Finished

Sorry I've been gone so long. I've been writing and writing and today I quasi-finished my second draft of Static Attic. What does that mean? Well - I wrote "The End" after about 101 pages in about 2 weeks of writing. But I haven't even read it yet. So I need to go back through it and see how it works. It might not work at all. Oh God I hope it works. Fingers crossed all two of you.

Another reason I'm finished? I've been unemployed since last May. Companies are firing, not hiring now. I have about 2 more months here at this pace before I have to move back in with my parents in Williamsport, PA. Awesome. I have never felt so fucked in all my life.

Please. Let's hope I'm not unsuccessful much longer.

I'm back!

It's currently 12:30 pacific standard time in Atwater Village, Los Angeles. I'm in my "office" which is a little sun room of sorts attached to my bedroom. The purpose of this entry is twofold: A.) I'm procrastinating working on my script. B.) I'm hoping to get the juices flowing. This, essentially, is my layup drill before the game.

Sorry I've been gone for so long. As I'm sure you've read, I had a couple neighborhood friends help out. I thought they did a great job.

In local news, a motorcycle cop was struck, presumably by a car this morning. While in my room, I heard police sirens and a circling helicopter literally buzzing the house. I thought, God damn, the cops are really cracking down on this neighborhood. I went outside and followed the commotion, and there, lying prostrate on his back in the middle of the road was a policeman. Firetrucks and cop cars surrounded him. The chopper circling not 200 feet off the ground.

Honestly, I don't know what the helicopter or the firetrucks were doing besides watching along with the rest of the neighborhood. When I arrived on the scene, a medic was checking the policeman's pulse and I thought, "Holy shit. He's dead." But shortly thereafter the officer lifted his arm and pulled off one of his gloves. Thank God. It appears a car, parked on the side of the streets which are notoriously narrow here, pulled out in front of him, flipping him over the hood of the car.

His name is Lawrence Childress. He's been a police officer for 15 years. He's the father of two boys - Eli, 10 years old, and Martin 8 years old. He's once divorced from the mother of his children, Janet Parks. Lawrence lives here in Atwater Village, just up on Glenfeliz. After the divorce, Janet moved in with her mom in Long Beach.

I wasn't able to get any more information. I don't know how severe his injuries are and I couldn't find any news of the accident online. Lawrence is in our thoughts and prayers. I don't pray, but, you know, this is an hispanic neighborhood and they do love them some Jesus, so I'm sure he's getting a lot of Christian prayer power coming his way.

OK. Time to write. The writing's going great, by the way. I've finished my first act and am making my way through the second. My biggest fear at the moment is that it's running way too long. My scenes seem to be around 5 pages a piece, when usually I average about 2. Fingers crossed, I can fix this. Wish me luck. Send good mojo to Officer Childress.

Pink Shoes

Hi, Brandon told me I could write something today. I'm Francesca, by the way. Frannie, I guess.

I missed the bus today. I know it was supposed to be a great day and all because Barack Obama officially became our 44th president. But you know what? The inauguration didn't help my seven year old find her pink shoes that she just had to wear to school. Pink shoes that were, inexplicably, in her backpack. And I heard his speech was great. I'm sure it was. I don't really have an opinion on it because while he was speaking, I was literally racing to get Bri, my seven year old, to school on time. She was three minutes late.

Me? I was 45 minutes late. Because I missed the bus. Because of pink shoes in a green backpack. I have to take the bus because my car broke down and I can't afford to have it fixed right now. The radiator is leaking. So is the brake fluid. Actually, they leaked. There's nothing left, so I guess they're done leaking. I can afford to fix one of the two. One out of two doesn't get me to work, though.

I can't explain the fear going through my body as the bus crawled through traffic 45 minutes after the bus I should have been on did the same. I can't lose my job. I have a seven year old and a 12 year old. His name is Lucas. My husband, Ernie, works the graveyard shift at a bottle cap company in the City of Industry. We see each other a few hours a night. I do fabric patching and restoration. You have an old shirt with some holes? I can patch it up, good as new. Not really, but it'll be wearable. We have a nice little four bedroom home here in Atwater, but it's all Ernie and I can do to make our mortgage. I can't be late for work. I can't get fired. And there I was sitting on the bus, inching along in traffic during morning rush hour, 45 minutes late. My palms were sweating...my whole body was sweating, honestly. I was afraid I'd sweat through my clothes before I got there. I didn't bring a change of clothes, of course, so now I was going to show up almost an hour late, wet with sweat and stinking to high heaven.

When I got to work, I vomited apologies all over the office. My boss is a rather stern old, black woman. The no-nonsense type. Brett is her name. I always thought it was an odd name for a woman. She didn't fire me, thank God. But she pulled me into her office and sat me down. I told her what happened and you know what she told me? "She has other shoes? Make her wear the other shoes. Once she gets to school, she'll have forgotten all about the shoes." But Bri wouldn't have forgotten. It would have ruined her whole day. And it would have ruined mine to send her to school without her pink shoes. She wanted her pink shoes and I wanted her to have them. They were a birthday present a few months ago. Brett gave me a "warning." I don't know what it means, she wouldn't say, but it's not good, obviously. I just wanted to die. It was all I could do to keep from crying.

So when one o'clock rolled around, I split for lunch so fast my hair straightened. I went to the sandwich shop across the street - Shanky's - because they have the best tuna fish sandwich in the city and I needed something good today. I waited in line for 15 minutes before I got to the counter and ordered. I started pumping myself up, thinking, "After this tuna fish sandwich, it's a new day. The day starts here. Fresh beginning." But when I reached into my pocketbook for my wallet, it wasn't there. I dug around for a few seconds, futilely, but I knew I forgot it. And I knew where. It was on the dining room table. I pulled it out last night when Lucas asked for money to go to McDonald's.

So there I was, penniless at the counter, my bad day getting worse. I told the man taking my order that I forgot my wallet, apologized, and asked him to cancel. I could feel the tears building in my cheekbones. The thought of the embarrassment that crying at Shanky's would cause only made the impulse to cry stronger, so I braced for the emotional breakdown.

And then the man behind the counter said, "Don't worry about it." Just like that. "Don't worry about it. This one's on the house." He said, "Obama's the president now. Things are going to get better. Si se puede."

And then I did start crying, actually. But it wasn't embarrassing, because I wasn't sad. At the moment it felt like the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me. And it was the best tuna fish sandwich I had ever had.

The rest of the day, I kept saying to myself, "Si se puede. Yes we can." Maybe things will get better. I missed the speech, but I bet I got the message.

A Note from Julian

Yo, what up? This is Julian. I work at The Village Market sometimes on Silver Lake and Atwater. My man, B, comes by every once and a while, buys a Mountain Dew. Honestly, I think that shit's disgusting, but, you know, I ain't here to judge. Anyway, hombre's been writing and complaining to me about his damn blog, and to be honest, I'm just sick of people fucking complaining all the fucking time, so I said I'd write something.

I got a couple things I want to mention. For one, the ATM in the market doesn't work. Why? Because the company went out of business. They went bankrupt. Yeah, a company whose job it is to give other people money apparently ran out of money to give. And every day, people look at the sign on the machine -- "Company Went Bankrupt" -- laugh and shake their heads. It's the same fucking reaction every time. I see probably 50 people a day, and it's the same reaction, and I'm thinking, "Doesn't anybody have a fucking heart?" The company went bankrupt! People lost their jobs. This wasn't some Wall Street company, these guys just made ATMs. And everyone laughs when they see the sign. I live in a town full of heartless ass holes.

It is kind of funny. The irony of it. I just wish someone, anyone, would see the sign and say, "Aw. That's too bad."

Speaking of ass holes, my little sister came into the store with some fucking chingada hipster mother fucker with skin tight jeans, a gold piece around his neck, and the stupidest fucking haircut you've ever seen in your life. She's giggling all over the place like she's gone insane, and the dude looks like he's tripping on some shit my cousin' V sold him. Then, get this, they sneak back to where the sodas are and start making out. How do I know this? 'Cause the fuckin' store's got fuckin' mirrors all over the place, so I'm stuck there behind the counter watching this fuckin' cabrón cop a feel on my sister.
(A few words about my sister. She's a slut. I'm pretty sure she was giving hand jobs in the bathroom in fourth grade. If that wasn't enough, she comes into the market and steals condoms. I see her steal them because she's the worst shoplifter in the world, but I let her because nobody as stupid as her or as young as her - she's 16 this February - should ever ever EVER reproduce. So steal away you fuckin' slut.)

And fuck this tight jeans, gold chain wearing, high as a fucking balloon at the Macy's parade, puta madre who's after the easiest lay in Los Angeles. Next time he comes in my store, I'm beating his pussy ass with a loaf of bread and a can a beans. (But I probably won't need the can of beans. Puta.)

And fuck bankrupt ATMs and the people who laugh at them. That schadenfreude'll come back to bite you in the ass.

Yeah, I know the word schadenfreude.

Peace,
Julian

Sorry

Actually writing. I'm like a machine, right now. A writing machine.

My neighbor owns a chicken. The fucker won't stop clucking.

Back with more soon. Here's a picture:

GTA means Grand Theft Auto

This morning about 13 police cars and a police chopper descended outside my front door. The cars flew eastbound and out of sight, and then promptly returned, skirting around my corner. Eventually they decided to set up base about 200 yards from my house. Curious, I cautiously made my way toward them, until I was stopped by a police car blocking off the perimeter. (As an experienced production assistant, often told to "lock down the perimeter" I immediately sympathized with my brothers in blockade.) I asked the officer what was going on and he was kind enough to tell me they were looking for a GTA suspect. "Is he running or hiding?" I asked. "He's hiding," responded the officer. "And you're pretty sure he's hiding in one of those houses?" "Yeah. He's not going anywhere." "Great. 'Cause I live here," I said.

I then relayed to my neighbor what the cop told me. "Oh yeah," she said. "A lot of the kids down here are breaking into cars all the time. When you hear my dogs bark at night, they're barking at the kids peeking into the cars."

I didn't realize it until this morning, but this is the worst neighborhood I've ever lived in. The house is nice-ish (it doesn't have heat and it doesn't insulate so I'm basically paying to camp indoors - I literally slept in my sleeping bag until I got heavier blankets), my room is bigger than any room I've had before, but I suppose there's a reason I can afford such a room.

When I'm older and wealthier, I'm going to tell people about the time I lived in the ghetto.

Honestly, though, this isn't the ghetto. That's just what I'm going to tell people. You know, to up my street cred.

Oh - Pop Doyle requested pictures. Here ya go, Pop.

Atwater Village, CA. Jan. 13, 2009. Picture taken from my bedroom window.

Day 10

Part of the point of this blog was to elucidate just how mundane and meaningless my life is. And since I save most of my musical, movie, political, social commentary for The Static, I really don't have anything to write today.

So we're gonna do some free association:

Shower
Soap
Prison
Sodomy
Prop 8
Bigots
Mormons
Polygamy
Big Love
Chloe Sevigny
(I danced with her at Punky Reggae at La Cita)
(By "danced with" I mean stared at her trying to figure out if she was, in fact, Chloe Sevigny until she walked away. I concluded that she was indeed Chloe Sevigny.)
Did I ever tell you about the time I danced with Michelle Branch?

And Marissa Tomei?

Or the time my friend got shot down by Kirsten Dunst who, when asked if she wanted to dance, laughed and said, "Why? So you can tell all your friends?"


Jennifer Anniston (associated from "friends")
Did you see her naked spread in GQ? (It's on the left.) I think Jennifer Anniston is incredibly beautiful. But the GQ shots weren't particularly sexy even though she was completely naked. Here's why, I think: A.) She appears to be doing an impression of her cat, no? And B.) Anniston's appeal has a lot to do with her girl-next-door, check that, unbelievably-obscene-good luck-I-can't-believe-she's-the-girl-next-door, approachable thing. So when she did the GQ cover, she was beaming ear to ear. Smiling all over the place. This is why men love her. She's the opposite of intimidating. But when have you seen naked women in magazines, porn, on TV, etc. smiling? They don't! They stare seductively. They pout. They look dangerous and unattainable. All of which goes against Jennifer Anniston's niche appeal. Didn't the photographer know this? Why did he let her smile like that? Why didn't he tell her to "make love to the camera"?

I should be a photographer. Clearly, I'd be much better at it that than writing. I know how to make naked women pout.

um...

OK. That's enough word association for today.

The Poet

I used to want to be a poet. Well, to be fair, I wanted to be a rapper first. Yeah-huh. When I was in high school, I got turntables, practiced break dancing, and wanted to rap. I wrote rap lyrics to a song from my friends' band. They were in a jam band. Yeah. I wrote rap lyrics to a jazz-fusion jam band song. I was a star-crossed rapper, OK? Lay off.

Anyway, I gradually moved from that to wanting to be a slam poet. Have you ever seen the movie Slam? It's pretty good. It features Saul Williams who is to slam poetry what Savion Glover is to tap dancing. So I wanted to do that - be on stage, rapping without music, essentially. Performing.

From there, I decided I wouldn't mind actually being, you know, a real poet. Deep. Introspective. Mysterious. Sexy. What girl wouldn't want to strip off her clothes and jump the bone of a bad ass, harley davidson riding, poet with a sensitive heart? (Since I already had the sensitive heart, I just needed the bike, a few "bad ass" classes (maybe a leather jacket), and for someone to call me a poet. Someone other than my mom.)

I had notebooks full of poetry. Really really bad poetry. Cringe worthy. Some, maybe even puke worthy. For my first girlfriend when I was 17, the night before her first day of school I scattered rose petals on her seats, put two long stem roses in her steering wheel, and taped a two page, typed poem with four line stanzas and an ABCB rhyming pattern. Trust me, if I still had a copy of that poem, I'd post it for you right now. Self-deprecation is the name of the game.

Unfortunately, you'll have to settle for this little gem I wrote sophomore year of college for an intro to poetry class with a professor who occasionally took me a few other people onto the roof of the building to get high. Here it is for your enjoyment:

Feels Good

"I take a 2x4 to my head ‘cause it feels good.
Stood blood drip from my ears when a scream shook
Foundations of my soul and cataclysms of isms
For belief structures forcing frustration facin’
Annihilation of independent thoughts.

"Blood boils to exception in insult stew
With iris fires pouring down their sulfurous gaze
To be hazed by the constricting grasp that I construed
And last beyond my imagination to self deprecation defecating on my head.

"I belong to a class of perfection vexin’ me
Intellectual perplexity using tears for dissecting me
Runnin’ from society because love’s a bitch
That tears the stitches of reality
A mere parody of what’s supposed to be
So please don’t berate me with your arrogant belligery
‘Cause I do more shit to myself than you could ever dream."


Now let's dissect some of my favorite lines, shall we? As I'm sure we can see, rhyming was the absolute most important element to this piece. Content was, um, less than important, shall we say.

First of all, as with most poems I've ever written, this one grew from the first line. There was no concept, no overriding theme, and none, really, was ever installed. I just thought up, "I take a 2x4 to my head 'cause it feels good" and tried to figure out what would sound cool after that. Stood rhymes! Blood (almost) rhymes, if you read it like a moron. Shook, well, it rhymes better than blood.

I actually still like "cataclysms of isms." I'll go to the mat for that little guy.

Hey guys! News flash. Our "belief structures" are killing our independent thoughts! No, sorry. Actually, they're just forcing frustration. But I'm not entirely sure what our belief "structures" are. Is that religion? Churches? Capitol Hill? Am I talking about symbolic buildings? "Belief structures?" Hmm. This poem is deeper than I thought. Moving on...

"Blood boils to exception?" Anybody?

Now that whole second stanza is a pretty convoluted mind twister. And actually, the first line has absolutely nothing to do with the next three. "Iris fires pouring down their sulfurous gaze/To be hazed by the constricting grasp that I construed..." So "iris fires" - I'm gonna go with prying eyes. Being stared at. By stoners. Got it. "To be hazed by the constricting grasp"? Um...the irises are being hazed? By a grasp? That I made? I made this constricting grasp that is now hazing the irises of pot heads? That seems like a silly thing to have made.

But the next line may be my favorite of the whole: "And last beyond my imagination to self deprecation defecating on my head." Now that's just messy.

In terms socio-economic class, apparently, I've been placed in a class of perfection. OK. That sounds rather fortunate. Until you find out that it's "vexin' me." Because nobody really wants to be vexed. Not for long, at least. Maybe just a little after dinner.

And the intellectual perplexity is using tears to dissect me. I'm pretty sure that doesn't make any sense at all. Why is the perplexity crying? Why are its tears like scalpels? These are the questions that need to be asked, I think.

"Runnin' from society because love's a bitch/That tears the stitches of reality." So many things. First of all, I'd like to note the stunning colloquialism in the vernacular of this poem as G's are so casually dropped from the ends of words to make it all sound so much more natural; honest. Now suddenly, our character, the masochistic, constricting grasp construer, vexed perfection class member is on the run from Johnny Law, from society, why? Because "love's a bitch." I think Shakespeare wrote that. Or was it Miller? Brecht? No, I think it was Julia Roberts.

I'd like also to note the use of the heteronym "tears," the first of which referred to the saline, watery fluid secreted by the lacrimal glands between the surface of the eye and the eyelid, often flowing from the eye as a cause of intense emotion and, in this case, apparently used to dissect me, and the second example being the verb meaning to rip, in this case, the stitches of reality. The latter example, it could even be argued, was used as a form of dissection. You see? This is where I get particularly clever - while the heteronym "tears" has two different meanings and two different pronunciations, both uses of the word act in the same way. Brilliant!

Never mind the "love's a bitch" or "tears the stitches of reality" clichés. We've firmly established and supported my brilliance.

Now, when I showed this poem to the small writers group that met outside of class late at night with our professor who would occasionally smoke us out on the roof of our English building, one of the group members said that by saying "more than you could ever dream," I was setting an impossible mark because one's dreams are typically limitless and while you might not think of it, when prodded, you could almost certainly dream of a lot of "shit," so really, what is it you do that's "more than I could dream?" And I said, please don’t berate me with your arrogant belligery. Word.


So why didn't the poetry thing work out? I mean, with such stunning wordsmithery, how is it that I'm not already one of the literary community's most prized commodities? I'll never know. It's a tough world out there. But I've moved on to screenplays. And I'm almost positive I'm a better screenwriter than I was a poet.

Almost.

Slogans!

It occurs to me that there are a lot of misperceptions about being a writer. Since I am on the marketing and resources committee for the Proliferation of UnSatisfied Scribes in Every Society, or PUSSIES, for short, I thought I'd workshop a few slogans for a potential ad campaign. You know, to let people know what writing's really all about.

Writing: A sure fire way to alienate friends and family!

Writing: When shooting yourself in the foot is just too easy!

Don't like the taste of your foot? Try dipping it in ink for that extra long lasting zing!

Writing: a hobby for the socially impotent!

Never been kissed? Afraid to make eye contact with the opposite sex? Try writing! The vestige of virgins everywhere.

Like being stepped on? Try writing in Hollywood! Writing: a job for doormats.

Disappointment

The name of the game in the entertainment industry is disappointment. A lot of the time, there's absolutely nothing on the horizon, but occasionally some hint of a possibility of something great rears its head and your instinct is to jump up and down and tell everyone about this little possibility of something, which, given the dearth of any possibilities or options, actually looks like a huge, gigantic spectacular something and suddenly all your hopes and dreams are tied up in this thing that was actually only ever a tiny little maybe.

And when that tiny little maybe doesn't work out, because it was really very tiny in the first place and never really had much of a chance, you have to field all the follow up questions from friends and family asking how that thing worked out, or worse, proclaiming "You must be doing great, you know, with that thing." And morosely, you have to explain, "Yeah. That actually didn't work out, so..." And it fucking sucks.

Which is why I haven't told anybody what I'm about to write here, and the only reason I'm writing it is to build dramatic anticipation. You know, keep the reader coming back to find out what happened with that thing. Of the three people who read this blog, one of them will be upset to read it here first, but that's how it goes. I haven't wanted to tell anybody.

Here's the tiny little thing that most likely won't turn into anything: A friend of mine is a junior manager at a management company here in Los Angeles. He primarily represents actors, but in representing actors he develops relationships with directors, writers, producers, studios, etc. (Actually, I don't think there is an "etc." That about covers it.) Well, he's a big fan of a script I wrote and he's been very kind to send it out to a few directors and production companies. Apparently, one of the directors he sent it to really liked it. He liked it enough that he wants to have a meeting with me. From what I understand he has a deal with a production company that has a lot of money and does little family movies or something - I don't know. My script isn't exactly a family movie but it could be a little saccharine depending on the direction, so...

That's it. I haven't met with the guy yet. I don't have any clue what he wants from me or wants to discuss. Furthermore, and this is, I think, the saddest part - I don't feel like I'm in a position to decline any offers. I'm poor and, as the title of this blog implies, unsuccessful so if he offered anything, wouldn't I almost have to take it? Wouldn't I be geeked out of my gourd to take it? $2000? Yes please! $5000? OK! $10,000? Um, exqueeze me? Yes, I said "exqueeze" and that's exactly what I would say if I was offered $10,000 for anything. But I really like this story. I love this story. It's my favorite thing I've ever written, so what if I get the impression that this guy wants to taint it? Or what if the product is shit? How hard will it be for me to sell another script? And finally - I wanted to be the one to direct this. I wanted it to be my pet project. But lacking any kind of traction or progress in the writing field, I don't think I have that option.

I suppose I do. I guess what I mean is that I don't think I have the cojones to turn anyone down.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The name of the game is disappointment and there is about a 99% chance that absolutely nothing comes of this. I just thought I'd drop it on you to make this stupid little blog just a bit more interesting. Obviously, I'll keep the three of you in the loop.

Maybe I should tell more people I'm doing this.

Nah. It's gotta be a lot better before I do that.

Not so much today

I actually did extensive writing on the The Static. First in almost 6 months. Also did work on my feature length screenplay, Static Attic. And by, "did work" I mean I stared at a computer screen and then a pad of paper for about 4 hours with intermittent internet surfing in throughout.

I also sent my resume out but that never works.

Tonight I'm picking up a guy from dinner and driving him to his apartment. He does marketing for films, lives in New York but works in LA. I drive him around occasionally when his regular driver is unavailable. I'm not entirely (or at all) sure why he doesn't just get a cab. Hmm.

Anyway, more tomorrow. Maybe. I might be imbibing some fungus so I'll be on a deadline to get a post in before my computer screen looks purple and liquidy.

Regrouping

Well, I think in honor of Stewart Smalley being just a frivolous law suit away from attaining a seat in the Senate, I've resolved to look in the mirror and say 15 times a day:


It worked for Al Franken, albeit after a lengthy recount and the previously stated pending lawsuit, but hey, instant gratification is overrated.

No it's not.

Give me what I want now!!!!

Sorry.

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.

Thoughts

Loser.

You couldn't write your way out of a paper bag.

There are a thousand people out there a thousand times more talented than you.

You may have fooled them once; good luck doing it twice.

You call that a metaphor? Nobody talks like that.
This is a cliché.
I hate this. You're a cliche.
I should have been a lawyer. Taking the bar would have sucked. I suck.
So, because a few teachers, who couldn't themselves publish anything worth a bag of peanuts, sprinkled a few compliments over your head, you think you have something to offer?
Loser. How much longer before I pack it in, I wonder? What if I'm doing this when I'm 40?
I'm tired of being poor. You're an idiot. Most of your friends are better writers than you. You're lazy.A waste of space. You don't have an original thought in your head. You really think people will pay for this? Are you delusional? Maybe just insane. You should give up. Go back to school. Study economics. Or Chinese.That'd be smart.Other people are happy. Give up. Loser.Why can't you focus?If you want to be successful, you have to focus.That wasn't funny.Writing the blog isn't helpful.You can't do anything right. There are people your age making 100 times what you make.1000 times.1000 times zero is still zero.Loser.Give up.

Sometimes writing is hard.

"Hey, man. How come you're not writing?"

Well, been doing a lot of this:

















A lot of this...

















Not a lot of this...





















but, you know...someday.

DISC GOLF.
Combines some of my favorite things: hiking, weed, and...um...I forget.

Seriously, though. I think I may be one of the very few non-stoners who've grown addicted to throwing plastic circles into metal nets. The first time I ever went frolfing alone, I ran into some guys from Michigan. I struck up a conversation, being myself a Wolverine, and they invited me to play with them. Two holes later we were taking a blaze break.

I played my first round this November in Michigan with a friend who was getting married that afternoon. Needless to say, we smoked him out on the fifth hole, got him drunk by the eleventh, and he's now one of the most available bachelor's I know. C'mon ladies! He's a PhD chemist with responsibility issues who crumbles like a house of cards under the slightest peer pressure. He's a fixer-upper. A bad boy. With a PhD. Dr. Bad Boy. You can change him. Just give it a try!

Anyway, my lady friend got me some discs for Christmas and I've been addicted ever since. There are courses all over Southern California. So far, I've played on four different courses here in SoCal. My goal is to be good enough to join the SoCal Disc Golf Association. Not that you have to be good to join, but the only reason you would would be to play in the tournaments and I am no where near good enough for those.

"But wait," you say, "shouldn't you be focusing on writing and selling a script, or at least getting a job?"

Eh, fuck it. I'm gonna go frolf pro. Writing's for losers.


Here are some other things I've been doing:




Also, there's this:


And this:


And these:


And let's not forget:


Also, I'm reading:

by the late David Foster Wallace who sadly hanged himself earlier this year. And at 3lbs. and over 1000 of the densest pages you've ever read, I have to procrastinate to procrastinate.

And of course:


So, really, it's a shock I can write anything at all. The sad part is, this is probably only half of what I spend my time doing. I didn't include hiking, camping, eating, sleeping, drinking, masturbating...

God. I'm really depressed now. I am, indeed, a waste of space.

OK. I'm off to make something of myself.

Right after I do a few things...

Day Two

I suppose I should start coming up with wittier titles.

Here's a problem that I think most writers probably share and it fits in with what I mentioned yesterday - the bit about a writer being someone for whom writing is inherently more difficult than for other people: Since I call myself a writer, I have little to no desire to actually do something that involves writing - like writing a thank you note, or a witty email to be seen by more than one person, or a toast, or a grocery list - for fear of being found out, I suppose; of not living up to my title as a writer. Any time I write anything, in the back of my head I hear people say, "And you call yourself a writer." (Please note that I recognize the inherent contradiction in what I'm saying while simultaneously "writing" a blog. I am, as a person, an inherent contradiction. It is what it is.)

Thus, something like a title, if it isn't immediately obvious could cause me quite a bit of anxiety. So for today, let's just stick with "Day Two."

(Loving the "quotations" today.)

Wanna know why I want to be a writer? Too bad, I'm going to tell you - I hate to work. I hate having obligations. I hate doing just about anything. I don't like waking up in the morning. I don't like...

(Have to break for a quick second. I was positive that I just felt an earthquake. But the earthquake data bank for Los Angeles doesn't show anything, which means I'm losing my mind. This, of course, is fantastic news, since, as we all know, being bat shit insane is the first step to being universally regarded as a genius. Bring on the padded cell, I got a pen and pad waiting.)
...
They probably won't let me have a pen in the padded cell, huh?

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programing. (I'm really feeling earthquakes. I swear this apartment is shaking.) ...shopping, driving, phone calls, bills, spending money in any form for any reason, standing in line, dealing with any number of ass holes who also probably hate the same things I do, and probably hate a whole hell of a lot more, because their spouse is fed up and looking to have an affair out of spite, their kids are resentful and secretly hoping their parents find the stash of drugs under their bed just so they can know how resentful they are, and decided to take it out on me, the lowest rung of the ladder, which, I'd like to note, is always the rung that breaks first. The bottom rung is a bad place to be.

Now, this is not to be confused with laziness. I do all these things, just begrudgingly. So for fuck's sake, would somebody throw down a little green for me to sit on my ass and type at a computer. Is that too much to ask!?

(Like I said yesterday - complete lack of rational pragmatism.)

Today, I did write, though. I finished the first draft of that little short screenplay I was working on. It's about a British guy with OCD who's also schizophrenic and envisions as friends both John Wilkes Booth and a black Abraham Lincoln. I've already cast this little ditty in my head with some actor friends. Hopefully I can get this puppy up and running, 'cause I really need to direct something soon. (Oh, let's add to the clichés, shall we? Say this in an obnoxiously pompous, self-inflated voice: "I'm a writer, but what I really want to do is direct." Then buy a gun, find me, and shoot me.)

OK. I'm tired now. Gonna go watch an episode of the West Wing. See you tomorrow.

Day One

Hi. I am a writer in Los Angeles. One of many. One of thousands. Just in Los Angeles. This doesn't include the myriad writers in every other corner of the world who truly believe that they have something worthwhile, no, worth value, to contribute to the masses. It's a sickness, I think. A complete lack of rational pragmatism. It's similar to the concept of buying lottery tickets day in and day out, except writing requires effort beyond a trip to the 7-11. It requires discipline, oodles of time, ample amounts of arrogance, and, most importantly, the will to sit down in front of a computer or a pad of paper and actually write. My mother once said, and I'm sure she stole this quote from somewhere, that "a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than for other people."

(To give you an example of how impossible this can be, I had the strongest compulsion just now to look up the genealogy of "7-11" to learn why, exactly, it's called "7-11" for no reason beyond curiosity. I also want to go to ESPN and find out what college basketball games are coming up. And for that matter, I haven't checked the Huffington Post in almost 15 minutes. In other words, the internet is the devil and I am a weak weak man.)

The irony of this, of course, is that I should be working on a short screenplay. (Yes, I am a screenwriter. And now a blogger. I feel more and more like a cliche every day.) So while we analyze the reasons for my lack of success, well, this blog provides just the kind of ironic twist I do so enjoy.

I'm going to try to keep this running daily. I've only once ever been able to approximate that kind of consistency, and only for a month. I'd like to detail the course my life takes for a while. For instance, I am currently unemployed, writing this in a room in a house I found on craigslist, a house which is old and has no heat, and worse still, no insulation, and so I am sitting in a winter coat with knit cap at my desk while, in the background, one of my roommates, a 30 something video game tester, proceeds to clear his throat over and over again at an obscene volume with what can only be described as the sound of tearing paper. Lovely.

I didn't write a single word yesterday. Want to know why? I watched an episode of Friday Night Lights, played a round of disc golf, went to dinner, went to a party, came home and fell asleep.

Most of the time I feel like a waste of space. My hope is that this blog will at least get me to sit at my computer and get those writing juices flowing.

And just to let you know. I am currently at different stages in the production of three projects. One is a short screenplay, the other a feature length, and the third is a short story.

So - I'm off to write. Fingers crossed.