Archive for the ‘Dream A Dream’ tag
Hurry Up and Wait by mc foley
Author’s Note
News arrived this weekend — a friend’s film, over a decade in the making — would finally hit theaters in June.
Thrilled by the news, I dropped congratulatory messages on his Facebook wall, and I remembered… remembered the story he’d once relayed to me about being two weeks away from production, when all of the money simply disappeared. Vanished into the ether. Or rather — vanished into the ether of “whoops, the main financier was just convicted of money laundering and mail fraud.”
Back then, my friend said he’d sat in a director’s chair — alone, on the empty set — watching tumbleweeds roll through the ghost town that was once his dream. (A dream – that had already taken seven years of his life to build). And he’d told himself:
It just — wasn’t time. I still believe… I’ll keep trying.
I imagined him, arriving on the night of his premiere, smiling into flashbulbs and holding up a bottle of champagne.
And I thought…
Count the thousands of days of this man’s life — that it took him to reach — just one…
Hurry Up and Wait
The call came at 3am.
“Get your ass to Baltimore,” they barked. “Pronto.”
My brother shook himself awake, threw on his clothes, stumbled into the darkness, and began the two-hour drive to some mysterious, Maryland, army locale.
Hours later, while I was eating cereal, easing into a lazy Saturday, the phone rang.
“F$*()_k these f%*(ng a^&*()holes,” my brother grunted. “I’ve been standing in line for five f^&*ng hours!”
There it was again — the painful part (or at least, one of them) of military life. The one that he and his buddies griped about over pitchers and buffalo wings. That accursed, chronic demand: Hurry up, they’d command you. Hurry up and wait.
Years later-
—as a lowly PA on the Universal Lot, a million miles from my dreams of writing and performing, and halfway into my 3rd hour of collecting dirty cigarette butts rotting in clumps around our trailers, I had a vague recollection of my brother’s trip to Baltimore.
At the end of that 15 hour day — after everyone else was headed home for a better night’s sleep than us, the raggedy PA’s covered in garbage bags and breaking down tents — my brother’s words, and gripes, came back to me loud and clear. The military, it seemed, had a lot in common with the entertainment industry.
There was the same rigid hierarchy. The lines you do not cross. Especially while on set. In this comparison, I was a private. Or, even – just a recruit. The bottom of the barrel. The grunt. And this was my bootcamp. (No wonder my friend made up that nursery song… “I’m just-a PA – shit on me! — shit on me! — shit on me!)
And there was that same, steep ascent to the top of the mountain. The same prestige and respect for more stars, bars, stripes and feathers — which, in the case of Hollywood, means more gold statues, stars on walks, and agents with bigger names (not to mention: more “gross profit participation:).
And, which — never happens ‘overnight.’ No matter what the tabloids say.
Indeed…
…that day, the mythical phrase: “overnight success” — was erased from my mind — and replaced by a much better, more fitting expression:
Hurry up — and wait.
Hurry up and get to LA. Hurry up and slam out those treatments, specs and pilots. Hurry up and get to the mixers, the panels, the BBQ on someone’s boat who you hardly know, but who extended a hand to you and asked you to join several “industry” friends on a sail through the marina. Hurry up and read those trades, front to back, every morning when you can. Hurry up and ask that producer to coffee, take that exec for a glass of wine, use the very last ounce of strength in your body to re-read that Oscar-winning screenplay / example of an effective way to write — at least one more time.
And then…
wait.
Wait for something. Anything. A sign. A word. A door. A chance.
How strange, I’ve often thought to myself, to be waiting so long and yet, moving so fast.
How important, I’ve thought even more frequently
— to believe —
as you watch time pass.
by word & by deed,
- mc foley
About mc foley:
Melinda Corazon Foley was born in Cebu, Philippines, raised in Virginia and currently resides in West Hollywood, CA. In 2005, MC Foley was named East West Players’ James Irvine Foundation Mentee affording her the privilege to craft a new original stage play, the result: “Down and Out.” It debuted at the Union Center for the Arts. Foley was then awarded the Asian American Writers Workshop Scholarship, which she utilized to re-imagine the aforementioned play into a web based series incorporating verse, motion graphics and comic book illustrations. Recently Ms. Foley completed work on a debut YA novel, The Ice Hotel. The novel is a fantasy adventure written especially for readers experiencing the profound pain of loss. In the book, a family, reeling from their eldest son’s death, escapes to the Ice Hotel, where an age-old, arctic magic connects this world to the next. The Ice Hotel is now available at Amazon. Order your copy here: http://tinyurl.com/ya2edzh
