Something stagnant but I don’t and always know exactly what it is. It’s been hot lately, and gritty heat making appearance for the first time in late August seems strange to me. LA is funny.
I was somewhere between Brussels, Barcelona and Dublin last year when it came out. Beck released this new CD, “Information.” I remember going to a record store in Cape Town, on the waterfront last November and asking one attendant, another, another if they had it…then anything by Beck, then if they had ever heard of him and finally if something was getting lost in the translation of our same language. I gave up, then forgot.
So I guess it’s only fitting that as a deadness settles in over the city of Los Angeles for the next 2 weeks, I finally get around to picking it up because of the new and free standing and initially infectious turned festeringly good single “Timebomb.” And goodness, I needed it…a fresh soundtrack to sponsor this drift.
…
So this week we’re going to play a game. This is usually the season love (or the illusion of) dies…late August, and since my lately romances have been anything but inspiring, we have to seek dialogue elsewhere.
Momentarily, I thought of telling you about the elderly community that lives on my Kings Road but closer to Melrose and how sometimes, they band together, stand in the street and direct…okay, scream at traffic in mysterious tongue. Sometimes, they form a crazed fleet and launch offensives against passing cars. But I changed mind. Not only should the mental image suffice, but honestly, my quota for penning the crazed has been more than fulfilled.
So…let’s stick to business. If you read, you know I’m making a hard push into changing forms of paid work. Obviously, I’ve been trying to get paid through writing since I first set foot in this town, mostly to no avail. Though, in my own defense, I wasn’t giving myself a massively fair chance in trying to pump out passion projects to major studios as a 23-24 year old. So, instead of focusing on something commercially viable that I could write well, I dove deeper in the wrong direction, writing two new, separate scripts that nearly killed me. They were big and beautiful and bold…just covered in vomit I wasn’t at the time capable of wiping clean.
As I earlier mentioned, I was writing a spec episode of Rescue Me. I figured that if I played by someone else’s rules…colored mostly in the lines, I would be giving myself a fair chance to get out of the business of selling 15 dollar martinis to the patrons of Beverly Hills. So I did. It’s out, I nailed it, let’s play…
Timeline:
Background – The Ref is brilliant. Denis Leary doesn’t get to fuck Rene Russo on the stairs in Thomas Crown Affair. I like Denis Leary, I feel for Denis Leary. Rescue Me is a great show. Because of Lost and Denny Duquette, I want my own.
April – I get DVR.
Early July – I watch the previous 56 episodes of Rescue Me.
7/22 – I begin my episode, fictionally slotted mid next season, “Sabotage.”
8/3 – Solid draft done.
8/4 – 8/8 – Sun. Sex. Spin. Sleep. Ciroc. Trois Pistoles. Yoga. MacCallan 18. Harry Potter.
8/13 – Revisions done.
8/17 – “Sabotage” out to ICM.
8/18 – 8/21 – Script received. In read queue at ICM. Writer freaks out, thinks he wrote a gem and that all eggs being in a single basket isn’t in his best interest.
8/22 – Writer calls in favors. “Sabotage” goes out to William Morris and UTA.
8/23 – 8/30 – Repeat “8/4 – 8/8,” only with a new book and this new, excellent album on repeat. Try to enjoy riding a rein-less animal. Mull over the next project, confide in self that no matter the outcome, in one form or another, this is life and a sweet one at that. Remind self that it’s to always, always be played like buying shoes for a child with Osgood Schlatter’s…
Room to grow.
