INT. J ROLAND KELLY - NIGHT

It has been one year since I had my last drag. I set this post to publish on the one-year anniversary of my last puff at 10 pm on November 15th. Last year (2007) that date fell on a Thursday night.

I had been a smoker for six and a half years, having started at the ridiculously ripe age of 21. In the place from which I come, at the time I started smoking, 25% of all adults smoked and 50% of all young people smoked, and one day I just found myself on the wrong side of the line.

In the course of those 6 and a half years I smoked cigarettes, cigars, and a corncob pipe; each exclusively and each for months at a time, all in a quest to find what my forefathers found so magical, and in the end (unbeknownst to me at the time over-commercialized spirit of connoisseurship) I found none of it magical.

In half a dozen different ways, I must have quit half a dozen different times, but as they say about the one thing that you eventually find… it’s always the last place you look.

I finally found what I was looking for in a series of three writings: Junkie by William S. Burroughs, The Tobacco Timeline, and most importantly of all (the only piece of written work that I will claim saved my life) The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr.

Before I quit, I never would have imaged that books were my way out. I had spent most of my time dealing with different forms of nicotine replacement therapy. Which I strongly do not recommend as reasons explained in Allen Carr’s book.

If you are struggling to quit, you don’t live in quiet desperation, and don’t lose hope, just read the first 20 pages of The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, you’ll know that your card has been pulled.

As it turns out, I read the very last edition of Allen Carr’s book; he was to die of lung cancer a year after publishing it, and it was just as I started reading it.

It has to be one of the cruelest twists in the world that people die of smoking related cancers 30 years after quitting.

The book is a good read even if you are a non-smoker. It contains a lot of de-commercialized truths that are censored in the American mainstream. I can never view the medical community, businessmen, or drug addicts the same way again.

To this day, I’m still impressed with the wisdom of the book.

When it comes to The Tobacco Timeline, it is just amazing; the further that we get from the days of big tobacco the more un-biased information that is revealed. This is one of the very unique stories in human history, you might think that you have heard it, but I promise you haven’t heard all of it.

William S. Burroughs and his works need no introduction.

These are three honest books about Tobacco and addiction in a world full of misinformation. My advice is to go to them first, don’t buy something you see on TV, and don’t believe everything you hear.

You can’t trust anyone, in the Jim Jarmusch film, Coffee and Cigarettes during a conversation with Iggy Pop, my hero Mr. Tom Waits says about smoking, “you know what they say… you never really quit.”

Those words have resonated with me, through all my time as a smoker, but you know what… Tom Waits is wrong. Read the books.

Plus I have an interesting story about when I actually quit—

I had spent the whole previous year cutting down, and getting really fat. As I said it was a Thursday when smoked my last smoke. I went the whole next day at the office without smoking, and my car was loaded up with camping gear and 5 $80 dollar bottles of tequila.

My plan was to spend the first three days camping.

After work, I drove 40 miles to Henry Coe State Park just South of San Jose. Parked the car. Got trashed. Really meant to put up the tent but slept in the car.

The next day hiked (staggered?) two miles away from the ranger station to a walk in campsite. Around 7:30pm, about 45 minutes after it got dark, and after a day alone with five bottles of expensive tequila, I felt like I was being watched.

It wasn’t the alcohol, I really was. I found two eyes reflected in my little AA battery flashlight, and they where maybe 100 yards away. I had drunk with coyote that had lost its fear of people and ventured into the campground the previous night, I thought it was something like that.

That coyote was real attentive.

So, I walk towards the eyes with the flashlight up above my head (like a cop), bottle of Patron still in my other hand, when I’m maybe 25 feet away I realize what I’m looking at…

And while I didn’t freak out, or move, inside I was filled with real terror, almost a panic attack. I was looking at a mountain lion.

The mountain lion was broadside to me, looked at me for a moment and then on silent pads ran towards the tree line where I couldn’t see it.

I felt like I almost had a heart attack, and briefly thought I should take better care of myself.

Very focused, I got my backpack out of the tent, stuffed in my sleeping bag (and a few bottles) and walked back to the ranger station in the dark.

Mountain lions are supposed to be the most elusive animals on the planet. They are not supposed to let a human walk up to them. They are not supposed to be 2 miles from a campground. This was BULLSHIT!

The next part of the story I would entitle: Through a Dark, Drunkly…

…because I still had to walk two miles back to the ranger station. And it seems like the walk back in the dark, not knowing if you are being hunted would be scary. Here’s what I thought about…

When I was a much younger camper, I heard a story that’s meant to get under your skin. Roughly, it’s a kind of a ghost story evolving a kid, maybe 10 years old, maybe two miles away from home playing out in the country, when he sees a ghoul, who smiles at him and them disappears into the ground, and the kid has to walk back home at sun down, alone, wondering if this ghoul will get him.

I always wondered what if I was that kid. When I was 20 or so I was taking a bus out of Mexico City, when I looked down from a highway upon one of their infamous shantytowns. I had never seen anything like it at the time and I thought, shit, if I suddenly found myself down there, I would rather just be dead, then to have to find my way out.

Anyway, the walk back to the ranger station made me feel like I now know what it’s like to be that kid or what it’s like to find yourself in one of the rough Mexico City Shantytowns, basically after the initial moments of terror, and near panic attack heart attack it’s all focused adrenaline precision from there.

Nothing can be as bad as the first fright, so it’s all down hill from there.

When I got to the ranger station I told them the story and they said I was full of sh!t, that mountain lions don’t get that close to people, unless they are hunting and then you won’t see them until you are being attacked.

But I know what I saw. I spent the next week reading about them. They most actively hunt just after sundown, and the fact that I saw one’s broadside means it wasn’t hunting me, as they stalk, hunkered down the same way as a housecat.

For the last year the mountain lion has been my anti-smoking totem. I couldn’t start smoking again because then I would have to quit, and to quit would mean going back to where the mountain lion lived.

- J Roland Kelly

I had an awesome thrill recently; I found out two young filmmakers that I don’t even know (yet?) included a song (The World’s Warm Womb) from my first album in their short film entitled Cool.

It was a surprise to me, I found the video on youtube after searching for my name.

The film was created by F. Chiaverini and stars Matthew Branham.

And, I must say they nailed it. They knew what the song was about and independently created an image for the song that elevated it to newer and higher levels of “cool.”

F. Chiaverini´s ability to astutely pick out emotion from a series of shots is not something that just anyone can do, and having Matthew Branham with the expressive face of a great actor complemented that in the film.

They entire thing works well together.

F. Chiaverini and Matthew Branham both seem like nice young artists, won’t you help them out when you can. You can start by leaving feedback for their super short film Cool on youtube.

-J Roland Kelly

And as always my two albums: J Roland Kelly, Stop Your Nursing Unless You’re Rendering Fun and J Roland Kelly Taunts the Process …into Attacking are available at ITunes and Amazon.com, as well as where ever else fine music is downloaded.

Google spots Jesus (or Charles Manson) in Peruvian sand dune

So, I’m in Quito, and I’ll watch any film that’s in English. I’ve had the opportunity to see films that I would normally never see. I got bored and watched a few Rob Snider films (more than one even) and I also sat through a modern Jean-Claude Van Damme flick, but you have to take the good with the bad, and in the process I have discovered a few gems.

Now, the first rule of blogging of which I’m well aware is not to write about anything you don’t like unless controversy is your thing (maybe a product review). This really applies if you write about something subjective like screenwriting or any other type of art. There are well-documented cases where some kid has displayed his art for the first time and it was good enough for art critics to bash it at the national level. The critics then learn that it’s just a kid’s first project and feel like foolish old men.

It’s best to stay away from that.

Also, with the nature of the universe and the Internet, any press is good press and so it’s just better not to write about what you don’t like.

I realize that I broke that rule a few posts back when I wrote about how to turn off the MacBook start-up sound and I suggested that the reason that a feature like that was not built in was that Steve Jobs was an arrogant son of a b!tch. That was wrong, there was no need for that, and I would like to officially apologize to Steve Jobs.

Here is where I’m really tested when it comes to the first rule of blogging. I recently found a type of film that I absolutely can’t stand. I’m not really sure what to call this genre- evangelist film, missionary films, really racist Christian movies, I don’t know.

The films aren’t really mainstream; I think I just found them in a quest to watch anything, but still they exist. They usually always center around some “brave” missionary going to a part of the world perceived to be the middle of the nowhere, like an island in the south Pacific or the middle of China for example.

Then the area is always portrayed as having no belief structure whatsoever, and the locals do unrealistic things like hunt dinosaurs for food, etc. If there were dinosaurs left in China, the Chinese would have eaten them by now.

Wait, I just checked Microsoft Encarta it said that the last of China’s known “lost” dinosaurs was killed for food in a well-publicized event in 1984. Wow, I had no idea.

I saw this one particular film (to remain unnamed) that takes place in a country that I know a little about. All I can say is that I hope the makers of the film are already in hell, the Taoist one.

That’s a film review that you won’t hear from Roger Ebert.

Anyway then the missionary is always prosecuted by local authorities and has to stand up for his beliefs and the rest of the community stands up with him.

There you have it; the magic formula for these films. Please retire it.

-J Roland Kelly

Unbelievable! Jesus (Charlie?) just came into my life and told me, to tell you, that Steve Jobs IS an arrogant son of a b!tch. Now you have it one good authority; I mean who you going to believe?

I saw this film recently, and enjoyed it, mostly because it takes place in Ecuador (where I live now during my extended writing vacation).

In fact some of it is shot like only three years ago at the main bus station of Quito, which is about 200 meters from where I’m staying. Did I just write meters? I mean yards. WTF?

The story consists of a European girl (from Spain) and a native Ecuadorian girl trying to get to Cuenca (Ecuador’s third largest city) during a worker’s strike. When the bus they are on suddenly stops, they decide to hitchhike together. It then becomes a road flick and female buddy film with really beautiful scenes of Ecuador’s countryside in the background. I highly recommend netflixing it just for that.

I read one review of the film that said much of the film is lost in translation. I can testify to that. There are many inside jokes about Ecuador in the film that I don’t think will be perceived by the outside viewer, although the film did ok at international film festivals such as the one in Austin.

One thing about the film that’s odd is all the references to the geography of Ecuador. They are all right on, but unless you know anything about Ecuador’s geography, it will all be lost on you. It makes me wonder how much of this film was designed for international consumption.

The film is more political than it lets on at first. There’s a cab driver at the beginning that I would have kicked the sh*t out of, and the European girl convinces the Ecuadorian girl to stop playing a victim in her own life (a metaphor for larger things perhaps).

The thing I like most about this film is that it is straight shot Ecuador, the buses, the cities, kids walking with goats, the people, etc. After watching the film, I watched the “making of” on the DVD copy that I had, and was disappointed to learn how much effort went into the making of the film.

I have probably never said that about any other film, but what I mean is that the film contains no lies. The backgrounds, and the portrayal of Ecuador is completely genuine. So much so that I hoped this was a real low budget movie shot with a handheld on the sly sort of Dinosaur style. But no, tracks were laid out for tracking shots like any one else pretending to make a film. It’s actually pretty professional.

I have been trying to find and watch Ecuadorian films but it’s more difficult than I would have thought. I think it would be easier for me to find these foreign films in the States. Of the Ecuadorian films I have seen so far, this one is by far the best.

-J Roland Kelly

Not to be confused with all the other movies you didn’t see with titles like The Bank Job; this one came out in February of 2008. It’s a British film directed by Roger Donaldson and written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.

At its heart is a conspiracy theory film, but it’s told with the style of a “crime is cool” picture. This makes it a little unique and worth looking into, if you are developing such a project.

First let me give you the premise of the film: small time crooks get a hot tip that the alarm is off in the safety deposit box room of a well-to-do London bank. They rob it, and find cash, jewels, and everything you might expect, but they also find deposit box after deposit box of dirty secrets belonging to some of the most powerful people in England. This apparently is a true human event, it happened at Lloyds Bank of London on Baker Street in 1971.

It’s hard enough to develop a story with full artistic license; it’s a little bit more difficult when you have to stay within certain historical facts. I think there are certain things about this film that really work, and certain things that this twist in style completely ruins.

Most conspiracy theory films are 3.5 hours long, boring, and directed by Oliver Stone. I don’t mean to start an argument, but I don’t think conspiracy theory film is a genre that has been figured out or gotten right.

And so I think of Oliver Stone, but I also think of Michael Moore, go figure.

The Bank Job doesn’t fall into any of the traps, the film is fast (only 1.5 hours long), completely dramatized, and interesting. In this way the film works and wins. It stands alone as a film, even if the viewer doesn’t care about the historical details it’s still a good bank heist film. I chuck that up to good screenwriting.

Here’s what the film loses with all that dramatization: the magic that it’s a true (or almost true) story.

Also, I didn’t like how the film was advertised, movie posters with some guy holding a gun looking tough like it was a “crime is cool” film. It doesn’t do justice to the fact that this is a truly unique and f**ked up event in human history.

I’m not reviewing this film because it’s good, I actually think it’s somewhere in the middle. I’m reviewing it because it’s a unique attempt with an unbelievable real life event. That and…

I saw this other film a number of years ago; I can’t remember the name of the movie, another bank heist flick, where they also rob a safety deposit room. The film was just a “guns and money” film, but when they open one of the boxes (with explosives I think) there is a split second where you can see one of the boxes contains an explicit photo. I totally can’t remember that film, but I do remember the film never addressed the explicit photo in the safety deposit box.

Why was there an explicit photo in a safety deposit box? That’s a story in itself, and it opens up a whole new world. As a filmmaker or a screenwriter, an image like that is one you should try to create.

As it turns out, that film just referenced the conspiracy theory about the London 1971 bank robbery and left it at that. The Bank Job is all about that one particular robbery and I had forgotten about how badly I wanted to know the story about that explicit photo until I started watching the film.

I dig conspiracy theories films from other countries, mostly because I’m not emotionally attached. I couldn’t watch Oliver Stones’ JFK without some baggage, but a conspiracy about trying to keep the public from knowing that Princess Margaret was a complete sl*t, well… who the f*ck is princess Margaret? Just kidding. Kinda.

Okay, I’m done with the screenwriting movie review bit, let me tell you about the conspiracy, it’s so interesting I can’t resist. I see why this was developed into a film; these safety deposit boxes were a window into the world of the powerful. They story should have been told long before, but maybe a certain royal person had to die first (Princess Margaret died five years ago at the age of 70 something).

Here are the facts: four petty criminals were arrested for robbing the safety deposit box room of a famous bank with high-class British clients. Most of the money and such was never recovered. The robbery was really elaborate, it involved leasing a commercial building by the bank and tunneling. Four days after the robbery, the news media was asked by the British government to stop reporting on the robbery, as it had to do with national security. After the four men were arrested, their identities were kept secret, as were the length of their prison sentences. They would remain hidden from the public for 30 years. A file containing information on one person thought to be blackmailing the royal family at the time has been made classified until 2054; the crime happened in 1971. Lastly, the filmmakers of The Bank Job were asked by the British government not to release the film. Since this “asking” had no legal weight, the filmmakers released the film.

Here’s the conspiracy: the reason that that a few petty criminals (more than four) could have pulled off a major bank heist on that scale was because they had help from the MI5 (turning off the bank alarm, working behind the scenes, etc. maybe). The idea is that the MI5 were using the bank robbers (unbeknownst to them) to retrieve photos of Princess Margaret having sex with a guy in Trinidad that were stored in a safety deposit box of a black militant, who was using the photos to blackmail the government to avoid prosecution for certain crimes he was continuing to commit. Things changed when the bank robbers realized what kind of stuff they were finding in the safety deposit boxes. The story goes that most of the bank robbers traded the photos and secret documents to the government for new identities taking with them most of the treasure. The black militant was hung in Trinidad, his house burned to the ground, his file closed until 2054. The government pinned the crime on four people, letting the rest go.

But here is the best part of the story (this is true), of the roughly 265 safety deposit boxes that were broken into, the insurance was never collected on over one hundred; so, that’s a lot of rich people (the crème of the crop in London) that didn’t want to admit what they had in their box, and that is the stuff of legend.

The film makes reference to just three items allegedly found in the boxes: the pictures of Margaret having sex (I mentioned the execution of the Trinidad guy), pictures of well known public figures in a high dollar brothel (it was raided afterwards, true), and a ledger sheet from an organized crime boss of police officers that were on his payroll (Scotland Yard underwent major clean-up of corrupt cops after the bank robbery).

Yeah, so all very interesting but what’s more is that one of the guys who was in prison for 30 years for this crime (without giving away his identity) gave an interview to a British newspaper about the robbery before the release of The Bank Job.

What did the rest of the safety deposit boxes of the powerful contain, when they didn’t contain valuables? He said surprisingly, many contained handguns (you know the assumption), and also terrible amounts of ch!1d p*rn*gr*phy. He said that every one of the bank robbers was disgusted with the later, and would leave it in its box facing up so the cops could trace it back to the owner, a noble gesture.

But still it’s strange, my attorney consistently reminds me that when I’m in the middle of a major bank heist I shouldn’t do any thing that might let anyone know that I understand the difference between right and wrong.

I guess laws are different everywhere.

The last cool thing about the film- the London police in 1971 drive series II Jaguar XJ-6 cop cars. I had a series III.

Google the name of the film, you will find information on the conspiracy. It’s good reading.

-J Roland Kelly

A couple of years ago, on my way out to a new life in California I was standing by a overloaded Geo Metro smoking a cigarette at a rest-stop somewhere along I-40, watching a guy watering his dog, and to make a long story short: I struck-up a conversation with said guy, who was going to where a circus was bedded-down for the winter and I received an official invitation… to run away with the circus.

If you roam around long enough anything will happen.

I started a conversation with a guy in my Quito hotel that turned out to be a writer David Joshua Jennings, on assignment for a travel guide. We talked about teaching English abroad, he said he was meeting people for drinks later, invited me out, and that is where I met Quito screenwriter, filmmaker & musician Carolina Arroba.

I saw her little studio, listened to her new unreleased album, and read the screenplay for the film she is currently shooting. F*ck yeah. I’m not allowed to say anything about any of this, but I’m going to see if she will give me an interview, I’ll post it to this blog.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Carolina.

-J Roland Kelly

Above photo by Chris Falcony

Read the local paper. Take a walk. But read the local paper. Check out this story from my current town of residence Mountain View, CA.

No car, no recourse ?Vacationer returns to find his car towed, auctioned and up for sale on Craigslist — by a tow company employee

Seeing this story makes me remember how much I despise tow truck drivers. Full disclosure. They’re dirty carnies.

I think getting a car towed is something that we all have in common. It’s happened to all of us, or one of our close friends. It seems to happen at the worst time.

It’s not something you can really protect yourself from because cars never get towed when they are blatantly parked illegally; it’s only on some trumped-up charge, and it’s the kind of thing that will burn in the back of our minds forever.

That’s a perfect audience for a story.

And yes, I had my car towed a couple of weeks ago. It cost $400 to get it back, and it was a hassle.

The car was stolen by the City of Mountain View when it was parked on the public street in front of my apartment for more than three days.

There is some code against this (22-1651-O). I’ve read it. It’s so badly written, every car in Mountain View, just in terms of math, breaks this law.

Someone should take Mountain View to court.

I bike commute during the week, so yeah it was parked. The real reason my car was “towed” was that some neighbor wanted my spot.

I regret that apartment complexes have worked out deals with towing companies to tow away the cars of friends that are visiting (also, happened to me) and that municipal governments have given letters of marque to these pirates to profit-share in the bounty.

There’s no semblance of legality about this.

So, what’s the story with these tow truck drivers? I think everyone wants to know.

I don’t think I’m the only person that would put a documentary about this on their netflix list, and certainly I would chuckle if some big-screen serial killer turned out to be tow truck driver.

To the gentleman in the news story: I’m sorry your car got stolen by carnival folk, but If it makes you feel any better I will buy the exclusive rights to your story for like $10. 

It was late January when I ran across an ad for a one-day workshop for screenwriters on craigslist. I attended.

The class was taught by Terrel Seltzer and sponsored by the Writing Salon. I was unfamiliar with the organization at the time, but it only cost something like $90 so I thought it was worth checking out.

Maybe I could fall in with the right group of people, you never know.

The class was capped in size, something like a maximum of 20 people; we all sat in a circle. It was inspiring.

The class had a sort of advanced title or topic something having to do with character development, but as I suspect with most of these types of classes most of the people were beginners and we ended up covering mostly basics (three act structure, etc.).

Which is fine, I would totally recommend a class by Terrel Seltzer if you are looking for inspiration. She knows her stuff, and there’s something about a group of people with day jobs learning the basics and thinking that maybe they ARE screenwriters after all, that is uplifting and contagious. 

Screenwriting is simple and straightforward after all, right.

I did learn a few new concepts in the class, and she recommend some books which I have since read. I might review them in a future blog post, so stay tuned for that.

It was fun to read a few scenes aloud with other people, something I seldom get to do. Overall, a good time, and like I said the positive energy is totally worth the cost of the ride.

Terrel Seltzer worked on the screenplays for Chan is Missing and Dim Sum with long time collaborator and San Francisco filmmaker Wayne Wang. In the big time she wrote How I Got into College and One Fine Day.

She apparently has two scripts currently in development with Dreamworks and Warner Brother Classics. Her next one-day workshop at the Writing Salon is in early August.