Free In the Garden of Rot by Sara Green Page A

I presented him with additional interviews and research I had conducted.
    His voice is deeper than it appeared in the video footage, but not by much, though I had assumed they did not use an external microphone and instead the sound captured in the clip is the result of the less than adequate stock microphone in a Canon 7D. Sam confirmed this. Though he made several implications that they had an external microphone attached to a Zoom HD recorder that they used on other projects regularly, synchronizing the sound in postproduction. I do not believe that they were recording sound, since the traffic noise would not have been conducive to their initial intention. They would’ve planned to create a soundtrack or a voice over.
    Presently, Sam Carpenter has a thick beard that could use a trim, but it is not so bushy that he resembles most of Richmond’s more artistic crowd. Rather it is a beard that would look at home on a 1970’s film director, un-manicured and dark, but not unruly.
    He dresses in a beat up tan or once olive colored work jacket, it is frayed around the wrists and the pockets on the front have small holes beginning to form. Sam assures me this is the same coat he was wearing that night and I have no reason to doubt him. To his credit are a pair of kind green eyes that look tired more than anything else.  He drinks hot tea that he brewed prior to our meeting. He smiles as he tells me it is vanilla chai. His teeth have a yellowish stain that leave me to believe this is more than a special treat, but a habit.
    Sam does not make a lot of gestures with his hands, he spends more time trying to place them where they will be out of the way, or he might spin his stainless steel mug while he searches for his train of thought. But he is otherwise a rather normal looking person. Despite the beard, he would not raise an Amber Alert or be selected for search at an airport for anything other than randomness. In fact, I would believe he attends church and was perhaps a boy scout upon first glance.
    We met on a cold rainy day in March 2013.  It was not the first attempt as he had cancelled several dates based on having no one to watch his newborn daughter, whose slightest mention does bring a sparkle to surface in those tired green eyes.
     
    Why has the video clip been removed?
    SAM:  It needed to be, it was causing too many complaints. People figured out who posted it, like you did. Tracked me and (Will-the cohort) down and it was all just friendly harassment, but I have other things I want to accomplish as an artist and I didn’t want this to be my ‘thing.’ You risk getting pigeonholed. Kind of like that guy who did Blair Witch Project. What’s his name?
     
    The Clip was re-posted several times?
    SAM: Yeah, it took effort but the people who snagged it off Vimeo were forced to then remove it from the other sites since I made enough of an issue about it and own the rights to it. You send out a take down letter. All those sites are paranoid. They acted real fast. The pages would work for a few hours, but the video was gone in seconds it seemed like.
     
    And now it is impossible to find on the Internet?
    SAM: Perhaps, you know there were no physical copies ever, and I did my best to delete every copy I found, this isn’t like the Star Wars Holiday Special. It should be as close to gone as it can be. But I recognize that nowadays people snag things off the web all the time. But I hope, I really hope that the clip is gone once and for all.
     
    Wouldn’t your assistance in my documentary project encourage people to seek it out?
    SAM: I hope not. I hope that when I’m done telling you everything and you write it as I say it and all, then people will realize it’s nothing. And I think the story you want to tell is like that game everyone plays as kids, ‘telephone’. When you whisper one thing in someone’s ear and everyone keeps passing it along until it reaches the last person who tells the first person and it shows