Twenty-Nine and a Half: A plea to you, good people

About a year ago I was having a conversation with one of my regular bar guests. We had gotten past the point of a money-for-alcohol relationship and were learning more about each other. Otherwise known as becoming friends. They asked me what I did outside of bartending since they only knew me from the waist up behind the marble countertop – through my labor. I somewhat sheepishly told them that I was a writer. Oh! They lit up. “Could I read something of yours?” I went blank. 

Yesss… but nooooo…

I had no stories or articles. No jokes. No short films I wrote. All I had in my arsenal were screenplays and the biggest thing I know about screenplays is that nobody wants to read your screenplay except for other people writing screenplays – and your mother.

Normal people do not want to read a screenplay. They want to watch a movie. Or a TikTok. So no. As a self-proclaimed writer, I had no writing to show them. Nothing to show them that I was, in fact, a writer, who writes and not somebody who says they are a writer for funsies. 

Screenwriting is the loneliest, most impoverished, way to be creative and end up with nothing to show for it. An empty, incomplete art form that I love.

So I was sitting at my go-to coffee spot staring down the barrel of months of re-writes on my newest venture I was increasingly sure nobody would ever see, even though I felt like I was getting really good at it. I hadn’t worked in entertainment in a few years. My connections were dwindling. And the industry as a whole was contracting like all capitalist industries do, crushing just about everybody I knew in a similar (and better) position to me. 

So was I even a writer? The thing I felt I was in the deepest part of my microbiome for as long as I can remember? The only way I have ever been able to truly communicate my ideas, feelings, dreams, hopes, and love? Had I become that Hollywood cliche that my parents would make excuses for when I once again failed to fly home for Thanksgiving?

Aspiring screenwriter. Drunk bartender. Constantly broke. Almost thirty years old.

Yup!

…

What the fuck am I doing?

I closed my laptop and took a long walk home, then got hammered and bought another twenty-dollar big-tittied Fortnite skin to kill twelve year olds in.

I admitted defeat to myself. Whatever I was doing was not working. I was not fulfilled in any significant way. I had to change something. Should I go back to school? Get into even more debt for a career that would be replaced by AI or robots or suicide? Fuck no! This world is so beyond fucked why on Earth would I waste it doing something I don’t even care about to end up in the same economic position anyway? 

I needed a place to organize my thoughts. Make a plan. Not a five-year-plan. I tried that five years ago. I need just a one-year-plan in the lead up to my 30th. Just figure out one  single step.

There is a stack of Moleskine notebooks on my desk with each one dedicated to an individual screenplay I wrote or failed to finish (more common). Pen and paper. Tangible. A great place to figure things out. I drove to Blick to buy another Moleskine. But as I held the next notebook in my hand I trembled with fear. Was I about to just restart the same cycle I had been in for my entire twenties? 

In my genius psychosis, I thought, “No more Moleskine.” I bought a blue Leuchtturum notebook – a different brand would certainly be the change I needed to get my shit together!

I got to writing. What didn’t I like about my life? How would I change that? What couldn’t I change and needed to deal with? What life did I hope to lead? What goals did I have? Certainly, I needed to have some writing that I could show people. If this was really who I thought I was, I had to be active in pursuing that. I had to do more. I had to diversify my creative thinking and output. First and foremost, no more screenwriting. My parents visited me. I told them that screenwriting didn’t make any sense anymore. They were nervous! I didn’t want to be tied down to a single long term idea. I wanted to start putting stuff out there. Lots of it. Fast. This new notebook would be for whatever the fuck I wanted to put in there. Zero structure. Stories. Grocery lists. Dreams. Math. What size pants I think I am. Jokes. Observations. Diary entries. Drawings. Sketches. Thoughts. Maybe something tangible would come from that and I could show that I was a writer. That I was this person I thought I was. That I could be seen. Not by millions of people. Not by thousands. Or hundreds even. Just my small community. I wanted my friends, family, the people around me, any person who sat across from me at the bar and wanted to get to know me, to see me as the person I always was but could never figure out how to show. Because that was what bothered me the most about my life. Not my job. Not my economic situation. It was me. I was the problem.

…

It’s been seven months. You can see my new efforts all over this website as well as my Instagram.

I will not dwell here on my new and deeply satisfying creative output because it is inconsequential and masturbatory compared to what that output has shown me.

WAKE UP PEOPLE! 

NEWSFLASH! Almost-thirty-year-old-man discovers that by being – oh, god – true to yourself, you feel more connected to the people in your life. Guys, if people like you, they want to know more about you. See more of you. I am showing them more than ever before and they, in turn, reveal more about themselves. You start reflecting off one another and… Boom — And the creative opportunities that have opened up to me and – And – And to feel like I am truly being seen for the first time in my life is deeply upsetting!!! To tell you the truth!!! But extremely validating. Art, low or high, is an incredible way to connect with loved ones and total strangers. And genuinely connecting to others helps build yourself up and in turn, builds up your community. 

And so what I think the first half of my twenty-ninth year has taught me actually has nothing to do with art, or creativity, or self-expression. It’s about building community. Connecting with people in any way we can. Because… 

I don’t know if you guys have been following the news for the last six months… 

But we have to do something about the sick, inhuman, demon-ghoul, fucks who are in charge of this nation. We have to fight them and rebuild the community connections with one another that the Nazi-technocrats have spent most of my life dismantling through their bullshit platforms. We must use these tools against them to authentically connect with one another and not just consume and expunge hate for our fellow brothers and sisters. And then, we must translate that connection into real life. 

I’m writing all of this because the project I started for myself with that blue Leuchtturm notebook is coming to a close, the notebook is full, and my twenties are rapidly ending. So I’m reflecting a lot in this brand new pink Leuchtturm notebook I picked up last week. What is it I want out of this book? Well, I am trying to connect with you, dear reader, because of what I have somewhat foolishly discovered.

My community is small, but I (we) have to start building somewhere. If we can all learn to just connect through art, through realness, perhaps we might be able to reclaim the future that they are trying to steal from us. Please, people. For the love of God. Be real with one another. Stop editing yourself. Stop censoring yourself (unless you’re a piece of shit). Stop being afraid. No more fear. Talk to strangers. Share your feelings. Meet people. Go out. Go outside. Go outside with people. Enjoy art. Enjoy each other. I will do what I can to make that happen in my extremely tiny corner of the world. I encourage you all to do that in yours as well. Five people. That’s it. Go. GO! GO! WAKE UP!!!!

Thanks!