Artistic Cannibalism

I have to start this article with a little flashback: During the Spring of 1985, I was in my Junior year of college. I was taking the Advanced Television Production class. While most of the other students produced news segments, I attempted to do entertainment.

The same semester, I was taking the Advanced Directing class in the Theatre Department. Chud was taking the class with me and he was interested in doing an experimental acting project and capturing it on video. We decided to team up. I would use the project for my television class and he would use it for his directing class.

It was titled, "Cannibalistic Instincts of Mice in Isolation." It was about a student who shoots a "video diary" in which he talks to the camera. He describes an experiment on mice that leads to them cannibalizing each other. He then decides to try the experiment with people to see if they surrender to the same end. While carrying a video camera, he tricks four female students into going into the theatre basement for a scavenger hunt during Spring Break and traps himself inside with them. They go through the supposed stages of death without ever succumbing to eating each other. After two days, they're rescued and nothing bad happens to the student who trapped them. (Yes, we were poor storytellers and completely naive about how this would have played out in the real world. But we were mostly concerned with the acting experiment, which we were very satisfied with. If we'd had more time to think about it, we would have made sure that student paid major consequences.)

Cid played one of the students. (I've made passing reference to two of the other female students, but never gave them names.) We spent six hours in the basement shooting footage, most of it improvised. Chud and I edited everything down to a 40-minute program, which was pretty much unheard of for a student video project at ENMU. We both earned A's in our classes.

So, you're probably wondering why I'm not sharing that project on YouTube. Well, as I've mentioned before, ENMU was a horrible school for learning how to produce entertainment when I went there. There was no one there to tell me to get the participants to sign releases so I could share my projects without having to hunt them down years later and get their permission.

However, an opportunity arose in 1999 in which I would be able to have a public viewing of the project. A friend of mine from the music scene named Goad was setting up a small experimental video festival at a gallery in Downtown San Diego. He was looking for submissions. I thought about my project, which I had converted to VHS in college. I used the VHS editing equipment at my workplace and edited in new titles so that my name would be displayed as "Fayd" instead of my real name. I also put a copyright statement at the end and entered the year as 1985.

Goad added my project to the lineup. This was scheduled to take place on the same night that several musician friends decided to perform a series of impromptu guerrilla acoustic experimental music demonstrations around the Downtown area. These friends included Abed, Hird, Ferd, Marrad, Leaz and a few others. Abed had an experimental video he wanted to submit that was comprised of mostly still images he had shot with home video equipment. He thought he would be able to have everyone come in and play live music to accompany the video during the festival. Goad gave us an approximate schedule for when our projects would be played.

I told Chud about the festival. He considered coming down from Burbank for it, but I told him it probably wasn't going to be a lot of people there to see it. He decided he didn't need to be there.

The night of the festival, I took Abed to the meeting place for the musicians Downtown. It was a few blocks from the gallery. Most of them were already there setting up their instruments, which primarily consisted of percussion. He told me to tell Goad he wasn't certain if he could get them to agree to play during his video, so he shouldn't worry about him showing up. Before I left, Abed told the others about the festival and some of them said they wanted to come in and watch my project. I was pretty excited about that. I told them what time mine was scheduled.

Goad started the festival. It was a lot of videos featuring people who obviously edited from VCR to VCR using the pause buttons and no time-base corrector. They were all crude, but entertaining to watch. I could at least be proud that mine was properly edited. There were about 40 people in the gallery watching.

Then came the time for "Instincts" (as I commonly referred to it) to start. I introduced it to let everyone know that I had produced it in 1985, YEARS before "MTV's The Real World" and "The Blair Witch Project." I felt like I was ahead of my time in college and just lacked the resources to change the face of television back then. All of a sudden, there was this loud racket right outside the gallery. The musicians had decided that this was the next random location for a demonstration! I was flabbergasted! I mean, I didn't really have a problem with them not coming in and watching the video like they said they would. I halfway expected them to flake on that. But they were out here cannibalizing my work! And I couldn't do anything about it! I knew that if I tried to get them to move somewhere else, they would have retaliated by playing even louder!

Because of the noise, the crowd of 40 people suddenly dwindled down to six. At one point, Leaz came into the gallery. I thought she was going to stay and watch, but she went back outside after about a minute. And then, as soon as my video finished, they stopped making noise and went to another location Downtown. Goad was also mad that happened because he wasn't able to get the audience back for the rest of the festival, which still had about three hours left to go.

I was furious! I felt like I was a deliberate target of sabotage. Yes, I'm certain they didn't plan it that way, but I wondered if any of them, including Abed, had any respect for me as an artist. It felt like college all over again.

A few days later, Abed was talking about how the local musicians and artists needed to support each other. I asked him why he didn't think of that the night of the video festival when everyone was outside wrecking my presentation. He didn't realize until then how much he and the others hurt me with what I perceived as disrespect. And they also hurt Goad. Abed said they didn't realize they were being that loud.

There was an odd aftermath to this incident the very next day. I'll get to that tomorrow.

Girlfriend #7: Jolz, Part 7

I kind of felt like Jolz and I were coasting in our relationship. We still had good times when we were together, but I was getting fed up at her canceling plans we had made, especially those times I wanted to see live local music.

And I have to admit some fault on my part in this department. Jolz didn't like that I had a platonic female friend. From Jolz' perspective, every time Fraz called when we were hanging out at her house, I would leave and do whatever she wanted. (But I should add that when Abed needed something and I was with Jolz, I would also leave to help him.)

Things came to a boil when I was at Jolz' house and we were watching "Curse of the Blair Witch" on the SciFi Channel. Even though Jolz didn't care too much for scary movies, she wanted to see "The Blair Witch Project" in the theatre. I thought it would be cool to have her latch on to me during the scary parts.

While we were watching the show, it became apparent that she actually thought the Blair Witch was real and the film was a documentary with found footage of the victims. This is when THE ARGUMENT took place.

I told her, no, it's all fiction, it's not real. But she kept insisting it was. At first, I thought she was just joking around, but she kept it up. For every piece of evidence that I could think of that I had read about the film, she would counter it with some silly explanation. "Okay! The woman in the film who supposedly dies in the end is going to be at the San Diego Comic-Con in two weeks. How do you explain that?" "That's her sister!"

We didn't have instant access to the Internet back then, but I'm pretty certain that even if we had iPhones and Wikipedia, she still would have kept believing. I finally gave up and left the house in a huff. The thing that got me the most was that I was telling her the truth and she just would not believe me. How was this going to play out in the future? What if her brother lied and told her he saw me making out with some other woman at the Family Fun Center? Would she refuse to believe me then? This was definitely not the type of relationship I wanted to be in.

I wondered if it was possible for us to break up through sheer osmosis. I decided to try a little experiment. I would not call her. I would never call her again. And if she never called me again, that meant it was over and we could just consider THE ARGUMENT the break up conversation. That sounded good to me.

A few days later, I still hadn't heard from her. I thought I would take a chance on the personal ads to see if there was someone desperate enough to date me. I looked through the Penny Saver and found a suitable ad. When I called the voice mail, the ad belonged to Jolz. WHAT?

I had to think about this for a minute. I didn't know when the deadline was for putting in personal ads forthe next publication, but it appeared that she had done this before THE ARGUMENT! I don't know what she was planning to do with a new boyfriend since she said she couldn't have sex for six months. This made me wonder if she wasn't looking for something to argue about in order for us to break up and the Blair Witch provided the perfect opportunity. DAMN YOU, BLAIR WITCH!

One week after THE ARGUMENT, my phone rang. It was Jolz. We started out pleasantly enough. We started working toward the big question of whether we wanted to stay together. I mentioned that I had found the Penny Saver ad. Her explanation was that she was showing a friend of hers how to put one in. "So did she put in an ad?" "No." "Well, why didn't you just remove your ad?" "Once you put in an ad, you can't take it out." I knew that wasn't true. I had put in enough ads in other publications to know how they worked.

I then had to ask the really big question: "Do you believe the Blair Witch is real?" All she had to say was no and I would have stayed with her. "I think the Blair Witch is real, yes." "Well, I can't deal with that, so this is over. I'm sorry. Goodbye."

And I thought that was it. It wasn't, but there will be a few posts on other topics before I get back to that.

Stay tuned.

Girlfriend #7: Jolz, Part 6

Jolz and I continued being boyfriend/girlfriend for a few weeks after she had her bariatric surgery. She was adjusting to the restrictions very well. We still went out and did things. They just didn't involve food. Even though I was being supportive through all of this, cracks were starting show in our relationship.

One issue I had was that she wanted me to come over to her house around 5pm every other day to eat dinner with her family. This itself wasn't the problem, but the traffic going out to El Cajon at that time was horrible. When I first started, I thought it would be like the traffic in Denver, in which there was a siphoning effect. However, it seemed like every car on the highway was going to El Cajon. It made for a stressful drive, which I didn't appreciate when I was trying to go see my girlfriend.

She still spent Friday nights with her boss. They just didn't eat like they used to. They would go out and do things. Most of the time, it was to go see movies. Again, this probably didn't sound like a problem, but she would end up going to see movies with her that we had made plans to go see. This meant that by the time we went out, she'd already seen the movie. And she usually didn't tell me this until after it was over. "Wow! Were you expecting (such and such) to happen?" "Yeah, I saw it last night with my boss."

A couple of times, the Friday nigh involved going to a strip club on "Ladies Night." She told me about getting lap dances from male strippers. The funny thing was that this didn't bother me in the slightest. (I was surprised by this myself.) I guess it was because I was confident that none of the men she paid to do a lap dance would have any interest in doing anything else with her. However, I did get the feeling that if I wanted to pay a stripper for a lap dance, Jolz wouldn't be as casual about it.

Once Jolz asked me to come to a party that her aunt was hosting. Her aunt had graduated with a Master's degree and was celebrating. Jolz didn't have the exact address, but told me the intersection in San Diego where her aunt lived and I would meet her there. She said it was a white house on the corner. I got there and ALL FOUR CORNER HOUSES WERE PAINTED WHITE! I walked around to each of the houses and heard the sounds of a party coming from the yard of one. I knocked on the fence. This woman opened the gate. I told the woman I was Fayd and asked with Jolz was there. She said, "I don't know anyone named Jolz" and shut the gate.

Fortunately, Jolz had a cell phone (at a time when few people had one). I found a pay phone nearby and called her. I asked her which house on the corner because they were all white. She said it was on the southwest corner. "That was one I was just at. The woman who answered said you weren't there!" "No, I'm here."

I knocked and the same woman opened the gate. "Is Jolz here?" The woman replied, "Oh! JOLZ! I thought you said Jilz." (NO, I DID NOT!) I know I looked angry about that. Everyone at the party thought this was funny, but it was at my expense. I really wish I hadn't gone to that party.

But the biggest issue we faced was something that a lot of overweight people deal with when they're romantically involved with someone they're much larger than. Jolz enjoyed being with me at first, but I got the feeling that she was thinking, "Why is he with me? Why does he like me? Can't he see that I'm fat? This isn't normal. There must be something REALLY wrong with him!"

She never said this to me, and even though she had started losing weight, it appeared to be a major burden on her mind. She started acting less like a girlfriend and more like someone who was about to become an ex-girlfriend.

And that happened. More details tomorrow.

When I Seafood, I Eat It

You don't always think about all the work that goes into making a meal when you're enjoying it. You also don't wonder what your food is thinking before it gets cooked.



The bad thing is that I don't eat the whole crab. I only eat the legs.

Girlfriend #7: Jolz, Part 5

One day, Jolz asked me a question I never expected: "How would you feel if I told you I was going to lose a lot of weight really quickly?"

I asked what she was talking about. "I'm about to go through a procedure to have that done and I want to know if you'll still like me if I weighed a lot less." I told her that yes, I would still like her. I didn't consider myself a chubby chaser and that I liked her for the person she was, not her size. She asked, "Well, are you worried about it?" At this point, I thought she was talking about liposuction. "Why would I be worried? It's a low-risk procedure, right?" "NO! IT'S NOT! I COULD DIE!" Okay, now I'm worried. I asked her what the procedure was.

She said it going to be a divided gastric bypass. A surgeon would go in, cut her stomach in half and connect that to her intestines. It was rather risky, but the surgeon she was seeing had been successful at it. I'd never heard of that before. I told her I didn't think she needed to do sonething so drastic because she probably weighed 250 pounds. She said, "Oh, thank you. But I actually weigh a lot more than that." Up to this point, I had no clue what her weight was. But now I knew it sure wasn't 250 pounds.

She gave me some literature about the procedure. I read about the process and a lot of testimonials. She had been trying to do this for a few months and her insurance through work approved it. She was going to have to stay in the hospital to recover for a few days before going home. After that, she wouldn't be able to eat that much. We wouldn't be able to go out on dinner dates any more because her diet was going to be so restricted. She also warned me that she would have a large scar on the upper half of her body.

She asked me to go with her to a meeting with the bariatric team before she was scheduled to go to the hospital. There were about five other women in the group about to have their surgeries. Jolz was the only one in her 20s. Everyone else appeared to be in their 40s. Jolz was the only patient who had been accompanied by someone. Everyone else was there by themselves. During the times that the doctor and staff weren't in the room, the women swapped stories. They each talked about how hard it was to get approval for the surgery and that they each had to wait at least a year before they could get the surgery scheduled. Jolz said it hadn't been that difficult for her. When she started talking about this, I was thinking, "Shut up, shut up! They don't want to hear how easy it was for you!" Jolz probably got rapid approval because she was of child-bearing age.

After the meeting, Jolz had to meet with the nurse to go over some of the details prior to the operation. The nurse warned Jolz that she was going to be discussing how much she weighs and asked her if she still wanted me to be in the room. Jolz said it was okay. The nurse said she weighed 319 pounds. (Wow! I was WAY OFF!) It was anticipated that she would probably lose about 140 pounds over the course of several months. Jolz had already started making stride by cutting out soda. The nurse agreed that was a major step.

One of the things Jolz told me was that after the procedure, the doctor said she couldn't have sex for six months. That didn't really bother me. I figured it was for her own protection.

But she did something that really made me upset. She did her usual Friday night binge with her boss. We were going to have our last actual dinner date on Saturday night. At almost the last minute, she called me up and told me her boss wanted to do another binge one last time THAT night! I was SO upset. And she had planned to spend Sunday, the day before the procedure, with her family. I didn't have a problem with the Friday binge or the Sunday with her family, but I did not appreciate being denied my last chance to enjoy going out and eating with her.

The day of the operation, I helped her parents check her into the hospital. I went home while her parents awaited the outcome. She did fine. I went to the hospital a few times to visit her. Nothing really eventful took place during those visits. I was just being the supportive boyfriend.

What was interesting was that this all took place about a month before Carnie Wilson made news by having a divided gastric bypass. I rather liked that my girlfriend was ahead of the curve on this.

Girlfriend #7: Jolz, Part 4

I guess I'll just get this part out of the way first and avoid any suspense: Jolz and I did get to the point in which we were actually making love. But there wasn't anything dramatic about the first time, like her getting injured in an altercation beforehand or anything like that. We both knew it was leading to that and it happened. I will say that after Abed and I became roommates, I was the first one to get to "break in" the new apartment.

To my surprise, Jolz expressed an interest in going to see live music with me. I was still going to see several local San Diego singer-songwriters on a regular basis. I just figured she was only interested in country music, so I never considered asking her to go along with me. I mentioned that I was going to see someone I will refer to as Teacher at Brick by Brick. Jolz kept hinting that she wanted me to ask her to go with me. I did ask and she accepted. While Teacher and her husband played music in a pop/jazz vein, Jolz seemed to enjoy it and I got to introduce her to Teacher.

Once I mentioned to Jolz that Abed was going to play as part of an experimental music ensemble at the Casbah. The group consisted of six guitarists. It was organized by a musician I'll refer to as Marrad and included Hird. Jolz said she wanted to go check it out. I knew there was no way she was going to enjoy this performance. I tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted on going.

Before the show started, I took Jolz around to everyone, including Ferd, and introduced her as my girlfriend. She mentioned that I seemed to enjoy telling everyone we were a couple. I guess I did, but I'm pretty certain that behind my back, everyone was saying, "Dang! Fayd likes 'em LARGE!" But that really didn't matter to me. I was more concerned about how she was going to react after everyone got on stage and started playing.

The entire set was basically improvised. Jolz was next to me the entire time. She did not say a word, but she was clearly not enjoying this. However, she never once asked to leave. She stayed through the whole show. Yes, she was a trouper.

After we left the Casbah, she was ranting. "What the heck was that? I'm sitting there, waiting for them to start playing! It seemed like all they were doing was tuning their guitars! And after 15 minutes of that, they said they were going to play another song! Another song? I didn't know that first part was a song! THAT'S NOT MUSIC! IT'S NOISE! I'm thankful they didn't start singing because WHO KNOWS what that would have sounded like?"

I kept telling her that I tried to warn her. After that, she was very cynical anytime I invited her to go with me to experience live music. "It's not going to be like the Casbah, is it?"

Jolz would go with me to these local performances from time to time to hear music that was definitely more pleasing to her ear. There was a rather accomplished San Diego singer-songwriter I will refer to as Leed. I kept trying to get Jolz to go with me to see her. I think she was rather intimidated by Leed, even though she'd never met her. Leed had recently published a book and I had bought a copy. I saw Jolz looking at it when she was at my apartment. She was probably thinking, "This is someone who's had a book published. I can't meet this person. What would I say?"

She would always agree to go with me to see her, but then back out at the last second, claiming she wasn't feeling well or had a headache. Sometimes, this happened right after we made love. Well, you know that made me feel good.

And of course, you know she didn't care much for the music I composed. What kind of girlfriend was this?

But I was about to end up seeing less of her. More on that tomorrow.

Girlfriend #7: Jolz, Part 3

Now that Jolz and I were pretty much official, I had to meet her parents. I came over one evening before Jolz and I were going to go out to dinner. They were nice people and they didn't seem to mind that I was about 12 years older than their daughter. They were both also very overweight. (The whole family was like this, even Fand and Asd.)

While we were driving to the restaurant, Jolz asked me what kind of relationship I wanted. Did I want us to be committed boyfriend-girlfriend, or did I just want it to be sexual without the commitment? At this point, I hadn't had enough sex to separate it from how I felt about someone. I told her I wanted us to be boyfriend-girlfriend. "Okay, good!" I don't know what would have happened if I'd chosen the other option.

Jolz told me a few details about her life. Her boss at Volunteers of America was also her best friend. On Friday nights, she would hang out with her friend and her husband, get drunk and pig out. This meant we could only go out on Saturday nights. She obviously didn't want me ever seeing her do that. I can't say that I wanted to.

But fairly soon after that, there was a Friday night that she wasn't going to be spending with her boss. AND her parents were going to be out of town for the weekend. She invited me to come spend the night with her. I agreed. I was looking forward to this.

She had me come meet her at Volunteers of America that Friday. I arrived and she was coming out of the main office. It was payday and she was out in the common area counting her money. The first thought that entered my mind was, "Uh, this is the last place you want to be seen flashing your cash." But before I could speak, a resident came up to her and asked, "Hey, Jolz, can you loan me some money?" She replied sternly, "No, I can't!" "Why not?" "Because it's against the rules!" "Well, I never heard of that rule!" and the resident simply walked away. I had to admit that even though she brought that on herself, I admired the way she stood her ground and handled that situation.

After that, we drove to Hometown Buffet, where her brother and sisters were waiting for us. Before we went in, there was some kind of tense discussion in which Jolz accused her siblings of not liking me very much. I guess they all knew I was going to be spending the night and were giving her a hard time about it, but I had no idea any of this was going on. (And I assume they started feeling this way about me after they found out that I was more than ten years older than Jolz.) It didn't matter. I was still planning on spending the night.

After we went back to her house, it was nothing but mayhem. I guess they always acted like this when the parents were gone. At this point, I wasn't certain if Jolz and I were going to be sleeping in the same bed. I didn't even know if we were going to be able to sleep with all the ruckus. Eventually, everyone went to their bedrooms. Jolz and I stayed in her parents' waterbed.

We did not make love, but we did engage in activities of a sexual nature. We fell asleep in each others' arms. After a couple of hours, she heard something going on in the kitchen and went outside to investigate. She told me to stay in the room. I could hear her yelling at someone to leave. After a few minutes of talk, whoever it was finally left. She came back in and told me it was a friend of her brother's who wasn't allowed to be in the house.

Nothing else happened the rest of the night. I didn't realize this, but that would be the last time I would spend the night at her house.