Meet Al McPherson

We had the good fortune of connecting with Al McPherson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Al, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
I never have a single answer for the question: “What do you do for a living?” I feel like as artists and creatives we are always creating and destroying, metamorphosing between different facets of ourselves.

I wear different hats, like so many LA creatives. I have worked in production for several years, from TV and features to shorts and web series. I perform with a live-theatre experience every year called “The Nothing Special Show,” which is written, directed, and performed by close friends of mine who have started their own artist collective. This collective makes a magazine, which I model for and write in. I adore modeling, so I work with numerous alternative clothing brands in LA as well as freelance amongst the ever flowing wave of LA models.

In addition to that and outside of creative roles, I work with animals, one of my life’s greatest passions. I used to run my own dog and cat rescue, Gizmo’s Golden Paws, from 2020-2022. Now I am a rescue coordinator, helping animals get out of animal shelters and into homes and rescues. I also foster and currently have a husky available for adoption who was displaced due to the fires after having lived in a shelter for 2 years. And in another room, I have 3 baby kittens that are 2-days-old. I transport for an amazing rescue called Maison Sûre and on Wednesdays, I volunteer at a wildlife center in the NICU, feeding, treating, and caring for baby squirrels, opossums, and birds.

I have odd jobs, some in creative fields like covering scripts for distribution or live-streaming for my friend’s start-up social media platform, and sometimes I’m thrifting and reselling vintage wear on Depop or refurbishing old furniture for new homes.

My week comes at me one day at a time. Sometimes it can be really hard to manage. I never know if I am going to get a call about an emergency situation with animals while I’m on set or with a friend.

Setting boundaries changed EVERYTHING for me! And I know, that may be an obvious answer but as someone who previously and admittedly would let anyone and everyone walk all over me and take any task given, no questions ask, this was a big change for me and required years of therapy to put it to practice.

Now I set my limits. I have set hours I ascribe to creative work. I try to model every week, but I have hours every day where I focus on production work for whichever project is at the fore front. I have to say “no” more often than I’m comfortable with, but if I didn’t, I would flounder.

In 2021, my dad got cancer. He thankfully is in remission now, but at the time, one of the people I was closest with was at risk for losing their life. That, along with a debilitating knee injury 2022, led me to walk away from the industry and from animal rescue to recuperate my mental health. Since returning to the work, I refuse to let things get out of control again. I have my sensors up to make sure I don’t give too much of myself away.

I have an admittedly bleeding heart and it’s pulled in countless directions. I learned to stop fighting the pull, to stop trying to pick the one thing I love and make a career out of it. I have learned that some people can thrive in one job their whole lives, and others, often creatives, can’t pick one place to go. Most of all, I’ve learned they shouldn’t have to.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I remember when I was young watching silly, light-hearted YouTube videos of Jenna Marbles. She would often refer to herself as having the “too much gene,” remarking that she wasn’t an artist because she would push her work so far that it would blow past the point of emotionally effective and become an overthought, overproduced mess.

I feel I have spent my entire life being told I am too much. I am a highly emotional individual. Whether you want to see it through the psychological lens of my trauma or through astrology with the fact that I am a Cancer sun, no matter which way you cut it, I am a bleeding heart.

I had friends growing up that would purposefully exclude me from events because they didn’t like how passionate I would speak about whatever particular fixation I had at the time, normally TV shows, movies, or a favorite celebrity. I had a teacher who told me that I was destined to be a writer and offered a place for me in his invite-only class, only to then take my work about my struggles with depression and turn it into the school counselor, who did nothing but make me feel more “othered” than I had already felt before. I had a boyfriend of sorts in college who told me with a dark hate in his eyes that I was so emotional that no one could ever love me and that my life should be ended because I served no purpose.

In the darkest places of my mind, on the worst days of my life, when I have felt that I am not long for this world, I am haunted by these specters of the past, their words possessing my thoughts, shrieking YOU’RE TOO MUCH. YOU’RE TOO MUCH. YOU’RE TOO MUCH.

And then begins the self-fulfilling prophecy – one allotted to me by the very same people who benefitted from the beauty of my feelings only to tear me down when it wasn’t to their benefit. I tell myself I wouldn’t be feeling this way if I wasn’t too much, if I wasn’t exactly what they said I was.

I have spent more than half my life ill, fighting these thoughts in therapy, nursing on a cocktail of anti-depressants. Within the last year and for the first time since I was an early teen, I am starting to see that the sun will rise in the morning, that my bleeding heart is precisely the thing that has molded me into the sometimes miscalculated, but nevertheless impassioned artist that I know with my whole soul that I am. I have learned that the “too much gene” is exactly what every starving artist, performer or creative can hope to find.

At a certain point, I let go of the controlled, calculated, almost divine ideal of someone who I now know I could never be too little to be.

I am an artist like so many others in the way that there isn’t just one thing I love. I am pulled in so many directions and have failed so fantastically when trudging down the once-ignored path. I am ever changing. No matter which way I move as a producer, an actress, a model, or an animal rescuer, the bright, hot blood of my bleeding heart is on everything I have ever sunk my claws into.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
LA is endless and can serve so many different needs. You can be surfing at the beach in the morning and snowboarding by the early afternoon. You can hike in the middle of a bustling city. You can see the world’s best artists in the museums and filming down the street.

I have a few places that are near and dear to my heart in LA. The first that comes to mind is this small, unsuspecting Mexican restaurant in Burbank called “Los Amigos.” Maybe it’s food isn’t something to write home about, but they serve slushie strawberry margaritas in chalices and a KJ named Justin runs karaoke there every Friday and Saturday. They have a group of regulars, all probably 50-60 years plus who come to every karaoke night and belt their hearts out. You have to be ready for the classics if you’re going to this karaoke bar, but the energy and love in the room is felt deeply.

I would try to bring my friend to whatever flea market is happening – Melrose, Silver Lake, the Rosebowl. If we are out of luck that weekend, then we will start early checking out LA’s extensive estate sales. Not to show my spooky side too much, but you can find the coolest things amongst the belongings of the dead. Speaking of spooky, I love the unlimited access too witchcraft, occult and oddity stores all around LA. You can really have the chance to see the creative artistry and the potentially unusual religions of your fellow LA neighbors.

I am also a big fan of the Oscars Museum. My boyfriend and I frequent it often. They have excellent screenings there most evenings. And if that or a regular AMC aren’t your speed, you can truck on over to the Hollywood Forever Cemetary on certain nights for some outdoor flicks.

Lastly, the sushi spots of LA are second best in the world, only to actual Japan. If you like more Americanized sushi, those restaurants do exist, but you can also find traditional, family-owned businesses all around LA from Santa Monica to Lancaster.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to dedicate my shoutout to my wonderful boyfriend of 8 years, Ben Stillwell. I met him in the darkest hour of my life, and he has supported every endeavor I have taken with his whole heart and soul. He has shown me how to have humble confidence in my creative and non-creative endeavors. I love him more than words can allow.

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Other: https://boxd.it/53CsJ

Image Credits
Patrick Park
Jessie Paege
Joey Luthman