NO…BUT YES

I’ve always been conflicted about L.A. I make movies, and that’s what they do out there—they make movies—so why do I still live in New Jersey?

I love what I do, and my excuse has always been that I don’t want to ever get to the point where I view myself as a guy with just another dream tirelessly peddling it as if it was the most important one on the block. In other words, it’s kind of cool being the only one in a ten mile radius who writes, produces, and directs films.

I came close, once. Right out of Boston University, I moved to San Francisco to make a feature that never reached completion. I stayed there for several years. By the time I left, I was convinced that everyone there who was in some way involved in film—without exception—didn’t quite have the balls to push ahead one step further geographically and make the move down to L.A.

I returned from San Francisco in December of 1997, to my hometown of Livingston, New Jersey. The plan was to write a script and then move out to L.A. eight months later. It didn’t quite happen that way. I wound up producing and directing my first feature, The Homeboy, and moving right into doing Zombie Honeymoon. All good stuff.

But L.A. continued lurking in my thoughts, haunting and teasing me, calling me a pussy in my sleep. “If you’re so fucking good,” it taunted, “then why are you hiding out in the suburbs of the Garden State?

A couple months ago, I asked John Landis if it was necessary to live out there in order to do what we do. He very quickly shot back, “No…but yes.” We filmmakers do what we wanna do, we’re free spirits and blow with the wind. Resolute and inquisiturient, we answer to no one.

But the industry’s out there. So I’ve got to go.

I have an image of what it’ll be like to live out there, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be nothing like I imagine it. I believe this will be the final hurdle for me. (Though of course it won’t.) I’m in the beginning stages of figuring it all out. I have a script ready, and another one very quickly on its way. I’m in the process of figuring out where I’ll couch surf or live. I have a film that’s ready to be set up once I arrive. I have business contacts, and at least several very close friends.

And, except for my fifteen-year-old cat and a 160 gig iPod—my two prize possessions—I have absolutely nothing to lose. I’m ready to do this.

So if you run into me on the street, and I’m somewhere on the east coast, demand an explanation from me. Ask me why I haven’t gone yet. Please remind me that I have one life, just one—notwithstanding the Hindus—and that I’d better make the most of it lest I start regretting that I allowed whatever mysterious possibilities I might have had slip away into the mists of time.

Then throw me in the back seat of your car, get me to the airport, and make sure I get on that plane.