My Million Dollar Blog

I watched the Oscars tonight while writing. They were painful.

It was, however, good to see that Ryan, the animated short about Canadian animator Ryan Larkin and directed by Chris Landreth, won Best Animated Short. I’d like to see that entire film at some point; maybe I can see it at the NFB’s media centre or something.

I am finding myself very discouraged.

Lost the lottery again this week. Dang.

I started looking for “tips on winning the lottery” on Google, for the sake of ridiculousness. It was interesting. It would appear that the internet is full, simply CHOCK FULL of people willing to tell me how to win the lottery for the low low price of anywhere from $20-$75 USD.

I kind of mentally went through the logistics of springing for one of these GUARANTEED informational systems, and I was not led down any internal road that ended in “WOW, I could actually end up rich!”. A lot of these lottery “experts” suggest that consecutive numbers are bad, but I don’t know why - if the number choices are random, I don’t see why consecutive numbers should be disadventageous. These kind of inconsistencies, and the fact that if winning the lottery was so easy these people would be too busy eating caviar out of abalone shells to be selling their moneymaking secrets on bargain basement websites, made me decide to pass on their attractive offers.

A story:

I worked at this bar for about six months once, probably the worst dive I’ve ever worked in. I called it Moe’s Tavern for a reason - the patrons were hopeless drunks, the place was filthy, the bathrooms had bacteria you could donate to a zoo, and the owner was crazy. At times it was oddly fun and the money, though no great shakes, was consistent, so for six months I stuck it out.

There was a girl who worked with me who had another day job and a daughter and was always cryin the money blues. At one point she told me that she once won the lottery one night while working at the bar six months ago. I got the story from the regulars eventually, and then from her: she had gotten six out of seven numbers (!!!) one night on a ticket she bought at the shop next door and won over fifty grand.

In something like three months it was gone, and she was back to working at Moe’s. She didn’t have any regrets, which I thought was really admirable - I think there are a plenty of people who have way more regrets over losing a lot less money.

I should go back to that bar and see if she’s still working there and interview her about it, about how that event changed her attitudes, or didn’t change them.

I think I may have agreed to eat bull’s testicles for $50 tonight.

Personally, I welcome the opportunity to vomit on camera.

(I think I may have found a new revenue stream.)

I also spent a good amount of time talking about Chris Burden. He’s one of my favourite performance artists of all time. What I adore about him is how he manages to implicate the audience. For example, he had himself shot in the arm for a performance in 1971 entitled Shoot. What fascinates and amazes me is not the actual act of being shot in the arm, but how much it revealed about the audience that witnessed it; why didn’t anyone stop the gunman? Why did everyone who was there stand passively and watch him risk his life? What responsibility does the audience have? What do their actions reveal?

I believe that the audience reveals and lends more meaning to a a live event than the event itself.

I really have to write more about this.

I think that’s going to be the new tshirt slogan.

It’s past six in the morning. I had 45 minutes sleep and then drove a friend to the airport for an early flight and took her car home. Circadian rhythm what.

I’m exhausted. I’m working. I’m trying not to get discouraged, trying to keep the momentum up. Trying to keep the plans in motion. Some days are easy, things just appear like I had nothing to do with it, and other days it’s a long hard road.

This week has been a long, hard road. It’s not bad, just tedious at the moment - I believe in this project, I believe in this process, or else I would not spend every moment of my spare time and the early hours of every morning. I believe that Los Angeles is going to be hilarious and beneficial. I believe in tomorrow. I believe that this million dollars is waiting for me, and that finding where it’s been hiding out is going to be an interesting journey.

I am working on faith these days. I’m realizing how much faith has been lacking in my life in general - faith in my ideas, faith in my own abilities, faith that the future is bright and waiting for us.

I’ve also been ruminating on the role and meaning of audience. One of the things that fascinates me about performance art, and art in general for that matter, is the involvement and role of the audience. I’ve been writing about this lately. I don’t think that art is ever finished when it leaves the hands of the artist; as soon as you show it to an audience their reactions and interpretations shape its meaning profoundly, and you can never really predict what an audience will do with any given idea.

I’m noticing that present in this project. I have gotten a lot of emails from people asking me why I talk about how people are reacting to this piece instead of just forging forward, but I think it’s important to be mindful of how the audience is shaping the trajectory of this piece, that it would be bad documentation to not include this stuff.

This is scattered. It’s six thirty.

I am just finishing work for tonight.

It is 3.16 am and I’m not even close to done.

I’m feeling really, really, really overwhelmed. I have too much to do and not enough time to do it in. If I had four of me I would be so productive.

You know, there’s a direct mathematical relationship between how much work I have to do and my level of procrastination. I was busying myself with everything except the task at hand tonight, which does nothing but frustrate me and add to stress.

I really need to stop shooting myself in the foot. I really need to feel like I am always *just* keeping my head above water. Sometimes I wonder if I keep myself in these sorts of states because it’s the only way I know how to be, which is stupid and counterproductive but there you go.

I put the Golden Palace cheque in the bank tonight. It was weird to see a balance like that on the bank receipt that didn’t have a minus sign in front of it.

You might have noticed that the total jumped significantly today. I’ll tell you why.

When I was on the CBC I was wearing a sticker on my shirt that said GoldenPalace.com. That’s because the cats at Golden Palace offered me $1500 to wear it and mention them, and I got the cheque today. (I don’t post amounts until I have the money in my hot little hands or it’s confirmed online … I’m not into turning the ticker backwards in case something goes wrong.)

It was a strange experience getting that cheque, considering that it’s currently what I make in two months. It threw me for a loop, for sure. I’m learning the value of things in their truest sense … being in the public eye has its value, and it’s bizarre because it was easy. I waited tables and scrubbed kitchens for less than that in a MONTH.

So that’s the first big cha-ching of the year. Mmm, satisfying.

What am I going to do with that money, you ask? Leave most of it the hell alone. I have, however, used a small amount to fund The Next Step, about which I’m really excited.

I found a ludicrously cheap flight to Los Angeles, and after some arranging and investigating and calculating I decided that I need to go because:

a) the flight was so cheap;
b) I have a free place to stay thanks to geographically diverse friends;
c) fine programming such as The Price Is Right and Jeopardy! are filmed there, and they regularly give away money and Fabulous Arrays of Prizes (if I win a bakers rack or something that will be one hilarious Ebay auction);
d) lots of news media, magazines, papers, radio, and so on are down there that I can talk to;
e) it’s not Vegas, and I’m tired of people telling me I should be going to Vegas. I’ve never won very much money gambling, and I don’t anticipate that this will change anytime soon;
f) I am fascinated by LA because it’s such a Success Town, where dreams are made and broken, and I think it’ll be an interesting venue to carry out a bit of this project.

So that’s what’s cookin’. Go check out the crazy crap that GoldenPalace.com is up to, a lot of it is pretty hilarious.

One of my favourite movies is Steve Martin’s “LA Story”:

Sara: Roland thinks L.A. is a place for the brain-dead. He says, if you turned off the sprinklers, it would turn into a desert. But I think - I don’t know, it’s not what I expected. It’s a place where they’ve taken a desert and turned it into their dreams. I’ve seen a lot of L.A. and I think it’s also a place of secrets: secret houses, secret lives, secret pleasures. And no one is looking to the outside for verification that what they’re doing is all right. So what do you say, Roland?
Roland: I still say it’s a place for the brain-dead.

I am looking forward to forming my own impressions at the end of March.

(And before you ask, NO, the price of the ticket was not deducted from the ticker price. That keeps track of all profit made so far.)