsible for the biggest expansion of federal power almost in American History with the Louisiana purchase. Show me where in the constitution he was granted that power. 

How about James Madison, a walking, breathing representative of the notion that the Constitution was a living, breathing document. As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention he advocated for federal poiwer to nullify state law. As Secretary of State, he argued that states should be required to enforce federal embargo law against other states. Yet later, when President, he did a nearly 180 degree turn on his view, and actually rewrote portions of his diary and journals to reflect his new view. 

Alexander Hamilton thought states should be eliminated altogether. 

So no, anyone who has taken a serious and honest look at this - yes the intellectual elites which included the founder btw - cannot help to come to the conclusion that the founders were as conflicted on the meaning of the Constitution and how it should be implemented, as people are today.

Well played, Sir. Well played. 

Movie Review: 'Lincoln'

What is with Steven Spielberg's need to hit us over the head with his message? At around 100 minutes into Lincoln's 149 minute runtime, I turned to my mother sitting next to me and said "This is going to win 'Best Picture.'" Imagine my dismay when. by the end of the film, I had to turn back to my mum and retract that statement. 

Make no mistake, the film is grand. At moments, even epic. What it lacks, or rather, what it adds, is an unnecessary ending. An ending which takes it into melodrama, and ultimately lacks the one-two wallop to the gut the 65-year old directing veteran had clearly intended. 

Lincoln is solid entertainment, and extremely well penned, thanks to the sincere and triumphant efforts of Mr. Tony Kushner. It's easy to see how Kushner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, was tapped for this project in particular. Demonstrating a level of wordsmanship here that is possibly only matched by the Great Bard himself, it will be a great surprise (to this reviewer anyway) if he isn't rewarded for his efforts on Oscar night. 

The acting is also first-rate, with Daniel Day-Lewis giving a craggy-faced, embodied performance that could likely garner more Oscar gold. The real surprise here, however, is a returned-to-form Sally Field, who gives an extremely well-rounded and beautifully-acted performance as Mary Todd Lincoln. Field spits out Kushner's lines with such sweet venom and tempered veracity, that it's probably one of the most vibrant female portrayals of an historical figure we're likely to see this year, or ever.

Sadly, where the film falls apart is toward its inevitable conclusion. Spielberg has, in recent years, felt this head-scratching need to tack on endings which take the film past its point of expiration. The milk gets spoiled where, instead of ending the film on a high note after the 13th Amendment is passed, the director takes the audience all the way through the assassination and death of the eponymous title character. For a film that carries the 16th President's moniker, this film feels decidedly about the 13th Amendment and such a specific time frame within the President's life, that this ending feels a disservice. We, the audience, know how it all ends. So why not end with the lingering shot of Honest Abe walking down the hallway toward his destiny? It felt like such a missed opportunity to leave an already raptured audience pondering what this man's life meant, that I couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Overall, the film is deserving of acclaim, and it will more than likely be garnered with multiple awards as the season progresses. It just pains me to feel that, only in its best moments, does it deserve it.

Grade: B+

The Seduction of Rob Chenoweth

Gay men fascinate me. I specify gay men and not lesbians, because, I, myself, am a gay man, and they say "write what you know!" I don't know who came up with that, but thank goodness we're not all out there writing about the Native American experience, or what it's like to live as an amputee! But, I digress.

In much the same way that Discovery Channel can instantly pull my attention from anything I am doing (restrooms be damned!), I find myself endlessly drawn into this dance with gay culture. The age-old "why am I alone?" takes on new dimensions when you're gay. Unlike our heterosexual counterparts, we don't have the luxury of being able to randomly bump into our soul mates at the office (unless you work for Apple) or on eHarmony.com (look it up!) (Am I getting TOO parenthetical?) It irks me to no end that I can't seem to meet Mr. Right Around the Corner, well...around the corner. I am bored with the gay bars and the endless searches on Grindr and Scruff, hoping that something, somewhere will change. The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Well, I can assure you I am fucking bat-shit certifiable.

When I was in my early 20s, I recall feeling this sense of wonder and excitement at the prospects of what the future held. I might marry rich, or I might die young and beautiful like James Dean. I could be a starving artist who travels Europe with my handsome French beau, or I might end up a world-class director winning an Academy Award. Now, in my mid-30s, I am lucky to recall last week, let alone my early youthful follies. What I do recall of my younger self is that he was filled with hope, and he wanted love. Oh, l'amour.

But something happened over the last decade that has shifted the culture I once knew so well. What the hell happened to you, Gay Culture? Did you go the way of the dinosaur once you became status quo? Thanks, Will & Grace! You fucked it up again with your witty dialogue and mainstreaming! I, for one, sort of miss the days when you had to wonder if someone was gay or not. It was like a sexualized Where's Waldo. Is he here? Nope! There he is! In the East Village back room of The Cock! (Again, look it up!) Or maybe it's I who has changed. Or not changed, along with the times. I'm like that movie The Village. Unchanged by time, but I still blow. That's it! Gay culture died around the same time that M. Night Shyamalan's career did! There has to be a correlation that would hold up in a court of law.

So, I have decided, henceforth, that I am going to enter into a relationship with myself. Since nobody else seems to be stepping up to the plate to fill these big shoes (Size 12), then I guess I will just have to get in there and do it. After all, don't send a boy to do a Man's job.

"I'm the Doctor..."

How I went most of my adult life without knowing about "Dr. Who" is beyond me. Thanks to some avid recommendations by friends, as well as intriguing Facebook wall posts and memes, my interests were peaked enough to slide my hand over and click the small "+" in order to add it to my Netflix streaming queue, and bam! I am hooked.

I am only a few episodes into the first season, and there's enough drama and fun already, that I can officially say 'you've got me, Doctor.'

What have you people got me into??? I may never be the same.

And so it begins....

This is not a test. If this had been a test, then you would have ignored my siren song, and it would have cost you dearly. Now you've wakened to a new possibility, and it's time to begin the great work ahead. 

Sometimes in life, we make hard choices that, as we look back, don't really make much sense for us in the long-term. I made one of those choices in 2006, and it was not a conscious choice. It was one made from fear and lack of motivation. Almost seven years ago, I moved to Austin with hopes that this would be the place for me to grow. I have grown, and I am forever changed by what I have learned living here, but it's time to move on. 

Someone once said, 'In dreams, begin responsibilities..' Without realizing it as it was happening, I have accumulated a massive amount of responsibility. To my health. To my loving family and friends. To my adoring animals. But what of my responsibility to my dreams and to my future self? I think he got lost somewhere in the haze of the past and the confusion of the present.

It is with great fear and trepidation I take these first bold steps into a brave new world. Let's see what's waiting for me...