I told the lady that I was out of town, so I couldn't send her the script. The real reason? It's not fucking finished yet. There are some fundamental weaknesses, but I had a good friend and confidant of mine fluff my balls for several hours tonight, so now I'm feeling sufficiently confident to finish the damn thing. As I stare in front of this computer, stealing away my productivity with episodes from the West Wing, summer passes by out my window. Maybe I"ll sleep outside again. That seemed to inspire.
Tonight. I buy wine and drink and write and as soon as I am as successful as I'd like to be, I either give my friend Tori a job or some sort of trip or both.
Alanis Morisette on my radio. She's played a doctor on weeds this season. It's been a delight.
Also I'm sort of dating a dentist. That's so far been a delight too. |
So I did the big cattle call thing. The mailing of a hundred plus agencies trying to get representation. My first reply was a request for material, which is good (and actually, not to be expected). I also received a rejection. They say rejection is going to be an ongoing piece of this business. My skin is thin, though. I don't know if I'm man enough to take it.
I do know this, however - writing is my life and my career of choice and any agent or manager smart enough to take me on is going to make a lot of money off of me over the years.
Cross your fingers and put them in your butt for luck. |
Pitchfest (n): a USC sponsored event where recent MFA's pitch their screenplays to producers, agents, and other industry professionals.
The story of me getting into Pitchfest is a long one, but if my dellusions of grandeur lead somehow to a memoir (I'm not holding my breath... but in other ways I kind of am), I'm going to want to have this post to quickly log the details. All steps of this process - from being invited, to being accepted, to making it on time, required manipulations. Here's the story in uninteresting timeline form... you'll have to read the memoir for more... color ;-)
Many weeks ago: I received an invitation to come to Pitchfest at my "@usc.edu" - an account that was supposed to have been closed when I graduated. The flier specifically said Pitchfest was for graduate students. I replied to the invite and said I wanted to join any way.
A few days later: I get a follow up email from someone asking me if I had taken a prerequisite class. I told her I had. This was the truth.
The next day: She emails back and says "great you're in!" Prepare for the manditory pitch brush up, meeting to be announced. I, of course, live in Portland, so unlike simply clearing my schedule and driving to the manditory pitch brush up, I have to book a fucking flight. I wait weeks and weeks for said meeting to get scheduled. Finally, I'm too impatient and book my flight any way.
Last Saturday: I receive two emails: brush up is scheduled for Wednesday and an email from the actual organizer of Pitch Fest, Neelam, wanting to know if, in fact, I 'm a graduate student. After some strategizing with roomies, parents, and good friends, everyone tells me to ignore the email and go anyway.
Wednesday: Land in LA. Take a cab straight to USC where I spend the next two hours asking around and trying to find in which room this brush up is going to be held - a piece of information Neelam sent to those who were, you know, legitimately enrolled. During search, I email the original person I was in touch with about room location. Eventually, I run into a student enroute. She tells me where it is and I make it just in time.
Thursday: The email I sent to original person the day before gets forwarded to Neelam and she sends a second email asking me to verify my credentials. Sufficiently deep in the process and in the heart of LA (and nervous as hell), I give her a call. I have to argue with her for an hour to get in. She asks me why I booked my flight before all this was settled. I told her that when her assistant said "great you're in!" I thought that meant that it was great and I was in.
Sunday: Hungover. Sneak into the Westin hotel swimming pool down town. Get a fucking sun tan!!!!
Monday: Go to Pitchfest. Was witty as ever. Dreamworks wants to read the script. Attracted the attention of a manager at the last minute.
Today: Dine and dash for rainy Portland.
[Done and done]
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Okay. It has been no secret that Lost has left me a little wanting this season, but I must admit... now that everyone is all back on the island, things have started to improve a bit. The cliff hanger of Wednesday's episode was easily the best of the season, but the surprise and mind fuckery of what it could all mean in a time-distorted lineage was quickly silenced when the "next week on Lost" revealed the Monty Python adage "I'm not dead yet."
Still. I can't help but wonder if at the end of this entire series, Jack and the others will find themselves back on the original Oceanic Flight 813, flying over the island, and landing safely in LA as if nothing had ever happened. I wonder if they'll remember, if they'll know what they've been through, if they'll look at each other from across the aisle, nod in that dramatic Lost way, and then go their separate ways. Kate to Jail. Claire to deliver her baby. Locke to go rolling on in the wheelchair.
All I know is that the series is building toward something, and it better be the biggest mind fuck of them all. Because if it's average. If it's a sad goodbye. If it's a fucking donkey wheel, then I'm going to long for the days when there were more intriguing questions than stupid answers.
In other news, Kings is definitely worth a look. It's a sophisticated, high class soap opera that reminds me quite a bit of the Westwing, but it has more fanfare, wealth, and spends a lot of time talking about destiny. |
which, if you were wondering comes from South Park.
Today I did all the former, except for words on the page. and Powell's. I decided it would be easier to shoot the Grotto instead. While I appreciate my brother for loaning my video camera, I was appalled by how ugly the footage was. The day was ugly though. The sky was grey, which didn't help. But seriously. I thought all cameras were fucking gorgeous these days. Not Matt's. No his looked like crap. |
Today I did fucking errands.
Ejercicio.
Submitted my resume to C2
Made an income plan for the month of December
Applied to another tutoring gig.
Arranged the pimping of my camera - $35, baby.
Tomorrow...
Shoot, edit and upload Powell's thing.
Buy a cord to import footage.
Words on the page. |
I'm gong to start recording my progress on things. It won't be particularly interesting for anyone, but I need to start cataloging and discovering how much progress I'm making.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,766 words. I worked on and off from 2pm to 1am. |
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I've been going on many tirades about Prop 8 over at Notecarder, but in truth, the revolutionary tone I've taken on over there doesn't really echo how I feel. I don't feel enraged or empowered or ready to take to the streets. All I feel is blue.
LA is a hard city. They say if you can live in NY, you can live anywhere, and I often feel the same way about Los Angeles. Traffic is a nightmare. It's crowded as shit. And so many people have so much money, it drives the cost of living up for everyone else. Still. It's five hours from San Francisco. Two from San Diego. Five from Arizona. Seven from Vegas. Ten from Lake Tahoe. And you know what else made California great? The gays and how they could get married and how the rest of the country could fuck off while we pursued the actual American dream -- you know, Freedom.
Despite LA's problems, I could almost do it. I could live there with my person and my family. At least my kids wouldn't be bastards.
I firmly believe that this is a country where we need to be saying "yes" to our people. I can always make a better decision for my life than the government can, and you know, I think there's a lot of Americans who would agree. Don't tell me I can't smoke weed. If you don't want to smoke weed, don't fucking smoke weed, but don't fucking tell me not to. Same with terminating a pregnancy. Or lighting a cigarette in my fucking bar. Or wearing a seat-belt. Or giving me the option of "pulling the plug" at the end of my life. Just let me do my thing and I'll let you do yours. This is Social Contract 101 - the government should only intervene to protect their citizens from harm.
For the record, my libertarian attitude extends to conservative issues as well. If you don't want to sell birth control at your drugstore or perform an abortion at your private practice, you shouldn't fucking have to. Somebody will. Fuck. Wallmart will. If you don't want your diabetic son to have insulin, because medicine conflicts with your religious beliefs, then so be it. If you want to have multiple wives, fine. I'll never have multiple wives, but what-fucking-ever.
You sure as shit can't do it in Iran. If not in America, where?
...and herein is where democracy fails. Because the majority... the people... the crowd... well, they aren't always right and, yet, they're given a voice even if that voice is racist or sexist or homophobic or xenophobic or whatever... and there's people like Arnold Swartzeneggar who are on record for being against Prop 8, just like we wanted him to be, but was so tied to his party that he wouldn't do anything about it. Obama, by the way, is no less absolved from responsibility. We needed him to come out against this, but he never did, at least not in a satisfactory way. He could have made an ad or something, but he had an election to win.
In the same night, Bush was out and so were the gays... and I keep going back and forth between whether or not the election was a net loss. for me personally. Yes. Our country will be way fucking better now that Obama's in office. But whatever Obama does for Detroit or Iraq or Global Warming or the national deficit seems really fucking insignificant compared with who I can and cannot marry.
People in Iraq have a stake in Iraq. I don't. You probably don't either. If the whole country was wiped off the map and everyone in it was executed and there weren't newspapers. It wouldn't fucking matter at all. Same with global warming. More polution. Famines in Africa. Another hurricane in the South. Maybe another terrorist attack on the east coast over oil. Who cares? It would only exist in newspapers any way...
What I do have a stake in, however, is whether or not I can fall head-over-heels for someone and make a marriage commitment to them that not only binds us together, but legally protects us in hundreds (if not thousands?) of ways.
I'm not really sure why the Mormons cared so much about this issue or why 70% of African Americans voted against us, but it makes me sad to realize that sunny California with its beaches, rollarbladers, movie stars, shameless drunk-drivers, and 420 friendly police officers isn't as groovy as I thought it was. |
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