foreign territory

I have found that the familial relationships in one’s life are some of the most peculiar and the most dysfunctional. Friends of similar connection and who may treat you with similar disregard might be told to hit the road or might become merely a mirage in our theoretical mirrors as we travel farther down our road away from them. This is not always true with family where bonds can hang by a thread yet somehow remain sustained and nourished enough for us to not lose title and a place in the family unit.

My brother and I have shared such a life for many years. I came into the world hindered by the nine years he already had on me. This says nothing about all of the myriad personality differences than became evident early on, even though we did have some periods of bonding over musical tastes and filmic interest. There’s not much more to share in together these days with hundreds of miles between us figuratively and literally.

As painful as the expectation that I will never have the sort of brother relationship “they” stack films, books, and television with, there are occasional glimmers of subtle change. The other night we were chatting on one of the on-line chat options and things felt somehow different.

As expected, things began roughly like the interactions between two people who encounter one another in a downtown plaza after many years apart. Perhaps the first strains of conversation have eloquence and excitement to it, but it doesn’t take long before the two people seem to run out of things to say no matter how much life has passed by. This is how things began for me. I wasn’t sure what to say or what to ask. Everything felt like an empty slate in certain ways. There was a foreign nature to the entire situation. I was reminded how little we really know about each other.

The wheels began churning with talk of his many children and I began to open up about some of the creative endeavors I have my dirty little fingers in. And it seemed that the only real commonalities we have are our steadily aging parents who recently dropped by for a brief visit. They were in their usual form, rubbing in their one foot in the grave status. This never comes off as some mid-sixties clarity about life and mortality, but instead as emo with an aged patina. They have been brooding in this way for years.

What really surprised was an unexpected interest in some of my artistic projects I have on the horizon. They have rarely diverted from their original “hope this is a phase” mentality, so as years have toiled on an upswing in interest and supportiveness always catches me off guard. I don’t know what to do with it. I know how to work with the resistance of the world and those in the presumed inner circle, but what do I do with an open door. My brother suggested I embrace it. I have to wonder what makes it worth it to just ride one of my waves when a small group of others have been by my side for the whole trip and should be the only ones who should bask in my positivity, or at least that’s how it appears right now.

At any rate, I found myself sharing things with my brother that I would not have normally. It was interesting and telling. As the conversation went along, I started to recognize how this – this instant messaging – might be the perfect forum for us to connect in some small way. With the distance and the conflicting lifestyle choices, in person seems unlikely. E-mailing tends to be much too inconsistent. Phone calling is completely out what with all of the uncertainty and quiet and impatience to hang up that tends to swell up within me. However, these words scrolling across the screen actually felt like a representation of both of us making an effort to hear the other.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s something. Or maybe I just want it to be.

the ceiling

My mind has been mulling lately over the concept of the figurative “ceiling”. Career-wise, I feel I may have seen all this town can offer me and what I can reasonably gain from it. I have slowly sloshed through several different spaces, putting my feet in shoes that barely fit, while looking for opportunities that allow me to do more than bide my time.

Whether it’s rationalization or truth, I think I have recently hit my head on the ceiling of this town. I mentioned this to a good friend and filmmaking colleague whose journey over the past two years has been nothing if not impressive and international to boot. So I wait to see what develops from the slow process of creating a business plan, followed by looking for financing, and then making my film should I have any energy or inspiration remaining in the vault. I don’t know what the other side will look like.

The way it’s seen, the ceiling is the visual metaphor for things when they have gone as far as they will. This is when we get too small for our proverbial box. I have thought of this a lot in terms of relationships, as they become less satisfying than they once were, or perhaps when they become plain weird. People drift apart. I suppose it’s how we react to this drifting that makes the difference? Is the answer in letting the connection take its natural course? Or is it important to put up a fight and likely create a more permanent rift?

What’s strange to me is how I have been feeling about someone I knew only vaguely, someone who I knew from parties and other gatherings, and who I first met randomly on my front porch. He was someone in the periphery of my life, part of one of the circle of friends, someone I might never have known any better, and now clearly someone I will never know more. I have just found out that he was tragically lost in a river boating accident. I am friends with several of his closest friends, so there’s a general energy around that is both disconcerting and revealing.

What can I take from this? Is it the lack of guarantees in life? Is it about standing up, opening up, spreading one’s wings, and breaking through those ceilings of life? Is this a reminder to find the adventure in life, one’s river to travail, one’s journey to take, and those passions that are approached with full gusto?

Probably.

trimming fat

My sister-in-law is considering selling her business. It's about more than merely an economic decision and one that I view as impulsive as the inspiration to buy it in the first place. I keep wondering why I take such offense at this prospect. I think I might have figured it out, though.

Recently I was reading through a ton of old e-mails during a purging effort and I came across one from February 2006. A friend of mine was talking about giving up writing. This is what I had to say in response:

"What gives, man?

You think you can escape the clutches of the writing bug just like that?

I remember a guy I met a year and a half ago who was all revved up and ready to take Hollywood readers by storm - by whatever means necessary.

Where is that guy?

Why did you pick up that first screenwriting book? Why did you start watching the movies on TBS in a different light? Why did you create a Yahoo group from the remains of that Meetup group? What was that guy all about?

It's because you got something out of the deal. So you hit a wall. So - the hell - what? Fine. Take a little break, but don't give up. Sometimes what you have to do is reassess your direction, but you - my friend - would be pretty starved without this thing you love so much. I'm sure of it.

I saw you on your really good days. This stuff kicks your ass in gear and shows you what you are all about. Don't put that pen down, because it's not the writing that costs money. You can sit down with pen and paper and write. For free!

Take a break from the screenplay game. Write something more personal, some story you already know about, something where act one-two-three is well-known in advance. I am sure you will be reminded of what drove you to pick up that first screenplay book, etc!

There are plenty of people out there to doubt you. Don't get their job done for them. Show everyone, including yourself, just what you can create from your fertile mind. People driven to writing stories are a special lot. Let that part of you be fully tapped! Just be honest to yourself and you'll know quitting is not what you really want."

I hadn't meant to, but as I look at it now I was encouraging myself to continue. I was almost defending that position. For the past two years since my sister-in-law has been running her business, I have felt much more akin to her as someone outside the box living their dreams - a fellow traveler, wanting to take the world by storm on their own terms. I guess when people choose to leave that behind, it makes the rest of us wonder what the hell we're still doing, dangling out here over this pit of uncertainty.

comfort zone

I have watched as old friends have children and shift into parents. They suddenly speak in a new tongue and participate in entirely different activities. The glimmer of the people I once knew barely shows behind that other entity. Slowly as they become a reflection of the events in their child's life and not their own, the relationship we had becomes a figment of the past. It is presumed that my only wish is a front row seat for the show over some coffee, a flurry of colorful pictures, and invitations to kiddy events.

Now, it has dissipated in recent years, but I remember every occasion my brother would visit he'd give me one of those big brother bear hugs, which would be promptly followed by the moment when he'd push down on my shoulders in an effort to get me to shrink. For a great many years he kept trying to have me remain ten-years-old. This was that me he knew best and the one he could maintain in his mind.

There's a lot to those little boxes people put each other in. It's an easy way to keep things organized, neat, and orderly. It's a way to keep time from getting away. It even helps us know who to invite to what sort of event. When people grow it complicates things, it seems to make others uncomfortable, and it shows wear in the foundations of relationships. Sometimes people get so cubby-holed and their lives become so stagnant that they have no choice but to change, to grow, and to do things that don't seem like them selves.

I'm sometimes seen as that quiet writer type with the little notebook, the cryptic responses, and supposed elusiveness. I definitely spent a good number of years camera shy, which may account for my pursuing a behind-the-scenes career. This last week, however, I was an actor. I can really only attest to this because I got up in front of an audience with three fellow cast members, memorized many of my lines, and got paid for doing just that. We were involved in a prepared stage reading of an award winning play.

Taking yourself out of your comfort zone affords you the opportunity to express parts of yourself others might be blind to. It also opens you up to see yourself better. Being involved in this was such a welcome change and seriously invigorating. I think sometimes we impose these boxes on ourselves. Sometimes we will only let ourselves reach a certain distance and grow just so far before we figure we're there.

take two

I've been here before.

I was six years younger and several shades greener, but this is hardly unfamiliar.

With the dissolution of that short film and the late-summer feature, the opportunity presented itself. It's time to seriously look for investors for a feature film - again. I had the first meeting with my producing partner yesterday.

The upward climb starts now.

When I tried this the last time, everything was riding on this for my business partner and me. He needed a financial miracle and I yearned to dive into the deep end of the industry. As the years have passed I've discovered that nothing is the all meaningful "IT". I've come to realize that IT is what you get when you put everything together. IT is always being created. This was a hard lesson to learn.

Here we go again.

okay, whatever

Don't get depressed about not being where you want to be. This nagging feeling of anxiety is actually called ambition. Ambition is your friend.

-Atom Egoyan, independent filmmaker

The short film came back into my life yesterday.

I had written it off. I was sure nothing was going to become of it at this point.

This gets me thinking about the strange ways I relate to projects and productions. Sometimes I feel as though I write about filmmaking like single people write about their myriad love relationships. Take for example how many ideas never get beyond that initial burst of inspiration. Maybe it was never meant to be. Then there are those projects that weave in and out of your life, but never get very far while still remaining significant and personal. Then there are the ones that wake you up in the middle of the night, because what they've got to say just can't wait until morning.

And finally there are the actual productions - the marriages, if you will. They fall apart due to poor planning, bad communication, money issues, and the like.

So, the short film was back briefly. I heard from the writer-director guy, who I'd recently written again. I wanted to hear about his abandonment of his own project. I was told he hadn't done so, he was planning on seeing it through, and that the script was almost done. Lies, lies, lies.

Oh, and now he isn't leaving town until the third week in August. That would have been fine information to have before, but after his three week absence from communication and somehow taking four weeks to edit thirty pages out of the script, I decided I'd had enough. "So you're bailing then," he wrote during our instant message session. Nice.

Creative endeavors are a nasty beast.

cleaning house

About eighteen months ago I was interviewed by a local grad student who was doing their thesis on a film-related matter. I didn't realize when I met her for that thirty minute chunk of time that the transcript of our conversation would be available on-line.

It is.

I just came across it.

And I decided to read it.

Without removing all of my surprisingly plentiful vocalized pauses, I initially found myself sounding like a lesser version of myself - less confident, less assured, less grounded, a bit nervous, and maybe a touch stoned. It took a second read-through to recognize that this objective, fly-on-the-wall stance I was receiving revealed that I have indeed grown in a myriad of areas personally and professionally.

Perhaps some of this has been evident in the writings here.

Paradox is the wrong word for it, but there's something startling about listening to oneself in this way, spending a few moments with a younger incarnation of oneself.


The person I was reading on that page is someone who I don't fully understand. I suppose I am more assured, more confident, and more grounded.

I've similarly been rediscovering my past against the better judgment of Don Henley:

a voice inside my head said don't look back

you can never look back

-"boys of summer", 1984

Even after a period last fall spent clearing out the clutter, then attempting to move into a more streamlined existence, I still look around the house and watch so many things collect dust.

And I hate dusting. It's nearly as pointless as owning a leaf blower.

There are so many facets of old me sitting around - the me that comes from a family of pack rats. I had a grandmother who had enough stockpiled in her basement for a couple nuclear fallouts. I have a dad who I watched continually fill the garage with random containers and whatnot. To his credit he was a re-user before it was cool and long before my parents became obsessed with watching and re-watching "An Inconvenient Truth". But it's the drive to accumulate that runs in the family. I know, I know - capitalism, consumerism, blah-blah-blah.

What I've got are neatly contained memories, if you will.

This is from the writer perspective now. I've been working on an old script. I hadn't tossed together a new draft of it in five years. It's always been very personal to me and quite painful to write. But it's got a lot of baggage and it has the burden of having been written by a weaker writer.

At this point, I've spent the last month and a half completely deconstructing it, shattering it into its finer pieces much like a film editor. Instinctually I feel that it's what it needed. What's interesting to me is that as I've been working on it, it's slowly morphed into something quite similar to what it was. So, it's been a cathartic experience to re-live this story, but also to re-live my own, reading old missives, excising old newspaper clippings, and digging deeper into why any of it matters to me.

Speaking of lightening the load, the short film seems to have hit a complete stop. To borrow a phrase, the ball has been in his court for nearly two weeks. I feel I've made my best effort to be supportive of this project, but after a while he's exhibited a lack of interest or commitment. I think I'm done with it.

I do have to wonder, though, how any of this will look in hindsight eighteen months or maybe five years down the road.

america is

It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall

-Phil Ochs, "I Ain't Marching Anymore" (1965)

It's July fourth.

The fourth of July. Independence Day.

It's a summer day that came and went throughout much of my childhood. I watched the festivities and celebrations from afar with underdeveloped and under-tapped critical thinking skills.

It was one of the three major days during the year that my dad would unfurl the stars and stripes from whatever storage place in the garage it called home. Depending on where we were living at the time, he would display it inside a prominent window, hang it from the roof near our balcony, or draw it up the flagpole like a lynching of a forgotten ideal.

In the afternoon we'd probably barbeque some dead animal, munch from the family size bag of potato chips, and quench our thirst on iced tea. There'd be innumerable treats to choose from, with the dessert being the booming, bright, and colorful fireworks display with the other hordes of the blanket spreading clan. This would be a rare opportunity to be out past dark. All of these celebratory things could surely give an impressionable child the idea that things are great in the good old US of A.

I come from a military family. My grandfather was at Iwo Jima. He was a marine. What I know of him wouldn't fill a chapter in a book, but I know he was a wartime painter who crafted many a battle scene in all of its wartime raw imagery. He was also a poet and author, who became the subject of a poetry essay I put together in ninth grade. Even though this was my dad's adoptive father and not a blood relative, the five dollars he'd give me for writing book reports for him when I was seven years old I call out as the reason I love writing to this day.

My dad was in the Air Force and then the Navy. My brother followed in the familial footsteps and has become far more career military than anyone suspected when he enlisted nearly twenty years ago. There was a regimented nature to our household complete with hospital corners on our beds and a need for my dad to come into our rooms on weekend mornings doing a loud rendition of revelry.

There was always this overwhelming threat when you pushed the limits of acceptable taste or behavior in our household. It always seemed to come up. Military school. I would be hard pressed to count how many times I was "this" close to being "sent away". Thinking about it now, I haven't a clue if these these things really exist. Whatever the case, I feel that I grew up in a microcosm of my perspective of America. We're in constant need of creating little soldiers to go off to war.

We just finished watching the recent John Cusack film, "Grace is Gone". It's an intimate, affecting drama about a conventional Middle American guy who's lost his wife in Iraq and can't muster up the strength to break the news to his children. There's an underlying anti-war message that shows the complexity of fighting for what you believe in, but then having to deal with the detrimental effects of believing in it on a more personal level. I found it to be quite powerful and I highly recommend it!

It should be clear from reading my blogs that I apparently loathe all holidays. More definitively it's probably more the blindness which people seem to approach them. Most of them become a consumer event. We are told to shop, shop, shop! Perhaps it'll keep us from realizing that the holiday we are shopping under the auspices of represents the death of soldiers or the pillaging of a Native Culture.

It's not as if I shy away from July fourth. I just don't like to celebrate it, except in contradictory ways. For example, last year we watched a documentary about the 2000 election. I guess America and I are in the midst of an angry argument. In the way that once things go sour in relationship it appears that the whole thing was always so bad. I know it's not the whole picture. It's the photo negative of that sanitized show we saw at Epcot Center last February. It's the one that has Ben Franklin chatting it up about the great history of the US. It felt like one extended euphemism filled patriotic propaganda show.

So, it's Independence Day. That should stand for something.

I have no answers.

Let's just say that freedom is more than just a figment of our collective imagination in need of pursuit.

Then, what are you doing with yours?

mini wheats

Dear Static,
Here is your Work Horoscope for Wednesday, July 2:
Sometimes being a brainiac is a liability, and this is one of those times. Go on instinct alone. Your emotions can overcome details that your intellect gets stuck in like quicksand.

There are so many unsettled and out of control things swirling about in my life at present that this could conceivably be applied to several of them. Food for thought.

Or perhaps not!

else where

I spent the better part of the evening in a tree house.

That's not something most adults can say. Not very often, at least.

It was one of those sturdy, well-structured affairs like they have in the movies. They're usually the "property" of some spoiled corporate brat. The key difference was a complete lack of children, slingshots, and "no girls" signs. In their place were the adult comforts like an excess of pillows, electric outlets, i-Tunes, and plenty of vino.

Oh, I failed to mention the frequent circulation of upwards of twenty people!

This gathering was in celebration of yet another friend's departure from town. Having lived here for the last five years and off-and-on another three years before that, there's always an exodus. Plenty of others get their ticket out. I sit back and watch this town become so many other's springboard.

So there we all were passing around the bottles of pomegranate wine, champagne, and some others, nibbling on the vegan scones my wife made, sharing close quarters with a few friends, strangers, and whatever lies in between. These are merely titles that we wear or brandish upon others.

During a localized lull in conversation I tuned my ears around the "house". Our departing friend is fresh out of college and several of the others have the same predicament. It didn't surprise me to hear somebody going on about not wanting to be represented by their major.

This feeling clearly doesn't go away. It changes shape as people yearn to be more than their job title or represented by more than their credit rating. I was thinking recently that there might be more power in recognizing what you're not than what you are. There's a lot to be said for negative space. It provides a new perspective at least.

Like a tree house.

vicious circle

The short film has been on my mind lately. A lot!

Mainly, this is the case because it's going nowhere fast. Right now it's just a theoretical idea and there's a mere month to get through development into pre-production and then into production. Three weeks have gone by with my continued efforts to keep things afloat and communications frequent and concise, but when there's no reciprocation things become a nearly unmanageable challenge.

I haven't even seen a revised script, which is like a creative blindness for me. The impending time constraints that are tightening as the days chug along have left me seeking out involvement from my actor friends. We don't have any crew leftover who have not either left town or become unresponsive. If I start to tap into my production connections, it opens up quite a can of worms.

Given the set is populated with people who I've grown accustomed to and created a rapport with, then why would we be making the film of a completely inexperienced unknown writer-director? Why not instead make something I wrote, for example? This was not an aspect when I thought I was helping guide the production with this guy's people and resources. This is not the project I "signed" up for, by any means.

mortal majority

I started to write something new this past Tuesday night. I didn't end up posting it because I wasn't certain if I had anything interesting to say. Some thoughts began connecting in my mind, but there is a filter which all of these ideas, observations, and revelations are shoved through. There's a personal censor that seeks to thwart my every attempt at keeping up with this blog. I have that part of me sedated at the moment.

The wife and I have been meeting our friend at films on the lawn type screenings for the past several Tuesdays. The season has been arranged as somewhat of a world tour. Last Tuesday's film was in Britain for "The War Game", a short anti-war pseudo-documentary from the mid-sixties that deals candidly and topically with a theoretical aftermath of a nuclear attack. Clearly it's a perfect date movie - an upbeat, laugh-a-minute sort of affair, if you will. Actually some people did laugh a lot, but I think they were drinking.

Separate from the tenuous political situation and short mental fuse of our government, what I really want to talk about is the dream I had the night before this. As usual I don't remember very many details, but it did contain a surprising nuclear attack of our small Northern Florida town. The predictable emotional elements of such a thing were intact from the consommate fear and panic, but it's not as if my dream was without whimsy. The bomb itself flew right past where I was and was shaped not unlike the animation in "Rocky & Bullwinkle".

I'm hardly the paranoid folk that my parents are, so I quickly wrote off the obvious, foreboding implications of my mind's inner musings and dashed straight toward a Google search. The dream interpretation site Dream Moods says this dream:

...suggests feelings of helplessness, being threatened and loss of control. You may be experiencing great hostility and rage to the point of being destructive. Alternatively, you may be expressing a desire to wipe out some aspect of yourself. It may also be an indication that something crucial and precious to you has ended and important changes are about to occur.

There might be something to that. The strength of my slumber has changed drastically, especially over the course of the six months since we moved to this new house. The immediate changes that happened were stark. The insomnia wasn't hitting me. I was sleeping through the night and all of that. In itself this is something unusual for me.

Lately my body has followed my natural circadian rhythms toward official night owl status. Now my sleep has been deep, my dreams intense, and I feel myself leaving a heavy indention on the mattress. There's clearly something recognizable going on.

Toss this into the mix:

I dreamt that I was going up the side of a hill. It was visually a hill at distance, but once I began to make my ascent it was a fuckin' mountain that I was foisting myself up with my bare hands. I held on for dear life, as I groped at dirt and clumps of sod to get to this specific destination, this hotel, or some such. What was peculiar was that no one else around me seemed to be having the same struggles. Bicyclists, pedestrians, and runners moved along with seemingly no effort.

This one seems a touch more obvious, but:

To dream that you are climbing a hill signifies your struggles in
achieving a goal.

To see mountains in your dream signifies many major obstacles and challenges that you have to overcome. Alternatively, mountains denote a higher realm of consciousness, knowledge, and spiritual truth. To dream that you are climbing a mountain signifies your determination and
ambition.

borrowed phrases

George Carlin 1937-2008:

• By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.
• Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
• Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
• We created god in our own image and likeness!
• Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there's ten things he doesn't want you to do or else you'll go to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! ... And he needs money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!
• Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
• Is there another word for synonym?
• Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to have an "S" in it?
• Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
• I like Florida. Everything is in the 80's. The temperatures, the ages and the IQ's.
• Swimming is not a sport; swimming is a way to keep from drowning. That’s just common sense!
• Nothing worse than to be stuck somewhere with some married asshole and have to listen to him tell you about his fuckin’ kids.
• Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesnt need us promoting his minor scholastic achievments on the back of our car.”
• Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established.
• I don't have hobbies; hobbies cost money. Interests are quite free.
• The reason I talk to myself is that I'm the only one whose answers I accept.
• If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
• Is a vegetarian permitted to eat animal crackers?
• If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?
• If the "black box" flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the whole airplane made out of that stuff?
• Once you leave the womb, conservatives don’t care about you until you reach military age. Then you’re just what they’re looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.
• Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that.
• One great thing about getting old is that you can get out of all sorts of social obligations just by saying you’re too tired.
• You wouldn’t know it by some of the things I’ve said over the years, but I like people. I do. I like people, but in short bursts. I don’t like people for extended periods of time.
• Americans have been bought and sold by gizmos and toys. As a result, no one’s ever learned to question things.

happy archivist

I have just gotten around to transporting all of the old blogs from the other site over to here. I feel like a record label milking an unproductive artist's back catalog for all it's worth. Whatever the case, it allows this page to paint a much broader picture.

This was partly inspired by joining another networking site within the past couple days. The friend sites haven't exactly proven fruitful for my career, but one more equipped for professional networking was recently recommended to me. I decided to check it out, so I've started to build a page there.

As idealistic as it sounds, I live by the notion that the true measure of a person is not their list of accomplishments represented by a résumé, but truly who they are as an individual. So, I find myself in a quandary.

The more time I spend on that site, constructing what feels like the picture of the ever evolving job application, I wonder whether or not I would like to bridge the gap between that page and this one by posting a link. On the one hand, this page feels somewhat representative of my writing ability. On the other, I must consider all of the varied personal information I weave into it that makes removing the veil of anonymity a bit disconcerting.

suffragette city

Tonight, the better part of two hours was spent at a forum on "Sexism in the Media". It seemed like a nice enough way to spend a Wednesday evening when I learned of it last weekend. The title invoked memories of college sociology classes with generically named textbooks. Being interested in social politics and being a small dot on the media map myself, I was intrigued.

We sat near the center of the room, nibbling on our cheese cubes and cantaloupe cuts, choosing not to partake of the slim cash bar. People slowly shuffled in. We watched as two public relations students twiddled their thumbs diffidently, holding tight to their notepads, seemingly avoiding human contact. The demographic of the room definitely leaned more in favor of women twenty years older than us. I wasn't the only guy, but I was the only one without a piercing or distinctive hat. I wonder what that says.

The media in question were the news organizations. Nothing about any of the subjects or points that were brought up seemed surprising or particularly revelatory. I'm getting really tired of hearing about what Bill O'Reilly or Chris Matthews has said this time! The focus on the current Presidential election was really the only thing that separated this (as it turned out) NOW sponsored event from a somewhat out-of-date reference book. I realize preaching to the choir will get that sometimes.

I guess I was a little disappointed in the overall event, but I did enjoy getting in on the discussion. After a panel presented specific information, there was some round table action, followed by more honed in bullet points to take away. This segued right into some plugging of the organization and the necessary but shameless drive to get membership checks written.

static x

WARNING: THIS BLOG WILL ONLY BE SUITABLE FOR HARDCORE STATIC READERS:

I'm wondering whether this blog is long overdue. Maybe this represents what should have composed an introductory statement when I first began. Maybe I should just keep my self-interest and indulgence to myself.

If I did, there'd be nothing to write about. So, here goes:

Thanks to a Facebook friend sending it along in my direction, I found myself doing one of those Personality Tests of the Myers-Briggs sort. These are the results (complete with paranthethicals by me).

THE CHEAT SHEET

General breakdown -

7% Introverted

1% Intuitive

11% Thinking

19% Perceiving

THE FACTS OR WHATEVER

• INTPs are known for their quest for logical purity, which motivates them to examine universal truths and principles.
• They are constantly asking themselves and others the questions 'Why?' and 'Why not?'
• Clear and quick thinkers, they are able to focus with great intensity on their interests. (Such as themselves?)
• They appreciate elegance and efficiency in thought processes and require them, even more so, in their own communications. (I do tend to hate long, rambling stories.)
• They may be seen as unwilling to accept what everyone else regards as truth. (And sometimes seen as simply mocking!)
• While often low key in outward appearance and approach, the INTP is 'hard as nails' when challenging a truth.
• INTPs do not like to deal with the obvious.
• They are at their best in building conceptual models and developing unusual and complex ideas. (The topic of the blog, notwithstanding.)
• As children, INTPs are inwardly focused, often enjoying their own thoughts more than the company of others. (This is quite the understatement, but it's always been sharply contrasted by my class clown persona.)
• They are full of questions, sometimes voiced, most often not. (Was I adopted? Was I an accident?)
• INTP children often challenge and even stump their elders. (I was not difficult! My sister was the difficult one. That's what I was always told. My guess, based on experience, is that she was assured of the exact opposite.)
• They enjoy fantasy, mysteries, inventing, thinking and doing things that may be somewhat atypical for other children of their age, and they sense their uniqueness early on.
• If INTPs are fond of books or games, it is likely that their choices will be the current rage. (Doesn't that contradict the previous statement referring to the atypical nature of little me? I'm beginning to think these things are bunk.)
• If and INTP is fond of music, it is likely to be of an unusual sort.
• INTPs tend to either respect and go along with society's rules, or to question and rebel against them. (The bunk factor just went up a touch farther. This phrase feels like a cop-out. It would explain a lot of my borderline bi-polar struggles, however.)
• Their response to these rules depends on how the rules might affect them.
• When INTPs do not like the rules, they are quick to find the flaws in the rule makers' thinking, regardless of their status, position in the hierarchy, or renown.
• As young adults choosing careers, INTPs either set a course and work toward it quietly yet forcefully or continue to resist and rebel against society's expectations and irrational rules. (I think I ended up doing both.)
• They may either focus in depth on a major interest or move from one interest to another without showing others - friends, colleagues, and bosses - their reasons why.
• It is the process, the quest, that has been most interesting to them. (Interesting, indeed.)
• Once they have found the answer, they do not often share it because the answer is obvious, and documenting the obvious is redundant.
• This attitude includes a tendency not to respond or speak up in groups, because the INTP feels that what he or she was going to say seems so obvious that no one would want to hear it. (There's a lot to this. Wow! Maybe that explains why I tire of telling the same story multiple times. I've found myself deliberately telling tales differently or leaving out different bits of information just to keep myself interested.)

... I DOUBT ANYONE IS STILL READING THIS ...

• As INTPs mature, they continue their quest for logical purity, but now it includes more balance in their activities.
• The INTP is a relentless learner in areas that hold his or her interest.
• They often seem 'lost in thought,' and this characteristic appears very early. (...and becomes perceived as "being secretive" by one's nuclear family.)
• INTPs enjoy the life of the mind and the learning process, regardless of whether that process takes place in a formal sense. (I'm a college drop-out that used to always wait for an opening to phrase the circumstances as: yes, I finished college. I generally don't care anymore. I have a harsh criticism for the piece of paper and supposed esteem that comes from a degree.)
• They are often characterized as life-long learners. (This is due to my feelings of inadequacy against those who had a capped and gowned exit from their institutions of higher learning. Yeah, right.)
• In school, well-rounded INTPs work on their assignments with a great deal of inward energy and interest that is usually not apparent to others.
• They tend to connect unrelated thoughts. (Oh, yeah! I often have to explain why thoughts have cohesion in my mind. You should try being on my team in Catch Phrase.)
• As learners, they are able to find logical flaws in the thinking of others.
• They analyze these flaws and find ideas for further study. (Hell, I keep good tabs on my own flaws!)
• They go to great depths in their analysis.
• In taking exams, they prefer theorectical questions.
• When INTPs view a test, teachers, or subjects as irrelevant, they may respond as follows: 'I know what I need to know about this topic; I may even know more than my teacher. The teacher made this test, and this test is dumb. Therefore, my teacher is dumb, and I will not do the test.'
• Because of such reactions, the INTP's academic record may include successes or may be filled with failures. (Here's another one of those cop-out bits. The explanation of the extremes seem questionable to me.)
• INTPs contribute a logical, system-building approach to their work.
• They like being the architect of a plan, because of the scheming and thinking involved, far more than being the implementer of that plan. (Hello! Writing!)
• Implementation tends to be drudgery.
• They are content to sit back and think about what might work, given their view of the situation.
• INTPs may ignore standard operating procedures.
• The hours that they spend are not what is important to them, but rather the completion of their thought process. (I know at least one other person who doesn't think work should account of an automatic 40-hour chunk of time.)
• When their projects are of interest to them, they can become mesmerized and may even work through the night. (I've been a nightowl since I was a little kid!)
• When their projects are not intriguing, their work is considered drudgrery, and the INTP finds it difficult to stay motivated. (I'm starting to feel that way about finishing this blog. If you actually are reading this, then I simply don't know what's wrong with you. It seemed intriguing when I first began this post. Now I might as well be underlining a book and sharing my scribblings with the world.)
• INTPs usually find a place in their work for using their logical and structured thinking.
• They enjoy work that allows them to abstract, to generalize beyond the data, and to build models.
• Flexibility is desired because INTPs like to 'do the job when they want to do it and as they want to do it.'
• They also prefer occupations in which the hierarchy is minimal and not important. (I do suppose indie filmmaking versus Hollywood filmmaking does make sense in this regard.)
• This attitude seems from their firm belief that, to be legitimate, a hierarchy should be built on the competency of individuals who are logically placed according to their talents.
• Some occupations seem to be more attractive to INTPs: biologist, chemist, computer programmer, computer system analyst, lawyer, photographer, psychologist, researcher, surveyor, writer and other occupations that allow them to use their logical thinking in appropriate ways. (I really sucked at science. I cheated on at least one eighth grade science test, I fell asleep during sophomore chemistry two rows back, and I somehow flunked college oceanography. Interestly, I got a perfect A in college Astronomy.)

LOVE

• For the INTP, love has three distinct phases: falling in, staying in, and getting out.
• These phases relate to their thinking preference and its need for order and sequence.
• An INTP characterized falling in love as a stage of complete loss of rationality that may last a year or less.
• When an INTP falls in love, he or she falls hard - an all or nothing phenomenon.
• At this stage, INTPs are likely to be very lively, almost giddy, in their new love.
• The experience rushes over them and carries them along. (What part of this is exclusive to my personality type. Isn't this really the definition?)
• They do not structure or control it but simply enjoy and experience it.
• They do many loving things and they are curious about their loved one and are able to overlook his or her flaws.
• They may bravely ignore the realities of distance, weather, and time to be with the loved one. (Nice. The wife and I are exceptions to the long-distance relationship thing!)
• As relationships progress to the staying-in-love phase, INTPs begin to evaluate their structure and form.
• They may withdraw at this point because they are moving toward their more customary inward style.
• Outward demonstrations of affection lessen, and the giddy state changes. (Guessing this is when I usually put pen to paper.)
• Interactions are more matter of fact, perhaps even impersonal.
• INTPs take their commitments to their partner seriously; however, they may not discuss these commitments at any length with their partner or with other people, because their commitments seem so obvious to them.
• Falling out of love, which may not always occur, results from an analysis of the real expectations and needs of the relationship.
• Often an undefined line is crossed that neither partner knows about ahead of time.
• However, the INTP knows after the line has been crossed, and then the relationship deteriorates or ends.
• If INTPs recognize their emotions and needs as valid, they are able to sever relationship ties fairly cleanly.
• However, if they misjudge their own needs and those of their partner, the breakup can be messy, perhaps affecting other aspects of their lives for a long time.
• If the INTP shares some common interests with the former loved one, the relationship continues but on a different level.
• When INTPs have a reason to continue relationships, they do.

PHEW, THAT'S ALL.
Supposedly that's me. I'm sure nobody got through the whole damn thing.

losing amy

When in need of anything else, life will offer you closure.

Today I got some closure. I heard from my friend and partner about the stage adaptation I wrote for a favorite film. "They" offered an emphatic, 'no'. I understand the fears that may manifest themselves. There's the concern about another bunch of fingers molesting one's baby, and all that. It's too bad, though. I feel that there will always be a throne between the successful types and "Us", who they once were.

I'll admit it was a long shot.

There's always a long shot involved in putting forth effort without a known pay-off at the end. I see clearly, though. For me, the pay-off was finding my way through writing an adaptation for the first time, sending a stamped self-addressed envelope to a famous figure of pop culture, and getting to spend more quality creative time with my good friend.

As it turns out, there's still a slot open for me in the next theatre season. Now I have to figure out what I want to direct. Given the passion I felt for this lost material, it's going to be a challenge to discover something that hits me the same way, but I need to find it quickly.

So, any suggestions?

--

Added a couple hours later:

This was my work horoscope for today -

"You don't need a vast and riotous victory. A little success could still give you a small glimpse of happiness. So focus on the smaller issues and leave the broader ones for tomorrow."

Well, I found it interesting, at least.

paternal trifecta

*****

Today was Father's Day.

I noticed that Google changed its design to correspond to the multiple, but narrow-minded concepts we have of a father's involvement in the world. They're the same images found on the fronts of cards: dad during a young child's life, whether that means kite flying on a Sunday afternoon or wood sawing during tree house assembly.

I don't send cards anymore.

Part of this is due to knee-jerk environmental reasons. The other part is more complicated and less easily rationalized or explained.

When holidays like this come around, I wonder to whom the card companies and other corporate entities are still selling this illusion of the Norman Rockwell family. Whatever happened to the illusion of one's dad beating up another's? That one got plenty of playground buzz, but seemingly no press. Isn't that what the masculine influence has really offered our society?

I talked to my dad today. There's a predictable formula to our conversations. I should point out that conversing with one another is not common. When I use the term "conversation" I mean it on the most remote level possible, such as what might be shared by two strangers in an elevator. There's seemingly no escape from it and boy do you wish that other person hadn't started talking.

On-going banter about the weather is always the centerpiece of our conversational template. There's the curiosity: how's the weather been there? That's the jumping off point and there are always follow up questions and responses. Things start to get a bit shakier, should the chat go anywhere else. There are no follow-up questions. Most of the time it's not clear whether what you said was even heard.

Today I got a couple more lines of conversation out of him. It was interesting. It felt like a break-through. Part of me suspects I might have scratched the surface of another way to relate to one another; the other part thinks I'm foolish.

I called my brother next.

He's a father seven times over. Sometimes I have to backtrack in my head and do a mental headcount to ensure I've gotten the number correct. I'm sure I could do the math to determine just how many of the planet's resources are being used by my brother's family alone, but I'm sure it wouldn't help our situation.

Let me tell you, I loathe speakerphone. Okay, to be fair, mostly I loathe it if I don't know the person that well. I don't know my brother. We don't relate at all. I know we don't see eye-to-eye on anything. This leaves us reduced to obligatory holiday conversations. The speakerphone while driving with a person who I've never met probably didn't help matters, but the contents of our talk were too minimal to get into. There was mention of them going to Starbucks. I kept my mouth shut. Unbeknownst to some people, I can do so, but it's one of many things that remind me that one of us is part of the Confederacy and the other the Union (or some similar historical divide of your choice).

***** (thanks to Stevie for the photo)

communication breakdown

I've got this friend.

Maybe.

The trouble I find in describing who this person is relates to moviemaking. In the industry, the professional and social intermingle in interesting ways. There's always a need to keep people a phone call or e-mail away just in case you might need them, er, need to use them down the line. Is that a friend?

This is why burning bridges is such an unsafe way to travel.

Well, I've got this friend, let's say. We've worked together on three different projects during the last three years. The first time around I was an outsider to the gang of people that had been gathered and this person didn't even introduce themselves until about two hours into the day. We sat and chatted movies and about my writing the next morning, but you couldn't help but notice it was less me she was interested in than what I might be able to contribute.

One might suspect we hit it off professionally as that show went on, but honestly I showed dependability and competence and she seemed to run things from afar, never really keeping the little workers apprised of what was going on. We were left sitting, waiting, wondering why we had a 10AM call when nothing had seemed to begin happening before 230PM.

I followed her onto the next project. My involvement was discussed over a year in advance, yet when the first production meeting came around I wasn't told about it until two or three hours beforehand.

Things went well with this one, as I continued going beyond expectations, earning myself several different jobs and a couple promotions during the long production. There was always a struggle. There were always missing elements. I always kept myself up-to-date on what I needed to do, but somehow I was always still behind. As I got closer and closer into the center of the production, I started to recognize that things just weren't being said. Always was this expectation that we were all mind-readers.

The third production saw me in charge of the communication with the cast, which helped things enormously. I still felt incapable of fielding most of their questions without making stuff up.

There's supposed to be a film to be shot toward the end of summer. It's possible we could just shoot scenes to promote the script to see about getting funding together. Regardless something is supposed to be happening within the next month and a half. I'm again working with this person.

I know more about her than I did three years ago. I know her birth date, her spouse, a couple tidbits about her separate from film chatter, but I still don't know if I think of her as a friend. She must think of me that way, though, since she shared some particularly personal info last time I saw her. At any rate, there has been some toiling with getting together to talk about this third person's script.

It's been an act of pulling teeth.

She doesn't show up for the meetings we had scheduled or canceled them without telling me. She doesn't return e-mails or phone calls. I've really become cognizant that there's a lot of backlog of information I never got over the years, because of all of those reply-less e-mails I send getting thoughts off my mind and such.

Many of her friends accept her the way she is. They chuckle at her being her with the forgetfulness or the tardiness or whatnot. As for me, I think I'm getting tired of the joke.

I know I'm going to see this next project through, because honestly that's what people see as "me being me". I realize she helped springboard me onto that first project, but as the years wear on I start to see more and more distinct differences. Our paths and goals are different.

Maybe that's not the case.

Maybe I was just never told.

I'm seeing similar blasé attitude in the short film guy.

I spent the last entry spotlighting the good stuff. I was feeling alright about the overall picture. Unfortunately, I felt like the last one to know that we had an exceedingly limited timeframe to put this thing together. I came to discover that he will be out of town "vacationing" for about three weeks and he and most of our slapdash crew he assembled are leaving town in a month and a half. In my opinion the script isn't even ready to cast.

The question is (suddenly feeling like Carrie Bradshaw): Do I get myself in these positions or is most of the world like this?

aging out

Where to begin?



My recent surge of potential energy, so to speak, found me sitting out front of a Starbucks earlier this evening. I had been in touch with a recent college graduate who'd shown interest in putting together a short film this summer.

Having decided to check into it on a whim, I found myself unexpectedly intrigued by an overly thick (non-horror!) script written by a passionate, idealistic twenty-four year old. We met for the first time tonight to talk about the production I am helping to produce and the script I am helping to settle down into a workable blueprint.

It's been nearly twenty years since I began my film quest with those days of clipping movie-related articles, taping full-page New York Times film poster ads to the walls of my bedroom, typing up fake entertainment pages about sequels to my favorite flicks and reviews to others, drawing out storyboards to un-produced James Bond blockbusters during my science class, and overdosing on American Movie Classics. To say the least, the mythical road that got me here has taken some surprising turns.

Tonight was no exception. I held a quiet protest against the evil corporation by even forgoing a cup of triple-filtered water, while we sat there chatting, catching a decent rapport with one another. I felt free and easy with knowledge and advice, saying things I wished I realized or thought about at his age.

Simply put, I've become an older version of myself. I know chronologically this should be expected, but that's not all I mean. I see something in this twenty-four year old that feels strikingly like me at that age. I had a bulky 140 page screenplay and a great many ideals about the world and the industry. That was me. I saw my first short production crumble to shards of dashed hopes at twenty-one, but nothing jaded me as much as bringing my big ol' first script into the unrelenting battle of the film business.

That wasn't all, though.

As I was describing a qualm I had with the main character, I pointed out that his age of twenty-five didn't seem to realistically correspond to the life experience and disappointment described within the script. As challenging as it might be to cast locally for this, I expected a graying man, beat down by bad decisions and a broken heart, but didn't state this in so many words. The answer came quickly, easily, and with much conviction.

Thirty.

The character will now be thirty!

not lanta

I made the venture up to Atlanta this past week.

It's the conference time of year for the wife, so I decided to pack my bags and take the journey with her. This tends to be the way of things since county money pays for the only vacation we ever seem to get. There aren't a lot of perks in the film business at my level and the regular day job world seems completely immune from re-accepting me into it.

The above image represents my view for much of my four days there. I decided on the one that evoked imprisonment as a statement on the vibe I got from the city as well as my chosen way to spend my time there. I hauled myself up in the room. It wasn't due to the allure of the non-existent mini-bar or the pay-per-view porn or the nearly dozen pillows on the bed that I spent so much time there. Nope.

Ever since I found myself storming through that stage adaptation, I have felt like the updated version of myself with fewer of the kinks that made the last version so unstable. I have felt tireless again and insanely interested in "doing". After spending a month going out nearly every night, this verve has flowed into my working life.

So, what's this all have to do with Atlanta?

I don't know. Does it matter?

black out

I start and stop writing these things again and again. It does seem to be a cycle. It used to happen with journals I would scribble down in spiral notebooks as well. There would be huge gaps of time uncharted and often forgotten without the proof. I don't think it's a lack of ability to sustain, but it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case.

I have found myself doing the same thing with the on-line movie reviews that I write for IMDb. Sometimes I will go for maybe nine months straight writing about every film I have seen during that time. Once I skip one, though, I tend to stop.

I have lots and lots of scripts, sketches, shorts, and books in various stages of development collecting dust on my thumb drive. A couple months ago I found myself working on a stage adaptation for one of my favorite films. I am hoping to produce it in the near future. The prospect of a production at the other end made the process that much easier. Granted it was mostly a formatting and editing gig, but the quick start to finish was the inspiration I had been seeking to help get me energized again.

I have worked on and finished innumerable writings over the years. Without the glimmer of a production on the horizon, though, I start to lose sight of why I bother. Additionally, most of the productions I have worked on never carried with it a wrap party, a completed product, or any semblance of closure besides less contact with those involved.

I'm a very focused person, but often times I'm very focused on what's next, what's new, what's fresh. After awhile most things in your life become the all too familiar peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I get bored easily, especially when life starts to feel like act three of a movie where everything goes back to the mundane once that act two excitement has left town.

I wonder how long that will be for this page.

Again.

jump start

I don't have a layout of the sect spectrum at my disposal, but I'd guess I'm about the farthest thing from a Catholic one can be. That said, after so much time away from this blogging trip, I feel as though I should begin with a confessional statement like "it's been two months since my last..." I wonder, would it be too anti-climactic to actually start out with something like this.


HMM.


So, it's been two months since my last journal...