207

It is tradition that around this time each year, as new beginnings near, I reach forth my arm and with a steady, strong hand firmly press the stirring rhetoric button. And this year is no different. So hold on to you knickers, kids, we’re at full-tilt-boogey.

In just a few days we will exit what Time magazine dubbed, “The Decade From Hell” and while it’s hard to argue that some truly awful shit has gone down, it’s also hard to argue, I feel, that life is pretty flippin’ sweet.

Looking back over the past decade I fell in love once, got my heart broken twice, broke more hearts than I care to think about, wrote a book, made a movie that has screened on every continent but Antarctica (and at this rate Antarctica won’t be there much longer so fuck it, right?) graduated college, made a ton of AMAZING friends, spent an evening with Kevin Smith drinking nine dollar New Castles, shared a few beers with Butch Walker, Josh Joplin and Angie Aparo, picked up a hitchhiker, totaled a car, became good friends with not one but two strippers, lost a brother and my father, gained two brothers and a sister and the cutest little crime-fighting nephew ever, got a little praise from Brian K. Motherfucking Vaughan, laughed my ass off in both oceans, campaigned for and helped elect the first African American President of these United States, watched about 2,000 episodes of The Late Show with David Letterman, saw the Counting Crows live in concert about a half dozen times, walked away from a feature film seven days before shooting because it was the right thing to do, almost got in a fistfight in the bahamas, won a bunch of awards, got told a dozen times or so that I suck and should never be allowed to make movies, co-hosted a podcast, wrote, like, fifteen screenplays and, like, fifteen-hundred blogs, apologized, at least once, to everyone I know, appeared on a nationally televised teen soap, spent about a year as a homeless person, got asked to act in a porn, turned that down, wrote a one-shot comic book, started a bi-weekly comic strip with Xoph, toasted at five or six weddings, ate some stuff and this is just what I can think of off the top of my head.

Yeah, there’s some really, really shitty stuff in there, and some really, really shitty stuff that I didn’t mention, but all in, not bad work for a decade, I feel. And I hope as you all look over your last ten years you see that you found awesome and hope and greatness almost daily. And I hope I was some tiny, tiny part of some of that good stuff.

But, beyond than this, I hope you see that more than standing at the end of a crippled decade we are standing at the beginning of a year and a decade and a future that can be anything.

I have no idea what the future will bring, but I plan to dig the hell out of every moment. I have no idea where I will even be living this time next month, but I plan on kicking ass while I’m there.

The future is wide and mysterious and entirely ours. Yours and mine.

Bring on the awesome.

Get a beverage of your choice and move the world,

E

Yes, I still love you but it’s okay…

So I’ve been digging, ladies and gentlemen. Oh yes, I have been digging. Digging through the ashes and bones and sometimes literal garbage of my past lives. I have been doing this not to remember or to forget, but just to get away. It’s a whole thing and I don’t really want to go into it. If you follow me on twitter (and what the unholy fuck is wrong with you if you don’t?) then you’ve heard about this and you’ve heard some of the songs I’ve discovered from days long gone and best remembered only now and then. For example, I’m currently listening to Biff Naked as I type this. Anyone remember that chick? Craxy, right? Wonder what she’s doing right now.

Anyway.

I’ve probably got a whole blog of songs that got me here somewhere inside of me but that’s not what this is. This is something far more embarrassing. And don’t ever say I love me more than I love each of you, because I’m gonna look, at least mostly, like a fool by the end of this blog. Because tonight, just a few hours ago, really, I came across a list of possible titles for my first moving-picture, “For Catherine.”

Some of you may know this and others may not, but FC was originally titled simply, “207.” Then I went and changed just about every word of that script and it no longer seemed to fit for whatever reason. The title that I went with ended up coming simply from the dedication page. The title page to my script was ripped off and so whenever I looked at my script the first thing I saw was, “For Catherine.” And, eventually, it just stuck.

Before it stuck, though, I used to make lists every few weeks of possible titles. The list I’ve just found is mostly comprised of stolen lyrics from Counting Crows songs and I have no defense for that. So…yeah. For those of you who never liked the title of my movie, and I’ve heard from several of you, read this and bear in mind it could have been much worse.

Here we go:

The Way Things Be in 207 (Note: It gets even worse)
Everyday Regrets
Walkaways
Citizen Duo
207 Kids
Greenlit Cigarettes
Why the Clash is the Most Underrated Band in the History of Music (Note: Actually I love this title. It’s just that I’m the only one. I’ve tried to give three or four projects this name and, dammit, it’s gonna stick one day.)
If We Were Silver
Barely Out of Tuesday
Certain Seasons
Just a Girl
Fade Out
Colours Start to Fade
Seasons in a Letter
Left in a Letter
Black and Blue
Here Until You Leave
Familiar Positions
Toxicity
The Goodnight Girl
Down
Redemption in Reverse

So…yeah.

In my defense these lists were meant to be stream of consciousness sketches and that. Still…wow.

Anyway, thought some of you might enjoy that.

Get a beverage of your choice and if you can’t laugh at yourself, laugh at me,

E

never pay the reaper with love only…