Go Big or Go Bust: Day 115 (on self-promotion, braggy captions, Sundance and Berlin)

So today I want to talk about two things: that picture from yesterday's post and the braggy caption.  They get to the heart of why this Go Big or Go Bust thing is like pulling teeth. 

My grandmother used to say that the only time your name should ever be in the paper is when you get married and when you die.  If then.  It wasn't that she was cautioning us to stay on the right side of the law, it was that there was something seamy and unsavory about women and publicity. (It may have gone for men too, but she would have been addressing only her grandaughters.  So I'll never know.)  Hey my grandmother was born in the 1800's. 

from the left: Michael Moneagle, Lea Floden and Bill Zimmer

So for me to be relentlessly posting pictures of myself, telling stories about myself, yammering on and on about me ME  ME ... and my accomplishments (the braggy caption) ...  it doesn't sit well. 

Not that that's stopping me ...  If this is what's necessary to spread the word about The Louise Log, I'm doing it.

About this picture from yesterday's post (see above on right) which is shown in context on the page from the Berlin Festival catalogue: it was taken shortly after I learned that my first and so far only feature (How To Be Louise) had been invited to be in the Berlin Film Festival's Panorama and Sundance's Dramatic Competition.  A sizable cast, headed by the wonderful actors Lea Floden, Bruce McCarty and Maggie Burke and an even bigger crew with Vladimir Tukan, Mark Serman and Deirdre Fishel in key roles, had worked very long hours for very little reward to make this film and now we'd grabbed the brass ring.  Sundance!  Berlin!  I'm wearing a fake leopard skin coat from Loehmann's and a smile of disbelief. 

Here's the (2:05) trailer:

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 114 (on Siri, Ex Machina and my longing to be robotic)

Not being especially techy, I don't think much about robots.  But last weekend I saw the Alex Garland film Ex Machina (all about robots).  And recently I've been having my own problems with Siri, the robot in my phone.  Asking for 'directions' has become a high stakes ordeal.  Instead of giving incredibly precise GPS directions (as she used to), Siri now tears, at the speed of light, through my address book and randomly requests FaceTime with inappropriate people.  SORRY if you've been among those.

And then I had a blinding flash: once upon a time, and maybe even up until right now, I've had a yearning to be robotic. 

looking my robotic best in the Berlin Intl Film Festival catalogue

Soon after I moved to New York in 1978, I went into therapy with a kind and very quiet man on the Upper West Side.  Wearing a friend's, ex-husband's, leather motorcycle jacket, I'd ride my bicycle from my job in midtown up to 90th or 91st Street and Central Park West, take the elevator up and lie on Dr. T's couch for an hour, covering my eyes when details were difficult to talk about. 

For probably months of sessions, I rattled on and on (and on).  And then one night, the good doctor cut me off: "I've heard a lot about a fair number of people in your life, but I think you came here to find out more about you, to get in touch with your feelings."  Like it was yesterday, I remember practically shouting at the guy: "What?  No!  I came here so I could get through my creative blocks ... so I can do my work!  I don't want to waste one minute on 'feelings'."  Dr. T. chuckled in his shy and non-judgmental way:  "Really!  Most people come into therapeutic analytic psychotherapy so they can feel more!"  (Pretty sure that's what he called it.)  Shaking my head: "Nope.  I don't want to feel anything.  I just want to be like a machine and work work work.  Efficiently. "

So it's with some surprise that, through a chain of events which seemed to lead me in spite of myself, I went yesterday to see a practitioner of Rubenfeld Synergy.  Two new friends had gone and talked about almost mystical experiences of being connected to themselves and liberated from long-held blocks.  After one session, it's looking likely that 'feelings' are the pathway to this liberation.  And I'm wondering if 'feeling' is also the key to 'self-confidence', that ideal on the hill which has so effectively eluded me. 

Hmmph.  If only I'd taken Dr. T's bait offered so many decades ago.  I'll keep you posted.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 113 (FRIENDS APPRECIATION DAY!)

So unfortunately, Squarespace doesn't let you put titles of blog posts in italics, cause otherwise a part of today's title would be both CAPSLOCK and in italics. 

Social media and I are not always 'like that'.  Especially when I've been busy and erratic and all trails have gone cold.  We all know the feeling, kind of like trying to push a car uphill.

But recently, social media's been feeling like home.  Marilyn Robertson, Paul Neshamkin, Marie Pope and Marian Evans rushed to the scene last night with love and wisdom to talk me off the ledge.  (the metaphorical ledge)  Thank you for your insights and suggestions!  They are already making a difference in the way I think about scheduling a day. 

And to the many of you who regularly check in and make your presence felt, thank you and more for being my circle!  Thank you for making me laugh, think ... feel! And thank you for saving me from the anxiety that I'm ACTUALLY JUST TALKING TO MYSELF.  Louise Harrison, Victoria Trestrail, Marta Szabo, Zita Giertl, Julia Wolfe, Rachel Dangermond, Ned Buratovich, Julie Clark Shubert, Susan Sinawsky, Barbara Boyer, Mudd Lavoie, Mhairi Morrison, Schahan Tchapraste, Stephanie Beroes, Deb Micallef, Kerry Isaac-Rossow, Linn Schaifer, Ellen Temple Fagan,  KellyAnne Hanrahan, Bianca Han, Lisa Stein, Thomas Attila Lewis, Alexandra Rosas, Xavier Trevino, Xiane Sierocka-Stock .... and so many more. 

Millions of fans (or as Julie Clark Shubert likes to call them "imaginary friends") couldn't make me feel as connected as you do.  GROUP HUG!!!

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 112 (free time, to-do lists and prioritizing them)

As some of you, my dear friends, are already aware, I'm somewhat of an 'all-or-nothing' person.  Though I'd planned to spend a solid hour today on Facebook and another solid hour on Twitter, today is getting written off as what I think the corporate world calls a Personal Day.  Just to be clear, I'm calling it a Mental Health Day. 

For once I didn't even bother to number the rest of the list.   #sanity  #Freedom

It's been a while since I pulled out the old vacuum ... so long, in fact, that Mr. Green and I have been coughing and clearing our throats non-stop.  The tell-tale layer of dust had moved in from the corners to pretty much stand, hands on hips a la Wonder Woman, in the middle of every room.  And it started affecting more than my airways: I could hardly fall asleep last night for dirt and disorder induced ANXIETY. 

Fourteen hours after making my to-do list this morning (there was a lunch and a dinner break and a lot of laundry to do too) I am a new person in a sparkling and transformed house.  

Words can't tell you how much I loved knowing what had to happen today and doing it.   But deciding on priorities is rarely so stark unless I'm working or there's a deadline.  In the good old days, pregnant and/or the mother of small children, it was all so clear. (I forget that the time and energy were oh-so limited). 

BURNING QUESTIONS:  How do you decide how to spend free time?   How do you justify doing something frivolous when there's always work you want to do? ... when there's ALWAYS social media you want to catch up on?  Thank you in advance!  

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 111 (the return of the Prodigal Daughter)

I'm BAAAAACK.  (Thank you for your good wishes and kind words!)

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 110 (on mortality and family dynamics)

Too bad my husband was driving so he couldn’t snap a Day 109 shot of me barfing out the window as we rounded the bend heading back from a screening of Ex Machina to our Guest Suite at the assisted living place.  Having a very difficult time. No way am I ‘going big’ here in any way other than emotionally.  

First of all there’s the hugely depressing fact of being in a place where you’re relentlessly confronted with your own worst case possible future.  A lot of people are sick, all of them are elderly and most are failing in one way or another.  There’s a fair amount of wry laughing about ways to ‘kill time’ and  compulsive talking is a surprisingly common affliction.  What at first seemed like a refreshing experience of meeting new people who are open, with no agenda and apparently no ego problems has morphed into the stark realization that I’ll be lucky if I do better than this.

Secondly, I’m not managing to find a peaceful balance between the demands of family and my high-needs self. 

But what’s the alternative?  Ex Machina?  At least robots can't get food poisoning.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 108 (seems icky, turns out to be Great)

I am a fairly driven person and feel a certain hysteria if uprooted from my independence and life.  Heaven to me is the freedom to work as many hours a day as possible making little videos to push this web series and me out into the world.  

So to be visiting someone, even someone dear, in an assisted-living residence for the better part of a week is not generally at the top of my to-do list.  ‘Killing time’ is the order of the day here, the internet access is poor and even my really-scaled-back idea of a work schedule is in shreds.

Searching, yearning for a way to see this experience in a positive light, it suddenly it hit me: I’ve been here before.  And the last time, that ‘distraction’ turned out to be the great gift of my life.

At the age of twenty-one, I accepted that as an artist, I’d  scrape by with day jobs and keep my expenses low.  My plan was to neither marry nor have children in order to devote my whole self to this calling.  In 1978 I signed a lease on my first apartment, a studio on Mott St. and Houston for $178.50/mo.  I worked at tedious jobs and didn't have a lot left after paying the rent, but I was free.  There was no one else to consider so I did whatever I wanted: of course my priority was making art.  A little unmentioned detail: my creative block was big as Manhattan.  To say I was frustrated is an understatement but I worked whenever I could.

Even though some of the work from this era was acknowledged by the pooh-bahs of the field, from where I stand today, it’s lacking.  A lot of it is about the act of making art: it has texture and it even has mystery, but it lacks emotion.  

Fewer than five years after moving to Mott Street, I was seized with a mad desire to be a mother.  Eventually I met a man, The man.  Soon after we married and had children.  

I remember six or so months into my first pregnancy, trying to do some yoga.  Bending forehead to knee, the clear thought went through me: “I’m finished.  My life as an artist is over.  How did I get off course??”  Well.  'Off course' is putting it mildly: I was in the woods for eighteen solid years.  A compulsive mother, and an increasingly blocked artist, I did very little creative work during that period.  

For insight and hope, there were tarot card readers and astrologers as often as I could afford them.  During one head-scratching reading, Psychic Alex Murray pronounced: “Your children broke your heart open and taught you to love.”  

It’s since become obvious that having children was the single greatest boon to my life as an artist.  And since the eldest left for college in 2007, I’ve felt like a channel for a creative avalanche.  

Could it be that balance is creativity gold?  For me as an artist, learning to surrender (to emotional connections, to new experiences, to life) is what has made the difference between competent work and work that’s alive, work that's even sought after, work that people can relate to.   

So one minute at a time, I’m trying to remember to open my ears and eyes and heart and to relax and enjoy this difficult experience and the Florida sunshine.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 107 (life on life's terms)

In this inexorable forward motion toward global domination, I wanted to give you two visual clues as to how I spent today.  Unfortunately, photographs will not even upload to the internet here in my undisclosed location.  Will look for a stronger internet connection tomorrow after daybreak. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 106 (small talk and the art of conversation)

If you want to go big, you generally have to connect with people.  Lots of people.  People you don't know.  People you've just met.  There's banter in elevators, in hallways, at lunches, dinners, cocktail parties, the possibilities for awkwardness is practically limitless. 

And small talk has always been challenging for me.  So I was fascinated to discover that there’s a name for the antidote, the art of conversation.  And though I’ve been meaning to get around to reading a book on the subject, my mother’s voice is ringing in my ears:  “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”   

Recently, a story has surfaced of a young woman who reportedly has only about four lines in her entire repertoire.  Four lines.  Period.  I became obsessed with wanting to know more, to find out about her life and her mind and how she makes it through the day.  I’ve been able to pry just two of her reputed lines from my source.  There’s one about her shoes being adequate only to do a two-step and one about not wanting to get whiskey drunk.  

In a sense of fair play, but at the risk of showing all the cards in my hand for the rest of my days, I’m now going to reveal my two favorite lines from my own extremely limited repertoire:

“Where’s your sense of fun?” 

(useful in situations when others are under duress or embarrassed)

“We’ll always have Paris!”  

(This can be thrown in randomly whenever things don’t seem to be going well or in any particular direction.  Additionally you can buy yourself a little time as your partner in conversation tries to figure out what the heck you’re talking about.)   

May I add that neither of my go-to lines is especially well-suited to business situations and as you may remember, I'm trying to 'go big' so as to not 'go bust'.

Do you have a favorite line or lines?  Please write them in the comments!  It's more than idle curiosity,  sort of more of a life or death situation here.  Read me?  Ten four.   

Not talking.  In the good old days.  When I was a sculptor.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 105 (POTUS on the block)

So I'm sitting here working away on a script for a really fun video and the whole neighborhood is in a tizzy.  Apparently the President is going to be driving through the Village on the way to a fundraiser. 

It's hard to concentrate when the block is swarming with police, Secret Service (I imagine they're Secret Service- the walkie-talkies, the dark suits) and the marksmen with the bullet proof vests and binoculars.  I heard some 20-somethings calling this is a "once-in-a-lifetime experience".

And then a truck arrives and up goes a tent.  By golly it looks like the President will be stopping at a building across the street.  We've been asked to close our windows and stay in the house. 

But apparently, we missed the big moment, the arrival.

And then, accidentally, I missed the departure (who knew the flash was on) here's a reflection of the camera in the closed window, plus the window gates.  You can see one of the lights on one of the ten cars of the entourage over on the left.  It's red. 

Mr. Green is having a lot of strong feelings about the fact that we, the citizens, paid a fortune in police, in helicopters, etc for our President to go to a fundraiser and that some of what was raised should go to pay for the considerable expenses. 

And what's worse is that that's just a detail.  The real question is if we can even still call this a democracy when it's become all about money.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 104 (AWOL again)

My husband and Co-Writer Mr. Green looked at this picture and noted: "You should have had a trowel or a packet of seeds so it doesn't look like you're just crawling around in the dirt.  Or gardening gloves.  Too bad you weren't wearing gardening gloves."  I pointed out that he had been the one behind the camera.  Our discussion drew to an abrupt close.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 103 (simple recipe for happiness)

Today I heard the most deliciously simple recipe for happiness.  Cause, in the end, isn't that what it's all about?  The frenetic activity, the accomplishing, the efficiency, the lipstick so you look your best doing it (or at least look like you have a mouth). 

Well so here's the recipe: spend time being quiet in the morning, connecting with yourself.  Then relax and trust your intuition to guide you through the day.  Huh??  That's IT?  Yup.

So today I trusted it and, though yes, I'm wayyyy behind with social media  (the rapacious creditor) I'm too tired to care.  The garden needed to be turned over and the weeds pulled out.   And that's what I did. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 102 (spamming with a (13 sec) video on Instagram)

Report from the front  So my friend and collaborator Marie Christine Katz asked if I was going to post the (39 sec) video from yesterday's blog post on Instagram or Vine.  Cut to a google search:  Instagram takes 3 - 13 second videos, Vine only up to six seconds.

So being a now-or-never type person (and having intended to get into Instagram for weeks already) I chopped down yesterday's video to 13 seconds and began spamming people liberally.  The spamming was actually unintentional-  I didn't realize you don't generally 'send' videos to people on Instagram until I already had.  

Why did I ever think feature films were a good idea??  Vine?  Here I come!

Featuring a Rough Cut of "I Want To Know You" Written and Performed by Julie Clark Shubert and recorded live.

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Go Big or Go Bust: Day 101 (on image issues)

My MOUTH?

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 100 (scene from a marriage)

Who knew there’d be 'personal' consequences to this 'Go Big or Go Bust' blog.  Not me.  And certainly not Mr. Green. 

Unfortunately, when he drinks, he snores.  And before starting this blog, I used to put up with it- ear plugs, sleep deprivation, there are ways.  But this 'going big' thing is actually happening.  I wouldn't say I've become a 'tyrant'.  But I'm definitely not the essentially subservient person Mr. Green married.  Of course he loves it. 

#GIRLPOWER  #GoMe

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 99 (on going for the good stuff)

Having spent the first five plus decades trying to be ladylike, am now making up for lost time with this 'go big or go bust'.  Thanks everybody for cheering me on!!

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 98 (on three fingers pointing back at me)

Well it's been one of those days when all I've managed to do is errands and to get the darn printer to recognize the new cartridge of 'toner' that's been sitting in it for the past week. 

Along the way, I met so many jerks that there's only one explanation: if there's one finger pointing at someone else (even just metaphorically), there're three fingers pointing back at me.  In other words, I'm the jerk (x 3). 

(Only two of the 'three fingers pointing back at me' are visible...)

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 97 (on Patti Smith and how to be where you are)

After a lifetime of certainty that I'm always just around the corner from the hotter, grander position I so richly deserve, a tone of remorse, dare I say shame, creeps into my voice on the subject.  Unsurprisingly, one of my favorite Louise Log episodes deals with this subject so very dear to my heart How To Be Where You Are (2:41).

So I was thrilled when Mudd Lavoie passed along this short interview with Patti Smith about life lived in the shadows doing unrecognized work, (the work of raising children, of waitressing) and on how it compares with her work in the spotlight as a musician.

It's inspiring and validating to hear from someone who's internationally recognized putting into perspective the work most of us spend most of our lives doing.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 96 (on the gift of limitations)

A young mother phoned today, overwhelmed by a huge internal pressure.  She wants to and (in her mind's eye) should already be doing her life's work as an artist.  And this even though she is raising two young children and isn't totally sure of the medium she wants to work in.

The years (ahem) the decades of my identical frustration came flooding back, the nagging, gnawing misery.  My inability to sufficiently split my focus as a mother (in order to get traction as an indie feature film maker) had discouraged me to the point that I finally let go of my dream. 

Becoming willing to stoop to something that was in the realm of possibility was the hardest step of all.  I guess I could make short videos with a camcorder...  (This was at a time when no self-respecting filmmaker was uploading their work to YouTube, a channel known mostly for videos of dogs on skateboards.) 

When I finally saw Da Ali G Show and Bon Qui Qui at King Burger my pulse raced.  Why not make short funny videos for YouTube with a camcorder?  And do it at your own pace, with no pressure, time or financial.  And continue to be a mother as much as you need and want. 

Seven years later, I look back with gratitude on this unwanted gift, the gift of being broken by a failure which forced me to start where I was with what I had.

Go Big or Go Bust Day 95 (on Not being a drug-crazed action figure)

My husband (and co-writer) writes a science column for non-scientists and is always looking for fresh material to report about.  He was surprised to learn from one of his colleagues that lots of healthy, straight-laced, white sock wearing scientists routinely use the drugs originally developed to combat ADD.  But they don't have ADD.  They use the drugs as 'productivity-enhancers'.  We're talking about forms of the drug we used to call *speed*. 

Seriously?  And this is old news!  Apparently the New Yorker did a big profile years ago on the widespread student use of mind-enhancing drugs.  So my active mind instantly goes into extrapolation mode: if the scientists and students are into this, how about the rest of the population? 

I won't beat around the bush about why this topic is so fascinating to me: first of all, being in the business of guerilla filmmaking, where the money is minimal to non-existent and the work of five to eight people is on one person's shoulders, stamina and energy are the currency of the realm. Secondly, I'm well aware of my own problem with 'Too Much Ain't Enough'.  Would I like to be twice as productive?  Uhh...  YEAH.  So this should be good news. 

I think it's terrible news.  And it seems like it might explain a lot of what's wrong with the country, maybe the world: have we become a nation disconnected from ourselves in a mad scramble for More? 

It's making me question just what I'm trying to do with this 'Go Big or Go Bust'.  The fact is that a significantly bigger audience is necessary if I'm to keep doing what I'm doing and actually pay my collaborators and get paid.  To accomplish this, the main job seems to be to dare to reveal myself more than I ever have.  But this would not mean revealing myself as a drug-crazed action figure, foaming at the mouth and cackling at my efficiency.

I've spent the last thirty-five-plus years fighting my way out of the self-inflicted prisons of trying to be 'liked' and of trying to pretend I feel confident.  Suppressing, denying, and ignoring my emotional problems has never helped.  What headway I've made has been through not tampering with my body chemistry but through learning to be more vulnerable, through feeling more.  As an artist, your being is your instrument, the vessel you're given to use to do your life's work.  I want to keep mine clear.