catching up

This screenplay rewrite is taking forever. The second screenplay I've been working on is taking shape, but so far I hate it. It's just not very funny yet. For ScriptFrenzy, I wanted to work on something contemporary and completely different from the other project, so I'm writing a broad, raucous comedy, set in the present day at a fictional southern California university, based on my college and sorority experiences. The other one? A period drama, set along the Underground Railroad in the six years since the end of the Civil War. Yeah, that one's a real party.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my June calendar is pretty full. There's been a lot going on, not just career-wise and not just downtown. We actually went west of La Brea - to the Fox lot for a reception and screening of Al Pacino's documentary, Babbleonia at the Little Theater. There was a Q&A afterwards with Mr. Pacino, and he answered damn near every awkward, eye-roll-inducing, gushing, brown-nosing, suck-up question thrown out that night. We were told that the attendees were a combination of press and student filmmakers, but it seemed like the majority of questions were lobbed by aspiring actors. He does tell a good yarn, though. He told the story of how "Attica!" wound up in that famous scene from DOG DAY AFTERNOON (the AD suggested he yell it), what it was like to work with Francis Ford Coppola and Sidney Lumet, and how he came up with "Whoo-ah!" for SCENT OF A WOMAN, and how to stay relevant (he came straight from the OCEAN'S THIRTEEN premiere, which we saw last night). We rounded out that evening by going to this wonderful Indian restaurant behind the Writer's Guild Theater on Doheny - Chakra. I ate there once before with my Development Exec, but it was the first time for Jim. I had the lamb vindaloo and he had chicken tikka masala. The food was even better than I remembered. Every time we venture out to the westside, I plan to eat there. It's that yummy. I wish we had an Indian restaurant downtown that's open late and beautiful, serving yummy food like Chakra.

I missed a lot of events last week. We went to Disneyland last Wednesday to preview the new Finding Nemo submarine ride, but it broke down. They tried to fix it and we waited, hoping they'd get it together in time, but no such luck. They invited us to come back the next day and preview it, but they had no guarantees it would be up and running, or that it wouldn't break down again. Oh well. The ride opened yesterday, but I think we'll wait out the crowds before going back.

Instead of going to the Hope for Firefighters thing last week, Jim and I picked up a brand-new, shiny, red Prius. Driving it is a little odd for me, being so used to my old Jeep (my third one!), but I like it a lot. I especially like that we used one gallon to drive to Pechanga on Saturday. One gallon! Woo hoo! What I didn't like was no notification about Sixth Street being closed due to a Neutrogena commercial. That made it difficult to exit our parking garage, but nothing was stopping me from attending the Lemon Butter Club meeting. Thankfully, they were gone by the time we came home several hours later and we didn't have any problems entering our parking garage. There were other FilmLA developments - their contract was up for renewal June 30, 2007 and the City didn't have an RFP handy, so FilmLA asked for a one-year extension of their contract, but Jan Perry countered with six months, which doesn't matter because City Council can cancel the extension with a 30-day notice - oh just read about it here.

What else is new? Oh yeah, I went back to the gym and found a new trainer that I really like. This past week, I felt like I'd been hit by a truck, but in a good way. I just might hit the gym after posting this.

We did manage to hit Grand Performances' block party yesterday, and just in time to catch Ozomatli. I saw them the last time they played Grand Performances, which was incredible. I spent most of the weekend writing and rewriting, but neighbor Dave pinged us to head over with him. I had to finish writing, so we caught up with him later. I took some video of the event and I'll post that in a day or so. It was packed, so we didn't see any other downtown bloggers covering the event (other than Dave, that is), but of course they were there.

This week looks like it's going to be just as busy, if not more so. My brother-in-law James is coming home from NYC tonight, so we'll probably have dinner with him and Angel tonight. Tomorrow night is the Bloggers & Beer event at the Library Bar, anyone going to that? Thursday is Downtown Artwalk, but with the new, free Artwalk DASH buses running from 7-10pm, I'll probably do more riding than walking.

I know there's lots more going on that I haven't blogged about, but I have to get back to the screenplays.