Where did Brennan Cole come from? I can’t honestly answer that question but I will speculate that he originated in the deep recesses of my subconscious. I kept looking around me at the people utilizing social media, sharing all they could about their life, promoting their essence, if you will. But I was a forever-introvert. Between my facebook and Instagram profiles there might have been 3 pictures of me shared over the course of the last four years.
This severe digital seclusion fueled several insecurities in me, the first and less acute being: Am I missing anything? The inevitable answer is maybe. I guess I was out of the loop when it came to some of my friends’ lives, at least in terms of immediacy. Everyone knew things before I did because hot news hits the gram faster than texts from time to time. My main issue in terms of missing out, though, came when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to sexually market myself online to women via dating sites. A guy with three stock photos from four years ago is not a desirable prospective digital mate… in fact, he might even be a fucking weirdo. That leads us directly to the doorstep of my biggest insecurity: that I’m the stupidest, weirdest, most out of touch person on the planet. Interestingly, this fear shows itself both when I consider my lack of online persona, and also when I imagine sharing myself with the world. The fear morphs from I’m weird because I don’t post anything, to I’m weird because what I have to say or show or express is stupid or uninteresting. Then there’s the thought of my ineptitude being on display for everyone to see.
When I envisioned hitting a tab entitled “post”, shivers raced down my spine and nightmarish scenarios seared themselves into the akashic records of my technological higher-self. I knew that the more I thought about my demise, the more I was cementing it. I envisioned people on the other end of their phones, coming upon whatever turdlet of my soul I slithered into the void, squinting their eyes, and then doing… absolutely nothing.
Have you ever seen a pink-bellied puppy roll onto its back and wave its four feet for a belly rub? That was (is) me. Now imagine a whole litter of puppies prancing, diving, and rolling in a green lawn to impress children who came to play, and the children are alive and in love with just about every puppy, but they don’t see me. I’m here, I’m cute — fucking adorable, honestly. There’s got to be some kind of problem with the algorithm since God’s last update. I can’t really see what’s happening from behind my lips, which are flopped back up over my eyes, but nobody is petting me, that’s for sure.
I could go on, but the point of all this is that I roll over and shake off and look around and the yard… it’s completely fucking empty and the door to the house is closed. No new friend requests, no likes or comments —it’s like I don’t even exist.
And then it starts to rain.
[That’s a nice subtle screenwriting/film/story reference I slipped in there. I’m alerting you to this fact so you can understand my wit and worthiness.]
So now you know the context of my fears. This is getting long so I’m going to start writing this like a log entry. I’m done being poetic.
The short and sweet of the context of my life: I have been going broke for years, living off savings, attempting to get foothold in screenwriting, and with no success. It’s a fucking shit show, the whole Hollywoodland, read my stuff!, Sure, I’d love notes!, Let’s make something happen, deal. And I swear I’m good at writing. Better than the drivel you’re reading now. This shit isn’t even edited like my screenplays are. So anyway, I can’t possibly deal with one more ounce of disappointment on the screenwriting front, and nobody knows who I am or what I look like or how cool and smart I am. All they know is I’ve got a thousand pages of stories and that they don’t really like to read that much.
I text up my cousin because I know he’s into film and photography and I ask him to come out and shoot a short with me. This is something I’ve been planning for months, mostly because I’m so scared that I need to feel like I know everything about everything going in. I get the camera (more savings blown so I’ve really got to make something happen now). Learn the camera. Set up the shoot. Go to the desert, just the two of us. My story is about a serial killer so my first time really spending one-on-one bro-bonding time with Cuz-o is him helping me shoot this thing about a guy murdering people, a story I’ve been fixating on for months. I have this crazy look in my eye from it, probably. I’m so fucking scared to act in this thing but I couldn’t find anyone I thought was right, and so, I do it. My back is going out because of the nerves but I get through the thing — acting like a maniac, the whole deal. And when it’s done I know I’ve just lost my virginity. I’m dry — depleted. I’m confused and a little excited and I hope that wasn’t the best I can do.
Your performance is never good the first time. It’s awkward. But you get the essence, the feeling, the door of your reservations has been kicked off its hinges and you’re standing there in a power stance wearing a latex suit ready to lay down a smorgasbord of level 13 bondage play (maybe this isn’t common).
Something so gnarly had been brewing in me for 33 (THIRTY-THREE) years. This perfect confluence of desperation and maniacal disassociation from what I had known as my absolute prudent reality sparked that powder-keg and Brennan Cole is what emerged from the smoldering ashes. I was so tired of taking myself seriously, I quite literally felt like I could not take it anymore, for my own health and safety. And I needed to get better at the film stuff… all of it. Directing, filming, editing. But I didn’t have any media to work with. And that’s when a fun little idea hit me. I decided I’d become everything I’d made fun of, feared, or secretly admired (those things aren’t mutually exclusive, in my experience). I’d become someone who doesn’t give a shit about any of the things I personally give way too many shits about (public appearance, social aggression, appearing vainglorious, confident). And he’d also give so much more of a shit about the things I normally don’t (winning at all costs… ALL costs, transactional business, the pursuit of cold, hard MONAAAY).
Brennan is in many ways a real gem, and I can say that because I am him. He’s aggressive and forthright. He is comfortable on camera and moves with assuredness. He’s friggin’ loaded… i mean Wealthy with a capital “W”. He also wavers between truly wanting to help people and having so little confidence in the general public that there’s no problem at all with a me first mentality. Sometimes he makes me feel like a dick. Sometimes he makes me feel awesome and cool and posteriorly supreme. All I know is that this is a way to express and create and explore life. This is a new angle of approach for me in learning between the lines, the grey areas of our experience that are so hard to define but which are inevitably the sandbox we will spend the majority of our lives playing in. Nothing is clean or easy or simple EXCEPT in the mind of Brennan. I think I’ll continue to make the trip until it serves me no more.
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