Once upon a time,

The End.

I dip my hands in the Pacific Ocean to wash off all the blood. I’m bent over; a little wave laps up, and by the time it rolls out my khakis are soaked but at least my hands are clean. Now if I could find my sandals I’d leave, but I’m not so sure I’d want to go back to the party.

Tom Werring, I just basically reorganized his face outside Lisa Baxter’s house in what started out as a drunken crowdpleaser but turned into assault and battery. Shouting woke up neighbors, neighbors called cops. Blue and red whirling lights pulled me off of Tom and when everybody else bolted for their cars I made a b-line for the beach, which is just down the block because Lisa Baxter is fucking loaded.

I shook teeth loose from his skull and somehow end up feeling like he’s the lucky one. There are liquid parts of him on the pavement, and dribbling down the street, and until recently on my fists and just now in the ocean, making the Pacific one zillionth Tom Werring, a great big diluted blood cocktail. Actual cocktails, and straight rum, and keg beer, make this all make sense. There’s only me in me, and a little bit in Melissa, Tom’s sister.

I think that’s why the fighting, but I’m not sure and it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that in days an infinitesimal bit of Tom Werring will be washing up on the coastline of the French Riviera and that makes me jealous because I’ve never been to Europe.

All better now.

Pretty girl plus Christopher Guest movie will do that.

Actually, to be honest, I wasn't too terribly fond of the movie. A Mighty Wind, that is. It was no Best in Show, which was no Waiting For Guffman, which was no This Is Spinal Tap. There were just too many damned characters. It seemed like Guest, in a rush to fit in all his (admittedly talented) improv buddies, forgot what made his previous movies so funny, that is, the audience really getting a feel for the people onscreen. Here, we just get caricatures, one or two-joke sketches of these folks before we move on to the next one. Does it have its moments? Sure. Does it have Parker Posey? Yes, but not enough. Is there such a thing as enough Parker Posey? Perhaps only time will tell.

And while I'm in a criticizing mood: Was anyone else left kind of cold by Matrix: Reloaded? It just-- (WOOT WOOT!) What's that sound? Why, the analogy train is comin' round the bend! Let's all hop aboard and see where it takes us!

We had to do this project in Creative Writing last semester, writing the first five pages of a screenplay, as well as an outline for the rest of the film. People got really excited by that prospect, the fact that they only had to actually write the beginning of something. The kids in my writing group would turn in these five densely packed pages, full of car chases and disguises and mysterious phone calls, flashbacks to god-knows-what, plane crashes, that sort of thing. Set-ups that would get the audience wondering what the hell's going on.

And naturally, I asked. Who's calling? Who's conspiring against her? Why a monkey?

Uhmm...I haven't really figured it out yet.

The Wachowski brothers seem to be having the same problem. They've set up this fascinating universe, and it worked, for the first film. They got it and so did we. But now they have to hang around, and they've realized they never set any ground rules. What Neo can do, what he can't, that kind of thing. So now, his ability, the crux of the whole film, is being dictated by whatever cool stuff they want to show us and whatever's convinient for the script. Instead of the character shaping the narrative, the narrative, and the desire to pack that narrative with Escalades and Superman-style flying and specteral albino Rasta-men, are shaping the character, and the world he inhabits. Who's the French guy? Why the keymaker? Why won't Morpheus just shut the hell up for one goddamned second? They haven't really figured it out yet.

The car chase scene was bitchin', don't get me wrong. The problem is that, a week after seeing the movie, I couldn't even begin to tell you why it happened.

Lileks says it better than I do. Of course.


They're going to do a staged reading of the play I wrote first semester at the ASU summer student-productions festival, Moondance. I met tonight with my playwrighting mentor and ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend AJ, who's directing it. At my ex-girlfriend's family's house. Surreal? Yes. Helpful? Completely. Fun? Surprisingly so. He's a good guy, and I'm proud to have him at the helm. I've never collaborated on producing something I've written, and I think it'll be good for the script, and, in turn, for me.

The upshot: I have to retool and restructure the whole 113 pages in four days. Hopefully it will be closer to 90 when I'm done.

If you were to say to me right now that life was a strange and yet strangely wonderful thing, I'd probably agree with you.

Sorry for the pause in blogging, I was in California for Chuck's mom's wedding. That was fun.

I'm no longer in high school, as of last Thursday night. The last five days have been full of interesting stories but for some reason I can't muster the energy to talk about them. I think I might be sad about graduating, because I've been in a strange mood the past couple days, but I haven't thought a lick about that particularly. It's sad that my emotions are so strange and stilted even I don't know what I'm on about half the time. I have to poke and prod at my melancholy, looking for symptoms, probing for cause, like it's the flu or something.

I don't think I'm depressed, don't like being depressed, try to avoid it. I think it's a silly, self-indulgent thing to be, especially when you have it as good as I do.

Growing up: What the heck is the deal.


You should probably, no, definitely, be reading Guillermo's blog religiously, assuming you're not already.

NOTE upon reading this entry just after I posted it: Some people turn to the bottle when they're feeling down. Apparently I turn to commas. Sheeesh, look at 'em all.