Raiders on the Big Screen

Got the call last night and we had to answer. I was hanging with Doug and his brother Bill.

"Raiders tonight at the NuArt -- midnight screening."

We were in.

Got there an hour early, met some friends who were first in line. Doug dressed like Indy.

What a great movie. I never saw it on the big screen. When it was out when I was a kid, I was forced to go see Cinderella with my Mom and Sister. I was deemed not big boy enough to see Indy with dada and bro.

I caught so many more jokes -- there's a gay student in the classroom scene in the beginning. I never caught that before. And having a great audience made it even more fun.

When we left at 2am, we all felt like kids again.

This is why I live here

7AM -- Wake up. Make a couple calls back East. Look at the schedule of classes for a Yoga place near me. Decide to go to my first Yoga class ever.

8:30AM -- Find the Yoga studio. I see an androgenous tall black person talking n a cell phone carrying a yoga mat into the studio, this must be where I'm going. I take off my shoes and head into the class and find a mat. A chick with an amazing ass sits in front of me. Maybe this isn't going to be so queer. The first thing the teacher says to the whole class is, "SO KENT, THIS IS YOUR FIRST CLASS EVER?" Why yes it is. We chant, we stretch, we do funky poses.

I learned two things, one I'm not as flexible as I imagined. And two, I have poor balance. I stare at the amazing ass and console myself.

10:30AM -- In N Out Drive Thru. I need to wash the health of yoga off of me, so I make a beeline to my favorite burger joint to be first in line at the drive thru. It opens at 10:30 and there are already four cars ahead of me. I order my double double and enjoy.

2PM -- Douglas's home. I puttered around for most of the day writing some things, and making some calls. I stop by Dougie's pad to check my email and to check in about the project. We chat briefly, but he's in full show prep mode for his performance that night. I leave quickly.

4PM -- Rudy's Barbershop. I'm getting a maintenance cut on trim around the edges. My stylist is a punk chick that looks like she could be a suicide girl. I try to make her laugh.

6PM -- My apartment. I get a call from my friend who I’ve been a wee bit flaky with lately. He reinvites me to this Guiness event somewhere in Hollywood. I’m not doing anything, so I throw on a mock turtleneck and head out.

6:30PM – Hollywood and Highland. This is the new center of Hollywood. Where they hold the Oscars and where the Chinese Theater is located. Which means it’s where they are lining up for Star Wars Episode III. The only problem is that they aren’t showing it at the Chinese Theater, but at the Arclight Theater. Read all abut it here. I don’t talk to them right then, because I’ve got to go drink some beer.

It’s practically impossible to get street parking around here after 6PM. So you usually need to pay some exorbinant amount to just park. Well, the gods were smiling and I got an amazing spot on the street.

Dan and I get to the Guiness thing and it’s actually being held on the actual set of Cheers, which has been completely rebuilt in this museum. A little surreal actually. It was some sort of charity event for Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong foundation. But for $5 bucks you got unlimited Guiness and some decent food.

8:20PM -- Dan and I leave the Guiness event, I had about 5 or 6 of em. And we walk right by the Star Wars line. I couldn’t resist myself so I chatted with them for about 20 minutes. A good group, and very devoted. Huge geeks of course, but we all have our own geeky sides.

We get in his car and get another great street parking spot.

8:50PM – Dan and I arrive at the Improv Olympic for Douglas’s 9PM show. He’s done over 200 performances with his partner Mikey O, and this one was great.

10:30PM – We leave the theater and walk over to the Arclight to watch the midnight show of Kung Fu Hustle. We have a little time to kill so we go to the bar. We see the guy who was the bass player in Ray and Dan sees Forrest Whittaker. I see the guy he’s talking about, but he doesn’t look like Forrest Whitaker. It comes down to the Lazy Eye. Dan saw and the waitress confirmed it. Then Drew Carrey comes in and sits at the bar.

We go and see the flick, it’s amazing.

2AM – My apartment. I go to sleep

The First Notch

Well we did it. Our first set of scripts have passed inspection and we're off to the races.

It feels really good too. Just to get the scripts done in the first place was a large accomplishment of Doug and I writing and brainstorming on our own. When we finally showed them to other people, we got a lot of great notes, but it forced us to think deeper and harder about the scripts we had already written. Each draft got better and better.

When we turned in the last round I was exhausted. I almost couldn't think about those stories anymore. We went back and polished everything again, and did some major structural reworking. We we hit send on the email, I really felt like we left it all on the field. We had done the work and hopefully it showed.

It did. We got the feedback today and they were really impressed. We took their notes and ran with them and then pushed even harder to exceed them. When we got the notes today, it was just a few minor fixes.

I was relieved they liked it and proud of our efforts.

That feeling passed quickly because there is still a ton of work to be done. Finalizing casting and designs, and creating the first soundtrack.

There is a lot of work to be done, but today was a good day and a new phase has begun.

Balance

I've recently been think about balance and the lack of perspective I have. For the last three years I have been completely blind and on a journey to become the filmmaker that is hidden within me.

What does that mean? I've sworn off relationships, I don't go out drinking with the boys, and I spend all of my time and energy trying to figure out how to be the best that I can be.

Well, now I'm sitting here. I've achieved some level of success, but now is when the men and the boys are decided. Now is the time to stop being weepy about the decisions I've made and get down to the business at hand, of doing the things I love to do and showing off to you guys what I can do.

I'm really excited about the project right now. Things are hitting on all cylinders. The stories are clicking and the production is up and running.

The writing process has been grueling, but satisfying. There is a ton of stuff out there on how gut wrenching it is to rewrite your material. Especially when you put so much into each draft. But, I gotta say that after each round the scripts are remarkably better. They are leaner, stronger, and funnier. All vital things to a new project.