nice try 2009

 

Ha! Thought you would take me down didn’t you you bastard year?

Not hardly.

 

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Happy New Year everyone. Smooch!

[That is My Chemical Romance.]

[Do not forget to check out the blue moon tonight that does not happen often on New Year's Eve.]

[You can see the truly stunning video of that on youtube but it will not embed here so you have to see it on youtube it is :::here:::]

[Seriously go see it I know there is a stupid esurance whatsit add attached but it is worth it so stick it out. Dumb Warner Bros.]

[Also, Gerard Way does not look "stupid" with blonde hair and dark brows and neither do I so bite me you know who you are.]

 

two more days!

 

I am —

Happy today. Yay! And, two more days until the new year. Yay!

[Wow that survey really worked.]

I am not sure why I have such high expectations for the new year. Every indication is the U.S. is in a tail spin and the coming year will just be worse. This forward charge for the new year is totally illogical. But maybe it is not that I have high expectations for the new year. Maybe it is just that I really want to kick the old year out.

2009 pretty much sucked. So many people died. The most personal to me were Gee Nicholl and my father. My father managed to hit me one more time with drama and financial hits on his way out. Seriously. There were lawyers. There were homicide detectives. It was very disturbing AND very expensive. [My father had a skill.] Gee Nicholl, well, Gee Nicholl did more for me than my father ever did I will always love Gee Nicholl.

Bottom line?

Two more days.

Yay! Yay! Yay!

 

where the art work comes from :
that is from basiljonez

black is the color of my heart

 

I have been —

Morose. And there is only one answer for morose. A survey! Yay!

[As always, this survey is stolen from Rachael because, well, Rachael does the best surveys and also I am too lazy to make up my own.]

 

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Twenty Questions with Absolutely No Coherent Theme

1. Beatles or Stones?
Are we in the wilderness? What is with the bugs and rocks?

2. Have you ever vacuumed the house in your underwear?
Do not judge me. Damn you.

3. Do you secretly like disco?
That is hip hop in spandex right?

4. Have you ever had a monster under your bed?
How polite of you to not say “in my bed.”

5. Coke or Pepsi?
Vodka Baby.

6. If you thought you could get away with it, would you?
Are we robbing an armored car or having sex in public?

7. If you thought you would get caught, would you anyway?
Are we robbing an armored car or having sex in public?

8. Do you have an adventure fantasy? If yes, what is it?
Are we robbing an armored car or….

9. You’ve lost everything. Do you lie, beg, borrow or steal to get it back?
You say that like I haven’t. Twice.

10. You’re driving too fast through a residential neighborhood. A dog and a fat man are crossing the street from opposite directions. You have to hit one to avoid hitting the other. Who gets run over?
Sorry fat dude.

11. Are you saving that morsel of food that is stuck in your teeth for a special occasion?
Mardis Gras is right around the corner Smart Ass.

12. If you were invisible, where would you hang out?
Hello? No clothes? Look for me by the heater.

13. You are drunk as a skunk. Do you ride A) a mechanical bull B) a stolen motorcycle C) A butt ugly member of the opposite sex
I am going with shopping cart, Alex.

14. Are we human? Or are we dancer?
Just because I have horns that is no reason to make reindeer cracks. Rude!

15. A train leaves NYC at 2PM EST, heading west at 140mph. A plane leaves LA at the exact same time, heading east at 700mph. Where’s Waldo?
Ahhh! Math fugue!

16. You’re standing butt naked on a street corner. Are you A) a pervert B) waiting for the bus C) The Emperor
An optimistic bus driver wrote this survey right?

17. What is the color of love?
Black. Black like the color of my heart. Damn you Love.

18. Will Michael Jackson be allowed into Rock & Roll Heaven?
Dunno. Rumor has it they have pretty strict immigration policies.

19. In one word or less, describe your nose.
Oh I see. More reindeer cracks.

20. Do you think the world is going to end in 2012?
My world or yours?

 

where i nabbed that survey :
i nabbed that survey at rachael’s doy

where the art work comes from :
that is from michael bentburn

i love alternet

 

The latest bestest from —

Alternet yay!

 

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10 Ways to Screw Over the Corporate Jackals —
Who’ve Been Screwing You

 

1. Mortgage underwater? Just walk away from it. Even academia says it’s OK. Move to the city and rent.

“Homeowners should be walking away in droves,” University of Arizona law school professor Brent T. White told the Los Angeles Times. “But they aren’t. And it’s not because the financial costs of foreclosure outweigh the benefits. One can have a good credit rating again — meaning above 660 — within two years after a foreclosure.”

In a scholarly paper called “Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis,” White tells cash-jacked homeowners that they can return the screw.

We’ve been championing that course for years, with reports on walkaways and trashouts, as well as violent homeowner blowback. Hell, we called the Great Recession before most did, and we’re still calling it another Great Depression in the making. So trust us. And if not us, then take it from the professor, who will soon be joined by a chorus of similarly credentialed whistleblowers as the financial crap truly hits the fan in the years to come. Go ahead, move back to the city and rent. You’ll end up there anyway when your suburb runs out of water and malls.

2. Unplug your cable. The easiest way to kill the so-called news networks is to cut them off at their enablers. Don’t like the hate spewed by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp nutjobs? Pull your cable bill’s plug, or shut down your satellite. Tired of the way that Reality TV, in entertainment and otherwise, has replaced reality itself? Withdraw life support….

:::continue reading:::

 

where the art work comes from :
that is from john carroll doyle

dove morning

 

 

There are twenty-one doves on the power lines overlooking the apartment today — and one finch.

Usually there are about five doves watching over me. Every morning. Other birds are fickle, sometimes here, sometimes not here. Like the ravens. They check in. They do not stay. Or the wild parrots. They visit, but it is sporadic. The doves are always here.

The doves do not even eat pizza crusts. Or oatmeal. Nothing I put out there appeals to them. They just come. And watch over me. With no explanation.

I do not know what twenty-one doves means. But it made me smile to see them.

 

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I really love the doves.

 

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[ps : doves are not pigeons, this is something apparently australians do not know so i have to point it out, go look up doves]

 

open seats in character workshop

 

There are —

A couple seats still open in the Jan 5 Character Workshop :

The Character Workshop is an online 6 week advanced course on characterization taught by yours truly Max Adams. Subjects include introductions [aka authorial intrusion is your friend]; protagonists vs. antagonists; using point of view characters; defining characters through action & tension; likable vs. empathetic characters; withholding character details to up character mystery and interest; illuminating character through subplots; and if we have time we may throw a kitchen sink in there too.

 

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Course fee is $240. Course length is 6 weeks. Seating is limited. Send email for course sign up info to : courses @ seemaxrun.com

[You must type out the above email address without the spaces --- we are trying to outwit spam bandits here.]

 

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Your illustrious instructor’s background includes personally winning a Nicholl Fellowship and the Austin Heart of Film screenwriting award; Working for Hollywood Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Touchstone Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures and Universal Pictures; Teaching and/or lecturing at USC, New York Film Academy, Gotham Writer’s Workshop, Film Arts Foundation, and Squaw Valley Community of Writers — among others; Max is a Nicholl reader/judge and former AFI Alumni reader as well as a former WGA online mentor; A scary number of her former students/workshoppers have won prestigious competitions [including Nicholl, Disney, and Warner Bros.] and/or gone on to work professionally in the industry. In addition, Max is the author of The Screenwriter’s Survival Guide; Or, Guerrilla Meeting Tactics and Other Acts of War [Warner Books], a produced playwright, a published short fiction writer & journalist, and the founder of two international online screenwriting workshops: The Left Door & 5150.

 

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:::more class info:::

 

where the art work comes from :
that is from cinemafia

new year ahoy

 

Dear 2009 :

You sucked.

Six days till 2010.

Come on 2010.

Yay!

 

where the art work comes from :
that is hotel paradiso 2 by britcat100

merry christmas

 

 

ho ho ho

 

Damn.

I forgot the tree.

 

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*hey i am doing color that is christmassey dammit

 

where the art work comes from :
that is from arxetypo

back here again

 

You know —

When something bad happens but everything is crazy and you have to be places and do things and cope so you just stuff the bad somewhere else so you can keep going and do what needs to be done and then things slow down and you are in a still place and —

Wham! The bad sweeps out of wherever you had it stashed and hits you hard and knocks you down?

I am in that place.

 

---

I really hate this place.

 

where the art work comes from :
that is the abduction of persephone by bernini

another day another christmas miracle

 

So —

Despite travel and sleeping in strange places and hauling suit cases about, the shoulder is [remarkably] still improving. Really. I can actually sort of lie on my right side if I am careful. Which is totally a Christmas miracle and maybe come 2010 I will actually have a fully functional right shoulder.

The downside to this is, after almost nine months of no exercise because of a shoulder down, now the shoulder is getting better, I have to start exercising again –– starting from a really tragic place.

Again!

[Didn’t I do this last year with the cracked rib?]

[Okay cracked ribs only last a couple months. This was nine months. Ahhh!]

This is so going to hurt.

:::sigh:::

 

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*not one word from the preggo corner either i know just what you are thinking

 

where the art work comes from :
that is from stellazinë

what i learned in new york

 

Back —

From New York. It was sort of an impromptu trip and I was moving heaven and earth to get things done so I could leave for a week so did not get much sleep before I left and definitely did not get much sleep after I got there. Got back last night, got into bed and slept! Tired! I do not remember the last time I slept that hard. Or was that tired. Then I had adjusted my clock wrong and oops thought I got up at 8 PM [that is what the computer clock said it was] but no it was 8 AM I just screwed up the clock. Oops again. The cool thing about hard sleep is, after that kind of sleep, my face is starting to look like my face again instead of like some apple head fair exhibit. Yay! But I screwed up appointments big time because of that clock maladjustment. Irrefutable proof clocks can be maladjusted.

In keeping with the rule where Max goes big things follow a huge blizzard hit New York while I was there. It was questionable whether I would even have a plane to get onto to come home lots of flight frenzy but the storm cleared up enough to get snow off [one yegads] runway and for me to get out only an hour and a half behind schedule. And here are —

 

Things I Learned On The Trip To New York :

•Red lights are just suggestions, nobody really stops walking because of some silly light.

•Cab drivers are not at your disposal, you are at theirs.

•Some cab drivers, if you look confused and worried enough over whether you are at the right address on that dark little street, will wait to make sure you get into the building. [nice man]

•Buildings in New York all have formal names. Seriously, forget street addresses, formal names. And New Yorkers all know the buildings by name.

•It is impossible to actually have any idea of where you are unless you climb onto a roof, then you know why buildings all have formal names, they are landmarks and how people in New York orient themselves to get from place to place. [Do not ask me how New Yorkers do that traveling underground though, I think they have special sensors in their noses like sharks or something and me, I had to climb onto a roof to figure it out.]

•People from New York do not know all people in the U.S. do not own metro passes or even necessarily know what they are.

•El train in New York does not mean elevated train it means “L” train and is underground not up in the air where you are looking for it but if you spin in circles on the corner cursing looking up into the air for a while people do give you more elbow room.

•Smoking outside in 17 degree weather leaves interesting cold burn marks on your hand.

•Uggs stand up surprisingly well wading through three foot snow drifts. Seriously, almost as well as Sorels though I would not push that in the Alps.

•Warm coat in California does not equal warm coat in New York.

•Metal hair combs set off airport metal detectors and will send you to the back of the line — with really interesting hair.

•Always wear a T-Shirt under that big bulky sweater to the airport unless you want to become way more intimate with airport security guards than you intended.

•48 hours without sleep will erase any indication you have ever heard rumors of anti-oxidents let alone taken any in your life.

•Never lose track of your phone charger on a cross continent adventure.

•Love and alcohol do not mix.

 

where the art work comes from :
the owner of that photo wishes to remain anonymous

the character course

 

Jan 5 —

January 5 SeeMaxRun Character Workshop :

The 6 Week Character Workshop begins Tuesday January 5th. This is an online 6 week advanced course on characterization taught by yours truly Max Adams. Subjects include introductions [aka authorial intrusion is your friend]; protagonists vs. antagonists; using point of view characters; defining characters through action & tension; likable vs. empathetic characters; maintaining interest withholding character details; illuminating character through subplots; and if we have time we may throw a kitchen sink in there too.

 

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Course fee is $240. Course length is 6 weeks. Seating is limited. Send email for course sign up info to : courses @ seemaxrun.com

[You must type out the above email address without the spaces --- we are trying to outwit spam bandits here.]

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:::more info:::

 

bunkers need feng shui too dammit

 

I keep wondering —

What I would do if I didn’t write for Hollywood any more? I almost do not write for Hollywood anymore. I have been working years to make this one movie happen and it looks a little bleak on that front. So I could real soon be chalking up more years of my life making a movie happen that, hello, does not happen.

[Wow does that suck. Hollywood I so wish I could quit you.]

I keep coming back to feng shui.

 

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I am not sure being a feng shui person would get me a spot in any bunkers if WWIII broke out. I am not even sure feng shui is a profession the international community wants to import if I tried to make a run for the border. But feng shui is something I am good at.

 

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Bunkers need feng shui too dammit.

 

 

sufi

 

A small —

Unidentified flying insect is buzzing around the computer. Making me crazy. Get away from my screen. Get away from my face. Get away from my beverage. I am trying to work!

I snatch it out of the air.

This surprises me AND the small unidentified flying insect.

 

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I let it loose on the balcony.

Any insect that inspires that kind of hand eye coordination deserves to live.

 

where the art work comes from :
that is from chez elan