I want to transfer to win an Emmy. Maybe a golden globe, if Harvey Weinstein is in my corner. I want to transfer because I've exhausted the classes that have anything even remotely to do with my major, at CC. I want to transfer to validate being a writer. There are no production courses here. Like sharks that can't stop moving, like a Woody Allen relationship. I have to keep on moving. I've learned all I can learn from Syd Field's books. My GPA sucked in high school. Why? Simple. My mom died. And I got hooked on Marijuana. She passed away after a long long battle with breast and bone and every other type of cancer, just as I was starting 9th Grade. And well, you try being 15 and your mom being under mud and try studying for a bio test. After a year of being on Zoloft and Prozac and every other pretty pill the psychologist put me on. I had to start "pretending"I was taking them. They were not working. I'd be foggy and slow and like a zombie that wanted to eat darkness. The only thing that worked? Bud. Grass. It perked me right up and I was able to cope and stay with the tide, head over water. The only side effects were laziness and a lack of ambition. By the time Senior year rolled up my GPA was 1.9 and I had no where to go. And that's when thing's changed. I had two options. I could either enroll in a Mexican University and get my degree here. Or I could check myself in rehab. Yes rehab. This wasn't 2013. With Marijuana Legal in Colorado and Washington. Most people now liken puffing on a joint to sipping on a glass of wine. Of course you are a college admissions officer. Others still consider it a malodorous habit that's best not done at all. So I did the whole Nicholson Cuckoo's nest thing. I got therapy. I found writing. Writing got me sober. Yes. I know it sounds like hyperbole. But sometimes life can surprise you. Sometimes magic can be found in an otherwise mundane environment. And it was good. And so it went. Writing had always been in my genes.
My dad was a playwright back in Iran. He had some of his plays put on and even won some contests. Sadly he was prosecuted because he was not a Muslim. His sister was hanged. My aunt. He left Iran in 1979. He left his Olympia and escaped to Mexico. Not being versed in spanish or english. He had to give up his dream of being a writer and figure out a way to eat. Cut to 20 years later. His kid was an extension of himself, like the cut off hand from the Adams Family. And the ghastly hand was off writing short plays. Reading Borges and Tennessee Williams. When I told my father I wanted to be a writer and it was time to saddle back up and go to community college to raise my GPA. He said: "Who do I make the check out to?" So here I am. Almost 4 years sober. Still writing. City College at Santa Barbara has been great. Alongside the few writing for screen and film classes they have, I've expanded my worldview by taking philosophy and photography and. But it's time. Enough foreplay. It's time. Time to further explore and build upon the practices and strategies I've learned this past 2 years. I've read Lajos Egri. Robert McKee. Mamet. Richard Walter. Lew Hunter. I've learned all I can learn from them. It's time to specialize major. Time for an Academic upgrade. My mouth salivates when I read the course descriptions offered to students at your school. Otherwise I won't be able to go to grad school. Won't be able to get a crummy writers assistant job. Won't be able to get on staff. Won't be able to pitch my own show. Won't be able to hit 100 episodes and get to syndication. Won't be able to use TV as a springboard for features. I won't become a better writer. Which is all I really care about at this point. It's time for the big leagues.
My dad was a playwright back in Iran. He had some of his plays put on and even won some contests. Sadly he was prosecuted because he was not a Muslim. His sister was hanged. My aunt. He left Iran in 1979. He left his Olympia and escaped to Mexico. Not being versed in spanish or english. He had to give up his dream of being a writer and figure out a way to eat. Cut to 20 years later. His kid was an extension of himself, like the cut off hand from the Adams Family. And the ghastly hand was off writing short plays. Reading Borges and Tennessee Williams. When I told my father I wanted to be a writer and it was time to saddle back up and go to community college to raise my GPA. He said: "Who do I make the check out to?" So here I am. Almost 4 years sober. Still writing. City College at Santa Barbara has been great. Alongside the few writing for screen and film classes they have, I've expanded my worldview by taking philosophy and photography and. But it's time. Enough foreplay. It's time. Time to further explore and build upon the practices and strategies I've learned this past 2 years. I've read Lajos Egri. Robert McKee. Mamet. Richard Walter. Lew Hunter. I've learned all I can learn from them. It's time to specialize major. Time for an Academic upgrade. My mouth salivates when I read the course descriptions offered to students at your school. Otherwise I won't be able to go to grad school. Won't be able to get a crummy writers assistant job. Won't be able to get on staff. Won't be able to pitch my own show. Won't be able to hit 100 episodes and get to syndication. Won't be able to use TV as a springboard for features. I won't become a better writer. Which is all I really care about at this point. It's time for the big leagues.
