Memoirs of a Californian...NYC | Summer 05
*The following entry was written during my time living in New York in 2005...
"Traveling down, this road, watching the signs as I go,
I think I'll follow, the sun, isn't everyone just...
traveling down, their own road, watching the signs as they go,
I think I'll follow, my heart, it's a very good place, to start."
-"Sky Fits Heaven" Madonna
This song means a lot to me. The reason is because, back in 1998 I would drive, during the summer after my sophomore year of college I got this gig as a featured extra on The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, I would drive at 4 in the morning from Santa Barbara to LA and put on this huge monster suit in 100 degree weather. I remember how I felt like, I was in hell, literally in HELL, I was cooking in this suit, in this heat like a live lobster in a pot, in some random desert in Valencia, with a bunch of monsters and devils around me. All the extras were bitching, I had to do this for a week. Then I found a way to get out of the monster suit and sneak my way into an evil henchman suit, which was lighter and identical to what the Power Rangers wore, so I felt like I was an X Man now. I remember finishing that gig, being so friggin glad it was friggin over. I was exhausted it was over a 12 hour day, shitty meals, felt so dirty, and I drove back from LA to Santa Barbara so tired.
Madonna's Ray of Light cd just came out, and it was so risky and different, I did not like it at first, but then it grew on me, and I saw the artistic risk she took. The song "Sky Fits Heaven" came on, and the lyrics stuck to me, which are the same lyrics that I wrote to start this letter. I remember being that 21 year old dreaming one day I didn't have to do extra work, one day I was going to act in a play. I would drive by this huge theater off the 101 north of Malibu, it was the Thousand Oaks civic light opera, I'd say one day it'd be great to perform there. I'd start to dream one day I'll be in New York doing a play. One day. I kept saying...one day. The song would blast at midnight driving up PCH where the ocean would hit the freeway, with the moonlight shining off Summerland, Madonna would sing,
"traveling down their own road, watching the signs as they go, I think I'll follow my heart, it's a very good place to start."
I remember being this 21 year old, completely and utterly insecure, but acted like everything was fine. I think that sophomore year I just finished my first year in the BFA Acting Program, intense, but I had one great day on stage with Keith Baker during our Meisner class, and I knew, this is it. I went from a wanna be music video director to an actor in 15 minutes. Which looking back I do NOT regret at all. I look back now, and I still see how important that summer was. Being an extra is not glamorous at all, I remember running from pyrotechnics and explosions literally 20 feet from me, and I thought, "is this legal?" I'm not in the union, so I wasn't protected!
Anyway 6 years later I am sitting in New York typing on this computer, writing this story, and exactly a year ago, I performed in that same theater in Thousand Oaks, that I thought seemed so far away, that was, but really wasn't at the same time. I am 27 now, wow, and that song of Madonna's I still play. I put it on every now and then on the F train to work thinking, there will be a day where I won't have to worry about giving my customers low sodium soy sauce as opposed to regular soy sauce, where I don't have to explain the difference between regular tuna, chu toro, and oh toro, and edamame. Waiters and bartenders are the best customers and best tippers in restaurants, because we all just KNOW. We're always like "can I get some water whenever you get time"
"Take your time, I know what it's like."
"Your slammed, it's okay."
No but we all have to make a living. But where am I going with this. Not quite sure, but if you want something so bad, you will get it eventually. It may be 6 years later, but it will happen. I think that is what I mean by writing this. Patience is one thing I don't have, but I realize how important that is. I think with our advances in technology we have grown to become so impatient.
Remember when we used to have type writers, and cassette tapes, even beta max vhs? I remember if I wanted to hear a song on a tape, I'd memorize how many seconds it took me on the fast forward button to hit stop so I can hear MC Hammers "U cant touch this" over and over.
On a whole other subject I went out on another date yesterday with...
New York City. I absolutely love it here! It is fantastic. That is all I can say. I find myself saying three things a lot yesterday.
"Fantastic"
"Amazing!"
"New York Fuckin City!"
So yesterday, I had the day off, and went down my list of TO DOs in NYC before I go back to Plasticville...LA. One was I had to take the 6 train up to Castle Hill to the Bronx, this was the same path Jennifer Lopez took everyday for dance and acting class. It took me an hour and a half, no exageration to get there. But once I got there it reminded me of my hometown of San Bernardino, ghetto. But I liked it because it shows me how you just want to do better. There was a new sense of respect and admiration I had for J Lo or Jenny from the Block, that I didn't have, she took this every day for years just get to class, it's a good 2 hours of your day, and on top of that she has to deal with the heat and the freezing cold. I look at her now, and just think that girl deserves everything she has. It's easy to say she is a slut, but she is just like us, don't we all just want to be in love, who can blame her, we'd be lying if we didn't want to be loved.
I ate at a Baskin Robbins on the corner of Wenchester and Castle Hill and had 2 flavors of ice cream which were my favorite growing up, Jamoca Almond Fudge, and Prailines and Cream. Yum, then I headed back, hearing all kinds of dialects, brooklyn, bronx, nyc, jamaican, you name it. I get off on Astor Place, where i went to Tower Records and waited to meet the director who inspired me visually as a teenager. Mark Romanek. For those of you who don't know, he was the director I aspired to be when I wanted to direct videos, but he did Lenny Kravitz "Are you Gonna go my Way" Madonna's "Rain" and "Bedtime Stories" NINs "Closer" En Vogue's "Free your Mind".
Great videos, I got his dvd and met him and he signed it. That was 12 years in the making. 12 friggin years, but it happens.
Then I went and saw this play called "Fallen" about 9/11. Which reminds me I went to Ground Zero the day after. I knew my play was over by late August, but I knew I had to be in NYC til 9/11... It was captivating. I was in NYC looking up at the towers on September 1st 2001. I remember being with my sister Helen, we walked all the way from the Lower East Side to the Brooklyn Bridge to the World Trade Center towers, I remember being so excited at the time, 23 years old, really into polaroid picture taking at the time, I raced all the way there to get one shot on my polaroid, I get there, started framing, took me 5 minutes to press the button, and click, but the click was different, I took the film out, and I realized "ahh shit, no more film!" Helen said do you wanna get more, I'm sure there is a store. "And I remember saying, "no it's okay, I'll just get the shot next time I'm in New York." I remember that moment very well, it was a beautiful blue sky sunny day, the shot would have been the two towers behind this vivid blue, and I said "next time." Well 10 days later Morgan, my roommate, wakes me up in his old one bedroom in Culver City, and tower 1 was in flames, and then another hit the 2nd, we were terrified, and then all of a suddend one tower came down, i remember just saying oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. There wasn't going to be a next time, there wasn't going be that shot on my polaroid. Crazy, so 4 years later I'm there, and it's really sad. Flowers everywhere, a memorial, pictures of the victims. The world is going through a massive change, with Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami, the war, 9/11. Where are we going here? It is so easy to get caught in our lives, ignoring what's really going on. I find my self being guilty of it. Being apathetic, and I absolutely hate that. One thing about tragedy though, is that the world keeps on going, it just keeps on going, humans are so strong, and that they choose to move on with their lives. Which I find so remarkable. So after Ground Zero, I left.
Last night after the play I had found where Marlon Brando and James Dean had once lived. Marlon lived in upper midtown and James lived on the upper west side. I walked to both, and I was just amazed, 2 talented amazing legend's apartments. I just sat and thought, wow, they did the same thing we all did, live, eat, and lived somemore. I went to James Dean's doorway, peaked in the foyer and saw in writing a quote he had said, it read,"dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today." Wow, that was great. So I walked around his hood and ate a really great italian dinner at a local restaurant and walked thru Central Park at night, hearing loud samba music playing at a restaurant nearby, it's a constant movie moment in the city. Everything you grew up with television, film, it's all here. It was a great night yesterday. A fantastic date, who needs a relationship? Sometimes being single is great. It's not as negative as society makes it out to be. I'd rather be blissfully happy single, then just half ass happy in a relationship.
So I have about a week left here in NYC, I cannot believe it has come to this. Like a dream. I still have to check out Peter Luger which is a steak house that has been voted by many critics as the best steak in the United States. Then it is off to Rao's an italian restaurant in Harlem where they have the best spaghetti sauce, you may see it in jars at whole foods or bristol farms its like a $10 can of marinara but so good. I don't eat burgers here, because you just cannot beat Father's Office in Santa Monica or In N Out. You just can't. Til next time...
With Brooklyn and Manhatten love,
ruffy.
