YOU MAY NOT BE SEEING ME FOR A BIT...

Granted, most of you out there haven't been seeing me about lately, anyway. Things may not change for the next 7 weeks, since I'm agreeing to intern as a P.A. for After August Productions. (Not their real name, but close enough.) Also, I've been rummaging for a part-time job to supplement absolutely zero income. The grant writing thing has yet to pay a dime, and meetings keep getting cancelled.

On the bright side, my ass feels a lot better, and I finally had class again this week. It was a rerun of the first class, since the course had been cancelled for the two weeks prior, but here's hoping I may yet learn something.

I’VE BEEN BUSTING MY ASS, LITERALLY.

Some of you who have seen me over the last few days may have been wondering, “Why does Phil always wince like he was slapped in the face when he sits down?” I’ll tell you why. It is because I badly bruised my right buttock. (That’s my right, not yours.) It’s a really funny story, particularly if you’re drunk.

I still live in my grandparents’ house, and my room has a large, old-fashioned window looking out over the park. I noticed that this year, the room is much cooler than any other room in the house. In fact, there was a clearly discernible draft, which consistently rendered my room a good ten degrees chillier. This draft has bothered me. I have actually caught a stuffy nose thanks to the draft. And the worst part is, the thermostat is in the story below, so it does not matter how cool my own room gets, the heater will not switch on.

So I decided to find out where the draft in my room came from, and to seal it once I found out. I suspected a crack in the windowframe. Unfortunately, a large shelf and desk partially obscured the sides of the frame. The shelf and desk came with the house, and try as I might, I could not move them. However, sticking my fingers in the small spaces between the desk and the frame, I did discern some cool air flowing in. Still, I wanted to find the exact spot of entrance. Only one thing to do: Soak the outside of the windowframe with soapy water.

I got the idea from Mr. Wizard, I think. He was looking for a hole in his tire, so he applied some soapy water to it. Where the hole was, bubbles would appear. Now, I couldn’t very well bathe the inside of my room in soapy water, what a mess that would cause. Instead, I thought that washing the outside of the frame would work better. If indeed there was a hole in the frame, I would see a select few soapy bubbles appear on the inside.

This was a brilliant plan, and by brilliant, I mean stupid. There I was, perched atop the painter’s ladder I found inside the garage, spreading suds everywhere. Naturally, I got some on my hands. In my enthusiasm, I may have sloshed some on the rungs of the ladder as well. At some point, my grip slipped, and I not only upset the bucket, but lost my grip on the ladder. I vaguely recall waving my slippery hands about, seeking a handhold. It was futile given that both the purchasee and purchaser of such a handhold was coated in soap. However, I might have been able to concentrate better, if not for the four consecutive rungs of the ladder smacking me in the jaw and face. WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! That was the accompanying symphony ringing through my ears as I descended the ladder sans hands.

Once my feet hit the floor, they buckled underneath me. I must have been stunned from all the blows to the face. Anyway, since my legs gave out, I ended falling on my posterior. Hard. I sat there for several minutes, my mouth agape, trying to put my pain into words. I was also trying real hard to close my mouth before a bee flew in. Oh yeah, while the bucket of water and dishwasher detergent did manage not to land on my head, instead opting for a spot about a foot-and-a-half away, some of its contents did hit the mark.

I did manage to get up and walk under my own power within a few minutes. Then I took a look at my ass in the bathroom mirror, and saw the ugly purple bruise in the shape of Abe Lincoln’s head. It’s much bigger than a penny, however. Since the horrible ladder incident, I have been sitting on an NFL air mattress my brother left here on his last visit, and alternating between picking splinters from my chin (Only one or two, but they’re tiny.) and watching movies. (“Dr. Strangelove” is so great!) On the bright side, I’ve been spending all my time in the living room, since that’s where the TV and air mattress are. It’s on the first level of the house, so it’s warm here all the time.

YOU'LL FEEL MUCH BETTER AFTER A GOOD BLEEDING.

I once read this Nietsche quote: "A useless life is a death sentence," or words to that effect. Anyone have any idea which book that was, and what the book entailed? No, I'm not planning to do more petulent whining. I'm outlining a writing project right now, and I want one of the characters to give another character such book. Any help would be appreciated.

How about good self-help books? Can anyone think of a good book to give someone who has suffered a debilitating injury?

SOMETIMES YOU EAT THE BEAR, AND SOMETIMES, ASSH*LE M*THERF*CKER GETS HIS SHORT FILM SHOWN IN LOS ANGELES.

So I get an e-mail last night from my old roommate at Swampwater U. Attached to his e-mail is a jpeg photo, and Omar’s directions are short and succinct: “First row, second from the right.”

There’s a few dozen people in the aforementioned photo. I zero in on the person he refers to, and I have a feeling I know who he is. Taking a cue from Julio Cortazar, I open the photo up on Photoshop, blow it up several times and take another look. Oh man, it’s HIM! The nemesis has resurfaced!

Some background info for those who didn’t know me from Swampwater U: Back when I was a sophomore, my roommate Omar had a chance encounter with an aspiring filmmaker. This person has since changed his name to something more Hollywood-ish, but I will refer to him by his Christian moniker, ASSH*LE M*THERF*CKER. ASSH*LE had made a few short videos for a local Latino band, and he was interested in directing a full-length movie. He had a cinematographer buddy, and video editing equipment at home. All he needed was money to make the film and someone to write the screenplay. He already had story ideas.

Omar, being a finance major, volunteered to do the producing bit. He called me up one night, gave me the proverbial skinny, and asked me to write the screenplay. I was definitely interested; I mean, why do real work when you can write a movie? We had a general meeting on-campus the next weekend, and I hammered out the screenplay in three weeks.

That’s when things started to go bad. Something happened which upset my ego a great deal. Perhaps I should have been more tactful about it, but I certainly feel I had every right to be upset. Originally, ASSH*LE M*THERF*CKER got story credit, while screenplay credit was mine. ASSH*LE got the script from me, called me up the next night, and told me there were some rough edges and he might need to tinker a little. I was okay with the tinkering; I spent all-nighters writing it, and while I was confident in the finished product, I knew it probably had an “off-the-cuff” quality. However, when I got the script back a few days later, I saw that ASSH*LE not only had story credit, but he now had top screenplay credit as well. His explanation: He kept re-writing things, and once he was satisfied, realized that more of the words were his than mine.

But a lot of the re-writing was totally unnecessary. The only reason I could see him re-writing it was to get more credit for the screenplay. For example, if I wrote: “That jerk lied to us!” ASSH*LE would rewrite it, “We were lied to by him! What a jerk!” And he would count that entire line as his. Seriously, he was that anal-retentive about it. He put all his words in bold, and left mine in regular font. Sure, there was more bold than regular font after the re-write, but the dialogue was more or less the same, just re-worded.

Amazingly, I stayed on through that debacle. But then ASSH*LE started bitching about what a horrible job Omar was doing producing. He was disorganized, not doing his job, blah-blah-blah. ASSH*LE would make a phone call and then say, “You know, I should get producing credit, too.” He and Omar almost got into a fistfight during a meeting.

Within a few weeks, Omar wanted to jump ship. The screenplay was still plenty mine, but ASSH*LE said he would toss it aside if Omar and I both left. He was fed up with my lazy roommate, but apparently, I was still valuable as a screenwriter. Clearly, I was being offered the role of co-conspirator. Idiot that I was, I stood by my friend and said if he was out, I’m out, too.

Fast-forward a few days, and we were both out. The project was dead. I was very much relieved.

Back to the present: I read the rest of Omar’s cryptic e-mail. There was a link to the site where the photo came from. Clicking on the link, I was transported to the site for a short film (Which will go unnamed.) The writer/director/producer? You got it. ASSH*LE M*THERF*CKER. The film in question was the winner of some contest sponsored by Loews. It got shown once on the big screen. The party was from some premiere thing. I remember my reaction being something along the lines of, “Man, I picked the wrong week to quit accidentally drinking cough syrup.” It’s like finding out the high school quarterback went on to become a billionaire, when you were praying he’d end up working the local tire store.

Actually, I never wished any ill will on ASSH*LE M*THERF*CKER. I thought he was a motherfucking asshole, but maybe those are the kinds of people who are successful in the world. “What success?” you tell me. “It was just a short film, shown for one night in front of a few hundred people at an L.A. theatre. Those kinds of things happen all the time. It’s not like he made a feature.”

Not yet, anyway. Perhaps the most troublesome thing is, I read the release on the short film, and it actually sounds… well, good. Thought-provoking. Is it possible that there are depths to ASSH*LE M*THERF*CKER’s personality, which weren’t previously there? The ASSH*LE M*THERF*CKER I knew was a moron who thought Spielberg was the tops, never watched an independent film that wasn’t “Pulp Fiction,” and once told me he believed playwrights were people who didn’t have the talent to make it in movies. God, what a motherfucking asshole. But he’s still more successful than I am.

You know, the old saying’s true: Every time a friend succeeds, a part of me dies. ASSH*LE M*THERF*CKER wasn’t my friend, but then again, a part of me hasn’t died, either. I know that sounds more profound than it really is, but it’s not really me talking, it’s this bottle of cough syrup I just opened.

GAAHHH! I'M STILL ALIVE?!

I caught a cold last week, and learned that there's something you should never do when you're sick. Or when you're well, either. It involves cough syrup.

See, I had a bad cough, and at first I was taking some Tylenol capsules for it. The capsules were for the cold, as well as the cough. In my opinion, they effectively took care of neither. One morning, in the midst of a coughing fit, I decide to rummage in the medicine cabinet for some cough syrup. I locate a bottle of Robotussin. The label directs me to take two teaspoons.

Here's what I should have done: Gone downstairs to the kitchen, gotten a teaspoon, taken two teaspoons of cough syrup.

Here's what I did instead: Decided to swig directly from the bottle.

Normally, I'm not a slob. See, I bought this bottle of cough syrup a year ago, and never opened it. No one in the house used it, either, because for some reason, they view it as Phil's Medicine. So no one touches it. Anyway, I take a quick swig, but then I look at the bottle and see that very little cough syrup has been used. In fact, I reckoned barely one teaspoon had been siphoned out in that first turn. So I decide that, next swig, I'll try to drink down a little more. Like that time with the Yaegermeister. But that's another story...

So I tilt my noggin back for the second swig, and I chug a little longer this time. In fact, I do a quick standing two-count, "One... Two." That should do it, right. Well, I look at the bottle, and it turns it's practically empty now! I drank almost a whole bottle of cough syrup!

Right around then things started to get a bit hazy. I barely managed to drag myself off to bed before I lost consciousness. Next thing I knew, it was evening. On the plus side, I wasn't coughing anymore. I still can't cough. I can't even force myself to cough, since my throat feels smooth as butter. I've also become a raging alcoholic.

Let that be a lesson to you. If you need a teaspoon, go get one. Don't be lazy!


GAAHHH! I'M STILL ALIVE?! II

Good thing I got over my cold this past week, because I needed all my strength to battle raging insomnia.

Yeah, it's funny. I've barely worked the past month, school is still out because my teacher is in the hospital with serious kidney problems, yet I've never been so tired. So I decided to go to my local drug store and buy some sleeping pills.

I take two sleeping pills before trying to go to sleep. Obviously, they did no good, because I still tossed and turned for an hour. So I decided to take two more. Then two more. Don't worry, the box said that exceeding eight within a 24-hour period was dangerous, so I stopped at six. Let me tell you, those puppies were slow to kick in, but kick in they did... at about 9 a.m. the next day.

So I spent that day basically popping in and out of consciousness. Waking up wasn't exactly a treat, because my mouth was all dry and my lips were bleeding. I tried drinking plenty of water, which was tough since I kept falling down when I tried to stand. However, the groggy periods were matched by periods of seemingly boundless energy (Though my eyelids felt glued shut.) I did a lot of jumping around and trying to kick things. Oh yeah, my heart beat really fast for a while, too. That was kind of scary.

Fortunately, the pills have worn off and I am back to normal. Let that be a lesson to you. Don't do drugs. Not even with a teaspoon. And if Franco wants to rent an apartment with me and write a book, so be it. I already finished the obligatory drug chapter.