I'm aiding and abetting the Net's war on attention spans by writing short little posts instead of my usual lengthy ones. I came up with a good ending to the second screenplay I'm working on (I shelved the first one because I don't think it was quite scary enough for the festival I'm sending this to), and I started another one last weekend (hence the high word count, trying to get it done in time -- it's due by next Friday). Anyway, I was on the bus, jotting notes, trying to think of an ending, and then it just clicked for me. I don't even know what inspired it, but I was really pleased with it. It's a far stronger piece than my original effort (I like the original, but it's more of a SF thriller than a horror story, whereas this new one is more psychological horror, and I think it'll work better -- although I'm sure I won't win the festival, because I know my luck).
Bizarrely, just yesterday, I saw the surname of one of the characters on the side of a charter bus! I'd only come up with the surname a couple of days before, and I was just sitting on the bus, daydreaming, and I saw the name roll by the bus windows (with a wave motif, which was even more perfect), and I was momentarily astounded by that. Like the Cosmos having a bit of fun with me.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Snakes Alive!
I saw a nice, healthy garter snake in my work neighborhood the other day. I think that was the first time I've ever seen a snake in the city (I'm sure they were probably here, but I've just never seen one before). It was great -- easily two feet long, maybe two (of my) fingers thick, slithering across the sidewalk and into a garden. I loved seeing that. Some Latinas were approaching with a stroller, and I announced the snake, like "Wow, a garter snake!" because I didn't want them to run over it with their stroller (they didn't see it until I mentioned it). It was way cool. I just loved how healthy it was. The street that it was on is perfect for it, because it has gardens all around it, not too much traffic, and there's a wild area on the side of the Metra tracks, too, that provides a kind of mini-sanctuary for it. Go, snake!
Happy 40th!
Man, did you notice that I have stubbed my toes 40 times since March 10? Christ. I am a chronic toe-stubber. In honor of the 40th (which happened just a few moments ago), I'll mention it briefly -- I was walking from the computer room into the living room, and I completely nailed my left foot, third toe, against B2's little bike with training wheels (while I'd sidestepped the bike itself, the black training wheels evaded scrutiny). Total punt. Lordy! I really need titanium house slippers, or at least steel-toed ones. Simple math...
Big Feet + Small Apartment = Stubbed Toes.
Big Feet + Small Apartment = Stubbed Toes.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Hamburger
This clip makes me laugh...
Andy Warhol Eats a Hamburger
I should've filmed myself eating that KFC Double Down the other day!
Andy Warhol Eats a Hamburger
I should've filmed myself eating that KFC Double Down the other day!
Monday, May 24, 2010
Butterflies
I had the boys at the playground yesterday (their usual one, the closest one where so many of their peers play), and B1 ran into his Best Girl (a lot of girls really like B1, because he's very sweet and earnest and cute, but Best Girl loves him most of all, is always writing him valentines and what-not). Anyway, she saw him and called him over to the swing with her, and she said "How do you like my new sundress, [B1]?" and he swung on his own swing beside her (they were swinging in tandem) and he said "It looks like it might attract butterflies." -- he said it in the most earnest way possible. It was so adorable. She ate that up with a spoon! They then played a bunch of Tag, Hide-N-Seek, and some intense Rock, Paper, Scissors.
The funny thing for me was the last time we were at the playground, a butterfly landed on me (which they do sometimes, go figure), and I told B1 that sometimes if I wore certain-colored shirts, butterflies seemed to land on them. So, I imagine B1 just processed that and delivered that picture-perfect line without it even being a line* -- he just logically deduced that her lavender, pink, and baby blue sundress was colorful enough to attract butterflies, and told her so. Super-cute!
*Disclaimer: Lest the Gender Police haul me in, I don't endorse or believe in delivering lines, but in that sense of saying just the right thing at the right moment, B1 completely had it, ergo me terming it as a "line" in this context.
The funny thing for me was the last time we were at the playground, a butterfly landed on me (which they do sometimes, go figure), and I told B1 that sometimes if I wore certain-colored shirts, butterflies seemed to land on them. So, I imagine B1 just processed that and delivered that picture-perfect line without it even being a line* -- he just logically deduced that her lavender, pink, and baby blue sundress was colorful enough to attract butterflies, and told her so. Super-cute!
*Disclaimer: Lest the Gender Police haul me in, I don't endorse or believe in delivering lines, but in that sense of saying just the right thing at the right moment, B1 completely had it, ergo me terming it as a "line" in this context.
LOST and Found
Judging from what I read about the LOST finale, I'm so glad I stopped watching it after the first 1.5 seasons -- I felt the cop-outtery of it back then, the sense of the writers making it up as they went along and yanking the viewers. Plus, in a situation like the setup, it seemed pretty clear that everybody was dead and didn't know it, yet, right? Anyway, I'm sure a lot of people will be peeved at the ending, which couldn't help but dissatisfy, since the show depending on spackling mystery atop enigma atop intrigue atop paradox -- all to keep the advertising dollars rolling in as people waded through it. I lost LOST long ago and don't feel any sense of loss for it, either.
I wonder what effect it'll have on television programming in the future, if any? It's the kind of gag a television writer can only really get away with once, without it being too derivative. In a weird way, the land where anything can happen is almost the same as the land where nothing happens. Part of what makes the uncanny great is when it happens in a setting where you know something totally shouldn't be happening, where it can't be happening -- the "super" in the supernatural.
Had to laugh with GAWKER on this (since it's a complaint I've made a few times)...
So, the show made its money, did its job. On to the next distraction, whatever that may be! Maybe a television show about a television show, and the actors and writers who make it?!
Speaking of that, "So You Think You Can Dance?" starts this week! My favorite "reality" show! Apparently they're bringing back winning dancers from the previous seasons to pair up with the contestants this year (I think that's the case, anyway), so that should be fun. Love seeing dancers get their proper due on a prime-time show. Go, dancers!
I wonder what effect it'll have on television programming in the future, if any? It's the kind of gag a television writer can only really get away with once, without it being too derivative. In a weird way, the land where anything can happen is almost the same as the land where nothing happens. Part of what makes the uncanny great is when it happens in a setting where you know something totally shouldn't be happening, where it can't be happening -- the "super" in the supernatural.
Had to laugh with GAWKER on this (since it's a complaint I've made a few times)...
We learned nothing from two-and-a-half hours of slow-motion bullshittery backed with a syrupy soundtrack.
So, the show made its money, did its job. On to the next distraction, whatever that may be! Maybe a television show about a television show, and the actors and writers who make it?!
Speaking of that, "So You Think You Can Dance?" starts this week! My favorite "reality" show! Apparently they're bringing back winning dancers from the previous seasons to pair up with the contestants this year (I think that's the case, anyway), so that should be fun. Love seeing dancers get their proper due on a prime-time show. Go, dancers!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Whew
Over 9000 words written this weekend, trying to wrap up the screenplay. I still think the story's trending more toward Action/Suspense/Thriller than out-and-out Horror, but what can I do? It'll be what it'll be. Still have a little over a week to iron it all out.
Soccerday
Exene stayed behind with B2 (both of them are sick -- Exene more so, with some kind of tonsillitis thing going on; B2 just has a bit of bronchitis), while I took B1 to his soccer game. His team lost (1-2), which is a rarity for his team. He was fine with it -- he doesn't care. Afterwards, there was a tailgating party hosted by one of the parents, but B1 wasn't interested in that, was more interested in walking on the rocks on the lakeshore, so we did that. It was fun to explore that with him -- I could tell he really enjoyed that. I tried to teach him how to skip stones, and we watched schools of fish. A soccer girl his age hung around in the distance, watching us. She was this quiet tomboy, hopping back and forth on the stones above and behind us, but she was fascinated by our activities on the shore, our talking and stone-skipping, judging from her reaction. I don't think B1 even saw her. Then a group of boys ran up to B1 and said "Hey, I know that guy" to B1 (he didn't know who the other boys were, but those kids all went to his school), and then the tomboy disappeared, while the boys got into adventures on the rocks. If she hadn't been wearing a soccer uniform, I'd have thought she was a ghost! I don't think the AYSO supports ghosts, however.
After that, I took B1 to McD's for a bit to eat, and then we took the bus home. I took a lot of photographs. I'm glad the city hasn't replaced all the massive stones on the lakeshore (like it did further south). The stones are wonderful, they really make the shore fun.
Going home, I watched the original "The Vanishing" -- a quietly creepy European (Dutch, I think) flick that might qualify as a horror movie, but in a very real-world kind of way, nothing supernatural.
I wrote over 4000 words yesterday, working on the screenplay for the deadline (looming, now). Today I'm going to try to get the rest of it done.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Double Down
Thursday, May 20, 2010
I SHOULD be sleeping.
I'm awake for the moment. Up past my bedtime. Gonna be wiped tomorrow, for sure! I just watched a movie, am thinking about it a bit. Thinkin' about lotsa stuff. I love how quiet it gets -- there's just this kind of thrumming purr to the city right now, that nice urban hum. I like that. When we moved from the east side of the building to the west, I thought I'd miss the sunrises, but I really don't -- I like seeing the buildings at night; they're fun.
Decayed
Funny to think I'll have been at my current employer for ten (10) years at the start of next month. I remember when I reached the four-year point, thinking "Wow, I've never worked anywhere more than four years before..." -- and here I am, nearing the 10-year mark. I came into it a dewy-eyed 30-year-old with dreams of editorial grandeur (bahah -- yeah, right -- at the time I had no job, having left the other place I'd worked about six months before, so the Asylum served its purposes admirably, back in the day, although I remember thinking "This is the last 925 Grind job I'll ever have.") and will leave it a gimlet-eyed 40-year-old with far bigger dreams (and having seen all sorts of oddities and wonders at the Asylum -- all of which will be transformed and explored in fiction at a time of my choosing). Anyway, I definitely hope to get my 10-year pin before I flee the Asylum.
Led Zeppelin, "Ten Years Gone"
It's just funny to look back on the Year 2000, when I was 30. At age 30, I didn't write fiction seriously (sure, I did as a teen, and wrote my first "real" book at 29, but it doesn't hold a candle to the work I do now -- I've worked long and hard and have gotten better). I didn't have any children, yet (B1 appeared in 2002, B2 in 2005). Didn't yet own a home (did that in 2001). I got fully serious about my fiction-writing in February of 2002 (remember it vividly, writing in a journal -- I always kept journals -- something like "I can just keep going the rest of my life this way, without doing what I really want to do, without creating anything. Just existing." From that moment, I got very serious about my writing, and applied myself to the task). I was untested as a parent and as a father at 30, and found not only that I enjoyed it, but that I was actually good at it. I can't remember the exact point when I zeroed in on Exene as a major source of frustration and woe in my world -- I think it had to have been when the boys entered the picture, unfortunately. By 2004 or 2005, my teeth really began to gnash. 2005-2007 was when I started my first proper blogs, before burning out on them. It's weird to think of the period from 2002-2006 -- those are kind of Lost Years for me, because so much of that time was spent taking care of the kids and working. From 2001-05 we owned The Black House, and I had a daily 3-hour commute by train, which made my workday incredibly long -- although I wrote a huge amount of material on those long trainrides, made them work for me). I wrote a lot of review on Amazon in 2006 and 2007. And 2008, oh, my -- the Year Everything Changed. The Point of No Return. And 2009, the Limbo after that -- like the bomb detonates and then there's a pile of emotional rubble. And then it's quiet.
Anyway, it's 2010, now I'm 40, in a very different place than where I was. The same, and yet completely different. Like slipping out of the prison bars of my cell but still crunching around in the gravel on Alcatraz (barefoot, of course). But hopeful, more hopeful and less angry than I've ever been before -- and, oddly, peaceful. I should be very stressed, but I'm incredibly at ease, and I think it's because I'm doing what I want to do, instead of doing what I think I'm supposed to be doing, am trying to make myself happy instead of trying to make Exene happy (which was a fucking full-time job, without overtime pay).
I'll step out of the Asylum for something else -- ideally (god, yes) I can sell a screenplay and buy myself a year or three to write more. Long odds, but I'll try hard. Either way, if I find another Grind job that'll have me, it'll be only temporary, because I know what I want to do and where I belong. In a real way, I always knew, but I just didn't believe I had anything worthwhile to contribute, or was so busy trying to create worlds for Exene's amusement that I didn't have time to create my own. God, the wasted creativity of those years. Amazing, in truth. But I still have plenty of energy, am in my prime with plenty of time.
Led Zeppelin, "Ten Years Gone"
It's just funny to look back on the Year 2000, when I was 30. At age 30, I didn't write fiction seriously (sure, I did as a teen, and wrote my first "real" book at 29, but it doesn't hold a candle to the work I do now -- I've worked long and hard and have gotten better). I didn't have any children, yet (B1 appeared in 2002, B2 in 2005). Didn't yet own a home (did that in 2001). I got fully serious about my fiction-writing in February of 2002 (remember it vividly, writing in a journal -- I always kept journals -- something like "I can just keep going the rest of my life this way, without doing what I really want to do, without creating anything. Just existing." From that moment, I got very serious about my writing, and applied myself to the task). I was untested as a parent and as a father at 30, and found not only that I enjoyed it, but that I was actually good at it. I can't remember the exact point when I zeroed in on Exene as a major source of frustration and woe in my world -- I think it had to have been when the boys entered the picture, unfortunately. By 2004 or 2005, my teeth really began to gnash. 2005-2007 was when I started my first proper blogs, before burning out on them. It's weird to think of the period from 2002-2006 -- those are kind of Lost Years for me, because so much of that time was spent taking care of the kids and working. From 2001-05 we owned The Black House, and I had a daily 3-hour commute by train, which made my workday incredibly long -- although I wrote a huge amount of material on those long trainrides, made them work for me). I wrote a lot of review on Amazon in 2006 and 2007. And 2008, oh, my -- the Year Everything Changed. The Point of No Return. And 2009, the Limbo after that -- like the bomb detonates and then there's a pile of emotional rubble. And then it's quiet.
Anyway, it's 2010, now I'm 40, in a very different place than where I was. The same, and yet completely different. Like slipping out of the prison bars of my cell but still crunching around in the gravel on Alcatraz (barefoot, of course). But hopeful, more hopeful and less angry than I've ever been before -- and, oddly, peaceful. I should be very stressed, but I'm incredibly at ease, and I think it's because I'm doing what I want to do, instead of doing what I think I'm supposed to be doing, am trying to make myself happy instead of trying to make Exene happy (which was a fucking full-time job, without overtime pay).
I'll step out of the Asylum for something else -- ideally (god, yes) I can sell a screenplay and buy myself a year or three to write more. Long odds, but I'll try hard. Either way, if I find another Grind job that'll have me, it'll be only temporary, because I know what I want to do and where I belong. In a real way, I always knew, but I just didn't believe I had anything worthwhile to contribute, or was so busy trying to create worlds for Exene's amusement that I didn't have time to create my own. God, the wasted creativity of those years. Amazing, in truth. But I still have plenty of energy, am in my prime with plenty of time.
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