Posts Tagged ‘Funny’

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.

Literally, most all of my day was laundry. Not exactly how I would’ve preferred to spend the day, but one has to do what one has to do to keep the basics rolling along. I also did some serious grocery shopping. I know, stop the presses, crazy stuff. I have to admit that I absolutely hate to do laundry and if I’m flush with cash will go the fluff and fold, drop-off route. Yup, that’s how much I dislike having to do it. Something about the amount of time it takes and the whole rigamarole of sorting it, and folding it, etc… My Uncle is a laundry champ. Seriously, he should have a high end laundromat. Even in the drop-off world I have never experienced a fold that is as smooth and as symmetrically perfect as the fold that he can do – and fast, too. It’s simply amazing and, while it’s not the reason I jet over to Scottsdale when I get a moment to do something fun for myself, it’s a nice perk of the visit! I think if he could open a joint that does a professional fold like that – as a special service “Wash your clothes, then we’ll fold  ’em for a price.” – with some comfortable chairs and a few good movies playing on screens throughout, or sporting events when they’re on, maybe some lamps instead of the overhead florescent and newsstand in back with a few good paperbacks, we could clean up.

One good thing comes out of laundry day, though. Sure, having clean clothes is always nice. I’m not gonna argue with you there. To be honest, Laundry day was late this time around thanks to the writing bender at the start of the week. That’s okay, though. When your writing like that, in all honesty, your in your PJ’s for a couple of days, so your buying yourself some time. Of course, if you make a snack run or a coffee run, you end up in the Starbucks in your PJs, but that’s the price you pay. This time, that wasn’t a consideration. I was hunkered down, with a full run of supplies. (Which reminds me of a bartender in Chicago who used to come in for his day shift, ’cause he would work the night before on the door until 5 or 6 in the morning then open at noon, in his PJ’s, every saturday. It became his signature after awhile.) Anyways, this has been a looong tangent to get to the one good thing that comes from laundry day and that’s fresh sheets, just washed. Sure you’ve got the back-up sets in the linen closet and all that jazz, but there’s something truly special about sheets that have just been washed that day. I don’t know what it is, but it’s magical. Always a better night of sleep. When Nikki and I were still together at the Winchester apartment in Chicago, there were four apartments and we shared a washer/dryer in the hallway, so it was almost like you had a washer/dryer. Always the night before a birthday, or Christmas, or Thanksgiving, one of us would make sure to wash the sheets and all that. It was always a small little thing to do on the night before a birthday for your significant other, or to both do before a holiday. Tonight, I will have laundry day sheets and, actually, when I turn out the lights and am drifting off to sleep it will make the day’s effort all worthwhile.

Kind of a lost day, today, but I mean that in a good way. I told myself I was going to tackle some basic chores around the house – cleaning and laundry chief among them, some grocery shopping would’ve been good. But, I arose a little later than I thought I would and was slow out of the gate, got wrapped up in email correspondence and just, kind of, let the day go. These days happen. Usually after power sessions like the one earlier in the week. So, I’m not too concerned. All right, enough rambling about the non-state of my day, let’s get down to it!

-Went to see a fellow Bruin Scribe’s latest short film tonight – Lily, whom I have lunch or breakfast with every now again, commiserate with and tweet (on twitter for the non-tweeters reading) back and forth with a little. It was screening at The Bridges Theater on campus, along with a directing student’s thesis film, both Produced by Producing student Justin Begnaud, who is producing the serial killer script that Jason and I will draft over the summer. Lily’s film was awesome. I think I mentioned her other short won the audience award at the Milan International Film Festival recently. She’s a hard worker who goes out and makes it happen. She’ll be shooting a feature soon and i can’t wait to see it.

-Alan read the first 35 pages of the script we just handed in and loved them. Really, really loved them. I think he was a little blown away. That always feels good.

-What is up with the Cardinals? They won tonight, but not before starting pitcher, Brad Penny, after hitting a grand slam (yes, that’s right a grand slam) left the game in the fourth with a tweaked back muscle. Which Brad had admitted he tweaked a week ago, while pitching against Cincinnati. The teams been winning sporadically, the situational hitting has been atrocious, the pitching brilliant and the bullpen an adventure. But now, players are hiding injuries! (Mr. Penny was the second pitcher in the course of the past couple of days to go down with a more severe injury b/c he neglected to say anything the first time he was hurt. It boggles the mind! This is a multi-million dollar enterprise. You’d think they’d get a handle on something like this! Quite hiding injuries guys! This has been going on for years. Time to stop. It’s killing the team. Just killing it.

-A 13 year old boy become the youngest person ever to top Mt. Everest. I guess he climbed Kilimanjaro at 10! Man, talk about the best “what did you do last summer” essay when he hits school next fall. Seriously, though, if you can dream it, you can do it.

You. Just. Have. To. Try.

-Has anyone been watching Friday Night Lights, the television show (which is back on NBC now, from DirectTV) ?   It’s on tonight actually and is in its fourth season. If you haven’t been – and I wouldn’t be surprised if  you hadn’t – FNL is one of the most unsung shows in Television history – do yourself a big, big favor, listen to me, and go watch the first season on DVD. You will be hooked. Such a fantastic, heartfelt, stirring show, all about Texas small town High school football and the people of Dillon, Texas. It’s downright criminal that this show wasn’t a huge, smash success. It’s really struggled to find it’s audience, despite being possibly the greatest primetime soap ever. And easily tied for first or just barely a step behind The Wire as greatest television show ever.

-Facebook is about to log its 500 millionth active citizen, worldwide, in the next few weeks. Chew on that number for a minute – 500 millionth! The social media site has only been in existence for six years and was started in a Harvard dorm room (or stolen in one, depending on who you talk to about it.) If it were a country, it would be the world’s third largest – 2/3rd’s bigger than the U.S. That’s a lot of power (personal info on each user) that just a handful of people control. Staggering to think about, isn’t it? With all the privacy debates raging about Facebook, I wonder if they’ve grown too large for the U.S. government to sanctioned or demand changes from. I mean that in more of a philosophical way. Sure, you could pass laws and they’d have to be followed, but is the genie out of the box already?

-Real quick, on Facebook, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, a studio film about the founder of Facebook and the story behind its creation. Well, one of the stories. It’s a major Hollywood production – directed by David Fincher, screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and stars many young, up and coming or just breaking talent. Should be an interesting film. It was very hot screenplay a few months ago. They’ve been shooting some at UCLA.

-LOST ends, of course, this Sunday night with a huge, four hour event. I know of several parties with invitations out that are going on. It’s been awhile since I can recall a show ending that has generated this much attention and outpouring. Sure, this season, compared to last, has been a little off. Maybe it’ll play better, years down the road when all the hubbub and expectations have faded.

With that, I will bid you all, farewell for now.

The waiting is the hardest part.

I hope everyone had a fabulous Mother’s Day. I was going to post some photos, but in my internet vagabonding today, avoiding my play, which I need to wrap up, I came across a post I want to share. It’s a great depiction of the realities of this profession I committed my life to, this vocation which called me to it at an age when I just didn’t know any better (thankfully, or else I wouldn’t have had the fantastic journey I’ve had and met all the wonderful souls that I’ve met, along the way.)

This post is written by Noah Hawley, a novelist/screenwriter/producer who wrote for Bones and created/was showrunner on the short lived cop dramedy The Unusuals, and appears on his blog. He is talking about waiting for the decision on a pilot script he wrote to advance to the shooting stage, which is just one phase of “waiting” that occurs in the television development. This is two phases ahead of where Jason and I are with the recently optioned script.

Welcome to Pilot Season 2010

“This is the waiting. It is not for the weak of heart. It is a full time job, day and night. There is no minute during the waiting where you are not doing the job. There are no bathroom breaks, no time off to exercise or take a shower. It is waiting, much like breathing is breathing. The stakes when you think about them are both high and low. High because there is money at stake, a lot of money. And your career.

This is, after all, what the waiting is for o see if and how your career will advance. This is also why the stakes are low, because what is career, really? It isn’t health or safety. It isn’t family or happiness or love. It is food in your children’s mouth, sure, but food can be put in your children’s mouths any number of ways – though not as much food, and possibly not of the same macro-biotic, all-organic, grass fed, 70% cocoa variety. So the waiting is important and unimportant at the same time.

Which is why you feel so stupid about letting it get to you. For the way it makes you snark at your wife or lose your temper with friends. After all, this waiting time is free time. There is nothing for you to do. The scripts are in, the lobbying complete. You are literally without work. So go play with your kid. Go hiking with your wife. But then you remember, you are not without work. The waiting is the work.

This, you realize, is ultimately about control. Because waiting, by its very nature, is a byproduct of impotence. You are not in charge of this. You are waiting for others to decide your fate. Waiting to be told what the rest of your life looks like. You are waiting for direction, for guidance, for orders. But you are not the “give me the strength or serenity” kind of Which is why the waiting gets to you. But knowing this does not make the waiting easier. It is not a cerebral endeavor. There is no mental off switch, no way to think it away. It is like a river, a surging current that takes you where you do not want to go.

It is safe to say the waiting has you, the way a shark takes you in its teeth and dives for deeper water. And the worst part is – you volunteered for this. It is your reward for all the hard work you’ve done. So enjoy it. Stop fighting and go limp. This is the waiting, after all. It can’t last forever. It will be over soon, one way or another.”

The epic waiting is what baby writers (an industry term for new writers, not mine) may very well talk the most about in all facets of development – both film and television, with their reps, with everything. It is such an all-encompassing, unable to learn until you experience it for real, kind of gnawing perpetual frustration of seeming immobility. I imagine this is what it’s like for, say, cops between training and actual beat. You can’t really simulate the tension of something about to happen, something of consequence…or not (that’s always the kicker, it’s often more about the “about to” rather than the “happen.”) It’s usually next to impossible to express to someone who hasn’t gone through it. Think DMV. A perpetual day at the DMV. One long, cosmic trip to the DMV.

So, when you arrive finally, after dreaming and hoping and working to this point – then you realize it will always be a part of what you do in this business. Sure, if you have unmitigated success, you will not have to wait quite nearly as much. But, that’s in reality fleeting and, honestly, your last name (or mine) is not Spielberg, Cameron, Hanks, Lucas, or Pitt, the only people that occupy this rarefied air. Yes, Tom Cruise no longer does. That’s how rarefied it is. One couch jumping incident and you’re back to waiting, maybe not as much, but you are, end of story.

That is not to say I didn’t laugh reading Hawley’s well written depiction of it. Baby writer’s discuss it, lose the hair and sleep over it, wander around in a daze in the perpetual blanket of it, but eventually, you do accommodate. Eventually, it is what it is and no amount of dwelling will change it. Sure, it still gnaws, but not so thoroughly. I’m not there yet. Not by a long shot. But, I can feel I’m headed in that direction and that’s even a small victory. Means I’m toughening up even more. I’ll gladly take that.

Fair warning, this is another Baseball post. Though it’s simply about the “youthful/fun” aspect that I wrote about after the Cardinals twenty inning extravaganza on Saturday.

This article by St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer (and Cardinals Beat Reporter) Derrick Goold speaks to exactly what I was getting at in the post. I encourage everyone to take a few minutes, click on “article” and breeze through it. I think it captures the nature and character of Baseball, that youthful/summertime feel to the game, which even at the highest levels, still comes through from time to time and makes the sport, ultimately, so enduring to people from all walks of life, of all different ages.

Favorite quotes, real quick:

“I think there was pressure innings 10 through maybe 15 or 16,” outfielder Ryan Ludwick said. “But then when we starting bringing in position players to pitch and (Kyle) Lohse went to the outfield, I think it became — believe or not — but it was really fun.”

“A day later, Mather pitched two innings and became the first position player since Oquendo to get a decision. Both of the Mets’ runs scored on sacrifice flies against Mather, who never got in a count to throw his slider. After the game, his cell phone glowed with 40 text messages. Read one: “Nice ERA.”

“Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter also lobbied to play. Brad Penny said, “I wanted to catch.” Lohse was the only legit option. La Russa asked him what outfield position he was comfortable playing, so Lohse took a poll of teammates and decided on right field. He was about to tell La Russa when La Russa sent him to left in the 18th.”

“…Lohse joked. “I think we all saw it as something cool we may never get a chance to do again. It was fun to go out there and act like a position player for a little while.”

Makes me want to go watch Bull Durham or catch a little league game.

I just returned from A Night With Ira Glass: Radio Stories & Other Stories.

My good friend, Laura, took me to it as a kind of very early birthday present (I wasn’t aware it was intended as such) and as payback for some movies I sprung for the past few times we’ve gone. (Though that was dubious logic in my book.)

Ira Glass is the creator of and main force behind This American Life, which I am obsessed with and firmly believe is one of the most brilliant shows ever created in any medium. If you are not listening to it, you should be. If you have an iPhone, there is an amazing This American Life app that you should be downloading now. Seriously.

Here’s a picture of Ira at a similar event several years ago:

That’s just about exactly how he was set-up on stage tonight, though at times he wore headphones. This American Life began on Chicago Public Radio, back in 1995, I believe. Largely, including Ira, they were denizens of the Soho-esque artist’s neighborhood I lived in, Wicker Park. If I have the lore correctly, the idea for the show originated over lunch at this famous lunchroom on Division called Leo’s Lunch Room.

This American Life is a radio documentary show, about an hour long, usually arranged in acts, sometimes around one story, sometimes multiple stories – it covers the topical, the mundane, the amazing, and just about everything else. It’s always arranged around a theme of some kind and in the end, always makes you see the world in a different way, or makes you laugh at the uniqueness of this life we all live, or makes you feel connected in a wonderfully simple and direct way. It’s genius. Pure genius.

Ira spoke on storytelling tonight. Something, obviously, that I have an extreme interest in as I have devoted most of my life to it, in one fashion or another. He touched on what makes a story a good story for This American Life and from there worked his way into what he believes are important fundamentals to storytelling, what is wrong with Broadcast Journalism today, in his opinion (Ira began his thirty year career in radio at the age of 19, initially as an intern, but quickly working his way into a job as a reporter on several public radio flagship news shows,) and the power of narrative all around us, every minute of every day.

He talked for about an hour and forty-five minutes, quite a bit longer than we initially expected. He was funny and inspirational. He utilized clips from the show, both aired ones and unaired ones, to illustrate his many points. Some were ones I know all to well (There is only one genre for all stories – suspense. If you aren’t drawn in, hungry to know what happens next, it isn’t a story) and others were refreshingly new or frank verbalizations of things felt everyday by a writer.

One such thing he gave voice to was the struggle for Creative Ideas. He said: “Coming up with creative ideas. Worthwhile creative ideas that will become a story is a job. It’s hard labor. Most of the time spent in storytelling is spent coming up with numerous creative ideas, story ideas that you develop, that you produce, and then throw away for one reason or another in search of the ones that are up to the standards required.”

No truer words have ever been spoken. He gave an excellent example. He spoke of when he went to visit the writing staff of The Onion. Ira talked about sitting in their monday story meeting. They publish about seventeen to eighteen headlines a week, some are turned into full articles, others are short blurbs, or become faux opinion pieces, others are just headlines. He said he watched in amazement as six hundred ideas for headlines where pitched by the staff and freelancers in search of the most publishable seventeen or eighteen. That’s right, six hundred. He asked if it was always like that and they told them every week, in the monday story meeting, they pitch at least five hundred plus headlines, which get winnowed down – first right there, then through the course of the week, until they arrive at the seventeen or eighteen that will make the cut.

Ira then when on to say that for This American Life they usually run about three to four stories a week, but will comb through seven or eight times that many to find upwards of ten stories, each week, that they will then produce and polish through the course of the week, pulling stories out, adding new ones in on the fly (He talked tonight about recording one over the phone with a musician friend two hours before their Friday time slot, because nothing else was gelling from their work that week to fill the open of the show) until the show airs. He said they often cut, throw away, do not use 2/3 of their work every single week. He said every week their is, without a doubt, a story that deserves to be on the air, that is exciting and fantastic – but gets cut due to time constraints.

Think about that. Seventy-five percent of the hard work you do will get thrown away, all in an effort to get to the strongest twenty-five percent. That is what storytelling is – in music, in film, in theater, in everything. You never, never, never have just one idea. You have multitudes. You push yourself constantly to come up with more, to generate iteration after iteration of each one. You never go with the first this or the first that. Not right away. You constantly ask yourself: What if? What then? How ’bout? You listen. You turn your back on it. You ruminate on it. You blow it up and then put the whole thing back together. That’s the labor in storytelling.

Of course, the feeling when you elicit that laugh, that gasp, or that tear; when you hear people talking about a story you crafted, long after it’s voice has faded, well that’s what’s so worth all that labor, and then some.

I’m so glad Ira Glass reminded me of that tonight.

Don’t have much in the tank tonight, so this won’t be a long one. Been kind of scrambling in an odd way lately, trying to get on top of a rather large slate of things to do – writing and otherwise. This, of course, is not an atypical place to be for me. Though, currently, things feel a bit more discombobulated than usual.

I’m all wrapped up on classes for the quarter. So, if I stay the course, I’ve got ten weeks left. Yesterday was our last large lecture for the Screenwriting Fundamentals class that I’ve been a Teaching Assistant/Section Instructor for. From here on out, my students have their pages due next Wednesday. Per my offer, a few have turned in their pages early for notes, so they can rewrite them as needed. I have to say, we started off a little rocky – trying to get everyone in class squared away with enrollment and just communicating effectively – but looking at the pages so far, this group is by far the best class that I’ve had at UCLA. I’m quite proud of them. I don’t think I had a particularly good quarter teaching wise. I was pretty off, compared to the Summer quarter and last Spring. So, I’m even more surprised and pleased with their dedication to getting things right and how well they’ve done on their pages so far.

Lastly, my dear friend Tiffany, who – besides being a top flight playwright, is also an incredibly talented photographer. She kindly agreed to take some photos of yours truly. Initially, I thought maybe I’d get some headshots – just in case. I’m in Hollywood, right? You never know. But that quickly morphed to us just having fun. We went to downtown L.A. and I had fun playing model (They’ve got it tough! I was tired after!) It was a lot of fun. We might make a go of another idea, but I can’t reveal that set-up yet. Here’s my favorite of the ones I’ve seen so far. (Tiff, I hope it’s okay if I post a sneak peek!)

I don’t often see myself in photos and I like myself in those photos even less. It’s always jarring for me to see just how massive I am. I forget that, often. Every last aspect of me is pretty massive. And I don’t mean just the much discussed weight.  Ever take a look at my head? My hands? My shoulders? I’m two things – T-H-I-C-K and E-N-O-R-M-M-O-U-S. I easily dwarf just about everybody in my family. It’s the oddest thing. But, I really love this photo. This will go on all future book jackets and pressers! (Thanks Tiffany!)

Check this out when you have a moment. It’s a ten minute short that a good friend made. Really well done, top to bottom. Love the way the Red Camera footage looks. It’s up on the web site Funny Or Die and it’s a hilarious ten minutes. Remember to vote for it after you watch it. Enjoy!