The beginning of the end

"The doors was closed/I felt like Bad Boy's street team/I couldn't work the Lox." -- Kanye West, "Touch the Sky"

So it's been an interesting last few days in my life. I got the flu for the first time on Friday and was in bed for a couple of days with a 101 degree fever. It broke sometime mid-Saturday and I've progressively felt better ever since. It was good to be off King Day and I took off today just to continue to build strength.

But it gave me a lot of time to think about my present and my future. Lord willing, I'll be 31 years old next month, and I've gotten to an age where I can't keep working at a day job that takes so much of my time (and energy and gas money) and keep writing and fighting to be an artist for the other four hours of the day. I think my body is showing me, dude, you're stressed and you can't keep just working all day and watching TV/writing/reading all night and just hoping that something you write will magically rescue you from this grind. (Especially at the lightning quick rate that people reject and dismiss every single thing I send out.) Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a number's game and the cream eventually rise to the top, blah blah blah. But I'm almost 10 years in the game and I've got the same won-lost record as the untalented writers. And I'm not untalented.

What I am is aging. So now I'm trying to figure out what else I want to do with my life. I'm even talking with the wife about going to grad school and being a graduate assistant basketball coach. Because coaching basketball is the only other thing I could see myself doing that I wouldn't feel like I'd been wasting my time. Then, I was thinking maybe I just need to learn a trade. Like I should become an electrician or something. And write on the side. That way, if I never find a way to conquer the relentless apathy with which my work seems to leave editors and agents, at least I'll be getting paid handsomely for doing very little work, and can do that very little work as infrequently as I like.

So I'm giving myself two years. I still have to finish my rewrite of my novel (should be done by summer). Still have to finish my short script for Parkside Boulevard and film the pilot. Have a few other things I had planned to do this year. And then, for the first time in a long time, I'll be working on some new short stories/screenplays, etc, probably this summer, and we'll see where they go.

But my optimism is fading. I thought it was my creativity that was leaving me, but it turns out, it's just my optimism. (And if the perpetual optimist himself is doubting his place in the world, you should look for shelter too, my friend.) The writers' strike hasn't helped things either. It made me think about how shook I would be if I was on the other side of the fence and already successful, and now stood to lose my house, cars, kids' college tuition, all because of something completely beyond my control. That would suck too. So either way, it's a tough tough nut to crack and I just don't know if I want to deal with being so unreasonably obscure a writer for an indefinite period of time.

Or maybe it's just time to change jobs.

On a happier note, the wife and I went out to see a sneak preview of Michel Gondry's new film, Be Kind Rewind.



It inspired me tremendously, despite my current gloom and doom attitude. I feel weird going into details about movies that I saw for free at a sneak preview, but I can definitely say GO SEE IT!!! Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover star, as well as Melonie Diaz, whom I liked very much in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. Mia Farrow and Sigourney Weaver appear in smaller, important roles. The plot, like all of Gondry's movies, is strange: Mos works at Danny Glover's decrepit, barely in business, VHS rental store. Jack Black is this extra weird cat that hangs around a lot and seems far more trouble than he's worth. Jack gets electrocuted and unintentionally demagnetizes all the store's tapes. The few customers are disgruntled and complain, so Mos, Jack and Melonie (whom they borrow from a local dry cleaners) go Fat Albert-style and use whatever borrowed or stolen props, people, or locations they can to reenact 20 minute versions of each movie for the rental customers. The improbable solution takes off and the store begins to see unprecedented business. Then, the copyright infringement folks show up with their fines and threats of jail time.

The movie starts slow, and Jack Black's electrocution scene is LONG -- past all plausibility -- but those are almost finicky complaints for a film that does such a brilliant job of capturing hope and community and the power of cinema. The entire cast shines. Really, go see it. I love Gondry for the same reason I love Pharrell, because they have somehow found a way to remain 12 years old, in a world that humans seem to age in dog years every day.

As for me, I will continue to do what I can. Until I can do no more.

And then I'll be gone.

back in the saddle again

I hope to update things around here a little more regularly, now that it seems things have calmed a bit. I'm always trying to figure out what I want to do here and once I lost sight of that, I didn't really have a reason to post. I haven't really been taking a lot of pics lately, so not much to update on that front. But I'm working on some writing stuff that you may want to be aware of.

I'm in the middle of rewriting the first three chapters of my novel, Somewhere Between Here and There, through a correspondence class I'm taking with the Long Ridge Writers' Group. This is my second class with them and it's one of the best decisions I've made. My teacher this go-around, Kris Franklin, seems real cool. The point of this class is to do your first three chapters, plus a synopsis and have it be presentable enough that some agents might show you some love. My time at the Iowa Summer Writing Workshop two summers ago taught me that the opening of the book is weak. And with a weak opening, you're finished. Writing problems are like roaches: if you see two, there's probably six. Restructuring the opening helped me to come up with a stronger structure and points of emphasis for the rest of the book. I just sent my renovated first chapter to him last week and I'm proud of it. It is infinitely better. What I'm saying is that I've finally figured out what I'm doing.

I'm working on a few things that I'm trying to get into Wax Poetics. And I volunteered for the L.A. Film Festival at the end of June. Shawn Parker was submitted, but it's not like I'm holding my breath. I've gotten, like, 12 rejections. I have some theories as to why, but you just learn and move on. Meanwhile, I feel like I'm starting from scratch in some areas, particularly film networking. Hence the volunteering. I'm looking forward to it.

Three of my scripts are out, at the Nicholls Fellowship, and in the hands of a producer who has mostly done plays, but is looking to branch into film. And I also applied for the Project:Involve mentorship program. Any or all of these popping off would be, I'm sure, a rewarding opportunity.

Did a review on Joe's new album at ThaHipHop.com, and I have Stephen Marley's new CD on my desk at work, awaiting its fate. I just finished my latest Intrepid Media article. It'll be out Monday. It's on my love/hate relationship with working out.

The playoffs? Bananas. My Pistons are looking so loverly, I can hardly stand it. I'm proud of Golden State and this series with Utah is looking quite phenomenal. It sounds blasphemous to say, but I like this Utah team. I've liked them ever since I saw them dismantle the Clippers earlier this year. (Refer back to my December '06 post.) I just really like Deron Williams' game, man. I like it a lot. If he keeps playing the way he did tonight, I don't think the rest of the planet will be too far behind me.

It's getting late and my cough syrup is kicking in.

Outro.