June 29, 2021

Yesterday, I went to the beach with my family. My two little nephews saw the ocean for the first time. The four-year-old: "It's so big!" He ran around in the sand. He's wait for a wave to come all the way in and then stick his feet in it as it was receding. My brother, sister-in-law, and I swam in the ocean until my mom waved us in. She and my dad said they saw a shark fin. We would have probably been fine, but it seems like a good policy that whenever you hear someone yell,  "Get out of the water!" you follow instructions without question. 

My nephew also did better in the pool yesterday. The day before, he'd only hang out on the steps. Yesterday, floaters on, he realized he could actually touch the bottom of the pool. So he came all the way in. He's a cautious little boy in a way that reminds me a lot of myself. He wants to get into things by going slow. He doesn't want anyone to rush him. He also likes olives. What a winner. 

June 28, 2021

I've been day dreaming of a film and screenwriting grad school program that would be the ultimate jump into the industry. One that hooks you up with intern and job experience, but focuses heavily on the art. The mystery of the whole thing. That has mandatory screenings every Thursday night and short reports on it due the next day. Where they've not repeated a movie in ten years, and you don't know what you're getting. Any genre, era, country. Graduates would be allowed to continue to attend, and they do. Random people in the industry come as well. Like how ex pro basketball players would play pick up at the Wooden Center. It would be like a religious service for movies. Movies movies. We should call photographs "stillies." 

I want to write a Mlog about Female Trouble, but I've got to head to my family's airbnb at 9am, and I have a lot of stuff I need to put in the car first. Including trying to fit a bike into the back seat. I want to be with them when they get to the beach because I want to see my four-year-old nephew see the ocean for the first time. I guess he'll probably see it from the car, and I'll miss that. (I'm driving a different car.) But still, I want to get close to catching his initial impression. 

June 27, 2021

Feeling a bit better today. Family is in town, but I haven't seen them yet. 

Mlog Time! 

I'm skipping Female Trouble and Jodorowsky's Dune for now, but I'll come back to those.  

ROLLING THUNDER 

1977

Directed by: John Flynn

Written by: Paul Schrader, Heywood Gould

Watched: 6/26/21

Major Charles Rane and Sergeant Johnny Vohden arrive home in Texas after being a prisoner of war in Vietnam for seven years. Charles home town of San Antonio celebrate him by giving him a silver dollar for each day he was imprisoned. Charles’s son who, when Charles left for war was only a baby, is now a boy. And Charles’s wife wants a divorce, as she’s fallen in love with another man. Charles is fine with this, unemotional and robotic. He just wants to be a part of his son’s life. A group of men robs Charles, knowing about his silver dollars. They torture him, trying to get him to say where he’s hidden it. He doesn’t say anything, even when they put his hand down the garbage disposal.  His wife and son come home, the son tells them where the money is, and then the men shoot them all. Charles lives, his wife and son do not. 

Charles bonds – sort of – with the young woman who wore is bracelet while he was gone and is now in love with him. He takes her to Mexico, and starts trying to track down the men who killed his son. As he gets closer to the men, he ditches the girl – leaving her plenty of money – and visits the Sergeant. In the middle of a family dinner, he tells Johnny that he knows where the men are. Johnny, deadpan: I’ll get my kit. The two men go to the brothel where the men are enjoying themselves and shoot a bunch of people. They get shot themselves, but leaning on one another, they’re able to get out of there alive. 

I really enjoyed the pacing and tension in this movie. It’s slow moving but there’s plenty of drama. The character of the major is fantastic. He’s described as being “macho as hell,” but it’s because he can take pain, he can survive it, rather than because of his ability to inflict pain. It’s his resilience that makes him amazing. His ability to lose a hand without blinking an eye. Of course the roots of that are tragic, he’s traumatized from his time as a POW. He feels like he’s already dead. A solid, beautiful, surprising film. 

Rating: ★★★★

June 26, 2021

Feeling a little out of sorts today. Listless. Like there's not enough going on. It's the third out of four days of my class's virtual writing retreat. We have plenty of time for each writing exercise, which means I can use the time to do other stuff like washing the dishes. The looming task is to clean the shower, which is disgusting. 

My husband's down in San Diego visiting his sister and a few of our friends. They're having fun without me. Boo hoo hoo hoo. I could read a science fiction short story. That would be nice. 

I'm backlogged on the Mlog. That's really why I got on. Here we go! 

Mlog Time! 

DESPERATE LIVING

1977

Directed by: John Waters

Written by: John Waters

Watched: 6/23/21 

Peggy Gravel and her maid Griselda accidentally kill Peggy’s husband and have to go on the run. They get pulled over by a cop who makes them give him their underwear (which he puts on) and then kiss him on the open mouth. He lets them go, but tells them the only way they’ll elude the cops is to go to Mortville. The women flee. Mortville is a shanty town full of mostly lesbians and outside the law. Queen Carlotta rules the town with deep disdain and keeps people in line with her army of leather men. The Queen’s daughter defies her and runs away to be with her nudist lover who picks up trash around Mortville. Peggy, an asshole, turns the princess in to the leathermen. As a thanks, the Queen appoints Peggy as an advisor and tasks her with making a rabis serum with which they can infect the population. The townsfolk rebel, however, and the team of lesbians overthrow the queen and roast her and eat her as a feast. 

This was the second movie in the double bill at the New Beverly Cinema, but I want to talk about it first, in part, because I almost threw up. I had taken a drink of my water and then thought about one of the many outrageously disgusting things that had happened. I didn’t swallow correctly, and started coughing/choking/feeling ready to hurl. Then someone barfed on screen, which didn’t help. But I managed to finally get the water down. I was stunned at this movie – even with the primer of Female Trouble before it. I liked the fantasy land, the new town that’s dirt poor with loud clothes and terrible suffering like backwards day. I felt shocked, disgusted, and awed at plot points like: the Queen had her leathermen gang rape her daughter and then inject her with rabies. Also, pretty much every line of dialogue in this movie is shouted. It looks like it cost ~$2, but I’m still shocked that it got made. I’m shocked that it exists. I had thought myself to be fairly urbane before I saw this movie, a person who’s seen a lot and isn’t going to be surprised by the content of a movie. I was wrong! 

Rating: ★★★ 

 

June 24, 2021

Hello. My upper back is killing me. I think it's because... omg, my seat is just too high for this table. I might be able to fix that. Holy fuck. It's probably fixed. 

I am tired today. And am going to go roller skate on the strand. We do it every Thursday, and I always feel scared leading up to it. I've only fallen on it once, but still. I feel great after we're done, so I continue to go.

Last night, my friend and I saw a John Waters double feature at the New Beverly Cinema. I had never seen a John Waters movie before, so I was not prepared. I need to do two Mlogs to record my memories of and takes on that experience, but I'm going to get picked up for skating too soon for that. So it will have to wait for tomorrow. 

 

June 23, 2021

My mother-in-law asked me to write a letter with marriage advise to my sister-in-law who's getting married. (I'm missing the bridal shower because of my upcoming writing retreat. I hate bridal showers, so I'm not heartbroken.) For my blog post today, I'm just going to put what I wrote to her. Ahem...

Congratulations to you and Jared for deciding to get married! That's a big deal! And will have a bunch of small, but cumulative, impacts on your life. My first (1) piece of marriage advice I give is that people should marry Mitch. He's a good person to be married to. But for you that would be both gross and illegal, so I'll move on to the rest of it. 2) Pay attention to your needs, and when you need something, ask directly. It can be counterintuitive to be vulnerable and blunt, and I think as women we're taught to minimize our own needs -- forget them if we can. But all humans have needs, and clearly communicating them is the best bet for getting them met. Trust that Jared will care and want to help. 3) Keep investing in yourself and your growth. Develop your interests, outlook, friends, etc. etc. 4) Your spouse will most likely be the person to see you at your worst, make the effort to give him your best from time to time as well. I think number five (5) would be: ask for help if you need it. Couples counseling is far from being the end of the world and has been a great experience for me and Mitch. 

I liked writing it once I started getting going. I almost recommended she read Esther Perel, but I figured I had gone on long enough. How to be happy in marriage is a giant and interesting challenge. Maybe we should talk about it more. 

June 22, 2021

Good morning! Waking up at 6:30am in order to get into the office on time is going to be a challenge. Waking up at 7:30 this morning was a struggle for me.  But what fun would life be without challenges? No fun. Is what. 

I got some feedback from the Slamdance script competition. They send their feedback far ahead of the actual competition results, which is kind of nice. Here's what I got for my screenplays: 

TITLE OF SCREENPLAY: Hell House

GENRE: Horror

LOGLINE: When a strict evangelical Christian woman's marriage falls apart, she takes it upon herself to protect her sheltered daughter's virtue while forcing her to commit acts of arson.

SHORT FEEDBACK: This is a vividly drawn mother-daughter story with themes reminiscent of "Carrie" and "Saint Maud". The dialogue is sharp and the characters are clear and compelling. One opportunity for clarity is in the marriage and events leading up to Teresa killing her husband. It's not told to us until later in the script that Sean is the influence behind Teresa's strict religiosity. A stifled marriage and divorce request causes the "car accident" very abruptly on a narrative and character level, but that can be rectified by the escalation of Teresa witnessing Sean disregarding his own religious beliefs over time.

And...

TITLE OF SCREENPLAY: Breaking Up Is Easy

GENRE: Black Comedy

LOGLINE: A woman decides the nightmare dinner party she is trapped at is the perfect place to get her boyfriend back, dead bodies be damned.

SHORT FEEDBACK: The script was a fun read with some great black humor and quick, snappy writing. However, the story doesn’t really get going until about halfway through and the final act feels rushed. As fun as it was to read, I’d recommend cutting down some of the character/dinner party set up you’ve written in the first half and have the group discover Helen’s body earlier in the script (perhaps Henry could show up earlier as well) so that you can further flesh out the drama. You might do this by having Addie slowly take down more characters in her quest to get Adam alone/get him back or by having Henry slowly torture the group as he hunts for Helen’s killer (either of these options could also make the script read more as a horror movie; right now, it reads as a black comedy). You could even have them team up, each seeing the chance to get what they want by working with the other person. Also, be careful to stick to the rules you’ve set for yourself regarding the sleeping pills. If they knock out Helen and Uncle Roy right away, they should also knock out whoever drinks them in the tiki drink right away, too, and if they kill (or at least appear to kill) Helen because she was given a dosage too high for her body weight, than whoever drinks the tiki drink should also be killed (or seemingly killed) for the same reason since Henry appears to be a much bigger guy than the rest of the group and the dosage was supposed to be to take him out.

I appreciate that they write their own loglines for my thing. I've submitted these to a bunch of places, so I'd like to collect all their loglines and see if I want to update the ones I gave them. (Oof, what a sentence.) This is the first time I've submitted to Slamdance, and based on their short feedback I'd say they have decent readers, which is great. 

I'm supposed to be learning HTML to be better at managing the Teitell Lab website. Maybe I can play around with it on here! This is a website, and I can change it over to HTML view. Time to make this shit look weird! (That could be fun.) 

TVlog Time! 

BROOKLYN NINE-NINE

Season 1, Episode 1 – “Pilot” 

Written by: Dan Goor & Michael Schur

Directed by: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller 

Watched: 6/21/21

We meet the team: Jake Peralta, a talented but childish detective, and his partner Amy Santiago who takes her job very seriously and wants to climb the ranks. Santiago is also competitive and wants to prove that she belongs in a man’s world. There are detectives Rosa Diaz who’s tough, quiet, and kind of scary and Charles Boyle who’s hard-working, sweet, and clumsy. The civilian administrator is sarcastic and, while not mean, also not very nice. We learn all this from the perspective of Sergeant Jeffords who’s suffering from some PTSD and just wants a safe desk job. He’s informing the new captain, Raymond Holt. Who’s deadpan and a hard-ass because he’s the first openly gay captain and his captain-hood has been long delayed. He wants to make his team great. The team is trying to solve a murder involving the theft of a very expensive ham. Jake gets put on duty in records because he refuses to wear a tie, but he finds a clue in records. The team converges on the perp in a storage facility. Jake gets a gun pulled on him, but his team has his back. He sees Holt’s point of view, and the team gets their guy. 

We learn a lot of ongoing dynamics in this pilot. Conflict between Jake and Amy – they’re in a competition for who can get the most arrests. If Jake wins, Amy has to go on a date with him. Charles is trying to ask Rosa out, but he’s also scared of her. We get the impression that there’s going to be a case of the week, but whatever the case is isn’t going to matter really at all. It’ll just be the set dressing for the characters’ conflicts with one another. I loved the ending. The show has eschewed the drama and excitement of the police procedural up until that point, but at the very end, Amy takes the bad guy out at the knees with her baton. And it’s genuinely badass. The writers saved it for the right moment. Textbook. 

Rating: ★★★★★

June 21, 2021

Hung out with a couple friends yesterday. It still feels novel and nice to be able to be with people indoors without wearing a mask. I've been doing pretty well mood-wise lately, and I wonder how much of that is coming out of lock-down. On the downside, I have been compulsively checking my phone more lately. Instagram. Email. Instagram. Email. Got to re-focus, and maybe just leave my cell on the other side of the room.  

We talked, my friends and I, about people's perceptions of their writing careers so far. We talked about a bunch of other things too, but I tried to keep bringing it back to that. I'm interested in figuring out what we all think we're really doing here. 

Mlog Time! 

L’AVVENTURA 

1960

Directed by: Michelangelo Antonioni

Written by: Michelangelo Antonioni, Elio Bartolini, Tonino Guerra

Watched: 6/20/21

Anna is listless in love. She’s in a long-distance relationship, which at one point, she couldn’t get enough of, but now she’s not sure she’s even interested. She’s behaving odd, nihilistic, maybe depressed. Her boyfriend comes back to Italy, and he, Anna, and Anna’s friend Claudia, go on a yacht trip with some of their rich friends. On this trip, they explore small rocky islands. When it’s time to get back on the boat, no one can find Anna. She lied earlier about seeing a shark, and she also told Sandro (the boyfriend) that she doesn’t want to be with him. It’s possible she fled, committed suicide, was murdered by Sandro. We never find out. For the rest of the movie, we’re with Claudia and Sandro, who have fallen for one another. Claudia goes from desperately wanting her friend to be found safe and being worried her friend will come back. Claudia doesn’t want to lose Sandro’s love, but even still, she finds him kissing another woman. She forgives him. 

This movie is gorgeous. The shots are glacial and velvety. It has a mesmerizing quality, and at 143 minutes feels very long. A long trance. There’s a small scene where a woman, who I think is a sex worker ultimately, is mobbed Beatles-esque by hundreds of men. She’s beautiful, has a small rip in her dress high on her thigh and says she’s a writer who writes by listening to the dead. She’s off to do a travel column. It made me laugh, and I don’t know if it had anything to do with the main plot of the movie. 

Rating: ★★★

June 20, 2021

Yesterday, my husband and I went to an Irish pub with some friends to watch the Poland/Spain Euro game. It's been tough to find a bar in LA with the right atmosphere, but this place definitely had it. It was still expensive, because it was LA, but it was dark and there was wood everywhere, and they poured a beautiful Guinness. I would like to go back. Plus, look at this handsome guy: 

He's the goalkeeper for Poland. He was on the TV. He didn't like work there or anything. 

I was walking and talking to a writer friend, yesterday. He'd been running lots of details about his story past me, wanting my opinion. (We'd talked about it on two additional occasions in the past week.) I finally asked him why he kept checking so much. I figured it was perfectionism or lack of confidence. He admitted it was just him being lazy, out sourcing any decision he didn't feel strongly about. But omg, that's like half of what writing is -- just making a bunch of decisions. When I was feeling like he was kind of expecting me to write the thing for him, he kind of was. I should bring up my objections to things earlier and more often. 

Blog time! 

Du Maurier, Daphne – MY COUSIN RACHEL

Published: 1951

Read: 6/2021

Philip Ashley is the protagonist and first person narrator. It’s the 1800s, and Philip’s been raised on a large Cornish estate by his older cousin Ambrose. Ambrose and Philip look a like and share nearly everything in common, including a distrust of women. There’s no women in the household, and other than an obligatory time at Oxford, Philip has no experience outside of his estate. Ambrose goes on a trip to Italy and meets a woman, his cousin Rachel. He falls in love, writing as much back to Philip in England, and marries. Before he can return home with his new wife, however, he dies. Philip receives letters in which Ambrose suspects Rachel might be poisoning. Philip goes to Florence but finds that Rachel has left. Then, Rachel shows up in England. By then, Philip has built up a hatred for her, but she wins him over completely. He falls in love with her, ignoring warnings of her and her family’s fecklessness and extravagance, of his friends warnings that she’s using him for his money, and a many-week fever. When he comes into his fortune on his 25th birthday, Philip gives the whole estate to Rachel, with the condition that if she marries or dies, it reverts back to him. Philip and Rachel have sex the night he delivers the will to her. She agrees to marry him, or at least that’s what he thinks, but in the morning, after reading the will, she says she’ll do no such thing. 

Philip starts to suspect Rachel’s been poisoning him when he finds pods from a poisonous plant in her bureau. He confides in his friend Louise, at last, suspecting the worst. They search Rachel’s things but find nothing incriminating. Meanwhile, Rachel has gone for a walk near the sunken gardens, which are just being built and which Philip has been warned have a bridge that looks secure but really isn’t. Philip has the chance to warn Rachel about it, but he doesn’t. She falls and dies, leaving Philip uncertain as to whether she was a grifter or not. 

This book was remarkable. Philip is such a cloistered, entitled dummy. He and Ambrose’s complete dislike and distrust of women of course means that they’re the first to fall for a real woman’s charms. My personal take on what happened is that Rachel is a grifter, but she also grew to have a soft spot for Philip. That’s why she didn’t kill him (although maybe he really did just get meningitis), and that’s why she returned the family jewels to the bank for safe keeping, and why she stayed in England for so long. She’s a grifter because she’s needed to be that in order to survive, but she’s also not a sociopath. 

This book got me though. All throughout I was screaming – Philip, you dummy! Don’t give her the family jewels! And then the end makes you question whether her deviousness was so obvious after all. God, Philip is childish though. Needy, selfish, obstinate. It’s a tonally very dark and creepy book, which is at odds with how ridiculous and comical Philip’s behavior is. The book is tense, in a thriller kind of way but also like a joke before the punchline. And in the end, it never delivers the release. Pretty fucking bold. 

Rating: ★★★★

June 19, 2021

I had a dream last night that I was with a group of four and we had to participate in like a reality TV show of death. I don't know if it was actually televised ("actually" televised -- ha), but it was similar to wipe out or American Ninja Warrior, but with death. You had to first grab on to this contraption that ferried you to the arena (you had to use your arm strength or otherwise be able to haul your legs up and into it. The first area was a bunch of viscous dogs -- or that might have been the second area, I'm forgetting one of the areas. The last area was these beautiful people in togas, like in ancient Rome, and some of them were tied up and others had sharp swords. It was bad. Maybe the thing could get electrocuted too. John Cena was in charge of the thing, but he was like a psychotic John Cena who needed to inflict pain on others. He had three very narrow/small and very sharp finger nails. He cut himself with them in agitation and blood sprayed out. I was last of the group of four. I assume the athletic guy that went before me got ripped to shreds by the dogs. I woke up thinking: okay, my plan is to befriend the dogs -- they've been socialized for niceness for generations, after all -- and then sick the dogs on the last challenge. In reality, ("reality" -- ha) I was probably just going to die, but if Nancy Drew books have taught me one thing, it's keep thinking anyway. Maybe you can come up with a plan that works. 

I had this dream because of the previews before the Sparks Brothers documentary. One was for a Suicide Squad movie (which John Cena is in) and another one was a death by escape room movie. The death by escape room movie looked stupid during the parts where you're just watching a group solve a puzzle. I know there's the stakes of death and everything, but still. It seemed silly. 

Okay! So main event here is that it's 

Mlog Time! 

SPARKS BROTHERS DOCUMENTARY

2021

Directed by: Edgar Wright

Watched: 6/18/21

This is a documentary about Ron and Russell Mael, the two men behind the pop duo Sparks. They’ve been putting out albums since the early seventies. They’ve had boom and bust success, but they’ve always done something new. They’ve always pushed their music forward. A ton of people were interviewed for the doc, lots of creative famous people – actors, musicians, comedians, writers – were influenced by Sparks. Russell, the younger brother, was always the lady killer. He’s the singer, the front man, bouncing around the stage. While Ron, the elder and keyboardist, was always still, impassive, with a glinting stare and Hitler mustache. He writes all the lyrics. They’ve gone big internationally, they’ve flopped at home (Los Angeles). They’re constantly out in front of their fans. They seem to make the art for the art’s sake. And now, in their seventies, they’re still making music. Their routine is to get up, go drink a coffee from the same coffee shop, take a walk around a park, and then start working in their home studio. The park where they walk and the coffee shop is near my apartment! At the end, our theater applauded the film twice. 

I went to see this in theaters on opening night with my husband. We were both touched by the commitment, the work ethic, the creativity, and the immersion that Sparks have in their music. Also, of course, their longevity is amazing. I wonder what quality that is exactly, the one that allows people to keep going, to keep making, no matter the ups and downs. Success or lack of success. To get in the groove and then never step out of it. It was overwhelming, the esteem that very esteemed people heap on these men. I also left with a sense of dismay that they may never get capital “C” Credit for who they are and what they’ve done. Maybe that doesn’t matter though. Because they’ve been loved by some – many really – and have been able to keep doing what they love, their vocation. And they get to live in Brentwood after all. 

I left the theater feeling pretty overwhelmed by what I watched. I went to the bathroom and thought to myself, It’s LA, I’ve got to keep my head up and pay attention to who’s around me. These guys have been walking around our neighborhood park every day for twenty years. I wouldn’t have known who they were until I saw the doc, but no matter. I think it’s safe to assume that anybody, walking around here, may have had –or be in the middle of having—a very interesting career. I walked out of the bathroom to where my husband was waiting in the lobby. He lead me away from the exits. I was confused. And then I saw that he wanted to give his thanks and congratulations to Russell Mael who was standing in the lobby and who had been at our screening. 

Rating: ★★★★

 

June 17, 2021

I haven't Mlogged in a while. :( 

But otherwise things have been good. I'm on a 10-day good mood streak. (How is streak spelled like "streak" and it doesn't rhyme with steak?) I wonder if there's a cumulative effect with good moods. For example, my neighborhood has seemed more beautiful lately. Some of my long-carried anxieties have felt lighter. I'm anticipating a big change when I go back to work in person. I want to make it as good as it is now by getting up earlier, getting to work on time, and then leaving right at 1pm. Getting to my own projects early and often. I feel like I have a decent amount of control in my life right now, and I'm hoping that I don't feel a huge decline in that when I have to be back in the office. 

What else? 

I want to hold my cat, but she doesn't like being picked up. 

Oh! Maybe I've already written about this, but after talking to my friend (who has the agent and manager) about her so-far writing career, I've been thinking about how if I can get connected -- if I do eventually "break in" -- then the work I'm doing now isn't aspiring to be work, it is work. My friend has relied heavily on her stockpile of writing from before she got repped. A bunch of my writing is not good, but the stuff that is good can stay and maybe come in handy. It makes me feel a little better about my age because it means my career doesn't start after I get representation or when I get my first job. It's happening now. I might get a return on these hours. Monetarily I mean. I'm already getting a joy return from them. 

June 16, 2021

Forgot to post yesterday. Yesterday was busy, but I did get to see the second match of Richard Herring's Self-Playing Snooker on Twitch. The man's been playing himself at snooker once a week for like a decade maybe? And he does all the characters including himself. Sometimes he gets mad at the referees who are also himself. I'm sure I've written about this before, but I'm impressed with the weirdness, how funny it is, and how long he's been doing it. Surely that's emphasis on process if there ever was one. 

I've been thinking about the importance of making things. (Thinking I need to get to work on producing my next audio project.) As I obsess over who "makes it" as a writer/artist and who doesn't. A lot seems to come down to whether that person is creating things that other people can see. There seems to be a slightly different mindset between I'm gonna make it in Hollywood and here's some stuff I made. Of course, maybe the latter is only possible if you're financially secure enough to pay your rent and grocery bills. 

I've been swamped lately. Feeling swamped at least. Trying to get Unknown Number out the door so I can focus on the half-hour comedy writing class I'm in. Once again, trying to write a pilot. Luckily, I'm on a week break from my screenwriting class, so I don't have to also look at Baby Teeth. I haven't been able to watch the second half of a movie I started at the beginning of last week. And this is all with no roller skating too! 

What else? 

I'm excited for my family to visit at the end of the month. Oh! Also excited to go see a double feature at the New Beverly next week. Many things to look forward to. 

June 14, 2021

Started Brent Forrester's online half-hour comedy class yesterday. He talks really fast and is an engaging teacher. It's a six-week course that was only $90. You don't get access to him beyond these webinars, but we're encouraged to connect with the other people in the class. The majority of folks seem to be living in LA, which is encouraging. Means that a lot of the people are serious enough to move out here. One classmate set up a google drive folder, and I added a spreadsheet where people can add information about themselves. A little introduction. Depending on how things go, maybe I'll see if people want to meet up for a happy hour. I've been feeling like an RA, lately. Okay, folks! Let's do this activity. 

I have to brainstorm an idea for a pilot this week. The approach Brent recommends is to start with your main character. Make him or her complex, give them comedic irony, and then create your secondary characters around them -- give them whatever traits will trigger your main character's flaws. He cited Mr. Bean as proof that you can create a whole franchise on the strength of one character. Another thing I was surprised about was that he said that the pilot script only has to have an A storyline. That simplifies things a lot. The job of the pilot is to introduce the characters and set up the A story. So far so good. 

Oh! He also said the shortest amount of time you can write a good episode of TV, or in my case a good spec, is 3 weeks. I wouldn't need to push myself to write one in the shortest possible time. But I do think I should challenge myself to do it in about 5 weeks. Next year, I'd like to apply for the WB TV Writing fellowship, which needs a spec script (and then a pilot for the second round). I should plan on giving myself 5 weeks -- Feb/March maybe -- to write it, get notes, and then take another pass in April/May before submitting. That's if I can get the pilot finished this year. Which I should. 

The first idea that came to mind is a spin-off of the Rockbone concept. A person who's elevated in the arts who actually has no idea what they're doing. A woman who steps into the life of a famous contemporary artist. She's this artist's doppleganger, and the woman dies. The supporting characters would be the protagonist's old friends -- who know she's a fraud -- and the elite folks who think she's a famous artist. I don't know if it's a great idea. But it's something! I could also re-try any of the ideas I worked on with my former writing partner, but maybe if I did well he'd come back in and try to take credit? He probably would. Better to start fresh. I suppose I could also do a science-lab comedy. I have some direct experience with that... Maybe I'll do the character sheets for both ideas and see which one I prefer. 

Blog Time! 

Johnson, Micaiah – THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS

Published: 2020

Read: 6/2021

Cara-Lee is a traverser, someone who travels to other worlds. She’s on heavier rotation than anyone else because in order to visit a world, the you in that world has to be dead. She’s dead on most of the reachable worlds. She also isn’t who people think she is. Caramenta traveled to her world and was crushed because Cara-Lee was still alive. Cara-Lee assumed Caramenta’s identity and traveled to World 0, the only world with traversing. She’s from Ash Town, the desert outside the rich city of Wiley. There’s Del, her watcher, who Cara’s in love with but who doesn’t seem to return her affections. There’s Nick-nick, the emperor of Ash. The Runners are enforcement in Ash. There’s Adam Bosh, the man who invented traversing. Cara finds out that Adam is actually the older brother of Nick Nick, presumed to be dead. Adam is also killing himself on all other worlds so that he can hold a monopoly on the technology. To make more money, he’s taking civilians on the trip – not telling them that he’ll need to kill there dops on whichever other world. Cara takes a stand against Adam. She solicits Nick Nick’s help. She takes down Adam and gets together with Del. Ever ambitious, she lets go of her desire to become a citizen of Wiley City and is happy to return to Ash. 

I really liked this take on the multiple-universes idea. We keep coming back to the same set of characters, meeting them again and again in different worlds. It sort of asks what people are capable of and what they’re like under different conditions. It looks at racism, classism, privilege, ambition. It questions if there’s really such thing as a bad class of people, if gang leaders, dictators, CEOs are really so different from one another. The big bad being a Jeff Bezos type guy is nice. I liked Cara-Lee. She often describes herself as prey, and yet she’s very active. A woman who’s been in abusive relationships all over many worlds, but is self-possessed, a protagonist. I found the book to be nuanced and compassionate. Cara notes that even though Adam Bosh is evil, when he dies the world will lose something special. A solid read! 

Rating: ★★★

June 13, 2021

Went skating at the Sepulveda Dam yesterday. I arranged it, and it was so fucking hot. There was no shade. It was a miscalculation! Or rather, I wanted to get a day in before it turned real hot for the summer. I wanted to make sure everybody could find parking. I wanted to try to ensure that we didn't get tickets. So I boiled my friend's brains. It wasn't that fun. 

I've been picking at my scalp under my hair just above my neck. Also pushing down the tips of my fingernails. I get addicted to the small irritating pain of it. I also think it might be a sign that I'm a bit bored or anxious. I go through phases of giving myself small injuries. 

Last night I went to a friend's house. She's also a writer and I asked her what she thought of her own writing career trajectory. She said she feels embarrassed about not having made it any farther by this point.  She was a wunderkind, writing plays for her school and for the town when she was in high school. Getting written up in the paper for it. When she goes home, people will tell her they're surprised she doesn't have an Oscar yet. She swept the college writing contests. She graduated with a manuscript as her thesis. She was awarded funded trips to go to writers conferences. She thinks maybe it fell apart because she didn't want to cultivate a Twitter following. It was right around the time that was beginning to be important for getting taken seriously as a writer. 

She thinks maybe she hasn't worked hard enough. I asked her what that meant, and she said she could have stuck with a blog. She could have cultivated a Twitter following. She does write. She's working on a book now, and she goes to networking events, and she's always completing some project. Is the lesson here to not get too confident? There's not a lesson, except maybe to reassert that it's hard, takes a while, and doesn't always work out. Rarely works out. 

At the dam, a bird landed and flopped over to where Mitch was standing. It was trying to find some shade. It stopped under our folding chair. It might have been diseased. We gave it water. When we left we constructed a small shelter of trash to keep it shaded. I hope it lived, but I'm not going to go back to check.  

June 12, 2021

Last night, I had a dream where I was sick -- I think it was that I was having trouble sleeping -- and the doctor recommended this concoction that was part gasoline. So I went to a gas station and filled up a cup with gas. Straight from the pump. Then I drank it. Even in the dream I thought, this isn't something you're usually supposed to do. 

Yesterday, I wrote most of the day. Worked on Unknown Number in the morning and in the afternoon. I was telling my husband how, after eight-ish years of trying, I seem to finally be able to write without procrastinating. Assuming that this keeps up, it means the next hurdle is just to make the writing good? How do you make the writing good? Does writing a lot do it automatically? Revising a lot? Except that when I revise, I mostly am just implementing my tastes, ideas, desires. Are those good? I also read books and scripts and watch movies. I try to pay attention. And I take classes, probably too many classes. Get other people to look at my stuff. That's got to do it, right? 

Stephen King has whole books he doesn't remember writing. And maybe that's the booze and cocaine. But maybe it's also because he's written so much. You're bound to forget some of it. 

My husband and I saw a movie in theaters last night! It was the first time since before the pandemic. It was great. 

Mlog time! 

A QUIET PLACE PART II

2021

Directed by: John Krasinski 

Written by: John Krasinski

Watched: 6/11/21

The movie begins with a scene taking place before the original movie. The family’s at a baseball game and the aliens/monsters fall to Earth. Then it flashes forward by 400-some days, picking up right where the last movie left off. The mom, the two kids, and the baby decide to leave their compound – the barn is on fire and the bunker is flooded – to go to the fire signal nearby. When they find it, they realize that the area is booby trapped and the son steps in a bear trap. (OUCH!) The place is occupied by a man they knew from before. He seems to want to kill them, to be done with them, but it peaks his curiosity when he sees them kill one of the aliens. (They’ve brought a portable speaker/microphone along with the daughter’s hearing aid.) 

From there, the daughter decides to go to an island that’s broadcasting the song “Beyond the Sea” on the radio. She wants to broadcast the feedback loop over the radio, to give everyone a chance to fight back against the aliens. The mother convinces the man to go after her. When he finds her, the daughter convinces him to help her. Meanwhile, the mom has to get medical supplies to keep the son from getting gangrene. The boy has to care for the baby, who’s oxygen tank is running low. The mom returns to find the boy really struggling with the aliens. The daughter and man make it to the island – the aliens can’t swim – to find that one of the aliens has drifted over on a boat. They get to the radio tower and manage to broadcast the feedback loop just in time, for both them and for the son and the mom back home in the bunker. 

This movie kind of steals the original movie’s ending, huh? Although of course the first movie’s ending is way better because it’s the first time they’ve been able to kill the aliens, and they know they can do it again. More complaints – I was looking forward to watching a post-apocalyptic alien survival movie about a mom and her children, which I thought was what this movie was going to be. But it goes way out of its way to introduce a man to be the one taking initiative. Of course, the daughter is probably the main character, but it reminds me of how we as a culture will sometimes celebrate girls (“She could grow up to be president!”) but then don’t like it when actual adult women have things like agency and ambition. I was excited to see a mom character have to do a lot more than mom characters usually do in movies. But that’s not this was. 

I thought the acting was great, and there was tension and suspense throughout. Like the first movie, this one makes you hold your breath and try to be very quiet, just like the characters, because the movie’s so quiet the other people in the theater can hear you. Even after we walked out of the theater, noises were putting me on edge. The aliens are going to get us! I like these kinds of stories. The Day of the Triffids genre. They make the world big again. People are cut off from the rest of the world, you don’t know who else is alive and how they are living. There’s a simplicity and excitement to the moving, surviving. Coming across how other people deal with disaster and trauma. Exploring the different ways that humans can survive. Having small variations in one’s surroundings potentially make all the difference. It’s cool, and this movie is a decent addition to that genre. 

Rating: ★★★

June 11, 2021

I didn't write a post yesterday, and I'm not really feeling it today either. I feel like I have nothing to say! All I think about is writing and trying to write for a career. That's it and that's been all for eight-ish years. I wonder if I should get into like... I don't know. What else is there to think about? 

I had an argument with my husband the other night. He was talking about moving, finding another apartment, something with two bedrooms. I was like nooooooo. He didn't even mean right now, he meant eventually. I want to live the cheapest life we can until one or both of us has, like, hit big money. And even then, I'd rather save that money or spend it on something fun rather than pissing it away in rent. Someday maybe we'll try to own something. A two-bedroom condo or something. 

I like our place. It's little, but it's nice. We've fixed it up, and it's a walk up, and it gets a lot of sunlight. Happy times. 

June 9, 2021

I got my last score back from the Black List yesterday. A 6! Booo. I figured there was going to be reversion to the mean, but hoped there wouldn't be this much reversion. I'm proud of that script. It makes me laugh. I feel like I put so much work into these things, and yet it also feels like they come out pretty quickly. I want to crank and crank material! I will say that I think it's been good to get as much feedback from Black List readers as I have. Getting three reviews -- on top of my original two reviews -- tells me more, I think. The feedback doesn't really match up so much as it's interesting to see how different readers handle the material differently. 

I'm back to wanting to get better and also wanting to have more scripts under my belt, especially scripts at the level of this one. I will probably spending a large chunk of cash on the BL when I have my Baby Teeth script in shape. Two reviews and hosting for BT. Two reviews and hosting for a revised BUIE. Roll the dice.  

Yesterday, I had coffee -- first post-pandemic coffee date! -- with a friend who's been repped as a writer for a few years. She told me how she got her first break (through the Black List). She talked about how having a stockpile of scripts from grad school helped her tremendously. I hadn't thought about the possibility that scripts I'm writing now could help me in the future (beyond just getting repped). I'm really hoping to produce new material at a faster clip than this friend does, but it's nice to think that some of these scripts might have later lives. 

I wonder if it's bad to just be thinking about writing and about trying to "make it" career-wise all the time. It's been like this for years! 

It's like being in the writing mines. The more you stockpile the better, potentially. Unless you never get access to that cart to bring it to the surface. And maybe you don't really know what you have until you can get your ore out into daylight. But until that cart comes by, keep digging I guess. 

June 8, 2021

I talked to my friend, yesterday, about our Corpsatomic Project. We haven't done anything on it this year yet. I had planned on talking to her for half an hour, but we ended up going for an hour and a half. I think I like the process, of slowly coming up with an interesting idea by just opening the conversation with -- what's been going on with you lately? What's interesting you lately?  

My friend is a talented artist. She's been able to draw ever since I can remember. She has a good eye. She cares particularly about style and beauty. She got into a prestigious art school for college. But she's been ambivalent about it. Yesterday she said, "Something to the tune of: I’m really good at this, but I don’t love to do it all the time, and doing it for money seems even worse." She described art as "kinda like my best chore." 

I've felt ambient frustration about her ambivalence in the past. For me and writing, I've been working hard to eek every little last bit of talent out of me. To swing in so naturally gifted and not make a go of it seemed crazy. But of course, being good at it and liking to do it aren't always the same thing. In school, it seemed like the big push was talent and maybe work ethic, but in the arts -- or probably any field, actually -- it seems like the most important thing might be wanting to do that thing a lot. Being willing and motivated to work on it all the time. I don't think that's even work ethic; work ethic is more like getting yourself to do something whether you want to or not. This is more like doing a cannonball into the subject area. Swimming around in it whether you're talented or not, lazy or not, a perfectionist or not, even ambitious or not. I'm not sure what that trait would be called or how you could look out for it. 

June 7, 2021

I hung out with a group of friends inside for the first time yesterday, and I said some things I regret! Just insensitive stuff. Opinions that I should have kept to myself. I apologized at the time, and I figure that's the most I can do about it. That and regret it forever. 

Having friends is hard. Maybe it's always been this way or maybe it's particular to the post-pandemic now. Maybe it's my particular group of friends or maybe it's everybody. It just feels particularly easy to wound. Wounding with disagreement. Wounding with interruption. Wounding by lack of priority. Wounding by lack of perspective. I don't want to hurt anyone, but trying to be sensitive and careful all the time wipes me out! 

I wonder if it's a byproduct of being in LA, where rents are super expensive, and it feels hard -- it is hard -- to "succeed" in a normal way. Like having the stability of a house requires becoming a millionaire, practically. The razzle dazzle of the entertainment industry is right here. People constantly know they could be doing better. "Better" is all around them. 

Maybe not. My instinct is to say this is an other people's problem. Surely I don't have to think so hard before I say anything to my friends, right? My knee-jerk reaction is that everybody should take responsibility for their reactions. (Haha.) If people are feeling vulnerable/tender in a specific area, make that known. But I don't know, it seems not okay to be vulnerable/tender in every area. Ergh. Okay, enough of that. 

TVlog time! 

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 7 – “Are You A Spider, Matt?” 

2020

Written by: Charlie Cooper and Daisy Cooper

Directed by: Becky Martin

Watched: 6/5/21

Frank thinks he sees the face of Pope John Paul in the poop orbiting the ship. Other people do as well and start a vigil on the upper decks of the ship. This pisses off litigious trillionaire Harrison, whom Judd is afraid of. Captain Ryan receives divorce papers from his husband and wife and is tasked with buttering up Harrison so he won’t sue. “It’s at the top of my agenda. It’s actually above the word ‘agenda.’” The Captain breaks and is demoted. Back on Earth, everyone hates Rav for negotiating 500 passenger deaths in order to receive government aid. 

Rating: ★★★

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 8 – “This is Physically Hurting Me” 

Written by: Georgia Pritchett and Will Smith

Directed by: David Schneider

Watched: 6/5/21 

Oh whoops – this is actually the episode where the captain is demoted. The previous episode is when we learn that he’s the only one who can dock the ship when they get back to Earth. It takes people about 5 years to learn that, and they only have 3.5. The captain is doing a bad job at the simulator. But now he gets demoted, and it turns out he was wearing a toupee. In revealing the toupee and that he’s British, a faction of passengers believe that the whole thing is a simulation for reality TV. They find out the crew are actors as well (not the below decks crew though). Several people jettison themselves out the airlock. Sarah, an actor who’s part of the crew, gets jettisoned as well, which is sad. Rav boards the shuttle to Avenue 5 and realizes that either she can go back to earth now or Judd but not both. 

I liked how the training time of 4-5 years makes the ship’s problem that the journey is too short instead of too long. 

Rating: ★★★1/2 

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 9 – “Eight Arms But No Hands” 

Written by: Ian Martin, Peter Fellows, and Sean Gray

Directed: William Stefan Smith

Earlier, Billie comes up with the plan to jettison 500-people’s worth of stuff. Like the similar weight. Karen has been in charge of accumulating the stuff. Matt feels responsible for the people air-locking themselves to death, so he’s changed the codes and hidden somewhere in the ship. Everyone has to find him because they need to jettison the stuff withing the hour in order to cut their trip time down to 6 months. The shuttle arrives, and Rav gets out. There’s a revolving cast of characters who board the shuttle and then get off, mostly because they’re forced too. John Finnemore plays the shuttle captain, which is exciting. Billie and the comedian are starting to kind of have a thing, but he’s also kind of terrible (and tries more than once to be the guy on the shuttle). Eventually Iris gets stuck on there, so she’s the one who’s going home. They find Matt and get the codes, and Karen jettisons all the stuff out the port side… which turns out is the wrong side. (There were more bays on that side than the back, so she thought it would be more efficient. BUT the whole point was to push some stuff backwards to propel the ship forwards.) Now instead of the journey being 3.5 years, it’s going to be 8 years. 

Haha. 

Rating: ★★★1/2 

June 6, 2021

On Friday, my husband and I walked out of a beer store and saw a man on the phone. He was a white guy who stood about 6 feet tall, was wearing a yellow Arsenal jersey and sunglasses, and although fairly young had lost most of his hair. He was my husband's doppleganger! Wearing the same jersey my husband has even. Mitch said "Go Gunners," but the guy was on the phone and only gave him a passing acknowledgement. Disappointing. My husband wore that yellow jersey today. I wish he was wearing it Friday. Then the other guy would have known that he had met himself at the beer store. 

I'm going to hang out with some friends later this afternoon. I'm already hyping up a conversation in my head about men. Something that comes up a lot with this group is "men are bad." "White men are bad." And it's annoying. I'm annoyed by it. It's a theory on gender that basically amounts to "Girls rule. Boys drool." Surely we can do better than that. And it might, of course, just be venting, which I support. But it's hard to tell how much it's feeling and how much philosophy. 

Okay! Blog Time! 

Willis, Connie – FIRE WATCH (novelette) 

Published: 1982

Read: 06/2021

Bartholomew is a history student at Oxford at some point in the future. For his practicum, he’s going to travel back in time. But there’s been an error. Instead of sending him back to the middle east in the first century AD to travel with Saint Paul – for which he’s been preparing for four years – the computer’s sending him to 1940s London to Saint Paul’s Cathedral. It’s in the middle of the Blitz, and Bartholomew’s going to be part of the Fire Watch, the people who are tasked with making sure the cathedral doesn’t burn down in the bombing. He’s got two days to prepare. He’s only able to upload a bunch of information to his long term memory in that time – nothing in short term – so retrieval is dubious. When he gets there, he struggles. He doesn’t understand most of the words. He doesn’t know what he’s doing there. And there are bombs falling on the city every night. He sleeps in the crypt under the church with the rest of the fire watch. He suspects Langly of being a Nazi spy. He decides his mission there is to keep Langly from letting St Paul’s burn to the ground. He meets a woman named Elana who reminds him of his roommate back home. He sees and courts a cat – which are extinct in the era which he’s from. He worries about Elana, the cathedral, the cat. He doesn’t sleep. He finds the cat dead from concussion. When the tide is low and the water pumps don’t have any water, the city is hit hard. It’s burning. A landmine goes into a recess on the roof of the church, and Langly jumps in after it. Bartholomew goes down after him and realizes that Langly has put out the bomb with his body. He’s badly burnt. Bartholomew gets him out and learns that Langly thinks Bartholomew is the Nazi spy. B is whisked back to his present, where he has to take his exam. The test asks for statistics. Number of bombs. Number dead. There are only short blanks after each question. He wants to know where he can record about Langly, Elana, the cat. He can’t believe the history department is asking about these things when the people mattered so much. He hits the preceptor and is carted out. He packs up his stuff before the school can throw him out. When he gets his exam results back, he sees that he received top marks. 

This story made me cry hard. It surprised the shit out of me. I had totally forgotten the open question of “Why am I here?” He’s there to learn that each individual person mattered. The cat even mattered. The practicum was to show that aspect, when otherwise history can get so flattened. Nameless statistics. It reminded me of the Poetry of Witness class I took in college. Like that poem – its poet I forget – that describes an old woman watering her goat. It says that whoever says any person is not necessary is guilty of genocide. Necessary. The twist of the top mark hit me like a thunderclap. It’s teed up by B’s roommate telling him the preceptor is a good man. She’d already taken her practicum, but hadn’t been allowed to talk about it until B finished his. Hers was in Europe during the plague. It’s a story about great suffering, the value of human life, and about the importance of witness. 

Rating: ★★★★★

June 5, 2021

Good morning! My back hurts. 

I got another review back from the Black List. It's a seven, which is a good score but not a do-something-for-me score. My friend's advice was to look at all this as gathering information. The more feedback the better. Which is the right way to see it. I should be looking to use this information to improve, both this current script and future scripts. But I want to be ushered into the business now.  

This morning I was thinking about when I was in Colorado and played pickle ball with my parents. We went to an elementary school gym after hours, and they had warned me about one of the women they played with. They said she had a lot of personality. (Is that what they said?) She trash talked and was mostly kidding, but you could see why she tended to lose friends. When we got there and started playing, sure enough she was trying to wind people up. But she also did goofy dances and wasn't above making fun of herself. It was easy to join in, and I think I won her over pretty hard. After we were done playing, she made some joke -- or asked me or something -- about anime porn. I joked back with her, only a little horrified that she was talking like that in front of my parents. I think my folks are a little afraid of her. I'm thinking about it this morning because it was an instance where my parents got to see me in a different mode. In a more edgy, goofy way. I think my parents were surprised to see that I was able to hang with someone like that. It made me think about how I have grown to be able to, that it wasn't always the case. It makes me feel good, a little victorious. 

Self-indulgence central over here. I know. 

Mlog time! 

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS 

1988

Directed by: Frank Oz

Written by: Dale Launer, Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning 

Watched: 6/4/21

Lawrence is the gentile European big-time con man while Freddy is the younger, louder, crasser, American con man who’s infringing on Lawrence’s territory. Lawrence tries to get Freddy out of town, eventually even training him and not paying him, but to no avail. So the two men make a bet, whoever gets $50,000 out of an agreed upon rich woman gets to stay in town. The other has to leave. They pick Janet Colgate, “the soap queen.” Lawrence starts at her using his usual broke and noble prince routine, but Freddy comes crashing in pretending to be a naval officer who has lost the use of his legs for psychological reasons. After getting $2000 from her to help fund his grandmother’s operation (his usual routine), he starts to work on her about the $50,000 needed for psychological treatment by a famous doctor. He’s nearly won when Lawrence swoops in pretending to be the doctor in question. Lawrence finds out that Janet isn’t actually rich or corrupt so he tries to call off the bet. But the two men agree that if Freddy can get her into bed then he’s won. Janet comes to Lawrence the next day in deep distress – Freddy slept with her and then took all her money, including the $50,000 that had come in for the doctor’s fee. Lawrence pays her back the money and puts her on a plane. Freddy arrives as the plane is taking off. He didn’t steal her money or sleep with her. She actually stole all his money and his clothes. It turns out she’s “the jackal,” a con artist reported in the area, and she’s played them both. She returns later in a different character, leading a tour of rich people. She tells the men, “I made $3 million dollars last year, but your $50,000 was the most fun.” They’re going to run a con together. 

Okay, so when they say The Hustle is a remake of this movie they really mean it. There are some of the exact lines of dialogue. The same twists. Even the same shots. It’s bewildering. And mostly the jokes come through more clearly in this movie. For example, Lawrence loses early ground with Janet because instead of losing all his money at the roulette wheel, he keeps winning. He reflects with his sidekick later that it was a string of very bad luck as he’s turning in his chips for a big wad of cash. That was my favorite part – because of course normally him winning that money would be the definition of luck, but in this case not. In The Hustle this wasn’t clear to me because 1) I didn’t realize Anne Hathaway was trying her regular scheme. In DRS, we see Lawrence do his standard royal act twice (at least). So I didn’t realize Hathaway was counting on losing – I’m not sure she even was. And I don’t think there is the scene where she’s cashing out saying how unlucky she was. I think she even comments something like, “at least I won all this cash” which is funny, but not nearly as funny. 

I also think this movie benefitted from Lawrence being a more convincing fancy person. It’s Michael Cain after all. While Anne Hathaway is playing a ridiculous fancy person. Both she and Rebel Wilson are big and over the top, which was delightful, but didn’t have the same tension/conflict as Michael Cain and Steve Martin. Michael Cain was much more of a convincing straight man, and got the laughs in a more down-played way. 

This movie is a remake of Bedtime Story (1964). I wonder if it’s line for line, shot for shot, as well. Weird. 

Rating: ★★★ 

June 4, 2021

Yesterday, after writing how I wanted to be punctual. I was late picking people up to go skating in Venice. Argh. I will keep trying. 

Signed up for a 6-week webinar on writing half hour comedies, put on and taught by Brent Forrester. Will be doing this concurrently with my screenwriting class. Hopefully I will not regret it. I'm pretty far ahead in the screenwriting class, so I think I can handle it. The class might be similar to watching a master class, except that it is synchronous and comes with homework assignments. (That are not graded, I don't think, but maybe other people in the class can read and give feedback.) Forrester talks about breaking into TV being a three- to five-year commitment. As someone in their seventh year of living in LA -- yikes. The information is exciting and interesting though. A lot of it is stuff I've heard before, but it bears repeating. And some stuff will be different, added on. I'm looking for further inspiration, for whatever guidance/mentorship I can find. Trying to get an edge. I don't know, it's fun. 

What else? 

I was looking over my idea file yesterday. It'll be fun to start new projects, maybe picking up old ideas. I feel more confident in starting something that I don't know quite where it's going. Writing so much more consistently over the past few years has boosted my confidence. I feel more assurance that I'll find stuff once I start in on it. It feels like playing in the mud. 

I put some killer ant bait outside yesterday. The ant stream was very close to the apartment door, and a few ants had started making their way inside. I probably shouldn't poison the ants while they're minding their business outside. But I didn't want to deal with the inside situation, which happens almost every year. This was a confession. 

Blog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

Ovitz, Michael – WHO IS MICHAEL OVITZ?

Published: 2018

Read: 06/2021

This is a memoir by the co-founder of CAA. Ovitz talks about starting the agency, convincing architect I.M. Pei to design the building, taking on big clients, helping movies get made, moving on to corporate deals, making lots of enemies, working and failing at Disney, and finally moving up into the Bay Area to join Silicon Valley. Oh yeah, and he says he doesn’t think it’s lying if the person saying the untruth has a reason for saying it. Dubious! 

I liked this book. It’s an interesting picture of mostly-90s Hollywood. Of insecurity, workaholism, ambition, passion, doggedness. I like how Ovitz describes throwing himself into his work. How he lets it consume him. I appreciated his appreciation of art and artists. I don’t think I would want to be him. At one point, after he’s talked over and over about accomplishing the near impossible, he says something along the lines of “there were very few female directors in that day, which is a shame.” Hello? He clearly could have done a lot to have changed that. That was basically his whole job – connecting people who had talent and ambition. There have been plenty of women with talent and ambition for the whole of human history. I think the takeaway lesson from reading this book, for me, is: do the work, come prepared, play to win. It’s energizing. 

Rating: ★★★

June 3, 2021

Anxious times last night! I hate it. It might be time to try meditation (blegh). My mood has been falling off since March. (Not sure why I liked March so much.) I know this because I'm using a mood tracker app. I want to learn about myself, collect data, figure out what makes me happy. I just looked back at my March calendar, and I was in the midst of teaching at Fusion, and I finished Sarah Someone on March 10. Being busy, getting done with a project. Being in rhythm. Maybe it was stuff like that. 

Whew, I am drinking the dregs of this French press. 

I got new wheels for my roller skates for my birthday. They're light up! But they're smaller and the bearings are smoother, and I feel very unsteady on them. I was getting pretty stable on my old wheels. Ah well. I don't think I'm ever going to be one of those twirly roller skating people. It's been very fun to go and do, but I haven't been pushing myself to improve, necessarily. If anything, it's motivating me to treat basketball like skaters treat skating. Try to go a lot; get to know the people who go to a certain gym or certain park. Make it my thing.  

Was thinking this morning about when a friend of mine in Seattle joked about me being chronically late. This was someone who I haven't hung out with much since college. It made me think about how people think about me, especially in the past. Seen by my family as lazy and unhelpful when I was a child. Friends seeing me as scattered and tardy in college. My husband seeing me as moody and unreliable. Now that I worship the holy panda planner I feel like I can change these things. No, what I mean is that those things aren't really native to my personality, I don't think. They're weaknesses or indications of depression or unmet needs. Easily passed off as, oh that's just Amy. 

It's why I can't recommend getting out enough. Entering different contexts with different requirements. Trying to get better. Going to counseling. Sorting shit out. I think in this dawning post-pandemic world, I don't want to be late any more. I want to take better care of structuring my schedule so that I can be on top of everything -- or at least on top of most things. I want to care for my self and pay attention to my needs enough that I keep myself afloat. So that I can be helpful, dependable, proactive. Executive functioning is hard for me, maintaining mental health is hard, but that doesn't mean I can't get better at it. 

Okay, I've been watching Avenue 5 and have to figure out how I'm going to keep a TVlog about it. Here we go! 

TVlog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 1 – “I Was Flying”

2020

Written by: Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, and Tony Roche

Directed by: Armando Iannucci

Watched: 3/31/21

Avenue 5 is a luxury cruise ship in space. A sudden change in the onboard gravity causes everybody to fall to one side of the ship. During which time, the main engineer was on a space walk fixing something. He falls towards the ship, impaling himself on a screwdriver. When the gravity rights itself, the ship finds that the sudden shift in weight has knocked them off course. Instead of an eight-week cruise, the ship is on a 3-year cruise. Main characters are Ryan Clark, the captain, who we find out is a British actor faking an American accent. He was hired by the now-dead engineer, who was the real captain. There’s Herman Judd, the billionaire owner of Avenue 5 and enfant terrible. Iris is his ball-busting second in command. Matt Spencer is the oddball head of customer relations and also a nihilist, who tries to make people feel better through his own experimental ideas about psychology. Karen is a passenger who’s definitely a Karen. She has big I-want-to-speak-to-the-manager energy. Definitely a contender to the throne of “actual boss” on the ship. And there’s Billie, the next engineer in charge after the head engineer’s death. 

I really liked this pilot and the series so far. I watched a lot in a row, so I’m going to continue on to the next episode. Crap! I don’t really know how to rate these since I watched so many in a row. Default three stars. 

Rating: ★★★

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 2 – “And Then He’s Gonna Shoot Off” 

Written by: Georgia Pritchett and Will Smith (not that one) 

Directed by: Natalie Bailey

Watched: 3/31/21 

A loosie-goosey engineer has calculated that the ship is only off course by six months rather than three years. Judd gives up his special gold encrusted coffin for the head engineer. After the funeral, the coffin is released into space, but instead of shooting away it’s heavy enough that it’s going to orbit the ship now for the rest of the voyage. Three of the other passengers who died also get funerals, but their bodies reside in light plastic see-through coffins, so they’ll be light enough to actually launch into space. But then there’s another gravity malfunction so those coffins orbit the ship as well. The on-board stand up comedian tries to do his jokes, but the dead bodies pass by the window behind him entirely too frequently. By the end of the episode, we learn that the engineer had undercounted 500 passengers, so the travel time of the voyage is actually 3.5 years. Oh, character-wise, there’s also Rav who’s head of mission control for Avenue 5. She’s on Earth. 

Liked this one too! Pushing ahead. 

Rating: ★★★

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 3 – “I’m a Hand Model” 

Written by: Peter Fellows and Ian Martin

Directed by: Natalie Bailey

Watched: 3/31/21

Wikipedia is telling me this is the episode where the captain finds out his whole crew is a bunch of actors. They’re all cast to look like members of Star Trek, and actually the bridge itself is reminiscent of Star Trek as well. The real crew is much smaller and resides below deck. More stuff happens in this episode though, surely…  

Rating: ★★1/2 

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 4 – “Wait a Minute, Then Who Was That on the Ladder?”

Written by: Peter Fellows and Ian Martin

Directed by: Natalie Bailey

Watched: 3/31/21

Billie sets up a meeting between the captain and the real crew. They drink beers and bond and actually get along very well. The captain thinks it’s important for all the passengers to believe that the fake crew – the bunch of actors – is actually the real crew. Passengers are invited onto the bridge to watch the fake crew at work. Frank, Karen’s husband, is invited to push a button that’s supposed to do something (I don’t remember what). At the moment that he does, a pipe bursts and a bunch of human feces comes out of it. (They have the shit piped around the ship in order to absorb radiation.) Everybody blames Frank, and thinks the captain should be the one to go fix it. The episode ends with him donning a space suit to go on a space walk. 

Another good one! 

Rating: ★★★

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 5 – “He’s Only There to Stop His Skeleton from Falling Over”

Written by: Peter Baynham 

Directed by: Annie Griffin

Watched: 6/2/21

The captain goes outside to fix the shit leak, but he freezes up (even though he just has to shut a valve). Billie joins him outside and the two stop the leak. The captain is hailed as a hero, and Billie would like some of that credit but doesn’t get it. The captain accidentally lets it slip to Karen that he’s an actor. She’s well embroiled by this point. The captains two spouses break up with him! People blame Frank for the button pushing shit leak, and he’s nearly space lynched. Meanwhile, Frank has become convinced that the captain might be sleeping with his wife. 

The joke that is the episode title was really good in this episode. The cast is great, and I like how the story is hinting at what dark things might come. I hope that they go to those dark places, even though it’s a comedy. I feel like that’s what does the sci-fi part of the genre justice. I also wonder if they’ve Houston Houston Do You Read? The sort of ship trajectory question is similar. Or it could of course turn into Lord of the Flies. The writers so far are being coy about their view to human nature. Is it going to turn very bad or is a more positive human spirit going to prevail? Right now we don’t know! Which is interesting. 

Also, it looks like Peter Baynham has been on HLSTP. I’m going to check it out. 

Rating: ★★★

AVENUE 5

Season 1, Episode 6 – “Was It Your Ears?” 

Written by: Jon Brown

Directed by: Peter Fellows 

Watched: 6/2/21

A baby is born on the ship! Also, the ship is making a mysterious beeping sound. Like when our smoke detector is trying to tell us something like we should check the battery. Billie and the captain conclude the beeping must be that the ship is running out of oxygen. Meanwhile, Rav asks the government for funds and The Other President (an AI) recommends that the ship get rid of 500 non-essential personnel. The oxygen leak situation gets out and everyone on board is advised to not shout or talk, not exercise, to breathe as little as possible. The beeping, meanwhile, is keeping people up at all hours. Karen, captain, and Billie are also worried about Judd. He almost got Frank lynched. With the 500 person thing, Karen thinks they should murder Judd, but they all instead agree on just sedating him. (By the end of the episode, they’ve put the sedatives in a drink but we don’t really see where the drink ends up.) It turns out the beep was the ship recalibrating the fact that there’s a new person on board (the baby). They have enough oxygen after all, it turns out. 

I really liked the mysterious beep idea. When our smoke detector beeps it sends my husband right through the roof. The fact that they don’t really check whether it means an oxygen leak, they just assume it must mean that, seems way off. Such an awful fate, you’d think you’d be looking for absolute confirmation before you accepted that as fact. I would have definitely kept watching after this episode, but my husband insisted on going to bed, and I didn’t want to watch without him. wAh. 

Rating: ★★★

June 2, 2021

I missed a day yesterday! I'm reading the book Who Is Michael Ovitz? It's a memoir by one of the guys who started and ran CAA. He keeps talking about not wanting to have to move back to the Valley (where he grew up). Living in the Valley is like this huge mark of failure in his mind. I think if I lived in the Valley right now -- like a lot of my friends do -- I'd feel offended. Plenty of people living/working in LA live in the Valley, and it doesn't seem that different to me. But anyway, I - like Michael Ovitz - have had the privilege to stave off Valley residence. 

Oof, I didn't post yesterday. And now it's nine AM already and I have to start work. I need to wake up earlier. Which is the story of my life. I'm backlogged on Mlog and TVlog. Plus I don't want to work. Story of my life, the sequel. I'll go look at my work email and come back here in a bit.

My body still hurts from when I fell roller skating last week. 

I'm kicking around the idea of making myself a personal webpage to try to capitalize on any Black List score interest. Making a website feels vain and stupid though because I feel like personal websites are important to the website owner but not really seen much by anyone else. And they cost money to host and time to set up. But on the other hand, they're another opportunity to introduce yourself to the world online. To say, oh hi here's who I am. That may be useful. Because people search other people online, and it's a way to have some definite say in what they see. 

Mlog time! 

**SPOILERS**

THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD

2019

Directed by: Armando Iannucci

Written by: Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci

Watched: 5/31/21

Based on the novel by Charles Dickens, The Personal History […] follows the life of David Copperfield, a 19th century Englishman who starts out rich, the only child of a single lady, and then gets sent to work in a factory once his mother marries his sinister stepfather. David goes to live with a large family who is constantly dodging creditors. David’s stepfather informs David that his mother has died and David freaks out, destroying many bottles at the bottle factory. He then goes and lives with his rich eccentric aunt. His aunt pays for his education. His aunt then loses all her money, and David is poor again. David eventually starts to write in earnest (his character is one of Dicken’s most autobiographical) and earns all the money back. 

I like Iannucci’s television more than his movies. I’m not quite sure why. It might be because the television is out-and-out comedy. Tight, smart, funny, absurd. While the movies are comedy/dramas. Slower paced. Understated. Swollen with themes. Lititis. The casting/acting in this movie was excellent. Dev Patel makes a great David Copperfield – spry, youthful, distracted. Even though I knocked it compared to Iannucci’s TV, I still enjoyed this movie the whole way through. It did its job. Its movie job. 

Rating: ★★★