The Most Important Thing

You know, I've been doing my best to be consistent with coming up with ideas. Any idea. One idea a day since 2007.

It's been rough sometimes.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I like to plan out how the ideas get executed. I always told myself that if I wasn't loyal, the idea well will dry up.

But at this time, I notice that not everything works all of the time. Sometimes, it doesn't work out.

You move onto other things. You live. You learn.

But, I notice that a good eighty percent of the time, you need to work on the idea and finish it when the passion comes in.

That can be hard for those endurance runs. Those multi-day film shoots. Those multi-month editing sessions. Those yearlong distribution deals.

That's why what you're working on has to be good. You have to respect yourself as an artist in that way. You gotta call people on their bullshit when they give you some whack shit that they themselves have no financial responsibility in. Your sanity is not worth giving up for a minor role that probably won't get your foot in the door.

Next time a child star goes crazy, look at the last movie they were in. If I was in So Undercover or Shipwrecked, I'd lose my fucking mind too.

So many people would rather kill themselves than speak in public. Let alone speaking in public when they're ten. 

Not just speaking in public, making people laugh in public. Shit's hard boo.

And you keep doing it until you're in your late twenties. Laugh Factory. Stress Factory. Feeling like a depressed product. Of course you do.

People are full of shit. If you make complaints, I'm bringing up your resume. Complaining about Christopher Nolan when you shoot cell phone videos vertically, go fuck yourself.

Don't give in to validation. Validation is overrated.

Whatever, fuck your friends and your retweets. No one is going to give it, you're going to have to take it.

No one wants to be criticized over a piece of shit they weren't even a smidge passionate about.

And if your friends are doing you a favor and working on your thing, you have to make it meaningful. You have to be Phil Jackson about it. James Cameron, Napoleon. Be in the trenches with your boys.

If you're the leader of a project, you gotta be passionate. This might be my opinion, but I think the passion overrides everything. I think you have to be smart and literate about what you're working on too, but the passion has to come through. It comes through in the little things. You listen to people. You figure out what your team's strengths are and try to accommodate for it.

A lot of people don't care. And then everything falls apart. They don't listen to people. There's something off about what they're working on and they think they can deflect blame onto everybody else. Nobody wants to work on it because deep down they think it sucks, but you're not doing anything to make it suck less.

Don't be offended. I did that too. Learn from it.

Budget is always gonna be an issue. Always will be. But if your enthusiasm comes through, you can overrule that.

Enthusiasm comes from truth.

It's that joke that addresses something "that's so true".

Not a lot of rock stars have gotten in trouble lately. But a lot of comedians have.

Because it's a comedian's job to tell the truth. Truth scares people.

Anything that lasts the test of time speaks to a truth. A vibe.

Something that makes you give a fuck.

Can A Blog Be Finished?

You know,

I've been working this blog for a little bit now.

I actually started a couple prototype blogs back in high school. They were little interesting things, but I discontinued those for a myriad of reasons. Reasons that don't seem significant now. Reasons that I should have walked out of, had I had the hindsight that I do now.

For the last year or so, I've had the trouble of creating content for this blog.

I don't like the current community at large with their hashtag activism and their fake insincere bullshit.

I don't like the term "entitled", but I will say this about my generation:

We're not the kind of people that will play through a losing game of Madden/FIFA/NBA 2K.

When things get bad, we turn it off. I include myself in that.

We try to change the law when it's convenient for us, and change it back when it's inconvenient for us.

Again, this could have been happening for thousands of years, but this is something I've noticed within ourselves.

And being that we (not just my generation, but society as a whole) are sore losers that cannot tolerate different opinions on subjective matters, it's hard to create content in a non-scorn environment.

I remember, I think it was a while ago when the World Cup was going on. A lot of Americans proposed that soccer/futbol have either a shot clock or a smaller field to make the game more exciting. Someone on Twitter voiced their opinion saying that this game should not change its rules, since it would be doing so for people who did not enjoy the game in the first place.

A rant like that is fine, but one must then understand that if you don't want people who despise your sport to change it, you're going to have to live the rest of your life understanding that there's going to be things that you enjoy that other people do not like.

Anyway...

A lot of blogs on the Internet that seem to go for years without any new content do so under the terms that blogs are never really finished. If there's always tomorrow, there's always going to be the need for a new blog post.

That can be intimidating/stressful for an individual that does not write under those guidelines. We are a scumbag inconsistent society. Perhaps inconsistency is needed for society at large to function, but we will complain about movie sequels and yet be angry at a blog for changing its style away from what it originally was.

You outline a novel. You plot a novel. You finish a novel.

You plan a film. You have a lot of meetings. The transition from pre-production to production is the hardest. Once you get over that hurdle, you deal with filming. Kubrick compared it with writing a novel over a furnace while taking a break to write other parts in a blizzard.

Then a film goes out to distribution. The distribution model was different in the 1940s, which was completely different in the 1970s, which was different in 2003, which is an everchanging math problem now. You can't figure out those answers in a book. You can only do it from experience.

Once a book on current film distribution is released, the game has already changed.

But even that's doable. That has a conclusion.

Blogging doesn't have a conclusion. It just keeps going on.

And it's not like a tweet. Tweets are simple. Popcorn is simple. Sugar is simple. Simple carbohydrates. They digest easily.

And most websites about maintaining a blog always focus on businesses that maintain blogs.

Who the hell seeks enjoyment on the niche business examples they use for blogging?

Why are you people creating a YouTube channel for oddity businesses? That's so lame. I feel it in my gut. My inability to care.

Really? An entire YouTube channel about lawncare? And you're angry and looking for ways to create content for this? And you wonder why you can't have numbers that can compete with Austin Mahone? Honestly?

VladTV stretches their interviews, and they're actually interesting most of the time.

Lawncare. A YouTube channel on lawncare. And you're complaining about a lack of viewers and how hard maintaining a YouTube channel is.

I need Sam Kinison to scream "It's fucking lawncare!".

I'm sorry, I'm just whatevered out by some people.

They opened up with a crappy idea.

A lot of times when you pursue something, the idea is the best part and it goes downhill from there. Hitchcock said this, and he's the greatest filmmaker ever. A YouTube channel on lawncare? No, I'm not done, I can't deal with this right now.

Can't you just do a normal sketch comedy channel and that have it be sponsored by the lawncare people? That could work. Why do you go and do things with which you know you're not going to get out of?

Anyway...

A lot of things end. Endings are good. The Lord of The Rings, despite having four endings, concluded.

I plotted Stickup. I finished Stickup. If I made it a once a week thing forever and ever, I would have never started. Finite's how I work. I like to split tasks in half. I can't split eternity without creating a nuclear disaster.

So, in the tradition of many a rock and roll farewell tour, I ask "Can a blog be done?".

Oncoming Overhaul

I think 2014 sort of was what I wanted it to be. I rubbed a lamp of a mediocre genie, and I got what I wanted. And that's okay.

I tried to pander to people who did not like the same movies/music I like. That backfired on me. You do things cause you think it's a step forward, but everything falls apart, and you feel like a fool for doing it. You develop an instinct for what you're willing to put up with.

I listened to chauvinists who wanted me to represent their minority in my projects while they demeaned other ethnicities with no sense of guilt or irony.

I listened to racist feminists who complained that my projects did not show a "truly" strong female character while they drooled over Fifty Shades of Grey.

I have tried multiple times, to write a bunch of stuff for this blog, but I have fallen in the cracks due to the nature that they were purely clickbait articles. Will I post them in the future? Probably, but not now.

I have decided, at this point, to refocus this blog moreso on new projects I'm working on/interested in. This blog was supposed to promote my other stuff, but I have decided that I would rather make it a blog I would visit as a visitor of blogs. I am willing to accept the consequences of what that entails.

I have been hesitant in my career pursuits by this fear of being open about my opinion.

You see a lot of stories in the news of people in high positions who get fired over tweets. I don't think anybody should get fired over tweets and remarks. You might use remarks as a reason not to vote for someone, but I think anyone who wants to fire someone over remarks is someone who probably doesn't have a real job.

People would rather fire someone over homophobic remarks than help out the LGBT community that's currently abused in Putin's Russia.

Cause people are fake. Don't be fake. Fake collects dust and gets replaced.

I've also dealt with other people that hate success or the steps that lead to success. Or they talk about how hard their life is. They talk shit about those at the top. Novelists that talk shit about Lord of the Rings. Rappers who talk shit about Tupac. While they have no body of work to counter examine with.

Tolkien and Tupac are dead. You gotta worry about yourself.

These idiots are trying to settle some past score. I don't care about past scores. I'm focusing on current championships.

And another thing, just because I don't tweet about whatever stupid holiday/tragedy is in the news, does not mean I don't care about said thing. Gossiping hens.

Hens get shot, stuffed, broiled, and fed to golden retriever puppies.

Anyway,

Understand that I love everybody and that I want everybody to succeed, and any point I will bring across in the future was probably done as a joke or a constructive criticism.

Again, it seems I'm addressing a hypothetical fictitious scandal that has yet to exist, but be what it may I am sorry. But, I cannot let this fear stop me. I'm going to repost some long deleted posts of mine (which I might later delete cause whatever)

But, I have decided that at this point, if my current or any future employers/sponsors/whatever would like to fire me over something I said, said job at establishment was not meant to be, and that it is the wishes of the universe telling me that it's time to move on.

Men Are Like Dogs

This is a little diddy called Men Are Like Dogs...

Men Are Like Dogs.

They can be cuddly. They can be adorable. And they can rip your fucking face off.

They need care. They need love. They can kill you even if you've given them all of the above.

A dog by its nature is a stray. He will leave you if you don't feed him and rub his belly. So don't complain and give a dog what it needs or some skank will smile as it feeds.

Dogs can help.

They can aid your health.

And when you step on their paws they go yelp.

A big dog can bark at the would be burglars. But if you like them vicious he might think you're a burger.

A small dog might be fun at parties. But they're not around when the home invasion's starting.

A dog can mess up and need discipline. But if you smack them in the face too much, you can get a row of teeth in your rear end.

Dog in the mirror men of its own best friend. Love it well and it will be like Hachiko till the very end.

Movies

You know, I like movies.

I do.

I've always had a weird relationship with making films.

It's always been a matter of re-inspiration. It's never that one film that makes me a filmmaker.

It's the one that makes you love film again.

Filmmaking is filled with cynicism. It's always been a part of it. Thomas Edison was an evil dude. Any TMZ scandal pales in comparison to what William Randolph Heart did to Fatty Arbuckle.

You have to fall in love with film again. It's too difficult not to. That's what love is. It's embrace in the face of defeat.

I remember when I was in the fifth grade. My father was working on this script project that fell into development hell. It bummed him out a lot.

Hell, watching that made me depressed too.

But whatever. I'm beyond that now.

I remember my love of horror films was sort of this weird accident.

I was always nostalgic about 80s action movies.

I used to think that Terminator 2 was one of the greatest films ever made.

I still do.

I remember how in high school, every film that came out was trying to be the next Harry Potter. It sickened me. Something deep inside told me it was bullshit.

I hate that. I hated it when you were a kid, and they always pushed an aspiring franchise on you. Trying to bland up the ol' monomyth.

I remember watching Commando. I remember thinking that last scene where Arnold goes full God Mode was something to aspire to create as a filmmaker. Spraying and praying is tactically a horrible decision to make in a firefight, but it looks amazing on film.

There's a scene in Commando where Arnold chops a dude's arm with a machete. I thought that was cool. I was constantly preached about the evils of R-rated movies as a kid, and the idea that I would be able to create what I was not able to watch, a sort of homebrew punk rock of violence, was awesome to me. I purchased a book on horror films in the hopes of doing an action sequence like that in the future.

One thing led to another, I became entrenched in horror films.

We need a next generation of horror filmmakers. I thought that would be a cool thing to be. That, and rock stars.

We have another generation of rappers. We have another generation of comedians. We have another generation of basketball players. We need the next generation of genre filmmakers and rock stars who are more interested in making cool shit than Twitter followers. That preceding statement is both ironic and self-loathing.

A sixteen year old making R-rated films. You need to be at least seventeen to watch those. I wouldn't be allowed to watch the films that I had made. All of that bullshit about how violence in cinema is bad for children, and I would be a child making violent films, as if telling the entire establishment as a whole to piss off.

How the hell are you supposed to warn your children of the horrors of Isis when you cry when you watch Psycho?

I remember reading A Long Way Gone, and how Ishmael Beah talked about how he would watch violent movies and listen to rap mixtapes while serving as a child soldier.

You have to understand, this was during that post-Iraq war-everybody-hates-America era. The fact that the world loved violent movies (even for the wrong reasons) was something I found interesting. I always think French action movies are interesting. Cause they're French. They're not supposed to like action movies. But The Professional is still one of the greatest films of all time.

It was also cool to make films you weren't allowed to watch. To be told that you cannot get into an R-rated film, so you went on the weekend and made your own R-rated was kind of cool.

There's an enthusiastic violent creativity about high school. It goes away when you're in your twenties worrying about how to pay the bills. You spend your waking life as a creative worrying about quotas and demographics. That's not how good stuff is made. Sure, I try to aim for those things, but I don't think it's always going to work.

I apologize for that now, but that's a hard game to play.

Every story needs conflict. It's easy for society to take conflict personally if bad things happened to a character of diversity.

I use the third act of Star Wars as an example of this. Imagine if Luke Skywalker was black. He goes in to stop the Death Star, but Darth Vader closes in. But then, Han Solo comes in to shoot Vader away.

Social critics would say that was a symbolic of white oppression. That Luke Skywalker would not be able to finish his task without help of the white man.

Now, let's flip it, make Han Solo black. He saves Luke Skywalker, and helps the save the day.

The social critics will call him a lapdog. They say he projects an image of obedience to the white man.

The ubiquitous directionless agenda drivers (I don't know what they want, hence the title) have decided to turn everything into this inane political debate. It rarely makes things better. It doesn't award cool obscure diverse culture. It forces the already bland mainstream to adhere to quota.

You've taken a simple friendship in storytelling, and you've turned into this bullshit projection. And ironically, it stops Hollywood from casting awesome roles for women and minorities.

You try to force a conversation, when there is no room for it.

So, don't get caught in the bullshit, apologize if you really mess up, and do your thing.

The Little Things...

I'm still on vacation. Don't worry.

The irony gods live in entertainment. It's best to use that to your advantage.

Say you're not into making money, and turn into a businessman.

Claim to be an entrepreneur, and you make classics that don't make money.

I never understood judging someone for the clothes they wear. I mean, Gandhi freed his people wearing a diaper.

I like contrasts. I like chatting an introvert's ears off.

I like awkward silence with a public official trying to get my vote.

If I was who I really was, I'd probably get a warning. So, I act the weirdo. It's not illegal, but it's frowned upon. It's not illegal to be odd.


So stop making fun of this mask. It's the one you asked for.

Have too much fun, they'll call you crazy.

Don't do it for money, money makes you lazy.

It's okay to be awake, but remember to take an afternoon nap every once in a while.

A musical about a deaf girl in a library.


You know, if unicorns existed, they'd probably be homophobic. That sounds sad, but it's probably true. Ironic reality, is what it is.




































































































































































































































































































The wonderful thing about writing is that you can write about whatever the fuck you wanna write about. Humanity has come along and tried to ruin that.

The Sumerians practicing cuneiform practicing this witchcraft that separated them from the barbarians. These characters they invented for themselves. Keep the magic alive.

I never felt like a failure, and I never wrote about tossing cowchips in the snow.

Dark Sabbatical

I've decided to take a break from this blog for the rest of the year.

Lately, I've been worrying about having to keep this blog updated as opposed to writing anything actually cool worth reading.

It's been this thing that has been compounding for a while.

You surround yourself with people who want to have views more than they want to write about anything cool. You read more from blogs about getting blogviews than you do anything worth blogging about.

It doesn't help that everyone gets offended by the wonderful drug that is the truth. Not agenda. Not policy. The truth.

Agendas are the pesticide of the truth.

Once upon a time, a man thought it was cool to have his film sponsor a charity project. The charity was part of the film's plot, so it felt like a good fit. It helped the movie make a lot of money. Developed brand loyalty. A "cult" like following, if you will.

But now, everybody does it. And it's annoying. Aaron Carter talking about the power of one while promoting Pokemon 2000. I bring this up a lot, but it represents how I feel about the marketing effects of false charity.

It's fine when you're making a documentary, but there's a lot of movies that I enjoy that will suffer from forcing an agenda down its throats.

A lot of movies that are cherished works would diminish from this. Can you imagine if The Goonies had some giant "save the environment" message in the middle of it?

It would completely destroy the plot of the film.

Honestly though, that stupid Pokemon 2000 junket is why Aaron Carter has drug problems. Same goes for any child star forced into a marketing tie in.

Spielberg merchandised those awesome Jurassic Park cups at McDonalds because he thought he was working on the greatest movie of all time (at least one of them) and he wanted to share this with as many people as possible.

Watch any Spielberg Behind the Scenes special.

Spielberg's crew of guys always work hard. And with each Behind the Scenes special, you appreciate their work. You know their names. Stan Winston. Phil Tippett. Throw in Ralph McQuarrie and Rick Baker while we're at it.

You don't get this with romantic comedies.

You love Alien? Who's the director of the first Alien? Immediately you say Ridley.

You love Aliens? Who was the director of that? You know. If you don't, it's only because you've forgotten for a second.

Hell, Fincher directed Alien 3.

But, having said that, answer this question without Googling/Wikipedia/Outside sources:

Who is the director of You've Got Mail?









Now, I like Nora Ephron, but I don't think most people who love You've Got Mail will care about the answer to that question. And that's frustrating.

A fan's love can cause resentment in an artist. Why can't you be more like you're earlier work? Why can't you look the same way you did in college?

The disposable and forgettable nature of culture also contributes to it. Ask any late 90s rapper.

And some bitter individuals will say that an artist needs to grind and shut up about the marketing ploys. That there are some people who go to jobs they don't like everyday, and that an artist getting paid is no different.

Well, Jon Voight had a job called Baby Geniuses 2.

It was a job.

He did it.

Do you applaud him on it?

Sisqo in Snow Dogs. He has money, doesn't he?

Go down the list on the pool of depression that is the Imdb Bottom 100. Do you applaud these people?

This is why I don't listen to short term knee jerk critics.

People are not accountable for their lies and opinions. I don't take people seriously because they don't take their own words seriously.

You can have all the health and wealth in the world, but if your passion is not in the right place, it amounts to nothing.

90% of culture doesn't feel like this thing of sincere compassion. It feels like another thing you have to do.

This blog has turned into this thing I have to do in order to promote Weight Loss Terrorists and my writing career.

That sucks.

Why can't it just be a cool blog talking about awesome things? Why do they insist on ruining everything?

People always ask about an artist's motivation.

I think they do that because they themselves don't have motivation.

Do you ever question someone's motivation to eat ice cream?

You wouldn't. You would rather question someone who didn't eat ice cream.

People sound like annoying children with all their questions.

Film criticism is up and film quality is down.

It's not fun. I go out. I don't have fun. And then I come here. And it's not even fun.

There's no fun.

So I'm done. Maybe till 2016.