For the last three years up until being laid off last June, I had a full-time salary office job. Now I just make films for a living. And when I say "living", I mean "not dead." I haven't been getting a slew of video production gigs but I have been keeping busy working on my own stuff. I can afford to do so for a little bit. In fact, I don't know if I've ever been this productive before. Since June, I released quite a few new music related videos purely for the YouTube audience. They haven't gone viral. It was wishful thinking that a rap video about fish oil would. I've been appearing in more videos. Mostly to give a face to this mysterious Vincent Gargiulo Productions.
I had a 16 song concept album come out - "Roger (Or Journey to Mars from the Styx of Kansas in an REO Speedwagon Starship)." I've only received 2 sales so far but I'm sure it's been illegally downloaded millions of times. To support the album, I did my first live concert in years at local SF club, Martunis. Backed by the Tom Shaw Trio & an array of costumes, I performed mostly original material for a solid 90 minute rock concert. I also had guest stars like Toasters 'N' Moose, Anthony Rollins-Mullens, Shannon Wolfe, & Alisa Damaso come to sing signature tunes. It was a great night that just so happened to also be my 31st birthday. It was pure coincidence but I think it helped guilt trip people to come. I've been invited back to do another show. I'm writing it now. Think "A Chorus Line" but with pets.I have some money saved up for my "big project" - my parody of "Fantasia" called (get this) "Vincent Gargiulo's Fantastic." I really just like the idea of when you look at my filmography it will say "Duluth is Horrible" followed by "Vincent Gargiulo's Fantastic." How much ego is that!? Two segments are more or less done and based on those segments, the film appears to be the most insane thing I've done yet. There is alot left to do and in my need for high production value, I've enlisted the great Ben Brussell to arrange my music for real strings. Hopefully we'll be recording that this month.
"Duluth is Horrible" will be making an appearance at the Twin Cities Film Festival Monday Oct. 21 back in Minnesota dontcha know. I can't make it this time around but I have star, Nadia Norimi, to spread the horrible.
Eventually, I will need to figure out what's next. Is it the cliched filmmaker route of moving to LA? Is it trying to offend some other midsize city in the Midwest? I keep hearing I'd do better internationally and that my pessimism would do wonders for me in France. I just need to create something that I can coast on the rest of my life. The $20 a month from Google Adwords for "David's Pizza Commercial" is nice but hard to live off on. I keep hearing something about grants? Do those things exist and if so, are they only for documentaries of starving kids in Malaysia? CAN ANYBODY GIVE ME GUIDANCE!!? HAS ANYBODY TRIED THE COCONUT CHIPS FROM TRADER JOES'S?? They're sensational.
Doctor's Analysis: Drink water. Exercise daily. Try to stay away from fatty foods and get out more. That'll be $2000.
