wilderworks

Today I'm very excited about getting some potato chips. Here's my plan. One big bag of kettle cooked, hopefully BBQ or jalepeno. Another big bag, Ruffles, ridges, Cheddar Cheese and Sour Cream. I want to eat these with a frosty can of Coke. Sit on my bed and watch West Wing DVDs. I have successfully gotten up before 7:00 AM for three days now. The mornings have been pretty productive, but right now, I'm in agony. I'm staying awake by will power alone. I move by the power of prayer. It seems, just as in high school, my body simply doesn't give a damn how many hours of sleep I got, if I make it move before 9AM, it's not cooperating. It will have its revenge. There's some promise on the dating front, or at least, there's someone who perhaps accidentally got my hopes up. This is promising -- promising to be very disappointing in a slow, sinking disappointment way. Meanwhile, the producer didn't like my proposal for Hell Froze Over , but...

After four years of intensive study, I have concluded that all day jobs are bad for me. Once again, this one is killing me. Quickly.  But I cannot escape it, because there aren't going to be any better day jobs than this. There's no place else to explore. Aside from the pay, which could be improved, this is as good as I'm gonna find. Thus, I either slowly tighten until I snap, or I find a way around this immovable object. Each day, I go to work, and by the end of my stay there, my spirit is 100% broken; I just want to go home, drink a few beers, and curl up for sleep. Even when I'm not physically drained, I'm soul tired, uninspired, angry, hopeless, and lonely. So, my plan is this: I'm going to get up early, and try to work for three or four hours every morning, before going to work and having my soul crushed. This is a terrible idea, but terrible ideas are the only ones that seem to materialize in this world, aren't they? We all know, this wil...

I've been spending a lot of time with old Darwin's Kids raw footage this week, searching for stuff for our reunion in May, getting ready to patch together some treats for the DVD. And I return to an old state of mind. Four years later? I am quite a pitiful thing. I do not like what I'm doing with my life. I preferred life then. And I don't know how the fuck I can get life to be anything better than this, anything even vaguely similar to what it was then. There is a shortage of resources for doing the things I love, and the jobs that would allow me access to those resources are snatched up by the children of those who have it already, by the connected and well-born. And of course, by the lucky. And of course, by the charming. One of which, I am not. I don't know how to get there from here. I'm out of tricks and schemes. I'm out of ideas. I can't think of anything I want to write, because I have faith in none of it. None of it will get me ...

Possibly the most ridiculous thing that Gordy said keeps rattling around in my brain. "You really could make it, but you know ... you really could not make it too."  I don't know why it haunts me, depresses me, frustrates me. Perhaps because it frames it as a choice. I could keep writing these dark, risky things that come from my heart, and "be sitting here, in this office - well not this office, I'll have a better office - in that suit ten years from now," or I could fucking figure out some light and fluffy high-concept product to sell... I really feel sick. I finished the short script "The Dead Samaritan" today, and it doesn't work. Which proves a point. A month or more wasted. No one is into it. And for some reason, I'm not even getting e-mail that people are sending to be polite, say something pleasant, and pass on.

I met with Gordy Hoffman concerning Storybook Park . Despite his assertion that the present engine of the story (that is, Baron), needs to be fully excised with a thick rim of healthy skin, he didn't believe that should be my next move. Quite literally, he said I needed to drop all the bullshit, fuck all the short-films, ignore the people who want me to make sci-fi or thrillers, and write a high concept romantic comedy, and get it out there. Which means, drop all the crap... He wasn't overly excited by the Cusp of Aquarius pitch, though I don't believe I did a very good job of pitching it. Frankly, I did a terrible job, because, as always, I haven't yet figured out how to explain it, since I haven't yet figured out how to write it. I sent him an e-mail yesterday with a stripped down pitch for The Jumpers , and I've been allowing myself to think it's a brilliant idea, when boiled down to the core. I hope I'll hear back from him soon, so he can p...

Welcome to January 23rd. I hope today's not your birthday. So says Cliff Arnall, a British psychologist who made headlines last year when he unveiled the results of a formula that used weather, debt, time since the holidays and a few other factors to determine the most melancholy day. In Britain, and places like the U.S. Northeast that have roughly similar climates, it's the Monday closest to January 24, Arnall says. I'm starting to feel it too. I thought it was just because I was doing so well at becoming an alcoholic (and becoming an alcoholic has been my most successful goal in years), but it seems that I'm not the only one feeling like a loser this time of year. I wanted to write more, but it's all either perverse or self-pitying. I try to restrain the amount of self-pity I write, and I'd hate to waste perversity on a livejournal entry, when it's much preferred in my actual writing. I am putting in an official request for a woman in my life. ...

I think, instead of a writer, I'm going to become an alcoholic. I know, I know. It's not as easy as all that. Hell, I've tried before, and failed. The headaches. The expense. But now that I've quit smoking, I somehow learned to like beer. I can drink one rather fast. I can drink two rather fast too. And that's gotta be the first step. I can get myself a little tipsy every night. Easy. I'm watching a lot of Burt Reynolds movies. If I watch enough, soon I'll be able to listen to football on the radio. Eventually, baseball. Then I'll be up to a six pack a night. And I can switch over to the hard stuff without noticing much. I think I'll be better at being an alcoholic than being a writer. I seem to enjoy it more. And it's natural. Failing as a writer leads to a life of disappointing solitude. Disappointing solitude leads to drinking yourself to sleep. And so, the circle of life. My calendar, it says on Friday, "Epipha...