This afternoon I saw an amazing film entitled QUINCEANERA. A new film by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. It was a story about a Latino family in Los Angeles and how a teen pregnancy, a gay cousin and gentrification breaks them in half and mends them together. It's a wonderful testament to the importance of human bonding; how love is never packaged the way we wish; and the heartbreaking tragedy of losing the place called home.

I was a little about this film at first. I knew the two filmmakers were not Latino, and nor were they from the Barrio of Los Angeles, but they seduced me quite nicely with their integrity and truth.

Check it out.

Until next time,

Keith

A lot of time has passed since my move from California to Brooklyn, and I must admit... it's been a bit more difficult than I expected. After five years and having space and time to expand my person, to discover and like new and hidden things about myself, after five years of having access to great, healthy and clean food 24-7, of having a group of friends who believe in inventing and exploring new ways to experience one self, it is HARD to return to the most wonderful city in the world.

Very hard.

I love NYC. It is... absolutely thrilling and stimulating and maddening and deafening [and i mean that literally and figuratively]. I love the constant mobility here. I love the theater and the theater artists and the theater participants. I love the films and the film artists and the film goers. I love discovering new and trendy eateries and lounges in and around 7th and 10th Avenues in Manhattan, and Smith Street in Brooklyn.

But what I miss most is... me. Somewhere in this transition into a more creative and intellectual stimulation I've lost me. Not me and my beliefs or convictions or self-awareness. That is in tact and quite thrilling. But I've lost the me who deeply needs space and sky and mountain and ocean and desert. And I miss him.

It's a crazy time for the world. And for me. Navigating one's life can be the most frigthening and bountiful gifts humans can ever receive.

Until next time,

Keith

My three-week rewrite marathon has finally come to a close. Whew! Two plays have been rewritten and repolished and revamped and all I'm interested in now is a production or something damn-near close to a production. I tell you, writing plays can be a very vacuumed experience: all your heart and intellect and hopefully your truth is laid out in 70 pages plus yet... that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean theaters will like it. It doesn't mean it's going to Broadway [hell, off-off Broadway ain't guaranteed either]. It's just you and your ideas and emotions on 70 pages. You alone with your computer for five hours a day for a year [or two, or ten] and no promise that anyone will read it [and in most cases it will just sit on the shelf of some theater and collect dust and most likely be thrown away in five years.] And that can be quite a scary, lonely, frustrating way to exist. And although my plays were express-mailed to my agent and a couple of American theaters [which makes me one of the lucky ones], I still go on with my life with the full adult understanding that nothing may ever happen to these plays and I must live with that.

Until next time,

Keith