Almost legal...

Almost legal…and oh yeah…forgot about the Freddies…

Met with a Brit named Arran early this morning.  Arran is the editor of FACT magazine, one of the hippest rags on the Island.  (Wow…did I just sound hip by saying that?)  FACT is also owned by Omar, Khalifa’s son, who was the GM at KSDI right before I arrived.  Since we are sister companies, we are trying to figure out ways to promote each other.  The goal is as KSDI grows…so grows FACT magazine.  There are certain synergistic efforts for both of us working together.  I hope it will be a long and prosperous partnership. 

As I was trying to pump up my Bio for FACT, I remembered one of the programs I wrote and directed this past year won a Freddy Award (Oscar for Medical Videos).  TIME IS BRAIN was on stroke awareness and prevention.  I think I forgot to mention it because my name was somewhat stricken from the project.  This is a classic Hollywood tale, only it happened in No. Ca.  It comes down the adage…success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.  I was quite proud of the piece I created for “Time is Brain”  it was actually one of my best pieces ever.  It will save lives.  That is the type of positive impact I love to make in the media.  But when I left my last company just previous to coming over to Bahrain.  They didn’t pay me my last paycheck.  I won’t get into the hows…and the why’s, but they just told me…we don’t think you earned it.  So I went to the California Labor Relations board to file a claim.  So they stripped everything away as far as credit goes.  Now…im ok with this.  I’ve never been a big credit guy to begin with.  Egos are huge in Hollywood so I learned early in my career to go the other way.  I take enough pride and satisfaction from a good piece of work.  So when they won the award at the black-tie ceremony in New York, there was no mention of thanks Rick… Everyone else took credit.  That is just the way it goes…and Im not bellyaching.  Im proud of the project, proud that it won.  I can now finally and legitimately call myself an award winning filmmaker.  It makes my press release look a little better. 

Its weird when im trying to trump up my accomplishments.  I don’t really like to talk about it all too much.  But when you are dealing with PR, you have to overinflate things…sensationalize to the hilt.  So I have to get in the mode…for the sake of the company…where I have to really get an ego…and believe im the best thing since sliced falafels.  That is not really my style…but im trying to learn to make it my style at least temporarily.  Geez…I hope that didn’t come across too egocentrically (is that a word?)  I don’t have a squiggly red line underneath it so it must be a word.   So I say all that to explain why I probably didn’t mention the Freddy Award when we won it a few weeks back. 

It’s no fun being an illegal alien.  That was my status after my visitor visa expired a few weeks ago.  I was in danger of being deported at any time.  If you think about…im just very well compensated fruit picker just an INS bus ride from coming back home.   But in actuality, that most likely wasn’t going to happen.  That’s just another perk of being an American.  We have privileges worldwide, deserved or not, that the rest of the world just doesn’t have.  So Ali, our resident Visa guy, got me processed so im halfway there to my permanent work VISA.  Ali told me that for Americans and people from the U.K. its very easy for him to get Visas.  But for Sri Lankans, Bangladeshians, and others its quite difficult.  An American passport with very few exceptions will get you in any country.  If you hold an Indian, Iraqi..or other passport you will have extreme limitations and much more red tape to wade through. 

Im still at the office as I write this at 845 pm.  I just let most of the staff go home.  We are up against some pretty tight deadlines so I asked a few of the staff to stay over to help out.  Guess what…they all stayed.  It’s the exact team effort I’m trying to build here.  I even told a few of them, they could go, and they volunteered that they wanted to stay for team spirit…unity.  Woo-hoo for that.    Who am I kidding…they probably all stayed because I bought them all dinner lol.  The only person left in the office now is Manu, my young and brilliant computer animator.  This guy is really good and fast.  I’ll post some of our work when we complete it tomorrow.  I have a couple of really important meetings coming up this week.  So your continued prayer is appreciated.