Spinning like a top

Back to the, back to the blog, y'all. What am I doing here? The same thing I always do: making excuses!

I haven't started my rewrite yet. I'm still pretty down about not getting a 10.0 review from The Black List. You see, I'm very realistic in my goals, so if I'm not universally and unanimously considered the absolute best of all time at anything I'm actually trying in, it's a crushing blow to my ego. That's at most a mild overstatement. But at the same time I'm pretty sure I've got the greatest idea ever even if I didn't pull it off 100% the first time around. So I'll head down that hole soon enough. Tomorrow night? Probably. I'll go ahead and turn on Lawless tonight and dream about how great it would be if John Hillcoat could see through the bad parts of my script and give me a call.



Yep. This blog drops panties. That's why it is so popular with spam commenters. Sell them dick pills, y'all!

The New Paradigm

In a couple of hours, the Mayan long count calendar will expire. This perhaps means nothing but it's the end of at least my lifetime's worth of speculation. I wrote yesterday about my own doomsday premonitions (well, maybe not quite doomsday) but I've never been one to put much stock in the Mayan calendar. Once I found out how closely my own private end day related to the Mayan calendar I pretty much lost interest in it all. I lost religion in it. It's just another piece of garbage jutting out from some collective stupidity.



So why do I feel compelled to keep going back to re-visit doomsday scenarios? This one about to pass has always been the monster of them all. I don't know what the next big one is after the Mayans. I love symbols of all stripes. I used to argue quite passionately in favor of the obvious symbolism in Tim Burton and Spike Lee's movies. They've both kind of gotten away from those styles that I loved so well but I'm thinking now that there, openly symbolic film language, is a field in dire need of exploitation. I'm working on it. Slowly, I'm working on it.

Hopefully the new paradigm is very sexual. I love sex and I'm addicted to porn. I hate prudishness. We should all be thankful for sex. It's the best thing in the world. Hopefully, more than anything, there actually is a new paradigm. I'm bailing on this post. I don't have a clear line of thinking and I'm sleepy. Good night and good luck sleeping through the apocalypse. If you see those ghostly riders, tip your cap to them for me.

On The Verge Of Ending An Era

When I was 18 or 19 and puffed up on more self-importance than I knew what to do with and eager to be filled up on any and all types of medicines that I could put my greedy hands on I had this flash realization of an important date. I fixated on it. It felt like it was an important concern for myself and the rest of the world. I credit myself for it because it's slightly wrong in the face of the massive millenarian jocularity (and some devotion) around the end of the Mayan long calendar. My date is/was December 23, 2012. I plotted that as the end of... something. I didn't really have a specific project in mind.

I wanted to buy Super Bowl ads and billboards proclaiming Inche Clyffe Clique: 2000-12, The Generation of the Dead. Inche Clyffe Clique was the sort of (art collective?) that I had with my friends, and one cousin, but it wasn't really that cohesive. We recorded shit on 4-tracks that we never bothered to send to anybody for radio play or to play in shows. I painted stuff and plotted movies that I never wrote and outlined story ideas for books that haven't been written.

This all would have been happening in 1996 and/or 1997. I fancied myself as some kind of neo-Beat going wherever a bed was available. I criss-crossed the country by car and by train a few times between quitting school in the Spring of '96 and picking it back up in the Spring of '99. I watched a lot of movies. I worked some terrible jobs. I had no sex. I smoked a decent amount of weed and downed a lot of pills, a touch of psycho-tropics, a tiny bit of powdery substances. The sex thing wasn't on purpose but the rest of it was in service to some set of ideals that I might have never really had. I think I was in the thrall of fame's cult but I could have just been a moron.

I keep thinking about that squandered time in my life. It's a funny thing looking back and thinking, "I could have made some serious bullshit and gotten away with it because I was just a kid." Somebody will usually take an ambitious youngster under wing just because of the youth and energy. All you've got to do is make something. I wasn't even finishing my little video shorts that I was making solely for the entertainment of my brothers. I'm a loafer, really, and a shy little twerp who is now and always has been a little bit scared of womankind. And money. Money sucks and it's scary because I am sure that I display all of my barn-raised lack of polish every time I open my mouth or get dressed in the morning. And I hate money for a lot of reasons. The fire, brimstone, and guilt might have never taken a hold of me in my Catholic school upbringing but the pious brotherhood of poverty is still my religion for better and for being the worst.

The end of the world isn't the scariest thing to me. The world ends? Fine, because I'll end, too, and what's scary about that? Nothing isn't scary. A world that was created by chance and lives and burns and dies and just goes away isn't scary. There's comfort there if it reflects at the proper angle. Being alive and feeling trapped and feeling less than and feeling like there used to be potential and now there is nothing but the rotting carcass of something that might be a soul that is taking up space where that potential used to be is a frightening, nuclear-scarred world of internal endlessness.

So the era, the Generation of the Dead is all but over and I don't own the world and I don't have followers or believers. Scrap rock isn't a genre. I've never recorded a Christmas album of songs that aren't thematically linked to Christmas and I don't hawk alcoholic water that competes with caffeinated water for shelf space at the nation's grocery store chains. Is this what regret means? Then I've got regrets and I've got worry. This is all it's fueling, though. I took my movie down from blcklst.com today. I don't want to pay storage for it. I'll get around to changing the story. I'll do it just the way I outlined it last week. I'll get the readers at The Black List to look it over one more time. I'm dead certain that nobody from CAA will be calling me after the holidays to tell me how much they loved the script or how John Hillcoat is really impressed and ready to start polishing the turd for flushing it down past a green light. I'll get it dusted off and if I settle for selling it to some indie producer to make it on a shoestring and it ends up being a corny waste of time, I'll get over it. I'm unimpressed with an existence on that local level but it's fine. This is a dumb little emotional cul-de-sac I've driven myself into, isn't it? I don't even really paint anymore. I can trace that one, at least. When I was in a group show and not only didn't sell anything but didn't even have a single patron ask me to explain myself the sails went in and I shut down. Fuck it. I am a fame whore in my darkest insides of my spirit. If I can't be a star at something I don't want to do it. Cheers to the new epoch.

I'm going to just end this ramble as abruptly as I felt compelled to start it but I want to explain the title if I'm able. The Verge is the original drawing of a cliff that I drew when I was 13 and wanted to design a logo that would be identifiable for anything that I worked on, something along the lines of what Eddie is to Iron Maiden. It was my personal little stamp that I could draw in the corner as a signature for drawings, paintings, et al. When I had collected some friends later in high school, and we were looking for a name that would work for whatever sounds we recorded, I pushed out Inche Clyffe Clique and adapted my signature drawing of a cliff to the name. Nobody loved it, I don't think, but nobody else had any ideas either so it just stuck. Inche Clyffe is the name my grandfather gave to the property in Florida that now sits underneath my mother's house. It is a rare (still short) bluff in the flattest state in the Union, and he gave it an intentionally silly name. He might have even spelled it Ynche Clyffe but I've always started it with an "I" just to make the pronunciation more obvious. So my title is a call back to the little drawing that I snuck in to all of my delusional daydreams and the ties it into my big delusional generationally compelling ad campaign for nothing. Does that make sense you, dick pill sellers? At least in the sense of what I was going for with the title? It works well enough for me.

The Death of Loving Werewolves

No more werewolf love in the Old West, do you hear me? That love shit is out, man. That shit is played out. In steps the gangster wolf. A cowboy wolf with nothing to do but kill. I'm still going to buy another read for the crapwolf I've currently got up on The Black List but I think I might have just found my story. If all goes as planned I will someday soon have to take this blog down to protect intellectual property. Screen grab it now and you can maybe sell it to some shitty website that pays for that kind of mock insider access! Do it now! I have had a bit of a eureka moment and am pretty well sold on a complete teardown and rewrite of Full Moon.



Anyway, I'm pretty manic but right now I feel very good about this outline for the cowboy-wolves:

1) Joshua is in a coma at his family's estate in Big Bear Lake. Lauren leaves him for dead.

2) Joshua has healed but is still scarred - he is working on the railroad between Los Angeles and the High Desert.

3) A bum is killed by a wolf near where Joshua is working.

4) Joshua is under suspicion as a wolf. He is shunned by his co-workers.

5) A werewolf attacks the workers camp and Joshua is nowhere to be found. Just as the wolf is about to kill the foreman, Joshua shows up IN WEREWOLF FORM and kills the attacking wolf. Obvs, Joshua is not the murderer that they thought but he is still a werewolf. He runs away.

6) Joshua wanders the desert. He sees another werewolf but can't get to it.

7) Joshua stumbles into the town of Calico. He isn't warmly welcomed. He reads a newspaper account of "Wolfie" - a werewolf that has been attacking Calico even when the moon isn't full.

8) Joshua is befriended by the saloon-keeper in Calico who tells him all about the wolf attacks. Joshua tells him that he is on a quest for revenge and the saloon-keeper offers to help in any way possible.

9) Joshua gets arrested for being drunk in public and while he is in jail "Wolfie" kills a prostitute.

10) The saloon-keeper bails Joshua out in the morning. They eat breakfast at the inn and then take target practice. Joshua is inexperienced with guns but the saloon-keeper teaches him some tricks. He also lends Joshua a horse.

11) Wolfie attacks again the next night! This time he is more brazen and attacks on Main Street while people are out at the saloon and the casino. The sheriffs are called but before they get there Joshua kills Wolfie, who turns out to be a punk in a costume.

12) Joshua is disappointed that he didn't kill a real werewolf. The saloon-keeper points out that it wouldn't have been the same wolf that attacked his family anyway.

13) Joshua and the saloon-keeper ride up to Big Bear Lake to see if they can find the wolf that cursed Joshua.

14) They come across some native desert people but can't communicate with them. The natives seem suspicious of the pair.

15) Before they get to Big Bear Lake Joshua admits that he is, in fact a werewolf. The saloon-keeper is not surprised at all.

16) Joshua shows his friend around Big Bear Lake, including the general store that his family ran before they were killed. The saloon-keeper notes that the tourists are all business men up from Los Angeles.

17) The moon is full and there is a wolf attack in town. Joshua, in wolf form, chases after the monster. He is followed by his partner WHO IS ALSO A WEREWOLF!!!

18) They capture the beast who tells them that he is not the one Joshua is after - this is his first vacation in Big Bear. All of Collis Huntington's men come up there! Joshua is going to let him live but the saloon-keeper destroys the touristwolf.

19) Joshua and his friend are pursued by sheriffs. They kill his friend but Joshua gets away.

20) Joshua makes his way to Los Angeles.

21) He goes to find Collis Huntington.

22) It turns out they have a past together. Lauren is Collis' daughter and Joshua was due to marry her before the "incident."

23) Joshua takes up working for Collis in order to figure out which of his men might be his attacker.

24) Collis invites Joshua to a party at the California Club.

25) All of the patrons of the California Club are werewolves - every west coast captain of industry and politics is a werewolf!

26) Collis shows Joshua around the club. Collis admits to killing Joshua's family. Joshua kills Collis.

27) Lauren shows up at the crime scene. She is a werewolf, too.

Fin

So, would you watch that movie? Would you be excited to watch that movie? I think of it as Red Dead with Wolves (but the original version before the zombies came along.) I'm pretty excited. Let me know if you see any real problems and understand that there is a more in Los Angeles and Calico than I wrote here but I'm just going through the plot turning points and leaving a lot of the incidentals out. Also, every character has a name already but I can't remember them off the top of my head so I apologize for "the saloon-keeper."

Good Intentions vs. Self Image

I got a nice gesture from the folks at The Black List today, a tweet to allay some of my depression at getting a shitty review. It actually makes me feel a little bit worse by driving home what bothered me so much in the first place but it's a nice thing to attempt and it is truly appreciated.This is the message:

The average for ALL ratings (pros included) is 6.84. For uploaded scripts, it's closer to 5.

"So what, dipshit, is it that bothers you so much about this," my hypothetical readers might ask between hawking dick pills? Well, the idea of being an average amateur is frightening to me beyond all comprehension. A lifetime spent fucking around with words and getting a degree SPECIFICALLY in screenwriting almost 10 years ago has gotten me far enough to be an average goddamned hobbyist? Fucking hell, that's brutal. I fucking hate it. I don't really believe it's true but I have more expectation than ever that I'm delusional and the asshole teacher at Northridge that graded my thesis might be right after all. She just got an award for lifetime service or something this past spring. One of my least favorite educators I have ever known. I don't keep detailed records on these things so I wouldn't go so far as to say worst (though she graded a senior seminar on punctuality and regularly claimed I was late even when I was sitting down in a desk before she even got there) but it was an unpleasant experience all around. And now more than ever I feel like she had me pegged dead to rights in terms of my capabilities and career expectations.

I wrote yesterday about my review from The Black List. It's a sore subject for me but it's happened and maybe it'll help in the short and long term. I'm going to go ahead and re-work the script a little, it might end up a little bit shorter. But if I take down the version that's up there and come back with a new one that still get notes about what a shitbox I've shoved under their digital door, I might just give up writing and go... I don't know what. I've never had a backup plan but I've never bothered to be an adult before, either.

I'm not going to lose the high-minded "ridiculous" parts of the script because I don't have a problem with it. If it's funny or even a little off-putting, so be it. The biggest weakness of the script, per that review and perhaps per my own unrecognized feeling, is the plot. It's a revenge movie that detours into a broken love story. I had my reasons to go that direction but it is against the whole concept of a revenge movie. Single focus, single determination, only one possible end for the protagonist. I was trying to make it a little bit like Drive, perhaps, which is a different movie with a different motivation for the lead.

Maybe it's all good motivation? Maybe I just got a bad reader? Maybe I'm still going to be selling fish come next summer and I'll just break down and go on a really long bender. Look at me, a 35 year old hobbyist and real life Walter Mitty.

Lowlife

So I got a review back from one of the professionals at the blacklist about my script Full Moon. It didn't go so well. The average score is 6.84. I got a 5. That is awful. I feel like a total shithead right now. I really thought I had done something good there. Well, maybe this was just the wrong guy to read it? Or maybe it can be dusted up? I don't know. The idea of throwing myself back at that story sounds like a bad time.

Did I get a bad reader and should I shell out $50 more for another read? This comment is killing me: " People searching for an intelligent film won't be interested in werewolf-cowboys." I'm interested in werewolf cowboys and I want something with some subtext. I got an average grade on exactly one aspect of my script, the dialogue, and even then, the part of the evaluation that made me laugh the most was this: "It's too absurd having werewolves speak in near Shakespearean dialogue."

I'm not going to argue the notes I got. If it's problematic for a reader it's a script problem. I can explain here what I was going for and if you care to tell me if this is a good idea, please do share. I wanted the dialogue to actually be era-authentic and I threw myself into a decent amount of research into what people and what buildings were populating L.A. and southern California in the late 1890s. I used a lot of fictionalized versions of real peopleand I tried to have them interacting with people that they would actually have interacted with. So the near Shakespearean dialogue is a nod to the more upper-crust folks of that time, not an attempt to write in iambic pentameter. I smudged a few truths and I threw in a lot of details that I think are cool that maybe don't have anything to do with telling a good story. Fair enough.

I wanted the whole thing to be an allegory with a more or less New Deal-style progressive bent. All of the rich people are werewolves. Get it? Is that a dumb idea? Perhaps so. Apparently so. The protagonist, Joshua, is beat at every step he takes. He was supposed to get trampled by the corporate machinery seeding his homeland but he didn't get killed so he has an offer: join us and become a monster like the rest of us. Forget about what's hurt you and just become another provider for pain. Well, he isn't going to do that so he tries to kill the man he sees as the puppetmaster of his own misfortune. The tragedy of it is that even if he kills Collis Huntington, there is no end to the amount of murderers in charge and there is no cap on the power and destruction they can wield. To top it off, the woman he loves, the only reason he didn't kill himself already, is actually the monster that destoryed his family. Joshua doesn't ever learn that and I didn't go out of the way to do more than allude to her as the killer but that's the conceit I was working with. So, maybe it's too high-minded for a werewolf-cowboy movie but I don't think that's really the issue or even a possibility. You can wedge an issue in anywhere you damn well please. Horror stories are even conducive to that sort of thing (witness Godzilla, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Aliens, et al) because you're playing on the audience's worries. If I didn't get to that place it's an issue of hackery and slovenliness. So, I'm done with that.

I've talked myself into getting another read. Hopefully I get a little more detail but I'm thinking that this story just might not work. Which is sad. I'm a step closer to bailing entirely on screenwriting. Goodbye, you piece of shit degree. Thanks for literally nothing.

Monkeys, Men, and Other Beasts

"The Island of Dr. Moreau is starting right now on Movieplex!" Are there any sweeter weords in the English language? Yes, there are. But there are few things as enjoyable as watching a big budget, big effects movie with nothing but a concept to hold it all together. I probably shouldn't admit that if I'm going to get people to pay me to write big budget movies but for all I know that's exactly the right way to think about these things. Moreover, maybe that ship has sailed and it doesn't even matter. It just keeps going.



I unabashedly love some terrible movies. There are plenty of hyper-pretentious movies in my list of favorites but I'm a sucker for Transformers movies (I got over the boiling blood and just broke down and loved them after the second one) and have trouble turning off even the least of Godzilla flicks. If you expect good things from me you should consider yourself warned. The best saying I've coined or purloined is "Embrace the seediness of your existence." I love L.A. because I love dreck.

There is some poetry to crass commercialism. Artistry of total cynicism? Sure, why not? It sounds like a segment on NightFlight. Expensive junk is a hell of a tableau. I hope to paint in it some day. Seriously, there is a certain integrity of purpose if you are only focused on money. It may not have anything good to say about people but at least there is an honesty that can be culled from the deep awfulness of a movie like Indy 4 or Days of Thunder. I'm making more of it than I have the discipline to really explain in a pinch but trust that there is something to it all.

It's not only action movies that deserve a lusty hate watch. Right now I've got a movie called Rappin' in a mailer sleeve just waiting to be watched on up. I've paid good money to go watch dance movies in the theatre. Untamed Heart is going to be on TV in the coming weeks. I can't wait to watch it again. He thinks he has a baboon heart!!! Maybe I'll come back to this. Comfort from low-brow entertainment is some kind of shutdown device that I'd like to tear apart and diagram. Now, back to the dick jokes.