Please and Thank You are the secret of the Nile

A day became a week and a week became a month…blah blah blah.

Last Christmas, our good friends, the Handman’s sent young Ms. Izzie Rain a Santa hat. Since we love the Handman’s way more than our daughter, we shoved the three month old hat onto our daughter’s 15 month old head.
Two of the companies I was working with pre-strike ended up cutting deals with the WGA so I went back to work early. As a result Messengers II starts shooting mid-April. And I’m awaiting notes on RKO’s Monkey’s Paw. At some point, Lions Gate cut a deal and I ended up rewriting My Bloody Valentine. It starts shooting May 12th.
First, let’s acknowledge the snotty emails. Yes. My Bloody Valentine is a remake. No. Choosing what movies are and are not made is not up to me. How about we all ease up on poor ol’ Toddly. Yes. I’ve a brainfull of new ideas but Hollywood don’t want original right now. They want safe, name recognizable remakes and sequels. And as much as I hate Corprate Hollywood the numbers don’t lie. The Descent was a grrreat movie. But nobody went to see it. Slither was a grrreat movie but nobody went to see it. That said, between Zane Smith, Patrick Lussier and yours frakking truly, My Bloody Valentine is a grrreat script. And trust me, that’s not been easy. It would be a very safe bet that along the way we have avoided more than a dozen dungbombs lobbed at the story. Welcome to the new Hollywood.

Okay, that should cover all the negative emails, and by the way, they were in the minority. To all those who sent happy emails of congratulations, thank you.
My managers mentioned Bloody Valentine to me back before the strike and…eh…I wasn’t really interested. Then I hard Lussier was going to direct. That peeked my interest. With Patrick running the Bloody show, I’m completely happy. If everyone stays out of his way there’s no doubt in my mind this will be the best of the remakes.

Young Ms. Izzie Rain loves Panda Express. I mean, like creepy fan girl Hannah Montana kind of love. It’s the potstickers that get her. And truth be told, her daddy loves the orange chicken. Desert Island, sunblock, Mel in a fig leaf, Izzie climbing a cocoa nut tree and all the orange chicken I can eat and I’m happy man. I like chicken just fine but this stuff is addictive. I just know I’ll be sitting there wolfing it down when one day some guy will burst through the doors and proclaim that “Orange chicken is made of people! Orange chicken is people!”

In other Bloody news, Jaime King is now onboard and I couldn’t be happier. Sure she’s a fan favorite and looks great in Maxim but her rehearsal tapes were incredible. And I hear from a buddy that she’s fantastic in The Spirit as well. This morning I chatted with Kyle, Jaime’s hubbicans and director of Fanboys. Seems like anytime I mentioned Jaime someone would say, “Oh yeah, Kyle’s a good friend of mine.” If we end up on the Bloody set at the same time we’ll perhaps test some Pittsburghian beer.

Messengers II starts shooting on the 21st of April I think. Might be the 22nd. It’s shooting in Bulgaria because when you think rural American farmland, of course, you think Bulgaria. As anyone who suffers through this journal knows, I am ze king of bitching about Hollywood and the morons who ruin it…I mean run it. But in this case I need to stop bitching long enough to give some praise.
I turned in my Messengers II first draft a few weeks before the strike. Then there was a string of meetings with Andrew (line producer), JR (Ghost House exec) Sam Raimi (exec producer) and a couple of execs from Mandate and all of this with director Martin Barnewitz on the phone from Denmark. Those meetings were…well, they were fun. Actually made me feel young again. Like what I foolishly thought Hollywood was before I’d been kicked in the balls so many times. And all of this for a small little movie that would likely never see more than a direct to DVD release. We bantered and brainstormed and I never felt like I was being forced to make a change I didn’t agree with. I can’t tell you how rare that is. After three or maybe four meetings I had several pages of notes.
But, let’s back up. First off, this was a one step deal. Meaning I would get paid for one draft and that payment would be broken into two parts. I would get paid to start writing the script and I would get paid for delivering that script.
Of course, normally that’s all BS talk. That first payment…the one you get for starting the script…yeah, you actually never get that one until you finish the script and your agent/manager/lawyer calls the company and tells them that they can have the script as soon as the write a check. Check comes pretty quickly after that. I’m still not sure why they call it a commencement check. I guess the same reason you sell something for 4.95 instead of just saying 5 bucks. Anyway, that’s how commencement payment normally goes down. And after that you normally wait months and months to get that delivery check for the delivery you just made.
But that’s not how it went down on Messengers II. There was a strike looming and I just wasn’t interested in playing the accounting head games. So I broke every rule in the book and sent the script to the execs without blackmailing them for a check. What happened next was pretty odd. I got paid. I got paid for commencement AND delivery. And they paid fast. No theatrics, no angry phone calls. Seems silly to praise someone for doing what he or she said they would do, but oddly enough it really is rare.
So there I was sitting in a room with all these execs, including Sam freaking Raimi (and yeah, I might have geeked out a teeny bit) and getting all these notes when I had already been paid everything I was contractually owed. Of course, I did have an optional step. Which means, the studio could decide to keep me around for an additional draft. Of course, every contract I’ve had since ’96 has had that optional step included. And since ’96 no company has ever implemented it. No, I was pretty sure that last batch of notes would fall under the “free” rewrite category.
“Free” rewrites are all the rage here in Hollywood these days. You see, over the last ten years the gates opened and a bunch of young hungry writers flooded the market. They were so hungry to get their feet in the door that they wrote for scale (that means the lowest dollar value the Writer’s Guild will allow), they did dozens of “free” rewrites and they did whatever the executives/producers asked. As a result the business changed. Those of us with quotes started getting “take it or leave it” lowball offers. “Free” rewrite became the norm. And when you argued a story point with an executive, they looked at you like you had just started urinating on their mother. At least all those new writers got their feet in the door. We got that going for us. Although there are many who might argue that New Hollywood’s quality of movies have suffered.
In any case, I’d been paid for my one and only step. Nikki Finke was preaching to everyone that the strike was gonna happen Monday morning. And there I was sitting with a whole new batch of notes. So, I started writing. And I turned in the second draft at 8:30pm on Sunday night. 11:30 pm eastern. And as Nikki Toldja Finke predicted, we went on strike Monday morning midnight. There are no doubt some militants out there who might frown at my choice to turn in my draft. Eh, whatever. The fact was, not turning in the script would have been worse. I got no right to bitch about Hollywood being unaccountable if I am unaccountable. I may be a grumpy pain in the keester but I am accountable. I did my job and I’d do it again.
And was I rewarded for my hard efforts? I got an email of thanks from one of the executives. Two weeks later I got a letter from Sony informing me that due to the strike my services would no longer be needed. It basically meant that optional pass would never happen. It basically meant I would never get paid for killing myself to turn in that last draft. Of course, there are some militants out there who would say I got what I deserve. And I would agree.
Because a week later I received a check for commencement and delivery of the optional step. Yes. They paid me. Now let’s take a moment of silence and think about that.
They. Paid. Me.
They never “officially” commenced me on that optional step. We’d gone on strike. Sony had already sent the official letter telling me to go fly a kite, yet, they paid me. I’ll be honest, I walked around pretty stunned for a couple days. My writer buddies with whom I shared this information walked around stunned for a few days. You see, this just DOES NOT HAPPEN! But in the case of Ghost House, Mandate, Sony…it did. I’m still stunned. Anyway, I felt this deserved some recognition. I’ve complained without stop about this industry, but in this case I’ve met a company that did simply, what they said they would do. And that’s amazingly rare.

Then there’s Monkey’s Paw at RKO. Perhaps the darkest and in many ways, most challenging script I’ve ever written. So dark and so…unnerving that Mel didn’t like me for several weeks. Thing is, some stories are tough to write and in order to do them properly it requires you go to a dark place. That was the job. And so…I went there.
And by the way, as Abby Normal as this may sound, I got more praise to give out. Remember when I said that in 12 years I’d never received a commencement check before having a script ready to turn in? Well, RKO paid me a commencement check before the draft was ready. Only a week after they’d commenced me in fact. 12 years, two dozen gigs and that’s a first.
And the praise don’t stop there. Kevin Cornish is the executive at RKO with whom I’ve been dealing with the most. I think it is no secret that I consider most, if not all, executives to be little more than a company tax deduction. But Kevin has forced me to alter my thinking. From day one he has never had any interest in cookie cutter, follow the blueprint horror movie screenwriting. He wanted to make a classic. For Kevin it was all about doing something new. Doing what the Shining did before the Shining existed. Doing what Rosemary did before Rosemary existed. What Exorcist did and so on. You can make the argument that SAW and Hostel did those things and perhaps they did…they certainly pushed the envelope…but will they stand the test of time? Will they become classics? Only time will tell. But we know that the true classics did two things. They pushed the envelope and they drew us into an uncomfortable, sometimes never fully explained world. Well, that’s what Monkey’s Paw has become. I personally think it’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever written.
In the last ten years, just about every meeting I’ve ever taken has been some yoyo telling me to make it more like SCREAM, then it was more like THE RING, then it was more like HOSTEL. To suddenly have an executive telling me to show him something he’s never seen, to take him somewhere he’s never been, somewhere uncomfortable, somewhere foreign…sheesh…my head was spinning.
Kevin’s reasoning was simple. When he looked around at his heroes they were men and women who were constantly pushing the boundaries. They were constantly taking risks and trying something new. They WEREN’T scrambling to make a movie that looked like SAW or Hostel. Polanski, Spielberg, Kubrick…they didn’t follow any pattern or rulebook other than their gut and their faith in imagination. They took chances and sometimes they failed horribly, but when they did it right they did it unbelievably right.
So, here’s the thing, and Kevin and I have talked about this at length. We now have a script that does NOT fit the cookie cutter, analytical new Hollywood. As a result I gotta wonder if we’ll survive the hurdles ahead. But I do have a prediction. One of two things will happen. Young Master Cornish will either be beaten down and defeated by New Hollywood or he will drive the stake thru the monster’s heart and end up as one of the few that will save an industry. Either way, I have front row seats for the show.

Doctor Lorey’s Nightmare Academy released in the UK and is a big hit. Of all the covers this one is by far my favorite. Although Spain would run a close second. I don’t have the Spain pic handy but it’s up at Dean Lorey.com.

Now let’s talk about Bluray. Love it! Awesome! Un…frakking…believable picture. Until our PS3 took a crap and our discs stopped loading. Well, that’s not true. Actually all they will do is load. The little teardrop in the right hand corner just spins and spins and spins. So, we’re sending it back to Sony. In the meantime we, perhaps foolishly, bought PS3 number 2. We’ll stick it in the bedroom if Sony does us right and ships us a new one. We figured why buy a player for the bedroom when the PS3 cost the same and gives you both gaming and internet? Of course, this all depends on whether or not this glitch of ours truly is a one in a million occurrence as Sony claims.
Oh, and by the way, Bluray won. Isn’t it…I don’t know…criminal for Best Buy and Target not to share this fact with their customers? They are still carrying HD players. They are still carrying HD discs. Hello? I’m just feeling a little buyer’s “almost” remorse because we bought an HD player before the original PS3. But we took it back because it wouldn’t work with our amp.
EDIT: As I sometimes do…I sent my ramblings to Mel to look over before posting. And she informs me that I’m wrong about Best Buy. That, in fact, they called us yesterday to inform us that Blu-ray, won. And even though we returned our HiDef player they are sending us a gift card for a discounted purchase of a Blu-ray player. Okay, I stand corrected. Nicely played, Bestest Buy. Shame on you Target.

Moving on, shout goes out to Protecious from Myspace for creating the creepy Todd gif.
Okay, so what else needs to be covered? The journal totally missed out on Christmas, no? Mel got one of those bright colored Science Fiction vacuums that Gordon Sumner sells on the TV.

I know at some point I had intended to journal about Britney’s vagina. And later I figured I’d have to mention Paris’s vagina. Then before I could get to those Britney’s sister got knocked up and by proxy her vagina made the news. But in looking back…ugh. Who cares about a bunch over-used vaginas.

I have an office now. An out of the house office. I just couldn’t get anything done at home because I’d end up wrestling the creature. And it’s hard to write dark creepy stuff with the Backyardigans singing “Float, flutter flyyyyy, float flutter flyyyy, Rock oh rock on hill top high, float flutter flyyyyyy,” in the background. See, now I got that song stuck in my head.

Oh and Izzie isn’t the only challenge. I’m sitting at my home computer the other day and I can hear Cleaning Mode Melanie tearing up the kitchen. I was trying to rewrite the climax of Messengers II when suddenly Mel breaks into song (Now for this to work one must sing the lyrics to the tune of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”).
Lust, lust lust, lustin for my butt.
Lust, lust lust, lustin for my butt,
And another one down,
And another one down,
Another one lusts muh butt.
Hey! Gonna get you too, another one lusts muh butt.
Needless to say, I left for the office shortly after.
Working at an office takes some getting used to. Especially since I’ve been a home office kind of guy for over ten years. And, of course, I worry about the girls if I’m writing late. For instance when they come to visit I insist that Mel IMs me the moment they get home to let me know they are safe. The other night they brought me dinner. We picnicked on the floor. Then they headed home. I looked up from writing and forty-five minutes had gone by. No IM from Mel. I’m a beast of imagination so I start worrying. I start IMing, “Hello? You there? Where are you?” I’m grabbing the phone and just about to call when. “Hey.” Pops up on the IM. I rip into Mel. Reminding her that she’s supposed to let me know she got home safely, that I can’t concentrate when I’m worried about them, that my imagination runs wild and I start worrying that they walked in on a burgler, blah blah blah…basically I let her have it. When I finished there was a long pause then came the reply:
“What makes you think I am really me?”
I can only hope that Jesus will smote her for that one.

What else? I’ve written two different pilots for two animated TV shows, both based on video games. And both have been picked up by cable companies. I’m not really sure what details I should give at this time so I’ll keep it brief. The Scifi Channel picked up one of the pilots and Spike picked up the other. More on that after all the papers are signed.
I got a call from the Writer’s Guild today. A very polite fella was asking if I’d been invited to the set of The Messengers. Confused, as I often am, I assumed he meant Messengers II. I told him it hadn’t start filming yet. Suddenly we were both confused. It was a mess. Turns out he was, in fact, referring to the first movie, to which I told him, no, I was not invited to the set. He then asked me if I wanted to seek damages. Whufusamoo? Ovaservagie scuzemuth? That’s not what I said. But that’s what I thought. What I said was, “Uh…no.”

In addition to writing on Bloody Valentine and in addition to Patrick’s now being in Pittsburgh prepping the shoot, he and I are writing a four issue comic book series called Mass Destruction, based on one of our old film pitches. Don Marquez, the artist from Alien Pig Farm has agree to pencil it for us which is fantastic. We’re doing all of this with a new company headed up by Ludon Lee who led the digital comic versions of Bad Planet and Alien Pig Farm. More on that as it develops.

I wrote The Lycan, a four issue comic base on a Thomas Jane idea, shortly after Alien Pig Farm. With Dark Country wrapped Tom now has the time to concentrate on comics. He and Tim Bradstreet have found an artist and plans are underway.

Yesterday Izzie Rain hit 18 months. That’s a year and a half in people years. She’s okay. I still like her mostly. Enough that we bought her some old school toys.

I quit smoking. I guess it’s been…5 months? Not really sure. I didn’t document it. I didn’t make a big deal about it. I just quit. I never really talked about smoking that much because I always knew it was this amazingly stupid thing to start doing and once I was hooked I believed all the BS that it would be hard to quit. It’s actually not hard. In fact, quitting was so foolishly easy that I feel…foolish for not quitting earlier. The problem is, I was told since birth that it was nearly impossible to quit. That smoking was as addictive as heroine! When I started smoking it was because I was on a self proclaimed path of destruction. I started smoking with the understanding that I would not be able to quit. Well as it turns out, quitting was easy. But in order to believe that you best pick up this book. “The Easy Way to Quit Smoking” by Allen Carr. There’s no preaching, no medical pictures of lungs or any of that crap. You know smoking is bad. You don’t need to be told what you already know. Carr goes about it in a way you won’t expect. I’ve tried to quit off and on for ten years. Just like every other smoker I know. But I never got close. Half way through reading the Easy Way I put it aside because I knew if I kept reading I would quit and I wasn’t ready. I went back to it a month later, finished it and walked away happy as could be. No shakes, no pains, no screaming at everyone in anger. I simply quit and was very happy about it. And by the way, this was in the midst of trying to finish several scripts with a strike looming. A very stressful time when I used to think I HAD to have a smoke. Walked away without a second glance back. Don’t believe me, read the book. Dare ya. Sissy.
American Idol. Yeah yeah, I know. But with TiVo you can watch a two hour show in 20 minutes. Least that’s how we Farmers do it. So let’s chat contestants.
Chikezie went home? Shame. His “She’s a Woman” by the Beatles was awesome. But Simon was right, his last song sucked.
Brooke White. Eh. Good voice. A little too goody two shoes for me.
Carly Smithson. Good voice. Lern2dress.
David Archuleta. I’m sorry. I know the girls dig ya but dude, you are creepy. And when I say creepy I mean, killing baby ducks and puppies and working your way up to the overweight neighbor girl who lives down the street.
David Cook. The most talented. I’ve yet to be let down. Have iTuned each of his performances. Hello blew me away. Eleanor Rigby as awesome. And this week’s Billie Jean was simply amazing. He may not win but he’s by far the best talent.
Jason Castro. Uh…dreamy. The whole aw shucks goofball thing may end up getting old but he’s the only other performer who’s tunes I have paid 99 cents for. I’m not exactly sure why the judges love that little anti-christ Archuleta while slamming Castro though. I guess because Archuleta is just fake enough to self promote himself while Castro is just too freaking ah shucks.
Kristy Lee Cook. Fine voice. Cute face. You could use some worldliness. Might think about calling your boyfriend and having him bring a box of condoms. I’m guessing both your voice and personality would improve after a good humpin.
Michael Johns. I like you. I could see hanging out with you. Good voice. Not sure I get who you are as a performer though. Not really a Daughtry, certainly not a Clay Akins. Dunno. I think I like that you are more mature than most of the twerps. At least you appreciated the Beatles while that cultist, Archuleta had never really heard of them.
Ramiele Malubay. Eh. Cute girl. Strong voice in such a small package. Pilipino pride FTW. If not for that you should probably go next week or the week after.
Syesha Mercado. Great voice. Pretty girl. Just never connected with me. I know the judges love you but something’s not there. Either you got it or you don’t and there’s a reason you were in the bottom three. The fact that Chikezie went home instead of you, surprised me.

Anyway, that’s why I like American Idol. I like playing sofa judge. But Idol is not my favorite show on TV. No, that award goes to BBC American’s Top Gear. If the freaking Brits would get with the program and put the past seasons on DVD I would already own them. This whole best of DVD crap they got going? It’s a travesty. You would think the Best show on television would get better treatment. The show is not easy to describe. Three guys, a DJ, a pianist and I forget what the other one used to do. Anyway they love cars. And every week they drive, test drive and review several. Mostly upper end stuff. Then there’s always some huge, unbelievably unpredictable challenge. Like all three having to build boats out of cheap vehicles then racing them across the English channel to France. Or turning a small British car (forget what kind) into a spaceshuttle (no kidding), which took off and crashed spectacularly. And then there’s always a celebrity who comes on the show and races around a track trying to beat the times of previous celebrities. Currently Simon Cowell holds the fastest time for this season, ahead of Ron Wood, Ewan McGregor, Hugh Grant, Helen Mirren and the list goes on and on. Anway, I still love House but as far as reality type or talk shows are concerned, Top Gear is in a league all its own.

This is what a bus does to the side of a building.
I ride my bike to the office on the days I don’t run to the office. I never drive so you hybrid owning numbnuts can blow me. Of course, my bike got stolen. A gorgeous Gary Fisher frame now gone. I was angry for about five minutes. Mel and I bought matching Gary Fishers when we lived in Thousand Oaks. But after Izzie clawed her way out, momma didn’t like the Fisher no more cuz she was so high off the ground. So we got her another bike. In the end it all worked out. Mel has a bike she likes to ride. I’m now riding her old bike and parking it in my office rather than chaining it downstairs. And some thief bought his kid Happy Feet on Bluray from the stolen Gary Fisher proceeds.