Yesterday was madness — so I missed the websites anniversary post. However, I’m not sure that there is a better post than this one to cross the anniversary dateline with. Prior to: If you guessed that Jeff (in my previous post) was Rusty Crowe — you lose.
I received a random email a couple of months ago. It was all in lower case, including the signature, which was just signed ‘jeff bingaman’. It asked if it were possible to purchase a copy of my DVD, chasing KEINO. I thought — this is strange and out of the blue… plus, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to sell a copy, given that it is intellectual property. Digital intellectual property, no less. To someone I didn’t know. So I asked how he knew about the documentary and if he was a runner? In the return email, he told me he was a jogger and that one of his neighbors had sent an email to the neighborhood about my film. At the time, I was changing the musical score – so I told jeff that I would contact him when I had completed that process. Fast forward a week. My webmaster called and said that my website had a hit from Washington. Fast forward three days: I was sitting around that weekend working and decided to play Google Detective. I typed in ‘Bingaman+Washington’. The first top line hit was ‘US Senator Jeff Bingaman’. By Monday I had finished changing out the score and sent jeff an email saying if he wanted a copy — I would be happy to sell him one. In closing my email — I asked if I had been omitting a prefix before his name? I had an email back later that day saying he would like to buy a copy and there was no prefix — he said — I’m just ‘jeff’. lower case. again.
I told him that if after he screened my film — he felt like he had overpaid — I would cheerfully refund. I received a check later that week and in the upper right corner of the letterhead was: Senator Jeff Bingaman…
I received the email (above) a few weeks ago. It is hugely humbling. No other way to put it. I don’t know how many filmmakers make a first film — that is sent to the President of the United States by someone of Jeff Bingaman’s esteem. An incredible honor. Full stop.
I would like to thank Senator Bingaman again. I said in my email back to him — I see less and less sense of curiosity in the world today. Everyone is too caught up in their own pernicious world. And that is sad — without a sense of curiosity — there are fewer and fewer beneficiaries, ultimately. A spiral downward. Thanks Senator Bingaman, for having the curiosity to take a look at my film.