Missy's birthday

Today is my baby sister's birthday.
Hard to believe she is hitting this milestone.
Being that I am a good southern gentleman, I will not disclose her age.

Gentlemen NEVER ask a lady her age.  Its just not polite. 

I remember the day my mother brought Melissa Carrie home to our single story brick ranch home in Hill Ridge subdivision just outside of  J-town, KY.  Our house on Samoset Court lay on top of the old corn fields on the ridge, the very same family farmland owned by her family for several generations of Hites.  She brought her only daughter back to the house she had dreamed of having on the Hite family farm. This is where she and my father Gerald raised her and me, along with our brother Shannon.

(My grandfather's family did not let him split off any land for his 13 children.  Instead they sold the family farm to developer Don Ridge.  Later mom and dad went in and bought the house we grew up in!)

Melissa Carrie Mullins was brought home from Suburban Hospital a week or two after she was born.
She was a premature birth and they kept her there for a few weeks if I recall.  My sister and I have a unique relationship.  I feel it is my responsibility to remember the small details about our mother for my sister.  Our mother Evelyn died from complications with a brain tumor when we were all very young.  Missy was six when she died.  We didn't have it easy but the three of us got through it with our dad and the love of an amazing family.  Like myself, my sister was provided with some wonderful women who filled that role of a mother.

Amazing how God works huh?

Like my mother and father, my sister Missy is an amazing athlete.  Tonight on this wonderful birthday she is off doing what she loves best, playing volleyball!  She's a tall girl and really good at it.  I talked to her tonight and she told me that she was playing in an important game against a #1 rival team. 
I could not imagine her doing anything less than what makes her the most happy on this important day.  For this I am truly grateful and know that somewhere our mother is watching over her, so very proud.

With love to you my sister.

Your big brother Gerry.

Where I am now.

It's been quite a year.

I'm back to work and my health is good for now.  I'm taking Kundalini yoga every Saturday and it kicks my ass.  And most recently I opened my heart up for the first time in years.  (He's not really available for a relationship much less dating but I finally am, so its all good.)  Oh yeah, most recently my hard drive crashed and I let go of two years of videos, pictures and documents.  LOL

I don't know why I stopped writing back in May.  Maybe I got busy living my life.  The daily practice of coming up with a blog is difficult, unless you are really keeping a journal of a project or just feel the need to put it all down day in, day out.

Today is the day my mother was born.  She has been gone as many years as she was alive, so I feel like this is a halfway point oddly enough.  Born in 1942, she died of a brain tumor in 1976.  Now here in 2010, I find myself reflecting on a distant time and place.  I get to visit my hometown next weekend for my 30th High School reunion.

Time has moved on in J-town, KY.  And yet I can step on to a street in my hometown and be transported back to my childhood in an instant.  The familiar places like city hall where my Uncle Franklin was mayor of J-town in the late 60s, or half a block down the house my dads cousins the Swetnam's, purchased where I learned what REAL hard work was, pouring a concrete sidewalk.  Or I drive by John F. Kennedy Elementary where I attended class with most of the people I will be having a reunion with next weekend.

There will be one person missing next weekend at our 30th reunion, our friend Scott Eisert. Scott and I along with Glenn Elder all did theatre together at J-town.   Scott will forever be Charlie Brown in my eyes.  Glenn and I shared the role of Linus.  Today is the one year anniversary of Scott's passing.

When he passed away last year I was filled with such grief.  For me and all of our mutual friends it was our own "Big Chill" moment.  It is a difficult thing when one of your peers passes away, especially if it is someone you knew from third grade on. 

Today I honor them both.  Fall is a bittersweet time for me.  I love visiting my hometown and city that I grew up in at fall time.  The trees are sometimes displaying fall colors and the air is chilly, other years its still very green and hot.  The world famous St. James Art Fair will be in full swing next weekend and I plan on going down to the art fair with my sister and reuniting with a few of our cousins.  It's sure to be an amazing trip.


I realize now why I stopped blogging....I was busy shooting footage for my new webshow idea, covering red carpet and charity events.  So you will see this blog evolve and change.  And I will write out my impressions of what I shot standing 3 Feet To The Left.  All things change.  We adapt to it in our every changing world.  Finally I've gotten to a place of loving myself enough to step out there as a performer again.  I've gotten an agent and my pictures are uploaded to LA CASTING the big site here that you must join in order to be sent out by an agent. My agent ACTUALLY has access to that account.  (I goofed on Sunday night, thank God for tech people at the website.)  And I am allowing myself the opportunity to enjoy the brief moment between fear and faith, anticipation and actuality.  The moment just before the miracle happens and I become what I have always dreamed.

Peace and blessings,
Gerry

JUSTIFIED on FX

I LOVE JUSTIFIED

Timothy Olyphant is awesome as US Marshall Rayland Givens in this new FX series.
After shooting a thug in Miami, Rayland is punished by the US Marshall service by being sent back to the one place he vowed he would never return....Harlan, Kentucky. 
(The Kentucky accents are pretty good.)  The episode I just watched was called "Hatless."
This series is based on a short story by Elmore Leonard.

Timothy has been in a slew of movies recently (Live Free or Die Hard with Bruce Willis and Catch And Release with Jennifer Garner and just last month The Crazies.)

You will probably best remember him as Seth Bullock in the HBO series "Deadwood."
JUSTIFED is on Tuesdays @ 10PM.

Rayland to the guy who stole his hat in the bar:
"Mister, that's a ten gallon hat on a twenty gallon head."

"Evening Marshall..."

I LOVE LA

It's been an interesting few weeks here in LA.  We had a warm spell and then a storm came in last night and washed the air clean.  The temps were chilly today and the views of the mountains spectacular!  So I did a hike in Fryman Canyon off Laurel Canyon Blvd and took these amazing photographs today.  There is nothing like a beautiful spring day in Los Angeles.  Once again for today....I LOVE LA.

The views from these houses are amazing.

I LOVE SAN FRANCISCO

THIS past weekend I had an amazing time in San Francisco.
For those of you who are my friends on Facebook then you have access to all of my photos that I posted.
For those that I email here are a few of the shots that I took on this sunny, amazing, beautiful day in the city by the bay.

SUNNY SUNDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO

This was my "Paris Street Rainy Day" moment.

There is a famous French Impressionist named Caillebotte.

I believe it is my job to record life as I am experiencing it for future generations to see.

After I took this photo I burst into tears.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.

And the day was a special Sunday where they shut down the street and allow only pedestrians and people on skates and bikes. 

Oakland Bridge at Ferry Building Wharf

WORLD FAMOUS CASTRO THEATRE

CONSERVATORY OF FLOWERS 

Golden Gate Park in San Francisco

NATIONAL AIDS MEMORIAL GROVE 

Sitting at the CIRCLE OF FRIENDS 

I have been wanting to see this memorial for a few years now.  Finally made it.

It is a stunning "living" memorial to those we lost, for those living with AIDS and for future generations to look back on and say "What was AIDS?"

I LOVE Joannie Rochette

Well it has been weeks since I have written.  Two weeks ago, I attended both Joe Erwin's memorial in Orlando and my step-grandfather funeral in Kentucky within a 48 hour period.  Since returning to LA,  I have been taking time to be still and contemplate my own life.  What do I really want to do next?  At each memorial I heard the words "pay attention to your life."  What's important in yours?

Tonight I just watched the skating of the women's short program.
Joannie Rochette of Canada skated an amazing program after dealing with the passing of her mother just two days ago on Sunday.  Actually she skated an amazing program.  It is a personal best for her.

Having been someone who's own mother passed away while I was a teenager, my heart goes out to her.
I cannot imagine what it took for her to get out on that ice and do a performance like that.

Bravo Mademoiselle.

JOE & ME

Joe & Me  1990

Finally found my favorite picture of the two of us.

We had just moved in together in Orlando.

This spring will mark the 20th anniversary of when Gerry met Joe at Universal Studios Florida.

I have gone through every box and drawer in my apt here in LA and finally last night I found this photo.  It had been in a frame at one time and I kept looking for the framed picture. 

I found it instead along with a whole group of pictures from that time in my life.  In going through my whole banker box of photographs, I found tangible evidence that I have lived an amazing life.  These photos show me taking trips all over California and the world, more ex boyfriends and most importantly a very loving family.  There is joy in the pictures of my brother, sister and I.  Photos of me along with my dad and step mother and step brother and sister and their families reminds me that I truly am loved. 

More than that I am blessed.

And I know that most people don't have what I have.

Unconditional love.

Twenty years ago Joe & I lived in a bubble.  We were accepted by our co-workers, friends and families as a couple unconditionally.  As I reflect on this relationship twenty years later, I realize how blessed I am to have experienced a relationship like the one I had with Joe.

Now don't get me wrong I don't forget the difficult times and our relationship did not end well.  

However I do know that for a time, it was amazing to be that loved.

And for that I am forever grateful.

Have you called or hugged someone you love today?

Gerry