InSom(eone)(Californ)nia
I got insomnia last night.
"This is novel," I thought, since I usually have something quite the opposite of insomnia, a condition where I tend to fall asleep under a variety of inappropriate circumstances, such as Church, Class, Class While Sitting Directly Next To The Professor Upright In A Wooden Chair With No Arms, and In The Car. This was how I found out I could actually drive while sleeping, a feat I consider to be proven true by the fact that I am not dead yet.
Lindsey, whom I have grown accustomed to sleeping next to for the past month, was in Anaheim last night discussing with my former big-brother figure how he and I weren't friends anymore because we are probably both crazy. I wondered vaguely if I couldn't sleep because Lindsey wasn't there beside me, and if that was the case, perhaps I should just go ahead and take advantage of California's liberal definition of marriage and make it official.
I got up. I watched the "Making of Thriller" in five parts on YouTube and the extended (heretofore undiscovered by me!) version of Bad, which, for indiscernible reasons, was directed by Martin Scorsese.
I wondered how Michael Jackson roped famous directors like Scorsese and Coppola into creating music videos that revolved mostly around him in a fabulous suit grabbing his crotch and running down boyish, unwilling women. In The Making of Thriller, John Landis describes the phone call he got.
"Hey this is Michael Jackson. You know my song Thriller?"
Landis said he said he did, but he actually didn't at the time and had to ask his wife.
Jackson invited Landis to make the film.
Landis said something about not doing music videos.
Jackson said he wanted to do something more ambitious and that he was impressed by American Werewolf in London.
Landis asked Jackson if he had seen anything else he did. Animal House, Blues Brothers.
Jackson said no, and seemed completely unconcerned by this.
Really, neither of them had that much awareness of the other's body of work.
Jackson mostly wanted to wear the werewolf makeup, and said so.
And this is how we get things.
Lindsey got home. I tried to sleep again. She described to me how my old big brother figure and I were "not cool and maybe you should call him." I said I had already done that once and wasn't making that call again. I thought about placing unsolicited phone calls to famous directors. I wonder how much in the world gets done simply by someone growing balls and placing phone calls? A lot, really.
You can get a lot just by asking.
Lindsey fell asleep. I thought "good, Lindsey is here now, and I will fall asleep."
Thirty minutes later I got up and decided I might as well write my screenplay. I looked at my blank screen for a little bit and realized that I will probably never be able to organize information that way. I thought it was sad, because I was really good at making up trailers for my movies in my head. Great, enticing, captivating trailers that encapsulate the entire film just enough to intrigue you and leave you salivating for more. For movies that didn't exist.
"This is why you call famous directors," I thought with certainty, and switched to drawing. I doodled a dancing Michael Jackson.
After an hour of fiddling it occured to me I could work on my actual project I'm doing with Kel and for school, a cute vigniette of a comic story called Strange Someone. It spins off of her fairly popular Sorcery 101 series.
The main character is, incidentally, a werewolf.
"Raar," I thought, "Snort, riff."
I ate some chips. I still felt very awake. Outside, a black man rapped. I assumed he was black.
Maybe I am a racist, I thought. But I was sure he was black. I hoped he was also dancing, maybe in a red leather jacket.
I drew out another page of the Strange Someone script in blueline and felt somewhat accomplished. I wasn't getting sleepy and now it was 4am. Drat and dag, I thought. I remembered setting my phone alarm around midnight for 7:30 am, thinking I was going to sleep, there, at midnight. Boy, I sure didn't know what I was going to surprise me with, did I? I really wanted to take a walk but I was in my pajamas, and though I wasn't tired I had the sneaking inkling that I was also no longer completely sane. Outside seemed like a dangerous place to be. With that man dancing outside.
Thriller, Thriller night. Nobody's gunna save you from the beast about to strike. Rapper outside your window.
I caved and decided to take something to fall asleep, It being the last bottle of Shiner in the fridge (the regular stuff; that Shiner Black that Gabe bought for Lindsey came from Texas and can't be replaced. It would be a dick move to drink that just to fall asleep.)
I realized it would take me a little while to drink the thing unless I wanted to chug it, and I don't believe in pills, so I drew Kel's homosexual werewolves a little more.
Gay Werewolves. In San Diego (California).
Close your eyes and hope that this is your imagination.
Dancing Black Man creeping up behind and you're outta time.
"This is novel," I thought, since I usually have something quite the opposite of insomnia, a condition where I tend to fall asleep under a variety of inappropriate circumstances, such as Church, Class, Class While Sitting Directly Next To The Professor Upright In A Wooden Chair With No Arms, and In The Car. This was how I found out I could actually drive while sleeping, a feat I consider to be proven true by the fact that I am not dead yet.
Lindsey, whom I have grown accustomed to sleeping next to for the past month, was in Anaheim last night discussing with my former big-brother figure how he and I weren't friends anymore because we are probably both crazy. I wondered vaguely if I couldn't sleep because Lindsey wasn't there beside me, and if that was the case, perhaps I should just go ahead and take advantage of California's liberal definition of marriage and make it official.
I got up. I watched the "Making of Thriller" in five parts on YouTube and the extended (heretofore undiscovered by me!) version of Bad, which, for indiscernible reasons, was directed by Martin Scorsese.
I wondered how Michael Jackson roped famous directors like Scorsese and Coppola into creating music videos that revolved mostly around him in a fabulous suit grabbing his crotch and running down boyish, unwilling women. In The Making of Thriller, John Landis describes the phone call he got.
"Hey this is Michael Jackson. You know my song Thriller?"
Landis said he said he did, but he actually didn't at the time and had to ask his wife.
Jackson invited Landis to make the film.
Landis said something about not doing music videos.
Jackson said he wanted to do something more ambitious and that he was impressed by American Werewolf in London.
Landis asked Jackson if he had seen anything else he did. Animal House, Blues Brothers.
Jackson said no, and seemed completely unconcerned by this.
Really, neither of them had that much awareness of the other's body of work.
Jackson mostly wanted to wear the werewolf makeup, and said so.
And this is how we get things.
Lindsey got home. I tried to sleep again. She described to me how my old big brother figure and I were "not cool and maybe you should call him." I said I had already done that once and wasn't making that call again. I thought about placing unsolicited phone calls to famous directors. I wonder how much in the world gets done simply by someone growing balls and placing phone calls? A lot, really.
You can get a lot just by asking.
Lindsey fell asleep. I thought "good, Lindsey is here now, and I will fall asleep."
Thirty minutes later I got up and decided I might as well write my screenplay. I looked at my blank screen for a little bit and realized that I will probably never be able to organize information that way. I thought it was sad, because I was really good at making up trailers for my movies in my head. Great, enticing, captivating trailers that encapsulate the entire film just enough to intrigue you and leave you salivating for more. For movies that didn't exist.
"This is why you call famous directors," I thought with certainty, and switched to drawing. I doodled a dancing Michael Jackson.
After an hour of fiddling it occured to me I could work on my actual project I'm doing with Kel and for school, a cute vigniette of a comic story called Strange Someone. It spins off of her fairly popular Sorcery 101 series.
The main character is, incidentally, a werewolf.
"Raar," I thought, "Snort, riff."
I ate some chips. I still felt very awake. Outside, a black man rapped. I assumed he was black.
Maybe I am a racist, I thought. But I was sure he was black. I hoped he was also dancing, maybe in a red leather jacket.
I drew out another page of the Strange Someone script in blueline and felt somewhat accomplished. I wasn't getting sleepy and now it was 4am. Drat and dag, I thought. I remembered setting my phone alarm around midnight for 7:30 am, thinking I was going to sleep, there, at midnight. Boy, I sure didn't know what I was going to surprise me with, did I? I really wanted to take a walk but I was in my pajamas, and though I wasn't tired I had the sneaking inkling that I was also no longer completely sane. Outside seemed like a dangerous place to be. With that man dancing outside.
Thriller, Thriller night. Nobody's gunna save you from the beast about to strike. Rapper outside your window.
I caved and decided to take something to fall asleep, It being the last bottle of Shiner in the fridge (the regular stuff; that Shiner Black that Gabe bought for Lindsey came from Texas and can't be replaced. It would be a dick move to drink that just to fall asleep.)
I realized it would take me a little while to drink the thing unless I wanted to chug it, and I don't believe in pills, so I drew Kel's homosexual werewolves a little more.
Gay Werewolves. In San Diego (California).
Close your eyes and hope that this is your imagination.
Dancing Black Man creeping up behind and you're outta time.