Thirteen facts about My Damage

My Damage, 3 Body Problem, Barcelona

Hermosa Beach Pier, October 2023

There’s something I want to share with you, but I’m afraid to tell you because I don’t want to jinx it. It’s about making a movie.

The secret to making a movie is that lots of people know how to make a movie but no one knows how movies get made. I believe the key to making a movie is convincing yourself there’s no chance it will ever get made.

There are so many obstacles, you have to really believe it won’t happen because as soon as you allow yourself to hope, the film gods will transform that hope into something truly awful, like a vine that climbs into your dreams and strangles the life out of them.

I’m not kidding. Hollywood is infamous for turning “What if…” and “Wouldn’t it be cool…” into a toxic cloud, a pandora’s box, a cenobite’s puzzle that will sink its hooks into you and tear you to pieces. You could say that’s what Hollywood is for.

I’ve seen it happen. If you’ve lived in LA, then you have, too. Maybe you’ve lived some version of this.

You’ve definitely overheard people talk about their movie projects in coffee shops and hear them say things like, “It’s definitely going to happen,” and they might even be holding a check in their hand with lots of commas and lots of zeros and the only correct response is, “You fool,” because now it’s definitely not going to happen and a year from now they’ll be out of the game, out of LA, waiting tables in a Simi Valley Applebee’s and the worst thing is they won’t even know it’s over because they keep having good meetings.

Another secret: No one has bad meetings in Hollywood.  

If you want to make a movie in LA you have to dedicate yourself to it without hope—not because you expect something will come of it, but because you like doing dumb things with your friends.

I like doing dumb things, so let’s start with the facts and stick with the facts so I don’t jinx the project into oblivion:

1. I’ve never made a movie, but I’ve written plenty of screenplays. When you work at an advertising agency in LA, like I did for many years in my 20s and 30s, you have to keep a new pilot or script that you’ve written on company time in your desk drawer at all times. It’s in the by-laws. I’ve even optioned one or two of them.

2. Around the time I was wrapping up Do What You Want, Paul Rachman reached out to me. Paul is the director of American Hardcore as well as some of your favorite music videos. Paul told me how much he loved My Damage, the book I wrote with Keith Morris, especially the parts set in Hermosa Beach, and he had an idea. He wanted to make a movie based on My Damage except it wouldn’t be a documentary but a feature film based on Keith’s childhood, a coming of age story set in Hermosa Beach in the 1970s. The movie would end where Black Flag begins. I told Paul I thought it was a brilliant idea.

3. I met Keith and Paul met for lunch at Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood to discuss the movie like some old Hollywood hot shots. It was going to be an indie film based on Keith’s life. Paul was going to direct. I would write the script. We agreed to move forward. We all drank iced tea.

4. I went to work on the script. I didn’t know what to expect. I’d never adapted a script before. I was shocked that I was able to get a screenplay out of the first 75 pages of My Damage. I loved doing it. But there were gaps. I needed more stories from Keith.

5. I met up with Keith and he told me about the time he hitchhiked to Hollywood to see Black Oak Arkansas. He told me about the time he drove a truck for the Temptations and briefly became their tour manager. They’re great stories. I can’t believe they’re not in the book.

6. I have my own history with Hermosa Beach. I lived in Manhattan Beach and Playa del Rey in the late 90s and early 00s. I’ve been to punk shows at the Hermosa Saloon and gotten wasted in just about every bar on Pier Avenue, some more than once, some many, many times more than once. I was “Thirsty & Miserable.”

Keith in Hermosa circa 2015

6A. While writing My Damage, Keith and I took a field trip to Hermosa Beach. He pointed out the building on Pier Ave where Medea lived before she moved in with Greg. I’ll give you thirteen guesses which apartment she lived in.

7. I finished the script. Everyone liked it. I made some edits. It was ready to go, whatever that meant.

8. COVID-19 happened. You all know what that means. The project stalled. Everything stalled. Some of us are coming out of our slumber, some of us are still stuck in neutral.

9. I started working on Corporate Rock Sucks. Every once in a while I’d talk to someone from Hermosa Beach. I always asked about the Black Flag show at Polliwog Park on July 22, 1979. That’s when Black Flag came out of the shadows and announced itself to the world and the world responded by pelting the band with beer cars, chicken bones, and half-eaten sandwiches.

10. My Damage sat. We all went through some shit.

11. OFF! released Free LSD and announced the record was the soundtrack to a movie. One of the producers got involved with our My Damage movie. I’m not mentioning him by name because I don’t have his permission but he’s the kind of person who gets shit done. Things started happening with My Damage. Meetings with potential investors. Meetings with casting agents. Scouting trips to Hermosa Beach.

12. A couple weeks ago I met up with Paul in Hermosa Beach. We parked our cars in front of the house where Keith grew up and walked around. He took me to the places he’d scouted with Keith. He showed me places where you could see the old Hermosa Beach. A sleepy little beach town far from the glitz and glamor of Malibu. The kind of place where postal workers and flight attendants could afford to buy a house. A little charming, a little seedy. Most of that is gone now but if you look hard enough you can find glimpses of it. We had coffee in the house where Greg Ginn lived with Medea. We saw the ghosts of The Church and Media Art. We went to the Hermosa Beach Museum in the building where Keith went to junior high and in a small display dedicated to punk in Hermosa Beach sat a signed copy of My Damage.

13. I went to Virginia. On the plane I went through Paul’s notes for the script. We’re building a budget and we’ve been reading the script through the lens of having to pay for everything we dream up. The last note is to change the final scene. Instead of ending at an obscure little beach party, it ends on July 22, 1979 at Polliwog Park. Fuck yeah.

This ends the factual portion of this dispatch. The rest is speculative. Speculation breeds hope and hope is for suckers.

Will you be able to see My Damage on a screen someday?

Maybe. Maybe not. I can tell you that I respect and admire the people I’m working with even more than I already did, and you can take that to the bank.

Speaking of banks, if you’ve recently come into some money, we’re looking for investors.

3 Body Problem

I don’t watch film or television every day. When I go to a hotel or stay at a friend’s house, I almost never turn on the TV. But when I do watch, I tend to binge. That’s what happened last weekend when I blazed the new adaptation of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem.

I knew very little going in. I knew the producers were attached to Game of Thrones. I knew the story had been adapted from a highly regarded series of sci-fi novels that I’ve never read. And that’s about it.

I was immediately intrigued by the story, engaged by its scope, and thoroughly swept away by the performance by the actors. I don’t want to say too much for fear of spoiling it, but it’s a sci-fi story about grief. It’s a complex and immersive experience that I didn’t want to end. After one episode, Nuvia came home and found me crying on the couch. Highly recommended with the caveat that’s it not light entertainment.

Do What You Want in Barcelona

This is happening a week from Saturday. Nuvia will be translating who knows what will happen. Tell your friends in Catalonia.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to a paid subscription, now would be a great time. I’m having a special giveaway next week so stay tuned.

If you’re new to Message from the Underworld and you enjoyed this newsletter, you might also like my latest novel Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. Message from the Underworld comes out every Wednesday and is always available for free, but paid subscribers also get Orca Alert! on most Sundays. It’s a weekly round-up of links about art, science, and killer whales.