When I was a child, I vividly remember almost drowning. My mom, my brother and I went to my aunt’s house. She had a pool we would always swim in when we went over. I couldn’t swim so I would play in the shallow end with a blue and white plastic boat I had. It wasn’t fancy, I think it was just two pieces of plastic put together, but I had fun “driving” it around. Another thing I would do is Spiderman. Spiderman was where I would hang on to the edge of the wall and go around the pool. In the deep end, there was a seat built into the wall with air jets in it. Whenever I was in the deep end, there was a certain thrill about being there. It seemed so deep. I don’t think I really comprehended the why aspect of that. It was and I accepted it.

That day, my boat got away from me and floated towards the deep end. lt happened every once in a while. No big deal. I would Spiderman my way over to it, grab it or try to get it to the other side by sweeping my one arm that wasn’t holding on. This day was different. The boat was out of my immediate reach but I still thought I could get it. I reached as far as I could, my finger was touching it and that is when I lost my grip on the wall. It was so quick. One moment I was reaching for the boat and the next, I was surrounded with water. Terror. When my feet touched the bottom, I pushed with all my might to get above the water. I tried screaming but little noise came out. I was wildly waving my arms around. I sunk back into water. This happened, I believe, three times. I was getting tired. The next part may be hard to believe but I swear that it happened. My mom came over to the pool and said “oh, Charlie is trying to swim”.

I use the last of my strength to push above the surface one more time and than the memory is gone. Next thing I remember is being in the shallow end of the pool and my brother, who has swimmies on his wrists/feet, floating on his back, in the deep end, telling me that he can’t save me again.

I started writing this for another, bigger, whinier reason but that idea is gone at this point. Thinking about it, I have so many memories of my youth compared to what other people let on about theirs. There are a decent amount of those memories where I remember the beginning but there is a blank in it. Some traumatic, some not.

Funny thing is, my mom doesn’t even remember. I still panic when water gets in my nose or covers my face in the shower but it was just another forgettable day for her.

It is easy to get down. It is easy to feel like that there is nothing we can do. It is easy to lose perspective. It is easy to succumb to depression.

The thing we tend to forget is that we were born into this world. The movie was already in progress when we arrived and will continue on past our lives. As we try to comprehend what is going on, some mistakenly think that the world in its current state is the way that it will always be.

Take a look around at your surroundings. What do you see?

I am currently sitting in my chair writing this on my computer with my wireless solar keyboard. I have a Gil Scott-Heron concert playing through wireless headphones. I’m drinking water out a glass. I am in a room with a desk that my computer is sitting on, a DVD tower full of Blu-Rays, a dresser full of clothes, a broom, a lamp, a sidetable with my wireless phone sitting on top, a bed with a Kindle sitting on  it. I am inside a house with all the amenities. Electricity, internet, cable, running water, plumbing. If I walk outside, I would be standing in my yard with the nicely cut grass. I see the mailbox that letters or packages show up at every day besides Sunday around 1-3 PM. There is a road. There is a car I could get into and drive.

What is the point of listing all of that? To make you realize that there is nothing natural about our current lives. Everything I mentioned was created by man out of something else. Even my water was run through a filter to make cleaner. Everything has the fingerprints of humans on it.

Life is a never-ending staircase. Every generation has a group of intellectual giants that are tall enough and strong enough to help everybody else, who is living on that stair, move up one.  The stair they move to becomes the base for everybody. The cycle will be repeated for as long as humans are around.

Never get down. Never give up. Even if you aren’t one of those intellectual giants, you can still make a direct impact on everything around you with your actions.  You just have to try.

Things will get better. Things will change.

Everybody knows that one guy. The person who always looks on the bad side. Every topic leads back to some story about them being down-and-out. I don’t want to be that guy, so I deleted a certain part of my last post. This blog isn’t meant to be a place for me vent or to look back. I felt I need to explain the why to a part of that story but it soon became me writing about the past and subconscious fears. That’s not interesting. We have to keep looking forward.

This was going to be longer and expanded on but something came up.

The thing I forgot to put in my last update, which I need to touch on, is the constant urge to delete this whole thing. Writing what I’m thinking. Revealing details that I would normally keep to myself. Dropping the anonymity of being a chosen common word and writing under my real name. The whole thing makes me feel very vulnerable.

I’m not trying to delude myself. I know that there is a good chance nobody is reading this but still the idea of somebody being able to Google Charlie Roth and stumble upon this, it makes me uneasy. I’m putting myself out there and internet can be a messed up place when it wants to be.

What has been going on since my last update?

I need to go back a little bit. When I first started setting up all of this, I was in a radio contest. I didn’t think I had a chance since I made my submission over the course of two hours, late one night. A few days later, somebody told me, on the forum I post on, that they played my clip and I was a finalist. I almost thought they were messing with me but I tracked down the show and sure enough, I was one of sixteen finalist.

That’s cool.  Better than I was expecting. They played my clip and said my name on the air. Not many people can say that.

Around this time, I was starting to get back on my feet. I put myself on a small schedule. I eliminated negative things from my life. I was doing stuff in real life. I was registering the trytranscend domain, setting up this blog and preparing to dust off an old plan I put on the shelf due to lack of funding after almost a year of spinning my wheels. Things were turning around. I was feeling better.

The issue started when that 16 became 12 and that 12 became 6. I was still in the running. With each elimination, my confidence grew. What was once a long shot was shaping up to be a sure bet.

When they made it to six, the brakes were hit on almost everything in my life. The schedule, any forward motion, gone. I was listening live every day as they continued to put off the contest. So I would listen to the show on after them and watch TV. Play around on B&H coming up with what I would spend the two thousand on. I put together the perfect camera set up. Two thousand dollars would get me a professional camcorder, the extended battery and a 32GB memory card. I would need an extra five hundred for the XLR adapter plus a phantom powered shotgun microphone but I figured I could sell some things I owned to get the money for that. The end number was almost double what the original setup I put together a year ago was but this was professional gear. I would be able to do everything I dreamed of and even more.

During this, I started regressing. Doing things I previously eliminated. Not doing anything of value. Staying up insanely late and waking up after a few hours of sleep. I tracked down the rules for the contest and saw that the winner would have to call in to talk on the air. Even though I knew they would most likely hang up on the winner after saying hello, I began to run through conversations in my head. What I would say. What I would cover. How to avoid certain subjects. Ways to bounce out of the call if things were going wrong without looking like a douche. Days were lost as I went down this road, waited and told myself that the contest was in the bag.

The big day began with me waking up at 9. (The show starts at 6AM) I figured after being burned so much before, if they were going to do the contest, they would do it later. I put my headphones to be greeted by them saying that they picked the winner. I jumped on the forums to try and find more information. As time went on, I realized I didn’t win. It hurt but I was curious to hear what happened. What happened hurt even worse than not winning.

I not only didn’t make the final three but they didn’t even play my clip that day. The six went down to three off the air. Same with them choosing the winner. No playing the clips again. No debating on who should win or who they should eliminate. Just a quick “hey, here’s the runner-ups, here’s the winner” before moving on.

I can’t describe how angry I was. After days of putting it off, this was what they went with? It was insulting.

So, the past six days (it feels like so many more) have been recovery. Two days of feeling like shit and watching movies. Putting my original plan back on the shelf. Picking back up my writing. Trying to move on. That two thousand would have been a gamechanger.

To recap:

April 26-May 3 was when I first found out that I was a finalist to them knocking down to the final six

May 4-May 11 was the wait from them going from the final six to the winner

May 11-May 17 was my time to sulk and put together the pieces

I know what you may be thinking, you went through all that over the possibility of winning two thousand dollars?  Yes. If you don’t know me, I have never held a real job. Shortly after high school, I went to New Orleans after Katrina on the promise of big money. I pushed myself as hard as I could, it didn’t pan out and the aftermath was bad. Got back in December, unconsciously tried to kill myself on Christmas. It was a dark period for years where I was doing nothing but posting online and watching movies. I was playing a shell game with the money I earned along with, admittedly, taking massive advantage of my parents. I had things I was working towards but they were just excuses for my behavior. When I was forced to acknowledge that, after another failure, my life became a sad period with no real escape. I would waste away the small part of the day I was awake posting online, walk the dog before the sun went down and play Team Fortress 2 all night as I listened to the radio.

(Although it wasn’t all doom and gloom during that time. I did visit a friend out of state three times along with seeing Nine Inch Nails four times.)

Things got better though. We moved. The bad things that kept me in a bad place went away for the most part. I got back into movies. I realized that I didn’t need all of the shit I accumulated. I started to sell stuff off. I started to stand on my own two feet, taking less money from my parents (now it is nothing besides the room I live in and food). I put together a true plan. Something that would make me happy. Something where even if it didn’t pan out I would be happy.

I was forced to put it on the shelf after being unable to get the funds together after almost a year. I decided to try again with writing. This time, not reviews, not short stories but a full length screenplay. The radio contest had me put that on the backburner but now it is now back to my main priority.

I plan to continue working on my writing and doing various things in reality. That’s about all I can do at this point. I’ll continue to try and better myself. No matter how bad it gets or how bad you feel, you have to keep pressing on. There is no other choice.

Last night, I was so excited after that first post, I was having trouble getting to sleep. My mind was racing with what I would do tomorrow (today). Maybe something on my fears or states of awareness or my own spiritual beliefs. The sky was the limit. At least until I woke up and realized it was the weekend. For somebody who has trouble remember what day it is, when the weekend comes, my body automatically go “time to relax”. Relax? From what? I don’t know but it becomes a hassle to do anything.

So, for two days, I take it easy. Today was almost unbearable with my lack of motion. Late wakeup, reading various internet things, lunch, reading Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds screenplay, dinner, listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast with guest Andy Dick while playing TF2, shower, waiting while listening to music to this. Late at night, nothing really done.

It’s frustrating but maybe needed.

Tomorrow will be better. I will come up with a better post even though I am the only person reading this.

I need it.

It’s hard to know where to start with this and it is hard to try to juggle all of these thoughts.

This will be my blog where I try to update on what I am working on or what I am thinking about. Both as motivation and something for the record. I am trying to tear down the wall between me and others.  When I get secretive, things start to go sideways. I need to be open and I actually need to work on stuff. This will most likely make me cringe in the future but we all go through stages.

Currently, I am a finalist in a contest where the grand prize is two thousand dollars. The sum may not sound like alot to most but, for me, it would be like hitting the lottery. If I do get it,  it will enable me to go after an idea I have been rolling around for almost a year now. The thought of that idea becoming a reality is scary. Talk has to become action. In preparation, I set up this WordPress, a tumblr, a Vimeo account, a YouTube account, and registered the domain name.

The idea is to get a nice camera, put together a documentary and maybe self-release it. I’ve talked about it with Justin but that idea is outdated and currently being revised.

On the screenplay front, it’s rough. The first idea has a ending and the second (new) idea has a beginning. Work on the second idea will start soon. If I can just push through and complete it, I think it will sharpen my mental knife to do the first idea justice.

I’m still watching movies and reading their screenplays after, in the hopes that I’ll absorb some technique.

On a personal note, I have put myself on a small schedule. The big thing is that I have to do one ______ a day. What’s a _____? Anything that feels like an accomplishment. Could be cleaning something, walking somewhere, doing something I have been thinking about, it could be something like this. Again, it may not seem like much to others but for somebody that had two lost months where nothing was done and everything seemed overwhelming, it is a good thing to have something that will put you back on solid ground. If I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t have entered that contest and I would have missed the catalyst for all of this that is currently going on.

Here’s something I have been thinking about in the shower, which I haven’t told anybody, standup comedy. I listen to alot of stand up and in the shower, I actually have been putting together the beginning pieces of. What’s the wording, what to do about different responses,  what would go next. It sounds crazy (most of what I talk about must sound like that) but there is an open mic around here. After I get the camera, I wouldn’t mind giving it a shot just for the hell of it.

try, transcend – two things I am trying my best to do

Charlie