Angry tortoise will fuck you up, son.

This is a video clip of a tortoise who hates cats. And chases them around his yard. (Slowly.)

He’s like a very small M1 Abrams tank. I wish this clip had a stirring, Patton-style soundtrack. That’s the only thing that could improve it.

You should watch it! It’s more fun than you are currently imagining it to be.

Manly enough to drink lattes with impunity.

I think the one thing that would ever make me want to be a dude is how much dudes get to swear. I mean, yes, sure, girls can swear. But there’s a fine line between a lady with a mouth like a long-haul trucker and someone sitting on a curb on COPS, being all “Hey officer! Can you light my cigarette for me? On account of how it went out when I dropped it in this here puddle.”

Something in me really admires well-placed profanity, I can’t help it. This is one of the many reasons I am enjoying the Generation Kill mini-series WAY TOO MUCH. (Unfortunately, it’s making me want to swear ALL THE TIME.)

That is all a long lead-in to the following:

Have you watched the Get Your War On animated promo? It is so awesome and wonderful and hilarious. I have watched it approximately nine million times. Every time the guy gets to the punchline, I laaaaaaaaaugh and laaaaaaaaaaaaugh.

“I’ve got a foot-long [beep]. Flaccid. And I drink lattes.”

That is just a really great line. MAN.

I also really like how Accounts Receivable Guy says “Hey, you.” It’s so affectionate and nice! And then the LATTE STUFF HAPPENS, and I laaaaaaugh.

Phew.

“Don’t worry, it’s on rollers”

There was just a 5.8 earthquake here in LA. I am on the fourth floor of a building, and it was doing that ROLLING thing that makes you feel all upset in the pit of your stomach.

As I listened to people freak out, I found myself thinking:

IF I HAVE TO DIE, DON’T LET IT BE ON THE FOURTH FLOOR OF THIS STUDIO OFFICE BUILDING! ESPECIALLY NOT WITH THESE PEOPLE!

And then right after people were milling around, PLANLESS, trying to figure out what to do. Which… I would say that I am generally a pretty nice person, but there are a few things that turn me (in my head) into a raging cranky bitch, and one of them is PLANLESS MILLING. Someone needs to take control! Not me, because I just got here. I don’t even know you people. But SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE A PLAN.

Another thing that makes me grouchy is how after an earthquake you have to listen to a hundred people from New York talk about how awful it was and how they’re on the first flight back to Manhattan, IT WAS SO TRAUMATIC, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.

Then, just as I was getting really cranky (in my head) someone on one of my tracking groups was all “Question. How do we parlay this into a half day?”

Which made me feel like trauma happily brings out the hilarity in the kind of people who are devious and excellent.

Hospitalized, hospitalized, bitten by a shark.

All-nerd edition

Yesterday I had the BEST TIME with my friend Terrance. First, we had breakfast foods and he listened to me talk about various things I am thinking about writing. Then we decided to go to a COMIC BOOK STORE, so we ran by his wife’s office to tell her about our plan, and she made this kind of face:

“….”

Then we actually went to the comic book store. I had never been in one! Terrance said that comic book stores tend to smell like “Masturbation and shame”, which made me laugh so hard I had to put my head down on the table for a minute.

(Also, it turns out that they DO kind of smell that way.)

I was totally overwhelmed by the breadth of nerdery available to me in the store. I mean, did I want to read a comic about people assassinating superheroes? Did I want to read a comic about superheroes assassinating people? SO MANY CHOICES.

Finally we broke down and asked the Comic Book Guy what he would advise for someone who didn’t know anything. He knew EVERYTHING. I said “Well, I like things that are dark and depressing. Also, the apocalypse.” and he said “Try this WOLVERINE OMNIBUS”.

(He also suggested something where Batman turns into a vampire, but I ruined that moment by going “Hahaha. Batman turns into a VAMPIRE? HA HA HA.”)

Comic Book Guy was really knowledgeable and helpful and kind, and didn’t make fun of me when I said “So, these numbers on the covers, do they indicate the order in which you should read them?” or anything. Thanks, Comic Book Guy.

THEN we went to an area park and watched people play Frisbee. I also flipped through one of the comics Terrance bought. It’s about people who put out hits on jerky superheroes, and the Giant Studio he works at just bought the rights. I was reading the first few pages and I flipped to the next page and suddenly the top panel was people DOING IT, and I did that surprised blushing-laughing thing that I should probably get over, because I’m not TWELVE. How are people going to take me seriously in pitch meetings if I say “And then we cut to them DOING IT, ahahahahaha!” instead of a casual&totallyprofessional “Cue angry sex on her desk”? Sigh.

To close out my day of nerdery, I read the Wolverine thing Comic Book Guy sold me. It’s called WOLVERINE: WEAPON X and is all about how Some Dude got turned into Wolverine without anyone asking if he was okay with that. It’s really SAD. I kept wanting to hug Wolverine, except then I thought about how he’d probably rip you to shreds with his HAND CLAWS, so I guess really I’d look sympathetically at him from a pretty big distance and ask if he wanted some ibuprofen.

To conclude today’s all-nerd edition, please check out this excellent blog post by screenwriter Denis Faye about his time at Comic-Con:

Because I’m one of the few Americans who, for some reason, prefers to walk down steps twenty feet away rather than tromp a quarter mile for the convenience of using an escalator, I felt smug as well. “Ah,” I mused humorously, “stairs!”

It’s amazing how one word plus an interjection can come out so wrong. I meant it as a winking, “People don’t use stairs because they’re lazy — but not you and me!” Instead, it came out like this weird Spock impersonation. “Stairs? Fascinating! Tell me more about these ’stairs.’” The guy stared at me coldly. I stammered for a second, but an explanation would only make things worse, so I turned and ran for the stairs.

Hee hee hee. EXCELLENT.

Overheard

FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)
(baby-talk cooing)
Ooooooooh! Who is this? Who is this? Isn’t he adorable?!?

OTHER FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)
Oh, thank you!

BABY (O.S.)
(inarticulate gurgling)

FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)
Yes you are! Awww. Boo boo boo!

OTHER FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)
Hee hee! Well, we have to go. Time for someone’s nap…

FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)
Oh, so soon? Bye-bye! Bye-bye!

Murmured goodbyes, a pause, elevator DINGS its arrival. A beat. Then:

FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)
(loud, strident)
I fucking hate kids.

Evolution of a dude screenwriter

So there’s this bit in the Hollywood Report about Evolution of a Screenwriter: A genre-busting generation is multi-tasking its way to the top. (You can read it here to check my math.)

I like to read these things whenever I start to feel a little bit too adequate. Very helpful in suppressing any latent tendencies toward repulsive vanity you might have overlooked.

This article is accompanied by a little cartoon illustrating the evolution of a screenwriter.

PANEL ONE: A dude in a green visor sits at a slanted desk and scratches out a script with a pen and ink pot.

PANEL TWO: A dude in a porkpie hat sits at a metal desk and types out a script on a typewriter.

PANEL THREE: A douche (male variety) in a HARVARD t-shirt and 80s jacket talks on the phone while idly tapping away on his laptop.

PANEL FOUR: A guy with a goatee checks out a message on his iPhone, turns up the volume on his iPod, and wears a backpack with a guitar sticking out of it. (Apparently, in the future, all screenwriters will be trust-fundies bumming around France.)

The illustration bothered me for some reason. I stared at it for a few seconds. Finally, it dawned on me. THESE WERE ALL DUDES. Screenwriter=person with y chromosome, obvy. It was like one of those marked/unmarked experiments you do in your entry-level linguistics class before you run out to smoke your cloves and adjust your beret.

THEN, something occurred to me. “Elana,” I thought, “You’re just being weird and paranoid. I bet the actual article, the giant cover feature that looks like it mentions many many writers and filmmakers, totally mentions one or two ladies. Because ladies write things or otherwise participate in the entertainment industry in many ways! It’s been that way for a while and is only rarely considered to be radical!”

So, in ANOTHER Comic Book Guy moment, I went through and counted. The author, one Jay A. Fernandez, name-checks twenty-three (23) writers, producers, managers, directors and multi-hyphenates.

Every single one was a dude.

How did this article go through multiple layers of editing and fact-checking and editorial meetings, and no one ever said “THIS ARTICLE IS A TOTAL SAUSAGEFEST, can we get some chicks up in here? There’s a lady somehow involved with the Terminator franchise, isn’t there? GET HER ON THE PHONE, STAT.”

Dogspotting, Naomi, Generation Kill (Again)

I MUST START CARRYING AROUND A SMALL CAMCORDER.

I was leaving work and a lady was walking her dog. Only, okay. OKAY.

So there’s this grassy verge. It’s all thick and green and luxurious and if you were a kid you’d rip off your shoes and run around on it.

There’s also this lady. Wearing a sun visor.

And then there’s her dog. The dog is salt-and-pepper grey, medium-sized, some kind of terrier mix: knee-high, longer than he is tall, long hair. Really splendidly shaggy ears that made him look like an old man.

And the dog is COMBAT CRAWLING OVER THE GRASS. GRUNTING WITH GLEE. I guess it was hot out, and sometimes a dog needs to cool his belly. It made me really happy.

(Do you think I talk about dogs too much? Probably. I think really only my friend Kinan likes to talk about dogs as much as I do. Not dogs we HAVE or HANG OUT WITH or anything, just “Oh man, last week I saw this dog in a car and he was sitting upright like people do and he looked like a copier salesman!” or “I’m leaving you this message because I just saw this dog and he was doing that thing where he skipped a beat with his back leg, like he’s in RIVERDANCE!”)

***

This is my best friend Naomi talking about famous writers.

Recently she told me she sometimes feels shy about letting people read her stuff, and I was totally flabbergasted. Because when we were writing together, I always felt like I was some kind of bum who’d jumped the turnstile and was hitching a ride on her hilarious coattails for free. It just goes to show, once again, that there’s just zero correlation between “Not sucking” and “Thinking that you’re awesome”.

I mean, read her blog! See how smart and funny she is and how rarely she resorts to TYPING LIKE THIS IN ORDER TO MAKE A POINT? She’s a quality lady.

***

I am going to get very COMIC BOOK GUY for a moment here. I’m sorry.

But something’s been bothering me about Generation Kill, as splendiferous as it is. See, in the series, people keep calling Sgt. Colbert BRAD.

THAT’S NOT HIS NAME.

I mean, okay, yes. It is. It totally is his name.

But Sgt. Colbert is the alpha male of the little fiefdom that is his Humvee, and I don’t think his gunner would call him Brad. I think his gunner would call him Sergeant. (Or at least, if he called him Brad, it would be kind of A Moment, not CASUAL HELLO HOW’S IT GOING BRADERINO?)

Also, rest assured that I am embarrassed by:

a) How much thought I have given to this subject since it first occurred to me last Sunday.
b) How often I have almost brought it up in totally unrelated conversations this week.

Right. Comic Book Guy!

Journey at the center of the earth

Do you like movie trailers? Do you like to make fun of the band Journey?

HECK YES YOU DO.

I’m “sorry” my writing is so “bad”

FINALLY. A blog I can really get behind.

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks.

YES. Those drive me crazy. Like when you’re at the grocery store and there’s a hand-written sign reading:

“FRESH CORN”, 10/3!

The only other thing I need now is The Blog Of Random Uppercasing. And I don’t mean the kind of uppercasing I do, which is of course also wrong and lame and annoying but springs from GENUINE EXCITEMENT ABOUT SOMETHING OR OTHER.

No, I mean random Initial Capping.

WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS.

Like you’re just reading along and it’s all “Later that Fall, Rodney and Julia went to a local Apple farm to pick farm-fresh Apples.”

ARE WE GERMAN NOW?

***

Are you watching Generation Kill? It is SO GREAT. I love it. I have to bite back feelings that my obvious life calling was to write this show and I missed it, so I might as well become a boxcar hobo and ride the rails from now on. That’s how great it is.

It’s particularly good for someone like me, who really likes to write about stoic men who don’t say much (or, who may talk a lot, but don’t say much. You know?) – there’s a scene in the second episode where one of the team leaders watches this shell-shocked other Marine wander around this field of standing hay, and finally he calls out, like it will help: “Hey buddy, you okay? You need anything? Food? Water?” and I guess it kind of does help. And. I KNOW, you’re going to laugh at me, but I found it really touching.

Luckily, a few seconds later, all the Marines were back to whipping out astonishing ethnic and sexual slurs, bless! I really like it whenever the Evan Wright character mouths a delighted “WOW!” in the back seat after a particularly good run by the Marines in his Humvee, because I would be doing the same thing.

***

I have been talking to some of my young-lady writer friends about how so many girl writers undersell themselves something fierce. “Oh… this? Oh, it’s not very good. It might be awful! You probably shouldn’t read it. I’m sorry I wrote it. Nevermind. Have you seen any boxcars around here that need a hobo?”

Which is pointless, because maybe part of you is hoping that the other person will go “Stop, stop, you’re splendid, what are you talking about? Here, have this writing award and a dog and a basket of organic fruit!”

But that never happens. What actually happens is, the other person listens to you blab about how much you suck and thinks things like “Whoa, I’m glad I found out about the awful writing before I did business with her. WHAT A LOSER.” etc. etc.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m some kind of superfantastic writer who could go mano-a-mano* with Tina Fey or William Monahan, but on the other hand I don’t actually think I’m so lousy I need to constantly apologize for my writing, either. AND YET I DO.

“This is probably really bad, but–”
“You don’t need to read it. I mean, it’s probably pretty lame.”
“I had this idea, but it’s okay if you hate it.”
“This is probably really stupid, but I was thinking that maybe there’s a movie about–”

I used to be extremely suspicious of people who would pitch you ideas like so: “Yeah, I’m writing this spec. It’s fuckin’ amazing, it’s set in Venice at the turn of the last century, pirates in canoes have taken over the canals, and it’s up to one man – Don Rupertino – and his band of merry gondoliers to stop them. The set-pieces are spectacular. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

And, okay, I’m still pretty suspicious of those people, but I would also like an injection of whatever kind of serum gives them the ability to STOP APOLOGIZING AND GET ON WITH IT. I believe that there is a sizable market among creative types for such a vaccine, should any scientists out there wish to do a little independent research in their lab’s slower hours.

*I can never remember if that means “hand to hand” or “man to man”. I guess I can’t really go man-to-man with anyone. Let’s pretend it means something like “EPIC YET HILARIOUS FACEOFF!”