So Guess What Came In The Mail Today...

(Well... yesterday, by Normal People schedules... Thursday...)

SPACED!!!

And computers are able to play dvds region-free! Nobody ever told me that!!!

Well, now that I think of it, that's probably a lie. I think I can remember My Genius Friend Dave telling me that once a couple of years ago, now that I mention it. In fact, it's likely he told me more than once, but my Swiss Cheese memory is only able to dredge up a mere phantom of one incident.

But anyway...

I got to talk to me Sweet Thang for a bit when I first woke up, and I swear I could not be more in love with her if I tried to be!!! She really is just the most loving and adoreable woman EVER!!!

And after she went to bed I popped in a dics of Spaced: Collector's Edition and watched the Out-takes and then More Out-takes, and then watched a featurette called "Raw Footage"... And I was struck by just how much of a genius Edgar Wright really is!

Here's the thing: Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson are absolutely BRILLIANT as writers and actors (the entire cast is brilliant; Wright, Pegg and Stevenson seem to only be capable of working with comedic geniuses, lol), but when you see how funny a scene is from a single angle -- how much energy was put into the writing, and then later how much energy was put into the performances -- and then you see a scene cut together, as it aired, you realize that Wright is as creative as Pegg and Stevenson are! They have words and actions at their disposal, and we get to clearly see how brilliantly they handle those languages. But Wright has this third -- most of the time unnoticed -- language at his disposal into which he infuses absolutely just as much energy!!!

You may not get exactly what I'm talking about, but I promise you if you watched an episode of SPACED, or SHAUN OF THE DEAD or HOT FUZZ shot by someone else -- with different angles and edited differently -- you would be left with this odd distaste of missing something... Like Spaghetti and Meatballs without oregano or something. You'd be like, "It was good... But... I dunno... I think something might have been missing."

Also, rewatching SHAUN a couple of days ago I thought it was a little unfair that Matt Lucas was in a Wright/Pegg production but David Williams was left out of the fun.

Then, rewatching one of my FAVORITE episdes -- Episode 3, "Art": The episode that inspired the Dynamic Duo to make SHAUN -- I realized that Williams is Brian's former artist/collaborator!!! By now I've seen enough LITTLE BRITAIN to recognize his voices (note the plurality, lol) and his face (even behind tons of makeup) to be absolutely certain it's him without having looked it up anywhere!

So that's really cool for me!

Also, in a weird coincidence, tonight at work I aired Elton John's 60th birthday bash concert, and among the many, MANY celebrity well-wishers were Matt Lucas and David Williams!!! If not for my baby turning me on to LITTLE BRITAIN I wouldn't even have known who they were. But knowing their work (including their Comic Relief special that featured Elton saying one of Matt Lucas's catch-phrases!) I think "OF COURSE they're on here!"

Plus, I get that pleasant little smug feeling that I am one of a small percentage of Americans who DOES know who they are and why they're featured on this special, hehe. ;P Like the way you feel when you watch an Eddie Izzard concert with a bunch of people and you feel like "THEY don't get the joke as thoroughly as I do." (Not because you feel you're necessarily smarter than these people, but Izzard has a way of making you feel like the REAL joke is just between you and him. (The Pythons and Douglas Adams create that effect, too.) (I AM a bit of an Anglophile, aren't I? lol))

And to top this all off, as I was drifiting off to sleep last night I figured out a way to turn the first 12 pages of my short -- which I assumed could be no shorter than 30 pages -- into THE short itself!!! This is cool because instead of writing some 8 more pages, I'm simply rewriting 12 pages! PLUS, this gives me new insight into what it takes to write a satisfying short!!!


Most writers begin their careers selling short stories to magazines and such, but I never had the confidence to do that. I naturally feel comfortable in feature-length structure. I get how it all fits together and feel confident that I can weave all these threads together into a gorgeous, emotionally satisfying blanket... But I never really felt confident that I could produce a decent handkerchief. But last night's (or "the day before yesterday morning's" interms of most people's sleep schedule) epiphany illuminated -- a bit -- the delicate tapestry of the short-form story.

Now, I still need to write it and sell Tommy on the idea.

Which is great!

I got the best of both worlds with this idea: Brian saw the potential in the project, which is just reassuring as someone whose job is to create intriging ideas. But Tommy isn't necessairly addicted to the genre; which means that my story has to be REALLY GOOD to get him on board. This is fantastic because I know that if I do sell him on the movie, IT IS GOOD. If I can sell Tommy on it then we've got something that a lot of people will enjoy.

And THIS is why you want to surround yourself with HONEST friends, and preferably friends with tastes different from your own (in many aspects; not all).

It's funny, too, because when we're writing it's often Brian who can't get behind one of my ideas, and Tommy and I have to sell HIM on it. So I -- for some reason -- really like the fact that now I have Brian and I have to sell Tommy.

Maybe it's just because it makes me feel safer... I know I can ABSOLUTELY trust BOTH of them to be honest about creative decisions. (Not that I didn't know that before, but it's always nice to have something you assume to be correct PROVED to be absolutely correct, I guess, lol.)

Anyway, I'm rambling a bit, hehe.

Maybe I should get some sleep now and get ready for my last Hell Day (knock on wood) at work this week. (I'm particularly cautious saying this this morning because tonight -- or "last night" -- was particularly challenging: several different things went wrong in succession, rather than the usual one or (maybe) two.)

Also, if my cousin Brandy is ready this: THANK YOU for helping the night ease by! It seems like things subsided just before you called and flowed smoothely just after we finished talking. So thanks for the positive mojo!

And since I'm giving specific shout-outs this entry (apparently, lol) Wendy: I LOVE YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH SWEETY!!! x o x o x o <3 <3 <3

PEACE, YA'LL!!!