DAY 365: Take an inventory of how you’ve grown artistically and professionally, and make long-term plans to keep growing in the next year.

Well, this will be my final consistent blog post. I have decided to only post next year when I want to share something funny. No more doing it because I have to do it. Sure it challenges me and I enjoyed making myself write everyday, but I have noticed that 2012 was quite good for me in 5 ways:

1. Professionally - MJW Careers had a banner year and I’m excited to get back to it after completing the Archdale feature.

2. Mentally - I haven’t felt this good since the Cleveland days. Peace of mind is priceless! It’s nice to have a path you want to achieve.

3. Artistically - I finally registered a script with the WGA. It felt good. Now this upcoming year I have bigger goals with the scripts.

4. Physically - Lost 80 pounds this year. Bout damn time.

5. Spiritually - I am back to church and loving it. We rarely skip Mass now and it feels wonderful.

Failures?

1. Acting projects. Nothing. And I mean nothing! After a personal best year in 2011, nothing to note in 2012.  No one’s hiring the funny fat guy in NC. I did do 2 plays, but that don’t pay. Fun though and good space to play.

2. Job Hunting book. Should be done. It WILL be done in 2013.

3. Vision Breeze 2012 projects. However, fired up about 2013 with our new direction and focus on music stuff. So we are making Archdale in spring. Music stuff in summer. New feature film in fall. Gonna be a good year for the team. It must be better than 2012 for it to succeed.

Now onto my 6 main focus points this year (and I’ve said this before), but I’ve learned in 2012 that I need to focus my efforts in 2013 on key items:

1. MJW Careers - as soon as we finish Dale Archdale feature, I am ready to roll. Marketing, sales calls, conventions, finishing the job hunting book, participating in more LinkedIn forums, targeting seminars at colleges, finding more 3rd party resume writing and outplacement firms to work with, getting my name out there! Woowee I can’t wait! Which brings me to number 2.

2. Dale Archdale. January - March are slammed with ole Dale. A $12K investment, so it’s a big deal to me. I will make time during the week to work on post-production stuff and start researching distribution. Goal is to have it done with editing by end of 2013, so I can move onto film festival submissions in 2014.

3. 3 Screenplays. Finished 2 in 2012. 3 for 2013. Sue Happy. King Zar Part II in our series. Not sure what number 3 will be. Maybe Dale Archdale 2? Maybe something else on my ideas list. We’ll see. But need to finish 3.

4. Hitman play with Kilby. Have it ready for a fall or winter run at a local theater.

5. Agent Lit kit - still work on it and keep adding things to it. But really focus on knocking out TV pilot, TV spec and organizing the actual kit. Get ready to submit to possible agents in 2014.

6. Vision Breeze. C’mon wit it, mayne.

6A. Improv. Still teach class. I enjoy doing it and I learn a lot all the time being there.

Cheers to a good 2013 and I’ll see ya when I see ya.

DAY 364: Sift through your writing to find all the material you’ve outgrown and get rid of it.

OK. New meme.

DAY 363: Pick a bit that’s not up to speed and either fix it or take it out of the rotation.

Done. Now for the joke. I like to fuck with my Cleveland buddies when I know they’re in crappy weather up north. So this past week when they were nailed with snow, I sent my buddy the above text from my bad weather experience down here in NC.

Note: the Cleveland temperature on the phone is 31 degrees

DAY 362: Edit some of your older material.

Here’s an edited scene from the Dale Archdale feature film. Screw editing.

INT. FANCY RESTAURANT - FRONT ENTRANCE - EVENING

The Restaurant staff are dressed in black dress pants with white dress shirts and black ties. A STRING QUARTET serenades all the well-dressed DINING PATRONS.

Music stops and everybody turns to look at Dale and his crew entering. Dale wears a tuxedo print T-shirt and Archie sports a plain white T-shirt with a black clip-on tie. Renee wears a leopard tattered dress with the red thrift store tag still attached. The boys all have slicked back hair and are wear matching plaid shirts with jean shorts. Rick is wearing old-fashioned night-out gear.

Dale spits chew in a cup he’s holding as he approaches the HOT HOSTESS, a twenty-year old blonde.

DALE: Table for six.

Dale is misunderstood because of the large dip deflecting his speech.

HOT HOSTESS: Excuse me?

The dip spit dribbles onto his chin.

DALE: Six. Table.

Dale tries to catch the dribble on his chin.

DALE: Woops.

Renee jabs him with her elbow.

RENEE: There’s six of us.

DAY 361: Expand your vocabulary: Find a word you don’t know and write a bit about it.

For maybe my final vocabulary thinger, I’m pickin quandary. It means uncertainty. Like this blog. My friends don’t even read it. Besides my parents (thanks ma!), anyone else out there?

Shit mayne…dag gone ba donger ding. (beat) I don’t know if I’m gonna take the challenge and repeat this again in 2013. I’m trying to cut back, like the number of fantasy leagues next year. Like on other shit besides the important shit: Archdale - production/post-production (including researching distribution/prepping for film festival submissions - media kit, financing), finishing 3 scripts, maybe some improv classes (consistent this time! all 6 weeks in a row? can it be done), put on the Hitman play (Kilby collaboration) in the fall/winter, start organizing my writing kit to send out to lit agents in 2014, including finishing the TV pilot and spec script for the kit.  But most importantly…MJW Careers. I can’t wait to just dive in all day on that!

Cheers to making it a good 2013!

DAY 360: It’s winter! Send your mailings to your business contacts.

Done. New meme.

DAY 359: Free associate on what’s going on in your life right now.

Well it’s the year end and that means, no NFL playoffs to look forward to. I wanna rant as my year end free association. Rant about the Cleveland Browns year.

1. Josh Cribbs - you’re like the Moe Williams of football. When you should call for a fair catch you don’t, when he shoud’nt, you do!

2. Trent Richardson - “Hey TRich, Cleveland loves ya bro,” just don’t salute anymore after you score. You’re not in the Armed Forces. Trust me, we will back you forever anyway…just thinking out loud.

3. WRs - Josh Gordon. You’re cool. Ahem. That is all.

4. LBs - everyone can go away except DJ.

5. CBs - get your shit together. Haden is legit. Anyone else you must acquit. And get rid of them.

6. Sheldon Brown - move to safety and back up Usama already. You’re too old to play corners.

7. Brandon Weeden - eh. Eh. EH. EH! GO AWAY!

8. Pat Shurmur - you’re no motivator. And you’re not smart. Please Sean Payton. PLEASE!

9. Jimmy Haslam - we like you. You spend money. You spend money, we win. We win, we happy.

10. Finally, the whole team - you’re young. We’re dealing with you, as usual. But, we happened to enjoy dealing with you a little better this year. Still sucks. But, we have…hope? (oh yeah…as usual)

DAY 357: Write about winter.

The winter is a time…for FANTASY FOOTBALL! ZIP, ZIP, ZOINK, BAM, CLINK, DOINK, DINK! That’s right! Who cares about snow when you can be a winner of a fantasy football league! Hell yeah, I’m in! Welp, take a look. I won F’ers! I freakin won! Only happens once in awhile and this year I did it! Me! You can see the final scoreboard of the season above. I beat the shit outta my friend Brooks in the championship. The funny thing is that we played each other in 2 other Super Bowls. This is our third time going head to head. Prior to this, we were split at ones. Now, I reign supreme! $1200 whoppers! Woohoo!

DAY 355: Write about your earliest holiday memories.

My earliest holiday memory was when I was really little and my siblings actually woke ME up for Christmas. I was 6 and they were in their late teens. Go figure that one out.

DAY 354: Reread your most current material. What are you presenting to the public? Is that the image you want the industry to have of you? If not, make the necessary changes to make your product fit your vision. 

As of right now, I’m still finding my adult voice. I enjoy writing dumb funny, crass and raunchy humor because I think it shows man at his true core, when he wants to let loose. I mean who doesn’t laugh at family get-togethers when someone farts?  I like watching funny scenes with a poo. I would love for more farts in scenes (write that one down). I grew up with my buddies doing that stuff and for some reason I got left behind. But I do want to grow and be more digestible for more people. I think my achievement in my screenwriting life would be to make Meet the Parents and John Hughes comedies, maybe even one nice drama (ahem…sacred contracts ma…ahem). But I’ll keep plugging around with jokes about a woman whose poop curls back inside her so she’s forced to have the firemen come to her house and extract the Jackknife Turd, because I still got a lifetime of poo-poo in me.

DAY 353: Write a funny poem and perform it at a poetry slam.

I wish, I wish but for a chance

To have a peek at the last dance

For a time will come where we can cheer

For a chance to subscribe to SI, get the free football and bark highlights over a beer

About how this was the team, the one that won

These were the players whom would echo the conversations of who was second to none

Oh my, oh my, we took the cake

It was our time, these were the days

And as I reminisce about the days of old

All the hardships and tears that were shed in the cold

This victory was as much ours as theirs

For as a die hard Cleveland fan, nothing else matters…no one cares

So let’s go open a new credit card so I can buy all the shit

That comes with being the best in the world, this feeling wont quit…ever

DAY 352: Have someone read your comedy to you. What does hearing it tell you?

That I should give up and go back to MJW Careers work, ASAP. Oh yeah, “don’t ever give up” thing. Well it certainly isn’t going to be my focus after the Dale Archdale feature film. That is my last stab at producing, unless something comes out of it. No more short Youtube videos that cost me more money and time to make than views I actually do get. I doubt I will continue to do any live performing, like theater and standup. I don’t know if I’ll rejoin my improv group on Mondays. The only thing certain is that I will continue to write, because that’s what I wanna be when I grow up: a writer. So I will continue to write and start putting more efforts into finding a lit agent. As far as acting…I will continue to do auditions, because those only come once every 3 months, so that’s fine. As you can tell, it’s been a grind for the past 8 years and I am about at the end of my rope. I know some people go on for 40 years at this business and I commend them.  But with a family coming sooner than later, a house I wanna have with the ole lady and a new car probably in our future (mine this time), I need to be an adult. And that means growing MJW Careers. So I’m not going to necessarily “give up,” but I will dial it back a bit in 2013 and see what happens with MJW Careers as well as the Dale Archdale feature.

Quick summary of my 2013 focal points:

1. Dale Archdale feature film post-production, film festivals, distribution

2. MJW Careers - everything and anything, including finishing my job hunting book

3. Lit Agent - keep piling up my scripts and make my kit to send out to them

4. Capturing Smell feature film. It’s going to happen this year!

5. Start prepping for 2014: bringing motivational speaking/humor in the workplace development and branding back into my goals

DAY 350: New Year’s Eve is two weeks away! Start fixing up your end-of-the-year material now.

Dag gone dawg dang dong, man. It’s the end of the year. I feel like I’m an actor in a god dam Richard Simmons workout video at the end of every year. Like I’m motivated and wanting to be there, but then realizing all the shit I gotta do to get paid non-union pay plus a free copy of the shitty video, and so I decide to just stare at Simmons all afternoon between eating free crafty. Probably don’t even serve chocolate or pastry. Stuck with bananas all day. Which is fine! I need too anyway! At the end of every year, I enjoy watching stupid countdowns. VH1, MTV, Food Network, Golf Channel, whatever. Just give me a countdown, so I can rant about more morons I hate. I started my own countdown:

Top 5 Things That Irritated Me About the Year

5. The 2012 End of the World Shit. Alright, let’s think fuckers. You believe in other men’s ideas about the end of the world. I think we have a better chance that the Cleveland Browns win a Super Bowl then for the world to end anytime soon.

4. Female ESPN reporters. Go away. Just…go away. Acting like you’ve played the god damn game before. Reading teleprompters makes me smart in sports, I swear.

3. Cavs, Indians, Browns. Constantly. All the time. Forever. And ever. Thought I told you that we won’t stop, said the owners. Although, Haslam might be the gleam we’ve been waiting on. Wait, stop believing. It’s Cleveland. Yeah, right. Ahem. Nevermind. We still suck. Ahem. And we always will. Ahem.

2. Hunger Games. What a piece of shit. And that was the biggest movie this year? God help us. Might as well add on any Twilight shit that came out this year too. All of pop media makes me rather have the squirts for an entire night out, than having to watch Honey Boo Boo or Carrie Underwear.

1. The shootings. These asshole cowards need to keep within his own personal space. Don’t bother people besides yourself. Even if you’re the most fucked up through nature, nurture, both, whatever. Just maintain your own personal space and we’ll all be fine. I continue to pray for those children and their families. We must change, like the President said. Take care of mental illness. Face it head on!

DAY 349: Update your contact lists. Drop people a line to check in and make sure your info is current.

Done. New meme.

DAY 348: Rework an old bit.

Scene for the new Dale Archdale feature film. Screw formatting.

INT. DALE’S HOUSE - NIGHT

Tension is high as Dale’s family sits with the Fauxman family. The trailer park crew is also sitting patently waiting. Dale Junior and Junior are filling super soakers with gasoline. Fauxman is holding a golf club. He looks down at his watch.

FAUXMAN: I can’t take this waiting. I wish they would just come and get it over with.

RONNIE: I can’t wait to blow them.

Dale shoots Ronnie a look. Ronnie shrugs and motions to his blow dryer. Glass breaks in the distance.

GINGER: Oh God! They are in our house!

Ginger pulls Abigail close to her and comforts her.

DALE: Don’t worry. This place is locked down tighter than fort fuckin knox.

Serge walks in the room and zips up his pants. Everybody looks at him.

SERGE: What? The toilet was broke so I go out back and take leak.

ARCHIE: Did you lock the damn door when you came back in?

Serge pauses for a moment with a sheepish look on his face. He goes to speak but all the lights go out in the room.

DALE: Alright nobody panic.

The lights come back on and the room is filled with goons from the Bambino family. They are dressed in black with slicked back hair. Some are carrying pistols and others are holding baseball bats.

DALE: Ok. Now we can panic.