"The End" by the Beatles

I've been in quite the creative funk for the better part of a year, as far as writing/blogging is concerned. I've been at Chewing Gum, Coffee, & Slim Jims for over a year and a half now, and it's starting to feel like this blog has run its course. A lot has happened in that year and a half, I suppose. I can say with complete honesty that I was a completely different person when I created this blog, and had completely different expectations and goals. I've evolved a lot, and I'm comfortable with the way this blog has chronicled that journey, from M&T to Cinema Studies/Finance, from confused freshman to ready-for-anything junior, from emo to a-little-less-emo. I've had some great readers, and I really felt like I was doing some good blogging for a while, and I want to thank anyone who's ever reached out and left a comment, friends and strangers alike. But I think it's time to move on. I don't have much left to contribute to the blogosphere right now, and I'd rather be the type who knows when the end is the end than to drag things on uselessly, wasting everyone's time, including mine. Perhaps some day, perhaps even soon, I will make a triumphant return at some other URL, in some other space, in some other time, but for now, I am proud of many of the things I've written herein, and hope people continue to find something of interest here, albeit in the archives. This has been my favorite blog, of the all the blogs I've been at, and I started this one because I had deleted the other ones, and suddenly felt empty and anchorless as a writer to have nothing, instead of something, out there. But like I said, I feel proud of what is in this blog for the most part, so I feel no remorse in ending things here. There's simply nothing much left for me to say. I believe in cycles and circularity, which is why I've titled this entry, appropriately and prophetically, with the same title as my very first entry here, and so I'd like to leave you with the final words of my favorite band of all time, words which are perhaps all that I was trying to say in much less precise terms with this blog over 339 previous posts.

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

The End

Crash

I just watched the movie Crash (Haggis, not Cronenberg), and it was a very amazing, well-done film. There are a lot of things to mention that are wonderful about it, from the acting to the editing, but since I'm an aspiring screenwriter, I'll focus only on the script. The one thing about it that I can't get over is how everything that happens and every line that is spoken rings true. There wasn't a bad or cheesy moment or anything that felt false, fabricated, or out of place. That is truly a difficult thing to do, to create something like that that captures and reflects life -- from scratch. Everytime I sit down to write something, the only things that seem to fly through my mind are other movies and other things I've already seen before, and unfortunately, if I write those things in, little by little, it builds itself up into giant cliche eventually. And when I say this movie feels real or true or a reflection of real life, I don't mean to call it gritty. Because these days, even gritty is cliched. Originality, creativity... so elusive. Right now, I can only aspire.

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

End Game: or the Adventures of Max and His Curious Friend Doogs

That's the title of the feature length screenplay I'm working on. It's a working title.

 
Story is the most difficult thing in my life right now. And time. Or is it distance? Einstein would say they're the same thing.

cut

i saw her through the black curtain of my hair
she saw a cigarette smoking itself out of nowhere
i saw her with family gold wrapped around her neck
she saw cheap headphones and a nine dollar backpack
i saw her take a bite from a chocolate chip cookie
she saw the bigger bite that i took just by looking
i saw her leaning back and contemplating the sun
she saw the black hole in the barrel of my gun

bang.

cut.