The Book of Joshua P!!

First, THANKS to everyone in Seattle! You were a great opening volley for Antiviolence, and it was great talking to you guys just before the event. I will be coming up there to visit ASAP, probably as soon as I am "stable" enough to drive that far at least…

Yeah, I said "stable" enough.  For at least the next 2 weeks, I’ve been officially diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The 2 week diagnosis is so that should I need a figurative "doctor’s note" for school, work, etc., that I’ll have something to get people to stop badgering me to "get over it". I’ll be sitting down with some brain shrinkers to see if my grey meat’s too gooey. Christ. How original is that: "He DJ’s at all these goth clubs, he’s an actor, lives in Hollywood, and he goes to a therapist"…. please, don’t let me end up on Prozac. (cue Seinfeld: "Not that there’s anything wrong with that!")

This comes as of yesterday. I was feeling pretty badly about getting yet another "label" tacked onto me, something else for people to use as a stepping stone to make themselves feel superior, when, all of a sudden…

WHAM!!!!!! As Molly and I are walking out of the KDMC campus, some poor dude gets totally nailed (by an SUV) while walking across a cross walk. We stop, assess his position and that the other cars are stopping, and then RUN like there is no tomorrow to the ER and grab an EMT that had just been finishing cleaning up puke off of her uniform. I guess if you’re gonna get hit by a car, there’s a LOT of worse places to do it! I hope that guy is OK, his leg was pretty mashed up, and they had to brace his neck. Oh, get this… the person who hit him… yes, she stopped… she was wearing SCRUBS! I’d be pretty sure she was going on her lunch break of some such and was just rushing too much to watch where she was driving.

God, everyone, please look where you are going.

In other news, I was referred to the Brass Agency by my friends Nick and Darryl. I rarely hear anyone say anything good about their agency, and two people who don’t know each other were raving about Brass. I got my headshots into them ASAP, their just the one’s that Shok did, though, so I do have a few flaws in them, but I feel pretty confident; my current profile pic was the base for one of the headshots, if you’re curious. I look at my "acting resume", I never realized how much stuff I’ve done! Dag.

hey! Maybe I’ll be a barista in the meantime! I actually liked that job back when I had it.

:cue theme song from ‘The Facts of Life’:

Here’s where our problems began:

"May
      24, 2001 - … The transportation
      agency’s spending plan also funds expanded Metro Rail service on the
      Metro Blue and Green lines… 
      

The
      budget does not call for a fare increase; however, MTA directors may
      consider a new comprehensive fare structure later this year. There has
      been no change in MTA fares in more than six years. (quick note, they DID raise fares significantly, and several times) 
      

The
      $2.724 billion MTA budget is balanced. It is up …approximately 6.7 percent more than the current fiscal year budget. This
      reflects expansion of Metro Bus and Metro Rail service, more funding for
      freeway carpool lanes and sound walls as well as more money for the
      municipal bus operators, Metrolink, and paratransit services. Moreover,
      MTA faces sharp increases in fuel and energy costs as well as higher
      premiums for workers compensation insurance. (Part of their switch to the Sheriffs cited that they needed to do so to balance their budget. Here they said it WAS balanced. Mathematically, that just means they went with the Sheriffs so they could fatten the profits of the shareholders at the expense of safety.) 
      

MTA
      is still negotiating new contracts with LAPD and the sheriff’s
      department. If those contracts cost more or less than what is earmarked in
      the adopted budget, MTA directors would consider a budget amendment at a
      later date. (Here’s where the MTA pulls an old Hollywood trick where you set up a sequel, except in this case, it would be called quick talk, or backpeddling, so that they can further fatten their pockets. Funny, if you look back a little further, under Commander Sharon Papa, the MTA and LAPD actually merged back in 1997.)

By November of 2001, the MTA system was already having SERIOUS SECURITY CONCERNS  (that even included serial rape attacks under it’s watch) that it could do little to control. Sadly, this was only a foreshadowing for the following YEARS of corruption and public endangerment.

This fight is not over. I feel deeply saddened by what happened in London, and I feel that even a single person to die unwillingly is far too many. My feelings, thoughts, heart and prayers go out to everyone effected. There is some lining to this very dark cloud, and it may not be truly silver, but it is kinda greyish, at least.

Here in L.A., where the smallest rumble makes rich people freak out (I lived in northern Japan. Don’t even try to tell me you know what an earthquake is, little miss 818)… well, this incident in London made the rich people ask "how safe are we in our delusions?"… and were answered with a weak "we’ll get right to it.." by the MTA Sheriffs out here. On one hand, it’s awesome that we now have at least some attention to such an gaping, open, blatantly obvious threat to our security. I think that since London is so far away, we still don’t really feel the fear we should, and that it’s pretty sad that the Sheriff’s response basically only matches what the LAPD felt was the BARE MINIMUM for a standard of security when not on heightened alert status.

Yes, according to a friend of mine, a Captain with LAPD that has even been to the neighborhood walks my neighborhood association holds (yeah, try getting a Sheriff to show up for that!), when the LAPD had jurisdiction of the Metro rail system out here about 4 years ago, their minimum was to have at LEAST one squad car with an officer at every terminal that was in use, no exceptions. Funny, that appears to be what the Sheriffs FINALLY felt would be a good idea. WOW! It ONLY took 38 people to die!
AAAAARRRGH!!!!!!!
Very little frustrates me more than bureaucratic apathy, which is present here, but one of the things that I find worse than that is when those same lackluster performers pat themselves on the back for doing the BARE MINIMUM of what their competition would have been doing all along.

Dammit. Someone, anyone, please find a few someones who were attacked on the subway before I was, and that filed police reports. I just need to show that what happened to me is not an anomaly. With this megalith operation that relies solely on public support, if I have just a few documented police reports showing previous knowledge of this problem, I can make this a VERY public, and VERY expensive issue for the MTA. Unfortunately, just crying out for them to care isn’t going to work; they’ve been screwing us all for years.

Also, I want to send a quick thank you out to the attendees and promoter’s of last night’s ANTIVIOLENCE EVENT in Seattle! I will get to writing a much more personal and cohesive bunch of words to you guys when I am calmed down and less analytical. (the preceding brainstorm before the thank you is a direct result of me skipping my chanting and my coffee today. grrrr.)

Sorry, it’s been so long since I’ve posted, I’ve been far more introspective than usual lately. That being said, if this is less coherent than other posts (uhh, yeah, Josh, since you always make so much sense!) bear with me. I’ll get to a "business side of things" post later today if I can.

It’s so odd, this looming weight of "it’s never over" that doesn’t seem to serve much good other that to make me feel like more of a victim. I don’t want to be a "victim"; I don’t want to be some statistic, something you pity, some socio-political cause to be bandied about between the left wing "free for alls" and the right wing "storm troopers". I want to be an individual, and I want to be in the middle of it all, making decisions based upon my own intellect. I guess that’s why it’s so important I close that gap between being "that guy that horrible thing happened to" and "my friend Joshua… oh, he’s doing a LOT better now!"
…it’s a lot more fulfilling to be a real element to the equation and not just a variable… and, yeah, I like doing a GIS for odd, sometimes relevant terms and linking to a result.

So… it’s not over; not by a long shot. 

• I can’t make it to the gym… it’s been almost 2 months now, so that’s $80 in dues down the shitter, but probably just as much saved in protein supplement bars.
• My teeth are unwired, but I can’t get past the habit of clamping my jaw shut yet; I still wake up in lock down… BUT my sinuses are still f’ed, so, even though I don’t have to, I’m breathing through clamped teeth all night; I had a CT scan of the sinuses a few days ago and will go in to review the reults in about a week and a half.
• Speaking of teeth, the wires brought back a trauma of my one solitary true phobia: having a metal file or something similar touch my teeth. Just typing those words was extraordinarily hard, but if I try to speak them, I stop breathing. No sh*t. Well, the wire holding my tetth brackets together was sorat braided, so when it was unthreaded from between all of my teeth abruptly and roughly, it RIPPED chunks of enamel off from the insides of nearly ALL of my teeth. This equates with having a cavity on both sides of every tooth in your mouth, right next to the root. I found a cheap dental program at USC that provides a low cost initial consultation and free or low cost services to poor people like me, or just those looking for cheap and very good dental care. This will mean being part of their million hour early morning waiting system though… ughh.
• I can’t visit my folks, I can’t take public transportation very far, I can’t go anywhere unfamiliar without someone I know, and there’s no F’ing way you are locking me in another metal tube with no escape ever again, so I don’t know if I can ever fly somewhere again, which I used to love to do; top that off with beligerant DMV employees who want to charge me $600 to get my license back.

The list goes on, but I gotta tag along with Molly to a Hallmark audition if I want to see the outdoors today. Bye!