FLYING BACK TO VANCOUVER ISLAND

So I am going on vacation. My first one in years.  9 days to Vancouver Island and the Mainland to visit some dear friends and some family and others that I haven't seen in years. 

What is it about visiting another city that makes you feel so inspired, and invincible?

I think it's hard to have a lot of passion for routine.

I step inside the same building 3 times a day. I get on the same bus, walk down the same street, I have the same options available for dinner and for entertainment. I'm not complaining, because I have a very balanced and conflict free life right now, but when all of a sudden I introduce a plane ride and an exotic Canadian destination into my world, my mind goes crazy with positive overload.

So some of the thoughts that enter my head when I visualize the trip are: enjoy the moments when you are there...really take it in. breathe...

..be grateful for the opportunity to explore, but also to be still in nature. Oh and what a natural wonder Vancouver Island is...Ocean, Mountains...Trees and more Trees...Moose and wildlife everywhere.

I am contemplating doing a little film about my trip. I am not sure what the focus would be? I would prefer it wasn't me, but instead the beautiful island and all of its harmony and aesthetics.
Can you  fully enjoy the moment if you always concerned about filming it? Thats open for debate.

Then there is the human side of meeting people that have not had any full contact with me in person for years. What a great opportunity for me, to take in their lives on the island or on the mainland and really hear about them.

It's been 23 years since I lived in Victoria and I'm certainly a much different person. That life, was a merry go round of tensions and deadlines and relief sought through alcohol. It was a great opportunity to forge a different life for myself, (a family and children and a house by the ocean) but because of my predispositions and choices, it never was to be.  So be it. I am back.

Its always good for me to write this down, even for my own eyes. I am a much more balanced, positive, and content person on so many levels. This is the time of my life, this is the time to seize the moments on the Island one more time, not in some kind of a frenzied grabfest, but in a curious and innocent way. I truly look forward to every moment. See you on the other side.

Rick

Keifer and the moment...

I was just reading my last post so long ago, and I'm happy to say that the winter is officially coming to a fucking end. Out with the cold and in with the warmer. We Canadians are slightly obsessed with the weather. 

I am cat sitting as my mother is in Florida for a couple of weeks and it is such a pleasure to have this little girl around, only 1 yr old and so sweet a disposition. I have booked my first plane ride in many years as I am travelling to see my dear friends on Vancouver Island and then moving down to the mainland to finish the trip. The anticipation is so wonderful and I am hoping that the whole experience is as pure as my mind anticipates.

Professionally I had a high moment the other day. I have a new lady who is getting me  some extra work on the side and it is going well. Last week I did Designated Survivor with Keifer and this week it was The Girlfriend Experience.

In between I had an audition where they asked me to play Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I know, one of my favorite actors of all time and a genius. 

I went in there with no expectations and they asked me to do some improvisation on a couple of themes.  The first one was that I was getting frustrated and angry trying to learn my lines for something and then I was doing some drugs and passing out on the floor. 

So, there was no room for middle of the road,  luckily something came into my head that I said as a line and it went well. I told them that the drug part would be easier because i had experience in recovery issues and they liked that , imagine.   So I pretended to snort coke or heroine or whatever they were leaning towards, and it all seem to come together. They were complimentary and told me not to cut my hair, which I hope is a good sign going forward.

The point I was making was you know in life when you just have a moment of pride and a feeling of flow about something unexpected?
It just feels so right. Time just drops out of the equation. I experienced that when I came home and I was thinking about the next day on set. I am so grateful to have any type of moment like that, they have been few and far between.

To end I wanted to share a realization I had the other day which is that I have no conflict in my life. Other than lending an empathetic ear to others drama, I realized that my life has no conflict at all as it relates to me and my interactions.  I have to keep this going, I am not sure what the formula is though. That could be a problem in itself...

Some honesty in the moment

I notice that there is no cohesive through line on my blog over the years. Certain themes do resurface though, such as addiction, relationships and existentialist ideas. I originally started writing because I was in terrible shape mentally and physically. 

So where am I today on those levels? That's what the spirit of the blog is supposed to be about I suppose. My heart is still beating, with the slight help of a pacemaker...but beating.

I am free of drinking for almost 5 years now (april 26) and that has made a huge difference in my life. In my autobiographical story "Hammered for 7300 days", I refer to my self made hell where I had to drink to survive, every morning, every night, as soon as I woke up. 

Being sober has given me a shot at being semi responsible and creatively relevant again. (or not) It's given me the permission to just be myself without any shame or regret.

I have managed to stay good friends with my ex of 6 yrs. She is a special person that deserves a great life. She is dating and I am supportive as an ex can be I suppose. I just don't want to see her get hurt. She says that she truly wishes for me to be happy,  which is a cool feeling, because I felt for a while that I wasted her life and caused her nothing but anger and poverty.

Human connections are so important but I love being alone as well, and I am alone a fair amount in my little bachelor apartment in mid town Toronto. My mother and my family are incredibly supportive and are very relieved that they are not participating anymore in my life of addiction and almost certain impending death.

I have a couple of fantastic female friends that I have been so lucky to reconnect with. There is no sexual connection right now, but we are very open and honest and stay alive with alot of humour each day. Can woman and men actually be platonic friends and make it work? The jury is out. (Because of the innate maleness in me that just wants to lie down and have that damn passionate connection)

I just appeared as a detective in a series on OWN recently , and that has revitalized this idea that I had of being an older actor coming out of the woodwork and scoring roles. So many guys out there that are attractive, talented and driven by a strong ego. I may need some help from Esther and Jerry Hicks to actually succeed in this business.

Alot of the times I still sit around wondering about the meaning of life.(Reading and watching and contemplating) This has been going on since the 80s.  And guess what....I have no fucking answers, haha. Nobody really does, its just an absurd experience and mystery to be part of this world. So much to love, and yet so much damn suffering . I try to focus on the glass being half full.

I wear masks like everyone else. I know I have alot to offer, but I am worried it wont be enough. It will fall short in the end.
Don't get too close to me because then you might be sitting around worrying all the time as well and thats no life. 

I realize that these people that are getting closer to me, are receiving something from the experience, and I should stop judging myself so harshly.

It's a long winter here, Canadians winters are absolutely brutal. I am looking forward to a warm spring day that I know is somewhere lurking in my future.

Rick

More moaning about my heart problem

Everything came too easily to him...Hubble Gardner in the Way We Were (which I was watching tonight on my little android box)

The Buddhists have so many beautiful ideas about life.

However this idea that its better not to be attached to anything in life because the pain will be to great when it is taken away,( like everything is inevitably taken away) is wrong in my eyes.

The pain is worth it....to love madly, to devour, to laugh and to smile with full abandon. I feel that we have to understand how balance works and be prepared for the challenges that are always around the next corner.  There is no real way to be prepared, just flow with them as much as you can.  We have to live and love to the extreme, in the most childlike inspired way possible.

Breakups are awful. As a man, one would think I shouldn't be as sensitive to all the memories and emotions, and just let my male libido and monkey mind lead me into some new pleasurable and complicated situation. But no, I lay here alone...which is fine.

I have some regrets that bother me though. I was not able to live at full speed due to this fucking serious heart problem of mine, and my ex was extremely frustrated as I moved through the world in semi slow motion and with a chip on my shoulder.  I was sober but depressed and feeling imprisoned. I needed to find a way to live with more energy and passion and do it despite of my cardiovascular excuses. But I didn't. A film project would briefly bring me back out of my doldrums.

Ultimately instead of figuring out how to bring some more money into the relationship, I decided that being apart would me better for both our mental health. Therapy might have been a better

option.

On another note, I am extremely lucky that I am still alive, and I thank all my friends and family for their support.  To my ex, thank you for all the good things you did for 6 years, that was an incredible amount of love you gave.

I have a sometimes scary but mostly inspiring life story to write that will include some beautiful and talented people. Life hurts like hell, but it is such a blast, I just hope I can do the next 10 years the right way...whatever that means.

Rick
December 3/2016

Hammered for 7300 days straight

I love this photo of my grandfather watching TV in the house I grew up in.  I remember it well, there is my crib in the background. Strange but cool. Just around the corner in the kitchen would be my grandmother cleaning up from dinner or making some desert.



So I realized that I haven't really told anybody  that I have this Blog and that infrequently I will show up here. Obviously at some point in the future I will lead some chosen person down these posts, I will say, "take a look at some of my thoughts, back in 2012"
I have no idea if they will connect to anything.




One of the ideas that I keep reflecting on this week...is the queston: Can you reverse engineer INSPIRATION?

In other words, can you manufacture emotional enthusiasm in your life? If you feel bored and detached can you use some sort of technique to override the minds natural tendency to be lazy or to settle and disconnect.

A book called Rebooting says that it's actually a lack of desire that causes depression and not the other way around. The book describes the four levels of desire:

1)  No desire at all
2)  Trying:  We're giving it a shot, but not with everything we've got.
3)  Going the extra mile:  We're making a sincere effort and keeping focused on the goal.
4)  Making it happen no matter what:  We do everything in our power to attain the object of desire.  No other outcome will do.

Most people function at the Trying level. People with depression at level 1.

I am currently involved in two projects One is as a new ad sales guy for a cruise and lifestyles magazine.The other is an actor/model who is trying to be better at the craft .

However there is a third project that I keep procrastinating on.

It's a memoir of my addiction days called "Hammered for 7300 days straight" (20 years ... which is accurate)
I know there is a strong story here with scary and deadly plot twists, and a semi uplifting ending.

Some of the scenes that will have the reader on the floor with me and will be the crowd pleasing...Handcuffed to a hospital bed as two officers watch me 24 hrs a day, as I wait for my heart operation. (all drinking and drug inspired)

Meeting my future girlfriend for the first time drunk and then in the morning as I accompany her to the bus so she can go back to University, I need to stop into the nearest hospital to detox because I feel like I am going to go into a seizure from drinking for 2 weeks solid and hard.

Being taken hostage by some strong dangerous criminal I had never met. I had to give him money so he would release me on his way to his court date.

Coming out of a stint in rehab and getting involved with a young crack user.

Flying across the country hammered into Vancouver Island and surprising some concerned friends I hadn't seen in 10 years. While I was there with my empty wallet, I was in terrible shape and ended up in jail after I insulted some police officers who had come to my hotel room.

Dying on a hospital table during a heart appointment I had asked for.


The list goes on. You see, there is an interesting read here and perhaps a film. I just need to focus and become inspired by the story of my life.

I am of course sober now for a few years and generally very grateful. But inspired?

The law of attraction? (is it even real)should I imagine the book already completed? Should I imagine that the work that it takes every day will be a walk in the park emotionally? Should I visualize the book on the shelves and think of my book tour?
Should I connect with a source energy (big buzz word) that i wish really existed in all of its glory?

I don't have the answer, I think i should just start writing a couple of pages a day until I have a couple of chapters and go from there. That's it, no need to intellectualize anything, just start writing.
I suppose that is what I will do.

Cheers,



Rick

I am an extra in your life

Here are some random things I wrote down on my phone this week:
(A week that featured Hillary Clinton's emails being linked to Anthony Weiner)

We keep trying to arrange our lives and schedules so we can have a "perfect moment" again.
The perfect moment...the perfect view...the perfect meeting or date.
The moments that originally made us feel alive and connected...revisited. Making memories that don't seem to last, except in some vague area of the mind.

There's a whole world out there...of freedoms and environments we have never experienced...people we have never talked to or been influenced by.  There's your new thoughts...waiting in the wings...waiting to take you forward.

These are themes I have touched on before. It fascinates me how every being out there is running their own personal movie in their head where they are the protagonist and star and everybody else is just the cast, and of course you can't really experience more than one reality at a time...

Here is something cool on this that a friend posted today:

Good intentions are the most beautiful of secrets...

Rickxo (running his own movie all the time)

PEACE IN SYRIA OR WORLD WAR 3?

I am extremely concerned about the cold war like tensions between the US and Russia right now. There is an article in the Independent saying the Turkish president has said that we are getting very close to World War 3.

With the whole spectacle that is going on with the presidential race and the mainstream media focusing on whether Trump is really grabbing pussy or not...it is sickening to me that the real danger is creeping up.

What kind of world is this, where we see footage of bombs being dropped on Aleppo and children crying out for their parents with blood dripping off their face.
What are these wars accomplishing? Are we just barbaric animals with no fucking conscience?

I personally have great anxiety when I realize that I have been fighting to stay alive and lead a positive life and that some warmongering generals want to kill off me and all my fellow man as well.

Or there is always the great possibility of an accident. Somebody mistakes  a US plane for a Russian one and the nuclear code is being pushed.  It just absolute insanity.

I feel personally that I have no control of anything that happens in this crazy world.  We can all drop dead at any time, by natural causes or by some catastrophic event generated by who knows what.

A nuclear war would kill millions of people and animals and plants and forests and oceans. Its all just too much to deal with really. 

So for now I will go back to watching a new show Westworld, which deals with facade of meaning in your environment and in the bigger picture. 

What can the meaning possibly be for the children that are being systematically murdered by the war machine? (there is certainly no intervening God watching over these people)

Scary and sickening.

PEACE...