Dicky on Dicky
Thursday, May 1st, 2008 by Kai MantschMorning in San Francisco arrives at around 11:00 AM. The apartment was already empty as I awoke at noon to scavenge for food, the artist residents out doing their collection of odd jobs counting pedestrians and planning parties in the desert. “The towel on the door is mostly clean, it just has a little paint on it,” I was told via cell phone as I tried to assemble a morning routine. “Hey, did you count the girl with the storm trooper helmet as crossing the street twice? Gotta go…”
After poking through the dusty camping gear and santa suits that fill any burner household and coming up empty handed for towels, I decided to hit the street. I managed to find a french cafe I remembered from years past and ordered up a plate of avocado sandwiches. A pick up artist tried to work on me by talking about Tesla, but he had forgotten to google him first. His knowledge ran out long before his enthusiasm. Spring is in the air here, and hormone levels are high. Walking to the supermarket there was a lot of checking out going on before I ever reached the register. San Francisco is a beautiful city and I’m glad she appreciates me.
Last night was the long awaited viewing of The Dicky Box by Logan and Dicky himself. I’m pretty happy with the latest cut, or as happy as I’m going to be, and so it was time to face up to how I’d represented my friends. We rolled out a screen and cranked up the DVD. I would have made sure that everyone had beer, but they were way ahead of me, nervously cracking open bottles of Pabst. I teased them a little but, as Dicky said, “has anyone ever made a feature length film about you?”
I felt a little like I was introducing Dicky to the character Dicky that I had created from a brief time in his past. I wanted the two Dickys to get along, and learn from each other. I chuckled nervously at the silly over-the-top sequence of the kiss, and Dicky was appropriately mortified. “I mean, has anyone ever filmed you making out with someone?! In slow motion?!”
Talking afterwards, Dicky realized that he swore a lot more than he thought he did, and apologized. He also saw for the first time what made the project, and his role, what it was: how much he was both a truly emotional person and yet completely unwilling to admit to or share his emotional experience.
Logan was primarily concerned about his bad hair and strange comments. More than once he had to ask us, “what did I mean by that?” He was very generous, though, about the film I had created, and felt it was a fair representation.
It was a relief to me that the comments weren’t overwhelmingly negative. The things that made either of them uncomfortable pertained more to their own actions and hairstyles, and not the angle I provided. Dicky’s concern about font choice aside, I don’t feel the need to make major revisions now. I have some interest from a sales agent and I’ll be sending her a version very similar to this one when I get back to Austin. It’s time for this project to get some exposure and time for me to move on to the next story.
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