xtcian

8/2/02 Twelve years ago today

8/2/02

Twelve years ago today I was in a car accident that shoved my destiny in a different direction; for a long time I would have said it was a terrible thing, but now I have to say that my official quote of that day "I'm fucked and my life is over" – has turned out to be largely false.

The "I'm fucked" quote is bandied about my family not just as an example of my overwrought sense of persecution, but as a general phrase of total disillusionment. All of us are capable of impenetrable spirals of theatrical gloom, but apparently I was particularly good at it (and quotable to boot).

The day in question August 2, 1990 – was either the day of or day after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (how relevant, eh?) and I was just finishing up my first month of my job at New Line Cinema as their very first Beverly Hills production intern. Those were the days of their first huge successes, namely the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

I was originally hired at New Line to be the main production assistant for an unmitigated piece of shit called Suburban Commando, a fish-outta-water comedy starring Hulk Hogan as an alien who must crash to earth to refuel, or something. It was uninspiring dreck, but at the time, I was so broke that I was literally living off of one loaf of Brannola Oat Bread and a brick of cheddar cheese, no lie. I lived in an apartment with Sean and Michelle in Monrovia, CA and we probably had fifteen dollars between us for the month of July 1990. It was a disastrous living situation, and the Iraqi invasion had sent gas prices so high that I couldn't afford to drive to look for work. Suffice to say "Suburban Commando" looked like heaven to me at the time, for $600 a week!

Pretty soon, I understood one of the life's great truths: get in the door somewhere, and if you're smart and competent, you will run the place in three weeks. The key, of course, is getting in the door. At New Line, I soon became the secretary for the whole production department, answering calls and helping post-production on movies like Pump Up the Volume and Metropolitan, being a fly on the wall during meetings discussing upcoming ideas (all of them just awful) and getting stuck in the elevator for 20 minutes with the likes of Andrew "Dice" Clay and Jerry Lewis.

I was a very bad secretary, sending rejection letters to the wrong people and always being late, but I think they kept me around because I always provided good conversation. It continued that way until August 2, when, on the way home from work, I was read-ended by a reggae drummer in a white Mazda truck. He had been pushing 60mph on Cahuenga Blvd., and after he hit me, smashed into two other cars and ended upside-down (and unhurt). As for me, my glasses were found a block away. The impact had shortened my VW Bug in half, and the whiplash well, if any of you have had it, you know what I mean. Still in debt, almost out of cheddar cheese, knowing my Hollywood job – sans car – was over, I called my mom in New York in tears and said, "I'm fucked and my life is over."

Two weeks later I was back in Chapel Hill, where I was to stay for another seven years, even though I'd graduated. I should have known better than to try Los Angeles again in 1997, but I thought perhaps things would work out better. They ended up being worse, but in much more interesting ways.

And here I am, 12 years later, far away from those awful places, standing on the edge of getting my first movie off the ground. My therapist was right about one thing: nothing worth doing comes without a heavy dose of ambivalence, but I'll add my own piece of advice. Nothing worth doing comes without thinking at some point that you are fucked, or that your life is over.

my grandma and I at the Grand Canyon, July 1990. I didn't think I had a mullet, but I suppose this proves otherwise