Archive for March, 2008
Monday, March 24th, 2008
My evil plans continue…
So I tricked the boys over at The New West into publishing the article I wrote for the Alberta Freeride Awards.
Which surprises the shit out of me by the way. I’m not that good at the journalism thing, I tend to use the word “fuck” too often. All a part of my constant desire to be as racy as J.D. Salinger. Of course having any validity would make that happen faster, and perhaps…at all.
I like the journalism kick, I just can’t seem to get focused on the W5 of whatever it is I’m at. I’m often compelled to fixate on some innocuous part of the whole deal, and write an article about a particular hors d’oeuvre that contained something offensive to my tastes. Like fake crab…or spicy mustard. It’s often construed as an attempt on my part to be quirky, but the secret is out now: I pretty much have ADD. It helps me play Quake well though, so I guess there’s an up side and down side to every schwartz.
I’m still doing the Panda Girls treatment. I think I’ll always be doing it. This is my Sisyphean punishment playing itself out for all those afternoons in English Language Arts in which I stared out the window, and ignored everything that Edgar Allan Poe did with his life. Maybe if they talked about Neal Stephenson I’d give two shits. Maybe we all would have.
Because while the horrible beating of the heart beneath the floor boards may be risque, it doesn’t stand up against Hiro Protagonist, hacker extraordinare and the greatest swordsmen alive.
Friday, March 21st, 2008
Word Salad
I don’t often get the chance to call someone “pedantic”, and it was a strange feeling to be doing so in a game of Call of Duty.
I like words. I like big ones, and small ones; I use profanity as my adverbs and nouns. Words can be fun. They can also be used to cover up for the fact that you have no clue what you’re saying; I used to spew bullshit all the time and call it gravy.
I’ve heard from plenty of people about the times I was just being wordy for the sake of it, and sometimes they’re right. It’s easy to get caught up in the flowery prose you’re putting down. A sort of highway hypnosis, as you watch words flow onto the page. But, occasionally, I’m accused of it in circumstances that are different. The reason we have so many words, is that life and it’s concepts are not always simple. Much like the necessity for the color “indigo” and “fuchsia”, there are degree that can only be delineated by specific words. I think the real struggle is knowing when to use them. But there’s also something that should be said to those who immediately cry wolf when the big words show up:
Get a fucking dictionary.
It’s not my fault if you don’t know the word “etymology” or “circumspect”, and complain when I use it in proper context. Quit being lazy, and read some books. Frankly, you strike me as scared little pissants who don’t want the world to know that you can’t immediately identify a word. I screw up all the time, big deal.
Conversely, I think when you’re shooting each other with pixelated weapons in a warehouse level of a video game, and somebody drops “yer” instead of “you’re”, maybe the Word Police can chill out.
Monday, March 17th, 2008
Total Coverage
I have a teen burger in one hand, and the largest container of water in my house, in the other.
Last night I was a witless assistant in the governance of the Alberta Freeride Awards, the annual nomination and celebration of Free Ride masters in the province. I had decided to do a write up of the event, so after taking some photos of prize winners, I cracked open my lappy and started typing.
And now, a word on the Hunter S. Thompson School of Journalism. As fun as it might seem to get completed twisted on heinous chemicals, and then try to bring some perspective to the events around you, you probably shouldn’t try. Thompson was a high-powered freak of nature, and an incredible writer to boot. You can’t bring the same incisive commentary as him into the ring just because you swallowed a lot of Jim Beam. It’s sad and pathetic to see so many fan’s of his work, trying to emulate it so poorly. He wasn’t so magnificent because he was drunk. He was magnificent, AND he was drunk. Unless you happen to have great talent in the first place, being fucked up isn’t going to do you any good.
I just closed my laptop after a few sentences, realizing that I had neither the talent, nor the mental capacity to do anything but flail away at the keys. My meager journalism talents must be used in the cold light of morning, burger in hand.
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
Pet Peeves, Vol. 1
I hate it when people eat part of my food.
Seriously.
I abso-fuckin-lutely hate that shit. Not because I don’t like to share; If someone came up and asked me whether I wanted to share some calamari with them, I would be happy to do so, and would probably even pick up the check. But, when I bring my lunch to work, and somebody eats part of it…that drives me fucking nuts. In part because I bring an amount of food I think I’ll want to eat, and that person is fucking with my plans. The other part of it is a respect and personal space issue, and I’m serious, even my brother pisses me off when he eats my food. Maybe some remnant from childhood, but really, whoever you are, you’re a fucking adult, if you’re hungry you should get something to eat. Stay the fuck away from my lunch. (this is further evidence towards my continued bachelor lifestyle)
The other is a little more concrete. I really think South Park can be hilarious at times, maybe even capable of killing with their humour. I’m sure most people who follow the show are aware, but for those of you who aren’t, when the show made fun of Scientology, Isaac Hayes, a vocal scientologist, (the voice of “Chef”) left the show forever. To provide another example of what I’m getting at: I love Penny Arcade. I read all the posts, love the artwork, listen to the podcasts. Often they talk about long time readers of their comic, emailing them and freaking out about how they trashed something that said reader loves. The most notable of these are the Jesus based comics, that cause all sorts of fundamentalists to froth at the mouth, and freak out.
Both of the examples, Penny Arcade and South Park, are well known for their treatment of things they deem silly. They tear people a new one constantly, and are often the object of THEIR OWN scorn. My peeve is with the Chumps who are fully prepared to revel in the lashing they give out to interests and groups that are far removed from the Chump’s world, but the moment anybody comes near their precious little corner, shit the bed and start crying. It’s a wheel of misfortune, and sometimes Pat wants YOU to choose a letter. It’s especially annoying when whatever Chump it is, obviously requires some ribbing.
Buck up Chump. And stay the fuck away from my lunch.
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
The NaNoWriMo Incident.
Oh god.
The National Novel Writing Month incident. There have been pressing questions, and very few answers. A dark chapter in the Berenstain Bear book of my life. For those who don’t know, every November, the NaNoWriMo organization has a competition. It isn’t against anyone in particular, in fact it is more of a celebration of the act of writing. You have the month of November, to write a 50,000 word novel.
Well I think I’m pretty hot shit. So I sign up, I make the profile, have a pretty solid idea. November starts.
And I just start SUCKING with impunity. Oh sweet shit. Going into the month I felt like a hero. I had all the juice in the world to get this baby squeezed out, and plenty of stockpiled food stuffs to keep me from ranging too far from home base. But to quote my last girlfriend, “The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers”. But, in this case, it was days. The slipped sonny-jim, they slipped with impunity. (I plan to use that word like, 4 or 5 more times)
The fault? I thought about what I needed in order to write, WAY too much. The bottom line was that I didn’t just vomit out pages everyday. I tried to edit early, polish dialogue, basically committing atrocities left and right. Soon, the first days of December loomed closer…and I was nowhere near done. I had the last week of the month off, and as a broken hero, I wanted one last ditch power drive. I realized though, thankfully, that throwing away an entire week, sweating out pages like a turkish bath attendant, wasn’t going to be useful. It was a crunch for the sake of nothing, except an attempt to save my own Ego. A waste.
I plan to enter again next November. I really love the idea, and I love to write, so what better way to take years off one’s life, than to obsess about a novel for awhile. The only advice I can offer: Don’t Stop. Write mercilessly.
In all things.
Friday, March 7th, 2008
Crom v. Mamet
So I just finished David Mamet’s new dirge “Bambi v. Godzilla“. I use dirge because at times Mamet makes it feel like he is the town crier, and he wants us to know that film is dead. I’m not sure exactly what his intent was when he wrote the book, but if anything it seems like a cathartic spew he got on paper. Like the poisonous aspects of the industry had soaked, deep into his marrow, and the only way to get rid of it was by trapping it between covers. Sort of like trapping Moloch.
Mamet does bring his orbit into screen writing advice at certain points in the book; most notably regarding the nature of story telling. This really stoked me, because I think it is an oft over-looked aspect of the screen writing world. Most pundits who dole out advice usually restrict it to industry advice. How to get a job writing episodes of The Fall Guy or whatever…not really my bag. My interest is in the core of the industry: story telling. If I can make a compelling story, the rest is just window dressing and bureaucracy.
It’s a solid read, I’d say if you have interest in the film/tv/theater industry that you can read it and feel you got your money’s worth. The only danger is that his pearls are book-ended by diatribes and purple prose: just my kind of writing.
It is the Truth: Overwrought is my middle name.
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
State of the Union
So what the hell is going on right now? Well…
I’m currently working on another Treatment for the Panda Girls movie. The first one I wrote was almost half a year ago, when I thought I knew our film, and discovered that I knew how to spell “indecorous”… and not much else.
The first draft of the Treatment read like half a Gordon Korman novel, and half a list of food ingredients. It wasn’t well put together, and often I was being WAY too flowery with the prose. Really, there shouldn’t be much prose at all. I obsess over it by looking at the Chinatown Treatment, and trying to get my point across with equal brevity. I am not always successful.
Going into this draft of the Treatment however, will be a different game. Over the last few months Axe and I have spent countless meetings working on the structure of the film. It’s been tough to put aside our feelings for certain scenes, and sequences, and look at it with an eye for pure structure. I don’t do this by nature, although Axe is pretty good at it. The bottom line is, we’re still fresh faced in the movie game. We have to manage our expectations, and realize we aren’t going to be pro’s just because we read a lot of books. But I digress.
The new Treatment! Yay! So, new structure, new confidence. It’s been a crucible, but we’ve arrived on solid ground finally. Now we can work on a Treatment that will yield scenes we actually want to film, instead of scenes we just want on the page in order to feel like we’ve accomplished something.
I’ll let you know when it’s all said and done, and we’ll post it up on www.panda-girls.com
Mahalo,
Crom
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
A light in the black…
Or just a Fear of the Dark.
I feared this first post. The blank page is a fearsom monster that can swallow you whole. As a younger, and by virtue of such, dumber man, I thought I could sneak past the blank page by getting wasted and writing. My attempt at the Sun Also Rises should have been called “The Shit also Rises”. There’s a difference between being an alcoholic who writes, and writing with alcohol. The difference is called “Sense”.
I’ll just say the following: This blog will be structured badly, often misspelled, but you’ll get a good laugh. Possibly you’ll get some wisdom. And, if nothing else, you’ll get another notch in your belt of people you think are not quite sane. This will be the most coherent post I will ever write.
I had to take 30 valium to do it.