The BattleHouse Boston ShieldWood 24
or
How to write an award winning television show
Boss: I am (your boss/the sheriff/the commanding officer/the chief of medicine/your mother/the acting chief of your bureau in this 'situation'/a judge/your father/the president of the united states and/or galaxy) and that is a DIRECT ORDER!

Hero: With all due respect (Sir/Madame)...go ____ yourself.

Then the hero is right. Or if it's sweeps or a season finale he/she is briefly wrong.

I'll see you at the awards dinner

CAM

"Just try not to look like you love tomatoes"

Notable Things Watched:
The Secret of Drawing: Daniel Clowes
Adicolour Campaign
"They Are Made out of Meat"
Rescue Me Returns
Wonder Showzen: Horse Apples
Rock School
Dungeons&Dragons
Can't get a date (episodes that are online)
Husbands and Wives
Wallace& Gromit : The Curse of the WereRabbit
The Station Agent
F is for Fake
Freaks
Happy Times
The Rage In Placid Lake

Read :
The Better of Mcsweeny's
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Walking Dead
Spiderman Loves Mary-Jane
"They Want Us to Look" by Andy Selsberg
Marvel: Zombies
Black Hole by Charles Burns
The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
Superstud or How I became a 24 year-old Virgin by Paul Feig

In the middle of:
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler

Worked as Maid: 8 hours

Current Budget of Film: $400
*******
"Jerome's lengthy virginity represented , in Howards opinion, an ambivalent relationship to the earth and its inhabitants"
I hope it is obvious from that list that as soon as I got a job as a maid I lost it. Which is to say I quit.

I came to the realization of how much I was willing to suffer for the sake of my art: Kind of. I'm not willing to suffer physically to say the least. The work was fine and boring and 90% making beds and picking up towels but the chemicals and the second hand smoke in the room had me dizzy and wanting to barf by the end of the day so I decided health first, then a movie.

Plus, come on...I had more in common than the live-in alcoholic's who's rooms i was cleaning than the 34 year old ex-mental patients I was working with. That said, now I'm going to work at "Bang-On" and I doubt I have that much in common with 16 year old fake punk girls.

or no wait...I have everything in common with them.

"Something she had done with her elbows had squeezed her breasts together, and the peaks of both, shiny with some kind of body cream, now began to communicate with Howard independantly of their owner"
So what can be said about my enjoyment of "On Beauty" which hasn't been said? Very little. Thus I'm peppering this annoyingly epic entry with my favorite quotes. I will say this though: a good writer gives me something I expect yet still pleases me with it, a great writer gives me something pleasing and unexpected. Zadies Smith continually manages to use literary slight of hand to make me thing I'm drawing to a pleasant expected conclusion then give me something entirely unexpected and beautiful in it's place.
Oh, and also she managed to use art and art theories that even made a once Art History minor pleased (hahaha).

Of course southern people pronounce it "Pah-point".
You win this round Zadie... you always do.

"They all looked like princesses - but what steel must lurk within!"
So, yes. Left without a job in my hometown I did what any normal person did. I stayed at home and watched movies or read books or comics depending on my mood. I mean I could have called my friends and hung out but seriously...

I've found myself drawn to really happy things though. Which surprises me. Irks me. Makes me feel like I'm falling for New Sincerity again.

Specifically I loved two unexpected things: Can't Get a Date and Spiderman Loves Mary-Jane.

The former is a dating show that is focussed on getting social oddities to be functional members of dating society. It does it in kind of an Errol Morris style which is odd but also has the filmmaker/host seemingly befriending each person and being cool with them. There's also kind of an underlying theme of how lonely big city life is and how people like this fall through the cracks. I dont know. very cute and nice and makes you feel so good by the time "Can't get a date? yes you can" comes across the screen. I can't pretend I wasn't taking notes either.

The latter is a comic I can only assume is aimed at 12 year old girls. It's drawn in a sort of MSPaint manga which hurts my eyes and tells the old spiderman mythos through the eyes of a highschool aged Mary-Jane. But now hear me out: this is the most interesting take I've read on spiderman in years. I mean it plays out like the O.C. but basically you've got a main character that's not in on the same information you are and thus you are constantly constructing a whole interesting world beyond the panels which is brilliantly affected by what goes on with which issue. I mean we're talking a teenage peter parker just getting his powers first relishing in Mary-Jane's love for him as Spiderman then coming to a realization that it's not the character of Spiderman he wants her to love but Peter Parker himself. But of course by this point Mary-Jane's emotionally attached to Spiderman and Peter Parker himself is a character, that of the meek nerd always standing her up to fight bad guys, and the only way he can truly be happy is to get her to embrace the Peter Parker/Spiderman dichotomy. oh and now he's trying to date her as spiderman and date gwen stacey as peter parker. Believe me if you were into comics you'd be OMGing with every turn of the page. My only hope is that now Marvel Comics is financing it's own film productions we can get some nerd focussed stuff like this out there.

I had lost all faith in my snarky self until just this week when reading Paul Feig's ironic take on his youth (disturbingly like my own) and seeing the painfully ironic The Rage in Lake Placid both of which amused me to no end.

Though i may be a softy every once and while... I'm still bitter deep down. Somehow that's comforting.

"Howard pulled off his wife's long skirt and her substantial, realistic underwear"

I was also propelled in my boredom/lack of anyting to do to try to better myself as a writer/artist. Also, I'm still displeased with my script so I'd hoped I would magically be able to get a good ending and rewrite it. So I got a bunch of artistic/writing self-help books and got cracking.

Jesus that was a bad idea.

No matter how many times i'd say "commit commit and do this regardless of how stupid it seems" the books would come up with something like "Write down your 3 "creativity monsters" and then write a horror story starring all 3 where you triumph over them".

I forgot that 90% of all writers and artists are people I want to maim in an alleyway.

The problem is I'm left feeling again that arts and writing are not the worlds for me if this is the norm. These books were reccomended by James Gunn, writer/director of Dawn of the Dead and Slither, a person who i'd assume was unpretentious and not a douchebag but...man oh man. I can't operate thinking like this and if I have to I'll never be good at anything artistic. I've reassured myself by thinking these books are only for uncreative people to attempt to be mildly creative rather than for actual creative people and/or they are for recovering alcoholics but still I was in a bit of a funk.

Luckily a little artistic advice from an interview with Penn and Teller made me feel better. They said never to watch things you love then try to be like them. The key to being artistic was to watch everything you hate then promise yourself "no matter what I do it will never do the shit this is doing and it will never be as bad as this". They also suggested the best artistic collaborations come from people who are ambivalent about eachother but share artistic ideals. You can learn to like eachtother but liking eachother to begin with will only cause trouble.

It was good to see people i respected reassure me pessimism has a place in art and coming from a seething ball of hatred can actually make you a success.

Yeah I respect Penn and Teller. My dad is a magician give me a fucking break.

I'm going to stop this epic now and get back to my books and piles of movies. Next week my job starts , things will be compartmentalized and maybe I'll be able to recap my life without fumbling on and on for a page and a half.

Go get some sun for me

CAM

P.S. click some of those links. A handful have things you can watch and waste time with. It's like my life Lite.

Lamento
Sigh.

I didn't get my job at Guess in "The Mall". I know to all of you that doesn't seem tragic but seriously in my interview I had the two managers more psyched on me than anyone has ever. EVER. This means probably one of three things went wrong.

1) References:
I always assume someone agreeing to be my reference=shining reference but who knows. The one they would drift towards is my supervisor at the Photo place and thats f'ing two years ago and she was nice and everything but I never got an impression of what she thought of me.

Plus she was very tall. VERY tall. I can't trust a girl that much taller than me who isn't involved in, say, the WNBA. Where does she get off leading a regular life being tall?

2) That stupid fucking test:
You know the one "You accidently get extra merchandise from a vending machine. Do you put the money in to pay for it" or "If you could sneak into a movie and be sure you wouldn't get caught, would you?".

It's a test , I assume, to judge mostly whether you'd steal but partially whether you are a liar. I also assume the two above questions are some sort of control because of course you'd not put money in and of course you'd go to the movies...though I always answer no to the movie one because honestly there's no way I ever feel certain I wont get caught doing something. Plus i'd probably only do that if I was high and dont get me started on how much I think I'll get caught when I'm high.

Regardless I have no idea what you are supposed to say on this test so I'm left with the flimsy choice of...ugh...telling the truth. Job interviews are all about lies. I wish i could lie here. I've tried to look online for somewhere telling you how to ace these but I dont know what they're called so it's been impossible.

3) I couldnt stop staring at the better looking one's cleavage:
I personally think it's unprofessional for you to be interviewing me with fucking 5 buttons undone if you have breasts larger than ohhh an AA. Seriously. But this number had to be asking me all the questions AND be presenting clevage centros (as we scientists say).

I shouldn't hate on her though I suppose, I'm more mad at myself. She was an attractive redhead (weakness) but I should have been able to look past that at her minor flaws like bad teeth and overtanned skin or at least I should have gotten over cleavage which clearly indicated deflated, boring, roll into her armpits when she lies on her back breasts. But no instead I had to costantly think

"Oh god, quick turn to the other one with the scarf thing and make eye contact and nod"
or
"Quick say something incredibly fay so she thinks you were just staring off into space...gay gay space"

I really would have thought the second tactic would have worked though since i was dressed in my colourful cowboy shirt (brokeback shirt if you will), a white tie, tightest jeans i own and my brother's hand worked 80 dollar white italian loafers which come to a point probably 4 inches after my toes end. Plus I was nervous and gesticulating so much Ru Paul would blush.
Hm at least if it was this way it probably meant i was just so darn verile she felt my penetrating masculine gaze even through the haze of metrosexuality. I'll take that

I wanted to work retail though. I long for secretly passing fat people larger sizes than they ask for. Folding things/pretending to fold things because I dont want to help anyone. Talking to wave after wave of attracive people with spurts of the hilariously unattractive (wait, west ed. reverse that). Eating a sandwich on the crappy metal folding chair in the tiny, poorly ventilated backroom. Loving my supervisor and hating my manager (oh and dont get me started on DMs hahaha). Really, I'm sad but this is the kind of path of least resistance job I require/love.

Instead I'll be cleaning up hotel puke until i drown myself in a bucket of Lysol.

The real tragedy though is i'll never get to have this conversation:
"Hey, I heard you got a job, where is it?"
"Guess"
"Oh, I dont know...future shop?"
"No, Guess the clothing store"
"Oh. Ha ha."

I bet that never would have gotten old.

sigh

CAM

"I feel bad because she's bad at being a slut...being a slut is supposed to be funny"

A week ago I spent my days and nights among the savages. Which is to say drunk sluts.

You know...the ones who actually are kathy's friends. The ones who don't need to filibuster the bouncers at Shine to get in even when they're on the list. The one's you spend all your pocket change on Coronas for. Only to blackout before you hit your charm apex.

Well lets just say their lifestyle impressed me and the above quote quite encapsulates their philosophy (Note:Mike Hingston you may stop here by me saying they are all like Kristin (seriously if you all watched Laguna Beach I wouldnt need to blog). Being a Slut is mostly about not taking yourself, your status and especially your sexuality seriously. Which is to say that these girls tear eachother a new asshole more often than lacrosse playing fratboys on spring break.

What impressed me though is the amount their tear themselves a new asshole.

When I see a slut going home with some random so-so attractive guy falling all over herself drunk probably barfing along the way I think "god what a pathetic person" and then make fun of her. Much to my surprise though this same girl would burst in the door the next day laughing and saying "GOD how pathetic was I last night" and making fun of the same falling over and same half erected fuglies they had in their vagina.

I hear a lot of freethinking people talking about casual sex and open relationships but to be honest 90% of them and us in general still treat our sexuality like a beautiful little flower. We are all pretty little girls in prom dresses and sluts are what we claim to be.

It didnt seem to be disinterest in longstanding relationships or love or wanting to be self destructive or pathetic cries for attention. It seemed to be people having a laugh at themselves and treating sex like a natural random occurence thats fun. And isn't that what sex should be?

Lately Sex has seemed to everyone as this crazily adult silver bullet which should be handled only in a spacesuit and only with your soulmate but seriously wouldnt it be fun to just be able to laugh at mistakes and chalk everything up to experience and move on. I still have phantom sensations of the huge bushes i've encountered and wake up sweaty dreaming of my failed attempts and near misses.

Instead of just laughing at these girls I found myself longing for the ability to be as comfortable with myself as them. They are all successful in business (something needs to keep you in new shoes and bacardi breezers) they all have more fun than me on average and they all have a lot of sex, some good some bad, but they enjoy themselves every step of the way.

Maybe being a neurotic virginal awkward dude that can't even get laid when he has a naked girl in the bed will do something for me in the long run but right now these sluts ought to be laughing at me sitting angrily on my couch as they pour out into some cab to a hostel with a bignosed aussie

Oh, also they taught me various surprising ways cocaine can affect your sexual performance but I think I was drunk enough that week to tell all of you that.



In other news I have a job as a Maid at a hotel and an interview at Guess in "The Mall" tomorrow. Edmonton's weather is schizophrenic. I have only seen one of my friends accidently (Mark) due to my constant job search. Girl's breasts are still bigger here. Everyone smokes more here. Mayflowers don't smell as good as cherry blossoms. I am going to get robbed here. I like my cooking better than my mom's. I like Logan finally but hate Lorelai. How will they sort out Pam and Jim? LIBBY SHOULD NOT BE DEAD! Bill is going to lose one of his wives fo serious. Go Joanie go! James Spader is going to have sex with Parker Posey (possibly in front of Shatner)! Cybermen are Attacking Dr.Who. Blondie is toooootally out on Greys. Beaver is the new Sloane. Sloane is the new Haley Joel Osment. And i'm sure they probably broke out of prison on prison break.

How will I survive with only Entourage, Rescue Me, Deadwood and more importantly The Hills?

I have a problem.

Love,

CAM

Do you know that face? You should. He taught you everything you know.

That's Donald F. Roberts PHD. Communications prof at Stanford.

But more importantly educational consultant on He-Man!

Now all i remember He-Man making me want to do was buy more He-Man toys and/or have confused feelings about She-Ra. Apparently there was some level of educational content. SOLID PHD-Infused content. This man came up with the rating systems for t.v. and apparently the internet and he was teaching us something all along.

Colour me disturbed at not being able to remember a single lesson He-Man taught me beyond muscular princes can become slightly more muscular superjocks through the use of magic swords.

What Did He-Man ever teach you?

CAM

P.S. Watch my brother school one of the worlds best known designers and go
AWWW HELLS NO

Ode to Old Digs: St.Catherine's and 14th


And the epic battle that brought it down...



And This is what I miss most about our house



Slanty Shanty
CAM