All you need is a driver’s license and credit card in order to put yourself in a vehicle the size of your local highschool gym. No special training. Not even a pamphlet.
So after my recent excursion in the biggest rental trucks available I offer the following observations – in case you ever need them:
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When I moved to Los Angeles I had my share of nay-sayers. Some folks in influential or mentor-type roles really questioned my thinking. I was 23 years old and “following a dream”. One in particular asked me “How long do you intend to do this?”
Wanting terms and conditions. A quantifiable plan. Milestones.
I responded “How long is a dream worth chasing?” That shut them up. They had no answer for that, and I don’t think they’d ever even thought of the question.
Now, thirteen years later I don’t have an answer for it either. How long is a dream worth chasing? I find that to be the lingering query of my existence. If forced to answer I would quickly say “as long as I have breath…”
But reality does dawn… even on us dreamers. Click to continue »
Like most people I know, I watched the Inauguration this week. Historic and uplifting. Two things I can’t often say about our government’s activity.
I’m excited to see what the future brings, and curious to see President Obama in action instead of as an icon on a poster.
He’s hit the ground running. And like I said before, Presidents always seem to start well.
Yet I find myself sickened by the same thing over and over. I keep trying to get past it… to hope I’ve seen the last news story, or mention, or visual. It’s like an infesting fog I can’t get away from… Click to continue »
When I went Freelance I had all these grand visions of huge writing output. All the scripts I’d crank out and the novel I’d finish and the short story compilation I’d finally get around to wrapping up and…
Yeah.
With editing, and Everyday Driver, I quickly found myself writing less than I did when I had a full time studio job! Over time I realized that editing actually uses many of the same skills and part of my brain as my writing, so I was getting that need fed.
But I also realized I’d become as soured to that part of the business as everything else. I just didn’t want to write and do the little “writer with a new script dance”. It felt like going through the motions.
I’ve had an odd experience in the last week or so… I’ve fallen in love with movies again. Seems strange to say it, as a filmmaker – and as a guy about to direct a feature. But there it is.
You see all the years of working at a Studio: …watching everything New Line released 20-50 times…. getting buried in the minute technical details… breaking things down to their lowest pieces…
Like looking at a masterpiece and only noticing the brushstrokes, or absorbing a moment of musical genius and only hearing the hiss from the analog recording.
Yes… there were a lot of bad movies in there too…
But in the last week, for various reasons… I’ve revisited ones I like, or ones I’ve always wanted to see. And I’ve found the wonder in it again.
So here we are… marching toward a Presidential election with both sides ramping up to a crazed din so loud my ears are bleeding.
Now it’s all just noise.
And I find myself disappointed. Pissed off even.
All the discussion, the ads, the YouTube viral videos invading my inbox, the discussions around me…. they all have one thing in common. No matter what side. No matter what issue…
We’re supposed to be afraid.  We’re supposed to be cowering under the stairs in terror.
At my wife’s recent B-Day dinner there were a couple of outspoken political folks who began to loudly voice their opinions.
Their opposing opinions.
Well, that is after one of them had already driven off 1/2 of one table with his rantings… then he happened to make a comment in earshot of the other political hair-trigger, and… Hooray! Political Nuclear War.
There’s a reason politics is labeled impolite dinner conversation.
And generally – I’m not political.
Yet we’re about to elect a president and I’m seeing a magnifying glass put over the same issue which surfaces every four years. Click to continue »
So the Olympics are here… the round the clock world class performances in sports you never think twice about for 3.75 years. And I’m hearing all the “every four years” stories around me, including an old friend of mine who’s been blogging about his Olympic obsession.
Like him, I find myself awash in thoughts and emotions which visit every time the Olympic theme plays and the rings fill my TV screen as part of some far too expensive graphics package.
For as long as I can remember I’ve looked at these athletes and thought “What’s next for them?”. Especially during the summer games when spritely girls who can’t drive or see over coffee tables become the subject of heartfelt mini-documentaries about their grueling schedule and struggle to be a teenager.
16 year old superstars. Or 20. Maybe 25 for the real late bloomers. They arrive at the peak of their life – an Olympic performance. And if they win a medal it gets worse. Now what?
The pinnacle of existence before they’ve even had the chance to find a wrinkle or a gray hair. That leaves a lot of decades still to come.
And I think of the other side. The “I coulda done that” part of every American sitting on the couch eating potato chips while Michael Phelps makes a swim race look like a soak in a hot-tub. Of course we couldn’t, but it’s worse than that… Click to continue »
