(no subject)
I have spent the last 25 years of my life never believing I was goon enough.
And now…..
Funny little thing life is. You think you can know who you can trust. You think you know who you love. You think you know who is going to be there forever.
My mother told me “Sometimes a person digs a hole so deep for themselves, that they can never get out.”
I should have listened to her long ago.
I told Mike I was worried that I was beginning to hate women. Mike told me “Don’t hate women. Just hate the bipolar ones.”
I laughed then. I don’t laugh about it anymore.
I was on the phone the other day with John R. I was not realy concentrating on what he was saying about my screenplay. I was thinking about my birthday. I was thinking about the bag of grass in my dresser. I was thinking about a girl I have been talking to named Jackie. I was thinking so much about all those things that I hardly noticed when he offered me money.
“What?” I said.
“I said how about $5,000?” he repeats. “For all the rights to it?
“I’m sorry. That just kind of caught me off guard.”
“That’s ok. But listen, I realy want this. It’s one of the best scrips I’ve read in years and I would realy love to make it into a movie.”
“It’s funy.” I say to him. “ My ex told me I should give up writing. She said I write like a child.”
John laughs.
“Was your ex crazy?” He asks chuckeling.
“Yes.”
There was a few moments of uncomfortable silence. Then John clears his throught and continues.
“So, are you interested in selling?”
“Thank you Mr. R,” I tell him. “But I poured my heart and soul into this story, and it would feel wrong to sell it. I want to make it myself, I want to keep controle over my creation.”
“Well. You have my number if you change your mind?”
“Yes.”
“And, if you write anything else, you’ll send me a copy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good luck.”
$5,000. That’s more money then I’ve made all this year. And I did not even think about it. I did not want someone else to take my story. I want to make it. Its mine. No one else.
And, in reflection afterwards, I realized something.
I am good enough.
In fact, I am better.
I know what I want.
I don’t obsess over it like some people. I don’t shove it in the face of people who don’t give a damn. I don’t romanticize it. It’s just part of what I am.
I’m a writer, what the fuck are you?
Director? Yes, i'm that also.
I’m also a actor, musician, producer, pervert, Irishman, dreamer, drunkard, and bastard.
What the fuck are you?
What the fuck are you?
Why do you need one thing to define you? A job. A place. A ‘ideal’.
My father had a saying.
“Take me as I am, or go fuck yourself.”
I know what I am. I know I am better than the so called ‘artists’ that I have seen come and go. The difference between me and them?
I’m still standing.
Where are they?
Given up and working at ‘Starbucks’?
Traded in your Dr. Martins for Dockers?
I have my integrity. I have my pride.
I’m still standing.
And what will happen to you?