Bicycle Repair:

Just leave it to the professionals kids.

Three things I'm bad with...

and therefore they annoy me:

Bikes
Especially when they almost castrate you.
U-Lock Bike Locks
Especially when I can't fricking lock them without a 10 minute struggle.
Names
Especially since I forget nearly everyone's name. And I don't exaggerate. I've nearly called pretty much everyone I know the wrong name. There's always a moment of doubt, no matter how long I've known you. Even if it's for a split second, my brain is conflicted.
It's as if there were two people inside my brain. One is over-eager, loud, and mistaken. This one shouts out several different names pretty rapidly. And then there's the part of my brain that knows what the hell he's doing, but he's shy, so I don't quite hear him as well.

(warning... James' overarching generalization that makes no sense coming in 3...2...)

It would be so much easier if we were all just named "You" or something like that.

Wait... me can has no facebook?

According to facebook.com: "Hey, your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience."

No Facebook... for hours?

Everything feels so cold...

Low Flow? I don't like the sound of that...

If someone can tell me what the title of this post is quoting, you'll officially win a super-awesome JamesThoughts T-Shirt* Absolutely Free**

And now, some NONSENSICAL RAMBLING

-I wonder where the term "best boy grip" comes from... I bet that it's a pretty dirty story.

-I'm back in LA.

-While cleaning the kitchen today and using a various number of cleaning products, I suddenly remembered a story about a man who used two different products (i think it was ammonia and bleach). The chemical reaction proved deadly, so the ending of the story seems pretty obvious. I then started to worry that I was making the same mistake, because I had no clue what the hell I was using. I suddenly got very dizzy, and I'm not sure if it was deadly fumes or just me being paranoid. I'm pretty sure it was just my recurring fear of dying on a dirty kitchen floor and not being discovered for a week because my roommate is out of town. I mean, I think that's in most people's top-5.

-I am way too weak for Apple products and their sexiness.

-"Becoming Jane" is a somewhat interesting movie title. "Becoming Maverick: The Wizard Robot" is a much more interesting one.

-I live in an apartment with the Clapper in it. That's right: the Clapper. I've secretly wanted a clapper since I was 7 (it feels like magic!), but I could never bring myself to buy one. Then I show up at the apartment this week, and there it was. I think I can die (by a mixture of ammonia and bleach) happy now.


*Does not exist
**does not necessarily mean free

Hey Beautiful

So, I'm back from a little hiatus. Since I last updated, l've been up to a lot. I've finished an outline (yet I have a couple that I need to finish), I've seen 5 shows on Broadway, and I've read roughly 2,900 pages of Harry Potter.

And as I am tired and a bit delirious, I'll be more brief in my thoughts than I would usually like to be.

However, I must say that I absolutely loved the Harry Potter books, and moreso as the story grew in scope and significance. I read the first 3 books in about a month and a half, casually getting through small chunks (though I started gaining a lot of speed by book 3). And then I read books 4-7 in a little over a week. I found the Harry Potter septology (not a word) to be a great complex story with a deeply satisfying ending. I'm currently reading Campbell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces" and a lot of it applies (in my opinion) to Harry Potter, which has deeply mythic themes, characters, and motifs. Once I finish the book, I might write a post about Harry Potter with Campbell in mind. Because I'm just that cool.

In other news, I just returned from my second ever trip to New York, where I saw 5 shows in 4 days. Here's my mini-review:

Wicked: Amazing, although the woman playing Glinda was a tiny bit too over-the-top bubbly (even for Glinda), but overall it was very good.

Curtains: I was very pleasantly surprised by this show. When I saw their number on the Tony's, I was a little underwhelmed. However, this musical completely rocked, in an old school homage kind of way. Really funny, and David Hyde Pierce is my hero.

Avenue Q: Very funny, a very tightly written show, and very talented actors, but seeing the show is a very similar experience to listening to the album (which isn't a bad thing... just an interesting thing).

Spring Awakening: Different than any musical I've ever seen, and very haunting, energetic, and beautiful. Listening to the album is nothing like seeing the show. This is not personally my favorite type of show, but I still really enjoyed it.

...Spelling Bee Very very funny, despite not having my favorite score ever. Very charming, and the audience participation portions are the most entertaining.

Overall, it was a very fun trip to New York.

And Now... James Recommends

http://www.myspace.com/natstorrs
Meet my best friend. Meet her beautiful music. She rocks, and it rocks. Go, and listen over and over.

How I Met Your Mother
A very funny, smart show with a heart. Not in the league with Arrested Development or the Office, but I really like this show. It has some very creative story telling for a traditional three-camera studio audience show with Bob Saget as the narrator. But, trust me, it's really funny, and it possibly has one of the greatest recurring sub-plots of all time: the slap-bet. They have the slap-bet episode on their myspace page, you should check it out.

There's a place where I can go and tell my secrets to: in my blog... in my blog, (in my blog, in my)...

My struggles with insomnia have taken a turn for the worse. Last night I simply could not fall asleep before 7 am. It's somewhat maddening, and it pretty much messes up my whole schedule daily schedule. And here I am, another post-3 AM writing session.

SPOILER ALERT: there are no spoilers in the rest of this post

If there is one thing that really upsets me, it's spoilers: a creation of our increasingly impatient information-hungry ADD internet culture. Spoilers only remove the fun of a surprise for the overwhelmingly satisfying feeling "wow, I wish I didn't read that." Spoilers kill fun.

Example: What's better than a surprise party? All your friends plan something just for you! In your honor. Instead of a mundane Monday night at home watching a rerun of "Two and a Half Men" on TiVo, a party came out of nowhere and rocked your face off. You'll be telling the story of how your awesome friends surprised you for years to come. "I noticed my door was unlocked, and I thought someone broke in, but then I heard everyone yell surprise! That was my favorite birthday ever."

Imagine this scenario, but someone (let's call him Brian) comes up to you earlier in the day. Brian says he's sorry that he has to miss your party tonight. You say "What party?" He laughs embarrassedly, and then the douche says "Oh, oh... you didn't know? Oh, fuck... Yeah, Mary said something about that... man, I'm so sorry." Then you have to spend the rest of the night pretending to be surprised, and you'll spend the rest of your life telling the story of how Brian was an asshole.

Spoilers are like Brian.

Which is why I'm reading the internet very carefully nowadays. I've been spending a good deal of this summer reading the Harry Potter books (I still have two and a half books to get caught up, but I've been reading at a good pace lately). I'm really enjoying the vastness and complexity of the story, and I can't wait to finish the books.
But I think that I speak for many when I say this: I might go psychotic if I get spoiled.

In all of this, I always wonder about what's next for J.K. Rowling. Not that anything has to be next. She could make herself a house, a bed, and a complete wardrobe out of 100 dollar bills and gold bars. And she has the right to. However, I would love to see what her "difficult second album" would be beyond the Potter stories. Also, I would love to see what happens to her creation after the test of time.

Of course, there is always the chance in our business-dominated society, the artist might lose her creation to the work of a corporate shill.


And wouldn't that be a horrible thing?

Worst midnight snack ever.

My mind just thought the sexiest phrase ever known:

"Man, my mouth tastes like pudding and chicken mcnuggets."

Ladies?


But, sadly, that was the truth, as I had yet another disgustingly unhealthy after-midnight snack as my late night writing session is going on past 3 AM. (this post will probably say it's a little after midnight. that's just because I never got around to changing the time zone on my computer clock)...

I'm currently working on a full outline for a show, and it's proving to be more of a struggle than I would have hoped. I always have a hell of a time naming my characters. I'm extremely indecisive when it comes to this, and I always feel my names are a bit too unoriginal. And once I start to struggle with a name, the procrastinator in me says "hmm... well, there are some pudding cups in the fridge." or maybe that's the morbidly obese man inside of me. or both. damn you, morbidly obese procrastinator! I would name you, but I can't decide on any fucking names.

I do like to name my characters after my friends; however, I get extremely embarrassed at the prospect of someone finding out that I used their name. I have no clue why, but it feels like the prospect of that girl in fifth grade finding out you like her.

And of course, there is that possibility that they would go "you named that douchebag after me?!"

I'm really going to have a hard time naming my child.

--EDIT--
I just made it so anyone can comment now. Even unregistered users, you freeloaders.

This post rated R: for language, sexual overtones, and fantastical battle sequences.

A JamesThoughts First: Two posts within 24 hours. Oh, what a glorious occasion, when the heavens opened, and the birds broke out into a glorious chorus, and the world cried out a scathingly sarcastic "whoop-di-fucking-doo."

I'm currently trying to figure out the origin of offensive words. This really stems from my curiosity of why curse words really seem to upset people so much. Now, I understand that there are hateful words that are full of venom meant to belittle others: Slurs that really shouldn't be uttered as it releases more hate into the world. But I don't get what's really so offensive about a word like "shit." Or "fuck" for that matter. Sure, used in a hateful way, like "Fuck you" or "you're a fucking piece of shit, you fuckshitfuck" and I get that it's offensive.
But what if you overhear someone say "oh, fuck, there's a fly in my soup, great." Now, a statement where the curse word just means "look, a bad thing has happened" would not be able to be aired on network television. I'm not condoning foul language... I just want to know why it's considered foul, or even sinful. Personally, I think the word kill is a much more vile word than fuck in it's pure meaning, yet you don't ever hear the word kill bleeped.

Let me know your thoughts on foul language. I'm very curious about your view. (And I'm also curious to see how many people actually read this, so please comment).

Another reason why I find curse words interesting is because I don't shy away from foul language when writing plays, sketches, or even musicals. It really depends on the tone of the piece, but as an artist I want to explore the human condition. And I've found that that condition sometimes includes some language my local priest would consider to be naughty.

Which reminds me of a story from Sunday school. One of the other children and I for some reason got into a conversation about "bad" words. He went on to say "Of course, there's the worst word of all to say..." I, of course, thought he would say "fuck," which I had only recently learned because another student got in trouble for writing down "fuck" on his paper, and I didn't know it was a bad word until I came home and asked my parents why someone would get in trouble for writing down "fuck."
However, my Sunday school compatriot proceeded to say that the worst word that you can say is "holy." That's right, holy. As in "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners..." As in the Holy Spirit. As in the Holy Rollers. It made no sense to me. I got the whole "Don't take the Lord's name in vain" thing, but holy being the worst word you could ever say?

Details are hazy, but for some reason I called him an "imbecile," which apparently was another bad word according to this kid because I got in trouble for cursing. But, really, of all the words: holy?



However, he probably was just a forward thinker. He knew the worst word to say was holy because he predicted one of the most annoying traits in advertising: the holy explosion tease. You've seen it: it's in at least 67% of action movie trailers. The protagonist sees something startling, says "HOLY..." and before he can say anything profane, there's a sudden cut to an awesome explosion. Wow, I really want to see that movie. It has curse words and explosions!! XTreme!



shameless cross promotion:

http://runningwithdinosaurs.blogspot.com/
this is my good friend's blog. He's much better about updating it, and he plays a Dinosaur in a stage show. How can that not be awesome?

Favorite Links

www.clarkandmichael.com: this is hilariousness brought to you by Arrested Development's Michael Cera.

www.radiolab.org: a very insightful and interesting radio show about science presented through story telling. It's similar to This American Life: 3 different stories, sometimes about normal people, all centered on a theme. And you might learn something! Or not. But it's full of great facts and actually pretty entertaining. You can download episodes via their website or iTunes.

www.youtube.com: i discovered this nice little diamond in the rough of the internets. You might think it's just for tube enthusiasts, but it actually features videos! I know you're skeptical, but maybe you should check it out. It might just be the next big thing (doubt it).

Bubba, Bubba, and me

While at the doctor's office, I might have witnessed the most annoying woman ever.

She was quite a large woman, who walked in with her 2 year old harnessed to her. The harness looked like a little teddy bear who apparently had a death grip on this little girl and would not let go. I learned later that this harness' name was "Buddy." Now, if I had to wear something all the time that constricted my movement I wouldn't exactly consider it my buddy.
She always called her child "Baby" and she always referred to herself as "Mama," and never speaking in the first person. This was when I knew that we were in very Southern territory. Dare I say, redneck.
But I don't mind that. I'm a Georgia man, born and raised.
However, what I do mind is people who do not shut up.
Now, with kids, you expect it. Kids like to talk, they like to ask questions, they like to make noise. That's fine, they're kids. Now, if it's a large Southern woman who cannot stop talking for more than five seconds, then it's very annoying.
"Come on baby, mama wants to sit down." "Baby, play with those blocks." "Mama needs to go shopping later." "Uh-oh, spagghettios!"
The last one was my favorite. It would have made sense if the little girl had dropped something or hurt herself. But she hadn't. Nothing went wrong, but the woman still exclaimed "Uh-oh, spagghetios," almost as if a pavlovian response. As if a decade ago, the high-ups from Spagghetios kidnapped random people and programmed them to say their slogan at random points during the day. Either that or this woman is crazy.
Her kid didn't say a word. I personally think that the woman literally took up the quota of words that could be spoken in a small space.
Then came the best part. The little girl took out a picture, and the woman said, "Who's that in the picture? That's right, that's you, Bubba, and Bubba."

Now, I think it should be pretty much a steadfast rule that there should be no circumstances where there is more than one Bubba present at a location at any given time. Not even if it's Bubba Sr and Bubba Jr. Actually, especially not. If you were named Bubba, you cannot name your child Bubba knowing what the name Bubba does. It's just one of those names that just begs for assumptions, and I think really limits your opportunities in society. Would you invest your money in a company with it's CEO named Bubba? How many people would vote Bubba for president? (Actually, don't answer that. Americans might think that it would be fun to get a beer with him, and that's obviously a great criteria for voting someone the leader of the free world).
Naming your kid Bubba is the redneck equivalent of naming your kid Jeeves. That pretty much limits them to a life as a butler or as a search engine.

In other news, I feel bad for Gary Coleman. A life of being the rep for a Cash Loan company (Cash Call!) and being ridiculed 8 times a week in Avenue Q. However, I bet he is badass as a security guard, which was his actual job for awhile (I don't know if it still is). Imagine you're trying to steal from a store, then suddenly you see a little blur running straight towards you. "Holy shit, is that Gary Coleman?" you think to yourself. Now instead of thinking about your escape, you just start thinking about your favorite episode of "Diff'rent Strokes." Boom, Gary Coleman takes you to the ground.
God bless you, Gary Coleman.

Productivity Update So far, my schedule has not exactly worked out to a tee. For some reason, I've been having bad insomnia lately. It's infuriating. So, it's a little hard to wake up in the morning. But other than that I've being more productive. So... that's good. But completely uninteresting.

And now for something that's not completely boring...
Word of advice: never go to a dentist appointment late. They find ways to make you pay for it. I was five minutes late today to my dental appointment, and it was definitely the most painful hour I've had in a long time. Not only was my dentist hurting me, but she was adding insult to my bloody, puffy injury. "You need to work on your flossing. Your gums are unhealthy. They're swollen and bleeding"
Hmm, I wonder why they're bleeding. Could it be because you just spent a good half hour poking at them with a sharp metal stick?

Meanwhile, what happens when you try to work on 5 different writing projects at the same time (not including short films and sketches)? Well, you pretty much don't make much progress on any of them. Probably would be best to focus on one at a time.

And this ends the most boring blog post yet.

Me be bad at teh blogz?

I suck at blogging.

It's just a fact. I am not a good blogger. Now, I feel that I am a good writer. I just suck at updating my blog with anything of substance. It's completely due to my summer-time lack of discipline. Which flows over into my fall-time lack of discipline. After a semi-November of productivity, Thanksgiving rolls along and the lack of discipline resumes. This translates into the winter of despair, where I destroy all the good I did in that half of November. In the Spring, I rise from the ashen winter and recuperate, by not being productive. Thus is the circle of procrastination continues. Seasons change, but still no work gets done.

And the blog? Well, the blog is the most neglected of the bunch.

But I've made a 7-7-07 resolution, because I am as obsessed with repeating numbers as the rest of society with nothing better to think about. Actually, when it was 9-9-99, I was literally flipping a shit. I thought the world would end. Of course, everything stayed exactly the same, because the world doesn't give a shit about what day we started our calendar, and the only bad thing that came about 9-9-99 was the Sega Dreamcast (which I actually liked, except I bought it right before it got a 200 dollar price cut). But I digress.

I have concocted a daily schedule for the rest of the summer. I roughly consists of 4 hours of writing, 3 hours of reading, 1 hour of exercise and the rest is downtime. I'm going to see how long I can keep this up. It's really not much, and hopefully it will help me get over my huge problem with procrastination. I'm going to try to make this blog an every other day type thing this summer.

Let's see how this works.

Bomb Lake Pinamazake.

I have to say, this new AmEx commercial has to be one of my least favorite in a long time. The one where Ellen, Shaun White, Andre Agassi, Alicia Keys, and Sheryl Crowe are dressed in oh so pretentious matching black outfits. They talk about different issues, like the environment and African aide.
So far, so good. The cast is great, the outfits aren't that bad, and the message seems sincere.
Then some douchebag, who "has a nice face" according to Martin Scorsese, waltzes onto the set and gives his two cents how they need to clean up Lake Pinamazake. Scorsese understandably asks who this guy is, and he gives the credentials that "he works in the office nextdoor" and goes on to state again how important cleaning the lake is.
This is where the commercial irks me to no end. First of all, you don't just walk onto a set with Andre fucking Agassi and Ellen (freaking Ellen!) like it's no big deal. Does this guy's walk home always go through the semi-studio that's inexplicably set up next to his office? You think he would notice all the cameras, the lights, and oh, maybe the celebrities reading lines and think "maybe this is not the best route to my car." Just because you have a nice face doesn't mean you can do whatever you want.
Also, the best he can come up with is cleaning Lake Pinamazake? They just mentioned ending world hunger! You think a reasonable person would think that ending world hunger would be a bit more important than cleaning a lake.
But not to this commercial crashing douchebag. No, sorry impoverished African countries! No vaccines for you! We gotta clean up this arrogant bastard's lake!

Mostly, I hate this commercial because I've seen it no less than 50 times in the last week.

Nothing to do on a Friday night... (AKA The Lone Ranger and Tonto and Bonto)

What do you do when your plans fall through on a Friday night?

You deny that playing along with National Bingo Night officially makes your life sad (even though, it really does. However, I did get Bingo. My prize? I get to be entered in a drawing! Hooray! It's a dream come true!).
You watch old episodes of The Office (The Fire, which brings up a good question, what would be your top 5 dvds on a desert island?).
And you update your blog.

As promised last time, I'm going to rehash the season finales of American Idol and Lost.

American Idol: An entertaining finale to a down year for the show. They need to do a much better job of casting next year. You never really got the sense that anyone really wanted to win. It's been proven that you can find success if you just make the top 10. In fact, Blake seemed a little relieved that he didn't win. They're gonna have to have more talented and more eager people on the show next year, or else I think the show is really going to risk becoming somewhat irrelevant by 2009 or 2010.

Lost: Wow. Just wow. Way to completely change things up. I'll go more in depth in a future post, but I'm really excited for the future of the show. This twist really worked because it wasn't a gimmick, it was just a simple shift of point of view. And that really works on a dramatic level. But this was a great finale. Full of suspense, full of emotion, just a great two hours of TV.

Kelly Clarkson: My friend Ian is, as he said, "half way in love with Kelly Clarkson." I don't blame him. She's really cute, amazing voice, can totally rock it out. I'm a little worried though. Ian has a tendency to get carried away. He's already created a life-sized replica of her, and also a giant-sized replica of her (he has a weird... fetish, i don't know, probably still longing to be an infant being nursed by his mother). Ian is a dangerous, twisted man.
Okay, everything past the words "totally rock it out" are completely false (unless Ian has some habits I don't know about). But yeah, point in case: Kelly Clarkson rocks and Ian wanted me to write about it.

a little preview for next time:

in my next coherent post: my thoughts on Lost's season finale (after my brain recovers, as the episode nearly killed it), American Idol, my friend's love of Kelly Clarkson, and auditioning...

until then... what the hell just happened on lost?

Hello World

Hey Everyone!

James here. This is the very first entry of JamesThoughts (which really is a working title... if anyone has any suggestions, let me know). As I sit here, jetlagged as hell, I can only think one question:
Why a blog? Why JamesThoughts? Why not IanThoughts as my good friend Ian suggested?
The last question can easily be answered by the fact that I already tried to blog Ian's thoughts a couple of months ago, and spending that much time in that man's mind proved to be dangerous to my health and society as a whole.
I have no clue what this blog will be like. Most likely, it will track the creative process as I take on new projects as an actor and writer. I might recap my thoughts on movies I've seen and some of my favorite TV shows, or I might philosophize on life in general. This will not be a log of how my feelings waver from day to day (I spent way too much time doing that on livejournal in highschool and my freshman year of college... it was a horrible habit, haha). It's just a place for me to share some thoughts.

I figure since I spend a good deal of time obsessing over TV shows, I might as well rehash/preview some of the Season Finales:
(Warning: The rehashes will include spoilers)

The Office:
Once Arrested Development went off the air, this became by far my favorite comedy on TV. Everything about the Office is great: the acting, the writing, the ability to mix silliness with the sentimental. I think this season's finale pretty much showcased all of these great elements. It's amazing that a show that can pull off jokes about Schrutebucks and Stanleynickles can still provide an emotional punch with a beautiful sequence where Jim find's Pam's "Don't Forget Us When You're Famous" note. As much as I really did like Jim and Karen together, it feels very right that Jim and Pam are now dating. It should be interesting to see how the writers handle them as a couple. Much of the show was built upon the tension of ther "Will They Get Together" question. Personally, I think the writers are skilled enough to make as compelling a story for Jim and Pam as a couple as they did with them apart, without going cliche and breaking them up early on (which would make me a very sad panda).
Other highlights of the episode were creedthoughts (which was the inspiration for this blog, and is actually posted on nbc.com... really check it out. Even for the internet, it's quite shocking), Pam being the secret Assistant (to the) Regional Manager, Andy's interviewing skills, and pretty much anything with Michael and Jan.
Overall, this episode gets 10 Schrutebucks out of 10.

Grey's Anatomy:
This was a disappointing end to an uneven season. I really did enjoy the first two seasons of Grey's, and I have to wonder if developing the "Private Practice" spinoff didn't stretch out Shonda Rhimes a bit. Meredith and Derek's relationship really did not make sense to me. The conflict that was mounting the past few weeks felt very forced, and Meredith declaration of "It's so over" was more pathetic than anything. The whole "Who's going to be the next chief" ended with a whimper, as an arc that took up the better part of the season ended with everything conveniently remaining the same! More over, this finale was just a bummer, and I don't feel the overpowering urge to know what happens (like I did after last season). I really hope Grey's finds it mojo again, because I miss it.
3 Schrutebucks out of 10.

Heroes:
I thought this really wrapped up the season nicely. I know the battle at the end was a little anti-climatic, but I thought it was really cool how everything came to a head at the end. This finale did everything I wanted it to: entertained me, provided a satisfying (if not a little predictable) conclusion to a great story, and left me wanting more and really looking forward to next season (despite the prospect of the cheesy spinoff: Heroes: Origins).
8 Schutebucks and 50 Stanley Nickles (or an 8.5 out of 10).

Now to prehash really quickly:

American Idol: I hate Blake. He's way too cheesy and not good enough a singer or performer to win the show. I absolutely despised his version of "You Give Love A Bad Name." Go Jordin!

Lost: Oh my freaking Lord, I cannot wait. I have no clue what's going to happen, and I like it that way.


Alright, well, I'm very tired and delirious and trying to figure out if farty is a real word.
Till next time,

James