You are now leaving...the toughest year of your life
Not much more I can say. And I am not being melodramatic. Nor am I a rich guy from Connecticut with a hidden trust fund.
I'm a guy who was reduced to a bowl of PHO a day as I slowly, trickingly, watched my money run out, after a year of unspeakable trials and tribulations trying to get my second feature off the ground. [read the physical, unrated diary, HURRICANE, to get a better idea]
The grave economy in New Mexico led me to take the last desperate gamble: already reduced to Food Stamps, with my money almost gone, and screwed over by Rainbow Media and Kelly Devine to the tune of $2500, I decided to take a chance and come to Asia mainly to get some teaching experience, so that my skill set (already too narrow: film and TV? C'mon) might become more marketable.
This followed months of looking for work in New mexico where the employers all agreed that "we can't hire anyone with the war goin' on and all"
Nearly simultaneously do I get greenllit for the NGO doc (commissioned), but I FINALLY, after a full year of trying, get my back benefits (a mere $500) from NY State...but to give you an idea of how desperate I was, I was literally begging them to send the money.
Also, and more ass-kickingly: the road movie, my second feature Susan Hero finally has some momentum, astonishingly of all places here in Cambodia where I have scraped together a rudimentary editing system with pirated software, all I could afford (sorry software owners, I will send you the money later if I make it big I promise - really)
So now I catch myself each and every day, pinching myself to wonder why I am not so neurotic as I was back in the US, in New York, in New Mexico, where I was not getting laid, and the rent was big and always due...yet I am here in a place I never would have expected where life is moving forward again [knock on wood ]
Here here!
I'm a guy who was reduced to a bowl of PHO a day as I slowly, trickingly, watched my money run out, after a year of unspeakable trials and tribulations trying to get my second feature off the ground. [read the physical, unrated diary, HURRICANE, to get a better idea]
The grave economy in New Mexico led me to take the last desperate gamble: already reduced to Food Stamps, with my money almost gone, and screwed over by Rainbow Media and Kelly Devine to the tune of $2500, I decided to take a chance and come to Asia mainly to get some teaching experience, so that my skill set (already too narrow: film and TV? C'mon) might become more marketable.
This followed months of looking for work in New mexico where the employers all agreed that "we can't hire anyone with the war goin' on and all"
Nearly simultaneously do I get greenllit for the NGO doc (commissioned), but I FINALLY, after a full year of trying, get my back benefits (a mere $500) from NY State...but to give you an idea of how desperate I was, I was literally begging them to send the money.
Also, and more ass-kickingly: the road movie, my second feature Susan Hero finally has some momentum, astonishingly of all places here in Cambodia where I have scraped together a rudimentary editing system with pirated software, all I could afford (sorry software owners, I will send you the money later if I make it big I promise - really)
So now I catch myself each and every day, pinching myself to wonder why I am not so neurotic as I was back in the US, in New York, in New Mexico, where I was not getting laid, and the rent was big and always due...yet I am here in a place I never would have expected where life is moving forward again [knock on wood ]
Here here!
