Santa Goes to Hell!

I worked all week on the trailer for my upcoming animated short. I even woke at 1:30 a.m. the night before we left for New Jersey so I could finish it and post it with this blog in time for Christmas. See, as important as artistic quality is, making deadlines and coming in under budget is just as important to many great film-makers: Quentin Tarantino, Roger Corman and his protege's (people like Scorsese, DePalma, Demme)

Even though I'm not a working film-maker yet I admire their respect for the practical, work-ethic side of show business. I did make my self-imposed deadline BUT the trailer is on a flash drive...on my desk...at home. Hooray for moral victories, even when they're in California and you're in Jersey.

The idea for Santa Goes to Hell came when my wife posted Facebook pics of me playing Santa at her elementary school and said that the teachers were already requesting me for next year. I said, "There's no way in hell" and my Uncle Bud posted, "There's your next story: Santa Goes to Hell". I knew right away there was a funny, quirky Something in that idea, a story that I wanted to tell.

"What did Santa do to get sent to hell?" I asked myself. "Oh, that's easy. Same reason some think my handbasket and I are headed there too. He pissed the conservatives off." In my story, Santa gets damned to hell for taking the focus off Jesus and his followers. Shame, shame, shame.

Of course, Jesus is (by definition) the "reason for the season" but does that mean that the religion that takes his name is too? Is Christian merchandise also the reason for the season? How about preaching? Evangelizing Christmas-and-Easter church-goers and the rest of the lost? Hmmm.

Here's an excerpt from my work-in-progress script where I play with some of my questions, the kind that make me occasionally wonder if I'm going to hell.

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After explaining that there's no such thing as a Naughty List, Santa Claus gives Satan his presents, no strings attached.

Satan: So what do I owe you for the, uh, unconditional love? How much that put you out?

Santa Claus (chuckling): You don't owe me anything.

Satan: Right. Okay. What kind of strings you got attached here?

Santa Claus: No strings, Satan.

Satan: It's cool. I'm cool with it. What do I gotta sit through? Little presentation? Some long-winded speech?

Santa Claus: How about a 'long' friendship?

Satan: Right. 'Friendship'. So, like, I call a certain amount of times a day? Couple texts an hour. Skype on Sundays.

Santa Claus: To be my friend, just 'do as thou wilt'.

Satan: Hm. That's interesting, man. That's...it's...

Satan gets choked up. His lip quivers. A few tears pop out.

--

There you go. Bet you didn't know the secret to friendship lay in the words of Anton Levay: Do as thou wilt.

Happy holidays to you all!

May they be new and old at the same time...

mm

To Come Home

I have been working on an animated short called Little Wing. All animation, however rudimentary, is incredibly time-consuming so it's easy to fall out of love with a cartoon before it's even half finished. Three weeks into this project, though, my passion was renewed when one of my characters burst into song (in my imagination, of course). Little Wing was now a musical. I'd had no idea.

The best thing about me making a musical is that I don't like musicals. Even the few I do enjoy (Nightmare Before Christmas, Moulin Rouge) annoy me at times as the plot keeps getting put on pause for what I feel are too many overlong songs. Little Wing: Episode 1 will have three or four songs, each between thirty seconds and one minute in length. So, even though the songs are extremely important, hopefully they don't overstay their welcome.

Here is the final sequence of Episode 1. It the song 'To Come Home'. This being a work in progress, there are a couple shots (taken from 'The Green Mile') that haven't been drawn yet. I decided to leave them as stills, though, to give you an idea of how I create.

Look for the shooting star at the end and how it works with the tail end of the song.

My Own Perfect Poison

Being the loudest and the funniest guy in the room worked well when I was sixteen. Home was intense; I never knew when blue skies would turn stormy. The neighborhood was intense; I lived in Navy Housing, the ghetto portion of any otherwise affluent San Diego community but I didn't know how to use my fists. School was intense.

On my first day at Farb Middle School, a guy was practicing bike tricks in the parking lot and he accidentally crashed into me. He worked his embarrasment out by punching me in the eye. I didn't know what to say or do. But fortunately, the next time someone gave me crap, the words in my head cooperated and I blurted out the perfect smart-assed reply. Like a treefrog, I could manufacture and excrete my own perfect poison.

After that, my peers and I had an understanding: I could claw my way to a certain amount of popularity as long as I remembered my place as the jester. I was allowed in the throne room but I had to dress funny and be funny and not bother the royalty. I agreed to the terms and even my teachers seemed to enjoy the Matt Mintz Show.

My English teacher, Mrs. Edwards was bosomy and heavy-featured. She was the Hester Prynne I envisioned when we read the Scarlet Letter. Mrs. Edwards made us write a poem for homework but I forgot. When she asked us to turn the assignment in, I grabbed a pencil and paper and, in the time it took the class to dig their poems out of their backpacks and pass them to the front, I scribbled an eight-line poem and mixed the imposter in with the ones that were actuallly more than a minute old.

Mrs. Edwards passed our graded papers back during the next class. She scolded me for not taking the assignment seriously but said that, despite my use of the trite phrase 'sick and tired', my poem was better than most. She gave me a sly Hester Prynne smile and warned me, "If you actually decide to apply yourself someday, Matthew, your words will be strong."

Twenty-two years have passed and fortunately I'm not the class clown anymore. The Matt Mintz Show is rarely on because the Matt Mintz that's a dad and a husband and a good friend knows that real life and love are more than just a bunch of strung-together chances to performance. Plus timing is everything.

You'd be proud of me, Mrs. Edwards. I have applied myself. I stuck with the words. Those powerful, exhilarating--at times, goddamned exasperating--words.

Check out some more more of my writing in this excerpt from my new song, "I'll Be All Right"...

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matt-Mintz-Music/118706994836181?v=box_3#!/pages/Matt-Mintz-Music/118706994836181?v=wall

The World, The Forest

When people feel uncomfortable with their lives they like to blame the "world". It's such a big idea, it's like saying nothing at all. "The world" is a catch-all term meaning anything about America/Earth/the Cosmos we don't like. "The world" is...shallow paparazzi. It's those doctors on Grey's Anatomy, always sleeping together and guzzling tequila. It's New Age spirituality, gangs, the commercialization of Christmas, floppy-haired Donald Trump!

If someone is materialistic, sexually errant or unaware of the correct ways to talk about God, that person is "worldly". The term is subtler (and less blatantly condescending) than "sinner" but it means the same thing. It means there's something wrong with them. Worse than what's wrong with us.

Sometimes I too see the world as antagonistic; the spiritual, emotional and physical equivalent of a dark, hanted forest. I stumble through the night like Snow White fleeing from her murderers. Tree trunks frown and gnaw at me. Branches tear my clothes. Roots rise up to impede me. Owls are demons. Logs are ravenous crocs. Bats are, well, they're just bats. I run but it's no use! I fall hard. I pass out. Then the spell is broken and I awaken in warmth and sunlight. In the morning, the world hasn't changed much but the way I see it has.

What is the world?
Is it hostile? Does it want to thwart us?

Is it friendly? Does it, as the people in The Secret say, support us?

Does it even give a damn about us?

Is it full of inherent meaning?

Or is it a blank page, waiting for us artists to write our stories on it?

I find all of these views compelling at different times of the day.

I used to try so hard to be unpolluted by the world. Now I sometimes worrry about the world being polluted by me. I no longer want a priest's purity. I don't want a scholar's distance. I want to dance with the world, to push and be pushed. To be a rebel and a follower. A star and a team mate. I want to change the world and I want the world to change me.

Here is a new one-minute song ('Change the World') with some ghostly, adorable vocals by three-year-old Snow White fan Lillian Kate. Song two of the two-song piece is coming soon...

http://www.facebook.com/musicplayer/index.php?owner_id=118706994836181&success#!/pages/Matt-Mintz-Music/118706994836181

My Authentic Swing

In "The Legend of Bagger Vance" Matt Damon plays a promising golfer who leaves the game to serve in WWI. He returns alive but the traumas of war lead him to a life of cards, drinking and isolation. He abandons his first loves. He loses his swing.

Enter Bagger Vance, Will Smith's caddie. He's wry, brilliant; he may even be an angel. Bagger doesn't teach much in the way of technique but he helps Matt find his authentic swing. It isn't a particular way of golfing, a rule or trick. It's just the unique way Matt was made to swing.

I worry sometimes that I've lost my swing. My fortieth birthday is headed for me like a slow, unavoidable bull and I'm not as far on the journey as I thought I would be. Hearts have been hurt. Projects have been abandoned, and replaced by other abandoned projects. Time has been frittered away. Too many apple fritters have been eaten and too few miles jogged.

I write and record songs but, before I can finish them, the fun is gone. Instead of trusting my ears, I see images of listeners not getting it. My new song, Transform Me Into Any Shape, started with a spark of inspiration on the guitar. Through playful trial and error, chords were chosen and the arrangement solidified. Then I started recording. By the time the first session was over, I didn't like the song anymore. Or, more accurately, I was afraid other people wouldn't.

Then I remembered: it's none of my business (especially at this point in the creative process) what others will think. It's my business to be as good as I can, to be truthful about what I think sounds amazing. As much as I love an audience, my authentic swing doesn't have a thing to do with the people on the sidelines.

If I trust myself, I will find it again.

Here's my new song:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matt-Mintz-Music/118706994836181

Crippling Doubt & Giddy Enthusiasm

I've been reviewing my old writing journals. It is amusing to see crippling doubt trade blows with giddy enthusiasm over individual writing projects as well as my entire calling as a writer. Last year's journal tells of my Hollywood internship. The hardest and best part of the job was writing reviews (or what they call 'coverage') of the scripts that were submitted to us. My opinions (and how persuasively I wrote them) helped determine if scripts advanced up the ladder. I could read a script and write four pages of good coverage in about half a work day. The bosses asked a lot of me but they valued my opinion.

Then, on my last day, I submitted my best script, a theme-park park comedy called AMUSED. I went home and checked my email hourly for two weeks. I envisioned them writing, "Matt, we love Amused!!! Dare we call it genius? We have forwarded it to Judd Apatow's agent--who loves it!--and would like to meet. When can you come to L.A.?" I pictured walking through the production company offices on my terms; not to Xerox seven-hundred page books and make coffee but to talk million dollar deals.

Then I finally got the email response on what was already a nerve-wracking day. I was preparing to do an open mic; I made such a clown of myself at the last one that it took me a year to do another. I opened the email with my schedule book in hand. It was four quick sentences, thrown off with little care and what seemed like a cursory reading of the first five pages of my script. The carrot I'd been chasing for a year was rotten. My blood, sweat and tears had resulted in them thinking my best script was an offensive, pointless piece of crap. Or so it seemed. I wrote this poem:

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REJECTION SLIP

When the voice of the last artist is finally silenced, the world will end.
Without revelation or second chance.

Just the ash of a dead fire,
a line of smoke,
and the smell of burnt garbage.

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That's what I think about the importance of the artist.

I kicked ass at the open mic, by the way.