words, words, words

I have an idea for a screenplay that would be fun to write, but I don’t have the time… (more on that later).

It is about gasoline tankers, you know the ones:

(They are called different things in different countries.)

Ok, well, here is the story. The “elevator pitch”

“The year is 2050, the price of gasoline is 200 dollars a gallon, a tanker holds 9000 gallons. If you can hijack one, without blowing it up, the total value of the gasoline, minus the truck, $1,8000,000.”

This would be a easy story to write. If you were lazy, you could even do it using “the formula”, well, here it is:

The tanker drivers:

• White, alcoholic, mildly suicidal driver who lost his wife to petroterrorism. (Is he crazy, or just crazy enough?)
• The tough Latina / love interest driver who “don’t take no shit from nobody”.  I already love this woman.
• The black guy who is driving the truck to pay for his kid’s kidney transplant. (Beat: he is the one who learns of the plot and tries to warn the other two about the dangers, and is ignored. And the black dude dies, in a fiery explosion. (Get used to fiery explosions.)

This would be a great story, there is nothing like suspense that could be generate on having to drive a 2 million dollar bomb around.

The bad guys.

You start off thinking they are from the Arabian Peninsula. But in reality they are …. duh duh duh…. white dudes.

People like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney who are hoarding the oil to finance another war to steal more oil to finance another war to steal more oil… ad nauseum.

So the story in three acts, there is an escalation in the number of hijacking of oil tankers, in one of them the black dude dies, latina woman and white dude fall in love, Latina gets kidnapped and then white alcoholic has his epiphany, goes into the belly of the beast and sets everything on fire by driving his truck into something.   Bad guys burn.  Fade to black.

This is just a rough draft.

I’m still reading “The Grapes of Wrath” and it is spooky how similar the book is to current day America.  It is actually making the book difficult to continue reading.

Here are some comparisons:

I think I’ll stay right here.

But I’ll update the comparison as it plays out.

We had a really nice trip to Uruguay.  We went to a beach town, called “Punta Del Diablo”.   It was very unspoilt, without any high rises, and it was surprisingly dreadlock-free.

I’ve put up a few pictures.

Punta Del Diablo, Uruguay

I think we are going to go to Uruguay in a few hours.

I’ll take pictures and try to hack out some Spanish.  It is so rusty that it sounds like I am speaking some kind of pidgin (or perhaps Galician).

But it is a long weekend here and we are excited to get to see a bit more of South America.

Uruguay sure has a happy flag:

I did a lot of training this week in BJJ and started the University course in Portuguese at UFRGS.

I will be back home in Porto Alegre on Friday.  At least, that’s the plan.

John Steinbeck is “da man”.   I am reading “The Grapes of Wrath” and am very impressed.  He is incredibly skilled.

This book was written during the Great Depression in America.  Specifically, he talks about the rise of big business as well as a the merchant banking class, mass production and the consolidation of small farms and small business.  This book is about the end of the American Dream.  At least, so far… I’m not finished with it.  But I have a feeling that this book is going to be one of my favorites.  Which is really nice.  It is a treat to be reading a book that is so good, that you know it will be a book you will tell others to read.

Here is a quote:

In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid anymore.
(Ch 15)

There is also a great deal of well executed symbolism and metaphor.  But it isn’t forced and it isn’t high-fallutin’.  It just seems to be an extension of the story.

A little more economics crap:

The U.S. dollar has managed to break through all support and is freefalling.
Gold is at a record high.
Oil is at a record high.
Corn is at a record high.
Wheat is at a record high.
Banks are writing down billions of dollars in loses from bad, sub-prime, bundled mortgages.
Food prices are rising because people prefer to drive it rather than eat it.
The dollar is at it’s low, with no bottom in sight.

Also, I gleaned from “The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright, that not only was al-Qaeda not financed by Iraq, but in fact, Osama hated Sadaam.

Whoops.

I quote from “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof”

Brick: Mendacity. You know what that is. It’s lies and liars.

What else could happen?