CYBER-RAGE

Aah, it's good to be back.

It wasn't too bad being off, though-- I just wish it was for better reasons. But that's how I've always done things: impulsively, with more attention paid to my instincts and intuition than anything else.

I spent Tuesday afternoon moving my computer desk into the living room. Now I have more space in the living room and more space in my bedroom. I'm going to throw out one of the couches real soon.

I worked on transcribing the session notes of our animation brainstorming session. Thanks to programs like Final Draft, writing scripts is easier than blogging. Now that programs can take away the chores of formatting, it's up to the writer and his/her own innate talents to fill in the rest.

Anyone with half a brain can use Final Draft, but it's hard to get decent scripts out of Hollywood. Just look at a movie like The Girl Next Door, which I saw on DVD last night-- not bad for a teen sex comedy, but I imagine the pitch was something like "It's Risky Business meets American Pie!"

This is the issue of originality. I was accused recently by a hack screenwriter for not being original in my notion of animating A Clockwork Orange. However, everyone I know who is a fan of both the book by Burgess and the movie by Kubrick thinks it's a great idea, because although it would be invariably compared to Kubrick's 1971 masterpiece, it would still be a different take on the original source material.

And, of course, no one got mad at Kubrick for adapting novels into movies, which is what he did with nearly every single movie he ever directed. Lolita? Full Metal Jacket? Barry Lyndon? 2001: A Space Odyssey? The Shining? Eyes Wide Shut? All novels that Kubrick read, all of them adapted into movies.

So, does that mean that Kubrick isn't original?

Of course not. Originality doesn't mean having an idea that no one else thought of, because history shows us that no idea is truly original-- everything has a precursor further down the line.

Originality is doing something that no one currently has the right mind to think up, and let me tell you-- no one is thinking about animating novels... because it hasn't been proven to be lucrative yet.

I intend to change that, but in a different way.

My idea to animate a novel didn't start with Clockwork. Years ago, my friend Mauzner and I discussed David Cronenberg's film adaptation of Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. The novel has long been noted as being "unfilmable" but we both felt Cronenberg did the best job he could by not trying to make a literal adaptation. Rather, he interweaved the themes of the novel with the back story of how Burroughs came to write that classic book.

Mauzner reasoned that the only way to do a literal adaptation of Naked Lunch was to have eye-popping special effects, of the CGI variety. That led to some funny riffs between us about how the effects would look during certain notorious scenes in Lunch.

Then, I said, "Or, you could make it a cartoon... anime style."

Mauzner and I gave each other a knowing look, but afterwards we thought nothing of it. Occasionally, ideas of how to do certain scenes have entered my mind over the years, but now that I'm fully immersed in painting and drawing, I am starting to sketch out little ideas here and there, for both Clockwork and Lunch.

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas could've been one of those "cartoon adaptations" that I had in mind, but Terry Gilliam pulled it off quite nicely. Still, can you imagine if Ralph Steadman, the man who did the original illustrations for Hunter S. Thompson's book, had animated it, with his patented smeared-ink style?

Man, I would've paid money to see that.

The world will catch up to me, as it always does. In five years, you'll see production companies hopping onto this idea. And when that happens, I'll have some good ideas, other than Clockwork or Lunch, already developed.

Speaking of Mauzner, his birthday is this weekend, and when I returned to work this morning I opened an e-mail from him in regards to this. It's ironic, because I haven't talked to him in some time, but I mentioned him in my last post... and now, here he is, calling on me to help celebrate his 30th birthday.

He's a Pisces, and they're somewhat psychic. He knew I had mentioned him somehow-- it was in the air.

I think I'll pitch the idea back to him, see what he thinks. After all, we go all the way back to high school, and moderate success hasn't changed him one bit...


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Bro Man and I were intent upon seeing Mr. Lee and his band play at the club. Tuesday night was billed as the club's 10th anniversary.

10 years... I have been going to this club since its inception. I never realized this until it was brought up to me, but I turned 21 when this club first opened, and I'd always thought it had been around before me.

Nope. 10 years. I've grown up with it.

I saw Lee play at this very same club in 2002, shortly after he was released from jail. It was a surprise show, and my friend Dom clued me in on the action. He is also a fan, and his band actually has shared the stage with Baby Lemonade and Mr. Lee on many occasions.

According to Dom, Lee lives up to his reputation: feisty, moody, brilliant, tempermental. I've seen Lee a couple of times since that 2002 gig and he has always seemed like he is teetering on the edge of some elegant insanity. Whenever I think that life is unfair and that Lee should be better known than he is, I remind myself that Lee pretty much sabotaged his own career, and maybe he did it willfully.

His obscurity is his own concoction.

Anyway, when Bro Man and I got to the club and finally found parking off of the boulevard, Dom's band was in the middle of their set... and there was a notice on the door stating that Mr. Lee and his group had cancelled.

I laughed. Was it over money? Top billing? Maybe they weren't feeling so hot. Either way, it didn't surprise me a bit. We went inside, drank some beers, watched the rest of Dominic's set, paid our tributes, and left shortly after The Brian Jonestown Massacre started.

There were no incidents-- that is to say, no one gave me any shit, just as I expected.

Bro Man and I ended up at Rock and Roll Denny's in Hollywood, eating breakfast and trying to talk to these Mexican girls at a neighboring table. They were unaccompanied, but I think they were underage, judging from their vernacular. One of them was stunning to behold, but my guts kept telling me to move on, lest I end up being charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Bro Man was convinced that they were afraid of him because he's African-American, but I think maybe they were entertaining the notion of "going black".


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Wednesday saw me getting the new ride tuned up and making some music. I had to rearrange the living room one last time, because I did not allow myself any access to the back panel of my PC. Bro Man, Down Low and I jammed out, with Low busting out his brand new 12-string Martine. I smoked way too much pot-- making up for the past month, where I've been cutting down on my intake.

I made a trip to Michael's, to purchase brushes. Eve and I were supposed to do this together, but she is still in self-imposed isolation. I did tell her, however, about a project that I am undertaking as my official painting debut: UCLA's Feminist Majority is holding an auction to raise funds for Casa Amiga, the only rape crisis center available in Chihuahua, Mexico.

I don't know if any of you know this, but over the passage of time in the Mexican city of Juarez, the bodies of hundreds of raped and mutilated women have been turning up. No one knows who is responsible for such carnage, and the local government is mum on the issue.

To protest the government's inaction, pink crosses are placed at the sites where the bodies are found. To date, there are over 400 pink crosses adorning the location where the majority of victims are discovered.

Social activists are asking for artists to create works with Juarez as its theme. These works will be auctioned off and the funds donated to Casa Amiga. These funds will also go towards assisting the victim's families. And, all of this goes towards further awareness of this sickening phenomenon, in the hopes that something will be done to bring justice on behalf of the murdered women.

So, on May 14, 2005, I will be donating an an artwork to represent an individual woman who has been victimized by rape, mutilation, torture, and murder in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. This will be my first painting, and I'm hoping that it opens doors for me as well as helping out a cause that, believe it or not, I've been following ever since the documentary Señorita Extraviada premiered a few years ago.

(Email fmla@ucla.edu for more information)

I was tempted to go to the library and post a blog about the cancelled Love show, but time flew by and before I knew it I was at Paulie's pad in Topanga Canyon, watching DVDs and discussing our work schedule for the next month. Right now we are in the process of hiring writers to add one-liners to our cartoon scripts.

Haven't heard from the girls, but this Saturday I am busy laying down bass for this demo they have been working on for a month.

Can't complain, really. Keeping busy, staying positive.


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Sometimes, in our everyday lives we find ourselves engaging in petty activities to fritter the time away. And sometimes, we get caught up in these trivial matters because we think they deserve our attention. But really, they don't, and all it takes is a nice step back from the grind to realize this.

The last two days have been an objective step back from all of this Web drama, what I like to call "cyber-rage". People stuck on the computer all day long with nothing to do tend to get enraged at what's going on in cyberspace, and they start losing their grip on reality.

That's why I don't have Internet access at my pad. The last thing I need is to bring it all home with me. Home is where the art is, for me.

Driving around, running errands, I saw the hidden beauty of the suburbs-- quiet and clean, well-protected, serene and calm. I get a lot of things done in this environment. It's too nice to be mad out here. It's also boring as hell, but that's when I go out to the other parts of this sprawling city: Hollywood, Santa Monica, parts of the Valley, East L.A., Downtown...

I find that if I just keep on doing what I'm doing, the way I've been doing it, I'll be fine. I won't lose any sleep, I won't lose any hair, I won't develop an ulcer, and I'll keep getting the things that I want with little to no effort.

That's all it's about for me.

Thanks for the e-mails, faithful readers. Violet, you are right, but so is everyone else who had something to say to me over the past two days.

They say the best revenge is living well. Those are wise words to live by, and I'll be thinking along those lines when my weekend is upon me and I'm hanging with Mauzner and Cox, when I'm recording bass tracks in a pro studio, when I'm making up the money for two days of work that I lost out on, when I'm starting my work for the Casa Amiga auction in May...

Yes, it's good to be back, and it wasn't bad being off for two days, but I have a feeling that it's all going to get even better.

Mark my words.