I watched the first six episodes of "Absolutely Fabulous" and have set up to watch the next four years of it via Netflix. Patsy and Edina are the perfect role-models for someone into complete self-absorption and shallowness of interest. I feel at home, with them...especially Patsy and her attitude about men, no matter what their age. This one episode skimmed the legal age in the UK so closely, you could almost hear the sheet metal connect, with an adorable English school boy as her object de lust for the moment. The crazy bitch. I was SO jealous.
I think what I like most about the series is the go-for-broke-and-damn-the-consequences attitude of it all. Edina (who used to be Edwina) can change her emotional direction faster than a fruit fly on a tear and still seem like someone interesting enough to tolerate. Patsy's "Whatever" notions go perfectly with champagne and Beluga Caviar...and this was long before that SATC crap; man, she could teach Samantha a few things about life, times ten.
Me? I'm still too anal for that. Which is a surprising thing for me to say, considering the books I've written. But reality is, I have to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite to get past my immediate inhibitions. That or get drunk...which I may try, again. I wrote "Find Ray Tarkovsky" in a week while buzzing on Amstel Light and Corona. It was the only way I could shut down my inner censor and just let the thing ride. And it worked; it's my most commercial script and the one where I'd get a lot of interest...so long as I was willing to change it to suit whomever was liking it at the moment, all without pay.
There was a lot of that in Hollywood -- "Change it to suit us and we'll probably buy it, but we won't pay you a penny, yet" -- that, when I was dumb enough to actually DO it, shifted into, "Oh, never mind; it's not right for us." So I stopped doing it...until "Bugzters." Then I deliberately set my pride aside and let others dictate what the story should be...and found I could only go so far, even drunk. And that brought about SOOOOOO many problems, it made me back away from screenwriting.
I do still miss it...mainly because it's a much easier form of writing to do. Oh, it's still got its demands and restrictions...but I usually ignored those and that's half the reason I never got anywhere with it. And now that I'm close to finishing LD as a book, I like the story a hundred times more without those restrictions and with the dance I was able to do with Daniel, Van, the Tads and Carmen. And I think it has a visual and aural sense, as well. Not as blatantly as a film would, but it's there. What a time in my life to finally figure out this may have been what I was supposed to be doing all long?
Guess some old dogs can learn new tricks.
I think what I like most about the series is the go-for-broke-and-damn-the-consequences attitude of it all. Edina (who used to be Edwina) can change her emotional direction faster than a fruit fly on a tear and still seem like someone interesting enough to tolerate. Patsy's "Whatever" notions go perfectly with champagne and Beluga Caviar...and this was long before that SATC crap; man, she could teach Samantha a few things about life, times ten.
Me? I'm still too anal for that. Which is a surprising thing for me to say, considering the books I've written. But reality is, I have to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite to get past my immediate inhibitions. That or get drunk...which I may try, again. I wrote "Find Ray Tarkovsky" in a week while buzzing on Amstel Light and Corona. It was the only way I could shut down my inner censor and just let the thing ride. And it worked; it's my most commercial script and the one where I'd get a lot of interest...so long as I was willing to change it to suit whomever was liking it at the moment, all without pay.
There was a lot of that in Hollywood -- "Change it to suit us and we'll probably buy it, but we won't pay you a penny, yet" -- that, when I was dumb enough to actually DO it, shifted into, "Oh, never mind; it's not right for us." So I stopped doing it...until "Bugzters." Then I deliberately set my pride aside and let others dictate what the story should be...and found I could only go so far, even drunk. And that brought about SOOOOOO many problems, it made me back away from screenwriting.
I do still miss it...mainly because it's a much easier form of writing to do. Oh, it's still got its demands and restrictions...but I usually ignored those and that's half the reason I never got anywhere with it. And now that I'm close to finishing LD as a book, I like the story a hundred times more without those restrictions and with the dance I was able to do with Daniel, Van, the Tads and Carmen. And I think it has a visual and aural sense, as well. Not as blatantly as a film would, but it's there. What a time in my life to finally figure out this may have been what I was supposed to be doing all long?
Guess some old dogs can learn new tricks.
No comments:
Post a Comment