Well, the first weekend was really about building up to this moment. Finally writing has begun in earnest. I know this, not because I’m saying it out loud, but because I have 7 more pages in my hands that are somewhere between good and fucking great. Most likely some of it will end up on the trash heap, but that’s not because those pages are bad — Which is refreshing! — it’s because it might not fit into the story when all is said and done.

So Sunday I played like 6 hours of Red Dead Redemption with the Posse, and then I watched Jonah Hex because I’m a terrible person with awful taste. The point is that I have pages and.. and… inspiration! I’ve been visiting with this idea for over 6 years off and on, popping in for tea every few months or so. To sit down and finally have a meaningful conversation about where our life together is headed is just wonderful.

The lesson here is to let yourself do whatever it takes to get to that point where you can write. Don’t punish yourself because time is only wasted if in the end you aren’t holding those 7 pages aloft, like I am, and screaming to the crows overhead that they can’t take your eyes yet, because you still need them for the next 7 pages!

This is for you Megan Fox and Josh Brolin. Your sacrifice will not be in vain!

I’m a firm believer that you create magic all around you just by being yourself and giving in to your more adorable base urges. My groundless need to drink Belgian chocolate milk at Whole Foods’ yesterday lead to our naming of our writer’s collective after the silky, delicious carraggean filled desert milk.

As for the collective itself, well… aside from the fact that we never actually got to my or Fizz’s submissions for group critique, it was interesting. There were a few rules set in place that made the game more like a complex writing exercise than a natural critique. First a little background info, everyone submitted a minimum of either 2 pages of a story or 5 pages of a screenplay. There were five of us and we allotted about three hours for this first meeting.

The rules were simple but evolving; when your story is being discussed there is a cone of silence in effect for the writer. Only after the group has thoroughly exhausted all possible suggestions is the writer then allowed to put everything in context. It was a flawed but somehow more thrilling version of a think tank: an imagine tank. How can you critique two pages of the barest traces of an idea? You just make shit up stream of consciousness style -sometimes interjecting with a savvy pop culture reference to make yourself seem smart. Though to be fair, I think all my self aggrandizing references were useful observations. I’m sure everyone thinks theirs were useful observations too.

It almost feels like training for working on the writing staff for a show like The Office. The humor that came out of our interactions was honestly funnier than anything we were writing. I mean, there were two Brians there. Myself and a bearded fellow. We couldn’t decide how to differentiate between us. Do they call me, boo? No. No one outside of my Japanese rock world calls me that. It’s a nickname from a very specific time and place that belongs to history. Incidentally, I can’t wait ’til my daughter cocks her head up at me quizzically and asks me why that man called me ‘boo.’ We tried out Stewdog, but it came at the expense of everyone’s dignity. Every time JB used it on me I wanted to pound back a brewski and belch like a frat boy. It got so ridiculous that I eventually told them to call me Stevesie or Steve Z, which was supposed to be a sly The Life Aquatic reference but got a laugh for, what I believe, are other non Wes Anderson related reasons. Uncultured barbarians.

We’ve decided to meet again next week when my turn in the stocks will come. I may have a very different take on things then.

For now… Proost! (That’s Danish for Cheers!)

I loathe the word “staycation” which has been squawked at me several times since I told people that, “yes, I’m taking a week off and no, I’m not going anywhere.” The truth is, I’m not going to “stay.” I’m not going to be a good dog. I’m going to be a very, very naughty dog. I’m going off my run. I’m running without a leash.

This vacation is a respite from the daily grind in the most common and uninteresting sense but it’s so much more than that. This time is time I’ve set aside and earmarked for writing and living and misbehaving. As the arrival date of my baby draws near, I find myself with something to prove. Either I am a badass, rock ‘n roll, superstar writer/producer motherfucker, or I’m not. I’ve given myself 9 days to finish a screenplay I’ve had kicking in the back of my mind for years. A screenplay I intend to submit for fame, glory and cash prizes.

I’m going to chronicle the progress here, as I take my leave of the more time consuming social media and open my own private conduit to like minded monsters. (My nickname is “boo” after all…)

Writing isn’t just about putting words on paper. It’s about creating a canvas, filling yourself with vivid and then jerking all the colors of the wind until the crayons get jealous.

Dance. Mummies. Dance until you vibrate the dead skin right off.

I think the world has forgotten what spectacle is supposed to make you feel like. As someone somewhere surely once said, “the extraordinary has become common, and the common has become mind-numbingly boring.”

Japanese recording artists are expected to put out an album a year, release 3-5 singles in the lead up to the album release, release the cover art, title and tracklisting at least 3 months in advance and to promote said singles and album by going on a variety of talk shows and appearing in a pile of magazines. Although some of the rules vary, it’s the same sad hype machine as anywhere in the world and it’s become a drag.

That’s why it was so much fun to watch Mr. Children piss all over it.

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Takako and I started watching FX’s infamous Nip/Tuck this fall and, on a Christmas day unlike any other, we finished season 3. At its best Nip/Tuck was the story of three friends; plastic surgeons Dr. Sean McNamara, Dr. Christian Troy and their med school crush (now Sean’s wife,) Julia all locked in a three way tug of war in which their family and business practice were all hanging in the balance. At its worst, it was sensationalist, misery porn which pushed boundaries at the expense of being true to its characters. To the show’s credit, the first three seasons somehow managed to temper the shock and awe nonsense with the tug of war and ended about where it should.

So that’s why Takako and I quit. With the show’s multiple season spanning Carver arc ended, Julia and Sean having found themselves through mutual self destruction and then reinvention, and Christian having finally rediscovered the family he has in them and their son (his son) Matt and the end of his self flagellation, what more needed to be said?

Apparently a lot. The damn thing went on for 6 or 7 seasons of which the internet writes: “all that needs to be said about the last season of Nip/Tuck is that Matt becomes a mime thief.”

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Have you seen Inception yet?

If not stop reading and go watch one of the year’s best films and more proof that Christopher Nolan can do no wrong. Read no further. There be spoilers ahead.

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It seemed like such an innocent notion… bring home a real goddamn Christmas tree this year. One of the perks of my job as a TV news magazine producer is that every so often I get to literally take my work home with me. In this case that work was the product of a story I did on how to find and cut down your own real live Xmas tree for the holidays. Also, it wasn’t really work. It was a motherforking tree!!

Well right from the get go this thing was needy. For one, it was too big. So I had to go and buy a hacksaw and some work gloves in order to chop it down to a reasonable, Charlie Brown’s Christmas size. Second, it needed a stand. Now you would think that they would sell those at just about every BLANKmart and Gas Station from here to Pennsylvania but you would only be half right. Yes, they did sell them, at some undisclosed time in the recent past, but they were most certainly sold out by the time we pulled our Hyundai into the holiday funzone.

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