Tuesday, July 14, 2015

FOMO: How the Dumbest Decision of My Life Became the Best


If you are unfamiliar with the premise of a Mini Cooper, the raison d'etre is it handles like a Go Kart. (Well and it allows poor people the opportunity to drive a BMW) The idea of driving my car through a mountain should be thrilling, but since there are infinite things more exciting to buy than tires...well between that and the excessive speed I was using on the 330, it's amazing I made it to Big Bear alive. FOMO will make a man do dangerous things.

I pulled up to the cabin a few minutes after 9pm to see everyone dressed in animal costumes already having sex without me. I was late to the furry convention and it looked like I was going to have to be the awkward penguin at an orgy jerking off in the corner.

I'm kidding, Bear Jew Weekend was fucking dope, these weekend getaways are becoming my favorite thing in the world. I could chronicle exactly how we went through 12 gallons of fireball in 36 hours but today I'm going to focus on an old story that some of you may not know.

As I said before FOMO will make a a man do dangerous things, it's almost like a drug. The following is the most irresponsible decision I ever made and also one that would change my life:

It was the summer of 2012, I had just been cut off financially by my parents and the start up I had been working for folded. It was just like the pilot of Girls but with a lower body fat percentage. I had just paid July rent and my account balance was sitting at a very grim $150. Every time I would go to Starbucks I was sacrificing 2% of my total net worth for a coffee. All of my meals consisted of ramen noodles, if I wanted to party I had to go to someone's house and drink a Four Loko. I was living on about $3 a day and I wasn't going to be able to go on the end of summer trip to Austin.

Four years prior in 2008, mere hours after my firing from a Philip Morris internship, I had flown to Austin to meet a bunch of pals for a friend's birthday. Actually I had flown to Dallas (because I am an idiot) and my friend's father had sent a dude to pick me up. It was the greatest vacation of my life because it introduced me to A. Austin, Texas and B. Float Trips.

The trip was such a success that the original crew was to get back together in Austin for the same trip in 2012.

Well the original crew minus me. While other people two years out of school had managed to acquire employment with salaries and disposable income, I was still kind of aimlessly floating around.

I let everyone know I wasn't going to be able to make it and made up some bullshit excuse. One of my buds offered to even pay for my flight, but some semblance of pride forced me to turn it down.

I spent the next few weeks sleeping until noon, unable to get out of bed as my depression seemed to manifest into physical exhaustion. I did that pathetic thing where you send out a few resumes and then convince yourself that you've exerted enough effort for the day; cue the Netflix.

For some reason I was still subscribed to the Chase App so I would wake up every morning to my phone "Balance Shaming" me.

$131.08

$129.11

$115.92

$412.16

Wait what? Where the fuck did that come from?

I place a call, ring ring. "Mom, did you just wire me $300?" No.

Ring ring. "Dad did you just wire me $300?" No.

I log into my account, Indiana tax return.

I had forgotten that since I worked for an Indiana based company, I received state tax returns from both California AND Indiana, it had just taken something like 12 weeks to arrive.

I was rich, I had essentially quadrupled my net worth, I mean I could maybe even afford a one way ticket to Austin. I mean probably not, the trip is only 48 hours away, but let's just get onto Priceline for shits and giggles.

Hmmm...There is a one way United flight advertised at $350, but what if I name my own price...surely I could get that down to $250. That would leave me like $150 to get back, I probably won't be able to afford a return flight with that, but maybe a bus ticket? Right? A bus ticket is like $50, that leaves me $100ish for ramen and Starbucks.

It's settled! I need a one way flight for $250.

I took a quick stock of my assets, full bottle of Adderall, great for two purposes, I can sell in a pinch and it can help me stay up all night trying to book travel.

Try as I might, I couldn't cheat the LAX to AUS flight under $300, it began to seem like this whole last ditch effort was a fool's errand, but the thing with Adderall is it makes you super human like the guy from Limitless, I took stock of my assets once again and realized I also had a car with a full tank of gas.

Long Beach airport: $400. Orange County: $290.  Burbank: $310. Ontario: $320.

FUCK.

But wait, how far is San Diego...one tank there and back? It's close but I can probably make it.

SAN -> AUS $255. Without even thinking about it I clicked purchase and just like that, I was back in action.

I sold a few Adderall to a neighbor for $20 so I would have some tip money (all of the weekend's planned events were open bar, courtesy of the raddest North Richland Hills couple of all time) drove down to San Diego blasting OAR's Any Time Now, parked 2 miles from the San Diego airport for free parking and jogged to the airport wearing a bro tank, swimsuit and a backpack of all of my tangible assets.

I made it to Austin, was dropped off at the Driskill and spent the next 48 hours partying at Maggie Mae's, The Dizzy Rooster, Floating the New Braunfels river, even popping molly at an outdoor concert, it was AGAIN the trip of a lifetime.

Cue Sunday.

I've mentioned the Sunday Scaries before, but I would like you to imagine the following...I had no plan for the rest of my life starting that Sunday. No flight home, no bus, nowhere to stay that night. I was pretty much fucked.

"You don't have a flight?" My friends asked.

"Nope."

"Well do you want to come back to Dallas with us and um, figure it out?"

"I'll be fine."

I said it with such fake confidence that they must have believed me. Dave's a wandered, he'll figure it out, he always does.

I went to a coffee shop and checked my balance $148.00, all things considered I was in reasonably good shape, I got myself a coffee and started checking one way flights. Cheapest leaving that day $500. NOPE! I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably be taking a 28 hour bus ride and hopped onto the Greyhound site. One way to Los Angeles. $300
What the fuck?!?!

What is all that bullshit about girls from Kansas using their last $40 to hop on a bus to LA to become a star?

Maybe there is a train? NOPE!

Omg I'm srsly fucked. I'm going to have to call my parents and beg for yet another bail out.

Maybe it's because of the late notice, I wonder if there is anything leaving tomorrow, I could probably afford a hostel for the night.

I check, sure enough there is a US Airways flight leaving the following morning for $132. I immediately buy it fearing that the price could skyrocket any moment. It's only after I click purchase that I realize I have not left myself enough money for even the shittiest of hostels. But no worries right? I have to know someone that lives in Austin.

I exhaust my contacts, it turns out I don't know anyone that lives in Austin or even anyone that knows anyone in Austin. My closest connection is a friend's older sister and she is out of town. I am hopelessly fucked.

But maybe there is another option, I could sleep in a park under a tree, it would be like extreme camping! And then it starts raining. God dammit. Am I really going to investigate homeless shelters? Is that what my life has come to? Or perhaps I could just roll to the airport like 12 hours early, I'm sure that would be allowed with proof of ticket.

I start to have a nervous breakdown and decide I needed to get out of the rain. I spent $10 of my remaining $16 on a ticket to Magic Mike at the Alamo Drafthouse just so I can sit in the dark for 2 hours and distract myself from how pitiful my life had become.

At some point in between crotch thrusts from Channing Tatum I remembered an app called Couch Surfer, which was basically a new social media service for nomads, I hopped on and built a quick profile and then explained to everyone my dire situation, I assumed it would be of no use since it was now 6pm and the sun was starting to set.

I went to Jimmy John's and spent $4 of my remaining $6 dollars on a sandwich.

23 years old, net worth $2.

My phone buzzed.

"Hey Dave, this is Cory from couch surfer, come on by, we have a guest room! I've never done this before and my boyfriend thinks it's weird, but I think it will be fun!"

What a tremendous stroke of luck! I spent one of my two remaining dollars to take the bus to North Austin where Cory shared a small but tidy house with her boyfriend. He wasn't home, out practicing with his band. Cory cooked me a meal and I explained to her everything that had happened that got me to this point. We knew mutual friends back in Indiana and she even used to date a guy I would go on spring break with.

The front door swings open, the boyfriend was home.

"You're not trying to fuck my girlfriend?"

Um, no.

"Do you like Breaking Bad?"

Yes.

"Ok then, here's a Shiner Bock."

So just like that we stayed up all night talking about life our hopes and dreams and what we wanted out of this coming season of Breaking Bad. At 5am they took me to the airport, at 10am I landed in San Diego, at 2pm I arrived back in Venice, my car on 5 miles to empty, one dollar to my name.

I walked to the dollar store and bought 4 failed Kraft Macaroni and Cheese product extensions at .25 cents a pop, cooked myself a late lunch and started writing.

I didn't know what I was doing or how. I downloaded a free piece of screenwriting software called Celtx and began to craft what I thought was a screenplay. I didn't leave my room for three days except to make Kraft's Cars 2 shapes Macaroni and Cheese. And then it was done, a 90 page road trip comedy about a broke guy trying to get across the country to tell a girl how he really felt.

It was so fucking bad, but it was a completed screenplay nonetheless. I sent the finished copt to Cory with the note, "I'm not in love with you or anything, but I was inspired to write this by my Austin trip and I named the female character after you as a kind of thanks."

And I realized then that the past 5 days were the happiest I had been in a very long time, not just the rad Austin trip but the part where I was locked in my room drawing on my experiences from that trip to create a fictional narrative for some character that was heavily based on myself.

Getting this fake dick head to hitch hike from Austin to New York City to tell a girl he loves her was so much fun I didn't know how to contain myself. I sent a PDF of it to a friend at UTA and she messengered a hard bound copy of the script to me, it was almost like I was a real writer. (if you've been to my apartment, that is still to this day the script that we do drugs off of LOLZ) but I was hooked.

I began cranking out shitty rom coms because they were so easy for me to write. Boy meets girl, shit happens, boy gets girl back. Oh man, they were all so bad, but they were a welcome distraction from how shitty my life had become. But then as my attitude began to change, my luck took a turn in a different direction, I landed my first set PA job on the critically acclaimed found footage film Paranormal Activity 4, from there I got on a tv show at Fox and all of a sudden my career in entertainment was off to the races.

Obviously I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm making some progress and I write a fuck ton. I've shifted away from film to tv and dare I say, what I write now isn't dreadful probably just below average.

Who knows if I ever would have actually given it a shot if not for that ill fated trip to Austin. I might have given up on my dream before I ever gave it a chance. I was sad about some girl back home, California was swallowing me whole and it seemed as if I was rapidly running out of options.

It looked like I was going to move back to Indianapolis and work for a third party logistics firm or something until I threw myself in front of a train.

But instead I did something really stupid because of my absurd fear of mission out, and everything worked out. Well, worked out-ish. Might some day work out. Will probably work out.

I still am doing dumb things, I probably shouldn't be so specific about my hedonistic lifestyle on this blog, even if a lot of it is hyperbole or just plain fabrication. But, in my experience, taking risks has proven advantageous so I'm not about to go conservative now.

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