According To Me

Okay, here’s where we’re at with my neighbor’s dog:
There’s mostly good news, not the least of which is the dog himself has matured somewhat beyond the puppy stage, which doesn’t really mean he barks less, per se, but that the episodes do not last quite as long. What I mean is, when he first got here, he’s see another dog pass by and woof at him. Now, your average dog will woof for awhile and stop. Not my friend. 20 to 40 minutes later (I once clocked him, no kidding, at over 70 minutes) he’s still complaining about this passing dog, who was, by then, long gone. Cody does that far less frequently now. He’ll usually shut up after five to ten minutes, only railing on on those rare occasions.

Another neighbor, tiring of our childish bickering, called the dog’s owner (who is offended by my referring to him as Dog Man, and for winch I apologize as he now reads this blog; I meant no insult by “Dog Man,” other than, literally, shorthand for “The Man Who Owns The Dog”) and I to a summit where this neighbor negotiated a peace treaty between us. I made the guy what I considered the ultimate deal: if he would keep his dog quiet—not inside, I never asked him to keep the dog inside, just keep him quiet—on my two days off (Saturday and Monday), then he could do whatever he wanted for the other five days of the week.

Five days for two, I thought was a god deal. And, for many months, it was. If I was going out on those days, I’d call my neighbor and tell him he didn’t need to keep the dog inside that day since I wouldn’t be home anyway. We did the courtesy call thing and time management thing, and life was good. Then, over the course of some months, little by little, the armistice began to splinter.

I did a Google search for something or another and turned up a message board comment referring to me as, “Well-known crackpot Christopher Priest said thus and so…” Crackpot? *scratches head* When did I become a crackpot? I wasn’t so much insulted as I was puzzled. I mean, of all the insults to hurl at me, “crackpot”? I did snicker, though: at least I was “well-known.”

Well, every place except here. Here, I am a piano player. I am a minister. That’s all these folks really know about me. I gave copies of my Green Lantern novel to my neighbors, they still don’t get what I do. All of which actually works for me, except that, now with a local ministry developing an independent film, they’ve pursued me to work with them on the film while, at the same time, not treating me as a professional. It’s a little hard to explain, but, it’s like, I’d do a first draft of the screenplay for little or nothing. Then when financing started to come in, the group looked to Hollywood and New York for a “real” writer, offering him $25k to do a re-write of my screenplay, for which I’d charged them less than one-fifth of that rate to do. And, I wondered, is this fellow they were talking to was five times better a writer than me. Or if his re-write, a couple weeks’ work, would be five times as good. Or five times as fast.

It just occurred to me that these folks, these wonderful, great church folks whom I love like family, just have no idea that I am, in fact, a professional writer. I’ve also discovered that slashing your rate to the moral equivalent of five bucks and a ham sandwich only reinforces that thinking. They thought the 25k guy was five times better because he charged five time more, rather than thinking the opposite, that we are likely peers, but Priest is all but donating his services while the other guy is not.

Working for almost nothing is a time-honored Christian tradition. It’s all about ministry, all about your tithe to God. The reality, however, is churches that actually *can* afford to pay you a decent rate but who choose to let you work for next to nothing, to always be broke and late on your bills. Dude, I can be broke and late on my bills working at Wal-Mart. I don’t have to write your movie to do that.

Thanks, as usual, to my wonderful friend Elayne Riggs and husband Robin for being the Only Persons On The Planet To Send Priest A Christmas Card, an honor they’ve captured two years running, now. Merry Christmas everybody!!!!