Check it out: You know how you go to events with lots of people, like malls, or movies, or poetry slams, or... film festivals. And you attend these film festivals and people approach you about your work. The people are usually full of congratulations and adorations with a rare and occasional "I hate you and your daddy's momma." And of course, they ask for a card. And you oblige. Out of the need to share your experience or expertise, or simply offer your support to some budding artist [or website maker]. Or that they just make you feel so important, so you egotistically surrender.

Well, last weekend, at the Arizona Black Film Festival, I did such a thing. After a two minute sparse and thin conversation with a tall brother [i'm talking the likes of the Mighty Green Giant] who told me about his website and that he wanted to start screening short films on it, I handed over the postcard of my film that also conveniently had my email addy printed on the back.

The first email from the tall brother arrived the day before yesterday: It was a simple, "Thanks for allowing me to stay in contact." I replied with a simple and succinct: No problem.

The second email was a bit more convoluted: Something about check out my website. Something about spiritual children and iii's that get stuck. Something about burning religion and clutching "grammer" [yes, it was spelled that way]. And some interesting thing about "clits and dicks". I replied with a simple and succinct: I'm confused. [I also checked out his website that was simply two images of what looked like Cala Lillies-hyphen-vaginas. And with a quote from Jesus that said: Let me be your Friend.] Yeh, I was REAL confused. And starting to get a bit spooked.

The final email was a hodge-podge of bible verses and poetic ramblings about the birthday scene in my film and Oedipus complexes and the book of Matthew, Chapter three, verse eleven and then a trailing away with being ordained by the High Priest.

Look... I don't know what the Mighty Green Giant was trying to communicate. He could have been trying to explain a path to a higher spiritual self, or trying to convert me to the ways of Jesus because he felt my film was tainted by evil, or he could have been simply trying to make a new friend. Whatever it was, I was not [and am not] willing to gamble on the personal agendas of strangers I briefly meet at film festivals. And not once did he mention screening my film on his website.

By the way, after I replied to his first email with a simple and succinct: No problem, the Mighty Green Giant responded with a: I just started working on my website FIVE minutes ago.

I tell you, the LESSONS learned...

Until next time,

Keith