Heading into 2024: Wrath Mercy, losing Steve and having faith
In December of 2022 I sat with my friend Glenn Payne at a restaurant in Oxford, Mississippi and was faced with a choice.
“Pick a date,” Glenn said.
I had been “here” before. How many times had I come home to Mississippi for the holidays over the last decade and a half, living in NYC and LA, beaten down and ready to try something different?
Prior to getting clean, I had had many so-called second, third, fourth acts in a show business career that some might say never really started. As a drug addict, I had more “lives” than a cat, really. 9? Try hundreds. Once I put down drugs in 2014, leaving Los Angeles and moving to Oxford, where I went to treatment, things finally changed, decisions mattered and choice was given back to me.
I went from not believing that lost dreams could reawaken to seeing Los Angeles somehow, miraculously, move from a very dusty rear-view mirror of my past into the forefront of my future.
I made the geographic change to Los Angeles in 2019, but body image issues, COVID, fear of success, fear of failure, a bag of insecurities, all/me held me back. I was stagnate. I was finally in the city of my dreams and motionless.
That is until I re-met Glenn, visiting Los Angeles from Mississippi, who may have been there for his own dreams, but in retrospect, also God-sent for me. For us.
Back to 2019…Sitting with Glenn, yet again, having tacos in the state I was born, in the city I was reborn, I heard him say:
“Pick a date. Let’s make your movie.”
In that moment, I made a decision, rooted in faith and flow. I would not only direct my adaption of my long dreamed “Wrath Mercy,” Glenn would co produce with me, we would shoot in Mississippi, I would edit and most importantly, the cameras would roll on May 19, 2023.
WRATH MERCY
2023 began, and even though the fears, the bag of insecurities were still there, I took the next step. And the next. I kept taking the next step, over and over.
I started a daunting financial campaign to raise $25,000. We somehow raised $27,000. I found Matthew Zimmerman, or perhaps he found me, to play Adam, a character created by playwright Ben Craven, now based on my own life - a challenging task to ask any actor, let alone in their first film, directed by the person they would be portraying. He would join my dear friend Natanya Ross, who had already agreed to play Irina, Deb Radloff my friend of 20 years, my former co-actor at Nebraska Theatre Caravan, the fabulous Carys Glynne who would not only act but also production design and take publicity phots when she wasn’t in front of the camera…and finally Brice Stone, a very talented 19 year old college student portraying Teddy, another lost soul trapped in the world of Mall, the drug dealer.
Glenn found a fabulous Mississippi crew, led by my perfect partner in visual crime, Cinematographer Michael Williams. On May 19th we began filming. At 2:15am on May 23rd, I called a final cut. I began editing on June 2nd, in the wee hours of “rest” while doing Outreach at the West Coast Symposium for Addiction Disorders. I completed the film on the morning of August 10th, and submitted to our first film festivals that afternoon.
Thank goodness I picked a date.
When I look on 2023, it’s the year I took great action, piggybacking on that decision from 2022. And now in 2024, I continue on faith.
What do YOU do for a living? (ugh)
For now, for the first time in my life, I feel like one person, no masks, no compartmentalization. Artists talk a lot about day jobs, and I guess, in that vein I have one at Breathe Life Healing Centers. But truth be told, Breathe is only part of the whole - a catalyst for achieving my primary purpose. There is no coincidence that I wrote a film about a gay, crystal meth addict - finding myself recruited by Brad Lamm, the owner of Breathe, which literally treats chemsex, the affliction that plagued not only me, but my fictional character of Adam. Was it a coincidence when Deb Hughes, our owner wrote me a check for the film? When Breathe hosted our largest private screening to date for Breathe’s 10 year anniversary? When 10 years ago Breathe opened while I was still at the depths of my own addiction mere miles away?
No. It’s the Universe. A higher Power. Spirit. GOD.
Steve
Although 2023 was my great year of Creation, it was also a year of visceral, almost unbearable pain.
Soon after filming “Wrath Mercy,” I sat on my recliner, home from another work trip and saw on Facebook that my ex partner, my longest relationship, Steve Cozzi, had been missing for several days.
In an instant, our past came flooding back. Our relationship was filled with great, great highs, lots of laughs, many joys - particularly in the first months - and a multitude of insanity. I loved the beginning of our courtship, and I loved Steve. Then drugs took over my life, yet again. Our ending was messy, and I thought I would never see or speak to him again.
After I got clean, I stumbled upon an email he had written me two years prior, and at the guidance of my sponsor, I responded.
Steve and I were able to make amends via email and repair the past, thank God, but despite agreeing to continue communication, we lost touch. Steve got married, became a lawyer. I started working in recovery and moved back to Los Angeles. We had made it right, and we were living our lives.
Back to the recliner - sitting and reading in shock, I saw that he Steve was not only missing, but presumed murdered. I made a very general TikTok about it and almost immediately started to get tagged by my well meaning yet misguided followers in conspiracy posts and amateur sleuth podcasts. Theories and speculation about Steve’s disappearance and murder started to show up on my FYP. Then I read a news article that depicted what detectives believed were Steve’s final moments. It was too much.
I called Natanya, and she did her best to help me. I called my Mom and Dad in tears, desperate for unconditional love from them, for an understanding of my love for Steve. Thank God that they were finally able to give that to me years after I first told them I was gay.
But It wasn’t enough. Not yet, at least. I was debilitated, vacillating between new and painful feelings and experiences - a complete loss of appetite, wailing sobs, imagining his last minutes, over and over, thinking I was going to be murdered myself, compulsively checking my locks throughout the night, between nightmares. All very normal reactions and responses of homicide grief, although who the hell would even know that having not experienced it? People tried to help me, to be there for me, but I mostly shut them out. How could anyone truly understand what I was going through?
Steve’s murder was and is a sensational story that makes fiction seem more believable. But to me, it’s not a story. It’s my life. Steve is dead. Steve was murdered. How could this be possible so soon after already losing the other love of my life, Scott a couple of years earlier…my best friend Amy the following year…and now this. How could this be?
I am living a healing process that is ongoing. I also dove headfirst into finishing my film. Was it avoidance? Am I still avoiding? Who knows?
I dedicated “Wrath Mercy” to Steve as well as Scott and Amy. Three people who shaped me, who were my great cheerleaders, encouragers and motivators. Motivation can come from inspiration but very often it comes from desperation and pain, and with Steve it was all of those things. It feels good to write these words. I can feel Steve with me as I write them, just as I felt him with me as I edited my film. I can’t believe he is gone from this Earth, but I keep his spirit very close and will never let him go.
2024
2024 begins soon, and I will continue my journey at Breathe. I will continue to write about films and make TikToks. I will continue to grieve.
I will also continue to submit “Wrath Mercy” to film festivals throughout the world while working on four very exciting projects for the future.
1. A feature film- a musical that takes place during World War II, a queer story that I first thought about while daydreaming about becoming a director as a closeted teenager.
2. Another feature, The Mystery, a film about perfection art and imagination. One I first drafted while temping at a financial firm in NYC in 2008.
3. A cabaret, The Brian Show, - a one person evening of song and story about my life that I will one day perform here in Los Angeles and maybe even NYC!
4. And a Wrath Mercy TV series, continuing Adam and Irina’s story, introducing a cast of new, fabulous characters in Adam’s world.
I will continue to have faith.
I will work while waiting.
I will continue to focus on my primary purpose. To stay clean and help the addict who still suffers, to bring hope to a world that appears…appears, not is, hopeless.
I will live and create with dignity, do my best to be impeccable with my word, and move forward in God’s will for my life.