by the way

lookpoor.com is pretty great.

so is super-punch.blogspot.com

and you might as well look at http://bitterfilms.com/forum.html

Time has passed and is still passing

Stuff happened and then more stuff happened.
"Fruit Fly" had its premiere and now it's playing more festivals.
I have a different job that is as boring as you can imagine.
Difficult to see how I get from here to there.


Now less stuff is happening and it's barely worth mentioning.

currently engaged.

Wishing I was unemployed just so I could accomplish things outside of the purview of earning money to live.

There's an island in Japan called Izu Island where the resulting sulfur levels from an volcanic eruption a decade ago is the highest concentration of sulfur on the planet. And the Japanese government is paying people to live there and they spend their LIVES wearing gas masks.

I dreamed that I traveled to France via the Caltrain and my stop was a raised platform that they built inside of the large ruins of an old bell tower. You had to descend the crumbling spiraling staircase to reach ground level. But it wasn't too dark because most of the better part of a 45 degree arc in the tower had been eroded away to let the sun shine in.

When I reached the ground level I realized that my fiance was with me and that I had no idea where to go from here.

Someday I will write down all of my great ideas. But not today.

Douchebaggery?

So,
I just read the news that Joaquin Phoenix has decided to retire from acting and pursue music as his career.
I could not be less ambivalent towards what another person outside my little world decides to do with their life but I must comment on the comments I viewed following this announcement on comingsoon.net

A lot of people, claiming to be first as usual, just railing against the man and calling him a terrible actor and that he's a douchebag and he's a fool for leaving acting and it's "unfair" that a great actor like Heath Ledger died and Joaquin Phoenix is just throwing his career away...

It went on.

And pretty much any post about anything these days is followed by a string of comments bashing this or that or completely missing the point of why these things exist in the first place.

Do these people really care that much about Joaquin Phoenix that they have to bash him?
Is there a shortage of actors?
Do they really believe he is retiring?

Again. I couldn't care less. If he wants to retire and he does, fine. If not, fine.
I don't care.
Even if the situation was that he was leaving in the middle of some grandiose Hollywood franchise series (imagine if the Harry Potter kid just decided to retire after 5 films or whatever), it doesn't matter.

This culture of simple minded cretins echoing false sentiment as if it really matters to them is exhasperating.

And I could continue to comment that the internet gives every wannabe cyberpunk with the net handle of J3D1 or N30, or any other stupid handle, but then I remember that I am writing a blog that nobody reads.

Review Yourself

Had a few extra hours this evening and decided to whittle them away at the computer.
Mostly, I've been working on transferring a lot of old files into new formats.

For example: I have been a mac user since 2000 and the default word processing application on macs up until last year was a crappy little program called, "Appleworks." This was, of course, a meager rival to MS Office but so long as you were isolated to a mac computer, this wasn't a big deal.

That means that 100% of my documents that I have drafted over 8 years have been created using, "Appleworks."
College papers and thesis'
Resumes
Scripts
Short stories
Poems
Production Book notes
Everything I had to commit to paper, was with "Appleworks."

Sure, I ran into issues occasionally when employers told me that they could not open my resume.
Luckily, Appleworks lets you save as Word 98 documents so I was still able to send files to the rest of the world to read and enjoy.

Now it's 2008 and we bought a new Macbook Pro in January.
After booting it up and uploading all of my Smashing Pumpkins, Tom Waits, and Nine Inch Nails into iTunes, I started exploring and what did I discover?
I'm sure you have guessed by now.

No Appleworks.
Not a single lo-tech word processing program on the machine.
The only way I could draft a letter was through simpletext or a sticky.

It then became a mission of where to buy the cheapest copy of MS Word.
I'm no longer a student (more on that later) but eventually we acquired a very cheap AND LEGAL copy of MS Word and since then I've been drafting all new documents from there.

So...all of my old documents have been slowly getting the transfer treatment.

I started with a few of the active screenplays that I tell people that I am working on.
Then I got to the half dozen files of poetry that I have written over the last twelve years.

Today, I finally moved the remaining documents over to the MacBook and spent too much time transferring them to Word documents.

This is not as easy as it should be.

Locate the original file. Which has a .cwk suffix by the way.
Double-click to open.
Word launches but then asks what to interpret the file from.
A series of options is listed.
Choose: Recover text from any file (which is the last option in the list)

The file opens, only it's a mess of what looks like unicode and html had butt sex and conceived a butt ugly document.

But sure enough, the original document is embedded in there after a lot of code.

So, I merely have to strip off the top and bottom of my document.
Re-format the paragraph settings because everything is aligned left.
Occasionally reformat a few lines that end abruptly, mid-word.
Convert some ugly symbol back into the beautiful "'s" and ""s" that they are supposed to be and fix any other severe grammatical errors I made in the throngs of passionate higher education.

I've made it through the fiction folder.
What's left is the non-fiction folder but there is little to convert from there.
A few lists and abstract factoid sheets I have compiled over the years.
Nothing important.

In doing this, I've been able to review a lot of old writing projects that I haven't really thought of since I clicked Apple+S.

I've got about a dozen first acts...each one followed by an outline for the remaining second and third acts.
I've got a few shorts that aren't as bad as I thought they were.
I noticed that my script format is never consistent and downright incorrect in samples as recent as 2004..which is the year I took Screenwriting I and II.

All in all, I'm mostly surprised that I was ever able to write so much.
If only I could throw them all into a pile and stir it up with a large fork to make one real and decent feature length screenplay.

But then I would be robbing myself of a lot of effort that has gone into actually writing original scripts. Minor ideas that, if taken care of and nurtured properly, could grow into themselves and do what they want to do.

As Philip K. Dick inspired fantasies play out in my head, I wonder how I spent the last four years not writing and not being productive.
The huge gap of creativity says a lot about my character.

What was I doing?

Mostly struggling.

Mostly searching for direction and a career.

I still am.

Top 12 New Shows This Season

12. Fox will be following American Idol on Tuesday nights* with the exciting reality series, "Who Wants To Be A Scab," which will feature reality actors (oxymoron) breaking picket lines and learning union jobs on the fly and competing for livable wages and health benefits.
Hosted by former scabs, Joe Montana and Elizabeth Hurley.

*Editor's note: Show is scheduled to run through January 20th. Full schedule pending November 3rd election results.

11. "Are We Drawn Yet" is an animated series based on the succesful(?) films, "Are We There Yet" and "Are We Done Yet," starring actor/producer/director/rapper Ice Cube and his new family, including two adorable and precocious kids that try his patience with cute little phrases such as, "Are we there yet?" and "Are we done yet?" The pratfalls and laughs will continue in a 2-d animated series that will be airing six times a day for your kid to watch before school, after school, and right before bed to guarantee that they can annoy the fuck out of you with an infinite variety of aggravating ways to say, "Are we there yet?" and "Are we done yet?" until you might perhaps fit them in the dryer and run it a few cycles to keep them quiet. And yes, the opening titles will feature an OG rap from Ice Cube titled "I may be in family films but I still say 'fuck da police!'"

10. A writer who worked on one episode of "Arrested Development" and a showrunner who worked briefly on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" have teamed up to create "Action John" a fall sitcom starring Hugh Dane, best known for his work as the security guard in five episodes of the US version of "The Office." Action John is a normal suburban Akron, Ohio man who decides to don tights and a cape to be a crimefighter. This outrageous situation is punctuated by a sassy and sarcastic wife who would rather John maybe helps raise the kids and take her shopping. John also has a nosy neighbor who pops in daily to escalate the intensity of his alternate lifestyle. This show will premiere as part of NBCs WT Thursday bloc that is already robust with such hits as "My Name Is Earl" and "Kath and Kim."

9. Joining the ranks of such popular police procedurals as "Law & Order," "CSI" and "Medium," is "Prints." Similar in style and tone and plot, "Prints" tells the fascinating story of crime-solving inside the crime lab where fingerprints are analyzed and compared with existing files. And if the print isn't on file, it is now.
With a full cast of actors who have more than likely appeared in several of the aforementioned series' multiple times and usually as a completely different character, fans of cops solving crimes won't be disappointed. The 8-person team of analysts will be working around the clock to log-in and double-check the accuracy of every print that they are told to process by their watch commander, just to go into court later on to match the print to the defendants. Your Sunday night doesn't get more exciting than this unless you're watching football or "Desperate Housewives."

8. If you love "Raw is War," "TNA Impact," and WWE wrestling, you're gonna love "Grease Fighters." Each week, match-ups between huge, overly macho and barely dressed men wearing lots of make-up and foundation will pit them against each other in the grease pit, a ten-foot circular arena filled with baby oil. Watch with crazy closeted redneck excitement as these totally straight dudes get all oily and hot and sweaty as they grapple and hold each other in positions you really only see in one other form of media. And just to re-assure the psychotic audience that they are straight, a few beautiful women wearing bikinis will strut around in the pit and be all sexy and hot in-between the real feature: Buff men wrestling in a grease pit.

7. "World's Most Blankiet Blank" is the new reality show that exhibits some of the world's most blankiest blank videos. Each week, former TV star, Sasha Mitchell will show a bemused audience of tourists and old people some of the world's most blankiest blank that have been caught on tape. You will be shocked to see just how blanky these blanks can get.

6. "ATL" will premiere on the CW as the fresh new sitcom from Michael Petok, producer of "The Sinbad Show" and "The Bernie Mac Show." ATL is a comedy series set in the Atlanta, Georgia high school of Marietta HS and stars a score of young black actors who are just trying to get some work but were too black to appear as the black person on white shows.
Watch as these adolescent students deal with a wide variety of situations that are comedic and have only been touched upon briefly in "Saved By The Bell," "That's So Raven," "Boy Meets World" and any other show about high schoolers who have way too much free time.

5. "Parejas con Fuego"
Adela Noriega y Eduardo Yañez fueron pareja de telenovela hace muchos años en Dulce Desafío. Su química infalible vuelve a encender las pantallas en Fuego En La Sangre, de lunes a viernes a las 9pmET/8CT por Univision. Por eso han pasado a formar parte de la lista de parejas con más química de las telenovelas. Recuérdalas aquí.

4. "The Border"
David Mamet and David Simon have teamed up to write and produce one of the most remarkable narratives ever broadcast on your television. "The Border" tells the story of the unending battle between the US-Mexico border patrol and the thousands of immigrants who attempt to cross each day. With a sweeping cast of hundreds, Mamet and Simon promise to tell honest and well-researched stories of the border patrol and the people they are trying to stop. US Weekly calls the show, "absolutely riveting." EW's Lisa Schwarzbaum says "you have to watch."
"The Border" will air at an undetermined time on an undetermined channel.**

**Editor's note: Show is scheduled to run through January 20th. Full schedule pending November 3rd election results.

3. "O, I Did"
If you love Oprah and you don't care how she made her money and you agree with everything dumbass thing she says and does, Oprah has the show for you. "O I Did" is an hour-long show that will air on the Oxygen Network daily from exactly 4:00pm to 5:00pm. Viewed as an almost experimental show by some, Oprah has stated that, "this is really just the same as my show but without me having to do my show. I can get my message across without doing any more work in my already busy schedule of self-promotion and selfishness and ignorance.
Every day "O I Did" will broadcast a single image of Oprah Winfrey for an entire hour. There will be no commercial breaks per se because for one second of every sixty seconds the image of an Oprah endorsed person/place/thing will flash across your screen. If you are a homemaker looking for more answers to your life than Oprah can present during her appropriately titled, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" as well as her magazines "O" and "O At Home" then tune in.
"O, I Did" will be scheduled to air between "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "Oprah After The Show."

2. "So Did I"
"Pretty much the same thing as "O, I Did" but replace Oprah with Phil McGraw and re-direct to a white male white trash audience."*** Will air immediately after "Oprah After The Show."

***Editor's note: Quoted directly from Marcy Carsey

1. "The Cleveland Show"
Many years ago, CLEVELAND BROWN (voiced by Mike Henry) was a high school student madly in love with a beautiful girl named DONNA. Much to his dismay, his love went unrequited, and Donna wound up marrying another man. Cleveland once told Donna he would always love her, and if this man ever done her wrong, he'd be there when she called.

Well, this man done her wrong.

Donna's husband skipped town with another woman, leaving Donna with a daughter and a baby. Now she's come to Cleveland and offered him another chance at love. Unattached after the Loretta-Quagmire debacle and true to his word, Cleveland joyously accepts and he and CLEVELAND JR. move to Stoolbend, VA, to join their new family.

Once in Stoolbend, Cleveland has a few surprises in store for him, including a flirtatious new stepdaughter, a 5-year-old stepson who loves the ladies, as well as a collection of neighbors that includes a loudmouth redneck couple, a British family seemingly stuck in the Victorian era and a family of bears living at the end of the block.

FAMILY GUY was only the beginning. Get ready for THE CLEVELAND SHOW (working title)!

The series is written and executive-produced by Seth MacFarlane (FAMILY GUY, AMERICAN DAD), Rich Appel (THE SIMPSONS, KING OF THE HILL) and Mike Henry (FAMILY GUY)****

****Editor's note: Copied and pasted directly from the Fox Network website.

Bloggy B Bloggington

I take refuge in the Three Jewels. The Buddha, The Sangha, and the Dharma.

I am nothing but a single blade of grass in an infinite field.
While I am indistinguishable from all others, my roots are deep and my stalk is tall so that I am unmoving and bold.

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