70 SCENES KNOCKING

Woke up in the middle of the night. Maybe 3 or 4. Not sure. Someone was ringing the doorbell, over and over, and it woke me up.  I could see that our motion detector light had gone on for the front porch. The ringing had stopped when I awoke. Whomever was doing the ringing had done so every couple of seconds. I stood there, wondering who it was... a drunk kid? The police? Death? Took me a while, then I remembered we don't have a doorbell.

Dreams last night were a jumble. A room full of spiders. Theatre students asking for help with a scene or monologue. Theatre teachers looking for work, and all of us moving into a tiny apartment for the foreseeable future. There were other dreams, but they vanished like the morning fog, burnt off by the sun.

Last night we watched the movie Ladybird. So good. I'm trying to watch as many coming of age movies because I am working on a coming of age type story. I figure I should watch/read as many of those types of story as I can, see what other folks have done, how they approached it. In Ladybird, scenes are very compact. We are given the essence of each incident, and move on. It was a revelation to me. I have a list of little scenes I want in my movie. I keep note of them in this Bigfoot pocket journal I was given. I get a lot of things related to Sasquatch, have most of my life. I like cryptozoology, my first feature script was about Bigfoot and mythical beasts, and my theatre company is Sasquatch Productions. They all feed the myth of me and Bigfoot. There is even, on that list, a scene where as a boy I watch a documentary about Bigfoot. But I digress. The point is, I have a list of scenes, moments from my life from 1975-1977. I want the list to have at least 70 moments. This is because I read a thing by David Lynch once saying when you are preparing to write a movie, get a bunch of note cards, and write on each one an idea for a scene for your movie. When you have 70, you are good to go. So I'm giving it a try. It seemed, watching Ladybird, that maybe this is what Greta Gerwig did. I read that at one point her screenplay was over 350 pages. Amazing. She must have cut so many bits, so many moments.

Later, we were doing our now daily meditation, and I had a thought hit me like a bolt of lightning right when good old Deepak was giving us the days mantra. A simple thought, true, but it seemed super important at the time. All stories are about love, or the lack thereof. Love of the world, or each other, or that certain someone, or one's art. Or no love, angry and sad people doing angry sad things, all the result of no love. I think might look at each scene in my script and see how that principle applies. Maybe it will make it amazing. Or terrible. We shall see. As soon as the meditation was over, I reached for my notebook and began writing as fast as I could.

Today's agenda: Writing; Walking; Cleaning; Reading; Going Over Stimulus Plan; Games with Ryan and Lauren via Zoom; Movie. Who knows what else. So go find the love in your world.

Here's a song.

MEDITATION, ANOTHER WEIRD DREAM, LINES, AND A SICK FRIEND

Another theatre dream last night. This time, we were getting ready to perform Annie. This is a show I was about to open last week end at one of the schools I work at. But the show was being performed at the main stage theatre of San Jose State, where I went to college lo these many years ago. The kids were excited and running around, house was about to open, when I noticed a bunch of sand on the stage. I looked around, and upstage, behind the scenery, was this huge diorama of of beach of some sort, and. this classic old professor who was working on it. I asked him what the hell he was doing. He told me, due to budget concerns, that he was told to do his work there. Then my tech director/choreographer and I began sweeping up the sand, and we got ready for the show to begin.

So, yesterday we started meditating to this audio thing by Deepak Chopra that a friend sent to us. Takes about 15 minutes, and then there is a little task to do. The task was to write down at least 50 people who have inspired and/or mentored me, alive or dead, someone I knew or an artist or whatever whose work had an impact on me. And that was a great list to make. I have had so many wonderful people in my life, and the world is full of inspiring teachers and artists. And the meditation itself was peaceful, grounding, and a welcome break from all the news that is assaulting us on a minute by minute basis. I think there is going to be more and more people going on spiritual journeys of one type or another as we sit in our homes, not able to do the daily grind.

Here in Denver, we are now on a shut in, don't go out, nobody move, put your hands in the air as you enter Funky Town kind of thing. So we went out to get a new land line phone, and get Lisa some wine before the liquor stores close. The line for the booze was out the door and around the block. I wonder how many jokes there will be about that, like there were about toilet paper. I suspect little to none. Making fun of toilet paper is just so easy. I mean, you get to say the word toilet. I personally don't care about people hoarding toilet paper. I do worry about all these people who think they're being rebels by hanging out in large groups on beaches and at parties,  thinking that by doing so they are sticking it to the man. I get the desire to hang out, and the need to stick it to something these days- but come on. There have got to be better ways to do that besides exposing themselves and everyone they come into contact with to a virus that seems hell bent on taking out a good chunk of the world's population.

Today, we are going to work on the garden, work out, take a long walk while maintaining social distance, do what work we can from home, read to each other, clean out yet another closet, and try to maintain our sanity. And I will write a bit, and make a video with my dog.

Also, I think one of my best friends in this world might have it. That's what his doctor's think. He seems to be ok. We play Dungeons and Dragons via zoom, and played last night. I am hoping it is just a really bad flu, like what that weird orange guy says it is. As much as I can't stand our dear leader, I would be just fine if his bizarre predictions came true. My friend is healthy in general, and I am certain he will get through this. But holy shit. So, if you are getting funky with meditation or religion or tarot cards or Jesus or whatever floats your spiritual boat, put a candle in the window and think good thoughts.

Ok. Here is a song. More later.