Rising Stars: Meet Sean Madden of Silver Lake

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Madden

Hi Sean, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I believe I am a malleable person. I’ve arrived at my current stratum of relevance as a function of traumatic setbacks suffered along a personal life. Truly each of my major works resulted both in and from nerve curdling failure. I’d written and made Microsoft Paint art as more of a pet project than a lucrative enterprise to help beguile the 40 hour work week monotony. I bought a GoDaddy domain and created a humble archive for my drawings I didn’t advertise I didn’t even have Instagram until COVID. I composed scripts I’d conceived on my phone wiping sleep kernels from my eyelids yawning against the hypnotism of dusky foliage during my tunnel lit commuter rail tenure before I had a truck or a washer and dryer roundabout my hooligan night owl eon I was a mere mouse with a motorcycle I remember it clearly. One for a TV pilot titled “Boss Convention” one for a horror film named “Flat Soda.” A romance about foodie pheromones, a futuristic company softball thriller. I told a girl I worked with once who asked to read “Marmalade’s Birthday Hat” that, wait, I’ll pull up the email: “I love plays and monologues so the main character and his friend were a device to write a bunch of those and have them feel comically dramatic. One of my favorite plays is this David Mamet play called ‘Sexual Perversity in Chicago.’ Wanted the second part to feel like that but also be completely absurd, like a millennial imagining of Amelia Bedelia.” Pretty much everything I do fits that mold. Those two things flinging.

I wrote the novels fast though. Very fast. I was living a mundane life by myself in Baltimore City. I moved there in 2014 and spent all my time training jiu-jitsu and watching MMA. I squeezed in light Cinephilia here and there before bed on weekends. I still wouldn’t consider myself a full fledged cinephile. I assemble “Top Film” lists for each movie year and that list used to stretch to 50, I would have to make cuts to get to that number. One year I got close to seeing 100. I heard “AV Club” editor Alex Dowd tell my favorite film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky that a film critic must watch at least 100 new releases a year. I applied to write for “Collider,” they never replied. There are only maybe 25 good films a year now. One Sunday afternoon I was walking home from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” which I saw a 2PM matinee of with accompaniment by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. I was alone and walking with bouncy posture, Paul Berry “Sandman” fingernails which were overdue for trimming, tight bright green “Pet Sounds” 50th anniversary tee, I always refer to myself as the MVP: Most Valuable Pedestrian, you have to see it for yourself I possess nimble dynamism on foot huffing the asphalt casbah stomach growling for my Buitoni Herb Chicken Tortellini dinner a whole piping spicy bowl of it. It was almost Halloween. It was then at ~4PM I got jumped by a gang of a dozen dudes with a hammer and my face split in half. That quarrel ended in multiple jaw fractures requiring reconstructive surgery with metal plate and screw insertion moreover $30 thousand dollars of medical bills. Silver lining foisted me to write 320 pages in 3 months while wired shut, throbbing, newly robbed 138 pound smoothie snob mangier than “Conker’s Bad Fur.”

I had this neighbor named Melanie I wanted to wine and dine but she had a long distance noncommittal boyfriend for crying out loud. She liked my “Eraserhead” shirt and appreciated Johnny Depp’s “Cry Baby” aesthetic I’m speculating but especially his lateral projection. She gave me her number so I sent her funny texts which once I learned she was receptive to became longer and grander in scale. Before long I had a cast of characters and homemade props and we inhabited this special little world I built for us. I gave her a Christmas gift I made out of construction paper, Sharpies and a pair of Santa boots I procured in a Chestnut Hill Goodwill store in 2009 along with a cheetah print bathrobe. Wealth well spent. I stuck candy canes in them, fashioned a comedic backstory, it was so cute. She was wowed. I went bigger on her birthday but that’s when the bottom abruptly fell out. She stopped replying. I got the message. I wrote her into “Time to Be Alive.” People love “Time to Be Alive.” I used pages and pages of the texts I sent her verbatim. She didn’t love them I guess. Avoided me like the plague, we barely ever talked again.

I wanted to make a magnum opus. There aren’t many in existence and no one my age has one. I wanted that patch on my sash. There was another girl named Sam who lived on my walking route who I began to cross paths with when I started working from home mid pandemic. She woke up early like me to rush off to do downward dog, she was 6 feet tall, volleyball knowledgeable and made of blonde Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree tinsel she shined like wind nymphs playing Trix Stix intimidating as an espresso machine. I tried to ask her out for months the timing just wouldn’t align. Finally I designed her a little letter and slipped it under her windshield wiper. She hated it. I wrote part of “*LeRoy Nemo” about her then called audible to pursue a girl I went to grade school with 20-some years prior. She was all of a sudden single so I wrote over a thousand pages in 6 months. I could tell it made her happy so I just kept going. I started making her all kinds of things on my phone. She saw them all. I know how she felt. It wasn’t enough though. I do too much for the people I see potential in I’m trying to stop they never reply. I would have. A lot of days my favorite song is “Waltz (Better Than Fine).” I’d sure appreciate it.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Anonymity. I’m horrid at pronouncing “anonymity” it’s like a respiratory pathogen which I’ve recently began hoarding. My health mysteriously tanked while tying the bow on “Nemo” and I couldn’t swallow. My face lost all sensation and then the tremors thought it was all above board to kick off a yearlong siesta down my arms and legs and fingers and toes I couldn’t corral the cows home. My back and neck went stiff as some “Downtown 81” Negative Nathaniel nutcracker installation and my brain lost patience so it stopped remembering why I opened the bathroom mirror, copy paste toothpaste I couldn’t compute Excel math or stare into automobile head beams, any sporadic shrill noise like Jack Russell’s arfing made me nauseous, I was dizzy for legitimately 8 months with no reprieve the head pressure steaming up the windows I wouldn’t wish brain fog on the Elphaba Thropp of my rheumatologist’s SSRI. I went to a gastroenterologist, allergist, neurologist, two primary care physicians, the dietician wasn’t seeing new patients, ophthalmologist, I can explain the difference between ENTs and otolaryngologists, three radiologists one of which rubbed goo on my throat under the impression my thyroid was preggers. My prostate shrunk which comes with its we’ll call them challenges. Thousands and thousands of dollars also excommunicated gluten, soy, rice, dairy, corn I was throwing food away like tomorrow would be the day I know so many chiropractors they hooked me up with E-Stim who isn’t some awesome Bay Area rapper. What a rigmarole. I couldn’t decipher their diagnoses through the confit. I’ve been having a great time I love the never-ending feeling of choking while my head’s on the verge of exploding then walking out on “Oppenheimer” cause it was too on the nose followed by a cozy cruise to the Baltimore City Emergency Room to hang out with junkies for 7 hours, watch “Access Hollywood” and not be seen. I wasn’t stressed or anything.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Honestly I’m probably most proud of that birthday gift I made for Melanie. It was unbelievable. There was Gwyneth Paltrow’s face on a balloon, a papier-mâché pig I made a doctor’s coat name tag for with one of those old timey headband lamps and “Persepolis” artwork. There were so many more components but I’m on antidepressants for tangents like this. I’ll spare myself. I’m not actually depressed the beta blocker keeps me from falling over account of my post vertigo episode PPPD.

I’m known for having phenomenal taste in everything. Like I saw the Hyundai Santa Cruz and knew I had to have it’s the sportiest vehicle on the market currently so when my first truck unexpectedly cracked in half I pressed down crisp creamy cash on that bad boy like an out to luncheon minter. Then, wouldn’t you know it, but Rockville Pike‘s premiere automotive dealership Limitless Garage Inc. who only carries Wagyu whips for the Wizards and whatnot gets gotten wind of my wheels, cops, stocks and opens shop on the same model as mine roof rack and everything. You’re welcome Jonas Valančiūnas. That’s a small example but let the record show I’m overqualified for show business.

I’m known for being a bit of an athletic freak like I can beat any casual sports guy at basketball you’d have to have played at least collegiately or for a private high school who recruits. I can jump 40 inches high. I’ve been trying to time my 40 but I unfortunately can’t pour a tall glass of hot water to tango which oh the agony do you see what you made me there were cats tangoing beside Betty Boop in a bubbly clawfoot bath on Melanie’s “Star Trek” card I’m ardent I’d blast a sub 5. I’m also impossibly shredded. You don’t know a plebe with a better physique than that G guarantee 30 minutes or he’s free Sean Madden trust and believe it’s banana sundae. I’m à la short hair Kendall out here playfully in fields, it’s not giving, it’s taking. I would challenge any professional athlete, celebrity or fitness competitor to a “Glee” themed striptease where we build baes birthday gifts out of Hobby Lobby last chance glue stick and ribbons. I win. Drink out of your heartless chest cavity.

You know what I hate [pauses] punctuation. I don’t care about punctuating anymore. I’m over it. My last book has sentences that go on for 5 full pages no breaks. No paragraphs. No chapters. Other people aren’t doing that. Other people aren’t doing anything but shaving porn star mustaches, hosting lookalike contests and consigning Jack Antonoff. It’s a formula.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
The girl cat had just this incy wincy rose stationed between her teeth she was oh so petite sorry what was the question? Hmm let’s take inventory I’d urge all my readers to take inventory and be painstakingly candid with what class of casserole you remit to the gratitude journalese invitational banquet. I spend my Sundays haggling with defunct eBay patrons over Jeremy Roenick golden age Phoenix Coyote jerseys sandwiched around soliciting ChatGPT the best spot in town for a deep tissue massage and locally drinking lagers good luck has played no role. I named my bot BSG-3PO for nonobvious reasons it’s taking a lot of explaining. Bad luck would imply I’ve played the game, rolled, no I was chosen.

It boils down to I am willing to do what nobody else can anymore or is. That houses tremendous value. I was talking to this lad at The Commodore the other evening and we bonded over our fathers both beginning cancer treatment recently and he like most people in Los Angeles could not believe I worked in government contracting. I said I had loftier goals, it’s just a means to an end, was pursuing them and said I wanted to be a writer to which he responded that was stupid and dead in the water. He recommended I make video content and gave me his business card. I disagreed on the grounds that I have 30 movies ready to go. Nobody else does. In fact, I wrote 19 movies in 18 months once. That’s a world record. Chosen. It was a landslide. The tech moguls and industry elites elected me from the billionaire suites because I am what they are not, meaning, irreplaceable. I’d like to thank Beyoncé for being such a genius and queen she should really have won this award.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.seanmaddenmccann.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefdaddyaf
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@youngrobertredford
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYPG94J1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1L7T2B