Don't touch my peaches...

vengeance is a dish best not served at all.

A series of stories.

Number 1:

In the Big Picture - Christopher Guest's first film - before all the improv genius of Waiting for Guffman or Best in Show - Kevin Bacon plays a young film school grad who wins the Student Academy Award. He falls on hard times - and has to take a job in a restaurant. At the interview - the owner is reading his resume...

"Ah. I see here you're a director. Our busboy Jimmy is also a director...."

Number 2:

A camera man friend of ours is off to the mall with a manager from his company. They are getting ready to go inside - and this is when I used to live in the South - the manager says-

"Better lock your doors. The Blacks'll steal your stereo..."

And which point the camera man replies-

"When you say Blacks... You mean Black like my wife?"

Number 3:

Shawn and I are in China. We are doing a mini-series for Chinese TV. We are stuck in the middle of production - a three month gig away from our families and all we hold dear - and things could not be going any worse. We are slowly being ground down to dust by the bureaucracy and nonsense of our Chinese partners. Shawn has been fighting with the Chinese producer - and eventually - I challenge the Production Manager to a fist fight outside.

Needless to say - things are not going so well.

We are in the middle of an all night shoot. We have just finished up the first half of the day and are getting ready for our 2 am lunch break. Shawn gets the brilliant idea of buying a couple beers to take to the producer and the PM. As we get in the elevator to ride up to the lunchroom - Shawn decides that he wants to put his "junk" inside the drinks.

While I am totally against this idea in everyday life - at the time, it really did seems like a genius move.

I guess you had to be there...

Cooler heads did prevail - and he didn't. But Shawn was suffering from a tuberculosis type cough - and he decided instead to hack and cough into each beer.

Let him who is without sin....

We walked into the lunchroom and went to present the glowing mugs to our favorite people - at which time, they told us they don't drink -

and handed the beers off to the lead of the show and to our best friend and Chinese counterpart Hogan. Both men promptly downed the drinks and both men promptly got desperately sick and almost halted production.


So what's the take home?

I have a friend who keeps a list of those who have wronged him. And he is like the Chinese - he has a very loooooong memory. Even if it takes years - he plots and plans. And then he strikes when no one knows he was even there.

Getting bitter and grumpy is the easy thing. Hell - we are writers - it's what we do. There are going to be so many undeserving people getting breaks. The producers mistress - the directors cousin... They don't know what they are doing and suddenly, they are a star. At the same time - there are so many people far more talented who are suffering in obscurity - and will never get the chances you have. Instead of bitching - be humbled. Every time a complaint comes out of my mouth - I try to think of the far more talented writers that I that I am getting a leg up on - not though talent of my own - but more through luck and persistence.

The very scary thing - is that Hollywood is an insular place. The assistant you meet today is tomorrows executive. And today's executive is tomorrows Starbuck's employee of the month. Top to Bottom and back to top.

There are going to be really rude people. People who say things and do things that break your heart. The very nature of this business is that people are insecure and they project that insecurity onto you. And as writers - we tend to place our own worth in the projects we write. It's very hard to separate ourselves from what we do.

But if we go back to my favorite analogy of the week:

This is a marathon. (Sorry Blair...) Those who pass you on the first mile - you will see again at mile 8. And everyone who has something to say today - might not be there tomorrow. You have to worry about you. Not the haters trying to bring you down - and not the ass kissers who want to ride you to the finish.

We compete to finish. We write to write some more. And letting others bring you down only wastes your time. It's hard to try to remain above it all - and you can insulate yourself so much that you don't enjoy the trip - and so competitive that you don't take time to help out those around you. It can be hard to remember that my con film isn't competing with your black jazz additct film or your southern magnolia or your man locked in a room with a computer movie... It's just not that one to one...

It gets easy to be caught up in the nonsense. To come up with reasons why that guy said that or did that. Bit it is a big waste of time and energy. I have too much to do myself - just trying to crank out my pages and keep focused.



But I swear - If that bastard thinks he can talk to me like that one more time and get away with it?

I'm gonna freaking steal his peaches!