It's early June. The book still isn't complete. I promised it would come out by July 1st and foolishly, I still think I can make it before the garage door closes. I'll get under just in time.
We're going to give it a read starting this next Tuesday; me, my brother, my mother, and my step-father are trying it on for size at our family book club. This will be the first time in my life my family will be reading one of my stories of such length, such constitution. I heard this prick use the word "constitution" a few too many times yesterday morning at this Entrepreneur Start-Up Cafe thing here in Venice. I was barely going to go to it because I don't like going anywhere anymore, but it was literally around the corner from where I live at this collaborative space called The Kinn. I was finishing Chapter 9 of TBNC, contributing a very important story that turned into thirty pages of additional writing that I welcomed because it helped so much of the story, but it was more than I bargained for. I had anticipated this particular story would be ten pages but in order to really get the weight and relevance of it, I needed to describe the characters in greater detail than I typically do. For whatever reason, maybe because, it's because I write primarily scripts where I imagine the person and then write one line to keep things tight, knowing the actor that winds up playing the character will inevitably bring more to the character than my words ever could. There's not enough time or space in a screenplay. So, if my character development in TBNC "The Best Never Comes" feels poor, it's probably because it is. An underdeveloped muscle of the novel writer versus the screenplay writer. Also, I write scripts for me to shoot them myself. Which means as the Writer ~ Director ~ Producer ~ Actor ~ Editor, I'm saving myself time when and where I can, knowing full-well what the vision is and what we're trying to create. Since I'm at the helm of each job function, I save myself time, knowing shot lists in my head, or knowing what I will do in post, so I can make sure my actors, including me, are in the right spot, hitting the right mark, doing it exactly the same. A lot of the time what this does is make the script more of a codex that I can decipher and my other actors can focus on their role and not all my additional chum.
Anyway I'm at this event, for entreprenuers. And this guy, let's call him Heff Schultz (52), imagine a white bearded version of the camel cigarrette camel, Joe Camel, just make him be played by Jon Malkovich and have him wearing a large brimmed off white hat and robes and golden necklaces with helixes and cosmic circle's. Almost ritualistic looking. Yeah, that's my characer description in a script for someone else to read it. Might be spot on, and I know you can feel this guys "vibe", but it took three full lines. Not so good. Also, I wouldn't normally say the actor that I believe could play him, but Jon Malkovich is just too spot on. I didn't buy this guys altruism. He was a master storyteller, or manipulator, depending on his virtues and his honesty, which I questioned. Because I'm a skeptical kunt who can recognize myself in the mirror. I get pissed off when I see other's flexing their power with such disregard and self-love. His posture, the way he tuned out each time the orator asked him a question, the way he had all these lovely precise aphorisms that made him glow with beneficence. I don't want to tell his story, because I could and I'd wind up embarassing him or myself or both. So I won't. The irkiest thing about him was how he finished his talk. He offered us a "message" one that he gives to people when he ties a golden string around them at burning man or any other music festival. It's a message that includes doing amazing things like connecting to yourself and your freedom and it's inclusive and it's just oozing with positivity and self awareness. Then at the very end, once you're pretty sure you can't take just one more beautiful nugget of wisdom that this monologue contains, the final sentence sounds something like ~ now be your most powerful self, and live a life full of bounldess love. Let's live!... I imagined him whispering this to women or men that he stumbled into dancing at festivals in one of his flowing robes. Using his Jedi-mind tricks to gaslight people into thinking he was the next coming of christ or beautiful men that are "good guys". I've been there, I've been one myself. I know the routine. It's manipulative and it's a power flex. Especially now that his company has been listed in Forbes and other much larger accrediting publications. His company plants one tree for every garment they sell. I asked, "How many units have you sold?". He replied, "About ninety-four thousand". Then he rejoined, because he saw where my ass was headed, "and yes, we've planted ninety-four thousand trees". My follow up to that was, "what's the overall business cost of that and much money do you put towards being accountable of it?" He looked down. The first time his eye contact was interrupted by actually having to think. He stammered. He then went on. Not answering the question directly about the cost of accountability for his pledge of one tree per garment. He landed on that their partners, the philanthropy that he's partenered with, does the planting of the tree's. So they're the ones that are doing that work, and they're winning awards at it. So I'll take Mr. Heff Schultz for his word. And in so, this man had no flaws, not one. A beautiful story of regenerosity and giving back to the world. Withing his speeche's, there were talks of the Nepal Red Panda's they saved by planting tree's in critical regions that connect the Red-Panda's habitat. He mentioned them planting in the Amazon. He also mentioned a fun story about his childhood dog getting sick. Then saving him somehow. Another beautiful story that had everyone in the room absolutely convinced, this man was doing the world a giant favor by existing. He was curing people, saving the planet, helping others get closer to their truth, making money, and making it all look so good in one of his affordable beach tree robes that get's pulverized off the Austrian Coast. Sounds clean. Pulverized is how I like my tree's. I wasn't buying it. I mean, I was buying the whole story, it was too good, too produced, and he was a perfect actor. The problem for me was that I was sitting there, feeling like I could tell this man was a master storyteller, and a master of the narrative and he knew it. And that's a type of power that's scary, because they are the types that can convince you alchemy is real, it can produce gold, because you are gold. Aren't you?
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