Master of the Flying Guillotine

Samurai Clients in the News

2012-01-10T09:30:00.001-08:00

http://cjnews.com/news/arts/local-writer-sells-thriller-screenplay-hollywood

On Being

2012-01-03T11:24:00.000-08:00

I'm editing a novel at the moment, and thus putting a lot of time and thought into sentence construction. The fulcrum of a good sentence is a verb. If you have a verb, it's hard to go wrong.

I've known since junior high that even "is" and its variants ("was," etc.) are counted as verbs. But having stared at this fact for several hours, I've noticed something interesting: so far as the English language is concerned, simply existing is a verb... that is, an action. Just being is equal to doing something.

The basic function of existence is action.

It's easy to see how this applies to living things. For example, if human beings are doing "nothing," they are still breathing, digesting, thinking, sensing, and so on. A tree doesn't do a lot of running and jumping, but it's absorbing nutrients, engaging in photosynthesis, growing, etc.

Pushing the idea further, I realized the idea also applies to inanimate objects. Any object that is doing "nothing" is still performing at least one action, and that is decomposing. If humanity winked out of existence, for example, a thousand years from now very little would remain of my motorcycle.

We live in a reality in which anything that isn't being used for a purpose gives itself up for other entities that in turn do use them. There is no such thing as an object that will go unused, down to a molecular level, even if that action lends itself to basic continued existence.

And thus, it stands to reason that the more you act, the more our reality is designed at a basic level to give you whatever is needed.

2012

2011-12-31T12:05:00.000-08:00

A final post before we send off 2012.

In 2010, I started a business, lost my father and got in a bad motorcycle accident. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Lots of massive highs and lows.

Because I was laid up until May of 2011, I was forced to stop running around and focus on work and recovery. It was the opposite of 2010... I needed to catch my breath and, if anything, I went out of my way to pursue normality. Get up, work, write, sleep, repeat. Even after I was up and walking and riding again, I kept with the same back to basics approach.

The work paid off. Samurai has two projects actively moving toward pre-production, and the slate I've been developing to take out next year includes some really exciting projects. One of my own scripts has caught traction, again. There is a good chance that 2012 will be the culmination of everything that happened and everything I did in '10 and '11.

Despite troubles along the way, there is nothing I would rather be doing. And it is very much a story that has only just begun...

Brought to You by Our Friends at Scr(i)pt Magazine

2011-11-29T14:08:00.000-08:00

Here's some cool stuff. I signed a couple of writers I found via Script Magazine's Big Break screenwriting contest. They did a nice highlight...

The interviewed my brand spankin' new clients here: http://www.scriptmag.com/2011/11/15/final-draft-inc-big-break-semifinalists-matthew-gayne-and-paul-gavin-gain-representation/

And they did a podcast interview with yours truly here: http://www.scriptmag.com/2011/11/23/podcast-manager-michael-kuciak-signs-big-break-standouts/

I'm out with Matt Gayne's THE HOBBY, and aiming to roll out Paul's THE REBOUND in Q1 2012.

I'm excited about everything on my slate... besides these two, I have a several really cool projects either in development or prepped and ready to go after the holiday season. Next year could be a good'un...

On Riding

2011-11-14T22:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the motorcycle accident that put me on crutches and generally fucked up my life for the better chunk of a year... All while I dealt with losing my father, my uncle, and starting and running my own management/production company.

For a while, I thought I would take the day off or something, or at least not ride. But... you know what? Fuck that shit. I got up and rode again. So... while it banged me up for a while, it wasn't a permanent situation, and doesn't deserve some stupid holiday. Shit happened, I survived.

Besides, I had too much work to do to dream up reasons to handicap myself. I have a thriller coming together in a real way, and another on the horizon. There is a good chance 2012 will be a significant year.

It's always good to remember the lessons of the past, but at the same time the present and future will always be more interesting, and more important.

Beating the Hell Out of Myself

2011-10-29T22:37:00.000-07:00

Today I put in my first real cardio workout since I dumped a motorcycle on my leg last year. I've been able to walk since May, but that was pretty much it. But I've been feeling pretty good, and I decided to get my ass back to 24 Hour Fitness.

It was a bunny slope of a workout, but I didn't want to take a chance and needlessly push myself. Besides, there was the whole "Is my leg going to collapse?" thing going on.

I'm glad I went. Now let's see if the ankle is gonna bitch about it tomorrow. If it doesn't, I think I'm on my way to a full recovery. I'm indestructible!

Also: some very cool Samurai MK stuff going on, and appearing on the horizon. Next year is shaping up to be interesting...

MISSING is an Austin Finalist

2011-10-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

MISSING, the thriller by Samurai MK clients Steve Schoen & James Loos, is a finalist (top seven) in the Austin. Great stuff. Congrats, guys!

Back in the Saddle Again

2011-05-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

Five and a half months after my accident, I ride once more.

The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste

2011-03-31T21:21:00.000-07:00

Once, when I was a teenager, I went on an archaeological trip to Mexico. I was never a swimmer. I took lessons, but I never quite learned how to swim. On this trip, I decided I was going to swim. I swam in every pool we ran across until I felt comfortable.

The very last day, we stopped at this underground lake that had been a holy place for the indigenous people. It was basically a flooded cave. I swam across to the other side and grabbed a stalactite. I started to swim back... and halfway across, out of nowhere, I started to get tired. Instead of just dealing with it as I would any other physical activity, suddenly my mind filled with the idea that there were many skeletons at the bottom of this ancient Mexican underground lake, and I would join them. I lost my shit and flailed around, convinced I would die. And when you're convinced of something, it's hard not to make it true.

Luckily, I was swimming with a friend, and he slugged me and dragged me to shore, and thus I am still alive. (There was another "friend" there, but he stood on the shore and laughed while this happened, but he was a douchebag anyway, so fuck that guy).

The point being...

On Nov. 13, I dumped my bike on my leg. When I stood up, my right ankle was bent at an unnatural angle. It was blown out. I could put zero weight on it.

Since then, by two week increments, my recovery has progressed: from boot and crutches with no weight on my ankle, to boot and crutches with weight on my ankle, to boot and cane, to boot and no cane, to Ace wrap and cane, to Ace wrap and no cane... at least around the lair.

I went to Arizona to visit my family. When I came back, I felt strong. I ran out of water for the coffee maker. This would not do. The nearest grocery store was about a mile away. I decided to walk there, with nothing but an Ace and boots -- no cane -- and see how it would go. Mind you, this is MONTHS after my accident.

I got there, no problem. Wandered around the store, finding my stuff? No problem. But on the way back...?

About halfway to my lair, I started to feel lightheaded. Not like I was going to pass out or anything, as I wasn't in any pain. But my ankle felt so weird and loose, it started to trigger a mental response. I felt the exact same way I did halfway back to shore across that underground lake in Mexico, like I was suddenly without a net, the worst could happen, and the worst would likely happen. Life yawned as an abyss underneath me. I was convinced my ankle was going to blow out, and I'd have to crawl back for blocks before I could call help. I know, it makes no sense, but that's how the mind worked.

I came to a bus stop. I sat on the bench for fifteen minutes, answering email on my iPhone. After a while of doing mundane tasks, I got my head back together, and simply walked the rest of the way without incident.

Yesterday, I did as little as possible. I wanted to recover, in all ways possible.

But I refuse to live in response to fear. Caution? Sure. Fear, no.

First thing, I got my ass out of bed and determined to walk to downtown Hollywood, maybe two or three miles. I took my cane, but I never used it. I walked the whole way there carrying an unused can in my hand. I got to Sunset and La Cienega, stopped at a coffee place and answered email. Then I walked back. Same thing -- cane in hand, but never touching the ground.

No problems. No flip-outs.

I think sometimes the mind needs a placebo, just something to let it know that an option is there, even if it's not needed, or even wanted. My cane sits next to me right now, a totem of potential, but unused. It's strange, but... whatever gets me walking, then running, then push-starting my motorcycle... Well, who cares how it happens, so long as it does?

The Joys of Upright Mobility

2011-02-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

Today is Valentine's Day. While many others celebrate their love for one another, I am celebrating my love of the fact that I can walk again.

I was in a splint, and either on crutches or a cane, for exactly ninety days after I dumped my motorcycle. Today, instead of the splint, I put on a firm Ace brace. For the first time since this mishap, I pulled on both motorcycle boots. I grabbed the cane just for good measure.

I stood from a chair and took a step. One of two things would happen: I'd either collapse to the floor, or I'd keep walking.

I walked.

I'm being very careful. I have yet to test the boundaries of this amazing, newfound ability. I walked to the end of a hall and back (using the cane), and now my ankle's letting me know it wasn't really crazy about that. So I have to take it slow.

But all things worth doing involve a building process, whether a career, a company, a relationship... or just recovering from an accident. Every day another brick goes in, until one day the house and done and we get to move in to situations of our own creation. In my case, it's building Samurai MK and working toward the day I can remount my motorcycle.

Ready to Rock

2011-01-04T11:43:00.000-08:00

I am at long last back in LA. Since this was the first holiday season since my dad passed away, I wanted to stick around in AZ from Christmas through New Years. Though it was good to reconnect with friends and family, and an amazing opportunity to recharge, I'm a restless dude, and I'm glad to be back in the fray.

I have also able to relax and accelerate the healing process. Thus, I traded the crutches in for a cane. I was even able to hop through airport security, and avoid going through the fun pat-down process. I've been repeatedly warned about trying to rush things, but I'd be lying if I said I don't long to get back on the Rebel. Sitting around just ain't my style.

And for 2011: I'm not a millionaire yet, unfortunately. But Samurai has gotten enough forward motion under projects -- and had enough near-misses -- that I know I'm on the right track. The goal is to be standing on a set by the end of the year.

So once again I say... Let's rock.

PIPLOWSKI on the Hit List!

2010-12-20T22:06:00.000-08:00

I know this happened last week, but I realized I'd posted about it on facebook but not here... Samurai MK Alex Drummond's action/comedy script YOU'RE DEAD MEAT, PIPLOWSKI made it to #9 on the 2010 Hit List.

It bears mentioning that PIPLOWSKI was the first script I took wide under Samurai, working for my own company. We got a lot of attention on the project, so I'm not surprised to find people still talking about it months later. I deeply believe in this project; I know it's a movie.

Now let's rock 2011...

Stir Crazy

2010-12-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

I am a restless dude by nature. That doesn't mean I'm always moving around or anything. But, unless I'm writing, sleeping or watching a movie, I am almost never home. Work and meetings keep me out of the lair most of the time. Even if I'm just reading scripts or working on notes, though, I'll typically hit a coffee shop. Over the past year, my daily migrations have become defined by wi-fi connections. Since I live in Los Angeles, they are plentiful.

I once had a conversation with a friend in which he described how awesome it would be to have a big house in the middle of nowhere, with a great kitchen, and a kick-ass rec room with a giant TV and shit. I told him all of that sounded cool, but I'd much rather have a smaller place that's within walking distance of restaurants and theaters. I need to get out, do new stuff, and not sit around staring at the same walls.

This accident I was in gave me a severe ankle sprain, though. I can't ride. Shit, I can't walk without crutches. I'm getting better; the recovery is continuing apace. Everything I have heard and read, though, warns against getting impatient and rushing to get off the crutches. The only true cure for a sprain is rest and time. If you deny yourself either, you'll just fuck it right back up, ironically lengthening the recovery time. Since I want to get back into action as soon as possible, I'm heeding these warnings.

That said, I have been forced for the first time in a very, very long time to stick close to home. Luckily, I have my own business, and the work of that business is primarily done with a laptop, an internet connection and the phone. Thus: not only is my work unaffected, I'm actually getting even more done than usual. The inability to wander around LA has increased my personal productivity on all fronts.

Which is all well and good, but it's a situation that is antithetical to my nature.

By week three, I was REALLY going nuts. This past week, however, I feel as if I've turned the corner in terms of the mental game. Every day, I read HAGAKURE, and I have been focusing on that samurai discipline to help get my mind off what I don't have -- the ability to go out -- and acclimate to what I do have, which is a golden opportunity to get shit done without distraction.

Sure, I miss the gym. But I'm doing so many push-ups that I'm getting a definition I didn't have before. No, I can't write at hipster coffee houses, but in the past thirty days, I've finished a polish draft of one script, done a page-one rewrite on a second and gotten close to wrapping the first draft of a third... All while hustling and developing Samurai MK projects all day.

My point is: sometimes life throws you into a situation that seems like a pain in the ass. But if you stop crying about it and just adjust to the new normal, you'll likely find benefits you would never have otherwise noticed. Not to say I have no longer have any interest in my motorcycle, my gym and coffee shops, but if it takes another month before I'm walking again, I'll be okay.

Michael Michael, Motorcycle...

2010-11-28T16:03:00.000-08:00

The short version: I got into a motorcycle accident.

The slightly longer version: Two weeks ago, I hung out with a friend of mine in Culver City. I parked in the garage next to Trader Joe's. When it was time to leave, I got on the motorcycle and started down the levels. Normal stuff.

On maybe the third level, I took the corner about ten percent too tight, and ten percent too fast. The bike angled a bit. I stuck out my foot to correct myself. This isn't a big deal, especially at low speeds. But this time, my boot folded out from under me, and the bike went down.

I stood up and quickly realized that my right foot was sticking out at a ninety-degree angle from my body. I hopped over to the wall and kicked it back into place. Balancing on one leg, I brought the bike back up. I still thought I could ride it out of there; the right foot controls the rear brakes, which are nice to have, but only control about thirty percent of your total stopping power. While nice to have, they aren't absolutely necessary.

I was able to ride down to the first floor. As I slowed, by instinct, I touched the floor with my right foot. It flopped around, completely unmoored from my leg. Uh-oh.

I stopped and called my friend. Luckily, he was able to come back and help me out.

It's a bad sprain. There is no pain, and not that much swelling. I can move everything. But it's going to take a while before I can stand on it, much less walk. Meanwhile, I'm in a boot/splint thing and jumping around on crutches.

This certainly won't keep me from riding -- I love it too much to ever stop. But I also realize in many ways I was very lucky. I didn't break my leg. I didn't wreck my bike. And I'm glad I had my first real accident since starting to ride with a light bike like my Honda Rebel, as opposed to a big Harley or something. I only have to get bitten by the dog once. That's not to say I was getting cocky and hot-dogging around on it, but when I climb back into the saddle it will be with even greater caution, and respect for the inherent risks.

Meanwhile, thanks to my lack of mobility, I'm getting that much more work and writing done. Silver linings and all of that...

Happy Birthday!

2010-10-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy, I forgot to notice that yesterday, 10/16, is the one-year anniversary of leaving my gig to start Samurai MK. So far, so good... Happy birthday!

The Old "Spider in the Laundry" Trick, Eh?

2010-09-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

It's been so hot lately that I've already run through my entire stock of clean short-sleeved shirts. Rather than suffering through today in a long-sleeve, I got up early this morning to do some laundry.

As I was throwing clothes into the washing machine, a medium-sized spider bumbled out from deep in the laundry. I was not pleased by this. I had heard from other people that spiders like laundry, but this is the first time I had ever witnessed it.

The bad thing about having a spider in the laundry is... well, hell, spider in the laundry. Lucky I didn't go the lazy route and just dig something out to re-wear, huh? Gross AND creepy-crawly.

The good thing about having a spider in the laundry is I was able to wrap a shirt around my fist like an impromptu boxing glove and literally beat the shit out of the spider until it was dead. I have killed many spiders in many ways over the years, but until now I have never been in a situation in which it was feasible to end its life by serving up a banquet of knuckle sandwiches. The experience was just as magical as I ever hoped it would be. (Though if my landlord ever reviews the video from the basement security camera, he might wonder why I suddenly get into a fist fight with my clothes). Good times.

Spiders (CONT'D)

2010-09-06T09:53:00.000-07:00

I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I glanced over and saw a spider had built a web between the bottom edge of the shower towel hanging on its hook and the floor.

It wasn't a significant spider... probably just a cellar spider, the kind that sometimes plague my apartment in droves. Nevertheless, this would not stand, man.

I rolled up a little wad of toilet paper to use as a combination smashing/disposal device, poised over him, made ready to crush the spider against the wall...

...and it ran up to hide in the folds of the towel.

DAMMIT.

I wasn't going to dry myself with a bespidered towel. Nor was I going to throw it in the laundry basket, free to run amok in my closet. No, suddenly this was a SITUATION, and I had to deal with it.

I shook the towel, hoping it would fall out. It didn't. I shook it harder. No spider. I took the towel off the hook and spread it on the floor. Caught in the open, I'd easily be able to spot it, right? Nope... the spider was yellow, the towel a light green, and it was nowhere to be seen. I flipped the towel over. Same deal.

I couldn't full-on slap the towel against the floor, because then the spider could go flying into the apartment proper, and that just wouldn't do. (Besides, I needed to see a body... If it could hide in plain sight, until a corpse was delivered I would never 100% believe it wasn't in the towel, and chaos would ensue). So I instead engaged in a maneuver I'd like to call "aggressive flipping," roughly turning the towel over and over, hoping to shake it out without sending it airborne. Nada.

Sometimes, the way to solve a problem isn't to just keep blindly attacking it. You have to step back, get perspective. I hung the towel back up on the hook, left the room and checked my email.

I went back into the bathroom, hoping that with a fresh set of eyes I'd see the spider. I didn't.

But then I gave the towel the most gentle of shakes, and the spider dropped on a line down to the floor and took off at a full sprint... for my shower!

Caught in the open, it had no chance against my fury. Let's just say that, somewhere in the world, there are weeping spider parents.

I'm a little baffled by the spider's tactics. Why didn't it flee during the other phases of my operation? Perhaps aggressive flipping made it just cling harder to its position, refusing to come out. But when I nudged the towel, it thought, "Please God, I can't handle another round of aggressive flipping," and made a run for it. Who can tell the minds of arachnids? Not I.

On Perception

2010-09-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't written anything here in a while because I've been busy as hell. But something's been on my mind, and I think I can keep this short...

It's impossible to describe how much I love riding a motorcycle. I'm able to transport myself from one place to the other, but everything I've always hated about driving has been removed from the experience. In exchange for freedom, there is an increased chance of getting killed. But while everyone dies, few people are free, so it's a trade-off I gladly make.

Now that I'm not in a car, I've observed a few things about drivers who are. For example, I've noticed how long it takes people to notice a green light. I used to count: one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand... It typically takes about three full seconds before the cars start moving forward. I've gotten up to five, and once -- seven. (I won't count the guy on Hollywood Blvd. who NEVER noticed the green light, as I feel the pot smoke billowing out of the windows was a mitigating factor).

This weird beat drivers take to notice a green light is the primary reason why I lane split through stopped traffic to get up to the line. But sometimes the other vehicles are too close together, so I have to sit and wait for the herd to move.

My theory is, when the light turns red, everyone in cars finds something to keep themselves occupied, and they get so wrapped up in whatever they're doing that only half of one eye is on the light in front of them. This is understandable. When I lived in Des Plaines, IL. I never knew when a quick run to the store would turn into watching a train go by for twenty minutes, so I kept books and magazines in my car. I get it.

Whereas on the bike, there is no stereo to play with, no texts to send, no calls to make. There is only the road, and it's that focus on the road that keeps me alive.

Which got me to thinking about perception. In one of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, Watson comes right out and asks Holmes how he got so intelligent. (It might even be the very first one...) Holmes explains that he actually isn't smarter than anyone else; he just puts effort into noticing the world around him.

To paraphrase, he says to Watson... "You walk up the same flight of stairs every day to get to your apartment. How many steps are there?" Watson can't answer. Sure, he's been going up that same flight for years, but when he's actually climbing the steps, his brain goes into autopilot and his mind drifts elsewhere. Watson isn't thinking, "One step, two step, three step, four step..." He's thinking about a patient or a case or bills or whatever.

Sherlock also says that he doesn't fill his mind with information he doesn't need. He sees thoughts and memories as tools, and doesn't want to have to sift through clutter to find them. For example, he says he doesn't want to know how many planets there are in the solar system, unless it affects a case.

That's a little extreme, but Sherlock's an extreme dude. He spends his free time walking the streets of pre-GPS/Google Earth London, memorizing the stores, the intersections, the distances. London is as sharp in his mind as it is in reality. It's a tool he wants in his brain.

I think the same thing applies to the green light. Riders aren't quicker off the line when the light turns because sitting on a two-wheeled vehicle turns you into a brilliant genius. It's only because, in the absence of the "living room" aspects inherent to a car or truck, perception is forced to be completely focused on the road.

I've found similar analogies since starting my own management/production company. When you're the name on the door, there is no longer any such thing as showing up at a certain time, punching a clock, doing your thing, and leaving. The work day becomes active, rather than passive. While the hours are longer, I have more freedom in deciding how to spend them. For example, if I'm unable to get to the gym until the middle of the day, I can still go and sneak in a workout, since I'm not tied to a desk. On the other hand, I'm typically reading scripts during times when nine-to-fivers have been able to shut down for the day.

I'm okay with that. The periods I've been unhappiest in life were consistently when I felt like I was in a rut, that there was no forward motion, nothing was changing. When one day seems the same as the one before it, I become depressed. I start to wonder if this is what being a ghost is like, just hanging around, having nothing to do with the world. Ennui makes me miserable.

The opposite is true when my perception is focused on the road in all areas. I know where I'm going, I know how to get there. I'll hit a few curves and red lights along the way, but that's the nature of the road. In fact, the obstacles are gifts, because they exist to keep you on your toes, and reward you for keeping your eyes and mind open. If traveling was always just going in a straight line at the same speed until you arrived, it would be easy to go into autopilot, which isn't what's wanted.

I'm actively involved in the journey, and the only person who's going to make sure I arrive -- and don't get killed along the way -- is me. And it bears mentioning that the place I'm going is AWESOME.

I Lost My Father

2010-06-29T09:27:00.001-07:00

He passed away early this morning. He stopped breathing, and the staff wasn't able to revive him.

I'm running out to Arizona this afternoon to help my mom through this. Ironically, once again, I was going there, anyway... though this time to finally bring him home from the care facility. Unfortunately, he didn't get to make that trip.

I'll probably be back in LA sometime next week.

Frazetta Has Passed

2010-05-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

The greatest artist alive in my time is gone.

May he find monsters to slay and women to woo in the afterlife.

Update

2010-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

Holy shit, have I been busy.... busy enough that I haven't really had a chance to throw something up for a while. My apologies.

I was running back and forth to Arizona for a while, spending time with family. It cut into my work to a degree, but not as much as I thought... I've found I can be pretty productive in hospital rooms and airport gates. Besides... It doesn't matter how hard you work if your goals are empty. If you're not doing it out of a solid place grounded by love, what good are your efforts? So you can buy shit and look cool? Whatever.

On the Samurai MK side, I'm still working THE COOLKIDS, BLOOD SHY, NIGHTMARE EARTH and YOU'RE DEAD MEAT, PIPLOWSKI.

MISSING is still alive, and the writers are coming into town for meetings in a couple of weeks.

I'm prepping the next round of scripts and books for the market. I got spoiled with all of the development time I was able to devote over the holidays. Developing during the sell season is a much different animal, and I found myself making turn-around estimates that would have applied in the winter, but in the spring have little to do with reality. Fine, lesson learned, and I'll just work that much smarter and harder.

Meanwhile, I wrapped the fifth rewrite of my action-thriller EXTRADITION and, after four drafts of the treatment, I finally got the green light to execute the first draft of WE ALL DIE ALONE. I'm really excited about ALONE... it's another action-thriller, this one set in the world of the Chicago political machine in 1972. The research has been a lot of fun.

Even with everything else going on, I still write an hour every night. How could I ask my writers to put in work I couldn't or wouldn't do myself?

In my slender leisure time, I finally beat MASS EFFECT 2 (awesome), read DROOD by Dan Simmons (not as good as THE TERROR, but damn does it have moments) and listening to a lot of old Slayer. I never get sick of '80s metal and punk. I know that, if there ever comes a day I don't like this music, I've become a pale reflection of my true self, a ridiculous sell-out chump staggering around a Bizarro version of life. In a very real way, my emotional reaction to REIGN IN BLOOD is the canary in the coal mine that passes for my soul.

Well, that and THE ROAD WARRIOR.

Shuffle

2010-02-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

I'm still a big fan of the album. I think that, when it's well-crafted, and the songs are ordered in a certain way -- either by creative strategy, or by accident -- the sum of the whole is greater than the parts.

I think the perfect example is Slayer's REIGN IN BLOOD. Taken by themselves, there are a few very strong songs, like "Angel of Death" and "Raining Blood." But, on a song-by-song basis, it's no match for something like Metallica's MASTER OF PUPPETS.

As an album, though, I find REIGN to be the stronger of the two. It creates a mood. It creates a world that you live in while it's playing. "Raining Blood" is about on par, on a song-on-song basis, with most everything on PUPPETS. However, after I listen to the entire album, "Raining Blood" becomes something incredibly more powerful than it otherwise would be as a stand-alone song.

This is the main reason I'm not that big on iTunes and buying singles and whatnot. I'd rather go to Amoeba and buy cheap-ass used CDs. I realize they're becoming an outmoded medium, but I still find the album to be the more interesting form.

However... just to experiment, I've been spinning tunes on "shuffle" this past week. And suddenly -- I get it. What I lose in the smooth build of musical chapters an album provides, I gain by hearing songs outside of their usual placement. I'm running into some really cool and interesting juxtapositions along the way... Slayer to Pailhead to MC Lars to Fear Factory to Ice Cube to Dragonforce to Jay-Z to Minor Threat to Tenacious D to the Bloodhound Gang to the soundtrack to ROBOCOP to AC/DC and on and on and on...

The songs and artists are different. But at the same time, I'm finding commonalities I hadn't before noticed.

Now... I realize that, in 2010, discovering the joys of the shuffle feature is a little like finally figuring out how to use a microwave.

I bring it up only because, at the same time I'm approaching music in this way, I'm shopping two very different spec scripts. One is an action-comedy, the other a thriller. They're both very good. There is some crossover in terms of commercial approach, but not much.

It's interesting to approach the town from two directions and, along the way, finding out the different needs of the various companies. I get a clearer idea of where the town is at in this specific moment in time than if I'd just been shopping one or the other.

I've found it's always valuable to appreciate things for what they are, but also to try seeing things from different angles. By inviting a fluidity of thought, the collected perceptions become a sum that is greater than the whole.

A Little Bit Better

2010-02-18T18:25:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and ran scales on my bass. I've been doing this for about a week now, just jumping on it in my first minutes of wakefulness, and I like how it starts the day.

I'm still taking my time, progressing up the major scales, slowly getting my basic skill set back.

But today I realized that I was just playing the scales... I wasn't taking the time to understand the notes that built them. The fretting is great for bringing back muscle memory, and the work helps rebuilt hand strength and dexterity. Yet... if I don't know what I'm playing, it's just going through the motions.

I started over again, this time going slowly, saying each note out loud as I played it, finding the commonalities between the scale structures. I re-ran the scales in different ways that I'd learned while I was at SIU. There was a period of time that I was pretty strong in sight reading and understanding the building blocks of music. These days, I'm still mentally counting frets. Paying attention to the notes and taking it slow still helped, though.

I worked... and worked... and worked... and then I went to the gym.

I took yesterday off, and apparently my body used the time to rebuild itself a bit, because I was able to hit some goals I haven't been able to achieve since I'd gotten back from the holidays. Not saying I'm going to the Olympics anytime soon -- this is a very slight, incremental improvement. But shit... I'll take anything.

While I worked out, I listened to Strapping Young Lad's The New Black. I hardly heard it, though... I spent the whole time mentally running the same scales, paying attention to the notes. I visualized the fretting, and after a half hour or so I was able to silently name the notes up and down the majors from E to C, where I stopped.

I came home and, just to try something out, I picked up my bass. And I played the fuck out of those scales.

When it comes to music, learning your scales is the most fundamental of exercises. It's the pathway to learning everything else. But interestingly, there isn't an analogy to scales in writing. Of course, there's structure, grammar, spelling, etc. But that's a bit to the left. Those are rules, not exercises.

The closest comparison to scales I can think of is kata in martial arts. There may be something similar in other sports... would those be drills? I've never been a sports guy, so I wouldn't know.

Also... Directing? Editing? Not really, or at least none of which I'm aware. All of those are run by rules and inspiration, not exercises. For instance, there's a "grammar" to direction, but I'm not sure that going out and shooting wides, OTS and ECUs counts as the directing version of a "scale." And do improv and breathing exercises and whatnot count as the actor's version of "scales?" I don't know.

It's interesting to me that music has this unique bridge between a very physical activity - sports and martial arts - but is considered an art. Like a physical activity, it relies on muscle memory.

As Hagakure tells us, we should be better today than we were yesterday, and better tomorrow than we are today. For a long time, I only applied this concept to writing and producing. Now I'm seeing that it's possible to apply this basic concept to every area of my life.

Music is Life

2010-02-06T20:02:00.000-08:00

After a long absence, I've gotten back into music.

I'm not even approaching songs, yet... I'm rebuilding my skills from the ground up, playing scales a hundred time a day, woodshed stuff like that.

But let's look at my instrument, the bass. Specifically, the electric bass. Even more specifically, a Fender Jazz Bass.

There are many, many ways to interact with this thing that produces nothing but noise: smashing it, throwing it, jumping up and down on it, whatever. Even if you actively tried to make music with it, unless you developed some skills, it would still sound terrible. Noise.

This isn't just some object. It itsn't a punch bowl or a jackhammer or a tire iron. It's a musical instrument. But the only way to find the music within this inanimate object is to handle it in a very specific way -- in this case, placing your fingers on the frets in sequence and striking the strings with your other hand -- and to do so with a degree of skill... skills which take hours and hours of effort to develop.

My point is... a bass is a bunch of pieces of wood crammed together, not unlike a piece of furniture. But it doesn't function as furniture. Its only function is to make music. And yet, that music will only come if the manner with which you interact with it is very specific in nature.

It makes me thinks of us, as human beings. We're a collection of cells, not unlike a lamp or a rock. You say we're alive? Okay... what's the difference between us and an ape or a pig? You say it's because we have intellect and souls. But what good do those things do us if we don't use them? What if you're just a biological machine that does nothing but consume beer and make babies?

Within each of us, we have the potential for music. But, like an instrument, we must be handled in a very specific manner. We can't be broken in half and jumped upon, and be expected to create notes. No... we have to be touched, and with some skill.

This, I believe, is the function of love.

Mike's Good Deed for the Day

2010-02-03T21:27:00.000-08:00

So the majority of my life right now is consumed with the task of selling a spec action-comedy called YOU'RE DEAD MEAT, PIPLOWSKI, by Samurai MK client Alex Drummond.

I got up at seven am to update my submission list. I brewed coffee. I got to work. It was hectic, as these things are... but I don't mind. Taking a script wide is my very favorite thing about this job. It's the same level of energy as when I used to play in bands. It's the dragon I've been chasing for the past seven years. Win or lose, I love it. And it certainly helps to get behind a project in which I believe.

That aside, I was taking calls until about 7:30 tonight. It was fun, but I was beat. I'd been on the phone and staring at a screen all day. I needed to look at something besides pixels.

I went to the gym. But it was during prime time... There were no lockers, and the place was packed. I've gotten spoiled by the ability to go at three in the afternoon. Four months into self-employment, and I'm already a ruin.

No sweating for me, at least until tomorrow morning. I admit, it pissed me off. I've already become a gym rat, addicted to a daily infusion of naturally produced endorphins. So it was straight to the booze. Nothing crazy, just a glass of red, and home.

I walked back to the bike, and there was a dude with another Honda Rebel parked right next to mine. Same basic make, maybe a couple of years older. Anyway, the battery was dead.

He asked me, "Do you know where the fuses are?" Fuck... fuses? I don't know shit about motorcycle maintenance. I'm not that guy. I'm a total civilian when it comes to that kinda thing. Pop a hood on a car, and I'll nod and say something like, "Wow... looks you got an engine, all right."

HOWEVER - in this laser-specific situation, I was able to be of assistance. This is because, when I got back to Burbank after the nightmarish Christmas during which my dad almost died, my bike was dead, and I had the iPhone and was able to youtube up a little video on how to push-start a bike, I push-started my bike and was on my way.

Anyway, I ask this cat, "Did you try push-starting it?" He's like, "huh?" And like I'm some fuckin' expert (if your last name is "Preus" or "Ratkovich" you're probably laughing at me right now) I tell him: "Shift into second. Run your ass off about a hundred feet. Hit the starter. It'll start."

He does that... and it ALMOST starts. He does it again... and VRRROOOM!!! Again, like I know what I'm talking about - and in this specific case, kinda do via personal experience - I tell him, "Drive it around a bit to charge it and you'll be cool!"

He yells, "Thanks, man!" And he takes off.

That's Rebel riders helping Rebel riders, my friends.

But this whole thing isn't some cheesy bullshit like I'm paying it forward or masturbating my ego because, for once, I can give someone some advice in a mechanical situation and it actually works.

No... It's for the same reason I go to the gym every day. Doing that won't make you indestructible, but that daily effort will help you avoid really avoidable problems. You try to do a daily allotment of good in order to hold off the day-to-day type of bad. I think it's the same way with how you deal with the world as a whole.

Hagakure tells us there are four rules to affix in your heart before you make ANY decision. The fourth - and biggest - rule is to act with compassion.

And the thing is... I think if you just try to put some good out there when you can, it's like going to the gym... It doesn't make you bullet proof, but you're avoiding the really avoidable type of bad that's out there. Besides which: why would you want to do bad? What joy does that give you?

Shit, I'm flawed like everyone else. If you look long enough at anyone, you'll find the bad and the crazy. But that's no excuse. You should always try to be better.

Sure, you can't be a chump. There are people who take advantage. Once in Chicago (and it's weird because this is another Mike-the-mechanic story...) I hung around at B-Boy's old place watching Hong Kong action movies. I split late. It was night.

I was walking down Irving Park road, back to my car. I passed that gas station right under the Kennedy off-ramp, and some dude was there. He said his car had broken down. He said he "needed a hose." And -whaddaya know? This hose cost twenty bucks. Could I spot him twenty bucks?

I knew this guy was full of shit, so I decided to fuck with him. I told him I didn't have twenty bucks, but he was in luck... I was an ASC certified mechanic, and I'd be HAPPY to take a look at his car for him, free of charge! "Where's your car, dude? I'll help you out."

And, you guessed it, here come the excuses... "No, it's okay, man. I just need to hose." I'm like, "You sure? I don't have anything going on. I'm happy to help. Lead the way!"

He "talked me out" of helping him. What a sack of shit. If you're gonna be a con man...? Learn some new tricks, besides the same crap people have been using for decades. The other one I love is: "I've got my kids in the car, and I ran out of gas..." Yeah, blow me.

My point being: it's the real world. You have to use discretion. But discretion doesn't have to turn you into Scrooge. Lemme tell ya... when it comes to fixing motorcycles, 99.99% of the time, I am not the guy to call. But in this .01% situation? It made the black and bitter lump of coal that passes as my heart happy to help.

Ride on, noble Honda Rebel rider! Ride on!

On Habit Forming

2010-01-19T16:00:00.000-08:00

It was really rainy and shitty outside when I woke up this morning, even moreso than yesterday. Despite the bleak exterior, I was still able to get work done, thanks to my RoboCoffee 109 and some '80s metal.

The weather got worse. Lightning! Hail!

Now... since getting back to LA, I've been hitting the gym almost every day. I've been doing this not only as holiday bounce-back (literally and figuratively) but, thanks to my father's health issues, I've become very aware of that whole scene. I'd rather spend time in a gym now than a hospital later.

My energy typically dips in the middle of the afternoon. In the past, I'd try to make up the difference with caffeine. These days, I go to the gym, and the shot of energy sends me working late into the night. Now that I'm self-employed, I work even longer hours than ever, even including the writing. But that gym time makes it possible in a painless way.

My point is, noon came and went. The weather got even worse. Not worse by the standards of the real world, mind you, but LA-worse. Still, though... the idea of getting on the bike in a lightning storm was a little daunting. I considered skipped the gym today.

The idea filled me with a severe depression.

Then I thought... what? Huh? After only three weeks, I'm already so deep into this habit that not going to the gym is sad-making?

Apparently. And, as if the world REALLY DID revolve around me, the rain petered out, and the sun came up. I went to the gym.

But my boots and jacket were on already, anyway. Shit, I'm from Chicago. A little rain ain't gonna stop me.

You've Got Another Thing Comin'

2010-01-15T22:25:00.000-08:00

Song lyrics are nothing but poetry in another form.

I've been catching up on '80 metal in a big way lately, and I've tripped over some songs that are actually about something real.

For example, Judas Priest's "You've Got Another Thing Comin'."

I've lived my life my this ideas contained within this song for the past seven years without knowing it. Or DID I...?

I Picked Up My Bass Again

2010-01-11T20:16:00.000-08:00

For years, my Fender J sat in the corner collecting dust. I picked it up every once in a while, mostly just to run scales and goof around. It was an exercise in pain, for both my fingers and my ears. I'd gotten rusty. I was never exactly a virtuoso in the first place -- I think at my high point, I was what you might call "pretty good." These days? I just fucking suck.

But between starting my own business and this whole thing with my dad, I've been looking to reboot core aspects of my life, get back to roots, set aside the bullshit and just focus on what I came to LA to do: sell books and scripts, make movies and work.

That part of my mental game was coming together. But there was something missing... I couldn't put my finger on it. Until, completely at random, I picked up my bass. I ran scales again. This time, though, I wasn't just going through the motions. I worked to hit the notes, shore up my basics, actually play the music.

Tonight I ran E major one hundred times. It sounds small, and it is, but I haven't put in that kind of woodshed work on the bass since... shit, forever. I used to practice for hours every day after school. I played electric and upright in college. And now to go back and do that kind of practice again... It felt strange at first, but familiar. It was visiting the block you grew up on. It felt good.

I'm going to take it slow, just a little bit every night. I've found it's better to own one scale than to rent eight. Tomorrow I'll work up F major, the night after F#, and so on until I get to the minors. Rinse and repeat.

Though it doesn't have as direct an application as, say, journalism school, the lessons I learned in music have been endlessly applicable to writing, developing and producing. How could I spend so much time concentrating on the tree, while forgetting the roots?

For a long time, I ignored my bass, because I thought I had to devote every waking second of my life on the film career to get things going. But I've found that sometimes you have to go all the way around the world to come home, literally and figuratively.

Mr. Coffee

2010-01-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

I got a new coffee maker from my parents for my birthday. Unfortunately, it's sat in its box the whole time since I got it about a month ago.

Until today.

I got back into town last week and, before I could go gallivanting around buying coffee, I had to nail down work-type stuff. Then on Sunday morning, I hit the Hollywood farmer's market and scored a bag of beans (the non-magical variety) from the coffee stand guys. I've been scoring cups of this coffee every weekend I go there to stock up on veggies, and I've fallen in love.

Point being, today I finally had it all: the machine, the beans, the will and the time to make this coffee happen. Long/short: it was a damn good cup o' joe. But I think it could be better if I used filtered water...

Back in LA, and the Wonders of Technology

2010-01-07T09:00:00.001-08:00

It was hard to leave my parents with so much still unresolved. But I've started a company, and I have a job to do. I stopped in at the acute care facility to see my dad on the way out of town. He's finally out of ICU, and he was with a physical therapist when I showed up. Still not exactly playing eighteen yet, but the arrow's pointed in the right direction.

I landed in Burbank and wandered out to the longterm lot where I'd parked my bike. It was dusty, but otherwise fine. I jumped on, flipped the ignition, and... nothing. Not even a click. It was dead.

Even when a vehicle is off, there's a slight drain on the battery. Since my bike has a smaller battery, just two weeks was all it took to kill it. And I knew all of this, but remember when I pulled into the lot two weeks ago, I was racing to AZ to see if my dad was going to live or not. I was distracted. Battery cables weren't on my mind.

I asked a shuttle driver if they could send someone out to give me a jump. He came back and said they didn't have the right cables for a motorcycle. Huh?

I knew I could call a tow truck. But then I'd be sitting there for a million years waiting for him, and I'd get raped for money I didn't want to spend on somethig that would take the driver all of ten seconds. Shit, nothing could be easy, could it?

Then I thought... Wait, isn't there a way to push start a bike? I'm not exactly Mr. Mechanic, I didn't have the first idea how.

So I pulled out my iPhone and googled "how to push start a motorcycle." This led me to an instructional video on YouTube. I sat in the bike and watched the video. It seemed really easy. I put the bike into second, ran it down the parking lot for a dozen yards or so, hit the starter and... Voilà! It started!

I shifted it into neutral, got my stuff together and rode it around the lot a few times to charge it. Then I went home. Amazing.

At any other point of time in my life, this would have been a massive, expensive pain in the ass. But I was able to reach into the air and pull down the little piece of knowledge I needed to help myself in this situation.

My script IMPLANT is about this kinda thing, the ability to download whatever skills or knowledge you need into your head. There's even a scene in which the protagonist downloads a mechanics program so he can hot wire a car and escape. And here, I'd just done something very, very similar (pull down information so I could start a vehicle and leave a parking lot) in real life. We've reached the stage at which story elements that are considered "sci-fi" have a shorter and shorter shelf life.

I think that's pretty cool.

An Update, Blockbuster and Jennifer's Body

2010-01-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

My father is getting moved to an acute care facility today. It wasn't clear if we'd be able to make this happen while I was still in AZ. But luckily he's stable, and a recent procedure went well, so we can. He's still in critical condition, but I'm taking any little victory we can get.

He's under heavy sedation at night. I bring my laptop along and work while I'm at the hospital all day, so at night I've been taking the opportunity to catch up on movies.

I rerouted my Netflix to my parents' house. But the holidays have played havok with the post office, so I'm only intermittently getting envelopes. (I watched season two of DEXTER). Red Box is cheap and convenient, but NEVER has anything I actually want to see in stock. And then we got a coupon in the mail, with an offer for a month of rentals at Blockbuster for two bucks each, instead of the usual five.

Despite the hard time I often give Blockbuster, both of the reds failed me, so I went with blue.

Blockbuster always seems to have a billion copies of new releases, which is what I wanted. And two bucks is obviously more than a dollar, but I'd rather pay two bucks to watch a movie I want to see than one dollar to settle for something else. Good job, Blockbuster. Now THIS is a business model that actually makes some sense. But I also think it's a temporary measure. The wiser course in the long run may be to push the well-established Blockbuster brand into a VOD delivery system. If they could put a box in the home that delivers any movie or TV episode at any time -- the direction in which we're headed -- before their competition, they'll have a shot at longer-term survival. Netflix is already way ahead of them in some ways, and Blockbuster is reacting instead of innovating. But shit... if they don't at least try, within ten years they're going to be like typewriter salesmen in 1980.

I rented JENNIFER'S BODY.

JENNIFER'S BODY is a mystery to me. It has Megan Fox on the cover, the marketing promised nudity, gore and a lesbian make-out scene, writing by Diablo Cody, and was an R-rated horror-comedy.

Despite all of this, it underperformed rather badly.

Now... horror-comedy is REALLY fucking hard to sell, almost on par with drama. I know this because I love horror-comedies. EVIL DEAD II, DEAD ALIVE, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD... these are some of my favorite movies of all time. I'll let the grad school guys sit around and talk about how brilliant CITIZEN KANE is... I'll be over here watching ARMY OF DARKNESS. When I first moved out from Chicago, it was my sincere goal to get some horror-comedies made. I wanted to add to the pantheon. But I soon found out that it's extraordinarily difficult to get one of these things set up.

And by "found out," I mean I tried for fucking years, without success. The problem is they're very difficult to market. And, if you can't convince people your horror-comedy is the movie they should see on Friday/Saturday night over something that's easy to understand (for instance, a high concept comedy with an A-list star), then they don't.

With that in mind, JENNIFER'S BODY's performance should come as no surprise. But it opened very close to ZOMBIELAND, which fucking killed. This also is an R-rated horror-comedy. So the question becomes... why did ZOMBIELAND perform above expectations, and JENNIFER'S BODY below? Is it just a whim of fate? Or is there a factor we're not considering?

I digress: I'd read a bunch of reviews of JENNIFER'S BODY online. They were overwhelmingly negative. They must have watched a different movie... I'm not saying it's perfect, but I was entertained.

Megan Fox is primarily known for her role in the TRANSFORMER franchise. If you really look at those movies, though, she barely has any screen time. It's hard to get a handle on her at all. (Besides Michael Bay's famously simple direction, "Just look hot.") I thought she was great in the title role. Playing a bitchy high school girl is something she can pull off.

And I really liked Amanda Seyfriend. Between MEAN GIRLS, MAMA MIA! and this, she's played three vastly different characters, and I bought her in all three movies. She's beautiful and talented. I didn't think all of Diablo's lines stuck the landing, the narration was unnecessary and I don't believe the framing device added anything. But this is a movie in which a crappy indie emo band sacrifices a girl to Satan in exchange for stardom, and they sing "867-5309" while committing the murder.

That's a fun night at the movies.

Transformers 2, and Red Box

2010-01-02T07:50:00.000-08:00

Last night, after visiting hours were over, I wanted to grab a couple of more movies. I'd been doing some low-level bitching about Blockbuster, so my mom said, "Why don't you go to that Red Box thing? Your dad likes it a lot."

Sure, what the hell? We've got 'em in LA, of course, but there I typically just rely on Netflix.

I went to Albertson's. There was a Red Box. It had a large board showing mini posters of the available movies next to it. The Red Box has a touch screen interface. It was easy to understand, but I was still dicking with it minutes later. I couldn't understand why I wasn't able to find the touch screens for the movies I wanted, until the obvious dawned on me - they were out. Every one. Okay, score one for Blockbuster, which I knew had a bajillion copies of every recent release.

So thus did I get TRANSFORMERS 2, a difficult title to type on the iPhone.

Red Box charged me a buck for this rental, plus tax. It should be noted that Blockbuster is in the same strip mall, about four doors down. They would have charged me five bucks, plus tax, for the exact same movie. In their defense, I would have gotten the movie for five days whereas Red Box wants it back within 24 hours. It's still a buck a day. But if you're the type to sometimes have movies sitting on your counter for a few days before you watch them (which I very much am), there's Netflix.

This is why Blockbuster is fucking doomed. Their core business model is no longer competitive. They're getting their asses kicked by a combination of red boxes and red envelopes. I suppose if I had to watch a non-new release RIGHT NOW, they would fill that gap. But how often does that occur? For me, a couple of times a year, and even then I usually hit a local place like Rocket. It's simple supply and demand. And, once VOD becomes ubiquitous, they're going to be in the horse and buggy business. Blockbuster is a brontosaurus wondering why it's gotten so cold lately.

Anyway, T. (I'm not gonna keep thumb-typing it out). I liked it about the same as the first one, in similar ways.

Bay's considered to be a guy who's an action maestro, and not much good at anything else. My experience with both T movies is the exact opposite. With each, I kinda enjoyed the hyper goofy first acts, with unexpected moments of actual comedy. In the second act of each, we get one really cool Optimus Prime fight. And the third acts are non-stop action, which I ironically found dull.

In the first one, the climactic fight was so fast cut and weirdly staged I had trouble tracking what was going on. For me, it was a lot of shots of something punching somebody, and then something else (maybe?) blowing up. It was hard for me to connect, and so I just watched the images flash by like I was in the summer popcorn version of the CLOCKWORK ORANGE treatment, sans vomit.

In the sequel, the climactic fight involves Shia trying to run a half mile across a battlefield to revive Optimus Prime. It's the longest half mile run in cinematic history. Bay pulled way back on the cutting, so I was able to track the sequence. I just didn't care. It's one long series of booms, like a fireworks show that goes on for four hours. I started watching Phantom Menace videos on YouTube, and glancing at the movie from the corner of my eye. A giant robot is trying to blow up the sun. How do you make that scene boring? Watch this movie and find out.

It also has a weird, shifting tone. The humor is very, very broad, almost infantile at times. And yet we get some salty language, and an overtly sexual come-on scene and drug references. I wasn't offended, just confused as to how those pieces fit with the nosepicker sense of humor. Who was this movie for?

I realized that Bay makes movies without theme. They aren't talking about anything, beyond yelling short sentences at the audience. "Sexy!" "Gross!" "Boom!" "Uh-oh!" He has an admirable respect of the military, but even that's very surface level, like a long Go Army commercial from the '90s. For instance, we're given a government bureaucrat who has no function except to make the military guys look cooler and smarter than in juxtaposition. Is our military so insecure that we need to give them straw men to beat up in summer franchise movies?

But critiquing Michael Bay films is an exercise in futility. The guy gets movies made, and those movies make billions, so apparently he's giving the general audience what they want.

I expect a third movie to come along, I expect it'll be more of the same, and I expect civilization will continue unaffected.

Up

2010-01-02T07:48:00.001-08:00

Last night, I stopped by Blockbuster on the way home from the hospital. I'm still not exactly a big fan of the place, but it has its uses. I needed a break to recharge, and watching movies is the best way to plug my head into the wall for a while.

I got UP. I spent the entire movie kicking myself for not catching it in 3D. It's a beautiful movie, beautifully told.

I was struck by the image of our main protagonist literally dragging his past around behind him. And he's very similar to the villain, Muntz, a shadow version of himself. They're both men who have taken their flying houses to this waterfall in South America. But while Fredrickson has done this for love, an attempt to give his wife the adventure they weren't able to share while she was alive, Muntz is there for a negative purpose, to prove to the world he's not a fraud. Alone with his unquestioning servitors, his mind has curdled. He is a reflection of what Fredrickson would have become if he weren't motivated by Ellie's memory.

This is especially telling given that Muntz was a hero to our guy and his wife. But while their perception of the adventure Muntz embodied was filtered through their good souls, the reality was much more flawed, and became dangerous in time.

He's very close kin to the villain in THE INCREDIBLES.

I love Pixar movies because they aren't afraid to create entire worlds around their stories. I always give big points to a movie that gives us something we've never seen before, and a guy wandering around a jungle with a floating house tied to his back with a garden hose while being menaced by a pack of talking dogs... Well, not too many of those around.

But it's not just weird for weird's sake. The setting and narrative are organically crafted, effectively selling us on every turn. It's more of a reflection of the unusual paths the human heart takes us than anything else.

It also offers an excellent example of how to maintain a character who has very little screentime, in this case Ellie. Not only is she a consistent character throughout, she even has an arc - long after she's gone! It's a lesson in master level storytelling.

UP is a strange and wonderful movie. I would go so far as to call it a perfect movie.

The Exorcist

2010-01-02T07:45:00.001-08:00

I got very close to losing my father on Christmas Eve. It was one of the hardest nights of my life.

Alone and in the darkness, I was assailed by regrets. Every shitty thing I'd ever said, every time I could have done better and did not... they came for me. They had claws and fangs, they carried whips and knives, and they outnumbered me a million to one.

Since we've turned this corner, I've been able to relax a little bit and consider what happened that night. So naturally I started thinking about THE EXORCIST.

It's generally acknowledged as one of the scariest movies ever made. It's also one of my favorite movies of all time. I find new things to love about this film every time I watch it. I own the book, and I've read it at least a dozen times. There are differences, but the film retains everything it needs from the novel, giving this multi-layered story a visceral aspect that cold words on a page cannot offer.

I love this story because it discusses something I consider to be a deep truth.

Whenever you start talking about THE EXORCIST, the first things that come up are all of the crazy shit that happens to the possessed girl, Reagan. But this is only the surface of the narrative.

Several years ago, I saw an expanded version of THE EXORCIST in the theater... it was one of the last movies I watched in Chicago, before moving to LA. Again, Reagan's creepy spider-walk scene got all of the attention.

However, the true heart of this film is in one of the other scenes that been previously cut, a scene that exists in the novel. In act three, Marin and Karas take a brief respite from the exorcism. (Conducting these things is hard work). Karas wonders aloud why a demon would come to torment a little girl who never did anything to anybody.

Marin says the demon's true target isn't Reagan; it's after the people around her. It wants to show them that they have been abandoned. There is no help, because they are unworthy of love. The demon is trying to get them to see themselves as vile, and thus lose their faith in anything higher, be it a loving God, or just their capacity to do good.

Father Karas had just lost his mother. Not only did he lose her, but she died in poverty. He's a smart guy, a psychiatrist, hence his involvement in Reagan's case. He could have easily gone into private practice, made a lot of money and given his mother the best of medical care, ensuring her a longer and happier life. But instead, he chose the priesthood, and so she lived a pitiful existence in a tiny apartment. It was days before anybody noticed she'd even gotten ill, and she finally dies alone, ranting in the poor house. It's heartbreaking.

He's tormented with guilt. Her death has caused him to question everything, including his faith. And that's why the demon goes after him. This man, who had so much faith that he'd given up so much to follow his path... if THIS guy is wavering well, shit, the demon can break anybody.

In the novel, whether the demon is an actual supernatural evil is much more in question. The climax occurs behind a closed door, whereas in the movie we actually see the demon rise out of Reagan. But the effect is the same... as a metaphor, the demon is the external representation of the internal demons borne by Karas and Reagan's mother. They're faced with their greatest weaknesses, and cannot see themselves as anything but the most evil and vile of creatures, unworthy of love and unable to do anything good.

The demon first speaks to Karas in the voice of a bum he refused to give money. He's a smaller guilt. Later, it appears to Karas in the form of his mother, the core guilt driving Karas. She asks the question Karas asks himself: "Why you do this to me?" Karas loses it and screams, 'You're not my mother!"

This is true on two levels... he knows it's a demon posing as his mother, but he also knows that it's just a reflection of the worst part of himself, a dark mirror held up before his soul. His real mother loved him so much that she would never ask that question, but in that moment he cannot see that. He only hears his own thoughts, repeated back to him by the demon.

There are lots of romantic comedies talking about "love." I don't hold anything against them; they're entertainment, a fun night at the movies. Popcorn.

But there is another love to be found in THE EXORCIST, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR and, in a more recent example, THE ROAD. It's the love found in the midst of ugliness, the worst possible circumstances. It's easy to talk about love when you have a couple of yuppie douchebags trading witty one-liners... not so easy when the characters are fighting for the lives and souls. Yet in these darker movies we find a stronger and more pure emotion, a lone flower in the midst of a barren winter field.

And in that way, aren't the demons there to help us see that? In JACOB'S LADDER, Danny Aiello's character tells us that the demons aren't our tormentors... they're our servants, helping us to strip away illusions. It's a painful process, of couse, but nothing worth doing is easy.

So my demons were able to help me see what I didn't understand when I was younger, that these differences we create for ourselves - particularly with the people we love - are so often nothing but petty illusions, and only by clinging to them do we make ourselves vile.

Spoiler in case you're one of the few people who hasn't see THE EXORCIST...

In the final moments, Karas sacrifices himself to save Reagan. In so doing, he proves he is capable of doing good, committing himself to a noble act. He shows the people who attend his death that the demon is wrong. It's a victory. His soul is saved.

No matter what mistakes we've made, or how often we've failed, there is nothing preventing us from continuing to try to do better, revealing our guilt over past sins as only so much weight we carry for no other reason than to give our demons tools to use in our darkest hours.

I wish some lessons didn't come with such a high tuition. But again... would we value them as much if they didn't?

Not Exactly A Christmas Miracle, But I'll Take It

2010-01-02T07:44:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, we visited my dad and stayed with him through the morning. The doctor hoped to remove him from the machine that helped him to breathe - the first tiny step toward recovery. He was strong, it looked good. They took him off, and he did it. Whew. The next step would be to give him some tests, see where we were at, and figure out the pathway to recovery. All good.

Good enough that my mom and I went out for lunch, and home for a minute to grab some stuff before heading back.

But as well pulled into the driveway, mom's cell rang. It was the nurse on duty. While taking my dad down for the tests, he stopped breathing. He crashed. They rushed him back to his room and got him hooked back up.

The nurse asked if my dad had a living will (he does). Because, if he could never breathe on his own, if he could never leave a hospital bed... Now we're thinking, shit, are we suddenly having this conversation?After it all looked so well?

We rushed back to the hospital in terror. My dad was out. Unmoving. Unresponsive. I sincerely thought he was going to be gone within the hour.

Eventually, he woke up. He was very weak. I stayed as long as I could. They took him down for more tests.

Christmas Eve was a dark night of the soul. It was an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. The up-and-down of the days before had been bad, but to repeat the roller coaster - and with even bigger stakes - was torture.

Morning came. I'd been through so much the day before that I woke with an odd feeling of calm. It wasn't that I was no longer worried about my dad, far from it. But it was like my emotional nerve endings had been cauterized. Simply put, I lost my shit yesterday, and today I got it back together.

We got to the hospital ready for anything.

A new doctor was there, Dr. Castro. He said that my dad hadn't lost the ability to breathe. Quite the opposite - everything is stable and strong. But the stoke had made his throat seize up, which happens sometimes. A simple tracheotomy would do the trick. And after that, high hopes.

Dammit, really? All of that over a tracheotomy? Man...

I've already taken two spins on this ride, so I'm not setting exactly dashing through the London streets, looking for a goose to buy for Tiny Tim. But... after the bleak Christmas Eve we suffered, I can at last feel like it'll be a Merry Christmas.

On Health

2010-01-02T07:43:00.000-08:00

For obvious reasons, health has lately been a frequent topic of conversation among my family.

The generations before ours didn't think much about it. If you smoked two packs a day, drank a six pack every night and had donuts for breakfast, a burger for lunch and meat and potatoes for dinner... that was just normal.

My mom smoked and drank. My dad quit smoking a long time ago, but he drank and ate whatever he wanted.

And I lived a pretty typical Chicago lifestyle... Pizza, dogs, burgers and beer. I was a vegetarian for several years, but I smoked and drank like crazy the whole time. Yeah, that made sense.

I smoked about two packs a day for thirteen years. For a long time, it was one of my defining characteristics. I can't begin to describe how glad I am that I quit. These days, it's hard to even imagine the activity. I lit rolls of tobacco on fire and sucked on them? Just because? Bizarre.

But even so... When I left my longtime position to start my own company, now that my time is my own, I decided to devote some of it every day to repairing the damage I'd done. For years, I survived on ramen noodles and fast food dollar menus. That same small amount of money would have gotten me organic produce from the farmer's market, but I just wasn't used to living like that, so I didn't. I barely exercised. When time got tight - which was a constant situation - exercise was the first thing to go. And drinking...

It's a journey upon which I'm just now embarking, within the last couple of months. And changing a lifetime if personal and cultural habits isn't easy. But avoiding health problems is worth so much more than the fleeting pleasures of one more beer, the extra large order of nachos.

You don't have to live like a monk, eating one green pepper a day, drinking nothing but water and spending three hours a day on a tread mill. But these bodies in which our minds reside are complex organic machines, with a lot of interacting parts that easily wear out and break. The time we spend taking care of them is rewarded by time we do not spend lying in a hospital bed while our families stand around in an agony of worry.

Healthy living won't create an indestructible force field around you. Jogging every day won't stop a bullet, and eating an apple instead of fries won't prevent a genetic precondition. But why not try to prevent the things you can?

I recently had a lot of trouble with my laptop. I got a new one. Though a MacBook is well regarded for its performance, and an extended warranty protects it, I fully expect to replace it in three or four years. Until cloning technology is perfected, we don't have that luxury.

A Dark Night, and Dawn

2009-12-23T11:17:00.000-08:00

Last night: after two days without sleep, my mom finally passed out. I did not. I couldn't drink myself to sleep because, if the hospital called, I would need to lucid. I didn't know if my father would be with us when we woke up.

It was a long, dark night.

No one called with news of either kind during the night, so... it was a no-news-is-no-news situation. We went to the hospital, thinking it would be more of the same.

My father was awake.

He's groggy and cannot speak. But he moves and can smile. He knows what you're saying to him, and gave a weak thumbs-up when he heard he would be able to golf again.

Daina was pleasantly surprised. She didn't say it in so many words, but I could tell they didn't expect for this to be the outcome.

Here's what happened:

On Monday, it was bad news of course... having a minor stroke is like getting shot with a minor gun. (Or an "insignificant bullet," as Werner Herzog would say). It's not exactly a paper cut. But he could talk on the phone, and lie comfortably in bed.

Thus, they weren't watching him every second on Monday night. So when he had trouble breathing, it was several minutes before a nurse noticed. It was no one's fault, just some bad luck. He was a victim of his own relatively good health. When he wasn't breathing, the oxygen was cut off from his brain. Luckily, it wasn't long enough to kill him, just knock him out.

This morning: we met with Dr. Gorman. The tests for which we'd been waiting came back.

He had a stroke in the right side of his brain stem. The flow of blood to the brain had been blocked by an obstruction. But the test didn't show anything here - whatever had caused the stroke has since moved on. There was no bleeding in his brain. The stroke affected the cerebellum, which controls the senses. From what we can tell, nothing that controls basic motor functions was damaged.

He can breathe on his own, but is still aided by the tubes. They don't want to rush it. It could come out today, or tomorrow. They still want him to get a lot of rest, hence my being home at the moment. We can only visit for limited periods.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support. My dad could have gone either way last night. It was 50/50. We flipped a coin... and we came up heads. I'd like to think he was aided by the good thoughts that came his way.

My Father - What Happened, and an Update

2009-12-22T15:01:00.001-08:00

His name is Thomas Stanley Kuciak, and he had a stroke.

As to what happened, I wasn't there - so please forgive the lack of detail - but this is what my mom's told me:

On Sunday night, my dad didn't feel well when he went to bed.

At three o'clock Monday morning, my mom woke up and found him awake and sitting in the next room. He said it was time to go to the emergency room. She dialed 911.

They got him to the hospital, which is luckily about five minutes away. He was lucid and awake, but in pain. His left arm felt strange. The doctors said he'd had a stroke.

My mom called and told me what had happened. She said he was getting tests, and would call back. Having nothing else to do, I worked until they called at about 12:30 Monday afternoon. He dialed the phone himself, with his right hand, and held the phone to his head with his left.

He said, "I feel like shit." He said something else, but his voice was slurred. That was all he could say. That was fine - I didn't want to strain him.

At the time, it seemed like a relatively minor stroke. A warning stroke, something to tell my dad he'll have to life a different way, and keep an eye on his health. It was distressing, but seemed in the moment that, after a scare, we'd be able to just move on with our lives.

I called my mom again at about seven last night. She was home. He was about the same, and the nurses said she should get some rest. She was exhausted, and I only talked to her for a couple of minutes. However, she later told me she got very little sleep.

My flight was at 9:45 this morning out of Burbank. I got in at about noon Phoenix time. Their friend Jerry picked me up. I got to the house, dropped off my stuff, and we went to the hospital.

When we arrived, he wasn't in the room. He'd been taken down for a series of tests. But we were only there for a few minutes before they brought him back.

He was unconscious.

The nursing staff got him hooked back up to the battery of machines and cleaned him up. It took several minutes, during which my mom and I sat in the corner, watching.

When they were done, Taina - the nurse - explained where we were at:

Last night at about 10:30 or so, a nurse checked on him, and he wasn't breathing. His lips were blue. They got a tube in him. He hasn't woken up since. He isn't breathing on his own.

If you call his name, his eyes flutter open. She did so, demonstrating. But the eyes don't track. There's no one home. That doesn't mean he's gone per se... he may just be too far down. The eye blink is an almost reflexive response. He didn't open his eyes when my mom or I spoke to him, though.

He clenches is left fist. Taina thought that was odd, since when he was awake, all of the discomfort had been with the left side. Ordinarily, discomfort on the left side means that's where you'll have the most trouble. But he's moving that side... and not the right. It's not good or bad, just unusual.

Right before we'd arrived, the neurologist, Dr. Gorman, had sent him to do a range of tests. They wanted to see if there was brain activity. They wanted to see if he'd had another stroke, which is possible. These things sometimes come in groups.

The thing is, no one, including the medical staff, knows anything at this point until the tests come back. We're in limbo.

What we DO know is he's now a diabetic. He also has high blood pressue. It's not dangerously high, just high.

Daina was told us the unvarnished truth: we have a 50/50 chance of keeping or losing him. There is a chance he could wake up in an hour and, after rehab, be fine. There is a chance he could wake and have suffered neurological damage. And there is a chance he won't wake up.

She was very clear... she said that, if she felt we needed to, she'd let us know that we should stay in the room. And that was not the situation. He's out, but (relatively) stable.

Until we know more, all there is... is not knowing. He may not have brain activity, and there is only blackness. Or he may be thinking, and just be too deep in the dream to communicate.

I'll post again as soon as we have information.

On Re-Rewriting

2009-12-20T12:00:00.001-08:00

When my Gateway laptop crapped out on me, it was a pain in the ass in the sense that I lost a lot of time dealing with it instead of working.

But in terms of data, it wasn't that huge of a loss, since almost everything that was on it had been emailed at one point in time or another, either between other people, or to myself.

The only truly significant loss was the work I did on the third draft of my script EXTRADITION while visiting my family over Thanksgiving. A week's worth of writing... gone.

I've been rebuilding that work since then, a little at a time.

On the one hand it's easier. Over Thanksgiving, I wrote a ton of pages I ended up throwing out, chasing ideas down rabbit holes, only to discard what came out the other end. No big deal... that's how I write, anyway. So it wasn't wasted time, in the sense that now I'm rebuilding writing that was based on choices made after many other choices were explored and discarded.

On the other hand... the work isn't kept fresh by creative exploration, which is always fun for me. There's a pervading sense of, "Fuck, I DID this already!" Instead of enjoyable, it's frustrating, a constant reminder of what a piece of shit my old laptop was, and the trouble it caused me. It is exactly like getting three quarters the way through building a house, only to have a hurricane come along and blow everything down.

I hate having to fight my way back up to zero, but that's a frequent situation in my life.

I made it up to page 75 before the laptop died. I've rebuilt everything up to page 55. So, in 20 pages, I'll be back in virgin territory. Those last pages will be purely new... I have to come up with a completely different third act climax. It'll be harder work, but more fun.

After I hand that in, I'll be back on DESERT RUN. Not only do I rewrite that project every time I go back to it; each go-around is another reinvention. Again: harder work, but more fun.

And after that's turned around, I'm gonna crack out this horror idea that's rattling around in me. I'll keep the writing of that first draft to within 10-14 days, so it doesn't get in the way of the more commercial stuff.

Boots

2009-12-19T23:14:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was riding southbound on Vine, coming back from the gym. I shifted gears, and the sole of my left boot came off. It fell into onto the street. I pulled over.

By some bizarre coincidence, I was within fifty feet of California Surplus, an army surplus store from which I had bought this pair of boots a year ago. I limped to their front door... and they had closed fifteen minutes ago.

I have a spare helmet, but not a spare set of boots.

I rode over the next day wearing my Converse. It was weird - I felt like I was shifting with my bare feet.

I got boots, and I hope they last at least another year.

New boots chew up the side of your leg. It's like a tattoo - you earn it through pain.

My first set of boots were a little tight. They left neat, read circles of cut skin around my mid-shin. I thought perhaps this happened because they were too tight, so this time I got boots a half size larger. They did an even worse job on me, sawing at the skin right beneath the muscle. It sucked and it bled. I wore nothing but those boots for a week, trying to break them in as soon as possible.

It worked. Now the boots fit fine, but I haven't healed yet. It looks like I walked into barbed wire. But again... if you're scared of pain and injury, you don't belong on a damn motorcycle.

Freedom demands pain.

Dan O'Bannon

2009-12-18T11:20:00.000-08:00

Dan O'Bannon died.

It would be easy to find eulogies to the guy online. I don't feel the need to add to it, beyond to say that ALIEN is one of the best movies ever made, and is deeply important to me in the sense of the path I took in life.

I would put RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD up there as one of the best horror-comedies of all time, right up with EVIL DEAD II in terms of brilliance. Hell... let's not shove it into a niche. It's not just an amazing horror-comedy, it's a damn good movie, period.

One of the hardest times I've ever laughed in my life is the first appearance of the beach ball monster in DARK STAR.

Thanks, man.

Rejoice, For I Now Own a Coffee Maker

2009-12-16T10:06:00.000-08:00

I visited my parents for Thanksgiving. It was impossible not to notice an new addition to their kitchen counter-top: a big-ass coffee maker. Brand new. This thing is the RoboCop of coffee making.

They typically drink decaf, because that's what happens when you retire: you try to relax. I, however, have no interest in decaf. I worship at the altar of caffeine.

These days, I'm getting to the gym, eating right and pulling down some real sleep, so I don't have to prop myself up with a gallon of burning go-juice like I used to... but hell, I'd be a damn liar if I said I didn't love a good shot of joe, black and in a cup.

Anyway, the parents are well aware of my disdain for decaf so, when I swing out to visit, they stock up on real beans, as God intended. This time around, they got a bag of the Dunkin Donuts blend. There's a rare commodity. In Chicago, there are so many Dunkin Donuts around, you could skip a rock off their roof tops. In LA, not so much. It's not chain donut town. I've seen a couple of Winchell's around, but even they're not as ubiquitous as DD in Chicago. When it comes to donuts, LA is more of a mom'n'pop scene. Doesn't matter to me either way... I can't remember the last time I ate a donut.

But I digress: we now live in a world in which good coffee is as close as the nearest fast food joint. But even in that stratus, the DD stuff stands out. My parents made some coffee. I'd say they made a pot of coffee, but it isn't that kind of maker. You press a button, and a specially made shot of coffee shoots into your cup, crafted just for you.

I was expecting coffee. What I got instead was hot happiness in liquid form.

Pure bliss.

I expressed my deep appreciation of this wondrous machine, and its product.

Now... I used to have a coffee maker, but the pot broke, and it was a piece of shit anyway so I threw it out. Juan Valdez could have shown up at my front door with a freshly harvested sack of beans, roasted them right there, hand-cranked the grinder and lovingly brewed a cup, and my old maker would have still turned it into black urine. Good riddance.

But I've been waking up to some caffeine for years. It's not just a habit, it's a ritual that signals the beginning of a day.

I've been getting by with green tea. It's supposed to be good for you, or at least better than coffee. Water - that I can boil. And I've been regularly hitting the Hollywood farmer's market, where I scored a bunch of fresh mint for a buck. Toss some of those leaves into the green tea, and... not bad.

It doesn't have the bitter kick of a good cup of coffee, and the caffeine is a more mellow experience. Green tea is like having mom gently shake you awake. "Honey? Time to go to school..." Coffee is a drill sergeant. Good coffee is like R. Lee Ermey with a bullhorn.

Point is, apparently my parents took note of my love for their coffee machine. A few days ago, Santa Claus showed up at my door. He used his elfin Christmas magic to make himself look like a UPS delivery guy. Santa gave me a box.

Inside the box: an early Christmas present from the 'rents. An identical coffee maker.

I have yet to deflower it. You don't just dump Folgers in this thing. It demands a higher grade of bean. I've been mulling my options, deciding what brew I'll use to lasciviously sully my new coffee maker. Starbucks? An organic blend from Whole Foods? Something else I haven't thought of yet...? I've been circling the machine, mulling my options.

There are some coffee guys at the farmer's market. They've got a damn good cup. If I don't think of anything brilliant before Sunday, I'll probably score a bag from their stall.

I have nothing but happiness on my horizon.

Hardhat Days

2009-12-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

After my epic travails with the laptop, I had to clock some serious catch-up time. I'll pulled on the hardhat and leaned into it. My life turned into: wake up, flip on the Mac, work until one, go to the gym, eat lunch, work until nine or ten, pour some wine and write until I fell asleep.

Not too different from the days I worked for seven years at my former gig. But now I had the added satisfaction of knowing that every minute I put in was a minute spent furthering the goals I have for myself and my clients.

I'm not quite up to speed, but I'm close enough that I feel like I'll be able to round the corner by the end of the weekend, and figured I could spend a few minutes on an update.

My initial decision to start a company was abrupt; it occurred within the moment and, though I took a few minutes to make a couple of calls and bounce the feasibility of the idea around, I knew I was going to take this direction.

But I hadn't gathered a war chest, or lain a lot of track. So I've been handling really mundane aspects of the business while flipping around and doing the creative work. I don't mind, I'm used to wearing a lot of hats, and switching them throughout the day,

But, by a stroke of luck, it turned out my timing was perfect. Thanks to the holidays, I was not only able to get a stable of writers together, I also have the opportunity to develop the slate while the town is idling in neutral. I've been making submissions but, except for the novel, I haven't taken anything wide.

When 2010 rolls around, I'll be ready with a fully developed slate: follow-ups on the novel, another book, and five scripts. Seven projects. My plan is to launch these projects wide, one after the other. And they're all coming along well... they'll be ready.

I'll be doing a much different kind of work in January and February than I've been doing in November and December. I can't fucking wait.

Rejoice, For I Am Now a Mac Guy

2009-12-12T14:24:00.000-08:00

I've been in business for myself for seven weeks. I've spent that majority of that time fucking with my beater of a laptop. Every time it went into the shop, it cost me days of productivity. Perfect timing.

Open letter to Gateway:

"Dear Gateway,

Fuck you.

Sincerely Yours,

Michael T. Kuciak"

At last, it completely crapped out on me. By this time, I was not only burned out on Gateway, I was done with PC as a whole, forever. I went to the Apple store and got a MacBook.

Except for working on Macs in various writing gigs and internships, I've been a PC guy my whole life. It takes some getting used to, but I can say right off... I love it. And it's refreshing to finally have a machine that actually, like, does stuff. And works.

I'm a simple guy. I don't ask for much. For example, with a laptop I don't need it to write my scripts for me, render high-end CGI or give me a shiatsu massage in the morning. I just need it to do stuff like handle email and let me write. Not a tall order, huh? But those simple tasks were way beyond my former machine.

Baseline, I just need a computer that doesn't fuck with me.

Overjoyed at finally having a machine that operates and stuff, I've been putting in massive work days. Hard hat on, eye of the tiger alight, it's been early in the morning to late at night, with breaks only for gym and lunch. I put in nineteen hours on the machine yesterday. I slept late this morning (nine... for me, that's like waking up at noon). It wasn't like I'd been swinging a sledge hammer all day - which I've done. I guess my brain was tired. Too damn bad.

Let the rocking once again commence.

I'm Splitting for Arizona Tomorrow

2009-11-23T12:35:00.001-08:00

...to hang with my family for Thanksgiving. I'll be gone through Sunday. But, thanks to the magic of laptop technology, and the fact that I'm now self-employed, my productivity will take only the slightest of hits.* It's gonna be a work week, with a brief pause to eat a bird.

Plus, I'm working on the third draft of EXTRADITION. As soon as that's done, I've promised to turn around and work on DESERT RUN. But I've got a horror spec kicking around in my head... I might take a quick detour to crank it out so it'll stop bugging me, something I do every once in a while to keep screenwriting from turning into work. I'll give myself a week... if it's not done in seven days, it gets saved until DESERT RUN is done.

So feel free to break into the lair while I'm gone, though there won't be much to steal... I've spent the last month getting rid of almost everything I own. I'm once again down to the bare essentials. I've found that I feel like my life is figuratively less cluttered when I get rid of the literal clutter. The less I'm lugging around, the happier I am.

On my birthday, I caught a screening of UP IN THE AIR. Clooney's character does these speaking engagements in which he asks people to imagine putting everything they own into a backpack, and think about how heavy it is. Now... the point of that is to show he's a guy who doesn't like attachments - he continues the analogy into relationships. I wouldn't go that far, but when it comes to stuff, I 100% agree.

And I'd like to thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes, and helped me celebrate on either the actual day or this past weekend. I have a feeling this next year is gonna be a big'un...

By the way, LEFT 4 DEAD 2 is awesome.

* Unless my laptop craps out yet again.

Today is My Birthday

2009-11-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm self-employed, I have the freedom to sit around all day playing LEFT 4 DEAD 2, followed with super-drunken action.

Not me. I'm gonna celebrate, don't get me wrong. But there's no better present than seeing this business take off, so I'm putting in a full day. Shit, I've been working since 8am.

Sincere thanks to everyone who's sent me birthday wishes... I see this less of a celebration that I've been hanging around for another year, than a celebration of all the cool stuff that's gone on for the past twelve months. And with everything on the horizon, it's looking like my next b-day will be a sweet reward for all of the hard work.

The First 30 Days

2009-11-16T11:00:00.000-08:00

As of today, Samurai MK has been in existence for thirty days.

I'm still laying groundwork, but at it's definitely coming together by degrees. Regardless, I haven't let that stop me from getting work done, developing a slate for the spring sell season, getting a script out to a director, and shopping a novel. I don't expect to make sales during the holidays, so I'm not fretting that part... this is the build-up time for first quarter 2010.

Some lessons learned:

If you think something will take an hour, it'll take a day.

If you think it'll take a day, it'll take two days.

If you think something will take two days, it'll require a week.

And if you think something will take a week, odds are you'll still be futzing with it a month later.

The trick, I've found, isn't to sit around and cry about how mean and inefficient the world is... it's a matter of being productive in the interim so, when you are back on track, your focus is 100% on the tasks at hand.

But the major thing I've learned is the doom of the entrepreneur: I have so much stuff to do - all of it important and time-intensive - that, even if I'm doing one thing, I'm feeling guilty about putting everything else off while the task in front of me gets handled. There's no such thing as priority... it's all priority in some way. The only way to be truly happy would be to have a gang of Jango Fett clones all doing everything at once.

Meanwhile, I'll just have to made do with what I have every day: two hands and twenty-four hours.

On the massive plus side, since I'm no longer bound by anything like official office hours, I'm actually getting a healthy amount of sleep. I'm getting to the gym almost every day, because doing so no longer requires getting up at the crack of dawn or lugging my ass over there after a twelve-hour day, still thinking about the writing I need to do.

This doesn't sound like a huge deal, but I think this attention to baseline quality-of-life will have further repercussions in my work and productivity. Being able to hit the gym at noon gives me a clarity throughout the rest of the afternoon when, before, I'd start to lag at four or five. Getting sleep means I don't have to prop myself up with caffeine in the morning (though I still do, because I like black coffee).

And, outside of technical difficulties, there's nothing getting in the way of focus on projects in which I believe. I'm only signing projects I 100% love. Every title on my slate is a high point.

Thirty days in, and I'm loving it more every morning I wake up and realize my destiny is within my power.

Here's Why You Shouldn't Buy a Gateway Laptop

2009-11-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

Back in 2006, I was broke as fuck. I mean... living off ramen noodles and stacks of quarters broke. But that's what life was like in 2004 and 2005, so I was kinda used to it by that point.

But that didn't diminish my dismay when the PC I'd bought in 2002 finally staggered and died in my arms. No amount of tech support calls so I could talk to some guy sitting in India, reading me pre-packaged responses taken from a color-coded plastic binder could fix it.

By an AMAZING coincidence, right then I got a bonus check for DEMON KEEPER. Sometimes, the karma pays off. It wasn't that much, I had bills and, long/short, I couldn't dump the whole bonus on getting something whizz-bang awesome. Since I spent so much time at the office, all I really needed a home computer for was to write. I needed a typewriter, end of story.

So I went to Best Buy and scored the Gateway laptop I have now. It was on sale. It was cheap. It wasn't super-powerful but - again - I just needed a typewriter. Boom, bought it.

From 2006 to 2009, it gave me nary a peep of trouble. I had exactly two programs running on it... Final Draft (for scripts) and Word (for everything else).

On 10/15 2009, I worked my last day at the office. On 10/16 2009, I started my own business, Samurai MK. I now had to ask my laptop to do a bit more. Realize... not MUCH more. I'm not exactly rendering CGI over here. I'm talking email, Office... and little else. Basic, basic computer-type stuff.

At every opportunity the Gateway had the chance to step up to the modest challenges, it failed.

The first week of business, I was connecting to the internet via wireless. Suddenly, the laptop decided it didn't want to, anymore. So I called Warner cable, and wasted a day of productivity waiting for those guys to show up. They did, I got DSL installed. Back to work, right?

Hardee-har.

I couldn't install Office because, guess what? The disk reader didn't want to work. Okay... hunt around online, find the best-rated repair place in LA. Drive it over there... they don't work on Gateway. Okay, who does? THIS guy works on Gateway... fine, thanks. Drive over to the other guy's place. He checks it out, has to order a new part. Okay, I expected that, go for it. And while he's at it, throw in some extra memory so it doesn't take a hundred years to open an email. My laptop was suuuuuper slow.

But guess what, number two? It's Friday, which means we're going into the weekend, so it's gonna be an extra couple of days of fucking around, waiting for the Pony Express delivery rider to show up from China.

Meanwhile, the laptop eats a script I was literally within an hour of turning in. Luckily for me, Leonard was able to hunt it up. Whew.

Get the laptop back from the dude. It reads disks, it runs fast. AWESOME. Now I can - at last - get back to work without dealing with random bullshit...

Man plans, and God laughs, while computers sing a sad, sad song.

On Wednesday - THREE DAYS after getting it back the first time - the screen suddenly goes gray. What the fuck?! Nothing I do fixes it. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuckin'-

FUCK.

Call the dude back. Sure, bring it in... tomorrow.

I spend the rest of that night not getting work done. Next day, bring it in. You know you're in trouble when an experienced, well-reviewed repair guy looks at your laptop and says, "What the hell?" He'd never seen this before. He's gotta take it apart, figure it out.

Shit.

Swing over by John's, get some email written and read and some light work done, but a bunch of stuff is going only partially done, or not done at all, due to technical difficulties beyond my control.

The next day, I call the dude. The laptop is not done yet. I'm pacing. I call him back and let him know that I need this thing so I can get some work done. Monday isn't gonna work. He says... call me first thing tomorrow morning.

To his credit, HE calls ME. Nine am today. Saturday. I swing out, get the machine. He explains that the FUCKING SCREEN has failed. Do I have an external monitor to which I can hook it? Sure... one of the benefits of going through all of my shit and getting rid of stuff is the fact that I have an EXACT inventory of what I currently own (less and less, thank God). In the past, I would have hemmed and hawed and gone home, sweating and hoping that I had a monitor. In this case, I knew for an absolute fact that I had a monitor, because I'd spent half an hour dusting it off a couple of days ago. So... the answer was YES, I DO have a monitor.

Again to his credit: I asked him how much I owed him. He said nothing. It's not a total fix, but he got me back to work for free. As a start-up entrepreneur... that's music to my ears. Good karma all around.

Now my laptop works, and I have a screen by which I can work it. Only thing is, I have this full-sized monitor perched on top of the laptop, which obviates its use as a portable computing tool in the first place. Right now, it's basically just a weak tower.

I would like to congratulate Gateway for making and selling products which are, at least, consistent... consistently disappointing, at every single fucking turn.

Another long/short... this whole episode only drives me to succeed that much more. I'm burning with a desire not just to be rich, not just to have credits and gets books published and movies produced, but also to own a Mac rig that won't fuck with me so much that the work of starting a business and getting it off the ground has been exponentially harder because of something that SHOULD be making my life easier.

So let me wrap up this little bitch session and get back to work before my laptop dreams up a new way to fail...

The moral of story: don't buy Gateway.

* As an addendum, every cloud has a silver lining. Even though I can't lug my laptop to a hipster H'wood coffee shop and get work done, and the rig is a bit Frankenstein'd together... a separate monitor is a much easier format on which to read scripts. So there ya go...

And There Was Much Rejoicing

2009-11-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

After slightly less than one billion years, the parts that will lead to the upgrading and repairing of my laptop have arrived. I go now to get them installed.

And there was a mighty huzzah!

Books and Clothes

2009-11-04T11:24:00.000-08:00

As part of my continuing efforts to rid myself of old patterns and further streamline my life, I've been going through everything I own and losing as much as possible.

To that end, I've been putting a little time into it each day, and a lot of time when able.

Last week, I leaned into my books. I have a lot. Most of them, I read once and set aside. I can't throw away a book, so instead they collect in stacks in my closet and next to my bed. Ugh. I sat down and separated them into two stacks: Core Titles, and Books that Can Go Away.

You call a stack of books something like "Core Titles," and you expect it to be small, an elite squadron of the best of the best. But I define a Core Title as any book that I could imagine myself wanting to re-read, and being bummed that it isn't just sitting on a shelf, patiently waiting for that happy moment.

True, the over-riding rule of my stuff purge has been "anything I haven't used, touched, read, listened to or worn in the past year... goes." Books are the exception. For instance, I don't read THE MASTER AND MARGARITA every year, but I definitely get back into that one every couple of years. It stays. My stack of Core Titles is higher than expected.

I've been taking the Books that Can Go Away to the library in lots of twenty or so at a time. I don't want to overwhelm them. They get a little persnickety if you dump a ton of books in their laps. Instead of thinking, "Boy howdy, free books!", they see it as work. Such is the life of a librarian.

I did a quick cull of my clothes last week. That wasn't hard. But it wasn't until last night that I really got into it, doing a load of laundry, emptying the closet and throwing the entire sad affair into a big pile on my bed to be sorted and judged.

Some interesting facts quickly came to light:

a) I have a ton of fucking socks. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was idly thinking of getting more black socks. I was re-washing the same six or seven pairs every week. But that seemed weird... I have this giant pile of socks sitting around, right? Why do I keep going back to the same pairs? What's going on with that?

In truly spreading them all out and taking a good, hard look at this sock situation, I recognized an emerging pattern... Whenever I did laundry and put it away and found a single sock without a brother, I'd set it off to the side. I don't know why... perhaps, in the back of my mind, I thought the other one would show up from under the bed or from behind a dresser or something. This went on for SEVEN YEARS, finally bringing me to the moment I was standing next to my bed, shaking my head at a pile composed of dozens of single socks.

See what I mean? We do stuff... not exactly NOT thinking about it, but BARELY thinking about it, just enough to go through a series of motions without any actual thought. Though this is so minor I'm almost embarrassed by the fact that I'm blogging about adventures in my sock drawer, but God is in the details. In some small way, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm in the process of ridding from my life.

Fucking SOCKS, dude. I don't even know what to do with the goddamn things. Do I give a big pile of single socks to Goodwill, and inflict my mismatched sock curse on a charitable organization? Or do I toss 'em?

b) I found a stack of pants I'd brought out with me from Chicago. They're all khakis and such, business casual-type pants. I thought, "Ah ha, more pants." A good thing. Again, you never know what your true resources are until you look. But then I tried them on... and they were all too big. When I came out to LA, I was wearing a 34. These days, I'm either a 30 or 32, depending on the specific pair. I don't really feel any different, but I guess I'm in better shape these days.

Well, there's some good news, huh?

I Have Signed Seven Clients

2009-11-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

I could sign more, but I have put a momentary pause on my search for new talent unless someone/thing strikes me as the most absolutely brilliant thing ever.

The reason are both practical and symbolic.

Practical: I'm still in the process of getting the infrastructure of this company together. From incorporation to office supplies, everything takes three times longer than I expect it to, and then I'm always learning about something new I've "forgotten."

I've worked for myself twice before: my record label, and when I was a PA/grip. Both times, I wasn't very serious about the foundation. I was perhaps immature in that sense and, to the surprise of no one, neither endeavor turned into anything successful.

This is a blessing and a curse. A curse in the sense that neither company made me wealthy. A blessing because, if they had, I wouldn't be in a situation in which I could do my current work.

Samurai MK is the basis of what I'm now finding to be my true life's work. For that reason, I'm taking this as seriously as fuck, taking my time and doing it right. Thus, it's time expended. The remaining time is better spent doing a good job for my birds in hand, rather than theoretical birds in the bush.

Symbolic: This company is called Samurai MK. I have signed my Seven Samurai.

Dawn, Gabi, Steve, Scott, Ramsey, Alex, Lesley: I owe you all a deep debt for your belief. I'll pay it off with my blood, sweat and tears. My sword used to belong to a company. Now it belongs to you, my Seven Samurai.

Hagakure tells us that anything can be done, if only you decide that it WILL be done.

I WILL see every one of these projects move forward, in some way. Time and work are meaningless when compared to results. Every waking moment - and many sleeping moments - are bent toward that purpose. Only death will stop me.

So... let's strap on our daisho and rock this joint.

Fighting

2009-10-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

FIGHTING is a movie written and directed by Dito Montiel, starring Channing Tatum as a street guy who becomes an underground fighter. Terrence Howard plays a self-described "two-bit hustler" who becomes his ersatz agent.

I didn't see FIGHTING when it came out last year. I wish I had. FIGHTING is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. It's an effective companion piece to both RED BELT and HARSH TIMES, both of which are movies I deeply love.

I won't get into a lengthy description: you can find that shit online somewhere. What bears mentioning is this movie, at its core, doesn't do anything new. It obeys the exact same plot pattern as millions of low-budget martial arts movies, some good, most mediocre, some bad.

FIGHTING is set apart by execution. It is, in many ways, a brilliant movie. It tells the truth. The characters and their problems are real. Even when it deals with the artifice of contemporary movie-making -- script structure, character arc, the ending, etc. -- it does so in a way that feels organic to the world in which it exists, itself only a few degrees to the left of the real world.

I saw G.I. JOE in the theaters, mostly because I had a ton of G.I. Joe guys when I was a kid, and a certain degree of nostalgia demanded I see this movie when it came out. That, and a desire to see Sienna Miller as The Baroness (she was good, but not perfect).

My point is Channing Tatum is decent in G.I.JOE, and fucking fantastic in FIGHTING. It's obvious that Channing and Dito were not trying to make a martial arts movie. They weren't trying to make an action movie. They set out to do a Scorsese/DeNiro New York street movie, a MIDNIGHT COWBOY with fists. And they succeeded.

There's a wonderful love story at the heart of FIGHTING. The relationship between Shawn and Zulay is sweet. You love them, and what they have. Again, it's real.

I recently watched a Chilean martial arts movie called KILLTRO, which is similar in some ways. Our guy, Zamir (Marko Zaror), is in love with Kim, the daughter of "the Korean," a local tae kwon do teacher who doesn't like Zamir. Everything in KILLTRO is driven by Zamir's pursuit of Kim's heart. Zamir's portrayed as a very, very simple guy... He's almost child-like, which leads to some unintentional comedy via his clumsy attempts to win her over. He's a somewhat dense character, and doesn't have much else on his mind besides his love for Kim, and the occasional need to beat the crap out of bad guys.

I bring up KILLTRO because Shawn (Tatum) is not exactly a rocket scientist, either. But instead of being a man-child, he's just a guy with a very uncomplicated internal life. Though he has no money and sometimes has to sleep in the park, Shawn pursues Zulay anyway, because his heart leaves him no other choice. It's winning in its purity, and it certainly doesn't hurt that Zulay Henao is a talented actress, and flat-out gorgeous. You get why this guy would want to befriend her protective mother and offer to find the money to help pay her rent.

There's also a very cool parallel story between Shawn and his rep, Harvey. They're both losers who have created one last chance for themselves. In the final fight, Harvey uses every last ounce of his remaining juice on the streets to make the deal, in the exact same way Shawn has to use every last ounce he has to try to win this fight. They have nowhere else to go. They have no one else but each other.

This movie reminds me of ROGUE, in the sense that ROGUE is a very by-the-numbers creature feature, just like so many others, and yet rises above by pure execution. It doesn't reinvent the wheel by any stretch of the imagination, and is still just a good fucking movie. FIGHTING does for underground tournament martial arts movies what ROGUE did for survival horror creature features. There's a lesson to be had in there.

The fight scenes in FIGHTING are also very much of interest. Because this movie is so organic, and you're so much on Shawn's side, there's a real danger felt in these sequences. Except for the climactic fight, Shawn (and the audience) doesn't know who he's going to face until his opponent actually shows up, typically a few seconds before the fight actually begins.

In one scene, Harvey makes a deal, and Shawn is brought forward. He looks up, and there's a HUGE tattoo'd guy sitting on some bleachers, staring down at Shawn and the crowd. As soon as the word's given, the guy just stands up, takes off his jacket and starts marching down the bleachers toward Shawn. In a standard movie of this variety, when the combat starts, we would get a lot of fake-ass bullshit to show you how hip and edgy the filmmakers are, with a pounding techno soundtrack and lots of cuts to keep your eye moving. It's as engaging as watching someone play STREETFIGHTER IV. But because FIGHTING plays it real, when that dude comes down the bleachers, the feeling in your gut is... oooooooooh, shit. The mere fact that Shawn doesn't back down from the guy wins him over that much more.

Something else of note: Shawn is a tough guy, but he's not a master martial artist, special forces guy, what have you. His dad was a wrestling coach, and Shawn wrestled. And... that's it. In FIGHTING, he faces off against guys who are bigger, guys who are better-trained. While they have size, speed, skill and strength, Shawn has a complete disregard for personal safety. He bulldozes into these guys and brings the fight to them.

This seemed very real, as well. I remember when the UFC first started up. There was one match in which this guy with something like a 10th-degree black belt went up against... I think it was Tank Abbott, but don't quote me. Point is, the black belt came out looking to display his skill, and Tank (or whoever) just floored the dude like a truck. It was as surprising as it was educational.

I also once worked a gig as a PA for a company which shot live martial arts events for the internet. I was running cable, and I was ringside. The two fighters came out, and they both had multiple black belts and years of training. But within the first few seconds, the artifice of their training fell away, and they just started brawling, throwing big swings. Despite their training, when it got down to brass tacks, what these guys did was indistinguishable from a bar fight.

My point is, I believed it when Shawn would win... though that also bears mentioning. Shawn doesn't so much win, per se, as he just never quite loses. And if he's not going to lose, then ergo the other guy must lose, if you get my drift.

It reminded me of Rocky. Particularly in the first Rocky movie, and the last, Rocky doesn't win (spoiler). He just doesn't quite lose. He's beaten in points, but the crowd cheers for him. Points or not, they know who the real winner was. Rocky also "wins" in ROCKY III, purely by allowing Clubber Lang to pound on him until he gets tired, and sets himself up for the fall. Again, Rocky spends the majority of the fight just... not losing.

The same deal applies to John McClane. The first DIE HARD pits this drunk New York cop versus a team of well-trained, well-equipped terrorists. McClane wins by not losing. Look at LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. The villains are better fighters. They're smarter, and have more resources. But take a look at the scene in which McClane fights Maggie Q. She beats the living shit out of him with martial arts. McClane comes back... and tackles her to the ground. Then he runs her over with a car. His tactics are so simple they're almost primitive. The comparison between them on paper makes McClane look ridiculous. The scene's almost played for laughs. But Maggie Q isn't laughing when she eats a car's grille. And who comes out on top at the end of that confrontation?

This seems to be a very American quality.

There's a lesson to be had in all of this. There are times in life when you win. And I think the thing to do between those times is to simply... not lose.

I'm excited about Dito Montiel. I'm going to check out A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS as soon as possible.

I started film school in the late-'90s. We were still buzzing about the amazing filmmakers who made their bones in that decade: Tarantino, Rodriguez, Fincher, Takeshi, Miike, Woo, etc. Since then, I've been watching to see who would emerge to define the oughts.

I fully realize this is very, VERY subjective, and I may well be overlooking some glaring names, but - after having seen FIGHTING - I think the people we should be looking at are: Dito Montiel, David Ayer, Shane Meadows and Eli Roth. In terms of the latter, I'm of the opinion that HOSTEL II is an as-yet-unrecognized masterpiece. We also may have to add Oren Peli to that list, but I feel like I need to see his next movie, first.

Go see FIGHTING. It's an amazing film.

The Return of Willy

2009-10-23T19:13:00.001-07:00

I worked all day. I'm out to the publishers with a novel, and I got some side work done. I hit the gym, came home and cleaned. I went through my clothes, setting aside a stack for Goodwill. I went to Trader Joe's and got some soup and chicken. I got home, put away the groceries, sat down to work on a script...

...and a big, brown mouse ran from behind my stove to behind my pantry. The same route traditionally taken by mice which have invaded the lair. This happened about two minutes ago.

Imagine my surprise. I thought he (they?) was (were?) dead. Even if he wasn't dead, with all the activity in the lair you'd think he'd keep his head down. But no. This is a brave mouse.

My struggles to de-mousify my lair are well-documented. I set out D-Con. It vanished. Eventually, I didn't see mice anymore. Ergo, Willy ate the poison (hence its disappearance) and died (hence Willy's disappearance). Which brings me to my core question: What the fuck?!

There are several possibilities which could account for the fact that I just saw a mouse:

a) Willy ate the poison I'd set out for him and died. It's a new mouse, whose name isn't Willy.

b) It's Willy. He ate the poison, and recovered.

c) It's Willy. He ate the poison and died, and I just saw his ghost.

If it's the last choice... shit. I should set up a camera and see what's going on while I'm asleep, a la PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. But instead of dragging me out of bed, it's gonna be a lot of mouse turds and vanished food.

Dammit, if that's the case, Micah has no complaints. He got off easy by comparison.

I Own a Ton of Crap

2009-10-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

I think whenever you do something that changes the basic paradigm of your life -- like, say, leave your job of seven years to start a business -- you should do two things:

a) Reconnect with the things that you consider your core.

b) Take stock of everything else.

To the end of (a), I've reached back to '80s metal and punk. Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies, AC/DC, Metallica, Motorhead, Minor Threat, DK... Since hanging this shingle, I've been non-stop spinning shit that I've been listening to for so long it's sunken into my DNA.

When was the last time you listened to "Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?" Damn, if that isn't one of the best songs ever written.

With (b), I've been going through my stuff in what little time I have between setting up this company, doing the work of a manager/producer, and rolling the gigs that keep the lights on in the meanwhile.

There was a point of time in my life when I had just a ton of stuff. I owned a lot. I had a house, and it was full of stuff. I had three dinette sets in the basement. I had mountains of books and games. Furniture, electronics, pots and pans. Just a massive pile of... stuff.

In 2001 I decided I was moving to LA. I began the long process of getting rid of everything I owned. I had a yard sale. It was loathsome, but led to me eventually writing FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER, again proving that no experience is without value.

I donated stuff. I gave away stuff. I sold stuff. I threw out stuff. But I always had more stuff. Luckily, as I was getting ready to leave, Chicago got hit with a huge storm and my basement flooded. The water was halfway up the stairs leading down to it. Ordinarily, this would have been a disaster. But it forced me to just throw out everything that had been in the basement, instead of spending a month going through it all and deciding what to do with every little thing. Out it went, in massive piles of trash. The garbage men were pissed. I had to go to the alderman and get a license to dump all the crap.

I loaded up my van and headed west. The van was full of more stuff. I had to jettison a bunch of it when the van bit the dust 300 miles south of Chicago. But I still ending up in LA with a bunch of stuff. I gave some of it away. I still had stuff.

I bounced from one apartment to the next, looking for a place to live that didn't include insane people. At every turn, I lost more of the stuff that I was lugging around.

By the time I landed at the lair, I had .0001 percent of the stuff I'd started with in Chicago, way back in '01. I tried to strip myself down even further.

But in the past week, I've been delving into my stuff, shaking up the paradigm, looking to lighten my load... and I'm STILL faced with a ton of crap I didn't even know I had. Bedspreads. Paper reams. Alarm clocks. A dozen binders. A mini-fridge. Ties I've never worn. Shit, I found a set of three crescent wrenches still in the plastic. Who knew what was lurking in the back of my closet?

I can't have too little. Everything I own feels like a burden.

I have dozens and dozens and dozens of books. I'm going to keep the core titles - per (a) above - and give the rest to the library. The rest of the shit is going up on ebay and craigslist. If I don't use something at least once within a year, it's gone.

George Carlin was right: at a certain point, you stop owning your stuff, and your stuff starts owning you. I refuse to spend one second on my stuff. I'd rather spend the time on work and ideas. Very few things are of real value to me, and then for specific reasons. My motorcycle, because it gets me around town. My laptop, because it lets me work. My cell phone, which lets me communicate. My Xbox 360, because it spins music, movies and games, etc... My dream house would have very little in it.

I've left my job behind. Now it's time to leave my stuff behind.

I Have Left My Job to Start a New Company

2009-10-16T11:32:00.001-07:00

After seven years with AEI, I have left my position as senior vice president of development to hang my own shingle.

I owe them the deepest gratitude for taking a chance on me, am parting under the most amicable of circumstances, and will continue to work with them on projects in the future.

I was also given the opportunity to work with a group of amazing and talented writers, from whom I learned more than can be measured.

The new venture, Samurai MK, is a management/production company which will sell books, scripts and graphic novels, and produce film, television and internet projects.

It's my intention to keep the business model fluid as I move forward to quickly adapt to the changing landscape in all areas of media and entertainment. But I'll never waver from the core philosophies of honesty, hard work and making sure every project the company takes on is, in some way, awesome.

To everyone who's already contacted me, sincere thanks for your kind words. It's my intention to earn the generosity and support I've gotten thus far.

I'll also continue writing screenplays and novels, as to do otherwise would jeopardize my sanity, and maintain my representation by my friends at Zero Gravity Management.

And now... in the immortal words of Hudson in ALIENS: "Let's rock."

Cheers,

Mike Kuciak
Samurai MK
mike.samuraimk@gmail.com

Justice

2009-10-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Nikkie Finke posted regarding the sentencing of the drunk driver who killed Rhiannon Meier here.

A Rather Thorough Cleaning

2009-10-05T09:50:00.001-07:00

Every once in a while, I get a bug up my ass to clean the lair. I'm not an atrocious slob - there aren't any flies involved, for instance - but I'm a single guy who's rarely home, so it's not like my place sees the business end of a feather duster on a regular.

But the times I'd cleaned before have been, again, the single guy version. This past weekend, I decided to really lean into it, get for reals, yo. I'm talking about scrubbing every inch of the bathroom, getting under the sink, wiping down the cabinets, taking down the blinds, attacking the stove until it looks new, everything.

And, after two days, I'm only about a third done.

I made a couple of interesting discoveries along the way:

a) No spiders. I'd prepared myself to run across Shelob somewhere in the lair's nooks and crannies. But I didn't find anything... no big 'uns, no spindlies, nothing. Seeing as I used to get black widows, I can't say I'm disappointed to hit a goose egg in the arachnid department.

b) Willie's hide-out. When I had a mouse (mice?), I often saw him (them?) when he dashed from behind my pantry to behind my stove. Now I know why. While attacking the oven, I opened the broiler for the first time since I'd moved in. Let's just say... if I could sell mouse turds for a buck a piece, I'd be at the Harley-Davidson dealership right now.

Not to get all California for a second, but in a sense, I feel as if I were scrubbing away old karma. By removing the layer of mung to which I'd grown accustomed, it's like I've moved into a new apartment. It's all preparation for the next step.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

2009-09-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

When I was a mere lad, growing up in a log cabin, I watched a lot of WGN, Chicago's very own Channel 9. They ran tons of movies, which I liked. I remember starting to watch PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, getting bored and turning it off.

Ah, the folly of youth.

Lately, I've been digging into Peckinpah, catching up on titles I'd always meant to see and didn't, and other titles I'd seen before and wanted to revisit. The other day I watched THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND. It's a great movie, but it's also exactly the kind of thriller that doesn't quite hold together... As soon as the movie was over, I thought, "WOW." And about five minutes later, it was, "Wait a minute. Why did he...? And how did they...? And what was up with that thing with the thing...?"

Last night I watched PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, and I can now say I have a new title in my personal favorite Westerns of all time. Writing, acting, directing... man, the editing is a huge part of what makes this movie great. (Strong editing is actually a through-line I've noticed in all of Peckinpah's movies... it bears investigation).

The story of these two characters is a microcosm of the story of the West. Is Pat Garrett selling out, or growing up? It seems to depend on the situation, and who you ask. Is Billy the last outlaw hero of the American frontier, or a man-child who'd rather go down guns-a-blazin' because he can't think of anything else to do? Again, it could go either way.

The opening scene is laden with an amazing amount of tension, but also does a swift and strong job of drawing this fulcrum relationship. It's masterful. And it maintains that level throughout -- there wasn't a single clunker scene for me.

I loved this movie. I learned from it, both as a film dude and also on a personal level.

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY is still my favorite Western of all time, followed by THE UNFORGIVEN. There are a bunch of others I sincerely enjoy, but none of them caught me like this one, so it's safe to say PG&BTK is my number three.

Bearwatch Bulletin September 24, 2009

2009-09-24T13:34:00.001-07:00

According to this article, a bear attacked a group of tourists in Japan.

The article quotes an expert in saying it's unusual for them to attack humans. Yeah, unusual... until they FUCKING DO.

Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards

2009-09-18T10:13:00.001-07:00

In some ways, I am an extraordinarily boring person. I am as predictable as the dawn. What I'm referring to is the fact that, if you entitle a movie GO TO HELL BASTARDS, I'm going to watch it, even if you stick DETECTIVE BUREAU 2-3 in front of the cool part.

I once rented a movie called DEATH MACHINE based purely on the title. Shit, you could call a cologne DEATH MACHINE, and I'd buy it. Luckily, it was a pretty good movie. The titular creature is a gorilla-shaped robot with a bear trap for a mouth. Fun times.

DETECTIVE BUREAU 2-3: GO TO HELL BASTARDS is a Japanese yakuza movie from 1963 directed by Seijun Suzuki. I love Japanese movies from the '60s, and I'm a big fan of Seijun Suzuki. I'm a flat-out geek for BRANDED TO KILL. A couple of years ago, I wrote a script called THE MISS MEN, and BRANDED TO KILL was a huge influence.

GO TO HELL BASTARDS isn't nearly as cool as the title, but it still has its charms. It stars Jo Shishido, who was Seijun Suzuki's go-to guy during their peak, his DeNiro to Suzuki's Scorsese.

Not long ago, I watched an interview with Suzuki in which he talked about how he'd gotten sick of cranking out programmers and, to break out of that rut, he decided to shoot something really off-the-wall and idiosyncratic. That movie was BRANDED TO KILL, and it got him fired from his studio contract.

Apparently, GO TO HELL BASTARDS was the kind of movie he was sick of doing. It's a by-the-numbers programmer, hitting every tired beat of the infiltration movie. Sometimes a film can rise above its programmer status by a high level of execution... for example, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE fits the same paradigm, but it's still fucking great. This one is... okay.

It opens well. A bunch of yakuza buy a truckload of stolen weapons from a crooked soldier who's stationed at a U.S. Army base (which reminded me of BUFFALO SOLDIERS). Another gang shows up, a massive gunfight erupts, and gang#2 makes off with the guns. It looks like it's gonna turn into an all-out war.

Jo Shishida plays a private detective who hears about this on the radio, and sees an angle for making some money off the cops with this case. He shows up and volunteers to infiltrate the gang. The cops have this one guy locked up, who might be a key to solving the case, but there are a hundred armed yakuza outside the station, just waiting for this dude to get let out so they can gun him down. This is a cool scenario... it's a little PRECINCT 13, though the yakuza never attack the station itself.

Jo fakes them out, and helps the guy escape. In exchange, he says he wants to be a part of the gang. The dude's like, sure... but the rest the gang isn't so trusting. This was the best part of the movie for me. I like smart bad guys, and they give Jo a very thorough background check. In fact, they never quite let up, and eventually figure him out long after stupider people would have gotten lazy and given up. Jo keeps upping the ante, and they keep checking and double-checking, asking questions and following up on leads. In a way, they're almost like detectives themselves. It's cool.

Suzuki seems to like song and dance numbers. I've noticed a tendency in his films to just cut to some girls dancing in a disco or something, looking for any excuse to shove one in. I'm not sure if this was a studio mandate, or if he just likes 'em. In GO TO HELL BASTARDS, there are several. The coolest one has Jo meeting the gang at a night club. But... oh shit, the star of the floor show is Jo's ex-girlfriend! He knows she's gonna blow his cover as soon as the song ends. So to keep the song going, Jo jumps up and starts singing and dancing along with her. The yakuza aren't sure what to make of this. Even better: the girl changes the lyrics and starts singing about their relationship, how she loves him despite his flaws. Jo counter-sings, trying to explain what's going on to her without being so obvious about it that he tips his hat to the gangsters. It's a clever scene, and fun.

Speaking of De Niro/Scorsese, I just re-watched AFTER HOURS, which is about as brilliant as a black comedy can get. Watching that and GO TO HELL BASTARDS back-to-back, I noticed that both directors use dynamic camera movements through scenes in a very similar way. It's reminiscent of a more classic style of cinema, and made me think of Hitchcock. These days, it seems we more often see cuts instead of movement. I don't mind cuts, but I prefer the latter... it's a more dynamic way to construct a scene.

So there are things to enjoy in GO TO HELL BASTARDS, though the movie doesn't totally live up to the potential of that title. I liked this movie, but I love BRANDED TO KILL.

Nick Redfern Versus the Chupacabra

2009-09-17T11:07:00.002-07:00

My man Nick Redfern -- author of THREE MEN SEEKING MONSTERS, and one of the titular three men -- got interviewed about the mysterious goat sucker.

Check it out here.

Ants Love Chicken!

2009-09-17T11:07:00.001-07:00

Would you like to know how I discovered this fun factoid?

I was on my way back from the gym. I'd put in a lot of cardio, I was feeling good, but I was also hungry. I stopped at a light, looked to my left, and noticed an El Pollo Loco. Hmmmm...

I scored an eight piece, took it home, stuck it in the fridge and wrote for a while. Two hours later I was running out of steam, and REALLY hungry. I closed up shop, threw in a DVD and ate the hell out of that chicken. Feeling lazy, I left the bones in the box on my kitchen counter. I fell asleep while watching the movie.

I woke up the next morning and found hundreds of tiny, black ants attacking the chicken bones. They'd formed a bucket brigade leading from the chicken, down the side of the counter, all the way along the edge off the wall to my bathroom, where the streamed in and out of a nail-sized hole in the bathroom door frame - the hidden gate to the ant kingdom.

Ants don't really bother me, so I didn't freak out. The box of chicken was still in the Pollo Loco plastic bag. I picked it up by the handles and walked it out to the Dumpster. Chicken all gone. Sure, there were several hundred ants who'd been separated from their brethren, but war is hell. Maybe they can make their way back home a la The Incredible Journey.

Now... most people would sweep away the line of ants or spray them with poison or something. Purely out of curiosity, I decided to leave them alone. I wanted to find out how long it would take for the message to make its way back to Ant Central Command that the chicken had vanished.

The answer: a full day. Ants aren't quite as smart as nature shows make them out to be.

Man... it's always something in my pad. First it was black widows, then it was spindlies, then it was a mice, and now it's ants. I can't wait until I'm able to live in an apartment that doesn't have its own ecosystem. I suppose in one sense it's a reminder that, despite my urban environment, I'm still a part of nature, the circle of life, hakuna matata, all of that. On the other hand, I have no illusions about what would have happened if I'd left the chicken on the counter instead of in the fridge while I wrote. At least the spindlies never tried to eat my dinner.

Publisher's Weekly Review of DRACULA; THE UN-DEAD

2009-08-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

Undead PW Review

At Long Last, I Have Typed "The End" on EXTRADITION

2009-08-14T09:42:00.001-07:00

From treatment to execution, I've been working on this script for the better part of the year. Last night, I typed "the end" on the first draft.

But by no means is it done. The script is a big, sprawling mess. In many ways, I wrote this script very out of character... I ordinarily write quickly, and bang out short, punchy drafts. On this one, however, I got indulgent, letting the scenes play, letting the characters talk. I walked in intending to write something like THE TRANSPORTER or TAKEN, and along the way it morphed into THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY. I was definitely channeling Eastwood for the lead (if Clint Eastwood knew krav maga, that is), and I wanted each scene to be its own thing.

What I love about GB&U - what I love about a lot of Italian cinema, actually - is that each scene could easily play as its own little mini-movie. Look at Tuco shopping for a gun. Or Tuco's scene with his brother, Pablo (my second favorite of the whole movie). Or Blondie in the hotel that gets bombarded. Or Angel Eyes showing up at that dude's farm. Or the entire graveyard sequence. They're all classic moments that have more character and drama in one scene than more entire movies I see. I'm not claiming EXTRADITION is that good, I'm just sayin' it's an influence.

I'm embarrassed to put the actual page count out there... suffice to say, it's a goddamn phone book of a script. Luckily, I edit very quickly -- it's a skill developed from the day job. I'm hoping to hand it in within the next week or so.

After that, it's wrapping up the edit on FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER, diving into a page-one rewrite of DESERT RUN and, when that's done, the second draft of EXTRADITION. And when I turn in that draft...? I have a couple of ideas for specs, but I've been thinking about another novel for a while. I feel like it's almost time to finally write AUTOMATIC.

A Healthy Lifestyle = Agony

2009-08-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

I went to Arizona and spent the entire week eating like a hobbit. When I came back, I bounced down the stairs to the tarmac. Airport security had to roll me over to my bike and heave me up. The motorcycle sagged in the middle as I drove home.

Determined to reverse the damage I'd done to myself, I hit the gym with a vengeance on Monday, including a full upper-body circuit. The next day, I wanted to die. But I went back anyway, and concentrated on lower body and cardio.

Later in the week it was time to go back to upper body, but I was still in pain. I dropped a couple of Tylenol and got to it. I was fine until I got to the bench press. I didn't put much weight on at all, but it didn't matter... I brought the bar down, bounced it off my chest, and my right shoulder said, "Nope."

My brain replied, "What do you mean, 'Nope?'" To which my shoulder said, "Nope means I'm done. It's not going up. Sorry, you're going to have to do it without me. I'm sitting this one out."

I managed to heave it up to the lower hooks. But I was done. I kept it to cardio for a couple of days.

On Monday, I was back. Again, full upper body circuit, this time feeling fine. Lower body and cardio last night, which means it'll be upper body tonight. After last week's experience, I woke up this morning gauging how everything felt. I'm a little stiff, but nothing some stretching and push-ups didn't solve. The body is sore, but fine.

And I've been dropping the simple carbs, eating fruits 'n' veggies, lotsa chicken and fish. It wouldn't make much sense to beat the shit out of myself at the gym if I'm just gonna go home and eat a cheesecake and pizza, y'know?

I smoked two packs a day for thirteen years. Easily the stupidest thing I've ever done. I quit several years ago, but I still get these weird coughing jags every once in a while. Plus, I also had a couple of bleak years during which I subsisted on ramen noodles and fast food dollar menus, none of which did me any good.

I want to repair the damage, and I see the time spent and the pain as my due penance. (Yeah, I was raised Catholic). I'm just glad I have the opportunity to live better. But man... in the meanwhile, it ain't easy.

I'm Doomed, but in a Good Way

2009-07-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

Last week I was in a somewhat weird and tense mood. I just felt a bit off, and I didn't know why, which just made me even more off-kilter.

But then I went to the gym on Saturday and beat the shit out of myself for hours, and I felt a million times better.

So I realized that I hadn't been to the gym much for the past couple of weeks. I've been writing like a motherfucker, doing some major catch-up, and we also had some clients in town. For a while, I was getting to the gym almost daily. Suddenly, I was squeezing it in one or twice a week.

Then I hit the gym for another epic workout yesterday, and came out of that feeling like a million bucks. Which brought me to the conclusion that the gym was the x-factor... If I go, I feel good. If I don't go, I feel bad.

Shit.

I wanted to engage in a healthier life-style, and now I'm just a monkey punching a button. Which I guess means I'm doomed, but in a good way... There are worse things for me upon which I can depend for elevated brain chemistry, like booze or heroin or something.

But still...

In BURN AFTER READING, George Clooney's character starts losing his shit because he's been so busy he hasn't had a chance to get in a run. Now I understand why.

Prototype, and On Heroism in Video Games

2009-07-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

I picked up PROTOTYPE the other day, and I love it. This game is pure joy. Your character - Alex J. Mercer - is so incredibly powerful, and the stakes of the story are so high, that you often find yourself in scenes of complete, unbridled, apocalyptic chaos. As Penny Arcade pointed out, it's a game in which your guy can jump up and kick helicopters out of the air... what more do you need?

But my appreciation for it goes beyond the destruction. The gameplay is phenomenal. This is primarily because it's an almost exact lift of one of my favorite PS2 games, SPIDER-MAN 2.

There are several games on the PS2 that I just ate alive: GUN, MERCENARIES, MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE... and SPIDEY-2. This isn't just because I love the movie; it's not like I've got video game adaptations of every movie I've ever liked sitting around the lair. In fact, most of them are known to suck. Go to GameSpot, and the bargain bin titles read like the summer release dates from two or three years ago. Nah, SPIDER-MAN 2 just rocked my house. I thought it was nothing but a very well-made, fun-as-hell game.

And here we have PROTOTYPE, which has taken every aspect of gameplay from SPIDER-MAN 2 and built from there. The comparisons are many... The game's a sandbox set on Manhattan. There's an A-story, but you can also unlock side missions that are either fighting or racing oriented. Anytime you want, you can drop down to street level and deal with the havok. (In SM2, it was stopping random crimes; here it's either general warfare or grabbing Web of Intrigue people). As you play, you collect points which you can spend to either unlock new fighting/movement moves, or improve core abilities. Your character has a method of "flight" which requires using the buildings around you... in SP2 it was Spidey's web-swinging, here it's Alex's gliding.

They're so similar, I was able to dust off my old SP2 skills and immediately get into PROTOTYPE, even on a micro level... getting around Central Park, dealing with overhangs, etc. PROTOTYPE improves a couple of things, too. For instance, Alex has parkour-like abilities, so he never gets hung up on anything while moving around. In SP2, running down the street was a hassle, because Spidey would get blocked by fences, cars and lamp posts unless you specifically dealt with them, i.e. jumping over them or whatever. Alex just automatically handles stuff like that. And Alex doesn't die when you fall. One of my favorite parts of SP2 was diving off really tall buildings, and web-swinging away at the last second before I hit the ground. It was always a pain when Spidey died from falling, and it felt incongruous to the character. Alex not only doesn't die, he lands with a massive BOOM which cracks the pavement and sends everything around him flying. Awesome.

Plus, PROTOTYPE has a disguise element. You can absorb a character, and change yourself to pose as them. It reminds me of DESTROY ALL HUMANS. It's funny; stealth-driven games kinda bore me, but I like games that use disguises. Go figure.

And of course the graphics are way beyond.

But the primary difference between the two games is in tone. SM2 the game is similar to SM2 the movie... It's high key, sunny heroism which is sometimes dark, but more often just fun and funny. PROTOTYPE, on the other hand, is edgy, dark anti-heroism. If it weren't for the presence of two female supporting protagonists whom you sometimes protect - his sister and ex-girlfriend - Alex would be exactly the monster the villains accuse him of being.

It's a game in which, to complete missions, you have to fight and kill New York police officers and U.S. Marines. In order to solve the mystery of Alex's identity, you have to "consume" NPCs and absorb their memories. This usually entails dropping onto a street and murdering them in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, who scream in terror and run away. Alex can regenerate, but it's very slow... The best, fastest and frequently necessary way to heal yourself is to consume human beings. It doesn't matter who, just anybody who happens to be standing close by. When you drive a vehicle down the street and run people over, you score points. Shit, even MERCENARIES 2 and the GTAs penalize you for that kinda thing. (In M2 you lose cash, in GTA the cops come after you).

There are moments in this game that rub me the wrong way.

Now... I'm the last guy in the world to get on a pulpit and rant about how video games are ruining the youth, etc. PROTOTYPE is rated M, and is clearly meant for adults. And I'm definitely not squeamish about violence in games.

But I DO like playing a hero. I've played numerous games in which you are given the choice of taking the high or low road without penalty to your character: MASS EFFECT, FALLOUT 3, OBLIVION IV, BALDUR'S GATE, NEVERWINTER NIGHTS, etc. If these games had come out when I was a teenager, I guarantee I would have played them as the scourge of the earth. These days, however, I consistently play a good guy.

The only other time I've felt the same way I've felt while playing PROTOTYPE was while playing MERCENARIES 2, another game I thoroughly love. In fact, in that game you're given a choice of three characters, and I always play the nihilistically destructive Matthias Nilsson (with excellent voice work by Peter Stormare). Again, M2 penalizes you for harming civilians... though you're free to steal their cars and blow up their houses, which never bothered me.

No - I'm talking about a section of the game in which you're asked to fight U.S. soldiers. It's spun very cynically, as the U.S. is only in the country to protect the oil, and they're allied with the Blackwater-style mercs who give you a hard time early in the game. And the big boss fight guys are evil CIA types. Plus, the overall tone of the game is dark comedy. It's not meant to be taken seriously.

All of that said, I still wasn't sure how I felt about that part of the game, and I had a hard time enjoying those missions.

In PROTOTYPE, there's no humor. It's a dark, serious game. Alex is an angst-ridden anti-hero, dealing with powers he didn't ask for, fighting an enemy who wants him dead for reasons he doesn't understand.

The villains make a point of calling him "it." As in: Alex is no longer a human being, he's a (sometimes) human-shaped vessel for a mutating biological warfare strain. The thing is, they're right, and Alex's actions reflect that.

One time, when I was a little kid, I was playing with some army guys, fighting out a war on my bedroom floor. My dad came home from work and, after watching me for a couple of minutes, said, "You know, those little guys are human beings." My response was something along the lines of nah, they're just pieces of plastic and this is just a game. But now I kinda see what he was talking about.

It's not like anyone who's ever played chess gets upset when they lose pieces. "My knight was a human being with a family!" And this is the same basic analogy, I suppose. Do my guts twist a little bit only because the "pieces" in video games actually look human (despite the uncanny valley) and represent specific people? (That is, they're not generic "pawns," they're members of the United States Marine Corps.) Probably.

PROTOTYPE takes pains to show the evilness of the masterminds behind the military response. They're a shadowy government bio-warfare group who, back in the '60s, killed an entire town of U.S. military personnel and their families in order to test an earlier version of the strain which now infects Alex. (Spoiler). When their strike teams appear, I take immense glee in fucking them up. The player is told it's okay to murder these people, and I'm personally fine with it as I play said game.

But it makes me think of propaganda. As a species, we're by-and-large fine with cruelty and violence so long as we feel it's justified. "They're different from us, they're evil, they must be killed, and in the worst way possible." I don't think this is even an indication of the inherent darkness in the soul of humanity or whatever... I believe it's an outgrowth of our survival instincts, the need to congregate and protect each other in a world where we're near the bottom of the food chain.

This is all well and good when I'm playing video games in which the enemies are non-human representations of evil like zombies, robots, aliens, demons, etc. This even applies to humans who are generally considered to be evil: criminals, Nazis, mercenaries, what have you. But twice now in games I've been asked to shift that "okay to kill" spotlight to fictitious representations of the U.S. military, and it's a little strange to me.

If there were a video game in which you were supposed to run around and kill, say, teachers or firefighters, everyone would lose their minds. But cops and soldiers are okay because... why? They have weapons and can presumably defend themselves from your super-powered character who can kick helicopters out of the sky?

I realize this is rambling and contradictory, and I'm not even quite sure what I'm saying, beyond the fact that I experienced something while playing a video game that was beyond the standard it's-fun-to-blow-stuff-up response.

Query of the Day

2009-07-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

The last line is the kicker:

"A young woman in search for love and a serious relationship is devastated to see that when she finds love a Ghost appears and spoils the relationship for her claiming that she is married to the Ghost and she should not mess up with other men. The Ghost warns her.

Genre: True Life Story"

"Yet Bpet" is Thai for "Fuck a Duck"

2009-07-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

In the course of retooling RUN for Bangkok, I've run across a few instances in which the characters use harsh language with each other in an angry tone of voice. (I know, you're shocked). But some of these characters are now Thai, and it stands to reason they will drop into their native language when they're emotional, i.e. if they're screaming obscenities out of rage or fear.

Thus, I found myself in need of some Thai swears. Thanks to the magic of google technology, I was able to track down www.youswear.com. It gave me a lot of fun things for these characters to say, including:

Yet Bpet - Fuck a duck

I-ha - Bastard

Mae Meung Ttai - Your mom is dead

Shia! - Dammit!

And my personal favorite...

Ai na son teen - Your face looks like my feet

The last one is a little long and descriptive to easily fit in, but I'll try...

Zombie Dreams

2009-07-07T10:48:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about going to the gym on the regular is I sleep more deeply, and do a better job of remembering my dreams.

Last night, I dreamed about zombies.

It was very long, almost a collection of inter-related dreams. They could have been eps in a series. And it was very, very bleak, more reminiscent of THE ROAD than say, the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake. They were slowish zombies, but not as slow as Romero's. And they were smart, like in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD... basically the zombified people were their normal selves, except they'd turned evil, and only wanted to eat human flesh. It was way creepier than normal dumb zombies - they were almost like body snatchers, in a sense.

Anyway, it started out at my grandmother's house. When I was growing up, she lived on the same block. The zombies got in, and a massacre ensued. I was upstairs for some reason, and I realized the zombies yet know didn't know I was there. As quietly as possible, I slipped out the window, dropped to the ground, and went to the house I grew up in.

The doors were unlocked. For a few super-tense minutes, I tried to barricade the house without letting anyone outside notice I was there. (It was a lot of quietly pushing furniture against doors, etc.) The whole time, there are sirens in the distance, cop cars screaming past, people getting pulled out of the houses by zombie mobs, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

I get a big shock when I find a boy hiding in a closet upstairs. He's maybe ten or eleven, and the source of the unlocked door. (How he had a key, I don't know - it's a dream). So now I've got to protect this kid while saving my own ass.

The zombies start poking around my house. The kid and I hold our breaths. The zombies try the the doors. Locked. They try to push open the doors. No dice... but the furniture in the way lets them know someone's inside (doh!), effectively causing my attempts to defend the place to backfire.

The zombies mount a full on assault on the back of the house. Luckily, they're of relatively normal intelligence, but death has blurred the edges for them. They've become very single-minded, so I'm able to smuggle me and the kid out through the front of the house while they're kicking in the back windows.

We have a long, scary chase of us running down the street, hoping the main mob will be distracted by searching my old house for me long enough for us to escape, all the while crossing our fingers that the zombies attacking the other houses don't notice us.

We get several blocks down before the zombies realize they were played. They come howling after us, alerting the other zombies, who join in.

We reach the first empty-looking house we can find. It's a big, rambling place that strongly resembles (but actually isn't) a house I had in Chicago right before I moved to LA. I forget how, but, in the dining room, we find a trap door under a Persian rug. It leads down to a cobwebbed basement. Fuck it - down we go. I pull the rug back, and hope the zombies don't trip over it (revealing the trap door).

In the basement, we find the owner of the house, a creepy dude who looked kinda like Eric Wareheim and acted like Tim Robbins in WAR OF THE WORLDS.

The zombies storm the house. They're calling my name, busting up the place looking for me. The weirdo keeps getting worried and about to make some noise and, like Tom Cruise in WAR, I'm wondering if I'm gonna have to kill this dude in order to save me and the kid from a zombie munch.

Then I woke up and went to the gym.

Query of the Day

2009-07-07T09:50:00.001-07:00

Huh?

"It is created adventure, comic genre writing (it is maybe subject for you). There are curious adventures of one man and several countries’ teenagers. As experts said, there is no analog. The theme is so big and maybe makes 3 or 4 films, as usual, telecast and animation.
If you are interesting about my theme I can send you the materials. Be sure that, this will be interesting for you which are around this theme; I will tell you this in the second letter."

The Mouse, the Motorcycle, Moving & Me

2009-07-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

All quiet on the mouse front. Enough time had passed that I stopped making sure the soap went in my bathroom sink when I went to work or bed.

Yesterday, I jumped in the shower, picked up the soap and noticed the tiniest of nibbles had been taken from one corner. So even when these mice are seemingly gone... they're not gone. Not ever. It's like a chronic disease.

I've decided it's time to move. My rent keeps going up, but the lair remains the same. Moving to a similar place with lower rent seems like the best way to make some extra money magically appear. I've been busy as fuck lately, trying to scrape up a war chest. Moving is expensive as hell -- I had to move four times the first year I was out here, and it beat the shit out of my bank account. I'm hoping to bounce within the next couple of months, getting out before the rent goes up yet-a-fucking-gain.

In the meanwhile, my lust for a bigger motorcycle grows with every passing day. I love the Rebel and it's a perfect learner bike. But I've been on it for six months now, and I'm itching to ride something stronger. I want a bike I can ride out to Arizona without getting blown all over the road. And on the Rebel, I have to shift up through all five gears before I get to 30 mph. It's fine, I'm used to it, but with city driving it's a shiftastic shift-a-thon. A lot of times, I don't even bother to lane split, only because it's kind of a pain in the ass to quickly pull ahead of traffic.

And I'm just getting curious about other rides. I'd been thinking of graduating up to a Honda Shadow, which is basically the bigger version of the Rebel. On the other hand, I'd like to see what the big fuckin' deal is about Harleys. I like cruisers.

Please Don't Let Your Plastic Blow on Wilshire

2009-06-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

During my lunch hour, I had to run a quick errand to the Merrill Lynch in Beverly Hills. I jumped on the bike, hit Wilshire and headed west.

About halfway there, the wind blows a big sheet of plastic into the road. It's about as thick as a grocery bag, but about two feet wide. It might've come off a construction site, I dunno. But of course it gets blown right in front of ME. Before I can maneuver around it, the damn thing gets under my front wheel and wrapped in my spokes.

I figure the wheel's gonna seize and I'm about to eat some street. For one brief moment, my thought was, "Oh, so THIS is how I die." But it didn't freeze the wheel - it got caught up around the hub and wrapped itself around the brake pad.

I pulled over to the side of the road and yanked the plastic out. By some weird coincidence, a green SUV (there's an oxymoron) had broken down on Wilshire, and a cop was using his squad car to push it to the side right in front of me, so I wasn't gonna get plastered by on-coming traffic. Thanks, LAPD.

Very carefully, I remount and hit the road. The front brake works, but it's a little mushy - there's obviously some little piece still in there. Giving traffic tons of space, leaning on the rear brake and playing it ultra-careful, I managed to get to ML and back to the office without dying.

To be blunt, I'm not Mr. Mechanic. I'm the exact opposite of Mr. Mechanic. If you told me that the core workings of an internal combustion engine involved pixie dust and magic, I'd shrug and say, "Okay, cool." My point is, I'm sure if I had the tools and the skill, I'd be able to get the brake pad off, dig out the plastic and get it back on without a problem.

That isn't the situation. So now, just to make sure I don't get a case of the mushy brakes while I'm going down I-10, I gotta take it into the dealership. Luckily, it's around the corner from the lair. Unluckily, it's gonna cost me cash I'm trying to save so I can move.

It's way better than taking a header on Wilshire, but fuck... nothing can be easy, can it?

Aw, Gimme a BREAK!

2009-06-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

I'd finally gotten Willie. I SAW the motherfucker eat the poison. And after that... nothing. No mouse turds, so late-night scurrying, nada. One day turned into two, and two turned into a week. There had been lulls before, but never this long. It seemed like, at last, my rodential nightmare had come to an end.

Mm-hm.

Having been once again lulled into a false sense of security, I started to try to pick up the pieces of my life, forging ahead into a kinder, gentler tomorrow.

Last night I read scripts and worked on EXTRADITION until I got sleepy, and hit the sack. (Just another wild Hollywood party night). This morning I awoke, refreshed and ready to tackle the new day. I went into the bathroom, flipping on the shower, and...

...the camera zoomed in on my stunned face even while it dollied back, creating the classic Hitchcock effect as the bottom dropped out of my reality.

THE SOAP WAS GONE.

I raised my fists to the heavens and cried: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Somewhere in the building, Willie paused between mouthfuls of oh-so-delicious, delicious Irish Spring to chuckle in response. Damn his furry soul.

Enough time had passed since our last run-in that there wasn't that much left to the bar. I'd even contemplated rewarding myself by going to Trader Joes and getting one of those swanky soaps that're made from the essence of waterfalls and shit. Good thing I didn't... it would have just been a five-star meal for a mouse.

I mean, I REALLY thought he was gone. No turds, no scurrying, no appearances, posion eaten with a smile. The previous soap stealings had been mouse thefts. This was a mouse HEIST.

(Hmmm... "Mouse Heist." You can kinda see that poster, huh?)

I recall the spindlies pulling this exact same con on me... tons of them all over the place for a while, suddenly no spindlies for a week, I relax, and BAM - I've got one crawling up my arm while I'm brushing my teeth.

And REALLY thinking back... even the hawk that menaced me did the same thing, vanishing for just long enough that I stopped looking over my shoulder, and BAM! Hawk attack! But that's another long and painfully ridiculous story.

I'd like to state for the record that I, Michael T. Kuciak, being of sound mind and body, thinks Mother Nature should go fuck herself and leave me alone.

With a weary heart, before leaving the apartment I made sure the soap was back in the sink. I'm determined to move... the rent's just gotten too high, and I'm pretty sure I can find a place that's both cheaper and better. The mouse isn't scaring me off, but he sure as fuck is acting as a catalyst for action.

Thanks, Willie. Yeah... THANKS, FUCKER.

Even a Cat Doesn't Work

2009-06-10T14:13:00.000-07:00

According to this article, a woman borrowed a cat to get rid of a mouse and, instead of eating the damn thing, they became friends.

Guaranteed that's what would happen to me if I tried the same thing.

The Mouse Won't Die!

2009-06-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

There is either a clan of very similar-looking mice living in the walls of my building, or just one mouse who is a serious-ass motherfucker. I'm starting to think that, if I blew up a gas tanker this mouse was driving, all I'd do is reveal the T-800 robot skeleton underneath.

Here's why.

Since putting out my deadly D-Con pellet buffets, all evidence of mouse-itude have vanished from the Casa Del Kuch: no mouse turds, no vanishing soap, no mad dashes back-and-forth between the fridge and the pantry, nothing. For a short while, I thought the case was closed.

And this is the truly sick part... For a few nights afterward, I'd come home, sit down to write... and watch for the mouse from the corner of my eye as I worked. I had to admit, a tiny part of me had gotten used to having the mouse around. I kinda missed him.

I guess that's just human nature, but it's strange to find myself missing a creature I'd put a lot of effort into murdering. It's like in CHOPPER, when Eric Bana shivs a dude in prison, and two seconds later he feels bad and apologizes, even while the guy's lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

Two nights ago, I wrapped up the pages I was working on and hit the sack. Lying there, waiting for sleep to overtake me, I heard a now-familiar rustling come from the fridge-to-pantry runway.

Rustle-scurry-rustle. Scurry-rustle-scurry.

Which meant there were EVEN MORE mice than I'd predicted... Or it was something else. Maybe the sound was just the wind making the blinds move around? Yeah, that must be it. I drifted off to dreamland...

Then last night the mouse returned, in his most brazen appearance yet.

I own a bicycle, a big, heavy, single-gear beach cruiser. I'd stuck it over by the fridge to keep it out of the way while I work. (If I put it outside, it'll vanish; welcome to LA).

I heard a scurry-rustle from behind the trash can next to the pantry. I quietly went over to look, craning my neck so I could see over the can without moving it.

The mouse was sitting there EATING THE D-CON.

As I've mentioned, a lot of D-Con has vanished lately. In fact, it was all gone, except for the tray I'd left by the pantry. Enough time had transpired that I'd thought about finally throwing it out. Good thing I didn't.

The mouse saw me looking, and made a dash for the fridge. In so doing, he leaped up, grabbed the spokes on the bicycle's rear wheel, and flipped himself from one spoke to the next along the length of the bike until he'd made it all the way across, depositing him at the corner behind the fridge. It was an amazing acrobatic display. If I were writing RATATOUILLE II: REMY'S REVENGE, I'd put this in.

The acrobatics gave me a really good look at him... This mouse is fucking BIG. No wonder I'd thought he was a rat, at first. I realize that's like talking about jumbo shrimp, but you get my drift... When I was working at Noah's Ark, the mice were pretty small, and all white. This guy is the size of a baseball and dark brown, with a white underbelly. I'm also pretty sure it's the same mouse I saw staring at me a couple of weeks ago. Could they all be the same size, the same exact coloration? Maybe, I guess...

He vanished behind the fridge. The show was over. EXTRADITION ain't gonna write itself, so I went back to work.

Not two minutes later, the mouse made another run, this time using the window sill to get from the fridge to the pantry. But, instead of disappearing into his mouse hole, he goes about halfway in and stops, leaving his ass hanging. His tail stuck out in plain view.

This is a brave mouse.

A sudden inspiration came to me. There was a big, brown-paper Trader Joe's shopping bag next to the trash can. I thought... What if I could GRAB the mouse by the tail and drop him into the bag? Sure, he could chew his way out, but not before I'd be able to run him down the block to the Hollywood Forever cemetery and drop him off.

Long/short... I snuck over. Reached down... and just as I got one finger on his tail, in the millisecond it would have taken me to get my thumb and finger together into a mouse-tail-catching vice grip, he SQUEAKED and slithered away.

The mouse escaped.

I picked up the D-Con tray. There wasn't much left. I never thought I would have to get a second helping of poison for my rodent friend(s), but such is life.

Now I'm right back in THE SECRET OF FUCKING NIMH.

Query of the Day

2009-06-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Atlantis ones are always fun:

Query - "TOTAL CALL""Mysterious disappearance of several military planes in area of the Bermuda Triangle entails a circuit of improbable and stunning events. One of pilots is John Mason at the last instant avoids fatal trap of the Bermuda Triangle, but he is immersed in a coma. Skilled doctor of reanimation is Richard Graffield decides to make experiment with revealing the reasons of a coma of John Mason who has survived in a mysterious trap of Bermuda Triangle. He invites professor Hedberg who is a progressive figure and the innovator in the field of electronic sensory-scanning and feelings diagnostics. Professor Hedberg agrees on experiment and comes to hospital. But at first use of the video-navigation scanner a participants of experiment make inconceivable jump in the time and a space, they becomes witnesses of the real events which happened in the Atlantes Civilization many thousands of years back; hardly later they also get to know the full reason of catastrophe of the Atlantis. Intrigued professor Hedberg decides to finish the research which now throws light not only on the reasons of a coma of John Mason, but also gives a certain caution off possible catastrophe... Professor Hedberg and girl assistant Jane arrive to Tibet, where enshrined in their opinion the secret message of Atlantes to people of the future... After some extreme situations they find out this secret and receive a key for rescue off new planetary catastrophe, which can happen, as the strategic Network already is under threat of start of a nuclear arsenal... At the last moment the secret of great Atlantes and also their fatal mistake becomes clear and simple. And people of our Civilization should correct this mistake..."

The Mouse Returns

2009-06-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

Last week, I got sick of this mouse's shit (literally and figuratively), drew the line on mamby-pamby humane traps and score myself some good, old-fashioned poison. I set out the little trays full of aquamarine pellets and, when the pellets from one of the trays disappeared - indicating the mouse had eaten them - I thought this drama had come to an end.

For reasons having a lot to do with distraction and laziness, I neglected to remove the rest of the trays. They were just kinda sitting around. Well, you see where this is going... I woke up on Sunday morning and found another tray empty.

Huh.

There were a lot of possibilities that could have led to that empty tray. I decided it would be best if I left out the rest of the poison, this time on purpose.

Yep, you guessed it... I woke up this morning, and more poison was gone. I'm halfway through the shit.

There are several potential reasons for this:

a) D-Con takes several servings to kill your average mouse.
b) This mouse is not average - he has a gut of steel - and can eat whatever the fuck he wants.
c) This is an average mouse, and D-Con is just weak.
d) There's more than one mouse, and each time the poison vanishes, it's another mouse dead.

I'm leaning toward (d), which makes the most sense, but is also the most dreadful. How did I end up in fucking WILLARD?

First it was black widows, then spindlies, now it's mice. Next it's gonna be raining toads and a plague of locust. I either gotta move, or let Moses and his people go.

Query of the Day

2009-06-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

I too am passionate by motorbikes.

"It's a comedy about a young spirited man, passionate by motorbikes, that leaves with his parents, grandma and his fiancée who brings home an unknown man with loss of memory which he saved from death. From that moment their lives will change, other said, who you won't let die, he won't let you live."

Diary of a Mouse Murderer

2009-05-29T18:41:00.000-07:00

When I got back from the gym last night, I was disappointed to see none of my deadly mouse-meals had been touched. Would D-Con be as useless as the humane trap? I began to despair. I wrote, watched DIRTY MARY, CRAZY LARRY and hit the sack.

I woke up this morning, started getting ready for work and, from the corner of my eye noticed... Could it be? Yes... the D-Con over by the stove was gone. The fucker fell for it. He ate the poison! I got all Lucrezia Borgia on his motherfucking ass! Choke on jolly roger-shaped candy corn!

Unless that mouse had been building up a tolerance to poison, according to the D-Con box his ass is GUARANTEED DEAD.

I had taken the life of another living creature, and yet I was as happy as a kid in his footy pj's finding a Red Ryder bb-gun under the tree on Christmas morning. I wondered... Is mouse-murder always so delightful?

I left the rest of the D-Con out. Mice have been known to reproduce. (I know, strange but true!) In case my little soap-eating roommate had spawned any progeny, I wanted them to enjoy the sweet taste of D-Con death. Poison is the special on the menu at Chez Mike for as long as it takes.

This Means War

2009-05-28T18:33:00.000-07:00

I hadn't seen or heard from my rodent roommate in the couple of days. So, like a fool, I let my guard down. I stopped putting my soap in the sink when I left the lair. I discontinued my practice of taking the trash out on an hourly basis.

A few days ago, I got back from the gym, went to jump into the shower and... yep, the fucking soap was gone AGAIN. The mouse had not left, he'd just lain low for a few days. Clever bastard. Again, I cracked off another box from the Irish Spring value pack and, with some mouse-related grumbling, went on with my life.

Until I went to change my clothes, and saw it...

A MOUSE TURD ON MY BED, still glistening with morning dew-like freshness.

He had literally shit the bed. MY BED! There are some things you just don't do - lines that are drawn - and shitting on a dude's bed is one of them.

I'd tried to play it nice, with my passive-aggressive humane trap and all of that useless bullshit. Sometimes you try to be decent, and you get walked all over. This was one of those situations. Motherfucker had called down the thunder.

I went to the drug store and scored some D-Con. In case you're not familiar, D-Con is rat poison. My guess is it works on mice, too. It looks like tasty mouse pellets, though they're a bluish-green, the color of toxicity. It comes in little trays, like a TV dinner.

I got back and set out my little deadly meals in strategic locations: the pantry, behind the fridge, his little runway between, and one in the bathroom.

Days have passed. I have not seen the mouse, or heard him. But we've proven that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I can only hope his little mouse friends don't hear from him either, so they get worried and, after repeatedly knocking on his little mouse door, force their way in only to find him slumped over his little mouse kitchen table with X's over his eyes, his tongue hanging out, one frozen paw gripped to his cold throat, the other clutching D-Con pellets. One mouse will look to the other and say, "I TOLD him not to shit a dude's bed."

The mouse is dead. Long live the mouse.

Where for Art Thou, Mouse?

2009-05-19T08:59:00.001-07:00

I haven't seen or heard him in a couple of days. No little presents for me in the corner by the fridge. Yesterday, I forgot to put my soap in the sink. I came home and it was still there. And yet... nothing in the humane trap, either.

Has my campaign of food-denial worked? Only time (and mouse turds, and an empty trap) will tell.

Meanwhile, waiting to see if cool IMPLANT news comes out of Cannes for me...

A New Road Warrior

2009-05-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

According to this article on aintitcool, we're again hearing rumors about FURY ROAD.

I've been keeping my ear to the ground on this project since I first came out to LA. THE ROAD WARRIOR is in the very short list of my all-time favorite movies, right up there with CONAN THE BARBARIAN, ROBOCOP and THE BIG LEBOWSKI.

I've seen ROAD WARRIOR dozens of times, and I can pretty much guarantee I'll watch it at least a hundred times in the course of my life. If such a thing exists, it is as close to a perfect movie as I can imagine.

THUNDERDOME, though... I put that right up there with ROBOCOP 2 and CONAN THE DESTROYER. The first time I saw it, I thought the Thunderdome fight was pretty cool, and the rest of the movie sucked. I saw it again a couple of years ago, and it's a really mediocre action sequence... The inspiration begins and ends with the idea.

It's indicative of the kind of pseudo "out of the box" thinking that seemed to plague the town in the '90s, the same type of development that ruined the ALIEN franchise. "Ha-ha! What if Mad Max shows up and he doesn't even have a car? Crazy, huh? Am I right?!" I'm all about applying fresh ideas to projects, but sometimes if it ain't broke, don't fix it. "Ha-ha! What if the Terminator wasn't even a cyborg! Crazy, huh? Am I right?!" Shut the fuck up.

Everything about THUNDERDOME drives me insane. The train, the kids, the song, the long stretches without action, the lame-ass delivery of what little action we get, a guy who gets conked on the head with a frying pan... ugh, it's like MAD MAX BEYOND THE GOONIES.

My point isn't to bitch about a movie I don't like... It didn't magically erase the first two movies from existence, so it's like, fuck it, I'll just move on with my life and not watch that one.

My point is: I'm praying to the Hollywood Gods, "Please-please-PLEASE don't fuck this up." I'd be sweating bullets if we hadn't seen such awesome movies come along in the past couple of years. In the '90s we had BATMAN & ROBIN, now we have THE DARK KNIGHT. In the '90s we had THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, now we have CASINO ROYALE. Does this mean in the '90s we had THUNDERDOME, so now we'll have... FURY ROAD, and that same uptick in badassery?

Fingers crossed. You can never make another MAD MAX or ROAD WARRIOR... Shit man, that was lightning caught in a bottle twice. But they're both fantastic movies in similar-yet-different ways, which means if you adhere to the core concepts of the franchise (Like, for instance, Max drives a fucking car... Crazy, huh? Am I right?!) while still taking a new spin on things, there's a chance we can pop the cork on a third bottle.

Mighty Mouse

2009-05-15T12:42:00.000-07:00

This mouse is getting brave.

I've seen him three times, each time running from one corner to the other: twice at super-fast speeds, and once at a jog.

Last night, I returned to the lair, flicked on the light and he was standing next to the fridge, just looking at me. I've seen enough Tom & Jerry to know that making a blind lunge at him would do me no good... So what could I do? I stood there and stared back at him, aware of the completely-ignored humane trap sitting on the floor about two feet to the mouse's right.

This lasted for about ten seconds before he vanished once more behind the fridge.

I couldn't tell what the meaning of this was supposed to be... Was is arrogance? A request for amnesty? Curiosity?

It doesn't matter. I'm not home that often, and even when I am home I'm usually writing (when I see him) or sleeping (when I don't)...so this mouse has the run of the place the majority of the time. Outside of the soap, nothing's really been harmed. Be that as it may, though, I refuse to cede a single decimeter to the fucker.

This mouse has to go.

A Cool Article About Zombies

2009-05-14T09:36:00.000-07:00

I really liked this article in LA Weekly.

A Mouse Ate My Soap

2009-05-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

I've determined that I don't have a rat in the lair... it's a mouse.

I know this because I saw it clearly the other day. I saw it clearly because it's no longer afraid enough of me to run at full speed when it makes its sojourn from my pantry to behind the fridge and back again... It was more of a slow amble than anything. I pose no threat. I instill no fear in this mouse.

I've been diligent about not leaving food and trash out. I cleaned the lair. The mouse is still around. He leaves little mouse turds in the corner by the pantry. Thanks, asshole.

After much procrastination, I got a humane trap from K-Mart. I put it out, and the mouse ignored it. Good job, humane trap. Be that as it may, I didn't stress... He'll eventually go away when he gets hungry, because there's nothing around to eat, right?

Right?

This morning I woke up, read Hagakure and jumped in the shower. Hot water blasting, I reach down to grab the soap... and it's gone. A full bar of Irish Spring, fresh out of the box on Monday morning... GONE. There are only two logical explanations:

A) My building manager is a perv, snuck into my lair during the day and stole my soap.

B) Having nothing else to eat, the mouse at my fucking soap.

Since I've been in this building for a couple of years, and nothing has inexplicably vanished from the lair until the mouse showed up, I'm leaning toward B.

I was unaware that mice eat soap. He must have dragged it off because, even though he's big for a mouse, he's still a fucking MOUSE, and is about as large as a newish bar of soap, which this was.

The upside was I had a value pack, so it wasn't a big deal to just crack open a new box. But now I apparently live in a world in which I have to think through every goddamn thing like I'm playing chess against this mouse... I put the soap in the sink where, I hope, there aren't sufficient paw-holds for it to get at.

I really didn't care about the spaghetti... I wasn't gonna eat it, anyway. But I'm drawing the line at soap-eating. This fucker has got to go.

I told the building maintenance guy about the rodent a week ago. He said he'd take care of it. But these are the same people who allowed my bathroom ceiling to collapse TWICE after I told them a million times about the gathering condensation. Once, maybe... but fucking TWICE?! My point is, we're not talking about a stellar track record; I'm not holding my breath for a crack SWAT team of mouse hunters to show up at my door anytime soon.

I'm going to have to take justice in my own hands. Mouse, if you're reading this: YOU ATE MY SOAP, AND NOW YOU DIE.

Solomon Kane

2009-05-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

Being a Robert E. Howard fan, I'm gonna read any article entitled "Great Day for Robert E. Howard Fans," like this one on aintitcool.

This take on Solomon Kane sounds pretty fucking awesome. It's a bit odd that it takes place in Europe, as most of Solomon's stories are set in Africa... Though I should say my favorite Kane story has him fighting pirates on the English coast. And I suppose it makes sense as an origin story. If the first movie does well enough to launch a franchise, the perfect story to use as a basis would be the one where he fights Le Lupe... It starts in France, Le Lupe gets away and flees to Africa, and Solomon's so dead set on fixing the dude's wagon that he follows him out there, sparking a really cool cycle of African stories.

It's interesting that this should come along right now... I've been playing through Resident Evil 5, and the strongest aspect of that game is the African setting. I'd been thinking that the only other time I'd seen Africa used so well (or at all) in an action-horror context have been in Solomon Kane stories, and the old Call of Cthulhu campaign The Masks of Nyarlathotep (which is probably the coolest pre-packaged campaign I've ever run).

After spending the better part of the last decade wringing horror out of Asia, we should look to Africa for inspiration. These hand-wringing social message movies we've been seeing are all well and good... but where're the fucking zombies?!

Query of the Day

2009-05-07T09:38:00.001-07:00

Satan gets possessed by the Devil!

"This is the ultimate good versus evil story. Sayang and Satan are the only survivors of their entire race and world that was destroyed by their life-long enemy the Devil and they join forces to create a new world called Heaven.

However, Satan unknowingly gets possessed by the Devil which intensifies his own jealousy of his brother Sayang. Damned and reduced from several failed attempts to take over Heaven in the past, Satan manages to convince Sayang to create Hell for himself. Yet even Hell is not enough for Satan and so he steals the Great Book of Eternal Life and Death in the hopes of gaining infinite power."

Frankenstein's Monster: The Prologue

2009-05-04T16:57:00.000-07:00

Last year, I wrote a young adult fantasy adventure novel called FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER. It's about a teen who inherits Dr. Frankenstein's original notes, and the monster comes looking for them, along with various bad guys. Hijinx ensue. Though I should point out that "hijinx," in this case, is defined as "explosions, martial arts and steampunk weird science."

I wrote the screenplay adaptation, and set both aside to work on my usual R-rated action thriller specs. Just for fun, I thought I'd throw the prologue up online.

This is a super-first draft, so please don't kick my ass too much.

THE CHAPTER BEFORE CHAPTER ONE:

THE UNEXPECTED VISITOR

Who could be happy with a name like Marvin Butterfield? No one sane.

So he made everyone call him “Fresh Marvy-B.” His email was FreshMarvyB@gmail.com. He’d named his World of Warcraft troll shaman “FreshMarvyB.” Sometimes he saw his friends in person. In those rare moments, they called him “Fresh Marvy-B” or “Marvy-B” or “Marvy” or “MB” or “dude.”

He was known as “FreshMarvyB655” on the auction sites.

Fresh Marvy-B opened a second bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. He downed a handful, with Mountain Dew straight from a two-liter bottle. He hunched over the keyboard, watching the final minute count down on an online auction. This one was for a stack of original copies of Weird Tales magazines, sci-fi pulp fiction published in the 1930s.

Fresh Marvy-B knew someone, somewhere out there didn’t just want the copies of Weird Tales. They needed those magazines, more than air or food or love. Getting the magazines might be the best thing that ever happened to them. Which was why Marvy-B loved collectables; people got crazy over the weirdest stuff.

Old toys and comic books weren’t better than new toys or comic books. But people paid a lot more for the old stuff. That’s how Fresh Marvy-B made money, selling people little talismans of their childhoods back to them.

Fresh Marvy-B lived in a one-bedroom apartment in North Hollywood. He sat in a very comfortable, ergonomic desk chair. There was nowhere else in the apartment to sit. Boxes covered the floor, the couch, the chairs, the counter-tops and the tables. Boxes were stacked six-deep in the corners, and forget about the closets.

The only clear space on the floor was a strategic, Y-shaped pathway. The tail started at Fresh Marvy-B’s computer desk, and the forks led to the kitchen and bathroom. Marvy-B had to climb over boxes to when he left the apartment. It helped that going outside was a rare activity for him.

The auction clock counted down past thirty seconds. The first round of robots appeared to snipe in bids. Marvy-B snorted. Amateurs.

The pros showed up in the last ten seconds. Offers exactly one cent higher than the previous bid rapid-fired through the ranks. The seconds quickly melted.

Fresh Marvy-B stacked three Doritos together into a little sandwich and inserted the whole thing in his mouth.

Three.

Two.

One…

The auction closed. Fresh Marvy-B sold the old magazines to a guy in Dayton, Ohio.

There was a knock at the door.

Fresh Marvy-B just stared at it. No one ever knocked on his door. Maybe he’d heard something from the hallway that just sounded like a knock on his door. Yeah, that was it – Marvy-B ignored it.

Another knock.

“Who is it?” Marvy-B yelled. But his mouth was full, so it came out as a mushy bellow, something like: “Mooo-hiiish-ehhh?”

No answer. Fresh Marvy-B rolled his eyes. He chewed as fast as he could to clear his mouth and regain the power of speech.

There wasn’t a third knock. Instead, Fresh Marvy-B’s unexpected visitor kicked the door open.

The flopping door knocked over boxes. Star Wars action figures tumbled out of one, trays full of neatly-arranged Hot Wheels cars spilled from another.

Fresh Marvy-B flinched. This was a first.

The visitor came into the apartment and said, “What is all this trash?”

He was middle-aged Asian man. He was somewhere between tall and short. He had dark brown skin and a big Fu Manchu mustache dropping over the sides of his mouth. He wore a black t-shirt and loose pants that flopped around his legs.

Marvy-B knew he should yell something like: I’m gonna call the cops, man! But he was too scared. Instead, he just answered the question and squeaked: “Collectables.”

The man pushed the door shut. It wouldn’t completely close, because he’d kicked the knob and lock off. The door just sorta hung a couple of inches less-open.

The man scooped up a handful of Star Wars figures worth a hundred bucks. “You collect dolls?”

“No, action figures,” Marvy-B said. “Toys. Didn’t you have any toys when you were a kid?”

“My father didn’t give me toys. He gave me beatings, and I liked it!” The Asian man threw the figures over his shoulder. They rattled across the tops of more cardboard boxes.

Fresh Marvy-B wondered if he was fast enough to dial nine-one-one before this guy beat him up.

“I’m looking for a set of bound notes, almost like a book,” the man said.

“A comic book?”

“No, a book for adults. It’s very old.”

“I only deal in comic books and graphic novels and related publications, like pulp – “

The visitor kicked a stack of boxes. They exploded in a shower of pink Power Rangers, Robotech planes, all-region horror movie DVDs and The Uncanny X-Men, issues #180-through-#210.

“Brian Thomas in Phoenix, Arizona sold the notes to you.” The man aimed his foot at Marvy-B like it was a cannon. “He sent a package to this address several weeks ago. The notes were in the package, which means you have the notes.”

Marvy-B thought Brian Thomas might have gotten a very similar visit. He hoped his door was the only thing that’d got broken.

“My boss wants the notes, which means I want them.” Leg still up, the man took a roll of cash from his shirt pocket. “I’m not a thief, I’ll pay you.”

The message was clear: Marvy-B had to choose between the money, or the kick.

His mouth went dry, and he could feel every Dorito crumb jammed between his teeth. He focused on the man’s foot. The guy was wearing the kinda soft shoe you see dudes wear in kung fu movies, which Fresh Marvy-B didn’t take as a good sign.

That’s when four ninjas of various shapes and sizes came into the apartment.

They blundered over the cardboard boxes by the door. One ninja fell face-first, his hands punching through the tops of boxes. “Ow! What’s in these things?”

The Asian man closed his eyes, as if wishing the ninjas would just go away.

The fallen ninja steadied himself on his knees and withdrew his hands from the boxes. Colorful action figures came out with them.

“No way! Lord of the Rings guys? You got Gollum!”

A second ninja leaned forward to see. “I had him and the Nazgul on my desk at work.” To Fresh Marvy-B: “Where’d you find ‘em?”

“They’re pretty easy to score online,” he said. “I have another in mint condition, but that one’s in storage.”

The Asian man dropped his leg so he could turn and face the ninjas. “I told you to wait outside.”

“Sorry, Thunderfoot,” said the third ninja. He was short and filled out his ninja outfit, a nice way of saying he was overweight.

“Not much ninja stuff going on out front,” said the fourth. “We wanted to see if you needed help.”

The Asian man – Thunderfoot – said, “I’ve sparred with Jet Li. I think I can handle a doll collector.”

To make his point, Thunderfoot snapped a kick at Fresh Marvy-B. The deadly foot stopped a millimeter from his forehead.

“The notes.”

Fresh Marvy-B made a dry squeak that sounded a lot like a broken shopping cart wheel.

“The notes!”

“I’m sorry, I’m trying to think,” Marvy-B said. “I buy and sell a lot of stuff. And this is the first time I’ve ever had ninjas in my apartment.

“I’m not a ninja,” Thunderfoot said. “Ninjas are Japanese. I’m from Hong Kong.”

“We’re not really ninjas, either,” the first ninja said, examining an original-issue He-Man figure.

“We’re ninjas in training.”

“Elimi-ninja contestants.”

“Future ninjas of America.”

“Enough!” Thunderfoot had a gleam in his eye that said: shut up or I’ll kick you. The ninjas became very quiet, like ninjas should’ve been in the first place.

Marvy-B said: “I remember the thing you’re talking about, the handwritten notes of a scientist from the eighteenth century, held together in a leather binding.”

“Yes! That’s what I want.”

“I sold it.”

Thunderfoot’s shoe demanded answers.

“I sent them out a week ago,” Marvy-B told him. “I can give you the contact info. Name, addy, everything. The guy who bought it, he’s a professor doing research. Y’know, the dude who wrote that book about the Chinese finding America before Columbus.”

Thunderfoot seemed interested. “They did?”

“I loved that book,” the second ninja said. “Wasn’t it a bestseller?”

“Yeah, for something like a million years,” Fresh Marvy-B said.

Thunderfoot lowered his thunder foot.

Marvy-B let out a relieved sigh. “I keep all of my sales records on file.”

He printed out the professor’s information. Thunderfoot took the sheet, read it, nodded.

“Let’s go.” Thunderfoot headed for the door.

Marvy-B said: “I thought, uh…”

“What?”

“You were going to pay me.”

“Yes, for the notes. But you don’t have them.” Thunderfoot took the He-Man action figure from the ninja who was holding it. “Remember, if you call the police – ” He broke the figure in half, the implied message clear.

“I won’t, man. It’s cool.”

Thunderfoot vanished through the door. The ninjas filed out behind him. The broken boxes, the broken door and the broken He-Man figure were the only proof they’d been in the apartment.

Fresh Marvy-B wondered how giving a customer’s contact information to ninjas would affect his service rating.

A Rat Ate My Spaghetti

2009-05-01T09:06:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, my friend and former client Ramsey was in town. He manages Bang Camaro, and they were in LA for an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. Bang Camaro also had a show at the Viper Room, and Ramsey offered to put me on the guest list. Hell, yeah.

Online, it said the show would start about 7:30. I factored in two opening acts, and got ready to walk out the door at about 7.

I was just about to pull on my helmet... when, from the corner of my eye, I saw a black streak zoom from the corner behind my fridge to the corner behind my pantry. I didn't get a good look - it was more of a sense of motion than anything else - but I knew what it was, nonetheless: I had a rat.

I didn't flip out. Shit, that's life in the big city. But it's not like I wanted a roommate, either. So I took a look behind the pantry, and... yep, the wood between the pantry and the wall had been widened, just a little bit. I threw any food I'd left out in the fridge, and took out all my trash. I figured... he's here looking for food and, if there isn't any, he'll go away. The end.

I hit the dusty trail and get my ass over to West Hollywood. Now, a bit of backstory: when you get a motorcycle, it's like you've joined a secret club, membership in which gives you cheap gas and insurance, and free, non-hassle parking... under most circumstances. I have abject loathing for the parking patrol. They have fucked with me at length both here and back in Chicago. I like the sight of a rat more than the sight of these wretched souls.

Anyway, ordinarily I can just slide the bike between cars on the curb, or even dump it up on the sidewalk. Not so, Saturday night in West Hollywood. I found a side street just a block away from the Viper Room. I was backing up the bike to park between a couple of parked cars... and one of these parking patrol assholes pulls onto the street, stops and sits there, staring and waiting like a goddamn vulture. I knew the moment I got off that bike, I was officially "parked," and he'd slap me with a ticket. So, like any other civilian, I pulled it up to a meter, and shoveled in two bucks in quarters for two hours. Fuck it, better than the alternative.

The Viper Room. I get to be a complete Hollywood douchebag and walk up to the bouncer and say, "I think I'm on the guest list." Whaddaya know, I am. Stamp on the wrist, and in I go.

The first opening act is already playing. The guitarist is fantastic. I look around for Ramsey, don't see him in the dark. But I know dude's working, so I just find a place at the bar and grab a beer, watching the acts and waiting for Ramsey to walk past.

The first opening act leaves, the second comes on. They remind me of the Black Crows, and make a big deal out of being from South Carolina. Halfway through their set, I spot Ramsey on the other side of the room, wander over to say hi. The bands still playing, so it's a loud-bar conversation, as in: "HEY MAN!" "WHAT?" "I SAID, HEY MAN!" "OH! HEY!" "HOW YA BEEN?" "GOOD!"

As the Black Crows from South Carolina wrap, they mention a third opening act... one more band before Bang Camaro. In the relative quiet (as in: it's still loud as fuck, but at least a band isn't playing live twenty feet away), I tell Ramsey I'd better feed the meter and come back. No problem.

I duck down the street. Bike's still there, no tickets. I throw in another two bucks. Luckily, I've got a bunch of quarters on me.

I head back to the Viper Room, give the bouncer my guest list speech and show him the stamp on my wrist. He says, "Sorry, dude. No in-and-outs." I'm like, "But I'm on the guest list." No dice. "No in-and-outs, for anybody."

I'm pretty sure if I were Bruckheimer, I could have gotten back in. Though I don't have that level of juice... yet. I could have called Ramsey on his cell to see if he could help me out, but I didn't want to create drama. Also: I was kinda pissed about the parking and now this, and knew I'd be in a shitty mood the rest of the night. Fuck it, I split.

As I was riding home, I thought about the rat. He was probably gone by now, right? There was no food out for him to get at.... waaaaaait a minute. I remembered I had half a package of spaghetti in the pantry. It'd been sitting there for a while - I've been laying off the carbs - and I'd totally forgotten about it until right then.

I got back to the lair, went straight to the pantry, threw open the door... and yep, the package had been dragged to the back of the pantry, and it was empty.

A rat ate my spaghetti.

Query of the Day

2009-04-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

"LOGLINE: Incest, (a sexual aroused teenage boy) "please mom it aches help me". A story that builds into wild humor exploding sex crazed hormone affairs, with a teacher and her male students to break their imaginary cherries. Car drag races, plus chases, to inflate egos and remove unwanted sexual coronary seduction competition.

SYNOPSIS: (Base on a true story) of a 15 year old boy's uncontrollable sex drive, which evolves into incest with his 12 year old sister, escalating to his 34 year old mother and concluding with the rape of his 26 year old English teacher. Located in Central California, in the muscle car high octane action of the late 50's & 60's. Happier times with the spirit of American Graffiti, high school romances warm and beautiful, entwined with testosterone male hormones and unrestrained sexual desires. Car drag races to inflate male and female self esteem egos. Car chases to dislodge neighboring towns dating boys, way from their own home grown, prim, alluring, sexy females, in addition, a violent physical fight, a testimonial of innocents, to defending a girls honor and reserve her dignity. Argumentatively, the best cars, the best of times, and the best teen music ever recorded, energized through out this movie.

Reminiscent of American Graffiti fused with American Pie, plus young love heartaches. "

And now I'm on Skype, too

2009-04-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

michael.kuciak

I'm internutty!

I'm On Twitter Now

2009-04-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

I got enough twitter invites that I thought... what the fuck, why not.

So it's mikekuciak on twitter.

Now the world can finally be saved.

Query of the Day

2009-04-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

"Paul Stanley is a man with prosperity in his corner, until he moves to Maine and receives a calling; a calling that seems like a personal invitation straight to hell or so he thinks. Now, Paul and two other men will soon meet down under and discover this is not the devil; this is an alien! A black velvet, winged, mole-like alien, with cataclysmic, gravitational powers, confiscating 2000 years of our avionic and nautilus technology, in efforts to piece together its damaged space ship. Unfortunately, for these three men, near death experiences are what's in store if they want to escape."

Writing and Noah's Ark

2009-04-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

With IMPLANT moving forward and DEAD RIGHT THERE out of my hands, I'm working on a treatment for the next action project, EXTRADITION. This one's very research-intensive, so it'll likely take me a week or two. That's fine -- with both IMPLANT and DRT, I found a lot of cool action/story/character things via research, so I don't rue the extra time it takes.

But as I've mentioned before, I like to work on smaller, weirder, more personal projects either between or concurrent with the action stuff. It keeps writing fun for me. (Not to say writing action specs isn't fun, but you know...)

When I was fifteen, my very first job was working in the Small Animals and Reptiles department of Noah's Ark, which billed itself as the "world's largest pet store." I was there for a year or so, and some truly bizarre shit went down at that place. Oddly, the experience gave me a real passion for working... I thought that, if every job was this fucking weird, I'd never get bored. (By the way: I was wrong, most jobs are dull). I walked out of Noah's Ark with a collection of stranger-than-fiction stories, which I've kept in the back of my head, waiting for a good opportunity to put them somewhere.

Yesterday, I put in some hours on scaffolding out the EXTRADITION story beats. When I started to run out of juice on that, I poured some red wine, flipped open a blank Final Draft doc and just started writing. Long/short - I cracked out fifteen pages without even thinking about it, feeling like I could have done another fifteen, but I wanted to get some sleep. And all of that was just set-up... the weird shit doesn't even kick into high gear until act two. I'm thinking I'll goose act one by opening on an animal attack, and cut back in time to the set-up.

But damn... there are so many stories to be told about Noah's Ark, I'm already suspecting this script'll turn out to be nothing but a treatment for a novel. The challenge will be in not falling into the episodic trap: this happened, then this happened, then this happened, the end.

But I think that'll be easy to solve by focusing on the crime ring aspect...

Attacked by an Umbrella

2009-04-14T19:00:00.001-07:00

I was at a meeting this afternoon. We met for coffee at this cafe... it was a patio table with an umbrella situation.

Just as we got done, I stood and picked up my motorcycle helmet. At that moment, a huge gust of wind came along and yanked the umbrella out of the table, which flew down and bonked me on the head. It looked a lot worse than it was... a bunch of people ran over to see if I was alive. I was fine.

But I thought it was funny that, purely by chance, I happened to have head protection in my hand at the same second I got randomly clocked outta nowhere.

I tells ya, kids.. that's irony for ya!

Hoppy Easter!

2009-04-12T11:10:00.001-07:00

Time to get sick on Peeps...

Don't Eat Cookies

2009-04-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged because I've been busy at the day job.

While riding back to LA from AZ, I kept my mind occupied by composing the epic blog I would write upon my return. That didn't quite happen. Suffice to say, it was harrowing. In the hills outside Palm Springs, the wind comes at you from every direction, suddenly shifting without losing strength. A gust would hit me from the left, and I'd lean hard into it to stay upright. Out of nowhere, the wind would hit from the exact opposite direction, slamming into me when I'm already leaned. Doing 75-mph and getting tossed into a 45-degree angle is pure "OhshitohshitohshitOHSHIT!!!"

I spent twenty miles hiding behind an 18-wheeler doing about 45-mph. I can't say for a fact, but at the time I seriously thought that truck saved my life. Thanks, Stevens Transport.

And fuck Palm Springs.

I'm not making that ride again until I have a stronger and heavier bike. The Rebel is awesome for tooling around the city, but... shit, you're asking for it on the open road. No wonder everyone thought I was insane.

I'm back in AZ, getting in a quick visit with the fam for Easter ham. This time, I took the iron bird, leaving the bike in airport parking.

I got in late and didn't have much to eat. I warmed up a couple of tacos but, after waking up, I was a hungry man. I rummaged around in the pantry, looking for something snacklicious.

Now... I've been making an effort to eat better: lots of lean protein, fruit 'n' veggies, dialing back on the booze, etc. I haven't noticed anything different in terms of the way I feel, outside of an incipient loathing for garbage food. The idea of hitting the Jack in the Box down the street from the office makes my guts twist.

But I looked in that pantry and saw some ginger cookies with icing. And I thought: "Man, it's been a while since I've had a cookie." I grabbed a handful and ate them while watching TWO MINUTE WARNING (which I found to be 99% awful and 1% brilliant -- it's like the boring, American version of DAIMAJIN... TARGETS is way better).

Long/short, I ate the cookies, and now I feel like complete ass. I'm simultaneously hyper and dopey, and it seems like I injected Elmer's glue into my brain to achieve the effect. I'm getting messages from my stomach. They're written on soggy bits of paper, and they all read the same thing: "Thanks, asshole. Signed, Mike's Stomach."

Take my advice and don't eat cookies. They're bad for you.

I'm even more of an idiot because there's a laden orange tree in the back yard. Instead of going outside, plucking a fresh orange and eating that fine example of delicious nature's bounty, I shoveled in a handful of sugary crap. Because it had been a while since I'd eaten a cookie. Ugh...

But it's kinda like riding the Rebel across the desert... I have to find out shit's bad for me on my own. Advice? Logic?! Bah humbug. Suffering and fear are far better teachers.

Query of the Day

2009-03-30T11:47:00.001-07:00

I was gonna get into my ride back, which was harrowing. But this... I couldn't pass up.

Also: it's a reality show.

"Think twice before you want to hurt any girl boys! This is a mainly massage the girls want to pass to all men. Warning for to they respect the girls and care about. If not they meet 3 bad girls - the host of the show - and takes very unpleasant lesson to don't do that no more. The show has two parts. One at the studio (talk show) where the host girls talk about the men. How they are and what to do to don't be use by them. Second outside devoted the reality action show the record of the revenge acts take to the male kind deserve for. This will be most fun, "dramatic" and emotional part, crazy ride unforgettable for the men who will be a main characters and the targets. The inspiration and the targets for will be base on the female viewers watching the show and has a very bad experiences with men - was use or has been hurting. It will be very interesting show for both sex. Girls see how be stronger, how takes revenge and what to do to not be use or hurt no more. Men see what can waiting for them in the revenge of theirs bad behaviors. Both sex watch this in curious what happening on the show this time? Who and what for be a target and what way he paid for. It will be very fun and valuable for all. The plot of the show will be base on the story of the three girls advising the hurts girls on the phone line. The girls and the boss will be base on the Harry's angels movie. This show the angels will be fighting with chauvinism, stupid and more men "qualities" making damages in girls life. The angels will be as bad as hot of course."

The Ride

2009-03-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I rode my Honda Rebel 250 from LA to my parents' house, just south of Phoenix.

Leaving

I ran around Saturday morning, shipping out most of my stuff so I wouldn't be encumbered on the ride. On the one hand, I was able to take the trip with nothing but about five pounds of clothes in a duffle bag strapped to my back. On the minus... I spent half the day dealing with the post office. By the time I was done, it was after 11am. No way I was launching in mid-day. I decided to go home, get my lair in order and hit the sack at about 8:30. I wanted to be well-rested.

I checked the weather on Friday, and saw that a system was moving south along the coast. They predicted LA was going to get rain at about 6am Sunday morning. Not wanting to ride through rain, I tried to beat it by setting the alarm for 5am. To my amazement, I was able to pry myself outta bed when the alarm went off, grab a shower, get dressed, throw on the duffle and hit the road.

Cold and Rain

Five minutes into my trip, it started to rain.

High beam on, 45-mph, I tooled through sleeping downtown LA, hoping not to run into any drunks on their way home. It was cold and raining and it sucked the camel's ass. But I pressed on.

I got out of the city and made my way through the suburbs. Little-by-little, the megamalls thinned out. When I stopped seeing Home Depots and Wal-Marts and started noticing truck stop-type places, I figured it was time to grab some juice.

First Stop

I stopped off at a gas station just outside Indio. It took less than three bucks to top off the tank with premium. The Rebel's milage is amazing, and continued to amaze throughout the trip. When I went inside to get my change, I warmed up just enough to start shivering. Damn, my knees were cold.

But the weather had said the rain was sticking to the coast. All I had to do was get far enough east and I'd be fine. I pushed on.

As I took off from Indio, the bike was making a weird sound, and wouldn't kick up past 60 or so. Then I realized I was still in fourth. Shit, what noob maneuver.

The Hills

After LA, you get into roads twisting through the hills, their tops spiked with dozens of windmills. I ran into another obstacle: wind. It swooshed around into the hills and came at me at random, from every direction. With the rain and dark and cold, it was a fight. I started to freak out a little bit.

And then I was passed by three middle-aged men on bikes. These guys were obviously experienced tour riders: they rode huge bikes piled with lockable storage, and were dressed like they were going for a space walk. They didn't acknowledge me (I sometimes get nods and waves from random people riding past on bikes), but that didn't matter. It's like what Anthony Hopkins says in The Edge: "What one man can do, another can do." Just by seeing other bikes on the road, I was able to even out my head. I pushed on.

Which paid off. Just a few minutes after that, I crested a rise. The clouds broke on the horizon, and a clear and golden sun shone through that little sliver of space in the darkness. The clouds were low enough that they covered the tops of the mountains, silhouetting them with this bright, bright light. Nature's chiar oscuro. It was beautiful.

Inclines

I kept riding, and left the rain behind. Though it was still early-morning cold. (Note to self: leave after 9am next time). I increased my speed, charging up a long incline. The drawback of the Rebel is it's kinda weak against hills... I would have the full throttle open, and the speed would still decline.

I saw a sign that said: "No Service for 60 Miles." My dad had made this trip a couple of times, and had warned me there were stretches of deep desert, with no cell reception, nothing but sand and rocks for miles. This was the first one. Milage or no milage, I wasn't gonna chance it. I pulled into the gas station/rest stop, fueled up (another three bucks) and called the parents. My mom picked up, and was pleased to discover I was alive.

I launched. By this time, the sun was up and the air warmed. No rain, no cold and full visibility: I was ready to rock.

Rocks

Outside an Indian reservation, I came to a part of the road that wound between two steep hills. A sign said: "Watch for Rocks." Just as I read it, a rock kicked up from an 18-wheeler and beaned me in the head. I thought, Found one! I was wearing a helmet, so no big deal, but it cracked one of my vent adjusters off. Small price.

Butterflies

Not long after that, I saw the first butterfly flit across the road. It was big enough to see it flapping around long before I passed it. I reacted like most people would: Huh, big butterfly.

Then I saw two more. A-hah, more butterflies. This must be their, uh... territory, or something.

More butterflies. And more. Within a minute, there were dozens ahead of me at all times. They started hitting me -- or rather me, them. Rebounding off my jacket and helmet, they left huge, bright-yellow splashes of butterfly guts. I looked like I'd gotten my ass kicked at paint ball. But when they hit my legs, protected only by denim, they felt like BB-pellets. I figured I could handle a few "Ow!" moments, when...

...thousands of butterflies filled the road. It was exactly like watching heavy flurries get blown sideways by wind, except instead of snow, they were butterflies. One smacked my visor, directly over my right eye. I spent the next forty miles riding with my head tilted so I could see around its corpse. The hits on my legs came by the dozens. But I refused to get killed by fucking butterflies, of all things. I lowered my head and pushed through the main swarm. Rain and wind, sure... but butterfly swarms? What the fuckin'-FUCK?!

Blythe

I made it to Blythe, where I used the windshield wiper to clean off my helmet, and some rags to get the majority of the butterfly goo off my jeans and jacket. I filled up (less than three bucks) and pushed on.

I hit another butterfly swarm. This one was minor by comparison, just a few dozen at a time. I was like, Shit, not again! But after a few miles I realized I'd already hit the main butterfly force.

I crossed into Arizona.

Deep Desert

This was the second deep-desert stretch, about 75 miles of nothing. A fierce wind came up. But at least this was steady -- I was able to predict it and lean. It was later, and there were more trucks on the road. They were good and bad, depending... If the wind was coming from the south when I passed them, I'd get a few seconds of respite. If it was coming from the north, the wind would rebound off the side of the truck and hit me from weird angles, like in the hills.

I'd been riding long enough that my ass was killing me, my legs and arms were tightening up. I tried to find subtle ways to stretch while flying across the desert at 75-mph.

Phoenix

I'd been seeing signs for Phoenix for a while, but they just depressed me: 294 miles, 275 miles, etc. By now, I was cracking 100: Phoenix 94... Phoenix 75... Getting there.

I finally, finally, finally got to my turn-off, and ran into normal street traffic, which had become strange after spending hours in flat-out speed. Suddenly, I had to brake and shift gears again... everyday riding had become bizarre.

Long/short, I arrived seven hours after leaving LA. Whew.

Now all I have to do is ride back on Sunday.