Dreamin' and Schemin'...

 

Night before Thanksgiving, the Malf and I met for beers where the old Bateman's was. That's where I first met him for beers, and it became our talk-hangout, because nobody was ever there. I have no idea why it went out of business.

Now it's a JBs, whatever that is. We ate and had some beers. The menu's good, but the food wasn't amazing. Decent enough, but the fish and chips were my favorite kind of fish so I expected it to taste better. They over-peppered it, which is really becoming a problem with restaurants lately. They DO know that there's pepper on the table if I want to make my food taste like ass, right?

The crinkle cut fries were excellent. Anyway, after a few beers we retreated back to Malf's for a firepit talk which, as always, went all over the place.

My #1 reason for getting together is that I've come up with a really good idea for a movie or TV show and wanted to throw it by him. His agent's been wanting him to pitch a new TV show and he doesn't have any current new ideas. I actually had this idea a while ago and shelved it, but recently remembered it, and my subconscious is dying to get on it.

It's very high concept, which is always an obstacle to get Malf on board with. He's a deep character guy, always goes for character over plot, which makes his books very good, but they don't turn into easy pitches because the plots don't sound all that involving.

At first he was a little reluctant on it. I think he was trying to dig into what the characters were about, but I haven't fleshed any of them out because I wanted to do that together, rather than get married to an idea that he doesn't like. I gave him the one character that I'd came up with and described.

A couple of hours later and I can tell he's starting to think about it. He's throwing out a name and a backstory for the one guy, and we're starting to toss ideas back and forth. I told him to think it over and get back to me. If he doesn't want in on it, I'll just go write it as a script. High concept is always king in hollywood, so I might have a shot at getting this noticed.

We also talked band stuff, music stuff, book stuff, movie stuff. I tossed some of my T3 problems past him to get his angle, and as usual, he's got some very good ideas and I'm gonna use one of them.

I was drinking the beers, he was drinking the whiskey. I stayed pretty good, and didn't go home until about 2:30am--after the cops and their roadblocks would be gone, just in case.

 ---

Thanksgiving was as usual. I had the over-under on the N-word from the father-in-law at 3, but he blew that out of the water at 9. He's gotten REAL bad the past couple of years, physically and mentally. He tells the same story to you and two days later will tell it again as if he's never told it to you.

It gets pretty tiresome. Then he complains that me and his actual son are on our phones scrolling while he's talking to us, but he's been talking for like 30 minutes at that point. I've got nothing to say, and I don't wanna hear his "blacks are taking over everything" speeches.

Turkey was good though. I think tomorrow I'm going to my mom's house--my older brother went to his inlaws on T-day, so she didn't do anything then. So basically, my diet is out the window until Monday I guess. I haven't weighed myself since that first time, so will be curious to see what Thanksgiving did to it.

Premieres and Diets

 

 Went to the premiere the other night. First I met Cutting and a friend of his named Lee for dinner. We ate at a place I used to eat at on occasion called Swallow at the (last word in Legend of Sleepy _____). Burger was great, since I was cheating on my diet.

Sidebar: Weighed myself on Thursday and I was down 6 pounds, so that's 6 pounds in 4 days. Not bad, so I guess the diet's back to working. I had a Slurpee on Saturday because I woke up late and wasn't going to get in enough calories, so instead of waiting until Sunday(when I had planned to get one), I just got it early.

Anyway, at dinner we chatted and I gave Cutting some early pages of T3 to take a look at. Then, off to the premiere.

It was pretty crowded. I met the guy who shot the movie, a guy whose name I've seen before on FB--we have a lot of mutual friends. Seemed nice. Told me they shot with three Black Magic 6Ks. He got me on the red carpet photo thing with Cutting so we got a pic taken.

As you can see, I'm real dressed up.

Anyway, we watched the movie. I try to judge other low-budget flicks with a lenient eye but this one was hard to do. The writing was BAD. Like, everybody talks to themselves, saying things nobody would say to themself, but things the writer wants the audience to know.

The sound seemed unmixed. Hard to tell if it's because of the old Senator speakers or what, but there was background music by local bands playing in many scenes, but it was so overbearing that sometimes you couldn't hear what people were saying.

There are other little things. The dude playing the sheriff was this good-looking guy with not much acting ability. The sheriff's office looked like it was on the stage of a high school, which I'm guessing it was. (complete with a poster behind the Sheriff that said Wanted: Books).

And Cutting's character appears and disappears a couple of times in the movie, as if he was a figment of one of the character's imaginations. I asked Cutting what was up with that and he said "I have no idea." So they didn't even explain it to him.

Afterward, went back to the bar from the other night for the afterparty. Stayed later than I thought I would--Ryan was there, so we chatted some, plus some new and old people, and then the owner, named Poe, showed a couple of us this back bar section he keeps closed--the wall slides open and you can walk in, and it's AMAZING. Vintage shit everywhere, cool lights and decorations.

Would love to shoot something there. Poe was up for it.

Anyway, was pretty tired the next day at work, as I only got about 4 hours of sleep.

 

 

Fatty Gotta Lose Some Weight

 

 I forgot to mention, the diet started on Monday.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that for about the past year, I have had a Slurpee at least 5 days of every week. It's the thing I look forward to every evening. I put in my day of work, play some video games, do some writing, and snag a Slurpee.

This may also not surprise you, but you actually gain weight by doing this. I could tell I'd been gaining weight, because comfortable T-shirts were all of a sudden too tight, and I was back to not buckling my jeans, just use the belt to cinch it.

So I got on a scale Monday morning to the expected news of 218 pounds. That's right, about 12 pounds away from my fattest.

Back to the shakes, and I gotta hope they work this time. They didn't last time, which was the first time they hadn't, and if they don't show promising results right away, I'm going to do the HARD CORE version of the diet, which is to ONLY have the shakes. I have never been able to stay on that version for more than a week.

I'm going to weigh myself on Friday and see what's happening. My knees have gotten progressively worse, so I figure it can't hurt to knock off twenty pounds so they don't have to carry so much weight.

---

Tomorrow there's a premiere with some of my actor buddies at the Senator, the theater that's hosted four of my premieres. Cutting is coming into town, so I'm going to meet him for dinner and check out the movie with them.

That has me going back to the same exact place in Towson that I was just at. (they're having the afterparty at that same bar I was just at)

After that, I'm done with Towson for a long time.

 

Friday Fun Returns Plus Return To An Old Stomping Ground

 

 An actor I've known for many years who moved to New York was back in town, so Zig organized a Friday fun so we could see him. He was in the first Ttory movie(he's the hunter in the "Siren" segment).

I had worked extra hours last week anyway, and I worked a few on Veteran's Day so I wouldn't have to use PTO to take off Friday. I went over early, but turns out the buddy had car trouble so he didn't end up showing up until about 8pm. We played another game of Trivial Pursuit, the horror edition, and just chatted about shit. 

We didn't end up watching a movie, but that's probably for the best, as we were really just catching up on what's going on. The actor buddy's going to be in the new show by the guy who created the Wire, and he's got a legit part in it now. Not one of those extra roles he mostly gets.

Big stuff for him.

The next night Malf had a concert in Towson, and it turns out that he's playing at a location that I used to drink at three or four times a week in college when I lived up there. It's not called the same thing any more.

Going back to my old college stomping grounds always makes me feel...bad? Not the right word. But it brings back memories I would rather leave. Not because I didn't have a great time back then---man, did I ever--but I definitely sort of pine for those days when I was young and sociopathic, and my body didn't hurt, and the responsibilities of being a parent were as foreign to me as the planet Pluto.

Things have changed in that town quite a bit. The bar is now a weird Tex-mex restaurant on one half, small concert venue on the other. There were four bands total, and they were all good. I didn't drink that much, since I had to drive home, but I stayed pretty late. They were all still there when I left at 1:30am though, which is weird. The young people tending bar there didn't seem to give a shit about last calls and whatnot.

Some convention friends from Michigan had come all the way down to see the concert, so hung out and chatted with them. Had a good time, and bought them some drinks. Didn't think it was gonna be that expensive, but one of them ordered three drinks that cost $27--that's an expensive drink.

--

Watching Squid Game. Definitely a good show but has one big problem I'm having a hard time figuring why nobody's mentioned.

That is this: A bunch of people join this game where they know at the end they get a bunch of money. Only thing is, nobody asks how many games they have to play to win the money. Do they have to play until there's only one person left alive? Or a set number of games? Nobody asks, and it seems like a stupidly-obvious question--and many of these people seem smart.

 btw, we had this exact refrigerator when I was growing up.

 

 

Work Stuff. Will Prolly Bore You.

 

 So last week was interesting. I was offered a promotion at this job to Functional Analyst, which means a pay-raise of like 20K-30K a year.

Sounds cool, right? I'll put it out front that I turned it down after a couple of days of thought.

Reason being that that title does what I do now, plus some other stuff. They SAID it wouldn't mean more hours, but I don't believe that for a second. And right now, I've got enough money but never enough time.

So I'll keep it in my back pocket--I can take the position any time, as they're in desperate need of GOOD analysts. Nice to be asked though, after only being at the company for 7 months.

This was also a long week, being that I worked M-F at the regular job, then Sat-Sun at an auction, then back to work today. However, it appears that Thursday is a day off(fed holiday) and I think I'm taking off Friday because I put in a lot of hours last week so I can either work a couple hours on Friday, or just take a couple hours of PTO.

PTO wins.

---

Work continues on the T3 script. The numbers have come down QUITE a bit on the streaming side, which seems strange. I would have expected the last week of October to be big, but it was so small I actually started doubting their accounting. 

I dunno, who knows, maybe only the well-known Halloween movies get any play that last week. Guess we'll see where it lands.

I feel like I should start the next novel/novella. Either go with that original idea that's been obsessing me(but is missing pieces) or turn one of my unfilmed scripts into a novella like I did with With Teeth. I've noticed a pattern in my writing(what would you expect from the dude that brought you HH?), and it's this, boiled down simply: Problems get solved by men with guns. 

It's easy to see why this is something I'm obsessed with. I grew up loving Westerns, which is that very premise. Then in my formative years of the 80's, that's all I watched. Stallone, Schwarzenneggar, all the others. That's sorta my thing.

I only bring this up because With Teeth follows that formula pretty closely, so I don't really wanna movie on to another novella with that. For instance, my killer-scarecrow screenplay is half not-that, and then the second-half is exactly that.

The script I've been writing for 15 years that's nearly finished(and involves an autistic boy) is NOT this, but it has issues that would be very hard to translate to a novel. Also, all my worries about people watching this as a movie and then getting angry at me for things that happen in it--those would be 1000% worse in a novel because I'd have to be putting out this character's inner thoughts. I know, I'm being pretty vague.

The movie I was going to shoot a few years ago when we lost the main location is about a girl who goes missing and a man is hired to get her back at all costs. And yes, he has guns. But this is the one I'm leaning toward. 

Don't know. I want to really start trying to get some of these short stories out into anthologies, plus I had a good idea for an anthology involving REAL authors. I tossed it by Malf the other night and he liked it. Said he'd be willing to put something into it, and thought I could probably get some bigger names on it too.

So I have to think about how to start putting a pitch together. See who's interested.

 

 

Welcome To The Suck Months

 

Here we are, Halloween is over, and we're about to head into the sucky cold months. The depression of Halloween being over is always rough, but it seemed to hit early this year. Like, on Halloween day I was kinda depressed already because it seemed like it was just getting started.

I DID, however, manage to finish that Halloween short story that I'd started the previous year. I put the last page off until the last minute, and the whole second half of the story needs some rewriting, but it's DONE, and that's the hardest part of writing. It came out to over 11,000 words, so it's not short.

--- 

The night before we went out to a bar I hadn't been to in a couple of years--we used to go there all the time for Halloween. It was actually a good time. A lot of people, but not so many it was uncomfortable. Half the bar is outside, so if you felt cramped you could move there--there's no divider or door outside, so you could still see the band play from there.

I went as a guy from Top Gun because it was an easy costume that my kid had, and it let me not put a mask on. (which is hard with glasses, and then makes drinking very tough) Also got to wear my shades, which is nice because some of the spotlights are blinding to my eyes.

They had some cool decorations too.This was also the first time I used that driver service that begins with a U and rhymes with goober. That worked out okay. 

We closed the bar down--my wife and her brother and I--and there's a 7-11 right there, so while we waited for our ride, we grabbed a Slurpee. 

 

-----

The night before that, I asked my brother if he wanted to go shoot some pics of decorations down there, and then maybe head over to the Ttory woods to shoot some pics for fun. My nephew went, which worked out well since he could be our model. I also took my big Sam doll and a few other props.

The terraforming of the area continues. It really will be pretty dicey shooting anything there now during the day, as I expect it's probably mobbed. It's like they want to turn it into a public park, when it's not.

Worrisome, part of me thinks, but part of me thinks it's doubtful I'll get the motivation back to go kill myself. I wish there was a way to show people just how physically and mentally draining it is to make a movie on a microbudget level.

I didn't shoot this one below, but I can't leave ya hanging with no sexy shots. (other than that sweet sexy shot of me above)