Keepin’ busy

I really need to update this thing more than once a week. That being said, time for my weekly update!

Let’s see… I’m finally starting to get into a good workout routine. That’s nice because I’m also starting to gain a couple pounds. Nothing serious, but it’s obvious I’ve been lazy lately and it’s time to get to the gym regularly.

I’m still playin’ poker online. The past couple days have been good for me and I’m still way up overall. I had a couple weeks there where I wasn’t running so hot, but I’m back on track now. I hope to be able to finance my trip to Vegas next month with my winnings.

Turns out I’m getting a nice tax return this year. I wasn’t expecting anything, so I’m having to figure out what to do with the extra cash. I think I’ll probably just sock it away or throw it at my loans or something awesomely super duper fun like that.

I went into the leasing office to drop off my rent and I asked the guy in there if he could recommend some good places around Plano to eat. His response: “You got a date or somethin’?” Of course I had to tell him that I’m just tired of “the chains” and I want some local variety. As he was suggesting a few places, a girl that works in the office came in and heard what he was saying. She said, “You got a date or something?” My first reaction was to be the funny guy and say, “That depends on if you’re free tonight.”, but I held my tongue and just said, “No, just looking for some good food.” The guy that was already telling me places was kind enough to bail me out by saying, “He’s just getting tired of eating at the chains.” It took me a good ten minutes to recover from feeling like a total loser, but I’m doing alright now.

I sent out some more mailers to local agents this week. That puts me right around twenty… I haven’t heard anything back except for the few I’ve had returned undeliverable. I’m going to do one follow-up call (from my first set) tomorrow and then six or seven follow-ups next week. All I need is one stinkin’ agent to pick me up, but I guess that’s easier said than done.

Meanwhile, I’m looking for all the angles I can find, so I’ve been writing. Saturday night, I finished my first screenplay. It’s only a short (about 20 pages), but it’s a start. It’s better than I thought it would be and I think it’ll be “decent” after the first re-write. I’m thinking through it and revising it now and hopefully will finish the second draft in a couple weeks. Then, I’ll start another screenplay of a different ilk. The first one was a ‘drama’ (I guess) and the second will probably be more straight comedy. …or at least it’ll be comedy to me. It might just be “stupid” or “terrible” to everyone else. At least I’m keeping myself entertained!

A good friend is in town and we’re having dinner tomorrow night. I’m looking forward to seeing someone from back home and having some good food and conversation. I don’t get much of either since I spend most of my time on the couch, watching something on TiVo and playing poker.

I’m not breaking up this post with little headings because I don’t feel like it. I’m really writing all this gibberish for myself anyway, so the headings really wouldn’t serve a point. Peace out!

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Screenplay writing

Last night, I sat down and wrote the first Act of the short screenplay I’ve been working on. My co-writer is on an indefinite hiatus, so I’ve taken over writing responsibilities. So far, I’m not super impressed, but I didn’t expect to be. My philosophy is that I need to get something down, so I can edit it and mold it into what I want it to be.

Anyway, it was a good experience and it only took about 90 minutes. I’m hoping to get the second Act done this week and maybe finish the first draft by next weekend. I don’t think this short is going to be all that great, but I’m more interested in the process than the product right now. Once I’m done with this one, I’ll try to write another one and I’ll have higher expectations next time around.

Time to sleep.

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I am lazy

…and also, I haven’t updated my blog in a while. I don’t really like calling it a ‘blog’ because that seems too pop-culture-ey, so I’m gonna’ go ahead and stick with weblog from here on out.

Anyway, I haven’t done too much lately, but I’ll give the update regardless. This weekend, I had a great run at the online poker tables. I am still playing a lot of Sit ‘N Gos (SNGs), but I upped the stakes and it paid off pretty well. I played all 1-table SNGs and I finished in the money 75% of the time. That ain’t bad at all, but I’m also not expecting it to happen again any time soon. I feel good about my strategies and abilities, but that kind of performance is most likely an anomaly.

Today, I sent out mailers (headshot, resume, cover letter) to a dozen local talent agents. I’m hoping to get a call from one or two of them and I’m obviously hoping to be represented when it’s all said and done. I also e-mailed my headshot and resume to a local independent film producer who put out a call for submissions through an e-mail I get from an actors’ support group here in Dallas. I’m hoping to win the run-on sentence award by the end of this post.

Finally, I’m still co-writing a short film with a friend back home. We’ve made some good progress and should have our first draft pretty soon (although I can’t say if that will be days or weeks). Once this short is finished, we’re going to write another. When both are finished, we’ll start production. I really don’t want to think about how much work that’s going to be, so I’m going to wrap this up now.

Goodnight, me.

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Livin’ large in L.A.

Not really. I mean, I’m out here for a couple days, but I’m only workin’ and then heading back to the hotel. I did make it to an In and Out Burger today, so that was good.

I’m stayin’ in a Sheraton and it’s really nice. Same one I stayed in when I was here back in October. Free high-speed internet and cheap valet parking make it a steal. Of course, all of this is made possible by my company.

The best part of my trip is definitely the First Class plane ticket. First class is so much nicer than coach, it’s not even funny. Seriously. Once the plane takes off (and sometimes before), the flight attendants offer you something to drink. Then, they bring a little dish of warm, assorted nuts and your beverage. Then, they bring you a little moist, warm towel to wipe your hands or face or whatever. Then, they take dinner orders: salad, entre, drink, dessert. I had so much leg room, I could put my legs straight out in front of me and not hit the seat in front of me. Also, the seats recline to nearly horizontal and they have foot rests that extend in front of you. Totally ridiculous, but really fun and comfortable.

Movie in the works?

Ok, so it’s been a couple years since I had any movie ideas in the works and I may be the boy who cried wolf, but I’m working on a short with a few friends (one in particular). I don’t want to talk too much about it (because I don’t know much about it), but it looks like we’re going to keep it short, simple and hopefully poignant. We were initially hoping to shoot while I’m home in Florida for Christmas, but that’s only about 2 weeks away, so I’m not counting on it.

Regardless, I’ve been wanting to work with this friend for several years and I think the end result will be excellent. We have complimentary skills that should lend themselves to creating something meaningful through collaboration.

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Coming right along…

The song/progression I mentioned in my last post is coming along nicely. I’ve finished writing it, but I’m having trouble physically playing it because there are a lot of strange chord formations and transitions. Basically, I’m just having to get used to it and use repetition to burn it into my brain and hands. It’s probably the most intense chord progression I’ve used because it involves more than ten chords and moves over seven or eight frets. Many of those chords are changed in transition as well (one note will drop a step or something), so there’s a lot of movement throughout the individual chords.

Anyway, it’s fun to play and my hands are slowly working up the calluses they need to get through it. I played some Taylors at Guitar Center today and they made me think of hanging up the Takamine and dropping some change on a Taylor, but I thought better of it. Eventually that’ll happen, just not yet.

Short day tomorrow

I only have to work about five hours tomorrow, so I’ll be splitting around 1 o’clock. Hopefully, I’ll use my afternoon wisely, but I have a hunch I’ll end up sitting on the couch, watching movies. Netflix made its first goof and sent me Chasing Liberty instead of Lawrence of Arabia. How that happened, I have no idea, but I figure I’ll give Mandy Moore a chance and see if it’s not a decent movie. I will also hopefully finish Seven Samurai this weekend… I’ve been working on it for about six weeks now. It’s a decent film, just old and it has subtitles. It would never make it in American cinema today because the plot is developed far too slowly. I think it could seriously be condensed down from just about three and a half hours to two hours without much trouble. But then, the art and philosophy would be lost. Of course, it’s probably lost on me anyway.

I’m out.

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I was this close

Today at work, I almost bought a plane ticket to Atlanta. It was only about $260 round-trip and the trip home would’ve been in first class. I figured I could get it for Memorial Day weekend, take that Thursday and Friday off and have myself a nice little 5-day vacation. Anyway, I decided against it and I’m still not sure I made the right decision. At least I have the flexibility at work so I can just take off a couple days if I need to. It’s nice to have that kind of freedom even though I’m in “the real world” now.

Guitar? Is that you?

I’ve been playing more and more guitar lately, and it’s very refreshing. Tonight, I put together a nice progression with an interesting melody and I really like it. It’s been a long time since I felt that creative itch and I’m hoping this is a burst that will last a while. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, training as an actor, a little writing and now I’m back to trying to create music. I’m finally starting to be productive with my time. I just wish it hadn’t taken almost five months to get back in the swing of things.

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Screenwriting?

Well, it’s been a while since I seriously considered writing a screenplay, but I’m afraid it might be time to give it another shot. For the past week or so, I’ve been writing notes on several ideas I have, many of which may be incorporated into one movie idea. I bounced the general idea off a friend of mine and he seems to think it has a lot of merit and, if treated properly, could make a good screenplay. So, I’m going to dust off the old books, carve out some time and start trying to flesh out the idea. I don’t know if anything will come of it, but it would feel nice if I could actually succeed at something as significant as finishing an original screenplay.

I’ll post as I either make progress or fizzle out.

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So, what’s it take to get published?

I really have no idea, but I thought this would be a neat post, eventually and in retrospect, to have logged. I’ve been writing all summer–sometimes online, sometimes not–and I feel I’m actually developing as a writer. Now, I’m not saying I think I’m a talented writer; I’m saying I’m progressing. And it seems to me that a “progressing” writer has no choice but to consider the possibility of seeking publication at some point. I don’t even know if that’s a viable option for me. Certainly, there’s a particular caliber of writing necessary to have anyone even give one’s work a read and I honestly doubt if I’ll ever produce writing on that level. But I might. And, if I do, I want to have begun thinking through whether publishing my work is something I really want.

Anyway, I’ve spent the summer focusing a lot on “loosening up” in my writing. I’ve always had a tendency to be “wordy” and avoid “specificity” and I don’t know many people, including myself, who are interested in reading wordy, non-specific babble by some guy who’s actually studying engineering, but thinks he’d like to try writing as well. So, I’ve tried to relax, let the words flow more naturally and be interestingly descriptive in what I write. If I’ve learned anything this summer, it’s that everything I write should be interesting, or at least readable, so I’ve tried to write in such a way–particularly in my weblog–that even the most mundane details of my life carry some sort of creative, eloquent element that might appeal to a passerby or regular reader.

Hopefully, my forward-thinking and conscious molding of my writing will eventually pay-off and I’ll write something that I find pleasing. So far, I’ve written little that I was impressed with and even less that I thought had any sort of merit. I guess that’s how it works in the writing world, though: write, write, write and hope one of those “write”s is something worth the energy and materials invested in it.

But, on the subject of publishing, I think I’ll click “Post & Publish” now… Maybe I am being published, if only in an obscure, infrequently read, relatively boring piece of work called Somewhere to go.

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Some more of my mediocre writing…

I wrote this piece last night and passed it along to a friend who seemed to really enjoy it. I thought maybe I should give others the chance to enjoy it as well. Or not. Here it is, for your reading pleasure/discomfort… Oh, and I should probably say that this is purely fiction and that I have never experienced anything even remotely like this story. Stories with disclaimers are no fun.

The Knife

I guess this is something I don’t like to think about much, but I sometimes have no choice. It seems almost like I should’ve forgotten by now, but I can’t; I can’t because there’s some small part of me–a little hitchhiker or piece of Velcro that I can’t see–that has clung tightly to it and won’t let go. I’m not sure this is a bad thing, but it sure isn’t good.

When I was seven, I hung out with the rough kids–the ones who would throw rocks at windows and chuck empty beer bottles at cars as they drove by. I never participated in any of their wild and crazy fun, but I liked to watch; there’s something to be said for vicariously being a bad kid, if even for only a moment every now and then.

One afternoon, just after school had let out, we were walking home, taking the same route we’d taken daily for the past three years, when John Rantson found an old hunting knife next to the train tracks. It was rusty and chipped, but still had a good edge on it and would certainly prove useful for some kids looking to make trouble. And they always were.

Richy Wilson took the knife from John and began running around with it, one hand holding the knife in front of him, fist up and blade down, as if he was about to deal the final blow to a nearly dead animal–just like the hand holding the knife in that movie, Psycho–and the other hand over his head, pretending to be feathers or a headdress, all the while whooping like we’d seen Indians do in the old Western movies.

Richy wasn’t right and we all knew that, but he could be a nice kid when the time was right and if the moon was the proper distance from the earth–probably at low tide.

All the guys ran and followed him, some worried he’d stumble and swallow that knife, some curious what stupid thing old Richy was gonna’ do now. It didn’t take long for Richy to find what he was looking for: a kill.

Goldie was a golden retriever–at least part–and although no one claimed ownership, we all knew she belonged to the Carter family who lived on the cul-de-sac at the end of Crossing Lane. She didn’t have a collar, but she was in good health and had a clean coat and all the neighborhood kids would tease her or play with her–this depended on our mood and whether it was necessary to impress each other with our toughness. She saw Richy coming and, I could tell, thought that he was coming to play with her. He wasn’t.

By the time they got to him, he’d gotten her with that knife a good six or seven times and she’d all but given up. Her yellow coat was matted and streaked with blood, one of her ears torn off pretty close to her head, her left hindquarter exposed and one of her ribs was peeking through her skin at us. They stopped him before he killed her, but not before he maimed her and made her afraid of us from then on. Never again did she come running when she saw us coming; she always ran the opposite direction, her back-left leg a little slower and weaker than her other legs, one ear flapping in the wind.

It bothers me that I saw that, but I’ve seen a lot of gruesome things in my day as I’m a doctor–neurologist–and I see pretty nasty stuff everyday. What bothers me is that I never told anyone what happened that day. I never told anyone and that may be why Richy tried to kill himself when he was eighteen: when they found him, he looked worse than Goldie had, but people were more surprised that he still had the knife than at what he’d done with it. We all knew Richy was crazy, but I was probably the only one who realized he was calling out for help, not with his voice, but with his actions and louder than any of those other guys could hear.

But I could hear and I didn’t want to listen. I was too intent on being cool and being cool meant no ratting. That’s the code that young boys follow; it’s engrained in us from birth, somehow, and it’s almost impossible to shake. Part of the code says that boys don’t tell on other boys, especially if they’re too chicken to play along. I guess that’s the first Catch-22 that boys experience: if you’re playing along, you can tell, but you don’t want to tell because you’re playing along and you’ll go down just as hard as all the other guys; if you’re not playing along, you can’t tell because you were too chicken to play along and you should be too chicken to tell if you’re too chicken to play along.

I was too chicken to play along and too chicken to tell. I knew something was wrong with Richy, but I wasn’t there, pulling his hand away from the knife, carrying Goldie to the Carters to tell them we found her next to the tracks, all cut and bloodied by who knows what. I was too chicken to help him and I can’t shake that thought. It’s been weeks since I slept and this is killing me. I don’t understand why these memories lay dormant for so long, but now they’re surfacing and they’re more vibrant than ever.

Maybe I won’t be too chicken to do something about it this time around. Maybe this resurgence of memory is some kind of second chance to help Richy, or someone like him. There’s got to be someone I can help; there’s got to be someone with a rusty, chipped knife who needs to know that it isn’t for hurting people or animals, but for admiring and passing around amongst friends. But I don’t even have any friends and they wouldn’t be interested in this rusty old knife anyway.

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Three stories… The third:

My first crush was in kindergarten. I remember her name, but not her face; I remember that she wore purple (periwinkle?) socks one day, but not her shoes; I remember being teased relentlessly by certain members of my family; I don’t remember knowing that I had a crush on her. I’ve had several crushes, dated two girls and had three girlfriends. The disparity between girls dated and girlfriends is due to my ignorance regarding the term “date” until my second girlfriend. I’ve always been picky, selective, shy, introverted, timid, platonic towards the girls I liked; I’m also very forward-thinking and have probably talked myself out of more crushes than not.

My first girlfriend was in sixth grade and our “relationship” lasted two weeks. Apparently, I wasn’t as appealing as a good friend of mine, who remained a close friend despite my silly, malicious antics and chicanery, which caused quite a ruckus in their relationship. I didn’t really let go of her until the eighth grade, when my next crush ensued and obliterated the memory of the previous girlfriend. This crush overlapped with another which, after little effort and a note–not quite “check yes or no”, but certainly in the same vein for I was a coward, insecure in my nerdiness, and pacifism seemed the best way to ask her out–became my second relationship, first dating relationship. This one lasted two years and taught me a lot about myself. I learned that I have a knack for words, particularly flattering ones intended for the object of my affections; I learned that heartache is part of life and wondered if the old adage “’tis better to have loved and lost…” really held water. I’m still not sure.

It was during this relationship that I discovered poetry. A simple assignment from English class introduced me to the form of expression with which I would be most comfortable for the next several years and which, although little used these days, may still be my most eloquent method of expression. (Not that anything I write is terribly eloquent, but that’s why I used the relative term “most” in my assessment) Anyway, my first poem was called “The Coffee Pot” and was a metaphor describing a parking lot at a bustling office building. Now that I think of it, that was pretty clever: using a coffee pot, the staple of many an office, to represent the busy lives of some caffeine addicts. That was my first poem and it got decent marks, although I had little understanding of meter and rhyme then.

It wasn’t long before I penned a poem for my girlfriend, who loved it and probably carried it around with her at school for the next few days. That was the beginning of a barrage of poetry written in different styles, voices, tones, intensities and all for one person. With time, I think the novelty wore off–for her, not for me–and my poetry was received with less glee and flattery and more obligation and expectation. As in cases of positive feedback, my poetry became less spectacular and more glib and so did her reactions to it. By the end of our relationship, I remember my verse being dark, sad and dreary, just as our relationship was as it dissolved into the past.

Even after that relationship was over, I continued writing poetry–sometimes about her and sometimes about me and sometimes about life as I saw it–although I rarely let anyone read it. A few months later, I met a girl who would be my next crush and ultimately one of my best friends. She let me down easy–I’d love to go out with you sometime, but I think I’d feel more comfortable in a group–and I was disappointed, but not broken. On the sideburns tour, I became better friends with her and my infatuation grew, but needed an outlet aside from honesty. Poetry was that outlet and this poetry was inspired by a wonderful friend and fueled by an awful nightmare.

On the third morning of the tour, I woke suddenly from a nightmare; I had tears in my eyes and felt exhausted and exasperated after having pled with one of my best friends to seek amends aside from fist fighting. The event that woke me up was my swinging and landing a solid punch on my good friend’s face. Using the ensuing emotion as fuel and an idea I had before drifting off to sleep the night before as my theme, I wrote a poem. It was simple, but poignant; flowery, but direct; inspired. Two mornings later, after sprinting up and down the steps to the Lincoln Memorial about twenty times, trying to see how quickly I could make the roundtrip from Lincoln to the reflective pool, I got up the nerve to give my poem to its subject. To this day, I still don’t know what possessed me to do that and, in spite of my naivety and stupidity, I think it actually made our friendship stronger. That�s when I realized that poetry was special, different; it�s special and different when it�s written about or for someone special. That was the last time I wrote a poem for anyone.

A couple years passed and I met someone else, whom I would date and write poems about and never for. I sometimes wonder why I never wrote anything for her, but only about her and I think I simply didn’t want to smother her or overwhelm her. As it turns out, she only read one or two of the poems I wrote about her, but by accident, and she was very flattered by them.

Since, I’ve written poems–about other girls, about myself, about life–and no one has read any of them. Poetry has become my way of communicating with myself. It’s sometimes difficult to articulate my feelings–happiness, disappointment, disbelief, stubbornness–internally and it becomes necessary to write them, sometimes with short, metric lines of similar length and sometimes with long, disjointed lines that follow no particular scheme. My poetry is prose with funny line breaks.

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