Paul Walker Has a Posse

Paul William Walker IV
September 12, 1973 – November 30, 2013
The star of the popular and rejuvenated FAST & FURIOUS series. Once a contender to play the new Superman.

He'd been attending a charity event in Los Angeles to aid Filipino victims of Typhoon Haiyan for his organisation Reach Out Worldwide. That typhoon claimed another life as he died in a car crash.

Paul Walker has a posse.

He's been filming FAST & FURIOUS 7 with new-to-the-series director James Wan and now the fate of that project is up in the air.

The Trouble with PS4

I want to want a PS4.

I have coveted every new videogame console generation since I was a child. Up to now, the giant leaps in graphics and gameplay introduced with each succeeding generation have always been easy to see. To the point where I've always erred toward early adoption.

Atari 2600 to Colecovision. NES to Master System to Genesis/SegaCD/32x. (Buying into a used SNES late in the lifespan.) That very first Playstation was awesome. The PS2 was a huge upgrade that doubled as a DVD player. The PS3 was another huge upgrade that doubled as a Bluray player.

Now the PS4 has dropped and... I've seen nothing to persuade me to upgrade. I've got that childish itch that desires an upgrade, but it's really more of a reflex desire.

I appreciate that it's more powerful but it seems that it essentially plays the exact same types of games but with higher resolutions. So I could play a version of Grand Theft Auto 5 that's sharper and has better shading/lighting. They'll probably toss in some bonus content to sweeten the pot but it's still the same game. Still the same gameplay. And to be honest, when I play Grand Theft Auto 5, I'm not bemoaning the level of graphics.

I also don't have the time for videogames that I once had. I've got a backlog of videogames that could probably sort me out for the next few years. It is a destructive use of time. I could spend 100 hours playing a videogame and beat the shit out of it... and have nothing to show for all that time. It's a great distraction and I have need for distractions, but it takes way too much time away from WRITING. Playing videogames is an irresponsible use of free time. More than the MSRP of the console and the games, I can't afford the time lost. It is an irresponsible waste of time. Booze and drugs would be a more responsible investment: at least I could WRITE on those.

Somewhere along the way, I downgraded from being a serious gamer to being... a casual gamer.

I'm still fascinated by them and, I'm sure, will eventually be lured to a PS4 to experience some unique new experience. But I don't see that on the horizon yet.

((the kidnapping of colleen stan))

hello, sorry for the lack of entries -- i know you're all dying to read about my goddamn life.

trying to write two things, currently.

this is more of a note for myself than something any of you need to read.

the kidnapping of colleen stan.

Wayne Gretzky

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
I asked a girl out this past weekend.

This is significant because I don't remember the last time I legitimately just bluntly asked a girl out. An appalling length of time ago.

I asked her out... more to just do it. To remember what it feels like. To forget about the girl at work a little.

I always think of that famous Wayne Gretzky quote (because I'm such a huge Wayne Gretzky fan), and I figured this was just about me taking a shot.

I blew it, naturally. I choked more because she didn't say "no" outright. I set her up to give me an easy rejection... and when she didn't do it, I was forced to go through with asking her out. (I think she may have been a little young and inexperienced.) Then her mom put her back in her stroller and they walked off.*

This is not just about me committing to some kind of monastic existence in order to serve my career properly. This is about me wanting to get some shit in order before inviting a guest over to my proverbial Fortress of Solitude. And yes, that means getting my career to a certain position, which is connected to financial issues, and security and home and confidence and the whole magilla. I'm a human being but I'm not great relationship material right now. I don't have a lot more than ambition to offer someone at the moment.

Some people... some people have to work a little harder to get what other people take for granted. It just means you have to be better than other people.

It means, *I* have to be better.

I've got two projects I'm trying to get off the ground right now. Possibly a third, but I'm not holding my breath on that because OTHER PEOPLE CAN BE UNRELIABLE.

There are not enough hours. Would that I could stop time and just write for the equivalent of a few days.

[* This was a joke, internet: she wasn't THAT young.]

All Tomorrow's Anniversary Parties

14 Years

14 years of silence.
14 years of pain.
14 years that are gone forever
And I'll never have again.

The Liger Rollercoaster

I'm in a car with a bunch of friends and we're going to some famous zoo that happens to have Liger: hybrid of a Lion and Tiger. We're not specifically going to see this Liger but when we get there, we see glimpses of the fucking thing running around toward the back of the zoo.

When I say "back of the zoo", there seems to be some huge running track — like you'd find at a high school, except it's elevated high up on a cliff. As we drive further, we catch glimpses of this Liger running laps. And it is massive. I knew that Ligers were larger than their parents because of some genetic anomaly, but this thing... it seemed to be bigger every time we'd get a glimpse of it. At first, it looked about 10 feet tall. Then 20 feet tall. Eventually, it looked to be about 100 feet tall! It looked downright prehistoric.

As we drove further back, the ocean was suddenly in front of us... and there were rails leading into the ocean. This was a rollercoaster. We were no longer in a car, we were in a rollercoaster built on the turbulent ocean. And this 200 foot Liger waded into the ocean to play his part in this thrill ride.

None of this makes sense in hindsight but dream logic... is what it is. The scale of this beast was ungodly. And this rollercoaster built on the fucking ocean looked outrageous.

The thing is, it stalled a moment before it was really about to kick in. The ride stalled, I woke up and I couldn't get back into the dream.

I tried. And for some reason, I imagined I could maybe find footage of the rest of this ride online somewhere, as if a company had clearly designed this thing. It was a narrative rollercoaster, like something you'd find at Disney World, except it looked out of control. Not for the faint of heart. And what was it doing at a zoo? Accompanied by a 300 foot Liger? In the goddamn OCEAN...??!

And why did I dream about this...?

Some Girls (Or, "Drunken Friday Night Blog Entry I'll Need to Edit Later Even Though Ben Will Give Me Hell For This Either Way")

Some girls... are easy...

Some girls, there's no effort. They just fall into place. Some chemical, phermonal fucking paradigm. Point being, effort required: NEXT to nil. They get in your orbit and they just fucking *CLICK* into place, you know? Not suggesting no skill required but ALMOST no skill required because they're halfway sold. You've just got to avoid being a sublime clod enough to not bungle the close.

Let me back up...

Some girls are easy. Some girls are "gettable" but require some effort. And some girls are "beyond your league" — they require more effort but are not as impossible as they may seem. (And, in the right circumstances, may be bumped down to the previous two levels.)

Shall we dispense with the formalities......?

There are a few cute girls on the current day-job-gig I'm working on. I would hazard to say, though this may be the worst of all the gigs I've worked on thus far (for various reasons), it may boast the highest percentage of cute girls. That's neither here nor there...

There is ONE GIRL who has caught my attention.

It is an odd, psychological thing. Wherein one day I just realized, "HOLY SHIT... *that's* the one girl on this gig who I *REALLY* like...!"

A therapist once told me about this theory... about how human beings have this tendency to fall in love with the SAME PERSON over and over and over again. And it got me to thinking about all the situations I've found myself in. At first, I thought the theory was just bullshit. There was no pattern to all the girls I'd had... romantic entanglements with — they were all different ethnicities, different physical types.

But then I got to thinking about it some more and... the idea wouldn't go away.

I won't break it down here but there are definitely... MOTIFS... certain elements that seem to resonate with me...

All of which is a long way around of saying... there is this ONE GIRL on this gig I'm currently on that I want more than anything. I think she's gettable. But in the short term I"m choosing against making any moves because... No. I've certain priorities in life right now. And the A#1 is getting my career somewhere acceptable. Having a fleeting fling with some girl... is lower on the list.................................................

Daylight Savings

It's that time of the year again. When you've got reset the clock on the microwave because your computer, DVR and cell phone have already automatically set their own clocks back one hour. I remember when I lived by physical alarm clocks and wrist watches. I used to keep the hour ahead so it always *felt* like I had more time.

Now, no more wrist watches. My cell phone is my alarm clock. My cell phone is my constant reminder of how late it is in the year.

November 15th is the deadline for the Sundance Theater Lab application. This is not a reminder for other emerging playwrights out there: I sincerely hope you miss the deadline. No, this is a reminder for myself...

15 Years Later

Tonight, it's been exactly 15 years since I got my first tattoo. Back when I was a little more careful about trying to remember the specific dates of each of my tattoos.

(All right, I know I'm back-dating this entry, but I didn't have the time to get to it... so arrest me.)

I was about a year out of college. I'd just had some bizarre Halloween. Don't precisely recall the circumstances. Was there a woman involved? There's usually some woman involved. Most of my tattoos record the chapter endings. I'd been thinking about getting some ink for a while. In college, I'd experimented with dyeing my hair, had a few ear-piercings that never took, so tattoos were a natural progression.

A simple dragon tattoo, conservatively placed on the upper right arm. Got it at a tattoo parlor on 8th Street between 6th and 5th. I remember the artist — some guy who went by the name "Chicky" or something. I remember him going through the normal prep (shave/wash of the area, application of the design) and before he actually started, he gave me this slightly cheeky grin and asked, "You sure about this...?" When I confirmed, he laughed conspiratorially. As if I were choosing to go down a slightly more reckless path in life. As if we were about to embark upon an adventure.

15 years later. I didn't plan on going out drinking three nights in a row. It just sort of happened. Halloween night, I found myself drinking right in the middle of the fucking Village. Who goes drinking in the Village on Halloween night?! Kids, idiots, douche-bags, Bridge-N-Tunnel... and apparently me. It was an awkward night for reasons I can't really go into here.

None of the nights ended with anything I regretted. Nothing embarrassing (save for forgetting my card at the last bar on Friday night, necessitating me returning to the scene of the crime on Saturday). Nothing said or done to anyone that I'd need to apologize for. Nothing set on fire. Nothing too honest spoken aloud. Three unplanned nights of drinking, but with enough control that comes from years of experience. In control. The most important thing is staying in control, at this stage.

Even so, three nights of drinking is not so easy on the internals.

These weekends are always about catching up on sleep and trying to get some more writing done.

It's fucking November already. November always arrives so abruptly, doesn't it? You're partying Halloween night and suddenly, look at the time: the year's almost over! The eleventh month. Eleven in a series of Twelve. And then you ask yourself,

How old are you? What have you accomplished this year?