Once again, my ability to not know things and inability to understand political correctness has gotten me in trouble. It was actually pretty messed up. The whole day was really.
First, I was so fucking late because the Goddamn bus was so fucking late. I mean, I strolled in forty minutes late and I felt like shit. Luckily I didn't miss the first script reading but it was still pretty bad and I kinda think people judged me for it. Why shouldn't they. I was fucking late. Still as one colleague said at lunch, "It seems fashionable to be late."
The other no-no I did was while we were reading each other's scripts. We didn't read mine yet but we really dove into all the others. They're scripts about community meetings in Red Hook. One script had the main characters son translating into Spanish for the community. I absolutely loved that, thought it was a great idea, and it reminded me of Dexter when there are entire exchanges of dialogue in Spanish. It highlights the strong latin influence in the community presented in the show. And since a large portion of Red Hook is latin, it seems a great idea to incorporate that aspect. I tried to express my idea, reiterating the example from Dexter, and I quoted very stupidly, "They have whole bits of dialogue in Spanish or Cuban or Stuff". I honestly did not know that I was supposed to call every dialect of Spanish Spanish. I was nonce told by my high school Spanish teacher that that was disrespectful because it assumed that all Spanish speakers were from Spain. I didn't realize it was worse to refer to it as Cuban or Mexican or stuff like that. So it's pretty clear that everyone thinks I'm a racist or ignorant bastard. It won't help that we have to do a group presentation as a debate on a topic and I am going to be on the opposite side of feminism. So now people will think I hate women too. Why does this shit happen to me? Why can't I say that I hate The Vagine Monologues without people thinking I/m a misogynist pig? How am I supposed to know these things about Spanish speakers and other cultures that I've never really interacted with if no one tells me. Fuck, I grew up in suburban Philly. I'm as white and Irish as they come. You don't see me get mad when people call the Irish drunks.
For the remainder of the day we talked about sitcom and watched some classic tv comedy. Jack Benny on You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx. The "I Love Lucy" with the candy factory. And some hilarious skits with Carl Reiner and Sid Ceasar on Your Show Of Shows. Great stuff.
My trip back was also pretty interesting. I always seem to meet interesting people on Megabus. Last week I met someone who is a part of Second City Chicago, fucking awesome, and she was telling me about her one woman show. She was nice and shared trail mix with me. The guy I met on this day was a medical student becoming a pathologist. He was real nice and we chatted a lot. He asked me about writing and I asked him about pathology. And he was such a great guy. He asked if I would read and revise his Statement Of Intent, which he needs to get into a hospital residency, so I did. He was amazing. Full ride to Michigan State. Wanting so bad to use his skills to help others. He was so nice he made me feel like a child murderer. I ended up giving him a ride home so he wouldn't walk.
That's sorta it for the day. We're supposed to read everyone else's scripts on Wednesday. I'm a bit nervous what people will think. What if I just plain suck at writing. But I'm also anxious to get comments and see if I'm good. I dunno. We'll see. As long as I don't come off as racist anymore.
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