When I sit in a movie theater and I finish a movie that I love, say a Juno, a Rushmore, a Royal Tenenbaums, a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I always leave thinking, I want to tell stories like that. Quirky, irreverent, funny. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot. I have some wacky, surreal, incredibly bizarre stories from all my travels. If you sat all my friends down from all parts of my life in one afternoon BBQ, you would be amazed by my circus of a life. You can imagine why that is… not wanting to be bored, thirsting for new experiences, wanting to learn about everything in a Studs Turkel kind of way.
I have a unique point of view and it burns my blood, yearning to tell those stories to the world. It’s all in my head, just waiting to come out and dance around on the stage or on film.
I have grand visions. I am an idea man and many of them are easily worth millions of dollars. I see the big picture of running a fun and cool production company, but every time I get going, I don’t know what it is, but I get derailed and I end up staring at the ceiling.
Problem is, I don’t have the chemical makeup to make those visions into a reality. I’m so disorganized (except when I’m in someone else’s structured world, then I am a field general), I have too many spinning plates around me and I can’t seem to keep them spinning without dropping one, and typically it’s the big Platzgraff plate.
But I know I can do it. I know it’s in me. I’m a hard worker. I’m smart. Here’s an example: When I was in college I spent the entire year blowing off Physics class. I was getting a D- going into finals. Finals was a huge part of the final grades. I put it in eighth gear. I must have done every single homework assignment in two nights to learn an entire year’s worth of physics. I got an A- on the final and ended up with a C in the class. WTF is my problem?
When I’m on the movie set, a lot of producers, department heads, writers, actors, etc, give me the confidence that I can also achieve beyond my level, just by watching some of the things that they do. And so many people with whom I started the business is moving up except for me, becoming producers, directors, writers on big movies and TV shows. Me? I’m trying to figure out how to get out of Target without being so overwhelmed.
I talked to Mel Gibson last night at the Hotel Café. We worked together ten years ago on Payback and he hasn’t forgotten about me because I fully volunteered to be the butt of one of his practical jokes. I wore Lucy Liu’s dominatrix outfit from the movie and he wanted to put it in the Hollywood Reporter. I loved making him laugh.
At the Hotel Cafe, Mel and I chatted about what he was doing and what I was doing. It wasn’t a Hollywood / Entourage / TMZ conversation at all. Just two guys talking about stuff. No mano a mano, or comparing penis size kinds of conversations. We should be working together, damn it!
I went home frustrated, because I’m so accustomed to working with people of his caliber, and I seem to consistently partner up with people who don’t have the chops or who haven’t paid their dues. WTF?
I spent all night filled over the brim with chutzpah. I’m thinking, I’ll send him a postcard and tell him I want to have a meeting with him and talk about directing, or talk about working at Icon, or something…
Then it got overwhelming again. I didn’t want to burn my bridges with him by saying the wrong thing, by trying too hard to impress him or by appearing to be too desperate. Flooded with possibilities, I stand still instead. Running to stand still. These are the moments I wish I had a dad who could help me write a letter.
So it turns out I’m probably not going to write anything. It’s so much easier to just be around the people “trying to make it” than the people who are are already incredibly successful.
I take a VyVanse. It works to keep me focused, but it’s a matter of 1) what shoud I be focused on? and 2) contending with all the scar tissue caused by all my past patterns of self-sabotage. At this moment, I’m inspired to find a coach, which brings up another issue…
Cash flow. And to follow my heart and my dreams of writing and directing I cannot go back to making $12,000 a week and doing what I’m very good at. I just can’t. Like someone told me once, “it’s chump change.”
