Aaron Denius's Blog

And so began the trip. 11 hour flight, 9 hour difference. Yup, it’s just like we traveled for 20 hours. Getting Only 3 hours of sleep on the plane was rough. But alas, we are here. Getting through the airport was super easy, as was taking the train to our hotel. We had to walk about 2 miles from the stop, but it gave us our first views of Barcelona. The first thing I noticed was that it was dark. Coming from Los Angeles where there are more streetlights than egos, it was unique to see a city so dimly lit.

We made it to our hotel which was heavily adorned with pictures of half naked men. Yup. We accidentally booked a gay hotel. It was really nice and they recommended this amazing tapas restaurant right down the street called La Consentida. Holy crap it was so good. The best part about it was that the owner/chef came to our table and showed us a handwritten menu for what she was cooking that day. An added bonus: She kept yelling from the kitchen to the bar to get her brother to run food out. Yes, her brother was the bartender.

Then it was back to the hotel for much needed sleep.

Favorite Taste: The duck confit cannoli with caramelized onion. It was heavenly.

Favorite Sight: The big ass smile on my lady’s face when it finally clicked that she was in a foreign country for the first time.

Favorite Sound: The mixture of classic American rock with the group of people speaking catalan(sp?) at the tapas restaurant.

Favorite Smell: The fresh baked pastries. Holy crap the fresh baked pastries.

Favorite Touch/Feel: The hot water from the rain shower in the hotel room.

Her favorite Sight: The pattern on all the sidewalks made of stamped cement.

Her favorite Smell: The cooked food

Her favorite Sound: The jovial and robust accent that our chef had in explaining the menu in English.

Her favorite Taste: The dinner. She said it was the best in her life. The duck confit cannoli, The assorted croquettes, the wrapped vegetables with hoisin sauce. All of it

Her favorite Touch/Feel: The excitement of her first step on Foreign ground.

And so began the trip. 11 hour flight, 9 hour difference. Yup, it’s just like we traveled for 20 hours. Getting Only 3 hours of sleep on the plane was rough. But alas, we are here. Getting through the airport was super easy, as was taking the train to our hotel. We had to walk about 2 miles from the stop, but it gave us our first views of Barcelona. The first thing I noticed was that it was dark. Coming from Los Angeles where there are more streetlights than egos, it was unique to see a city so dimly lit.

We made it to our hotel which was heavily adorned with pictures of half naked men. Yup. We accidentally booked a gay hotel. It was really nice and they recommended this amazing tapas restaurant right down the street called La Consentida. Holy crap it was so good. The best part about it was that the owner/chef came to our table and showed us a handwritten menu for what she was cooking that day. An added bonus: She kept yelling from the kitchen to the bar to get her brother to run food out. Yes, her brother was the bartender.

Then it was back to the hotel for much needed sleep.

Favorite Taste: The duck confit cannoli with caramelized onion. It was heavenly.

Favorite Sight: The big ass smile on my lady’s face when it finally clicked that she was in a foreign country for the first time.

Favorite Sound: The mixture of classic American rock with the group of people speaking catalan(sp?) at the tapas restaurant.

Favorite Smell: The fresh baked pastries. Holy crap the fresh baked pastries.

Favorite Touch/Feel: The hot water from the rain shower in the hotel room.

Her favorite Sight: The pattern on all the sidewalks made of stamped cement.

Her favorite Smell: The cooked food

Her favorite Sound: The jovial and robust accent that our chef had in explaining the menu in English.

Her favorite Taste: The dinner. She said it was the best in her life. The duck confit cannoli, The assorted croquettes, the wrapped vegetables with hoisin sauce. All of it

Her favorite Touch/Feel: The excitement of her first step on Foreign ground.

If you were to ask any group of people what they thought the afterlife was, you would get one of three basic answers.

1. A shiny place where all the people you loved are somehow awaiting your arrival and you get to eat ice cream every day.

2. You get reincarnated into some other living being and get a do over on earth, but you don’t remember anything of your previous life. Yet somehow psychics do.

3. There isn’t one.


In all honesty, I hope that whatever you believe happens after you die, happens.

As for me, I fall into the last group. At least as far as the common definition of afterlife is concerned. There is, however, a different form of afterlife that all people should subscribe to. That is the legacy you leave behind here on earth.

The example I use most when referring to this afterlife is Shakespeare. Here is someone that lived around 500 years ago and we still talk about him. That is an afterlife.

For most, their names will be lost in the ether a couple of generations after they die. Their legacy is the family they left behind and the knowledge of who they were wont last beyond their great grandchildren. As long as they lived a happy life with no regrets, there is nothing wrong with that.

Those who do have the longest of afterlives however tend to be the innovators, the inventors, creators, risk takers. These are the authors, artists, musicians, entertainers, scientists, revolutionaries. Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, The Beatles, Martin Luther King Jr.

Those are the names that will still be mentioned centuries from now. It’s what we should all strive for. And if you were to look at what they all have in common; They bettered the world. They enriched humanity’s culture. They pushed the boundaries of our knowledge. They incited cultural change.

So what will you do? What legacy will you leave behind? What will be your afterlife?

To paraphrase a quote that has been said many times, most notably recently by Banksy, “We all die twice. The first time when your physical body passes. The second when someone utters your name for the last time.”

We should all strive to only die once.

Describe yourself in three words?

That is not an easy question to answer. That is because we don’t really know who we are. If words did come to mind; are those word true descriptions of who you are or are they desires of who you hope to be?

What three words would your mom describe you with? Your friends? Your partner? Your boss? The barista at Starbucks? The homeless man you ignored as you walked passed him?

Who are you really?

Of course we are going to be an amalgamation of the words that each of theses people and more put out there, but which ones are the most true? Which are just based on a facade you put forth to appease the social situation you are in?

Take the barista. At the coffee shop, you might be pleasantly cordial, perhaps a bit impatient or flirtatious. But your entire interaction will also depend on who is in line with you or behind you when you order. If your wife or husband is with you, would you still flirt?

We live each day in a series of perpetual lies, very rarely being our true selves. A lot of this self deceit is built on the social construct that has been laid before us. We conform and bend to the will of the situations we find ourselves in because, among other things, the fear of judgement.

This is not how we always were. As kids we had no filter. We screamed, laughed, cried, imagined, played, goofed around and made fools of ourselves without hesitation. That is until the people who had already been conditioned to conform told us that we were in the wrong and needed to conform like everyone else.

We had an identity, an individuality. Somewhere along the way we lost it.

So who are you? Really?
What three words would you use?
Do you truly believe yourself when you say them?

I was planning on writing some poetic well written shit here about how I’m changing my blog a bit to start talking more about my philosophies on life, but after writing a couple of paragraphs I decided to scrap it and get to the point.

I will still post about writing and give advice on writing and hollywood, but I will also be posting about, life, death, the afterlife, existentialism, alien life, religion, absolute truth, love, the meaning of anything and everything.

So let’s get this party started!

First off. This is not a political post or endorsement. I am not a fan of Hillary nor the other fella, and I believe there are way better options out there for America. Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden come to mind. 

That being said, if I were to gamble, I would put all my money down on a Hillary victory in November. Any other outcome would be an upset for the ages.

But, like I said, this is not a political post. This is a post as to why Hillary matters. And Hillary matters because of my 9-year old niece.

Assuming Hillary takes office, by the time my niece is in high school she will have grown up with a black president and a female president. No one else. Let that sink in. After more than two centuries of white middle-aged men holding arguably the second most high-profile job in the world (behind probably the Pope), my niece will only know that this job has been occupied by a minority and a woman.

Of course history will teach her different, but experience is what matters. No longer will it be, “A woman or minority CAN be President”. It will be, “A woman and a minority IS/WAS President”. My niece can truly grow up to be an adult that knows that any person can hold any job in the world, regardless of gender or race. (Hopefully equal pay will have resolved itself by the time she’s on the job hunt)

That, to me, is inspiring. Not just for her, but for all kids under the age of 10. Ask anyone over 70 if at age 10 they thought a woman or minority could be President. My guess is that 60 years ago any 10-year old would have laughed at the thought. 

Politics aside, this is why Hillary matters. Progress. Opportunity, for all the children of any race or gender, to grow up with the idea that nothing is out of reach. Any dream can become a reality.

So it seems like recently I have been struggling to get back into writing the sequel to my young adult novel “Gene. Sys.” - Which, by the way, check it out! All e-book versions are free until November 1st!

As I said, it’s been difficult to get back in the mindset that I need to be in to write this sequel. Life happened, in more ways than one, and it took me away from my rhythm and momentum. I have sat down in front of my computer countless times and have maybe written a total of 1 additional paragraph in the last few months. I have edited the shit out of what I have already written though. 

This cycle, however, is not working for me. I need to write. So to use a basketball analogy that I’m sure some coach said at some point: If you keep missing 3-point shots, shoot a layup. 

The basic premise is to just do something easy that doesn’t require a whole lot of thought in order to get yourself back into a rhythm.

So, as painful as it feels, I am putting the sequel “80″ aside for the moment to finish writing a book I had started a couple years ago: “We Come In Peace: A How-To Guide For A Successful Alien Invasion”

Updates to come!

…and am methodically working my way back in.

First off. I am not bitter. I repeat. I am not bitter. But Hollywood is a shitty place filled with shitty people. Whether it’s Hollywood that makes the people shitty or the people that makes Hollywood shitty. I don’t know. It’s the never ending chicken vs. egg conundrum.

Now, I have some incredible friends who are wonderfully talented and genuinely sincere. However, I have to wade through thousands to find this handful. I have lost track of the amount of times I have done a “friend cleanse”. I would be naive to think that I have never been a disposable friend during someone else’s cleanse. The fact that it comes down to that is ridiculous in a city where collaboration and teamwork is vital.

This however is not a post about the people in Hollywood, but about Hollywood in general. The biggest thing that turned me off from this place of dreams was that it functions just like a fraternity/sorority. If you aren’t an Alpha Sigma Sigma, or whatever you are in for a tough uphill climb, regardless of your talent level. That is of course until the every 5-year panic that there isn’t enough minority representation.

By no means am I claiming that I am more talented than another individual. That is all arbitrary. However, I do have experience, and to be looked over time and again for someone with little to no experience that is a friend of X producer to get the job. It’s a bit disheartening.

You want originality, a different point of view? Start hiring outside of your little comfort hole.

The unfortunate thing is that Hollywood is built with a series of gatekeepers that you have to convince to say “Yes”. This puts you at their mercy and essentially removes you from the equation. So I got tired of the bullshit and I quit. Though I knew it wouldn’t last.

Instead, I lived my life as if I had quit, and coincidentally I worked harder. I created my own opportunities and succeeded.

This was a valuable lesson. As I realized that I could be in control of my career. I could create what I want when I want. The beauty is that there are an increasing number of avenues to distribute this work and retain all rights.

In Hollywood there are a thousand beta personalities acting like alphas to try to get their way. The biggest crime though is an alpha acting like a beta for fear of stepping on toes and burning bridges.

Well, I have woken up! I no longer fear burning a bridge or stepping on toes, because I am going to do Hollywood my way and they will have to conform to me!

Happy creating everybody!

“Welcome to the New Age.” Yes Imagine Dragons, there is truth to those words. 

What we are experiencing now is a very ME-centric age and it’s not entirely a bad thing. For every look-at-me selfie and pay-attention-to-me snap of my lunch salad, there is the fabulous counterpart of the “I get full control over what I create”.

Authors can sell their own books without the need for publishers, musicians can sell their music without the need of a record label, artists can sell their art on their own in various forms (check out redbubble).

It’s a brave new world and it ain’t all that bad! 

There is a catch, however…

You must work, and work very hard. To reach the masses that you hope to enjoy the products you create, you must work even harder than you did in creating your masterpiece. Enter social media. Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat…the list goes on. You need to use these tools and use them often. you need to think out of the box to reach the audience you want. The main reason for this is that everyone else is doing it. The competition is ridiculous. 

So my plan is to set up a schedule. Follow the schedule if you like:

Twitter: Minimum 2 tweets a day

Instagram: Minimum 1 post a day

Snapchat: Minimum 2 snaps a day

YouTube: Minimum 2 posts a week

Tumblr: Minimum 3 posts a week

As my Facebook fan page is linked to my instagram, it will be getting the same posts. Those are the social media platforms I am on. adjust your schedule accordingly, and if I am missing a platform that you believe I should be on. Do let me know!

It’s amazing how easily life can get in the way of living. Sometimes the distractions can be avoided, but there are times when life just tells you, “You’re my bitch right now and I’m gonna throw everything I can at you.”

I have fallen behind on my writing and have come down on myself hard about it. But sometimes life is that little bratty 3-year-old kid that screams for attention. So I involuntarily took time off to weather the storm of a couple of deaths in my family, helping my girlfriend deal with a tumor that is benign and removed finally! (Her last year has been even more challenging than my own and her strength is a true inspiration) I have also had my car totaled, as well as other things that just seem to keep me away from putting pen to paper.

I have weathered the storm and am now slowly getting back into my writing and making life my bitch again. It feels great.

Life can throw whatever it wants at you, but all of that is nothing more than tests of your character to help you build your resilience and strength. Nothing is too difficult to overcome. Though you can’t control the things that have happened to you in the past, you can control what happens to you in the present, simply by choosing how you react to it.