Creative Works! Archives
July 18, 2008
Flattery Will Get You Nowhere
My friend Mark usually writes horror/suspense stories. I could never write shit like that, but he does it really well. When he sends me short stories, they remind me of Night Shift-era Stephen King (and if you know King’s work, that’s pretty much the sweet spot for him in terms of quality short stories); when he sends me screenplays, they remind me of a slightly-less-schlocky Brian De Palma. The only exception to this is when he sends me comedies. He’s a really funny guy, but somehow it just doesn’t end up on the page. It’s like what happens when I try to write suspense.
Maybe it’s just a different method to the madness or something. It’s a comedy, so he’s trying to be funny, as opposed to his suspense/horror stuff, almost all of which is thoroughly entertaining and funny without feeling so…derivative. Because, to me, it looks like he just has his set of favorite comedies and is content to imitate them.
The first one sent me was a Clerks knockoff that, at least, tries to define itself by taking place in a totally different workplace environment. Unfortunately, it’s the exact same conflict (20-somethings struggling to cope with their directionless lives and learning something about themselves over the course of one crazy day; he even includes an equally unnecessary “main character gets shot” ending) and the same basic “more obscenities and pop-culture references = more funny” formula that has made Kevin Smith rich.
The second one is Office Space with a lot of tired political satire instead of sharp corporate satire. He grew up as a liberal in a rural, conservative area, and in many cases his writing seems to work out the issues he has with the ignorance and foolishness that causes the agro-poor to support the men who made them poor. It’s a fair point, but there’s always a Michael Moore-esque “preaching to the choir” mentality about it; no ignorant farmboys would go to see this movie. Only yuppie liberals who spend their weekends at the “arts cinema” would seek it out, and they’d laugh knowingly and wonder why these rednecks don’t adjust their attitudes.
When he works in a medium (gory horror) that his chosen demographic might actually watch, and the satire is a little more subtle, it’s much more effective.
So it surprised me when he sent me the first few chapters in a novel he’s started work on. I figured it’d be a long-form horror novel that I could really sink my teeth into.
It was not.
In fact, in many ways it reminded me of Juno, which is a fate worse than death. I can understand it, though; he cited Juno as one of his favorite movies of last year, and I can see Diablo Cody’s awful, blunt satire appealing to him. That’s the main problem: in the five chapters he sent, every single person is a cardboard cartoon character. The big TEEN PREGNANT-style “tackling taboo issues” portion involves a suicide-bombing at a high school, but there’s nothing close to fully realized characters and 3D shading on anybody.
On the one hand, I can see it not mattering; one of the things I like to do is portray these grossly over-the-top caricatures, then slowly ladle on the shading until they go from hilarious to tragic. So I only have 25 pages, most of which consists solely of character introductions. We learn of their ridiculousness and, one hopes, will soon learn harder truths about them.
The thing that bugs me is that he told me specifically that he was inspired by the style of my novel, Cedar Point, which he read throughout the process and gave me dynamite feedback to help with the rewrite. And I can see it, but I don’t like what I see.
In character and plot (what little there is so far), I see the repugnant stylings of Ms. Cody, but in terms of sentence-by-sentence joke-building, I see…a poor-man’s me. It’s like looking in a horrible funhouse mirror, but it makes me wonder: is this a distorted picture of what my writing looks like, or am I really bad? Is he a poor-man’s me, or has he done a spot-on job of aping my poor-man’s Raymond Chandler-cum-Woody Allen style?
It’s making me question everything: was I hard on his comedies in the past because they remind me of myself? I don’t dare ask questions that compare myself to Diablo Cody, because much as I want to say something like, “Maybe my unnatural hate of Juno comes from a secret belief that Cody’s manipulation of the system to produce an offbeat, Midwestern brand of comedy to the mainstream has ruined my chances to do the same thing,” really, at the end of the day, the movie just fucking sucks. The offbeat, Midwestern brand of comedy doesn’t involve quite so much rhyming.
I don’t know what else to say. On one hand, I’m flattered that he thinks enough of me to try to imitate my style; on the other, I can’t be objective enough about my style to know whether his imitation is so accurate I should be flattered, or so grotesque I should distance myself from him. I’ve never had to deal with something like this before. I want to be proud, but I’m mostly just embarrassed.
Posted by Stan on July 18, 2008 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 11, 2008
What’s Wrong with Being Sexy?
For the moment, I’ve abandoned Rolling in It: The Movie. It’s still there, waiting to be completed, but a new idea has hit me. Idea-wise, I work in two different ways: either I have a vague notion that I have to pound and force into something resembling a story, or I have a swarm of vague notions that all amount to a story that’s, basically, fully fleshed out. That is rarer for me, but in the cases that it has, the scripts have required the fewest number of rewrites. They just kinda pull together—no story problems, no character problems, just a lot of minor nudges.
This new idea is a swarmer.
At first, it concerned me a bit. I’m rarely known for political correctness, but at the end of the day, I want to be fair to people. If I’m going to hate them all equally, it’s hard for me to go ahead with a misogynistic, LaBute-like pile of garbage. In this case, it’s not even terribly misogynistic; it’s just a bit sexist. It doesn’t try to be, though. I don’t want to divulge its secrets because, frankly, I feel like it’s a pretty fresh take on the dying romantic-comedy genre, but I will say this: it plays with a lot of ideas involving manhood and womanhood.
Part of me thinks that, as a man, I’ll be labeled as hostile or sexist for going with this. The underlying theme, though, is that the clinical, psychological dispositions of “male” and “female” behavior are bullshit. So now I’m in trouble for being anti-intellectual, but the point is: people are people. If you want to trace back everything they do to primal urges, that’s fine; if you want to say, “Because this is how the majority of men and women behaved in a clinical study, then all men and women behave this way.” I just happen to think that’s what we in the artistic community call “a huge load.”
So to me, it’s not anti-intellectual; it looks at psychological precepts — limitations, really — on the understanding of male and female behavior and saying, “Yeah, maybe we need to dig deeper to get at some real truths.” And it’s not sexist — you have a guy being assigned labels because of the way he acts, but in the end he learns to embrace that kernel of individuality instead of rejecting it and trying to change.
But that’s just me. I’m a little concerned about what people who aren’t me will think.
And, okay, you caught me: it’s called Tranny Surprise and the title does not refer to transmissions.
Posted by Stan on July 11, 2008 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 25, 2008
New Blogging Schedule
In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve switched from blogging all day, every day to blogging at least three times a week. This is a conscious effort because, frankly, blogging takes too much effort. It’s both a combination of time management — lately, I’ve spent more time than I’d like thinking about what to blog about, or trolling the Web for blog topics, and subsequently writing the post. Worse than that, in case you couldn’t tell, I’m losing steam in terms of subjects. I can only blog about screenwriting, invasive medical procedures, and standardized tests so many times before readers rebel.
So yeah, if I think of something worth blogging about on an “unscheduled” blog day, maybe I’ll write it; maybe I’ll save it for the next scheduled day. Who knows? Just don’t expect daily blogging. I had a good run, but I’m officially out of gas.
Posted by Stan on June 25, 2008 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 19, 2008
Stan vs. The Addams Family
I fucking love The Addams Family — I don’t really care much if you disagree. It’s probably the funniest “classic” sitcom of all time, and it’s pretty hard to beat Green Acres and The Dick Van Dyke Show. It only lasted two seasons, but it’s one of those shows I could watch repeatedly and not get sick of. This is either a testament to its quality or a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder — you decide! I actually wish it had lasted longer, because if you watch the episodes in order, the writers just go batshit insane; most episodes barely have a story and are full of Monty Python-esque absurdity. As much of a story guy as I am, I love that kind of humor when it’s done well, but I also acknowledge this is probably the main reason for the show’s ratings decline and cancellation.
Although I’d never really cite it as a conscious influence, I noticed something kind of crazy. Recently, TV Land has wedged random marathons onto the schedule (usually they only air it once on Saturday and Sunday), so I had a shitload of Addams Family episodes on the TiVo this week. I watched them at the same time I went through my fake band blog to spruce up old entries, and I realized what a big impact it’s had.
The past several months featured an epic story arc in which Girth discovers he fathered an illegitimate child. It might be the family dynamic that caused me to notice the similarities…there’s nothing really outright ripped off, except the general premise of many jokes. On The Addams Family, about 80% of the jokes are based on the idea that the family has their own version of reality that is pretty much at odds with the rest of the world. That’s the foundation of many jokes on the Abysmal blog, as well. Not all of them — probably not even a majority — but enough for me to take notice and reconsider the impact this show has had on me.
This post might contain the most Addams Family-derivative joke I stumbled across:
As I reached the storeroom, the sound of her voice wafted through the semi-open door. I paused to listen to her unfiltered advice: “Slow down, chica, just think about it: you’re gonna get flabby, your tits are gonna sag, you’re gonna be looser than Jessica Martin—”“That bitch!” the unknown girl snapped.
“You need to just terminate this pregnancy now. It’ll solve all your problems with Tommy, and you’ll keep that tight-ass body you’ve worked so hard on.”
“I’ll do it!”
I nodded with approval, even though I knew Renal couldn’t see me. She gave the exact same advice I would have—remarkably mature for a girl of her age.
(I guess I should also offer some backstory: shortly before finding out about this daughter, Girth founded a sham children’s charity to launder money he stole from some Nigerians during the band’s European tour last summer. When he started taking heat for something so flagrantly illegal, he decided to set up shop in the storeroom of an abortion clinic in Studio City, where he has his daughter and wife dispense advice to the teen girls who visit the clinic. Perhaps I should also mention that 90% of my reason for keeping the Abysmal blog has to do with letting me get all the truly weird shit out of my system, so I can write something fairly normal — at the very least, not alienating — when I do “real” writing.)
That’s a classic Addams Family structuring: part one, she gives horrible, shallow advice; part two, the recipient of said bad advice agrees*; part three, the classic reversal — rather than feeling shock and horror, Girth feels proud and believes this is a sign of his daughter’s maturity.
So there you have it: in addition to blatant theft from NewsRadio, The Simpsons, and Arrested Development (and some would argue This Is Spinal Tap and Tenacious D, though I have to disagree since I’ve consciously distanced myself from similarities to them), there’s also unconscious theft from The Addams Family. But hey, there’s some originality there, too! I don’t recall the Arrested Development episode where they have to break out of an 18th-century French jail. Although I’m pretty sure that was a MacGyver episode. Dammit!
*On The Addams Family, people usually have two reasons for going along with the Addamses: either they’re callously trying to get something out of the family, only to reach a breaking point and run away by the end of the episode, or they don’t fully understand the extent of the family’s weirdness and think they’re joking or being idiomatic or something.
Posted by Stan on April 19, 2008 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
December 17, 2006
Hard at Work!
I haven’t checked in lately. I’m very near having a job. Not quite yet, but it’s within my grasp. I’m doing volunteer work for a guy who’s about as ethical as me; he told me to put him down as a work reference for whatever the fuck pipe-dream job I want to pretend I’ve had so I can get a real job. Just as long as I keep him apprised of what he supposedly employed me to do, he’ll lie like a banshee to employees. He’s known, at least in the circles of the city where I want to be employed, for freelance work, so it might actually work out. He’s also had a few jobs crop up (which, unfortunately, won’t start interviewing until after the holidays) that have contacted him personally for recommendations, and he’s sent my name their way. This could work out, after all…
In the meantime, I’ve been hard at work on the first draft of a novel. It’s part of an elaborate scam to sell screenplays, but I won’t go into details on that right now. I wouldn’t want somebody stumbling across this entry via Google and stealing my scam, which to my knowledge hasn’t yet been used in The Industry™. This could either mean I’m being really innovative or really stupid, but as Thomas Edison once remarked, “There’s a fine line between clever and stupid.” He made this remark shortly before making the first — and only — test of his unsuccessful colonoscopy camera, which weighed 500 pounds and was approximately the size of a modern refrigerator.
Point being, I’ve been devoting my time, energy, and skillz to (a) completing this novel, (b) finding a job, and (c) watching reruns of The Rockford Files. No time for blogging, leaving the house, or having sex with middle-aged women after mildly erotic games of pool!
Posted by Stan on December 17, 2006 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 16, 2006
Acoustic Version
Do you remember that song? For no real reason, I stripped out all the electric parts for an acoustic mix.
Posted by Stan on October 16, 2006 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 21, 2006
New Song
Click here to download a song I recorded last week. You will not be disappointed. It is the greatest song ever to tackle the subject of the vaguely homoerotic relationship between a Ukrainian drunk and the undercover CIA agent who thinks he’ll make a good professional wrestler.
Posted by Stan on August 21, 2006 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 12, 2006
Series Idea
I swear, this will be the greatest show of all time. ARE YOU LISTENING, NETWORKS?!
Inspired, as most modern ideas are, by Star Trek (specifically, this confusing and possibly doctored image), the series follows the adventures of George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.
With the Royal Proclamation of 1763 following the bloodbath of the French and Indian War, a ragtag group of recently released prisoners of war try to make their way through the Ohio Country. At the outset, the group is attacked, and every soldier is slaughtered—except, miraculously, for George Washington (dream casting: Chuck Norris), who struggles on his own toward the treacherous mountains of Appalachia. In a small village just short of the mountains, Washington gets into a fight at a local tavern. It nearly results in his death, but he’s saved by 20-year-old Thomas Jefferson, whose cold logical reasoning upsets the villagers.
Jefferson introduces Washington to his traveling companion, wisecracking scientist Ben Franklin. Together, the three of them set out on an adventure. All have a common goal: to return home. Franklin to Boston, Washington to Mount Vernon, and Jefferson to the College of William and Mary, where he intends to study law.
Each week in their travels, the trio solves a mystery by way of martial-arts violence, Washington has sex with a go-go dancer or two, and the stakes are often raised when they get into wacky trouble from Washington’s devil-may-care ways and Jefferson’s warlock-like sacrilegious rationality. They often escape from their problems thanks to Ben Franklin’s MacGyver-like abilities to create complex explosives using ordinary items.
Come on, this show has everything! A perfect archetypal trio of main characters, violence and excitement, steamy sexual conquests, a weekly “franchise,” and an ultimate goal. The only thing it lacks is a constant pursuer. I’d suggest somebody like an aging Joe Don Baker as a military tracker. Through Washington’s failure at Fort Necessity, this tracker spent years tortured at an Indian encampment. When he was finally released, the tracker made the decision to hunt Washington down and kill him.
The tracker won’t be featured every week, but there will always be the fear that he’s right on their trail, ready to pounce.
So there, we have an ultimate villain and a potential story arc. And it’s edutainment! It teaches you while you learn! Look at all the history, right there in one TV show. And it will be 100% historically accurate, if you ignore the entire premise of the series and possibly an overwhelming number of errors caused by the constraints of a television budget and schedule.
Posted by Stan on April 12, 2006 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
