AARON FUCKING SORKIN

Probably not the most eloquent title for this post, considering its subject matter, but the words above perfectly encapsulates my feelings last night when I spent sixty minutes in a classroom with thirty-three students, florescent lights, and Aaron fucking Sorkin.

The "how" is barely important - just a friend tipped off a friend who tipped off me about this class that was having him as a guest and I went... making myself ninety minutes late to my actual class that night in the process. I regret nothing.

I have made no secret about my strange love and fascination with "The Social Network". But my Sorkin-worship goes back to 'The West Wing'. That show made me interetsed in writing for television- hell, it made me interested in AMERICA.

The man, in short, has been nothing less than an inspiration.

And though I found myself strangely calm as we waited and the professor went on about other issues of the class, the second that Sorkin walked in I zeroed in and was hooked. Hooked on every word, every joke, every quote that I had read in a previous interview and was listening to again but didn't care because Aaron Sorkin had actually said it in person.

I don't think I want to try to recount all of what he said last night.... the hurried scribblings in my Moleskine and my own inadequate memory wouldn't do justice to the wonderful stories he told or the hilarious quips he made or the impact of having him in the room.

Actually, I will say something about him in the room. He takes the room and makes it his love-bride for the evening - like it or not. And its not in a showy way either. He just commands attention, not just because he's an Oscar winner, but because he is so passionate about writing and loves talking about it and loved that we were asking him questions about it. He's so certain about himself and what he does when he talks, even though he is wonderfully self-deprecating and an admitted outsider, that is was just a joy to have him there.

And once he left he was so gracious, even as a group of slightly over-enthused students followed him at a slightly threatening distance to the elevator (myself included), and there was a ravaging of quick hellos and handshakes that took place before he stepped in and I made damn sure to get there and at least shake the man's hand.

"Thank you so much Mr. Sorkin, you're an inspiration."

At first I wished I was funnier, or more brash [READ MY SCRIPT!], or did something to stand out more but that's all I really wanted to communicate...THIS TIME.

I feel like somewhere down the line I will address Mr. Sorkin in a less hurried setting and introduce myself properly. Maybe we'll be colleagues or MAYBE even working together. Cheesy and probably over-idealistic? Sure.

But so is his writing.

Okay, so I do want to share just one word from the evening that I hurriedly write down - the first word I wrote down, actually - as I bookishly recorded what nuggets of genius that stood out to me. I saw it written today and realized it was the most important thing to me, right now in my life. Though I didn't get it at first -

ready?


"moose"


Yep. Aaron Sorkin came to town and opened up his brilliance basket and threw a bunch of knowledge candies our way and I wrote down the word "moose". All the rest of my notes are quotes or sentences but at the top - underlined, actually - the word "moose". What the hell does that mean?

Then I remembered.


It was at the top, when Sorkin was asked when he knew he wanted to be (or when he became) a writer. He told a story about living in New York and staying in on a Friday night - "the kind of night you only get in New York where you feel like everybody else in the city is out with plans except you" - and he had thought of an idea that might make a good play and he just started writing .... "for fun".

See, he had written before, but since he always wanted to be an actor, writing was simply this thing you did in classes and to have lines to read but he'd never write for the sake of writing - until this Friday night. He wrote all through the night and had some actor friends over in the morning and they read it and said "This is pretty good" - and from that point on, Sorkin said "I haven't done anything else".

Now, he preceded that story by describing his life in New York at that time, which was out of school and working a series of temporary jobs - bartending jobs, waiter jobs, service jobs, dressing up like a moose and handing out flyers to people...."all the jobs that you guys are right about to do once you're out of here".

Ahhhh - "moose."

It gave me so much joy that Aaron Sorkin, brilliant scribe of theater, film and television, once had a crappy job dressed as a moose handing out shit to people on the corner. Mostly, because I am on the cusp of an uncertain future and - though I don't see any costumed employment once I graduate from USC - its comforting to know that if things end up with me dressed as a gorilla handing out coupons for MONSTER TACOS at Tito's Tacos for that Tuesday, I'll be in decent company.


- MK