So, it really is true — when one is spending all day trying to write stories, updating a blog seems like the last thing you’d want to do.

Basically, I’m writing fiction instead of the blog right now. Which is good because that’s what the whole Purpose Thing shebang is about, but it makes this stop on the intertubes pretty quiet.

So, um, to all four of you that read this: I’m on Twitter. That’s the best place to see me (periodically) give status updates as to what the hell I am up to.

Anyway, the latest:

1. The TV Pilot my buddy Oren and I finished came out pretty decently given that it’s a new ballgame for me. Feedback has generally been quite positive. The problem is the concept – it’s not not very marketable (which we knew going in) so in the meantime I’m having some peeps I know through my last job check it out, and it’s served as a good awakening to the fact that I Like Writing Television. Who knew? After I finish the feature I’m working on I think I’m going to write a spec TV episode or two to have as samples, and the play may indeed trying to get work that way.

Riveting information, I know.

2. The Feature. It’s got a title, I haven’t gotten bored with the idea, and I’m refining the outline as we speak. Will have the detailed outline ready by end of day Saturday, and it should take about 12-14 days to write. Praying for end of April for first draft, but likely right thereafter.

It’s pretty dark, very indie, and the more I think about it the more it seems like something I should make. Not something that would sell (least not for much anyway). Only 5 main characters and the performances will make or break it. So in addition to the TV thang, I’m realizing I need to direct a feature. Even if it is for no money and doesn’t turn out so great, filmmaking was always the goal, it will continue to be the goal, and even sitting around writing all day – while essential to the overall process – will eventually feel like masturbation just on its own.

Wes Craven has become a touchstone in terms of Fuck Yeah This Is Doable-ness for me. Doesn’t hurt that he made one of my most favorite films of all time, but the guy didn’t even get really going until his late thirties. Dunno why, but I’m really feeling that big 3-4 I’m going to turn this year, and success later in life like Craven’s makes me feel alright.

3. New music is afoot (no, really!). Not L’orangerie Stank… originals. Several new songs written, one in the process of being recorded. I don’t know if I will call this project Uneasy Lies the Head – that names carries some baggage in my head since we could never get a live show going and whatnot – but whatever happens the older ULTH songs will be incorporated. And on Angelman’s previous advice (which was backed up by Trent Reznor no less) the plan is to add some new tunes to the previous selections available here and put an EP out on iTunes.

Why? Cause.

4. And lastly… the girlfriend and I have decided to go vegetarian. “Big fucking deal”, most of you are probably saying (or perhaps “Vegetarian’s for pussies; Vegan is where it’s at”). In any case, for us it was a pretty big decision — I’ve historically been a huge whore for bacon, steak, chicken, shrimp, etc. But, I have grown tired of the food hangover I now associate with meat products… and though I’m somewhat loathe to admit it (the denial mechanism that lets you enjoy meat products runs pretty deep), the animal cruelty aspect has been gnawing at me for a bit now.

So, this is Day Two of me as a Vegetarian. I’ve been craving a Salami sandwich from Larchmont Wine & Cheese all day (if you do eat meat, this is the best sandwich in Los Angeles). The craving sucks, but what are you gonna do. Gonna tame it with a little veggieburger action and a trip to Costco.

Which reminds me, the lady and I will also need to stop at the market. I need to pick up some Bacon Salt.

No, I mean it this time. Check this shit out.

Hat tip to Chris Randall at analog industries.

The Jesus and Mary Chain are fucking awesome. There’s no real way to get around it.

In the interest of paring down unnecessary gear, I’m thinking of selling The Most Beautiful Guitar I’ve Ever Owned. It’s a guitar that sounds and looks amazing, but that amazing sound is not one that somebody like yours truly is really going to go to very often. It’s still in mint condition for a reason.

That’s not to say I’m done with lusting after guitars, however. I’ve wanted a semi-hollow body for longer than I wanted a Telecaster, and the recent acoustic purchase has only enhanced that desire. There appear to be some decent guitars in that realm avail for decent money (though they will require swapping out pickups). Hmmm.

In other news, writing TV is fucking fun — especially the kind of soapy/John Hughes-y kind of pilot I’m working on now. Something about the quick set-up and pay-off of television that makes it a blast. A lot less stressful than I’ve found features the last few years.

Speaking of features, the first feature is progressing. It’s a slog to get through this first draft; given how much I’ve petered out in this stage of things the last few projects, I suppose this shouldn’t be a big surprise (and frankly, it’s not that big of one), so it comes down to just focus, repetition, and Gettin ‘Er Done.

Oh, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is the shit, in case any of you didn’t know. Blues-folk noise rock. Great shit.

If only somebody would do that kind of thing but add drum machines and synthesizers.

So, a few of you apparently realize that I dig the Nine Inch Nails.  (I don’t know how anybody would figure this out, but what’re you gonna do).

Anyway, something interesting happened this morning. Trent Reznor (who is Nine Inch Nails, as the liner notes for Pretty Hate Machine remind you) updated his blog on the band’s website with an entry about how he’d wanted to film their current tour in James Cameron’s new 3-D system, so they could release it in theatres and on video. It didn’t happen (thanks mostly to Interscope Records, it sounds like), but the pot-stirring nugget was at the bottom of the entry:

This was an amazing tour and production – certainly the best thing I’ve ever been involved with and likely the final tour for NIN on this scale…

The shows we have announced in 2009 and any more that may be announced will be a completely different approach with some different personnel and will likely be the last for the foreseeable future.

Yep. Nine Inch Nails. One of the best live shows you’ll ever see. Getting ready to call it a day on the big venue rock n’ roll touring thang.

When I first read this, I was bummed out; Nine Inch Nails is a band I came to love right in college as I entered a massive period of transition in my life, and Reznor’s music helped me get a handle on feelings I didn’t know what to make of at the time.

Music is great like that; it’s one of the things that makes it such a unifying art form. And live shows, for me, have always been a way of tapping into that emotional immediacy you identify with certain pieces of music.

On the other hand, I was also excited by the news. Touring has got to be grueling, no matter how successful the artist. And I’ve got to believe that at this point, playing “Head Like A Hole”, “Hurt” and “Closer” aren’t the joy they once were; you play those kind of songs because they’re what people expect when they go see NIN — you don’t play them because they’re what excited you.

And for some of us that have been seeing Reznor play live shows for 15 years or longer, I think it’s safe to say that many of us cherish the moments in between the standards — the new and surprising moments of a live show — rather than the standards themselves.

This last tour pushed the audience in ways I didn’t expect, with selections from both the Year Zero and Ghosts I-IV records. It’s rare that an artist is able to, in the middle of a show, completely switch up the way in which they’ve contextualized themself and make it work. Some people grumbled at the shows I saw when the instrumental Ghosts sections came around; for me, they were the highest of the highlights. A moment when the live experience ceased to be about the lyrical literalism concerts lean toward — audiences chanting “Fist Fuck” in unison — and instead became an organic experiment in mood and texture. Moments of real musical exploration, that required those of us in the audience to not simply recite the songs we already knew in our head, but to stop and listen.

I’m not sure what the next phase of Nine Inch Nails will be, live or otherwise.  And I’m not ignorant to the reality that these grand tours are extraordinarily expensive to put on, and given that Reznor is footing the bill himself there may be a fiscal component to this decision. But I do know, that while Trent Reznor has brought his career and music and band back from the dead over the past four years, he hasn’t done things the easy way. He didn’t simply put up the stage show from The Fragile days, and run it into the ground playing shows for $150 a seat. He didn’t release a Greatest Hits with one new song to justify an extra year of touring. He’s kept putting out records (some fun, some challenging), he’s experimented with new methods of distribution, and tried to find new ways to engage his fans — all the while being mindful of pushing himself creatively, so he never finds himself in the Mick Jagger “Satisfaction” trap.

So while yours truly is excited and nervous (terrified?) about the transition gauntlet I’m about to enter, I’m excited to see that one of my favorite artists is looking to close one door for himself, to see where the next one will lead him.

I may like it. I may hate it. But that’s really incidental. The truth of it all is that artists create. It’s what they do. And each and every strong artistic voice out there following its path and pushing hard to redefine and refine itself is a boon for each and every one of us, no matter what we think of the work itself.

So cheers, Mr. Reznor.  It’s been a blast being on the trip thus far, and I look forward to whatever comes next.

George Lucas started all of this.

First with his Star Wars prequels, which took the bloom off the rose.

Those of us that came of age in the 1980’s were bummed out, sure, but hey, it was just for kids in the first place we said. And though we realized Lucas was taking advantage of our love for his previous work, we gave him a pass.

Then came the announcement of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Yeah. That one. It would be okay, we reasoned. Lucas may have gone crazy, but Spielberg would save the day.

Then the movie came out. And the rose was no longer merely un-bloomed. It had been vomited on, crucified, and set on fire.

But hey, trying to relive past feelings was a wasteful exercise anyway, right? So write off movies entirely.

The only thing left? The final, untainted element of my adolescence, that had not yet soiled itself?

Guns N’ Roses.

Yeah, I was one of those kids. One of the ones whose universe was rocked by Appetite for Destruction. Whose concept of idyllic love and melodramatic tragedy were formed by “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “November Rain”. Who found voice for my own suburban angst and frustration in the music of W. Axl Rose, Slash, Duff “Rose” McKagen, Izzy Stradlin’, and Steven Adler.

And through it all, through Gilby Fucking Clarke (Rockstar Supernova, dude? Really?), The Spaghetti Incident?!, and even the NuGN’R shows, I was still on board.

One part of it was that I could always find reasons to justify my continued adulation (Nine Inch Nail’s Robin Finck was in GNR 3.0 — and I’d been a fan of his almost as long as Slash! That works!). Another part of it was because The Legend was always more important than the mundane reality.

But ultimately, it was because the recording catalog of Guns N’ Roses had remained static in my mind; pure. It still represented all of those things it had for me when I was a kid, because the perpetual delay of Chinese Democracy has essentially rendered the band unable to fuck up my memories. They couldn’t let me down in the most meaningful way — with the music — because they hadn’t released anything since the classic lineup called it quits.

See, it is easy to view nostalgia crash-grab tours as separate from the music that inspired them, when the music itself has been frozen in time. Crazy Dreadlocked Guy gotta eat, you know. No shame in doing the cover band thing.

But today, that changed. Today, Chinese Democracy became official. It’s coming out November 25th.

As a motherfucking Best Buy Exclusive.

I won’t bother going into how ridiculous a Guns N’ Roses record coming out at Best Buy is, anymore than I would bother talking about ridiculous a Sears Sex Pistols Box Set would be. It’s obvious, and you as a reader are either going to get it, or not, and care, or not.

But me… I care. Because if music is memories, an instant access to emotional touchstones in our lives, then something died today.

No, the old albums won’t change. My seminal life moments that were set to Guns N’ Roses songs aren’t chemically modified in my brain.

But something has shifted. The sliver of my adolescent self, that still believed in Sex, Drugs, and Rock N’ Roll, has to be honest now. That small slice of me that still wanted to believe Axl Rose has some secret Ethic of Artistic Purity, that he’d gone Brian Wilson on us these past 15 years, and was a more meaningful artist because of it, has to own up. And the last fraction of myself, that has tried to find solace in my own past, versus taking on and owning my own future, has to give up the fight.

When everything that you used to be is burned away, some call it purification. I’m calling it Chinese Democracy.