I wrote like an essay on what I thought was wrong about the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies...then I felt like a douche for being that guy...like it was seriously a solid 4 pages long.

Then I realized my main problem was I felt like I could have written it better.

So in lieu of the essay (which you can have upon request) I present the first page I wrote of my movie that's better than the last two Pirates of the Caribbean (I'm fine with it being just as good as the first):

EXT. MAIN STREET - AFTERNOON

The Sheriff stands in the middle of the street
eyes fixed on the cloud of dust far off on the
hill kicked up by the impending posse. He is
flanked by Old Veteran and Bartender who now
brandishes the large rifle from behind his bar. Old Veteran
in anticipation unholsters his gun but The Sheriff
raises his hand to stop him.

THE SHERIFF
We don't want to give them a reason

EXT. HOTEL BALCONY - AFTERNOON

The Mayor stands on the wooden balcony and looks
towards the hill through a telescope.

Through the telescope we see four horses and
riders charging the town at a breakneck pace. Each
rider is saddless, instead wrapping their hands in
the horses manes and, low on the horse, holding
tightly with their legs. The horses are spooked
and wildly bucking. They run seeming to want to rid
themselves of their riders as much as forge ahead.
The Mayor looks up from his telescope.

THE MAYOR
(under his breath)
...what the hell...

EXT. MAIN STREET - AFTERNOON

The three men hold their positions as the horses
come into sight. The Sheriff's eyes move as he sees
Jim stick his head through the barred windows of
his cell, eyes wild.

JIM
(Desperately)
For god's sake shoot em'! SHOOT EM' NOW!

For some context:
1. Yes, they'll have actual names eventually
2. If they ever give me money MAYBE you can be in it. In the background. But you'd die fast
3. The Old Veteran is about to get owned

Cam

On Hitting the ground

Alright, so. Here I sit. Graduated from the film program but not yet graduated from school. Finished my latest movie but not quite finished dealing with it. All at once employed and unemployed. Living in a place which seems like a temporary solution for our eventual impending move-out. Finally finished numerous concrete things and now facing nothing but upcoming abstractions.

It's enough to make a man float.
I had wanted, more than anything else to "Hit the ground running"when I finished school especially when it came to writing and filmmaking. I wanted to wake up the next day after my movie was done and go BAM outline outline outline genius.

Hired right out of school. Nimbly avoiding the quagmire of depression which fills every grad who doesn't escape to "find themselves".

Hell no. Self found! Right here motherfucker.

But of course that doesn't work out. Of course I'm stuck under piles of schoolwork and work work and life work and maybe I should be doing more work. So instead I'm hitting the ground. Feebly trying to get up with a piano tied to my back and watching fleet-footed go-getters dash ahead. But I can't be bothered.

Writers fellowship deadline coming up? Free flights/one month living in LA and working with TV writers? Well I could be sad about not making the deadline or I could realize that I'd have to come up with an original spec based on an existing show and that would make me blow my brains out. So, no. I'm going back to the Cam path. I am slow and steady. I am a leaf on the wind. I find my own way.

I'm going to cook enjoyable, good looking meals:

Note: I realize octopus is not good looking

I'm going to have the most fun possible in my last two classes, even though they rob me of precious time to get ahead on my "real life". I will read Moby Dick on the beach till I get sunburnt:

I will continue to follow my theory of "If you look like a writer, people will believe you are a writer, then you are a writer". Making the wall of post-its really helped my movie and a girl who visited my room once was very intrigued. This month I've decided to start the good old book of ideas you carry with you everywhere. Which is to say I bought a big book and have spent days transcribing all my hobo sheets, recycled day planners and e-idea sheets into it:

Well that's gosh-darned writerly in and of itself.

Not to mention I think constantly about one short, one television pilot and one feature length film which I hope to write next. I've written one page of one of them in commemoration.

It will be included in my next blog entry.

Tease tease tease.

If you are a member of The Peak collective...I urge you to catch up on all pertinent literature.

CAM

A Dance with the Devil In the Pale Moonlight

So...as a random nerd who's opinion matters very little how do I feel about the new look of The Joker?:(sorry for the perez-coke...it was the sharpest version of the image)

I think...after much internal debate...I like it. Because, even if a bit revisionist, it gets the essential idea of The Joker right. Just think of the basic distilled premise of The Joker:

Psychotic gangster/hitman who is out for revenge against the gangsters (or sometimes Batman) who put a botched hit on him (or sometimes accidentally almost killed him) and who decides, because the attempted murder made him look like a clown, he should kill people in clown-ey ways.

The fucked up face and dark look definitely get across the idea of a psychotic dude out for revenge. From the casting/promotions it's pretty easy to tell there'll be some high-level Gotham City government/mafia conspiracy involved which The Joker is taking revenge on so...that's good. What'll probably have people up in arms though is the seeming lack of the whole chemical component, which of course The Joker later distills into the chemical which can essentially turn anyone into laughing psychotics. But whatever, so many incarnations (such as the above) miss out on the important, essential revenge element I'm willing to let the chemical thing slide.
You see the revenge thing is pivotal to why The Joker is Batman's arch-nemesis because The Joker's motivations are so close to Batman's.

The Joker starts out for revenge against a certain person or group who wronged him and usually once that's done is still thirsty for that revenge and takes it out on the police, or Batman or the townsfolk or maybe Batman's girlfriend. Basically whoever annoys him a little is worthy of the same amount of revenge as the person who tried to kill him. Keep in mind in most incarnations he throws acid in Harvey Dent's face just cause he's his prosecutor.

But wait, that's just Batman. Guy out for revenge for his murdered family, usually gets the guys who did it in the first few comics/episodes/movies and then decides to take revenge on crime as a whole. Another guy who decides to motivate his life solely on the pursuit of revenge and most likely can't stop even if he wanted to.

So having The Joker in the series is like Batman's checks and balances. He has to justify every step of revenge with science, detective work, hard evidence, police approval (even if just after he's done) and moral authority because there's this other dude doing the same thing without that who's considered a psychotic criminal. Brilliant.

Nicholson had the best previous look for The Joker, hand's down. Though, Cesar Romero's "mustache under makeup" thing always creeped me out as a kid, doubly because my father is a clown with a mustache but would never cover it up with weird makeup.

Nicholson also had the revenge angle down pat with the whole Jack Palance story. But there was something missing that this look raises fears about as well...

the funny.

One thing essential about The Joker which only the Mark Hammil cartoon one really got right was the fact that he can actually tell some good jokes, albethey gallows humor as he...well...probably hangs someone.

As essential to his motivations as revenge is, so is humor to his ultimate downfall.

In every awesome incarnation The Joker hates Batman not just because he always foils his plans, but because he never laughs at his jokes. And he tells some jokes even the audience laughs at.

Batman not laughing not only establishes his overall badassness but, usually (except maybe in the cases when The Joker commits suicide) opens up the Joker's death which tends to involve Batman driving him nuts by laughing at him/one of his jokes.

While I like that Ledger look...can you imagine that telling a joke?

While I support you Nolan, a Joker without a purple suit is just basically The Crow.

I can't believe I wrote this much based on pure speculation. I love you summer.

Cam

Who Aint A Slave
(please expect Moby Dick quotes as titles for at least the next 2 years of my life)
So part of a week after it started I have resigned from my position as sales associate.

Maybe it was the forcing me to work 47 hours instead of the promised 20 or maybe it was Professor McDreamy constantly battering the war drums of Melville and Thoreau against lives half-lived and worked away for nothing every non-working hour but I decided enough is enough.

My last boss taught me that you should see it as employers need employees and not other way around, as we usually like to being poor and needing jobs. I think that has stuck with me.
I've also had the privilege of never having anything to work FOR so...when faced with an unlikable job... I think I've decided =not to work at a job I hate.

I've never had a real girlfriend, I've never wanted/owned a car, I don't mind living in a shithole, wearing the same clothes every day and eating top ramen and I dont' have any babies I know of...unless I can reproduce asexually. I'm not some Buddhist master but I've never had anything to buy or need excessive money for that could make me really grin and bear it.

Am I completely worried about floating around in the ether for a while without purpose again? Absolutely.

But there's a satisfaction in being pushed to a point that you know you wont cross and making a stand.

A man's gotta have a principal. Now I have one more.

bleh. inspirational.

Cam

It's time to face facts...
When facing crises it is best to look for metaphors occurring in your everyday life.

Everyone you love will eventually die at the hospital where you work.

So it's been a while.

In lieu of skipping over massive parts of what happened or a million little blogs I've decided on a mega blog encompassing all that I've written on the little piece of paper beside my computer which I will now dub "pre-blog". I suggest you all pre-blog. It's a time saving device.

Before we get into the Cam standard of picture separated paragraphs I'll state that my movie "Feels Like Christmas" was shown. It was seemingly quite well received. I say seemingly because one feels in something as intense as a film screening you aren't really getting the critical eye as much as nice people supporting you. Also I, as one can assume any artist does, tend to not focus on positives as much as negatives and thus floating on an island of "great jobs" either get paranoid of deceitful false-praise or become slightly depressed at the lack of acknowledgment or talk by some key people or the two people that missed the film over the 100 or so who saw and liked it.

I suppose this narcissistic self hate is what motivates artistic production and the "bigger and better" though so, hey!

Regardless thanks to all who attended and enjoyed themselves. I try to do my best.

We have a new roommate. Frank from Amsterdam. He is quite alright.

It is hard to impossible to be living in a routine with another person and just randomly accept a third. We have never really MET him per-se and now just live our lives as if we were always old chums only sometimes finding out he has interests in building complex machinery, he works on submarines or his girlfriend in Zambia just got malaria.

At once Frank is completely foreign and mundane. He is the most normal of anyone I know and doesn't possess even the smallest of annoying habits as a roommate. That said every once and a while he'll come up with a crazy phrase or have to have "Wheel of Fortune" explained to him and you remember the odd situation we are all in.

Regardless, you should meet him because he's nice and we always could use a reminder on how to be properly nice.
I have a job as well. At RW& Co. on Robson. Just opened so yes, you probably don't know where it is.

I barely know WHAT it is but they seem as convinced as the Guess manager who once called me a "Shark" that I will be/ am somewhat super-gifted at sales. All this pre-praise makes me want to wear a suit and tie at work but I realize this is a place of more unbuttoned collars than oxfords and male capris than pin-striped pants...

More on this once it begins this weekend.
My brother was in town (it went well) and as a graduation gift he took me to the Jarvis Cocker concert. We both loved Pulp but had little regard for his solo career before entering The Commodore.

Holy Shit it was awesome.

Consider this a formal retraction of any praise I gave to Lily Allen. I was pleased with Allen's performance simply because of late I hadn't seen a really solid and together full band play sets which stood up to their own recordings and hers did that. It was tight and solid and she threw in some well rehearsed jokes/covers.

Cocker took that shit and blew it out of the water like only a real performer can. Add to a solid band and singing some crazy ass dance moves (think a combination of David Bowie from "Labyrinth", a Robot and Dr.Who) some of the best on stage banter I've ever come across in my life and you are pretty close to how he felt. His off the cuff remarks were funnier than any comedian I've run across recently and his cajoling of the audience produced a mood which amped the show up to a great level.

And he even played some Pulp songs.

Youtube this man's performances and enjoy yourself.
Sometimes it takes leading someone around who isn't from Vancouver to find cool new places to please yourself.

My brother provided a keen mix of being both cooler than me, being more adventurous than me and being somehow better connected to the city than me and took me all kinds of places. Granted, most were clothing boutiques for the super-elite that, from both the clerk's stares and the look of the clothes, made me feel like a Dickensian waif by comparison but he did manage to stumble with me upon a gem which I have been extolling the virtues of ever since:

Occupied

Were I not looking for an eventual relationship with a breathing adult I would gladly admit my love for all things fuzzy and batten stuffed but sadly for the most part I have to keep it under wraps. Stepping through the door of this place though even the most cement of people can briefly bask in the glow of 5 different kinds of stuffed bread, "Timmie the underdeveloped frog" and the "I am a lovely pear" keychains.

I dare you to go and not make up some girly girl or small person who you owe a present to just so you can briefly hug one of these things. Even if just through their brown paper wrapping, tied up with yarn.

I'm not shitting, they actually do that.
Speaking of the handicrafted, I taught myself to hand sew.

Which is to say the internet taught me. I am truly of the 21st century flying in the face of all oral tradition. HA!

It's both harder and easier than I thought but the act of doing so is fucking satisfying in a way I couldn't believe.

I'm really good at buttons.
I think that Addison show was a pile of shit.

I love Kate Walsh. She was my favorite Drew Carey girlfriend. I love the character on Grey's Anatomy but goddammit if she doesn't exist best as a comic/dramatic foil. Also, has there ever been a working show about an OB/GYN?

Also if you take the Piz out of Veronica Mars...I swear to god...I swear to god...
I bought, on advice of a stylist, a hair product that makes it "look like you just got out of the ocean". It wasn't costly so I was willing to gamble.

When I got home I was pleased to know the claim would probably prove true as the main ingredients were salt water and kelp. So...I'm spraying the ocean on my hair. Genius
There were bags of little hot peppers for 99 cents at my market. I thought it was a good idea not realizing these tiny peppers were FORGED BY SATAN HIMSELF!

I cut one up and within minutes had burning in my eyes nose and mouth and later realized hot burny sauce had gotten all over my hands so badly IT DIDN'T COME OFF. Not with washing, not with soap, not with cooking other stuff or anything. All day if i touched my mouth or eyes it was death all over again. I had to just wait it out and after like a day the burning juice had absorbed into my body or something.

Later this week I passed in front of a restaurant and saw a cook preparing the same peppers with rubber gloves on. I guess I need some of those if I'm going to get through the like 900 I bought.

Surprisingly also: Not that hot when eaten.

Back to the favorite topic of my many years of blogging: Me and Gossip.

B.C. managed to get over the whole hump of "I can't trust Cam with anything because he's a gossip" by realizing that the key part to being a good gossip is to only spread things as is helpful (not harmful), useful (not flippant) and necessary (otherwise you are a loudmouth). But now I've run into another rut...

Everyone thinks I know everything before, during or after it happens. I'm not a magical grapevine and there is no Perezhilton of your lives so, no, I don't tend to know anything. Furthermore if you don't see me or talk to me I don't tend to know either.

I am a man who often accidentally sequesters himself from the world simply due to laziness. But I want to hear about your lives and your fun times and bad times and we can chat and be merry. I am not a Batman villain who knows your life and only contacts you when I need a favor.

so come on, lets chat.

AND SO ENDS BLOG

Cam.