Cirio H. Santiago Tribute (R.I.P.) Serge Gainsbourg Tribute

One of my childhood heroes was Cirio H. Santiago and I was blessed enough to meet him in 2007. I remember sitting infront of the television when I was a toddler and watching all his terrific B movies. I can't take all the credit, my father was his ultimate fan. (Thanks dad.)

Tonight in Los Angeles at the New Beverly, they are doing a tribute to Cirio H. Santiago. Quentin Tarantino lent them some of his priceless prints and they are screening them tonight. I will have to contact Brian at the theater to find out which films but if I am not mistaken, they will be showing THE MUTHERS and EBONY, IVORY, AND JADE. (Just tried to call the theater, he is not answering) I just figured that they'd be showing those two films because those are mine and QT's favorite Santiago flicks! (AND he owns the only prints available on the planet EARTH, AND I've seen these films at his personal theater with him at his home, in AUSTIN, TEXAS during the QT FILM FEST, and in the Philippines WITH Cirio H. Santiago present!!!!!) *** update! Brian just called me back and he said that the tribute will be moved to February 10th. Alot of special guests will be there and I will update you on that. AND they are going to show THE MUTHERS AND EBONY, IVORY, AND JADE... TOLD YOU SO! (wink) **** so stay tuned for the updates, thanks.

ALL HAIL THE PHILIPPINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (only true b movie heads would get this and true cinema connoisseurs of international films. ie. tarantino and Gilles JACOB (The President of the Cannes Film Festival, whom by the way knows all of the classic and b films of the philippines! He was Lino Brocka's biggest fan.)

Speaking of Cirio H. Santiago, Vincent Sandoval contacted me about doing a tribute in June. Not sure if that will happen because I am too busy this year with prior commitments. But if it does, I will be helping to bring Eddie Romero and Quentin Tarantino to New York. We'll see... Cannes is in May and I know Quentin is bringing his film there and if he's doing press after that, I highly doubt there will be a little festival in New York. But Q and I do plan to do a tribute in the Philippines, not sure when though. I will keep you posted.

Today I feel great for some reason. The new year started off okay and this little cold (which I think had been lingering) crept up on me! Than it just took me over completely! I was in a state where I just didn't want to talk to anyone or be around anyone. I just dabbled on this blog, read Angela's Ashes, and worked on this project that Larry and I have been crafting. (for forever!) I read some of Diablo Cody's blogs and they made me laugh. She wrote one about the Sham-wow towels and it was genius. (I also read her book Candy Girl and that had me rolling on the floor too.)

Today feels like the greatest day in my life. I have finally been able to catch up with writing and that makes me feel like the wealthiest woman in the world. Claudia and I are working on Me Magazine and that is all caught up with. Thank goodness. I still have more to do but I am taking it one day at a time. Yesterday was a little stressful because I was plotting my year. The end of January to June is a hectic time for me every year. Birthday, Valentine's Day, Grammys, NY fashion week, Paris fashion week, SXSW, Cannes.

OH, my cousin Jean Grae is performing at The New Museum! Go and check it out. I was supposed to be in New York throwing her an after party at The Submercer but my plans changed.

SERGE GAINSBOURG TRIBUTE IN PARIS

Voila, Serge Gainsbourg. One of my favorites in the world. I am definitely going to this tribute. See you there! Who does not love him? If you don't know who he is than you must have been living under a large rock or don't have a penchant for anything French. Because if you did, you'd know who he was. Get it together!

This is bringing back memories. Man, its been since 2005.... I remember when I was in Paris and Michel Gondry and I were working on THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. I was watching Gael Garcia Bernal in that little suit and admiring the details of the sets. I remember when Michel was casting the film and he mentioned Charlotte Gainsbourg and I thought, perfect! She was just perfect. That made me dust off every Gainsbourg item I had. Records, cd's dvd's, books, posters, you name it.

I can't wait to be back in France, eventhough I am there all of the time. I can't wait to see this tribute. Awe, makes me want to day dream.

(SNAP!)

Gotta go, gotta write.

TL

Ps. One of my friends just posted something new on his blog, he is going to be performing at the Serge Gainsbourg tribute as well. Check it out!

SEAN LENNON'S MYSPACE PAGE BLOG

Live your life.

Just Do It!

JUST DO IT!

I found this nifty article on the net and I thought I would share it.

And right now I want to introduce to you the video that has been on my mind!



I experienced this in person and I just can't stop laughing. That ole Juvenile song BACK THAT ASS UP... was the song that put CASH MONEY on the map. And ya'll know I am from Texas... I remember when this song was blaring from EVERYONE'S speakers!!!! so WAM WAM WAM WAM WAM.

What else is going on?
I spent the whole day organizing my year schedule for 2009 and its still not done!
READING.
WRITING.
Catching up.

Fun filled day.
Thank goodness its over.

Counting down the days...

My last days as a 28 year old!

What was my year like? GREAT!

Claudia and I went to the Coffee Shop for my birthday dinner and I just ended up texting Andre during the whole dinner. Then we ended up going to The Grammercy Hotel to hang with him and Damon Dash shows up with Margarita Missioni, Irina, Erin (I forget her lastname), just all these people...

February was a blur last year, just fashion week and wait, Claudia and I spent a great deal of 2008 working on Me Magazine. I didn't leave New York until APRIL! That's insane. Then I went back home to chill with my Texas homies and then headed to Asia.

By this time Brad Renfro and Heath Ledger have passed away.

Work-wise, Winter/Spring Larry and I worked together.
During the summer, still working. Writing is so tedious! The real test of patience.

While I was in Texas I hung out with the homies Play-n-Skillz. I went to my first Lil Wayne concert and died. Everyone knows I am one of Lil Wayne's biggest fans! I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know, Skillz played that song, GOT MONEY, for me before it was mastered and he was like just remember you heard it here first. And when that song got on the album I was like HOLY SHIT ... NAH, BEFORE IT WAS ON THE ALBUM THE SONG WAS ON FIRE... BUT YA'LL KNOW SKILLZ IS THE MAN. He is the mastermind behind alot of those beats, for all of you who know about music and Southern hiphop! I also hung out with Boog and Pilar, two of my bestest friends in the whole wide world!

Spike Lee invited me to the premiere of his film, Miracle at St. Anna, and I went to it in Los Angeles. Teodorín Nguema Obiang was there with me. I ended up hanging out with my friend Asa and never left her crib in Venice! We ended up making alot of cool art together and I spent all my time on the WEST coast. I hung out with DOC and Nu Jerzey Devil... and tons of others I hadn't seen like my good friend Dion Watkins.

I voted in Los Angeles.
I celebrated Halloween in Los Angeles.
I celebrated the Election in Los Angeles.
And I met Yacine who was pretty cool.
Oh yeah! I saw all my French homies in Los Angeles that night as well. Ed Bangers.

Than I was back in Dallas to see a DJ Z-Trip show at The House of Blues with my friend Matthew Giese, he owns Suite Club in Dallas. I don't know what else I did, Oh Yeah... hit up DG's!!! LMAO!

Right now, Winter, I am embarking on the final 2 drafts! This will take time. I just got off the phone with Claudia and she said that she couldn't do that, she would go crazy. Its pretty crazy to do rewrites and spend your days working on a subject you have been writing about for the last 7 years. Well its almost done. The hard work will be all worth it.

Well here is the countdown of my final days being 28!!!!!!!!!!



Quark Henares and I at Katz Deli in New York, April 2008.

Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully: in Ten Minutes Written by Stephen King

25 April 2005

I. The First Introduction
THAT'S RIGHT. I know it sounds like an ad for some sleazy writers' school, but I really am going to tell you everything you need to pursue a successful and financially rewarding career writing fiction, and I really am going to do it in ten minutes, which is exactly how long it took me to learn. It will actually take you twenty minutes or so to read this essay, however, because I have to tell you a story, and then I have to write a second introduction. But these, I argue, should not count in the ten minutes.

II. The Story, or, How Stephen King Learned to Write
When I was a sophomore in high school, I did a sophomoric thing which got me in a pot of fairly hot water, as sophomoric didoes often do. I wrote and published a small satiric newspaper called The Village Vomit. In this little paper I lampooned a number of teachers at Lisbon (Maine) High School, where I was under instruction. These were not very gentle lampoons; they ranged from the scatological to the downright cruel.

Eventually, a copy of this little newspaper found its way into the hands of a faculty member, and since I had been unwise enough to put my name on it (a fault, some critics argue, of which I have still not been entirely cured), I was brought into the office. The sophisticated satirist had by that time reverted to what he really was: a fourteen-year-old kid who was shaking in his boots and wondering if he was going to get a suspension ... what we called "a three-day vacation" in those dim days of 1964.

I wasn't suspended. I was forced to make a number of apologies - they were warranted, but they still tasted like dog-dirt in my mouth - and spent a week in detention hall. And the guidance counselor arranged what he no doubt thought of as a more constructive channel for my talents. This was a job - contingent upon the editor's approval - writing sports for the Lisbon Enterprise, a twelve-page weekly of the sort with which any small-town resident will be familiar. This editor was the man who taught me everything I know about writing in ten minutes. His name was John Gould - not the famed New England humorist or the novelist who wrote The Greenleaf Fires, but a relative of both, I believe.

He told me he needed a sports writer and we could "try each other out" if I wanted.

I told him I knew more about advanced algebra than I did sports.

Gould nodded and said, "You'll learn."

I said I would at least try to learn. Gould gave me a huge roll of yellow paper and promised me a wage of 1/2¢ per word. The first two pieces I wrote had to do with a high school basketball game in which a member of my school team broke the Lisbon High scoring record. One of these pieces was straight reportage. The second was a feature article.

I brought them to Gould the day after the game, so he'd have them for the paper, which came out Fridays. He read the straight piece, made two minor corrections, and spiked it. Then he started in on the feature piece with a large black pen and taught me all I ever needed to know about my craft. I wish I still had the piece - it deserves to be framed, editorial corrections and all - but I can remember pretty well how it looked when he had finished with it. Here's an example:

(note: this is before the edit marks indicated on King's original copy)


Last night, in the well-loved gymnasium of Lisbon High School, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom, known as "Bullet" Bob for both his size and accuracy, scored thirty-seven points. He did it with grace and speed ... and he did it with an odd courtesy as well, committing only two personal fouls in his knight-like quest for a record which has eluded Lisbon thinclads since 1953....


(after edit marks)


Last night, in the Lisbon High School gymnasium, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom scored thirty-seven points. He did it with grace and speed ... and he did it with an odd courtesy as well, committing only two personal fouls in his quest for a record which has eluded Lisbon's basketball team since 1953....


When Gould finished marking up my copy in the manner I have indicated above, he looked up and must have seen something on my face. I think he must have thought it was horror, but it was not: it was revelation.

"I only took out the bad parts, you know," he said. "Most of it's pretty good."

"I know," I said, meaning both things: yes, most of it was good, and yes, he had only taken out the bad parts. "I won't do it again."

"If that's true," he said, "you'll never have to work again. You can do this for a living." Then he threw back his head and laughed.

And he was right; I am doing this for a living, and as long as I can keep on, I don't expect ever to have to work again.

III. The Second Introduction
All of what follows has been said before. If you are interested enough in writing to be a purchaser of this magazine, you will have either heard or read all (or almost all) of it before. Thousands of writing courses are taught across the United States each year; seminars are convened; guest lecturers talk, then answer questions, then drink as many gin and tonics as their expense-fees will allow, and it all boils down to what follows.

I am going to tell you these things again because often people will only listen - really listen - to someone who makes a lot of money doing the thing he's talking about. This is sad but true. And I told you the story above not to make myself sound like a character out of a Horatio Alger novel but to make a point: I saw, I listened, and I learned. Until that day in John Gould's little office, I had been writing first drafts of stories which might run 2,500 words. The second drafts were apt to run 3,300 words. Following that day, my 2,500-word first drafts became 2,200-word second drafts. And two years after that, I sold the first one.

So here it is, with all the bark stripped off. It'll take ten minutes to read, and you can apply it right away ... if you listen.

IV. Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully

1. Be talented
This, of course, is the killer. What is talent? I can hear someone shouting, and here we are, ready to get into a discussion right up there with "what is the meaning of life?" for weighty pronouncements and total uselessness. For the purposes of the beginning writer, talent may as well be defined as eventual success - publication and money. If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.

Now some of you are really hollering. Some of you are calling me one crass money-fixated creep. And some of you are calling me bad names. Are you calling Harold Robbins talented? someone in one of the Great English Departments of America is screeching. V.C. Andrews? Theodore Dreiser? Or what about you, you dyslexic moron?

Nonsense. Worse than nonsense, off the subject. We're not talking about good or bad here. I'm interested in telling you how to get your stuff published, not in critical judgments of who's good or bad. As a rule the critical judgments come after the check's been spent, anyway. I have my own opinions, but most times I keep them to myself. People who are published steadily and are paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops, but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented. The biggest part of writing successfully is being talented, and in the context of marketing, the only bad writer is one who doesn't get paid. If you're not talented, you won't succeed. And if you're not succeeding, you should know when to quit.

When is that? I don't know. It's different for each writer. Not after six rejection slips, certainly, nor after sixty. But after six hundred? Maybe. After six thousand? My friend, after six thousand pinks, it's time you tried painting or computer programming.

Further, almost every aspiring writer knows when he is getting warmer - you start getting little jotted notes on your rejection slips, or personal letters . . . maybe a commiserating phone call. It's lonely out there in the cold, but there are encouraging voices ... unless there is nothing in your words which warrants encouragement. I think you owe it to yourself to skip as much of the self-illusion as possible. If your eyes are open, you'll know which way to go ... or when to turn back.

2. Be neat
Type. Double-space. Use a nice heavy white paper, never that erasable onion-skin stuff. If you've marked up your manuscript a lot, do another draft.

3. Be self-critical
If you haven't marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don't be a slob.

4. Remove every extraneous word
You want to get up on a soapbox and preach? Fine. Get one and try your local park. You want to write for money? Get to the point. And if you remove all the excess garbage and discover you can't find the point, tear up what you wrote and start all over again . . . or try something new.

5. Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft
You want to write a story? Fine. Put away your dictionary, your encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right - and breaking your train of thought and the writer's trance in the bargain - or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don't have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it ... but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.

6. Know the markets
Only a dimwit would send a story about giant vampire bats surrounding a high school to McCall's. Only a dimwit would send a tender story about a mother and daughter making up their differences on Christmas Eve to Playboy ... but people do it all the time. I'm not exaggerating; I have seen such stories in the slush piles of the actual magazines. If you write a good story, why send it out in an ignorant fashion? Would you send your kid out in a snowstorm dressed in Bermuda shorts and a tank top? If you like science fiction, read the magazines. If you want to write confession stories, read the magazines. And so on. It isn't just a matter of knowing what's right for the present story; you can begin to catch on, after awhile, to overall rhythms, editorial likes and dislikes, a magazine's entire slant. Sometimes your reading can influence the next story, and create a sale.

7. Write to entertain
Does this mean you can't write "serious fiction"? It does not. Somewhere along the line pernicious critics have invested the American reading and writing public with the idea that entertaining fiction and serious ideas do not overlap. This would have surprised Charles Dickens, not to mention Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Bernard Malamud, and hundreds of others. But your serious ideas must always serve your story, not the other way around. I repeat: if you want to preach, get a soapbox.

8. Ask yourself frequently, "Am I having fun?"
The answer needn't always be yes. But if it's always no, it's time for a new project or a new career.

9. How to evaluate criticism
Show your piece to a number of people - ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story - a plot twist that doesn't work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles - change that facet. It doesn't matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with you piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I'd still suggest changing it. But if everyone - or even most everyone - is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.

10. Observe all rules for proper submission
Return postage, self-addressed envelope, all of that.

11. An agent? Forget it. For now

Agents get 10% of monies earned by their clients. 10% of nothing is nothing. Agents also have to pay the rent. Beginning writers do not contribute to that or any other necessity of life. Flog your stories around yourself. If you've done a novel, send around query letters to publishers, one by one, and follow up with sample chapters and/or the manuscript complete. And remember Stephen King's First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don't need one until you're making enough for someone to steal ... and if you're making that much, you'll be able to take your pick of good agents.

12. If it's bad, kill it
When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law.

That's everything you need to know. And if you listened, you can write everything and anything you want. Now I believe I will wish you a pleasant day and sign off.

My ten minutes are up.

How they write a script -- Diablo Cody

Monday, June 30, 2008

If there's a modern day 'talisman' for anybody who dreams of breaking into Hollywood as a screenwriter, that would have to be Diablo Cody who's gone from stripper-phone sex operator-blogger to Academy Award winning screenwriter in a head-spinning whirl, all because of a spec script she wrote, a little thing called Juno (2007). She has parlayed her success into several projects including the movie Jennifer's Body, which is to be released in 2009, and a TV series for Showtime called The United States of Tara, a comedy about a woman struggling "to find a balance between her dissociative identity disorder and raising a dysfunctional family."

Culled from several interviews, here are some of Diablo's thoughts about screenwriting, and how she managed to create the magic of Juno.

ON HOW SHE GOT INTO WRITING
"I’ve always written for my own edification and for fun but I have this fear of rejection so I spent my entire life being a writer who didn’t get published. For that reason, I’ve never received a rejection letter in my life because that terror would just grip me. I didn’t even write for the school paper. So, when the internet publishing revolution came about it was perfect for me, I could write every day, put it out there and not have to worry about an editor telling me I wasn’t good enough. It was very freeing. I started blogging every day and when I started blogging about stripping and the sex industry, suddenly surprise surprise I got a huge audience! For some reason people on the internet are interested in sex – who knew that?! My blog traffic went through the roof and one day I got an email from this guy who said he was a big fan of my blog and he was also a producer in Hollywood and he said I think you should try writing a movie. The odds of writing a screenplay and having it produced are daunting as it’s a very competitive field and as I’ve said, competition doesn’t appeal to me, nor does rejection. I’m very unambitious and I want to live in a bubble! So I said no but he hounded me for a bit and I just said ‘whatever’, because I had free time on my hands. I hit upon the idea for Juno. It didn’t take me very long. I don’t think writing movies is hard – when I hear people have spent years nursing a single script I can’t imagine what their day looks like! I wrote it and Mason (Novick) the producer said ‘Right - let’s take it out there and see what people think’. It was received very warmly from the beginning and we were very surprised and we continue to be surprised every day. It’s been a very crazy situation."

ON THE INSPIRATION FOR JUNO

"Jason Reitman and I have both this fascination with writing about sort of controversial topics and poking fun at them. We both like to do that and we have similar politics the more I get to know him. But the idea for Juno was really a random spontaneous thing. I guess I’m inspired by awkward situations. I love awkward silences, I love forced politeness. To me, there is hilarity to be found in that.

"I was kinda sitting in my kitchen in Robbinsdale, and thinking about the image of a teenage girl sitting across from these uptight yuppies in their living room. They’re basically auditioning to be the parents of her unborn child. And I was like, that’s possibly the most awkward thing I could imagine, and it is therefore hilarious. And I wound up building the film around that image. And then I just based the character of Juno on myself as a teenager, although I was never that cool."

ON THE DIALOGUE IN JUNO

"I didn’t really look at it as teen-speak but more like weirdo language! Ellen Page just presents it in such a saucy way too and I’m kind of immature myself and although this sounds kind of cheesy, being on the internet a lot, as I am, I’m actually obsessed with it to the point I’m undergoing hypnosis to cure my internet addiction – I’ll spend 19 hours a day on the internet if you let me. Because of that, you get immersed in the youth vernacular. Every week I learn some new word the kids are saying and I try to integrate it into my vocabulary like some pathetic old person!"

ON WHAT MOVIES SHE WATCHES

"Everybody knows that I’m not a snob when it comes to pop culture, obviously. I love reality shows. I will go see crappy movies, happily. I’m not an especially highbrow person, but I have always loved small, quirky, edgy movies. To use a string of obnoxious adjectives. And you know, like I loved Harold and Maude, I loved Rushmore. I saw Napoleon Dynamite for the first time while I was in the process of writing Juno. And it kind of renewed my vigor for writing. Because I thought like, this is a total oddball little movie and yet all these people have responded to it so maybe my script isn’t going to get lost in the shuffle. That was inspirational to me. Even though I think [director, Jason] Reitman has tired of the Napoleon Dynamite comparisons, they’re somewhat warranted. Movies that are smart and meaningful as opposed to a big corny ass movie where a pretty girl falls down."

ON OPTIMISM

"It frees me creatively; it’s made me a more outgoing person. It’s made me unafraid to squelch certain tendencies I used to be ashamed of. Now I kind of celebrate my weirdness a little more. Which anybody can do in Los Angeles. I was a dark person. There have been times in the past where I thought about ending my life. And I guess, at the risk of sounding incredibly cheesy, it’s just life affirming. I feel like I did something that made a difference. And I want to continue to do that. And I certainly never thought that would happen."

At Last...

Yes We DID and You Know It!

Words cannot express how I feel about this Inauguration of Barack Obama.
I have been watching this live all morning.
I will comment back later.

HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY LARRY CLARK! Damn that motherfucker! LMAO! That lucky bastard!

Today is Larry's birthday!



I talked to him and he is going to have a fun filled day.

Can't believe that bugger has had the life that he has led, most people only get to live a pinky of his life.

What can I say. Larry has alot of lovers, haters, admirers, and non-educated naysayers... above all people he's discovered, movements he's created, and legions of fans and concrete influence that span the last 40 years. (if you don't know what I am talking about, do your homework because I am not about to sit here and write a novel about this topic... Larry Clark's influence on music, film, photography, and art... all media.)

Shout outs to Julianna and Matt!

Always love in my heart for Larry.

As Harold Hunter said, "Yo dog, that man, that man, he luv you gurl! Dat Larry, he da shit!"

Here is the first clip of this little French made Documentary of Larry Clark, you can find the rest on youtube.com or I will post the rest later when I have time.


I am still resting and writing.

I LOVE YOU LARRY!

My favorite image from the classic TULSA book!
(that's inspired many artists over the last 40 years)

Finally, its happened to me!

I finally finished this 400 page book I had been reading and I did so in a week! Whew. Now onto the next book which will be at least 200 pages than the next book.

I am writing away. So many things that I have written over the years. Writing, reading, reading, writing. Someone's gotta do it.

My deadline is coming up and there are no excuses. So I have been MIA from my friends for the New Year and I am trying to top my book reading count on top of that.

A friend of mine sent me a link of this funny Filipina girl, check it out. I watch it when I am frowning and it always cracks a smile:

Stephen King, one of my many influences

King has a very simple formula for learning to write well: "Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer." He sets out each day with a quota of 2000 words and will not stop writing until it is met. He also has a simple definition for talent in writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented."

When asked why he writes, King responds: "The answer to that is fairly simple–there was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That's why I do it. I really can't imagine doing anything else and I can't imagine not doing what I do."

More Stephen King

I have received other writing (career) advice from Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Michel Gondry, Larry Clark, Wong Kar-Wai, Ang Lee, Sarah Driver, and my teachers at New York University. I am debating whether to publish them here or save it for later? Nah. We'll see. (if you really want to know, I will tell you)

I think I'd rather just sit with some old writer friends and discuss this topic until I come out with a little pamphlet of advice or just decide to write it on here. Its pretty interesting what people have had to say in the past about writing and their discipline with it. Very interesting and helpful.

I just can't remember the last time I sat down with them though... ie. Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, Arthur Bradford, Emma Forrest, etc. Where are these guys? Tried getting in touch with them but seems like we are all growing up. I heard one got married, one had a baby, and one I just can't seem to get ahold of and I hope she is alive still!

Well that's my little two cents babble on writing for now.

Happy Belated Birthday(s)! & R.I.P. Aaliyah

I haven't been feeling well since the New Year and I have been taking it easy. I am hidden in an undisclosed location far away from everyone and everything. I think I am getting the itch to come back but I just had to go away for a while for my sanity. Doing rewrites and a hell of alot of reading takes so much energy and time that it has literally drained me.

So in the process I forgot it was Karl Cyprien's Birthday on the 16th. I was too weak to blog about it yesterday, so a belated wishing is better than no wishing at all I believe. Happy Birthday Karl and I hope that you had a great one.

It was also Just Blaze's Birthday. Shout outs to him! Just Blaze!

I wondered what he did for his birthday? He always and usually does something fun. I am sure I will hear about it soon.

Also, Nu Jerzey Devil's birthday passed (10th) and he celebrated it in Miami. I didn't go of course because I am on my little retreat.

There are several more birthdays coming up, including mine on the 31st, and if I feel better, maybe I will get to come out and party!

Oh, for fans and friends of Aaliyah, the 16th was also her birthday. She would have turned 30 years old this year. May her soul rest in peace. I haven't seen her family in a while, I think her brother moved to Australia. I hope they are well.

Diablo Cody

I am a big fan of the "homie" Diablo Cody. I can't wait to see her on The View and see her new tv show (United States of Tara). She has the best blogs in the world.

Diablo Cody's Myspace Page

Congrats girl.

Tiffany Limos is Alright...

Hey guys, here is a little clip of an interview of what is to come...
xoxo,
Tiffany


August 2008

Larry Clark

The Kids Are Not All Right

Larry Clark on Wassup Rockers and More

"For me it was like, How do I manipulate this kid so he can do this and he's comfortable?, which is all part of directing."

By Damon Smith

Pervert. Pornographer. Pedophile. Larry Clark has been tagged with many unsavory sobriquets since his in-your-face debut in 1995 with Kids, a film that ignited lots of anxious adult conversation and talk-show sermonizing about drugs, parenting, AIDS, family dysfunction, and juvie sex habits. Scripted by then-unknown enfant terrible Harmony Korine, Kids depicted a day in the life of morally blunted skater punk Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick), who roams New York City with a boarding buddy getting high, chugging brewskis, and deflowering "young baby girls" while an HIV-positive ex-conquest (Chloë Sevigny) tries to hunt him down before he contaminates another nubie. As a raw, quasi-documentary exposé of the wayward morals of today's youth, Kids was, at least to some hand-wringers, a potent wake-up call: The kids are not all right. And they're screwing! Yet many were unnerved by the film's nihilism, too, and wondered if all the gratuitous fondling and dead-end teenie sex talk made the middle-aged filmmaker complicit in his lurid depictions of underage excess.

Questions about Clark's character have never really gone away. Despite the accusations of voyeuristic exploitation, Clark has always crabbily maintained his status as an artist, an outsider whose films align in a thematic continuum with his equally provocative photography. In his landmark 1971 photo collection, Tulsa, Clark aestheticized the gritty, back-alley depravity of Oklahoma's druggie subculture in a series of coolly iconic black-and-white images echoed in the early cinema of both Martin Scorsese and Gus Van Sant. His 1983 follow-up, Teenage Lust, offered more of the same: young dopers, post-coital idlers, hard-luck cases in repose, and one scantily clad lad monkeying around with a handgun. Without a doubt, Clark enjoys ruffling feathers and riling social hang-ups with his caressive bod-cam shots of lithe young flesh and shocking depictions of fringe-world behavior. After the furor over Kids, Clark's dark, rollicking Another Day in Paradise (1997), a semi-autobiographical film about two renegade addict couples, positioned him as a more conventional film artist, but a peek-a-boo crotch shot in his brutal, high-school true-crime thriller Bully landed him in hot water with star Bijou Phillips. Then came the ill-fated Ken Park, scripted by Korine and co-directed by Ed Lachman, with its spiky-haired-waif-boy-on-MILF cunnilingus and one prolonged, hilariously distasteful scene of autoerotic asphyxiation. No wonder the French love him!

But the question still nags: Is Clark an old chickenhawk or a canny purveyor of low-rent erotic images? He seemed to satirize that puzzle himself with his ludicrously tasteless, flesh-and-gore remake of Roger Corman's Teenage Caveman, produced by trash-schlock king Samuel Z. Arkoff for Cinemax. (Tagline: "The future sucks." And how!) Either way, Clark's abiding subject is clearly the mannerisms of urban youth: how they speak and dress, how they behave, how they view the world, and yes, how they fuck. Occasionally, like Paul Verhoeven, he makes a vital movie from his recurrent motifs of sex and violence. Wassup Rockers, which tails a rambunctious crew of Latino skater kids on a slapstick adventure from their South Central L.A. ghetto into the frilly bedroom of a Beverly Hills hottie, was a departure of sorts for Clark, and earned mixed notices on its release. Yet before it devolves into an absurdist romp, there are moments of pure charm, and the opening split-screen docu-homage to pubescent skater Jonathan Velasquez, Clark's ready-made star, has the touching quality of a religious diptych. Wassup Rockers may not rock as hard as its youthfully yowling hardcore soundtrack, but it does offer a window into the woof and warp of Clark's unapologetic kid-mania.

Since Clark's never really out of fashion, as a March photo exhibit at London's Simon Lee Gallery (one of many in recent years) attests, it seemed like a good time to revisit a memorably colorful conversation I had with the old troublemaker and eternal adolescent on the eve of Wassup Rockers' theatrical release in 2006. I spoke with Clark about his method of working with young actors, his disreputable obsessions, and his checkered past as an artist with an intimate knowledge of his sometimes sordid subject matter.

Not long ago, you said you wanted to make a film about ethnic kids growing up in America. Did that idea morph somehow into Wassup Rockers?

That film is called American Girl from Texas, written by Tiffany Limos, my actor from Ken Park, about growing up in racist Texas. But the interesting thing is, I was with Tiffany when I met Porky and Kiko. Ken Park was opening in Paris, and a French magazine asked her to make some photographs. I didn't want to do it, but it was going to be good press for the film. So these two French ladies flew in from Paris, and Tiff and I went out to L.A. I was going to photograph her with some of the kids from Ken Park. They weren't around, so I said, We'll find some skate kids. We went down to Venice and we met Porky and Kiko, who looked different, and a little out of place there. They were skaters, but they were wearing really tight clothes, they had long hair, their skateboards were shabby, and their shoes were falling apart. They taped them up and painted their shoes with spray paint. They had style, you know? So we started talking to them, and they said they were from South Central. They ended up taking us out to South Central, where we met Kiko's brother, Carlos, and Jonathan and his brother Eddie. We took them all over L.A. and Hollywood for four days, photographing for this magazine. When the magazine came out, they gave us 23 pages, and they did a second cover with Jonathan, this little man-child with a moustache. All the women fell in love with this kid. So I took the magazine back to the kids, and their parents were amazed. And the kids wanted to go skating again. I took them skating every Saturday for over a year. I was always dependable, I'd always show up. I'd take them all over L.A., feed them, and bring them home. And by doing that, we really got to know each other well.

The whole article here: The Kids Are Not Alright.

Mentioned Already?

I get a text this morning from Mike Malbon at Frank151 magazine and he tells me to go to Frank151.com and this is what I saw...



*** Shout out to Mike! Thank you!

Than I randomly saw these...









I just put up this blog a day ago!
.................................................................

Tarantino & Limos serve it like THE MUTHERS!

BLAST FROM THE PAST.... AUGUST 2007

Quentin and I did the whole Asian tour last year and it was pretty fun.
We met all of the icons we idolized when we were younger, mind you I had seen the same B movies he was watching when he was working at the videostore. Most of the B movies were shot in the Philippines, I will get into more of that later.
Prince Chatri from Thailand came to hang out with us for a little bit as well.
We met up with the President and had a great time.
I still have alot of photos to scan and put up from this time, I would like to share that experience. Its not everyday that you get to see something like this in the South Pacific.

Arrival in the Philippines: Tiffany Limos and Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino: I'm a big fan of RP movies

By SCOTT GARCEAU
The Philippine Star

It's been 15 years since Quentin Tarantino's first film, Reservoir Dogs, exploded onto screens at the Sundance Film Festival. And it's been 13 years since Pulp Fiction took the Palme d'Or at Cannes. So it may strike the 44-year-old filmmaker as a bit amusing that he's being given a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Cinemanila Festival. As much as he's drawn from Asian cinema — evident in the black-suited killers in Reservoir Dogs, the Samurai sword-wielding Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction and the "Crazy 88" Yakuza in Kill Bill — he's also had a huge worldwide influence on a generation of young filmmakers — including Filipinos.

Tarantino found himself arriving at Centennial NAIA-2 Airport around 1 p.m. (arriving from Japan on time on a PAL flight, no less) and wandered his way through the arrival terminal, where he met with Cinemanila founder Tikoy Aguiluz and a few assistants. Tarantino looked every inch the Manila tourist — tall, laid-back, dressed in black T-shirt, black shorts and black sneakers, and donning black wraparound sunglasses. But he also looked like Quentin Tarantino, the quintessential film geek who grew up in Los Angeles in the 1960s, dropped out of school, took acting classes, found a job at Video Archives (a video rental place in Manhattan Beach), and proceeded to pen a pile of scripts that brought him immediate Hollywood attention, and finally his shot as a director.

Since then, Tarantino has dabbled in theater (appearing in Wait Until Dark on Broadway in 1998 to less-than-rave reviews), adapted an Elmore Leonard novel into a film (the underrated Jackie Brown), worked with director Robert Rodriguez on films like From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City and the recent B-movie "double feature" Grindhouse. Kill Bill 1 and 2 meanwhile brought his pop-fueled consciousness to a new set of film viewers — those who might have missed out on Reservoir Dogs but who find a Japanese schoolgirl lethally wheeling around a mace to be the coolest eye candy around.

Tarantino walked through the sliding glass doors with light luggage and was immediately beset by dozens of questions from TV and The Philippine STAR, but he was friendly and effusive, granting quick-fire answers as he slowly inched his way toward a waiting car.

"I'll be staying through next weekend," he told one journalist. "I don't know my schedule, but I'll be seeing the different movies and films at the festival, and just hanging out and taking in Manila."

Is this your first time here in the Philippines?

Very first time, very first time. I've been wanting to come here since I was a kid. And now I'm finally here.

You get so many invites to so many film festivals around the world every year. Why did you choose this one?

Oh, I've always wanted to go to the Philippines. And also I've become friendly with Cirio H. Santiago, and knowing that Eddie Romero was going to be here, and we're going to be talking about Philippine cinema, which I've been a big fan of, it's going to be great.

What Philippine films have you enjoyed?

Oh, there's a lot of them I like. Cirio Santiago's The Mothers. I love Eddie Romero's war films, The Ravengers, Leyte Gulf, all right? Walls of Hell is terrific. I love the Blood Island movies with John Ashley. Bamboo Gods and Iron Men, that's a terrific movie.

Congratulations on the Lifetime Achievement Award.

I know. That's really cool to be getting that here, yes. I'm also doing a panel, I think, on Filipino action and horror cinema.

We hadn't noticed any explicit connection between your movies and Filipino B-movies, but we figured that it was only a matter of time...

Even in Kill Bill, the Hattori Hanzo character that Sonny Chiba plays, there's a little bit of that based on the character in The Last Samurai — not the Tom Cruise movie, but the Cirio H. Santiago movie with James Englehart, there's these two Japanese soldiers on the island? I kind of based a little bit of their relationship on those two characters from Santiago's film.

We hear there will be a Quentin Tarantino film festival as part of this year's Cinemanila.

I know, they're showing all of my movies. This is actually the first time I've allowed a festival to do a retrospective of my work; this is the first time.

We're very happy about that.

(Laughs)

Have you had a chance to check out any younger Filipino directors or more recent films made here?

No, I haven't. So this will be a good chance, at the Manila film festival, to check out some of their films.

Do you see yourself as an influence on Asian filmmakers today, just as Asian cinema has had such an impact on your films?

Well, that's for them to tell me. (Laughs)

How did you and Tikoy meet?

I had actually sought out Cirio H. Santiago myself, to introduce myself, because I'm a big fan, and after that introduction, and from another friend of mine, Tiffany Limos, I got the invitation for the Cinemanila Film Festival, and I took (Tikoy) up on it right away.

Are you scouting locations here?

Nope! Just going to Manila, having a good time.

What's the latest on Inglorious Bastards (Tarantino's long-evolving war script, now reportedly up to 600 pages)?

Pen is on paper right now. We'll see what happens. (Laughs)

Have you always been attracted to Asian cinema?

It's always been a big influence on me. I can't help it.

Is the "Asian horror" genre played out yet?

I'm still watching it!

What have you watched recently?

There was a Korean horror movie called The Red Shoes. That was pretty good. Not bad.

Other directors have directed your scripts; would you ever direct a script written by somebody else?

Probably not.

Why not?

Because I like to start with a blank page. I usually lose interest if it didn't originally come from me.

Where do you do most of your writing? California?

I do it all over the place. I write in California, I write in restaurants, I write in cafés, in bars. When I'm on the road I write, and when I'm at home I write.

Would you consider guest directing another TV show, like E.R. or C.S.I.?

If it's another TV show that I really like again, and I've become a huge fan and I want to jump into their world, then possibly.

We like that you create strong women characters (say in Kill Bill, or Jackie Brown). But how does that fit into your male testosterone world?

Well, I'm the creator, so they're my characters. I love them. And not only do I create them, I am them when I create them.

Do you feel different when you're writing those characters?

Well, I'm a method writer. I am them while I'm writing them.

Can you characterize Filipino movies, the ones you grew up enjoying?

Well, you can't break that down to a couple words. They're very different. Cirio H. Santiago's Blaxploitation movies are very different from his Vietnam movies. And Eddie Romero's World War II movies are very different from his Blood Island movies. And the "women in prison" movies are different from the rest.

Why was Grindhouse (the "double-feature" B-movie homage shown in the US) split into two separate movies here?

Well, because we didn't want to show it as a double feature around the world, because not everyone has that thing, that tradition. And also, we had to cut the movie back drastically to do the double feature, so when Death Proof plays here, it's going to have a half hour more than Grindhouse. The Death Proof that's being released here, that's the script I wrote.

Any advice for aspiring young Filipino filmmakers?

Yes. Come up with a story that you want to tell, that you have to tell, and tell it well.