So...40. Even if it IS the new 30, it still means one thing: time to settle down and get serious. Time to grow up. Time to figure out, once and for all, just what the hell I wanna be when I grow up. I'm already married, so that's one adult-type thing I've done lately...
...and
indeed, my
lovely Polish bride just recently starred as the villainous Corporate
Sludge in FARM FORCE, my
entry (in collaboration with The Burt
Wood School For Performing Arts) in the 2007 Boston edition of the
supercool 48 Hour Film Project.
My spousely muse will also be co-starring in a low-budget indie version
of the long-long-LONG-gestating MEAT CITY BEATNIKS, which
finally has a cast and (knock wood) may actually begin production this
summer. MCB, of course, began as a short story by O.C. (Original
Chief) James Dryden,
and was later adapted into screenplay form by O.C. Scott
Von Doviak, after which I added a romantic subplot and songs by O.C.
Eric
Jacobson, thus turning the story into a musical, and now the whole
thing has morphed, potentially, into the Bait Shop's first full length
feature project since the "lost" movie, No Love.
All
this new movie-making mojo was motivated by the short projects I've been
doing for Burt Wood (like Shoe
and Most People) along with my recent mini-documentaries about the
Herring Run Arts Festival and Massachusetts state senator Tom
O'Brien). I was also inspired by micro-budget mini-DV indies
like The Puffy Chair
and Allston's own Funny Ha-Ha.
At 40, I get tired just thinking about all the work that went into my 16mm
feature Apocalypse Bop,
but this whole digital revolution thing is accessible enough to lure me
back into the vagaries of the indie world...so that's one solid, realistic
grown-up career path I've been exploring: low budget movie director!
Theoretically, I will also receive a Master's Degree from the University O' Massachusetts in the very near future which, theoretically, will lead to all kinds of exciting new theoretical teaching jobs, like my upcoming Fall 2007 gig as a screenwriting instructor for the UCLA Extension School (classes forming now)! And I'll still be teaching my live, in-person classes in and around Boston, PLUS I'm finally hanging out my very own Internet shingle with the launch of NewEnglandScreenwriters.com...and, really, what could be more adult than e-commerce?
In
other news, I recently spent a month as a "question producer" for Cash
Cab, a Discovery Channel game show that's kinda like Taxicab
Confessions with more trivia and less pre-op transsexuals. Meanwhile,
my novel is creeping ever closer to completion, a new video project is
in the works for the Burt
Wood Summer Arts Festival, I may soon be directing a show for the former
producer of the Pinehills
Players and my friend, collaborator and newly-minted Noah-papa Jed
Weintrob is jetting off to Cannes
in search of foreign financing for the upcoming top-secret sci-fi extravaganza
we're developing.
The moral of the story? When life gives you 40, make 40-ounce...and stay tuned!