Keith Snyder

Oops

keith@woollymammoth.com — Mon, 12 May 08 20:48:00 UT

My superterrific spam solution superterrifically prevented me from receiving the notices that my domain autorenewals had failed. Woollymammoth.com is down until I get all kinds of paperwork to Network Solutions.

If you need to reach me, you probably already have another way of doing it. If not, leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

Weekends are even more exhausting than the work week, but they have their moments. Here's how I spent Saturday morning.

You know how some people, you'd skip front-row-center tickets to Jesus and Gandhi's one-time-only return appearance because you can't stand the company, and others you'd jump at the chance to go to the shoe store with them?

We went to the shoe store.

More stuff

keith@woollymammoth.com — Fri, 2 May 08 20:22:00 UT

This isn't long enough to post, but it's got a Galactica reference or two, and it's on tonight, so if I don't hit POST I'll have to wait a week.

That's not a glitch. It's the bike path from the Hudson up to our apartment building.
If you ever get a really bad review, just come back and click on this and you'll feel better.
Galactica tonight!
If you put an exclamation point after Galactica! it's the musical version.
Five Boro BIke Ride this Sunday!
I've decided my definitive characterization of absinthe is "a rococo concoction of anise, with a delicately unpalatable herb finish and just a whisper of armpit."
Junmai ginjo sake is a good thing.
But I'm still buying more Scotch.
And you?

Stuff

keith@woollymammoth.com — Fri, 25 Apr 08 07:17:00 UT

I have no more Hediard Caramel Tea. Who's going to Paris?
I'm glad I lived long enough to hear
Bruce Hornsby and Ricky Skaggs covering Super Freak
Usually I don't have much use for the foofy food samples they get in all the time at my foofy food association day job, but today (okay, yesterday, since I took a day to post this) I've got a small plate of this, a very good unidentified blue cheese and a glop of this, which all goes well with a cup of this, which does not appear in my tea poll because I just got my new Harney's shipment, which (as always) someone sliced open because someone assumed it was intended as samples for the foofy food magazine.
And anyway, I just replaced the tea poll with that spiffy iTunes thing over there on the left.
Speaking of iTunes, you can't get a good version of "New York, New York" there for less than $44.
The Office of Government Commerce has a new logo.
Can't update you on movie stuff, but there's movie stuff.
Galactica tonight! Did the end of last week's episode make up for some clunky stuff in the first 2/3, or what?
I'm most of the way through CURVEBALL: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War, and I'd like to see everybody from George Tenet on up through George Bush executed.
I've been a single parent since yesterday. Instead of going straight home after preschool, we had dinner at some random place

and then went up to a Barnes & Noble on 5th Ave. for Thomas the Tank Engine toys. They didn't have any, so we got Thomas the Tank Engine books instead.

The canny parent does not tell a child what is going to happen until it has already happened. No one cared that I'd actually intended to get Thomas toys.

This is Mac's Goldfish-eating pose:

We don't know why he does this, but he thinks it's funny when I do it too.

Efficient construction of the organic, unexpected, and inevitable ending

keith@woollymammoth.com — Mon, 31 Mar 08 10:13:00 UT

AT THE DINNER TABLE, ON WHICH THERE IS NO MACARONI AND CHEESE

                      MOMMY
                  (to Grandma)
            I'm not a very good cook, but I've learned 
            how to make macaroni and cheese.
 

                      DADDY
                   (irritably)
            Don't say that phrase while this one
                   (indicates macaroni-and-
                   cheese-loving child seated 
                   to his right)
            is present.
 

                       OTHER CHILD, SEATED TO DADDY'S LEFT
            PRESENTS!!

The kind of trivia blogs are good for

keith@woollymammoth.com — Thu, 20 Mar 08 20:18:00 UT

Here's a PDF of what I threw together in a free moment and pinned over my desk yesterday. I'll put the translation in the comments.

SJ is conducting another two-week writing workshop in Italy. Go sign up.

33,000 words has been eluding me for the last week. I'll get there later tonight.

I've been reading again. Zadie Smith is talented but she frustrates me, and her Americans aren't. Jonathan Lethem is talented and he frustrates me, but I'm only eight pages in.

I really wanted to like Absinthe (Bohemia! Ritual! Hemingway! Wilde!) but herby licorice makes me make involuntary faces. Lucid gets one more chance, and then it's back to martinis and single malts.

The sound mix at the beginning of CARS is brilliant.

So are the human-voice sound effects in THE JUNGLE BOOK. (When Baloo gets hit in the face with a paw-paw, the sound effect is just somebody saying "Doink!")

Rachel sent me this link.

And this came via Reverendmother.

And this came from clicking around after that.

Yesterday morning I went into the boys' room when it was still dark, and said the name of the one who wasn't sleeping on the couch, and this very reasonable little voice said, "Yeah... I think I sleeping."

The other one marches in time to music from my iPod. Before he eventually loses the beat completely, his accuracy is within 20ms. He can do the same thing with the attacks in rubato classical music that he knows well.

I have to stop this now or I won't make my 33,000.

And you?

Reflections on the/buildings across the river/iPod on shuffle

keith@woollymammoth.com — Fri, 7 Mar 08 10:14:00 UT

Peach that thinks it's fire
River darker than buildings
Grin, pedal, let's go

Dust that thinks it's pink
River and buildings water
The sky holds its breath

Smoke that thinks it's blood
Buildings darker than river
Ghost likes to travel

I think maybe Snyder is crazy

keith@woollymammoth.com — Tue, 4 Mar 08 11:55:00 UT

I was at a Starbucks near my day gig, just finishing up sort of not-crying in a manly kind of way at the ending of Carmac McCarthy's THE ROAD, when my Treo's email popped up a Google alert for a great set of reviews at The Ãber-Indie Project:

...both funny and serious, all the while telling a coherent, logical, and utterly absurd story within the confines of a fourteen minute musical. Think, for a minute, about what that entails. It's one thing to try and do a surreal musical dramedy, but to have it work, and work so well on a small budget....well....that's just crazy.

And I think maybe Snyder is crazy. He'd almost have to be. But, it's the kind of insanity we need more of in indie cinema. In short, we need more filmmakers like Keith Snyder.

I'm thinking of using the title of this post as the pullquote.

If you clicked here from the Ãber-Indie Project, welcome. Blog entries about the production of I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN have "ILY:" in their titles. You can either read them scattered among my other blog entries, or see most of them in one place at the film blog linked here. There are also storyboards, costume sketches, pre-viz videos, trailers, and I forget what else.

Why plot matters

keith@woollymammoth.com — Fri, 22 Feb 08 20:36:00 UT

Would you rather be stuck in an elevator with the guy who tells funny stories about what happened to him at the bank, or the one who describes it in exquisite detail?

Young politician fares better with newly pervasive technology

keith@woollymammoth.com — Thu, 21 Feb 08 19:49:00 UT

Clinton video via Matthew McKibben
Obama video via wife.

ILY: One last thought

keith@woollymammoth.com — Tue, 19 Feb 08 08:37:00 UT

I'm not sure anyone cares, but I'm too anal-retentive not to say:

This blog entry contains spoilers for both I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN and CUPID AND PSYCHE.

In June of 2005, I blogged about a short film I hadn't made yet:

When we're done, we'll have a new film to send to festivals--and we'll also have an addition to our investors' presentation for CUPID & PSYCHE.

That all sounds very career-oriented, but beyond all of it, the fundamental motivation is don't wait to get paid before you do the things you love. I decided three years ago to make screen musicals. Wrote a long one, made a short one, here goes another.

If we couldn't get there the easy way, we'll get there the hard way.

Now that I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN has accomplished all three of these things--it had an excellent festival run, it got me into my current relationship with John Craddock, who's now producing CUPID & PSYCHE, and we didn't wait to get paid and did something we love--I want to explain the one thing about it that bugs me.

Not the kind of bugging that falls into the "things I could have done better" category. Catch me when I'm feeling good about a project and name any of my previous ones--books, stories, films, music, children, spouse, basic human decency and compassion--and I can tell you what I should have done better on those. The thing that bugs me about ILY (and since I'm drawing this introduction out, give me a moment to reassure Larry: It's not you, Larry) is at its core. It can't be altered.

I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN is a musical number from CUPID & PSYCHE. In that longer story, there are these two thugs, and they need to find an object--let's just say it's a Maguffin--that a husband has managed to let slip out of his grasp. He hid it in one of his wife's possessions--let's just say her purse--and although she doesn't know she's got a Maguffin in her purse, she's very angry with him and won't tell him where the purse is.

If he doesn't get the Maguffin back for the thugs, he's dead.

But she keeps hanging up on him. So the thugs, realizing this guy's a moron, coach him through how to be a manipulative SOB and tell his wife what she wants to hear, and eventually he gets her to reveal the location of the purse. The thugs go after the Maguffin, and the husband continues along his trajectory in the overall story.

The coaching is the subject of the musical number, "I love you," "I'm sorry," and "I'll never do it again" being the three things the husband is taught to repeat over and over until she softens, forgives him, and tells him where the purse is.

In order to get the short film made as quickly as possible (which turned out to be two years), I had to take into account what my existing assets were. One existing asset was that I'd already written several musical numbers for the feature. If I could lift one out of context and make it a standalone little film, that would get us there faster.

There were three numbers I felt were ready for that--but I had concerns about each. YOU'RE GONNA DIE would require too many CGI effects, and we wouldn't have the budget. LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER wouldn't make sense out of context, and marked a shift in a character's mental and emotional state rather than pivoting the mechanics of plot.

And I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN was a cynical little bit, in which no one behaved well.

CUPID & PSYCHE is warm, funny, and idealistic. A woman leaves her SOB husband and pursues her dream of becoming an opera diva. It's about art, love, risk... stuff like that. The thugs and the Maguffin are a subplot.

Unless you lift them out of context and make them the whole story. Which I did. The Maguffin became a packet of money. The purse disappeared entirely. The wife knows what she's taken. And at the end, when the husband can't come up with the money, they shoot him.

I just didn't see any other way it could go. The thugs can't just pocket their guns and say "Well, okay. You don't have to pay us back." (And I still don't see any other way it could have gone. That ending is true to that story. It has dramatic integrity.)

So here's the tradeoff I accepted:

Positive: We'll have a new short film, expanding on the screen-musical techniques I came up with for CREDO. It'll star the people I want to continue working with, show investors and producers what I'm capable of, and do what Kim Adelman suggests in THE ULTIMATE FILMMAKER'S GUIDE TO SHORT FILMS, which I came back to several times during this whole process: Make a short that's like the features you want to make. And we don't have to delay another month, two months, three months, while I figure out a new story and write a new musical number. (Yes, that's a lot of time for writing a new story and musical number. Remember, I had six-month-old twins at the time. It could conceivably have gone one year, two years, three years, never.)

Negative: It's unlike the feature I'm trying to make in one key way: It doesn't have the same tone. And it's a little long to be optimally strategic for festival success.

On the first count: Close enough.

On the second count: Festival success is not the primary goal. Getting CUPID & PSYCHE made is.

Tradeoffs accepted. We moved forward.

It got made, it got into festivals, it (in combination with CREDO) got Craddock interested--and he made a point of saying it was smart to structure the project like a feature so I could have more hands-on experience with that, despite it costing more. I hired more than 50 people on ILY, and don't regret it in the slightest. I could have had the same festival success with fewer--CREDO, for example, cost a tenth as much and used a tenth the personnel, and it got into the same number of festivals and won more awards--but I wouldn't have been able to show success in heading up an organizational hierarchy that looks like a feature writ small, not just like a short shot on a shoestring.

And I love the end result. Everybody was amazing--and after what has to be 500 viewings, I still crack up when Larry, dressed as a thug dressed as Lizzie Borden, takes a bucket of blood from offscreen. (And here's some trivia: That was our only white blouse. It was one take or nothing. Props to David Henderson and Havi Elkaim for extreme talent in blood tossing, and props to everyone else who was on set for managing to stifle their laughter at Larry's performance. Many eyes went wide and hands got clapped over mouths, mine included.)

It's all wonderful. (And a second or so of the Lizzie Borden shot is at the end of the trailer.)

But that cynicism...

I figure enough people have seen it now that this doesn't ruin it for anyone. If you've seen it and this bugged you... yeah, it bugs me too. But it was so fully outweighed by everything else that it was a worthwhile compromise to make. And there might not be any film to talk about at all if I hadn't moved when I did.

But I at least wanted to tell you about it.

Into Stone

keith@woollymammoth.com — Tue, 12 Feb 08 17:09:00 UT

About two years ago, Paul Guyot pulled a short-story contest out of his ass and a bunch of people entered it.

(And before you write me about that sentence, you should know I already sent it to Guyot, in an email with the subject line "The nonspecificity of 'it'.")

The only rule was that the story had to include an armored car and a piece of children's clothing. A year into twin-fatherhood, whacked out on sleep deprivation, watching my previous publications recede, and steadily increasing my alcohol intake (that stuff really works as a numbing agent), I lunged after the questionable motivation of wanting to impress Paul and somehow wrote a draft.

When the contest deadline came, the draft wasn't good enough to put my name on, so I didn't send it to him. It sat. I tinkered. I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN got shot, edited, and submitted to film festivals. Mac and Butch turned two. DEAD GRAY came out in Ellery Queen's.

I sent ARMORED a couple of places. They sent it back with praise for the writing and didn't seem to get the main thing I was trying to do. (If novels are operas, short stories can be any of several things, but this one's an etude.) I worked some more on the thing they weren't getting and bounced it off readers until one of them got it.

Somewhere in there, Bryon Quertermous commented on a blog entry about a werewolf at Starbucks and invited me to submit stories to DEMOLITION. So I did. He had a few notes. They made sense, so I took another pass at it and changed the title.

Short-story magazines don't afford you an acknowledgments page like books do, so: Thanks to Ava Larkin, SJ Rozan, Paul Guyot, Laura Bradford, Kathleen, Lori, D. P. Lyle, and if you helped me and your name's not here, cut me some memory-damaged twin-daddy slack and let me know to add it.

Mac and Butch have turned three. INTO STONE is now up in The Winter '08 issue of DEMOLITION.

And a reminder

If you're in Syracuse, don't forget--that screening at Funk-N-Waffles is tonight!

Love and waffles

keith@woollymammoth.com — Thu, 7 Feb 08 05:14:00 UT

I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN will screen as part of the Syracuse Film Festival's "Films of Love" special event, February 12 at Funk-N-Waffles. From their email:

"Films of Love" at Funk-n-Waffles

Come to Funk-n-Waffles, on Tuesday, February 12 for an evening of films centered around the theme of love. Door opens at 7:30, films presented beginning at 8:00. Food and drinks will be available for purchase, film screening is free. Films being shown:

I Love You, I'm Sorry, and I'll Never Do It Again

The Wishing Well

Lift

Photograbber

I saw LIFT--which stars Dominique Pinon, who I'll watch in anything--and it's highly recommended.

And a side note to parents: A GRAND DAY OUT, the first Grollace and Wallet short film--sorry, I meant Grommace and Wommet--is good for three-year-olds. There's one instance of near-head-bonking, and a robot is sad for a few moments, but it that's the extent of the bad stuff.

A few hours in New York

keith@woollymammoth.com — Sat, 2 Feb 08 23:57:00 UT

                                                               FADE IN:

EXT. WASHINGTON HEIGHTS APARTMENT BUILDING - DAY

There's movement through the dirty windows of the front door.

                             THREE-YEAR-OLD (V.O.)
                   Macky's turn! It's Macky's turn!

                             MAN  (V.O.)
                   No, I think it's Butchie's turn.

                             ANOTHER THREE-YEAR-OLD  (V.O.)
                   Push da button!

                             MAN  (V.O.)
                   Can you do it?

SFX: Security buzzer.

                             MAN  (V.O.)
                   Good job!

                             THREE-YEAR-OLD  (V.O.)
                   You did it, Butchie! You did it!

In one obviously much-practiced gesture, DADDY (40ish, tired,
unshaven) swings the door open, levers a double stroller down
the front steps, and says:

                             DADDY
                   What's that!

The three-year-olds are MAC (elfin, blond, coming down with
yet another cold) and BUTCH (a future linebacker, slightly
less blond than his brother).

                             MAC AND BUTCH
                   Da Geodge Washygton Bwidge!

                             DADDY
                   Very good! Who wants to be cozy?

                             MAC
                   Cozy!

                             DADDY
                   Okay!
                       (tucks a ducky blanket
                        around them)
                   Let's go!

EXT. 175TH ST. "A" TRAIN STATION - DAY

They approach a street-level elevator.

                             BUTCH
                   Less go da steegy egabato!

                             DADDY
                   You want the stinky elevator?

                             BUTCH
                   Steegy egabato!

                             DADDY
                   Okay! Let's go on the stinky
                   elevator!

                             MAC
                   No preschool! No preschool!

                             DADDY
                   Today is Saturday. There's no
                   preschool on Saturday.

                             MAC
                       (satisfied)
                   No preschool da Satuday.

INT DOWNTOWN "A" TRAIN

The stroller faces DADDY, who's sitting near the door. MAC
and BUTCH are holding sippy cups.

                             DADDY
                   What train is this?

                             BUTCH
                   Da "A" Twain.

                             DADDY
                   That's right, it's the "A" Train. 
                   Who wants to sing the "A" Train
                   song?

                             MAC
                   "A" Train Song!

                             BUTCH
                   "A" Twain Song!

                             DADDY
                   Okay. You ready?

                             MAC
                   Ready!

                             BUTCH
                   Weddy!

                             DADDY
                       (singing)
                   You...can take the--

                             MAC AND BUTCH
                       (gleeful)
                   B TRAIN!

                             DADDY
                       (much tickling)
                   No, not the B Train! It's the A
                   Train! It's the A Train!
                       (singing)
                   All...the way to Sugar Hill in
                   Harlem. If...you miss the--

                             MAC AND BUTCH
                       (gleeful)
                   B TRAIN!

                             DADDY
                       (more tickling)
                   No, it's not the B Train! It's not
                   the B Train! It's the A Train!
                       (singing)
                   You... have missed the quickest way
                   to--?

                             BUTCH
                       (unintelligible)

                             MAC
                   Haddam.

                             DADDY
                   Very good. Drink your orange juice.

EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY

A few dozen people are clumped near 59th Street. A few have
professional-quality video cameras on their shoulders. Either
it's a political rally or the local birders have found
another Scott's Oriole.

                             DADDY
                   Let's go see!

 They go see. It's a Women for Obama rally.

                             DADDY
                   Let's go look at horses!

EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY

                             DADDY
                   That's a brown horse pulling a
                   white carriage with white wheels.
                   That's a brown horse pulling a
                   black carriage with black wheels.
                   That's a white horse pulling a
                   white carriage with red wheels.
                   That's a brown horse pulling a
                   white carriage.

                             MAC
                   Da white wheels.

                             DADDY
                   That's right, very good. The wheels
                   are white. Do you see another
                   carriage? Do you see the inside?
                   The color inside is red.

                             MAC
                   No, it's a white carriage.

                             DADDY
                   Yes, it's a white carriage, but the
                   inside is red. Do you see the red?

                             MAC
                   No, it's a white carriage.

                             DADDY
                   Yes, the outside is white. The
                   inside is red.

                             MAC
                   No, it's a white carriage.

                             DADDY
                   Butchie, do you see the carriage?
                   What color do you see? Butchie,
                   what color do you see? Butchie? Do
                   you see a carriage? What color is
                   it? Butchie? Do you see a carriage?
                   What color is it? What color do you
                   see?

                             BUTCH
                   Horsey!

EXT. CENTRAL PARK PLAYGROUND - DAY

Unlike last time, when DADDY thought 20Â° was a good
temperature for playing outside, there are one or two other
families here. The main attraction is the 40'-long stone
slide.

 SERIES OF SHOTS:

- MAC and BUTCH hiking up the mud path and sliding down

- BUTCH making a left instead of a right and leaving the
  slide area, running full tilt.

                             MAC
                   Wait! Wait! We got to get the big
                   slide! Wait, Butchie, wait!
                   Butchie, come back here!

- BUTCH running full-tilt in no particular direction.

- MAC falling on his face as he climbs around on the log
  edging.

DADDY helps him up. Mac's lip is a little abraded, and it
mixes with what's coming out of his nose.

                             MAC
                       (crying)
                   I hurt my face! Daddy I hurt my
                   face!

                             DADDY
                   Yes, you hurt your face. You fell
                   down.

                             MAC
                   Yes.

                             BUTCH
                       (grabbing Daddy's hand)
                   Come on, Daddy! Wet's go!

                             DADDY
                   Butchie, I'm helping Mac right now.

                             BUTCH
                       (pulling)
                   Come on, Daddy! Wet's go!

                             DADDY
                   Hold on, Butchie. Macky, do you
                   want to play some more?

                             MAN
                   No, I want to eat Cheerios.

- MAC sitting on steps, eating Cheerios

                             MAC
                       (eating Cheerios from a
                        Ziploc bag)
                   Num. Num num num. Num num num num
                   num. Num num! Num! Num num! Num
                   NUM! Num NUM NUM NUM! NUM NUM NUM!
                   NUM NUM NUM NUM NUM!

- BUTCH running full-tilt in no particular direction.

- MAC and BUTCH jumping up and down on the little chain
suspension bridges.

- MAC walking all the way around the lip of a raised seating
area. Two million times.

- BUTCH running full-tilt in no particular direction



EXT. 6TH AVENUE IN THE 40S - DAY

DADDY pushes MAC and BUTCH in the stroller. They're walking
all the way down to 34th Street because Daddy doesn't want to
deal with the stairs at 59th.

                             DADDY
                   Who's that? Do you see that? Who is
                   it?

Half a block ahead is ELMO.

Or anyway, someone dressed as Elmo, which--Elmo not actually
being a real person in the first place, is as real as Elmo
gets.

                             MAC AND BUTCH 
                       (beam delightedly but say
                        nothing)

                             ELMO
                       (makes some weird high
                        pitched sounds)

                             DADDY
                   Bye-bye, Elmo!

AT 42ND STREET

Both boys are asleep. Planning on buying Mommy a little more
time, Daddy bumps the stroller up the steps to the WichCraft
 kiosk, orders cappuccino and a brownie, and waits.

                             PRETTY ASIAN REPORTER
                   Hello, we are doing a story for
                   Shanghai television on the coffee
                   culture here in New York. Do you
                   think we could talk to you?

                             DADDY
                   Sure.

                             PRETTY ASIAN REPORTER
                   Yes? Good, thank you.

The news crew positions Daddy.

                             CAMERAMAN
                   Tilt the cap up, if you would.

Daddy tilts his cap up. The interview starts.

                             PRETTY ASIAN REPORTER
                   Pleae tell us, do you drink a lot
                   of coffee?

                             DADDY
                   Actually, no. I drink mostly tea.

                             PRETTY ASIAN REPORTER
                       (eyes widening in
                        surprise)
                   You drink a lot of tea? Why?

                             DADDY
                   Well, I'm the father of three-year
                   old twins, and I need as much
                   caffeine as I can get.

                             PRETTY ASIAN REPORTER
                   And tea has more caffeine than
                   coffee?

                             DADDY
                   The way I make it? Yeah.

                             PRETTY ASIAN REPORTER
                   So you don't like coffee?

                             DADDY
                   Well, I'm a writer, so I like
                   coffeehouses, because I can sit in
                   them and write, but coffee... it's
                   fine.

                             PRETTY ASIAN REPORTER
                   Do you have a favorite flavor of
                   coffee?

                             DADDY
                   Do they make tea-flavored coffee?

INT UPTOWN "B" TRAIN

                             CONDUCTOR
                       (over PA system)
                   59th Street, Columbus Circle.

It's a packed train. A THUGGY FAMILY (father, mother, baby 
in stroller) rise as the train slows. DADDY and the double
stroller of sleeping boys are between that family and the 
subway door.

                             THUGGY FATHER
                   Strolla heah!

                             DADDY
                   You getting off?

                             THUGGY FATHER
                   Yeah.

INT 59TH STREET STATION

When the train doors open, Daddy backs the double stroller
between masses of people onto the platform. The Thuggy 
family exits.

The doors close, leaving Daddy, Mac, and Butch still on the
platform. Daddy just shakes his head.

                             THUGGY FATHER
                   He close the door on you?

                             DADDY
                   Yeah.

                             THUGGY FATHER
                       (top of his lungs at the
                        conductor)
                   HEY, STROLLA HEAH!

The doors open.
                             DADDY
                       (wheeling in)
                   Thanks.

                             THUGGY FATHER
                   Yeah.
                       (top of his lungs at the
                        conductor)
                   FUCKIN' RETARD!

INT 145TH ST. STATION

DADDY disembarks with the stroller. MAC and BUTCH are still
sleeping. There's no elevator here. He looks up the stairs.

DADDY'S POV

Four flights of stairs, going waaaay up.

He blows air out his cheeks and sets to hauling 150 pounds up
the stairs. Halfway to the first landing, he glances down at
the platform, where a model-beautiful woman, obviously made
up to impress someone, is looking uncertainly up at him.

                             WOMAN
                   Would you like help with that?

                             DADDY
                   No, that's all right, thanks. I do
                   this all the time.

                             WOMAN
                   Are you sure?

                             DADDY
                   Yes, really, thanks.

                             WOMAN
                       (hesitates, then goes up)
                   Let me help you with that.

         She lifts the bottom of the stroller.

                             DADDY
                   Are you sure about that?

From her face... no she's not. But at the landing, three
YOUNG MEN take over. At the top of the second flight, they
pause on a different platform.

                             DADDY
                   Thanks very much.

                             YOUNG MAN
                   You going all the way up?

                             DADDY
                       (looking around)
                   We're going to the "A" Train.

                             YOUNG MAN
                       (relieved)
                   That's right here.

INT APARTMENT - DAY

MAC and BUTCH sleep in their stroller.

                                                   FADE TO BLACK.

The end credits roll.
                                                         FADE IN:

INT APARTMENT - NIGHT

Nine square feet of wooden floor are covered in black
permanent marker scribbles.

                             MAC
                   Daddy, I draw da floor!

                                                   FADE TO BLACK.

More market-targeted stuff at my extremely focused and on-topic writer blog

keith@woollymammoth.com — Wed, 30 Jan 08 14:22:00 UT

I have Google Alerts set up for all my film titles. The other day I got one for this, which lists Sell in Hell (the short film before Credo and I Love You, I'm Sorry, And I'll Never Do It Again) as one of the reasons you should go get your buzz at Caffeine, a coffeehouse in Marmora, New Jersey.

I sent the page owner a message, saying I'm not upset, but asking how they were watching it, since we haven't offered it for sale. I got a message back saying she'd just bought the place, and it came with 700 movies, and the local kids said that was the best one and came in to watch it a lot. She said if it was illegal, she'd stop showing it.

I said it's only illegal if you don't have permission, and hereby granted it.

I'm still curious how they're watching it, since not that many DVDs ever existed. With only a few exceptions, Sell in Hell was on the festival circuit when festivals still wanted VHS.

Ethics issues aside, it's kinda cool that when you just send something out into the world without expecting who it's going to meet, settle down with, or bring home, it turns into the favorite short film of a bunch of coffeehouse kids in Marmora, New Jersey.

Kissing and cuddling Butchie is more effective than yelling at getting him to STAY IN THE *$&%^*$ BED!, and is more pleasant for both parties, but it would seem to reward negative behavior. However, since Butchie spends much of his time absent from the planet, and possibly isn't aware of what his body does while he's traveling, all I'm doing is being a mean Daddy who suddenly yells at him for no reason. So it's not actually a reward, since he has no memory of the negative behavior that led him to be on (oh my goodness, how'd I get here!?) the floor, in the hall, draped over the doorjamb, in the toy box, in his brother's bed, again... and again... and again... and again...
We haven't had a single day in which at least two of us weren't sick and sleepless since late December, 2007.
We get little report sheets at the end of each day of preschool. Along with checkboxes for "My Mood" (Happy, Inquisitive, Tired, Talkative, Active, and the dreaded Other), there are little reports.
Butch enjoyed playing with the hula hoop in the playroom today. He also listened to Miss Christina read "Cinderella."

We've noticed, though, that these little reports don't tell the whole story.
Today Butch enjoyed not listening to us and marching around the room like the elephants in the Jungle Book DVD you obviously let him watch way too much. He also enjoyed yelling at the top of his lungs and coloring his nose green with markers.
Honest, this was a nicely pressed shirt before we left for preschool.
You may think I'm ignoring the tea poll, but I haven't been at the office. Hence no tea breaks. However, I start a writing-friendly noon-to-five day gig schedule next week, so it'll be back in heavy use—and my only excuse for not writing will be sleep deprivation. Or possibly movie-musical production, but seeing as novel-writing is my excuse for not composing, that one's OK.

Back within striking distance of the living

keith@woollymammoth.com — Mon, 21 Jan 08 21:28:00 UT

I thought it was an MS exacerbation, but it turned out to be illness, exhaustion, and dehydration. And that's all I'm saying about the culmination of the last three weeks.

John and Dave, you got it: The two people I know who appeared in that episode of THE WIRE are Peter Linari and Laura Lippman. Not having HBO, I haven't actually seen it yet, but I'll get there. Send me your mailing addresses.

After being ejected from the house tonight during what's usually my watch, I wandered around for a while, bought a notebook at Rite Aid for no clear purpose, and tried to find someplace to eat dinner, but none of the local joints seemed conducive to getting anything done on the novel I vaguely remember having been... what's the word... griting... smiting... writing! That's it.

I know that when I go from sub-freezing cold into a restaurant with background noise and/or candles, and eat carbohydrates, I can't think. I eventually gave up on thinking and went to a coffeehouse for a cappuccino and a slab of cheesecake, and remembered I used to have this system for working on that thing that means what happens in a novel, what's it called... schmot...blot... Oh, I don't know, but it's just me asking obvious questions at the top of a page and then answering them as many ways as I can, with bullets, down the page, and eventually circling one that doesn't smell like socks. Which I did, and which led me to the rediscovery of the most important question a writer can ask about a schmot:

Which led me to an answer, and now I know why the entire center section of the story exists.

Which is not an exaggeration. A full decade's worth of people had this whole thing going for no reason I could tell.

Sometimes I think my entire process is set up just so I can go "Well, that's stupid. I could do better than that."