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Friday, April 22, 2005 strange thing happened last night. Pam came home from a memorial-- one of her colleagues, a camera man passed away-- just keeled over in his truck, one night, he'd been in some sort of stakeout situation, and just fell to one side. When they found him the truck was still running. He was young, 37 or 38, and sadly left behind 2 little kids, the age of my younger two, 5 and 3. Came "like a thief in the night," for him, for sure. Anyway, Pam went to this thing, I put the kids to bed, she went back to work (she anchors the news from 10-11 every night) then came home and I asked her about the service. "It was good," she said, "just a few of us celebrating the one-year anniversary of his death..." "What are you talking about?" I said, then, suddenly, wondering if we were talking about the same guy, I said: "Who are we talking about?" She said his name. "Yeah, that's what I thought," I said. "It was a year ago that happened?" "Yeah. What did you think?" "Honestly, if you'd asked me when I thought that happened, I would've said: 'Six weeks.'" She laughed. "Seriously," I said. "If you asked me when approximately I thought that happened, I would've said: 'six weeks.'" "It doesn't seem like that long ago," she said. "But six weeks, really?" "Yeah," I said, more to myself than anything: six weeks. Is time going by that fast? I mean, I know time goes by faster and faster as life goes on: but this is ridiculous, I've been catapulted into some sort of accelerated time-frame wherein years go by like weeks, days like minutes... It's coming for me like a freight train. Anyway, what's the difference. You should do your work, try to ignore the chugging of the freight train's wheels, choo-choo! do stuff you're proud of, that speaks to other people... I have a lovely friend, who said of someone she was dating, that after a date or two, he became more "human." the goal, isn't it? don't want to lose that. down to work.. Tuesday, April 19, 2005 oh yeah this is what it means to be a writer, this is the reality for all you wannabes: I am currently badgering a pregnant woman on maternity leave for $100. "will we never be set free?" (withnail and I). I'm counting on my lovely agent, Jerry K., to set us free. Course that means I have to actually write and finish my script. My brain's starting to get oxygenated now with this weather, so perhaps it's possible. early morning walks with murphy, my brain takes deep breaths...gods of spring bless me it's probably now or never... like the sun I've gotta burn to shine Monday, April 18, 2005 "nothing is really original anymore." Flow DJ has a point. Everything remade, recycled, old TV shows, etc. #1 at box office; Amityville Horror. Last night Pam and I rented "Swept Away." All I'll say for now is: It'll be very interesting to see Guy Ritchie's next film. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels: excellent. Snatch: even better. I love Snatch. Snatch is one of my five favorite films: Snatch, Jerry Maguire, Babe, Withnail and I (unbudgeable #1 fave), and Office Space. A disparate bunch, I know, united by the fact: they spoke to me. All I ask. Well, Snatch probably spoke to me the least, but what a fucking entertaining film. A man's man film. I watched it over and over after I got my vasectomy. There are no women in it at all, really. Just a bunch of men, insulting each other, fucking each other over, punching each other in the face, shooting each other, ripping each other off. The pace never flags, it moves along at a brisk clip until bing-bang-bom: it's over. Then he met Madonna, and Swept Away...sucks on so many levels. There are brief glimpses of the cool touches that make it a Guy Ritchie film, but what happened? Saddest of all for me as a so-called writer: the script sucks. Worst sin of all, though: it's BORING. What did Madonna do to him? But Guy Ritchie, I beg you. Do not look to your little children or newfound domesticity for inspiration! Don't make a movie like "Are We There Yet?" Please, if there are any other Ritchie fans out there, back me up on this. But he wrote it in a couple of weeks. That thought tortures me so badly I found myself actually hitting myself in the forehead with my fist as I walked down the street. All right. That's it. I'm finishing this fucking script in the next couple of weeks. I'm starting to piss myself off. I'll let you know how it goes. Friday, April 15, 2005 hammering on the door at 4 a.m. Groggily I answered. A cop. "There's a fire in the garage two doors down. Everybody out of the house." Easier said than done, Mac. Pam shoerhorns herself into skintight jeans, I grab the pair of pants at the top of the pile (brown, crushed velvet-y-- I'm thinking of retiring them, they're too "decadent" and I want my pants to reflect my sympathy with the plight of working people-- which, if you recall at all, is how the whole jeans thing started) anyway, where was I, I have always been obsessed with pants for some reason, viewed from a certain angle my whole life has been the quest for the perfect pants, I have many quests, many "windows" in my desktop, but one that's definitely always open in the "quest for perfect pants" window... ANYWAY, had to shake all the kids awake, they were ZONKED, had to dress them all up, get them and the dog out on the street. "Leave the cats," Pam said. So we did. I am ashamed to say none of us even gave Jake the Snake a thought...he would've fried to a frazzle, a charred belt. Our neighbours' garages were torched, absolutely. Fire never even came close to our house. Interesting to see everyone in their PJs in the middle of the night. Mats the Swedish former tennis pro materialized in his boxers, added a touch of European glamour and sophistication to the circumstances... Thursday, April 14, 2005 maybe blogs are also for confessing deep, dark, dirty secrets. O.K. here's one: I LIKE being owed money. Why? Because I enjoy hassling people for the money they owe me, e.g. this friggin' radio producer. I went on her show a couple of weeks ago-- make it a couple of months (months fly by like weeks now; soon they'll be going by like days). They owe me a lousy, miserable $100. Usually when you do these things they have you sign a contract as you leave; check comes in the mail. But she, pregnant producer, had no contracts for me to sign. "Don't you want me to sign something?" I asked her after the panel was over (one of those panels that became so heated and acrimonious-- it was all about what cartoons you'd let your kids watch and this horrible Romanian woman was pressing the BAD DAD button like there was no tomorrow because I let my kids watch "Sponge Bob Square Pants" and even went to the "Sponge Bob Square Pants Movie" (and even found it kinda funny) and she was pushing me and pushing me and finally we just started going at it-- anyway back to the cash she said "Oh, no, we do it all electronically now, Ill send you an e-mail." Weeks go by: nada. My level of surprise: zero. So now I begin the process of badgering a pregnant women who just wants to stall me until she goes on maternity leave so the problem (me) will go away. But I'm a problem that refuses to go away. That, in fact, is an apt description of my entire existence upon this earth. Wednesday, April 13, 2005 you know the quote that's posted above my desk, by the way? "thence comes it that my name receives a brand/and almost thence my nature is subdued/to what it works in, like the dyers hand." it...is my motto. I particularly love it because of the unintended, but entirely appropriate, modern twist the first sentence has-- it makes it an even more apt motto for me: I want my name to become a brand but ionically it will only happen if I completely block out the world and submerge myself in my work. not exactly what shakespeare intended, I don't think, but anyway. the world's scaring me anyway. artistically, I mean. so fragmented, so many stories, each one has to be so hair-raising or titillating...so few voices that really resonate with me or my world-view. got a fortune cookie once that said: "there are only 500 people in the world like you." and I thought "yeah, that's sounds about right." especially when you consider the sales figures of my books... now I know it's probably a horrible heinous cultural crime to mention Puff Daddy in the same context as shakespeare, but I've been watching his reality series, Makin' Da Band, or whatever, and it's truly fascinating, partially because these kids want to be stars, even though they're a) not particularly talented; b) not really willing to work all that hard; c) not very likeable characters. They get this far, they even get an album together, but their divalicious bickerings blow the whole thing apart. Being a fake band on a reality show is as far as they're gonna get, Puffy's totally fed up with them, back to their horrible existences in Alabama or St. Louis or whatever. They're not even attractive. (and that my friends is the ulimate kiss of death)...meanwhile puffy is supercool. I consider myself cool. but puff's on a whole other level. puff, mase, and snoop appear at least from afar to be the three coolest guys on the planet. I don't know what that has to do with shakespeare. but hey that's what blogs are for, right? random thoughts. first me, now the dog. "here's your certificate of castration," the vet said. "uh, thanks, I'll have it framed." she gavce me a puzzled look. didn't get my joke, or irony, or whatever it was... murphy's first big milestone, apart from being born. for humans it's birth-marriage-birth of child-book launch-death-- at least, that's it for me, that's how I view it-- I know for a lot of people the word divorce figures in there somewhere, but I'm gonna fight it-- about once every two weeks I have horrible, ultra-realistic dreams of divorcing Pam-- you cannot believe how vivid they are, and in these dreams I am seething, man, we're screaming at each other, she is behaving very haughtily vis-a-vis me, she's cheating on me, mocking me, we're furious with one another...I leave, I wind up in some cheap motel...with one of those neon signs with a letter burned out HOT-zzzt-L. HOT-zzt-L. uh, where was I? Oh, yeah: for murphy it's birth-castration-death. the three times in his life he will receive a certificate...
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