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The next day I slept in. Then went back to the temp agency. My day job fired me, of course for missing a week, even if I faked sick.  My dad was proud that I made the movie but astonished that I let my job go.  Silly Dad, day jobs are for losers.  Plus, the temp agency got me a job right away, for that whole week. 

I went to the film processing plant and walked into the wrong projection room. Interesting alien movie. Then I found ours.  The director was not happy to see me, but I knew I had the right to be there. The owner told me it had never been a problem.

I loved seeing the footage. “My” movie on the big screen. It looked amazing – so big and beautiful and real.  It was weird to see someone I kissed on the big screen. My bodyguard looked cool, even if he did “kill” someone in that scene.  I also noticed how handsome the lead actor looked. All week we chatted a tiny bit, and he ran around looking like a normal human. But on screen, with the 35 mm footage, perfect lighting, and make up, he looked like a God.  Movie magic.

More magic happened as we left the projection room. The director and other woman producer actually talked to me. She asked how I was doing. Wow, maybe she is just a Set Bitch, I thought.

The next day it was back to work – another day job. It was at a relaxed plastic company. I just had to answer the phones which only rang in the early morning and afternoon. So I read the magazines the old receptionist had left behind.  I instantly made friends with two employees. One had been a child actor on a big show.  The other also was in the biz – an actress.  They were impressed that I was a producer.

I also started working on my next project.  I was going to travel all around the country, making a documentary on Native American reservations. It was really just an excuse to travel, but I did want to see the issues on each reservation. It has always been an interest of mine and I was finding a true fact: have camera, will travel.  Every day I called reservations throughout the country to ask if I could come film and interview. I also typed up letters and sent them off. I was overwhelmed by all the details but I had to keep moving. Next is the word in show biz, according to producer Lynda Orbst (whose book I was reading at this time).

I also had one last job for the movie. I called everyone to invite them to the cast party. The lead actor, normal by day, God on the screen, thanked me for my nice smile and making him feel welcome on the set. Made me feel good. Since then I’ve seen him on some well known movies and TV shows. I wonder if he remembers my smile.

The cast party was fun. The grumpy DP gave me a hug hello. Now that the stress was over, we all could relax. I didn’t do more than niceties to the director and other producer woman since I still didn’t trust. But the producer I recruited and I had a long funny conversation. The God/actor made me crack up too. I had a great time, just being social with everyone I had spent a week with making my first flick.  My bodyguard never showed up though, and I took it personally.

He called and had a good excuse. We arranged to meet for him to read for a role in my movie. The script was getting better and as part of my weekly screenwriting class, I was arranging a reading of the script and inviting everyone in the biz.  So, of course, as an actor, he wanted a part of that.

He came over and sat on my porch and read the part. He wasn’t that great – still new at this acting thing. He was tall – 6’6 and had a non-speaking role in the short film.  But I figured I’d let him have the part since it was just a reading and he could learn to act, I thought.

After we did the script talk, we talked more about our lives.  I asked if he had many serious girlfriends.

“Just one”

“Did it hurt when it ended?”

“No.”

“That’s good.” I sighed, thinking of all the lingering pain from my break up that was slowing fading to black.

“We’re still together.”

“What? Is it still serious? Are you going to get married?”

“We are married.”

My head was spinning.  Married? I kissed a married man. Oh no, that’s not me.

“You’re married? You didn’t think of that before you flirted with me? Before we kissed?”

He went on about how she was out of the country for a month and he was allowed to cheat. Whatever. I soon ended the conversation and told him he had to leave.

“Will I still be able to do the part?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Then I realized I was one of those producers. He thought he could sleep his way into a part. Okay, I wasn’t going to be like that. I promised him the part for the reading. That he could do. But no relationship. I don’t do the cheating thing, no matter how lonely I was in LA.

A week went by and I organized for the documentary road trip, the reading, and had some great breakthroughs for the script I was writing. A woman I met months ago looked like what I was thinking for the main character. She was a sweet woman from South Carolina and she happened to be an Indigo Girls’ fan. I had met her at a concert where I went to do research on their fans. I interviewed people before they went into the concerts up and down the coast. And in the process scored free tickets to the show in San Diego, snuck in at Santa Barbara, and bought tickets for LA. I became a Gohead in the process of writing about Goheads.

Anyway this girl was like an angel. She was an actress and writer so I knew she’d be great. My Gohead angel even found a friend who loved the film and happened to have produced the biggest grossing movie that spring.  He brought us to the Lilith Fair so he could learn more about the Indigo Girls. We had fun riding in the back of his convertible as he put his hand on the knee of his new, young girlfriend. He was a real producer – balding, in his 50s, flashy car, pretty girl.  We didn’t mind being along for the ride.

I got to see my first Lilith Fair. But true to my LA life, it was about my career. Schmoozing the producer, and sending scripts backstage for the Indigo Girls to read.  I told them it was still a work in process but I plan to make the feature film the following summer. I know they got the scripts because a few weeks later, Amy Ray (half the duo) sent a letter to me about it.

July 14^th

I wrote in my journal “Years ago people in France got their heads cut off today. I’m running around like it already was.”  I was busy.  I had sent out all the letters and didn’t get many responses but would check my voice mail from the road to follow up, and make calls to get interviews with Tribal Governments throughout the country.  We were leaving anyway. Nothing could stop me. I wanted out of the city, the traffic. Plus I wanted to do my own project. A documentary.

Another day, another day job. I got to stay more than a week at the plastic company but they got mad when instead of reading magazines (appropriate for a receptionist), I was folding my business letters and stuffing envelopes to the tribes.  That’s not okay apparently. Maybe it looked like competition. I didn’t get it. The phone wasn’t ringing. I filed every possible paper. There was nothing to do. As long as it looks like you are reading a fashion magazine and not doing real business, then it’s okay. Whatever. I was going out of town and doing my real career anyway.

I even ran around to find a camera for the documentary. Back then, 1998, digital cameras were still new, but big and expensive. Brett told me a Sony XL1000 would be my best bet so I got that.

I picked up my friend, Arnold, who was the only pal across the world who took up my invitation to drive around the country. He’s from Minnesota. I met him when I studied there to be a teacher.  He’s a part of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (aka Chippewa).  He’s also gay and he was interested in meeting other gay men on the road, especially ones in long term relationships. To be inspired, to have hope. In the small town area where he was from, out and long term relationships were rare occurrences.  He also wanted an adventure before he left his life time home of Northern Minnesota and took up an invite from another friend to move to Eugene, Oregon.

I was happy to have him along. I didn’t want to go by myself. We had fun hanging out in Minnesota but I wondered if we’d get along. It ended up he was the perfect road buddy. We never fought. He never got on my nerves.

I picked him up at his brother’s house where he had stayed for a few days.  We got the camera and watched the guy give us a tutorial. Then we were excited to film ourselves driving around LA.  We were amateur filmmakers but ready to roll.

We spent the afternoon in Santa Monica by the beach.  A photographer I had befriended on a film set took pictures of us which I would use later for publicity.  Even my dog, Mandolina, was in the publicity package since she was coming with. She loved all the smells throughout the country but not the heat in the southwest. She was a golden/collie mix and her deep fur didn’t mix with Texas heat.

The second day that Arnold was at my house wasn’t good for him. He had some weird rash and I brought him to the Pasadena hospital. They had no idea what he was talking about when he said he had health coverage through the tribe. That pissed me off. California has the highest population of Native Americans (thanks to the weird relocation policy of the 1960s).  How could they not honor this right to free health care?

So I drove him to another hospital downtown where the wait was forever which was never. I picked him up later that evening (I had another temp day job) and went back to the Pasadena hospital where after 4 hours they finally saw him and gave him penicillin. I was not impressed. The good thing was a guy sitting next to us in the waiting room was in a band and he said he’d play at my party the next day.

I had a party to try to raise funds for our trip. I made a lot of food and tried to charge for it like a feminist party I went to earlier that spring for a brigade to Cuba. But I was so behind in my phone calls that I didn’t invite people in time. We had a few people and it was fun, esp. jamming to the band that we didn’t realize we needed a permit since their sound echoed throughout the valley. 

We also had another event before we left. The reading of my screenplay. I sent invitations to agents, producers, and distributors but wrote the wrong address. We sent some of the actors to wait at that nearby theater but no one showed up. I, and the actors, were disappointed.  So we had two women who had heard about the script through the venue where we were actually holding the reading, and my writing teacher. Oh well, I learned a lot. The actors had good comments about how to improve it. I got a taste of directing. And I got to see it come to life, even if they were just sitting down.

And one more thing before we left.  The producer I had recruited called me to say that they wanted to meet with me to talk about credits. I thought, okay, I’ll give them the list of all the people I had recruited and the proper spelling of their names to thank them all for their volunteer hard work.

I was wrong.

It was at the other woman producer’s house and immediately I should have left. It was her, the guy I recruited, and the director. I handed over the list of everyone’s names, and phone numbers (aka crew contact list) but they proceeded to tell me that it was about me. I wasn’t going to get writer’s credit. The final blow. The one I feared most.

We argued back and forth and Arnold sat on the patio listening, smoking. I wanted to tell him to turn on the camera which we still had in the box, to get this down. I knew it was breaking my heart and meant something.

The worse part wasn’t even the loss of credit, the one thing I wanted most and they knew it.  It was that the director accused me of embezzlement. I was shocked.  I’m not a thief. Plus I didn’t even have access to any of his money. I spent my own on some of the food, ice, and snacks. Plus on the PA boys who since they left to stay at the director’s, their mom had stopped the check she had sent to cover some of their food and all. So those trips to the restaurant were on me. I mentioned that.  But the director said that since I had sent out a fundraising letter (which he urged me to do), that money was his. I told him I got three checks for $20 and that the letter also mentioned my documentary and the movie I wanted to make next summer so at best he gets a third which I already spent on the PA boys and their dinners.

I was scared. Embezzlement is such a scary word.  Later I photocopied the checks, even the cancelled one (which I had to pay a bank fee on for some reason because she choose to cancel it), and sent the proof to the director that I was not a thief.

They laid on other accusations. That I didn’t work hard enough because I fell asleep once. I laughed, I had a photo of the PAs asleep.  They said I should have defeated my body’s urge for sleep and drive on just like the producer I hired did, and got in a car crash. I had given up enough for this dysfunctional film – my job, my sanity, my dignity, I didn’t need to total my car too!

Yet they had proved all my doubts. They were untrustworthy. They had used me. Or rather, the director had used me and found people to be on “his side.”  It was my first Hollywood experience with a liar and a credit stealer. I knew it happened, I just didn’t know it happened so quickly (less than a year out in LA) and by people so low on the totem pole. It was just a short film by a beginner! I thought this was something that happened to people by A list people, not Z!

I later felt badly for Arnold. He was there to hear the argument. He was there to console me on the drive home. But as we drove out of town he kept hearing and hearing about it as we met up with my friends throughout the country. I don’t think I even started to give up talking about it until Minnesota.  I also called a lawyer and hired him. He wrote a mean letter to the director to say he promised credit and that’s like pay.  It did nothing and the lawyer said the next step was a lawsuit which started out at $1500. The letter was only $300. I dropped it. Why waste any more time and money on this guy.  I was already on the road making my documentary. I was moving on, literally.