“The Swag Bag” A Mort Laitner Short Story 

Who would have thought that I would ever be awarded a swag bag? Well it happened at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. I was bestowed a sack full of free stuff. A  (Well not so free, the cost of making a movie ain’t cheap). A goodie bag filled with irreplaceable items which will become souvenirs of my life. (A question for my accountant friends, Do I need to declare these gifts as income?) Here was my thank you for participating at the film festival.

I remembered reading the about the freebies found in the Golden Globes, Emmy or Academy Awards Celebrity Swag Bags—stuff like vacations to Oahu, plastic surgery gift certificates, iPhones, $100 Pilot pens, bathrobes, T-shirts and movie tickets.

This Hollywood time-honored tradition was a perk setup for A-listers and I was definitely not in that category. But I dove into the Fresh Market bag, embolden with the FLIFF logo and a bunch of photos of berries and veggies, as if it belonged to Leonardo DiCaprio.

My heart thumped as I pulled item after item from the bag: a gold rimmed Stella Artois wine glass filled with a cloth wrapped collection of message Valentine Day candy hearts; a FLIFF logo T-shirt, two film festival posters (To be framed), a Stella Artois bottle opener emblazoned with the words “Perfection has its price.”(Boy, as a movie maker, I’ve learned that lesson); printed tickets to my movie “The Stairs”. (To be framed); a stack of tickets to go to lots of other movies; an islands of the Bahamas key chain.

As I contemplated my collection of merch, I untied the ribbon on the cloth pouch of candies. The bag filled with yellow, pink and pastel blue hearts. The hearts inked with words of wisdom: MY LOVE; DATE NIGHT; FIRST KISS; LET’S KISS; BEST DAY; MELT MY HEART; 4U; TRUE BLUE; DREAM BIG.

I realized: my love of film making; how watching the movie on the big screen melted my heart; how my movie-making crew was true blue; a big kiss to my family for all their help; how this adventure was my big dream.

 I will always cherish these goodies.

Blake and I give special thanks to FLIFF for accepting our film, especially Michelle Filippi, Gregory von Hausch and all the FLIFF staff for their kindness and professionalism.

Well our 17th win is our haiku. A poem filled with love. As you are well aware, a haiku is a poem with seventeen syllables; MysticalNumbers.com said the words for us, “number seventeen so awesome and powerful best number ever”

Number 17 arrives thanks to the Fourth Annual Flagler Film Festival which is located in Palm Coast, Florida. I love their philosophy, “We believe there are many creative and innovative artists who deserve recognition for their efforts, especially those constrained by low budgets. We believe that sometimes even more creativity is required when a filmmaker has little or no budget with which to create a film.” With our limited budget, we can relate and appreciate these wise words.

We will be attending their awards ceremony champagne reception in January, where we will raise a glass of bubbly and toast to number 17. A win so awesome and powerful our best number ever until we hit eighteen.

Please join us at the Flagler Film Festival to see “The Stairs” on the big screen.

“Trolls”  by Mort Laitner

It arrived on October 8th, 2016. I’m not sure if it was on Twitter or Facebook or in an email. The note implored me to stop writing about “He-Whose-Name-Shall-Never-Be-Spoken.” 

Dear Mort,

Please stop writing about the election. I am super saturated with this presidential campaign and cannot take it any longer. Even though your stories are cutting and witty, my brain cannot handle another word. We all know that Hillary has it all wrapped up!

Signed,

A fan begging you to stop.

I read the note twice; it had had its desired effect. I would take a break from writing about the man. I was also a bit super saturated. I needed a sojourn.

On November 10th, I decided to take another look at the note. My eyes glazed over the email address of this supposed fan. When I realized his email came from RUSSIA.

I had been trolled. Not by those cute, colorful long-haired dolls but by the nefarious Russian masterminds. They hacked into the server hidden beneath my skull. I was one easy son-of-a-gun to manipulate.

I had seen these Russian hackers on 60 Minutes. They laughed at Americans. “Do you how easy it is to use social media to take advantage of Democrats,”

I thought they were joking.

Why wasn’t the FBI protecting the integrity of the net?—especially my content? What could be more important than protecting Americans from Russians trying to influence and destroy our democracy.

Thousands of these hackers sat in their Moscow apartments dressed in pajamas and trolled the internet in an attempt to send out misinformation about our election.

These hackers must have read by biting tale about those infamous KBG agents Boris and Natasha trying to destroy our election. They must have used their cunning brains to send out emails to all kinds of writers who were attacking their man— under orders from Putin himself.

With their trail of manipulative emails, they convinced the talking heads, the pollsters and even Hillary’s staff that she had it all wrapped up.

So Hillary made fewer campaign stops. Stopped her negativity rants. Became so positive it hurt. She acted as if she had it in the bag and refused to scare the B’jesus out of the electorate. 

On November 8, Boris and Natasha had won.

On November 10th, I put on my best Scottish, James Bond accent and raised my clenched fist in the air, “Well played Mr. Russian Troll but four years from now I will not fall for your deplorable tricks.”

What the readers are saying: