Dec 14, 2013

Adulthood Beyond Adulthood



Busy

I've been busy lately.  Finishing everything and starting my carreers.  I have to somehow sell my comic this month, reedit old scripts to possibly film, and get ready to start auditioning for things.  I've luckily assembled a wonderful circle of friends down here as well as some old friends.  Without them I couldn't do or wouldn't do most of these things.  So I'm lucky and I'm trying to make it all pay off.  

Storytelling

Some theories are sort of simple.  Like, if the audience knows where you are going with a story part, then hurry the fuck up to the next unexpected part.  Going through dull scenes we all know the content of before they happen is a waste of every bodies time.  Just cut it as short as possible and go to the next part with new information or actual plot progression.  If you dissect the last thirty or forty minutes of the Hobbit, for example, you will see minutes go by of stuff we are just waiting to happen, that we know is going to happen, padded out with a lot of posturing and pointless fighting(because we are only waiting for Thorin to confront the main antagonist and they take about 25 minutes to consummate that, mainly running around the country side or hanging out on a tree trying not to fall off when they can just casually walk off at any moment as Thorin eventually does[thus I call it padding]).  

Study

I was never really happy at school, but I was plenty curious.  My solution was to find out more about my own interests, which when let to roam turn out to be really varied.  It's made me collect reference books on art and just random things like design, architecture, science, history and other stuff.  Most of my books are heavily illustrated, even the history ones.  I have pictorial history's of eras and wars, timelines, books filled with timelines and charts, timelines of inventions, etc.  I have books of cross sections of cars, planes, castles, ships, even anatomy.  Plus a lot of anatomy books and theory.  Clip art books.  Books of quotes, psychology books(I read a lot about how the brain works because a bunch of my idols were weird mentally).  I read swaths of certain genres over a large spans of time.  I was studying fantasy just to get in the mind set of doing my own(which is different thanks to seeing what was out there, my favorites were George R.R. Martin who got me into fantasy in the late nineties, then Joe Abercrombie whose characters are just the best ever).  I'm read science articles every day for the last few years in preparation of doing my science fiction comic(plus I've been catching up on great novels like Spin).  And now with acting I have to read scripts and examine their every word and beat(at least of the scenes I am in, or have to direct).

The point is to get better.  To know more.  The point is to make stronger, more original work. The point is that who ever is smarter, more clever, and has more information should be doing the job.  I'm perfectly happy to defer to geniuses.  But anything less just seems like a waste of time.  And if I ever want to be great I have to try.


The Hudge

I was meeting my roommate to go apartment hunting.  It was the coldest day I've been through in L.A. So I was wearing four layers which I never do(undershirt, shirt, then a buttoned shirt, then a jacket).  It was so cold I ordered apple cider.  It was 9 in the morning and I'm not a morning person.  My roommate said it was a nice coffee shop in the middle of the neighborhood we both liked and wanted to look for apartments in.  I was in the little front room and had no idea that this place had a bunch of room a in the back and was gigantic. 

A guy peaked in, then came back with two friends.  I thought his leather jacket looked nice and since I was wearing my own, which I love I looked at his.  Too many zippers and too bulky.  This was what I was thinking.  And then I noticed that the girl with him was really cute, but she had a hat and big coat on so I could barely see her.  These were all black.  

Since she was cute I checked out her boots which were knee high sexy things.  She had my attention.  And then she turned and I saw she was wearing jean cut offs and was extremely cute and I smiled at her.  She sort of politely smiled and then went back to talking to the guys she was with and ordering.  

I even thought in my naive ego that I was cooler than the guy she was with(takes a lot to impress me) but couldn't figure out how to talk to her in this little room.   We politely looked at each other as she scooted past and at that moment it occurred to me she looked like a famous person.  But I looked down and just thought about it, and that was when my roommate walked in.  

My roommate ordered and then she showed me how big the place was, me we walked past the girl and her friends in a secluded part of the back.  As me and my roomie got into the car she said "did you see Vanessa Hudgins back there?"  And I yelled, "I fuckin knew it!  God, I wanted her so badly.  I thought she was all normal and shit and..."  Pretty sure I became incomprehensible around then.

There was another time that I was in line to buy pot and the girl behind me I'm pretty sure was a super model(Josie Moran).  Or last week when I was behind porn stars to get coffee in my own neighborhood.  It's weird out here.  Because if I meet any of these people in private life I don't tell those stories(because that's between friends).  Some of my best friends are beautiful people on ads in stuff but that sort of stuff is personal.  When I see famous people just out in the world it's different.  Like once I was shopping and I saw the lead from Sons Of Anarchy because I'm pretty sure he lives close to me(I live in a tiny apartment but as you'll see from the next story, lots of famous people live here in this crowded part)

You got mail

I forgot if I mentioned this, but a few months ago I got some mail for the former tenant if my apartment.  I didn't open it, but from the things it said on the outside it was obviously important(but the kind of thing the tenant would also know through email or phone).  I knew he found out whatever it said inside, so it wasn't the biggest deal if he got this so I never found him and gave it to him.  

Then about a week later I was talking to an friend I've had for decades.  He mentioned a conversation he was having, and because he thought I knew the guy he mentioned his full name.  Something sparked in my brain and I realized the only time I ever heard that name was when I said it in my head after getting that envelope for him.  So, in shock, I said wait a minute, what was this guys name?  And it was the same guy.  I asked why my friend thought I'd know his name in the first place, and he told me because the guy was an up and comer and stuff(he works in the smart branch of entertainment as this guy, that's why they were hanging out).

Then about two months after that I went to a show about half a mile from my apartment and this guy performed(Whitney Cummings also performed that night and called me and my friend rock stars in a joke.  And I missed seeing Chris Rock like a complete fucking idiot because I came late[which was why Cummings made the joke, and no I don't know any of those people]).

Now, I understand the contents of the letter.  I think the former tenant was shopping his show around and THE major cable network was courting him, but it didn't happen, and instead was picked up by another network.  I only know this because now this guy who was living in my shitty little apartment last year at this time, just a few weeks before me, has commercials with his famous friends showing all the time.  I can't help but wonder based on that time I saw him and his friends on this show if any of them ever came to this medium sized studio without a view.  It sort of weirds me out. And then I think, shit Im not even trying to get a show within a years time.  I have other ambitions but still, it's a bar that seems impossible to reach on one hand(again, I'm not exactly trying to get on a show anyway, I'm mostly interested in movies, and that's the sort of acting I specialize in, but I mean the success), on the other hand its a little encouraging that a guy who is probably rich now, loved in my sad little place I'm moving out of in January, just a year ago.  Some things are possible.  And were all just humans anyway.

It's creepy seeing his face on billboards and on my tv in his own room.  I try to avoid it.

Truthfully

I was talking to a class mate who said he just became legal as a joke.  I said happy birthday, are you 21.   He said no, 18.  Which just made me freeze and say I'm 20 years older than you...how.  At the same time the best friend I met out here is just a little older so I should be used to it.  I think I'm just getting into the career part of my life.  The uncertain period is sort of ending.  I basically just either do or die, no other option.  That is an era of someone's life.  And it is a maturity.  At the same time a lot of what I am doing I could have never done sooner(except if I was with the right girl as my copilot, that's why I was so picky).  I still worked at it constantly.  And now that I'm older it just seems that those eras happen at different times for different people.

The people I've met out here are basically on the same journey as me, that's why they are all ages and from all over.  I look up to my friends regardless of age because they have qualities I am working on.  Like deciding on my roommate had everything to do on the fact that she had the same basic goals in life as me and reflected the energy I needed around me.  Another girl who was like 18 asked me to be her roommate a week before and I said yeah.  At first.  Then after about a minute I said maybe...I don't know.  And she was confused so I had to elaborate.  I said I don't think that would be a good idea.  And she asked why, so I said it, I told her, well I'm a man and you're a woman, and I'm single and your kind of single and one night we get drunk and...I basically told her I'd go for it in a second in the most polite way because as delightful as that would be(and holy crap would it be), I felt skeevy about it because she wouldn't think it would happen, but like I said we'd both be weak one day and then all of a sudden I have a girlfriend(I didn't say that last part to her).  

Even when deciding on my roommate I was strangely picky.

Distance

On some level I need to publicize like crazy.  On another I'm going to need to distance my self from all sorts of online things.  I can't read about my own work.  Not for a while at least.  Reviews positive or negative can stop me or redirect me from doing what I want to do/have planned in both my stories and carreer.  At the same time my whole goal is to connect with the audience and give them something to look at and speculate.  I don't really know how to deal with that.  My comic is episodic and multi volume.  My characters are supposed to be playing on archetype in strange ways.  If I explain it all it could be bad.  Plus, I'm not exactly putting easy, junk food stories out there.  I make things to be reread or rewatchable.  In fact I make them to be enjoyed more in the reread. With comedy I put in jokes that are supposed to be funnier the second time because you know that they are set ups for stuff you didn't know on first view.  With my science fiction stuff I put in all sorts of clues to future stuff that pay off more on reread(I hope).  How do I know if its working or not if I don't read what people think?  I'm still going to write the story I plan to write, but if I read reviews by people who misunderstand or think I'm doing some stupid shit, or even think I'm doing something great but want something I know I am not going to eventually give, it could change what I write if it affects me enough, so I have to be careful.  I'm making a singular work, not a consensus one.  




Spin

I've been reading the science fiction book Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.  I was looking for good science fiction to inspire me while I finished editing my science fiction comic.  I guess I read his Chronoliths a long time ago, because I forgot how good Wilson is. Chronoliths was an original take on time travel(monoliths from a future conqueror appear in the present, leaving everybody wondering if or when this future event will happen, and how that affects all the time in between).  I'm almost done with Spin, and I love it.

I actually think the back cover gives a little too much away.  But, regardless of that, I'm surprised how many ideas are explored and how unpredictable it all is.

The premise is that the Earth has been put into some sort of field by unknown forces.  So everything on earth happens at the same speed as we all know it. But outside the field, everything seems to be going a hundred years a second(or something like that).  Now solar events we would never have to worry about are within our life span.  The question is why this has happened. And what can be done with this situation.  And Wilson has thought of everything.


Basically I'll just mention two plot points that happen in the first two chapters. Everything from there just escalates.  The first chapter takes place far in the future.  Like billions of years(I don't know).  4 times 10 to the 9th power.  Whatever that date is.  But things are not that different.  And the main character decides to take a Martian drug that will take him to the adulthood beyond adulthood.  But the Martian drug isn't alien.

Then the next chapter takes place in the present.  Three friends hanging out at night.  Then the stars go out.  And they never come back.  The sun comes up.  But it isn't real.  An astronaut crash lands that night, but he's been up two weeks longer than is possible.  He experienced more time out there in a few seconds of our time.

I got exactly what I wanted in terms of great storytelling, characters, and well thought out worldbuilding.  The novel moves pretty nicely and always has a new interesting plot point that is unexpected and genius.  We live in a culture where people think one idea is great, knowing that once it is used up they have nothing else, but we have Robert Charles Wilson over here coming up with an idea a minute, never relying on stretching one concept thin, ready to move on to the next cool thing he came up with(the thing I loved about Breaking Bad).

Comic Love

I saw an artist I really like on a commercial during Saturday night live.  Raphael Grampa was spotlighted in a vodka ad about him as an artist.  That was cool.  

The Fifth Beatle is a graphic novel that debuted at number five on the best seller list and it has art by an old favorite who rarely does stuff, Andrew Robinson.  It looks gorgeous.

I'll be showing more stuff once this comic is approved.  I hope people like it.

Adrian