Today is today, tomorrow is the future, and yesterday is no more

I had a fun Halloween. I went out to West Hollywood and crowd-watched, made some new friends, had a drink with said new friends, flirted back and forth with a nice girl who gave me a Hershey's bar because I'm Santa, possibly almost got mugged by a Juggalo, etc. Overall a very fun evening.

That's not what this story is about though. My story is a lot like the protagonist of The Fountainhead. I'm not willing to give in to what I want and I've made peace that I will struggle for a bit. One of the new friends I made is an older gentleman, who goes by J.L.

He found out I'm an independent film producer. He works in the industry as well, mid 50s in age, and is doing well enough for himself. He saw that I am a young(er) man and still figuring a few things out to reach more people and decided he needed to tell me what to do to become "successful". He said that I needed to go schmooze more with more lunch and dinner dates, he started to tell me who all in Hollywood is gay(I already know who is and isn't - it's none of my concern who someone loves, as long as they love), and then that what I'm doing isn't going to bring me that money that the studios get. Which is the opposite of what I do. I'm doing almost everything I can to keep control of my movies. Sure, I'll work with a few people in the industry because I like them and I want to work with them, but not working with people that don't have my best interests with theirs is counterproductive.

This is where my personal opinion of the industry comes into play. The cigar-chomping mogul is not dead. But they are dying a slow death. My era of working out of my home is slowly becoming alive. I have been doing this for 10 years now. Four of those years in Los Angeles. I am not living in an 8 story Hollywood Hills residence. Nor would I want to! Do you know how much I'd have to work to pay the taxes on that? I'm a different new breed. I don't want to work more to have 1/16 more than others. I find happiness with inexpensive things. That person wants to work from 7am to 10pm everyday without a day off to send their kids to a premium school? Go for it. To quote Lupe Fiasco, "The school is garbage anyway". It's me who will teach my children(or nephews, cousins, friends and family and community members) how to be smarter, not to work harder. I'd rather work a quarter of these full-time psychopaths and make 1/2 of what they do and still feel I own my own life. I can step away from anything at any time and it doesn't bother me. I'm free. That's what this is all about. Being free to pursue the American Dream. I'm not willing to give up my freedom for a few points or a few zeros on a check for high end consumerism. That doesn't consume a lot of Reality Shows they sell but I rarely am a consumer - I'm a creator. Watch what I put out in the future. It's going to be a lot of fun!