Among other adventures in success, I’ve dabbled in the dark edits known as Film Acting. In this discipline, one must summon all the courage they can in order to embarrass themselves so that they may achieve higher emotional truths, ones that illuminate all of our lives. This is the essence of Drama. I was there when Pericles wrote plays and I was there when Herodotus gave up the pen. I was there when Mannix blew his first bullet and I was there when Captain Morgan popped his first cork. I was there when Texans declared secession and demanded a fairer, more just government, one less concerned with the individual, one with far fewer taxes.
But those days are over now. The new political correctness is over. And I’m still editing this fucking movie. It’s been sidetracked so many times by screenings, exports, rough mixes, and promotional material and it’s all been a distraction in editing the actual movie. I’ve left large chunks of it in rough cut form and I’m not going to look at it until the last minute, because I want it to be fresh. Some of the sections I’ve worked on for days, weeks. Others I haven’t since I put them in over a year ago. Happiness isn’t always fun, and I’m learning to appreciate things like a good meal and the proper sleeping position during the workweek. Which is always, which is never-ending, which means the same thing as “always,” and I’m all mixed up because I’m in a non-linear state of mind.
One could say such things are dangerous, or indulgent; I know a gorilla who’s afraid to go outside lest he be confronted with a piece of media that he disagrees with, or offends him, whether it’s a billboard, an airplane, a bus, or a televisions glimpsed through the windows of strangers. Nice gorilla, though. I feel bad for him. He definitely caught the Woke Mind Virus when Harambe was shot. Would. Not. Stop. Talking. About it. Unbearable. He tried comparing the zoo situation to the Holocaust that is factory farming. I spur-clawed him so bad one of the hens I “do business with” (drugs) tried to CANCEL me on the internet but didn’t succeed because she’s a stupid chick with flat feathers and a droopy neck.
When my boss or “Da Boss” walked in and asked what I was doing staring at my phone instead of cutting a trailer for the movie, I said nothing. I had no response, because I couldn’t tell him phone was better. Phone wasn’t better. I still feel lousy from looking at it all week. So much fun though. This is the only time I’ve felt phone addiction, and it is better than first millennium Chinese opium honestly. Believe me, I was there.
Da Boss asked why my husband Rooster and I didn’t stay in China at the end of the Cultural Revolution. I reminded him that he was an idiot with no sense of history, and that we lived in China nearly 800 years before Mao Zedong was born. And then he reminded me to get started on a trailer, one incorporating many scenes and pieces of music. “What about one exemplary scene—or shot—and one piece of music? How about the opening?” He shrugged. “Whatever.” Da Boss got up and walked away, leaving me to make sense of what I meant: a pulsating animation of the planet SATUR-19 punctuated by a brief sound collage of music from the movie. A few filters, all jelly. No actual scenes required. Lots of sound editing, but a strong image on its own. I was halfway there. I was halfway there. I was…
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