Feels Good Man
A few things that are making me feel good these days:
I’m seeing more and more Asian names at the top of the production food chain. No joke. Many of my meetings these days are occurring with Asian American executives, development people, or agents in the room. And we aren’t discussing the next Karate Kid movie or the Chan Clan reboot. I’m not sure when or how this happened, but it’s happening.
Back in college there was a lot of discussion about the lack of Asian American representation in the media. That’s what lead us to this, which is amazingly, still going strong. Now, you know I’m a populist and I’m for the entire human race as a whole, but it’s nice to see more Asian American representation where there was admittedly very little before. It lets us get our own story straight.
Have things changed? Not completely — we’ve definitely got a way to go — but I feel like they are in process in a positive way.
Good stuff on the iPad front: We’ve talked about GoodReader and the Netflix App and other such things before, but there are some other great developments in the app world for everyone’s favorite magical device.
Pulse — have you seen this thing, man? It lets you visually browse Uncrate, Sartorialist, GearPatrol, etc., all at once. Huge time saver, because instead of having to load up every site individually, it can show you all of them in a visual grid at the same time. Now that’s what I’m talkin about!
You might’ve also read that Hulu Plus is coming out soon too. The service is still rolling out, but the iPad/iPhone client is available now.
In the last few days I’ve read twelve one-hour pilots and watched the actual filmed episodes on the same portable screen. TV the iPad’s killer app, and Hulu brings us a step closer to its future. Sure, it’s becoming a paid service, but hopefully you get what you pay for.
Finally there’s Instapaper, which lets you cache and store webpages to read later on. This is genius for saving time. You drop the “Read Later” button onto your web browser, hitting it whenever you see a page you want to Read Later. Then when you’re in a more comfortable place in the time/space continuum, you can fire up the Instapaper iPad app and read all of those saved pages from the comfort of your couch. Magic.
Plus: More Year Zero and even Cowboy news coming down the pipe soon. Yessssss!
Feels good? Uh-huh:
I’m Not Afraid to Die on a Treadmill
Will Smith:
I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked. You may be more talented than me. You might be smarter than me. And you may be better looking than me. But if we get on a treadmill together you are going to get off first or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple. I’m not going to be outworked.
A friend of mine said something similar to this a long time ago, and now he’s a superstar producer on his way up. Some of you know of whom I speak. And like Will Smith, his success has come to him because he stood by his word. In fact, if I saw both him and Will Smith running on a treadmill together, I would be afraid… For the treadmill. That thing would have to give out eventually.
A recurring theme in my work recently is that love is not enough. Oh yeah, you may love to write, love to act, etc., etc., but that’s not enough — your deeds must match your feelings. You have to make some sacrifices. You’ve gotta get to work, and then work your ass off.
I’m not sure where I’m going with all this except to say that I admire Will Smith and I admire our friend. And if I had to choose between being an unstoppable force or an immovable object, like our friend I’d choose to be unstoppable — because then you get to go places.
I’ve been lurking the Backstage Forum lately to see how the other side lives. Eighty-six percent of my friends are actors, so I know what a rough profession it is. And the only aggravating thing about reading the Backstage forum is that the majority of the posts on it are warnings concerning various representation/headshot/”acting school”-based scams.
A ton of scams also exist to trick writers, but I’m guessing that most of them are of the “send us your script and we’ll edit it and send it to Real Hollywood Producers for a fee” variety. At least the lies aren’t told directly to your face like in these acting scams. Plus a really disturbing situation is that a lot of these operations exist to specifically scam children and their parents. Hello evil, it’s nice to see you’re alive and well.
I think that because we’re in the business of storytelling — where great ideas are sometimes invented out of thin air — there’s this perception that rewards can come quickly and with a minimum of effort. But like ideas, people need to be refined and developed — and that’s a process that can take years.
Still, it’s fun to read about actors’ ups and downs. The emotional aspects aren’t so different from writing. I’m just glad I don’t have to drive all over town for auditions.
Please Stop Embarrassing Me in the iPhone Line
For every moment, there is a special place to be. A place where, in that moment, it’s all going down. February 1964: JFK Airport as the Beatles touched down in America. May 1977: Any movie theater as Star Wars: A New Hope opened for the first time. June 2010: In the line at the Apple store, waiting for the iPhone.
It was Deja Vu all over again. In fact I’d already done this two times before. And now the whole process of waiting in line for the phone had gotten kind of pedestrian. Now that the iPhone is supremely popular, the magic was gone — it was like waiting in a very long line at Walmart.
Yeah, it’s not a nerd thing anymore. It’s not even a geek thing anymore — the line was now made up of regular, every day people. This really hit home for me when a mother grabbed her child and said: “Please stop embarrassing me in the iPhone line.” It was a golden moment, but also a mixed one.
At the front of the line, a rocker dude with long hair and an Ed Hardy tee was arguing with Apple Store employees, telling them that they “were a disgrace to this process.” * This man is clearly a genius at unintentional comedy and he is now my hero.
What happened? Where did the magic go? And yes, there was something cool and magical about the iPhone way back when it first came out three years ago. It was unique, special, fun. Now it’s just sort of… A thing. A thing that everybody has and plays Angry Birds on.
I mean, it’s still a great phone, still a great environment to develop on. But a little of the luster has gotten lost with its ubiquitousness.
But I guess that’s progress for you. It’s like that old adage about how everything begins as a movement, then becomes a business, and finally ends up turning into a racket. Everything’s got a lifespan — even magical devices.
* Yes, I have a razor-sharp memory for juicy real-world quotes because, well, that’s my job.
I Have a Mutant Tooth Growing Into My Skull
When I was seventeen I had my wisdom teeth out. I have a small, highly evolved jaw and there wasn’t enough room for all the teeth. “Huh, that’s weird,” the dentist said, “You only have three wisdom teeth.”
“How rare is that?” I asked.
“It’s not incredibly rare but it’s uncommon,” he said. “So what we’ll do is remove the three that we see here and if the fourth one appears later we’ll deal with it.”
Fast forward to today. I went to the dentist after a few years of slacking — dental professionals reading this, please do not blame me, I’ve been busy — and the hygienist scans my head using a new 360 degree x-ray machine. They drop the image onto the screen and my new dentist stares at it, a little surprised and excited.
“Well, that’s bizarre,” he said, “I usually don’t see things like this in here.”
Conversations that begin with such phrasing never end well for me.
“All your wisdom teeth were taken out except for this one right here,” he says, “It appears to be growing upwards into your skull.” He tapped the image. “Right there, see?”
And yes, there it is. Like a bullet slowly growing into my sinuses. “Should I be worried?” I asked.
“We’ll have an orthodontic surgeon take a look at it,” he said, “Don’t worry — it might just be benign and we could just leave it in there.”
Is this the beginning of a new super power? Do I have to register with the government? So many questions, not enough answers!
“By the way,” he said, “Don’t drink so much Diet Coke. Carbonated drinks are bad for you.”
Eighteen Plays in Four Days
Aaron, my friend and the literary manager at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater, called me on Friday with a request: “Michael, we’ve narrowed down the twelve finalist plays for this year’s Ignition Festival and we were wondering if you could read them all to help us narrow it down to the final selections.” I can’t say no to Aaron, so I said yes. Sure. Send them to me.
“By the way, we need your thoughts by this Wednesday.”
Oh. Well, I can’t say no to Aaron.
I coincidentally received this call while I was in one of the rehearsal rooms at Center Theatre Group getting ready to hear six new play readings over the course of the weekend.
So in total, I’d be exposed to eighteen new plays in just four days. I think this is the most new work I’ve ever seen in such a short period of time. It’s kind of insane, but kind of neat too.
When I first start reading any script, there are two things I specifically look for. The first thing is whether there is a meaning inherent in the very first few moments of the script — does the very beginning of the script allude to something greater? Do they set a tone? Is there a thesis statement there? An important question? I’m always interested in what the writer wishes to show me first. I’m always looking for a meaning in that very first moment.
The true meaning of the story doesn’t have to appear right away, but you know me — I’m an impatient guy and I like to at least see seeds sprouting on page one.
The second thing is the hook. And by that I mean a hook that I can undeniably feel. This may be the first big, true belly laugh of the script. It may be something incredibly fascinating that draws me in, or something that a character says that is totally seductive or absolutely original. It may be a visual or a word, or a something that grabs an emotional chord in me. The hook lets me know that I should definitely keep on reading — that this story is for me.
The sooner that hook appears, the better. The best is when the hook shows up on page one. The worst is when it never shows up — and unfortunately, most of the scripts I read never have that hook. It’s disappointing. Every time it happens, it feels like a missed opportunity.
So it’s Sunday night now and I’ve seen all six play readings at CTG — I loved them all. During the breaks over the weekend I read three out of the 12 scripts that Aaron sent me — so I have nine plays to go.
I’ve dropped the ones I have left onto my iPad. There’s a tremendous benefit to not having to carry nine printed scripts around in your bag. Unfortunately there’s a tremendous disadvantage to having a script reading device that is also capable of viewing Facebook and playing Frotz. But I guess I’ve got to have a carrot to break up the work.
Nine plays left to read. Gotta keep on crackin.
I Am a Flying Bear
Why is this bear so sad? He’s flying! Maybe it’s because he’s in a wheelchair and he’s injured. I wish him the best.
iOS 4: It’s Full of Stars: So WWDC has come and I’ve downloaded and installed the developer GM candidate of iPhone (iOS) 4. I installed an earlier beta of the OS months ago when it first came out but it was too crashy — this one is rock-solid and shows off the implementation of the features we’re going to get in a few weeks.
Folders are great, although you really want to organize them on your computer with iTunes — dragging one app around at a time is really slow. Multitasking is excellent as well. I noticed that if you bring up the multitasking bar and swipe all the way to the left, you get the screen lock control and iPod player controls. Really nice. Also the OS feels a bit snappier on an iPhone 3GS. Really looking forward to getting my hands on the new hardware at the end of the month.
Google’s new backgrounds: Google becomes Bing. Does this mean that its charming (and uniquely original) Google doodle logos are going away? I hope not.
If all else fails, you can ride an elephant into Buddhist monkhood: Tony Jaa quits making movies to become a Buddhist monk: He apparently rode an elephant to the temple to begin his new life. This article has some very interesting tidbits about the making of Ong Bak 2 — chickens were sacrificed before shooting and the movie had to be split into two movies to manage cost overruns. Quote:
The fire is completely gone from Jaa as a performer, he’s put on weight – not to Segal levels but he’s lost all of his definition…
Neat how they managed to get a dig at Steven Segal in there while they were at it. Why can’t they just leave Segal alone???
The Run
“The actress in your show is really beautiful — she could be in Miss Saigon. Does she sing?”
“I don’t know mom,” I said, “I think she’s just only interested in doing theatrical acting.”
“Oh. Well, she should get into singing. She could be in Miss Saigon.”
I’ve been fielding a lot of weird calls since I got back. It’s neat to have a show going on in a distant city. You look at your watch at around 4 pm and you think, “Huh — it’s half hour right now. Show’s going to start soon. I hope everyone’s having a great day over there – ” Meanwhile you’re punching out pages or you’re about to eat or you’re playing Red Dead Redemption on the Xbox or doing some other mundane thing. Meanwhile your show is going on — your friends are in it, an audience is listening to your work, and you’re totally physically removed from it but you’re emotionally connected to it. It’s sounds weird, but you feel displaced, like you’re in two places at once: Head over here, heart over there. The two parts of you are now separate.
I’ve been getting a lot of nice emails from strangers. One literally just said, “Thank you.” Someone else wanted to know where the interstitial music came from (they’re all tracks from Cambodian American rapper Prach Ly). The reviews have been great, my agents are ecstatic, and we’ve accomplished everything we set out to accomplish. The play has gone through a true second production — that is, it’s evolved, tightened up, gained focus. It’s really come of age.
So it is pretty weird to be so far away from it now. I feel like I should be there every night, but instead I’m here wondering how things are going. The show’s like some kind of deep-space probe, floating out there somewhere and transmitting signals back home — off exploring the universe on its own.
It’s strange to be away from it, but it’s a pretty good feeling knowing that it’s out there.
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
