The hazy shadows of a good beer joint at 1:20 AM... the growl of a Merlin engine roaring past... hearing a hall full of people singing the National Anthem with feeling... the sound of a friend laughing... the first sip of coffee, the second pitcher of beer, and the third out of an inning... honor and those who respect it... the Texas flag... being in the zone, when the words are flowing and all seems clear and possible... a well-told story, be it the telling or the hearing... gorgeous women... jalapeños on my cheeseburger... the smell of glove leather and horsehide... movies unafraid to dismiss easy cynical outcomes... when my kids get the joke... the cool water under the shade of a cypress tree on a hot day... sausage on a grill... iambic pentameter... good music and an open road... sunset over water... the smell of my wife's hair... the right scene and line to end a movie... hammering a drive to left center... the happy exhaustion at the end of a day-long project done well... self-sufficiency in all its various forms and incarnations... honesty... skipping stones... John Ford movies... throwing things... beer... heros...exceeding expectations... the smell of BBQ on a summer afternoon... walking under a full moon... converting on third-and-long... knowing how and why things work... history... knowing I did my best....
.
.
.
von trappish B
just another online spittoon
29 January 2007
25 January 2007
we have arrived
Apparently I crossed some sort of Rubicon this week, as this blog has never been bothered by spammers and 'bots before, and then suddenly a few days ago I started seeing loads of comments showing up which contained only dozens of hyperlinks disguised as Chinese character comments. I'd delete a batch, then come back later in the day to find a new and different batch in their place.
So from now on we have that random keycode generator check system. Enjoy.
.
.
.
B
So from now on we have that random keycode generator check system. Enjoy.
.
.
.
B
24 January 2007
50 things [meme]
Picking up a meme started by "Scribe LA" over at Borderline Inappropriate and then carried on by "Scott the Reader" at Alligators In A Helicopter, here are 50 Things About Me:
-=-=-=-
50. I grew up on a farm in a rural section of Harris County (Houston TX), disappearing every summer into the wilds of the creek bottom in an existence far closer to something out of Huck Finn than ever appreciated at the time.
49. I have never had broken a bone.
48. Among the pets I've tended in my life are: an armadillo, a quail, a cottontail rabbit, a squirrel, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, horses, fish, cattle, one pig, and a wolf dog named (wait for it) "Wolfie."
47. I've never been waterskiing, and I hate snow skiing. (I hate all cold weather)
46. I started college at the US Air Force Academy, going through basic training at USAFA before deciding/realizing that this was a major mistake. I lost 21 pounds in the seven and a half weeks I was there.
45. I flunked out of my freshman year at Texas A&M when I decided all my aerospace engineering classes were too boring to bother with. I changed majors (to English) and then made some extra spending money for a while tutoring the engineering and physics classmates in those classes I'd flunked out of the year before. Eventually I finished college as a Hisory major at UH (on the Dean's List, as in stark contrast to A&M there was little else to do at UH except go to class and study).
44. I once took a year off from college to work on a construction site (building the Compaq Computer world HQ and manufacturing complex). I worked 55 hours a week (in a hardhat!), was usually the only white guy visible on the job site, and would spend my lunch break eating in the shade beneath a dozer or crane as I read most all of Hemingway's novels that year.
43. I know how to fly a plane, but I never took lessons or bothered with pursuing my license. I have been an airplane freak since I was 3 years old. My younger brother, meanwhile, spent ten years in the Navy as the navigator and then tactical officer on P3 Orion anti-submarine planes.
42. In high school, I was voted "Most Honorable," received the awards for top student in Math, Science, *and* History (first-ever three-subject recipient), but did NOT win for English. I also won a "Best Buns" award.
41. I have never been in a fight in my life (unless you count the 312 knock down drag-outs I had with my brother while growing up).
40. I have a ridiculously good recall of trivia, quotes, and useless information.
39. I once threw a softball 103.5 yards in competition, good enough for (then) #2 all time at A&M.
38. I have launched bottle-rockets at a handicapped college student who was urinating in a Methodist church parking lot in downtown Charlotte, North Caroline, and then later bought him a beer at what I still regard as "The Worst Strip Club In The Universe". (How bad was it? SO bad that mid-way through the evening I found myself fleeing in circles around a pool table as a toothless black stripper chased me, screaming "gimme a dolla!")
37. I'm surprisingly good with tools and carpentry. I've hired out to build porches, barns, cabinets and bunk beds.
36. For nearly a full year my parents separated, I barely spoke a word to anyone in school. The counselors were worried about me. later, when our high school guidance counselor asked me what i wanted to be as an adult, I told him "twins." He never liked me much after that.
35. I grew up in a 100-year old farmhouse on a 120 acrs of range land and cornfields, surrounded by horses and cattle, and used to go riding almost every day after school. Then I was thrown by a horse, my foot caught caught in the stirrup, and the horse dragged me 200 yards across a pasture as my head bounced along inches from his rear hooves. I've never enjoyed horses since.
34. I do the vast majority of the cooking in our family. I'm very good. I briefly considered chef school many many years ago.
33. My first paying gig as a writer came 30 years ago when a local businessman paid me 20 bucks to design, write and hand letter a Christmas card for his carpet and flooring company.
32. I was once pursued by witches through the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans. [I'd stolen a voodoo flag from their little stand. I was drunk. The witches were male. This was on a Spring Break trip. The next day I found a 50 dollar bill on the trail in the campground where we were crashing. The day after that I found a stack of free drink coupons as we entered a night club in Florida. I claimed that this was karma for "doing The Lord's Work." My buddies burned the flag as I slept one night.]
31. Once upon a time I could speak, read, and write reasonably well in French. I've also taken several years of German and Spanish, and know a smattering of words in Czech (my grandfather spoke Czech-only until age 3)
30. For a year, I wore a full beard.
29. I separated my right shoulder while body surfing in Acapulco 25 years ago. I never told anyone. To this day that shoulder hangs 2 inches lower than the uninjured one, and it sounds like celery being crunched when I rotate that shoulder through a full range of motion.
28. I have a mild competitive streak (my friends are laughing).
27. There are seven Apple Macintosh computers in my house (four of which still draw some degree of use). Since 1985 my total time using non-Apple PCs totals something like 2 hours.
26. In high school, I once taught my senior year advanced "Trig and Mathematical Analysis Class" for a week. The subject? "Matrix Convolution" What do I recall/retain of that subject? The title. Nothing else.
25. I was the goalie for a six-time A&M intramural champion waterpolo team. Innertube water polo. My career in the sport largely evaporated after college.
24. I have been online under some variation of the same username since 1989.
23. For a 10-year stretch running from junior high through high school and college, I was the stage director for the annual scholarship beauty contest in my hometown. Yes, I used this position to pick up chicks, including one girl who went on to become Miss Texas, as well as three others who eventually were top 10 finishers in the state pageant. Call me shallow, but I like gorgeous women.
22. I have four kids, but I don't post many specific details of them online.
21. I hate to dance. I'm not bad at it—I just hate doing it. It just feels ridiculous.
20. I do not wear black. The tuxedo at my wedding might be the last black clothing I wore.
19. At three different points in my life my hair has been shaved to boot-camp stubble length. At two other points my hair has been long enough to tie back in a ponytail. I usually just wear a baseball cap (but always an actual team cap-- never a commemorative or promotional cap).
18. I'm very good at accents and dialects. I once convinced a substitute teacher that I was an exchange student from Poland (who did not speak English)
17. Few things infuriate me more than effusive insincere praise and familiarity.
16. I am notoriously bad in a canoe.
15. I've never been hospitalized. Yet.
14. I once swam naked in a swamp filled with wild alligators. I did not know there were alligators in the swamp when I stripped and entered the water, but when I saw an 8-foot gator swim past me ten feet away, I figured it out.
13. On the Myers-Briggs personality test, I have always typed as an ENTP. I have always been both amused and a little disturbed at how textbook I am to this particular personality description.
12. I wear cargo shorts and t-shirts 90% of the time, and seldom wear shoes unless I have to. Fashion bores me.
11. I detest golf and everything connected to it. I detest golfers maybe most of all. I love disc golf.
10. I'm now a fat out of shape suburban dad, but I'm still a surprisingly good athlete I love football and basketball, but baseball surpasses all sports in my passion and appreciation. Baseball provides perfect metaphors for basically every moment and aspect of life.
9. I am a Texan and ferociously pugnaciously defiantly proud of that.
8. I am an Aggie and even more pugnaciously defiantly proud of that.
7. I hate all things burnt orange. (One year, one of my sons played youth basketball, and as luck would have it he was assigned to the "longhorns" team. While I served as assistant coach, attending every practice and game, I refused to wear the team jersey or coaches shirt, opting for a white t-shirt instead. The son told me that if I needed to step down as a coach, he'd understand. "It's the longhorns, dad. You don't wear burnt orange.")
6. In a game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Forces of Hell, I'd be the guy in the stands wearing a "GO SATAN" shirt and being asked to please keep the cheering to a reasonable volume.
5. I have to have coffee every morning or my mood and productivity for the day are totally shot.
4. I drink about a half gallon of iced tea per day (decaf)
3. I quite enjoy beer.
2. Three different unrelated people over the years have said that in a previous life I must have been Alexander the Great. I'm not entirely sure upon what this odd claims is based.
1. My all-time favorite, hands-down no-doubt favorite-ever movie is Lawrence of Arabia. Among others I'd have to pack for any extended deep-space journeys: Casablanca, North By Northwest, Rear Window, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Godfather, The Maltese Falcon, MASH, The Searchers, The Sting, The Princess Bride, Chinatown, Pirates of the Caribbean (COTBP), Bull Durham, Leone's "Man With No Name" trilogy, and The Big Lebowski.
-=-=-=-
Everything else... well, that's just details.
.
.
.
B
-=-=-=-
50. I grew up on a farm in a rural section of Harris County (Houston TX), disappearing every summer into the wilds of the creek bottom in an existence far closer to something out of Huck Finn than ever appreciated at the time.
49. I have never had broken a bone.
48. Among the pets I've tended in my life are: an armadillo, a quail, a cottontail rabbit, a squirrel, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, horses, fish, cattle, one pig, and a wolf dog named (wait for it) "Wolfie."
47. I've never been waterskiing, and I hate snow skiing. (I hate all cold weather)
46. I started college at the US Air Force Academy, going through basic training at USAFA before deciding/realizing that this was a major mistake. I lost 21 pounds in the seven and a half weeks I was there.
45. I flunked out of my freshman year at Texas A&M when I decided all my aerospace engineering classes were too boring to bother with. I changed majors (to English) and then made some extra spending money for a while tutoring the engineering and physics classmates in those classes I'd flunked out of the year before. Eventually I finished college as a Hisory major at UH (on the Dean's List, as in stark contrast to A&M there was little else to do at UH except go to class and study).
44. I once took a year off from college to work on a construction site (building the Compaq Computer world HQ and manufacturing complex). I worked 55 hours a week (in a hardhat!), was usually the only white guy visible on the job site, and would spend my lunch break eating in the shade beneath a dozer or crane as I read most all of Hemingway's novels that year.
43. I know how to fly a plane, but I never took lessons or bothered with pursuing my license. I have been an airplane freak since I was 3 years old. My younger brother, meanwhile, spent ten years in the Navy as the navigator and then tactical officer on P3 Orion anti-submarine planes.
42. In high school, I was voted "Most Honorable," received the awards for top student in Math, Science, *and* History (first-ever three-subject recipient), but did NOT win for English. I also won a "Best Buns" award.
41. I have never been in a fight in my life (unless you count the 312 knock down drag-outs I had with my brother while growing up).
40. I have a ridiculously good recall of trivia, quotes, and useless information.
39. I once threw a softball 103.5 yards in competition, good enough for (then) #2 all time at A&M.
38. I have launched bottle-rockets at a handicapped college student who was urinating in a Methodist church parking lot in downtown Charlotte, North Caroline, and then later bought him a beer at what I still regard as "The Worst Strip Club In The Universe". (How bad was it? SO bad that mid-way through the evening I found myself fleeing in circles around a pool table as a toothless black stripper chased me, screaming "gimme a dolla!")
37. I'm surprisingly good with tools and carpentry. I've hired out to build porches, barns, cabinets and bunk beds.
36. For nearly a full year my parents separated, I barely spoke a word to anyone in school. The counselors were worried about me. later, when our high school guidance counselor asked me what i wanted to be as an adult, I told him "twins." He never liked me much after that.
35. I grew up in a 100-year old farmhouse on a 120 acrs of range land and cornfields, surrounded by horses and cattle, and used to go riding almost every day after school. Then I was thrown by a horse, my foot caught caught in the stirrup, and the horse dragged me 200 yards across a pasture as my head bounced along inches from his rear hooves. I've never enjoyed horses since.
34. I do the vast majority of the cooking in our family. I'm very good. I briefly considered chef school many many years ago.
33. My first paying gig as a writer came 30 years ago when a local businessman paid me 20 bucks to design, write and hand letter a Christmas card for his carpet and flooring company.
32. I was once pursued by witches through the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans. [I'd stolen a voodoo flag from their little stand. I was drunk. The witches were male. This was on a Spring Break trip. The next day I found a 50 dollar bill on the trail in the campground where we were crashing. The day after that I found a stack of free drink coupons as we entered a night club in Florida. I claimed that this was karma for "doing The Lord's Work." My buddies burned the flag as I slept one night.]
31. Once upon a time I could speak, read, and write reasonably well in French. I've also taken several years of German and Spanish, and know a smattering of words in Czech (my grandfather spoke Czech-only until age 3)
30. For a year, I wore a full beard.
29. I separated my right shoulder while body surfing in Acapulco 25 years ago. I never told anyone. To this day that shoulder hangs 2 inches lower than the uninjured one, and it sounds like celery being crunched when I rotate that shoulder through a full range of motion.
28. I have a mild competitive streak (my friends are laughing).
27. There are seven Apple Macintosh computers in my house (four of which still draw some degree of use). Since 1985 my total time using non-Apple PCs totals something like 2 hours.
26. In high school, I once taught my senior year advanced "Trig and Mathematical Analysis Class" for a week. The subject? "Matrix Convolution" What do I recall/retain of that subject? The title. Nothing else.
25. I was the goalie for a six-time A&M intramural champion waterpolo team. Innertube water polo. My career in the sport largely evaporated after college.
24. I have been online under some variation of the same username since 1989.
23. For a 10-year stretch running from junior high through high school and college, I was the stage director for the annual scholarship beauty contest in my hometown. Yes, I used this position to pick up chicks, including one girl who went on to become Miss Texas, as well as three others who eventually were top 10 finishers in the state pageant. Call me shallow, but I like gorgeous women.
22. I have four kids, but I don't post many specific details of them online.
21. I hate to dance. I'm not bad at it—I just hate doing it. It just feels ridiculous.
20. I do not wear black. The tuxedo at my wedding might be the last black clothing I wore.
19. At three different points in my life my hair has been shaved to boot-camp stubble length. At two other points my hair has been long enough to tie back in a ponytail. I usually just wear a baseball cap (but always an actual team cap-- never a commemorative or promotional cap).
18. I'm very good at accents and dialects. I once convinced a substitute teacher that I was an exchange student from Poland (who did not speak English)
17. Few things infuriate me more than effusive insincere praise and familiarity.
16. I am notoriously bad in a canoe.
15. I've never been hospitalized. Yet.
14. I once swam naked in a swamp filled with wild alligators. I did not know there were alligators in the swamp when I stripped and entered the water, but when I saw an 8-foot gator swim past me ten feet away, I figured it out.
13. On the Myers-Briggs personality test, I have always typed as an ENTP. I have always been both amused and a little disturbed at how textbook I am to this particular personality description.
12. I wear cargo shorts and t-shirts 90% of the time, and seldom wear shoes unless I have to. Fashion bores me.
11. I detest golf and everything connected to it. I detest golfers maybe most of all. I love disc golf.
10. I'm now a fat out of shape suburban dad, but I'm still a surprisingly good athlete I love football and basketball, but baseball surpasses all sports in my passion and appreciation. Baseball provides perfect metaphors for basically every moment and aspect of life.
9. I am a Texan and ferociously pugnaciously defiantly proud of that.
8. I am an Aggie and even more pugnaciously defiantly proud of that.
7. I hate all things burnt orange. (One year, one of my sons played youth basketball, and as luck would have it he was assigned to the "longhorns" team. While I served as assistant coach, attending every practice and game, I refused to wear the team jersey or coaches shirt, opting for a white t-shirt instead. The son told me that if I needed to step down as a coach, he'd understand. "It's the longhorns, dad. You don't wear burnt orange.")
6. In a game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Forces of Hell, I'd be the guy in the stands wearing a "GO SATAN" shirt and being asked to please keep the cheering to a reasonable volume.
5. I have to have coffee every morning or my mood and productivity for the day are totally shot.
4. I drink about a half gallon of iced tea per day (decaf)
3. I quite enjoy beer.
2. Three different unrelated people over the years have said that in a previous life I must have been Alexander the Great. I'm not entirely sure upon what this odd claims is based.
1. My all-time favorite, hands-down no-doubt favorite-ever movie is Lawrence of Arabia. Among others I'd have to pack for any extended deep-space journeys: Casablanca, North By Northwest, Rear Window, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Godfather, The Maltese Falcon, MASH, The Searchers, The Sting, The Princess Bride, Chinatown, Pirates of the Caribbean (COTBP), Bull Durham, Leone's "Man With No Name" trilogy, and The Big Lebowski.
-=-=-=-
Everything else... well, that's just details.
.
.
.
B
20 January 2007
gentle writers, start your engines
100 days until this year's Nicholl Fellowship submission deadline.
For those of you (of us) for whom such facts matter, respond accordingly.
.
.
.
knuckle cracking B
For those of you (of us) for whom such facts matter, respond accordingly.
.
.
.
knuckle cracking B
writing about writing about writing
The sea is angry today, my friends. Like an old man trying to return soup at a lunch counter.
I suddenly realize that I badly need to revisit my links on this site and make some adjustments: deletions, additions, denigrations, etc. Internet years seem roughly equivalent to dog years, except a website doesn't piddle all over your living room and chew your furniture for the first year and then just become lazy and fat.
Well, some do.
Some of the links I post over in yon sidebar are now dead, while others are posting less, and some are damned near dead in terms of activity. Meanwhile, some other very cool blogs (mostly on writing and/or screenwriting) have now made it onto my Daily Waste of Time beat, so I'll likely add them if only to annoy the site-honchos with what meager yet slobbering traffic I can send.
MEANWHILE... progress continues to progress hereabouts, as the RomCom continues to look more and more like some damned Flying Dutchman of a project which will circle the world and haunt me in my dreams yet never again come in to port. A few initial reads from friends confirmed what I'd optimistically tried to dismiss as self-loathing paranoia (turns out I was right, and the script was not ready for reads after all). There's some stuff in there which I love (amusingly enough, some of which I love most is stuff which some readers liked least, but guess whose opinion carries weight and value in this process... yes, it's good to be king), and then there's other stuff which needs some slight amount of tremendous work and attention.
"Such is life."
I have some ideas and notes piling up for what seem to be the Next Big Things which I'll waste time on, but for now I'll not give details to the sorry likes of you people (I'm not nearly so dim as I seem). Right now I seem to have four (!) next ideas vying for attention, so we'll see how that shakes down.
It's time again to get medieval about writing: to wake every morning with the clear and rabid intent to put good words on paper. Screen.
Whatever.
.
.
.
B
I suddenly realize that I badly need to revisit my links on this site and make some adjustments: deletions, additions, denigrations, etc. Internet years seem roughly equivalent to dog years, except a website doesn't piddle all over your living room and chew your furniture for the first year and then just become lazy and fat.
Well, some do.
Some of the links I post over in yon sidebar are now dead, while others are posting less, and some are damned near dead in terms of activity. Meanwhile, some other very cool blogs (mostly on writing and/or screenwriting) have now made it onto my Daily Waste of Time beat, so I'll likely add them if only to annoy the site-honchos with what meager yet slobbering traffic I can send.
MEANWHILE... progress continues to progress hereabouts, as the RomCom continues to look more and more like some damned Flying Dutchman of a project which will circle the world and haunt me in my dreams yet never again come in to port. A few initial reads from friends confirmed what I'd optimistically tried to dismiss as self-loathing paranoia (turns out I was right, and the script was not ready for reads after all). There's some stuff in there which I love (amusingly enough, some of which I love most is stuff which some readers liked least, but guess whose opinion carries weight and value in this process... yes, it's good to be king), and then there's other stuff which needs some slight amount of tremendous work and attention.
"Such is life."
I have some ideas and notes piling up for what seem to be the Next Big Things which I'll waste time on, but for now I'll not give details to the sorry likes of you people (I'm not nearly so dim as I seem). Right now I seem to have four (!) next ideas vying for attention, so we'll see how that shakes down.
It's time again to get medieval about writing: to wake every morning with the clear and rabid intent to put good words on paper. Screen.
Whatever.
.
.
.
B
09 January 2007
06 January 2007
we're cottonelle people
The Wife and I agree on many things— ketchup on hot dogs is just morally wrong, one does not gift with jewelry purchased from cardboard displays in grocery store checkout aisles, etc—but we do have our differences.
For example, I consider myself a reasonably competent human being, while she often considers me a clueless shuffling idiot who would not know to extinguish himself if he were to burst into flames. At least, such is the impression she gives me, most days.
I offer this as a sort of background to the tale I shall now impart, a tale of best intentions and strangest results and anger and confusion and rage and eventually childish petulant victorious smugness.
Friday midday, I took the daughter (our youngest) to Target for what is becoming a sort of tradition. The Wife was scheduled to work Friday night (L&D nurse, night shift, God Be Praised), so she was sleeping all day, and the daughter has no pre-school on Friday, so she and I often go to Target to eat lunch at the snack counter. We both have hots dogs and Cheetos (always Cheetos—absolutely Cheetos) and then we go shopping. Among the items The Wife mumbled that we needed (the night before, as we were cleaning dishes) was "toilet paper."
I put that in quotation marks because it is a full and accurate description of the item I was told to purchase: "toilet paper."
Being a reasonably competent human being, as I turned the cart down the toilet paper aisle I was flush with confidence that I could somehow manage to successfully purchase product with which to wipe our bottoms. Charmin Super Atomo-Mega Pack was on sale for 2 dollars off, so I tossed a zeppelin-sized bail of tissue onto the cart and muddled on.
Daughter and I get home, she watches Backyardigans as I lug in the 39 small plastic bags of groceries (Tatiana, our Russian accented checkout weasel at Target, seemed proud to put no more than two items in any bag, resulting in a wee bit of excessive packaging...). I then spend the next 45 minutes putting away the metric ton of groceries, finishing around 2:30 just as The Wife emerges from her Beauty Sleep [insert your own joke here—the ice upon which I daily skate stays thin enough already, thank you very little...], plods daintily into the kitchen, glances around, sees the 9000-pack of Charmin on the kitchen table, and says (and again i quote):
"What the fuck is this shit?"
"What say you, my dear? Did I disappoint you in some way?" I query in my always-sweet manner. [Note: The Wife would likely make up the most hideous lies about my response here, claiming that I said something like "It's toilet paper, dumbass—what does it look like?" Believe not a word of it.]
"We don't buy Charmin, stupid. We don't like Charmin."
"I wasn't aware that we cared. I kinda sorta figured that since we weren't exactly gonna treat the little paper squares with a great deal of care or respect, that in the grand scheme most all brands were equivalent."
"We hate Charmin! It smells funny and perfume-y! It's expensive! It's not as good!"
"As what?"
"Huh?"
"What **do** we buy, then?"
"We're Cottonelle people, dumbass!"
Now, I want each of you to take a brief moment to gaze into your own soul and tell me, honestly, if you could ever—EVER—look at another human being and offer any remotely similar declaration. Some people will go to the mat over politics, others over religion. For The Wife, she's ready to gear up and throw down over the concrete unshakable immutable fact that We're Cottonelle People. I tried to determine if Charmin would somehow not perform the basic duties of toilet paper, but she seemed not the tiniest bit eager to have that particular discussion.
"FINE!" I scream lovingly. "Then I'll just drag my ass back to Target and exchange this clearly unusable toilet paper for the right kind, 'cuz stupid old me forgot forgot for a moment that I married a woman with A PRESCRIPTION ASS!"
[Note: The Wife then reacted in a manner which suggested that she found my lovingly offered remarks to be less than loving, but at this point I was not to be swayed from my course: We're Cottonelle People, by God, and right must be done.]
I grabbed the porta-can sized package of Charmin, found the crumpled receipt, and stomped towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
"WE'RE COTTONELLE PEOPLE! CHARMIN SHALL NE'ER SUFFICE!"
"You're seriously going to Target to exchange toilet paper? I can't believe this. It's not that big of a deal..."
THAT remark stopped me in my tracks.
"NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL? You wake up and the first words—hell, the ONLY words—out of your pie-hole are 'you bought the wrong toilet paper-we're Cottonelle people,' and now for the last seven minutes you've stood there shrieking at me about the depth breadth and width of my failure on this particular purchase. Oh, it's a big damned deal. You've worked too hard for too long for me to not respect the bigness of this deal."
So I drove to Target to exchange the toilet paper.
Gentle readers, if you want to get some curious stares and glances, just try this some day: storm into your local Target with a homicidal gleam in your eye and a Yugo-sized crate of Charmin under your arm. The uniformed Security Guy standing guard at the entrance to Target dove headfirst behind a corral of carts, whimpering "don't shoot! I only make eight dollars and twenty-five cents an hour!"
The Service and Returns area had no other customers (or, hell, maybe they scurried for cover at the thunderous stomp of my approach...), so I set the damnable Charmin on the counter, sighed, and said that I'd like to make a return, please.
The moment of joyful levity in this entire episode occurred at this particular moment, as the blonde counter girl looked at the Charmin for a long moment, looked at me for a sec, then looked back at the Charmin.
"Why?"
I laughed for a moment, but stayed on-task. "Because it's wrong."
Again she looked back and forth between the toilet paper and me. "What's wrong with it? It's toilet paper?"
"Yes, but this is CHARMIN."
"And?"
"We're COTTONELLE people!" I offer with understandable pride.
"What's the difference? It's toilet paper. It still... well, you know.. works, right?"
"Oh, NO!" I counter. "Charmin is for a low class of buttock. Discriminating backsides knows to hold out for the far superior performance of COTTONELLE."
[Note: as God is my witness, I am embellishing not one bit. This is the actual exchange, verbatim]
At this stage, an older black man in a Target shirt came out and stood, watching in confused disbelief. he said nothing, but I could tell he was trying to figure out just what the holy hell was up with this.
Blonde Counter Girl blinks, looks at me, looks again at the Charmin, then again at me.
"Well, did you want to make an exchange?"
"Oh, you bet my happy marriage, I do!"
So I wander back to the t.p. aisle and sprint past the Charmin stacks (noticing a slightly funny and perfume-y fragrance which I will never confess to The Wife even if she tortures me...), find a package of Cottonelle roughly equivalent to a bass boat in size, and then, using a system of rollers and pulleys, drag the carton back to the return desk. I lug the palette of butt-wipe onto the counter and smile triumphantly.
"Found what we needed!"
Blonde Counter Girl did not smile. Older Black Guy squinted in the background, shook his head in something like disgust. I waved. he turned and disappeared back through the door from whence he'd first come.
Blonde Counter girl enters some codes and numbers, scans the Charmin, enters some more codes, scans the Cottonelle, enters some more codes, then sighs and slumps. She looks at me.
"There's a price difference. The Cottonelle is more expensive."
I lean in and nod with a smile. "Because it's BETTER. How much do I owe?"
"Eleven cents."
I laugh very loudly—Older Black Guy peeks around the corner to see if there's trouble—turn to the line of folks waiting behind me and nod. And I think we all agree that it's well worth that eleven cents!"
The Line of People say not a word. The hispanic grandmother right behind me sighs, loud and slow.
I count out eleven pennies, one at a time, slide them across the counter to Blonde Counter Girl. "What's the return policy on this? I ask her.
She glares up at me with a none-too-friendly look. "Returns and exchanges require a receipt, sir."
She hands me my adjusted receipt, shakes her head, and then leans to look around me. "Next in line, PLEASE?"
I decide not to question her on the fact that her "please" sounded a little more sincere, nee desperate, than normal. Instead, I breathed deep, and using my legs rather than my back, lifted the Winnebago-sized package of tissue from the counter and waddled to the door. Security Guy slowly swiveled as I passed, keeping his attention on me and his right hand somewhere near the magnum on his hip (reminding me again how much safer I feel knowing that someone who can't get a job as an ice cream truck driver can still be issued a handgun and a badge to maintain retail shopping peace and order).
As I walk back into the house, I affect my best Ricky Ricardo and shout "Loooooocy! I'm hooooooome!"
The Wife comes around the corner, drying her hair from her shower. She glances at the bail of paper, then at me. She shakes her head very much like an Older Black Guy. "Was it worth all that? A trip there and back just to change brands?" she asks, now apparently eager to distance herself from the issue she herself flamed into an inferno.
"Absolutely," I declare. "After all," I explain, dropping the pack to the floor with a thud loud enough to startle the cats. "We're Cottonelle People."
The Wife rolls her eyes and heads back to getting ready for work, leaving me to stand, hands on hips, riding a towering wave of childish petulant victorious smugness.
.
.
.
B
For example, I consider myself a reasonably competent human being, while she often considers me a clueless shuffling idiot who would not know to extinguish himself if he were to burst into flames. At least, such is the impression she gives me, most days.
I offer this as a sort of background to the tale I shall now impart, a tale of best intentions and strangest results and anger and confusion and rage and eventually childish petulant victorious smugness.
Friday midday, I took the daughter (our youngest) to Target for what is becoming a sort of tradition. The Wife was scheduled to work Friday night (L&D nurse, night shift, God Be Praised), so she was sleeping all day, and the daughter has no pre-school on Friday, so she and I often go to Target to eat lunch at the snack counter. We both have hots dogs and Cheetos (always Cheetos—absolutely Cheetos) and then we go shopping. Among the items The Wife mumbled that we needed (the night before, as we were cleaning dishes) was "toilet paper."
I put that in quotation marks because it is a full and accurate description of the item I was told to purchase: "toilet paper."
Being a reasonably competent human being, as I turned the cart down the toilet paper aisle I was flush with confidence that I could somehow manage to successfully purchase product with which to wipe our bottoms. Charmin Super Atomo-Mega Pack was on sale for 2 dollars off, so I tossed a zeppelin-sized bail of tissue onto the cart and muddled on.
Daughter and I get home, she watches Backyardigans as I lug in the 39 small plastic bags of groceries (Tatiana, our Russian accented checkout weasel at Target, seemed proud to put no more than two items in any bag, resulting in a wee bit of excessive packaging...). I then spend the next 45 minutes putting away the metric ton of groceries, finishing around 2:30 just as The Wife emerges from her Beauty Sleep [insert your own joke here—the ice upon which I daily skate stays thin enough already, thank you very little...], plods daintily into the kitchen, glances around, sees the 9000-pack of Charmin on the kitchen table, and says (and again i quote):
"What the fuck is this shit?"
"What say you, my dear? Did I disappoint you in some way?" I query in my always-sweet manner. [Note: The Wife would likely make up the most hideous lies about my response here, claiming that I said something like "It's toilet paper, dumbass—what does it look like?" Believe not a word of it.]
"We don't buy Charmin, stupid. We don't like Charmin."
"I wasn't aware that we cared. I kinda sorta figured that since we weren't exactly gonna treat the little paper squares with a great deal of care or respect, that in the grand scheme most all brands were equivalent."
"We hate Charmin! It smells funny and perfume-y! It's expensive! It's not as good!"
"As what?"
"Huh?"
"What **do** we buy, then?"
"We're Cottonelle people, dumbass!"
Now, I want each of you to take a brief moment to gaze into your own soul and tell me, honestly, if you could ever—EVER—look at another human being and offer any remotely similar declaration. Some people will go to the mat over politics, others over religion. For The Wife, she's ready to gear up and throw down over the concrete unshakable immutable fact that We're Cottonelle People. I tried to determine if Charmin would somehow not perform the basic duties of toilet paper, but she seemed not the tiniest bit eager to have that particular discussion.
"FINE!" I scream lovingly. "Then I'll just drag my ass back to Target and exchange this clearly unusable toilet paper for the right kind, 'cuz stupid old me forgot forgot for a moment that I married a woman with A PRESCRIPTION ASS!"
[Note: The Wife then reacted in a manner which suggested that she found my lovingly offered remarks to be less than loving, but at this point I was not to be swayed from my course: We're Cottonelle People, by God, and right must be done.]
I grabbed the porta-can sized package of Charmin, found the crumpled receipt, and stomped towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
"WE'RE COTTONELLE PEOPLE! CHARMIN SHALL NE'ER SUFFICE!"
"You're seriously going to Target to exchange toilet paper? I can't believe this. It's not that big of a deal..."
THAT remark stopped me in my tracks.
"NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL? You wake up and the first words—hell, the ONLY words—out of your pie-hole are 'you bought the wrong toilet paper-we're Cottonelle people,' and now for the last seven minutes you've stood there shrieking at me about the depth breadth and width of my failure on this particular purchase. Oh, it's a big damned deal. You've worked too hard for too long for me to not respect the bigness of this deal."
So I drove to Target to exchange the toilet paper.
Gentle readers, if you want to get some curious stares and glances, just try this some day: storm into your local Target with a homicidal gleam in your eye and a Yugo-sized crate of Charmin under your arm. The uniformed Security Guy standing guard at the entrance to Target dove headfirst behind a corral of carts, whimpering "don't shoot! I only make eight dollars and twenty-five cents an hour!"
The Service and Returns area had no other customers (or, hell, maybe they scurried for cover at the thunderous stomp of my approach...), so I set the damnable Charmin on the counter, sighed, and said that I'd like to make a return, please.
The moment of joyful levity in this entire episode occurred at this particular moment, as the blonde counter girl looked at the Charmin for a long moment, looked at me for a sec, then looked back at the Charmin.
"Why?"
I laughed for a moment, but stayed on-task. "Because it's wrong."
Again she looked back and forth between the toilet paper and me. "What's wrong with it? It's toilet paper?"
"Yes, but this is CHARMIN."
"And?"
"We're COTTONELLE people!" I offer with understandable pride.
"What's the difference? It's toilet paper. It still... well, you know.. works, right?"
"Oh, NO!" I counter. "Charmin is for a low class of buttock. Discriminating backsides knows to hold out for the far superior performance of COTTONELLE."
[Note: as God is my witness, I am embellishing not one bit. This is the actual exchange, verbatim]
At this stage, an older black man in a Target shirt came out and stood, watching in confused disbelief. he said nothing, but I could tell he was trying to figure out just what the holy hell was up with this.
Blonde Counter Girl blinks, looks at me, looks again at the Charmin, then again at me.
"Well, did you want to make an exchange?"
"Oh, you bet my happy marriage, I do!"
So I wander back to the t.p. aisle and sprint past the Charmin stacks (noticing a slightly funny and perfume-y fragrance which I will never confess to The Wife even if she tortures me...), find a package of Cottonelle roughly equivalent to a bass boat in size, and then, using a system of rollers and pulleys, drag the carton back to the return desk. I lug the palette of butt-wipe onto the counter and smile triumphantly.
"Found what we needed!"
Blonde Counter Girl did not smile. Older Black Guy squinted in the background, shook his head in something like disgust. I waved. he turned and disappeared back through the door from whence he'd first come.
Blonde Counter girl enters some codes and numbers, scans the Charmin, enters some more codes, scans the Cottonelle, enters some more codes, then sighs and slumps. She looks at me.
"There's a price difference. The Cottonelle is more expensive."
I lean in and nod with a smile. "Because it's BETTER. How much do I owe?"
"Eleven cents."
I laugh very loudly—Older Black Guy peeks around the corner to see if there's trouble—turn to the line of folks waiting behind me and nod. And I think we all agree that it's well worth that eleven cents!"
The Line of People say not a word. The hispanic grandmother right behind me sighs, loud and slow.
I count out eleven pennies, one at a time, slide them across the counter to Blonde Counter Girl. "What's the return policy on this? I ask her.
She glares up at me with a none-too-friendly look. "Returns and exchanges require a receipt, sir."
She hands me my adjusted receipt, shakes her head, and then leans to look around me. "Next in line, PLEASE?"
I decide not to question her on the fact that her "please" sounded a little more sincere, nee desperate, than normal. Instead, I breathed deep, and using my legs rather than my back, lifted the Winnebago-sized package of tissue from the counter and waddled to the door. Security Guy slowly swiveled as I passed, keeping his attention on me and his right hand somewhere near the magnum on his hip (reminding me again how much safer I feel knowing that someone who can't get a job as an ice cream truck driver can still be issued a handgun and a badge to maintain retail shopping peace and order).
As I walk back into the house, I affect my best Ricky Ricardo and shout "Loooooocy! I'm hooooooome!"
The Wife comes around the corner, drying her hair from her shower. She glances at the bail of paper, then at me. She shakes her head very much like an Older Black Guy. "Was it worth all that? A trip there and back just to change brands?" she asks, now apparently eager to distance herself from the issue she herself flamed into an inferno.
"Absolutely," I declare. "After all," I explain, dropping the pack to the floor with a thud loud enough to startle the cats. "We're Cottonelle People."
The Wife rolls her eyes and heads back to getting ready for work, leaving me to stand, hands on hips, riding a towering wave of childish petulant victorious smugness.
.
.
.
B
04 January 2007
5 books, 5 lines [meme]
My big-time novelizing pal Cornelia, picked up an amusing meme on her gang-blog, nakedauthors.com (a meme which she says she originally picked up from Joshilyn Jackson's "Faster Than Kudzu" blog):
Here's my resultant frankengraph:
-=-=-
Key:
DIRECTIONS
1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 -- first sentence of the book
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page 50
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page 100
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page 150
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph.Here's my resultant frankengraph:
All peoples have epic legends about their tribal ancestors, and these legends often formalize themselves into religious cults. The corollary to never going to a meeting without a strategy is never getting off a jet without a strategy, never going to a screening without a strategy, never going to dinner without a strategy, never going to a breakfast without a strategy. "But there's nothing we can do about it now." "It sounds good to me," said Peebles; "I ain't fer goin' 'ome empty 'anded." By restraining them with the nameless unhewn log, they will not feel disgraced, they will be still, whereupon heaven and earth will be made right by themselves.
-=-=-
Key:
(1) River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
, by Richard Dawkins(2) Hello He Lied (and other true stories from the Hollywood trenches)
(3) Deliverance
(4) Tarzan and the Golden Lion
(5) Tao Te Ching
.
.
.
B
29 December 2006
finally, a screenwriting book that i like
I have a reputation (based almost entirely upon fact, thank you very much) of disliking most all books on screenwriting. There's all sorts of fancy sounding reasons I could throw out there to justify this attitude, but pretty much all of them boil down to the simple fact that most all of these advice and how-to books are written by people with a clear history of not actually using their own advice for much (if any) practical effect success.
But The Wife gave me a book for Christmas,
HOLLYWOOD DEVIL: THE SCREENWRITER AS GOD by legendary Hollwood bad boy Joe Ezsterhas, writer of such big name movies as BASIC INSTINCT, JAGGED EDGE, FLASHDANCE, SLIVER, SHOWGIRLS, etc. If you follow screenwriting personalities and stories, then you know who Ezsterhas is and why he rates any notice of consideration: when you look at the top-selling screenplays of all time, Joe's name is attached to something like 7 of the 12 priciest screenplay deals in the history of the game.
But beyond just the financial success he enjoyed, Ezsterhas, perhaps more than any other screenwriter, managed a degree of celebrity and notoriety usually reserved for actors and directors. He was the closest thing the game has yet seen to "a screenwriting rock star." And he lived life in proper rockstar fashion during the heyday of his success, acting like a mouthy overly indulged chemically imbalanced manic freakshow willing and eager to bed whatever woman might accept his advances.
It all makes for some hilarious and often educational reading.
I fear it might also reinforce some screwy ideas and attitudes in my own head, however, as I recognize various beliefs and positions in Ezsterhas's makeup which seem curiously similar to some of my own. The cocksure/arrogant willingness to accept your own brilliance and ability in the face of morons trying to argue otherwise. The barely controlled rage and urge to assault morons and know-nuthinks eager to try and bring you down or waste your time and energy merely because they can. The love of annoying and offending those who are easily annoyed and offended.
Is the book rocket science or sure to change your life? Hell, no, but it might give you a second opinion on the necessity of always behaving like an overly accommodating meek worm eager to sacrifice any ethical or moral high ground in the hopes of starting or perpetuating a career in an industry where ethics and morals often little more than garnish (pretty, but irrelevant). There are concepts and personalities who truly rate our respect and allegiance, and then there are others who just as surely deserve scorn and contempt, and Joe has never been shy about describing who sorts into which pile.
For my money, Ezsterhas's book demonstrates the benefits — and dangers — of hyper-developed ego, and does so with the sort of angry bull in a china shop glee that seems rare among successful people in any field of endeavor. He clearly loves what he does, and he has fun loving it.
We could all do far worse.
.
.
.
B
But The Wife gave me a book for Christmas,
HOLLYWOOD DEVIL: THE SCREENWRITER AS GOD by legendary Hollwood bad boy Joe Ezsterhas, writer of such big name movies as BASIC INSTINCT, JAGGED EDGE, FLASHDANCE, SLIVER, SHOWGIRLS, etc. If you follow screenwriting personalities and stories, then you know who Ezsterhas is and why he rates any notice of consideration: when you look at the top-selling screenplays of all time, Joe's name is attached to something like 7 of the 12 priciest screenplay deals in the history of the game.But beyond just the financial success he enjoyed, Ezsterhas, perhaps more than any other screenwriter, managed a degree of celebrity and notoriety usually reserved for actors and directors. He was the closest thing the game has yet seen to "a screenwriting rock star." And he lived life in proper rockstar fashion during the heyday of his success, acting like a mouthy overly indulged chemically imbalanced manic freakshow willing and eager to bed whatever woman might accept his advances.
It all makes for some hilarious and often educational reading.
I fear it might also reinforce some screwy ideas and attitudes in my own head, however, as I recognize various beliefs and positions in Ezsterhas's makeup which seem curiously similar to some of my own. The cocksure/arrogant willingness to accept your own brilliance and ability in the face of morons trying to argue otherwise. The barely controlled rage and urge to assault morons and know-nuthinks eager to try and bring you down or waste your time and energy merely because they can. The love of annoying and offending those who are easily annoyed and offended.
Is the book rocket science or sure to change your life? Hell, no, but it might give you a second opinion on the necessity of always behaving like an overly accommodating meek worm eager to sacrifice any ethical or moral high ground in the hopes of starting or perpetuating a career in an industry where ethics and morals often little more than garnish (pretty, but irrelevant). There are concepts and personalities who truly rate our respect and allegiance, and then there are others who just as surely deserve scorn and contempt, and Joe has never been shy about describing who sorts into which pile.
For my money, Ezsterhas's book demonstrates the benefits — and dangers — of hyper-developed ego, and does so with the sort of angry bull in a china shop glee that seems rare among successful people in any field of endeavor. He clearly loves what he does, and he has fun loving it.
We could all do far worse.
.
.
.
B
26 December 2006
18 December 2006
something in the water?
I've grumbled and groaned before about the low quality of online postings, but seriously -- what's going on out there? Did someone pull the plug on the sink of intelligence, as most all the content of any interest or ntoability seems to be swirling down the drain hole.
Most discussion boards seem to be sucking huge amounts of warm air, overflowing with pointless insipid whiny non-funny stabs at wit and pith and insight but which end up coming across like a 17 year old nerd raging at the gods at a bad party in the throes of his first beer buzz. Blog posts are down, and responses too (at least, they surely seem so on the few dozen blogs I still manage to stay at all interested in).
Maybe it's the holidays, or maybe it's just that everyone is focused elsewhere (likely pretending to be shit-hot 18 year old lesbians on MySpace...), or maybe I'm just projecting some sort of self-loathing onto the Universe as a whole, and the problem is actually all in my head (unlikely, as in recent poling some 76% of the voices I hear in there agree with me that WE are fine and everything else is the problem).
What's wrong with you people?
Say something interesting. Or funny. Or intelligent. Or something.
.
.
.
so above you all that I suffer near-constant nosebleeds B
Most discussion boards seem to be sucking huge amounts of warm air, overflowing with pointless insipid whiny non-funny stabs at wit and pith and insight but which end up coming across like a 17 year old nerd raging at the gods at a bad party in the throes of his first beer buzz. Blog posts are down, and responses too (at least, they surely seem so on the few dozen blogs I still manage to stay at all interested in).
Maybe it's the holidays, or maybe it's just that everyone is focused elsewhere (likely pretending to be shit-hot 18 year old lesbians on MySpace...), or maybe I'm just projecting some sort of self-loathing onto the Universe as a whole, and the problem is actually all in my head (unlikely, as in recent poling some 76% of the voices I hear in there agree with me that WE are fine and everything else is the problem).
What's wrong with you people?
Say something interesting. Or funny. Or intelligent. Or something.
.
.
.
so above you all that I suffer near-constant nosebleeds B
13 December 2006
curious...
...but why is it that a lot of teh scripts I am most eager to read seem not available anywhere online?
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA?
ANIMAL HOUSE?
ROCKETEER?
I did manage to read ANIMAL HOUSE in printed form at the WGA library, but that was a little too "precious" for me (I half expected a monk with a tonsure to bear the sacred text to me while whispering prayers...), plus it gets pricey to travel to LA just to read that script....
.
.
.
B
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA?
ANIMAL HOUSE?
ROCKETEER?
I did manage to read ANIMAL HOUSE in printed form at the WGA library, but that was a little too "precious" for me (I half expected a monk with a tonsure to bear the sacred text to me while whispering prayers...), plus it gets pricey to travel to LA just to read that script....
.
.
.
B
09 December 2006
can’t get over the hump
Sometimes we face challenges which turn out to be more serious than we imagined. Which resist our best efforts to surmount. Which remain a constant ongoing pain in the ass despite all we can sensibly think to do.
I have such an issue these days, and it’s really starting to twist my kickers into a knot.
I speak, of course, about that damned “How Much Is Your Blog Worth?” link feature thing somewhere below on my page. Simply put, the link tracks the imaginary “worth” or your website through some algorithm which calculates a monetary value based upon the number and popularity (“worth”) of links to and from your site. The more big-name high traffic sites which think enough of your site to link to you, the more your site is “worth.”
And for the longest time now—months—my blog—this stupid damned site upon which your virtual fanny now sits—has been stuck at the alleged value of $6,774.48.
And it’s the “48 cents” part which really irks me whenever I bother to glance at the site for an updated figure. How is that possible? My traffic has been increasing (roughly on a glacial pace to match inflation, but increasing dammit), the quality of the writing and thinking behind it remains beyond compare (shaddup), and I have yet to degrade myself by posting pictures of kittens, bikini bimbos, or links to already overexposed YouTube clips.
Seriously: how can that silly valuation stay parked on such a specific number for three or four months? That’s a lifetime in internet time, and you’re telling me that property values have remained that stable?
I know that it’s not my fault, whatever the problem is, and I think that point is, as-ever, clear and non-debatable. (Since the shameful 1987 Mistake episode, I have been extra careful and made no errors or missteps of any kind, so obviously this one ain’t on me, kids.)
Clearly the bulk of the blame falls to you, gentle readers. You’re just not doing enough to boost my imaginary arbitrary value. And I think I’ve been more than patient. So now it’s time for you no-account shiftless ingrates to rededicate yourselves to boosting my blogs pretend value.
Or else I’m gonna start posting pictures of kittens.
And don't think I won't do it.
.
.
.
B
I have such an issue these days, and it’s really starting to twist my kickers into a knot.
I speak, of course, about that damned “How Much Is Your Blog Worth?” link feature thing somewhere below on my page. Simply put, the link tracks the imaginary “worth” or your website through some algorithm which calculates a monetary value based upon the number and popularity (“worth”) of links to and from your site. The more big-name high traffic sites which think enough of your site to link to you, the more your site is “worth.”
And for the longest time now—months—my blog—this stupid damned site upon which your virtual fanny now sits—has been stuck at the alleged value of $6,774.48.
And it’s the “48 cents” part which really irks me whenever I bother to glance at the site for an updated figure. How is that possible? My traffic has been increasing (roughly on a glacial pace to match inflation, but increasing dammit), the quality of the writing and thinking behind it remains beyond compare (shaddup), and I have yet to degrade myself by posting pictures of kittens, bikini bimbos, or links to already overexposed YouTube clips.
Seriously: how can that silly valuation stay parked on such a specific number for three or four months? That’s a lifetime in internet time, and you’re telling me that property values have remained that stable?
I know that it’s not my fault, whatever the problem is, and I think that point is, as-ever, clear and non-debatable. (Since the shameful 1987 Mistake episode, I have been extra careful and made no errors or missteps of any kind, so obviously this one ain’t on me, kids.)
Clearly the bulk of the blame falls to you, gentle readers. You’re just not doing enough to boost my imaginary arbitrary value. And I think I’ve been more than patient. So now it’s time for you no-account shiftless ingrates to rededicate yourselves to boosting my blogs pretend value.
Or else I’m gonna start posting pictures of kittens.
And don't think I won't do it.
.
.
.
B
03 December 2006
quick and dirty: ideas floating in the puddle of my mind
Austin... rewrites... timberframing... Iceland... coffee... Zarathusra... outlines... longboats... Christmas lights... Narragansetts... YouTube... Terlingua... Stalingrad... self-delusion... walnut... folded steel... catalysts... Hollywood... the left-center power alley... nurses... framing nailers... the Napo River... Scarlett Johansson... IMDBpro... loglines... high-concept... built-in bookcases... iPod... Jamie Foxx... Aggie basketball... "*I* have a rocket..."... el chupacabra... Scarlett Johansson... Leon Redbone... drywall... Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman... peanut butter... shotgun-option spread offense... Yakovlev fighters... the Blanco River... Shiner 97... Dick Shawn dancing the go-go... a Jack Ruby sandwich... Scarlett Johansson... Scarlett Johansson... Scarlett Johansson...
.
.
.
B
.
.
.
B
26 November 2006
on writing: baseball again as the mother of all metaphors
If (as it seems almost everyone is) you’re writing a screenplay (or at least claiming to be doing such), then likely you’ve already aligned yourself with one of two different camps in the screenwriting world: those who look to experts and gurus and coaches for advice and guidance, and those who look at such experts and gurus and coaches and shout “Charlatans! Fakers! Quacks!”
If forced at bayonet point to declare my affiliation one way or the other, I’d likely fall more into the latter camp than the former, but not because I think the experts are intentionally trying to scam or delude their followers. Well, some are, likely, but I’ll not waste time debating or describing who rates such labels versus who rates merely a “means well but knows nothing” tag. I believe that the majority of the so-called experts actually believe that they are providing valuable information and enlightenment, but as with many issues it seems prudent to remember that Belief and Reality are not necessarily contiguous much less congruent.
I was glancing at the blog site of one supposed screenwriting guru, one which many of my friends seem to like and respect. He might be a wonderful human being—I honestly don’t know—but I do know that I find his advice and theories consistently uninspired, uninteresting, and (worst of all) not at all useful for personal application. He writes well, with an undeniable elegance and fluency and passion for his specific area of concern, but ultimately, for me... there is no ‘there’ there.
And suddenly I remembered an exchange from baseball coaching earlier this year. In my real world life I’ve been a youth baseball coach for many many years: Little League baseball, teeball, girls softball. Usually I wind up assigned to be the hitting coach, as (for whatever reason) over the years I’ve accumulated some ideas and techniques on effective ways to help kids find and improve that swing.
(Yes, I'm a coach, and yes I appreciate the irony of referring to my own coaching expertise in a blog post largely dedicated to the proposition that coaches are of little usefulness in many situations. Don't interrupt me, kid.)
I was working with this one batter—a nine year old with good size, great strength, loads of “want to”—who just couldn’t seem to get his swing working. His form was so messed up that he was actually working muscles against themselves to get the bat moving, with the result being a very messed up swing which seldom made contact and almost never generated power.
If you are not a baseball person, understand that this is “not good.” The name of the game in hitting is “bat on ball—hard.”
As I was watching the kid and talking to him and trying to adjust a few odd quirks, his dad was watching close by and also trying to help. The dad kept stepping in to give advice and adjust things—often at cross purposes with what I was trying to do—and the kid was getting confused and frustrated. At some point the kid twisted himself into a truly odd-looking stance, but as soon as the ball came in, he suddenly uncoiled and PING the ball exploded to the outfield on a line. A solid hit. I just lifted my eyebrows and thought “huh!”
But the dad was very upset. He jumped in and immediately started getting the kid out of that odd stance, saying “I don’t wanna see that again! You’ll never see a professional hitter do that!”
”Well...” I interrupted. “Actually, you might. Especially if you look back to Carl Yaztremski’s hitting. His stance was a mess for more than two decades. Now he's in the Hall of Fame.”
The dad looked at me like I had a badger on my head.
“All this stuff about ‘what the pros do’ is just hopeful guidance. Stuff we throw out there in the hope that it proves useful or beneficial. But ultimately every hitter has to find their own swing.”
The dad was upset by such sacrilege and blasphemy. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t go up there [with such and such in your swing] and expect to hit!”
I told the boy to step out of the batter’s box, and asked the dad to go feed some balls into the pitching machine. I grabbed a bat, dug in to face the machine, and adapted an even more affected exaggerated version of the boy’s “wrong” stance.
“OK. Gimme some.”
I put three of the next five balls over the fence, the other two both skipping to the fence on a single skidding bounce.
I smiled to the dad. “I dunno... doesn’t seem an impossible proposition to hit that way. Feels kinda weird to me, but it seems workable from a mechanical point of view.”
I winked at the boy, and he smiled in a way that was clearly not meant to be noticed by his dad.
The dad walks in and just stares at me. I just smile, and then drop to a knee to talk to the boy some more.
“Look—there are hundreds of different variations you can try in your stance, with tens of thousands of combinations. Some people stand upright, some crouch low, some are tight with the feet, some are spread legged. Some have a closed stance, some are open in the extreme, some folks have a dull boring nothing special looking stance. Some hold the bat high, some hold it low, some start hands high, others have their fists low. But here’s the thing: nothing matters unless you can put the bat on the ball with force. If you can find a stance that let’s you do that every time you dig in for an at bat, then that’s a good stance. Bat on ball. Everything else is gravy.”
And right now, today, sitting at my cluttered desk as I contemplate more changes in the rewrite to my cursed damned Flying Dutchman of a romantic comedy script, that baseball metaphor seems one that might be useful for writers: there are all sorts of experts and well-meaning coaches out there who will try to convince you that their way—their philosophy of hitting, their basket of techniques and tricks, their trademarked System™ taught in seminars and via online CD’s and books—is the One True Path.
Don’t believe it.
When it comes down to it, it’s about a bat, and it’s about a ball, and it’s about bringing the two into contact in an explosive moment of ballistic perfection.
At the end of the day, nobody gives a damn about your process. Nobody in the audience gives a hoot in hell how you managed to address “theme.” No reader hunkered on a sofa or at a desk gives a flying fig about what techniques (if any) you used to ensure that your major act breaks fell at the right moment in your work.
What they will care about is “did you make solid contact? Did you put the bat on the ball and put it in play hard?”
As a writer, that is your job—that is your fuckin raison d’être.
Put the bat on the ball, by any means necessary.
Swing hard. Run fast. Pray often. Have fun.
Everything else is gravy.
.
.
.
B
If forced at bayonet point to declare my affiliation one way or the other, I’d likely fall more into the latter camp than the former, but not because I think the experts are intentionally trying to scam or delude their followers. Well, some are, likely, but I’ll not waste time debating or describing who rates such labels versus who rates merely a “means well but knows nothing” tag. I believe that the majority of the so-called experts actually believe that they are providing valuable information and enlightenment, but as with many issues it seems prudent to remember that Belief and Reality are not necessarily contiguous much less congruent.
I was glancing at the blog site of one supposed screenwriting guru, one which many of my friends seem to like and respect. He might be a wonderful human being—I honestly don’t know—but I do know that I find his advice and theories consistently uninspired, uninteresting, and (worst of all) not at all useful for personal application. He writes well, with an undeniable elegance and fluency and passion for his specific area of concern, but ultimately, for me... there is no ‘there’ there.
And suddenly I remembered an exchange from baseball coaching earlier this year. In my real world life I’ve been a youth baseball coach for many many years: Little League baseball, teeball, girls softball. Usually I wind up assigned to be the hitting coach, as (for whatever reason) over the years I’ve accumulated some ideas and techniques on effective ways to help kids find and improve that swing.
(Yes, I'm a coach, and yes I appreciate the irony of referring to my own coaching expertise in a blog post largely dedicated to the proposition that coaches are of little usefulness in many situations. Don't interrupt me, kid.)
I was working with this one batter—a nine year old with good size, great strength, loads of “want to”—who just couldn’t seem to get his swing working. His form was so messed up that he was actually working muscles against themselves to get the bat moving, with the result being a very messed up swing which seldom made contact and almost never generated power.
If you are not a baseball person, understand that this is “not good.” The name of the game in hitting is “bat on ball—hard.”
As I was watching the kid and talking to him and trying to adjust a few odd quirks, his dad was watching close by and also trying to help. The dad kept stepping in to give advice and adjust things—often at cross purposes with what I was trying to do—and the kid was getting confused and frustrated. At some point the kid twisted himself into a truly odd-looking stance, but as soon as the ball came in, he suddenly uncoiled and PING the ball exploded to the outfield on a line. A solid hit. I just lifted my eyebrows and thought “huh!”
But the dad was very upset. He jumped in and immediately started getting the kid out of that odd stance, saying “I don’t wanna see that again! You’ll never see a professional hitter do that!”
”Well...” I interrupted. “Actually, you might. Especially if you look back to Carl Yaztremski’s hitting. His stance was a mess for more than two decades. Now he's in the Hall of Fame.”
The dad looked at me like I had a badger on my head.
“All this stuff about ‘what the pros do’ is just hopeful guidance. Stuff we throw out there in the hope that it proves useful or beneficial. But ultimately every hitter has to find their own swing.”
The dad was upset by such sacrilege and blasphemy. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t go up there [with such and such in your swing] and expect to hit!”
I told the boy to step out of the batter’s box, and asked the dad to go feed some balls into the pitching machine. I grabbed a bat, dug in to face the machine, and adapted an even more affected exaggerated version of the boy’s “wrong” stance.
“OK. Gimme some.”
I put three of the next five balls over the fence, the other two both skipping to the fence on a single skidding bounce.
I smiled to the dad. “I dunno... doesn’t seem an impossible proposition to hit that way. Feels kinda weird to me, but it seems workable from a mechanical point of view.”
I winked at the boy, and he smiled in a way that was clearly not meant to be noticed by his dad.
The dad walks in and just stares at me. I just smile, and then drop to a knee to talk to the boy some more.
“Look—there are hundreds of different variations you can try in your stance, with tens of thousands of combinations. Some people stand upright, some crouch low, some are tight with the feet, some are spread legged. Some have a closed stance, some are open in the extreme, some folks have a dull boring nothing special looking stance. Some hold the bat high, some hold it low, some start hands high, others have their fists low. But here’s the thing: nothing matters unless you can put the bat on the ball with force. If you can find a stance that let’s you do that every time you dig in for an at bat, then that’s a good stance. Bat on ball. Everything else is gravy.”
And right now, today, sitting at my cluttered desk as I contemplate more changes in the rewrite to my cursed damned Flying Dutchman of a romantic comedy script, that baseball metaphor seems one that might be useful for writers: there are all sorts of experts and well-meaning coaches out there who will try to convince you that their way—their philosophy of hitting, their basket of techniques and tricks, their trademarked System™ taught in seminars and via online CD’s and books—is the One True Path.
Don’t believe it.
When it comes down to it, it’s about a bat, and it’s about a ball, and it’s about bringing the two into contact in an explosive moment of ballistic perfection.
At the end of the day, nobody gives a damn about your process. Nobody in the audience gives a hoot in hell how you managed to address “theme.” No reader hunkered on a sofa or at a desk gives a flying fig about what techniques (if any) you used to ensure that your major act breaks fell at the right moment in your work.
What they will care about is “did you make solid contact? Did you put the bat on the ball and put it in play hard?”
As a writer, that is your job—that is your fuckin raison d’être.
Put the bat on the ball, by any means necessary.
Swing hard. Run fast. Pray often. Have fun.
Everything else is gravy.
.
.
.
B
24 November 2006
and today, reason to give thanks
Final score:
12 AGGIES
07 longhorns
Beat the hell outta t.u.
.
.
.
maroon and white B
12 AGGIES
07 longhorns
Beat the hell outta t.u.
.
.
.
maroon and white B
22 November 2006
various and sundry
Just a handful of random thoughts, comments, and observations:
1) GOOD MOVIES ROCK: Last night I went and saw APOCALYPSE NOW at a the local Alamo Drafthouse, a cool semi-artsy theater chain which boasts first run movies, classic titles in weekly revival showcase format, plus something like 40 different premium beers on tap.
"It's a good thing."
Four bucks to see Coppola making that kind of movie which today seems nearly impossible to conceive: a huge sprawling intensely psychological personal mess of a tale, set against a huge dramatic backdrop and featuring a cast of ridiculously talented serious actors all swinging for the fences in every damned scene.
Weird, dark, psycho, demented, brutal, sometimes hilarious (and often for disturbing reasons...), with nearly every single frame of film a jaw dropping composition. All I could keep thinking to myself was "this movie might was well have come from another planet—they just don;t make movies like this any more."
Which, in a sense, was both depressing and inspiring at the same time. We seem to be in a pahse of the movie business where the first, final, and only consideration seems to be the almighty dollar. Now, I'm not some whack job commie fascist "power to the people" treehugger who thinks that we should all live in some kindergarten fantasy land where everyone does whatever they like without any concern for money and commerce, but it does seem sad that so few movies being made today seem to have any of the enduring "artfulness" of movies like Apocalypse Now. Love it or hate it, it seems pretty clear that you have to at least grant that it is one hellacious artistic statement, and not like anything else you've seen on that subject.
Of course, all it took was the bulk of Coppola's health and sanity, as well as most all of the financial and commercial clout that he'd managed to accumulate with GODFATHER and THE CONVERSATION. He's done some interesting work since APOCALYPSE, but it seems fair to say that he never again came close to the insanely epic grandeur of that movie.
If you have a chance to see it in a big dark room, with a big loud sound system, grab that chance and then be sure to give at least a bit of notice to the techincal artistry of the movie-- the sound, the colors, the framing, the editing, the music. When movies work, they truly are something terrifyingly magical.
2) THE AUSTIN DIARIES: I've not yet forgotten or abandoned the telling of the twisted tale of this year's Austin Film Festival. I've just been... distracted. Busy. Lazy. Whatever. There are some fun details waiting to be shared—beans waiting to be spillt—and it is my honest intent to share and spill as best I can, but for now I remain somewhere else, in another mood, and not of a mind to think back to this year's week in Oz, as memory leads to melancholy which leads to anger which leads to... nothing productive.
3) THE ROM COM: now titled TWELVE DAYS, the long-festering project was hurled at a handful of readers and by God they hurled right back. The nots they offered were not totally hostile, but they were pretty consistent in saying "this ain't ready, dude." Shrug. I'm not reworking the piece, and finding places where improvement and change was much needed before but where I (for whatever reason) chose to ignore or overlook problems. Likely I was both tired of not having any sort of "completed" draft to hold, as well as overly eager to get the project to some point where I might dream of flinging it over fences to folks who likely aren;t going to care overly anyway. Bottom line: the piece has some good points, so not as good points, and now is back into the workshop to be hammered and beaten upon until it comes out with more of that aforementioned "goodth."
4) THANKSGIVING: that odd American turkey holiday bears down upon us now, and with it begins The Holiday Season. Strange (or perhaps not strange) as it might be to consider, I'm not a huge fan of the holidays, as they seem to create more tension and anxiety in my life than they do good feelings and happiness. Don;t get me wrong: I love watching my kids enjoy Christmas, and I love seeing old friends who pass through on holiday travels, but by and large I've never really enjoyed all of the extended familial bullshit that seems to be part and parcel of the holidays. Odd demands, unreasonable expectations, selfishness run amok, guilt trips disguised as holiday cards and calls... there's a part of me which very much looks forward to emerging through teh other side to New years, when the next season of loonytunedness is as far away on teh calendar as it's every going to get. "Gird them loins, my pretties—it's gonna get rough for a spell now."
5) 2007: despite everything else, I continue to have an annoying sense of optimism for 2007, as I like (need!) to believe that this will be the year When Things Finally Start To Happen. I have a few projects I'm very proud of, some solid contacts and acquaintances in the biz to whom I can hopefully turn for guidance and assistance, plus (most importantly) I have the arrogant understanding that I'm more than good enough to make a go of it in the screenwriting biz ... if I can just maintain momentum. Push on, refuse to quit, and act like you're already part of the team. At some point either you break through into clean air where all is golden and wonderful, or you throw in the towel and say "fuck it—I'm done."
And I've always been too dumb to recognize the right moment to quit, so I might as well plod on like I have a notion to succeed.
Wherever you are, enjoy your turkey.
.
.
.
B
1) GOOD MOVIES ROCK: Last night I went and saw APOCALYPSE NOW at a the local Alamo Drafthouse, a cool semi-artsy theater chain which boasts first run movies, classic titles in weekly revival showcase format, plus something like 40 different premium beers on tap.
"It's a good thing."
Four bucks to see Coppola making that kind of movie which today seems nearly impossible to conceive: a huge sprawling intensely psychological personal mess of a tale, set against a huge dramatic backdrop and featuring a cast of ridiculously talented serious actors all swinging for the fences in every damned scene.
Weird, dark, psycho, demented, brutal, sometimes hilarious (and often for disturbing reasons...), with nearly every single frame of film a jaw dropping composition. All I could keep thinking to myself was "this movie might was well have come from another planet—they just don;t make movies like this any more."
Which, in a sense, was both depressing and inspiring at the same time. We seem to be in a pahse of the movie business where the first, final, and only consideration seems to be the almighty dollar. Now, I'm not some whack job commie fascist "power to the people" treehugger who thinks that we should all live in some kindergarten fantasy land where everyone does whatever they like without any concern for money and commerce, but it does seem sad that so few movies being made today seem to have any of the enduring "artfulness" of movies like Apocalypse Now. Love it or hate it, it seems pretty clear that you have to at least grant that it is one hellacious artistic statement, and not like anything else you've seen on that subject.
Of course, all it took was the bulk of Coppola's health and sanity, as well as most all of the financial and commercial clout that he'd managed to accumulate with GODFATHER and THE CONVERSATION. He's done some interesting work since APOCALYPSE, but it seems fair to say that he never again came close to the insanely epic grandeur of that movie.
If you have a chance to see it in a big dark room, with a big loud sound system, grab that chance and then be sure to give at least a bit of notice to the techincal artistry of the movie-- the sound, the colors, the framing, the editing, the music. When movies work, they truly are something terrifyingly magical.
2) THE AUSTIN DIARIES: I've not yet forgotten or abandoned the telling of the twisted tale of this year's Austin Film Festival. I've just been... distracted. Busy. Lazy. Whatever. There are some fun details waiting to be shared—beans waiting to be spillt—and it is my honest intent to share and spill as best I can, but for now I remain somewhere else, in another mood, and not of a mind to think back to this year's week in Oz, as memory leads to melancholy which leads to anger which leads to... nothing productive.
3) THE ROM COM: now titled TWELVE DAYS, the long-festering project was hurled at a handful of readers and by God they hurled right back. The nots they offered were not totally hostile, but they were pretty consistent in saying "this ain't ready, dude." Shrug. I'm not reworking the piece, and finding places where improvement and change was much needed before but where I (for whatever reason) chose to ignore or overlook problems. Likely I was both tired of not having any sort of "completed" draft to hold, as well as overly eager to get the project to some point where I might dream of flinging it over fences to folks who likely aren;t going to care overly anyway. Bottom line: the piece has some good points, so not as good points, and now is back into the workshop to be hammered and beaten upon until it comes out with more of that aforementioned "goodth."
4) THANKSGIVING: that odd American turkey holiday bears down upon us now, and with it begins The Holiday Season. Strange (or perhaps not strange) as it might be to consider, I'm not a huge fan of the holidays, as they seem to create more tension and anxiety in my life than they do good feelings and happiness. Don;t get me wrong: I love watching my kids enjoy Christmas, and I love seeing old friends who pass through on holiday travels, but by and large I've never really enjoyed all of the extended familial bullshit that seems to be part and parcel of the holidays. Odd demands, unreasonable expectations, selfishness run amok, guilt trips disguised as holiday cards and calls... there's a part of me which very much looks forward to emerging through teh other side to New years, when the next season of loonytunedness is as far away on teh calendar as it's every going to get. "Gird them loins, my pretties—it's gonna get rough for a spell now."
5) 2007: despite everything else, I continue to have an annoying sense of optimism for 2007, as I like (need!) to believe that this will be the year When Things Finally Start To Happen. I have a few projects I'm very proud of, some solid contacts and acquaintances in the biz to whom I can hopefully turn for guidance and assistance, plus (most importantly) I have the arrogant understanding that I'm more than good enough to make a go of it in the screenwriting biz ... if I can just maintain momentum. Push on, refuse to quit, and act like you're already part of the team. At some point either you break through into clean air where all is golden and wonderful, or you throw in the towel and say "fuck it—I'm done."
And I've always been too dumb to recognize the right moment to quit, so I might as well plod on like I have a notion to succeed.
Wherever you are, enjoy your turkey.
.
.
.
B
19 November 2006
2 steps forward -- 1.9 steps back
In the previous post I was all happy about finishing a critical draft of the romcom TWELVE DAYS. I said things like "[the script]... is, for lack of a better word, finished."
Now, I can see how one might read that and take it to mean that I thought the script was totally ready to be shopped, but believe me when I say this: that is never what I meant.
First off, I'm not sure that any script is ever truly "done.' Without engaging in some navel-gazing debate over the nature of the word "finished," I just mean that I don;t care how good a script ever is, I' not one who believes any human being will ever achieve perfection in a textual document of 100 pages. Yes, you can absolutely get a script (or novel or emergency response plan or owner's manual to an '87 Corolla or whatever) tightened to the point where it is more than good enough to do its job, but to ever think that you will get it to that point where you can read and re-read 100 times and say "there is not one word, not one piece of punctuation, not one paragraph break that could possibly be changed or improved!" is just plain silly.
Second, I meant that TWELVE DAYS, a project which has been bugging me for more than a year now, was finally "finished" to the point that there was now an actual script which could be read. Perfect? Absolutely not (and more on that in a minute), but it was now in a form that contained the story and characters and emotions and beats that I wanted to describe.
And so it went out to readers, with the instruction to "rip me a new one. Tear it apart, show no pity or compassion, and tell me everything that needs work."
To their credit, my readers did just that. My ass still bleeds from some of the comments the script drew back.
"I didn't care for the script..."
"... leads are not likeable..."
"... not believable..."
"... I didn't laugh once..."
"... doesn’t work for me..."
"... Real people do not talk like this..."
"...muddled..."
"...never really gets started..."
Now, was I happy to get these notes? On the whole, no -- clearly I would have preferred unrelenting praise and gushing -- but after about an hour of sulking around the house, I went back and re-read each set of notes and thought about what was really being said, and why, and in specific regards to what. In most every case, I was able to take something useful and instructive from the negative comments and see where something could be, should be, and will be improved.
Were the readers all right? Well, no. In some cases they were unified in their comments, while in most cases there was a split decision (some lines flagged by one reader as totally worthless were flagged by others as their favorites -- such is the nature of subjectivity). In some cases I can accept some or most of the comments from someone and then totally disregard other specific comments as just plain wrong.
So, when I said before "the script is done," I was sighing in relief that the script in ANY form was done.
Now it's time to roll up sleeves, grab a knife, and go back into the pit and finish the job, or at the very least get it closer to being done. What's left to get it truly market-ready? A few days? A week? A month? Who knows. Who cares.
It will be done, and as quickly as I can do it.
Thanks, honestly and sincerely, to my readers for the sadistic honesty -- I have nothing but thanks and love for the beatdown you gave the script, and the project will improve as a result. However, there's every likelihood that the eventual version of the piece I finally decide to hurl into the void as "ready enough" will (or would) still leave you less than thrilled, but that's the fun part of the game: these are my stories, and I trust my story sense more than that of others. I'd hope others feel the same about their own stories -- if you're not in this game to tell your story, then why bother playing?
Onwards.
.
.
.
Sissy Fuss B
Now, I can see how one might read that and take it to mean that I thought the script was totally ready to be shopped, but believe me when I say this: that is never what I meant.
First off, I'm not sure that any script is ever truly "done.' Without engaging in some navel-gazing debate over the nature of the word "finished," I just mean that I don;t care how good a script ever is, I' not one who believes any human being will ever achieve perfection in a textual document of 100 pages. Yes, you can absolutely get a script (or novel or emergency response plan or owner's manual to an '87 Corolla or whatever) tightened to the point where it is more than good enough to do its job, but to ever think that you will get it to that point where you can read and re-read 100 times and say "there is not one word, not one piece of punctuation, not one paragraph break that could possibly be changed or improved!" is just plain silly.
Second, I meant that TWELVE DAYS, a project which has been bugging me for more than a year now, was finally "finished" to the point that there was now an actual script which could be read. Perfect? Absolutely not (and more on that in a minute), but it was now in a form that contained the story and characters and emotions and beats that I wanted to describe.
And so it went out to readers, with the instruction to "rip me a new one. Tear it apart, show no pity or compassion, and tell me everything that needs work."
To their credit, my readers did just that. My ass still bleeds from some of the comments the script drew back.
"I didn't care for the script..."
"... leads are not likeable..."
"... not believable..."
"... I didn't laugh once..."
"... doesn’t work for me..."
"... Real people do not talk like this..."
"...muddled..."
"...never really gets started..."
Now, was I happy to get these notes? On the whole, no -- clearly I would have preferred unrelenting praise and gushing -- but after about an hour of sulking around the house, I went back and re-read each set of notes and thought about what was really being said, and why, and in specific regards to what. In most every case, I was able to take something useful and instructive from the negative comments and see where something could be, should be, and will be improved.
Were the readers all right? Well, no. In some cases they were unified in their comments, while in most cases there was a split decision (some lines flagged by one reader as totally worthless were flagged by others as their favorites -- such is the nature of subjectivity). In some cases I can accept some or most of the comments from someone and then totally disregard other specific comments as just plain wrong.
So, when I said before "the script is done," I was sighing in relief that the script in ANY form was done.
Now it's time to roll up sleeves, grab a knife, and go back into the pit and finish the job, or at the very least get it closer to being done. What's left to get it truly market-ready? A few days? A week? A month? Who knows. Who cares.
It will be done, and as quickly as I can do it.
Thanks, honestly and sincerely, to my readers for the sadistic honesty -- I have nothing but thanks and love for the beatdown you gave the script, and the project will improve as a result. However, there's every likelihood that the eventual version of the piece I finally decide to hurl into the void as "ready enough" will (or would) still leave you less than thrilled, but that's the fun part of the game: these are my stories, and I trust my story sense more than that of others. I'd hope others feel the same about their own stories -- if you're not in this game to tell your story, then why bother playing?
Onwards.
.
.
.
Sissy Fuss B
13 November 2006
ok-- so now what?
The cool part about finishing any project is that you can start on some exciting new idea.
The sucky part of it is that you need to figure out what that new exciting idea is supposed to BE.
The long-fermenting RomCom (now "officially" titled TWELVE DAYS, though I reserve absolute right to change that for no reason at all...) is, for lack of a better word, finished. Three major rewrites (with at least five minor variations) finally yields 113 pages and change, which si only 3 pages over my intended target of 110, so I'll take that in a heartbeat, especially considering how much I like a great deal of this piece.
Is it perfect? Hell no, but then, no piece of writing ever is. The point of the game (especially w/r/t screenwriting) is to wind up with a product which is good enough -- something so good that whatever flaws and shortcomings it might have are totally obscured and overshadowed by all the "goodth" in it.
Is TWELVE DAYS that good? To be honest, I have no idea, but I do know that I like it a lot. There are moments which I've read 40 times now and which still stir some reaction in me: a chuckle here, a pang of melancholy there, a moment of moistness at this beat, a bit teary smile at that beat.
"Strong men also cry, Mr. Lebowski. Strong men also cry."
So now it will likely get slipped to a few trusted readers/friends who will hopefully not come back with "DUDE-- you CANNOT be fuckin serious! This thing is whale poo!" but who will instead have some minor and addressable comments which clearly then lead me to more of that aforementioned goodth.
Because goodth is good.
After that, I'll need to wrap the damned script round some rocks and hurl copies through the windows of as many potentially useful contacts as I can find: producers, managers, agents, pool boys... One can never predict where and when the lightning will strike, so the trick is to be as "out there" as can be affordably and sensibly managed.
And meanwhile, I need to find the Next Big Thing to occupy my thoughts and creative efforts as I sit here and listen to the phone not ring and watch that mailbox not be filled with welcome news. Period action drama? Mixed genre piece for smaller budget production? Shaggy dog R-rated comedy? Hell, for all the good it's doingme, maybe I ought try my hand at haiku, as at least that would save time and trees.
Blah blah blah... talk amongst yourselves.
.
.
.
B
The sucky part of it is that you need to figure out what that new exciting idea is supposed to BE.
The long-fermenting RomCom (now "officially" titled TWELVE DAYS, though I reserve absolute right to change that for no reason at all...) is, for lack of a better word, finished. Three major rewrites (with at least five minor variations) finally yields 113 pages and change, which si only 3 pages over my intended target of 110, so I'll take that in a heartbeat, especially considering how much I like a great deal of this piece.
Is it perfect? Hell no, but then, no piece of writing ever is. The point of the game (especially w/r/t screenwriting) is to wind up with a product which is good enough -- something so good that whatever flaws and shortcomings it might have are totally obscured and overshadowed by all the "goodth" in it.
Is TWELVE DAYS that good? To be honest, I have no idea, but I do know that I like it a lot. There are moments which I've read 40 times now and which still stir some reaction in me: a chuckle here, a pang of melancholy there, a moment of moistness at this beat, a bit teary smile at that beat.
"Strong men also cry, Mr. Lebowski. Strong men also cry."
So now it will likely get slipped to a few trusted readers/friends who will hopefully not come back with "DUDE-- you CANNOT be fuckin serious! This thing is whale poo!" but who will instead have some minor and addressable comments which clearly then lead me to more of that aforementioned goodth.
Because goodth is good.
After that, I'll need to wrap the damned script round some rocks and hurl copies through the windows of as many potentially useful contacts as I can find: producers, managers, agents, pool boys... One can never predict where and when the lightning will strike, so the trick is to be as "out there" as can be affordably and sensibly managed.
And meanwhile, I need to find the Next Big Thing to occupy my thoughts and creative efforts as I sit here and listen to the phone not ring and watch that mailbox not be filled with welcome news. Period action drama? Mixed genre piece for smaller budget production? Shaggy dog R-rated comedy? Hell, for all the good it's doingme, maybe I ought try my hand at haiku, as at least that would save time and trees.
Blah blah blah... talk amongst yourselves.
.
.
.
B
07 November 2006
update: current projects
The romcom is skidding towards something like completion. The first draft (NOT "the vomit draft," as I hate that term) was pretty good, but with a glaring structural issue that needed attention (thanks to Julie O for helping-- she'll moan and wail if she doesn't get credit for The Big Salad). Raid turnaround to v2 then improved a bit and revealed a really really dumb gaffe in the third act structure. The new v3 is leaner (now down to 112 pages from the initial 119), has the major structural booboos addressed,a nd is in the process of a pair of quick and hostile passes 9one for dialog, one for action) and then one more pass to kill as many more widows and orphans as I can, and then off to a few friends for a quick peek, and then... off to producers.
"Yikes."
LILYA meanwhile seems to be turning into a writing sample more than anything else. Folks who read it seem unified in their opinion: "Great, but expensive. What else ya got?"
Lack of vision, says I.
Two or three other ideas are starting to make noise in the corral, like they badly want attention and are about to start kicking fenceboards loose unless they get some.
As for the rest of teh Austin blogs... "patience, children. Patience."
IRL stuff, football winds down this week, Cub Scouts are back to just a normal level of insanity, Boy Scouts seem to be calming a bit, fall Little League season is in the books meaning there are a few weeks of down time before we start prepping and planning seriously for Spring '07... yikes.
Stay tuned-- November might be a wild ride before it's all said and done.
.
.
.
B
"Yikes."
LILYA meanwhile seems to be turning into a writing sample more than anything else. Folks who read it seem unified in their opinion: "Great, but expensive. What else ya got?"
Lack of vision, says I.
Two or three other ideas are starting to make noise in the corral, like they badly want attention and are about to start kicking fenceboards loose unless they get some.
As for the rest of teh Austin blogs... "patience, children. Patience."
IRL stuff, football winds down this week, Cub Scouts are back to just a normal level of insanity, Boy Scouts seem to be calming a bit, fall Little League season is in the books meaning there are a few weeks of down time before we start prepping and planning seriously for Spring '07... yikes.
Stay tuned-- November might be a wild ride before it's all said and done.
.
.
.
B
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)