When a Blessing Doesn't Quite Have Your Name On It
I learned some hard lessons about artistic creation, and I continue to revisit those lessons today.
NSFW. (There’s a bootycheek or more in the photos accompanying this article.)
When you’re a creator at any level, there are competing versions of self-presentation you have to be aware of at all times. Too humble and you seem insincere. Too confident and you seem narcissistic. I am neither too humble nor too confident, but I’m overly aware of my word choice and body language when talking about my art. This particular post is going to start with some facts that will sound like brags, and I won’t apologize for that or preface it any more than I already have.
When I launched my series Pretty Dudes independently, I didn’t know it would reach such a wide and passionate audience. I made the show as a reaction to the homogeneous white sitcoms popular in the aughts (How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Mom) and, on a personal note, an attempt to restore some joy to my life during a period of deep grief. I’m still taken by surprise when I come across fans in the wild, or learn that certain celebrities watched and loved the show. Between the racists and homophobes on Tumblr and the celebrities on Twitter, my DMs showed the full range of a certain hypervisibility that comes with having well-received art.
It was more than just viewers, however. Representatives from several film festivals on my wishlist reached out to solicit episodes to screen. Cannes, NewFest, and Tribeca were a few that were programming new media, queer, and indie filmmaking showcases. There were various reasons these screenings did not work out. One requested a specific type of episode while we were chin-deep in post-production on the first season, and there was no bandwidth available to veer from our editing schedule to modify any episodes to fit their request. Another opportunity came after the season had been fully released, and the festival asked for a brand new episode, since all of our existing episodes were already on YouTube. I was in the midst of being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and in no place to attempt to return to a set of any kind. (I turned down several directing opportunities during this period, as well, due to debilitating anxiety attacks.)
While coming out of this dark, frustrating period, I reached out to one of my lead actors, Yoshi Sudarso, hoping to catch up and be social again. One of the first things he asked me when we sat down was what I had planned for his character in season two. Despite having spent no time thinking about a second season, I pitched him an idea that he loved and, with a bit of a sinking heart, realized I had essentially committed myself to another round of episodic screenplays, fundraising, scheduling, personality navigating, and editing bay hours.
I ended up unhoused in the midst of running our crowdfunding campaign, and I have to say that the main reason I think we were successful was that I had begun to believe that this next season would be my big break. How could it not be?
It’s not that I wasn’t willing to do these things for my art; it’s that I was barely holding my personal life together due to my mental struggles. It was not the time for me to return to this work, but if Yoshi believed in me, and as conversations continued, far more people than Yoshi believed in me, then maybe I could do this. Besides, people at levels far above me knew my show, my work, knew me. That had to mean something.
The work began anew. I brought on a team of writers including Andrea Lee, whose amazing series Got 2B Real shook the internet with laughter. I expanded our producer team and brought on guest directors, including Heather Matarazzo, who is still one of the most phenomenally intentional collaborators I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. Most importantly, I ran a successful Seed&Spark campaign, pulling in just over 10K to fund this second season. On paper, I was leveling up in a very acceptable and impressive way.
It was around this time that I became a shred of a person. I was having consistent panic attacks. I went on medical leave that turned into a weird employment purgatory, and I was asked to move out of my rental location due to the instability of my income. I ended up unhoused in the midst of running our crowdfunding campaign, and I have to say that the main reason I think the campaign was successful was that I had begun to believe that this next season would be my big break. How could it not be?
Supporting that new belief came another contact from another huge festival. If we could submit a brand new episode to them, they would enter it into consideration without my having to pay submission fees. The timing was perfect! We had money, we had a cast, and we had a team of writers and producers to share the load. What we didn’t have was time. We had just over a month to put something together. Despite one of our producers leaving the show to prioritize another project, I went ahead and began putting together a new short film set in the universe of the series. It would be the film that would officially break me. It would also be the film that would save me.
The most influential note I received was from one of the straight men on the team, who suggested the story needed a lot more nudity…
I wrote two scripts: “Bravo Double Delta,” a talking-heads comedy about “big dick days” that foreshadowed the concept of big dick energy, and “Brother’s Keeper,” an exploration of the protectiveness that occurs when the youngest of the titular Dudes brings a date over for the first time, a script more in keeping with the show’s fictional narrative style.
I sent both scripts to my co-writers, who made their respective passes on them. The most influential note I received was from one of the straight men on the team, who suggested the story needed a lot more nudity as a gag, a note I’m glad I listened to, especially with a cast this game to show off their yams. And where I thought we would be deciding between the scripts, I was encouraged to film them both and pair them together.
At the time, we had only filmed a single day for the new season, and I prioritized this project over finishing the episodes we had already begun. For this shoot, however, a huge setback emerged as my two main producers, for reasons still unknown to me, had become unreachable. On a time crunch, I took on the full production myself, schooling myself on a cinematography app and spending any time I wasn’t actively hunting for a place to lay my head working on familiarizing myself with filming high-quality footage on my iPhone.
On filming day, I was ready. Or so I thought. There was a cat at our location and four members of the cast were allergic. Also, the app uses up battery so quickly that I spent more time charging the phone than filming. I would also find out later that when the battery dropped below a certain level, the app didn’t work as well, and much of our footage turned out to be of lower quality than if I had simply used the native video app. And for the first time in my filmmaking career, I didn’t have any producers on set to support me and provide alternatives and solutions. (I did hire a producer for this one day, but she had her hands full with a set full of excited actors and jaunts to the store for crafty and allergy meds.) This was the only day we had to film, because I then would spend the next weeks editing to make the tight deadline.
I loved what the actors did. I did not love how I captured it. I did not love that I hadn’t given myself any wiggle room for necessary adjustments. One scene was completely cut in post because of an audio issue I could not figure out on set. One actor’s team looked at the dailies and told them to pull out of the in-production season, necessitating a recast. And, worst of all, if understandable, the festival passed on programming the film.
Ultimately, the film had become many things: a short film, a double feature, a sequel, a prequel/pilot/teaser, and a workman’s experiment. I don’t know if it fully succeeds on any of those fronts. I tossed the film—now titled Pretty Dudes: The Double Entendre—online for our fans, and prioritized finding a consistent place to lay my head. On the show side, I soldiered on with new producers, a newly onboarded Dude, and a few more days of filming on the second season.
I mistook facts for signs and goals for destiny. But that particular path was not mine to walk.
Season two never had the opportunity to change my life. Despite completing one episode, “Set Phasers to Ho,” an ambitious screenlife chapter that required me to build an artificial operating system in my editing software, the COVID-19 lockdown occurred before we could make any real headway. And as a few weeks stretched to a few years, all the work I had done felt like it would just go to waste.
There are many more details I don’t have the time, energy, or space to go into here, such as losing all of my unedited and unexported footage, and my long journey back to housing. There are even several happy outcomes sprinkled in the production, such as the reworking of one unfinished episode into the award-winning short film RAM (Like the Verb) and my adaptation of the first season into a full-length novel.
It would be easy for me to rest on those wins with a shallow message of “it was all worth it,” but that’s bullshit. It was not all worth it. It was miserable having thousands of dollars allocated to a show while I was couch-surfing or worse (especially seeing other “creators” use crowdfunding dollars to support their bills and expeditions while their projects never get made). It was humiliating to feel like I was on the cusp of a career breakthrough and instead find myself Victor Frankensteining various projects to completion. By the time cast and crew alike began hemorrhaging from the project and my social circles, I felt like I had let them down even more than I had failed myself. I no longer felt like an example of what you could do with faith and focus and felt instead like a cautionary tale of hubris and recklessness. I mistook facts for signs and goals for destiny. But that particular path was not mine to walk.
What I learned was that access does not always equal opportunity, and attempting to lead a functioning production is foolish if you yourself are barely functioning. I was reminded that I create art to tell stories, not to achieve accolades or status. And importantly, I was shown that if I choose to chase something, I have to sit with the possibility that I might not catch what I’m after.
Sometimes, I feel like I have learned everything I can from that period of my life and filmmaking journey. Other times, I find myself turning mistakes into patterns and having to dig deeper to break them before they cement into cycles. I revived Pretty Dudes a few years back, only to put it back on pause due to that feeling that I had begun to chase something I couldn’t catch. I haven’t given up, and instead am waiting for the timing to be right.
Outside of the espisodics, my film career has continued to make great strides. Both RAM and my animated music video I Know Him So Well have had successful festival runs and found their audiences. (The irony doesn’t escape me that two projects I did to expand my artistic practices achieved accolades I was not aiming for.) My latest screenplay Grad Nite has also begun accumulting hardware as I ready myself for pre-production. I’ve been a panelist at Comic-Con and WonderCon, and I’m embarking on an audiovisual music project unlike anything I’ve ever dreamed of before. I’m taking intentional steps to make sure I’m taking my mental and physical health into account, with no expectations outside of making good shit that means something to me and pushes me to be a better artist and a better person.
There’s a gospel bop titled, “God’s Got a Blessing (with My Name on It!),” and when I sing it, I remember that sometimes a blessing might pass near me in the ether that isn’t for me. It looks good, sounds good, smells good, but it isn’t mine, and that’s okay. I’ll keep working so that when the blessing comes that is for me, I’ll be ready.
Pretty Dudes: The Double Entendre is available to stream, rent, or purchase on Stoopid Ambitious.
RAM (Like the Verb) is available to stream on Relay and will be available to stream, rent, or purchase on Stoopid Ambitious later this year.
I Know Him So Well will be available on YouTube and Stoopid Ambitious later this year.
Pretty Dudes is available to stream, rent, or purchase on Stoopid Ambitious, is streaming on Relay, and is available for purchase on Prime Video.