I'm listening to ICP right now. Is that bad? Yes, it is. But I don't care. I'm far from a 'juggalo', but I still think The Great Milenko's a good album.

Actually, Kate and I were just talking about them and how lame juggalos are - then I proceeded to horrify her, and myself, with my disturbingly accurate renditions of their songs. Now I need to hear the real songs and get it out of my system. Le sigh.

I'm struggling like hell with this screenplay. I'm writing an adaptation of 'The Lemming Condition' by Alan Arkin. It was a book my mom read to me a long time ago and it's been stuck in my head since then. Basically it tells the story of a young lemming who begins to question if jumping off the cliff is a good idea. I pitched it to the class as an animated movie and everyone liked it, but my pages of the screenplay have met with considerable resistance. So much in fact that I basically told everyone they didn't 'get it' and said I was going to do it my way regardless of what they said.

I've been doing that a lot lately, and that's not usually how I operate. I mean, I tend to go against the grain in classes and take on unpopular opinions (usually because I see no meaning in some art film outside of being strange for the sake of being strange, or I see something meaningful in what others do not..) - but I am usually resigned to accepting criticism in the mindset of trying to get the best out of whatever it is I'm doing. But with The Lemming Condition I honestly felt like the concept was eluding the class. Almost in terms of a cultural difference and the fact that even though it's a film I'd love to see (let alone make) there seems to be no audience for the film. It's too dark to be for kids, too 'cute' to be for adults. So there I am in the middle writing a story about a pack of cute little lemmings waxing on poetically about life then jumping to their deaths off a cliff, at the desperate and heart shredding protest of the youngest of them.

Of course, it's all allegory for the way people will blindly follow their faith in whatever it is they've been told. Whatever. I specifically wanted to avoid any overt allusions to religion (which seems to be the easiest target of such ridicule) - so of course my classmates and instructors pushed a cult-type story to adapt into it. In my typical passive agressive way I eagerly agreed with them. Only to discount it entirely and remove any semblance of cult-like activity in the story. I do not want that in my story. I don't want it to be a commentary on religion, I want it to be a commentary on people and the way people think. The way it doesn't matter if it's about going to war, religion, buying bread or condoms - people usually do what they're told, no matter the reality. It's the fantasy they want, what they buy and ultimately what they pay for. Lemmings believing they can fly and jumping off a mountain is only the architecture. The guts are whatever you want, or need, them to be.

Of course, I say this after half a pack of Camels. What do I know?



I released Summer Luciferase a couple days ago to the vastness of the internet. Moreso than Emulsion, this film is experimental. An art film. More suited, I guess, in a gallery (that'll be the day) or an underground film festival with art school kids smoking cigarettes, drinking cheap beer and dropping acid in the bathroom, while short films are projected on a concrete wall. That kind of scene.

Anyway, again with Luciferase I've been taking more and more of a "no audience, you're wrong" mentality. I don't know if it's because I've almost finished school and have some sort of subconcious ego trip going on, but when the reviews say things like, "I couldn't understand the robot voice, then I realized the narration had nothing to do with the images - so I turned it off. This was in the first two minutes." I tend to go numb and defensive. Thus allowing me to be the archetypal tortured-"no one understands me!"-artist.

I don't know. Maybe the narration is very difficult to understand and I only know what it says because I wrote it. I'm probably completely wrong. But, heh, I'll keep trying. That's all I can do, right? Wait to hit that mark, make people sit up and say, "This is good."

Eh.. that's enough.

Except to say I'm growing more and more concerned about 24's state with each episode that passes.

And Kate makes me very, very, happy. Happier than I've ever been. So happy, it hurts. Which is the best kind.

Birthdays are the suck.

I thought I was done with this. Forging friendships I thought were solid, in spite of their cracks. Only to watch those cracks topple the foundation.

Is there some sort of expiration date on my friends? Specifically male ones.


I can't seem to make any masculine friendships that can last over 5 years.