Welcome home, Dad!

The best thing about being away for a week is that the ladies in my life really, really miss me when I’m gone. And even though all three of us had a weird stomach bug all week — nothing like being sick in a hotel room! Fun! — Mrs. Yeti and Greta have been crazy nice to me since I got home.

If you don’t believe me, just check out the super cool sign that was waiting for me on the back door when I drove up. In case you were wondering, that’s our gardener José on the left with the three eyes. Greta said he is mowing over a giant red worm in the grass with his lawnmower. I don’t know what that means, but, man, it’s good to be home!

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Sleeping Standing Up

Hello again, blog friends. Sorry for being away for so long. This time I have a great excuse, I was working my butt off! So much so that I actually fell asleep standing up one day. Yep, like a horse. Except horses usually stay standing. I, on the other hand fell like a ton o’ bricks and hit the back of my head on a cheapie IKEA desk we have in our hallway. I survived the fall with a trip to the emergency room and a couple of staples to the back of my head…the desk, however, was not so lucky and had to be trashed.

And though I fell in front of Greta the first thing she said when she ran over to check on me was not “Oh, my God, Daddy! You’re head is bleeding!” or “Are you alright?”. Nope, the first thing she said was: “Wow! Look at that desk!” Actually, it was quite a site. Black particle board pieces and books scattered all over the hallway. Me sitting on the ground with blood all over my hand and a dazed look on my face, and Greta just staring at that broken desk.

Anyway, the bleeding stopped almost immediately, but, wow, there’s a lot of blood in the back of your head! Who knew? So, I called a 24-hour nurse hotline that we have on our insurance and talked to a lovely certified nurse named Susan. After asking me a bunch of really gross questions (“Is there a yellowish-red discharge oozing from your ears?”, “Are your pupils the same size?”, etc.) she told me I was probably fine but that I should head to the emergency room just to be sure.

Luckily, Mrs. Yeti was able to ditch out of work and hurry home to drive us (for some reason Susan thought a man who just fell asleep standing up and was bleeding from the head might not be the best driver, crazy, huh?) to the ER. Where we waited and waited and waited until they finally pulled me behind a curtain, stapled up my cut and send me packing. Good times.

Oh, did I mention that having staples put in your head hurts like hell?! Well, it does and let me tell ya, I owed Greta’s bad word jar a hefty chunk of change when we got home. I’m sure the truly sick and injured people in the ER loved hearing me swear up a storm too. Sorry, sickies, but that shit hurt!

The good news is I’ve been trying to get more sleep on a regular basis, and, believe it or not, I do actually feel more rested. Funny how that works, huh? Anyway, this whole getting enough sleep thing is still an ongoing project — changing your up-all-night writerly ways at my age ain’t easy, folks! — but, it has been working out nicely so far. We’ll see how easy it is to stick to when I have a bunch of deadline at the end of the month…

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. I also traveled to Hamburg, Germany for work (which was crazy fun) and churned out a record number of stories for work, I wrote two features for APEX magazine, two mini-features for a new magazine I’m working on, and a handful of stories for the APEX Editor’s Blog. Sadly, that left little time for blogging or, obviously, sleeping. But, it did feel awesome to be writing so much about stuff that I’ve really come to love. So, that more than makes up for it. That said, I do promise to be a better sleeper and blogger going forward, so, stick around.

Oh, and if anyone has an old desk they can spare, we’re on the market for one, so, let me know! 🙂

Happy 200th birthday, Mr. Dickens!

I know it was like, two days ago now, but, it’s never too late to celebrate the birth of one of my favorite writers of all time. So, happy belated 200th birthday to Charles Dickens.

I haven’t read nearly as much of his work as I should, but, I will say that Dickens is second only to John Steinbeck in the way he has influenced my writing. Wait…on second thought, John Irving had a pretty big impact on my writing style as well, but, he’s kind of a modern-day Dickens in my book, so, I don’t always count him. Sorry, dude.

Anyway, aside from the many vivid, iconic characters Dickens created over the years, what I love most about his work is that he knew how to milk a story for drama. And like many writers of popular fiction (and some of my favorite fellow screenwriters) Dickens’ work was chided by critics for not being substantial or meaningful, as if writing a really great page turner was some kind of crime. But, lemme tell ya, the complexity and beauty of his strongest stories is truly something to behold.

You can’t just casually flip through Dickens, man, you have to pay attention. To everything! Hell, that’s half the fun of it. The strange names, the larger-than-life characters, the diversions that seem pointless at the time but pay off, sometimes hundreds of pages later in genuinely shocking ways — pay careful attention to that swarthy convict on page seven, dear reader, because he just might turn out to be your secret benefactor on page three-hundred-something! — I mean, love him or hate him, you gotta give Dickens credit for being a master of structure. My head spins just thinking about him outlining something like BLEAK HOUSE…yikes!

And best of all, Dickens didn’t just dazzle us with cool plot twists for the fun or it. No way! These twists and turns of fate had meaning and impact and made us root for his characters even more. I think that’s what makes so many of his books so damn cinematic. There is so much description and beauty and humor and pain and pathos on every page that they literally read like movies.

Oy, I could go on about Charles Dickens for days, but, seeing as I have a toddler to feed and, you know, pay attention to and stuff, so, I’ll stop here. Happy birthday, Mr. Dickens! Ooo, and thanks to Google for the awesome Dickens Google Doodle on Tuesday. So cool!!

Oscar Nominees 2012

As usual, I’m way too tired to write too much about this year’s crop of Oscar nominees at the moment, but, I do want credit for staying up to watch the nominations again, so, here’s my three minute break down of what I think. Major kudos to Gary Oldman for receiving his first ever Oscar nomination this morning for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”. Yep, that’s right, the dude has been robbed year after year since he started his amazing career, so, even if I haven’t seen the movie, here’s to you, Mr. Oldman! Rock on!

Also very excited to see Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt, not to mention the writers and producers all make the cut for “Moneyball”, which, as you may remember, I freaking loved! Also loved “The Descendants”, so, congrats to Alexander Payne for his writing, directing and producing nominations. I’m praying he takes home at least one of the three Oscars he’s nominated for this year. Also thrilled to see George Clooney nominated for Best Actor, even if it was totally expected. Less thrilled to see him nominated again for his so-so script for “The Ides of March”, which was kind of a major snooze.

And speaking of Best Screenplay, WTF, man? “Margin Call”? I had to look that shit up, seriously, I was like, what the hell movie is that? Then I remembered: “Oh, that’s that TV movie looking crap with Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto and Simon Baker.” Now, in the movie’s defense, I have not seen it it, so, it might be a freaking masterpiece, but, all I see it as right now is the movie that stole nominations from “The Tree of Life” and “Young Adult” among others, so, as usual, the Academy fudges up the screenplay nominations.

Ah well, at least “The Help” scored a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination…oh wait…IT DIDN’T! So, you know what that means? That means that Tate Taylor, the writer/director of the movie that scored three acting nominations and a Best Picture nod didn’t get nominated for shit. I’m sorry, but, that’s gotta sting. And if you ask me, his nomination was stolen by the senseless star-fucker of a nomination for “The Ides of March”. But the Academy does this every freaking year…if an actor writes a script, they get nominated. And sometimes, they even win. Grrr…it’s like blonde actresses at the Golden Globes all over again!

Was also very excited to see Woody Allen get some love for “Midnight in Paris”, still not my favorite of his films, but, I’ll never complain when the Woodman scores a nomination. And I think his screenplay nod for “Paris” makes him the most-nominated screenwriter in Academy history, which is very cool. He was head-to-head with my other man, Billy Wilder for a few years, but, I think he’s finally surpassed him. So, good on you, Woody!

And finally, I am really over the moon happy for my man Terrence Malick for scoring a directing and Best Picture nomination for “The Tree of Life”. Those two nods almost make up for the fact that the movie was totally robbed in the technical categories like sound and visual effects. Thankfully, it made the cut in the cinematography category, and hopefully, that is where it will bring home some serious gold for the long-overlooked Emmanuel Lubezki!

Oh, and one more thing before I fade off to sleep…“War Horse” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” for Best Picture? Are you fucking kidding me? Urgh…if there was ever a case for keeping the nods down to five again, those two klunkers should be Exhibit A. Yikes…I mean, if you really wanna show some balls, nominate “Bridesmaids” or something else exciting at least. Jeez…the only good thing about their inclusion in the Best Picture race is that I’ve seen them both and for the first time since they bumped up the nominations to ten, I’ve seen all of the Best Picture nominees this year. So, there’s that.

Oh, and one more one more thing…how cool is it that Melissa McCarthy scored a Best Supporting Actress nod for a comedy?! That is so rad. Kudos also to the “Bridesmaids” writers for their Best Screenplay nod as well. Comedy is always overlooked at the Oscars, so, any time it can sneak in is cool with me. OK, I’m done. Love to hear what y’all think of the nominees, so, comment away…

Oh, and, if you ask me, “Hugo” is seriously overrated. I am totally stunned that it scored the most nominations. Seriously…wow. To see the full list of this year’s nominees, click here.

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…

Cinematic sweating…

Just finished walking in place while watching my gorgeous new Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of “The Darjeeling Limited” and man, am I beat. Yes, I walk in place to exercise these days. Not the best form of weight loss for the modern SAHD of size, but, hey, it’s better than nothing and it does make me feel good. Especially when I’m walking and sweating with a modern cinematic gem like Wes Anderson’s epically beautiful, “Darjeeling”.

Wow, I loved this movie when I first saw it and watching it again tonight, shit! What can I say? It might just be the perfect movie. Funny, sweet, weird, sad, and on top of all that, it’s set entirely in India. G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!  Seriously, I wanna invite the world into my living room to look at the picture quality of this Blu-Ray print. I dare ya not to gasp at the crispness, I dare ya!

Anyway, feeling good, sweaty, happy, and cinematically inspired. Time to write…