I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell - June 16, 2008
Really Real
On Saturday, four and a half years after this endeavor began (two and a half in earnest), Tucker and I arrived in Shreveport. I have rehearsed this moment in my mind countless times over the last two years; my arrival, my digs, my trailer, my movie. "This is it. This is real! Let's do it!" I would douche-ily exclaim as I hopped off the plane and took the car service to the production office. Those old familiar images shot past my mind's eye in a blur as I took my first step from the air conditioned confines of Tucker's Ford Explorer into the early summer afternoon air outside my corporate apartment. I stretched, took a deep breath, and soaked in Northwest Louisiana. Large, loud bugs that I couldn't see buzzed in the thick summer foliage I couldn't see through. A remarkably unattractive family of five frolicked in the steaming outdoor pool that, thanks to the unrelenting humidity, maintains a constant temperature at or near that of the surrounding atmosphere. This is it, this is real!, I thought, I just walked into a fat man's taint. While I have never, in fact, spent any time in the clammy wasteland betwixt another man's testicles and anus, I imagine that if America were a large, bloated man the greater Gulf Coast region would be his dingleberry-crusted grundle.
That is not to speak ill of the cultural and historical importance of the area, of course. Shreveport was the capital of Louisiana and a "Confederate stronghold" during the Civil War. And Sam Cooke's experience at a hotel here inspired the lyrics to "A Change is Gonna Come"; one of the greatest songs of the last 50 years. Like Sam, I'm sure we will learn many life lessons in America's 99th largest city but, unlike Sam, have a great time in the process. Hell, our next door neighbors baked us a pecan pie today in spite of watching us crush tennis balls into their trees all day yesterday. It's just that, as far as first impressions go, when you are clubbed in the face with an oppressive menagerie of sensory stimuli, you are not immediately drawn to the most favorable analogies. When I think "hot, clammy and malodorous," I think "taint."
And still, it's 1000x better than Newark, New Jersey. That's where I would be right now, studying for the bar exam, had I not, two and a half years ago and thanks to some prodding, accepted Tucker's offer to work full-time on adapting his book for the screen. It was, in retrospect, an obvious decision. But when you are preparing for second semester final exams in your first year of law school having, in the previous year, had your grandmother die, your heart broken, and your scholarship threatened, the choice between a three-year J.D. and a big F.U. requires a wee bit of contemplation.
I had a chance, a few weeks ago, to think back vividly on those early moments when I attended the graduation of my law school class at Seton Hall. In one of the most powerfully serendipitous moments of my life, I got on the redeye from L.A. to Newark for the graduation the very same night we signed the financing deal with Darko Entertainment and this movie became really real. One chapter of my life was closing just as another one was truly beginning.
I stayed with my best friend from my year at Seton Hall and, the morning of graduation, I drove with him to the ceremony, ahead of the family that had begun assembling at his house. Outside the Prudential Center in downtown Newark, I mingled among the happy, relieved graduates; many with whom I'd begun to form meaningful relationships in my year there. We shook hands or hugged, exchanged pleasantries, and quickly realized we now had absolutely nothing in common.
Inside, I sat by myself near the top of the lower bowl. I took a seat on the aisle dead center behind the orderly rows and columns of blue-clad JD candidates. The ceremony began with the typical pomp and circumstance, but as it went along the whole thing began to feel like an out of body experience. There I sat, high above it all, watching a major transitional moment in the lives of many people I could have cared a lot about. What could have been a major transitional moment in my own life. And yet, I couldn't recognize anything. The names and faces were familiar, but nothing about them resonated with me. I imagine it's kind of what amnesia might feel like.
Shockingly, I stayed for the whole ceremony. Partly because there was free champagne afterward, but mostly because I was lost in my own head. This could have been my life! That concept shot red-hot through my brain over and over again, like anti-aircraft rounds through the Baghdad night sky. I could be down there right now! Except not really, because I could not, no matter how hard I tried, relate to the person I was only two and a half years earlier nor the person I would have been had I stuck around to go through it all. That was it! It wasn't one chapter closing and another opening. It was an entirely different book. It was like watching another version of your life parade slowly in front of you. Like Nicolas Cage in "Family Man" except without having to actually experience it or sell tires.
Two and a half years ago, I was realizing, I came to a fork in the road of my life. I could take my shot, write something great, pursue it with as much vigor and certitude as I could muster, or, having struggled mightily with taking the path of least resistance for most of my life, I could have so easily balked and found myself amongst the anxious and enrobed down below me. The implications of those decisions and the pit starting to develop in my stomach from the idea of not having written this script snapped me out of my haze. In another fit of ludicrous serendipity, I came to my senses just as the person who would have been immediately before received his diploma, and the person who would have been immediately behind me was announced. I couldn't take it anymore, so I texted The Girlfriend to key her into the emotional, almost unsettling, experience I was going through. This movie is really real and this graduation is really...not.
The Girlfriend, oddly enough, was the person who helped me right my ship and get me pointed in the right direction as I weighed Tucker's offer and battled my inclination toward the path of least resistance. We met through Tucker. She was in D.C. I was in Newark. We met for the first time in L.A on my Spring Break.
"Do you really want to practice law?" she asked over drinks one of those first nights.
"I don't know."
"You're a great writer. Do you want to spend the rest of your life as a lawyer? " she pressed. This coming from a lawyer herself.
"Not really," I responded mealy-mouthed.
"Then pursue your writing. You at least have to give it a chance. If it doesn't work out, you can always go back. And seriously, Nils...," she peered through me and waited a beat for effect to put the exclamation on her point. "Fuck law school."
It was a seminal moment, and one I took to heart because when I returned to Newark a week later I essentially stopped going to school and started writing full-time. At first I just stopped studying. Then I stopped going to class. Then I stopped coming into Newark altogether. I didn't take my finals. I moved down to D.C. before the semester was even over and moved in with The Girlfriend. She supported me both emotionally and financially as I pursued the white whale that was this script with Tucker. The Girlfriend and I have been together a little less than two and a half years now and that moment, in the infancy of our relationship, is the only time I've heard her use the f-word in casual conversation that did not involve the Green Bay Packers or Derrick Turnbow.
I can say with absolute confidence that we would not be where we are today without her unwavering support and belief in our creative vision. During the thick of the writing process, she was more than happy to let Tucker stay with us at her place in D.C. and have sex with a fake-titted single mom in her guest room. Twice. You can imagine how grateful we are to her, for myriad reasons. As a token of my appreciation I modeled one of the characters in the movie after her and then, this past Wednesday night, asked her to marry me. She said YES, through a fit of surprise and tears of course. You would have cried and said YES too if you saw her ring. Even Frodo would have kept this fucking thing.
I guess now she's The Fiancée, for real.
Posted by nils at 10:41 PM