twentyeleven - The Year of WORK

Figure its about time to return from another of my famous, unannounced, mostly unnoticed, multi-week hiatuses. It is, after all, a NEW YEAR!!!

Woo! Woo...woo...

I love New Years. Always have. Always will.

Too much hype? YOU BET. Amateur hour? ABSOLUTELY. Do I usually end up cold, blacked-out, and ruining what used to be a really nice shirt? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT.

But I don't care. Its New Years. Its like the historical equivalent of Opening Day in baseball- how can you not be exicted?

In the spirit of reflection, I'm doing my traditional perspective of the new year, and I'm going to be honest: this one is not as sunny as years past. 

I had expectations for 2010. BIG ones. In fact, just last year I said "I think 2010 is going to be a BIG year". It ended up being....an okay year.

A big thing that I think happened with 2010 was I was riding off the amazing experience of shooting and posting my Coke commercial and had a little sense of "good things are going to happen". A belief that, like submitting for the commercial or even USC, I thought I could just do a little bit of work and would receive benefits ten-fold. Like Vegas or something.

A lot of my 2010 was focused on these "bets" - the Coke commercial, USC's Subway webisode contest, submitting my 30 Rock spec to the WB Writers' Workshop, and even submitting a hastily shot and even more hastily edited short film to Sundance.

And since I'm not currently posting Subway webisodes, in the Writers' Workshop, or going on shopping trips to determine which flannel shirt to wear down Sundance's snow-covered red carpet, you know that these things didn't pan out. I didn't win. No comped rooms at Ceasar's.

And that's fine because I ended up learning a few things in 2010. Things that apply to both succeeding in the film industry but also, I think, to succeeding in life in general. One thing especially - this is going to take WORK.

Not "work" like "I've gotta rush through this spreadsheet so that I can have it done by five to go grab a beer at Shenanigans with the gang"-work.

I'm talking about W O R K.

I mean real rolling up the sleeves, early morning, late night, coffee-drinking, greasy, grimy, sweaty, sun-burned, sweatshop, slave labor, pyramid-building, bloodied, bandaged,  weak-in-the-knees, "Tell the female supermodel Cubs fans at the bar who love Jameson and watching 'Bored to Death' that I can't come out tonight because I'm TOO BUSY"-style...

W O R K. 

Okay...that may be a bit excessive.

But not too much so. I had two classes this year where all we had were successful industry types coming in telling us how they got to where they were and they all had pretty much worked their asses off. Course, they were also smart and bold, but I've already got that covered....

But it became clear that success would not be found thinking of the industry like Vegas, where just a few smart bets could get you to easily win it all. No, the apt analogy would be to look roughly 30 miles east of Vegas to the HOOVER DAM.

Now, not the dam itself, but the tremendous amount of work, of planning and man-hours and labor and engineering that went into its construction. Real 1930s-style work. AMERICA'S WORK.

THAT is how I am approaching 2011. My slogan for this year is "WORK HARDER". I've got a lot to do now that my time at USC is coming to a close and I think there's a certain circle in hell (or in a film studies department at a liberal arts college) for anyone to get the chance and the education and the opportunity I got from USC and waste it because they weren't willing to WORK hard enough after getting out of school. F#*% that.

Just like Don Draper at the AMAZING end of Season 3 (which I finally finished) - "I want to WORK. I want to build something of my own."

And nobody is handing out contracts with Fox or free CAA-level representation at the corner of Sunset and Vermont (though there is a pretty good bar right near there) and that means that these things that I want I am going to have to go out and take for myself. By hook or by crook, hustling, crackin' necks and writing checks....etc.

I've got projects to edit, projects to finish, scripts to pitch, scripts to write, scripts to re-write, contacts to keep up with, networking to do, ideas to come up with and an M.F.A to get. Its gonna be a busy year.

A big part of that means working to stay current, relevant, and - mostly - entertaining on this blog. Got the web series website coming out any day now and this blog will be a big part of getting the word out. I also want to use this as a place to stay current on the rapidly shrinking 2,000 miles between Chicago and Hollywood.*


(*Actually wouldn't mind a little help with that- if you ever have any news stories relating Sweet Home Chicago and the smoggy Hills of Hollywood please email that to me and I'll try and post it asap.)

Now, I feel kinda hypocritical (what else is new?) since I just took some serious time off these past two weeks. But, I look at it like one big R&R recharge before storming the beaches of Santa Monica later this week to prep me to take this immensely challenging year on full steam. At least, that's what I've been telling myself while sleeping until 11:30 and drinking by 2pm while in Chicago.

BUT THAT'S ALMOST ALL OVER NOW.

So, my fellow blog-mericans: time to get pumped up and ready to work! How bout you do as I do and look at these pictures of people building the HOOVER DAM during the Great Depression while listening to THE NATIONAL ANTHEM (and I really recommend you wait til the last verse to get to the last pic...I dare you not be aroused, er, I mean..... ROUSED to WORK).

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And if that didn't do it for you, watch this.

And if neither of those make you want to WORK, you are a lazy fuck.


Pardon my French.


God Bless America.