Hello, Goodbye...

One more year past in New York City and I’m writing this from New Orleans.
Five years gone in the big apple two days down in the Big Easy.
I remember every single moment of my first week in New York. I remember being awe filled and dumbstruck by absolutely everything.

I walked through the streets of Manhattan with a reverence. The energy of the city moved through me like a breeze. The possibilities, the new horizons, the stories of wayward dreamers that came before me were all palatable. And then five years went by. Grifters that look like John Lovett, warehouses built by well meaning mad men and shown to the normies of NYU. I’ve heard bar stool confessions and watched the people that go bump in the night hang themselves up by the skin of their back and cackle in revelry. I’ve had my heart broken more than once by women, by industry, by art.

New York will always be the place I mourned my mother. It will always be the place I found my wings. It will always be the place that taught me how to struggle and how to win and it helped me to define what a win was.

The narcism of New York City is not to be denied or ignored. But if you can escape the feeling that you have to beat out 10 million people for your voice to be relevant and instead enjoy the complex living organism that it is, take pride in your part in moving even a few cells of that organism, you can find yourself.

This isn’t a “good bye to all of that here is why New York blows” blog. I love New York and I always will. It is hard and it should be, it is mean sometimes and it needs to be, it is inconvenient  sometimes and that’s good for you. I see people leave the city forever with malice for the place that tolerated their transplant asses for YEARS. We are a sick society and if we take our poison with the grit god gave us some of us can find a cure, they can come out clean.

New York is traumatizing for a lot of people, and I wont say it wasn’t traumatizing for me. But it also gave me decades of living in half the time. I’ll write all of those stories down soon but for now I want to thank New York.

This all might be a little pre-mature, I’m not sure I’m staying in New Orleans yet. But I’ve done a lot of considering it and what I’ve decided is that if I don’t move back to New York it wont be because I am not forever in love with the city. It will be because the city was my mother while I was absent my own, and she let me go to spread the wings she helped me craft. I built my life with blood on my lips, fire on my tongue, and mud in my teeth and New York saw me.

Now I get to take this weathered heart and these practiced eyes to a place that knows how to say C’est La Vie with a smile. I’ve done my due diligence, I’ve worked my fingers to the bone, and I think it is time I got to raise a glass in a city that will pay me for my art and my company.

I can hear my mother laughing as I walk down magazine street looking in the antique shops and the clothing stores. I can see her head thrown back, her silver hair tossing as she celebrates life with me. I can hear beyond the veil here and for the first time in a long time I don’t feel my mother’s hand on my back, or hear her voice shhhhing me calm...I feel her hand in my hand and I hear her effortless laughter accenting the background of my walk down the Mighty Miss.

Goodbye New York, I’ll catch you later.

Hello New Orleans, you’ve been waiting for me.

Three Years

Officially three years ago I packed a duffle bag, a backpack and a grand and moved to a strange city I’d never stepped foot in. I’ve depended on the kindness of strangers. I know what manner of bed the concrete here makes. I’ve found family in darkness. I’ve lost so much. I’ve loved in more ways then I knew possible and I’ve been broken.

I came here expecting to throw my head shots to the wind and hope. I came here expecting to tap at this keyboard and write my way into a future. I’ve done a little bit of that. I made my words and the words of my friends come to life in a movie we can call our own. A movie that is doing fairly well considering. Mostly though I’ve been fulfilling my mother’s greatest wish for me.

“I just want him to get experiences.” That is what my mom said when asked what she felt about me moving to NYC. I couldn’t possibly have asked for a more varied education then the one I’ve gotten here.

Still my wanderlust whispers to me. I’m still not really sure where I am going. I’m still a lost boy finding shelter in the wilderness. The difference between today and then is that now I feel the wilderness, the uncertain, the unconventional, is where my future is and will always be.

This wandering life, this living by the seat of my pants recording what I see and hoping those records are worth reading, it stops being cute at a certain age. Then the real challenge begins. I’m not sure if my life from this point on will be a total and utter waste. I don’t know if I will die alone, unrecognized and disregarded in a dirty gutter somewhere or if I will die peacefully surrounded by my friends and loved ones. I just know it is too late to turn back now. I just know that this is where I am meant to be.

So I’ll try to stop questioning myself. I will say yes to the roads that call to me. I will let my heart be swayed and my ambitions change with the seasons. I will invest in what seems to stick around and disregard what is obviously a passing infatuation.

In three years what have I learned?

There is no script. People are so much more complicated than they appear. Love is so much more mysterious than I ever thought it could be. I am so much more lost than I originally thought.

I’ve learned I am large, I’ve learned I contain multitudes. *Walt Whitman*

I love you all

KH-

The Road So Far.

I have totally and shamefully abandoned this blog. It’s irresponsible of me really because I built the perfect story telling platform for myself and let it fall into disrepair before I knew what I had. I am going to try to recall and recount a few of the bigger more interesting stories that have happened since the last time I was active here and post them over the coming weeks.

Until then though I wanted to put pen to paper and reflect a bit on this blogs theme and how that is going for me so far. Everything has changed since I moved here and my passions have taken on a completely different form since I set out on this path.

When I moved here I had my eyes set on the screen. I was going to be an actor and I didn’t care what bench I had to sleep on, what dumpster I had to dive, or what sacrifices I had to make in order to get that done. I still intend on pursuing that to some degree but I learned something while making “Dry Spell” (www.indiegogo.com/watchdryspell for a copy it is out right now). I can not be satisfied with acting and acting alone.

I want to act but more than that I want to tell stories that I find important and relevant. I want to bring characters to life in such a way as to emirs someone in another person’s experiences...but I also want to be holding the pen that scrolls the story.

I always called myself a writer with a wink and a nod because it wasn’t my primary focus . And why would it be? For some reason I deluded myself into thinking that I didn’t enjoy it as much as acting and that it was some how more difficult. I don’t know what woke me up to how, not only ridiculous, but a little simple, this idea is.

I love acting and I love performing but writing has been the real common thread in my life and I am starting to accept that I have an aptitude for it and it would be irresponsible to ignore that. The older I get the more I start to realize that my mother was teaching me things I wouldn’t realize she was teaching me till much later.

When I was in High School I would come home and go on and on about my plans for acting. She used to say to me as she poured her glass of wine “just don’t forget writing, okay?” “I wont mom but I really like acting.” “I know you do but you are such a good writer, and I’m not saying you aren’t good at acting but I really enjoy your writing and I think it would be cool for you to do something with that.” That is an almost verbatim conversation I had with her over 8 years ago that hit me with startling clarity the other day when I was working on a new poem. She had no idea just how wonderful a mother she was.

I had an inkling that my focus would shift while Travis and I were writing Dry Spell but it wasn’t until I started to re-discover spoken word poetry where things finally clicked. Here is a medium that marries my two great loves, performing, and writing. It does this in such an elegant way that it is hard to believe I didn’t see it before.

I’m not saying I am packing my bags and hitting the road as a wondering poet (don’t think for a second I haven’t considered it though). I have made a new writing partner in my friend Cara, we have started a website to host our poetry (flatbrokepoets.com) and we are actively pursuing having our voices heard. However, at the end of the day, it all serves to remind me that I can have exactly what I want in really unique and unexpected ways as long as I stay open and receptive to all possibilities.

So now I set out to write myself into a new future. I told the world that I could do it all, act, perform, write and I finally think I’m starting to get a feel for what that might look like. This is all thanks in large part to an open mic in the East Village called “Penny’s Open Mic” as well as the hospitality and graciousness of the artists that inhabit that pandora’s box theater of inspiration. I think I will save that story for a later date. I will say that the people I am meeting there are beautiful burning angels of creativity and the support they lend is nothing short of life changing. When I am on that stage I have the attention of giants, and I damn well know it.

More to come.

I love you all.

KH-

Winter Is A Lover Of Mine.

Winter Is A Lover Of Mine.

If you let her, Winter will creep into your bones and inspire an ache in them that is unmistakably her. Though, for all her fury she can be so still.

She covers the world in quiet. A darkness creeps with her that calms the soul. When she is settled she shines in the light, crystalizing the earth with white diamonds that steal your breath.

You can not hide from her. She reminds you of every breath you take, allowing you a moment to give thanks for the life force that burns in you. She elongates the night, softly captivating the nocturnal spirits that this season belongs to.

She cocoons the world and forces us into proximity. When I am warmly wrapped in my bed I can feel her laying next to me. The warmth of my home is given meaning by her presence. I feel her silence outside my window and it evokes a serenity in me. 

Winter is a lover of mine. I can play in the skin of her and I am awe struck by the beauty of her falling. She lulls me to sleep, courts me with her mystery, and when she is restless our struggles together are that of epic prose. I have walked against her blistering might, I have been soaked in a storm of her passion. In the past she has crippled my spirit, but she’s also opened my eyes and taught me how to accept warmth in whatever form it happens to take.

I’ve been brought to absolute hush in her tranquility and in it my well runs deepest. She whispers to me only when the world feels like it’s stopped turning, just to make sure I’m listening. She reminds me of the struggle of survival and the beauty that hides in the chaos.

I have her to thank for the fellowship shared with others huddled together by the bite of her will. She binds us together with a soft, glimmering blanket that we cannot ignore. We can see the footprints of those we share this earth with. We all share in the cold and in that we are connected.  Even the trees shine for her, like ivory towers, sheeted in glass, sparkling through the black.

A lover is never as warm as they are when shared with Winter. Desire follows in the wake of her. Lips are more keenly felt, clasped hands burn electric, blood rushes to the skin, bodies pressed together for warmth. She inspires intimacy, she facilitates hidden, blessed, carnality.

Winter is a lover of mine. She forces my strength to become evident, she makes me still, she shows me intimacy, fills me with the urgency of passion, and the need to find the softness and warmth in life.

Welcome my paramour, I’m ready to court you once more. What secrets have you for me this year?

We Are Mighty.

2 Years or so ago I moved to New York to chase down a dream of mine. Eight months or so ago I wrote a script with Travis Legge for the same reasons. 2 Days ago a group of dream catchers and myself finished shooting that script and creating the first real full forward step in the realization of all of my ambitions.

With the help of a few very generous investors and a few idealistic supporters with a few bucks to spare we made a movie. We made a romantic comedy that is not only hilarious but has a very real and relevant soul. We made a romantic comedy without an A name (though fuck that Suzi Loraine and Amanda Elizabeth Sawyer are as A list as it gets) and without 200k to cushion us if we fell.

We brought breath to a story that is poignant to the romantic predicament a lot of 20 somethings are in. We did all of this with a gaggle of nay sayers behind us telling us how much we would have to change the way we do things to get this made, telling us how improbable it was. In fact the only ally we seemed to have outside of our cast and crew was the city of New York who seemed to bend over backwards to help us get exactly what we needed.

From a couple bar owners who cared enough for the ambitions of their employee to provide us a back drop for half of the film, to a surprisingly cooperative subway and a few parks that lent us their landscapes. Right down to the lighting that was sometimes conjured out of thin air by our over worked and underpaid crew and sometimes was simply handed to us by the city.

I don’t know what will come of this once it is all said and done but I did learn a few things. When you feel like you are working on something special, you probably are. When everything is falling into place it is okay to not look gift horses in mouths and run with your good fortune. Sometimes, if you believe in something, regardless of the odds, you can make something big, something beautiful, something meaningful happen with sheer force of will and a “because fuck you thats why” attitude.

We did it Dry Spell cast and crew and I owe you all a great debt for chasing the dream with us and for bringing every inch of your talents and passion to breathe life into our story.

I love you all

KH-

Fame Is A Nice Way Of Saying Bull Sh**

The “Hollywood Dream” or what some refer to as “Making It” is, if I may be blunt, the biggest load of horse shit anyone has ever tried to feed me. I have known some seriously heavy hitting bullshit salesmen so believe me when I say they don’t make stables big enough to house the load of bullshit that is the Hollywood Dream.

Ever since I was young, ever since the internet, youtube, and reality television this country has been obsessed with youth and fame. Let me just say here and now that youth is a vile of snake oil and ladies, Cosmo has got you buying stock in the oldest scam ever. “The Fountain Of Youth” is a kids story and the idea the women can’t age gracefully is a myth perpetuated by old men who get rich off of middle aged and golden aged insecurities.

Why am I mixing metaphors? What does the Hollywood Dream have to do with the vanity of our country? Nothing, except for literally everything. If you ever hear an actor say to you “I’m following my Hollywood Dream” I want you to either punch them in the mouth and tell them to get a job or ask them what they really mean by that.

If when you ask them what they mean they tell you they want to be an actor punch them again and ask them what the hell does that mean? Because everyone knows its hard work to become a name in the entertainment industry but no one seems to realize that it is the equivalent to winning the lottery. Sure people do it all the time but consider how many people are pursuing this profession versus how many people meet the standards of “Making It”. Consider how much larger that number gets every year the more fame obsessed we become.

It’s not difficult simply because the margins are so wide but because the requirements are fairly abstract. If you don’t have talent you can say hello to a flurry of student films followed by a phone that never rings. But there are so many variables to why people pick who for what, that could happen to you even if you have talent.

If by “making it” someone doesn’t mean “doing what I love and getting paid enough to pay my bills” and they don’t care if they have to work a side job now and again to do it then you should do them a favor and tell them to go home.

Acting, performing in general, is traditionally the least respected profession in history. Seriously, prostitutes used to be called “fancy ladies” and got to stay in the town they worked in. Traveling minstrels traveled because they were viewed as vagrants. People enjoyed theatre but actors, writers, directors, they were all considered dregs of society. By the way, aspiring talent...they still are.

If you get your name in lights and gain a little recognition you still aren’t respected, you are just known and have money so considered successful and therefor worthy of not being treated like a scab. But Al Pacino lived in a box and pan handled the streets of Brooklyn before anyone knew his name. The difference between everyone else and Al Pacino? Talent, Drive, Passion, and probably most importantly, patience and luck. Without luck he would probably be selling clothes to men at casual male or something. Without patience he wouldn’t have kept playing his hand long enough to catch a run of great cards.

This is why people tell you if you can do anything else do it. Seriously, not a day goes by where I don’t sit in bed at night or just when I wake up and go through the list of other things I could be doing with my life. I still haven’t come up with anything. I am convinced that acting, writing, speaking, these are the only things I excel at, literally the only utility I have other then being strong but I’m not even that good at manual labor. This is not noble, this is not the battle cry of the misunderstood artist who is dedicated to his work. This.is.fucking.tragic.

If I thought I could do anything else at all I would and so should you. If you aren’t drawn to the art, if it doesn’t keep you up at night, if it isn’t your only option then go join community theater and get a real job...

Fame is not found here, riches are not found here, this is the place where people who play with the angels and demons of our nature live. This is where those who have no talent, aside from showing you the contents of a human soul, work. This isn’t a pretentious, self-victimizing, self-fulfilling prophecy here. I don’t find any of this loner, underdog, bullshit glamorous. 

When you chase fame you are chasing the dragon. Even if you catch it, it wont last. Chasing your dream is an entirely separate matter though. If you decide to chase your dream you better decide. You better run those legs until they fall off because it simply isn’t worth it otherwise.

And if your dream is to be famous then good luck, but I think you may be the lost child of a nation that has failed you.

2 Years Gone.

I’m a week late on this update but it’s been a busy month. Last friday marked my 2 year New York anniversary. Year 2 taught me more then I had bargained for. It was a lot of letting go and rebuilding. It was a lot of repositioning and renegotiating what I want and who I am.

I started year two back at the drawing board; couch surfing and praying for a break. I’m ending year two in the same apartment I started in but miles from where I was when I first moved here. Year two has been almost entirely about removing harmful elements from my life and healing from the after math. In fact most of my friends have been doing the same thing.

I got away from a terrible business partner and now I am building a career in security. It isn’t much but it is a start. It’s also not a terrible cash well to sustain my true endeavors of writing and acting.

After all the tears and hopelessness, after all the struggle and the fear, after all the time spent on figuring out how to make a life work in New York, I finally find myself in a place above survival and just on the edge of success.

I’m starting year 3 making a movie that I had a big hand in writing and hopefully from there I continue on, not just building my acting resume (finally) but also building my “rent paying” career in security. I am starting year three in a bigger room with a world of creature comforts I didn’t have a year ago. That may seem shallow but when you go without you realize how wonderful these things can be.

I’m a stronger me, I’m a smarter me, I’m certainly a healthier me (I look like half the man I was when I left), and I’m a happier me. Much of that is due to my stubborn mistress New York and the dear friends I’ve made here. WIthout them I would have been lost in a sea of trouble with no life boat on the horizon. My friends back in IL were also a saving grace, keeping me level headed, keeping my feet on the ground, and reminding me who I am just in case the city got in my head.

Year 3 is the year of conquering. I am going to remember that I am not a creature of comfort. Chaos is not my enemy. I am going to figure out how to balance my practical every day life with my dreams. Most importantly though I am not going to forget how fleeting every amazing moment is and how necessary it is to stop and take stock of just how brilliant my life has a tendency to be.

I love you all

KH-