Fred Mauney, a.k.a. "The Phoenix," is a man who by his own account has had a long string of remarkable experiences. His speech is a rapid machine-gun fire hail of disconnected topics peppered with references to politics, government conspiracies, and his own colorful tales of brushes with death and the law. An unusual combination of political activist, raconteur, and charming eccentric, Fred is obviously a man of strong convictions. He is founder of a nonprofit called Phoenix Charities which is "focused on providing assistance to people suffering from neurological disorders," and from May to September 2000, he rode a bicycle from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Washington DC to support Ralph Nader and protest corporate abandonment of democratic principles. En route, after trying unsuccessfully to pay his respects at the Arlington National Cemetery after officials refused to let him bring his bicycle inside (he had not brought a lock), and almost out of cash, he was forced to sleep under a bridge for shelter against the rain. Once in Washington, he was ignored upon his arrival.

How I came to interview Fred (his gregarious personality makes it impossible for me to refer to him as simply "Mauney") at Sundance is a testament to his own unique and eye-catching form of self-promotion. Indeed, it is remarkable to be noticed in Park City at all, given that there are umpteen competing film festivals, liquor-fueled parties all night, and movie stars wandering the streets. I first spotted Fred walking down the street towards the Eccles Theater wearing a huge sandwich board that read: "I've got the stories: TALK TO ME." Although it was probably about 25 degrees Fahrenheit outside of my nicely heated rental car, I couldn't refuse such a grand invitation to stop and talk about a subject that is my passion.

Fred's rapid-fire delivery and topic-skipping conversational style prevents him from giving a truly focused movie pitch, but he nonetheless has a compelling personal flair that makes you want to pay attention to him. If you listen to what he has to say, you might find the nugget of the next blockbuster or movie of the week. At worst, you’ll be entertained by a true individualist who’s been involved in the kinds of things that tend to become the plots of Hollywood films.

Allen White: Fred, tell me what you’re doing at Sundance.

Fred Mauney: Well, I have a lot of stories from some paralegal investigations. It’s kind of like a real life Forrest Gump. I had polio as a kid, I had transverse myelitis in ‘93, which is kin to MS, they said I’d never walk again. I did a lot of stuff before that happened, but since then I’ve come out here and been involved in research for the government for terrorism in the Olympics. They don’t have any security here for it, so it’s going to be a mess. And then the protesters are going to be coming here. So I’ve got a story about terrorism in the Olympics in 2002. And also with other things: I was involved with the Nader campaign this summer; I rode a bike across the country without no support team, no cell phone or anything – I just slept on the side of the road, get up and ride, ride, ride. In fact, I might be involved with a lawsuit with Nader now. They threw him out of the debates, and I was standing there with a banner, and they threatened to – my bicycle with a banner on it, like a little buggy behind it with a A-frame on it – had the banner, they said it was a dangerous weapon, that I couldn’t go down there.

AW: So how do your political causes relate to wanting to pitch stories to Hollywood?

FM: Oh, well, this is going to be a heck of a story. The book I’m going to come out with, and story, is the betrayal of Ralph Nader. And what it’s going to be involved in is how the whole country was looking for somebody or asking for something better, and here’s this man comes along and the news media crowds him out, the political parties gang up on him, crowd him out. The Green Party, they’re just a young party of homeowners and other people who just want to do something better with things, and they’re learning how to do things, and they made a lot of mistakes, but that’s not real bad, between me and you, because the Democrats and Republicans both made mistakes, they just had all the money to keep plowing it over again.

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