Small Chocolates

The year Nicky didn't plan
was the year they gathered on his avenue.
He'd just stepped in the door,
retrieving both morning & afternoon papers.
He rifled through the mailbox...
plucked a men's sporting catalogue & utility bills.
And a holiday card from an old friend.

The nightlight was still on in the kitchen,
appropriate once more.
Somewhere through the baseboards
the oil tank clacked a metronome symphony.
Warm, mechanical heat fingered Nicky's cheeks.
The air outside was aqua-marine...
a damp vibrant chill.
It was good to be shunted inside.

Through the east-facing windows he could just see,
the work truck's overhead rack angled beneath the street light
and...
and...

A group of teenagers,
dark-skinned & dressed like pirates;
or Red Sox players--
there was Manny w/ his rastafarian dreds
& Youkillas w/ a pinched bald cap & chin-beard.
The mass of them passed the truck,
ascending the drive.
The doorbell rang & their impatient voices
pressed him into action.

There was a left-over bag of soft chocolate.
He tore open the top
and poured the black, thoughtless contents
into a cooking bowl.
He unlocked the massive front door
& awkwardly pushed ajar the stormfront.
"It's unwrapped!" they glared
through their eyepatches & beneath their ball caps.
"Happy Halloween, kids!" & he distributed the bits
& pieces.

There were a few ant-sized scatterings left when
the next group arrived.
And none after that.
He picked out some oranges & an odd banana
but the results were disasterous:
"What the f**k, man?" one silhouetted youth intoned
(he was the size & age of a college freshman).
"You suck!" they yelled as they trampled off...
The banana missing Nicky by centimeters.

Nicky shut out the outside lights
the inside ones too.
He watched a movie on his laptop in the bedroom,
the volume low & the window sill down.
He muched his Chinese food,
now puddled in soy sauce & mustard.
But there were more of them when he peeked out,
some returning shapes & outfits...
but some less clear.
A caveman?
A gorilla? King Kong?
Something more ancient?
They drank beers under the street light
& their oaths found their direction,
shouts fell upon shingles...
curses lit the lawn.

It was only 8 o'clock when they found their collective nerve,
something scratched the front door.
And there were footsteps out back.
An egg yolk exploded against glass
and threats were written in shaving cream
upon the cement drive.

Nicky cell-phoned the police but it was too late.
Someone was in the house.

A heavy centipede tred thudded up the cellar steps.
A radio spattered rap music.
A silver-chained fist fired the 1st shot.
A gang entered the last abode.

Location Scout

Lo and behold what a difference a day makes!
I call the key contact person yesterday AM--
she's available then & there to show Stu & I the barn.
It's her (1) day off from her Sudbury bookstore job,
so I run w/ it.
Call up Stu (remembering Monday was open for him)...
Check w/ my supervisor about my remaining comp time
& viola!
Mid-afternoon I'm standing in Pinecrest/Cushman Barn
amid left-over haunted hayride paraphanalia
ie. coffin, plastic skull decorations, pitchforks & knives
& bat gauno (the latter oh so authentic).

Betty Ann our key contact is very nice &
shows us the loft down thru basement.
It's cold & despite my pull-over I'm chattery teeth.
There's outlets for space heaters & the power box is intact.
But for the 12 hours we'll spend here in the next couple weeks,
a "bundle warmly" advisory will be in order.
Next door is #58 Bemis--
a lodge where we can store/cook food
& take bathroom breaks.
We're remote enough we won't be bothered during shoot,
but Rte 68 is close enough for Walmart runs if we need misc.
And you always need last-minute misc. ie.
batteries, electronic parts, napkins...
you name it,
someone will need something you haven't pre-planned for.

Even while Stu & I are waiting in the car for Betty Ann,
a black lab barking madly across the street from us...
I get a call.
I pick up, not recognizing the area code,
thinking maybe it's Betty Anne from alt number.
Nope-- the lions are infringing on film time.
Citifinancial wanting their money.
Then when we're inside, mid-tour...
General Revenue Corps aka Student Loan #2 comes calling.
I feel like a fake then.
Here I am producer, putting my own money into shoot,
but I can't even handle my own bills.
Who would depend on me?
Yet I always pay crew-- they are the front line,
they are the ones making reality out of my jottings.
Not a $2100 film school loan from the early 90's.
Damn these collection calls.
But in my heart I know that my anger is deflection.
I need to find a way out of this.
If I'm to continue this filmmaking path,
I cannot keep living this way.
Paycheck to meager paycheck.
Pouring Best Buy & Bank of America & loan monies
into my resume reel.
I can't.

No one's paying me to do this.
Maybe they should be.

The Melted Treadmill

Seems no one returns my calls.

Deparately needing to finish "Water & Wood" music video edit...
realize Steve just had a kid but Annette's getting impatient.
I can't blame her.
What? we shot original footage in June!
(and yes I know there was re-shoot last month)
But here it is late Oct
and Annette has nothing to show for her husband's money
and I have nothing to upload onto website.
Everything is in Steve's Final Cut Pro.
I'm 85% paid up on video so I can't feel guilty about monies.
Just can't stand this back-and-forth w/ the phone.
Spoke w/ Steve last Monday & he said to call over the weekend.
Which is exactly what I did.
Grrrr.

And no matter how many Contact Sheets, Budget Updates,
or Shot Lists I do for impending Walter Sickert music video...
now just a mere (2) weeks away
It still feels ephemeral.
Band's on the road until day-before-shoot
so all correspondence at this point is long-distance.
Plus Stu isn't getting back to me about Hubbardston location scout
which we needed to do weeks ago.
He E-M'ed finally & suggested today
but that was all of (24) hrs heads-up.
I need more than that for keys retrieval & work
so I suggested later this week.
But he didn't return my voicemail.
C'mon!

This has been typical of the last few months,
nothing moving nothing happening.
Despite all the penny-pinching & cajoling...
I'm dialing but no one's picking up.
I'm clapping erasers & cleaning blackboards
but no one found the chalk.
I'm sprinting but no one's in the stands.
Addt'l profound analogies & so on.

Then there's the missed film fest deadlines
for "AERODYNAMICS".
Oh don't get me started on trailer
(I can feel responsible w/ $3 grand bill
& Steve's patience w/ THAT)!
Plus the infrequent screenwriting,
the lackadasical jogging/work-out routine,
the general malaise re. my living situation.

The past (4) years seem meaningless now
& I'm buckling.
Just burnt out.
Nothing's worth this.
Where's the results?
Lodged in a computer?

An epiphany of sorts this weekend
alone in an empty house
the hours stretched out w/ no friends,
no gal.
No product.
This is how it's going to be for me
until the godawful end.

No Excuses

Have the house to myself this weekend...
heck! the whole week.
Can't claim distraction now w/ so much to do:
1) prep "Sacrilege" music video
2) website updates
3) Slamdance Horror Screenplay re-submit
4) job search

Late night last night.
Went to Improv Boston's annual Halloween show,
"Gorefest".
This year's entry was "Blood On The Bayou"
yet despite the Scooby Doo hijinks
& the many Dukes of Hazard references...
the show was slightly lackluster.
Perhaps sagging under its enormous
1hr 45 min duration?
Only got a dimpling of syrup
when the Swamp Monster exploded.
One audience member in the allotted splatter section
got creamed.
His orange shirt a taffy pull of blood & vomit.
Oh well, you pay extra to be there...
to be included.

Sasha showed up after all.
Awkward post-show, felt like I was hanging...
so in true Cormey-fashion I bolted.
Brave man.

OK, enough self-recrimination.
Baby steps all the way.
Taps of ice slough and tree bark.
Let's see if I can get all the work done this AM,
make it outside on this refulgent autumn day.

Bjorn

The writers met Wednesday nights
usually in a confiscated classroom,
an unoccupied 4x4 slab of campus.
Sketches, improvisational monologues,
recurring characters & high concepts--
but never never skits!
Skits were for kids.
These were potential SNL staff,
honing their trade in their early 20's.

One such writer was Bjorn,
a little older than the rest...
not even a student, truth be told.
A Swede with curly tan hair,
open gentle face and rosy tones.
A light talker,
soft voice pitching vague philosophies
& endorsements.
He had been w/ the comedy show for years.
All his ties now graduated,
but like an adopted older son...
he partook week in & week out.

He worked as a librarian @ Cornell,
atop the other hill in far upstate New York.
The producers liked him--
heck! everyone liked Bjorn.
He was supremely dedicated,
a dependable cog in the comedy machine...
despite the fact that none of his sketches
made it past the podium.
The 2 of 3 pages he produced each week,
a little too unformed
gelato concepts melted & boneless.
First draft samples never followed up.
"Next week, Bjorn!" the producers would say,
"Write it up & knock it out of the park!"

But Bjorn would return w/ something new,
equally opaque & lacking.
Mineral water without the nutrition.
A trickle of laughter here,
a potential snort there.

Until one day...

The writer's meeting had reconvened
to the local diner.
A townie's dive down by the highway.
Late night pancakes & milky eggs...
the twenty or so 20somethings jammed in,
boys & girls just striking out adulthood.
Sizing each other up,
who would be the competition this week?
Who would be produced & videotaped that
weekend?
Some of the cast would tag along too,
& boys would cast looks at girls--
"maybe if my sketch gets produced & I cast her?"
Oh, a glorious cut-throat self-succeeding time.
But everyone laughing & having a grand hour,
peers becoming friends.
And Bjorn relating stories of the golden years--
whispering names of past comedic deities.
So-and-so telling this joke,
and then this punchline & the PERFECT timing.
Bjorn would have the floor then,
forks and ketchup bottles idle.
In his sheepish yet insistent narrative,
it became clear his true role-- historian.

The producers were won over...
the conversed in the lot outside,
looking through the plate glass window
of the brick-dirty diner,
watching their fellow writers & players
finish their meals & sort the check.
And Bjorn in their attentive midst.
"It really is time we shot something of Bjorn's,"
they agreed.
"But what?"
So many sketches to pick from,
so many ideas in need of a tuck or re-write.
But they settled on one--
a short short no more than a minute in length.
A quick in & out to open an episode--
Jesus as star football quarterback.
They could even shoot it that Sunday when
the college played Syracuse.
Get a little live cut-away footage & insert it
w/ whatever they shot on Saturday.

Bjorn took the news modestly.
And thanked them like a gentleman.
Seeing him up-close,
although dim in the parking lot moonlight...
the producers noted his true age then.
His simple ambitions nudged by time
& averted adulthood.
This was a man thanking them!
Someone akin to a professor or step-father...
yet?

The producers drove Bjorn home
criss-crossing the desolate inlays & backroads
a cold October in Fingers Lake.
Away from the twin colleges,
out of the valley of mixed townie & mall...
into the dark blowing hills.

The Dodge Dart pulled into the dirt drive
and Bjorn excused himself,
went into the house first.
A minute later he came out & asked for silence,
"My mom's just gone to sleep.
We'll have to be quiet."
And the trio of them tip-toed 'round back,
entered the premises through a cellar door...
a triangular pie-slice like something out of
a Midwestern hurricane shelter.

In the basement were piles...
bric-brac and Busch beer light displays
and a toppled walker.
A bin stuffed with broken umbrellas
and a wood toybox on wheels,
empty except for a few magnet-shaped letters.

The producers were uneasy,
they had never been to Bjorn's before.
But he was smiling & a comfort...
reliving a childhood? a forgotten dream?

"Here," Bjorn said, "This will be perfect."
and he lifted a Jesus head.
A plastic plug-in thing like a lamp.
He found an orange extension cord & socket,
and before the producers startled eyes--
ignited Jesus.

"Woo..." said Bjorn in a spectral voice,
and the Jesus in his grip oscillated before them.
The only glow in the creeping cellar,
the wind shoving outside.

That's when the two producers could take no more,
and looked in the mirror.
A large wall-sized monolith stacked in the corner.

They saw Jesus...
but nothing else.

Alone In The Cheap Seats

Came to a realization yesterday--
I'm the only single person at work.
Everyone married or complete w/ significant other.
Makes sense, though.
Office workforce, just regular people doing regular jobs.
Part of that regular is beaus & wedding cake & babies.
Not like us "artistes".
Languishing in solo uphill battle,
usually against our own damn selves.

For some reason, I'm now getting Match.com profile pics.
I half-heartedly signed up a month ago,
even filled out a very light-weight profile...
but never paid the monthly fee.
Can't even afford that $14.95 off the credit card these days
(barely scrape by each month w/ Netflix).
So I'm in the Match.com system,
getting these little pictorial taste tests--
"If you just act now..." OR "...a lifetime of bliss!"
and this woman
and that woman
and look at her!
All w/ cutesy little buzz names like
jeezybreeze67
OR
fallenapple4
OR
mischiefchef555.
Some are outright dogs.
If that's your best picture
I'd hate to see you @ 5AM.
But some are lookers.

First thing I do post-pic is check out salary.
It's an optional part of the profile but most display it.
Anything over $50tho & she's out of my league.
I don't want a potential date to be shouldering me.
My job. My deal.
The guy pays.
Call my rustic, call me old-fashioned
but that's the way I'm built.
I still think that was part of what soured w/ K--
money & my lack of it.
Even working full-time
and oodles of unpaid over-time
and being busier than ever this year shooting...
yet, poorest I've ever been.

How can I date on peanuts?
What kind of 1st impression is that?
I couldn't even afford 8-minute dating this past Monday
for a lousy $35 bucks! (+ drinks + nibbles +++)
Sick of this. Can't go out, can't buy dinner...
just my sad sack 30something self living w/ pops.
While my film goes on & on
and the student loan folks call.
Yup, I must be getting away w/ something jerk-offs!
Whoo-ee look at me!
Living it up while you garnish & slash
until there's nothing left...
and still that's not enough.
Decade-old film school haunting me.
And no one to complain to, to vent...
just you, dear blog.

Slamdance Horror Screenplay Competition, The Puffy Chair

So I got my on-line coverage from Slamdance yesterday...
A mere week after I submitted "Doctor Spooky" script!

They hated hated hated it.

A good page-and-a-half about horror movie marketing,
loads of references to "30 Days Of Night"
and incredulously, even one to that horrible tooth fairy movie,
"Darkness Falls".
Seems I'm writing horror all wrong.
Right off that bat-- anthology is a huge no-no.
No name actors will commit to such a script,
sharing billing in segment chunks.
And since the script isn't based on existing
comic book
or franchise video game
or bestselling Stephen King novel
there's no way in hell it's going to get sold.

The script is also devoid of splatter and villains.
Seems the unknown isn't so scary--
it's "the devil you know".
So load up on the booga-booga men
and the flamboyant crazies.
I'm also advised to invest in more plot
aka "mythology".
You know, horror rules--
like never enter the house in "The Grudge".
Never say Candyman's name 3x in the mirror.
Don't do all that stuff w/ those cute gremlins
etc. etc. etc.
A blueprint for the impending "Trick or Treat" flick.
Since when did horrible stuff happening have
a "To Do" list? (or "Don't Do" list)
To me, the scariest stuff is the most random...
as a writer, I'll tie it into character oh yes BUT
to preordain for the audience if so-and-so does this,
obviously this next bit o' exposition will happen.
Wow. That's spontaneous.
Just like real life, huh?

The Slamdance reader also saw all my protagonists
as sympathetic!
Poor victims of a manevolent Fate.
There's Pat...a womanizer & guy who won't accept
responsibility. Can't even rescue stray kittens but
will use the scenario to pick-up a chippie.
Thn there's Eli, a recovering druggie...
spent his 20's incapacitated.
Or good ole Chapman
Cheats on his girlfriend
sleeps w/ hookers...maybe kills one?
And finally chubby Gerry
animal-abuser and all-around slob.
Yup, a quatret of beauties those four.
The stuff that happens to them is just terrible.
What was the author thinking?
But even if they were great folks
I support J-Horror all the way--
bad things happen to good people.
I'm not going to spoon-feed niceties to an audience
esp. in a horror script.

Oh I could go on
but it'd just be more venting.
And how exciting is that?
The end all be all of this is--
Slamdance is gonna get more money from me.
I'm submitting the "Druids" script.
The horror screenplay deadline isn't until 12 Nov
so I can mail off my 2nd submission in time.
I think this script is more in line w/ what their readers
are expecting.
(I mean, after all, last year "Vampire Strippers Must Die!"
was one of the horror finalists.)

*********************************************

Saw "The Puffy Chair" last night via Red Envelope
via Netflix.
Good stuff.
Three really good actors
and the direction au natural.
The Duplass Brothers in the extras interview
reference the fact that most films spend 90% of set-time
well...setting-up ie. camera, lights
forgoing director/actor time...a dinky remaining 10%.
The Duplass Brothers flip that equation,
director Jay as shooter
and lighting rig simple-- replacement high-wattage bulbs
in room, a few Chinese lanterns overhead.
And minimal blocking. Let the actors take the scene
where they will.
90% of the time is then spent on rehearsing,
get actor & director is sync.
People-- welcome to Mumblcore 101.

I check out the DVD shorts too--
One is so dopey & simple
Brother Mark & an answering machine
all about a guy having trouble dictacting his own voicemail.
This short, "This Is John" got into Sundance!
Paved the way for the feature.
And look at me...
going into 6 years of time & annual income
for "AERODYNAMICS".
I feel like a dumb bunny.