Looking back, moving forward

One of the criticisms the original “Boys of Summer” received was that my father and I got along too well. Yes, I’m being serious. From the standpoint of purely selling tickets and DVD’s, I get it; general audiences find more immediate interest in rich housewives arguing than they do an average American father and son dealing with a devastating disease diagnosis in a positive manner – in our case, by road-tripping to all 30 Major League Baseball parks.

Though that criticism stung when I first heard it, particularly from potential distributors, I see it more clearly now. I can see where people wouldn’t understand the work my father and I put in to our relationship to make it what it is today. Being blood-related is not enough to make one interested in a meaningful relationship. There are many, many assumed relationships by blood that don’t carry much meaning in the individuals lives. My dad, wisely, kindly and lovingly realized he wanted more from our relationship when I was 20 years old and away at college. That’s when he first proposed we go to all the ballparks, though it was a more modest manner at the time – we’d go to a few each summer. We did that for two summers, hitting seven ballparks (Chicago(2), Detroit, Milwaukee, New York Yankee, Boston and Philadelphia) in two very short trips. These were amazing trips and they meant the world to my dad and me.

Life got busy with my graduation, dad’s retirement and various plans, so we set the plan to see the parks on hold. In 2000, after six years of living the Hollywood grind, I felt like I had lost myself. I divorced my life and fled to the desert. My goal in moving to Las Vegas just shy of turning 30 was to figure “it” out – either I’d flame out from excess, gambling, drinking, women, etc. or I’d find out what I really wanted to be when I grew up. I dealt 21, I became Caesar, but most importantly, I did figure out some very important things about me. I knew for sure my path of being a filmmaker was far from over; it just didn’t necessarily have to run through Hollywood.

In 2001, after another difficult relationship breakup, I returned to the Bay Area to make my directorial debut with a very personal film called, “the long road home”. In it, the main character was dealing with calling off a much-hyped wedding, the sudden death of a controversial mentor in a high school football coach and a stale relationship with his father. I gave the script to my mom and dad to read. While the film is not auto-biographical, it is derivative, so I was nervous as I knew they’d see pieces of themselves in the script. My dad said it was the best script I’d ever written. Not only that, he backed the film with a loan to ensure it happened. My parents both okayed the use of their house as my production hub and a practical location for shooting. These were all incredible gifts I couldn’t have made the film without.

One month before production was set to begin, my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. I really didn’t understand what that meant. I had heard of it, but, again, didn’t know what it meant. My dad wasn’t too concerned. Whatever was happening wasn’t stopping him from doing anything or being who he wanted to be at that time. Two weeks later, my mom’s diagnosis with breast cancer was a different story. This stopped them in their tracks. She was going to get aggressive chemotherapy as the cancer had advanced. Even so, that wouldn’t begin for several months, and they restated their blessing for me to make the film.

The process was an incredible journey physically, mentally and spiritually. Making the film taxed me in a way almost nothing else has. As director, producer, writer and lead actor I was pulled in every direction at once. I needed autonomy after seeing my first two films fall short of my expectations, at least in part, because of some of the people involved. My parents gave me that respect – not at all blindly, but based on who I was and what I’d done to that point. I had completed a circle, taking a long road home to get back to zero and reassess where I was going next.

Three weeks into a four week shoot, my dad woke me up, saying, “You better come take a look at this.” I walked, sleepy-eyed, into the front room just in time to see a plane hit the second of the twin towers. It didn’t look real. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. We were glued to the television, like millions of others around the world. The thing that moved me from the set was the immediate demand by certain talking heads for accountability – like the situation was immediately clear and that punitive action toward those people would make a difference. I walked away.

On 9/4/11, we shot a scene from “the long road home” at the Oakland Airport. We literally walked past all security, to the gate, with me even walking onto a jetway to make it look like I was exiting a plane, in order to get our shots for the film. We were clandestine at first, shooting out of duffle bags and wearing wireless lavalier mics. But after a few hours and without receiving anything more than a raised eyebrow from anyone official, we started to shoot more openly. We got a great opening scene. We were very likely the last people to ever be able to shoot in an airport with that kind of access and freedom.

Near the end of the film, near the end of my character’s (Bo) journey on screen, he has begun to wake up to some new truths about himself and his surroundings. As he’s packing, preparing to leave and go back to his new adult home, he asks his father a painful question. That scene is here.

This scene, too, was inspired by a real life conversation with my dad. It wasn’t this exact dialogue, except for the part where dad answered a tough question with “I love you very much”. It was the only answer he could give and, after I calmed down, it gave me a tremendous window of understanding into my dad; we’re not the same, we’re not always going to see eye-to-eye and that is, more than okay, great. By respecting each others differences and honoring each other as the people we are for the things we do, even if we don’t necessarily understand or agree with everything, we have drawn closer to each other. Interestingly, after growing up as political opposites, we have both drawn closer to the middle – not saying that’s the right way to think, but in our hours and hours of conversations that span everything (and I do mean everything), the exchange of ideas has been comforting, enlightening and healing.

If you’d like to see “the long road home” in its entirety, it can be found here. It got some very nice comments won some awards in its brief festival run – I simply ran out of money to push it so I moved on to my next project. Thank you and I look forward to your comments.