"Goddamn it! When is somebody gonna post some actual writing on this blog?!"
Brothers and sisters, when it rains it pours.
Seems like there's always something to write about, or post about (and there is a difference, as this post ought to make abundantly clear). But right now I have got a back burner full of thoughts, ideas, projects burning to be written, and one gigantic project that lies half-written and begging to be finished. Good news for readers, right? Well, what happens when this burst of creative energy collides with an avalanche of work, the paying kind, the what-puts-bread-on-the-table-and-shoes-on-my-kids'-feet kind? Well, I'm sure you can guess.
The line of work which has funded my meteoric rise to the uppermost heights of the lower middle class is not exactly seasonal; would that the volume and consistency of it were as predictable as that. No, the amount of work I have to do at any given time is even more fickle and unreliable than one of Dallas Raines' Live Mega Doppler 7000 Extreme weathercasts. It ebbs and flows like a meandering summer breeze-- one or two or three months of more work than it seems possible to do and meet every deadline might be followed by a fallow period of the same length or longer, with jobs trickling in slow enough to make one wonder from where one's next stack of bills will be appeased. It's more or less freelance work, only with a single roof over one's working head, and as meager security goes it's pretty good. That ebb and flow is so extreme that after almost 20 years at the same grind I've learned (and so have most who work with me) to try not to complain too much when the work weeks crack the 60-hour mark, the way they have the last few weeks, because one never knows when the well will once again start to go dry.
And that's why this blog has looked so dry of late too. I have literally so much work to do outside of the pleasures of this site that if I want to keep from drowning in laundry and make sure my kids don't get Top Ramen for dinner seven days a week, then it seems I can find scant few minutes to actually write when I might otherwise sleep. The drive and desire is there, and I have crafted myself a list of at least nine or 10 projects, including an interview and a whack at some of those professorial questions from last month, which I want to finish before taking an upcoming week in August off to bike the Oregon Coast with my good pal Katie. So that's my goal. I am grateful, grateful, grateful for my paycheck and that it looks like it might be a big(ish) one this time around. But I am also fired up and re-energized to take on some of the worthy work I have given to myself here, and I think some of it might actually start showing up in the next day or so.
Until then, here's a great shot from days long past of the interior of the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, where the American Cinematheque is currently situated. (This shot courtesy of Archi/Maps.)
And not to be outdone, here's one of the outside of my hometown art deco movie palace, the Alger Theater, circa 1941, guessing from the release dates of Sierra Sue and All-American Coed, followed by a couple of shots of what it still looks like today.
Okay, back to work...
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