What is it about songs?

Patrick who often creates a ruckus got me to thinking about a Depeche Mode song that I adore. Whenever I hear it, I flash back to a sweaty summer night of dancing, many years ago, in Pensacola FL.

Now, before I go any further with this tale, I should mention that I have, for many years, been going to Pensacola FL for my annual Memorial Day weekend vacation along with most of the gay population of Atlanta, rural Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Sometimes a Texan or two will show up. We totally take over the place. It's amazing how far several million dollars (estimates vary from 5 to 8) pumped into the local economy, over the course of a single holiday weekend, will open the mind of the most fevrent Bible thumpers... but, I digress.

So, one night, I'm in a nightclub, the place is wall to wall women. It's so hot in there the walls are literally sweating. Women everywhere. (Not a man in sight.) Packed onto the dance floor, 6 deep at the bar and more, more, more coming into the bar as the night staggers drunkenly towards dawn. It's a visual smorgasbord. Any shape, size and type of woman you can think of, ranging from the hottest thing in 5 states to the most dykish stereotype walking. Me? I was newly single and busy licking my wounds, so I wasn't on the hunt... just looking... and boy did I find a sight for sore eyes. By the end of my first beer, I only had eyes for them. 2 gorgeous (oh-my-gawd-they-were-so-hot) women dancing together out on the dance floor. Obviously lovers, they paid no attention to anyone else in the place. Wrapped up in each other, they took no notice of all the women watching them. They moved intimately, fluidly graceful, dripping sensuousness, with such timing that your mind could easily imagine them... with much less clothing... doing other... rhythmic... things.

Seems the patrons of the bar weren't the only ones to notice them. In the middle of the night, with the bar packed beyond fire codes, the music suddenly stopped and the lights came crashing down. Then, in the dark wet heat of the night, we heard the faintest whisper of the opening cords to Depeche Mode's "World in My Eyes." The DJ, in her most dulcet tones, purred into her mic... "This, ladies, is for that delicious couple we've all been watching, who have found the world in each other's eyes."

With that, she brought the music to full blast and turned the gyrating lights back on to the cheers of most everyone there and the adorable blushes of the couple in question... who then promptly got lost in the song and their own world.


Let me take you on a trip
Around the world and back
And you won't have to move
You just sit still

Now let your mind do the walking
And let my body do the talking
Let me show you the world in my eyes

I'll take you to the highest mountain
To the depths of the deepest sea
We won't need a map, believe me

Now let my body do the moving
And let my hands do the soothing
Let me show you the world in my eyes

That's all there is
Nothing more than you can feel now
That's all there is

Let me put you on a ship
On a long, long trip
Your lips close to my lips
All the islands in the ocean
All the heaven's in the motion
Let me show you the world in my eyes

That's all there is
Nothing more than you can touch now
That's all there is

Let me show you the world in my eyes


Here's hoping they're still exploring the world together.

I am a blogging idiot.

I was trying to figure out how to do the links, THEN (somehow... I dunno how) I managed to turn on the "moderate comments" thing and not even know I had done it!

*hangs head in shame* Sorry...

Soooo, for those of you who have commented lately, it's not that I've been keeping your comments to myself and refusing to publish them... it's that I wasn't even aware that you had made a comment. I don't have blogger notify me when there are comments, so I just thought y'all stop talking to me... Then I thought, perhaps, there was something wrong with Blogger. I know, I know, not at all smart of me...

A BIG "thank you!" to Fun Joel for pointing out the error of my ways.

Moderating has been turned off. Feel free to laugh at me below.

My answer to the "war" on Christmas!

Bob sent this to me a coupla years ago... made me laugh.

Then and now.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and have a great Kwanzaa, y'all!

Finally!

I FINALLY figured out how to link!

It's a good thing I don't want to be a programmer is all I gotta say!

Wanna be added? Holla at ya gurl, I'll hook ya up!

Who knew?

Evidently, I am considered a potential terrorist by the Pentagon. It's cause I'm queer.

According to the Pentagon, being gay (or straight and open minded) is the equivalent of plotting to blow up something.

Gay groups organizing to protest the heinous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy have been deemed to be a "credible threat" by the Pentagon and one group of students at NYU who plan on holding a "Kiss-in" has been labelled "possibly violent".

Yes, I said "KISS".

Maybe I'm rendered idiotic by my lesbianism, but it occurs to me that anything involving kissing is not inheriently violent. Forget the fact that most gay men would rather redocorate your home than blow it up. A gun show is not a "possibly violent" event to the Pentagon, but a "Kiss-in" by the queers and their straight supporters? Oh my Gawd, we need a S.W.A.T. team! PRONTO!

Writers are known for having vivid imaginations, after all, it's what we do. Sadly, I'm not making this shit up. A more indepth exploration by a gay soldiers advocacy group can be found here. If you go to this link, read further down the page and you can tell JUST EXACTLY how crazy the Pentagon is. They've admitted that they had considered a program in 1994, during which our military chemists would develop, as a Chemical Warfare agent, a chemical something or another to "turn" opponents queer. Yes, folks, your government was considering how to make men gay. As biological warfare. You can read more about that nonsense here.

A very brief explaination for those who know nothing of the famous Kinsey scale...and are, thus, baffled by my little chart at top...

In the Kinsey Reports, which made Dr. Alfred Kinsey famous enough to have this movie made about him, he theorizes that human sexuality is not set in stone and proposes a scale spanning from 0-6 in terms of hetro to homo sexual. The number 0 being the indicator for someone exclusively hetrosexual and the 6 for someone being exclusively homosexual.

Shot down in flames...

I just now (after 11pm!) got the call from the ladies who are running the competition. Unfortunately, I was not one of the ones selected for the Fellowship. The ladies were very nice and made a point of telling me that it was NOT my writing or my story ideas that eliminated me, it was that they didn't have the funds to select more Fellows. They had to have a certain number of men and women, and a certain number of genres, unfortunately, my strongest ideas was for a Romantic Comedy and they felt that they had all of those they needed.

They complimented me on the script that I had sent in to them, telling me that they grade on a scale of One to Four, with One being the highest score available. Ami Vitori said she gave me a One for the full length script that I submitted for Round Two. They told me that they felt "invested" in me and encouraged me to call (occasionally) if I needed their input or advice on things related to the film industry. They also invited me to drop into their offices the next time I'm in LA. (I plan to take them up on that.)

So, all in all, even though I am disappointed, I feel proud of my work and proud of how well I did with my very first script.

Thank you all for you support and well wishes as I went through this. Hopefully, the next competition I enter, I'll come out a little bit more on top.

Best of luck to my fellow bloggers!

It's easy...

Seems that's the take my electrician has on screenwriting.

I'm in the midst of a bathroom remodel at the moment, which requires an electrician as there's some significant electrical changes being made. So, I called the guy who I've used for the past couple of jobs. (Hadn't seen him in about 6 months.) He had no clue that I had taken up screenwriting nor had he heard anything about my progress with the Writer's Arc competition. As we were catching up on our personal lives, I was telling him about it, this blog and that I had posted pages for all the world to see, if anyone were so inclined. He asked if I would show them to him, so I did. He's since told me that he believes he's capable of writing a screenplay. I wish him the best of luck. Lord knows, he's gonna need it. Not because he's not intelligent (he is) but because he's somehow decided that it's easy.

Getting it out there...

Ya gotta love holiday parties. Especially when they allow you to "bump" into a VP for MTV (owner of LOGO... the newest queer cable channel, who is actively looking for content). To whom you can oh-so-casually mention that you're a semi finalist in the Writer's Arc competition, which, in turn prompts her to ask what it's about (Lesbians in todays Don't Ask, Don't tell Army) and then ask for your script! Not only that, I was given her email at MTV, and her home address. (She lives here, in Atlanta.)

(I know her well enough to say "Hi" to at various parties, events, etc... over the years, and we once went white water rafting with a whole buncha girls, but we are not "friends".)

I dropped my script off on her front door step yesterday.

Now there's something else for me to worry about besides the Writer's Arc fellowship....

You guys, how can you help? Well, you'll just have to assume the position...
Ready? one... two... CROSS EVERYTHING!

Thanks!

Ok, I'll play your silly game...

So, Red Right Hand and FunJoel have thrown down the guantlet, showing us a page of their writing, and challenging other bloggers to do the same.

Below... my answer to that challenge.(Thanks to Chris, of The Big Woo, for his advice on how to do this!)

It's my submission for the Writer's Arc short screenplay section. As Shawna and Chris both stated, they gave us 4 elements of a screenplay (2 character names Chris Marquez and Sandy Fletcher), one location (station) and one prop (board). Everything is designed to facilitate one's own flight of fancy in regards to these four elements and now, without further ado (or without further doo-doo... you pick) my entry: Strangers in the night

Well, this bites...

And, not in a good way!

Some friends of mine and I were talking about going to see "Brokeback Mountain" today. I told them (what with my new found movie industry knowledge) that it would be important to see it the first weekend it was out, cause the execs look at those numbers as some sort of Holy Grail indicators, for whether or not they should continue to do these "kinds" of movies. (For those living under a rock, this is the FIRST gay movie to receive any kind of major support from the studio system, not to mention a major ad campaign and to have some rather impressive "names" attached to it.)

IT'S NOT PLAYING IN ATLANTA! Not 'til NEXT weekend. WTF?

LA? Check.
NYC? Check.
SF? Check (After all, it's THE queer city.)

But. Haven't those idiots figured out that Atlanta IS the gay Mecca of the South? Every queer kid from a podunk town in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, North and South Carolina, not to mention Georgia typically heads straight (no pun intended) for Atlanta just as soon as they can. There's a HUGE gay population here, in fact we are the 3rd (SF, NYC AND ATL in that order, using the numbers from Gay Pride) largest in terms of gay population among American cities. Why were we not included in this all important first weekend?

THEN, get this...when it does open here next weekend... it will open in ONE theater.

ONE. In a 60 mile radius.

WTF?

I could understand if they were limiting this to the "gay" market via their advertising or something but they're NOT. So, why limit your distribution to the only theater in Atlanta that's located in the "gay ghetto? (Frankly, it's not so much the gay ghetto any more. I live in the neighborhood, in a building of less than 30 condos, out of the residents, 8, maybe 9 are gay... the rest? Straight. Open minded, but straight.) Do they think they are helping the movie by making people drive 20, 30, maybe 60 miles to see it in a theater?

Wanna know what I think? I think they're afraid it won't be seen by straight people, (especially straight guys) and they using the theatrical release as a promo for dvd sales?

Sad, really, that they don't think the movie has enough appeal on it's own to transcend the supposed "ick" factor of guys kissing.

I plan on rounding up a whole lotta folks for the movie, just to show them they were wrong for not giving it a wider distro.

Writer's Arc pitch session...

They called.

We chatted.

Now...

I wait.

Me, George and Weezie...

The email was entitled: "Moving On Up."

Seems I did...

...to Round Three of the Writer's Arc competition.

I hope Shawna and Chris did too!


UPDATE:
My pitch is locked in for 2pm (PST) this Friday the 9th.

This killin' time, it's killing me...

So, I got an email today from the Writer's Arc folks....

... the selection for the 25 people who survived Round Dos...

... postponed. 'Til Wednesday, no later than 9 PM, EST.


They claim they've had an over abundance of scripts to read. I ain't buying.


I think...

...they had a HUGE party last Friday night...

...and were too hung over to read anything over the weekend.

*They did have a fundraiser party thing (according to their site) on Friday night. Cocktails, celebratin', trying to recover from the party....who's got time for readin'? Jus' sayin...

Keep your fingers crossed for two more days folks!

Ask and ye shall receive...

Spoke to my former client, who's morphed into my new attorney. Funny, seems he's writing a screenplay as well, and is going to screenwriters class tonight... who'da thunk?

Anyhoo.. he's agreed to rep me for a very reasonable fee, and will be submitting my treatment (after I register it with the WGA) to the director for me, along with a little note, on his company letterhead, reminding the director that he has no authorization to USE my material without entering into an agreement with me. Which I'm sure will delight the director no end, but I don't care. THIS is business, and I don't mean to be getting "da business", if ya know whud I mean...