wrist-rocket

An eleven-year-old convinces his mother to buy him a wrist-rocket when they vacation out of state. Wrist-rockets were really no different that any other slingshot you could buy, but "wrist-rocket" was a much more A-Team sounding name, so they tended to be more popular with the armchair commandos of 1986.

The eleven-year-old walks to Oak Grove cemetery with his pal & his pal's little brother to try the wrist-rocket out. The pal brings his black folding knife with panther insignia on the handle, the most ninja thing he could buy at Mr. Han's Army-Navy Surplus. The little brother carries ammo for the wrist-rocket.

The three kids only get about thirty yards into the cemetery when they run into another two kids on BMX bikes. These two were the arch-enemies of the week, selected for their special role due to an altercation earlier that same day. One of the BMX bandits tosses a flare grenade, freshly concocted with a home chemistry set and a white-out bottle. The malfunctioning flare grenade bounces off the eleven-year-old's leg, unharmed by the grenade sparks. He fires off two rounds with the wrist-rocket, and the BMX bandits ride off. Our three heroes are victorious.

Until they turn around and see the patrol-car pulling up.

The cop questions the eleven-year-old about the wrist-rocket. The kid says the three of them were walking back from a friend's house, and he was just bringing the wrist-rocket home. They weren't in the cemetery to shoot anything; they were just taking a short cut on their walk. The cop asks the other kid if he has any weapons. The kid lies about the panther pocket knife. Almost satisfied, the cop asks the little brother if he has anything on him.

"Just some rocks," the little brother replies.

The cop takes the wrist-rocket and drives off.


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Twenty-one years later, the eleven-year-old is a cop, dead at thirty-two from what sketchy newspaper articles report as a self-inflicted gunshot would.

This is the second instance of something horrible happening with someone I grew up with in my hometown. Last year a guy I used to skate with back in high school actually killed someone. I used to think that my hometown - Fall River - was just another broken-down town to escape, hopefully with all your marbles intact and without knocking someone up. Now Fall River really seems like something to survive.

Back in Los Angeles I'm still trudging along with my handful of projects. One of the projects was recently shelved by a writing partner - which fucked my shit up pretty badly - but at least I learned something about writing in the process, and obviously life could be much worse. After finishing up the Sistene Buckle I may try writing something about Fall River...if I can get a handle on what Fall River does to the people who live there.

Sistene Buckle Designs

Some designs for the next cartoon:







Also, check out my favorite adaptation of the Tell-Tale Heart.

-tg

animation

clips

Started collecting my favorite skate clips on You Tube - they took down Video Days and the Powell rubber boys clip, but the rest of the stuff is still great.

two stereos wrapped in an old t-shirt

I haven't had the time to skate much recently with the pre-Christmas bullshit bottleneck, but last week I managed to get out for a bit, and get an early Christmas present to boot. Ursula was occupied with Christmas shopping on Saturday, so I skated to Chango’s again for some lunch, then headed to Sunset Blvd. Along the way I see two 45 symbols from Stereo thrown up near the House of Spirits. I happen to ride a Stereo myself.

Skating around Sunset and Echo Park Blvd. was fun, so I decide to make my way down to the parking blocks in front of the 4100 bar that I always spy on my work commute. Unfortunately, it starts raining – hard – so I start to walk back home. As I walk past the fire station to cross the street, Chris Pastras rolls up to the corner. We talk for a second, and he actually gets out of his rig in the rain and gives me a deck from the trunk. Not only is this supercool, but pretty ironic, considering every time I skate kids ask me for gear; if you're old and on a board they assume you're a pro.

I trudged the rest of the way home, two stereos in hand, wrapped in an old t-shirt.

skateboarding

Norma & Margie now showing at Newgrounds

"Norma & Margie" is now showing at Newgrounds, a kickass animation portal by the makers of Alien Hominid. Please stop by & cast your vote for your two favorite extra-dimensional couriers!

Thanks.

Echo Park

About a month ago I had a brilliant idea; get back into skating...despite the fact that I'm 34, and stopped skating regularly when I was 19 - right when street skating really got big (see H Street). Back then I lived in Fall River, a sleepy hallow south of Boston famous for Lizzie Borden, Emeril, and Hank the angry dwarf. Now I live in Echo Park.

I guess you'd call Echo Park a borough in you lived in New York. A gritty bunch of hills and broken sidewalks off of Sunset Blvd., Echo Park is a demolition derby of arthouse, poor house, and hot chicks with ugly boots.

Today's session was just a trip to the ATM and lunch at Chango, where I always have the roasted veggie sandwich, and always forget to say no olives. The afternoon heat and traffic kept me off-balance; I didn't really land anything until I got home, throwing down some bonelesses in the cul-de-sac near my house. The next session will probably be at night.

skateboarding

Screenwriting

I finishing reading Making a good script great by Linda Seger, now it's off to Hero with a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell (again). The last time I read Campbell it was for story structure and character psychology; this time it's for application to some of the surreal moments I write.

I also finished Getting things done by David Allen, and I've started to apply some of his thinking to how I write (you can find some of my favorite GTD-related links here).

For example, one of the general principles in GTD in keeping cleanly defined lists in order to stay organized. I decided to apply this somehow to my notes, which are always a rat's nest. After rereading my notes, I discovered that I write four different types of entries in my notebook:

1. Questions - "why does character x do this?"
2. Ideas - "maybe character x does this because of reason x"
3. Research Notes - either relating to craft or a topic
4. Next Actions - "debug outline" (next actions is a GTD term/concept)

I then rewrote my notes, giving each type of entry it's own page. The "Next Action" page is key, because it keep me focus on making progess. I'm also using this classification when I'm dictating into my microcasette recorder on the road because it makes transcribing my notes much easier.

screenwriting
GTD