Re:Susan & Arin answer your questions - June/July 2008

elevatorself:

Susan, are you still working in the sex industry?  If so do you still enjoy it in the same way? -even though you and Arin have broken up and moved on.

 

Also, I just wanted to say that you and Arin have been a huge inspiration to me.  I really appreciate the work you two have done, and the openness and honesty that you gave in your footage.

Thanks! I'm not currently working in the sex industry though there was a brief period in time that I tried to do it after are break up to earn cash. It didn't end up being super profitable for me because my personality isn't really in salesman ship and you really have to be good at convincing people to give you their money as a stripper, as in I'm sure many other professions.  If I had excelled at earning high dollars I might have continued to enjoy it.  At first when I did it, it  felt really good to 1. bring money into our operation instead of just spending it 2. do something that was purely my idea 3. strike out and gain some independence and 4. get some outside male attention. This quickly faded. Even while I was with Arin the positive things I gained from being a stripper ceased to really satisfy me because they were all fairly superficial fixes to much deeper problems that I was having with myself as an individual and as a person within the context of the relationship I was having with Arin. I was pretty over the stripping well before we broke up. 

Re:Susan & Arin answer your questions - June/July 2008

sega123:

hey so i want to know is whats next are you guys thinking about doing another project?

how has it been since the dvd came out?

Things have been good since the DVD came out. Arin actually left NYC and has been traveling around working on various films and and has been working hard  on From Here to Awesome since he left. I wrote and directed a short film called 'Smothered' for the International Pancake Film Festival which is on my youtube channel (youtube.com/susanbuice)  and I'm currently on post production for a music video I wrote and directed in which Arin was the DP  for a band called Woodpecker. I'm also on pre-production  for another music video. I'm working on a script for a vampire film in which the vampires are the main characters. Arin and I actually will be working on a film together out at Burning Man this year which will be a sort of research documentary that will then become the basis for a narrative film we will work on together in the coming year. It's definitely going to be different than FEM but we work really well together and know that we can make something really unique and potentially powerful if we do this next project together. 

In the end

Hi Suan & Arin,

I can´t help myself  feeling a little sad and lost while your "project" finally came to an end. To me it was nothing but touching.

Although, I guess, everybody was hoping for an "happy end" (better: no end) it came differently and now I´m left behind with shattered feelings that are hardly to describe. What about you two?

Have your expectations, your hopes or your fears (as long as you can describe them for yourself) been fullfilled?

How would these sentences end?

"We started it, because...."

"We hold on to the project, because..."

"We brought it to an end, bacause..."

In the end, wasn´t there I kind of fight between you both, something like a need to show "I´m stronger than you" ? Has there been jealousy or rivalry between you (as the two main actors) at any time?

For me the last episodes have been nothing like that kind of fight, a fight that Arin finally lost because he continued to refer to his love (and his being a monster) instead of referring to individual needs and breaking out.

Susan, are you "the winner" because you were the one who broke out and brought it to an end?

Arin, do you feel left behind because she did it like that?

And the most important question, of course: Today, at this moment while your reading this, do you still love each other?

I would be really glad if you could find the time to answer some of my questions.

Thank you for your inspiring work. I wish all the best to you both!

Pola

Re:In the end

pola16-7:

Hi Suan & Arin,

I can´t help myself  feeling a little sad and lost while your "project" finally came to an end. To me it was nothing but touching.

Although, I guess, everybody was hoping for an "happy end" (better: no end) it came differently and now I´m left behind with shattered feelings that are hardly to describe. What about you two?

Have your expectations, your hopes or your fears (as long as you can describe them for yourself) been fullfilled?

How would these sentences end?

"We started it, because...."

"We hold on to the project, because..."

"We brought it to an end, bacause..."

In the end, wasn´t there I kind of fight between you both, something like a need to show "I´m stronger than you" ? Has there been jealousy or rivalry between you (as the two main actors) at any time?

For me the last episodes have been nothing like that kind of fight, a fight that Arin finally lost because he continued to refer to his love (and his being a monster) instead of referring to individual needs and breaking out.

Susan, are you "the winner" because you were the one who broke out and brought it to an end?

Arin, do you feel left behind because she did it like that?

And the most important question, of course: Today, at this moment while your reading this, do you still love each other?

I would be really glad if you could find the time to answer some of my questions.

Thank you for your inspiring work. I wish all the best to you both!

Pola

 

Hey  Pola, these are really thought provoking questions. I'll do my best to answer them. First I will try to finish your sentences and then I will try to address some of you questions about power struggle because I think they're really good.

We started it because we loved each other and we loved to be creative together.

We hold onto the project because I'm personally terrified of letting it go. When I think about four eyed monsters ending and my affiliation with Arin ending it spirals me into terror and self doubt. The questions that come to mind are 'how will I make stuff on my own?, how will I be financially self sufficient?' Really logistical questions about my survival as an independent being plague me but I don't think those are the real questions that bother me, I think my brain is just seizing upon rational problems to express a much deeper loss that my intellect can't really wrap itself around. It's a return to the same problems I had before I met Arin. This crippling self doubt about my abilities as a creative and as a self sufficient valuable person. When Arin fell in love with me it helped me see myself as someone valuable and love-able. When we started working together it gave me a sense of purpose.  I was happy and creatively fufilled.  This underlying terror and self doubt never left me though ( l call it my FATAL FLAW), our interaction together alleviated it and even distracted me from it for a good while. Ultimately I think  it was partly this problem I had before I met Arin the contributed  to our spiral into an unhealthy relationship and the break up because he couldn't prevent those problems from coming back and eventually our being together became an obvious crutch for me emotionally and it became impossible for me to try to resolve them on my own in the context of the relationship.

We brought this to an end because we were relying on each other too much to be everything to one another. Our dependence on each other became crippling and as much as the crippled part needed the relationship it was making us so unhappy that we had to end it so that we could continue to develop, grow and change.

A power struggle did ensue, on my behalf, because of this feeling that I needed Arin much more than he needed me. I also just felt terrible that I relied on him for so much. I didn't really dislike or dis-love Arin, I resented him because I was growing to dislike myself so much and I believed he was disliking me too. At a certain point I felt like Arin no longer saw what he found valuable or love-able about me when we met, I felt like he was disliking me for the same reasons I disliked myself. He was like a constant mirror of everything that was wrong with me. I'm not sure if that was me projecting emotions onto him or  if he felt that way too sometimes, like I was some steaming pile of shit in the middle of our loft. I definitely don't feel "I won". During the dying of our relationship I felt like we were both cosmic losers. In the end if anyone 'won', though I'm not sure I even believe in that as a concept, it 's Arin. He has been doing great since our break up, he's traveling around and constantly meeting new people and working on projects he's passionate about and he seems really free and happy I'm the one that's still wondering what to do with myself. Even though I'm deeply in love with someone else right now I'm terrified it will go to hell in a hand basket no matter what I do, that I have a self destruct button and that the FATAL FLAW will slowly rot the love from the inside out . Even though I think Arin and I are both better for having broken up I still feel incredibly sad that it didn't work out. I think I'm afraid it means nothing will ever last.

I'll always love Arin. Our relationship made us family. I think as we've been apart some distance has slowly inched its way in and we may at some point be more like family members who only see each other every few years at some random reunion who don't really know each other super well but none the less are strangely bonded together by family ties or we may remain close friends that in linked in with each others lives. I really don't know. I do know that love never ceases between 2 people. Relationships change and what you desire of someone changes, and even emotions around the love might change but love remains no matter what.

 

 

 

 

 

Re:Susan & Arin answer your questions - June/July 2008

Hi guys. Thank you so much for being so open and sharing of your life together. I think that everyone could learn something from it, but that in particular more withdrawn, creative types can look at it and feel like we're not alone. That's truly a gift to the world.

I have a couple 'nuts and bolts' questions for you.

-Does the credit card monster still exist? Or are you both seeing the light from under that mountain (particularly in funding from FEM but probably from other sources as well)?

-What is the actual timeframe of the last several episodes in particular? I haven't kept up with regularity, but I did notice the gap in anything being released, yet the timeframe I percieved is a little confusing to me (ie. episode 8 seemed to be less than a year from the release of the last several episodes yet more than a year seemed to have elapsed in that time.)

Thank you again, I really look forward to your other projects, especially the Burning Man project!

-lisa

Re:Susan & Arin answer your questions - June/July 2008

I want 2 know what is love  between a human and a Four Eyed Monsters ?

Re:Susan & Arin answer your questions - June/July 2008

rachellehcar:

Through it all do you have one favorite moment in time?

Rachellehcar,

Good question.  I don't know about one.  But a I can say a few that were really exhilarating, the time I stalked susan as she left her work and sent her the pictures in her email and our first date which ended my sexual dry spell in a glorious wonderful experience.  Also then when we decided that life had brought us an opportunity to tell a crazy story and that this might be the only opportunity that we'd have and we had to take it and jump full force into telling our story.  And then again when we got into slamdance and also when we were invited by YouTube to be the first feature length film posted to YouTube and we started seeing we started seeing the view count sky rocket and spout dollars come flying in.  Those are just a few of the many highlights for myself.

Re:Susan & Arin answer your questions - June/July 2008

I have a couple 'nuts and bolts' questions for you.

-Does the credit card monster still exist? Or are you both seeing the light from under that mountain (particularly in funding from FEM but probably from other sources as well)?

Currently the credit card monster does still exist. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. We're still awaiting payment from various distribution outlets that we've sold rights to and as those come through big chunks of debt will be neutralized. We should be entirely out of debt by February 2009 and all the debt will be absolved by revenue streams coming from Four Eyed Monsters. That's really exciting. I know it seems very mechanical but the idea that an act of creativity can have value and can be enough to pay for itself and you while you're working on it makes me want to giggle hysterically. I think one of the problems Arin and I have suffered from and a major problem for a lot of creatives I know is feeling that you shouldn't be compensated for your creative work or that you won't be even if you deserve to be. I think we all intellectually understand that we should be able to support ourselves with our filmmaking, music making or art making or whatever it is we're compelled to do, but for a long time I haven't felt on, an emotional level, that I deserved that or that it was even possible. Clearing out that block is the first step to financial success and freedom. I am now beginning to find budgets for projects I want to work on and I foresee actually earning income out of making films and music videos.

-What is the actual timeframe of the last several episodes in particular? I haven't kept up with regularity, but I did notice the gap in anything being released, yet the timeframe I percieved is a little confusing to me (ie. episode 8 seemed to be less than a year from the release of the last several episodes yet more than a year seemed to have elapsed in that time.)

Episode 9 picked up where episode 8 left off. When episode 8  was posted it discussed events that had happened about a year earlier. There were a lot of logistical reasons why we halted in producing episodes but I think the main reason was that the story we needed to tell was still playing out. Even though where episode 9 picked up had by that time happened 2 years earlier we were about to the tell the story of how things fell apart, but when we first tried editing that stuff we were in the midst of that story occuring. It was almost impossible editing that footage because it all pointed to what was happening in our relationship at that time. A year or more elapsed between episode 8 and 9 because we broke up, kept working together, started dating other people, kept working together etc. We were feeling our way through everything, trying to understand who we were to each other. When we edited the new episodes, 9,10 and 11 were about events that had taken place about 2 years prior, episodes 12 started where episode 11 left off covered about a 2 year period of time after that, then episode 13 covered the following year and caught up to where we were in November of 2007.

Re:Susan & Arin answer your questions - June/July 2008

I have a couple 'nuts and bolts' questions for you.

-Does the credit card monster still exist? Or are you both seeing the light from under that mountain (particularly in funding from FEM but probably from other sources as well)?

Currently the credit card monster does still exist. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. We're still awaiting payment from various distribution outlets that we've sold rights to and as those come through big chunks of debt will be neutralized. We should be entirely out of debt by February 2009 and all the debt will be absolved by revenue streams coming from Four Eyed Monsters. That's really exciting. I know it seems very mechanical but the idea that an act of creativity can have value and can be enough to pay for itself and you while you're working on it makes me want to giggle hysterically. I think one of the problems Arin and I have suffered from and a major problem for a lot of creatives I know is feeling that you shouldn't be compensated for your creative work or that you won't be even if you deserve to be. I think we all intellectually understand that we should be able to support ourselves with our filmmaking, music making or art making or whatever it is we're compelled to do, but for a long time I haven't felt on, an emotional level, that I deserved that or that it was even possible. Clearing out that block is the first step to financial success and freedom. I am now beginning to find budgets for projects I want to work on and I foresee actually earning income out of making films and music videos.

-What is the actual timeframe of the last several episodes in particular? I haven't kept up with regularity, but I did notice the gap in anything being released, yet the timeframe I percieved is a little confusing to me (ie. episode 8 seemed to be less than a year from the release of the last several episodes yet more than a year seemed to have elapsed in that time.)

Episode 9 picked up where episode 8 left off. When episode 8  was posted it discussed events that had happened about a year earlier. There were a lot of logistical reasons why we halted in producing episodes but I think the main reason was that the story we needed to tell was still playing out. Even though where episode 9 picked up had by that time happened 2 years earlier we were about to the tell the story of how things fell apart, but when we first tried editing that stuff we were in the midst of that story occuring. It was almost impossible editing that footage because it all pointed to what was happening in our relationship at that time. A year or more elapsed between episode 8 and 9 because we broke up, kept working together, started dating other people, kept working together etc. We were feeling our way through everything, trying to understand who we were to each other. When we edited the new episodes, 9,10 and 11 were about events that had taken place about 2 years prior, episodes 12 started where episode 11 left off covered about a 2 year period of time after that, then episode 13 covered the following year and caught up to where we were in November of 2007.

Re:Susan & Arin answer your questions - June/July 2008

EmoGirl2008:

I want 2 know what is love  between a human and a Four Eyed Monsters ?

a love triangle? or a threesome?