» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

This All Leads To Something, Right?

jelewis8 — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 06:31:11 +0000

Piper’s trouble finding a church in DC isn’t the usual one you hear from serious evangelicals, with excuses ranging from “The pastor is a woman” to “The Sunday School is a joke” to “I can’t wake up that early!” No, Greg has trouble finding directions online, and lives in an area where church names are consistently similar sounding. To top it off, awkward social graces make him a prime candidate for meeting all the right girls at all the wrong times. Sad, but at least he’s gaining traction with his coffee research, something we talked about him writing an article on back in late October ’05. I hope he can write it soon, so he can start working for Slate.
I start my freelance fulltime temporary job tomorrow. It’s true. It’s a freelance position for 30 days working fulltime hours at (sadly) less than fulltime rates. Still, it’s a consistent work schedule, which I’ve lacked the last couple of months, and will provide a bit of extra income as I attempt to pass over from red to black (or vice versa). What’s great is that it’s for a company that has a lot of entertainment (read: Hollywood) clientele, including Lions Gate Films and potentially Sony Studios.
The nice thing is my days don’t start there until 10. With a little motivation, I will be getting up earlier and so shall still have time to post here as well as do a bit of writing on the side, in addition to my other regular work duties. Nights are going to be quite full though, as Bobby and I are going to a four nights a week editing schedule for 13 Months of Sunshine. Pack in Dollar Dinner/Canvas Group on Tuesday nights and Wednesday Fun Night, that leaves my Saturdays free for…I don’t know, sleep.
Woohoo for the new year, yeah?

Elemental

jelewis8 — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:53:27 +0000

Night sits in His chair next to mine, and we argue
over the nature of morality. He believes in one Absolute.
I believe in two. He makes a strong case.
But I’ve seen both Night and Day. Could I possibly choose?
Silence swam with me the day I was in the river.
When She talked, it was like the water flowing.
I listened, but I could only hear the wind.
When I looked about me, I was alone on a rock.
The water moved on.
Temperance pulled up a stool next to me in the bar.
He didn’t say much, just ordered a few rounds and
smoked a cigarette. When he went to the john,
I took the matches he was using. The cover read “Stop.”
What a joke.
Love sang as I was passing by in my rusted Chevy.
The road was dusty, the tall weeds flowered yellow-white.
I heard the song again, but it was just an old robin.
Its breast was faded from orange into grey.
But I loved it anyway.
The City groaned and sank within herself. She was troubled.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her, and she sank some more.
“Indigestion,” she sighed, and let out a bloated burp.
“And I’m a little dehydrated,” she said.
I told her I sympathized. But I didn’t. Not really.
There was a little Ghost in the circuitry, a pesky thing.
I watched it flit about in its little ghost country of wires
and bones. It touched a synapse, a metal relay, and it
jumped back as the blue snap of electricity singed the
air with ozone. I’ve seen how these things work.
The Year passed by and waved. I waved back.
But the next Year, I pretended to have something in my eye.
The Year waved, but I rubbed my eye until it was gone.
Now, I just ignore them. They all look the same anyway.
They keep waving though. I keep getting older.
There goes Sex. Wearing another low-cut dress.
Always touching someone, making everyone look.
Slut.
Why do all the sluts look so hot?
A Poem woke me up. I sat up in bed and in the darkness
She spoke. She told me to write.
I told her it could wait.
I’ve still got the crimson mark on my face
where she slapped me.

Not The Dogma Got Run Over By The Karma Joke

jelewis8 — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 04:50:39 +0000

Let’s say you know the name of a song by a queer British bloke, a few lines from the chorus, a smattering knowledge of Hindu religious beliefs, and have just read a blog entry written by a comedy writer about an enterprising, if somewhat bleary-eyed and buck-toothed (or, from the hills, if you catch my meaning) student who asks her to write a five page paper about Hinduism. Well, what are you supposed to do, let an obvious pop-culture joke go to waste?
I began weighing the options in my mind. First, the cons. For one, it’s, as I wrote in the preceding paragraph, a pretty obvious joke, even for someone not well-versed in British 80′s queer pop music. I don’t even know what Boy George looks like, though if I googled him I’d find lots of pictures that, for some reason, all look like Billy Idol. Why I imagine Boy George looks like Billy Idol, I really can’t say. And whilst on the subject of British pop, I find that Robbie Williams is getting some play, at least in some cars here in America. I’ve obviously missed out on a cultural phenomenon, but then again, I also missed out on Grease, Sesame Street, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, and Barbara Streisand’s shining moment of glory. There are some things one can only thank God for. If you can’t guess which one of the above to which I’m referring, you’ve obviously not been reading this blog long enough.
More downsides. Surely someone else has thought of the same thing. Cashing in on someone else’s witty, pop-culturally aware remark is like telling Michael Jackson jokes to a group of adoring friends, who think you’re the tastiest piece of spicy sausage to ever get served up on a hoagie roll with mustard. Big flippin’ whoop, you’re telling five year old jokes to a crowd that has to have heard them all at some point in their soft-serve lives. No, this isn’t just about Carrot Top doing a prop routine on The Tonight Show…though it could be.
So you think you’re clever, no? But really, when it comes down to it, you’re just using some raw bits of genius from other whens and wheres, scrabbling them together and making the pieces all fit, like a puzzle. Fantastic work, but a rat in a tin craphouse could piece a puzzle together. And at the end, you’ve got a photograph of the Sierra Nevadas taken by someone else, and a piece is missing because the dog got in. Just your luck.
The pros aren’t looking too good either. First, there’s the illusion of cleverness, which will pass over like a veil as soon as my readers click their way to the next “witty” blog. It’s fueled by reader responses, sometimes in person, that claim you’ve got some kind of “somethin’” in your writing. You don’t tell them that it’s just borrowed material really, but a deeper part of you still swells and justifies it by saying all the greats borrow from time to time. That’s all greatness is, really; just plagiarized rental agreements, unspoken, unmentioned, and in most cases, unacknowledged burlesques of time and mirrors. Smoke on the water, dust in the wind, parsley sage rosemary and thyme.
But come on! Even passing jokes, even pop-culture jokes are good for something. At least a lot of money, as Fox Network well knows. Lord knows I’m not makin’ it on this blog, but at least the readers approve. So what’s it hurt? A quick punchline, a five second laugh. That’s worth the price of admission (aka, reading each day’s post like a scavenging dog, you brutes!).
What the heck. Here goes nothing. Down the hatch, bottom’s up, see ya in the morning!
I can’t do it. I started to write it out, even had the italics up and everything, just to emphasize the point, but I just couldn’t do it. Everything just shouted no! Because by now, the joke’s surely on me, and I at least want to be able to laugh at the punchline, even if it’s myself. You can sound it out yourself–already have, if you’re clever or blessed with a profundity for British pop songs from the 80′s whose titles sound like a universal force of reward and punishment that manages to stay hidden from natural predators using an elaborate system of translucent scales and shifting skin pigments…
Some days, I ache for what to say on this blog. Other days, fate drops stuff into my lap…call it karma for all my hard work.
And if I still have an audience after today, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Best Motion Picture

jelewis8 — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 06:35:48 +0000

Winner for Best Motion Picture.
- My pick: Million Dollar Baby
- Oscar pick: Million Dollar Baby
Dustin Hoffman is either plastered or had a stroke. What the heck is wrong with him, he apparently can’t speak English as well as Salma Hayek.
I’m amazed. Clint Eastwood scores again, and it’s a top choice. Marty’s gotta be pissed. Nice Ah-nold joke by the old-school gangster-voiced fellow. Good speech, good choice by the Academy for a final award.
I’m pleased. I hope you’ve had a good time keeping up with the Oscars and this liveblog exercise. See you next year!

You Feel Lucky?

jelewis8 — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 03:28:56 +0000

Clint Eastwood gave Michael Moore a warning he’ll be hardpressed to ignore.

“Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common – we both appreciate living in a country where there’s free expression. But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera – I’ll kill you.”

All in good fun, of course. Where politics ends entertainment begins, and Moore showed he took the comments in the spirit they were intended.
Which makes me think that perhaps this is a new tactic for Moore, whose recent personal revolution in the hygiene department has sparked accusations that the rebel “documentarionist” (it’s like “fictition” for the masses!) may be forgetting his roots as an obese liberal circus entertainer and taking on the more pleasant characteristics of 1950′s beat icon Buddy Holly (joke courtesty of Greg Piper, who also alerted me to this story), sans the thin physique and with devilishly sculpted facial hair.
Or perhaps this is just the bizarro-world Michael Moore, an evil twin only South Park fans can adore. Who’s to say? Clearly, though, the real story is Eastwood, who at 74, is Hollywood’s most rugged frontman, tougher than Heston and more gnarled than Haggard. He’s also the man who has defied the odds and history to produce and direct some of the past couple years’ most insightful, darkest human dramas, including 2003′s Mystic River and this year’s Million Dollar Baby, a film that could have Annette Bening sweating again this Oscar night around if critics like Hilary Swank’s tough-to-beat performance.
If Eastwood threatens me, I’d take it with a grain of salt. But not too big a grain. You just never know what he’s hiding behind those steely eyes.