People give you shit
Posted August 3rd, 2004 by Sean WilliamsIf you don’t write for a week or so.
Here’s the thing. Over the last little bit, I’ve been like a giant bleeding nerve. Everything that people say bugs the crap out of me. I find myself wanting to jump down everyone’s throats for every little thing. When people say stuff that I agree with, I don’t even waste time nodding, I just start scanning around the room for the next thing someone *might* say that I can pick apart. It’s making me unpleasant to be around.
And that should make for good blogs, this is where I rant and get it all out. But the truth is, I know when the rants are justified (yes, I do, fuckers, I know you think half of what I say is bullshit, but that’s only about a tenth of what I think of saying) and I know when I’m just picking.
We had our first read through of the Fringe show last night and, when asked about it, I said that these producers suffer from “a serious case of the sweets”. I was bitching about the fact that these people are incredibly kind. That’s a bullshit blog that will eventually be found and make someone unhappy, so I can’t write it. I spent the weekend with my family and a couple of friends and every fourth thing someone said made me want to leave the room, until I thought about it for a second and was like, “Why did ‘so, when are we getting dinner’ piss me off so much, that’s just stupid.” I’m not writing a blog about that.
So, let’s take a look at how the next year is shaping up.
August- I act in Fringe show, no-one sees it or cares. Jordana directs Mac’s play, ditto.
September- Recordings for a product that I actually love. I will have five or six songs that I’ve written on the project, which means I will get royalties, to the tune of almost five hundred dollars a year!
October-November- Possible, and only just possible at this point, tour of Lucretia Jones Mysteries.
December-January- Preparations and rehearsal for “Fleet Week” written by Williams, Rogers and Williams, a musical born of frustration and disappointment.
February- Application to the Fringe festival, breeding more frustration and disappointment.
March-April- Second tour of Lucretia, only if first tour works.
May- After two barely successful tours, Jordana, Mac and I look at one another with the sudden realization that we are out of work, have just been turned down by the fringe for the third year in a row and having given up our day jobs. We all secretly blame one another, especially after being on the road together for four of the previous eight months. Jordana says she needs her own place “just to figure stuff out”, Mac says he’s moving back to Greensboro “maybe crash with my mom and dad for a while” and I sell my guitar and this computer to pay rent before moving in to the farm house upstate and drinking all of Ian’s scotch.
Or maybe…
August- I act in a Fringe show that is well received, Jordana directs Mac show and gets raves.
September- The new product gets advance orders of 50,000 units and the recordings end up paying gallons both in terms of directing and royalties. I get $1,000 reprint fee checks.
October-November- We do five shows a week for eight weeks and while we are driving, we write and finish both “Fleet Week’ and “Torch”, and we grow really fond of both.
December-January – While we are in pre-production, the next set of recordings for the last two products comes through. Gideon realizes we have two complete shows that we could do readings of, and either one could be a killing depending on what an audience is looking for, but more than that we love both of them.
February- We submit two shows to the Fringe, but we also have several other producing houses in New York take an interest in both plays. A small bidding war begins.
March-April- We let the bidding build while we go on a second wildly successful Lucretia tour, going out west. At one of the shows in LA, Rita Wilson thinks it might make a hilarious movie.
May- We don’t even check to see if we got in the Fringe because both shows have been sold to different production houses. All three of the recording projects I’ve worked on get Rock-n-Roll level orders coming in. We get an offer to put Lucretia into development for a feature film to begin shooting the following summer and we fight for and get to have Jordana play Lucretia, which works out perfectly because we discover she’s pregnant. Gideon is now solvent, all three of us are on salary and have health care, Mac is invited to move to LA and in a stunning reversal of his previous jokes, he doesn’t. That summer, we produce “License to Kim Jung-il” and it’s met with half the crowd thinking it’s self absorbed crap and the other half think it’s brilliant. The following November, we produce “King Fat Fights Lucretia Jones, or Lucretia Jones Journeys To The Center Of The Earth” and, in what can only be described as an ironic twist, people from the Fringe festival ask us to bring the show there because they like the title…
So, we’ll see. I would say that what will happen is probably somewhere in between, but if you know us, we’re pretty convinced it will be something worse than the first scenario. Like, it’ll be the first scenario, but on the first tour, we all get dysentery.
Jeez. We’re in emotional sync.
*Anything* anyone says that sounds the least bit critical makes me feel like I’m under attack, 2/3 of everything else everyone says either pisses me off or just seems absurd (in a stupid way), I pretty much hate everybody and everybody hates me right now (for obvious reasons).
I’m trying to finesse my way out of it with St. John’s Wort, exercise and meditation (all of which you probably find absurd and stupid–I would!).
Maybe we’ll find ourselves in sync again in a few months when I’m working a wonderful job and have found a way to live in the same town as my beloved, and you’re raking in royalties and picking and choosing among amazing project offers. Hey, it could happen. I’ve read that if we believe in it enough, it becomes more likely. Kind of like Tinker Bell. Worth a shot, I guess.
Now please don’t kill me.