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

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Recently back from a two-day soujourn to Columbus, Ohio, where I shot a long-delayed encounter with Bill Walker.

Bill, longtime D-Word readers may remember, was the first of you to respond strongly to my journal entries. “Boring!” said the header of his e-mail message. It was signed: “Disappointed in Ohio.”

Always thought it’d be a hoot to show up on his doorstep, camera in hand, and go: “Whattayamean boring, Buster!?!” Only problem was I couldn’t get a handle on how I’d use it in the film.

I remember the first time I went to Bill’s Web site, prepared to hate his guts, and finding, to my considerable consternation, someone with a good sense of humor, a good heart and a love for the Web with no small adverse impact on his sleep habits and family life. He teaches music at an alternative elementary school in the inner city, but his passion is making short Quicktime videos with his students and his dream to somehow, some way get them out and seen in this big webwide world.

Oh, my! Turns out he’s a nice guy! Turns out we even have much in common!

Now that we’re in the midst of editing, I think I finally know where Bill fits in. He came to me originally from a link on Justin’s site. Well, links between characters propel the narrative. And his reaction to my representation on the Web was not positive. Now repeat after me, kiddies: conflict is drama, conflict is drama, conflict is drama...

And that's why I find myself once again heading off to distant places, trying hard not to think about my rapidly shrinking bank account.

Bill picks me up at the airport, exuding sincerity and friendliness. He’s a wiry guy in his late 40’s, with a beard and medium-length hair-- he even physically resembles me.

I don’t want to talk about anything that I might later talk about in the interview, so I keep the conversation on the travails of Electric Minds, of which Bill is an active member.

We settle down in his living room, his wife, step-son and daughter long asleep. The moment is at hand. Holding the camera on his face with one hand, I take out a hardcopy of the e-mail and read his fateful words aloud: “Boring! All promise and nothing new...”

As I suspected he might be, Bill is taken aback. He laughs, but his face is flushed and he squirms slightly. “You would never have said that to my face, would you?” I ask in mock outrage, about as Mike Wallace as the D-Word gets.

“No, that’s true,” Bill admits. “I can’t begin to explain why I was so abrupt. I suppose I was used to getting a daily dose of Justin and when I started to read your entries, I guess I just wanted more. I was disappointed.”

Having received a fair share of Net attention, and both fan and pan mail since, The D-Word’s beginning to understand. E-mail is a faceless wonder, where social ammenities fall prey to the ticking clock and mindless reply button. If, as a wise young wiz writes, attention is the real commodity of the web, a thick skin is the necessary bi-product.

Bill takes me to his basement and shows me some of the Quicktime videos. On his computer monitor, a skinny girl named Denise, looking to be about nine, talks shyly to the camera about herself. In voice-over, friends and classmates talk about those qualities in Denise they like best. Bill superimposes images and layers the voices percussively to his melodic score, and the overall effect is remarkably cinematic, playful and quite moving.

I take a lot of care shooting the screen, rotating a lamp directly onto Bill to get his reflection in the monitor superimposed over Denise’s face. I ask him to replay the video a few times to grab different angles and each time his smile is one of pure pleasure.

All he wants, he wrote on his home page, is for these videos of his kids to see the light of day.

Wish granted.

Justin leads Bill to me. Bill leads me to Denise. Behind every link lies a story. Justin’s is the main story of Home Page but I want to hint at all those other stories. Badly enough to have flown to Columbus.

On my return I find an e-mail from Bill:

Thanks again for coming, and for being so tolerant of my initial fit of belligerence in email. At this point, I think we should just go ahead and become really good friends, which will make the odd beginning an even better part of the story!

I had a truly special two days with Bill and his family. And it’s been a long time since someone wanted to be really good friends with me. I think I’m ready.

Oh, yeah. He signed it: “Bored No More”.

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