EPISODE 503: YOU WILL NOT BE ASSIMILATED IF YOU WEAR YOUR SAFETY VEST
This morning my barista asked me if she had woken up in another dimension. I told her if it helped I had never seen her here before. She said it really doesn't.
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Hi! Welcome back! Big news this week: I got the moon back! (You’re welcome.)
Early in the fall the harvest moon floated (fluted? flue?) past my patio window for the better part of a week. I was going through some stuff and couldn’t sleep, and I found myself just sitting out watching it go. And somehow it made me feel better.
Then it went away. Lunar orbits, ugh, so annoying.
But I still would sit out at night sometimes, soaking in the darkness and trying to empty my brain pan. It was okay, but I missed the moon.
Now it has returned. I watched it arc its way over west L.A. last night, half full and full of quiet grace.
For me seeing the moon is like having been living in two dimensions and then discovering there’s a third. The universe suddenly seems bigger and more interesting.
On Friday I went to Disneyland. As weird as it sounds, wandering around there sometimes helps me think. I don’t know if the piped in happy music or the very carefully controlled and yet perfectly realized environments or the fact that there is a whole land that is Star Wars, but it clears my head.
Of course there’s a new Star Wars ride there, too, Rise of the Resistance.
And did I ride it, you might ask?
No, I did not. Not that I didn’t want to, but you have to be inside the park within about two minutes of it opening and in that two minutes you have to sign in for a boarding group on the Disneyland App that will put you in a queue to ride the ride at some part of the day that they can’t tell you now but they’ll text you, it’s all good brah, except for when you get a text later telling you that they are all done for the day, sad face, try again next time!
Wait, really, you ask?
Um, yeah. Rise of the Resistance may be cool. I certainly hear it is. But they have a lot of issues right now, specifically the ride breaks down more often than the mechanical shark did on Jaws, and that’s why we can’t have nice things.
I did go to Oga’s Cantina for the first time, which is this Star Wars-themed bar that’s supposedly such a big deal you have to reserve a seat days or weeks ahead of time. They tell you it’s like the cantina at Mos Eisley, seedy and bounty hunters and a band but actually it is quite bright and there is no band and also no characters--
--because the real bounty hunters are the friends you met along the way.
I was placed at a table with a bunch of people who immediately wanted me to explain why I loved Last Jedi, because they did not. It was hard, you guys.
I mean, it was in the 80s during the day and I was at Disneyland. So maybe not hard hard. But hard.
I’ll stop now.
Lots of stuff bubbling away. The EVERYBODY SAYS DON’T beat sheet is about two street fights and an end of movie Summer Nights-style dance number away from being ready to go to The Manager, who has not heard from me in so long I am firmly expecting a response of Who Dis.
A Co-Conspirator from my Super Friends Writers’ Group gave me a very cool idea for a way into the story which is more information than The Manager will probably want, but it got me so excited he may very well have to tolerate it.
Do you know about “the beat sheet”? Basically, a beat sheet is a list of every major event that will happen in a script, with each beat ideally just a single sentence. It’s like the skeleton of a screenplay, except when you take a skeleton out of a body it is actually on its own pretty cool. #SerialKillersMayHaveaPoint
Beat sheets, on the other hand, are like propping up the dry wall that you hope will become a house, ugly and bland and containing a vague sense that this may possibly be asbestos that I’m inhaling. That is to say, generally not a lot of fun to read.
But this time around I’m trying to do something a little bit different. A guy I know who’s been a writer for a long time told me the key to being a working screenwriter is learning to love every step of the process from generating an idea to producing your project.
At the time I remember nodding vigorously and then asking him if he would introduce me to his manager because I am ready to kill it in Hollywood.
(Okay I did not do that, but I also did not really listen to his advice.)
Beat sheets are hard to love, but also they are made of words, which I love, so this time around I am trying to make mine shine.
(Find more of the hilarious comedy stylings of writer/artist Chip Zdarsky here.)
I’m also in the process of writing a letter to seek permission to use a certain book for ANOTHER HUNDRED PEOPLE. It’s kind of a history book, so on the surface this should not be a big ask. But the information I’ve gathered about the writer has a Thou Shalt Not Pass vibe. So I may have to get my Balrog on.
Actually I get very nervous about this sort of stuff – that is, asking people who don’t know me for things. It’s a normal sort of fear, I realize, but I tend to respond by war gaming out the entire lifespan of interactions I may have with that someone – not just the initial conversation, but the next, and the next, until finally I get to my sweet spot, a moment where I am likely to disappoint them, at which point I throw my hands up because the last thing I want to do is get some unknown stranger that I need disappointed in me, and then do nothing.
Basically I’m in the Matrix but I’m also Agent Smith and I think maybe I made the whole thing myself?
Meanwhile pretty much every cool thing one of my other Super Friends has gotten to do in Hollywood has come from him cold-emailing important people wondering if he could ask them a couple questions and then they have lunch and then they do stuff together. “I just trust that whatever is meant to happen will happen,” which seems like a much more Zen and open approach. So you know, maybe I should learn something?
Anyway, that’s the goal this week in Doing the Things that Terrify Me, I think, probably, Jeez, don’t pressure me, I’m really busy.
I’ve also found myself writing most days some teeny tiny short stories that are heavily inspired by the work of Armistead Maupin and I don’t know what they are yet but I am kind of loving them. For now let’s call it A LITTLE PRIEST.
The Moment I Knew the Show Picard was Ride or Die For Me:
Writing Advice I am Thinking about This Week, courtesy of comic writer Ram V:
Every scene should do at least two things.
Everything in a story should happen because of character choices.
Every issue of a comic should tell the reader 10 things.
THREE TWEETS
Because Mike Bloomberg has never heard met a dog he didn’t want to shake the mouth of:
So a 4 year old girl wrote a song about dinosaurs and please trust me when I say listen to it right now:
Finally, Wow (and yes, that’s the actual Kansas City police department):
THREE LINKS
25 years after he hosted the Oscars, David Letterman for the first time ever talks about what it was like bombing that hard.
“Imagine a world in which you might thrive, for which there is no evidence. And then fight for it.” (A great, great piece.)
The European Parliament Sings Auld Lang Syne to the U.K. after agreeing to let it leave the European Union:
I love the lack of bitterness or sarcasm in that E.U. moment. Even as they’re announcing this big, dramatic (sad) change, they all hold hands and sing.
They also quoted Jo Cox, the British M.P. murdered days before the Brexit vote: “We have a lot more in common than divides us.” May it always be so.
Have a great week, everybody. If things get crazy, don’t be afraid to grab someone by the hand and start singing.
(Okay, maybe get a little uncertain first. But then maybe try it. They might surprise you.)