Figuring out the Business of Me

Yesterday, I sat with an agent at a cafe in Washington Heights. We had good "coffee" talk and she asked me questions about my career and where I see it going. Hm...

Where I see my career going?

I know this is a question we all ask ourselves, especially today in this economy. But I'm an artist; I identify as an actor and writer. So, I'm testing out these theories of career, seeing if I can actually make a living for myself and my partner. Yup, I am with someone. It's beautiful. And new. And scary. And brilliant. And an education on love. But this is another post all together.

Back to the business.

So, I'm sitting in this cafe with this agent-being asking me this existential question. I have to think. And what I come up with is a formulation of a business plan:

As an actor, I want to perform on stage. So I will seek the projects and those creative individuals who are like-minded and love the kind of work that I want to be a part of. I want to do theater. I want to do television. I want to work for HBO. They're sexy and hip and smart and risky and put out some damn good programming.

As a writer, I want to write stories with characters I can relate to. Guys and Gals that look like me, or have sensibilities like mine, and situations that are common and strange, unique to Latinos and Blacks, but essentially human. I want write for the stage. I want to write for the page- more specifically, I want to create graphic novels. I want to write for the camera. Television sounds very appealing because of how deep you can go in on characters, themes, multi-storylines with twists, or mini-plots that live within one episode. An exciting challenge to say the least.

Doesn't sound like much of a business plan. More like a statement of purpose. But guess what: It's clearer now than it was when I was first starting out. The agent-being did help me with resources, ways to search for interesting projects, and thoughts to mill over as I continue to focus my career choices. But one thing I know with certainty:

I will make a living making art.

Poetry from the Rambles...

The Calm

the bamboo whispers
“it’s coming”
don’t fear...the calm
the birds whistle tunes of a new song
the melody sounds eerie and familiar
the calm
the ceiling fan hums a relative sound
it’s calm, but not all will be so
it’s wind is a tease
a moment to reminisce
while in the calm
time is still waiting
bamboo whispers
fans hum
the thunder echoes now
it feels left out
it envies the calm
it wants to join
the calm

End of the World. Leave all the bad things behind. We just children playing out adult lives.
I’m leaving behind what don’t make sense,

undue stress
self-destruction
bitterness
regret
senseless violence

Humanity may recompense.
 
I ain’t got time to waste, get my mind right, get back to school;
the teacher is life and i’m always ‘present.

End of the line, my friend.
 We’re all invited to the final dress.
It ain’t sad, I ain’t mad, cause I know it’s time

Let go

Love
my lover with all my heart pieces
my friends deeply
my family
not changing but embracing
usher in the new birth with a clear mind

Here is my open letter to all of you

Get with it!
let love live
open hearts and minds

the tide is in, let your feet get wet
groove to the cosmic tunes/Nature’s swing/turn the dial up on your consciousness,
release the useless
embrace the positive
create, create, create,
the world needs your creative spirit
create a world that is a real dream,
a love song,
a place for feelings and fire and earth and rain,
little birds will sing our happy days 
Here they come, crashing up against the noon day sun,
Let the old go into remembrance, and the new be caressed in sweetness,
Here I am
herald of the new world, I sing the praise of Presence
the new world is uncovering
no need to run off
no need to get crazy,
no need to lift guns or clinch fists
  let’s release the grip on what we think is real
and
o        p    e    n    
o
o

A Bird in the Heights

This bird in the Heights must fly high to see his hood.
This bird in the Heights must fly really really high to see the outside.
This bird in the Heights must fly and swoop and dive to survive.
This bird in the Heights must fly far away in order to come back some day.
This bird in the Heights must die to make room for another bird to fly.

Birds of a feather stick together till a bird of a different feather comes along and sings a different song and spreads different wings and flies a different way. Then, the birds must question their own ways of being.

 

-B.A.S.A.

 

A New Chapter in the Epic Tale of Thee Broke...CITY BOY

"Don't call it a comeback..." You gotta actually "make it" to the top to fall to the bottom to comeback. Lucky for me, I'm still making it...

But, hark! Do I hear a breakout performance stirring? YES- I am launching my Kick Starter for my solo piece, CITY BOY.  This piece is a testament to my work as an independent artist and how I'm trying to DIY (Do It Yourself) my career. That don't mean a brother ain't got back-up. I got a hit list of repeat supporters who always know when to show me LOVE. No man/woman is an island, though the daily struggle seems solitary. Even a solo performer has a crew. I'm building my squad and looking forward to many a struggle and victory with them.

Lastly (for now), a note on perspective:

Up to this point, my life as an artist has been romantic and foolish. And that's fine. I really have no regrets. I have lived much and experienced more than some. And, I'm still fairly young. But this new chapter brings with it a sense I have rarely embraced...reality. The real for me has been mostly an after thought to what I wanted. I desired, I went for it, then dealt with the real. Some times it worked in my favor (for a period), and then other times, ouch! reality bites. But hey, I'm still here. This time, I can actually "see" what is real. I can step back, while involved in what I'm doing, and see what is actually going on. I am aware of my actions. I can choose based on what is happening. It is real to me, not just a romantic idea.

So, I am now making the choice to have a real life. One with the things that I have always wanted and are possible to have. Like an apartment (almost real). And, a job (real), which I'll keep until I get a better one (will be real).

By the way...
I'm still a romantic fool, at-heart. Just more sense-able<8}

Forever FREE,
B.A.S.A.    

Money's on My Mind (and in my mouth...)

 

Hello my brokes,

Merry New Year. Hope this finds you still kickin' it and surviving the winter.

So, as you can see, money is on my mind. And in my mouth. But not my pockets or bank account. Guess this blog would be pointless if they were...(probably not). I am currently in self-exile from the job market. I chose this in order to focus on my real work and get it done. This is not easy. I do have the current benefit of parents who have received their prodigal son. That's also not easy- on both of us- but ideal for a BASA who is trying to become an independent artist. This is a larvae phase for me in my artistic metamorphosis. I am slowly turning into the artist I want to be and live with. The aim has always been this, but a huge part of that time was spent on the pursuits of success and fame. I do admit- I wanted the dough. I wanted to "make it," so I could get access (money) to resources (money) so I didn't have to concern myself with (yes, that word.) You can say that was part of the fuel for my motivation and desire. Of course, the whole time I'm moonlighting as a struggling actor/teaching artist/busboy/UPS driver helper/temp whore/freelance vagabond and couch surfer. The adventures have been awesome, tricky, depressing, scary, sexy, and mucho enlightening.

Wisdom usually arrives at the hardest and brokest times in my life.

But at this period in my transition to the "independent", I am broke and hurt and many times miserable and doubtful. Symptoms of fame withdrawal.

The funny and again Wisdom part of this is: I'm fine.
I have Family. Friends. Health. Spirit. And a big one, Purpose. The money thing is a big fucking deal, especially in a society where you can feel like sub-human if you can't afford a cell phone plan or to pay rent (both require a j.o.b.) But, I also don't need it. I am surviving, dependent on my parents, yes. But, I'm still here. I am giving up some freedom for a some care time and "me" time. I'm preparing myself for a new exisence, a new way to look at this thing called "work" and "life" and focusing on one thing: my artistic independence.

I know reality (aka Capitalist Society) is doing just fine without me. And I will return. But hopefully this time, I'll be a full-grown working artist, spreading wings of desire for the ultimate attainment-

Freedom

Forever FREE,
B.A.S.A.

a little strip tease...

Hello brokes,

I'd figure it's time I dropped my pants and showed off my...poetry.lol
Here's some pieces that may find their way into an e-book/script for my one-man show about New York currently titled NYC, luv ya! Look out for it in 2012. And if you have any stories about a love/hate relationship with NY or any other city, love to hear them.

NYC: 
expletives to fill the loss

My concrete bitch
You turn me on then dump me
My concrete bitch
You couldn’t even wait for me to get back
You quicker than a minute
Less than a second
On to the next one...
You take and take
But don’t give me shit to work with
A mystery
I never got a chance to know you
You hide behind these lights and sounds
Glamourous
Flashy!
But I’ve seen your dirty old face
I’ve seen your trashy sidewalks
Broken crack pipes
Cockroach apartment
Every corner an invitation to a dirty little secret
You think Disney will change that
Time Square Tourism
Sellin’ your wares for cheap thrills and a I LUV NY t-shirt
 I know you, sucia
You keep bums in your closet
I know
you push people away
sell to the highest bidder by the square footage
What does a mothafuckah gots to do to stick around?
What part of you is still you?
Do you even know who you are?
Do you remember?
Do you remember me?
My parents left their motherland to meet you
They thought you’d be good for future me
An arrange marriage, yes it would be
But we found each other, didn’t we?

Remember...when you first made love to me?
Boyhood innocence
I was a sandbox of new experience
You made me the man I am
You, ghetto fabulous
Infamous
Known to only the denizens of a 20 block radius
I knew you as a loud ass Latino symphony
Home made Salsa from the Boogie down
Bachata combata- Swooning long lost lovers till three in the morning.
I slept under your wet taxi tires hydroplaning on black pavement-
mirrors peering up into the night sky
In my boyhood apartment
I played with the gated window shadows, moving across my mama’s clotheline
I tried hanging you up to dry, crispy and ready-to-wear
my invisible cloak
But you were perishable with the first light of day
Memory is a dry good with a moveable expiration date

I wanted to know more about you
You had so many sides to you
and each side, a new side,
a new side from the other
exponentially possible was everything
was
I saw your face shine in the city lights
Pretty glow
Flashy and classy all at once
you was a sexy bitch and I’m not ashamed to say it

I wanted you, body and soul
I attempted to seduce you with smooth talking tongue
Oye, mami
Dejame entrar
Whispered in your ear:
Yo soy to sol
tu esperanza en el corazon romantico
I was wet from your possibility
You, ripe and ready
Me...green
I was scared and excited to enter into your metropolis
you made me a willing slave
I ate your every word
remixed in the now of the New York minute
the moment
now
so filled to the brim with ecstasy
I rode you
bus, taxi, subway
You schooled me
You burned me in the baptismal fire of first-times
I wanted more
more

Memory,
Vete, ya! 

[coño]
how you hang in the crevices of my warped mind

nyc
She will never be what she once was
She can’t
not the way a city works
Summer was over, and I had to return to strange lands.

I still smell you on my  fingers.
mm...

Latin boy in London 

-A broke Believer
YO- I went to London to speak the Queen’s speech.
Be Hamlet, Henry, Mac B
Do circles around soliloquies
Wow crowds with thee’s and thou’s
Lift up language and sound
Make my way to the Grand Stage sounding like a brown Laurence Olivier.
But I went New York on ‘em:
Yo, yo, kid. To be, or not to fuckin’ be.
Yo, b- that’s the mothafuckin’ question!
Whether tis nobla in da min’ to suffa
Fuckin’ gunshots an beatdowns,
or take arms against a too-live crew of wanna-be gangstas
and by opposing, get my dumb ass killed.
To die- duh! To sleep, shit. And by a dirt nap to say we end
The bullshit of a dead-end life. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, damn.
To fuckin’ die. Fuckin’ sleep, maybe dream…
SIKE! Yeah right.
That’s the rub a dub, dub
So, I came back
A native his natural habitat
Parting was such sweet sorrow. But the broke ass always got tomorrow


City of Seduction
 
You seduce me, New York

with your fast walkin' and talkin'

knee- high booted beauties, ankles deep in sophistication,
brandishing promised ecstasies of nightly affairs

you seduce me, NYC

all the way down to my hunger: can’t get better pizza anywhere than in the empire city.
it’s in the water

you call me with your sighs and moans and groans,

‘Baby, come back to me, I need you inside me.’

I come willing
I come back to you cause you provide me solace: the madness is comforting

...Ven aqui mi pobre amor

you seduce me with your hidden truths

oh! the places you’ll go!
only to go around in the same vicious circles

the enticement of what comes next still pulls at my primitive muscles
a nite out is always available,

...no need to worry

I come to you whenever you call

I am here, trapped

my concrete Venus
call me again

forever FREE,
B.A.S.A.

Crossroads

This is a photo of my tattoo on my left forearm. When people ask what it means, I've always kept the meaning open, inviting the viewer's curiosity and self-interpretation. But at this moment, I will choose one for myself. This is a sign of my current situation. I am at a crossroads in my life. I am leaving one path and entering another. I was not satisfied with the last: school. I wasn't happy, nor satisfied, nor fulfilled. As a matter of fact, I was pissed and hurt that I found myself in a situation that made me feel cornered and not in control.

Now, I am not a control freak. Well, in my personal creative work, kinda. I have a strong sense of what I want and what I'm looking for, and I know when I get it. I want control of my life and will demand it. Ok, a little control freakish. But I am also open to learning, to grow and expand, and collaborate with those who are passionate about what they do. I am willing to give up control if I can trust the one I'm handing it to...there has to be trust.

Enough of the past. Back to the crossroads. I am standing at a place where change is about to happen, again. I like change. I embrace it. What I want though is change for the better. I always have. But now, I want to think of it as a way to get to the place I want to be and not just the place that I think is right. Because what is right if not just another feeling after the fact: hindsight is always 20-20. I am looking for the best choice to put me in a better place. I am again in search of the road that will get me closer to where I belong. And if it requires me to make my own, then so be it. Like Ralph Waldo Emerson says:


-Do not go where the path may lead; Go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail.

I look back down at my wrist. Now, I see possibilities. I have choices. There's not one way to live my life and my dream. I will find one that works. If not, I'll make one.

Maybe the crossroads is another adventure waiting at the intersection. Where you choose to go, is just the beginning.

forever FREE,
B.A.S.A.

NYC: Back Again, short film

A work in progress. Love your comments!

forever FREE,

B.A.S.A.