it fell though

anyways, the TV gig fell through. in a major way. after i went to malibu and hung out with the producers. it was terrible. i suck.

anyways, i wrote yesterday's blog and this is the posted comment i get.


"Anonymous said...
My compliments. I have enjoyed your Blog. You have so many interesting things to report, please keep up the good work.

Did you know, that nearly all of us pay too much for their car insurance? That we are leaving a lot of money on the table by failing to compare properly the rates of all those different insurance companies?
I've made a new Blog just about Best Auto Insurance. You are friendly invited to a visit and to learn more about this interesting topic.
Thanks again and keep up the good work.

The Car Insurance Guy from Best Auto Insurance"

FUCK!!!! story of my life. everytime i think someone digs my work it turns out to be a sick little capitalist joke. bastards. at least ninabit had my back:

"ninabit said...
Fuck blog spam."


anyways, i'm on my way to being a lawyer. i'll have to substitute teach first i guess. god damn it. this is the last ditch letter i sent to the sundance institute.


Dear Sundance Institute,

My name is Medicine Bear. I am a struggling writer. I completed my MFA in screenwriting from UCLA and I feel more lost than ever. I expected writing to make a hell of a lot more sense after graduation--it doesn’t. I thought I’d at least feel safer--I don’t. Presently, I survive off the fumes of my Student Loan and the search for a daytime gig reveals I am qualified for absolutely nothing. I do not have the slightest clue what to do.

HISTORY OF MY WRITING CAREER

The Beginning

Since I was a child I hated the act of writing. I went to Elementary school at Chief Leschi, which was a school on the Puyallup Indian reservation. My second grade teacher was a hippie, mainly because she was “White” and she was teaching a bunch of “Brown” kids. Intuitively I understood that the “White” people who helped Indians were estranged from regular society. For some reason, I was also suspicious of people who did nice things. Anyways, I remembered being forced to learn how to write.
Elementary school writing is a painful process. It’s not writing as much as it is copying. The teacher handed us big, glossy pieces of paper with blue lines all over it; they looked like freeway lanes. The two outside lines were solid blue and the one down the middle was dashed. The teacher pointed to the alphabet hovering over the chalkboard. We were supposed to “recreate” the letters in between the lines. It was at this moment that I formally understood that I was right handed. I hated my puny, weakly little letters and having to do it over and over bored me to death. My penmanship remains inconsistent and ugly. The physical process of writing refuses to grow on me.

Early Days

I wrote many childish poems in elementary school. All subjects I wrote about were monosyllabic words like “trees” because it facilitated rhymes. I plagiarized one of my favorite books. I can’t recall the exact title but it was about some kid that had an awful, terrible, horrible, no good day. I stole the line and punched out my version of a very bad day on the typewriter in my dad’s office. I left to go get something to eat, which happens to be another great personal passion. When I returned my father’s friend Bill Schaaf had finished my story for me. He completed the story with a bunch of adult-themed “bad day” items that I didn’t understand. His contribution was an insult to me. By the size of his guffaw I could tell he thought it was real clever. He was one of the basketball Indians, real big. I silently seethed and entertained revenge. Perhaps this is the moment I decided to become a writer.
The power of words struck me in high school. I was in math class. I was sitting behind Matt Steele. Matt Steele was my hero because when he ran for class president he wrote a speech insulting the principal but he read it backward. Principal Silvernail just chuckled with everyone else as Matt told him some lascivious but true things about his daughter and the school. Then Matt Steele took eleven hits of acid and was gone. He was even rocketed out of the “non-conformist” kid ranks. He enlisted in some withdrawn march and stopped seeking attention.
When "words" finally hooked me was when some burner got arrested at school. The classroom door was open and our eyes watched a cop in uniform march the jean-jacketed derelict down the hall. Probably no big deal these days, but at our rural high school it was a real chest shocker. For some reason Matt Steele wrote a story. He wrote it on lined paper with a pencil. It was only a page and a half but his penmanship was beautiful. He wrote an allegory about truth and the weather. I was moved.

Now

I’ve been writing in Hollywood for about five years now. I did what everybody does in this town, I tried to manage my risk. I got a job as an assistant to producers at Davis Entertainment. I had the unoriginal thought, “I’ll write at night and learn the business by day.” It took me three years to realize I was drinking poison all day. To make matters worse, I have an inborn desire to please people, especially if it’s at the cost of my own happiness. The hate for my own writing came on slow like weight gain. You cruise along thinking about other crap and then one day you can’t stand to look at yourself in the mirror.
I’ve had numerous close calls with success. I wrote a short about a guy who could call dead people that was produced. It stars Ed Asner and Maynard Keenan. I was hip pocketed by CAA. I realized I couldn’t write and work at Davis Entertainment anymore so I applied to UCLA’s MFA program. I figured if they let me in the joint I’d sell something in two years—nope. I was almost hired to write a pilot for the N network on a TV show about Indians. The producer didn’t like my idea about making it a show about White producers trying to make a show about Indians, and eventually the whole thing collapsed. That was so painful that I took online LSAT practice tests.


Thank you for reading,


Chumahan Bowen



i don't spellcheck. maybe that's why...