My Mother...

I've always had the sort of parents that have been game for anything. When I showed up with my first tattoo as a 12 year old, they said okay. The first time I was arrested, they said okay (not so much on the subsequent and escalating ones). When I wanted to play baseball for a living, they said okay. When I wanted to move to Hollywood and try to write movies and later books and television shows for a living, they said okay. When I packed my bags and left to blindly tour the world, they said okay. We've always had something of an understanding that life was mine and that I could do with it what I wanted. Amazing concept - I don't think everyone grows up with. Anyway, I talk a lot of shit on here and in life about my personal pursuits and recently, my old man (who is actually closer to 22) asked if I'd send him a copy of the Eastbound and Down I wrote. I sent it about a week ago and knew he printed it up and that it was sitting somewhere in my Lake Forest home when I got this text from my mother today, quoting...

"Only pussies, assholes and/or fags off themselves with pills."

How lucky can one guy be? Honestly.

Muse...

I was absolutely planning on going into Tower Bar to see my old friend Dimitri tonight. Now I'm occupied, can't stop listening to this...

This Fall is going to be something else. A couple years ago, it felt like everyone was lining up and dropping at the same time. Within the next 2 months, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, MGMT and Vampire Weekend (both not quite in the company yet) and most importantly Muse all have new stuff coming. My deities are returning. I will say again what I have said a thousand times in this limited life -- this is the finest band that has ever walked the earth. Take me away Bellamy. Take me away...

MGMT...

I had never seen this video until today. Sometimes, I feel like there's nothing that sneaks by. Imagine the surprise. Why do I feel like it was maybe banned in parts of the world?

Madison Reese...

Every now and again, I get reader e-mail. This one turned my head for a handful of reasons, and since I'm a glutton for fodder, perhaps it's best we discuss it here...because I'm a firm believer that with smoke comes fire...because fires need to either be fed or extinguished. I'm not sure which I'm doing here. The only thing I'm taking out will be potentially identifiable characteristics. I haven't a clue who this...but someone might. So...

...

Your Blog...

So here is the thing….I have debated for months on whether to write you or not….you came into my world in the fall of 2008----I took you spinning class at equinox---no I wasn’t one of the ******* ** ***** * *** * ***** ** **** ******* *** ******* huffing and puffing and trying not to get ass sweat (sexy I know). I thought you were gay….dont be offended being a ******* girl I think most men in LA are gay…unless they tell me otherwise. You never noticed me. You never looked in my direction…but I took your class a couple more times listened to you guide us with your cosmic energy watched as you pushed the girls (and lets be honest most of the guys) with your charm and your playlist….heavy on Kings of Leon and Radiohead….I could tell you were a lover, a manipulator, and man with a story. It wasn’t until 5 months ago when I began reading your blog that I began to put your life together…extremely confident, somewhat talented, and the most passionate person I have ever known (seen/read/been aware of). I guess to say I know you would be wrong. I know the point of your blog is to put your thoughts out there I don’t know if its for peace of mind or the hopes that your true love will read it or someone in the industry namely Danny McBride (I asked BJ-his asst---he hasn’t heard anything about it) would stumble upon your yearning to write for EAD. You make me happy and angry all at once. You are so confident, almost cocky, we have mutual friends, I respect you for some, I question you for others. I admire your commitment to health (this shouldn’t mean much I mainly eat my feelings---mostly mcdonalds---and rarely exercising---it’s a form of self loathing). I think you are a great hustler in a town of hustlers---you have waited on me before----I was with * *********---a ****** *****----you barely looked at me---instead you told a story of baseball and Illinois---and made quips---you thought were charming----I thought were annoying. You have magnetism---and you know it. You are very self aware---and to be honest you are a great writer---I wonder if you have a small dick---I get that you have huge balls---but where are the faults??? You say all these women hit on you---I do not doubt it----but no self deprecating humor---no questioning---every time I read your blog I buy into the bullshit---ive read it in its entirety---I have a lot of a sleepless nights---im **********---ok to be honest ive never really been ********---living off of * ***** and hating every minute---we are beyond different---our problems are never the same---so I guess the reason I am writing is to find out----is it real??? Are you this person or are you projecting?? Have you had the successes with your specs and scripts or are you moonlighting as someone on the verge of success??? Do you believe in happily ever after??? I don’t know what answers I am looking for I don’t even know why I am writing ----just give me something---another letter will come again---when my thoughts are more clear----until then…..

Ps I used no punctuation and bad grammar to piss you off??? Did it work?? Do you get mad about stuff like that???

My name isnt madison reese----it isnt even close----im too much of a coward to reveal my identity---too scared you wont respond

pps this is by far the creepiest thing i have EVER done

Madison

...

I wrote back saying this is the kind of thing I would do, writing someone like this. I'm the kind of guy who has dozens of unsent e-mails sitting in his outbox, addressed to guess who(s), never having any intention of sending them. So I get it, and the whole art of expression through words. I don't know why exactly, but I felt like this one needs to be taken on here. This is not creepy. Or, if it is...then I'm creepy too and fuck the world. I'm right, they're wrong.

I got this e-mail as I was leaving to drive to San Francisco on friday and it moved me through some self-reflection, which is essentially what this entire blog is. It's selfish and self stroking and now this letter is a part of that, because to be honest, it got me off...and I don't think that was the intention. Sure, there are some digs and it might make you wonder if, say, my confidence is compensation for having a small dick, but in full disclosure, it's an ego feeder. So thank you, sweet Madison. Now, this may be a one time thing and I'll be over it tomorrow, but if you write a blog in this world and people get invested...so much that they come at you...I think you owe them something. So, let's begin...

- Not Gay.
- Somewhat talented? Please.
- Peace of mind.
- My true love (word choice) will never have to read my blog.
- No agency is going to give a spec episode of EBD to Danny McBride, too much hustle too little money.
- Hustler? I could have fucked my way out of the service industry a long time ago. I work.
- I make quips behind the bars I work. I am charming. You probably weren't THAT annoyed. I know what I'm doing.
- I am very self aware, hyper sensitive. Sometimes, I have a hard time dealing because of it.
- No.
- My blog, so far, is essentially about my failure to be the two things in this world I desire to be - a lover and a writer. I've never put a term on that before, because that's not the kind of thing I do, but if I had to pick a term, what would it be more than self-deprecation?
- I've had "success" as a writer. You're writing me, aren't you? Truth, no...not really. After all, I still work in a restaurant and have made that pretty clear. People like me don't choose to work in a restaurant. In terms of EBD...all that stuff is either true or a large handful of industry people are conspiring to fuck with me. It's 30 pages, it's a great script. I can write. I played baseball. As you know, I have something of an ego. I know recreational drug abuse. Clearly, you know the show. Do the math.
- Did my last spec get love then get blasted in studio coverage? Yes. Did it get me signed? Yes. Am I on the verge of success? By world definition...I believe so. Could I be wrong? No.
- Happily ever after? I think you're asking about two lovers and I don't know that. If I died tomorrow and someone were writing my story, they could say I lived happily ever after. And I'm alone. Right now, I've everything I need. So yes.
- Bad grammar pisses me off. Spelling is worse.

Is this me? Am I this?

Yes.

Another 26.2...

And I'm on my way here, staying at a place in Union Square. On Sunday, I'm running the 5 AM marathon and haven't run seriously for about two weeks - doing 8 on each Saturday in hopes that my IT bands will somehow rebound and let me finish the entire run. This week, I met a chef who invited me to his Nob Hill restaurant so that he could cook for me. I also met a sensationally beautiful married woman who invited me to call her so that we could play adultery. I will certainly follow up on one of the two. Off to San Francisco.

Excerpt #4 - Amalfi...

Getting there. 29,000 words left to go and now things are getting tight. See, I recently wrote a new script that's been wildly received...or so I like to think, and it's now gotten me into some other trouble, the kind of trouble of stacking projects, good projects...projects that are now being welcomely demanded from me. I could only tell someone I was on sabbatical, off writing a book for so long before those someones start to get pissed off. Right now I'm enjoying this last stretch of the book, but cramming enjoyment because there's a lot of inspiration out there for me right now and I have to grab hold of it. As Team Burn recently wrote, "we're on a very good path right now...let's do the work and see how it turns out." There's lots of work, so much work...and I feel wealthy and overwhelmed by it and so anxious to take it on and mold it and shape it and eat it and fuck it. So onward but in the meantime, I just cleaned up on of Durban's opening passages and wanted to share it...because it's just...it's just.

I’m thinking about what she was thinking at the end, when she knew her end was coming…when it was close. She used to speak about slowing the world, this fantasy of paralyzing our time together so that nothing could touch or divide us. Control. I’m thinking about her end, the moments when her last pieces melted away. Maybe she succeeded, right then, and found that pause...sometime on or around her last breath. I often wonder if I crossed her mind. I wonder what she was thinking, if she thought of herself as the girl who left me behind – the only girl who ever had what it took to stand me on my feet and keep me there. I’m thinking of her crimson blood stretching across that perfect white floor and all I want to know, the only thing I want to know was whether or not she thought of me…because I’m selfish and because I’m a motherfucker and because I feel like I deserve to know. I’d give everything I have.

Absolutely...

In Catching Up With Team Burn...

Last week, we sat down, me and my guy, my rep, my back. We had spoken a little bit here and there since Kim and Val but at some point I said something like I'm going to go write a book with my boy Durban and he kind of just gave me some space...maybe because we had been though some shit, maybe because he knew it's what I was asking for. Then last week, we spoke and I told him I was almost done and ready to get back into the fight...our fight, the fight of conquering features. Meanwhile, I've been picking others all over town, every day every night every morning. I sent him the opening chapter, Paris, to read before we had dinner and a couple drinks at 3rd Stop last whenever. He read it, or at least enough of it to say something like, look...finish the fucking thing so that we can get back to business...it's good and it flies and I have someone lined up who will take it on...but finish it. I told this to Durban and of course he told me he had plenty of people, plenty of suitors who might take it on but that they would all resent him for being who he was, for all he had. He agreed Team Burn might be a good place to start, at least for the sake of loyalty.

Anyway, we parted after dinner with an agreement to meet sometime after the book was finished, before I started in on my next thing. That was the plan. Now I'm going to tell you why this game is so backbreaking. I'm going to tell you why I've so hardened, why I'm so cynical and fucking tortured. Start with my April 22nd post about the spec episode I wrote for Eastbound and Down. I wrote it in two days, hammered it out and sent it out to friends during the first draft of the book. Everyone loved it because it's near fucking perfect, and everyone gave it to their agents and passed it up and around. I have two cc'd e-mails from TV lit partners at two of the top agencies in town, proof that it was liked enough by successful enough people to put their necks out for me. I haven't heard much because the maddening fucking secret about this town is that no one reads anything, so everything you write just goes out and drifts into abyss - and that's if you're fucking good. Me and Team Burn were on the second beer and I told him I had submitted the Eastbound and Down to Disney and NBC, and told him that I was certain it would at least get me an interview. He glanced over it a little bit and tried to move off the topic and I told him I knew he hadn't read it. He admitted, and apologized, saying that there was nothing he could do with it, nothing he knew to do with it. It was 30 pages long and I told him I thought it was mild bullshit that he hadn't read it, because most importantly...he needed to know my capability of writing something other than drama and love and intensity. He said he would put it on his list and then we moved onto talking about this...

Last night, I was driving around town and something made me want to give him shit. I sent a text while I was waiting for Harry Potter that said something like, Hey Cinderella...how's Kenny Fucking Powers? I got a text back in a couple hours and he told me it was great, then to finish the book so we could get back to work. I laughed, thinking he hadn't read it, again...thinking whatever, forgivable, still my boy. Today, I was finishing a chapter about Rio around 6 when he sent me an e-mail asking about everyone who knew anything about the spec and at which agencies they were located. Then he called soon after and said something like, here I am thinking you're this very serious and love obsessed writer and you drop this on me...comic fucking genius...I printed it out and gave it to everyone I could to read today at the office and it held up...they loved it...they're quoting it...laughing out loud. Then he told me he had been running it around all day and that it was in the very least, going to draw some serious interest for a spec of the same tone, by a writer of my name. I told him I could write the next spec feature in 2 weeks once I had a clear slate, because I like to set myself up for self-destruction. We're meeting on Sunday so I can show him that when I do start this new one, it's going to deliver. I still have a book to finish, and right now that's all that matters...but you gotta respect fire when it gets lit under someone's ass who reads a couple thousand pages a week.

When the click happens, in whatever literary world it happens in, people are going to read about it and say something like, oh the timing. I'll know better. There are no Cinderellas.

Girl Talk...

Next friday, I'm leaving for San Francisco to run a marathon on a destroyed body. I have to wake up at 4 on Sunday to make my way to the line and honestly have no idea how I'm even going to finish. That's what it's going to be like. So I'm thinking this...that since I wont be sleeping Saturday night anyway, I'm gonna drive the 150 miles to Lake Tahoe to chase a show, to see this and get loose. If you only have 7 seconds, just watch 1:42-1:49...reason enough.

Death Cab...

I taught a class last night that ended on one of the great songs I know - maybe again cracking the top 10 - Death Cab's Transatlanticism. And this guy I had never met came up to me after class and asked me if I had been to the Hollywood Bowl on the 5th to see them close their encore to it. Like I said, I had never spoken to him and he seemed pretty reserved but something in the way I teach or behave made him comfortable enough to offer that seeing it that day made him cry - that it was easily the best thing he's ever seen. He told me and I got the chills then regretted so full heartedly that I missed it. Then he told me to find it on YouTube, because it was there...so I did. Here you go. Stick around for it...

Let Me Tell You Why I'm Single...

I was leaving a party tonight, on a Sunday with this girl who I had earlier traded numbers with. She liked me, maybe quite a bit, and went out of her way to make that known before things came to an end at the end of the night. I'm superficial. I liked her too. Remember Diddy's white party - she was there, hired to hang out. We said goodbye and went our separate ways and I told her I would call her or that we would hang out but I hadn't yet decided if it was truth, not whether I wanted to...only if it was truth. I remember thinking as I was walking away something like dear oh dear...my dear you have no idea. And I think all people who think they're difficult and complex like to say things like that in their mind. I certainly do. I was getting into my car when she drove by and asked me if I wanted to hear her favorite song. I smiled and got inside and we didn't listen long before she put her seat down and back and things began to happen. Not much, but things. She spoke some words between action and I smiled and laughed and thought it to be a perfect cap to the evening, listening to Radiohead and then some in some pretty girl's car. She was playing games I thought, very sweet but semi rehearsed and maybe calculated but I was okay with that because I was just there. There were moments between where we'd have short conversations and I don't remember what she was saying, only that I was thinking we were crossing the point I'd crossed with past girls and told them how messy and awful I am, warning them of how messy and awful I might turn out to be, immediately and always laying down jagged and holed roads. But I didn't, and felt like I was over that sort of behavior...actually felt growth in the moment of my realization. Instead, I just smiled...or laughed, and all I was thinking of was how maniacal I felt, knowing she must have been thinking of how sweet and cute I seemed to be. I wasn't interested in telling her I didn't much live for a tomorrow girl or any girl unless she spits acid and scares the shit from me - thus insinuating she did neither. But still...something had pulled me into that car. At some point, when the crossroads came, I gave her a shot at the crown, because Kings Road wasn't far and because for whatever reason, I felt so rarely inclined. I knew what was coming. She balked, as if the invitation were laced with such scandal. Then she surrounded the word tomorrow with a series of other unimportant words. I think I'm supposed to call her.

Team Burn Gave Me This Great Great Short To Watch After Drinks Last Night, This Is The Trailer...

They're Coming...

A couple months ago, I was honestly trying to line up life so that I could fly to Sydney for a night and see the Killers play the V festival. Tickets were cheap and I was going through something, I suppose, where everything about that idea made absolute sense. Of course I didn't go and the idea faded and I stayed in Los Angeles, maybe hoping that with patience, they would come to me. Now they are...Hollywood Bowl in September - and although I like to hit bands when they're fresh on tour for a new album, this might work out just as well - and maybe they'll go deep enough to pull something like Sweet Talk or Bourbon. Even though this video looks like a movie everyone made when they were in high school or college, including me...the song remains one of the 5 or 10 most moving in my life.

Actually, maybe listen and not watch. It's just too big. Password is KROQFAIRYTALE.

Pop Orgy From The Eye Of An iPhone...

I felt kind of raw looking back...the time right around Michael Jackson died and hearing stories of friends being out to clubs or parties and the whole night turning into a tribute to the king. I've been staying in, sticking to the work...and the reality that I've grown out of being a club kid - not that I ever really was. Anyway, last night I was on the floor of Don't Call Me Diddy's White Party and the sun was going down and the DJ started spinning Mike and this fever ran through the crowd. I looked over my shoulder, saw I was rubbing shoulders with the second coming and all I could think was that I hadn't missed a thing.