Lots to select from. Reach for the stars!… without expecting too much. Have one now, for your own wall or workstation! They come in many sizes. (Contact Editor for wallet-sized pricing…) Go to: http://www.imagekind.com/GalleryProfile.aspx?gid=edcb45dd-ee9f-4a90-a9f6-376605b49d21
Photo and poster by Carl Nelson
"You can take this to the bank!"
“John Huntsman would have made a good President. He would be a good Vice President. Mitt Romney on the other hand has proven he likes money, he is supported by money, and as Wall Street as shown over and over again, making money doesn’t require an IQ, nor does it require an allegiance to the American flag, or the society it preys on. I am an observer but my guess is that Romney is the biggest mistake this country could make. Thank God he has no chance of winning the Presidency. Unless of course The Supreme Court gets involved. Your Incumbent has fought tooth and nail against an obstructionist republican hate machine, because he is black and he is smart and he is a democrat. I am grateful to this country for offering me more opportunity than any other I could live in, but really? Romney equals wall street and corporatism, he is a vacuous slug who has flip flopped on every principal that the better man would have taken a stand on. Do you really want a man who will stand for nothing? If so you will fall for anything.” – Paul Eenhoorn
Photo taken from the movie, The Dead Men
Sometimes you up; sometimes you’re down. But good things do happen – even to Artists! Paul Eenhoorn (who writes Travelling Expenses for Schn00dles) has a movie coming out this year called, The Dead Men.
Editor’s Note: Well! Hollywood has finally caught up to what we’ve been discussing here, and starring, no less than… Robert DeNiro!
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/risky-business/being-flynn-trailer-robert-de-niro-261669
Editor: I ask Rita if she had something for us, for Christmas. She replied that she was busy sending cards and making presents. But then offered us this link to her “Learn Russian like a native…” website – and a story about a Christmas Tree.
http://learnrussianlikeanative.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-meet-christmas-tree.html#more
Photo by Carl Nelson
Editor’s Note: Artistic types, I’ve found, tend to become both more enraptured and/or disgruntled with the world than most. And, they watch TV too.
"Everybody Knows That."
“Egypt
I am an outside observer of political news. I listen to NPR; watch Lehrer and occasionally King 5 if I have a hankering for local news over dinner. I guess it is easy to have an opinion on the latest viral video, but I am not sure if I have an opinion or a new mindset over the Egyptian Army’s hatred of women. What I saw running on a news station last night so angered me that I just had to rush into generalizations.
If these rioting rabid men in uniform are the people supposedly responsible for protecting the fragile new society of Egypt then I think this Era may be called the Arab Winter. The savagery shown against defenseless citizens and particularly the women involved made me want to implement my Middle East tactical nuclear arms strategy. Now where did I put those nukes?
To think that this is the ancient civilization that built pyramids, created magnificent art and architecture, a civilization steeped in myth and history. I don’t live there so I guess my opinion is not valid, except I have one now anywaNow we can see why the army was so supportive of the movement to free Egypt from its despotic leadership. The Army didn’t need to stage a coup; it just let the people do it for them, knowing there would be a vacuum it could fill with a new military dictatorship.
There is something so terribly sick about the beating of defenseless women and the mentality displayed by the perpetrators, that it leads me to believe we were watching the underlying zeitgeist of the rulers of Egypt. Even worse is the thought that this could be a tenet of a patriarchal society that is Egypt today. It says we hate women.
To me it seems that the people of Egypt will once again have to rise up against its unelected rulers. Hopefully those leaders responsible for promoting this war against the people will be brushed aside into the pages of ignominy where they belong. Hopefully they will build a fair, equal and just society, not a Western Style Democracy like ours which is based upon how much money and power you wield, but one that is in keeping with Egypt’s history. I pray for you Egypt, to the God of Peace, the God of Justice and the God of Equality.
P.S. Never trust General wearing lots of fake medals and a silly hat. Everyone knows that. – Paul
Photo by Carl Nelson
“This is part two. The tough part…
To my family and friends.
In 2008 two contractors I sold remodels for went bankrupt owing me around $30,000 one of the companies was my employer. I spent the next year and more unemployed as a lot of us did. During that period I spent time at the Muckleshoot Casino killing time. I actually won a fair amount and banked the money.
…
Over the last couple of years I have had a lot of dead end job starts and now finally work for a good company in the roofing industry. For various reasons I had been personally depressed for so long that the casino was the only other place apart from film sets and writing, where I could lose my feelings of pain. The reasons for that depression is a a whole other story and I suppose it’s a part of life.
The problem is that I became a compulsive gambler. All prudence left me and all sense of awareness for my actions as well as losing touch with reality. I have wasted so much and I was so ashamed that I spent my time shooting in Reno this month figuring out a way to end it all. The Reno shoot put me up in Harrah’s Hotel Casino so you can imagine how well that went.
In the end I called the gamblers help line and they referred me to a therapist who could help me. I will figure out why I have this self defeating behavior that is killing me. This addiction has destroyed my marriage as Stephanie can’t trust me after this, It has hurt my family, It has harmed my friends and screwed my reputation. It is so hard to explain this addiction that is so effectively destructive.
I am not looking for pity, I am looking for a place to start rebuilding, a reason to keep going. I am so sorry!” – Paul
Photo by Carl Nelson
Editor’s Note: Paul Eenhoorn is a quite noted/respected actor about town and has a lot of varied experience to offer us. He also writes quite well. He’s suffered a few setbacks of late which he shared on Facebook. Experiences he has written about with poignancy. Which are unique – and also quite familiar, more or lessto the mass of us laboring in the Arts. So I invited him to write a bit more about it here: about real life in the Arts. My provisional title for Paul’s Column comes from the poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky:
“Citizen!
Consider my travelling expenses:
Poetry -
all of it -
is a journey to the Unknown.”
“Back from Two weeks shooting in Reno!! It was a tough but rewarding shoot. Spent the two weeks depressed mostly.
I run on cash flow as being unemployed or underemployed over the past three years has cost us dearly. I really thought more money would be in by now from my new found sales job.
This year started auspiciously when Steph spent ten days in Overlake over Christmas with a spinal infection which we thought was a pulled muscle. By the time we got her to Overlake the doctors had a hard time controlling a blood infection. She was in really bad shape. Then there were the antibiotic transfusions for the next three months. Needless too say this all set us back even though we were insured. Also in the last year as a result of this recession we nearly lost our home and were lucky to get a loan modification.
I was talking to a close friend yesterday who has been through life and he said I should tell people about my life. I am not looking for sympathy I am in this situation and that’s all it is.
Also in the last year I shot four feature films, a TV pilot, various corporate shoots, a web show, a handful of shorts. For all that work I have earned $3000.00 most of it from corporate shoots. For that I have made myself available for friends who needed me and framed my life to accommodate the industry in Seattle. No wonder Steph looks at me and presumes me insane. My thoughts of ending this life had became so overpowering that I take anti depressants to help keep me up. It’s really hard to know you have what it takes, (based upon the feedback of others), chase the goal, frame your life to accommodate it and still try to make some sort of living in a recession. I know there are others in this place I am in who have similar pain; they have shared it with me.
I drive a beaten up Ford Windstar because I own it and it keeps running. Oh yeah I am really enjoying the fruits of my labor. I can’t even pay my phone bill, boy am I stupid.
Then there was the 55 days of the campaign on Room 13 full time at insane hours that netted me a princely sum and a whole lot of stress that I am still carrying.
I have a handful of friends that I know are my friends people like Ricco, Ross, Ernie, Richard, Andy, Becka, Aria, who actually call me on their old fashioned Cell Phone, just to say Hi, not because they want anything. Yet there are people I have done work for (unpaid of course) who won’t even return a phone call. I have a lot of shortcomings and I work on them daily. I might be stupid, imprudent, and too optimistic, with bad habits, but i try to stay loyal to friends.
To everyone who has helped Room 13 thanks. I love you all , all of you in this town who work against odds that a blind man could see are insurmountable; yet away we toil. Someone show me a brick wall that I can beat my head against. I obviously love pain.” – Paul
Photo by Carl Nelson
Years careening forward without any quality control whatsoever is finally paying off for WARP (Writers and Actors Performing Now). Sold out shows are becoming the rule as WARP touted up another win, finishing this past Sunday with their matinee Halloween extravaganza, “Products of a WARPed Imagination”. Especially successful were John Ruoff’s Seahorse Moon, Scot Bastian’s Missing the Boat, Donna Van Norman’s The Visitor, and Multiple Vocationalities by Dale Kazdan. A surprise cameo by our own favorite actor/playwright/columnist, Jorj Savage certainly didn’t hurt attendance.
Especially fun was this suicide on stage via Drano, in a play written by our own Rita Andreeva. Watch it, complete with creepy music, on this well-done video. (My favorite part, where Rose Kinne tosses her cookies, is a couple minutes in.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwgJ6dgKlsU&feature=player_embedded
To see a fuller range pictures of the event, got to: Carl Nelson Photography (link on the right)
Photos by Carl Nelson
From the Editor’s Perch
January 8, 2012“Artistic Failure in America”
I take this title from a blog of the same name. Here’s a post to get you started: http://www.artisticfailure.com/category/artists-who-fall-through-the-cracks/
I especially enjoyed some other articles on this blog about “grizzled artists” – what happens to artists as they get older?
By far the largest percentage of artists are financially unsuccessful. (Can you holler? “We are the 99.999999…%!”) In a society moving so quickly that it’s hindering to stop and puzzle over anything , artists can be slow off the mark. Artistic endeavor tends to be quite introverted. Couple that with failure – or just an initial ‘failure to launch’ – and you have the recipe for a mesmerizing dance which can pull an artistic mind downward, occupying its thoughts for years. Or, you become successful! for whatever reason, and go on some crazy, lunatic’s getaway of fifteen minutes with the Bitch Goddess.
Better to rush headlong than to be left behind! Or. Stay awhile. Look around. Get creative. Think your way out of this. Failure and success are both interesting mysteries. Artists worship mystery and often find themselves caught like clouds of gnats buzzing in the darkness of those hot summer nights around the mesmerizing effect of those glittering imponderables… often wondering if they should continue on in the cultural buzz, or just fall out of the air. Thinking, while at the bar with another cold one, ‘this all made sense, when I dreamed it.’
Photo by Carl Nelson
Tags: artistic failure, artistic failure in america, artists, commentary, criticism, failure, poverty, Seattle
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