Identity

Sunset 7-8
This is the third of three posts covering a major transition in my life. You can also read the first one and the second one.

It’s been about two months since I decided to move to Seattle, and yet it has already felt like a short lifetime. I’ve started work at a totally unfamiliar environment, begun exploring some of the rich neighborhoods around downtown, hung out with some really great locals, and found a neat new apartment in Belltown. In the meantime, I’ve also kept producing episodes of all of my podcasts, including the /Filmcast, The Tobolowsky Files, and A Cast of Kings (plus, did you hear? I’m launching a new one too).

I was prompted to write this blog post because I got all nostalgic this week reading /Film’s coverage of San Diego Comic-Con. Not too long ago, I went to Comic-Con for two years in a row, back when my work for /Film was at its peak output. I remember the special place in my geek heart that Comic-Con had occupied since my college days. The place was supposed to be a mecca of pop culture, a place where you could really let your freak flag fly and no one would judge you for it. Indeed, pretty much everything I saw comported with that dream. People dress up in crazy costumes and just nonchalantly waltz around in restaurants and convention halls alike. The gods of the film world frequently make appearances. Every now and then, you get some actual insight into the creation of a film or a TV show, or something crazy happens, or something really adorable happens. It’s like a geek’s dream-world.

But covering Comic-Con was a challenge. I recall endless lines in the hot sun coupled with hours of waiting for no guarantee of making it into a panel, and staying up late into the night, trying to bang out some relevant stories for the site. It was all so thrilling and exciting and wonderful and terrible. But there was so much camaraderie there, amongst all the great writers I had the privilege to work alongside. Sure, we were regurgitating poorly veiled marketing material, but we were racking up a crapton of pageviews, paying the bills, and basking in our love of “the popular arts.” There are few experiences as exhilarating and as cathartic. I miss the people. I miss the insanity. I miss the video blogs (one of which was actually covered by The New York Times).

This year, I didn’t go to Comic-Con. In fact, I spent this past Friday at a business meeting in San Francisco, all day. My life is totally unrecognizable from what it used to be.

It’s remarkable, this culture of online pop culture writers that’s sprung up over the course of the past decade. These people travel around the world, interviewing celebrities, seeing stuff before we get to see it, getting their own stuff read by tens of thousands of people. It sounds like living the dream and for many people, it is.

Eight months ago, I was wrapping up my Master’s degree and thinking about my next steps. One of the options I considered was diving straight into doing all of this online stuff full time. Podcasting, blogging, interviews, etc., all of it. If I really made a go of it, I would’ve probably been able to scrape together enough money to get by. But other opportunities came my way and I decided not to go that route.

In deliberating, I was confronted with an unmistakable truth: I just didn’t love it enough.

I’m sure that many of my favorite online writers live comfortably, but it is difficult out there for an aspiring film writer. There are perils everywhere. Write about something in the wrong way or in violation of some arbitrarily established “rules” and bloggers will jump all over you on Twitter. Meanwhile, the old guard will look down on you if they think your writing is not “serious” enough, or if, god forbid, you actually want to make money doing what you do. All the while, everyone vies for a rapidly vanishing slice of nominal ad dollars spent on their sites. For many, these are all just minor inconveniences that are endured in exchange for the vast benefits enumerated above. But for me, it’s not  enough. At least, not right now. There are too many things that I want to do and to learn first, before I start living the life of Reilly. It may not be as outwardly exciting as going to Comic-Con or interviewing James Cameron, but I love the wonder and satisfaction of learning and overcoming and discovering in my current *gasp* corporate environment. That’s not to say that one can’t derive that from online work (it’s usually quite the opposite, in fact). It’s just to say that I can’t right now, at least without frantically worrying about my other life obligations.

At the /Filmcast, we recently marked the four-year “anniversary” of our first episode. It reminded me that while it’s certainly been a roller-coaster ride, the past four years have also been marked with a great deal of uncertainty in my life. I don’t know that I’ve settled into my final destination yet, but after a lot of struggle, things are finally starting to feel as though they have some momentum. I’m loving my new job, my new manager/boss, and all the awesome new things I’m learning. I like the way things are, even as I miss the way they were.

It’s possible that one day I will get back into the writing/broadcasting game and do it full-bore. But in the meantime, I’m content to watch from the sidelines, to remember the good old days, and to cheer on all of my colleagues. Regardless of how much of my life is in it, it’s a great time to be alive and to experience the pleasures of art, and the pleasures of loving it.

***

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?


Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

My First July 4th in Seattle

Readers of this blog know that I’ve recently settled into an apartment in Seattle after a great deal of searching. I’m pretty happy with my new place in Belltown and anticipated that it would have a pretty solid view of the fireworks, but I had no idea how good. Below you’ll find a video I shot and some photos I took of the show using my Canon 5D Mark II. These were all shot from my apartment out of my window.

A solid show, but it can’t beat the crazy stuff we do back in Boston…

The Ravages of AIDS

A powerful Reddit thread featuring the reflections of older people, many of them gay men, who were alive at the time and experienced the AIDS epidemic first-hand. Here’s the top-voted comment:

I was just coming out at the time that AIDS came into public awareness ( I was 25 at the time). I had moved to Denver to kind of find myself and figure things out…to get away from my hometown. Not knowing anyone in Denver, I of course started making friends. Unfortunately, what happened was that a few months after I’d make a friend, they’d pass away from complications of AIDS. I attended just over 20 funerals the first year I was there. It was a scary time. Not only the fear of AIDS, but I started getting to where I was afraid to try to make any friends knowing that the chance of them dying from AIDS was extremely high.

There was also the fear of not knowing the specifics of how the disease was transmitted. It was strongly believed at the time it was sexual, but there was no information on other methods of transmitting it…casual contact? kissing? sharing eating utensils? No one knew, and everyone in the gay community was afraid. Over time, AIDS wiped out an entire generation of gay men. This has had an effect on the more recent generations since people that would normally have been mentors, big brother figures, teachers, etc. were gone, so the younger generation lost out on the wisdom and experience of the previous one. The worst thing was when my first gay friend (and my best friend), came to me two years after I moved back home, that he had AIDS. He told me how scared he was, and that he didn’t want to die. He was one of the first group that was put on AZT as the one and only treatment at the time. He died 8 months later.

EDIT: Ok…so this is my very first posting on reddit. I’m OVERWHELMED by the responses. I had no idea it would take off like this! This has also brought me to tears many times…I have pushed all of this deep in the back of my mind for over two decades. Thank you everyone for your posts. It has really been healing for me to finally face the tragedy of the past, and at the same time, brought back a lot of very fond memories of the friends I’ve lost.

How To Make a Hit Basic Cable Network

John Landgraf is the president of FX, a TV network that rose from the rubble to become one of the most exciting ones in existence. I found his recent interview with Kim Masters on KCRW’s The Business to be hugely insightful and fascinating. In particular, Landgraf reflects on his decision to pass on Breaking Bad, a decision that he doesn’t necessarily regret, but one that he certainly would have done differently today. Check out the whole thing below (the interview begins 6 minutes in):

 

One of my favorite bits occurs when Landgraf discusses the uselessness of focus groups:

People don’t always know what they want. That’s the problem with research and the problem with focus groups. I mean, what group of people could tell you “What we really want is Avatar,” or “what we really want is South Park” or “What we really want is The Simpsons“? Those things didn’t exist in anything like that form before they existed, and people love them. So, creative people’s jobs is to imagine the existence of things that don’t exist, and people can’t always tell you what they want and they’re often confused by really innovative work. Until they’re not. 

It’s Okay

A few months ago, I signed up for The Listserve, a service where you agree to receive a daily e-mail from a random stranger in exchange for the possibility to write your own e-mail at some point. Right now, the list of people signed up is at about 20,000, but it’s growing each day.

While some of the e-mails are a colossal waste of time, many of them are poignant and insightful. In fact, I found today’s to be simple, yet unexpectedly profound. Here it is, from Jazmin in Guelph, Ontario.

***

I thought long and hard, perhaps just long, about what to write. And of course I procrastinated to the point where I almost wondered if I’d missed my window to write to the list. You sign up, and you know intellectually that someday you’ll have to write to everyone, but you figure it will be ages away. You’ll have time to think of something.

And then it appears in your inbox asking to speak to hundreds of people. Some of whom will read and smile. And some of whom will think you’re a blithering idiot. And some will think you have something interesting to say. And some will delete it without reading. And some won’t understand.

And it’s okay.

It’s okay not to be read. It’s okay not to have everything work out as you planned. It’s okay not to be liked by everyone.

It’s okay. It’s okay to be ordinary and not one of the ones winning awards and being on the news and doing Great Things ™.

I’m only about a week away from turning 40 years old. An age that sits solidly in what most consider middle age. Ancient to the 20 somethings and younger, in the prime of life to those already there and past. I’m not concerned with getting older. I enjoy the experience, the knowledge, the gift of being able to say that I’m closer to a half century of existence than not.

But I haven’t done anything spectacular. I haven’t devoted my life to curing childhood cancer. I’m not a famous politician or entertainer. I’m not a stunning businessman or scientist. I’m just fairly ordinary.

And that’s okay.

I have a calm life, one that is creative and interesting. One that doesn’t make for a good answer to that question of ‘what’s new?’ or ‘what do you do?’ at parties, but one that leaves me generally content.

And that’s okay.

So dream big, Do All The Things, but it’s /okay/ if that Big Dream is something little and not earth shattering. There’s nothing wrong with content.

Take good care of yourself, and remember that Life is Good.