HARD TIMES

THE BEST OPENING SCENE TO A FILM EVER

 So I spent the best part of twenty minutes he other day doing some market research before I started writing my first real movie script. I've decided to write it based on what people want to see rather than my own personal idea of what a story should be. I mean what's a script writer anyway if not a problem solver...solving problems like "how do we justify tits in that?" Anyway according to the four men aged between 28 and 29 and a half I spoke to sex, explosions and an obligatory cute animal are essentials ... I've managed to get it all in, things are so far going pretty well...I need a title though...

INT: KITCHEN - NIGHT
(Throughout this whole scene Katy Perry’s Fireworks is playing)

A young white couple both in their late twenties stand in the doorway of a kitchen in a 20 storey block of flats. The female is blonde and attractive. She leans against the door frame. She fingers the buttons around the Males shirt. He is slightly stubbly and dark with muscles that suggest he is smart and capable without too much vanity. He leans in closer, both of them smile. It’s a knowing smile. They are definitely about to have SEX.

INT: BEDROOM - NIGHT

Sex is happening. The sheets are silk. The pacing is moderate. Both parties look they are putting in a decent shift and benefitting from the rewards.

CAMERA SHIFTS FROM BED THROUGH THE OPEN BEDROOM DOOR WHICH HAD CLEARLY NOT BEEN SHUT IN THE THROES OF PASSION.

INT: CORRIDOR NIGHT

The camera closes in following the feet of a small puppy. The sound of a bell rings which can’t yet be seen but is worn around the small dogs neck...(If he’s still alive let’s get the dog from the Artist)

INT: BEDROOM - NIGHT

Camera cuts back to the couple on the bed...they have now swapped positions with the Female sitting up and stretching out her breasts. She looks happy.
Camera cuts back to the dog. He puts his paws over his eyes

EXT: STREET - NIGHT

A long shot of the block of flats and what can be seen of the city skyline. Fireworks continues to play for about four seconds then...The block of flat explodes.

SCENE2

EXT: DAY...

DENSE

SOMETIMES THE UNDERDOG LOSES (24 HOURS ON TINDER)

 

 “ I want to fuck you”. My friend has just shown me her message from Richard (27) on Tinder. That’s all he’s written. He’s looked at a picture of her face, which is all you have to go by on Tinder and he’s expressed his feelings so concisely you could do nothing but throw your arms up in the air with respect. As a failing writer I have chosen to deliberately make saying what I really want an arduous, torturous struggle, a journey of the mind peppered with alcohol and any substance which would obstruct me from actually being able to do the really difficult work of saying what I think, or at least think I think. I may be stupid, but this is what I understood to be in the job description. I took another glance at the phone and read back the line “I want to fuck you” It still said. Because it hadn’t been deleted. The potency of his sentence had yet to diminish. I was envious of Richard’s ability. “This guy’s good, he writes well” I said to my friend. “He’s not a writer” she replied. “He’s a plumber”. That was the sucker punch.

They say “The early bird catches the worm” but somebody made that up sometime around 1982 when people sprinkled Cocaine on their cornflakes slapped on their braces and made money out of money. It did not pay for me to be up, I’m broke and being up is expensive. However for all my efforts avoiding it waking up was happening to me, and in that first instance of consciousness a panic would not so much creep in as spring me up with a jolt. Something was missing I’d turn to my left where my sons bed sits and it would be as it always was, empty and unmade. Five days out of seven he was missing, and though this arrangement had now been set for over a year every morning I’d wake up feeling I’d lost him. Every morning that is except for the two where he is actually in the bed. If I lost him two days a week every week, I’d definitely get in trouble. A calm sets in when I remember he’s happy and with his mum, and then a crippling realisation …I’m alone.

I turn to the Laptop which has over the last three years had its spot etched into the mattress and been on for so long it is red hot with rage. When we first broke up the Internet became a sort of haven. Document your misery in pithy hilarious updates and grasp the “likes” that trickle through like little virtual hugs. How can you really be alone if someone in Mexico has understood your fears of looking more and more dog like with age? You see you’re not, because Juan understands. But as Jonathon Franzen wrote in his essay Farther Away “(The Internet’s) perpetual stimulation without satisfaction becomes imprisoning”. There is no end to the Internet, you look around and watch everybody on the bus staring into their smart phones and imagine them flicking pages searching for the way out, but there isn’t one.  I’ve turned myself into a brand in fear of ever actually getting close to anyone. You can “like” me but that’s as far as it goes. Again as Franzen writes liking is “commercial culture’s substitute for loving” you can’t love a toaster. My general rule is you can only love things, which can slap you. However we now go to great lengths to be liked, to be liked as much as a toaster. The problem is nothing happens to a toaster in its lifetime, except more than probably break. The limitless nature means there is no natural end to anything and stories need an end. I’ll happily endure that pain again and have an actual feeling than another understanding virtual hug from Juan (no offence Juan, and please don’t stop liking) I think I don’t want to be a toaster anymore. I think about Richard from Tinder, his bravery his no nonsense knowing what he wants, his confidence, his fearlessness in the face of rejection and wonder if I could ever say “I want to fuck you” to anybody and not either open with an “I’m sorry…” or finish off with a “Please” or even both. “I’m sorry I want to fuck you please”... It’s not the same.

FORTUNE CAT

17 BANDS I CAN'T FIND ON SOUNDCLOUD NO MATTER HOW HARD I JEDI MIND TRICK

BAD CHILLI

MOLEHILL

THUNDERSTRIKE

SUPERB

THE BLACK SHEEP

TOMATO

GODFATHER'S SON

REASONABLE DOUBT

BANG BANG

SURFACE

SENORITA

THE MENTAL COMMUNISTS

PSYCHIATRIST'S COUCH

BROKEN BRIDGE

FRICASSE

HUSBAND MATERIAL

SIMPLE AND COMPLICATED

It's Over ( extract from What's that Smell)

                                                                     

                                                                        

                                                                         It’s Over

I knew it was over when she said “That’s it, it’s over” and hung up. I could read between the lines. I hated the hang ups, they left me with nowhere to go, circling the flat like a bloated fly. I phoned my mother “ I think this time it’s over” I told her, after I had said hello which I felt I would omit from this. I don’t know why I added a “think” to it because I knew it was over.

“How is Ellie?” My mother asked. She had a knack for not hearing a word I said hoping for the best then giving herself away by asking a question directly related to the subject. I once told her I was thinking I would kill myself to which she replied “Is it sunny where you are?” That time she saved my life. It was sunny.

“She’s going to be fine” I said.