I can't believe I'm actually keeping a blog. I mean, for those of you who follow my other blog The Vail, which is actually an online series I write, it's not strange to see me posting. But usually I'm posting the latest installment of my gritty sci-fi noir series. This time I am actually keeping a sort of diary. Or journal. Well... blog. I'm blogging. Uggh. It even sounds dirty. But you gotta do what you gotta do.
I'm actually doing this because I recently started the TV Writing program in NYC. I repeat, a program to gear me towards writing for television. A.k.a. a freakin' dream come true. Anyway, it's required that I keep a blog of every day in the program. Thus, you have, my new blog. Diary. Whatever.
The first day of the program was very interesting. Actually, I'm not quite sure if it counts as Day One because it was sort of like a pre-program meeting. It might technically be Day Zero. Cool. Day Zero.
On Day Zero I traveled up to New York on the MegaBus, something new because I usually take NJTransit, but if I took ther train every time I had to go up to NY, the fees would kill me. So, as anxious as I am, I'm trying this MegaBus thing. It's okay. I mean, it has free wifi so that rocks. But I'm always nervous it's gonna break or not get me there on time. Especially since I have to get to Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard before 10:30 AM every day. That requires the bus to NY, a subway ride, and a brisk run. So, I'm nervous. But it's definitely cheaper and that's, unfortunately, where it's gonna count the most.
So I went up to NY and went to Brooklyn and met with all my cool maktes who are going to be in the rpogram. I immediately felt like a moron, not just because I must have said, "Hi. I'm Joe." a million times to everyone, but also because I was wearing a frickin' suit and tie while everyone else looked normal. Still, I'd rather stand out in good clothes then stand out as the behemoth red haired freak. Initially at least.
It's also intimidating because some of these people have really impressive resumes. One woman as written for Sesame Street. One girl produces documentaries and recently met Grant Morrison in Scotland. One guy has had like eight internships at major TV companies. And one woman is an honest to God novelist. A novelist! I come from nowhere, don't have any kind of comm degree, and never had anything published. Needless to say, felt a bit small compared to the others.
But it doesn't matter because I know I have one thing in abundance, one thing that makes me the same as every one of those talented blokes. Passion. An unrelenting, unprecedented passion for writing. I've always wanted to be a writer, I write every damn day, and I know that writing for TV is what I want to do. What I need to do. Hell, considering I turned down a full time teaching job with a great salary and benefits, I must be serious.
So I met everyone, very exciting, and then it was time to head on out to our tour of Red Hook. I'd never been to Red Hook before, and only knew it from the Lovecraft story where it was described as a horrible place of murder, mutilation, and unholy cults. So I was surprised when our first stop was this beautiful Latin festival with soccer and some of the best cart food I ever had. I had an empanade, this cool cheesy cornbread, and some green and hybiscus juices. Delicious and a great way to start. The rest of our tour was more like the Red Hook I knew.
Red Hook was supposed to be a giant landfill because of Mayor Giuliani. That bastard! Here's the largest organic farm... being poisoned by cement dust! Here's the nicest park and pier in NY... that we only got after a firefighter died! Mobsters, dead principals, I even expected the sugar factory to be half made of poison. It was so freaking depressing.
However, I did see one cool thing written on a park wall that I must put in if I can. "We are proud to be children in Red Hook." Doesn't that just say it all? And it really does because the people of Red Hook are so proud. It's beautiufl really.
Our last stop was a bar, the home of all true writers, and I got o know some of my colleagues a lot better. Great people. And then Norm, the man who runs the program, and the other administrators left and I decided that since I had time to kill I would stay and drink with my cool colleagues. And then most of them left and it was just me and Amber and Angel and drinking. Good times. We even somehow got on the topic of Orson Welles directing porn and I was branded with the pron name Joe "Heavy" Pettine. Get it. It's definitely better than Sloppy Joe.
Then the drinks funneled down our gullets and the sun set behind the dilapidated buildings and it was time to go. And we were trapped in subwayless Red Hook with only the vaguest idea of the way back. So I stuck with my new friends and hoped they would get me home. Then we saw some more of our new writing buddies and next thing you know, we're on an Ikea bus. Free but Swedish.
I did my best to stick with my comforting pals but they all had lives in the City and I still had to get back to Manhattan before I bus left. So I ran across the street, hopped the subway, waited with unprecedented anxiety for the damn thing to get me back to Manhattan, and I ran, I mean like a fucking action hero, down the street to my bus.
I realized I was going the wrong way after a second and immediately ran the other way. It was intense, and pretty sly considering all the people I weaved around, but, Thank God, I made the bus and got home and that was Day Zero. Day One should be interesting.
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