Losing everything David Hoffman

I had a fire nine days ago my archived

175 films my 16-millimeter negative all

my books of my dad’s books my

photographs I had collected I was a

collector major big-time it’s gone I

just looked at it and I didn’t know what

to do I mean this was was I my things I

always live in the present I love the

present I cherished the future and I was

taught some strange thing as a kid like

you got to make something good out of

something bad you got to make something

good out of something bad this was bad

man I was I I coughed I was sick that’s

my camera lens the first one the one I

shot my Bob Dylan film with 35 years ago

that’s my feature film King Murray won

Khan Film Festival in 1970 the only

print I had that’s my papers I was in

minutes 20 minutes epiphany hit me

something hit me you got to make

something good out of something bad I

started to say to my friends neighbors

my sister by the way that Sputnik I ran

it last year Sputnik was downtown the

negative it wasn’t touched these are

some pieces of things I used in my

Sputnik feature film which opens in New

York in two weeks

at downtown I called my sister I called

my neighbors I said come dig that’s me

at my desk I was a desk took 40 years to

build you know all the stuff that’s my

daughter Jean she came she’s a nurse in

San Francisco dig it up I said pieces I

want pieces bits and pieces I came up

with this idea a life of bits and pieces

which I’m just starting to work on my

next project that’s my sister she took

care of pictures cuz I was a big

collector of just snapshot photography

that I believed said a lot and those are

some of the pictures that something was

good about the burned pictures I didn’t

know I looked at that I said wow is that

better than that’s my proposal on Jimmy

Doolittle I made that movie for

vision it’s only copy I had pieces of it

idea about women so I started to say hey

man you are too much you could cry about

this I really didn’t I instead said I’m

gonna make something out of it and maybe

next year and I’m appreciate this moment

to come up on this stage with so many

people have already given me so much

solace and just say the tedsters I’m

proud of me that I take something bad I

turn it and I’m gonna make something

good out of this all these pieces that’s

awful Leipzig is original photograph I

loved I was a big record collector the

records didn’t make it boy I’ll tell you

film burns film burns I mean this was 16

millimeter safety film the negatives are

gone cause my father’s letter to me

telling me to marry the woman I first

married when I was 20 my daughter and me

she’s still there she’s there this

morning actually that’s my house my

family is living in the Hilton Hotel in

Scotts Valley that’s my wife Heidi who

didn’t take it as well as I didn’t my

children Davey and Henry my son Davey

and the hotel two nights ago

so my message to you folks from my three

minutes is that I appreciate the chance

to share this with you I will be back I

love being at Ted I came to live it and

I am living it that’s my view from my

window outside of Santa Cruz in Bonnie

doing just 35 miles from here thank you

everybody

they have names like idle time books and

Panther coffee with free enterprise puns

like hue and cry and smash records and

one Saturday a year

small businesses remind a nation of the

benefits of shopping small like the way

David Kaplan at Shell lumber shows you

how to use a chop saw then invites you

back when the warehouse becomes the

community theater or the way Camille

rustler of Everafter

travels the journey from despair to

bliss with every bride-to-be on just one

day 100 million of us joined a movement

and Main Street found its you might

again and Main Street found its fight

again and we the locals found delight

again that’s the power of all that’s the

power that’s the power of all that’s the

membership effect of American Express

you