11/15/00 -- Good stuff, depressing movies and choosing a writing project

11/15/00
Movies are depressing, but there's still some dang good stuff out there...

The cycle of depressing movies continues. Sunday, I finally saw Boys Don't Cry. Don't even get me started on that movie. I lived in Oklahoma for six years, and while I never saw anything nearly as bad as what happened in the movie, I do understand the boredom that preys on people who will do anything to get their kicks. And sometimes, unfortunately, it leads to intolerance, anger, frustration and violence. There were some scenes early on that perfectly captured that. Why do you drink? Why do get on the highway and risk your life driving near the cliff? Because there's nothing better to do. You want to live, you want to feel alive when nothing sounds more glamorous than driving down the highway to Memphis.

Arnold is blind to movie cliches

Monday, I saw an even more depressing movie: Arnold Schwarzennegger's new one, The 6th Day. Let's just say it felt like I was trapped in the theater for six days. It was boring, it wouldn't shut up about what cool gadgets and technology were going to be in the future, and the issue of cloning was treated to some of the dumbest one liners in movie history. It was like Arnold made a whole movie about bad guys getting cloned just so he could tell one of them, "Go fuck yourself." Here, I just saved you $7. That's the best thing in the whole movie. And for a good chunk of it, Arnold is running around with a clone of himself, so we have a buddy picture with Arnold as his own buddy. How sick is that? And they're all saving each others' lives, faking out the bad guys and probably sharing protein drinks. Before you go see this, seriously ask yourself: can I really take more than one Arnold in the same movie? I wanted Total Recall. I got Eraser, instead.

Oh, remember last time I was talking about the B-52's? Well, seeing them in concert rekindled some of my long-lost affection for them and I started downloading some songs of theirs. Have you ever heard "Good Stuff?" That is a great freakin' song! It's like one of your aunts or uncles being vaguely risqué at a family barbecue. Witness:

Okay, I don't know what possessed me to write about that for so long. Won't happen again.

What's been on my mind lately, over the weekend and into this week, is what to write next. I've got a play that I started a long time ago. A friend of mine in the LCP read what I had so far and encouraged me to keep going in hopes that it might get produced by Teatro Humanidad as part a program to produce work by Latino playwrights. The downsides are that I've never written a play before and don't really know enough about scene structure, dramatics and that sort of thing. What I want to write is a love story, and I've never seen a play that was a good love story, so how difficult will that be? Plus, do I even know what the Hell a crucible is for? Do I need to buy one? Do they sell them at Home Depot?

The other thing I may write instead is an idea I had over the weekend. Not sure if it's a short story or something longer, but it's an interesting idea. The thing is, I don't want to tell anyone what it's about for fear that I'll lose the excitement of writing it too soon. At the same time, I want to ask people about it because there's a central question that I think would provoke interesting responses. But asking the question out of the context of "this is for a story I'm writing" would make me look crazy, or suicidal, or both.

I'm giving myself until Friday to choose which one I'm devoting the next few weeks to. Until then, I'm kind of blocked because I'm afraid to start either one. Maybe I'll just flip a coin.

Oh, could people please stop sending me little funny jokes about the election situation in Florida? The first 26 or so e-mails were cute, but number 27 was just out of hand. I've got pictures of Bush as Mini Me, editorial cartoons about how stupid Floridians are and about a dozen joke ballots that people made up to parody the ones that are causing so much grief. Look, I know these are probably very funny people making these parodies, but as long as we keep making them think they're the funniest thing since The Onion, the creators of these biting pieces of political satire (yeah, biting my ass, maybe) are going to keep flooding our e-mail boxes. I've forwarded plenty of these myself, but now I'm going to stop. Please join me and do the same.

I miss a lot of my friends. I've had friends who've moved to L.A. recently and I also have friends in Okahoma City that I've been e-mailing quite a bit. I keep saying I'll visit, but weekends end up getting filled with this or that and committing to a 400 mile trip gets to be difficult. One of these weekends, I'll make it up there. Two of my best friends, Tiffany and Taylor, just had a son named Jack and they keep telling me he is the coolest human being to not quite walk the Earth yet. He's like Jesus with a pacifier. I really want to meet Jack.

I worry a lot about things I've left behind. That's not an original thought and it's probably not even a very healthy one. The happiest people always seem to be the ones who live for the moment, have no regrets and always look forward rather than glancing back. But when you remember really happy times in your life, remember who the people were that helped make them such great times, remembering the places and the things you were doing that thrilled you most, how can you not yearn for some of that to still be around?

There's some people who used to be part of the fabric of my everyday life. And I miss them a lot. The sad thing is when you realize that they may not ever be part of your day-to-day life again outside of e-mail or phone calls. That you won't get to sneak off on a long break with them when you're supposed to be working or just hang around Denny's until 4 a.m. because there's really nothing else to do and you don't say it, but hanging at Denny's with your best friends is more fun than anything else could be.

That cinches it. Oklahoma City before the end of the year. My car better be ready, because I'm going.