Everyone asked me to write a perfect premise line, a perfect treatment, a perfect outline. I had to have an inciting incident, a midpoint crisis and a misbehavior. I had to have an inner and outer goal and I had to describe it in the most pithy way.   It drove me fucking crazy and in the meantime, too many people have surpassed me while I was listening to the noise that drowned out the voice of my instincts.

It’s simple – a beginning, a middle and an end. Tell the story. Respect the details and the logic of the story. Be cinematic.  Let our characters live their real lives.

Don’t listen to the experts, don’t listen to me. Listen to your instincts and just write.

I cry loudly. Moan. Wail. My therapist/coach/ADD guide told me I was going to experience a mourning period. What a relief! At least I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. So embarrassing.

My grandma is in the next room. She would never notice that I was crying. Never has. She’s not a real grandma. She’s the kind you have to have just because she happens to be your mother’s mother. She is neither comfort nor family. She is a lump of clay waiting her days out. The kind that goes to church to use as a personal lifeline but not as a source of inspiration to carry out the spirit. The Bible is her life-support machine. Taking up real-estate and oxygen but not really enriching other people’s lives. Not enjoying the marrow of life’s offerings. Just the basics. Eating, sleeping, cleaning house and watching TV, everyday, in the same way a Texas cow chews its cud as the road-trippers pass by on the 10.

The little boy I bury deep in the black hole somewhere in my body, deep down, somewhere under my heart and through the intestines and the pancreas and my spleen is the black hole where I lock down the little boy no one knows is still very much alive. Honestly, I’d like to kill the little boy, but he won’t go away and he came out today to play with my head. The cycle continues.

Vyvanse isn’t clearing the thick fog today. I stay inside so I don’t do damage to myself and do stupid things which is my cursed tendency.

Thank you God for making me this way. You are so awesome, oh Great Being. Oh yeah, and thanks for telling me almost forty years later that I was born with a condition no one gives a fuck about or knows anything about. The only people who care about it? People I have to pay in order to listen.

Unfortunately, it is who I am. A little boy who needs to be washed in love. Overwhelmed and tangled and needing someone’s soft hand to hold. I feel like a carny act.

I really appreciate it, God. You ought to change your marketing strategy, ’cause this is so not convincing me to buy what you’re selling.

This blurb has nothing to do with this blog, but it does. It is a signal to me that there are new voices and new experiences that are not being heard.

“We cannot afford to be doing what we are doing…. Let us begin the work together, unite and chart a new course for America.” — Sen. Barack Obama

U2′s Beautiful Day was played in the Minnesota arena where Mr. Obama came out to make the announcement. I love that. I love that song. I love that feeling. That’s the song that started my creative renaissance in 2001.

“Change We Can Believe In.”

I take a VyVanse and get to work.

The hail comes
coping with hope
surprised
the capacity for human behavior
derailed
hindered
trying to forget
I have admiration
for people who can forget about you
People who come and go
I don’t have that talent
Is there a drug for that?
Move forward, soldier.
Nothing to see here.
Finish the goddam story already.
“She buries me. She makes me invisible.”
the city I live in.
craving to be heard
needing a hand.
“where is this love”
“all i hear are easy words”
closer to what?

Centrifugal force
Too great
To turn the corner

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.

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.

A one-night stand can be a result of good timing. A man listens to a song introduced to him by a random friend He goes to a bar. In the bar he picks the song at the jukebox. A woman is in the bar. She’s drinking more heavily tonight because her boyfriend is being a total ass. Prior to bar, she has been listening to previously mentioned song as a healing moment. Man plays song in bar, woman is touched by it. She walks over, connection established. She’s ovulating. He has blueballs. One-night stand coming right up.

Bad timing: Woman still dealing with old boyfriend. Man shattered in life by his abandonment issues but attends an intensive psycho-therapy curriculum, yet not quite ready enough to go back into the playground. Both their careers are barely floating. But they love sex so they keep on keepin’ on. Sooner or later, the sex isn’t enough and they’re both head cases. Bad timing.

A party doubling as a work day
A copper dinner table and sexy trance
Fondue, lamb, shrimp from the bay
A conversation with a guy in red pants

A flat-chested woman
An interior decorator
(she designed this house)
Deft and bright and cheerful
A connector and a facilitator
So savvy, so content. She could be
Perceived as a witch with a b.

A man in the corner
Holding court among the masses
Giving and getting attention
A gift of gab.
Youthful angst?
Youthful exuberance.
So much good music
I win again.

Outside the box thinkers
Not chained by the mentality of the bottom feeder.
Creativity has no time clock
The only way I know what time it is
Is that the sun is coming up
It was all very smashing

And I thought of you often
You could have laughed all night
The banter, the energy, the moonlight chill
Seeing beyond. Tapping the well.

“I wonder much of the day, who is really on your team? Who really wants to see you succeed? Who really has your best interests at heart? Who really wants to take the plunge with you? I often say that it takes me 365 days – one cycle of the earth to travel around the Sun — to really get a sense of someone, their intentions, their outlook on life, their ability to roll with the punches, their grip on reality – not the reality in one’s own head, mind you, but the reality of how people operate in this world.

I’m thinking about revising my 365 day criteria to 3,652 days. That’s a whole decade. People just come and go, all the time, right, so is a year really enough? As I look around the room tonight, standing with me are two people who’ve been around for more than a decade and a few people who’ve somehow been dancing in the circle also for more than a decade who are now here tonight. I order a round for everyone present.”

I am proud to announce that I have reduced this grace period from 365 days to 120 days. One year reduced to a third. (Does the term exist which defines a third of the season? A steak dinner to the winner of this question.)

By the way, I will take that pat on the back, thank you.