Movie City Blues, Part I: The Dream Deferred

“How are you doing today?”
“Living the dream, man, living the dream.”

It’s a pretty common exchange on most sets. Depending on inflection, it’s either a hopelessly ironic dismissal or a sincere appreciation of life in the most fabulous business on earth. Despite the misery of any given shoot day, it’s impossible to refute the fact that making movies is pretty damn cool industry to be in. I was halfway through my 3rd hour of locking up a pretty desolate parking garage in Culver City when I realized I was not, in fact, living the dream.

Here's where the dream began: some time around my birthday in 1992, I saw David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. I had been a fan of movies prior to this point, but after seeing that film, I was a true believer. Do not ask me to defend, explain, or justify why this movie was the one that convinced me to go into the pictures (because, as Bart Simpson acutely noted, there are two things wrong with that title). Just accept it as one of those unnatural miracles like Rob Schneider's career or Cheesus. I was hooked. So, naturally, for the next 5 years, I did nothing to follow the dream, besides watch a copious number of films both big and small.

In 1997, I babystepped toward the dream. I enrolled in the Media Arts program at the University of Arizona. Let me tell you this about school: studying the dream is not following the dream. And only taking 1 course out of 50 or so that actually puts a camera in your hands is definitely not following the dream. So, let's say the dream is deferred for another 4 years. (Those 4 years weren't a complete waste of time, but suffice to say the only "vision" I realized in that time was a dubious and illegal feature-length adaptation of a science fiction bestseller and an even more dubious original horror film, neither of which I had a lot of creative input into. Like binge drinking and anonymous sex, both are fun yet woefully unfulfilling.)

I finally got a degree in 2001. Lest you think I was a good doobie and hung that "Mission Accomplished" banner on schedule, know that there were several false collegiate starts prior this go-round of academia, and if I had simply done what I was supposed to do, I could have been in and out of the U of A in less than 3 years. I am nobody's academic role model.

Next up, another furtive and misguided step toward the dream, right? Well, no. I spent the next 2 years awash in cheap wages and cheaper booze in Tucson. I had a job that afforded me just enough to pay rent and bask in the smoky comfort of any of the 15 bars I lived within walking distance of. Fuckin' sweet, dude. Not a total waste of time: I shared a wall of my duplex with a writerly type, from whom by osmosis I learned some of the discipline of what it takes to be an actual writer (not that I actually applied it. That would have been following the dream.) Also, in addition to the relationships of the typical barroom disaster variety that accumulate when one spends that much time in taverns, I managed to find a woman who not only has shared a bed with me for the last 6 years, but actually loves me, too. Not a bad haul.

It was my good fortune to get laid off in the summer of 2003. I was working at a nightclub as a sort of assistant manager/office bitch, and the Tucson leisure economy being the fickle beast it is in the hotter months, I was a cost that had to be cut. One phone call to my sister in LA was all it took to get me out of Tucson after that. I packed everything that would fit into my 1980 BMW 320i, sold the rest, and headed to Los Angeles with gas money and a dream.

Once I got to Los Angeles, I would learn the very difficult difference between living the dream and being a part of someone else's.

To be continued...