Danielle Speaks

Oh joy!

Tonight i went the Los Angeles out growth of the Naked Angels Theater company's reading series at St Nick's Pub. And I got there without using my boyfriend GPS! If you are a writer you submit your name, your email and two hard copies of 10 pages of a screenplay, novel essay, or play in progress.  The environment is about 90% actors which is taking a little getting use to. Most of the people here are hyphens. Almost everybody dabbles in acting and I am starting to wonder if my abhorrence towards the idea of myself acting is actually perhaps a block in my creative process... In any case after you submit your stuff and it takes about a month on the queue to get read. The actors all arrive about 30 minutes early and if it's your night you quickly cast them. About 4or 5 works are then stage read.  The work was decent- not great which is good because if this is going to be a utility for me I don't think I would feel so inspired if the work was daunting.  I  have this inability to remember that its not gauche or incorrect to write from your own biography. Some of the best stuff was clearly based in very near and dear facts in the writers' lives.  This always angers me because then I think of the yrs my own growth as a writer has been stunted by not purging all this stuff and recycling it into real drama. In any case I only need to get 10 pages out and then I am off. All night my friend kept plainly introducing me as Danielle, a writer. That was my role. I had my glasses on so every one kept saying they knew that I was the minute I walked in.  Thats the other part that is hard to get use to in LA. Everyone openly gives you the up and down and unlike NYC where people treasure their anonymity and hide out in secret haunts- stars sit outside at cafes on Sunset arching their backs, assuring a 100% vista. Strange. In any case, one girl, who was such an actress grabbed my hand and nearly shook it off and then said that she thought I was Laraine Newman when I walked in: a woman 23 yrs older than I with Kinky curly hair and a zany nose. 

At my horror she replied: "oh she is very talented- so uhm when you submit your script can you make sure there is a part for me to read" Yeah sure, I'll write one just for you!

Three other people told me I looked like Feist!!! I have been getting this a lot!  This  makes me giddy.

She is so French- J'aime la!

Bravo, Echo, Echo, Bravo, Echo, River

Today I felt so annoyed by so many things that I purposely went somewhere with no internet so that I would be forced to write down everything possible.  Back at the ranch the technical difficulties have been resolved. I have to say that I feel like my recent issues with my foot: having to go to a janky clinic, a free acupuncture clinic, the ER and then this completely bitchy evil foot clinic at Sinai seriously seriously has shown me just how freaking aweful it is to be poor and uninsured! I feel like I am ready to start working on a campaign to help with the legislature NOW!   People are just down right mean and I should not be punished for not having money or insurance.  Also I don't know how in a city of poor actors and musicians the racial lines are SO SO SO drawn regarding this issue.  I am the only white person in any of these waiting rooms. I get looked at funny. The nurses sort of roll their eyes at me inferring that by the looks of me I should not need to waste there time.  I woke up at 6am this morning only to be told that my appt was cancelled because I was ten minutes late. I was ten minutes late because I could not find the clinic and I was not told that there is a half hour registration process in ANOTHER BUILDING.  Ineffeciency kills me here! The woman looked me straight in the eye and said, " I know you just drove for probably an hour but we are really backed up and...[at this she looked at an older mexican man] as you can see we have patients who are here, know the process and need us more than you. So come back next week same time!" Then she closed the window. F*&^%$## you B*&^%$#ch!

I slammed so many doors leaving the hospital that I hoped I broke something!

Ah well. Such is life I suppose. I am just going to have to polish my veneer a bit more as it is starting to chip.

On thursday (V-day) I am seeing a symphony in a garden at what supposedly will be one of the foremost music schools in the world. It's a satellite of Julliard. I am taking my friend who's boyfriend lives in Chi-town.  Then she, and my only other friend who is not a couple shall go drinking. I'm sure this will be fun. Tickets care of my cous- Les.

Ok I am off to yoga!

Here is a Frames clip for ya. The Glen Hansard and his band did all the music for the film Onc. I personally like this version better even though I love Marketa Irgovia (is it just me or are all the Frames kinda hot?):

Yippee

I'm going to LALA for free. My friends had a voucher and must use it b y my birthday- and so I am off again to the golden state! I can't WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wonder am I manifesting this? SHHHHHHHHHHHHH "the secret"

Please reply with any suggestions as to things to do out there- I am always looking for the insider's tip!

My Horoscope Today

Danielle,
Restless feelings may have you speaking with blunt honesty that shocks those who know you best. What you're really seeking is mental stimulation, so your patience with intellectual slowpokes is gone. Temper words this weekend to keep from burning those who might love you.

Je ne suis pas un photographe, mais...

I have about 13 rolls of film in my fridge for about a year.  I took them with my Nikon FM-2 and I was afraid that my ineptitude would become glaringly apparent upon developing them. So I took ten of  them to CVS and for a nominal fee had them developed just on to photo CDs. You have the negetives if you ever want to make prints. Well only five of the ten came out- the other five were said to be BLANK rolls- therefore my loading skills need proper attention but none the less a little learned- there are some photos I feel are rather worth the studying and do show somehow a critical understanding of imagery- some that are disastrous but none that tell me for sure- what f-stop or shutter speed  I used. I might have remember had I not waited A YEAR. had I written a log - but alas- I did not. So the lesson that is learned is not that of a photography lesson but more a life lesson- don't put anything off!  Here is my flickr page. Bedroom Series and New France Set are the still camera photos.

I tell ya one thing!

I definately do not want to work in commercials.  I have been working in this commercial house for a couple of days covering for a friend. Everyone is really nice and all but the dialogues that must occur to create these homages to inanimate objects that you actually don't really need- AND- the lack of actual knowledge of directing that commercial directors actually have is heart breaking- heart breaking I tell ya!

Plus this getting to work by 8:45am crap is cramping my health. Between the 3pm headaches and the rush hour malaise that creeps over everyone its enough not to send you screaming through the streets.

Ah well - $$$ is a good thing.

Deadlines are good!

I have three weeks to finish a screenplay for three fellowship applications. If you are a screenwriter, I highly encourage you to enter these contests. The Nichols fellowship is $30,000 with a two year contract to develop another script. One notable winner among many was Alison Anders for Gas, Food, Lodgings...another was Jeffrey Eugenides for The Virgin Suicides. 30% of the applicants are women and 30% of the winners are women. Only 14 out of 102 have been New Yorkers...which is interesting. Anyhow, wish me luck! http://www.oscars.org/nicholl/index.html

Do something!

Ok its time...

So I was fired about two weeks ago. It was most definitely not a shock. It was the most mutual of break ups one could ever experience. My manager started to tear as it was time for him to tell me and I saved him from speaking the words. I told him that I knew what was coming and that it was great news, that it was time this bad saga ended and that I was excited to do something with my life where I was respected, appreciated and in an environment conducive to what I do well.

What I do well. Thats the big question. Its now been a week since I have been home. On top of the regular discontentment of the event- i ended up having a terrible cough and cold. Every day my body would expel noxious poison. I envisioned my first week "off" as a celebration of the daytime:  10am yoga, tea and healthy breakfast in my sparklingly clean apartment, followed by several hours of brilliant writing sired by the peace of mind I finally must have obtained by being freed of the viacom shackles that were binding my soul. Then of course a  bundled up afternoon walk where in a Mary Tyler Moore frenzy I would throw my hat up in the air and pound my chest as I chanted FREE AT LAST, GOOD G-D ALMIGHTY, FREE AT LAST.
Thats not exactly how it was. I'll spare you the boring details, key word: "boring." There is all this residual emotion creeping out from underneath the surface and its not quite depressing or heavy, I am fine but this stuff begs my attention and I am frustrated because I don't have the answers. I feel as if I am back at square one. I thought by age 31 I would not have to ask my self what I wanted to be when I grow up. But the question still stands and bills need to be paid, the batons of security: savings, pensions, health insurance, all cry for my attention and my brain most of all needs a plan. I will just admit that aside from a few money making ideas I have none.

Here is what I do know. I don't want to work in an office. I don't want to climb the ranks. I don't want to do any job where the most important trait to survive is organization- I am not management freak. I don't want to really be anyone else's boss. I want to work for myself. I want to work on something, I want to watch it grow, change, get better or move on.  To some degree I realize that I will have to deal with some or all of these elements but if I consciously chose not to, perhaps I can evade some of them. Thats all for now. Happy Friday people- I think this might be a sunny weekend!

Even the two eyed ones can be monsters

Love born on the Internet and exposed on film.

Tonight I went to see Four Eyed Monsters with Tuckergurl ( Thank You!) followed by a panel discussion of internet dating.  It has been a while since I have seen a movie that I identified with as a person in the world AND as a filmmaker. So much of this brilliant debut is about cross breeding the things in your life, and in your art as shown by cross breeding the mediums that tell the story.  Susan and Arin are extremely arty hipster young adults who live in/around Williamsburg and aspire to make great art. They struggle in this city like the rest of us and they are freaks, like the rest of us.

Susan, a painter/drawer, feels like a fraud. After all the money spent training her, time spent cultivating her and energy spent supporting her- Susan is just spent. She goes off to an artist residency (gut wrenchingly -laugh out loud spoofed!!!) only to find that her only artistic contribution is a piece about her own impotence. She works as a waitress serving pretentious sycophants while subterfuging a growing loneliness and rage. Arin is a struggling film maker/musician. He edits wedding and Bar Mitzvahs videos to his creative dismay.  i guess Arin is a dime a dozen but he is unique in his idiosyncrasies and somehow alluring as a character despite his frustrating ineptitude regarding relationships and general communication. Arin is an "other" and this is a point that all people can identify with.  His obtuse and eccentric behavior so vigorously displayed on the outside is his price paid for we the audience so that he may be the caricature of our own internal angst.  After all does everyone feel like a carnie in their own skin? His sexual fears and paranoid passive agressivity is so well rationalized by his finely honed mind that it seems impossible they might ever break through his own solitary confinement. Despite my initial hatred for him; for at times I recognized the quintessential male frustration we girls must endure;  I could not blame him for his alienation.  It was not self imposed. Never are the walls we put up elective maybe its more that we instigate them, maintain them for security but we never put them up.

In any case, they meet online, they date, they go through their journey and they make a movie about it where the making of the movie is Act III.  The film is a melange of docu style video footage, isight footage, screen-captures, and animation. It is a roving wall of sound diorama that feels jagged and perfectly fluent all at once.  These two people are easily poets and what they have done is turned their lives into art and their art into lives.  Although I could critique some of the film- that seems rather besides the point. It is inspiring to say the least and inspiration is always a welcomed gift!

They have podcasts as Tuck pointed out on her blog- but I am glad that I did not watch too many episode as the overall character of the film and people in it were a pleasant surprise. And let me just say this: in the film Susan often had moments where we reacted out loud with thanks and praise-be to her strong woman attitude and clever banter in reaction to Arin's bullsh*t. However, no matter how together and articulate Susan was, she still had to succumb to her emotions and ride the relationship rollarcoaster despite the warning signs. She, signifying WE, was held a captive audiences to her desires and fantasies of what she wanted, and a slave to the reality that she had to play out with Arin.

This got me thinking. Recently, and totally by coincidence I had decided to get my internet persona back together, blogs, dating websites, myspace page...etc  I felt a slight giggle inwardly as I wrote down the internet "work" I had ahead of me:

• Designs
• revised short stories to put up,
• new Blogs to fill with information.
• Personal essays to write for dating sites
• questionnaires to fill out
• Attractive photos to acquire from my closest friends
• A mental round up of all that I liked, was interested in, pursued and felt absolute about- after all this is serious business that can not withstand wishy washiness. This is dating! This is blogging ( publishing on your own terms!) This is  networking - no longer could my myspace be mediocre for how would that reflect on my character- an inactive profile could mean a dry and pedantic person.

I was not feeling the usual reticence in terms of dating online - instead I was starting to view it as a project I could control, alter and explore on my own terms- CONTROL. I could be anyone, I could select anyone vis a vis any criteria: Age, race, musical tastes,  celebrities they most resembled, favorite books, looks alone...etc  In my head I had the next six months planned out. I had constructed for my self a list of things I can control and do in my life.

And on this I had a beebs epiphany whose air leaked out as quickly as it filled in:  I am not a type A person. (thats not the epiphany!)  On most days I'd rather let sweet life come to me and just smile at its fortune. I don't like plans and I hate the pressure of time. I like chaos, I love random and I am most at home when the day is taking me and never the averse. I always rationalized that my lack of efficiency in style and manner was somehow countered by ability to think on my feet and be there both professionally and personally at any given moment. I don't mind messes- I never have- I like getting lost even though I am often scared sh*tless of physically getting lost and feeling blue for winding up lost in life. I often feel elephant size stress as a result of this lifestyle. Like when Maura had to take me threw the organizational steps of planning my France trip! Somehow I rationalized that this was part of the big plan- like the scorpion - its just my nature. But that's not how it goes and I am beginning to wonder if type b just stands for "behind"  IWe all know that any time one needs something in their life they must illicit single minded focus and organization into their grasp and then forge ambitiously to the finish line. You can't just wing it! I have heard others say that they have but I don't believe it.   It would stand to reason then that Type A activity within reasonable and healthy confines is really more of a lucky attribute to be born with rather then a type!!!!  That in fact, life management style is as falsely-subjective as beauty, intelligence, monetary fortune and aptitude in sports art and music.  So while some are born with the gift, the rest of us have to practice the scales infinitely until they simply don't sound flat.  This is not to say that my nature has not saved me and been a blessing to others at any given point- this is also not to say that I am never obstinate or controlling- au contraire mon fraire!  It is just to say that well I don't believe in "thats just the way I am" anymore. I guess I just can't afford to. I want to believe in a Popeye caliber of life but he was a cartoon.

So it is definitely strange to me that the little room with all the filing cabinets inside my head all of the sudden has strange dusty sunlight rays cracking through and begging attention. I make my lists. One asks where I want to be in 3mos, 6mos, 1yr, 3yrs, and 10yrs on a grid with three levels: professional, personal, other. It surprised me what I learned.
I made website lists- (i am not linking I am lazy)  nerve, Match, J-date (yup thats right I said it) Ok Cupid, Bust, Myspace.  I also wrote interests where perhaps there were more websites to join virtually.  More ways to be engaged.

The lists continued:

1. The pros and cons of living (Not in any suicidal matter - more a list of celebratory aspects and the frustrations that get in our way)
2. A list of health issued I want to attack
3. A list of material items I need to own within a certain amount of time
4. A list of my weaknesses and strengths ( asked for by my shrinkeroo)
5. A list of things I needed to do to my apartment
6. A list of people I needed to call
7. Several top ten lists of pop culture things that piss me off
8. A list of activities I wanted to get better at ( French, Knitting, Editing, photography, snowboarding)
9. A list of people I'd like to know better (Pedro Amaldovar- what" Can't i dream?)
10. A list of moments I hated this year and ways by which to avoid them.
11. A list of writing projects begun- but never finished and therefore truly never realized! ( two shorts, three screenplays, a novel, two essays and five article pitches-  WTF?????? Not to mention this bloggity poo)
12. I made a lists of lists ( like this one!)

Somewhere in my fiction here lies the bigger truth:

Tyoe B- Beebs had to default for a moment- If I just collect the data- that doesn't mean I can change it. Does it? I am not even the "if its on my list I have to do it" girl So why I am I planning? Tvperry's grandpa said "if you fail to plan then you plan to fail." But John Lennon said "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." My mom always regarded my absent mindedness as an intellectual eccentricity lovingly proving that I was indeed the brilliant offspring until I turned 30- then it was just plain "you need to grow up kid  In other words is all the proactivity really just minutia activity to further stall the real playing field?  Does it matter? Maybe.  Maybe not. 

When did the need for absolutes and security supersede the thirst for adventure.  And did it? I am not so sure. So did the myth perpetrate the truth which then superseded the allegory which then played itself out like reality on the stage with a hamster running at the speed of light from nothing? 

Ok Ok OK!!!!!!  I am being silly and Dave Eggers-ish. 

Did Einstein have lists? Was Shakespeare an organized cad?  I don't know and perhaps I am wasting time quibbling over the mental masturbation it takes to break it down.

I am working on my virtual existence. I imagine that in some way my flesh and blood existence is not sparkling enough so I consult my virtual sister to come to the rescue and polish things up. There is Danielle and then there is Beebs. A socialized form of Schizophrenia complete with different vernaculars, colors, styles, dictum's and values. A separate sphere of microcosms meeting at awkward chasms and rendering us a bit stupefied when we are forced out of our atonal IMings and txting into live speech and touch, Rapid eye movement, pheromones and knowing glances.  Where they merge is where modern art exists.  I don't mean the type that sells or displays itself and is written up in the Times. I don't  mean this flick, or Damian Hirst or Mathew Barney or  or this blog. I just mean the art that makes us feel really elated and alive and aware-  the art that happens in your brain and your heart while jumping over a creak on a long hike or passing a moment of sheer human color on the streets. The synergy! It is number one on my pros list for living.

Susan and Arin distributed their love to the world as a social exploration and although their movie has a beginning and an end - they are just a serial and even they don't know what will happen next.  It must have been tough podcasting their lives for the world to see- they are not unscathed.  The internet daters are not without  snags and horror stories and the Film makers are not soaring...yet! Despite the great press and continued theatrical presence they need money just the same. SO none of this is necessarily the answer but my oh my the questions could leave us blogging into the next millennium

"Life is far too important a thing to ever talk seriously about!" - Oscar Wilde

in exactly 22 hours

I'll be on a plane. I have been singing "on a jet plane" all day. I got a message from the keeper of the Villa in L'ambastide and he told me that promptly at 9pm when I arrive everyone will be toasting me with "apperitives" This literally brought tears to my cheeks. I started this blog truly upon the arrival of 30th year and its been nothing but a constant flux of mild discontentment and Las Vegas red light signs that I need to make some changes. During this whole year I pondered one thing: Am I good person and does one have to be a good person to deserve happiness? Why? Because somewhere in the undertow of every emotion I have is this stinky little virus of a voice that tells me I don't deserve anything any way... so why try? I guess the ability to have an existential crisis is really a luxery but it still feels real. So as my last week rolled around, I made my voice loud and clear about the changes I wanted to see happen at work for me to stay- and I admitted that if they did not occur I had to leave. That voice came about, "who are you to demand a great job, what have you done to deserve this?" "You have debt, any job should be adequate for you!" So I told this voice to fuck off. I asked my mom and dad a ton of questions this week about our families. I asked my Dad every single fact I could think of. The little voice use to say, " who the fuck wants to read anything about your family- you're like a dime a dozen stupid! Who cares?" So I asked the little voice, "Who cares what you think? I want to read it- now go drown yourself in an NYC puddle!" The voice told me that if I have not done anything truly amazing with my life yet then I probably never will. My only reply was, "what else can you live for but that dream? So I went ahead and pitched a bunch of video ideas to my friends who are in a band- at first the little voice and I both agreed that I was not anyone who should get to direct a music video- but the band wrote back- "Dude, see us when you return!!!!" Take that little voice! I guess what I am trying to tell you is that I don't know what makes a good person. I don't know what even makes a talented person. I don't care anymore- I have seen good people do utterly crappy things, I have seen bad people save the day. In all this reletivity and estimation never once have I ever been able to equate anyone's success or happiness to the ammount of good or bad in them. It just doesn't work that way. I have also seen talent be regardless in situations where I thought it would be the priority. But i have also seen talent save the day as well. Its all so random. Even worse- you can't use the people who surround you to mirror who you are- they have the right to be as bad or good as they need to be and you need to have faith and trust that you can ride these storms without taking it personally. So I have decided to let the little guy take on all my shit- I am leaving him in my apartment. I packed him away with old photos of me with a perm, a double chin and a faded cult t-shirt. He dwells with old love letters to unrequited loves, red marked screenplays and dust stained photos of old friends. I think the blog is a personal revelry done out loud- I do believe its here for people to learn from and as corny as it sounds I always think- maybe just maybe my own crap is helping some random person escape the fear of their own mediocrity.

Don't worry, I am not becoming a schizophrenic or some self help practioner who personifies all of her ignominious emotions into sodden little demons who I beat up and curse at. ( Albeit that could be fun!)

So here is what I learned from strangers' blogs this week: There was a desperately single guy who had a typepad catagory- called single life- I clicked on the catagory and read all his entries. He was angry, tired and really wanted a wife in the old fashion sense- he can't stand eating possibly stale tuna and mustard anymore and he does not want to ponder his own bad looks- apparently a wife would take care of all that- but he is poor as shit and angry as all hell. Well single guy- as much as I enjoyed seeing the male counterpart suffer the same anxieties I see now that the outward embellishment of your own lonliness is definately not a good thing- AND- no on wants to date an angry guy/gal

Then I read a wall street guy's blog about pursuing art on the side. He had issues asking his work mates to come to his first exhibit in a shanty 4th floor walk up, makeshift gallery in the LES behind the Willy B bridge. He worried others might htink him trivial and could not bare the thought of his private innerds coming out in his paintings for others to see. He developed a stomach virus as the viewing neared. He thought about cancelling but his financier side felt it unbelievably unwise to put both himself and the gallery in deficit. So he did it- and guess what- NO ONE FROM WORK SHOWED. His fear turned to loathing ( pun intended) and then he realized it did not matter- he made it through.

So there is my schpiel. I actually have no desire lately to write on this thing. I think its because I actually want to write things unabashedly and I don't want to worry about anyone but myself. I already said see ya so...later. Oh and if you're feeling like a masochist and you need to borrow the little voice demon- just let me know- he's for hire and he's really good at making you feel fat, stupid, friendless and generally useless. You never know...

Lastly, this is a total tangent but i dedicate all of my energy and time to the people suffering in Lebanon and Israel. I have listened to every side of this crazy argument and all i know is- none of you deserve this. Israel is too close to my heart to comment on and I felt it best not to discuss publicly but I encourage everyone to go to NPR and listen to their multi op-ed shows. I promise to contribute something when I return- as Maura says- %10 will do- so whatever I have left - a tenth of that is going to you. May you have peace and safety in your future and may there be a day where all us semites let go of the family brawl.