JETHRO HOROWITZ

There are those amongst us who like to point fingers, judge, and advise. These walking life-coaches will try to squeeze an elephant into a mouse-hole, if they believed it belonged there. For a long time, I’ve known these people. Interestingly enough, my careers counselor at school was not one of these. After a month of rigorous questionnaires and interviews, he basically shrugged his shoulders and said, “You’re on your own kid”. So with that in mind, I did the easiest thing I knew how to do – played poker.

Throw in a few wanky clichés about a pro poker player’s success with money and freedom and I could just about wrap this entry up.

Instead, I’m going to try to take a new step. I’ve always been interested in scripts for film and television. The only thing holding me back (except for the obvious, ambition, connections and talent) was the fact I didn’t have anyone to work with. I never looked very far, but from what I saw, either people were too busy or I didn’t like them. So finally I said, ‘fuck it’ and started on my own.

In order to know what I was doing, I needed to get me an education. I’ve watched hundreds of good and bad films at the cinema, but this was not going to teach me what I needed to know. I needed to watch films that were so bad they didn’t even make it to cinema; I needed the ‘straight to DVD’ variety. So it was off the DVD store for my first day of school.

When picking a subject for any education, you need to make sure you have an interest in it. My interest is the action/adventure genre and I needed to find some real stinkers to get me through the basics. And oh boy, did I hit the mother-load.

The crowded, brightly lit video store was no place for discretion and I had not brought my hooded-sweater. I saw the videos I wanted, but with everyone looking, how could I take them off the shelf? I did a few nervous laps of the isles and took a step out for a breath of cold air and a chance to compose myself. I thought about paying a kid to go in for me, but not even a kid would do what I was thinking. I bided my time till most people had left and it was late enough for these kind of things. I bit my lip and without thinking, I strode in and picked up the DVD’s. The guy behind the counter was occupied with a customer, so I was in the clear for now. I waited till the customer had left and it was just the employee and me, uno en uno. I walked up to the counter, knowing there was no turning back.

As I approached, he asked me, ‘what do you have there?’ I shook my head quickly and quietly. He asked a second time, this caused me to begin to launch into my pre-prepared statement on how I needed the films for my education. I was cut short, however, by the employee’s friend sidling up to the counter for a bit of chit-chat. Now I had two people I had to deal with and no chance to explain my story. With each DVD scanned into the computer, they both looked up at me in complete silent disgust. By this time, the damage had been done and no explanation could save me. I took the DVD’s lowered my head and made off into the night.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 1:09 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.