What fun! Dorothy Parker had her vicious circle and I was invited to participate in Fearnet’s very own version – all about horror. It’s a new Fearnet show produced by Rhianne Bergado who kindly invited me to participate in an episode with Shriekfest ‘s wonderful founder Denise Gossett, clever Fearnet writer Joe McCabe and 2001 Maniac’s provocative writer/director Tim Sullivan.
After free tapas and professional make-overs by the most delightful artist (whose card I’ve misplaced and simply must recover – he had magic mascara and it was positively heartbreaking to remove his amazing eye make-up later), we gathered around the table and discussed a variety of horror-related topics as we sipped wine while the cameras rolled. It was funny. In between takes we couldn’t stop the conversation we were so into it. It was almost an inconvenience to have to wait for them to call “Action!” and “Cut!” until we remembered, “oh right – this is a show, not just us kicking back doing what we do.”
After we wrapped, several of us continued the chat long after the cameras were packed up and crew headed home. In fact, Denise and I stayed so long we got trapped in the parking garage with seemingly no way out – until she cleverly figured out a way to trip the iron door and we peeled out of there, horrified we might be crushed in the process by the actual lion’s gate itself, laughing all the while of course. Ah, horror folks – gotta love ‘em.
This was but one of several unexpected adventures this past week which has made meeting my fast approaching writing deadline more challenging than expected. But as always, life has this nice way of balancing itself. I subbed for another prof at my new college last night and showed the students, “Million Dollar Baby.” It was refreshing to see somebody so diligently work toward a dream, without whining, without entitlement – even if she is just a character in a movie.
Before I take off for Tulsa on Thursday there is a seemingly impossible load of work ahead – prepping classes, grading papers, getting promo materials off to a few more fests, writing the last 45 pages of this screenplay, going over some contracts for Prom, and possibly scheduling time for Dolores’ final sound mix, a color correction session and getting dubs made - not to mention packing and prepping for the next adventure. I woke up yesterday a bit panicked it all seemed insurmountable. Today I awakened ready to conquer all. Each and every moment these days it seems I’m working toward my own dreams. In some way, I guess I’m already living them. it comes down to the reality that when we love what we do, there’s room for every last necessary drop of effort. “There is magic in fighting battles beyond endurance,” as Eddie Dupris reminds us. Perhaps there’s also magic in fighting battles beyond the space-time continuum as well. With that, I best find a way to stretch a few more hours into the next couple of days.