Endings and Beginnings

“Looking out on the world beyond him”

He sees it, so close he could touch it.

So he goes for it.

Confident, at last.”

Those last few words put down marked the beginning of a queasiness in my stomach that persisted.

It was either the result of a stomach bug that had caused my festival-bound friend Chadd Harbold to “shit his brains out”, or the kind of feeling you get finishing your first screenplay.

Of course, the phrase “finishing a screenplay” is a misnomer. What you get at the end of writing such a thing, especially when it comes out in bursts from week to week, is something that is barely cohesive, riddled with typos and grammaticql errors, the product of rushing every week in brain-crushing guilt to finish your 5-8 pages to bring in to show your peers or not.

In a way, finishing work or writing pages does share a lot with the stomach bug Chadd had: since what you have is probably shit but you can’t wait to get it out.

A “blue” comparison I know (or dare I say, a “brown” one), but an apt one, if you asked me, particularly on the night of my writing group when I finished the pages.

It’s also worth nothing that in the film world, a screenplay is never completed until the film is almost in theaters, sometimes.

I have described screenwriting before as a “Pyrrhic art”, because if you attain success, that is the sale of a screenplay, you have essentially written something no one will ever see. Unless you are an auteur and write your own scripts that you direct, you are selling your child essentially to a director or producer who is not only allowed to rewrite the script as many times as he or she may please, bringing on various writers, but also filming it however they want, adding another level of interpretation. It’s like a giant, comical game of telephone, in that way. Except it takes that child’s game and applies it something you might profoundly care about.

Still, the young screenwriter puts that out of mind for now and celebrates for a time, the first of many finishes of his work.

Now, I was ready. I had already begun to think about my next project, an adaptation of the life of George C. Tiller and was eager to see how this would go over, how it would play.

I felt a sadness at leaving my characters behind. I felt a sadness at leaving the script.

But at the same time, I was filled with that gaul-y confidence, the feeling of inevitability, of bringing your work to your peers, into acceptance, into the unknown.

***

“I hope we can still be friends after this.” Jesse told me as we headed out of the writing group.

He was joking, of course, but the look on his face was one of sheepish uneasiness.

For Jesse, along with the other members of my writing group, who I had meant to surprise with the ending of my script, had just, as politely as they could, panned the shit out of it.

“Dude, I mean, come on.” said Andy, in his half-disbelieving SoCal drawl. “You couldn’t think of anything else?”

I didn’t know what to say.

I had founded my writing group as a way to get out pages, week-by-week, to add social pressure to the guilt of not writing, figuring that while it was easy enough to lapse into self-neglect, my personality wouldn’t allow me to think I was letting down my friends and people who had confidence in me.

More than that, I wanted to stay in touch with people: former film students, writers and actors. I wanted to see what’s up and read pages that I enjoyed reading in a casual setting, like the best moments of the writing classes I had taken at school, which were packed with friends like Rob Malone and Blake LaRue who brought in pages that were always funny and weird and a pleasure to read.

The group had gone on well, but it appeared that I had gotten spoiled on the praise I had received so far for my pages.

Writing the way I did, up until the last minute, hurrying and half-assing my way to any usable printer and exhaling only when I sat down to read had given me swells of self-satisfaction at my success, since I felt not only that my writing was accepted, but it was accepted in spite of meticulousness. That I could write well without, well, earning it.

It only fit that at the apotheosis of my efforts, I found myself dashed.

If you think that’s all melodramatic, I’d refer you to the words of my comedy writing teacher, D.B. Gillis, who once told me:

“The first response of any writer to a critque of his work will always be: fuck you, die.”

As the group split up from Caffe Dante, I trudged home, feeling the music that accompanied depressed characters from the television show “Arrested Development” play me off.

One thought in my head: Well, at least that girl, who couldn’t show up, wasn’t there to see this.

***

I should remark that failure artisitically has only brought me success in my past life at New York University Film School.

In my freshman photography class, the failure of my pastiched attempts at describing the world around me lead me to do more introspective work, which the class loved.

In my sophomore class, my attempts at specific one-line jokes of a film, fell flat, so I made sure every film I made told a story.

As a junior, I was too scared and dismissive of my own abilities and let a friend help direct my film, the recognition of which sent me into acting and directing class I loved.

As a senior, my first two scripts were flatly denied by my teacher, which pulverized me every time, to know something that’s come from you is inadequate, until I made my third script, which made me proud.

As a lover of women, I never tried to dress well or stand tall until an ex-not-girlfriend called me up to tell me she’d fucked my doppleganger, a move that acted like a slap-in-the-face towards some sort of recognition of self-appearance.

You could call this a positivistic narrative, a narrative of progress that I am imposing, the kind that people criticize when they discuss the falsehood of history.

The only response to this I could have, is that the idea that we are progressing in our lives, or moving forward, is what keeps us sane.

Like wearing a beloved hat, it’s unsure whether or not the hat makes you look cooler, except that you feel cooler wearing it.

If that makes any sense.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I’m unsure what I’ll do with the end of my screenplay, but that it’s only the first finish of many.

And life marches on.

***

I moved into my new apartment today.

It feels smaller, though I am told over and over that it isn’t.

As I packed up my life of the previous two years, the same friends who hated my pages, came to move my furniture.

“My one rule is that I’m not touching your undies.” Andy told me, as we packed the apartment. “It’s like Pretty Woman, where she doesn’t kiss on the mouth.”

And now I’m sitting here, adjusting, to an apartment that was much like my previous one, but feels different all the same.

I feel odd and I’m still not sure I don’t have Chadd’s stomach virus.

But it isn’t about how I feel right now, but how I feel tomorrow.

Is what I think.

Is what I get from all this?

Alright, that’s pretty lame.

“I’m heading home later.” Rob, formerly Beardo, texts me. “I need to make my Washington State homage to The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”

“How about The Fast and The Furious: Drunken Hobos in Olympia?” I suggest.

“Only if you’ll be my brother.” Rob tells me. Then:

“Hurry up with you’re response. You’re letting me down.”

Confidence Games

“It’s a confidence game.” He explained to me.

“You’re an art dealer, there’s a buyer; you’re selling fakes and he’s not rich. Everyone’s playing each other. Everyone’s in on it. A confidence game.”

“That’s the theme anyway.”

I found myself at the Public Theater, meeting a director who, after talking to me in line at a show called “Rambo Solo”, had decided that I might be right for a part in his next downtown-theater mash-up.

In truth, there was some vindication in it. I could be pissed off finally at the theater teachers of my youth, Ms. Baehr and Mr. Meacham who cast me in side-lined roles and drove me (mercifully) from a future as a “drama kid”.

But I also felt taken aback.

Why would somebody who met me in a line waiting for a show think to cast me in a play. What was it?

“Well,” he told me. “Honestly, you talked to me about theater in the line and how you love it and you had so much to say.”

“And I thought to myself, this guy’s got some confidence. He could sell it. And I thought, why not give it a try?”

I smiled.

“Now do you think you might have problems memorizing lines?” He asked.

“Well,” I told him. “I’m good at Karaoke.”

***

Is it wrong that I’m the kind of guy who needs to get a little confidence to have some?

Just a little confidence mind you, not a lot.

When my therapist asked me if I was the sort of person who depended on other people for my self-opinion, I told her “No, I don’t think so.”

And then after a moment:

“I mean, well kinda. But no.”

That might seem like a back-handed admission, but I think it’s probably more complicated than that.

For instance, the other day I found myself applying for a job (as I do so often nowadays), I sent in my cover letter and my resume and I got an email back.

The email was of a simple mass type, with a little bit of personalization (It included my name).

It simply told me that my application had been received, that qualified candidates would have two-to-three rounds of interviews and that they would keep me posted.

Stepping away from my computer, I felt it.

“Dan!” I announced as one might announce grandly over G-Chat to a friend.

“I have just received a letter telling me that I am in the running for the position. They have emailed me back! Ha-ha!”

Except I said “Ha-ha!” neither in a Nelson-from-The-Simpsons way (Haha!) nor in a casual laughing sense (ha,ha), but rather in the triumphant roar of one who was at least under consideration for a job, for in the land of the blind men, the man under consideration to receive an eye at least, well, he’s doing pretty good.

Except all of this was on G-chat so it probably lost its intended fervor.

“yeah” was Dan’s monosyllabic response, which came much later, probably not until after he’d taken a shower or something and when I asked him if he applied I met a blank screen staring back, wondering at the efficacy of G-Chat for immediate communication.

Still, I had gotten a confidence boost.

Similarly, when I go to my writing group every week, I make it a point always to bring in pages of my own. Something inside me tells me that if I want an environment of working writers, I have to hold myself to the standard I’d hold them to and come with pages every week.

But everytime I write my pages, a dread fills me of how they will be received. Will the 5-6 people who attend weekly find them wanting? Trite? Laughable (but in a bad way)?

Inarticulate horror mixed with vertiginous anticipation fills me, much as waiting for the results of AP scores once did.

But so far I’ve been coasting and every week I hear people tell me “good job”, “I really liked it” or “It’s great to hear your pages.”

When I hear things like that, a part of me blanches in embarassment or happiness, but another part of me grabs the comment and builds with i so the next time I say something douchebaggy or authoritative, I can mentally reference the praise or the happiness shown to me by someone and use it as a bulwark against uncertainty.

“Oh,” I’d think. “I can give suggestions to other people about their writing because I’ve had X,Y and Z tell me they like mine.”

Similar to this is how I functioned in film school, with what seems now like an upward build toward self-satisfaction. The same friend from G-Chat, Dan Pleck, would mock me on the set of my films and when I was talking with an ex-not-girlfriend of mine who was younger, on how I always seem to give advice, which is as much about my fond memories of earlier years in film school as any sense of expertise.

In other words, I can feel confident in certain situations by reliving good experiences from the past, no matter how minor they might be.

***

The inverse is also true.

When I feel I have no experience or only bad experiences in something, it’s hard for me to take a leap or act brave.

Contrasts of this are apparent, like on Karaoke Mondays where I belt out songs and always keep going even I mess up or make a “vocal miscalculation”.

When I went this Monday, sans a certain Beardo, my friend Andy Roehm stepped up to come with, making it a drunk-old-time, singing AC-DC and songs in falsetto.

When I trapsed around the bar, singing Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E”, I was congratulated about “my baritone” and given a thumbs up by the bartender Colin, the karaoke DJ we love and respect.

But when Andy started asking me about my love life, I didn’t know what to say. I had always felt like to get in the game you needed some experience and I felt that all my experiences were poor or sorely lacking if present at all.

“Don’t matter, dude.” Andy offered. “Best thing I ever learned was that most girls are just like guys: DTF. They’re looking to fuck just as much as us.”

In some ways, the thought of that was even scarier than the idea of persuading them.

And even my Karaoke skills were built up through Rob telling me after every number that he liked it “for it’s class”.

Another place I face this is in my improv class, which is all the harder considering how I expect myself to be at good at it and find myself instead falling flat at every exercise, seeing my classmates get better.

Every time I sit down from volunterring for a sketch or a scene, I sit down less willing to go back up again. After all, I’d just messed up the scene before and with enough consecutive chances to prove myself blown, I felt like I was on a downward hurl.

“You are the only one who can defeat yourself.” My dad told me. But the nerd in me thought, “Well a ninja or a samurai could defeat me too.”

My brain went haywire. I was terrible at improv. I was terrible at life. I smelled bad. I hadn’t taken a shower. I was gaining weight. Seth Rogen was losing weight.

This was not a cycle I wanted to continue.

But then a girl in class gave me her number and asked for mine.

And then we talked about in being in film school and PAing.

And then we did a sketch where we two hipsters in a record store where she mocked me for not liking Joy Division because it wasn’t obscure enough.

And then we made plans to go see a show later that night.

And then I went to the bathroom at the place my class is held and looked at myself in the mirror, looked at my hair and turned sideways and thought:

“You know my hair gets curlier when it ain’t washed. Maybe this night won’t be so bad.”

Baoguettes, Cupcakes and Tranny-Flashing: A Day in the Life

This was probably the best cupcake I ever ate.

It was my lunch break from set, but I’d come to set prepared from a therapy session, one where I’d helpfully been informed that because I was nicely getting over my anger/anxiety from being witness to a fatal incident, this meant I was ready to get back to my usual state of depression about my post-collegiate career (or lack thereof).

“Where you should be” is how my therapist described it.

So given my particular psycho-emotional location, I had decided that I couldn’t go on to a film shoot without at least some good food in my belly, so when the Assistant Director gave me a “negative” in my when’s-lunch text-message, I picked something up for myself along the way.

That something was a Baoguette (picture not included), a mini-twist on a Bahn Mi, that in this case was 5 dollars for a mess of daikon, carrot, cucumber, Sriracha sauce and dark-meat chicken on, what else, a “baoguette”. The sandwich was yummy, a little hot for me (even though I ordered mild) and I admired most that it was handed to me, plasticless, in a blunt paper sack and that despite it’s various vegetables and sauces, it somehow managed not to drip or spill before hitting my mouth.

Bahn Mis are usually a yummy situation in New York, for digestion and otherwise, managing well in an economy where five dollars of non-McDonald’s goodness comes much appreciated, especially when it fills you up as well and as flavorfully as a Bahn Mi. And while the one from Baougette was neither as authentic as “the real thing” down on Mott St nor as cheap/character-driven as the Simpsons-watching sammy down at Nicky’s on Ave A, Baoguette is most notable for its location: it’s square on St. Mark’s Place between 2nd and 3rd, right in the terrible-touristy over-priced heart of the East Village. As such, it provides a viable (if slightly more expensive) alternative to the double-whammy sucktacular combo of Two Bros Dollar-a-Slice Pizza and San Loco down the block.

Anyway, it turned out to be a good idea, given what I was in for back on set.

***

The reason I guess, or one of them, that my therapist deemed me “better” was that I had for the past five days been working from set-to-set in the very same capacities I had worked on in Georgia: as a Script Supervisor and a Digital Intermediate Technician (D.I.T.). In truth, it was less about getting into the swing of things than out of sheer boredom; I had no plans for my life, so when someone offered me anything, I jumped.

The first weekend was the D.I.T. work, sitting at my computer internet-less, transferring footage from a digital camera on to several drives, while listening in the background to either Real Time with Bill Maher, anime, or if I got really desperate, what was actually going on on set. What was going on on set were various strangers coming up to be interviewed on how movies changed their lives, doing amateur imitations or talking about what they aspired to. The strangest ones I caught were a Mormon aspiring-actor singing “Circle of Life” from The Lion King, sound effects and all, and a Beijing social-climber talking about her wish to emulate Elle Woods from Legally Blonde.

But while that was strange, it was mostly sitting with my back turned to the action, waiting for lunch, a coffee break or to sneak downstairs for internet or to make fun of the attendants at the sound-stage.

“Manager, I’d like to make a complaint. The attendant has inconsistent facial hair.” I would tell my friend Jesse Fisher between takes.

“Dually noted.” His manager, an easy-going fellow named Jermaine would reply, in between sneaking peeks at a DVD playing on a computer.

The shoot went by quickly, nonetheless, despite boredom and asides and I found myself out for drinks with the people on the shoot and one of my teachers talking about life after college, in-college and etc. Going out for drinks with teachers was never a phenomenon for me, even in college, but I was surprised at how ordinary it finally was.

***

My friend Andy’s shoot, on the other hand, was anything but  a snooze—an action-packed adventure full of down-pours, thunder-storms, sexy women and transsexual Spanish-language pornography.

I was a script supervisor; a decidedly more hands-on job (at least more hands on than sitting at my computer with my back turned) and it involved me getting to see most of the craziness on set.

I admit I was a little worried going back on to a student film shoot after Georgia,–the possible unleashing of something repressed was not lost on me.

“Andy.” I told the director. “If I need to leave, I will.” I told him.

But where I had previously had to figure with Cranes and lights the size of luxurious doghouses, I found myself shooting below fourteenth street with a battery-powered light known as a “sun gun” and a Mag-Lite duct-taped to a Red One camera. It was refreshing, actually which was a happy surprise from Andy, who I previously had exhorted on this blog for being generally a refreshing person in the world of Tisch-Film.

The days flew by on set, with mostly hand-held shots, with the longest day clocking in at 6 hours and actors, young and in good humor. The script was a “loose” adaptation of the Odyssey entitled “That Night”, wherein Todd, an office-worker dealing with extra stress-and-mess at a job he needs is accidentally roofied and must make his way home through downtown Manhattan amidst its indigenous characters and travails.

The day I remembered most involved an impromptu transvestite, whom Todd has mistaken for his girlfriend, when he awakens in “her” bed, only to find tranny-porn playing on the TV and his “girlfriend” standing up to pee.

The actor, a character who I’ll call “Randy” to protect his identity, turned out to be a half-Italian, half-Vietnamese Econ major (not “Latina” as described in the script) who far from being either a “tranny” or a “queen” was actually about to start an ambiguous job in finance at one of the “bailout banks”.

“You know that means we’ll be paying 36% of your paycheck.” The ever-political Dan Pleck, the mixer on this shoot, pointed out.

“I know! And thank you!” Randy said dapperly.

Randy seemed mostly in good spirits and was fairly professional, considering the transsexual pornography, his wig and the casual use of the word “tranny” on set and I found myself quite impressed until I went outside for a cig-break with Andy.

“Yeah. He wanted to see my cock.” Andy told me.

He sort of brushed the ground with his foot, looking down like a guilty Peanuts character.

“He said he wouldn’t do the part unless I showed him my dick.” He said, matter-of-fact.

“Jesus, Andy. What did you do?” I asked.

To which Andy bucked up.

“I showed him it, man.” He said with a grin.

I was a little horrfied.

“Uh, well, I’m like, here for you man.” I offered.

“Nah,” He replied. “I’m good.”

He scoffed.

“Come on, man, I’ve got no problem showing my dick wherever. Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of.”

At which point it became clear, around lunch-time that I should get some air.

***

It was then I found the cupcake, on the walk I took at mid-afternoon lunch.

It was  at a place named “Butter Lane” which appealed to me as I walked by. I tried the frosting–Chocolate or Vanilla, French or American–and decided on the French Chocolate frosting (lighter, more chocolate-y) with the classic Vanilla cake.

I never was a fan of chocolate-cake cupcakes; they never have as much chocolate as they should.

It was great, really.

The chocolate frosting was fluffy, with an intense flavor.

The cake was buttery without being sodden.

It was 3 bucks, but it was worth it.

And I took a picture, because, well, I guess I couldn’t believe it..

And because in 20 minutes, I’d be back on set.

***

BAOGUETTE

BBQ Chicken Baoguette- $5.00

St. Marks Pl bet. 3rd and 2nd Aves.

6 to Astor Pl

BUTTER LANE

French Chocolate w/Vanilla Cupcake- $3.00

7th St bet 1st and Ave A.

6 to Astor Pl, FV to Lower East Side-2nd Av

Just Another “Last Night”

There’s something wrong with me.

That much is clear.

As I walked on the way home, drunk and stumbling, rueing, rueing that I drank that jungle juice when the beer ran out, with my cell phone in one hand and a delicious yogurt-and-onion-covered samosa-and-chickpeas in the other–

All I could think about was blogging.

***

The party was advertised as “the last rooftop party”, something I realized with the loss of a college community, might indeed be true.

However, it was only meant to signify that Andy Roehm was moving out of his apartment (to an apartment down the street), and thus, this was an occasion for drunkeness.

I might have talked about Andy here before, but I’ll do it again, in part because I’m too lazy to look and in part because it suits the story.

Andy is–was–a breath of fresh air at NYU-Film school precisely because he was so ordinarily wacky as to throw the rest of in repose to the sheer silliness of our own existential dillemas.

While a film student (unnamed) might spend an evening struggling to think about identity and how to become who he is becoming and what is lost in the process and how that might adversely affect his art as he stays up late, bent in contemplation, Andy would just get, as he would say, “fuckin’-drunk”.

The epithet suited him well as he came into our Friday morning class we shared for two semesters with similar but new crazy stories involving women, liquor, sometimes dancing and usually some crazy roommates. His stories were always lazily sexual in the ways mine were usually depressing and so it felt on those Friday mornings like I was interacting with someone at a different college completely–or at least watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Andy had invited me over to his apartment and I invited my friends, but felt a lack of self-consciousness that day that was marked in college.

Normally, I would have required a “date” or at least a “party buddy” to show up at one of these events in order to not feel lame, but maybe it was that I’d had a good time at the first meeting of my fledgling writing group, maybe it was that I had seen a movie and took a walk with a petulant, but petulantly cute Desi girl; whatever it was, I felt good and had no qualms showing up alone.

And I had a good time, mostly. I talked to people I hardly knew, cracked jokes, felt less bad about my unemployment, in fact I felt great, I felt awesome. Someone asked me what my “big plan” was and I told them about all the places I’d applied and figured saying them out loud that at least one of them was bound to work out.

Partly, I blame this bravado on my the retreat of my psoriasis due to the pretty-frightening drug I am taking to control it. While the drug is scary though, my skin is clear for what seems like the first time I can ever remember and I look in the mirror and I think “Damn, you know. This could kind of work. This could kind of work in a Seth Rogen-y, funny jewy-type of way. This just-might work.”

So I had a good time, drank beer and quoted the ounce amount I was on as I finished the can. My only regrets were that I had

a. started drinking the jungle juice when I found my six-pack looted

and

b. gotted started too early and so by around 1am, I was drunk and discontent and ready to leave.

Even then though, girlless at a party with more moderately-attractive, available single women my age then I can ever previously recall seeing, I still felt okay.

Well that’s not true.

I did have a gripe.

But why tell that story?

When I can just share what I drunkenly wrote on my phone at 1:30am walking back home, thinking of blogging.

Well, first I should provide some context.

Lots of my friends were there and we were all trying in an ironically post-college way to score with the post-college women, assuming everybody is so frightened they’d be playing musical beds.

Chadd was there, drinking a 40 of Old E and talking to former suite-mates, hallmates, friends-of-friends and hangers on.

Todd Wiseman was there with his blond surfer’s guise and unassuming attitude that I envy as he’s just such an easy guy to like.

Even Mike Sweeny, who I’d been seeing a lot of recently, was there with a Stern School of Business girl in tow, who he introduced me to.

“You know, Nick,” Mike offered. “I don’t think she likes guys like us. She used to date a quarterback and a running-back in high school.”

“Well, what I want to know is which on was faster.” I said.

“Ohhhhhh!” Sweeny said as we pounded hands together while the Stern girl looked on.

“Uh, what do you mean?” She asked.

A pause.

“…I mean I’m going to get a beer.” I said and let them be.

But then the night was full of my own talking and not talking.

Chadd and I stuck close in this attempt as my attempt to enter a conversation managed to frigten off a pretty LA actress he was talking to, only minutes after he had sent a Gallatin blondie running.

Which brings us to the drunken desire to blog.

Behold, my tome from the previous evening, unedited, unadulterated, pure:

***

New Blog Post

the party fucking sucked

I started talking to a cute gallatin girl who was talking about her major, media theory, while touching me all over

I thought she was into me until she bumped into me three times later inthe evening while talking to other people her backed turned away

for those of you who don’t know what a gllatin girl is, im helpfully adding an entry on Urban Dictionary under prentious skank

Hold On

Done

“Gallatin Girl”

def.- A pretentious skank.

“Dude, did you fuck that Gallatin Girl last night?”

“Yeah but she made me talk about Edward Said and the Abstraction of the Other for three hours before she’d suck my cock.“

***

Sometimes, I marvel at my own brilliance.

Sometimes.

***

PUNJAB-E DELI- Open 24 Hours

Samosa w/Chickpeas (Yogurt and Onion optional but recommended)- $2.25

Houston St bet. 1st Ave and Ave A

FV to Lower East Side-2nd Ave

New-Jersey-Nightmares and Blogless-Days-and-Days

I’ve been bad lately.

I haven’t been writing as much as I should.

Some of this is due to the New-Jersey-Nightmare I was on this weekend and the recovery from such, but a conversation I did have there illuminated something for me.

The movie was about cos-playing would-be-lesbian college-agers who hook-up and pretend to be elves. It was shooting all on the property of one house, which was nice, but it was the directors’ (plural, already a problem) first film, which is something I didn’t know I was signing on for. Worse than that, for their first (and presumably final) film, they were shooting 35mm with heavy lighting of nighttime-exteriors, one of the more costly options it was possible to shoot. What resulted sometimes worked but other times, like a junior-level film, felt rushed and abandoned, exploiting both the crew and the film itself in the worst way, not least of all because the directors had staked so much money on the project.

It wasn’t all bad; filmmaking rarely is when you are a film student. I brought my friends on set so I almost always had someone to hang with and my friends are more up-beat individuals than I, the grumpster. Matt Chao’s indefatigable animating his school project between takes along with Andy Roehm’s usual tales of drunken-hookups with women whose names he doesn’t remember made for some fun times. We had a French mom cooking for us for our meals (exquisite) and the actors were both cute girls one of whom was intellectual and the other of whom had a righteously nasty sense of humor, which is very hot in itself.

It was the actress-intellectual I ended up having the good conversation with. She was a young woman named Sarah-Doe, oddly enough (“Would you be offended if I call you ‘Sara’?” I asked her. “Yes”: her reply.) When I’d asked her in the perfunctory sort of way a script supervisor might greet an actress, the question of where she had gone to school, she named an acting studio I’d never heard of and I dropped the conversation with an “oh” and moved on.

But upon further prompting, it turned out that she had graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, the alma mater of our president and one-time first-choice school of yours-truly. She told me she was an English major there, which she somewhat regretted as she thought taking Economics would have made her a more interesting person.

“And a less happy one, probably.” I told her.

“Yeah, I suppose.” She said. “But sometimes as an actress I feel crushed by words, by English. My degree is in it, I’m using them, expressing them, deconstructing them. In my life I feel so word-centric. I wish I had a different way to view the world.”

Which made me wonder: “You don’t have to be acting.” I told her. “You could get a job a lot of places with that kind of degree.”

She had told me about her job, working as a communications person at a Builders’ Union. The hours were flexible and the pay was decent, but my perhaps-trumped-up opinion of the University of Chicago as a place I almost went, was that the people who graduated from there were supposed to be serious intellectuals, pursuing graduate school, if not various endeavors to ameliorate the world.

“Yes.” She responded. “I suppose I could do something else.”

And she paused, considered.

“But I feel stifled when I’m  not acting. I feel like I’m living a half-life. I feel like I’m a breathing with a rag in front of my face or that I’m not getting air–or what have you. I feel like acting is a part of me. And I have to try to do that.”

I respected what she said. I went on talking to her about how I felt about writing and acting and directing and all the things I do, or sometimes do, or try to do, or wish I did. I’m sure I talked her ear off and certainly apologized for my talking her ear off–but just hearing from someone the same sort of feeling I aspire to or try to engender, another person hellbent on a path that seems sometimes only as a road to self-destruction, I felt a connection.

I didn’t really have a lot more time to talk to her on set. I worry now that I creeped her out or that I took liberties with her time; actors are vulnerable people on a film set and its hard to know when you’ve taken advantage of them. Still, that moment for me, that moment of ecstatic exposition, redeemed the rest of being on set, of being on this new-jersey-nightmare.

Being a script supervisor is the art of striking a balance between being ignored and forcing people not to ignore you. You want to be ignored for much of the film, because you are essentially bothering people that need to have their minds on other things. At the same time, if you are completely ignored, people lose faith in you, you can’t do your job and you get locked out of the set. As such I spent most of my time on set, cloistered, in corners, trying not to make myself known until necessary.

But in life, if you feel for a moment a connection in an unexpected place, it’s like a glimpse of the sun or an interesting girl while you’re crossing the street; there’s something there thats needing and unknowable, but it’s both sad and necessary to look away or else the Prius-hybrid-taxi-cab is going to hit you or at least honk a lot.

Which is not to say I wasn’t happy to be home, when I got home.

To my bed, which was not a couch in a home where I’d be attacked my dogs while attempting to pee.

To my computer and TV, which I could examine and luxuriate with in my bed without squinting at my phone in the scrutiny of others.

To my next morning, getting an email from my Lincoln Center editor telling me to write a post busting A.O. Scott’s chops, which I could just roll-over and DO.

That’s the thing about set, I suppose. It makes you appreciate the little things in life.

Like calling the Times’ film critic a wiener.

And what a wiener.

Insurance, Tall-Boys and Pitching, Woo.

Whoosh.

I woke up with a “whoosh” today.

If it’s possible to wake up with a “whoosh”.

The previous night had been an alcoholic monday, made possible by a marker owed to a friend, Andy Roehm. Andy is a laid-back So-Cal fellow, the type who says “bra” a lot and means felow (instead of thing that’s difficult for me to remove) and the type one might think a Neurotic-New-Yorker such as myself would not get along with.

Yet, Andy is such a chilled out guy that it seems hard not to get along with him. What’s more he’s really generous and easy-going with his time. A couple of weeks ago when I had got roped in to working on a classmate’s film shoot, that classmate told me, pathetically, that he didn’t even have anyone to do sound and his shoot was tomorrow. Immediately, I called Andy and when I explained the situation, he sounded like a kid asked to do chores by his mom:

“What time is the shoot?” He mumbled, downtrodden.

“8-8 tomorrow” I replied.

“What time to meet at the van.”

Here was the kicker. We’d have to be at the van at 6:45 tomorrow morning to get to the location. I was calling him at 9:00 PM the previous night.

But instead of a world-weary “no”, Andy said, “Alright, see you there.” And I was so touched I promised to get him drunk as fuck one night at his convenience.

This was that night.

We ended up at a dive bar, Doc Holiday’s, the sort of place where the bartender seems hotter as the night goes on. Cans were 3, Tall-boys were 4 and a Shot and a Can was 5 according to her (the bartender) and when we asked what the cans were she said, “Busch, Cream Ale or Rolling Rock.”

We were taken aback.

“What’s the best one out of those?” I asked.

“Probably Rolling Rock” she replied.

“That’s a sad story.” I told her and forked over the money for some well-whiskey and a can of Rolling Rock to sit down with Andy and begin the night of drunkeness.

It was a tense night, even for our drinking, because due to some shifty behavior on all parties’ parts, New York University Film School had decided to terminate their insurance coverage for rented equipment. This seemed like a crisis, but the real crisis is that none of us really knew what this meant, even a snoop like myself.

Since I managed to weigh in on the protest when it happened, let me try to weigh in here.

***

To clarify, as far as I know:

1. The four years I have been going to NYU-Film, I have heard repeatedly that “we are on the verge of losing our insurance”. From my freshman to sophomore year, the insurance deductible doubled from 2500 to 5000 dollars. For those not in the know, this is because students lose their equipment, often in comical ways, but sometimes through sheer theft. To illustrate this, NYU has lost 3 full camera rigs to the ocean in the past 7 or so years. Well now you might be thinking, why were those projects shooting on a fucking boat approved, but that is a different question. What I knew is that every year students lose equipment or have it stolen and that we were now down to ONE company that was willing to insure us, due to the number of claims.

2. You might be asking, why do we as NYU students need film insurance provided to us by the school? Well, it goes as follows. A rental house will not rent equipment to students without supplemental equipment insurance. Many locations will not let you shoot without location insurance, to make sure they can make claims when you (as often happens) break their stuff. A car rental house won’t rent to you without location vehicle insurance. Even worker’s comp insurance is provided for your full actors and crew if anyone is hurt on set. NYU-Film students only pay $128 a SEMESTER or ($256 annually) for ALL of this, while buying them separately can costs THOUSANDS of dollars added up.

3. NYU is ONLY cutting off supplemental insurance covering equipment. We still have all of the other insurances FOR NOW, which includes all insurance for all the equipment provided to NYU-Film students by the school for their film shoots. Which brings us to:

4. And this is important to distinguish: THIS IS NOT THE INSURANCE COMPANY CUTTING US OFF. THIS IS THE FILM DEPARTMENT. Now why they are doing this is the question. Recently, last week I believe, an intermediate undergraduate film lost $110,000 dollars worth of equipment when students on that set left thir truck unwatched. This is one of NYU’s largest claims, ever (against a million-dollar insurance policy) and it is clear they did this to preempt the insurance company (mentioned in point 1) from refusing to cover us upon NYU’s contract with them expiring in July. BUT:

5. The loss of supplemental insurance could be seen in another way. As someone friendly with several administrators in the department, I’ve heard this insurance issue phrased as a boon. Simply put: some people are tired of $100,000 dollar student films, especially the ones that SUCK. They think students should be shooting on the rigs provided them and not spending money flagrantly on student films, especially in a time of economic downturn. IN ADDITION, there is some talk of this as an ideological battle against the DPs (cameramen, directors of photography) who encourage their student-directors to shoot 35mm or the RED camera or whatever in an effort to make the best-looking movie to showcase their (the DP’s) own experience. These people see the loss of supplemental insurance as commensurate with other departmental changes such as the limiting of intermediate films to a $5000 budget shot on 16mm or Digital Video only and the limiting of advanced films to 15 minutes in final length. In short, they see this as a way to potentially “reign in” their student-directors and DPs.

6.  SO: This effectively means that NYU students for THIS SEMESTER, which includes me, are asked to purchase their own insurance with coverage of $25,000 for $110 a year. A modest sum, except that nearly ANY camera package will run over that amount of coverage, essentially not allowing you to rent that equipment. You would have to go through a third-party vendor, which, while there has been NO information yet on what that supplemental insurance would cost, numbers have been floating around starting at $1000-$2500 for a shoot.

7. FINALLY, IN SUMMATION: Students this semester must budget anywhere from 5-25% of their budget for insurance. It is entirely possible (if not probable) that students next semester will not have any insurance, making the even costlier option of point 2 seem more and more likely. While some professors in the film department probably commiserate, others feel that this represents comeuppance for those students and DPs that would spend exorbitantly on their shoots. Either way, we NYU-Film students are all, in some way, mildly fucked. All but those who have already shot their films or who are shooting this upcoming weekend, as those shoots are grandfathered in.

A rather more political hottie from my class posted this earlier today, her opinion on the whole matter. I think it’s eloquent, though not necessarily right.

For those interested, here’s my opinion:

This was bound to happen.

Like it or not, you sign up to be part of a community at NYU-Film and we as a community fucked up.

Insurance is not a charity. It’s gambling. They gamble that they won’t have to pay us insurance money. When we do have to make large claims, sometimes multiple times a year, we become a bad bet and worse, potentially unprofitable. Thus is capitalism. Thus is the world.

Face it guys: We as NYU-Film students are one of those “toxic assets” everybody is talking about now that we’re bailing out “A.I.G” and other insurers.

NYU-Film’s insurance is a privilege and one that similarly costed film schools, like USC, do not have.

As long as we are going to be a risky investment, we, like the rest of America, will have to face a denial of credit.

As for blame, there’s plenty to go around.

Certainly fuck those juniors who lost $110,000 dollars worth of equipment because a PA wouldn’t stand by the truck. But how about the PA, an untrained freshman who perhaps didn’t know the importance of such things? How about the administration that allows intermediate films to rent equipment worth so much money and to put in the hands of people that are untrained.

To a degree, the naysayers are right: You don’t need to spend the cost of a school in Africa or a house in Detroit in order to make a student film. If you take a look at the hottie’s letter, the first people it’s signed by… are the DPs. Directors: You can shoot your film on digital or 16 and if it has a good story people will still be able to tell. DPs: You can shoot a good intermediate film with the rig and make it look good. It’s a challenge.

To the administration: This is the last film some people will ever make. Let the advanced students (Narrative, Advanced Production, Advanced Experimental) have their supplemental insurance. The new policy of 15-minute length is good for the school and will help students get accepted at festivals. Still, if at all possible, while we have the insurance, we shouldn’t deny it to students who want to try to make their thesis film, their calling card, as good and professional as they can.

To the rest of my fellow NYU-Film students, well, this is going to be a headache. But it was a long time coming.

There is much to take away from all of this and much more to be said. But for now back to drinking.

***

The night passed in a blur. I had can after shot after can after shot after tall-boy (a 16oz can of Natural Light) after tall-boy until my azn-nerd-buddy Matt Chao came by to have a beer and pick me up, a task I repaid him by eating 5 of his Wendy’s chicken nuggets on the drunken stumble home. By the end, the guilt over the nuggets were more pressing on my mind than the insurance.

Andy for his part seemed relatively unfazed by it all. As a hard-partying so-cal German-Irish, he was only buzzed off the many drinks we had, but at least I must have provided some drunken amusement for him with my incoherent jabbering/drooling and I managed to pay for all the beers I had the motor control to buy him, thus fulfilling my debt.

When I say I woke up with a “whoosh” it was because my sober-self had finally returned to me pissed and half-dazed. Tall-boys of Natural Light, Rolling Rocks and Well Whiskey don’t make for a formula for redemption. When I realized it was actual Formula 50 and not a refilled bottle by my bed, I realized I didn’t remember buying it.

Another night but you couldn’t say this Feitel wasn’t a Feitel of his word.

***

Finally, one last aside.

I gave a pitch today in a Freshman class, as I have for the last two years.

I showed my film “The Big Night”. I looked cracked out standing on stage, sans a shower, plus hangover, plus filthy sweater.

I told them my film’s name was “LOSER’ and that if they wondered if it was an autobiography then “screw you”.

I am looking for people to work on the film.

If you’re interested, let me know, here, on Facebook or by email at loserthemovie@gmail.com.

It should be fun and stuff. And you’ll eat well.