My Blog

Dazed...

Blackjax — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:12:03 GMT

I noticed the letter on the counter, and balked a bit foggily. Addressed to me from the Oakland P.D. So I took it down to the place I’m currently crashing in (AKA the Man Cave) and opened it. “Oh, Fuck...” ‘Congratulations! You are among the candidates who passed the P.O.S.T. Entry-Level Law Enforcement Test Battery for the position of Police Officer Trainee...’ I’ll explain. I need a gig, and in that happy manner of someone who’s tumbling off of a cliff, I’m grabbing at any shrubbery growing on that surface to slow my fall into obscurity. I saw the ad for officers (70k a year starting salary!) and decided to take the shot at the test. This is along with doing handy guy work, lining up a gig doing a kinky-smutty comic book for hire, tutoring a friend’s kid on fiction writing and history, and taking a Flash Class. Spreading the net wide, far, and thinly, so to speak. A little about me. Dad was a bullfighter, as was a long line of my that side of my family. I’m not a adrenaline junkie, I don’t live my life like I’m in a Mountain Dew commercial, but I’m very good under pressure. I’m great in a tight squeeze or bad situation. I’m genetically programmed for it. Also I don’t want to be bored... And I’d be paid. And there’d be a chance of a pension. And Oakland would be a challenge. And I know it’s insanity, suicidal, and all the rest, but it’s an open door. And I’ll take it. For now. The handy guy stuff is fun and somewhat lucrative, but it’ll end in a while, the smutty comic book gig was supposed to start last Monday (’I swear you’ll have the scripts in the morning’) and kids eventually grow up and don’t require the tutoring thing, so... It’s an option. Meanwhile I’m currently looking for a place to crash in a month or so in SF or Oakland/Berkeley, so anybody who needs a slightly sane Non-Smoker to rent to, let me know...

This Guy Walks Into A Life...

Blackjax — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:57:07 GMT

I picked up Paula from SFO last night, but, as usual with both parties, I didn’t check whether the flight was delayed, and the flight was delayed. So I grabbed a NY Times, hunkered down and read about... practically nothing. The News section of the times, I’ve discovered, has become so watered down that nothing sticks anymore. Quality has gone way downhill, and the partisan idiocy that led them into that bland tundra is killing them. This is the paper that continued the whole Obama - Reverend Wright schtick or placed the ‘Hillary was in the White House during a Monica Session’ nearly above the fold, yet, months later, puts the whole ‘McCain being Endorsed by Hateful Christian Nut-job Reverend Hagee’ on page 18 or never mentions his temper, him calling his wife a Cunt in front of witnesses, him physically attacking Rick Renzi at a meeting... I used to look forward to the Times, now it’ll be on par with People Magazine or USA Today. The web is kicking it’s ass. Huffpost, FireDogLake, Daily Kos and CrooksAndLiars are, sadly or proudly, leading on issues and Media Matters points out the naked partisanship of the networks so easily and handily. No wonder the powers that be, and I’m including the personally hated DLC, want to kill the web, make the world a one of bullying authoritarianism, make it where you’re allowed to think just as they do, where you’re told to ignore those nagging doubts about health care, where Iraq has to be occupied, where the Economy’ll bounce back as long as we make those tax cuts permanent and keep relieving multibillion dollar companies of those burdensome regulations. Regulations like the ones that grounded hundreds of planes in the past few weeks due to finally admitting fuselage cracking because the FAA had gotten too chummy with these airlines on safety inspections and the news getting leaked about the real possibility of a flight literally shredding in mid-air seemed to be a real P.R, challenge, or ATA and Aloha going out of business due to obscene fuel prices due to more business oriented, damn the proles priorities. Which led to me sitting there, reading a useless paper due to her delayed flight. The big circle. The web is, to put it bluntly and cheesily, Democracy in action. It’s a true consensus via debate in a real marketplace of ideas, not via PR or commercials or crocodile tears. A majority of this nation believes that the Republicans are a cheap suit hypocritical joke, that the Dems are the only answer to solving these problems we’re in, that we need to get out of Iraq now. Trust your gut. Seriously. We’re fucked as a Nation. Truly, completely fucked. 80,000 jobs lost last month. A looming Draft. Housing. Millions of kids uninsured. Squatters of formerly homeless people are building Hoovervilles (Bushvilles? W-Villes?) The dollar... I was at Maverix Studios yesterday, and we were discussing ‘Doomsday’ starring the succulent Rhona Mitra, and Baker mentioned that it was shot on the cheap, 30 million dollars, since it was up near Scotland. I mentioned that in Euros it would’ve been 11 Million. Hee-ha. Anywhoo, I read about how fish communicate verbally with clicks, hums, buzzes, and how, now in 2008, they’re accepting that they can, on occasion, cause enough ruckus to be heard in basements on beach front properties. And to me it makes this planet a little more fun, a little more mysterious, and life a little more precious. So, Paula pulled in at 11:30. We discovered that her bag, packed with recyclable cans (The Bahamas doesn’t believe in recycling. Another reason to hate The Bahamas. You’d think they might want to make a little jingle with it, or make cars or housing out of it Ala ‘Gilligan’s Island’, but no, ass backwards, über Christian state that it is, they won’t), and her bag never materialized from the magic ramp. Personally I think they held it back after reading the enormous amount of metal it contained. They’ll deliver it today sometime. But Paula’s like that, very thoughtful to remove a slight burden from a ass backwards, windswept rocky hellhole. And magic, mystical, mysterious, green eyed Marlena’s now in a U-Haul, last I heard, winding along I-8, heading from Tucson towards Yuma. She’s a woman that I am so grateful to know, a woman of many facets, a multiplicity of aspects that I’m still sussing out. She’d due in Oakland, I believe, tonight, and I’m due to help her schlep crap up three flights of stairs. Fun. In the mean time, I need to finish some doors for a friend and finish a script for the nycmidnight.com screenwriter’s challenge. They give you a genre an a subject and you have a week to crank out a 15 page script to qualify for the second round. I have Action Adventure/Bicycles. And I’m on page 9 right now. Soon to be a Major Motion Picture.

These Days...

Blackjax — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 05:18:51 GMT

And there was this day that I woke here in SF, and realized that I had half my life over. And that, kids, is a sobering thought. I mean, I may drop dead by a aneurysm , or get flattened by a bus, or get scattered along with the shattered debris of the Black Mariah on some long, lonely highway somewhere outside of Roswell or Memphis. Life is tenuous, fragile, bitter, cold, delicious, and, as the canard goes, precious. All the more to think of things that’d given me joy. Sofar. Cracking the crust of a Creme Bruleé, arriving in Venice and offhandedly comparing it to the one in Vegas, love in all of it’s degrees, a good pork loin, Casablanca, beignets, seeing those 9 ghosts sofar, learning anything, wherein it be pool physics, or the infield fly rule. But then there’s those things that I haven’t seen as of yet, things that make each dawn less cringe-worthy, places I haven’t been to, things I haven’t tasted (today it was Hysbiscus flowers, dried and candied. Sure, they look like a dead baby tarantula, but still)... As for life sofar, I’m finally going to take that Flash 8 class at BVAC. Starts the 14th. And that’s a celebration, in a way. A needed flag in the mountain. And I’m grateful I met my friend Marlena. More ways than I can state. Or express.

Aannnddd...

Blackjax — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:21:35 GMT

I'm (finally) in San Francisco, and the gears are already grinding slightly... Broke(ish), directionless(ish), and slowly working on the plan, the pitch list, the whole thing. Anyone who wants a game of pool, let me know.

Hollywood, Day 4.

Blackjax — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:44:32 GMT

As I write this, I'm in a bungalow in the Hollywood Hills (well, some hills near Hollywood, but I digress). The meet with D was informative and extremely useful. He gave me an image of a town with a perpetual gun to it's head. People are under that much pressure. Interesting and yea, it explains a lot. He told me to get my pitches together, pitch them to him, then he;ll pick the one that's most useful, then for me to JUST FUCKING WRITE IT. Simple. Painful, but simple... So we'll see... HE also had some tips on getting the portfolio together, but that'll have to wait until I get back North since the files are in lockdown there. More later.

Hollywood, Day 3...

Blackjax — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:04:48 GMT

And the Whirlwind of Inertia Continues... I'm meeting w/D tonight to be escorted to his guest house up in the middle of nowhere, but it'll be cheap rent (re: free) for 5 more days, so it'll be a saving grace. Currenly back in my second office (The Pig) for a little free WiFi and schmoozy commiseration with the local writers/actors here. You never know... D says that I need to make a plan, that I shouldn't expect to just toss my career on a pire here and expect it to catch fire (I disagree) but I need to have that conversation about the options towards that plan, whatever it may be. I just need the layout, the map, the Arthur Murray steps to whatever watuzi is done here. Then I can find the cracks in the bricks to works away at. Jericho's fell. So will this town. In time. I keep repeating that mantra of opening up the unknown, the higher power kahuna to work towards 'My Greater Good". Chip, chip, chip.Bit by bit...

Tuesday....

Blackjax — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:32:47 GMT

...and it's been a whirlwind of inertia. Was supposed to meet with D at Warner's at 10, but I got a call from his assistant at 8:42. His Blackberry's clock hadn't 'sprung forward' over Daylight Savings Time, so his 10 was now at 9, etc... Could I be at Warners in 15 minutes. During rush hour. When I got the call I was, of course, naked from the shower, since the last time I showered clothed it was after a long evening of imbibing 7 shots of brandy. (The following hangover lasted 3 days, so you can tell what condition I was in). Anyway... I dressed. I got in the Black Mariah. I got to Warners at 9:11. And... We had a quick 'Whatthefuckyoubeenuptohow'sitgoin' then he had to go to a meeting, but I got to watch '300' in his office. Upside? Gorgeous film, great acting, fun designs. Downside? The betraying Hunchback looked like a walking blob of Silly Putty. Awful. D came back. I got a minor spiel to contact a company D's involved in, which involved driving to Venice Beach by 2. Upside: I'll be designing for an EFX/CG/Film production company, downside? It's in Australia. So mixed blessings all around if I hit or miss. So the day was, effectively shot, in a way. But we'll see.

Hollywood: Day One...

Blackjax — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:02:41 GMT

...would be called a bust-ette, in a way. My former partner, now working for a rinky-dink outfit called Warner Brothers had to blow me off until tomorrow, so that was a wash. The Nickelodeon visit was the usual butt-sniff and wary handshake affair, with lost numbers scrambled for, histories upgraded. Then it was a slurry of E-mailing queries to whomever. But still, a long day. Currently at my second office, the Bourgeois Pig on 5931 Franklin Ave. Cafe. WiFi. Pool table. I'm hungry. Tired, and am about to see some of the old Wild Brain gang in the valley. A bar romp, but low key. We'll see.

LA...

Blackjax — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:17:18 GMT

And here I am... A friend posted my horoscope from the Pink Section (SF Chronicle, for all you non-natives or paper haters out there.) Gemini- "Getting credit for what you do tops your list, but contractual conflicts have conspired to make it an uphill battle. This week, a surprise communication brings the issue together for you. Expect to get the plaudits you deserve." A-fucking-men. Then again, what if it's stuff I'm owed for all the bad things I've done? Just seeing the bright side... I'm asking the Universe, the Higher Self, the whole Mahghilla, to show me what will be in my higher interest. If it's getting hit with bad kharma, in the end, won't it be for my greater good? Just asking... And is this the face of a screenwriter? Yesterday at dawn, no sleep, before the 9 or so hour drive along I-8, which is, I may say, a lovely drive. Very Biblical in it's starkness, very... rocky, starky, sterile. The desert is the great equalizer. It will kill you if you fuck up, the ultimate dope-slap, as the Redhead pointed out last night. I guess I needed to survive that, Tucson, the whole maghilla, to get this current state of, what, grace? Balance? Equality? Clarity? Anyway. Meetings today.

The Intrepid Explorer Wakes...

Blackjax — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:30:59 GMT

After a lot of hemming and hawing, I decided to just bite the bullet, sleep, and leave this train-whistle filled morning. I'd rather meander on side roads, but all in all, it'll save me the price of a wonderfully cheap motel somewhere in the middle of nowhere, but I opted to leave rested. Personally I love the whole driving thing at night. IPod book. Nothing to think about but what's in the headlights. So, LA. The Tarpit of my nightmares. Here I come...

Tucson, that Toddlin' Town...

Blackjax — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 02:32:55 GMT

Well, I meant to be on the road by now, but here it is, 7ish and I'm packed, the car's packed, and... I didn't get much sleep last night. Nerves? Worry about this whole LA thing? I can't tell. All I want to do is be a screenwriter, and I've had some minor success at it, and two years ago it was the whole 'Landing the Agent, Easy Street I Come' and... cue crickets. I guess it's the whole fear of getting kicked in the teeth again. And what then? And if I do get something in this or Animation and I (Yahweh Forbid) have to stay there... And if NOTHING happens? What the fuck do I do then? I guess that's the real rub. The future. Not fun.

Mission Accomplished, Again...

Blackjax — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:45:01 GMT

63,000 Jobs lost... I just read that and my jaw just dropped. We're heading towards Zimbuabue as a model. The Economy is fucked, our dollar value is on par with the Turkish lira, foreclosures are up... Now, Rome burned, and the legend was that Nero was fiddling as it did. Two problems: The fiddle hadn't been invented, and historians stated that Nero valiantly led some fire brigades during the blaze. Which leads us to this fact. This Administration's leader is worse than Nero. Welcome to %19. Mission Accomplished.

From Asheville to SF to Tuscon... and straight to Hell (well, L.A)

Blackjax — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:04:55 GMT

There have been times where I've been asked "Why the fuck won't you blog anymore?" as in regard to my typepad/blackjax29 rigamarole... well. It got me fired for a highly prestigious gig. Well, a gig, of some highness. No. Just a gig. But still, it made it impossible to land another dead end job in that lovely prison of the sky, Asheville, NC. So I stopped. And the gigs kept coming. And going, so I was asked to leave by the Redhead, who was under a LOT of pressure. So I did. And yea, that was rough, but the relationship had slid from one of passion and friendship to one of scuttling and distance. But, as always, I hope, some semblence of respect and love. So..... I went to NY for a month, kicked around there, then went back to SF. to work with Paula, now I'm in Tucson to find out a few things and fix a few more things, eat Mexican food, develope a taste for Tequila and pool. Too much to tell there, but I'll elaborate later. I'm just filling space here. But my head, soul, and the rest of the psychic goo is running clear for the first time ever. So I'll fuck it all up by going to LA to find an agent. I'll post from now on, by the by.

The Fucking Holidays...

Blackjax — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:53:16 GMT

Holidays. Yea. The mirth... When I was married a few years back we developed a game where we'd throw a huge marathon party, 12 hours, noon to midnight where it would range from intimate chats, sort of the Mike Douglas Show with wassail, to full blown 40/50 people crammed into 5 rooms eating, chatting, eating, mingling, eating, drinking, eating, or watching holiday movies in the back room. So the game was once the party was over, dishes done, cats unpacked, the holidays were OVER and we could glide, guilt free, to the New Year. Then we could flit from party to party that ranged from Hallmark to De Sade, give each other gifts on the 24Th, or get on a plane to the (then) happiest place on earth, Vegas. Back then, Ho-ho-ho had a different connotation, the only jingling you hear was the slots, and the only Jolly Fat men seen were from Duluth or Nyack and wore Sans-a-belt plaid. Not anymore. At least in the late '90's it wasn't. Vegas had turned from a place for adults to Santaland. Maybe, now that the economic screws have tightened a wee bit they'll realize that 'lil Jimmy isn't going to blow his allowance on Pai-Gow Poker. I mean, grown-ups need a place on this planet too. We watch TV, we need to blow off steam in the public arena. The whole thing of childproofing the world... Yea, I get the other side, but isn't in that the realm of VChip? Of, oh, parental supervision? Seeing the kids, armored up like they're they're auditoning for American Gladiator to go roller skating? Yea, as a kid, we skated and biked, and when one of the pack landed on his face it became a rite of passage, a valuable learning experience, and it also opened a whole world of nickname possibilities. 'Hey, Cyclops! Throw the ball to Three Fingers! Gimpy Cho's trying for third..!" You know? Funny thing, this whole right wing, 'War on Christmas' meme, has gotten a, what, little silly on both sides? I remember driving through Asheville last year, NC, and seeing a hotel with the sign out front declaring 'Happy Holidays' and I raised my fist in solidarity and yelled 'Yeah! FIGHT THE MAN!!! YEAH!!' So, yea, holidays... I digress. I need coffee.