Movies...

I have to see Capote for class, so I'm going to do that tomorrow. Also, I'm trying to see the Green Street Hooligans before it leaves the theaters. On Tivo (or the crappy Adelphia cable version of Tivo), I'm watching High Fidelity (Nick Hornby's joint. I really didn't care about this movie, but I LOVED Hornby's book, Fever Pitch. I'm not even commenting on the movie versions of the book.) and Judgement at Nuremburg. The movie a night thing is cool, but you really see how many crappy movies are being produced when you scroll through the listing. Ninety percent of these movies I'd never watch if you paid me.

My Movie A Day...

Now that I'm in film school, I've decided that I should actually start watching some films. So I'm watching at least one film per day. Some are classics. Others are obscure. Some I've watched, but now I'm rewatching in order to observe the screenwriting. And they are different as could be. Today, I watched 12 Angry Men and Goodfellas.

The Question of Race...

Have you ever noticed that when a black person is beat senseless by white folks, that the news anchors always ask the victim whether they think the incident was a racial incident. I always thought this curious. Everyday, reporters draw conclusions about everything under the sun. Whether Karl Rove will be indicted. Whether Bush knew there weren't any weapons of mass destruction. Whether or not the avian flu is going to kill us all. But when it comes to race, the reporter always wants the victim to make the decision. And if the black victim knows they are in a no win situation. If they say it is racial, then they will be accused of playing the "race card" (an illegitimate principle anyway). If they don't say it is racial, then it's like the anchor can breath a sigh of relief. White folks are off the hook! But why can't the anchor draw their own conclusions? Why can't someone say that we rarely find tapes of random whites people being beat down by black folks? Or that to the untrained or trained eye, it appears that a black man was being kicked, maimed, dragged, etc. by white people? Because a whole lot of commentators sure as hell declared black folks criminals from the looping of the looting during Katrina. I don't remember any of them asking those folks whether or not it was stealing. They just declared it so.

MRI results...

Here are the results for the MRI on my right knee: (1) no meniscal tear (2) severe injury to medial collateral ligament (no tear) and (3) small, nondisplaced fracture of patella. I have an appointmentt with the ortho specialist tomorrow, so I'll know what I have to do for rehab. I really would like to know what's going on with my left knee too.

Today's Class...

Today, we had our class with Hal. The assignment had been to write short story based on one regret we'd had in our life. It could be funny, serious, or anything in between. It didn't have to be true, but interesting. So I wrote my piece and as soon as I started reading it, I knew I'd made a mistake.

Hal called it scaffolding and I call it fluff. My piece had too much descriptive fluff used to intro elemets of the story. I made the mistake of writing this piece as though I was in the MFA program for creative writing versus screenwriting. My words needed to move the story forward in a spare manner, with sights and sounds described as it moved forward, rather than paragraphs of words that kept the story stuck in one place.

If I had to set up my own screenwriting rule, it would be called the Tuco rule. In my favorite movie, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, Tuco (the Ugly) shoots a man in the right arm in the opening scene. About an hour later, the one armed man confronts Tuco with a gun in his left arm. Tuco appears to be helpless, as he's soaking in a bath. The one arm man gives a long soliloquy about how he'd been tracking Tuco down. Tuco says nothing. Finally, before the one armed man can shoot him, Tuco blasts him with a gun he's hidden underneath the soap bubbles. As Tuco looks down at the dead would be killer, he says simply.

"When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk."

And that is the same with screenwriting. Screw the long descriptions and move the story forward.

Now I'm rewriting it so that it follows my Tuco rule.

Where I'm At...

All right. Let's get going and recap where I'm at and where I'm going. Besides struggling to limp around the UCLA with two busted knees (which has made another UCLA MFAer named Dave a hero in my eyes. Dave walks with crutches and I am forever in awe. My temporary ass immobility will get better and I'll go back to not noticing the thousands of unnecessary steps at each building, or how far the ATM machines are from each other. Being permanently disable is a bitch and this world, despite ramps and auto door openers, ain't built for folks without full mobility. I'm getting a small taste of it now.)

From now on, I'm going to divide the blog into my two different lives: UCLA film school and my books. Both will be active over the next two years and it will seem like I'm doing a lot of stuff, but it's all about compartmentalizing. I did get burned out while on the Friends With Benefits tour, but that was mainly because I hate to do book tours, and I'm starting to detest travel of any sort. But knock on wood, I haven't even come close to getting burned out on writing. It's the pleasurable thing about this whole biz.

So for the next two to three years, I will be serving two masters, and this is probably the best time ever to read this blog. My wife knows that I'm going to be selfish with my writing over these next few years and so does my son (who is hilarious by the way. I did a lecture at UC Santa Barbara and he was silently doing his pencil drawings close by when he pipes up and says to the audience "You're a funny man.") So, if you're interested in writing books, this is the blog for you. If you're interested in going to film school, this is the blog for you. If you're interested in writing screenplays, this is the blog for you. If you're interested in how documentaries are made, this is the blog for you. If you're interested in black writers in Hollywood, then this is the blog for you. So here we go:

UCLA:

I'm excited, really excited. I have three classes this quarter and two are led by the co-chairman of the MFA screenwriters program. Richard Walter teaches 130A, which is a mixed course of undergrads and graduate students. Hal Ackerman teaches 431, which is a sort of intro to screenwriting course for grads only. It is much more intimate with about ten students per class. My last class meets on Wednesday evening and is a marketing course taught by Terry Press, who is the head of theater marketing at Dreamworks.

What I like about UCLA to date is the atmosphere. Per being a California institution, the professors and students in the program all seem casual and determined that the best way to get the best out of you is for you to focus on your work, give it your all, but still keep some perspective on life at the same time. Richard Walter is an example of that. Honestly, after having gone to his first class, I'm not too sure what we're going to be learning. Scratch that. I know that we're going to be learning about the craft of screenwriting, but Richard talks about screenwriting in a very eclectic style. One minute he's talking about communism, Aristotle, writing a personal story, George Lucas, and the right wing nut job David Horowitz. I figure that it'll clear up soon enough. He has a great sense of humor and knows what he's talking about.

Hal's class is more my flavor though. Small set of writers who each have their own life experiences that they bring to their writing. I like that. I don't want to only hear about my stories. I thirst for other people's stories. In our first class, we did a sort of "My Name is Earl" exercise, where we listed our regrets. Some were funny, others were poignant, but as you wrote them, it became very apparent that you could be a little bit vulnerable. And if you are, you damn well better trust the people in the room. I think that even though everyone in the room is somewhat nervous as to how they stack up against each other as writers, we still trust each other because we obviously had enough talent to make it this far. As we continue to write, that trust will help us write the best screenplays possible. At the end of Hal's class, we're to write a thirty page first act. It's going to be fun.

My last class is a marketing class and when I sat down in that class, it felt like was stealing from UCLA. I LOVE marketing. For three hours, we talked about how bad "The Island" was, why it is hard to get older men to get off the couch and go to the movies, etc. Then we watched trailers. I was in bliss. I have an Art and Commerce philosophy about writing and my writing career, and since I want to write a lot of scripts that put black folks in international situations, i want to learn how a studio will or more importantly, won't marketing it.

MK and I are working on our documentary. More info later...

So that's UCLA. On to my bread and butter.

My agent wants my non-fiction book proposal soon and I'm determined to get it done by this weekend. When it gets sold, I'll say what it is.

Money Shot, my next fiction piece, is still being read by Karen Thomas at Kensington. I expect to have an answer by the end of the month.

I am about to do a telephone interview tour Friends With Benefits and The Divine Nine.

That's about it. More tomorrow.

The Verdict...

Small fracture on the left knee cap. I have an immobilizer on it right now and an MRI is getting scheduled tomorrow. My other knee just hurts. I have crutches, but since i can't really put a lot of weight on my right leg, they're a bit useless. But life moves on. Hopefully, there's no ligament damage when the MRI comes out. I see an orthopedic doctor next week for an evaluation.

Almost Killed Yesterday...

Yesterday, I was almost killed. First day of film school and I decided to ride the motorcycle. Put the bike into first gear and it jumped out under me, leading me into an SUV. My knees are fucked and the bike is totaled. But I still made it to school. Right now, the pain is unbearable and I need to get them checked out this morning. I already know that there's some ligament damage. Updates later...

The Little Things...

There was once a book called "It's the Little Things" and it detailed how the little things between blacks and whites make us distrustful of each other. They are little slights. One little slight is that I tend to believe that the humanity of African Americans is only grudgingly acknowledged by American society. Examples: Hurricane Katrina and the lack of a timely federal response. Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett using African Americans as a hypothetical example of how abortion could cure the crime rate. Etc. But one little thing still bugs me. It is an honor delivered to different people in two different ways.

Ronald Reagan National Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport
LaGuardia Airport

Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport

Notice the difference? About six months ago, the state of Maryland fought about how to honor the late Thurgood Marshall, and they finally came up with a plan to rename the BWI airport after the Supreme Court justice. But notice that they decided to basically keep the old name and tack on Marshall's name as an afterthought. Now is this something that will change the world? No. But in some parts of the black community, this is another thing to point to when we look at whether we are second class citizens in this country. It's the little things.

Still Waiting on Savoy...

Boy, getting paid for a magazine gig can be amazingly slow. Savoy STILL owes me for an article I did in June. It's really getting pathetic and I really feel bad for the writers they've stiffed who really depend on their freelance check to survive.

re: Television Saga...

Went to Fry's with my "no negative info" check with no problem. And got a better deal. So take that Best Buy!

Remembering Names...

I am horrible with names. I do my DAMNEDEST to remember the names of people, and I'm just terrible. But I think I've come up with a solution. I'm going to try to learn five names of my fellow film students each week, and then learn another five the next, until I can remember them all.

On the lit front, I have to finish my non-fiction book project proposal asap. I want to get my feet wet with film school, but that project needs to be shopped. I know where my bread is buttered. Karen at Kensington has my latest fiction manuscript, so a decision on that will come within October.

I'm going to lecture only a little bit this year. But I still have some to add to the schedule.

MK and I are going to start working on the doc, and he is helping me out by designing my website. Five years with books, adn never a website. That's terrible marketing from a cat who prides himself on marketing his books.

BTW, Friends With Benefits is doing nicely in the Amazon rankings. It is consistently staying under 50,000, and that's without a single interview having been done. I have a slew of interviews set up in the next month, so I hope to get it under 10,000 on a regular basis. If I can do that, then I think I will have created the momentum I need to get some good sales this year. Kensington sent me about 3000 FWB postcards, and I'll distribute them with the galleys.

BET

Galleys...

We're still unboxing stuff and I found a box full of uncorrected galley proofs of The Ways of Black Folks and Friends With Benefits. Instead of just keeping them in the box, I think I'm going to put a note in each copy and then leave them in a public place. I'd like to track where the books go and who is reading them.

EXCITED!

All right. I am officially excited about film school. I just completed Day One of our orientation, and it just felt good to be around folks who write, and think about writing. I have this feeling that I'm really going to grow in this program.

Met four black folks who are in the acting part of the MFA program. Virginia Union, Spelman, and two Howard grads. HBCUs are representing! I think I'll organize a nice little bbq for the black mfa folks. Just so we don't feel isolated.

But even though the numbers of black folks are sparse, I must say that the folks are diverse occupationally and experience wise. So I look forward to listening to new stories outside of my community.

Ticked Off...

Has anyone else had this experience? For the past month, I've been contemplating a big ass plasma screen television. I want it Magic Johnson theatre big. I deserve it. The wife thinks I deserve it. And so I've been looking at televisions, comparing pixels, and HDTV versus EDTV, etc. So finally, I'm ready to buy. I go down to the local best buy, stare at two different televisions, and finally make my decision. I want that one.

Cool, the saleman says. We get to the register, and I write a check for about four large. I just sold my house in a boom market. I can splurge a bit. But as the cashier puts in the check, she goes to the phone. I'm like, what the dealio? She talks to someone and then comes to me and says my check is declined, but for NO NEGATIVE REASONS. I'm like, well we haven't bounced a check since I was copping Blondies pizza slices at Berkeley in the 80s, so I know there's negative reasons. But if there's no negative reasons, why can't I write the check. She slides me a number to a company called Cetergy. I talk to this cat who tells me that Cetergy has "200 factors" they take in before authorizing purchase. I'm tripping. So some random computer is telling me how much of my hard earned money I can spend???? I go off. I ask for the criteria. He tells me that check sequence is one factor. I'm using check 102 and the last check used was 109. I tell him that my wife uses some checks and I the other. Then he said the length a bank account has been open. My account has been open for ten years straight. So the reporter in me started asking questions. I wanted to know whether or not "zip code" which is a way to racial profile folks, is being used. There's a silence on the other end. He tells me that he doesn't know all of the criteria. This may be a good story to pursue. I can understand if you write bad checks and then get put on a list. But when you get put on a list for NOTHING, then I have a problem.

Back at Home!

Got in and hugged the wife and kid. Picked up the motorcycle from the shop. Too tired to ride it. Had to go to a UCLA film school party. Nice to meet everyone in my class. Twenty five people in my class, only two black folks, me and a cat from NYC. But a WIDE variety of occupations and experiences, so this will be nice and interesting. I've got two days of orientation beginning tomorrow and then...I help my mother move to Dallas. Twenty hours on the road.

Finished!

I'm officially done with this tour. Got up this morning at 3am in NYC and drove over five hours to DC. Hotel didn't have a room, so I couldn't change for the CBC. Oh well. Can't sweat what you can't change. Did a signing at the AKA event, and that went very well. One woman bought seven books (Divine Nine and Friends With Benefits combo) as gifts. But enough about books. I went to Georgia Browns and got some fried chicken and now it's about waking up and getting on a plane for home. I'm going to sleep for a few hours and then roll for the airport.

Pleasant Surprise...

Did my last NYC booksigning at the Green Acres Mall and had a great time. Got a nice surprise when my AE chapter frat brother Eric Stephens and his beautiful fiancee Isis, came through to visit. Nothin' like selling books with friends. This signing was at a Waldens and it was fun to simply sign and talk to folks. A LOT of sisters came through and where intrigued by the Friends With Benefits concept, and the research I'd done before writing the book. Each one brought their own experience to the convo. The book has tapped into something, and this signing was very encouraging. Now I have to get a tiny bit of rest and then drive five hours to Washington DC. I'm going to be absolutely knocked out after signing at the CBC, Howard, and then at the AKA stepshow. I'm going to only stay about an hour at the AKA show and then get to the hotel and sleep. I leave EARLY for LA on Sunday.

Pleasant Surprise...

Did my last NYC booksigning at the Green Acres Mall and had a great time. Got a nice surprise when my AE chapter frat brother Eric Stephens and his beautiful fiancee Isis, came through to visit. Nothin' like selling books with friends. This signing was at a Waldens and it was fun to simply sign and talk to folks. A LOT of sisters came through and where intrigued by the Friends With Benefits concept, and the research I'd done before writing the book. Each one brought their own experience to the convo. The book has tapped into something, and this signing was very encouraging. Now I have to get a tiny bit of rest and then drive five hours to Washington DC. I'm going to be absolutely knocked out after signing at the CBC, Howard, and then at the AKA stepshow. I'm going to only stay about an hour at the AKA show and then get to the hotel and sleep. I leave EARLY for LA on Sunday.