A Million To One, Part II

It’s killing me to be in New York City, not Park City.

I started at Berwyn Video, a ma ‘n pop video store in suburban Philadelphia, the year before Steven Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies & Video Tape” and Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival put each other on the map. And while my tastes ran more “Die Hard” than “Das Boot,” three summers at the video store exposed me to the depth, bredth and diversity of film that I relish to this day.

I was beside myself with excitement when the day job found me walking Park City’s snowy streets for the first time in 2005, and again last year.

True, the festival had the trappings of the worst, most-exclusive Hollywood party. But when I dug a bit deeper, there was plenty of substance to be had (see “Challenging Discussions Keep Star-Studded Sundance Grounded” on Mtv News Dot Com). I would even go so far as to say I was inspired. Neil Young told me to go ahead and get lost.

“You might crash,” he said. “But at least it’s gonna be fulfilling to you.”

The Edge and I discussed the nature of creativity.

“I think Charles Bukowski said, ‘Nothing worth a shit was every written in peace and quiet,'” he said. “I think there’s an element of truth to that. It doesn’t work always for us to be somewhere silent, but you have to somehow eradicate the din of what’s going on out there to be in yourself quiet, to find those things.”

Beyond personal, creative inspiration, seeing the festival first-hand motivated me to jump-start the “Mister Rogers & Me” documentary. ‘If these guys can do it,” I reasoned, ‘Why not me?’

This year, though, there was too much going on at Headquarters to justify decamping to the mountains for a week. And so here I am, equally cold but wholly uninspired six stories above 80th Street.

Worse, we have been dreaming of submitting “Mister Rogers & Me” for ’07 consideration in time for the festivals August deadline. With at least one potential interview declining our request (for now), and at least a dozen more to conduct before we even begin to post, well… I’m dubious that we’ll even wrap principal photography prior to the Sundance deadline.

And so it goes. I am home now. This is what today finds me: peace and quiet. I guess it’s where I’m supposed to be. Maybe I can figure out how to find fulfillment within, instead of without.