Growing up in New York can make the simplest situations feel like game seven moments. Every second feels a lot longer than it should, and the idea of patience is non-existent. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. My mind moves fast, and I am present in every moment, because every moment is kind of intense. ^-^ I like using simple typography and iconography to tell short stories. I am a modernist at heart, and I like cute faces.
by Carly Reid
Freedom and time are making a sandwich. The pieces we discover along the way give life and substance to the empty core in between the bland slices of bread that desire flavor. In this short film, titled “Sandwhere”, I take viewers on an adventure to find things for the composition of a sandwich, while waiting for two slices of bread in the toaster. The video captures a moment of being present with a simple task of sandwiching together memories. Making a sandwich in my home is a tangible experience that generates an indefinite outcome and I want viewers to focus on the simple and tangible things in life like making a sandwich. Going on an adventure in your mind is feeling the hairs on your arms give a standing ovation to the wind created by puffs of gasoline and breezes from different elevations. It is being an observer to strands of power poles hugging hills like braces on jagged teeth while watching oceans turn from a jello-like blue into a brown and soupy substance as the sun loses its energy to shine. Going on an adventure in your mind is hearing Redwood trees whisper in the heavy air of summer and scream in winter ice. Adventures in your mind are choosing to defy standards created by those who tell you to do what is right, what is safe, and what will earn the most respect. Being at home, in peace, and in my mind is taking two slices of dry bread and turning a sandwich into a juicy, bizarre, colorful and flavorful bite.
by Cleo Hodgin
When I am at home I really like to the enjoy the little moments that bring me small bits of joy in my day-to-day life. Whether that is enjoying my morning breakfast, going on a run with my mom, or going out to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea, etc. These small things are what make home feel so comforting, and my piece "Bubble Tea and Me" captures one of those many day-to-day moments in a simplistic way at a local Tea Bar in my home town.
by Sebastian Healy
Recently, how fast time has been moving in my life has been shocking. To me, events that actually happened 3 years ago feel like they happened yesterday and events that feel like they're so far in the future are all of a sudden coming up so soon. As a kid, my Mom would always say to enjoy the present as much as I possibly can. Because as an adult life moves too fast, years come and go in an instant. I made this video to start to deal with this anxiety. I used clips from my past and used the grainy footage to invoke almost a dreamlike feeling in the video along with the dreamy music. I hope to show people how scary and/or strange the feeling of time moving so fast for me is.
By Fabrizio Villalpando
As a young boy being raised in the Catholic church, I always found mass to be such a silly thing to attend. Millions of people sending made-to-order prayers to a God who allegedly has a divine plan. Stand, kneel, sit and stand again. King James Edition Bibles were filled with pages thinner than the cheap toilet paper you’d find in a porta potty. Post-service coffee and donut receptions became an arena for gossip, judgement and dick sizing competitions over who was more proficient at interpreting scripture. Every Sunday was the same routine. Wake up. Try to convince my mother why bible study blows. Fail. Go to early morning bible study and then finally attend the service. Catholic mass consisted of tone-deaf psalms, Incense, decanted two-buck chuck and the body of Christ.
That church was my whole world from the moment I was baptized up until I sparked my first joint at fifteen. That and the new priest in town seemed a little too friendly with the kiddos during youth group meetings and I'm not the biggest fan of cliches. Plus, he wore fedoras outside of church, another reason not to trust him with your children. Before I understood all the prejudice and corruption that was involved, there truly was an era in my life where I wholeheartedly believed in all the teachings. I genuinely felt like one of God’s children, walking the path to salvation. But I was just a fucking kid. Kids will agree with anything as long as you tell them the alternative is a one way ticket with Lucifer to eternal suffering, sodomy, nightmares and no air conditiong. At the impressionable age of ten, I was taken on a field trip where I blindly chanted and expressed my support at the Pro-Life marches in portland, OR. Definitely in the top ten list of the most shameful things I’ve ever done. That along with drunkenly eating a slice of pizza after it fell face-down on Hollywood Blvd. But that's a story for another time.
As I grew older, I began thinking for myself and developed some doubts. You see, the strange thing about the Catholics is the way they treat their time on this Earth. I personally don’t understand it. Catholic beliefs end up dressing your life in a leather gimp suit, ball gagged, and chained. They restrict your existence from any freedom. You become a slave to divinity. When I lived that life, I was in constant fear of God and his fallen angel. It made living feel like an unsolvable equation. Every moment of every day I was doing some vague moral calculations in my mind. If you do something good, you’re one step closer to everlasting paradise in the kingdom of God. Oh shit, but wait. Remember when you told your little sister that Santa Clause isn’t real? Do you also remember that she didn’t stop crying until the new year, thats a lot of tears. Enough tears to take you back two steps, now making your way south of heaven. By the way, that's who we should really be worshiping here. Santa Clause. For starters he seems like an excellent employer to his staff and loving husband to his wife. I really respect that. Second, he rewards the nice folks and simply leaves coal for the naughty. Receiving a non-renewable energy source sounds far better than receiving Satan’s fist in your ass. With jolly old St. Nick, there's no threats, no shaming and no torturous eternity in hell. He doesn’t require a dramatic amount of praise, just some milk and cookies. He’s a simple man and I like that about him. Plus he gives you a chance every year to redeem yourself and doesn’t hate gay people.
I felt stuck in this life. Time seemed endless. I wasn’t growing as a person, I just learned a few more bible passages and developed an early taste for wine. As the spawn of a devout Catholic woman I was always told that the church was my home. These beliefs were who I am. My time here was to be spent dedicating myself to God. It’s unfortunate that we sometimes go along with words we don’t believe in, only because they’re told by someone we love. Perhaps it’s because we fear that a disagreement will result in disappointment. If I wasn’t her son, I truly believe that her eyes would stare at me with a whole lot of pity and a pinch of disgust. I suppose that's why I hide a thousand miles away in the Hollywood Hills.
I always romanticised the idea of being the guy who didn’t give a shit about what time it was, yet I always wore a wristwatch. I was elegantly disheveled. My sunken eyes, anchored by exhaustion. Shirt, freshly ironed and crisp. Fly zipper undone beneath my polished leather belt. Clean shaven with mud on my boots. Booze on my breath but also a man you can trust. I made no sense. I was raised a good boy who preached the word of the Lord and eventually evolved into a young man with an appetite for debauchery. But it’s what I needed. Back home, my breath was held at all times. Etiquette severed my tongue and minced my thoughts. My opinions were arrested by conservatism. I held back from sharing myself. I had no say on where I was born, grew up or lived. I guess nobody does. Home was just where I happened to spend most of my time because there was no other choice. I eventually learned that home can be anywhere. I figured I would spare myself from heartache or pining over a nostalgic idea of where I’ve been told my home is. My mother’s womb was once my home but I still managed to find a way out of there and cut the cord. It was about time I did something similar once again. I packed my bags, hit the road and ripped off the rear view mirror. I was on an exploration of self, a journey to redefine what “home” means to me. A mission that could take a lifetime. I was ready.
LA wasn’t a new world. I had moved to a completely different fucking glaxy. To think I used to interpret the idea of “home” as being this tangible thing. Four walls, a roof and a good chunk of land if you play your cards right. Freshly mowed grass, a house painted in a fun yet tasteful color and a picket white fence that flawlessly walked the line between cute and secure. A carpeted kingdom that produced the smell of hearty meals and the sound of mother’s lullabies. Shelves stocked with books, television untouched and a sense of harmony that never escaped. Father would come home after work with groceries in one hand and tussle your hair with the other. In this home, you learned what true love was by observing your parents. Maybe I’d watched too many movies as a kid because all of that is a bullshit fairytale, but that’s okay. It took me a long time to figure that out. It’s all going to be okay. Why waste your time hoping for something you don’t even want, just because you’re told that it's the ideal thing to have. It used to break my heart admitting it, but It’s true. I had already wasted so much of my time pretending to be someone else, pursuing the things I loath. I felt more at home in LA after two years than I had from eighteen years of living where I grew up. Those two years had felt like a whole new lifetime.
I stared out the window of my mother's apartment. The view gave a sort of poetic gloomy feeling, in the best way possible. Exactly what you'd expect from Oregon in the winter. I was visiting from Los Angeles. At the time, I had already been in the City of Angels for over two years. The concept of precipitation got lost in the very back of my mind. It was left in my cerebral island of misfit memories along with other stuff, like the moment I was born or algebraic formulas. A collection of rain drops remained on the glass, reminding me of the peaceful sound of pitter-patter that put me to sleep the night before. No emergency vehicles on midnight pursuits. No helicopters with spotlights at three in the morning. No domestic disputes at dawn from the lovers downstairs. My senses felt at home. My heart said “fuck this.”
I began to smell my mother's stale instant coffee as it hit her cup of microwaved water. I could hear the sound of the plastic milk jug as she placed it on the varnished dining table. The table didn’t always look that nice. I could still remember the smoothness of the oak wood, fresh after sanding it with her, years before. The present smell of her cheap but rich coffee danced with my nasal memory of chemically-scented walnut-colored lacquer that we used to restore that very same table, long ago. I could see her spoon swimming in her porcelain mug clockwise, counter clockwise, then clockwise once more. She tapped the spoon on the rim precisely three times before placing it on a napkin. She held her coffee with both hands and introduced it to her lips with a smile. She read through her spiritual books, licking her thumb before each flip of the page. Her glasses slipped midway down the bridge of her nose, occasionally pushing them back up, never bothered when they’d fall again. She could make a second feel like an eternity. Peace was her artform. It’s interesting to see someone fall deep into a state of utter bliss while they’re doing something that you couldn’t possibly fathom finding any joy in. My mother smiled more times between the hours of seven and eight in the morning than I had smiled that whole week. She’s a simple woman who enjoys the little things. Good for her.
Me? I’m different. To an extent I enjoy making mistakes, not repeating old ones but occasionally stumbling into new ones. I’m a very trial and error kinda guy. I learn well from mistakes, so let’s just say I was getting a rigorous education in LA. It’s an exciting city full of open minds, shallow people, natural beauty, silicone asses, excessive wealth and homelessness. I was mostly attracted to the surplus of creativity the city had to offer. It’s endless. As a young artist, I couldn’t ask for more. That’s exactly what I needed, more. Leaving where I grew up was the right choice but even the correct path can lead you to a fork in the road. At times I felt like I chose the road less traveled by, then didn’t know where the hell I was. Fuck you Robert Frost. But time does a good job of teaching as long as you don't fear success or failure. Instead I learned that you should always respect failure at a distance and embrace every victory you earn. With that being said, life shouldn’t always be about obsessing over success and failure, my Heaven and Hell. I had to understand that sometimes simply having a good time was the most important thing to do. Appreciate leisure. Savor experience. That’s something I never really understood as a kid. I needed to explore. Let loose. Be me. Reassure myself that I was really alive. Take a walk on the wild side and discover my will to be weird. It was time.
I was more hungover than a pirate diligently avoiding scurvy the night before, now praying The Kraken would take me away for good. No sign of a much needed morning cocktail was in sight. I began to daydream and fantasize about the end. Hyperbolizing my negativity for my own amusement was oddly comforting. Absolutely unhealthy, but comforting nonetheless. I was a server at a restaurant so there was certainly no shortage of sharp, hot and poisonous options available to immediately end your shift. If you’re going to call it quits, might as well do it on the clock.
With enough misery and creativity, the menu for getting sent home seemed endless. French kiss a food processor, deep throat a blow torch, taste test a flight of degreasers and bleach, etc.. Best case scenario you successfully liberate yourself from work and collect a handsome workers compensation check. Worth a shot if you ask me.
Boredom at work takes my mind to terribly dark and silly places. I needed out of this limbo state between residual drunkenness and sobriety. My body kept shouting to pick one or the other, goddamnit. I needed something. My mind ran through the list of life’s greatest pleasures. Coffee, booze, food, the sight of a beautiful woman. Speak of the Devil, there she was, sitting in my section. She looked familiar. I could see it in her eyes already, she would become home. I wasn’t sure for how long, but she was the one. For now at least. Home is a feeling. It’s not tangible and time shouldn’t always be calculated.
We performed anatomical origami against the glass wall of her luxury suite, ten floors above Sunset Boulevard. I had never felt so free before. I used to believe, with a hundred percent certainty, that I would never commit the morally hainous crime of premarital sex. The LA skyline winked at our nudity as it voyeured from a distance. My lover’s fingertips ran up and down my back with a gentle ferocity, like a harpist playing an intricate tune. She struck every chord perfectly. I would nibble at her ear between every deep breath, only because I remember her mentioning how much she loved that. This sure as hell beat going to church or the time I lost my virginity. I used to not have the confidence to even say hi to a girl I liked.
Not too long ago I was just a high schooler with the sexual knowledge of a brick. I used to think a Five Hour Energy, ribbed condoms and the smell of Piña Colada car freshener would set the mood and make me fuck like a champ.
My eyes peered out the grand window, now tainted with fingerprints which became evidence of our love making. I could see my coworkers crazed and scrambling on the ground floor restaurant. It reminded me of when I was a kid. I had a fascination for staring at ant hills and watching the little bastards do their work. I’d wonder if God was doing the same thing to me. The ants would seem aggressively unorganized yet very productive in their own way. At times I feel like I have a similar approach to life. From the suite, looking down, life was in slow motion. A miniature model of something I used to be a part of. I should have been down there helping them. At the same time, fuck that. Thank God I wasn’t.
This was my job. Well, not having sex with strangers in their hotel rooms but waiting on their tables. I was used to delivering room service to the lonely, the rich and the beautiful. She just happened to be all three. To think that only a few hours ago I was wearing an apron and raving to her about our banana crepes topped with pineapple creme fraiche and a dulce de leche drizzle.
“Yes, miss.”
“Right away, miss.”
“Everything okay here, miss?”
Early morning formalities evolved into an evening of fornication. When I was a kid, I couldn’t even speak to family members, I was so shy. Now I was capable of engaging in flirty banter with strangers before having my first morning cup of coffee. She was in town as one of our valued hotel guests for a couple of weeks. We quickly agreed to use each others bodies for the time being. I became really good at short term affairs. Consider me a limited time offer. I’m still working on my long game though, give me time. We read each others terms and conditions and they all matched up perfectly. Fuck, rinse and repeat became our daily routine. She was aggressively out of my league, as most women in my life have been. Maybe she wanted to piss someone off by sleeping with me. I played along.
Our bodies dropped onto the pile of lotion like sheets. We were out of breath but giggly with euphoria. I looked to my left towards her. Her eyes were closed but mouth open with a grin. I looked out to the view of LA. The glamorous skyline tipped its hat to us. We had worked up quite an appetite after performing, what I would personally consider, art. I called my buddy Eric in room service and used a Spanish accent to order a steak dinner for me and my new friend. My coworkers couldn’t find out about this, so I had Eric speak on the phone with my alter ego, Juandissimo.
I love the sound a wine bottle makes as you pour the first glass. The aroma from the robust Italian red, paired well with the smell of perfectly seared ribeye. The strange but lovable fragrance of freshly shaved truffle atop a pile of golden frites, joined the party. It was the sinfully rich and indulgent bordelaise sauce that became the second thing in that room that I was sexually attracted to.
Everything was perfect. We were two strangers sitting ten floors higher than most people. We became intimately familiar with every inch of each others bodies and it hadn't even been twenty fours hours since we first met. We ate our late night dinner together as if we’d done it a million times before. I mean that in a good way. As in we’ve been doing it for forever because we want to, not because we have to. We continue wanting it because we hadn’t given time an opportunity to extinguish our spark.
Police sirens howled at the moon. Not a single white picket fence was in sight. The battery in my wristwatch was dead. I had become so distracted by the sound of ticks and tocks that I had almost forgotten the beating of my own heart and the hearts of the people around me. I exhaled. The only thing on my mind from this moment forward was the sound of our breaths riding the same rhythm, breaking apart, then finding that rhythm again. She rested her head on my chest, individually kissing each and everyone of my ribs softly. I pulled her in closer. Time meant nothing to me. This was home now.
