My Name is BrADD

WHERE AM I?

BrADD — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:31:26 +0000

Giving up today. Running out of options. Destined for mediocrity, which sinks me deeper into depression. The more depression, the more I want to drink or smoke weed. My moral compass jittering. Staring at the wall. Letting time pass and wasting away. Going through the motion to keep my soul from atrophy-ing but maybe it’s just too late. Adderall not really helping. Makes me poop, melancholy, and thirsty. But losing my drive and ambition. What’s the point in anything? Not looking to be saved anymore. Losing the drive to make sense of things. I’ve accepted that nothing makes sense to me. Philosophy is just a contradiction and a way someone justifies his bad behavior.

Thank God for porn.

In the Company of Another

BrADD — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:57:34 +0000

I wrote this poem in January 2001, having no idea I had ADD. Reading it now – knowing this mutant power lives inside me, I realize how insane I was feeling. Any of you ADDers feel like this? What do you do about relieving these feelings?

People say all the time I’m this or I’m that

Some want my blessing for some it’s tit for tat

Or maybe just to fill some God-shaped void

I turn a deaf ear past the shallow affection

So they give up fighting for my attention

They think it’s too hard, the price too steep

It’s not hard to find, but not easy to keep

I’m not looking for love

I’m looking for forever

I’m fine if I don’t find it ‘cause

What’s worse than being alone

In the company of another

I’m sorry I gave you a ring

I didn’t mean to bug you

It’s ok, know talk’s not your thing

just wondering how you’re doing

Thanks for your time I’ll see you around

Maybe next time if I’m back in town

As I wait at the stop opportunities past me by

Like buses headed to places other people wanna try

Thanks for stopping but I’m not getting on

I’m just gonna wait for the right one to come along

I’m not looking for love

I’m searching for forever

If I don’t find it that’s okay ‘cause

What’s worse than being alone

In the company of another

Is the price of waiting worth all the pain

Just for someone to ride my train

Looking for connection, the comfort of being

Why is the simple life so excruciating?

I’m not searching for love

I’m waiting for forever

I’m fine if I don’t find it

What’s worse than feeling alone

In the company of another

Under The Bridge

BrADD — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:32:30 +0000

Being ADHD in a town that can be so NOT ADHD friendly is rough on the knees. This could be an ADD theme song. I dedicate this to my therapist and coach, KK.

UNDER THE BRIDGE – Red Hot Chili Peppers

Sometimes I feel
Like I dont have a partner
Sometimes I feel
Like my only friend
Is the city I live in
The city of angel
Lonely as I am
Together we cry

I drive on her streets
cause shes my companion
I walk through her hills
cause she knows who I am
She sees my good deeds
And she kisses me windy
I never worry
Now that is a lie

I dont ever want to feel
Like I did that day
Take me to the place I love
Take me all the way

Its hard to believe
That theres nobody out there
Its hard to believe
That Im all alone
At least I have her love
The city she loves me
Lonely as I am
Together we cry

I dont ever want to feel
Like I did that day
Take me to the place I love
Take me all the way

Under the bridge downtown
Is where I drew some blood
Under the bridge downtown
I could not get enough
Under the bridge downtown
Forgot about my love
Under the bridge downtown
I gave my life away

Hi God – I hope you read blogs…

BrADD — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:50:34 +0000

… because I’m pretty sure you haven’t been answering my prayers. Quick question — why didn’t you tell me I had ADD until just now? If you were that busy, could you have told someone else to tell me? ‘Cause here’s the deal: for almost four decades, I thought my head space was merely the result of the complete lack of love in the family. I’ve honed coping mechanisms and chased stuff I thought were keeping me even keel to compensate for that void. Somehow, I’ve managed to piss off practically every single person I’ve ever met because of my big mouth. I’ve kept friends that enabled my behavior but didn’t enhance my life. I’m surrounded by the massive clutter of half-finished projects that looked so promising when I first conjured them up. I do admit, I’ve always had pretty great sex and embarked on some crazy adventures, like that fetish party in Malibu and spending all my money traveling on a whim, so that’s cool. But you know what? Because I was literally out of my mind, I lost the love my life, a woman who was my best friend. I wanted to marry her. Now she doesn’t want anything to do with me. IT”S NOT MY FAULT!

All because I was blessed with a special blend of ADD. Mixed in with a family support system that expressed very little love. I feel fucked in the ADD.

So now, I have to start all over again and re-learn my social skills and basic approach to life. It’s a bummer.

As you know, I pay someone to listen to me once a week, because normal people have little idea what I’m going on about most of the time. It really sucks to only be able to talk to a confidante for forty five minutes a week.

Please don’t give me that crap about “it’s all part of the journey,” mister. It hasn’t been a journey. It’s been a damn endless spiral. I’ve been chasing everything. I thought I was cool and eccentric. Turns out I’m socially retarded. Thank God (that’s you) for the Vyvanse. At least it’s severely reduced my porn intake. And I’m not chasing the girls. But it is turning me into a Stepford Wife.

I have an idea, but please, take this with a grain of salt, because I don’t know if it’s the ADD talking, but if I have to start all over, could I start over as a baby again? This particular social experiment of yours is failing. Miserably.

And stop telling me, “Try to be positive — at least you don’t have irritable bowel syndrome.” That’s not helping.

A CLOWN’S CONUNDRUM

BrADD — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:55:09 +0000

He’s running far away from what was God given
Looking for the day when the sun bathes him in its light
Even without praying for it all the time
He’s spinning in circles in the patterns of his misbehavior
Where did it all go wrong like a bad clown’s dream

He tap dances with his mortality and his mediocrity
It’s no longer the dream that paves his way
But the fear of normality that saves the day
Scrambled eggs sustains him and makes him whole
But only when they’re runny and mixed with cheese

Cannot write to save his life
Cannot love to make it right
What happened, he wonders, was it always like this
And was I destined to urinate on myself?

I want to be a clown again and make myself laugh
Please, please, please. I’ll do anything and give everything
Even give my sandwich to the three-legged lady
Except give up my dream but even she is threatening to leave
This is the conundrum isn’t it?

Give up and be free or fight and wither in the cold of myself

Have Chutzpah. Need VyVanse.

BrADD — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 07:56:24 +0000

When I sit in a movie theater and I finish a movie that I love, say a Juno, a Rushmore, a Royal Tenenbaums, a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I always leave thinking, I want to tell stories like that. Quirky, irreverent, funny. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot. I have some wacky, surreal, incredibly bizarre stories from all my travels. If you sat all my friends down from all parts of my life in one afternoon BBQ, you would be amazed by my circus of a life. You can imagine why that is… not wanting to be bored, thirsting for new experiences, wanting to learn about everything in a Studs Turkel kind of way.

I have a unique point of view and it burns my blood, yearning to tell those stories to the world. It’s all in my head, just waiting to come out and dance around on the stage or on film.

I have grand visions. I am an idea man and many of them are easily worth millions of dollars. I see the big picture of running a fun and cool production company, but every time I get going, I don’t know what it is, but I get derailed and I end up staring at the ceiling.

Problem is, I don’t have the chemical makeup to make those visions into a reality. I’m so disorganized (except when I’m in someone else’s structured world, then I am a field general), I have too many spinning plates around me and I can’t seem to keep them spinning without dropping one, and typically it’s the big Platzgraff plate.

But I know I can do it. I know it’s in me. I’m a hard worker. I’m smart. Here’s an example: When I was in college I spent the entire year blowing off Physics class. I was getting a D- going into finals. Finals was a huge part of the final grades. I put it in eighth gear. I must have done every single homework assignment in two nights to learn an entire year’s worth of physics. I got an A- on the final and ended up with a C in the class. WTF is my problem?

I’m trying to figure out how to get out of Target without being so overwhelmed.

I seem to consistently partner up with people who don’t have the chops or who haven’t paid their dues. WTF?

I spent all night filled over the brim with chutzpah.

Then it got overwhelming again. Flooded with possibilities, I stand still instead. Running to stand still. These are the moments I wish I had a dad who could help me write a letter.

So it turns out I’m probably not going to write anything. It’s so much easier to just be around the people “trying to make it” than the people who are are already incredibly successful.

I take a VyVanse. It works to keep me focused, but it’s a matter of 1) what shoud I be focused on? and 2) contending with all the scar tissue caused by all my past patterns of self-sabotage. At this moment, I’m inspired to find a coach, which brings up another issue…

Cash flow. And to follow my heart and my dreams of writing and directing I cannot go back to making $12,000 a week and doing what I’m very good at. I just can’t. Like someone told me once, “it’s chump change.”

I’m an ADD Omelet Scrambling to Happen.

BrADD — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:10:21 +0000

What? Who knows. It sounded cool when it arrived in my head, so I just said it. That’s ADD for you. Not thinking before speaking. Working on it!

I have big ideas. With only small powers to execute. I can’t. I have ADD. I recently found out. My feelings are mixed – regret about the past, encouraged about the future, stuck in the moment. I just took my 2nd Adderall pill tonight. But instead of working on my Great American Play, I’m writing this damn blog.

I signed up for an ADD support group. It’s something, right? I have visions of seeing Meatloaf with his big boobs sobbing all over me ala Fight Club. Will it be a circle of people who are incessantly rambling? Will we pay attention to each other’s testimonials from start to finish or will our minds be wandering around the room, floating in helium-state toward space?

I have a deadline for my play on June 2, and here I am dicking around on a blog. A cry for help? Who’s really listening anyway? I write these blogs for posterity, so when I’m found face down, they can read this and make an independent movie out of it.

Turning the Corner

BrADD — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:56:11 +0000

TURNING THE CORNER

The hail comes
coping with hope
surprised
the capacity for human behavior
derailed
hindered
trying to forget
I have admiration
for people who can forget about you
People who come and go
I don’t have that talent
Is there a drug for that?
Move forward, soldier.
Nothing to see here.
Finish the goddam story already.
“She buries me. She makes me invisible.”
the city I live in.
craving to be heard
needing a hand.
“where is this love”
“all i hear are easy words”
closer to what?

Centrifugal force
Too great
To turn the corner

I’m an Adderall All-Star

BrADD — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:16:02 +0000

I woke up with a bad feeling. A ticking clock over my head. Time is running out, isn’t it? Stuck in a Metairie hotel with a stove and dishes and pans, and I had some kind of epiphany yesterday that I was going to save money by going to the grocery store and cook my own food. But I forgot to buy dishwashing liquid and a sponge. Just don’t feel like going out to the grocery store again today because this ticking clock is forcing me to sit at my laptop to finish the screenplay. So I’ll just nuke a hot dog or eat some granola cereal. And then I’ll take an Adderall. Then I’ll write for hours and hours and hours. Hopefully.

Shut up the Village Idiot, Ranting in the Middle of the Night

BrADD — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 08:24:20 +0000

This was originally written pre-ADHD diagnosis, in the summer of 2007.

Looking for to fill my creative well until my cup runneth over. With a smoke and a laugh. Feeling sticky sweat. Looking to bathe in the unbridled energy of people who believe in me. Despite myself.
Looking for a sleep that hasn’t come since I tried checking out hours ago. Eyes closed. Head open for business. Soul a gaping wound. Looking for to fill my God-shaped hole. Wandering. Wondering. Fighting to live the Art of Faith amongst all the dark voices conspiring once again to eclipse the love light.

Three more hours then back to the factory where we make the laughing gas for all the unsuspecting viewers of the Nickel-and-dime-odeon basic cable lot. Three more hours til the Santa Clarita heat that broils the underbelly of my personal hell — being surrounded by the undead, staring down the barrel of love fallen, torn between stopping the nails in the chalkboard of my head with one trigger or making the blind and fantastic leap into the Brave New World of my true passion – directing.

Praying out loud, to drown out the noise that just won’t stop. Scratching and crawling, at the door, begging – just stop enough to let in Little Joy again. Just for a minute.

All my absurd Spinal Tap life, the broken dial, stuck on eleven, scaring them all away. Fumbling to find zero. Just for a minute?

It’s three o’clock and no one is around. Just a bang and a clatter as an angel hits the ground.

Too late. Time to rise again to make everyone else’s dreams come true. The dead horse needs beating again. Rewind. Repeat. God, make it stop. Just for a minute.

Want to be the song that I hear in my head. Here’s the mash-up currently in circulation:

Where’s the girl with the kaleidoscope eyes? Just can’t get enough of that lovey-dovey stuff. Why she had to go I don’t know, she wouldn’t say. I believe in yesterday. Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out. My mind is not for rent. To any God or government. Always hopeful, yet discontent. Know changes aren’t permanent. But change is.

God, make it stop. Are you in the room? Are you in my head?

People don’t say hello often enough…at least that’s what I’m observing. Looking to have you at hello.