Progress Bars Or: How I Began Feeding My Narcissism

Ever since David and his blog Man Bytes Hollywood informed the bloggernet in June '05 (actually even earlier than that)that we could track our progress through cool color bars, we've been strapped to the nines full of 'em. Hell, at one point I had eight separate progress bars on my blog.

Well, here I have some spanking new progress bars to show off...despite the fact that there isn't really any progress to display. The act of adding these to my blog reminds me of the famous Tyler Durden quote in Fight Club. "Self improvement is just masturbation". In this case the quote should read "Self acknowledgment is just masturbation". What have I accomplished? Nothing. Yet here I am showing my "nothing" to the world in fancy crimson blood percentage points. As you take a gander and marvel at my works which are tantamount to failures, please remember to feed the monster on the way out.

Blood Recipe

For those that asked.

1 c. Karo Syrup

1 Tbsp Water

2 Tbsp Red Food Coloring

1 tsp Yellow Food Coloring

You may want to fiddle with a little blue to add some different variations on color. You could go Italian horror style, bright red, or more modern dark red.

Humans Fit To Eat

Humans are the dopiest species on the planet. Accomplishing two tasks at once seems almost an impossibility. I mean, really, if I see one more middle aged woman driving an SUV over three lanes of traffic with a cell phone glued to her ear I may just go off. However, there is nothing worse these days than wiggers. How many punk wiggers do I have to get the stare down from? I'm walking in Macy's (horrifying as that is) and this douche decides he's going to play chicken with me. He walks by, hat cocked, like he's built of granite, though he weighs 105 soak and fucking wet. And I have to make the emasculating choice of swaying my shoulder out of his shoulders path so that I can have a peaceful afternoon at my home instead of a break down in a holding cell. I hear his muttering under his breath as he makes for the exterior doors. A twinge in my neck tells me I should have squashed that punk. Yet, here I am being the bigger man, both figuratively and literally. I probably have three inches on the kid, and I'd venture a guess, a legit 150lbs.

Now the question is should I have strangled the kid until he was purple like I wanted, or did I do the right thing? And if I did do the right thing, why do I feel like it's oh so wrong? This is the reason the club scene is off limits for me. Guys are so idiotic, posturing like we're cave men in a cave clan. And I know that I can't resist it for a full night, because after all, I am man, and deep down, I'm a stupid douchebag as well. I suppose I just control my idiocy, but being out in this world today for me is akin to those old fake snake in a can pranks (Snakes in a can!). I have a lid on my primal tendencies but at any moment the lid will pop off and some yellow and black velvety snake will come out and give someone a well deserved heart attack.

And let me say this now: young white girls are just about as stupid as can be. Sure, they've always been naive, how else would guys get laid so early and often? But now, not only do young white girls think the hip hop culture is theirs, they play it out to the hilt. They dress like the fucking men for shit sake! The cocked Yankees cap, the crooked peace sign, the sweats around their ankles, you know the style. And listen, as a guy speaking here, if I were 18 again, I wouldn't care. But looking at it now, I just shudder to think that these girls will have children some day, probably sooner than later, and the kid will be walking around sagging. Probably because the diaper is full, but you get the point.

I can only imagine how black dudes feel. Not about the dopey white girls, because I know how they feel about them (easy pickens). But these white guys who make a mockery of the hip hop culture. I wonder if they have the feelings I have, torture scenes included? Or do they respect these punks? I have no clue.

Maybe because I'm just another dumb white man.

All Your Search Belong To Us

including this google search: best sawzall for fucking

Yep, I guess my many posts on sawzall fucking have pushed me up the ranks with google.

Inland Empire

I just watched (finally) David Lynch's latest and I have to say it blew me away. Even better than Mulholland Drive. Laura Dern was amazing. the music was pitch perfect, and the cinematography was as good as it gets. Imagine The Lost Highway intertwined with Mulholland Drive, and a dash of Eraserhead, running just one minute under three hours. It's as scary as it sounds. And as brilliant. Seriously, this is as scared as I've been during a film in years. This is psychological horror at its best. There are at least 10-15 different scenes that had me either jumping out of my chair, or feeling as if I was about to do so at any moment.

I cannot recommend this movie enough.

"Death has come to your little town, Sheriff"

I would be the sheriff. The town would be Maple Shade, NJ. As soon as I moved back from Florida to pursue my intentions of directing my own film, Generator, I was hit with death. My grandfather was deathly ill and passed away shortly thereafter(I believe I mentioned this in one of my last blog updates). During the following months, I wasn't making much headway with my film project for a variety of reasons. Expecting people to work for free is naive at best, disaster at worst. My experience falls right in the center of the two. Despite laying all of the groundwork for the film, I hadn't been hands on with people enough. Meaning I didn't really explain the finer details to them. Such as which scene we'd be shooting upon the first night. And after I did, I didn't follow up and make sure they were ready, I just assumed it. That's when lack of money began to rear it's f'n face. My girlfriend/roomate upped and left about a year ago, leaving me with the full rent of which I of course cannot afford without forgoing just about everything else, film included. I get out of the lease this February. And that will get me back on track, I think. But anyway, one meandering month after another passed and I still hadn't gotten anything filmed. While this was going on, my father passed away. To make a long story short, I hadn't seen him in 16 years, but it was shock to the system anyway for many reasons I won't get into now. So a few more months go by, and my grandmother turns out to be very ill. Within months, she is bed ridden in the hospital and I'm making a decision to take her off the ventilator (she never wanted it anyway). She died the next morning peacefully. (A couple of weeks ago just before Christmas)

So here I am, almost two years back and nothing to show for it. To make matters worse, I completely neglected my writing since I was in producing/directing mode. And now, as I try to ease back into it, I am at a total loss as to how to proceed. There's just nothing there. Great ideas, sure. But shit, everyone has great ideas. Then I remembered this little blog I used to rant on, one that started because of the same exact thing- a lack of direction, motivation and some pretty hefty writer's block. It's not called the constipated writer because I was a writing machine when I started this, right? And to my surprise, it is still here. I'm quite sure nobody is linked up with me anymore, but that's okay. I get to write without really realizing it, and perhaps that will spur me on to my projects.

Which are:
1. Spec script of The Office for the Nickelodeon fellowship.
2. Death by Dating-dark comedy feature length script
3. Wombies-dark comedy-feature length script

So there you have it. A harrowing journey just like I always expected it to be. However, the good thing is I still have the location. I still have the actors. And I still have the ambition to make Generator. And I think I will.