The Missing Brad & Austin

It's Murphy's Law that everything that can go wrong, will, right? Well today, in between working the day job, I was planning a quick trip to the post office to toss my scripts in the ring for the Austin Screenwriting Contest. (Today was their deadline.) I've missed every other contest this year being focused on producing the crazy Bollywood movie but this year I'd love to go to Austin and it seemed like a good idea to enter something because...you never know.

I don't know why Austin is so old fashioned, but you can't do an online submission. They make you print pages, three hole punch, fasten and stand in line at a brick and mortar post office! I guess I wasn't aware of how out of practice I was at this job until today.

It's partially my fault. I doubled my workload, deciding I might as well submit a new script in addition to the old problem child screenplay that I've rewritten so much I no longer have perspective on. More than anything, I'm curious to see how "new script" fares and since Austin now offers notes on second round scripts I figured it couldn't hurt to see what their readers think... in the unlikely event that it advances.

Submitting two scripts meant more time spent collating, three hole punching, filling out application forms, attaching checks, writing synopses, but with an iron like will I did it. And then at the point when all I had to do was fasten those suckers, drop them in an envelope and send the whole hulking package to Texas... I realized a brad was missing.

Okay. Don't panic. I'm in the greatest city on earth. I'm sure I can find a box of brads/ fasteners, right? I tried a nearby Office Depot which yes! had fasteners but it was one box of the sad, tiny, one inch ones. I toyed with the idea of trying to use one of these but it looked ridiculous, didn't hold the pages properly and would probably just enrage the poor Austin reader who would be being deluged with a bunch of last minute scripts.

Having no luck with the generic office store I figured I'd try the specialty shop...the Drama Bookshop which BTW sells a great collection of books on film, theater and acting. Unfortunately when I asked about brads, the guy at the register looked at me like I was speaking in iambic pentameter. One of the old timers came out of the back eventually and said, "Yeah, I remember when we used to sell those," and then shrugged an "I have no idea who still sells those things." I felt like the last, obsolete screenwriter in New York City.

Still I became aware of the fact that I was in a shop with actors in New York! Maybe I'd find someone flipping through their "Ugly Betty" or "Law and Order" episode. I figured I could tell them my plight, appeal to their sympathy or simply, if worse came to worse, overpower them, swipe the single brad and sprint to the post office. No such luck. The shop was full of theater people.

Thinking I'd have to head all the way back to Brooklyn, I lucked out and found the missing brad on the floor of my car. Oh happy accident... I headed to a Chelsea post office figuring it might be quieter than Midtown but everyone and their mama was mailing out stuff. It felt like I stood in line forever but the relief when the lady took my envelope and gave me my delivery confirmation... joy unimaginable.

And on my way out of the post office, I saw a guy with bedhead hair in a plaid shirt and shorts, hustling to the double doors, his face streaked with a purple bruise. I looked down at the brown, padded envelope in his hand and saw the first line of the address scrawled on it...Austin Film Festival. I couldn't help but wonder what gave him the bruise...perhaps he'd taken a nasty tumble onto his three hole punch(?)

The point is even though I hardly ever enter contests, a couple of the brass rings like Austin I love, because they remind you you're part of the screenwriting community. Check out the message boards around submission and notification dates and there's kinship in commiserating and congratulating...You get a big fat reminder you're not alone in a line of work that can often be so lonesome. I think that's a pretty neat prize.