Cross-eyed and furry-tailed

I took a redeye from Seattle to DC then changed planes for Buffalo and got home dead beat and a little out of it...and couldn't sleep for a bit. It took me fifteen minutes to realize I was hungry. I hadn't eaten in 16 hours...aside from a couple of Dr. Peppers and crackers. Once belly was filled and I'd had a shower, I sacked out for 4 hours with Pandora playing some New Age music in the background. I'm now back to being cross-eyed, but mainly because I'm trying to finish up my paperwork and clear my table.

My apartment is a mess, and it's all because I'm lazy. I pile papers up to sort through and file, later...and later keeps getting later and later. I've got a couple of bookshelves so packed with books, the shelves are bowing. I have shredding to do that's been needing to be done for weeks. And let's not get started on bill-paying. Ugh! But it's deadening work and all I want to do is write...and draw, lately. I've also been itching to get back to sketching and painting. Another reason for me to win the lottery -- so I can leave my job and spend the rest of my life doing my own little thing.

But I can't quit. My little brother is now my dependent. So until such time as I sell a script or "The Lyons' Den" winds up on the NYT Bestseller list and brings me in some decent coin, I'm stuck working at a decent enough job and using my spare time to write and ignoring all the other stuff I need to do till it becomes too demanding.

That said, I've got it good in comparison to a lot of people. I've been following the "I am the 99%" blog and most of those stories are heartbreaking. Then in their usual "screw you" fashion, the right wing's started up this "I am the 53%" blog to showcase people who are willing to settle for being spat upon by the rich so long as they can still watch cable and have a beer after working 12 hour days, but by god they pay their taxes, right?

NOT exactly. One woman posted her situation and bitched about the OWS crowd and those "people who don't pay taxes" (which is bullshit; EVERYONE pays taxes but not everyone has to pay income tax). What she revealed was she was actually in the percentile that would not have to pay income tax because she had dependents and made under the minimum. There were others like that on the site.

Things like this scare me, because they show just how delusional those people are. They're protecting the tax breaks of billionaire polluters like the Koch Brothers and GE while denigrating those trying to just get the rich to pay their fair share. It makes no sense to me...unless they're self-destructive. Which is possible. But then again, when I went to the Museum of Tolerance in LA, it made no bones about pointing out that some Jews helped the Nazis during the Holocaust, probably thinking it would protect them from the same fate. It didn't, and any fool could have seen that...but there are a lot of serious fools in the world.

What a ramble. I guess I'm still tired and unfocused. No writing done, today, except for this...and I don't think I'll rework it. Let's see how it reads tomorrow. After work.

*Sigh*

Okay, I gotta kill this mood. Here's something to make me feel less freaky.

This was photographed by David Vance, and the angel is Levi Poulter, whom I used as the physical model for Tad/Ace in "The Lyons' Den." He comes across as a nice, smart, easy to like kind of guy (though for all I know he may be the polar opposite to that) so I played him against type, so to speak. Too bad we couldn't use him on the cover of the book, but buying use of his photograph is not cheap.

What's really fun is, the model I used for Van comes across in his photos as someone with a major amount of attitude, so I played him against type, too. At least, in my mind. And that's what counts, right?

(The guy Levi's holding is Paul Francis...I think.)

I should travel more often

Something about being in a plane going a long distance makes me start working on stories. I have one, now, that has possibilities. The logline -- Three old Army buddies decide to take their recently deceased pal on one last adventure, even if it kills them. I've got the characters basically mapped out (retired men, mainly) and some of the angles figured, know who the bad guys are, and even have the grandson of one of the guys coming along for the ride. I'm setting part f it in Buffalo and part in the Caribbean...but I have to be careful to use only US islands. There are major restrictions on a non-parent taking an underage kid into and out of most countries. Initially I was going to set it in Brazil, but their Visa requirements killed that.

It's a very commercial story -- old men on one last adventure, learning about themselves and growing even though they've grown old, a boy learning about life, all that crap. I've seen "Grumpy Old Men" and "Waking Ned Devine" but now I guess I'll have to watch "The Bucket List" too.

(I had to post this before I was done with it, because if you don't have activity on the WiFi here, it kicks you off. And apparently just writing on my blog is not considered activity.)

I'm sitting in Seattle's Airport -- SeaTac -- which is one of the most livable I've ever been in. JetBlue's terminal at JFK is nice enough, but it's a terminal. All seats and concrete and low windows. SeaTac has an atrium to die for, where you can watch the planes land and take off. I've gotten to where just watching them is fun unto itself...especially when I compare them.

For example -- Southwest's little 737s actually look sneaky when taxiing behind an Airbus 320. The Airbus stands taller and stiffer, while the 737 scoots along like it's about to pull a trick on the other plane. There's also a group of regional propeller jobs run by Alaska and Horizon Air that look more like ferret pups feeding at mom's teats, the way they're congregated around the walkways to the terminal. And the occasional 757 from Delta or Icelandair passes by like a hall monitor or mom walking around to make certain everyone's behaving. It's cute.

I've never felt about any other airport like I have this one. It's my fifth time here, and I can't wait to come back, again.

I like Seattle...

At least, I like the areas I've been in -- mainly downtown and by the Space Needle, the airport (which is massive but still amazingly user friendly) and the ferries crossing Puget Sound. This is my fourth trip here and I'm beginning to feel like I know the city enough to get around.

I especially enjoy taking the Link train from the airport to downtown. It passes through a whole array of communities -- industrial, along the 5 Freeway, past declining as well as gentrified residential areas, a sports complex, an Asian grouping and then it hits the tunnel to bring you to Westlake, which is the main shopping area, downtown. I even enjoy the transit cops who come on to check to make certain you have a ticket; one of them is amazingly buff and beautiful (though his partner's not exactly ugly). From Westlake I can take the Monorail to the Exposition area and then it's just a couple blocks walk to my hotel. And no matter where I go there are people everywhere.

It also has the same ethos as me. In the underground bus terminal I saw a middle-aged couple with signs decrying Wall Street Greed and proclaiming that there's too much money in the political system, both of which I agree. Looks like OWS is settling in to this town too.

Of course, there are those who don't like making a city livable because it interferes with their plans to use up the land so they can make as much cash off it as possible then head on. That happened in Austin. When I lived there, the mayor was kicked out for getting too chummy with developers and the city passed restrictive zoning laws. The Legislature stepped in and stripped the city of many of the laws meant to keep it a decent place to live, and now they have massive traffic jams, the water they use to drink is fouled from runoff due to the parking lots and construction everywhere, and many of their hilltops are ruined by apartment and condo complexes that look like Tibetan monasteries. On top of it, with the ongoing drought threatening to get worse, there isn't enough water for the people who live there, so they're under water restrictions. Some communities can't even get water and have to buy bottled to do everything from drinking to bathing to flushing the toilet. Talk about killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Seattle seems to have that under control...so far. But never underestimate the greed and determination of those cockroaches that call themselves human. They're getting to where they don't even fear a light being shined on them. Witness this new woman on CNN -- Erin Burnett. Her husband's a Citibank executive so you know where she's coming from when she attacks the kids protesting down on Wall Street. And other right wing scum are posting dismissive and threatening attacks on OWS, too. The backlash has started and the roaches give no quarter. I wonder if this civil war will be one of internet attacks and commentaries, only, with the cops doing their brutality thing till they see that people are taping them and showing it off? Maybe it will be relatively bloodless.

But that's not probably. More than likely, we'll devolve into a version of Syria, with the government slaughtering the protesters, or Lybia, with outright civil war, than Egypt. I have no idea which way is better to effect real change.

Is it just me?

On the Chicago to Seattle leg of my trip, the airline played "Captain America." It was pan-and-scan so I decided not to watch it...but they had these very 1990s TV screens that pop down from the overhead bins so I couldn't turn it off...and I caught a glimpse of Chris Evans pre-Captain. Man...they did a damn good job of making him seem very small and slim. The rest of it's the usual crap of last-minute saves and near-death moments and on and on...so I only half noticed the rest of the movie. I'll watch it sometime on DVD in letterbox to get a better idea of what it's like.

But here's the weird part. Now I already think Chris Evans is gorgeous, especially when he hasn't shaved his chest (like he did in this movie). What startled me was how attractive he was even as the scrawny guy who gets sand kicked in his face. Yes, he's got a great body...but he has that something more that is needed to make it on film -- the camera likes him.

It's funny how unforgiving and absolute that is. I've seen people who are just plain gorgeous in person -- both male and female -- but you seen them in a movie and they all but do not exist as a real person. Whereas people like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (I saw both of them at Heritage Book Shop years ago) look like nothing in person but the camera makes them beautiful. An even better example? Me and my brother, Kelly. In my photos I look 10 years older and suddenly have an extra 20 pounds. Kelly (when he's cleaned up) looks sharp and intense.

I don't get it...but having seen these other people who did or didn't work in front of the lens helped me accept it's just the way the camera wants to see you. And sometimes all it likes is one angle of you. I've seen both male and female models who look beautiful from the left and just plain wrong from the right.

Dunno why this is rattling around in my head, except I'm back to working on a script and I'm thinking about things like that, again. Guess the camera also can make you superficial.

Yeah, like I need help for that.

More of "We-Come"

EXT. SKATEBOARD PARK - DAY
Danny kills the roll and lets his sled fly off. He slides to a halt. Catherine rushes over to him.

CATHERINE
Danny!

DANNY
I’m fine. Fine!

He stands. Shakes off everyone’s help.

POWELL
Nussed, again.

Danny forces a smile and a nod then turns to Chill.

DANNY
‘Bro -- you own the Tricktionary.

CHILL
C’mon, dude, that Kick Flip you did was diamonds.

DANNY
But your Vert was ill.

CHILL
Ripped it from you. Playa Domingo. Sorry you’re not still gaming. Be fun to go up.

DANNY
Be a real chase.

Chill quietly beams, bumps knuckles with Danny and rolls off with his crew. Catherine watches. Mario strolls up with Danny’s board.

MARIO
You’re way better than he is.

DANNY
Not anymore.

He takes his skateboard and heads for the car -- walking.

In the background, Randall leads the Hare Krishnas out of the park, just like The Pied Piper of Hamlin, all chanting and singing. Skye watches, bemused.

EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY/WE-COME INN - NIGHT
The SUV roars down the road. The Hare Krishnas are inside, singing. Randall sings with them.

They reach the motel. The SUV stops and Randall hops out, followed by the Hare Krishnas, all singing and chanting. He leads them to Unit One and opens the door.

RANDALL
Your converts await.

The Hare Krishnas jaunt inside. He closes the door.

The singing and chanting keep going. SKITTERING noises come from within. The singing and chanting slow down. Then comes the WHISPERY CHUCKLE. The singing and chanting stop.

Randall sighs, relieved.

SCREAMS burst from within the room, followed by the sounds of CRASHING FURNITURE and someone POUNDING on the walls.

Randall backs away. Waits.

Two BLOOD-COVERED DEVOTEES yank the door open! One is instantly caught; the other bolts outside! She crashes to the ground. A tentacle whips out and drags her back in by her ponytail, SCREAMING. The door slams shut.

Randall waits. The screams end. Unit One is silent. Then comes the WHISPERY CHUCKLE.

Randall nods. Looks at the moon. It’s full and high in the sky.

He slides into the pool. It is clean enough to be filled with water. He stands in the center of the lowest part and extends his arms. The stars are brilliant.

The pool begins to glow. Randall slips into a trance as he slowly looks skyward. The glow in the pool throbs. A light whispers through him and into the sky. A quick burst. The glow stops throbbing. Subsides. He collapses, exhausted.

The OLD MAN IS BACK! Drawn and weary.

The WHISPERY CHUCKLE comes from Unit One.

OLD MAN
Tomorrow. Get more. Tomorrow.

He rises, weakly. Slowly climbs out of the pool. Looks around at the endless desert.

Not a light can be seen.

He sighs and returns to the office.

INT. CATHERINE’S ROOM - NIGHT
That of a neat film student. Danny, Catherine, Skye and Mario watch the skateboarders on her desktop computer.

CATHERINE
Four hours of footage! My project’s just twenty minutes! I’ll never cut this down.

DANNY
Most of it’s crap; I’ll help you dig out the weeds.
(off Catherine’s look)
No class, Monday.

CATHERINE
I thought you had a project due.

DANNY
All taken care of.

SKYE
I say none it’s top-gun. Typical bullshit shredder moves in a world of control.

CATHERINE
What d’you mean?

SKYE
You need a true pipe, not something designed to keep the head-bangs down. Like this place my dad took me, in Death Valley.

MARIO
You got a dad?

She flips him off.

SKYE
It’s an abandoned motel. It’s got a killer pool for sessions. And great rocks for background.

CATHERINE
Yeah, right, I need MORE footage of skateboard freaks doing tricks.

DANNY
Cath...

CATHERINE
Shredder freaks.

He nods. She kiss-kisses him.

MARIO
Be an interesting angle. Contrast the purity of skateboarding in the great wilderness versus society’s need to control it in the cities.

SKYE
With The Art Man doin’ his thing in the purest of nothin’. Even Mario can show off, there.

MARIO
Hey, ch-oh-duh!

He swats her. She laughs.

DANNY
Why not? Drive up, early. Come back that night. Use Sunday to go through what you got.

MARIO
Ninety-five, from what I saw.

CATHERINE
(to Danny)
If you promise not to push it.

DANNY
-- I’ll crank it down to fifty.

She eyes him, wary.

EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY - DAY
Danny's convertible zooms along, Danny and Catherine in the front, Skye and Mario in the back seat, a huge cooler between them. MUSIC like Yanni’s “Aria” BLARES. Catherine tapes as they drive and drive and through the never-ending desert. The MUSIC ENDS.

RADIO DJ (V.O.)
Okay, here’s a fun little item off the news wires. Seems a group of Hare Krishna devotees have run away from home.

MARIO
Bro’, you still do satellite?

Danny just grins.

RADIO DJ (V.O.)
They went out chanting in Puesta del Sol Park, yesterday. Didn’t get back in time for their evening yoga, or some such thing. Their mission made a police report, this morning.

MARIO
That’s where we were, yesterday.

RADIO DJ (V.O.)
Seems Krishna boys and girls aren’t supposed to go wandering without the okay of mission control.

A tricked out pickup truck zooms up behind them -- and we see Chill and Powell inside.

MARIO
What the -- who told them?

SKYE
Me. More the merrier.
(to Chill)
Hey, bro’! Bein’ our shadow?

Powell pops a beer at Danny's car. It spews. Danny howls!

CHILL
Can’t let good pipe go to waste!

POWELL
Hey, Art Man! Up for a real session?

CATHERINE
Did you bring an E-R?!

CHILL
It’s in the back!

The pickup speeds up. Three ice chests are in the back of the truck, strapped in.

DANNY
Those guys’re trippy.

MARIO
Let ‘em go. They’ll never find the place on their own.

Skye stands, waves and WHISTLES. The pickup slows and lets them catch up to it.

SKYE
Better stick. It’s hard to find!

POWELL
You want us to follow you? How gnarly is that?

DANNY
(motions to Skye)
She’s the navigator.


Chill shrugs -- but slips behind them to drive on, in tandem.

If you don't blog, you're not a bloggie

I've been told that by more than one fellow blogger. Do it every day or else you're not really blogging, you're just spitting shit. Well, I think I can spit and fiddle with the best of them, even though half the time I'm just whining about crap that means nothing to anyone but me.

So...I will, instead, crow a little. I just heard from "Writers' Digest" and my play, "Cyber-Tribes", came in 77th in their competition. They say that's a big deal, since they received thousands of entries and they only select the top 100 to be noticed. Of course, they don't bother mentioning that you only send in the first 15 pages of the script. So this is more of a choke-a-doodle-doo than anything else...but what the heck; I'll take it where I can get it.

I've decided it's time for me to figure out how to make some real cash, preferably from my writing but in just about any other way possible (that's legal...sort of). Let's see...there's playing the lottery on a steady basis. There's selling off the rest of my DVDs. I've got a decent selection of Hitchcock's movies and a few that can't be found anywhere else. If only Amazon didn't take so damned much in the way of a commission for doing nothing but providing the database and access to clients. There's selling a script, if I can get mine back into the pool. That's all I've been able to come up with.

But I'm tired of dealing with a company that niggles over nothing. I'm tired of dealing with a town where I know next to no one. I miss LA, but I can't afford to move for a dozen different reasons, not all of them financial. I'm owed money by several people but the only way I'll see any of it is to take them to court...and even if I get a judgement, there's still no guarantee I'll see a dime and I'll be out the court costs.

So...I'm proving myself to be as lacking in brilliance when it comes the finances as I am sometimes when it comes to my stories. Anybody got any ideas? And no robbing of banks, please; I already thought about that one and had to toss it aside. My looks are too distinctive for me to get away with it.

Of course, I could just fake a fall in Macy's and sue for pain and suffering. But is there anyplace in Macy's that doesn't have cameras watching you?

And Look What Came To Spit In My Face

I happened upon this on a blog I follow (referring to the scum on Wall Street). The bastard.

Okay...now I have to make a chocolate cake with white frosting. I know, I'm weak. Story of my life.

Unthinking twits

Whoever coined the phrase, "Stay Hungry," in regards to getting fit or losing weight (or whatever the hell it was about) obviously never woke up at 3:30 in the morning craving a tuna fish sandwich and not being able to get back to sleep till one had been made and eaten. Which, of course, brought on a nice hint of heartburn at about 6:30. But damn, it was good while it lasted.

I'm pretty sure my dreams, lately, have been taken up partially by food. I don't recall them, exactly; I just wake up thinking, "Tonight I'm making cheese soup (my way)." Or a Sloppy Joe, to the max...except when you don't have peppers and carrots and onion and such, you make do with whatever's at hand to flesh it out...like Piccalilli relish. It came out a bit sweet but damn tasty when sprinkled with shredded cheddar on a heated bun.

Tonight I made the mistake of giving in to a whim and having the Teriyaki Medallions at Outback Steakhouse. Pricey but damned good...usually. Not this time. I get them done medium well; this batch was medium rare. I can't eat beef like that, but I also learned (the hard way, more than once) that if you send it back all they do is toss the same piece of meat on the grill to cook it more and it comes out tough enough to beat the shit out of you. So I ate what I could, brought the rest home to cook with some potatoes and onions in my own little hash, and got a free slice of cheesecake out of it for complaining. Not good for my new direction in weight reduction...but I didn't care. I was friggin' hungry.

And it was raspberry cheesecake. Sigh.

This is what happens when you try to change your eating habits -- your body rebels if you go too far. I've been cutting down on how much I eat at a time and over the course of a day, and it's been telling. I'm below 230 for the first time in a few years and trending downward...but every now and then my gut takes over and screams, "Feed me or I will make your life hell, believe me." And I do believe it. Maybe it's stupid...but today I felt a lot better even after only eating half the meal I'd ordered.

Suddenly I can understand how pregnant women get so cranky, even though there's no way in hell I'll ever be one of those without some major miracle-doing on behalf of God and the whole damn Universe. People have learned that those cravings they're so famous for are actually for minerals or vitamins their body needs for the creature growing inside them, so they should be let have what they want. And god forbid coming between some soon-to-be-momma and her combination of pickles and peppermint ice cream.

Now if I could only figure out how to apply that to overweight me.

99%

My situation isn't bad in comparison to others'...so I only wish to pass this along.

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

I do think this country's politics (Democrat as well as Republican) has become too skewed towards helping the rich at the expense of the rest of us -- the 99%who don't have their resources. It's time to take back our country and end this pandering to those sociopaths who nearly destroyed our economy.

Cocoon

I never left my apartment, today. Just stayed in and reworked a screenplay so that it was wilder and crazier than before. Hopefully. Then as it printed out, I watched Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck in "Ball of Fire", from 1941. The story is an updating of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves", but with a showgirl and seven cloistered professors along with one more professor who's the stand in for Prince Charming.

It's a lovely film. Gary Cooper plays a professor of etymology, who's writing a section of an encyclopedia dealing with slang. He realizes his knowledge of slang is outdated do goes out into the real world to learn more about it and runs headlong in Barbara Stanwyck, who's a walking dictionary of it. She's a nightclub singer (her intro is singing a goofy song called "Drum Boogie" while dressed in nothing but spangles and a couple strips of cloth). He invites her back to the foundation where he and his fellows live and work to discuss slang. She winds up having ti hide from the DA for a while so takes him up on it...and fireworks ensue.

It's a real joy to watch Gary Cooper pull off a truly comedic performance. He plays a sheltered, anal-retentive goof so neatly, he doesn't have to do anything but read his lines to make them funny. While Stanwyck rocks her roll as she goes from being hard as nails to made over by love.

This is the moment when she shows him what "yum-yum" means, and it is priceless, but it's his actions afterwards make it classic (catch his expressions when the housekeeper tells him the taxi has come to take the girl away).

Of course, I did some ironing as I watched it. Can't be too much of a wastrel.