Listen:

I’m almost finished rereading (for the third or forth time, I’m not entirely sure) the Kurt Vonnegut novel Breakfast of Champions. It was the first Vonnegut book that I read and it was the one that opened an entire new literary world to me.

There was a brief time when I was kind of living in a VW Bus. It belonged to my mother’s husband Eric. There had been some very unfortunate clashing of egos and I volunteered/was asked to move out. I was 19 or 20 years old and my “moving out” consisted of staying in the Bus, which was parked on the street in front of the house. I didn’t move out very far. This went on for a couple of months. I ran an extension cord from the house to the bus, which powered a space heater and a small lamp. I was working at a movie theater at the time. The time that I wasn’t working at the theater I spent in that bus, reading and smoking clove cigarettes. The last time I went down to visit my mom, I opened up that Bus (which has been, to my knowledge, sitting inoperable for some time now and used for storage) and it still smelled like clove cigarettes.

That was when I discovered Kurt Vonnegut. I don’t remember HOW I got a copy of Breakfast of Champions, but I found one somewhere and I read it, almost in one sitting.

It was on. I started seeking out everything I could find with Kurt Vonnegut’s name on it. I read Sirens of Titan, Slaughter House 5, Cat’s Cradle, Welcome to the Monkey House, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Mother Night. All in the back of that Bus.

Kurt Vonnegut is responsible for the fact that I am a smoker now. Before that I only smoked when I was in the presence of other smokers, and even then not really. I socially smoked clove cigarettes because that’s what the people around me at the time smoked. But I didn’t really enjoy them. I enjoyed being able to offer people cigarettes and feeling useful.

But in the back of that van, I was angry and bored. So I smoked. The association I have between reading Kurt Vonnegut and smoking clove cigarettes is incredibly strong. When I smell cloves, I think of Vonnegut.

Sandra and I took a trip down to the states a couple of weeks ago. While down there I was amazed (though I shouldn’t have been) to find a pack of djarums for five bucks at a gas station. I hadn’t smoked clove cigarettes in quite a few years. They’re too damned expensive up here and I’d become so used to smoking regular cigarettes that I didn’t even really think of them anymore. But yeah, I bought a pack of Djarums and I started smoking one a day or so. Maybe a little less. That, of course, made me think of Kurt Vonnegut, which made me start rereading Breakfast of Champions.

Which brings us back around again.

Breakfast of Champions was Kurt’s last great book, in my opinion. He wrote other books after it, but none that had the sheer awesome joy and heartache of his previous books. There were no more Mother Nights or Slaughter House Fives or Cats Cradles after Breakfast of Champions. It seemed that Kurt had written the ultimate Kurt Vonnegut book, and from there on, he didn’t seem to have a whole lot more to say. He still said things, and they were always at least interesting, if not profound.

But it was Breakfast of Champions that summed up the world of Kurt Vonnegut for me. It was the one where his unique style was stripped entirely of any preconceived notions of what a novel is supposed to be.

One of the major points in Breakfast of Champions is that people look at life as though it is a novel. People see themselves as the lead character and other people as either supporting characters, villains, background characters. That this is why we’re able to write some people off as less important than others. We feel as though every life has to have a beginning, middle and end. Our expectations are based on these completely bullshit structures and traditions. So what Vonnegut did in this book (as he’d done to a lesser degree in his other books) was treat every fact and character with equal importance. You know the history and needs of every character in the book. It’s all explained very matter-of-factly. Every fact, character and event was explained as though he were telling someone who is visiting earth for the first time.

Listen:

It’s a different kind of way to write a book. But it worked, incredibly well.

Breakfast of Champions isn’t my favorite Vonnegut novel (that would be Mother Night) but it’s my most beloved. It’s the one that made me rethink the way I read and write fiction. It’s the one that made me look at ALL storytelling differently. The majority of the non-internet writing I do (I’d say 95% of it) is screenplay writing. Vonnegut, and especially Breakfast of Champions, has shaped a lot of my style and approach to writing.

That being said, of course, as I’m rereading it again I’m picturing how someone (I) would make a movie based on this book.

There’s already been one movie made based on Breakfast of Champions. It was a noble effort, but ultimately a failure. Quite an abysmal failure actually.

This is the trailer for that movie:

It’s a shame that it failed so miserably. The casting was inspired. All choices that I easily could have made. Bruce Willis is a perfect choice for the doomed Dwayne Hoover. He’s got that desperate, in over his head look that makes him such a charming and sympathetic actor. That’s one of the many reasons why (until fairly recently) John McClane is a likable and successful action movie character. Nick Nolte is a fine actor and a major Vonnegut fan (from what I understand) and Albert Finny is obviously a fantastic actor and a decent choice for Kilgore Trout.

It’s a real shame that so much about this movie failed so tremendously.

Their first mistake was trying to ride in on the coattails of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Fear and Loathing came out a year before Breakfast of Champions. What’s strange is that Fear and Loathing didn’t do particularly well in the box office. It gained a following after the fact, but initially it was a failure. But yeah, clearly someone saw Fear and Loathing, or at least saw the commercial for it, and then quickly scrambled to find another classic 70s counter culture novel to adapt into a trippy, mind fuck of a movie.

And that was a bad, bad idea. Fear and Loathing was perfect for what it was… an adaptation of a Hunter Thompson novel. Terry Gilliam’s cartoony, dark style perfectly suited Hunter Thompson’s drug fueled reflection on the darkness in America.

Unfortunately, Breakfast of Champions doesn’t exactly lend itself to that same treatment. Yes, it’s dark, and yes it’s a little trippy and yes, it’s a fairly cynical look at the state of affairs in America. But Fear and Loathing and Breakfast of Champions are two completely different stories. And they’re two completely different view points. Breakfast of Champions is cheapened by dragging it through the trail left by Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Breakfast of Champions deserves a film that beats down the brush and creates it’s own trail in the wilderness of American films.

Another major problem with the Breakfast of Champions film that was made in the late nineties is that they tried to box it into traditional storytelling. Which is exactly what Vonnegut broke away from in his novel. One of the major points of Breakfast of Champions was that it WASN’T a traditional story, with a traditional set up and especially not a traditional ending. You knew the ending of Breakfast of Champions all through the book. Vonnegut told us, many times over the course of the book, how it was going to end. It wasn’t a happy ending. Dwayne was going to go insane, beat a bunch of people up and find himself locked in an institution.

By tacking on a happy “And then Dwayne realized the error of his ways and everyone was happy” ending to the movie completely misses the point of the novel. It shows an embarrassing lack of understanding of what the film makers were doing and the story they were telling. It’s downright offensive. I generally have no problem with deviating from the source material when adapting a film from another medium. That’s fine, as long as it serves the final film and that the end result is a good representation of what makes the source material worthy of adapting. But completely dismissing one of the major purposes for the novel’s existence leaves me wondering why even bother doing it at all?

It would be difficult, as I’m sure it was when Alan Rudolf attempted his Breakfast of Champions film, to adapt this book. Not impossible, but difficult. It would require a completely new approach to screen writing.

First of all, the main thing to consider is the WAY Kurt tells the story. More so than any other Vonnegut book (or, really, any book I know of period) you are made aware of the fact that he is making it up as he goes. He tells the story very much as a parent or a friend would tell a story. Interjecting his own notes and comments. Telling us how it relates and compares to his own life. He also reminds us often that the characters exist entirely in his mind. To the point that he writes himself as a character in the story and interacts with people he’s created.

I would retain all of that and take it a step further. What I’d want to do would border on blasphemous to some I think, but it’s the only way I can imagine doing a Breakfast of Champions movie. I would involve the audience in the process of adapting the film to movie. I would write both myself (or a character representing “the film maker”) and the crew and production crew. There would be at least one scene where the characters are forced to walk past the cameras and deal with the fact that they’re not only in a movie, but in a movie based on a book.

There is a line in Breakfast of Champions where Kurt explains that Kilgore Trout (Vonnegut’s science fiction writing alter-ego) is the only character of his that is bright enough to consider the possibility that he’s a character in someone else’s story. I would put that to the test. Have Kilgore realize that he’s not only a character in someone else’s story, but also that he’s being played by an actor with his own life and experiences. Major identity crisis.

I would also cast an actor as Kurt Vonnegut. I would explain who the actor is and why they’re playing Vonnegut instead of Vonnegut playing himself. If Kurt were still alive, I would have had Kurt play himself. But, obviously, that’s no longer an option. So I would get Christopher Walken to play Kurt and I would explain, in the movie, that Kurt was dead and so we’ve got Christopher Walken standing in. And then I’d precede from there. In the pivotal scene when Vonnegut confront’s Kilgore Trout and explains that he’s the writer of the story that Kilgore is a part of, I would have Walken explain that he’s an actor portraying the writer of the story. This would probably be the scene where we expose the film crew and cameras and such. Walken as Vonnegut would walk through the set with Kilgore, explaining what’s happening.

It would be a colossally challenging screenplay to write. Even more challenging to get made. There’s a very real chance that the whole thing could fall apart into a mess of pretentious bullshit. But, it’s not impossible. It’s theoretically doable.

Of course, this is all pipe-dream movie fantasizing. I’m no where near actually planning on making another Breakfast of Champions movie. All I’m doing right now is imagining how I would do it if given the opportunity.

As for the fantasy cast, I’m not sure. Honestly, this time around I’ve been picturing Bruce Willis and Nick Nolte. Even though the movie failed, those WERE decent casting choices. Obviously I wouldn’t try and cast those same actors again. At least not in those roles. I might get Billy Bob Thornton in as Dwayne Hoover. Maybe Bill Murray. Maybe William H. Macy.

For the role Nick Nolte played (Dwayne’s #1 sales guy who is also a closet transvestite) I’d want to get someone who is so incredibly masculine and confident, so that when he starts freaking out because he thinks Dwayne doesn’t like him anymore, it’s that much more sad and pathetic. That’s why Nick Nolte worked so well, theoretically. If Travolta hadn’t rotted into a Scientologist washed up freak he would have been good. Maybe Alfred Molina. Maybe Benicio Del Toro.

As for Kilgore Trout… I’ve never been able to picture anyone playing Kilgore Trout other than Bruce Dern. In every Vonnegut book that featured Trout, I’ve always pictured Bruce Dern. That’s just the way it is.

I haven’t seen Dern in a while. He was in Monster and he was apparently on Big Love. But yeah, Bruce Dern IS Kilgore Trout in my mind.

Anyway, I think I’ve about talked this into the ground. I’m just kind of spinning my wheels.

It’s a damned shame that Vonnegut is dead. But he died exactly how he should have. He was a writing machine and he made this writing machine function better than I would have otherwise. And I’m grateful for that.

Okay, so not so much “deleted” as I’d like to shoot it and then not use it. It was never actually in the script. In fact, I just wrote it about five minutes ago. I just want to have it. I couldn’t use it anyway, since it’s like, a total rip off from The Devil’s Rejects anyway. But whatever. Here it is.

INT. CAR – NIGHT

Vickie drives and looks frazzled. Danny and Charlie sit in
the backseat. Danny stares blankly through the window.
Charlie is unconscious, a bloody bullet hole in the center of
her forehead.

Charlie stirs awake. She puts her hand to her head as though
she has a headache.

                    CHARLIE
          Where are we?

                    DANNY
          In the car.

Charlie looks frustrated.

                    CHARLIE
          I know that, dork. Where ARE we
          though?

Danny shrugs.

                    DANNY
          L.A. I guess.

Charlie looks at her like she’s retarded.

                    VICKIE
          We’re in Orange County.

Charlie is still trying to wake up.

                    CHARLE
          Why the fuck are we in Orange
          County?

                    VICKIE
          We’re going to Big Bear.

                    CHARLIE
          Orange County isn’t on the way to
          Big Bear.

                    VICKIE
          I know that, bitch. I’m taking a
          longer way.

                    CHARLIE
          No shit. What the fuck is in Big
          Bear?

                    VICKIE
          Salome.

Charlie looks highly offended by this.

                    CHARLIE
          Fuck that!

                    VICKIE
          Look, if you have any better
          suggestions, I’m listening.

Charlie looks out the window, still somewhat groggy.

                    CHARLIE
          Wait, where exactly are we?

                    VICKIE
          I told you, Orange County.

                    CHARLIE
          Anaheim?

                    VICKIE
          Yes.

Charlie looks at Danny, her eyes wide and her mouth in a
tight little “o” shape. Danny bites her lip.

                    CHARLIE
          What road are we on?

Vickie closes her eyes briefly, frustrated.

                    VICKIE
          Harbor.

Charlie’s mouth drops open and Danny starts to fidget,
excited.

                    CHARLIE
          So… we’re headed, what… north?

Vickie is starting to look less frustrated and more angry.

                    VICKIE
          Yes, fucking north.

                    CHARLIE
          Towards the five.

There’s a long pause.

                    VICKIE
          Yeah.

Danny and Charlie look even more excited.

                    CHARLIE
          That’s… interesting. You know the
          five doesn’t go anywhere near Big
          Bear.

                    VICKIE
          I didn’t say I was getting onto the
          five. I told you, I’m taking
          another fucking way.

                    CHARLIE
          I see. You know, I was thinking…

                    VICKIE
          No.

                    CHARLIE
          What?

                    VICKIE
          Absolutely fucking not. No way.

Charlie suddenly yells.

                    CHARLIE
          OH COME ON!! DON’T BE A FUCKING
          BITCH!

                    VICKIE
          No fucking way! It isn’t going to
          happen! Not in a million fucking
          years!

                    CHARLIE
          You’re not the fucking boss of us!

                    VICKIE
          I’m driving! It’s my car and I’m
          driving! I’m the fucking boss.

                    CHARLIE
          Fuck you! You stole this car!

                    VICKIE
          Exactly! It’s a stolen fucking car
          and there’s a fucking dead body in
          the trunk and you’ve got a fucking
          bullet hole in your forehead! It
          aint gonna happen!

                    CHARLIE
          I’ll jump the fuck out of this car,
          I swear.

                    VICKIE
          Do it, I don’t care. I’m not
          stopping.

                    DANNY
          Oh my god… That’s The Matterhorn.

Danny points through the window and Charlie starts to almost
look frantic.

                    CHARLIE
          It’s only 8:30! The park’s still
          open for another three and a half
          hours! COME ON!

                    DANNY
          COME ON!

                    VICKIE
          I said no.

Charlie kicks the back of Vickie’s seat.

                    CHARLIE
          Come on! It’s RIGHT THERE!

                    VICKIE
          I said no.

                                                 CUT TO:

INT. CAR – NIGHT

Vickie drives, looking defeated and smoldering. Charlie and
Danny sit in the back. Charlie wears Mickey Mouse Ears and
Danny eats Cotton Candy.

                    CHARLIE
          Disneyland fucking rules.

Danny nods, eating her cotton candy.

Dicking around in photoshop…

and sans-silly photoshop filters…

So I was thinking about it…

I could make a Stand movie almost exclusively using the cast of Deadwood. I totally could.

The main question to tackle would be who would I get to play Flagg… Ian McShane or Powers Booth?

They’d both be great for different reasons. They’re both intimidating as hell. They’re both funny, in a kind of scary way, not sure if you should be laughing with him or not sort of way. Powers Booth has that kind of classic southern badass quality to him that sometimes seems appropriate for Flagg. Ian McShane has a kind of almost unhuman evil and creepy look to him that is also quite appropriate. Powers Booth has a voice that could rip the sky apart if used correctly. Ian McShane has eyes that could stare at you and send you screaming, insane off into the desert. They both look good in boots.

I’d probably have to go with Ian.

Keith Carradine (Wild Bill) would have to play Stu Redman. Brad Dourif (Doc Cochran)  would be the only choice for Lloyd, Flagg’s right hand man. Tim Olyphant (Seth) would play Larry Underwood. Molly Parker (Alma Garret) would play Franie Goldsmith. William Sanderson (E.B. Farnum) would play The Trashcan Man. Gerald McRaney (George Hearst) would play that judge. Brian Cox could play Glen Bateman. Sarah Paulson (the chick that played Alma’s badass backstabbing assistant) would play Nadine Cross. Robin Weigert (Calamity Jane) would have to play that lesbian chick, Dayna, who impaled herself on a broken window in Flagg’s office. W. Earl Brown (Dan) would play Tom Cullen. John Hawkes (Sol Star) would play Nick Andros.

There’s still no one for Mother Abigail and Harold Lauder… mostly because there aren’t any wicked old black chicks or young teenage boys on Deadwood to my knowledge. And I still haven’t used Powers Booth or Paula Malcomson (Trixie) or Kim Dickens (Joanie Stubbs)

But yeah, it could almost be done. I think I covered the major characters.

Oh… btw, I’m back from Disneyland.

Yeah, so remember a while back when I was trying to figure out how Iambic Pentameter worked? I was (still am really) fascinated with the dialog on Deadwood, and apparently much of it is written this way.

I think I’ve got basically the idea… It’s taken a few weeks, or even months.

So I went to work on my dialog. I got almost a page in and stopped it. I was like “FUCK THIS SHIT!” and then closed it.

Fuck that. It’s fucking harder than I thought!

It’s like tying a knot in my pecker! It’s like punching myself in the nut sack!

So no more iambic pentameter.

All of my dialog sounded like this:

“Eat hearty, for tonight we dine IN HELL!”

In other words, it came across as gay.

Deadwood can do it, I fucking can not.

So I may have secured a partner or two for the Ozzy/Rob Zombie show. Lyndsey’s going to get back to me tomorrow morning and let me know for sure. It might be Lyndsey and Brennan or it might just be Lyndsey or it might just be me. We’ll see.

Either way, I’m going to buy at least two tickets tomorrow and then hopefully someone will be able to go with me.

Now I just have to figure out how I’m going to go about “stalking/getting-in-touch-with” with Rob Zombie and getting my script to him. There’s an unwritten (or possibly specifically written in legal documents) rule that says that anyone in the entertainment business can’t (won’t) look at an unsolicited screenplay. Mainly because if they take the script and then go on to make a similar movie, they’re suddenly the subject of a lawsuit. I gotta figure out how to get around that. I’m contemplating writing up a decent synopsis and giving him my contact information and then hoping for the best. I don’t know though. I’d feel SO much more comfortable and accomplished if I actually got the script in his hands.

So serendipity is at play here.

I know that I’ll very likely have to give up control on this vampire script. That’s just realistic. The only way I’ve ever been able to feel comfortable giving up that control was by picturing myself giving it up to Rob Zombie. He’s pretty much the only person I think has the sensibilities and style anywhere near my own in this script.

A couple years back I was developing a project with a friend and we got well past the script stage into the the pre-production stage. During that stage, we met up with Sam Roberts and Tom Waits. That is to say we talked to Sam Roberts for about five minutes and we talked to Tom Waits’ assistant for about three minutes while Tom stood back about five feet and talked on his cell phone and didn’t acknowledge us. In both cases we then stepped back and waited for, oh, I don’t know, a few months, for them to call us back. Which they never did.

I’m not bitter or anything (I’m extremely bitter) but I did learn something… and that something is that it CAN be done. We just didn’t do it. But it can be done. There’s nothing in those two experiences that suggests that it can be done, but the fact that we got even that close (which really wasn’t that close at all) at least says that I could get closer. 

It’s just a matter of figuring out the best approach now. I’m pretty sure that simply showing up with a script and being like “OMG PLEASE MAKE ME A MILLIONAIRE!” isn’t the best approach… but something along those lines might work.

Either way, I’m going to see fucking Ozzy and Rob Zombie together, and that in and of itself is pretty fucking cool.

Now I just need to find someone to go to the show with me. Sandra sure as shit doesn’t want to see Ozzy and Rob Zombie. I’m sure there’s someone within a 100 mile radius that would go with me. I just need to make arrangements before… tomorrow… I guess…

Hello? Anyone?

So most people know that I’m not a huge fan of science fiction. There’s the odd thing I like, but for the most part, it doesn’t interest me. I like things that are relatable to my own life, and I find that when I start watching something that involves things that I can’t relate to, I get bored. That’s why I was never interested in Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica or any of that.

But, there’s always exceptions. I like the original Star Trek, but a lot of that has to do with it’s place in history and pop culture, as well as the very thinly veiled social commentary. I love The Twilight Zone, but for many of the same reasons.

One show that I was absolutely in love with was Quantum Leap. It helped that the science fiction aspect of it was pretty much just a premise to get to the actual meat of the story. The majority of the show used very little in the way of traditional sci-fi conventions. It took place entirely in the past and Sam (the hero of the show) had very little contact with the future (or present day or whatever) and really, it was all more philosophical than anything.

For those who don’t know, Quantum Leap was about a scientist named Sam Becket who worked with quantum physics. He was attempting to time travel. The experiment went wrong and he ended up stuck “leaping” through time, with the apparent goal of fixing things that went wrong. I believe the idea was that by leaping around in time, he was fucking up the time-space continuum and forced to fix all of the things he’d screwed up.

Sam is guided by a “holographic” version of a dude named Al. Al was called in to the Quantum Leap project in our time (or Sam’s native time) to work as a liaison between Sam and the scientists working to bring him back. Al was technically not a hologram because he was actually appearing to Sam in via brainwaves. Only Sam can see or hear Al. Al uses a sentient computer named Ziggy to determine who and where Sam is and what he’s there to do. Once Sam has fixed whatever it is he’s supposed to fix, he leaps into another time and person with a new mission and Al has to find him. As the opening narrative says, Sam is always hoping that the next leap will be the leap home.

Sam would pop into a specific time and place, and occupy the body of a person until he fixed whatever had gone wrong. Usually it was stopping someone from dying that wasn’t supposed to die or getting two people to meet and fall in love or something like that. All of these little change “right place/right time” events that he had to line up. A lot of it was kind of sappy, but a lot of it was really interesting. There was one episode where he “leapt” into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald and had to shoot J.F.K but save Jackie Kennedy, who originally died in the altered time line. He leaps back and forth between different points in Oswald’s life and starts to go insane.

Unfortunately, as the show started to lose viewers and ratings, the story became convoluted and kind of obnoxious. In an attempt to explain what was actually happening, they brought in “evil leapers” who were working for The Devil and leaping around like Sam, but fucking everything up. It is implied (or even stated, I don’t remember for sure) that was Sam was actually doing was working for God and leaping around fixing The Devil’s trouble making.

This kind of killed the series for me and I pretty much tuned out after that, only watching when the episode looked particularly interesting.

Up to that point though, there were some pretty interesting ideas and philosophical theories wrapped up in the show.  

I was thinking today about what I’d do if I was allowed to make a Quantum Leap movie.

First of all, I’d make three movies. The first would be about Sam trying to deal with what was happening. In first few seasons of the show, Sam has amnesia and doesn’t remember anything about his own life and has no real idea what’s going on. He kind of had a Jason Bourne thing going on, where he will suddenly bust out some crazy smart shit that he didn’t know he knew, like speaking foreign languages or some kind of crazy science shit. I’d definitely focus on this a lot for the first movie. It would be all about Sam trying to figure out what the fuck was happening while at the same time doing whatever it was he was supposed to do. I’d probably have him leap three or four times over the course of the first movie and there would be a lot of questions, both scientific and philosophical brought up and very little answered. I would set up the basic premise and by the end of the first movie, Sam would have a somewhat vague idea of what he’s doing and he will have accepted that he has to do what he’s doing and that it’s for the greater good, even if it’s hard. The last leap in the first movie would be into someone, possibly even himself, relatively close to the time he was in when he first left. The catch would be that he has to fix something terribly wrong. Sam then has to decide if he’s going to fix what went wrong or choose to stay in his own time and body and let whatever was supposed to be stopped happen. Of course, in a very Last Temptation of Christ moment, Sam would choose to fix what was wrong and end up leaping again. It would be very sad but also inspiring and rad.

The second movie would pick up down the road a bit. Sam has been leaping back and forth through time for some time and has gotten comfortable with what he’s doing. Well, not so much comfortable as accepting. The second movie would be purely Quantum Leap goodness. It would probably just be a solid feature length episode of the show. One really awesome leap. We’d still get into the philosophical aspect of the show and there would be more questions answered and even more questions brought up.

At the end of the second movie, we’d set up the third movie, which would deal with Sam going crazy, which is implied at the end of the show. At least, that’s how I took it. This would obviously be a much darker movie, and it would delve much deeper into the philosophy of what Sam is doing. What we would find out over the course of the movie is that Sam never actually left. Everything was happening in his head while he was unconscious, and seemingly the Quantum Leap Project failed. That’s the central issue revolving around the show as far as I’m concerned, and around quantum physics in general, as I understand it. This is why Sam was only ever able to leap within his own life time, because that’s all he knows.

The issue I’d want to explore with these movies would be whether anything Sam did over the course of the story was real, and if it had any affect on reality. I don’t think I’d even fully spell out the answer, though I would know. I’d want to leave that fairly ambiguous, because that’s really the way quantum physics works. We don’t know what’s what because we’re trapped in our own perception of things. What I would want to establish for sure is that Sam’s consciousness was stationary. He was always still himself, even when he was someone else. He was aware of what was happening to him, even if it wasn’t real. That would be the real question. Does the fact that he’s seeing and feeling and understanding what his surroundings are make it real? I’d like to think it did, even if it was inside his head. And the end result would be that he DID change the world for the better, even though it was within the confines of his own head. He changed history and fixed things that were wrong, even though he never went anywhere. Through the power of his mind and his altered perception of reality, he was able to change the fabric of the universe and shape history and physics simply by being aware of what he was doing.

The show ended stating that Sam had indeed fixed things, including the life of his friend Al, but that he never returned home. This (I’ve just learned via wikipedia) was a last minute edit to what was originally just going to be a season finale. The show was canceled and they tacked that ending on as a way to finalize the show at the last minute. It was an incredibly depressing ending and probably inspired by writers and producers who were bitter that their show had been canceled.

In my ending, Sam would indeed return home, but he would have no memory of what he had done, nor would anyone else. By changing history (both personal and in the broader sense) he would come home to what would be the “true” reality, even if it was different from the one he left. Because it’s the “true” reality, it always will have been and it’s the only memory he would have. He would wake up completely unaware of what he had done and believe that the experiment had failed, along with everyone else. We, as the audience, will know that he has changed and it will be a happy ending in that sense, but it will also be a sad ending because he will have no idea of the good things he’d done and the sacrifices he’d made.

Some of the questions I’d like to explore with this movie would mostly revolve around consciousness and awareness of self. While I would know over the course of the movies (as would you, if you’re reading this) that it was all happening inside Sam’s head, the audience wouldn’t. As in the show, there would be a basic, blanket explanation as to what was happening. On the show, it kind of went back and forth between the idea that Sam became the person he leapt into, and that only his consciousness was leaping and that he was occupying the body of someone else, and that the person he leapt into was then occupying Sam’s body in Sam’s native time. Other times, it suggested that the person he leapt into switched places with Sam physically, and that both Sam’s body and mind were occupying the space originally occupied by the person he leapt into. This inconsistency was seemingly a matter of sloppy writing on the show, but I’m not sure. At times Sam was able to do things that the person he leapt into was unable to do, like when he leapt into the body of a blind pianist and was able to see and that sort of thing.

This is a tough thing to work out for the story, because it really challenges the central issue of of the story. How much of Sam’s reality is grounded in his awareness of himself? Does the fact that he knows Sam Becket can see and walk give him the ability to see through blind eyes and walk with dead legs? I think it does. Especially since I know that it’s happening in his head. That also brings up another question, what’s the difference between something that’s happening in your head versus something happening in reality? The answer, in the end, is that there is no difference. What everyone believes to be the world around them is actually inside their head anyway. Everything he believes to be real is completely dictated by what he believes to be real. So as he leaps around changing things from within his own mind, he’s changing his awareness of what’s real, and therefor changing what actually is real. Sam isn’t working for God, as the show later suggested, but Sam IS God, as we all are. Simply being aware of his own existence makes him God and the creator, destroyer and manipulator of his own universe and reality.

This is why Sam goes insane in the third movie. It’s too much to process. He can’t deal with what he’s doing because human beings weren’t built to handle that kind of mental workload. The philosophical ramifications of what he’s doing along with simply BEING a bunch of other people with different lives and different perceptions of reality eventually break his mind.

When Sam finally cracks, his brain overloads and loses the ability to decide to do anything. He can’t choose to do or not do what he was sent to do, and when he gives up that choice, he leaps home. It’s not that he leaps when he decides not to do what he was sent there to do, but when his mind can’t discern what’s real and what isn’t anymore, and he’s unable to choose anything at all. He gives up and lays down in the middle of the street (not literally) and becomes immobilized by the enormity of the situation.

This is the point when his brain resets and he’s able to return home. Not because he’d fixed all the needed to be fixed, but because his brain rebooted itself and opted to start fresh in his native time. He wakes up and is aware of reality as it exists after everything is changed and that’s all he’s aware of, because that’s all his brain will allow him to be aware of. It’s all his capable of being aware of. He experienced God first hand and it broke his brain.

And that would be the basic premise of the movies. It wouldn’t be a continuation of the series but rather a revision of the series. It would retell the basic story of the series with my own ideas mixed in.

Contrary to my usual M.O. I wouldn’t change a whole lot, story wise, from the original idea. I’d even go so far as casting Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell in their original roles as Sam and Al. Sure, they’re older, but so what? Their age isn’t really an issue in regards to the story.

Usually when I think about “remaking” someone else’s artistic property, I’m pretty keen on distancing my version from the original as much as possible. I don’t see the point in someone else adding their interpretation of an existing work without making it their own.

But in the case of Quantum Leap, I’d approach it almost like when George Harrison produced The Life of Brian for Monty Python. He produced it because he desperately wanted another Python movie and it wasn’t going to happen otherwise. I’d do these movies simply because I love Quantum Leap and I want to see some new QL stories realized. I’d change the things I’d change because it’s an opportunity to expand on what’s there. It’s a different format and things have changed since Quantum Leap went off the air. I think that in a movie format, the basic story of Quantum Leap could be better played out and made a little more cohesive. Plus, with the way it ended, there wasn’t really much opportunity to create a broader story arc, and I think Quantum Leap deserves that broad story arc. I think it deserves a beginning, middle and proper end.

I also think that in a film format, the story could be played “smarter.” I don’t mean to imply that Quantum Leap wasn’t smart, or that my ideas are any smarter than the show was in it’s original form. I just mean that when the show first aired, they were playing for a TV audience. They were writing and developing the show for people that wanted to watch an hour a week and forget about it. They were also creating an open ended story, which is where most shows tend to fail over time. Without a definitive end in sight, it’s nearly impossible to develop characters and stories realistically. As a series of movies, we could know before hand exactly what ideas we want to present, who the characters are from beginning to end and exactly what’s going to happen when. Once you know all of those things, it’s easier to create cohesively and with purpose.

Of course, this is all hypothetical. I wish I had the opportunity to do these movies, and maybe one day I will. For now, I just enjoy thinking about what could be.

As an afterthought, I just remembered something.

There was an episode of The New Twilight Zone (the 80s version of The Twilight Zone) that starred Dean Stockwell. Dean Stockwell played Al on Quantum Leap (as well as the creepy eyeliner wearing dude in Blue Velvet.) In this episode, Dean played a man in prison who escapes by visualizing himself on the outside. This plays heavily into the questions I’d want to explore with these movies. The idea that by simply believing something, it becomes real. I thought that was interesting.

It makes me wonder if by visualizing myself writing and directing these Quantum Leap movies, if I’m somehow creating that reality somewhere. Somewhere either in another dimension or in the future. I wonder if I did this enough, to the point that I believed it to be reality, if it would then BE reality. That would be fucking sweet. Especially if I was aware of the fact that I’d done it. I’d be standing there behind the camera, directing Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell as Sam and Al, and I’d realize suddenly that I’m there and that it’s real, and then I’d have to say to myself “Oh boy!”

Currently Listening: Alice Cooper – Take It Like a Woman

Oh…

One more thing:

Over the course of my life I’ve had dreams (literally) where I’m filming certain scenes in movies. Sometimes I don’t know what the movies are, and other times I do. I once dreamed that I was making a movie about Richard Pryor, in which an actor I didn’t recognize was playing Pryor, and Denzel Washington was playing a young Bill Cosby. The scene was in a nightclub and Bill was a kind of mentor to Richard, telling him what it was like working as a black entertainer in the late sixties. He had the fro and the cigar. It was pretty sweet. That image has been burned into my head for many years now.

Another time I dreamed I was filming a movie where Sean Penn was playing John Lennon for some reason. In the scene, he was sitting next to Yoko on a massive lawn, talking to someone I didn’t recognize, explaining why there was so much security at his house. The kids (presumably his son Sean and some friends) were playing in a playground surrounded by chain link fence.

I was just outside having a smoke and thinking about the post I just made about what I’d do with a Quantum Leap movie, and I remembered this dream and an idea struck me.

In one of the stories, Sam would leap into the body of John Lennon or someone around him, possibly Yoko or a bodyguard or even Sean. Sam would believe that he was there to save Lennon from being shot by Mark David Chapman. But by the end of the story, Sam would realize that he isn’t there to save Lennon, but to make sure that he gets shot, so that Chapman will be arrested, to save someone else on the Chapman’s list of “phonies” that need to be killed. So by sacrificing John Lennon, he prevents what would have been a much more disastrous death.

I think that would be a totally badass story, and I’m pretty sure that’s what the dream I had was about. Obviously, I wouldn’t cast Sean Penn as John Lennon, especially not in a Quantum Leap movie, though when I had the dream (it was at least ten or twelve years ago) Sean probably could have pulled it off.

I don’t know if I’ll ever actually make a Quantum Leap movie, but if I do, that scene is going to be in it. If anything, it would be a neat little nod to the original series, because of the classic scene when Sam leaps into his own body as a kid and tries to prove to his sister that he’s from the future by playing the song Imagine for her, explaining that it was a John Lennon song from the future.

It’s a great scene.

I just found it on youtube:

Have I posted this one yet?

It’s a combination of about seven or eight pictures. Can you tell the movie is set in Los Angeles?

So I’ve decided that this song is going to be the primary theme song for my vampire movie. Both the tone of the song, a smooth, melodic bass and dreamy guitar that eventually builds into a crazy orgasm of noise, but also the subject matter of the lyrics is obviously relevant. It’s about Ted Bundy.

That video isn’t nearly the best version of the song I’ve seen, but I like the way it’s shot. You have to skip through a few minutes of obnoxious Perry Ferrel flaky rambling in the middle, but it’s worth it.

This is actually a better performance of the song.

And yes, Dave Navarro is playing his guitar with a vibrator. That’s just how he rolls.

So there was a special on the Discovery Channel last night about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. It was a very straight forward, just the facts kind of special which was a little frustrating. No speculation about anything. No questioning of how the fire started or who fired first. But it was interesting nonetheless.

It got me thinking about the whole situation and how it would make a kickass movie. They did a TV movie at the time with Tim Daly from Wings as Koresh, but I never watched it.

It’s a movie that could never get made though. At least not by me.
The main reason is because I would have to approach it from an perspective that people wouldn’t like.

Watching it, I kept wondering to myself “What if this guy really WAS the second coming of Christ?” and that’s the direction I would take my movie.
Not that I believe he was, but just “what if?” you know?

I mean, what would happen if Jesus came back all ready for the apocalypse and trying to get people prepared for the end of the world? Would he stockpile guns like that? Would he train people with AK47s?
I think he probably would.

I had issue with the question of whether or not Jesus would take on a bunch of wives, including 16 year old girls.

Then I figured that, while Jesus was theoretically the son of god (though I approach that claim as though he meant that we are all children of god, himself included, and not that he’s like, literally the son of god) he was still a mortal man. I imagine that a mortal man who has been put into this position of power over that many people would probably take advantage of it. Especially if he can find bible verses to back him up.

The whole situation was totally fucked up and I certainly don’t agree with really anything that happened there, whether it’s what the Branch Davidians were up to or the way the raid was handled.

But still… what if?

My movie would take place entirely in the Mount Carmel compound. There wouldn’t be anything about the ATF or FBI investigations or anything leading up to the raid except the things that directly involved the people in the compound. And I would probably get Christian Bale to play David Koresh. My first thought was Val Kilmer, but I think he might be a little too old. I mean, David Koresh was 33 when he died. Was there anyone else who was 33 when they were martyred by the government? Oh yeah, JESUS.

I don’t think I could do that movie and retain any credibility or get funding for future movies. I think it would pretty much sink my career.
And I have to start now because I’m starting to research and it’s really not a good idea. I tend to do that. I read an entire book about Jack the Ripper and looked a hundreds of websites to research a ten minute scene in my Vampire movie… and that scene didn’t actually REALLY have anything to do with anything that really happened in the Jack the Ripper case. My Jack was an entirely invented character and I didn’t focus on any of the real murders with any detail.

So yeah, I need to stop doing research for a movie I’m not going to write.

Huh. Someone just posted a whack of pictures of the compound today in the abandoned places community.

Current music: The Doors – Break on Through

the original photo is of neevita, from her Deviant Art stock account. Used with permission.

I should really have been writing today. I need to stop with the photoshop.

This is the first one to actually feature someone from my “cast” though you probably can’t really tell unless you’re familiar with the original photo. I figured that I should probably browse through the pictures I have of Pink from the night I decided I wanted her in my movie.

I found this picture and thought it would make a funny poster. Kind of sums up the “fuck you” attitude of my vampire movie. I shopped out one of the tattoos on her arm just because I felt like it was in the way.

This one kind of reminds me of the poster for Wonderland.

I was originally going to have the caption at the top say “I got yer interview right HERE!” but then decided that was too silly.

So the website is up, but I need to add content to it. I’m gonna do that right now!

I’m about halfway through the Jack the Ripper portion of my script. During that section we also find out a fair bit about how all of my researching regarding Salome and King Herod and John the Baptist figures into the movie.

This is the first poster I’ve done where I’ve used an actual art piece that wasn’t a stock image or a photograph that’s already used in a million different things (the Monroe poster) and I feel weird about it. I asked the original artist, as well as the model for permission to use it, even though I’m not actually using the image for anything other than my own personal enjoyment and motivation. It’s just such a badass image and even though it doesn’t REALLY directly reference anything in the movie (IE, my Salome is the real Salome from the Bible, and isn’t wearing a sexy punk cheerleader outfit) I had to use it.

I’ve uploaded most of the posters to my deviantart.com gallery, giving credit for the images I used when I could. I skipped this one until I hear back from the original artist.

Anyway, back to writing.

PS
CHECK IT!

http://bloodlettingmovie.com/

I need to set up my DNS and then put a website up. I’m going full on balls out with the visualization!

Current music: Pink Floyd – Speak to Me/Breathe

A pretty different take on it. Only really playing up one part of the movie (so far) but I like the style.

plus some more. Re: The last one. I know that I could never actually use Marilyn Monroe’s image. Marilyn Monroe actually has nothing at all to do with the movie (so far) but I do like the image and the idea of taking something that’s seen as sexy but kind of cliche American (now at least) and adding that death element to it.

Now… I actually write. Maybe. After this smoke.