As I tried to explain yesterday, my posting of the same entry twice was inadvertent. I was on campus, I thought that spending some time doing an entry from there was a good idea, I was totally wrong. I had several mail messages and one phone message telling me that Monday's entry was the same as Saturday's. Imagine if no one was reading this
Now that we have that out of the way, let me try to bring you up to date on the last couple of days:
Edgar came over and helped me assemble the last of my furniture (a dining room chair) as we watched Cronos, a neat little low-budget Mexican vampire film. Simple story, simple effects, very effective. Afterwards we went out to dinner at Louise's Trattoria (a big splurge for Edgar, who has no discretionary funds) and then we drove to downtown Burbank. He wanted to see where IKEA was. We took a walk around happenin' downtown Burbank (actually, there was a main drag where a lot was going on at 10pm) and he smoked.
Sunday afternoon I got together with Mj, a screenwriter friend whom I hadn't seen in a long time. We met on GEnie and usually communicate by computer, but since I'm down here in LA I figured we could talk in person.
We went to the Industry Cafe, where we each had two cappucinos. If there is one person on this planet who doesn't need caffeine, it's Mj, who is completely hyper all the time. I don't know how he has so much energy. He's very funny too, always making a joke. Sometimes I want to say, "Mj, you've made the sale, I like you, you don't have to keep making jokes!"
After he left I connected with two friends I hadn't talked to since I got here: Max, another screenwriter whom I also met on GEnie (in, where else? the screenwriters section), and Donna, my college roommate, who didn't have time to get together with me in the next week or so because her sister's getting married, but who wants to see me real soon.
Max has been fighting bronchitis recently but I guess she wanted to get out of the house, so I agreed to meet her for dinner at a place near her house, which is up in Laurel Canyon. The restaurant is named Caiote but pronounced "coyote" -- if she hadn't told me about the off-beat spelling I would have driven right by it. It's an upscale pizza place, by the guy who designed designer pizzas for Wolfgang Puck and the California Pizza Kitchen.
Max and I discussed "the Biz" and what it's done to some people who haven't been looking after their own interests first. For example, one notoriously neurotic writer we both met online who would do anything, including accepting $20 "options" (which never got paid), to get the movie made.
Max said, "You're not going to do that, right?" Either accept a free option or do a free rewrite.
Of course not, I said. But it's easy to say that now, when no one has said to me, All you have to do to get me to buy this script is...
I got home and went to bed early. Of course, I couldn't sleep. After tossing and turning for a while, I finally gave in and turned on the air conditioning, thinking that cooling the place down would help. It did. However, it was already past 1am, and I had to get up at 7:30. Ugh.
Up and out early. Off to USC for graduate student orientation. Traffic, once again, wasn't bad, except for slowdowns around a stalled car.
Why four years of college hadn't already clued me into the fact that I don't need to go to general orientations, I have no idea. I was at USC by 8:45 and in a line. A series of speakers began at 10; by 10:03 I was bored out of my mind. I walked out at 10:45 and walked back to my car to drop my backpack off.
I stopped by the library at noon, ostensibly to create a new Paperwork entry but actually to show confusion and dissent amongst my readers.
I could have crashed the grad student barbecue, but I didn't bother. I thought because I'd registered for orientation I was registered for lunch, but I didn't have a lunch ticket when I checked in. Feh. I wandered around. I'm good at that. I wonder if I'm not making enough effective use of my time because I'm not efficiently using every minute.
The Film School orientation began at 1:30. The writers are a small group: about 30 people, and a class is admitted only once a year. (In contrast, the production group is about 50 people, and a new class is admitted both semesters.)
As part of the get-together, we were divided up into sections of 5 or 6 people and we played a game -- everyone picked a word out of a hat and we had to put together a pitch for a movie based on those words. Our group came up with a spy spoof named "Double Oh Sid." (About a secret agent who takes the name Sid Field, thinking that'll make him inconspicuous during his big assignment...in Los Angeles. Don't ask.)
We got some advice from second year students (write every day, network, take advantage of everything the college offers) and food. The eating part was, of course, handled like a cocktail party, and gosh, I do so well in situations where I don't know anyone. I felt like I kept crashing conversations. Once again, I felt like a dweeb in a situation where everyone else acted comfortable. I'm going to do real well in Hollywood. Eeek.
After we got kicked out of our meeting room (for some other get-together session to meet there), we had an hour before...the Film School Barbecue! So I dropped the next batch of stuff off at my car and then mingled as best as a socially inept person can at the pre-barbecue get-together. An Australian writer, Alex(andra), wanted to know how Gregory, another first-year writer, and I knew so much about film.
My advice: "Get a TV. Get cable. Get a movie channel."
Gregory chimed in: "HBO."
"Watch every single movie."
Gregory: "Even the bad ones."
"Especially the bad ones. I've taken to watching made-for-cable erotic thrillers."
Gregory howled. He's probably watched the very same ones.
At the barbecue I started talking to two production students who were behind me in the food line -- they turned out to also be from Northern California. We found a table and another production student and another writer, Erica, joined us. We talked about what we have to do in our programs, and we were all so exhausted we debated whether to wait for the big finale: the student film screenings at 7:30. One of the second year students said that he had walked out after about five of them last year. But I wanted to see what the range of ability was for student films from USC.
We all eventually stayed for the student films (none of us wanted to brave the evening commute). And the three films were good -- I was bored by the middle film, a long animated piece, but all three films were so well done, so professional, that I (of course) immediately became depressed: What am I doing here? I'm here just to make everyone else look good.
The production students said the same thing, jokingly, as we walked out: "I might as well go home now."
I got home about 9:30. I was beat. Of course, I stayed up to talk to Darin, when he got home from work. And when I finally got to bed, I couldn't sleep. I've been playing this repetitive Tetris-like game, Jewelbox. When I close my eyes, the game starts going: columns of jewels fall and you have to arrange them so that you get three of the same jewel across, down, or diagonally. I can't wait to break this addiction.
I woke up this morning at 8:30. I know I have to get to an early schedule, but that doesn't make it any easier. I wanted to sleep in, even though the last dream I had was about Al Gore and the upcoming elections. No, I haven't been watching the Dem Convention either.
My last free day before classes begin! Or, as I also like to think about it: the penultimate day before Darin gets here. (Loving sigh.)