[1.  Floating the idea of the religion documentary to a LABRA-Media
committee, one of whom is unreservedly and even somewhat surreally hostile
to the idea. (Adams will be there, and will support your proposal
wholeheartedly.)  Be sure you realize you don't have a thesis somewhere in
it.]


* * * * *

I scratched my dog Rufus behind his ear and took one last look around my
apartment to make sure it was still presentable.  Or at least neater than
my dad's office usually is.

A few delicate touches on the remote, and the cameras were rolling.

"Hello again, from the lovely and still-intact land of Tidalay," I said,
then almost immediately punched the killswitch.  The cameras obediently
shut off and blanked their memory.

I have directed two full-length features and three documentaries.  I have
spoken in front of large audiences, both friendly and unfriendly.  I have
clogged the Aeon archives with hours upon hours of analysis, speculation,
and information.  I've been told that I never, ever, shut up.

So why is it that I can never think of anything to say when I'm recording
a letter to my father?

* * * * *

An hour and eighteen false starts later, I gave up and just called him
direct.  Immediately after punching the last digit of his number in, I had
one of those oh-god-what-have-I-done moments that I've been having so many
of these days.  A quick glance at the clock on my desk confirmed that it
was almost seven in the morning, Cairo time, which meant--

"Hello, Tom!" Elena Montecchi answered, as cheerful as always.  She's my
father's partner in the environmental design consulting business.  She's
also his girlfriend.  And only about four years older than I am.

Not that this bothers me, of course.

Well, okay, it bothers me a little.  But dad's happy, and Elena's happy,
and anyway, I kinda like her.  So the friendliness of my reply was
actually honest, and she went off to rouse my father (who, like his son,
is not a morning person).  In a moment, the man himself was on the screen,
coffee in hand and more than a bit puzzled by receiving an expensive
overseas call from his filmmaker son in Tidalay.

As if on cue:  "Why the expensive overseas call?" he said.  Sounding
puzzled, of course.

I shrugged.  "It's not _that_ expensive."

Which is, technically, true.  The associate work I did for Aeon recently
left me with some money to spend.  Of course, legal fees for the
multi-million dollar lawsuit pending against me plus a few modifications
of dubious legality to Skippy, my OpNet agent, took quite a chunk out of
that extra paycheck.  I think it would be difficult to find a better reply
to shut down the conversation before it even starts, though, and it occurs
to me that every conversation I have ever had with my father starts with
this kind of awkwardness.  

Today, at least, there is a reason for me to be careful about what I say
to him.  Not because I'm worried about what he might think of my recent
activities on behalf of Aeon (though I admit that at times I think he
worries about what getting dunked may have done to me), but because it's
just not a good idea to talk about things that would be potentially
embarrassing to the FSA over the phone.  So together, we kind of weave
spastically around bland pleasantries-the editing class I taught went
well, his project in Kenya was a success, Rufus is doing fine, that kind
of thing.  

"We saw your piece on the Qin ambassador," he says eventually, referring
to a recent short documentary I helped put together with my friend Lewis
Meriwether Lao-Tzo.  More of an atmospheric short, really-just the Qin
ambassador traveling around Tidalay, listening to watermusic, watching the
way some people stared and others pretended not to notice him.  "Elena and
I thought it was very beautiful.  I think I would have recognized it as
yours even if you hadn't told us about it.  I think that your sense of
humor tends to come through even when you're trying to make the work less
personal.  That part with the skimcab..."  He laughed, and I grinned in
response.  "It's certainly the most unique film about the Qin I've ever
seen.  How did you manage to arrange it?"

"The Qin ambassador and my friend Lewis--he did all the translation--have
some mutual contacts.  When the ambassador requested a visit, Lewis was
making the arrangements and I suggested a few great watermusic locations.
We managed to put together a small crew to film it.  I was surprised at
how well it turned out, actually.  Almost everything we shot was usable at
the end of the day."  I smiled ruefully and added, "Of course, if we
hadn't shot good material, it would've been my fault.  I spent most of the
time running the camera rig.

"The nice thing about it, though, was that it helped me to get the
financing for a full-length project.  We've already laid the groundwork
for it, and last Tuesday was my LABRA-Media committee meeting," I said
with a deliberate lack of emotion.  

Dad picked up on that immediately, of course.  "Tough one, huh?"

I nodded.  "The topic is actually one that Martha approved, which is a
minor miracle all by itself these days.  It's a work on religion in the LA
basin.  I started it mostly because it seemed like a good topic that no
one had looked at in a long time, and, admittedly, one of the few good
topics I ran across that wasn't going to piss Martha off completely.  So I
had ulterior motives for making the proposal in the first place, but I
admit that the idea's grown on me since then.  The committee meeting was
probably the worst one I've ever had, though."  

My dad, a veteran of committee review processes, nodded sympathetically.
"They raked you over the coals," he remarked, sipping his coffee.  "Did
you get approval, though?"

"Just barely," I said with a laugh.  "Actually, I didn't think anyone
would have any serious objections to it.  Usually Martha shoots down
anything that would inspire controversy, strife, or strong opinions long
before she'll allow any of the paperwork to even reach the committee, and
like I said, I'd gone to a lot of trouble to make this one an example of
me on my very best 'good behavior.'  But one guy, William Roland, a fairly
hefty and extremely old member of the LABRA-Media division, stock options
and influence just dripping off him, was absolutely FURIOUS that I was
suggesting a movie on this topic.  I mean, he stopped just short of
throwing something at me, but I think that was coming up next.

"It was just...so amazing, how deeply offended he was by the proposal.
But he'd start objecting to something and right in mid-stream he'd be
objecting to the exact opposite thing.  You could get whiplash trying to
follow his arguments, they'd change so quickly.  As long as it was
something you could shout angrily, he tried it."  I shook my head,
remembering the way he was flushed a bright crimson, sweat rolling down
his forehead, a look of unmitigated hatred flashing in his eyes.  "Scary
stuff.  I think some other people on the committee were surprised by it,
too.  A few of them--including Bianca St. Claire, I don't know if you
remember her or not, she was the one who was trying to get on the approval
committee for 'nerve ending' at the last minute with the stated intention
of spiking it so decisively that I'd never be able to make another film
again--even SHE was starting to pitch me softball questions, as if she
didn't want to seem as frightening as Roland."

"Any idea what set him off?" my dad asked.  "Was he a deeply religious
man?  Or adamantly opposed to religion for some reason?"

I shrugged.  "No idea.  When they sent me the list of committee members, I
ran a quick search for anything like that, and came up with zilch.  The
official profiles wouldn't have anything like that anyway, but even the
more comprehensive searches I did never made me feel like there was some
kind of bitter, angry rage about this lurking inside him."  I sat back in
my chair, suddenly realizing something.  "Oh.  Oh wow," I said, sounding a
little stunned.

Looking puzzled, my father asked "Hmm?"  

"No," I said, "I just realized something that was bothering me all through
the committee meeting."  I grinned at him.  "See, I put together this
proposal, some test footage, had all kinds of structural notes, but what I
didn't have, really, was a *point*.  I mean, yeah, I could make a film,
but there wasn't going to be any kind of unified theme to it, no thesis,
nothing that anyone could walk away with afterwards and think about.  It
was all just...trivia.  Facts, images, but not much soul to it."

"Just what you don't want to find out about your documentary on religion,"
my dad commented wryly.

"Yeah, exactly.  But now that I'm thinking about it, there *is* something
I could focus the film on, but...oh, man, it'll have to be really subtle.
If it's too overt, Martha's never going to greenlight a proposal for me
ever again.  But...it's too good.  It really is."  I was almost jumping
out of my chair at this point.  "Because the thing that I've been noticing
is, if you look for it, you find religion all over this city.  The history
is practically choked with religious influences, yeah, we all know that,
but right here, *today*, you can find faith and religion everywhere.  Did
you know I talked to a cop whose biggest concern was reconciling the
brutal actions he had to perform as part of his job with his spiritual
beliefs?  It's true--I can't use him in the film, of course, it'd be a
disaster for him, they'd throw him off the force and then probably throw
me in jail or something.  But the point, the center I couldn't find for
the movie, that's tied in with this strange power religion has in LA.  It
exists, people talk about it, people *listen*, but it *still exists*
anyway.  That's practically impossible to find anywhere here today,
something that can inspire devotion and opinion and get strong reactions
but hasn't been banned or homogenized or dismantled.  And I think I'm
seeing evidence that there's *more* interest in religion, attendance is
up, faith is stronger, all that..."  

I could tell he was starting to get what I was hinting at.  "Historically
speaking, this is not a new development," he said, his voice trailing off
significantly.

I nodded.  "In fact, historically speaking, the idea that it could be any
other way was intolerable.  Is there such a thing as heresy?  Not here,
not in LA, not in this country.  Doesn't exist.  But to suddenly discover,
or rediscover, that it's *still* intolerable to think that heresy could
exist, that there's still something that flies below the radar, or above
it, or is somehow indefinably *beyond* what any agency or group is going
to try to control, that's, that's just an amazing thing to be able to
say."

"If you can say it," my dad said, a tone of warning in his voice.

"Well, yeah.  If it's too obvious, then BANG goes the whole project, and
maybe it breaks everything, maybe it draws the wrong kind of attention.
But I think I can slide it in, it'll have to be very subtle, it'll have to
just be the facts, but in a way that leaves people thinking that they're
proud of this, they're proud of what they believe and what they've seen,
and maybe it'll be there in the back of their minds when they're looking
at the stuff that no one is especially proud of."  I started tapping away
at my computer while I was talking, making some quick notes to myself,
hammering out the organizational details.  "Well, damn," I added.  "I may
have to privately dedicate this one to William Roland, fevered ball of
animosity, for his invaluable assistance in making this an absolutely
killer project to work on."

This got a genuine smile out of my dad.  "You're not dedicating it to me?"
he said, filled with mock disappointment.  Then, more seriously, "It
sounds wonderful, Tom.  I look forward to it, as I look forward to
everything you do.  Be careful..."

I looked up at him again.

"...but not *too* careful," he finished with a wink.  

"I love you, Dad."

"'Love you too.  See if you can get a travel pass for next summer, we'll
go on a trip together."