deFragmentation

Interviewed by Ross Rojek

R. Douglas Jacobs first exhibited his flair for writing at an early age, but relegated his ability as a writer in concentrating on screenplays when he was in his early 20's. He had hoped to be an auteur, and wrote, produced, and directed his own film in 1995, entitled Coffeebeans & Poems. But his attempts at independent filmmaking were exhausted through his failure to procure a distributor for his effort. So, in 1998, he shifted his energy to producing a Spanish language television series for ESPN with renowned fitness producer, Ernest Schultz, which was produced and aired in 42 Latin American countries through ESPN's pan-regional networks in 2001. The network, unfortunately, reneged on supporting the program, Mente y Cuerpo, and without advertising revenue to sustain it, the series ceased to survive beyond 35 episodes. 

In 2005, R. Douglas Jacobs reverted back to writing as a means of coping with the disappointment of being unable to resuscitate his television series, and began compiling and writing sonnets for a poetic anthology, which he self-published in 2007. The book, The Rhymes of Love and Reason, marked his first foray as an author and served as a primer for an even more ambitious literary project, Gethsemane: An Epic Poem About Us, which he released in 2011. This particular literary endeavor was a landmark attempt in constructing a narrative to a story completely told in poetic verse and ending in unique rhymes. The challenge of writing this book took up two years of his life and, regrettably, led to the dissolution of his engagement to his companion of six and a half years. 

In 2013, R. Douglas Jacobs released his first children's book, The Slip-slide Misadventure of Mildew Goo, in paying tribute to the concept of a novel caricature, which was inspired by his ex-fiancée. This book, like the two previously published works, failed to find an audience. R. Douglas Jacobs remain undeterred and decided to adapt Gethsemane as an audio book and produce the project in the vein of esteemed cinematic icon, Orson Welles. Like the book, which preceded it, Gethsemane: The Radio Theatre Experience, took more than two years to create and features a collaboration with gifted composer, Mark Moya, and a baroque ensemble they founded together, Musicus Gethsemanensis. 

Recently, R. Douglas Jacobs was finally rewarded with a long, overdue recognition from a reputable source in the literary industry. On June 12, 2014, Nick Owchar, former deputy book editor of the Los Angeles Times, reviewed Gethsemane, the book, and wrote R. Douglas Jacobs citing his work as being "Emotional, brilliant, wow, disorienting, risky." In many ways, the man who struggled to find some recognition as an "artist" felt a sense of redemption, which he had always sought. 

This fall, R. Douglas Jacobs will be working on reconstituting Musicus Gethsemanensis with the intent to record a separate soundtrack of the Gethsemane score, and will resume work on a manuscript to his next book, which will be a narrative told in free verse, and is aptly entitled, deFragmentation.