Non grata

Chris White’s Kickstarter.com funding widget says that he’s surpassed his goal three days shy of the deadline, which means that his film “Taken In” will be funded and that I, at the very dignified age of 51, will get to list a film credit on my resume.

Disappointingly, though, only one of the eight people I suggested to Chris as funding leads ponied up. Most of them were people I’ve known for decades and with whom I’ve worked closely, albeit long ago, so when I consider that the minimum donation was only $1, it’s hard not to take the silence of the seven other lambs personally. Recession or no recession.

(Note to self: Reconsider plans to become a professional fundraiser.)

In their defense, or maybe to rationalize, I probably should have done the asks myself. I probably shouldn’t have given Chris their email addresses and left it to him to drop my name. I probably should have written to them and said, “Look, I know that I’ve pretty much ignored you for ages and I know that I’m a moody bastard, besides. But if you w ould please, think back to happier times, or to what I remember as happier times …”

And so on.

But the majority of them likely would have written back, “So Tim, after over four years of nothing, preceded by God knows how many years of next to nothing, mixed liberally throughout with your self-important, shithead attitude about yourself and everything around you, you’re expecting me to do what?”

Point taken.

But we’re doing the film anyway, so bite me.