Le Trash Whisperer

The first two reviews of the screenplay are in, and though the readers are not in the film industry, they are smart and well-read and don't bullshit me.  Their extremely positive reactions have buoyed me greatly.

Sometimes I think this is the best part. When you finish something you're proud of, and you have yet to hear anything negative about it.  Trust me, those reactions wll come. But just at this moment, the illusion is that you've produced something  that won't have to be substantially changed, so I try to appreciate it while it lasts.

The only shadow on my horizon is that my left foot is almost as bad as my right, and walking is becoming more and more uncomfortable. I have to keep the ibuprofen to a minimum, because I think it has something to do with the periodic diarrhea I've been suffering from, and of course anything stronger like vicodin  is very risky for an addict, not to mention treats the symptom and not the cause.  I'm really starting to think plantar fascitis is not the correct diagnosis, that it is neuropathy from being on HIV meds so long and it virtually untreatable. I may have to discuss taking a med vacation with my doctor..

Tomorrow I go to Albuquerque till Tuesday to visit my sister and to witness the Math book we wrote in action with the class she teaches. No worries if I don't blog for a couple of days.

MCO 2008.

I took this picture of a friend of mine (who happens to be in a wheelchair) because I thought it was an interesting composition.  It has nothing to do with what I'm about to write.

Palin proved one thing last night: that she's a good contestant.  If she can anticipate every question and rehearse to death every answer, she is a competent spokesmodel who can keep the base excited. But aiming for this was a crucial miscalculation on the part of the McCain camp.  They don't need the base. They've got the base.  They are the 30% who still approve of Bush, the true believers who don't understand why America circa 1955 is a place we ever should have left and can't go back to.

Neither could Palin win over the 47% that would rather be drawn and quartered than vote Republican.  She needed to reach half of that middle 20%, in a few battleground states who are going to determine this election, and they would have been swayed not by more attack, but by conciliation.  She should have been the one telling Joe Biden he was right, over and over. She should have pulled the ultimate maverick move, and bucked her own candidate. She should have admitted to being underinformed but willing to learn because at heart she wanted to serve, and she genuinely felt her side had the best approach to the issues, but was open to being wrong. She should have said she'd lobby McCain to appoint Hillary Clinton his chief of staff.  (Fortunately for us, McCain and his advisers don't have enough imagination. And Palin has none at all.)

I thought Ifill really dropped the ball by asking no questions Palin couldn't have anticipated. So what if she would have been accused of practicing 'gotcha journalism?"  When is the media going to stop caring so much how the right characterizes them? 

I thought Joe Biden was very effective. If you were wavering, a member of the fearful middle-class who he addressed so directly, he said nothing to alienate and a helluvalot that made sense.  He was like the kindly Uncle sent to bail you out of jail but who made clear how the road ahead would be tough. The guy you just didn't want to disappoint.

I'm really starting to see Obama as the new F.D.R., potentially, and the right may vote for McCain like they voted for Hoover, but they better hope their guy loses.  If McCain wins, prepare to see a polarization that will make 2000 look like a love-fest.  I know that I will swing way farther left, revolution or secession will start to look like sane alternatives. And I can see the right swinging farther right in reaction--we could be looking at the American equivalent of the Spanish Civil War and I'm not kidding.

The one happy bipartisan note I can sound is how far the cultural center has shifted when even an evangelical like Palin takes pains to claim tolerance in regard to gay people,  and when Joe Biden doesn't have to worry about losing votes by advocating forcefully for domestic partnerships to have the full weight of marriage.  That represents a real change.

MCO 2008

P.S. To the readers from AOL, (which closed down their journals) I'm told you have trouble commenting.  So visit me instead at  http://makemarc.blogspot.com/ where I am duplicating all these entries.

I finished my first polish of the script, cutting at least 8 pages in length.  It's amazing how good dialogue can sound in your head while you write it, how conversations seem to flow and dance like a babbling brook;  then you reread it, and the same scene feels repetitive and jumpy, and you have to mercilessly chop and refashion it.

The danger in the rewrite process is that you iron out the quirks with the kinks.  A lot of what makes interesting writing is the element of the original and unexpected.  But this can easily bleed into the contrived and artificial or even incoherent.  Recognizing that you are as vulnerable to these traps as any other writer is ever-humbling. You have to accept it over and over again, in a perpetual process of flattening and fattening of the ego.  I can't do this. I can do this. I can. I can't.

I can.

The difference between when I did this a decade ago and doing it now is the blog.  Every day for over four years I've produced an entry, and none of what you read is ever a first draft. I edit the hell out of each entry  before I post it, and sometimes after.  I've tossed many a lovingly crafted paragraph because it just didn't fit.  I feel like the Karate Kid--washing windows day in and day out turning out to be excellent preparation for the real deal.

It goes without saying that I'm on tenterhooks over tonight's debate.   The question posed by Sarah Palin is not whether she has the qualifications to be Vice President using traditional measurements--that has been answered. The question is whether a crucial slice of Americans who are still undecided think a minimal amount of intellectual curiousity and an ability to articulate is even desirable for the job.

MCO 2008

Last night I watched my new guilty pleasure on Bravo, The Rachel Zoe Project, and I thought: THIS is the example I was looking for. The democratic equivalent to Sarah Palin.  Someone who would horrify the right as much as Palin horrifies the left (and anyone with half a brain.) Then I saw the interview where Palin said she "reads everything" because she was unable to think of one magazine or periodical she followed regularly,  and it occurred to me at least Rachel Zoe probably reads Italian Vogue, Elle Decor and Vanity Fair, and certainly the Style section of the New York Times.  Not to mention is friends with Marc Jacobs and Zac Posen.  Come to think of it, I don't know why Obama chose someone like Joe Biden, who's been around since I've been in kindergarten, instead of a woman who can make Jennifer Garner look like royalty on the Red Carpet. What was he thinking?

And then listening to McCain try to claim she's highly qualified!  His logic contorts more than Natasha Lukin's on the balance beam.  I think she'd have to talk about tracking down Saddam Hussein in the hills of Indonesia for the far right to abandon her at the point, but I do think that middle 20% that goes back and forth may finally be getting a little leery of Illiterate Barbie.

As for the bailout, Dennis Kucinch pointed out the absolute illogic of borrowing $700 billion from banks to turn around and give right back to banks.  I caught him on Rachel Maddow, but you can read his reasoning here.

MCO 2008

Notice how every year there is a general lament that we are saving less and getting more and more in debt, while at the same time there is panic at the prospect that people will do less Christmas shopping this year than they did the last? This makes no sense. You can't give the middle class less of the national income and then ask them to both save and spend more.

There is plenty of wealth in America. There is enough housing, enough food for everybody to eat decently, enough fans and air conditioners and heating oil and toothpaste for everybody to stay cool and warm and minty fresh. But when there are 10 pieces of pie, and one person has 3 pieces, the other nine people will have to share 7 pieces. The free enterprise right has tried to convince us you can always grow the pie and everyone will be happy, but that magical thinking has led us right into the current mess. 

If we expand this model to the world, then the United States become the 1 with the 3 pieces of pie, Europe has 2 pieces, and the rest of the world is divying up the rest.  It's why 500,000 women in the developing world died in childbirth last year for lack of access to medical care.  They can't live on crumbs.

The world has enough resources to comfortably support perhaps 2-3 billion people. We are now at 6 billion and it won't take long to hit 8.  Economic and political systems are cracking because it is impossible to fairly and efficiently manage the sheer masses of individuals competing for a finite amount of resources.   Throw in the drama of rising expectations that occurs when the bottom half starts to imagine they can live like the top half (the middle classes of China and India each are as big as the entire United States population) and you have a recipe for global disaster.

We possess an inner optimism as human beings, a belief that over time, things get better.  I think we evolved it so we wouldn't throw ourselves off cliffs when we couldn't find food. But there's really very little evidence to support that this isn't actually just a dressing up of the basic will to survive.  

So it could be that we are making decisions as one mass organism, and in order to survive as a species it will be necessary for billions of us to die off, through disease, starvation, the consequences of human-caused climate change or all of the above.  This sounds horrible, but 99% of us could die, and there would still be 6 million of us left to repopulate the planet.  On a level we are not even aware of, we could be creating the conditions in which that will occur to save ourselves collectively as homo sapiens in the long run.  

I can focus on how idiotic the Republicans are, and while that may be true, I do believe the current crisis is symptomatic of something much, much larger going on, part of a great historical process that we can't see while in the middle of it any more than the Romans understood in 400 A.D. that the Dark Ages were around the corner. 

It's not a very optimistic message, but I find it comforting, somehow.   There may be much more method to the madness than that which meets the eye. 

MCO 2008 

Well, yesterday I finished this draft of the script, which is tentatively titled "Lucky."  If feels completely different from the last draft, as that was finished over last Christmas at my sister's, writing 10 pages a day, and ended at p. 89.  This draft finishes at p. 103, so there's not only another 15 minutes of meat in the middle, (at the standard measure of a minute a page) but the fact that it was rewritten in dribs and drabs over the past 6 months means there is far more thought put into each scene.  The movie unfolds instead of jumps ahead; it is far more organic and far less jerky. 

This is not news, it's how the rewriting process works.  But it has been over a decade since I was truly in the process, and the last rewrites I did on a script were done in a state of psychological exhaustion.  I worked on a formulaic romantic comedy that had started to feel stale. I was also making the transition from recreational to occupational drug use, and the only writing I had the attention span for was poetry,  To be back in the thick of the creative flow, sober, that's wonderful.

Only in creating this hy-art (Munch/Monet) did I suddenly realize that this script has no romance at all in it--much love, but no romance.  And for some reason, that pleases me. It also reflects my life at present--a lot of love, but no romance.  And I'm amazed at how that  doesn't bother me, amazed because the whole "man" issue was front and center for so long. Now I consider it the icing on a cake that is perfectly tasty and moist without it.

So on to polishing the script. But not until I nap.  Some days I'm exhausted by 10 am, and that's just the way it is.

MCO 2008

So it occurred to me: what would be the democratic equivalent of Sarah Palin? Who could have Obama have appointed that would have horrified the right, and eventually the middle, as much as Palin--who, after her interviews, makes clear she even couldn't make a 9th grade debating team?

The obvious choice would be Hillary Clinton, but even the right wing admits that the woman is smart and knows what she's talking about, even if they disagree with her.  No, the Democrats would have had to choose someone dissolute, elitist, decadent.  A diva who spouted new age platitutes while downing champagne, a drunk Liza Minelli, Laurie David perhaps, or pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan.

Of course, such a choice from the Democrats is unthinkable, and this points to the ludricous double standard that Karl Rove has left us in American politics. I mean, can you just imagine how the right would have reacted if it was Barack Obama's unmarried 17-year old daughter having a child with a high school student rapper?  

McCain gets to lose his temper and his bearings every 20 minutes, displaying the most egregiously erratic and politicized behavior seen since Nixon (see the most excellent Frank Rich)  while Barack Obama has to maintain his "cool" in the face of ads that cast him as leering sexual predator, because God forbid he's cast as an "angry black man."

Here's what wrong with the economy.  In 1980, the top 1% had 8% of the wealth.  Now, the top 1% have 20% of the wealth.  McCain wants to make that even worse, by cutting taxes on the rich even more, and though Obama has been clear as glass about increasing taxes only on this wealthy 1%, "taxes" is still the area where McCain polls better than Obama.

My theory is that a huge portion of the middle class is trapped in an illusion that next year or the year after, they or their kids are going to make it into that top  1%  (when there are 3 million of them, everyone knows a few, and it's easy to believe "if they can do it, so can I." ) A strange syndrome occurs.  They tend to vote for the interests of the class they aspire to more than in their own self-interest, particularly if they're in striking distance, say, in the top 20%. Then are bought off those who have no hope of seeing such mobility with social issues: there's nothing wrong with their lives that can't be blamed on the gays and the feminists and the non-hunting chardonnay-sipping volvo-driving pro-choice liberals.  All together, it's been enough for 50%, and with a little hanky-panky with voting machines and election officials, we've got the current mess.

There's my Sunday rant. On a personal level, I'm happy in direct inverse proportion to my digust at McPain. My nephew's opening has gone very well, full houses so far.  I'm one scene away from finishing my script, and I get to watch French rugby and American football all day. Last night we watched Chris Rock's "Kill the Messenger" and his bit on the only time a white person can use the n-word is one of the funniest three minutes in the history of comedy.

MCO 2008

Paul Newman was one of those men who make it easy to celebrate their life more than mourn their death. He had beauty, talent, an understanding that the true meaning of life lies in giving back.  What a cool guy, all around.

Of course I watched the debates and of course I'm amused by the frantic attempts of the spintelligentsia to claim success for either side.  It's so impossible to not have an opinion, that the media has a tough job of pretending to be objective.  In my opinion, its an objective fact that McCain and his cronies are bankrupt ideologues who should be vying for control of a small banana republic, but I recognize that unless you're  Keith Olbermann, you must pretend he's qualified to be leader of the Free World.  I found myself squirming as I watched, willing with every fiber of my being for Barack to interrupt with "That's bullshit, Senator" or "What a load of crap, John."  I guess that's why the Obama campaign is not calling me for advice. They wanted him to look and sound Presidential, and on that count, the reaction of my swing state sister leads me to believe it was a successful venture.

I've had some queries about goings on in my personal life. 1) We were outbid on the house, which I expected.  I don't think the housing market has hit bottom, and I think there's a better bargain awaiting.  Of course, no one knows anything as far as what's next in the credit market.  I just find it funny that the same people have the same stuff on Tuesday as they had on Monday, and yet suddenly $700 billion needs to change hands. There's a lot of perception going on here.  2) The arrangements are gelling for moving my mother out west.  She needs a lot of handholding, and so do my sisters and I. It's a big project, but we are all clear it constitutes her best chance for some happy remaining years.

There's a new post at Prison's a Bitch 

MCO 2008

It's odd when all is doom and gloom on a national scale, but in your own life, aren't much different than they always are.  In fact, when I'm writing every day, and I love what I'm writing, it anchors and heartens me in a way nothing else does.  To go to bed thinking about a scene I've just written, that I'm really proud of, there is just no feeling quite like it.

As alternately appalled and amused as I am by the economic and political goings on, I have to give points all around for the sheer theatricality of it all.  Compared to the mess on Capitol Hill, the McCain grandstanding, and Palin's incoherence about Alaskan airspace and Vladimir Putin, Ugly Betty's season premiere seemed singularly boring. Did they fire the writing staff?  Her horror over the condition of that HUGE New York apartment was ludicrous. So put on a coat of paint.

My nephew's film opens today.  The New York Times review was less than stellar and so I'm pissed off at the reviewer.  If you live in NY, ignore her and go see it. I promise, you'll have a great time.  Here's my official quote about it: "A study in hope, hubris and humor. Watch yourself spend 90 minutes without blinking."

MCO 2008 

Funny, in all this running to Washington to solve the monetary crisis, I haven't heard McCain insist that Sarah Palin be in on the negotiations.  Why, John, you're trying to sell her as the most qualified individual to be second-in-command of the free world. Don't you think her input would prove invaluable?  In fact, here's an idea: Let's let Sarah in a room with a bunch of books and newspapers, a pen and paper, and after 8 hours or so (with a break for mooseburgers, of course) we'll see what kind of plan she comes up with.  And just to make it fair, we'll put Joe Biden in another room for the same amount of time and see what he comes up with.  Then, John,  YOU can pitch her plan to Congress and Obama can pitch Biden's.  Instead of the debate you want to duck anyway. Sound good to you John?

The real crisis is that of the sub-prime intellects that have governed this country and are asking to stay in power.  Even the ostensibly smart ones are below par in the life experience department. Poulsen worked for Goldman-Sachs for 30 years. He thinks an ideal America is whatever America he's looking at from the back seat of a limousine on the way to  the Hamptons. The only reason this is a crisis to Wall Street is because THEIR kind of prosperity is threatened.  I didn't see Bush call an emergency summit when millions of homes were on their way to foreclosure. Hell, been to emergency room lately? Howabout an emergency summit on emergency room waits?

I know, I should be in a better mood, and rest assured, the flailing about, implosion even, of the McCain campaign (see the Letterman diatribe on You Tube) has provided me with immense frisson of shadenfreude. But an entire box-worth of styrofoam packing pellets was dumped on my corner, and despite all my efforts, the street looks like shit.  I try to take this personally, but sometimes it feels like a big Fuck You, Trashwhisperer.  

I gotta get some writing down before I go get my foot lasered.  I'm up to page 87!

MCO 2008