Intrigued and Illuminated

My friend, Jen, took me to see Liam Finn play at the Largo at the Coronet on La Cienega Blvd in West Hollywood last Wednesday. We laughed a great deal as he played for a large crowd sitting in a beautiful theatre, but when he (and his partner, Eliza Jane) played “Gather to the Chapel” and “Wide Awake On The Voyage Home,” we both began to cry. Great floods of tears. For different reasons, we cried. Even when I met him, I started to cry, because the music was just that moving. And my imagination was running wild. A new story was of course working its way around my brain.

After watching Mr. Finn and Ms. Eliza Jane play on Wednesday night, it is like life started to remind me that surprises will always be found around the corner from where you are. And when you open yourself up to those surprises, life truly comes into sharper focus. And my eyes have been opened in so many different ways since that night. A variety of things have happened to me in the last few months that have truly made me grow as an individual. Some have been harsh, horrible moments, while some have been enlightening, as well as freeing.

Yesterday, someone important in my life – no I am not going to tell you who – told me that I have been going through a “growth spurt.” Pardon? A growth spurt? Like the sort of thing you have when you are a gangly, graceless teenager and you grow an entire foot in the summer? Or you grow into your long legs? Or you grow into your considerably large mouth, filled with what seems to be a million straight perfect teeth, which begins to no longer look awkwardly enormous?

I wondered, to myself, does it have anything to do with… nearing thirty? I don’t think I have the dreaded turning thirty issues (yet,) but I do see that I am doing a lot right now with my life. There have been a lot of changes in the last few months that have moved me forward in my quest to be a filmmaker, a businesswoman, a lover, an environmentalist, a daughter, an individual and a woman. A complete human being.

Which brings to me to a thought that has been running through my mind while I am working on a new film: the ‘traditional’ woman versus the feminist. It is something that has always intrigued me – a place where a woman can have a career, a family, a marriage and her individuality.

A place where a woman can be a creative soul - a filmmaker, an author, an artist - who follows and seeks her own bliss without making apologies, but is also a committed lover to the man (or woman) she has chosen to love and call her own. A place where a woman can be a Co-founder/President of a green (environmentally friendly) Company while raising a child. A place where a devoted daughter can still have a solid relationship with her mother, but also let her own, independent soul speak loudly and clearly for itself.

In the UK Times Online (www.timesonline.co.uk,) there is an article titled “The good wife is an old fashioned realist,” which states:

How to be a perfect wife is not, you might have thought, a very contemporary question. Decades of feminism have been much more concerned with how to be a perfect career woman, exotic lover, fully fledged fashionista, alpha female and, latterly, yummy mummy; being a wife has been somewhat incidental, even for those who get married or stay married. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/
columnists/minette_marrin/article1654871.ece).

First of all, why would we (women) be thinking that this particular question is… Contemporary!? Why wouldn’t we think that the women who have “Come up the Ranks” before us wouldn’t be troubled with the same questions that we are faced with today? I think of Virginia Woolf and her essay “A Room of One’s Own,” which points out the importance and necessity of women to be financially independent in order to be able to create. I think of Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart, Ella Fitzgerald, Frida Kahlo, Margaret Mead, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Bourke-White, to name a few fascinating, strong and driven women. And I realize that I will always be an evolving, every changing work-in-progress.

"Students Ignore God on a Regular Basis."

Dear Emerson Alums, Current Students and Other People who did not attend, either because you didn’t think Emerson was GOOD ENOUGH or you were too poor to attend and said you were too good for the likes of Boston’s Little Punk-Ass Film School:

I get a lot of SHIT for not having gone to film school at USC, UCLA, NYU Tisch, AFI, Columbia University, the University of Texas in Austin or some other prestigious film school... (And I know those of you that either went to Community College or some small Liberal Arts College in Michigan or didn’t wind up attending Undergrad, get it worse...) Everyone has heard of Emerson College in Boston, but it doesn't ever feel like the person you are talking to actually respects you once they hear that you went to THAT film school.

This is a conversation that I have actually had with some wannabe directors (I can say that) while sitting outside my local coffee shop with one of my friends. This time it was my Best Friend, a PhD Academic:

EXT. COFFEE SHOP – LATE AFTERNOON

With his new Cubs hat on his greasy unwashed head, SNOTTY LITTLE B-MOVIE SET P.A./PRESTIGIOUS FILM SCHOOL GRADUATE, 25, sits reading “Directing Actors” by SOMEBODY IMPORTANT and underlining EVERY sentence in the book, which looks like a child drew all over it with a dull pencil.

SNOT occasionally throws out nonsense to his friend, a GEEKY ASSISTANT TO A B-MOVIE PRODUCER/PRESTIGIOUS FILM SCHOOL GRADUATE, 25 and who has a very “naturally whimsical” haircut that probably cost him $200 and thick black glasses that he doesn’t actually have prescriptions for, about being on Anna Nicole's last movie as an Additional Set Production Assistant. He got 4 days towards his book.

Snot: “Yeah, Anna and I got really close. I used to personally make her her favorite drink, a BLAH-BLAH- BLAH (Insert Bullshit Annoying Coffee Blended Drink that takes way to much of anyone’s time making and, in turn, makes your ADs pissed off that your time is being wasted making talent a frothy drink that her assistant should be making just bloody right). We were getting really tight and then….” Fake Sniff and Long Exhale of Pain and Mourning.

Geek: “Man. When did you work with your AD last?”

Snot: “Oh, I haven’t heard from my B-Movie 2nd 2nd AD since we wrapped 2 months ago. I mean, we’re really close. (Knots fingers.) I think he’s just taking some time off. He’s been working so hard and, y’know, there are sometimes so many breaks between movies… Thank goodness.”

I cast my half-closed eyes over to Snot and Geek when I hear the words “Breaks between Movies.” (Really? There are breaks? Not a good sign for Snot and Geek.) I sit sipping my 5th Iced Tea and try to get myself positioned perfectly in the way of the Hollywood sunbeams. (And I mean, actual beams from the SUN.)

Snot (looking at me): “What do you do?”

I look at him. Great. No, What’s your name? Do you live in the neighborhood? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you like the Iced Tea here? I see you’ve had several. Do you smoke? Do you have a lighter? Do you know if Le Brea is West or East? Do you like the food next door? What’s your sign? Do you eat Wheat?

Me (with trepidation): “I’m… in the Industry.”

Snot (Feigns Boredom): “What do you DO in the Industry?”

Me: “Eat Crafty a lot. Walk around set trying not to get hit by a grip, who always screams “HOT POINTS” just in the nick of time. I sit sometimes. Or stand. Or like to wear hats with the Boston Red Sox Logo On it.”

My Best Friend, “Academic PhD Extraordinarie,” chimes in: “She’s a filmmaker.”

Geek: “Reeeeallllllyyy?”

I look at her and smile “Thanks.”

Academic Extraordinaire: “You are what you do.”

Crap.

I look at Snot and Geek: “I’m a writer/director.”

Snot: “What have you DONE?”

Wow, please we haven’t even told each other our names yet and Snot’s trying to “Industry Screw” me. Right here on the sidewalk. In this uncomfortable, broken metal chair that the Manager of the Coffee Shop SHOULD replace…

Me: “I just finished shooting a short film.”

Academic Extraordinaire: “And she’s submitting it to all the big festivals.”

Academic Extraordinaire smiles at me. Ah, thank goodness I have solid, supportive friends… who like to talk. Especially when they see I am thinking about how to not answer the question with a bit of flare and jest.

Geek: “Wow,” which causes Snot to give Geek a “Don’t-Look-Too-Intrigued-or-Impressed-Just-Yet-Look.”

Snot: “We did SEVERAL short films when we went to USC, didn’t we Geek? Where did YOU go to school?”

Me: “Emerson in Boston.” I point to Boston Red Sox Hat.

Snot: "Oh, why didn't you go to USC? Or UCLA?"

Me: "I didn't apply."

Snot (feigned shock, with the look like he’s about to cough violently): "You didn't... APPLY? Didn't you want the best education you could... get?"

Me: "Yes. And I did get a great education… I just didn't want to live in CALIFORNIA at the time..."

Geek: "Then why not NYU?"

Me: "Wasn’t too interested. Only applied to Emerson.”

Geek; “You applied to ONE school?”

Me: “Well, I went to Denison University for 2 years and then transferred out.”

Blank Stare.

Then comes (what they imagine is…) the ultimate insult, which men always have to bring up – either as a way to flirt OR regain a feeling of superiority – because they expect me to answer their question with a simple blank stare back at them.

Snot: “Are you are REAL Boston fan?”

Me: “What would make someone a “REAL” fan?”

Snot: “Where are you from?”

Me: “Newport, Rhode Island. Spent 3 years in Beacon Hill, Boston.”

Geek: “She’s definitely a Native.”

Snot: “A Native does not necessarily mean… a True Blue BOSTON Fan.”

Geek: “Do you like ALL the teams?”

Me: “Yes. I like ALL of them.”

And then Snot asks the question that I have heard many, many times…

Snot: “Name three players.”

Me: “Do you want the batting line-up or their Field Positions?”

Blank Stares.

And then I tell them who is where on the field: Varitek is Catcher, Youkilis at 1st, Pedroia at 2nd, Lowell at 3rd (and how Casey fills in for Youkilis when he is out or when he replaces Lowell) and then Lugo is at Short Stop, Manny Left Field, Ellsbury (or Crisp) Center Field and Drew (or Ellsbury, depending) at Right Field…

Blank Stares.

I top the story off by telling them about sitting at Dodgers Stadium with my friend, Crotty, close enough – I timed in my head – to sprint to the field and tackle Ellsbury (who was in for Drew) before anyone could catch me and drag me away.

For a really, really LONG time, they blankly stare at me...

Me (I get up, smile at Geek and Snot and then say quietly): “Nice Cubs hat” and then walk away.

People (like Snot and Geek) always cock their head to the side when I say Emerson. I sometimes wonder if they are silently asking me (and themselves) if I take my life, my craft, my "talent," my education SERIOUSLY. How could I go to a FILM SCHOOL that wasn't lauded as the ONLY place (amongst 10 other reputable Giants) to learn what 3-point lighting is; how to tell the F-Stop by eye; how to load a mag; to play with a 16mm Bolex; to act in some other poor fools shitty black-and-white silent 4-minute short about cyborgs; or learn everything thing there is to know about the supreme brilliance behind Pulp Fiction, Terminator and Fight Club?

I must have been turned away by the great MALE Academic Owls that guarded the doors at USC, NYU, Yale…

No, I didn't apply. I just decided to apply to ONE school in the whole of the United States of America after I took a hiatus off from my two years at Denison University. (Which is NOT a bad school either!) And I have always found it amazing that you can google "Top Film Schools" and Emerson NEVER shows up... until I read 2008 The Princeton Review.

Not only did WE ALL make the list of schools with the "Top Film & Media Programs," but I am also proud to say that The Princeton Review has listed the "2008 Best 366 Colleges Rankings" and some of those schools that people always say "Why did you go to so-and-so University" didn't even make the list! Ah ha! But Emerson College did, you freaking film school Elitists! In regards to SCHOOLS as INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING, we made the grade!

So to all those people that say, "Oh, Emerson. Pfft. Really?"

SUCK IT! The Little Guy just got the chance to take all his and her clothing off and streak in JUNE around The Commons and up and down Boylston and cry out "EMERSON ROCKS!"

And for some fun insight into my little alma mater, here is some of what The
Princeton Review wrote in the Rankings & Lists portion about "Emerson College":

* Gay Community Accepted
* Students Ignore God on a Regular Basis
* Best in the Northeast

And, The Princetone Review, also wrote:

"Founded in 1880, Emerson is one of the premier colleges
in the United States for the study of communication and the arts."

So we aren't USC or UCLA or NYU Tisch or any of those
other glossy schools... but we aren't sheep shit!!!