OK, these are the days I hate. The days when all my overdue editing and post productions are complete and these monstrosities need to process, render and upload to the end user. I spend so much time rendering, I should be called Sir Render. It ties up all my networks and serious computers and takes hours while the rest of the other monstrosities are inching up the escalator of insanity.

Like 93 at rush hour, when you have to be some place, my pucker factor is throbbing, the phone is ringing, and I have a huge shoot tomorrow. I have to be ready. In downtown Boston, did I mention that? Where the parking meter attendants wear Uzis and riot gear and Mace is applied freely to anyone hoping to talk one of these vultures out of a ticket.

If you want see a proven paranoid production producer in action, (and I use the term loosely,) come to the house the night before a big shoot on a location nowhere close to home. My wife grabs the dogs and takes them all for ice cream. You don’t show up on site and ask for a do-over. To be sure, I pack so much extra gear my front tires don’t touch 495 all the way in.

I have a small circular track I’ve worn into my studio carpet during client calls. I threw my blood pressure cuff in the trash weeks ago. I do jumping jacks on client calls and  walk up and down the stairs with a headset on. Some folks have told me they are not sure exactly what I’m doing all out of breath like that.

For the truly clueless, I put them on speaker and try to strangle myself with telephone cord. I try to get Susan to take notes while I tend to my anxiety and a quickly spreading rash as the ” You know, I was just thinking, or would it be too much trouble to change that whole beginning” starts filling up my padded cell.

Then my wife is yelling up the stairs for me to check my calendar cause shit be happening. She’s thinking, “There’s no way I’m not getting that new horse.” Good for you, I haven’t even met your other one. I wear sweat pants with a big hole in the ass, sneakers that will clear a room if I’m not in ’em and I only shave when I have to leave the house. Right now, you’re looking at Rasputin.

Come to think of it, maybe she doesn’t have a horse. How would I know? I’m so busy. Maybe Quito is the Mexican gardener. Hmmm. If the next horse’s name is Raoul, I’m gonna get nervous.

Here’s the problem: for the last 17 years I have been plying my art with gusto and a little relish on the side. I eat, sleep and drink my business. I lick it. I fondle it. I add and subtract to it. Everything I have ever done in my life can be applied to it. Music, humor, art, visual communication, character assassination, the list goes on. What’s not to like? I have the isolating habit of immersing myself in everything I do. Lucky for Quito. Very lucky for me, cause my wife Susan gets me. I think.

But here also, is where the big issue lies. I’m too good. ( I’m serious, don’t laugh. Ok, laugh) I know so much about what I do I can finish a client’s thoughts when we’re talking. (But I don’t.)

In the middle of a client pitch and they tell me mid-spiel I have the gig, it’s not good enough for me. “But I have so much more to say.”or “I have questions goddammit!”

“You can’t say OK, just like that. What, no push back? C’mon, ask me a question! Anything! What are you guys hiding? Why, the nerve. There has to be something. What about the art of the deal?  Fuck that! I’m not leaving, you can’t tell me what to do.

Your scope is creeping isn’t it? You’re gonna spring it on me at the last minute, aren’t you? Oh, no ya don’t, you know who I am? We are going to complicate the shit out of this thing or we’re not going to do it. I’m bored and I’m sorry, but someone has to pay.”

I was in a restroom once and I was having my Perry Mason moment in the mirror and unbeknownst to me one of my clients was on the can and heard the whole thing. He thought I was the funniest bastard on the planet. He was crying so hard from laughing, he couldn’t get his pants up. I wasn’t joking, though. Didn’t mention that him. Ha ha!

So the upside is, I have my more than my 10,000 hours to hit genius status in my own mind. I am like the old farmer, “out standing in his field.” Passion has turned to mastery and mastery has turned to laser focus for detail and a measured click by click execution. Hopefully not mine.

Yes, I am too good and that’s just too goddam bad isn’t it? “This ain’t arts and crafts” as I am fond of saying.

Guess I better kick it back a notch. Then again, that’s why Susan brings the sock.