... and Jack Black was there

Beck played a surprise show at the El Rey tonight, which is right next to the LAFSC. Did I get to go? 'Fraid not. The El Rey's tiny, and tickets sold out too fast. Jack Black went, though. We saw him outside, hanging. So instead of kicking it with Jack at the Beck show, I perfected a storyboard, did some pre-production, drew a picture of a girl in a red dress for someone else's project also shooting tomorrow, and sat in the Center and talked to the other people stuck doing work. While Beck played. A hundred feet away.

This is the second of two amazingly cool shows I have missed by a very slim margin (the Wallflowers played for free just down the road a week or so ago). Which is sad, but plans are in the works to hit some of the cooler small shows around, and we're also planning on seeing David Crowder with Shane and Shane, and also the New Amsterdams, and Copeland. So things are looking up.

In other news, the following people are outstandingly cool:

Erin Schumaker
Ben Peracchio
Jeremy White
Beth Coakley
Justin Ladd
Ashleigh Graves
my Dad

These people are cool because they're the sort of people to whom you can send a screenplay, unannounced, the day before it's due to be turned in, and they still find the time to read and give thoughtful commentary on the piece. Yet another example of why my friends are cooler than me.

Production on "Always Got It" starts today!

The latest of many pleas for help: "Dark"

I finally finished a typed draft of "Dark," my eight-minute non-dialogue script for our film production class. I turn it in on Thursday at 5:oo PM (PST), so any critique you could give me before then would be wildly helpful. My script will go into competition with 50 other scripts to be one of the eight films produced this semester, and I'd like to give my script the best chance it could possibly have. If you have a moment, please: go and review the script. I welcome all criticism, helpful or not - even something as banal as "I didn't like it." Or, conversely (and preferably), "I liked it." I just want some reaction to work with.

The first copy of "Dark"

Electronic Yearbooks and Premature Sentimentality

I created a Facebook profile tonight. I feel very collegiate, and a little foolish. You have to admit it's kind of a dorky endeavor: I'm creating my own page on the world's biggest online yearbook, searching through other entries for faces I know, and sending them (literally!) a "will you be my friend?" notice. If they do, they come over and sign my yearbook, and then later maybe I'll go over and sign theirs. I don't know what you're supposed to do if they don't want to be your friend. I'm no fan of e-begging. Still, it's awfully nice to be connected. I threw out a bunch of wistful invitations, and by the time I finished, I had three new friends. Plus, hopefully I can catch up on all my Asbury gossip this way.

I trekked over to the Roggios to get my hair cut tonight, and Vanessa and Johnny insisted that they throw in an old video they found of me from our freshman year during spring semester Midnight Breakfast. We sat down and watched it, and I'll tell you, lads, times have changed. I'm not saying the current edition of me is necessarily much improved, but at least I've slowed down a little. White as a ghost and rail-skinny, I was bouncing around hyperactively and pounding people wildly on the back, talking a mile a minute. My favorite bit was me holding Paula in a headlock while whacking her in a friendly fashion on the top of the head. "This is Paula," I announce proudly to the camera, as if I'd invented her. Can you be nostalgic for your college years before you leave them? Because tonight, at least, I am.

Good times, good times.

Shooting script of the coffeehouse script, now re-titled "Always Got It," is up for comments. As always, I appreciate your critique. Special thanks goes to Beth, Peracchio, and Smash, who helped edit the last copy, and to Queue and Jonathan, who've thrown in their two cents as well.