My Second Year in L.A. Anniversary

Wow, two years already!

In July 2008, I celebrated the first half of my L.A. First Anniversary Week at Comic Con in San Diego (see an earlier post). Later that week, I attended a script reader course then I polished my Grey's Anatomy spec. TV script that I submitted to the Disney/ABC Writing Fellowship before heading to the east coast for some medical follow-ups.

Side note: This year is a bit sadder as my dear eldest brother died last week Wednesday.

L.A. Second Anniversary Week: July 24-30th 2009
I spent most of July polishing my House TV script. I had considered submitting it to this year's Disney Fellowship in early July as they've dropped the feature film writing portion. I think to myself... "They dropped features just when I have a great features script". My House script seems good too but alas the deadline has passed for Disney. I remind myself to work on the scripts for the script reader program for my writers group.

On Friday afternoon (7/24) after church, I was in the stand-by line outside of the Samuel Goldwyn Theater waiting to see if I would get into the Mel Brooks Tribute. The tribute would have shorts of all Brook's films and guests like Carl Reiner, Cloris Leachman and .... as well as the guest of honor. The usher walks through the crowd of fans, news crews and photographers and hands me a stand-by card with my place in line... it said 150. Mine was the highest number they handed out so things were not looking too promising.

With my chances to get in slim or none, I start doing excerpts from Mel Brooks movies that I saw as a kid, to entertain the crowd and to try to get someone to have pity on me so that they give me their ticket. I did dialogue from The 2,000 year Old Man, Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles just to name a few. The other people who were waiting in stand-by were mostly older people and they were amazed at my recall and knowledge of Mr. Brook's work. One man said that I looked so young and that I could not possibly be old enough to have seen or remembered most of Mel's earlier work (I think I'll keep him). We waited about an hour and no one in stand-by got in. In fact, they even turned away people who had tickets because the theater was so packed.

Saturday (7/25/09): I missed a nice panel with comedy writer, Devon Shepard (Weeds, Everybody Loves Chris, MADtv) because of transportation problems. It was nearly 100 degrees and I was p.o.'d so I head to the mall for some window shopping and a rare snack at McDonald's.

Sunday (7/26/09): At church, we read scriptures and heard a sermon on how to approach God's throne to praise Him and to correct injustices. God is justice!!!!!!

Monday-Wednesday 7/27-29/09: I pack my red suit cases (the same one's that brought me to L.A.) as I try to book a flight home for my brother's funeral but the flights are nearly $1,000 round-trip. I find a flight one way for under $300 but the price changes when I try to book it. I also find out that the significant rent decrease that I was counting on in August doesn't start until September. I resign myself to the fact that I'm not going to make it to my brother's funeral. Still, I am comforted (see upcoming post). God is great!!!!!

I do more re-writes to House and my features script which helps keeps my mind off of things. I submit scripts to my writers group for coverage. I'm still praying that they reverse the cancellation of the show Samantha Who? as I have not one but two specs for that show. I sent a few more people the petition to save the show (......). I hope I can still use these specs as a writing sample though the show may be off the air for good.

Thursday 7/30/09: I pray at 6:00 a.m., the exact time I boarded the airport shuttle at my friend's home in Maryland in 2007. At 1:30 p.m., I put on my favorite praise and worship Cd's and I don the exact outfit I wore on my first day in L.A. I mentally retrace my steps from the airport, to the shuttle van, through L.A. to my hotel and my first night of prayers and tears (see first post). That same friend calls from Maryland just to see how I was doing and we pray and encourage each other. Later, I unpacked my suitcase and even drank microwaved hot cocoa and ate packaged raisins and snacks the way I did the first day. I praise God loudly and I clap my hands for Jesus for a few hours then I write this blog.

My blog:
In two years, I have done everything imaginable (writers panels, pitch fests, conventions, picket lines, movie premieres, Oscar's and Emmy's... As you can see, I have barely chronicled even half of my adventures here so I have a lot of typing to do. I ask that you pray for my chronic pain to end and I ask that you stay tuned because there is much more to come.

Coming soon... "Blog me a river"