2 Dollar Productions

The countdown has begun and it's only a few short weeks until I point a giant U-Haul south and drive down I-35 towards Austin.

Packing my belongings sucks, paying initiation fees to set up new services is even worse, but the thing that is driving me crazy is the persistent inquiry of seemingly everyone I meet about my job prospects.

If I had a nickel for every time I've been asked the question "What are you gonna do in Austin" over the past month; well at the very least I'd have a shitload of nickels and maybe I wouldn't have to work.

The real answer is I don't know where I'm going to work in Austin. Usually, I mumble something about finding a job when I get there, but lately I've been telling some people that I can't wait to get into low-budget pornography.

"Pornography?" they ask.

"Yeah, but not the respectable stuff," I say. "Austin has a thriving film community, but the Austin porn scene is not that soft-core Playboy TV nonsense. It's rough like an ancient lard-caked griddle and since it's still out of the mainstream they really don't have money to pay the performers so the actors do it for fun and a family bucket of Popeye's chicken."

"You can't be serious," they say.

"I'm dead serious. I can't wait to get my hands dirty and I love Popeye's chicken, so I think I can make a real splash and jump right in."

That answer usually shifts the focus of the conversation drastically because anyone whose goal in life is to work in low-budget porn should not be trusted nor talked to at parties.

In reality, the list of potential jobs that I'm toying with is long but distinguished - much like my Johnson (who can ever resist a "Top Gun" reference).

I'm currently working as a personal trainer which I could do in Austin, or I have a client trying to get me into a pharaceutical sales position or I have another contact who wants me to work in sales for a new computer software company or I have a long-shot modeling possibility in New York that I'm still pursuing and my brother is keeping me abreast of job openings in his marketing department.

What I'd really like to do is write another screenplay or two and possibly start on a novel. And for that dream job I will definitely need all the nickels I can get my hands on because the pay is lousy and often nonexistent.

So, where does that leave me?

I don't know, but I guess you have to consider yourself fortunate to live in a country where one man can reasonably fill such a wide variety of jobs when his college major was Journalism.

On the other hand, I've always wanted to try out Randy Peckerwood for a porn name, and I hate to limit myself by swearing off the adult industry without giving it a fair shake.

We've all got to make a living somehow, eh?

-BDS