Damn I suck at this

So I was wrong about everything Oscar wise - except the bit about Walter Murch, but only because he wasn't nominated for anything (and he probably would have lost if he was nominated only because I said he'd win). And I guess my bit about Marin Scorcese wasn't wholly incorrect, so really it seems I only got two wrong, but that's two out of three.

On a side note, as a huge fan of Charlie Kaufman I'm very happy he won, and continue to believe that Scorcese should stop trying to get an oscar and just make the great independant minded films he used to make. In regards to everything else: I couldn't care less.

And that's that for the oscars.

And though she wasn't nominated for anything - I am and will forever be in love with Scarlett Johansson, regardless of that restraining order. One thousand yards be damned. (A bit of an aside, they are in the pre-production stages of a The Last Unicorn motion picture and she is the only one in my mind who could play Lady Amalthea, any one else cast would be a disapointment. I'm sure this will come up again on this site in the future, just wanted to get my 2 cents in now.)

Uh... Carry on then.

oscar the grouch

Tonight is the Oscars. The beautiful night where hollywood pats itself on the back for making at least five palatable movies out of the hundreds of crappy ones it pumps out every year. Unfortunately I can't really comment on any of the films as I haven't seen any of them. That's what happens when you're poor. However, when in doubt always bet on John Williams, and Walter Murch and bet against Martin Scorcese and Charlie Kaufman.

I don't even know if Walter Murch is nominated for anything. Hell, I don't even know if he's still alive (though I'd bet money that he is). But if he is nominated he's gonna win that editing statue.

I think if they gave Scorcese an Oscar now, for The Aviator, it would be more insulting than anything else. it's like the kids at the cool table in high school horribly tormenting a dweeb who so badly wants to sit with them. All four years this dweeb has tried everything he could think of to land a seat at the cool kids table, and now, at the end of senior year, the cool kids, purely out of pity, say to the Dweeb: 'Sure come sit with us.' Every one in the lunch room knows that the dweeb doesn't belong at that table but everyone just winks and smiles like they're in on the joke. Sure the dweeb might be really great, and in the future be remembered as being greater than all the cool kids combined, accepting the dweeb this one time, and so late, just shows how much of a joke they really think of him and are just letting him sit with them this once so he shuts-up and goes on his way. That's Scorcese in a nutshell. He should just stop trying to pander to the Oscar and go back to making great independent minded films like he used to.

Charlie Kaufman is brilliant, funny, turns clichés on their ears: there is no way he can win. He doesn't give us hollywood endings, he doesn't give us happy stories, or sad stories; he gives us good stories that combine many elements of human emotion that can be both happy and sad at the same time. Oscar doesn't like smart or complex. Oscar likes big, over the top, extravagant, and drama. So Kaufman is out.

I shouldn't even have to explain John Williams.

The rest I have no idea about, and only wish that the other categories (short film, short animation, documentary, ect) were more accessible. I really wish i knew where I could go to see those nominated before hand, because as it stands I don't think i've heard of any of those nominated for the aforementioned categories.

Enjoy your TV and let's all hope that Chris Rock can keep the ceremony under four hours (so far my favorite host was Steve Martin, he was funny, he was in, he was out, it was over and I didn't lose any sleep staying up till the end).

that is all for now.

Uh, carry on then...

In your ear

I didn't get the job with the ad agency, which is all very good. Direct marketing apparently is going door to door, form business to business, trying to sell coupons, and annoying the hell out of the customers and the employees of the business you are interupting.

That's just sleezy and I don't want to be one of those ass-holes.

that's it for now, Oscar info to come later.

Uh... Carry on then

trust me little ones

What the hell is direct advertising? I have no freaking clue and yet I have a job interview on Weneseday for an ad company that specializes in Direct Advertising. They don't explain at all what it is on their website. I have a sneaking suspision that it has something to do with telemarketing; not something I really would care to do. On the plus side it gets me into Boston for the day so there's that. I'm gonna half to (by which I mean I want to) call some friends to see if they are available for a visit after my interview. I want to bring an extra pair of shoes as mine are ok to wear for a while but I don't want to be walking around boston in them.

Currently I sit in New York (Douglaston, Queens to be precise)watching the snow gently tumble down from the heavens; trying not to ease drop on my brother talking to his girlfreind over the phone. I was hoping to get into the city tomorrow to maybe see the gates they put up in central park or do something else fun only availabel to me in New York. Alas I think my day will be spent in doors, reading comic books, maybe going bowling with my siblings. Roni won't be there so maybe this time I'll win 'cause I'm better than Asaf and I'm pretty sure I can beat Hillel.

that's it for now.

Carry on then...

A poem for valentines day

Macaroni and Cheese
a prose poem

Mr. Smith had come home to his wife only to find she was dead.

“You’re dead?” He asked.

“No, I’m just resting face down on the cold kitchen floor. Or course I’m dead you idiot.” She yelled at him.

“Did you make me any dinner?”

“Yes, there is some Macaroni and Cheese in the refrigerator. You just have to put it in the oven for about fifteen minutes and it will be ready.”

“Thank you.” Mr. Smith said as he stepped over his wife's body and opened the refrigerator to get to his macaroni and cheese. “As long as I’m here do you want anything?” Mr. Smith asked politely.

“No you idiot. I’m dead.”

“No need to get snippy.” Mr. Smith said. “Boy, you sure are cranky when you’re dead.”

Short story in honor of valentine's day

The Happy Couple

Mr. Smith was walking home one day to notice a large skeletal foot sticking out of the ground. Carefully so that no child would trip over it Mr. Smith decided to pull it out of the dirt. The foot however was stuck and refused to move from it’s designated spot. Mr. Smith being a nice man took off his coat and started digging. It wasn’t too long until Mr. Smith had uncovered an entire skeleton.

“What business have you here?” The Skeleton asked Mr. Smith.
“Why? I just wanted to move your foot so that no child would trip as they walked home from school.” Mr. Smith replied.
“And you just decided to move my foot without asking?” The Skeleton asked angrily.
“I meant no disrespect, just looking out for the children you know.”
“Well I’m awake now and it always takes me forever to fall back to sleep. Do you mind keeping my spot warm as I run off for a cup of tea.”

Not knowing what else to do Mr. Smith sat down in the hole he had dug as the skeleton walked away.
“When will you return?” Mr. Smith called after the calcium clad creature that slowly vanished in the distance.
“Never you worry about that.” The Skeleton replied and continued on it’s way.
“But you aren’t dressed so no one will sell you tea.” The Skeleton realized the truth to the statement, turned around and very nicely asked to borrow Mr. Smith’s clothes.
“Here you go.” Mr. Smith said as he climbed back into the hole naked. “It is the least I can do.”

Later after Mr. Smith had fallen asleep in the Skeletons bed some children happened to be walking home from school.
“Oh no, an open grave, we should fill it up so that no adult falls in and hurts themselves.” One of the children said. So the other children began filling up the hole with Mr. Smith inside. As they finished they walked away proud they had potentially saved a life.

The Skeleton returned not much later with a cup of tea in hand unable to find his resting place. It was then that Mrs. Smith was out drving the town looking for her husband.
“Get in the car you silly old man.” Mrs. Smith said to the Skeleton. “I leave you alone for a day and you lose too much weight. Come home dear husband so that I may fatten you up once agian.” The Skeleton just shrugged, got into the car and drove home. “I can’t leave you a second with out you getting into trouble.” Mrs. Smith said. The skeleton said nothing, not knowing how to respond.

When Mr. Smith awoke later he cursed the skeleton who he beleived had tricked him. He tried to climb out of the ground but then died from lack of oxygen.

Mrs. Smith and the Skeleton lived happily ever after.

A prose poem

The would be Angel

An Angel decided to see what it was like being a man so it grew a penis and went to Earth.

“Hey, look at that funny looking angel.” A little boy said to his sister.

“I’m not an angel, I’m a man, look at my penis.” The Angel retorted.

“No you aren’t.” The sister said. “Men don’t walk around naked.” So quickly the angel put on some pants.

“See, I’m a man.” The Angel said now dressed.

“No you aren’t. Men don’t have wings.” The brother said.

“Oh.” So the Angel took off it’s wings and placed them on the ground. Quickly the brother and sister each took a wing held hands and started to fly.

“Hey! Where are you going with my wings?” The Angel asked.

“Your wings? They can’t be your wings.” The airborne couple replied.

“Why not?” The Angel asked angrily.

“Because men don’t have wings.” The siblings said as they flew up to heaven.

“I guess not.” The man admitted as he watched the two children grow smaller in the distance.

here we are once again

So it's a few hours past midnight and I have nothing to do, thus I write an entry to this blog.

I'm applying to jobs, being unemployed, that's what one does, or needs to do, otherwise, one is stuck with no money, stranded from friends, living at home with one's mother. I'm not talking about anyone in specific here, just a general observation. Anyway, I'm applying to jobs. One thing I hate (among the many things I hate) are most of the jobs I find interesting posted on craigslist. For instance. Today I sent my resume to a what sounds (based solely on the description) to be a promising position. The problem, the company name isn't listed anywhere in the post, and the only contact info is an anonymous e-mail address. Is this a legit job? Is it some scam just to get e-mail address's from unsuspecting dopes like me? How can I verify that they actually got my resume? It is so very discouraging.

In other news; I've come to the realization that though my grammar is less than desireable, I can't stand when other people's grammar is incorrect. Call me hypocritical (just don't call me a hippo, oh what a bad pun!), but that's where I stand. This realization, this epiphany, became the motivating factor for taking "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" from the library. This book is highly entertaining and has only increased my distaste of bad grammar and those who use it. Myself included, as one can clearly see based on this blog alone.

A joke comes to mind (I don't know if I made this up, very likely because the more I think about it the less funny it seems to be)

Jimmy turns to his roommate after finishing his first college paper. "Finished." Jimmy says.
"Let me look it over." His roommate replies, "I'm a strict grammarian."
"Oh, sure," says Jimmy, "But what does your religion have to do with anything?"

Like I said, not very funny.

That's all for now.

carry on then.

Blah

I'm too bitter.

It's snowing again.

Goddamn it!

I wish I had something happy to write.

Why does everyone suck, including me? It would be better if I wasn't included, but I've got to be realistic on this one.

Today's been one of those days where, as warren ellis put it best, (paraphrase) If you really loved me you'd all kill yourselves today.

My life sucks and it's no one's fault but my own.

I wonder if this is what it means to hit rock bottom. I hope so, because I don't want to get any lower than this, and I don't even smoke, or drink, or get stoned any more.

I should go to sleep.

I'm never going to fall asleep tonight.

I saw eternal sunshine of the spotless mind today. I've seen it before. It might be only me, but that movie depresses the hell out of me when I see it. I mean it's a brilliant peice of cinema, I just can't help but feel depressed after watching it.

I've got to get a life.

For the love of pete, or, why do I suck?

So I joined triggerstreet.com. It's a web site where people post short films and feature length screenplays, and the other members give it feedback and reviews. I posted a screenplay that I know needs some work, but I needed direction as to what I parts I should work on. I tried very hard to be subtle, cute, and to a certain extent fall in the category of magical realism.

it was panned. Completely. I'm getting horrible reviews. that unto itself isn't bad. I know it needs work, that's why I posted it. My problem is this. I just read a screenplay posted by a fellow member that was horrible. Really bad. It was supposed to be a romantic comedy but was neither romantic (unless you confuse romance for lust) nor was it comedy. It was the same old generic attempted twist of Cyrano De Bergerac. It was god awful. And it's doing leaps and bounds better than mine on the site.

Like I said, I wasn't expecting mine to be considered brilliant, or even in the top 100 of the site (there are near 2000 postings) I just didn't expect it to be so (nearly 900 places) far behind this obvious piece of crap.

And this isn't me being belligerent because i was panned. There are plenty of scripts I've read on that site that deserve to be ahead of mine. Ones that are clearly superior to mine, I respond accordingly on the site when I review them. It just depresses me that there is no accounting for taste, or that too many people have bad taste.

I guess that's my rant for today. Most people suck, what else is new?

Death of a poetry student: a poem

My Last Will and Testament
Or
What I leave behind.

Prologue: A social commentary in five oblique parts describing why my dog died when I was five and why I’m scarred for life, doomed to live an insane lifestyle only the true artist can understand.

1) At the end of each sentence a fellow student laughs and comments to the irritation of others. She did not kill my dog but I would prefer that she had so I'll have a legitimate reason for my hatred.

2) The voices I pretend I hear tell me to write with indifference. I am a genius never to be understood in my lifetime. Thus, I must drink myself into a stupor and ingest multitudes of legal and illegal narcotics. And when I hear a car drive by followed by the barking of a dog I shed a tear.

3) The lost song of my loved one, never met as of now. I dream of her loving touch. Her caress to soothe me from my overbearing pain.

4) I remember being made fun of in high school. This is why I now wear only black and smoke only exotic foreign cigarettes. This is why I have a tattoo of e.e. cummings as a vampire displayed across my back. This is why I scoff at anything less than inspired.

5) Then I remember I never had a dog. In fact I’m allergic to dogs. Just more of my deep inner pain.

Epilogue: Finally. I expect to die an early death, most likely a suicide. My note left to the living shall be written in haiku, preferably in the original Japanese. I expect my words to be ignored until my tragic end wherein critics suddenly change their minds and my genius is finally realized.

Cornucopia of ideas (or lack there of)

So I'm trying to add a link from my site to an exhibit on Kevin Bank's Website. Kevin, being the man who so graciously has decided to work with me on a comic book. It's a great exhibit about what various people have done during their various periods of unemployment. I don't really understand how all this works yet so if the link doesn't appear, of if it doesn't work for whatever reason, it is entirely my fault. Here it is, I hope it works. What do you do?

I was talking to my friend Jason Chernock this evening and he asked why I didn't have a blog. I have an abundance of free time and all I ever seem to do is write, the connection seemed obvious to him. He went on to elaborate that everyone and their second cousin has a blog. I told him that I did in fact start a blog but was upon late feeling uninspired to work on it. One reason is most people are very boring and stupid. We might think we re interesting so we post, because the world should know what we think. Unfortunately what we think is most likely wrong and to a certain extent egocentric. (yet I do this anyway, but to follow in the lead of our current commander in chief, Hypocrisy be damned)

And though I've gone over this in the last few blogs, this is about what's on my mind, and apparently not much has happened in that area for a while.

I was thinking to model this after Peter David's blog site (see the link in my small but ever growing, if I get around to it, link section on the bottom right). He talks about what ever happens to be on his mind, often about his writing (he writes excellent novels and brilliant comic books professionally), sometimes about his life and family, and occasionally about his politics (most of which I agree). I don't think I have much to add in regards to a political debate, I believe what I believe, but most others articulate said belief's better than I do. So politics is out. Talking about myself too much is far to egocentric, and I don't think I'd want to read these posts if I wasn't me (though there will be posts about me, I just can't help it). Note to self: try to lay off other bloggers, they're probably good people and you're just getting mean about it now.

So that leaves my writing. I think, if I keep this blog, I shall dedicate it to my creative endeavors, and let the nonexistent readers (save you Jason) read my work.

But that's only my idea right now, can't say it'll be the same as day breaks upon the morrow.

Hopefully my next post will be funnier, because if you can't be smart at least be funny.

Uhh... Carry on then

Jump and jive

Man it's late. I don't know why I'm up this late. I gotta get out of my freaking house man. Totally got cabin fever and it's snowing again. I need an outlet. I think I need to get stoned. I haven't been stoned in seven months and I like not being stoned, but the craving has hit. Luckily (in a not so lucky way) I'm completely flat broke and can't afford to buy any toilet paper, let alone any pot. And by flat broke, I mean I owe the bank about one hundred dollars, and don't have any thing else of value save my computer, my playstation two, and my comic books. Man I'm a dork. I definitely need to get out of the house.

I need a creative outlet. I need a job. I need a life. I need a fuck. I need a lot but I'm not going to get it anytime soon. Well, hopefully not too long, I'm am trying.

I was taking to someone recently in Newton, Massachusetts, and he told me that there are two types of unemployed people. There's the kind that sits at home and watches daytime television and complains that the economy sucks. And there are the people that take the time to better themselves, to do some serious introspection, and pull everything together and after it all, get a job. I think I'm the former, though now I am going to try to be the latter. My first step was to talk with this person of sound advice. He is going to illustrate a comic book I have written. I'm doing something, not just sitting on my ass anymore. This is a step. A good step.

On a side note I haven't touched my novel (up to page 101) in probably three months. I'm not even halfway done.

So who really knows?

Umm.. that's it I guess.

Carry on then,

seen a scene?

I'm going nuts. I need a new scene, by which I mean, I'm writing a screenplay, (not because I'm getting paid to do so, but because I hope to be paid to do so) and I have a crappy scene. It's trash. Not only is it the opposite of funny, it's a rip off of a Woody Allen bit. And though I like the original scene (Woody's) I can't use mine. It's just wrong.

So I've been staring and the screen for freaking ever.

That's it I guess.

Carry on then.

aww crap

I was reading the news and came across an article published by Reuters which has a quote from the US Attorney General Nominee Alberto Gonzales. When asked by Arlen Spector, a republican senator from Pennsylvania, if he (Gonzales) condemns the torture techniques featured in the now widely publicized images from abu Grahib. Gonzales response:

"Let me say senator that as a human being I am sickened and outraged by those photos," Gonzales said.

Now, not having read the transcript, and perhaps this is just poor reporting, but it seem so to me that Gonzales didn't actually answer the question. He was sickened and outraged by those photo's sure, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be, but as his position as deputy attorney general, and now as attorney general, does he condemn those techniques? I don't know. he didn't say. He might very well not condemn them. There is a difference between not liking something but accepting it as necessary and condemning something altogether.

But that's just my thoughts.

Uh... Carry on then

First thoughts

I don't think I've ever been in love.

I'm just trying to get a handle on what to post and what not to post. I've been doing a little (read: extremely little) research by reading other blogs. I have come to understand that I might not be self-absorbed enough to update the world as to my daily life (complaints, achievements, ect.), nor am I updated or knowledgeable enough about worldly events to post "news."

Do I think anyone in their right mind is ever going to read this? Probably not, so for whom do I write? (notice the grammar, I have a B.F.A in writing, but it really hasn't gotten me anywhere, rather I haven't gotten me anywhere)

I'm flat broke and have to put in a deferment for my student loans, something I should have done a while ago but, for reasons unbeknownst even to myself, I have not. So I'm going to the post office today. right after I fill it out.

It's snowing. I have no car. I have a bike. I hate biking in the snow. It's my own fault. I need a new helmet, one that will keep my ears warm in the snow. My ears get cold very easily.

My uncle had a stroke on saturday.

I am not a coin operated boy, though I have given it thought.

Euripedes, you buy-a-dese.

How do I know if I've ever been in love. I've seen to many movies, I think I might be confused between real romantic love and hollywood romance.

Food for thought, though my brain couldn't take another bite.

I've heard of some people who are so open minded their brain has fallen out.

I think I have an artist to draw a comic for me.

Uhh.. Carry on then,

the end of what was

Never having written a blog or any such sort I am, one can say, at a loss. Needless to say this is just the first.

uhh.. carry on then.