The word just came in: October 20. Jeremy and Carey Bear. The Price is Right.

It begins again.
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Well, thank heaven, this post officially blows the embarrassing Jeremy "Bear" Moreland debacle into the archives. It's a chapter of my personal mythos I'm happy to close, frankly. My foolishness survives only in antiquity.
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So, big step today: I paid off my car. Yes, I do mean the car that I can no longer drive. It was so disheartening, I wanted to throw up. I found out I only owed 800 more dollars, though, so I just paid the last of it over the phone this afternoon. It should speed up the process of the insurance company cutting me a check, though, because now there's no one to deal with but me.

Hear that, Mercury Insurance? CUT ME MY CHECK. Schnell!
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Had a very frank meeting with Moses about the direction of the musical (and even met a couple cast members). It was a good meeting... well, enh, not 'good', per se. Important. There was one point, though, where I became fairly outraged and I didn't try to hide it much, either. Moses had composed a draft of his suggested changes. We'd just been talking about his scribblings on my Act I... some I liked, many I was neutral on, others protested fairly vehemently... when we moved to Act II. I opened it up and:

JER: Wh--! Where's the second act?

MOSES: Oh. Mindy and I had a lot of... dramatically, we felt... we liked what you did, don't get me wrong...

JER: Thanks, thanks, but where's the second act?

MOSES: Well, we had to remove a pretty sizeable chunk of your stuff. We liked it, we just felt it was a little too adult for a kids audience.

JER: Okay, but... there's almost nothing here. These are the lines you originally wrote a year ago that you asked me to re-write.

MOSES: Yeah, people really enjoyed the second act last year, so I thought we could just re-insert a lot of...

JER: Hang on. There's... whoa whoa. There isn't ANY of my stuff here. You didn't use ANY of it? I wrote an entire act for nothing?

MOSES: No, I think there was a couple of lines that we carried over... wait, let me see...

JER: A couple of lines? It's a whole act! I wrote 45 minutes of action and dialogue!

MOSES: Uh.

JER: Look, it's your play. I understand that. But... I mean...

MOSES: I think maybe we have different visions. For example, you've got Herod and his advisors as these vicious political figures... cold, calculated, intelligent... and, I don't know, I appreciate what you're trying to do there, but kids can relate more to a sinister, cackling bad guy and his crazy, bumbling sidekicks, you know?

JER: "Bumbling?" Dude, he ordered the slaughter of hundreds of babies in the name of anti-Semitism!

MOSES: I know. But, it's a kids's story.

JER: Ordering the slaughter of hundreds of babies is not a kids' story! It's utterly horrific! I'm not going to "comedy" that up, man, no way. That's like "a wacky, madcap take on the Holocaust... fun for the whole family!" It's crazy!

MOSES: Well, we might just have to disagree on a few of these story points...

JER: Look, again... this is your thing and I'm not out to be a prima donna... but there are some points... some points that, I don't know, I'll go down with the ship over it. I'm sorry, but...

MOSES: If we make it a serious scene... if we make the second act as serious as you're suggesting, I can't use the songs I've written. They're fun songs. It wouldn't work.

JER: I tried to write around your songs, I thought... hhh... okay. It's just a shock to see a whole act gone. A few lines you don't like here and there, of course. I'd even understand if you want to start from scratch with an entire scene or two... but a whole act?

MOSES: ...Your feelings are hurt.

JER: No, it's... well... it's just troubling. That's all.

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And from there I tried to describe the dramatic arcs that characters and stories should have and, even aside from the moral dilemmas, it makes much more sense for even the lightest stories to get a little heavier as the plot progresses and...

...and...

...and he says he'll consider it. Mainly, he doesn't want to cut any of his songs and that's what he feels he'd have to do. I understand that, but man... a whole act.

I mean really.

posted by Jeremy Bear 11:00 PM

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Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Hoo boy, did I ever let fly a string of awful profanities this morning. An hour and a half on the 405, which added up to being 45 minutes late to work.

One day, oh yes, I will dynamite the 405. Revenge will be mine.

Oh yes.
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Sushi at Sushi Studio last night to celebrate the birthday of our dear friend Scott Godfrey. A good time. Started out stressful (Carey misheard Scott and we went to the wrong sushi place), but by the time we got there, everyone was far too inebriated to care or notice that we were an hour late.

And I tasted unfiltered Saki for the first time, which was very strange. I can't decide whether or not I'll have it again. I looks like milk, but it tastes like... well... not milk.
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Really feeling the stress of a single automobile. Carey's at the end of her rope and, really, I can understand that. She's forced to go to work way earlier than she should have to and it's pretty obvious that she's had to sacrifice more than I have.

Insurance. Hhhh... apparently, the forms were sent to our old address, certified mail, and I never received them. So, that's the hold-up.

Anyhow, I'm thinking of looking at Jettas. I dunno.
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You know, it's been awhile since I've posted any links to sites I like. For giggles, I thought I might slide a few in. Let's see:

The Onion - The funniest site on the web. Updated every wednesday. If you're looking for a way to waste your time, this is the spot. Intelligent humor and it's always good.

HomeStar Runner - Essentially, it's a webcartoon produced by two brothers. The characters are fun and unique and they manage to come up with something new nearly every week. Funnier than just about anything on television and, amazingly, they offer everything for free.

Mac Movie Trailers - I'm fascinated by movie trailers and I'll usually check in every week or two to see what's coming up in the next several months. I'm just that way, I guess.

Modern Humorist - A pretty funny comedy site... unfortunately, they almost never update, so visits are rare. Look for stuff by Dirk Voetberg if you go (use the arrow at the bottom of his cartoons to navigate).

The Official Neil Gaiman Website - Now, I realize that I've a stalker-level fascination with Neil. He's been my favorite author since high school and his talent shows no signs of slowing. But, even if he weren't, his daily journal is a fascinating read... the day-to-day minutiae of a New York Times Bestselling Author is intriguing to say the least. "How does one get published? What's the life of a celebrity author? Do they just sit in their basements and type? Do they tour? How do they feel about critics? How do they know what will be popular? Where do they get their ideas?" All these and more.

Whup, the day seems to have gotten away from me. There are others, but I'll post them another time.

posted by Jeremy Bear 10:55 AM

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Monday, September 15, 2003

Congratulations are in order, I guess, to my wife. She was recently promoted again and... and... I'm not exactly sure how much I can say about it here without her getting upset. In my opinion, her "promotion" and subsequent "raise" is pretty damned insulting (particularly in light of how hard and long she works and the contribution she makes to this company), but, then, I don't pretend to know the ins and outs.

No, scratch that, I do know the ends and outs. Carey's explained them to me in ugly detail and the more I hear, the more outraged I become.

Congratulations, Care. You've been screwed.

And to Carey's place of employment: if you're having trouble appreciating my wife, I'd really like to have her back, please. It's been awhile.
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Eh, what else? I'm dreadfully nervous that my musical script is going to turn into something that I wholly didn't intend. Received a call from the director on Friday that said, essentially, "some great stuff in here, thanks! We're doing rewrites on your script and we hope you'll like them!"

"Rewrites? Shouldn't I be doing the rewrites, especially since I, you know, wrote it?"

"Well, yeah, but we felt that some of your stuff could stand to be omitted and we've got some killer jokes that we really want to use."

"Uh. I guess I really didn't see it as a comedy, but... who's 'we'?"

"Me and the choreographer."

"The choreographer? She's helping to rewrite my script? Look, I don't mind if she wants to sit in on a creative meeting, but--"

"No, it's cool, she has a great mind for this kind of stuff."

"But--"

"It's just the second draft. If you want to give us the final word on our changes at our next meeting to incorporate into a third draft, feel free. We'll just say 'majority rules'. How's that?"

"Uh."

"Next Friday, then?"

"Uh."
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Still no car. Apparently, the insurance company sent, certified mail, some necessary forms that I never received. No money yet. Frustrations are abounding. Patience thin. Breathing in. Breathing out.
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My sister Erin called yesterday, which I guess isn't all that remarkable... but, for some reason, Erin and I rarely get the opportunity to talk. So, that was nice. She mentioned the possibility of her (and maybe Mom) taking a trip out to see us between Christmas and New Year's, which would be spectacular.

So, maybe we'll use that as a deadline to complete the first phase of some of the Grand Plans we've developed for our new home. Since Carey's not been home in... well, she's never been home, honestly, since we've moved. So, 95% of the workload has fallen on my shoulders, in terms of ship-shaping the condo. Motivation has been low as a result and the place is still a wreck. I always have these grand plans of dropping Carey off at work and flying into a cleaning/organizing frenzy and having a sparkling place ready for her when she returns home. Never really pans out, though, and I've sunk into a wicked pattern of failure and self-loathing.

But, yay, we're homeowners.

Urk.

posted by Jeremy Bear 3:30 PM

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