I Have Been to the Mountain Top

The other day Michele told me I'm spreading myself too thin. My energy level tells me she's right, but I still don't feel like I'm accomplishing much. But that should change now.

I got involved in a "Ten-Page Challenge" on the American Zoetrope website. Eighteen of us submitted the first ten pages of a screenplay, and then we all reviewed and scored each other's . I just finished the last one this morning. It was interesting and I learned a lot. The comments I received for Blood Goggles were encouraging and interesting (some of these other writers have sold scripts or read for production companies), but I learned even more getting such broad exposure to other screenplays. Kind of like Terry's class, but with professionals instead of students, and everyone has material to share. There were some in Terry's class that I never saw anything from. It seemed there were four of us who always had something, and then ten more who took up space. But I digress.

On top of that, in the last six weeks I've reviewed eight full length screenplays and have two more waiting. I've written eighty pages of Blood Goggles (with what feels like about sixty left to go), and I'm generating ideas for other stories like crazy. I even had a bit of a revelation about my "Bumble Sutra" essay that's been languishing for eighteen months.

Now that I've gotten through this cluster of scripts I can take some time to write again and be social. Wait, what was that? Social? Riiiiiight.

In a Snit

I’m getting angry again. I spent some time this morning reading the Washington Post, and for whatever reason I was more interested in the political articles. I read about John Edwards, Ann Coulter, and Newt Gingrich. I read about Dubya’s tour through South America and Hugo Chávez’s response. It irritated me that I agreed more with Chávez than I did our own president.

Sometimes I feel like I should run for office. I get angry about the way the country is led, and I get angry about the lack of real alternatives on the ballot. The Republicrats and the Demublicans are two adjacent shades of the same color and they both have a vested interest in keeping the nation’s attention on the false dilemmas of their issues. The whole concept needs to be revised, not tinkered with.

The attitude of America as the Global Parent, whether the conservative “do as I say” version or the liberal “let Mommy kiss it and make it better” paradigm, is crap. It’s time our leaders recognize this country is just one of two hundred (or so) and we have no more business invading Iraq than, say, Sri Lanka has sending troops to secure Kansas (even if it seems sometimes they need to be saved from themselves). We have no more business dictating to Argentina how to operate than France has telling us what to do. We need to get all our shit in one sock before we even consider diddling with other countries.

And all this talk about the economy and our way of life needs to end. “The economy” isn’t an entity with value of itself. It’s an abstraction that represents the very issue running this country into the ditch. Our economy is a sham and our prosperity is hollow as long as the whole structure is based on luxury spending and speculation. Our currency isn’t even based on a real standard. And our “way of life?” Greed, selfishness, and self-righteousness regroupthought as “ambition,” “self-reliance,” and “moral clarity.” Crap.

Okay, I purged. Thanks for indulging me. Here's a random happy picture:

Guilty Pleasures

Michele and I ate dinner tonight at Granite City Brewery because we thought they'd have their Irish Red out for the spring. Turns out that won't be available for another week or so, so we were disappointed. Not too bad, mind you, as their other brews are pretty good, and we're Mug Club members, so we get comestibles cheap there.

For some reason GCB likes to play eighties music. If I didn't know better I'd guess it's because they see me coming and imagine it will be a subliminal hook, that I'll hallucinate about having a mullet and wearing ridiculous Hawaiian shorts, and I'll order more something.

I could barely hear the music tonight (and not because I'm going deef). We got stuck in the party room with a table full of cackling women. There were men at the table, too, but the women were unreal in their ability to produce sounds unavailable to nature. You might hear these sounds if you're on a roller coaster with a bad wheel. Or if a cricket in your vicinity gets the hiccups in front of a microphone.

Anyway, while I was hearing portions of familiar songs I thought I heard one of my guilty pleasures. From the beginning I liked this artist, but I knew I better not make that public. I was a metalhead. What I liked required crunchy guitars, thumping bass, and mechanically-oriented drums. This guy didn't satisfy any of the "cool" criteria, so I kept it under wraps. Until now.

I've always liked the music of . . .
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Wait for it . . .
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Yes. Billy Ocean.

I don't know why. I think it's his voice. He has a strong, clear voice. And let's face it--in the eighties we weren't being barraged with Carribbean singers*. Bob Marley. Eddie Grant. Those Dutchie kids. He was different.

Anyway, I had to confess. I like "Carribbean Queen," and I always have. In fact, I have it waiting in my Musicmatch playlist, right between Tom Waits and Disneyland After Dark.

What's your guilty pleasure music?

*Yes, I realize he's English and not Carribbean. But I didn't know that in the 80s. I didn't know anything in the 80s.

Book Store is Closed for the Evening

Too much snow, so the store closed and I don't have to work tonight. That's a good thing, because my brain is exploding with ideas for my screenplay, and it takes a while for me to get them out.

One thing's been bothering me for days, and it shouldn't. It's petty and pointless, but my mind won't let it go. Last week a co-worker was telling a story about her weekend, and she said, ". . . all of the sudden, I was laying on my back."

Now, normally I'll laugh pretty hard about somebody falling down, but her misuse of the phrase "all of a sudden" irked me. It's not something that's generally noticeable when spoken, since "alluvasudden" and alluthesudden" sound too close to call most of the time. But it irked me.

It irks me for a lot of reasons. First, it's an archaic construction that people use without even thinking about it. "Of a sudden" is just a wordy version of "suddenly," and if there's one way to make an adverb even worse, it's to make a phrase out of it.

And then there's the "all" element. When people say "I'm all about that," or "he was all, like, 'What's your problem?'" I have to resist the urge to put my fingers in their eyes and push until they're all, like, all about being in agony. The word "all" has only a few sensible uses, and these are not them. (When Strongbad says "All up ons," however, this is hilarious.)

But there's also the identity of the sudden that has to be addressed. In the correct usage (all of a sudden), any sudden will do. Which sudden? I don't know. A sudden. When people bastardize this phrase, we suddenly have to pick which sudden this situation is all of. Is it this sudden? How about the sudden over there? I don't know which sudden is the sudden, and this is critical to understanding the phrase.

But if I demand that my co-worker identify of which sudden she was all while falling down, she'll look at me as though I've gone all pedantic, and I'm all about not being all pedantic.

I also hate when people write (or sometimes say) "should of" instead of "should have." I understand "should've" sounds like "should of," but it's not that. If you've never seen "should've" in print, you need to start reading beyond Dick and Jane. If you've seen should've and somehow failed to make that connection, I have no suggestions. You should of read more as a child. Then you'd be all about speaking English competently. Or "all of a competence."