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David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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It’s hard to take a scary chance, but success can be breathtaking

By David McElroy · February 15, 2021

I was very confident, but I was also nervous. It was hard to say which feeling was stronger.

I was sitting in an auditorium on a late Saturday morning about 16 years ago. The auditorium was full. Maybe 600 people? 800? I don’t recall. We were waiting for a block of short films to start showing at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in Birmingham. Most people were there to watch films. I was there to finally find out whether an audience liked my own first film.

My companion that morning was a girlfriend with whom I had a complicated relationship. Things didn’t end well for us, but I’ll always be grateful for her support that day.

I was nervous by the time the lights dimmed for the first short to start. My film was about the fourth in line, so I sat through several others first. I had never been to a film festival before, so I had just assumed the films would be good. I couldn’t tell anybody — because it would have sounded prideful — but I thought the other films were mostly terrible.

My film finally started. I held my breath. Would they laugh? We got to the first punchline. The audience roared with laughter. I was so happy that I wanted to cry.

I told you last night about the demons that pursue me when I try to do creative work and reach to achieve a dream. Tonight, I want to tell you about the flip side. When you can find enough motivation to push the demons away — and you do something that you’re proud of — the feeling can be magical.

I’ll never forget what it felt like to see my short film with a crowd for the first time. It was a great crowd, because it was supportive and maybe even easily amused. The festival had a question-and-answer session featuring directors after the block of films and I can’t remember anything about that. But I do remember I had trouble getting out of the place — because people kept stopping me to tell me they loved my film.

Even though I had tried to be completely confident before the session started, I think Gina knew I was nervous. She had a long history as a stage performer — acting and singing — so I think she understood. I’ll always appreciate one thing she did while the films were still going on.

During the film that was after mine, she quietly reached into her purse and found one of her business cards and a pen. Then she slipped me this note.

“I think yours went over brilliantly,” she wrote. “You should be very happy about it. I hadn’t watched it in awhile and it looked great. Writing was by far superior to the rest.”

I’m thinking about that tonight because I happened to find that old business card with that note. Even though she and I haven’t spoken for many years, it still makes me feel warm and happy inside. I’m glad I happened to save the note.

That short film was very flawed, of course. I really didn’t know what I was doing at the time — and I learned a lot from the experience. I could make far better work today — if I’d just allow myself to do it.

Taking creative risks is scary. I explained some of those fears — and some of the obstacles that come with them — in what I wrote last night. But that’s only half the story.

The other half is the thrill of success — and that’s what I’m remembering tonight.

I remember the joy from that first showing. I remember the joy of going to my first out-of-town festival — in Myrtle Beach, S.C. — where my film won “best in show” for the festival. It wasn’t just the best short. The judges thought it was better than any of the other features in the festival — all of which had far bigger budgets and far more experienced directors.

I remember the happiness and feeling of victory when my little film was accepted to festivals in Canada, Australia, England and New Zealand, as well as festivals all over the U.S. And I remember the amazement every time I would get a phone call or email from a festival director to tell me that my film had won an award at his or her festival.

At several minor film festivals, it was voted “audience favorite comedy.” Even after all these years, that excites me. It thrills me. It makes me want more.

I was brutally honest with you last night about where I’ve been lately — dealing with the shame and fear that try to stop me from moving forward. All of that is true.

But I have to be honest and say that the upside to taking a creative risk and winning is something like few other things in life. I’m eager for that sort of thrill again. I just hope there will be someone with me when that happens who can appreciate the win as much as I will.

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Briefly

I received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine Monday — and I’m happy to report that I’m neither dead nor a zombie controlled by Bill Gates and Co. Eligibility was recently opened in Alabama to everyone who’s 16 or older, so I signed up for the Pfizer vaccine at a site run by a local university. I know this is a political issue for a lot of people, but that honestly baffles me. We can disagree about whether such a vaccine should be mandatory — which I’m against — but as a voluntary choice, it seems like an easy choice now that it’s been safely given to millions of people. Is it a perfect preventative? Of course not. But the decision seemed obvious to me when looking at the statistics and evidence. I haven’t had any of the side effects that some people have experienced, but that’s supposed to be more of an issue after the second dose, which I’ll get on May 3. In the meantime, I’ll let you know if I grow a third arm — or if the secret microchip kicks in and someone starts trying to control me remotely. All kidding aside, getting the vaccine seems like a rational voluntary choice to me.

I get a lot of email from readers. Some of it is fascinating and useful. Some of it is full of confessions that people want to share with a stranger. Some people write to ask advice. What’s really surprising, though, is the small percentage that seems to come from mentally unbalanced people. When I started using the metaphor about being an alien — the tagline at the top of each page here — it never occurred to me that I’d start hearing from people who took it seriously. But every few months, I get a strange email — such as the one above from a few months back — from someone who seems to think I’m claiming to be an actual alien. The first time it happened, I laughed. By the time it became a semi-regular thing, I was simply appalled. For the record, I can provide no proof that I’m an alien, because … well … it’s just a metaphor. I do feel like an alien among human beings, but as far as I know, I’m just as earthbound as you are. It’s just a metaphor. Honest. Or at least, that’s what my lizard-beast overlords told me to say.

After Tampa Bay, Fla., musician Colt Clark had all of his gigs canceled last year for months on end, the entire family felt trapped at home as most of the world was on quarantine lockdown. His wife, Aubree, had an idea that would let Colt make music and involve the whole family in making music videos to share with their friends and family on Facebook. Aubree is a photographer and homeschooling mom to a daughter and two sons, who range in age from 6 to 11. After their friends started asking to share the videos, they made the performances public — and a few of them are now on YouTube, where they go by the name of Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids. The younger son, Becket, is on drums. The older boy, Cash, plays keyboards, strings and guitars. Dad supplies lead vocals and plays guitar, while 6-year-old Bellamy mostly dances but sometimes does backup vocals. There’s even a dog who makes an occasional appearance. The Clark family has just raised the bar for what I need to create with my future children. And best of all, they seem to be having a great time together. I hope they make you as happy as they make me.

Have you ever wondered how the social media world works for so-called “influencers”? I find it comical, so I thought I’d share with you. I frequently get offers such as what I’m about to describe. And if I’m getting such offers — as a relative nobody in the online world — you can only imagine what people with huge audiences are offered. It starts with an email appealing to my ego: “We came across your online presence and we LOVE your style. We’d love to have you as one of our Brand Ambassadors. To celebrate our new [Brand Name] collection, we want to give you a FREE Watch so you can post a picture of you wearing it and drive more exposure to our brand.” Did you hear that? They love me. They want me to be seen wearing their cheap $59 watch so other people will think, “If this amazing influencer wears that, surely I should buy one.” They even offer me commissions on the watches sold from people clicking from my site. So the next time you see some alleged “influencer” touting something online or on social media, remember that this is what it’s probably all about. It’s laughable.

Modern culture is going insane. The latest evidence comes from the effort to redefine children’s author Dr. Seuss as a racist whose books should be banned. Why? Because a few images in those books don’t meet modern political standards. The drawing you see here is one of those “dangerously racist images,” and it comes from the Dr. Seuss classic, “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” The book catalogs all the wild diversity seen by a child on one street, including the offending drawing of a Chinese boy. What’s racist about it? Apparently, it was racist to show the boy eating rice, wearing a funny hat, using chopsticks and (worst of all) having eyes represented by a slit. (The bearded man near him has dots for eyes, but that’s apparently OK.) In other words, the stereotypes are considered racist today. (Oddly, the culture warriors who fret over such things are never concerned if a white southerner is depicted as ignorant trash living in a trailer. Some stereotypes are great, especially if the left hates those people anyway.) Theodore Geisel — the name of the real-life Dr. Seuss — was a product of his time and nobody at that time would have seen any of this as racist. Using stereotypes and exaggerations is how artists depict differences in simple ways. You can argue that it’s better to achieve the end result in a different way, but it’s insane to pretend that everybody from the past should have his work erased because it doesn’t match the preferences of modern leftists. Unfortunately, the company that publishes Dr. Seuss books has caved to the insane people — and six of his popular works will no longer be published. The world has simply gone insane.

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