Private Eye, Craig vs Nick Nolte and Evil Genies

Whilst running errands in Marina del Rey, I saw what I am certain is an honest to goodness private investigator hanging out at my bus stop. It's an odd bus route. It's extremely short running from Fisherman's Village in the Marina to the Expo Line  just past downtown Culver City. At midday when the traffic is light, the entire route is less than half an hour. Tourists don't know the route. If there is one on the line, it's usually a mistake. Thus, when I saw this guy, he struck me as wrong. It's like Jason Bourne said in The Bourne Supremacy  about dear Karl Urban's character, the grumpy Russian assassin, he was wrong. The clothes he was wearing and what he was carrying was wrong. He was dressed like an older, hip and active tourist, but tourists don't take buses there. He was not a regular commuter. We know each other well enough to keep up with each other's families on that route. At this writing, two weeks later, I haven't seen him since. And he wasn't looking at maps or books, he was looking at people. Then, he takes out this insanely expensive camera and takes photos down a street with nothing on it – as you can see – except for cars parked along an expensive condo. 

After taking snaps of the street – and me (he was aware that I was aware of him) – he leaves this backpack 

with a Macbook in it to talk to someone in a modest car in the gas station next to the stop. It had just pulled up. He came back just in time for the bus to show up. He got on the bus without asking the bus driver about where it was going as tourists do on an odd line. He got off the bus two stops later and walked toward the same car that was at the gas station. Yep. Private eye. Why not a cop? A cop would have been harder for me to spot. It took me a week to spot the narcotics cops staking out the block when we lived in a very entertaining area of Venice. My policeman father taught me to be hyper aware of my surroundings. That got honed when I was a professional neighborhood watch person working of the Center City District . My life has been weird, okay?

Evil Genies

Recent events have lead me to believe that trying to make it in the film industry in LA is like dealing with evil Genies. Only, there seems to be no way to cleverly thwart them and get them to grant you your fondest wish. No matter how carefully the deal is crafted, there will always be a high price to pay for getting a wish granted. I was recently commissioned to write a pilot and a series bible based on another person's stories. It was not Guild scale, but it was a decent down payment on a scale payment. It was not in a genre that Jon and I are comfortable with, but we always said that we could write anything. Of course, we were young when we were spouting that nonsense. I also believe that I was drinking more back then. But the matter came before us as a request for help, so we felt like it would be mean to refuse.

Six weeks later, I should be happy to have a sliver of financial breathing room and a well thought of script with a shot at being a series. On some level I am. But that has been at the cost of a book that has been delayed for two years, a great deal of tension between my Sybpress partners and I over another book's release and the completion of the latest YGG Magazine. I've had to have an MRI and steroid injections related to a knee injury involving a previous incarnation of that same project that commissioned me and since this all began, I have had trouble sleeping and frequent headaches. The details of why things shook out this way are unimportant. The fact of the matter is that there is always some cost to making a deal in this town, big or small. I now understand why some artist respond to this by gouging as much money out of a deal as they can get away with. That way, when the results are years on a therapy couch or many anger management courses, it can be said that 'at least that deal paid for my bitchin' summer home' or paid for something equally lavish. I'd say that this gets us a big step closer to Guild eligibility but I now know a lot of WGA members that really wish they had been more clever with the Genie they ran across. One may think that it's a case of them down playing their lot, so they aren't bragging. Nope. They are living the be careful what you wish for scenario. Still, that is a route that will most likely get us control of the projects we do. It's a huge step, something like this gig. It could be the first of many even if the script is ultimately rejected. There will be eyes on our names at levels we've never reached. Still, I'm shaken at the realization that the bigger the step, the higher the cost.

Craig Vs Nick Nolte

Just as Craig resigned himself that there is no getting past Ray Liotta crossing his path (he's now featured in photos in most of the local shops Craig frequents), NickNolte  has begun turning up. He says he's somewhere between movie star Nolte and mugshot Nolte. I doubt that Craig will ever get to the point wary co-existence he got to with Liotta. I believe those two realized that they were both from New Jersey. Apparently, Notle gets squirrley every time Craig makes eye contact. That makes Craig more squirrley or squirrlier. Craig's the kind of guy that has to have eye contact with strange people in his vicinity. This could be bad – entertaining but very bad.

Deb vs Japanese – Coscto Part Two

My Mitswa shopping bags cause me to get involved in a lot of unwanted conversations. Usually it's something like YOU shop THERE from random non-Japanese people I run across. Recently, it got me involved in another kind of encounter. I was in Costco (as I often am) looking at garlic when a young Japanese man approached and asked me if I spoke Japanese in Japanese. I knew that sentence but very little else. Fortunately, I knew the line 'my Japanese is very bad.' That was still better than nothing, he figured. He needed help in the cold produce room. I knew enough from the Japanese cooking videos I follow that he was looking for peppers and cucumbers. I knew they were in that room he was dragging me to, and couldn't figure how he missed them. And then I knew. The boxes were stacked high with no clue as to what was in them by looking at the actual produce (that has since been changed). And the labeling was very clever like Cukes and Bells and Shrooms. No wonder the poor man was confused. I revealed the produce and got the full on formal thank you with a bow! I remembered how to say 'your welcome.' I was jazzed enough to pick up my studies in earnest once more. I see him once in a while. He always smiles.

Book Lunch

I'll finally be putting out the next installment of the Soldier's Saga, Soldier's Destiny on April 22^nd. It's an auspicious day for me. I'll be four years clear of cancer and four years from the MOAS. Seemed like a good day to jump back into book publishing thing. I tend to re-write characters I love that I thought deserved fairer shake than they got in their original forms. I realized when looking for that Bourne quote that the guys are very much modeled after Bourne in a lot of ways beyond being trained killers. I really wanted the film version of Bourne to have a happy ending or at least a permanent relationship. So, I gave them one. And the Foundation was an answer to the corruption that surrounded the organizations that created the characters. I don't like characters to have endings that I consider unfair. They can be sad or even tragic but never unfair. In this book, Rik and Vincent are confronted with Altereds so damaged that there is a kill order over their heads if they can't be retrained. They must deal with the most clever Altered they've ever faced. He is, in fact, the father of them all. His legacy continues to bring them great pain and grief while he holds a secret that could destroy them. And then, there is the little matter of Bobby's wedding to a major reporter. How can that be pulled off without a media circus or explosions. Rik and Vincent have a lot on their plates while trying hard not to lose sight of each other. For fans of Ensnared, there is another short story coming out soon and a third novel in the works. I have a publishing schedule in mind for the next 12 months. Heaven help anyone that interferes with that without giving me a hideously large check!

Stay tuned.

More Photos Below

Me and my favorite partner at the CCD.

The latest book launch.

An abomination at Costco.

You're not kneeling?

My first Castella, a Japanese sponge cake.

Expo line extension West to Santa Monica.

Lilacs are in bloom now.

Fish and chips from scratch including the bun.

Latest attempt at ramen.

At A Film Locations Convention

One view from my writing desk.