Whatever It Takes

A little over a year ago, my friend Karl, somehow, encountered an emerging film maker.  He made fast friends with him and landed a cameo in this guy’s movie.  It’s real typical of Karl.  He’s an attention whore.  Real good looking.  Real personable.  Real OCD.  Karl can find a camera and make IT look good.  He can make friends with a hotel maid and find a way to network from it.  He also can spot an uneasy soul, and foster and encourage it.   That’s how he rolls.  So, anyway, Karl (and his home) made an appearance in a Hollywood film.  And no, this was not his first encounter with Hollywood.  The first day I met Karl, he was bothered that I made him late to a movie shoot on the set of the Ashley Judd  and Tommy Lee Jones action “blockbuster,” Double Jeopardy.   Never mind that the reason he was behind schedule was because he was driving a boat.   A boat that had just been contaminated by human remains.  A boat that responded to a search and rescue case gone VERY ugly.  I remember him yelling at me “Listen, we have to get this boat somewhere.  Can you work a little quicker?”  I remember thinking “can you put that fucking cup of coffee down and come help?”  I didn’t say that out loud though.  Thank God.  If I had, I might not be telling this story tonight

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Anyway.  My first introduction to Karl was over a cup of coffee and some gray matter.  I looked at him and his fucking movie shoot and swore to hate them bother forever.  I was 18 then, so I got over it.  And that’s why we were still friends 14 years later, when he made his second film appearance.  And this is the one that’s really important.  While the details of how this whole thing came to fruition are still very ambiguous, essentially what happened was Karl was being Karl and ran into a guy who was looking to make a movie.  Again, Karl being Karl, befriended him and the next thing we knew, there was a camera crew in Karl’s house.  How he ever talked his very patient and very beautiful wife into allowing this, I will never understand.  But anyway, there they were.  People.  And cameras.  And movie stuff.  In Karl and Amy’s home.  I was sure that Karl was on his way to being a reality TV star at that point.  I rolled my eyes every time he talked about the movie.  Just Karl being Karl, I thought.  But then something else happened.  He started talking about this filmmaker on a very personal level.  He talked about how honored he was to be asked to help provide a set for this movie.  He talked about doing “whatever it takes.”  He even made mention that the producer, the same guy he had allowed to film in his home, was living in a car in strip mall parking lot outside of LA. And then I was confused.  How did Karl run into a person so glaringly human?  An individual so passionate and dedicated to his convictions, that he would sacrifice his own comfort to attain them.  .  A man who was so committed to his craft, that he was making movies and didn’t even have a fucking house.  Then, again, I realized that was just Karl being Karl. 

So, anyway, Karl met Mooch.  Mooch is a good dude and made a couple movies.  They’re besties now.  That’s where the story ends, right?  Wrong.  Not at all.  This is actually where the story begins.  Because Mooch taught Karl a lot of things, and subsequently, Karl passed those lessons onto his friends, whether he meant to or not.  Karl shared the story of a fledgling filmmaker who lives his life outside the realm of what society deems acceptable.   He shared Mooch’s passion with people who would never have understood the concept.  But, the most important of these tutorials is Mooch’s mantra of doing “whatever it takes.” 

“Whatever it takes” has become a very influential theme here in Sonoma County.  I completely understood what Mooch meant when he said it, or so I thought.  He is doing “whatever it takes” to fulfill his dream.  He’s a man with enthusiasm and vision.  And he is doing “whatever it takes” to create a reality from his dreams.  Not to make his journey superficial, but that’s how I saw it.  And I got it.  Karl, at the same time was going through some pretty serious soul searching evolutions.  He was getting ready to leave a job he had known for 21 years.  He was venturing away from a lifestyle that had provided security and comfort for more than half of his life.  He had to do “whatever it takes” to find a new path.  Not only did he have to find a new path, he had to find it by himself.  Again, I’m not trying to trivialize his experiences, but that’s what Karl was doing.  Whatever it takes. 

I remember the first time I saw Karl wearing his “whatever it takes” t-shirt.  And I thought to myself:  “I want that.”  Not so much the shirt, but the drive to do whatever it takes.  Then I saw Amy wearing a pink “whatever it takes” shirt.  And I thought to myself:  “I want that.”  This time, it was about the shirt.  It’s real cute in pink.  Amy wore it well and I’d like a rack like that, too.  But anyway, back to whatever it takes…I really wanted that.  I just didn’t understand how to get it.  Then, last night, when I made the very long, fifty paces to the mailbox, I got it.  And by “it”, I mean the shirt(s).  Two.  One black, one pink.  Both bearing the reminder to do “whatever it takes.”   As I sat on the front stoop, and opened the package, my heart smiled.  At the same time, I began to weep.  For several reasons.  Because someone cared enough to remind me how important it is to fight for what you need.  Because fighting for what you believe in is important.  Because fighting for what you want is hard.  Mostly, though, I cried because I don’t know what I want or what is worth doing “whatever it takes” for. 

I have a lot of “whatever it takes” moments.  Usually, those moments come in the form of paying the rent, feeding my child, and driving to work in the morning.  They are never as inspirational as Mooch and Karl.  And that makes me think that I should be looking for something more…that I should be doing something more. But then I realized, sometimes doing whatever it takes doesn’t just apply to fulfilling your dreams.  It applies to surviving.  That’s when I realized Mooch’s intention.  Or at least the intent I hope he was implying.  I think that doing “whatever it takes” isn’t necessarily a challenge to change the world, but it’s more meant as encouragement to complete what the universe has tasked you with. 

I can do that.  I may not be able to save the world, but I can do whatever it takes to save my own life. 

-Inner Peas