MUSIC: Courtesy of William Shatner (Yes! Captain Kirk himself)
QUESTION TO PONDER: Is honesty always the “best policy“?
Once again I find myself not being current with my own blog. The hard part about being a “writer” (whatever that really means?) is you have to spend a lot of time making notes. You have to make a lot observations about the life you find happening around you. You have to always be watching out for the actions and reactions of people around you. You are looking for things that may inspire the writing. You want the writing to appear authentic. Or at least close to being authentic.
I do not have the most demanding of jobs. The only demand the job places on me is really in the terms of trying to stay mentally sane. I know it appears that I am losing on that front. It does give me time to think about things I may like to use in a piece of writing someday. I look out a window and wonder about what people I see maybe experiencing. Here are some examples. There is a fire station across the street. I try to imagine what type of call they maybe responding to when their alarm goes off. Next door to the fire hall is a halfway house for paroled male criminals. What was their crime and will they ever get beyond it? The other side there is an office building. What do they do? How does their physical motions relate to their personalities and other traits? What do their “quirks” means. I also spend a lot of time reading things like the newspaper. I read National Geographic to have another perspective of the world. As a friend said the other day to me, “You read a lot of weird shit.” That I do. A college professor of mine said that reading was a way to experience the world without having to be there at the moment.
This leads to the following question. Has this made me a pedestrian in life? I am beginning to see what is coming and what is sliding on by to me. Watching life is not the same about living life. The “writer’s” life seems to be conflict with doing just that. I like to watch movies and write movies. I like “creating the world.” But I also at times would like to “live” within the world. I also do not want to be just one type of writer. I want to do something that may seem like an act of “Gonzo Journalism” Do something that appears to be crazy. But then tell the story that leads to some insight on a part of life in this world. There are some books that I have read over the past year that fit into this premise. A college professor wanted to see if a burger flipping job was really like how people perceived it so he went to work at them. The book was My Secret Life on the McJob by Jerry Newman. “Dishwasher Pete” who travels around the country being a dishwasher in all 50 states. Danny Wallace was a person who wanted his life to be more positive so he spent six months saying “Yes” to anyone who asked him a question. Yes Man is the tale of his quest. Did you ever make a stupid bet because you were way too drunk to know any better? Tony Hawks did. He bet that he could hitchhike the circumference of Ireland in 30 days. While carrying a dorm fridge with him. Which lead him to title his book Round Ireland with a Fridge. Finally A.J. Jacobs decided to explore religion and decided to live by the rules described in the Bible for one full year. The book The Year of Living Biblically was interesting to say the least. I am not sure if I could something like this myself. I do not even have an idea for such a type of “adventure”. I will not open this up to suggestion either. Especially my friends. Any of their suggestion I am guessing would be some act of bizarre sadism. It would make the guys from Jackass cringe. So I will get back to you if I ever come up with an idea.
I really wanted to be inspired as a writer. And maybe aspire as one too. I watched the Quentin Tarantino movie Death Proof a couple of weeks ago. It reminded me a lot of Death Race 2000. I never thought I could write a “horror” style movie. That night I was inspired to write one. It happened at about 4:30 AM. And those responsible for it know who they are. The “killer” in my movie goes after drunken idiots. I realized that this type of “killer” is not particularly “frightening”. In fact, you would probably cheer for the “killer”. He is performing more of a “public service” than a “public menacing”. But I may have something here.
Another form of observing is surfing the Internet. I came across this video blog for someone who goes by the screen name RedEarth. There is a debate now on the message page on whether or not that she is real or just staging things here. I do not think that matters first in foremost here. Real or not she has made something that is engaging people to debate it. I hate to admit to it. I am a bit jealous. My work has not yet achieved that “critical mass.”
I also like to watch the video blog for Bob. He is real. Really. Really opinionated.
Finally.
I do realize I spend too much time on YouTube and Wikipedia. But I do need to keep searching things out.
I have been trying to rework my website’s format. The new format is slowly taking shape. I am slowly plugging my way through learning to use DreamweaverMX as my new editing program. I never realized that designing a simple link button would be such a pain in the ass. But that was nothing compared to my over the weekend adventures in home furnace repairs. My Catholicism is very dusty and rusty and I could not remember if there is a patron saint for home furnaces. But I did make it through the dilemma. Luckily there are professionals to call for such things.