I am an idiot who was on Southland
I did a cool little part on a TV Show called “Southland”.
Because I’m an idiot, I didn’t realize it was the season opener which aired last week.
The episode is called “Wednesday”.
Crap.
Good day
Fun times. WTF?
sad sad conversation
9/24/2011 sad sad
9/23/2011 sad sad
These are the only people who talk to me.
Sadness
A redundant post, but it’s my blog. Why are you reading it, anyway.
Poop
I write this with the complete understanding that I was in a movie called Ski School II.
In Atlas Shrugged, there is a section where the head of the science institute sells himself out and murders what science means to people. From that point on, science means anything anyone wants it to mean. Anything can be claimed to be science and anything can be done in the name of science.
It ruins the man who does it. He had been respected by the population who didn’t know anything about science yet despised by those who knew enough about science to know that it made their jobs difficult if not impossible. His acceptance of the terms makes the “new science” legitimate. The point being made is that it’s not so much that the concept of science was destroyed, but the real tragedy is when one is part of doing such a thing.
Getting a movie made can be said to be impossible. Getting a movie made and then into theaters in wide release is even more difficult. Getting a movie made, into wide theatrical release and then having people go see it is so difficult that, statistically, we might as well say it is impossible. A “movie” is now only made unless it is a “sure thing”. A sure thing contains one of these elements.
- the project is a sequel
- the project is a remake
- the content previously existed as some other media; preferably a television show or comic book
- it is animated
- the project can spin off a toy
- a combination of any of the above
The fine folks who are bringing you movies are finally realizing that having a “name” in the movie doesn’t even matter, though if you do have a “name” attached to your movie, you will have a better chance of getting it made. Not much, though. It’s not on that list anymore.
Let’s say that at least $100 million dollars will be spent on the movie that fulfills one of those requirements. After marketing and all the other crap, it will cost even more. Easily. (I did some actor math (bad math) and your payments on a $100million dollar home [30 year fixed] would be about $300,000 a month.)
That may be the tail wagging the dog. It might be because movies cost this much that they must have all of those elements, but maybe not.
An actor who is “single card, main title” in a “movie” will easily make at least a month’s mortgage payment on that house but more likely negotiations start at a cool million. If you’re one of the people in the end crawl credits, you’re probably hovering around SAG scale. Maybe more, but…
And that’s not the point. Lots of money is spent on movies, why shouldn’t actors who are recognized in them make a boatload? No reason not to. It’s a very good thing. More people should make more money. If you’re starting out and get to work for one day on the latest Michael Bay crap-a-thon, making 600 bucks for the day is plenty. It’s a trade-off. Them’s the rules.
I understand, deeply, that actors like John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, John Turturro and Patrick Dempsey need to make money. They used to be able to do a couple movies a year and make a few hundred grand. Maybe a million bucks or more with a back-end deal. The type of movies that made them stars are not being made and distributed the way they used to. If they are being made, they’re being made for a relatively small amount of money. So, John Malkovich makes an okay amount of money doing what we call an “indie” film once every couple of years instead of a couple times a year.
On the other hand, Malkovich accepts the offer for TransformersIII and pays off every mortgage his family has ever thought of.
John Turturro tells himself “Hey, I do this Transformers diarrhea flow, they pay me 5 million bucks, I can go off and make that Strindberg bio-pic with my friends that I’ve been wanting to do since I got into this crazy game.”
Frances McDormand, who is a national treasure, can just work. Seen any interesting roles for women over 30 lately? ‘Nuff said.
Patrick Dempsey gets to play a bad guy. He probably got to drive one of the cars shown in his “office”.
They are actors and actors act. They can then do stuff they want to do. TransformersIII is just a money job.
We can forgive them.
Right?
Can we?
Really?
Here’s the problem. It’s not that great actors have jumped, smiling and tap-dancing, through flaming hoops of anal vomit. Not really… probably.
This is the problem: Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg can go to bed telling themselves that they have the approval of John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, John Turturro and Patrick Dempsey.
Michael Bay believes he has directed John Malkovich. He believes he has had some creative input into John Turturro’s world. Spielberg feels a kinship to the Coen Brothers because McDormand and her husband came over for dinner and they talked lenses.
The fact that those actors are in it, make TransformersIII an even more reprehensible piece of cunt-snot than it already is. Their presence makes TransformersIII legitimate. (A fine word – legitimate). They legitimize Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg. They have been let into the club of artists. They bought their way in.
After the bride and I “saw” it, I told her that I’d rather our toddler son, Duncan, watch Japanese fist porn. In Japanese fist porn, there are consequences for behavior. He would learn that someone shoving a fist up someone’s anus causes the other human being to feel something.
There’s nothing even close to that in Transformers. Actions that are possible dangerous or pleasureable cause nothing but posing. It’s not even porn. It’s people who hate themselves playing with toys.
And, you know, I find taking offense at things to be tedious. If you are offended, you should leave. Leave it to the people who are not offended. I will. I will leave TransformersIII alone. But I would simply like to point out a few things, beginning with this: The new Steppin-Fetchit is now the Asian-Guy-Who-Acts-Gangsta.
I think it’s very soon where most movies are computer animated and actors simply provide the voices. That’s fine. I’m not whining “ah why can’t we return to the era of Canon films and art like Alien from L.A.!! I’m just pointing out that the only thing that is going to draw us out of our homes and into a theater is pure spectacle. We are in a world where all that is demanded by audience is spectacle. The Cirque Du Solielification of entertainment. Fireworks. No story necessary.
And, truly, that’s fine. I work 9-5. There is enough story in my life. There really is enough drama and comedy every day in the news. My son is a story. My wife and I laugh and play and have drama. Going to see fireworks on the 4th of July is fun. I love watching things explode.
But, an hour of fireworks isn’t a one act play. Cirque Du Soleil isn’t an evening at the theater. TransformersIII isn’t a movie.
If we can dismiss the amorality of massive anonymous bodycounts, using the memory of a national disaster to force emotion into a fireworks display and excusing hyper violence because “it’s only a toy”, TransformersIII is simply an evening of fireworks with great actors slumming and paying off some bills.
On the other hand, if there’s a shred of idealism left in us then, by our attendance and refusal to hold people who know better accountable, we are letting Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg shove Hasbro Toys right up there where the poop comes out of us.
HEY BUDDY!! GOT A JOB FOR YA!!!
Tech Recruiters: I have great pity for these fine folks – it seems like a horrible job, and I suppose that they behave the way they behave because of behavior on both my side of the industry and the employer side of the industry. But, MANOHMAN, can they be annoying and weird.
Two days ago, I updated my Front End Dev resume on Monster.com. I opted to leave it “searchable by employers” but what that means is “have 20 recruiters call me regarding jobs that I’m not qualified for”.
Not only am I getting calls about .net gigs and email about managing a C# team in Torrance, but I think I’m being stalked by one guy who actually sent me a poem via text-message.
And I (block)quote:
Dean, don’t be mean
i gotta crazy job for u
crazier than charlie sheen.This is the jam
with a bit of penut butter
smashed with hamDean let me tell u about all the goodness i got in between!
True story. Really. It’s on my phone. I’ll show you sometime.
Each and every one of them leads with a variation of this line: “Hey, buddy, a colleague of mine just handed me your resume and I’d like to discuss a position that I think you’re a great fit for. Gimme a call back at Desperate Recruitment Solutions…” The ones who email me send a robot-killer: “A colleague of mine just handed me your resume and I’d like to discuss a position that I think you’re a great fit for, please send me your resume.”
They probably mean “updated resume” but still.
Here’s the problem with all of this. Up until a year ago, I’d been out of work for just about two years. That includes any showbiz stuff. I was scouring the boards… there was nothing for front-end guys. Now I have a very nice gig, but we are just now tying up the loose ends created by that nightmare. What I learned about these tech recruiters is that they do not have jobs that you are a perfect fit for. They are at the worst lying and and at the least just playing a numbers game – compile enough resumes and ‘heads’ and eventually, one will hit and their company will make the arm and leg they charge companies for their “service”. One place I worked was paying the recruiter $60/hr for my $30/hr job. And I never met the recruiter. They just sent my resume over.
I say “just” as if that’s nothing. I understand that one must cull through a billion submissions, but… just sayin’. It’s good money if you can get it.
The poet who is stalking me said he has a front end gig for me that pays 110k. There are no front end dev positions paying 110k. Not U.S. dollars, anyway. Yet.
As soon as a company passes on your resume, they are impossible to get on the phone. I actually made it in to the office of one recruiter and it was like the call center in Slumdog Millionaire. A big dry-erase board with goals and “this weeks winners”. (by the way, if you are a ruby or .net developer, you win at life). A bell was rung when someone filled a position. Horrible.
The experience that really soured me on them was the guy who was buddy, buddy, buddy with me – “they want someone with a sense of humor, buddy” and, after my phone cut out on his boss once, I wrote an email, apologizing to her, ending the email saying that I’d purchased my phone plan from a guy in Nigeria who also promised me 30 million dollars. Cute, right? “I’m sorry that our call ended so abruptly. Service in Los Angeles is maddening. I hope we can talk again soon. I don’t understand why service is so bad, etc. …” Starts off nicely and culpable and then adds a quick little “joke”. No poem… nothin. Right?
My buddy wrote back saying that his boss didn’t think I seemed professional. True story.
I guess I’m just sour on the flesh-peddler idea in general. Except for three people and you know who you are.
Now, if you actually DO have a front-end-dev gig in Burbank that pays over 100k/yr, please shoot me an email at my first name at this domain. Better still – a recurring t.v. gig that leads to a regular gig 2nd season leading to directing 2 episodes 3rd season. Howbout that, buddy?!
Why do we insist on treating each other like shit?
…another one rides the bus…
I take the red line from NoHo to my excellent job Downtown every day and Metro takes me to the dark place inside myself that prematurely turns me into a grumpy old man. Or… grumpier old man if you must.
I don’t care what idealized vision you have of mass transit, but it’s awful.
I began riding it to work when I was a code monkey at LegalZoom.com in Hollywood. It is mighty convenient and the places I’ve worked get some sort of tax break or something, so they reimburse me for my parking and my metro pass. That’s pretty great.
Plus, I’m an evil bastard who drives a child-killing SUV, so I’m saving hundreds of dollars a month by not driving to work while your president starts wars around the world. Parse that, hippie.
Driving in L.A., however, is worse than the subway, so since showbiz has put me out to pasture and I must work 5 days a week for the money my loop group friends make in a few hours, I’ve been fortunate enough to land jobs where I can ride the subway to work. (If you think I complain, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a loop group person complain. “They made us do THREE TAKES of grunts!!!”)
The L.A. metro is awful. It is just awful. It’s noisy and uncomfortable. The passengers are inconsiderate and rude. Since we’re mass transit customers, we are basically sheep. An upside to that, I suppose, is that everyone obeys the rules; mainly the “no food or drink” rule. Which is nice as I’ve been on the train when there are people who don’t follow that rule and, well, if it’s not your own food, it smells like doo.
When I first began riding, it was filled with homeless people. They would just ride it all day… back and forth from Union Station to North Hollywood. A stop has been put to that. They clear the cars at the termination point, but it was soooo weird.
I get a cup of the finest coffee (7-Eleven… Seriously.. best coffee around, but those little creamers suck my nutz badly.) and hold it. It cools off nicely by the time I get to 7th/Metro. You would not believe the “discussion” I got into with a security guard. I have a hard enough time with authority figures, so the fact that I’m not in prison to this day for head-butting an idiot with a badge who couldn’t understand that “holding” is not “drinking”. The sign doesn’t say “No food or drinks” it says “No drinking or eating”, sir. Wildly different.
Besides the fact that it’s free for me and I don’t spend as much on gas as I would (two things I’m certainly not ignoring… I’m grateful for them), if I can get a seat (more on this later), I can manage to “sleep” for the 25 minutes of the trip.
It’s an odd sleep. I’ve only ever really fallen completely asleep once. Aks the bride: I often have um, “active” dreams and this one was no different. I was strangling someone in the dream. In the real world that becomes squeezing the cup and splling coffee everywhere.
Oops.
Maybe the security guard had a point. Whatever. Dick.
Back to the whining and complaining that I do so often and well:
At first, I was excited because I was actually riding the subway to work and saving money and could lord it over any hippie like a composte or hybrid car. But at a certain point, which takes about 4 years it seems, the excitement wore off and I realized “Wait a fucking minute. The L.A. Metro is just a very fast and expensive bus.”
I do what I can to block it all out. I listen to books. Angry Birds helped me through it all for about a month. I sleep. But… that’s once I’m on. That’s the least horrible part. Probably because I’m usually asleep or something.
This is what I see on the Los Angeles Metro EVERY DAY:
1) People running to STAND on the escalator.
This is a two part peeve – (great name for a band!!!)
First, there is a simple etiquette observed on escalators: Stand on the right – walk on the left. The rest of the world understands this… why can’t we in Los Angeles? B) If you’re in such a hurry, why stand on the escalator? Why not continue walking?
I know why, actually. Because people are standing on the left side of the escalator. Since this is Los Angeles and we are all narcissists and can do no wrong, suggesting to someone that they move to the side one step is met with “IF YOU WANT TO WALK, TAKE THE FUCKING STAIRS!!!” I hate confrontation. Why? Because the ones in my head end up with me throat punching someone.
2) A “Cool Kid” sitting on the steps at the NoHo Station as the rush hour train lets out. It’s already an unpleasant mom scene. We understand that you are a rebel and are mad at the world, dude, but really, how about sitting somewhere else? We notice you. You are tortured. We get it. And another thing. Pull up your fucking pants.
3) Men not offering their seats to women or the elderly. Today, March 31, on both trips I got up to offer my seat to a woman and it was promptly snaked by a man. A man younger than me, by the way.
It’s called chivalry. Look it up.
4) “Cool Kids” and others running from the train and pushing people so they can sit down on the bus.
The NoHo red line ends on Lankershim but it continues on as “the Orange Line”, which is just a space age looking bus. Bus drivers love to leave people behind, and every loser in L.A. who rides the bus knows this, so when the train arrives at the NoHo station it is a sprint from the train to the Orange Line. It’s so depressing. It’s like something out of “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”. This crush of humanity… young kids, mothers with strollers, your cleaning lady, aformentioned “Cool Kids”, middle-aged proessional types, students. It makes me realize that if something bad were to ever happen in the subway, it would be, um, bad. I hope to be killed instantly so as not to a) be trampled to death or worse, b) watch people trample others to death.
5) That same “cool kid” blowing a “snot rocket” onto the platform from the train. Fortunately, I’ve only experienced this sort of joy a few times (today, being one. Lucky me!) But: Dis.Gus.Ting. It’s not cool. It’s really not. Dude, we know you don’t care what we think about you. We can tell because you’re dressed like all those other rebels who don’t care what anyone thinks about them. And dude, you’re not that cool. When I was your age, I had a job and a car. You’re riding the bus, loser. (yes, I know…)
6) The heartbreaking sight of a middle-aged to elderly woman, running to the elevator because no one is going to hold the door for her.
See previous comment about subway explosion.
7) Hey, “Cool Kid” again. That song that you’re singing along to *is* great. But… you’re riding the subway. You’re not on stage. I don’t think you ever will be, actually. Someone being “private” in public is so different from someone actually being private in public. Make sense? No. Didn’t think so. Oh yeah: Pull up your pants. Idiot.
The person who gets mad at me because there is permit parking and because I, personally, can’t sell them a parking pass.
You, the taxpayer, are actually paying for my parking space at the NoHo station. My work gets some sort of subsidy for reimbursing me for my train ticket and parking. I also claim it as an expense because I cheat on my taxes. Regardless, I have a parking pass. I had to make an effort to buy it. It’s not difficult, but I did make the effort. After about10am, there are NO spaces left at the NoHo station. If you don’t have a permit, you can park in the permit area at 11am. From about 11-1, it’s impossible to find a spot to park.
And… because everyone in the world is entitled to everything, that woman who overslept because she went to see Ke$ha at the Universal Ampitheater the night before can’t find a parking spot at 10:00am. So she drives around a few times and comes over to the permit side and wants to me to tell her everything there is to tell her about permit parking. Invariably, they get mad at me (REALLY!) because they can’t just buy a permit. Becasue I’m a dickhead and there are three other cars that look exactly like mine, I’ve begun telling people that “they never check that one section over there.” and “the fine is only $7.50 if they do catch you.”
I think it’s about $45. I hope so.
In addition to snot rocket man, today there were two young women with bibles. Again, they were being “private” in public. One was reading a passage (Acts, by the way) while the other one followed along. After they were finished, the first one said something like “I think it’s about blah blah blah…” and the other one disagreed; her interpretation was a little different. The first one replied, convinced she was right… she read the bit again. Her friend stopped her in the middle…. “Yeah, right there… they’re saying that…”
This is how wars begin.
On my subway. To hell.
Make no mistake, though: I’m happy to have a job and I’m thrilled I don’t have to drive.
I’d much rather be doing movies & t.v.
And I want a pony. A green one.
Weekend Fun
I did an interview on this web radio station. There was some technical nuttiness involving “lag” that interfered with us having a completely excellent time, so it was just an excellent time.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ethantudorw/2011/02/05/the-neverhood-show-episode-32-dean-cameron
Joey Fatone sings my song (1/2 my song)
I am so famous and relevant.
Here’s Joey Fatone from that boyband, nsync, i think… onstage with Steel Panther singing the tune I wrote with them.
enron II – electric boogaloo
Thanks to Hernan on myfriendfacespacebookster, and his superior search skills, location of the Enron commercial I did has been, um, located.
See how happy I am to be getting paid to spout principles I actually believe. Also, moving my head around like Clooney on Ecstasy.
Oh, Enron… why were you such awful bastards?
Funny audition story about this gig, too. Was supposed to wear a suit. It was summer. Over 90f. I wore shorts and a t-shirt. When the CD said “tell me about yourself” I said “oh, man *that* question… Fuck, I don’t know… I’m an unemployed actor trying to get a gig on a commercial… what else?”
I think it was almost three months later when I got the call.
The technique never worked again. I tried.
“Dean, can you tell me about the audition today? What happened in there?”
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