Life IS too short to deal with assholes…

Unfortunately they surround us. 

Recently I posted an ad looking for musicians to score my new film, and/or to provide additional songs for the sountrack.  I wanted to see what was out there.

One particular West Coast musician responded and provided two links, neither of which I could get to play.  I wrote back and said as much, asking politely for another link.  As a response I am told that my computers are not working properly and/or perhaps I don’t know how to use them.  But the bright young lad does provide a working link this time.  After hearing the music, I write back telling his thanks but it’s not really what I’m looking for…I had in the ad requested a Replacements-like sound, i.e. drunken bar music…guitar based rock n roll.  (He seemed to overlook the description of what is was looking for.)

This musician in question responds, telling me that I should have known that because of his training classical music  he could write a drunken rock song in his sleep…anyone could. 

Now, yes, I should have lived by my asshole rule.  Instead I rightfully argued that no one genre of music was easier or harder than the next if done to perfection.  That “Here Comes A Regular” by the Mats was just as hard to create as any piece by Bach, Chopin, whomever.  I also tried to (again politely) inform the musician that when attempting to get a job attacking the potential employer is not the best way to go about it.

Of course this unleashed a torrent.  My films sucks.  My novels suck.  Lots of big words, like a 5-year-old jacking off with a thesaurus.  He just knew from the ad that FWB sucked.  (Not really sure why he answered the ad if that was the case.)  The emails get longer and longer, despite my one line replies.  I finally tell the asshole in question I don’t read long emails.  I don’t.  This is a fact, a rule, that I live by.  I simply refuse to.  If you can’t say it in a couple of lines, then don’t bother saying it at all.  Or pick up the goddamn phone.  Yet he continues writing these thesis-length missives, of which I read the first line, then delete…and delete again…until I finally block his email.

Of course, instead of listening, instead of taking a hint, he throws a tantrum, and writes me from another email address.  It’s another long one.  Didn’t read it.  As soon as I realized who sent it, I reported it as spam.  Hopefully the spam police beat him to death with their billy clubs.  Save me the effort.

I guess this leads me to ask, why?  Can a musician in a band (note, I never insulted his music, though I might say now he listened to a little too much Emerson Lake and Palmer in the womb) whose claim to fame is a MySpace profile really think that much of themselves?  Does one really believe a degree from any university makes their shit not stink?  Does any musician worth the weight of their string actually believe their genre of music is the hardest?  And hold other genres in little respect?  (Really now, to write a great piece of music, no matter the genre, takes a lifetime of pain, or experience.  And to think otherwise is nothing short of, well, a racism of sorts…genre-ism…bigotry…the MySpace lad might as well wear a white sheet over his head ready to lynch the blues, rock, CW, folk, etc., and so on.)

I hope not.  Because if this were true we are in a sadder shape than even I first believed. 

And wow…I don’t have much faith.

Except perhaps in dogs…

 (and the Replacements)

J

Just say NO to Billy Zane

OK…locked the cut of FWB.  Sent it off to Sundance.  Fingers crossed.  Still need to work more on the score, need to do the sound mix, tweak the color…(it never ends…making a film is like having a child)

Speaking of children…there’s been a producer trying to turn my last book UNWOUND into a feature for some time now.  And it looked like it was finally going to happen.  A lot of Canadian tax credit funding crap…and with a decent leading lady on board.  The only hitch: the leading man.  Now I  know how difficult it is to make a featyre, especially on a limited budget, so I try to remain open to casting possibilities.  When the list of potential leading men was presented to me, I approved all but one, Billy Zane.

Why?  Well, I directed Zane in my film THE KISS.  Every day (EVERY FUCKING DAY) he’d show up on set with his scenes completely rewritten.  I’m not talking about a few line changes here and there.  I’m saying nothing remained of the old scene, not even its intent.  Instead there were pages of mind-numbingly dumb dialog which had nothing to do with the story we were trying to tell.  When I would explain to Zane that I appreciated his effort, but we were shooting the scene as written, and that he had over a month to address any potential problems he might have had with the script, he’d sulk, he’d moan, and our spineless producer would give in.

When I’d try to explain to Zane that the caps and hats he insisted on wearing in EVERY FUCKING SCENE looked silly at best, and gay at worst (not that there’s anything wrong with that, except that the character he was playing was not gay), he’d throw another mini-tantrum and refuse to take it off.

Twice on set I had to be restrained from lunging at him.  Not that to beat the living crap out of him would have done anything other than get me fired.  Instead I stood back and allowed him and the producer to destroy my film.

So when the producer of UNWOUND finally admitted that Zane would be the one she could get and that her backers would approve, I said NO.  The check wasn’t worth it.  I wasn’t going back in time.  I had made YOU ARE ALONE and now FRIENDS (WITH BENEFITS) to take the vile taste of THE KISS out of my mouth.  (When I signed on for THE KISS I thought I was making a cool romantic drama with Eliza Dushku and Terence Stamp.  I didn’t realize that the producer was just in fact making a $3 million demo reel for his wife…but that’s another rant.)

Life is too short to deal with assholes.  A good rule to live by.

And I never wanted to have real kids.