Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?

As I sat down across from my mother at the restaurant, I watched her expression wilt with concern as she got a better look at me. I was expecting this.

"Have you lost weight since the last time?" she asked.

I shrugged. I could have had a better response prepared but I was too exhausted. I'd been up all night with a girl I wasn't about to tell her much about. And I didn't feel like recounting how stressful the previous month had been.

"Have you been eating?" she pressed.

"Yes, I've been eating," I insisted.

"Have you been eating healthy?" she prodded.

"Yes, I've been eating healthy. I've been going to the gym more."

We quietly ordered brunch. I was too out of it to offer up my standard everything's-all-right routine. My perennial goal for these sporadic visits has always been to allay her motherly concerns, but I just didn't have the energy for the deception today.

"Did you watch the debate?" she asked.

My mother wasn't the most well-informed voter. Registered as an independent, she tended to vote on gut-instinct. She was enamored with Hillary Clinton because she was an older woman; didn't trust Obama despite the fact that both her kids were supporting him. I was afraid to hear her appraisal of McCain and Palin.

"Mom," I said, not really wanting to get into a politics discussion, "just vote for Obama. It'll be better that way."

"Okay," she replied.

I shoveled eggs into my mouth. Content that if I failed to do anything else productive this weekend, at least I'd managed to get a swing vote for Obama.

LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE!

"Fuck you, bitch!"

Paul Newman Has a Posse

January 26, 1925 - September 26, 2008
Damn.

Let's Get the Hell Outta Here!

It's tough to fuck up a bagel...

... or is it...?

Are you sick and tired of the oppressive amount of time it takes to smear a bagel with cream cheese?

Kraft is here to rescue you from that hellish reality... with Bagel-fuls!

David Blainopaths

David M. Cohen made me go see David Blaine hang upside-down in Central Park Wednesday afternoon.

Sadly, David Blaine is a big fat cheater and spent a good chunk of time UPRIGHT, sipping Powerade and water.

I took too many pictures with my shitty cell phone camera but I'm too lazy to upload them for this blog entry.

My reps called me Wednesday night to give me a pep talk about the Butcherhouse thing.

And apparently Jenny M. doesn't like the girl I've been seeing, even though she's never met her.

Talkin to my girlfriend, Waitin for somethin to happen

It was a rough weekend, waiting for what turned out to be a very anticlimactic Monday...

I killed time by getting around to the four NetFlix discs that I'd been using as dust-collectors for too long. The perfect way to mass-murder a lot of time.

In the order I watched them...

art 21: season 3 is one of those discs that are made to stop NetFlix queues cold. Put it on my queue based on someone's recommendation. Turned out to be a nice surprise. Funny, thought-provoking. Watching these artists at work is a lot more compelling than watching a writer at work. When I'm writing, I'm mostly just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. (Sometimes I'm crouched over and weeping with self-pity.)

Rumble Fish was Francis Ford Coppola's quick follow-up to The Outsiders, based on a novel from the same author. Some cool flourishes in there, some nice character-study. Drags a bit with a feeling of aimlessness, but I can be pretty impatient.

Battlestar Galactica: Season 1, Disc 2 was the big one. I'd had that fucking disc sitting on my floor since sometime in June, I believe. At about 183 minutes, I couldn't bring myself to commit the time. I was looking forward to getting rid of this one. So many people are nuts about this show, I've felt left out of the pop phenom. It's a good show and I've enjoyed it, but the idea of getting through all six seasons is more daunting than ever. But now I'm past disc 2.

Paper Moon, like Rumble Fish, is one of those movies that I probably should've seen years ago. A little gem from Peter Bogdanovich. Tatum's a natural and it makes you sad knowing she's going to grow up to be a batty coke-fiend.

Now I'm back to watching all the bullshit garbage on my DVR. Hooray me.

Fuck Fuck Fuckity Fuck

All right, all you fuckos. Negative Nancies. Here's your gift.

This wasn't the blog entry I was hoping to write.

My movie-greenlight dreams are deferred as the suits squabble over the new draft not being "scary" enough.

No pity-parties, please. No emails that read, "That sucks. What happens now?"

Seriously. Do not.

This is a setback and I am pissed/frustrated/bitter/murderous. A little development hell is part of the business. I knew that going in and I'll eat it.

This week, I pick up all the other loose threads that I swept aside the past month. Clear my head a little. There are a lot of promising projects. Hopefully we'll get back to the Butcher business soon enough.

it wouldn't be make-believe if you believed in me

Say, it's only a paper moon
Sailing over a cardboard sea
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me

Yes, it's only a canvas sky
Hanging over a muslin tree
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me

Without your love
It's a honky-tonk parade
Without your love
It's a melody played in a penny arcade

It's a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me

Daisies

Final stretch on "The Butcherhouse Chronicles" movie...

Gentlemen, it has been an honor...

How do I feel...?

NUMB.

Hours yet to go before we all agree on locking the script for this weekend's critical read. But I can honestly say I've worked harder on this than I have worked on any single piece of writing in my life.

Monday never seemed so fucking far away.

So far away... so fucking far... away...

Captain America's been torn apart. Now he's a court jester with a broken heart. He said, "Turn me around, take me back to the start..." I must be losing my mind! Are you blind?! I've seen it all a million times...

Lifeless World

No doubt inspired by the success of "garfield minus garfield", Spanish artist José Manuel Ballester recreated some of the most famous paintings from El Prado Museum... sans all living creatures.

The effect, enhanced by my animated-giffery, more closely resembles my personal everyday life.

That is to say, a life bereft of life and humanity.

You people have no idea how much writing and revisions I've had to do in the past month. This week being, perhaps, the craziest in terms of deadlines and last-minute feedback-fielding...

And yet I still find the time to update this blog and, occasionally, give you interesting things to look at!

I'm like Jesus.

BOW DOWN BEFORE ME!!! ON YOUR FUCKING KNEES, HEATHENS!!!

Go Ahead and Leave Me

Portal - Still Alive typography from Trickster on Vimeo.

I didn't make this. I just wish I did. Lovely use of animated typography.

Rapists of the Sea

For nearly two decades, I've been ostracized for my dolphin hatred, never able to justify my inherent paranoia. But recently, I was thumbing through an old issue of The Economist (don't ask) when I happened upon this startling quote:

"Rape, even gang rape, is not unknown among other wild animals. But dolphins have perfected the practice."

I was shocked, to say the least, but also more than a little delighted by the news. Could it be true that, just as I'd long suspected, dolphins aren't really the lovable, gregarious, pranksters-of-the-sea that everybody seems to think they are? Could they actually be gang-rapists?

Do not trust Dolphins.

David Foster Wallace Has a Posse

I'm late on this.

David Foster Wallace hanged himself a few days ago.

My favorite story from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men:

A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life

When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces.

The man who'd introduced them didn't much like either of them, though he acted as if he did, anxious as he was to preserve good relations at all times. One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one.

Everybody Loves David

Do not underestimate David Cohen's power and influence.

GET TO KNOW HIM!

(Knowing him is half the battle!)

The Kingmaker Effect

[With one photo, Obama shores up the Mid-West Jewish vote.]

You know what's great about having your own blog? Posting pictures of your friends without their prior consent.

Of course, the only reason I'm posting this photo of David M. Cohen with Barack H. Obama (taken at the Presidential Candidates Forum @ Columbia University on Thursday) is to advertise the fact that David Cohen is actually a known kingmaker. It's a fact.

If I might quote the poet Nelly,

You're with a winner so, baby, you can't lose!

Oh, if we could see tomorrow...

Back to the Future II

I circled around to the back of the house and entered Mystery's room through the patio. He was lying on top of his bed in jeans with a laptop computer resting on his bare stomach. He was watching Back to the Future II.

"When I was in tenth grade, I wanted to kill myself because I had nothing left to live for," he said. "Then I heard that Back to the Future II was opening in twenty-three days. I had a calendar, and I would mark off each day until I could see the movie. It's the only thing that kept me from killing myself."

He paused the movie and lifted the laptop off his stomach. "When I saw it and heard the opening music, I cried, dude. It was my reason to live..."

From Neil Strauss's The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick-up Artists, pg. 330.

It is genuinely sad how much I relate to Mystery (né, Erik von Markovik), at least in this respect. It's sort of horrifying to think about the times a big movie's release date was the only thing keeping me going.

Folks can be dismissive but that's the power of good popcorn movies. They can transport a troubled kid to a better place, if only for a short while.

A Brief History of Butchers

In case you missed it, I got my first mention in VARIETY as they officially announced that Frank Borin's our director on "The Butcherhouse Chronicles".

(Every time there's a press mention, my other blog enjoys a big spike in lurkers looking for more information. On Monday, they found bunch of entries of me bashing McCain and Palin. Ha ha.)

Check out the first time I mention writing the original play on this blog. What a difference a scant 5+ years makes. (Like how both Bear Stearns and that marriage are in graves.)

And remember the time I found out that the play was going to be in that festival?

I have a little more wiggle room on the deadline for this latest crucial draft. This week and next week are going to be critical.

I've been through some hard fucking times. Ain't no religious type but I am praying for some better times ahead.

Forget That Bitch

From The Onion:

Man Pinned Under Blankets For Three Days

MOLINE, TX—Crushed under the weight of a sudden and unexpected emotional collapse Friday, local resident Sam Cartwright spent 72 hours completely immobilized beneath the covers of his bed. "I don't know how long I was unconscious for," said Cartwright, who managed to stay alive by eating from a box of Ritz crackers that was within arm's reach. "I couldn't move. There were so many times that I wanted to just give up and die." Cartwright was eventually freed from the blankets when his friend Rob brought over a six-pack and told him to "forget that bitch."

Shitty AOL Straw Polls

I can't really find any specific articles about this (though there HAS to be...), so I guess I've got to call this out.

Yes, AOL sucks. This is no secret. It's sucked for a parade of reasons, for the majority of its lifetime. Even now that it's free, it sucks. Maybe more.

I keep an AOL account because it's one of my few contact info constants (NYC being the nomadic, elitist metropolis that it is).

When I log on, I notice all the AOL news stories. Sometimes I click through and even, on occasion, take part in some of their little "straw polls".

However, for the political stuff, there is ALWAYS a clear Republican slant in the poll numbers.

WTF is up with that?

AOL is synonymous with "internet for idiots", so you can connect the dots that way (if you were so inclined). So, the majority of AOLers are crotchety Luddites who find solace in the fear-mongering hypocrisy and outright lies of the desperate Grand Old Party?

AOL Polls = Hillbilly Polls

Gremlins Invasion

"The whole production was two months long," Feiner explains on YouTube. "This is a fan, non-profit project. I did everything alone, from the filming to the compositing. I only had assistants for the puppeteering. The overall budget, including the purchasing of the original [Gremlins] sculpture, the HD and studio equipment, the molding and painting of the puppets and the editing, was about U.S. $3k. This is also an answer to something Joe Dante said in an interview, when the journalist asked why they did not shoot any new alternate sequence for the DVD edition: I guess there was no budget! Indeed, the purpose is also to show that it is possible to render a professional, entertaining and well done sequence for...nearly nothing."

Sarah Palin Naked

Gloria Steinem:
Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling.

Outside of Society

Baby was a black sheep!
Baby was a whore!
Baby got big and baby's gettin bigger!
Baby got a hand,
GOT A FINGER ON THE TRIGGER--
Everybody getting a fucking kick out of John McCain's recklessly unqualified vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin?

How much of a fucking farce can this turn into?

Watching the Republican talking heads sputter in nonsensical defense of Palin on 24-hour news channels is particularly obscene. Backtracking from all their criticisms of Obama lacking experience. Outrageously using Palin's gender as a defense when the debate gets too hot.

She didn't abort her baby! Isn't that terrific??
Look at all the fucking kids she's raised! That counts as experience, right?

Fucking insulting.

Watch CNN's Campbell Brown mercilessly grill Tucker Bounds on Palin's theoretical "national security experience":

I beg of you, America. Do NOT buy the monorail that McCain is trying to sell you. It is poorly built. And it believes in Creationism.



Oh, all right...

Pocket Bioshock

Some folks mocked up retro-Gameboy artwork for some modern videogames.

Of course, I generated the above animated gif to show what "Pocket Bioshock" might look like in action. (Looks pretty fuckin exciting, don't you think?)

If you have no life, YOU CAN DO THE SAME!

WELCOME TO THE CIRCUS OF VALUES!

Siskel & Ebert Have a Posse

I know it died with Gene Siskel and got cremated with the departure of Roger Ebert, but the franchise is officially gone now, Roeper and all.

What have we got left? Shitty internet fanboy geeks.

The world is a vampire.

What's the Buzz? REVISITED

Recently, my 50" flat-panel plasma screen --

Samsung FP-T5084 --

has begun making a buzzing sound again.

April 2008 - September 2008. Pretty good run, eh?

Motherfuckers.

Okay. Here's me praying to the Samsung gods that it doesn't get worse.

I'll Find You and I'll Kill You

Chad VanGaalen.