To briefly recap: Best Buy had one HTC Incredible and – after a woman tried to buy it, but discovered she was ineligible for the upgrade – it was mine! The Best Buy Mobile Guy told me it was my “lucky day”. Indeed.

I went to pick it up on my lunch break and Best Buy Mobile Guy (BBMG) was more than happy to give it to me. While he ran through the paperwork and checked information on his point-of-sale we made small talk. He noticed my security badge and where I worked – I have a day job at an online technology retailer – and asked if we were hiring. I wasn’t sure, but I told him I could check and that if he’d forward me his résumé I might even recommend him. I was feeling amiable; after all, I had just secured myself a currently rare phone.

With the paperwork done and insurance added on top it was time to activate the phone. At this point I got a bad feeling about the purchase. See, I’m pretty observant and very little escapes my forensic eye. Whenever you buy expensive electronics – heck, even cheap ones – all of the important or scratch-prone areas are typically covered by some kind of scratch-proof film that you peel away. I didn’t see BBMG do that. So my immediate concern was that this particular HTC Incredible was a used phone. While my gut feelings are usually spot on I wanted this situation to work out so badly that I rationalized the gut feeling away. Perhaps he peeled off the film while I wasn’t looking. Perhaps it was peeled off yesterday when he was selling the phone to the woman. Now that I think about it, even though I really wanted the phone, I wanted my good fortune to be legitimate more. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any good luck.

Nevertheless, I inspected the phone and didn’t notice any blemishes and – minus the missing protective film – I had no reason to doubt that it was a brand new phone. On a side note, I did feel a little put off that BBMG rushed me through the first-time setup. It felt as though he was hiding something and that hurrying through the initial motions of the phone would somehow obfuscate the secret. I chalked it up to him simply being an excited salesman. After all was said and done, I left Best Buy satisfied with my new HTC Incredible. BBMG said he would forward me his résumé as soon as he got back from vacation which he was leaving for the next day.

When I got back to work I spent the rest of the day playing with the phone, setting up e-mail accounts, downloading apps, etc. One of the selling points of the HTC Incredible is its camera. Not only does the feature boast a bevy of image customizations, like ISO, white balance and more, but the camera also offers 8 megapixels and a dual LED flash. Before I had left Best Buy, BBMG took a snap of me to show off the clarity. Even though it doesn’t shoot in 720p, the video recording capabilities are pretty good too. So I started playing around with the camera at work.

A test image at Best Buy.

I opened up the gallery app to review my snaps. Curiously, there were no demo pictures, which was not necessarily disappointing, but definitely suspicious. I did notice, however, that there was a video already in the gallery. I didn’t remember BBMG recording a video at the store to show me and – from the thumbnail – it definitely wouldn’t have been of the back of an SUV if he had. So, of course, I played it.

It’s a fairly innocuous video. My immediate thought was that BBMG – unable to sell the phone to the woman the previous day – took the phone home to show off to his buddies since the HTC Incredible is backordered everywhere. He wanted to highlight the great video capturing and decided to demonstrate by recording the obvious catalytic converter and/or oil burning problems this vehicle was having. I was disappointed, but it looked like BBMG took care of the phone while he was joyriding with it, because there were no scratches or any visible damage. I decided I’d simply go back to Best Buy the next day and demand a discount for the tomfoolery.

Another feature of the HTC Incredible is an included voice recorder app. I didn’t expect there to be any demos for it, but lo and behold! There were four recordings already in the directory.

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

I live a very strange life where reality doesn’t necessarily correlate to life experience. That’s not to say that life doesn’t make sense; it just sometimes speaks through subtext rather than literally. Sometimes understanding life is as simple as taking the time to speak the same language. As such, nothing really surprises me anymore. So when I listened to these recordings it was in a kind of detached, unemotional way. I wasn’t appalled or shocked in the way normal people would be listening to this material. Instead, I was intellectually offended. I understood that this was severely inappropriate material that should never have been left on my phone and knew that my visit to Best Buy the next day would involve a manager.

After scrutinizing the recordings I had a good feeling that BBMG wasn’t the guy affecting the Latino voice, but rather the driver, listening and throwing in his two cents. Still, I couldn’t be sure and if I was going to go back to Best Buy and jeopardize his job I had to be certain – or as close to it as possible. I checked the video again to see if there was any way I could identify BBMG in it. I have to admit that I did feel a little bit of CSI excitement and wished the ubiquitous image enhancing technology existed so that I could make something out in the reflection of the SUV’s paintjob. Alas. Nothing.

I explored the phone’s internal directory to see if there was anything else I could find as evidence. As luck would have it, the phone’s browser functions very much like a desktop browser in that it maintains a cache for visited Web sites. The browser will actually take a snapshot of the site and save the image. When I explored the cache I noticed that there were way too many snapshots for the amount of browsing I had done. I started opening the images and was slowly able to piece together the life of the person who last used the phone.

WARNING: EXPLICIT IMAGES AND LANGUAGE

The mysterious Mr. V____

Ah, Facebook – always a goldmine for personal information. Future politicians beware! You have to know that whatever you write on Facebook is being saved on some server to be preserved until the perfect, most damaging moment comes along to extort you. This little exchange was fairly tame, but it gave me enough information to start with. I assumed it was this Mr. V____ that used the phone last.

My train of thought was still focused on Best Buy. I assumed that BBMG hung out with Mr. V____ and let him use the phone or perhaps Mr. V____ worked in Best Buy Mobile as well and took the phone out himself. Yes, I found it odd that Mr. V____ would use the phone as much as he did in a single day, but it was getting late in the evening and I wasn’t thinking clearly.

Best Buy employee?

The next Facebook image seemed to confirm my suspicions that Mr. V____ was a Best Buy employee, considering the talk about buying a computer. There aren’t very many brick and mortar technology stores anymore. It also proved that Mr. V____ was not only the last user, but apparently the last owner as well. From the timestamps on the files, which I should have looked at first, he had owned the phone since almost the launch of the HTC Incredible at the end of April. So the new theory was that Mr. V____ was a Best Buy employee that bought the phone and then returned it to have his coworker BBMG sell it as a new phone. That sounded like something Best Buy would do.

And then I found the porn. Unfortunately, the revulsion factor is a bit mitigated because the sites were cached before the main videos were loaded, but here are some highlights.

The Old Man and the Teen

This one appears to feature a video that caters to the geriatric-man-with-teenage-girl fetish.

Bukkake?

This one displays a woman regurgitating semen with a stiff penis resting on her cheek.

Don't forget Mother's Day, Woofie!

This one is my favorite; it shows a girl with a dog, suggesting bestiality while the banner at the top reminds visitors to buy their moms flowers for Mother’s Day.

I have zero issues with pornography in general. I do have an issue with discovering someone else’s pornography on something I own. Furthermore, I can imagine that Mr. V____ was operating the phone one-handed while he was cruising this site. You can imagine what he was operating with his other hand and it is unlikely he washed his hand before touching the screen again. This is a phone I’ve held to my face. I seriously wanted to nail Best Buy to the wall, but I had to be sure that Mr. V____ actually worked there.

I looked him up on MySpace and on Facebook, trying to find some kind of evidence that proved he worked at Best Buy. His Facebook profile only offered limited information since we weren’t “friends” and he only maintained a few image galleries on his MySpace profile. I flipped through the images to see if I could spot BBMG among his friends. I couldn’t. I went back to the browser cache and analyzed the files once more.

Spent all his money on the phone...

It truly is amazing what you can find out about someone through their cyber tracks. Apparently, retail doesn’t pay very well.

Powered by Uncle Ben's.

I found a couple of racing sites as well, which is in accordance with his MySpace albums. Mr. V____ devoted quite a few images to his car.

Shop here if you like returns!

And then I found this Google search. At first I discounted it as just a meaningless search since you’d think he knew the address of where he worked if he in fact worked at Fry’s. Coupling this information with his Facebook discussion about an anniversary, I combined the two as a Google search and proved that Mr. V____ did work at Fry’s. So in this one respect, Best Buy was off the hook.

However, Best Buy was still very much on the hook for its employee willfully selling me a used phone at full price, knowing full well that the phone was previously owned. Considering the gravity of the offensive material I figured that even Best Buy would recognize the need to resolve this situation to my complete satisfaction, so I went back to my local store the next day and requested a manager.

The lesson here is to always manually wipe your information off any electronics you own before returning or discarding it. One of the images had Mr. V____’s e-mail address and I was able to contact him about why he returned the phone. Apparently his mother had an extra iPhone and he didn’t need the HTC Incredible anymore, so he returned it after two weeks.

Best Buy Mobile Guy never did forward me his résumé.

Stay tuned for Part IV!

If you’ve ever shopped at Best Buy then chances are that you’re one of the millions of shoppers who have had a terrible experience. If you search for “Best Buy customer service” on Google you’ll find that the first results page is littered with negative links. I assume the negativity goes several pages deep but I didn’t bother to investigate. Ironically, it wasn’t always this bad.

I actually used to love shopping at Best Buy. Before I really got into the Internet and invested in learning how to build my own computer, I’d buy all of my video and sound cards there. If I was ever dissatisfied with a hardware purchase I’d just return it (within 90 days) with no questions asked. I was impressed at how hassle-free it was. It wasn’t until later that the customer service fell off a cliff.

My first run-in with trouble was when I called to find out if they had a video game in stock. I got to the video game “section” without issue, using the automated system. When the clerk answered the phone, however, the guy said he’d have to find out if they had the game. He put the phone down on the counter and asked another employee to get “Adam”. While I waited, the clerk spoke with another guy about recent gossip. At length, Adam came to the counter, but not to answer the phone or my question. Instead, he joined the other two clerks in their conversation. I was young still and hadn’t had much experience with bad customer service so this moment was particularly novel for me. I decided to listen to them and see how long their conversation could possibly go before one of them noticed the phone was off the hook. At the time, I had a headset for my cordless phone so I went about making dinner – something simple: Ramen noodles – and even managed to eat the whole thing before I got tired of their insipid banter and hung up.

Some time later I went to Best Buy to purchase something and noticed that they were selling a set of Klipsch surround sound speakers for 50% off. Since I had been eying them for some time I was very excited that these premium speakers had been marked down so significantly. I called a salesman over to make sure that the price was correct and to find out why the item had such a huge discount. The box looked completely fine, with no signs of having been opened. The salesman – an older guy with longish blond hair and a sad face – checked the box, checked the tag and told me with a kind of guessing in his voice that Best Buy was just trying to make some room for a newer model. Ecstatic, I told him that I didn’t have my checkbook on me, but that I would run to an ATM and withdraw the cash to buy the speaker set. I didn’t have a debit card at the time. When I came back the salesman’s face was even sadder and his voice was full of regret and chagrin. The discounted price was apparently for an open-box item that had been sold and no one updated the price tag when the new item had taken the open-box item’s spot. For his mistake, he said, he would sell me the speakers for 10% the full price. I left without buying the speakers. In hindsight, I probably should have pressed the issue with a manager since working retail would later teach me that managers are typically pushovers in the face of an angry customer – even to the tune of 50% off.

Considering how many uniquely terrible life experiences I’ve had, it would be easy for me to assume that I am alone in the bad service I’ve received from Best Buy. Thankfully, people in my own social circle have corroborated the level of dissatisfaction to be had, ranging from terrible return experiences to purchasing an item that had clearly been returned, but sold as new. One friend bought a Nintendo 64 game only to find a deck of playing cards wrapped in a Nintendo poster in place of the cartridge. Sure, it’s possible someone at the factory decided to swipe the game, but they why go through with all the subterfuge? Once the product is in the box no one is going to look at it until it’s opened by the customer. More likely, the game was returned by a customer who knew that the Best Buy employee would only give the contents a cursory search.

Even if one ignores all of the ridiculous specific moments of bad customer service at Best Buy, there’s also just a general lack of product and/or service knowledge across the board. It’s always a bad sign when you ask a semi-technical question and the employee starts reading the box for the answer. In any event, regardless of all the terrible experiences I’ve had first-hand and those that I’ve heard about, none of them compare to the outrageous situation Best Buy put me through recently.

The HTC Incredible is Verizon’s new flagship cell phone. Even without the same marketing blitz Verizon rolled out for the Motorola DROID the Incredible was still widely popular and the phone almost immediately became backordered. That was particularly disappointing for me since I had just visited my local Verizon store and they had two HTC Incredible cell phones in stock, but I couldn’t buy one right then because my 2-year contract hadn’t rolled over yet. When it finally did, there were no Incredible cell phones to be found anywhere.

I wasn’t ready to give up and, even though I try not to do business with Best Buy if I can help it, I had read that some people had luck finding the Incredible in stock there. I visited my local Best Buy and asked the clerk at the Best Buy Mobile department if they had an HTC Incredible in stock. The guy didn’t even bother to stand up while he talked to me. He said that they were sold out, but that he could put me on a waiting list. I agreed and the guy took down my information.

Afterwards, I went home and called around. By and large, I was able to talk to the right people at each Best Buy and they all told me that they were out. One store, of course, lived up to the Best Buy reputation and condemned me to Department Transfer Hell. At first, the operator was happy to send me to the right department who wouldn’t pick up, which bounced me back to the operator, who then told me that she would walk over there and have them answer the phone. Then I was transferred again. This time, the Best Buy Mobile department did pick up but just put the receiver on the counter. After a few minutes they’d transfer me somewhere. I’d tell whoever picked up to transfer me back. This went on for a good 20 minutes. Since I was using my cell phone now I thought it would be hilarious to drive down to the store while still on hold and tell them to answer the phone only to have them discover that they were speaking to me, right in front of them. Oh ho ho! What fun! Now that I’m older, of course, I don’t really have the kind of masochistic patience required for that stunt. The only reason I was putting myself through this torture was because another Best Buy had told me that this Best Buy had an HTC Incredible in stock. I finally hung up, called back and requested a manager. When the manager got on the phone, she had no doubt already been explained the situation and had that stonewall tone in her voice that people affect when they realize that they’re about to take a load of shit with no defendable ground to stand on. Luckily for her, I wasn’t interested in raking her through the coals. I just wanted my phone. I asked her if she could just walk over to the Best Buy Mobile department and find out if my phone was there. Her personality instantly perked up and she was more than happy to find out the information for me. Alas. I had been inaccurate information by the previous store and this Best Buy was sold out as well.

I resigned myself to the long backorder wait and made an online purchase through Verizon’s site. The following Tuesday I had to call Verizon about an issue I had with a rebate on an unrelated matter. While on hold with Verizon I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. I let it go to voicemail. After finishing with Verizon I checked the message to find out it was the guy at Best Buy who put me on the waiting list. He was calling to tell me that they just got one HTC Incredible in stock and that he was calling everyone on the list. The first person to call back would get the phone. When I called him back he informed me that someone else had just beat me to the punch. I cursed the Heavens and decided that a higher power simply didn’t want me to have the phone ahead of the backorder date.

The following day, however, the same Best Buy guy called me to tell me that it was my “lucky day” because the woman who nabbed the phone the day before discovered that she was ineligible for the upgrade. Since I was next on the list the phone was mine provided I could come in and get it that day. I went on my lunch hour to pick it up.

Sounds good so far, right? Just wait for Part III!

Like most guys, I love my gadgets. For many of us I think it all stems from the Boy Scouts and Swiss Army knives. I was never in the Boy Scouts nor did I ever have a Swiss Army knife, but I’ve had enough exposure to both to appreciate their allure and their effects. You never know when you’ll need a serrated blade to cut through a seatbelt, a Philips screwdriver for the obvious and a bottle opener for playing scratch-and-win lottery tickets. Having all of those functions and more on one device is pure whizz-bang gizmo goodness that any and every guy loves. I suppose whatever they teach you in the Boy Scouts is useful too. Their indoctrination is certainly in line with societal pressures that dictate every male should be prepared for any situation. Or at least most situations.

Then you also have James Bond. That guy had gadgets for everything. Surprisingly, Q never outfitted him with anything useless. Or maybe he did and Bond just went out of his way to find a use for the gadget. Instead of easily hopping a fence, let’s say, Bond would jimmy the lock of the gate just to try out his new novelty cocktail umbrella/lock picking tool – “Great for Mai Tais and breaking and entering!” My point is that every guy wants to be James Bond; if for no other reason than the guiltless promiscuity with amazingly hot women.

The hot women part never worked out for me, but I did try to be prepared for all occasions. In high school, I used to lug around an entire alternate outfit in my school bag every day – just in case. In four years that extra set of clothes only came in handy twice. The first was during an AP test when my newly developed allergies suddenly bloomed and my handkerchief was so soaked in mucus that I had to resort to blowing my nose into the spare shirt I brought. The second time was on the first day of my Senior year. I had shown up to class in ripped jeans, because I was feeling rebellious and one of the Vice Principals stopped me to send me home to change. Oh, was she surprised when I pulled out an extra pair of jeans from my bag! I also mused about the idea of sewing extra pockets and straps into the lining of my duster – a long black coat – for different useful implements like a flashlight and…other stuff, I’m sure. It was going to be like the Steiner Coat from Parker Lewis Can’t Lose. Remember that show?

Side Note: The actor who played Parker Lewis, Corin Nemec, was/is doing a Web series called Star-ving with David Faustino who played Bud Bundy. It’s basically a funny and self-deprecating account of Faustino’s and Nemec’s post-FOX lives. I’m not sure if that series is still running. I only discovered it with StumbleUpon the other day and didn’t bother to do much research beyond that.

Anyway. The cell phone is the modern day Swiss Army knife – it takes pictures, records video, connects to the Internet, allows text messages and sometimes connects calls. For someone like me who’s on the go a lot the cell phone has to be robust and versatile. So now that my two-year contract with Verizon is up, it’s time to upgrade. I was planning on getting the HTC Incredible. It’s an Android phone and I was leery about getting it since I need to sync to MS Outlook, but the hardware was too good to pass up. Unfortunately, the reviews for this phone have been too good and the phone is basically sold out everywhere. Couple the popularity with manufacturer parts shortages and you get a pretty nasty and disappointing backorder situation.

Still, I was hopeful and I figured it couldn’t hurt to call around the local stores to see if they had one lying around. My mother had good luck finding her current HTC Touch Pro 2 at the local Best Buy so I gave them a call. If I can avoid doing business with Best Buy I will, but in this case I’m so sick of my phone I’m willing to endure a bit of hassle to have the new phone now instead of waiting weeks.

In this day and age, it’s generally accepted that first-level customer service – first-response tech support, fast food, non-commission retail, etc. – is going to be poor. There are two main reasons for this phenomenon. First, these jobs are not meant for the skilled or the smart. When you call tech support for anything the first person you talk to is not a technician. This person does not have technical knowledge. He or she is reading from a script. Ever have a problem with your Internet connection? Without fail, what is the first thing tech support tells you to do? Power cycle the modem! The result of this situation is that you typically get inexperienced young people who have just joined the work force or older people who don’t have the skills or aptitude for a better job. Second, companies want first-level customer service to be poor to qualify business and reduce cost. When customer service is garbage, customers are less likely to engage a know-nothing salesman for “help” meaning less employees to hire and train. Customers are in and out, keeping commerce flowing smoothly. The logical reaction from the customer, of course, is to take their business elsewhere. BUT, crappy service can be trumped by low prices which is where all the savings from having crappy service goes. Furthermore, since all companies understand this concept, there really isn’t anywhere else to take your business to.

So while I understand and accept that first-level customer service is going to suck, Best Buy’s customer service is aggressively poor.

Let’s pick this up again in Part II.

I will say, however, that my memory is pretty handy. For instance, I’m able to screen a movie and not have to take notes in the middle of the film for my review later. Actually, that’s not a great way to showcase my memory since I haven’t seen one movie critic take notes in all my years screening movies. I only assumed they did because I read a Roger Ebert article in which he mentioned where he sat and what he brought into the theater with him — in the back row with a briefcase, which he set on his lap to take notes on index cards. I tried taking notes for a while. My friends even got me one of those pens with a red LED tip so that I could write in the dark without disturbing people around me too much. It didn’t take. It felt like pre-writing to me — or writing in a journal or diary: unnecessary. If a portion of the film affected me enough to jot a note down why did I need the note?

Most of the time I just busted out the pen during public screeners to impress the non-film critics that might be sitting around me. Whenever my red tip illuminated the dark I cast fish-eye glances left and right as if to say, “Hey, I’m a professional.”

Anyway. Right now I’m feeling a bit like Johnny Mnemonic. If you haven’t seen this film, it stars Keanu Reeves in a dystopic future where information is the most important commodity. Reeves plays Johnny: an information courier who stores data within an implant inside his skull. Unfortunately, he’s had to dump a chunk of his brain to make room for the device, giving up a portion of his long term memory — his childhood. After years of smuggling information to and fro for sundry clients, Johnny wants out and his memory restored. He’s convinced to do one final job that guarantees a big payday. Unfortunately, his capacity isn’t enough to store all of the data, but he forces the download anyway, causing all sorts of physical reactions as synaptic leakage wreaks havoc on his nervous system. That’s how I feel right now. Minus the last part. I went to a bunch of events this week and haven’t had a chance to do the write-ups and I’m having a little trouble keeping everything in my head.

I’m also a little concerned about my eating habits. I haven’t been grocery shopping in months. I’ve been eating out way too often, which can’t be healthy physically or financially. I’m going to take some time to sort my life out this weekend.

The coffee and review material graveyard.

As a screenwriter – or any kind of writer, I imagine – having your work in the hands of people who can do something about it and then suddenly being out of the loop is one of the most frightening prospects to experience. Think, for a moment, of what it would be like to have an amazing story idea and then create memorable characters to bring that idea to life. Think about how time consuming that process would be – a writer essentially gives birth to full-grown people and must immediately create their histories and know how those experiences have shaped their personalities. The writer has to live with these people (usually in his or her own head) to really understand them. I know my characters as well as I know most real life people. Now imagine giving all of that hard work over to someone and having them steal your idea. Yes, you can register your screenplay with the Writers Guild of America. Yes, you can copyright your screenplay. But ideas are free to all, which is why you can have Armageddon and Deep Impact open in the same year. (If there’s some kind of insider story between those two movies I’d love to hear it.) All someone has to do is add enough changes to the script to make it different in the eyes of the law. Now someone else benefits from your hard work. And let’s say you decided to sue. When it comes down to an industry studio or production company and you, who do you think will have a team of high priced attorneys and who do you think will go bankrupt paying legal fees first? For a nobody like me, Hollywood is definitely a leap of faith.

As it stood, someone with connections to Joel Silver had my script, but now our liaison had gone silent. My texts and emails to Mr. Actor went unanswered. When I called I’d get his voicemail unnaturally soon, which meant he hit the ignore button. Memories of dealing with bello magazine floated to the forefront of my brain. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that he was just busy. After a week, however, I figured I had been as polite as was fair and decided to bypass the middleman. Luckily for me, the last thing Mr. Actor told me was the name of his manager and representation. I looked them up online and made the call.

The first day, Ms. Manager was out to lunch, but I got through to her the next day. In short, it was a great conversation and all of my fears were allayed – not in any kind of verifiable way or with any certitude, but in the way that hearing a human voice brings peace of mind, because you know you’re dealing with something rational. In this case, I just like her. Ms. Manager is one of those people who’s easy to be friends with. My more cynical readers will probably tell me that her ability to schmooze is part of her job, in the way that conmen are disarming and they basically tell you what you want to hear. I can’t refute that point. Regardless, I felt I was in a better position for having spoken to her.

Ms. Manager said that she would give the script to a new literary agent her firm had acquired. The agent apparently had a contact at Silver Pictures and would reach out to them if the script was worth the effort. Interestingly, Ms. Manager didn’t want anything for her trouble – she just wanted to see the film get made. I offered to take her out to dinner at a restaurant of her choice “since everyone was working off favors.”

“I get to choose the restaurant?” she asked. “I know a place in Italy….”

I laughed, but inside I knew I’d fly her anywhere if Joel Silver picked up my screenplay. After we hung up all I could do was wait again until the lit. agent finished reading. I was confident, of course, since it’s almost impossible not to like my screenplay. So it came to pass that the lit. agent was impressed and told Ms. Manager who to call and how to position the script. Ms. Manager emailed me, explaining that she would make the call the following day.

I want to say that I was extremely excited about the situation. My screenplay was one step away from falling under the eyes of Joel Silver’s people! The truth is that I was only excited intellectually. I didn’t feel that Christmas-morning excitement, kneeling in front of a pile of boxes wrapped in paper and bows, wishing my parents would get up already. Chalk it up to either a lifetime of coping with one disappointment after another that’s made me wary of getting my hopes up or to my strong imagination where success is the normal I’m trying to reach as opposed to the disappointing life I lead, which is the anomaly. Though my excitement was blunted – for whatever reason – it didn’t stop me from fantasizing about a high six- or low seven-figure deal. I’d quit my job immediately, but return whatever salary they’d paid me thus far. The work I had done for them would be on the house since I’d feel bad for leaving the company and my department in a lurch.

After the phone call was made Ms. Manager emailed me.

So I spoke to Silver Pictures – bad news

They are moving forward right now with a current D&D script. They are about to start casting – so they are not interested in looking at anything new.

Timing is everything

I would suggest (though I know this sucks) that you table it for a year or two – see what happens with the one they’re working on and then see if you can revisit….

sorry  :)

For a split second I was completely obliterated – in the way that a person standing at ground zero of a nuclear blast is disintegrated, leaving only their shadows of their former selves x-rayed along the ground as the only evidence they had ever existed. Fortunately, I was used to disappointment and I recovered quickly. Frustration was the atomic glue that put me back together almost instantly. Timing truly was everything. How long had Mr. Actor had my script? How much sooner could all of this have taken place?

Out of curiosity, I jumped on Joel Silver’s IMDB page to see what this Dungeons & Dragons movie was about. I couldn’t find anything that looked like it would be the film. Perhaps Silver Pictures hasn’t announced it yet. If so, I have a bad feeling that the film is going straight to video, which is doubly infuriating, because they could be spending their money on my script which would have been their next Matrix. Instead, they’re most likely simply getting the third installment of their D&D films – the first of which was terrible (I own it. It sits next to Battlefield Earth on my ‘terrible movies’ shelf.) and the second of which was only serviceable as a Direct to Video offering.

I had been struggling for so long to make this happen. Every moment I sit in traffic to and from LA has been made bearable by the thought that one day all of my effort writing fair reviews, giving personable interviews and attending midnight events would pay off with a golden connection to Joel Silver. After years of networking and toiling away, I finally get this opportunity and it fizzles through no fault of my own. I should have been upset. I should have railed against the gods. But I didn’t. The worst I did was smoke a couple of cigarettes and take a few moments for quiet reflection. To be honest I didn’t even really need the cigarettes. I just smoked them because it seemed like the thing to do. Kind of like the way straight writers write gay men in movies. Gay men are always outing themselves by sexually assaulting straight men they think are gay – or at least would be receptive to such advances. It’s the idea of human behavior these writers are trying to capture just as I was trying to emulate that same idea. At the end of the day, however, those writers and I don’t know what the hell we’re doing.

On a side note, thinking about sitting in traffic makes me recall a time when I was teenager, trying to have a long-distance relationship with a girl who lived 30 miles away. I wanted nothing more than to make it work since I had been in love with this girl since forever, but I also wanted to be practical. She was crestfallen, but agreed that we should talk it over in person. We made plans. A couple of days before our date, I surprised her at her school and cracked an inside joke about her pants that we had bought together on a previous date – they had some vague tropical pattern. I don’t think she remembered the joke because she didn’t laugh. I couldn’t stay long, because high schools don’t appreciate non-students roaming their halls so I confirmed our date with the girl before leaving.

The evening of I prepared a dinner picnic complete with sparkling cider, champagne glasses and a full moon. I fought the traffic of the damned and managed a splitting headache, but I arrived at her home just the same – maybe a little late. When I got to the door her older brother answered and explained that the girl had already left with another guy. That moment is the first time I can recall feeling that reality was something that could not be controlled. It was whatever it wanted to be.

Experiences like that coupled with an exceptional memory have made me almost emotionless. When I was going through a depression that same year in high school, my counselor recommended Prozac. My older friend, Jim – he’s dead now – told me that Prozac didn’t make you happy; instead, it took away the extremes of emotion. I don’t know if that’s a true assessment. I’ve never taken Prozac and I don’t know anyone who has. I only bring it up now because I feel like I no longer have the extremes of emotion. The only thing that really makes me feel anymore is comedy. I love to laugh.

Well, I suppose I’m being just a little disingenuous. There is a particular vocalist that’s thrown me for a loop, but I’ll save that tale for another sad story in the future.

So long Dungeons & Dragons. We could have been magic together.

So where does that leave me? Pretty much where I started. I’m not one to wait around so I’m going to strip out all of the Dungeons & Dragons material from my script and make it a brand-less fantasy action-adventure. My hope is that I’ll be able to shop it around to another big time producer – Jerry Bruckheimer? – and we can capitalize on whatever buzz Joel Silver’s project generates. Anyway, here’s to hoping.

You know, I always thought that this D&D script was going to be the film that minted me as a bona fide screenwriter. As it turns out, the film I script doctored for Danny Safady years ago is being shot in Missouri right now and I’m getting a co-screenwriter credit.

Reality is whatever it wants to be.

So I keep hearing that any screenwriter that wants to be taken seriously should have at least three polished screenplays ready to go if he or she wants to be picked up by an agent. Considering how long it took me to polish my one screenplay, the idea of doing two more wasn’t the kind of time I wanted to invest. No, no, no. Let me amend that. I don’t mind investing time; I just didn’t want my one awesome screenplay to waste away on the shelf while I was crafting the other two. So instead, I focused on working on a smaller, five-minute project that I could hopefully circulate through the film festivals and get some recognition. After all, I think any kind of published/produced work is far more convincing to a potential producer than a thousand manuscripts/screenplays that have never seen the light of day.

During this time, I was also just starting to collaborate with burgeoning director Danny Safady. I met him in 2004 when he and his friend/business partner, Gerry Garcia, were trying to launch a fashion and entertainment magazine called SWITCH, which was responsible for my start as an entertainment journalist. The magazine never got off the ground, sadly, but years later Danny started to get into directing music videos and he sought me out to write a couple of treatments.

Unfortunately, I was unemployed at this time and desperately needed a steady day job. So after the respective recording artists we targeted either admitted that they didn’t have the money to fund the projects or rejected us outright, I put my creative pursuits on hold (or at least on the back burner) until I could stabilize my financial situation. In 2007 I spent my weekdays writing marketing copy for a Home Resort manufacturer and those days were some of the most challenging experiences I’ve ever endured. I’d like to think that my time with this company will be the time in my life I use to contrast my success with in my memoirs. It was during this time that a friend of mine put me in contact with an actor who had been in a major Joel Silver movie.

To refresh your memory: My film is based on a brand that Joel Silver owns the movie rights to. That means only he can make the movie if I want to keep all of the brand-specific material in the script.

At the time, my friend was a server at a popular family Italian restaurant chain in Northridge – or thereabouts. He had just transferred and hadn’t gotten to know everyone yet. One day he was talking to his coworker and – impressed by his coworker’s tremendous height and baritone voice – my friend suggested that the man should be an actor. That was when the coworker revealed who he was. Apparently, when you’re not an A-list actor, you sometimes have to pick up gigs on the side, like serving at a restaurant, to stay afloat.

I felt like this was a message sent from on high! I was one degree away from Joel Silver! My friend, who knew about my screenplay and who it had to go to, immediately told his coworker – Mr. Actor – about me. Mr. Actor, in turn, requested my screenplay. I gave it a thorough polishing before UPSing it over to him. Then came the waiting, which was excruciating. Don’t get me wrong. I’m used to waiting. And I’m used to disappointment. But this was new territory for me. I hadn’t been rejected yet as a screenwriter. As a query letter writer, sure, but not as a screenwriter. I only expected success. Keep in mind that my screenplay is also amazing. There are few things in life that I am certain about. Above all things, I know that my work on this script is magnificent. I know I probably sound arrogant, but you haven’t read the script.

After a few days Mr. Actor gave his opinion to my friend. As my friend related to me, Mr. Actor said that he was “my biggest fan.” I was elated in a way and to an extent I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Of course Mr. Actor tempered my excitement with a bit of bad news. Apparently he wasn’t in much contact with Joel Silver. On the upside, he said he would sit down with some big name directors that had worked with Joel Silver and talk about the script over coffee. With that in mind, I immediately scheduled a meet with Mr. Actor over lunch and made the trek up north.

Our lunch meeting went a little something like this.

I really didn’t have a problem with the finder’s fee. To me, 10% was nothing when I considered that it would be buying me an entire career. At this point, I felt that success was just a matter of time. With Mr. Actor’s connections, how could it not? So I waited. That’s not to say that I didn’t keep trying on my own. In 2008 I got picked up by Buzzine and I thought my interactions with industry people as an entertainment journalist would also open doors for me as a screenwriter. I was also still working with Danny. We tossed around a few movie ideas and I even script doctored a screenplay he picked up. My journey to becoming a professional screenwriter was well on its way. I just had to be patient.

Two years went by.

At this point I had all but given up. Mr. Actor fell out of contact and none of the people I met in the industry ever seemed to be interested in me beyond my role as a journalist. I fell back on my original plan of producing something small myself and hopefully building a name that way. It wasn’t a happy time for me, but at least I had some kind of solid direction. And then Mr. Actor contacted me through Facebook. He lamented his dry spell of gigs and joked that once my screenplay got picked up he’d be working again. I commiserated with him and said a few encouraging words. Then he mentioned something about giving the script to his manager – a woman who, according to him, had a lot of connections. I found his musings strange since I figured he’d be showing my script to everyone. After all, he had 10% on the line and a potential acting gig.

I urged him to show it to Ms. Manager forthwith.

Again, I waited. This time I was less anxious. I had already adjusted myself to the reality that I would never make as an industry screenwriter and that I would have to save up my money to fund my own projects. I still expected Ms. Manager to absolutely love my script, mind you. After all, the quality of my work hadn’t changed.

Mr. Actor texted me about a week later with Ms. Manager’s reaction. “This shit is AMAZING.” Or something like that. I was flattered, to be sure, but my mind was pure business. Get me the career first and then I’ll take time to bask in the praise. I wanted to know what the next step was. Mr. Actor was our go-between for a few days. He’d text or call me, get my feedback and then get in touch with Ms. Manager. While I’m typically irritated by middlemen, I understood that Mr. Actor wanted to ensure he had some control over his 10%, so I tolerated the situation. Mr. Actor suggested that I write up a synopsis – a short three-page summary of my screenplay – so that Ms. Manager would have something compact to send Joel Silver. I worked on a couple of versions and sent them off.

And then the information stopped coming.

Much like this entry. Read the exciting conclusion of “Timing is everything.” In Part III soon!

For those of you who have known me for a while or have been keeping up with my blog, you know that I’ve wanted to be a professional screenwriter for some time. I love telling stories and the screenplay format is perfect for someone like me who doesn’t want to spend all his time researching minutia in order to build worlds and gain the readers trust as an authority on the story. I can simply write that something happens and the reader can decide on what it looks like. In fact, I think less detail is preferred since a screenplay is simply a film blueprint that others will add to in order to bring the story to life.

This kind of “shortcut writing” is probably why I gravitated towards personal non-fiction as my genre of choice – I write what I know. After I graduated college with a degree in Creative Writing and an emphasis in Non-Fiction, I thought I was going to be immediately picked up as a non-fiction author. I’d be my generation’s literary voice that would shed new and interesting light on the Asian-American experience. Unfortunately, after getting shot down by enough literary agents, I figured that my life story just wasn’t interesting enough to be commercial and/or convince a publisher to pick up my book. On the other hand, I didn’t even actually have a complete manuscript to send an agent even if they wanted to read it. At most, I had a collection of non-fiction stories that I had planned to cobble together. So I just published my stories on my blog and gave up on being a book author.

Nevertheless, I was still in love with movies. Around 2004 was when I decided to fully pursue screenwriting. What I mean by that is screenwriting became my ultimate goal as a career, like the way people decide that they want to be a doctor, lawyer, fireman or astronaut. I was finding that I would walk out of the movie theater, having watched another subpar movie, and tell myself that I could have written a better story. After enough times, I had to put myself to the test. Besides that, I wasn’t doing much with my life. I was working in online tech support at Union Bank, slowly going out of my mind. My freelance entertainment journalist career was just starting and the flow of gigs was intermittent at best. It just made sense to work on a personal project. I already had a story in mind and had an idea of how to write it so that it was commercial and how to position it so that a production company would want to pick it up. Best of all, it was a tent pole film based on an existing and popular brand that ensured an installed audience. All that was left to do was to bring the story in my mind out into the world.

I got together some scratch and bought Final Draft and started typing away. I had no idea how much I would love writing visually. I didn’t have to write about what characters were thinking or feeling. I didn’t have to get flowery with the prose. It was a straightforward process. Still, I overwrote my first draft anyway. In fact, I didn’t actually finish it. I started over because I didn’t like where it was going. I’m not a big pre-writer. Basically, my scripts start out as iconic scenes in my mind and then I look for ways to connect those scenes with plot that hopefully isn’t boring. Yeah, this isn’t the best process. I know. It does, however, seem to work for me. While I don’t pre-write, I tend to juxta-write. Since I can’t work on my script whenever I want to, because of my day job, I envision the story while I work, which either means that I’m very talented or that my work is very basic. Somehow I’m able to keep what I’ve imagined intact in my head until I can get home to commit the thoughts to paper.

The second draft was much better and I was finally able to work my way through the plot to finish the story. The script was 130-something pages, making it the longest work I’d ever completed. The feeling of accomplishment was amazing. Then came the days and weeks of paring it down, tightening scenes and polishing dialogue. I spent a lot of time on my balcony, watching cigarettes burn down to my fingertips while I thought of ways to describe scenes more succinctly. Finally, I felt ready to shop it around. By that I mean: Get it in the hands of a literary agent. At the end of the day, there was really only one person the script had to ultimately go to and that person was Joel Silver. He owns the movie rights to the brand my movie was based on.

Anyway, I bought the books. I searched online. I read the personal blogs of bona fide screenwriters. I figured there were two plans of attack: 1. Do something outlandish like dress up as a UPS guy and deliver my screenplay to someone who could do something about it. 2. Send query letters to literary agents. I went with option 2. A query letter is basically a one to two page letter explaining who you are, what your manuscript is about and how/why it will be a commercial success. At least this is how I understood query letters to be six years ago. Practices may have changed since then. One thing that’s probably still the same, however, is the rejection.

Agents. “…They are the gatekeepers. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys….” They’re probably also outnumbered 100,000:1. For agents that provided email addresses, I emailed them, which were few. The rest just provided mailing addresses. That being the case and being in high demand, correspondence can become unmanageable for them. So they automate as much as they can. First, they demand that the query letter include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE). Second, they create rejection form letters.

So while your batches of query letters will look something like this:

Each one of these queries was a stillborn dream.

You’ll most likely get something back like this:

All business. Zero humanity.

If you’re lucky, there’ll be some kind of handwritten portion or message to give the rejection a human touch:

A semblance of humanity.

Some ultra proficient agencies won’t even send back complete pieces of paper. Instead, they’ll print multiple generic rejections on one piece of paper and then cut them out as necessary.

Going green in more ways than one.

The science of rejection. Note the preforations.

What I found most frustrating about this whole process was the lack of direction. Sure, I understood that some agencies had a policy of not taking unsolicited works. Cool, but what about the agencies that simply “passed” or replied with “not what we’re looking for”? I realize it’s not their job to provide guidance, but I couldn’t understand what the issue was. I just needed someone to make the introduction to Silver Pictures and I would do the rest. It seemed like easy money for any literary agent. His or her investment would have been as little as a phone call.

I used to hang my rejections on a corkboard. When I ran out of room, I started getting flippant and included my own rejection letter in the SASE to save the agencies the trouble. My rejection letter, however, was a checklist that offered different responses the agent (or his or her assistant) could checkmark in order to provide me a little more feedback and insight into my rejection. Only one agency ever returned that checklist:

I thought it was clever, anyway.

The rest didn’t even bother replying. After a year or so, I gave up and decided that I’d have to make a name for myself, writing something smaller and more independent and something I’d probably have to produce myself. While I’m actively pursuing this goal, I recently had traction on my script for Joel Silver, but you’ll have to wait for Part II of this post for the rest of the story.

Like most things in this industry, Press day was running a little behind schedule. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often, actually, since journalists will often try to squeeze in an extra question even after the moderator has already called time. The talent, of course, is always happy to answer more questions – usually with something interesting, albeit longwinded. Sometimes they just prattle on and even forget the point of what they’re saying, like Tim Burton did during the Alice in Wonderland Press conference. I’ll get to that in a second. So, we – the journalists – ate our fill, grabbed some Fiji water and stood around in the hallway until the TV interviews were done. See, the Press gets broken down into different groups. Typically the groups are TV, radio and print/online. I presume this is done because of the different needs of each group. Sometimes radio sits in with print/online, but I don’t see that much. When I share a roundtable with the radio people, their microphones and recording equipment dominate the tabletop, dwarfing my tiny Olympus digital voice recorder. The TV people definitely need their own time, because of all the equipment they have to lug around and set up.

After a few minutes the TV journos finished and the rooms were converted for the rest of us, with radio Press splintering off into their own room while the print/online journos did our best to fit into another room with chairs set up in rows Press conference-style. That was when the musical chairs situation with the Euro-journo happened. Anyway, the talent for the day was the director Udayan Prasad, producer Arthur Cohn and actors William Hurt, Maria Bello, Kristen Stewart and Eddie Redmayne.

You know, I’ve been doing this long enough now that I’m no longer star struck when I sit down in front of a celebrity. Instead, I’ve come to appreciate other things about these people, which don’t really have much to do with their celebritydom. Mainly, I pay attention to the way these people speak. I’m always impressed when talent can answer a question on the fly without using an “uh” or “um” to fill the silence while they think about what they’re saying. Udayan Prasad has that ability and he’s got a great accent to boot. I’m also impressed when foreigners use American accents on film and then speak with their native accent during Press day. If I hadn’t read the production notes for The Yellow Handkerchief I’d never know that Eddie Redmayne was British. His American accent is spotless. He also loves to talk. He sat down with Kristen Stewart and we interviewed them together. Since Kristen is the bigger star considering her Twilight fame, I’d expected her to be the chatterbox. So much for expectations.

You know what I like about Kristen Stewart? She’s got kind of an edge to the way she looks. I like how her hair isn’t evenly cut. Not that it looks lopsided or anything, but it’s got a great style to it so that it hangs thinly in all the right places. There’s also something around the eyes that I like – a certain amount of darkness…? I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Finally, I like the angles of her chin. They’re very sharp. Oh, and instead of verbal fillers, she sometimes uses visual fillers, like screwing up her face when she’s trying to find the right word or phrase.

I also like William Hurt’s attitude. He came in late during the interview with Maria Bello and had a playful attitude, commenting on all the recorders on the table and saying, “So many trinkets for us!” Or something like that. He’s pretty easy-going and an ardent supporter of the United States armed forces. He has family currently serving. Mario Bello also had kind words to say about the military in regards to their performance and assistance in Haiti.

So after The Yellow Handkerchief junket, which I think ended around 3:30 p.m. or so, I rode down the elevator with a group of journos and we all discussed our schedules for the rest of the evening. Almost all of us were going to the Alice in Wonderland Press screening at the El Capitan Theater by the Hollywood & Highland Center. I’m not sure if some of the journos were from out of town or what, but a few of them didn’t know how to get there. One of the radio journos advised to drive up Doheny and make a right on Sunset before I could suggest to make a right on 3^rd and make a left on La Cienega and then a right on Sunset. Since I’m always willing to try new routes, I took his advice. Bad mistake. Once I got to Sunset I found that construction crews had shut down one of the two lanes going east, which meant that I had to sit in the traffic of the damned. The cherry on top was that the construction ended at the cross street of Sunset and La Cienega. I don’t know why I doubt myself sometimes.

The Hollywood & Highland Center

Once safely parked in the Hollywood & Highland Center garage I found that I had a couple of hours to kill before the show. I hadn’t been sleeping well the few nights before because of the stomach issues and I was fond of sleeping in my car so I thought I’d get a few winks in before heading to the surface. Unfortunately, whoever builds multi-level garages apparently makes them really flexible – just in case of an earthquake, I guess – because every time a car drove by I felt like I was on a boat in the ocean. Sleep wasn’t going to happen so I killed time walking around the courtyard and watching the stage crews set up for the next day’s Alice in Wonderland Ultimate Fan Event. I felt like garbage. I was tired, cold and my intestines were three sizes too big. While waiting, I got an email from my Editor-in-Chief Richard Elfman, reminding me to go to the movie early since they were overbooked. I looked over to the El Capitan and saw a long line forming along the sidewalk. It was no doubt the line for the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show, but it unnerved me enough to get me to head over.

Walt Disney's El Capitan Theater

When I got there the people manning the check-in table said they weren’t checking anyone in yet. Strangely, there was a line of non-journalist-looking people leading up to the check-in table, so I asked someone in line if they were Press. He looked at me confused and shook his head. I stepped back and just people watched for a few minutes as the line to the check-in table grew longer. Curious, I asked the check-in people if there was a separate line for Press and they said no. I sighed and walked to the back of the line. A group got in line behind me and I guess they were industry people because they were discussing which studio was flying them where and why they couldn’t make it to what screening.

At last, I got inside the El Capitan Theater to pick my seat. Interestingly, only the first five rows in the middle section were available, which meant I’d have to choose between getting a stiff neck or sitting in one of the side sections and watching at a skewed angle. I opted for the former.

If you’ve never watched a movie at the El Capitan Theater let me tell you now that it’s a mixed bag. Imagine flying coach. Think of how uncomfortable those seats are and how little reclining you get. Now remove the leg room and bring the seat in front of you all the way up to your knees. That’s what it’s like to sit in the El Capitan Theater. The seats are so tight that the ushers would have to ask Kevin Smith to leave if he tried to watch a movie here. Also, it’s impossible to get by anyone if you have to get up to use the restroom or, in my case, leave. As soon as the credits were rolling I got up and tried to barrel my way over the guy to my left and his family. No good. He politely said he would stand and I got through, but then I got caught behind an old lady with a cane being helped by her daughter. I’m not a jerk by nature so I slowed to their pace until I found an opening to get around without putting them off. The one awesome thing about the El Capitan Theater is the organist that comes rising out of the theater stage to play Disney tunes for half an hour before the show. I didn’t catch his name, but apparently he’s some kind of world champion. Admittedly, his performance was delightful.

Anyway, I was in a hurry because I had one more event to get to before the night was over. Raleigh Studios – they’re right across the street from Paramount Studios – was throwing an exclusive party to celebrate the grand opening of their studio in Budapest. My friend and colleague Parimal Rohit had been there since 7:30 p.m. and was expecting me to show up around that time, not realizing that I was at the Alice in Wonderland screening. I was dead-tired, but I’m not one to leave my friends hanging so I made for Raleigh Studios as quickly as I could. By the time I got there I had already missed the main events and all of the food was gone. Ironically, I got there just in time for goodie bags, which had information about the new Raleigh Budapest studio, some Budapest confections and a Rubik’s cube, which is apparently a favored toy in Budapest. The bag also had some towels with FotoKem branding on it. I assume they also use towels in Budapest.

Raleigh Studios shares the wonders of Budapest.

Parimal and I didn’t stay long. I glad handed some publicists and met the president of Raleigh Studios, Michael Moore – a different one – and then I stood in the parking lot with Parimal to rehash Alice and talk about our respective futures in the entertainment industry.

I got home a little after 1 a.m. and then got up for work the next day. I wonder how long I can keep this up before I go insane.

Editor’s Note: While proofreading, I realized that I didn’t cover the Alice in Wonderland Press conference. Oh well. Something to look forward to in a future post, I guess. Sorry about that. -René

It's amazing I get any work done at all.

You know, I enjoy this freelance entertainment journalist gig, but it’s very difficult to maintain with my day job. On one hand I have the eight hours that I spend working to pay the bills. On the other hand I have the night gig, running out to LA to screen a movie or attend a Press junket or go to some industry party. Somewhere juggled in the air is time to sleep, eat, clean my apartment and write. When you’re pressed for time it’s amazing how the little things start piling up around you. In my case, the piles are quite literal. I have mounds of dirty laundry on the floor. Empty fast food bags and unread mail litter my countertops. My dinner table has assorted detritus, ranging from review material to computer parts. I’ve turned my couch into a coat check. Hilariously, I still try to cook once in a while or take some leftovers home. Yeah, like I have the time to eat the next day! The result is some gruesome science project in my refrigerator. It’s actually gotten to the point where I’m afraid to open the lids to dump the “food” down the disposal. Now that I have a bit of free time maybe I can muster the courage to attend to some life-maintenance.

Too lazy to hang up coats.

I eat here sometimes too.

Everything gets dumped here first when I walk in.

Leftover shrimp from a month ago. Yick.

When I’m stuck in traffic – either to or from an event – I always think about how much more convenient it would be to be a full-time journalist. Then I wouldn’t have to waste so much time, cutting back and forth across Southern California’s arteries. But then I think: I don’t really want to be a full-time journalist though – especially with how many journalists are being laid off. Apparently the job market is flooded with out-of-work professional movie critics, which is a position that every entertainment journalist strives for, because it’s so cushy. Ultimately, I’d like to be able to quit both gigs and make the screenwriter thing happen. Then I could just live a single, happy life, doing something I truly enjoyed and that I felt had purpose.

On a side note, one script that I doctored is apparently going to filmed soon and my “big” screenplay is being read by a literary agent, which I should hear back from by end of next week. I’ll keep you posted.

That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy either of my jobs. My day job is swell for several reasons. It’s easy. The environment is pretty lax. My manager isn’t too demanding. I also like my night job for several reasons. I get into exclusive places. I interview celebrities. I get to watch movies before they’re released. There are a few things about the night job that grate on my nerves sometimes, though. Most recently it’s been the other journalists.

I was at the Press junket for The Yellow Handkerchief and there was a European journalist there. I’d like to say he was German based on his accent, but he later engaged William Hurt at length in the doorway in French. On a side note, William Hurt is a very big guy. Anyway, before the junket started we all had to find seats in the cramped room. One journo set his pack down on a chair to claim it while he went to grab something, which is common practice. Generally, we like to pick our seats before running off to the hospitality suite to get some water or nibbles. Anyway, when the journo got back, the European dude had tossed his bag aside and claimed the seat. When the journo tried to explain that that was his seat Euro-dude exclaimed loudly, “Too late! Too late!” and waved off Journo. Journo just stood there, stunned, mouth agape, muttering something about “not being an asshole.”

Then today, in a much bigger Press conference, I had to sit and listen to people pretend to have conversation. Imagine a room with 100 people whose jobs are to give opinion. Now imagine these people all trying to talk to each other about very subject they give opinions on. They aren’t actually listening to what the other person is saying. They’re just waiting for the opportunity to give their opinion. Listen to your own conversations with your friends and family. The natural order of conversation is to explore thought, give listening sounds and pause once in a while. Not so in a room full of entertainment journalists. Instead, they assault each other with brilliant-sounding sound bites of passages that they can remember from something they wrote about the topic at hand. Fake laughter punctuates the cacophony to perpetuate the illusion of listening. It’s enough to make me want to crawl inside myself.

I’ve done the freelance thing long enough now that my friends and family are no longer wowed by my experiences or even really care to hear about them. It’s also starting to feel like a job. All I’m saying is that I’m ready to be on the other side of the microphone.

Hopefully I’ll have time to catch everyone up on my Alice in Wonderland experiences. Stay tuned!

So last weekend I had an interview with a movie producer, G. Anthony Joseph. We met up at the Pink Pepper, which is a Thai restaurant in Hollywood. Let me just say that he’s a great guy and a genuine person, which is so refreshing to find in the entertainment industry. I’ll try to make this blog post quick, because I still have to work on my feature about him and if he reads this he’ll wonder why I’m not focused on the task at hand.

Anyway, I felt compelled to commit a few words to my chance encounter with G. because talking to him gave me a little more clarity in my career and in life in general. My last post was about inspiration and riding the wave when it comes. After my luncheon with G., I’m all about discipline now. In short, I can’t rely on motivation and inspiration to keep me going if I plan on getting to where I want to be. I think I’ve let a few important things fall by the wayside, because I wasn’t seeing the short term reward. I have to get back into the swing of things and keep forward motion going.

So here are the areas of focus in no particular order:

• Keep on top of my deadlines: I’ve gotten really lackadaisical about this and it’s bitten me in the ass more than once.
• Exercise: For a while there I was pretty disciplined about working out. What I enjoyed most about it was the ability to sleep less and feel just as rested. I think I stopped working out because I mainly did it for body image purposes and realized that I didn’t have anyone to impress. Now that I have to maximize my waking hours, I’ll definitely need to rely on less sleep.
• Health: I smoke – very rarely – but I smoke. I also eat garbage that I pick up at fast food joints. If my plans for Valentine’s Day fall through, I’m probably going to spend the weekend stocking up on chicken breasts and learning new and interesting ways to prepare them. Oh, and I think I’ll be putting smoking on hold for some time. Starting now.
• The Web site: I think it’s time to go whole hog with the entertainment webzine angle for ol’ Working Author and open up the site to freelance writers. There’s no way I can keep up with the amount of content I need by myself. I’m not set on this yet, but I’m getting there. I’ll keep you posted.

On an unrelated note: I’m getting a little traction with my screenplay. Looks like Mr. Actor just might come through after all.