Scheme Hatching

Just got back from Midway and am enjoying a few relaxing hours before a long relaxing drive. Had the weirdest thing happen. They're enforcing some new policy and you have to have a land-line phone to rent a car, which I've been doing for years now, I'm pretty loyal to Enterprise. So I was kind of pissed, mostly because the controversy started when I answered that no, the phone number he stated was not my home phone, I could have lied, saving hours of time. So they had to drive me to 4800 South Pulaski to get a truck, a big Durango Bush-Voter Motherfucker. So that's what I'm driving to Ohio, a big Durango Bush-Voter Motherfucker. I'm first going to visit Jim McWilliams in Oxford, OH. Jim is the funniest man on Earth and the only way I can describe our long friendship is "scheme hatching", we never plot the end of the world, but we do fill our time.



The first scheme we will have to hatch is to Bushify my truck with a trip to Odd Lots for cheap Yellow Ribbon magnets cast off from a past more patriotic week long gone by. Plus that phrase doesn't get used nearly enough, "scheme hatching." When's the last time anyone reading this hatched a good scheme. Well it's a long weekend, HATCH ONE!

(as I write this I am watching the end of Prom Night. You ever have Halloween pass you by and Netflix keeps sending you horror movies until like Christmas? Really? Me too. In my mind I have redubbed Prom Night "Halloween III: Prom Night." It stars Jamie Lee Curtis and seems like a perfectly valid continuation of the tale. Laurie Strode has to go to Prom doesn't she? Michael Myers didn't die did he? The real Halloween III sucked didn't it?)



Anyway.

Great thing about driving is it's a good time to get caught up on my commentary tracks. What the fuck does that mean? A little insight: I love commentary tracks, back when I heard about these things called laserdiscs which were like big movie CD's. I remember hearing that these laserdiscs (which cost like a billion dollars) had "extras" on them, making-of's and commentary tracks in which the director (the fucking director?!?!? I thought) talks to you about the movie while you watch the movie. I couldn't believe such a thing existed, why would so many multinational corporations go to all the trouble and expense to entertain and educate just me? But I never thought I'd be able to hear one, ever, until DVD became available.

(OH SHIT! I forgot about the kids head rolling down the aisle at the end. AWESOME! Right as they're about to name the prom king the murderer cuts his head off and it rolls down the aisle and comes to a stop neck-stump-down (don't they always land that way?) In front of a horrified crowd. What a great movie. What's even greater is that I almost typed "horrified reunion crowd" because the whole cast is so old they totally look like they're attending a ten-year.)

So I listen to commentaries, and liberal talk radio, and The Battlestar Galactica soundtrack.

And I work on screenplay ideas and sketches. As I brush up on my screenwriting skills by reading Syd Field and reading scripts I need an outlet for immediate practical analysis, i.e. writing. What's great is, none of the tips and tricks apply to Ed Bus (yet) because that's so far along as an idea goes. So to funnel my thoughts on the craft as it applies to generating ideas I started a long overdue screenplay. So I'm back at it x2.

So I'll spend a lot of the trip talking to myself. I spend a lot of life talking to myself.

(YES! How great is that? Jamie Lee Curtis is fighting the killer (who is killing the grown-up kids who all harbor a secret - they all killed a someone when they were young) to the main disco song. The theme of the prom is "Disco Inferno", which is awesome, and they earlier did an elaborate disco scene to a disco song who's chorus repeats "Prom Night...everything is allright...Prom Night" in a Thelma Houston-esque way. So they're fighting on the disco floor with an axe while this song plays. Which is awesome.)

Jamie Lee kills Michael Myers again.

I think I'm going to leave in a couple hours. I might be fun to do the bulk of the driving before sunrise, never done that before. If you see a big Durango Bush-Voter Motherfucker drive by at 4am, that's me getting an early start, because I support the troops and don't cut and run and colors don't bleed and Marines never do.