Getting Mad

“Fuck you.” I said directly as I stormed out.

It was really rather pathetic, actually. I had tried to slam the door only to find that it was one of those doors intelligently-designed not to slam, made with some sort of smart-hinge that meant when I tried to slam it hard I only ended up closing it somewhat comically with a “plop”.

My first mistake was wanting to go upstairs. I should have just left. But I didn’t know where to go, didn’t feel comfortable. After all, the 11th floor of the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University had been more of a home to me than my myriad apartments, a place I’d spent more time in, a place I’d come back to through classes, non-classes, summers and now, graduation.

I wanted to go up because, somehow, stupidly, it seemed like the opposite of going down, going negative, etcera, etcetera, etcetera.

Waiting for the elevators was waiting to get caught though and a girl from my group caught up to me and started talking to me as the elevator beeped open and we took a ride.

***

How long it had been?

I was unsure.

There were a number of ways to find out.

The first was memory, but memory had proved not only to be unreliable but to be treacherous–not in a synonymous sense, but in the sense that it might betray you and leave stuck somewhere undesirable, away from the here and now.

My blog was another way, but I couldn’t stand the guilt of that either. When I looked at my Facebook status where I advertise the new entry whenever I find to write it, all there was was a sad blank, stating incorrectly “updated over a year ago”, which was only valid if I took some symbolic license with days standing in for groups of months and the time for emotional wear–not the sort of hyperbole I tend to like.

But it raised questions anyway, that is, thinking of my blog. Why couldn’t I write about this? Why couldn’t I write about something else? Why couldn’t I write period.

“I’m sure you know not to write about this in any public forum,” My dad said through text in the late-into-the-evening.

“For legal reasons.” He added.

I was in a hospital, not for myself but for a friend, with his girlfriend who I’d hastily met and then road-tripped with, ambulance-chasing like we were low-class-lawyers.

I think my dad’s injunction was wise, so suffice it to say, I was electrocuted in Georgia sometime, some Thursday or Friday I can’t keep track which, somewhere in the middle and my friend was in the hospital and someone else I knew was dead.

I sat in the hospital burn-victim waiting room, where of course karma subjected me to the USA network and their poorly-titled show, “Burn Notice”, a 3 am-offering too stupidly fateful to not mention.

We also saw Miami Vice while we were waiting, my friend’s wounds being prepped and cleaned and examined by the Nigerian night-nurse (I know because his girlfriend later asked her if she was Ghanan).

We agreed that it was indeed, stupid.

But as I sat in the waiting room, the same night/morning, that fateful beginning of when time started blend, I notified friend-after-friend, “no I’m fine but I was electrocuted”, “no he’s fine but he’s in the hospital”, “im not back in town im in atlanta”, “no im fine but hes dead”.

Morbid text-message passed by morbid reply as hours sunk into hours like I sunk into the well-stuffed chairs of the anesthetic USA-Network hospital burn-unit waiting-room.

“He’s fine but”, “I’m fine but,” “They’re ok but”

“He’s dead.”

***

On the 11th floor, the crewmember had taken me aside somewhere near the closed Pro-Tools lab, the first classroom I ever occupied at NYU.

I’m not sure how I ended up there, I only knew that in my conversation she was sane and rational and I was just veering between loud-and-louder, a hearing-loss problem exacerbated by anger, frustration, hopelessness, what?

Nothing was going to change. Nobody had changed. I wanted an apology. Recognition.

I was bound on another film shoot in 6 days and what would be different.

The people who told me not to go on another film set? Why not? I could take it. I could do it. If I didn’t do it someone else would have to do it, someone else would be threatened someone else could–

Die? I hadn’t died. I hadn’t even been properly shocked. I was alive. I wasn’t in the hospital. I had a pair of earphones that melted and burned in my ears but they left no scars, no hearing loss.

They worked even after they were melted and burned, on the plane ride back home.

The Apple store even exchanged them after I told them I’d been electrocuted through my headphones.

I also expressed my admiration for their products: I hadn’t been shocked through my computer or my phone, both plugged in.

They both worked, still.

I was amazed by this.

Amazed and also angling for a job.

Louder, more thoughts, mor talking, more case-by-case culpability, more situations, more things wrong.

I feel bad for the girl who was talking to me, bad she had to deal with that, but she told me she had been worried about me from the get-go.

Worried about me? What was there to be worried about?

I was alive. I was around. The Apple store had exchanged my headphones.

But someone had to answer for the pair I’d lost.

It was at that point roughly, in my mind, in the conversation, that I was accosted by three female NYU administrators, concerned-looking, smiling, who trapped me like I was General Zod in a triangle.

***

It had been some sort of grieving group, a bad idea for me, I knew, but I felt I should go.

Everyone else kept on talking since we left Georgia, since we left, about being a family, about being close about depending on each other.

I remember in Georgia trying to be dependable, trying to be strong, trying to take care of people. If you took care of people, you didn’t have to take care of yourself.

It was something to do anyway, some way to not be alone. But I didn’t depend on anyone, but my friends who had kept me aloft like a crowd-surfer going from activity to activity in my days back in New York.

But when I got back, when I sat there in that grief-counseling-group, I didn’t feel like a family, I didn’t question my emotions.

I just felt angry. I felt an anger inside of me, not burning, but more of a nauseus anger, a feeling undulating inside you spinnily back and forth through the residue of pain and experience until a jolt or a jab causes you to ralph it all up.

In this case, it was the director telling me he wanted to finish the film.

And I, I just couldn’t take that.

I didn’t feel like a family, I didn’t feel any gratitude or sympathy or kindness to this man. I nearly died, someone else had died, someone was in the hospital; these thoughts rounded my mind like Fates, spinning and measuring and cutting and spinning.

They dominated me as I blamed him and his ilk and others for endangering me, for endangering them.

I entered the world of television, movies, films, writing: a word of absolutes, where men are guilty or innocent and judgement is always passed.

I can offer nothing, but that sometimes, this is an easier world to live in than the world of real.

“Fuck you.” I told the director and left.

***

As I walked to Chinatown to meet Simon and Frank, old high-school friends, for a night of Dance Dance Revolution, 69 Bayard Restaurant and Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (an adolescent reminder), I walked with my thoughts masticating like I would on a slice of cheesy-New-York-pizza.

I thought of what those people on the 11th floor must have though of me, thought of the women who surrounded me to make sure I had a plan, to make sure I was leaving.

I thought of my old counselor, who’d gotten me through earlier anger whose message not to be the punishment of the designated wicked, but rather that it was impolite to tell people to “fuck” them.

I thought most though of my conversation with my hospital-bound friend, still in Georgia, still down-there. He had caught the worse of it between us, I thought jokingly, nobody would ask him if he’d been electrocuted or if he was ok; they’d take a look and see or hear for themselves.

I talked to him and told him how angry I’d been that day, how much I blamed people and needed that, needed for those responsible to acknowledge their part, to not be coddled.

“It isn’t enough for them to live with it.” I told him. “If you still want to make your movie after someone’s died on your set, you haven’t learned your lesson.”

To my surprise, he rebutted me, rebuffed me at every turn. He, scars-and-burns-and-all, defended the very people I focused my now self-immolating rage on.

We went back-and-forth as I felt more and more desperate; I was arguing with someone damaged, someone who’d gotten the worse of it than me.

“Fine,” He told me. “Then don’t work on it when it starts again.”

“I don’t want to fight with you.” I said a little dazedly, upon the realization that that indeed had been exaclty what I had been doing.

But his parents had come back to the room and he couldn’t talk loud and he’d talk to me later and he hung up and I did too.

***

At home, I find myself shaking, fiind myself examing my shaking, sneaking glimpses at my own hand, still for a moment, to see how it shakes and to try to figure out with the power of my mind, whether there are any lasting effects from the electrocution.

If there were, would they validate me, would they validate my anger, my blame, would it make me right?

“Static Shock”, my friend Frank called me, when we met up in Chinatown, an allusion to a nerdy superhero invented for urban early-2000s youth.

I played a game of DDR and did alright, I was tired out easy, I was out-of-shape, I was fat, I was unemployed.

I had left Tisch today angry, performing my anger for the 11th floor, requiring administrators to converge on me in order to calm me down.

In effect, I had been exorcised, like a demon, from a place I once thought of as home.

Now, if I went back there, I dreaded that, being that guy, being angry, being a problem, being outcast once more.

It felt like a true end to my college days–a reversion, finally, long-expected, to the self-hating-exile of my time in high school.

At Frank’s house, I played the game “Little Big Planet” with Frank and Simon and laughed until I cried, dragging a battery the wrong way down a level, and smacking the other burlap-characters I played with.

I came home and my body tingled and I wondered about tomorrow.

Announcing Feitelogram on Vimeo

So, I’ve finally acceded.

For those interested, I am currently in the process of uploading my films, whatever they are, online to a place where they are easily viewable.

I’ve created a Feitelogram channel on Vimeo and uploaded three shorts: Two “Directing the Camera” exercises shot sparely on DV and a classic, The Big Night, my final Sophomore-level film and one that I am certainly very proud of.

If you are interested, take a look here.

Be sure to comment and let me know what you think (and unlike here, Vimeo is a democracy, so feel free to rip in, or not, you know.)

Gracias.

-Feitelogram

Plugging (your mom)

For those who are NYU-Film Students, here’s some information that might interest you–a note that I wrote about where to find private rental insurance. If you have any more experience, please post it there so people can see it, or just share it with other people.

Also, for those of you who want to see more of my blogging, I am now working part-part-time for Film Society of Lincoln Center writing about the New Directors/New Films festival. For any of you who are students, it’s 10 dollars a ticket or a 5-pack for 35, a good deal. ND/NF usually has some real gems and, if you’re interested, check out the blog here.

Gracias.

BT-Dubs

On the topic of insurance: pwnd-

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.

Topic of the Day

Currently, a bunch of random people are in the dining hall of my college doing stupid things.

This is the easiest way for me to describe what’s going at NYU right now, where a group called “Take Back NYU” is attempting a… something.

I first was alerted to this last night, not by the group or any of its actions directly, but rather by someone putting as their facebook status- “fuck those dudes who are taking over kimmel.”

This prompted me to consult that tome of social change, the “Group Description” page on Facebook, to find out who these people are.

When I read their page, their demands seemed somewhat understandable.

-NYU claims to be a “private college in the public service”, as their motto, but that seems to breaking down quickly with its effects on the city around it in terms of gentrification.

-NYU does not disclose its finances, not even to its students, which considering things like “NYU Singapore” and “NYU Abu Dhabi” might make one wonder where their tuition money goes.

-Perhaps most importantly, NYU is raising their tuition in a year of serious recession, while simultaneously instituting pay freezes on their faculty–once again, makes you wonder where the money is going.

When I got into class this morning, incidentally in that very same Kimmel, I was interested enough by all this to suggest that we spend the first part of class talking about, a suggestion my teacher actually followed.

However, when I read the “new” list of demands, it contained what seemed like obviously spurious changes-

-Now, of all things, Independence in Gaza was lumped in with making NYU “transparent”. This seemed like an insane conflation of two things with nothing to do with each other.

Now, to disclose, I’ve talked on this blog before about how I feel about Israel and that whole situation. Anyone who wants to check it out can click on the “Israel” category at the end of this post. It’s a complicated issue. But one thing’s for certain in my mind: It has NOTHING the fuck to do with trying to make NYU transparent, unless you’re going along with the vague notion of “Israeli war profiteering” suggested by their list.

For me, this lack of focus and particular willingness to lump in an extremely heated issue with a rather matter-of-fact set of demands goes a long way to de-legitimizing whatever these people might have had.

-They also listed that they want NYU to send aid to Islamic University in Gaza and to give Palestinians scholarships.

One word. Why? NYU is not the fucking Israeli government, nor is it Hamas or whoever the fuck. Nor is it the American government. It’s just a fucking over-priced college and not one that’s trying to get into the business model of Amnesty International.

-Finally and stupidly, they want to make Bobst Library open to the public.

Now, it’s a sign of the retardedness of this group that they would lump THIS in with their new demands about Gaza, when it’s so clearly unnecessary.

NEWSFLASH- We pay for Bobst Library. It is a service that we pay for. Now, while it would make sense to allow ALUMNI (a category which I will soon fall into) to go to Bobst, something which they currently can only do with significant charges, there is something out there for the rest of everyone in New York–it’s called the NEW YORK FUCKING PUBLIC LIBRARY and as someone who used to work there I can tell you they have fucking everything! They’re better than Bobst if perhaps a little less spic-and-span. Just because NYU recieves public funding doesn’t mean we should let random people into our private college library.

When I talked to my teacher about all this, they told me that they thought the group had added these spurious demands just so they could drop them. Might I suggest something?

Listen, I was a Hilary supporter, but I’ll give credit where credit’s due.

When Obama was talking about passing the stimulus and how it became somewhat weakened due to his attempts at bipartisanship, he said something along the lines of “Well, I could have filled with more demands that I knew I’d be ready to drop, but I didn’t want to play that game.”

Ladie and Gentleman of “Take Back NYU”, take some heart from our president. He might change this country or he might fucking not. But at least he’s trying to cut out the bullshit and get passed the things that actually need to get passed. Maybe if you had shown some focus, you might have earned more laughs and less sneers for your Cafeteria-stan.

That Band I Mentioned That Now I Really Have Stuck In My Head

When I wrote the post that made my friend Dan suggest I was a “rageaholic” (something perhaps hard to imagine if you know me), I had just gone to see this whiny-kid post-indie NYU band called The Motorcycle Industry.

Their lead song has been stuck in my head all day, which is impressive considering that they’re such a small outfit. I even downloaded their album off iTunes, the first time I ever done such a thing, ever.

Here’s a link to their website where you can hear the song stuck in my head, “Jesse”.

They kind of sound like Weezer if Weezer were a bunch of NYU kids with sand in their vaginas… in a good way?

Check it:

http://www.myspace.com/themotorcycleindustry

Physical Fitness

It had been a while since I had last worked out.

After all, working out was not a priority to me. It seemed to offer at best marginal benefits for your health that you could find other places whether they be in moderation, like just easting less or in disciplined activity like Judo.

I guess what it came to down to though, really, was that I just didn’t care.

When my parents got me a membership to the gym, I never went. After all, what motivation did I have?

I’d be happier seeing friends, hanging out, drinking. I’d be more productive doing work at home, more occupied playing video games or watching the 10:30 or 8:30 rerun of The Colbert Report, depending on the time.

When I did go back then, it wasn’t even a matter of health reasons but of social obligation. Extremely embarrassingly, my parents had hired me a personal trainer: a skinny, sarcastic Oklahoman named Jen.

Working out with her worked for me because I liked her. Jen was quick-witted; she laughed at my jokes and, better still, countered with her own. She would ask me about my day and offer me counsel on the various problems I faced in my life. What was best even was that Jen was almost as bad with guys as I was with girls and I felt like I had found a kindred spirit.

So it was that I ended up discussing the subway system, what neighborhoods were livable for an Oklahoman and the quality of the “hot bar” at Whole Foods, while also working my glutes, lats and delts.

Sadly though, it was the economy that did away with those days, though I suppose age would have done similarly. My father was feeling the crunch at his job and looked for ways to cut back. In personal training, an expensive endeavor that had made me stronger but kept me the same weight, he saw something easy to live without.

Both Jen and my father urged me afterwards to go to the gym, to keep working out by myself three times a week, to keep in touch about my progress. In a way though, it became impossible for me to go back to the gym I belonged to. I felt ashamed that my father had stopped my lessons with Jen. What would our relationship be, once two people who talked so openly, now that she wasn’t paid to communicate and indeed, had other clients to deal with? The same social situation that got me in the door ended up keeping me away; I wasn’t eager to find answers to my own questions.

When I did end up going back to the gym, three months and several jew-do lessons later, it was for the efforts of my friend Peter.

I saw Peter for the first time in my first Senior Thesis class as I endeavored to get my film made using my writing, my enthusiasm and my long-teneded connection with the professor. I hadn’t gone in to the class with friends; it’s hard to keep friends anyway with people you are competing with to make your dream film. Still, I didn’t know almost anyone in the class. However, when I saw Peter down in the first row, I thought:

“How the fuck did he get in here?”

He was a big guy, six-foot-three, probably two-hundred-and-something-pounds–enough to run me over. With his curly, black hair and his ursine stature, he resembled nothing less than the sort of Staten Island-Italian douchebag who used to, if not the beat the shit out of me, then to represent the football culture of my high school that oppressed and nearly destroyed me. Here was the symbol, in this man, of anti-intellectualism, of all that I fought against in my years in film school to escape. I felt my meticulously created film-school persona fall apart even sitting in the room with this person, I felt like I was going to crack. I hated him without even him saying a word.

How wrong I was.

Peter was the middle of three sons growing up, all of whom were to some degree, deaf. His mother, not understanding why her children were born this way, nonetheless decided not to teach them sign language, but instead to train them how to read lips so that they could always communicate and function in mainstream society. Of his two brothers, he is the least deaf, born with some hearing and given more by a cochlear implant, an advance recent enough that his older brother never was able to get one until it was too late and his brain had developed past the point of its usage. At this point, anyway, his older brother was lashing out at the world for the part of it he couldn’t understand. In football, he found a community and acceptance but at the same time he knew he was different than his peers. He loved films, watched DVDs and followed directors. When he ended up at a small, liberal arts school he took the only film class they offered and found himself in it. When he confessed to his teacher his love for the medium, his teacher told him that the college had no more to offer him and encouraged him to apply to NYU. When he told his friend from football, they were skeptical telling Peter “that’s not you” and balking at his choice, but he was accepted and attended.

Peter had had a hard time as a transfer student at NYU. He found, transfering in Junior year, that most people knew each other already, that it was a small community and even if he could try to make friends, because of his appearance he represented a sort of bogeyman to these students, as he did to me. He was a Specter of past identities and grievances, best avoided.

Eventually, as class progressed, it began to dawn on me from my perch of hatred, that Peter perhaps might not be the idiot I once thought him. In class, our teacher praised his script as a “near-perfect short film”. He was honest and lengthy in the comments he made about other people’s scripts, including my own; a quality I originally mocked in him, but later came to appreciate. When he came in to give his presentation, he gave the best one in class, showing sturdy professionalism. His presentation, unlike others, was fairly short and to the point with only relevant information. He had secured an amazing location and showed us pictures. He even had the fine points of his speech written out on note-cards, a small touch that I had much respect for, if only because it seemed old-school to me and to show a meticulousness that I found admirable.

Finally, one day after I gave my presentation and read my script, my third one of the class, Pete defended my script, complimented me and even balked at others’ comments. When he asked me after class whether I’d like to get a drink, I was surprised but I said sure, which apparently surprised him even more. Apparently, this was the first time at NYU someone had accepted that offer.

As I got to know Pete, I got to know his story and I gained more and more respect for him. Sure, he used idioms like “home-slice” and “what’s hangin!” but as always he meant them earnestly and his constant enthusiasm was infectious. When I introduced to some of my other friends, they universally liked him, even one friend telling me that he had “given up on meeting genuine people like that at NYU”.

So, it was after a few months of hanging out that Pete finally got up the courage to ask me to work out with him at the NYU gym.

“It’s just so much more fun with a friend, man and the people at Coles… well, they’re just dicks.” He told me.

I was skeptical. When I worked out before, it was under the influence of a slight Oklahoman woman; Pete was a former football player. Despite his constant assurances that we would “go easy”, I privately told friends to expect my obituary and mourn my death if I did not return from the gym one faithful day.

But of course, like most things with Pete, I was surprised. I had a blast working out with him. Sure I was embarrassed that he could lift approximately 150-200% of what I could on any given exercise, but when I would mention this, he’d just get all flustered and tell me to stop making fun of him.

By the end he was teaching me to jumprope, an activity I assured him that if I was terrible at it when I was seven, there was little hope for me now. Still, he kept on egging me and by the time we had to go I had jumped 5 consecutive times; pathetic, but an improvement for me. Pete was proud.

“You overthink things too much,” He told me. “Athletics are not something you think about; they’re something you do. Your mind gives up and your body does it automatically. It’s very calming actually.”

“Alright, man. Well I had fun,” I replied. “I just worried about your definition of easy.”

“You just thought about me like every other student at Tisch,” He told me. “You thought I was some gym-teacher-in-training.”

He laughed.

“Truth is, I hate those guys.”

I took him out for rolled quesadillas and rolled on with the rest of my day.

Jew-Do

So I recently started Judo.

I had been going to the gym for a while with no noticeable effect on my body, to me at least.

I mean sure, I was getting stronger, but I never got skinnier and something about the gym never really made me feel at home. Either I was at NYU-Coles and with the motley crowd of NYU’s ghettoized athletes or over at Crunch with exercise bulimics and famous actors. Either way, I felt like a douchebag and out of place.

I also used to play Magic cards. It’s embarassing, I know, but it’s something to do. As someone in to film, or maybe as a 20-something, you find yourself with long swaths of time with nothing to do. A Tuesday evening, a Saturday morning– I have a propensity for waking up early and going to sleep decently late, something that made these sort of time slots particularly onerous.

So it was that I found myself become a “gaymer” and eventually, upon the closing of my gaming site, with a surfeit of time I didn’t want to spend in the gym.

I guess it doesn’t make sense that I ended up in Judo. I was always terrible at wrestling in high school. I guess there just was that primal need, that male longing to want to beat someone up, to not necessarily beat someone up, but, you know, to be able to. It’s the sort of thing perhaps that stopping gaming also left its mark in my life in: that the satisfaction of beating someone in a game might replace that need for the sort of showmanship of real life. Again, lacking that, I was… lacking.

So I started Judo.

Now, almost every day, everything’s sore. And I suck at it, really badly.

But yesterday at Judo, I realized my partner who I practiced with was the same man who I had played against at my gaming store. We both were just looking for something to do in the wake of that part of our lives.

It’s too bad I’m not as good at Judo as I was at Magic.

Then I wouldn’t be so sore.