There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to a writer. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his career. This is the dimension of waiting. It is an area which we call the Languish Zone.
 
Waiting is hell. Nothing is worse than attempting to remain calm while one of your screenplays circulates in a show business dimension I like to call, The Languishing Zone.
 
The days of bidding on a story have long since passed. To be brutally honest, I never made it to the bidding stage. In what poses as my career, powers that be either like my work or not and act accordingly. 
 
So, if you ever find yourself “lucky” enough to be in the zone that I call Languishing, do what I do. 
 
Masturbate? Good guess, but no. It goes without saying that you should be working on other projects. 
 
(The following is a paraphrase from Tick-Tick Boom)
 
Writer: (boo-hoo) But what do I do now?
Female Middle-aged Agent: (smoking a cigarette and inhaling it into her toes) Write another one.
 
And scene!
 
It’s true, you should be writing another one. It might also help to be talking walks, getting exercise, living life (hard due to another Co-Vid variant), or taking up a new hobby. Since I can’t do crossword puzzles, I took the next logical choice: Learning to Play the Guitar!
 
Yes, you read right. Every afternoon, I practice, 30 to 60 minutes a day. I have been doing this for several months now and I can honestly say that I have no talent. Does that mean I am going to stop? No.  In fact, I am looking at Electrics. Nothing fancy, just something that will be a bit more annoying my family.
 
This does not quite cure the overall depression of languishing. However, it does help. That, along with a good scotch whiskey, daily walks, and nightly installment of Gilmore Girls. Hey, my solution will not be yours. But you still need to do something. Otherwise, you will just go crazy. And who wants to add that to the growing list of what’s going wrong at the end of civilization as we know it.

In the very early nineties, I was part of an industrial video which just so happened to also be a musical. The client was Weyerhauser, it was a week’s worth of work and somehow, despite of my lack of singing, dancing, and acting ability, I was hired.  
 
I only bring this up as there is a delightful documentary on Netflix currently titled Bathtubs Over Broadway. For the un-initiated, of which I am positive there are legion, it is a history, of sorts, of industrial musical theatre. Say what? You heard me. This is the story of the songwriters, lyricists and talent behind musical productions that were produced specifically for General Electric, Dupont, Xerox, Ford Motor, Firestone, Silicon, and the good people who make urinals, toilets and sinks. Inspired by Late Night with David Letterman comedy writer Steve Young’s journey from mere collector of niche recordings, to full fledge enthusiast. 
 
These were million-dollar productions with over 2 times the budget of a Broadway Musical. Some of the writers of the music and lyrics to these shows included Kander and Webb (Cabaret, Chicago) and Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof) and featured performances by Florence Henderson, Hal Linden, Tony Randall and others. But this is not their story, it is more the story of the men and women on the very fringe of show business who made a living acting in lavish productions that were never to be seen by the public. 
 
This is one of those moving little pictures that you stumble upon that you just must share. It is simply that good and I highly recommend it!
 
And now, for your viewing pleasure, a musical scene from my industrial film. I am the guy on your right with the choreographed eyebrows.
 
I Love Pulp.

For every yin, there is a yang. No heaven without hell, no good without evil, and no Marvel’s Hawkeyewithout Marvel’s Eternals. Not that I am equating Marvel’s Hawkeye to heaven. It’s good, but come on. However, Marvel’s Eternals is bad, really bad, and if not quite literally hell, it certainly meets other all-important criteria. In a nutshell, Marvel’s The Eternals is a monumental waste of time, money, resources, and is yet another reason for Martin Scorsese to loathe and despise the proliferation of comic book movies.
 
I do have a bit of prejudice here. I think we are making far too many of these types of films and ignoring some incredible original stories and ideas that are out there. And, just for perspective, I am a huge comic book guy. Born and raised in both the Marvel and DC universes in the sixties. But Marvel’s Eternals is just too much. It is what is wrong with filmmaking and to some extent, what is wrong with us as a culture.
 
Real drama is in nuance (something that Marvel’s Eternals has absolutely zero of). If I were Norman Spurlock, I would do a documentary on what a person’s mental outlook look likes if they only used Facebook as their source of news and watched Marvel’s Eternals, The Meg, The Great Wall, and lest we ever forget, Hobbs and Shaw. We are a fat, undisciplined nation and it seems that fast food and social media are not entirely to blame. 
 
And just to be clear. I wouldn’t mind if an occasional piece of digital blubber shows itself. Hell, where would we be as a society if there were no Disney’s Black Hole or Paramounts Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But there’s going to be a price to pay if you keep increasing the amount of crap the studios are feeding us year after year.
 
J.P. Linde RX for this bumper crop of creative bullshit: Crack open a book for starters. Preferably something without a lot of pictures. Intersperse your creative diet with an independent film. For a primer, I recommend Lynn Shelton’s excellent Sword of Trust.  Watch a foreign move with subtitles (it’s almost as good as reading a book.)
 
And most importantly, stay away from Marvel’s Eternals. I was forced to resort to the drastic measure of cracking open James Joyce Ulysses just to cleanse my pallet.
 
This helped as well:

I thought I would do something dramatic this new year and refrain from posting any so-called best of the year lists. Of course, these lists include movies, books, albums, plays, bands, songs, year’s sexiest (male or female), BBQ smokers (electric or otherwise), Scotch Whiskies, consumer electronics, cars, or mid-sized SUVs.
 
You’re welcome.
 
Likewise, I will not bore you with many stories of my showbusiness past, present, or future. Instead, I will offer a few words, a type of list I admit, regarding the brink on which we as a civilization find ourselves precariously perched upon. 
 
(Warning: Spoilers)
 
The Colorado Wildfire proved once again that the world’s climate is changing rapidly and that it may indeed be too late to reverse it.
 
One year ago, a violent group of domestic terrorists invaded the US Capital building with threats of murdering the Vice President and threatening violence upon the Speaker of the House.
 
Science is being ignored in favor of a belief in lizard democrats that feed on the blood of newborn babies.
 
Roe v Wade
 
Half of the country believe that the last election was illegitimate.
 
Under the new concealed carry laws being passed, more and more innocent people are killed by gun violence.
 
We are rapidly recruiting and deploying a paramilitary police force.
​
Unfortunately, this list goes on and on and on and on. I guess the question any rational thinking American is forced to ask themselves at the beginning of this new year is what the hell are we as a people going to do about it?
 
Oh yeah, and Happy New Year.

​Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up should be required viewing by anyone currently drawing breath on planet earth.  A cautionary tale of two scientists attempting to warn a hypnotized world of global catastrophe is as spot-on as a movie can get, featuring top-notch performances, razor-sharp writing and an ending that should convince most people, who still retain the ability to think clearly, that our immediate environment and mankind’s subsequent survival is considerably more “fragile” than we believe.
 
I am not going to give away the premise, for that you can go online or simply watch it on Netflix. What I do want to highlight is McKay’s ability to hold up the mirror of our crippled society today and give us a pretty good idea of where we are heading. If I only had two words to describe this film, they would be “disturbingly brilliant”, and you will know what I mean as soon as the two scientists make their first network appearance to warn us mankind’s impending doom.
 
Politics, social and other forms of media all get their just deserts, my favorite being Meryl Streep as the female embodiment of Donald J. Trump and Jonah Hill as her pandering Chief of Staff.  The performances Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence are also worth noting. The two are believable, extremely vulnerable and exasperating all at the same time.
 
As far as I am concerned, this film could not have come at a better time.