TEA LIKE  RIVER WATER

by Roger R. Angle

        I stir my tea now, and I am near

        73 years old, and I scoop up

        the swirling tea and it is the

        color of the Ninnescah River

        when I was a child. It is

        foolish now to remember my

        childhood so long ago.  

        I remember the water

        in the river by the

        cabin that is probably

        no longer there. I remember

        the sand and the trees like

        a jungle I ran through in my

        heavy boots. I remember

        they laced up high,

        I felt secure and strong

        in them. I would run through
        the jungle and climb the hill
        and run with the rabbits

        in the farmer’s field. I

        remember one time after

        a fire running through the

        stubble and the blackened

        earth and the black dust

        rising up, but I don’t

        run any more. I am

        about to be 73 next

        week, older than my father

        ever lived to be. He died at

        72 in a small apartment, shacked

        up with an 18-year-old girl. I

        met her once when they took me to

        lunch. He bought a Cadillac and

        a beautiful boat, a wooden

        Chris Craft, things he always

        wanted. Poor man, I feel sorry
        for him now. Too many years

        married to my angry mother,

        a nightmare for him

        and for me, too. Now

        I drink my tea and am

        glad to be living longer than he

        lived and happy I am not he,

        or anything like
        he used to be.  

July 28, 2011
Culver City, CA

##

 

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

'LAUNDROMAT'

Recently, I have re-read a play that I wrote 20 years ago or so: "Laundromat."

I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. I love some parts of it. I laughed out loud about 50 times.

But it doesn't seem to have a through-line, a central thread or spine that holds it together. It's just a situation, and the story problem doesn't seem to lead to drama.

It's about Margo, a young woman who gets kicked out of the house by her mother and needs a place to stay. She takes her laundry to the laundromat and puts the clothes in a washing machine and goes to a bar next door, where she meets two college boys who want to seduce her.

She also meets an older woman, Elaine, who wants to run her life. So there is the central conflict. Then Rex, a biker, comes in and sweeps her away. Thus the conflict shifts.

Everyone wants Margo.

So far, so good. But what does Margo want, besides a place to crash? And what do I care about? Is this story about anything? Where is the character arc? What does Margo learn? How does her life change?

It is Margo's story, but Elaine is the only interesting character.

I was going to publish it on the Web, on Blogspot, and offer it for production, but I don't like the overall story.

So I'm thinking about it. To rewrite or not to rewrite, that is the question. I'm deep into my novel and keep getting distracted by shorter, easier projects.

Mmmm. More TK.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

'HARPER'S ISLAND' - THUD

Too bad about the lame ending. I loved "Harper's Island," the 13-part CBS network horror/thriller series, until the last two episodes.

It gets goofier and goofier. It's like they were juggling on stage and were dazzling the audience with so many balls in the air and then they turned and walked away, leaving the balls to go thud, thud, thud, on the ground.  

(SPOILER ALERT)

But there were always little things wrong. I never believed Henry as the killer. In fact, I never believed Henry. To be kind, he has a "very narrow range," as they say in Hollywood about someone who can't act. He always seems the same. I saw him in some other dopey TV show, about a spy, and he seems to be playing the same static character in both shows.

The story, on "Harper's Island," finally got lame, after nine or ten great episodes. It would have worked better if they had given more hints that John Wakefield had an accomplice. Several surprises would've worked better if they had been played for suspense.

Instead of having Wakefield suddenly appear as he escapes from jail, why not show him with the keys after he loosens the belts that bind him?

The show could have used superior position, or dramatic irony, so that we would know Wakefield had a friend and the characters would not know that. It would have been so much more suspenseful.

Having Henry tell people about what he has done is so lame, dramatically. Better to show that, first to us, the audience, and then to one character at a time. As it is, the big reveals were weak.

The big explanations were lame, too. Henry explaining to Trish why he is going to kill her is really weak. For me, anyway. And the flashbacks to childhood didn't work. All in all, it was a four-star series that fizzled at the end, I thought.

But it is hard to pay off a good thriller. Usually, the endings are weak. Too bad this ending was not anywhere near as strong as the beginning, which was superb.

The graveyard of thrillers is full of weak endings. Oh well, it's hard to be good all the time, as a writer friend of mine says.

BTW, the other actors range from good to great, especially Elaine Cassidy, who really has the chops. I hope she has a great career.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

GORILLA 2

It takes courage to wrestle a big gorilla like my novel, but you also have to have a plan.

So I came up with an idea that seems to work, so far anyway: Cut the thing up into sections and make each section work.

Hurray, another breakthrough, apparently. (Don't count your chickens.)

I even named the sections, put titles to them, and it already seems to make it easier.

Whew, what a relief.

Now, we'll see how it goes.

So far, there are 11 of them. Easier to hold in your head than 46 chapters. Hope that makes sense.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

WRESTLING THE GORILLA

I've been having a lot of trouble getting my yah-yahs up to wrestle with my novel, a big hairy gorilla that runs through the jungle and turns and fights me with all its strength.

It makes me tired just thinking about it. 

Today, I was reading a bit of memoir by Robert Towne about writing his famous movie "Chinatown."

He said it drove him nuts. He retreated to Catalina Island to write most of it. The isolation helped him focus on it and wrestle with it every day.

I was glad to hear it was a beast to write. Made me feel better.

I realized that part of my problem is that I want it to be easy. I don't want to wrestle the 800-lb gorilla.

I want it to be easy like a short story, like "Casualty of War," which won the Random House short fiction award in 1999. That story took me about 20 minutes to write and I was smart enough not to change hardly any of it.

(Here is a link:)
http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/contest/0999/sstory1.html

But novel writing is different. Takes me nine or ten months working all day every day to get a first draft and eight or ten years to do the rewrites. Of course I do much line-by-line revising. I should probably follow Borges's advice:

“Perhaps in order to write a really great book, you must be rather unaware of the fact. You can slave away at it and change every adjective to some other adjective, but perhaps you can write better if you leave the mistakes.” – Jorge Luis Borges 

Of course being a compulsive rewriter and endless futzer, that is hard for me to do.

Anyway, the important thing for me now is to realize that I cannot expect it to be easy. It is going to be hard. As someone once said, "If it was easy, anybody could do it." And as someone else once said, "Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm."

And courage. You have to have courage to tackle something as big and hairy as this.

Wish me luck. And energy. And perseverance. And guts. And willingness. You have to be willing.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

THE ROVING KIND

Many years ago, when I first moved to L.A., I met a guy who told an interesting story about going to swingers' parties.

He was young, in his early 30s, as I recall. Not a bad looking guy. A short guy with dark hair and pale skin. Seemed to lack confidence with women.

He had wanted to go to swingers' parties and have wild, unencumbered sex with strangers, so he placed an ad in a magazine for a woman to go with him. These parties allowed couples only.

A lovely young lady answered the ad, and they started going to these parties. They would have sex with other people, but she would never have sex with him, and she would never go out with him, just the two of them, on a date.

Over time, he became more and more attracted to her, and more enamored with her, until finally he fell love.

But she would never go out with him. That made him very sad. 

Finally, I guess, they quit seeing each other altogether, and he quit going to those sex parties.

What does all that prove? What does it mean?

I think it means several things. One, that you don't always want what you think you want. He thought he wanted sex with strangers, but he changed his mind.

Two, it means that we want what we can't have. We tend to find things, and people, more attractive if they are out of reach.

Three, it means be careful what you wish for.

I think it's both sad and funny. The story has a kind of fine irony and a sense of poetic justice. Maybe he got what he deserved.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

'BRAVE' HUNTERS ON TV

What do you think of hunters?

I have a lot of respect for hunters who need to hunt for food, and for hunters who show courage and common sense. I don't have much respect for rich recreational hunters who just think it is fun to kill.

A few weeks ago, I was watching cable TV and came across a hunting show. A woman who looked like she just stepped off a country club fairway was with a group of men on some kind of safari, maybe in Africa.

They were hunting some kind of wild beast. I don't even remember what it was. Maybe an elk or even buffalo. The animal was standing about 50 yards away, in the bush. Standing stock still.

They worried for awhile that the animal would smell them and run away. They talked in tense, quiet voices, as if they were doing something brave and important.

One guy said something like, "You've got a good shot now. Take it," and the woman raised up her gun and pulled the trigger. The animal just stood there, took a few steps, and fell over, dead.

Boy, that was exciting, huh? About as exciting as shooting a cow in a field. What a bunch of bull, so to speak.

If you want to show skill and courage, go to the jungle in Mexico and hunt along with the Indians. They take a spear and get a jaguar to charge them, and they jam the butt of the spear into the ground and guide the point of the spear into the chest of the charging jaguar.

Obviously, you can't run. The big cat would catch your ass and claw you to the ground. And if you miss, the jaguar enjoys a rare treat for lunch.

It isn't like shooting a cow in a field.

Why don't more hunters do that?

Show a little courage, people.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle