My New Tattoo!!!

Ahhh...the glorious, numbing pain of a new tattoo. Now I'm not some biker-styled, skull sporting badass, but I love a good tattoo. I FUCKING LOVE THEM!

But you know what I hate...shitty tattoos. Looking to the pic to your right, I want you to notice something...you see it...DETAIL. I wish I had a better pic, but I suppose I'll take another one after it heals. Detail, though, is the main ingredient in a great tattoo as much as it is in a great screenplay. When you look into the eyes of that Greek warrior on my arm (which was meant to signify pain and defeat) I want you to feel that pain. Even the greek letters on the helmet mean 'pain' in Greek. But if the detail had been horrible and the eyes came out cartoony, then you would not have felt the deep seated pain that was throw into this tattoo at it's conception. If I wanted cartoony, I would have asked for something cartoony. It would be like writing a drama starring a clown on speed. NOT SERIOUS.

The Greek warrior part of the tattoo was done in Souda Bay, Crete (Greece) in 2004 right before my nervous breakdown. I was on a train of drunken pleasures and deep rooted self hate that made me feel like shit. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried to guard myself from the bad things in my life, they still got through. So when it came time to get a tattoo, I wanted three thing...I wanted something to signify that I got it in Greece (warrior), I used the helmet to signify the armor I had used to attempt to keep the bad things out, and then I put those painful, teary eyes showing defeat, because no matter how hard I tried, I failed. Defeated.

The swords also have a dual meaning in that the scimitars are the national blade of Iraq (I made that up, but the fuckers are on statues and shit everywhere) and I wanted something to remind me that I was there, to signify my time there. The second meaning of the swords is an easy one: Connor and Simon...my two sons. They are literally two of the most important people in my life, and the only two I'd lay under the blade to give my life for.

Without these intricate details, and bold meanings behind the tattoos (which will eventually be part of a half-sleeve) they wouldn't be what they are. When you look an artist in the eyes and tell him, "This is the worst time in my life...make it show," they get it and want to put that pain and defeat in there. As screenwriters, we need to be no different.
My point is that when it comes to writing scenes that keep a tone, I am often guilty of writing something hilarious when it needs to be serious, and vice versa. I'm learning and slowly growing out of that, but when I think of the screenplay I am working on now, I ask myself...is this a Greek Warrior or Calvin and Hobbes on my left ass cheek? If you spec, spec something that means something to you, because it's so much easier to relate and put the best and worst of yourself into it. Create those characters that remind you of the people you love, hate and feel for. Put them into situations that are comparable to things you've been through. You're essentially tattooing yourself when you spec write...so ask yourself, when a stranger sees that tattoo (spec) do you want them to say, "Wow, that is just...awesome," or, "I don't get it?"
Of course I'm going to use my tattoo to turn this into a screenwriting essay...it's a screenwriting blog, get over it.

PS...Ignore the scrawny arms...the camera takes off 15 inches.

Rod

The Yank...Genesis

SUPER: June 29, 2007

After the countless, and innumerable glances at the personal blogs of a wannabe screenwriters, I have decided that it is time to join the crowd. This isn't your basic blog, based solely on formatting rules, and three-act structure, but instead will be a fuming platform so that I may share my frustrations with you all en masse.

Now, to play catch-up, I will take you back to where it all began...

One year ago, I sat down with my laptop in a coffee shop in the Bahrain, snuggled deep into a cup of Joe, and stared into a blank screen. I had but one goal. Write. Not being a fan of outlining at the time, I hadn't a clue what I wanted to write. What was the story I had wanted to tell?

Now, let's flashback a little farther, a few weeks to a month prior to my rendezvous with this cup of Joe and an empty laptop screen. To a day at the pool with a guy that we'll call Francis.

Francis was a whore-monger. No offense to him, but he was and he proudly knew it. With Spring setting in, he had taken to spending long hours by the pool at our apartment building gawking at the abundant, multicultural 'ass pot' that came down to sunbathe during the afternoons. The Brits, the Filipinos, the Spaniards...if there was a country that half accepted the English language, they had a representative at that pool everyday, scantily clad in dental floss and sea shells. But Francis had been there. In six months he had run through every split-tail of foreign decent at least four nights a week. He no longer even kept notches on his belt, but instead hung country flags around his bedroom. He must have had about nineteen flags total, but the one he wanted, had purchased, and was waiting to hang still lay folded into a neat square, in its original plastic wrapping in a drawer in his shitty apartment. It was the bright red one, with the yellow hammer and sickle.

Da, that one! The good ole' former Soviet flag. Francis wanted himself a Ruskie!

Contract workers were commonplace in Bahrain, and without a doubt was the preferred means of employment amongst business owners. Foreigners (mostly Filipino) would come over and work for less than 700B.D. a month, with room and board being provided, and the owners of the establishment made off cheaper in the long run than hiring local Bahrainis. Now the Russians were on a similar contract, but not like Filipinos. The Filipinos were mostly waiters and house bands...the Russians were dancers. Not in the Texan, single-mother sort of the word, but moreso in the elegant-chic that exists between stripper and ballet artisan. They weren't dirty or nude, but dressed in sheer belly dancer outfits and could seduce even the grumpiest sheik with nothing more than their eyes and a flick of their hand. Thousands of Bahraini Dinars were spent a night by the Saudi sheiks and oil tycoons that came to visit on the weekends...all for a chance of getting some red ass. Which we Americans know is all too futile, because the second you give a dancer cash, you go from prospector to customer, and they can’t fuck customers. In Bahrain it was slightly worse, being that if a dancer was caught railing customers, she was normally reassigned and deported.

So there Francis found himself, by the pool, dreaming of mounting his first Russian. To go Rocky IV and drop nuts on his own personal Ivan Drago. She had jet black hair, dimpled thighs, and was waning in her years as a dancer. Her name was Victoria...and Francis fucked her.

After weeks of fuck-buddiness, Francis became entangled in a love affair with this sweet little Russian girl to the point that he wanted to free her from her contract, quit the Navy and move back to Russia with her! He had it all planned out to the finest detail. The problem was that they were far-fetched details, and not nearly realistic. In the end, her boss eventually found out, her contract was terminated and she was flown to work at a different club in Australia somewhere. Francis never saw her again, but something tells me that the British girl he began dating made him forget all about it.

Throughout his relationship with Victoria, I often teased him that she was probably a mafia princess, and that if he wasn't careful he'd find himself a marked man. Being the redneck that he was, he said, "Shit! I'll smoke the whole damn family!" And I thought to myself, That's rich. One American taking out the entire Russian mafia for love.

That single line repeated over and over in my head for weeks, and built slowly into one of those thoughts you have and say, “That would make a good story.” Thus began the birth of my screenwriting endeavors.

Now…that was over a year ago, and things have changed a shit-ton since then. How so?

Keep reading.