Entry One: "The Road Thus Far And All That" by Sam France

Well, well. Rado's weak little script has morphed into a multi-million dollar explosion, and the cast read-through of the revised and final version of the "Here's Another One, Jon!" screenplay in the Callas garage was truly immaculate and salty. Chainsmoking American Spirits blues, garage grime, smoke dancing gray into pinball light next to a Very Pink and Very Smiley collection of Taryn Hurlbuts who tagged along to eat that good shit, that homeliness, that grime off the Cool Drama Kidz scene in a world of meetings in J-2 and chairs and carpet that was previosuly cold but, now, with the bleeding creeping of reasonable drug use, honesty, creativity and the long-expected Fuck It attitude of new-age lurkers like Sam Hertz, Auddy Kearns, MikeyCal, Sam France, Rado, B-Felbz, Ekul and first-time actress and indie-pop ballerina fur-huntress Ariana Dewing, the sheer Now-ness, Ultimate Truth and Genuine Humor of Rado's screenplay was so thick you could suck it, taste it and even shake your fist at it. Sure, Rado's script is chalk-full of the little ramen-y pop clicker brown squeezy references, real words -- that smart, cute and sharp humor that is not handed on a school bus to Doppelganger/Agoura scooty moms because (A.) His script covers not only This generation's cultural nooks and crannies but also displays a Wonderful universal sense of the past -- a better recollection of 60's, 70's pop culture than Doppel Moms who saw it firsthand can pinpoint, thus sneaking into their whole "Oh, those craaaaaaaaaazy 70's!" older generation giggly best-kept secret and revealing them all as frauds and (B.) messes with their desperate need to feel that high school is this colourful drama stage of This Group and That Event where Enlightenment can be reached with the winning of a girlfriend, (or the awwe-realization TWIST that she just wasn't his type, she was a bitch anyways and that tomboyish best friend who was there for all the hurricanes is still waiting, standing alone all dirted up with seaweed in her hair and though no emotional involvement ever existed before, after the turn and chaos of the protagonist's struggle and Grand Realization she just looks so golden all muddy...) or an understanding friend, or a cast of rainbow-clad hoppers who know of drugs, (for that is fine, I mean Knowledge is power baby go go go go) but let all the weed and shit be scrounged up by "stoners" and weirdos so wrapped thick in smoke and brain damage that it is no longer human but funny -- the actual physical reality of a nug of herb in a glass pipe is impossible, too personal -- the sensation of drugs in these Doppel student films is floaty and removed and psychedelic, characterized by smoke, posters and dirty kidz or perhaps a joint, for what is a joint but another character, another piece of bread. No, Rado's script dares to go outide the High School World and document high school humans -- I remember discussing with Rado, pre-script, how we should just make a movie about the Character Rado -- the picky, Woody Allen deli-hopping record collecting mess and throwing him into a love story. (Everybody knows that this Rado was washed away during the past year and a half by my humbling and Rado became somewhat adventurous.) Still, no scenes take place on a school campus but in restaurants and delis and at houses and brings you into Rado's life, my life, our Culture and the things we like but keeps it all grounded with a love story that is not typical only in the sense that Maggie and Bendis meet, dig each other, towards-the-end-before-eternal-embrace-conflict-less and that's it. Dialogue-driven, no pastel indie slow-mo bullshit -- just humanity.
Wonderful script aside, I'm pissy about the fact that the Peter Apple (me) character was basically converted to the Johnny Lash (Mike) character on account of my outdated boarding school plans, and now all of Mike's lines are things I've basically fucking said in real life. Rado slipped back in a Peter Apple role, but it's small and pretty fucking insignificant and pops up only here and there. (Not to blame anyone -- it's nobody's fault.) Whatever. Take, take.
Filming will get it moving; we just shot the scene in which Bendis and Maggie have a lil' makeout sesh in Maggie's room and, of course, I was a third wheel in that heat of tracks and all sorts of Austin Kearns poeple holding lights and doing makeup just shocked by the brilliance and brightness of the previsouly unknown Sam Hertz smiling up the place. She's just this new American princess -- the kind everybody just kinda tilts their head at, wide-eyed, astonished by her sexyness but altogether religiosuly lifted by her general goodness and, in the end, badassery. Anyways, I ditched that magic for and had a cigarette outside in the storm with Sasha Stock, Jackie Cohen and Katie Felbs as we all languidly melted into the ground in the sudden realization that we were all un-needed, unhinged, drowing and headed straight for the gallows.