It's been a long time, I shouldn't 'a left you...
...without a dope beat to step to.
Sorry, having a Rakim moment.
Been a very busy few weeks. Hardly any time to blog. Wrote my first obituary early this month, for management guru
Peter Drucker. Writing an obit is a fascinating thing. I have a lot of respect for the folks at daily newspapers who do it on a daily basis. I think there is so much care one must take when trying to encapsulate a person's entire life into one short story. We should all be so lucky to have that amount of thoughfulness and care put into the telling of our lives.
From there, things got a bit surreal. I was covering the mall shooting and hostage situation in Tacoma, Washington on Sunday. The shooter, a 20-year-old, was holed up in a Sam Goody record store after shooting six people. On a whim, I gave the store a ring, and sure enough the gunman answered the telephone. I could immediately tell he was a young guy by his voice. He seemed very interested in who I was writing for. He expressed real disappointment when he found out I didn't know Connie Chung and hung up on me. Rather than call back and agitate a hostage situation, I just continued reporting through police statements and such. Fortunately, all three of his hostages were released unharmed.
Walter dropped in from San Francisco again. He was having computer problems, and was going to miss the deadline for an important arts grant. He ended up flying down and crashing at my place so that he was able to deliver his application in person to the organization. Since it was a rare free day for me also, we kicked around the city. Got some great photos at the beach and Griffith Park, including dolphins (from the pier) and some great hummingbird shots, which I'll post later. He also managed to catch on camera the hawk that's been prowling around on my rooftop. Looks like it is probably a Cooper's Hawk (a bird hunter), which would explain why all the other birds vanish when it's around.
Got an Xbox 360 console, and all of the key launch titles (Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham Racing 3, etc.), but haven't had time to try them out. Maybe this weekend.
Been reading a lot lately. I haven't written a book review in a few years, but happily had a chance to do one for my good friends back at the alt-weekly City Pages, on an interesting
urban planning book.
Also have my first meeting with a producer coming up. He liked my script a lot. Though he passed on it, he was very taken with my writing and wants to meet with me about another project he's working on. Very interested in seeing where this leads. Stay tuned...
And finally, my rant for the day...when will people stop hating on Disco? I heard Ring My Bell on the radio the other day, and couldn't stop moving. I swear, disco is aging like wine. WINE, I tell you!!! Amazing that music critics still show no love to disco, when they have been salivating over 80s synth-pop for the past few years. Flock of Seagulls get a VH1 reunion special, but no one has any love for Gamble & Huff? What gives?
posted by Kemp @ 4:36 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hey Kemp,
I meant to ask you, how come you haven't applied for film school? We could use another brother up here at UCLA and you're well qualified.
Hi Lawrence. Film school is wonderful, but just not right for me at this point. I spent much of my time during the Knight Fellowship studying at the University of Michigan's film school, which I credit with really helping me refine my writing (though I've still got much to learn). And yes, I was the only black guy in all of my film classes there, in case you were wondering.
The other students at UMich were great, but kind of young, hence the same story ideas kept repeating themselves in screenwriting class...lots of teen romantic comedies. That's why I did the Cosby fellowship; wanted to spend some time around peers (particularly in terms of age and race) to find out what it was like for US in the business. I have to say that I learned as much during that fellowship as I did during film school.
"The Hollywood Hustle" is much different for those of us who must juggle children and family, as you already know. :-) Ultimately, I think it's probably best to do a combination of film school, fellowship and workshops, but the older we get, the less time there is for all three.
I'm telling you that you'd love it. One, the average age in this class is mid 30s. Second, 90% have children, including me with my six year old. Now, there are only two black screenwriters, a brother from NYC and me, I have to give UCLA some dap for getting a diverse group background wise. So we rarely get the juvenile stories. Everyone in the program can write and we continuously push each other. Plus, the access is incredible. Actually, the access is probably close to the most valuable thing other than the constant writing. I'd still say give it a thought.
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