This is it. The time is now.

Started by 72teeth, September 27, 2012, 03:39:30 PM

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72teeth

After a very cathartic month of ups and downs that concluded this Saturday with my getting drunk in a theatre by myself (guess what movie i was watching) and waking up in jail with a nearly broken hand (im litterally thanking GOD that it didnt break, and is well on its way to healing) i've decided that the time is now or never to answer my true calling, start living a better life, and finally go to battle with this monster known as Resistance.

For one month, September 28th through October 28th, i will be out of town, out of sight, off the web, and fully submerged into writing my first screenplay.. For 2 years, ive been jotting down notes, bits of dialogue, scenes and scenarios, rules and techniques ive come to realize from a lifetime of watching movies, and ive got the film i want to make in mind.

I touched pen to paper a couple months back and was amazed with the results.. I've got what i think is a great opening scene and was able to write up until the title card appears:


Blue Moon.


and now it's time to treat my writing with respect, as the career and life it has chose for me. To focus and dedicate myself. To become "pro." Not in fame or fortune, but in respect.

This is it. The time is now.
I have to have to do this.
I must think and create for a living,
for a better life
and a better me.

I love you Xixax.
Here i go...
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

malkovich


72teeth

Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

Sleepless

Awesome news - best of luck to you!

(Though maybe, before you go, you'd like to fill us in on what happened between drinking in the theater and waking up in jail. Y'know... if you want to.)
He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

ono

Congrats.  Go.  I want to read.  Are you writing to shoot, or what?  Looking forward to the answers.

72teeth

Quote from: Sleepless on September 27, 2012, 04:38:09 PM
(Though maybe, before you go, you'd like to fill us in on what happened between drinking in the theater and waking up in jail. Y'know... if you want to.)


so yeah, i dunno, ive been very into this unhealthy lifestyle of drugs and drinking and living out of an always packed backback and just overall irresponsibility that ive been getting away with for far too long now.. Friday was a long day at work followed by cocaine and vodka til the wee hours of Saturday morning, which brought another full day of work ending around 8pm..
i get off work, feeling a little haggard but good all and all, and best of all: The Master is now playing everywhere! including the AMC theatre within walking distance! "Ah yes, this is what i need to relax and re-coup... and i might as well get drunk!" so i head over to the corner store and get 2 steel reserves.. with the 2 tallboys in my bag, i catch the 10pm showing and get drinking..

It's beautiful. It's so beautiful im just beaming with pride for PT and pride as a film lover in general.. and ive got my buzz good and going. About an hour in, i realize im all out beer AND that theres an 11pm showing in one of the screening rooms a floor below that i could sneak into and see the first half all over again! "YES! You are one smart sonuvabitch John Michael!" I pass the usher, "oh, i just gotta get my insulin, here's my stub, ill be right back.."

i bumble down back to the store, oh yeah, and i almost always have weed on me, so i smoke a bowl and get 2 more tallboys, pass the usher, "Hey thankth man *hiccup*" (not quite, but i know i was pretty buzzed), and pop into The Master! take two!

this time i get reeeally comfy... shoes off, backpack open for easy access to notebook (the one with 2years of notes in it, my bible), jacket off, belt off, front row.. im king of the castle and its still all such an amazing view on display..

things from here get hazy..

i definitely popped the 3rd can open
i remember up until the "Do you want to fuck? :-)" scene
i remember waking up starting at Freddie waking up thinking "That's me"

and the rest is just flashes...
i remember the handcuffs hurting
i remember thinking (i hate this, but im being honest here) "Uh-oh, theres alot of homeless black guys in this room"


cut to:
voice over: 2 cops talking

"Alright buddy, you been asleep long enough..."
"Come on, that's right, time to get up..."

"mmmmm...hmm? huh? what is this?" im still pretty drunk, waking up face down on the cold cement floor of a jail. "whats.."

the door slams shut and the 2 officers leave with my own realizations.. "oh my god, im in jail. what the fuck. what time is it? i have work at noon.. where are my shoes? are my pants wet? wheres my bag? OWW, my fucking hand!" My hand is crooked and bruised purple-blue with the two middle knuckles gone.

They leave me in there for about 10 minutes before returning.. "okay, come on."

i follow them to a desk.

"You know why your here?"

"i think im.. i think i got drunk.. "

"Yes, that's right. Place your thumb here" they take my prints. "Sign here" i sign..."Okay, lemme get your things..."

They pop my shoes on the counter, then my bag.. my consciousness kicks in, "Oh god my bible!" i scramble through my bag finding every item in there (amazingly. i lose things sober all the time. big things like shopping bags and radios) everything is in there but my book.. my heart drops.

"Oh and here's this, you said its very special."
It's my book! My bible! i cannot fucking believe it, nothing is gone, its all here!
"Okay, youre free to leave, we dont want you back so be smart from now on.. you had a clean record."

"Thankyou officer..." and i start to walk out before asking, "Did i get arrested at the theatre?".

"You were picked up on Gough near Market." ...nowhere ever near the theatre. Where was i going? what happend? Ive since decide im better off not knowing....

i think i was still pretty tipsy, but i definitely, to which i still cant explain, was not hungover... and i felt great in fact, ecstatic even, alive! i realize i how awful, how completely fucking terrible everything could have ended up.. i could have walked into traffic. i could have gotten beat, stabbed, shot or killed. I could have gone into a state of mimicry and gone all "Freddie" leaving the cops with no choice but to mace me or taze me.. but other then my swollen crooked hand, which at this point im still not acknowledging like i should, everything is fine, and i lost nothing... it doesnt make sense other than i had been given a second chance.

i go to the nearest cafe, a hipster cafe/laundrymat/performance space called "Brainwash" and get the biggest coffee and the biggest glass of water.. chugg'em.. and walk out just before spewing it all back up into the nearest outdoor planter.. i use my hand to brace myself, "OW! oh yeah" without thought or hesitation, i make a fist and, what feels like all bones in my hand, shift and pop back into place "FFFFFFK!"  i open my hand again... Nothing! it's fine! swollen, yeah. a crazy color, yeah.. but not broken! And the knuckles are back! i compose and realize i have an hour left before work...

like i said, it's not uncommon for me to pass out, so i always have a change of clothes at work. i get to work early, use the shower, and put on the fresh clothes. I look in the mirror: "It's time to grow-up."

the day went by fine, good even! i slowly sobered up, never got hungover which is still so crazy to me, and only got minimal questions about my purple/blue hand. "Oh, a fight. Im okay." but the whole day, it's clear to me: you will never get this lucky again... dont even chance it. It's time to start your life.

And so here i am. i given up drinking, drugs, and living out of a bag, and it's now so clear and so obvious how ive been completely avoiding my calling.. What am i waiting for? It's here and now, and i just gotta do it.
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

72teeth

Quote from: ono on September 27, 2012, 06:32:15 PM
Congrats.  Go.  I want to read.  Are you writing to shoot, or what?  Looking forward to the answers.

Im just focused on one step at a time, im gonna write this thing, show it to some of the good minds i know for critical feedback, and we will see.. But the important part is that im going to be treating writing like a job because i want, so bad in this life, to be a writer, and i think, with the life that has been set out for me, that the life of a writer has chose me.. i cannot ignore this so-strong feeling anymore.
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

72teeth

Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

Cloudy

That was one helluva post. One of the best posts I've read on the internet in general. If you write your fucking script like that, with that kind of honesty, I personally think you'll be in a great place.

Substitute your drinking/using with writing, and let it fucking take you to places. Also, just so you know, it's gonna be tough for you to quit all of that stuff by just saying it. You won't be in this "FUCK YES NEW LIFE" state for long (sadly). Discipline will be required, I've had my own personal experience with this.


(congrats on your bible btw)

Pubrick

under the paving stones.

Pwaybloe

Quote from: Cloudy on September 27, 2012, 08:10:37 PM
That was one helluva post. One of the best posts I've read on the internet in general. If you write your fucking script like that, with that kind of honesty, I personally think you'll be in a great place.

I was thinking the same.  Good luck, Teeth.

Sleepless

Just got to echo everyone else: damn, if you write your script as well as that post it's going to be awesome. I wish you all the best. Don't fuck up.
He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

Reel

There are so many parallels to 72's plight and Freddie's that I can't even go into because it would spoil it for everyone else...


It's gonna be fun to talk about it.


best of luck, man!

socketlevel

good luck my man, remember finding forester and the advice given "the first draft is from your heart. the second is from your head."

My only addition would be, once you start, never look back until you write "Roll credits." You'll have all the time in the world later to revise. Get it on the page son.

One love and godspeed.

No better place than here, no better time than now - rage against the machine
the one last hit that spent you...

Reel

I almost got myself into a situation similar to 72's when I fell asleep at a midnight showing of 'FrankenWeenie' the night it came out. I had already seen two movies before that and 45 minutes in I said "Fuck this, I'm too tired," walked up to the front row and put the armrests up on four chairs to use it as a couch ( I've been known to do this, " Just treat the place like it's your living room, guy. " ) and fell asleep immediately and seemed like in a blink of an eye, A group of managers and ushers were standing above me in the movie theater with all the lights on, like "Get up." For a second I thought I might have to Freddie myself out of something. Man, that must've been the most awkward moment of my life, I felt like a homeless person who snuck in from the cold to squat there. And unlike 72, I lost my 'Bible' ( didn't really have much in it, like 2 pages of scribbles ) and it was 2 a.m when I left and the busses weren't going so I just walked home. For shame, Me. As I walked through a ghetto neighborhood a cop drove by and flashed his light and me and asked " You all set? " but that was about the extent of my police contact for the night. So it turned out alright, didn't get to FrankenWeenie though  :yabbse-sad:


We should put up a ticker for 72's return. Tomorrow I think it will be two weeks, hopefully he brings the goods.