Whew. Just got back from a quick weekend jaunt down to San Diego.

Theoretically I should have stayed over tonight as well in order to network and set up some more deals, but I'm a cheap bastard and didn't feel like giving the Hard Rock another 300 smackers.

Quick observations:

* Something about Neil Strauss (author of "The Game") just makes you want to punch him. I mean, I'm sure he's a nice guy and all that, but you just see him with his overly maintained beard, tired eyes and fashionista clothes and you just want to do something bad to him. Actually, the whole gang of "seduction guys" who were there this weekend just reeked of So Cal douchebaggery. I'm sure it works with chicks (or at least with a certain kind of chicks) and I've got mad respect for the pickup skills, but how the hell do you look at yourself in the morning?

* Hulk Hogan is very, very large. He was in the lobby of the hotel right as I was leaving. He had 3 bodyguards, a couple handlers and an early twenties girlfriend who looks like she's spent a little too much time in the tanning booth. Nice ass, though.

* The Hard Rock hotel is like a little piece of LA hell right in the middle of San Diego. The drinks are like 10 bucks a pop, the girls are plastic and vacuous and . . .um . . well, pretty much that's it. Don't get me wrong, there was a good amount of eye candy, but I can't even say how happy I am *not* to be single and *not* to feel obligated to waste my time or my breathe hitting on these girls. It was pretty funny watching them shiver in the cold night air on the rooftop bar, though.

Yawn. Ok. Bed time. And then work, work, work. If I were still in San Diego, I'd be drunk right now.

Oh, and I got to hang with some of my copywriting idols this weekend. THat was pretty darned cool.

Whew.

It's been a fucker of a week.

Total fucker.

Double fucker.

Fuck and a half.

I mean, generally speaking my life is utterly rocking. I've got a career where I like the work, where I make more money than I ever reasonably expected and where I'm generally respected.

And I've got a girlfriend who's a funny, weird, awesome, beautiful, sexy geek (and who stuck it through with me when I was being kind of a dick.)

And I've got a whole calvalcade of great friends.

And heck, now I've even got a Wii.

So that's all good.

But every once in a while you just get stuck in the shit.

And the whole deck of cards tumbles down a bit.

As I sit here I'm in more physical pain than I have been in over a year. The left side of my sacrum is *throbbing.* I can *feel* that my head is too far foward. My shoulders are out of whack. There's a dull ache between my shoulder blades. And since I haven't been able to work out in about a week, I feel fat and soft and broken.

Now, as near a I can tell, my back going batshit crazy has a *lot* to do with my stress levels.

I get stressed, my muscles tense up and the next thing you know my whole body is arced out to the side like some comical giant "C."

Not happy stuff.

So I should probably just write out what's been stressing me.

1. Number one is that my friend Suki's dad Ross died on Sunday. He's been sick for a couple of years now, getting worse and worse and fighting it like a magnificent bastard the whole way. I really liked ross. He was a kind, fun, dorky guy who got mad it me for my grammatical atrocities. ANd his death has hit me way, way harder than I thought it would. It felt good to cry on Sunday, and i really just wish I could summon the tears again now. Let all that tension and anger and worry and anxiety out.

Fuck it. I really don't feel like writing.

More later. But suffice to say that i'm stressed.

There's that weird moment sitting at the desk where I wonder If I'm ready to work.

I mean, I'm never ready to work. But in 4 years of self employment, I've learned that there are some days I'm not going to get anything done no matter how hard I try. Best thing for it is to go off and have a good day and see what happens late at night.

Anyway,

I just had my eyes checked and I am indeed blinder than before. My right eye is slightly football shaped and my left is just weaker. Someday I will be blind with blindness.

I was in LA. And then I was back here and sick. And now I feel better. I've been eating less, sleeping more and getting back into the exercise thing.

And there has been much bowling.

WHOOPS!

Here's the *actual* script for Jesus Fridge 9000.

Share and enjoy.



And now we've got "Jesus Fridge 9000."

I feel like I could have done more with the script (and had an idea for a much more dramatic version) but feel like this one reads pretty damned well.

Unfortunately, while it was funny on stage, it really felt like it dragged. I don't know if that's because of some acting choices or the direction or just the script itself, but it felt like it needed to be faster.

Anyway, let me know what you think:

( Read more... )

Hey folks: Here are the scripts for my two shows for the weekend:

It's an OK read, but the performance was fucking awesome. I mean, really. I got more compliments on this one than I did on 5 guys a few years back. I loved it.

It's called "Ride Of The Drunken Stallion"


( Read more... )

14/48 Post Mortem

Well, I've survived another 14/48.

Friday's show ("Ride Of The Drunken Stallion") went phenomenally well and I've gotten a ton of compliments on it. Really, I couldn't be happier with the way that it turned out. If anything, maybe it set the bar too high for me.

Cuz last night's show . . . well, it was good. It was funny. There were some really funny moments, especially with Seanjohn talking about "Ball cancer," but I feel like some of the acting choices were just plain wrong and that the pace was way off.

Now I'm sure I could have done more with the script (and had some other ideas about how to amp it up . . but that was too late) but I was just generally disappointed.

Ahh well. I had one home run and one double. Shit happens.

And now I must work.

Well, night one was a hit. My play was called "Ride Of The Drunken Stallion" and was about two people who had a one night stand meeting on the bus.

Tonight I have to write a play under the theme "Under Pressure" with 3 men and one woman.

Current ideas involve a high stakes game of dodge ball, a newbie salesman who NEEDS to sell that refrigerator and some vague ideas about stamp collecting.

I am tired.

I don't particularly feel like doing this.

But away we go.

So I'm at the office.

My mission is:

Theme: Reunion
Position: Third.
Actors: 1 Man, 1 Woman.

EEK!

* I am very tired, but can't seem to sleep. So I'm going to go do yoga instead.
* I had a fine, fine Christmas and a damnably fun New Year.
* I threw my back out a week ago, but seem to be pretty much OK now.
* I had a fever yesterday and now just feel a tiny bit warm.
* I'm dating a really, really great girl.
* I'm waiting for my rock band drum kit to come back to me.
* I'm fatter than I generally like.
* I'm nervous at all the work I need to get done.
* I'm hungry for chocolate.

ANd that's all I'm going to say about that.

I swear if I wasn't nuts I'd be crazy.

Anyway, had a pretty good day yesterday. Got some actual work done during the day, sweated my arse off at Capoeira and hung out with my friend Sydney for a couple hours at 22 doors.

Turns out both of us have been going through similar bouts of isolation recently, so we've decided to be platonic adventure buddies. Whatever strange, warm, spicy alcoholic concoction I was drinking totally kicked my ass, though. Woo!

Greetings from Canada

I'm in Vancouver spending way too many American Pesos as I bounce around this big beautiful bitch of a city. I came up here for a biz conference which I'll be hitting bright and early tomorrow. It's a great city with a lot of life . . . and it reminds me of just how damn small seattle actually is.

Anyway, a few observations.

1. Canadians, as a rule, don't wear pants or jackets. By American standards it's freaking frigid here, but the rugged canadians are dashing about in Shorts, T-shirts and strapless tank tops. It's frightening.

2. "The Georgia Straight," which is the local version of the Stranger sucks so very, very hard. It calls itself "Vancouver's biggest alternative weekly." But as far as I can tell by "Biggest" they mean "Largest in physical size." It's a big floppy, impotent paper with bad, bad writing that reads like Microsoft technical case studies. THe only bit with any verve in the whole damn thing is Savage Love . . . and that's an American import.

3. Coin money freaks me out. I find it just about impossible to figure out how much I'm carrynig around and have to keep stopping and reading the coins to figure out what's what. Plus, things are really expensive here. Like 1.30 for a regular candybar.


And that's kind of it. I feel like I *should* go out and be social and try to meet canadians, but I don't feel like drinking and I don't feel like flirting and that kind of takes my main guns away from me. I think I'm going to read a book and hit the hay. I've got to get up at 7 anyway.

night night.

I've decided to start a band called "The Iconic Mustache."

All of our songs will be named after famous mustaches or people who wear famous mustaches.

Alex Trebek
Fu Manchu

etc

There's been a distinct lack of peas in my life lately.

I'm suffering peas withdrawal.

Quick updates!

I went to Bungie Studios yesterday and took a tour! It's a cool office full of nice, unhealthy programmer hipsters!

I saw some of the upcoming DLC . . . but not much!

I got schwag!

I'm watching heroes!

It's romance day!

That is all!

I just had a nightmare that I had taken a job at some hoity toity advertising agency and was forced to have "strategy meetings" and sit at lunch with well coiffed assholes who wore smoking jackets unironically.

Yikes!

"The Cake Is A Lie"

Dear fucking god Capoera has kicked my ass.

Also, Portal is awesome.

I was listening to a podcast yesterday when they played a clip on an upcoming documentary about abortion (done by the guy who Directed "American History X."

The clip is brief and all you hear is a protester screaming "Jeffrey Dahmer was pro-choice!"

Which is an awesome emotional hot-button to push.

But if I were there, I would have yelled back "And Hitler was 'Pro-Life'"

I bet that would have shut him up.

Portland is lovely and sunny and full of people who are just a little bit too nice. I mean, Seattle people are "nice" but you can usually see the shiny snark right below the surface.

But here people seem to be actually, legitimately nice. It's frightening, actually. I keep scanning their eyes for some sign of deviousness or wanting . . .but there's nothing there.

Spending time with Querido has been great. There's always been something so darned comfortable about our times together. She picked me up at the train station on Thursday night (I watched "Breach" on the way down, which was freaking awesome) and we made out sloppily in the car for a while before going off and having tater tots at McMinnimans.

And we caught up.

She told me about her love life. I told her about mine. And it shocked me like always how easy it was . . . and how L seems to have a much better grasp on her jealous gene than most anybody I met.

Anyway. Yesterday we banged around downtown (Portland has a very large percentage of angry homeless youth with facial tattoos) doing errands, did some hot and sweaty yoga and ended up staying in and watching "Babel" on video before calling it an early night.

And today was mostly spent hanging out in the park reading (L has a lot of school work to do). And now we're going out salsa dancing, which I haven't done in three months and which makes me hella nervous.


Good times. Good weekend. Good Querido.

I'm watching the steroided monster Steve Austin in "the Condemned."

ANd it's exactly the stupid 80s throwback I want it to be.

Oh, and the shoulder is finally starting to calm down. I almost feel human again.

Thank jebus.

Maybe I can get some work done tomorrow.

And then it's off to Portland for the weekend.

Woohoo.