Had a Weird Idea:

I’m a mensa defector and I don’t cite anything. I do all my reasoning solo.

D63, tell me more about your story…

Yes, tell about you if you would?

For myself: born in California. Parents divorced when I was 7, at which point my mother moved me to the Midwest where I grew up –except for a year of high school in California which I spent a lot time stoned and ended because of my misguided experiments with PCP. My dad was an ambitious type-A personality and artist while my mom was more down to earth and the source of propensity for drink. After graduation, I spent 4 more years in LA, then moved back and haven’t wanted to go back since. Was mostly a stoner in high school, but had the advantage of being a musician who was writing a lot of songs. Also, spent a lot of time in both rural and urban environments.

From the creative starting point of music, I moved, with some success, through poetry, writing, art, and philosophy. But it wasn’t until I was in my 30’s, and able to go to classes at a university, on an employee scholarship, that I was fully able to appreciate the value of knowledge. In high school, my grades sucked. After the university, I was pretty much a straight A student. The university job didn’t last long, so beyond 4 core social science classes and a couple creative writing classes, I’m pretty much self taught. All college courses I’ve taken since then have pretty much been vocational courses: maintenance and computers.

Hence the creatively and intellectually wild guy you have before you now: always a brainstorm in desperate need of an editor. The thing is: having started thinking it my manifest destiny to become a rock star, I’m not sure I ever really got over it. Everything I do feels like an attempt to become one in some way or other. I should also add that my life has pretty much been a classic (almost cliché) Oedipal complex in my not always successful attempt to merge my father’s creative and intellectual drive with my mother’s alcoholic humanity. To put it another way, I’m an alcoholic who has the advantage of being a workaholic in that I haven’t got time to be a drunk. This is why I prefer to put my vices to work for me.

That said, Kris and Smears, I get the feeling that you both like knowledge, but prefer a more natural hands on approach. You take the piecemeal approach of a Herbert Spencer. You’re a little like a mechanic that learns by just working on machines as compared to one that goes through the whole academic process. I’m seeing a bit of a fusion at work here. As I see it, Kris’ character would be like smear’s in that she would have retired from a job in a philosophy department in which she had witnessed a lot of the pretensions the more “serious philosophers” go through while also learning a lot herself. Hence the reason she spends a lot of time on the board without getting too deep into the abstract technicalities herself. As she says, she enjoys watching others wallow in the mud. She’s the character that brings up the silliness of it that all the creatively and intellectually curious come to sooner or later.

Also, while I was primarily driven by my disgust with the war on drugs in my early years (I wanted to prove that a stoner/alcoholic could gather intel like anyone else); I’m primarily driven by my disgust with Capitalism now (hence my 5 year digression with vocational classes to prove I wasn’t just a whiner).

Kris: That’ll school ya, you son of a bitch!

goddamn coyote.

[Stops when she sees d63 squirming on the swing chair.]

Kris: Christ! You really thought I was gonna shoot me a commie, didn’t you?

d63: well there’s plenty of space to bury me!

Kris: but it would never be far enough away for me, sweetie.

Jesus! Sit up you stupid fool!

Let’s do that interview.

Dude I did work in a phl dept and witness much pretentiousness and learn a lot myself. I’m also the most truly self sufficient person that I know, other than a few of my friends who are totally off the grid. On top of that, I haven’t gone a day without ingesting something intoxicating in like 15 years or more, and I hate greedy assholes who think it’s ok to have 10 houses when there are people starving and what have you. We should start a band. I’ve got a couple guitars and a screaming loud marshall. I can play the shit out of the guitar but I don’t have the patience for creativity.

Your experience is what I’m using as part of the dialogue with kriswest’s character played by Kathy Bates. Like you, she retired from a philosophy department and had witnessed the pretenses you mention. She is also the one that brings up the issue of how, at a certain age, it all gets to feel a little silly.However, unlike you, Kris, the real one, is a little more conservative. So I have to find a way to consolidate the two. The thing to keep in mind is that even though the character is inspired by both of you, she is not either one of you. She is a fiction. Also, like both you and Kris, her character took a piecemeal approach to gathering knowledge, like Spenser, kind of following her nose where ever it took her as compared to the more methodical approach to philosophy that is obliged to a certain reading list.

Also, reading your point about drinking, I’m thinking about putting in a little exposition on drinking and the writer, the final point being that d63 doesn’t drink because of some idealistic notion about carrying the weight of the world, but because he’s an alcoholic who is still functional enough to enjoy what he’s doing. It’s why he comes on The Board when he could be working on an article: as a form of play that reminds him of why he loves writing.

As far as your last point: creativity is easy and, being the same activity a child can engage in, doesn’t require a lot of patience. It’s the part where you turn all that raw material into a finished product that takes the work. Right now, I have all these ideas swimming around my head creating other ideas. It’s like it’s just coming to me. However, I find myself intimidated by the process of zeroing in on the details, of, for instance, turning a summary of what 2 characters discuss into an actual dialogue. This is made so by the realization that all the dialogue has to maintain a certain level of poetry like Kris’ character:

That’ll school ya, you son of a bitch!

Or Zen Candy’s:

You want me to kick him in the balls. I’ve thought about it, you know.

They have to reflect the character’s beauty without them seeming to try.

It’s like Coleridge said:

It’s alright to build castles in the air.
But at some point, you have to build foundations under them.

And trust me, given the postmodern ADD I’m dealing with, of no matter I’m what doing, of always knowing there is something else I could be doing, it’s not that easy for me either. But it’s the force of the initial inspiration that drives me. And its not just me. It’s not uncommon for novelists to work on several projects at the same time. Luckily I started off as a musician. And one of the things I learned from that is that you have to work from the small parts to the bigger parts. You have to break the bigger project down into small manageable fragments.

As it is, I have to deal with the possibility this may not get finished. And one of the biggest obstacles right now is the board in that it offers immediate gratification. It can distract you. Therefore, in order to get any finished product done, I have to make sure the first thing I do is work on that finished product. Because if I so much as take a peak at what is going on on the board: that’s it: I can pretty much forget about getting anything else done. Still, it does provide me a lot of the raw material of creativity.

I am going to throw a monkey wrench. My friends and family consider me an artist. I just feel right when I carve or assemble. All want me to do more. I feel more obligated to be family not what comes natural. I love the work of creating but, I love my family. What I love to do and apparently am damn good at will take my time away from those I love and take care of. What do I do?

And that is one of the central concerns of those who strive for something more: how do they seek to rise above the common while still having to deal with the common. I have to struggle with it all the time. There are periods, given the demands that people around me are putting on me, that it’s like pulling teeth trying to get a little time for my studies. They always think it’s just one little thing. The thing is: step in line with a 100 other people who want “just one little thing”. And you can’t afford to just wait until they happen to be done with you. You try to balance it all. But all they’re working in terms of is what they want. You get to point to where you basically have to start screaming: get the fuck out from under my feet and start dealing with your own problems! Still, they are people you care about.

I can empathize with your position, Kris. At the same time, this is my point A to point B. And all evidence points to the possibility that this is all I get. Therefore, when people start acting like the only point A to point B that should matter to me is theirs and that I should put my desires for mine on hold until theirs are dealt with, then them’s fighting words. I know you may think this selfish. But the one thing I do happen happen to agree with Rand on is that too often, when people are accusing you of being selfish, what they are usually doing is asserting their selfishness. If they can’t respect the balance, then you have to make them do it.

Consequently, this is why I think so many famous people have been notorious assholes. It wasn’t just a matter of thinking themselves above others as the practical matter of keeping everyone, when they would naturally draw to the famous and successful, at a safe distance so that they can focus on what they are doing.

Unfortunately, the people you love, as well intended as they often are, can be your worst enemies.

Related to this is the scene in which d63 waits in a small town bar to wait for Ambivalence. As he is waiting, he takes out his notebook to do some writing. As he starts, one of the locals start chatting at him. He tries to be polite and respond with short uncommitted statements that put on the appearance of actually being interested in the conversation. Several times, he tries to start typing only to get diverted by one of the locals. Soon, he is sitting in front of his notebook staring blankly. Soon, he stands up and snarls:

Could you people PLEASE get the fuck out from under me!

It then switches back to him sitting in front of his notebook staring blankly. It is at this point that he hears from behind: d63?

d63 turns to find Ambiv, stuffs his notebook into his bag, says with an air of relief and desperation:

Ambiv?

then, when Ambiv shakes his head yes, clutches him by the arms of his coat, looks him in the face the way someone would their rescuer, then hugs him.

It then switches to the two of them in a boat, d63 clutching his bag and looking back to town with a look of distress and Ambiv saying from behind:

Yeah, you looked like you needed rescuing back there.

He then looks back to d63, looks concerned, then asks:

You alright?

d63 turns around and says, in a shell shocked way:

The small talk. The fucking small talk. It just wouldn’t stop.

Ambiv chuckles then says calmly: They’re small towners. Small talk is their form of creativity. You’re just too use to the board.

d63 (in voiceover): Barbara Hampl, the writer, once said: just keep talking. Mumbling is fine.

So Ambiv was right: human intercourse is the bottom line form of creativity. I mean given the power of recall it must require to form a basic sentence, of pulling up any one right word out of the thousand plus stored in our brain, it’s amazing we can even talk. But it becomes even more amazing when you consider it as a process of one person forming a sentence, then the other, based on previous sentences they have formed, creating another sentence that is unlike any before.

The thing is that the whole thing has to be like visual symphony. It has to take consideration of the rhythm in which images are presented. It has to be like the ultimate presentation: as if it could be presented on PowerPoint or something.

:-"

:-"

For me, play has always been what makes the footwork pay off. There has to be play. Otherwise, what would be the point?

Even Edison took time off with his crew, drank beer, and played with his inventions.

Need to include scene of d63 with his dog as the underlying nothing as something looking back at him:

my god!

He refers to it as God’s love for him.

D63 (to chronicdarwinitis): Yeah! but there are people out there who need the help of people like us: those who don’t have the gift that we have. Your use of it is an abomination.

Zen Candy pulls d63 away.

Are you writing a book/ a screenplay?

Yeah, it was a screenplay. The first time I ever played with the medium. It’s kind of fun medium to work with in that you throw anything in and work from there. I can follow a a piece of dialogue with a summary then go back and pull a detailed dialogue out of the summary when I’m ready. It’s a swoopers art. Plus that, there’s not as much pressure in that you know that if (and that is a big if) anything was done with it, there will be other artists who will add their ideas to it. It’s a collaborative process that can be worked with at any time.

I’ve actually come to fall in love with the characters, though, which is the only guaranteed payoff. Your character, Zen Candy, based on Thandie Newton, played a major role in drawing me in.

Right now, though (at least for the next couple of weeks), I’m letting it incubate while I study Dennett’s Consciousness Explained.

D63 (as he passes out): love ya, man!

Kriswelt’s character:

love ya too, you stupid commie.

Motherly, she pulls a blanket up over him.

I left your drink in the fridge with a good breakfast