Curse my gullibility!
It occurred to me last night that the end of the quarter was sneaking up pretty quickly, so I e-mailed my screenwriting professor to ask him when, exactly, our scripts were due. It's usually some day in the ninth week of instruction, so the "Duh--during Finals Week" default wouldn't have done me any good.
I get an e-mail back today in which he tells me they're due the day after tomorrow--and me with half a script yet to write.
I freak out, as anyone would, and start calling people in the class to see if my prof's just funning with me, or if that due date's legit.
Turns out he was just yanking my chain. The only problem is now that I've run the gamut from sheer terror to pants-wetting relief, I can't work up the gumption to write any new pages tonight. I've been sitting at my computer, ready to go, but I just...can't...do...it. I wrote nine pages yesterday, but I'd rather not blow that lead by turning in a goose egg for this evening.
I'm going to head to Starbucks for an hour or so and see if I can't shake myself out of it...
Posted by patrick at 08:34 PM | Comments (1)
February 26, 2005
"No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastard will see them soon enough..."
Just a few short minutes ago, I crawled off of my bed to turn off the lights and call it a night. Now I’m sitting at my computer again, lashing myself to the keyboard like that poor schmoe who ties himself to the wheel of the cargo ship in Dracula.
What, exactly, is wrong with me? Geez…
I started working on my screenplay for class right at this time last night (or yesterday morning, if you prefer), and I managed to crank out almost nine pages before I dove headfirst into my pillow at 6 a.m. Of course, I had to get up for work two hours later, so I’m not going to expect similar screenwriting results of myself tonight.
I just ate an Eggo—over the sink, as to not dirty a plate and hasten my descent into the category of subhuman. Sure, they’re prone to dripping their syrupy goodness into my sink like the slavering maw of something from the H.R. Giger sketchbook, but they taste no different for the lack of plate, knife or fork.
* * * * *
I’ve been meaning to put something up about Hunter S. Thompson’s recent suicide at age 67. I’m trying to withhold judgment until more information has been released, as my knee-jerk reaction to what I’ve read/heard as of now—that he shot himself while his family was in the house, and while he was on the phone with his wife, no less—isn’t sitting too well with me. It’s one thing for one of the great American iconoclasts of the 20th century to go out in the manner of his choosing. It’s another thing entirely for said iconoclast to subject his family to undue suffering. I mean, he did shoot himself in the head, after all.
So much for withholding judgment. But, hey...he wouldn't have wanted me to. An essay without judgment is like journalism without gonzo.
My first exposure to HST’s writing was back when I was 16 or 17, during the run of “Mr. Roberts” with the Riverside Community Players. One of actors in his mid-20s loaned his copy of Hell’s Angels to me, which I promptly devoured and never gave back. Years later, I let one of my Notre Dame seniors borrow it, with similar results. I was a bit bummed to not get it back, but karma is karma—and it’s one of those books I don’t begrudge having to replace if losing my original meant that it had a chance to crowbar its way into somebody’s consciousness.
I went on, over the subsequent years, to read HST’s The Rum Diary, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a bunch of his political pieces as have been anthologized in various collections, his famous “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” (which you owe it to yourself to read if you’ve never had the pleasure) and half of his three-volume collection known as The Fear and Loathing Letters. The first volume, in particular, really resonated with me; I read those letters at the same age at which he had written them, and I found myself nodding at his restless, almost frantic realization that he was calibrated for a far different world than that into which he’d been flung. Later on, you learn to carve out an oasis for yourself however you can, but in your early 20s? To have it dawn upon you that the vast majority of the people around you just don’t think the way you do is absolutely paralyzing.
If it hadn’t been for authors like HST and people like Jon in my life, I think my early 20s would have been an especially nasty stretch of bat country, so to speak.
Posted by patrick at 03:30 AM | Comments (1)
February 18, 2005
"Million Dollar Baby"...
I saw "Million Dollar Baby" this evening. It was a good enough movie, but one that was hyped into an unwinnable corner by all the gushing praise it's received. Not as good of a movie as, say, "Unforgiven" or "Mystic River," and not the best movie of the year.
Of course, my enjoyment of the film may have been diminished by the fact that I was savvy to a pretty important event in the film's plot before I watched it, thanks to the likes of Maggie Gallagher and other columnists and pundits who were in too much of a hurry to praise or condemn said event to alert their readers to the spoilers ahead.
Now that I've seen "Million Dollar Baby," I think I'm in a better place to make a some Oscar predictions regarding the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories.
BEST ACTOR NOMINEES:
Don Cheadle - "Hotel Rwanda"
Johnny Depp - "Finding Neverland"
Leonardo DiCaprio - "The Aviator"
Clint Eastwood - "Million Dollar Baby"
Jamie Foxx - "Ray"
While it's certainly heartening to see two African-American men on the list of nominees, I'm going to be crass and suggest that the Academy will feel, collectively, that they just had their year for the minorities. There will be no love for either Don or Jamie with regards to the Best Actor Oscar. They'll give it to Clint Eastwood as one of those "We're honoring your whole body of work with one award 'cause you're old and could die at any moment" deals. However, Jamie Foxx will get the Supporting Actor Oscar for his work in "Collateral" (thus beating out the likes of Thomas Haden Church, Morgan Freeman, Alan Alda, and Clive Owen) as an unofficial consolation prize.
Of course, I saw fewer movies last year than any year in recent memory, so what do I know?
Posted by patrick at 01:50 AM | Comments (1)
February 16, 2005
VO and doodles...
Click here to read a very kind summary of my 2004 VO work from Dub Review staff member Dale Abersold.
And these doodles prove that a mind is a terrible thing to waste--especially when it manifests its restless energy down the lefthand margin of my script pages in the middle of my three-hour screenwritng class...
Posted by patrick at 02:53 AM | Comments (2)
February 13, 2005
Pinatas and Ossie Davis...
It must be somebody's birthday--the neighbor children are assembled en masse right below my apartment, shrieking and beating the everliving hell out of a pinata. They're also running up and down the stairs, every step of which reverberates through the floor of my living room.
When I go off the deep end one of these days, it should be of little surprise if they find me huddled in a corner, rocking like a Romanian orphanage baby, mumbling "Los ninos...los ninos..." over and over again.
Veteran actor Ossie Davis died about a week ago. I didn't realize how large a body of work he left behind, or how prominent a role he played in African-American theater and film--especially when the existence of either was no sure thing. As much as I enjoyed his work in "Bubba Ho-Tep," it seems wrong to only know a man of that caliber for such a comparatively minor role.
And, of course, he's not the only recent loss to American performing arts. You get three guesses as to whom I mean, and the first two don't count.
Posted by patrick at 04:41 PM | Comments (1)
February 10, 2005
First February posting...
I meant to do some updating to the slightly revamped version of my site, only to realize that I don't know how to access its innards. I fired off an e-mail to my friend Mike (who hosts this), so I'll have the necessary info to tinker away within the next day or so.
My original plans for tomorrow night included perspiration, overpriced alcohol, and wistful nostalgia, but time and space (cruel mistresses that they are) have put the kibosh on all that.
The good news: Dead Man’s Party (the world’s premier—and perhaps only—Oingo Boingo cover band) is having a concern tomorrow evening at 8 p.m.
The bad news: Said concert is at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana.
The really bad news: I’d be driving straight from work in North Hollywood—on a Friday night.
The deal-breaker: Instead of getting off work at the usual time of 6, I might be working an extra 30 to 90 minutes, possibly getting me out at late as 7:30 p.m.
Actually, it was a bit of a relief to realize that my work schedule tomorrow was going to make my DMP attendance a no-go. Getting out of work early enough to make it there on time, I would have felt obligated to go for it—slogging through two or more hours of traffic to get to Santa Ana, and being in a crappy, stressed-out mood for the concert itself. No good. This way, I have a valid reason to take the more sensible option. Besides, they’re playing the Key Club in April, so I’ll catch ‘em then.
That’s not to say that I won’t have any fun this weekend, though. I’m catching a Saturday matinee of "Arabian Nights" down at UC Irvine (all sold out, but I gots me a connection on the inside, mang), and a party at my friend Jenny’s place in Riverside that night. I will be working half a day on Sunday, though, lest you think I’m given over too completely to some sort of "live fast, die young" weekend mantra, and I’ll probably spend the latter half of that day working on my screenplay for class. As much as I love my admittedly meager source material, and as unwilling as I was to set it aside in favor of something more fleshed out and complete, I am sort of kicking myself for picking two vaguely chronicled historical figures around whom to spin a script for my graduate adaptation course.
In other news, I got DSL a few days ago. I had it when I lived in Westwood with a few roommates right after my undergrad days at UCR, and after a year and a half of the good life, I never quite readjusted to dialup when I moved back to Riverside. Not only can I now download movie trailers and abandonware games with ease, but it just makes the internet a friendlier place to be, as fewer and fewer sites are being designed as dialup-friendly.
That’s all for now. I think I’m going to brave the rain for a quick Starbucks run, then force myself to crank out a few more script pages before I call it a night...
Posted by patrick at 11:51 PM | Comments (1)