Begging for Billionaires and the Impossible Timing

Why do things keep happening to me that seem impossible?

I wasn't told that the movie I worked on for years was going to be playing in the Kansas City Area.

I didn't read the newspaper or was even told it would play once at 5:30 that Saturday.

I was in the area buying a firewire for my camera that I didn't need. I thought to myself;
"I've just wasted a lot of time and gas on a long trip for no reason."

I had went to the movie My Stepdad's a Freaking Vampire that Thursday at the 9th Kansas Film Festival and somebody had told me that a trailer of Begging for Billionaires was shown at one of the theaters in town. So I thought Phillip Klein the Producer and my one time friend had found a distributor and in a few months I might get to see the movie.

So I'm getting ready to go home from Micro Center and I drive by the Glenwood Arts movie theater. I think why not? I might know someone who made a movie that's showing.

I drive up to the theater and park. I meet someone hawking movie fliers for some freedom of speech radio movie. (Broadcast Blues)

"Do you like documentaries?"

"Yeah, I gave a few years of my life to one called Begging for Billionaires."

"Hey, that's playing next."

"You're kidding."

"No, for real go check it out."

I go in and buy a ticket. Ouch, I think to my self. My family lost thousands of dollars because of this movie and I have to pay to get in. I walk to the theater and I think about the death threats and the lung infection I had for three year after I video taped the destruction of old down KC.
I sat down and the title I came up with appeared on the screen.

I think about being chased across Kansas City by union thugs and how they tried to flip my van over with a pickup and a SUV. Then I start seeing my video and hearing my sound and I smile.

People laugh at some my footage, a small chuckle here and there. My work on the movie is more than talking heads and I think what a waste of my talent.

The movie I wanted to make is gone and a good movie is in it's place but not the great movie it could have been. My best interview is in the movie and in the final moments of the movie as a joke on me I guess, is my voice asking the wrong man about Eminent Domain. That was my worst interview.

So in this one movie you find the best and the worst of me trying to capture reality.

I enjoyed seeing my son's name on the big screen and I'm glad my name was missing.

Other than coming up with the title my greatest gift to the movie was talking Phillip into going to press conference in City Hall while he had a lawsuit against the Mayor of Kansas City.
Phillips pointed question to the mayor and her stuck up answer was the real ending to the movie.

The movie about Union Station Kansas City and the Hall connection is gone. Phillip owns that video and won't even give me back the footage of Union Station I shot from a plane two weeks before 9-11 2001. He said he would give me back that footage when I took my name off the movie but it never happened.

Something has happened to Phillip, he scared to talk about one Bully Billionaire who begs for money all the time.

The lights come up and Phillips see me and looks nervous. Both Phillip and I have learning disabilities and worst yet we are both emotional cripples. He can act very rational and then go into long vulgar rants. I become angry without warning. Two guys with learning disabilities shouldn't make a movie together.

Phillip starts to take a question from me and then invites me up front to talk about the movie.
I'm not angry, I'm happy and talk about all the stuff that happened to me in the years I worked on the movie. One man in the audience calls me a lair in so many words because I name two of the unions that chased me across town. I straighten his facts out and hand the microphone back to Phillip.

More to come... Read this one fast Blogger might pull it down.

I see this post is still up. I guess I'm still a little paranoid about Blogger censoring some of my posts on this blog. I was going to write more about this movie but I no longer feel the need to.
I think I was in the right place at the right time to help me bring a peace to my soul to the living nightmare that was the making of this movie.

I hope the movie does some good.