A Long Time Ago, In A Film School Far, Far Away…

It’s kind of weird to think of how important George Lucas is to my career path suddenly. In fact, it’s weird to walk down the halls of my production class building and see countless movie posters from Zemeckis, Ron Howard (“Hey Homer, we’re out of vodka”), Lucas, and some guy name Spiel-something-or-other berg. It’s humbling and at the same time kind of ridiculous, like dinosaurs. Seriously, how dumb are dinosaurs, and the entire concept of them? Giant monsters wandering around, it’s so stupid! But I digress… I know, Jurassic Park! Special effects by ILM! Lucas! Film School! Ah ha! There I am!

Week two in L.A. was primarily spent at school. I think my next 6 semesters will primarily be spent running from classes, to the production office, to casting calls, shoots, and most likely, many an eternity in the editing lab. Yes, it’s that fucking awesome. In one week of classes we have already been submerged in the art of storytelling, learning how to use the camera, and learning the trade of actually directing actors, we even had the opportunity to watch USC drama students audition for the film school.

I’m walking around in daze, because I’m trying to balance living life with the flood of short film ideas I’m having. It’s hard to believe a year ago I felt so stifled and far away from what I thought was my path. Not that I haven’t already felt some stress. I get kind of carried away with my ideas and plans and suddenly feel the lack of time available to make my visions a reality. Not so different from my teaching days, when I would be spinning so many plates at once, both how to teach the novels in interesting and effective ways, and trying to write, going to grad school, etc. Only now, it’s all focused on filmmaking. Though my teaching story has been my identity when introducing myself to students and professors. When they ask why I left teaching, I like to assure them that working with the kids was priceless, it was the just the rest of the crap that kept me unsatisfied. So remember kids, you rocked.

In other news, I had my first shift at Hollywood Borders. It turned out to be my last shift as well! Part of the problem is I have barely any availability… remember how I’m at school so much? Plus, production-wise, I will pretty much be working on a project a week, which takes up weekends. Apparently this didn’t gel. No love like at my Stony Brook store, where wacky schedule requests were no problem. Sigh. So once again, I am jobless. I’m never going to be able to shave my unemployment beard. Or is it my cinematic artiste beard now? I forget.

Speaking of artiste, my production professor, who is originally from France, and has directed many features, mentioned in passing that she learned under the European school of directing, which meant mentorship. She happened to have worked under Trufaut for a few years… Holy shit! If you understand the grandness of this you are either up on world cinema, or a pretentious Michael Cassidy.

I joined a gym by my still roomy apartment (though I’m happy to report my t.v. and xbox360 have made it, and my blanket, ah old friends.) The gym is decent, but has terrible parking conditions during the prime hours of 4:30-8:00 pm. To make up for it, they offer valet parking.
One night, I decided to take them up on their ultra fancy offer, and let them park my car. I went in, had a killer workout for a few hours, bought myself a delectable peanut butter protein shake, and handed the guy at the umbrella stand my ticket. As the minutes went by, and more and more people came out and got their cars, I started to wonder what was going on. I asked if they had my car yet, and I was assured it was on the way. About 10 or 12 more people came and went away in their cars, and my sweaty shorts and shirt were freezing over in the winds of the night. I asked again about my car. There seemed to be some confusion, then a conference amongst the valets in Spanish. I thought back to 7th grade Spanish, when my teacher Mr. Murray pointed out one of the crude cartoons in the text book of a guy and girl on a bench made it seem like the young happy man saying “Me llamo Javier” was feeling up the girl. Needless to say this did nothing to help me understand where the hell my car was. The valet suggested I walk up to the roof of the near by Best Buy, where the parking lot for the cars was located. Apparently there was some confusion as to wear my key was. So, I walked up the ramp, into more breezes, my damp gym wear now positively freezing. The next batch of Valets saw me and looked away and continued to mumble in Spanish. I walked over to my rental P.T. Cruiser (my civic should be here this week…I hope). One of the valets walked around my car, then dropped to his stomach to look under the car.
“We lost the key,” he said.
“Oh.” I replied. I didn’t want to yell, but I did want to go home. I was cold, damn it.
“We could drive you home.” He offered.
“Well, see, it’s a rental car. So I don’t have another key.”
“Rental car? Oh. The one across the street?”
“No. The one at LAX.” Which of course is 8 miles away.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So you need to find that key.” I was quite calm, just sat down against a parking lot light, and waited another fifteen minutes. In that time, I told my story to Greg on the phone, and decided not to tip them if they found my key.
They found my key. It was in one of their pockets.
The moral of the story is either never valet park at a gym, or pray my Civic comes to L.A. soon. I’m so done with the P.T. Cruiser.

My first trip back to the East Coast will be February 28th… to BUFFALO, NEW YORk! Wooh? Yes, Michael Behr is getting married and I’m flying in for about 24 hours, to wear a tux, build a snowman, and eat some chicken. My next return remains to be determined… hopefully my goal for late June will work out. We shall see.


Well, it’s time to prepare for the weekend… probably going to see Cloverfield, even though I’m sure it will be lame. I have tons of production prep work to do, and tomorrow is Champagne Brunch, that’s brunch and five dollars all you can drink champagne. Interesting town, this Los Angeles…

Also, please send me as many short film ideas a possible! I fear I may be a hack.

Also, send stuff to decorate my apartment. Or fly out and visit. Even though I will probably be too busy to entertain you. Well, if I like you enough, maybe I’ll make time.

We’ll do lunch.