I have been asked to write a book of poetry for this publisher in Portugal. Once finished, the poetry will be published by the former Poet Laureate of Portugal. His name is Jose Brites. I’m afraid of completing the book. I’m afraid that I will die afterwards. I know this sounds strange. The fear is irrational, but to my emotional mind, it is real. I also feel that it is wrong of me to be successful because there have been too many times in my life where I worked with, went to classes with, etc. people who had achieved success at something when they didn’t deserve it. When they didn’t work for it. Those successful colleagues let it go to their heads and became extremely stuck up. I don’t want to turn into a pompous ass. Another thought that pops into my mind is, "What’s the use?" I feel that my ideas will not be accepted by the general public. I am also very angry that there is a world-wide televised program for rock and roll, movie and television awards presentation, but there is no televising of the Pulitzers or Nobels which are more important and substantial. In other words, people actually work very hard to obtain a Nobel or Pulitzer, but get very little credit for it compared to the mammoth amount of press coverage given to actors. You never see writers interviewed on the red carpet. You only see actors being interviewed as if they are the most important people in the world. I can’t stand it, yet I watch the Academy Awards with my wife to make her feel good even though she isn’t aware of the hurts I receive when only actors get the kind of attention I’m looking for. I’ve been on movie sets as an extra and, in reality, the extras actually do more work (if you want to call it that) than the stars. For the most part the set is 12 to 16 hours a day. The Extras have to be available the whole time or they don’t get paid no matter how much time they spend on the set. The stars don’t have to appear at all on a given day and be replaced with a double or stand-in and still get paid muchos dineros. In one movie called Outside Providence , Alec Baldwin only did five days of shooting, but received more money for those five days than my dad made per year working (and my dad was a nuclear engineer and worked harder than any star ever does). During those five days, Alec Spent most of it lounging around in a luxury trailor. The movie, itself, was a flop, but that’s neither here nor there.
