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Home | Projects | Money | Articles Once upon a time I was born and raised in an amusing city called New York. Being a native New Yorker gives one a self-confidence that lasts forever. I had a middle-class childhood in the quintessential Polish-Black-Italian-Hasidic-Puerto Rican neighborhood. Life was good till I was 11. Then my parents kidnapped my sister and me, and fled the country. My parents had too much nostalgia for their homeland, Puerto Rico, where we moved. Bless their hearts. Despite being American territory, Puerto Rico is actually a different country. The weather varies between hot and sizzling. Income per capita is half that of Mississippi, which is the poorest state in the United States. Unemployment is astronomical. There is a provincial culture of isolation. Public schools back then had only about five hours of classes on school days, and teachers wasted much of that time. Life really sucked. However, Puerto Rico's redeeming virtue is its people. I rarely have met kinder people. Puerto Ricans taught me about compassion and loyalty, for which I'll always be grateful. I decided that my best chance to leave was to earn a scholarship to a top college on the mainland. That became my obsession, and I became a bookworm. It worked. The month after I turned 18, I escaped. I ended my involuntary exile with a one-way flight to Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. is cosmopolitan and chock full of ambition, a lovely Darwinian city. Washingtonians are very aggressive. I absorbed the lessons of this city, and it's my favorite hometown. The saving grace of my life is that I attended a rigorous little academy by the Potomac. My Bachelor of Arts from Georgetown gave me a traditional, Jesuit liberal arts education while training me in philosophy. I learned to think for myself and to focus on fun things, like the meaning of life. Perhaps more than anything, I learned to live my life as an epic adventure. I then attended the post baccalaureate in classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. That actually meant studying more provocative philosophy. Yet somehow, after Georgetown the Ivy League seemed easy, and not all that it's cracked up to be. Penn showed me the more prevalent, dark side of academic life: pretense and endless trivia. That discouraged my ambitions for an academic career. Once done with school I got a job with a philosophy company. We didn't have any business. But at least we knew why. But seriously, I moved a few miles down the Potomac to Virginia's suburbs. In the Washington area unskilled liberal arts graduates like me either work for Dominos' Pizza or at law firms. I worked at several high-priced law firms while trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Life was placid but very unfulfilling. For a period I experimented with different jobs, places, ways. During one episode I spent most of a year in Berkeley, California, mesmerized by the Bay Area's community spirit. I joined the Film Arts Foundation of San Francisco and benefited from its learning resources. Socially significant filmmaking became a nagging career idea. What would Plato or Aristotle do in the 21st century? I kept thinking they would become media moguls. Art can illuminate reality. Ancient Greek intellectuals had a tradition of trying to enlighten while entertaining. Nice work, if one can get it. Living again in the Washington, D.C. area, one night I attended a theatrical symposium at the Kennedy Center. Matthew Broderick advised an aspiring actor to devote a year doing his absolute best to establish an acting career before deciding to give up or continue. Something clicked. I boarded a Greyhound bus and moved to San Diego to pursue filmmaking. This area is quite pleasant, despite its incredible number of self-absorbed people. Bless their hearts. While southern California has countless filmmaking resources, living in the San Diego area spares me the roughness of Los Angeles for awhile. I've been learning the entertainment business, working on my screenplays, making a little money using my paralegal skills to create financing structures for independent producers. Last season I had an on-stage role as a supernuminary in the San Diego Opera's production of Aida. I also have been playing the marketing game in San Diego. My marketing jobs have included International Male and the Globe Theatres, San Diego's largest arts organization. Surely marketing is a handy skill for a career in media. Yet while it's awesome to try to enlighten while entertaining, that's not an easy calling. I'm discovering that the film industry has big limitations. Consequently, I'm diversifying my effort by including other media. Now I'm juggling a few projects. Self-expression through the media has become my obsession. One knows that one is following one's calling when doors start opening, slowy but surely. The initiation can be seemingly endless, sometimes bizarre, and mostly thankless. More importantly, amidst the distracting trivia of daily life, having meaningful projects is a thrill. Let's face it though: some goals have very unlikely odds. Yet the odds improve vastly when goals become good obsessions. In my experience good obsessions are the only goals worth an epic struggle. So far, that's the story of my life.  ã 2002, Ethan Ramos. All rights reserved. |