A Prelude to Rehab

The Man Who Couldn’t Cry

A beautiful man with a wonderful heart and a spirit to match, loved to make friends from town to town, but could never find a home, all because he couldn’t cry. In eight towns no one really knew why. They didn’t bother to ask. They all assumed he was just incapable of showing genuine emotions. They kind of got it right, perhaps, but nevertheless, he was exiled to his ninth town.

In his ninth town, an Irish town called Dalkey, he decided to do something different. For the first time in his life, he kept to himself. But it never took long for The Man Who Couldn’t Cry to find a friend. In Dalkey, he found a friend named Nan. Nan and the Man who Couldn’t Cry became friends for a very long time, without really trying. Those are the best kinds of friends.

Nan asked him one day, “why is it that I’ve never seen you cry? What happened to you? Why is it that you can’t cry?” She asked him a thousand different ways. She must have wanted to ask for a long time, because the whole experience of asking was cathartic for Nan. When Nan finally stopped asking, The Man Who Couldn’t Cry said, “because I can’t make tears.” Nan didn’t believe it. “What kind of alpha male bullshit is that? Why can’t you fucking cry?” The Man Who Couldn’t Cry grabbed her by the arms and said, “can you hear me? I said, I can’t make tears.” He said it a thousand different ways, but maybe she wouldn’t believe it. He punched the wall in frustration. And without a peep, Nan walked out the door, just as they all did. He looked at his mashed up hand, shook his head. “They never believe me.” Then he turned around without saying anything else.

He just left town.

Not on the internet a lot these days. Busy writing. I’m writing from this café in Slidell right now called PJs. I love the interior design.

In front of me are four women, teachers maybe? Probably in their 40’s (though one of them is probably 20-something going on 40). If Slidell had a show like the View, this might be the show. I’m eavesdropping, but WTF are they talking about? You know how I’m interested in practically anything. Internet is so freakin’ slow, so I’m not doing much commenting on comments sent to me. If you want to talk to me, call on the cell.

Not much debauchery. I’m writing a screenplay, the same f-ing one I’ve been writing for over a year. It started as a romantic comedy, but I get easily clouded by Judd Apatow, Wes Anderson, Cameron Crowe, and Jean Pierre Juenet. Since the Gator Wedding, I’ve been locked in my room, writing, pulling my hair out, watching Amelie and Royal Tenenbaums and all the DVD extras over and over again. Here’s a quote from Bill Murray taken from a Royal Tenenbaums interview:

“True self-discovery can be distressing and depressing. We have the little success we require to get through the day. There’s gotta be something that makes you feel good about yourself. To make it okay. People create these kinds of imaginary trophies for themselves. You gotta decide whether you’re gonna live, every single day. Some sort of tricky play on yourself so you seem okay.”

So true. I’m difficult to swallow sometimes because I live in the world of Bill’s 1st sentence. I wish I could just live in the reality of the crap that I’ve inherited, but I just can’t. I have a fear of dying, but it’s not about being dead. It’s about being on my death bed not doing everything I could to absorb everything this world has to offer.

I’m anxious to finish the screenplay because I want to workshop it with actors.  Unfortunately, my writing inadequacies are severely getting in the way. I recently received an invitation from the Exec Dir at Stella Adler Conservatory to be involved with their group, so I hope I can workshop this story with them.

BTW, I just confirmed the women’s group are teachers. Talking about fractions. Until just now, I had a fetish for teachers and getting in trouble so I could stay afterschool for some kind of capital punishment. One of the teachers says, “I’m just being anal.” Oh, the horror.