Confession

Last year on May 11th 2016, on my 30th birthday, I had a violent hallucinogenic psychotic delusional breakdown that landed me in a hospital for 4 days where I thought I was dying. Since emerging out of that I made the decision to move back to my hometown of Mobile, Alabama and try to live a quieter life for myself and be surrounded by some different people I love that I’ve not been able to spend the same kind of quality time with as I had people from California. 

9 1/2 years is indeed a long time to be gone from a place you’ve called home most of your life but it’s not a place I honestly ever wanted to move back too. 

Several weeks ago I thought that there’s a very good possibility if a new job I’m looking at comes through that I could turn down a job on a major movie in town with one of my all time favorite actors and that has recently come to pass. That decision to actually turn down work just a few weeks ago I probably would have killed for has its own level of pain to it. (Although there is still a chance I may work on it during my off days.) Lower Alabama if you don’t know does have a moderate enough film market to limp by on production work provided you subsidize other work at the correct time. Case in point, probably more than LA, lower Alabama is a grind but it’s a beautiful place to grind away. 

For that stability and a little bit of piece at a day to day job I’d turn down the chance to do what I love to do and what for the longest I can remember have always wanted to do and have been doing for about 17 years. However this job currently gives me enough downtime to write and read and I desperately need to work on projects for myself rather than working to help make someone else’s dreams come true. I’ve done far too much of that in my career. 

It feels weird being in my skin lately. The manic obsessive wild Daniel seems to still be tucked away inside my head, resting and sleeping, but re-polishing and refocusing for almost a year has been both a blessing and a curse. It’s strange to be in a mindset where you cannot recognize yourself as the man you were a few short months ago. Trauma I suppose like all great transformative forces in life will do that to you.  

I used to be deeply religious, a regular ole Bible thumber. I used to have severe asthma. I used to be a man who never could have imagined the things I’ve done and seen now; parties full of drugs, sex, and nudity *(ooohhhlalala I know) I guess really all that comes with being imbedded in the LA world, well the world in general if you know where to look. Skydiving on a whim with a perfect stranger. Sleeping in a piece of art. Running my fingers across a Degas when no one was looking. There are things I won't elaborate on here. Jumping off a rooftop into a pool and the classic drunken wild mania of an unhinged LA personality, shaking hands, and asses trying to get attention to hopefully get more jobs so I can say when I’m older, 'I’ve done the thing, I did the things, and that was important for me', and when I’m old and grey like Roy Batty once said I just might say ‘Time to die’ with a little sly smile as the grip of life loosens its fingers from around me. Death is after all something I’ve done or been very close to doing at least 3 separate times.   

I moved back to Mobile in order to settle down, be with my girl, and get a regular job, and concentrate on my writing and finish up a project that has been ripping me to shreds creatively. Well the girl is gone, my car died, my mentor who started me out on this journey of films had died, and the tax incentives for the state of Alabama were pulled. Well I got a steady decent paying job after almost a full year of hustling and I was still able to work on some film and T.V. projects. I was happy to be a part of, “Gerald’s Game”  

and “Get Out”

, plus a tourism commercial at Mardi Gras, and yes Mobile celebrates Mardi Gras, we did invent the holiday after all and are allowed to celebrate it. And I've worked on a few other smaller projects as well out here too.

I still find it weird in a career of over 17 years the things I've worked on that have the strongest chance of lasting through the ages were all from Mobile, Alabama.

I feel the need to write this confession about my journey here because this whole journey of being back home has ripped my soul apart and it’s taken a while to (insert absurdly predictable Humpty Dumpty joke here) to put all of my pieces back together again . . .  

. . . and yet still there is a part of me that will remain broken, maybe that’s why I’ve taken back to writing again because when my hands float to the keys no matter what I’m saying or trying to say, wether conveyed or not or read or not for now it is just therapy and there is no drug I can think of that could fill this heart up the way when I am moved to write actually does.

 For now there is only the wonder of if things were different but in all human hearts we know that 'if only things were different' is a curse and it's best not to dwell on curses.