This is a journal I kept in college for one of my Film classes. I found it interesting to look back upon after all these years. I believe the year was 1991.

"Jennifer A. Jones
Film Production
Journal

9/5
I walked around my old neighborhood today. I saw Mr. Jennings, father af the "garbage kids." His children used to go to the garbage dump and collect old junk toys and store them in the garage. It used to be piled to the ceiling with so much junk. They always smelled bad and wore the same clothes. Mr. Jennings was wearing the same brown & white checkered flannel shirt as he wore ten years ago. He just stood, old and hunched over, over his 25 year-old tan sedan with the hood open, trying to figure out if it would ever run again. I walked down the side walk and noticed all the new and old cracks in the cement. Some parts were newly covered over, and others were the same old cracks I used to ride over with my bike when I was 7. I listened to the sound of the secatas and grasshoppers and tried to imagine them rubbing their legs together and why it made such a loud noise. Underneath that noise was the whisper of the leaves rustling in the gentle summer wind.

I felt like I was 7 again, and I was taking one of my many strolls around the block. I felt at home inside my head as I saw a little girl with a blue dress on and blonde pig-tails throwing a ball to her dad in the driveway. All the houses have been redone, re-sided and fixed up. As a man passed by walking his small beagle puppy, I gazed at a white house with green trim and a white picket fence surrounding it. That was the first time I felt seriously about family life. Do I want it or not? It seemed as if I was walking around in a dream state. I wondered why this man and all these people chose to live in this place called Hicksville. Maybe I will never know.

As I arrived at my old friends house a few blocks down, she was having a party with her family. Her grandmother is a psycho drunken Irish Catholic Pre-Vatican II bigot, and she makes me laugh. She made sure I knew what "Corpus Christi" meant, or else the fact that I was going to a Catholic school was doing nothing for my education. I saw my friend's sister Patti. She is a beautiful woman that breaks my heart every time I look at her. She is mentally retarded with severe Cerebral Palsey and can't even eat on her own. I think she's going to be 28 this year and she's never been without her wheelchair. It makes me hopeful, however, when I see how well they take care of her and how much they love her. She is very lucky to have them, and they are very lucky to have Patti as part of their life.

My idea for a short film - a man or woman walking through the woods (the gardens). He (for now) hears something and looks back and looks nervous and starts to run. Lots of close-ups on the face and feet and then he runs into a tree. After falling on the ground he encounters an object like a clown doll or something -- something that shouldn't be there. They leave it. They start to walk and keeps finding strange things on the path. He finally ends up on the edge of a cliff and suddenly the clown doll comes up behind him and pushes him over the edge.

That is quite horrible. It would be good to see the body on the ground after then the face of the doll looking at him. Then another person can be walking through the forest an find the doll too.

9/6
Mom made guacamole today and it wasn't any good. I'd never tell her because everything she makes is usually delicious and I didn't want to shoot her confidence. I miss those crazy ABC security guards Young& Aitkens. They really showed me what a human being's potential can be when it comes to taking shit from a bunch of asshole T.V. executives. The studio was great to work for as a whole, however. I'll never forget fat Earl the cameraman who called himself my "dad" and showed me around all the editing rooms and studio floor. I find it funny that I used Regis & Kathie Lee's microwave on the set to heat up my lunch. The audience got to sit in wooden chairs and the set to Eyewitness News was right behind them. I can't believe I sat right there when Bill Beutel was interviewing Mario Cuomo for a show. Cuomo is such a B.S. artist. The little respect I had for the man was gone after that day. The studio was always so cold so the cameras would stay cool under the hot lights. Julian, the stage manager always wore his "Regis" denim jacket. The logo was a really ugly pink and blue. I miss Mr. Papiah laughing and covering his mouth so his three teeth wouldn't show. He was a cute little old man - he even invited me to one of his retirement home parties on the Concourse and 170th St. No thanks.

9/7
I have to think of how I could continue the story of Casablanca. The next part could go to France - Rick could get a cushy job in the French government or - go to America and open up a famous New York Restaurant with Louie and work with the mob. Sam becomes a famous singer and moves to Hollywood where he promises Rick a part in the restaurant business out there. But Rick misunderstands and goes out only to find that he has been cast in a movie that Sam is scoring. Rick is known in the mafia circle as one to trust, and they were running this picture. The reason they picked him for the part is because they wanted to blackmail him. The mob suspected that Rick stole some of their gambling money in New York and the picture was a deal he couldn't get out of or else they would kill him if he came back to New York. They kept him in Hollywood so they could take over his business in New York. When Rick finds out what the movie is about and who wrote it, all hell breaks loose - Victor Laslo had died and Elsa wrote a book about him that was to be made into a movie - and Rick is to play Victor!

That is a really awful idea. Television commercials are full of strange angles, colors and fast editing. One angle cut to another - no format.

9/8
Here I am at Archive Films. A young woman named Leigh is my supervisor and has left me alone because she had a dentist appointment. I have been editing 16mm film all day - just cutting and splicing some bad parts of some cheesy 60's singer's instructional film of some type. Leigh is from Austin, TX by way of California somehow. The board and set of machines next to me transfers film (16 or 35mm) to video (beta, VHS or PAL - European format). A film she has been dubbing is running right now. It's called "Eternally Yours" and it's starring David Niven. They just played a little interlude music that sounded exactly like the theme to "Close Encounters." I think John Williams stole it. The walls in here are stacked to the ceiling with video tapes and boxes. The research rooms are so busy - they sit in front of a monitor with a VCR and control and watch old movies all day. These people are such geeks. I don't think I'll be here long. I've learned all I need to for now.

I had a conversation with an old woman in a deli on 23rd St.. We talked about Europe and Holland because I was eating herring. She kept going on and on and I didn't really care what she was saying. Sometimes you get an interesting old person, but she was the pits. The conversation was to dull to even remember.

I noticed that if you look through a roll of 16mm film, it looks dark and black, but you can see through it if you put your hand behind it. It is opaque. Cool.

9/10
I'm eating Marriot food and it just doesn't look good. There is a dug-out piece of zucchini on my plate filled with some kind of breading and cheese in it. Why experiment? The pasta is too tough to cut with a knife. I usually love the food here because it is edible - today I was sadly mistaken when I paid the one price. James Galway and the Chieftains is playing in my ear. The music is so lovely that it always puts me in a good mood. Great. I'm going on a retreat this weekend. I don't really want to.

9/11
What are my favorite movies right now:
1. Cinema Paradiso
2. Empire of the Sun
3. Citizen Kane
4. Casablanca
5. Godfather Part 1
6. 12 Angry Men
7. Mean Streets
8. Taxi Driver
9. Goodfellas
10. Murder By Death

Runners up:
The Princess Bride
Monty Python's the Holy Grail
This is Spinal Tap

Three of the biggest disappointments I've seen lately:
1. Batman Returns
2. Single White Female
3. Robin Hood

I also hated Dances With Wolves believe it or not.

"Do not walk behind me, I may not lead. Do not walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."
- ?

"Love is patient and kind. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
- 1 Paul to the Corinthians 13: 4-7

"You are never taller than when you are on your knees."
- A homeless man

"You can blow out a candle but you can't blow out a fire/Once the flame begins to catch the wind just blows it higher."
- Peter Gabriel

9/15
I sat in the middle of the living room at the retreat house last night and stared into the fire for about 30 minutes. It was very soothing for a person in a really bad mood. I like fire and skies. They are both so unpredictable and come out with an interesting color and pattern every time you look at them. I love to look at the moon in a clear, black sky through a bunch of bare branches. No matter how dark the sky is, the branches are always darker. It kind of looks eerie in a way. The clouds also create an interesting effect when they are under the moon and the moonlight only hits the to part of the clouds making a shadow on the bottom side; it looks more three dimensional. I love when the horizon turns lavender and red when the sun sets. I don't recall ever seeing a beautiful sunrise, which is not good. One day I should get up early and look at one. But I can't be in the city - I either have to be in the country or on the high seas. That is something I have to do before I die.

9/16
I feel isolated right now. These "muter" girls have succeeded in cutting me off from the rest of the class. They've surrounded me. One of them, the girl next to me wearing a red overcoat, really smells bad. She smells like she hasn't taken a shower in weeks. "Oh my God," New York/Valley Girl is their style of speaking - how stereotypical can you get? Oh good. The teacher is moving the class.

In another room. But the muter girls are still near me. But at least I'm able to sit near my friends. What's the deal with that? As Jerry Seinfeld would say.

We're talking about "Northern Exposure" now in class. That episode was so random! It was a fine piece of T.V. too bad I've never watched it before. The dialogue was so over-the-head-intellectual-of-the-average-viewer. Bizarre! It was about some 108 year old Walt Whitman-type-ignorant-primitive-dysfunctional-wolf-boy-grown-up-into-a-normal-cute-little-old-codger. Franz Kafka was in the episode and kept getting migraines from thinking too hard. The old man thinks back to Kafka's time about the town of Cicely, Alaska when it was first started, and Kafka happened to be passing through. The old man was raised by wolves and came into the then unnamed town and a couple of strong women's lib types came into the town and changed it forever. One of the women, Cicely, did a really bad ballet dance to the overture from the opera Cavalleria Rusticana, and won over the town's affection. "One person can change the world - two people can make mistakes." They walked into the bar with the dysfunctional wolf boy to care for him and ordered two beers and "get this young man a milk." "She's twice the man he'll ever be," said a man after Cicely punched out the town bully. After Cicely died of being shot (trying to protect her town) her sister (the other women's lib type) left town - "last thing we heard, she'd moved to Paris and joined the Lincoln Brigade." That was quite a random piece of entertainment. When Cicely was trying to teach the wolf-boy to read, he told her he loved her, but "you are a gracious lady and I am just an ignorant primitive." OK.

9/17
Describe this room. I'll start with the door. It is in the corner, brown and it squeaks when you open it. The black chalkboard lines the middle of one of the off-white cinder block walls. The floor is tiled wall-to-wall with a dirty-looking marble type pattern. As it touches the base of the wall, there's an ugly strip of black rubber about three inches thick that I never understood its purpose. The heater/air conditioner is painted with a reddish brown color and the paint is chipping. The ceiling is paneled in white - I feel like I am in an asylum. All the chairs are orange fiberglass with brown, pseudo-wood desks that are written all over by ungrateful slobs. We are sitting in a semi circle, all 11 of us, the straight, dull, wooden topped steel-legged desk and the T.V. cart close up the circle. It is cold, and everyone is writing diligently. There’s a set of venetian blinds missing on one window that makes the view very asymetrical. There are two circles on the chalkboard that resemble mathematical sets. The rest is just chalk dust.

9/18
What makes my favorite movies my favorite? I’ll get to that later. “Alberta” by Clapton is on. I need to listen attentively to “god.” Eric Clapton playing a kazoo is quite a sight. “I keep drinking malted milk/ trying to drive my blues away.” Good lyrics.
I experienced quite an interesting conversation last night. Two slightly intoxicated people walking slowly through a torrential downpour:
Guy: “Shit! Mother Fuckin’ Shit Goddammit...” (go on for about two minutes straight)
Girl: “OK.”
Guy: “My grandmother is probably looking down on me right now thinking I’m a bad person.”
Girl: “Well, my friend is looking at me right now saying, ‘yea, party!’”
Guy: “My two friends are looking down on me and saying that.”
Girl:(solemnly) “Really?”
Guy: “Yea, and I really gave shit to one of them and then he died. I can’t believe I gave shit to him and then he died. I feel like shit for it.”
Girl: “I don’t think you could really give shit to someone, you’re a good person.”
Guy: “You don’t know me very well.”

Kinda strange conversation. But it really meant something and gave me an insight into the lives of people. I’m sitting on a train going to work. I always imagine a scene in a movie when I’m traveling on Metro North. I let the scenery fly by my fixed eyes like a fixed lens on a camera. I go from the slums of Harlem to the ritz of Scarsdale and Hartsdale. The men and women living in an empty lot in a cardboard box to a lawyer living in an estate next to a golf course. What a world we live in. I can’t believe the managers in a Herman’s Sporting Goods store are called “player coaches.” How cheesy can you get?
“She lands, like, boom, poof. I mean like you really see her land! She falls right through the bannister.”
“Sean Young, yea, in No Way Out.”
“Yea, she lands, like boom, dead.”
“Yea, great movie.”

A conversation between high school students waiting on the train platform. I asked a friend who is a bouncer at Clarke’s Bar what he would do if he knew I had a .38 Special in my belt but it was well concealed. He said he would take it from me. Yea, and reach in my belt? Like I’d let him. These people need special training. But always get the bartender on your side and you’ll get free beer, that’s my policy.

Never eat hot wings if you’re not insured. They can kill. I ate the hottest wings ever in history and my friend and I were crying and our noses were running. It was quite a learning experience. Also, never walk down Decateur Avenue after midnight, you’ll be hit with a BBgun. It is painful.

9/20
I hate the Kent cigarette poster on the window of the train. This asshole model is staring at me with this “cool” grin with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. No, sorry buddy, not cool. Doesn’t turn me on. The sky is so beautiful today: the sky is so bright and blue and there are only a couple of wisps of clouds.

10/21
Ok, back to my favorite movies. Cinema Paradiso. It’s story. It was down-to-earth and well-rounded. The acting was superb - it was melodramatic but not too sappy. It made me laugh and cry. It showed emotional strength - the power and emotion of love, of friendship and family. It also portrayed the times very well - a fine period piece and beautiful cinematography - during WWI - and best of all , it was about the love of movies.

Citizen Kane. Beautiful. The framing, cinematography (lighting) was even aesthetically pleasing as well as technically. The story wasn’t even the greatest part, but it as good enough to carry everything else along. The images told more than the dialogue did. Orson Welles framed his scenes brilliantly - the shading and lighting were so appropriate creating a foreboding mood. I feared Kane, but felt sorry for him. I knew the character. I saw what everyone else saw and more. The acting was also amazing.

Casablanca speaks for itself.

Godfather Part I. I didn’t include Part II because it was too dark and depressing - but an amazing film all the same. I was fun as well as evil. The characters were amazing and the setups and way they were presented were brilliant. One of the finest screenplays I’ve ever read. It was a land of fantasy and power and wild and strange, original personalities. They did what they wanted - what one always dreams of doing. The dialogue moved the story ahead and the direction and acting was brilliant.

The Four Hundred Blows. A french film by Francois Truffaut. Amazing because of the raw acting of the 12 year-old and it was frightening as well as fun. Godard’s camera freedom was so much fun as he just traveled around Paris without restricting any passers-by from looking into the camera. But the young actor, Jean-Pierre Laude, was the greatest part about it.

12 Angry Men. Intense court drama. Takes place in one room. The one-to-one cutting and dialogue was superb and quick. The acting was some of the greatest I’ve seen, and the script kept the viewer on the edge of the seat.

Mean Streets and Taxi Driver have to go together because DeNiro made them what they are. Keitel did give a lot to Mean Streets because he is an amazing actor. I don’t usually like method actors, but these movies are classics. Scorcese put so much into the psychedelic aspect of the world and drugs and alcohol and crime and sex - they have so much power that they can corrupt a person’s life. The editing is key and brilliantly done by my idol, the one and only Thelma Schoonmaker. The framing and image - the dark, mysterious bar of Mean Streets or the bright bedroom scene where you only catch parts of the action because of the numbing effect of sex and their relationship. The loneliness of DeNiro in Taxi Driver really showed through in the dark scenes of him driving and the emptiness and disorganization of his apartment. We don’t know his past, only small parts to it. He seems to be heaven sent to do a tough job in a tough town. Or is he just crazy and fed up enough to do anything to change life just a little bit before he dies? It’s good I can laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Goodfellas was a great adaptation of a real life story and the acting and dialogue was amazing. Even though it is hard to deal with so much violence, you can tell what it is that lures these people into this kind of life. The characters are very well-presented.

Murder By Death had to be mentioned because it’s the silliest spoof I’ve ever seen, and very clever. A take-off on all the Agatha Christie novels. It was idiotic and star-studded, and Truman Capote even had a part in it. Marvelous fun.

The Princess Bride, The Holy Grail and Spinal Tap are those kinds of films you just have to know enough to get the jokes. The typical Western world culture spoofs. Some people just don’t get the hilarity of it all, but when you get one joke, you can’t stop laughing. Every time I see one over I find something new to laugh at. You can’t say that about many films today.

So that’s my list. There are many more loved ones, but not too many. There are some many bad films out there.

9/22
I took a walk up Fordham Road to shop at Duane Reade. The walk is always an experience: the smells of food - pizza, hot dogs, gyros - burning incense, cigarette smoke-in-the-face. Sounds of Rap and Soul music from the various vendors every 2 feet on the sidewalk and spanish music blaring from the cars on the congested streets. The vendors sell T-shirts, baseball caps (lots of those X caps), socks, batteries, audio and video tapes, toys, wallets and organizers, and muslims that sell incense and home-made perfumes. I love the “Coco Helado” carts. Cars and buses and trucks are always grid-locked. It’s hard to walk fast because there are so many people walking at different speeds on the sidewalk. I have to weave in and out carefully so I can get in front of a slow pack. But I’m back now, safe and sound, eating a huge apple. Yum.

9/23
I feel so refreshed right now. Sitting in a completely quiet dorm hallway at 2 in the morning is rare. There isn’t a sound. Oh, now a conversation between roommates down the hall.

“Shit, it’s 2:00 already. Oh well.”
“1,2,3,...53, 63...”
“That’s very distracting.”
“You know what it’s like when you’re deathly tired and you put your head down and it’s, like, heaven?”

Interesting. The Giants lost. Oh well. What else is new?

9/24
I hate when my tapes get warped. I walked around campus with a sappy ballad tape (to put me in an even worse mood) and it was warped. So I walked around campus and a skunk was beating up on a cat behind a dorm. The skunk ran out in front of me and we both stopped dead in our tracks, staring at one another. The skunk started to move across my path and I started, then we both stopped again. This went on for a while. But it eventually left to get some garbage. So I walked on and stopped as I got onto Martyr’s Lawn which looked beautiful between the trees and the lights. Ave Maria came on and I was in a really serious mood - It was like a sappy scene in a melodrama. But it kept warping and sounded so bad that I began to laugh out loud to myself. So I walked around Eddie’s parade for a while with a smile on my face. Nothing like a bad tape to lighten the mood. As I got to the corner of Eddie’s where the “Toxic - Asbestos” manhole was, I saw a ‘possum running across Eddie’s toward me. At first I thought it was a skunk, but then I saw its long, thin tail and knew what it was. It ran over to the manhole, then over to Walsh and I followed it. It disappeared, but not until it made my whole night.

9/25
I just watched The Big Sleep. What a flick! The dialogue is quick and creative. Marlowe keeps pulling his ear. What does that mean?

The director used a zoom when he went into his office after the murder (from his name on the door, pulled out and Marlowe walked into the frame, MS, and opened the door). Nice job.

“You’re the second guy today that thinks a gat (gun) in the hand means the world with a tag.”

Lauren Bacall wears all white at a craps table where all are mostly dark. He keeps going to his ear every time he learns something new or when something intrigues him.

Bogart and Bacall left the audience hanging when he grabbed her at the end and didn’t kiss her. OOH.

9/28
A friend of mine once wrote Stephen Sondheim and sent it to him by way of his friend’s mother who is Katherine Hepburn’s maid, whose house happens to be next to Sondheim’s in California. He got the letter and wrote back to my friend. Then, when he came to New York, he called my friend and they had dinner. That is amazing. Sondheim is his idol. Wow. He even got to “fondle” his Oscar.

9/30
Quantum Leap is a great show. They went through Lee Harvey Oswald’s whole life in this two hour episode only projecting what they knew about him. The leaper, Sam (Scott Bakula), kept leaping into Oswald in different stages of his life. He thought he was in his body to change the course of history and save JFK, but he kept being taken over by Oswald’s mind. It turned out that he leaped out of Oswald and into a secret service guy. His job was really to save Jackie O.. .....Wow, what an episode of classic T.V.

10/1
“It’s over. He’s dead.” Make a scene out of this quote. Use dialogue.

The kid just walks around the empty campaign headquarters and kicks around the papers and signs on the floor. He is distraught and disappointed. Someone walks in and he asks “how did he die?” “I dunno, all I know is he died last night.” “He took all these people’s time and money to his deathbed. I feel like a sucker.” “Don’t worry, kid, they’ll find someone to replace him -” “yea, but I didn’t vote for them!” “It doesn’t matter, kid, its all the same good or bad; it’s all bureaucracy.” The man leaves and the kid remains wandering around the dark, empty, messy office. He looks down and spots a paper he is not familiar with. It is stamped with the other party’s insignia. The letter says something about campaign funds - how much, where they’re kept and who is in charge of them from the other party. Something is wrong because this does not belong. He folds the paper, puts it in his pocket and runs out the door.

10/2
There is a woman that walks around campus with blonde hair and old, dirty clothing. She looks through the garbage for empty cans and bottles to get the deposit. People offer her money but she doesn’t take it. She is very proud that way. My friends and I talked about how we feel bad about passing by homeless people begging on the street. We can’t give money to all of them, but it just tears your heart out.

Hemmingway once said about writing : “Simple is better. It’s just harder.”

Another quote from another writer: “There’s no such thing as an objective stance when you’re a writer.”

10/4
Last night I came home on the train from work and I ran into the security guard from the Herman’s that I work in. I sat with him and we talked, then I started to write in my notebook. He asked me if he could see my notebook and pen. I couldn’t understand at first because he didn’t know what words to use to ask me (he’s Hatian/French and doesn’t know much English). He started to write down math problems and asked me to solve them, so I did. They were simple algebra problems. He said he just wanted to know how Americans were taught to solve the problems because he learned differently where he comes from. He told me he asked everyone in the store if they knew how to solve them (from cashiers to managers) and they had no clue. Those people are really stupid. I decided right then that I’m not going to work there much longer. It’s like culture shock going from corporate offices to being a cashier at a sporting goods store in the mall. That was quite an interesting train ride.

10/6
I had a scary dream last night. I was walking back across the street by myself from Clarke’s bar near the Metro North station on Fordham Rd., and a psycho drove fast up to me and was trying to run me down. I jumped to the island in the middle of the street and he kept following me in circles, I couldn’t get away. Then I ran to the light post in the middle of the island and climbed up it frantically trying to get away from the car. The car drove at full speed into the pole and I clung to it for my life. I didn’t fall, but the car was wrapped around the pole. My friend the bouncer ran across the street to see if I was all right as I climbed slowly down the pole. As he reached me, the man who was driving got out of the car. He was a thin black man with blood oozing from his head. One side of his face was crushed in and I couldn’t make out an eye on that side. He stumbled, zombie-like, towards us. He yelled with blood gurgling in his throat: “You white mother-fuckers! You white mother-fuckers!” And when he got to me I was frozen stiff, and he fell right in front of me, dead. At his impact with the ground, I woke up. That gave me quite a spook.

10/7
Here I am in a really bad class. Quotes could be good to entertain me.

“Don’t make any hassle/Don’t play like an asshole/If you want to get paid/Don’t make waves.”
- Brand X (jazz fusion)

“[The drug Ecstasy] now exists to induce pleasant feelings of emotional security and openness while dancing to Abba remixes.”
- Andrew Sullivan, The New Republic

“[Dan Quayle] has become a moral symbol and performer himself: statesman and ‘toon.’”

10/8
I’ve decided to create a new and exciting children’s story called: “A Bagel Named Stu.” It will be about the Bagel family and the Troll family that lives under a bridge. They have had a feud going on for centuries living across the river from one another because one day a member of the bagel family was taking a dive off the bridge (they were a bit stale) for a swim, and accidentally hit great great great great great great grandma troll in the head and killed her. So one of the trolls ate the Bagel. The story goes on to reveal the end of the feud when a trollup (a female troll) falls in love with Stu, a Bagel Rabbinical student, and they run off into the sunset together. Very strange. Maybe I won’t write this. Well...

10/9
I was watching “Cops” last night and they had a story about this stupid guy who stole a car battery and got caught running down the street. The woman that got her battery stolen spoke with one of the cops on the scene:

Cop: “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be a criminal.”
Woman: “Yeah, but it helps if you’re a little brighter than the battery.”

Some people can have a great, dry wit in the midst of a crisis.

I saw “Bob Roberts” yesterday. It was quite a good film, but very scary. My friend and I were speechless for about 10 minutes after the movie was over because it stopped being funny after a while and began to get so realistic it was scary. The movie mocked the American political system, and Bob Roberts was Ross Perot, Bill Clinton and George Bush all rolled into one psycho, power-hungry, maniac, folk-singing, stock market-playing, fencing, lying manipulator. A must see.

10/10
I had another weird dream that took place near the bar that I almost got killed in front of the other night. This time I entered a store front that looked like an old country store, like on “Little House on the Prairie.” Except it wasn’t a store.There were lots of people sitting around the place, on the floor and on chairs, as if they were waiting for something. Then we all went to the back of the store where we went out a door into a sort of closed porch and it was sunny outside (even though it was nighttime). The room was decorated like a modern chapel with wooden chairs around the edges. We all sat, I think I knew these people, and something went on but I didn’t realize what was happening and I don’t remember how I felt about it. The next thing I knew I was walking home across Webster Avenue in the middle of the night. No one was around and I noticed I was carrying three bags of groceries. I seemed to know what I was doing. When I got near the Fordham gate, I put my bags down because I had to tie my shoe. A man came up to me and told me to give him all my money. I just picked up my bags and ran and another kid joined in the chase. They were grabbing at me from behind. I had a great terror inside me. Then I woke up as I reached the gate.

10/11
Woody Allen is too funny:
“This trial is a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.”
- Fielding Mellish

“Actually, Captain Flume slept like a log most nights and merely dreamed he was awake. So convincing were these dreams of lying awake that when he awoke from them each morning in complete exhaustion he fell right back to sleep.”
- Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Picture yourself in a boat on a river/With tangerine trees and marmalade skies/Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly/A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.”
- The Beatles, LSD

“A!Elbereth Gilthoniel!/ Silirren penna miriel/O menelaglar elenath/Gilthoniel, A! Elbereth!/ We still remember, we who dwell/In this far land beneath the trees/The starlight on Western seas.”
- JRR Tolkein, The Hobbit

I got those quotes from some cool postcards a friend sent to me. One is Elephants running through New York City Streets; one is of the Rolling Stones in the old days; one is the poster from the Who’s Quadrophenia movie; one is a man and woman in the 1800’s sitting on a beach; one is a man behind a shadow of a building staring at a huge poster of Marylin Monroe on a city street; one is a scene from “Rebel Without a Cause”; and the other is of feet sliding into home plate being tagged out with a baseball.

10/20
I had another weird dream last night and it kept jumping. I don’t dream much, but when I do it’s worth writing about. It started off in a suite like in Walsh, but not exactly. My 2 friends and I were visiting someone and we picked him up and went somewhere. Next thing I know we’re on a road in the middle of a beautiful sunny day. We’re driving in a convertible, but I don’t know who was driving. We stop and my mom is there and we are on a 100 foot cliff with water down below. My mom said the water is so nice that we should dive in. She says to drive the car off too. We say “no way” and the next thing I know we’re walking up a dismal street in a small town in a woodsy area and it has been raining. We’re looking for something - something really important - like it’s a mystery story. Anyway, we get to a Weis supermarket (don’t ask) and I say I want to go in but they don’t want to. I look for a shopping cart and find one and try to get in the store. It’s like an obstacle course and there are brushes and rubber padding like in a car wash. But this everyday mother-type knows her way and I follow her. As I get down the first aisle, I find myself on the roof of the building digging through all the rotted wood to try to get inside. We keep uncovering new, disgusting smells as we take off another layer. Then the dream ended. I could not figure out what put those thoughts in my head. I had no idea what I was looking for.

11/1
I am in the Botanical Gardens on a glorious, God-given day. My walk began on a path that was covered on fallen, bright-red leaves from an autumn tree. It smelled like summer and autumn converging as I saw the many colors and felt the cool breeze, yet the crickets were chirping loudly as the dew splashed off the grass onto my feet, and the hot sun beat down in my eyes. Memories of nature.

There is a constant smell of dampness for it rained yesterday. There is no more beauty in the world compared to being here now. The meadow is shadowed by thickly grown trees and the birds are singing. A photographer says “hello,” he knows how glorious the day is. Through the marsh lies a beautiful scene: a rock, then the swampy, still waters where the mallard ducks swim, and the scene of green trees hanging over the tan stalks of grainy grass falls back until they reach the sky.

Further down the path, the squirrels chirp by and a crow stands in my way. The sunlight glistens over the rolling hills of an open field. There is a line of shadow as I enter the forest. Twigs snap under my feet as it feels damper and cooler. The underbrush covers the soil it grows from. A bird flies from the brush rattling all the leaves and rustling its feathers a it flies away.

That damp smell. All the acorns strewn about and leaves matted to the wet ground. Entering the large forest I encounter a babbling brook flowing gently making familiar patterns as it trips over stones, twigs and leaves. The breeze flows gently through the living leaves and mixes with the gentle din of the river beyond the fence. The smell of evergreen and the image of green and yellow and red trees against the light blue sky, hearing then speak their happiness and gratitude for this day. Now I hear the spill of the waterfall. It flows from green to white to green. Where is its voice box? Why is its sound so powerful?

The blue/gray and white clouds hover over the treetops and look at me. I can touch them as I can touch God. I can touch God as I touch a leaf. I found a rock by the river across from a flamingo colored tree. My rock is covered with crown and yellow leaves. There are so many leaf-boats floating down the greenish-brown river. I see rocks on the shore half wet - the river has gone down. Or from the wet trees.

In a way it seems magical as the leaves float and twist their way from the trees down to the ground. Oh, I can’t forget the peat moss on the base of the trees.

11/7
“Did you realize if you didn’t have phlegm you couldn’t speak French?”
- a very stressed out French student

“Sucking all the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone. There’s a time for daring and a time for caution; the wise man understands which is called for.”
- Dead Poets Society

One teacher’s view of television:
“It is like the IVFFM: the intravenous french fry machine. Instead of IV’s of grease, potatoes and ketchup, it is of T.V. programming.”

“Where are you when you watch T.V.? Are you on the set? Are you zonked? ... You’re certainly not building birdhouses and fixing bicycles. You’re not sexually active unless you’re a very weird person.”

“T.V. watching seems to turn us into androids, or trekkies, or astronauts, or babbling lunatics, or suckers that are affected by hidden persuasion, weakens our thought process. We’re neural transmitters. T.V. is form with no content. T.V. makes people dumb - it dumnifies people. It is a behavioral and mental depressant. It is a drug. We’re empty vessels seeking to be filled. “

The guy is a psycho. He has a philosophy Phd, has never watched T.V. and is teaching a class about it. I’m learning a whole lot - NOT!

11/8
I went down to the city to see my brother run in the New York city marathon. It was Pandemonium! People were running around the closed-off streets like there was anarchy - but with cops. One old man was riding an old-fashioned bike with two speakers: one on the front and one on the back, and he was blasting cheesy Frank Sinatra music. I heard a variety of accents and languages around me. Bits and pieces of conversations and strange-looking people. There were Clinton, Bush and Perot people trying to solicit votes and even Natural Law Party people endorsing some guy. There were really large cloth banners hung up near the entrance to the park saying: “Repent and Be Saved!” and “Read the Bible Today.” It was quite a show. On the way up the West Side Highway I saw this red ship with white lettering: “Frying Pan.” It has been there for a long time.

11/10
Another quote from the stupid T.V. teacher:

“T.V. makes your life span decrease as you watch. While you’re a couch potato you can’t learn about the sex life of worms...”
Why would I want to anyway?

An idea for a weird art film. A dark room with a man playing a guitar sitting on a bed. There is only light on half his face. He lights a cigarette and leans back and closes his eyes. There is a dream sequence that fades in with smoke in front of the camera lens. There is an extreme close-up of behind the head of a golf club. It swings and hits the ball and the camera flies across a forest heading for the man who is standing in the middle of the forest with his guitar around his neck. He cowers from the ball and then cut to: He is walking down a narrow hall that eventually gets narrower and narrower until he can’t walk anymore. Cut to a high angle of him lying spread-eagle on the ground on the forest floor. He looks up as if he is stuck to the ground and can’t move. The camera approaches him from above, spinning around. He looks at it as if it is something terrifying coming at him. When it gets to a close up of his face, cut to another close-up of his face in a different place. He still looks scared and the camera does a quick zoom out. He is sitting in the middle of an empty room tied to a chair. The camera comes at him quickly again. Cut to black and slowly pull out revealing an OS shot of him looking out into the busy city street. Cut to his front and he is laughing and pointing. Several shots of him from a different perspective to make the illusion of insanity. Then we see an OS shot of him pointing to a body in the middle of the street. Cut to closer and closer up and eventually we see it is his own body. The man wakes up in real life and sits up. He blinks his eyes a few times, looks at his cigarette and smiles, then leans back again. The End. Pretty Wild stuff. Maybe I’ll make that someday. Super-technical. Sounds like a challenge.

11/28
“Murder is the ultimate transgression.”
- a film teacher

I watched a play on public television called “Tru.” Robert Morse played Truman Capote spending two nights alone with his thoughts and his alcohol. He had some funny lines. Tru was a weird guy.

“Plotting murder is somewhat relaxing”

“‘Tis the season to be jolly...like it or not.”

(talking to his ex-boyfriend in Switzerland) “Is it absolutely perfect there...are you...wallowing...in Swiss...perfection?”(complete with Capote monotone and pauses)

“No darling, I’m going to stay as sober as a Shi’ite.”

“Well, they can kiss my sweet ass on my couch of many colors.”

“Every year you live in L.A. you lose 2 points of your I.Q..”

“It’s redundant to die in L.A.”

11/29
I just talked to a friend of mine from Iona, a very Irish place, and she told me a story that made me tear. She said a man who had retired from either the police force or the fire department (he was in his fifties) had decided to go to college. So he started at Iona and all the kids loved him. He was a great personality and he hung out with them and went to the bars with them and even pledged a fraternity. My friend had just met him a couple of weeks ago and said he was the greatest guy. But last week he died when he got a sudden, acute asthma attack.

So a few days later, Iona’s frats and sororities had “Gold Rush Day” where all the organizations with gold in their colors have a party. My friend was playing the bag pipes at a wedding that day and she came back at night to find the party had moved to her sorority house. A bunch of the guys from the older man’s frat were there and most of the people at the party knew him (except a few of the freshmen). When my friend got into the house, they saw she was wearing her kilt and had her pipes. They quieted everyone down and all the guys took off their hats, and they asked her to play “Amazing Grace” in their good friend’s honor. What an emotional scene that must have been. I’ve decided I’m going to research this situation and write a screenplay about it. It sounds like good material.

END OF JOURNAL.