[244] Screed City

[244]

04/03/2023 Monday. Kitchen Microwave. Beaver Haus. Lower Granville, Vermont.

Well, you know what I think of that? It stinks! I don't know what to say, I don't. I just don't. The fucking boiler went out today, or yesterday, I guess. I suppose it would be fine, but it is still Winter up here. And, I don't even know, I just don't. I just got back. Just now. Nine hours of travel. I kind of want to hop back in Junior Mint and drive back down to the City. At least there will be that circus in Lower Manhattan tomorrow. Give me something to do. Although, on a very positive note, I haven't had a Tickler in a month and hot damn! they are tasty. The German beer was delish deluxe as Professor Curly would say, but the Polish beer in Ridgewood? Not so Bueno. No Dobry.

I miss Berlin. I was having fun over there. And NYC seems like a dump, comparatively. Like a giant grime-hole. And all the streets are haunted. And the history is tainted. The people are nice, but the subway sucks. I forgot to mention, Berlin doesn't have turnstiles. ABOLISH TURNSTILES. And guess how they deal with it? They treat you with respect. There are random inspections, but there isn't a bevy of cops peeping at everyone making sure they buy a ticket. Treating everyone like criminals. Because guess what? Most people tend to obey laws. Whatever.

My train to Vermont was delayed because of a fire on the tracks outside Hudson. $71 for the privileges... $10 an hour. I should call the BBB. Give them an earful about Vermont while I am at it. Speaking of which, the Macs in RoachTown is closing. I am literally shaking my head while I write this. Now what? Groceries a minimum of 30 minutes drive. 60 in total. I might pull all my hair out. Although, I do need a haircut, so maybe that is a good thing.

I got my court date in the mail. June 1st. Speeding ticket. 78 in a 55. Fucking New York. 55 mph on a Parkway? And the state trooper posted up at the bottom of a fucking hill? I pleaded not guilty because the fine is going to be huge and it's like 3 points on my license. First speeding ticket ever. And I didn't even think I was speeding. But we'll see, they are supposedly going to give me a lawyer and stuff. And, I am lucky in the sense that I can afford to take time off to deal with it, and, I don't know, it is what it is, I was speeding, that is true, but it wasn't on purpose and there was some confusion, purposefully I am sure, about what the speed limit was. Like I hadn't seen a speed limit sign in 50 miles and suddenly there is one right where I get pulled over? For what? So the cops can get more overtime to treat people like criminals? Between that and the crappy subways in NYC and crappy old Vermont with it's lack of working boilers, endless Winters and lack of grocery stores, I am moving to Berlin! Professor Curly, stay where you are! I am coming back!

[Insert Cat Photo.]

I started writing an screenplay. An actual one, not the experimental one that was hyper-meta that nearly broke my brain. Made me see God. This one is a noir-style guy. I bring it up because I stumbled onto something quite clever. For me, at least. I started writing this novel, straight up noir. You know, the one that had the line: The sun slapped the skyline like a dirty diaper, butter side down. But then I was talking to Parker and Professor Curly when we were eating Greek food after seeing the King of England and I was whining about how frustrated I was about being a working class artist and nothing ever seemed to change and I needed to start writing scripts and Parker was saying that I should turn Cooking Cockroach [Italics] into a screenplay, and that idea was fascinating because how do you make that book a screenplay? You know? It is just a collection of essays. But her point was that I should turn my own book into a script. But that won't work for me. I can barely do a single edit on these things. Once it comes out of me, I can barely stand to look at it. Good or bad. BUT, because I am always obsessed with noir, and both film and books, mostly books, but film too, I decided to start using my free daytime hours to work on the script of the book I have been writing, and let me tell you, I couldn't be more satisfied. You see, the main principle with script writing is this idea of; Showing not telling. Novels are all telling. Even leaving things out is telling. But screenplays are entirely different. And it is hard to know what to focus on. Mostly because the second you shoot your vector out into the world, there is no clawing it back. With novels you can spend chapters on minutia that do nothing, take you nowhere, and it only adds vibes, but with scripts you don't have that luxury. If you fuck it up, you have to start over.

But this is why I am clever. With regards to myself. I have been writing the novel at night and the screenplay in the day. Meaning, basically I am getting ahead of myself. Pushing against my own ideas. If the storyline doesn't work in the novel, I can just zig and zag around it for a while and change directions, but because I have figured out what is good and what is not while writing the novel, when I come back behind the thing with the screenplay, I can edit all the bullshit out. Figure out all the motivations and plot lines without getting bogged down in the details. Then when I write the screenplay I can cherry pick the things that work, change the dialogue and remove all the funny business that makes up the novel. I mean, it is an experiment, but in the end I will have both the novel and the screenplay. The two things will be parallels to each other. The screenplay will be the map, and the novel will be the notes that investigates the land that the map is describing. I mean, it could all be complete garbage, but as an art form, I kind of like where it is heading.

And it goes both ways. The way I write is extemporaneous. I usually have an idea where the thing ends, but how I get there depends solely on my mood at any given moment. You know? Like improv. Which is fine and all, but you can get some pretty lousy duds if you're not on top of your game at all times. And with fiction, you can trap yourself quite easily if you happen to be feeling a little bit lazy. Even this shit. Like now, for instance. I probably shouldn't be pontificating on this for as long as I am, I know it, you know it, shit, everyone knows it, but that is the screed agreement, you roll the dice and let it ride. Avoid politics and taxes. I already mentioned politics, so, it's already ruined, why not talk about something that I am passionate about? I know damn well that if I get lost in the muck, very few of you will come down into the bog with me, and I am okay with that. Win some, lose some. But with screenwriting, from what I am learning, you can't get down in the dirt like that.

You have to make everything concise and clear. And it is idiotic. I think it takes a special kind of maniac to be good at writing scripts. The Hollywood cliché of a good idea as a vibe is spot on. You kind of need to be a dum-dum to be able to write a good script. And the script itself will never be a work of art. It can't be. In the same way a good recipe will never be good writing. Telling me about how emotional your flour makes you will not make my biscuits turn out better. Shit, even telling me why I should use a certain type of flour is better than other flours is better won't help me either if you don't tell me why. Like, actually, why. Like the science why. And there is a difference between a good recipe and a bad one. A good one gives you all the information you need, a bad one forces you to interpret the information. And, a good novel lets you interpret the information and bad one tells you what to think. A good script tells you all the information and a bad one makes you guess.

Naturally, though, I have written exactly one half of a screenplay and 20 pages of another one, so I am full of bullshit here, but I do feel kind of proud that I discovered this one special trick your doctor will hate me for telling you. Write the novel of the movie you want to write a few pages ahead of the script you are writing about that novel. Two birds with one stoner as the bridesmaids say. Maybe even make some visual art about it while you are doing those things? I have a pretty good idea for the cover of the novel. It will inform the visuals for the movie. Better yet, start writing the play adaptation as well, get that side of it going, and then, write about it in your journal, make references to it in you computer screeds, and then, I don't know, start writing the soundtrack as well, pick up your guitar strum out a few chords. And then, if you are feeling really randy, consider the book about the process about the movie and the novel and the art and the score and then when your brain starts to backfire and you see God again, drop out of society and move to fucking Vermont where your boiler doesn't work and you fear for the health of your plants and Winter lasts all the way until June and no matter what you do you still have to go back to work next Monday in Rochester, New York doing God knows what for half-price pay because it is impossible to be a working class artist in America.

Anyway, DISHWASHER is now available for sale. Don't be left out, the hottest book in town! Five star reviews on CASHAPP, VENMO, GRINDR, TWITTER, UBER, INSTAGRAM, TICTOK, HOMEDEPOT, UNITED, CAPITALONE, GRUBHUB.

[Insert DISHWASHER Link.]

https://whiskeytit.com/product/dishwasher/

Buy independent. Support independent. Be independent.