Frank vs God

About ten years ago I met this guy, Scott. He's a lawyer and he read my book and thought it would make for a good movie. He drew up some paperwork and offered to buy the rights for $1 and give me a generous payout if the movie actually made any money. It sounded like a great deal, but then I thought, 'What the hell am I gonna do with a dollar?'. I told him it was $20 or nothing.

He met me in Ballard and gave me $20 and I signed the papers. Then I went across the street and bought $20 worth of beer and jerky. We talked about what the Scottish Buddhist Cookbook Movie might look like, but to be honest, I was more than happy to let him run with it. I'm not a movie person. 

He gave me some updates on screenplays and producers and whatnot but, surprisingly, nothing ever happened. Which was fortunate 'cause my cookbook would have made for a horrible movie. 

I hadn't talked to Scott for a few years and then I reconnected with Steven again and suddenly needed a lawyer. Steven and I are kind of friend/brothers who both respect and hate each other. We can go months or years without talking to each other and then get back together like nothing ever happened. Then one of us will piss off the other and it's another year-long timeout.

But Steven and I got back together for a couple months and we immediately revived an idea we had had a couple years earlier- Buying and selling people's souls.

The idea was that if people talk like they had souls and other people had souls, then souls must have some kind of value. Why not monetize it? Why not have a database of people's souls and a marketplace to buy and sell them? 

We had both registered a bunch of URLs, like qualitysouls.com and soulsforless.com and at least five or six others. 

We put together a business model and I contacted Scott again. The three of us met  for lunch downtown and Steven and I argued about what Souls.com should look like while Scott sat patiently watching. 

But then he told me that he was now producing a movie with his brother Stewart. It was about somebody suing God for trashing his house in a natural disaster and then getting screwed by his insurance company because it was an act of God. It sounded good. I could watch that, I told him. And I'm not really a movie person.

The movie was released last year but it wasn't until a couple weeks ago that I heard about it. I rented it on Amazon Prime for $4 and watched it on the Ballard bridge. I totally enjoyed it. It isn't religious but it also isn't anti-religious. It is actually very zen, a balance between heartbreak and hope. The two main characters have gone through as much shit as anybody but are still able to push forward. The idea of suing God might seem ludicrous to most people but to me it seems like a very reasonable vent.

On the first date with the woman who would eventually become my wife, I asked her if she believed in God. Before she could even answer I went on a rant about how stupid the whole idea of religion is. She paused for a moment and then told me, 'I don't think I want to talk about religion with you.' So we got married but for the entire time I knew her, through ten years of marriage, I never knew her religious beliefs. It was my own fault, but it would have been nice to have a marriage that included a reasonable discussion about religion. 

Frank vs God is the perfect first date movie. I would strongly recommend potential couples watch this movie together before committing themselves to one another. And I'm not really a movie person. 

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