the reset button

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." The worst thing is when you fool yourself. When you want something so badly, you'll do nearly anything to get it. Or you convince yourself that you can do something when you really can't. There's people who say, "Where there's a will, there's a way", but isn't that sometimes bullshit? And there are people who tell you to never stop dreaming, but there are some who should really just wake up for their own good. I've always been more of a dreamer than an achiever. I can talk a good game, especially to myself. Other people may not buy it, but I do. I believe what I'm dishing out, no matter how many people tell me I'm wrong.

There are two areas in my life where I have mainly fallen victim to this form of self-deception. One concerns matters of the heart, but I won't go into too much detail about that because I've already done so in a lot of previous posts. Long story short, if I like somebody, I convince myself that I can have a deep, meaningful, friendship with that person, regardless of how he (because it's always a he) feels about me. I mean, it may not be sexual, but we can be otherwise as close as two unrelated men can be. This is a lie. But the persuasive power of that lie is so strong it's nearly killed me more than once. That is, when I get the final rejection, the realization that my idea of "close intimate friendship" was just an illusion. Sometimes it takes years to figure it out.

The other area of this self-deception concerns my lifetime dream, which has been to own and operate my own theatre company. For many years, I've wanted this but it has seemed out of reach. That is because it WAS out of reach. Then one day, because somebody posts an announcement that their theater space is available for rent and at a lower price than everyone else, I got it in my head that "Maybe I can do this...maybe I can actually make this work." Of course I didn't have all the money I needed so I borrowed from my parents, thinking that since I was working, it wouldn't take too long to pay them back. This was last summer, 2011.

Well, I could not find a staff of people to work with, which meant that all the duties and responsibilities, including things I'm really not good at, like marketing and publicity, fell to me. Not only did I have to pay for everything (with loans of course), but I also had to DO everything that was possible for me to do. I mean, I couldn't act the roles and direct at the same time. I couldn't operate lights, but I operated sound. And I had to pay for services that I was not skilled enough to do myself like original music composition and photography and poster design.

The play, Mysterious Skin, didn't make any money; it lost quite a lot actually. Audiences were very small, because nobody had heard of Book of Dreams Productions and we got hardly any press at all. Some of what we did get just criticized us for being low-budget, labor-of-love people. So that put me thousands of dollars in debt and made me feel like my reputation was shot.

Then, several months later, I got the opportunity to do it again. Now, I need to clarify that my current show is a better play, better production values, better direction. I am truly satisfied with the product, but once again, we haven't had an audience. I mean we've had a couple of nights with 21 people at most, but more often, it's a lot less than that. And where there was little press for Mysterious Skin, there's been absolutely none for this show. And again, it's like nobody knows who we are and nobody cares.

You might wonder how I got the money to do this second production. Well, it's a long story and I won't go into too much detail, but the gist is that I ended up relying on huge contributions from family again, and the worst part of it is, by the time they realized they had to pay so much money, I was neck-deep in the project and it would have been extremely difficult to back out. None of this was my intention. I just never thought it through. I never wrote out the budget and crunched the numbers and figured out exactly how I was going to pull this off. I'm working, but I don't make enough to finance this. But somehow, I lied to myself, and convinced myself that I could pay for it on my own, that I would not have to ask for help. I think deep inside, I knew this was a lie, but I was so desperate to believe it, I refused to see the truth.

And the Portland theatre scene is a dog-eat-dog world. I haven't found a ton of friendly people full of goodwill and wanting to help the new guy in over his head. People pretty much just care about their own shit.

All this might sound like a giving-up speech, but it is not. Book of Dreams will continue, but there are a lot of things that I need to re-evaluate. Obviously, my parents can't bankroll my creative projects. Again, this was never my intention, but it just happened because I lied to myself. I have to be honest about where the money is going to come from. I have to become non-profit so that people can make tax-deductible donations to the company. I need to keep looking for a staff (or board, or whatever) because I'm not qualified to do EVERYTHING and make every decision on my own.

To have done these shows and not had an audience (I say that, although there's still 2 weekends left for Costa Rehab) feels like a failure, and I have certainly called myself that many times, but in reality, I think the better way to look at it is just a learning experience. I put the DREAM in front of everything else, in front of reality, in front of the people I love, so those people got hurt and lost money. It feels very much like a drug addiction. My mother actually told me that's what it seemed to her. I was addicted to the dream. But I didn't know how to carry it out in a responsible way. The ends have to justify the means. You have to have a plan. You have to be responsible. So I'm giving notice to myself. No more deception. No more putting the cart before the horse. There's a right way to do things. Pay back what you owe. Find smart people to help you activate your goals in a realistic way. And above all, be honest with yourself.

A do-over. A new beginning. Hitting the reset button. I don't know where things will go from here, but with God's grace, I will think before I act, and I will have peace of mind from now on.