Dry Erase Bored?

I have been going to the same coffee shop on a regular basis for the past year or so. I have come to recognize some some of my fellow patrons, the regulars. It also seems like they are all working on similar futile pursuits: writing scripts, writing blogs, looking at myspace, looking at facebook, surfing craigslist, pretending to think, thinking, writing emails, and waiting for that one call or email that will change everything.

I want to reach out to them. When I see someone staring at the same page of their movie script about two friends caught up in an alien drug cartel's evil plot to smuggle human hair back to their own world, struggling with what should happen next, I want to reach out to them, to help them. When I overhear a couple of girls discussing a guy who did or didn't do something, I want to tell them why. When I hear a teacher support group talking about striking and what they can do to gain leverage, I want to help.

Two heads are better than one. Three heads are better than two. What am I talking about? Group-think. Networking. Helping yourself by helping others.

Here is the idea.

A coffee shop, maybe one you own or go to, should put up a dry erase board up where everyone can see it. When people come in, they can write their name, email or IM, and what they are working on.

Other people in the coffee shop can then contact that person, shoot a couple of emails back and forth etc., and if they both feel like it, meet in person by getting up and going over to the other person's table.

When you leave the coffee shop, you erase your info from the board.

It is all totally voluntary, and anyone can use a dry erase board.

Maybe you have something to say that would help someone else with an ad campaign for edible underwear, and they know a guy that would be perfect to produce your one act play about heroin addicted penguins (he has probably been looking for a penguin project, because penguins are so hot right now). Helping yourself by helping others.

Ideas would be traded, connections made, and the coffee shop you go to or own will become a powerhouse of productivity, fueled by mocha lattes of course.

P.S One time, a person who subscribed to Ideas By Chuck found five dollars shortly after subscribing. Just something to think about.

Absolutely Fabulous Movie

I think it is time for an AbFab movie.

What the hell is AbFab?

AbFab or Absolutely Fabulous was a BBC sitcom that has a global cult following of awkward high school drama girls, and gay men. I went through an awkward high school drama girl phase, so I have seen most of the episodes even though I am a straight man.

Why make a movie?

Slutty middle aged women and alcoholic mothers are so in right now. Just look at Britney Spears and "Sex and the City." And Patsy and Edwina were the original martini guzzling women of the small screen. Plus, all those high school drama girls and gay men, even though they are all grown up now, still crave more AbFab.

Lucky for you millions of writers out there who read my blog for inspiration and ideas, I have written a synopsis for the movie. Here it is.

Logline: Patsy and Edwina go to Hollywood.

Synopsis: Patsy and Edwina are lost at sea when the cruise ship they were on sinks. Saffy, Edwina's daughter, takes the money from a sizable life insurance policies that she had taken out on her mother and Patsy, and moves to Hollywood to pursue a career as a screen writer.

Five years later Saffy is riding high in Hollywood. One of her screen plays, "Summer's Song: Winters Poem," has been produced and received critical and box office success. Based on that success Merchant/Ivory is producing her next script, "Remnants of Endlessness," with an all star cast.

The day before "Remnants of Endlessness," is to begin shooting, Patsy and Edwina show up on Saffy's doorstep. They were never on the cruise ship. In a drunken haze they had boarded a Greek oil barge that was subsequently attacked by pirates. They spent the previous five years as opium addicted sex slaves on a Cambodian pirate ship, which neither of them seem too upset about.

Saffy is happy to see her mother for about a split second before they start destroying her life.

Patsy and Edwina insist on parts in her film and run a muck in Hollywood seemingly destroying Saffy's movie and career.

Luckily, everything works out fine in the end with Saffy's movie, but she ends up in her own personal hell, as Patsy and Edwina have gotten so much paparazzi attention that VH1 gives them their own reality show.

Get out there and write the script before someone else does. We need some new and better rehashing of British TV. Even though the last fifteen minutes of "Mr. Bean's Holiday," are amazing, we need something better, something drunker, something AbFab.

P.S. Subscribing to my blog cures the common cold.