5 Things You Don't Know About Me

I have been tagged by both Muse and JeR so I shall arise from the cave for a post:

1) For 3 years, I was a genetic engineering major. I had done well in school, but despised the arrogance and indifference of the science department. During Finals week of my Junior year, I was sitting in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology class wherein I reached an epiphany. As a blanket of Utter calm descended upon me, I knew with utter certainty that I was going to tank every final that week... and I did. After my last final on Thursday afternoon, I called my parents to tell them that I didn't want to be a genetic engineer. There was a long pause on the line then my mother said, "So what do you want to do." I had not put a single thought into that question, but without a moment's hesitation I answered, "I want to be a filmmaker." The rest is history... or something.

2) For 3 years, I lived in Alaska. One of my fondest memories of childhood was ice skating up and down city streets. Rather than plow the mounting feet of snow, the military base would steamroll it flat, then send gravel trucks to throw rocks over it. I would skate on the snow after the steamrollers had made the pass, beneath the orange streetlights and three months of darkness.

3) I went to the State Finals for Pinewood Derby racing. My Cub Scouts troop made all the kids buy this kit that involved a piece of pinewood, 4 wheels and nails for axles. The kids then cut piece of wood to make it aerodynamic, then added some weight (there is a maximum weight the car could be). Then, they raced these cars against one another by rolling them down a big wooden ramp. It was pretty frigging fun, actually, and I won all the way to the state finals where I tied the overall winner twice until he beat me on the tiebreaker.

4) I hit my dog in the face with a baseball bat. I cringe writing those words, even though it's been 20 years since the incident. We had a black lab who was proficient at drooling and fetching tennis balls. After 3 throws, the tennis ball would morph into a heinous ball of drool. Normally, I would wear a gardening glove but one day I got the brilliant idea of hitting them with a baseball bat instead. So, I hit a couple dingers off and we're all having a great time until the last time. As I tossed the ball in the air and unloaded with my little-league baseball bat, my dog decided that he could save a lot of running time by just catching the ball NOW. I clobbered him in the face with such force, I left a tooth indentation on my bat. For 5 minutes, he howled in pain and writhed on the ground.

One of the top-five worst moments of my life.

After a few minutes of utter misery, he got up, slowly lumbered to his water dish, slopped a drink of water then retreated to his doghouse. Despite my child instinct to flee the scene of my crime, I went and told my dad. He came out, examined our dog and miraculously, could find no evidence of the blow. The next day, I was back to throwing the tennis ball with the gardening glove. Damn, dogs are forgiving!

5) I volunteered for Bible Camp. Who knows how it happened. The details are fuzzy although that my be my subconscious protecting me from trauma. One summer, I couldn't find a job the Texas town where my parents lived, so my mom thought it would look good on my resume if I did some volunteer work. Now, I am not religious. I'm not even religious-adjacent. My Bible knowledge is limited to half-waking moments in church pews and coloring books with David slaying the mighty Goliath.

O.K., I might know a little more than that. At some point, I think that I could even recite all the books of the Old and New Testament. Those days, however, are long gone. Even back in college those were receding memories. However, one day I found myself at a Baptist(?) Bible Camp in southeastern Texas, wrangling 12 year old boys. I even had to sleep in a single-room cabin with 10 boys (that sentence is just wrong on so many levels). Looking back on this, I don't know how I did this, particularly with no alcohol. I do remember a lot of evenings of bad pizza and games of Spades with fellow-counselors.

Volunteering at the Howl Festival

The last weekend was the final Movement in the 3rd Annual Howl Festival. "Howl", for those of you non-poetics, is the poem that Allen Ginsberg wrote that happened to revolutionize the poetic world and embolden the a whole generation of writers who would later be known as The Beats (and a few generations beyond). Even today it is a powerful piece and very appropriately named. There is no underestimating the profound effect "Howl" had on so many artists.

Of course, none of this was on my mind as I dragged myself out of bed at 5:00 A.M. and staggered into the shower. By 7:00, I was standing in Tompkins Square Park with the task of zip-tying hand-painted banners to cheap plastic poles. I had volunteered for the Howl Festival because the Study on the Bowery program required an 'internship' under the auspices of learning the 'ins and outs' of a festival. Let me summarize the experience that is volunteering, coming from a person who has volunteered thousands of hours in the name of film festivals, theater festivals, and writing festivals:

1. Denial. For those doing a festival for the first time, mistaken for Enthusiasm. Lots of fantastic ideas and a desire to inspire and ennoble all to do Great Things. All of this, of course, without the recognition that there are No Funds to realize such lofty dreams. Organizers are often heard uttering phrases like "Of course the city/town of XXXXX will give us whatever money we need." and "Of course they'll let us close down all the major avenues for 4 days straight?"
2. Anger. 'Why won't people give us the money and credit we deserve? Can't they See what we are Doing for the community? This is XXXX's fault!'
3. Bargaining. This is where the throngs of newbie volunteers arrive. 'The Problems Shall Be Defeated with manpower!' immediately becomes the New mantra.
4. Depression. This is the stage where the Real Deals are separated from the Pretenders. Often signaled by the departure of volunteers or mid-level employees who realize that 16 hour workdays for months on end might not be worth that one, extra line on their resume. Volunteer coordinators are often the first staff culprits as they regularly bear witness to both the self-righteous entitlement of the freebie volunteers who expect loads of comps and the staff politics/mental games that have ripened amongst a group that shares too many traits with a mental ward.
5. Acceptance (a.k.a. Fuck It) The day has arrived. Armed with no money, tons of volunteer no-shows and a Plan that has been reduced to a vague Improv sketch of massive proportions. The weak have usually been weeded out by this time, so all that's left is to get it done.

The Miracle of festival volunteering, however, is that It Still Happens. Somehow, it all comes off. Although the initial vision has been whittled down to a nubbin and most of the staff has achieved a thousand-mile stare, the survivors gain that special bond, not unlike that found amongst hostage survivors and war veterans. Then there's that small extra of doing a tremendous service to the community and Art. We don't grow without a little pain, right? There are even a sick few who become addicted to the experience and make careers out of this chaos. They are also known as 'National Treasures'.

The festival, by the way, was fantastic. I had a great time volunteering, I ended up carrying the lead banner in a kick-ass parade, I met some wonderful people, and I feel better for having done something other than sleep in an extra 4 hours.

The Bermuda Triangle of Manhattan (thru May 1st)

I can't remember names for-shit. I recognize faces. I can usually remember where/when/how I met them, but not the name. I also have a terrible habit of swapping first and last names when I’m talking about art,sports, film or music with people. I’ll keep saying Reggie Jackson when I’m meaning Reggie White or, out loud I will be in the midst of a baffling (to others) diatribe about Buddy Guy while I can clearly see that I'm pontificating about Buddy Holly... in my mind’s eye. The thing that really pisses me off about my memory, however, is my habit of repeating stupid mistakes that I’ve already learned the hard way. Let’s take, for example, ohhhh I don’t know… how about the film industry? After receiving my film degree at Undergrad USA, I moved to Los Angeles with screenplays under my arm, a wealth of film knowledge in my brain and a dream in my heart that I'd be the next Martin Scorsese, David Lynch or (at least) Steven Spielberg. For the next 2½ years, I learned what sort of culturally-rich Synergy bubbles forth when you combine drug-heightened egos, millions of dollars of dispensable wealth and the façade that Studio Executives are conducting ‘business’. The subsequent depression induced by this lesson required a year of rural seclusion (involving far too much alcohol and pinball), $25,000 of grad school (shiny new degree, same result), years of girlfriend therapy and a move to New York City before I could feel a little better about human nature. So, now I’m 8 years removed from my South Cali Exodus... which is just about long enough for my selective memory to kick in. Having forgotten how much I loathe the big-studio industry, I obliviously sauntered down the darkened alley of the TriBeCa Film Festival and signed up as a volunteer.

It must have seemed a good idea at the time. Perhaps I thought that I’d meet a few film lovers like myself (always in my quest for community), see some artsy films that were too edgy or foreign to find distribution, and, maybe, slip into a cool, festival party with an open bar. The TriBeCa Film Festival started in 2002 and has quickly become a plausible mid-Spring excuse for distribution reps to visit New York in between their vacations to Park City, Colorado (Sundance) and Cannes, France. My introductory meeting for the eager volunteers involved a cute, frazzled coordinator who read a hand-out to us which threatened instant expulsion from The Cool Club if we were to shove our scripts in any celebrity’s face or stalk anybody. A week later, I received a re-worded Riot Act in a tiny hotel ‘suite’ (labeled VOLUNTEER PLANET in a typical display of hyperbole), which I had to sign. In addition to granting the staff to flog me and remove my badge for any violation of said Act, I also handed away all my rights to talk about any part of my life that might bear witness to the habits of Robert DeNiro/Corporate Sponsors/the Business while exercising the Privilege of volunteering at this Ostentatious Display of Fame. Of course, I had ZERO chance of learning anything juicy about anything while breaking down sponsor ads and standing outside shindigs with a cameraman's bag, but it must have been comforting to know that They could act the fool in front of the help and not worry that it'd come back to bite them.

Already, I could feel the familiar, unsavory taste in my mouth. I was handed my ‘uniform’- a black T-shirt with a shoe store advertisement larger than the festival logo. I also received a super-cheapie “backpack” that I could fill with Lower Manhattan shopping ads, LUNA Nutrition Bars for Women (only 1, please) and Sucralose-flavored, sugar-free Altoids®. I’m not saying that I was expecting a TriBeCa Film Festival Gucci bag or a bottle of Absolut, but considering the fact that 2,000 volunteers were putting thousands of man hours into a festival that generated $65,000,000 for Lower Manhattan last year (according to Access Hollywood), I’d think that they could offer a better deal than a free glass of wine at a restaurant so expensive, I couldn't afford a side salad.

For those of you who don't know Manhattan, TriBeCa stands for 'Triangle Below Canal" Street. At one time, it might have vaguely resembled a triangle, but real estate salesman have slowly expanded the neighborhood boundaries until now it's more of an inverted trapezoid. Roughly speaking, TriBeCa's borders are: North - Canal Street, East - Church Street (flexible), West - West End Highway and South - Vesey St (WTC area). It was warehouse district until fairly recently. TriBeCa is now a cloistered community of aged celebrities, galleries and middle-aged men in black leather jackets. There’s still a bit of old-city feel stuck between the cracks of the cobblestone streets and it's nice to walk down streets called 'Debrosses' instead of 'East 57th'. As I sat in one of the volunteer offices, I could still smell a faint odor of oiled machinery and textiles. I find myself getting really sad and nostalgic when I spend too much time in these spaces. It feels like there's some residue from all the life and kinetic energy that filled those spaces and now it's just bouncing against the drywall and computers that occupy them now.

I don’t want to linger too much on my experiences at the festival. My experiences were, for the most part, dull and far less interesting than any other kind of volunteering I would have found in the City. Of course, not everyone sucked. There were a number of really cool people who’d done short films and New York City-based films. They are, easily, the most important contributors to the festival, though they were considered to be along the periphery of the festival's focus. The only real community I got to know lived amongst the volunteers and staff. The bond was mostly of the sort you’d find in a hostage situation or amongst those who just love to talk about Who they Saw. I’d also forgotten that people who work events rarely get to enjoy them. I didn’t get to see a single movie. I did, however, meet 3 wonderful people at the festival, got into my open-bar party and met enough jackasses to provide me another 8-year reminder of why I despise the Hollywood Scene. At one point, I was witness to a red-carpet premiere that underscored what an Ostentatious Display of Nothing the whole machine really is. I have never been much for celebrity and the few people I’ve wanted to meet in my life have been under whelming experiences. One thing I have retained since my L.A. days is that if you want to kill your idols, just meet them. Trust me, they’re people – eating, sleeping and shitting like the rest of us.

Now, if I can just retain the other lessons...