The Confession. The Promise

Monster Machine - Daniel's Tumblr

Hi Charlie.
I love you.

Hi Charlie.
I love you,
And I don’t know what I’m doing.

*  *  *  *

Writing to find you —
Fighting to find me.

Drowning to deliver this.

*  *  *  *

Father.

Let me begin with Father.

The task which accompanies that crown.
The horror of that confession,
Perfectly and unfortunately True.

Perhaps then, you can find a voice to trust?
 A secret public promise.
Only for you. 
Only for everyone.

Let me dig around for that last scrap of virtue;
That stubborn good which survived even the beauty I’ve betrayed.

*  *  *  *

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Dear Twitter

Monster Machine - Daniel's Tumblr

A little over a year ago, my daughter was born.

The ensuing months disappeared too fast, Charlotte grew ever more immaculate and several pursuits which used to consume a good percentage of my time, all but evaporated.

Sleep was one.
Twitter was another.
 

I had essentially closed the door to this strange and delicious kingdom of distraction. If I made any effort, it was half-assed and pedestrian.
Obligatory. A little insincere.

 Yes. One could easily argue –

Welcome to Fatherhood, Boner-Clown.

And you’d be kind of right.
I am a Boner-Clown.
Just not an entirely oblivious Boner-Clown.

Truth is, I’d lost interest. The more time I spent away, the further I felt from the desire to participate within this maze. The idea of returning aroused the fear that I was without an identity on this thing.

So I guess this was an act of restraint.
An abstinence from Twitter.
At least until I figured out what I wanted to say and more importantly:

What I would like Twitter to be.

I’m still not certain I know the answer.
But at least I’m asking the question.
So I’m not completely irresponsible.

Q: Who gives a shit?  ­­
A: Probably very few.

For the very few: Continue.
For everyone else: Disregard.

 

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Daniel Gillies on Casey Affleck in 'The Assassination of Jesse James'

Daniel Gillies
(via Backstage)

There are so few actors who shake us to our core -- Michelle Williams, Mads Mikkelsen, Niels Arestrup, Jessica Chastain, Isabelle Huppert, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Casey Affleck. If this were the 1970s, we'd be lining up around the block to watch these people. This doesn't happen today. Finding performances that resonate with me personally is both sublime and extremely rare.

To pick one, I recently re-watched Affleck in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," in which he played Ford, who worships Jesse [Brad Pitt] and eventually murders him. Ford is essentially this obsequious, diminutive rodent at the feet of the internationally famous outlaw. I felt that Casey did something deeply courageous with his work here. He embraced the task of playing an ostensibly loathsome creature with great dimension and empathy. He brought dignity to something most actors would have presented as a lowly caricature. He was heartbreaking, desolate, and lonely in a way I'd never seen. To me, it's one of the most remarkable performances of the last decade.

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Black and Blue

Monster Machine - Daniel's tumblr

Weeping sky and gypsy bed,
Over streets of all unsaid,
A broken window to a cage,
The emperor of empty page.

You scream anthem to the night,
Out across the moon wet plight,
Vaulting over souls of stone,
Who wait for war and wait alone.

The book we wrote was fast asleep,
I tore that song,
I trampled love,
With dirty little feet.

Wading through the cruel debris,
A blind girl whispers to the sea,
On good ships built of dream and bone,
To sail these shadows of the throne.

Waves will strike the naked day,
I will grieve and look away,
When even good is venom too,
Between the ghost and church of you.

The book we stole was fast asleep,
I tore that song,
I trampled love,
With dirty little feet.

She will steal the mirror mist,
Marching over every kiss,
In every room a savage space,
Where thank you fled with my disgrace.

My hands stained with barren truth, 
As sand will fall from royal youth,
Bent beneath that troubled globe,
A prisoner in judge’s robe.  

The book we read was fast asleep,
 I tore that song, 
I trampled love,
With dirty little feet. 

Fools will stand in flaming rain,
With open palms on open plains,
As traitors wait with branded brow,
To ravage all and kiss the now.

We’ll play dress up Queens and Kings,
We’ll wage war with diamond rings,
We will carry stone and sling,
We will silence everything.

The book we burned was fast asleep,
I tore that song, 
I trampled love.