The story is of the writing and publishing of the book, Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women (Library of Congress card number: 00-108701) and the making of the trailer and film of the same name.

This documentary will demonstrate the trials, struggles and triumphs of independent many-media artist, Michael W. Dean in his successful journey to get his art felt on a wide scale.

The 26:40 length show will be shot on PAL and some HI-8 video. This will allow for a higher shooting ratio, while maintaining quality. Our budget is $100,000 (Including the approximately $20,000 that is required to be written into the grant for PBS broadcast expenses.) $5000 has already been secured, ($4000 out-of-pocket, and $1000 from a doner.)

Our request to ITVS is for a grant of $95,000

Michael's experience includes the enclosed eight-minute promotional short produced for Warner Brothers. Examples of the pre-production work-in-progress for the proposed documentary is available at:

Nine years in the writing, Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women is 95,000 words of taut, steady fiction centered mostly in the underground rock world of San Francisco. The book would appeal to fans of Tom Robbins, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, and Jim Carroll. The angle is unique, however; one-third of the story was written while Dean was involved in the street life. The remainder of the writing, and all of the editing, occurred during his subsequent six years in recovery. This mixture lends a credible attraction as well as a shimmering clarity to the adventures.

We are looking for a filmmaker. More info at www.CathodeRayMission.com.

The book Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women was represented by noted literary agent Jeffery Herman (Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Idiot's Guide to Investing, Joe Montana, Jennifer Flowers) for 18 months, and turned down by 39 publishers, comprising every major and independent house that would consider such a tome. All acknowledged its literary merit, but declined, calling it "dangerous" or "an economic risk."

This lead to the author learning the entire process of financing, page layout, printing and distribution. While most of his training is in computers and Internet media, he has started a traditional print house, kittyfeet Press, a San Francisco imprint devoted to quality production of similar literary endeavors.

The story of Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women is poetic and spiritual, while maintaining its connection to the street. It chronicles the adventures of independent pop legend, Cash Newmann, in his pursuit of and musings around God, women, drugs, and purpose. Cash is good-looking, smart, talented and basically kind, but a little bit evil. He is a very believable character.

Cash dies. After three-hundred pages of very personal yet universal first-person narration, come two pages of a third-person account of the finding of Cash's body.

This combination fuses the depravity of one extreme with the self-knowledge of another. Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women is a bedtime story for the jaded, fueled by an uncommon amazement with the ordinary.

As the singer in Warner/Reprise recording artists cat, Michael Dean made hard acid-rock albums and toured extensively in the US, Europe and Canada. cat, together intermittently from 1986-present, was considered an influence by bands such as Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction and Soundgarden.

Dean says his goal is to "Create sweet-sinister beauty, produce jobs for my very creative friends, and make a plumber's wage at art."

Educated at and then kicked out of a religious boarding school, he went to college to major in English at 16. After graduation, he turned down scholarship opportunities to go live on the street in Washington DC. He now resides on San Francisco’s swanky Nob Hill and works as an executive assistant during the week and as a ditch-digger on the weekends.

Dean returned to continuing his education for two years in 1994. He maintained a 4.0 average at San Francisco City College and was awarded the John Huebner English scholarship. He was also invited to guest lecture on Internet technologies and their place in commerce and art.

Michael says of his craft, "I have heard that all human endeavor is based on either fear or love. I have been working to hone my art into a sharp, pretty, poisoned dart of love pointed directly at the soul of the consumer."

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