Monthly Archives: June 2017

06.25.17
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The Time Being

Watching throngs of handicapped people in wheelchairs and with breathing tubes being forcibly dragged out of Congress’ hallways by police was quite a sight.

America 2017. #forreal

As they waited for a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over a new health care bill (aka Trumpcare) that would never materialize, the rest of we Americans were being treated to images straight out of….Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale?….Mad Max Fury Road?…or fill in the latest dystopic film or television series (limited or not) of choice.

No, I’m not exaggerating. And there’s a reason this kind of programming (aka content) is popular right about now.

If our lives at the moment were a dystopic film or television series – and who is to say it isn’t given we have a reality star POTUS – one can only imagine what will follow. Certainly you don’t need to be a writer to consider the various options:

1- Police will begin to drag ALL protesters forcibly away, make protesting illegal, and then punishable by death, and then seize EVERYONE’s assets until a superhero comes to the rescue.

2- A superhero – or mere human movement – will spring up and defeat those drunk with power in a bloody, prolonged third act that will cost the studio too much money but is deemed necessary for commercial appeal.

The cheaper and more effective option #VOTE

3- Law enforcement – aka the status quo – will realize they’ve gone too far and back off in the name of decency and benevolence. (Note: Know that this is the most unpopular choice in any development meeting and always deemed woefully undramatic no matter how you try to sell it to them with clever dialogue and intricate plot twists even they didn’t see coming).

4- Self-preservation and arm-twisting will kick in and some sort of compromise will be reached. No one will be happy but society will continue and no blood will be shed. For now.

If we choose #4 – and certainly American history usually bends in this direction, it’s called the kick the can down the road compromise of choice – you will know we aren’t living a real life version of The Truman Show.

Although this is how I feel watching the news every night

Of course, that will have sidestepped the issue at hand (Note: This week it’s health care – a few months ago it was immigration – another month or two hence it could be…well, anything) – for the time being.

The time being is what intrigues me at the moment. The spaces between the monumental fights and events. It seems to me that is really where most of us live unless we’re thrill seekers like Sebastian Junger, icons like Martin Luther King Jr., or someone who believes a $6000 suit, a bad comb over dye job and all the money and power in the world hide who we really are from the vast majority of the world.

It’s hard to know how to behave for the time being. Just what do you do other than go about your daily life?

– Some of us (ahem) have taken to alternately rant and worry

Just being real

– Some of us donate money, take to the streets and yell (or worse) at anyone who disagrees with us or even gets in our way

– Some of us drink too much and party too much as if we’re the uber bourgeoisie and it’s about to be the uber French Revolution (Note: Which indeed it may be)

– Some of us pay this no mind at all and wonder why the rest of us bother

I have done all of the above except the latter. Correction, I’ve even done the latter for at least a few seconds here and there over the last six months. But no more.

… and well other times

Which means I’m left with A LOT of time being to fill even though it feels like my time – and all of our times – are running out fast.

I read a script this weekend that’s a comedy about a man dying of cancer. Apparently, it’s going to be made with a big star and by a major studio. I say apparently, because, as we know, nothing in the world is definite and this applies to the nth degree when it comes to a greenlit movie.

Anyway, in this screenplay the person with the fatal disease takes on all kinds of behavior usually deemed outrageous in an effort to get the people around him to live a little. He’s not really mean to anyone – well, except to some hypocrite he works with who, strangely enough, happens to be in a wheelchair (Note: Think real advanced affirmative action via non-stereotypical character development, an actor’s field day) – and somehow this becomes the key to….

Danny boy… you sure you want to retire??

Well, I don’t want to spoil it in case it gets made. Let’s just say it doesn’t so much solve his issues but makes everyone else around him think a little bit about their own time beings – though as far as we know it is only for the time being. The rest could or would but probably won’t be answered in a sequel.

In light of what happened this week with the many affirmed demonstrators who took to the halls of Congress in fear that they literally will die given the proposed Medicaid cuts Republicans are asking for – I initially had trouble with the new trope of handicapped hypocrite.

On the other hand, lots of other marginalized people in the story were valued and nothing too terrible happened to him that he didn’t deserve and we didn’t want to happen.

The worst of me wants the worst to happen to those manipulators who are full of themselves and only out for themselves.

Arch enemies #couldnthelpmyself

The best of me wants to protect people who are not as able-bodied or advantaged as myself even when I don’t necessarily agree with all of their actions.

But what happens if both those options are embodied in exactly the same person?

Do you go high? Or do you go low? Though really, it’s more about what I’ll do or you’ll do – that really being the collective we. Meaning it’s really ALL about the collective WE.

… or perhaps just the ROYAL WE #thecrown #alltheemmys

More likely you, I and thus “We” will reach some sort of compromise and kick the can down the road in the name of survival. For the time being at least.

As all of us, you and I rant, rave, drink, tune out and/or make jokes about it all.

I can think of no better way to usher in a new unenlightened age.

For the time… Well, you get the point. Though it’s anyone’s guess if WE do. Or ever will.

For the Time Being – Edie Brickell & the Gaddabouts

06.18.17
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Personal Reboot

Every so often you have to make a fresh start. And not many of us like doing it.

I don’t know about you but starting over and giving up on what you had or thought you had – or even moving on to something else or some new phase because what you’ve done is completed to the best of your ability – makes me alternately anxious, nauseous, angry and frozen – and often all at the same time.

Spock gets it

Think relationships, family, friends, jobs, creative projects or even one particularly troublesome person that involves all of the above. Though never think of yourself. You’re stuck with yourself for all of eternity so you may as well make the best of him or her or you will only make things worse. How do I know? Trust me, I know.

Writers do this all the time. A project eventually comes to an end and you have to put away all the reams of files, pages and accompanying books, papers and other research items in order to clear your mind and officially – move on.

Resist the temptation #BEDONE

This week I took down hundreds of index cards from the wall in my office and put away three standing boards and two dry erase easels with notations that have been there for almost a year and a half. The project I worked on was lengthy and complicated and, given the vagaries of the creative life, who knows what will happen with it. But since it was completed months ago and I was happy with it (Note: Well, relatively. No writers are ever truly happy with anything we do. That’s why we make up the story to begin with, to make sense of it) — I had to not so suddenly and finally ask myself –

Why are these f-cking cards still all over this f-cking wall?

My version of a cleanse

Good question. And what a perfect visual metaphor for everything you don’t want to let go of or give up on.

Imagine a wall full of exes? Or toxic family members? Or sickening workplaces? Or old apartments you loved but were forced out of? Or the shirt, sweater or dress you grew out of? Or the ___________ that never really _____________ while you stubbornly believed _____________ despite everybody else telling you ______________. Well, really, the list is endless.

I don’t know that I enjoy carrying around the recent or distant past with hopes I can change it. It’s more like I want to have it handy in case I can. Or use it to remind myself of just what I was feeling when that moment for revenge or victory or perfection draws near.

My brain is Mary Poppins’ bag. #manylamps

Yeah, right. Like I’ll forget. Or that it will once again happen to begin with. Or that perfection even….   See, already we’re in trouble.

I went to a Writers Guild of America screening of a clever new film called Dean – written, directed, starring and illustrated by Demetri Martin. It’s about a young cartoonist from Brooklyn who finds himself frozen in his tracks after his Mom – his biggest fan – has died.

The tagline says it all

It’s a small gem of a debut with much of the honesty, simplicity and imperfections that accompany first time filmmaking efforts. Which is to say that it is worth seeing for what it manages to simply say about life and death and – (ugh) – moving on.

Mr. Martin is a comedian/humorist best known for his Comedy Central show Important Things with Demetri Martin and appearances on The Daily Show. He also plays music, draws, writes poetry, engages in endless wordplay and has an oddball but not unapproachable take on the world.

Not to mention he’s 44 but looks 24 – or 30 at best. This is partly due to his trademark mop of shiny thick dark hair that falls pretty much across his entire forehead down to his eyebrows.

Don’t even get me started on these four mop tops

Yeah, I hate him too. But not really.

What he manages to achieve in Dean is an 87-minute treatise about starting over. It’s not so much about letting the worst or best go but incorporating the best and worst into whom you are by forcing yourself to put away all the old index cards and start on something – anything new.

Of course, this involves failing – and failing miserably. Then having a few small successes that turn into ultimate failures but give you momentary happiness that’s taken away. And then finally feeling the pain of that and a lot more until you get to the place where the original hurt still does hurt but not as badly because you have allowed yourself to have some new experiences and realize there is some potential to not be miserable – and even joyously happy again – even if, inevitably, it won’t last forever. Well, who or what does?

Ponder that for a moment

Oh, and did I mention he does a lot of cool drawings about it throughout the film, which don’t stop the action but further it. No wonder I (don’t) hate him.

I’m not sure when one of my parents died or a project I loved ended that I’d have put it into movie form where a character based on me travels to L.A., meets some friends, has an affair and continues on. Somehow, it might not have felt like – enough.

Except I recall that the last time I felt this way was when I started writing the script that would become my first produced movie.

Point being – it’s never enough.

Until it is.

Ugh.

John & Yoko “Starting Over”