sometimes daily musings on writing..

I love cold days
shivery, dry leafy
icy windowy
where are my gloves days

I love cold days
long-gone and forgotten summery
wrapped-up jackety
where is my ice scraper days

I love cold days
windy, warm blankety
curl-up on the couchity
where is my remote days

I love cold days

<img src="http://www.48hourfilm.com/badges/48hfp_atlanta_2009_tv_xl.jpg"
border="0" alt="48 Hour Filmmaker: Atlanta 2009">



I was graciously invited to contribute to the Atlanta Film Festival's AWESOME project where filmmakers have 48 hours to write, rehearse, direct/film, edit and produce an 8 minute film. The genre was chosen about an hour ago and I have not yet been informed as to what that genre might be...

Could it be a comedy?
A buddy film?
A horror flick?
Drama?
Western (ugh)?

I'm ready to write the script, so I'll keep everyone updated through my blog. It sounds like it'll be fun, if nothing else, but the winner goes to the Cannes Film Festival.

Wow; my blog looks so big and sleek on my new 22" widescreen HD monitor! But I digress due to my unwavering fascination with all things shiny...

Today, I learned something new.

Passive-aggressive people need to be spanked.

Not in the figurative way, and not the real-life, good kind of spanking, like, "Woo-hoo; how ya' doin'" light smack on the posterior (from someone, of course, you don't mind handling that part of your anatomy).

They need the "capture you by the wrist, crank you over the knee, rip down your "draws", and wail on the cheeks with a large, wooden paddle through which someone has sadistically drilled 3/4" holes" way. HARD. And a LOT. Until they're crying. Until they are reduced to a crying, apologetic adult that has learned their lesson and won't antagonize someone in a chicken-livered, slinky-bellied kind of way any longer.

Ever again.

I have dealt with aggressive people all my life. My older sister liked to try to beat my ass every once in a while. My brothers? Well, they'll be brothers. Some friends, cousins and classmates occasionally took it upon themselves to challenge me in the past as well. Umm, not a good idea.

It's fairly simple, though: The plain ol' aggressives are much easier with which to deal. They threaten you to your face, you threaten them back IN their face, sometimes things get a little more heated than others, someone occasionally ends up getting their ass beaten and the problem is worked out, miraculously, on its very own. End of story.

The passive-aggressive is a slippery, lily-livered, queasy-stomached and clammy-handed kind of individual. They smile at you and tell you how pretty your hair is (or sometimes just say, "Did you get your hair cut?" and never say anything else, which makes you THINK they might have just given you a compliment, but in their back-handed, clammy/queasy chickeny way, they've just cut you down) or they tell you "Good Morning" and grin like hyenas...and then as soon as you are out of ear shot, they remark about how you look as if you've gained weight or how they've heard you drink a lot of gin. They make noises as they slither past your cubicle, just to piss you off. They slam their desk drawers (how convenient that their cube is hooked to yours! Now, your whole monitor is shaking and they are getting away with it because you refuse to whine to your supervisor every four and a half seconds), they talk as loud as possible on the phone, they hum along with their iPod knock-offs, probably to knock-off music by "various artists", and they are as annoying and as aggressive as possible, but not to your face. Just IN it.

They do it so that nobody can really tell they're doing it except for you, their target audience.

No one catches them "in the act" because it's ALL an act. No one can prove that they're doing whatever they can to make you crazy, to get you to make the first noticeable move towards retaliation or aggressiveness in real life, thus, they have PROOF that YOU are the a-hole in the situation, not THEM.

No one can really verify that this person is psychotic, but everyone knows, deep down, that they really are psychotic. They work, they smile, they gleefully suck up at every given opportunity, so in the end, their brownie points trump your loud complaints every time.

But WHY? I had to do some research to find out why someone could be so ill-formed and socially retarded:

They do it because they're jealous.
They do it because they're insecure.
They do it because they're uneducated and immature.
They do it because they've been brought up like that, by jealous, insecure, uneducated and immature parents.

It's really a sad state. But they're out there. I have a couple of spares if anybody needs one. I'll be glad to send one right over. For free.

Thanks for listening to my bitch session.

I have to go write now. Just had to get that out of my head (and my system) before I ended up killing someone else in my book that didn't deserve to die.

Thanks.

The Last Day at the Lake

A Poem


Someone said it was illegal
Spreading your ashes over the lake
But we didn’t care
Last wishes trump dubious laws

The day had a brightness to it
Shining like chrome and hurting our eyes
But we didn’t notice
Light silently crashing on waiting water

We laughed too loud, uncomfortable
Counting the long seconds in our heads
But we didn’t acknowledge
Looking around with hands in pockets

Nobody wanted to do the honors
No one wanted to make the first move
But we didn’t argue
Letting the oldest sibling take charge

It shouldn’t have gone like that
Unceremonious and without words
But we didn’t complain
Later I said words of my own

I know it's crazy, I know it's whatever...but the writers, cast, and crew of "My Name is Earl" still (after how many seasons? FOUR?) manage to crank out an amazing, entertaining, hilarious, over-the-top, original, endearing show.

Just my opinion. If you've never seen it, you should give it a try.

I Earl.