I am adrift, yet again... This is not unfamiliar territory for me, but my wish is that every successive time I turn a corner and find myself here I'd know better how to handle it.
The news of my show's theoretical cancellation has been confused by several postings on its official website. Those specific season two announcements that have been there for several months remain side-by-side vague references to speed bumps in the proverbial road that just barely explain why we've had reruns on the air instead of the remaining episodes we shot, as well as the ones we didn't.
Did we ever have an audience besides the people related to the show that would require this information?
Predictably I always tuned in, or at the very least recorded it on my primitive VHS device. Sometimes it felt more like somebody's vanity project than a real show, but I knew most of the people in the credit scroll and had privileged knowledge about what never made the final edit and should have.
But that's not all...
I'd been slogging through a mean stomach virus the week I first received the call about the show. I also happened to be polishing up a sizeable application for an important screenplay contest. Those dark comedy moments aside, due to years of perseverance and commitment things were finally falling into place. Right?
Who the fuck am I kidding?
My life is far more like that dark comedy than the serendipitous romantic tale I'm trying to spin. The show's gone kaput and I've just been christened the proud recipient of yet another rejection letter for the cellar walls of my little jaded soul.
To truly survive it you've gotta either have a great fuckin' sense of humor or a masochistic streak a mile wide, or a bargain bin combo pack. I'd prefer to simply leave my proclivities open for interpretation.
There are times when I've felt in control, such as while I was marshalling that loveable slew of deadbeats together to shoot the movie last summer within some complicated scheduling. And then again I'll often wear myself out treading water, presuming that I'm actually waiting for something to happen.
I guess it's a forest/trees, big pond/small pond sort of deal. These dichotomies were not lost on me during my recent visit to the Big Apple.
The nice corner apartment my cousins have has several large windows overlooking several different buildings on either side. For a moment during one of the afternoons, I stood at the center of their living room peering out through the breeze-providing open shades through multiple other windows as other people's lives hung on display like a work of art in progress. I felt like the fascinated, obsessive voyeur Jimmy Stewart portrayed in Hitchcock's "Rear Window".
I was quickly drawn to one of the writing tablets I'd brought with me, inspired toward several hours stream of consciousness scribbling.
Yet one step out the front door the city was in charge. My high-end amateur Sony 5.1 digital camera was no match for the big city, which instantly dwarfed my efforts to capture it as if everything I knew about composition and the like was erased and all I could do was point-and-shoot and hope for the best.
I see this as a metaphor for my struggle.
