The magic of Mac…

Man, I know it’s crazy and I should be working on other stuff right now, but I simply cannot stop reading about the passing of Steve Jobs. I feel like a really good friend died or something. So sad…

See, I’ve been a Mac loyalist since Mrs. Yeti and I first moved to Los Angeles in the early-90’s. I had just been accepted into the American Film Institute’s screenwriting program and I needed a new computer. We didn’t have any money, and my Dad wasn’t keen on supporting the whole grad school experience, so, I had to talk my Grandma Danaher into buying me my first Mac, or, as I put it at the time “loaning me the money to buy it”.

I think she kinda knew it was more of a gift than a loan, but, she went with it anyway. In fact, she was the only person I knew who didn’t try to talk me into buying a much-less-expensive PC. I guess my Grandma figured if her crazy, artsy grandson said he needed a Mac to help him create, well, that was good enough for her. So, she made it happen and a few days later I bought my first ever Apple Computer…a gleaming, super-sexy Quadra 605. Hot damn, that thing was sleek! Seriously, if I wasn’t already with Mrs. Yeti, I woulda left her for that computer quicker than you can say disc drive. I loved that Quadra to death — Literally. I only stopped using it when it officially died almost ten years later — and I have been a die-hard Mac geek ever since.

I wrote the first screenplay I ever sold on that Quadra and later on, several others on our even sexier 17-inch widescreen iMac G4, you remember the one with the egg-shaped thing on the bottom? That was my girl, actually, she still is…I just keep her in the garage now.

The music that inspired all that writing has been played on a series of iPods over the years and I wrote and rewrote several scenes on the set of my first produced feature film on my trusty Macbook, but the biggest thrill of all has been watching the ease with which Greta operates my iPhone. Seriously, she knows how to do everything but send text messages. And this afternoon as she slipped the phone out of my pocket to watch “Toy Story” for the three-hundredth time, I thought of two things. One was, holy shit, how fucking awesome is it that we can watch movies on phones these days?! And two is that all of this magic was brought into our lives by Mr. Steve-freaking-Jobs! I mean, even the movie came from a company of his. Amazing!

Anyway, thanks again for the many wonderful ways in which you touched my life, Mr. Jobs. The magic you created will be with us forever…

When in doubt…write!

My favorite screenwriting teacher in college gave me some very good advice one time. He said that when life gets hard and shitty and it seems like there is no good outcome anywhere on the horizon…real writers, true writers, just keep writing.

Blowhard producer hated you last draft? Keep writing. Studio exec passed on your spec? Write another one. Writing partner who you thought you knew after working together for ten-plus years totally screw you over? Fuck em, and get to work on something else.

Not only is this is a totally simple solution to the age old problem of writer’s angst — in case you haven’t noticed, we’re a pretty obsessive, neurotic lot — but, it actually works. Stewing over slights perceived and otherwise is greatly overrated, my friends. The best way to feel better after getting screwed or rejected or whatever is to write something new. Even if it’s only an angry “fuck-you-letter” that you’ll never send, the simple act of putting words on a page is healing.

And you don’t have to be a screenwriter either, real writers (even real bad writers) just feel better somehow when they write. So, let your pens flow, amigos. And if you’re not ready to make lemonade out all the lemony bullshit that’s been flowing your way lately (sorry, back to myself again) then at the very least, you can write about it. Or not. Hell, write about something completely different.

The important thing is to just keep writing. Ever. Single. Day.

Amen…