The Choice Is Yours

I Choose Curtain Number One! ( I think)

When I was growing up there was a television game show on CBS called "Let's Make A Deal"... and people did all sorts of outlandish things to be chosen to compete for prizes (often hidden behind curtains, panels or inside boxes)... You could win almost anything from a new car to a goat depending on the choices you made.  It was really the first time in my young life that I learned all of our decisions in real life will have consequences either positive or negative depending on what you picked. Life  luckily I learned early  was all about choices and using some forethought and reasoning before making them greatly helped... But not always; it took me a while before I realized you can drive around in a new car not really knowing where you are going or you can go in business and make goat cheese.

 Before I go on I'm going to tell you that about the only thing I will not be dealing with in this blog are politics and religion. I think both are extremely important and both very personal choices and I respect everyones right to their choice and beliefs... by the same token please respect my choices and beliefs and my choice that they remain personal and only discussed behind closed doors and not publicly (I think if everyone felt this way it would be the end of most war and strife--- but only my humble opinion)

Ok now that I've got that out of the way... Life is a lot easier if you don't have to take a stand on issues or what is happening in the world... I pretty much go my own way and walk down the street whistling a happy tune... unless someone abusing a child, disabled person, senior citizen or animal or is trying to pass legislation with it's roots in their political or religious beliefs as a byproduct of hate, ignorance or prejudice--- Am I the only one that recognizes that now more than ever we need to have clear boundaries between church and state?... and why can't we go back to something simple like "What two consenting adults choose to do with one another behind closed doors is nobody's business as long as they are not breaking a critical common law that we are all held to equally?"  OK taking a stand is not always easy as there are currently countries and states I will not visit due to their stance on some fairly important issues... There are also stores I will not shop in, hotels I won't stay in, paper towels I won't buy and a laundry list of other products and services I decline to support--- Luckily for me I have other choices and it saddens me that many do not. Many of my decisions and choices are often made with one simple question I ask myself... "Is this going to matter to me a year from now?"

Moving on... I love to cook mostly because I love delicious food and sharing it with friends and loved ones... but I came to it almost almost as a form of therapy because I learned if you buy things and follow directions you can create the most amazing delacies... and if you practice you can alter recipes and put your own spin on something and create something even more amazing.  I sometimes wished that there was a cook book for life and it would tell us what ingredients we needed and what to do and everything would turn out wonderful.... but alas we have to use our talent, intelligence and instincts to navigate the sometime winding road in life and I've leaned to trust my instincts and sometimes empathy without  worrying I'm being judgemental ( I have a sure fire way of figuring out if someone is an asshole... but don't ask it's a secret) and it makes making decisions about people and things much easier sometimes---- But then you sometimes get the wild card of fate that throws that curve ball straight out of left field in to your eye socket when you least expect it. Then it's just a matter of making the best possible decisions available to get you on track to where you wanted to go in the first place--- It is sometimes easier to see this from a distance; I  once had an acquaintance who was very charming and handsome man from England... he essentially was lazy and he made the worst possible decisions available because he was trying to take a short cut... he went into pornography, became a drug addict and killed someone for money... he is in prison now... I don't know how anyone could not see this was going to end badly ( I was not there for all of the details in real life and some facts are never revealed about a life and it's actions when you read the distillation of the facts in the newspaper)... But  the one thing I know in all of this is if you make the worst possible choices you are going to create the worst possible ending.

All of the choices I've made that have back fired and kicked me in the shins have been mostly because I was trying to take a short cut or choosing something only because it was more lucrative than what would have been the better more rewarding choice.... One of my favorite movies of all time is "The Young Girls Of Rochefort" with Catherine Deneuve her sister Francoise Dorleac, Gene Kelly and someone who I met later in life named Grover Dale (I'll get back to Grover in a minute) The movie was about chance encounters and missed opportunities and hope for what lies down the road... it has a song named " You Must Believe In Spring---  There were times in my life I had some difficulty getting out of bed in the morning and facing the cold grey light of dawn and what the day had in store for me...

However I soon realized that if I gave up all the important and positive aspects in my life would soon start to evaporate so I choose to look forward to spring.

Some things in life just fly in the window no matter what you had planned you just have to let go and get on with your life... At one point in my life I was doing the rounds for agents and was not having the greatest success... I heard " You are too tall, you are too short, you are too thin, you are too fat, you are too pretty, you are too plain... blah blah blah have a nice day drop dead, don't call us we'll call you--- goodbye!"-- On a flight from NY to LA  sitting next to me was my (soon to be) new  agent Wilhelminia Cooper  who said " You are just exactly who I've been looking for" ( I'm never going to forget that moment or her as long as I live) 

A series of other agents, opportunities and choices presented themselves as a result of that meeting until I eventually wound up doing commercial and print work and I wound up in the Summer issue of Gentlemen's Quarterly  (It used to be published quarterly---  now it's GQ)

OK that's not me... it's Nati Abascal and Bob Menna... they were so...so sophisticated and worldly and glamourous and everything I ever dreamed of including having that Look of New York I wanted so badly... Eventually I attained the look and found my way on to the cover of the magazine about five years later (before they started using only celebrities and professional athletes on the cover and in most of the editorials)... That whole world was a whirlwind of choices, experiences and memories and adventures that led me to where I'm standing now... but I'm trying to shed that New York look and get back to the more innocent blonde, sun tanned boy-next-door I used to be--- but sometimes once you make a choice that is tightly woven in time and distance you can't turn back.

More than anything I think I've been really lucky but  there has been a certain amount of bravery and fortitude involved too. There is a book called  "Pretty Little Mistakes" by Heather McElHatton it is a book with one beginning and 150 endings (You can go back and get a do over and see what happens if you made the other choice) It's a great book for a trip and highly entertaining but nothing works like this in real life; you have to deal the bad reviews and the standing ovations because you rarely have one without the other.

When I met Grover Dale he told me he used to drive to the set of "The Young Girls Of Rochefort" with Francoise Delorac and she made him stop the car once so  she could get out and pull an animal to the side of the road that had been hit and killed by another car so it would not continue to be hit by other on coming cars... She said to him "If you were in the middle of road like that would you not want someone to pull you aside so you would not continue to be hit and run over?"... Since I heard that hard that story I have always made that choice as well.


See you next week--- Go out and do something scary and fun this week. It's what I'm planning but I have not yet narrowed down all of my delicious choices.