Monday, June 25, 2007

Where to Go From Here

So, since this day has been filled with all kinds of things to distract me, I haven't thought about my current story - convinent since it has since stalled on me (or I have stalled on it). But regardless of blame, there are always items that take you away from the craft.

For instince:The Supreme Court in all of its socially conservative wisdom ruled against a former Alaskan high school student who displayed a 14-foot-long banner that read,"Bong Hits 4 Jesus," stating that schools may prohibit the free expression of students if their message advocated drug use. However, the shout out to the King of Kings did get the kid some bonus points in the eyes of the Prince of Darkness...er, I mean Jusice Scalia.



In another injustice to freedom of expression, though this may have some merit since the writer was an idiot to sign contracts with her ficitional personality's name, a New York jury found Laura Albert, a.k.a. J.T. Leroy, guilty of frauding a movie production company. OK, the obvious reason she lost this case was the fact that she signed a legal contract with a fictional name! Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. However, the fact that the production company brought the suit proves that they were more interested in the life of the writer than in the novel. Albert published fiction - it was shelved under fiction - she never labeled it non-fiction or straight out memoir. The story behind how it was written and why was not what the movie company was buying - they bought the film rights to the novel Sarah, not the film rights to J.T. Leroy's life. Granted, the fictional story behind the story was that it was supposedly based on real life events in Leroy's life, but again, the rights to Leroy's life were not what the company bought. If Albert had signed the contract with her own name, this case shouldn't have had any merit, but she's a fucking fruit cake with too many nuts.



Today is also the 25th anniversary of Blade Runner. I remember reading the young adult novelization, a book that film studios would never be able to get away with today - a book based on an R-rated movie, targeted for those ages 8 to 13. Wow, there sure was a lot in that book that I didn't understand, which made watching the movie over and over again in its various forms (I think there have been four or five cuts of the movie, with another one coming out later this year) such a treat. Since first seeing the movie in 1982, I have read Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which only heightened my fascination with the story. (Deckard is a robot?!? What the hell does the unicorn mean?) So, I'll have to drag out the DVD sometime this week and watch it, much like I re-watched Star Wars last month for its 30th anniversary.



I also managed to zero out my office budget for the fiscal year to within $100. The added cushion is in case something gets charged in the next few days that shouldn't be. I have to tell you that I am very proud of myself since I couldn't read the damn ledger a month ago - but now I am the master of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So, as you can see I've been way too busy to think about my story. It's not like I'm a replicant, I'm not "more human than human." It's just that when I get stuck on something, I can get easily distracted. Now, where was I?

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