u/AlexDaGreatful

Step 1: Melvin Has Creepy Friends

I (40s m) befriended a local comic (30s M). Let's call him "Melvin." Melvin is an ok comedian but a stellar talent as a director. He's won awards for shorts with minimal budget. It looks gorgeous and he has invested tens of thousands in his own equipment.

After a couple months attending Melvin's open mics, I learned from multiple other locals that he's friends with known sex-pests, domestic abusers, etc. Two in particular are supposed to be really bad, let's call them Beater and Roofee. You can guess what their criminal records include.

But I ignored it because those guys were never around Melvin. And I never saw Melvin indicate he had anything to do with these guys.

Then Melvin blew it all up.

Step 2: Melvin Blows It All Up

One night, not long later, Mel's story onstage sounds suspiciously similar to one of the accusations I heard about his friends. I sussed out that he does know what his friends got up to, and found myself uncomfortable that he's trying to make material out of real sexual and domestic abuses.

That same night, a new girl (18F) came in, let's call her Nicki. Nicki signed up, was nervous and shaky as hell, bombed like everyone does at their first few mics, and smilingly waited after the show to talk to everyone lingering behind.

She approaches Mel, says she's new in town, knows literally nobody in the larger metro area, and just started college in the city.

Without skipping a beat, Melvin tells her that she needs to go seek out Beater and Roofee, and gives her the name/time of their late-late showing, and he even advertises that it's at a bar owned by their friend. There are hundreds of comedians in the area, and he chose those specific two.

Luckily I was able to catch up to Nicki in the parking lot and warn her. I never heard from her again and I lost the desire to go to comedy shows, so I have no idea what happened.

I hope she never went to his creepy friends.

Step 3: The Twist

I used to work in Hollywood.

I was going to open doors to Melvin. He'd have his IATSE union card at least if not possibly a DGA, health benefits and some feature-length, work-for-hire credit. Just like the real director/cinematographer he always wanted to be, that he spent thousands and years to become. And it would be with budgeted people whom I knew to be safe to work with.

But when Melvin referred Nicki to Beater and Roofee? Hell nah. No phone calls, no emails, no nothing. Ghosted him completely, and from what I've seen of local film fests nobody wants to work with him anymore locally.

Melvin is an amazing talent. Truly a phenomenal director. But he'll throw innocent people to the wolves. And I won't have anyone on a set like that using my name to gain entrance.

So enjoy your shitty open mics, Melvin. You could have had more but you chose to be bad people instead.

Part of me wants to tell him what I did, why, and what he lost. But I kinda prefer to watch him struggle now. And rest assured, he is.

• TL;DR: Aspiring director/comic helps out local creeps, guaranteeing that he loses my referrals to Hollywood. And now he's still stuck in his tiny crappy town.

FINAL EDIT Thanks to everyone for showing support! To the tiny minority of people who say "not good enough," I encourage the robust ingestion of hirsute perineum.

If you've got a 7-minute route that passes by Subway^^TM (for example), and a 5-minute route that doesn't, Google Maps will happily add those 2 minutes to your drive.

I forgot to renew my license plate sticker last year, got pulled over for it and convicted at traffic court. The ticket didn't even have an offense code for the expired sticker, it was just referred to as "MISC." Got my new sticker and paid a fine. Thought it was one and done.

One clerical error later, they suspend my license for failure to appear. I got it reinstated in 9 days after a brief conversation with a court clerk about the info mentioned above.

Outside of that, my driving record is squeaky-clean. Does the "consider" status doom my chances anyway? I'd hate for something so stupid and minor to screw me so hard. I'm coping by telling myself they just don't want unsafe drivers, but I also know anything but "Clear" isn't ideal.

Anyone make it through a similar "consider" phase or know anyone that has? Thanks in advance, all. Keeping my fingers crossed.