Karma Was (is?) a Beyotch

The Story of my Karma with Karma as Karma

🍿🍿🍿So here's a creative journey story.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!

The first time I heard that saying, I was a 16, and I couldn’t figure out what the bathwater or the baby was in any given situation. I thought about it for years, is this the bathwater? is this the baby?

But today, I had an epiphany!

In this scenario - the bathwater is the business of show, and the baby is THE SHOW!

Several years back, I created the web series Karma's A Bitch. Many of you knew about it and enjoyed it, and we all had high hopes for distribution. 🎬 It got a ton of views, was Best of the Web on Virgin America inflight entertainment, and it won Best Overall at SkyFest!

The first time the show got picked up, I was asked to remove it from YouTube so the new online distributors could upload it to their site. This meant all the views would be gone, gone, gone, from YouTube, all the comments, likes, shares, everything, buh-bye! ☹️ But it'll be worth it, yes? 😃

No, not yes. 😠

The distributors backed out.

Then the NEXT group, who were totally and completely in love with the show and promised us the moon - they didn't work out either, and then it was on Amazon Prime, and that was exciting! But after a while, it was removed for technical reasons no one could ever figure out, and finally, after YEARS of all of this, I just decided to let Karma go. 💨

People enjoyed it, and we had fun - maybe that was that.

Some time passed, and one day at an audition, a producer, Damian Martorana, thought more could be done with Karma, so I created a follow-up series that he produced, Instant Karma. And what happened with that one? Same stuff. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I sort of shared a few episodes here and there and then I moved on to other things feeling burned out with Karma because TIME PASSES and I forget about the thing I already did so I can focus on the new thing I'm doing.

Meanwhile, EVERYONE kept saying about the original Karma’s a Bitch, It should be on TV! This could be huge! This should be a movie! etc. etc. etc. Of course, I wanted all of that, but it was frustrating to hear because, try as I might, I wasn’t able to make any of it happen.

(Oh, we also shot several episodes of Season 2, Karma’s a Bitch, the Bitch is Back, with a brand new crew, but I didn't like the result, so I scrapped that.)

So, the other day, I watched all episodes of Instant Karma, and I thought, 'Hey, I like these!' 😍 I had a great cast! My brill pal, David Schladweiler co-wrote some episodes and my talented husband (who played Angelo Linguini in Karma’s a Bitch) Peter Arpesella, directed our exceptional Italian episode we shot in Rimini, Italy. It was my first time acting in Italian so I’m extra happy about that one.

Anyway, why am I allowing it all to vanish into thin air? Why am I THROWING OUT THE BABY?

Well, I’m not.

Moral of the story:

Even if something is not "current," and even if it didn't go all the places you hoped it would, it does not mean you need to bury it away and forget all about it. It's still a thing you made. It didn’t exist in the world until you made it! So, if you like it, SHARE IT.

I just uploaded the full season of Instant Karma—all six episodes (total running time under 10 minutes). I’m currently tracking down the 13 missing episodes of Karma’s a Bitch - and they’ll be on my YouTube channel as soon as I find them.

Subscribe on YouTube if you are a YouTube enjoyer.

Here’s the playlist of the three episodes I have up of Karma’s a Bitch and the full season of Instant Karma.

Click Watch on Youtube in the bottom left of this video and the episodes will automatically play after the trailer.