The Creative Life of Seth Pomeroy

I met Seth Pomeroy when he was in middle school and I was a lost 23-year-old who had just moved to Nashville. I’m not entirely sure what led to our nearly 30-year friendship, but I think it has something to do with the fact that I’ve never met anyone quite like Seth—he’s funny, loyal, and has more integrity than any man I know. I made a movie with him over a decade ago, and that’s why I was staying with him in Chicago (covered in earlier blog post); we don’t get to see each other nearly as much as I’d like, but whenever we do, it’s time I never take for granted.

In September, he sat down with me at the kitchen table of the Airbnb we shared for three days in Chicago and answered my list of questions—his responses won’t disappoint and appear below:

Where are you based?

Los Angelas, California. Hollywood!

What’s your day job?
“I’m an editor for a YouTube channel, but I’m also a freelance editor. I work for other people as well.”

Do you like that?
“Yeah, I love it. It’s fantastic. Storytelling skills getting applied to technical skills. It’s why it’s cool.”

Would you consider yourself a creative person?
“Yeah, absurdly so.”

Are you an artist?
“Sure, let’s get pretentious, yeah.”

What do you like to create?
“I think storytelling is always at the forefront of what I’m doing, but I draw. You know, I work on screenplays. I did sketch comedy for a long time. I wrote a lot of sketches. I produced comedy shows, and I presented them as a host. I’ve acted. I was in like 30 lawyer commercials—the most injured man in America. It’s on YouTube. I put a compilation together of all this. Um, you know, do podcasts, and I don’t know—I’m expressing myself creatively anyway I can.”

How does creativity show up in your life right now?
“I think outlining screenplays is something I’m always kind of doing. So I have movie ideas and always be kind of working on those. But I just made a movie that I’m releasing. So now the business part is taking over. So that’s like, yeah. So the creative thing I’m doing right now is sort of like working on more reform projects, but in a loose manner.”

Are there things in today’s world that gets in your way of being creative?
“Yeah, I think the fucking internet. I mean, I think there’s always the internet looming. When I remember when I first started writing, I used to write on like an IBM fucking desktop computer. One time I lived in a party house—everyone was partying—I was upstairs writing short stories. I was trying to learn how to be a writer, and it’s like I could have just gone outside my door. Well, that’s like the entire Internet. It’s like a giant party that’s happening at all times that I could just go outside my door. And now that my ambition is, you know, I’ve achieved some things or whatever, I don’t need to fight so hard for it. It’s easy to pick up your phone and look at bullshit or to play Spotify music and then be like, what’s this song? And then get lost in that. There’s a million ways to get lost while you’re creating now. So, you know, try to isolate so I can do it in a way that’s expressive and productive. But, you know, the fucking internet is a problem.”

If the world feels heavy (or fucked up), what helps take your mind off it?
“I mean, always, I grew up in a chaotic home. You know, I watched movies. I went right to movies, and I saw stories and mirrors of other people’s lives to mine, and saw that there were other cities and other ways of living in the world, other ways of being, other ethnicities. So, you know, art is a great portal to humanity, in my opinion. So that’s what I do. I always go to art, you know.”

Do you use art to distract from or deal with problems?
“No, I think deal. I think it puts you closer to humanity. I mean, if we’re talking about actual political issues I might vote on or something, yeah, I don’t know if there’s a movie about every single bill I would vote on or something. But as far as humanity goes, and what people go through, and why people do—the questions of the universe. These are all factoring in, because most of these terrible political things are made, these decisions are made out of fear, right? Most movies are talking about the concepts of what people might be fearful in their life. That’s the tension we have that creates storytelling, you know? So to me, you sort of read stuff, you watch stuff that re-engages you with the struggle of being a human being. It maybe becomes clearer when you’re angry... I think reaching people, that’s what it was for me. I’m trying to say things that I know are true, that hopefully someone else can see or read and be like, ‘Oh yeah, me too. I know what that is.’ Or it illuminates—’I was acting one way, and I saw the inverse of it, and now I understand better my behavior, and then I could be a better person.’ That definitely happens. I think it’s a conduit both ways. I give stuff into the ether—art—and then it gives stuff back to me. And that’s the trade off.”

Are you a philosopher, Do you like to philosophize?
“Yeah, armchair. I mean, nobody’s giving me any sort of degree or even allowed me to say these things publicly. But yeah, fuck yeah, of course.”

If you have one - what is your life philosophy(s)?
“The lamest—and that’s the good thing about philosophy—is like the lamest one is usually the most true. This is: be nice to people. Be excited to be alive. Be curious. You know, simple as that, I think. Because we’re not very smart, we’re human beings. So we’re always going to hit our head on the ceiling of what a human can know. So at least we could do is try to love each other, or engage in what we can, which is like community and people, art—all these things we’re talking about, you know.”

What’s something you’ve watched, read, or listened to lately that you’d recommend?
“Oh, I fucking—yes, this movie Yi Yi (YI YI) by Edward Yang. I’ve never seen his work before. He’s Taiwanese. It’s long—it’s like three and a half hours long. He made a movie called A Brighter Summer Day that’s like four and a half hours long. I haven’t seen it—everyone’s like, you’re gonna love it. But what he does, it reminded me of Kenneth Lonergan, who made You Can Count On Me, which is fantastic. We saw that in the theater together when I was a kid. What Edward Yang does so well is that it’s about people in their environments. There’s a plot, like in their scenes that matter in the scheme of what they’re doing, but it’s also just kind of like so human and so real. Yi Yi is about family, and it’s just all the different members of the family and their own little individual stories of what’s going on in their life... It ends with a really beautiful speech about death and life and everything... I walked out of it just like, fucking beaming. Excited to be a human being. When things aren’t really plot driven like that, they make it about people and the day in, day out of what a person’s life is like... Movies like that can really center you in that feeling. And so when I left, I was like, illuminated, like, ‘Oh, I’m alive in Los Angeles, and I’m walking down the fucking street. This is my life.’ I was really blown away by it. I thought it was incredible.”

Any final thoughts or plugs?
“I made a movie about Chris Crofton, who’s a comedian and musician. It features Neil Hamburger, the stand up, David Berman from the Silver Jews, Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Josh Fadem, Johnny Pemberton—who are comedians—lots of other people. Dwayne Dennison from Jesus Lizard. We’ve just started screening it. We’re trying to get into festivals. Everything you can find out about that is at @chriscroftondoc on Instagram. We’re going to try to show it, and if anyone has distribution concepts or anything they want to pitch to us, we’re open. And then I’m doing stuff in LA as a comedy person—I’m on podcasts, and I’m working on shows and things. My Instagram is @sethpomeroywrites, same with Threads.”

An with that, the interview ended.

Seth Pomeroy is a filmmaker, writer, editor, comedian, and actor with a wide-ranging creative life rooted in curiosity and hard work. He’s an honest, kind-hearted, and dynamic artist—sometimes known as “the most injured man in America”—who brings sincerity and humor to everything he makes. If you don’t know his name yet, you will soon.

Check out Seth’s first documentary: Couldn’t You Wait? The Story of Silkworm (which I produced).

And his most recent documentary: Nashville Famous

Stats
Job: Editor
Career: Film & comedy
Creative?: Yes
Medium: Film & writing
Tool: Screenplay outlines
Philosophy: Be nice, be curious
Inspiration: Humanity through art
Blocker: The internet
Rec: Yi Yi (Edward Yang)