Chris emailed me earlier today about this festival that he found on the internet in San Francisco this summer. It looks like a sweet line up. It also looks like there is some hip-hop thrown in with all the wonderful indie rock. Plus it looks like Radiohead is going to be there, and because they snubbed Portland on their tour I think this might be my opportunity to see them. One problem with going to ACL last summer is that now I want to go to music festivals all the time. The good thing about this one is that SF is only like one day of driving instead of 11, which is pretty much the number of days we drove to get to Austin and back. There is one small problem. I have no job, and thus no income. Last year at this time I was working for Premiere Valet at a hospital in South East Portland. I was lucky enough to get a different job for most of the summer, and that job ended with plenty of time to get to ACL before school started. This year, when I get a job, it is going to be only for the summer, and I don't want to come into it saying that I need some time off in August to go on a trip. Hopefully, if this trip happens, we can make it a long weekend instead of almost two weeks. That way I won't have to quit my job. Which was what I was going to do if I had gotten a job that wasn't over before the ACL trip.
Spring Break is officially over at the end of the day. Tomorrow I will begin the last term of my first year of graduate school. I've set some goals for myself for this term. I won't say what they are, but I just want everyone to know that setting goals is a great way to get things done. I think that if I can't be a creative writer than maybe I'll become a self help book writer. That can't be that hard, and I think that pay is pretty good.
Spring Break '08 Port Angeles is in full swing, in fact it is beginning its descent into Spring Term '08 Portland State University. Pretty much I've spent the last two days watching Sex and the City with Lizzy and Olivia on my parent's couch. Pretty sweet. Actually, having spent a few years away from the show, which took over my life for a brief period as a college freshman, I just realized how assinine the whole show is. Before, when I didn't know the characters or the story line, I was able to look beyond the clothes and the guys and the dialogue. I was really interested in what happened to the characters. Sex and the City, like all HBO shows, is about characters, and building their shows off of their characters. After watching Six Feet Under, The Wire, Deadwood, and Entourage, and part of Carnivale and Extras, I can say that Sex and the City is not very good. When I know the stories, I no longer care about the characters. And when you don't care about the characters its hard to get pumped watching them do the same things over and over again, which is how Sex and the City works. The characters don't develop. That's how Carrie can be in the exact same situation at the end of the show that she was in when it started. That's why Carrie couldn't marry Aiden. The show would have ended. Those type of story problems don't exist in The Wire. Stringer Bell, one of the main characters in season three, died and there was still a show.
Someone in one of my TV writing classes mentioned that Entourage was the male version of Sex and the City. I can agree with the surface comparison. Its about four people, all different, who live very exciting lives and all have interesting things to say about everything. One major difference, and one thing that makes Entrouage better in my opinion, is the work side of the show. Hollywood is a great place to set a show. A lot of things happen and they are all interesting. Sex and the City doesn't have an Ari. The women work, but their jobs are more just set-ups for sex or just ways to define who they are. Miranda is a lawyer so she says lawyerly things and wears lawyer clothes.
My list of top five HBO shows: The Wire, Entourage, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Two other things that I have done in PA. Finished Micheal Pollan's The
Botany of Desire. Excellent book. I reccomend both of his books that I
have read. The one I just named and the Omnivore's Dilemma. Both are
great. Also last night Olivia and Lizzy and I went to 10,000 BC.
Horrible. Not that there was really any doubt. But come on. There is
nothing I can say about it. It was just awful. Movies like this make me
wonder what is going on in Hollywood. They got my money, though, so
obviously they thought that it was worth making such a crappy movie. I
guess if you like movies and the town your in is only showing crap then
it is ok to sell crap because that is all there is to buy. Good play
Hollywood. I would like my nine dollars back.
So I wrote a post about the show I went to last night and about some of the stuff that is going on right now in my extraordinary life, but my computer sucks and Safari crashed and now its gone forever. So here is a quick recap, Matt Pond PA and Carbon/Silicon at Lola's Room. Good show. I saw Regina Spektor there a few years ago and it was awesome. Two hundred people compared to 35 thousand the next time I saw her at ACL.
I didn't get the job. They went with someone who had experience with Open Gym type situations. That's fine with me. I really didn't want to start working again, or drop my last TV class, or change my plans for school, or start taking the bus again. All those things would have happened if they had gone with my "experience package". Now all I have to do is find a job for the summer. According to Martin, because of my Social Security number, I'm not going to get my parting gift from the El Prez until later in the summer. That means that if I am fiscally responsible for the spring term I might just have enough money to starve over the summer without a job. Starving is looking like one of my top career choices, so this summer seems as good a time as any to start the life prep.
Except today it was a J-O-B, interview. I answered a craigslist ad for an open position at the South West Community. They need a two night a week open gym supervisor. Once again, I thought that South West would mean that it was close enough to my house that I wouldn't have to take the bus and add a perpetual half hour to my commute, but luck was not on my side, and even though the street sign outside the community center has the same two little letters that the signs outside my house have, if I get the job, it will be at least one bus ride, possibly a transfer. I can handle it though. Last year I had a job out in South East on 100th St. that required bussing to and from, which I hated, only to quit and take a job in North Portland that had a ride of equivalent length but in the opposite direction. At this point two things are clear. One, I am a bus expert, not a tri-met expert though, in that regard I am a violent offender. Two, the days of walking to work are way, way in the past. But maybe not. If I get offered the job, and I decide to take it, I will have to drop the class that I signed up for on Monday nights. That class is the third part of the TV writing series: Drama Writing. I've taken Intro and Sit-Com, and both have been totally awesome. My teacher, he was the same for both classes, is a totally awesome dude. No better words to describe him. Here is his IMDB page. Sweet acting credits and even sweeter writing credits. He said something about Don Johnson the other day in class and I almost asked him if he had seen Entourage, which I sure he had, and if he remembered the scene in season two at Jessica Alba's when Rufus was installing the new TV system. The line is, "I just re-poed all this stuff from Don Johnson. Can you believe he tried to pay me in signed Nash Bridges DVDs?" Then Vince goes out with Mandy, and Drama makes a crack about the sea water destroying the plasma TV. PRICELESS! So after that little jaunt, back to the problem. I want to take the class, I don't really want to start working, and I just the other day was thinking that it might be fun to get back into the valet game for the summer. What better way to show off my liberal arts degree than through underpaid demeaning work in the service industry. So you might be asking, "What are the upsides to this job?" One major one is that it would be Parks and Rec work without the little kids and the day camp thing. Another is that it is a really sweet community center; like the total opposite of the SJCC, or for lay folk the St. Johns Community Center, or in other words THE GHETTO. Another would be that I would get paid to play basketball and other indoor gym specific games, which would make me by definition a professional basketball player. LOOK IT UP ITS TRUE THAT IS THE ONLY DEFINITION OF A PRO! So I having a bit of a conundrum. But the guy that interviewed me did say there were other candidates with varying degrees of experience, and the job was by no means "in the bag." We will have to wait for tomorrow to find out. I'm sure you are all excited and nervous because your own lives are so overly dull.
Yesterday's party was both fun and an experiment in social interaction. I had a good time. That's all I can say about it.
Last year on this day I was coming home to Portland from my parents home in Port Angeles and the first person that I called was Patrick, and the first thing that he said was, "I trashed your house last night." Awesome. Turns out while I was gone there had been a St. Patrick's Day party at my house that had gotten a little out of control. Matt broke some glass and Patrick vomited all over my couch. I cleaned it when I got home, and then I got the couch steam cleaned, so that's all better now. Today we celebrate the one year anniversary of those events with yet another St. Patrick's day party. Same house, same folks, likely same result, but this time I no longer live there so it is all good with me. I just hope they don't get evicted, it would be a bummer to have to sell my speakers. If you are in the area and you want to come, and you know where the house is, you are invited.
One of the things about only taking two classes is that there is a lot of time in the day and not a lot of stuff to do. I have a project in my TV writing class to create a sit-com. It is the final project, and I have to come up with a premise and then an outline for an episode. The episode does not have to be the pilot, in fact it would probably be easier if it were not the pilot. I would say what my show is about, but it is so good that anyone that reads this would steal it, write it, and become an overnight millionaire. When it debuts on network TV then you will know that its mine, and you will see how great it is. Speaking of great, I saw that Becca was nominated for a "bloggie". Just the fact that such a thing exists is kind of mind blowing. I'm not sure who came up with the idea for "weblog of the year," but if you ask me I think its pretty silly. I think that there should be an award ceremony for best activities. Like "taking a walk" was narrowly defeated by "swimming" as "best activity of the year." It really seems like people love awards. If there were awards attached to everyday things, like "reading", maybe people would be more active and more interesting. I'm willing to bet that the simple fact that there are awards for weblogs is why at least half of the people that blog do. What kind of world are we living in when awards are the only things that matter?
Tonight I watched the last two episodes of HBOs The Wire. I've been a fan of this show for years, and as much as the fifth season went out on a limb, it ended in a fashion that I could appreciate. I won't say anything about any of the episodes, because some people that I know won't see them until the DVDs are out. Like all shows on HBO, one of my favorite parts about The Wire is the character development. After next term I will have taken a full year of classes about the art of writing for television. Although it is an inferior medium when it comes to writing, I think that television would be fun to work in. If given the chance I would love to work for HBO. Even though The Wire has ended HBO has set the standard for elite television shows, and I am sure that they will bring out shows in the future that are just as good, maybe even better. I can't wait for that.
