It Begins…

It’s 3am Monday morning. I’m sitting in the dark three hours before my flight to Portland takes off. The flight that I believe will change my life forever. My stomach is still sour from Saturday night’s bottle of vodka. My friends and I celebrated one last time before I’m gone for six weeks. I’ve slept maybe fifteen hours total in the last six days as I juggled preparing myself for the road. There was work to be done for my salary job, the business I recently started, and a ton of research and marketing for the upcoming movie.

That movie, of course, is none other that I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell based off the book by Tucker Max, and the screen play written by Tucker and Nils Parker.

Ever since I first read the book in early 2006 and soon after came across the messageboard and the parent company Rudius Media site,  I have wanted to be an employee. The idea of supporting artists who can’t get the mainstream recognition they deserve is a cause  I could dedicate a large portion of my life toward.  I worked hard to contribute meaningfully to the messageboard. Even wrote a short story or two for peer review on the writing board.  It was on the writing board that I first corresponded with editors Ben Corman and Donika Miller who both offered priceless advice, and really made me believe that perhaps I had something to offer the literary world if I worked hard enough at it. In about a year’s time, I was made a moderator of the messageboard, and got a bit more perspective on the behind-the-scenes action.

It was also around this time that Tucker publicly announced that he had filled all the “ground floor” positions at Rudius. I realized I’d now have to work that much harder to get a foot in the door. I continued to correspond with Ben, Donika, Ryan Holiday, Jeff Waldman and a few others who helped get the great Rudius content to the masses on a daily basis. For the most part there was always two degrees of separation between Rudius upper management and the work I was doing, which is understandable given that they were swamped trying to get a book made into a movie with virtually zero experience in the process.

In August 2008, one year ago, Tucker, Nils and co. began shooting Beer in Hell in Shreveport, LA. Tucker announced privately that moderators were welcome to visit the set, and as soon as I read it the adrenaline started flowing. I have no idea what I hoped to accomplish, but I did everything in my power, which included some impressive flight rescheduling for a work-related business trip to get my broke-ass down to the set. That experience is worthy of its own post, one that I’ll write in the near future, but the short story is that within 48 hours of flying into Shreveport I was sitting on a couch in Tucker’s house watching him eat chicken wings and baby-talk with his pup Murph. Suddenly, all my work and interest had a real life component to it beyond the internet’s 1′s and 0′s.

I didn’t make much of an impression at all, probably came off as more of an idiot than anything, but when I saw the dozens upon dozens of individuals buzzing around the movie set, I realized how big this thing was going to be. It only inspired me to work harder, and proactively seek out any Rudius-related work I could get my hands on.

Then in March of 2009 the completed film was scheduled to screen for distributors, and once again the mods were invited. After reading that announcement, the next day I was at the bottle depot returning my empties, and at the bank extending my line of credit to scrape together whatever funds possible to fly out to Los Angeles. A couple of weeks later I was in the theater as the lights dimmed and the curtain pulled back to watch Beer in Hell. Two days after that, I was once again sitting on Tucker’s couch, except this time Maxie was the one getting baby-talked too. The trip was extremely useful, another one worthy of its own post, and I got to meet and hangout with Mark Ebner, Corman, Ian Cladius, Jeff and Charlie Hoehn among others. In particular I really got to know Corman and we polished off many, many beers discussing new media, publishing, and the potential future for Rudius.

Since then, my role has steadily increased behind the scenes at Rudius. I edit for Four Ounces, HotWheelz, and even occasionally now for Ben or the Rudius front page. I’ve worked with several up and coming authors like Tremble the Devil, and talked to active Rudius writers.

When Tucker announced the movie screening tour, I knew … knew I had to get on that bus by any means necessary. I had been busy writing Tucker ridiculous emails trying to piece together a vision for a new media publishing company. Almost all of them were myopic, misinformed, or based on false assumptions. Every time I would get dejected after having the errors in my thinking pointed out, but it only inspired me to study harder, and think bigger. Finally after cluttering Tucker’s inbox with half-baked book ideas, I decided to straight up ask if I could get on the bus. I typed up a 100 word bullet point list of all the ways I could contribute and why. Within minutes Tucker had bounced the email off Nils, and written me back to say they had the perfect position for a Canadian. Gopher aka grunt aka Mexican labor without the language barrier. When I read the words “you’re in” I ran my palms through my hair a good 40,000 times and walked away from the computer. Several deep breaths and “holy shit” thoughts later, I was able to return to the computer and respond with a slightly toned down version of “Fuck Yeah!”

It sounds lame, but I worked my ass off to put myself in a position to work on the tour.

That email changed my whole summer. I immediately began working like crazy and making all the arrangements that come with up and leaving for a month and a half. I negotiated with my 3 day a week salary job for time away, I worked ahead on my various projects for my own business, and I tried to get my personal life in half-decent shape. There were a ton of bumps and bruises along the way — and many hours spent viciously relieving stress on the heavy bag in my basement — but here I am, now 2 and 1/2 hours away from heading to the first tour stop.

I am not very good at predicting the future. But every once in a while I have a gut instinct that I cannot shake, like in ’97 when I knew the Packers were going to win the Superbowl before the season had started, or the time I wrote a ten page university term paper on Catch 22 in 3 hours but knew I was going to get an A when I handed it in. I have that same feeling this morning. That, good or bad, my life is going to be forever altered in the next six weeks. Maybe I’ll die, maybe I’ll get sent home on Day 11 for being a barely functional retard, maybe the movie will not meet expectations in theaters and it’ll have to await DVD release, or maybe the tour will be a resounding success and Tucker and Nils will be millionaires many times over by 2010. All my chips are in on the latter occurrence, but regardless the outcome, I am positive this is going to be a hell of a ride.

I hope to dump some thoughts on here on a regular basis. My first official foray into opening my brain to the e-world.  This week is nice because we get to do screenings in Portland and Seattle, both sold out, before having a 5 day break leading up to the tour’s main leg. I have a feeling all of us will be flying by the seat of our pants over the next three days, but the guys and girls behind the scenes are some of the most intelligent, motivated individuals I’ve ever encountered, so one way or another the movie will get shown to ticket holders.

My future isn’t monetarily attached to the success of the movie. Participating in this tour is all about the experience for me. It’s about learning what I’m made of, and contributing to something that is many, many times larger than myself.  I’m a very small cog in this massive machine, but being that small cog will be, I believe, the most important thing I’ve done in my professional life thus far.