I Don't Want Tim Tebow to Suck, He Just Does

Reporters and football experts on TV keep asking why Tim Tebow haters WANT him to fail. I don't WANT him to fail, I KNOW he will. See the difference?

Even today, after he was horrendous yet again, they all do some variation of "Why do so many people want Tim Tebow to fail?"

Want? I don't want. I'd love for him to be a great player, but he isn't. And since he isn't, there's no reason for him to be playing. But since he is playing and he isn't any good, I know that he is going to fail.

Stop demonizing people for being correct about a player's ability. There's no evil intent, there is only what is quite obvious on the field.

He's a running quarterback who isn't good at running. That's not a solid combination. Stop saying he's "super athletic". He's a slow white guy. The only thing slower than his running speed is his throwing motion.

To plagiarize from my tweet yesterday: Tim Tebow is just like God, on Sunday he doesn't do shit.

I don't want that to be true, it just is.

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Comments You Missed

For whatever reason, random people stumble on old posts on this blog and occasionally make comments. Usually those comments are angry at me about something I've written, and you don't get to enjoy them because the posts are from so long ago.

Well, I'm here to keep you updated. My favorite angry comments come from my favorite subject to blog about: bangs. Apparently, some women (and men) get very offended by my assertion that bangs are awful and they feel the need to tell me about it. And then, because I cannot help myself, I occasionally feel the need to respond.

Here are some comments you missed:

Anonymous said...

Zooey fucking Deschanel. You want to tell me she's not hot? I'm a guy and my girl doesn't have bangs, but I want her to get some. You can't judge so harshly on people. Some girls can handle them. How about you show a picture of your body flab and small penis. See if the girls like it


Anonymous said...

My Boyfriend is begging me to get bangs. Mad props to the guy talkin about your small dick. I'd do Zoey Deschanel in a heart beat, bangs and all. Good luck with finding something to like about yourself...I'm sure that'll fix the whole hard core judgement "i'm so angry I have to blog about women's hair" thing.


Anonymous said...

Mean is just a crutch unfunny people use. Good luck with this comedy thing.


Li said...

oh you'll hate this. i found your bangs rant from another blog that i found when googling "feist bangs." cause i'm a bangless girl considering bangs. but you made such a good case! (and i think i choked, laughing). i only wish i knew where you were from and how old you were so i could figure whether or not age and geographics were a factor in this. bc if you are in, say, colorado. then i won't have to really worry about it, because it could very well be that fashion hasn't caught up to you yet...


I replied...

Well, as my profile clearly states, I'm 35 and live in Santa Monica, CA, aka Los Angeles aka the forefront of bang research and technology. This ain't no Colorado.


Anonymous said...

Hipster/Nerdy/Artsy/Geeky/ Intellectual types- LOVE them. Pricks- HATE them. Hooray for attracting hot interesting men!!!


I replied...

no, they actually don't. they just pretend to because they can't get attractive women.


Alia said...

Funny. The only times I've been complimented on my hair, by random guys, were the times I had bangs. My roommate's guy friend told her that he liked my bangs, and he'd never even spoken to me before, so he had no reason to lie.

...That's what you get for generalizing so much.


I replied...

that's what you get for believing people who are just being polite.

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Not Good TV News

As I mentioned awhile ago, the best TV pilot I read this year was "Awake" by Kyle Killen. He's the guy who wrote my favorite pilot of last year, "Lone Star", which was a giant 2 episode success.

Well, things on "Awake" might be headed in an even worse direction. Deadline reports:

Five episodes into its 12-episode midseason order, NBC’s drama series Awake is temporarily shutting down production to allow writers to catch up on scripts. The unplanned hiatus, which is expected to last a couple of weeks, is being done upon request from Awake creator/executive producer Kyle Killen and executive producer/showrunner Howard Gordon. It will be used to plot out the rest of the series’ first season.

“This is a creatively challenging show as anyone who has seen the pilot can imagine,” Gordon said. Awake stars Jason Isaacs as a detective who finds himself living in a dual reality after a fatal car accident, one where his wife survives and one where his son does. The series intertwines his two lives, each with its own family dynamic, workplace and a different psychiatrist for the lead. “Because we’re not on a tight delivery schedule, it wasn’t an expensive shutdown and just gives us an opportunity to get it right,” Gordon said, adding that the reaction from both NBC and Awake‘s studio 20th Century Fox TV to the already produced episodes has been positive.

Gordon also noted a similar shutdown for rewrites on his previous series, Fox’s 24, in the fall of 2008, which allowed the writers to reshape the second-to-last season’s creative direction. Like Awake, 24 was a midseason series, giving the producers more leeway scheduling-wise.

This is disturbing. How do you not have shit planned out? Maybe from Killen's last experience he thought a full season is only 2 episodes.

It's weird though, because I've been going through this process myself recently, and every executive I've met with has asked me very difficult questions about the future of the series. You can't completely bullshit your way through this process. And in this show's case, which is complicated to begin with, you'd think there'd be a definitive plan not just for season 1, but season 2 and beyond.

And I hate, hate!, that they're using "24" as a comparison. During that first season, I yelled at anyone who would listen "they're just making this up as they go along!" There was no plan on that show at all and it killed it for me. They turned characters who clearly they had no intention of being "bad guys" early on into super villains. It was obnoxious.

This is the danger of doing a pilot with a great hook. All of your great ideas are in the pilot, so what the hell are you gonna do in episode 2? And the hundred after that? On the other hand, you go in the room with "Cheers" and you're clearly in it for the long haul.

I hope they figure this "Awake" thing out, because it's a pretty cool idea, and a different way to do a (gasp!) procedural. Pull it together, people.

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"He's F-ing Perfect" Script Review

I'm seriously thinking about quitting Hollywood. I'm not kidding. This script was a thousand times worse than I thought it would be, and it's honestly made me rethink everything I'm trying to do as a writer. I'm embarrassed for this business. I'm nauseated that this person is going to get rewrite jobs and agents and managers and assignments from this. I simply can't believe it, and it infuriates me.

Let's go back to the beginning...

In my last post, I bitterly ranted against a screenplay entitled "He's Fucking Perfect", that sold for a million dollars.

I didn't know anything about this writer when I read the story about the sale. I looked up her name on IMDB and her only credit was Adam Mckay's assistant. Well, upon further digging, it seems that Adam Mckay and Will Ferrell are on board to produce this script. Ahhh, now things are making a bit more sense. But only a little. I have to assume that the only reason this sold is because of them, and because "Bridesmaids" was successful.

There were a lot of great comments on my post, including one from a person who had actually read it. Well, this weekend my friend Jamathew sent me the script, mostly because he enjoys seeing me get really, really angry.

After reading it, I have to say I respectfully disagree with many of your comments. First of all, the protagonist does not compare with Goldie Hawn in "Overboard". Goldie Hawn spends that entire movie getting her comeuppance. And we can believe she's actually changed, she's not at all the same person she was at the beginning of the film.

Secondly, I do think this is exactly the kind of movie Kate Hudson would do. And I did not find the script "funny" or "fresh". Here's my review:

One of the things that made me mad about this script before I read it was the premise: a girl who acts as a vetting service for her friends by cyberstalking the guys they are dating.

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the script doesn't have the balls to commit to this premise. It's definitely there, but it's not like that's her job or anything. Yet it is a key part of the story, and the problem with it remains:

That's not a real thing. Everyone with a computer can do this on their own, they don't need their friend to do it for them. It's never explained why she is better at using google than anyone else. Her special ability appears to be going on Facebook.

Adding to the annoyance of it here is the term that is used for what she does for her friends. They constantly refer to it as a "check up". As in, will you do a check up for me on him? It made me uncomfortable just seeing that phrase. She was probably trying to avoid the characters saying "can you google him?" because it would reveal how obvious it is that anyone could do it.

And while I thought that was going to be the thing I hated the most about the script, it wasn't. There was a secret other thing lurking beneath this premise that I have railed about in the past.

It's a Three's Company episode.

The whole movie is watching a main character lie to the guy she likes and pretending to be someone she isn't. And this is no slight to the writer, really, but I cannot stand any movie that relies on this.

A perfect example of this is that Adam Sandler movie where he pretends Jennifer Aniston is his ex wife in order to get with Brooklyn Decker. "Just Go With It". We all have to sit and wait for an hour and a half for the inevitable truth to be revealed. Boring. We know it's all gonna come out eventually, there's no other outcome in these kind of movies.

And yet, they still get made all the time. I don't get it. It's unwatchable to me. Just tell the truth! This never works!

But beyond this issue, that may or may not be personal to me, the writing in this script is bad. It's fucking amateur hour. I mean, there is some promise, but clearly this is a young writer. If this were a grad student's screenplay, it would be acceptable.

But no, it sold for a million bucks. Thus, we must judge it a little more harshly.

The jokes aren't sharp. It's amazing that this is okay in the feature world, because it wouldn't fly on any show I've ever worked on. This girl would not do well in a writer's room, and it's hard for me to wrap my head around this quirk in the business. Here's this person who is now a success, who wouldn't be able to do what many struggling writers do well on a daily basis.

Some other issues with the writing:

There are cut away jokes in this script, it's like a bad version of 30 Rock. And there's no consistency to them. There's a few in act one, and not really any after that. They stand out like a sore thumb, or more accurately, a crutch. A way to wedge in jokes, and then when she didn't need to do that anymore, she stopped using them.

Once again, I'll say it: this wouldn't pass muster at 30 Rock, or Family Guy, or a lot of other TV comedies, so why does it work in movie land?

I lost count, but I think 5 different people have birthdays during this script, all to setup opportunities for people to give other people presents.

The word boo-ya and ex-squeeze me are used, and even worse, multiple characters use the phrase "gettin' your BLANK on". For example, "yeah, I'm ready to get my hungry on". I thought it was okay, though unpleasant, when one character did it. But then another and another did it and it was weird.

When you write a Three's Company style premise like this, there is always a scene at the end where all of the lies come out. It should be a big block comedy scene where craziness ensues and we see our protagonist ruined. This is done in this script in the laziest, joke free way possible.

This scripts exists in some alternate reality where loving reality shows is this crazy unique thing that no one does. Maybe it's set in 2003 and I missed it. Here's an action line from the script:

Jack turns on “The Bachelor”. Charlie looks dumbfounded, it’s
one of her FAVORITE guilt ridden reality shows

The writer tells us, the reader, to put a specific song on to listen to while reading her dumb words. Thankfully, she only does this once.

Every bad sitcom joke that has ever been done is here. Also, she constantly uses "hip" words to "hip up" the script. Food trucks! Tweeting! Youtube! Bikram Yoga! The Black Keys! Iphone Scrabble! A&E's Intervention! Bon Iver! It's like every girl in LA who I hate helped punch it up.

Sample dialogue:

Ok, so if you go into Google docs,
I started a file for us to share
info we find out. It’ll mostly be
me using it, but it’d be cool if
you start following him on Twitter,
read all his posts, see his
Twitpics, that sorta thing. And
then Foresquare, Yelp, and Linked
in, just to keep up on him.

One more:

CHARLIE
What are you listening to?
MADDY
Black Eyed Peas.
CHARLIE
Are you Ferg-a-licious?

The word "creepy" is used 18 times.

Every God Damn scene between the girls involves smoking weed. It's obnoxious and so showy. WE GET IT: Girls: they're just like us!

It's practically a Cheech and Chong movie for no reason. I went out with a girl who smoked a ton of weed and it was never in your face like this. It's like some crazy overcompensation because they are girls. Fuck off.

One last thing: at no point does any character in this movie do something that a real person would do.

I sort of feel bad about shitting on this script, but then I remember she got a million dollars for it and is more successful than me, and it makes me feel a lot worse.

An underlying problem in Hollywood is that in truth, there's only like 3 great screenplays every year. And they have to make a hundred movies. So everything else is like trying to polish a turd. Comparing this thing to "Crazy, Stupid, Love" is absurd, they're barely even the same art form. This is one of the 97 others, and I can't even believe it's one of those.

I should mention one caveat to all of this. A few years ago there was a script that made the Black List that made me almost as angry as this one did. And, as coincidence would have it, it was called "I Want to Fuck Your Sister". And people loved it. Everyone loved it. So this could totally explain why I haven't sold anything and Kate Hudson wants nothing to do with me.

On a positive note, this script may have changed my life. I have a meeting coming up with some new members of Team Handleman. They are in the feature business. And I will bring this script up to them and get their thoughts. If they hate it as I do, I will have some hope. If they love it, I'm moving to Wyoming and getting out of everyone's way. That might be for the best.

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Bitter Friday!

Nothing can quite annoy me as much as a big money spec sale. I should probably be happy that studios are doling out big piles of cash for scripts. But no, instead I like to turn my anger on the writer who sold it. It's a grand tradition, that usually peaks when the Black List comes out.

Well, there's one I just read about that made me especially angry so I thought I would share it with the group.

Yesterday a lady writer sold a script to Fox for a million bucks. The title?

"He's Fucking Perfect"

I hate it already. Putting a swear word in your title is the hackiest shit in the world, and of course, assures you a spot on the Black List. So obnoxious. Every script I write now is gonna be entitled "Piece of Shit, Motherfucker". I have to assume that any writer with a bad case of Tourrette's syndrome can get rich.

But let's get on to the details, surely the premise will completely redeem this...

He’s F***ing Perfect is the story of one woman who regularly Facebook-stalks the men her friends are dating, acting as a vetting device for them to weed out losers. Things take a turn when she gets a friend to dump her new guy in order for the woman to steal the man for herself, because in her search she found him to be “f***ing perfect.”

First of all, any movie involving Facebook automatically sucks. That's not cinematic. Plus, it's COMPLETELY MADE UP. No one does this. There is no one in the world who uses Facebook to vet dates for their friends. People just do it themselves. No one is embarrassing enough to hire their buddy to do it for them. What a bullshit gimmick.

Secondly, I guarantee you that Kate Hudson will love this script. There's no way she isn't starring in this garbage. I think they forward scripts like this right to her house.

Another thing that bothers me about this premise is the protagonist. I keep getting told by agents and executives that the movie going audience doesn't want an "unlikeable protagonist".

That's only half right. What they don't like are protagonists like this one. The girl who will do anything to get a man. The girl who screws her friends over for a date, even though she looks like Kate Hudson. The girl who does awful things for 80 percent of the movie, then does the right thing one time at the end and expects us all to love her.

That's what we hate! And we also hate Kate Hudson or Katherine Heigl or Jennifer Garner or any other girl who would be perfect for this.

What we all enjoy is a protagonist who is just all bad and doesn't want us to love her/him. You know, like Tony Soprano, or the millions of other characters that have worked on television for the last 15 years.

The audience doesn't want an unlikeable protagonist if that protagonist is SUPPOSED to be likable. Get the difference?

Now, you may have noticed that I specifically mentioned that this writer is a lady. I pointed that out because I just wanted all of you women out there to know who is writing this shit. It's you. Sure, men write misogynist/women will do commit acts of evil just to score a man crap all the time. But you do it too.

Finally, you might be asking: what are this woman's credits? Maybe she has a giant track record and that's what really got her the cash for this questionable premise.

Well, I'm glad I made up that you asked. Because this woman has zero credits. That is, zero credits as a writer. But she does have a credit as something else...

She's Adam Mckay's assistant.

She was so good at getting that genius his coffee and answering his phone calls, that some of his genius rubbed off on her. Makes perfect sense.

And this is why when anyone asks me about "getting into the business", I tell them to be an assistant. If you get the right assistant job, it almost won't even matter what you write.

We have some script readers who occasionally read this blog now. If any of them are out there, have you read this script and is it as bad as I think it is?

Thanks.

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One Great Thing About Occupy Wall Street

I'm not that familiar with this Occupy Wall Street thing. It seems a tad unfocused. But what I am familiar with is the conservative's response to it, and I am enjoying that very much.

It wasn't that long ago that the conservatives had a group of rabble rousers protesting stuff, stuff that seemed a tad unfocused. And boy were they sensitive when "liberals" had the nerve to mock these true American patriots, who were doing the most American thing you can do.

Some of us were evil enough to claim that this new tea party might involve some racism. You know, cause they were suddenly so worried about the debt even though they were nowhere to be found when a white guy was President.

Well, now the shoe is on the other unwashed foot and Wall Street is occupied. So of course the Conservatives are defending the most American thing you can do, right? Uh, no.

They are saying that the protesters are Communists, Nazis, and White Supremacists.

Now, you'd think with this tea party example fresh in all of our minds, they'd be a little more open minded about the whole thing. But no, instead they went with immediate hatred and disdain, ridiculing it for pretty much all the same things you could ridicule the tea party for.

I don't understand this thinking. How do these people automatically know which side to be on? Is there a newsletter that goes out? Couldn't they have easily gone the other way, and claimed it's more evidence that Obama is fucking things up?

I've been on a quest the last couple of years to figure this all out, and I still have no answers. Basically, I don't understand why anyone would want to live their life strictly on partisan grounds. Everything we do is great! Everything they do sucks! It seems like a crazy way to think of the world.

Do they know how hypocritical it is? Do they care? Why can't they stray from their "team" and take things on a case by case basis?

Have you ever spoken to one of these conservatives? They all argue in the same exact way, and it's impenetrable. There is an army of these brainwashed sheep, and it is scary as shit. They're not terrorists, but their minds are about as open as the Taliban.

Moving on, I watched part of the debate tonight. I've seen some of the others, but for some reason this one blew my mind.

I was convinced that afterwards all of the pundits would be laughing off Rick Perry. But no, they claimed it was a "comeback performance". Comeback performance? The guy is a barely functioning adult. I can't believe he's been a Governor for 11 years. He can't speak in sentences.

Before he got into the race, I was sure he was going to be the nominee. I hadn't heard him talk before, he just looked the part and was the Governor of Texas and used to talk about seceding. People who hate black people love that.

But he is not good. And then there's Newt. If Rick Perry could say everything that Newt says in these debates, he would win easily. But sadly for Newt, he is Newt, and there's too much baggage there. And by baggage I mean affairs.

The fact that Michele Bachmann has made it this far is frightening. Herman Cain is just making stuff up. And Rick Santorum is the kind of guy who saved himself for marriage, but like all Christian virgins, didn't count the times he did anal.

There's only person on that stage who you could see as the President. And proving just how insane everyone else is, that man wears magic underwear.

Mitt has to come out of this. I don't know how anyone else could. And it's sorta sad for them, because he's clearly not a true conservative. He's the kind of guy I would think the tea party would hate. He's from the (ick) north. He's into government health care, or used to be. He showers.

I'm almost starting to believe the theory that they don't want to beat Obama. Being in power didn't work too well the last time. They've been way better off with Obama as the President. There's so much more to yell and scream about.

If they give him four more years, there's a lot better chance to sweep everywhere in 2016. But if they get in now, they'll have to actually do stuff. And that's where they get into trouble.

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Screenwriter Spotlight

I know it's cliche to cry about screenwriters not getting any credit, but it's pretty crazy. Especially since in TV it's the directors who are so interchangeable. When the Best Director category came up on the Emmys, I realized I had worked with every single one of them back on Dharma & Greg (I'm old).

Yet in film, the directors are "geniuses". No one really cares about who wrote what, even though that's the basis for everything in the movie. Very illogical.

Anyway, I was watching the movie Limitless recently - which was a very okay movie - and as per usual I looked up the writers on it. One of them was Leslie Dixon.

I had never heard of Leslie Dixon, and neither have you. But it turns out, she's been writing movies for exactly 25 years, with 13 produced features under her belt. It's amazing to have that kind of career and yet we don't know who the hell she is. Alas, that's the way it goes for a movie writer.

What has she written besides Limitless?

She did the remake to Heartbreak Kid, which people did not like but was actually not the worst movie I've ever seen. She wrote Hairspray, the Reese Witherspoon movie Just Like Heaven, Freaky Friday, and Pay It Forward.

That's not too shabby. It definitely would pay the bills. But before that, she wrote:

The Thomas Crowne Affair with Pierce Brosnan. She seems to specialize in these remakes, and while the other ones weren't too great, I love the Thomas Crowne Affair. Very clever movie, with a sick ending.

Before that, she wrote Mrs. Doubtfire. That's the one that probably set her up for the last 15 years.

But let's go back further, cause she also wrote the great Patrick Dempsey vehicle Loverboy, and the Bette Midler/Shelley Long comedy Outrageous Fortune.

Sandwiched between those, she wrote a movie I've seen over a hundred times. A little film called Overboard, starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.

Now let's bring it back, where did we start? Oh yeah, Limitless. Isn't it crazy that the same chick who wrote Limitless, also wrote Overboard? That's range. If I ever met this woman, there is only one question I would want to ask her. Just one. It would be:

Did you invent the rotating shoe shelves for Goldie Hawn's closet in Overboard? Cause that shit was genius.

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How I Lost 10 Pounds on the Irwin Handleman Diet

On my birthday every year, a group of my friends gather in San Diego and we play beach sports. This year, one my friends arrived and he looked like his body had been transformed. He was never in bad shape, but suddenly he had muscles.

He immediately asked me if there was anything to eat - he had just driven 2 hours - and I looked around. There was a box of Klondike bars in the freezer, and we each pulled one out and had one. It was delicious.

Not too long after that, he wanted another one. And since it was my birthday, I said what the hell and had one too.

Then we started in on some chips and salsa...

The next day, he didn't want anything. And that's when I found out that he's on a diet. Yesterday was his CHEAT DAY.

Here's the thing, yesterday was not my cheat day, it was just Friday. So while this maniac is eating nothing but egg whites, black beans, chicken, and more black beans 6 days a week and then taking 1 day to eat whatever he wants, I'm in for 2 Klondike bars any time I feel like it. His cheat day was my day.

At the time, he had been doing this diet for 7 months, and gone from a size 34 waist to a size 29 and lost a bunch of weight. He's still doing it 6 months later. I went over to his house recently and he opened up a cabinet to reveal cans of beans as far as the eye could see. The man must play symphonies out of his ass, but hey, it works.

I was intrigued by this diet because I wanted to start eating a little better and get back to my fighting weight. For the first 22 years of my life, gaining weight was a problem. I was always tiny. But once I started working for a living it went all down hill. And by down hill I mean to my gut.

I'm 5'10" (5'9" if you are accurately measuring). I used to hang out in the 160 pound neighborhood. In my steady working days, I'm now 175.

He told me all about his routine and it sounded awful. My issues with food are well known around these parts. I don't eat black beans. And I really don't eat egg whites, so that was out. And his cockamamie diet doesn't include fruit. At all. Fruit! This was everything I was against. A life without peaches is a life I don't want to live.

For many months, I contemplated what could be done. I don't enjoy trying new things. My two biggest issues were:

Breakfast
Drinks

As I said, I don't eat eggs. I don't drink milk. I don't eat oatmeal. I don't like anything other than white bread. I don't like water.

Something had to be done. So I decided to turn my weakness into a strength. I decided to go all fruit with it! All fruit, all the time. Nothing but fruit. No one ever got fat just eating fruit. And there's no opposite of scurvy.

And best of all, I was willing to sacrifice one thing. I'd drink water. No more Cokes, delicious Sunkist, or even glorious, glorious Lemonade. Just water.

For a week I went on an all peach diet. All peaches all the time. Also, grapes and strawberries and apples. Throw in some chicken or steak and that was every meal.

This was a bad idea. For the first time in my life, I almost got sick of fruit. The horror!

A change was needed. So I bought a book called "Eat This, Not That!". It's very simple. And the best part about it is it takes stuff that's in every Supermarket and tells you what's healthy and what's not.

The big change came with English Muffins. I used to eat normal English Muffins, but the book said the best kind you could eat was Light Whole Grain. I tried it and it wasn't the worst thing in the world, so that's what I eat now.

For my pooping needs, I got a cinnamon fiber cereal the book suggested, and I'm able to throw a few spoon fulls of that down with no milk.

Spaghetti lunches are gone. So is my precious white rice. And bread. I'm a chicken and vegetable man. Lots of carrots and broccoli. And salads.

And I don't give myself any cheat days. I cheated for the last 10 years.

The two things I couldn't quit were Wishbone Italian and Kraft BBQ sauce. I don't give a shit, I need those bad boys just to wash things down.

To be honest, I haven't changed what I eat that much, as my diet was fairly retarded to begin with. But the toughest thing is still the water. I don't like it. I need a flavorful beverage. And I can't do diet. It's a no win situation, people. I'm sticking it out with water for now, and the peeing 15 times a day that comes with it.

But that's actually another helpful thing, because in addition to the eating I'm also exercising, which includes piss ups.

If you watch my show, you know that piss ups are just a healthy way to live. It's very simple, every time you pee, you do 10 pushups. With all this water running right through me, I'm turning into Herschel God Damn Walker.

10 pounds have been lost. It's been a month, if it lasts another I'll be shocked. It's totally not worth it.

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Reading List

Boy, you guys sure came through. Thank you all for your reading suggestions. It was awesome to see so many books I've never even heard of. That's the one thing that sucks about all of the bookstores closing down, it's much harder to stumble on something that isn't on the best seller list. It's also one less place for me to loiter.

Someone mentioned Unbroken, and I think I wrote a blog about how I read that. I've also read Tina Fey's book, all of Chuck Klosertman's stuff (not that big of a fan of his fiction), Hollywood Animal (love that book), and I'm Dying Up Here.

Jackie recommended Jay Mohr's book, which I haven't read (though I have read is book about working on SNL, which I enjoyed). I'm glad she brought this up because I've recently started listening to his podcast. So here's my recommendation for you guys: listen to Jay Mohr's podcast about how he got the part in Jerry Maguire, and about the time Jennifer Aniston was a crazy bitch to him.

It's actually sort of frustrating to listen to because he goes on all kinds of crazy tangents. But if you can wait it out 'till he gets to the meat of the stories, they are worth it. I particular enjoy how Tom Cruise is exactly how you'd think he'd be, but in a kind of awesome, super hero way.

I definitely will read the Steve Jobs book when it comes out. And I always see that Freakonomics book and think "I should finally read that". But I think I'm gonna begin the proceedings with that Don Simpson book, only because there's about a 100% chance that I will love it, as I do all things about Hollywood. And I need a sure thing.

And from there I will go down the list and see how many of these I can knock out. Thanks again, great picks, can't wait to be sitting on a beach and not working and reading this stuff.

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What Should I Read?

I'm looking for book suggestions. After finishing Paul Allen's autobiography, everything else has been a let down. Not that that was so amazing, I just can't find anything new that seems cool and holds my interest.

I'm a fan of Mark Bowden (Searching for Pablo, Black Hawk Down) and he has a new book out, but I read about half of it and it sucks. Also, I tried Confidence Men and didn't like it.

So now I turn to you. I like non-fiction. Could be entertainment/writing related, politics, sports, I don't know. If you've read anything recently that blew your mind, regardless of what it was, I would like to know about it. However, I'm not that big on reading novels (like that James Patterson guy, the Reacher books, etc) so there you go.

Thanks.

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Unorganized, Semi-Coherent Thoughts About "Drive"

Ryan Gosling is busy. Seems like he was on a 1 movie a year pace and now he's had 3 out in the last 3 months. I haven't seen The Ides of March yet, but I did see Crazy Stupid Love, which was great. And this weekend, I saw Drive.

Drive has been getting great reviews (93% on Rotten Tomatoes) and I've heard many people say it is one of the best films of the year. I disagree. A lot.

I mentioned Drive a month or so ago because I read part of the script. My problem with the screenplay was the premise: There is no such thing as a guy who is a freelance getaway driver!

That should've been a stopping point right there for the writer. This gritty, realistic crime story I'm writing a hundred pages about is a made up thing that has no basis in reality. Fuck it, it's character!

If you're so bad at committing crimes that you need the best getaway driver in the business, you need to find a different career. Maybe more planning should go into your caper before calling up a stranger you've heard through the criminal underground is really good at outrunning the cops.

People tried to ease my fears about this by telling me that the movie "really isn't about that". It's "just a thing at the beginning". Uh, not really. It's kind of the movie. And I hate how people can just look past that and say it's great anyway. How can you ignore it? It's pure nonsense. The central "job" of this career is a lie. It's like doing a movie about a town that has outlawed dancing. It's craziness.

Even if you dismiss it though, it's still about a guy who works as a mechanic who is an awesome driver. What does that even mean? How is he an awesome driver? Don't you have to be in a racing circuit to do this?

Well, the movie never tells us. They never say how he's so good at driving, where he acquired this skill, or how he's used it - other than being a get away driver for hire. Which again, doesn't exist.

Oh yeah, he is a movie stuntman. He's basically a crash test dummy. But I'm sure that's like a real career that you have to do for a long time and pays legit money. But whatever.

Getting beyond that, here is my real problem with the movie...

SPOILERS AHEAD

The entire film is based on this premise:

Ryan Gosling, a loner who doesn't take unnecessary risks, risks everything for his next door neighborhood he recently met, Carey Mulligan.

Okay, that's not bad. Only one problem, why Carey Mulligan?

You'd think if this guy will do anything to keep Carey safe, there must be something pretty amazing between them.

Too bad they don't say more than "hey" to each other.

Oh, it's minimalism? Is that what you call it? I call it a get out of jail free card. The hard thing to do would be to write dialogue. Having two star actors together who, because we've watched movies all of our lives, know are gonna fall in love, just gaze lovingly at each other is the easy thing to do.

He had more of a relationship when he was Lars with the real girl. They had more interesting conversations than he has with Carey Mulligan in this movie.

I get movies that are slow. Movies without a lot of talking. That's fine. But this was beyond that. This was uncomfortable and not representative of real life. There are long stretches where he is asked a question and just stares without saying a word. That doesn't happen. People don't do that. And people that do do that, are fucking weirdos who don't get Carey Mulligan.

She says "you want some water", and he stares at her for a good minute and a half, and then says "uh, sure".

Love!

He's in love now! She's in love now! That's all it took. They have no connection other than physical, I guess. And even that is questionable. Do they have anything in common? Nope. What do they talk about? Well, water and how refreshing it is. Not even that, just the offer of water and the acceptance of it.

Oh, but one time, she touched his hand.

Love!

So for that hand touch, Ryan decides to do stuff he's never done before, like get himself killed. His whole deal in doing these (fake, bullshit) jobs is "I give you 5 minutes" and "I don't know you and you don't know me". It's all about taking as few risks as possible.

But not for this girl who just gave him water. Now it's all thrown out the window. Now he's doing stuff that will obviously get him killed or caught. But it doesn't matter, because she is worth it. She must live on. It doesn't even matter if they are together, he was so impressed by her generosity with H2O that he will do anything so that she survives.

The entire film revolves around his love for her, and yet, there is nothing to establish this.

Counter argument: "...but it's about his loneliness and finally doing something for someone else"

Here's my problem with that: how in the hell has he never been in love before? He falls in love at the drop of a hat! He literally helped a single mom out with her car and then immediately decided that his life was worth sacrificing for hers.

You're telling me in the last 30 years no other girl knocked his socks off? What's so special about this girl? It took about 2 seconds for him to go head over heels. That's not the characteristic of someone who has walls up and never lets anyone in and wants to be left alone. This is the characteristic of Kate Hudson in every romantic movie.

So what I'm saying is, I didn't like it. Everything in it is false. It didn't have the goods to deliver a real relationship, so it cheated one with "looks" and music and "indy" bullshit. It developed the style of an art film to cover the holes in its premise.

Here's hoping The Ides of March can make it 2 for 3. If not, there's always Lars and the Real Girl 2.

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ESPN Needs a Rival

The most important show on ESPN is, and has always been, Sportscenter. And it is now garbage. I mean, it's awful. Just horrendous. There aren't enough synonyms for "suck" to describe it.

Let me provide an example. I used to watch Sportscenter every morning, and they'd just keep replaying it every single hour. I watched it to see the highlights. That's it. I wanted to see the plays and the games and the scores I missed. Isn't that why everyone watches it?

Well, on Wednesday I caught the morning Sportscenter. On Tuesday, there happened to be 4 playoff baseball games. That's a pretty rare occurrence. They couldn't fit them all on TV, and one of them ended late in the night.

The only final score I knew was in the Yankees/Tigers game. Other than the MLB playoffs, there really wasn't much going on. The NFL is Sunday and Monday, college football is Thursday and Saturday. So there were no other results to report on.

Okay, here's what Sportscenter provided me in the hour I watched:

The Yankees/Tigers game was the first highlight. It's well known that ESPN bows down to the east coast and the Yankees (and Red Sox) in particular, so this is what I expected.

The highlights did not show every scoring play, but they did show an above average (but not all that great) catch by Curtis Granderson 4 times. In fact, if Granderson would've played the ball right, it would've been a fundamental catch. But he took one step in at the crack of the bat, and ended up having to jump up and catch it. He turned the mundane into the (semi) spectacular.

After that, they went to their baseball "expert" where they dissecting the game further. This included showing the Granderson catch a couple more times.

Instead of doing the obvious thing and showing us the highlights/results for the other games, they checked in with Tiger Woods LIVE on the golf course. Unfortunately, it was Wednesday, and the tournament didn't start until Thursday. So they proceeded to show us Tiger standing around at a tee box, doing basically nothing.

Up next? They went to their football "expert" to discuss Sunday's Patriots/Jets game. Gee, how shocking that a Boston/New York football game would get this placement on Sportscenter.

This led to some NFL injury news, and then we had our first commercial.

Keep in mind, there were 3 other PLAYOFF baseball games the night before and they haven't told us what happened in any of them. Was it really more important that Teddy Bruschi tell us that Wes Welker is off to a hot start this year?

After the commercial, it's time to talk about baseball...NOPE. Actually, we need ESPN's college football "expert" to tell us about the upcoming games on Saturday. Thank God, we only have 3 more days in the week before those are played.

Okay, finally we get the Cardinals/Phillies highlights. This includes another talk with the baseball "expert" about that game. Two down, still two to go.

Is this driving you crazy yet? Well, I haven't even gotten to the best part. Guess what's next:

Check back in with Tiger!

Yep, he's still there, not swinging a golf club, probably cause the tournament doesn't start until tomorrow.

Did you think that was the best part? Because it wasn't. This is it. We hit the half hour mark, and guess what it's time to show:

The Granderson catch again! They showed the Yankees highlights for the second time before showing the other games a first time! You know, just in case you forgot what happened with the most important team in baseball.

Is this fucking radio programming now? They're just thinking in terms of 15 minute day parts? Insanity.

The funny thing is I don't even have a dog in this hunt. I haven't even been paying attention to baseball this year. Besides, my team is the Padres. I was just mildly curious about those games and it was still driving me nuts. If the Padres were in the playoffs (a miracle, I know) and they had won and they weren't showing it, I would've stuck my fist through the TV.

How are you not gonna show my team in an hour Sportscenter? How is that even possible? Yankee fans have no idea what this feels like. They're also front running assholes.

The thing is, this is business as usual on Sportscenter now. This is how it is all the time. The other night the Cardinals and Braves were in historic elimination games on the final day of the regular season. One of the games went extra innings. About as dramatic as you can get.

When did that get shown on that night's Sportscenter? 30 minutes into the show. Why? Because the Red Sox were in an elimination game that same night.

I know what they're argument is: but fans have the internet now! They know the results! And they can watch the highlights any time they want!

Bullshit. Yes, we can get the results, but guess what crap ass highlights we have to watch? YOURS! Yours, ESPN, and your highlights are shit. Why? Because you need to spend 5 minutes with Tim Kurkjian's Peter Brady voice telling us that Albert Pujols is seeing the ball well right now.

Who cares what actually happened in the NFL game, let's hear some ex ball player with a 3rd grade education who has had 19 concussions talk some more. Yeah, that's good TV.

And you know what? I don't want to go on the internet to seek these highlights out. You've got 10 Sportscenter's on in the morning, you can't find time for the ACTUAL GAMES?!

Meanwhile I'm running around showering, putting clothes on, and cramming a shitty breakfast down my throat while the TV is on. So help a brother out. Show me what happened so I don't have to spend my afternoon doing it when I'm supposed to be writing jokes about a guy getting hit in the nuts.

This shouldn't be hard. But after their success and complete dominance, they started to outsmart themselves. And I've seen this a lot on TV shows. The people running things start thinking they need to do more. You don't! Do less. Show the great plays, that's all we want. That's why your channel has billions of dollars in the first place.

The fact is, Sportscenter has sucked for 10 years, probably because they don't have any competition. ESPN is a monopoly, and as always with monopolies, the customers are losing.

Fox briefly challenged in the ESPN awhile ago, and they failed. They didn't do it right. They tried to do something regionally, and it has to be national.

We need a national sports channel that is willing to do what ESPN won't do: show in depth, comprehensive highlights for all of the teams...and that's it.

Maybe you're saying: but what about ESPN News?

Fuck ESPN News! That's even worse. Kurkjian is over there running his mouth too. And it's the same short shifted highlights from Sportscenter in the same east coast bias order.

No, someone entirely different needs to try their hand at this. The same idiots have been doing this for too long and they have gotten lazy. We need a fresh take. I never thought a sports network would lose sight of the games mattering the most, but here we are.

ESPN, eat a west coast, Yankee and Red Sox and Patriots and Jets hating dick.

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Who Watches Two and a Half Men?

I bit the bullet on Monday. I watched Two and a Half Men. I was tired of hearing how awful it was and I wanted to see for myself.

And sadly, it lived up to the hype. The awful hype. It is really, really bad. Like, unequivocally bad.

I know it's cliche to trash the show but I was actually pretty surprised. Because many years ago, I wrote a Two and a Half Men spec script. And when you do that, you have to watch the show a lot and kind of study it. While I recognized that it perhaps wasn't for me, I didn't think it was that bad.

So when I say now that it's garbage, it's coming from a place of comparison. I saw it before, and was okay with it. It's gotten worse, a lot worse.

I'm also not a big fan of it's bizarro sitcom opposites - Community and 30 Rock, two single camera fast paced shows with "hip" references. I'm not some champion of that. I like a good ol' fashioned 3 camera sitcom as much as the next hick, if it is done right.

But this shit, jesus. Here was the plot of the episode I saw:

The half man finds out that Ashton Kutcher (a handsome billionaire. Aren't all billionaires on TV handsome? You don't see too many ugly billionaires in fiction) dropped out of high school. So the kid, who is stupid, like Woody Boyd level stupid, decides he's gonna drop out of high school too because he must be too smart for it.

Now, that's fine, I guess. But taking a step back, the other premise that is ongoing is that Ashton's billionaire character has bought the house from Charlie (who "died"), and is now allowing Charlie's brother and son to live there with him.

In what world does this make any logical sense. You think Mark Zuckerberg has some stranger roommates living with him? I must've missed that part of the Social Network.

But let's move on, it's stupid to get caught up in sitcom logic. After all, this is also a world where Jon Cryer has a full head of hair.

The real question is: who is watching this show? It's the most watched comedy on TV, so someone is. Who? Old people? No, it does pretty well in the 18-49 demographic.

Is it the fly over people we always pretend to care about?

Is it you?

Is it CBS? Is the network so popular that people just kind of gravitate towards it no matter what is on?

Is it the same people who kept According to Jim on for 20 seasons? Did they pickup that unserved audience?

Is it the comedy competition? A lot of people don't want to work so hard when watching comedy, like you have to do with Community. Sorry, not all of us are picking up on your Flowers For Algernon references, nor do we want to. We're all glad you're so clever, but how about sprinkling in a few jokes and characters we could give two shits about?

It's probably some combination of all of these.

But I think this Ashton deal is worse than people realize. The show was acceptable with Charlie Sheen, it made sense. The premise was simple and somewhat relatable. Now it's in crazy land. The Ashton fix wasn't a fix at all. It's fatally flawed.

So here's my fearless prediction: the ratings will start falling this year. Not in a huge way, but a fall. And next season they will collapse, and the show will end. Because what I saw on Monday wasn't a show with a Kirstie Alley kick in the pants, I saw a show that was running on fumes. Bearded, beautiful fumes.

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Backup Quarterback Syndrome

Matt Cavanaugh is the greatest quarterback in San Francisco 49ers history. In 1984, the year they went 18-1 and won the Super Bowl, he threw zero interceptions.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, he was also sitting on the bench as Joe Montana's backup.

But that's the exact reason why he was the greatest. He could do no wrong. And when he actually got into a game, he had a golden arm. That season he threw 4 touchdowns and no picks. Extrapolating that to a 16 game season, that works out to something like 100 touchdowns and no interceptions.

That was the Matt Cavanaugh in our heads. It seemed like he could do that.

And that's the backup QB syndrome. It happens every year. There's always a guy who seems like he could be the savior, even when you don't need one. The backup always is filled with possibility, while the guy on the field is a known, limited, boring quantity.

Here are some famous ones:

Billy Volek, Doug Flutie, Bill Musgrave, Gary Kubiak, Scott Mitchell, AJ Feeley, Tommy Maddux, Jason Garrett, Elvis Grbac, Matt Schaub, Kevin Kolb, and Tim Tebow.

There's one name we need to add to that list:

Chris Christie.

Chris Christie is the Republican Matt Cavanaugh.

And I guess after today, he's gonna stay on the sidelines with the clipboard. And that's probably a good decision, because you can't fuck up on the sidelines. He gets to stay perfect, a conservative voter's fantasy: He'll never raise taxes, never allow a Mexican to cross the border, and always hate black people.

When the truth is that if he ever got in the game, the Republican base would find out that he's into gun control, he believes in science, and worst of all, he's constantly staring down his receivers before making a pass. Sorry, that last one was about the actual Matt Cavanaugh.

The fact is, when most backup QBs get their shot at the starting job, they end up looking like Rick Perry.

And that's why the real genius in all of this is Sarah Palin. If you think she looks retarded now, think of the retardedness we'd see if she was actually running. Right now, this is Sarah Palin looking like she has potential. How fucking scary is that?

The field is a mess. You know it's bad when Herman Cain has moved to the front of the pack. Leave it to the Republicans to get behind the most racist black guy there is. They could never like a regular black guy, it has to be the guy who wants all Muslims deported.

I think it all comes down to one thing: they know Obama can be beaten, and they're scared to death to put their money on a Mormon.

So they're testing every non-Mormon out to make sure they're not complete fuckups before they take that plunge. And thus far, Pawlenty, Bachmann, Perry, they've all been a bunch of Scott Mitchells.

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Friendly Reminder

"Homeland" starts tomorrow night (Sunday) on Showtime. Should be good.

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