Stalking Russell Crowe or Okay Boomer Change My Story
I have enjoyed a long and exciting life so far. While a stable and predictable style of living can be attractive, dancing with chaos is where the fun is. About eighteen months ago I began a new, fun retirement gig as a digital content creator. My new incarnation as a video maker and photographer is creative and interesting. I like to say that whenever I point my camera at a subject; subject often changes the story.
Having told my New York City fire stories in the states last month (I am a retired Fire Lieutenant from NYC) I felt like I wanted to begin telling stories about younger people. I’ve told all my stories. It’s time to see what’s going on within the generations of my kids and grandkids. Besides who wants to be looking at old folks, other than maybe other old folks. It’s time for me to fade into the background and tell stories about younger people. Or at least move the focus away from myself.
I remember in the eighties and nineties reading books like “The Greatest Generation” and watching the movie “Saving Private Ryan” and thinking, “yeah, okay, you saved the world from Nazis and stuff, but can we move on now”?
I’m beginning to feel the same way about us Boomers. Lets’ point our cameras at younger folks please, enough nostalgia.
While my early videos were mostly extemporaneous, presently I put a lot of work into planning and writing. I can fill up three to five days planning a video. While I still shoot mostly unscripted, I have to get my stories straight. That requires a bit of preparation, then shooting, then editing. It’s a fun creative process and I like it. Every time I finish and upload I feel like “okay, now what”? My instant first reaction after completing a new video is to feel kind of empty, like I’ve run out of stories. I usually wake up with more ideas the next day.
Two days ago I woke up in such a state and saw a Facebook post about the remake of “Sex in the City” now being filmed in NYC. The post had a picture of Sara Jessica Parker kissing some guy along with a headline saying that details about the new Sex in the City movie were “leaking” out of the production studio. Clearly the leak was planned promotion. It came with a picture. My first thought was: “hey that’s the movie friend Stan is working on”.
I did a video about Stan last year. Stan is a colorful old New Yorker I met in Bangkok where he oversaw three small businesses. When the hordes of world travelers descending on Bangkok came to an abrupt halt last year, Stan’s small businesses suffered. So he temporarily went back to New York where he is now employed with his old union job in the movie business.
Maybe I can get some inside gossip about the movie from Stan?
I met Sara Jessica Parker, and her husband Matthew Broderick, back in the eighties. I could weave my personal story into the inside information, if I could get some good gossip from Stan. It would make for a nice video.
He politely told me to fuck off. I’m kind of pleased with that response. It’s consistent with who Stan is. But with Hollywood now on my mind, I remembered Russell Crowe is making quite a stir here in Bangkok. He’s making a movie based on a book: “The Greatest Beer Run Ever”.
I can make a video about stalking Russell Crowe, which is exactly what I am going to do. I’m also trying to locate some of the movie sets in Bangkok. It will be fun. And even if I do not find Russell or his film crew, I will still have more than enough content for a video.
I spent the past six hours listening to an audio version of “The Greatest Beer Run Ever”, you know, getting some background info.
It is a story about the Vietnam War.
Remember back at the beginning of this essay I was going to bring my focus away from Boomer stories?
Whenever I point my camera at a subject; the subject often changes the story.
