First of all, if you haven’t picked up your copy of OUTLAW TERRITORY what are you waiting for?! It’s colossal, it’s stupendous, it’s old-timey, it’s GOT ME IN IT!!!! Go now! Buy! Read the rest of this when you get back (I get double the hits that way)!

This past weekend was another extremely exciting adventure in my matinee missing life, I was a member of team Celluloid Heroes in the Dallas 48 Hour Film Project.  Each team is given a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, then they have 48 hours to write, cast, film, and edit a short film incorporating all of those elements.  As part of the writing team I helped forge the epic struggle of Oggie Henderson and his comedic romp through purgatory, then I even got to stick around and carry lightstands back and forth during production.  There were many ups and downs during production (almost all of which were captured for posterity by an on-set documentary crew…yay?), but the film came out beautifully and if you don’t believe me then you need to come to the 9:30pm screening tonight at Dallas Movie Grilll.

Big congratulations to my fellow sleep deprived teammates (did I mention around hour 30 with no sleep I went to a job interview?) as well as to the cast and miscellaneous other people who showed up to help out on set.

Now what’s this I hear about a 21 Day Film Project………

I’ve been asked to post some more writing on the site so here is a short, short story that I’m not convinced completely sucks…yet.  Copyright, all rights reserved, yada yada yada…

(Remix)

Like Sands-Sands-luh-luh-like sands

The bass kicks in with a steady beat so low it sends waves and ripples through the wooden dance floor.  You don’t dance, you don’t stand.  Easy choice to make.  It’s not long before a snare comes in on tenor bouncing a simple melody, building the anticipation.  An explosion was coming.  We could all feel it.

Like Sands-sands-like sands Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

It’s a woman’s scream.  Bloodcurdling and deafening as it’s pumped from a wall of speakers and rains down on the dancers.  No sooner is the terror past then the real hooks arrive on cue.  A chorus of chirps, beeps, trumpets, flutes, didgeridoos and synthesized versions of instruments that may never have a physical equivalent.  I was clinging tightly to the cheap plastic cup holding my swishing beer.  It was a different swaying gold that had caught my attention.  A blonde in tight jeans was bobbing and shaking to the melodious din.  I was dancing.  She was dancing.  We were not dancing together.

But Doctor-d-doctor Amnesia! Duh-d-doctor-but-but doctor Amnesia!

The sampled dialogue was repeated again and again as the cacophony of sound beneath it waned and settled in on a simpler, softer pattern.  Joining the new status quo were new voices in the harmony; all breathless, all female, all moaning a thousand poorly faked orgasms and sighs of satisfaction.  She and I turned out of sync and my beer fell on our moving legs.

It wasn’t me! It was my evil twin!

The explosion was coming soon.  The music dropped to a whisper.  The same bass and tenor from the start kept feet moving and melody alive.  It built softly, almost invisibly.  The crowd smiled with a lover’s anticipation. Soon.

Like Sands

“Sorry!” Even now she had to scream to be heard.  She moved in closer.  I turned to greet her body with mine.  Our beer stained legs began to rub together.  I was dancing.  She was dancing.  We moved together.

Like Sands through the Hourglass-ow-ow-hourglass

As the music grew new, and old elements found their way into the crescendo.  Melodies few of us could identify but all of us recognized, were woven together as the volume increased and heads began to bob up and down with more force, patiently waiting for the coming moment of release.  A feeling of nostalgia swept the floor as everyone involuntarily found themselves flashing back a few years to sick days from school curled-up on our mothers’ couches.  “What’s your name?!” she asked.

Luh-luh-luh-luh-like Sands

“Paul! You?!”

Sands through the-through the-through-Sands through the

“Jess!”

Sands through the hour-sands through the hour

It was coming.  The volume was at its peak.  The crowd could not be asked to simply bounce in place any longer.  All of us could feel the explosion coming, could feel the beat inside of us.  We knew the exact moment it would arrive.  Soon, soon.

Suh-Sand-Like sands through the hourglass

“Who are you hear with?!” she shouted.

“Some friends. You?!”

“My friend Kay comes here a lot!”  She pointed across the dance floor to a girl with short brunette hair grinding the air with her back towards us.

Like sands through the

This was it.  The big moment.  A scream rang from the crowd.  Several kids jumped, shook, and threw their arms in the air to the climactic downbeat; the downbeat that never came.  The DJ had withheld our climax with a few seconds of additional silence, reasserting himself as the puppet master and reminding us that we are the minstrels here.  He starts the core melody again before the people could start moaning their disappointment, and like a dog with a dirty nose the crowd fell back into place before they could even process the betrayal they had suffered.

“Wait, you’re friends with Kay?!”

The music fades back once again to the bass and snare.  Falling faster than it was built.

“Wait, you’re that Paul?!”

Fading, fading until it reached nothingness.  Nothing, but the voice.

Like sands through the hourglass…so are the days of our lives

I liked the next song better.

Seeing Animal Collective in less than a week…get excited with me:

Summertime Clothes (Live on Letterman) -

My Girls -

Fireworks -

Grass -

Who Could Win a Rabbit? -

Thursday I did something I had not done in months, I actually allowed myself to sleep in.  Naturally I awoke to this voicemail from my Mom: “Hi P.J., we’ll be heading out to Midland for your cousin’s wedding between 3 and 4am so make sure you get a lot of sleep this afternoon.” Wonderful.  I had volunteered to ride down early with Mom so she wouldn’t have to make the 6 hour drive by her lonesome, but a 4am departure time was not something previously discussed.

Unable to nap my mother and I both woke up at 3:30am on Friday to start our trip with only 2 hours of sleep (she had work until after midnight).  I drove, she rode, and we both tried to keep the other awake.  My mother, sleep deprived and in need of conversation, did something very silly and asked me to tell her all the things that had made me fall in love with my ex-girlfriend.  I, being sleep deprived and in need of conversation, did something even sillier and actually answered her.  In case there is anyone in the universe as dumb as I am let me just say this is not the mindset one wants to be in as they make their way to a WEDDING!

We arrive in Midland and after a series of mayday phone calls opt against finding a hotel and sleeping straight off and instead make our way to the church.  We’re shown the facility, and the bride gave us her “vision” for the decorations which my mother and I began putting together…while everyone else went home to rest. So still on 2 hours of sleep my Mom and I spent the next 5 hours cutting, pinning, carrying, and tying.

It was close to 5 in the afternoon by the time we actually got checked into a hotel room and I had the car unloaded.  We both put our heads to a pillow in our beds and realized in the same moment: “We don’t really have time to sleep before the rehearsal dinner, do we?” “Nope.” Wonderful.  So she took a shower and I went to the hotel “gym” to work out (an eliptical, a treadmill, and a TV tuned to SportsCenter is hardly a gym).

I was excited about the rehearsal dinner if for no other reason than it was another opportunity to play with my 1 year old cousin Kenny.  The guy really is the cutest kid in the world and he’s always my little buddy at these family events.  I love him and he loves…my beard apparently.  See, I shaved off my facial hair the day before my trek began and the transformation was too much for his 13 month old mind to process.  The guy didn’t recognize me once all weekend. Lame.

Other than that the rehearsal dinner was great: great food, great family.  Around 11pm Mom and I finally got into our hotel beds for some sleep.

Wake up, work out, eat breakfast, then it was back to the church for more decorating as the rest of the wedding party was off doing I don’t know what.  I will not get into all the design difficulties Mom and I had to overcome in order to get the reception area in line with the bride’s “vision,” but lets just say they were abundant.  My brother and sis got into town around this time and we all got ready for the ceremony.

Like the dinner the night before, the ceremony was perfect, you can tell those two kids like each other somewhat.  I was happy it went so well and I was even happier when me, Mom, and sis decided to skip the reception and get an early start home.

I was making awesome time driving back.  I calculated that I could be back in Denton with enough time to get myself a drink before last call even though I was still wearing half a suit and had potato sacks under my eyes.  That’s when God said “Ha!” and my sister’s car got a flat on the side of the interstate.  Of course, since it’s my sister’s car the spare is also flat.  Thanks to the kindness of a good samaritan with an air pump and some passing family we were able to get back on the road, but my dreams of a nice beverage to end my evening were shattered.

Frustrated, tired, and a little uncertain about our replacement tire the three of us rode in silence for a long while before my Mom gave her review of our weekend getaway, “Well…that was good.”

But P.J., first you tell us God is indifferent to human conceptions of good and evil, then you tell us the benefits of loving people and showing kindness.  If the meaning of life really is unknowable and God is just a force at work in the universe what is the impetus for being loving and kind?

I will admit that I am arguing this out of the conceit that when we act in ways that benefit all creation and not just ourselves we are doing “good” and when we act only to benefit ourselves we are doing “bad.”

I believe we are all like individual cells in a larger organism (for lack of a better term).  When I say “we” I don’t just mean people, but also cats, grass, trees, stars, planets, iPods, Slurpees, etc.  Personally, I want the cells around me to be as strong as possible.  This is why I believe not only in helping out the people in my life, but am pro-environment, education, for better art, better homes, better opportunities and so on.

Also, I believe God is the only explanation for why our species  has managed to get this far without killing itself off despite countless chances of doing so.  That suggests to me that humanity still has some purpose in the bigger picture and it makes me want to be the best I know we are capable of being.

I’m not an idealist.  There will always be selfish people, uncaring people, people who are more interested in bettering themselves than bettering their world.  I think these people are important in the overall design if for no other reason than to remind us the advantages of selfless living just like there will always be poor to remind us the advantages we have, lonely people to make us hold those we love closer, and suicides to renew our dedication to our own lives.

The world is not complete without the negative to show us the positive.  So some people will never care about my views on love and will never be able to share them and that is ok, because when I see these people I realize how important these priorities are to me.

We are a universe of individuals each playing their own role some for the better of all and some for the better of themselves.  Hopefully, for our continued existence and strength we can maintain a balance where the strong cells outnumber the cancerous ones.

So I am now being told, promised, assured, and re-assured that OUTLAW TERRITORY will be in stores JUNE 24th! This has been a looooooooong time coming and part of me still won’t believe it until I’m holding it in my hands, but this is exciting news! For your viewing pleasure here are the first two finished pages of my story, “We Meet At 12″ with art by Will Simpson and lettering by Tom Mauer.  Click for biggerizing. Enjoy!

- I believe love conquers all

- I believe loving someone unconditionally means loving them even when they don’t love you

- Love is not all you need, it’s just what you need the most

- I believe this scene reveals an important and beautiful truth:

- I want to have a heart so big it beats me to death

- I believe loving those who hate you is the hardest thing to do, which makes it the most rewarding

- I believe it is better to starve and be selfless than thrive and be selfish

- I fear kindness is the price of pragmatism

- I believe the meaing of life is unknowable, but the beauty of life is love

- I love you

- Any individual who finds a religion that helps them to live a life of love, peace, and happiness, should not have their beliefs challenged by pretentious notions of “truth.”

- Any individual (or group) that uses a religion to create a feeling of moral, ethnic, or spiritual superiority over others should be revealed as a fool.

- Truth is subjective.

- Cynicism is too simple to ever be rewarding.

- I don’t believe “God” is a bearded old man judging us all from atop a cloud.  Nor do I think the overseer of the entire universe is so egomaniacal that it must have one species, on one planet constantly telling it how awesome we think it is in only one way.

- I think the thing we identify as “God” is found in all the invisible connections rolling like ripples in water from our single life into all Life and the lives of everything else invisibly shaping and effecting our own. We all shared the same experience of the last second and God is in that unity.

- I believe the idea of any person claiming to know exactly how God and the universe operates is as silly as a single cell in my fingernail claiming to know everything about me.

- I do not believe there is anything inherently wrong with being silly.

- I believe conversations, actions, and activities in my life are having direct impacts on everyone else living and even people who are not yet born in ways that can never be traced.  I believe this is the work of God, not only on Earth but throughout the expanding universe.

- I believe we are all a microscopic part of something so large we will never comprehend what our true meaning is, but this does not make us meaningless.

- I believe God is neither good nor evil, but simply the spider managing the infinite threads in the universal web.  This means that some people are going to starve to death, or be wrongly killed today, and we should mourn it, we should try to stop it, and we should accept this is part of the design just like everything else.

- I believe God wants us to explore our worlds and our lives thoroughly.

- I believe in God.

It’s my birthday.  It’s my last day of college.  To celebrate I’ve been getting some writing done.  Watching Alfonso Cuaron’s A LITTLE PRINCESS (I love it, it’s beautiful, don’t judge me) I had the urge to write a fairy tale.  Three sentences later I feel like I have something complete…

Flutter and Glow

It was just a firefly.

To Daisy it was the fairy king, Axia, returning home from a great war with the demons who hid in her flower bed to comfort the families of his fallen comrades and make love to his queen.

But it was just a firefly.