The Blame Game

"I was 22 and thought I was Tarantino."

It was the summer of 1998, and I had just graduated with a degree in Film from Emerson College. I had spent my final semester studying “abroad” in L.A., trying to make some kind of waves in the film industry (or maybe ripples would be more appropriate. Or just contacts?) I decided to come home upon graduation, and maybe try submitting screenplays from a distance, or at the very least finding a job that would highlight my creative side or somehow apply what I had learned in the last four years. I hesitate to use the term “skills,” but maybe knowledge?

I was dating a woman at the time, Alyssa (not her real name.) She was not what I would call a creative person, but she sure thought her shit didn’t stink, with her 18 earrings (9 in each ear. When she took them out to clean them her ears looked like small colanders) and her tongue piercing, which at the time was a choice. We had been through our rough times but were still hanging on, and when you’re 22, you think the person you’re with is the person you’re going to be with forever.

I was working in a video store at the time while still searching for a job, and sending out screenplays and also entering screenwriting contests because I think someone had told me that was a good way to get noticed in Hollywood. I was coming up empty in all of these endeavors. Because of my dia-bee-tus, I had to find a job that offered health insurance, so “video store clerk” wasn’t going to cut it, but I also figured, “If I sell a screenplay, I’ll be set!” I know now how stupid that seems now but I was 22 and thought I was Tarantino.

After a pretty crappy interview for a job at some corporate office, I was complaining to Alyssa that there was no way I wanted that job even if they were to hire me (probably for data entry or something terrible.) I still thought I had a shot at selling screenplays, so that was where I wanted to put most of my focus, but she didn’t see it that way. I remember her exact words were: “Why don’t you get a real job?” In my mind, she might as well have added, “Ya bum!” at the end of it.

I should point out that this person had finished exactly a half-semester of college, was working as a cashier at Homegoods, and could barely read. I’m not joking. She once told me that when she is reading a book and she doesn’t understand a word, she just skips it and keeps going. The book she was reading at the time was Practical Magic. If she skipped over words she didn’t know, I estimated she probably read about 60% of it.

I know this all sounds very mean, but she wasn’t really a good person. She had cheated on me a few times and wasn’t at all remorseful about it. I don’t know why I put up with it all, but I guess I was just glad someone would date me.

That September, I took a part-time job at Harvard University, while still working at the video store. Even though it was part-time, I still thought it was cool to be working at a prestigious university. I was also enjoying the hustle and bustle of Harvard Square, which was quite a step up from the suburb where Alyssa lived (and rarely left.) Still, when I told Alyssa that I had taken the job, her response was, “You’re still going to keep looking, right?”

She was really happy for me.

About a month later I received an email from a co-worker at the video store, expressing her attraction for me. I was flummoxed, as nothing like this had ever happened to me. I was seriously considering her “offer,” but figured I’d give Alyssa one more try, for old time’s sake. I remember being in her room and while not explicitly telling her about the email, I posed a kind of “Where are we going?” line of questioning. She gave me a very flippant “We’re fine.” response and went to bed, and I decided that would be that. The next day I broke it off. I tried to remain friends, but a few weeks later she stopped by my house with a new, shorter haircut, and gave me a Ziploc bag with a lock of her hair. Needless to say, the “friends” thing didn’t last much longer.

I’m not saying that she somehow prevented me from becoming a screenwriter with a couple comments, but it didn’t help my self-esteem at all, which was already pretty low. And it certainly pushed us closer to breaking up, so in all honesty, I can’t say it was a bad thing. Even if I had told her that I wished she would have supported my creative side a little more it wouldn’t have mattered. She was just hoping that I would graduate and get a “real job” and make decent money and we would get married and I would take care of her. I mean, she probably shouldn’t have dated a Film major if that was her goal, but I definitely should have broken it off after she cheated on me, so I guess we both made mistakes. I did feel a little bad for ostensibly trading her in for the younger model, but what can I say? The new girl put out.

I actually dated the girl who sent the email, Thea (again, not her real name, but she’d probably figure it out if she reads this) for four years. She did have a creative side, and was actually very smart. She had done some theater work, which was something I had never thought about doing, but at one point in our relationship, I saw that a local troupe was looking for actors for a production of Glengarry, Glen Ross, so I decided to audition. I had no stage experience, but I loved the play, and I figured even if I got a minor part, like “Cop,” I would have considered that a win.

There were only a handful of guys there (which is really all you’d need to put on the play), and the director was a young woman who was probably just figuring her own shit out. Since I was the least experienced actor there, I was asked to read a few lines, mostly the role of Lingk, played by Jonathan Pryce if you have ever seen the movie. But I didn’t play him like Jonathan Pryce. For some reason, I played him like Bob Newhart. If you are not familiar with it, I was given the scene where Ricky Roma, the slick salesman, asks him if he has ever taken a dump that made him feel like he had just slept for 3 days. Now picture Bob Newhart responding to that question:

“Have... Have I ever taken… a dump that…?”

I thought it was gold.

After that, I was given a couple more scenes, with one of the bigger characters, Arronow, the salesman, played by Alan Arkin in the movie, who kind of becomes the cuck after the office is robbed. I decided to whip out my Bob Newhart for him, too, just to give the director a different take. I started to get a vibe that maybe she liked it and I would get at least one of those parts. Like I said, not a lot of guys showed up for the audition, so that also gave me hope that I had a shot. This was only Night One of the auditions, however, so the director asked us all to come back for Night Two, when she would make her casting decisions.

I went home and told Thea about it and told her that I thought I had a good chance at getting a part, unless 50 great actors showed up the second night who couldn’t make it on the first. But I was excited to at least be considered.

She responded, “You know, that’s a pretty big commitment. Rehearsals every night for weeks.”

Well, yeah.

“I’ve done a bunch of plays. We wouldn’t be spending any time together while you were rehearsing,” she said, sadly.

Basically, we talked a little bit more, and eventually I was coerced into not even showing up on the second night of auditions. I think part of her felt like the stage was her thing, and I shouldn’t be intruding. But there was another reason that she didn’t want me to do the play. Thea was also undiagnosed (because she never went to a doctor to diagnose her) bi-polar, and I could be a calming influence. I could also be the cause of some of her outbursts, but hopefully more calming than not. Most of the time, if I wasn’t there, who knows what shit she would get up to? So, even though spending some time apart doing a play may have been a good thing (I mean, I wasn’t moving to another country. It was Community Theater two towns over.), she didn’t see it that way and I was convinced to drop it.

The funny thing is, a couple years later, a production of her favorite play, The Diary of Anne Frank, was holding auditions, and I encouraged her to go. She thought she was too old for the role, and maybe for the same reasons about spending time apart, was not going to audition, but I said this was going to be her only chance and she had to do it. The night before, she gave me her final “No,” and I didn’t push. The next morning, she changed her mind asked me to drive her to the audition, and she got the part.

Now, I’m not saying that not doing a small-town production of Glengarry Glen Ross was the cause of me not making it as a Hollywood screenwriter. It probably wouldn’t have mattered at all if I had done it. But think about this, the director of Diary of Anne Frank was so impressed by Thea’s acting that she cast her in an independent film that she was making. Thea and I spent a few weeks in Indiana that summer filming the thing (which is a whole other post). Obviously, the film didn’t open the door to a screenwriting career, either, but you see how these things happen? Maybe playing James Lingk and “Cop” would have given me the acting bug. Maybe I would have done another play and been cast in a movie. Could that have been the thing that moved me to the next level? Who knows?

The point of this whole history of my life is this; one of the tasks in the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is to pick three enemies of your inner creative genius and write a “horror story” about one of them (Ok, I picked two.) While doing this, I realized that these people, despite their discouraging of my creative endeavors, were not to blame for me not becoming the next Quentin Tarantino. They didn’t physically tie me down and tell me not to write and send out screenplays. Neither of them broke my camera and told me I couldn’t make movies. In fact, I probably wrote way more back then than I do now. The only person to blame is me. I’m not saying I would have sold screenplays if I had a little encouragement from my girlfriends. Millions of people have tried and failed at that. But I could have, and should have, done more creative things back then. Eventually, I did write some comics, but I should have been doing stuff like that all along, except I allowed myself to be led astray, and I have no one to blame but myself for that.

But the comic is probably worth a read (Issue #0 is free!). I also am on a podcast, and that counts as a creative endeavor. Please support those, and if you are so inclined, you could buy me a coffee, or check out the stuff in my Etsy store.

Thanks for reading. And remember, you can’t always blame the enemies of your creativity, but you can break up with them.