If this turns out bad, tell my mother I had no choice! Public opinion might claim I was brash, impudent and unqualified, I prefer daring, self assured and optimistic wink. Either way, I was on a ‘Go BIG or go home’ excursion and it was all his fault.

Robert Rodriguez – filmmaker extraordinaire – El Mariachi, Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Machete, Spy Kids film series, We Can Be Heroes, The Faculty, Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City, and on and on…

Before Robert, I was a flip flop, a waffler, a half asser if you will. I would throw myself into a project then abandon it just as enthusiastically once sh#t started to get real. Do you know what it’s like to have 32 separate files with incomplete creations? Like petri dishes with multicolored life yearning to explore beyond it’s tiny container yet suppressed by some unseen force?
I do.
I had BIG ideas for BIG screens and I imagined meetings with BIG names who would take my hand and lead me to this magical place of creation where dreams become actualized and relevant. In my bold and brilliant imagination these weren’t the gestures of pity or charity or even kindness but of need, their need to work with ME!

I was under a spell, an illusion that I was a creative connossieur, a breath of fresh air for a suffocating audience, hell I believed I could freakin fly!

The great Robert Rodriguez is like the fairy godmother in Cinderella, he waves his wand and speaks magical words meant to transform the drabest scribe into the belle-trist of the ball…well potentially.

He writes, directs, he shoots, he scores wink and edits, heck he has his own studio! Troublemaker Studios, previously Los Hooligans Productions) in Austin, Texas complete with costumes and the Alita Battle Angel city, Double R Productions for co creating content, R.I.P. Rodriguez International Pictures that focuses on horror and by the time of this writing he’s probably created a device for interdimensional travel or at least the ability to simulate it on a green screen wink

And did I mention he even made it on Evan Carmichael’s YouTube channel, dedicated to motivational greats including Wayne Dyer, Depak Chopra, Les Brown, Tony Robbins, etc… Yes, he’s even a motivational speaker! swoon

His 10 minute film school, detailing how he took $7225 – mostly earned as a lab rat, a borrowed camera, a busted guitar case, a wheelchair, a tortoise, and oh yes, his brilliant mind for solving complex or costly filming issues in the most clever and FREE or affordable ways, for his debut film El Mariachi, could inspire my own grandmother to grab her Nikon and her knitting group in hopes to screen their senior exploits at Cannes, or dare to dream, SXSW (South By Southwest). sigh

So how could someone like me be immune? I, with stars in my eyes since the tender age of 3 when I danced my way off stage (my bed) and into the E.R. – still got the scar to prove it! – greeted by Sam Shepard on my way out his movie set in Roswell, New Mexico as a teen (missed opportunity!) aspiring novelist and then aspiring screenwriter who was too shy to enter the Project Greenlight contest as an adult but learned a lot as a member and made friends for life and even got the chance to speak to Ben Affleck (yet another missed opportunity!).

How could I, the eternal dreamer, not be mesmerized, romanticized and possibly even hypnotized when Robert looks (at the camera) into your eyes…no your very soul and says, “You can do it.”?

It’s impossible, so why fight it? I’m no longer aspiring, I AM. I CAN do this, no, I WILL do this! So, be sure to wave when you see me passing above on that Delta flight to Austin, I’ll be waving to you.

Hey, tell me in the comments, are you a fan of Robert Rodriguez (of course you are!) Which movie is your favorite?

Also, if you haven’t heard it lately, YOU are amazing, worthy and deserving – YOU CAN DO IT!

But first you have to BELIEVE

Love and Blessings! Karma Marie