Goal Review: Hindsight is 2020

Approaching a review of my goals from last year, I think it was assumed that everything would be a wash. For seven months in 2020 I spent most of my time inside my apartment, only going out to forage at supermarkets for groceries and only 2-3 long drives for some escapism. So before I take on my goals for this year - mind you, it’s almost February but it feels like 2021 only started on the 20th - I want to look at what my intentions were back when I was naive and hopeful for a great year. Yes, things were breaking down economically and everything seemed fragile already, but I still had hope that I could get ahead of things and affect change. I was ready to abandon what was known and trailblaze. 

Let’s recap intentions versus reality.

Things to do

• Work out 5 times a week, minimum - Once I realized that my gym membership wasn’t going to amount to anything, I looked for other options and found a whole community working out in VR. I started as usual working out 3-4 days a week, then eventually went up to 6-7 days a week. Mission accomplished. 
• Sleep 7 hours a night - Once I stayed indoors, this was fixed right away, and I went on unbelievable streaks of 7-8 hour nights of sleep, which improved everything. Who knew? 
• Reserve a deep clean day 1x/month - So, I did a couple of deep cleans on my apartment, which was amazing, but I never left the place, so naturally some clutter started to happen as I ordered things from Amazon and had to make some living adjustments. A deep clean is overdue - I feel like there’s 2020 residue in the apartment. 
• Take a vacation - I had planned on going to Nashville, looked up tickets and lodging, but as it turns out my only vacation was a weekend in Big Bear the weekend after my birthday (and the day was laid off). It still counts. 
• Doctor Up - With hospitals overrun by COVID patients, I stayed away from doctors for the most part but I did take care of some big things in 2020. That was important. I also made it a habit of tracking my weight, temperature, blood pressure, and other things almost daily. I might even be healthier now, in quarantine, than I was during normal times. 
• Finish the book – With the future in doubt, I have wondered sometimes how valuable this book would be. It’s still there, and I organized a lot to keep it in mind. 
• Meditate twice a week – While I was employed, I did the meditation twice a week, but once I was on my own, in my own space, it completely went away. 

Things to have

• A passport - Still nothing on this. How many years have I had this on my list? Also, did it make sense to get a passport with borders closed? Nope! 

• A new personal laptop - A lot has changed with this one. In a year when I could ONLY work through my work laptop remotely, I not only finally got a macbook, I also got a gaming PC laptop! And then I turned the work laptop in, but getting TWO laptops this year was a huge win.

Things to be

• Attentive & patient - This was tested a lot with the team, but when I had a few sessions with performers, especially remote ones, I found that active listening was an exercise in learning. 
• More aggressive with career - So much to think about this one. Career stopped, industry shut down. Severance builds a bridge, but to what? As far as 2020 goes, this was checked and paused. 
• Open to changing my status - Age and isolation are really playing tricks on me here. If I could say at the beginning of 2020 that I was used to being alone and liked it, what followed tested that theory, and my reaction is still mixed. I like not having to answer to or change for anyone, but at the same time this isolation is definitely affecting my mental health. 
• A selfless and inclusive independence - I have done everything I could to be there for people during this time, even those I don’t know well. It hasn’t been easy because I’ve struggled too and haven’t asked for help, but I still follow my instincts. 

2020 wasn't a total loss, apparently. For a year that shuffled everything, took so many things away, and forced me to spend the holidays alone, I do have a lot to be grateful for:

• My health
• My family is still safe and my mother was able to pass before COVID arrived
• 12 years of work with the company has kept me safe in a severance cocoon, especially factoring in the fact that I never took vacation. That payout was also generous. 
• It was also a year of an important, quiet purge of people who not only weren't contributing to my life, they were also not contributing to reality. Or society. 
• Out of the 12 months, I worked for five on property and was paid for ten. 
• My car was paid off. As were two other things. 
• The world of virtual reality saved my sanity. Thank you, Oculus. 
• I made it to 2021. 

The last is the most important. I'm here. I made it. Now I can start working on goals for this year. More to come on that soon....

Keeper of the Estate

Before I share goals for the year (honestly, I haven't worked on them yet), I wanted to share some of the letter I wrote to all of the performers I worked with at Universal. When I think about my future, I can't help but obsess about everything I was able to build for these musicians and performers. I know that as soon as the pandemic hit, they were all put on pause. Their lives would be tested just like hundreds of actors I saw back in my theater days, and they would be forced to choose between holding on to what they love to do or abandoning it completely for a different kind of survival. Just as I had always watched over their love for what they can do, or even their curiosity in it, during this past year I've felt responsible for them. I gave them a home, brought them opportunity, and watched over them, basically pulling most of them out of whatever state I found them in and redefined as much as I could to make sure they had room to grow. 

It reminds me of Marchan, the performer we lost in spring of 2016. My relationship with her is part of that same DNA. She and I had a misunderstanding months before, when she felt I wasn't booking her on purpose. I have always been so ready to lose performers - especially the really humble and hardworking ones - to their own success, and I understood that she wasn't available to perform. She said she never mentioned that, and when we cleared that up, I booked her to open for a favorite band of hers on the big stage. It was her last time we had footage of her performing. 

For a long time after her funeral, I felt so guilty for bringing her into this place where she felt safe to be herself, and even though it was a miscommunication between us, for taking her out of it. Were things fixed? I feel like we fully reconciled. I still wasted valuable months (two, I think) where she could have been doing what she loved to do. Sure, she started working on a music video and other projects, so she used the time well. It still tested my connection to the performers. I could either maintain a further distance or make a stronger connection as their champion. 

After a year of horrible change and adjustment, I started working on a stronger connection with all of the performers. 

Just before the pandemic hit, I started making arrangements to take back the booking and oversight of the performers from my team. I had given them the program to run to justify their hours, but we carved a new role for the team, and it was time for me to take the performers back. First, all entertainment was stopped in April, then after a few attempts to plan, I went on furlough in August. Then the layoffs happened in October. The response on social media to the layoff was incredible from all of the performers, both current and past, and I took some time to let things sink in. 

Knowing what my departure meant to the performers, I felt like I wanted to give them some hope and direction for the future with a note during the holidays. Here's part of what I wrote:

Goodbye 2020 

It’s been a while. I’ve been meaning to write to you guys, but there have been so many changes, including (as you may have seen) my departure from USH following the huge layoffs of October. I was notified on my birthday, of all days! I had a few weeks to let that sink in, and then I had to clear out my desk, and almost immediately lost access to my email and other things on the network. 12 years came to a full stop, and even when I heard that people are safely predicting a 2022 reopening, I was skeptical. Is opening up in a year and a half realistic? Honestly, I believe we’ll start seeing signs of life in a few months. Yes, our city is being careless, reckless, and dumb when it comes to following guidelines, and those numbers are ridiculous, but once we get to January, there won’t be occasions for people to gather, no reasons to go out in an army to do last minute shopping. Everyone can stay home the way we did back in Spring. I have hope.

I then speculated a little about what my plans were, and what the future held for me. I knew people would ask, so I had to address it. I basically said that Plan A would be to return to Universal, and Plan B would be to land somewhere that would benefit the performers and potentially Universal as well, where I could potentially bring some business back to them. That part of the note was brief. I wanted to put the attention back on them, talking as a fellow creative. I continued:  

Obviously I’m still thinking about you guys all the time, and hope that you - just like me - have had to balance physical and mental health while looking for creative outlets. I’ve been obsessed with TikTok (some of you are already having some success on there, but all of you should be on it), YouTube, and Oculus Quest. I’ve cried during the Mandalorian multiple times and caught up on a bunch of the trending documentaries. I bought a great gaming laptop, a MacBook, a really nice 360/180 3D camera, and have guested on a podcast about ghost stories. I’m playing guitar again and studying music theory going back through the basics.

It doesn’t matter how busy I’ve been able to keep myself, I still can’t help thinking about how much I miss seeing you perform in person. I want you to come out of this evolved, stronger, ready to NOT go back to what we used to do, but rather to create something for a new world. That’s what we’re approaching. There’s been so much talk about getting back to normal and I couldn’t less interested in going backwards. I want all of us to mix the joy of getting to do what we love to do again with embracing new ways to do it. We were working on it before this whole thing shut down, and all I want for 2021 is for us to pick that up and go forward, become new again, and do things that have never been done before. I believe you’re still that discovery that people need to find, especially at a time when people are looking for hope. Forget political affiliations or beliefs; there are some common things that all people need and the arts reflect all of them.

Thank you for still inspiring me, for posting about what you do, and growing as artists in your own space. Thank you for making 2020 bearable and important, and for getting through to the end of it so we can all see some light in the new year together. I hope your holidays are wonderful and that you’re able to stay safe and healthy. I will keep you updated on any developments. In the meantime, if there’s anything you need, you know how to reach me (just don’t try to email me at work, because…well, obviously that won’t work).

And goodbye 2020. If Newton’s Third Law of Motion can weigh in here, saying that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, I would love it if the next year and years to follow make up for the years that led us up to here. We can only hope it’s true, but maybe that depends on us to lead the way. Believe, friends. I think we can do it.

Stewart

Maybe 10-15 of the 40 or so people I sent this to responded, but I hope it got to everyone, so they could see that the past year has been useful, that it counts towards the future. For me, writing that note to them was the purging of all of the doubts I had for the year, and remixing it for hope. Even now, in mid-January, things have only gotten worse, but my mom always reminded me how each new day was a chance to be better than the day before. 

It's hard to really imagine a happy new year, especially in 2021. Again and for always, it's my least favorite holiday. 

I can imagine a happy new day, though. It will always take some practice to get it right. 

A Useless Tool

The first days of 2021 feel like 2020 mixtape re-release. As my most cynical friends have pointed out, January 1st felt much like December 31st, both days just being a Thursday and Friday during a regular week. The damage is done, though, and carries over. We have lost so much over the past nine months and somehow still managed to survive inside our bubbles. All connections have been severed, steady income and responsibility squeezed to a thin thread, and all plans have been swept off the table like crumbs. 

I can’t believe 2020 is done. I can’t believe this presidency is almost over. I can’t believe that vaccines for this virus are going out to people. Who knows how effective the vaccines will be, since there’s a new strain out there, and locally, LA people are too dumb to understand that it just takes one person, one moment to change your life. Following the dumbest holiday of the year (a countdown to what? To nothing!), people won’t gather as much, albeit a bunch of them who think they wouldn’t get it are going to have a huge meetup at club ICU. And the president? I’m hoping for a pay per view heel drag out of the house and hazmat level disinfecting to follow. The vaccines are hope, and if distribution isn’t screwed up, we’ll start coming back to life by spring or summer. That’s my optimistic take. But we’re not there yet. 

Nope, the numbers look horrifying. 

I want to take a moment, in hindsight, to mourn the people we've lost last year. 

IN MEMORIAM 

To all of my former friends who said that BLM is a terrorist organization, that blue lives matter, it's been nice knowing you. Blue lives? They are blue jobs. You don't wake up with a badge on. People do go to sleep and wake up black, or indigenous, or asian, or hispanic. Those who equated the riots with the protests, losing the whole pointy of things, who defended police brutality, will be on the wrong side of history and on the dark side of my attention. Yesterday's insurrection on the capitol building featured what you represent: White supremacy, fascism, and domestic terrorism. People waving blue line flags attacked capitol police. Ironic, right? Blue Lives Matter was created to respond to Black Lives Matter, to diminish the argument that black lives have value and should be treated with the same respect and rights as white lives. Kicking you to the curb for choosing the wrong side of this issue. 

To my former friends and colleagues who have insisted since the beginning that COVID was a hoax, I can't believe we were ever friends. Considering that you have intelligence on the level of a flat-earther and have pushed conspiracy theories about how it's no worse than the flu or that hospitals are making money from COVID diagnoses, or that the vaccine is a plot to track and control you, I am proud to say that I have swept you into the trash can marked 2020 and didn't look back. I realize how this works; It's not real until it affects you. IF you are still alive, I hope you see the light instead of going towards it, and that someday we can drink and laugh about how incredibly dumb you were. I hope you can take my neverending laughter at your horrible take on this without having your feelings hurt. 

Who doesn't appear in this in memoriam section? My republican friends, who believe in party values and don't align themselves with the current agitator-in-chief, are still close friends of mine. Other people, who have engaged in thoughtful discussion about politics even if we don't agree, made the cut. The cut? What am I talking about? This wasn't a purge, this was a moment-to-moment revelation when people reveal their racist (and yes, that represents an all-bad spectrum where any shade of it is intolerable) leans and anti-science/anti-rational pseudo-media beliefs. I still remember trying to talk to someone a few years ago whom I knew was a flat-earther. It was incredibly hard to have a regular conversation with him. Chats were brief. 

So if this reads as an incredibly frustrated, tense post about how 2021 is beginning with an exorcism of all of 2020's evils, it accurately captures how stressful it is to transition to a functioning society right now. I am normally hopeful in the present, but let's just say that I am embracing how difficult things are right now, and that's okay. I don't think it's going to stay this way for long.

I am already planning the next entry - the annual list of goals and hopes for the coming year. Let's shake this one off, shall we?