Leaving Space to Create

Novato's multi-talented Keith Moore has made pursuit of the creative arts his top priority.

By Jason Walsh
IJ Reporter

Gen-X SLACKER or uncompromising artist? You be the judge.

Keith Moore is 29, lives by himself in a small apartment in Novato, across town from his high school alma mater, San Marin. He went to film school, writes screenplays and records music. He also teaches guitar.

Of course the 30 to 40 half-hour lessons a week are only to foot the bills for his goals to be an author. Make that a screenwriter. Or perhaps, musician.

Whatever his label might be, Moore is living the fantasy life of many a creative person. It's not that he's landed a big recording contract or had a screenplay made into a film, because he hasn't. Yet.

It's just that when everyone else graduated from college and got jobs that would have horrified them five years before, Moore stuck to his guns and hasn't given up working toward his dreams.

"I respect that about him," says Moore's longtime friend and Novato native Chris DiPasqua. "Especially after getting rejection after rejection after rejection and still not giving up. When we were kids, all we did was just watch movies all the time, and here he's working toward it. Me, I hate what I do." DiPasqua, a graduate of Sonoma State University, recently left a position as a tax counselor at Ernst and Young.

But Moore knows hitting it big in the creative arts world takes patience and a thick skin, having learned early about rejection slips when his second grade teacher balked at his idea for a novelization of "She's A Good Skate, Charlie Brown."

"It was where Peppermint Patty had to go ice skating or something," explains Moore. "I was totally fired up, but I got in trouble for it because they said I was plagiarizing."

"He copied it verbatim and got busted," recalls DiPasqua.

Things improved over the next 22 years. Since graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbara's cinema program, Moore's been highlighted in the "Writers You'll Wish You Knew When" section of Script magazine, and has optioned a screenplay to producers at Wilshire Park Entertainment. While waiting for Hollywood to pony up a hefty sum for such efforts as "The Fluorescent Shaded Teddy Bear Murders," Moore has written music for the 21st Century Dance Collaboration, composed a soundtrack for one of his stories and penned a fictional re-telling of the events that lead up to the Columbine tragedy.

Pretty busy for a guy who doesn't even have a real job.

Marin IJ: So you play guitar all day and write stories all night. When are you going to grow up?

Keith Moore: Oh no! I thought about growing up last year, actually. I was going to hit all the job Web sites, and I thought maybe it's time to be an accountant. But that was just too depressing.

IJ: You're able to live off the guitar lessons?

KM: It's enough for me too pay the bills without having a roommate. I'm not driving a Mercedes, though.

IJ: Do you see Novato as an ideal location for success in the writer/composer field?

KM: It's not that bad. It's close to San Francisco and from what I've heard from other writers ( the Bay Area) is one of the top five places to be if you're not in L.A.

IJ: Most high school students have never even read a novel. You wrote one. What was it about?

KM: Well, I never finished it. I got about 90 percent of it, about three or four hundred pages. I created this story where these three teen-agers build an android and make it up like this beautiful high school girl. They put it in school and she becomes the prom queen. [Note: I was misquoted! A government project put the android in school, not the teens! No more plot stealing for me. :)]

IJ: Kind of like "Weird Science."

KM: Oh god. Now I'm going to go burn it. Thanks.

IJ: Speaking of high school scenarios, your screenplay, "The Pond of Bitter Souls," deals with issues raised by the Columbine shooting. What do you feel has changed in the 10 years since you went to high school?

KM: There's a couple things that could be bigger-than-average contributors, among the millions of other reasons. One of them is obviously the parenting factor-they either don't pay attention to their kids, or they micromanage them. There's also the fundamental need amongst teen-agers for a certain level of respect. I think everyone is trying to get that on some level, and for whatever reason some kids are not getting that and think, well, I'm not getting respect through being a nice guy, so maybe I'll get it through some horrible act of violence.

IJ: Coming from a film, music and writing background, what do you feel is the media's role in the seeming increase in teen violence.

KM: I'd say the media has become more violent. Channels like MTV say they restrict stuff to late at night, but they don't. I was eating lunch once and turned on USA (Network) and watched a guy put a pillow over his girlfriend's head while she was sleeping, put a gun to it and go blam! It was one o'clock in the afternoon!

IJ: You optioned your script, "Adult Education," to a producer. What does that mean?

KM: It means he pays me a chunk of money, and he has the exclusive right to shop the story for, in this case, two years. His goal is to find someone bigger to attach to it. If he sells it, I get more money.

IJ: Your latest screenplay is called "The Fluorescent Shaded Teddy Bear Murders." That's an interesting title.

KM: That's what I'm going to be trying to sell this fall. It's about this fictitious island of insanely beautiful people who have bizarre events like tickle festivals and pet wrestling. All the less attractive people work there as butlers and manual laborers, so it's a racism based on beauty, not nationality. Then all these giant teddy bears come in and start selectively eating just the pretty people.

IJ: Things start getting ugly, so to speak.

KM: Then they find out that the bears have weaknesses, like of they hear accordion music they explode. Of course, the hero is an accordion player.

IJ: OK, you can either have a screenplay made into a movie, or you can sign a record contract. Choose one.

KM: Definitely the screenplay because there's more money. If a screenplay gets made into a movie, you're looking at six figures.

IJ: So what do you want to be when you grow up?

KM: I had my "late-20s" crisis about a year ago when I started asking myself if I wanted to be doing this when I'm 60 years old. And I was like, NO!

But for now I'm find with getting up in the morning, playing guitar all day and writing stories all night.

IJ: Slacker.