Mar 26 2009
“No, you’re not a ghoul–you’re a zombie.”
So people send me DVDs. I write reviews of them and link to them. People read them and tell me I suck or that I am awesome. If they tell me I’m awesome, I know they’re smart and handsome people. If they tell me I suck, I know that they should probably be issued helmets and drool bibs.
I got to watch and review the Simon Pegg vehicle How To Lose Friends and Alienate People for Kiwibox. Go check it out. If you’re one of the five people who’ve seen the movie, lemme know what you thought. I’ll get the box of drool bibs open, just in case.
I think one of the things I appreciated most about the movie is how anybody who has ever been paid to do something they love could watch it and either remember when they made that big scary decision to stop fucking around and just either sink or swim or hope that one day they’ll get that call up to the big leagues of whateverdom.
I know a guy who moved to California to wait tablesbe a screenwriter. Do I think he’s crazy for doing it? Yeah, kind of. Do I hope he becomes the next Judd Apatow so I can use my connection with him to launch my own series of mediocre horror films of consistently declining quality? Totally. Would I be able to do something that gutsy on my own? No, probably not.
Hell, in the movie Sidney Young (and in real life Toby Young) started a magazine, then dumped that magazine to go write for Sharps (Vanity Fair). I, uh… started some websites and, when I was at a point where I could either get busy working for myself or dial it back and keep my day job, chose to keep my day job. It was probably the best decision at the time, given that I was tired of the freelance job that was paying me best and I could see the writing on the wall that it was going to come to an end sooner, rather than later.
If I had held on, could I have used it to get somewhere else? Probably. But it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. I want to write, not be a marketing-bot with a personality.
There’s another opportunity (with a profitable website conglomerate that I shant mention) that I missed out on because of my day job. I would’ve loved to have had that writing and editing, as it is exactly what I want (and what I’m doing for myself and as a freelancer anyway). Would it still be there now? That I don’t know. It was a temporary position for six months and only about 30 hours a week at that; it either could have taken off or I might have been looking for a new job by now.
If I had known then what I know now, I would’ve given up the day job in a heartbeat. Even this gig, as secure and permanent as it seemed, isn’t terribly secure anymore. My freelance stuff is getting better and better, and I’m kind of getting the itch to push it and see how far it might take me. I’ll take six months and 30 hours a week of something with a potential future over a full-time semi-guarantee of something that’s wasting my time, life, and talent.
