Other Lives, Bends in the ROAD, and What- Ifs

An Alternate-Universe Novel by Rick Schmidt

De: Rick Schmidt

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

One of the grandest questions a person can ask in life is, “How different would things have been if I’d just made different decisions?“ Well, filmmaker/author Rick Schmidt has bravely tackled his own “WHAT-IF’S” in this amazing new memoir-novel, “Other Lives, Bends in the ROAD, and What-Ifs.” Included are stories from age 11 on, through his college and adulthood. Reaching back, he’s bravely dug into a past in which there seemed to have been build-in dangers on all sides, threatening the man he’d later become. For instance, when he won a gigantic panda worth hundreds in today’s currency at an amusement park in Chicago and attempted to sell it at a profit, his future as a businesman/entrepeneur could have been assured by the smallest nudge from his parents (it wasn’t). His scholarly father and Smith College mother were actually aghast at the idea.
In his college days (1968), he regrettably declined to take up a life-changing offer to join an Oregon commune he visited while hitchhiking. He could have remained there, they offered, built his own free log cabin––no more Oakland, California rent/bills––eaten for free while helping at their expansive vegetable garden, working only “when his spirit moved him to do so.” The meal he dined on upon arrival had been photographed for Life magazine’s next issue, that exact meal pictured at this book’s end. Schmidt explains in his first “Alternate Universe” story how that hasty decision would probably have cost him contact with his young children. A fantasy phone call with his furious ex-wife is pretty convincing. And it certainly would have interrupted his ongoing art career.
Another dangerous earlier offer, to become a grill chef at a Hyannis Port, Cape Cod restaurant-of-note (Robert Kennedy and his brood ate there), would have altered Schmidt’s fate of meeting wife #1 (and having children with her). Had he not declined that professional offer at the tail end of his dishwashing summer job, his life would have been drastically changed, including: (1) Not becoming married, thus making him inadvertantly vulnerable to the Vietnam draft (he gives a hair-raising “Alternate Universe” account of what war for him could have been like. (2) Not attending art college (his 1st wife introduced that option), that path of study would have evaporated. Without attending a video class at the California College of the Arts, he probably would not have gone on to write/direct/shoot/produce independent feature films, along with the urge to write his classic, Viking Penguin how-to, “FEATURE FILMMAKING AT USED-CAR PRICES.” That book has changed the life of many others, kicking off the Hollywood careers of Kevin Smith (CLERKS), Eduardo Sanchez (THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT), and superstar Vin Diesel, whose mother bought him a copy. Not to mention, Schmidt learned enough to complete the final cut on his college roommate, Wayne Wang's feature, CHAN IS MISSING.
You’ll read other instances where Schmidt’s “Alternate Universe” decisions might have landed him in much hotter water. Example: A young, gorgeous underage woman he met at a Florida rock concert would have been hard to resist for any red-blooded male his age (20), but somehow he did. Statutory “rape” in that state gets you 12-15 years behind bars. Or perhaps on a chain gang.
It’s obvious that many young people have been tempted by similar choices as Schmidt has, and with some luck they’ve blundered through the worst of it, just like him. If nothing else, this “looking back” novel can deliver a chill––or thrill(!)––to the reader. Schmidt signs off with the hope that one’s real-life is as fruitful and dynamic as it’s supposed to be. Some wise women have stated (he adds); “There are no mistakes. Life is life, and everything is placed in front of us for the good of our soul’s growth and enlightenment.” Let’s hope so.