Playwright | Joshua James

I’m deep into a project, writing like a danged madman, so the blog will have to undergo radio silence for awhile, perhaps until Labor Day … please check back then, so we can exchange some news, tell a joke or two, and enjoy each other’s company.

Meanwhile, I will be dancing my fingers over the keyboard …

Take care, y’all … talk soon.

There’s a new story up at Popcorn Fiction.

“Elena Tropp’s “Me (from before)” imagines a few pages from the journal of a woman dealing with life after leaving the grid. Okay, after everyone leaves the grid.”

A handy Link file of my online written monologues, short plays and sketches and the like … enjoy!

Written by Josh James -

And don’t forget I have a couple actual books you can order The THE Plays and Spooge to read in the privacy of your own home, heheheh. Click HERE for more information.

From “Seinfeld” to “Family Guy”: Revenge of the TV Writers - WSJ.com
Hell hath no fury like a TV writer scorned.

With more network shows premiering this fall than in any of the past three years, and original cable shows continuing to multiply, more and more writers are creating TV episodes—and poking needles into a few voodoo dolls along the way.

RTRH: From “Seinfeld” to “Family Guy”: Revenge of the TV Writers - WSJ.com

From Zen Habits - The Little But Really Useful Guide to Creativity | zen habits
No matter what kind of creative type you are — writer, painter, musician, marketer, blogger, photographer, designer, parent, business owner — you are likely always looking for inspirations, for ways to let loose your creative genius.

* Play.
* Don’t consume and create at the same time — separate the processes.
* Shut out the outside world.
* Reflect on your life and work daily.
* Look for inspiration all around you, in the smallest places.
* Start small.
* Just get it out, no matter how crappy that first draft.
* Don’t try for perfect. Just get it out there, asap, and get feedback.
* Constantly make it better.
* Ignore the naysayers.
* But let criticism help you grow.
* Teach and you’ll learn.
* Shake things up, see things in new ways.
* Apply things in other fields to your field, in ways not done before.
* Drink ridiculous amounts of coffee.
* Write all ideas down immediately.
* Turn your work into play.
* Play with kids.
* Get out, move, see new things, talk to new people.
* Read wildly different things. Especially stuff you disagree with.
* Get lots of rest. Overwork kills creativity.
* Don’t force it. Relax, play, it will start to flow.
* Allow your mind to wander. Allow distractions, when you’re looking for inspiration.
* Then shut them off when you’re going to create.
* Do it when you’re excited.
* When you’re not, find something else to be excited about.
* Don’t be afraid to be stupid and silly.
* Small ideas are good. You don’t need to change the world — just change one thing.
* When something is killing your creativity, kill it.
* Stop reading creativity advice, clear away everything, and just create.
* Most of all, have fun doing it.

At the Movies, which used to be called Sneak Previews and starred Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, ends its run this weekend and I couldn’t be more bereft … I learned about movies from watching those two guys, who defended their choices voraciously, championed cool little movies and even recommended trashy films if they were fun (Ebert famously defended Flash Gordon) and brought film discussion to everyone, not just those who read fancy magazines …

There’s a breakdown of the history of the show called At the Movies by any other name… - The Globe and Mail
This weekend, the landmark movie-review show At the Movies will air its final episode, as hosts Tony Scott and Michael Phillips take on Eat Pray Love, and, appropriately, The Expendables. Although Disney announced it was pulling the plug on the 35-year-old show last March, the program, through different names, hosts and corporate entities, has proven so surprisingly resilient that eulogies may be premature. As the old monster movies used to conclude: The End … Or is It?

RTRH: At the Movies by any other name… - The Globe and Mail

Rest In Peace, At The Movies …

Okay, forgive me but I’m gonna pimp some of my work that’s currently in publication.

If you dig fast, funny short plays, my collection The THE Plays is now available through Original Works Publishing, just click HERE for more information.

It’s a raw and fun selection of my pieces, I think you’ll dig them.

“The THE Plays” a short play collection by Joshua James

The THE Plays features the following works:
THE FIGHT
THE DANGER
THE PAP
THE ITCH
THE RACE
THE VIEWING

And contains strong language and adult situations. Enjoy them, they’re a lot of fun.

In addition, you can also order SPOOGE: The Sex & Love Monologues, one of my more produced full length plays …

SPOOGE: The Sex & Love Monologues by Joshua James
“A sprightly, well-crafted divertissement… the writing is crisp and clever…” - NYTHEATRE.COM

SPOOGE: The Sex & Love Monologues

by Joshua James

A comic meditation on the sexual instinct, from boys to girls, men to women, same-sex to shoe-sex, from candlelit romance to straight out humping. The Sex & Love Monologues has it all. SPOOGE is a lacerating, humorous examination of lust and love, a wacky sexual journey through the dirty thoughts everyone has but few will be willing to admit.

If you need a new monologue or raunchy sketch, Spooge is the play for you, dude …

So support indie theatre, playwrights and raw work that pushes it to the edge, please order a copy today.

Thank you.

Night Shift (1982) - Memorable quotes

Bill: I’m an idea man Chuck, I get ideas, sometimes I get so many ideas that I can’t even fight them off!

—-
Bill: So there I was at the Blackjack table with all my wash ‘n’ dries… did I tell you I had they idea for them first?

—-
Bill: OK, here’s an example. Watch out, stand back.
[speaks into tape recorder]
Bill: This is Bill. Idea to eliminate garbage: edible paper. You see, you eat it, it’s gone. Eat it, it’s out of there!

—-
Bill: What if you mix the mayonnaise in the can, WITH the tunafish? Or… hold it! Chuck! I got it! Take LIVE tuna fish, and FEED ‘em mayonnaise! Oh this is great.
[speaks into tape recorder]
Bill: Call Starkist!

—-
Bill: You tellin’ me to shut up?
Chuck: I’m telling you to shut up! I will tell your recorder so that you don’t forget!
[Chuck picks up tape recorder and turns it on]
Chuck: Hello, this is Chuck to remind Bill to SHUT UP!

—-
Bill: We’re all adults here - we can talk about this openly…
[writing on chalkboard]
Bill: PROSTITUTION! But what does that mean really? Sometimes it helps to understand a word if you break it down, so let’s do that now shall we? Pros… it doesn’t mean anything, you can forget about that… Tit, I think we all know what that means, Tu, two tit and TION of course, from the Latin to shun… to say uh-uh no thank you anyway I don’t want it, to push away… it doesn’t even belong in this word really.

—-
Leonard: Oh, that Barney Rubble. What an actor.

—-
Belinda Keaton: Bill, Bill, are you all right? Did you break anything, Bill?
Bill Blazejowski: I caught an updraft.
Chuck Lumley: Are you ok?
Bill: Yeah, I’m all right, don’t worry, I’m all right, fortunately the ground broke my fall.

—-
Chuck Lumley: As we sit here and idly chat, there are woman, female human beings, rolling around in strange beds with strange men, and we are making money from that.
Bill Blazejowski: Is this a great country, or what?

—-
Bill Blazejowski: What’s our job? We like drive around and pickup stiffs, or what? Is that what we are supposed to do?

—-
Bill: [Chuck is spitting on himself in the jail cell] Chuck, come on - it looks bad in front of the other guys!
Chuck Lumley: So what am I running for, cell president?
Bill: No!… they have that?

—-
Chuck Lumley: [reads the forms that Leonard, the day shift guy left] Name of the deceased… something Polish?

Back in the day, you waited Tuesday night in Astor Place for them to bring out the new copies of the Village Voice, because it was just that awesome …

Now the Voice is online, of course, and you don’t need to wait for it, and it’s changed muchly since being taken over by corporate interests and just doesn’t do it for me now (can’t speak for anyone else, of course), but back in the day, it was very cool … Among other things, there was a regular column called Shelter by Toni Schlesinger which was just about the different apartment deals various people have in New York.

Which is very New York, in most places in America, no one cares how much rent anyone else pays, really, or how they got the deal. In New York, you always want to know a great rental deal and how the people landed it.

So the series of columns was about that, allegedly, but always the interviews would take a unique turn and go to unexpected places. I’d been reading these columns ever since I moved to New York, and finally in ‘05 the Samurai Lady and I decided to submit our deal for consideration.

Toni accepted, came out and interviewed us. A very eccentric lady, though sweet, and I wouldn’t characterize it as an interview, per se, she really just wandered around and … well, I’ll let you read it yourself. Here’s the link and a snippet:

Sun on Woman - Page 1 - NYC Life - New York - Village Voice

Do people wear tattoos in Japan?Only gangsters. [Tomoko] Now, more other people.

You love the sun, he said.[Tomoko] Yes, I like to hang laundry in the sunlight. I just love the smell of it, kind of dry, clean. I love to take a nap in the sun. In Japan, my mom was hanging laundry on a balcony where we lived. I took a nap by her side. My dog was sleeping there too. [Joshua] I’m more the cave type. [Tomoko] He had blankets over his window. [Joshua] That was in the Upper West Side apartment.

The interview gets a tad surreal after that. Read the whole thing here: Sun on Woman - Page 1 - NYC Life - New York - Village Voice

Toni was fun, though, I must say. And it was cool to be in the paper. A lot has happened since then, and it’s interesting to look back now at the Samurai Lady and I before we became parents, when I was still throwing myself at the wall that is theatre, and hear what we have to say. Now we’re parents, of course. So in a way, I look back and go, heheh, you silly kids.

We don’t have the purple microwave any longer, it died and we had to buy a new one, and they don’t make them in purple anymore, which is too bad. But purple is still her favorite color.

They discontinued the series once some corporation bought the Voice, which I always thought was sad, it was a column about a uniquely New York City interest, and written by the same. Toni’s since put together a book or two of her Shelter interviews, it’s out there if you want to read up … a fascinating look at city living, I think.

Carson Reeves over at ScriptShadow, for those who read him, is taking A Look Back at 10 Scripts and How They Performed At The Box Office:
“Back in the day, only a chosen few – those employed by the studio or those who worked on the film – had the privilege of reading a script before the movie came out. As such, only a few people were able to boast about their dead-on assessment of a great script or dribble out excuses for why the amazing screenplay they found turned into a giant piece of komodo dragon dung. However now, with the proliferation of screenplays on the web, anybody can do it! As you know, I haven’t shied away from giving my opinion on a few screenplays, and since the site’s been up, a lot of those projects have since made it into theaters. So I thought, why not go back and compare my original take to the eventual result. I’m not trying to make some grand statement here, but it’s time to own up to where I was wrong and gloat about where I was right. So I give you…ten screenplays I reviewed on Scriptshadow, their critical and box office fate, and why they either succeeded or failed.”

It’s interesting to do the script to screen gutcheck, I highly recommend it … I read some of those scripts, and you can learn a lot in seeing how it translates … go read the rest here: A Look Back at 10 Scripts and How They Performed At The Box Office: