Found It...

And if you looked closely, you could have seen me thrashing in that green river, flailing arms and legs in water way deeper than you would have ever guessed.

The seams split today. It's been too much, too much weight and I've been pacing through it all, talking my way through it and fighting the good fight. Today, I found bottom and everything above me was endless and impossible. Everything...

Weight of work I can no longer stand, of new work that gives me a pedestal and microphone and asks me to lead and please and sit under a spotlight when all I want to do is hide, weight of a girl I care about and foolishly got messy with, weight of a script and its need of a fix and the calls and the waiting and the expectations -- enough to snap backs. If I've been evading or escaping up until this point, today it overpowered and powered through and when it came, all I could do was stop, find a spot on my thankfully recently vaccummed carpets and let it happen...

Drawing on limited but sufficient experience, I've found it's best to let these things happen from the ground looking up, eyes on a white, calming ceiling. My ceiling also has bumps, ridges -- kind of giving it this soothing illusion of comfort and warmth. Very nice. It's best to keep the body unrestricted - so make sure to steer clear of furniture and obstruction. If you're a thrasher and/or a twister and/or a writher, always, always remember to protect your knees, shins and elbows at all times. Also, everything should be done in the nude or somewhere in the vicinity of - so important if you want to shape the experience into a motif, say, like...rebirth. Sometimes a ceiling fan can help -- simply pick a blade and follow the revolutions. That's what I did today. In other instances, music can be a good choice, a strong choice for the collection phase of what could only be described as a breakdown.

And that's where I was today, right around 11 in the AM. Pretty amazing shit.

Last night, I picked up and hour of sleep before heading off to teach a spin class before re-breaking ground on K&V. And all the work today was inventory, checking in, standing still, not moving not moving not moving, and intentions and motivations. And every bit of it is breaking and re-setting bones and it hurts and it cripples...

But I'm keeping my promise, just like the raw fucking tattoo on my wrist asks of me. Sure as hell kept it today. Sure as hell. Bloody fucking suffering.

But I made it through. Because I push. And in my experience, that's also how these things work, like shedding skin or going through an acid bath. An out with the old kind of thing, and usually there's a pot of gold on the other end. I'm not there yet, not quite -- but I certainly am at the moment listening to and fucking rocking Pat Benetar on these headphones. No doubt about it.

...

So you know that scene in Magnolia where the frogs stop falling from the sky and all of the terrible and heavy shit that's been happening kind of comes to a stop? And then the sun comes out? Wait, let me see if I can find it...okay, it's not anywhere, fuck it. That's what the back end of this is like if you go through it right...right being that you let go of your composure, you let it slip away knowing that maybe, just maybe...it might come back.

So I went back out into the world with a bag of fuck-itz in my pocket. I powered through K&V's shit, ready now to feel progress again. I went across town and picked up a new job, probably and maybe easily the most coveted in town for someone in my business. After that, I drove across town to the old job, marched my 30 star cards (received over a period of time for guest love) and I said I'll take my 300 dollars and oh, by the way, here's my 2 weeks notice, in my hyper-spastic handwriting with a P.S - "I'll miss this place -- apologies this is written by hand, someday I might grow up."

...

I crossed my manager on the way out - and let me make something clear...the place was the poison, not the people...so there will be sting in walking away, not lingering, but still...

So I pulled him aside to tell him I was gonna be shorting him, that I was leaving, that I needed a shake up, that it would be more money and less hours, that it was kind of a no brainer. He got it. And it was smiles and handshakes and threatening punches to the face and abdomen when he kind of shifted things with this forewarning of sincerity before stopping, asking...why are you so tortured?

All I could do was stutter. And I think I smiled, and laughed through it, dodging the question because I didn't even know how to begin to answer it, or if I even understood...

But I was driving home around 6, and letting the day soak through as the sun was drifting down and the question kept echoing in my head. And I just let it echo, didn't bother to cut it off with an answer or even a response, and for the next 20 minutes it was my constant and occupying thought. I didn't care, and the possibility of its truth wasn't unsettling, but comforting - like laying on my carpet, staring into the ceiling - a nice and pretty bow on top of this ripping and awe bleeding Monday.

One Sunday...

I was thinking about this sometime last night. Sometime as I was either on Mullholland or picking up Grand Lux or watching the second song The Killers played on SNL over and over and over - burning a hole in my DVR.

Something about the speed of the world, and the fact that I feel like I'm living for weeks or months at a time in a matter of days. It made me want to brand it on my arm or heart or cheek, this idea - One Sunday.

Because I was sitting with so much, and with the world to pull through this week, and then the week after that, and after that - and I started thinking to myself that the world changes, rises and falls from Sunday to Sunday. And between every Sunday, there's a lifetime. And I have no control, nothing to do but live and push, avoid naps and apathy and allow myself to feel it all because I already know I fucking do.

I just wish I knew the name of the song. Just wish it could play in this hat I call headphones.

DDL...

Los Angeles Equestrian Center...

Where this special horse named Illinois...

Tossed this very experienced and stellar rider girl/apparent gang enthusiast/helmet enthusiast/hydration enthusiast and fucked up her chin, on her birthday...

And I got to feed it carrots in Burbank...

And it's beautiful, and it felt far and smelled like shit - beautiful shit. Only the right type of person can get that. And it reminded me of the country in South Africa, maybe because I'm reaching but maybe because it really did. Like a child with his cone of ice cream on this Friday morning...

You Know, Like That Green Day Song...

There's been a lot of movement lately, in life...on many fronts. And at some point, when August was fading, I remember bracing, readying myself that September was going to be rough...but that once I made it through to the other side, all that would await: bright lights and a new and majestic life. And a few days ago, the above song crept into my playlist and it started banging my head and it kind of made me smile - thinking back to what I was thinking, labeling a month as this villain, training myself to think of it as a battle. Funny, behavior in hindsight.

I've been working hard on a script that is going to change my life. I completely believe that. And last week, I finished it, and I had in my hands a story about two kids in love, and it's raw and it moves and it crushes. I believe all that. And on Tuesday night, I had a meeting with Team Burn to talk about the direction we were going to take it in. We talked about the process of sending out a spec - that you get it in the best possible shape it can be in, you get everyone on board in the company (in my case, a management company), and usually on a Tuesday, you circle the wagons and send it out to everyone around town. And then you wait. And the thought of it put a fire in me. And we started talking about the small things we had to do to get it there -- the character work that we needed to do before it would be ready. Then we started talking about other things - scripts, ideas, writers who had recently caught fire and the scripts they wrote, the scripts they broke with -- everything that had been moving lately around town.

Then we started talking about our expectations of ourselves and of each other. We talked about our expectations of the scripts we want to take out to town - our names big and bold on the front. And we came to a couple conclusions about our kids, Kim and Val. We knew that the story was good, and that it works and works well...it does. And we knew the writing was there. But this moment hit and we couldn't avoid it...there's room. It can be better. It can be bigger. It can be bolder. It can blow the fucking doors off this town. And the only thing standing in the way of it being better is the work, is the grind and the shit and the piss. And running from all that is coward. And running from all that isn't how I'm wired. Lucky and/or fucky for me - it seems Team Burn's gonna hold me to it.

He left and left notes and I chewed through it all. And all day yesterday, all day, I felt like I was going to throw up...all day. It was amazing, all these feelings and ideas burning and tumbling through one another. Like everything was coming to life and dying all at the same time. Because I realized that October is going to be just like September. And November is going to be just like October. And down the line when this sells and my life does change, 2009 is going to be just like 2008 and nothing is going to change. And I'm okay with that. Because looking back, September was pretty fucking raw...but pretty fucking sensational. I've never made strides like this, ever. I've never grown like this, ever. And I can be happy pretending to be miserable for the rest of my life. So anyway...

I'm sitting at home yesterday, honestly fucked out of my mind and I get this phone call. It was from a production company that works in the 10-20 million range. And they roll out with Warner Bros. and Universal and Fox. And this girl says that she read Kim and Val and that she loved them and that it was the kind of film they might be interested in -- maybe with a little less violence and a little development - and she said her boss already had it and was going to read it on her flight to London or sometime after she got there. And I said that was great and amazing and that I was flattered and through the roof -- but that it is still evolving and that me and Team Burn were going to take it under the knife again - that it will be ready soon, and to be patient. And she was cool with that, said that when I was ready, they'll be ready for it. Hard move...but the right move.

I just can't cut the corner on this one. I just can't do it - unable to allow self. And I made a promise with Team Burn that we will never settle for anything less than the best we can possibly be. And he made a promise back. We're going big, eyes set on the biggest of big boys...in the biggest of big boy towns.

And so away we go...once again and forever 'til we find that screen.

Wolf Parade...

Anyone who has the stones to even put down an 11 minute song, and then release it, and then absolutely at least blow my mind deserves chronicle. Everything here is exquisite...

1925-2008...

Friday Night 9:45-11:00...

Dear Kim & Val...

I apologize, it's been a while since we checked in. Or, since I've checked in. See, I've been busy. I've been working -- sweat, blood, tears to bring the two of you to life. I've been fighting, every day, nearly a thought a minute, doing everything I can to help you find immortality. You've taken my sleep, my calm, my rational thought and replaced it with fury and invincibility and hope. You've made my mind and heart unstable. To that, I give profound thanks. Every day, you get inside me, save me, occupy me...and to that, I give profound thanks. All I can offer in return -- a promise to not let you down, to not stop until you're on that screen, until your story pours out onto the world. That I promise.

Since we met, you've been my obsession. And I hope that's not weird, me coming out and saying so. I believe in and value honesty above all things and can't help but think our rapport is strong enough to handle any truth.

Recently, as you know, I sent your story, in progress, out to the first line of gatekeepers in charge of making possible everything we envision. And they loved you. They're fascinated by you. And now there's a team working to give you due perfection. We're working together to bring you to life - not one inch short of what you deserve. And with this team behind me behind you, you will be unstoppable. And you'll find life. And your story will take over the world. And you'll never die...

But patience now. Much work ahead. Soon, we begin.

All love,

Burn

Fascination...

A few days ago, I was standing by the pool at work, mind clenching, face numb - something like that after a long day of work and being at work was this terrible drag, something pulling on me something awful.

And I was holding this pen behind my back, in my right hand. This metal pen and I bent it until it snapped and it echoed through the courtyard. I looked to my finger and it was torn open, nothing too awful, but not too pretty. And it was bleeding, and I'm looking at it now and the Neosporin I'm now pouring on and into it because it's starting to hurt and I think it's going to have to get amputated because the pain is pretty deep and I keep on envisioning myself with 9 fingers -- a right hand without a thumb and I think that would look pretty cool. Pretty cool.

And I look to my body and I'm looking for scars - worry a day will come when I feel there should be more - that I've been cheated or that I've cheated myself. Then I laugh. Just because they can't be seen...

I remind self - I'm doing a fine job, a good job - that the line is falling, and I toe it as it falls. And I'm mistaking happiness for madness, because there's so much of one or the other at any given moment and it's a lot, asking someone to deal with either or both, everything all at the same time. I just breathe.

Because I'm still learning to be capable -- of handling -- of managing these assets of mind. On nights like this, in the past, I'd head out and grab a drink, let it spiral into something special. And by special, I mean the opposite of. But that's where I'm headed tonight - out to see what's what. I feel alright, like I'm headed somewhere, away from destruction and this is the new path, tonight, for a while...to see what's what...

Show me a faraway land. Show me a faraway land. Show me a faraway land.

Kings of Leon...

Oh, Kids...

I woke up today the same way I've woken every day for the past 2 weeks. I eat, settle and greet the kids -- Kim and Val -- for a span of time ranging anywhere from 5-9 hours. And I slam and destroy and bend words and feelings, trying to make something so flimsy into something so concrete - something that'll fetch me my 5-6 figures - something that officially ends playtime and begins, well...playtime.

I'm abstract when I'm working, at least when I'm in deep. I have nothing left at the end of the day. Things get simple, things are simply simplified. And the harder I work the harder I have to work to blow it all out, to fit it in a box and dispose of it somewhere outside of my person. Today, after a brutal but all affirming day of script work, before going to the gym, I ran up Sunset Plaza Drive with my buddy Will. Last March, we somewhat ran the LA marathon together and have made this something of a weekly appointment - to climb the steep and winding hill until we reach the top, above the smog, above the cars, above this wonderfully poisoned city . It's metaphorical to say the least. Between breaths, we talk shit and of ideas that fetch far. And when we get to the top, we check the clock at Ice Cube's house, slap hands and decide the pace of decent -- all depending on how much time we have before the real workout starts.

I left the gym sometime after 7 tonight, overdone as usual, but lighter. My motor skills and skills of mind had long ago departed. When I'm in work, I lose my gift of communication. The vocal webs I usually sling with such skill and savvy hang limp like Durban's whiskdic. People think I'm on drugs. I'm actually not. It's all good...because I'm on pace. I'm at the exact spot I want to be. And this progression is my vigor, and I'm moving into something of a rare form, only wanting to be composed of three things -- moving towards a day where I am all and only three things...Muscle, Brain, Heart. That's all, all I have a tolerance left to carry.

Hangin' Wit J...

Somewhere In The Night...

I'm on a new kick, back to Knights of Cydonia - and it's pounding me, somewhere in my guts, because I listen to everything too loud, because I want it to explode my head. And it's pulling back memories -- of seeing the Muse boys play live and feeling something so profound, so big, so charging.

I'm berserk. Last night, lightning struck, something coming into me, changing me with a no discussion declaration -- that the things that have brought me happiness will no longer serve - that the things making me content will no longer suffice. I felt in an instant I would never get back the person I had so recently been. And I can't point to exactly what caused it. I got back from dinner sometime around midnight and couldn't sit still. I paced and analyzed and fantasized and spoke to myself in such abundance that I had to stop, find a mirror, tell myself I was speaking to myself in such abundance - because calling it out makes it okay. And I couldn't settle. I couldn't right my mind and didn't want to -- it was involuntarily righting itself.

There's something big afoot here - something that's bigger than anything I've ever been. I can feel it. And the thought of it stretches, and the thought of it is the aim of my every search, and the thought of it transforms the world I know - teaches me to cope with revelation.

Because this, THIS has to be bigger than everything in this life. And I feel like life has to suffer for it to flourish - because nothing gives me glory like it - and I'm okay with that - I feel like I'm going to have to be okay with that - and I'm never going to apologize for it. This is a state of evolution. When I don't know how to handle these things, I simply sit back and let them handle me.

In Dreams and Welcome Back...

I woke up yesterday with this great gift. Usually on Sundays, I wake up with an apocalyptic mind. Yesterday was different.

I was sleeping when I got the phone call. When I answered, I was still sleeping, if you follow. Someone was yelling on the other end, so angry at me - my actions, my lacking responsibility. The voice told me to come to the hospital and fast.

When I arrived, there was this line of people waiting for me, eyes like razors as I made my approach. And they were judging, hostile. I felt awful, not so much as for what I'd done, but for what I would have to live with. When I got to the room and turned inside, I found this girl, and she was holding a baby. I recognized her straight away - a girl from my past. She was beautiful, so beautiful. Durbs, you woulda been so proud - a mag girl on many occasions. I remembered a distant feeling, lusting after this...her and her face and her body like possibly no other I had known. But when we spoke, I'd float away. We went to dinner, maybe a movie a long time ago and I remember this numbing feeling crawling over my body and mind, so un-held. I remember taking her to bed, knowing I wanted to but shouldn't. And I remember that being that, knowing it was going to turn out exactly like that.

Everyone in the room started in on me, yelling and screaming, evidently pissed that I had slept through the birth of my child. I looked at the mother and she was indifferent, soul-less, like they or I or everything had sucked it from her. They were yelling and screaming and I felt like I was dead or wanted to be.

I woke up a few minutes after 8 and didn't move, let it settle that what happened in my sleep wasn't my reality. I considered the possibility that laying in bed not being a father was my dream, that the alternate reality was in fact, mine.

It wasn't. It isn't. I was okay.

...

It's Monday. I woke today before 7 to start back in on my two darling, deviant lovers. I woke up with some shit in my guts, still some remnants of the recent girl, one held in distantly higher esteem. The fact that she's still here is marveling and maddening. I want to go to the bathroom and puke her out, all of her - be clean again - for moments. But then comes back my thirst for self destruct, something inside me and all it wants to do is embrace the shit, teach me how to love it like I would my would-be bastard child.

Good things, I'm in. Promise.

...

This room is dark and long and would echo if you let it. These headphones swallow my head. This instrument beneath my hands makes me strong. My heart is bleeding. This feeling feels like home. I'm home. Now I eat the world.

Bonnie & Clyde...

Butch & Sundance...

I spent the day at the WGA library, glued, leafing through William Goldman's 190 some page Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. I was reading it for style...how he handled the stick up robberies of the old days and how to send two brilliantly drawn characters to their death and into cinema immortality. The day was awe-inspiring. I mean, Goldman goes so far beyond brilliant that it's like he's all ease. His pen just glides. Fiction, screenplays, whatever. Read Princess Bride and tell me otherwise.

And this...oh, this...

Clarence & Alabama...

"Well, Lee, it's like this. You're getting the bargain of a lifetime because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. You're used to dealin' with professionals. I'm not a professional. I'm a rank amateur. I could take that and I could cut it and I could sell it a little bit at a time and make a helluva lot more money. But, in order to do that, I'd have to become a drug dealer. I'm not a drug dealer. And I don't want to be a drug dealer. Deal with cut-throat junkies, killers; worry about gettin' busted all the time. Just meetin' you here today scares the shit out of me and you're not a junkie, a killer or a cop, you're a fucking movie producer. I like you and I'm still scared. I'm a punk kid who picked up a rock in the street, only to find out it's the Hope Diamond. It's worth a million dollars, but I can't get a million for it. But you can. So I'll sell it to you for a couple a' hundred thousand. You go make a million. It's all found money to me anyway. Me and my wife are minimum wage kids, two hundred thousand is the world." QT

4:38 destroys me...

Romeo & Juliet...

This weekend, I met with a gentleman who is going to manage me and career. We're on the same path - two young bucks, foaming at the mouth, eyes with aim on world domination. He took a liking to Kim and Val, embraced its strength, its weaknesses that I was too weak to see and we tore through it with a plan -- go back to work, spit it out in a couple of months when its undeniable, let it alter our paths in life. And I feel there's a weight been carried away. I got a corner man.

The process for this week is simple. Read a script, watch the film. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Last night was Boondock Saints. This was today's:

Dear Durban...

Sound advice, chap. (In case you aren't wise to the exploits of my friend, John Durban, kindly play catch up link right).

Let's stick to themes here. You quote me, I quote you. It keeps going through my head, you, knowing some girl just touched me up, explaining the ways and woes of love. I want to play a game. Since your readers suffered the luxury of playing out my shit at home, let's turn a table, call the name of my game, "Consider the Source."

This is you in love. I know. I've been there...

"She took me into her mouth. I think it was the taller one, but I had lost track. By now they were both on their knees, double team revival. Nothing was happening. Nothing. Not a movement. I didn't know what it was. I tried to explain. I said things like whisky and blow and weed and that mystery yellow pill I dropped on Marnixstraat and fucking blue balls and double fucking two Japanese school girls and the combination of everything but they didn't speak a lot of English."

And that's what I always admire about you, John, your invested heart. You lay it out there. You delve, and deep. The authority by which you speak is warranted and staggering. I've found that only those in possession of a hyper-ripe moral compass can expect to dish beliefs by which I pay even a momentary mind. So let's put you to the test. Speed round, shall we Durbs?

"I didn't know anything about the pills we took. I didn't know what had brought me to the Italian coast, but I was driving, fucked out of my mind and she was screaming at me and I couldn't hear a word of it. Nothing was processing. I was winding the coast in and old Alfa Romeo - topless - trying to hit a hundred miles an hour screaming back I want to die I want to die I want to die."

Nice.

"Prague is good for two things -- hookers and cocaine."

Excellent.

"There's a very distinct sound that happens when you clear out a man's teeth with a rusted hammer, like breaking through an egg shell -- soft, delicate, yet there's enough fortitude there to actually give the metal of the hammer a slight ring."

Sensational.

"Let her go. You'll be fine. You'll always be fine. You're the fucking Burn, man. The fucking Burn."

Thanks, D.