I quit… no, really..
After a bit of discussion, I signed on to play a sadistic plastic surgeon in this movie:
http://thegolfmovie.com/
It should be very fun. An old friend, Drew Rosenberg, is directing and I get to write off all my trips to the driving range and such. Yep, my golf will keep children from getting medicine! Yay!
Speaking of sports… I really hate sports. Following a team… thinking they give a fuck about you… Fighting with people because of bullshit. And… soccer riots. Hockey riots. Basketball riots. Football riots. Really dumb.
But, I sure like playing tennis.
I played back in the high school. Tournaments, “the team”, all of that. I haven’t played, more than a couple of times, since 1980. That’s why I decided to join the Los Angeles city league and begin playing matches against people who do play all the time.
About a month ago, the first time I hit a ball with another person was, literally, my first match. And, since I’ve spent most of the year in a blue funk, I’ve um… put on some weight and was out of shape. So, the first two matches I played, I was remembering how to play and I was winded and in pain, so I forfeited the matches. Then, I played someone else when I was sick and forfeited that one, too.
And it brought back all of the stuff I used to go through in my head about winning and losing and hurting someone’s feelings… really nuts. But I was finally able to let all of that crap go and won two matches last week.
It’s pretty cool. My body is staging a bit of a mutiny. At least my right knee, wrist and elbow. Ice is my friend.
Yeah, playing bass, web programming and tennis. It’s good for the tendons. Oh yeah.
Voice activated computing is going to come along at just about the right time, me thinks.
Speaking of voice. The bride and I got the jesusphone.
Pretty damned cool. Yep.
ONEOFUS!
Nigerian Spam Scam Scam Review - Reno, NV
A really great review from the Reno show. Not just because it’s a good review, but he also writes about a couple of the important ideas. (important in terms of the show… not in terms of the real world)
BY FORREST HARTMAN • FORREST @ RGJ.COM • JULY 31, 2008
Nearly everyone has received one: An e-mail from a supposed Nigerian, desperate for assistance from an American who will help retrieve millions of dollars from the Nigerian government. Usually, the e-mailer promises a huge sum to the kind soul who provides a few thousand dollars for bribes or other incidental expenses.
Most people recognize the scam and delete the message immediately, but there are those who respond. Dean Cameron, architect of “The Nigerian Spam Scam Scam” theatrical production, says the results can be disastrous. In some cases, Cameron noted during his Tuesday night Artown show, Nigerian scammers have kidnapped and killed Americans. So, he didn’t feel at all bad for striking up a long-running correspondence with a scammer and turning it into an extremely funny show.
In presentation, “Spam Scam Scam” is simple. Cameron and his costar, Victor Isaac, stand behind podiums. Each has a laptop, and they do the production reader’s theater style, illustrating points with graphics displayed on a large screen between them. Sometimes, Cameron even pauses to play recordings of actual phone conversations.This is theater for the electronic age, with computers and digital photos key to both the show’s presentation and concept. The technology does not, however, make things sterile or cold. Cameron’s personality is infectious, and his sharp sense of humor is everywhere.
“Spam Scam Scam” starts lecture-style, with Cameron talking in brief generalities about Nigerian scams. Then, just when it seems he will deliver a PowerPoint lecture, he slips on a red satin smoking jacket and takes on the affectations of a very different Dean Cameron. This version lives in Florida, is more than a little off balance and was able to pique his scammer’s interest with one simple line.
“Great! Do you have any toast?”What follows is snippets of Cameron’s correspondence with his Nigerian pal, carefully edited to keep things moving. Cameron reads his portion of the e-mail with a nasally voice and zest, and on the opposite end of the stage, Isaac handles the responses. While it’s likely that one man wrote all of the e-mails to Cameron, they supposedly came from multiple people, so Isaac creates distinct characters for each. And he is great.
Even better than the performances, is the material itself, all culled from the most unlikely conversations you can imagine. Cameron repeatedly prodded his would-be conman with purposeful typos and ridiculous misunderstandings, including references to the Western Onion wire service, a request to know which city he should visit in Amsterdam and the following jewel, written in response to a request to ship money via DHL.
“Who is DHL? Is that a hockey league. There is a minor league hockey team in Miami, but I don’t think they are Nigerian.”
Folks who want to read more of the correspondence, can do so at Cameron’s Web site — www.spamscamscam.com — but that’s not as much fun as watching Cameron and Isaac deliver the lines live.
If this show ever makes it back to Reno, theater lovers will do well to attend.
Pretty nifty, eh? I like the good reviews. Especially when they’ve actually been watching and listening!
Yay!!!
odd comment dot com
Awhile ago, I figured that if I was going to end up as a one hit wonder, which I’m still not resigned to being, I might as well figure some way to tastefully cash in on it.
I like developing web stuff with Colin Summers and I like talking about myself. Hmmm…
There are lots of movies out there which will never be released on dvd with a bunch of fancy extras, especially audio commentary. It’s just not worth it to a studio. But… there are always going to be people who are a little bit interested in something someone has to say about their favorite movie.
I’m thinking of folks like Steve Buscemi or Eric Stoltz or Kyle Maclachlan… guys who have done a shitload of movies that people love but the movies never got the kind of attention they deserved.
Who knows, “Bodies, Rest and Motion” may be someone’s favorite movie and they’d pay a buck and a half to download an audio commentary. Maybe Ski School II. We’ll certainly see, won’t we?
Which brings me to:
It’s got that nifty interCap thing that all the web 2.0 kids are using. On the other hand, it uses real words… which may be a strike agin’ it.
Right now, there are a total of one OddComment commentaries to download. Wouldn’t you know it… Summer School. Go figure.
Patrick Labyorteaux, Richard Horvitz and I got together and watched the movie and talked about it. If you’re interested, purchase and download the commentary, pop in your DVD, when the Paramount logo is visible, start the audio. It’s similar to the method of watching The Wizard of Oz and listening to The Dark Side of the Moon.
I’m hoping to add a few more of the things I’ve done fairly soon. It’s a pain in the butt wrangling creative types… even if it’s to talk about themselves!
If you know showfolk who have stuff they want to pimp, send ‘em my way.
And yes, I will be opening it up at some point for anyone to record commentary about any movie. Who wouldn’t love to hear Richard Dawkins & PZ Meyers do commentary about “Expelled: The Movie”? But right now, I want to limit the focus.
The Players Directory
There’s this book, The Academy Player’s Directory, which is a couple of huge volumes with actor’s pictures in them so producers, casting folks have easy access. “Who is Dean Cameron” “Turn to page 387 of Younger Leading Men” “Oh… him… no…”
One has to renew a subscription every year to get their photo in. When I didn’t I received an email:
Dean,
As a valued past customer, we’d appreciate your input.
It would greatly help our future marketing efforts if you would take a moment to reply with a brief explanation as to why you choice not to renew your listing and let us know at what cost would you consider listing again in the printed Players Directory.
Best regards,
Players Directory
So I wrote back…
I’VE GOT NO FUCKING CAREER AND CAN’T FUCKING GET ARRESTED AFTER HAVING STARRED IN A BUNCH OF FUCKING MOVIES BECAUSE THE FUCKING INDUSTRY AND EVERYONE IN IT IS FULL OF FUCKNG SHIT.
Any more questions?
Today, I received this from them:
I appreciate your “honesty.” I’ll remove you from email list.
It’s nice to know that someone reads spam replies.
Writing a Screenplay
I think it’s no secret that I am seriously awed by the guy who does drunkenstepfather.com
It’s totally nsfw and if you just scan it, it looks like a very dirty celebrity blog and, yeah, that’s part of it, but every now and then the guy will write some prose that slays me.
I’ve written him a couple of very fruity fan-email and he wrote me back and now we have a bit of a pen-pal thing going on which invariably leaads to show-biz.
Looooon boring story turned into short boring story… I sent this to him:
HOW TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY
Writing a screenplay is easy. Seriously.
1 your main character is a person who wants something. by the end of the script, the person has gotten something else he didn’t know he wanted.
2 write down 50 ideas for scenes on the tops separate sheets of paper.
3 put them in the order you think they should be in.
4 in the middle of each sheet, write the location of the scene, the time of day, etc… you know in script format:
INT. OFFICE - DAY
Dean is writing an email to a genius.
5 Add some sort of description of where the person is or what the person is doing that illustrates what kind of person he or the main character is. so…
INT. OFFICE - DAY
Dean is writing an email to a genius. There is a pyramid of diet coke cans and unopened mail on his desk. A dog sleeps next to a dog bowl next to a ripped open 50 pound bag of dog food. The phone rings.
6 Then, add the worst dialogue you can that shows what the conflict in the scene is. The conflict MUST advance your story or advance the character… we must learn something in this scene that we do not know. You may only write two lines of dialogue. later you will go back and fill this in and make it better. but first… you are limited to two lines. thusly:
INT. OFFICE - DAY
Dean is writing an email to a genius. There is a pyramid of diet coke cans and unopened mail on his desk. A dog sleeps next to a dog bowl next to a ripped open 50 pound bag of dog food. The phone rings.DEAN
(yelling over his shoulder)
GOD DAMNIT, WOULD YOU ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE?DOG
You are so lazy. why don’t you answer the phone. the drunken stepfather guy is from the f.b.i., anyway, you has-been!
Dean faints at the sound of his dog talking.
7 You do those sheets until you have all of your scenes written with two lines of dialogue or two lines of description and they can’t be good. you can’t make them good at this stage. so you may have a car chase:
EXT. FREEWAY - NIGHT - RAIN
A car hits an old lady who bursts into flames and melts spiderman’s balls.
The cops cut him off and the driver is scared of spiders because they throw spiders at him.
The idea is to take as much pressure off yourself being good as you can because that’s where everyone fails. they start a script and it sucks (they all do at the beginning of the process and most do at the end of the process, ass well) so they never finish them.
8 finish those 50 scenes… maybe add some… take the ones out that you don’t feel you need.
9 Then, go back and fill in each scene. fill in the dialogue. fill in the description. you’ll have at least 90 pages. you really only need 100. *try* to hit these landmarks:
pg 1-20 set the character on his journey
pg 21-50 throw a bunch of obstacles in his way
pg 51-70 he fights the obstacles but by page 70, it looks as if all is lost
pg 70-90 he figures out a totally new way to win and does. make sure that yu don’t have deus ex machina unless you’ve set it up that it would work. if it does, though, it’s not deus ex machina.
your first draft will suck like country music. you rewrite. make the main character interesting enough for your favorite actor want to pester his agent and the studio to do the movie. then each subsequent draft, focus on one character and make the character interesting enough that a star will want the part. keep rewriting until that’s true of every character… even MAN #1 and WAITRESS.
10 After you’ve made it interesting for the actors. make it interesting for the cinematographers. the wardrobe person. sound, etc.
The key is having enough people waving your script around saying I HAVE GOT TO BE A PART OF THIS MOVIE!!!!!! and then you get 30-90 million for your stupid fucking movie.
That’s how you write a fucking script, sir.
Next caller
The slut you don’t take to dinner…
Remember her? Or him? That person who would come over at 11 and screw your brains out and then leave. Different than a booty call because she thought that if she hung in long enough, you’d finally see how cool she really was. You’d realize that just because she was available and nice to you… because she actually liked you and thought you were a good guy… it didn’t mean she was less than some idealized girlfriend you had in your head. She was actually one of your most successful relationships, but you never thought about it that way because you were waiting for something *shinier* or something. You thought that it was important that you won a girl over… If a girl was available and ready to hang out, there was something wrong with her.. or she wasn’t impressive or something.
Showbiz is like that.
The people you know and are friends with aren’t good enough to work with professionally. If you’ve worked with them before, that’s all they can do. There’s someone better, otherwise, the person you’d worked with wouldn’t be available. Plus, “The Studio” or “The Producers” have “a guy” they want to work with. Maybe you’ve actually heard of that person… Maybe not. It really just means that their agent has been working really hard to get them a gig and has been calling the head of the network every day for a week. “The Execs” wants you to work with that person because they don’t want to be wrong; It’s the path of least resistance. They’re “excited” about that guy, which could mean any of the following:
- they’ve heard his name more than some other name
- one of their wives thinks he’s good
- the least amount of people don’t not like him
- their boss likes him
- there was just a thing about him in that thing the other day
- he is the most talented person who has ever lived and will change art as we know it
- they have a holding deal with the guy
- they have a development deal the guy
- they’re trying to get a holding deal with the guy and want to prove they mean business!
- someone sent a clip of the guy on youtube this morning
- they think he’s someone else
- he’s fucking someone’s secretary
- “um… i have a lunch in one hour across town… if you say he’s fine… “
Summer School
Last year, I did an interview here at the house for the special features for the 20th anniversary of Summer School. The bride and I watched it and I didn’t come off like a dickhead, which is always my biggest fear. Pompous or pathetic. They didn’t use the “funny” stuff I did like show the thing Carl Reiner wrote that said “If you don’t become a big star I don’t know anything…” and offering to take him on a walk around my estate here in North fucking Hollywood.
That was probably a wise move on their part.
This weekend, the bride went to a wedding in Le Vegas…
digression
Another reason to hate weddings - “Hey, we’re getting married!!! Why don’t you ruin your long weekend, drive in horrible traffic and pay inflated hotel prices on a holiday weekend and give us some gifts!?!?”
/digression #forgive
…so after she left, I figured I’d watch the commentary Reiner and Mark Harmon did.
About 5 minutes in Reiner says “everyone thought he’d break out and hit it big… shame… someone should have done something with him” or something to that effect.
As I shut it off, I couldn’t help but think “Um, Carl Reiner, you know *you* could’ve done something with me.”
Ah well.
That’s fucking showbiz, innit?
I wonder if people would be interested in audio commentary from me and the other people who were in Summer School. I wonder if people would pay for it.
I will be finding out within two months.
oooohhhhhh how very cryptic!!!
Spontaneous Publicity
This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need to get ahead!
Interview with a blogger thing.
So odd.
Fanning the Flames
oh, i’m in trouble now. he’s gotten an attorney from orinda to write my agents and let them know that i’m unprofessional. i bet that will kill my career even more than it already is. i should never have taken him on. that was a mistake. he is a powerful man with powerful friends and an ATTORNEY ON FUCKING RETAINER!!! and i am totally and utterly fucked. crap. i’m doomed. i’m really doomed. what really sucks is my plans to make millions and millions by stealing a play and calling it my own are now dashed upon the rocks! shit. how can i ever get over this? i’ve crossed one more hollywood superpower mogul and i bet it’s my last because this is going to really drive the dirty old career in to the dirt. i wouldn’t be surprised if the ATTORNEY ON RETAINER managed to get all of my shitty movies pulled out of late night rotation on cable.
how can i get him to forgive me. i can’t. i just can’t. i’m doomed to even more unemployment.
crap. will i ever learn? damn. damn. damn.
I sent the following fax to all the parties involved. unprofessional with a capital u.
dean cameron
16255 ventura blvd 509
encino, ca
91436malpractice attorney
261 holly lane
orinda, california 94653
fax - 925 886 6793“dean cameron’s agents”
10635 santa monica blvd
130/135
los angeles, ca 90025hello everyone,
apparently, the right honorable john pappas was upset that I didn’t return his calls in a timely manner and has gotten a “lawyer acquaintance” to waste your time as well as mine. I apologize for that.
i’d attempted to help the writer get a theater for his “casual” reading but he decided to have it in long beach on a Monday which was inconvenient for me.
the most frightening thing about all of this is that, instead of following my regular procedure and having him send the script to my mailbox, he seemed like a good egg
and i wanted to expedite the proceedings so i gave him my home address. now I’m actually scared for my safety and that of my wife and I’m hopeful that he won’t show up
unannounced, demanding the 5 bucks it cost him to print a script and send it out.to protect his privacy i had edited the call before I put it up on my web site to remove his name. I often post calls and correspondence I get from stalkers and other crazy people.
i’ve gone ahead and posted the unedited version with his name included, as well as the fax with the official looking “attorney letterhead” with the p.o. box. it would seem that he’s hurting for business. maybe the two or three people who visit my site each week could use a malpractice attorney.
below is my reply to the “writer’s” harassing voice mail. make special note of the section where I request him to perform an unnatural act upon my primary sexual characteristic as if another, lower, part of that area is full of air and he is drowning. my choice of words, of course, are a bit more “earthy” and the follow-up is truly vile. (though quite pleasant, truth-be-told.)
regardless, the request remains open-ended. (a pun!)
though, having a vengeful person that close to my little dinky may be a bit more excitement than this old almost-ran can take. perhaps it’s included in the attorney’s retainer. i can dream, right?
yours in abject terror,
dean cameron
Message-Id:
From: dean cameron
To: John Niko
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=Apple-Mail-4–121503500
X-Smtp-Server: smtp.gmail.com:dea ncamero n@gma il.co m
Subject: bail?
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v919.2)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:14:06 -0700–Apple-Mail-4–121503500
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=US-ASCII;
format=flowed;
delsp=yes
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bitI didn’t bail on you and I really don’t understand what the
condescending message and anger at me is all about? Maybe you’re joking.I tried to get sacred fools for you and when that didn’t work out, I
offered to help you get a theater but you said you were going to have the reading at someone’s house. I asked you if you wanted me to get the info just in case and you said no, you were going to have the reading at someone’s house because you didn’t want to spend any money.Then you called me in the middle of the day saying you were going to go look at the theater and i should meet you there, somehow assuming that I was around or available. I wasn’t. I’m not. I don’t have much of a life, at all, but I’m not able to drop everything and scurry over to east hollywood to hold your hand and look at a theater that I’ve seen a whole bunch.
You don’t need to call and talk to me in a condescending voice like
that. Spend three fucking dollars at kinko’s or print it out like the
rest of us.Maybe you’re joking but it doesn’t sound like it. I tried to help you
and you’re angry at me. Fascinating.Instead of me sending the script back, how about this:
Suck my cock like you’re drowning and my balls are filled with air.
Then I will roll over and you can tongue my shithole.Amazing.
—
dean cameron
www.deancameron.com
The message is here. It’s too much trouble to post the original where he says his name.
Amazing World
It’s a great world. Someone I kinda/sorta knew back when I was a young man aksed me to do a reading. The last time I saw him was a few years ago when he was nice enough to come see SpamScam and we’ve kept in touch since then. Tried to help them get a theater for the reading this coming week. “No, I’ll just do it at a friend’s place.” Then, he notified me that it would be in Long Beach at 6:30. “Sorry, can’t make it.” You might be able to figure the rest out from the call.
Never Get Out Of The Boat