started from public access now I’m here (origin story)

started from the bottom and my whole team is fuckin' here! (team DIY, delusion, grief, motherhood, art during fascism, and occasionally Knicks basketball )

Let’s be real, no one needs another one of these. if you look around, we are veering on podcast territory… big yikes.

But I’ve been inspired by the indie DIY spirit of NonDe (shout out Ted Hope) and I grew up reading zines. My public access television show called “Rainbow Ruthie” for four years growing in New York City was a testament to free media, a pre youtube era of enlightment. I edited said television show off two VCRs when I was thirteen, so yeah I was DIY as FUCK ! Ask about me ( if you grew up in downtown Manhattan in the 90s I was vaguely known but theres no internet evidence )

(Rainbow Ruthie Episode #2, Manhattan Neighborhood Network, channel 16)

Can Substack be akin to Grand Royal zine I found in Tower Records (rip) ? Can indie film be revitalized by another probably corrupt social media platform I am currently posting on ( google it!)

I don’t know man! We are tired. I’ll admit that Fascism is much more boring than I thought it would be. Wannabe dictators who cant pronounce names of medications that they falsely claim causes autism.. yawn.

Maybe I’ve been looking back on past lives pre-internet, because I hate to say this as your resident elder Millenial, but things were just a lot lot lot better then. I yearn to give this version of an encumbered offline life to my daughter, but instead know I will have to stop her from watching AI cat videos ( currently pronounced “vibbeos”)

My late Father Michael Marantz, whose sudden death profoundly changed the course of my life forewarned me “ One day you will look back on the period of time you made Rainbow Ruthie and wonder how you just did that effortlessly.”

( My dad and I bantering in only the way we could )

And funnily enough, the moment I decided to look back, into my VHS archival vault of shows was when I was sitting in THE Spike Lee’s office during my third year of NYU GraduateFilm. I found out I got into the school soon after his memorial. By my third year I was acutely intimidated by student loan bill, and it honestly felt a little hopeless. I was thinking of dropping out. I wanted to be inspired but the nepotism, wealth, and prestige I was surrounded by just alienated and confused me.

My mentorship with one of my actual film heroes saved me. I think some of my Dad’s spirit pushed me into sitting face to face with Spike Lee in his office. Now this made the gamble of forever debt feel worth it. Spike and I would sit, listen to music, talk about film, art and life during his weekly office hours he opens to his students (He teaches your final directing year if you make it through the grueling said financially draining program!) I showed him clips of my show, my scripts, and said I wanted to work in TV again, and thats how he financially backed by my SXSW premiered film that I acted, produced wrote and directed.

I’ll admit as I was ushered into rooms in the industry I’d never thought I’d be in (because of my very good no money little indie episodic pilot I shot in my apartment ) I did think it would end in an eventual show on a network like HBO. And for once I believed and knew something I had made was good enough. Fuck the haters! I was back baby! I circled through lawyers, development deals, different partners and eventually made it as far to talk to some networks. No one bit. Maybe I was still too much of a no name. And then COVID happened and yeah, anyone else who works in film can tell you the rest of that sad industry-wide story.

I have truly never understood the distance between artists and gatekeepers. Isn’t there a way to make like our version of public access network without any corporate greed interfering? Shouldn’t we as creative people I don’t know, have a modest income or way to survive? And while I don’t think anything will be solved from waxing poetic here, my dads motto was “ Speak Truth to Power” so thats what I return to when I’m writing…my first substack post on the internet. Oy.

But I do still write and direct my own films. That thread of my life has continued, in this strange way of returning to the place I started. This little filmmaker voice saying just shoot something in your apartment again.. maybe you can call in some favors and make something new? And since becoming a Mom, I have only felt more sure of my voice as an artist. So much more confident, and aware, and open. How nice when the exact opposite of every Patriarchal thing you are told as a female artist is true about motherhood.

Maybe I am joining in whatever this is because I am grasping to any tiny piece of humanity and community. Every time I see something hopeful- a great new film or song, I feel the energy of a thirteen year old with zero fucks and zero Tru*ps in her future. Even as depressed and anxious Jewish New Yorker I am an eternal optimist.

Call me crazy but I still believe in indie film and in us.

( Wish List for Entertainment lawyer I wrote at sixteen about my “ IP” lol)

Maybe I’ll post some more Rainbow archival clips here if you subscribe. Maybe I’ll never come back again and continue to lurk, rooting you all on.

I do feel hope every time I see a little piece of analog coming back into the vernacular. Someone text me if seven inch records start making the rounds again.

A gift from Adam Green, public access fan.

Call me on my landline

love ya

(rainbow) ruthie

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