At George's

Another Peak at a Pilot

I had an idea for a pilot.  I have it still, but what's funny about ideas, which most people never seem to have a grasp on, is that ideas are always changing.  That's the nature of ideas.  A simple someone would think that they have this great idea, it's solid.  It's doesn't even have to be great, per se. Just a simple someone has an idea.  And it leads to another idea.  Which then leads to another idea and another and to forever.  Mais non, this is not so.  At least not as I see it; not the way ideas exist in my mind. 

To me, ideas exist not like a words carved into tiny stones, but like trees that grow.  Like apple trees that bear fruit, or great strong redwoods.  They grow, with a little help from Totoro, and they adapt to their envorinment.  They go dormant in the winter and burst forth again when the sun and the heat of life returns.  Its returning now, it's almost June, and so the roots latch on.

I'm not sure what kind of tree this is exactly, this pilot.  Could be the apple tree, could be the redwood.  This idea could start off as a cherry tree and end up mangrove, because after all it's not tree we're talking about here.  It's an idea, and ideas can do that.  They have the ability to change. 



Right now the idea is a story.  That's what a pilot is, a story.  A short story at that.  I was always good at short stories in school.  In English class and Creative Writing.  I didn't much like English class.  There was a lot of writing, but I took Creative Writing anyways because it was easy.  Like math. 

This story's about school actually.  Well, kind of.  What's more true is that it happens during school.  It's a story that takes place in the setting of school.  But there's been enough said about high school, of elementary.  No, that's too played out.  For some reason, everyone's always coming of age in high school.  It's close.  We grow up in high school.  When I ask people where they grew up, and they say they grew up all over the place, moving around a lot, I ask them where they went to high school.  That's where we grow up.  We come of age in college.  It's just the age really, of coming of age.  And yet, some of us never come of age, college or not.  And then there's those that have never been to university, and they've been of age for years.  I guess it's not really a time or place for everyone.  I just know that for me, it was college.  At the very end. 

[I've realized this for some time now, totally seperate from this pilot, but I feel like I must interject.  Maybe it's from writing so much, but my puncuation isn't always the fan of full sentences.  She's not that specific.  Pero, there is a rhyme.  I know how they work grammatically, and I'm atune to it, but I'm of the mind that they're better suited for breathing.  After all, I'm talkin' here.  Can't talk without a breath or two here and there.  And sometimes when I'm talking it's not always a complete thought.  Most times really, but I try to adhere when I write things down.  I try to adhere without losing the vocie of the thing.  As I think we all should.]

AND SO STARTS A PILOT

[open on the open road, northbound US 101, through the Salinas Valley, brown hills, golden brown.  A white two-door Ford Explorer, not clean, dirt and rust on the chrome of the wheels, the side-view mirror taped on.  A driver, and a car piled high.  He's moving.]

Narration: I remember one day driving with the windows down, and I was turning right onto Rose Avenue.  These two jack-offs in gym shorts and cut-off tees were hopping up and down at the corner, side-to-side, foot-to-foot in rhythm waiting for the light to change.  I remember rounding the corner and hearing them just over the music, talking loudly, going on about running.  I heard just a few breaths of that conversation, true, but it got me thinkin'.  I like running.  Well no, I shouldn't say that.  I don't actually run even.  I don't get it, personally.  It hurts, it makes me sore afterwards.  I don't like the shock to the knees, and I've always got more pressing things at hand.  Like all life's little stresses, for example.  And they're not always so little.  Yes, I must admit that I hate running.  What I love is running away.

[driver lights a spliff, puts hand to the radio knob as he drags and turns the music up.  Driver blows the smoke out the sunroof, flicks the roach out as well.]

*** [SCENE] ***

[open on "Welcome to Santa Cruz".  Twilight.  Explorer turns up Western Drive, beat up college houses on one side of the street, forest on the other.  Turns music down, looking for address.]

Driver: All right, where the fuck are you.  440...  440... (breath in at discovery) 440.

[Explorer pulls in behind the two cars in driveway, there's no pick-up on the shitty side lawn.  Driver gets out, the car beeps as it locks.  Driver goes to the front door, it's unlocked, and it's madness inside.  People flying by left and right.]

Redhead: (curious) Hey there, partner.  How goes it?  I'm Dylan.

Driver: Dylan.  Brian, it's a pleasure.  I -

Dylan: (interrupts and distracted) Now that's Dylan with a "y" because see there's another Dillon living here this year.  D'ya know him? Dill-hole?

Driver: Maybe... I don't think so though -

Dylan: Okay, well he spells his name like a bitch with an "i-l-l" you'll meet him.  Brian you said?

Brian: Yeah, with an "i" not a "y" (half-laugh)

Dylan: Right.  The new guy.  So this is your room right here, front and center.

[It's a small room, shoved under the staircase, not quite a cupboard, like a small den with an angle in the ceiling.]

Brian: Nice...

[door close]

*** [SCENE] ***

[open on an old bus squeaking to a stop at the corner bus stop.  Brian and Girl get on with a handful of other people.]

Girl: So how was it?

Narration: This is my friend, BB.  I'd met her a couple times last year, and she's the one that got me that room, last minute, at 440 Western.

Brian: Oh... not so bad.

Narration: We only saw each other briefly last night.

[the bus is packed, they get separated, and each of them put earbuds in.  And the bus drives up the hill the campus]

Narration: unlike sex, school's always come easy to me.  This is gonna be a breeze.  And this bus, look at this.  Like a goddamn tin a soaked tuna or sardines or something on wheels.  What the fuck, get me outta here!  Ugh (frustration) how many more stops is it?  Who knows, we're not even on campus yet.

[Brian taps BB's shoulder, it's difficult.]

Brian: How many stops is it?

BB: (taking out here earbuds) Hmm?

Brian: How many more stops is it?

BB: Oh.  Like 4.  Or 5...?  You're going to the top of the hill right?

Brian: Mhmm.

Narration: Student life, I guess.  We're all trudging off to our respective knowledge.  So light in the air is all the tension.  It's only the first day.  This will only get worse.  More morose, more strained, more callous.  It'll be feverish at a few points I'm sure.  Sick with regret and procrastination.  But now... here, squeezed on all sides, it's still so light.  There's laughter here and there, but most everyone is listening to music.  It's the sign of our times.

BB: (turning back to face Brian) This is it.

Narration: Oh, and my stop's next, along with everyone else, go figure, top of the Hill.  Good time to pass gas.

(to be continued)

Just Give Love

These words I'm trying' to say now.
All I'm askin'
Just give love
A chance.

Goddammit I just wanna hear Charles Bradley.  You know what I mean?  It's one of those days, and jus the thought of it has a lump in my throat from I don't know what.

Repressed feelings.

Nostalgia.

It's a looking back kind of day.

And the fear is in the air.  The chill.  The swearing.

Stop trying to write about yourself.  Just write something.  Something in the now.  Something that feels like Charles Bradley.

Dear Journal

It's been a while, dear journal.  Hasn't it.  My punctuation's rusty.  My hand's shaky so that the letterforms are wild and a little all over the place.  And the lead in my pencil keeps slipping.  I can just vaguely, just barely, recollect the last time I'd been writing in Holy Guacamole.  It brings me back, and on this day under the weather, I'd forgotten the utility of a good old-fashioned Mexican sweat.  The feeling's coming back though.  I'm pleasantly anxious for the future.  With wide sweaty eyes.  I love it.

The Glow

Drip

The drip's hit, it has.
There's a pressure just below the skin of my brow and the squeeze is coming.  and the hum of the fridge is growing in prominence from behind me.

The drip's hit.

It's the acid from a week ago.  The cocaine.  The melodrama.  The fuck-all.
It's perseverance.

It's life on a Lazy Susan.