Interesting JMS Facebook Posts & Tweets

[Looney]

OMG DAVE! That was awesome! I love it. I hope she sees it. It is so great.

[Jan]

Just found this:

shared a link.

about an hour ago.


BTW, just saw this on youtube, a great payoff to the Katie Watches B5 thread... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ULWNRvN-a4

Well done, Dave!

Jan

[DaveNarn]

Just found this:



Well done, Dave!

Jan

I'm a speechless ant.
can't stop grinning

[babylonlurker]

Just a thank you note for a job well done

http://youtu.be/_ULWNRvN-a4

Yep ! Well done, Dave.

I hope she sees this.

[Jan]

JMS has been a busy man...

Turned in Disney screenplay Thursday, two Sense8 scripts Friday, Ten Grand script Saturday, Terminator 4 today, and Sidekick 5 in tomorrow.

Quoting Joe Gideon from All That Jazz regarding the hospital menu "Tuesday I plan to be dead so I'll just have something light."

Funny thing is it's actually not tiring in the slightest; the more I write the more fun it is, and the more I want to write...having a blast

Fortunately, I'm co-writing Sense8 with the Wachowskis, the smartest, most amazing writers ever, who carried most of these two scripts.

Talking about the Wachowski's "Cloud Atlas"

@________ I absolutely agree. I've watched Cloud Atlas at least six times now, and every time I get something new out of it. Masterful

@______ Fucking brilliant movie. And two of the nicest people you will ever meet, with twelve-story-tall scary-smart brains. Stunning.

@______ @_____ Ditto. Was channel surfing a few days ago, ran across it on HBO or Showtime, and just had to watch it again.

Somebody asked how the Netflix dev (development?) process is different:

@_____ Blank page. Words. Revisions. Pretty much the same.

Then they said that the pitch process had been different so that made them wonder.

@______ Fortunately we had the first 3 scripts written as specs, so it wasn't so much a pitch as "you want this?" They did.

Jan

[Ubik]

I’ve said it before. JMS is a writing MACHINE!

Still have to catch Cloud Atlas, not sure if it’s made its way onto Netflix yet. I’ll have to check. Fingers crossed it will grab me more than their last few efforts.

[Jan]

I loved it a lot and want to watch it several more times. It's definitely one that you need to give your full attention to, that's for sure.

Jan

[Looney]

I need to watch it again. I didn't love it as much as I hoped when I saw it a few months back.

[Jan]

New Buddy story from JMS! Beverage alert - swallow whatever it is and put it down.

For several years, on and off, I had a contractor building a theater adjoining my office. (Recent photo down below, with the final lighting in place.) I don’t get out much to movies, so this seemed a good solution.

The other night, I fired up Pacific Rim, which I hadn’t had a chance to see in a regular theater. For those who haven't seen it, the film starts with a number of attacks by Kaiju, massive monsters from beneath the ocean. Big, scary critters with big, scary voices and action scenes.

So I’m watching the film during these attacks and suddenly Buddy races into the theater, fur massively fluffed out, and begins running back and forth in front of the screen. I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was on about until I realized that his movements back and forth matched the Kaiju on screen...dashing in front it as it moved.

And I thought: Oh my god, he’s cutting off the monster so it can’t get inside the house!

He looked back at me with this crazed, demented expression. I’VE GOT IT COVERED, BUT YOU GOTTA GO NOW, ‘CAUSE I CAN’T HOLD THIS THING BACK FOR LONG!

Then he raced out of the theater.

A moment later, he raced back in again, and now he’s running back and forth in front of me. SERIOUSLY, WE GOTTA RUN, I HELD IT BACK FOR A WHILE BUT THAT WON’T LAST! THEY’RE COMING THROUGH THE WALLS! THEY’RE COMING THROUGH THE FREAKING WALLS! MARINES, WE ARE LEAVING!

And he raced out again.

A moment later, he comes back in. Puts his paws on the arm of my chair and raises himself up to his full, not inconsiderable height, staring at me eyeball-to-eyeball like some kind of demented Tex Avery cartoon. ASSHOLE, LISTEN TO ME, I DID ALL I COULD TO SAVE YOUR ASS, SO IF YOU’RE NOT GONNA GO, IT’S YOUR CALL. ME, I’M GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.

And wit that he ran into my office and got up on the sofa on the far side of the room that looks into the theater so he could keep an eye on things from a safe distance, convinced that he had just saved my life.

Couldn’t stop laughing for hours.

When somebody asked about how the movie was:

I thought it was okay but Buddy thought the third act needed work.

[Dan Dassow]

I would pay to see that JMS and Buddy movie.

[Jan]

JMS loves his Buddy (new picture):

https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/407092163176960000

Every night, when it's time for bed, Buddy props his head up so he can watch me as he falls asleep. Heartbreaker.

I don't usually argue with a writer's choice of words but my response was "Heartwarmer, not breaker."

Jan

[Jan]

Nice essay from JMS about continuity in our lives.

Before I get into any of this, I need to make one thing really clear, so there are no misunderstandings: I live an amazing life, an exciting and terrific life. I wake up every day and get to do what I love for a living. Absolutely the best thing in the world. I spend my average day ridiculously happy at what I get to do and see and experience. From where I came to where I am, the unlikely road from there to here...yeah, ridiculously happy is the term for it. So what follows should not be read with even a scintilla of second-hand angst.

As the years have passed, something has been increasingly bugging me. Couldn’t figure out for the longest time what the hell it was. I could kinda see the shape of it, but not the details. Had to lean in closer as I got older. The other day I finally saw the face of the thing.

It’s continuity.

It struck me that there is no one, not one person in my life, who has been there from kid-hood to now-hood who I can talk to and who will understand the context of it all. Nobody. Hasn’t been, ever. But it took me until now to really figure that out.

See, there are three parts to my life, all of them almost completely separate from each other.

From age 0-18 my family moved every six months to a year, from New Jersey to Texas to Illinois to California...21 times in 18 years. (My father had a unique economic philosophy: blow into town, run up a lot of bills, and split.) Every time I started to settle in, we'd move to another town, another city, another state. So there was really no point in even trying to make friends. I just hunkered down at the back of the classroom, talked to no one, made no connections, and waited for the next move. Consequently I have no childhood friends from that period. Grade school, elementary, junior high, most of high school...there’s simply no one there, not a single person. Never has been. I don’t even own anything from my first 18 years because every time we moved we were only allowed to take one box, and that was generally used for clothes.

Phase two was from 18-post college. There were friends here, for the first time, and that was great. Some of them are even here on this page (Colleen, Cat, Tim, Mark, a couple of others). None of them had any connection to phase one, of course, and when I and Kathryn left San Diego for Los Angeles, most would have access to only a peripheral connection to the later years (though some of that has improved of late).

Phase three is/was Los Angeles. None of the folks I know here have any connection to phases one or two, or the road that led me here. By contrast, none of the folks from phase two really understand the day-to-day of what the phase three world looks like.

As for family, I broke off all contact with them in 1985 due to my father’s violent drunkenness, and didn’t talk to any of them for over twenty years, until after both my parents passed. In the last few years since then, I’ve met one of my sisters briefly, not the other. But again, there’s no connection at all between them and phase three, and there are no other surviving direct relatives.

When my wife and I went our separate ways in 2002 (though we’ve remained friends) she knew phase two and the beginning of phase three but even she hasn’t directly experienced the last ten years worth, and doesn’t have any connection at all to phase one.

When I added this up, I realized that there is literally not one person in my life – and this isn’t recent, part of the realization was that there has never been anyone, not friends, not a single family member – who I can talk to about the voyage, who was there, who has personal knowledge of my past and present.

And a line from Hunter Thompson floated up: “the dead end loneliness of the man who makes his own rules.”

Except of course that’s not true. Phase Two and Phase Three have gifted me with an amazing assortment of friends who dote and call and look after and cluck and chide and cajole and send me baked goods and vitamins and drag me out to dinner and most important of all are simply *there*. Lonely, I ain’t. Life is full, life is exciting, life is good.

It’s a matter of continuity, not company; of history, not hysteria. It’s just really weird to realize one day that there isn’t a single person who I can call to share good news or bad who knows the contours of the long road from there to here.

So why am I telling you all this?

Because at this time of year you, the one reading this, should take the opportunity to show the value you place on those in your life who provide continuity, who were there, who keep you from popping loose like a cork on the sea, who saw the rise and fall and rise and stumble and sprint and warp and woof of your life...to remind you what a rare and inestimable gift that is.

So from this bobbing cork to you and yours, go forth this holiday season and enjoy the hell out of the people who root you and ground you and can say they knew you when...because there is something indefinably wonderful and magical about that.

Trust me on this one.

[Ubik]

Lovely post!

[babylonlurker]

Nice essay from JMS about continuity in our lives.

A really lovely post. Also, it reflects what he said in Phoenix.

Read it this morning, and got busy with a composite/mosaic picture from Phoenix CC.
Will probably have a print made for signing in Galveston, so you are goiung to see it, Jan (and others from the forum coming there).

[Jan]

Read it this morning, and got busy with a composite/mosaic picture from Phoenix CC.
Will probably have a print made for signing in Galveston, so you are goiung to see it, Jan (and others from the forum coming there).

Looking forward to seeing it.

It's posts like this that are the reason I started this thread. Facebook is great for the moment but I think there are a lot of things JMS says that need to be searchable.

Jan