This kind of says it all. Don’t be put off by the beginning. Just keep watching…

So it’s about two weeks since starting this thing, this website and, at least for me there’s beginning to energe some sense of what it’s about, it’s point, and perhaps in a funny way, the point of me ,the point of my existing (maybe this will prove true for some of you as well). First of all, it’s not fun to look at oneself in, say, a family photo or in a video, or on one’s own video blog. I feel like I look old, weird and more than a little clown-like. My neck is goofy. My hair really needs to be cut. And I’m sure that many of you who have viewed or read a little of this stuff would agree or even be more critical about what it projects. But – for better of for worse – I feel like it is capturing something of the point of me (the point of maybe more than just me).

I’ve made a couple of little films this week (which are in now in the editing process)– the DGA piece is just a little of one of them. These little mini-shows will show up over the next few weeks. My suspicion is that I’m going to keep doing them. It’s wildly freeing after working with the huge Hollywood crews. And so, okay, maybe I’m a fool for doing it or reading some of the poetry or whatever. Cool. I’d rather just be whatever it is that I really am (fool or not) rather than whatever it is I think I’m supposed to be/or do because of whatever everyone else is doing or thinking around me.

A friend just sent me trailer for a movie called “Precious.” The trailer made me cry. Who knows about the movie? But I think I cried because I feel not as far from the woman portrayed in trailer as I would have liked to believe. My friend said the same thing happened to him. Here’s the trailer. Any thoughts?

2Helga@80 by Stephen Gyllenhaal

Is there a mountain taller than 80?
Could you show it to me, please?
For instance, take Mount Everest:
pretty tall, I’d say, except
when it’s at its top, or near its top
can it begin to talk
of having loved,
of having brought into this world
a single child?

And sure, the view will take away
one’s breath and more:
the tracks of animals in snow,
the sun, the moon that leaves
a ghostly glow,
the cliffs that bring on death
with one mistake,

but does it hold a candle
to the hand that holds
a husband or a daughter moving on
to their own undertow?

Will that gigantic mountain cry?

Or take a building like The Empire State
with all it’s steps that one can climb -
will that come ever near as close
to heights of giving
one small hug or
even a cookie to little fingers,
bones and lips that hunger

for a sister, mother, grandmother, great grandmother?

Or what about the taj mahal, the pyramids and all the jewels
of all the royal kings and queens and masters now
of all the giant crowns of global reach (the cokes,
the nikes, microsofts and kingdoms yet to come
to rule us all and tell us what they think we need)

how do they stand a single chance against a single
glance, a smile, a touch from one who’s reached
to higher than them all by far

for by simply breathing 80
you’re the closest here
to touch a star.

I have set out from that port
(years ago now)
with what I knew
in my Spanish heart
to be the most progressive
thinking (for instance that
the world was not flat.)

I have sailed with
my courageous crew,
using the most modern
navigational gear available
only slowly learning it was
not up to the task which
demanded even more of my men
in those extremely tricky seas.

I, and my investors,
had hoped for
Indian Spice and
Chinese silk and a
cheaper less circuitous route
than the one used at the
time through the
Gobi desert, etc.,

I have instead found
vast new lands and seas
so filled with swimming fish
that you can walk from
an anchored boat to the land
on their backs

and I have confirmed to all
in the civilized world that the
physical world is round.

So it does not seem
unreasonable to me
that all of us
on this mission
deserve to settle
into comfortable homes,
particularly me
who has captained
so much.

And while it’s true
there’s been some
difficulty involving
the red tribes
(an imperfect people,
though filled with a kind
of primitive and powerful
belief system that
might have held
some value for us)
there was plenty of
resources for us all, so
it should have gone better.

And it’s not our fault
that these red people
are particularly upstreperous
around alchohol and I
don’t believe I can be
held responsible for the white
souls who came after me.

And while I must admit
I’m not proud of all the
deeds I’ve done here and
elsewhere (though if you wish to
take the time I have explanations)

still

it seems unjust to me
that our God has found it
so necessary to lose me in
this desert so much worse and
more bewildering than the Gobi,
destroying me humble cabin
and leaving me no clothes but
these rags on me back and
turning all me current dreams

to black.

Stephen Gyllenhaal