OFFICE HOURS

I was accused of being "nice" the other day and, yeah, that's a good description of the personality I've tried to create over my lifetime. Life's too short for me to add up to being just one more jerk in an ocean of jerks. But "nice" is a diminutive, a small box meant to house a host of attributes and, really, on me, it doesn't exactly fit. For instance, if you are a jerk, you can expect me not to be nice to you. If you are a crappy or, worse, lazy creator, my "niceness" evaporates.

Why? Because I don't like people who make excuses for not doing the thing they say they want to do. I don't like people who don't try for the dreams they claim dominate their minds. I think such people are liars and I think they clutter the field, getting in the way of every striver who really wants to work. A lot of the excuses have to do with how it's "so hard" to find time to write or make a movie or mount a play or dance or draw. BS. Those things used to be a little bit true to some degree but, these days? Sorry. There are no obstacles. Zero. You have no excuse but your own fear, your own laziness and neither of those count. If you can't play, clear the field and don't bother whining about it because nobody cares. Why should we? You don't. A friend of mine asked me what the reason for this site is and, aside from, "Because I want to," I had to think about it. What I thought was this: "Lets use it to remove some of those lies and excuses. Lets really create a rift between the whiners and the people who actually mean it." So, if you're a whiner, if you're an excuse-maker, if you're a liar, it's time for you to go. Only gladiators past this point (and, no, I didn't get that from SCANDAL. Been saying that for years.)

I can go on and on about writing and how, if you're still asking for permission to do it, or someone to tell you how to do it right, it's time for you to find something else to fill your life with but I do that enough as it is. Today I thought I'd switch it up. Lets talk about movies and how you can't make one. RULE ONE: You can make anything you want to.

Let me repeat that, in case you're stupid. YOU can make ANYTHING you want to. Anything. No one can give or take permission. No one can stop you. Yes, if you want to make a 100-Million Dollar inter-stellar war epic as your first film there will be different obstacles to navigate than if you wanted to tell the story of a rural family in modern Alabama but, hey, if that's your bag, fill it. No one can stop you. You may not have seen this movie:

And, even if you have, you may not know this; it was shot on cell phones. Yep. that's right. Cell phones. If i hadn't told you that, you would not have known. This is a beautifully crafted, critically acclaimed film that was shot with unknown actors on cell phones. But YOU can't get it together to make yours? Bite me. Here is what you need to make a film. A story. A cell phone. some actors (or, and this is crucial) just YOURSELF. A computer to edit it on. Presumably, if you're reading this, you own a computer. If you're basically anyone over the age of 15 and living anywhere in the so-called 1st World, you own a cell phone. I'm also betting you have at least one friend but, again, even if you don't, that is not an excuse to keep you from making something beautiful or scary or fun or ALL OF THE ABOVE. ONE MORE THING. Meet William Kamkwamba.

At 14 years old, this is guy from a tiny village in Africa, with ZERO engineering training and close to zero resources built a windmill to power his family home. From scratch. Time is running out. Get off your ass. Stop whining. Stop making excuses. Stop lying. Or, if you can't, admit that and get out of the way. #MAKENEWTHINGS