And if you weren’t in, well then, you were out.

I no longer consider myself just a screenwriter. My vision goes so much farther than that now.

I’m a filmmaker. A producer. An author. A graphic novelist. Soon, I’ll be branching out into the roles of fiction podcast producer and playwright.

Many of you here on Substack are writers. Some of you just want a cathartic space to give vent to your inner thoughts. Others aspire to be best-selling authors. Neither is more important than the other.

And now is the perfect time for your voice to finally be heard.

Don’t waste hours of your day taking meetings in Hollywood to pitch your scripts or series (getting meetings isn’t very hard). I had a manager who could get me meetings at the studios. Development execs liked my scripts. But it matters a great deal who brings you in. My manager had enough clout to get me the meetings. He didn’t have enough clout to get me the deals. So all those years I wasted in Hollywood were meaningless. It doesn’t matter if you have projects in development at studios if they never ultimately are produced.

I could have spent that time creating.

I can’t get those years back.

Don’t spend three hours a day querying agents or publishers who will never read past your query letter. I was traditionally published. The publisher did very little marketing. To me that made them irrelevant.

Spend that time creating.

If you’re a writer, invest those hours here on Substack, in a community of readers, writers, and creators.

Create your fiction. Weave your worlds.

And build your audience. The audience is now the engine that gives you a voice. And power over your creations and how they are showcased to the world.

The world, now more than ever, needs unique voices.

Film agents, literary agents, Hollywood producers, and publishers now chase creators who have an audience.

Build your audience, and you won’t have to chase them.

Because they’ll be chasing you.

Note: The image for this article is from a TV series I created. It was packaged by one of the top talent agencies in the world, CAA, and I was paired with an Emmy-winning showrunner. The series was picked up by a studio company that ordered a pilot presentation, which I co-produced and co-directed with the showrunner. My show starred model-turned-actress Talisa Soto and was set to film in Vancouver. In the eleventh hour, the greenlight came down to a choice between my series and a Marvel series. Mine didn't get made.

There were always two things I hated as a screenwriter trying to make it in Hollywood. First: the suits—managers, agents, studio execs. And second: gatekeepers. If you don’t know who the gatekeepers are, please refer back to the first item.

I hated them because many of them are whores, destroying art for the sake of dealmaking and the almighty bottom line.

Now, I was never delusional enough to believe you don’t need money to make a movie. It’s an expensive pursuit. Moviemaking is a marriage between art and commerce. You need financing. I get that. But there used to be a balance. That balance is gone. Commerce has strangled the artistic side, which is why we have so many huge-budget, craptastic movies shoved down our throats—films with little story and lots of FX. Nowadays when I see a Marvel movie, I know the entire third act is going to be nothing but action and cartoonish computer-generated effects.

Hollywood only cares about making a buck. And the publishing industry isn’t far behind. With their profit margins dwindling, studios and publishing houses want to spend less and make more.

Here’s where you come in.

They’re now looking for people with platforms and audiences. If you have ready-to-go content, all the better. And the bigger your platform, the more control you have. Hell, you may decide you don’t even need them.

I no longer consider myself just a screenwriter—though I’ve been a writer-producer for years—or just an author, though I recently released a graphic novel through traditional publishing.

Now, looking at the new landscape, I don’t care about the old system anymore. I don’t want to take meetings at studios. I don’t want to spend a year of my life with a project in development at a studio company, only to see it fall apart in the eleventh hour.

I want to create now!
As a screenwriter.
As a filmmaker.
As an author.

I also want to break all the rules and create hybrid forms of entertainment.

Studio Hollywood and the publishing industry once had a monopoly on the audience. They don’t anymore.

If you love and believe in your script, start shooting. Cameras and equipment are insanely cheap. Shoot small projects. Put them on your YouTube channel and build your audience.

And don’t be a dinosaur by ignoring emerging technologies. When I was offered a publishing contract for my latest novel from an established independent publisher, there was no marketing budget. I asked AI to analyze the contract’s value, given the lack of marketing support. AI confirmed it offered little unless I just wanted a book printed. I then developed a four-month marketing plan using AI—and, brother, did I learn a lot in the process.

AI also helped me map out a workflow to take the panel art that I will illustrate and animate it through AI generation as my shotlist. I’ll edit it into a motion picture—which will still be an arduous task and take over a year. I can then copyright my graphic novel and film and sell them.

Not to mention, every time I update my editing system, it includes more AI features that make things cheaper and easier for indie filmmakers who are a one-person band. Like me.

Authors can build their audience right here on Substack. I’m one of those people who doesn’t give a damn about paid subscriptions. I care about finding the audience for my worlds—the audience I know is out there.

Devise a game plan based on your interests.

Since I’m a filmmaker and can edit, I’m going to straddle Substack and YouTube to build my worlds. On Exile Circus Substack, through my fiction, personal essays, and an upcoming podcast. On my Exile Circus YouTube Channel—launching soon—through short videos using AI-animated images as a mood board to show everyone what it is I actually see in my head. As scary a thought as that is.

Your passion may be poetry, short stories, or horror anthologies. Create hybrid forms of entertainment no one has ever dreamed of before. There are no rules. Not anymore.

You no longer have to wait for a greenlight.
You are the greenlight.

Greenlight: Go.

Montauk is a real place I like to call the East Coast’s Area 51. Often referred to as “The Montauk Project,” conspiracy theories allege that at Camp Hero—the former Montauk Air Force Station—the government conducted experiments in psychological warfare and exotic research, including time travel.

Hearing Montauk mentioned in the episode reminded me of something I’d nearly forgotten: Stranger Things wasn’t originally called Stranger Things. Its original name was Montauk. With this nod, the Duffer Brothers, the series creators, brought the story full circle.

This also took me back about eleven years. My manager at the time would often send me spec scripts and pitches for series that had sold. A “spec” is a script a writer writes on speculation, hoping to sell it. For a series, a writer might create a treatment—a pitch document or “bible” outlining story, character, and season(s)—often accompanied by a written pilot episode.

The writer’s representatives would set up meetings, and the writers would pitch their projects to studios. Their job was to sell their vision in the room. The execs would review the written material if they liked the pitch.

My manager sent me a treatment for Montauk that had just sold to Netflix. In those days, treatments were written documents often supplemented with images from tonally similar hit films, giving vision-challenged executives a glimpse of the writers’ intent. Today, people use the slicker pitch decks.

The series was originally planned as a standalone, one-season miniseries. No one had an inkling of the monster hit it would become. Once it succeeded, of course, everything changed.

This reminds me of another Netflix series, Thirteen Reasons Why. I thought its first season was beautifully written and executed, bringing the story to a full conclusion. But once a movie or series becomes a hit, executives inevitably want sequels or more seasons (I never thought the movie Lethal Weapon should have had a sequel. The main character came to terms with his wife’s death and was no longer suicidal). Some stories aren’t meant to continue. I was surprised when season two of Thirteen Reasons Why was announced. I watched three or four episodes before stopping; it was ruining the first season by retroactively adding storylines that altered how you perceived the characters.

Stranger Things, however, was a series that could have multiple seasons. The only difficult factor for Netflix was how fast the child actors grew up. If you watch the last episode and then revisit the very first, the kids look like babies—at least to me.

In the original pitch document, the Duffer Brothers wrote: “Even though Montauk is designed as a standalone eight-hour tale, the story can continue in subsequent installments.” As savvy Hollywood writers, they knew to leave the door open. They envisioned any future storylines in a very Stephen King, It-esque manner: “The hypothetical sequel will take place in the same town, ten years later in the summer of 1990.”

The opening page of the pitch document states: “Emotional, cinematic, and rooted in character, Montauk is a love letter to the golden age of Steven Spielberg and Stephen King—a marriage of human drama and supernatural fear.”

The concept of unfolding the story like chapters of a book was kept. During development, however, the setting was moved from Montauk to the fictional town of Hawkins, necessitating a new title. Stranger Things is a pretty damn good title.

This brings to mind the movie Final Destination. An interesting piece of trivia is that it was originally written as an episode of The X-Files (you can now rewatch it imagining the two FBI agents as Mulder and Scully). The proposed episode was titled Flight 180, but I think Final Destination was a perfect title. It was fitting that actor Tony Todd was able to appear in the last installment, Bloodlines, before his death. He has left a great legacy in the horror genre (Candy Man, The Crow and more).

The original premise of Stranger Things was set in the fall of 1980, an era that remained central to the series. In Hollywood, there’s often a push to set everything in the present day, but I believe the show’s nostalgic element was a key factor in its success. The creators also aimed for an iconic score, which they achieved. As stated in the document: “Most of the music will be original, which we imagine as a cinematic, eerie, modern synth sound, inspired by classic early John Carpenter scores like The Thing and The Fog.”

I agree. Who wouldn’t want that? Though they omitted the most iconic of all: Halloween.

And for those who thought Will Byers being gay came out of left field, the original pitch document describes him thus: “WILL BYERS, twelve, is a sweet, sensitive kid with sexual identity issues.” In the series’ first episode, it’s mentioned that his absentee father, Lonnie, called Will “queer.”

The reference images in the pitch document included stills from: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Camp Hero in Montauk, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Altered States, Poltergeist, Hellraiser, Stand by Me, Firestarter, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Jaws.

The most obvious inspirations were Stephen King’s It and Firestarter.

Something tells me we have not seen the last of Stranger Things. Hollywood never gives up a franchise it can still milk for more money.

It may take a while, but never say die.

They’ve been trying to get a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer project off the ground forever. I hear now it’s coming. Although actress Sarah Michelle Gellar says it’s not a sequel or reboot. I guess that only leaves spin-off.

I vote for a Firefly reboot. I’ve got my brown coat in the closet.

Sometimes reboots, sequels, and spin-offs are a good thing. Sometimes they’re a bad thing. Take The Walking Dead. I loved The Walking Dead, but eventually it jumped the shark—that saying comes from the show, Happy Days. It’s when a series has been on so long they’ve run out of ideas. They had Fonzie jump a shark on his motorcycle.

I liked Fear of the Walking Dead. I’m enjoying Dead City. I did not like Darryl Dixon (what the hell is a redneck doing in France?), and I hated The Ones Who Live.

However I believe there are more stories that can be told in the Stranger Things universe. Time will tell.

Hmm, strange word. Even stranger concept.

Bela Lugosi’s immortal monologue in director Ed Wood’s forgettable B movie Bride of the Monster just about sums up my feelings on the subject: “Home? I have no home. Hunted, despised, living like an animal. The jungle is my home. But I will show the world that I can be its master. I will perfect my own race of people. A race of atomic supermen, who will conquer the world.” Cue diabolical laughter.

Yup, that’s me.​

Ed Wood wrote that speech as an allegory for a Hollywood that had used Bela Lugosi up and discarded him like garbage when he became addicted to drugs. That’s why in a largely forgettable B movie, that monologue was so unforgettable. It resonated. Lugosi had lived it. In Tim Burton’s movie Ed Wood, the late actor Martin Landau, as Bela Lugosi, owned that monologue. Weeks before the Academy Awards, at a private party at the “House Of Blues” on Sunset in Hollywood, a friend of mine - Cassandra Gava, who played the Wolf Witch in Conan the Barbarian (yes, I know some interesting people) - brought Landau. I told Martin Landau he was going to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. His response, “Why, thank you, young man.” A few weeks later, he did win the Oscar for his portrayal of Lugosi’s life and pain.

I understand Bela Lugosi’s pain.

Fed up with Hollywood and all the people there who ruined my scripts, ripped me off, and wrote me off, I packed a suitcase and a backpack and left with two intentions: One: to create on my terms, my way. Two: to travel the world.

Have laptop, will travel.

I was, however, waylaid by the pandemic (like much of the world); shipwrecked in Vegas. During that time, I produced and directed two short films and built up my online business writing synopses, film treatments, TV bibles, scripts, comic book scripts, etc. The day the first country in Europe opened back up, I was on a plane to Spain.

Vagabond, nomad, drifter, exile. That’s also me.

The funny thing is, once you have no home, the whole world becomes your home.

My plan was simple: make films, write books, keep moving.

Welcome to the outlet for my dreams and nightmares.

My time is split between writing this story and handling formatting chores for my upcoming novel, Mindbender: From Harlem with Love. Formatting, fun stuff.

Wanting the science to feel authentic, I asked DeepSeek AI how humanity might create human replicants within the next seventy years. My story is set in 2095, weaving back and forth into the memories of its protagonist, a great escape artist in 1920s Europe.

The response from DeepSeek was chilling. Much of its prediction is based on technology that exists today, with only certain key gaps left to be filled. Here’s a simplified breakdown of how humanity might be replaced by its own superior creation.

DeepSeek suggested the term Bioroid was more accurate than “replicant.” According to its vision, these beings would be a sophisticated integration of biological and synthetic systems, constructed from the following:

Cultivated Tissues and Organoids: Skin, muscles, and simple organs grown using advanced bioreactors and 3D bio-printing.

Self-Healing Skin: Embedded with micro-fluidic networks that carry nutrients and repair agents, allowing it to seal cuts autonomously.

A Hybrid Vascular System: Circulating an electro-nutritive coolant that delivers nutrients, conducts signals, and cools synthetic components.

Enhanced Senses: Superior to human sight, hearing, and touch, capable of perceiving broader light spectra, advanced acoustics, and even chemical composition.

The Brain: A bio-hybrid core—a lab-grown neural organoid for consciousness, interfaced with nanoscale synthetic processors for memory and calculation.

The Skeleton: A composite frame of carbon nanotube or graphene lattice, infused with self-healing polymers for immense strength and durability.

Power Source: Ultra-high-density solid-state batteries or micro-scale nuclear betavoltaic cells for long-term energy.

In total, these Bioroids would be a precise composite: 40% cultivated biological tissues, 30% synthetic polymers, 20% nanoscale electronics, and 10% functional fluids and power systems.

They will be smarter, stronger, and more efficient. The rich and powerful, always in search of slaves to fuel their machines and corporations, will see them as the ultimate tool.

But why would a superior being serve an inferior being?

I’ll leave you with this EXCERPT from my short story:

Put the past aside, Ursula, I tell myself. Their lives are in my hands. Today. In the here and now. Even though they aren’t actually human. Semantics, I guess. Because what is humanity? Besides a word.

Baldwin came over to me. I knew it would be him. Out of the corner of my eye, as I drifted between ancient Africa, ‘20s Europe, and the present, I saw him waiting for the right moment. Moment. A funny word for a description of time. He’s apprehensive. Aren’t we all?

Baldwin seems to be the representative of this group. There are twelve of them. Each one can tell you the exact date and time they became sentient. Human. Or as human as you can be without being born of a womb. I wonder if it’s like my first memory of a mythical mother. The brush of a flesh and blood wing against my very young cheek. They’re bioroids, synthetic flesh-and-blood robots; a sophisticated, multi-layered integration of biological and synthetic systems.

The odds are against us. A suicide run was how it was framed to me by a colleague. They won’t all make it.

But then, who really does? Aside from me.

My survivor’s guilt picks a poor time to flare up. Not now, Ursula.

More to Come

This isn’t to say they weren’t for real. Some were. One producer interested in financing one of my films, David Dadon, sent a fire-engine-red stretch limousine to pick up me and my line producer because he was running late from a lunch date in Beverly Hills with a Saudi princess at, you guessed it, a cafe.

All these decades later, after leaving the States during the tail-end of the pandemic—on July 1st, 2020—I now live my life in exotic places; yep, that’s right, in coffee shops, cafes, and pubs. Hell, during the course of an average day, I’ll write in three or four different coffee shops just to break up the monotony, grabbing something to eat at a restaurant or pub.

When I was in Marseille, I would hit two or three coffee shops on the port before ending up in a sports bar. I might hit one more coffee shop on the way back to the flat.

Fun fact: After having my Americanos in local coffee shops, when I stop in at a Starbucks or Coffee Bean, their Americanos seem watered down and much less flavorful.

I tend to alternate between large cities, port or beach towns, and old towns. Each locale has its own charms, and at different times, I crave different things.

Over the past six years, I’ve written in Spain, Gibraltar, Romania, England, Belgium, France, Mexico, Germany, Montenegro, Portugal, and Greece (I may have left one or two out). I've visited many of these places multiple times, usually for durations of three months at a time—tourist visas being what they are.

That was my European tour, except for Mexico. I had to return to the United States for four months to renew my passport in 2023, so after that, I jumped down to Tulum for another four months.

I’ve just begun my Southeast Asian tour, starting out in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and now I'm in Da Nang, Vietnam. On my lists of places to go: Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Japan.

My current haunts here in Da Nang are all within two blocks of my hotel, which is mostly due to my laziness. Yes, I am a lazy man. They include:

CCCP Coffee—because you haven't lived until you’ve had Cold War Soviet Union-era coffee (just kidding).

Gordon’s New York Bagels—I'm told the owner is a fellow New Yorker, though I haven’t met him yet. They make a pretty good bagel and lox with cream cheese.

The stylish beach bar, Maia’s. Of course.

I’ve never really connected with expat or digital nomad communities in any of these places. I usually just fly solo and stay low-key. This time I’ll try something new. Da Nang has a large expat and digital nomad community, as well as retirees and residents. I’ve noticed a couple of digital nomad-friendly coffee shops, and I know they have some Facebook groups and online communities.

When in Rome, as they say. Although I haven’t actually been to Rome. Yet.

I now believe that any good decision involves creating your art now—rather than waiting for some coveted greenlight to give you permission, be it for writing or filmmaking.

It took me a long time to figure that out. I wasted years, in fact. In Hollywood, it always seemed like that big studio deal was right around the corner. I had some major brushes with success—like selling a TV series packaged by the largest talent agency in the world.

Because of my script portfolio, I often face options on what to work on. A year ago, I spent six months developing two independent films in the $3–5 million budget range for two of my scripts, based on the claims of others I was working with. It was a total waste of six months.

In that time, I could have focused on writing, producing, and directing an ultra-micro-budget horror film, even if I had to self-finance most of it (as I did with two short films).

Today, I would have something tangible to sell: a finished film. And I would be much further along in my career as a filmmaker.

This isn’t sour grapes; this is reflection.

I will always try to set up a studio or independent deal (I have one large indie film pending) if the opportunity arises. I’ll put my scripts out there, but I won’t spend time working on them—no rewrites, no meetings. Because I don’t have five million dollars; whether those films get made is completely out of my hands.

A micro-budget film is not.

I have a larger indie horror film that I will be shopping to companies and producers in France for a potential co-production. But I will also be developing a tiny horror film that if all else fails, I can fund with my own money next spring.

Either way, I plan to direct a feature film in 2026.

So my advice to writers is this: submit your novel, but if you don’t get any bites, self-publish.

If you’re a filmmaker, film, baby, film.

Create—by any means necessary.

Once I had had enough of Hollywood, I left. I wanted to write novels and make movies in places like Paris and Manchester—big film towns, by the way. I like how European filmmakers are more about the art of filmmaking than the business of it.

Being an expat, a citizen of no country, means you’re always on the move.

Every two or three months, I begin a new life in a new country. I know, it’s a little weird, but I’ve gotten used to it.

I get bored easily, and taking the same Hollywood meetings and listening to the same Hollywood B.S. being blown up my ass was no longer how I wanted to live. Sure, in the old days, Tinseltown was fun when I was a rip-roaring stuntman running around town, acting the fool. Also when I first started writing scripts and didn't know the bullshit being spewed was bullshit.

I’ve been in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia—my first foray into Southeast Asia—for over two months now. Before that, I spent the last six years tramping around Europe, sometimes doubling back to the same countries. Before here, I was in Manchester, England. Before that, I was in Budva, Montenegro; before that, Athens and Crete, Greece; and before that, Marseille, France.

I spent three months in Bucharest, Romania; two months in Istanbul, Turkey; three months in Quarteira, Portugal; and three months just outside of Frankfurt, Germany.

I returned to the States only once a couple of years ago for four months when I had to renew my passport. Then I went down to Tulum, Mexico for four months before flying back to Europe.

Places I’ve been to multiple times:

Manchester—I have a friend there, and when I need to hear English, I go there. Although you can run into someone with a cockney accent, and it’s like listening to a foreign language.

France—Paris and the South of France: Sanary-sur-Mer (which is magical at Christmas time) and Marseille, which is earthy and diverse, and one of my favorite places in the world.

Estepona, Spain on the Costa del Sol near the Strait of Gibraltar. I even have an interesting story about flying into Gibraltar, which is so small they have to close traffic on a major street for planes to land because the street is part of the runway.

I had double hip replacement surgery in Ypres, Belgium, in an amazing orthopedic hospital. The male staff nicknamed it General Hospital because all the nurses were pretty—and it was true. I also had my first sponge bath there, so there’s that.

On the way to Southeast, Asia, my plane was late, I missed my connection, and had an unexpected stay in Dubai for the night.

In a week, I fly to Da Nang, Vietnam. I’ve never been there and don’t know anyone there. I guess I’m on my Southeast Asian tour now. Although, if a movie I wrote goes into production in Europe in November, I’d fly back for that. Otherwise, I have a friend who may be directing a film in Bangkok, Thailand. I’d love to see that too.

Sometimes, I’m in city settings (Manchester, Bucharest, Kuala Lumpur); sometimes I live a beach existence (Spain, Greece, Portugal); other times I’m in Old Towns (Budva, Sanary-sur-Mer).

If I do end up staying in Southeast Asia through the New Year, after Vietnam, I’d like to visit Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Japan.

I also plan to travel to Africa—I dream of that.

Ultimately, I plan to settle in Marseille. I love the culture, the diversity, and the people. The French are very entertaining.

I just thought I’d share this little snapshot of my trials and tribulations.

And if you’re holidaying too, happy travels.

The Curse of Monte Cristo is a reimagining of the classic adventure tale of revenge and redemption, with a horror twist set during the bloody days of the Haitian Revolution.

This time around, the protagonist, Edmond Dantès, is a Haitian man of African descent and a Parisian citizen who is framed and sentenced to the French prison fortress D’If, grimly nicknamed the Chateau.

Edmond’s tutor in his revenge, Faria, is a demon.

The book has received an endorsement from bestselling author Dean Koontz.

Below is the fun introduction to the graphic novel that I wrote.

Drinks with the Demon

Fremont Street. Nowadays, they call it the Fremont Experience. But I’m old enough to remember when it was just plain old Downtown Vegas—seedy in all the right ways, the place you holed up in when you screwed up one too many times on the Strip.

Once upon a time, it had been the private oasis of mobsters, showgirls, degenerate gamblers, drunks, and whores. I think I preferred that version of Fremont Street more. There was something pure in its naked corruption and moral bankruptcy.

Nowadays, it’s the friggin’ Disneyland of gambling. Under an electric light canopy that very nearly blots out the sky with its dazzling light shows, you can’t tell if it’s day or night half the time. But I guess that’s pretty much the point. Right now, it’s a little past 3:00 a.m.

I was in town for a work thing. I stayed on the Strip, attended the conference, had drinks with my colleagues. After it was over, I sped to the airport to catch my flight and get back to my family. But my flight was canceled, and the earliest one they could reschedule me for was the next night. I called my wife.

Then I seized the opportunity to book a room at downtown’s historic Apache Hotel. Legend has it, it’s haunted—ghosts of dead gamblers and all. I like scary things. My wife always said I had a devilish streak. She would say it with a teasing tone when things were good—which they were, most of the time. She said it with an entirely different tone when she was mad at me. And she could be right, about the devil thing. I gravitated to dark things. Maybe that’s why I preferred Fremont to the Strip. There was an honesty to its debauchery that the Strip tried to gloss over with glitz.

But I couldn’t sleep.

So I sat at a patio bar and watched inebriated tourists zip-line overhead. Part of me secretly wished one of them would blow chunks on the clueless pedestrians stumbling along below. Now that would be a show, the devil part of me thought. When it looked like I wouldn’t get my wish, I pulled the paperback out of my pocket, withdrew the bookmark, and started reading where I had left off.

“Is this seat taken?”

I looked over and saw a young Bela Lugosi take a seat beside me, despite the fact that I was the only one at the bar on this weeknight, at this wee hour.

“Sure,” I said, hoping I wasn’t about to be hit on.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him. A young Bela Lugosi was right. His jet-black hair was slicked back like a goon out of a 1930s George Raft movie. His Eastern European features were bluntly chiseled. His accent was hard to pinpoint. At times, he sounded Slavic. Other times, French. Occasionally, British.

“Thanks, David.”

I froze. “How’d you know my name?”

He looked at me with a steely gaze before breaking into a jovial grin. “Your name tag.”

“Goddamnit,” I said as I ripped the conference tag off my jacket.

“I’m Faria.”

We shook hands. He looked around and added, “I sat here by myself last night, and every five minutes, bums asked me for money. Dealers asked me if I wanted to buy drugs. Prostitutes asked me if I wanted a—well, you get the idea.”

“Sure. Safety in numbers.”

Faria seemed to like that as he ordered a vodka and paid for my next beer. He nodded at my paperback, “Bookmark. Good man. So many people—the ones who still bother to read—usually dog-ear the pages to remember where they left off. To mutilate a literary work of art… it makes me—I just want to rip their heads back like a PEZ dispenser.”

“A little harsh. But okay, I understand the sentiment. I write. Or rather, I want to create. A graphic novel, actually.”

“Ahh, the comic books. Before comics, there were pulp magazines. Before pulps, there were penny dreadfuls.”

“Graphic novels are different from comics. More adult, weightier subject matter,” I retorted, more defensively than I intended.

Faria glanced at the cover of my book now. His eyes became fixed. “The Count of Monte Cristo. Now that’s a book.”

I nodded back, not knowing quite what to say. Then, something dawned on me. “There’s a character named Faria in the book. Abbé Faria, in the story.”

“Is there now?” Faria dismissed this. “It’s been a while since I read it. Did you know when The Count of Monte Cristo was first published, it became the most popular book in all of Europe?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Did you also not know that the author, Alexandre Dumas, based it on the true crime account of the shoemaker Pierre Picaud?”

At this comment, I became significantly more interested in the conversation. “Really? It’s one of my favorite books. Read it a hundred times. My dream is to reimagine it as a graphic novel with some kind of genre twist.”

“Like in outer space?”

“Definitely not,” I said definitively.

Faria’s forehead furrowed. “How about—horror?”

As overused a phrase as it seemed, a chill ran down my spine.

“What if I told you that the original story, the real story about the shoemaker Pierre Picaud, was a horror story? And what if I told you that I was the one who told the tale to Alexandre Dumas?”

“Then I’d say you look pretty damn good for your age.”

Faria got a kick out of that. Then he said matter-of-factly, “I’m a demon, David Dabel. You’re the only one here who can see me.”

“The bartender—”

“You ordered the drinks. You paid for them too. I just made you think I did.”

I stood up. “Well, it’s getting late. I should be hitting the sack. Got a flight in the morning.”

“Sit down, David. Your flight’s not until tomorrow night.”

My body sat back down before I told it to. Resigned, I said, “What’s a demon doing in Vegas?”

“Dumb question, don’t you think? But if you must know, I’m retired.”

“I didn’t know demons retired.”

“They do,” Faria replied. “I want to share my story with you the same way I shared it with Alexandre Dumas.”

“If it’s a horror story, why didn’t Dumas write it that way?”

Faria shrugged. “I guess with religious norms being what they were in those times—which was pretty puritanical—and with him being a free Black man in an age of enslavement on France’s colony Saint-Domingue, Alexandre chose to play it safe. Most readers didn’t even know the author was a man of color, as they say nowadays.”

“Saint-Domingue? You mean Haiti.”

Faria zeroed in on my black skin. “You’re of Haitian descent.” It wasn’t a question.

I nodded numbly. Dumbly.

“Close your eyes, David.”

I have no idea why, but I closed my eyes. My mind’s eye was instantly bombarded with the most electric images. It wasn’t like a dream at all. It was as if someone switched on a movie projector inside my head, and the main feature was now playing. I opened my eyes and jumped out of my seat. “Holy shit!”

“Sit back down, David.”

I sat back down. I was summoning all my energy to mount a desperate escape attempt when Faria said—

“I think it would make one helluva horror graphic novel.”

And just like that, the demon had me. God help me, I closed my eyes. I don’t know what I must have looked like to passersby, or how long I sat there. But I didn’t open my eyes once through the entire, eerie saga. There was no intermission. No commercial break. There was just the story. Abbé Faria’s story. A larger-than-life tale of betrayal, love, swashbuckling, heroism, cowardice, adventure, abandonment, patriotism, humanity, God’s light, Hell’s cold embrace—and horror; lots and lots of horror.

I never saw the demon Faria after that night.

Later, I made handwritten notes. I changed some things. This time, the hero of the story, Edmond Dantès, would be of Haitian descent. A man of color. Alexandre Dumas was born of an enslaved mother. So this time, the hero would be a former slave. I believe, in my heart of hearts, if Alexandre Dumas could have, this would have been the story he would have written. But back then, no one would have bought that book.

I turned these notes over to my partner in crime, wordsmith extraordinaire Carlton Holder—a freak for all that goes bump in the night. And boy oh boy, did he run with it.

That night in the desert changed me.

That night in the desert led to the very book you now hold in your hands.

And may God have mercy on my soul.

If it is still my soul.

My memories of Los Angeles in the mid-to-late ‘90s are like snapshots. It was around the time I was living in a large house in Sherman Oaks with three other stuntmen, a place we affectionately called the Ponderosa (after the ranch in the old Western series Bonanza). We had a pool table, a sunken living room, a wrap-around couch, and a huge TV that nearly broke our backs carrying home (before the flat-screen age, natch). We threw wild parties, and it wasn’t unusual for me to leave my room in the morning and find a cluster of stunt people watching TV, playing video games, shooting pool, or lounging in and around the outdoor pool and jacuzzi. People showed up all hours of the day and night.

I was just beginning my transition from stuntman to screenwriter. Between working on studio films, my buddies and I did stunts for kid’s shows like VR Troopers and Power Rangers.

On weekdays, if we weren’t working, we’d workout, then hit the local Blockbuster for a movie night at the house, complete with popcorn and cervezas. Remember how huge Blockbuster was back then? It was a staple of our lives. It fueled the B-action movie franchise, and seedy producers with bad toupees made beaucoup bucks off cheesy martial arts flicks starring people you’d never heard of—like Don The Dragon Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock, Billy Blanks, and others. There were also gloriously strange movies like Maniac Cop and Trancers, or Troma classics like Class of Nuke ‘Em High and Surf Nazis Must Die.

Then there was always the underground cinema scene at theaters like the Laemmle and the Nuart in Santa Monica, where you could catch midnight screenings of Hong Kong cinema classics like John Woo’s Hard Boiled (starring Chow Yun-fat), Supercop (Jackie Chan), or The Heroic Trio (Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, and Anita Mui). This was before Hollywood got its greedy lil’ mitts on Asian action cinema and polluted its purity with big budgets and no vision.

Friday nights, we’d go to Valley College’s open gymnastics workouts from 7 to 10 PM to hone our acrobatic skills. It was a free-for-all of stunt people, over-the-hill gymnasts reminiscing about their glory days, actors, dancers, circus performers, and, of course, groupies. Afterwards, a bunch of us would hit El Torito or stop by a liquor store for a tailgate party in the Balboa Park parking lot. I called this Choir Practice, a nod to cop turned author Joseph Wambaugh’s novel The Choirboys, where it was code for off-duty cops partying.

There were the studio stunt gigs, where the moment you walked on set, you’d subconsciously slip into the easy persona of Burt Reynolds in Hooper, cracking jokes, laughing in the face of death, and flirting with the pretty female extras.

There was ripping and raging on Sunset Strip on a Saturday night with my friends, hitting Bar Marmont, part of Chateau Marmont Hotel, the House of Blues, or that chichi sushi bar I can’t remember the name of. These places were known as scenes. In the Valley, a nearby favorite when we didn’t feel like going far, was old-school Casa Vega (showcased in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).

Sundays were reserved for Sagebrush Cantina in Calabasas. It was our church, where you’d sit at outdoor tables baking in the sun or inside at the bar, its floor covered in sawdust, drinking margaritas, eating appetizers, and listening to Eagles knockoff bands. If you still had energy afterward, it was off to the Rusty Pelican down the street.

Once a year, there was the American Film Market at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, where buyers and producers gathered every year to wheel and deal indie films. The seven-day event, packed with screenings and parties thrown by production companies at Third Street bars and restaurants, was one big bash. Everyone there was completely full of shit. But it didn’t matter, because so were you.

I even miss recovery days, lying on a floatation device adrift in the pool with a beer (hair of the dog), in my Ray-Bans, soaking up the sun. Or cruising around town in my classic Mustang, which never failed to break down.

Those were the days of flush or bust, which easily changed from one day to the next. One day, I’d be down to my last twenty bucks. The next, I’d get a $3,000 residual check for a stunt I’d done a year earlier.

When we had money, a bunch of us would road-trip to Las Vegas and gamble all night, or slide past sleazy Tijuana, down to Rosarito Beach, where we’d dance in the sand at Papas & Beer.

Back in that Hollywood, in those days, the world was full of promise and anything could happen at any moment on any given day.

I miss that carefree life where I was paid large sums of money to do really stupid things. But I was a stuntman, so I loved doing really stupid things. Sometimes, I just want to go back in time, find my younger, dumber, clueless self, and tell him, “You sorry sonuvabitch, you don’t know how good you’ve got it. Enjoy the fuck out of these times, ‘cause they won’t last forever.”

And every once in a while, when I’m sitting in the right sunlight, on the right beach, café, or pub, I find myself transported back there, just for a second. Even though it’s only in my mind, I remember. And I smile.

I find myself moving much too rapidly from dawn to the heavy twilight veil of dusk. To the curtain that brings down the house once and for all.

Then I take another drink. Though nowadays, it’s more likely to be a Red Bull, so I don’t fall asleep.

Yup.

I’m the one with the dazzling tan. I have no idea why I’m not wearing any clothes.

Before I dig into how this relates to the film industry, I want to state one very hard truth: unless you’re a Hollywood insider, there is very little chance you will have a career in Hollywood as a writer, director, or producer. I could go into a whole, lengthy explanation for this statement, but that’s not the purpose of this piece. There are avenues in. It’s not impossible. Maybe I’ll write an article on it at a later date— but, for now, I’ll just quote something I once heard a studio writer say: You have a greater chance of becoming an astronaut than a working Hollywood screenwriter.

It also no longer matters anyway, because Hollywood isn’t Hollywood anymore. I know, a weighty statement. I’ll come back to this later.

Okay, now I’m starting the article, and there will be a point to my rambling, as you’ll discover in the Q&A afterward (there’s not really going to be a Q&A).

An old friend of mine in Los Angeles contacted me today.

Old friend: I searched your name and The Black Album came up. So I think Meta may have scraped your work to train their AI.

The Black Album was an old project of mine.

Me: All you can do in this new world is keep up. It doesn’t bother me if AI has trained off some of my old work. I’m a much better writer now.

And, by the way, isn’t plagiarism the sincerest form of flattery? Just kidding.

Here are my thoughts on this brave new world from my minuscule little corner of the universe as a creator, writer, and filmmaker.

As a ghostwriter, I’m often hired to rewrite AI-generated stories and scripts. I can spot them a mile away. The writing is surface-level, the ideas are familiar (to say the least), and the characters are one-dimensional. When I finish an assignment, I almost always receive the same feedback: What you wrote is so much better.

I don’t feel any threat to my writing career from AI. Besides, I’ve already experienced the worst thing an artist could experience. Decades ago, when I lived in Hollywood, I had a script of mine stolen. It became a franchise, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was one of my first scripts and I hadn’t copyrighted it (please don’t ask me the name of the movie).

A couple of summers ago, I witnessed actors and writers in Hollywood wage war against studios and streaming companies in prolonged strikes. And I agreed with everything they were saying—body-scanning actors and extras to use in countless films is horrible. Having AI write a crappy first draft of a studio idea, then bringing in writers for subsequent drafts so they’re just work-for-hire and don’t receive creator’s credit (if it’s a pilot) or the large script sale fees (if it’s a film) is exploitative.

I saw the strikes on TV. I watched the studios give in to many of the unions’ demands. Then, months later, I heard from friends of mine in LA that a number of studios packed up and left, moving to countries where they didn’t have to deal with unions.

Not surprising.

The studios have been losing a lot of money in recent years. They make a lot of big-budget, formulaic movies that lack substance. And the audience has grown tired. Many also jumped feet first into streaming thinking they were going to be the next Netflix. And it’s been a bloodbath for companies like Disney.

Now, here’s the good part.

You: There’s a good part? I dunno, Carlton. You’ve been all gloom and doom up to this point.

Me: Oh yea of little faith. Rainbows and unicorns are just up ahead. Read on.

As an independent filmmaker, I see all the benefits of AI and the changing film landscape.

A couple of summers ago, I produced and directed a short film in Las Vegas titled Negative Existence, a surreal horror tale. I got busy with other projects and haven’t edited it yet. But when I recently updated my editing system—DaVinci Resolve—it had all these new AI features. My movie is supposed to be a mindfuck where you don’t know what’s real and what’s not real. After experimenting with AI-animated video images, I now have the ability to add another level of the surreal to my film, another level that lives up to the vision in my not-too-sane-brain.

For my live-action micro-budget horror film, King Demon (which I’m currently seeking funding for), I’ll use AI to enhance and add on to my locations. Though I won’t be generating characters. I loathe CGI-created characters. I always have, always will. All my horror SFX will be practical, with a talented makeup team handling prosthetics, blood, and more.

Soon, I’ll start my second graphic novel, The Last Manchurian. This time, I’m handling the art and designing the characters myself. I plan to lay out the book cinematically, using movie-style camera angles. Since I won’t run into copyright issues because I’m creating the characters, I’ll use AI to animate my panels into a shot list, which I can then import into my editing system. That way, once the graphic novel is finished, I can begin cutting a tandem full-length animated film from the footage. Let me stress that before AI, the budget required to produce an animated film was astronomical, and therefore outside the reach of indie filmmakers. Just look at the hefty price tags on Disney extravaganzas.

Okay—it’s ray of sunshine time.

I see many other opportunities to use AI as a tool for a creator’s vision. It levels the playing field in a sense. Indie filmmakers could never compete with Hollywood’s massive budgets. Now, to a certain extent, they can.

There are now many platforms for sharing content. Substack is a prime example for literary work and podcasts, while YouTube and Vimeo are just two options for video. New ways to distribute content are popping up every day. Movie theaters and TV are no longer the only game in town.

Instead of taking endless meetings and wasting years trying to get a coveted greenlight—like I did—you can just make your own films. If you have even half an audience, the studios will come knocking—because, at the end of the day, they’re all bean counters and whores in Hollywood.

When that happens get yourself a great entertainment attorney—not a good one, a great one—and let them negotiate a sweet deal on your behalf.

As for me, I’ll be working on all my crazy ideas, and you’ll be the first to know how everything is turning out in real time. Failures and successes. I’m content to write my books, craft my graphic novels, produce & direct my tiny little film gems, and spin yarns and tall tales here on Substack.

Now I’ll take a question from that nerdy guy in the back.

No, the other nerdy guy.

I was responding to a comment to one of my posts about the difference between screenplay and novel writing. Here’s what I said:

Below is the opening sequence from a screenplay I wrote titled Christmas City. I wanted to create an incestuous small-town, blue-collar, hard-boiled detective drama with a mule kick of an LGBTQ twist. I was channeling my inner Raymond Chandler—and I bet you can’t say that three times fast! I envisioned the characters as grizzled and seedy, reeking perpetual despair. Oh, and it takes place during the holiday season, in case you didn’t catch that from my catchy title.

To novelize this opening scene, I would need to internalize everything, view it in a whole new way, and invert the process. Maybe I’ll do that at a later date for a writing exercise to highlight the difference.

A little background: I received interest in this script from a producer on the Paramount Studio lot. I used to meet her there, and she’d set meetings and we’d make plans. We pitched a few studios. Nothing stuck. Que sera, sera.

My intention in writing this opening was to paint a haunting image and mood in your mind and psyche. No one got to read this script except for a few studio execs (who probably never bothered to read past the first few pages). I’d like to know what you think of this material. Please let me know if any of the characters come to life for you.

Okay, cue the bluesy saxophone scoring.

CHRISTMAS CITY

EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY

LUSH, GREEN, FULL for as far as the eye can see.

Somewhere the song WHITE CHRISTMAS is being CROONED by a velvet toned Bing Crosby.

RADIO (V.O.): ... I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know...

We follow as graceful a creature as a deer - big eyes, soft brown fur - down the mountainside. Morning fog drifts across SCREEN, mist mingling with the animal’s breath.

A crisp, cold morning.

RADIO (V.O.): Where the treetops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow...

The deer trots out onto a lonely lane of poorly paved road and...

IS OBLITERATED BY A SPEEDING PICK-UP TRUCK.

On contact, the shit-kicker’s front end folds in like an accordion, crushing the Driver. A Redneck Rocket is ejected through the windshield on the passenger side and lands in a mangled heap of flesh and blood.

The truck turns, lurches, flips onto its side. Metal SKIDS across blacktop, an EAR-SPLITTING SCREECH. The pick-up, dented and smashed, slides to a stop, radiator SPEWING steam.

Miraculously the radio is still PLAYING.

RADIO (V.O.): I’m dreaming of a white Christmas...

A case of beer spills out the back one by one like tin soldiers deploying. One punctured beer can SPRAYING white foam and a thin stream of alcohol, rolls to a stop under...

a sign. Cracked asphalt, weeds poking through, reveal this to be a little used back road.

ON SIGN:

BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, HOME OF BETHLEHEM STEEL

CHRISTMAS CITY, USA

The sign is old - circa 1939 - rusted, dented, framed with spiny vines. Judging by the holes, it's even been used for target practice. No one ever got around to pulling the outdated albatross down.

We rise up and over the sign --

ESTABLISHING

The little haven nestled in the distance below. A small thriving burg. Lines of Cape Cods and row-homes frame old fashioned main streets. There's a hospital, even a small college and...

smack dab in the center of all this is an enormous mass of steel girders and brick towers, rising high in the air --

BETHLEHEM STEEL, an old industrial factory long closed down, covered in red rust. Even this is flaking, cracking, slowly disintegrating. Despite decades unused, smoke still plumes out of sections. Sludge water still spills out of ancient pipes.

Other closed down storage facilities and warehouses belonging to the defunct company are sprinkled throughout the area.

The main factory casts a shadow across much of the town.

Like a stain.

EXT. OLD ROAD - LATER

It’s now an accident scene.

STATE TROOPERS cordon the area off with yellow caution tape.

The truck radio is still playing. JINGLE BELL ROCK is in full swing.

RADIO (V.O.): ...bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock...

In the b.g., a BLACK CHEVY SEDAN with flashing police lights slowly rolls into FRAME with the unnerving calm of a predator.

ROURKE NOLTE - battered good looks, sour-faced, detective shield showing - gets out. He wears a worn, heavy black leather coat, collar turned up against the sting of icy lashing winds.

He’s followed by his partner WOJCIECH - big, slightly over-weight, slightly scary... in a thick woolen longshoreman coat. His first name is Stanley, but everyone calls him Wojciech. Even his parents.

ROURKE: Willya take a look at this, Woj?

Wojciech steps around the covered body in the road, completely ignoring it as he eyes the dead deer.

WOJCIECH: Muthafuckah!

With its belly burst and every bone pulverized, every organ gelatinized, the deer looks like a balloon with the air let out of it.

WOJCIECH: Now dat is a crime. Damn waste of good venison.

A fresh-faced STATE TROOPER approaches, note pad in hand.

STATE TROOPER: The deceased are...

Rourke notices the MUSIC as the State Trooper flips through his pad for the names.

RADIO (V.O.): What a bright time, it’s the right time to rock the night away...

Rourke, unable to focus on anything but the music, sours even more than usual.

ROURKE: Dumb schmuck one and dumb schmuck two. Who gives a shit? They’re dead. And the how is pretty fucken self-explanatory, don’tcha think?

The music is aggravating Rourke to no end.

ROURKE: Why is that still playing?

STATE TROOPER: Didn’t wanna disturb the crime scene.

ROURKE: Not a crime scene.

WOJCIECH: Unless you gonna arrest the deer.

RADIO (V.O.): ...Giddy-up, jingle horse, pick up your feet...

The State Trooper chuckles at Wojciech's lament.

ROURKE: TURN THE GOD DAMN MUSIC OFF!

The State Trooper - startled - immediately crosses to the wreckage, gets down on hands and knees, crawls inside and turns the music off.

ROURKE: Thanksgiving barely dead and buried and we got Christmas decorations going up... carolers trolling...

Wojciech wanders over, squats down and pulls the sheet back off the dead man in the road. All that can really be made out amidst the blood and gore -- a bloated beer belly... a baseball cap... a lumberjack flannel over thermal undershirt.

WOJCIECH: Somebody didn't buckle up.

Wojciech looks up at the truck. CONFEDERATE FLAG in the back window, rifles on the gun rack.

WOJCIECH: These good ole’ boys were having themselves a fine ole’ time.

Rourke tries not to notice as Wojciech rifles through the wallet of the dead man. He pilfers two blood-stained one hundred dollar bills, puts the billfold back, stands and nonchalantly looks over at his partner.

WOJCIECH: There any holiday you do like, Rourke?

ROURKE: Cinco De Mayo. Gedda drink beer, eat Mexican.

WOJCIECH: You did that every night, back when you were porkin’ dat lil’ senorita from Tijuana.

An ambulance is pulling in.

Wojciech, bored and cold, is already headed back to the car.

Rourke glances up at the old sign, focusing in on the words CHRISTMAS CITY in between the bullet holes. This gets his venom up. Rourke's eyes reveal true contempt for the town nickname most people can no longer even remember.

A moment later, an icy wind drives Rourke to his car.

EXT. STREET - DAY

The black Chevy cruises over an old steel bridge, leaving behind the nicely manicured lawns and simple family dwellings... turning onto more urban looking real estate. All the cheap, old, prefab, two story section eight housing here look the same, sprinkled with splashes of bad graffiti and overflowing garbage cans.

A SIGN READS: SOUTH TERRACE

Bethlehem’s version of DA HOOD.

PUERTO RICANS, BLACKS and WHITE TRASH - smoking, conspiring and co-mingling - cast hateful glances at Rourke and Wojciech as they cruise through.

This bunch knows who they are.

One Puerto Rican WANNABE gang-banger with his right arm in a plaster cast, steps out into the street after the Chevy passes and yells after the car.

WANNABE: Yeah, we see you, Five-O!

The further away the car gets, the braver Wannabe gets. He throws his MIDDLE FINGER in the air.

WANNABE: Hell with ya, Rourke! And Wojciech... SUCK MY DICK! YOU BROKE MY MUTHAFUCKEN ARM!

EXT. SECTION EIGHT HOME - CONTINUOUS

The Chevy stops across the street from the dwelling.

WOJCIECH: ’Notha freakin’ domestic. Ole’ lady batting practice. Thought we was homicide detectives.

ROURKE (gravel-toned): We’re garbage collectors.

WOJCIECH: God damn, you’re in a foul mood. Gotta get you some Tony Robbins DVDs or sumthin.’

As they climb out the car -- THERE’S A POP! Could be a gunshot.

Rourke whips out his weapon. Wojciech’s on the car radio.

WOJCIECH: Possible shots fired! Requesting back-up.

Wojciech sees Rourke heading towards the house, gun in hand.

WOJCIECH: Should wait.

ROURKE: Pussy.

Wojciech takes out his gun and follows his partner. Rourke KNOCKS on the front door, then steps quickly to the side. Wojciech stands on the other side.

MURDEROUS VOICE FROM INSIDE:

COSTELLO (O.S.): WHAAADDD?

Rourke’s not sure what to say, looks at Wojciech, who shrugs.

ROURKE: DOMINOS...

Wojciech’s look: that’s your big play?

Long BEAT.

COSTELLO (O.S.): I didn’t order no pizza.

Rourke slowly turns the door knob. It's unlocked.

ROURKE: I’m coming in now.

INT. SECTION EIGHT HOUSE - CONTINUOUS

Rourke enters into a dimly lit home, curtains drawn. The effect is perpetual TWILIGHT. It wasn’t a palace to begin with... but it looks like there was a knock down, drag ’em out fight.

COSTELLO - middle-age, thin, White with hepatitis-yellowing skin to match his yellowing undershirt with accompanying cigarette burns - hoists a cheap snub-nose Saturday Night Special in hand. There are tears in his eyes, which are glazed over.

A drug haze.

Costello looks at Rourke and blinks.

COSTELLO: You ain’t no pizza delivery boy.

ROURKE: You ain’t dumb. You know what this is.

Rourke lowers his gun slowly.

ROURKE: Let’s put our guns away and figure this out.

For a second, Costello looks like he’s going to put his gun down.

Wojciech enters, weapon in hand.

Costello's gun comes back up.

ROURKE: Woo...

Wojciech doesn't back down an inch.

WOJCIECH: A wife-beater inna wife-beater. Go figure.

Rourke’s expression to Wojciech now: that ain’t helping shit.

ROURKE: That’s my partner. He ain’t gonna shoot you ’less I tell him to. Woj... you ain’t gonna shoot him?

WOJCIECH (mad-dogging perp): Not unless you tell me to, Hoss.

ROURKE: Holster it.

WOJCIECH: Rourke...

ROURKE: Wojciech!

Wojciech makes a face and pockets his gun.

ROURKE: Wait outside.

WOJCIECH: Man...

Wojciech begrudgingly exits. Rourke places his gun in its holster. Costello still hasn’t put his weapon away. He’s very rattled, holding the gun loosely by his side, tapping it unconsciously against his leg.

ROURKE: Where’s your ole’ lady?

Costello shrugs.

ROURKE: What’s your name?

COSTELLO: Costello.

ROURKE: Need to see her, Costello.

COSTELLO: Wasn’t my fault.

ROURKE: What wasn’t?

Costello leads Rourke over by a coffee table. On it is a syringe, hypodermic needle and other drug paraphernalia, next to a little plastic baggie... brown sugar aka Heroin.

Costello nods sheepishly to what lies on the floor between the coffee table and a ratty couch.

LUCY - a woman of not more than twenty-five, but looks more like forty due to the ravages of hard drugs - is sprawled out on the floor bruised and battered, in a white-ish night gown. But that’s the least of her problems. There’s a hole in her lower back. From the blood splatter pattern on her gown, it’s the exit wound.

The cheap knock-off Oriental throw rug under her BLOSSOMS CRIMSON.

Lucy's bled out.

The woman is clearly dead.

COSTELLO: You know how it is, man. She was just ridin’ me and ridin’ me. I kept telling her, Lucy, shut yer trap! Usually stops when I take my tone. But she wouldn’t stop dis time. I just got the gun out to make her stop, to show her. But, then she hadda go and grab it... It wasn’t me.

ROURKE: So basically she shot herself, got it. Accidents happen.

COSTELLO: Dat's right!

Costello collapses down on the floor, kneeling over his dead woman, cradling her face in his hands.

COSTELLO: You'll be awright, Lucy. Ambulance is on its way. Hold on.

ROURKE: Why don’t you put the gun...

Costello swings the gun up to Rourke’s face.

COSTELLO: WHY DON'TCHA SHUT DA FUCK UP!

Rourke can only watch as Costello’s finger tenses on the trigger. Costello looks at dead Lucy, desperate.

COSTELLO: Save her.

ROURKE: What?

COSTELLO: CPR shit. Come on, man.

Rourke doesn’t want to cash in his only bargaining chip by telling a deranged and emotionally wrought junkie his woman is dead.

COSTELLO: Get her breathing ’gain.

Rourke kneels over the dead woman and does chest compressions, hesitates, looks at Costello.

COSTELLO: Go on, do the rest.

Rourke tilts Lucy’s head back and opens her mouth. The woman’s teeth are bright orange, badly rotted. Rourke leans over and forms a seal with his mouth over the corpse’s mouth. He blows into the body several times, then does more chest compressions.

The sound of a squad car SIREN interrupts this.

Rourke sits up nearly GAGGING.

COSTELLO: Why you stopping, man?

ROURKE: Paramedics’ll be here in a second, do a better job. Got the right equipment.

COSTELLO: Yeah, yeah...

Somewhere deep down, Costello realizes Lucy is gone and those aren't the paramedics coming.

COSTELLO: No, no, no... dis all messed up.

Costello makes a decision.

COSTELLO: Ain't gonna do no more time, can't.

He aims the gun at Rourke again -- COCKS IT.

ROURKE: Don't.

COSTELLO: I jus' can't...

Rourke tenses for the bullet he knows is coming, ready to go for his gun. Also knowing he won't make it.

ROURKE: Oh Shit...

Costello stops, blinks, tries to clear his eyes, takes a hard look at Rourke.

COSTELLO: I know you?

ROURKE: Whad... I dunno. Do you?

COSTELLO: I know I know you.

A light bulb goes off.

COSTELLO: Bethlehem High. Rourke, yeah. Don’t you remember me... Costello? We was on the baseball team together. Come on, senior year?

Rourke has no idea who he is, but goes with it.

ROURKE: Yeah, yeah, puttin’ it together now. Your face is startin’ to come back to me.

Finally, Costello lays his gun down on the coffee table.

COSTELLO: We won the championship senior year on a ball you knocked out the park and a home run by yours truly in the last seconds. Was like sumthin’ outta a movie.

Now Rourke really does remember him.

ROURKE: Costello Strickland.

Yeah, it’s just that kind of small town.

Rourke stands. Costello does too, tears streaming down his face.

SIRENS are right outside now. VOICES can be heard in front of the house.

COSTELLO (mournful): Lucy’s gone, isn’t she?

ROURKE: Yeah, Costello, Lucy’s gone.

Rourke takes out his handcuffs. Costello, resigned, turns around as the Detective puts them on him. As Rourke escorts the Perp out:

COSTELLO: Dat season, that game... best time of my whole damn life.

End of Opening Sequence

Knowing how to read made me want to read.

Because I read, I began to dream...

Until my dreams outgrew the piss-stained walls of the ghetto I was born into.

My mind left the ghetto long before my body ever did.

Many of the people I grew up with never made it out.

Some died with a needle in their arm...

Or found themselves incarcerated on Rikers Island…

Or died in a muzzle flash in the heat of the night.

Reading matters because dreaming matters.

It doesn’t matter if they come true or not, just that you have them.

That you act on them.

In my previous life as a young stuntman, I worked on the VR Troopers TV series. It was produced by Saban, the same company that made Power Rangers, which was right next door. I later worked on that show as well. Yes, I was a Putty—one of the evil foot soldiers who attacked the righteous Rangers every episode.

While working on VR Troopers, I wasn’t allowed to have a pet at the condo I was renting in Las Virgenes Canyon, so I talked production into letting me bring Brownie to set every day. Half the time, we were at Castaic Lake, a park in Valencia near the studio, because that’s where most of the fight scenes were filmed. I would arrive at work in the morning, hand Brownie off to whichever crew member wanted to play with her, and then go into wardrobe. Later, I usually couldn’t find her.

“She’s in makeup,” someone would say. I’d check. Nope. She wasn’t there.

“Oh, she’s in props.” Not there either.

“Try the grip department.” Yeah, I don’t think so.

Brownie was making the rounds. One time, I found her in the producer’s office. Oh boy.

Brownie loved being on set with the crew and cast and going to the park nearly every day. When I stopped working on the show, she’d wake up in the morning like, What’s up? Why aren’t we going to play?

Anyway, I learned something very interesting from my dog. It was at a time when I was segueing out of stunts and into writing screenplays.

Side Note: My first TV writing credit was an episode of Power Rangers. The Japanese action director, Koichi Sakamoto, wasn’t happy with the writing on the series. He had read some of my work and convinced the story editor to hire me when Koichi was going to direct a full episode. Unbeknownst to everyone, I had never watched a single episode of Power Rangers at the time. The story editor wasn’t thrilled about having me forced on him, but it was Koichi’s episode, so he had to deal with it.

The episode was so well received that it was expanded into a full length direct-to-video movie: Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Return of the Magna Defender. I never watched that either.

When the day came to film the episode, I came to set—not as a stuntman, but as a TV writer. Crew and cast congratulated me, slapping me on the back.

It was a good day.

Sorry, I get sidetracked easily.

My daily writing routine was to wake up early, make a stiff cup of coffee, and work on my spec scripts. Some days, I would finish writing, work out, and go about the rest of my day. Other times, I’d finish writing and feel completely drained, struggling to make it through.

One day, I learned why.

I was writing a scene in which my protagonist was in a murderous rage—so much so that he actually killed someone. Suddenly, my dog leaped into my lap, shivering uncontrollably, licking my face incessantly. She was terrified. I eventually calmed her down.

Up until that moment, I had always thought that when I wrote, I was just writing. But now I realized I was going through the emotional stages of my characters. I was experiencing murderous rage. Which is why sometimes I would be worn out after a writing session.

Brownie taught me other things, too—she was constantly surprising me.

She taught me how to just be. Very Zen, I know. I’d lie on the beach in Malibu while she ran up and down the shore, letting the surf chase her back to land. Then she’d come over, covered in sand of course, and lie down next to me. I enjoyed those days in the sun with Brownie.

When she grew old and died, she was in my arms, in the mountains of Lake Arrowhead.

I had her cremated, and her ashes were sprinkled over a hillside.

It’s been years.

I still dream about her.

And right now, as I write this, I feel an echo of that grief.

But Brownie is still with me.