10 days that make the difference - part five
My hands hurt. My eyes hurt. My pen is warm and it's sweaty from my fingers holding it so tightly. My tongue tastes like glue from all the stamps. It must be Monday.
I love writing letters and I love receiving letters. I try to keep friends and family up to date with what I am doing and these letters seem like the best way to combine all these loves .
into one effort.
A phone call from a friend and the next thing I know I have a blog page. It seems simple enough. I just type the letters that I would normally write to my friends and it saves me time and my fingers. Lovely.
It starts off slow. The posts are crippled and it shows. I love writing them, but I am never sure if they are good or not and I am constantly worried that someone else is going to read them.
Ten months later, the ratio of readers I know to readers that I don't would be 100:1. It will balloon into something that I could have never imagined. Strangers would email me and tell me what they think of me, my writing, my life and my opinions. Their words would carry a weight that I could have never imagined possible. I find myself writing out of fear and responsibility.
When a stranger's words talk of importance, prolific natures, profound importance, humor and inspiration you feel like you have to keep up the work to keep the compliments coming. When their words are scathing, they cut deep and you work hard to win them over.
I have no idea what I am writing about and most of the time I forget what I have written moments after I have finished writing it. I always think about that when I get comments from the readers.
A door I didn't know was even there, opened and I walked through it. I love where it has taken me and I love where it has taken everyone else. It scares me and thrills me and I would still do it if no one read it.
-----------------
I am the biggest shit of all time. I am not the one that is behind the evil, but I enable it. I have used my talents for all the wrong reasons. I'm smart. I'm calm. I'm a survivor. I'm a communicator. I'm a fixer. I just convinced a family to let a film crew use their house.
It was a dream of mine since I was a child. I wanted to be a film maker. I wanted to direct films or write them or act in them. I just wanted to work in the film industry. When I got my chance to work in the legitimate industry, I jumped at it. It was small work, but I made the best of it and I quickly showed my importance and value to those I worked with.
Over time I got more and more legitimate work. My resourcefulness was what kept me in the game and my ability to smooth things over between rival factions made me invaluable in negotiations. And negotiations are what making films is all about. Beyond the stars, the stories and the award shows, there is a job. And that job is convincing a lot of people to get along to make a little "picture". It can take months, years of this to get just one movie made. It takes less time if you have a smooth talking, problem solver. A fixer.
In the beginning it was small things; demands by stars or above the line participants. Then it became more unusual things; dates, drugs, late night bars that will stay open. Then it got to the point that my talents could be best served when what was needed was a miracle; talking to the police to clear a cast or crew member, talking a family into letting us use their property or home, or, in the darkest case scenario - convincing someone not to press charges for a particularly heinous crime.
All you need to convince someone to bend their morals is fame and money. Money will go along way to erasing a rape charge or a drug charge. The idea, or promise, of fame to compensate for same, is just as powerful and what the studios would rather have you use. If you promise a beating victim or the owner of a mall that you will make up for what you have done by letting them meet Morgan Fairchild or to have a bit part in the film, that works.
I ceased to be human. My whole life was covering things up and smoothing things out. Things got dark and people knew that I could clean up a large mess pretty quickly and quietly, so they were running amok.
It was a simple white house. One half day of shooting. The family said no. I made them say yes. We were there two days and we dismantled a hardwood floor, cabinets, tracked in mud, destroyed their lawn and went through their stuff. The family did it all for money. They sold their lives to me.
I felt like shit. I wasn't making movies, I was buying and selling souls. There was no one and nothing I couldn't have.
I had a black heart and the dream was dead. Six months later I would be sitting in a hallway, constantly using the bathroom to insure that I wouldn't shit my pants if things went wrong.
I love writing letters and I love receiving letters. I try to keep friends and family up to date with what I am doing and these letters seem like the best way to combine all these loves .
into one effort.
A phone call from a friend and the next thing I know I have a blog page. It seems simple enough. I just type the letters that I would normally write to my friends and it saves me time and my fingers. Lovely.
It starts off slow. The posts are crippled and it shows. I love writing them, but I am never sure if they are good or not and I am constantly worried that someone else is going to read them.
Ten months later, the ratio of readers I know to readers that I don't would be 100:1. It will balloon into something that I could have never imagined. Strangers would email me and tell me what they think of me, my writing, my life and my opinions. Their words would carry a weight that I could have never imagined possible. I find myself writing out of fear and responsibility.
When a stranger's words talk of importance, prolific natures, profound importance, humor and inspiration you feel like you have to keep up the work to keep the compliments coming. When their words are scathing, they cut deep and you work hard to win them over.
I have no idea what I am writing about and most of the time I forget what I have written moments after I have finished writing it. I always think about that when I get comments from the readers.
A door I didn't know was even there, opened and I walked through it. I love where it has taken me and I love where it has taken everyone else. It scares me and thrills me and I would still do it if no one read it.
-----------------
I am the biggest shit of all time. I am not the one that is behind the evil, but I enable it. I have used my talents for all the wrong reasons. I'm smart. I'm calm. I'm a survivor. I'm a communicator. I'm a fixer. I just convinced a family to let a film crew use their house.
It was a dream of mine since I was a child. I wanted to be a film maker. I wanted to direct films or write them or act in them. I just wanted to work in the film industry. When I got my chance to work in the legitimate industry, I jumped at it. It was small work, but I made the best of it and I quickly showed my importance and value to those I worked with.
Over time I got more and more legitimate work. My resourcefulness was what kept me in the game and my ability to smooth things over between rival factions made me invaluable in negotiations. And negotiations are what making films is all about. Beyond the stars, the stories and the award shows, there is a job. And that job is convincing a lot of people to get along to make a little "picture". It can take months, years of this to get just one movie made. It takes less time if you have a smooth talking, problem solver. A fixer.
In the beginning it was small things; demands by stars or above the line participants. Then it became more unusual things; dates, drugs, late night bars that will stay open. Then it got to the point that my talents could be best served when what was needed was a miracle; talking to the police to clear a cast or crew member, talking a family into letting us use their property or home, or, in the darkest case scenario - convincing someone not to press charges for a particularly heinous crime.
All you need to convince someone to bend their morals is fame and money. Money will go along way to erasing a rape charge or a drug charge. The idea, or promise, of fame to compensate for same, is just as powerful and what the studios would rather have you use. If you promise a beating victim or the owner of a mall that you will make up for what you have done by letting them meet Morgan Fairchild or to have a bit part in the film, that works.
I ceased to be human. My whole life was covering things up and smoothing things out. Things got dark and people knew that I could clean up a large mess pretty quickly and quietly, so they were running amok.
It was a simple white house. One half day of shooting. The family said no. I made them say yes. We were there two days and we dismantled a hardwood floor, cabinets, tracked in mud, destroyed their lawn and went through their stuff. The family did it all for money. They sold their lives to me.
I felt like shit. I wasn't making movies, I was buying and selling souls. There was no one and nothing I couldn't have.
I had a black heart and the dream was dead. Six months later I would be sitting in a hallway, constantly using the bathroom to insure that I wouldn't shit my pants if things went wrong.
posted by Daniel Loomis | 12:50 AM
<< Home