odd how the universe works

There are days when it seems that God His Own Self surely must have cleared away some other stuff just to make time to better arrange the grief and confusion and annoyance which He might rain down into your own little miserable stretch of hell on this planet. When it seems that everything you might have looked to for some degree of encouragement and enjoyment is turned well and truly to pureed whale shit, when the trivial little victories you felt were easiest to claim and most beyond the malicious and spiteful concern of the Universe suddenly blossom into festivals of pain, well-orchestrated symphonies of annoyance and confusion, impossibly well-sequenced and coordinated missteps which could never have arranged themselves into such a perfect pattern of frustrating agonizing surgically precise heartbreak.

I ride atop a tall and majestic wave of such heartache today. For reasons both too inane and inconsequential to fully divulge (all revolving around the laughably mundane circumstances of a first round Little League playoff game which now seems doomed never to happen), I'm feeling a tad heartsick and hollow. It's not that I am angry over the circumstances (medical issues which conspire to deny me a legal starting lineup) but that I am sad and sorrowful for my guys. While I have a few players for whom any reason to not play likely is a blessing from above, for at least 5 or 6 of my guys, no excuse I might offer would justify not allowing them to go out and play this game. "We don;t care if we're short-handed, coach — we don't care if we have to play 6 against their 9-- we still think we can take them."

I love that spirit, and I want to be with them as it is put into action, but I also have to temper that machismo with a dash of cold bracing rationality and perspective: it simply is not worth it to put kids at risk of injury or major illness just to say "well, we showed up to play." If this was a matter of life and death, sure, let's play the game. But it's not. It's just a Little League game.

Which now seems unlikely to happen.

Meanwhile, as the fragments of that grenade blast even still rain from the skies, I get an email that makes me feel... I dunno. "Content." Perhaps "relaxed." Or maybe just "reassured that the Universe does not in fact hate me as it often seems that it must, but instead merely wants to make sure that I never am forced to travel the boring straight well-lit highways used by the bulk of our species. No, my way will always be the twisting goat path through the hills... the trail through a parted sea, across a boundless plain of searing salt and sand, through a wood both dark and spooky. Because along my weird and wooly way there be some pretty cool unexpected little moments which others seldom seem to report having.

I get an email, and it's not important to say from whom or what it relates to, but they said some cool things which made me literally get up from my chair, walk out the front yard, and take a moment to realize that the trees are whispering a nice happy song today. The sky seems a particularly fine shade of blue, and somewhere -- out there -- odd and unexpected little nuggets of delight and optimism still lurk.

So a playoff game might not happen. My kids remain healthy and amazing, my wife still tolerates my moody weirdness, and -- for today at least -- there is food in the kitchen and water in the pipes and gas in the car and at least the faintest hint of a knowing smile from the Universe.

"Relax, dummy. You might get some weird disappointments in your turn, but we also make sure that you get some pretty freakin cool and unique shit to enjoy, as well. So it all evens out in the final tally. Don't you agree?"

Well, yeah. I can agree.

But still... I would've liked to have led my guys into battle vs the #1 team — "For Hate's sake, I spit at thee," and all that. ;-)
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odd duck B (waxing vague and obliquely)

mid-May 2008: the week that was

1) had a pass from [a cool and recognized prodco] on an exclusive sneak read on my monster-com. They praised the writing and the setpieces and the character interplay, but said "conceptually, the monster is just not what we are looking for right now" which of course set me to grumbling under my breath and to cat-kicking and then to shouting retorts to the empty world around me (conceptually).

-=-=-=-=-

2) no response yet from the quickly-doctored semi-custom draft of my Nicholl thingie which was slipped to a specific actress now aged to the far side of 30. I *like* this actress just fine... just not for teh character she'd be reading for in this script, so I have mixed feelings about this. I'm almost more afraid that she WILL love teh script, as then if she starts asking for MORE changes to even better accomodate her "rapidly approaching maturity," my little movie would end up something like "Billy The Kid as played by Ian McKellan," or 'The Olga Korbut Story, starring that actress who played Roz on What's Happnin'?" I mean, talent is great, but so is an acceptable fit for the character.

-=-=-=-=-

3) Read THE HAPPENING from M Night Shamalammahossenpfeffer. I've never been a huge fan of his particular brand of Stephen King-esque quietly weird creepy fantasy, and this one absolutely affirms that for me. There are some really cool visual moments which no doubt will look great and creepy weird spooky in the film and (especially) in the trailer, but overall the story just sorta left me uncharged. The ending is one of those that leaves me asking a lot of major questions about "how the hell is that even SUPPOSED to work, either as narrative for the audience or as logical resolution for the characters?", and the "science" (ahem) of the "the happening" might work fine for a 15 year old making a C- in biology but a B+ in English but it left me wanting to punch someone in the neck.

What I found most curious (and this is an odd thing to be curious about) was the fact that the PDF of the screenplay was set in TIMES rather than COURIER, which (as any armchair typesetter or designer knows) means that the "true" page count of this this is likely far higher than the 106 indicated. Also, the use of non-standard typeface was surprisingly unnoticeable after that first page-- it looked and read just fine, even though there were probably 20% more characters per line as a result. I just wondered how (and why) this change was made.

Also, I noted the many very specific instances where M (we're old pals) gives camera calls and directorial notes-- they were NOT intrusive or distracting, and in fact ADDED to my enjoyment and understanding of the piece as it made the "mental movie" play very clearly in my head. In fact, I was left wondering what might happen if M Night the director was ever forced to helm someone else's BETTER screenplay, as he clearly has a cool Hitchcockian eye for the creepy cool shot. I just wish he'd shoot something with better bones.

-=-=-=-

4) Am winding down the Spring From Hell's insane schedule of obligations and responsibilities. We've had baseball (Minor 10s, Rookie 7s, Teeball 5s) pretty much every night for the past 3 months, and then we've also managed to somehow cover simultaneous demands from Dance (x2), Recital (x2), Drama, Cub Scouts (x2), Boy Scouts, PTA, LL Board, and the early organizational fun of Summer Baseball. Give all this extraneous stuff, time for focusing on screenplay writing has been rare and precious. I still managed to make some solid headway on the [College Comedy Thing], and tweaked some more notes for the [Holiday Feelgood Comedy Thing] as well as the [Sprawling Historical Action Adventure Thing], and also did some early brainstorming with a possible partner on a very strange wild comedy idea we both snigger at childishly whenever any mention is made. Hopefully things will continue to calm down and writing will now start to flow like water from a well-plumbed well.

Yeah, and then Jennie McCarthy will come offer to give me bikini-clad footrubs (clarifying: my feet--her bikini) as we skip off to Monaco on her rocket pontoon boat. Uh huh. Suuuurrre...

-=-=-=-

5) Am almost practically ready to just about maybe to commit to accepting the idea of possibly visiting to Hollywood in early July.

Almost.


And so it goes.
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*plop*

Oh-- you heard me.
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favorite sports story of the year

We are continually bombarded by tales and news suggesting that honor is dead, that nobody gives a crap about anyone anymore, and that our kids and young people are soulless self-absorbed twerps whose sole saving grace is a well-developed gamepad thumb.

And then I see something like this story, and I smile and think maybe--just maybe--there is still yet reason for hope for our society, our species.

Central Washington offers the ultimate act of sportsmanship
-- by Graham Hays, ESPN.com

Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school's career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee ligament brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their playing days, they combined on a home run trot that celebrated the collective human spirit far more than individual athletic achievement.



Both schools compete as Division II softball programs in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Neither has ever reached the NCAA tournament at the Division II level. But when they arrived for Saturday's conference doubleheader at Central Washington's 300-seat stadium in Ellensburg, a small town 100 miles and a mountain range removed from Seattle, the hosts resided one game behind the visitors at the top of the conference standings. As was the case at dozens of other diamonds across the map, two largely anonymous groups prepared to play the most meaningful games of their seasons.

It was a typical Saturday of softball in April, right down to a few overzealous fans heckling an easy target, the diminutive Tucholsky, when she came to the plate in the top of the second inning of the second game with two runners on base and the game still scoreless after Western Oregon's 8-1 win in the first game of the afternoon.

A part-time starter in the outfield throughout her four years, Tucholsky had been caught in a numbers game this season on a deep roster that entered the weekend hitting better than .280 and having won nine games in a row. Prior to the pitch she sent over the center-field fence, she had just three hits in 34 at-bats this season. And in that respect, her hitting heroics would have made for a pleasing, if familiar, story line on their own: an unsung player steps up in one of her final games and lifts her team's postseason chances.

But it was what happened after an overly excited Tucholsky missed first base on her home run trot and reversed direction to tag the bag that proved unforgettable.

"Sara is small -- she's like 5-2, really tiny," Western Oregon coach Pam Knox said. "So you would never think that she would hit a home run. The score was 0-0, and Sara hit a shot over center field. And I'm coaching third and I'm high-fiving the other two runners that came by -- then all of a sudden, I look up, and I'm like, 'Where's Sara?' And I look over, and she's in a heap beyond first base."

While she was doubling back to tag first base, Tucholsky's right knee gave out. The two runners who had been on base already had crossed home plate, leaving her the only offensive player on the field of play, even as she lay crumpled in the dirt a few feet from first base and a long way from home plate. First-base coach Shannon Prochaska -- Tucholsky's teammate for three seasons and the only voice she later remembered hearing in the ensuing conversation -- checked to see whether she could crawl back to the base under her own power.

As Knox explained, "It went through my mind, I thought, 'If I touch her, she's going to kill me.' It's her only home run in four years. I didn't want to take that from her, but at the same time, I was worried about her."

Umpires confirmed that the only option available under the rules was to replace Tucholsky at first base with a pinch runner and have the hit recorded as a two-run single instead of a three-run home run. Any assistance from coaches or trainers while she was an active runner would result in an out. So without any choice, Knox prepared to make the substitution, taking both the run and the memory from Tucholsky.

"And right then," Knox said, "I heard, 'Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?'"

The voice belonged to Holtman, a four-year starter who owns just about every major offensive record there is to claim in Central Washington's record book. She also is staring down a pair of knee surgeries as soon as the season ends. Her knees ache after every game, but having already used a redshirt season earlier in her career, and ready to move on to graduate school and coaching at Central, she put the operations on hold so as to avoid missing any of her final season. Now, with her own opportunity for a first postseason appearance very much hinging on the outcome of the game -- her final game at home -- she stepped up to help a player she knew only as an opponent for four years.

"Honestly, it's one of those things that I hope anyone would do it for me," Holtman said. "She hit the ball over her fence. She's a senior; it's her last year. … I don't know, it's just one of those things I guess that maybe because compared to everyone on the field at the time, I had been playing longer and knew we could touch her, it was my idea first. But I think anyone who knew that we could touch her would have offered to do it, just because it's the right thing to do. She was obviously in agony."

Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace lifted Tucholsky off the ground and supported her weight between them as they began a slow trip around the bases, stopping at each one so Tucholsky's left foot could secure her passage onward. Even with Tucholsky feeling the pain of what trainers subsequently came to believe was a torn ACL (she was scheduled for tests to confirm the injury on Monday), the surreal quality of perhaps the longest and most crowded home run trot in the game's history hit all three players.

"We all started to laugh at one point, I think when we touched the first base," Holtman said. "I don't know what it looked like to observers, but it was kind of funny because Liz and I were carrying her on both sides and we'd get to a base and gently, barely tap her left foot, and we'd all of a sudden start to get the giggles a little bit."

Accompanied by a standing ovation from the fans, they finally reached home plate and passed the home run hitter into the arms of her own teammates.

Then Holtman and Wallace returned to their positions and tried to win the game.

Hollywood would have a difficult time deciding how such a script should end, whether to leave Tucholsky's home run as the decisive blow or reward the selfless actions of her opponents. Reality has less room for such philosophical quandaries. Central Washington did rally for two runs in the bottom of the second -- runs that might have tied the game had Knox been forced to replace Tucholsky -- but Western Oregon held on for a 4-2 win.

But unlike a movie, the credits didn't roll after the final out, and the story that continues has little to do with those final scores.

"It kept everything in perspective and the fact that we're never bigger than the game," Knox said of the experience. "It was such a lesson that we learned -- that it's not all about winning. And we forget that, because as coaches, we're always trying to get to the top. We forget that. But I will never, ever forget this moment. It's changed me, and I'm sure it's changed my players."

For her part, Holtman seems not altogether sure what all the fuss is about. She seems to genuinely believe that any player in her position on any field on any day would have done the same thing. Which helps explains why it did happen on that day and on that field.

And she appreciates the knowledge that while the results of Saturday's game and her senior season soon will fade into the dust and depth of old media guides and Internet archives, the story of what happened in her final game at home will live on far longer.

"I think that happening on Senior Day, it showed the character of our team," Holtman said. "Because granted I thought of it, but everyone else would have done it. It's something people will talk about for Senior Day. They won't talk about who got hits and what happened and who won; they'll talk about that. And it's kind of a nice way to go out, because it shows what our program is about and the kind of people we have here."

Graham Hays is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. E-mail him at Graham.Hays@espn3.com

People sometimes ask me "why do you coach youth sports?"

The answer is simple: so that I might possibly be able to teach or at least witness the kind of courage and honor shown by Sara Tucholsky and Mallory Holtman.

[beer salute]

Long Live Sport.
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"lazy" is hard damned work

Peter Kaufman, LA-based entertainment lawyer and cool-bloggin' host of the DealFatigue blog site, posted an interesting and insightful essay recently -- Getting Out Of Getting In Your Own Way -- in which he lamented the strange way that so many people will work so hard to avoid having to do any of the easy stuff required to put themselves in best position for success.

A great many would-be screenwriters (actually, armchair dreamers of every stripe and persuasion) could stand to read the piece and then take a few minutes to really stop and think about its implications and applicability in their own lives and pursuits.

Then again, maybe my own needs and hopes are better served by a less well-prepared array of peers and competitors... so maybe you kids oughta just ignore what he says.

Yes. I think so -- better that you just ignore that post. Continue down the same path you are now on.

Make it just that much easier for me.

Please.

>8^]
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shadows in the mist... shapes in the gloom

Or, in a happier vein, "some vague hint of progress and improvement."

COMPLETED SPECS
The two pieces The Agents have are... out there. QUEEN OF THE SKY (aka "Lilya", aka "The Nicholl script") continues to quietly bounce (or perhaps "roll around" is a more accurate description) various prodcos and managers of actresses out there in the Wood of Holly. No, there's been no huge single bit of positive news, but neither have we heard from, say, Scarlett's people "don't do this to us again... ever. Seriously", and in a time where good news seems in such short supply, any non-kick to the face is a triple smiley face Red Letter Day! Dear diary....

Meanwhile and anywhooo... the OTHER spec -- the one with the asskickingly cool title (so asskicking cool, in fact, that you sad loathsome ingrates simply do not rate) is now moving through the dimly lit poorly carpeted hallways of trivial power. The Agents seem somewhat excited by a week of personal contacts lined up this weekend at FANGORIA Magazine's "Weekend of Horror" convention-o-rama thing. This second spec, which is about as far removed from Lilya as can be imagined (and creates an amusing if annoying conundrum for The Agents, as they are not entirely sure if they are better to pitch me as a drama writer who will slum in shlocky smartass campy fun horror, or a shlocky smartass writer who will slum in hoity-toity drama) seems a perfect fit for the smirking sort of that FANGORIA world. The Agents cackled madly when I plopped this spec onto their desk with a wet SPLAT (always a good sign), and they have maintained that it should be "an easy sell" (their words, and I intend to hold them to it under pain of ... well, pain), so "we shall see." And yes, this paragraph was almost as confusing to write as it now is to read. Yeesh.

CONTEST SEASON
Lordy -- weren't we just here? It hardly seems a full year ago that I was sighing with self-aware annoyance at the futility of funding some other writer's eventual winnings by entering my own piles of pages in various contests which come on now let's be honest there is NO way I'll do well in. After the weirdness of last year (either you know already, or you don't care, in either case why bother describing?), I'm torn between skipping contest entries entirely, but then that bugs me as a rather pompous and self-adoring thing to do ("OOoooooo... look at MEEEEE.... so fancypantsed that I don't NEEEEEEEEEED to enter contests like the rest of you sad little people....", so then I start thinking about entering if only to make my inner voice shut the hell up (never works), which of course THEN leads to the Other Inner Voice (the sometimes but seldom Reasonable One) pointing out "Uhh... but we don't really HAVE anything new to enter... all of the incomplete stuff is still incomplete, and what is completed didn't win LAST year...."

That Other Voice can be a real pain in the ass, sometimes, so the rest of us drag him out bag and get medieval on his ass with a few sacks of doorknobs. He don't sound so smart blubbering through shattered teeth, now do he? (spit)

But even after the fun of an Olde Schoole Beatdowne, that still leaves us with the matter of "Is We Is Or Is We Ain't A Contest-ing This Year?" I have that itchy feeling (shaddup) that I'll do The Usual and act like I am not going to enter and then cave like a great big caving thing at the last second and run in a panic to get something or things dropped into the mail slot with 8 minutes to go. WHAT that might wind up being... who knows.

LA TRIP
Thanks to various Strikes and Labor Disputes and Total Lack Of Interest By The Industry, I've so far not yet made good on my hellish threat to return to Capistrano adjacent to shit all over the faux-marble monuments of the movie biz. IOW, I ain't been back to Cali since the last time. But I will go back, and I want to go back, but I want this next trip to finally be THE Trip: the one where I go out a nobody and come back still a nobody but a nobody with something like money or the imminent promise of such.

I'd been thinking about going back months ago in February, but the WGA-AMPTP love-in (ahem) scuttled that, and then the ensuing post-coital cuddling (ahem) scuttled March, and then my own self made Hell Of A Schedule had the entire month of April doing the Chain Gun Dance, and now May will be tossed into the crapper as I have wall-to-wall schedule obligations written in permanent ink, and then June seems sunk due to TV Staffing Season horking down all the time and energy of the reps, and early July is right out as I have all sorts of crap paid for, so now mid/late July looms as the most likely window of opportunity for D-Day. Lock your neighbors, warn the pets, etc etc etc.

LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL
I don't EVEN wanna talk about that. Shit.

Shit shit shit shit.

THE NEW STUFF
In an uncharacteristically welcome development, suddenly Progress Is Being Made on some of the new projects. The College Thing is matriculating down the field, with 29 pages in the book and more coming quickly. It's likely a lot of warm air and superfluous nonsense, but hey -- if you've read this far in this blog and don't known that's the way the cookie crumbles, then there's no helping you.

The Historical Epic Thing is still very much wedged in my mind, and despite tons of advice from Very Smart People who insist that this is a fool's errand, a cause most well and truly lost, I will finish this thing, will get it out there, and will see it made, one way or another. I love long sweeping moments of this tale far FAR too much to surrender this dream to the half-knowing paranoia of others.

The Christmas Thing simmers in the back-most reaches of my brain, and I have all sorts of very cool ideas I want to roll into the mix there, but that project is definitely #3 at best in the pecking order of Stuff To Write.

And then there's the Odd Bio-Pic Idea, suggested by The Agents as a great transitional or connecting piece between the serious bio-drama of LILYA and the not at all serious loopiness of the Monster Movie. I have a character who appeared to me in a slap-the-forehead V8 Moment of obviousness ("DUH!"), and he's not had any bio-pics of him, and he's insanely interesting and cinematic and the movie could be as cool as anything I've ever imagined... but first I have to write it, and that means first I have to figure it out, and that means first I have to clear the desk of enough space in which to work.

So I guess I'll go do the dishes and get started.

And so it goes.
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my calendar seems to be running fast...

It's late APRIL?

When the hell did this happen?

Criminy. It seems maybe two months ago that I was in Austin, giggling like a madman, and then next I was in LA, still giggling, then there's a vague memory of Christmas, some fuzzy recollection of a major strike, little league season started, and now it's suddenly 10 days til Nicholl deadline (more on that in a sec) and only six months til AFF '08.

And I feel like nothing substantial has happened on the writing front since... July?

This can't be good. And in point of fact I know for certain it's not even accurate -- I have been working on a variety of writing projects, and I was feeling happy about some progress as recently as just last week. But the sensation is real and accurate: these last 8 months or so have blown by at hurricane speed, and I'm suddenly starting to feel that not entirely useless itch of desperation -- the need to do something... accomplish something... claim something...

Like Auda Abu-Thai, "I must find something honorable..."

Tick tock, my pretties. Tick tock.

-=-=-

MEANWHILE... I am stunned to look up and realize that again the Nicholl deadline looms large and again I have no friggin clue how I might get the new thing done in time to be useful as an entry. There are those who claim to write scripts in 2 or 3 weeks, but (and I say this with all the respect I can feign halfheartedly) "I cannot fathom this." I accept that it is possible to put down enough words to fill pages such that the result looks (at a slight distance) like a script, but I cannot for the life of me accept that many people routinely sit down and crank out anything read-worthy in 14 or 21 days.

[And, please -- spare me any personal testimony of the time you claim you did this, as I really don't care and probably don;t believe you anyway.]

Part of me figures I'll just repeat my stunt from last year and defy the Nicholl folks to repeat THEIR errors and again bump me down the trail of advancement. If they dink me first round, I'll giggle and say 'TOLD ya so...!" " and feel vindicated in my amateurosity. If the cookie crumbles the other way, I'll (again) happily take whatever goodies they foolishly send me way.

Suckers.
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All Hail The Mighty State

April 21, 1836 -- The Battle of San Jacinto



(The way-cool watercolor rendition of "The de Zavala Flag" -- the first flag of the Republic of Texas -- is by the every talented Texas artist Don Breeden. Breeden lives in Brownsville, Texas and has a gorgeous website where he offers prints of his work. If I ever make a pile of money on writing, I'll spend some with Don.)
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missile annie

The current of hit parade of Things I Know I Need To Do But Can't Yet Really Get Tremendously Excited About Actually Doing:

-- redesign this blog to take better advantage of the damned three-column layout it took me three years to find in the first place

-- clean the office. If you loaded the contents of a cluttered home office into the back of a dump truck and then poured those contents through a window into a slightly smaller office, you might start to approximate my current work environment.

-- paint and install a set of bi-fold closet doors into my daughter's bedroom

-- haul away the huge slab doors removed from my daughters bedroom and now leaning against the wall in the dining room

-- write the THREE overdue post-game reports for my Minor 10s little league team.

-- mow the yard and weed the beds. I might well have pockets of Japanese in there who do not know that Gilligan's Island has been off the air for decades.

-- Dust. Most rooms in our house have enough dust that if we were of a mind to we could easily recreate Neal Armstrong's footprint on any horizontal surface, including the dog's ass.

-- plan my castle onslaught

-- prep the agenda for this weekend's Spring Campout for my Cub Scouts pack (yes-- in a weirdly amusing twist, I am the CubMaster for a Pack of something like 83 boys, and the parents there all think I am the goofy and loud-voiced Nice Guy who is so great with kids. If ever they tracked onto my blog or found various other online haunts of mine I'd likely get concerned stares at best and restraining orders in any normal likelihood.)

-- clean the kitchen (which seems ironic, since I can hardly remember the last three times the room has actually been used for food prep... life has been so hectic that most all local drivethru windows now just hand us a bag when we approach-- "we saw you coming. Here's your regular order."

-- WRITE. I have at least FIVE scripts in various stages of development on my desk, including two COMPLETED scripts which have been sitting there patiently waiting that day when I might give a crap again and start the much-needed Page One Rewrites they require and deserve.

-- Haircut. I'm now entering that "week past when a haircut was really needed" and the old 'do is starting to hyper-inflate like the Universe some 1.2 milliseconds after the Big Bang. CERN called and wants to measure the Higgs particles swirling in my scalp. And trust me-- that was a funny particle physics joke.

-- Relax. I can feel myself starting to get over-tight from having run at full max throttle for an extended period. On the one hand, you get used to every day being another GO GO GO proposition, but on the other you can become so goal-focused that you lose sight of the larger campaign. WHY are we charging hard every day? What's the POINT in achieving these goals with homicidal fury and clear intent? Progress without purpose can become mere motion. There must be a context to all things, and in the absence of such all action can decay into mere activity. As I am not a fan of mere activity, this is a point of concern, and this last item thus becomes one of the only ones which truly concerns me right now. Time to throttle down for maybe an hour and take accurate starshots to see where the hell we are relative to where the hell we were hoping to be, and then make course corrections as needed.

Alternatively, a two-day drunk would pretty feel good, too.
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stale links

I am prone to laziness when it comes to matters of housekeeping and general tidiness.

My focus tends to be pragmatic -- often I am consumed by the major issues or goals at hand, and anything that helps deliver progress toward those goals deserves attention and thought, while anything which doesn't, doesn't. So while having a Martha Stewart style clean orderly kitchen might look pretty and wow the neighbors if ever they swing by to borrow a cup of frozen who gives a shit, at the end of the day having some random clutter on the counter in my kitchen doesn't much change or improve my ability to write a screenplay well, or to coach a youth sports team well, or teach my kids to focus their attention and effort on their studies and personal goals and interests, or any of the other things which *do* matter to me.

Add to that list of shruggables the matter of "Maintaining and Upgrading the Sidebar Links on my Blog."

Yes, in a perfect world, my blog would be a gleaming perfect portal to everything of relevance and value to any right-thinking human being (as it is, of course), but in the actual world I can admit with no shame or concern that the links on the right are... perhaps not so up to date. There are sites listed which no longer exist, their hosts having long ago shuttered the accounts and turned their time towards goldfish repair or gladiola cookery or whatever. There are other sites which have gone largely silent -- still there in the technical sense but now of so little value and relevance that if/when they do finally go totally dark, few folks will likely notice. There are sites which once seemed intriguing but which now seem far less intriguing and link-worthy (and while that seems a harsh thing to say, I defy anyone to dispute the thesis). And there are lots of cool sites which I probably ought to link but which I do not.

And it's not like I have so much extra time laying around in piles that I can just devote an hour or two to buffing the blob (which sounds somehow pornographic...). I have far more important things to do than fix my blog.

Such as... "blogging about not having time to fix my blog."

Irony: it's not just a word -- it's what we do.™
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the magic

I ain't no expert, but I ain't no doorknob neither, and it seems increasingly clear to me that there are two critical Truths to this whole screenwriting thing:

1) it's not really that complicated until and unless some babbling morons shows up and works double damned hard to make it seem so

and

2) there is some odd element to the process which for lack of a better word I'll just call "Magic" and then leave others to argue about.

I do NOT mean magic in the rabbit-out-of-the-hat kind, nor of the actual conjuring impossible bits of metaphysical weirdness, but magic of the sort that is the spark of inspiration and creativity—that thing that tells one artist to paint the sunset in THIS manner and another artist of equal experience and technical ability will paint that same sunset THAT way.

We are all each of us the flickering momentary quantum result of every thought and experience which has led to this moment. We bring an infinitely weird and varied pile of memories and impressions and fears and dreams to every issue, and when you tell the psyche to sit still and create an Entire New World out of sheer thought and imagination, the results are going to show wild variations, and some of these variations are going to be critically important to making one particular vision of this potential world somehow more alive, more fascinating, more deserving of our thought and attention as audience members.

There are any number of paintings of Christ's last supper with The Disciples, including great many by undeniably talented artists and craftsmen, yet when we speak of "The Last Supper" it almost always refers to a specific singular imagination of this moment: the one which Da Vinci's peculiar and specific genius gave us.

We can sit around and argue and theorize the whys and wherefores of his specific genius, or we can just as effectively wrap them all into a bundle and label it "Magic" (or choose your own damned word) and wind up with much the same results when we try to sort out how and why inspiration works the way it does.

The trick—such as it is—is to develop the skill of putting yourself in whatever specific mindset it takes for you to enjoy maximum possibility of that divine spark finding your brain and then catching that spark in words, or pictures, or dance, or seafood cooking, or stainless steel welding, or whatever.

The Magic is not what's rare. What's rare is the awareness to recognize it and the willingness to improve our skills at receiving it and channeling it into some durable medium where anyone else—"the audience"—can share in our little glimpse of the magic that surrounds us.

If you can do that—if you can recognize where your Magic is strong and where it needs work and then set yourself down a dedicated path to improving what can be improved and finding ways to overcome and circumvent what weaknesses you are truly incapable of improving—then you have a fighting chance so long as you refuse to quit.

Maybe.

Meanwhile, shut up and write. Product is the point.
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not the new post I was planning

I have various wads of new stuff in the wings-- stuff about writing, and about morons, and about baseball, and about kids and about friends and the Net and all sorts of stuff, but right now I am exhausted from recent home renovation works and frankly just sick of the idiots online, so this post is what you get.

Blame global warming, which was invented by Al Gore anyway, and likely a result of that whole damned PMRC thing from the 80s. I still resent getting carded to buy an Ice T CD years back.

Bleh.
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i'm twitterpated

Here I go again, jumping feet-first into yesterday's tech.

I now Twitter.

No, I don't really know what it means, either.
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Maturity's just another word for "getting too damned old"

So there I was at Target, land of the wrong toilet paper and the endcap suck-me-in (hey-- when CHINATOWN in widescreen DVD is on sale for 4 bucks, I can't not buy it), tasked with picking up The Wife's latest Ambien refill and my own 4 dollar latte. I wander the store for 15 minutes as the Indian scrip chick counts out the pills, I grab some milk and half-and-half, a crate of Goldfish, and an 8-pack of wiffle balls (aka, "the usual") and get the pills and head for checkout.

I'm in line behind a woman in a tennis skirt and sleeveless top.

"Nice legs" I note to myself as she empties her cart. She has the really well-toned legs of a woman who has played tennis or run regularly for years.

"Nice ass" I note as she stoops over to pick up some larger items from her cart.

"Wow-- nice rack, too" I think to myself as she turn to profile and I see the way her boobs -- likely aftermarket store-bought yabbos, but that's totally cool -- stretch the top just enough to be undeniably noticeable but not so much that they scream "LOOK AT MY BIG FAKE TITS".

I sip my coffee and look away, remembering not to pull a George Costanza and be caught staring to 5 or 20 or 53 seconds as if I'm looking at one of those 3D "picture in the static pattern" things they sell in mall kiosks. Steal a glance, look away... swipe a glimpse, check your watch... sneak a peek, examine some item on the checkout line... we males know this routine instinctively.

"Pretty hair," I think silently as her just above the shoulder bob flounces slightyl as she works back and forth, unloading the cart.

Finally she's done, she exchanges some pleasantry with the check-out monkey, and she glances around, and we make eye contact -- casual random thing. No problem. She smiles and nods that checkout line greeting, and I return the half-bored nod and smile to complete the social exchange.

"Huh... a little older than I was expecting, based upon the bod and hair... still... really pretty lady."

Sneak a glance, look away...

I look at the assortment of items on the conveyor: some socks, package of lunchmeat, bottle of marinade.

And two large boxes of Depends.

Somewhere in the reptilian part of my brain stem I here a double blast of the horn -- "STAND DOWN! STAND DOWN! FALSE ALARM! SHE'S A GRANNY!"

Oy.
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dirtier and older man by the minute B

The Warrior

Though I am not a huge NFL fan (that love affair ended years ago when the league supported Fat Bastard Bud Adams in his theft of the Oilers and relocation to Tennessee...), but there are a few players and personalities I like to watch when I have the opportunity.

And now, the opportunity to watch perhaps my favorite ever NFL players is no more, as Brett Favre, longtime Packers QB, has announced he is retiring from the game.

I'll not waste time describing Favre's records (which are both many in number and staggering in scope), nor will I recite a litany of great moments from his illustrious career, Instead, I'll simply talk about the one thing that always made Favre so fun to watch, so fun to cheer for, so fun to point to and say "that's what sports is about."



It wasn't his arm, though by god that man could make pigskin fly like few ever seen. There are other QBs who boast flashier completion percentages or fewer intercepts or better QB ratings, but there are basically none who have spent a career threading impossible needles, making throws that no other QB would even attempt, much complete.

It wasn't his feet, though the typical Favre highlight always seems to include #4 slipping some onslaught of rushers, skipping to the side, and then firing a leather laser beam into the hands of some receiver who caught the ball purely in self defense lest it shatter his helmet.

It wasn't his head, as Favre was long maddening to watch (or coach, I would guess) for his tendency to make odd decisions, to force the ball into tight coverage rather than try a less risky play. The fact that he somehow made these dumb decisions work out right more often than not surely helps mitigate this aspect of his career, but let's not mince words: Favre often succeeded in spite of his decisions rather than because of them.

No, the thing that I always loved about Favre, always envied and adored and will now miss forever, was his heart. Heat, snow, rain, sun, fog, frogs and locusts-- it didn't matter the conditions or the situation: if Favre was on the field you knew he was going to be doing everything a human being could do to try and drag his team to victory. The Roman statesman Cicero once wrote "Where there is life, there is hope," and I can think of few other athletes who have ever personified that statement so clearly, so perfectly.

For 17 years Favre would just keep coming. No matter how banged up he got the week before, no matter what aches and dents and bruises and sprains and fractures he picked up while battling in the colosseum, Favre would just gear up and come back for more. It's hard to fully appreciate this number, but let's try: Favre started a NFL record 275 consecutive games at quarterback -- that's more than 16 straight regular seasons worth of games. Sixteen seasons.Sixteen seasons in which he was the undisputed marked man, the primary target in a hyper-violent nationally televised version of "kill the man with the ball," yet somehow he just keep getting up and coming back, play after play, week after week, year after year, until it became so normal that most folks started to take it as a given: just Favre being Favre.

His endurance and durability will likely never be seen again in the NFL at his position, but even more than the physical toughness I am speaking of a mental and emotional toughness. A quiet non-braggadocious sense that nobody was ever going to intimidate or out-tough him.

My favorite Favre memory is ironically one of his shortest and "easiest" passes. Christmas Eve, 1995: the Packers are down 4 to the Steelers late in the game, and again Favre is doing his thing, rallying the Packers back from the brink of defeat, leading the offense to the brink of the endzone, when three Steeler defenders break through and flatten Favre as he rushes to get off a pass attempt. That pass sails wide -- incomplete -- but Favre stood in a beat too long and takes the full impact of that trio of would-be tacklers. He hits the ground like he's hit by a bus. The trainers carry him off the field as his backup comes in for one ineffective snap, then Favre, still reeling and actually for-real no-bullshit spitting up blood from that previous impact, limps back to the huddle, calls a play, and lifts a one-yard pass to wide-open tight end Mark Chmura to give the Packers the come from behind win which sealed the division title and sent them to the playoffs. His team goes nuts, but Favre just winces and nods as he turns to head back to the bench, in too much pain even to lift his arms in celebration.

Life is often unfair, and usually difficult. Too often we see people fail, or let us down, or cut and run while pointing fingers and making excuses. For 17 seasons, I never saw Brett Favre do that. Instead I saw a warrior who went out every time the bell sounded and who gave up every bit of effort, every bit of hustle, every bit of perfect child-like love for the game, for the team.

Was he perfect? Far from it. The man surely did love his beer, and he wrestled for a while with an addiction to prescription painkillers (which is almost forgivable when you consider how often he probably **needed** those painkillers just to make it through one more week of throbbing aches and pains). He only won one Super Bowl in his illustrious career, and sometimes seemed to benefit perhaps a bit too much from a sports press in awe of his toughness and willingness to be the man in charge at the center of the storm. There will always be a compelling case that someone else was actually a better quarterback based upon some specific analysis of some specific set of stats or figures.

But none of that matters for me. When I hear the name "Favre" I'll not be thinking of stats or won-loss records or trophies or titles or awards. No, when I think of that name I'll always see #4 scrambling through the snow, ball cocked high and ready to fire, eyes locked downfield as he wills for a few seconds more chance, a few moments more mud-spattered hope in which to attempt one more impossible throw no human could ever hope to complete....

"Never, never, never quit."
-- Winston Churchill

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Texas, Our Texas

Happy Texas Independence Day.



March 2, 1836, the Sovereign Republic of Texas declared herself free and independent from Mexico. For many folks -- even many who live in Texas and who claim ancestry and heritage here -- the day doesn't mean as much as it ought to, but for me... well, it matters.

Saaaaaaaaaaa-lute!
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reminders

One of the cool pieces of writing advice I've picked up over the years is to treat this like a job: to remember to do the work, to punch the clock, to grind it out and drag the hulking beast over the finish line by grit and guts, by raw brute determination if need be. To not get so wrapped up in the "art" that you forget the simple cold fact that in order to be a professional you have to honor and respect the profession.

But there is flip side to that, too. Just as it's important to remember the business side of things, I think it's good sometimes to remember what it was—what it is—about writing that first made you fall in love with the notion of lion-taming words as a life's pursuit. To remember that feeling when some sentence or paragraph made your scalp tingle and your skin ripple with goosebumbs, made your eyes get misty and the corners of your mouth twist into an envious grin as somebody out there strung together a few words in such a manner as to make your heart race, your skin flush, your soul ache.

If you've ever read a line or heard a phrase and understood with throbbing clarity "I want to do that..." then maybe you have the soul of a writer in you.

I was noodling around online (we call it "research" in the trade—makes it seem worthwhile and valid) and stumbled across a video from one of my all-time favorite songwriters, and as I sat and listened to a shy Texan mumble 24 simple lines backed by a pair of acoustic guitars, I got that misty feeling all over again.

That's what it's about... I want to make words do that....

So as I try to remain aware of first weekend gross and market demographics and four quadrant appeal, it's nice to remember that sometimes it's just as simple as one guy, on a stool, saying what he really feels.



RICE BIRDS
(Adam Carroll)

I was thinkin' of you when the rice birds flew
when the false dawn came with the mornin' dew
you're a thunderstorm ragin' outside my garage
you're the white shirt peekin' through my camouflage

I was thinkin' of you and I won't forget
tail of the turtle and Bayou Teche
I cannot dance but I can hang on
to some sweet memory down in Oberlin

I was thinkin' of you at the Mardi Gras
Fords and Chevies like I never saw
I wish you were here to dance with me
to hear this cajun symphony

I was thinkin' of you at the LA bar
where I got so drunk I couldn't drive my car
I was dreamin' about you with my ten-ounce beer
dreamin' sweet day dreams wishin' you were here

I was thinking of you with the braids in your hair
old Houston Texas or anywhere
I was dreamin' about you and my changin' ways
I still think about you in my travelin' days

I was thinkin' of you where the sunset glows
down the Mississippi River where the Gulf wind blows
I was dreamin' about you and the fleur-de-lis
I was wishin' you were next to me....
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jealous as all hell B

T.M.I.

No, not "Too Much Information."

Today it means "Transient Moment of Idiocy," and I coin that phrase to describe an increasingly common and increasingly tiresome sort of behavior I am seeing all over the place -- the situation of a normally intelligent and well-reasoned person suddenly leaving the reservation to claim and defend some truly oddball and often offensive opinion which you find intellectually and ethically repugnant.

I'll not even bother describing specific examples of such, as surely some friend or other will read that example and say "HEY... that bastard is talking about ME...!" and to be perfectly honest, right now I'm just not in a mood to argue with such folks. They have a right to their opinions, and I have a right to sit in judgment and label them a booger-eating moron for having and then publicly expressing such dipshittery.

No problemo.

What does seem more troubling is the underlying thought process which drives and excuses such behavior: the idea that all opinions are somehow equivalent or acceptable, or that by labeling something as "My Opinion" you are then somehow absolved of being judged FOR that opinion, or that others are then somehow morally compelled to give a rat's caboose. If I sat here and howled that "THE MOON IS MADE OF OLD SOCKS!" or "COLUMBUS NEVER DISCOVERED AMERICA -- IT WAS ALL FAKED BY THE LISBON PRESS!," all but a comfortingly small number of folks would rightly consider me a brainless idiot. yet there are plenty of folks four-footing around expressing bits of "thought" no less moronic and laughable, and when anyone suggests that maybe -- perhaps -- these people would be better off sucking on their own tongues rather than trying out for lead alto brayer in the jackass choir, the idiots usually trot out "hey -- I'm entitled to my opinion!"

Yes you are.

And the rest of us are then entitled to point and laugh and mutter "what a friggin dumbass."

I bet you think this song is about you... you're so vain...
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proud owner of a timeshare on the moral high ground B

yeah yeah yeah...

We're making some changes to the old blog code.

I finally figured out how to make a three column layout work the way I wanted (no thanks to BLOGGER... yeesh...), and while I was in there I started tweaking and fiddling, so things are starting to drift around a bit from a design standpoint.

Most everything is still here, just maybe skooched around a bit.

And yes, "skooch" is a technical term used by us inter-web code-maker people-guys.

Move along.
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the great and glorious game

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."
-- from "The Green Fields of the Mind", by A. Bartlett Giammati

So begins one of my all-time favorite bits of writing, Giamatti's brilliant "The Green Fields of the Mind", a bizarrely affecting little essay which grows in impact and relevance for me with each passing year, and which has now become a sort of mantra or ritual to mark both the opening and closing of baseball season each year.

I love sports—most all sports, with the notable and seething exceptions of golf and soccer, facilities for which I find contemptible wastes of real estate which might be better used as landfills—but there is something about baseball which goes beyond mere love and approaches a sort of religious fervor. And I do not mean that I fixate upon ERAs and batting averages of major leaguers, for those overpriced over-privileged and over-skilled primadonnas are but one bit of baseball. What I love about baseball—what speaks to me in reverent whispers—are the strange clues and revelations of capital-T Truth which it provides us. I'm one of those who believes that Life is a good analogy for Baseball rather than vice versa, as there is basically nothing in life which does not mimic some aspect of the great and glorious game.

Success? Victory? Glory? Sure, they're there, but always in equal or lesser amounts than are failure, defeat, ignominy. It's that rarest of sports where it's as much about individual confrontation—pitcher vs batter, catcher vs runner, outfield vs time and space itself—as it is about team play. It's the one game where the offense is always—always—at a designed numerical disadvantage, and where you score without the ball. Where you can fail as a player yet see that failure contribute to the team's success, and vice versa. Where no game is ever over until both sides have had fair and equal opportunity to wrest victory from the jaws of galactic indifference. Where luck and blind chance play such a monumental part of the game that few even notice its presence, as when a ground ball somehow barely trickles through for a critical hit when one batter later a laser-straight cannon-shot might magically find an undeserving glove to be reduced to merely "out number 2" in the scoring.

Last night was the first night of Little League baseball for this year, and as I walked onto the first field for practice—my 5-year old daughter's first workout—I looked at the sky, at the grass, as the balls and bats and gloves and bases scattered on the ground, and was immediately swallowed up by that odd deja vu sort of feeling—haven't I been here a thousand times before?. A half hour later I drove around the corner to a neighborhood pocket park to meet my 10-year old team for the first time as part of a quick meet-n-greet.

As I stood there and talked to the boys and explained what I hope to teach them this spring, I started to feel like a priest delivering the Easter sermon for the thirty-fourth consecutive year to his local parish. The message remains largely the same, and there are some new faces and some familiar faces looking at me when I speak, but still there is that rush in the chest, that ball of heat that tries to claw its way out: I know this stuff sounds silly in our modern world, but dammit you have to hear me! You have to believe me when I tell you that THIS IS THE STUFF THAT MATTERS!

All the mundane bullshit of "normal" life is stuff we can hide from, stuff we can delegate, we can postpone, we can ignore.

But in baseball... there is only the moment. When the pitch is on the way... when the ball is coming toward our position... when you see the runner shouting to you with his charging feet "I don't think you've got the arm to make this play, bud...".. When the game is on the line and victory or defeat will be decided in the next third of a second by What You Do Next.

Later in the evening I led my 7-year old team through its first full workout of the year. The pitching machine was set up, we hit a lot of batting practice, we worked on some very basic defensive concepts, we ran the bases a lot. Practice ended and I was breaking down the pitching machine to store in the storage shed at the park, picking up the bases and collecting my gear. Most families had already left, but one dad was lingering back to help me straighten up. He laughed that I seemed so involved with baseball, and wondered how in the world I found the time to be so involved.

"You make time for the things that matter."

He at first thought I was talking just about my kids—that they are what matters and for which I make time. I explained that surely that was a big part of it, but that I also mean that baseball itself is important, as much for what the game teaches us about frustration and heartache and disappointment as for what it reinforces about pride and joy and contentment. Because at the end of the day, what matters most is what you do when things don't magically fall your way, when the gods themselves seem to conspire to throw obstacles in your path, when you can't buy a strike and every ball you hit seems pre-ordained to find a glove.

Anyone can seem heroic when the going is good. It's in those cold lonely moments when nothing seems easy or good that character and worth are truly revealed, and baseball provides us with such chill moments by the bushel barrel.

I want my kids—and when I say "my kids" in the context of baseball I refer not to just my own biological progeny, but to that extended circle of kids whom I love for having been their coach at some point—to learn to not shy away from those moments. To not fear those moments, but to relish them, to enjoy them, to desire and cherish them as divine gifts. For it is at those moments that we cease to be merely bystanders in the story of our own lives, and instead become the central player, the locus of all potential outcomes in a given situation— "all possible realities spring from this singular unique moment."

One of the great tragedies of modern life seems the way that so many men now stand paralyzed and impotent in the face of any challenge or difficulty. I see heartbreaking numbers of men genetically incapable of standing their ground and fighting for what they believe and claim to value.

Surely some folks will roll their eyes and think this is a rather large leap to make, but I contend that more often than not you will find such men are the ones who did not play baseball as youths, or who, if they did play, played but briefly and without any passion at all—who never learned how to muster the courage to put on a helmet, grab a bat, and then dig in in the batter's box to face nine opponents defiantly convinced that you pose no threat, that nothing you might do could change their combined trajectory.

To stand there, alone, ready and willing to put yourself at risk of public failure yet remain absolutely convinced that today you shall succeed... that seems a feeling worth having, worth seeking, worth nurturing and fostering and promoting.

And that's why I love baseball. Not for the easy glamour of winning, but for the moments when you are forced to cling tenacious to only the faintest glimmer of hope when everyone around you has long since given up the fight.

Not because in those moments you have any great likelihood of succeeding, but because in those moments you have the opportunity afforded by hope... if you have the guts and courage to claim it.

Yes, "it breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart." But for a heart to break, it first must care. And that for me remains the crowning glory of Baseball—the notion that one man with a tiny bit of hope and grit and bloody raw determination might yet turn this story down a totally different path.

Come on, meat—bring me the heat. Bring it...

God I do love this game.
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PLAY BALL!

Well, it's baseball season again, and I spent the better part of this weekend wrestling with scheduling practices for two teams I'll manage this spring (Rookie 7 Red Sox and Minor 10s Red Sox), as well as setting up new web pages for each, updating the FAQ I send out every year, building the contact rosters to hand out to all parents, and working on some logos for some practice t-shirts I usually print up as surprise First Practice gifts.

Muddled in there is the scheduled practices for my 5 year old daughter, this year playing her first turn in T-Ball, as well as my duties MC-ing the annual Cub Scout banquet we had Friday night (250 people, 60 cub scouts advancing in rank, an Arrow of Light Ceremony, a Crossing Over ceremony where a dozen of our boys graduated to Boy Scouts, 50 pizzas, plus more Chinese decorations than will be used at the opening of the Summer Games in Beijing...), two taekwondo lessons, a Cub Scout trip to the hockey game at the same time our other Cub had a trip to the county courthouse, plus we had a sleepover last night, and tomorrow I get up at 5 AM to help oldest son install 63 large American flags for President's Day.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I actually have something like a career trying to start somewhere, as I am currently ass-deep in alligators eight days a week.

But that's all just details, as it's baseball season again, and thus it is time to lace on the spikes and oil up the gloves and smell that horsehide and new-mown grass and feel the chalk and dust on the back of your neck... and know that there yet remain some great and sacred truths in this world, and they often come delivered on a field of green, 'neath a sky of blue.

"I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball. "
-- Annie Savoy, in BULL DURHAM

Amen. Now pass me that rosin bag.
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GAME ON

The Strike is over. Business (or attempts to stir such) is now back to normal.

Three months ago—a time which now somehow seems an eon behind us—I had some small amount of heat/buzz/mojo, but then "things happened" and we all got to sit on our hands for three months as no scripts could be read or submitted or talked about or sold or wrapped 'round a wrench and throws through a window. It sucked.

Now we wake and find that the embargo is lifted, and everyone is again clear to engage in acts of futility.

And it looks like that's what they are doing. I've already seen a huge number of folks saying they are starting crazed self-marketing efforts at dawn today, and I fully expect that the folks in Hollywood are returning to their offices to find a white tsunami approaching, a tall teetering tidal wave of awful writing from folks desperate to get their stuff out there, regardless of quality or readiness. These next two weeks will likely see a flood of scripts into prodcos, studios, and agencies, and the 95% Rules will surely remain in effect, meaning there is a massive cleanup effort about to commence as workers shovel these scripts into the nearest deepest hole.

Yeah, that sounds harsh, and it is harsh, but what it ain't is wrong: if you are honest with yourself, you understand that there are a whooole bunch of folks out there writing a whooole bunch of really bad scripts, and a whooole bunch of those are going to be in the huge first wave of pent-up energy now being unleashed.

My reps and I have been talking and think it's probably best to just stand back and let this flood push past, to let things normalize a bit before we jump into the stream. We have some projects we're eager to get out there, and people we're eager to reach, but right now we expect that everyone is up to their ears in content right now, and we're confident enough in the products we're pitching that we can afford to let things calm a bit.

But lordy it does make the heart flutter a bit to say those happy words again: "resume racing."
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calmly excited B

THE PROPOSAL (WGA strike deal)

Well, after all that, the proposed terms for the WGA-AMPTP settlement are now posted:

THE TENTATIVE DEAL

The link above sends you to the WGA site where you'll find a rather unassuming 4=page PDF of the critical terms of the proposed settlement.

Is it the shining golden Holy Grail of great deals for writers? No—not even close, really—but neither is it the total screw-job the Alliance seemed hell-bent on delivering early on, either. It seems pretty squarely in the middle ground between what the writers wanted and what the studios wanted, so now both sides will have militant elements screaming that "we got screwed!" and more moderates saying "meh, we can live with this—let's get back to work, already."

They say that in a good negotiation, neither side gets to claim victory. Using that standard, this seems (potentially) a good negotiation.

If you're going to the membership meeting tonight in LA or NY, Godspeed, bon chance, good luck, and may the Force be with you. I expect it will be a long loud and exhausting affair.
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josh friedman posts, and I cheer

Oh, just go read, for chrissakes:

I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing; HOLLYWOOD IDOL
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things not found here

POLITICAL DISCUSSION
It's an election year, which means a lot of armchair pundits are out in force, sharing their "thoughts" (ahem) with the entire world, usually in the form of strident drool-soaked ad hominem attacks on whomever or whatever it is they claim to NOT support.

Look, I respect the right of every human being to have whatever opinion they like, but nowhere is it written that I have to respect the opinion itself, or the opiniator, or the stumbling bumbling manner in which they try to pontificate. If someone wants to support some candidate or cause, then that's great. Power to the people. Rah rah. Tippecanoe and Tyler too.

Whatever.

Just don't act like I have to give a flip that you care.

Oh, and by the way: every time I have ever tried to express my utter disinterest in the blathering bloviation of many political windbags, I come back to find someone somewhere has decided that I must surely have been speaking specifically about THEM. Trust me: if you are reading this, then you have no idea who annoyed me to the point of feeling a need to repeat this little mini-rant. I have a LOT of friends who post and comment on politics from pretty much every conceivable point on the political compass, and seldom ever do I get bothered by what they post (as I tend to ignore most of it anyway!).

In other words, "this rant was not sparked by you." This morning, while surfing pointlessly around the web, I was taken aback by a total stranger, spewing opinions (more like "hate speech") which I was staggered to see anyone admit to, much less take pride in.

This was not stuff from anyone I know or have ever seen before (or hope to see again). In fact, I normally would never have seen when I foolishly followed a link from a link from a link from a link and apparently wound up in the online town of East Dipshit, Putzylvania. We're talking Grade-A mental snot blown onto a screen by some paste-eating gaboon who likely has to have grown-ups operate the toilet for him, opinions so idiotic and nonsensical that you wonder if perhaps this person is not engaged in some sort of Dada-esque text art project where they paste together random snippets of other sentences cribbed from other people, resulting in an alpha-numeric stew which has the appearance of language but none of that pesky context, relevance, or meaning.

When you try and have a political discussion online, this last class of ass-hat is as often as not the kind of moron who steers the debate (and then often into a ditch or cesspool).

So I don't "do" politics online. It's just not fun or interesting for me.

OVERLY SPECIFIC REFERENCES TO MY WIFE AND KIDS
I love my kids, but that doesn't mean I need to post pics of them here so that any assholes who feel like it can use those pics to paunch hateful attacks on me.

That's not far-fetched. Twice before I was shocked when friends of mine had posts made online or emails sent to discussion groups wherein old innocuous family fun photos had been copied, morphed and then used as vulgar jokes/attacks against them in response to some heated discussion (see above). One time I saw friend get a heartbreakingly evil comment attached to a downloaded copy of a picture of his own mentally challenged young 4-year old in a wheelchair, and I was made suddenly mindful of the fact that there are a lot of truly worthless mean-spirited gutless hate-filled people in the world, and there's no good reason for me to potentially give them a means to cause heartache to me or my family.

So while I will sometimes talk about my kids, I try as much as possible to not flaunt their names or images hereabouts. Those who have actual *need* for such info usually get it without any difficulty, but the rest of you... well, you might be nice people, but just as I do not leave my house open during the day when I am away or leave my wallet and personal documents on the room of my car when I park at the airport, neither do I offer my kids for your amusement. No offense, but I just don't know or trust you that much.

SCREENWRITING ADVICE
Clearly, if I knew enough to be in any position to have advice worth giving, I'd then be far too busy to waste time in handing out free advice to slobbering morons like you.

Also, there are already far too many places where you could just as easily go to find whatever advice you think you need. Ultimately, advice is seldom the secret. In my opinion, screenwriting is one of those things you pretty much have to figure out for yourself. Yeah, you can find a few nuggets here and there, and sometimes in discussions with people you can come to discover and understand something new or useful, but if the game were so simple that you could show up, read a blogpost, and then march off to BE A SCREENWRITER, then obviously there'd be no need for screenwriting sites and books and courses and seminars and systems: you'd just learn the five steps and then DO it, like tying your shoes or falling off a log.

I sometimes think I have some idea of what works for me and how and why that might be the case, but I do not think I know enough to lecture loudly or with intent to edumicate, so don;t come snuffling around here hoping to catch scent of The One Great Secret. I don't think it exists, and I'm pretty damned sure that if it does then I ain't got it.

RECIPES
Not that I can't cook -- I just don't like you enough to share.

-=-=-=-=-

Now... among those things you WILL find here are:

• mounds of long-winded self-absorbed tales of trivial events played up as epic quests

• rambling stream of semi-consciousness where I use too many words to say too much about something too few care too little about

• pointless and random updates on my own screenwriting projects, offered not because I think anyone cares or that I feel any need to brag, but more so I can take stock of what I am doing (or am supposed to be doing...) and maybe then stay a little better "on-point."

• scads and scads of childish puns and potty humor gussied up so as to have the slightest stink of urbane wit and charm

• misspelled words out the ass (as this is a free site and I see no reason to waste much time in perfecting content which only ten or fifteen people will ever see and which none will ever recollect or remember.

And that's where we stand.
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Deafened But Smiling

Elmer Bernstein
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The Phoenix Symphony
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Opening theme to THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
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Koss Pro 4 studio grade headphones
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one volume knob rotated as far to the LOUD as God will allow
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one big damned happy smile
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soundtrackin' B

Nicholl Week -- Day the Fifth

Thursday dawned bright and early as always in LA. The Wife and I slept in a bit (anything past 8 AM seems a royal luxury), then padded down the hallway to grab a breakfast from the concierge lounge where, per usual, we bumped into some of the other finalists. The day would be the first in this trip where I did not have wall to wall meetings and obligations, and we'd made casual arrangements to hook up with a friend and go visit Terry Rossio for lunch.

And yes, that is a shameless bit of name-dropping, but believe me when I explain that I drop Rossio's name as much for my own amused amazement as for anyone else's. The Wife had heard me refer to Terry numerous times over the course of previous years, and she'd enjoyed PIRATES and SHREK and other Rossio-penned works, but she'd never met him or been able to put any sort of face onto the odd and typically skewed tales I'd spun of the man, so she was curious to finally meet this guy.

Steve, one of my best pals in LA, agreed to come play chauffeur for the day, as he was on extended sabbatical as a script of his own worked its way through the development tubes at a major studio in LA. Steve met us out front and away we zoomed to Topanga Canyon.

Winding through the canyon, I couldn't help but notice how much the terrain and scenery reminded me of the Hill Country of Texas, my favorite place on Earth. Of course, where roadside signs in the Hill Country might advertise "BBQ" or "dozer work for hire," in Topanga they seemed more often about "fish tacos" and "custom pottery."

"California," I chuckle to myself.

Just before noon, we turn off the main drag in Topanga (the only drag in Topanga) and head up the winding trail that leads to Casa del Terry. As we get halfway up the slope, Steve and I point to a stucco-and-tile mission style home topping the hill before us. We pull around the front and park next to Terry's oddly run-down VW Eurovan.

Terry's place sits atop a breeze-swept hill, with panoramic views in three directions and a slight secondary peak just behind the main house. A smaller outbuilding lies slightly down the hillside, joined to the main house by a road and a wandering trail through the scrub brush, Stone paths and walls and low fences meander across the ten or so acres of the property, and the entire place just oozes a relaxed casual quietness which is by design as far removed from the noise and glitz and plastic-ness of Hollywood as can be easily imagined. It's exactly the sort of place Id dream of owning if I were told that I have incredible means and an absolute need to live within daily commute of Hollywood.

"OK, now this I like," The Wife announces.

We wander to the back door on the pergola-shaded porch, knock twice, and then Steve—himself a close and longtime friend of Terry's—checks the door and leads us in. Steve calls through the house.

Four or five seconds later, Terry plods around the corner: barefooted, in sweatpants, bleary-eyed, hair tousled, and looking for all the world as if our arrival wakened him from a very comfortable slumber. He rubs his eyes, stretches, and smiles.

"Oh, hi. Yeah... lunch...." He stretches harder and smiles. "Well, let me get dressed and give Rebecca the tour. Come on-- we can start with the closet..."

Steve and I chuckle, as this is vintage Terry. I have often described him as seeming eternally like a cat being disturbed from a nap in a shady spot on the floor: somehow there, but not tremendously impressed or concerned about being there.

Terry loves this house and property and it clearly shows as he leads us around, pointing out all his favorite views and favorite little nooks and crannies, talking about all the plans for the various buildings and property. It seems clear that this is not just a place to crash. This is home: his haven, his safe place in the world, and he intends to make it everything he has every dreamed of finding or having in such a place.

We check out some concrete work being done on a retaining wall near a building soon to become a fully equipped AV editing studio. We admire the new hilltop hot tub maybe from a giant wine cask. We admire the views, the breeze, the scents of lavender and sage.

Wandering back to the back porch, we find a delivery has been made: a large ("heavy") custom made ("extra heavy") wrought iron wine rack.

"Oh, great! It got here in time!" Terry says as he walks past without slowing. "Bring it in here, guys."

Steve and I look at each other and start giggling. "It's Terry's world, I grumble as we lift the damned iron monster and lug towards the door. "We're just workin' in it."

Terry directs us dumb laborers as we wrestle the hundred pound beast into a small recess in the wall adjacent to the kitchen. The fit is so tight I fear we'll need to grease the rack to squeeze it into place, but with one well-applied shove it slips in like a shell into a chamber. Terry seems pleased—apparently this rack has been a bit of an ongoing problem.

"OK, before we head to lunch, we have to do something," Terry explains. "I'm going to insist."

Turns out we have to play ping pong on his patio. Terry is a slightly competitive guy, so he loves this "friendly" chance to assert dominance over strangers. I and The Wife end up as a team, which is a joke in its own right, but made funnier by the fact that we might have a combined 15 years on us since the last time either of us picked up a ping pong paddle. We go down in short order, and I make a point of pointing out to Terry that we'd never think of showing up the host on his home table.

We head down the hill and meet at a local burger and sandwich kind of place -- the kind of place where you sit on nine-dollar plastic patio chairs and sweep away the dead leaves and dust from the outdoor tables, where there might well be as many people arriving by bike or Harley as by car. Terry's (cute/smart/fun/blonde/Harvard-degreed) girlfriend joins us for lunch, and we sit around and talk about movies and the strike and how weird a time is it is to be in Hollywood right now, even as a supposed Major Award Non-Winner.

After a relaxed lunch (where I think we all wound up swapping plates to nibble on whatever the others had left behind, be it chips or slaw or fries or free range jicama or whatever), I mumble that it might be good for us to start heading slowly back towards LA just to make sure we have no surprises or delays. After all, Thursday night is THE dinner, the main reason for coming to LA in the first place, when the Fellows pick up their certificates (and first installments of their cash awards!), and when I and the Wife get all gussied up in our finery.

It's well before 2 pm, the cocktail hour for the dinner starts at 6:30, and the dinner itself at 7:30, so we're in fine shape as we hug goodbye to Rossio and girlfriend.

We elect to head south out of Topanga, turning onto PCH near Malibu just a few minutes later. It's a gorgeous sunny day, the Pacific is annoyingly glorious, and The Wife suggests we pull over for a moment to check out the beach. We slide in to park behind a yellow Lambo convertible (welcome to Hollywood!), wander the seawall, and notice the Santa Monica boardwalk just up the coast, so decide to swing by and check that out since we have so much time.

The pier and accompanying human scenery is interesting, and we wander for a bit before deciding to walk down to Venice to grab a beer. Of course, by the time we make that mile hike, work down a brew, and then hike back to the car, it's time to head back, so we slide back onto the road, ease up to speed, round a bend, and... stop.

Dead stop. Before us stretches a line of taillights broken only by the curvature of the Earth.

We sit in silence for a moment or two before I finally chuckle. "So how bad of a problem do we rate this?"

"This," says Steve flatly, "is bad."

What makes this bad is not only the fact that The Wife and I need to be back to the hotel in time to shower and change and then drive back across Hollywood, but Steve also has a major social engagement -- he's the president of local men's social order and they have a major induction event that same evening, an event where he will be required to swing by his home and strap on a tux and tails.

So, this is bad.

There is some horrendous traffic snarl between us and Hollywood, and all we can do for the next 2 hours is to sit and sweat. The start time for the cocktail comes, then slides into the rearview: 6:30... 6:50... 7:15... At a certain point all we can do is giggle and sigh, as complaining and whining won't do a damned bit of good.

At 7:35, we are a block away from our hotel, still mired in gridlock, so The Wife and I roll out at a red light and spring through traffic. We reach our hotel room at 7:40, sporting a day's worth of sweat, hat-head, and tourist-funk, so a shower is mandatory. Somehow we apparently fold time, as we both sprint out the front door of the hotel, fully dressed and well-gussied, some 17 minutes later. The Red Chevy POS stands waiting, we dive in, and I smile. "Hold on. We shall now violate several traffic laws."

I can tell you from personal experience that Santa Monica Boulevard is interesting at 74 MPH. I was frankly a bit surprised that we neither killed anyone nor drew the ire of the local constabularies, but God was, for once it seemed, on our side, and we slide into the breezeway of the Regent Beverly Wilshire "only" 40 minutes late.

We spring into the dining room, find everyone already seated and I note that the salad course is still in service, with entrees just starting to roll from the kitchen. I spot Joan, Greg's assistant in the Nicholl office, and she chokes, waves, and runs to me.

"THERE you are! Come on -- you're table is right over here."

We find our seats, apologize to the 8 or so people at our table, and I spin some quick and ridiculous retelling of our day as our salads and wine appear. I glance around the room and spot the other finalists. Lisa Gold shakes her head at me to say "you're an idiot!". Dave Mango's slight smile and shake of disbelief says much the same. I toast my wine glass to them and commence to socializing with my locals.

The rest of the evening goes off splendidly: apparently guests are seated at the tables of finalists based upon some scheme whereby your biggest fans sit elbow to elbow with you. At least, that's how I have to assume it works, or else there was some seriously weird juju at work. The gentleman seated to my right introduces himself and makes some small talk, then asks me if I was an entrant, and I say yes and he asks what my script was, and I tell him and he drops his mouth open and stares at me for a beat and then says "You're KIDDING me! THAT was yours? YOU wrote QUEEN OF THE SKY?"

For a moment I wonder if perhaps he intends to stab me with an unused shrimp fork—clearly there is something weird afoot.

He turns to his wife and grabs her by the arm: "Dear! Remember that script I was telling you about—the Russian pilot one? This young man wrote it!"

He then proceeds to spend the next 20 minutes of the dinner praising me to the heavens and explaining what a miraculous bit of fortune this is for him as he thinks that's his favorite script he's ever read in 8 years of reading for the Nicholls and my god it's amazing that I was able to generate such sympathy for a COMMUNIST flyer as he hates the goddamned Communists and I toast him to hating goddamned Communists and he absolutely will drink to that and he goes on and on and I look at The Wife and she's smiling and to hr left there's another slightly older couple who seems late in coming to understand that I actually wrote that script about the (goddamned) Communist flyer and then HE starts singing my praises and there's this very weird lovefest going where I am seated off to one side of the room, away from the winners of the evening, and yet I am being tongue bathed by total strangers who claim to have been deeply moved my some words I once scribbled on a page.

I gotta tell ya, people: if that feeling were available in pill form, I can see myself becoming seriously hooked on it, as it is nothing short of amazing. I glance around the room and check the other finalists, and in most cases I can see they are experiencing something of the same: strangers, industry players, people who know movies and writing and drama, all hosing us down with the sort of genuine respect and approval and validation that you never get on a regular basis. I start to get a little weirdly emotional as it finally fully starts to sink in where I am, what I've done, what this all means.

The new Fellows are introduced and step forward to receive their award certificates and the little white envelope that contains the great big check. Various industry pros—Susanna Grant, Dan Petry, etc.—introduce my friends with words and respect which would have seemed totally far-fetched a week or two previous. I see them stand at the podium and offer some fumbling words to try and convey what this means, what this feels like, and I see them take their turns posing in front of the huge Oscar statues as press photos are snapped. I smile and feel truly happy for and proud of my friends as they claim their honors. The Wife puts a hand on my knee and smiles. "You doing OK?"

I smile and shrug, and nudge my chin towards the podium where Amy and Cecilia are accepting their goodies. "I really wanted to win."

She leans over and smiles "I think you'll do OK."

Phil Alden Robinson, writer of Field of Dreams, one of my all-time favorite flicks, offers some brief fun comments as the keynote speaker, we have a few other very brief speakers, and before you know it dinner winds down and we all applaud a great evening done well. My new old goddamned Commie hating fan grabs my hand and says "Come on—I want to introduce you to someone."

I turn to try and say something to The Wife, but she just giggles and waves me away, saying "go do whatcha gotta do, man...". New old fan pulls me down front, and I wave at a few of my pal Fellows and they laugh that I again seem tangled in some goofy situation.

"Brett? I want you to meet Sid Ganis, President of the Academy."

Sid turns and smiles. "Hey, Brett. Glad to see you made it. Enjoy the evening?"

"Good to see you again, Sid. The evening was great. Thanks for all this, truly."

New old fan stares at me. "You know Sid?

I shrug. "We've met."

New old fan humphs, grabs my hand and drags me into the crowd again. He pulls me up to a large man with his back turned, and he taps on the gentleman's shoulder.

Dan Petry turns around, looks at new old fan, sees me, smiles. "Brett! What are you doing in here? I was hurrying to try and catch up to you in the bar! You gonna stick around and have a drink?"

"What do YOU think, Dan?"

Dan and I laugh, as new old fan again seems slack jawed. "Do you know EVERYBODY?" he asks.

"Not just yet."

New old fan and I wander back to the table, and we exchange business cards and I promise that I will keep him informed is this script manages to grab any success in the coming months and years. "Well, it was an real pleasure to meet you," he says. "I look forward to bragging that I met you way back when."

He leaves, and I catch The Wife giving me that look—the "don't even try making it seem like you weren't loving every minute of that" look. I shrug, give her a peck on the lips, and drag her back to the front to try and see some of my pals before they all get sucked into the night.

I manage to catch up to most of the other finalists, and I use the moment with each to forward Terry's invite to his little house party the following evening. Most seem thrilled by the possibility of meeting a writer like Rossio who is, for now, pretty much sitting on top of the moneymaking mountain for screenwriters. He is the impossible absurd fantasy that most of us are too scared to admit ever having: what if I not only sell a script, but sell several, and they become hits, and folks line up to haul truckloads of cash to my door to write yet more movies which become even bigger hits?

Things wind down and we start to ease into the Beverly Wilshire bar, but on the way I spot Phil Alden Robinson saying his goodbyes and heading to the door as well. I push over and grab some eye contact. "I just had to say 'god damn you, Phil Robinson'."

He looks at me with a moment of confusion.

"Damn you for the final four minutes of FIELD OF DREAMS, 'cuz it makes me blubber like an injured first grader to this day whenever it comes on. I can’t not watch it and I cant not cry when I do. So damn you."

Robinson laughs. "It does the same thing to me! What can I say? We got lucky and had a perfect execution to some of the best writing I've managed. It makes me cry and I wrote the goddamned thing!"

We shake hands and go our separate ways, and again I see The Wife smirking at me. "You’re actually very good at this. You now that, right?”

I smile. We head for the bar. After this day, there's drinkin' to be done.

- - -

In the crowded bar we wind up spending an hour or so hanging out with the Petry’s and most of the other finalists. I wind up with Dave Mango where we again debate the weirdness of this environment and whether or not this is really where and how we want to work. We both agree that we miss our kids, and that Hollyweird seems a truly terrifying place to try and raise kids, and we agree that neither of us would wish for that specific situation.

We polish off our various libations, shake what hands need shaking and make what hugs need making. I snap my fingers and the valet brings up the Red POS between a big mean Hammer-tricked Benz sedan and gorgeous Bentley drop top.

Yeah, I’m total fuckin’ money, baybee.

We head back to the fabo Renaissance, make the obligatory brief stop at the World’s Worst Hotel Bar, chuckle that last call comes down at 11:43, then polish off our drinks and retire to our rooms, wiped out by the day’s fun.

The Wife brushes her teeth as I stand and stare out at Hollywood, wondering if the view ever stops seeming surreal.

‘Cuz it damned sure hasn’t yet.

(to be continued...)
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drifting between worlds B

the new awesome post

So I spent all day working on this great new post.

Quotes?

Oh, I worked in some good ones for the new post.

Epic themes of love and loss and revenge and endurance and survival?

Bucket loads.

Bucket loads.

Wild analogies and weird metaphors and twisted looping turns of phrase that leave your tongue and mind in a textual Kama Sutra display?

Oh yeah, rolled those into the mix as well.

But then I got bored and decided to post this pointless update instead.

We're mired in a cold week of soul-sucking drizzle hereabouts, and all I can do is sit and stare at oily raindrops as they roll down the windows.

I have some fun new projects starting to get ramped up, and I likely could stand to adjust some progress bars and update some links, but instead I'll just sigh and grumble.

Man that was a great post I almost made. You kids woulda loved it.
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UPDATE: things seem trending suspiciously upwards

Greetings, pissants.

Been a weird week or so hereabouts, as all manner of odd project seems coming to a head one way or t'uther.

–– Had a good convo with the agents wherein they expressed their interest and support of a project I've been threatening to write since... oh. the final years of the Reagan administration. I had to laugh at their discussion, as it's not at all the sort of thing one would expect as a follow-up to a Nicholls-finalist drama, but then, I s'pose few expected that piece to become a finalist, so if we dismiss THAT as the truly odd event in the string then most anything else which follows then becomes slightly more sensible.

Sounds good, anyway.

I already have loads of old notes and ideas and a rough idea of the structure of this piece, but I'll need to sit down and get medieval on this thing if I hope to deliver pages this spring as is my hope and fervent desire.

-- am having entirely too much fun throwing ideas down for a truly warped project I am brainstorming with a longtime buddy. I'll not give away any details, but every time I sit and think on this one I suffer simultaneous pangs of "oh, that's just too damned childish to actually say, much less write down..." and "oh god that would be fun to see in a movie...". Overall, there are huge dollops of some classic movies thrown in there as homages, but this is also something I can;t recall having seen before. If it continues apace, I'll either be thrilled that we came up with it or ashamed that I wasted time upon it. Or maybe some combination of both.

-- the monster-advemture romp came out fairly much as I'd hope. What few trusted folks have read it have all come back with solid praise, and what comments and concerns they've voiced have all been 100% in line with what I expected, so the problems are as initially observed and well within my capabilities to be fixed without much major effort.

-- the agents also gave some more praise to the QUEEN OF THE SKY project and repeated their hopes to get some traction just as soon as this damned WGA-AMPTP thing goes away. The currently unfolding DGA accord seems potentially useful, but already in looking at the terms there it seems clear that any WGA deal will require a good deal more negotiation and compromise. Still, I hold out hope that I'll have reason and opportunity to return to LA sometime in the next few months.

-- a pair of other backburner ideas continue to intrigue me, so I'll keep them on low simmer and see if perhaps they suddenly bloom into Ideas Which Cannot Be Ignored.

Baseball sign-ups just started, karate now involves one of my kids, Cubs and Boy Scouts continue to call for time, and there's the usual smorgasbord of random assorted bullshit eating my time at every turn, so thing remain as hectic as ever round here.

But somehow it all feels slightly optimistic, which is alien and spooky.
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Like The Phone Call From A Long Lost Friend

My best buddy called me on the phone from his apartment three doors down and I could hear him gasping for air and laughing at the same time.

“Man, you gotta come see this.”

“What?”

“Just... just come on over.”

I trotted to his place, barged in and saw him on his pizza-stained bachelor sofa, wiping tears from his eyes as he pointed at some strange image on his television: a 1960s-era Japanese monster movie was playing, and at the base of the screen were silhouetted a trio of heads, like we were in a movie theater behind these guys. As I listened in, I heard three horrendously smart-assed guys just shredding the movie, mocking and insulting the schlockfest in a manner disturbingly similar to the way I and best friend had done for years when we were bored and armed only with basic cable and a seemingly endless supply of cheap beer, halllmarks of our existence in those hazy bachelor days of the late 1980s.

And thus began my love for Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K for us hip kids).

Joel Hodgson and his robot pals on the Satellite of Love immediately became a Saturday night tradition for a few years after. Even when Joel was replaced by Mike we stayed true, and in time grew to love Mike just as much as Joel (I refuse to choose between the two, though I understand and respect that for many Mysties this is as divisive as Coke v Pepsi).

But like all good things, this too ended. Comedy Central aired the episodes for most of the late 90s, but by the turn of the century the show had slipped in the ratings and the show bounced around various timeslots and then right off the air. Sure, we had some old VHS tapes we watched and rewatched til the magneticnous (sorry to get all scientific on you kids) had been watched clean off the tapes.

And thus MST faded from my life except as a memory.

Until now.

Bouncing around the internet, I stumbled across a ref to a new project I’d not heard of:



When I clicked on the link, I found myself watching a grainy old horror movie as a crew of silhouetted characters just shredding the movie, mocking and insulting the schlockfest in a manner disturbingly familiar way.

And I smiled.

It turns out that most all of the original MST crew — Joel, Josh “Tom Servo” Weinstein”, Trace “Crow” Beaulieu, Mary Jo “Pearl” pehl, and even “TV’s Frank” Conniff — have reunited to pick up the MST cause and skewer an entire new crop of crappy movies. Thanks to the internet, instead of grainy worn out VHS taps, these new episodes will be streamed online, available for download, and available for direct purchase on DVD as standalone episodes.

And there most surely is joy in Mudville tonight.
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Love works best in a waltz-time song

One of my fave songs ever is "Catch The Wind" by Donovan, and one of my fave covers ever of this song is the one below, recorded live in Bora Bora by Shawn Colvin, accompanied by a breeze and a few seagulls.

When I listen to this song, I want to write the movie it ought to be a part of.

When sundown pales the sky,
I wanna hide a while, behind your smile,
And everywhere I'd look, your eyes I'd find.



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Tom Cruise To The Rescue?

Rumors started going around on Friday afternoon about a huge bit of good news for writers: United Artists is poised sign a deal with the WGA, marking the first major studio to split from the pack at the AMPTP.

United Artists is now headed by one Tom Cruise, and given that this deal (if true) would be a major victory for the screenwriter's side in the WGA-AMPTP war, I'll refrain from making any Cruise jokes.

Meanwhile, Wired News is reporting that indie studio Lionsgate also appears close to inking a pact with the Guild.

Could this mark the beginning of a slew of companies breaking from the company line to start protecting their own interests? Could their greed be greater than their loyalty to their robber baron brethren? If so, then Gordon gekko is again proven right:

"Greed... is good. Greed works."
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