Gary W. Goldstein, Author/Producer: We come to a red light and I stop and I look at her.
She's looking straight ahead and I said Rosario
is everything okay? You haven't said a word. Film Courage:
Best piece of advice you've ever received? Gary: I mean it's profound, but it's not profound. We
talked earlier in my past in San Francisco I was a criminal defense lawyer and it was an absolutely
brilliant experience. The people that I met, the things I was exposed to, the community that
I served. I’ve often said if our life is a book that was one of the best chapters I'll ever know.
It wasn't necessarily my calling in the sense that it was a perfect fit for my temperament.
I didn't want to do it well into my adulthood but I'm so grateful for it, it taught me a lot.
When that came to a close and I knew the day it came to a close, I was done.
I was very nervous because the person I most admire, my hero, my best friend,
was my dad. I had to now tell my dad not just that I was quitting a job,
but that I was quitting a career because I really didn't want to be an attorney beyond
that choice that I had made. I went to my dad and I pulled him out of his business and we
got to go have a bite or something to drink and we sat down at this place and I was so nervous.
What was his reaction going to be? Finally I said Dad, you know we're here because
there's something really important I want to share with you.
He said What is it? I said Well, you know I'm quitting my job and I'm quitting the law. It's
not what I want to do. Literally in that moment my father, without missing a beat, smiled
(something was already wrong), he smiled and he looked at me and he said that's great
and I was just like stunned it was like I expect parental lecture number what have you
about the investment of time and money and this is respectable and all those
typical things and I and I said dad I just that's not what I expected
and I actually asked him why why do you say that why is it great
and he said because I don't think you've been happy and I think you should go find what excites
you and whatever that is I think that's what you should go do it was like the the utter simplicity
and heart and humanity of that moment as simple as that statement was I was just cowed it like
took me to my knees it was like oh my god I know that you're wise I know that you're an amazing dad
but you've just upped the game
and that's what I would say to people
and the other is a quote which I'm going to read because I don't want to get it wrong it's from I
mean after all you don't want to misquote William Faulkner of all people so William Faulkner had
this wonderful quote that I've always loved always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do
don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or your predecessors
try to be better than yourself that's the game you know it's that like 100-day thing every day
I'm going to wake up and I just want to be one percent better than the me that was yesterday
were you working for a firm I was working as a lawyer it was a foundation in
in what was the ghetto of San Francisco it was called baby hunters point so there was the baby
hunters point foundation that about 125 people in the center was the sort of linchpin the sexy
sort of fundraising piece which was criminal defense so we represented the indigent adults
of that geography in lieu of the public defender they were ours and then we had alongside that
we had the the social workers and we had the drug rehabilitation program and we had the job
skills retraining program and we had all of these the investigators we had the idea was a holistic
solution for this beautiful community that was very beleaguered in many ways
keep the families together the kids in school the guys out of jail etc and
our chief counsel was named Richard Bancroft
I was so intimidated by this man when we first met
Baso profundo voice tall good-looking African-American older a civil rights
leader in the south before LBJ coined the phrase civil rights
he'd been a president a national president of the naacp he'd seen life that I couldn't even imagine
and he was our chief counsel and then we had a few attorneys and then a couple of schlubs like me
but then we had all these other services these human services to serve this beautiful community
and for a kid who really had never spent time in the projects or
in the criminal justice system certainly it was eye-opening and it was a perfect it was a perfect
it was a perfect dance it was a perfect marriage for me at that time
these people became my family they became my teachers I learned more in my very first year
of interning for them than I learned in three years of law school it was extraordinary yeah
they're still there did you see pursuit of happiness because that takes place in San
Francisco correct yeah yeah yeah yeah great film great story excellent yeah extraordinary
real story yeah yeah it was it was you know as they said the best of times the worst of times
I loved every day that I spent there and emotionally I was a wreck almost every night
yeah that's I wasn't I wasn't built for criminal defense
I couldn't separate you know I wasn't a great chess player
I wore it on my sleeve a little bit sure
yeah but again it gives you just insane levels of appreciation for how diverse this life experience
can be and just the unexpected challenges and joys you know like that was one of the
most joyful communities I've ever experienced in my life do you ever go back I'm sure has
it been gentrified by now maybe yes and no not really I mean it's it's it's such a physically
it's it's it's literally across the bridge to get to you don't go there unless you mean to go there
so when when I say it's segregated I mean it like literally physically is
its own distinct area out by the old shipyards but the truth is I could be wrong because you know
precious as land is let alone in San Francisco maybe it's been gentrified
I haven't been up you know Harlem's been gentrified maybe maybe a hundred flight
been gentrified I haven't been up to see it in oh god I don't know 15 years or more
yeah so you had the lunch with your dad
he gave you his blessing so to speak even though you already had this plan
and then you gave your notice or you had already given your notice at that time
I had I had let people know it wasn't like I walked in gave my notice and
walked out the door these were family it was really heart-wrenching for me to leave
but yeah I couldn't not and there were some personal things that went on that that just
made it impossible for me to be doing that work but it was like yeah you know when I went to law
school I went to golden gate university law school which was actually directly across the street from
my dad's place of business and everybody knew my dad and it was like it was just so perfect anyway
my first year of law school I met a gal who was in my class
she was probably about my age back then single mom two boys MSW degree and a private social
work practice that was hers oh wow and she was a full-time first year law student
Rosario her name was Rosario African-American big personality
smart as a whip and I remember being at first like you know I didn't approach her because she was
like superwoman right how do you have an mSW and two kids and be a full-time law student and just
how is that possible well we did become friends and one day she approached me halfway through
our first year I think it was and she said Gary you you know I know you've I hear you've worked
out at baby hunters point and you know you're close to the to them i'd love to meet them
can I go out there with you sometime and I said of course absolutely so I took her out on every
Tuesday was staff meeting day when everybody's there and I said let's go on a Tuesday y'all
you'll meet everybody so I took her out introduced her we walked in introduced everybody schmoozed
away you know got into the staff meeting came out schmoozed with everybody hung out made sure she
met everybody who was there and said I loved being there I wasn't in a hurry to leave anyway finally
it's time to go we got my little Karmann Ghia Volkswagen to head back to downtown San Francisco
and drop her off late afternoon so suffice to say rosario was not a shy retiring wallflower she was
she was full of life we get in my car and I start driving and I've been driving now
for several minutes and she hasn't uttered a syllable we come to a red light and I stop
and I look at her she's looking straight ahead and I said Rosario is everything okay
you haven't said a word and privately I never experienced that right
she turned and she looked at me and very slowly she said those people really love you
and it took me a minute for the dimension of that to sink in right
it was it was I think she was a bit surprised by the dimension of our relationship
and I say I tell you that I share that anecdote
really to describe how meaningful that was to me and how hard it was to leave them it wasn't
hard to leave the practice of law at all but it was hard to leave the people but I will say this
just much like being a kid in the 60s in sSan Francisco and being at UC Berkeley in the heyday
and putting on the kind you know and then that experience that baby hunters those are all related
in the you know in the daisy chain of my life those are all pivotal moments that really have
everything to do with forming my world view how I see things
what I care about it was a extraordinary time I was very I'm still to this day grateful that I
have the history that I have you know pretty cool pretty blessed and here we are in Hollywood
not bad excited for I don't know I think I think we're at a really exciting moment like that for me
when the studios became purchased and you know but then he bought Universal
and Sony black Colombia, etc., etc., etc. and they became populated with a different
group of people and the budgets went up in the 20 million star and all those things
align with the demise of the indies so there's I don't know 25 or more robust
companies that were putting out as many films if not more than the studios collectively right
who were either broken up with their library value or just went bankrupt or whatever happened right
so the Hemdales and and and the Vestrons and all of those wonderful companies and
suddenly there was no independent cinema the studios became more corporate they made half
as many phones with double the size budgets and there was this contraction moment and it was it's
a time when I started to take walkabouts and do other things alongside this thing called producing
and suddenly in because of what's happened in recent years we now have
something that is so much more robust than that ever was the demand for story is the the the size
of the appetite and the number of series and films that are that are needed and being and actually
being you know be coveted aside the obviously production's been quashed for the year but but
the number of projects that are being developed and produced overall for all of these streamers
who have a lot of diverse appetites to feed it's absolutely stunning to me and I think it's a great
time to refocus our energies and you know be in the game and figure out this this new landscape.