This is one of my favorite photos of me. A good friend shot portraits of our self-styled “Tall Skinny Fucks” crew on his 35mm Canon. He framed them and gifted them to us.

This 16-year-old lived through a Jesus and Mary Chain filter. This Scottish post punk band wrapped love songs in nihilistic, drug-fueled, screeching feedback and distortion. Their deafening gigs often ended in riots and walk-offs.

The Reid brothers took the piss out of each other in stoned Glaswegian accents in interviews. With some spit and polish they could have played the record label game and become a global name for themselves. 

I dressed all in black like them. I wrote poor copies of their song lyrics. I grew a motherlode of floppy hair like them. I listened to their records over and over so I could FEEL like them. Why?

They did what they liked when they liked and how they liked it.

Jim and William Reid didn't bargain with anyone. 

That's the look I'm channeling here: Artistry. Independence. Love. 

In this photo I'm looking deep into “The Big Blue,” the name my friend Ronan and I gave to our imagined futures.

The Big Blue was world of wide-open roads, of wild loves, of brave adventures. It was out there waiting for us. We just had to hitch a ride on the right train, fight to the death for our right not to bargain any of that away.

If we didn't find The Big Blue, we hadn't learned how to bargain properly. 

For years, my vision held. I moved in with my girlfriend despite opposition from my religious Mum. 

No bargaining. 

I worked my way up from go-fer PA at legendary movie producer Roger Corman's film studio – through 16-hour days, poor pay, verbal and emotional abuse from higher-ups – to editing my first feature film in 2 ½ years. 

No bargaining. 

I turned down a six-figure job in my Dad's construction company.

No bargaining.

I won an international short story competition despite numerous prior rejections of the same story. 

No bargaining. 

I was stubborn, driven, and relentless in everything I pursued. 

And though I was in love, creatively fulfilled and surrounded by a supportive family, there was one thing I could never bargain with...

Red wine.

I pursued that holy elixir with as much intensity as all the other loves and desires in my life. 

Rhoda and I based whole holidays around vineyards in southern Spain. For one of her birthdays, I rented her a row of vines in France. The next year after harvest we took a ferry to France and drove down to the Macon region to pick up four cases of the wine harvested from her very own vines. 

At night I would stay up late to have one more glass of wine. Then one more. 

I was last man drinking at most parties and come dawn, would try to bargain for more. 

Several times I would bargain with the red angel, and we'd cool things down for a while. A weekend, a week, six weeks... and I'd feel great. But it always felt like taking an enforced holiday, a break just to give us some space from each other. 

The restarts always happened the same way: with a little bargaining. 

I'll just have half a glass with dinner. I'll just buy one bottle for the weekend. Look! A whole case is 30% off!

Twenty-three years after this photo, I had lost my bargaining powers with red wine. 

I'm overweight, overwrought, over-angry, over-lost, overhung, over-.... I'm just over it. 

Red wine has brought me here. I never did learn to bargain with her. 

What I had learned was, like in our professional lives, some people you can bargain with, and you both come out of the deal better off. Others you think you’re getting a good deal at the time, but it turns out in the long wrong to drain the very life force from you. 

Even after I had woken up on the floor several times, I had bargained my way into even more punishment. What would it take to get up and stay up for good?

What would it take for those 16-year-old eyes to look into the Big Blue and feel proud of the life they had lived?

Tomorrow: Bargaining my sorry ass off the bathroom floor.