We only have to think for a portion of a second about the number of celebrities we know who've died of a drug overdose to be flooded with iconic names. Without Googling it, most of us will immediately think of Marilyn Monroe (36), Elvis (42), Judy Garland (47), Bille Holiday (44), John Belushi (33), Chris Farley (33), and Heath Ledger (28). Each name we think of seems to lead us to yet dozens more of those in the pantheon of wildly talented entertainers whose lives were cut short. Yesterday morning, we were once again greeted with the news of another of our beloved and talented artist's death as word spread of a tragic scene involving Philip Seymour Hoffman (46). Aside from the tremendous loss of an extraordinary talent, this particular death hit close to home for me. 
As I prepared to publish "The Stone of David," I had the opportunity to meet with a producer and ended up spending a great deal of time with him. This guy has been around "the business" for 50 years. His film credits include: "The Godfather," "Raging Bull," and "Fame," as well as a seemingly inexhaustible list of TV work including "Law & Order."  His voicemails are from Marlo Thomas, Helen Mirren, Scott Rudin and so many others in that world who respect his opinion and seek his advice. As one of the founding members of The Labyrinth Theater in New York, he is sought out by the biggest names in acting because as he puts it in his thick Upper West Side accent, "They want to be taken seriously." 
For me, that was a revelation, that some of the biggest names in Hollywood would want to be affiliated with a relatively small theater in New York to earn credibility. Moreover, I was astounded by the names of the actors who were forced to audition for them and didn't always necessarily get the part. Most theaters would do nearly anything to get some of those A-list actors on their stage and certainly wouldn't trouble them with an audition. When Tom Hanks wants to be in a play, I just assumed he could be in any play he damn well pleases...he's Tom Hanks. But not at the "Lab" as it is affectionately called; it is an artists' theater. It's a place where scripts are written, produced and portrayed for the sake of art, not money.
During a weekend collaboration last June, my producer friend and I were hiding out at my cousin's lakehouse on Lewis-Smith Lake. In one of those wonderful, early morning meetings on the deck over steaming cups of coffee, I began to see "Hollywood" in a completely different light and it was far from limelight. He described an industry that would take some of the greatest artistic talent of our time and grind them in the money mill until there was nothing left of them. He spoke of his own addictions that helped him temporarily escape that process and the deep states of depression that most entertainers battle. It was when he finally got clean that he got out and decided to go the independent route. 
After listening to him for quite some time, I offered an analogy. I said that artists of all kinds seem to experience emotions differently than others. If most people walk around with an 8-count  box of emotional crayons, artists walk around with the 120-count box. Artists experience the nuances of emotions that allow them to translate them into a medium: film, canvas, wood, words, etc. When an entrepreneur who has a particular talent for making money rather than making art gets hold of that 120-count box of crayons, he will wear them down to a nub, break them, steal them and lose them to get what he wants out of them. He then walks away to find a new 120-count box to make even more money. Eventually, he determines which of that spectrum will make the most money and he begins ignoring the other colors and gathers as many of the money making colors as he can so that he has an inexhaustible supply of money making crayons. That's all the artists become to those money-machines, a wax commodity to be traded and exploited until there's nothing left: worn to a nub, broken, stolen, lost. All the while, the artist simply wanted share his crayons with the world. 
When I finished my analogy, my friend had tears in his eyes as he said, "You nailed it." He then asked me to write that into a short play that he would present at the Summer Intensive at the Labyrinth. I did and he directed it during one of the sessions for up and coming thespians. It was one of hundreds of shorts written for that week and I'm sure it was lost in the shuffle and forgotten within minutes of being performed but it was pretty cool to have it included in their curriculum, and it was pretty cool to think of who might've seen it performed. I know for a fact that Phil Hoffman was there that week. Whether he saw my little dramatization or not couldn't be attested to even by those who were there. Those sessions stretch into the wee hours of the morning with people randomly coming and going.  
You are perhaps beginning to see where yesterday's news hit close to home for me. As I spoke to my friend at midnight last night, he said of Phil Hoffman, "He was the best friend I ever had." I listened as he related stories and shared the very best of who his friend was and remains. As we came near the end of our conversation he said, "I've walked through the pain of many a friends' death, but this one hurts more than any other. It didn't have to happen." We ended the conversation there. I knew what he meant, and he understood that I did. 
While writing "The Stone of David" I absolutely knew that I wanted a big house publisher to publish my book. Short of that happening, I absolutely knew that I had to have a reputable publisher take my book and run with it. However, as I neared the completion of the writing process, I began hearing from authors from across the country advising me to self-publish. At first I thought this was the shortest route to obscurity and failure as an author. In time though, I began to see what so many for so long had already recognized. One author in particular (famous in the writers' world for turning down a $500k advance on his book so that he could self-publish) told me that I was naturally feeling that if I could just get a big house publisher to pick me up then I would be set for life as an author. He dispelled that notion by assuring me that entering into that world simply meant that I would be chasing an ever elusive carrot for the remainder of the time I was with said publisher. "You'll produce books on their time table, not yours. They'll take 80-90% of the profit. They'll market and support you only for as long as you're making money for them and sometimes not even then. When you've run aground creatively, if you've built a substantial enough following, they'll sell your name out sometimes without your knowledge. Yet, whatever you write while under contract with them, belongs to them. You can't even write a short story and self-publish it. It's theirs." 
In the end, I chose to self-publish and though I'm not quite cracking the best-sellers list (OK...I'm not even close yet), I'm very, very glad that I did. It's happening slowly, but I'm gaining ground. People are discovering my book and they're reading it and realizing that it's a really good read. With every positive review that comes my way, with every phone call or email or Facebook message that I receive, I'm further convinced that I made the right choice. You see, it's mine. Sink or soar, it's my work. It hasn't gone through a mass-marketing washing machine that transforms it into something it was never meant to be. I haven't had to sell my rights or give my life to a beast that will love me only for as long as I'm making it money. 
Gradually, the art world is being reclaimed by the artists. Independent filmmakers are going straight to venues such as Netflix and Amazon. Artists in every medium are going through social media to display and sell their works. Musicians are writing and performing what pleases and fulfills them and going straight to independent production. Authors are publishing their works directly, acting as their own agents, publishers and marketers. The greedy behemoths that produce nothing at all in terms of art are gradually being left out. They are going out of business, merging and struggling to revise who they are in an ever shifting landscape. As a literary agent told me recently, "If anyone tells you they know what's going on in the publishing world, they're lying because it's changing every five seconds." I think that's increasingly true across the board. 
Phil Hoffman, a beautifully talented soul, was caught in the machinery that eventually crushed the life out of him. I'm not ignoring his personal responsibility, but I will not ignore or be silent about the other facets of his life that led to his death. Money hungry studios and producers kept their hooks in him and kept him chasing the ever elusive carrot. Those in "the business" know I'm right and know that he won't be the last. Taken on the whole, when we look at the celebrities that have succumbed to drugs and alcohol, it is astounding at how outrageously talented they were. It's almost as if the level of their talent is directly related to how hard they fell. But could it be, that the more talented they are the greater the pressure is for them to dance on command for their masters? I believe that's true. I believe the more crayons one has, the more exploitative the behemoth money-machines are with absolutely no regard for the artists. Say it with me, "What have you done for me lately?"
With increasing frequency, the answer to that question from the artists is, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."