The Rough Draft

So today my day job ended and I now walk in the ranks of the somewhat disenfranchised. It was expected, I saw it coming from miles off, I warned all those around me to expect it and yet it still shocked and pissed me off somewhat.

Not the losing of the job. Jobs come, jobs go.

No, it was the handling of the whole thing. You see the company I worked for is in the process of going under. Why is not really an issue but lets just say ego and stupidity were big factors. Now I don’t work for them anymore, I don’t give a shit if they read this blog or not. In a few weeks it won’t matter anyway because they won’t exist.

But back to the handling. Around one, I get a phone call, can I and the guy I’m working with come back to the shop when the job is done. The wanker on the other end of the line is evasive as to why. Why I don’t know. He knows I’m not stupid, I’ve cleaned up enough of his fuck ups over the years for him to know this. I tell my partner, we finish up what we’re doing and head back to the shop. Now bear in mind I’ve worked for these guys for twenty years (some longer than others) and for the last five years, I’ve watched the current owner take what was a successful business and run it right into the ground. Did I speak up about all this while it was going on? I sure did. I was labeled a troublemaker and basically had any control wrestled away from me and given to others who could toe the line. You want to pay me this much and I have to do less? Okay, fine by me.

So I shut up.

And here I am standing in this fool’s office while he tells me too bad, so sad, bye bye. I’m too expensive to keep around. But hey, he says, I’m working on a thing of my own, I might give you a call later. I just looked at him. “I’ll be doing other things, so I’m going to say no, now.” If it wasn’t so pathetic, I’d be laughing.

The worst part? Twenty years and the guy who owns the company can’t tell me to my face, I’m laid off.

Like I said, pathetic and sad.

But there is a bright side to all of this. They and all associated with them are no longer my problem.

I’m incorporating next week. Things are happening and now I have time to devote to them. It’s going to be an interesting year.

Well it’s certainly going to end that way.

Eighteen years ago a truly terrible thing happened to me and my family. We had a house fire, my youngest son died and my other son, the one with Autism, was badly burned. We all continue to bear the scars from that tragedy both emotional and physical. It took me three years of one on one therapy after that to realign my life and to dissipate the extreme anger I felt and on somedays when I haven’t had much sleep or am not at my best, still feel.

There’s a lot of guilt involved in this sort of terrible event. Most of it for me surrounded the fact that I was at work and not at home when the fire broke out. The cause of which was never determined. This is a tough thing for a guy like me to take. I’m used to having answers and solutions, it’s what I’m paid for in my day job and it’s a major component in my writing. If I don’t know it, I can’t write it. Not that I’m a control freak, I get chaos, I understand entropy and our place within it. But knowing you can’t reset time, doesn’t make the pain or the frustration any worse. At least for us it was quick. We didn’t have to watch our son die a lingering death like some of the other parents in the ICU. I’m not grateful for that but I do understand and so there’s a bit of shame to go with the guilt.

What was surprising was how others co-opted our loss. Most with good intentions (I guess) but intrusive non the less. The whole experience is only made more terrible by the press, who constantly hound you for details, never get their facts straight (you’d have to check facts to get them right) and for whom supposition and speculation are the rule. So no, I have no love or respect for the press in any form. One of the firefighters on the scene had to physically threaten a photographer to get him away from my dying son as he tried to administer aid. This in my opinion makes them parasites of the lowest phylum.

People came to our aid. Which was weird because we were insured. We had a place to stay, we had a house to rebuild and my surviving son was still in for a lengthy hospital stay. He took up a lot of our time as did making sure that our daughter was not forgotten, just because she was healthy. Things got very weird during this time. One of our neighbors took it upon herself to wave our banner about and get all kinds of donations and stuff given to us. None of which I asked for but it sure got her name in the papers. Which leaves you feeling strange because you appreciate the generosity but you never asked for it in the first place.

I was desperately trying to give away the cash donations to people I felt really needed it. It felt like blood money to me and I really needed to get myself shot of it. So I gave a $1000 to the family who lost their daughter to a lengthy battle with Leukemia a day after my son’s death. They had been wiped out by all those little costs that our medical system doesn’t cover. A day later, I received an anonymous donation of $10,000. I got the message and stopped giving money away. About four months later I needed every penny of it as my own mask of being in control cracked, split and fell away and the full force of PTSD hit me. I knew I was out of control and got the help I needed. Ironically, psychological assistance is not covered by medical unless you’re totally crazy. Mostly crazy, you have to pay for yourself and that’s where that $10,000 went.

Over the years, I’ve learned to dread that look as hard questions are asked about the past and why my son’s face, “Looks like that?” I know it’s sad, it still makes me cry but spare me your pity, I’ve got no use for it. The world didn’t stop turning, it just got rather dim for a while.

But yes, some people tried to turn our tragedy into their platform for their own personal dramas. We don’t talk to them much anymore. So I finally get to my point of this particular blog.

I got a phone call from one of my best friends the other day. The kind of call you never want to get. He has Colon cancer. It looks like they caught it early and the prognosis is good and for that I am glad. He’s keeping it very close to his chest and I can appreciate that. This is his disease and the impact falls on him, his family and his closest friends. I’ll help where I can but only if it doesn’t intrude. This isn’t about me or how this event makes me feel, this is about helping a friend get better and stay better.

And for that I’ll say a prayer, because to be honest, me and God haven’t been on speaking terms in a very long time.

I hate most meetings. They’re counter productive and they tend to not get much done. Story meetings drag on and on when you’re breaking the story and sometimes it can take three or four multi hour sessions to get to that start point of the phrase that launches it all. Those at least are tolerable. Tolerable that is when you’re working with other professionals.

If there’s a civilian present? Well lets just say you’re in for a bumpy ride. And that last nerve, it’s gonna get stomped on.

It’s not secret I’m expanding the producing side of the company right now. Forces are at work in my life that requires Producing to take a big step forward. I’ve been limiting my involvement to Associate Producing as of late. Which is more of a support role. Helping with script punch ups and finding the hard to source items needed for a limited budget production.

So when my friend D called about my involvement in his upcoming film, I agreed to the meeting because we have a history, he’s read me, I’ve read him and that’s called a friendship in this industry. So we arrange a time and place (his) to meet and introduce me to his, “Partner.” Who shall be referred to as V.

I arrive at D’s a few minutes early, V calls, he’s stuck in traffic so D and I catch up. We discuss some of the nitty gritty stuff, expectations, that sort of thing, you know, “Work speak.” It’s all good. Twenty minutes later, V shows up and it becomes readily apparent that V is a civilian, an individual that has no clue about what it takes to create a project and then get it made. Which doesn’t have to be a problem if he’ll sit there and listen and learn but that’s not his style. He has an opinion, which he doesn’t mind sharing over and over the two hours story meeting.

I just wish he had a clue. Referring to the whole exercise as, “Needing a hobby,” will not put you on my good side. I have a great sense of humor, just not about film making or screen writing. I’m serious as a heart attack about those. It’s no, “Hobby,” for me. It’s trench warfare.

You see, film is a visual medium. Your visuals are dictated by budget. The bigger the budget, the more spectacular or ridiculous the visuals. for example: Eight million dollars - Little Miss Sunshine. A bagillion dollars - Transformers (or any Michael Bay film). We’re talking no budget for D’s film. This means practical effects in practical locations where it doesn’t pay to set your friend’s couch on fire (or to even get a stain on it). This was a hard pill for V to swallow.

While V was a hard pill for me to swallow.

As I get older, my tolerance for crazy is dropping. When I was twenty, crazy was the norm, thirty, a little crazy was okay, after forty? No thanks. I’ve been burned by crazy too many times to count. I see crazy now, I beat feet and hope I didn’t get any on my shoes.

So the bottom line is, as long a V is involved in D’s project, I’m not. I’ll still help D out where I can but my days of hauling dead weight around are long behind me.

Break a leg D

And to V, good luck.