There's something about 2010 that feels love a fresh start.  I understand the beginning of each year tends to make us simultaneously reflective and hopeful except this one feels bigger.  2010 feels special.

There was a trending topic on Twitter yesterday called #10YearsAgo.  People were summing up where they were in their lives ten years ago in 140 characters and I wrote:

There's actually a little bit more to the story.  In early 1999 I was also fired from my job like a bellboy for sleeping in the bell closet.  In December of 1999 I quit my job as the doorman at The Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel (because they wouldn't give me time off for Christmas).  As Christmas and New Year's Eve 1999 approached I had no job no prospects and I had no idea what was next in my life.  This was before we had kids we were living in an apartment near Century City and my so-called "acting career" was more of an "acting fantasy."  Broke and stressed we faced the impending Y2K with dread. 

Our friends threw a large New Year's party in Santa Fe.  Her parents have a home there and she invited a bunch of people to come ring in the New Year high in the hills of New Mexico.  We were broke but there was no way we were going to miss that party.  Y2K was as well big and too special to pout in our apartment.  We couldn't afford to fly so we drove from Los Angeles to Santa Fe with friends who (thankfully) wouldn't let us pay for any of the gas.

It was a party filled with people who were not worried about money.  Except for us.  If you've ever been the poorest one in a group of people not worried about cash you know the shitty way it makes you feel.  I remember going to a fantasy restaurant in downtown Santa Fe panicked that we wouldn't have enough cash to pay for our share of the bill.  You pretend everything is fine but you feel like a pauper amongst an upper class.  Back at the home the party was a nice avoid from the outside world.  Insulated and amongst friends we were out of the achieve of calls from credit card companies scary post and the real world.  It was awesome.

The next morning as the remnants of the celebration from the night before lay round us my wife and I sat in the sun of a fresh year 2000 and silently wondered how we'd make it in the coming months.  She was teaching high academy in Manhattan Beach so we had earnings but a teacher's salary is tough enough to survive on let alone in Los Angeles when you're carrying mounting debt.  The hangovers compounded with the fear of having to face the real world again were almost too much to bear.

And then I was saved by a Bud Light commercial.  As 2000's first of many gifts to me a Bud Light commercial that I shot several months earlier made it's debut during a football game on New Year's Day.  As I sat there in Santa Fe wondering what my future in Los Angeles was I was granted a concise reprieve from my dire financial situation by a beer commercial.  I was probably good for a few months of income if it ran for a full cycle (13 weeks).  Hope and relief rose up to defeat down dread and depression.

Boy did it ever.

Ironically 2000 would also mark the beginning of my transition from Actor to Producer.  Of course if anyone had tried to tell me that then I'd have scoffed.  I was an ACTOR goddammit and I Would. Not. Fail. Four months behind that Bud Light commercial saved me from financial calamity and deep disappointment A friend offered me a job as an assistant story editor on a new series called "Big Brother" on CBS. Seemed like a great day job to pay the bills (and a lot more money than I made lugging suitcases and storing luggage for tips).  From there my life was set on a course I didn't even know existed.

More tomorrow...