But I want to prove that it serves a purpose. I want to show you my inspirations tonight, two things I came across that brought me to life. After all, you are visiting the site of a self-obsessed man who actually, just last week received an e-mail from an ex-girlfriend titled “Indicators of Narcissistic Personality Disorder…sound like anyone you know?”… and wouldn’t you know, I’m including an excerpt taken from that very e-mail:
1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance.
2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love.
3. Believes that he or she is overly special or unique.
4. Possesses a heightened sense of entitlement.
Obviously, I answered yes. But that’s not the point. I want to show you a couple things, things to me, on this night that are absolutely remarkable.
First, if you asked me to pick one person in the world to meet, I would initially freeze, then worry the choice I was about to make wouldn't hold enough gravity before dropping the inevitable words, Matthew Bellamy...
Now listen for me, to Hans Zimmer's remarkable chime. The Siren song comes in at 4:39 but don't cheat. Over the last 3 weeks, True Romance has absolutely been my saving grace. The score is so good, so intoxicating, you can literally float away on it. Maybe the most perfect ever. The rest speaks for itself...
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I’ve just finished closing folder 9 of my latest script, Kimberly and Valentine. Inside it lies a sketchpad titled 9th revised and Final Draft Documents titled 9a, 9b and 9c. 8 folders precede folder 9, all with multiple drafts and multiple sketchpads…
Ten scripts make up a stack that sits on top of my bookshelf. They range anywhere from 64 to 184 pages. My Rescue Me and Billy Bambino won me praise, meetings and promises. Training Angels broke me down, sent me traveling the world for 4 months. The rest just sit there, sporadically brilliant but mostly overwritten, amateur or sloppy.
Recently, as was documented, I was more than bursting my own seams…aching, acid ripping through my brain because I more than hopefully gave draft 1b of Kimberly and Valentine to a person who could have connected my professional dots. In my mind, the glorious 3-step process could not have been simpler…
1. Put raw script in Titan’s hands.
2. Woo said Titan.
3. Titan lifts peasant from literary obscurity.
In reality though, it didn’t quite go like that. Turned out said Titan was rather more interested in said peasant’s rooster than his writing. Oh charm, why have you cursed me so…
This town is such a cliché. Never even read it.
…
But pain heals. I’ve moved on, about 17 drafts to be exact. I no longer feel like I’m going to puke when I talk or think about this new darling of mine. Funny thing happens over the course of a new script. As it matures, so does this writer.
Tomorrow morning, I wake up and start in again from page 20 of 9c. I’ll polish, help smooth and grow the new seeds I’ve recently planted inside it and lose track of life outside this blackened apartment for hours or weeks at a time. This is my life now. For this moment, obscurity is comfortable and I feel calm. Because, because…
In ten years, two stars, an actor and an actress will be 28 and 29. They’ll be the most sought after things in town, pitching tentpoles and filling billboards. And when you ask them about their success, they’ll both point back to the day when they were cast in this silly little movie written by a silly little writer who had never before written a silly little thing. The silly little movie will be called Kimberly and Valentine.
And that’s how it’s going to go down. Not because I’m talented, delusional or something in between, but something entirely else…
This town is such a cliché.
