#I make no defenses of armisen I really do not like that guy

[thequeensthroat]

everyone be nice to me and politely avert your eyes while i post about the horrible it movies in 2024 but I really do love to think about richie from the horrible it movies as if he were a real man with the worlds realest and most confusing career in comedy. anyways really enjoyed this hate comment on a youtube clip of the documentary now spalding gray parody episode because while it is confusing to the point of nonsensical it does charm me deeply in its recognizability as a mean thing one could say of richie it movies, a man who is real and alive and my friend

i also love the idea of someone who earnestly believes midwesterners are harmfully appropriating new england culture and is really mad about this

[softctts]

“We Love You, But You Can’t Deliver.”

Understanding one’s problem areas, unfortunately, doesn't count as an apology.

It was a boring Sunday night. I just left the Kendall Square Cinema after seeing the film, Disobedience. I wasn’t dying to see it, but a movie was one way to avoid something else on my plate: production planning for a music video that I’m trying to shoot for my friend. Instead of being upfront about how I’ve been creatively bankrupt since we’ve talked about it in late March, I’ve hemmed and hawed along thinking an idea will hit me eventually. Throughout the train ride home, I felt the guilt of procrastination creep up on me. It reached a tipping point by the time I got to the final stop, that I was once again fucking around, wasting time, and going nowhere. On top of all of this, I’m fucking my friend over with my inability to act. Then the existential questions followed: “What am I doing? Where is my “career” heading? Do I really have the audacity to call myself an artist? Why can’t I show up to the things that I said I want to do? Do I really want to do this?” These questions reverberated in my head as I walked through Forest Hills late at night. Another project that I started has stopped in its tracks. Because of me, just being me.

It’s been a weird year and a half. My professional and creative growth has ground to a halt and I’m understanding why. I just… suck. Not just morally, but also in a functional sense. The same way France sucks at maintaining a balanced economy for its working class. I talk about the things I want to do, but I’m constantly getting stuck and I can’t follow through.

This is what I do, I make things. But If I can’t do that, then who the fuck am I?

It’s hit me how much stock I’ve put into trying to be (and look like) an artist, but everything I do turns to shit. But as it turns out, when you wake up every day and mutter “you fuckin’ suck” before you brush your teeth, it becomes fact. Now in my mid-20s, my friends and contemporaries are living their best lives, but I have the audacity to wonder why nothing is happening.

I’ve had this image of myself that I’ve been reinforcing for many years now: I’m a filmmaker, writer, photographer, a creative thinker; I’m an artist. But I’ve never had the discipline or the mental fortitude to stay consistent with who I’ve been selling myself as. I stupidly thought that I would “change” out of nowhere.

Between late 2016 and this year, I’ve just been in this in-between space of starting and stopping things that have buzzed around my head. The more I get to the root of the issue (looking back at grade school, college, messed up internal reward systems…) I learned there was no sudden “point” when things went south, it’s always been this way. In what’s supposed to be my prime years, my eyes opened to how much I can’t properly execute anything. This explains my friends looking at me like a clown when I talk about projects I’m working on or I want to do. Why believe the pathetic guy who struggles to show up to his own work? The person who, unbeknownst their well-meaning words, can’t put their money where their mouth is? I cringe thinking back to the past conversations that involved “this cool idea I had” or “this script I’ve been tinkering with”. Only to return a month later when someone asks me “what’s new?” and I have nothing to say. “Really? What about that thing you told me about a while back?”

It’s been a slow burn.

Honing your creativity and making art is akin to working out: to see results, it needs to be a daily practice. When you fail to show up consistently, you're no longer reinforcing the gains you've made. You fucked up if you’re looking at something you made and repeatedly say “that could’ve been better…” But you’re failing yourself if that happens on every single project, for every single take, without a redeemable moment. Every chance I had at-bat over the year was a swing that was weaker and mediocre than the last. I had the opportunity to be the cinematographer for my friend’s music video in late March (“cinematographer” is a generous title for someone who was just holding a camera). I was rusty as fuck. Every second on set was me reacting instead of anticipating the next three steps ahead. My camera work was sloppy and the lighting was incompetent. I had a hard time communicating simple instructions like telling the talent where to stand or how to enter the frame. It might’ve been anxiety or the fact that I tried to give quick instructions without taking too much time, but I ended up sounding like that Fred Armisen character “Peter” from Portlandia. Luckily for the band, the project had a talented editor to make clever use of my mediocre work. It’s already out now. But in the meantime, am I happy with the result? As of this post, I haven’t seen it yet. I rarely watch my stuff. I think this is a defense mechanism to postpone disappointment. I’ll probably watch it in the future, find the problem areas, and if I’m smart enough I’ll take note of it for the next project.

My friend and I once joked that I’m often treated like a Make-A-Wish kid who got the opportunity to be a “filmmaker” for a day. But would you trust a sick 15-year-old with a $4 million budget? I’m grateful for some of my friends who decided I was still worth working with. But in reality, I’m nothing more than a tool in their eyes. My reputation as a maker is in the gutter (it might’ve always been that way), so there's no reason for anyone to trust me with any important decision. With my track record, I don’t blame them for not taking me seriously. Shit, if I was in their shoes I definitely wouldn’t, either.

The truth is sometimes like a soft pat on the face.

I’m not much use to anyone at the moment, let alone myself. The only recent thing I can claim is my participation in the #100DayProject on Instagram with CreativeMornings-Boston. I took 1 photograph over the span of 100 days… That was how I decided to start showing up. It’s art, I guess (or not, if we’re being honest). As far as growth goes, those are my new baby steps. It’s regaining the muscles I let atrophy over the months. On the plus side, I had a box to check off when I woke up in the morning. The music video my friend needed is on hiatus and I’m still, more-or-less, conceptually bankrupt (If you're reading this D, I'm sorry for keeping you in the dark). After unrealized concepts, “yes’ing” ideas that spark no enthusiasm, and gigs that ended with mediocre results, I need to check myself. My ability to provide value to others is flawed. How much of my friends time am I going to blow away on a project that becomes shit or lays waste on my Vimeo page? 

It’s easier now to face that I have things I want to do, but I don’t have the ability to deliver on it at the moment. In fact, it’s much better being transparent that I’m meandering instead of putting on a front. Is it pathetic? Sure. But if we’re in the business of “being real”, why bother putting a nice face on pathos? As much as it blows, I’m in a slightly better place now that I’m confronting the massive gap between who/where I am currently (versus where I want to go and who I want to become). In the meantime, all I can do now is look backward (but mainly, inward) to assess all that went wrong. From college, high-middle school, and the time I was taking media art programs and I undeservedly felt like “hot shit” because I was "making movies" at a museum. The person I was then led to who I am today. As I look back to better understand how I got here, there isn’t a whole lot to respect.