This Is What You Call "Faking an Update"

Well, it's been about a year and a half since I updated this damn thing. Crazy, it used to be a priority to me...for about three weeks. Then, for one reason or another, I just stopped. What made me stop? Priorities, good friends. Priorities.

I hope you enjoyed this. It took a lot of effort.

Yours,

Bates

PS - If you're a potential employer, email me: elijahbates@hotmail.com

Elijah Bates Resume: Writer, Editor, PR-guy...whatever.

A Summer Music Festival Guide of EPIC Proportions!

Greetings once again from the guy who does everything but work at his full-time employment!

I know what you're thinking. "Jeez, Bates! Two posts in two weeks? HAVE YOU GONE MAD?!"

Yes. Yes, I have. And you are the only one with the power to cure me.

Click this link and I'll instantaneously be better:

http://www.craveonline.com/articles/music/04650503/summer_music_festival_preview.html

Don't you understand? You treat the patient, you lose. You treat the Eli, you win.

PS - If anyone from my full-time employment somehow finds this, I'm only kidding. Honestly.

Read my Cannes Film Festival Preview, Won't You?

Greetings all,

I know it's been like 187 days since I last updated this blog, and I know no one's been here for at least a year before that...but go read my article.

Here's the link:

http://www.craveonline.com/articles/filmtv/04650400/cannes_film_festival_preview.html

Thank ye, kindly!

Has This Blog Run Its Course or Is It Just Fate Intervening???

I don't know what happens inside of the mind of the man who lives and thinks like he's a writer (whatever that word even means anymore). When he (or possibly she) hits the point of utter mundane, not even the written word can provide salvation from the soul-crippling boredom of a day gone awry.

Today, I've woken up, put down a sugar-free Red Bull, took my dog for a long walk, watched a few episodes of Man Vs. Wild and Hogan Knows Best, played a few games of Literai on Yahoo, took a shower, ate some beef jerky, string cheese and a 100-cal bag of pop corn, applied for a few jobs, watched the second half of Home Alone, took another walk (this time on my lonesome) up to the beach, laid in the sun and pondered life for a while, texted my best friend Jake back and forth a few times, walked home, played some more Literati, bitched at my girlfriend (who is merely trying to study her ass off), laid upstairs and then came down to my computer and sat waiting for something to pop into my head that I might jot down...and this is what came out.

It really looks like a lot, but it's not, at least in a fulfilling, time-and-attention-consuming sort of way. It's been one of those days where you're just waiting for something to happen, even though I have no friggin' clue who, what, where, when, why and/or how that "something" might be. I've been feeling like that for a while, though it's no one's fault but mine. Maybe it's just my body wanting to be put to work doing something useful. Maybe it's just my heart wanting to fill a family-less holiday void with what will inevitably be my future (kids, family, picket fence, dogs, cats, the whole shit-and-shebang). Maybe it's me struggling to be the 25 I just turned. And maybe it's nothing. Who knows?

Fate is a horrible word, one I've had trouble dealing with since I convinced my dad I was going to be someone great almost ten years ago. But it's a word that we're all forced to live with as well. It's probably a much more hypothetical thing than any of us can comprehend. Like the "beginning" and "end" of the universe, our minds just can't conceive of what the idea really means. I guess that makes sense, seeing as how each of our own personal fates is/are what fills up our lives between the beginning and end.

So what am I getting at here? Honestly? I don't even know, people. I don't even know. I'm just a guy who is really, really bored on a day where I should have just gone surfing. I guess I'll just try not to make that same mistake tomorrow.

And thus the scratch marks came away from his life...but for how long??

The other day, Pat said something to me about writing, I think asking me if I had written much lately. Given that the role of soulless editor in chief consists of mindless busy-writing nonstop (usually for the duration of the 8:30-4:30 day for a freelance slacker such as myself), I usually just selfishly consider that I've written more than anyone else I know, regardless of whether such a fact is true or not. Unfortunately, when I actually sat down and thought about what Pat had asked, I realized that I hadn't really written anything, or at least gotten something into print, more than once in the past few months. I must admit, it was kind of depressing.

But then, I continued to think about it far too long, to the extent that I could possibly considered either A) crazy, B) delusional C) gay or D) so fucking on the ball that I was more right than I had ever been in the history of the world, regardless of whether such a thought made sense or not! Obviously, I was D), so I really decided to crack down and figure it all out. What was it? What was causing me to have such a lack of writing in life? Looking back on the past few months, I had been in charge of two publications (now only one), I had interviewed dozens of famous (Ben Affleck) and honorable (Francis Ford Coppola) and hilarious people (one of the producers of Dragon Wars aka D-Wars) and, in all honesty, I had finally started surfing again which was always one of my key inspirations. So what was it? What was causing a drout in my creative and a barren cupboard of articles?

Life, my friends. Life was causing that drout and I don't at all intend that to come off in a negative fashion. Sometimes, a writer has a plethora of things to write because he/she has a plethora of life stories to back their words. And sometimes, a writer hits a wall where they've written everything they can and can't possibly pump anything else out creative without a recharge. That's where I've been, smack-dab against the wall, with my mind and my heart plugged right into the wall-charger. And charge I have! Through my recent (mostly personal and slightly spiritual) exploration of relationships and religion, of injury and recovery, of work frustration and self-terminations and other various heavy topics in that realm, I was regaining a database of new experiences to base my next string of stories on (or "on which to base my stories").

It never ceases to amaze me how much life is constantly changing, how much my brain seems as though it's constantly evolving and how hard it all is to comprehend. Luckily, I have the love of a good...nay, great woman, the wag of an awesome dog (or his tail at least) and the will to write all down all these observations in ways that may not immediately be apparent. Also, Blogspot finally fixed my account and allowed me to run the backend (i.e. any part of the blog that is not readable by the reader) in a language that was closer to English than Mandarin (I blame the language change and subsequent inability to read any particular part of any page on Google, including the part that says "Language Preference").

Anyways, I hope you will all start visiting the blog again, regardless of my two month absence. I feel invigorated by the last few months and have a lot to tell anyone who has the time to read.

I've had at least five long conversations in the past 24 hours and not one of them was with a person I actually wanted to talk to.

I feel like I've re-written the same interview questions at least a dozen times over the past few days. Working with magazines that are all about celebrity news and such forces me to talk to some of the hottest up-and-comers and also some of the dullest bastards ever to think they had a chance of being great, especially when you're facing the front of a long interrogatory line of mostly unknown TV actors. Even as I sit here and try to think of something original, there are really only so many combinations of questions that can be asked...

"Of all the jobs you've done thus far, is there anything that related to your work on Heroes?"

"I heard you had a couple of movies coming up too?"

"Is working on a show like Criminal Minds a dream come true?"

"Has television always been an enjoyable thing for you to do?"

"Earl Season 3 is hitting the airwaves in about a month. What can we expect from you for the next year?"

"Is there a piece of work you've produced that you feel was drastically under-appreciated?"

"Is it harder to be a Mormon in Hollywood than it is to be a Mormon in Utah?"

"Do you miss those long days at Brandy & Mr. Whiskers?"

"What else are you working on right now?"

...the sad thing is that this is all you need to do a decent interview: a prod of sorts to shock an awkward talk into a living breathing thing. In the world of the forced conversation, the smallest, simplest statements always begin the biggest conversations. One might argue that I'm being lazy or cynical or unoriginal in this approach, but I've written some pretty amazing questions for some supposedly amazing people and have absolutely nothing come of it. Time and time again, I get a whopper set for someone special, a real doozie ready to wallop some celeb right in the mind, only to get a measly "I don't really know, I couldn't say" in return. It's depressing. It's disenchanting. It's disturbing. But mostly, it's just lame.

When it comes to any interview that isn't with someone you already love and understand, stick with the basics until you're buddies, support the person's project and have some laughs. Then, when they're not paying attention, slip that slimy question about the Latter Day Saints in there, the personal secret of sorts (the type that's listed ten times over at any person, place or thing's Wikipedia page). They'll have to talk for ten minutes just to clear up their awkward silence. Just stay quiet until you can't stand it, as many times as you can. It's hilarium, my friends. But also a damn fine read.

Right???