Life is full of irony, or lacking that, annoyances.

The main thing is I often find myself scrounging for misplaced parts in order to make something whole.

This is either metaphorical or actual. More often than not, it actually is something physical. Usually this scratching and scrounging manifested itself in me taking my computer home from college only to forget my speaker cable, so I couldn't use my speakers for the month of break time. Recently, it is Final Draft, the best writing program out there.

For those who don't know, Final Draft is a program that is used for writing scripts of all shapes and sizes. The formatting is really simple, and it allows one to write at the speed of thought, without messing with margins, names, and all sorts of annoying little things. It is the program that made me stop writing in notebooks and get onto typing.

The trouble is that to use it, one must insert the cd into the computer. For a word processor, this is a tedius process, one which has frustrated me on numerous occassions. The most recent one being this past week.

I have been very ill as of late, to the point where going to the store wipes me out for the entire day. Not sure why that is, but it just does. The point is that I'm working towards health, and as such, I've had a lot of free time, and the urge to create. However, my Final Draft disc is in New York, and I am in Connecticut.

Really, this shouldn't get in the way of me writing a new script, but I'm not trying to write a new one, I'm trying to work on one that's in progress. Without that one disc I can only just sit around and wait to get better. I've thought about writing a short story or two, but really, that's never been my medium of choice. In spite of the fact that people have told me that I have the ability to turn a phrase, I find that scriptwriting and blogging (which I equate to news writing) are the two things that have captured me. I do really want to write a story of some regard. It would be a Clive Cussler style schlock fest, but with something deeper trying to go on underneath, but just not happening.

To write a novel, I feel as though a lot of booze would need to be consumed, and that I would need to be alone on many a late night. I seem to really only write when it's late, I'm alone, and very comfortable.

I wonder when I'll feel comfortable in my new apartment? I feel safe and sound there, but it's not really my space yet. I have a chair, a desk, a bed, but it's not complete yet. I don't have books that I can just dive into and leave around. I don't have colour, or a sense of dreaming. I have that in my old room at home. I have memories of love and hate in here, of passion and longing, of all sorts of things that feed me as a creative mind. I can look at the floor of my room and know that I have treaded that floor for the better part of 20 years, and that I, as a person, have changed on that floor. That floor, this room that I am sitting in now, has changed me.

Really though, I've never had much control over my room's setup. Maybe that's something that I like about it. I can just show up, and though it may change to fit the house better, my room is my space. My influence is small upon it, and I like that. It makes things easier.

I've often wondered about jobs, and I feel I do well in them because I like not thinking a lot of the time. While I love introspection and examination, traits that make me incapable of religious practice for some reason, I do not like to think on the job. I like having a goal that I need to do, and I like figuring a way to do it. I may be creative in getting the job done, but just having a job to do is something that I enjoy.

Oddly, school work never really set that off in me. Far too often the bullshit of many assignments was far too apparent. I don't mean this in an arrogant way, and I know my teaching friends will shit on this, but when you're 21 you don't need to do busy work to show you've read. You should just go into class prepared or unprepared. Fuck holding the student's hands. Sink or float.

The main example of this for me is a joke physics class that I took. The class was so rememdial that over the course of one semester we never got past gravity. When I took physics in high school I got an A in it, and it was one of my favorite classes. Now, I am a person who hates science and math, for the most part, but I could related to physics. In a very basic way, it made sense to me. You throw something, it falls at a steady rate. Things like that.

The college class was so poorly done, so poorly handled that I shut down. When you take a class, you hope to learn. However, the "professor" made us read the NY Times Science section and report on the latest developments. I just didn't do this. It had no importance to the content of the class, and really, it was busy work. Why should one be doing busy work in college? Shoudln't we actually be learning something? I took a bad grade because I couldn't stand to do that shit, and I would do the same thing again.

What ever happened to the days where you would just learn something, either by studying or the lectures, go in, take a test, and be done with it once you showed your proficiency at the topic. I know that the theoretical framework of teaching has changed, and that there are hegemonic considerations to be had, but come on. Some of that shit was just idiotic and a waste of our time.

Ok, I'm done with this for now, but if I ever become a teacher (thank you NY fellowship) I don't ever want to give busy work for the sake of it. I do know ideals die faster than realities do, and that I'll be shilling worksheets like a dealer in a trailerpark.

-ccm

I often find myself thinking about three men. They were part of a blimp's ground crew, and were swept away with the vessel when it departed. This was many years ago, and their names have never been known to me. All I do know are their fates. The three men were taken over 500 feet into the air by the behemoth, and all three clung to their line, holding on for dear life. By the end of the flight, which lasted an hour, one man remained attatched and alive. I don't really think about him all that much, but I often wonder why the other two let go.

-ccm

much to my dismay, the media continues to convince me that I need to write more and get something put up on stage. this has been happening for years. Whenever a playwright is shown on tv, one that is remotely edgy, all they say in their works are things like, "let's eat a turd", and other colourful bites.

Goddamnit that is just lazy. That is the easiest fucking thing one can do to try and freak people out. There is a difference between puttling a mutilated corpse in an art gallery and putting a mass of well preserved, posed muscle. You can shock people, but by god, do it in an interesting way.

This is the biggest problem with young artists. I'm not even talking high school young. I'm talking college young, and beyond. They think that they can be all clever by putting in a couple of cusses. Wow. You've officially matched South Park in terms of vulgar language. Congrats. Now let's see if you can match them in terms of content.

Content. Man that word's a bitch. Now, it's easy to constantly produce, and one needs to in order to maintain a certain level of production. Trouble pops up if you never move beyond the rote, beyond your workout routine. I'm perpetually rusty. My problem is that I look for grand concept before I produce. When I have my concept, I go with it. The trouble is that this can lead to a year elapsing between written works of mine. I'm not happy with this.

What I am happy about is that when I write something I can be happy that it's not just shock schlock. I've been told to clean up some language in a play once because it took away from the content, and the advice was warranted, heeded, and hopefully will pay off if anyone ever picks me up. Of course, this is where the schmoozing and getting in with a group comes in.

"I shot Andy Warhol" is what inspired me to rant a little bit, in spite of a good case of the chest deaths. The protagonist is that activistic "I'm full of shit" kind of artist. You know, the kind that you find in a place like Williamsburg. Oh shit. I think I live there now. Whoops.

Brooklyn: way overrated mecca of independent thought and culture. Ideally, this is where liberated youths go to discover themselves and find out something about life, love, and the Russian way, as the American way is way too mainstream and played out. And besides, the USSR is funny now. But the neighborhood is really full of people that think they are the hottest shit on the planet. Or at least this is how I read it. You find people that are relaxed, who have jobs that are fairly normal, who are down to earth. We call these the uncool people, the ones that are looked down upon by the people wearing the tight pants and the properly torn shirts. We call these creatures hipsters. They irk me to no end. They take up space, act like they own the fucking world, and really, will not contribute anything substantial to humanity based solely on the fact that they are too enthralled by their own interpretations of overwraught theories on human nature to actually contribure to society. To drag themselves from their masturbatory caves of solitude would shatter their mystical bubbles of coolness, and break the amulet of aloofness. They really are worse than those guys who used to try and wash your windshield at every stop light. At least those guys showed ambition and drive. These kids just provide a welcome home for cocaine and bad intentions.

And besides, like any counter culture, their style is played out. Let us wear sneakers in peace. Though I must say that the quasi hipster girls can be quite cute, if you like ultra snobby types who are less responsive than an amputated leg.

More to come. God knows how accurate this all is, but if you don't live here, take it as the work and word of God, because that's what it is.

-ccm

So I open the door and I see Ganesh just sitting there with a mouthful of meth babies.