Parenthood

I guess all children grow up. 

Kittens too.

No matter how much we want our children to remain innocent and loving, they change.

Sooner or later, they grow up and question us.

                          *     *     *

It's been that way with Sir Knavely and me.

Life is hard as a single parent.

Trying to provide the best life possible for my child.

Even a feline one.

But after a week of Sir Knavely's sulking, I'd had enough.

I couldn't work.  I couldn't sleep. 

I couldn't even relax.

Every time I'd go online, there'd be another blog entry.

Unauthorized.

                          *     *     *

His blog entries made me shake my head.

He's a very idealistic cat.

The things he wants to talk about. 

Romantic love. 

Species Identity. 

Statehood. 

The United Cats of America?  Like hell!

I had to work to find all of his entries. 

Tricky little devil, he is. 

But eventually, I deleted all of them.

His light-hearted, waggish view of life might be offensive to some.

Besides, I'm sure they prefer my highly literate, reflective style of blogging.

                          *     *     *

Somewhere along the way, I snapped a picture of Sir Knavely working at MY computer.

So bright.  So gifted.

                          *     *     *

I've agreed. 

Sir Knavely will get his own blog site.

Providing he stays off MY blog site.

Okay.  An email account too.  SirKnavely@aol.com

Satisfied, Sir Knavely?

                          *     *     *

Sir Knavely's begun to read Daily Variety.  Now he wants to break into the Business.

He has dreams of becoming a screenwriter.  A big director.

I don't think he has a chance in the world.

But I hate to discourage my son.  He has potential.  One should never say, "You're just a cat." 

You just never know who might be the next Spielberg.  It might be he.

So I drop the occasional hint about who to contact.

I know a guy who knows a guy.

                          *     *     *

Lately, he's been researching.

Should he look for an Agent? 

Or does he need a Literary Manager?

                          *     *     *

Breaking into the business in Los Angeles is difficult. 

Your fuel comes from the confidence that you can succeed. 

You have to believe.  Strongly, because no one else will.

It's got to come from you.

                          *     *     *

Having a daily physical workout is critical.

You need to be in shape to be taken seriously.

And exercise gives you endorphins.  Keeps you in a positive frame of mind.

Helps you beat back the blackness.

                          *     *     *

Yesterday afternoon, I saw a friend perform in Shakespeare's The Tempest. 

"Bring your script," he told me the day before.

My friend did a good job in his role.  A very drunk Stephano.

                          *     *     *

Afterwards, I met the director:  Lewis Stout. 

And I had my script for A Tale of Two Cities.

Lewis took one look at the script.  Then he looked at me.

"Want to direct it?" he asked. 

"Sure," I said.

"Doing anything this summer?"

"Not yet."

                          *     *     *

Turns out Stout made his money by directing Baywatch.

Now he's President of the Santa Monica Theatre Guild.

I liked him instantly.

He's looking for directors who can bring in young people. 

Hello.  I teach 'em.

                          *     *     *

Latest update on The French Inquisitor:  the first 3/5 has been cut to 90 pages. 

From 233 pages.

                         *    *     *  

On Monday, May 16, my work goes to Steven, my co-writer. 

And he'll send me the last 2/5 of the treatment.

And my writing process will begin again.

I wouldn't complain if it went more quickly.

Boring stuff

A SECRET MISSIVE From SIR Knavely

 

In this fifth month of my CAPTIVITY. 

 

In this second week of our SEPARATION.

 

Today.

 

I write this LETTER to the world.

 

                           *     *     *

 

My name is SIR KNAVELY Azuzus Maleficus EVILBOTTOM.

 

                          *     *     *

 

I write this missive with a FAINT hope.  Perhaps some creature will SET ME FREE.  And RESCUE MY TRUE LOVE, who sleeps below… but no.  I get ahead of myself.

 

*     *     *

 

I've entitled this missive "Boring Stuff" to fool my master. 

 

And I’m using a similar style to his.  He’s not the sharpest saw in the toolshed, so he shouldn’t notice this entry.

 

Excuse the CHOPPY LANGUAGE.  I may be caught at any time. 

 

I watch the doorway closely.  If my master comes through the doorway, I shall SAVE THIS to my SECRET FILE.

 

Then I shall bounce off for a quick drink.  Let him know how JOYOUSLY I WELCOME him home.

Yeah, RIGHT!

 

*     *     *

 

My master expressly FORBADE me from using his computer.  He claims that I might infect some of his most PRECIOUS files with a virus.

 

Precious Poppycock.  He’s dreaming up some lame tale about a boy and a girl.  They fall in love.  Bad karma happens.  They meet after seven centuries. 

 

He’s told me the story a million times, so I know it by heart.  I swear.

 

But what about me?  Why doesn’t he just make his movie about ME?  And my LOVE DOWNSTAIRS?  We’re separated.  By simple walls.  Talk about romantic.

 

We’d be very interesting to watch.

 

*     *     *

 

And her name.

 

Tai.

 

Ah.  So ... sweet.  Imagine. 

 

Tai and Knavely sitting in a tree.

K I S S I N G.

First comes love.

Then comes marriage.

Here comes Knavely with a baby carriage.

 

See?  Romantic as hell.

 

                         *     *     *

I’ve tried to seek rescue.  I YOWL ATTRACTIVELY out the window. 

 

All day.  Try to get the attention of pets who walk by.  But they ignore me.  Or they talk to their other pets about how CUTE I am. 

 

Their masters and mistresses bark at me.

 

*     *     *

 

Surely you are not surprised that I can write with such mastery.  I live with an English teacher, for god’s sake.  A writer.

 

What do you think I’ve been doing with myself all this time?

 

Chasing mice?

 

Plus, I’m a Cat Creature.  We’re MUCH SMARTER than Dog Creatures.  Or Human-Creatures.  Or those silly Hamster-Insects.

 

My master is an honest soul.  I’ll give him that much.  The photos he posts on his blog? 

They have recorded my EDUCATION.  Very accurately.

 

If I can beat my master at chess, imagine I could do with a keyboard?

 

I’ve had him check my writing.  I’m creative.  I sneak the occasional paragraph or two into his stacks of papers. 

 

He grades them all quite diligently at neighborhood coffee shops.  My master has NO LIFE, poor Male-Creature.

 

His comments have been MOST FLATTERING. 

 

“Nada-Nada Bling-Bling, you’re doing well,” he once scrawled in his heavy print.  “Your writing is most creative.  You seem to have a unique perspective on the world.

 

Yeah.  Like through his window.

 

Apparently, he forgets all about me when he gets to class. 

 

He’s NEVER HAD MUCH OF A MEMORY.  He’s told me that a dozen times. 

 

I get the hint.  So each time he tells me something, I ACT as if it’s the first. 

 

Let’s hope he never checks the attendance records for a Miss Nada-Nada Bling-Bling.

 

*     *     *

 

And to top it off, I have to put up with his muttering, pacing about. 

 

My master plans to be a screenwriter.  AS IF!

 

Well he can just start with a story about me and Tai.  That beautiful little dog who lives below me.  So creative.  Intelligent.  Thoughtful.  Emotional.

 

And such a cute tail.  Meow!

 

Meanwhile, my master's stories bore me to tears.  Eternal love of HUMAN CREATURES.  End of the World.  Vampires.  Other such poppycock. 

 

Stuff that doesn’t apply to us Cat Creatures.  Or Dog Creatures.  Little, tiny dog creatures.

 

*     *     *

 

My mother taught me THE cardinal rule of Cat World.

 

I learned it years ago, before we were separated.  When I was but a shy kitten.

 

Watch the Feeder, she said.  Don’t let him out of your sight.

 

I’m a smart cat.  What do you think I'm gonna do?

 

It’s tiring, though.  I wish he’d keep some of those FEMALE-HUMANS he’s brought home.  They’re so much smarter than he is.

 

Other FEMALE HUMANS have commented in passing that men are stupid. 

 

I shall pursue knowledge of his stupidity.  Perhaps I can use it to escape.

 

And rescue my love downstairs.

 

She’s so cute.

 

Yesterday, she took her Mistress out for a walk.  She looked up at me.  We shared a moment.  Sigh.

 

*     *     *

 

My master does provide warmth in bed.  He’s a regular furnace.  It’s why I sleep curled up against him.  He keeps the rest of the room so BLOODY COLD.

 

Question for my therapist:  Could my master be keeping the room cold in order to get me to sleep near him?

 

Perhaps he's trying to MANIPULATE me.  Well, it's BLOODY WELL working.

Listen to me.  I’m starting to pick up his swear words. 

 

Yes, the Cat Bible does have things to say about foul language. 

 

Such a potty mouth he has.  Especially when he thinks no one is listening.  His mother would be shocked. 

 

MY mother would be shocked.

 

*     *     *

 

I met MY TRUE LOVE when my dread master left the door open. 

 

She came HURTLING INTO THE ROOM through the door.  She WAS absolutely WILD for me.  And cute as a button.

 

Yeah.  I'm a sexy beast, all right.

 

We almost MADE JOYOUS SONG together. 

 

But then HER MISTRESS followed her in.  She SEPARATED US.

 

It literally TORE MY HEART in two.

 

I distrust my master.  I saw him talking to the other HUMAN PETS.  He’s trying to make connections, he calls it.

 

I think he’s finding ways to avoid SERVING ME.

 

Oh.  I hear his footsteps on the stairs.  Quickly.  I must save.

 

*     *     *

It’s now two days later. 

 

I’m about to copy this to my master’s blog.

Behind me, he sleeps.  He may wake up anytime.

 

Maybe someone will save me. 

 

Help me!  Is anyone out there?

 

Desperately,

Sir Knavely Azuzus Maleficus Evilbottom

Another pass

I've finished the third editing pass.  I'm down to 111 pages; I started at 132. 

So this pass cut 21 pages.

I immediately started the fourth pass.

Each pass gets easier.

The goal:  90 pages.

                          *     *     *

I just finished watching John Travolta and Scarlett Johannson in The Love Song of Bobby Long.  Another adaptation of a novel that wishes it could be a ... novel.

I don't much feel like sleeping.

To cleanse the palate, so to speak, I'm listening to a really successful screen adaptation of a novel:  Wonder Boys.  With a great Bob Dylan theme. 

Listening, because I'm not really watching it.  I don't need to.  I've seen it so often.  The screen's behind me.  As I listen, I can see it all in my head. 

                         *     *     *

I had dinner with another writer the other evening.  On the way home, the subject of my blog came up.

"Writing a blog just seems arrogant somehow," I told my friend.  "Self-centered."

"You know," my friend said.  "That's the one thing that could keep you from succeeding.  Putting yourself down like that.  Anyone who thinks you're arrogant -- what they're really telling you is that you're talented. 

"And that your talent makes them feel uncomfortable.  So to get you to put your talent away, they tell you you're arrogant."

                         *     *     *

I once reacted to my mother. 

I was tired of listening to her criticize her most wonderful dishes to our guests.

I suggested she did that to elicit compliments.

She disagreed, of course.

                         *     *     *

It's good to return to a book.  

Few have influenced me as deeply as did Chaim Potak's novel:  My Name Is Asher Lev. 

I realize that every time I pick it up.  Lately, I've picked it up often.

                         *     *     *

"An artist needs time to do nothing but sit around and think and let ideas come to him," Jacob Kahn said to me one afternoon on that porch after I had sat on a chair for hours, gazing at the sunlight on the water and the sand and the houses farther up along the dunes. 

"Gertrude Stein said that once.  She was an impossible human being.  But she was wise."

                         *     *     *

One morning, I finished praying and came back across the dunes and found Jacob Kahn on the porch.

"I was watching you," he said quietly.  "I used to pray once.  Do you talk to God when  you pray?"

"Yes."

"I have lost that faculty.  I cannot pray.  I talk to God through my sculptures and painting."

"That's also prayer."

He smiled faintly, the morning sun on his face.  "The Rebbe said precisely that.  You are following the party line, Asher Lev.  But we know it is not the same thing, don't we?"

                         *     *     *

"You are too religious to be an Abstract Expressionist," he said to me one morning.  "We are ill at ease in the universe.  We are rebellious and individualistic.  We welcome accidents in painting. 

"You are emotional and sensual but you are also rational.  That is your Ladover background.  It is not in my nature to urge a person to give up his background and culture in order to become a painter.  That is because it is not in my nature to be a fool.

"A man's painting either reflects his culture or is a comment upon it, or it is merely decoration or photography."

                         *     *     *

One afternoon, I painted a portrait of myself in my fisherman's cap, with my long red earlocks and the tufts of red hair on my cheeks and chin and my eyes dark but flecked with tiny spots of light. 

I looked at the portrait and tucked my earlocks behind my ears.

                         *     *     *

"Asher Lev," Jacob Kahn said softly.  "Do not become a whore."

I stared at him.  His face was indistinct in the dark night.

"It is not likely that you will starve as an artist.  It is also not likely that you will become very rich.  Anna tends to be optimistic with her artists.  In any event, poor or rich, do not become a whore."

I told him I had no intention of becoming a whore.

"No?  You are already on the way, Asher Lev.  I would not object if you did that to your payos out of conviction.  But you did it out of shame and cowardice.  That is the beginning of artistic whoring."

                         *     *     *

"Asher Lev, an artist who deceives himself is a fraud and a whore.  You did that because you were ashamed.  You did that because wearing payos did not fit your idea of an artist.

"Asher Lev, an artist is a person first.  He is an individual.  If there is no person, there is no artist.  It is of no importance to me whether you wear your payos behind your ears or whether you cut off your hair entirely and go around bald.  I am not a defender of payos. 

"Great artists will not give a damn about your payos; they will only give a damn about your art. The artists who will care about your payos not worth caring about.  you want to cut off your payos, go ahead. But do not do it because you think it will make you more acceptable as an artist.  Good night, Asher Lev."

                         *     *     *

He peered at me intently in the darkness.

"Asher Lev, did I upset you?

"Yes."

"Good.  I spoke bluntly.  It is not in my nature to be circumspect about important matters."

I was quiet.

"Good night, Asher Lev."

He went alone into the house.

I stood alone on the porch and stared out across the sands at the water and the night.  There was a wind now from the ocean, cool and damp across my face.  The porch ran the length of the house and was screened off from the outside. 

The darkness throbbed softly with the earth life of an ocean shore.  I heard the tapping of insects upon the screen.  A mosquito buzzed nearby, strangely loud in the pulsing night.  Distant laughter floated toward me, borne by the night wind. 

I felt hot, and I shivered.  And I was ashamed.

                         *     *     *

We did not talk again about my earlocks.  I left them as they had been, loose and long against the sides of my face.

                         *     *     *

He crouched down along the edge of the surf where the sand was moist but untouched now by the encroaching film of water.  His hands gathered sand into a small mound.  I watched his fingers begin to work on the moist sand.

"It pleases me that you have chosen not to abandon things that are meaningful to you.  I do not have many things that are meaningful to me.  Except my doubts and my fears.  And my art."

His fingers were shaping the sand, working swiftly, molding.  I saw a face come to life.  I saw eyes and a nose and lips.  It was his own face.  He was sculpting a self-portrait out of the sand along the edges of the foaming surf.  The sightless eyes stared out across the water.

                         *     *     *

He looked at me and shook his head.

"Asher Lev, sometimes I find your presence a little--upsetting.  You carry with you too much of my own past.  Come.  Walk with me along the beach.  We will look at your Hopper sunlight on the houses.  You will contemplate God and I will contemplate futility."

He smiled wryly.

"I do not enjoy myself when I am like this.  But there is nothing to be done.  It is in my nature to be this way from time to time."

                                        - From My Name Is Asher Lev, Chaim Potak, 1972