That poor little
guy trying to climb the mountain. This will be the 4th
year he's been bumped and yet he waits as patient as
ever. With everything going on, I just realized how
huge that title could've been. The Journey show
waits, the show.
You
know if I keep this up not only will
The Journey 4tvs show be sometime in 2010,
it'll have my kids in it. I find it
highly comical that on the first
Trinitrons DVD I have a trailer
for this show and it says "Fall 2002".
Cute
Adam.
It'll be closer to Fall 2012. For the
first time however, I truly think
I've got it. Every time I've had these
sliver of ideas that make me actually
sit-up while laying in bed and say "Oh My
God" the outcome has always been
good.
So somethin' has
been telling me not to cut my hair lately.
I would argue the genius that is Adam Kontras and
how I just knew I'd need it for some grand master
plan, but the truth is I'm fucking lazy as hell about
shit like that. The hat has worked for me for about 15
years, so why stop a good thing. With so much on my
mind you should all be happy that I actually
enjoy showers, because most of the time it's not to be
clean...just because it's warm and feels nice. Boy, do
I know how to get off on the best tangents or
what?
Anyway the reason
it wasn't obvious for me to cut my hair was because in
the back of my head has been a "scene" that
I just can't ignore. A scene I think is
incredibly funny and know needs to be captured
on-screen somehow. That scene is G playing basketball
like G...with real basketball players and getting
destroyed - yet constantly acting "cool" about
it. It stems from how G looked onscreen next to the
tower of a man that is Mark in T3. G can slightly pull
of being black, probably mixed. It's obvious
I have a tiny bit of soul in me...but you stand
me next to Mark I am the tiniest, whitest loser
ever. And it is just funny as shit. Mark told me about
a league he plays in while we were driving during
shooting and it started to grow. All black, G walks in
and talks the talk. Then gets worked so hard, but
continues to talk the talk. Imagine his first shot
going up - getting swatted as bad as you've ever seen,
G looking humiliated but immediately returning with
"Yeeeeah dawg. Good Block...yeeeeah". I have so many
shots in mind but never really a story or a reason to
do a Trinitrons Movie.
Cut to my most
recent reaction to the first Trinitrons DVD. Georges
the Greek at work. Heh, since I'm Greek I can call him
all sorts of shit - it's fun. Olive suckin' pedophile
is my favorite. Anyway his first response, as is many
people's, is HBO. Something he'd see on HBO. Where I
think he's right, I've never been able to see a good
avenue to get to that. But last night I was
thinking about it as I went to sleep. How I'd pitch
it. I'd obviously make some sort of demo from the
material I had, and then I'd pitch the
"has-been" boyband idea. An idea of these 5 guys
that had their 15 minutes of fame and are trying to
regain something...maybe ending with a reuinon show -
or something. I had toyed with the idea
before.
And then as fast
as the day in November in 1998 when I saw the TVs
sitting there onstage The entire outline of this piece
became clear to me. It's a mix between the pilot of
Curb Your Enthusiasm and VH1's Reuniting The Band.
Wow. My first genuine, LA moment folks. I just
did an "Oceans Eleven meets Look Who's
Talking" or whatever pathetic thing producers say
to describe their project. For the first time, this
one is perfect. A pilot where against their will,
or 4/5ths of their will, they are taped documentary
style trying to get them to come together for one more
show. They are basically acosted at their homes as we
catch up with where they are now (enter fit for G
scene ideas). And I cannot wait for you to see
Spencer's excitement when he thinks he's on Trading
Spaces or something when he opens the door to a camera
crew. A million ideas. When it comes to the group
however, they of course can't stand each other and
make no bones about it. To make a long story short
they do finally agree to the show, but unbeknownst to
the producers only through Cameron's idea of 4tvs,
pissing off everyone the day of the show to be taped
for HBO - but setting up some incredibly funny
moments. Not sure if that makes any sense to you but
my head is racing, and as I reread it I can't
tell if it's just me who gets it - or if any of you
can see it.
Now this concept
changes quite a few things. Obviously they aren't The
Trinitrons. This goes back to the original idea
I had even before the name was the thought of:
"Band members who hate each other so much, they'll
only perform onstage via televisions". It was
something I tried to establish in the "Cameron
Openings" from T1 - but never fully materialized
because that format didn't allow it. This however
does. And if what I'm seeing in my head is
possible...this is the pilot you shop around. In order
for that to be feasible it needs to be highly
professional and shot with a full crew and people that
know what they're doing. Even if I have friends
that could help direct and shoot it, I will still need
thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars to do
this correctly. Where on earth will I get
that kind of money...
And folks,
sometimes it just works out. I actually started
to tear up as I wrote that last sentence. When
you see the last 6 years of your life finally show a
true path with the planets just aligning at the right
time - you have to just let it take you. So
I don't put it all in the bank, I'm good at poor.
Now I can produce a kick-ass 30 minute pilot,
short-film, that will not look cheap in the least.
Thanks to the advent of the DV-Cam now being a common
tool for television shows trying to look
"Real"...I have the ability to make a broadcast
quality film and do so around an idea that I not only
believe in - but one that wasn't possible before. Why?
I wasn't old enough. Hard to be a has-been in a
boyband at 24. Not so hard when you're pushing 30. As
well, say I was "pushing" this pilot - they
would obviously re-shoot it and have their own ideas
so you'd be looking at 2006, 2007 at the earliest - my
age actually works for me.
So welcome to my
2005. If you don't think it will take a better part of
a year to arrange all of this you guys are fuckin'
crazy. This isn't one man and one camera, this is a
crew of a dozen people for several, several days. A
minimum of 10 days (a weekend per character) and even
that may be cutting it close. For now though -
I work my ASS off at this job and get as much
bank as humanly possible while I'm writing this
script. Then use the weekends as the time to pull it
all off. I see it all finishing in
September/October again with the big push for pitching
the ideas in January of 2006. Finding representation
of some sort during this process is mandatory and now
I have an exact idea for them to pitch. Not just
some crazy show with no direction. Man, this really is
the project. This makes sense on every level.
I believe in it on every level. That's so
important for my over-analytical mind you guys can't
even begin to understand. Right Adam, 376 entries of
overanalysis of your life gives them no clue.
So maybe you do understand. What I meant was,
every avenue has had such an element of doubt within
it. Just like pushing The Trinitrons sit-com to NB
fuckin' C when I never had one positive piece of
feedback from any industry insiders...EVER back in
2002. What was the point in killing ourselves on a
script then? Now I'm not just selling some script and
idea...I am going to have an actual piece that will
stand alone even as a film. I could put it in
festivals, get some buzz that way. It allows me to do
so much, and with the history I have to show
leading up to it (Trinitrons 1-3) the commitment is
glaring. And again, I will also have the money to fund
this the way it should be done. What I'll have
next fall will be a piece that shows everything I've
been killing myself over for 6 looooong years. It's
funny that 4tvs is merely a footnote in this piece,
but it's the punch-line too - so that's
cool.
As well,
I will now cash-in on every goddamn favor, and
create more "favor-debt" than I've ever known in my
life. I will need access to houses, office
buildings, cars, extras, production assistants, tons
of people... it is going to be a HUUUUUUUUGE
undertaking. But the good thing is, not only have
I come into a new way of making money, I've come
into a new group of people that actually have
money or know people that do. So doing a scene in
someone's Million Dollar home isn't as far-fetched as
it sounded even last month. Man, shit can just come
together sometimes can't it?
The jilted Journey
show gets bumped again. It's not like I was looking
for a reason to bump what is easily the most
depressing idea I've ever had, but I am pretty
glad I don't have to wrap my life around all the
fucking drama that is years one through five of this
trek. There is a place for that, and for now it will
just have to be on The Journey DVD (which was about to
burn last night at 2:30 AM, when surprise -
UNKNOWN ERROR. This is on the new and improved
version 5.0 of this stupid fucking worthless no good
goddamn freeloading sunuvabitch retarded big mouth
know-it all asshole jerk of a program the folks at
SONIC like to call DVDiT! - Ahem, sorry). Right,
so the DVD will be released in January. It is actually
an amazing piece folks. I'm thinking of giving them
away. I love the project that much. Maybe just $10 to
cover shipping and whatnot. The preview copies I've
burned have turned out tremendously - and those with a
16:9 widescreen TV will be in for a treat...it
looks incredible.
Alright, so
I need to go calm down. Get over this flu that
has ROCKED my body the past 3 days. Guys,
I have an inner ear infection so intense that it
actually made me dry heave because of the gurgling and
pain. It's slightly better now, but I swear to GOD
someone needs to figure out what the fuck is up with
my ears. Criminey. Health insurance in 60 days.
Woot.