It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Louis CK does a great bit about how people are so indignant about being without technology that they didn’t have 5 years ago.
You’ll have WiFi on a plane, and suddenly it doesn’t work, and people on the plane go “This is Bullshit!”.
I read this somewhere a while back: You know you’re too attached to technology when you’ve already driven two blocks away from your home on your way to work before you realize you don’t have your cell phone — so you drive home to get it.
And David: Have you ever seen photos of a Kaypro 2X? Well, that’s what I lugged with me to cover some Toronto and Montreal Film Festivals back in the early ’90s, because there weren’t enough Radio Shack Trash-80s to go around at The Houston Post. No kidding.
You hauled around a freakin KAYPRO, JOE? How in the hell are you not built like freakin’ Ned Flanders from that experience? Seriously? Those things were massive. Ridiculously massive.
Which is why I always laughed at the term “portable computer,” IO. Maybe that’s why I have arthritic knees today.
Even now surfing the web with a sort of decent computer can be a difficult experience…as site ad more moving ads and other flash shit that wrecks a computer. Mine’s fine but sometimes when I use friend’s computers, which still are pretty decent…it sucks.
I love it when I leave my phone at home!
“You’ll have WiFi on a plane, and suddenly it doesn’t work, and people on the plane go ‘This is Bullshit!'”
Translation: Jeff Wells.
I’m still getting over the fact that Jeff was surprised his stuff got stolen from a Toronto coffee shop one TIFF.
Saw a person here leave there mac as they went to a washroom in Starbucks and shook my head. I pack everything up.
Americans may think Torontonians are sweet and polite, but I live here…
Of course I meant “their” not “there”. Sigh…
Well’s weekly battles with technology are hilarious.