My Passion Play
I’m still finding myself repeatedly in the same rut, where I will be struck with an incredible idea, begin the story, and sixteen pages later, decide that it was crap, and then eat chicken fingers. Not only is it bad for my artistic morale, but it does a wonder on my gut. I’ve been bouncing from topic to topic, (really… the chinchilla thing was the best I’ve come up in a while. Sad. Sigh.), so much that it makes my head spin when I even try to remember the miasma of ideas that have flooded my mind. I know, I know. This is the same perplexion that faces every wannabe writer. Call it creative drought, the power of the blank canvas, or writer’s fucking roadblock, it sucks balls. Who ever decided this was an okay profession, nonetheless a feasible aspiration? It’s a dumb idea to encourage young writers. (’Hope springs eternal’ no longer applies after your computer accrues more versions of Final Draft than plays that you’ve actually written.)
Still, I am able to find solace in my one true passion. Reality television. I know that the subject has been beaten into the ground, and as a televisionwithoutpity addict, I consider myself very familiar with the subject. It has come to the point where I derive my nightly pleasure from first watching an episode of the Amazing Race, and then running to the computer the next day to check out the recaplet and have my (often irate) opinions justified on the page I’m viewing. My obsessive craving for television drama sans-script has made me believe that I can create my own dramas sans-script. Lately, I’ve found myself creating the stories, and following through with the entire play, or spec script, only to find that I actually haven’t written a single thing. It’s all stuck in my head, and just envisioned as edited bits of staged interviews, late-nite intoxicated confessionals, and montages of cutting room footage. This, I feel, is a whole new level of post-modernism in which not only has everything been done before, but everything has been ironically done before, and the only thing left to do is make a clip show of everything we didn’t use from the second run. I lie convinced that somewhere in between the gaps of reality television there is a little piece of artistic magic. Tyra Banks becomes my muse, and I truly begin to believe that I understand the concept of Racing Around the World. Apotheosis is acheived upon the elimination of the next contestant, or the snuffing of a torch, or - god forbid - the stealing of chiffon. I take a deep breath, and I create the next drama that exists in my mind, clear my TiVo box, and anxiously await the next day’s prime time schedule. (Ask me about it - I’m up to 12.5 hours/week, thanks to my DVR.)
Ugh. I make me sick.
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i know this is totally not the point of this blog…which i can sympathize with but alas, have no witty comeback to…but DVR has saved my life. i just felt the need to share this love. because apparently i would much rather sit at home and watch other people’s lives than go out and experience my own. but let’s face it. their fake tv lives are SO much more interesting than my own. sad dash sigh.