And that’s no accident.

So first up, an update : I have officially ended my job with Prasad. He has ninety high quality scripts from me and that’s gonna be it. I am moving on.

It did not go as well as I would have liked. You see, I have this problem. I have such a hard time asserting myself that sometimes, when I finally get the courage to do so, I have done it by sort of pumping myself up likie an athelete before a game and as a result, I end up issuing tight, terse demands instead of actually dealing the with person.

The result is that some poor person is suddenly bearing the brunt (because really, what else there to do with a brunt) of az suddenly outburst of basically the exact opposite of my usual personality in every way.

And they are left shellshocked and wondering WTF just happened. It’s like all of a sudden there’s a volcano in your living room.

And it is PISSED. OFF.

This has been a pattern in my life, one I thought I had resolved way back when I was in my late teens and realized that I had the problem and that the solution was that I had to assert myself before the unexpressed anger caused an emotional meltdown.

But it still happens from time to time, and it happened with Prasad.

I gave him my three demands : more money, better communication, and a much higher quality end product. And that’s how they came out – as hostile demands.

He rightly pointed out that he had given me a raise from $10/episode to $15/episode just six weeks ago. And he had a point there.

He also reminded me that he had given me the email addresses for the two other peoiple, the voiceover person and the animator, in the project and so communications was really up to me.

One might argue that it’s his job as a producer to bring people together, but whatever.

The truth is, this project was never going to work. Not with a small-business type budget. Live action might have been doable. A bright young well spoken dude (petite sassy blondes preferred), a green screen, a decent webcam with decent audio, and yours truly to write the script  and do the editing, and the whole thing might have been a success despite a no-string budget.

So, after alienating and hurting a man who had been nothoing but nice to me,  I apologized to him and smoothed things out and we have now parted ways.

He was even nice enough to give me a five star review on UpWork, which will come in handy when I am looking for new work.

Speaking of new work, that Skype meeting went well…. weird, but well.

The guy starts off the whole thing by giving me this whole long sales pitch about some supposed miracle medical powder that cured his wife’s cancer AND his son’s Tourette’s and he’s already a tech millionaire and he’s only selling this stuff because he really believes in the product and wants to heal the world and jesus fucking christ on a cracker, this guy is more full of shit than a fertilizer factory.

I can see your hotel room, dude. That’s no Presidential Suite. That’s the same kind of tightly pakced but more or less comfortable hotel room *I* could afford.

And so I am listening and nodding and on the inside I have a sinking feeling that this asshole set up this whole thing just to sell me on this bullshit and the UpWork posting was just a scam to lure me in.

And if that had been the case, I would have given him a piece of my mind served red hot overhand with a live grenade and a rattlesnake provided free.of charge.

But either because he sensed how non-receptive to this crapfest I was or because he just ran out of material, he eventually segued through a bunch of other ideas of dubious viability and verisimilitudfe to the one we actually talked to via text chat, the idea of a service that connects big time YouTube stars with the kinds of writers who can help them make tgheir awesome shows even better.

It could work,.

And even if it’s a total non-starter,  I could make some money from it before it crashes and craters, and even better, I might get my work in front of people with connections and influence and money, and that could be my ticket to the big time.

So I am happy to go along with the whole thing at least until he asks me for money.

Also a bonus : he seems genuinely impressed with me. My wit, my personality, my confidence. He said I was interesting and funny and that he thought I could be a YouTube star myself.

So like… yay! Validation!

The kind that leads me to think that I might just be able to pull this whole show biz thing off. And that maybe, just maybe, I have been ashamed of myself for no good reason for way, way too long.

Sure, I’m a goof who forgets basic things and manages to screw up simple tasks on a regular basis and is, oin general, a starry-eyed dreamer who is not that great at everyday life, but who cares?

It wouldn’t take a huge amount of success to make the whole thing moot anyhow. A decent assistant could take care of all of that for me and leave me to do what I do best, which is to create hilarious things.

That’s way more important as to whether I am “good at life” or not.

Fuck life. I’m good at art DAMN good at art. I truly believe that I don’t just have great comedy writing skills, I have a sort of generalized artistic talent that could be applied to damn near everything from a high-toned presentation of sculpture and found art to a the world’s raunchiest, most lewd porno flick.

Obviously, the latter would be WAY more fun.  And I would love for it to say “pornographer” on my resume.

It’s a noble art that brings great enjoyment to millions, and it deserves respect.

Now excuse me whilst I take a nap becausxe I am not good at sleeping and therefore need to sleep at 8:20 at night.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.