Dream Journal - Suburban Houses of Mirrors

For the last 6 months or so, I have been having a ridiculous amount of dreams. Almost nightly I will have 3 or 4 separate dreams which, like most people, fritter away and disappear the moments after I wake up. Sometimes I piece together my oblique, highly detailed narratives for my girlfriend though, who marvels at the bizarre crap that comes out of my subconscious. My dreams are heavily populated by characters, locales, and incident, though little of it has any direct connection with my daily life.

Like last night, for instance.

I was at the edge of the street down the block from my house in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin (I grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee). A row of non-descript suburban houses that you'll find anywhere. Not unlike below.

I know exactly what block this is, and it looks exactly the same, and completely different. Because instead of the usual 10 feet between houses, they are all packed close together. What's more striking is that every house is pristine white. The sideboards, the roofs, everything. It's a giant line of medicinal blahness, and you wonder why on earth anyone on this block would agree to turn their street into an IRS hallway.

Until I move down it. Quickly. Maybe in a car, maybe a bike. Suddenly I'm hit by an explosion of light passing each house, a kaliedescope of colors. It turns out that all of the front doors are set into a recessed, exterior foyer about 10-15 feet back from the front of the house itself. Each door on the block is a different color - red, blue, purple, yellow, etc. And coming out from each door is a V-shaped structure leading to the house's edge, splaying outward, and the V's are entirely lined with glass. Which causes a house of mirrors effect with the front door, reflecting and radiating the light in all different directions. An absolute explosion of color that completely changes your perception of this drab, white, antiseptic street.

It's kind of a crazy carnival of colors, and not what one would consider "classy". However, it's so genuine and full of life that it can't help but be inspiring. It's just oozing life and energy, like a Tim Burton movie where you don't understand how these people live, but you respect their utter dedication to the process.

But why this particular suburban block, that I have no actual affinity or connection to? I haven't thought of it in years, and nothing notable ever happened to me on that stretch of pavement. Maybe my subconscious is just suffused with the Arcade Fire's remarkable album, "The Suburbs". Each day or week I seem to be alternatingly obsessed with a new track. Currently, I adore the near-closing track, "The Sprawl 1 Flatland lyrics, which reminds me of a Spielberg version of the suburbs, circa "E.T.". Visions of kids on their bikes late at night:

Cops showing their lights
On the reflectors of our bikes
Said, do you kids know what time it is?
Well sir, it's the first time I've felt like something is mine
Like I have something to give

The idea of finally having ownership of something... your life itself, as a kid is something that you typically think of as a college psychology. However, those lyrics perfectly capture what it feels like the first time you get out of your house, staying out past your bedtime. Doing nothing, but it's still the most important thing in the world to you, at that moment.

We will see what moments my next dreams bring.

Lucky to Be a Failed Screenwriter

I sit with my glass of wine (the charmingly labeled bottle, Pinot Evil), my 5 year old sleeping in the next room. Watching the documentary TALES FROM THE SCRIPT, I consider how unbelievably lucky I am to be a failed screenwriter.

It's gratifying to listen to successful, (sometimes) famous screenwriters, discuss their craft, and hear that they view the profession and the process in exactly the same way that I did. They managed to make it work. I, however, did not. "The price of getting into the film business... is figuring out your path... How are you going to get over that wall?". I guess I never had the wherewithal to build the right kind of ladder to get over the wall, though I scrambled and scrabbled to varying degrees of recognition and rejection. "Nobody wants your stuff", William Goldman says.

I never got over that wall, and I eventually had the good luck to get a copywriting job. The irony is that screenwriting is the economy of style - it's architecture and structure, rather than florid prose. It's not poetry. It's mechanics with style. I ended up writing online marketing ads that show up every day when you search for Google, which makes the notion of screenwriting as economy almost absurd. It's 70 characters, all in. No story. Little creativity.

But it turns out it was creative. Creative in the way that it causes you to work with people, learn new skills, and discover talents you didn't know you have. My career has since flourished, and while I do some writing in my job, here and there, I'm no longer a writer.

The energy that entertainment has is, of course, undeniable. I was getting gas today next to Sony studios, looking at the water tank, and remembering the naive enthusiasm I had the first time I walked on that lot for an internship... "Oh my god, I'm in Hollywood. This is where IT happens".

Or it's where it doesn't happen. And even if it does happen, it goes through so many twists and turns, and ups and downs, that it leaves you hollowed, not remembering where you began - or why you began - to begin with.

But, yeah, whatever, you fucking whiner. Go back to Iowa. That's the message of the guy who didn't get it done. The failure. The one who walked way.

Yeah. All very true. And I'm not crying in my soup, and I'm probably making more money now than if I actually did turn into a "working screenwriter" (unless you make that million dollar sale kind of thing, etc.). And I don't want anyone to whine for me, because I love not having that feeling like you're chasing it every day. Chasing down people to like you, to validate you, to invite you in the room. To make you feel like that phone call is the most important thing in your day, in your life.

And listening to old screenwriters in a documentary... successful, impressive writers, that story doesn't change. Granted, I'll have to worry about ageism (as in Hollywood), unemployment, companies failing, etc, etc, etc. But when I walked away, I realized that I didn't want to spend every day in my life begging for that one phone call each day that makes me feel like a validated human being. "You have to get a hit EVERY time you're up to bat".

I've validated that for myself just fine, thank you, and I don't regret it at all. In fact, I barely miss it. Barely.

I just wish I had a good movie idea to write...