When Jerry Springer folks gets in the way of writing and life

No way did I ever believe that the Jerry Springer lifestyle would affect me so much. The bad part is that I cannot tell the details of the repulsive slice of the Jerry Springer show lifestyle that has affected me enough to not write. The truth is indeed stranger than fiction. I always laughed at the contestants or whatever the folks are called on the Jerry Springer show. Now I've got a strong dose of that trailer park madness.

Because of embarrassment and shame, I can't even give any of the juicy details. And there definitely are juicy, slimy details. I guess since I was born in a trailer, it'll be impossible to escape the white trash lifestyle. Not much I've ever done has lifted me from the lower middle class into a respectable lifestyle. Oh well, it's just the way things are and it might be time to give up on much changing for me.

Another big problem for me is a right "club foot" that was never corrected as a child. It definitely could have been easily corrected at any time before puberty. That's another white trash story that I can tell. Evidently two year old kids get to decide whether to wear leg braces to straighten their (my) legs. So I finally got a shot at straightening it at 40 yo. The result just caused more problems.

Yesterday I had to go to an occupational therapist for disability. The therapist did some very minor tests of my legs and body. It was nothing more than pulling up each leg and twisting them around a bit. The pain that it caused for me was truly frightening. Just a small amount of activity caused excruciating pain. It was painful enough to scare the hell out of me.

The cause of the pain is something about sacroiliac joints on both sides of my pelvis that aren't working correctly. It was the type of pain that stuns a person. Driving home, I'm not ashamed to say that I shed a few tears over the pain and the hopelessness of my situation. I've got my Jerry Springer upbringing that trashed my legs and pelvis. And then at home I've got a whole new Jerry Springer situation to deal with.

I'm starting to think of an escape plan. Mostly a move to anywhere but here. If I do make a move, I'll start a new blog to talk about the moving on from my Jerry Springer existence. Since I have no real followers to this blog, it won't really matter though. I still want to chronicle what I'm going to do to escape the clutches of Jerry's folks. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! What a fucking joke.

Stop bitching about amateur screenwriters in your fucking blog

Stop your fucking bitching. That's right, you...Sparky. All you uptight dorks who get all bent out of shape about amateur screenwriters and screenwriting groups on the internets. I get this image in my mind of some 30 yr old, trust fund baby. Sparky with an MFA who has never worked a real day in his fucking life. The kind of dork who can only write about being an uptight (yuppie) character with other uptight and privileged characters. Instead of being concerned with your own limited life experience and inability to build a screenplay of surpassing quality, some uptight wannabe screenwriters get all kinds of self-deluded joy from bitching about aspiring screenwriters imagined to be down the food chain.

I'm sure there was some uptight caveman dork whining and bitching about some creative caveman sneaking into a cave with red crap to draw stuff on the cave walls. I'm sure that the uptight, dorky caveman also was from an imagined privileged elite background with some caveman degree in drawing on stuff. So the poor caveman/cavewoman without the ability to sell his drawing and win the love of the cavewoman/caveman had to crawl into some fucking cave to draw his animal pictures. The caveman (or should that be caveperson) crawled way back in a fucking cave to create something in peace. I have some idea why that was. Because the caveperson was bored and just needed something extra to get by in his/her caveperson existence.

For all you uptight Sparky's who label yourselves in some superior fashion in order to look down your nose at amateur screenwriters, just fucking stop your whining. I kind of enjoy ridiculing your sniveling, shrill bitching and calling you out as uptight Sparky's. There are plenty of people out in the real world who live ordinary lives and take great joy in having some distraction from that ordinary life in the form of creative expression. It isn't just about receiving checks in the mail from Hollywood for that creative endeavor for the vast majority of these people and even for you uptight, wannabe Sparkys.

When you uptight Sparky dorks are schooled in how to actually create a screenplay of surpassing quality by some ordinary person in flyover country, please stop your shrill, pathetic criticisms of their screenplays. When someone like Diablo Cody works in an office or even as a stripper and finds time to create too, please don't fucking piss and moan that she wrote something not about uptight, privileged people. When Nick Schenk spends his days working at some shitty job and his nights writing a screenplay in a Minnesota bar, don't throw your fucking hissy fits over his screenplay not being about people like you uptight dorks. Both Diablo & Nick did something you'll most likely never come close to achieving.

Some of you uptight dorks want to believe that you exist in an exclusive group of individuals qualified to create screenplays for film. I had some Sparky wannabe screenwriter dork make a disparaging comment about my dream of betting the ponies at Santa Anita while occasionally tapping on the keys of my laptop. The dork had to insinuate that Josh Olson of I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script fame also would be hanging out at Santa Anita betting the ponies. The Sparky dork was mostly offended that I have no desire in a million fucking years to sit at a Starbucks, drinking overpriced coffee and being too whacked on caffeine to create a fucking thing. The dork who prompted Josh Olson's rant must be at a Starbucks somewhere, sipping a latte and showing off his electronic devices. Those electronic gadgets that are the 21st century phallic equivalent of a big gun.

And quit your fucking shrill ass bitching about screenwriting groups on the internets and elsewhere. Whether it is Triggerstreet, DoneDealPro or anywhere else, PLEASE quit your fucking bitching and whining about these communities. I can't go an entire month without some uptight dork posting some uptight blog that insults a screenwriting group or the people who participate. These people are just looking for somewhere to express their creativity that is stifled so efficiently in the life of a modern adult. Trying to feel superior to them only makes you look like a dickhead.

For all you Sparky's & Sparkettes sitting at a Starbucks or its unfranchised equivalent with your fucking laptop, coffee and trendy electronic gadgets, FUCK YOU TOO! (Love that Al Pacino line!) There is a reason that you aren't creating screenplays of surpassing quality. Realize that you have advantages and tremendous disadvantages in what it takes to create a screenplay of surpassing quality. Tremendous disadvantages? Hell yes, like conforming to laughable standards like sitting at a Starbucks with your coffee, laptop and Apple product that somehow compensates for your baby carrot dick.

Who am I to mock those self-described screenwriter pros? Just some 47 year old guy from Kalamazoo who is tired of hearing your bitching, pissing & moaning and whining about people just like me. I'm just another amateur out there trying to express my creative side. What have I accomplished? There is a first draft of one of my screenplays over at Triggerstreet titled Somebody is Watching. It's about a guy who builds a fake UFO and flies it around at night. Look it up on that Apple product you stood in line to get...pindick. I almost feel obliged to apologize for not creating something about yuppies and/or uptight dork Sparky screenwriters. And if you don't like it or me or amateur screenwriters or screenwriting groups? Up yours, Sparky! All the way up with a red hot poker. (That one was from Robbie Benson!)

A day in the life of Joe Conservative

(copied from an anonymous source)

A day in the life of Joe Conservative:

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

He prepares his morning breakfast: bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment checks because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the taxpayer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.

The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved conservatives have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Note: Labels and party affiliations change. What doesn't change are the underlying political philosophies of liberalism and conservatism, and the fact that the liberals usually turned out to be right and the conservatives turned out to be wrong. And so it goes.

There's a backward ME in TEAM

I've never been much of a team player. There's always somebody out there to repeat the same old crap about there not being an "I" in TEAM. My response is usually that there's a backwards ME in there though. A real team player will point out that there's an "A" there to screw up the backwards ME. Yeah, we all know what "A" stands for and it rhymes with sasshole.

Seems like some aspiring and (supposedly) working screenwriters have an urge to look at writing a screenplay as a team effort. Some of these people even have the audacity to utilize the internet and online communities to write their screenplays. Others are gathering in classes and groups all over the country in the desire to assemble thousands of words into a screenplay of surpassing quality.

Some of these aspiring screenwriters are going to get some really shitty, jealous and uselessly nonconstructive criticism in these groups. They might even have to put up with some dumbass like me who absolutely wastes their time 75% of the time with worthless crap. That waste of time might even extend to worthless blog posts about issues irrelevant to screenwriting that are an absolute waste of time. You folks on internet communities might even just waste so much fucking time that you'll get personally involved in the lives of other screenwriters in your little community. These people are just a waste of time. You'll never meet most of them, so give up on all this community stuff and team player shit.

I've got this damned genetic propensity to rebel with about 75% of my white trash genetics. The other 25% is what keeps pulling me into the time wasting internet community known as Triggerstreet. That's right, 25% of my blood teems with Mennonite/Amish genetics. For all my white trash efforts to be a rebellious little bastard, that damned 25% keeps pulling me back to trying to emulate community stuff like barn raisings and other Mennonite/Amish endeavors.

That 25% genetic curse seems to have pulled me into that community over at Triggerstreet for almost four years. I've wasted a shitload of time over there trying to become a real, consistent, steadily-employed professional screenwriter. I've also wasted my time reading a couple hundred amateur screenplays and have only found a couple that deserve to make it to film. Some of these people are really unappreciative and don't deserve my time on their poorly crafted screenplays. The quantity of time I've wasted on the message boards chatting about crap has been a four year drain on my available time resources. Four years of wasted time.

I'll never get all any of that wasted time back and wouldn't have it any other way. That's right, even my 75% white trash genetics and mentality has begun to appreciate the Triggerstreet community. Wasted time, my ass. There are real people there going through just what I am on a daily basis. We're trying to do something great, the greatness of creating something of surpassing quality. It's tough to try. We get depressed. We get enthused by small successes. We have all of life's little problems that get in the way of creating anything remotely close to a screenplay of surpassing quality. Hell, one of those time wasters over at Triggerstreet squeezed out a little baby girl a few weeks ago and brought a tear to my cynical eye in the depth of the night. Fuck, what a waste of time!

75% of my genetics is that white trash, loner, rebel, tough guy. My dad used to say that I thought I was 10 feet tall and bulletproof. But that was after I choked some douchebag while biting him in the face, and made the douchebag emit a strange gurgling scream noise. Don't worry about any supposed psycho label from that little incident, cuz the guy had it coming plus a bit more than what he received. So it seems that those four years have left me as an unaccomplished internet tough guy who gets all misty-eyed every time some Triggerstreet wench births another future aspiring screenwriter.

If the day comes that I become a professional screenwriter or even that I lose some of the few writing skills and screenwriting knowledge I've attained, I'll be around over at Triggerstreet wasting my precious time. I'll be right over there at Triggerstreet, as long as they'll have me.

. .

Part 2: Characters for The End of Eden

The story of Chief White Pigeon (Wahbememe) provides an interesting and useful insight into the Potawatomi people and their leadership up to 1830. Wahbememe and many of the other Potawatomi chiefs were middle-aged men who had been involved in Tecumseh’s Rebellion in 1811 and The War of 1812. These chiefs were neither young nor naive. The advance of white settlers was something that the Potawatomi chiefs knew was unstoppable. Experience in war and travel throughout the Midwest and Canada had created a group of middle-aged chiefs who had seen how white settlers absorbed and divided up land for farming. They had seen other tribes driven west from states to the east. They knew very well how their land would be swallowed up and were trying to prepare the best way possible.

Since Wahbememe was a signer of The Treaty of Greenville in 1795, it can be assumed that he was middle-aged man and most likely in his 50’s at the time of his death around 1830. He also was involved with Tecumseh in Tecumseh’s Rebellion around 1811 and fought on the side of the British in the War of 1812. Military records from the War of 1812 also indicate that Wahbememe was an important Potawatomi chief and leader. He was also a recognized leader of a village, because his unoccupied village was destroyed by American soldiers.

When I researched other Potawatomi chiefs living in villages in southwestern Michigan and northern Indiana, many of these leaders of the Potawatomi people at the time of Wahbememe’s sacrifice were also middle-aged men who had experienced war and fighting in the War of 1812 and Tecumseh’s Rebellion. I chose to focus on several chiefs because of their relevance to the story that I wanted to tell. Those chiefs were Metea, Leopold Pokagon, Menominee and Shipshewana. From the many Potawatomi leaders in the area, those characters were chosen to tell the story in The End of Eden for a variety of reasons.

Chief Metea as a character is particularly intriguing. His intellect, education and experience was so complete that he could speak flawless English and was a skilled orator. From my research, his intellect, leadership skills and oratory skills made for the perfect motivation to have Metea murdered. Metea died following “accidentally” drinking poison that he supposedly mistook for whiskey. If you have read Metea’s eloquent speeches, it quickly becomes apparent that he was a true leader of the Potawatomi who would be difficult to control and especially remove. If anyone out there truly believes that Metea mistook poison for whiskey, I have a sweet bridge for sale up at Mackinaw City. I used my belief that Metea was murdered in the screenplay.

Chief White Pigeon and the other Potawatomi leaders were making the best deals and terms in treaties to stay within their reservations and assimilate with white settlers in the treaties made before 1830. The land that would become the city of White Pigeon was ceded to the government by Wahbememe and other chiefs in the Treaty of 1826 in order to build a government road from Detroit to Chicago. They knew that this road would bring white settlers to the area, and it definitely did just that.

One of the first white settlers to the White Pigeon prairie was Leonard Cutler and his family. Leonard had fought in The War of 1812 and wished to return to the White Pigeon prairie to live. On the family’s trip, Leonard became deathly ill and was saved by the Potawatomi when he arrived. It’s a telling statement on the goodwill of the Potawatomi people that they saved the life of one of the first white settlers to their former lands despite him being a former soldier. This bit of actual history serves as the beginning of the story. In my screenplay, Leonard is not only seeking a new home but is distancing himself from the lure of whiskey because of severe alcoholism. He is saved by Wahbememe himself, Leonard offers to teach Wahbememe and the Potawatomi to use the white man’s agriculture.

I know some may feel this is an insult to a thousand years or more of successful agriculture by the Potawatomi people. That might be true if Leonard hadn’t brought a new and state of the art farm implement for the late 1820’s: the cast iron plow. The iron plow was a huge advancement in agriculture. It allowed for a much more rapid advancement of settlers into the west. A farmer using a cast iron plow in the 1820’s was using state of the art machinery. Soils could be plowed and planted that could never have been tilled before. This is yet another reason that the Potawatomi people faced a sudden influx of settlers in the 1830’s and 1840’s. Wahbememe and the other leaders of the Potawatomi would have definitely been intrigued by the cast iron plow and interested in using every advantage possible to live upon their new reservations.

There is a protagonist priest character, Father Stephen Baden. Father Baden ran the Catholic mission at Niles and sought converts to Catholicism throughout the Potawatomi nation. Chief Leopold Pokagon and Chief Menominee were both converts to Catholicism. Leopold Pokagon and the Potawatomi at Niles used the Catholic mission to successfully sue the government to avoid removal west in the 1830’s. Chief Menominee converted to Catholicism and abided by every treaty he signed as a leader to resist removal. Despite Menominee’s conversion to Catholicism and desire to live on his reservation, federal Indian Agents obtained fraudulently signed treaties that ceded his reservation. Menominee was loaded upon a prison wagon at gunpoint for his trip on The Trail of Death west of the Mississippi River.

I’ve thought about changing the priest character to Father Benjamin M. Petit. Although it wouldn’t be as historically accurate, Father Petit sacrificed his health and his life by accompanying the Potawatomi on the “Trail of Death”. If there is a rewrite, he will most likely take the place of Father Baden as the priest character.

Coming up with the antagonist or “bad guys” didn’t take much historical research. The main antagonist is John Shields Tipton. At a young age, John Tipton’s father and uncle (mother’s brother) were killed by the Cherokee in Tennessee. His second wife’s father, Captain Spier Spencer, was killed fighting Indians in The Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 where Tipton was also a soldier. In addition, even Tipton’s ancestors proclaim that he “was a born Indian hater” and that he “pursued Indian war parties in his early days and lamented in his writings when they escaped”. In his role as a federal Indian Agent, his ancestors state that Tipton “may have at times taken monetary advantage of his position as commissioner of Indian affairs through land dealings and the appointment of friends and relatives to lucrative jobs, he was neither better nor worse than those who served at the time”.

Since Tipton’s father, uncle and father-in-law were all killed fighting Indians and possibly some of them being Potawatomi, any rational person would conclude that a person such as Tipton could not possibly deal impartially as an Indian Agent and that Tipton would be automatically disqualified from such a government position. After securing the job of federal Indian Agent, Tipton served an important role in government efforts to remove the Potawatomi people. He also participated in escorting about 900 Potawatomi people at gunpoint from Indiana to the Mississippi River in 1838 on the “Trail of Death”. His ancestors don’t seem to mention that fact anywhere that I can locate. John Tipton became an easy choice for the number one bad guy of the bunch.

You may wonder how the government could have a character with such contradictory motivations as John Tipton had with the Potawatomi people. Michigan territorial Governor Lewis Cass displayed identical contradictory motives with the Potawatomi people. While Cass negotiated treaties with the Potawatomi that seemed to allow the Potawatomi to live upon their reservations, he also believed firmly in removal of all Indians to lands across the Mississippi River while leading the Potawatomi people to believe otherwise. Lewis Cass was central to implementing the removal policies of president Andrew Jackson. Cass also ran unsuccessfully for president and was pro-slavery utilizing the “Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty”.

Another bad guy/antagonist is Abel C. Pepper. Pepper serves the role in the screenplay as Tipton’s willing lieutenant. In history, Pepper became an Indian Agent too. He followed orders and did everything possible to obtain signed treaties, including bribes, fraud and through the use of whiskey. Pepper also participated in rounding up the Potawatomi people at gunpoint on more than one occasion and lead the Potawatomi people at gunpoint on The Trail of Death. Including him as another antagonist/bad guy was certainly a pleasure.

There are also Potawatomi characters who work in my screenplay as bad guys/antagonists. Pierre Moreau was a French man who married a Potawatomi woman and became a “chief” at the Nottawaseppi reservation. His son, Sauauquette serves as another antagonist. Sauauquette was involved in trading away the Nottawaseppi reservation and is claimed to have boasted of the great sale he had made of the reservation-land owned by the Great Spirit, and that for two quarts of whiskey he would sell the same again should opportunity occur. I could find no known livings relatives of Pierre Moreau or Sauauquette within the Potawatomi people. Sauauquette was murdered before removal west for trading away Potawatomi lands. His grave is on the St. Joseph River in Mendon at a location that I hope to visit one day.

There are also other minor characters based on actual historical characters. Almost all the characters used to tell the story are based on actual characters and events in history. The lives of actual characters and events served to tell the story in The End of Eden. Men who had fought in war less than 20 years earlier come together in the late 1820’s in Michigan. Potawatomi chiefs and people faced an influx of settlers who would rapidly change their landscapes and lives. The history of these characters provided more than enough material for a movie and more than a story about why Wahbememe heroically sacrificed his life for his friends.

Screenplay available as a pdf file at: http://www.mediafire.com/?rnmjimon25h

More to come...

The Potawatomi people and The End of Eden

About a year ago, I finished a screenplay called THE END OF EDEN based on a Potawatomi chief named Wahbememe or “White Pigeon”. A monument to Chief White Pigeon is located just outside of the Michigan city that bears his name and tells part of what is his story. “In memory of Wahbememe, Chief White Pigeon who about 1830 gave his life to save the settlement at this place”. Then along the base of the monument, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. Chief White Pigeon gave his life by running 150 miles from Detroit to a small settlement that most likely was called Millville to warn the settlers there and then passed away from exhaustion.

Screenplay available as a pdf file at: http://www.mediafire.com/?rnmjimon25h


Chief White Pigeon’s grave sits near the intersection of two former Indian trails that would become US-131 and US-12. I still remember the day that my mother let us skip a day from elementary school for a trip to visit relatives. On that day, we stopped on our trip to visit Chief White Pigeon’s grave. Being about 6 or 7 years old, I distinctly remember staring at the granite monument on that warm spring day and questioning what had motivated this man to run so far that he died. It made enough of an impression on me that I could have told you the basic story of Chief White Pigeon at any time after that day. I’ve passed through that intersection several hundred times and stopped at Chief White Pigeon’s grave at least a dozen times since that motherly inspired day of truancy almost 40 years ago.

More from accident than intention, I became an aspiring screenwriter several years ago. If you want the story of how or why that happened, it’s covered partially in my blog. I can fill you in on the details for anyone wanting to know more. The idea for using Chief White Pigeon's heroic action and his death as the subject matter for a screenplay also came mostly by accident. While searching for some genealogical information on the internet, Wahbememe’s monument kept coming up in searches. Wahbememe popped up often enough to finally get my attention. There it was, a great concept for a movie.

It was in the wee hours of the morning, when I should have been working on a still half-finished screenplay, that my journey into writing The End of Eden began. Thankfully, I have had the opportunity to research and learn about Wahbememe, Potawatomi history, Michigan history and the history of the first settlers to southwestern Michigan. Yet nothing that I learned provided the answer to the question I’d asked myself 40 years earlier. I exhausted every historical resource and will most likely never find the answer to the motivation for Wahbememe's heroic trek. What I did find was something much better, the history of the Potawatomi people.

If you read or even skim my screenplay, it’s very important to realize that the basis for the basic story must center on settlers and the local Potawatomi people near what is now called White Pigeon, Michigan. Even without a complete answer to why Wahbememe heroically sacrificed his life 180 years ago, I knew there was more than enough for a screenplay after only a couple hours of research into the Potawatomi people, government officials and Michigan settlers. The best possible motivation for a screenwriter occurred during those first few hours of research. I became angry, offended and really pissed off. One of the most crushing lessons that I’ve had to learn from my life is this: that people in positions of power are far too often corrupt, criminal, unethical, venal, self-serving and duplicitous. And here I was again finding the same bad guys jumping off the pages of history books. Every great movie needs those bad guys(antagonists) and the good guys (protagonists), and it didn’t take long to find amazing examples of both.

More to come tomorrow...

My next post will be prior to April 1

Last year I wrote a screenplay for film based on the life of a Potawatomi historical chief named Wahbememe or White Pigeon. Before April 1st, I'm planning to write something about what I learned in my research to write the screenplay.

Here is a link to the screenplay through Mediafire. It should allow you to download the screenplay as a pdf file.

http://www.mediafire.com/?rnmjimon25h

Or you can copy and paste this to bring it up:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/rnmjimon25h/J:\THE END OF EDEN V 1TS.pdf

If my blog seems somewhat inactive, that is the reason.

Health insurance provided by corporations is unconstitutional

Health insurance provided by corporations is unconstitutional Based on the recent Supreme Court decision, corporations act as individuals with a distinct identity. Labor executed by a worker is compensated only by payment for that labor from this individual/corporation. These individuals/corporations also have a government sponsored (through tax cuts & subsidies) incentive to provide health insurance to employees.

Because health insurance is not a contractual part of any compensation, the individuals/corporations attain a slaveholder and slave relationship with the employee. This slaveholder and slave relationship also extends to the family members of the employee. This extension to the family of the employee creates a further slavery relationship that creates an undo, illegal and unconstitutional burden on the worker to the individuals/corporations.

Employer provided healthcare by individuals/corporations is a clear violation of the 13th amendment against slavery, because it creates a slaveowner relationship between the individual/corporation employer (slaveowner) and the employee (slave) that also creates a further slave/slaveholder relationship with the employee's family that is also a violation of the 13th Amendment.

The federal government is set to further enhance and expand the slaveholder and slave relationship that exists. When there is no legal or contractual reason for an employee to be provided health insurance by the individual/corporation, the government has created and enhanced the current slave/slaveholder relationship that exists within American corporate and business culture. This extension of the slaveholder and slave relationship by activities of the federal government violates the 13th Amendment to the constitution.

Of course, the slaveholder as the individual/corporation maintains an advantage in an employment relationship that extends beyond rational and ordinary compensation received by the employee and makes the employee a slave. Given the recent Supreme Court decision recognizing the individual identity of corporations as individuals with 1st Amendment rights to influence politics, those individuals clearly cannot be given the rights of a slaveholder as clearly abolished in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution.

I understand that my Constitutional argument is simplistic and dogmatic. I just plain and simply disagree with how, why or where a person chooses to work should affect his/her health or that of his/her family. The Constitution clearly states that is the role of government to "promote the general welfare". The USA should have government provided health care for all citizens.

When a mystery becomes annoying?

If you come here as a screenwriter, there's one thing I'd like to tell you. When you create a mystery in one of your screenplays, make sure that the reader/viewer WANTS TO KNOW the answer to the mystery. I'm not joking in the least bit. It sounds so damned simple, but it isn't at all.

There is a line that you can cross in creating a mystery. And I'm not talking about a mystery genre, but a mystery that can lie within any genre. That line is when you cross into having the reader/viewer NEED TO KNOW. That's right, I don't want to need to know a damned thing. Nothing. If I need to know instead of wanting to know, you've lost me and my genuine interest in a whole lot of what happens.

The inevitable tends to happen when I need to know something in a screenplay or a movie. I really don't give a shit if I know, but you're going to tell me. That's right, tell me. There won't be enough set-up to really care about the mystery or it's way too obvious. Then out comes the stunningly obvious or amazingly boring revelation.

Listing examples of each isn't why I'm writing this. I'm writing this so you don't write something with a revelation to a mystery that will ruin even the remote chance your screenplay has of success. And don't make the excuse that you're writing some direct to DVD thing that doesn't need to be written well. The secret to any successful mystery is making me want to know something rather than needing to know.

If you're a fan of bad movies that routinely have storylines with mysteries that no one cares or wants the answer to, then your chances of success are greatly diminished. Seriously, don't watch shitty movies for inspiration. If your favorite mystery is crushed by the critics, there is a reason. That reason is more than likely that the story didn't actually contain a mystery. It had fallen into needing to know, and that ain't a mystery.

This all brings me to Memento, and the reason that I kind of liked it and have no desire to see it again. Part way through the movie, I lost the desire to want the answers to the mystery. I realized that the bassackwards nature of the movie created the only want to know that there was. If it was told chronologically, I wouldn't give a shit, want to know or have enough desire to know much. Yes, it achieved what it set out to do. ONCE and only once.

Don't write a backasswards steaming turd like Memento. I don't want to see it or read your bassackwards screenplay. And don't rewrite anything else that you admire. The writers of Memento figured out how to make the viewer want to know something because of the bassackwards nature of the film/screenplay. You have to figure out how to make me the reader/viewer want to know in your own way.

Please, do that. Make me want to know the answer to a mystery. Set it up, do it well. I'll thank you and admire you for doing so.

Killer whales, killer yuppies, killer cougars and killer Shiba Inus

If this post is supposed to have anything to do with screenwriting, then skip to one of the others. A woman got "killed" by a KILLER whale at SeaWorld in Orlando. It didn't exactly kill her. Instead, the whale drug her by her ponytail into the water and she drowned. So that "killer" part of killer whale came true for the unfortunate female killer whale trainer.

I'm curious whether the whale had some kind of instinctual urge to drown its prey before eating it? If so, then the killer whale probably did want to kill the woman and possibly to eat her after drowning her. I took a minute to look on the internet and can't find an easy answer. It seems like I remember that killer whales do something to seals or sea lions to make them dead and easier to eat. That might be drowning them or maybe just batting them around.

Back when I lived in Chicago, I didn't actually own a car. I would actually ride my bike all the way to Wisconsin, turn around at 50 miles and ride back to Chicago. I did that 100 miles in 5 hours and twenty seconds one day. The goal was under 5 hours, so I tried again the next day and cut almost ten minutes off that time. This was almost all on roads, riding all alone and braving death with every mile. Ask any cyclist about riding 100 miles under five hours, and you should get a respectful response. It's like golfing very well.

The most dangerous risk to a cyclist is the white, killer yuppie. In all my experience as a cyclist and bicycle messenger, yuppies are by far the most dangerous people to the health and well-being of cyclists. Why is that? I'd expound on my opinion of yuppies, but I'm a bit afraid of offending some writer types who tend to be yuppies. I do enough of that when "screenwriters" defend shitty scripts and shitty movies and when they bash Triggerstreet to feel all kinds of sparky.

Female yuppies are only worse. I had some stupid, yuppie woman in San Francisco try to hit me with her car to kill me. I chased her down and parked my bike in front of her car. I don't remember what I said, because I was mostly wishing I had a pistol to shoot her in the face through her windshield. There are killer yuppie women and killer whales. I'd rather get drowned working with killer whales than run over by a killer yuppie. At least I'd make the news.

In April of 2008, this killer cougar managed to travel all the way through Wisconsin to Roscoe Village in the city of Chicago.



This "killer" cougar scared yuppies in Roscoe Village so much that the Chicago police shot and killed it. It did weigh about 120 pounds and was a wild "killer" cougar. Its stomach contained deer that it had caught and eaten on its trip to downtown Chicago. If you know where the Cubs play at Wrigley Field, then that is less than a mile from where this "killer" cougar was shot.

It didn't seem right to me to shoot it. But it was lost and jumping over tall fences and obviously could have killed a Chicago yuppie or two. So the police shot it and killed what is obviously a beautiful animal. A cougar is the same as a mountain lion or a jaguar. It still wasn't right.

Less than a mile from where I live, there was a cougar spotted by a couple people about a month ago. It was surprising how many people were scared for their families, themselves or their pets. A cougar made it all the way through Wisconsin, northern Illinois and almost to Wrigley Field without eating any people and maybe not even any pets. Obviously these "killer" cougars are nocturnal and try very, very hard not to be seen by people.

I talked to a guy who said he thought he saw the cougar. His story actually matched one of the other witnesses in the time and location. Both stated that they were driving home on the same road from a "second shift" job. This guy said he'd shoot it if the cougar came near his house, because he has a toddler in his home. I really thought it was cool just to possibly have such a cool animal near my home.

This is my killer Shiba Inu named Tessa.



Tessa loves pretty much everyone. She loves babies and is especially careful with little kids and babies. She give babies kisses in a manner that makes it pretty obvious that she's trying to be careful with her kisses. She's scared of two of the neighbor's Chihuahuas, because they come running at her all crazy and yipping. She's twelve years old now, and she's about the sweetest most gentle dog I've ever had.

But Tessa is a KILLER. If you saw what she does to muskrats, you would never trust her near any baby or even a cat.



Spazzy the cat has a ritual of pushing her paws into Tessa's stomach for about ten minutes. Then she puts her head on Tessa's butt and goes to sleep.

When Tessa sees a muskrat (aka "bad thing"), she goes into KILLER mode. This isn't a pulling the trainer by her ponytail under the water type of killing. Tessa hates water, but she'll dive into the water to expertly fling the muskrat with her jaws onto shore. Then she circles the poor muskrat and pounces. What follows is really too gory to describe. I only saw the tail end of her first killing of a muskrat and kind of figured it was already dead before she got it. But trust me, she's gotten about ten of them in the past five years. Muskrats trigger some instinctual urge for Tessa to kill the shit out of the poor things.

My sweet little dog becomes a true killer. Maybe it's the same instinctual thing that makes killer whales kill whale trainers, for yuppies to try to kill bike messengers and for cougars to kill deer. Life's a bitch. There's bound to be something around that can kill a person. There might be a cougar within a mile of me right now. Or there might be a human or two who would love to run me over on a bicycle. Who knows? Do you think I might need a pistol?!?

Nixonian ethics with a B&E and missing time tapes

Have you ever thought that someone had been in your home while you weren't there? It's a feeling that I've really only had once. It was more than just a feeling, the burglars left evidence. To write about this will anger the perpetrators of the crime. I know this because of a recent discovery that writing about this event caused great upset to the people who hired the burglars.

Several years ago, I'd been fired from a job for allowing my physician to view a videotape of my workplace. There's quite a story to tell with that, but I'm gonna stick to the burglary and the Nixonian edit job.

I had a lawsuit for health related reasons and the former employer scheduled a deposition. One of those little voices told me to take a rather large box of paperwork with me, and I did put the box in my vehicle. The deposition was scheduled about 45 minutes from Kalamazoo in Battle Creek. This was the first of many red flags.

So I arrived for the deposition that was being done at the office of the company doing the transcription. Second red flag. The corporation flew an attorney in for the day from Pittsburgh. This was the third red flag. The lawsuit didn't merit the extreme expense of the attorney and his travel. Let's just say that the corporation spent many times, probably much more than ten times what it would have cost them to settle the lawsuit.

So the dickweed attorney from Pittsburgh gets started with the deposition. It quickly became apparent that he was doing everything possible to waste time. The deposition lasted something like 4 or 5 hours. Like I said, he was doing everything possible to keep me there as long as possible. That little voice told me that the guy was stalling for something. Plus, he had that guilty look on his face, that hand caught in the cookie jar look.

So I FINALLY get done with the deposition and my urge to jump across the table and crush the maggot attorney's skull. Then I drove the 45 minutes home with my box of documents. But I still knew that they were keeping me there, 45 minutes from home for a reason other than the deposition. When I got home, I found out why.

I had an IBM ThinkPad laptop that was given to me a couple years prior. It had a malfunctioning monitor. If you turned it on, sometimes the screen wouldn't work. So I just had to try it again and again until it stared working normally. When I got home, I really didn't sense anything moved or that the dogs were upset. My laptop was beside my bed on a nightstand. When I turned it on, it wouldn't work (as usual). So I went through the process of messing with it until it worked. When it did start, the display had an error message that the download of the memory from the computer was not complete.

Yep, they'd been in my house to download the memory from the computers. Everything made sense after that. I was glad that I took the box of documents with me. What were they looking for? I think it was mostly to see who I'd been talking to about being fired and other nefarious and corrupt deeds by the corporation. I believe that they were worried about the media becoming involved. Actually the getting fired part is what got me into screenwriting and would probably make quite a movie.

The woman who did the transcription called me over the weekend to clarify some of the words used in my answers. She also told me how unusual the entire situation was. The corporation was paying her top dollar to complete the transcription immediately and on the weekend. There were many other red flags that she expressed in regard to the corporation's attorney and the circumstances of the deposition. Paying for the deposition was probably nothing compared to paying burglars.

One of the things that the corporation and its board of directors had pulled involved tampering with a different transcription. In the process of firing me, the corporation had to have a tape recorded hearing with the union present. When the corporation did a transcription of the audio recording, almost everything said by my union representative was missing. Poof! Gone! There were other changes made to the "official" transcript of the event.

I brought my own digital audio recorder and carried it in my shirt pocket. The union wanted to know what was missing from the official transcript and the corporation responded with bizarre statements about words and deeds on my part that never occurred. My own digital recorder is a bit complicated, and I thought that it hadn't worked. So for several months the corrupt corporation makes numerous bizarre and self-serving statements about what happened in the gaps. At least Nixon just said there were gaps and didn't attempt to fill in the gaps with fraud. There was also a signed and dated affidavit from the corporate hearing officer about what was missing from the audio transcription.

A few months later, I found out that I didn't know how to rewind the recorder. I had the entire investigation on audio. This was prior to the deposition and the breaking and entering. Let's just say that the company and the union both went from corrupt and attempting to be professional to something that was a mutual intent on doing anything to avoid the truth of what happened.

I even went to the board of directors for the corporation with the recording and letters describing the corruption and criminality of what happened. The board of directors included a public university president and a former state governor. I halfway expected that a university president and former state governor would not be party to such corruption. Boy was I wrong. The response from the corporation only reaffirmed the Nixonian ethics and integrity of the board of directors and corporation. It is worth mentioning that the board of directors changed their Code of Ethics and removed their Code of Ethics from public use and view because of their Nixonian ethics and integrity. All because of little old me.

Somewhere in this process, I discovered that the corporation's CEO was scheduled to give a speech on ethics at a major university. How could I possibly sit still and let someone like that speak about ethics when I knew the true nature of the corporation, the CEO and the board of directors? So I sent some correspondence to the president of the university (not the same institution as the member of the board of directors) and key members of the staff for the business school at the university.

A few weeks later, I received a letter from the university. I had been invited to attend the CEO's speech on ethics at the university. Did I go? Hell no! After all the corruption and criminality that the CEO and corporation had been party to, the last thing I was going to do was get involved in something more devious and more criminal and directed towards me. This would have been a long way from Kalamazoo, and I'd have been screwed if something crazy happened to me.

Eventually I settled with the corporation for a paltry amount of money. The union absolutely sold me out to the corporation. The union actually had no problem whatsoever that the hearing transcripts were modified and that perjury had been committed by issuing a completely false signed statement. One thing that I did not do was to sign any sort of non-disclosure agreement. The corporation wanted me to sign something saying I'd never work for them. That was pretty funny. Working for the corporation is right up there on my list of potential employment with being a fluffer for HIV positive porn stars and being Dicktard Cheney's hunting buddy.

The ironic thing is that I actually need to thank the corrupt board of directors and would like to personally thank the corrupt university president and the corrupt former state governor. Seriously, this event was what brought me into screenwriting. Without the corruption of these people, there is almost no way that I would have ever ventured into screenwriting. And I'm actually not bad at coming up with concepts and utilizing the craft of screenwriting to create a competent screenplay. So these corrupt and unethical individuals did me a huge favor and gave me a tremendous gift.

It was my rather brief description of being fired while speaking to cinematographer James Glennon on the telephone that propelled me into screenwriting. Jim thought the Nixonian ethics of the corporation and my attempt to remedy a lethal workplace hazard might make a nice concept for a screenplay. Maybe, maybe not! But it got me to write, and I'm truly very thankful for that.

(It's worth mentioning that the initial problem that caused me to send a videotape of my former place of employment to my physician was eventually repaired and partially resolved. I had to literally beg Michigan's governor Jennifer Granholm to get it done, but she saw the obvious hazards and participated in remedying the most dangerous condition. She did absolutely nothing to remedy other obvious problems or to assist me or recognize me in any way whatsoever. I was lucky that she was governor at the time, because a MIOSHA (Michigan's OSHA) employee told me that there would have been no intervention by the prior Republican governor.)

Bad blacklist scripts

This is the first year the annual blacklist has meant much to me as an aspiring screenwriter. There was a list of scripts that had been passed over by producers and still garnered enough respect to collect votes for the blacklist. Some of these scripts will make it to film and many will not. But why won't they?

Many of this year's blacklist scripts are available on the internet with a bit of scrounging around, and screenwriters salivate at the chance to get a read of what so many producers liked. It's a big chance to learn about what these producers and bigshots in Hollywood are looking for. But is it really? Is that really what a screenwriter should learn?

One of the things that I learned from the 2009 blacklist was that almost all of the screenplays had been passed over by producers for one or more very specific reasons. For three of the scripts that I read, the reasons became painfully obvious. You could almost hear the reason a producer would give, "Yeah, I like it BUT..." Many believe that the screenplays are passed over for minor reasons such as casting or just not working in the genre. Wrong, there are often much larger and more specific reasons. If you got all the producers that voted on the blacklist in one room, they could quickly come up with a consensus on the flaw or flaws for each screenplay.

My read of some of the blacklist scripts was quite an education into how screenwriters ignore or don't recognize those flaws. The comments that I read from other aspiring screenwriters seemed to be more about how much they liked or didn't like the screenplays. What I didn't see and read was an analysis of what a producer would say after "I like it BUT..." Why had these guys and gals passed on what was otherwise a praiseworthy screenplay?

This is exactly the question you should ask yourself when you create a screenplay. Are you writing something that can be very well written and still get that BUT when it makes its way to producers. Aspiring screenwriters should be reading the screenplays from the annual blacklist and trying their best to identify flaws that put the script on the list. Those screenplays all had flaws, and some of them had huge flaws. A few had huge flaws that would almost certainly prevent the success of the screenplay.

As an aspiring screenwriter laying in a bed with a laptop in Kalamazoo, you're probably thinking that I'm just some cynical douchebag. You might be thinking that I don't have the credentials to be criticizing screenplays on the blacklist. I am smart enough not to get into internet battles over the flaws of screenplays from the blacklist or to give a biting example of a specific flaw. You never know when you'll meet an enemy that you made in the past, even up close and personal.

I'm serious about this critical analysis of the blacklist thing. Don't read the blacklist with glowing admiration that may not be deserved. Learn what you can about why each screenplay was passed on numerous times by the same people. The blacklist isn't necessarily a place you want your screenplay to be. There you are again calling me a stupid wannabe hack from Kalamazoo. Maybe you're right, BUT...

Kicking a team player in the face

Many moons ago, I worked for a guy who spouted each and every popular motivational business management phrase in his insane attempt at managing his people. Whatever buzz words flowed his way through the corporate structure became a mantra for months. "Team player", "proactive" and many more. It was always hilarious, because the guy attempted to explain the relevance of these phrases and usually missed any definition that made much sense.

There ought to be a nice phrase for this guy. He had all the hallmarks of the Peter Principle (In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence), but his incompetence was insanity that disguised itself as management. You could almost see his thoughts as he scribbled notes about what to run to his boss with to prove his competence as a manager. It got really sad and quite insane. He tried so damned hard to understand and give examples of how the buzz words were helping the company and his department.

One very specific thing dawned on me later. This guy was exactly what they wanted, a collaborator. They wanted someone willing to do anything to maintain his desperate and pathetic hold on his job, and I do mean ANYTHING. I'm betting his bosses laughed at his pathetic attempts to understand simple buzz words and his examples of how he implemented those plans. While I'm writing this, Stalag 17 is on TCM. This guy is exactly the type of guy that the Nazis needed to perpetrate evil.

There's got to be a word or a cutesy business phrase for this type of person. There should be a cutesy business term just like the Peter Principle for these people. The classic example is Humphrey Bogart tumbling ball bearings in his hand as he loses his mind in a military courtroom. After that scene, Fred McMurray gets liquored up and explains that during peacetime the military runs on guys like Captain Ball Bearings. I believe it was Captain Yellow Stain or something like that in The Caine Mutiny (1954).

The funny thing about this dirtbag was he tried to use one of his "slowguns" to fire me. I wasn't a team player. Team player! He was insane when he made that accusation, cracking up, right at the edge of control. His face quivered, lips trembling, eyes watering. Oh no! NOT A TEAM PLAYER! I wanted to climb over that desk and kick the douchebag right in the face.

This whole rant has something to do with a concept that has been banging around in my head for a screenplay. WWII was the inspiration for movies like Stalag 17, The Cain Mutiny and many more. We've got our own wars today and an economic war being waged within the borders of the US of A. There's likely to be dozens of films as a response to our current wars. Clooney's Up In The Air and Tommy Lee Jones' In The Valley Of Elah are a couple nice examples.

I'd like my screenplay to say something about team players and collaborators. It's The dialogue of characters is banging around in my head. "Team players get bonuses" "Team players are proactive" "Team players don't ask and don't tell"...

I am glad that I didn't kick that dumbass in the face. He got what he deserved and had to find a new team.

Reading "BAD" scripts on Triggerstreet and how to learn from them

After being a member at Triggerstreet for several years, I'm a bit defensive about what negative things might be said about it. How defensive? Let's just say I'm like Sean Penn at a Tea Party/TownHall Meetup in Paducah, Kentucky. Remember Sean Penn when he was married to Madonna? That's me. So watch your mouth or suffer the consequences, Sparky.

This rant isn't to defend the quality of screenplays available on Triggerstreet. That "bad" label can be applied just like you can get away with saying 16 year old kids are bad drivers. Inexperienced and bad kind of go together for many skills. The ability to drive a car on your first try doesn't mean you won't be blasting around the track at Indianapolis someday.

Kevin Spacey uses the metaphor of an elevator being sent back down. I've quoted this several times in defense of Triggerstreet and didn't remember that Kevin used it in discussing the website he founded. I mistakenly believed that it had come from actor, Ben Johnson, but as usual I was wrong. Turns out that the elevator reference actually came from actor Jack Lemmon. But Ben Johnson said something that I really enjoy too but misremembered, I never expected to become a star and was always content to stay two or three rungs down the ladder and last awhile. When I do get a little ahead, I see what I can do to help others.

Here' a photo of Ben Johnson from one of my favorite films, SHANE:


If you become a member at Triggerstreet to download something that you'd like to describe as a "bad" screenplay, I'd prefer that you just stay away. Seriously. Why? It's more than just the shitty karma that you'll bring to Triggerstreet. It's because you don't know what "bad" is in the first place. You can polish a turd and put whipped cream all over it and call it a sundae, but it's shit. However, you could do irreparable harm by labeling a diamond in the rough as "bad" in a review and feel a false sense of superiority in doing so.

Here's the truth about what you encounter at Triggerstreet. If you can understand that the script is a turd or possibly a diamond in the rough and why, you've got a chance to learn something. That means you've grown to understand how to approach screenplays written from different levels of experience and skill. If you can do that, then maybe you can actually learn from reading screenplays of different experience and quality levels.

My own reviews as SRHITE at Triggerstreet tend to be detailed and ruffle a writer's feathers now and then. Some writers don't understand that going into great detail and critical analysis requires an output of time that isn't possible for screenplays of lesser quality. Anything that I think is relevant gets mentioned, if it can somehow make the script better and more marketable. As usual, I can be wrong. I've learned that someone from Hollywood can actually say tell a writer to "send it". Anything I can do to help that writer be successful if that happens is worthwhile.

Some scripts just can't be read with an eye to detail. Maybe at its core the script is absolutely a piece of crap, but maybe not. One of the best scripts I've encountered on Triggerstreet or elsewhere would be considered "bad" by most screenwriters. The writer made the mistake of adding something supernatural to a story that didn't need it. There were other problems with the screenplay, but it had a huge and rough diamond at its core. In a review, I told the writer that I'd love to steal his concept and still have to resist the temptation to do so today. The script disappeared from Triggerstreet, and I'm hoping to one day see that it was polished into the gem it had the potential to be.

Some of the screenplays that are really tough to read tend to have similar problems. A reader can easily become frustrated and label the script as "bad". Like most amateur screenwriters out there, that reader could also tell the writer that he/she will never sell anything or see it even come close to being made into a movie. But maybe you can skim the thing to see what its greatest flaw(s) is/are and identify it/them. Let's say the writer is trying to tell two different stories. If you can see that, then you will know when you make the same mistake. That sounds like learning to me!

I've seen the people who come to Triggerstreet with bad intentions. They're around for a short time and then "poof"...gone! Good riddance. Sometimes they rant on the message board to stir up trouble. Sometimes just to pen a few scathing reviews before posting a polished-turd sundae that is just a piece of shit at its core. In the end, it's all about karma. "BAD" karma.

As for Triggerstreet, I'm in it for the long haul. That means I'll be there as long as they'll have me. Like Ben Johnson, I'll be content to stay two or three rungs down the ladder and last for a while...

When good ain't so good

Somewhere I read that there is always a better word than "good" in your screenplay's dialogue. Now every occurrence of the word brings an immediate red flag for me when reading a script. It definitely makes me look at dialogue with a more critical eye.

Let's take a good look at the uses of "good" in the first draft of one of my scripts.

Good morning. Could that be better? The character is a pompous douchebag, so I'd say it could be better. How about something like, Right fine morning? So that's a case when there's a gooder version.

Does a man’s heart good to see a white family on the prairie. Same douchebag speaking. He's actually a racist douchebag. In this case, I'd say that the line of dialogue could be better without "good". Pleasing to my heart to see a white family on this prairie.

Fetch more. And limb wood, a good bunch. Can this one be better without "good"? This is a mother telling her children to get firewood, but more to go away for a few minutes. I'd probably keep this one here. She's speaking to two children under ten years old.

That sneaky red devil certainly be up to no good. This is the racist douchebag's first lieutenant. He's also drunk. This occurrence could definitely go. I'd say that the dialogue should be changed to, That sneaky red devil certainly be up to something.

Covet is good? This is a middle-aged Potawatomi chief with some command of the English language. I'm thinking it would stay. The word would most likely fit the question.

Much too good. Again, I'd keep it. This is response from a middle-aged settler.

Good day, gentlemen. This is Potawatomi Chief Metea who spoke better English than virtually any white man. This occurrence of "good" definitely needs to go. In this case, the character's eloquence could be shown better.

How’s about whiskey? Where’s the good stuff? This character is a jester type. Fearful, boastful and boisterous. Just off the top of my head, this could be improved by something like, Where you keep the spirits? Whiskey and such?

Those uses of "good" in the dialogue of my script were in the first 32 pages. More than half them are in lines of dialogue that definitely could be improved. So maybe checking your screenplays for uses of the word good in dialogue can help you become a better writer.

I would also include "ly", "is" and "are" in that list of what to search for in a screenplay. Maybe one of these days I'll find occurrences of these that can be eliminated to strengthen a screenplay.

An invisible sign that says "NOTICE ME"

I sent a message about what people choose to notice to a friend of mine from kindergarten through high school. In that message, I recalled a story told by former Chicago Bears linebacker, Chris Zorich. Chris' mother used to tell him that everyone has an invisible sign around his or her neck that reads "NOTICE ME".

My goal was to stick that into a screenplay someday, but it's a story worth telling regardless of how it gets told. Feel free to steal it before I get the opportunity to steal it myself.

What the hell happened in Massachusetts?

When I was six years old, we had a Rupp mini bike. It was really cool back in the 60's to have a Rupp mini bike. My brother is 5 years older, so it made sense to have one. Apparently it also made perfect sense to turn me loose on the thing.

Our Rupp TT-500 had a 5hp Tecumseh that never liked to start but ran like a banshee with the straight pipe exhaust my dad put on it. Screw those stupid mufflers. It had a two speed clutch. The chain literally jumped from one sprocket to the next when you got to a certain speed, so there was no input other than speed that made it happen. It would literally pull the front tire off the ground when it shifted if you were accelerating quickly, especially with a 50 pound six year old driving.

Being 6 years old and a bit short for my age anyway, mounting the mini bike required me to stand on the step to our back door while my dad held the thing. If you're thinking that sounds like the beginning to a problem, it definitely is. After I sat on the thing and took off, my legs weren't long enough to actually touch the ground.

My Dad would pull start the thing and watch me tear off up the hill in our backyard to hundreds of acres of woods and miles of trails. Sound dangerous? Helmet? I didn't need no stinking helmet. But I was a smart 6 year old and knew what to be scared of: DAD! Not broken bones, concussions, being pinned under a machine that was twice my weight (kids were skinny in the 60's).

I was paranoid about crashing the thing, not because of getting injured, killed or bloody. Of course, I crashed and OFTEN. Really great crashes, the kind that makes you get dirt in your mouth and teeth. Bouncing off the ground crashes and then rolling a couple times like Evil Knievel!

The engine would sometimes keep running, but I couldn't pick it up or get back on it. So I'd shut it off and walk home. No matter what, my Dad would be pissed-off that I'd crashed. He'd say something like, "Well, where is it? Did you even shut it off?" He said most of this while walking up the hill toward the woods. I would do my best to describe how I fell and where it was.

He'd come riding it back to the house and most often not let me go loose on the machine again that day. No way was he going to retrieve the thing twice the same day. It was okay if I lost control going 35 miles per hour, fell off and barrel rolled with the mini bike. Or went tearing into a bunch of sand, lost control and flew over the handlebars. The sand pit crashes were the worst, because it always made you get dirt in your teeth, hair, eyes, ears and everywhere else.

It wasn't okay with my Dad to HIT TREES! If I hit a tree, he would definitely come home and ask me "Did the tree jump out and hit you or did you just not see a big tree right in front of you?" Only a dumbass 6 year old runs into trees.

So let's talk about the Democrats. They lost their super, filibuster-busting majority in the Senate yesterday and might have lost the ability to reform health care. Hey dumbasses! Were you all just buzzing along like a 6 year old on a Rupp mini bike when that tree jumped out in front of you? How long did you know this little election thing was coming? Didn't it seem perfectly obvious that the Republicans would put 110% (the other 10% is illegal shit) of their resources into getting their guy into office?

Now the Democrats are just like me walking around a little dazed after blazing right into a tree that jumped right in the way. What a dumbass manuever that was. I'm feeling like my Dad had to feel. There's a tree and you knew it was there all along. And my message to everyone from President Obama on down, "YOU ARE NOT A BUNCH OF SIX YEAR OLD KIDS!"

Seriously! This politics thing is supposed to be a science, like Political Science. That means that people went to school and actually figured out what is supposed to happen and how to make things happen. But DOH! Dang, who put that tree there?

So what the hell does this have to do with screenwriting? I have no idea whatsoever. Maybe if the day comes that I ever sell a screenplay, I'll go find one of those Rupp's with the 5hp Tecumseh and the two speed clutch. There are a five or six acres of woods across the street from where I live, with plenty of trees. Hell, I'd even wear a helmet.

A polished turd with whipped cream will never be a sundae

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The entertainment industry is smaller than you'll ever believe

When you start sending your scripts out to important people in the entertainment industry, these people will remember who you are long after reading your script. As your participation increases over time, your name will come up or be seen more often. People will actually try to connect your name to something seen before.

As much as I hate the small town mentality of everyone having to know everybody's business, the entertainment industry has its own similarity to a small town. There are hundreds of thousands of screenplays written every year. Over 90% of these scripts never see any attention from important people in the industry. Once your stuff starts receiving attention, you have a reputation to protect.

I'm not saying that anyone cares what you're doing in your own time. What you submit and how easily it is digested within the entertainment industry definitely does count. Screenwriting is a tough business, so realize that you'll never be perfect. But you need to have quality in mind with everything associated with your name. I don't remember what McKee says about what to be or who to be as a screenwriter. He describes it well, but I can never remember much of what he says. I spend hours and hours cleaning fish and listening to McKee on audio tapes and still don't remember much.

As a relatively new writer, I am willing to have flaws in my writing. I'm not talking about the technical stuff, although I've screwed that up too. Realize that getting close to something with enduring and important quality is a huge success. If you have a strong concept and your story has a naturally occurring three act structure or spine, you can get the attention of Hollywood. If you have a weak concept and story with no naturally occurring spine, you're setting yourself up to be remembered as a weak writer. That weak story becomes your reputation in the Hollywood community.

Do the best you can with what you've got. If you fail, fail with something that you're proud to have created. Remember that those who have had success had to be where you are in the learning curve. Be proud that you've made it that far and that you have the ability to improve. Be that guy or gal and people will remember you for all the write reasons.

PTSD & boobs

PTSD totally sucks and has nothing to do with boobs, but we'll get to the boobs. I was looking through a Facebook posting today with the yearbook senior pictures from Portage Central High School in 1980. It was the other high school in Portage, and I attended elementary and junior high with with many of the kids. There was quite a bit of a rivalry between Portage Northern and Portage Central in those days, so it's probably a good thing that some of us had been classmates. Otherwise the actual occurrences of violence could have been worse, and I wouldn't have dated as often.

I went to Portage Northern for 3 years and did not graduate. The reasons for not graduating are many and too boring to repeat. The wonderful thing was that I escaped to live with my paternal grandparents in Florida. They had no intention whatsoever of supporting me if I didn't finish high school. That turned into graduating from Riverview High School in Sarasota and eventually Florida State University in 1987. If it wasn't for Grandma & Grandpa, none of that would have been possible.

While looking at those senior pictures tonight, it was another reminder of many of the hardships in life that I've faced that hopefully few if any of these young people dealt with in any way. One of those was what caused the PTSD. Having Post Traumatic Starvation Disorder really sucks. Anyone who has ever been told that popcorn or tomatos is a meal would definitely understand. Not having food at hand or the ability to eat meals puts me in a panic mode of Post Traumatic Starvation Disorder.

People who are abused often try to do the same or to do the opposite. The seeds of the lack of food come from hereditary insanity. There is no other explanation than to call it what it is and was: insanity. It's probably a good thing I didn't have kids. They would have to eat three meals a day, sitting at a table and be doted over continually to eat, eat and eat.

Today was coincidentally a time when hardship created a situation of fearing where the next meal will come from. Believe me, the thought of not having access to a decent range of vittles sends me into a panic. It's really not as bad as I'm making it out to be, but it's enough to give me flashbacks of bowls of popcorn without butter and tomato sandwiches without bread. The biggest reason for this lack of edible resources is something that I cannot mention for one specific reason that you won't know. But it is just another example of the neglect and abuse by a family of half-witted hillbillies rearing its ugly head to further complicate my life even at 47 yo.

It was nice to see that many of my friends from that time got class pictures and hopefully never even considered for a moment the prospect of subsisting on tomatos or popcorn. There were also several of what you could call girlfriends. There were at least one example of each base from the backseat romp. You know the routine from the Meat Loaf song where getting from first, to second, to third base and to home is the goal. Right there in a high school I didn't even attend, I had the bases covered. Damn, some of those wenchs had low standards!

One of the girls in that old yearbook sat across from me in study hall in 7th grade. This wasn't just any girl, she had boobs, big boobs. It was funny, because I told a female friend of mine about it the other day. After about 35 years, I wondered if she remembered me as the short kid who stared at her boobs each day for 50 minutes. My friend assured me that girls, and especially girls with big boobs, are used to "the boob stare".

I never got to any of the bases with the girl from study hall, but I hear she's single...

I love Marge!

One of my neighbors is a retired woman who used to work with my dad and mother way back in the 70's. Marge is a wonderful woman, and we talk for a while almost each time we meet. During one of these talks, I mentioned my journey into screenwriting. There is always that hesitation before I can tell anyone. Some people react like I just mentioned sodomizing goats. Marge and a few others actually are interested.

Marge is actually interesting and has the intellect to follow a conversation. One of my scripts is about a Potawatomi Chief named White Pigeon (google it for more). Marge and I talked about how I came up with that as a concept and about the script. At that time, my most recent script wasn't finished, and I felt that talking about it might jinx me.

Then around Thanksgiving I ran into her again and told her about my most recent script. She wanted to read it. I'm always flattered when anyone shows an interest in reading one of my scripts. It's the litmus test that Blake Snyder talked about when pitching the logline to random people. The desire to read the script is about as well as it can go.

It took me a while to get the thing printed. The delay was for a couple reasons that centered on a low ink supply and other priorities for the printer. A few days ago while walking the dogs, Marge stopped her car to talk to me. It was probably about 5 degrees, and I knew what she wanted - the script. We talked for a bit, and I promised to get her my most recent script and the Chief White Pigeon script.

So yesterday I printed them off, punched the holes in almost 200 pages and 4 pages of card stock, then bound them with brass fasteners. I even pasted a copy of a photo of Chief White Pigeon's monument to the front of that script. Some of you may think it goofy to go to all that effort just for a neighbor. I could probably have just emailed her pdf files. But she got two bound scripts almost as nice as I'd sent to Hollywood.

Marge wasn't home when I dropped the scripts on her porch in a plastic bag. I'm sure hoping she enjoys reading either one. Both the scripts have gone to Hollywood already, so I'm really not concerned with feedback from Marge. I'm just grateful to have met someone interested in someone striving to create. It really means a lot to me for someone to show more than passing interest. Thank you, Marge, from the bottom of my heart.

Damned plagiarizers

Think there isn't someone out there just waiting to copy your great idea? Well you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Some dumbass will copy what you've written virtually word for word and deny doing it when caught red-handed. You'll be pissed and want to smack the dumbass right in the head. Trust me, I know how you'll feel.

It was second grade, and our class had an assignment to write a story. Back around 1970, we wrote on wide lined paper with those great yellow pencils. I have no memory whatsoever of what I wrote about. But I never had trouble coming up with stories, and wrote the thing and turned in to the teacher.

Imagine my surprise when the teacher wanted to talk to me and '*****'. I'd like to protect this dork's identity, but his name was *****. I'd been to the kid's house once. It was way too much of a religious experience for me, and his mother was a creepy, smelly religious whacko in a 50's style dress. Not sure what prompted that little playdate, because ***** was (and is) a dork. I kind of figured dorks are smart enough to come up with their own stories. WRONG!

So I'm out in the hall with ***** the dork and the teacher. She starts giving US a speech about how it's not a good thing to be copying. Then she tells US that she's not going to do anything about it, for some assinine reason. Even as a 7 year old kid, I was a little outraged and expressed my innocence. The bitch blew me off! She wasn't listening to anything about how this dork copied my story.

***** never had any kind of explanation for his plagiarism. For some insane reason, this dork thought he could copy my story pretty much word for word and hand it in to the teacher as his own. I went to school with this dork all the way through high school and never forgot how much of a thieving dumbass, piece of shit, dork he was back in 2nd grade.

Seeing a photo of him on Facebook from 6th grade actually prompted this rant. I did google the dork to see if he is a convicted felon, child molester or a politician. Nope, none of the above. Just some thieving plagiarizer of 2nd grade material after all thse years. Maybe he reformed himself after being caught doing something so stupid. Stupid fuck.