n o w p l a y i n g - s c r i p t b i n - f a n c l u b - s t u d i o

make love to the camera



November 6, 2001 - 12:45 pm

Eggs On Toast, Eggs On Tits

Eggs, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, and tits.

This is not my idea of a winning combination.

Normally, I don't write about dreams here. I hate reading about the dreams of most people. I believe that talking about your fucked up dream is one of the worst offenses a diarist can commit, much worse than poetry and song lyrics.

My apologies, as I feel quite cranky this morning. This is partly because I just spent much too long whipping myself into an emotional furor over the premise and execution of the movie 'Shallow Hal,' which I think is a huge slap to our collective intelligence, but that is a whole other story. Forgive me.

Anyway, I believe that if one limits the relating of their dream to a single sentence, it is acceptable. I mentioned those breakfast items in conjunction with mammary glands for a reason. My dream last night: I was the patron of an establishment that served fast food along with female companions who would simply come over and talk to you, clad only in bra and panties, while you ate your hot dog and fries.

I am quite certain that I had this dream because of an ad for a local 'gentlemen's club' that I spotted in The Onion. There's a place here in Chicago called Scarlett's, and the ad copy begins "Babes and Eggs." The image in the ad is a woman's breasts, her nipples covered by fried eggs. The ad touts a complimentary breakfast buffet of the above mentioned items.

I cannot fathom a more nausea-inducing premise than chowing down on a big greasy meal of eggs and sausage while watching some chick fuck a pole. I cannot imagine getting an erection while looking back and forth from ketchupy eggs to bouncing breasts. I cannot help but feel a large measure of pity for the women who have to do their thing in front of an audience of men who don't have the common decency to be drunk rather than hungry.

Most of all, though, it's the type of food that gets me. Would cereal be preferable in such a situtation? Bagels? The jury is out. Ancient Romans wish they had such a bacchanalia, so easily accessible off the Green line, not far from the airport.

I guess the other reason I feel annoyed is that yesterday I suffered what my mind is deciding to frustratingly categorize as a small academic defeat. It's frustrating because it really wasn't a defeat at all. Irrationally, however, my ego was ever so lightly bruised.

See, the reason I think my mind is acting independently in the face of all reason is because this situation was based deep inside my mental home turf, one of my writing classes. As I've mentioned before, I write for the school produced drama series. I love this class, and, in fact, I've been 'auditing' it for the last three semesters because I love it so much. The first time I took it, I was officially enrolled, but, since then, I've sat it on it despite the fact that I'm not getting a grade or credit for it, and despite that the class always lasts from 4pm to about 9pm. It's a major commitment, but I've always found that acceptable, as the experience very closely emulates exactly what i want to do.

The class works like this: We write a four act, one hour show each semester. To give you an idea, other shows that follow this structure are 'The X-Files,' 'Dawson's Creek,' etc. So, that's the type of show we write. Our show (the origin of which can be read here) is based on a group of college kids who run around, falling in love with each other, just trying to carve out a niche for themselves in this crazy old world. You get the idea.

The first frustrating aspect of this story is kind of my own fault. Like I said, I'm not officially enrolled in the class. Therefore, earlier this semester, I opted out of co-writing a scene with another student. I did this because, while I don't mind writing my own scene inside an act while others students are writing their own scenes, I hate collaborating inside a single scene. Entire scenes written by single writers are self-contained and true to one vision, while working with another person inside a scene can be troublesome ("OK, you write these few lines, I'll write these next lines"). I don't like doing it, so I told the prof that I'd let the girl write the scene alone, citing the fact that I wasn't officially enrolled and that she should be getting her money's worth. I said at that time that I'd be happy to just be the script doctor, and take on the role of fixing things in rehearsals and keeping the show on track. Fine. Good.

Until we got to act four.

Act four is the finale of a show like this, and there was some juicy stuff going on. I had to get a piece of the action. There were more than enough scenes so that everyone who wanted one to themselves could have one, even a non-enrolled fellow like me. Understandably though, this girl Kathy, like me, wanted the juiciest piece, the last two scenes of the act, and thus, the show. No problem. We'd simply each write our own version and then mesh the two together after our first draft. I knew this would be a good thing, as Kathy is very close to my own skill level and may even be better than me when it comes to plot (my skill is strongest in dialogue, character, and scene logic...as for plot, there are definitely those that are better than me).

Kathy wrote a scene that was brilliant. It referenced important stuff that had gone on earlier in the episode, stuff that needed to be referenced, that my own scene omitted. Her best work yet.

I wrote a scene that was brilliant. It did a great job of capturing what was going on between the two main characters, but was perhaps weak when it came to acknowledging certain aspects of the plot. Otherwise, it was the best representation of what these characters needed to say to one another.

My good stuff was merged into Kathy's. Her beginning of the scene stayed, and then the meaty stuff that I wrote was inserted (I almost wrote 'They inserted my meat.' ...close call). After my stuff, we went back to some of Kathy's. Then, a line or two of what I wrote was put in. I was worried. Then, finally, it was decided that my last four lines would finish the episode. Thank God. The last words that were going to come out of these characters' mouths would be mine.

But, oy, it felt like a battle. I say 'felt like' because all of the negotiations and talk for what would go and what would stay were very sane and diplomatic. Never once was the issue raised of my not being enrolled in the class as a basis to reject anything I wrote, which very easily could have happened. I know this was done out of respect for me and my writing, so that feels good. The frustrating part is that I know there was some very good stuff that I wrote that had to be left out due to time, and what Kathy wrote. It always hurts as a writer when that happens, but I have to admit that all the choices that were made in the end were very much justified.

I guess the crankiness and frustration I mentioned before stem from the fact that I didn't leave that class yesterday feeling like the rock star. In this class in particular, I'm not used to feeling that way. I'm not sure that Kathy was the rock star either, as a lot of her stuff was cut in deference to mine. Still, though. I suppose this is the nature of the business and I'm going to have to get used to the feeling. I have the unfortunate tendency to act rather uppity when I'm in a professional situation and not getting exactly what i want. It's a bad habit. It's made me walk out on jobs. And it's definitely something I'm going to need to check before I get to the big leagues, as I'm sure I will not be granted godlike status the first day I walk onto the set.

So, really: There's no reason for me to feel frustrated, except for the frustration that goes along with any writer having to lose a few lines they care about. That's universal. That's part of the whole deal, though, in this kind of writing. Thank God for college, where I can get used to it now before I get out there and make a total mess of things in the professional world.

Yeah. Wow, if you've read this whole thing, I should buy you a beer. I'll meet you at Scarlett's.

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