Writer's Group discussion

Intro

Some people love my work. Mostly old people and prudes. Others think I’m a jerk off, which is mainly everyone else. That’s why I don’t like telling people what I do for a living. I say I work as a film editor and leave it at that - which technically I am. But not in the cool way, like actually putting together a movie or TV show. Nope, I edit films that have already been made. I’m the guy that cuts out your favorite parts when movies make their way to your local cable station. I take out the nudity, the blood, the violence, the cursing… you know the good stuff. Mind you, I’m not the one that decides what needs to be replaced. That’s the beautiful work of those wonderful minds over at the FCC. However I still need to do my job.

Mine is not the how or why. Mine is just the do or die.

For the most part it breaks my heart to ruin the best parts of films. Bloodless Braveheart. Ehh. Curse free Carlen standup. Bor-ing. Nipples no more for Jesse Spano’s slutty strutting? No thank you. I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Now there is one part of my job I thoroughly enjoy. I know it’s going to sound strange at first – but hear me out. I love taking out the cursing. You might be asking, “Why, jerk off?” Well I’ll tell you why. Because I get to replace those words with any word I want – as long as they’re not foul of course. So “Jesus Christ!” becomes “Cheese and rice!” Fucktard becomes “fart head”, “cock sucker” into “crud bucket”, so on and so forth. Some I’m proud of. Others not so much.

The days of bleeping are over. People get pissed at that. Leave that sort of monkey work to the sitcoms and late night talk shows. Usually bleeps gets a laugh, but that’s the last thing you’re going for when our hero is telling the villain just how much he despises him before he blows the guys brains out (not that you’re going to see that either. I’ll just cut away and you’ll hear something that vaguely resembles a gunshot. Cut to commercial.)

Chapter 1

Back from the break, I have a confession to make. I’m getting burned out. Big time. I’m tired of finding creative, suitable replacements for pussy, shit, fucker, bitch, or asshole anymore. So I slack. Come up with some non-sense word or ones that just happens to rhyme. You mother trucker. Eat ship. Or simply wussy. For these reasons, that’s why people hate me. Every now and then I’ll get a good one in, but lately it’s a no go. We’re talking lowest common dominator slacking here – George W. Bush style. So I did what any red blooded American does when they get bored at their job. I turned to drugs.

Coke. Pot. Acid. Cheese. Shrooms. Whippets. Pills. Booze. Pretty much anything that didn’t involve needles. Those things scare me. But that ended up being a bad idea, too. I’d be so out of my mind, I was editing films down to 30-minute, Heavy Metal, Pink Floyd induced rides through complete non-coherence. Luckily no one really wants to do my job (and my boss is where I got most of my drugs anyway, so he couldn’t complain that much about my poor editing decisions). Needless to say, I was allowed to stay if I cleaned up my act. Which I did – at work. The only plus from the whole things was that I sold a bunch of bootleg copies of my drug induced film fantasies to local stoners. If you wanted to see Die Hard: The Rock Opera or the laser light show version of Fight Club, I was your man. Marsellus Wallace in Alice in Wonderland – done. Basic Instinct, soundtrack by Phish – enjoy. I even made my own personal highlight reels of headshots, cuss words and best breasts. That lasts one was my bread and butter, man. Teenagers ate that one up!

But when the drugs went to the wayside, so did the “stoner cuts”. Hence I’m back to square one again. Creatively numb. So now, with a little extra scratch in my pocket, I need something new to get my creative juices flowing again. It was time to become un-bored again and I had no idea how to do that.

However my lack of inspiration didn’t last long. I was at Jonny’s for lunch. You know, home of the Gut Buster (that wonderful creation where a brat is filled with cheese, wrapped in bacon and deep fried). God bless. So I’m chowing down on this manna from heaven when it happens. This dueshe bag of a guy must have really pissed off his dirty ass girlfriend. I say dirty because she was eating the same thing as I was. But I digress. So she goes off on Captain D-Big without remorse. The words that poured out of this girl’s mouth. Unholy filth. Absolute vulgarity. Pure poetry.

While I couldn’t use the diarrhea that was spewing from her face hole, they inspired me. I started dreaming of new combinations of words that never crossed my mind – even when I was completely stones out of it. Lacking a pen and paper, I typed as many obscenities as I could remember into a text message on my phone. I was surprised with how many I could recall, but even more surprised when my phone auto-filled the word “gonorrhea.” Who knew? Taking these words, I started out on an ill-conceived mission to rediscover the lost art of cursing.

Out here in Hollywood you’ll hear all kinds of bizarre “hobbies” these rich people have. I won’t go into all the sordid details. We’ve all heard the rumors – gerbils, removed rib cages, Dr. Monroe’s island stuff, whatever. Who knows fact from fiction at this point. We can thank the Internet rumor mill for that. I don’t want to compare myself to these people for a number of reasons. Mainly I’m not some rich, bored fuckoff. I work hard. I do OK out here, which is probably better off than a lot of other people in the country. But I don’t feel like I’m “getting ahead” or any of that bull. But sadly now, I think I might be in the same category as some of the biggest drama queens out here.

So my favorite little pastime doesn’t require a lot of money or crazy contraptions, in fact I really don’t need anything – except a girl. I don’t care if she’s pretty, ugly, fat, short, black, white, brown, yellow or even sometimes paid for, just as long as I can get her to sleep with me. I know what you’re thinking, “This guy’s addicted to sex or some other perverted thing.” But that’s not true. I don’t even really care about the sex, although it is a nice bonus. No, I care about the pillow talk. I’m not talking about the lovey-dovey-smoochie-smoochie crap. My pillow talk has only one objective: to piss the girl off till she loses it. So I make none to flattering comments about her various body parts, her lack of morals (and self control, I mean I just banged her on the first date – which I tell her, too), how drunk I am and would no way be with her if I wasn’t. So on and so forth. At this point I’m usually receiving a verbal beat down of epic proportions. And I just sit there and take it. Let it all soak in. Then I write it down, hoping my next gem is tucked away between all the “assholes” and “shitbag” comments that were thrown my way. Inevitably, the girl storms out and I’m left with a goldmine of vocabular ore to hammer out.

At this point let me point out one thing. I’m not a jerk. I’m just a desperate guy trying to keep up with the demands of my job (and those of the viewers). This isn’t where I saw my career going. I’m don’t like this. I wish there was another way. But honestly, I don’t have any other ideas right now. I want to flip the channel so to say, but can’t find the remote. This is going to get ugly.

Nice one. It's really ridiculous that people are paid to take out the sex, drug abuse, violence, nudity and bad language from films. It's a brilliant idea to have someone perfect their craft in the way you describe. "Vocabular ore to hammer out" - love that phrase. Keep going.