Archive for the ‘Reflection’ Category

There was a lot more lat night that I wanted to get into, but wasn’t able to due to the late hour and my general tiredness. So let’s dive right in with this pick-up post.

We did indeed have our second to last pitch for TV pitching season today @ Parkes/MacDonald as I mentioned. To recap, because it was a great week for who we were pitching to, the companies we pitched were Brillstein, Gran Via (Mark Johnson’s company,) and Parkes-MacDonald. All are good companies with lots of muscle who responded to our reps presentation of us and our sample (BOSS.) We pitched well this week. Better than last week for sure. We thought we did pretty good last week, but in retrospect and after our conference call with our TV team the other day, which was kind of a halftime review of how things were progressing so far, it’s clear the adjustments that Jason and I made really tightened and elevated our pitch.  We’re still waiting to hear from everyone this week as to there initial reactions and if there’s interest to pursue our idea further. That being said, and I think I covered this last night a bit (without looking back ) Everyone last week passed. Which isn’t unusual. There are hundreds of pitches on the TV side at this time of the year and a very select few get ordered to script. We’re not completely out, but the genral tone of the conference call seemed to indicate that we were not going to get this pitch across on this round. Which if this does indeed turn out to be the case, because its healthy, I’ll admit is pretty damn disappointing. But, about par for the course being that we’re new, unknown writers and our pitch is on the edgier side of things.

That isn’t to say that the pitches weren’t success’ in what they needed, ultimately, to accomplish which was get our name out there and get us some experience walking into those major league rooms and presenting our idea and our talents in a fun and entertaining way. The idea being that what we did was plant seeds with each person we met with. And that these seeds will bloom in assignments or other pitches or whatever down the road. According to our team, we were shone in every room we went into. With one producer going so far as to say he could tell “that we will be major stars.” Every door is without a doubt still left open, according to our agents, who set the meetings and do the check in to get the “meeting behind the meeting” after it’s over. We made a bunch of fans and that’s what it takes. Ultimately, I feel as we walked out of the pitch today, both Jason and I could look back over the two weeks and see just how much we had learned.

We do still have word on the three to come in from this week and one more pitch to go; but from there it looks like the TV side will quiet down for a bit. On the feature side, though, it appears (hopefully) they are finally ready to rev up to full speed and get us out there. We also have one of the three screenplays that we started for young producers or directors at our level before we signed with the agency, that is believed to be ready to go out to possible actors, production companies, and directors in an effort to get it into production. So, hopefully, in September we’ll have a bunch of generals with feature people and then this script will go out and one or the other or both will make headway. The big thing that Jason and I are fighting – beside the obvious material concerns of finances – is the psychological of wanting that first break to come in. Not so much for the money it may bring, but more so to cement our representation team in place. To justify all their hardwork and time spent on us. Because even though there are those tough times of silence, when we’re out there like we have been the past two weeks we are in near constant contact with them – especially our manager, but also the agents, and when we contacted our feature guys they got back to us within a couple of hours – which is not typical for those of us who haven’t made them money yet and established themselves with an assignment or sale yet. Part of this psychological pressure stems from the horror stories we’ve heard through school about peers signing with a major agency right out of the gate, but because something didn’t happen for them the first time out with an idea or script, they weren’t dropped so much as they were set adrift, with phone calls not returned and material not read, that sort of thing. Kind of dropped, without being told they were dropped and their careers started to stall because of it. It’s something you definitely feel some concern over. You’ve got to produce or there isn’t room for you.

So, here we are at the end of round two, a lot of lessons learned. Our work cut out for us. Still in the game. Still feeling extremely fortunate.

Wrapped up my stay with Stagger Lee in Corona Del Mar tonight and made my way north, back to C-City and the grind. Round two with the meetings starts tomorrow. Currently we have three on the books for this week. I’ll cover them as we go. Going to be speaking with the Feature Agents tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll get the fire going as well, soon.

Sad to say good-bye to Stagger. He’s my dear, dear four-legged pal. Always sleeps right by the door to the room I stay in, so he knows when I go to bed at night. Usually he’s there when I wake up, if I’m late getting going in the morning.

Had a fabulous dinner with Polly, Will, and J.P. before heading back. It was the perfect cap to my stay. We had a grand time at Gulfstream catching up. It’s always so wonderful to see them. Before, J.P. and I had an in-depth conversation about the first grade, how much he likes to not go to school, and how he tries to fool his mother into thinking he’s sick. We covered all the bases. (I refrained from getting into the “Doc” story.) He was not too thrilled with the prospect of homework every night. And at dinner, Will and I talked movies a bit. Mainly Harry Potter, but we also dipped into Toy Story 3 (which he hadn’t seen yet, but I recommended highly) and Despicable Me which got a thumbs down, despite the Henchmen. Will is quite the young man these days, too! The only bummer was that Joe and Matt weren’t back yet. I always love my time with Polly, but when the rest of the clan is added to the mix, it’s a special treat.

After dinner, I made my way up U.S. 1, the PCH, through the coastal towns – all quiet on a Monday night for the most part. The last few shades of dusk heavy in the sky against a thin band of faraway autumnal burnt orange on my left, streaking what was left of the Pacific’s horizon, lingering out past the endless beaches and white-tipped waves rolling over the deep blue. The last few beats of sunset fading in the cool night air. Window down all the way rolling up the coastline, alone with my thoughts, all the way back to L.A.

So, I’m been meditating on/contemplating slowly and casually researching a more long term project in a different medium. As with many of my projects these days, some of it has to do with Chicago. A city, presence, and history that looms rather large in my mind the further and further I travel from it. I would love to infuse more Los Angeles into my work. I absolutely love the feel and rhythm of the city. But, for now, Chicago holds court for the most part. It gets the podium when it wants. Lots hours and miles and years traveled there. So there’s raw material aplenty and much of it is too beguiling to just ignore. As I’ve started to do more and more, in the early stages of research and circling something in my head, I tend to collect photos.

I’ve discussed how much I absolutely love and am drawn to the still photograph. How it represents a diving board for my imagination, one rooted in reality. A hair trigger to a story or a scene or an emotion that often spins into something else. So, today, rather than do some work or read, as I told myself I would do on what is probably my last day of vacation in a long, long time, I instead meander through the stacks and stacks of photo streams on Flickr, searching for images of Wicker Park, the neighborhood I lived in for nearly fifteen years in Chicago. Wicker Park has its history and I won’t quite get into here, yet. I’m sure I’ll wade into that hot button topic (in the years that I lived there, Wicker Park became ground zero/an international case study for the effects, both positive and negative, of Urban Gentrification) at some point when I do begin work on this project. (To be clear, it’s not a TV or Film project, so it’s clock is strictly my clock, so who knows when exactly that will be.) Simply what I mean to say before I roll out the photos is that in seeing these streets, where I not only lived, but also worked for so long. Spending my time locked up in this one stretch of Chicago, maybe one half of a square mile at best, twenty-four seven, at all hours of the day and night. That I’m struck by the grittiness of Chicago, compared with Los Angeles. That’s not to say L.A. doesn’t have it’s truly rough parts. Maybe it’s the constant sun, or the way the landscape breaks – whatever it is, L.A. doesn’t strike me as so compact and constructed and old. It doesn’t have the same rawness I see in these photos. Anyways. Here is Wicker Park, circa early 21st Century, about three years past the apex of the gentrification battle.

That's the Six Corners, formed by the intersection of Milwaukee, North, and Damen Ave. It's the heart of Westown, which is Wicker Park, Bucktown, and the Ukrainian Village. The road, North Ave, on the left, is a border between Bucktown and Wicker Park. I lived and worked within two-three blocks of this intersection for nearly a decade. That's downtown in the distance behind the Flat Iron Building.

The Coyote Building which is where the previous picture was taken from. The neighborhood's internationally acclaimed art walk takes its name from this building. The art walk is simply known as "Around The Coyote."

This is taken of the corners from the Flat Iron building. It also captures the Chicago, I recall most - overcast, rainy.

The main alleyway, off of Damen Ave. I can tell this is taken right at the mouth of the alley, which means if you look at the previous photo and locate the North Community Bank sign, next to the Blue Line El Platform, the photographer was just around the corner from there, a quarter of a block. I lived in an apartment that was two buildings down on the right and another one that was five buildings down on the left.

The Damen Ave El stop, which I lived several doors down, right across the park when I first moved to the neighborhood. Three stops and you're in the Loop. This is directly opposite the mouth of the alley in the photo above.

Outside the Double Door, a rock club next to the mouth of the alley. The Rolling Stones played here. Among many other big, small, unknown and friends bands. It's called Double Door because it has this door on Damen and another door on Milwaukee, just around the corner. That's big June, the longtime doorman. Whenever he was working I had an all-access pass. I used to raid there ice machine when ours down the street at Nick's would break down in the summer.

Some folks hanging on Milwaukee Ave, a couple of doors down from the corners. Looks like just outside Earwax Cafe.

This is inside Earwax Cafe. I knew Nick the own, through my fellow Wicker Park Ex-Pat, Brett. Earwax started out as a used CD/eclectic video rental/cafe/hangout spot. Fifteen years later is would evolve into an eclectic cafe with a progressive menu written up favorably in the NY TImes Sunday Section. Which was pretty cool to see.

Night time in the six corners. There are somewhere, or were, in the order of fifty or so bars, taverns, clubs, and dives - some of which saty open until 2 a.m., others until 4 a.m. in a fifteen block radius (if that) around the corners. This looks like an early week night. Pretty slow. I worked right in the heart of this for most of my doorman/bartending career.

Heilman Cold Beer signs. They're all over the place. Along with Pabst. Many, because of the Polish Heritage of the neighborhood, don't say "Cold Beer" they say "Zimne Piwo" which is cold beer in polish. Don't let the door hit you in the dupa on the way out!

The Pontiac Cafe, after my time there, which was the most infamous of bars and dives that I tended bar at. This is also the bar where I had my last drink. Served by Johnny Angel, who also got me sober. How do you like that for irony? In my time, we didn't have that plank/boundary thing - that was city mandated after it was discovered Buddy, the owner, didn't have the proper permits for it. in my day anything that was concrete was patio, so the patio was twice that area. Man, this place....It still defies words (not in a good way.) It's closed now. Which is as it should be. This is one building over, and on the other side of the El Tracks, from the Double Door picture above

Inside the Pontiac Cafe, at the corner of the bar, which was the place that you wanted to be. Guess who is standing, just to the left here? That's right. That's me. Beardless. Looking sharp. Must've been on my way out to dinner or something. It's almost ten years ago. I've definitely stopped drinking and all that, based on the people around me. I'm talking to Gina Black of The Blacks, a country-punk band and a Pontiac waitress. Crazy isn't it? I found this photo by accident on Flickr. I was startled to notice myself standing there. Seems like forever and a day.

Call it the Corona Del Mar effect. I say I’m gonna do something on the blog, but there’s an unplanned  twenty-four hour delay. It’s the relaxing atmosphere Stags and I cultivate when we’re together. That and the sweet ocean breezes. That helps, too.

Here we go. Tomorrow we have our first pitch. Jason and I are a bit jittery – but that’s more over getting in there so we can do what we do and get a feel for the rhythm of the real game. Tomorrow’s is at Warner Bros. Studios with the producer of Grand Torino, among others. The meeting was bumped up to Ten A.M. so that the man with his name on the door could join the pitch. That’s a good thing. Any time the steps between you and the actual decision makers are cut down, so much the better. This would be our agents or manager probably at work. I’m would bet my bottom dollar there’s some kind of connection. I know we share the same law firm, so that’s something. Anyways, instead of pitching to a CE (Creative Exec,) who then in turn pitches your idea to her Boss, who’s either the head of her department or company (in this case its company,) we get to leap frog to him directly now. The reason why this is better is that he might have a discretionary fund for development from the studio as part of his deal to park his company exclusively on their turf and provide for their pipeline. Which means, if he did (it’s not a given, but it’s a possibility), that the head of the company could lock up the idea with a paid option or outright purchase, before taking it to the studio. That sort of thing. Regardless, it’s one piece in the telephone game of pitching, which means less relying on someone else to regurgitate your idea in just the right way. Got it? Good. Here we go:

-THE WIRE, people. Watch it. All of it. Man, I should’ve listened to my brother years ago. THIS. IS. THE. GREATEST. SHOW. EVER! It’s almost too much to handle. Deadwood’s a close second, tied with Six Feet Under. But, NONE, of them touch The Wire. NONE! I’m on season three. It’s blowing my mind how rich, detailed, and authentic this whole story and characters are – not to mention how they slowly and perfectly grow the world of the story from season to season. Of course, when it’s Denis Lehane, Richard Price, and George Pelicanos on your writing staff, you’re doing good as far as crime writing goes.

- My second niece is off to college. Which, honestly, makes me feel kind of old. Sounds like she’s doing quite well from what I can tell on facebook. Her sister is a Junior and their younger sister, my goddaughter, just turned 16. They are all getting too old too fast. It’s not fair.

-We booked another pitch for next week today, which was great. It’s with a non-writing Co-Exec Producer on Breaking Bad. That’s pretty good.

-We’ve got five pitches total right now. Which, I think, is just the first set. Or, I would guess it is. What do we know? We’ve never actually done this before.

-The thing I’ve been dwelling on, savoring even, all day is this: In the past, if I scratched something together, it was usually to get one person possibly interested. One person who, as a long shot, MIGHT be able to make something happen. In other words, the very few times I got into this situation, it was a do or die situation. That one person or nothing. Tomorrow, walking into the first pitch their will be four more right behind it. None of it is do or die in the moment. We will get better as we go through the first run of pitches. We may be great tomorrow, but we’ll then become unbelievable. It’s strange, but this feels, despite all the rest of advancements this summer, and even before, like the biggest career advancement yet. This is exactly what we wanted when we were struggling with the deal that ultimately didn’t go through. This is really all you can ask for as a writer in this town – the chance to take your ideas to the market and  to write. We’re doing that. Pretty cool, isn’t it?

-Ten years ago was the most pivotal time of my life as I struggled through the biggest change in my life ever. A change that is still having an incredibly profound effect on my life every single day. I’m beyond fortunate to be here, in this city, just enjoying the sunshine and my friends, let alone to be in the midst of my greatest dream – living that, too. I don’t quite know what to say actually. There were many nights – long, hard ones – where I thought this was just not a possibility EVER. Not in my life. To be here. Well, I feel like I died and went to heaven. Thanks to all the angels that have carried, and continue to carry me here.

- Cardinals looks like they found their bats. A little help from the SF Giants and we might just climb back into the division race. One way or the other, it’s shaping up to be one helluva stretch run!

Okay. I’m gonna catch another episode of The Wire. Then I gotta catch some zzzzz’s. Big day tomorrow!

I guess I didn’t get this entry in today, did I? No small surprise there. May take me a bit longer to “realize” that transition. Onward and upward to the matter at hand: tonight’s entry.

Colin, a loyal reader/brother-in-law to my writing partner Jason/proud father of an adorable brand new baby girl/and all around great guy, asked a question the other day in the comments section that actually echoed a question I had been asked just days earlier at a birthday get-together by a new acquaintance. It’s a question that I’ve noticed is actually coming up intermittently lately to my chagrin and growing curiosity. I had never really thought to much into the matter until recently. Despite the recent thought on the topic, I was caught rather flat-footed in my response; so I thought – let’s give Colin’s question a spin. So here it is:

“My question for you: I know that you have quite the knack for gritty crime writing (which I love. It’s a favorite genre if mine). Assuming you do not currently live a life on the lam, where do you find inspiration for details that make your writing believable, vibrant, and compelling? Personal experience… Nonfiction reading… Research… Documentary… Friends in the business, so to speak… Other films… Vivid imagination?”

Excellent question, Colin. (Thanks!) First and foremost let me provide some context. I was initially a poet. This was in high school, through college, and shortly after college for several years (three or four to be exact.) I wasn’t a mess around, scribble some bad verse in a journal writer, either. I had that phase in junior high – mostly eighth grade. Nope, I was really into William Carlos Williams, Jim Carroll, Allen Ginsberg (huge influence early on,) Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and e.e. Cummings (another really big influence, though unlike Ginsberg I didn’t write in e.e.’s style, I just really connected with his opaqueness and coded emotional specificity) by sophmore year and had adopted an almost daily writing routine.

I always loved movies. Grew up in a family that loved movies. But, I had no concept of screenwriting until my junior year in college. But, in all fairness and to bring it back to the topic at hand, I was always particularly taken with thrillers. It was my predominant genre, with an even deeper love of the heist movie. My mother is a big Alfred Hitchcock fan. An early formative cinematic experience was watching Hitch’s seminal Dial M For Murder in third grade one night with her and being totally mesmerized and freaked out by the suspense all at once.

But how did that all mix together, along with some other elements, into the kind of crime writing I tend to more and more consistently skew towards these days? Part of it probably lies in those formative years when I seemed to watch almost ever conceivable 80′s B Movie thriller (Mean Season, Manhunter, Black Widow, Thief, Tequila Sunrise, No Way Out, To Live And Die In L.A., 52 Pick-Up, and on and on.) Part of it lives with Professor Jim Balestrieri, who first taught me screenwriting as an Undergrad. We bonded over classic Film Noir and I ended up educating myself by watching all those classics (Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, Ace In The Hole, Sunset Boulevard, The Killing, Asphalt Jungle, and on and on. )

But those are mostly starting points. Initial sparks to where I am now. The main fire that all this is forged in, with out a doubt now that I have some distance from it, was my time bartending in Chicago and my lost years as an alcoholic and drug addict. In those lost years, even back late in College, definitely during my year in San Francisco right after Undergrad, and then about two years into the Chicago tenure, I lived, worked, and socialized in a world of mobsters (Ukrainian, Sicilian, and Polish,) gang bangers, suspected murderers, hustlers, Hells Angeles, “dancers,” thiefs, fallen cops, cowboy narcs, an FBI Agent, ex-cons, soon-to-be-cons, and other fringe opportunists on the make. Even some of my bosses in Chicago were definitely hoodlums of  some kind or employed hoodlums. This I chalk up to the different things I chased through the nights, the company one keeps when chasing those things, the clientele a bartender’s bound to get in a dive bar in a pre-gentrified inner-city neighborhood (which is what I was for most of my bouncer and bartending career in Chicago.)

All that became material. And when I finally wised up and stopped chasing those things, those people still frequented the bars where I worked, especially when I worked at that juncture – which was the off nights like Sunday’s and Mondays, or Saturday open – basically the quieter more Barfly shifts. This is when I would endure or listen (depending on my mood and the drunk on the stool) to countless stories told by these folks for hours on end. Also at this point, when I was clear-headed, I definitely became closer to the Beat Cops and Detectives who would come in on an extremely regular basis, listen to their stories because they always wanted a sympathetic ear and someone to buy ‘em a few beers. One of the last joints I worked in was so slow on the one night – Monday – that I closed that usually it’d be me and this one really nice, veteran Beat Cop who came in without fail after getting off of his shift, before going home to his wife. Sometimes his buddies from the force and join him. This went on for the better part of a year.

(As a side note in Chicago you just can’t live there and not encounter or have to deal with political corruption. I’ve always wondered if Philly is the same way. In Chicago. especially in the restaurant and bar business, it’s a game of graft to keep your business afloat. I’ve witnessed some wild turn of events on the Alderman/Ward level of city politics. Corruption is a way of live there.)

There’s some other factors, too. In Undergrad, I experienced the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer first hand as he was living in our part of Milwaukee, had walked the streets we had walked for several years, lived in an apartment building that students had lived in previously (and I had gone to a party at.) One of my first internships was for the ABC News Affiliate and their morning talk show. After his arrest, he was interviewed via phone by the morning show’s host and I was allowed to write several questions for the interview. In that same internship, I’d be in charge of culling the different story leads for the Saturday ten o’clock newscast and would have to call all the police watch captains to check in, see what was happening – as well as listen to all these scanners.

The one word I come back to in Colin’s question though is compelling. For that the roots run much deeper, or at least the roots of the interest in the actual act. I’ve always been fascinated by the actual psychology behind both the criminal and the lawman, with all its variants. I’ve found that, despite their potentially different external personalities, all cops have a similar baseline in their core mindset that bonds them even if they don’t realize it; whereas criminals seem to have a wildly divergent mindset amongst their own, a total grab bag to why they make the bad or desperate choices they make. I can’t lie, of course, and say that I haven’t committed various criminal acts on the more minor end. My nickname “Doc” comes from an epic act of forgery in High School that went on for some time and involved an actual forgery kit that I cobbled together to achieve my goal – cutting class to hang out with girls. This is just one small example and not an isolated incident.

I guess what I’m trying to say in summation is that beyond the actual events, the stories told over a bar top, the racing through the streets in places that I shouldn’t have been – despite all that raw material and a love for stories (in books, films, on stage, TV, comic books) that deal in that raw material; there’s also a core emotional impulse behind these gritty characters and their stories that I’ve been after for a long, long time in my work. Whether its those carrying the badges or those breaking the law, I’ve seen in real life (as they’ve literally sat side by side at a bar) how they’re two sides of the same coin. I’ve been fascinated with trying to crack emotionally what connects them. I hope that’s been compelling.

Whew!  Thanks for reading. So much still left to say, but I think this captures it enough.

Good Night!

I think last night’s brief entry on frustration got away from me! I didn’t mean to imply that I would quit the blog. And I know there are a good many readers out there, checking in week to week. I had hoped to inspire any questions that some may have, that I hadn’t gotten to in my unplanned ramblings, which might give me a track to rumble down for a bit, content-wise.

There is one just asked that’s rather timely (thanks, Colin!) as I was asked the same question at Jacob’s birthday get together in the park this past Sunday and I got caught flat footed by it. Even though it’s something I’ve considered internally in my thoughts. As Sunday demonstrated, though, I’ve never articulated my thoughts regarding it. We’ll delve into more of that tomorrow – as I’m going to try to switch gears a bit to more of a daytime posting ritual as part of my work routine.

Anyone see the Time magazine article on Jonathan Franzen, writer of The Corrections. Grew up in Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis. The same suburb where we once lived and I was born. Anyways, in the article there is a brief paragraph on his writing space and equipment, along with a picture. It’s quite fascinating. To sum up: It’s a small, ancient looking industrial office computer cart type desk  with a hard backed chair against a blank white wall. The only thing on the desk is a rather clunky early Dell laptop and THAT’S IT!  Yes, there is no one scrap of paper. Not one picture. Not one knicknack in the whole darn space. Desk, wall, chair, dinosaur computer. I didn’t even see a lamp. Very impressive.

More importantly, and something that I hope to do one day, is remove all ability to access the internet from the machine and remove all time wasting games, etc.. from the software files. Apparently, Franzen customized the machine – going all the way down to the programming language to eradicate games from the hard drive, removing the wireless card physically from the computer, and then taking an ethernet cable – pouring superglue in the ethernet port on the laptop – jamming the cable in and whacking off the permanently attached head from the rest of the cable. Amazing! I love it. I’ve always pined for a computer to work on that’s completely and utterly free of the internet and any other distractions.

Also, as a side note to the writers who are reading this, it took Jonathan Franzen ten years to produce Freedom (at 562 pages.) But, as he talks about it in the article, the first seven or eight produced NOTHING usable. He wrote, but kept throwing stuff away, heading down this blind alley, then that one. Finally, after all this time, he had six pages of a female character. It was the first set of pages he didn’t throw away in almost a decade. From there, he cranked out the first draft in ONE YEAR! Probably rewrote it over the course of another.

Lessons from this:

-Every story told is an excavation.

-Character is the light that cuts best through the dark of uncertainty.

-Plot follows Character, not the other way around.

More tomorrow. I leave you with a few photos (because I haven’t done that in a bit) that I found through Google Reader where I track many different news sources on the net. One folder is dedicated to photoblogs. I love the simplicity of a picture a day. Here are two, of a set, that I find captivating and haunting in the most beautiful way possible. Without further rambling:

Dawn On A City Street In Toronto

A Few Minutes Later

I will say this about the photos: I was drawn to them specifically from the many years I worked until dawn at a Four A.M. bar called Nick’s Beer Garden. I lived several blocks away, basically around the corner. There is something strange, beautiful, and beyond peaceful about a city right as the darkness breaks and morning spills in. All the windows dark and the doors shut on the last moment of stillness. My feet on the sidewalk pavement. The Tribune truck dropping fresh stacks in the boxes on the corner. Everything about to happen, not quite yet, but soon.

We had Jacob’s official birthday get together (you were SORELY missed, Tiff! Beyond any words!!) today over at Mar Vista park. I was baking the cake for this. Friends, and some of Jacob’s family (cousins, specifically) gathered. There was a bit of a picnic. Various UCLA theaterfolk, of course, came out. People brought food. There were a few babies in attendance. All in all, a lovely afternoon in the company of good friends and meeting new ones. The cake was a hit. It was almost completely consumed, which is the best way to tell. The afternoon ended with a rather long variation on kickball that featured no set teams, score, or specific competition. It’s difficult to describe, but it was fun enough that play went on for over two and a half hours. I was 0 for 3 from the plate, almost made a web gem when I was manning first, and pitched a good portion of the exhibition. For a bunch of actors, writers, and other fellow roustabouts we did not openly embarrass ourselves, which was promising. Then it was back to the homestead, a visit from Gilda the dog, and dinner followed by Mad Men. Not a bad Sunday. Tomorrow is chasing after some freelance writing gigs, getting down to brass tacks on the feature Jason and I have to write, and hoping we gain some new forward momentum with meetings on either the TV or Feature side, soon. I have to admit, I’m completely baffled as to the time frame we’re on, currently (it seemed all rush, rush, rush. Now, who knows?) I’m also feel deep into uncharted waters in terms of the writing career stuff and that kind of “blindness” (for lack of a better term) is really a process for me to manage. It takes effort, continual effort, and doesn’t seem to get easier as I work at it. In fact, it seems to grow harder. I feel so caught in between states and don’t know what exactly is the priority because of that. I thought it was writing (which, yes, I understand intellectually it always is; but I meant for the transition out of school, as opposed to getting set-up with more steady work outside the writing) now I’m not sure. Or its passed from that. Or, it hasn’t and I’m just not seeing it. All entirely possible. This isn’t exactly an area I can go off and research, like I’m used to. Instead, this is all about accruing experience, without losing my head, which can be painful and frustrating, but shouldn’t ever be defeating (I hope I’m made of stronger stuff than that.) Anyways, that’s where I’m at. Tomorrow is, as always, a brand new day.

It’s about 2 a.m. and I’m moments away from shutting this day down.

About six inches from my laptop is a wireless printer I’m trying to get up and running with my computer. Suffice to say, I got one step away from printing a doc out, only to be thwarted by a faulty ink cartridge. No big deal, in the grand scheme of things. Trust me. I’m highly aware of that fact.

Instead, this snafu rings symbolic and is in fact telling me quietly: “Shut it down, buddy. You took your shot with this day. But, come on. You know the way it goes. Sometimes you eat the bear and other times the bear eats you.”

That’s what today was. A river of intentions filled with plans and to do tasks that ran dry before I could even get going this morning. I was of service to a few friends, which helped me not get frustrated. But, I have to admit, I hate days where not one single thing intended for the day gets accomplished in the least. Everything just goes sideways and it’s a free for all from there.

That was today. Nobody did anything wrong necessarily. The Bear got hungry.

Hey, at least the Cardinals swept the Reds.

Ah, well. Time to pull the plug on this day and trade it in for a new one.

Good night, y’all.

Yes, that was the name of a fabulous mid to late 80s sitcom. (Check out the list on “notable guest stars.” What a trip!)

It’s also, physically, something we all go through as kids.

But, what about through our adult lives? Certainly not physical, of course; but definitely emotional, right?

(That’s not meant as a rhetorical question – I’d love to hear what anyone has to say.)

I believe we do. I’m sure those that believe so as well, might be saying to yourselves: “Are you serious? Of course we do! Wake up, man! You’re falling asleep at the switch. Snap to, there’s more important things to discuss.”

But, slow your roll there for a second. I’m not talking about emotional growth. That is obvious. We engage life, our experiences accumulate, and enrich our emotional self. What I’m talking about are those sudden bursts that throb deep down. Not the gradual kind, that’s usually wisdom taking root in your life and blossoming through the years (if you accept as you grow older that you actually know less and less than you once thought you did and become curious to learn.) I mean those, sharp sudden (or even not so sudden) growth spurts that force you to stretch beyond what you were to what you are supposed to be. The ones you can’t see past right away, but know that everything will be different (even though you will still be you) when you finally realize you’re reached the other side of whatever is at the root of this paradigm shift in your heart of hearts. This last parts the important, tricky part. Why? Because you may never realize that you’ve reached the other side of this emotional growth spurt and therefore never achieve all that you could emotionally achieve in your life. (Which I think, just to slip this in is how you get to peace and contentment.)

I bring this up because, well, I didn’t think that it was fair that I do such an entirely baseball centric post (the previous post,) but also because I feel as if I’m coming to the cusp, potentially, of the other side of a huge emotional growth spurt. One that it may take me the rest of my life, at this point, to fully appreciate and grasp. I’m okay with that, btw. There will be others, but potentially none quite as prolonged and large as this latest one. I thought quitting drinking was a big one, but this latest emotional growth spurt takes that ball and runs with it another hundred yards. And while this spurt’s been painful (which, let’s face it, that’s all the physical ones you have as a kid can be), it’s also been beautiful (unexpectedly unrelentingly so, in hindsight,) overwhelming (in a good way) and enriching (in the best possible fashion.)  This one, I’d say, started some time back – before I came west maybe and might even be a series of profound emotional growing pains in .

More importantly, I bring this up b/c, as I wrote above, not everyone realizes they’re experiencing these growing pains – and therefore never truly grow from them. I’ve seen it in the past year more  than previously; yet it still catches my eye and makes me ponder the differences between people – strangers and confidants, fellow travelers and relations alike – even me now versus me then. What I often I learned when I retired from chasing different highs, that there’s a question that isn’t worth the trouble it takes to answer. That question is:  ”Why me?” Because I was willing and that’s that. Asking any more probing questions  along that line just isn’t necessary.

I’m ruminating on this tonight, because its been on my mind the past few months with everything going on. And because I’ve been thinking about those around me who are struggling to see the emotional growing pains in their lives right now, as well as embrace them and see where they g0. The amount of wrestling with themselves and self-sabotaging of their talents  and dreams=== it gets old and heartbreaking all at the same time. Why heartbreaking? Because there’s no good answer, or fix, to the “Why me?” train of thought that can sneak in and all too often does.

A close friend wrote me this in an email tonight loosely on this subject:

I think it’s the whole “We’re climbing, who’s climbing, too?” dynamic

I love the succinct picture in those words. It sums up perfectly what I’m fumbling around, attempting to convey in the paragraphs above. Alas, not everyone realizes they need to be climbing, taking risks, facing fear and growing. I know there was a long time when I didn’t realize that I needed to. So, I let my world collapse in on itself and became smaller and smaller and smaller. I guess, maybe, what I’m echoing in this post is the strangeness of seeing that struggle or lack of will in such different light than the bars of Wicker Park, USA.

I guess now would be the appropriate time to say Thank you to all those who helped me “wake up” and to say Good Night….

Spent the day tackling the last few boxes from the move.

Does anyone out there struggle with the last few boxes?

I’m terrible with them. Honestly, today, I unpacked boxes that were packed back in Chicago on my second to last move, some five or six years ago. Obviously, nothing important was in these boxes; but still there’s a certain unsettledness that descends when you’re shuffling boxes and bags of stuff from one locale to another, for years.  You feel a little in between for a little too long, in my estimation.

So, why am I so terrible at it? I don’t know, honestly. I wish I knew. Part of it, I’d surmise is from all the moving I’ve done in my adult life. It’s hard to unpack the papers, as a writer, that I’ve been shuffling about for twenty or thirty years when you figure that in another year you’ll be packing them back up and moving on to the next spot. I’ve winnowed those papers down quite a bit recently. In the move out west, I had to unload many, many boxes of archived stuff that just wasn’t going to fit in the car. That’s all well and good. But, you want some of those memories and old notebooks to remain. They’re snapshots of the journey to here.

Another part has to do with setting up shop. Which means I get a attached to a place. And if there’s one thing that I’m annoyed by a little too much, sometimes,  is change. So, getting attached represents a danger of sorts. It stokes that annoyance. Makes me move slow, even when I know I’ve got to get and let go of wherever I am, whatever is comfortable about it, and find something new. The setting up shop part also involves hanging shelves, organizing those papers and old notebooks, working the new space to best accommodate my needs – which are plenty thanks to the fact that I spend about 75% of my time in my home. There’s a trip to ikea in the future for some really, really cheap shelves that don’t look too bad. A trip back to Target (went today, too) to drop another few bucks on some simple flat plastic totes for under the bed storage, and that should about do it.

Doesn’t sound like much does it? (It does to me!)