3/23/24
Newsletter #576
The Crack of Dawn
In the year 2000 I was sitting in the kitchen of my apartment in Santa Monica. It was a gorgeous, sunny, southern California day and a warm ocean breeze was blowing in through my open door. I was gainfully employed on Xena, I was very involved with another TV show, Jack of All Trades, and was preparing to shoot an indie feature, If I Had a Hammer. From all outward appearances I was doing all right in Hollywood, but I was dying inside.
Sitting by myself, I said, “I’m saying this out loud so that I’ll remember it. When I look back on these halcyon days, never forget that I am really depressed and unhappy.” And I have not forgotten it.
I can see now that there was a depression building in me from the time I was a kid. But by the year 2000, when I was already 42 years old, I could sense that depression was going to take over, and I was going to let it take over.
I said to my friend and guru, Jane, that I intended to become a drunk. She thought for a moment, then asked, “Do you drink?” I admitted that I didn’t, but I intended to take it up. I had started the process by purchasing a case of Bass Ale every night and inviting everybody in the building to come by and have one. And they did, and it was fun. Jane said, “I don’t think that you’ll succeed as a drunk. I think you’ll fail. Then you’d be a failed drunk.”
With this in mind, I moved out of Hollywood to rural Oregon, up the street from my friend Bruce. I rented a single wide trailer sitting out on 7 acres of land, surrounded by 1000s of acres of BLM land. The middle of nowhere.
Seriously, being a drunk wasn’t at the forefront of my goals, but little did I know that you could only buy booze at state stores, and there was only one in the nearest town of Jacksonville. Therefore, buying booze was slightly difficult and so I didn’t do it all the time. I did try every kind of rum they sold. But I didn’t become a drunk. I moved back to Michigan.
It took until 2006, living here in this house, at the age of 46, to finally crack up. But I still didn’t know what I was doing. For God’s sake, I was still drinking rum, which has the worst hangovers because it’s all sugar. I cringe at the memory.
Luckily for me, this was when I finally went and got interested in cocaine. Not in the 1970s, or the ‘80s when everybody was doing it, or even the bloody ‘90s, but the later 2000s.
And this was when the 40% film incentive came to Michigan.
So, as an honest attempt to raise myself up from the status of drunken, coked-out, author/loser – I did publish three books at that time – I started a walkie talkie rental business, Motion Picture Radios. As my buddy John liked to call it, “Walkie talkie wentels.”
This was my logo. The idea and the cleverness being, it was RKO-Radio Pictures, and these were Picture Radios. Get it? It’s OK, nobody did. I like it. It was my logo on the sides of all of my Pelican cases full of radios. My shit got on a lot of movie and video sets for four years. The side of an indestrucible Pelican case was destroyed, burned and melted, on a Kid Rock video.
Meanwhile, I was purchasing the two tall-boy Bud or Miller special at the gas station for $5 on my way to work every day. The business that I owned and ran, singlehandedly, a movie walkie talkie rental business called Motion Picture Radios, for the entire length of the film incentive, 2008-2012, which was essentially Democrat Jennifer Granholm’s governorship. Republican Rick Snyder came into office, killed the film incentive that immediately killed the Michigan film industry. Thankfully, Rick shifted his sights to Flint, then poisoned their water and killed them. Republican leadership at its best.
In any case, I took some small pride in that I had at least attempted to climb out of my depressed, alcoholic hole – to some small extent – and I had actually started a successful business. Most new businesses fail. But I knew that film crews need walkie talkies and there was no place to get them anymore. I had most of my radios, and director’s chairs, rented out most of the time. If the productions would have continued, my business would have certainly continued. Alas.
I took this is as a clear sign from the universe. It’s advice that Homer gave Bart, “You tried, you failed, give up.”
But that’s not the end up the story by any means, only an episode.
The sun is out, and that’s good.
I like the MPROM Logo, and so in graphics. Reminds me of my new T shirt, aimed at the "Device" Generations:
"Go Outside, the Graphics are Amazing"