Snubbed by John August

When I woke up this morning, I had high hopes. Today was the day. I'd win John August's Make Your Introduction Scene Challenge, and there'd be no looking back - the glamorous life of a professional screenwriter would be mine. I'd have more coke and whores than I'd know what to do with.

This is how it was supposed to be.

Instead, John chose two lesser submissions as the winners. I was shocked. Shocked, I tell you. My dreams were crushed. Was he not going to personally call me and refer me to his agent based on how great my submissions were? What about the introduction to Tim Burton, would that not happen as well?

My world was coming crumbling down around me.

But the person who really lost today was not me. No. It was John August. Because I no longer plan to share with him my meta game plan to extend the Big Fish franchise into a trilogy - Bigger Fish, and Big Fish: With a Vengeance. I'm keeping those little nuggets of gold to myself now.

The truth is, I spent all of five minutes on my two submissions. With the first I just wanted to make a Tim Burton zinger, and the second was my feeble attempt to redeem myself. I failed at redemption. I failed at impressing John August.

I have failed as a human being today.

I have no excuse.

Oh, and here are my two submissions.

Submission One:

INT. HAPPY LAUND-O-RAMA - DAY

The Korean family running this joint never skimp on the starch. Clothes wrapped in plastic whiz in circles as the thirteen family members working today turn their attention to JOHN AUGUST (36), entering with a stained tuxedo in hand.

His fidgeting annoys the father at the front desk.

JOHN
Uh, I was at an awards dinner last night and–

FATHER
What wrong with suit?

JOHN
It’s a tuxedo, actually.

The father grows more annoyed and just stares at John.

JOHN
I spilled wine on it.

FATHER
Okay. Seven dollah. You come back Wednesday.

JOHN
Do I get a slip?

The father looks like he’s ready to jab John in the neck with his pen as he fills out the slip and angrily hands it to him.

FATHER
Bye.

JOHN
(mumbling)
Tim never has to put up with this shit.

Submission Two:

INT. HAPPY LAUND-O-RAMA - DAY

FRANK DAWSON (35) enters the busiest dry cleaners west of Sunset Boulevard and takes his place in line. Each time he’s about to reach the front, he turns around and allows another person to cut in front of him.

FRANK
Oh that looks heavy. Go on ahead of me.

And another.

FRANK
Yikes, that’s a lot of laundry. You go first.

And another.

FRANK
You’ve got a lot more than I do, I insist you cut.

The korean woman at the front eyes him curiously, as this continues for well over an hour. Eventually, there is no one left.

KOREAN WOMAN
Sir?

FRANK
Oh, sorry. I just didn’t want to be alone today.

Frank leaves behind a gentle smile as he exits.

screenwriting

Writing is Fun

So I started working on my new script yesterday. A little weepy still over having to shelve my baby, I jumped right into the new spec. And a funny thing happened... I didn't struggle with it. The words came naturally. The story developed on its own.

Ho-lee shit.

This must be what everyone was talking about. That whole "Writing is supposed to be fun" mantra that I kept scoffing at as I struggled with the old spec for weeks. It really is an amazing feeling.

Now I don't know what the final product will look like - but right now, I really don't care. I'm having so much fun writing this sucker that I'm not even worried how it will turn out - I'm just exhilarated by the story.

Weird, right? After being so worked up over my last spec, it's a bit weird to have things work so easily with this new one. I'm up to 15 pages (15 that I'm actually, truly happy with) with no signs of slowing down.

It's going to be awesome.

Oh, and I've decided I don't hate those of you who made me dump the last one so much anymore. You're back on the Christmas list, mother fuckers.

screenwriting

Bro Rape

Learning to Let Go

Yesterday I made a really tough decision. I finally admitted to myself that my current feature just wasn't working and needed to be shelved - at least for now. I've never put anything on the backburner before without finishing it. I've never been a quitter.

I heard the stories of people working on that one spec for years upon years and never getting it "just right." Forever suffering with these personal tales they insisted on telling. I didn't want to be one of those guys. I couldn't be one of those guys.

So I weighed the opinion of several people I respect and trust, and the only conclusion I could come to was that I needed to put this project on the backburner - especially if I wanted to make any headway whatsoever in my 12 month goal.

I'd been struggling with this script for long enough, and needed to move on.

It sucks. It's painful. It feels like you're giving up. You begin to wonder whether or not you're even cut out for this game. But I had to ignore all that. I just had to accept that this one script, for whatever reason, was just not working.

Maybe the story was too personal. Maybe I'm not cut out for drama. Whatever the case may be, I had to bite the bullet and shelve the sucker. Did I mention it sucks?

So with that out of the way, we're obviously not making Nicholl this year. A huge setback in my opinion - but one I'm not going to dwell on.

Several people have been insistent that I should work on a twisted romcom, something that plays to my strengths - which apparently, according to them, are making people cringe and laugh at the same time.

I've also been entertaining the idea of writing with a partner. I think it might be something that would benefit me a great deal, as I seem to always be more on the ball when I have someone to bounce things off of. Part of being an attention whore, I suppose.

Now I just need to find someone I would work well with.

Anyway, to Matt, Ronson, Rene, Shawna, and everyone else who has been a great help in getting me to this decision - thanks. I mean, of course screw you for making me shoot my baby in the head, but thank you too.

screenwriting

I Hate Tribute Bands

I've been in love before. It's a mistake I try to repeat as little as possible.

I remember the day I fell hard for this one girl. We were at a show, watching a fabulous Guns N' Roses tribute band called Appetite for Destruction.

Considering we were both huge Guns N' Roses fans and had heard such great things about this tribute band, we had to go see them.

Everyone was right. These guys did not disappoint.

For the first half the show, and every day prior to it - she and I were just friends. "Just friends" is a difficult place to be to begin with - especially if the chick you're just friends with has a perfect set of hooters. I managed, though. I kept faith that if I toughed it out long enough, one day she'd tug on my penis.

It wasn't until the end of their set that my dreams slowly began to materialize.

They began to play the song Patience.

What started as the two of us just swaying side to side with the music - turned into her grinding against me as the song picked up. I looked around the crowded club in hopes that someone, anyone, was taking notice of this monumental occasion. They were all too busy watching the band and listening to the music.

I had forgotten who was even on stage.

Be cool, be cool. I knew that if I got too aggressive, she'd back down. A singel misstep and she wouldn't pounce me that night. This was my big moment - and I had to be non-chalant about it. Life is ironic that way.

So I played it cool.

I grinded back, but not too much. I put my arms around her waist, but didn't get too grabby. I was casual about it. We were just two friends seeing a show together. And maybe once it was over, she'd ride me like a fucking race horse.

When the show ended, she remarked about how cute she thought the guitarist was (Izzy, not Slash). Was this a fucking test? I had no choice. Clubbing her over the head and dragging her to my apartment was not an option, so I went ahead and told her what I'd tell anyone I wasn't looking to do the hibbidy jibbidy with - "Go talk to him."

She did.

Mother fucker. If this little 18 year old punk pretending to be Izzy Stradlin bested me, I didn't know if I could live with myself. I stood there and watched as the woman of my dreams twirled her hair and flirted with some fucking kid in a tribute band. I wanted to vomit.

When she turned around and started walking back towards me - I felt like my life was over. She was going to tell me to go on without her, and that she was staying to fuck this little pretendster.

God dammit.

Instead, I heard the six most perfect words in the english language, "Wanna go back to my place?"

So fuck you, Izzy Stradlin.

I beat you. And I didn't even have a guitar.

Fuck Rocky Horror

Welcome to this week's edition of Things That Suck. Today we're discussing The Rocky Horror Picture show. Not so much the movie, but the cult following.

That's right. I'm talking to all you vegan hippy mother fuckers:

Stop using Tim Curry as your excuse to go drag every friday night.

If you're going to keep this shit up, I'm going to officially declare every tuesday as BioDome Day. The one night of the week the rest of us can let our hair down and dress up as Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin (the one who doesn't yell at 11 year olds).

And rock the fuck out to the Safety Dance.

We can dance if we want to.

Do you hear me you Rocky Horror drag queens?

BIODOME!

Gone Fishing

There will be no clever blog entry for you today.

You will not be entertained.

I am writing.

Le Mot Juste

Are all writers perfectionists? I find myself being more and more critical of my own writing lately and it's beginning to bother me. I'm a person that's brim full of confidence usually, so when I find myself smoldering with generic rage over something I'm writing - I can't help but want to slap the shit out of me.

I wasn't this critical of myself until I started considering writing as a professional career. Now that I've begun to take it seriously, I'm coming to find out my inner child is, well, a little fucking emo.

Maybe I need to write something less dramatic to purge myself of this self-doubt; a tale of a bulging bicep who single-handedly wins the war then sleeps with the entire village as his reward. A harem of women at his feet, exhausted after a thorough ravishing, he hovers over them looking outside at the carnage that is his.

Or I could just get the fuck over it and keep writing.

screenwriting

The Mysterious Booger

While we were out for drinks this evening, my friend Timberly brought up a story about a midget she's been telling since high school. Seeing as I was actually there for this traumatic experience of hers, and that I've carried a bit of uncertainty about its authenticity since it happened, I thought it was time we cleared the air about the whole damn thing.

See, Timberly's always been one to tell tall tales. Ever since she was little, you could never tell whether or not the words coming out of her mouth were a story she'd spun together, or if it really happened.

Take for example the time she had the entire neighborhood convinced her mother, Irene, was an abusive alcoholic in need of an intervention. When Irene got home from work on that fabled day, over three dozen of her closest friends and neighbors were gathered in her living room, waiting to tell her how much they loved her, and how they'd be willing to do anything to rid the demons inside of her.

They even used soft voices when they spoke.

I saw the terror and confusion in her poor mother's eyes that day - would she tell them all the intervention was just a clever ruse, perpetrated by her daughter, or would she just play along and pretend to kick the habit? Rather than bring further embarrassment to the family, she ultimately decided to play along.

Irene quit the cough syrup.

This was just one of Timberly's elaborate stories growing up. A lot of the time they were entertaining, sometimes they were life-threatening - but mostly, you were just left uncertain whether or not what she had just tried to convince you of was truth, or fiction.

One day she jumped out of her car after having just gone out for cigarettes, a crazed look in her eyes - I knew one of her famous stories was coming. Out of breath and panicked, she started yelling about some deranged midget who had just chased her out of a gas station.

She began to act out the scene for us in every detail.

She ran in place on the lawn, showing us how she went from a normal walking pace to a full on sprint when this supposed midget began to run after her. Then she hunched over and ran full speed with her arms waving over her head, pretending to be the actual midget who chased her. She even pulled out her keys and reenacted her terror when just as she got to her car she dropped them.

Timberly went as far as to to smear water all over her face to realistically depict the snot running down from the nose of her midget assailant.

She had everyone convinced.

"Oh my god, I'm so glad you're okay!" one blonde friend naively shouted.
"Dude, let's go kick that midgets ass," demanded one of the jock asshole that hung out with us.

I just shook my head and looked into her eyes.

"You don't believe me," she said, shocked.
"Well, I can prove it!" she continued.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me to the driver's side window and pointed at a booger, planted square in the middle of it.

"See?" she asked.
"It's a booger," I replied.
"The midgets booger from when he pounded on my window," she confirmed.

I had to admit, the presence of the booger was indeed fascinating. It was light green and disheveled, consistent with what a truly random booger would look like. Were it darker green and rolled into a ball of some sort, it'd be obvious it was a plant.

This booger was authentic.

I wasn't completely sold, but as usual, I gave Timberly the benefit of the doubt. A retarded midget with boogers running down its face had chased her out of the gas station that day, and so the story was etched firmly in our history together.

Every once in a while, whenever we'd be driving somewhere near to the gas station of this supposed incident, she'd look into the distance and shout, "Holy shit, I think it's the midget!"

As we'd come closer to the phantom midget, it usually turned out to be a mailbox. If we were lucky, it was a little kid.

Once, it was a squirrel.

At the end of the day, after all these years and all of Timberly's stories, this one about the midget has always bothered me.

Did she discover the booger on her window and craft the tale around it, or did she first create the story then plant the booger herself?

We'll never know.

My High Fidelity Moment

The ruggedly handsome Riddley Walker (pictured above) has tagged me with the task of listing Five Goals. He was tagged by the scrumptious Emily. She was tagged by someone else, who was tagged by another person, and so on and so forth. The cool kids call this a meme.

I say it's the internets way of making you gay. And if it weren't for the fact that this'll probably get me laid, I wouldn't be doing it. So without further ado, here are my Five Goals:

• Become a Professional Screenwriter: This is the obvious one. I want people to pay me to put my brain-juice down on paper. I want to write character driven dramas one year, and then do an adaptation of DC Comics' Lobo the next. I also want to work on shows like Entourage where I can wave my dick jokes around. I just want to write.
  

• Direct: In the footsteps of Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino, I would like to eventually direct my own features. I want to be involved in every aspect of making my own films - from writing it, to directing it, to editing it. Quick, someone give me $30,000 and Jason Mewes - I'm ready.

• Craft an Advertising Campaign for Coke and Nike: There was a time when I loved Advertising and chose it as my career. So while I may have given up on it to pursue this whole screenwriting thing, there's still a big part of me that wants to develop Coke and Nike campaigns. Those two companies in particular - nobody else.

• Have a Family: This one may come as a surprise to most of you. Hell, it surprises me. Now that I'm about to turn 30 this year, I can't help but start thinking about the prospect of actually having a family. Will I miss putting my penis inside a different woman? Sure, who wouldn't - but as I get older, the idea of settling down becomes more and more appealing. I want to have kids who I can corrupt. A wife who I can ignore. It's really all very romantic.

• Get Fit: I'm stealing this one from Riddley. I'd like to get in shape. There's really not much more to say than that.
  

• Super Secret Sixth Goal: Fuck the rules, I'm adding a sixth goal. I want to win a major poker tournament. Poker has always been a hobby of mine, and I'd like to see myself on television winning one of these tournaments. It would also help finance me in making my own movies - double win.

There it is, my High Fidelity moment.

The rules state that I must pass this task on to some of you, so those of you listed below, please get cracking on making your own little gay list:

• Scott the Reader
• Annabel
• Ricker
• Matt Hader
• One Slack Martian

screenwriting

Writing About Love

Writing about love is a funny thing. You get to strip away all the awkwardness of the real world and only get to talk about the moments that are few and far between.

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've actually lived movie love moments.

You know the kind, right?

You're walking side by side down a quiet street, reveling in each others company. Your pinky fingers play a game of tag as you sneak quick glances at one another and grin. The moonlight casts a perfect glow around the both of you. And just when things seem like they're are about to lull, it begins to rain - and you have no umbrella.

She smiles at you. You smile at her.

She turns to face you. You lean forward, her eyes flutter. She hesitates just for a moment, then gives in. You kiss your first kiss.

It's perfect.

Real life, on ther hand, usually isn't. And that's the beauty of writing about love in your script. You can craft the perfect world - where it always begins to rain right before your first kiss or where it's just cold enough out that steam rises out of the hot tub as you make love in it.

If only the real world had more of these moments. Or maybe, it's better that it doesn't - we'd have nothing to write about if life were picture perfect.

At least we have our scripts.

As for those of you wondering who the hell has taken over this blog or if you accidently went to the wrong bookmark, fear not - it's still me. You can take the strap-on out of a man, but you can't take the man out of the strap-on. Tomorrow is a new day and I'm sure I'll be back to my old self.

I just needed to get that off my chest.

screenwriting

Searching for Soul

As I spend another night barely able to find the words for my current feature, I'm plagued with thought.

I'm never going to make Nicholl's. I have twelve days left, and I continue to struggle with my characters and this story. I really wanted to meet the Nicholl deadline - even if it was a first draft.

I have nobody to blame but myself.

I lived it, I know it inside and out - yet I'm struggling putting it down on paper. It's lacking soul. I don't know how else to put it besides that. The characters don't feel like they have soul, the story doesn't feel like it has soul, and the ending sure as shit doesn't feel like it has soul.

Soul. How do I find it? I know these characters inside and out. I've done all the writing excercises and mapped out their emotions and mood from scene to scene. I've all but sat down in a room with each of the mother fuckers and asked them to transcribe to me.

When I finally do manage to get a grasp on the story, I sit down and put to paper one, maybe two scenes that I'm happy with. It's moving slow. Is this how it's supposed to be your first time? Am I doing something wrong? Will it get easier? Did I pick too personal a story to tell?

My index cards sit across from my desk and taunt me as we speak.

screenwriting

Boobs

I've always been a big fan of boobs. Big ones, little ones. Real ones, fake ones. Even manboobs will occasionally do in a pinch. It's something that goes back to my childhood - when I had to suck on the teat to survive.

My love of the boob has stuck with me through the years.

So, not long ago, when a friend of mine (with boobs) asked me to accompany her on an evening out, I couldn't say no. Her boobs and I went to a party in Silverlake together.

This turned out to be not so terrible a decision.

The people at the party were refreshingly like-minded and I seemed to get along well with most of them. This is a rare occurance for me here in Los Angeles, as more often than not, I would rather jab people in the neck with a pen instead of spending time talking to them. If I have to hear about one more pilates class or meet one more yoga instructor, I'm going to fucking snap - I swear.

But I digress, these were good people.

My companion, however, got completely wasted before 8pm and used her time to alternate between trying to kiss me and trying to kiss an exotic looking redhead with big, surgically enhanced boobs. At least she had good taste.

So there I am, having a good time, chatting it up with people - occasionally making out with this girl - when all of a sudden she runs over, grabs my hands, and places them firmly onto this stranger's lady lumps. One minute I'm talking about pizza, the next I'm grabbing fist fulls of tit.

I wasn't sure what to do - I froze, like a deer in headlights. Do I grope? Do I pull my hand back and apologize? What if I just gently squeeze and offer a nice compliment?

I was forced into the role of the aggressor without being prepared.

Thankfully, my companion chimed in and asked in what may be the most unattractive voice ever heard, "Aren't they just fucking awesome?"

The redhead smiled and waited for an answer - I was saved.

Being the boobie connoisseur that I am, I took my time confirming my drunk date's hypothesis. Eventually I concurred; they were, indeed, fucking awesome.

The redhead was flattered, but now my date was annoyed.

Women.

"Mine aren't fake but they're nice too!" she belted and proceeded to remove my hands from the redheads boobs and place them on hers.

Aint this a bitch. Now what's a guy to do? If I agreed that her boobs were great too, it would only lessen the impact of my compliment to the redhead. But I couldn't exactly halve my options for the evening with a "meh" response to my date, either.

This, my friends, is what you call being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I think quick on my feet, though. So I managed to immediately kick into super-agent, genius spy mode and subdue the situation before it escalated any further.

I quickly moved my hands to her ass and nodded proudly, "Great ass."

This seemed to please everyone. Including me.

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, as I joined my date with our new redheaded friend in tow and continued to drink heavily. I'm sure someone eventually discussed their spinning class, but I must have been too drunk to care.

Needless to say, I woke up sans boob.

Why Fred Savage, Why?

Even in my most convoluted of dreams, there’s an underlying message I can decipher (or at the very least pretend to decipher). Last night, on the other hand, has left me fucking baffled. I’m not going to just give you a breakdown of the dream, though — Oh no! That wouldn’t do it justice. I shall go into every last details for you, so as no undertone, no matter how subtle, will go unnoticed.

Here goes - my dream from last night:

My female companion and I pull into a row of parking spaces, all of which are empty except for one, in front of an entire auditorium full of luxurious looking seats.

That’s right - directly ahead of our parking spot were rows upon rows of theater type seats. Red ones. We get out of our car, dressed to the nines. Scratch that. She was in some sort of shiny light green dress with her hair in an elaborate bun and I was wearing a tuxedo and sunglasses with light blue lenses.

LIGHT FUCKING BLUE LENSES. IN A TUXEDO.

Oh, and this girl I’m with? Generic cute white chick. No resemblence to anybody I know, have sexed up, dated, or anything like that. In fact, I can’t even begin to describe her to you other than to say she was white, cute, and had brown hair. Oh yeah, and her shiny green dress.

So as we’re walking the ten feet from our dirty parking spot to find our seats, I pull out our tickets from my tuxedo coat pocket. Our seats were D28 and D29 for the Oscars. Shockingly, row D was the fourth row up from the parking spots, and seated two to my left was a beautiful brunette, all by herself wearing a shiny blue dress. We were the only ones there.

The Oscars started in about two hours.

We greeted the chick next to us, then I turned to my date and said, “Wow, we sure got pretty good seats considering we’re not even in movies.” I assumed the generic green japanese car parked two spots from my generic white japanese car belonged to our new friend, since we were the only ones there.

So there we are, seated ten feet from our generic japanese cars, inside the auditorium, waiting for The Oscars to begin — and I do what any other guy would do in this situation. I fall asleep.

In my dream at the Oscars, I fall asleep.

I wake up in a new seat. Now instead of being about ten feet from my car and directly in front of the stage, I’m seated about a hundred feet from my car, to the left of the stage, and directly in front of the bathrooms. I look at my date and ask, “What the fuck happened?” She said she wanted to move because she thought these seats were better, but didn’t want to wake me up - so she just moved me.

As weird as this dream may sound to you, much like the Matrix, it is a world built upon rules. And one of those rules is I would never date someone in a dream I wouldn’t date outside the dream. In other words, my date was about five foot four, and about a hundred and ten pounds. Having said that, let me repeat: She said she wanted to move because she thought these seats were better, but didn’t want to wake me up - so she just moved me.

Glad I cleared that up.

Anyway, I get slightly irritated with her for doing this, but not until I look up at our old seats and see I’d have been sitting next to Courtney Cox had we stayed. I’m not sure why this irritated me, as I’m not a terribly big fan of Courtney Cox’s nor am I attracted to her, but nontheless, it did.

Annoyed by the Courtney Cox incident, I’m about to begin ignoring my date and look at what’s going on up on stage - when out of nowhere, Fred Savage gets up from his seat and heads for the bathroom positioned directly behind me. As he’s walking past me he puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes just a little too hard, and I look up at him as if to say, “Why Fred Savage, why?”

And that’s when I fucking wake up.

Writing Update

This may come as a surprise to you, because it definitely shocked me - but I'm actually blogging about writing tonight. Crazy, aint it? That's the sort of topsy turvy world we live in, my friends. I sucker you in with the cute little posts about Tarantino man-juicing Rodriquez and stories of random sexual encounters, then when you least expect it, bam, I hit you with a blog about actual writing. That's just how I roll.

Tune in tomorrow for more ass-fucking jokes, though. I've got plenty left in me.

Now onward towards the writing.

SimplyScripts.com was kind enough to put up my Entourage Spec the other day. It felt pretty good to see my writing somewhere other than my own blog. Faux legitimacy, if you will. I'm still not completely satisfied with it as a writing sample, but I think it's decent enough to show. I had to move on to my feature spec, anyway - so instead of just having it sit on my hard drive, I figured it couldn't hurt to just throw it out there.

As for the feature.

Fuck does this thing overwhelm me. There are days I feel completely intimdated by it, and others when I feel I can tackle it. It's a story that has a lot of edge to it, one that is very personal to me - so every little detail of it scares the shit out of me. I have to plow through and finish it, though. I just have to.

I would like to finish in time to submit it to Nicholl's, but I don't know if that's going to be possible. Waiting until next year to submit would kind of put a damper on my "screenwriter in 12 months" thing I have going. I know there's other avenues to break into the industry, and other festivals and contests, but I had my mind set on Nicholl being my first real attempt.

I still have two weeks.

I lack discipline. That's what it boils down to. I'll spend all night sexing up my blog with new fonts and link colors or making useless jokes on a forum instead of writing. Anything to avoid writing. I'm not sure if it's because I'm overwhelmed by my current script, or because I just have writer's laze.

Probably both.

It's something I'm going to need to work on.

With that said, I should probably get to writing. I've spent enough time blogging tonight. Tune in tomorrow for your regularly scheduled programming. Same Bat time, same Bat channel.

screenwriting

Coming Out

It's been too long now that I've kept this secret from the world. Too long. I've kept it in for all these years, bowing my head in shame whenever the topic has come up. I've lied to those I love in order to conform to their preconceived notions of me. This web of deceit has gone on long enough - it's time to set the record straight.


I'm Coming Out.


I know there's more of you out there, pandering for the acceptance of intellectual hipsters. So I do this today not just for myself, but for all of you who have yet to find your voice. Say it with me.

American Beauty sucked.

I Heart Huckabees sucked.

Lost in Translation sucked.

God, that feels good. No more will I have to abashedly nod in agreement with you at cocktail parties when you ramble on and on about these films. Never again will I change the subject to avoid your awkward stares. Today is my independence day.

I am a free man.

Free from the tyranny of peer pressure to adore these films. Free from the weight of your pseudo-intellectual fandom. Free of the shackles preventing me from yelling out, "I love a good popcorn flick!"

I am your slave no more, hipsters.

An L.A. Moment

Had one of those very specific, undeniably “L.A. Moments” the other night while hanging out with a few friends in Santa Monica. We’re at a coffee shop sipping some 12 dollar chais, sitting outside of course because we’re half of the ten remaining smokers in California - as people pass by feigning coughs and scowling at our cigarette butts.

We're discussing how we'd each prefer to die. Everyone clearly isn't giving much thought to the matter, as one by one they list off the usual cliche answers like, "In my sleep."

Finally it’s my turn to speak on the subject and I pause in reflection for a moment, then say:

“I think I’d like to become a rock star, have a hit single that gets me all the money and sex I can shake a stick at, then die of an overdose before I record my second album.”

You could see it in their eyes. This was a concept they not only understood, but could appreciate. They gave the idea a beautiful moment of silence before nodding in unison and saying, “That would be awesome.”

Awesome, indeed.

Long live Los Angeles.

Pearls Before Breakfast

I'm a little unsure what to make of one of the most fascinating articles I've read in recent history. Until I think of something, go ahead and read it yourself - and watch the accompanying videos - then come back here and we can discuss it.

Pearls Before Breakfast

Fascinating, wasn't it?

I know I said we'd discuss it once you got back, but I really don't have much to add. Maybe it's exhaustion from being up all night writing, or more likely, maybe I just don't have any sort of response to the social statement the article makes.

It's a pretty profound statement, don't you think?

Or it could be that it's easier to judge ourselves when we're outsiders looking in from the bird's eye view given to us in this article. I still can't help but wonder what I'd do in that situation, though.

I mean, I've never been a big fan of classical music, although I can definitely appreciate it's beauty. There's definitely a charm to the music, one that is almost irresistable if given a moment to appreciate. So, despite the fact that my iPod is crammed full of Dropkick Murphys instead of Mozart, would I have been able to recognize what was happening there on that subway that morning had I been there?

The answer is I don't know.

Would you?

Maybe this entire experiment was doomed to fail simply because of the logistics of it, and I'm waxing poetic about absolutely nothing. These were government employees rushing to work, after all. Would the results have been the same if they were on their way home from work instead, and stopping wouldn't have resulted in a late arrival to the office? What if they did it at a sports arena after a game? Or what about a mall?

I guess the article wouldn't have been nearly as interesting had the experiment not failed.

If nothing else, congratulations to the Washington Post for convincing me to buy a Joshua Bell CD.

I'm bored and I'm reaching

It's been a long time coming. All guys at some point or another go through a man-crush - it's an inevitable fact of life. What is rare, however, is for a man-crush to be mutual. Such is the case with Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.

These two have been quietly giving one another a quick tug or reach around for years now, it was just a matter of time until they dropped the pretenses and got it on. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not inferring that either of these gentlemen is actually gay (although Quentin was with Margaret Cho - and if any one person screams fag hag, it's her).

What I'm talking about is Grindhouse.

The lovechild of two fine filmmakers - the product of a completely heterosexual mutual man-crush.

It's touching. Really.

Beyond touching, this union also borders on genius. There was no way this movie could fail.

To illustrate why, I'd like you to close your eyes for a moment and picture Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino as nipples. That's right, nipples. Pointy, pink nipples. Do you have the visual?

Good.

Now what usually surrounds a pair of perky nipples? That's right - boobs. Those boobs are the fans. Considering how big their fanbases are, those are some pretty big boobs. And not unlike a real pair of breasts, one boob is slightly bigger than the other (Quentins, natch).

I'm glad you're still with me.

So we take these two lucious boobs and squeeze them together in a dirty, sexy wonder bra.

That wonder bra is Grindhouse. A movie so rich with boobs, and so dirty, it couldn't possibly fail if it tried.

I love boobs. I love Grindhouse.

Coincidence? I think not.

I wish I were a more talented blogger...

I do a lot of reading online, and I can't help but notice how every single day some of these people come up with beautiful, long detailed blogs. Sometimes they spend three paragraphs talking about the flavor of tea they had that day, or maybe a page long essay about why the girl at Starbucks needs to smile more. Whatever the case may be, it's like they pour their heart and soul into every blog. Something I am envious of.

If you've read this blog at any length, you'll see two very different me's. The first me, likes to be concise and not ramble. If I did nothing today, you're not going to get a juxtaposition about my trip to the bank and how I scratched myself in the car. The second me, however, gets impassioned. He'll spend pages telling you about his love life or night out, but only if it serves a purpose - a story.

Everyone else seems to be a meld of the two me's. They can make it seem like that new brand of toilet paper they bought is the most exciting thing to happen to them in months. It has three layers, for crying outloud.

I envy these people. I wish I were more like them.

I'm going to try harder to get fired up about the little things. Maybe you do care about my athlete's foot, and I'm doing you a disservice by not telling you about it.

So tune in tomorrow for a discussion on rectal itch.

It's going to be phenomenal.

Taxi Driver

I got bored again today and made this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1R9oZN2wZk

Two Whole Days

The lack of updates in the last two days have been intentional. It's not like I forgot, or was too busy to make a post... nay, I had purpose in my absence.

A protest of April Fools Day.

People who have absolutely no sense of humor the other 364 days of the year suddenly feel like they're Robin fucking Williams. "See what I did there? I stabbed you in the nuts with this rusty pair of scissors - APRIL FOOLS! Ha Ha, good joke right?"

You're. Not. Funny.

We need to abolish this holiday along with every mouth-breather who thinks it's their cart blanche to be retarded. The death of a thousand souls upon those of you who partake in the nonsense that is April Fools Day. May your reproductive organs shrivel up and spit out dust when next you attempt to use them.

It feels good to get that off my chest.

Also, I've just been too busy and forgot to post an update. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.