Forever's Take on Christian Bale

I initially wanted to steer clear of the recent firestorm brewing over Christian Bale's verbal tirade on the set of his newest movie that has been sweeping through all the major media outlets. While the tip of the spear of timely, relevant, and important news reporting--Perez Hilton, TMZ, CNN--were all over this story, I really wanted to stay true to my base and focus on my life, not Christian Bale's. But CB is a loyal reader, and I had to speak up.

One thing that the average Joe doesn't appreciate about somebody who truly is a master of their craft is the perfectionism that drives us, that fuels our fire. Christian Bale was in what I like to call, "the zone." It's the sole sanctuary of artists, athletes, big game hunters, and really, really expensive prostitutes. It's the place I enter when trying to recall the previous day's inactivity. Within the zone colors are brighter, edges are sharper, texture is amplified, memories become more malleable. When I am in the zone I can hear my feet sweating. We artists harness that sensitivity and turn it into something we hope is tough to understand and incredibly profitable.

But with that hypersensitivity the zone brings, the actor, painter, blogger, must exert an equal, if not greater amount, of focus to bring their creativity to fruition. My roommate found this out the tough way not too long ago, when he made too much noise walking through the door as he came home from work. I had just entered the zone, and reacted like an agile puma. I pounced on him and would have choked him to death, but my recent indolence does not support such exhaustive outbursts of activity and I soon fainted. Was he mad? No, he lives with a Michelangelo and he should have known better. In fact he apologized profusely. And I'd be willing to bet you, that if we had a chance to listen to the whole tape of what occurred on set, we would hear a lighting director apologizing to Christian Bale as well.

We artists did not ask to be born this way; misunderstood and better than most everyone. We just were. It's a burden we must bear and we do so humbly. While not everyone will understand this, I understand CB.