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January 25, 2007
Quick takes on a Thursday morning.
We woke up at 6 to take delivery of our new washer/dryers. One for us, one for our downstairs tenant. I expect our quality of life will increase dramatically once we're Far from the Laundering Crowd. First, we gotta get the electrical and water hooked up.
The maven with whom I live is overseeing installation. In addition to reinforcing the floor of our 121-year-old house, she's purchased neoprene tiles that will dramatically reduce vibration.
I'm certain that I've just been pranked, or punk'd, as the youngsters in baggy dungarees are prone to say. I received a robocall at work from Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK). He wanted to impersonally invite me, "a major business leader," to be an honorary chairman representing California on the Business Advisory Panel.
I sat slack-jawed through the pitch. When the telemarketer came on the line, I thanked her for the consideration but indicated that I didn't have time to commit to such an endeavor.
If you'd like to discuss supply-side economics while lighting cigars with $100 bills and keeping your gout-afflicted feet warm on the backs of orphans, here's where you can apply. I can only hope they heard my emphatic "no" so my name doesn't appear in one of their full-page ads against the minimum wage in the Wall Street Journal or SweatshopWeek.
On BART this morning, I sat behind a couple with natty luggage who oozed fabulousness. He rested his head on her shoulder while she studied a Sundance schedule. I don't think her cargo capri pants are well-suited for Park City in January, but she'll figure it out.
I'm going to LA this weekend for another Robert McKee screenwriting seminar. This one is Genre Weekend, in which he illustrates the tenets of Thriller, Comedy, Horror and Masterpiece. I'm hanging out for Thriller and Comedy, since I have no desire to write Saw IV, and I have a lot of work to do before I create something on the level of Chinatown or Casablanca.
I'm chipping away at two new scripts, but I'm not making as much progress as I'd like. In the last few days, I've started seeing publicity for a movie made by a producer I pitched last spring. He showed me the unfinished trailer after our meeting, and now ads are on buses and billboards. I could let that be motivating or depressing, so I settled on motivating.
Language fascinates me. Someone I met at the last McKee seminar gave me some excellent notes on my action script, though she had several idiomatic questions.
"What does the title mean?" she asked in an Australian accent. "It doesn't make sense to me."
"'KEEP AWAY?' A game kids play. You know, two children have a ball, there's a third one..."
Her face didn't register a deeper understanding.
"So," I continued. "They keep the ball away from the third kid, throwing it over his head. Also called 'monkey-in-the-middle.'"
"Ah!" She threw her head back and snapped her fingers. "You mean piggie-in-the-middle."
Posted by Your Protagonist at January 25, 2007 08:40 AM