- Riley
- Sep 24, 2023
- 21 min read
Good mourning!
About a year ago I saved an update post on here under drafts titled “Giving Up,” announcing my retirement from writing. The Circuitry Might was going to be my one and only contribution to the world under that license. Funny enough, I couldn’t bring myself to finish the thing because I hated writing so much that I couldn’t even write about how much I hated it.
Thank god I was such a lazy self-hating bastard. I’ve experienced a lot of failure in the last three years since the release of the book. So many that crushed my soul to say goodbye to because of the time, thought, and effort put into making them happen. Year by year, I’d think I’d have my next big idea and it just wouldn’t materialize into something I was proud of or could call fully realized/complete.
Recently, I finally decided to myself that I’d make it official and put those failed projects to rest. I need to start the process towards acceptance and that’s kind of what this is. Anyways, I thought it’d be fun to explore each of those here and talk about them so you guys can see how much potential each hinted at. Hopefully, anyone reading this walks away with at least a little bit of understanding as to why it’s been so hard for me to let go. What’s more, an understanding of how this can lead to a horrifically deflating loop involving the stages of grief. At the end, maybe we can all laugh and smile fondly by looking back and admiring the good ideas instead of the poor executions.
One last side note…Don’t let this all seem like doom and gloom at the virtual funeral because I’ve got a big point I want to make at the end of the conversation which eventually leads into an announcement. I promise that this is more fun for me than anything. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here writing this. That's what it's all about.
2020: Roommates (the series)
During the filming of The Circuitry Might documentary, and back in the summer of 2019, I went out with German one day to shoot a little promo thing that would be easy marketing for the book. It was way more fun and interesting than it had any right being. So, after the book came out, I wanted to simultaneously do a sequel to that video and a premiere of a new YouTube series that would accomplish multiple goals. It would serve as continuous marketing material for the book itself while also being an outlet for me to tell a new story. I floated the idea past German, but he wasn’t big on the idea because he wanted to “create art not content,” which still makes very little sense to me since isn’t it possible to do both? Look at the Barbie movie. Look at a Kendrick Lamar album. Look at a lot of things. Anyways, I took my friends Jake and Lea as new filmers and made an entertaining video, advertised the book, and shot what was technically a pilot episode for a long-running comedy mystery series. Peep the ending of the last video to see what I’m talking about. Mission accomplished! This was just the beginning of a long and fruitful new venture, surely.
So what was the series even supposed to be about? What was my vision? Each episode would feature a different Riley inspired from the story “Roommates” at the end of The Circuitry Might. As you may have seen, during the closure of episode 2, the Riley who hates everything is murdered in an alley by an unseen villain. Episode 3 would have shown the subsequent investigation by detective Riley and the discovery of the crime scene. Episode 4 was set to reveal that the killer was actually another Riley with an unknown evil cause to exterminates other Rileys. This drip feed of realizations would continue until the dam broke. The remaining episodes would deal with more murder, more twists, more turns, and more ridiculous Riley characters. We have this epic beach reveal scene in one of the later episodes that I absolutely love where a Riley discovers the true killer and confronts him of these crimes as the music swells and a showdown ensues. The series would have ended with the protagonist locking the antagonist inside their own house together and burning it down with each of them still in it, ridding the world of the damage caused by Rileys after all. The sound of fire crackling louder and harder would play through the end credits.
Every one of these episodes would have featured scripted moments as well as candid ones with real unsuspecting people, just like the first two. The episodes would model the style of a Sacha Baron Cohen project like Borat, Bruno, Da Ali G Show, etc. Prank interviews were often meant to be paired with story scenes and a mix of the two. Various bits of organic humor would obviously ensue from whatever character I would be playing interacting with strangers while trying to accomplish my goal. I had written chase scenes, dramatic emotional sequences, and some really funny material that all shared that same feeling. My ideas for location filming were also diverse and interesting, and I really wanted to push the objective of each episode taking place somewhere new once the third episode started.
Why didn’t it get made? Well, if you check the date of the last video, it came out right before a little incident occurred that shut down the whole world for way longer than anyone anticipated. We had already planned episode 3 + 4 to be filmed in the summer of 2020, but the dates had to be pushed back over and over again until we just didn't know when we'd be able to film comfortably in public again. I didn't feel good about sticking a mic in people's face while any chance of another COVID swell was on the rise again. Eventually, I lost contact with German entirely when he went off to work full time in the wild world of the Hollywood film industry and haven’t heard from him since. I also never really had the same level of communication with the friends who filmed episode 2 with me after the dog days of the pandemic were somewhat over. I had rewrote a grand return episode intended for the post-pandemic era (whenever that was) which sort of fit the theme of a Riley gone missing. It involved another Riley looking for the lost/killed Riley from episode 2 and carrying a missing poster around the same location we filmed the previous episode at asking “if anyone has seen this man.” In case you missed the joke, I’m obviously the guy on the poster just a bit fatter and more depressed which would have made for some funny interactions and some ironic meta commentary on the actual state of my life. The episode would have ended with the discovery of the crime scene and the introduction of inspector or detective Riley, complete with mustache, aviators, and all.
I’m sad to let this idea walk out the door because there’s a few scenes from throughout the whole project that I wrote which are so genuinely golden and amazing. I’m so mad people will never see them but maybe I can incorporate those winning bits into future material. Only time will tell, I guess. For awhile, part of me felt like I should just start it back up again despite the huge gap between episodes because it might be sort of funny to act like nothing happened in the last few years. It would certainly bring a whole new meaning to searching for missing versions of myself that may have been inexplicably killed off. There is still something interesting to me thematically about a revival. However, I feel like that era of my work doesn't really fit what I'm doing now. In a way, all those Rileys were killed off screen without the spectacle. I'm sad I didn't get to film the process of this new me coming in, but at least I can report about it.
2021: The Hotel Dugant
This one is REALLY going to hurt. It was supposed to be my debut novel and a test to see if I could do a compelling story in true long form. I actually announced it on here with this article and picked up right where I left off once The Circuitry Might was done. Production on it was actually very steady throughout the pandemic and I got about 70% of it done with all the free time I had inside. Tonally, it felt very similar to my short stories. It’s weird and funny and dark and whatever you least expect could fly into the plot at any time. But, what was it about?
The Hotel Dugant is a story about Kennedy and his best friend Lincoln, who work as valets at the tallest hotel in the world. To be honest, nobody knows how tall it is. Some say it’s infinite. The physics of the hotel make little sense. There’s entire multi-acre golf courses, huge casinos, a prison, and anything you could ever imagine inside. One day, it’s revealed that the mysterious unseen owner of the hotel, Herbert O’Bannon, is assassinated and the meager valet, Lincoln, is unexpectedly named the new president before abruptly disappearing without warning. Most of the story’s runtime is focused on Kennedy tirelessly climbing the countless stories of the hotel in search for his friend. He believes Lincoln could be in real danger after hearing rumors of disappearances and soul-sucking machines used to keep O’Bannon and the hotel alive forever. As more time passes, Kennedy slowly loses focus/control with the endeavor along with his own mental state. The hotel causes him to see disturbing visions and he even begins to work with a secret aid named Robbie who is later hinted at possibly being a future version of himself that’s stuck wandering the halls of the upper floors forever. A LOT happens in between, but the story would end with Kennedy being caught and forcibly escorted out, only to run into Herbert O’Bannon during the fiasco. When asked how he was alive, O’Bannon brushes his own assassination off as mere rumors. When asked where Lincoln is, he tells Kennedy that Lincoln simply left the Dugant and that Kennedy never really meant as much to him as a friend as he initially thought. In denial about this revelation, Kennedy escapes one last time to tell the future version of himself about this. Robbie convinces him that there is still evil afoot and that the mystery is still unsolved, but Kennedy realizes that this glimpse into the future will soon become a reality he doesn’t want for himself and he’ll be stuck trying to find answers forever. Kennedy steals a car he’s always fantasized about stealing from the valet and leaves the hotel in search for Lincoln, unaware if he was even out there to begin with.
I know I kept the details sparse, but I was doing a lot of literary sh*t and it really did get out of hand by the time I stopped for a break from this project. It was hard to juggle so many extended metaphors all running together at the same time. If you hadn’t already noticed, the two main characters have purposeful names, that’s because literally everyone in this story is named after a famous person who was assassinated. I also had some hardcore allusions to Dante Alighieri’s Purgatorio, with each level of the Dugant operating as some reference to the seven deadly sins and thus, the layers of purgatory. I had the primary symbol of fire working for me in many directions. Kennedy is referenced in many instances as a man on fire. For instance, he’s a chain smoker who falls victim to alcoholism (aka adding fuel to the fire), he vomits ashes multiple times throughout the story, he has a traumatic backstory involving a friend burning to death, he’s in constant fear of BEING fired from his position, etc. Anyways, does this all lead to the theory that the Hotel is just a form of purgatory for people taken out of their lives before they got a chance to carry on with their aspirations? Yes. It’s a good theory. Dogs are a semi-important symbol present in the text as well because of how they relate to our relationships. I’ve also got a lot of motifs in there regarding vampires that involve some of the funniest bits I’ve ever written.
The entire tale is a complicated dismantling of ego, systems of power/control, and the problematic levels of loyalty in relationships (hence the dog references). I think the idea that I wanted to explore at the center of it all was just the concept of energy and how transactive it is. How we choose to spend it, how we justify that, the price we set on it, etc. I became fascinated with both individuals and systems they fall under that take/receive energy. For instance, the system that somebody can benefit/borrow from is the same system that takes from somebody else. The scale differs from huge to small, but the biggest trick is how we don’t even realize it’s happening most of the time. Those same systems get shrunken into how we operate everything, whether it be our nations or our interpersonal relationships. We often manipulate one another into these very same transactions, and that’s really what the world is all about; Using one another to fulfill needs in a vampiric sort of way. If The Circuitry Might was a careful breakdown of the needs that dictate our lives, then The Hotel Dugant takes it a step further by asking how we all play a part and use each other to fulfill those same needs, all the while acting like we’re providing something. For example, do we own dogs for them or us? I would argue it’s always for us. The desire for unflinching companionship overshadows any shallow virtues of "giving an animal a good life." People love to pat themselves on the back. Pets are disguised as friends and vise versa. I’ll take it a step further and add that hotels are a business disguising themselves as a home. The basic need for shelter is now a commodity. One can infer from this that the story doubled as my take on classism and the corporate world as well. Afterall: What’s the cost of selling out? However, I propose that this way of thinking is now ingrained (or maybe always has been) into the way we conduct even our deepest personal relationships. The systems we fight are the same we operate on and institute in our lives and onto others we care about. Were we trained this way, or is it innately human? What’s more, was it innately human to eventually be trained this way? Trained like dogs? Is breaking the cycle an illusion? Does each hotel that is our lives reside within another, larger hotel? I'm sorry if that was convoluted I'm just trying to translate my notes.
The novel meant even more on a personal level since it was by far the most self-critical piece of work I’ve ever done. And, I think that’s part of why I hit a wall. I might not have been ready to emotionally confront some of the subtext. It became increasingly harder to be in touch with my feelings as I slipped further into a depressive state that wouldn’t be fully mended until just recently. I didn’t just have an emotional and motivational block, I also had a mechanical one as well. I began to doubt why certain parts of the story even needed to be told and I had a hard time finding reasons for the middle of the book to exist. It was truly a novel moment. I reached out to some of my most trusted mentors and most of them either couldn’t offer to help much or straight up left me on read. It was difficult because as my main character got lost, so did I. It was that feeling alone that made me think I was right where I needed to be. Unfortunately, working on the Dugant just became less and less fun. And if something isn’t fun to write, it won’t be fun to read. The quality really suffered, in my opinion.
I think one of the main reasons I also have a hard time letting go of this story is because of how much it crazily and weirdly applies to my life now. You know how they say art imitates life and vise versa? And you know how I wrote this story about a friend losing another without warning and tirelessly searching for them only to find out the friend didn’t want to be found in the first place? Well I wrote all that before the exact scenario happened to me. I probably would have let go of this much sooner if my real world best friend didn’t just disappear from my life one day without much explanation. I stuck with the idea of seeing this through because it resembled my current deteriorating and confused state too well. I was basically Tim Robinson every night in front of my monitor. It was simply too good! Step by step, turn after turn, I was genuinely trapped in my own story. Maybe it’s some fucked up manifestation at play. Maybe my old best friend is playing the hardest ruse on me ever so that I can truly get in the head of the main character and he’ll come out from behind the curtain once the book is done. He knew how much it meant to me to get this finished and I also didn’t want to let him down despite us not speaking. We would talk endlessly some nights about how much I wanted to make this story happen and I knew he would be disappointed to see me give up on it. He was one of my sole motivators during that time and was going to have his name printed at the end, so yeah, that’s right, I’m deluding myself into thinking this is all a mind game and that we’re still friends and he’s testing me JUST like the end of the book where Kennedy doesn’t learn a thing and decides to leave the Dugant in pursuit of his friend in order to make things right again in the “real world,” which ends up being a bigger hotel anyways. Art imitates life. Life imitates art.
Well, I’ve got bad news for my old friend, because The Hotel Dugant is officially retired. Yay! We can be friends again, right? Still waiting… I don’t think that’s happening either, unfortunately. The friendship may have officially (and sadly) been moved to the grave right along with this book. Luckily, both relationships will live on in how they influence my future work and I’ll always be grateful. That's just the most simple way to put it.
This leads to some actual good news which is that I already have a strong idea for another novel which borrows some of my favorite elements from the Dugant that I didn’t spoil here. I haven’t started any part of it but I have lots of notes for when I feel like the time is right to begin the process.
2022: Once the Fever Breaks
This was my attempted comeback from possibly the most lost I’ve ever been in life. It was a full-length film in the form of a gameshow.
Earlier in 2022, I came across some recountings of how they used to care for sicknesses back in the day and was inspired by what I heard. After long nights of battling a relentless fever associated with an illness, the afflicted and their caretakers knew they were finally winning the battle if they could manage to somehow break the fever and bring the temperature down. The fever breaking typically means the worst of it is behind you. So, how does one break a fever? To this day, medicine and rest is the best solution, with the fever typically breaking quickly overnight if you've successfully used the two in the right way. The idea was this: I had a sickness, too. It wasn’t your typical ailment though, it was one with life.
Look, for the record, I was also severely depressed. So, I guess you could say I also had a non-physical ailment. Why did I opt for this silly convoluted solution to my real problem instead of opting to seek professional help like I did when I almost died in 2019, you ask? Well earlier in the year, my dad got mad at me and pulled my access to healthcare by removing me from his medical plan, meaning I didn’t have access to any resources to manage it other than what one could consider “natural remedies.” This also meant that of course, when a severe OCD episode inevitably came rearing back at the end of the year, I had to pay out of pocket to a sketchy third party for medication just to manage to come into work and eat a meal again.
Ok, now that that’s put into perspective, I was trying crazy things to cure myself from this slump on all levels I was in. Besides, my mental and artistic sides usually coincide with one another. So, consider it a fever of sorts. This leads to my next logical question: How does one break a mental fever? I wrote down everything I could that has ever made me or any regular person feel happy about life and came up with a way to somehow shrink it down via a short activity that would hopefully stimulate those same hormones. For instance, when people need to jumpstart the battery in their brain again, sometimes they take a vacation. A change of scenery can be good for ushering in new mentalities. This was why I was going to be filming somewhere else entirely instead of my own familiar apartment. Picking up a new hobby or artform is another popular way to get some serotonin. So why not do that a bunch of times all at once?
Now, I just needed a pill to deliver this medicine in. What’s the one piece of media we all associate with staying home sick? Sh*tty daytime reruns of game shows! Who doesn't have a memory of Pat Sajak or Bob Barker taking care of them on a day they stayed home from school/work? I’m pretty sure more people have broken fevers while being swaddled by the sounds of Wheel of Fortune than any other form of programming.
That's right. My solution would be to stage a gameshow with a wheel full of my greatest adventures/goals and megadose life for one night. There was one host, one contestant, one loser, one winner, and they were all going to be me. One last chance to rectify this thing. One night to get it right.
The concept was straightforward. I would lock myself in my good friend Ashika's garage with everything I needed and spin that wheel until morning with the highest of hopes that I could break my fever by force. I wanted to document my insanity so I stuck a camera on a tripod, set up some lights, hooked up a mic, and got to work. The activities ranged from shaving my head, putting on a powerful puppet show, designing merch for the film and holding a fashion show with it, creating an original song, jumping into the nearby lagoon, painting a painting, rebuilding the set to scale with Lego, prank calling people, showing a random photo from my camera roll and explaining it, and even facing my fears by eating a burger with everything on it for the first time in my life.
I am the master of two birds, one stone. It was time to make history by killing a hundred at once. If this worked, I would have broken my rut in all facets. I would have accomplished everything I wanted out of life at the time and finally broken the streak of failed projects. I was going to fit an entire year's worth of accomplishments into one night and one film. In hindsight, this was way more ambitious than it felt at the time. I was definitely in over my head, but that's because I had a hard time grasping the reality of anything. I was disconnected as hell from anything life had me doing. In a way, it was the best and worst mindset to be in for a project like this.
So, why didn’t it work? I did it, actually. I filmed the whole thing. It took some doing but I didn’t wuss out and saw it through. Some sequences came out perfectly, with others going even better than planned. The rest suffered heavily in quality. At the end of the day, I knew it was going to have to be something that was absolutely sold in editing. There was some electricity missing in many of the takes that I imagined would be more vibrant to actually film. In reality, there were long and boring hours of me figuring things out just piled onto the camera's SD card. I had all that footage on my hard drive for months, but never found the strength to make more than a trailer. If you follow me on Instagram, you can see that clip if you want. It’s the first thing on there. After making that trailer, I never once had the incentive or desire to go back and tirelessly put that mess together into something presentable. When I’ve made long-form content in the past, I know it’s going well because I can’t wait to get back to it and add more or keep working. With this, everything felt like a complete and utter chore. It wasn't interesting to me in the slightest. Even filming it was exhausting, and I really don’t think I was focused enough on actually getting personal satisfaction out of it. I think I was hoping that if I just did it, I would feel better and be excited about it, but that never happened. Every step of the process was painful and I refuse to release something that doesn’t have the tender love and care it deserves.
I wasn’t happy with my journey, I was just happy it was over. It didn’t feel like something worth releasing because I had zero passion about it and this was a project that needed to ooze passion and excitement to get back out there. It wasn’t supposed to be a project about how f*cking hard everything is right now, it was supposed to be a project about how stoked I was to come back and live life again. The truth was, I wasn’t enthralled about anything going on with me. I was actually dreading waking up, still. I went back to work the next day and everything felt normal. Nothing changed. Barely anybody even cared to wonder why my head was shaved. Maybe they were too afraid to ask, but it didn't feel like it. No matter how drastic of measures I took, nothing seemed to work.
How was I going to look forward to a project about getting better if I didn’t feel like it? The film was a lie. I knew that if I edited it together, it would give off the impression I was on the road to recovery, when the truth was that I still couldn’t find salvation. Even the closing shots, which end with me triumphantly jumping into the Lagoon at sunrise feel like a delusional obligation. Again, I wasn’t happy because I felt like I broke the fever, I was happy because filming this piece of crap was finally over. Sure, I could have finally had a project to put out, but I wouldn’t have felt good about it. Feeling good about it was like half the point. I don’t want to say the film felt forced, but it sort of did. Some genuinely emotional moments mixed with half-hearted others that might maybe possibly not seem that way if edited properly wasn’t worth it. Besides, when do I ever make positive projects? I’m sorry, but this helped me realize that my best work is about coming to terms with horrible realities both externally and internally. Also, with any art, honesty is the best policy. It makes creating easier because it’s flowing organically. It also leaves people with something. Why do you think I’m writing this big ass soliloquy?
Luckily, some of what I wrote that night will find its way into future projects. The poetry, for the most part, was very compelling. I also learned a lot about shooting with a real camera and what visual tricks I could pull off with it to enhance how the viewer experiences the artform. Lastly, I realized that if I'm not being honest and trying to communicate or translate exactly how I'm feeling, then it's a waste of time. The excitement should stem from my accuracy toward a central emotional resolve that CANNOT be forced.
If you haven't already, please click on the slideshow above to see some screenshots of the film, if you're interested. This is likely the only time I'll show more images from this dead venture.
Let’s face it. This era of myself was defined by failure. I failed as a friend, a partner, as a son/brother, as a functioning member of society, as an artist, and worst of all, at being me. That feeling of being an absolute waste was all I felt. And looking back at it, I want to shed a tear for all the times I forgot how to. I was a ghost with skin just aimlessly wandering the world. I couldn’t escape being mediocre.
But, what if you can fail so hard that you succeed? What if you can turn all those last place medals (if they even make those) into the shape of a first place trophy? Going so far in one direction that I come out on the other side is sort of inadvertently my thing.
Look, there’s no doubt I created a monster. But isn’t creating something what you wanted to do? I couldn’t help but notice every single one of these failed projects had some redeeming qualities, they just broke down in a certain area of execution. What if I built a Frankenstein of forgotten and thrown-out ideas? These ideas didn’t go anywhere. They just sat and marinated in the cess-pool of my fucked up depressed-ass brain for the last few years. All I wanted to do was leave, I just couldn’t find a way out. Every exit felt like an entrance. But that’s exactly it. I was…feeling something. I swear to god, the most important thing to do when you ever come to a creative crossroads is ask yourself, “how do I feel?” Well I felt like hell. Why not show it? During those days of regression, I forgot how to communicate. But, I distinctly remember saying, “oh ho man these fuckers are going to hear all about it once I figure out how to say it again.” And, that’s exactly what I did. Notice how I’m not telling you it, I’m telling you about it. The act of failure to do something and leave with nothing is still something. Absence is a form of presence. Leaving is a form of entering. Sometimes the idea for the object is more interesting than the object itself. Trust me, reading about these failures to tell a compelling story is a much more compelling story than the story I was trying to tell in the first place. The story of what happened to the story is a far better story sometimes. Does that make sense? Too bad.
I guess if I have any advice to my future self, don’t give up on your ideas, just also don’t be afraid to feed them to that dark scary creature hiding under the floorboards. It might serve it better in the long run. Throw those good ideas in the vat and see how they mutate.
Also, I just want to add that I would never have learned to trust my feelings and communicate them again if I didn’t have people to encourage me. I knew that working hard to rebuild my support system would hopefully pay off, and it did. It really did. I now have a fantastic circle that I will always put first because I know what it’s like not to have one. I was sinking down into the pit of quicksand, and you wouldn’t be reading this if it weren’t for the people who (knowingly or not) threw out a rope and held on.
Also, if you want to know more about these failed excursions, please reach out and ask me! I’m happy to share something that might inspire/entertain someone else and I’ve always been enamored with ideas about ideas and so on.
Sometimes you have to lose everything to appreciate having something. With that being said…
My new film/collection of short stories titled Tales From the Exit Door is out now.
Give it a watch right here
