The Not So Private (But Still Personal) Diary of Jason Sechrest Host/Publicist/Manager/Journalist/Actor/Singer/Director/Web Entrepreneur/Liza Minnelli.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Love: Past, Present & Future
For the past week, everytime I lay down to sleep at night, no matter how exhausted I may be, I immediately conjure up three specific people from my life, past, present and hopefully future, who I have either loved, currently love or have a crush on. The thoughts are heavy and keep me awake for hours, so I thought I'd write them down to see if it helps. I've mixed up the thoughts here so years from now, I will probably look back on these and have no idea which pertained to whom, but the most important thing to me right now is that neither will they.
I get scared sometimes that everyone in the room will notice I'm looking at no one but you. I feel like I have to remind myself to avert my gaze and check my mouth for any unsightly drool that may have escaped during these ridiculous daydreams that play out in shades of grey like something out of Mayberry.
I've convinced myself I knew you in a past life. I was your doting and devoted wife. You were famous but such the bad boy and I refused to see, refused to believe you were anything less than perfect, even when I caught you in bed with another man. I found ways to justify it in my head. "Wrestling. Yes, they were just wrestling..."
Did you know that you wear the most perfect amount of cologne? I can never smell it until we hug each other goodbye and then I still smell it on me hours after you're gone.
You make me better and I don't think you're even trying.
It would be the worst idea in the world for us to ever kiss and yet I think I'll just die if we never do.
I don't know nearly enough about you. I've got to find something wrong. Or at least find something that makes me like you for the right reasons.
It was nice to see you in my dreams last night. It was Christmas time, we were shopping for wrapping paper. I remember feeling as though I had this huge responsibility to make sure you knew it was you who made me happy and not the gifts.
You smiled a lot and I thought it was beautiful but feared it temporary.
You've been thinking about me a lot lately and I wish you wouldn't so much. I can feel it, you know?
Speaking of antennea, your phone calls make me smile more than you know.
I'm going to kiss you someday and I'm going to mean it and you're not going to know what you're in for, but you'll be down for the ride. I know you way too well.
And he's just going to have to get over it.
You knew a word that I didn't, by the way. I had to look it up. Do you know how long it has been since that has happened? Talk about a turn on.
I have a crush on you.
Sometimes I think you have one on me.
Sometimes I think you're oblivious to the indications.
I've been sick in bed over the past couple of days and the good news is it has given me a chance to catch up on some reading. I finished Cormack McCarthy'sThe Road and you know, he has a lot of heart, but his style of prose bores me to fucking tears. My step-father got me onto reading him with No Country For Old Men and then I bought his play, The Stonesmason, but I think it might end for me there.
I've now moved onto A Density of Souls by Christopher Rice, the son of prolific horror writer Anne Rice. It has been highly reccomended to me.
I've also caught up on my many periodicals and I can't remember what magazine it was in, but it made such a great point about the stupidity of President Bush trying, yet again, to instill fear in us by continually saying that if we pull out of Iraq now, the terrorists will follow us home. Does our Preisdent really think that the terrorists don't already realize there are more Americans in America than in Iraq? What on Earth is stopping them from coming here now? We didn't go to Iraq because they were planning on attacking us. We went to Iraq because... oh wait, why did we go to Iraq?
Show of hands on whoever can answer that one.
Those who attacked us on 9/11 were the not the people who were in Iraq when we went there. At the time we arrived, there were as many members of terrorist organizations hiding out in Iraq as there currently are hiding out in the United States of America. Why Iraq? My God, if anywhere, why not Iran? Why not actually fight terror instead of taking out innocent civilians one by one? Hundreds of thousands of kids and women and men trying to do right by their families, shot down by us. And that's fighting terror somehow? We've killed more innocent people over there than they killed here.
If and when they do attack us on our own soil again, how will we ever look them in the face now and say they were wrong? After all, what choice did we leave them with? What the hell choice are we leaving the innocent people over there with but to join the terrorists to make sure they're not killed by us? We have successfully increased the numbers of those who hate us and will stop at nothing to see us dead tenfold.
Well, for those of you tired of hearing me beat up on myself, you'll be happy to know that I rocked it out hardcore on Friday night's performance at The Other Side. I don't know if it was because I was doped up on Dayquil or just getting more comfortable there, but I was really pretty okay! So okay, in fact, that I ended up performing eight songs instead of the five or six I was supposed to sing and I have been asked back on an every week basis now. How kick ass is that?!
The vibe is completely different than any club or bar I've been to in the area. There is no pretense. No one is looking for someone to go home with. No one is trying to be the center of attention or look better than anyone else. Everyone is incredibly respectful of performers even when they are horrid. It's just this core group of people from all walks of life, who want to share their passion for music regardless of the varying levels of talent.
I was in a bubble for so long I had no idea places like this existed out here. They're hidden but they're gems. I feel honored to be working there and one of their few paid performers.
I know Rainy from the radio station captured all of "Down So Long" and there was an awesome guy named Paul who knew me from the web site who caught "Excuse Me Mr." on his camera so hopefully I will have some clips up soon.
In the meantime, make plans to come out some Friday and see the show. There's a lot of talent in that room! I still think I am the least of it. lol... I just know how to tell a good story. And I do love a piano. ;-)
Song of the Week: "I Love A Piano" - Liza Minnelli
Just a reminder that I will be performing at The Other Side tomorrow night, Friday, July 20th.
They serve really amazing food there but table space is limited so get there around 8:30 - 8:45 if you want a table. The show begins at 9:00 pm and goes until 1:00 am. Expect three sets of at least two songs each from me througout the night, accompanied by the amazingly talented and beautiful pianist (that's pianist... I said PIANIST!) James Lent. The middle set will also be accompanied by incredble sax player David Olivas.
For those of you who don't like surprises and want to gauge around what time you'd like to show up and leave, I will post in the comments section my set list (subject to change!) on Friday morning. If you're like me and enjoy being surprised.... don't check the comments!
Last week, I performed "Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Dead," "I Love A Piano," "Faith," "But the World Goes 'Round" and "Sara Lee."
The Other Side is located at 2538 Hyperion Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90027.
I responded to a thread on ATKOL a few days ago where people were dissing the site, the direction of the diary, etc. and my response seems to have stirred even more talk elsewhere. I posted:
You have to remember, my site was always about me. It's not called Porn Star Whatever-The-Hell, it's called JasonCurious. It began as and has remained a reflection of where I am in my life and its relation to my porn star friends. When we started the site in 2001, my entire life was about my porn star friends! I was 21. That's not my entire life anymore. I've branched out into enjoying other things and other kinds of people and am fortuante enough to have a lot of different jobs. Also, in 2001, I was one of the only people doing this. Now it's invasion of the blogs and there's a lot of people out there doing the job a lot better than I am because I don't want to devote 8 hours a day to looking at and talking about naked people. A few hours I can manage for a few bucks. But this was never supposed to be something that became my life. When the site launched, my life revolved around porn and naked boys. Today, it has very little to do with my life. Truth is, it just got to a point where I was working so much in adult that I was getting four hours of sleep a night. I think I had to be drowning in superficiality to really decide I wanted something more substantial from my life. The world is pretty fucked right now and I'd like to be the best version of myself that I can be and offer the most that I can to the world to try to better it. And it's not that porn doesn't better the world in its own way. It's just there's a lot of other things I could be and should be doing and I don't have time to even sit down and read Newsweek or watch the nightly news much less find time to go on any audition if I'm trying to build an empire of nakedness. I just felt like my priorities were a little fucked. I don't want to devote my life to this business. I don't want to devote more than a few hours a day to this business. I don't want to be the next big director or big studio or big web site. It's a nice side gig for the moment that I don't plan on continuing for a whole lot longer.
This has since been posted on a few sites and message boards leading people to wonder if I am planning on leaving the adult industry.
Well... yes and no.
I may always have a foot in these waters, I'm just not diving in head first anymore. For instance, I would guess that I'll be hosting gigs where I interview porn stars for a long time to come, but the "gossip" part of what I do for a living is one of the things that will in all likelihood eventually be phased out.
I have three movies I've produced and directed that need to be released over the course of the next year so I'm not going anywhere for the moment. I'm locked into contracts through next year, interestingly enough, right around the same day I will have been working in adult entertainment for 10 years. It seems an appropriate time for a change of pace.
In the meantime, it's really just the intention that has changed. I'm not looking to "build" anymore. These days I'm doing the opposite. I'm deconstructing this mini-empire and cleaning house to decide what I want to keep and what I'm looking to get rid of. I've been doing it for a while, really. I just haven't talked about it until now.
I've always had other career aspirations. Money's not the same in adult that it used to be. We hit a big boom a few years ago and then the market flooded and became oversaturated. If I'm going to make less money or even live a hand to mouth existence, it might as well be doing what I love to do: Acting, singing and the occasional journalism and hosting.
This was not my passion. Just a fun job that fell in my lap when I needed it most.
Song of the Week: "Maggie's Farm" - Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
I wake up in the morning, hold my hands and pray for rain. Got a head full of ideas and they're driving me insane. They say sing while you slave and I just get bored. I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
Something about singing that is very different from acting or writing is the way you handle mistakes. And this makes an interesting correlation to life.
There are always mistakes. In acting, you find a way to make them fit within the framework of the scene, sort of making it seem like the mistake was meant to be all along. You can cover your mistakes in acting. You can cover them in writing too with a backspace key. But in singing, once you make a mistake, you can't correct it. And I think that's kind of scary! When you make a mistake or even just feel you could hit a note a lot better than you did, you have to just let it go and keep moving. It's sort of like driving without a rear view mirror. And anyone who reads this damned thing knows I practically live for my rear view mirror.
I know all of this now, but I didn't know it so much on Friday night. When the mistakes came, I found it very difficult to keep driving. I focused on them because I couldn't fix them.
I'm sure a lot of people out there would find it difficult to believe that I am lacking in self confidence. And to them I might say, "Do not mistake self promotion for self confidence."
Despite the fact that I got a meeting with a manager, a two thumbs up from the piano player, a regular gig out of it from the bar's owner and great reactions from the audiences -- I thought I sucked ass and went home feeling like I could have done so much better. And focused on it. Throughout the night. Throughout the next day.
I think it's time for Jason to stop beating himself up. Seriously. That's a little ridiculous.
On the upside, it's a good thing that my opinion matters more to me than anyone else's I guess.
In the past, I've pointed the finger at other people and said, "You've made me feel this way."
Mmm... not so much. I make me feel this way. Good to know! lol
I'm actually rather happy about that now because as I have said in the past, once you take full responsibility of something, you are then in control of it and can change it anytime.
That's one mistake I can correct.
Nobody's going to show me Spring but me, right?
In the springtime of his voodoo, he was going to show me Spring. ...But every road leads back to my door.
Song of the Week: "In the Springtime of His Voodoo" - Tori Amos, Boys for Pele
Thanks to the people who came to see me perform at The Other Side last night. It was amazing how many I recognized from my days of hosting Cocktails -- very similar crowd and so great to see so many familiar faces supporting me branching out!
The night went very well for me. Despite the fact that I thought I could've done a lot better (I need to get a lot more comfortable!), I met a manager who wants to get me other bookings like these. Meanwhile, the people at The Other Side want me back on a regular basis. Probably an every other Friday gig for me. Hot!
My next booking there will be Friday, July 20th. Helpful Details: The Other Side is located at 2538 Hyperion Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90027. The show is from 9:00 pm - 1:00 am. I perform six songs total in sets of two throughout the night with pianist James Lent and saxophonist David Olivas. They have INCREDIBLE dinners there, but you have to arrive by 9:00 as the tables go fast.
I will be performing six songs live at The Other Side with pianist James Lent (and sax for a couple numbers!) tonight, Friday, July 6th beginning at 9:00 pm. The best songs come towards the beginning of the show. Hope to see you there!
The Other Side is located at 2538 Hyperion Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90027
P.S.: For a sneak peek at tonight's set list (as always, subject to change), check the comments section. Or, if you're like me and want to be surprised, definitely DON'T check the comments section until after the show. ;-)
"If the only thing stopping you is that you're scared it'll be too hard or scared you'll lose, I'd rather not know you." - Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing
Expanding on what I mentioned when last we met, fear of failure and the comfort of contentedness kept me from doing a lot of things for a lot of years.
I suppose it's that way for many, but for me, it became pretty extreme over the course of nearly a decade.
I thought sticking with the adult work would always bring in the money. I thought falling in love with your best friend was pretty fail safe too. I thought expecting the worst means you can't be disappointed. I was not living the dream, but I was content. I was comfortable. I constantly asked myself in fear, "What if this is as good as it gets?"
I played it safe for so long in so many different avenues, but once I discovered that even playing it safe doesn't prevent every fall, it was the single most liberating thing that ever happened to me. Suddenly, I could stop trying so hard. I could finally be myself. And somewhere in all that, I found that I was naturally the person I'd been trying to convince people I was all along when I just stopped trying so hard to be.
So it's not that I had a change of perspective and it's not that my faith became greater than my fear or anything quite as "self help" or Qabalistic as I always expected it to be.
It's just that I found the fear to be really pointless. Playing it safe wasn't as safe as I thought it to be.
It's only a year later, looking back, that I'm able to put some of the pieces together and figure out why everything happened the way it did. I looked back on those old "Diary" entries this week and laughed at how only days after any given disaster struck, I was hectically trying to learn the lessons and find the reasons why. I was right a lot of the time too actually, but it's just funny how mere hours had passed and I was desperate to wrap everything up with a neat little bow.
I'm not so quick to find all the solutions these days. You're less interested in knowing the answers in advance when you're not trying so hard not to get hurt.
I was hurt. I will be hurt again. I grew leaps and bounds from it. I have more growing to do.
But those answers come to you when they're ready. Even if you have the right answer in your head, feeling it in your heart is a whole different ballgame. We can't force our feelings or our life lessons. We can only be open to life's infinite possibilities.
I tell you, anything can happen if you let it. I've been paid to do stand-up, star as the lead in a musical and sing sets at night clubs in the last three months alone. I'm not even going to lie and say I've been trying all that hard to make it happen. Most of the time it was them that approached me. I've also met some truly amazing new people that I am grateful to have in my life, romantic and platonic.
But it's all because a year ago around this time I started thinking maybe there were better things out there, maybe I was worth more, maybe I had more to offer, maybe I was settling at the ripe old age of 26. When I opened myself to the possibilities by sacrificing my fear and comfort zones, those infinite possibilities found and still are finding their way to me.
It's really a beautiful time for me, discovering that the only thing I ever needed to do to be the person I always wanted to be was stop trying so damned hard to be it.
Song of the Week: "Anything Can Happen If You Let It" - Original London Broadway Cast, Mary Poppins
