Mister T

I feel like Mister T lately. I turned down the horror film in order to write what I'm calling my High Concept idea next. I'm probably going to turn down an offer I got to play drums in a band. And these three other writers I had lunch with today want to "gang write" a script, and even though I (half-heartedly) committed to it, I'm gonna have to be Mister T on that one, too. Mister Turndown.

Feedback has been inexorably filtering in on Air Conditioned Jungle. A friend with a cutting sense of humor called me at 8:45 this morning to tell me I was a fraud. Nice to wake up laughing, it's good for the circulation. My manager met with me two days ago to talk it over and I could tell he wasn't feeling it. I think maybe he didn't get the comedy. He used a lot of praising language, but it all had the studied sound of the therapist telling the patient that vioelnt fantasies are perfectly natural, all the while making imaginary finger circles around her ear. A few other friends gave detailed thoughts, for which I'm grateful. Some people even liked it a lot. Go figure. I'm anxious to get back to it, but not too anxious since I'm taking a much needed break. Alas, I'm going to need to get back to it pretty soon. It sits too long, it'll get shuffled to the backburner, and the backburner is bad. Bad burner.

Paris is in the offing, writing in the cafe's of Paree. More about that later. For now, I'm going to just sit in the hot tub (at the Y, which is not as gay as it sounds) and think of all the actors I could cast in AC Jungle. That's always fun. The thinking, not the hot tub. Hot tub is relaxing. In a very straight way. Although...

Decision or two or three

So here's the deal in no particular order: Last monday I was offered a job working with a director to develop an original idea she has for a creepy, Ring-like horror film. There's money involved, and it would be the second writing gig I will have been commissioned for in almost two years (which is not bragging, no). Her idea is not terrible, and it even sounds like she wants to make an intelligent and thoughtful movie - which, naturally, Hollywood will inoculate with stupid. But lest I let my bitterness flow too freely, let me just say the offer is very tempting whatever the outcome. The money is sufficient that if I can do the whole thing in two months, I will have made out pretty well.

It's a career decision more than a money thing right now. I mean, let's face it, I need the money. But the dilemma for me is What Should I Write Next? A horror movie? Not according to an article in today's Hollywood Reporter. The thing I have next up to write is an idea of my own, and it is the first High Concept idea I've ever had that is any good. What I mean is that I usually don't have high concept ideas, and just the fact that I do have one and I actually like it is something new and exciting - and according to certain parties, the only way I'm ever going to make a career of this. Btw, if you aren't familiar with the term High Concept, peep this.

Into the mix, throw in that I finished my own script on Friday and now I feel a burning need to move quickly on to the next thing. If the script that is in the hands of the production company, director and Rober Duvall ever gets made, I need to have a couple of things under my belt to show people right away, striking while the iron is ever-so-briefly hot. Finishing my latest script, Air Conditioned Jungle, I have one down, one to go; half of a powerful arsenal to show any prospective agent/producer/craven money man. Comes to this: my High Concept career-making idea is wrestling the horror offer for top spot on my to do list.

Oh, and my girlfriend is going to be in Paris for nine weeks working on The Bachelor, or Le Bachelorr as I like to say it, so I'm pondering a sojourn to The City of Lights. You know, to write on cafe napkins.

Meager placeholding nothingness

There may be a band in my future. And a trip to Paris. One does not have anything to do with the other. But these are good things. Plus I finished my script on Friday. Still... it's late Sunday night and despite the relative good news of late, I'm going to finish listening to Jeff Buckley's version on "Hallelujah" and get all wistful and sad. Mmm, Sunday nights and sadness. As it was, as it ever shall be.

More tomorrow.

Crazy Town

Just in case you're wondering, this is the guy some of your favorite celebrities worship. Makes us hysterical Hollywood liberals look normal by comparison.

Note to Future Drunken Self...

Maybe not to get on the blog after a night of the pints and quarts.

Awoken this morning by my asshole neighbor yelling at her mother on the phone. 6:30 am. Then her house workers arrived at 8 and started sanding at 8:30. The sanding is over, and it must be staining time because the vapors coming in my window are making me a bit lightheaded.

It could just be that I'm sick of my godforsaken script - I've been doing nothing else for two and a half months and it's time to birth the friggin thing and get it out, get it read and up on the site.

Hmmm. Maybe there is an interesting experiment to be made of posting a script on this site as a Wiki and releasing into the arms of strangers to make it better. Since Hollywood screenplays are already a jumble of faceless particpants, why not just cut to the chase and get you, the audience, to write exactly what you want to see? Do away with credit altogether! Yes! Let's hear it for armchair quarterbacks!

But first I must quit dithering. I actually need to finish the thing before I can throw it up on here for you bastards to rip apart. And so I leave you, dear reader, to court the muse.

By the way

Does it really get much better than Young Frankenstein? Gene Wilder, my idol.

Update after numerous beers and years having gone by

I mean, let's face it. Has it been a very interesting life so far? I think we know the answer. And the answer is no. Really. Not all that interesting. It hasn't been so interesting. There is... oh, I'll be conservative and say there is... a truckload left to do. You know, to make it interesting. Or at least to not make it not an out and out waste. It's been pretty pedestrian so far. I mean, when you come right down to it. Pretty generic. Did this, went here, saw that. But no particularly good war stories. Nothing out of the ordinary, that's for sure. Nothing that I think makes them say hey, or wow, or how about that. You know, pretty run of the mill shit. Sure there's the Hollywood angle. But really. I mean. Is that such a big deal? I mean, not such big deal to me, not such a big deal to all the others out here. It's just the way it is.

Ah. Yeah. I guess it's bedtime. Time to sleep 'er off. Sorry folks.

Woozy

Bleary eyes. Pinching at the bridge of the nose. Pressure in head. Numbness in nether reigons. Repetetive stress syndrome. Suppressed appetite. And, of course, the weak bladder. Yep, I'm in the mad dash to finish my first draft. Page 89, if you're interested. I'm unable to sleep, as well. It's impossible to work any faster, and I'm not working fast enough. Gotta be done by Wednesday of next week. That's the goal. I cannot, cannot, cannot pass it. I'm a stress case. I need a vacation. I need a salt bath and a rub down. I need to get this monstrosity out of my head.

So it's going well. Which really just means that I actually have and ending and I think it works and that's all... Quality - that's a whole nother story.

AH, there is so much going on otherwise that I don't even know where to begin, and since I'm doing this at the end of my work day, I'll just skip for now. But there's crazy stuff going on. It's been a trying week and a half. I wonder if I have a career? Probably. In the automotive industry.

The Rundown

I passed the 60-page mark on my current screenplay. This means it's beginning to be a real screenplay and not just 50 pages of shit. Although I suppose it could now be 60 pages of shit, but that's unlikely. I tend to believe the more pages you rack up, let less fecal a script seems. Less pages means more room for it to just flame out as you realize it was a bad idea from the get-go. When you're deep in there, 40, 50, 60 pages in, how can it suck? How can you have chased this sucky idea for that long? Answer: you couldn't have, your good sense wouldn't have let you. Then again, I once got coverage that said a script I wrote was a "bad idea badly written." So I don't know. Hemingway's got his opinion about the first draft of everything, so I guess by his lights it's all shit no matter how many pages I log - that is, until I turn it into a second draft. Funny aside... a quote from Jim Jarmusch, spoken to a NY Times reporter at this year's Cannes: "I don't do drafts." You tell 'em, Jim.

Had a major revelation yesterday that basically gave me the whole ending. It was a real eureka moment, one of those kind that come few and far between in a writer's life, and it was exhilerating (sp?). Really. I my emailed my old writing partner. I called my girlfriend. I wanted to call my mom, but it was too late in New Jersey.

Chatted up the writer of Crash and Million Dollar Baby, who works out of theOffice these days. Nice guy. Smokes a lot. I should smoke. He looks pensive when he does it. Of course it's probably the Oscar nomination that makes him look pensive.

Writing a 12 minute short with Matt, my newer writing partner, to submit to a festival and/or shoot ourselves. It follows the night and day Dr. John Barry Roundtree, spiritual guru, has a life altering meltdown involving his long-lost mistress and a contract killer. Prediction: HIGH-larity.

Submitted some writing samples to The Bedford Diaries, Tom Fontana's new show, which was picked up for next year. Those of you who know me know I've been trying for ten years to vie for a job with him. Now I'm in the running and it's all up to my talent. Whooooo boy. I'm doomed.

Still no script from the Get Low director. And here it is nearly Memorial Day. Hmm.

Sorry!

Settings are changed... and saved. This time it should work.

Small Change

A few of you, my devoted public, have mentioned that it's hard to post a comment on here since it involves getting an account, filling out shit, etc. Well, I've gone into the settings and made some changes to hopefully rectify this. Anyone wants to try and see if it's easier, go for it. It's worth it. For me. I need the attention.

Good Game

I should be at the gym, but as promised, here's a quick wrap-up of my first social engagement with the producers of Get Low.

I met the brothers Zanuck at their Beverly Hills office at quarter of 7, and was introduced to their friend, Bill. He was a nice red-haired Pacific Palisader by way of Canada, and we got along just fine. Turns out Bill is the guy who put together the budget & shooting schedule for Get Low. And through talking to him, I picked up a few tid bits about the status of the film, most notably that Louisiana now leads the race for locations (which is on account of the extremely friendly tax laws regarding film production). Sorry North Carolina.

We all took Dean's car to the game, and for a good long while everyone chatted about baseball and hockey while I watched traffic out the window, only to chime in with an occasional laugh whenever they referenced an obscure shortstop or a goalie's memorable facial hair. Getting to our seats (section 20, behind the visitor dugout) with a beer and a Dodger Dog took no time, and we were witness to a really great game in which Milton Bradley took the Dodgers, down by two, to a 7-4 win off an 8th inning grand slam. Now, I'm not much of a sports guy, but I'm not made of stone: it was unbelievably exciting, and Dean later told me he had never seen two grand slams in one game (the Braves lead was on account of an earlier grand slam, which Dean blamed on my mere sports-inept presence).

Bill and I sat next to one another and talked movies, and since the guy's been in the business a while, he had some pretty good stories about Pacino, Streep, Lumet, Costner, Eastwood and Johnny Knoxville. Soon enough the big fun of the game wound down and victory was imminent, and we left riding a high from the great 8th inning rally.

I was home by 11, greeted by my two neighbors sitting in the courtyard. They offered me a drink, and I thought it was a fine idea, so I obliged. They are both in their own ways - as are most people in this city - in the business, so we talked and gossiped and swapped war stories well into the night, promising to have an apartment complex BBQ in the near future. It probably won't happen, but - as with most people in this city - we were just talking a good game.

Okay, off to the gym to sweat off two Dodger Dogs and an $8.00 Michelob. Until next time.

TMI

I don't know what it is about being "self employed," but I seem to have way too much stuff to do; all these magazine articles to catch up on, all sorts of podcasts (mankind's greatest invention) to listen to, all sorts of news items to keep up with... and it suddenly seems too much. I guess if I was either 1) living in a mountain retreat, or 2) Busy with work, I wouldn't have the sheer time it takes to try and keep up, and I certainly wouldn't have time to complain about it on my bloggg. Maybe it's time to fill out that application at Borders.

Things progress with the screenplay. I sent the first third to my old writing partner Scott, all the way out in Atlanta. We'll see what he's got to say for me. Yesterday I spent at least five hours writing the same scene over and over, only to realize that it was crap, and that I had to go back and take another swing. It's the kind of thing that happens all the time, so I'm not mad. I guess that's the way it goes in writing (and life [resigned sigh])... you gotta plow through the seemingly important bullshit only to realize how wrongheaded and misguided you were, just so you can finally look at something the right way. Like deglazing a pan. Sorta. I don't know if that's an apposite analogy.

Open question to the four people who read this: in the spirit of file-sharing and freedom of information and all that good stuff, I was considering posting the first draft of my oft-delayed screenplay if and when I finish it. Lots of friends ask me to send them something to read and I never do. So I thought I might post the first draft, and some subsequent drafts just to sort of, I don't know... see what happens. I would copyright it, of course, thanks for asking, and I would, I dunno. Just. See where it goes. Anyone think this is a good / bad / legally actionable idea? Is there anyone out there?

Okay, for next time, I swear, I'm going to try and spruce up this thing, post a few pictures, a few more links, something. This is pretty dry, I know it. Also, next time, a full report on the Producers-taking-me-to-a-Dodger-game aftermath.

Nothing's ever dead, only sleeping

New screenplay is going along well. I stopped blindly ploughing forward and looked back over what I had done and tried to think it all through. Man, it was thrilling. Nothing I like to do more than think; I'm not a doer, I'm a thinker. Isn't that what this blog proves, really?

The on-again-off-again pilot I wrote with my partner Matt ("Crime & Order: NY") has been once again resurrected from the grave and will get us a meeting some time next week with a company called A Band Apart. It proves what I'm coming to learn about show business, which I stated up there in the title line.

The other interesting/funny/slightly nerve-wracking thing is that after two plus years of a strictly business relationship with the producers of Get Low, suddenly they have invited me and my manager to a Dodger game. I will be going alone (as far as I know) since my manager will be out of town on business. And I am touched by the invitation to do something social, of course, but the Sicilian in me can't help but wonder if it isn't the perfect way to have me whacked. The sort of thing where they suggest I run up the concession stand and get a few bags of Cracker Jacks, and then while I'm waiting in line, some thick-necked goon asks me to follow him into a utility closet, where he then drapes a canvas bag over my head and beats me with a Louisville Slugger.

Or it could just be that they're being thoughtful and nice.

The Spine's the Thing

I'm back from New York and driving from place to place, living the life of an itinerant writer. No office, no desk, no smartly-dressed assistant. Today my exploits took me from Mani's Bakery on Fairfax, to the Beverly Hills Library (where there was a most disruptive fire drill), to the Noura Cafe (where I saw tattoo enthusiast Fred Durst), to the relatively new coffee shop on Cahuenga and Sunset, Groundwork (in front of which a motorcyclist was injured in accident, though not badly enough to forgo a cigarette while awaiting medical attention). I feel like I really got a mouthful of Los Angeles today. At least the coffee shops.

Digression: sooner or later, I am going to write about the coffee shops. The "public spaces," too. Anyplace that's amenable to writers and their particular needs. I'll rate them in the detail I expect you would expect from a writer, and might even employ a scale. Something like 1-5, 1 being Hell, i.e. writing while sitting on the men's room toilet in Jumo's Clown Room, 5 being Heaven, i.e. writing at that pay-as-you-go place theOffice... if it were free and in Los Feliz.

ANYway,

My task for the next five weeks is to finish the script I've been nesting on for, oh, the last couple of years. Long ago, I decided to take the I'll-just-let-it-tell-itself approach after spending literally years grinding out the structure, structure, structure on Get Low. I was exhasausted of fucking structure. I just wanted the freedom to write, man. Well, a hell of a lot of good that did me, four years down the pike. There's kind of a *reason for structure. Go figure. So guess what? Back to plotting it out moment for moment until the spineless blob of a "story" I've puked up makes some sense. And so that's what I've done for the last two days (my first two days back at it since I dropped the ball in NY). I've scrapped all the stuff that was going nowhere and laid it all out. It's all about the outline, I don't care who says otherwise. I've tried it every other way and it doesn't work any other way. It just doesn't. And it sucks.

Indulgent Self-Pitying Bullshit

I have ideas. Things kicking around. Things I'd like to chase down, figure out, write about. TV scripts, film scripts; I still have the notion of trying my hand at a novel - but my priorities have recently been put in a new light. Right before I left L.A. for another round of freelance work in New York, three weeks ago, I was told about the projected start date for Get Low. Sept. 12, as I mentioned in the previous entry. Backtiming from then, it means the script that I'm currently writing has to be bagged, stuffed and mounted by the middle of June so that I have something to bring a producer or studio when the project is officially announced in the trade papers and I hopefully (nay, must) begin meeting people around town. And yet I feel stalled. I can't get any time to write here in New York, but I wonder if that's really the problem. I wonder if the script is begotten of a bad idea. I have been trying to write this story in some version or another since 2001. I wonder if I am a would-be one hit wonder. I am pretty sure I can bring it home, but I'm just as sure that it could languish in my mind forever.

It has been a difficult time for me lately, really for a while now. I guess I mean mentally or emotionally or whatever. I suppose us writers are prone to self-scrutiny and introspection and even neurosis since we lead lives of sensitivity and thoughtfulness and solitude. So maybe I've chosen a vocation that plays to my weaknesses just as strongly as my strengths. Or maybe it is nothing so conspiratorial as my profession's influence upon me. Maybe I was born melancholy and indecisive and destined to gravitate toward this oh so impeccibly tailored job. Or maybe, finally, I am in love with nothing more than the idea of being a sourpuss.

I do know that I suddenly feel under pressure to prove I can write, something I thought I had already done. I feel the urgency to write the right thing, thus proving my value as a commodity to Hollywood filmmakers. I also feel the need to be myself, write the kind of things I want to live with for years at a time; to develop ideas that I find interesting no matter the likelyhood of financial success; and to challenge myself to be not merely good, but excellent.

As I prepare to return to my home in L.A., I consider the choices I'm faced with in the coming weeks regarding my state of mental and emotional health, but also what work I devote myself to. There is weird static in the air and the sky is green. Something's coming.

The wonderful thing about writing is that it is an escape, a dream. By writing all day I escape the problems and decisions I, and we all, must make just as surely as though I were taking a narcotic. I live in a world of my own creation and while away the hours in a fantasy that ends only when I decide. Could that be why I can't finish my script?

A Date

September 12th. That's the projected shoot date. We'll either be in Georgia or North Carolina September 12th. Word came from the producers via email late last night. They're going to send us preliminary budgets and location stuff today. And so it seems like the pieces are being put into position.

Strange to have an actual date. It makes it sort of real. You can circle it on the calendar. The 12th. That's really only a couple of months from now. Four days before my birthday. I'd turn 32 on set. Celebrate my birthday with grips and gaffers and catering people.

Big News

So the big news is that I'm sick again, the third time in about nine weeks. I think maybe I'm dying. I gotta think the whole thing is cancer related, or at least the early stages of that disease where you freeze in one position for years at a time. Like in that Oliver Sachs book. I'm doomed. I gotta go to the doctor tomorrow for the official diagnosis. Probable scenario: "Plague, son. You have Bubonic Plague."

A few things have been going on here in LaLa town. The most significant is that the film is starting to take the shape of one of those hurricane reports. Certain meteorilogical phenomenon are unfolding off the coast of South America and everyone down at the National Weather Service is keeping an eye on things as they develop. It's too early to predict a path or a place of direct impact, but it all has the air of inevitability. Soon charts will be drawn up and computer models will animate courses and trajectories and The National Guard will mobilize and take appropriate evacuation measures.

The producers have hired a line producer, basically a nuts-and-bolts money guy, to draw up a budget; various film commissions have been notified of our intent to shoot this thing, and as a result are courting us for our business; and the director is back from shooting a pilot and is set to retool the script (if he hasn't already begun). The pieces are falling into place. Nothing is really happening to me, per se, but the production is more than ever seeming to take on a life of its own.

Me, I'm doing a little more work for that production company in New York, the one that does all the Food Network stuff. I'm also waiting for the official word on a job my writing partner and I pitched for. It's a improv show on Comedy Central that is loosely described as Reno 911 in a crappy San Diego hospital. We haven't heard no, but we haven't heard yes. In a way, we're not out, we're just not in.

Misc:

Tonight NBC's version of "The Office" premieres. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

I do not pretend to have discovered this excellent web radio station, but I am giving it my full-hearted endorsement. If you care at all about good music, tune in and rejoice.

God bless Tylenol PM

The Writer's Lot

Not much been going on since I been kickin it in New York. I mean there has, but since I'm ensconced in the dreamy chill of the city I haven't really had to pay all that much attention to my "career," such as it is, either here or in LA.

Life in Manhattan has been good, and I am glad to have been extended for these few more couple of weeks, although bedding on the brother's couch is growing more loathesome, the sleep more restless, and the routine increasingly discombobulating. I guess as good as a vacation from life can be, all good things must come to an end. To that point, I should discuss the ostensible subject of this blog, my life in showbiz.

These days, I have been sort of brushed aside as far as the current rewrite of my script is concerned. Early last week I got a call from the producers who asked for my blessing in assigning a new draft of the screenplay to the director. They felt the time was ripe for him to take a swing at achieving his vision. Now perhaps I have been numbed by the process, but I'm not as righteously indignant as perhaps you might think. I can sum up my feelings by quoting Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood. "Let's shoot this fucker." Seriously. If they think that getting him to make with the clackety-clack will hasten the process, God Bless. I sure am tired to death of flogging the horse's bloated carcass. Maybe he'll even bring some fresh insight to it. And I'll go one step further and be charitable; I think he'll do a good job. Might even improve it. Of course, he could never get it perfect because he's not me. But I don't expect perfection, only integrity (which I know is scarce in Hollywood, but go ahead... call me a naif). Above all the thing that lets me sleep at night is not faith, hope, or charity, but the iron-clad knowledge that there are too many checks and balances in place (the producers power to ameliorate grievances; my ability to dash the whole project by walking away) for all hope to be lost in some terrible new draft. Put simply, no matter how bad he might shit the bed, we can always clean it up.

So I say, good luck then. As long as no one fucks me on credit, no one fucks me out of having some say in the subsequent rewrites and polishes, and no one fucks me the whole way down the slippery slope, then I will be one secure, satisfied, Hollywood writer.


Oh I'm so fucked.

a little something for the effort

The show that I worked on last summer is finally going to be given its day in court. You may or may not recall it was named Carmageddon, then for undisclosed reasons renamed Carpocalypse, and basically consisted of rednecks driving into each other on a Florida speedway for 42 minutes. Ten weeks I worked on that show - on one single episode - and then Spike pulled the plug. Put another team of producers on. I've no idea how it turned out. But I'll get a chance to find out! It has apparently been finished and will get its short flicker of life beginning next Saturday night.

Curiously, Spike TV is promoting it here... but nowhere else that I can find (no bus ads, no billboards and certainly no tv spots), which can only mean the poor show is being unceremoniously dumped and will most certainly have an anonymous and ignominious death. But, what are you gonna do? That's TV. At least I got paid. I may have even gotten a credit! Of course, it will be buried under the the dozens of other triage doctors who swooped in to try and save the friggin thing.