xtcian

8/3/02 Okay, so this is

8/3/02

Okay, so this is the sort of journal entry you're supposed to write when you're fifty-three and start being entranced by nature the subject here is my pumpkin patch – but I swear to god, there's a Chi Psi frat party going on in my yard as I speak. Metaphorically, of course.

My fraternity can best be described as the place where hyper-intellectual, world-wise former dorks ended up when they wanted to flex their newfound social muscles. We usually got the girl, but only after a profound struggle, and only after she had dated some asshole Phi Delt first. Chi Psis at Carolina ran the school; we always had the student body president, the head of the athletic association, the editor of the paper, and we were the de facto home of the Morehead Scholars. I'm not sure what the Lodge looks like socially these days, but when I was social chairman, we mixed with all of the hottest, most Southern sororities the ones that would never have given any of us the time of day in high school.

We were total dorks, but most of us had never had access to women like that before (and those who didn't move to New York, never again). I used to have a problem justifying my place in a fraternity, which seems to anathema to everything I believe in, but age has taught me that people who hold contempt for a general idea - without interest in understanding the shades of gray that accompany them tend to be some of the most boring people in the world. Tessa and her best friend Jason Lyon call it "contempt prior to investigation," and I agree that it comes hand-in-hand with the death of one's spirit.

So I'll say what I always say: if you were there, you would have loved our bunch of guys. Or at least 75% of them (like all microcosms, it had its requisite share of groaners). Besides, my rule about anything in life is "if you make three lifelong friends, it's going to be worth it," and by my count, I have about eighteen lifelong friends, so those willing to pass judgement can eat me.

Anyway, at these Chi Psi parties, eighty of us would start milling about the living room around 9pm in various states of drunken anticipation. By 10pm, we were sure none of the chicks were going to show up, but by 11:30, they would start trickling in. There were always a pack of five or six girls that really dug the mixer's particular theme - we had parties dedicated to the Boxer Rebellion (we all wore Chinese boxers), or a Coast-to-Coast Hall Crawl, where the entire second floor would become a map of the United States, and each room would have a drink that corresponded to that state (my corner room was California, and therefore daiquiris).

Our "scene" was small enough that everyone dated everyone else's girlfriends as long as enough time had passed to make it kosher (usually when both parties had other interests, so about 3 weeks), making the whole thing very communal (or incestual, depending on your attitude). In the end, it was a very colorful, intense place that sustained itself through relentless innovation, intellect, and a desire to have sex.

Which leads me to my pumpkin patch. Sometime in the last two weeks, the garden has exploded, leaving me to believe that I planted WAY too many pumpkin seeds in one place. Seeds look so little, you know? At this point, the pumpkin vines have broken free of their fenced-in shackles and begun to creep over the lawn.

our pumpkin patch is now "Little Shop of Horrors"-esque

The amazing thing about a pumpkin is that it has to pollinate itself. Male and female flowers grow on the vine at the same time, and it depends on bees to bring pollen from the male to the female. And if bees aren't around, you, the stalwart gardener, have to force the pumpkin vine to have sex with itself. You do this delicately, by finding a male flower that has just opened, and swishing it around inside a female flower.

You can tell a female flower (red circle and arrow) from a male flower (blue circle and arrow) by the large, pregnant pouch at the bottom of the females. Also, there are a shitload of males around, about eight to every female, and they start blooming weeks before the females even get out of bed.

So... a over-functioning plant that breaks free of its barriers, sprouts men that get to the party way early to woo the small, disturbed following of late women, has incestual relationships with its own pool, and then creates a beloved fruit for a weird holiday? Ladies and gents, we got ourselves a Chi Psi frat party!

8/2/02 Twelve years ago today

8/2/02

Twelve years ago today I was in a car accident that shoved my destiny in a different direction; for a long time I would have said it was a terrible thing, but now I have to say that my official quote of that day "I'm fucked and my life is over" – has turned out to be largely false.

The "I'm fucked" quote is bandied about my family not just as an example of my overwrought sense of persecution, but as a general phrase of total disillusionment. All of us are capable of impenetrable spirals of theatrical gloom, but apparently I was particularly good at it (and quotable to boot).

The day in question August 2, 1990 – was either the day of or day after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (how relevant, eh?) and I was just finishing up my first month of my job at New Line Cinema as their very first Beverly Hills production intern. Those were the days of their first huge successes, namely the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

I was originally hired at New Line to be the main production assistant for an unmitigated piece of shit called Suburban Commando, a fish-outta-water comedy starring Hulk Hogan as an alien who must crash to earth to refuel, or something. It was uninspiring dreck, but at the time, I was so broke that I was literally living off of one loaf of Brannola Oat Bread and a brick of cheddar cheese, no lie. I lived in an apartment with Sean and Michelle in Monrovia, CA and we probably had fifteen dollars between us for the month of July 1990. It was a disastrous living situation, and the Iraqi invasion had sent gas prices so high that I couldn't afford to drive to look for work. Suffice to say "Suburban Commando" looked like heaven to me at the time, for $600 a week!

Pretty soon, I understood one of the life's great truths: get in the door somewhere, and if you're smart and competent, you will run the place in three weeks. The key, of course, is getting in the door. At New Line, I soon became the secretary for the whole production department, answering calls and helping post-production on movies like Pump Up the Volume and Metropolitan, being a fly on the wall during meetings discussing upcoming ideas (all of them just awful) and getting stuck in the elevator for 20 minutes with the likes of Andrew "Dice" Clay and Jerry Lewis.

I was a very bad secretary, sending rejection letters to the wrong people and always being late, but I think they kept me around because I always provided good conversation. It continued that way until August 2, when, on the way home from work, I was read-ended by a reggae drummer in a white Mazda truck. He had been pushing 60mph on Cahuenga Blvd., and after he hit me, smashed into two other cars and ended upside-down (and unhurt). As for me, my glasses were found a block away. The impact had shortened my VW Bug in half, and the whiplash well, if any of you have had it, you know what I mean. Still in debt, almost out of cheddar cheese, knowing my Hollywood job – sans car – was over, I called my mom in New York in tears and said, "I'm fucked and my life is over."

Two weeks later I was back in Chapel Hill, where I was to stay for another seven years, even though I'd graduated. I should have known better than to try Los Angeles again in 1997, but I thought perhaps things would work out better. They ended up being worse, but in much more interesting ways.

And here I am, 12 years later, far away from those awful places, standing on the edge of getting my first movie off the ground. My therapist was right about one thing: nothing worth doing comes without a heavy dose of ambivalence, but I'll add my own piece of advice. Nothing worth doing comes without thinking at some point that you are fucked, or that your life is over.

my grandma and I at the Grand Canyon, July 1990. I didn't think I had a mullet, but I suppose this proves otherwise

8/1/02 We saw Endpapers last

8/1/02

We saw Endpapers last night at the Variety Arts theatre in the East Village, thanks to some inexpensive tickets provided by the talented and very cool Alex Draper. The show itself, concerning the political intrigue inside a fading independent book publisher, was about six great lines shy of an good play, and in many ways was pretty inconsistent. The actors were, on the whole, nuanced and funny, and approximately two of the roles featured some reversals you couldn't see coming - but overall, the fight between "this company gotta make money" and "this company gotta stick to ideals" has been trite for about fifty years now.

Still, the blue-hairs were lining up to see the show; a busload of elderly Jewish couples were shipped in from Dix Hills and all of them tittered on cue. It works because it's a simple play, one that sets up a very recognizable battle between corporate reality and artistic imagination, and then plays it out to what everyone in the theater reasoned to be a fair conclusion.

I'm going to spoil the play for anyone who hasn't seen it right now...

but...

...basically, the banker who threatened to call the loan on the publishing house ends up being the CEO after the charismatic luminary dies which is okay, we're told, because he reads a lot and "gets it." Gramps in Seat 105B thought this was a terrific ending, but actually, it's a bit of a nightmare. The bank guy owns the publishing house? It's obvious the playwright also thought this was cool, as his other choices were unacceptably bipolar: a gruff idealist who makes bad business decisions, and a slick entrepreneur who has no heart. The bank guy (deftly played by Alex), and therefore the playwright, has informed the audience on sixteen different occasions that he likes books and quotes poetry, so he's the obvious choice: business with a heart. Compassionate conservatism.

But in my head I always extend a play's storyline longer than it runs, and in my extended remix, the bank guy eventually gets cold feet and sells the whole fucking company to AOL while the gettin's good. If not that, he makes bad decisions and ruins the company and then sells it to AOL. Either way, I think the wrong choice was made here. Bank guys aren't supposed to run publishing houses; that's why they don't.

If you accept that, you can also accept that the playwright wrote a tragedy and didn't even know it. Long is the tradition of the "unreliable narrator" in fiction, you know, the first-person storyteller who obviously misinterprets his own story. But how about the "unreliable novelist," someone who creates a work of "art" that has its own intention outside of the artist?

Joe Eszterhas became an "unreliable screenwriter" with Showgirls, which was unintentionally funny both Beck (Loser) and R. Crumb (Keep on Truckin') became an unreliable composer and cartoonist, respectively, when their work – to their horror – was adopted as a generational credo.

Maybe my own words, right here on this page, are telling you things that I don't want you to know. Perhaps this diary is having the opposite effect on you that I want, each word radiating the wrong meaning. God, am I an "unreliable blogger"?

7/31/02 You never get to

7/31/02

You never get to spike the football in the end zone when you make a movie; your success is made up of little victories. If you're not a fan of little victories, you shouldn't be making movies, because those are the pellets that you will feed on, small bits of good news that invigorate your heart and refill your spirit.

We had a pretty big victory today, as the IFP, the most-respected independent film organization in the country, picked The Pink House as one of thousands of movies submitted from around the globe to participate in the IFP Market Festival on September 26. What makes this all the more incredible is that they chose this year to discontinue their "narrative feature" portion of the event, and reduce the acceptance rate by 40% for new projects, which means only twenty movies got in from all the submissions. All this based on our 8-minute industry reel and the script.

Needless to say, it buoyed the mood of our production team immeasurably, and it means getting all kinds of connections en route to finishing funds and god willing, distribution. But moreover, it is the first time that a separate body - one that has nothing to do with people who worked on the movie, or friends or family looked at what we did last summer and said "hell fucking yes." Coming after a very long, solipsistic soliloquy delivered to Tessa in which I bemoaned my state of wretched uselessness, it was a fresh slap in the face.

I finished the first draft of the script almost exactly three years ago this week. Since then, my patron saint has been a narcoleptic priest: I'm surely blessed, but there's a long time between visits. The first victory came in the first reading of the script, when the crowd in California thought the jokes and personalities were fantastic. The second came months later in New York, where an enrapt crowd at the Atlantic Theater School cheered us out of the building and Patrick came on to produce. The third came over a year later, when Tessa took to the project. When Heather Matarazzo decided to take the role of Charlotte, and Zack Ward came on as the lead three days later, I knew we had a shot. And when I saw the film transfers of our DV, I knew that shooting on digital video wasn't going to hinder us like it might have a few years ago.

Everything else has been a terrific struggle, including the shoot itself, and I've spent vast stretches of time feeling caked in shit - but between these little victories, and working with people like Rick Gradone, Todd Walker, and Liz Mann, slowly becoming a real part of the film community here in New York, I feel like we may be one of those little baby turtles that beats all the odds and makes it across the parched sands and into the ocean.

me and Tessa having no idea what we were getting into; leaving for the Pink House shoot. taken in Greenwich Village July 9, 2001

7/30/02 One thing about being

7/30/02

One thing about being an "informed customer" is that you price yourself out of any kind of normal interaction with customer service people, or schlubs working retail. For example, I've been around computers my whole life, and been attached to one Macintosh or another since my first Mac 512K in 1986. So when I get on the phone with Earthlink technical support, I basically have to give them my curriculum vitae so that they don't tell me some shit like "check to see if your modem is plugged in, sir." It bloody well is plugged in, ya bastard!

Today at the decidedly dumbarse-filled Radio Shack in Park Slope was no exception these are dim bulbs who typically must solve the electrical problems of even dimmer bulbs. I'm sure someone comes in daily with a computer mouse, wanting to know "why this footpedal doesn't work" (true story from my buddies at the IBM Help Desk) – but Radio Shack cashiers explaining something to the typical clientèle is a bit like the blind leading the deaf and blind.

My mission was simple: to find that little Y-adapter that turns two separate phone lines into one line that goes into the back of your 2-line phone. I confess I have no idea how that little thing works; for years, I just plugged both phone lines into the two jacks on the phone. But that little adapter makes everything so much more graceful, and it seems to work, so why not?

I'll tellya why not because finding that part can be a nightmare. I was shown extension cords, 3-way jack hooks, modular adapters, and even whole, other phones. Finally, I saw the right bit – heretofore termed a "2-line coupler" – but they weren't so sure. I had to convince them that I knew what I was talking about, and when I left, they had that "he'll be back" smile.

I really pity any kind of cashier working in technological retail, as well as folks working the phones for computer support. The world is rich with reprehensible dumbasses, sure, but the worst folks are those over 40 who have no idea where to start, and lack the intuitive tools to prosper. It's funny how all those hours with the Colecovision actually paid off take that, dad!

I'll give you the top three problems that older folks have with computers if we were to solve these, maybe something could get done in this country:

1. The Web vs. the Internet vs. Email vs. America Online. 50-year-olds don't get that although their computer connects to the Internet, the internet itself has no intrinsic use to them. I tried explaining it to my stepmom, using a metaphor she could relate to: that the "internet" is 5th Avenue; that "Internet Explorer" is the cab; that Saks, Fortunoff and the Gap at 55th St. are all "websites" she can go to; and that her cell phone was "email," so she could talk with others while on the ride. She understood this as long as she was at the computer, but the information couldn't stick. America Online is a conundrum because it isn't quite the internet, and they have their own web browser, and email is on it. Plus, she got confused that I sometimes checked my email using the web, and then my metaphor was further ruined by the fact that Fortunoff, Saks and the Gap are actually websites too and now cell phones can leave messages on email. Why does all this shit not confuse me and all my friends? I mean, it all seems perfectly natural.

2. The Operating System is not your Computer, nor is it an Application or Files. This one was so hard for my grandma that we had to take the Mac apart and put it on the living room floor. "The computer is a piece of hardware. The 'operating system' runs the 'applications' like Microsoft Word. The 'files' are the little pieces of Microsoft Word you make yourself." My mom resorted to body imagery for grandma: the OS is the brain, the applications are the various systems (nervous, respiratory) and the files are individual things the brain remembers. Again, this held sway about as long as a dog command, but my grandma was a stalwart, practical type who didn't need to know why milk turned into butter, she just wanted to eat it.

3. RTFM, or Read the Forkin' Manual. There was a day in computing when the manuals for applications like Word or FileMaker were so arcane and non-intuitive that even the most weathered of us had to use deductive reasoning just to get a jpeg to print. These days, however, most programs and hardware come with giant pull-out posters with Ikea-themed visual aids and text with little room for creative interpretation. Failing that, there's a "...for Dummies" book for everything under Neptune, including vast, vague ideas like The Internet for iMacs for Dummies. Hell, there's even a Divorce for Dummies if they want to save on postage.

Tune in next week, when I rail on 62-year-olds who don't understand the whole "the screen shows images at 72 dpi" printing cafuffle!

7/29/02 Thirteen months ago, Tessa

7/29/02

Thirteen months ago, Tessa and I took the exact same trip that we took today: from the bowels of Cleveland, across Pennsylvania, to home in Manhattan. Of course, back then we were returning from Neal Lerner's heart surgery, about to meet up with a crowd in Stephentown for Labor Day, and the horrors of the week after that (9/11) were yet to happen. On our trip in 2001, we were barely decompressed from the problem-plagued Pink House shoot, and we had one of our worst fights, lasting about 200 miles on the road and leading Tessa to swerve over to the side of the highway, nearly flipping the car over.

I'm pleased to say that no fight happened on our way home this time, only more rain, rancorously-pleasing gossip, and soul-divining headrubs. I'm also pleased to say we don't live in Manhattan anymore, and that Stephentown is unnecessary when we have the farm in Columbia County. We're also engaged now, which, truth be told, was something I began to mull on that trip last year (fights notwithstanding). We're in such a different "place," to use therapist's parlance, and yet so much seems the same to me.

I'm still unemployed, Tessa's still freaked out about the money, our company hangs on a fulcrum, and the movie is still in need of finishing funds. My deviated septum is still keeping me up at night, the book proposal is unrealized, and the Chopes is still awfully cute. In effect, I pushed a major "pause" button on certain aspects of my life, even as other major events continued to unfold.

Life is strange about "stuff" things can be left in a box that once seemed very important, and after six weeks or so, they become irrelevant. There are hospital bills you need to pay, and they go to a collection agency, and soon enough, you never hear about them again. There are drugs you are sure would cure you, and then you stop taking them and get better anyway. The transience and impermanence of so many things leads me to ask: how do the Buddhists get anything done? Or, more importantly, why do the Buddhists get anything done?

It seems the only thing I have kept up in this past year - besides the happiness of my betrothed and the unemployment claims is this blog itself. I've posted here every night since April 10, since I first went on Celexa and decided that the 1/2 hour or so before I sleep would be spent documenting my existence, proving to myself that I was and am. Like looking at your own name in the phone book, sometimes you need proof that you are regarded, you know? And there is one thing I can take away from today's trip: it is truly time for action.

The Celexa's already workin', ma! Tessa and me at the Napa croquet fields on my first day on the drug

7/28/02 It's about midnight, and

7/28/02

It's about midnight, and I don't think I've fully woken up from this morning I had one of those fitful alcoholic sleeps that seem to have no restorative properties. I think I can safely say that age decreases two things: my ability to recover from any liquor, and my confidence that I'm correct about any given situation. Thank god I don't drink that much anymore, or else those two qualities would work together in glorious dis-harmony.

After a very lethargic, slow-witted lunch with the last group of Chi Psis left in town (I sat next to Dave Burris' girlfriend Clare Scanlon, who assistant-edited Amy Eldon's "Dying to Tell the Story" a very bizarre coincidence), we got on the road and drove through another god-awful storm that flashed lightning down on either side of the car for two solid hours. We couldn't stand it anymore, and decided to pull off the road into Cleveland, into the waiting arms of the Clarion Inn, where I lie right now.

It was a great weekend, made even better by Tessa knowing so many of the brothers independent of my meddling other wives had to be eased into the proceedings, but Tessa's already been 1988-drunk with half of them already. I wonder what many of them think about us being together; either it's the most obvious thing on the planet, or it's a bizarre mixture of two past worlds. Or perhaps it's just "how did that whiny, basketball-hurling profanity-laced dork end up with someone as cool as Tessa?"

left: Tessa in July at Sears Tower; right: in April at the Chrysler Bldg