Cory David Bortnicker: Stories from the heart

“Jonas David is a young gay songwriter with a crippling addiction to crystal meth. On his first day in rehab, Jonas tries to convince those around him that he’s actually a prophet on a mission to save New York City from Judgment Day. Is Jonas having a psychotic break, or is he really the second coming of Jonah, the world’s most famous rebel prophet?”

That’s the premise of a short film loosely based on the life experiences of this week’s Portrait, Cory David Bortnicker. Bortnicker is a writer who has written award-winning advertising for Meta/Facebook, Instagram, Nestlé, LG and Hearst Magazines. He won an Emmy for writing “Hoofy & Boo’s News and Views,” an animated news show. His satirical website, The Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator, went viral and received shoutouts in publications like The New York Times and Buzzfeed. His screenplays have also been recognized in numerous screenwriting competitions, including the Emerging Screenwriters Drama Competition, the Big Apple Film Festival and the Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards. His work explores LGBTQ+ experiences, drug addiction and recovery, and magical realism. He recently wrote, directed, produced and performed in his first short film, “My Name Is Jonas” which will be screened at the FirstGlance Film Festival on Sept. 28. Some responses from this interview have been edited for length and clarity.

Where do you hail from?
I grew up in Broomall, PA and I lived in New York City for the last 17 years before moving back to the Philadelphia area about a year ago.

Welcome back! We’ve done a lot of growing in this city in the past few years. What changes have you noticed?
Well, having grown up in the suburbs, I didn’t spend enough time in the city to know how it’s changed but I’ll say compared to NYC, it’s so much more peaceful here, a much quieter existence. I love being in Philly. I’ve met some really wonderful people and there’s a lot of great creative energy here. And I love that it’s walkable.

I just got a message from a filmmaker from New Zealand who was here for my film festival but went to NY for her last two days. She texted she wished she had stayed here!
They’re both wonderful cities, but yes, Philadelphia is pretty special.

Tell me a little about your family.
Both of my parents worked in public education. My mom was a kindergarten teacher and my dad was a guidance counselor. They still live in the same house where I grew up. I have a brother. He’s five years older than me. It was just the two of us siblings but now I have a few nieces.

Did your parents work at the school you attended?
They did not. Interesting family fact though: Where I live now is right around the corner from where my great-grandparents lived. They were at 5th and Pine, which back in the day was an old working-class, Jewish neighborhood.

Ha, I used to live at 3rd and Pine and the way I was able to afford it was that it was owned by an old Polish couple who hated the area being gentrified. They didn’t want any “professionals” moving in. At the time, I was driving a horse and carriage along with my roommates, so we assured them that we would come home sweaty and smelling like horse manure and they gave us a crazy low rent for the area. But back to you, what were you into as a kid?
I had a very normal suburban childhood, but I was always a writer. As soon as I learned to hold a pencil, I was writing stories. I was very imaginative. A vivid imagination has always been part of my life. I loved playing with action figures all the time. I’d make up stories for them. Even before I was writing, playing with toys was a way of telling stories — coming up with characters and situations, and expressing ideas.

Then music became a big part of my life. I started taking piano lessons when I was young and as I got older, I started to play guitar and then started writing songs. Once I got to college, I joined a band and became a songwriter. I moved to New York and put out a couple of records with a band there. So I was always into the arts. In high school, I got into theater and drama and was part of a program called The Pennsylvania Governor’s Schools for the Arts (PGSA). It was a summer theater program and you had to audition to get in. I did some sports too, Little League and a little bit of tennis. Sports weren’t my strong suit, but I did enjoy it.

What was your greatest moment with the band?
The group was called “The Grand Prospect” and we have a couple of records available on Spotify but I think the highlight was the fact that we got to play shows at least once a month for a number of years. And just knowing that people were coming out to hear you and your original material was pretty special. We played at the Cafe Wha? in NY for quite a little stint. It’s where a lot of artists played when they were starting out — Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen and comedians like Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers and Richard Pryor. So performing in the same space they occupied when we were performing was amazing.

[Laughing] I read that you and I have the same college alma mater and that we both lasted about the same amount of time there!
Yeah, I went to Emerson College in Boston. I spent one year there and then transferred to Boston University, where I got a degree in English.

What was your first job out of college?
Oh God, my first job? Well, I managed a cafe on Newbury Street and that was probably one of my favorite jobs of all time. It was an independent cafe and I worked there all through college. It was so much fun hanging out, serving coffee, listening to music and smoking pot with a bunch of my friends. After that, I got my first corporate job. I worked as a marketing assistant at a publishing company and that was absolutely abysmal. I couldn’t stand it. I left Boston after that and found my way to NY, where I got a job making photo copies at a law firm! Once I was in NY, I started to write more.

How did you get into doing copywriting?
I started writing a comedy blog back in 2007 just for fun. There was a financial media company trying to write content for a broader audience. One of their properties was a cartoon bull and bear reporting on financial news and I was hired to help write a script for them. Each week, we wrote two episodes for a humorous business show. I did that for several years and it even won a news and documentary Emmy under the New Approaches to Business & Financial Reporting category. It was an amazing moment, to be 25 and have an Emmy was truly unexpected but pretty cool. After that, someone suggested I look into advertising writing so I took a class and met someone who was working in the field and they helped me get my first job at an ad agency.

And I understand that after that, you turned to the dark side and are personally responsible for the downfall of civilization!
[Laughing] Are you referring to my time at Facebook?

Yes! I read that you “created campaigns and marketing programs that helped Facebook grow its business around the globe.”
Ha, ha, then yes. It’s all my fault, I consider the show I’m doing, “My Name is Jonas” as my repentance! Actually, I worked at Meta/Facebook for about seven years. I basically marketed FB to other companies. By the time I joined, they were already established, so you can’t blame me completely!

What brought you back to Philadelphia?
About two years ago, there was a pretty massive layoff across the tech industry. Facebook, Google, etc. all laid off quite a large percentage of their workforce. I was among the casualties but I’d already started working on this project and it felt like a story I had to tell. So I saw getting laid off as an opportunity to really focus on the story. It was like a creative sabbatical. I actually got offered a job after being laid off and I turned it down.

I left NY and went to Provincetown for two months and started writing “My Name is Jonas” as a feature-length screenplay, but it seemed like the story was bigger than a one-off film. So how could I tell the story and in what form did it belong? I moved back to Philly because I wanted a different environment and a fresh start. I realized that the story I wanted to tell was better suited for something like a television series. I started building out the world and the characters and the story I wanted to tell.

What’s the basic synopsis of the show?
The project is about a young gay boy who has dreams of becoming a musician and goes to NY and succumbs to a crystal meth addiction. During his journey with addiction, he has an encounter with a person he believes is God and they send Jonas on a mission to save humanity from its addiction to technology. In doing so, he is getting Jonas to take his own life back. It’s a modern take on the Book of Jonah from the Bible, which is a very unique story that’s part of a series about the prophets. It’s about someone running away from the responsibilities of life and I saw the connection to tell the story of a queer person who falls off the track, and how God cares enough about them to try to help them go back to being the person they were meant to be.

How does it parallel your life?
As I mentioned before, I had a very happy childhood, with a great loving and supportive family. I had dreams of being a rock star and I was living in NY and kind of doing it. I had a lot of success but like a lot of gay men, I had struggles with my sexuality and trying to fit in with the gay community. A lot of the connections were centered around drugs. 

Crystal meth has been a problem in the community for decades but we don’t talk about it. I met someone and began using the drug and soon after, my life began to unravel. It started a 10-year journey of struggle. One of the symptoms of crystal meth addiction is psychosis where you experience delusions and hallucinations and think that people are out to get you. I experienced a lot of that. Some of it was scary, and some of it was hilarious and absurd. At one point, I thought that I could see the future and that’s a little of where the idea of a prophet comes into the story. I was running around the streets of NY saying, “I’ve seen the future and there are no good-looking men!” In my hallucination, everyone was ugly and weird, like they were cyborgs in this apocalyptic future. It was crazy. 

Thankfully, I found recovery and found a way to get my life back, but it was not easy and there have been setbacks along the way. Writing this story gave me a chance to talk about what addiction can do to you and the people around you. I felt like telling this story was worth staying sober for. And like Jonas in the story, I feel like God has given me a mission as well. So it is my story but embellished with fantasy and a little of the supernatural.

So you wrote, produced, directed and acted in the film. Was director-you good to actor-you on the set?
Well, after I wrote the script for the feature film, someone suggested I do a short version first that would be a lot easier to make, and that’s what I did. And it became clear that it was my vision and my story, so I might as well play the role. We shot it last year with a lot of Philly crew people in Philadelphia. Parts of it were shot at the William Way Center. It was cool. And yes, it was a challenge acting and directing but we pulled it off.

And did a good job. I see that it’s been playing at festivals all over the county.
Yes, it’s received a great reception all over and I’m excited that we’re going to have the Philadelphia premiere here on Sept. 28.

I’m sure the film has resonated with a lot of people who could see themselves in the title role.
Yes, I’ve had quite a few people come up to me and thank me for telling the story, which means so much to me. There’s still stigma in the community, so to try to help people understand what it’s like to be an addict is what it’s all about.

That’s what I love about films. They can lead to empathy and understanding. But let’s switch gears and do some rapid-fire questions. Give me three pet peeves, [laughing] actually make that two because I already read that one of yours is people who walk too slow on the sidewalks!
Ha ha, well, I’ve actually mellowed out a lot since I said that. But OK, pet peeves are loud eaters and people addicted to cellphones. I mean, we all are and I hate it.

What books would we find on your nightstand?
I love the writer Denis Johnson who wrote “Jesus’ Son” and I like Philip Roth and I’ve been reading a lot of theology from authors like Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Your best celebrity encounter?
I shook hands once with Barack Obama.

A favorite piece of clothing?
I’m a hoodie guy. I can wear them all the time. My brother just got me an Eagles hoodie I’m excited to wear.

Any paranormal experiences?
Yes, I think this whole project has been a paranormal experience, but yes, outside of that, I’ve had quite a few as well.

A favorite motto or quote?
“To thine own self be true.” This story is my mission and this short is the beginning of sharing it so I hope people will come out for it.

Cory David Bortnicker’s film, “My Name Is Jonas” will be screened during the First Glance Film Festival on Sept. 28 at the Ritz Bourse, 400 Ranstead St. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit firstglancefilms.com. For more on the film, visit @mynameisjonasfilm on Instagram.