8/14/23
Newsletter #427
The Crack of Dawn
This will be my first retraction. Jane, the ruthless, bloodthirsty, Hollywood producer of I Had a Hammer and Running Time, who is also my Zen master, complained about my recent misrepresentation of her producing If I Had a Hammer. In essence, I said that the way I fired people during production was by saying, “Jane, fire that guy,” which she would do, then go back to her office and cry. In fact, Jane never cried about firing anyone. As she just reminded me, the first three people she fired, the production designer and his two sons, were her idea, and she did not shed a tear for them. Nor did Jane lose any sleep over any of the other crew members that she fired (by the end of the fourth week, of a four-week shoot, she was ready to fire the whole costume department). However, what Jane did cry about was me putting $100,000 on credit cards. Jane is a CPA, having previously worked as comptroller (meaning, head accountant) for Steven Spielberg. Jane controlled all of the money on cute little productions like E.T., Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List. So, while I thought I was being a sly, clever indie filmmaker – it took me several years to acquire those ten credit cards, then accrue high limits – Jane’s calculator brain was always adding on 22% compounding interest. Every other day when Jane came to me for more money, and I would cavalierly hand her a new credit card, then she would go back to her office and cry. She cried for her poor, deluded, soon-to-be-bankrupt, devotee.
I paid nothing but interest on those ten cards for a couple of years – thousands and thousands of dollars, never touching the principal. Finally — about 20 years ago — I was bitterly complaining about my lack of work to Rob Tapert. I was so miserable and self-pitying that I was actually mad at Rob for not having a project so he could hire me. Rob said, “So declare bankruptcy. What are you waiting for?” I had never truly thought about it, and that was the most foolish thing I did regarding those ten credit cards. What I should have done was to declare bankruptcy as soon as possible after wrapping principal photography. I would have saved about $20,000. Coulda, shoulda, woulda.
I hired a bankruptcy attorney here in Detroit. My lawyer was a generic 55-65-year-old, reasonably intelligent, moderately priced, white lawyer like you see on TV. He had me make a list of all of my assets and streams of income. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I didn’t own anything, and didn’t have a job. However, if you count movies, screenplays and books as “intellectual properties,” which I did, it was kind of an impressive-looking list. To my chagrin, I’ve written over 30 screenplays, directed nine movies, and own five of them. However, in reality, everything is only worth what you can wring out of it. And as for revenue streams, I had residuals from Xena and Hercules, and I was selling all of my films that I owned on DVD from my website, Beckerfilms.com (which is still alive).
This was 2004. So, the next thing you know me and my attorney found ourselves in bankruptcy court in the Federal Court Building right in downtown Detroit (ah, my mind drifts back to when I was a process server 15 years earlier than that, back in 1989, and I often had occasion to visit that building).
Meanwhile, back in 2004, me and my attorney were sitting in a large room with about 50 seats facing a judge and a court reporter. The judge, 60, with a broad chest and a white brush cut, with a deathly serious demeanor, who I was told was a judge, but he was not sitting in as a judge, he was like a magistrate who fields who gets to go to bankruptcy court or not. He was there to see if you were properly prepared.
My lawyer and I were the only white people in the room beside the judge and the court reporter. The room was filled with about 50 black Detroiters, many were elderly, some with black lawyers, some with white lawyers, some with no lawyer. At least five or six cases went before ours. The requirement for this magistrate job, it seemed, was legal speed-reading. This judge/magistrate was like the six-million-dollar man when it came to legal speed-reading. Each of these cases was the size of a screenplay, at least. The judge would burn through it in 60-90 seconds, then ask, “Ma’am, do you own the house or does your son own the house?” An elderly black lady would say, “Well, I gave him the house, but I still live there, but . . .” or something, so they were clearly not ready. They were told, “No. Go back and fix it. Next.” This took a couple of hours.
Then we went before the judge/magistrate. He picked up my paltry couple of pages of assets and streams of income and inspected it. Suddenly, he was no longer speed-reading. His countenance visibly lightened up and smile appeared on his face. He looked at me in wonder and asked, “You worked on Xena: Warrior Princess?” I said, “Yeah, I directed on all six seasons.” He was obviously a fan and said, “My son will never believe this. You met Lucy Lawless?” I said proudly, “I worked with her every day.” He said, “Get out!” He went back to looking at my list. He asked, “What is Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except?” I said, “It’s a 35mm, feature-length motion picture. So are Running Time and If I Had a Hammer.” He pointed at my sub-section and asked, “What are all these things?” I said, “Full-length screenplays.” He said, “What are they worth?” I said, “What’ll you give me?”
Here is where I really lucked out. Actually, here is where that attorney earned his $1,800. He recommended that I keep all of my debt to the credit cards and don’t add anything to it. About $68,000. The judge/magistrate couldn’t get past the Xena part of my income stream. “You get royalties when they show Xena?” I said, “I get residuals from Xena. I get royalties from the movies and books. The stuff I own.” He asked, “And all of your debt is from credit cards?” I proudly replied, “Yes, sir, completely from credit cards.” He then simply said, “You can go.”
Me and my attorney then found ourselves in the hallway and he was beaming. I honestly didn’t know what was happening. I asked, “Do we have to come back?” The lawyer said, “Did you hear him ask you to come back?” I said no. He said, “Then we don’t have to.” Everybody else had to – because they owned real, tangible items, like cars and houses – but I didn’t. Credit card debt is imaginary.
Meanwhile, I had sadly been informed by many people – friends, family members, associates, those who knew – as I went into the process of bankruptcy, that once I declared it, I wouldn’t be able to get a credit card for seven years. Seven years, mind you. That’s the number everybody said. Really? After the bankruptcy, the very next solicitation I got for a credit card, from Capitol One, I filled it out, sent it in, and got a credit card with $1,000 credit within two months. But that’s the only credit card I have. And I pay off the entire balance every month.
I’ve just beaten the dawn. Or has the dawn beaten me?
Bring it on.