They're Taking the Hobbits To Isengard!!!

Sorry for the brief absence of Malice. Went to a wedding in Long Island. With probably the best reception performance by a new bride and groom that I've ever seen. Misanthropy Central cheers to Erwin & Lisa, and thanks fallettin me be a part of it. I had a great time (getting drunk)!

I finally got through the final Harry Potter book. I'd like to keep this blog a SPOILER-FREE zone for it, but I don't think I'm giving anything away by sharing the final sentence of the series:

And no one could deny that Hermione Granger was utterly, utterly dead.

Bit of a downer, don'tyathink, Jo-Ro?

I pity the guys writing screenplay versions. Exposition for days. I can barely manage my stupid little horror script.

By the way, did you hear where they're taking the hobbits?

And this one made me hurt with laughter...

Okay, I guess I should get back to work. Midnight is where the day begins.

Chinadoll Democracy

Just to remind and clarify the details of my reading next week.

CHINADOLL OVERDRIVE
Wednesday, August 1
Theatre Row, Summer Play Festival
410 W. 42nd Street (West of 9th Ave.)
8pm

RSVP by emailing
literary@spfnyc.com

It's free, you should just RSVP. I don't know how crazy or not-crazy it's going to be. Really, I've got no sense if there's ANY awareness of the damn thing.

But "Annie" from the movie is in it.


Oh, the thoughts I refuse to write here, Dear Lurkers...

Prime Time of Your Life

DRAMATIZATION:
The names and personalities have been altered for Malice's amusement.

Lawyer chomps a cigar as he reads an industry news rag. His eyes widen. Buzzes his assistant.

LAWYER:
Aye, Frannie!

ASSISTANT:
Yeah, Murray?

LAWYER:
That kid we took on, as a favor to Joey Paramount. Little oriental dirtbag with the drawrings up and down 'iz friggin arms...

ASSISTANT:
I know tha one, Murray, what about him?

LAWYER:
Paper sez he's actually paying out! TALK OF THE TOWN! Now I've seen everything... Get that silly shitbird in here!

ASSISTANT:
Right away, Murray!
+ + + + + + +Had a meeting with my lawyer Thursday. Says I'm the talk of Hollywood. A draft of my script leaked and all these agents and managers are onto me. There's a threat of a Writers Guild strike next year and Hollywood's focusing on the projects that are likely to get made pre-strike... and it's looking like my BUTCHERHOUSE would be one of the pre-strike productions.

My lawyer had dinner with the Paramount exec earlier in the week. They discussed me, and my lawyer suggested it would be a good idea to get me repped up before the strike, so I can get another job lined up. Paramount exec suggested that I could just keep writing for THEM, 'cause he's got other projects he'd like to get me involved with.

KA-POW!

My lawyer's been great and I've met with him just a handful of times this past year. But at his office Thursday afternoon, he was clearly impressed with my progress. He regarded me differently. He saw me as a client who could really deliver. It's been less than a year.

One day... one day, some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my mother's groceries all the way home. You know why? It was outta RESPECT.

It felt... good.
+ + + + + + +

I think I'm officially in the best position a young writer could hope for in Hollywood. And I don't have time to celebrate it coz I've gotta get my latest revision done.

This is the shit you dream about for years. Now that it's here, none of it seems quite real. All I can think about is keeping this going. The dream gets replaced with more ambitious dreams. My life feels strangely empty... and yet, I think I'm happy.

"Sellout..." muttered the bitter Gay Horse.

Entourage Shuffled 5:
1. "X&Y", Coldplay
2. "Natural Blues", Moby
3. "Scartissue", RHCP
4. "Come With Us", Chemical Bros.
5. "Cold Turkey", John Lennon
Revenge Bonus:
"The Apologist", R.E.M.

TGIF Laugh Corner:
Kelly Clarkson turns hardcore. (George C. Scott mashes his face in revulsion.)

Fuck you, asshole!

Fuck *YOU*, ASSHOLE!!!

Jesus Walks With Me

"Everybody hates me, Joker..."

It seems that my short-lived career in musical theater is crumbling.

I don't want to go into specifics here. On the fucking internet where every word is immortalized in caches.

Suffice it to say, I took a little detour trying to write the books for some musicals this past year, and the projects didn't work out for varying reasons.

It's never been an ambition of mine to be a book-writer for musicals, but I thought I'd try it. And I did. And there are some interesting aspects to it, but ultimately... it's not me. And I don't think the work I contributed to those projects was very good, because my heart wasn't in it.

Any case, I had to get a bit more blunt with people on Tuesday. For their sake and mine. And they might hate me, but what can you do? They knew I wasn't a musical theater person when they approached me. I just think this musical business got me off track for a while, and I really can't afford to go too far off track. Not yet.

I'm resisting the urge to go on a rant here. The story may not be completely over. But I just feel like I need to focus on plays and screenplays at this point in my life.

More and more, I'm appreciating that you've got to have a disgusting amount of ego to write for a living. Words are fucking cheap and you've got to believe that what you do with them is worth more than a thousand other people who are queued up at the gate.

We Are A Family

Thanks to N.I.C.K.O. for bringing this old NBC musical promo to my attention. I don't know why they don't do synergistic promos like this anymore.
Jack Bauer, Michael Scofield and Detective Shane Vendrell singing Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do (Is Have Some Fun)", maybe.

I like how they don't let Punky Brewster sing.

And what a massive oversight not to design a sitcom featuring Nell Carter, Bea Arthur and Punky Brewster. Isn't it obvious that these three had a seething chemistry with each other?
Oh, Punky!

Milk... Milk... Milk...

Milk! MIIILK! Milk!
So good and warm and WHITE!!!
Milk! MIIILK! Milk!
Makes everything seem RIGHT!!!

This clip from Sesame Street scared the crap outta me and my sis growing up.

It's only grown stranger and creepier with time.

The queer sense of urgency that permeates the piece. Cats sucking on the teat of the bovine. The crying (abandoned???) baby. The racing tanker truck. The insistent music accompaniment with the Aryan Empowerment end-lyrics. It all conveys one message: something is wrong here!

Perhaps those vegans are onto something after all...

An interview with the composer.

Scott Nemes Fan Club

Danny Boyle did a little Q&A after the 8:10pm show of his ambitious new movie, SUNSHINE, at the Sunshine Cinema.

(My next script is going to be called "Loews Lincoln Square & IMAX", btw.)

I walked by the Scholastic Store while I was down there and was witness to a massive pagan Harry Potter gathering. People queuing up (in costume) for the midnight release of the final Harry Potter tome. They even had a genuine Knight Bus parked out front:
After the movie and Q&A, I bummed around with J&D for a while before taking a long walk home.

As I walked from SoHo to the Upper West Side past midnight, I watched grown men and women squeal down city streets, hugging their giant hardcover series finales. Fleetingly, I entertained the idea of snatching the book from one of them... just to save me the trouble of having to go to a bookstore Saturday afternoon.

Slight tangent here...

Listen up, all you motherfucking Harry Potter freaks. I am picking up the fucking book this weekend so I can BEGIN to read it, with the dim hope that I can manage to get through it without having the sonuvabitch spoiled for me. A former coworker (DIOGO BASTOS) inadvertently managed to spoil the last one for me while I was in the middle of it.

Fortunately, I no longer work in an office, so all I have to do is avoid all the media stories. All the same, you speed-reading Harry Potter nuts stay the hell away from me with all your spoiler-happy chatter.

Which brings us to Scott Nemes. The Patron Saint of Bratty 80s Kids. This little bastard was everywhere in the 80s. Throwing eggs at D.C. cabs, playing old men who discover that youth is a state of mind, causing general pre-adolescent mayhem. He worked with Steven Spielberg, Joel Schumacher, Garry Shandling, Mr. T, Mr. Belvedere and Riptide. You wanted a bratty/precocious/nerdy kid? You called Scott Motherfuckin Nemes, son.

Kid was EVERYWHERE, and I bet y'all didn't even know his name. What happens to these kids? They either claw toward being recognized as adults (Seth Green), or they remain frozen in time, like Scott Nemes.

At least the kids in the Harry Potter movies are managing to transition into adulthood in the context of those movies.

Maybe Scott Nemes peaked a bit too early...

Maybe, in the end, we never really deserved Scott Nemes.

When You Walk Through the Garden

It occurs to me that I'm not a very good writer.

Not that my writing is bad—though it clearly is at times—but my actual writing habits are atrocious. As much as the writing has evolved over the years, the actual organic writing process probably hasn't really changed much since I was in junior high school. And I'll be the first to admit that I need to take a long hard look at that.

For fans of The Wire, I suggest listening to the commentary track of Season 3, Episode 2. It's solely the writer of the episode, Richard Price.

It actually made me feel a lot better. The guy's been writing novels and screenplays for decades, and he talks about being intimidated by living up to the sophistication of the writing in the show.

He's frank about his ignorance about certain subjects. The episode contains a scene that involves a dog fighting ring, and Price confesses he had no background on that world. It's a writer's worst fear: having to write about a subject he knows nothing about. Like Barton Fink writing a boxing movie.

(Or me writing about fucking dairy farms.)

But he manages to write the scene by cribbing off some notes of another writer. And for some of the scenes where there's banter among politicians, he consults heavily with someone to make sure it makes sense... to the point where he doesn't even feel personally connected to some of the scenes he's written!

Any case, somebody was whining to me about how there isn't enough eye-candy on THE WIRE. So, you KNOW this muh-fucking entry hadda be comin...

THE WOMEN OF 'THE WIRE'
(that Malice has a thing for)

Ahhh, Officer Beadie. Introduced in Season 2. Played by the stunning Amy Ryan. A portrait of understated beauty. Patrolling the docks wearing those adorable headphones. Don't you just want to save her from that incorrigible horndog McNulty?

Detective Greggs. Kima. Sonja Sohn. Half-black, half-Korean. Full-on, drop-dead lovely. Like Beadie, they dress her pretty plainly. They take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world. But they're both still hot as hell on that show.

McNulty's annoying ex-wife. I don't care though, 'cuh CALLIE THORNE PRETTY. (Girl power.) THE WIRE's creator, David Simon, was involved with HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET in its later years, so you see some of these latter-year HOMICIDE cast members on this show.

(Yes, HOMICIDE was initially based on his book, but he didn't get involved with that show creatively until later in its run. Okay?)

And then we've got little Felicia Pearson. I raced through Season 3 specifically looking for this girl. Authentic street thug girl. Looks like she stepped right out of The Boondocks. I swear, she's got about 5 lines total in Season 3 (and I couldn't understand any of them), but I hear she's a much larger presence in Season 4.

All right, she might be a little too thug life for me. And she's a lesbian in real life, so that kills the dream a bit more. But I like looking at her, so I guess we've got a problem here, don't we?

"Look like YOU got the muh'fuh'n prah'luhm, feel me?" snapped the Gay Horse. "Yo, yo, yo, WMD, we got WMD!"

Hamsterdam Shuffled 5:
1. "Ohio", Red Molly
2. "The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)", David Bowie
3. "I Get Around", Beach Boys
4. "Thinking About Tomorrow", Beth Orton
5. "Heaven Tonight", Cheap Trick
Stringer Bell Bonus:
"Specialist", Interpol

TGIF Laugh Corner:
Corey Haim cries like a bitch over LOST BOYS 2.

(Sing it, Iha!)

Cherry Flavored Antacid

What am I doing research on dairy farms for?

I'm diving into the new draft of my script.

I can't even say more than that! Not here, not yet, not now. All you gotta know is that I've been driving myself up a wall researching how dairy farms are operated. Trying to delicately write around my ignorance.

All I need to do is offer just enough so production designers can understand it and color in the details. As much as I'd like to be heart-stoppingly authentic on the page, I've got an ASAP mandate on this motherfucker. I gotta get this GOT.

Cows. It hadda be cows. They sure know how to throw me some curves, shiiii....

[[[XBOX 360 INTERLUDE]]]

Second repaired XBOX 360 returned to me today. Silver lining is that I'm getting to be friends with my neighborhood UPS guy. July 18th. Let's see if this sucker goes the distance, kn'amean, motherfuckers?

P.S. I think I love every single woman on G4. Yes, loneliness hurts.

Vegetative

I used to think people just snapped out of comas, like Rip Van Winkle, and could simply resume their lives after a quick stop at the barber.

The HBO Documentary Film "Coma" offers a more practical version of the process of emerging from a coma. Following several patients on their respective journeys, with varying degrees of successful recovery. The general idea being, if you're coming out of a coma, chances are you aren't coming back 100%.

It's hard to watch. I tried to imagine what I would do. If I were the one recovering, or if I were looking after someone who was recovering. Either way completely blows.

If you're looking for something to get you totally bummed out, WATCH THIS.

From now on, I'm gonna walk around wearing a helmet and a coat made of bubble-wrap. Haven't I caused my poor mother enough heartache to last a lifetime?

[I DVR'ed Joel Schumacher's D.C. Cab off Universal HD recently. I swear to Christ, Mr. T rivaled Superman back in the 80s.]

Let Forever Be

LOS ANGELES:
Pros
Gorgeous weather, all the time.
Can afford a larger place.
Ability to take meetings easier.
The beautiful people, the beautiful people.
It's not New York.
Proximity to Vegas.
Disneyland.
Cons
Need a car.
Need to drive that car.
Don't know many people.
More people warning me against it than championing it. (So far.)
Disney's California Adventure.

NEW YORK:
Pros
Friends.
Don't need a car.
Better street cred.
Cons
Enemies.
Weather.
Rent. (Both the musical and the high price of apartments.)
Memories.
I hate this city.
I hate this city.
I hate this city.
x x x X x x x
I hope this blog doesn't have to change. I hope it can stay what it's always been. A self-indulgent, semi-experimental writing exercise/journal. I appreciate the people who are starting to look me up and are interested in my work. It's just a little disorienting. I don't know how people are getting hold of my play. It's like a poorly kept secret.

Lord knows I already edit myself far too severely here. This has been a safe, misanthropic haven for so long. I'd hate to see that corrupted.

Anyway, who gives a shit about the lives of writers?

God Helps the Ones That Can Help Themselves

Shot from the waiting room, in the Paramount Admin Building.

On the street, footing it all over Westwood. Here, I found outfits for my unborn children.

The Platinum Dunes/Bayfilms office. This is the Armageddon ship. Props and miniatures from all these Michael Bay movies were set up throughout the office.

Here's Frenzy, the boombox Decepticon from The Transformers. Trying to break out of a cage.

CU on Frenzy. Crabface. He will kill you.

This is that bit in the movie where they put the cellphone into a bulletproof box and it turns into a mini Decepticon, trying to shoot its way out.

They're Outta Get Me

On the flight back to New York, John Leguizamo sat right in front of me in first class. For some reason, it calmed me down. I figured John Leguizamo probably wasn't going to die in a plane crash that day, so I was safe.

I've got this thing about not talking to celebrities. Maybe it's not a fully formed "thing", but it's something that's turning into a thing. Under the right circumstances, I wouldn't mind talking to John Leguizamo or the guy who plays E on Entourage... but I don't want them to see me as just some guy on the street. I also don't want to go into an elaborate explanation of who I am. Best case scenario is getting introduced. Or sitting next to someone on a plane.

But I wasn't sitting next to him, so I didn't really say anything to Leguizamo. Except I had to get my suitcase out of the compartment over his head at the end, so I pointed and he moved out of the way. I wonder if he recognized me from the Writers Guild Awards. This is one of the reasons for the tattoos: so people don't just see a generic asian guy, they see a generic asian guy with very identifiable tattoos on his arms.

~*~*~*~
Quite a trip it's been, BLOG. The game's officially changed for me. This must be how it works for most people who make it in the entertainment industry. You're dismissed for years until you're finally taken seriously.

That's the most gratifying thing. Being taken seriously. By people inside the gates.

Right now, I'm a carefully kept secret. It's a calculated thing and buzz is being generated. But as soon as word gets out—and that could be before the summer's over—everything should get crazy.

And I'm actually a bit nervous about that. I know it's the part that everyone dreams about, the feeding frenzy, but I just want to work.

I want to work for a long time. And I'm about to meet a lot of people who probably only care about short-term rewards.

~*~*~*~
Let me show you around the suite they set me up in, @ the W Hotel in Westwood. This is the living room. I've never had a living room, in my adult life. I was running around this place, climbing on the couches. I should have had a party in there, but I just don't know enough people in L.A. yet...

Another shot of the living room, showing the minibar, the entrance to the bathroom, and the doorway to the bedroom.

I was tempted to go nuts with the minibar, but the pricetags were absurd and I wasn't sure if it would all be covered. (I've still gotta get reimbursed for some shit, which is always a pain.)

[Aside from the first night, hanging out with Eddie Vee, I actually didn't drink all that much. Something I'd like to rectify next time. Maybe I just need to hang out with Eddie Vee some more.]

This is a quick shot of the bathroom, which doesn't give a great impression of it, except that it's so much better than what I've got in NYC.

Probably a good THREE TIMES the size of my NYC bathroom. Which even then isn't saying much, because my motherfucking NYC bathroom is a goddamn fucking sight-gag of a bathroom.

And then there's bedroom. An actual, separate room from the living room, with its own door and its own four walls.

It has been years since I've had a bedroom.

And this fucking bed was the most comfortable fucking bed. I hesitate to say it's the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in, but definitely top-5.

Ah, fuck it. Most comfortable bed ever. Some people prefer really firm beds. This was just a plush, angel-soft dream. I spent an entire afternoon taking running jumps onto that fucking bed.

(Okay, I spent every afternoon taking running jumps onto that fucking bed.)

~*~*~*~
If it seems like I'm obsessed with space, I am.

I need a bigger home. I've wrestled with the "L.A. or NYC?" question in the past few days, debated it with several people, but the bottom line is: I just need a bigger homebase. It's a mental health thing, it's a creative thing.

I just don't think I can quite afford to move for a while. My lease is up in November, as it always is. A lot can happen between now and then, sure. But even when deals are made, it takes a while to get paid. And I've got debts I'm still clearing. I think it'll be cheaper just to swallow the rent increase that goes with renewing my lease... definitely cheaper than paying a broker's fee and finding a new place and incurring the moving expenses. Whether I'm moving a few blocks away or across the country.

I fucking despise the cost of living in NYC. I know the argument. You're paying for the privilege of living in this iconic city. But you've got to be making a lot of money to break even. And you've got to pay more to live alone.

The Fortress of Solitude 3.0 is going to be a proper home. I'm determined to find it.

Say Hello to My Little Friend

As I stepped onto the Paramount lot for the first time, I kept my eye out for any celebrities...

I turn a blind corner and who do I run into...?
MOTHERFUCKIN' BUMBLEBEE!

Large as goddamn life.

I swear, it was like that episode of Diff'rent Strokes where Sam and Arnold accidentally wander onto the set of Knight Rider and almost get blown to child-actor smithereens. (Yes, it saddens me that a certain percentage of my pittance of a readership are too young to get this reference.)

"Hey, Malice," bellowed Bumblebee. "Need a lift???"

"Nah thanks, Bumble, I got a meeting," said Malice. "Which way's the Admin Building?"

"Thatta way!"

"Oh hey, can I take a picture of you with my cell phone and blog about you?"

"Only if you make believe we had this conversation, Malice!"

"You got yourself a deal, Bumble!!!"

For those who prefer flesh and blood celeb sightings, here's "E" from Entourage, signing some autographs outside my hotel right before heading into some exclusive private party.
The coolest guys don't tuck their shirts in.

Thursday. I had the best Thursday. I can't even go into specifics, but the meeting went so well. The producers really responded to the material. At one point, one of the producers asked me, "What did you do before this? What was your day job?"

He asked this with a smirk on his face, as if he'd just set me up to deliver a killer punchline. Asked this as if it were a foregone conclusion that I would never have to do that thing ever again. Asked this as if he were the captain of a ship that had just rescued me from some lonely desert island, and the question were really, "What were you doing to survive for the past 10 years before we found you?"

I'd never developed a coherent explanation of what I did for 6 years of my adult life, to make ends meet. Sheepishly, I explained, "I worked for [BLANKETY-BLANK], making slideshows and pitchbooks for I-bankers."

5 sets of blank stares. "Well, you won't need to do that again."

And just like that, my greatest fear dispelled.

Had a great meeting with a manager in the afternoon. Really seemed to click. I wasn't even planning on taking any meetings like that on this trip, but this turned out to be a nice surprise. Still too early to say, but it was very encouraging.

Later on, I met up with the infamous 6mx, who roped in her friend April to help babysit me through another night in this strange and fascinating city.

I don't want to be rash. I know that my view of this city is colored by the good things that are happening for me here and now, and the Bumblebees are going to my head... but I could imagine living here. I think I really could live in L.A. In my heart, I know that New York never fucking loved me. And I'm not saying that L.A. loves me, but she really seems to listen to me, you know? And even if she's just pretending, well maybe that's better than nothing...

"Don't you think that you need somebody? Don't you think that you need someone?" needled the Patriotic Gay Horse. "Everybody needs somebody. You're not the only one."

THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END SHUFFLED-5:
1. "Darkly Dreaming Dexter: Chapter 1", (audiobook)
2. "I Love You Mary Jane", Cypress Hill/Sonic Youth
3. "Tongue", R.E.M.
4. "Eminence Front", The Who
5. "Double Pump", Girl Talk
I Am Trying to Believe BONUS:
"Count On My Love", Liz Phair

Where Do We Go From Here?

When you fly first class, they give you cookies and milk.

Not much to say, really. Had a good flight to Los Angeles. Feels good to be back West under very different circumstances. Read an entire book on the flight over here. This is what happens when you start to get your reading material exclusively from Urban Outfitters...

I went from having a little too much free time to having, perhaps, not enough. But it's all right, because I'm enjoying seeing people. May not get to see everyone. (A nation mourns.)

I fucking adore my enormous suite. It's so much better than the fucking shithole I call "home" back in NYC. Maybe I should die here, so I can live here forever.

Have to wake up early to get to Paramount tomorrow morn. I'm nervous, but what are you going to do?

It's a war...

Self-Righteous, Smug NPR-listening, (Mac-Hugging) Ultraliberals

Funny little article about trying not to hate our Park Slope bros and brosephines.

I've clocked a number of key years in Brooklyn. I've earned the right to be weary of it. Not to mention that it is a NASTY BITCH to get home from there at the end of a night. And EVERYONE who lives in Brooklyn loathes to hang out anywhere except within the playpen of Brooklyn.

(You know who you fuckin are—don't make me call you out!)

Even so, I may eventually move back there. Buy a Mac. Start listening to NPR.

Bags packed. Quarterly fucking dues to WGAE paid. Rent check's in the mail.

I dread traveling.

I like traveling, I just dread the details.

The post-9/11 airports. Making sure you've got everything you need. I always seem to end up with a little bit more or a lot less than I need.

I had better have a good time on this trip. This is supposed to be the part where it all gets a little more fun, right?

Flying Lessons

A new chapter in The Adventures of Malice in Hollywood. I hear nothing for weeks—and suddenly, I'm supposed to hop on an aeroplane in two days.

Wednesday morning, to be exact. Subject to change. Meeting with producers. The contract between the studio and the production company is still being finalized, so I'm told to keep things under wraps (oops!)... but posting shit on my blog seems to be just as good as keeping things under wraps. (Unless one o' you fucks squeals on me.)

I've been told that the studio is waiting for the deal to finalize, at which point they'll "make an announcement"...

I've been waiting for them to make an announcement since last August!

I mean, for all I've talked about this thing, what solid proof have I offered anyone...?

This reminds me of a guy I used to know in college who called himself Zach Taylor...
You might remember him from the enduring classic, "Camp Stories"...

He was part of our little circle of friends freshman year at NYU. He seemed thoroughly average at the time. As we got to know him, he started parceling out some increasingly outlandish tales. Apparently, he was an actor who'd had a major role in the TV drama "I'll Fly Away". He was good friends with Brad Pitt and Elton John and Tommy Lasorda. His father was a doctor... and a spy... and a Transformer...

We were college freshmen, we all bought it—up to a point. This was the dark ages before the Internet had visuals. IMDB was probably nothing more than a newsgroup with some lists on it. Those days, you couldn't debunk a lie with a 5-second search.

Most of all, we just wanted to believe him. And we did... till the lies and empty-promises started toppling around him.

I haven't seen Zach in years. But I've certainly met a lot of people like him. People who claim to know people they probably don't know. People who try to lure you with promises they can't keep. I see a glimmer of Zachary Taylor in someone and I know to be careful.

And one of the weirdest things I'm learning about the entertainment industry is how it helps breed characters like Zach. It's so easy to lie. Even with the Internet. Hell, the Internet becomes a tool to help you lie better. The industry may be a small town, but if you're not in it, or if you're just starting out and you don't know anybody... well, you just have to take a leap of faith with certain things. And hope that the deal you landed with a major movie studio doesn't turn out to be an email hoax.

All that's a long way of highlighting the fact that I've given most of you NO concrete evidence of anything over the past 11 months. You've just, generously, taken my word for it.

Well, there should be some better evidence soon. The studios need some new franchises.

Better Woman

I'm not gonna say single women are crazy, though other people might... (cough)

What if there were an alternative to the dating scene...?

There's going to be a reading of a play I've been tinkering with for fucking forever. It includes one scene that has been seen in a much earlier form. But 95% of it's never been seen/read.

It's through the Summer Play Festival. They offered me the space to do a reading, if I had some material. This play is in a rough state, but I've been living with it for so long it might help me to see it read out. Hear it with an audience.

I'm not a big fan of readings. Especially ones that involve so many unknown factors. But this is America—the fuck you gonn' do, kn'amean?

Anyway, I'll post more on this as it gets a bit closer. This is just a warning shot.

CHINADOLL OVERDRIVE
a reading
Wednesday, August 1
8pm
Lion Theatre @ THEATRE ROW
price: free ninety-nine, bitches!

(it's free)

The Heat is Punishing

I managed to get into see that Homemade Raiders of the Lost Ark last night, which was fucking awesome. It deserves its own entry, but this heat is corroding my brain and I can't think. There are a bunch of articles about these kids here.

Watch a funny parody of David Blaine's street magic HERE.

Everybody get to see The Transformers this weekend? Michael Bay does it again! Let's all watch it some more, yeh?

Daisy, daiiisseeyy, giiive mee yooour anssswwerrr doooooo--

Something Strange in Your Neighborhood

Entry Date: 07.07.07
(How I adore symmetry)
Remember what a big hit that "Ghostbusters" song was back in the mid-80s? Didn't matter that the musical hook was a blatant rip-off of a Huey-Lewis-n'-the-News song. In that sense, Ray Parker Jr. was a pioneer for artists like Vanilla Ice and Sean Puffy Combs.

I remember loving the music video as a kid... but oh how it's aged:

Check out the random celebrity cameos. People who weren't even in the movie. Irene Cara! Chevy Chase! Melissa Gilbert! George Wendt! People whose star-power had a bit more wattage back in the mid-80s... but for kids today, they're probably a Who's Who of Who the Fuck is That?!?

But back in the day, it was Hollywood (or at least Ivan Reitman's friends) all coming out to support a great big fun movie. The kind they don't really make anymore.

They don't even make music videos like this anymore. The closest in recent years might be Will Smith's Wild Wild West—where the name of the movie is actually the name (and chorus) of the song. There's no (official) "Chronicles of Narnia" Song. We don't have a pop song called "Night at the Museum" sung by Alien Ant Farm. There may be songs thematically attached to movies like "Lord of the Rings", but rarely are they as LITERAL as they used to be. And certainly, it's hard to apply the theme song for "Ghostbusters" to anything except for... well, bustin' ghosts.

And then there's the great Ray Parker Jr. Aside from the Huey Lewis lawsuit, it must be an even greater indignity for him that he's still forced to lip-synch to this fucking song in 2005.

I feel sorry for his mother.

A Long Time Ago, We Used to be Friends

Entry #976:
July 4th, I went to Prospect Park in Brooklyn and met up with some people I hadn't seen in quite some time. People from that other life. The life I was in the middle of when I started this blog.

And it really is like a completely different lifetime. What's creepy is that I can mark the shift by digging through the archives of this blog. Talking specifically about September and October of 2004. When I truly began my journey through The Swamp of Sadness. (Thanks to She-Who-Won't-Be-Named.)

Back in that other life, I saw these people all the time. Everyone seemed to live just a few blocks from us. This peculiar cluster of couples. Living IKEA-sized lives in Park Slope. We'd go out drinking, celebrate each other's birthdays, throw dinner parties. It's sorta absurd to think about now—that I was ever a part of that parade of domesticity. Someone might have a recipe for potatoes au gratin they wanted to try out, and the group would build a fucking potluck dinner party around it! There were some great amateur cooks in this crowd. A lot of camera-ready couples living our Williams-fuckin-Sonoma lives.

There was no gradual tapering out. Once it ended, it ended. So it was particularly strange to see some of them again, after a passage of years. Besides mine, the old crowd had tallied up two other divorces. Which, make no mistake, is of considerable comfort to me.

Yes, I had the career success of the past year as a source of confidence. And I'd been told that they had all heard about it through the grapevine. And everyone was very cool with me, and plied me with seemingly earnest questions about The Business...

But it's hard to shake that ghostly air of that old life we all participated in. For all my new successes—and the vague promise of future success—I couldn't help but feel like they were all thinking, "That's the guy whose wife walked out on him." We all gingerly avoided talking about our ex-others. What succeeds or fails between two people behind closed doors is impossible to know... but it's irresistible to speculate on.

I left without fanfare. It helped that I was a bit inebriated from some excessively spiked punch, and I played up the blur of drunkenness to try to avoid any awkward sentimentality. A long time ago, we used to be friends. Isn't that enough?

I am fascinated by the story of these kids who made a shot-for-shot remake of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK over the course of seven years. I made tons of movies with my home video camera growing up. Mostly animated movies, coz I didn't have friends. (Ouch!) But the story of these kids working on this labor of love for all those years... I find it genuinely moving...

And it's not something that everyone can relate to. Obviously, I didn't have any friends that shared my obsessions growing up. (Memories, they hurt! THEY HURT!) But there is something about making movies in your backyard as a kid that's... so pure. You're not doing it as an assignment. You're not doing it to try to create a "calling card" and get noticed. It's not shit for your reel. And you most certainly ain't gettin paid. You're just doing it coz you fucking love movies. You're not jaded, you're not under the gun, you don't have anybody to answer to. You're learning by doing. You're doing it for yourself. You're teaching yourself how to tell a story with a camera.

It's easy for it to become a chore. It may sound bullshitty, but I'm always trying to remember that excitement I had as a kid, when I could spend whole summers making movies with action figures. I'm gonna try to check out a screening of the Backyard Raiders Saturday night. If I can get in.
!!!
Microsoft Extends XBOX 360 Warranty. They're finally acknowledging that there MIGHT be a bigger problem than they'd copped to before. Right as I'm about to send my XBOX 360 in for a SECOND repair.

"You love videogames and you don't have a girlfriend?" huffed the Gay Horse. "WHAT are the odds...?!"

Decepticons Shuffled 5:
1. "I Can Dream About You", Streets of Fire
2. "Wild Horses", Guns N' Roses
3. "Banana Skit", M.I.A.
4. "Planet Telex", Radiohead
5. "Midnight Show", The Killers
Autobots Bonus:
"Liquid Spear Waltz", Michael Andrews

TGIF Laugh Corner:
A Long Time Ago, I Used to Work Here.
iPhone dead after 4 days.

I Want to Be Like Common People

Three Things
6'6" Comedian Brian Posehn
Admits He Can't Do,
Because of the Way He Looks:

1. Sneak up on people.
2. Dig holes in the middle of the night.
3. Say "cute kid" to any parent with a cute child.

I love this friggin guy.



Everybody seen this commercial with Posehn?

Here's some funny outtakes!

Here's MORE funny outtakes!!!!!

Diary of a Porn Virgin

Happy Independence Day, y'alls!

I just found out the rating for this here blog, based exclusively on curse-word counts:
Surprise, suprise, surprise!

Hey, I can fuckin dig it, motherfuckers. I've been slowly generating filthier content for this cocksucking site, anyhow. In five years, people are gonna be saying, "Misanthropy Central turned into a hardcore snuff-film repository so gradually, I didn't even notice the switch!"

I caught this doc called "Diary of a Porn Virgin" on the Sundance channel, part of a Channel 4 documentary series called The Dark Side of Porn.

The doc follows two British women—a young South-Asian beauty named Sahara Knite (pictured right) and an attractive 38-year-old married woman named Frankie—as they quit their day jobs to pursue careers in... get this... HARDCORE PORNOGRAPHY!!!

Why can't Errol Morris make documentaries this sensational??

The documentary actually leaves a lot to be desired...

["On so many levels, really!" interjected the Gay Horse.]

[Belt up, YOU! It's not Friday yet!]

Sahara has an easier time, since there are so few Asian porno stars in the U.K.—and she's young and can name her price. Frankie struggles with it since she's older and she's got more "boundaries"—eventually, she quietly excuses herself from the porn table.

We never really get a satisfying answer for WHY these women choose to transition into lives of porn. We get hints at things. Sahara's grown up in a repressive Muslim household. Frankie is trying to overcome long-held body issues... and she thinks she might be able to make more money for her family through porn. But none of the issues are explored quite enough for the viewer to reach...... catharsis...

Anyway, I did my little GOOGLE searches to prep my little write-up for this entry and I came across something sorta sad. It seems that Sahara Knite is up for hire, for personal visits. Make no mistake, THIS is truly the dark side of porn. The fact that some stars make themselves available as personal escorts for regular blokes with a credit card. Prostitution never looked more glamorous.

i/z$abDlhvCmb-avxmbvzbv/$vb/$zxybZ

+++

Question is, do these people deliver?

Mom laughs as kid almost dies:

Laugh. Out. Loud. Motherfuckers.

Laugh the fuck out loud.

"Let's not blow our hands off this year, kids!" suggested the patriotic Gay Horse, brightly.

ID4 SHUFFLED-5:
1. "Changeling/Transmission 1", DJ Shadow
2. "Running to Stand Still", U2
3. "Prototype", Outkast
4. "Mothers of the Disappeared", U2
5. "Lion's Mane", Iron & Wine
Transformers BONUS:
"Fix You", Coldplay

Birth of a Maverick

Happy birthday to J*Goose and to Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. Hey, don't believe the hype, kids. Another version of the truth.
+++Apparently, some disgruntled ON THE LOT kids decided to do something proactive and erected a competing contest. More power to them.
+++Anybody seen a documentary called "The Alcohol Years"? It's on the DVR now, I'm in the middle of watching it. This girl has some wild fucking years in a particular social scene... then comes back years later to interview all these people she used to hang with. (Mostly blokes she porked! HEY-OHHH!) I need to find a nice girl like that.
+++Musical theater kids scare the crap out of me, on many levels. Maybe it's them knowing all those hoary musicals by heart, like idiot savants. Maybe it's that extra bit of showiness in their "regular" personalities, that just makes your blood curdle a little. This is another doc on my DVR. Worth seeing. Sorta sad, on account of them just being, like, kids, you know? But then, not sad. :-D You're in for a harsh reality, chillun!
+++This is just fer J:/Goose, since nobody else here cares for these "ride" videos. In Disneyland—for X-mas—they give THE HAUNTED MANSION an extreme NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS makeover. I thought it was just external set-dressing, but apparently it's a completely different version of the ride:

I KNOW, right??

But hey, you wanna see something really creepy???

[TURN THE VOLUME UP—NO TRICKS HERE.]

I used to be a little boy.

Maybe I picked up a bug along the way that's slowed me down but it's been a good week since the gunslinging bachelor party in Philly and I feel like I'm still in the process of detoxing. Drugged myself up to try to conceal it from mom for Sunday brunch, but she still asked about it. Bit of a cold, ma, the weather—it's been feckin debilitatin...

What's the deal with Independence Day falling right in the middle of the week this year? Cocks up the whole thing, dunnit?

Not to mention the fact that I think it's simply obscene that it's already July. It's been a year since the Summer Play Festival. Nine fucking months since I walked out on my old day job. I don't know where the time's gone.

As swell as some aspects of my life have been (just the one aspect, really), I've got constant reminders of how far I've still got to go...

July promises to be a heavy month. We'll see what that means soon enough.

Get your gun.