Tenspeed & Brownshoe

2007-04-14T14:29:00.000-04:00

After our self imposed exile and a good suggestion from Craig over at The Artful Writer, I decided to post about this whole Don Imus situation.

I've also turned on the comments section because I'm really interested in what people think of this whole issue.

I'm not sure I've ever flip flopped so hard over a single issue. And I think a lot people feel the same way. Mainly because both sides are idiots.

It's like watching Donald Trump and Don King fight over who's got the best hair.

I guess I should start this whole thing off with the basic misinterpretation of what Free Speech is. Wikipedia's definition of Free Speech reads as this:

Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment.

Wrong.

This Wikipedia definition is insanely vague and more than a little incorrect. But this is how most American's would define Freedom of Speech. No, what Freedom of Speech guarantees is that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Now that's the legal definition. As Americans we retain that right as long as our speech does not pose a clear and present danger (i.e. inciting a riot). Freedom of Speech does not however protect us from consequences.

Nor should it.

(Quick aside: As it turns out Wikipedia is updated by just about anyone and is as accurate as a blind man playing Operation.)

Speech will always have consequences. I'm free to call my boss an idiot but in turn, he's free to fire me. I'm free to call the head of Disney a fascist and he's free to never buy one of my movies. Speech without consequences loses its power. Speech without power is just babbling. And babbling is for brooks and babies.

So this brings us to Don Imus. Where to start? First of all, point of fact, I do not enjoy Don Imus or his radio show. Not because I think he's a racist but I just don't think he's funny. You want funny radio? Download The Ricky Gervais Show with Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington. Arguably the best radio (actually, they were limited podcasts) ever in the history of recorded sound.

Now first of all, has everyone actually seen or listened to the offending comment? We've all read the "nappy headed ho's" thing but let's see it in context.

Yikes.

Oddly enough, I feel like the entire piece had more offending material than just nappy headed ho's. Fast forward to Friday morning and Don Imus has been fired due to the charge led by Al Sharpton.

(Another quick aside about Al Sharpton. He's an absolute idiot. I'm offended that he thinks that he represents the interests of all black people and 9 times out of 10, he actually cheapens any credible cause with actual merit. That man has to go. Please.)

So here we are. And the question becomes: Did Don Imus deserved to get fired for his comments? Deserve? I don't know. But I do know this...he got fired. He got fired because his employer decided to fire him.

So is this a free speech issue? God, no. Never has been. Imus was never arrested for his comments. He was suspended and then he was fired. Which is his employer's right. I don't know about you guys but I've been fired before. Did I deserve to get fired? If you're asking me, then no, I didn't think I deserved to get fired. I'm not sure anyone does. I've heard people ask why he got fired before his employer's saw if his ratings were going to go down as if ratings had anything to do with a radio or television show. It's all about advertisers, folks. And when they don't buy, you die. Just ask the people behind the CBS show, Becker. For years it was rated in the top ten but CBS moved it all over the schedule, trying desperately to kill the show. Why? Because the people who watched the show weren't fiscally desirable. (Read: Old People).

So now the other question has to be, 'Why all of a sudden has Don Imus been raked over the coals?' Opie & Anthony have said things that are much, much worse. There's a lot of speculation. Some of it has been credited to Barack Obama and his bid for presidency. Some of it has been credited to our increasingly puritanical society. Pure speculation.

Here's the real reason and I want everyone to remember this:

TIMING.

That's it. Just pure and simple timing.

Every single person I know in this "biz", including myself, got there by pure and simple timing. Every single person. They just happened to know or bump into someone who knew someone, who knew someone. And boom...careers are made.

In the case of this Don Imus thing, someone who knew someone on the Rutgers team just happened to be watching that segment of the show. That someone just happened to know someone else who unfortunately knew Al Sharpton.

The rest is history.

I just think it's important for all of us to remember that as Writers, Directors, and Producers, what we say and what we write will always have consequences. In our careers there will always be someone who will inexplicably zero in on something you've written or said and you will become the target of political correctness. Personally, I've been accused of being a racist, a misogynist, and a homophobe. I am none of those things. But what makes America great is that there will always be someone who's Free to accuse of those things.

2007-03-06T21:36:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay, okay.

So we haven't posted in awhile. Like months. And the funny thing is, when Josh Friedman doesn't post for months at a time I'd be really pissed. But then again we don't have a .0001% of the visitors that the Jewish Dahlia has.

The truth is Scott and I have been very busy with our projects (Scott is the king of all things theatre) and I've been directing a lot, including a television sitcom.

So...life is good. Which of course means that you'll probably never hear from us again. Such has been the way of a lot of us when we get busy, professionally that is, not in the 90's colloquiasm for sex.

Honestly I don't know how people like Craig Mazin and John August do it. They're at the peak of their career and they find time to dole out such good advice. Then again, they're both pretty settled in their careers while Scott and I are still metamorphisizing (I never thought I'd be directing television after all my years in film).

Maybe when things cool down a bit we can get back to the useless info and inane inner monologues that we post. Until then...

TENSPEED & BROWNSHOW 2006-2007

R.I.P.

2006-10-25T15:12:00.000-04:00

All in a days work as we keeps it real out here.

Thank you for the story about the audition. It tickled me so.

While I don't have anything as epic and ridiculous as the "Forty degrees is cold" guy, I do have a good one from the land of ON SET where I find myself so often.

SO, we're shooitng a prison torture scene where one actor is holding another actor's head under the water; and the guy with his head in the bucket is going for the academy award of course...
Oh, wait... I should go back.
The director is this woman who has like, bronchitis (she thought) but it turns out it's really bad asthma. And we are in an abandoned building with no heat or running water, so it's fucken cold. And there's dust and shit; and probably asbestos.
So she's got a coat on, and all that; and a pink winter hat with a pompom- and a face mask breather thing . And horn rimmed glasses.
Okay got it?
Mask, glasses, pink pompom.

So drowning guy and his tormenter are doing a great job on this really long scene where there is no cuts so we have to do it as few times as possible and it's hand held and there are sound people and cable wranglers scurrying around behind the DP and the whole thing...
Well, she like loses it and forgets that these guys can ACT and while the guy is struggling with his head under the water she stands up in the middle of a take and shouts,
"LET HIM UP! LET HIM UP!"
Twice, just like that. And blew the take. So I yell cut, like they hadn't already, and everyone looked at her like, "What the fuck- that was the one!?"
I thought that was awesome.

I have heard that STUDIO 60 was not doing well, I seem incapable of getting home on a Monday night. And no I don't have fucken tivo, because I will never care about TV that much unless I am on it, or wrote it. (Or Kevin and Larry produced it - which means I am on it or wrote it.)

AND HOW ABOUT THAT MARTIN SCORCESE !?!
A GOOD FUCKEN MOVIE !
HOW DID HE SLIP THAT PAST PRODUCERS ??????

it's brownshoe loooking at life from both sides now.

2006-10-24T12:48:00.000-04:00

The NO NO's of Auditioning

Over at Ken Levine's blog, Ken has graciously and humorously shared some of his audition stories with actors coming in and embarrassing themselves or other people in the room. Currently, I'm in the middle of a slate of projects and we just had our first round of auditions yesterday. This has inspired me to write about some of the things that I love and hate about auditions:

Don't look at the producers or director when auditioning.

Unless the director is reading the lines himself with the actors, there will always be some sort of "reader" when auditioning. Some actors make the mistake of playing it to the director/producer in hopes to come off more powerful. Guess what? It doesn't. It's actually rather off-putting. Especially if the scene contains an intense argument. I can't tell you how hard I laughed when an actress looked over at my Director of Photography and called him a "white cracker bastard!" P.S. Don't worry, it's adapted from a Langston Hughes story and not a Chris Rock monologue.

Don't destroy the room!

Yet another argument scene. One actress thought it would be dramatic if she ripped off her necklace, her watch, and proceeded to systematically destroy the room while performing. Well...it wasn't. And she was wearing beads. And it broke, sending beads all over the floor. A nice little present for the next actor coming in. So now after her, the room looked like the last scene of The Burning Bed.

Read the script...

The most outrageous thing that happened yesterday was a guy who came in to read for the lead. He came in dressed like he was gonna rob a Korean liquor store. The story takes place in 1940. Already, I could tell he wasn't really prepared. Anyway, he starts reading the sides...literally. He never looked up. And if that wasn't bad enough, he delivered all his lines like DMX. We politely reminded him that the movie takes place during the 40's. So he starts again and this time he starts to shiver while reading his lines. The director stopped him and asked what he was doing. The actor responded, "Yo, 40 degrees is cold, nigga."

I laughed for 10 minutes straight.

True story.

--Tenspeed

2006-10-20T20:07:00.000-04:00

WHEN CLEVER WRITING IS TOO CLEVER...

For the past couple of weeks, all I could hear about was how much people didn't care for NBC's Studio 60. Personally, I really love the show. Or...I loved it. The show's premise is actually kind of similar to my own situation with my co-director and co-producer, Larry Strong. Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford's characters (Matt and Ben) are scarily close to Larry and I. Even more incredible, we were hired to direct a new sitcom the day the show premiered. So naturally, I felt a kind of...I don't know, kinship, with Studio 60.

Recently, that's changed.

There are a few reasons why people don't like this show. People within the business object to the far fetched premises of the storylines. There was one episode where a staff writer stole some jokes from another writer and Matt & Ben made everybody redo that segment. Twice. This of course is so far from reality it wasn't even interesting. They never checked on any facts and it was just silly.

But I think what most people are objecting to is the Writing for Studio 60. Every single scene contains some sort of reversal. In one scene last week, Amanda Peet's character starts reciting some statistics and then Whitford's character says, "You're using a crib sheet, aren't you?" And of course she pulls out a crib sheet. Which wouldn't be so bad if that didn't happen IN EVERY SINGLE SCENE.

It's too much and it destroys any hopes of taking a scene seriously. In essence, scenes never have any stakes. Which is fine for a comedy like Arrested Development but totally wrong for an hour long drama (with elements of comedy). If they tone down the reversals, I think the audience would react a bit more favorably with the show.

I'm still watching Studio 60. I think you should do. But Aaron Sorkin needs to just let his great cast get through a scene without virtually mugging to the camera. Besides, NBC needs to keep more scripted shows on the air and less Deal or no Deal shows...

--Tenspeed

2006-10-13T13:22:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: The trailer I put up for the film, Grindhouse, was taken down because it was apparently stolen from the studio. Sorry, everybody. But take my word for it, the trailer was outrageous!

--Tenspeed

So this has nothing to do with screenwriting, production, or anything like that.

It's a trailer.

A movie trailer.

And quite possibly the most outrageous movie trailer I've ever seen.

I'm trying to find out if I can pre-order tickets...

--Tenspeed

2006-10-11T11:46:00.000-04:00

So...I really hate reviewing television shows and movies. I try hard not to do it but sometimes it has to be done. Has to? Why does it have to? Man, I'm full of crap.

Anyway, there are two shows on television that I think people really need to watch and there's another show that I'm close to holding vigils to get it off the air. The first show is: DEXTER

Dexter is just such a great show. I never really watched Six Feet Under and I didn't know about Michael C. Hall. Well as it turns out, he's fantastic. Hall plays a serial killer who murders other serial killers...while working as a forensics officer. Great premise. And yes, I'm a bit biased because the show also stars Lauren Velez, the star of my film, Serial (are we all sick of me promoting my film yet? I am...). Lauren is also a stand out because she's playing a character she's never really played before. Basically she's a hot and bothered police lieutanant who wants some of that Hall killer love. Nice. Everyone...watch this show. It's great.

...

Okay. Now I feel like kind of a dick but this show is soooo awful I just can't ignore it anymore. Enter: THE MEGAN MULLALLY SHOW.

This is just the worst talk show I've ever seen. This may seem hard to believe but it's even worse than The Magic Johnson show. Maybe someone should have told her that she's not a talk show host. Conan O'Brien. That's a talk show host. Megan Mullally is a comedic actress...not the same thing. Which is evident from watching the show for just 2 minutes. Her monologue consists of either one of two things.

1. It'll either be a horrible, horrible song.

or

2. Some really ill advised taped segment with Megan mugging to the camera.

It's just such an awful show. If you don't believe me. Watch this video of one of her songs.

Did you get through it? The entire thing?

I doubt it.

And why in God's name does she wear the exact same outfit EVERYDAY? The Megan Mullally wardrobe consists of these items: Tight Blue Jeans, some sort of V-neck Cosby sweater, a large collared blouse underneath the Cosby sweater, a blue blazer, and her glasses.

She's also the worst interviewer on the planet. She pretty much sits her guests down on a couch, sits on top of them, and then (I'm not making this up), makes her guests sing a song. Nothing beats watching Isiah Washington's uncomfortable face singing, I'm not sure but I think it was "Copacabana".

I think NBC kind of beat me to the punch but please cancel this show. Ok, that's it.
I'm a terrible person.

--Tenspeed

2006-10-05T19:32:00.000-04:00

THE PISS BAG CONTROVERSY...

Brownshoe, I swear, it's more common then you think! Just 3 or 4 months ago I got a script where the entire thing was about some guy getting his kidney stolen.

It's so stupid.

And a total urban myth. Then again, I'll take 50 movies about Kidney Harvesting over seeing Rosie O'Donnell's bare ass any day...

--Tenspeed

2006-10-05T17:56:00.000-04:00

piss bag ?

Let me ask... what scripts do you read where someone stealing someone else's kidney is old hat you have seen a million times?
That is so random.
I mean yeah, bad guys are never really dead the first time, no matter what happened to them- and that thing the hero can do (or his dog) in act one will be called upon when life depends on it in act three; and no character will ever die in a Ron Howard film- and the car doesn't start at first, but then at the last minute does- and if you blow it with the love of your life by not opening your heart in time, they will follow through with their plans to move far far away and you WILL be forced to run foolishly after some form of public transportation...
But someone wakes after a tryst to find a KIDNEY REMOVED?
I try to get around but shit... you say so.

This is Brownshoe, as always the last to find these things out.

2006-10-03T13:29:00.000-04:00

GOD DAMN YOU RYAN MURPHY.

I really try my darndest for this site not to be one of those blogs that just reviews everything on television but I couldn't stop myself from writing this.

I'm a fan of Nip/Tuck.

At least, I was until last week's episode. Well...I haven't quite given up on the show yet (I mean hey, I stuck around after all that Carver crap) but last week had a plot device that has to be the most over used, cliche ridden, ill conceived ideas that I've had the displeasure of reading in a ton of really bad screenplays.

The Nurse on the show was picked up by some hot chick and woke up the next day...missing a kidney.

I almost threw something at my television set. I can't tell you how many scripts I've read that has had this similar plot device. It's ALWAYS some hot chick that picks up some guy, they have sex, he wakes up with some sort of note saying that his kidney has been taken, and then he looks at his side and there's a neat little scar where his piss bag used to be.

So here's a little note I'd like to post for all writers:

IF YOU HAVE A SCENE IN YOUR SCRIPT WHERE SOMEONE'S KIDNEY HAS BEEN STOLEN AFTER A NIGHT OF PASSION...TOSS IT.

It's silly, contrived, and absolutely UNshocking. Every single person who has ever read something with this plot device has rolled their eyes. It's bad.

Cut it out. You're better than that.

And if you're not...well...

--Tenspeed

2006-10-03T12:35:00.000-04:00

So I am walking along as I do, and I see a sign for "Laser Vision Correction" - and I think, this must be where Superman goes to get his Laser vision fixed.

2006-09-19T09:41:00.000-04:00

God Bless You Aaron Sorkin.

Last night I did something I have not done maybe ever, at least not in recent memory.

I planned my evening around a television show. I declined offers to go out with friends and also took a rain check on a friends roof deck; because I wanted to catch the first episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

And I was reminded that TV doesn't have to suck. Sorkin's unmistakable verbal acrobatics were in top form and Thomas Schlame's direction was still fluid and hypnotic. What a perfect subject for the geniuses behind West Wing, for what besides Live TV serves up all the life and death urgency of life in the Oval Office - with none of the relevance.
Judd Hirsche's monologue at the beginning says what I and maybe one or two other people have been thinking about TV for years now... "Wake up it doesn't have to be this way." Fear of what sponsors may think has made the television landscape safe copies of copies - And Hircsh's character tears reality TV a fresh one and sticks a finger in the eye of SNL itself... (Why NBC went along with it I don't know, but wow... oh and there's a 'fuck you' to that asshole who responded to my complaints about SNL several months ago! - Gee, Looks like Aaron Sorkin and NBC agree with me!)

What a ballsy way to start a series! Indictinig television itself then showing how it can be done.
What Sorkin does so well is show extremely smart and important people making HUGE decisions who are breaking apart on the inside and doing it with a sense of humor.

The rest of you can have your Idol and Top Model and Wild N Out... Truth may be STRANGER than fiction... but fiction is still better.

I am Brownshoe. Today is my birthday.

2006-09-18T12:12:00.000-04:00

In the interest of shameless self promotion, I would like to take this moment to call anyones attention to a new website I have been writing for...
(Not that self promotion is rampant on this blog, I have always said we need more from the film Serial and now we have a running soundtrack which is GREAT!
I have been reviewing bars in Manhattan for a listings website start up...

http://www.pennybuzz.com/aspx/reviewerprofile.aspx?id=32&cid=16356

Gosh..! Who me? Talk about bars...?
I hoped I could find some.
It has been fun and I am hoping to move onto restaurants as soon as they expand.

I have much else to say and really should document my days as a Unit Manager for MTV2 last month before the juicy slip my mind.

2006-09-11T16:42:00.000-04:00

*This is a reprint of the very first post I ever wrote....(sorry, I'm in the middle of 2 different productions...)

So here it is…

At some point in your career you’re going to have to get a real job. You know, a real job just like your parents used to say when you first decided to get into this depraved, rejection filled, damned industry. I know it’s depressing but it’s the truth. An awful truth that plagues most Creatives as our numbers have soared to more than 4 million! That means you’re not alone so stop crying, get it together, and figure out what you’re gonna do. According to the trade paper, BACKSTAGE, the "real" job of choice is of course…a waiter. But what if you don’t have the patience to stand over a small rickety table while a 75-year-old woman decides if she wants the Potato Latkes or the Rigatoni Martino? There are alternatives. What are they? Well, I decided to use myself as a guinea pig and see what’s out there. I decided that my mission would be to work at two totally different places for two weeks each. The following is a positively true and positively frightening experience at both employment locations.

JOB #1: OVERNIGHT DELIVERY
The first job I applied to was for a certain well-known 3-letter overnight delivery service. Getting the job was easy. From what I understand they’ll hire just about anyone. And I was just about anyone. So with the interview being just a technicality, I was ordered to work the following Monday. As I parked in that huge parking lot and stumbled out of the car (stumbled because my shift was 4am-9am) on the first day of my employment, I noticed a funny thing. Fences. Long sprawling metal spokes trimmed with barbwire on the top, sort of like an S&M Christmas tree. Upon my walk towards the security booth entrance, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this place reminded me of something. And as I emptied my pockets, walked through a metal detector, and had a magic wand trace the outline of my incredibly sleepy body, I quickly realized what it was. Prison. This place reminded me of a prison. So for $8.50 an hour I got to go to prison. This may seem like an exaggeration but the parallels can not be ignored. First off all, no one talks to you. Wait, let me amend that. No one even looks at you, is more accurate. When I walked through the huge emptiness of this building of at least 900 employees, not one person made eye contact with me. I couldn’t even get that customary "Negro nod" from the other brothers that worked there. So the 2nd thing I came to realize was that I definitely wasn’t going to make any friends and that anonymity would be my modus operandi. We were to report to a designated section of the building where our assignments were to be handed out. For instance, one day I would have to unload a truck, another I would have to scan in hundreds of pieces of inventory. It became clear, however, that whatever I’d be doing would require heavy lifting. Which was strange considering I was hired for a data entry position. But when they noticed that I work out quite regularly, major labor became part of the equation. It was like having 1000 friends and you had to help them move all day, every day. The 3rd and most shocking thing I noticed was how people would talk to each other. Now let me clarify something. I myself have a pretty horrible mouth. My parents and my son are the only people I don’t curse around. But this was different. Much different. Cool Hand Luke different. The supervisors (who I’ll now refer to as "guards") treated everyone like crap whether you did a good job or a bad job. Of course I realize that there are a lot of less than nice guards out there but do they scream in your ear? Do they berate you? Do they throw things at you? I myself witnessed one of the guards calling another one of the "inmates" a black retard who couldn’t read.

Wow. EOE my ass.

Being a fly on the wall in this type of environment was fascinating but I wasn’t going to learn anything unless I started asking some questions. I was really interested in knowing how long some of these people of have been there, guards and inmates alike. Within a week I was able to talk to about 85 people. Can you guess what the average length of employment (or jail sentence, whatever) was? Now I’m talking about the mathematical average here. Can you guess?

Days.

That’s right, days. Not months, not weeks, but days. 4 days, 7 days, 13 days. The truth is, I didn’t meet anyone who had served there more than 2 months. That’s an insanely high turnover. I couldn’t exactly blame them. I had agreed to work there for 2 weeks and it was 14 days too long. Were there other reasons for such a high rate of attempted escapes? I asked my senior guard if he had any idea why people quit so often and he replied, "When you’ve been here as long as I have, you get used to it". "How long have you been here", I asked. "3 weeks", he replied. It was honestly just too sad to be funny…but I laughed anyway.

A quick aside: Break time was surreal. At 6am on the dot a whistle would blow and everyone would literally drop what they’re doing and disappear like a strange Terry Gilliam movie. Ten minutes was all you got and you weren’t allowed to bring in any water or food from the outside; you had to buy it on site. Unfortunately, there was only one vending machine in the entire complex and it would take you 10 minutes just to get there. As I watched everyone try and scurry back in time from their break, it made me wonder if perhaps WE were part of some grand experiment. I don’t know, it was just a thought.

So after two weeks I escaped, collected my dough (I never broke the $100 barrier, by the way), and thanked God that this was just an experiment.

On to the next job.

JOB #2: SECURE THIS!
I wanted to try something a little different this time. The 1st job really didn’t have any discretion in their hiring process so I wanted to try something that wasn’t such a gimme. I immediately ruled out retail and fast food joints. Telemarketing was also out. I wanted to try and get a job in a more controlled environment. Kind of like an office job. No, exactly like an office job. I scoured my local paper for jobs and found three categories that I could possibly work within. Clerical, Receptionist, and Administrative Assistant. That’s when I hit my first snag. They all wanted resumes. I didn’t have a resume. Nor have I done anything that remotely translates to what an administrative assistant does, whatever it is they may do. The closest I’ve come to computer work is making up stories for screenplays. And that’s when it hit me. Make it up. Make up another persona. Make up a work history. Make up a list of skills and abilities that I didn’t have. In other words…lie. So that’s what I did. The only real thing on that resume was my name. I even decided to make up companies that had conveniently went out of business so they couldn’t be contacted. I cheekily went as far as to include the company that my brother owns called ARBO Pictures. And I said I worked there for 5 years (ha!). So what would my job responsibilities be at these fictitious companies? Easy. Whatever my prospective employer needed, I would simply cut & paste that piece of their ad right onto my resume. Could this really work? My theory on giving people what they wanted to see was pretty thin. Still, it was worth a try so I sent out 7 resumes that Friday.

On Monday I had 4 responses.

My first interview was, in a word, hilarious. Not because of the interviewer but because of the interviewee. I laid it on quite thick. I told her I wasn’t really a 9-5 guy and that I only leave the office when the work was done. I told her everything she could possibly want to hear. I was a whore and she was my "john"—ooo, no one does it better than you mami. Looking back, it was more than a little gross. Didn’t matter anyway. There was no way I was getting the job. One phone call and she would immediately find out that my entire resume was BS. If she typed my name in any search engine, a million things would pop up from martial art fan sites to my own movie’s official domain. I was going to be found out and it was going to be really, really embarrassing. The next day she called and offered me the job.

As I drove to work the morning of my first day, I couldn’t help but think of how easy this was going to be. I mean, it was a mid-sized company that sold security tags to retail stores. How hard could this be? I assure you, I’m not being cute here or leading you to a funny little reversal. The job really was going to be easy. All I had to do was some light filing, a little computer work, and answer the phones. Simple, simple, simple. I did not, however, take into account my co-workers. More specifically, the attitude of my co-workers. I was completely blind-sided. When I was interviewing, my future employer warned me about the head boss, the owner. She said he was pretty boisterous and a little difficult. Turns out he was the best of the bunch. He was just a salty old dog that likes to mix it up a bit. I really liked him. It was like working for Milton Berle without all the cross-dressing. My co-workers, 2 females, were a completely different story. By the first second on my first day, they made it perfectly clear that they did not like me. How could they have come to that conclusion so quickly? Usually it takes people weeks to figure out that they don’t like me. As far as I can decipher, I was the "new guy" and I was invading their fine-tuned clique territory. New Guy, by the way is what they continued to call me throughout the entire two weeks. Never Kevin, always New Guy, as in "Hey, new guy!" It took me about fifteen minutes to make up a nickname for them. Shrek and The Ewok . The resemblance was uncanny.

It was interesting how they would treat me horribly in completely different ways. Shrek would treat me like her retarded second cousin, constantly reminding me to file things in alphabetical order. The Ewok would just ignore me. All day. Every day. Despite that, I did learn a few things about office etiquette. For instance, if I left for lunch and neglected to ask anyone if they wanted anything, that was considered rude. Also, whoever called the office was immediately deemed an idiot. The phone would ring, Shrek would talk for a couple of minutes, hang up, and shout, "Idiot!" So how did they treat each other? It didn’t take me long to figure out that Shrek and the Ewok did not trust each other. Or really like each other. They each thought the other one was trying to destroy them. Destroy them? How do you destroy someone? This wasn’t exactly Lord of the Rings. Nonetheless, I slowly started to lose it. The nicer I was to them, the meaner they were to me. I didn’t like it and I didn’t deserve it. By the 4th day I had to call my friend and co-director Larry Strong who knew about my little experiment and well…vent. I told him about Shrekâ and the Ewokâ . I told him about how everyone was deemed an idiot. I told him that I felt guilty every time I went to lunch. I told him about how they were trying to destroy each other but most of all, I told him how mean they were to me! Larry listened to all of this (I don’t think I was very coherent) took it all in and asked me one very simple question. Why do they have to like you? Hmm. Good question. Hadn’t thought of that. Why did they have to like me?

The answer was just as simple as the question.

They didn’t.

THE RESULTS
At the end of my two weeks and with the experiment at an end, I had two very different results. The first job, the penitentiary, was a complete wash out. It was a horrible job, filled with horrible people, for horrible pay. 2+2 equaled 4 on that one. If you’re an out of work Creative, this is not the job for you. I’m not sure it’s the job for anyone. With the crazy hours and the borderline abusive atmosphere, I can easily say that this is the worst job ever. And for a union gig, it pays amazingly low. But the results of the 2nd job were much different. I learned something about myself. It’s the same issue that plagues all Creatives.

The insatiable need to be liked.

That’s why we’re creative in the first place. Because we want people to like what we have created. And more importantly, to like us. When you work in creative environment it’s hard to notice that trait because everyone has the same affliction. But when you work with Norms (regular folk), they don’t have that disease. They’re there to work. Period. They don’t feel the need to engage in a popularity contest like we do. It’s a job, not a prom. Which is something you’re really going to have to deal with when you get a real job. It’s not your career. It’s a job. To make money. Everything else is just like Microsoft Windows; pretty little pictures that have no real purpose.

So what’s the verdict on the real job issue? Office jobs are the way to go. They’re easy and the pay is decent. You may have to embellish a bit (please also see: lie) but you’ll get over it. The most important thing to remember, however, is that you must drop all the baggage that comes from being a Creative. If it helps, think of working at a real job like an indefinite experiment. Or research. Or whatever. Doesn’t matter, whatever you need to tell yourself to get through the day is sufficient. Get over yourself, get a job, and make some money. That way you can afford to pursue your creative endeavors. And if your co-workers are mean to you? Well…maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to get revenge by giving them nicknames like Shrek and The Ewok .

--Tenspeed

2006-09-02T16:20:00.001-04:00

Ah, Brownshoe, that is an excellent list.

May I offer some of my own?

THINGS THAT I DO NOT CARE ABOUT
(in no particular order)

Fantasy Football

Eva Longoria

How many Friends you have on MySpace

or

That you've been added to Madonna's buddy list via MySpace

or

That you think you've been talking to Jude Law via MySpace (you haven't...get a clue)

Why Hollywood has gotten so skinny (even though the rest of America has gotten so fuckin' fat)

Any movie by M. Night Shyamalan

Anything that Tyra Banks has ever said. Especially when she's wearing a fat suit.

Anything by The Black Eyed Peas. Especially that wacky tranny Fergie.

Celebrity Fit Club

Any of those jackasses on Jackass

sadly...The VMA's.

Everyone's stupid exclusionary Religion

Madden NFL 07

--Tenspeed

2006-09-02T11:33:00.000-04:00

It has occurred to me that there are many things which I hear about either first or second hand that I am momentarily confused by; I was relieved when I discovered that the confusion was stemming from the fact that I was hearing about it in the first place. My mind, while vast and labyrinthine like the great city I live in; there is also a housing crunch. And I simply am unable to care about many things that seem to occupy many peoples interests.

I share some of them here with you.

Things I do not care about:
(In no particular order.)

The US Open.

For that matter the World Cup.

What anyone has worn to any award show, ever.

What anyone has had to say about it.

The fact that you are a vegan and there is nothing for you to eat.

Tiger Woods.

The space shuttle, NASA or any of the Apollo missions.

Who is winning, has won or may win, American Idol.

Who killed Jon Benet Ramsey.

Cholesterol.

Anything Oprah has ever said.

Brad, Angelina, Jen, Ben, Jen, Vince, Lindsay, Jessica, Nick, Brittany, Tom or Katie.

People who don't leave their houses when a hurricane is coming.

Other people's dogs.

Starr Jones or any of those cackling hens on The View.

Oh yeah, and Paris-fucking-Hilton.

2006-08-31T15:29:00.001-04:00

Excellent point my good man and anytime you can reference a guilty pleasure movie from the eighties you receive a bonus and get to skip ahead to the final round.
While I don't know what thing or person sent you off on such a tear by implying that reality TV was destroying our culture, they are of course part of a cycle that will never go away and these people never see themslelves when you show them the mirror. (As in Mr. Lithgows unforgettable performance in Footloose.)

Yes, Elvis' dancing was supposed to make little girls all over the country lose their virginity simply by watching him on Ed Sullivan. Now the whole thing seems quaint at best.

Reality TV, while gratingly uncreative and repetitive and just stupid is of course hurting no one. (Except of coures Pimp My Ride, the best of the best.) I take solace in the fact that when a new Harry Potter book comes out there is a line around the corner of people looking forward to buying it. At least someone is reading something. And people are camping out all night to see Meryl Streep in a seventy year old play that was originally written in German. Ying and Yang baby.

People will watch any fucking thing you put on television then complain that there is nothing on. Music videos and video games were supposed to make kids dumb; but these teenage brainiacs are doing ten things at once at their computers while IM-ing and talking on the phone while I sweat my shirt to my back looking at an Excel spreadsheet.

The world has always been ending and it never actually will.
Historically speaking the country has never been in good shape according to those there at the moment, but somehow a decade or two makes everything seem like it was hunky dory.
Hang in there.
I am Brownshoe and this is what I have seen thus far.

2006-08-28T11:57:00.000-04:00

Now look what you did you stupid Reality Shows!

It never fails. Never.

Every once in awhile you'll get into a conversation with someone and if the subject of Reality Shows pops up, some genius will always point out that they are destroying our culture. I think it's time to clarify a few things and let the "reality" of that viewpoint to come to light.

Dear Culture Elitists,

Reality Shows do not destroy our culture. They don't even affect our culture. They affect our POP culture. "Baby Got Back", MC Hammer's parachute pants, Beavis & Butthead, Jackass, Tom Green, Howard Stern...they never did get around to destroying our culture, did they? That's because it's all pop culture. They're all great questions for a game show but terrorists aren't trying to blow up America because there was a girl on girl kiss on The Real World.

These are the same arguments that your grandparents made to your parents about Rock & Roll and "fast dancing". Here's the truth. They just didn't get it. Your parents just didn't get it. And now you don't get it.

These shows...they're not for you. You don't get it. You have different tastes and needs. You're a bit behind. Now there's nothing wrong with that but you need to realize that as much as you tried to rebel against this when you were a teenager, you're turning into your parents. No, you ARE your parents. It happens to us all.

Here's another funny little fact. Most of you who rail against this medium mostly have one thing in common.

You don't have any kids.

I'm not saying that you don't like kids. I'm just saying that you don't have any kids. Before you have kids you think so many things are stupid, idiotic, or destroying our culture. But when you have kids you slowly start to realize, "Oh...this isn't for me. It's for someone else. And they like it." Sort of like the way The Maltese Falcon is not for kids. It's good to us but they just won't get it.

So, stop trying to figure out why Flava of Love is popular. You won't get it. Ever.

It's just not for you.

But you're not crazy. Our culture is being destroyed. It's being destroyed by Poverty, Terrorism, and an Environment that might not even sustain us in the next 100 years. We have a Foreign Policy that could lead us into World War III, that's destroying our culture. We have a Theocracy that's stealing reason, common sense, and our medical science. Now that's destroying our culture. American Idol? Mmmm, not so much.

So maybe you should just get a grip. Focus on the real problems of society. Go to the gym. Tell your loved ones that you love them. Get off the soapbox. Otherwise you're just John Lithgow from Footloose.

And it only goes downhill from there.

Love,

Tenspeed

2006-08-19T14:10:00.000-04:00

Just in case anyone didn't get a chance to see the trailer for the film, Serial...here it is!

--Tenspeed

2006-08-18T18:35:00.000-04:00

So far this is the best I can do regarding the videos...

2006-08-18T17:43:00.000-04:00

So some of you have already noticed that there are some changes to our little site. The template is completely different...obviously. The picture in the header of the park bench kind of reminds me of Brownshoe. Whenever we meet, he wants to be outside somewhere on a park bench as if an office is the place where they steal your soul. It's also dark and bleak because he's one cynical little bastard.

The Second thing to change was the Comments Section. As in, they don't exist anymore.

I noticed that some other blogs kind of went through the same thing that we did. They had a comment section and then it closed. I think there's a couple of reasons for this.

Some of these blogs like What Would Tyler Durden Do? and Go Fug Yourself are inherently mean blogs. While entertaining, the basic premise of their blogs are to trash celebrites, so the comments that they received were usually, "Who the fuck are you to judge?! I bet you look like Chris Farley's dead asshole!" So, off goes the comments. Then there are other blogs like Jane Espenson and The Inside Pitch that are very positive while giving out some sage advice. The problem is, for every person who is truly appreciative for the words and the help, there's always a bunch of other assholes that basically just want to call you an asshole. Like, "You don't know what the hell you're talking about! Who are you to give advice?!" And at that point it's just too gross to start reeling off your credits. While we're not raking in millions of studio dollars, we're definitely not rank amateurs either. We work in the entertainment business for a living and personally I've been doing just fine for the last decade here in NY.

You just can't get away from all those opinions. They say that opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one and everybody thinks that everyone else's stinks. I think opinions are more like trying to measure your penis. It sounds like a good idea in your head but once you pull it out it's never as profound as you thought, it usually ends up just kind of lying there, and somebody is bound to make fun of it.

I think the main (let's be truthful everybody...) reason for a Comment Section has probably less to do with creating a civilized forum and more to do with seeing how many people read your blog and then getting excited to see "posts" from strangers. 10 complete strangers posted today! Yeah...great. But 3 of those posts read like love letters from Buffalo Bill. And no, I will not put the lotion in the basket.

So the Comment Section is now and forever closed. We know how many people visit and read the site. It's actually way more than we ever thought. So great, keep on reading. But if you want inspired debate from actual smart people, go to The Artful Writer. Craig Mazin and Ted Elliott are informed writers who work in Hollywood that can give you more to debate about then my big bag of bullshit.

We're also trying to host more videos. I'd love for the videos to start playing within the blog but so far it just kind of starts the video in a new window. I'll keep trying but it's like...way hard.

Anyway, enjoy the site and keep reading!

--Tenspeed

2006-08-15T16:24:00.000-04:00

If I was a homeless guy, I would totally beg for change outside the post office and here's why;
When you buy stamps in the machine you get those pain in the ass dollar coins for change.
Nobody wants them - everybody wants to get rid of them.
I was thinking today as I exited the post office that if there was a homeless guy I would make his day and give him my dollar coins.
But there wasn't one so I kept them.

Speaking of homeless guys,
Last night I had occasion to be leaving a catered party with a zip lock bag full of cheese; you know, cubes of jalapeno cheese, dill havarti, ect... no brie though.
And I walked by this homeless guy and thought, do I give him the cheese?
He was the sitting on the sidewalk with a sign variety. (Where do they get the marker for the sign?)
Would he want the cheese? I didn't want to insult him by implying that yes, he was homeless- but was he so bad off that he would eat unwanted cheese out of a zip lock bag? Without so much as a table water cracker? I told myself,
He will probably just trade it for drugs.
A block later I saw how silly I looked walking down 34th street with a zip lock bag full of cheese and threw it away.
I am Brownshoe and this is my story

2006-08-15T16:22:00.000-04:00

I have a recurring dream where I am a guest on Tony Danzas talk show.
I am trying to tell him something really important and he keeps calling me Angela, and he puts his hand on my knee.

2006-08-08T15:00:00.000-04:00

NETWORK EXECUTIVES ARE GENIUSES.

I guess an explanation is needed.

Recently, I just had a pitch meeting at the home of Golden Guilded Teeth and Best Seven Days Eva'. It was for a pilot that we shot with the popular comedian, Rich Vos. Basically, a young beautiful girl goes out on a date with two rich older men trying to determine which one of the guys is rich. Then they all go back in front of a live studio audience, watch the dates, and the girl picks. Pretty simple. Truth be told, the show is fucking hilarious. And yes, the name of the show is called Sugar Daddies.

Anyway, we bring the pilot over to the, "Yeeeaahhh Boooy!" network and screen it for two lovely young female executives. I wasn't really sure if they would like it because Rich Vos works kind of well...blue. But I was hopeful. 10 seconds into the pilot, the girls are laughing. Which continues throughout the entire 21 minutes of the pilot.

Yeeessss.

Usually, after you screen a pilot, the creators and the executives will talk about logistics and other little issues. But since they both laughed throughout the pilot, I knew this was gonna be easy. But the first thing they say to us is:

"Wow. That was really funny. (Pause) I think we're just concerned that this doesn't exactly show women in a very flattering light."

Um...

Wait...

What?!

I politely reminded them of the other shows that air on their own network. They told me that the shows that are airing now don't really degrade women.

Again, um...

Okay. Two things. Number one, Sugar Daddies does indeed degrade women. Sugar Daddies also degrades men. Sugar Daddies degrades Rich Vos as well. The truth is, it's a comedy show. Comedy always has some sort of degradation as humor. In some ways, it's kind of like watching a really vapid, self centered, gold-digging train wreck. I might be wrong but by judging every single reality type based programming that's ever aired on television, with the exception of Extreme Makeover, there's always a character on the show that's degraded in some way with a dash of personal train wreckerism.

Number two, I just watched the second season of Flava of Love. You know, the show where 20 women compete for fame...er, excuse me, love of not really that famous anymore, Flava Flav. Thank God that network doesn't degrade women. Otherwise there would've been a catfight in the first 10 minutes of the show. Oh wait...that happened.

Well, Thank God, the women didn't get drunk and start licking each other on the no-no spots. Whoops...happened.

Nudity...happened.

Girls "dropping it like it's hot"...happened.

My 92 year old grandmother, whoops, I mean Flava Flav, slapping name tags on the butts and breasts of these women...happened.

Let's see, what's left? Well, at the very least a woman didn't take a shit on the floor. Oh, wait...

HAPPENED.

I wonder if a woman watching that show would feel degraded? Gee, I don't know.

Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't about degradation. Maybe, just maybe, those executives (one of whom was only at the network for 2 weeks), has no clue what an audience is looking for. Truth is, those executives wouldn't have put any of the more popular shows on the air if they were in charge.

This is why creatives complain about executives.

Then again, what the hell do I know? I used to be one.

--Tenspeed

2006-07-24T11:24:00.000-04:00

Um...Thanks. Yeah, that's my son in the top left corner.

Kudos to Sony Pictures for making a movie that's marketed to kids that's so fucking scary I had to walk out with my son after the first 15 minutes.

Here's what happened in the first 15 minutes of Monster House. The movie opens with a little girl riding her tricycle down the block. Her wheels gets stuck in the grass of said house and this insane scary old man comes running out, grabs the bike, and literally rips it in half. Then the two main characters are playing basketball and the ball accidentally rolls onto the crazy guy's grass again. Well, crazy old man comes running out and actually tries to grab the kid! And then he actually does grab the kid! He then hoists him into the air while screaming, "I'll kill you! Do you want to die?!" And uh, then the old guy starts to have a heart attack.

Seriously.

Wanna know what happens next? He falls down dead...on top of the goddamn kid. I repeat, a dead guy falls on top of a little kid. In which the movie spends a good 10 seconds on the dead guys eyes.

That was the first 7 minutes.

The next 8 minutes consisted of the introduction of a mean and bitchy babysitter, her soon to be rapist boyfriend who gets drunk at the kids house, and then his eventual death. Did I mention the boyfriend tried to rape the babysitter?

Now my son thinks I'm an asshole for taking him to this movie.

Thanks, Monster House!

--Tenspeed

2006-07-21T09:38:00.000-04:00

AND THE LAUREL TO THE STORY IS...

Well, first of all I'm gonna have to go ahead and apologize for the awful, awful pun.

Ok. Fuck humility.

WE WON!!

Serial has not only won for Best Supporting Actress (Lauren Velez, in a truly amazing performance), but we just won for Best Story! This is the very first festival that we entered and we couldn't be more happy. I've been involved in a lot of films but I can honestly say that I have never been more proud. A special thanks to Larry Strong, my co-writer and co-director. You're weird but I love 'ya (see, if you say "ya", it's not so gay).

If you don't know what Serial is about, feel free to click the link 8 words ago...

You can also check out the trailers here. Go ahead. Click "Large". Everything will be ok.

--Tenspeed

2006-07-18T09:51:00.000-04:00

Greetings from the SLUSH PILE

... I am pasting below a response from this agent to a query I made .

I love agents, they all sound like they just saved a school bus full of school childern from going over a cliff with ALL THE QUERIES they have to read!!!!

I am SO SICK of hearing how many queries and scripts they see EVERY DAY ... BOO HOO... Like I dont already know I am completely insignificant.
Get over it- it's part of your fucken job.
You read shit.
Crank up the air conditioner, enjoy your decaf skim soy latte and hope to GOD you never have to really work...
(I should mention that I of course immediately sent them a treatment.)

I took out the persons name...

*****I'll be happy to look at a 2-3 page, double-spaced narrative outline in 12 point Geneva or Times New Roman font (with all of the major story beats, leaving nothing for me to guess at) and let you know if I want to read the full script. Please e-mail it to me at this address and if sent as an attachment (I use a Mac and can open Word, Appleworks, Adobe and Final Draft files), be sure to include your name and e-mail address on the attached doc. Many writers fail to follow these simple instructions and their work is lost in the huge volume of emails I receive daily; thus, I will not respond to any queries which do not include the contact info on the outline. Thanks.

No, Thank you!! - Brownshoe...

2006-07-17T18:20:00.000-04:00

Brownshoe here

Pretentious prick that I am - to say It's not just Hollywood that makes the words,
"You've go to be kidding me," spill from my trembling lips.

All I ask is greatness.

It's no secret that Broadway has reinvented tacky spectacle... make that INvented it. But even back in the day of Zigfield and Jolson... Shit they had class, they had talent they had... a few catchy numbers.

Well, fuck me and put my boots back on, becaus here it comes...

*** If you are drinking milk you should stop NOW lest it shoot out your nose. Okay Go ahead...

XANADU The Musical - Is coming to Broadway.

I'm going to a bar.

2006-07-12T09:26:00.000-04:00

Why the World Needs Superman...or at least people who care about adapting him correctly.

So, this post is really about ADAPTATIONS. More specifically, adapting comic books to the screen. This is a subject that's close to my heart since I'm a well known superhero geek. And it pains me to sit through these horrible and unnecessary adaptations.

One of the most common complaints about these comics to screen adaptations is the loss of faithfulness to its graphic paper counterpart. Now for the record, it's almost impossible to be 100% faithful to the comic book. Some of the more popular characters were created 40 years ago and much of the fantasized world around them just wouldn't play on screen. A good example of this and a great adaptation is SPIDERMAN. One of the most important aspects of Spiderman are his webs. I mean, how else is he going to swing from rooftop to rooftop? In the comic book, after Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider, he creates not only a man-made web fluid but also a state of the art web fluid delivery system he dubs "web shooters".

Yeah.

Filming something like that just wouldn't work. Sure, we're talking about a kid who becomes a wall crawling superhero but to make a decent film you just can't film that. It's too ridiculous and it would break that thin wall between reality and fantasy. And it really wouldn't be entertaining for the audience. Because then you would slip into that realm where the bad guy has invented the Super Techno Insane Gun that's making people go crazy and then good guy hightails it to his lab and invents the Super Techno Sane Gun to counteract the bad guys affects. It's too much.

I can't really go into all the superhero adaptations because that would take forever. I would, however, like to discuss Superman Returns and explain what truly drove me crazy when I saw it. Careful now...There are SPOILERS BELOW:

When it was announced that Bryan Singer would take over the helm of Superman I was less than excited. Not because I think he's a bad director. In fact, I think he's a very good director and I can watch The Usual Suspects every day. But when it comes to his casting choices for his superhero movies, I always cringe. Singer commits a HUGE crime when he unnecessarily and incorrectly makes the main characters a decade younger than they should be. If you've seen X-Men, most people wondered why he made Rogue and Iceman into teenagers and basically told the story of Kitty Pryde and Colossus, when he simply could've just told that story. Please, don't tell me about recognizability because Iceman really ain't burnin' up the popularity charts. It was just an unnecessary adaptation.

Man, I'm a geek.

But I had hope for Superman Returns because all I kept hearing about was how faithful Singer was going to be. All I kept hearing about was how faithful the writers Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty were going to be. Every interview regarding Superman Returns had the word faithful in it. Faithful, faithful, faithful. For a second I thought that Bill Clinton was going to direct the film. And then came the first boom when 24 year old Brandon Routh was cast. Believe it or not, Routh is actually younger than Tom Welling of Smallville.

Whoops.

Actually Christopher Reeve was probably around the same age since he was only 26 when the original Superman came out. But truthfully Routh just doesn't look like the 30 year old Superman that he's supposed to be. Reeve looked like a man. Routh looks like a boy playing a man. There's a difference.

Next came the suit. The Latex Suit. Superman has a latex suit? Weird but pretty easy to get over. But seriously, a latex suit?

Here's the most ridiculous and outlandish aspect of Superman Returns that almost made me scream in the theatre:

Superman is a daddy. Superman--excuse me--knocked up Lois Lane. Um...what? WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING? Do you know what the best part about that was? After the film, all I could hear in the lobby was parents trying to explain to their kids what and why and where and...fucking how that was possible. That's when I knew the film probably wouldn't be as big as I originally thought.

Their unfaithfulness to the comic was a huge flaw. And it was entirely unnecessary. There are literally hundreds of stories that you could've done for Superman Returns. Hundreds. Why nobody ever consults with Bruce Timm, producer of the Superman/Justice League animated series is beyond me. If you've never seen the series, watch it. It's perfect for adults and kids. Entertaining and poignant at the same time.

Thank God for movies like Batman Begins and Spiderman. These are comic book movies done right. That goes for Blade and Blade II as well.

I absolutely can't wait until Spiderman 3. And before Singer starts Superman 2: Father's Day, I hope he consults with one of those directors and or screenwriters.

P.S. Go see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. I already saw it once and I'm gonna see it again today. Best Movie of The Year By Far.

--Tenspeed

2006-07-07T11:35:00.000-04:00

Los Angeles baby!

First of all, my deep apologies for not posting in so long. I've been incredibly busy with my film that's premiering next week and with my new television show, which was my primary reason for going back out to LA.

As promised, here is my other installment of that New York vs. Los Angeles thing....

You know you're in Los Angeles When...

You ask someone for directions and they tell you to get on 3 different highways when your destination is only 3 miles away.

Because nobody fucking works, It's 11am and you're sitting in traffic...

...unless you're on Olympic Blvd., which apparently, no one drives on.

You've been driving for 30 minutes and you realize that no one's beeped their horn.

Hollywood Blvd. is exactly like Times Square. In the sense that you want to line the streets with gasoline and light a match.

The women don't look like Pamela Anderson anymore. Now they all look like Mischa Barton which is just as gross.

Hey look! It's that guy, from that show, like ten years ago! And he's parking my car...?

Jessica Simpson is walking out of some store on Robertson Blvd. pretending she doesn't want to be photographed...even though Robertson Blvd. has pound for pound the most photographers on planet Earth. It's like vacationing in Israel and expecting not to get blown up.

Ryan Seacrest's picture is everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE.

Scraggly beards are cool!

Long hair is cool!

Women wearing thirteen different types of shirts at the same time is cool!

And then wearing those shirts as dresses is really cool!

So that's pretty much LA. I'll leave you with a poignant moment. This is something I realized on my 3rd day there:

The Superman Guy in front of Mann's Theatre would totally get his ass kicked by The Naked Cowboy in Times Square.

--Tenspeed.

2006-06-26T16:41:00.000-04:00

I love the movies, I swear I do.

Did this ever happen when you were young?
You're coming home after school and you can't wait for dinner and you are starving and all the way home you are dying for some good old fashioned home cookin? And you get home and your mother is making your least favorite thing in the world? Something with beets maybe.

I'm standing there in the lobby of Loews near my apartment. A respectable mulitplex on 2nd ave with nothing to do tonight and I look up at the whatever... marquee or whatever that is called, and I realize that no matter how much I lower my standards there is not one fucking thing I will suffer through just to satisfy what is, lets face it a popcorn jones. (maybe that will be my pen name if I am ever a movie critic - Popcorn Jones)

Here's what's playing at a theatre near me----

The Davinci Code... We've been over this. Fright wig.
Cars... Sorry, not ten years old and don't have one handy.
Garfield, tale of two kitties... Many possible giggle garnering games to play with the title, but in fairness I am not, I think, the target audience.
Click... Are you fucken serious?
Nacho Libre... God, Jesus, is it me? Besides, man nipples on movie poster - big no-no.
The Omen... Big 'fuck you' for remaking one of the spookiest, coolest movies I remember from growing up and then putting Julia Stiles in it.
The Lake House... Sorry, not a fat chick and don't have one handy.
Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift... I totally invented the pulling up on the parking break thing first of all, and while I get the fact that a film like this is a product in a package like the video game it already is, I am saddened by the shameless grab for cash by people who have the power and resources to make great films and instead charge people ten seventy five to watch recycled brainless car chase crap. But as long as they line up and pay, well fuck me then.
The Break Up... For better or worse, my best bet. But am I going to go watch The Break Up all by my self? I mean am I really gonna do that?
X MEN III... Saw it. Whatever. Fraiser was blue.

Brownshoe spending another night watching The Deadliest Catch!

2006-06-22T14:02:00.000-04:00

Dude, seriously...

Enough with the soccer already.

2006-06-20T10:14:00.000-04:00

We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Blog For A SHAMELESS PLUG!

So for anyone who cares, the film that I co-directed with Larry Strong is premiering on July 16th. The trailers are finally up here. There are 2 of them and they're both pretty different.

I hope you enjoy!

P.S. Feel free to click on "Large" for the trailers. They load up pretty quickly...

2006-06-19T12:38:00.000-04:00

Done at last with another production gig on someone elses film.
Struggling with the fact that I am tired of making other peoples films. But it beats working.
What strikes me when on set though, is what a cool small (incorporated) army a production is.
There is really very little a film crew cannot do provided of course they have permission.
They are a fully loaded team of electricians and carpenters and decorators that rolls up with its own power and lots of snacks.
We were in a duplex loft with no power in it and built a bathroom with running water and lit and shot and basically lived independently there for three days.
It's like summer camp only in hell.
Cool though if you think about it.
We can take down doors put up walls, power up enough lights to make it look like day time at three in the morning and serve a catered lunch out on the sidewalk.
By my calculations we generated one bag of trash every forty five minutes.

All month I am one step ahead of Spiderman III. Finally on Sunday I am relaxing in Mad Sq park and they are shooting on Madison Ave. Huge huge production, blocks and blocks of "four bangers"(God how I hate film lingo) and trucks and more grip stands that they are ever going to need for a car shot which is what they were doing and a craft table and honey wagons (Please already) galore.
It is awe inspiring and glamorous there is no getting around it.
And then there sitting on a bench next to me is a guy from the crew. Middle aged, big belly Teamster type. His little walkie chirping away, his cool badge around his next.
And I look at him and I think for a minute that it must be pretty cool to work on such a huge studio film, even though I am not a starfucker type and think Hollywood more than ever is synonomous with excrement - still are we not all whores to it?
And I realize that this guy could care less what the film is couldn't tell you what the scene is or even if any interesting stars are just a block away eating some kind of nut meat sandwich.
He's just a blue collar guy, probably an electrician whos' job it was to plug in some light and in a little while he will unplug it.
In the mean time he CAN tell you exactly how many minutes til meal penalty.

Brownshoe standing by to be flown in by first team PA.

2006-06-16T10:43:00.000-04:00

I always felt like Ryan Seacrest's Star on the Hollyood Walk of Fame should have read:

RYAN SEACREST...for some reason.

So, not only is Brownshoe shooting a movie right now and I had to pick up his slack but I'm flying back to LA next week so the posts will be kinda scarce for a bit.

As I was arranging my schedule, I realized that subconsciously, I was mentally preparing myself for the trip over. Meaning, I had to switch my brain from east coast mentalities to west coast mentalities.

Sound insane?

It's really not. The differences between the two coasts are amazing. Just to give you all some perspective, here are the differences between Los Angeles and New York. This post will deal exclusively with New York. Before I get on the plane, I'll post regarding Los Angeles.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN NEW YORK WHEN...

No matter what subway car you're in or which subway line you're traveling, there will always be a crazy person who's just found the seat right next to you.

It doesn't matter whether you're in front of the nicest building in the world or the shittiest slum in the world, they'll both reek of piss.

The light is green and like any other rational human being in the world you interpret that to mean it's okay to drive but a group of people will start to cross the street anyway and curse you out for not letting them walk through.

The light is red and like any other rational human being in the world you interpret that to mean it's not okay to drive but the car behind you will inexplicably honk his horn.

We're supposed to be one of the most sophisticated cities on the planet but somehow it became acceptable to pile a mountain of garbage bags in the middle of the sidewalk.

You're a decent and patient human being but if someone in front of you is walking a tad slow or dares to stop and look up at our glorious architecture, you'll entertain thoughts of rabbit punching him in the back of the head or lighting him on fire like Christopher Walken in The Prophecy.

You're on 46th and Broadway and the most talented musician you've ever seen is playing the most kick ass song ever heard right there on the street but then next door on MTV's TRL, the most overrated musician you've ever seen is playing the most retarded song you've ever heard. Nine times out of ten it's the Black Eyed Peas. Two Words: Lady Lumps.

Lindsay Lohan walks out of a Starbucks looking sweaty and disheveled. And she smells of old cigarettes, cocaine, and Cristal.

The cell phones have gotten so big and prehistoric looking, everyone looks like Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell.

The biggest stars in the world come to party on Thursday, the biggest party night of the week but on Friday & Saturday, everyone that travels into the city to party is named Vince, Ann Marie, or some other goomba variation.

No matter what day of the week it is, no matter what time it is, LAW & ORDER is being filmed.

You'll be walking down the street and suddenly trip over something. After close inspection you'll discover it was the back of a goddamn suitcase being wheeled to, presumably, nowhere. These are not tourists. Tourists have those huge fucking backpacks that knock you into the smelly, rat infested hot dog stands. New Yorkers are the ones with these stupid pieces of luggage. When this started and how it started...I have no idea.

--Tenspeed

2006-06-12T14:42:00.001-04:00

ANN COULTER:

A Real American Hero.

Finally, someone said it. I think it's fair to say that Ann Coulter speaks for most Americans, especially her views on the 911 widows. I'm so glad she's around to tell it like it is. In fact, I'm so happy I think I'll write her a letter and express my gratitude, and if I may, yours as well.

Dear Annie (I gave her this little pet name--trust me, she loves it),

Thank you so much for your words the other day regarding those damn 911 Widows. I'm sure everyone around the globe feels the same way you do. Sure their husbands were brutally murdered by a coward who strangely remains free till this day. Yeah, their spouses died horribly--some were burned alive, some were literally flattened, others much much worse--but that doesn't excuse those "harpies" behavior.

Look, 911 was like soo 5 years ago. These chicks hold a grudge longer than my ex-wife. There they are asking our President to install new and efficient measures to keep the country safe. And then they want to explore why there were so many critical failures in our defense and in our reaction. Which just shows how stupid they are. I mean, what reaction? It's not like we did anything constructive like go after the guy who orchestrated the entire terrorist act.

We just let it go. Which is what they need to do.

Also, it's not like these murdered husbands just left behind grief stricken wives. Some of these guys had kids too. And you don't see those kids complaining, do you? Do you know how much money some of these kids are getting? Hundreds, baby. Hundreds of dollars. Enough money to pay for like 4 days of college. Cha-Ching! They might cry about their dads being dead and wonder if their deaths were avoidable as if there were some kind of memo floating around the White House a month earlier that stated, "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US", but trust me...THEY WILL GET OVER IT.

When you said, "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.'' I was like, Word Up, Sista! Preach! Look how happy these widows are. With their...you know, happy, teary faces. I bet they wished this could've happened sooner. They made out like bandits. But not just with the money. Let's really weigh this out:

The cost of 4 buildings being destroyed by terrorists: Billions.

The cost for all those dead husbands: Priceless.

Some people say that you're actually the one profiting from all these deaths. After all, 911 did kind of make you a millionaire. But you know what? Anyone who thinks that is guilty of treason. That's right, treason. As defined by real Americans like you and me:

Treason: (noun) To question or seek answers from the Government when all logic and common sense indicates that they've failed us as a Nation.

Whatever.

Anyway, I have to go kick some puppies and light homeless babies on fire. I just wanted to thank you again for all of your thoughts and kind words. Please, never stop fighting the good fight. You may be a grotesque assortment of skin and bones but your heart is as big as your head.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Another Real American

--Tenspeed

2006-06-05T09:37:00.001-04:00

ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, I DECLARE A WRITER'S WAR!

If you've ever wondered if all screenwriters get along, the answer is a resounding "No". And it's never been more true concerning fellow screenwriter, Josh Olson. Josh is the Oscar nominated screenwriter of The History of Violence. Before that he was a straight-to-video guy who directed a film entitled, Infested, starring the Yellow Power Ranger. That's quite the leap and you gotta respect that. The ironic thing is that I actually spoke to Josh when I used to be an agent and he was in the middle of casting the female lead for Infested and he was genuinely upset about not being able to hire an actress I represented (the talented Emily Merryn) because the financiers wanted a star name like Kari Wuhrer. And no, I can't pronounce her name either. What I remember from that experience was that he was a nice and humble guy. That was, I think way back in 2000.

Enter the Josh Olson of today.

For those of you that peruse the world of the scribosphere, I'm sure most of you have seen the utter carnage between Josh and I over at Craig Mazin's blog (writer of Scary Movie 3 & 4), The Artful Writer. If you have 6 hours to kill you can see how it started here and how it's escalated here.

Prepare yourself, this is gonna read rather outrageous, but these are the type of things that have been said between us:

Excerpts from The Artful Writer:

"...Who are you trying to convince? You’re arguing about concepts that have literally been expressed in bold statements. If you go back and read some of your posts, it almost seems as if you’re arguing with yourself.
And just out of curiousity, are you able to express a point of view without being so painfully obnoxious? Even your good points are destroyed with that nasty attitude.
Tone it down. --Kevin Arbouet"

Here's Josh's reply...

"Kevin,

Nobody likes a politeness Nazi.

On top of that, nobody likes people who couch nasty attitudes in polite speech. The difference between how I write here and how some people write, is you never walk away from one of my posts wondering if you might have just been insulted.
I have enough respect for you to let you know, bitch.

Stop getting your panties in such a wad over how people express themselves and pay some attention to what they’re expressing. You’ll come off as less of a priss.

As for the statement in bold, you should take Joshua’s comments to heart. If that’s not the first time Craig’s expressed that particular sentiment here, it’s the second. Maybe the third. And I’d wager that the only other times have been when I’ve put his feet to the fire in the past to make that clear because - pay attention here, princess - it does not come through at ALL in his writings here.
What DOES come through is his irritation with writers who don’t think they need to do more than just write; with writers who think what we do is the most important aspect of filmmaking; with writers who think the big issues are more important than the small ones; with writers who think this is an art form and not a sausage factor; with writers who have the temerity to value real quality over fleeting commercial success.
I’m hardly the only working screenwriter who reads Craig’s stuff and rolls his eyes. I’m just one of the few who’s delusional enough to think that if I pound his head against a wall long enough, he’ll get it.
It’s almost cetainly a mental illness. But it sure does keep the peanut gallery entertained….--Josh Olson"

See what I mean?

Because it's gotten so out of hand and everyone else out there has been writing about it, I thought I should too since I'm smack dab in the middle of it. The posts over at The Artful Writer has sky rocketed past 400 posts and will probably reach 500 by the end of the day so you can see how insane it's gotten. There's a certain standard of decorum over at Craig's site and it would be rude of me not to try and follow them.

No such rules here.

The truth is, Josh is an asshole. That statement has nothing to do with his talent or his accolades. Most writers dream of being Oscar nominated and to achieve such a goal is an amazing feat. But that doesn't make you less of an asshole. I'm not going to recount all of the gory details but let's just say I'm not above throwing him threw a window. Personally, I don't know if he's always been an asshole, recently turned into an asshole, or maybe he's just a cyber internet asshole. I don't know.

So...I just realized that there's no point to this post. Other than to state Josh's assholeness. No moral of the story here today, folks. Sorry. It's all just juicy in fighting gossip and conjecture.

Enjoy!

--Tenspeed

2006-05-30T09:16:00.000-04:00

The Invader has Become the Invaded.

So, when I am not writing or wishing I was writing, or out at the bar or wishing I was out at the bar, I work in production. As the song says, nice work if you can get it. I am doing locations on a film right now, came on board late AGAIN, cleaning up someone elses mess AGAIN. I am the A Team of Locations.
Heres the tech scout: "Can locations knock that building down across the street because we really wanted to put the camera THERE."

So one of the locations no one can find is a building with a certain stairwell and hallways that sound a lot like MY Building. Me and my big mouth, I mention that very thing.

So we shot in my building. Guess where holding is? My apartment which is the size of a minivan with the seats ripped out.

I have shot in many total strangers homes and businesses all over the city and beyond but I never realized how fucking intrusive and thoughtless a film crew truly is.

6:30 am some PA rings my buzzer, he didnt get the call sheet that the time had been pushed back. I suggest a diner.

730 am they start filing in. Same PA wants to know where he can plug in all the walkie batteries. Some guy walks in to my apartment talking on his cell phone, doesn't even look at me, keeps talking, puts his bag down on the chair. More people on phones hanging out in my house. Drinking coffee. The second AD asks where she can hook up a printer.
Someone needs a hot brick.
Make up has a full length mirror in my sink, a huge make up bag spread out across the stove.
One of the guys on the phone has a lap top open on my bed now.
Art department wants to know where theres a hardware store.
More people more bags,
Wardrobe hangs clothes all over every door and knob. There are shoes lined up on my desk. Second AD wants to unplug MY printer.
Someones in the bathroom.
I cant go in my living room, some chick I've never met is changing in there.
That's kinda hot though.
Wardrobe chick #2 is sitting on my floor hemming something and 630 am PA needs to plug in a coffee machine.
Actress from before now laying no my bed reading aloud the titles on my bookshelf.
Someone I have never met asks me who lives here.
Another actress asks me how long I am going to be on my computer.
An actor in my living room has actually lost the remote to my television.
A PA is putting a bunch of waters in my frige.
Still someone in the bathroom.
I go out for a while.

Its later now, much later.
Things have gone way over. I go out to dinner, have drinks with some friends. My neighbors want to know how fucking long they are going tonight.
I say so do I.
1:30 am they wrap. There is some cold pizza down stairs, the left overs from "second meal."
It's not bad.
Most everything is finally out and I go up to the apartment.
People are sitting calmly around, drinking beers talking about the days shoot. No one seems to notice me, or for that matter offer me a beer.
I tell them good night. They look around confused for a minute then begin to realize, I think.
Still no beer offer but they at last leave.
It smells kinda funny, but I go to sleep.

I am Brownshoe if I am lying may the lord SMITE me.

2006-05-24T09:26:00.000-04:00

QUESTIONS YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER TO:

Is this about the money?
Of course. It's always about the money. Anyone who says it's about the principle obviously hasn't been offered enough money.

Does this make me look fat?
Yes. In fact, your fat makes you look fat. Chances are you'd look fat in anything. Except maybe, the ocean.

Is this going to hurt? (Physically)
You're about to be pricked by a long hard metal object that has no business being inside of your body, so yeah, I'd say it's gonna hurt.

Is this going to hurt? (Sexually)
You're about to pricked by a long hard metal object that has no business being inside of your body, so yeah, I'd say it's gonna hurt.

or

Just as long as you don't scream and let it happen.

Is there someone else?
There's always someone else. Always. By the time you ask that question, "someone else" has already seen your boyfriend/girlfriend naked.

Are you fucking stupid or what?
This is one is particularly funny because the person you're asking has usually just done something that only a fucking stupid person would do. Like fall asleep behind the wheel of the getaway car or buy a new mink coat for your wife after a huge heist even though you've already been told to lay low and not buy anything big because there's so much heat on us already.

How are you?
Not only do you really not care but if someone actually begins to answer that question thoughtfully, you'll just drift off and think about things like what in the world is Star Jones gonna do now that everyone in America officially hates her guts. Quick Aside: I think it's terribly ironic that the View is replacing a stupid, hateful bitch who used to be fat with a stupid, hateful bitch who used to be skinny. And they're both married to someone who's gay.

**UPDATE: One of the commenters asked me some more questions and I feel like they should be addressed in the front end of this post. You can read the exchange in the comment section.

Was it something I said?
No. I kicked you in the balls for a completely different reason.

Does this taste/smell funny to you?
Always a weird question. I mean, milk tastes like milk the other 364 days of the year so when it tastes like a baby's diaper one day, it's probably gone bad.

Do you want fries with that?
If you're even eating in a place that would ask you that question, chances are you want fries with that.

Is it me? Is there something wrong with me?
Hmmm. Well, I don't know anyone else that cries when they masturbate so you might want to go talk to someone. Oh, and you own a Blackberry.

--Tenspeed

2006-05-22T14:18:00.000-04:00

The Most Stupidest List.

So, I'm not trying to be all like, "What's up with these Top 100 lists" but what is UP with all these Top 100 lists?! For the second year in a row Eva Longoria was voted the Hottest Woman Alive in Maxim Magazine. I don't know who they're polling but I didn't believe it the first year and I damn sure don't believe it this year. If the poll was "Hottest Woman To Your Left" then she would probably win. Just as long as there's no one else to my left.

That's why I hate these damn lists. Wasn't Julia Roberts voted The Most Beautiful Person in People Magazine last year? So what's the prerequisite for these lists? Huge maws? A flat chest? I don't get it. Judging by the mass hysteria machine that we use to make ordinary people into huge celebrities, I'm guessing Charlize Theron will top the list again next year. So then we can call those lists by their real name:

"Women Who Look Like Leonardo Di Caprio In Long Wigs"

--Tenspeed

2006-05-15T10:42:00.000-04:00

Went to see a double feature at the B NOIR festival at the Film Forum this weekend. It's going on through July.
Different double feature everyday, and I think okay, this is why I live in New York.
But more than that, from a writing and film making point of view, make that from a STORY TELLING point of view these films are rich and fascinating historical documents.
Meant to be shown with the the big A list features with bigger stars and bigger directors, they only even run an hour fifteen each.
It is the stuff of dime novels of the day, and pulp magazines and comic books.
And it hit me that this is story telling for story tellings sake. The audience was gasping and laughing and so present with every moment like I don't think I have ever experienced in a theatre. We are in the dark saying, Tell me a good one. Howzit end? Who dunnit?
We are watching a film written by someone who never saw Star Wars. Directed by someone who hasn't seen the Godfather.

The simple innocence of the writing is so at odds with the sudden violence at times, it evokes awkward laughter from an audience here fifty years in the future.

In The Window, a little boy witnesses a murder and no one believes him. But the murderers- a husband and wife team, I'm talking the Cleavers here - get a hold of him and in the back of a cab, the woman shields the drivers view while the man punches the kid in the face til he is unconscious. It is shocking in it's off handedness.

Later they decide to kill him and the man goes,

"Time for little Tommy to have himself an accident."

But it's not tongue in cheek. It's not a joke. It is true dark smoky noir and it is delicious.

The only special effect is context.

And of course the best lighting in cinema.

It's Brownshoe, Doll - who were you expecting?

2006-05-10T14:31:00.000-04:00

RELIGION AND THE INFINITE MADNESS

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an Atheist. That doesn't mean that I'm unsure about the existence of God. It means that I don't believe in God at all.

No, I don't believe in the Adam & Eve story with the Pixar animated snake.

No, I don't believe that people used to live to be 1,000 years old.

And No, I don't believe that a little girl got pregnant by way of the Immaculate Conception.

But as much as I don't believe in all those stories, it's still just my belief. I can argue all day about the reality of the world but at the end of the day, nothing can be proven in its entirety until someone invents a time machine and gets a first-hand report.

And so conversely, and OBVIOUSLY, religion is just a set of beliefs. Silly beliefs but beliefs nonetheless.

That being said I've been reading all of the fervor regarding The Da Vinci Code and I've been steadily rolling my eyes until I read about Singapore's Board of Film Censors banning the film for people under the age of 16. Not because of sexual or violent content, however.

Nope.

Here's their explanation:

"Only a mature audience will be able to discern and differentiate between fact and fiction"

Uh...what?

Madness is always scariest when it is practiced by those who lead. With all the insanity going around this film I'm still not sure why no one has brought up the most important thing:

The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. It's not meant to be taken as fact. When you go to purchase the book, you'll find it in the fiction section. Or the .50 cent bin--seriously, that's where I got my copy. The Da Vinci Code is an entertaining work of fiction kind of like, oh, I don't know...the Bible (Anyone ever read the story of Noah's Ark? ). I mean, people weren't clamoring to ban Forrest Gump because they thought he really mooned Lyndon Johnson or busted the criminals at the Watergate Hotel. It's just a movie. Period.

Censorship is one of the most destructive forces in nature; that and any television show on NBC. Censorship only exists for one reason: To destroy a point of view. That's it. And that's what the Catholic Church wants to do.

So everybody, go see The DaVinci Code and enjoy it for what it is:

The movie where Tom Hanks has the stupidest hair ever.

--Tenspeed

2006-05-01T12:01:00.000-04:00

There is a wonderful moment I have been savoring recently.
You get an idea for a screenplay, and for once, you get the whole idea and you can see it through to the end.
You spend the time, and you outline and write and rewrite and tweak.
Then you type the words THE END or FADE OUT if that is your jam-
Then for a little while, you have made something.
This script, the movie in your head- the movie you wrote because no one else had is yours and yours alone.
A first draft.
Black words on clean white paper.
Soon, opinions about the script will influence it, thoughts and suggestions will infiltrate the script and forever change your perspective about it.
Soon, the lines will be words in actors mouths, changed, cut, forgotten.
This is of course inevitable, it's purpose.
A Thanksgiving feast laid out on the table before it is devoured and someone says, inevitably,
"It almost looks to good to eat."
So take a moment with that stack of pages on your desk that just came out of the printer and know that you made something today.

I did not ask to be Brownshoe.

2006-04-24T18:50:00.000-04:00

NBC IS DEAD.

It's been about 3 years now and I just realized that I don't watch NBC anymore.

When I was a kid I used to wait all week until Thursday to watch its line-up. The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, and Night Court. That was Thursday for me when I was a kid. All quality shows. The Must-See-TV line-up has changed over the years but it's always been good. Maybe all 4 shows weren't stellar but there were still at least 2 sitcoms that would make me laugh.

Well...no more of that shit.

What do we have now?

Will & Grace: C'mon, how many times can I hear Delta Burke call one of the guys a fag? Oh wait, that's not Delta Burke.

Will & Grace (again): They show it twice here in New York. Here's a joke they used the last time I watched it...Jack: She's got a nice caboose. Karen: And nice catits.

My Name is Earl: Jason Lee tries to correct his mistakes and change people's lives. I liked it better when it was Quantum Leap. First of all, My Name Is Earl doesn't have that cool blue light effect when he completes his task. And Jason Lee never says, "Oh boy!" Ever.

The Office: Don't get me wrong, I love Steve Carrell. Just not in this. Plus, I was a HUGE fan of the British version. Ricky Gervais, anyone? Watching the American version after watching the British version is like dating Jennifer Lopez's sister. Yeah, she's a Lopez but still...

Painful, painful, painful. And that's just Thursday night. Do you realize that NBC is trying to do their own version of American Idol? But that's not my favorite. My favorite is Celebrity Cooking Showdown. Not only is it a complete rip-off of Iron Chef (it even has the same set) but there aren't any celebrities on the show. Unless you count a former Miss USA, or a former Boy Band member, or the most downloaded woman (actually, that's not true) on the internet as celebrities.

So what's the answer?

Put Scrubs on Fox. Then bring back Arrested Development.

And I would never change the channel.

--Tenspeed

2006-04-21T20:46:00.000-04:00

I feel sorry for Gilbert Godfried being named least sexy man alive. I mean he's funny and has a job in show business. I bet he's sexy to somebody. Who are the mean spirited little people who make up these lists?
Oh Jesus...
I hope no newspaper makes a list of the least sexy women in the media!
Let's stop and ponder for a moment the backlash -
"Oh women are so objectified... eating disorders... blah blah high school girls... confused... their bodies... blah blah unfair... music videos and ... more women like Katie Couric..."
It would be our cartoon of Mohamed.
But you've started making up your own list haven't you?
Of course you have.
Stop it.

Oh all right, just one.
I'll go first.

Mrs. Garret.

- It's Brownshoe baby - wanna hand me a towel?

2006-04-21T13:22:00.000-04:00

I dunno...
Call me crazy.
I'm gonna put it on the line here and guess that Keifer Sutherland turns out to be the bad guy in THE SENTINEL which opens this weekend.
If I was TENSPEED I would have put a big picture from the movie at the top of this posting.
Ouch.

2006-04-18T22:27:00.000-04:00

A Life In Post...

What the hell is "Post"? Post is an abbreviated term for Post-Production. So what's Post-Production? Basically, it's the period of time after the "shooting" stage of production where the editing, sound mixing, and marketing is done. One could argue that it's the most important stage for a film. Currently, I have 3 films in Post-Production. Which might sound exciting but if you know anything about Post, it's really depressing. It's exhausting, it's time consuming, and it's...well..it's...

Boring.

At least that's how everyone else outside of the film will view it. Let's face it, everyone loves pre-production. You're already on a high because you got the money to put your creative vision on the screen so everything else seems like a dream.

You get to hire your crew: Fun.

You get to cast the film: Fun.

You start getting paid: FUN.

And everyone you know will say this to you--Congratulations! I am soooo happy for you!

Production is hard of course but everything seems so damn precious once you start shooting. Everything you've been dreaming about has become a reality. There's on set fighting, you'll end up spending way more than you were supposed to, and you slowly realize that when people tell you that you're the best writer/director/producer that they've ever worked with, they actually think you're a moron that knows nothing about film. But that's not how you'll look at it.

The very first day you get on set: Amazing.

The first time you hear, "Rolling": Monumental.

The first time you scream, "Action!": No words have ever sounded as commanding or sexy or powerful than the words you just spoke. You're a God. No, better. You're Bono.

And everyone you know will say this to you--I always knew you could do it!

But Post-Production is an entirely different animal. It's private, it's intimate, and nobody outside of the film really understands what the hell you're doing. And you'll make the ill-advised decision to show some of your friends the rough assembly. Which will be horrible. All rough assembly's are horrible. When the studio saw the rough assembly of Chinatown they said, "Well, at least we didn't spend that much money." That's just the half of it. Post-Production, especially if you just made an independent film, can take forever to be finished. We're talking fucking years, man.

And everyone you know will say this to you--You're not done yet?!

Even my Executive Producer for the film that I directed had it in his head that my co-director and I just gave up on the movie. Which of course is madness but so much time has passed, who could blame him? He doesn't really get the process and to an outsider, especially someone who put up money for the film, it must feel like death. Cause it sure feels that way to me.

Now as the gods of serendipity would have it, all 3 films are pretty much coming out at the exact same time. Which is pretty great. But until the movies are actually in the theatre or on television (ugh, more death), I've been forgotten. But that's my life right now.

My Life In Post.

--Tenspeed

2006-04-14T10:06:00.000-04:00

BLUE'S CLUES ARE FOR GENIUSES

If you don't have any kids than this post will mean nothing to you. But if you do and you've ever watched television with your kid, chances are you've seen Blue's Clues. For those of you who haven't seen the show, this is pretty much how it goes:

A non-threatening manchild in a green striped shirt named Steve, lives with his paper-cut-out cartoony dog in a paper-cut-out cartoony apartment. As the "day" progresses, the dog will leave clues for Steve as to what he wants to make, construct, or eat. Let me say that again. The DOG leaves the clues...mmm-hmm. The show is harmless enough and I don't think my kid realizes that in the real world, Steve, has an exceptional serial killer quality to him. Here's the real problem. Those fucking clues.

I mean, it's supposed to be a kid's show. Except for one small problem. I never understand those fucking clues. Example: The stupid dog gives Steve a string and two paper cups. Serial Killer Steve looks at the camera and asks,"What does he want us to make?" I scream, "Nunchucks!" My son screams, "Telephone!". My son was right.

And then the clues get even harder. I'm watching the show this morning and the clues were:

3 Rubber Bands. An Empty Tissue Box. An Empty Roll of Paper Towels.

What does the dog want us to make? I have no fucking clue. Because they don't sound like clues to me. They sound like trash. The show described the exact contents of my bathroom garage bin. Now this is what pisses me off. I look over to my son and I can tell by the look on his face that he figured it out.

3 Rubber Bands. An Empty Tissue Box. An Empty Roll of Paper Towels.

And my son figured it out. Is he that smart or am I that dumb? The night before he pissed in his bed so I'm not sure. But he wants to scream it out so bad. I look at him and scream, "ONE MORE SECOND!!" But he wants to scream it out sooo bad. So I gave him a "time out" and change the channel to Blind Date.

But that wasn't right. I shouldn't have punished him. So I walked over and give him a hug. He looks at me and says, "A guitar".

I don't want my son watching that show anymore.

--Tenspeed

2006-04-13T09:02:00.000-04:00

If you had to choose - HAD to choose, would you go see ROCKY 6 or
Tarzan the Musical on Broadway?
If you HAD to choose ...
You don't have to pay in either case.
Not with money anyway.

On a positive note - Spike Lee's new film INSIDE MAN proves again that he is one of the most important American film makers of our generation.
Spike will never lie to you.
He photographs New York like no one else (fuck off Woody) and his unmistakable flourishes and visual dioramas always remind me that I am watching a true master at his craft.
Sure, Spike making a bank heist movie is like Julia Childs making a hamburger - but there are hamburgers and there are hamburgers and you should definitely sink your teeth into this one. ( I did not just say that-)
The smaller roles and even extras are one of the most fun things about the film. Lee captures that blue collar "bacon-egg-and-cheese-on-a-roll" New York guy on the street perfectly and lovingly. Watch for the firemen with nothing to do who keep see turning up in the background.
Everyone is pitch perfect and the ending is not that ridiculous. Jodi Foster as the ultimate waspy white devil from hell is particularly frightening.

-Brownshoe keepin it real.

2006-04-10T09:19:00.000-04:00

Here's One:

This past Saturday, I found mysef home in tome to catch some of Saturday Night Live.
Wow.
I knew it sucked these days, but it's time to pull the plug.
I know every generation says the show ain't what it used to be, and I used to hate to listen to old people go on and on about Chevy and Gilda and all that shit, when Eddie Murphy and Phil Hartman were good enough for me.
But oh my God, every joke, if you can call them that, just fell into an abyss of silence that was the studio audience.
I was so embarassed for them. I wanted to do something but I didn't know what.
Watching this show is like watching the kid in school who wants to be like the class clown but isn't funny get up in front of the class pull down his pants and fart.
Does the show have producers? Does anybody at NBC watch it? Is it just easier to keep it on the air than think of something to replace it?
Is NBC so gentrified that they can't be funny ?
In a town that is clogged with talented writers actors and comics there is no excuse for this level of unprecedented suckieness.
Most of them can get Saturday dinner shift covered.
Comedy Central's original programming puts SNL to shame with guys like Chapelle (Come back Dave!) Even the infantile Mind of Mencia is good for a guilty chuckle.
Oh yeah, and Weekend Update... it's over.
Jon Stewart has retired your ass for good.
And if you're reading this thinking, "Oh yeah Scott, I'd like to see you do better..."
I say, "Bring it."
Brownshoe treading water in a Sea of Mediocrity

2006-04-09T19:26:00.000-04:00

Welcome back Tenspeed...
You know me... what my first question was going to be ...
(by the way, losing your virginity to a sixteen year old Jewish boy - the line to beat. If un PC is wrong, I don't want to be right.)
How was the food?

So after seeing, or rather being bombarded by the trailer for Mission Impossible 3 it occured to me... It is going to be hard not to find ones self rooting for Phillip Seymor Hoffman as the villan.
A real man and a real talent.

Brownshoe

2006-04-07T15:05:00.000-04:00

I hate Lufthansa. But I'll get to that later.

Act III: Dr. Strangkova or How I Learned To Stopped Worrying and Love Russia.

So here I am, back in The United States writing this post from the comfort of my own home. I travel a lot and Russia will indeed be one of the more memorable trips I've ever had.

Why?

Because I kind of feel like that squirrel that runs across a highway. It should've been run over but somehow the squirrel made it to the other side of the street unbeknownst to how close it came to being run over by those new Chryslers that kind of look like Bentleys. There are no two ways about it, Russia is not a pleasure travel destination. But by the last couple of days I learned to appreciate the country for its blatant stereotypical way of living. So...I kind of enjoyed it. Here's why:

If the Militia pulls you over, you really don't have to worry about getting a ticket. You just pay them off and hope it's enough. (No, really. This happened).
I can't stress how much I loved the subways. No waiting. Ever. And it never smelled like urine.
My girlfriend is going to kill me for this but I have to bring this up. The women there are gorgeous. No, not pretty. GORGEOUS. I'm not a mathematician but the numbers have got to be like 93% gorgeous, 5% very attractive, 5% okay looking. How much is that? And it's not like visiting most countries where everyone generally looks exactly alike. The women were all mixed with the neighboring countries so...yeah. Good times.
Russian television. Everything is dubbed in Russian. I watched a martial arts movie that was spoken in Mandarin, dubbed in English, and then re-dubbed in Russian. The result? HILARIOUS.

I also figured a couple of other things out as well. Remember that story I told where the 2 girls wanted to take a picture of me and the camera crew did the interview. Originally I thought it was a case of mistaken identity. I was wrong. Here's the thing. On day 5 I finally saw another black person. He was obviously from Africa and he kept his eyes trained on the floor. The next day I saw another black guy, same thing. But they did look at me. They didn't say anything but their eyes spoke volumes. They were saying:

"Help! Help Me!!"

I kind of felt like Oskar Schindler. Maybe I could help them. But I didn't. They were trapped. They were beaten. And that's when I figured out the whole picture taking and the interview thing. To the people in Red Square, to Russians, I must've looked like I was from another planet. I must have looked like a complete alien. Not like ET, the even weirder alien from Mac & Me. My behavior--the constant smile and silliness--was totally bizarre to them. The only thing they could do was get it on tape and hope that someone believed them when they say a molasses colored man was acting like a jackass in their country.

So that was my trip. I went there entirely for my girfriend but I learned a couple of things. And one of them was that in the real world...Drago would've kicked Rocky's ass.

Epilogue:

On the way back home I had the worst flight of my life. The seats on Lufthansa were so small that there were at least 30 people standing in the aisles trying to relieve the intense pain. I will never fly Lufthansa again. I was sitting next to a 120 pound lesbian and even she could barely fit in her seat. So, in honor of the plane ride I've written this haiku.

Lufthansa:

Concrete slabs you call seats, tiny and unforgiving, I think you gave my ass exuma...fuck you.

--Tenspeed

2006-04-03T10:56:00.000-04:00

No, that's not the dad from ALF.

It's Vladimir Putin.

Okay.

Where was I?

Oh yeah...

ACT II: "What do you think of our country? Please translate..."

I soon realized that my initial impression of Russia was kind of...off. Apparently not every guy in Russia looks like Drago. Just the ones at the airport.

The next day my girlfriend wanted to take me to see RED SQUARE. How could I resist? I've seen that place in so many action movies (and a boring Sean Connery one) that I just had to see it up close. But before we left, she said something to me that sent shivers down my spine. She said, Don't forget your papers.

Don't forget my papers?

I was pretty sure she meant "passport" but that's still kind of a scary concept. When she said the word papers, it made me think of 1942 Germany and I was Anne Frank, destined to keep all my thoughts in a journal...hopefully I'll lose my virginity to that nice Jewish boy. No, it was just my passport. But the Russian police are prone to random searches and it was imperative that I carried my passport at all times. On a side note: Every where else in the world, the police are referred to as "the police". In Russia, the police are referred to as The Militia. And if you ever saw one up close you'd understand why.

To get to Red Square we had to take the subway. She warned me that the subways are packed and crazy with people all rushing to get to their destination. She warned me that they'd be rude and pushy. Obviously she forgot that I'm from New York. The Rude and Pushy capital of the world. And the Russian subways are pretty much the same. The only difference was that nobody could understand me when I called them an asshole. Actually, there is one major difference. Efficiency. The subways are so efficient I felt embarrased for the MTA. And then I felt pissed off. First of all, the escalators in the subway system FLY. This is not an exaggeration. They're fast as hell. I'm guessing around 7 mph. I know that looks slow with that single digit just lying there but it isn't. Most escalators go about 2 mph. In a Russian subway: 7mph. In fact, whenever we'd get to the bottom or the top, the metal stairs would literally launch commuters onto the floor. I counted at least 5 people who would lose their balance, including myself of course. The subway trains need bear a special note. Subway trains come about every minute. Yes, that's right every minute. If a train was too packed, my girlfriend would tell me that we'd have to wait for the next train. Before I could even say "SHIT!", another train would come whizzing into the station. Lastly, here's somthing that would NEVER happen in NY. When a train is approaching a station, the doors would open before the train stopped. And people would jump off...Before the train stopped.

How's that for efficiency?

So when we got off the train and walked into Red Square, the funniest thing happened. 4 people (2 guys and 2 girls) walked up to us and asked if we could take a picture of them. At least that's what my girlfriend initially thought. Nope. Turned out they wanted to take a picture of me with the 2 girls. Strange. I thought maybe it was a sex thing. You know, 3 on 3. I believe it's called Borschting. Which is Russian for "No, my brother. You got to get your own."

Not 20 seconds after that, an actual camera crew complete with pretty lady and a microphone ran up to me and asked if they could interview me.

Ahhh...okay, so what was occuring here was that they thought I was a famous...something. Which I guess would make sense to them considering I was the only, and I mean ONLY black guy there. And it was obvious that I was from The States. Now this is the first time anything like that has ever happened to me. Probably because I don't look like anybody. I mean that. I don't resemble a soul. Which is funny because my girlfriend looks scarily like Cameron Diaz. When she was in NY, she was stopped all the time. Now it was my turn because I look like...I don't know, Ben Vereen?

So the interview lady would fire all these questions at Anya, wait for her to translate and then I would answer. The most important question would be: "Vam nravitsya nasha strana? Pozaluista perevedite...". Which means, How do you like our country? Please translate...

Please translate after every damn question.

I fought every urge in my body not to say, "Just read my blog bitch. Please translate..."

Apparently this was for Central Television which is the equivalent to America's NBC sans Matt Leblanc. Then again, NBC is now sans Matt Leblanc, finally. I think it will probably take them a bit to figure out that I'm some stupid producer from NY...not Ben Vereen. Oh well, at least now I know how Zhang Ziyi feels...

P.S. One more ACT to follow.

--Tenspeed

2006-04-02T14:56:00.000-04:00

Brownshoe says:
"The Pope's been dead for a year, and I still don't care."

2006-04-01T07:40:00.000-05:00

GREETINGS FROM RUSSIA!

Hey guys!

First of all, I want everyone to know that I'm still alive.

Barely.

Just in case I get killed over here, I thought it would be smart to give you guys updates as to how I'm doing.

ACT I: "Where is your hotel voucher?"

Shockingly enough, the trip over here wasn't as long as I thought it was going to be. Every time I've flew overseas, it felt like I was on the plane for days but this went by really fast. Now here's something even more shocking: The airline food was horrible. Now I know what you're all thinking, "All airline food is horrible" but in my experience it's always been pretty good. This was the first time that it was truly disgusting. It was some chicken-like dish. It was sweet and it was wet. It reminded me of a 15 year old hooker.

So otherwise, this was your pretty standard trip. That is, until I got to Russia and the Passport Control. Keep in mind that going to Russia isn't as easy as buying a ticket and getting on the plane. In order to go to Russia, you need a Visa. In order to get a Visa, you need an Invitation. In order to get an Invitation, the place where you're staying has to be Registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But like most things, I found a loophole. I was able to get an Invitation through some Finnish travel company. Which enabled me to get the Visa. So everything should've been hunky dorey, right? (By the way, that was the first and last time I will write the words "Hunky Dorey".)

When I approached the authoritarian "lady" at Passport Control, she studied my passport and Visa like a Salesman studies a Black Guy at a Department Store; with scrutiny. She even busted out one of those loop magnifying glasses. After about 5 minutes, she picked up the phone. Okay, let's get some clarity here. I'm in a foreign land where nobody really speaks English and this bitch was picking up the phone...which is never good. If you ever go someplace and the person across from you picks up a phone, that shit is NEVER good. Cause I damn sure didn't think she was gonna tell me that I won a prize. Well then some even more authoritarian motherfucker comes over and he asks for my ID. I tell him that she has my passport. He responds by saying the word "ID" again. I pull out my Driver's License and he begins to scrutinize that. For Five Fucking Minutes. But here's where my balls literally dropped. He looks at me--no, through me, and asks, "Where is your Hotel Voucher?" I'm kind of supposed to be staying at Registered hotel but remember that loophole I was telling you about? That loophole became my asshole and now I was being called out.

"Where is your Hotel Voucher?", he demands again. I hand him a piece of paper with my girlfriend's address on it. He looks at it, puts it aside, and asks, "Where is your Hotel Voucher?" The person behind me took one step back. I presumed for either TWO reasons.

1. Some hard hittin' motherfucker was gonna come out, beat the shit out of me, kick me in the head, and throw me in jail...

or

2. The stench of the shit that was running down my leg was beginning to become unbearable.

Well I must have looked pretty pathetic because he eventually waved me through. So there I am, in the middle of the airport, waiting for my girlfriend, looking more like a tourist than anyone ever has in the history of the world. We're talking, Christopher Columbus meets "The Indians" touristy. As I stood there, I noticed a pretty scary thing. Remember "Drago" from Rocky IV? Well, apparently in Russia, Drago's the guy next door. Drago, is the guy you pick on because he's smaller than everyone else. Drago is just some asshole and you can fuck his girlfriend right in front of him, cause hey, what the hell is he gonna do? I mean, he's only Drago. Every single guy looked like they could take me apart like an old set of legos. They're all huge, scary, and huge.

Well, that's it for now. I'm here for another week and I'll write again explaining how and why I'm gonna be on Russian television.

--Tenspeed

2006-03-29T12:41:00.000-05:00

Theres this forward going around about all the stuff Dick Cheney wants when he travels, like all the lights on in his hotel room and all the TVs turned to Fox news and a few reasonable dietary needs.
I don't get the lights thing, and I dont watch FOX, not because of any political affiliation, but because it is (In New York anyway,) The most dumbed down news out there.
I picture Spongebob writing the cue cards with a pink crayon.

But Cheney could rock it if he wanted to.
If I was the vice president ...
Shit, I'd be like,
I'd wear brand new, blindingly white basketball sneakers- even with a suit- everywhere I went. I want all the windows wide open in my hotel room and Duke Ellingtons "It don't mean a thing" playing everytime I walk in the room and a perky Mid Western cheerleader to serve me a Macallan, 18 year old single malt scotch with one ice cube and I would only sit in leather arm chairs and I would never touch any paper products and the tv would be tuned to TV Land so I could watch Sanford and Son with the sound off because it is not as funny as you remember it.

Then we'd be chillin'.
Brownshoe baby... thanks for listening.

2006-03-27T08:28:00.000-05:00

I dunno man... the worst thing I've ever written - depends who you ask.
Worst line ..? I probably scratched it out as soon as I wrote it. Nothing like the Papi Chulo scene from Devil Inside.
Worst Advice? "Dude, Devil Inside is pretty cool. You should keep at it."
MY worst pitch meeting was as Apostle Pictures - When we got to the part where Kevin and I were the hosts of the show, that dude was SO done with us. We were like Beavis and Butthead sitting on that couch trying to be funny.
The worst thing about being on set is ninety percent of the time- everyone is pissed off, has been working too long, has NO idea what is taking so long on this scene; hates the director and/or the script and is going to quit or get fired today or tomorrow.
And no matter how softly I talk, SOMEBODY has to 'shush' me.
My worst working habit is that I get bored easily and want to move on to a fresh new idea instead of polishing the old one.
My worst script idea was Kissing Winnie Cooper. At least I had the good sense not to write it.
Worst mistake I ever made was going to college.
Peace.

2006-03-26T18:25:00.000-05:00

One of the greatest things to do is talk about how other people really suck.

I mean, really suck.

Bad movies, bad music, bad television, it's all fodder for us to disseminate and destroy.

But what about us? Let's try something a little different. I want to hear how bad we are. I want to know the dumbest, most embarrassing, hackiest things we've ever created. And while we're at it, let's a dish a bit...

Here we go:

1. WHAT'S THE WORST THING YOU'VE EVER WRITTEN?

That would be an unproduced screenplay entitled Devil Inside. It had something to do with demons taking over New York City. Sound cool?
It wasn't.

2. WHAT'S THE WORST LINE YOU'VE EVER WRITTEN?

It was from Devil Inside. One of the main characters, a bike messenger named "Papi Chulo", accuses the female EMT character of being a lesbian. She responds:

"Yes! I am a lesbian! And my wife is out there somewhere!"

3. WHAT'S THE WORST ADVICE YOU'VE EVER GIVEN?

Speaker 1: "Summerland? What the hell is that?"
Speaker 2: "It's this new show from Aaron Spelling. Lori Loughlin's in it."
Speaker 1: "Sounds horrible. You should try and get out of it. It will only hurt your career"

Speaker 1 is me. Speaker 2 is Jesse McCartney.

4. WHAT'S THE ONE TIME YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD HAVE SPOKEN UP BUT YOU DIDN'T?

I was at Sundance with my old boss. He conducted the entire meeting with his white terry cloth robe WIDE OPEN...and he wasn't wearing anything underneath. We all just kind of sat there and acted as if nothing was wrong. But all I kept on thinking was, Flaccid Penis to your right, Flaccid Penis to your right, Flaccid Penis to your left....

5. WHAT'S THE WORST PITCH MEETING YOU'VE EVER HAD?

It was at New Line Cinema. Pitching Devil Inside. Till this day I still swear that I saw the exec's soul leaving his body.

6. WHO'S THE ONE PERSON YOU'D NEVER WORK WITH AGAIN AND AREN'T AFRAID TO NAME?

Foxy Brown. We sold a show to MTV and the next day she wanted to cut me out. That was the first time I went through something like that. It hurts more than I'd like to admit.

7. WHAT'S THE WORST SCRIPT IDEA YOU'VE EVER HAD?

No, it wasn't Devil Inside. I wanted to make a foreign romantic comedy. But the twist was that I wanted the actors to speak in gibberish opposed to an actual real language. I think I was trying to prove that intent can be more coherent than words. Yeah...I don't know what I was thinking.

8. WHAT'S THE WORST THING ABOUT YOU BEING ON SET?

If something funny is happening in the scene I tend to laugh out loud and blow the entire take. I wish this was an isolated incident. It's not. It happens all the time.

9. WHAT'S YOUR WORST WORKING HABIT?

I tend to not outline my scripts. When I'm writing alone, it's fine. But if I'm writing with my partner, it's a disaster. I know I should do it. But it's just so much fun to just write without it.

10. WHAT'S THE WORST MISTAKE YOU'VE EVER MADE?

5 years ago I hired Abel Ferrara to direct a film. The studio said in no uncertain terms that they would not work with him. I kind of thought, Well fuck you then. It wasn't until Abel and I started talking about the script that I understood why. During the meeting he fell asleep. In mid-sentence. In his mid-sentence. And let's just say that I don't think it was due to exhaustion...

Okay, now it's your turn.

--Tenspeed

2006-03-22T09:54:00.000-05:00

Seriously though, fuck The DaVinci Code.

The book was without a doubt the best selling screenplay treatment since Bridges of Madison County, (Oh yes, remember that one?) but it was in the fiction section last time I looked - Can we drop it Catholic Church?
What I loved about the DaVinci Code madness was people who hadn't read a book since they scanned the Cliff Notes to Sound and the Fury in high school coming up to me like, "Dude this is a great book!" Bridges of Madison County wasn't a great book and neither is DaVinci Code.
Millions of people disagree with me. And that's cool.
You can't take away from the best seller status... and I don't mean to - I am glad people who NEVER read bought a book still in hard cover after over a years worth of printing - what I'm saying is this... If it hadn't been for word of mouth, you might have never read it. Imagine how many other great books you might be missing out on.
I know, we'll start a Tenspeed and Brownshoe book club.
Let's all read Motherless Brooklyn before thr Ed Norton movie comes out!
I did not sit down to write this, but now here it is.
This is Brownshoe, switching to decaf.

2006-03-19T16:32:00.000-05:00

Is that a rat, a gerbil, or a hamster? I have no idea but I just really liked the picture.

Last Night I just had my first brush with fame. No, it wasn't seeing my mug on America's Most Wanted; I was actually recognized.

My directing and producing partner Larry Strong and I went out to play pool on Long Island because well...that's where we live. When we walked up to the counter to get our balls (please, too easy), this young kid does a double take and actually says, "Hey! I know you!"

Things that immediately entered my mind:

He had me confused with another black guy. It's amazing how often that happens.
Somewhere out here on the Internet, there's a place where the government posts pictures of people who download a ridiculous amount of porn.
I had sex with his girlfriend.
I had sex with his sister.
I had sex with his mother (happened).
I had sex with his grandmother (never happened but considering how young some mothers have been...)

So I kind of made a face and responded, "Oh yeah?" He then shakes my hand at the same time the counter girl gives us our rack--which was great because I desperately wanted to get the fuck outta there. When we get to the table Larry looks at me and says, "I bet you had sex with his grandmother".

He was wrong.

Because then the kid walks up to us and says, "Aren't you guys Directors?" How the hell did he know that? Then he says,"I saw your pictures in Newsday" which means a lot more in Long Island then it does in New York City. People in the city only read 3 things. The Post. The Daily News. Or The New York Times. Some people read Am New York but only on the 2 train from 23rd St. to 72nd St.

This could have been great story about being recognized but it isn't. Because that kid, who turned out to be an aspiring actor, talked our ears off for 20 minutes before I got the balls to say something like, Great. It was nice meeting you but we're gonna play now. When I got home I couldn't stop thinking how weird that was. But then I came to a frightening realization.

This happens to celebrities all the time. All day. Every day.

So do I now feel sorry for what celebrities go through with the pictures and the "who are you fucking" and the "are you gonna get a divorce" and "are you really gay" questions?

Hell no.

Why? Because if you believe for a second that these celebrities don't ask for it--no, don't want it, you're sadly mistaken. For celebrities (mostly actors but we have a few Paris Hiltons and Reality Stars too), FAME is the ultimate goal. Why do you think they even go to Robertson Blvd.? If you're unfamiliar with Robertson Blvd, it's a long street in Los Angeles that is probably the biggest paparazzi hangout in the world. It has the Ivy, New Line Cinema, and a bunch of expensive clothing places. And if celebrities are hounded by the paparazzi on this street then you must believe this: They want to be hounded. They need to be hounded. Why else would you go there? John Cusack has been a celebrity for 3 decades now. But he doesn't go the Ivy, or Wolfgang Puck's, or Fred Segal's. He exists just like the rest of us.

I personally hated being recognized. Not because I'm some weird hermit. I just didn't like the attention considering he doesn't even know what kind of shit that I produce or direct. The fact that I was on the cover of a newspaper was good enough for him. And that's just...weird. And unsettling. But if I want a larger career, I have to do more press and take more pictures. And if I complain, tell me to shut the fuck up. Because that's the business. And we're compensated very well for the public intrusion.

So to all those celebrities that complain about the big bad paparazzi:

Shut The Fuck Up.

--Tenspeed

2006-03-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

Why Chef? Why?

I learned something today.
I learned that you will never, ever know where the self deluding arrogance that only blind faith in ones own religion can foster is lurking.
And you will never see it coming.

Isaac Hayes, one of the coolest of the cool – is a scientologist (?) and is quitting his long time gig as the voice of Chef- the sexy singing school cafeteria cook on South Park, because of an episode that lampoons Scientology saying:
"There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends, and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins," He went on to say, "As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices."
Is he talking about the show where Jesus wrestles Santa in a shopping mall?
Where crippled kids in wheel chairs who can only speak their own names are held up to ridicule? Or one of the characters pretends to be retarded so he can win the special Olympics?
It’s South Park dude.
There is an episode called Chicken Fucker.
The only religious beliefs Isaac Hayes wants respected are his own. And that makes him a fucking hypocrite.

So long Chocolate Salty Balls. It will never be Salisbury steak day again.
Show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone released this statement:
"In 10 years and more than 150 episodes Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons and Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show.”

And a fifty year old religion that comes in paperback at that.
- This is Brownshoe, and I'm not gonna take it anymore.

2006-03-15T09:34:00.000-05:00

Signs of the apocalypse:
Ice Tea on Regis and Kelly being guest hosted by Pat Sajak.
And the Sun turned as black as sac cloth.

2006-03-12T14:21:00.001-05:00

A Day at The Gym

I was at the gym this morning and I found out the hard way what it would be like if Jerry Lewis had never gotten famous. In the middle of my set, this old guy came up to me and startled babbling along about...well, I have no clue. He was one of those guys who laughed when he spoke so it sounded something like this:

"And then (hahahaha---)...she (hooohaaaa)....culo (haaahhaha; uhhhh)"

I don't know what the hell he was talking about but I did catch the word, Culo. Which is spanish for "Ass". I think I smiled a bit and then moved my culo to another machine. As I started a new set, I could see him walking back and forth, waiting for me to finish so he could finish his Spanish Ass story. It was like watching the behind the scenes footage of Jaws 14. I knew that when I finished my set he would walk over and do more of that talky-laughy stuff. Usually I do between 10-15 reps.

This time I did 74 reps.

It worked, sort of. He got tired of waiting for me to finish so he went off to bother someone else. The only problem was that when I was done with my set, my arms were stuck in this perpetual Kung Fu Grip. I didn't have a choice. It was either do the quantative centennial set or duck into the disease infested pool.

And I was not going in there.

The water is a crayola brown-green and it's the closest thing I've ever seen to a full sized petrie dish. Last Sunday, a young girl jumped in, did 2 laps, and came out pregnant with twins.

True story.

--Tenspeed.

2006-03-11T00:06:00.000-05:00

Interesting about the Blair Witch Project though… Yes, technology has created a monster. Any TOOL with a camera is now a film maker- and they are gumming up the works for the rest of us and creating what I call The Slushpile.
Imagine if everybody with a computer wrote a screenplay.
Oh, wait.
They do.
Welcome to our world, oh yes.
What is it about show business that causes people to DELUDE themselves into thinking they are better than they are? Or any good at all? Do you watch the first few episodes of American Idol? These people auditioning for this show… people who are SO BAD that the producers put them on because they are SO bad it’s entertainment- truly and deeply believe that they are something special. And they vow with venom on their lips that they will return and be glorious.

If you try to draw or paint and it sucks you look at it and go, “Dude that sucks.” And that is where your career as an artists ends… but the lure of fame and riches combined with these “Cinderella Stories” (most of which are fabricated by publicists after the fact) – are a drug to many people. That drug is called,
“Hey you never know.” That is all the rational that people need to send their mediocrity out into the universe and hope that no one notices.
Because sometimes, no one does.

The Blair With guys got lucky, they did something no one had dared do before and the right people packaged it brilliantly and some people got rich. But who has ever watched that film twice? Those guys turned out not to have the goods anyway and that is simply that.

The real problem with “independent film” is it has gotten too big.
It is like Off Broadway.
Broadway is of course an untouchable unachievable multimillion-dollar proposition.
Off Broadway is like independent film today . . . it still takes an army of producers and about a half a million dollars to open a show OFF Broadway.
Off Off is what OFF was twenty years ago. Scrappy, hungry, trying new shit. Yeah, a lot of it’s crap.
FILM needs to acknowledge it’s Off Off Broadway. It’s twenty to fifty thousand dollar films.
There need to be whole festivals for just those films. Because somewhere in all that crap the future lies in wait.
Oh, and by the way just because a play was never ON Broadway doesn’t mean it was OFF Broadway. Have a little respect for the people who manage to get there. Off BWY means 99 seats and you paid everyone an equity wage etc… You know what I am talking about.
--- I am Brownshoe.

2006-03-10T12:42:00.000-05:00

Is Independent Film Dead?

Yes.

And no.

But mostly, yes.

The Blair Witch Project is probably the last independent film to hit theatres. That was in 1999. Now it's 2006. Let's take a look at the slate of films that were competing in the Dramatic Competition at the last Sundance Film Festival, the bastion of independent cinema.

Come Early Morning- (D) Joey Lauren Adams. Starring Ashley Judd & Tim Blake Nelson

A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints- (D) Dito Montiel. Starring Chazz Palminteri, Robert Downey Jr., Shia La Boeuf, Rosario Dawson

Half Nelson- (D) Ryan Fleck- Starring Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie

The Hawk is Dying- (D) Julian Goldberger- Starring Paul Giamatti, Michelle Williams, Michael Pitt

Puccini For Beginners- (D) Maria Maggenti- Starring Justin Kirk, Gretchen Mol

Sherrybaby- (D) Laurie Collyer- Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal (isn't she in Sundance every fucking year?!)

Stephanie Daley- (D) Hilary Brougher- Starring Tilda Swinton, Amber Tamblyn, Melissa Leo (she's also in my movie--Holla!)

I think you get the idea. This however, does not include the movies that were shown out of competition. You know, the movies that were actually sold. There was a Steve Carrell movie that sold for 10 million, two Bruce Willis movies, and Paris Hilton came...again.

So what happened to Independent Cinema? What happened to the film starring a bunch of undiscovered talent (read: nobody's) and created a huge commercial and critical splash? Do they even make these movies anymore?

Again--yes and no.

With the advent of camera technology, virtually anyone can became a filmmaker. Literally. There's no more expensive film stock or outrageous processing fees. You just point the camera and hit that little red button. Which is actually part of the demise of independent cinema.

And The Blair Witch Project is totally to blame.

After TBWP came out and made some mucho dinero, people ran out to Circuit City, bought the latest (and cheapest) camera, and started shooting. Mostly...shit. And this is what festivals have had to wade through for the last 6 years. Thousands of films were made, everything jiggly hand-held, virtually no discrernible story line, starring--I don't know, the next door neighbor. And then it's sent off to a butt load of film festivals. Now here's the dirty little secret that you're not supposed to know.

The Festival Directors don't watch them.

What an incidenary thing to say. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it's the truth. Do you really think that they sit through thousands of VHS tapes that have the title of the film written in black sharpe? No, sir. It gets tossed to the side. Those DVD's with press kits and pictures of any Gyllenhaal or any Deschanel...they go straight to the top, baby.

So now we're supposed to believe that BrokeBack Mountain is an independent film? I don't think so. Is Crash an independent film? Don't make me laugh. Just because your budget is under 20 million dollars, doesn't mean it's an independent film. Especially if it stars Bruce Willis, or Jennifer Aniston, or any other NBC former Friend.

I think the real problem here is that independent film has the propensity to be, well...chintzy. The acting usually stinks, the camera work is non-existent, and nobody truly cares about the outcome. The goal is to make a quick buck. Guess what, folks? This ain't filmmaking. So can we really blame the festivals? Not really. Not until filmmakers really start caring about what they're putting on screen. Lack of money is supposed to make you more creative, not more apathetic.

Take your time and do your best. Otherwise, you have no business complaining about those summer blockbusters. At least they care.

Somewhat.

--Tenspeed

2006-03-09T09:48:00.000-05:00

Male underwear models get no respect.
And most of them are packing mad heat. I was picking out a fresh pair of boxer briefs the other day and didn't even know where to look in the men’s underwear aisle. This is one of the only times men get a small taste of how women must feel every damn time a beer commercial comes on television. HUGE bulging packages snarled out at me from beneath hairless six pack abs everywhere I looked. Ball sacks the size grapefruit and thick, ropey, man sausage were burned onto my retina.
Was I in the gay men’s underwear aisle? I wished I were born blind. There was a guy next to me. I felt like we were both shopping for porn. I briefly toyed with the idea of making a wise crack, but feared it could go awry and observed the men’s urinal cone of silence instead. I told my wife later I understood if she wanted to see other men.

Speaking of wishing I were born blind, lets not forget Oliver Stone's World Trade Center!! (Another uninspired title see: JFK) He could have called it WALL STREET 2: Stock Market... CRASH! Thank God Mr. Stone is dramatizing the events of that day. What could be more necessary? On behalf of most all New Yorkers, I'll take a pass.
I caught the live show.
On second thought, maybe we need Nicholas covered in prop ash crawling around the iconic twisted metal of the wreckage. His surviving that day on screen in one hour and fifty minutes will let the nation finally heal. I remember watching it on the news thinking, GOD If they had just changed film stock more, it would have I dunno... made it more real I guess.
If I don't want to see it I don't have to go see it though right?
But I am going to have to be aware of it ... the controversy... the chatter, the widows protesting it - Stone on Larry King defending it, flanked with the Real Life Firemen who support the film. Some editorial in the Post slamming it. The studio taking out a full page ad in the trades calling Oliver Stone a patriot.
What I’d like to know is, will Guilliani love or hate? Support the film or banish it like a manure covered Madonna? Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

2006-03-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

I just got a message from a guy wants me to write a script, I haven't heard if he is offering any money yet, but - It's an "Urban contemporary version of the Oedipus story."
This is not a joke.
Funny thing is, I'll do it.
But only if I can call it "MuthaFucka!"
... Brownshoe out.

About Crash...
Yeah, it did feel like the early nineties "Grand Canyon" days had returned. Back when LA was supposed to be all deadly and racist and shit. Like if I went to LA Ice Cube was gonna just shoot me right there right when I got off the plane.
If we hate the movie so much, why the big picture?

2006-03-07T21:52:00.000-05:00

CRASH.

Best Picture winner at the 78th Academy Awards.

Man, do I HATE this movie.

Before this picture was released in the theatres, my publicist wanted me to attend a screening of a movie directed by the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby. I loved Million Dollar Baby and I was excited to see the film.

I arrived at the Universal Screening room with 5 other friends and waited for the film to start.

Well, the film started.

Then it ended.

And I wanted to kill myself. No, I wanted to kill the filmmaker. Between the 6 of us that saw the movie, half of us absolutely hated the film. The other half absolutely loved the film.

This is what I thought then:

What an insanely amateurish attempt to portray the race relations in contemporary America.

This is what I think now:

What an insanely amateurish attempt to portray the race relations in contemporary America...that's about 10 years too late.

Now don't think for a second that I don't know that I'm in a tremendous minority for my distaste for this film. In fact, in the past year I've only met one other person who didn't like this film and he was my Sound Guy and he just might've been trying to secure his next job. But I've never felt like I saw a completely different film than the rest of the world quite like this. Not because I didn't like the film but because I hated the film. I looooathed the film. I felt that it was "wrought with stinkiousity" (That was for you Mallory!).

First off, let's discuss the genre that this film falls into. If you think Crash is a Drama, you're wrong. Crash is as far from a drama as The Forty Year Old Virgin. Point in fact, Crash is a Melodrama. You don't really find many melodramas in cinema. For very good reason. But there are 2 outlets that they still exist:

1. Lifetime Television

and

2. Afterschool Specials

Guess which category Crash falls into...mmm-hmm. AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL.

Anyone ever see A Body To Die For: The Aaron Henry Story? It stars a very young Ben Affleck (with quite the receding hairline--hmmmm) who starts using steroids to achieve, Yep, you guessed it, A Body To Die For. It's one of the lazier afterschool specials but it stuck in my mind even before I knew that Affleck would turn into Save The World From The Incoming Asteriod Affleck. Let me describe for you the most amazing last ten minutes of an afterschool special that I've ever seen. In the last ten minutes of this afterschool special, Young Affleck starts bleeding from the nose, gets kicked off the football team, curses out his mother (well, television cursing), and beats up his girlfriend. Actually, he didn't beat her up.

He put her through a fucking wall. Literally.

Sounds dramatic and intense, don't it? Maybe on paper but by the time it was shot it was something else. It was HILARIOUS. Now here's the most amazing thing of all:

That was mild compared to Crash.

Every single character in a melodrama has but one purpose. To perpetuate the theme of the movie. That's a problem. Because that's not a character. It's a robot. In a melodrama no one does anything except portray the most intense stereotype ever written. That's pretty lazy.

And amateurish.

And just dead wrong.

Why wrong? Because human beings don't act that way. Even the stupid ones. Or the sneaky ones. Or especially the racist ones. In the year 2006, racism is not that overt. It's subtle. That's why racism still exists. If racism was that overt it would've been stamped out by now. But it's not. It's here to stay. Not because everyone in power is a racist but because racism is much like a mosquito flying around your ankle: You don't know it's there until it bites you.

So there. I hate this movie. Me and the other 4 people in the world.
--Tenspeed

2006-03-06T16:09:00.000-05:00

One of the nice things about working on a film is that most days, one way or another, you see the sun rise.

2006-03-06T15:47:00.000-05:00

I just got done sending Benderspink a hate email after seeing Red Eye this weekend. I have come to hate movies and it saddens me. I would gladly pay half price to eat a little popcorn and watch a few previews of movies that are also going to suck, and then go hang out with some friends. Went to see Firewall last night and have only myself to blame. Actually prefer the Bruce Willis Version from a few years back called Hostage. Glad to see Virginia Madsen back where she belongs back playing The Wife. Where was the guy with the duct tape on the set of Sideways? For some fucken reason my wife and I decided to try to sit through Assault on Precinct 13 - in the spirit of daring someone to see how long they can hold their breath underwater or leave their hand on something hot. And I have to say she outlasted me. Ethan Hawke is haunted by failing to save his two partners in an undercover hand-held sting gone bad. Now he drinks and has a desk job; STOP me when Maria Bello shows us her tits and you think you have seen this before. I don't know if he unholsters and confronts his demons in time to stop the bad guy from killing Drea DeMatteo or maybe whatisname from Die Hard does it for him.
In any case I am going to the fucken bookstore.
--Brownshoe

2006-03-04T16:53:00.000-05:00

YOU’RE JUST NOT THAT TALENTED

In an earlier column I stated a fact about the number of Creatives. The number was 4 million. For the sake of this article I’m just going to include ACTORS so I’ll be conservative and lower that number to 3 million. If I excluded your particular profession, don’t be angry. You’re just being spared my wrath. Why wrath? Because that number, 3 million, is the one of the very things that is wrong with this industry. Put it this way, on the last Oscar telecast do you remember seeing 3 million people? Of course not. Otherwise Mann’s Chinese Theatre would actually have to be located in China. No, 3 million there was not. But then why is that number so high?

Because Acting is self professed.

That’s the big problem. I don’t know who started this but there’s this bizarre dictum that if you want to be an actor, all you have to do is say it out loud. Really? Is that it? All you have to do is say it out loud? If I say it three time can I conjure up Michael Keaton and watch his head spin? It is this ridiculous way of thinking that has bloated the number of actors in the US, just the US, to 3 million weak. Acting is the only profession in the world that can be anointed simply by proclamation. Sure, there are other self proclaimed Creatives. Lord knows I’ve met my share of self-proclaimed writers who’ve never written a thing.

But it’s nowhere near the same.

Because eventually, writers have to deliver a tangible product. They may not be famous; they may never even sell a thing. But you can hold it in your hands. It may be crap but it is real.

Directors deliver a tangible product. It may be crap but it is real.

Actors can’t do that. Acting is beholden to another entity. Actors can not exist without the product of others. I know what you’re thinking. Directors need actors just as much as actors need directors. Directors are beholden to actors. Not true. The Kid Stays in the Picture was one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in recent years and there wasn’t one actor in the flick. Truth is, actors are people who need people.

“Just because I’m not famous doesn’t mean I’m not an actor.” A friend of mine said that to me when he was just starting out as an actor. He’s a lawyer now, a damn good one by the way. But he was right. There truly is no correlation between “good” acting and fame. Freddie Prinze Jr. was famous, although I’ve never read a single review or article that ever described him of being a good actor. But big BUT, that doesn’t excuse actors from being (as my friend Larry puts it)…UNgood. Most actors are pretty horrible. Some of them even have a career. Of course I realize that good is subjective. My good is different from your good. You might even say that your good can beat up my good but I think we can generally agree on what excites us in a performance and what disappoints us. Put it this way, I’ll bet two years salary that Paris Hilton will never win an acting award; MTV excluded.

So if we can all agree on that then we can all agree on this: Bad is bad.

What makes me an authority? Nothing. There is no such thing and you should be aware of people that claim to be an authority and don’t have a uniform and a badge to back it up. The only things I can tell you, however, are the experiences I’ve had as an agent and a manager.
One of the ways an agent or manager finds his talent is from attending acting workshops, or seminars, or conservatories, which is all pretty much the same thing. Basically, a ten percenter will sit in a room and actors will stroll in, one by one, and perform a monologue. Actors pay good money for this so accompanying the monologue is usually some chitchat, like where they were born or how they just discovered yoga as if it hasn’t been around for centuries. Sometimes these actors were born in the 80’s, sometimes these actors are in their 80’s, but the most interesting thing is that they all say the exact same thing. I just know I’m gonna make it! I can’t begin to tell you how bad I want to say, No…you’re not.

Hey, optimism is a good trait. It can also be a dangerous trait. Especially if you’re dangerously optimistic. I’ve sat through literally thousands of what is supposed to be sad monologues. Dreadful, dreadful soliloquies about people having cancer, or people having AIDS, or people having cancer then AIDS. These monologues have less to do with acting and more to do with actors wanting to say, Hey, look at me! I’m crying! Some of these workshops are a little on the scammy side but there are others that are truly reputable. Susan Batson, working on the side of good repute is an amazing acting teacher who’s coached celebrities from Nicole Kidman to Chris Rock. Batson, a woman who is delightfully from another planet is incredibly tough on her students and only wants the very best and actor can give. *As shown in the first five minutes of the film, Girl 6 and in my opinion, the only watchable part of that film. I had the pleasure of being invited to her beautiful space to hear these Best of the Best thespians deliver what was supposed to be, great performances. Supposed to be. The reality was that they were terrible. Every last one of them. But this wasn’t Susan’s fault. The blame lies in a completely different area. It’s called reality. And the reality is…not everyone can be an actor. And why do I believe this to be true? God help me if this sounds mystical or wishy-washy but I believe that acting is special. It’s not a trade. It’s a talent. Not just anybody can learn it. Sure, coaches are essential to honing an actor’s skill but you have to born with it. That’s why I come down so hard on these self-professed actors. The sully the very notion that people like me hold true in our hearts.

Actors are magical.

How else do you explain what they do to us? Forget about laughing and/or crying. That’s a given. I’m talking about power. Actors have power over us. They can make a good day better of a bad day worse. They can make us scream—out loud—in fear or in anger. They make us believe the impossible. I’m not insane so I know that a man can’t fly but whenever I see Christopher Reeve in that skintight red and blue, I can’t help but look out the window. Actors can even drive us to make changes in our lives. This may sound cheesy but when I saw Jerry Maguire on a Friday, I quit the fashion industry the following Monday. I had forgotten how important it was to be inspired by the work that you do. Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. reminded me. I know, I know, I’d roll my eyes too if I just read that previous statement. But didn’t you believe that it really was Ray Charles up on that screen, singing Hit the Road Jack? Or that Indiana Jones really could outrun a fifty-ton speeding boulder.? Actors, good actors, make you believe in things that are unbelievable. Magical dramatists that use their talent as a magic wand. Bad actors are charlatans who promise greatness but deliver cheap tricks with exaggerated eye movements. There’s just no reason for there to be 3 million actors in the US. Never mind the fact that there is only 120,000 SAG members in the entire nation. However, there is another reason why that number is so high:

Extras.

Extras are the people who appear in the background of a film or television show. That way when the main characters enter a diner, it doesn’t look like an episode of the Twilight Zone. In recent years I’ve actually become quite obsessed with checking out the extras in a film. Sometimes it’s even funnier than the film I’m watching. In Braveheart, during a battle sequence, I spied two extras that were supposed to be fighting each other to the death, laughing and playing what looked to be a rousing game of leapfrog. In Teen Wolf, during a basketball scene, an extra actually pulled out his, uh…reproductive material. And that in itself poses a question. Are extras really actors? Well…yes and no. The only people that I would be inclined to give the mantle of Actor to are what I call Career Extras. Career Extras are actors that do one and one thing only. Appear as background performers. They’re very professional, eerily serious about each project they do, and they work constantly. Career Extras can rack up more than 20 films and television shows in a single year. That even beats Jude Law who was in every single film last year. I just love watching Law & Order and finding my favorite Career Extras. Every once in awhile when I don’t see one of them, I’ll be like, “Hey, where’s Guy who likes to pretend he’s on the phone?” Although pretending to be on the phone may not be Macbeth, it is sort of acting. The television show, 24, has the best extras in the business. I don’t know why but they do. Extras in real time. There’s even a new show premiering on HBO entitled, “Extras” starring Ricky Gervais (star of the original and funnier UK version of The Office) so there must be something to them.

This all falls on deaf ears of course. The glutton of actors will continue to rise and the expected level of talent will continue to plummet. Half of the working actors today would’ve been unemployable in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. Gone are the days of Pacino, Streep, and Newman. Redford pretty much retired, Bancroft just passed, and De Niro has now relegated to appearing in silly comedies and hokey thrillers. So now the door is open to any Tim, Rick, or Larry who watches waaaaay to much Entertainment Tonight and thinks fame is right around the corner. And that’s how I weed them out. When I hear an actor talk about money and grosses rather than craft and technique, red flags all around. These people think that the entertainment industry is like a gas station where they can just stroll up to the Self-Serve island and help themselves. But like the gas station, there’s a price. And that price is talent. Sure, some people have made it without paying; Lord knows Pauly Shore is on fumes.

For some, like Marlon Brando, talent is like solar energy. It can run forever or you can you can squander it away. But we know he had it. And his was as bright as the sun.

--Tenspeed

2006-03-02T17:54:00.000-05:00

A Brief Opening:
I guess I’m obligated to give you a quick introduction and explanation as to how and why I know about all the little pseudo facts that I spew. Well, I have been in "the business" now for a little over 10 years now. I can honestly say that I have worked within most, if not all gametes of the entertainment industry. I’ve been (unfortunately, this is in order) a stuntman, turned model booker, turned agent, turned manager, turned commercial producer, turned television producer, turned film producer, and finally turned director but never ever an actor. I’ve never even attempted to act (which is a complete lie—turns out I’m horrible).

So if you can tell by that previous longest run on sentence in the history of the English language…I’ve been around. This allows me to talk semi-intelligently about the real facts of this business. So with that said, let’s get started. And how do we start? With a little experiment of course.

"You Mean I Gotta Get a Real Job?!"

It will happen or has happened to us all. It doesn’t matter if you’re an actor, director, producer, writer, or even a cinematographer. It has Death and Taxes beat hands down. It’s more of a sure thing than Papa’s Moustache in the third. It’s as inevitable as that big Texas-sized asteroid that’s gonna smash into the Earth and destroy us all (or something like that). It’s a scary, scary truth that is more of a reality than all those things combined. Ready for it?

So here it is…

At some point in your career you’re going to have to get a real job. You know, a real job just like your parents used to say when you first decided to get into this depraved, rejection filled, damned industry. I know it’s depressing but it’s the truth. An awful truth that plagues most Creatives as our numbers have soared to more than 4 million! That means you’re not alone so stop crying, get it together, and figure out what you’re gonna do. According to the trade paper, BACKSTAGE, the "real" job of choice is of course…a waiter. But what if you don’t have the patience to stand over a small rickety table while a 75-year-old woman decides if she wants the Potato Latkes or the Rigatoni Martino? There are alternatives. What are they? Well, I decided to use myself as a guinea pig and see what’s out there. I decided that my mission would be to work at two totally different places for two weeks each. The following is a positively true and positively frightening experience at both employment locations.

JOB #1: OVERNIGHT DELIVERY
The first job I applied to was for a certain well-known 3-letter overnight delivery service. Getting the job was easy. From what I understand they’ll hire just about anyone. And I was just about anyone. So with the interview being just a technicality, I was ordered to work the following Monday. As I parked in that huge parking lot and stumbled out of the car (stumbled because my shift was 4am-9am) on the first day of my employment, I noticed a funny thing. Fences. Long sprawling metal spokes trimmed with barbwire on the top, sort of like an S&M Christmas tree. Upon my walk towards the security booth entrance, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this place reminded me of something. And as I emptied my pockets, walked through a metal detector, and had a magic wand trace the outline of my incredibly sleepy body, I quickly realized what it was. Prison. This place reminded me of a prison. So for $8.50 an hour I got to go to prison. This may seem like an exaggeration but the parallels can not be ignored.

First off all, no one talks to you. Wait, let me amend that. No one even looks at you, is more accurate. When I walked through the huge emptiness of this building of at least 900 employees, not one person made eye contact with me. I couldn’t even get that customary "Negro nod" from the other brothers that worked there. So the 2nd thing I came to realize was that I definitely wasn’t going to make any friends and that anonymity would be my modus operandi. We were to report to a designated section of the building where our assignments were to be handed out. For instance, one day I would have to unload a truck, another I would have to scan in hundreds of pieces of inventory. It became clear, however, that whatever I’d be doing would require heavy lifting. Which was strange considering I was hired for a data entry position. But when they noticed that I work out quite regularly, major labor became part of the equation. It was like having 1000 friends and you had to help them move all day, every day.

The 3rd and most shocking thing I noticed was how people would talk to each other. Now let me clarify something. I myself have a pretty horrible mouth. My parents and my son are the only people I don’t curse around. But this was different. Much different. Cool Hand Luke different. The supervisors (who I’ll now refer to as "guards") treated everyone like crap whether you did a good job or a bad job. Of course I realize that there are a lot of less than nice guards out there but do they scream in your ear? Do they berate you? Do they throw things at you? I myself witnessed one of the guards calling another one of the "inmates" a black retard who couldn’t read.

Wow. EOE my ass.

Being a fly on the wall in this type of environment was fascinating but I wasn’t going to learn anything unless I started asking some questions. I was really interested in knowing how long some of these people of have been there, guards and inmates alike. Within a week I was able to talk to about 85 people. Can you guess what the average length of employment (or jail sentence, whatever) was? Now I’m talking about the mathematical average here. Can you guess?

Days.

That’s right, days. Not months, not weeks, but days. 4 days, 7 days, 13 days. The truth is, I didn’t meet anyone who had served there more than 2 months. That’s an insanely high turnover. I couldn’t exactly blame them. I had agreed to work there for 2 weeks and it was 14 days too long. Were there other reasons for such a high rate of attempted escapes? I asked my senior guard if he had any idea why people quit so often and he replied, "When you’ve been here as long as I have, you get used to it". "How long have you been here", I asked. "3 weeks", he replied. It was honestly just too sad to be funny…but I laughed anyway.

A quick aside: Break time was surreal. At 6am on the dot a whistle would blow and everyone would literally drop what they’re doing and disappear like a strange Terry Gilliam movie. Ten minutes was all you got and you weren’t allowed to bring in any water or food from the outside; you had to buy it on site. Unfortunately, there was only one vending machine in the entire complex and it would take you 10 minutes just to get there. As I watched everyone try and scurry back in time from their break, it made me wonder if perhaps WE were part of some grand experiment. I don’t know, it was just a thought.

So after two weeks I escaped, collected my dough (I never broke the $100 barrier, by the way), and thanked God that this was just an experiment.

On to the next job.

JOB #2: SECURE THIS!
I wanted to try something a little different this time. The 1st job really didn’t have any discretion in their hiring process so I wanted to try something that wasn’t such a gimme. I immediately ruled out retail and fast food joints. Telemarketing was also out. I wanted to try and get a job in a more controlled environment. Kind of like an office job. No, exactly like an office job. I scoured my local paper for jobs and found three categories that I could possibly work within. Clerical, Receptionist, and Administrative Assistant. That’s when I hit my first snag. They all wanted resumes. I didn’t have a resume. Nor have I done anything that remotely translates to what an administrative assistant does, whatever it is they may do. The closest I’ve come to computer work is making up stories for screenplays. And that’s when it hit me.

Make it up.

Make up another persona. Make up a work history. Make up a list of skills and abilities that I didn’t have. In other words…lie. So that’s what I did. The only real thing on that resume was my name. I even decided to make up companies that had conveniently went out of business so they couldn’t be contacted. I cheekily went as far as to include the company that my brother owns called ARBO Pictures. And I said I worked there for 5 years (ha!). So what would my job responsibilities be at these fictitious companies? Easy. Whatever my prospective employer needed, I would simply cut & paste that piece of their ad right onto my resume. Could this really work? My theory on giving people what they wanted to see was pretty thin. Still, it was worth a try so I sent out 7 resumes that Friday. On Monday I had 4 responses.

My first interview was, in a word, HILARIOUS. Not because of the interviewer but because of the interviewee. I laid it on quite thick. I told her I wasn’t really a 9-5 guy and that I only leave the office when the work was done. I told her everything she could possibly want to hear. I was a whore and she was my "john"—ooo, no one does it better than you mami.
Looking back, it was more than a little gross. Didn’t matter anyway. There was no way I was getting the job. One phone call and she would immediately find out that my entire resume was BS. If she typed my name in any search engine, a million things would pop up from martial art fan sites to my own movie’s official domain. I was going to be found out and it was going to be really, really embarrassing. The next day she called and offered me the job.

As I drove to work the morning of my first day, I couldn’t help but think of how easy this was going to be. I mean, it was a mid-sized company that sold security tags to retail stores. How hard could this be? I assure you, I’m not being cute here or leading you to a funny little reversal. The job really was going to be easy. All I had to do was some light filing, a little computer work, and answer the phones. Simple, simple, simple. I did not, however, take into account my co-workers. More specifically, the attitude of my co-workers. I was completely blind-sided. When I was interviewing, my future employer warned me about the head boss, the owner. She said he was pretty boisterous and a little difficult. Turns out he was the best of the bunch. He was just a salty old dog that likes to mix it up a bit. I really liked him. It was like working for Milton Berle without all the cross-dressing. My co-workers, 2 females, were a completely different story. By the first second on my first day, they made it perfectly clear that they did not like me.

How could they have come to that conclusion so quickly? Usually it takes people weeks to figure out that they don’t like me.

As far as I can decipher, I was the "new guy" and I was invading their fine-tuned clique territory. New Guy, by the way is what they continued to call me throughout the entire two weeks. Never Kevin, always New Guy, as in "Hey, new guy!" It took me about fifteen minutes to make up a nickname for them. Shrek and the Ewok . The resemblance was uncanny.
It was interesting how they would treat me horribly in completely different ways. Shrek would treat me like her retarded second cousin, constantly reminding me to file things in alphabetical order. The Ewok would just ignore me. All day. Every day. Despite that, I did learn a few things about office etiquette. For instance, if I left for lunch and neglected to ask anyone if they wanted anything, that was considered rude. Also, whoever called the office was immediately deemed an idiot. The phone would ring, Shrek would talk for a couple of minutes, hang up, and shout, "Idiot!"

So how did they treat each other? It didn’t take me long to figure out that Shrek and the Ewok did not trust each other. Or really like each other. They each thought the other one was trying to destroy them. Destroy them? How do you destroy someone? This wasn’t exactly Lord of the Rings. Nonetheless, I slowly started to lose it. The nicer I was to them, the meaner they were to me. I didn’t like it and I didn’t deserve it. By the 4th day I had to call my friend and co-director Larry Strong who knew about my little experiment and well…vent. I told him about Shrek and the Ewok.

I told him about how everyone was deemed an idiot.

I told him that I felt guilty every time I went to lunch.

I told him about how they were trying to destroy each other--but most of all, I told him how mean they were to me!

Larry listened to all of this (I don’t think I was very coherent) took it all in and asked me one very simple question. Why do they have to like you? Hmm. Good question. Hadn’t thought of that. Why did they have to like me? The answer was just as simple as the question.

They didn’t.

THE RESULTS
At the end of my two weeks and with the experiment at an end, I had two very different results. The first job, the penitentiary, was a complete wash out. It was a horrible job, filled with horrible people, for horrible pay. 2+2 equaled 4 on that one. If you’re an out of work Creative, this is not the job for you. I’m not sure it’s the job for anyone. With the crazy hours and the borderline abusive atmosphere, I can easily say that this is the worst job ever. And for a union gig, it pays amazingly low.
But the results of the 2nd job were much different. I learned something about myself. It’s the same issue that plagues all Creatives:

The insatiable need to be liked.

That’s why we’re creative in the first place. Because we want people to like what we have created. And more importantly, to like us. When you work in creative environment it’s hard to notice that trait because everyone has the same affliction. But when you work with Norms (regular folk), they don’t have that disease. They’re there to work. Period. They don’t feel the need to engage in a popularity contest like we do. It’s a job, not a prom. Which is something you’re really going to have to deal with when you get a real job. It’s not your career. It’s a job. To make money. Everything else is just like Microsoft Windows; pretty little pictures that have no real purpose.

So what’s the verdict on the real job issue? Office jobs are the way to go. They’re easy and the pay is decent. You may have to embellish a bit (please also see: lie) but you’ll get over it. The most important thing to remember, however, is that you must drop all the baggage that comes from being a Creative. If it helps, think of working at a real job like an indefinite experiment. Or research. Or whatever. Doesn’t matter, whatever you need to tell yourself to get through the day is sufficient. Get over yourself, get a job, and make some money. That way you can afford to pursue your creative endeavors. And if your co-workers are mean to you? Well…maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to get revenge by giving them nicknames like Shrek and the Ewok .

-Tenspeed