To Quote Taj Mahal:

"Everybody sometimes have the blues." Oh man, I was seriously considering having a panic attack or nervous breakdown today. Fortunately I was in my office at Job #1 and was able to suffer quietly and privately. First the ugly family drama situation is still going on and still torturing me. That's enough for now, frankly. Then a glitch appeared for my upcoming weekend shoot, but since I am the forger-aheader, I made several phone calls to try to arrange different options that might work; still waiting to see what the best option will be. BUT THEN! KABOOM. A bomb dropped. An email came through from "up above" saying that our Assistant Chief--#2 in the whole command--who has been in the Reserves for 18 years and BY THE WAY, is one of the major stars of my documentary and gave the most beautiful, emotional statements in the trailer, is now GONE. Separated. Departed. The end of him. From the Reserves, anyway!

Lots of phone calls ensued. Me and Mudflap. Me and the Chief. Me and another star of my film. Me and yet another star of my film. Me and one of the Majors who will now have to replace the Asst. Chief in Friday night's upcoming shoot. "What do you think happened?" "I don't know! How can we find out?" "You think he got into it with someone?" "How can this happen?" And while I was not surprised that the Chief ordered me to remove all existing footage of the Asst. Chief from my trailer and everything else, that was like a knife in my heart b/c I and everybody else truly love and adore the Asst. Chief and NOW WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO and incidentally, I spent hours and hours working on that damn trailer and hours transcribing his interview. For nothing, now! And like I said, he made the most touching statements of all and it was gold, documentary gold, the things I got him to say. FUCK!!! So much for my trailer now. I need a whole new trailer and I have no idea how I'm gonna get one.

So it's a good thing I just watched Burden of Dreams; even my mom reminded me what Werner Herzog had to go through. Four years! The Amazon jungle! People dying! Death threats! And the nightmare that is Klaus Kinski! So I can deal with this and it certainly won't make for a good chapter in my future autobiography ("The Book and the Badge" hee hee hee) if the story of my documentary goes completely smoothly and with no drama/troubles/tragedy/mayhem. My heart still hurts today, though. But this too shall pass.