Peeing on Stones

This year, for the first time, I arrived at the Austin Screenwriter's Conference alone. Without my good friend Ryan there I had no one to joke with, to commune with, to be nostalgic with. Instead I was free to think about all the possibilities that would unfurl before me, enriching my life in untold ways.

That lasted a full ten minutes.

OK. It wasn't that bad, but I can't deny that I approached this conference with a mixture of elation and dread. Elation because I knew I would surely have a good time. Dread because I established metrics for success that were outside my comfort zone. It's also a familiar dread that comes from the first lunch period on the first day of school where you fret about whether or not you will eat lunch in solitude for the next year. Will my friends be there, or will I be forced to roam the halls of the Driskill alone cursing myself yet again for not being able to engage my targets?

When I arrived in Austin I was already behind the eight ball after leaving my business cards at home. Then I registered and found out that I couldn't use the pitch I spit-polished on the flight over because the pitch competition was sold out. Then I find out that the conference had meaningful programming right into Sunday evening when I was slated to come home early Sunday morning. Before the conference could even start I already felt like I was starting with a deficit that seemed impossible to overcome.

I wandered through the Driskill Lounge two or three times search for familiar faces, feeling like some desperate schmuck. Finally I sat at the bar, ordered a Shiner, and turned to watch the Phillies contend for spot in the World Series. I knew things would get better, but that provided me with little solace.

In the fifth inning my girlfriend called and I wandered from the bar so I could talk to her. On the way out of the lounge I saw Brett, Julie, and Shawna chatting on a rawhide sofa. Suddenly I felt better, like I had just fallen into a groove. I finished talking to my girlfriend, but before I joined my comrades I went to the bathroom.

As I entered the restroom I saw them. Stones. Then I peed on them. And it was good.

I had forgotten about them. The fancy Driskill peeing stones. Why the rich and privileged at the Driskill pee on stones I will never know, but they do. Perhaps putting stones in a urinal somehow signifies the domestication of the outdoors. For me it was the mechanism that brought me into the moment, made me realize that I've been here before and will be again and that I'm better for the experience.

I went back to my friends and joked and communed and remembered years past. These are good people that I somehow stumbled into four years ago, almost cosmically, just the kind of good people you need if you are to strive against the waves that batter and smash so many aspiring writers. It's the kind of solidarity you need to gain a handhold in this business.

Once again the Austin Screenwriter's Conference (in whatever form) provided me with the strength needed to push on, to give me the optimism that one day I will write something special enough to be beaten back to ordinary by the studio system. A girl can dream.

Gran Torino

I saw the movie today. The house was packed for a 4pm showing. What can I say except that it's excellent. I've thought about writing about the movie, about the story, about what it means to me. But as I think about the film, as I try to put its message into words, I realize that the expression of this movie is so clean, so efficient, so dense that there is nothing I can write that will accurately convey what this movie is. That is because the medium perfectly communicates its message in a way that mere words can't hope to do. 

I can only count myself lucky for having been in its company.

Go see it.

Give 'Em Hell 54th!

Awhile back I wrote an article about the standout scene. There are also standout moments. It's a singular event that encapsulates the movie or gives it a new depth of meaning. It can't stand on it's own, but the rest of the movie seems to build up to it. And it's not necessarily the climax. Actually it probably takes place in the 2nd act. It can either strengthen an idea or reframe the ideas in a crucial way. This borders on the obvious, but I think it is important and worth thinking about so here I am.

There are many examples of the moment. Probably any good movie has a moment. The first one that came to my mind when I thought about it was a special moment in the movie Glory. Since I'm too lazy to search for more and because I really like this moment I'll just stick with it. Near the end of the movie Colonel Shaw volunteers his regiment to lead the attack on Fort Wagner. It is clear that the leading regiment will suffer heavy casualties. It's as close to a suicide mission as you can get aside from being air dropped behind enemy lines without a parachute. The night before the attack there is a wonderful scene by a campfire. The moment isn't in it, but I wanted to mention it because of how wonderful I thought it was.

No my friends, the moment comes the next day just hours before the battle. The 54th Regiment of Massachusetts marches down a corridor lined with the soldiers who would follow them (and suffer much fewer casualties). Among the men lining the path was a nameless soldier who had slung racist remarks at them earlier in the movie. He typified what we'd expect from the white soldiers at the time. Even though the north was at war with the south over slavery didn't mean the people in the north were any less racist. The movie makes it quite clear that these black soldiers faced opposition on all sides.

As they march down the corridor, all is quiet. Not a word spoken, a death march. Breaking the silence is the nameless soldier. He shouts "Give 'em hell 54th!". Suddenly every soldier begins shouting and cheering. A smile spreads across the faces of some of the marching black soldiers. In that moment they were all one. In that moment you could see some of the hatred melting away. You could see that the 54th was doing more than fighting a war.

Glory is filled with great moments. Private Trip (Denzel Washingtion) finally deciding to take the flag. Colonel Shaw staring out at the ocean and letting his horse go, accompanied by that masterful James Horner score. Thomas' warcry. They're all great and make me want to watch it again. So why did I pick this particular moment over the others? Because it made the movie's scope grander. It showed hope for the future. It showed that no matter what happened that the hearts and minds of people were already affected. All of that was expressed in a moment, a great, great moment. Without it the rest of the movie could personify a wasted, valiant effort.

These are the images we take with us, the glimpses that pop into our heads when we think about a movie. They are the tip of a mighty iceberg. As you write your screenplays, what are the moments? What are those resonating images that persist after the credits have rolled? If our stories are to achieve any kind of permanence I think we need them.

The Secret Life of the Cattle Baron

At the top of the grand staircase at the Driskill Hotel there is a door. Hung over this door is a plaque that reads: "Cattle Baron's Suite". I've seen it each of the four years I've attended the Austin Film Festival, and for each of the four that door has remained sealed. Two years ago I remember seeing a newspaper folded up in front of the threshhold suggesting that the Baron himself was present. Did he attend panels? Did he knock back shots of whiskey at the Driskill Bar not caring if he was sitting next to someone important, because HE was the man? Did he ever complain about the frigid temperature in the main ballroom? Of course he didn't, because if he had the temperature would have been raised to a degree of his liking. The Cattle Baron gets what the Cattle Baron wants.

Sometimes I imagine the door opening. The Baron comes out for his morning newspaper. He's wearing a ten gallon hat, clenching a lit cigar in the corner of his mouth, cloaked in a frilly robe of the pretty young thing he banged the night before. The Baron looks my way and shoots me a Texas wink that says: "I own all the cattle and you don't." And then he moseys back into his palatial suite and shuts the door, never to be seen by me again.

There is a lot we can learn from the Cattle Baron, me in particular. Every year I attend the Austin Film Festival I see hundreds of faces. Some of them familiar, all of them sharing the same desperate dream. They're hoping for a break, sizing up the competition, fighting that negative voice that says they aren't good enough, that they are wasting their time, that they should give up. For some the voice is strong and requires willful suppression. For others the voice is a whisper that comes and goes at inopportune times. But the voice is there. If you don't hear it, I salute you and bid you good luck at fighting the demons that reside elsewhere in your life.

For the rest of us, the festival exists somewhere between cavorting with friends and handling unstable and highly volatile chemicals while walking a tight rope above a tankful of piranha dotted with infectious lesions. We must walk around calmly, talk, joke, and be merry while always being aware, always being "on", and always asking yourself why you aren't at a point where Lawrence Kasdan is taking you out to dinner to pick your brain about screenwriting technique.

The answer is a fundamental truth that starts out as a bold-faced lie. You've got to know you belong. You've got to believe you are on equal footing with all of the professionals you come across. The minute you identify yourself as trying to win the favor of someone better than you, you become one of the beggars scrounging for morsels of food cast off by the Elite. And if you are not arrogant enough to truly believe it, you fake it. And the more you fake it, the more you begin to realize that maybe you're not faking at all. You realize that you had the ability to go back to Kansas all along. Has the lie become the truth or have you merely uncovered the truth by investing in what you thought was a lie?

Does it really matter? Each year the festival gives me something different. Sometimes it gives me a sense of community. Sometimes it gives me inspiration. It always reminds me why I'm putting myself through this process. This time it made me realize that I have to own this thing. I have to truly believe I belong, know that I have the talent required to succeed and the wherewithal to see it all through. What I don't want is to find that I'm attending the festival each year to meet up with friends and tell myself that I'm doing something when all I'm really doing is spending $1000 for $100 in beer.

So I guess I have to be the Cattle Baron, even if I have no idea what a Cattle Baron does.

Transparent Talent

Last night I was lamenting that I wouldn't be around to see Synecdoche, New York as I'll be leaving Austin two days before it screens. Damn. As far as I'm concerned Charlie Kaufman is the king of screenwriters. After seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind I proclaimed to all that would listen that I would light myself on fire if he did not win an Oscar for the screenplay. Today I am thankfully unburned. Eternal Sunshine is as subtle as it is jarring. I simply love the questions he asks in this film. I'm even more impressed that he doesn't even attempt to answer all of them. Some people are meant to be together, but sometimes some of those irresistibly drawn to one another are also destined to fly apart after only a few orbits. Charlie illustrates this beautifully by making his story a kind of quasi-sci-fi fantasy. To me the movie is fantastic right up until the end, right up until the point where, SPOILER ALERT, Clementine and Joel find out not only that they've been together before, but actually hear all the bad things they said about one another. At this point the movie kicks into its final triumphant gear rocketing up to the area of true greatness. Armed with the knowledge of their possible, maybe probable, demise as a couple, what will they do?

Hope.
END SPOILER ALERT

Now where was I before detouring onto Eternal Sunshine? Ah, Kaufmnan. It dawned on me in the late hour just what attracts me to Charlie*. He writes on a level that I only hope I can achieve someday, and he does it without pretense. He does it without hanging a sign up above him saying "Look at me! I'm a screenwriter! Don't you wish you could be this good?" There are fantastic writers out there who seem to enjoy drawing attention to themselves. They craft exellent movies that somehow single themselves out as movies and beg for you to know that they were written. The first names to come to mind are the Cohens. Now before you storm my home wielding torches understand that I love almost all of their work. I find their films to be both entertaining and thought provoking, but I can't deny that there is also the idea that they are flailing their arms wildly trying to get people to notice them. The same can probably be said of Shane Black, another immensely talented writer whose work I always look forward to. And the list goes on from there.

This is not a criticism or an indictment of their work, but an acknowledgment on my part on what appeals to me. I certainly enjoy the flash and the pomp and the showboating, but in the end it isn't me.

What really draws me to Kaufman and what sets him apart is his transparency. He doesn't make me aware that I am watching a movie. He sucks me in with the story and grabs my attention. He doesn't try to force over the top characters on me, or try to wow me with a turn of phrase or a wonderfully intricate plot. There is a humbleness about him. Perhaps that is the result of a deep seated crisis of self confidence or maybe its just Charlie being Charlie. Whatever the answer may be, at the end of his movies I'm still thinking "wow" and wondering if I'm going to have to reach for a can of gas and a match.

* Yes, you can now start singing about me and Charlie in a tree.

History

From my last post, it is clear that I love to listen to Coldplay. Their music rings true to me. It has just enough substance for the lyrics and harmony to coalesce into a thoroughly entertaining and satisfying whole. But there is another band whose music cuts through me on a deep level. Everything from the beat to the lyrics to the notes resonates off of my bones like some emotional tuning fork.. I think it's the bittersweet nature of most of their songs.

I'm talking about The Verve.

Last week their new album, Forth, was released here in the States. It's a winner. Love is Noise, Rather Be, Valium Skies, and Appalachian Springs are all terrific tracks. The sound I grew to love, the sound I first heard in Urban Hymns was still there. It's existential, but with a spiritual twist. An odd pairing that works. Perhaps that is the essence of bittersweet. And perhaps I should leave the analysis to the adults.

Whlie waiting for Forth a good friend suggested I pick up a compilation of their singles leading up to and including tracks on Urban Hymns. The compilation album is called This is Music: The Singles 92 - 98. There are some decent tracks, but one stuck out. It's called History. I don't know whether is it the use of violin or the resounding guitar notes or the rhythmic beat or the tinge of pain in Richard Ashcroft's voice, but this song finds the weakness within me like a pair of harmonic divining rods.

I'm on the highway between exits. The top is down. I'm cruising pretty much on autopilot. History is playing, the beat passing over me in waves, drawing me into its resonating rhythms. I hear the lines:

I've got to tell you my tale
of how I loved and how I failed

My eyes well up. What the hell? Hey, I may not be some manly man who cries only at his mother's funeral (or if his team loses the Super Bowl), but I'm no Peter Pantaloons* either. Maybe it has to do with current and past events that continue to weigh on me. Maybe it's just the ideas the words conjure within, but the combination of the lyrics and the harmony paint a picture of a guy who's weathered more than his share of storms. It's the eternal truth. The bittersweet. It echoes through me like no other song has.

I've loved. I've failed. One day I'll love again. I hope the failing is optional.


* I sincerely have no idea where that came from, but I think you get my drift.

Life In Technicolor

Last night I attended the Coldplay concert that was held here in Philly. It was my first concert. Well, not really. I've been to many concerts. Most of them with an old girlfriend who was crazy about music. Me? I was along for the ride and much, much more interested in post concert coitus than Sting's heartfelt expression of Fields of Gold. Much more. No, my friends, this time was different (though the lure of said coitus never really diminishes, but I digress). This time I sought out the tickets. At the time I had a hope of who I might go with, but that was secondary to the event. Before I get into that, how 'bout some backstory.

In 2002, I watched a pilot for a new series on FOX called John Doe (which I watched faithfully until the bastards canceled it). The pilot ended with John Doe watching someone on a ship. There was this awesome song playing over it as the show ended. Immediately I marshalled the power of the internet and began to dig. Turns out that song was from a band called Coldplay and it was called Trouble. I got the album it was from, but I didn't really listen to it. A year or two later my future ex-wife gets me their next album A Rush of Blood to the Head. And true to form I listen to Clocks and not much else and put the album away. Flash forward. X&Y comes out. This time I get it and listen to the album and realize that I really like this stuff. Then I go back to the other albums and find that: "Hey there's some great stuff here." Flash forward to March of this year. I find out that not only is a new album is coming out, but that Coldplay is coming to Philly. I pre-ordered the album, downloaded Violet Hill and knew that I was going to their concert, even if it cast aspersions on my sexuality (thank you very much 40 Year Old Virgin).

Yesterday, the cosmic tumblers clicked into place. The weather was nice, the mood perfect. The woman I had hoped would go with me back in May was on my arm (and I didn't even need to employ any sense-altering drugs to do it!). We take our seats and suffer through the opening acts. Then it started. I wasn't quite sure how I'd feel, what I should expect. I don't like idol worship, and always bristled when I'd see dewey-eyed teenagers gushing over rock stars. Part of me was wondering if I'd devolve into that which I despised, that I'd turn into some blubbering sycophant not unlike Peter Griffin watching Barry Manilow on that very special Family Guy episode.

Not to worry, my humanity remains intact. The show started in an explosion of energy. The crowd was cheering, giddy with anticipation. Life in Technicolor wafted through the arena as they took the stage. As it concluded they jumped right into Violet Hill and everything just took off from there. Each song had carefully choreographed lights and lasers. The band played in front of a wall of video. Throughout the arena interesting video globes were suspended from the ceiling.

The pomp and circumstance are fine and nice, but the meat of the evening was supplied by Chris Martin and the crowd (more on them later). He exuded an energy and an emotion that just kind of washed over the audience. You just get the feeling that he is exactly where he wants to be, doing exactly what he wants to do. And while watching him, you get the impression that he's just letting it all hang out. He's not very graceful, performing this kind of awkward dance dictated by the music. But instead of being self conscious about showing his personal rhythm, he lets it out. I'd like to have that kind of comfort level with myself. To say this is me and fuck all y'all if you think it's stupid. I'm not there yet. Not even close.

The other component of the evening was the audience. Coldplay designs their set lists with sing-a-longs in mind. And when the audience starts to sing and you are singing as well, it kind of turns into a communal event. It feels good to be around people who share a common interest, a common passion. Probably has something to do with why we're social animals and why people gravitate to groups and why cults attract members. So when Coldplay started playing In My Place and the entire building sang "yeah" at the right moment (you know what I mean) it was just a rush of good feelings. Kind of like the scene in Almost Famous where the entire bus is singing Tiny Dancer. Like that, but with twenty thousand instead of twenty. It's moments like that, that make communism not seem like such a bad racket*.

It was special, very special, and I'll certainly fork over the requisite money units to see them perform again when the time comes.


*but it is