When a girl is born,
layers of her soul are stripped off
and sent into the atmosphere.

The lady-shaped shadows
flutter out into tailors’ workshops
and textile factories, into

closets and shops
where garments dangle, bodiless
skins. Like dress patterns,

the cross-sections of soul
crinkle as they meet fabric, pressing
themselves into being.

There comes a time
in a girl’s life when a gown is needed.
She will be married,

or will attend a grand
dance or party. There is only one dress
for her, and it waits

for her to select it, to
occupy its fabric as muscles stretch flesh.
If she chooses the right

dress, that one dress
lined with her soul, she will know it
by her anatomy’s instant

and perfect alignment.
She will know that she has been formed
in order to fill it out

As per usual with most of his novels, there’s a rash of disappearing characters, cryptic threats, violent snuff films, grotesque sexual abuse and a total lack of any positive emotion within the narrator (yawn).

Oscar Wilde once said “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” For Wilde there were actually many things he considered to be the WORST things about life, but this quote in particular rings true in this town, in this day and age, in the entertainment industry specifically. I mean, with TMZ, the tabloids and paparazzi, not too mention The Emmy’s, The Golden Globes, and The Academy Awards—one thing is for certain—actors LOVE to be talked about and recognized.

Maybe we enjoy the secret thrill of watching a once-cute child actress blossom into a buxom sex-symbol only to get bloated on whiskey and cocaine and her own radioactive ego, left to crash and burn like a kamikaze bisexual and flush what’s left of her toxic soul down a shit-stained toilet. Maybe… but then again maybe not.

Executives and Greedheads around this town tend to burst into flames when they’re told they should Respect their writers. After nearly a decade of sheer desperation, 2010 has proven the most lucrative year for me yet as a paid, working screenwriter here in L.A. The catch is, my checking account is still running on fumes and I might have to siphon gas from some fat-cat’s Lexus in order to drive my car off Mulholland Dr.