LET ME GO WHERE MY PICTURES GO

This hasn't been my most productive week. I ended up covering two earlier shifts at the video store, one without much warning, and I have found that having to be at a job at 2:00 is not condusive to my usual schedule. It's actually around the early afternoon that I get warmed up and get my full momentum going. It also didn't help that I was in a bit of a rough patch with The Everlasting, completely ignoring advice passed on to me from Clive Barker via The Great Brain--that one must never close the file without knowing what one is going to type next, because if you write until you are spent, you end up starting the next time without an idea of what you are doing and spend some aimless typing hours hunting about. Since I am writing about relationships, there isn't a lot of point A to point B plot stylings. I don't have to plant guns in act I to be fired in act II, so it's often about finding the most logical and organic moment to show next.

There has also been the great tragedy of my beloved MP3 player dying on me. It boots up, but the screen no longer activates. Were I more skilled, I might be able to find the albums I am searching for without sight, but I am not. My warranty is long gone, so the Rio people are ignoring my pleas for aid; it may be an iPod for me. (And yes, as I have discussed with Kelly Sue, this is not the worst tragedy I could possibly have--but such is my life at the moment.)

Ande Parks gave me a great documentary on Orson Welles that I believe is shamefully out of circulation. It consists primarily of interview footage with him in the mid-'80s, and he is a very charming conversationalist. He is not an egomaniac at all and is pretty self-aware when it comes to his position in the world of film. In fact, one can only marvel at how much bitterness he lacks, when there is a lot of room for him to be bitter. His only failing seems to be to care too much about the things that are said about him personally that aren't true.

I know so many creative people who are aspiring to be or even currently working who whine about how tough it is to pursue their dreams, and they annoy me to no end. These are generally people who I expect to fail, because they don't have what it takes, really. They are often the kind who won't even sign their own name unless there is a dollar involved (you'd be surprised at how many would-be creative types don't spend as much time as they can practicing their craft). If I have any response to them, it's "Yes, it's supposed to be hard; if it were easy, everyone would be doing it." (It's practically a Jamie cliche at this point; it goes hand-in-hand with a defense of editors, publishers, studios, what-have-you, who supposedly crush the dreams of millions--but someone has to protect the gates.) Maybe in the future I will just give them a copy of this documentary and let them contemplate if they really have it so tough. Welles, in the end, says he probably should have gotten out of film, returned to the stage, done anything else, but he loved it too much. He loved stories too much. And he regrets nothing.

Welles has been a hero of mine for ages, ever since I read Citizen Welles when I was 17 (and at the time noted an uncanny resemblance between his early life and the life of the hero of Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise). I even invoke his name and borrow from him in "T For True," the story I am doing with Andi Watson for Image. Except I have never seen the film F For Fake, only heard about it. I was rather shocked to see some clips in this documentary and hear them talking about the movie, because somehow I tapped into much the same idea (perhaps in the same way Fitzgerald tapped into Welles' childhood?). But I didn't steal it, I swear!

(Speaking of This Side of Paradise, who the hell is this guy and has he gone and fucked himself yet?)

I also started Gravitation volume 10 on Thursday, since it was going to be easier than digging into the novel before clerking. My word, they go to another stupid TV show. Sometimes I don't know about this book...

Current Soundtrack: Pet Shop Boys, Very; Morrissey, Songs to Save Your Life NME comp

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