Everything is Beautiful, and Nothing Hurts: September 2009

My book...it lives!

My Short, Happy Life as an Auteur

I am a filmmaker. Or, at any rate, I once was. Between 1999 and 2002, I made several short films, starting with "My Mother Received a Wound"--which showed at a few film festivals and is still featured in the Moondance Festival's annual "best of" restrospective. The zenith (or nadir, perhaps) of my moviemaking was surely MOCK, a 47-minute mockumentary film about a filmmaker who makes mockumentary films. You can watch MOCK and other projects on my Youtube channel if you click here. Enjoy! (By the way, another filmmaker with my name lives in San Antonio. He spells Erik with a k, and his movies are a good deal more accomplished than mine. I'm quite sure he wouldn't want anyone mistaking my work for his.)

What I Have

a. I have indulged in more passions, hobbies, vocations, and interests than anyone I know.
b. I have acted in more than fifty plays, skits, and movies.
c. I have written songs, played guitar, and sung in four rock bands—though I use the term “rock” loosely in one case. Come to think of it, calling what I did “singing” stretches the definition of that word, too.
d. I have worked for years as a music DJ on public radio, hosting freeform, new-release, and international music shows.
e. I have created, designed, edited and published one excellent literary journal.
f. I have edited two other literary journals and a newspaper.
g. I have written hundreds of newspaper articles, columns, and reviews.
h. I have conducted dozens of interviews with artists and public figures I admire. My favorite was a long, dreamy conversation with Lisa Gerrard. She was on tour in Germany at the time, and I was the last person she spoke to that night before she fell asleep.
i. I have blogged about politics, satire, culture, and life.
j. I have co-edited a popular political website.
k. I have created several satires of the Bush administration, and they were viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.
l. I have written, directed, shot, and edited several short movies.
m. I have cofounded and codirected a regional film festival.
n. I have written about 100 short and short-short stories.
o. I have completed the first draft of a novel that I’m afraid to go back and read. It sits untouched on my hard drive, six years on.
p. I have made significant progress on—but ultimately abandoned—three other novels.
q. I’m developing two or three other novel ideas, and I will hopefully bang out a first draft of one of these in the summer of 2010.
r. However, I also have two new short story collections demanding to be written.
s. I have narrated a documentary that showed nationally on PBS.
t. I have traveled to Europe four times.
u. I have taught elementary school students with emotional disabilities.
v. I have taught writing, at the university level, for six years.
w. Sometimes, when I’ve looked at my wife and my kids, I have actually felt guilty for being so fortunate.
x. I, like you, have less money than I wish I had. This mitigates my guilt.
y. I have occasional doubts about the wisdom of blogging, and I fear that I may someday regret this.
z. I have a thing for lists.

Everything is Beautiful, and Nothing Hurts

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Just doing my part...