Thursday February 4, 2010

Wake up around noon to a call from Tool saying he accidentally locked himself out of the condo. I walk downstairs to let him in and then cruise back up to my room to chill out and watch some t.v. before starting my day. I get about five minutes into a hard channel surfing session when I decide I'm gonna grab some Dunkin' Donuts. I ask Tool if he wants me to pick him up any and he says he will take some, asking also that I stop by the store and pick up a gallon of milk. I cruise out and rock my morning smoke on the way.

First stop is the grocery store. I'm not sure why, but I am completely retarded in the realm of grocery shopping. I can never find what I'm looking for and every fuckin' store has a different layout. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think it's necessary to have different layouts for each goddamn grocery store. It should be the "if you've been in one, you've been in all of them" kinda place. But no. Every fucking store has to be different and every fucking store has to put their products in different places. I'm used to going to the Dominick's right by my house, but I kinda feel like taking a little morning cruise today, which I sometimes do, so I opt to hit up the Jewel in Naperville, which is also conveniently right next to a Dunkin' Donuts. I finally spot the milk fridge after about ten minutes of searching, grab a gallon, pay the broad at the front, and peace. I hit up Dunkin' right across the street and order up two large coffees, a black for me, and a hazelnut with cream and sugar for Tool. I fire up another smoke for the ride home to compliment my coffee. In the event that I decide to quit smoking for a second time, it's the coffee drinking that's gonna make it a bitch to follow through with. Coffee and cigarettes go hand in hand and, once you've done them together, it's hard to do one without the other.

I make it home and give Tool his coffee. We then spend the next few hours going over the Tropical Smoothie training shit from yesterday. It's all pretty tedious and boring, but it's also fairly simple. A lot of their policies and procedures are very similar to the ones at Caribou, so it won't be too hard to pick up on. Tool cruises to run some errands around 3:00, and I decide to do a little more work on the screenplay before going to work at 5:00. I get a good chunk written and am now hitting the 80-page mark. Generally, a typical comedy should be about 100 to 110 pages in length. They say a script should average out to approximately a minute per page, give or take some pages. From where I'm sitting, my screenplay is looking to hit the 120 to 130 page mark. It is, however, the first draft, so I plan on making some cuts to shorten it. Right now I'm just focusing on getting the story done and I'll worry about filtering out the bullshit later.

4:00 hits and I get ready for work, resulting in a 4:30 departure from my home. I get to work on time and, once again, immediately get to closing the place down. There was supposed to be a store meeting tonight, but it was canceled. This is good news as I now have more time to get done what I need to. I bust out my laptop and do some more writing.

Justin decides to cruise in around 8:30 or so. He ditched his last class tonight and had nothing to do. While I close up the place, he notices my open script document on the computer and asks if he can read what I have, thus far. I definitely need some criticism, so I tell him to go for it. As I'm closing up shop, I can't help but notice him laughing and really getting into the story out of the corner of my eye. This, in turn, makes me ecstatic, as I've never let anyone read my previous screenplays before I scrapped them. And as homo-erotic as it sounds, I was insanely moved that one of my friends was not only into my story, but literally laughing out loud. Obviously it's still not finished and there are some kinks to work out, but when we were leaving I asked him what he thought. He told me he thought it was an awesome script, and it wasn't just friendly encouragement. He said he thought the character development was very well executed and I really cared about the characters, giving them enough room in the script to breathe and show who they are. He was even able to remember a few key scenes and lines of dialogue that he favored. Hearing all of this was one of the greatest feelings ever. I, for the first time ever, truly felt that I had found something that I could pursue and make a career out of, and I had another voice to prove it.

We cruise out of the Bou around 9:15 and head back to my place. We peep out the latest episode of The Office, and Justin suggests we watch Gangs of New York, as he hasn't seen it in a long time. I agree to the suggestion and we get to it, sipping on some brews in the process. Jerry cruises by about a half-hour in and joins us. The movie obviously kicks ass, as we all knew it would. Every time I watch it, it gets better and better. Daniel Day-Lewis's portrayal of Bill the Butcher is not just one of the greatest villainous roles, but one of the greatest roles period. His whole monologue in the scene where he tells DiCaprio about how killing his father (DiCaprio's) in battle was the most honorable kill he has ever had was just enough to give someone chills. He is definitely one of the greatest actors in the history of cinema.

The movie ends just around 1:00 AM or so and Justin and Jerry cruise right after. I then do the nightly routine and pass out watching more Glengarry GlenRoss.