Yesterday I gave a presentation to an audience of about 35 employees at Oaknoll Retirement Residence.
The topics I was invited to speak on?: -my time as a full time live in caregiver for my mom as she died from cancer and dementia -her art, that she somehow managed to create while under those circumstances
I consider it the first of many such talks I hope to give on this important matter. Caregivers need a voice. On that note I give a big shoutout to Kamaryn and Lindsey (both staff at Oaknoll) for being so progressive in their approach to community and the care of those who need it.
The brain does so many things. It works so well that our experiences of sound, light, balance, thought, motor skills and feelings are seamless. That’s by design. It’s astonishing how much we take for granted.
I learned this the hard way on June 23rd, 2024 when a car hit my stopped car. They were going about 25 mph. Simply put, my car stopped their car because I kept my foot on the brake of mine when I saw them speeding towards me without slowing down. It bent the frame of my car, airbags deployed…and I swear that I felt my brain smack into the back of my cranium right after my skull whipped backwards into the headrest of the driver’s seat.
Over the last month I have learned what it’s like:
to not be able to walk in a straight line.
to not be able to keep my balance.
to have headaches nearly every hour of the day.
to have my left eye no longer tracking correctly with my right eye.
to have my mind not know how to set the volume on sound, so it was all too loud.
to become afraid of sunlight and pretty much all projected light because it hurts to view.
to live like a vampire in the dark for a full week, only going out at night when the sun was down.
to forget conversations right after they happened and who I even spoke with.
to wonder if all these symptoms will become a part of my life moving forward as my new norm.
I also learned about cutting edge treatments for severe concussions. Within a week of my accident I learned about a clinic near my home in Iowa City. It’s a humble practice. They don’t brag about what they do. But wow, what they do is amazing. And getting access to treatment right after a concussion is definitely the way to go about it. I am so lucky that I live near the facility and that I knew about it. No one locally told me about it. Not the Emergency docs after my two visits. It was a friend on the East Coast who had heard about “Dr. Fitz”. Syntonic Light Therapy…holy shit. I literally walked in wincing in pain, off balance, blocking out light and sounds, a mess…and after my first SLT treatment I experienced immediate relief. The thing is that they didn’t tell me a thing. Not one. There was no planting of ideas. They literally were like “we’re going to stick you in this room now and show you some light…hang out for a bit til we return”. The point being, they didn’t set me up with preconceived ideas of how to feel after the treatment. They only asked afterwards. And when I walked out and had my balance and the sun wasn’t like a laser into my brain pain centers…I was amazed.
That isn’t to say that this was without frustrations, plenty of setbacks and fears of not getting better. That first treatment lasted for about 3 hours til the symptoms returned. My brain needed time to heal. My accident was on June 23 and I only was cleared to drive late last week. I have had moments of feeling like I was totally fine…for a few hours. Thinking I was done. Then crushing headaches and memory loss and 3 hour naps and fatigue for whole days. It’s not a linear healing track. It’s not like a broken bone. Concussion healing is absolutely nonsensical and not predictable. Again and again I would be tricked by feeling good for a few hours, only to be thrown back under the wheels again.
I am writing today because I have felt good for 3 days in a row…a first in the whole month. I am still taking everything slowly but it’s amazing to feel this normal again. I still can’t work full time. I don’t have that kind of energy yet. Oh…I lost a steady job I had landed, unfortunately. Too much time missed due to the concussion. Luckily I do have some sweet part time work irons in the fire that I hope work out. I will be easing back into the working world slowly for sure.
I have been very lucky to have my son to drive me places and support from both of my kids and friendly check in calls from friends and family around the world. Good stuff.
I think (I hope) that I am getting back to real recovery now. I will even remember that I posted this blog writing lol!
Meanwhile…The Last Shark premiered online on youtube. In 12 days this movie has received 21,000 views. With a marketing budget of zero. Not too shabby. It also screened on TV in South Africa to the tune of 158K viewers. Again…well done to everyone who made this happen.
And below is a hint of the European Premiere to come!
For all the jobs I am getting hired for, I might have to change the name of my website from The Video Slab to something more like “My Book About How Mom Died”. That’s what I have mainly been working on. One can only send in so many job applications and not get hired for so many obviously natural job fits…before you just acknowledge something different is planned for you. I now live in a UNESCO City of Literature. I have an entire book to copyedit before I start hunting for literary agents. So, yeah. It seems like the writing is on the historical building’s walls…it’s time to finally finish this book. That’s what I am working on. While the HR people either add or subtract my wide ranging life on paper from their slush piles, I am perfecting this book about my time as mom’s caregiver during the hardest year of my life. It’s a pretty wild experience.
Copyediting nearly a year’s worth of journal entries, 4 years after that worst year of your life is ummm…fuck. I dunno. Different conflicting things. It’s enlightening. Refreshing. Shocking. I read what is there and I don’t understand how I survived it on an actual literal level. When 60% of caregivers for people with dementia die before the person with the illness does…I have no idea how I am still alive.
Snapshot from a portion I was just editing:
“Update 2 PM – Hospital waiting room at the UVA Radiation Clinic
We arrive at the Rad clinic just in time to see the guy walking out of his treatment who always wears his “Real Men Rock Pink”. He’s been here I think every day that we’ve been. He also wears a pink baseball hat and pink Nike’s. I say this all like we’ve been doing this for months. We already feel like veterans. This is only our 6th day in the Radiology clinic. Also…why can’t my mom be THAT guy? Fired up. Facing the facts. Embracing the suck and getting it done with flair. That’s the mom I wanted to have. That’s the role model I needed.
It’s not an exaggeration to say it feels like we’ve been at this forever already, like we’ve seen pink shirt guy 100 times by now. He’s like the seating arrangement we already take for granted in this subterranean waiting room. These places have a time bending effect. Time moves slower down here, beneath street level…in the basement of the hospital-where people get irradiated, get sicker and pray for miracles.
You hear the shusshing of the piped in air. You hear the occasional beep of someone’s phone, reminding you that somewhere out there, there are people, without cancer, sending messages, to us unfortunates, way way way down here. Nurses walk in and out, you hear the swishing of their clothing. The bored person behind the reception desk has three fingers pushing into her cheek, elbow on the desk, probably checking her Facebook.”
Besides the book? I exercise a lot. My son and I have a deal going where we go the gym Monday – Friday. I go into a local park to walk at night just about everyday. I hit up local coffee shops and diners. I hang out with both kids whenever they have decided I am not annoying them 🙂
I read history books. Just picked up a new memoir. I saw the author give a talk last night. So I will be diving into that today, in my hammock, swinging somewhere in the wooded park.
Probably my favorite thing, besides being with my children, is walking through a graveyard on the way to the park. It’s a large one. It’s got style, somehow. It says a little something more about the dignity of death in the way the land lays with the trees and site stones in agreement of some kind. Walking through it in darkness and alone always feels like a powerful metaphor.
Hey…hey Charlie. Are you afraid of death? Walking through a large cemetery at night makes one wonder. The ghosts of all those people. Are they here? What I do, is invite them to show me something. After all, they have been where I am. They have walked around and wondered about how to make a living, about how to tell their stories, about how to be a good person. All of these headstones know more about life than I do. Before I join them in the ground, I just hope I can do so knowing I did things in a good way.
The “BLACK ANGEL” from the Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City.
So…yeah. I love freelancing. Kind of. If you like always searching for your next gig while working on your current gig, then yeah, I love it! So, not so much. I love the work. But I don’t love the constant hustle. To break the hustle cycle I have been looking for real live full time jobs with benefits. And it’s been a while since I have been out there in that world. And it’s like traveling in an astronaut suit through space because it’s a creative vacuum. It’s hard to breathe in an atmosphere that is trying to replace me/us.
I am seeking job postings with titles like: communications coordinator, creative director, social media manager, video editor, scriptwriter. And what I see coming back at me is:
-…you will be working with AI to craft best of class content… -…utilizing ChatGPT, you will be crafting original… -…must have experience using Canva to create original content for social media posts… -…Hi, I am a lifestyle influencer (who is about 19 years old) and can no longer keep up with the demand for creating my makeup videos, I have 1 million followers on YT and need to… -…if creating content set to extremely tight deadlines and using your skills to help market the latest product releases sounds exciting to you…
All hard won creative energy and talent is being harnessed by an economy that marches to the steady beat of “hungry for faster, more, right now”. For me, it’s sad to see that artists are asked to make things that make the world a worse place. When we apply the creative impulse for things so banal and useless, for too long, we invariably lose the feel of what creating ever meant. Creativity has always been a spiritually satisfying act. That has changed. We are way off script now.
That’s first level bad. What’s on the second level?
Our creative efforts are now being funneled into teaming up with AI, Canva and more…automated programs that (ironically) humans use to replace our creative endeavors that, oh yeah, have become inextricably linked to keeping a roof over our heads and food on our tables…shoes on our feet.
What’s wrong with Canva, with AI and more? Check out the phrasing from their own site about using Canva to create:
“No Design Experience Needed”
I began building my first website in 1997. My company was an outdoor guide service and I wanted in on marketing via this whole internet thing. I helped with the layout. I wrote the words. I took the pics. I paid two humans (real live people who needed food and shelter) to design the site in HTML code. PHP didn’t exist. WordPress didn’t exist. Their effort meant their company could thrive. I didn’t shortcut anything.
Now it’s “No Design Experience Needed”?
Soon, Canva will be making the entire site, the entire IG post, including the AI generated photo. Soon it will be commonplace for graphic designers to be using their skills to enter into other crowded job silos. But it’s not because AI is out to get us. It’s because many of us have subscribed to the “hungry for faster, more, right now” work culture for far too long. The economic machine we created (albeit in the past before it was “us”) has reached a tipping point, indeed surpassed it. The scary thing for me is how many of us (humans) are thrilled to embrace AI. Don’t be excited unless you are ready to help your friends pay their bills in the next few years. Because it’s coming.
Here is the progression:
“hungry for faster, more, right now” leads to “No Design Experience Needed” and finally… “No paid humans necessary”
This wouldn’t bother me if we weren’t simultaneously still living in an economy that requires us to work for our money. We can’t all go out and start growing veggies and tending livestock any longer. If you don’t have money, you lose access to healthy food, safe housing, medical care.
And yes, in a real way, Canva is just a symptom. In a world where someone can make a million dollars a year by simply putting on makeup in videos that AI can edit for free, that’s a symptom. We are all forgetting that being skilled at something useful is actually important and valuable. It’s a fact that using our hearts and minds and hands to make things, makes for a good life. If we can make money doing essentially nothing…we will also feel nothing…and then need distraction…say, like…a makeup video tutorial, or 10, on a Friday night-alone in our overly expensive rented room in a shared apartment in NYC.
By using our minds to create machines that replace our usefulness-well that’s a world that none of us are ready for. The only way out is to stop “hungry for faster, more, right now”.
How to convince people that it’s actually okay and beneficial to slow down?
I dunno. Ask Chat GPT?
As for me, I am on Team Human. Let’s slow down. And stop watching makeup videos like they are as important as a major world event.
I am always a bit self conscious when walking into a diner. I shouldn’t be. I am always in good company. Today, strung along the street side window are three men over the age of sixty.
Two of them are wearing beanie hats. One of them has the classic baseball cap. All of them hiding their bald heads from the chill or hiding the fact that they lost that hair long ago. I rebel, and remove my gray wool beanie, setting it down pointedly on the table. I haven’t had hair on top of my head since I was 25. Unfairness in the handsome department struck me early in life.
It doesn’t work though. I still look just like them. For we are all the same. Alone, older and lonely looking. Oh…and all of us are wearing glasses in order to read the menu. Hello 53 years of age. I wasn’t planning on meeting you and being single still but here we are at the Bluebird Diner in Iowa City, Iowa. My theory is that you don’t really notice the older-lonely-beanie boys in diners early in the morning unless you are one of them. I think we are invisible to most. I don’t like belonging to anything by virtue of default. This is my least favorite label. The lonely older guy sitting in the diner at 8 AM. The romanticism of sitting alone in diners wore off for me about 13 years ago.
My favorite past is sitting across from me. They just walked in. My favorite of all time…the period of my life that brought out my best. It’s a 6-top. Four kids and all of them under the age of 5. Within minutes the three older ones have knives in their hands, they are shaking the salt shakers, there are napkins on the floor. There is squealing and laughing. The parents are calm but also taking a lot of deep breaths and looking at one another across the milieu-wan smiles. I only had two kids to their four, but it’s the best thing I ever did.
That’s why I am here in Iowa City. My two kids, now 22 years old and 26 years old somehow both decided to move to this town in the last year. Then the requests for me to follow began late last year. And after I was done saying “but why did you have to move to Iowa City of all places”, I visited them for Christmas and actually found that I liked the place. And then came the plans to move here on my part, driven by many external forces, but all of my own design.
First of all, any parent who has adult children asking them to live nearby to them, must say yes. It’s an unwritten rule of life. If you have kids that enjoy your company enough to make this request, despite your uncountable mistakes as a parent…count yourself exceedingly fortunate and make haste to their location.
Secondly, I have “lived” in 123 places in the last four years. No. That’s not an exaggeration. I made a spreadsheet. I counted them up. And for the last 11 months I have been doing nothing but volunteering for things I believed in. I have been creating more than I have at any point in my life. I created a 19 episode podcast and directed a feature length movie.To keep my costs low so that I could focus on this work I decided to do housesitting and petsitting up and down the east coast of the USA. It’s unpaid. But you get a dog or cat to watch after and a free place to stay. Usually it’s a very nice place to be and in a very choice location.
I have been, in a real sense, without a place to call home since August of 2019. I had some short stints in a rented place here or there…but for all the rest of that time I have either been taking care of my parents in their home, camping, staying with friends, at an Airbnb or doing the housesitting/petsitting thing.
I haven’t had a home to rest within, in any real sense. And by this January, during my last scheduled petsitting gig on the shores of Lake Champlain in Burlington Vermont, I realized I couldn’t do this any longer. The free wheeling sense of adventure had evaporated. I got to the point where I was daydreaming about living in one town, having one job, and just being as stable and boring as humanly possible.
And so, Iowa City made sense for a lot of reasons.
I now live in a house built in the 1850’s. The ceiling in my room appears to be 15’ tall. The windows are about 12 feet tall and they have two layers of heavy wood paneling that folds to act as a solid curtain against the light and cold if need be. You can feel the history in the exposed floorboards with every delightfully creaky weary wooded step. Steam coaxes deep grumbles from the heater in the corner. The massive front door of the house probably weighs over 100 pounds and was shipped by horse and buggy, overland from a train station in Chicago in 1853. The streets out front bear the weight of cars on red bricks and the tires make an odd but pleasing squishy grubbly sound upon them. I can walk to town within minutes. 1800’s architecture and early 1900’s edifice are everywhere. One thing I gleaned from staying in 123 different places was a made list of “things I want to have when I finally stop moving around”. Because I made a study of how people who live in one place…lived. The main thing I noted is that most places don’t really have a sense of community if they don’t have walkability. If you can’t walk to a friend’s home, to where things are happening, to where you might take a bite or get a cuppa or read a book…that community is always lacking something. So top of my list was to get a place in a town where I could walk to the town center and where the town would have something worth walking to. To my surprise, Iowa City=A+ on that grading chart.
I also made note of the absurd housing costs everywhere I went. There was not one place where the locals didn’t trot out the now tired tale “after the pandemic housing prices are through the roof! People can’t find anywhere to live here now and even if they can find it, it’s too expensive!” When I found out how little my kids were paying for rent in Iowa City I really thought it was a typo. Or if not, it meant that Iowa City must simply be a truly undesirable place to live. Nope. Turns out it’s just mysteriously affordable. And local wages somehow are not far behind the cost of living here.
To wit…my plan was to settle in a lovely small Vermont town called Warren. I was just there last week saying goodbye to that postcard village. And a friend there told me that just recently a 200 sq foot bedroom, in a home shared with others, was going for $2000 a month. As I said, a number of reasons drove me to Iowa City. At some points, while I was living rent and mortgage free for most of the last 4 years, I have felt like an economic refugee. Fleeing the high cost of housing as a single person and knowing that if I rejoined the housing fray that my earnings couldn’t possibly land me in a home that I would want to live in. When you are single, it’s just way different. Your options for comfort are exactly cut in half, unless you are wealthy…which I am most certainly not. I am not Ken Burns. I have found a place to rent that I enjoy, in a lovely historic part of town…and it’s not expensive. It’s easy.
So, here I am. Iowa City. Day 1. There aren’t words with enough letters or enough lines on a page to explain my relief at knowing that I am living here. No longer moving. No longer searching. Just finally living in one place.
Work? Honestly…who knows? Though I planned on doing a very normal, very plain kind of job…alas. I am who I am. I have applied for those jobs and been passed over or turned them down. Currently I am feeling like I’d love to do something historical about Iowa City. Maps. Visual retrospectives. Maybe see if the city wants to throw some money into something interesting that visitors might want to use or see. I want to dust off my old cameras and take some still images. Maybe get back into some architectural photography? In short…I am feeling like freelancing is what I will end up doing again. And that’s sounding okay.
What I am currently doing however is:
-ghostwriter and business contact for a book about Ukraine and the work of one frontline humanitarian aid worker from the USA. We are seeking a publisher for the book! (screenshot for the book website that is still in development phase below)
-copyediting my prescriptive self help memoir about my time as a caregiver for my mother as she died from cancer and dementia during the peak of the pandemic. Seeking the traditional publishing route for this one too.
-self publishing a poetry book drawing from my last 15 years of writing poetry.
-possibly developing a podcast based on my movie 400 Feet Down.
The carver working their knife, whittling on a piece of red cedar…even they do not work alone. They carry with them the voices of conversations from the past. Their thoughts of interactions make their way into each cut. Their past makes its way into the chess piece, the spoon, the spindle, the art.
My red cedar was an external hard drive from South Africa. I had no idea what was on it. I didn’t know any of the numerous interview subjects thereupon. But that hard drive only existed because of how another person was moved to help tell the story of the plight of Great White Sharks. And he was informed from his time working with the nearly extinct Vaquita in Mexico. And he had footage because two women flew in from other countries to help him film. And they had success because of other volunteers who helped them along the way.
When it comes to who made what…the list just keeps expanding.
The art suffers when respect is not paid to the predecessors that came before. It’s loses the value when we drop into thinking it’s “ours”. And really the list is so long…all the moments that lead up to what we would call a finished product…that it can’t be calculated. Saying anything is “mine”, really, loses all meaning. I think we should just start saying, “we made this for us, because of us.”
This movie was needed and the time was right and I happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right team and support system.
What I can say accurately is that I crafted the movie on the timeline and that the only reason I was able to have the time to do so was because a friend, who believed in my work, died at a young age…and that friend had placed me in her Will. I received money from her settlement just as I was pondering how I could find a way to financially wrangle making this movie with my CoDirector. Before she died she specifically asked me to use the money for one of my conservation projects. And so I have. I made two projects actually…The Last Shark is the second one. Her contribution to this work is the only reason I was able to find the time to complete the movie at all. Her money funded my entire living costs from May of 2023 to this very day…December 12, 2023.
Today finds me on one of my last nights at yet another housesitting gig. Northern Vermont. A cute but modern log cabin in the Northern woods. The power went out today due to a winter storm. I had nothing but silence and the wood burning stove to keep me company. And mostly what I thought about was how long it’s taken me in life to stop taking full credit for the things that I have accomplished. Taking credit is an interesting thing. At some points in our early years it’s critical to not make ourselves small and taking credit is part of seeing our own value. But at the ripe age of 52, something I am very grateful for is following the threads to all the things that lead to a good thing in the world and realizing that all credit actually starts in the past and moves forward into the future. Getting to be a part of something as positive as The Last Shark documentary has been an immense honor. But I am just a part of it. I feel like it is one of those rare things one gets to do only once or so in life. Where you know you got to be a part of something larger than yourself in an obvious way.
What I also learned is that you have to bring everyone into the room. That’s really important. Building community is what it’s going to take to tackle climate change, species loss, ending suffering. Tending to the contributions and sacrifices that others make to support the film is just as important as making the film.
I also am in the same cabin where I completed making the movie. The final exports happened here. And it’s also here and also today, two days before I change houses again…that I decided to exit the project.
This post is sort of my goodbye letter. I will still be wrapping up some loose ends but yeah…today marks the day I stepped out officially.
I make movies. And videos. That’s what I do. I love doing it. This movie premiered over a month ago now…and I realized today that though there is still plenty of work to do on outreach and more screenings and so forth…but my share of the work has already been completed.
For me, everything I had to give is there in the movie. Everything that I could give creatively, is in every single cut. And yes, I didn’t do it alone. People ask me, after seeing the movie “but what should we do now?” That’s the question…always. At the end of every screening of any movie I have been involved with that is the question. Because we are always talking about reversing the destruction of our home. It’s a good question. I personally don’t see a movie as having the answer. I see a movie as informing people to decide IF they want to do something about finding an answer. And I think that it starts with community and built of inspired individuals. That’s the whole reason I make movies. In hopes of informing and inspiring.
Leaving this project is a very tough decision. And it will take some disentangling for sure. But pointing to the fact that I haven’t had income for 6 months now…is I think reason enough for me to say that at some point-I simply have to find the exit. I have given up relationships, having a home, and I have gone through quite a lot of my savings.
I will really miss working with my CoDirector, Frankie. We have had a WILD ride. We have never met in real life. It’s all been virtual. And we began talking for the first time about this project on December 22, 2022.
I will say that this is my first time CoDirecting and HOLY SHIT…do not enter into that space lightly my friends. I can laugh when I say that now. But it’s a whole different thing than being a solo director and it will require a whole new skill set to make it through. Frankie and I managed it though. The movie exists as proof of how we were able to work together.
Frankie will continue moving on with the movie in South Africa and I wish her all the best with that. There are some big things in process that we hope will come to fruition in terms of getting the message out there.
The movie has created a lot of momentum and I truly hope that people even are moved to protest peacefully and find ways to lobby the government to get the nets out. And finally I hope that the movie makes its way around the globe so that more people can learn to love sharks instead of only fearing them.
As for me…letting go of the day to day Last Shark comms will be a new experience. This has been my full time job for so long now. I don’t know what I will do next…besides hopefully find some paid work to refill the coffers. I will leave this lovely cabin in two days. Then kick around VT for about a week. Then head to visit my adult kids for Christmas. Then it’s off to Chicago for housesitting gig for 8 days. Hmmm New Years Eve in Chicago? lol…should be interesting!
Then I am back to the shores of Lake Champlain in VT, in Burlington for my next housesitting gig for two months. After that…? Well, I have been trying to make time to go to volunteer in Ukraine for this non profit that I run social media for. I am hoping to fit that in before Summer. And then I am looking at moving to live near my kids in the Midwest.
So that’s it really. I am just so grateful for everyone that made this movie exist. Thrilled that I got to play a role in The Last Shark. I am glad to see that so many people care about the planet after all.
CoDirector of The Last Shark signing off! 🙂
Here is a pic of me reading in the cozy cabin before typing this up…
The Last Shark is my fourth feature length enviro documentary film. And I have to say that whenever an article comes out, about a film, they always misquote some important truth or bungle a statistic.
But in this case I feel like the Daily Maverick did an excellent job. A very well reported article. I still do think that interviewing the folks who have the job of capturing and killing sharks…and asking them what they think about shark conservation, is sort of missing the point…but I get that the reporters need to create the “balanced” viewpoints.
All in all, a very good article. Well done. Click photo to read full article:
Things are moving fast. It’s been that way from start. Frankie and I got the hard drive in June of 2023. It had all the files from filming in 2021. For more on that backstory check HERE.
Since then it’s been what we call a “sprinting marathon” to finish the movie by November, for a Premiere in Capetown, South Africa. Tonight I watched the final 10 minutes of the movie’s fourth screening via our narrator’s whatsapp video stream…along with the audience at The Commons in Muizenberg. I was able to see how absolutely riveted and focussed the audience was on the movie. For a venue that serves also as a bar and restaurant, the place was surprisingly absent of all cross chatter. I got to watch Jake (one of our two social media interns) working the merch table, slinging our logo T-shirts, stickers and baseball hats. Ariel, our narrator’s young daughter, even held court at the end of the movie, holding hands with Frankie front and center and helped Frankie make the closing remarks and start a lenghty Q&A session with the audience. Below is a pic of Candice and Kholo, who totally knocked it out of the park with helping us get everything ready at The Commons. Kholo is their tech and sound guy and Candice managed all the other details so fricking well. It was a pleasure working with them.
Frankie and I have now very different roles that we weren’t expecting. She has to work hard to stay on track and lively and well rested while on tour – similar to being in a band. Her task is about 10 times larger than we thought it would be. Originally we thought we would have perhaps 3 screenings in all of South Africa. There’s now many more than that. We just had no idea how much energy and enthusiasm there would be for this story to be told. Her schedule is packed. She’s being contacted by different interests internationally. It’s sort of surreal for both of us.
As the CoDirector, I can’t say its easy being so far away from the action of the screenings. I absolutely wish it had been realistic for both of us to fly over to SA financially and logistically. But things in life have a habit of work out interestingly. I have jumped into new roles.
I am helping to organize the tech situation at each venue before Frankie arrives so that everything goes smoothly. As of this moment, from Nov 7-December 12 there are 16 scheduled screenings. That means getting up at 5 AM, since by then it’s already noon over there-to work things out at each different venue via whatsapp and email. For example, right now it’s 2:30 PM here in the USA and I have only just now stopped “working” for the first time since before 7 AM. I should probably eat something now!
My other role is to look forward to other screenings around the world outside of South Africa. Chatting with shark conservationists where I can find them and seeing if they would like to host screenings once the tour in South Africa is over in mid December. If all goes according to plan…I would travel with the film beginning in January hitting venues in countries and building international support for removing the nets and transforming the Sharks Board. Frankie’s plan is to stay in South Africa and work on continuing educational projects on this topic.
We feel like with this approach we are giving the sharks the best chance for having this message be heard: No more shark nets.
Meanwhile, back in SA…tomorrow nigt we have another screening that sold out at a venue called Jack Black. The venue was so kind to us! They offered to open up another space for viewing and allowed 30 additional people to see the movie. That brings up the total to around 150 viewers for that one showing.
And as always both Frankie and I have our ears open for any hint of funding to help keep this whole thing moving forward. The Gofundme has helped but we are back down to our personal funds once again.
Any Angel donors out there want to help fund this important work? 🙂
Feeling so proud today!! Because this amazing article just got sent my way from Kim Sharklady Maclean. She’s in the movie and her company Sharklady Adventures is one of our collaborators. The presentation in this paper is just so well done and pleasing to the eye.
And I love it that they dropped in the entire full sized poster from our graphics guy Ben Wiid.
Yesterday Frankie and I were interviewed on a really fascinating show called The Daily Jaws. Ross is the host of the show and I gotta say it is not what we expected. It was just so lovely and fascinating to be interviewed about shark conservation…on a show that get its namesake from their love of the JAWS movie. Fun full circles.
The Video Slab 