California Dreaming

Well, I'm in California.

And I miss it more than I ever thought possible.

I miss the break of the surf in the afternoon.

I miss the fog rolling into the bay as I drive down the highway.

I miss the family that I have in my friends and the friends I have in my family.

My friends are all getting married...perhaps I'm sentimental.

Perhaps I'm not doing everything I want to...

...Perhaps there is still time.

The Second Transport Has Been Vaporized

Well, the goals are getting eradicated one by one.

The Omelette is on its way.

I thru-hiked all 16 mikes of the Zion Narrows--in 5 hours and 55 minutes.

I have started to prep Hamlet.

So, things are moving along.

I'm getting restless though.

I keep questioning "what's next?", though I really should be concentrating solely on each individual moment.

Such is life.

There are more things in heaven and earth...

More soon.

-J

The first transport is away...

...or, rather, the habit of blogging (almost typed "blooging") has been away.

I'm still in the deserts of Southern Utah, still acting away at the Shakespeare Festival.

Still wrapping my mind around training.

Still wrapping my body around wellness.

Still wrapping my senses around mother nature.

The summer has gone well, so far. I've done some serious hiking, though I want to do much more than I've done.

The shows are going well. Still battling the "In Training" monster every time I walk on stage. Some breakthroughs, some breakdowns, some broken joints. Well, not broken. Strained. All for a cause, to be sure.

In a change of pace, The Dark Knight opens in a couple days.

Those of you who know me, well, you know how I feel about this.

"Giddy" and "Schoolgirl" fit into a sentence of sorts.

Goals for remaining Utah time:

-Through Hike the Zion Narrows
-Camp in Bryce
-Seek Anazazi Ruins
-Return to The Escalante and Hell's Backbone
-Take a Canyoneering Class
-Master the perfect omelette.
-Start on Hamlet
-Keep on Keepin' On

Cheers,

Justin

I Want to be Captain America.

Yep. I want to play Captain America.

That is all.

-J

Utah's for Lovers...

...or people who want to do what they can to find a drink, and/or seek death in Mother Nature's arms.

I choose to do both of those things.

The initial two weeks here at USF have been going well. I'm loving rehearsals, loving my company members, and loving getting to wake up, go to the gym, go to rehearsal, have a drink, lather, rinse, repeat. I do well with this life. Or this life does well with me. Or something.

Also, I'm loving hitting the trails every weekend.

This last week I went on a solo hike in Zion National Park. I chose Angel's Landing, which is pretty much a 5 mile round-trip involving serious elevation gains and a lot of open exposure during the last half-mile. Here's the view from the top:



Which, you know, is cool.

I attempted to speed-hike the trail, which was all good. I made good time from the trailhead to the beginning of the climbing/scramble section.



But the tight trail-space and volume of touristas on the trail pretty much killed my goal of ascending and descending in 1:30. 'Cause, well, it's a tight space with massive drop-offs.



But that's cool. I still had a fantastic time.

Anyway, things go well, here.

More to come anon, and such.

Cheers,

Justin

I lived, by-the-way. Thanks for asking.

The Road to Utah: Day 1

We're on the road.

Me, Drew, and Corey. On the road to Utah.

After an EXTREMELY exciting morning of packing up the car.

Ever duct tape a bike to the roof of an SUV?

You should try it sometime. Really.

And yes. It works. So far.

Although I keep waiting for the sudden sound of aluminum ripping away from its "secure" tape at 70 miles per hour, chaos ensuing behind our car as our bikes are turned to pollen by a semi-truck.

We. Shall. See.

So, after a pretty easy 8 hours, and multiple stops at Army Surplus stores, fireworks "super shops" and one too many Cracker Barrels, we arrived in Kansas City, KS (where Drew is from), only to be greeted by his parents with open arms and a tornado warning. Yep. Tornado warning. Good times.

However, the storm passed, we had some dinner, and all is well.

A note about non-urban Middle America:

All males must wear sleeveless t-shirts and sport goatees, on pain of death.

Apparently.

Something I do dig: the way you can drive for hours through farm country, sparsely populated, and then suddenly: BAM. Urban center, choked with life.

There's something kind of, well, soothing about it.

I don't know why.

Because I'm tired.

So it's off to bed.

Tomorrow, it's on through Kansas to Denver.

Cheers.

Busy is as Busy Does

My name is Justin Matthew Gordon.

I am a workaholic.

I took on a few too many things for the month of April, but I'm making due.

Hence the whole "not blog much" thing.

However, I would like to report that all is well in the Land of Lincoln.

I just closed a very rewarding production of Measure for Measure, in which I feel I made some serious leaps in my training here at UIUC.

Also, I'm getting ready to open a production of Adam Rapp's Red Light Winterwhich I directed. It's going to be pretty great, thanks to my actors and design team. I just sit and make observations and clean up some blocking...they're doing a great job.

Then, in three-ish weeks it's off to Mormon country again for a summer of Shakespeare and hiking. Things are, as they say, looking up.

It's only everything...

...isn't it, though?

My best friend Rob is the lead singer of a tremendous Indie band, known as Beezle.

As Rob is my aforementioned best friend and therefore brother, it is only natural that I have been following Beezle since their conception several years ago.

Currently, one of their songs is my favorite songs amongst favorite songs.

The name of this song is "It's Only Everything."

This song is my said favorite because it's hook, it's title, pretty much sums up where I am at during this stage in my life: I have to focus on Only Everything.

Year Two of "The Great Illinois Sojourn" I call grad school is over in six week. Then it's a summer of Shakespeare in Utah and one more year here in the cornfields. Then it is...where? Possibilities are endless, yet limited. Ostensibly, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago (in descending order) are my viable choices, career-speaking.

So, if I descend on one of these cities, what do I give?

Why, Only Everything.

And what does Everything entail? My talent, my relationship, my friendships, my family, my self? Can I give everything I have to be something I aspire to? Is greatness derived from absolute success in my field, or is success in my field derived from absolute greatness?

Do I want to hold my cake and taste it at once?

I have friends who are fans but no fans who are friends.

I have everything and nothing, which is Only Everything.

I'm just a drunk in a band.

A band of actors, making their way forward, ever forward.

However, one thing can be said now: I love where I'm at. I love where I am headed. What's missing is...Only Everything.

Thanks, Rob...for writing this song.

Jobby Job

Heyo!

Just some summer job update stuff:

I'll be back at the Utah Shakespearean Festival this summer, playing Valentine in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and Cassio in "Othello."

I'm pretty stoked.

School goes well. Currently playing Angelo in "Measure for Measure" and directing "Red Light Winter" by Adam Rapp. I'm also learning to juggle, do backflips, be a ninja, and generally being a clown.

Seriously.

Hope all is well with all y'all.

Much love.

-J

RIP, Heath Ledger

So, like much of the world today, I was shocked and saddened to hear of Heath Ledger's sudden death.

And I'm sure I'm not the first person to write about it in a blog, either.

But as an artist, as an ACTOR, this hit me hard.

He was several months younger than me.

He had nothing but potential. His work in 'Brokeback Mountain' was superb. And after 'The Dark Knight' comes out, and the mass public sees what he did with The Joker, I'm sure his career would have sky-rocketed. And now, naked in a subleased apartment surrounded by pills, his candle burns out. It's a damn shame.

Life can go away at any moment. It's important to remember that. When we, as actors, complain about our roles. Are slow to memorize our lines. Moan about how hard our life is.

But it is the life we've chosen.

We should work our asses. Off.

Heath Ledger's passing has made me realize one thing: work as hard as I can, because tomorrow I may not get the chance.

RIP, Mr. Ledger. You're an inspiration, and you'll be missed.

J Matt's Winter Vacation-Epilogue

Wow. Fell off of the road-trip blog wagon there. Sorry about that.

Anyhoo...

I'm now back in Urbana after 4-ish weeks in Cali. I had a good time. Saw friends, family, animals...some all at the same time. The highlights, I'd have to say, involved the animals. Take for instance these Elephant Seals I saw outside of Cambria, CA. I give ye seal videos:






I dug them.

Quite.

At any rate, I don't have much to say. Home was, and continues to be, exhausting and welcoming at the same time. Nostalgia, distance, regret, hope...all of these feeling carried equal weight with me.

And if I learned anything from the trip, it was this:

No regrets. Move forward.

Happy 2008!

Some more photos:

A bridge in Big Sur, near where I used to live:



The Donner Party Memorial...I drove past here 2 days before this whole area was snowed out.

Happy to be back home!

Cheers,

J

J Matt's Winter Vacation-Happy Christmas

A message from moi:




Cheers,

J

J Matt's Winter Vacation, Days 5-7

This is a big country.

And I have been doing some serious driving.

on Thursday (four days ago) I went from Santa Fe, through Vegas.

All I can say is the high southwest desert is absolutely gorgeous.

And I HATE the way I feel when I drive through Native American reservations.

Why? Because these people really were routed from their land and forced into these patches of expansive, desolate land. And then in order to survive they have to trade on the general public opinion of what an Indian is.

Examples:





Anyway. That aside, on the road from Santa Fe to the City of Sin, I met some really nice, kind, giving people. I also stopped in this Pueblo:



(the Pueblo of Laguna) in western New Mexico to get gas, then found myself doing some shopping. My family has a strong native side, one of which my mom is really proud of, so I stopped to pick her up some stuff. I was struck at how much this Pueblo, and many of the other Pueblos in New Mexico feel like they belong in the third world. They are still the homes of many different tribes, yet they feel like archaeological sites in some ways. Beautiful, but also kind of sad. And in their own way, they made me appreciate my native heritage more than I have in the past.

Anyway, the drive to Vegas pretty much looked like this along the way:



One highlight was passing the Continental Divide, where rainfall divides equally in draining toward the Pacific and Atlantic oceans:



Then I passed by one major anomaly in the desert landscape: The Meteor Crater in central AZ. Millions of years ago, a meteor (of which this rock here is a fragment of):



crashed into the desert, blacking out the sky, and sending debris around a five-mile radius. The crater itself is about 1000 feet deep, and over a mile across. And here it is:



And here I am at the bottom of it:



OK, not really. Due to the delicate nature of the site, you aren't allowed to hike on the crater, or down into it, for that matter. But what you can do is take a photo in the museum with the bottom of the crater as the background. You can tell from the blatant overhead lighting on my face that it's an obvious fake. Otherwise I'd tell you about how I "totally was a badass and broke the rules to totally run to the bottom of the crater, where I fought the crater protecting ninja brigade to the death...."

So much for my plan.

Then it was further east to Flagstaff, and into Nevada and Hoover Dam. Mind you, I hit Hoover at the twelve-hour mark, so my mental state was somewhat...altered. This video will attest to that:



Now, I KNOW Hoover Dam is named after President Hoover. At the time, however, my brain was at about a third-grade level, so there you go.

Then I made it to Vegas:



where I had the largest beer of my life at the Hoffbraus House:



Mmm. Beer.

Then on the road again to California. Which meant 6 more hours of driving through the desert, where I continued a tradition that my friend Rob and I started on our Vegas trips from years past: whenever in the desert as the sun is rising, you must pull over and listen to songs from Radiohead's OK Computer:



However, the desert eventually gave way to farmland near Bakersfield, CA, and some pretty damn adorable sheep:



Yep. Frickin' cute.

After the farmland I hit the highway where James Dean had his ill-fated car crash that took his life. Here's the memorial to him at the spot of the crash in Chalome, California:



Almost at the coast, I come across one of the funniest images I've ever seen in the Salinas Valley...just use your imagination:



Finally, at 5:00 in the evening on Saturday, December 15th, I arrived at Monterey and Carmel Beach just in time for the sunset:



I miss living here.

J Matt's Winter Vacation, Day 3/Day 4

Santa Fe.

Yeah, I could get used to this life...staying in a beautiful house I don't pay for, eating fantastic food, bumming around in museums, hiking canyons, going to archaeological sites, reading plays and novels, writing in my journal...

...yep. That's been my life the past 2.5 days.

But sadly, this must, like all things, end.

I'm in my last night in Santa Fe, drinking a margarita or two and reporting to you, my friends, the trip thus far.

Yesterday I bummed around Santa Fe's plaza area. Checked out an Egyptian exhibit at the Art Museum and an exhibit on the "disappeared" (political prisoners, refugees, victims, etc.) in Nicaragua, as well as a gallery of paintings reflecting the Native American opinion of war at the Native American Cultural Museum. The plaza was cool...lots of Native American craftsman selling their wares, and a bulk of historic buildings. And for lunch I had possibly the best damn meal I've had in a long time:



Green Chile Stew, Pozole (a type of corn simmered in chiles and pork), and an enchilada. Totally spicy, totally awesome.

Then I continued my tour of interesting places in Santa Fe. I found one: the oldest church structure in the United States, the Church of San Miguel:



Even cooler though, was Loretto Chapel, which contains a "miraculous" staircase. According to legend, this stair case stood erect by the will of God alone (there used to be no anchors holding the stair case in place. It spiraled from the ground to the choir loft in a double helix without support--a feat apparently impossible according to the laws of engineering).

And here it is, decorated for your Christmas pleasure:




Cool? When I asked the woman working in the chapel why it was anchored now, she simply said that it was for decoration only, that it wasn't "really" anchored to the adjoining pillars.

God Bless, then.

So that was yesterday.

Then today I went on a bit of an adventure. I drove southwest to Tent Rocks National Monument, where I hiked around these bizarre volcanic formations, as well as into a slot canyon. This chilly winter hike was, well, gorgeous. Just look:



Then I drove a loop through the back country between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I was driving through snow covered trees, and once again...gorgeous. Just look:




I ended up at Bandeliere National Monument, home to cliff dwelling ruins of the ancient Pueblo Indians. Yep. I even managed to get my archaeology fix on this trip. Who knew?





So, now it's further west. Arizona to Vegas to Cali. More to come.

J Matt's Winter Vacation, Day 2/Day 3 Begins.

Whew.

Made it to Santa Fe.

Day two was spent driving through The Last Great Midwestern Ice Storm, 2007.

Yeah. Good times.

A common theme along the road was my screaming "Ohhhhhh.....SHIT!" and swerving.

A Video Sampling:





Another common theme was the countless big rigs that were sliding, flipping, and jack-knifing all over the place.

Not cool, man. Not cool.

And as for Oklahoma and northern Texas, well, this speaks for itself:



However, 11 hours after leaving Tulsa, OK, I have arrived. And Santa Fe is great.

I wandered around the plaza last night, and found a cool little restaurant called "The Shed", and had the hottest yet most flavorful enchiladas I have ever had. No joke. Even started taking notes/roughing out a draft for an indie film. We'll see where it goes.

Then I went back to my aunt and uncle's vacation home and promptly passed out after reading a chapter in "The Sun Also Rises", by my man Hemingway.

And today I woke up to this:





Yeah. It's gonna be a good trip. : )

J Matt's Winter Vacation, Day 1

So, I left Champaign at about noon today, and have arrived at my first stop (of necessity, mind you--not pleasure): Tulsa, OK. The drive here was shitty. The weather: shitty. The drivers in the 9-hour ice storm: Shitty. The people I actually interacted with in person: quite the opposite of shitty.

Because most of the trip so far was in the familiar desolate mid-western winter landscape we all know and loathe (or was in pitch black), I have but one photo to share with you, taken from the side of the road in Joplin, Missouri:




Yep. That's what it says.

The really funny part is that it's an automotive factory.

They make shock absorbers.

Perfect.

Anyway, onward to Santa Fe tomorrow...wish me luck.

Cheerio,

J

Remember, Remember, The Month of December...

Hiya.

So, it's December. Peace, love, joy, cheer, blah-de-blah.

Point is, it is time for my annual visit home to the holy lands of California.

Except this time I'm driving.

I leave Sunday December 9th. I'll be stopping in Santa Fe, New Mexico, possibly Las Vegas, then up to Monterey, CA. I'll be there from about December 15th-20th, then driving down the coast and over to Bakersfield. I'll probably camp in Big Sur on the way down. I'll be in Bakersfield from 22-27th, then in So Cal (L.A./San Diego) through 27th-January 10th. Then I drive back to good ole' Illinois.

I figured I needed a big epic road trip this winter. A little soul searching. A little time doing whatever I feel like for a month.

I look forward to hearing from/seeing all of you that I can on my trip West.

Peace (for real),

J

Blogging is for poor people...

...or for people with more time than I've had lately. Or more time to actually do things like, you know, write about what's going on in my life.

Truth is, I've been a bit under most peoples' radar. On purpose. I mean, I deleted my Myspace in order to get away from, well, everyone.

Why? Well, essentially the past couple of months have been, in a word, dark. I've done a relatively good job of putting up appearances for everyone, even those nearest and dearest to me. But eventually, the walls come crashing down, something has to give, and you end up at the bottom of a well looking towards what you hope is a shaft of light.

I attribute a lot of it to the second year of training here at grad school. The training has been intense, and the emotional "well" has been stirred up quite a bit lately. Every single thing I've been hiding, ignoring, or regretting in my life has been bubbling up--therefore every single thing that may remind me of anything that I have been hiding, ignoring, or regretting in my life has been taking its toll.

Yep. I have some shit. I suppose that's why I'm an actor. Hooray for cliches.

I won't go into the things that have been weighing me down. We'll talk about them freely if I see any of you in person in the future. What I will go into is that I am at least aware of my flaws, my problems, and my burgeoning neurosis...and that will only help me be healthier and happier in the long run. And I'm also pretty sure that it'll help my acting and writing to deepen...it's all a matter of letting the time go by at its own rate to let that maturity happen.

There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. And an even grander providence in that sparrow rising again.

At least, I hope so.

Blessings,

J

29

Is four years longer than I planned on living.

Aint that a bitch?

Really. 25. A blaze of glory. That's when/how I was gonna go.

Instead, I'm now in my second year of grad school drunk on French Pinot Noir, looking through my friends' various photo albums posted online, thinking "gee, that looks great...I wish I was there", or "gee, I feel like I've been replaced", or "gee, I miss that beach", or "gee, I seem like a distant memory to these people."

I have, in a sense, become displaced from my old life. California? Yeah. I used to live there. New York? It still feels equally homey and fracturally distant. My friends' lives seem to accelerate. Marriages. Engagements. New loves.

And I'm just looking for the next job and someone I can tolerate that can tolerate me to go along for the ride.

At 29.

I have become translucent to those I miss most.

I have become a victim of identity theft, not of the credit variety but of the soul.

I have become overtly critical of the very art form I intend to become great at and wealthy from.

I have become bored with my work to the point of death.

But I can't give up on the next job.

I preach hope in my classes yet can find little in the mirror.

I'm good, yet fear I won't get better.

I fear I'm better but won't get good.

I'm lonely.

I'm repulsed.

I listen to the blues. They cheer me up...to scream along with someone else's pain.

To be or not to be: that is the question.

Or is it?

What is the question?

Does the question have to appear now?

It's not appearing.

Apparently.

Good night sweet prince.

There's always the bar.

At 29.

You can try to save some one's life, as long as it isn't your own.

Thanks, Central Park.

NYC in winter.

Alone.

Thanks, East Village.

I'm not myself.

Because I'm trying to help you.

I'd help myself...

...but that's not the point.

This could be a poem...

...too bad it's not.

And if it was a poem...

...it would suck.

Hell(o) cornfields...

...18 months to go.

Then back to New York.

This time in Fall.

Where it will be different.

But the feelings won't be.

The chill of hope.

The smell of the leaves.

The flame of optimism.

May it not blow out.

Out, out brief candle,

Life's but a walking shadow.

It is within the shadows that we regret to trespass.

Don't tread on me.

At 29.

The drugs are not working.

But something else is.

What it is, I know not.

At 29.

The play's the thing.

At 29.

Transatlanticsm.

I learned it from loving you.

At 27.

At 25.

When I should have stopped.

But I keep on.

And will do so.

Because I must.

At 29.

All I have left.

Is what lies before me.

Someday I'll break my staff.

But before that I'll avenge my father's death.

And then I'll conquer France.

And then I'll contemplate in solitude.

And then I'll be on screen.

And then you'll tell me you loved me.

Yet it will be too late.

For I'll be past 29.

In Central Park.

In the autumn.

When the air is chilled.

Yet I'll still stay warm.

There it is.

At 29.

The Sun Also Rises...

Lately, I've been obsessed with Ryan Adam's latest record, 'Easy Tiger'...particularly the track called "The Sun Also Sets". Essentially, it reminds us just how close we are to death, destruction, ruin--all those good happy things. "Gee...really great, Justin...", you may be thinking, "Really, could you maybe be a bit more melancholy? Can you do that for us?" But actually, if you look at the song the way that it is written:

"There it is...we are only one push from the nest...
There it is...we are only one argument from death...
There it is...the sun rises, but the sun also sets..."

it actually reminds us that maybe, just maybe we should start, you know, living in the NOW for a change. Maybe we should start looking for those golden nuggets of hope out there. Maybe we should start finding the joy in our life and work, because at any given moment, that joy can be eradicated. "Live in the now", as they say. Whomever they are.

Oh, and the song title is also a pun on Ernest Hemingway's first novel, which happens to be the title of this blog. For those of you out there, you know, keeping score.

So yes. Basically, things are better. I'm starting to enjoy my work again...which I've not fully done in God knows how long.

I have a lot of work ahead of me for the remainder of this semester. Auditions for summer work, for next season at Krannert, memorization for my two acting classes that I have prevented myself from doing because, you know, I hated acting for awhile there...yeah. I have some things to do.

But at least I feel good about it.

Thanks to my friends for putting up with my bullshit. And for helping me see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Which was pretty far off for some time.

Game on.