The D-Word's life is one of glamour and riches, as only a documentary filmmaker can live it

---

I keep thinking about something Carl Steadman said when I first interviewed him.

"Everone's looking for their Bobo. Bobo is that person that makes it all okay, and that's what home pages are about. You're looking for Bobo. It's hard to say who Bobo is, or what Bobo is, or how exactly you'll find Bobo. But maybe if you put up enough about yourself on the web, Bobo will find you."

On some level, Bobo is what a lot of people are looking for when they first get on the web and start browsing. It's what I was looking for. And it's a theme Debbie and I constantly keep in mind as we edit the film.

It's a hard concept to explain to D-Wife. I finally try last week. At first she seems to understand, but a few days later the inevitable "you mean I'm not your perfect soulmate?" reaction emmerges.

"Think of it as the Holy Grail," I tell her. "Unattainable by definition." She nods, but her eyes are moist.

I say that acknowledging that I don't fully understand what Bobo means to me, and not entirely sure I want to. I know it's a big reason why I make films, and it's a big reason why I'm making this particular film. It's also a midlife thing, that grows out of being almost 44 and having established a family and a home and a career and going, now what?

On the one hand, I want to get to a place where I truly appreciate what I have in the present. I have so much, when I stop to realize it. I like to think I'm on that path, and it's the path of the "character" I play in the film. On the other hand, I don't long for the epiphany that Bobo is my mother's breast milk.

I can see it now, doing a Rosebud on my death bed. "BoBo..." I whisper. Cut to a close up of a burning furnace as an antique breast pump is tossed in.

I don't think I'm looking for Bobo with this here home page. If anything, I'm trying to resist the urge to reveal myself online.

Nevertheless, a form of Bobo -- call it Quasibobo -- arrived in the form of an e-mail last Friday.

Return-Path:
Date: Fri, 02 May 1997 10:49:53 -0400
From: "Pamela O'Connell"
To: dbblock@el.net
Subject: Home Page documentary
X-Url: http://www.radzone.org/d-word/bio.html

doug, i'm amazed by your project.

i'd like to write an article for my site on the film and your ongoing chronicle of the process (i think your site in itself is great).

would you mind answering some questions via email?

Like I'm gonna refuse?

Sort of like people who sign release forms and then check out the fine print, I fire off some quicky answers (I'll get to them, not to worry), then go to the Mining Company, which I've never heard of, to check it out.

Seems to be a new site which reviews personal home pages. Hmmmm. I click on Pam's bio page. Turns out she lives in Port Washington on Long Island. The town I grew up in. The town where my parents still live. Double hmmmm.

She wants to see some footage from the film, so we arrange for her to come to my office in the big bad city. One working day after the first contact by e-mail, we meet.

It's what I find so fascinating about online relationships. Search hard enough (or put your faith in fate) and you can find a likeminded soul, a spark can ignite and it can transform into a RL relationship.

Of course, there's the dark foreboding aspect of it, much dwelled on by the media, whereas I'm partial to more complex tales of unforseen consequences.

Pam fills me in on the Mining Company. She's one of a large number of freelancers hired recently to run a satelite site, each devoted to a particular subject. Hers' happens to be personal home pages since she's as fascinated by them as me. She has two young kids and works out of her home. It's not easy for her to get away, so I'm honored by her presence.

Pam asks if I've checked out a collective of online diarists called Open Pages, and later e-mails the url.

It takes about 15 seconds of browsing the site to know I want to be part of it. I've found my web peer group-- a cyber community of fellow navelgazers and voyeurs (and proud of it!). I also like the idea that if The D-Word eventually gets some attention, others may reap the benefit of any added traffic.

So, next time you come here there should be a link in my journal archives. And The D-Word will be part of a growing community. Ooooo, I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy!

Pam gives permish to quote from our interview.

>1) What kind of media attention
>have you received to date (I found
>you through a nexis search on personal
>that called up a Washington Post story
>from July that quoted you)?

not a lot, mainly because i haven't seeked it yet. it's all-consuming just making the film, much less putting together and improving the web site and keeping up with the journal entries. Sorta like writing a serialized book while doing the film.

right now, i'm mostly getting word out to other filmmakers, since i think they'll appreciate most what i'm going through as a process (the project was just written up in the April issue of The Independent, for instance). as we get closer to the release of the film, i'll make more of an effort to use web word-of-mouth and traditional press to publicize the project. it's clear already that the media will pick up on it in a big way because it's an unusual merging of web, tv and cinema. i consider it a multi-media project. most films just use the web as a form of press kit for marketing it.

>2) How may personal pages have you looked at >while doing this project?

quite a number, but i found justin hall's fairly early on and once i did i tried to basically link off of him and keep my connections flowing through his. also, justins' are far and away the most compelling personal pages i've seen.

>3) What's the projected completion date
>now that you've finished shooting?

hope to be done in time for this up-and-coming festival in Park City, Utah, in January. this Redford guy sponsors it.

>4) Do you think the personal-page
>phenomonen has gotten the attention
>and study it deserves?

no. the media tends to equate it with the sorry riff-raff on AOL posting pictures of their cats. i, on the other hand, think it speaks volumes about where we're all at at this particular moment in civilization, for better or worse. or, should i say, better and worse. the home page phenomenon reflects our navel-gazing, media-saturated, everyone-can-be-a-celebrity culture, but it also vividly illustrates people's need to connect to other people at a time when the institutions and rituals and communities that previously connected us are disappearing.

>5) If you had to define the film's theme
>in one sentence, what would it be?

we're all connected by our need to be heard and understood, to make a mark on the world, to know that our existence means something.

And by our ongoing quest for Bobo.

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