Pappaw Land: Synopsis

I mentioned during a previous post that I wrote a script, called "Pappaw Land," that takes place in Wise, Virginia, the small coal mining town where I used to spend summers when I was young. Last May I submitted the script to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, and it happened to become a Semi-Finalist come July. I figured I'd give you an idea what the script is about, for anyone interested. This synopsis is the same one I sent to Sundance last year--

"The main title, “Pappaw Land,” comes in scrawled across the screen in a child's hand, the heading of a yellowed fourth grade assignment fluttering against the dashboard of Stanley Nichols' car. Fresh out of high school, he drives past the trashcan fires and stray dogs of the fabled land, known by most as Wise, Virginia, as he recounts the idyllic childhood summer he wrote of ten years earlier. Despite it’s painfully polluted landscape, the magic of Wise remains real and intact, when it’s searched for. Stanley's journey is in finding magic that exists in the everyday, love in the dependable, and God in a rustling tree house and the muddy creek.

Stanley grew up in a Virginian suburb, and rather than move to Florida with his retiring parents, he drives to the backcountry to stay indefinitely with his Pappaw. His dying car and his dying dog Hobbes are all he takes along. The story unfolds in quiet scenes that pass like humid summer days—and that reach for the star-filled beauty of warm summer nights. Stanley and his Pappaw are kindred spirits from their first meeting. The old man winks rather than scolds; when something needs to be fixed, they fix it together, their hands blackened with coal and grease. Life only begins to speed up in Wise after Stanley meets a wild brown-haired girl named Emily by the creek, and her BB-gun wielding brother.

A rift forms between Stanley and everything-not-Emily—even his family and faith are forgotten in a hot wave of teen angst. The first act of the film, moving leisurely through his town explorations with Hobbes and his first time at Pappaw’s church, gives way to a fiery second act after his meeting with Emily. The crescendo builds as Stanley ignores his old Pappaw, and then betrays him by stealing his church keys. Stanley sneaks into the church, exploring not just the labyrinthic structure but the nubile body of his brown-haired addiction. The church throughout the script is a present, radiating entity. Like the writer's own faith, it's never obtrusive or somber, but rather, a solid place of warmth and questioning.

Stanley's revelation in the third act occurs not in a sexual, romantic, or even social realm, though these elements are certainly present; he finds a transcendent truth in himself. Cliché, you say, but true nonetheless. Stanley must put a dying Hobbes to sleep in a modern animal hospital, and in this moment we see that the eight-year-old Stanley that first visited his Pappaw in Wise is immortal—that innocence doesn't always have to be lost when you grow up. In the end, a moral—and "Pappaw Land" is what I would call a moral tale—can be found in doing good, in living well, and experiencing what there is in this world to experience, with blackened bare feet."

*I find it impossible to write a synopsis of my own work, so I had the brilliant Mike Turner do it for me.*

Nomad

I grew up in northern Virginia, staying there the first two decades of my life until I was grown and able to leave it behind for California, where I've been for five years now, the first two of which I was content. The past three years I've often dreamed of even farther away places to live, in extreme seclusion. I love much of what the city offers, but many times it has me thinking of living in forests alone, or with a tribe of some sort. I want to feel what it's like to only worry about survival in the most primal form. Over a year ago I did extensive research on living conditions in the rainforests of Costa Rica, hoping to find a way to make the possible move agree with the more reasonable side of my brain. When it didn't, I did research on a more accepted form of banishment, called the Peace Corps. The problem there is, you can't choose your destination, which means I could end up on a cold mountain in Ukraine instead of a warm village in Africa. I like cold, but not frostbite cold. Then I thought about Costa Rica again. It still didn't work out.

Since then my preferred destination has been Wise, Virginia, a small town in the southwest part of the state where I spent summers with my Pappaw when I was young. It's no Costa Rica, and is even considered a dump by some, but it still strikes a nostalgic feeling inside me like no other place. I would never want to live there long term, but I think a year or so would do me good. Not to mention I've written a script about the place, which would give me a real reason to spend time there- to do rewrites. It's this time of year, December and January, that always has me thinking of the past year and the one to come, and when I contemplate the most drastic type of lifestyle changes (like a move to Costa Rica). This winter has been even worse for such day dreams, especially after my once a year trip to Wise over Christmas to visit family. Being there, with the locations for my script right in front of me, had me scheming schemes and dreaming big dreams. I wished it never ended, but it always does. Even if I stayed there for a few months, it would eventually end. The script would eventually be finished, and so would the fantasy.

So now that I'm back in Los Angeles, two thousand miles from Wise, I wonder which road to take. Sometimes I wish to be beaten. I want someone to put me on my death bed. Maybe then what's really important will pop into my head and I'll know- know what to do. I'm so confused right now it's pitiful. I don't know which step to take. I long for people, for a feeling, for love, for a fantasy. I want to feel like I did in Wise over Christmas. It's such a disappointment to know even if I stayed there the feeling wouldn't. It'd leave in a week, I'm sure. That's why my longing is unattainable, because no matter where I am or who I'm with, I will eventually long for something else. So what is life's lesson in this? Do I chase my ever changing longing or do I stay put, waiting out my waves of angst patiently, knowing clarity will come? What if clarity never comes? What if chasing those longings is all we have to look forward to? What if I'm supposed to chase it, use it up, then move on to my next new thing? Am I a nomad or a life long resident? Am I a runaway father or a stay at home mother? Am I using all I have to travel the world, or am I saving to buy a house? Do I live in fantasy or reality?

Aching Nostalgia

I can't sleep. My mind is flooded with past memories. I've somehow learned everything and nothing since the year 1998. It's the memories of that year, specifically, that haunt me tonight, for whether they were good times or bad, it's a time I'll never see again. Virginia is gone. My childhood friends Richie, Andy, and Eddie are gone. My innocence is gone. 1998 is the year I learned there's more to sex than making babies. It's this year I learned what beer tastes like, then what it tastes like mixed with Kool-Aid. It's this year I learned what it felt like to go trick or treating the last time, to realize you won't be a professional athlete when you grow up, and how special a girl's company can be. That year was full of real burden, real learning, and real shame. I didn't even know what it meant to be cool at that point, and I couldn't even pretend otherwise. I was a 5 foot 3 inch, out of shape, baby-faced late bloomer who played Parks and Rec basketball and averaged 6 points a game. I had no idea where a woman urinated from, besides that it was down "there" somewhere. I thought "evil" things like drugs or alcohol would kill me almost instantaneously. I never asserted myself or spoke loud enough to be heard. That was me in 1998, the 15 year-old Justin Blake Crum; the one who really knew what it meant to be alive, and the one I look up to now. I wish I felt as alive as he did.