Upcoming Events | Recent Press
(Thanks to Tee for the picture...)
UPCOMING MOTHERFUCKING EVENTS
First -
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14
MANHATTAN MONOLOGUE SLAM
If you're in Los Angeles this Tuesday, come to the Manhattan Monologue Slam where Jenna and I will both be judges in a monologue competition, along with Lacy Chabert (from PARTY OF MOTHERFUCKING FIVE, bitch!), Ileana Douglas, and Debra Wilson (from MadTV). Here's more info:
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14
DOORS OPEN 8:00PM, SHOW STARTS 8:30PM sharp
IVAR, 6356 HOLLYWOOD BLVD. (enter on Ivar)
FREE ADMISSION * _ OFF BUDWEISER ALL NIGHT
Oh yeah, and don't be afraid to come up and introduce yourself. Maybe Lacy Chabert will freak if you come up and take physical liberties with her, but I'm cool with it. I'm always bummed when you guys write me messages after these events saying you were there and were too shy/scared/lame/sexually excited to come up and introduce yourself. That means you, Nathan Fillion.
What's second? This is -
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15
LOVELINE
This Wednesday, November 15, Jenna and I are going to be the guest hosts on LoveLine with Dr. Drew. Out here it's on K-ROQ from 10 to Midnight, but you can check out your local listings at www.lovelineshow.com/ for where and when it will be playing in your area. Jenna and I will be giving all of yous sexual advice, which means get ready to be fucked-in-the-head. Because, and I'm just telling you because you're my closest friends, but Jenna really digs Hot Carls. She'll be recommending a good Hot Carl to anyone who calls in to cure their penile dysfunction, sexual gender confusion, etc.
And this part is important: Call in with questions about LolliLove and SLiTHER. Otherwise it's just going to be Office, Office, Office all night long. The Office, of course, is marvelous. But I'm counting on you wonderful fucks to provide the variety.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22
THE SPECIALS SCREENING
The American Cinematheque will be screening THE SPECIALS. There was a screw-up earlier in terms of the date it was showing, but it is on the 22nd. Unfortunately, this is the day before Thanksgiving and I won't be around. Actually, I'm not sure WHO is going to be there on the day before Thanksgiving. But you might have a nice empty theater to yourself.
7:30 pm 1328 Montana Avenue at 14th Street in Santa Monica
For more info, check out:
www.americancinematheque.com/Aero/aeromastercalendar.htm
MONDAY, DECEMBER 4
THE ARMANDO SHOW (iO Theater)
I had so much fun with the Upright Citizen's Brigade a couple weeks ago, I'm going to do the same thing again with IO and the Armando Show. Working off of suggestions from the audience, I'll tell true stories about my life (perhaps as perfectly disgusting as the Twisticle story from UCB), and then the wonderful performers at IO will perform improv around them.
Here's where iO is:
6366 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA - map
More info: www.iowest.com
Enough self advertising. I know what you guys want, and it's lists. I know you're jonesing. It's been a while since I've posted any lists, so here are 5 LISTS OF 5:
THE 5 WOMEN I PLEASURED MYSELF TO MOST AS A TEENAGER
If these women were standing anywhere near me from the ages of 13 to 19, they would have drowned.
1. Olivia Newton-John
2. Lisa Bonet
3. Lea Thompson
4. Markie Post
5. Kelly Preston
Honorable mentions - Jeana Tomasino and the chicks from the ZZ Top Videos, and Mary Louise Weller as Mandy Pepperidge in ANIMAL HOUSE. Although they had much less screen time than the above-mentioned vixens, their percentage of pleasure time was enormous.
DR. WESLEY VON SPEARS 5 FAVORITE TOYS
Every morning after breakfast Wesley and I have playtime. And every morning I let him pick his own toy. These are the ones he chooses the most:
1. Saliva Bear
Saliva Bear gets his name because Wesley loves to lick him and does so often and for long periods of time throughout the day. Therefore, he is often sopping wet with Wesley's spit. Wesley loves to bring Saliva Bear to bed, and set his soppy goodness on the pillow right beside Jenna's face. Surprise!
2. Puppy
Puppy, like many of Von Spears's toys, has a personality; she is a maniacally gleeful masochist. She picks on Wesley and demeans his masculinity until he beats her, which she digs like nobody's business. She has a voice like R.C. Collins from the Phil Hendrie Show.
3. Blue Ball with Eyes of Unknown Origin
I don't know where in the fuck this thing came from. I think the kids next door accidentally threw it over our fence. Whatever the case, Wesley found it, brought it inside, and now we play with it all the time. We both hope Blue Ball with Eyes doesn't have AIDS. If so, we're screwed. (I see now, actually looking at it for the first time, it's some sort of duck, or bird. But we only know it as Blueballwitheyes, as in, "Hey, boy, go get Blueballwithyes!")
4. Kitty
Kitty's personality is essentially the polar opposite of Puppy's. While Wesley chews and tugs on her she desperately cries in vain for God to help her. She claims the pain is unbearable. Neither God nor I are listening, and Wesley loves her agonized howls. Strangely, her falsetto voice is almost exactly the same as Puppy's.
5. Wesley Jr.
Wesley Jr. is Wesley's illegitimate son who he likes to child-abuse and torture. Unlike Puppy or Kitty, Wesley Jr. has almost no reaction. He is, unfortunately, a little slow.
MY 5 FAVORITE COMIC BOOKS GROWING UP
1. Howard the Duck
2. Amazing Spider-Man
3. Conan the Barbarian
4. The Spirit (the reprints, of course)
5. Uncanny X-Men
6. Tomb of Dracula
5 ALBUMS THAT ROCK THAT YOU MAYBE NEVER HEARD
1. The Ark - In Lust We Trust
2. Monster - Rocker's Delight
3. Buzzbomb - Vandalias
4. Tsar - Tsar
5. You Am I - Hourly, Daily
6. The Swingers - Counting the Beat
5 TRIPS TO THE HOSPITAL
1. Twisted testicle (aka "Twisticle"), c. 1982
2. Beaten over the head with fists by two bodybuilding breakdancers whom I was making fun of, 1985
3. Bug flew in my ear and was stuck in there, buzzing around, driving me fucking crazy, 1987
4. Head-banging downward as guitarist brought guitar upwards and tuning pegs slammed into brow (5 stitches, but I played for another hour with blood running down my face! Awesomocity!), 1988
5. Dragged down the street by car and dropped on brick road, smashed face open, 1990
Honorable Mention: Numerous eye bubbles.
And, finally...
YOUR QUESTION ANSWERED
Regarding fake MySpace pages:
And how do people know that This is a blog of the real The-Famous-Name-Holder? It's always a 50% chance. "True" or "false?" - Irina
Good question. However, I think it's usually easy to tell if a MySpace page is real or fake if you keep a couple of things in mind.
First of all, fake pages rarely have blogs (Rooker's page is an uncommon real celebrity page that has no blogs - then again, since Rooker writes like Bam Bam from The Flintstones, this is a blessing). And when the fake pages do have blogs, they usually read like they're written by a retarded five year old (or Rooker, true but again, he's the exception that blah blah blah).
Also, MySpace blogs actually written by people in the industry - like mine, Jenna's, Zach Braff's, Eli Roth's, etc -are often quoted by other news sources (as EW online did with my TV character list), or the personality-in-question talks about their MySpace page in interviews (like Jenna did on Ellen). A quick search of any of these folks' names + MySpace will show that there's a common knowledge of their pages.
And there's often industry by association to rely on. Because Jenna's page is widely known to be real, and Jenna has me, Creed, BJ, Angela, Kevin, and so forth in her Top Friends, you can assume that ours are real as well.
I'm interested what other ways people use to tell if the MySpace page of a well-known person is real or fake, which I'm sure you'll share with us below.
But, in short, with just a few minutes of investigation you can usually find out.
AND THAT'S THE END OF THIS BLOG!
Pardy harder.
Befriend Captain Tightpants here: www.myspace.com/nathanfillion
This is the real Nathan Fillion: Browncoats and Fillionaires rejoice!
So for all of you who have been writing me about this guy or others like him, wondering if he's the real Bill Pardy, the answer is a resounding NO. This guy's been lurking around MySpace forever pretending to be Nathan, even though I and many others have told him to fuck off. At one point he even had pictures of Nathan's ex-girlfriend up there. Why don't you send him a little message now and let you know what you think of him? Let's see what happens.
Jenna and I have had to deal with the fake Jennas in the past, and it's a real pain.
While I'm at it, here are some of -
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Ok, so, when the baby is in its crib and Grant Grant looks down at it. Why is it holding a tomato? Was there any significance to that? - William
Originally in the script, Brenda told Grant that she gave her son tomatoes to play with because they were cheaper than toys and he made them "more tenderer" before cooking with them. Although I removed the dialogue before we ever shot, I still liked the baby playing with a tomato. It's creepy and funny and mysterious and works smoothly with Jack MacCready's biblical speech playing in voiceover during the scene.
When you cut scenes do you end up leaving out a lot of your original script? - Tara
Absolutely. However, it's important when you write a screenplay to be filmed that you over-explain things a bit. You never know when an audience is going to be confused by a plot point, so it helps to film dialogue and scenes that are just a little too obvious. Then, in editing, you whittle these scenes down to only what the audience needs and no more. Oftentimes, an actor's reactions in a scene can say more than a couple paragraphs of dialogue. As a filmmaker, you can hope for that, but expecting it is a mistake. Especially if you're working with a crappy actor, like, say, Perry King.
I just wanted to know, why the lower case "i" in SLiTHER? Does it have any significance or do I just spend too much time looking to meaning to things? - Melissa
No, it means nothing. I just thought it looked good graphically and stuck it on the cover of my first draft. It stuck with the crew, who used it all the time for parking passes, etc, on the set. In the theatrical posters put out by Universal, it's actually a capital "I". I had been struggling for a lot of other things with the poster, so the lowercase "i" wasn't something worth fighting for. In the film itself, however, the title treatment has the small "i".
I have a silly question. Which kid was Jenna and which one was Emily? The little one was really quite scary! But in the extras she seemed really sweet.
Also, I was wondering if they decided to not let the little girl see how she looked in makeup. I've heard of some films deciding to put disgusting effects make up on kids without letting them see it as it might disturb or upset them. Her make up wasn't extreme but it's still disturbing. Did they do this or was she okay knowing what she looked like? Or did she just sneak a peak in the car mirror?
I wondered if it's true that you named those kids as a gift for Jenna? Is Emily her real sister's name? - Stevie
Before they got git.
I am jealous of your red hat, Fucko, give it to me now or else.
Jenna is the older sister (Amber is the actress's real name), and Emily is the younger sister (Matreya). Yes, they are named after my wife and her sister, Emily. Emily is a grade school teacher in St. Louis.
And, yes, I let the little girls see themselves in makeup. I think Amber was 11 and Matreya was 8. Neither one of them had any problems with it. Amber loved being a zombie - it was her idea to climb on the car windshield like she did.
What was a little more difficult was getting them to do looping after the film was finished. (Looping is where the actors come in and record lines that can't be understood, or add new lines, etc, during post-production). Both of them were a little freaked-out by their final scenes. Matreya in particular scared herself. What was goofy on set was pretty frightening to them when completed with effects, etc.
My hope for this blog is to encourage the few who really belong here to take that risk. But, just as importantly, I'd like to persuade the rest of you to enjoy a richer life in some field besides film. It's like convincing a buddy not to marry his alcoholic childhood sweetheart who's been fucking his friends for years. Because, honestly, we're a bunch of sick fucks out here in Hollywood, and very few of us, not even the rich and successful ones, are happy.
So before I give any advice on how to be a screenwriter, director, or actor, I think it's important that you have a serious conversation with yourself about whether you REALLY want to be in the film industry.
I request that you ask yourself the following questions:
1) Do you love to write or act or direct?
Some people want to be screenwriters because they like the idea of being screenwriters, but they really don't write. Screenwriters WRITE. A lot. Most every day. Same thing with actors or directors. Directors make short films on micro-budgets, actors act in local theater. People who love to write, direct, or act create opportunities for themselves when none exist.
Everyone enjoys imagining themselves as movie stars up on the screen, or as directors leading a crew of a couple hundred people. But this is a hell of a lot different than actually enjoying the craft of acting or directing.
You have to be willing to do these jobs even if you're never especially rich or famous. In the end, the people who stay in this industry, and enjoy it, are the people who appreciate the process as opposed to just the results.
Los Angeles is littered with fifty-year old busboys with sad, soulless eyes who wanted the results of fame and riches but didn't actually enjoy what it took to get there.
2) Do you think you have talent?
As I said above, I often encourage people to follow their dreams, and take risks. However, DESIRE IS NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE A CAREER.
For instance, I played in rock bands for years and was a mildly talented musician. And if I wanted to be a composer or a pop songwriter, perhaps that's a field I could have investigated. But I didn't. I wanted to be a famous rock singer. But my singing voice simply wasn't good enough or original enough to validate a career in that field. And although it's great to tell people, "You can do anything you want to do," I was limited by my actual God-given physical abilities. Prince Randian, the armless-legless wonder, was never going to be a professional hockey player no matter how much he wanted to be, or how much he believed in himself. And, frankly, it's cruel to tell him he can do whatever he wants to do, because he can't. And neither can we.
I'm not saying we don't make who we are. I believe we can create our own lives and we are to a great degree self-determined. But part of creating our own lives is being aware of our limitations, physically, spiritually, and mentally. By knowing who we are and the limits of our capabilities, we become truly free.
I wanted to be Eddie Veder, and I wasn't. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't one of these deluded gender-benders who goes on American Idol and truly thinks he/she is the greatest vocal talent since Pavarotti (we'll get to those people in a moment). But, when I was brutally honest with myself, and asked myself if singing was what I was best at in the world, I knew the answer was no. Not by a long shot. I had a lot of other gifts in life I was just ignoring because they weren't what I "wanted."
In many ways, I was going through what I needed to go through as a young man, in becoming conscious of my limitations. So my foray into rock and roll was hardly useless. (In fact, I still use my musical training to find rhythm in everything I do from dialogue to editing not to mention the easier time I have communicating with film composers).
I'll also add that I believe, in general, what we "want" has very little to do with what makes us happy. When we want something, that means it's something we don't have: it's necessarily something outside of ourselves. When choosing a career, I think it's more important to determine what we have and how we can utilize it more fully.
3) Does the world think you have talent?
This one may take some time, because beginners almost always suck. So if you think you have talent, you should work on your craft a bit. See where you get. See if you can find hints of talent within yourself. It shouldn't be too long before other people around you start to notice your potential as well. I believe if people are truly following what they are meant to be doing, the world does rise to meet us in some ways. We're given at least the crumbs we need to keep going.
I started writing seriously not too long after I quit playing music, and I immediately received a lot of positive reinforcement: from fellow students, teachers, the community, etc. I got pieces published in small journals and magazines, and was accepted into the Columbia University writing program. While still in school, I was working for Troma and making a living as a filmmaker. I knew I wasn't completely deluding myself about my talents because I had some objective, external signs that what I did was of some use to the world. Considering I also loved writing and making movies, this made me think it might be a pretty good place to build a career.
This isn't to say your self-worth should depend on the assessment of others. But when we're talking about creating a practical life in the film industry, I think it's important to be honest with ourselves about where our gifts work best.
The journey of my wife, Jenna Fischer, was a bit more hazardous. She moved out to L.A. when she was twenty-two, and it was nearly ten years later when she scored the role of Pam on THE OFFICE. She had to be rejected countless times in auditions, and looked at with pity at parties every time she said she was an aspiring actress. Jenna needed a healthy dose of self-applause to keep her going through the rough patches. She had a "never-give-up" attitude which helped her greatly.
But Jenna also had external signs from time to time letting her know she wasn't completely crazy: She was here in L.A. less than a year when she scored a crappy movie with Dan Haggerty. A year after that she was cast in a small role in my movie, THE SPECIALS (before we were together, folks). A year later, she got a good agent who saw her in an avant-garde play (which she did purely out of a love for acting). Then she got a one-line role in SPIN CITY. She started scoring guest shots and pilots, and, eventually, she was an overnight success when she was cast on THE OFFICE. For Jenna, it was an uphill battle; BUT IT WAS UPHILL.
There is a big difference, though, between self-confidence and self-delusion. There are a lot of people out here committing years of their lives to careers for which they aren't at all suited. They work off of blind confidence without a corresponding objectivity. I think of these folks as career stalkers; they treat their chosen professions as stalkers do their objects of romance. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they hold onto hope that the unloving object they love will return their affections. I have nothing against these people, as I was kinda sorta one myself.
I talked about career stalkers once to a woman who was trying for years to be an actress and getting nowhere. She said, "Yeah, but Joseph Campbell said to follow your bliss!" To which I responded that her life didn't seem very blissful at all. To follow one's bliss, one must experience the bliss in the here and now as well as what one may think might happen in the future.
How do you know if you're one of these people? Well, I think if you're rigorously honest with yourself, and you ask yourself if you are, you'll know the answer. If you're okay with the answer being "yes", then you'll find out.
My advice here, though, is LISTEN TO THE WORLD. Be open. Where do your talents lie? What do people appreciate about you? Where are you truly called to be? I wanted to be a rock star more than anything in the world, but, again, desire doesn't make a career. It was when I finally became open to something other than my narrow view of what was acceptable in my life, that I found what I loved to do even more than music writing and filmmaking. I didn't necessarily love the idea of being a writer or a director. But I love to write and direct and the experiences they bring into my life.
Maybe you want to be a screenwriter, but in your first job on a film set you discover you have an amazing knack for costume design, and you love doing it.
"But I don't want to give up on my dreams," you may say.
Fuck your dreams, I'd say. Do what you love and what loves you. Sometimes "giving up" isn't really giving up it's simply surrendering to who you truly are.
And I'm honestly not meaning to dash anyone's dreams here. What I really want is for people whose dreams aren't working to discover new dreams that do.
And, finally, I think there are many self-rewarding reasons to write, act, or direct, even if you suck or no one appreciates what you do. Nearly everyone needs a creative outlet. Just don't expect to earn a living from it.
4) Are you willing to persevere?
All right. So you know you love to write, or act, or direct or, heck, maybe you've been substituting "accounting" into these questions all along (which makes you fucking weird, but, you know, that's cool). You believe you have talent, and you think the rest of the world thinks you do as well.
IT'S STILL NOT FUCKING EASY. You still have to persevere. If you really are talking about accounting, it may not be above and beyond what other careers expect of you, but if we're still talking about screenwriting, acting, or directing here, they simply aren't normal occupations.
When embarking on a career in the film industry, you will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The successful folks are the ones who surmount them anyway.
Perseverance requires: a) Time, b) ignoring negative influences, and c) a lot of damn hard work.
Let me explain.
a) Time
Get ready to take a good ten years or more waiting tables and practicing your craft as a second full time job before you're able to make a living. There are of course many exceptions to this, but the surest way not to be an exception is to expect to be one.
Doctors go through eight years of medical school before they can become an M.D. Why would you expect less from a writer, director, or actor? There are a lot more doctors and a lot less people who want to be them than want to be in the entertainment industry. "Acting isn't brain surgery" is true. IT'S HARDER. All right, maybe that's an over-statement. But it IS more competitive and can require an equal amount of craft and knowledge. A studio doesn't want to hire an actor without experience as the lead in their new film just like you don't want to hire a pre-med student to perform your laser eye surgery.
b) Ignoring negative influences.
Perhaps because film industry occupations are so coveted, and because they are truly risky endeavors, there are incredible societal and emotional blocks to pursuing them.
The negative influences start with ourselves. Being a sensitive artist type, my own fears can sometimes seem overwhelming whether it be the fear of the blank page, taking a chance, or of what people might think of me. I can go through periods of enormous disappointment and doubt. This is part and parcel of being an artist. Today, I treat these feelings like leprosy-ridden bums with whom I ride on the bus to work every morning. They yell at me and tell me I suck. Occasionally they get to me and I stupidly get sucked into fighting back. But usually I realize their ranting has very little to do with me and very much to do with them being crazy, leprotic bums. They get on and off the bus a lot, and I try to be grateful when they're not there, and ignore them when they are.
And, if our own insecurities aren't enough, we have to deal with everyone else's as well. As I said above, I was lucky that the world met me with positive feedback from the get-go. But a lot of people I met in writing classes still told me I was sick, vulgar, or just shitty. I once wrote a story about a fat, cursing woman who started giving birth to animals and birds, and was met by a virtual rebellion of women in my class who "had had it up to here with the misogynistic ramblings" of guys like me (No, I still don't get it). I had numerous people tell me I was one of a million guys with big dreams who could never make money as an artist.
And when you become successful, this shit gets WORSE. With the spotlight comes negative feedback on a much wider, more public scale. Your life and work are fodder for the general population to judge. What was once said behind your back is now a headline in Newsweek. But, as creators, we have to open ourselves up to the world, which means taking the dark along with the light.
3) A lot of damn hard work.
If you aren't willing to work your fingers to the bone, forget it. Even if you're talented, there are other talented people out there who are willing to put in the effort. I have many gifted friends who don't make their living as artists simply because they aren't willing to put in the tremendous amount of work necessary. The entertainment industry is one of the hardest industries to break into in the world. More people want to be actors than any other profession. And becoming screenwriters and directors is even more difficult in some ways, because there are many fewer slots to fill. So it takes self-starting and hard work to make a living at it.
And, again, with success it gets worse, because the career demands it of you. As an actress, Jenna works twelve-hour days five days a week. Her nights are often taken up by talk shows, dinners, or award shows (all of which get old real, real quick). Her weekends get crowded quickly with photo-shoots and interviews. And, in the off-season, she makes movies.
And me? When I write, I write all day, every day, while trying to balance in similar necessary social interactions of meetings, dinners, shows, interviews, Rooker's thrice-daily calls, and whatnot.
And when I direct, it's by far the most time-consuming of all. Even on a smaller film, it's a good five months of planning and shooting and meeting, with almost no time for anything else. Days are often fifteen to eighteen hours long and you don't spend hours hanging out in your trailer like you might as an actor or a writer that's fifteen to eighteen hours of WORK. Maybe you'll get a free Saturday night or a Sunday afternoon. But, basically, you have no life other than directing while in pre-production and production. Sound like fun?
Then maybe the film industry is for you after all, you sick fuck.
Despite all the hard work and bullshit in the entertainment industry, I love what I do, and I love the people in it. If you really ARE serious about getting into the industry, and the above doesn't scare you off, then, by all means, take that leap. Maybe you don't agree with what I said above, or you find yourself drawn a different way. That's cool too. I believe everyone's path is different. The deepest truths are the ones we find ourselves, and the above are merely mine.
I say that with love.
I remember once being in Al's big house in Lafayette Square, doing some extra credit (helping him move boxes from downstairs to up), and petting one of his cats. The cat took a liking to me (they often do, since I'm allergic), and she was rubbing her head against my hand. Al stood next to me saying, in his Southern drawl, "Oh, she's making looooove to you. You're making looooove." This was a little creepy at the time since, to me, making love is kinda synonymous with boring fucking, which meant I was boringly fucking the cat - while old shriveled Al Montesi watched me and commented on it. But, anyway, that's the third thing I thought of this morning after hearing he passed away.
The second thing I thought of was Al showing up to my and Jenna's wedding six years ago. He wasn't feeling well, but he came anyway. His little hobbity head was one of the first ones I saw poking out of the aisle as I started down it.
But the first thing I thought of was how I found my true voice in Al Montesi's classroom, and my gratitude for that moment.
As some of you know, I spent my late teens and early twenties singing in rock bands. I wanted nothing more than to be a famous rock and roll star. I played in two bands, The Icons and The Pods, and met with some small success. We had a minor following and were able to play the top venues in St. Louis, travel around the Mid-West, and open for bigger acts like Social Distortion, Mudhoney, etc. Our greatest achievement was that we were able to play mostly originals when all of the other popular bands in St. Louis were playing primarily covers. Our second greatest achievement was convincing two girls to get Pods tattoos on their asses three weeks before we broke up. (Sorry, guys!)
I'll never live this down: The Pods: Avram Adam, Lou Mars,
Michael Nemo (aka Mike Meitner), and fucking me.
However, the entire time I played in these bands I just didn't feel quite right.
I didn't know who I was creatively, and was constantly changing my vocal style, trying to find my voice. In addition, I was in constant pain. We'd do three hour bar sets up to four times a week and my throat was ravaged. I'd have to spend a lot of money I didn't have on the throat doctor. I liked the extras that came with playing in a band - not having to wait in line to get into a club, the girls - but I didn't really like singing on stage. I was filled with doubt much of the time. I know today that doubt is a part of any creative struggle, but this doubt was all-encompassing. Today, I think it wasn't just doubt: it was instinct, telling me to look elsewhere for my bliss.
After three years of our band working our asses off and staying at the same level, we broke up. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, so I took the first refuge of the lost: education. I enrolled in classes at St. Louis University, and decided I'd just take a break from all the effort and try to figure out what the fuck I was going to do with my life. One of the classes I took was creative writing with Al Montesi.
It was there I discovered that I loved writing, and that others liked what I wrote. One of our first assignments was to write a play. I wrote a thing called THE GREY ROSE OF CHICAGO. I stayed up all night working on it, fueled by a passion for storytelling I didn't know I had. What was supposed to be five or six pages ended up being twenty-six. The next day, we read it aloud in class, with different students reading different roles. And it was there when the radioactive spider of writing bit my hand. Not only did the class appreciate what I wrote, and laugh the whole way through, I realized I was able to communicate through writing in a way that I tried for years with my music, and was never able.
I finally found my voice, and it had nothing to do with my vocal cords or ravaged throat. My voice was my mind, my words, my humor, my stories. Many people take years to decide whether they should become writers. But I knew in that moment that writing was what I needed to do. I felt it like a calling. I had opened myself up creatively and the road had risen up to meet me in turn.
When we were done reading THE GREY ROSE OF CHICAGO, Al Montesi told me it was trite and immature, as he didn't need to hear another Goddamn play about college students fucking. In retrospect, he was right. The play was crap. But I wrote something as honest and true as I could at the time, and it served its purpose for the moment. Also, frankly, Al wasn't really in my demographic. Even then I knew that the gay-Italian-Southern-senior-citizen-hobbit-like market wasn't one I needed to cater to.
Still, Al saw potential in me, so he took me under his wing. This meant I had to help him move his furniture, lug his boxes of cat books to local signings, and act in the very silly historical plays he wrote for theater-in-the-park. I don't know if any of this helped my writing, but it helped my life. And he encouraged me during a time when I dearly needed it.
So, Al, you salty dog, thanks. I love you.
---------------------------------
TOMORROW!
You guys have asked for it!
The first in a series of advice blogs on how to get into the entertainment industry.
PART ONE: Do you REALLY want to be in the entertainment industry?
B) THE SPECIALS L.A. screening is a myth. I was originally told it was going to be on November 2. This is not true. It was scheduled for November 22, a date I can't make. I think they are rescheduling, but I'll let you know in not too long.
Okay, since you came here, here's a couple of your questions:
Melis