SHOUT!

I had a dream last night in which I was on a business trip, on some leadership building retreat of sorts at a resort. A large group of us were gathered around the outdoor pool for the first day of this conference. Of course the session began with a round of introductions coupled with "something interesting about yourself." I was picked to introduce myself first. I began with my name. The people on the far end of the pool could not hear me over the wind. So I had to SHOUT my name over the wicked breeze.

This morning my girlfriend informed me that I had shouted in my sleep...I had shouted "JEFF!"

Smoke Break in dreamy

I smoked my first cigarette in years in a dream I had last night. It was a work dream. I recently began working as a sales rep for a merchant processing company. Not a bad job at all actually. I get a desk. M-F 9-5pm, 1 hour lunch. Anyway in my dream I was making sales calls and a blizzard was hitting Chicago. We were stuck in the office over night, which motivated me to take part in a quick smoke outside, in the impending wash of white. I thought I'd be brave and venture into a nearby CVS to get some toiletries but found it to be a "micro" CVS, finding that to mean they had jack shit of anything. They had candy bars, magazines, t-shirts and flip flops. Despite the weather a nite club was hopping and thumping with music. When I returned some of my co-worker's families had come to camp out. One had brought a baby. I was asked to help change his diaper. When I took him into the bathroom I found him to have white fur (like my cat Gus I suppose). I guess I think of Gus as my baby. Sorry to be so sickening.

Porter Hut

Quite exhausted today. Many vivid dreams. One involved being on a documentary film crew and trouncing across snow covered golf courses and finding a hut where a coffee infused porter was being brewed. When I woke up my body felt as though I had drunk a lot of it.

podcast and book review!

New episode of Wood Sugars podcast Inside the Barrel - Episode II: Health & Robin Hood.

Also, Jason Behrends recently reviewed my book - Turban Tan at What to Wear to an Orange Alert

News in the world of jeff

We at Wood Sugars Comedy are rolling out our new podcast, now titled "Inside the Barrel." This has evolved from a conversational podcast, mostly us goofing around (still entertaining) to take on a more radio-like platform. We now have audio sketches and more dynamic topics to drive forward the conversational comedy. It's free, definitely subscribe to us http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/wood-sugars-inside-the-barrel/id294251158
or search "Wood Sugars" in itunes.


Tonight I'll be reading a new short story at The Liquid Burning of Apocalyptic Bard Letters at Matilda Baby Atlas. 8-10pm. 3101 N. Sheffield in Chicago. Free event by the way. This will kick off what is now a monthly reading series started by myself and my friend Aaron Cynic. Every second thursday of the month.

Also, the production of Whiskey Pike is now a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, meaning it has a 501(c)(3) status. Any donation you make is tax deductible for yourself. Help a wild movie get up a running and owe Uncle Sam less ->

an easter basket melted
when it fell into the spitfire
the cat hissed when it smelled
the plastic popping
a little girl had already
nibbled at the chocolate bunny
so all was not lost
and she knew this
and so she was the most calm
about the bubbling and burning
of the green basket
the grandmother and the cat
fretted most about the incident
which caused great measures to
be taken the following year
as the spitfire lamb tradition
was retired and replaced with
an easy honey ham
and easter baskets
that were really just
green porcelin bowls.

dust bunnies - itemized focal points

the hiding of the dust bunnies
does interfere with the channel changing
of the gunslinger's short intention span
he is under the influence of something
and it doesn't seem an earthly intoxication
like the man drank some kind of booze that
either existed way in the past or deep into
the future and some how he snagged a sip
at a bar that exists in a two-dimensional portal
as though he read some book
and the imaginary stimulus was enough to run with
but the man doesn't read books
but he's staring at dust bunnies
and tossing his gun up and down
and flipping through every goddamn
television channel that exists

the pike projected

The Whiskey Pike movie has become my obsession, my passion project. The film adaptation will be my main focal point over the coming year/years until it is being projected at theaters.

I spent quite a few months pounding out a variety of projects but nothing went further than a second or third draft. I feel its time to really hone in on a project and tighten both the creative and business ends of it. So since I can't stop thinking about this one, I am going to give into it. I'm probably on my 5th draft of the feature screenplay, and although I'm happy with it, I'm continually revising and playing with it.

At first it was looking to be very much a period piece, but on further introspection and thinking about the project I've decided that period pieces are in danger of getting so caught up into the dramaturgy and taking themselves so so seriously that they fall flat. I've begun playing with the setting of the piece to maintain a somewhat antiquated world with getting myself pinned the exactitude of the 1800s. It's important to me to keep it a low tech world, so what I'm experimenting with is a modern -esque where the power grid has completely collapsed, so every one back to "re-pioneering" the world, and crafting sustenance from the ground, from one's hands. Although I'm not interested in dwelling upon it as a post-apocalyptic piece, I am interested in the platform of a frontier on top of a failed infrastructure.

My very good friend James N. Kienitz Wilkins is interested in directing, I'll be producing and performing as Shane Bowermaster. I'm looking forward to collaborating with him again. We made quite a few movies growing up and into college and beyond college.

Now it is time to fund raise, fund raise, fund raise. One of the best things you can do is buy the illustrated book, some of the royalties will be going into the film fund.

Order Order!

Flake Out

I've been a punk and haven't posted in a while. I'm sure you've been okay, but I apologize to anyone who was anxiously checking. I started working a day job again! Which in this economy is good news! To bring everyone up to speed I resigned from my job in the photo-tourism industry for a variety of reasons. I stuck it to the man and said I'm gonna go be an artist! And I did. I wrote wrote wrote wrote. I'm proud of what I was able to do with the time 5 months in savings was able to provide for me. I wrote a novella and published it. I wrote the first draft of a novel. I wrote a feature length screenplay. I wrote a play. I wrote 10 short stories. I co-wrote and performed in a short film. Performed in two other films. I went at it. The biggest thing I got from the 5 months is the chance to grow as a writer. Money is up and it's back to a day job but I am ensuring that I am keeping to some writing goals I have set for myself. Certainly the quantity of written works will go down but I will be focusing on the quality. So I haven't posted because I'm getting myself organized to keep after my creative goals and lead a professional life which will yield income, and potentially savings so some day I can take another intensive 5 months writing writing writing for myself.

I've found myself really into writing plays lately. I have a love for writing for performance and a love for writing for the sake of being read. And plays seem to be able to straddle both of those purposes. It can serve as the blue prints for a performance and can easily be read and enjoyed for literary value.

Double Whammy

For some reason my subconscious is all caught up in this ghost fascination. I had a dream the other night that my mom acquired property in the city, a coffeehouse/bookshop, two conjoined storefronts with a basement full of books. There was very much a ghost down there. Details are getting fuzzy but some kind of shadow figure and books being thrown.

Last night I had a dream I lived on a condominium complex similar to the ones my grandparents lived in when I was younger. Apartment units within a series of brown buildings, patios, all buildings looked the same laid out on a country club terrain. There was in my dream a common house with an indoor pool and a kitchenette with a small banquet room. I was in there boiling ramen noodles and suddenly felt creeped out and left and was suddenly very tired and collapsed on the cement driveway. When I looked back up at the 2nd floor banquet room window the blinds were lifted slightly and there was a womanly figure peaking out. I was very much the only person in the building when I was in there.

Hmmmm. Psychoanalyses? Clearly I have ghost issues in my subconscious. Or just the result of a very American problem = too much TV shows of a certain kind.