Shit I Don’t Like about Society: We are all Filthy Creatures!

A serious case of nausea came over me one day last year during a tour stop for my American Red Cross fundraising initiative. I knew that eating would likely solve the problem but it had to wait because completing the five hours I planned to be outdoors, talking to strangers about movies and disaster relief, took precedence over all else.

Soon, I went from standing next to a DVD stand to sitting on one of the blocks in a parking lot next to my vending spot, taking lots of slow in-and-out breaths to prevent myself from vomiting all over the sidewalk. Inches from me lay the very curb on which people spit out mucus and saliva, throw their garbage of empty food containers, urinate and who knows what else. Yet, there I was – lightheaded, sick and trying to gather myself to continue on with my day.

Obviously when you’re in your own state of discomfort, there is less concern about how nasty the surroundings are, and more concern about what it’s going to take for you to get right, really fast. Still, that does not mean we as a human race couldn’t stand to do better at caring for the environment – for it affects how well, and how quickly, we can recover from emergencies. Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts is a great example of how every man, woman and child living on the earth has a responsibility in treating it with the respect and care it deserves because there’s no telling when the time comes when you’ll find yourself shitting where you eat; in emergency situations that could have been prevented.

"When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," a Spike Lee Film.Even the most basic of things such as not littering are among the many important wake-up calls anyone can gather from a movie like When the Levees Broke.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of New Orleans residents were surrounded by water they couldn’t drink, soil they wouldn’t grow food on, air that carried some of the foulest odors that no sane person would enjoy breathing in and heat and humid temperatures that made it all more difficult to bear. One can only imagine how much of the environmental challenges that surface when disastrous events occur were the result of --and exacerbated by -- everyday, senseless actions of man.

Western society produces volumes of unnecessary waste and far too many people don’t even think twice about it. We’re quick to trash something than we are to recycle it. We contribute to the economic growth of entire industries that are artificial materials. We disrupt forest land and natural animal habitats to manufacture buildings, highways and other forms of infrastructure rather than restore or rebuild the loads of abandoned ones that are crumbling as they sit. We don’t rinse out food containers or household products before throwing them away. We don’t use up that last bit of ketchup, peanut butter, or shampoo because there’s always more available at a store somewhere.

"Bad Boys II," a Michael Bay filmSo, I believe that society’s wasteful habits stem from the expectation that there’s always somebody else who will take care of the environment, as it relates to our quality of life. The sanitation company will be there to pick up our mountains of trash and take it far away to a distant land somewhere so we don’t have to deal with it.

Companies in the private and public sectors will clean our streets and sidewalks after we soil them with muddy shoes in the rain, cigarette butts, empty pizza boxes, used condoms, baby diapers, sewage and other toxic agents. The utility companies will make sure we have everything we need to live and work as comfortably as possible. The local and/or federal governments will also take care of many other things that we don’t have to deal with as our society abuses the environment, maintains a sense of entitlement in having someone else rinse it out, and then repeats this mistreatment.

S is for SocietyThere is a scene in Michael Bay’s crime action movie “Bad Boys II” where a drug lord named Johnny Tapia tells his young daughter that fashion models are filthy creatures. Given that the western world takes its natural resources for granted, essentially biting the hand that feeds us, I would argue that we are all causes of a polluted environment in which we live and raise our children. However, sooner or later, something is gonna have to give on this front.

The importance of making conscious and better decisions on how we treat the earth is bigger than making it so that someone under the weather can sit on the sidewalk without having to worry about becoming even more ill. It’s about making it so that if we’re ever in a situation where we our dependency on environmental elements for some form of support is greater than ever – be that in terms of nourishment or physical support -- it will be in a much better condition, and thus a much better position to aid us in making that happen.

*Today’s blog post is in honor of EARTH DAY.

If YOU ruled the world, what law would you put into effect to combat pollution?

What are some of the grossest things YOU’VE noticed laying in the street?

The Price we pay for Switching Paths: A Moviemaker’s Perspective

“The good news is you came a long way. The bad news is you went the wrong way” – J. Cole in Love Yourz

The Album Cover for "2014 Forest Hills Drive" by J. ColeA lot of the dissatisfaction I’ve had with my pursuit of a career in film directing is what makes the lyrics in rapper J. Cole’s song “Love Yourz” (from his album 2014 Forest Hills Drive) oh so relatable. Every quest has its challenges but I cannot say whether I would’ve still chosen this path if I had to do it all over again.

Just when I think I’m making headway, something brings me back into the reality that I’m not only nowhere near where I thought I’d be, there is also no telling whether I’ll ever get there.

Sometimes it feels like I need to just put in more work to master the craft, as the saying goes. Other times it feels like I need to network with the right people or chuck directing altogether, in favor of another area within the entertainment field, such as screenwriting or casting or storyboarding or something. This is one of the reasons why I started considering television as a serious alternative. Producing community TV programs might provide more bang for my buck in terms of better results, faster turnaround and the opportunity to make a difference in the world.

More often than not, however, I’ve wondered if I wasted years, relationships, resources and money going after the wrong dream – one that I probably had no business pursuing in the first place, given that I did more writing and drawing in my youth than anything else. Perhaps I would have been better staying on the path of fine arts, for if I kept at it, I imagine I’d be a lot better at it today than my present sketchbook shows.

On the set of a short film production.Even if I did switch careers, there is a steep price for doing so, according to author Steve Pavlina who points out that “most art forms are too crowded and too competitive to make a living from unless one commits to becoming outstanding. Dabbling in fields every few years or so will prevent you from reaping the rewards of building a financially sustainable practice that comes from long-term mastery.”

This is an understandable factor to consider, given that leaving film for something else would likely involve me starting from the bottom – once again. On the flipside, he also suggests that we get out of any project, relationship or career, etc. as soon as possible if we would not have embarked on it knowing what we know now. So what the hell is Steve Pavlina smoking?! I mean, it sounds like his advice rests on two sides of the fence. One minute he’s suggesting you spend a decade or so honing your skills and then the next minute he’s warning readers that there is no “honor in dedicating your life to the pursuit of a goal which no longer inspires you.”

In almost every step of my tv/film projects, I find myself bouncing back and forth between delight and frustration, asking myself if I should continue riding this rollercoaster of uncertainty any longer. This question is a no-brainer for Grant Peele, a husband and father who did the complete opposite, leaving a thriving career in Real Estate to achieve his life-long dream of becoming a filmmaker. The early days of his journey, along with those of other men and women who switched career paths, are chronicled in the documentary I’m Fine, Thanks, a film about complacency and whether the paths we ultimately choose to follow are connected to who we are or someone else’s American Dream.

Grant Peele preparing for the Midwest Premiere of his documentary film "I'm Fine, Thanks."One woman in the film describes what it's like to climb a corporate ladder and then reach the top, only to realize she had it leaned up against the wrong wall. Having not yet reached the middle of this current journey I’m on, I think I’d rather just take her word for it as opposed to finding that same thing out for myself when it’s too late.

I used to fantasize about how exciting it would be to win an Oscar and attend Cannes or get hired to work on some huge Hollywood production starring heavyweights like Denzel Washington, Jonny Depp or Meryl Streep -- accomplishments of which would be equivalent to the top of a ladder. Today, I rarely think about milestones like these and find myself feeling indifferent to them, when they do cross my mind. That’s an uneasy sign that something isn’t quite right. Although I have yet to figure out what that something is, I’ll be trucking along on this yellow brick road of motion pictures until I do.

P is for Perspective

When YOU were a child, what kind of career did YOU want to have?

How do YOU know when to hold onto the cards YOU’RE playing, and when to fold them?

Making a Living vs. Making a Difference: What being an Everyday Superhero Really Means

(l-r): Steven Samra and Tasha French Lemley, publishers of The Contributor newspaper.Of all the videos I’ve watched that highlight stories about disaster relief, the one where a Red Cross volunteer says she "worked in the corporate world for 30 years making a living,” and then retired, and now she wants to make a difference, stood out most. Her statement had me wondering how many of us choose one or the other, rather than overlapping them.

It concerns me that some men and women in communities across the nation feel like they aren't in a position to have a positive impact on other people while also being able to put food on the table. I don’t know about you, but when I picture what the right time to make a difference looks like, that image often doesn’t depict any one of us waiting until some abstract point in the future. After all, the future is uncertain and none of us can guarantee we’ll even be around to see it.

Of course, we all need to make a living to survive and have opportunities to enjoy our days here on this earth. Even in the midst of our daily hustle and bustle, there’s still room to make a difference at the same time, if each person puts forth effort in marrying the two. Prime examples of this can be seen in the tireless, underappreciated and often unglamorous work of everyday heroes who have a positive impact on other people or issues that matter to them upon noticing that something needs to be done.

Yoga training at Rachel Lloyd's GEMS are among the therapeutic and fitness services provided to young women.Thousands of teenagers, like those in the documentary film Very Young Girls would be in jail, dead, on drugs, or still exploited in sex trafficking rings across the U.S. if Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS) CEO and founder Rachel Lloyd waited until retirement to provide counseling, legal assistance and housing to children and young women in the sex trade.

Several hundred homeless veterans like those in the documentary film Street Paper would still be lacking a place to sleep at night if The Contributor newspaper founders Tom Wills and Tasha French Lemley waited for thirty years or until they were done with their careers in fine arts and outreach work, respectively, to provide jobs for men and women – some of whom served in the military -- affected by homelessness and poverty. Heck, most of us would even be up the creek without a paddle today, if the great inventors, activists, philosophers, leaders, and artists of previous generations decided to wait a few more decades before making their mark on the world.

People like Lloyd, Wills and French embody the fact that there is no better time to make a difference than now. We need not put off doing good deeds until later on in the future when it’s more convenient for us. After all, if you’re already on your way to mastering the art of being your own superhero, just imagine how wonderful it would be to teach someone else how it’s done.

M is for Meaning

What was the last documentary YOU watched?

If YOU inherited six figures from a long lost relative, conditional upon your using half of the money to impact other people’s lives, how would YOU make a difference in the world?