The L.A. Dime

Watching the world cup as I have been, it occurred to me that it would be awesome if we each had a yellow card in our pocket that we could stick in the faces of our fellow citizens for poor behaviour (British spelling since this is a soccer-related blog).

Loud cell phone talker in quiet public place — Yellow Card.
Parking spot stealer — Yellow Card.
Lowering airplane seat into tall man’s knees — Big Time Yellow Card!

Two yellows in any three-day period, and you’re in time-out for one whole day: forced community service, or a class on manners. We could give warnings, too. For instance, you may not want to drop a yellow card on the person who eats half a donut or cookie and leaves the other half in the box. We have to show some restraint if this is going to work, people. But think of how fun it would be to drop the Red Cards!

Littering — Red Card.
Leaving clogged toilet without notifying proper authorities — Red Card.
Failure to purchase brilliant screenplay from extremely talented writer — HUGE RED CARD!

Now, I know that giving citizens the power to enforce common human decency is impractical. There would be endless appeals, and it would be damaging to our economy. Politicians would never make it to work. But we could do it anyway — just without the enforceable penalties. Since this is a football country and not a fùtbol country, we could carry around whistles and little yellow flags to toss at the feet of offenders. TWEET! “Failure to wash hands following urination!”

Sadly, assuming this responsibility could lead to severe bodily harm, so perhaps we should just start with ourselves. We know good and decent behaviour. So next time you are about to commit a penalty, give yourself a warning, picture the Yellow Card in your head, and do the right the thing.

So now…who’s gonna buy my script?

I have no intention to turn this blog into a strictly liberal forum. My goal is not to alienate my conservative family and friends, but to present a point of view they may not have yet considered. As stated in my post, “The One Movie You Must See,” my concern with climate is not so much political as it is moral. This is not about Al Gore, it’s about the planet. I’m no tree hugger, but I do love the outdoors. I’ve gotten lung infections from the pollution in L.A.’s air by exercising outside too much. The rate in which American children are developing asthma is sky-rocketing across the country. Our planet is heating up. The weather is changing. We are responsible for it, and it will effect all of us in our lifetime. This issue is broader than the aisle separating Democrats and Republicans, and much can be done to reverse our course if we act now. Please read the following quote from Jake White’s blog at www.primordium.org, then see the movie.

“…in the movie An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President Al Gore points out that, of the 928 peer-reviewed studies (i.e., studies that are reviewed by others in the scientific community for accuracy and competence) published between 1993 and 2003 that studied climate change not one found fault in the basic theory that humans are causing global warming.”

Thankfully, a major news source has finally published a “fair and balanced” story about the truth: Climate experts: Gore’s movie gets the science right.

This photo of Al Gore is provided for Chad Riddell and Kevin Wilson.

This post is at least a week late, but it’s tough for me to keep the NBA, or MLB for that matter, on the radar for very long. Their protracted regular-seasons aren’t worth watching, and I never really care until the playoffs. When it comes to the NBA Championship, I only watch because there is no other sports programming available of any import. Sorry hockey fans — Edmonton vs. Carolina on the Outdoor Life Network didn’t pique my interest. So, given the fact that I’m always at least a week behind on NBA news (when’s the draft?), I figured I should post my thoughts on the champions at least a week late.

I spent nearly all of the series pulling for the Mavericks. Though I generally despise most things Texas, I like Avery a lot, love Dirk, and really enjoy their almost college-like focus on defense, shooting and running. But when it was all over and the Heat had won, I surprisingly found myself happy for them. Why? Because they’re “old” like me. Shaq, Antoine, Alonzo and Gary are all considered “old.” They’re in their thirties, which for modern athletes, means ancient. The same holds true in Hollywood. Whereas athletes’ knees and shoulders actually go bad as they age, the closer to 40 you get in L.A., the more out-of-touch you are in the eyes of the latest, greatest, brand-spankin’-newest, 20-something Harvard MBA-type hired to be a studio exec. Four years at Morgan Stanley or Earnst & Young absolutely gave them all the training they would ever need to nurture and develop stories for the big screen. But I digress….

As the confetti fell, I was pleased to see Shaq get one-up on Kobe the Destroyer, despite the fact that he couldn’t hit open ocean with a beach ball in the middle of the South Pacific. Coach Riley, Antoine Walker and Derek Anderson all went to Kentucky. Four other Heat players are from the SEC. Posey went to Xavier and my wife is a Musketeer. Dwayne Wade is as magnificent and humble a basketball player as we’ve seen in many years. A bunch of “old” men have some new hardware to flaunt to the young bucks around the league. And the best part is, thanks to several bad calls and no calls in favor of the Heat, those proud Texans now know what it feels like to be Al Gore and get robbed in Florida. So in the end, I guess it all worked out for the best.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of wildlife on our San Fernando Valley estate. There is a morbidly obese squirrel we have dubbed, “Fatso,” a flock of pesky black birds who only make noise on the weekends at 6 A.M., and the random dove whose pleasant cooing (reminding me of my Grandmother’s porch back home) never betrays his or her actual location in the grouping of large trees in front of our patio.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when one day, as I was sitting on said patio perpetrating a screenwriter, a hummingbird darted out of the tree above me. I saw him only for a second — helicopter-blade streaks of blue buzzing off the side of a tiny, slate-gray body. He was gone as quickly as he had arrived, but I decided then, in a lonely moment of mid-morning unproductivity, that these visits should be encourage more often. So I bought a feeder.

One part sugar to two parts water. Boil the syrup to keep it from fermenting, then hang the feeder in the vicinity of nectar-bearing flowers. Well, I have no nectar-bearing flowers on the grounds, so I had to take it on good faith that my azul-winged friend would eventually discover my offer for cocktails and spread the word to his other long-beaked buddies. Which he did in very short order.

A few days after extending my drink offer, I saw the hummingbird streak through the tree and over our balcony where the feeder was positioned. (I chose the balcony position as to not raise the ire of prickly HOA tyrants.) I ran upstairs to watch the little guy imbibe, but when I arrived, he was already gone. I went outside to check that the feeder was functioning properly, and as soon as I did, the hummingbird launched from the tree, rocketed toward my face, and stopped on a dime, hovering mere inches from my nose. I didn’t move a muscle as we stared at each other. I figured if dogs sniff butts to get to know each other, perhaps hummingbirds sniff noses. After several seconds, the bird flitted over to the feeder where my hand still rested, then shifted right back in front of my face. Point taken. “Don’t mess with my nectar, pal.” I slowly removed my hand from the feeder, and as soon as I did, the little bird with a big chip on his wing shot off into the late-afternoon sky.

I see him once or twice a day now when he stops in for morning coffee or afternoon tea. His is a welcomed presence in our little patch of green surrounded by a massive cement Valley grid. I do fear for the day when I must refill the feeder, though. Remember that Hitchcock movie? I wonder if hummingbird beaks are sharp….

Seven weeks ago, our friends Mark and Nancy welcomed a healthy son, Benjamin, into the world, and yesterday, another set of wonderful friends, JT and Phoebe had their first child, Jacob (7 pounds, 13 ounces), and both mother and child are doing well.

Tina and I are looking forward to our little one having two older playmates to hang out with in the future. Congrats to both sets of parents, and our best wishes for the continued health and happiness of their families.

Here are Ben and Jacob:

If you’re reading this post, chances are you already know, but if not…that makes us bad friends or family members for not telling you the news ourselves, and we’re really sorry about that. Yep, Tina’s in her 13th week of what has thus far been a completely healthy pregnancy. We’re stoked. Here’s how it went down (absent the salacious details).

April 26, 2006: while performing an ultrasound in an effort to discover the cause of severe cramping in Tina’s abdomen, Dr. Morse finds a tiny little fetus! We thought that the cramps were complications from going off years of birth control. Surprise! We had been trying, but not for very long. Needless to say, we were thrilled. The cramps were evidently caused by cyst in her uterus (completely normal), and soon went away.

May 19, 2006: Mother’s Day. We tell our mothers and other family members the good news.

May 25, 2006: Another visit to the doctor at about seven weeks. All is well, aside from morning sickness that lasts all day. The good doctor performs another ultrasound and we are able to see the baby’s heart beating. It’s like a tiny flashing strobe light. A truly indescribable spectacle to behold.

June 12, 2006: Eleven weeks. This time, Dr. Morse goos up the belly and places what looks like a Play School microphone on Tina’s stomach. We hear the heart beat, strong and fast. Somehow, that sound is far more powerful than the image of a little blob inside. “That is a person in there. And if, God willing, this all goes right, he or she will call me ‘daddy.’” That’s when it sank in. That’s when something I knew — Tina’s pregnant — became something I felt — I’m a father.

We’re going on week 14 now, and Tina’s sickness is beginning to subside. As of our last doctor’s visit, she had lost half a pound, but the doctor wasn’t concerned. I do my best to help her eat right, get rest, and make sure she exercises. It’s all about the folic acid, DHA omega-3 fatty acids, and lotsa, lotsa carrots.

Our due date is January 1, but stay tuned for more details as the journey continues. I hope to post the heartbeat as a podcast, and keep you up to date with ultrasound pictures and maybe a few shots of the belly!

Here are shots from week 4 and week 7. Click the images to increase size.

Everybody complains about the quality of movies lately. No originality. Everything seems familiar. Well, I can tell you first hand that there are plenty of fresh, creative ideas out here, but the studios just ain’t buyin’ them. If your project wasn’t already a novel, video game, comic book, existing film franchise or former TV show, they simply aren’t interested. Several cases in point:

I couldn’t sell my USC thesis script, “Band Geek,” when I graduated, but change the character names and slap “American Pie” on the cover and we had a deal. I’m not complaining, it was a great gig, I’m just sayin’.

A few years ago, my writing partner, Jan, and I wrote a PG script called “Squatch,” where Bigfoot ends up playing tailback in the NFL for the Seattle Seahawks. Magical creature. Football. Wish fulfillment. Family values. It was the total package. Everybody who read it, loved it — including Nickelodeon and Disney. Did anyone buy it? No. Why? Too original. It didn’t fit with anything they had ever seen before (What about “Teen Wolf,” people?). They couldn’t get their heads around it, and of course, it died. Not that our story compares with Hogwarts, but it’s a good thing J.K. Rowling didn’t write “Harry Potter” as a screenplay first, because she’d still be broke.

A year later, Jan and I conceived of another family movie we thought was brilliant. The title alone was killer. This time, we didn’t write the script, but instead pitched it around to whomever would listen. We got the same response — “too different” — and we left it for dead. A few months later, I got a call from Universal looking to revive their “Josie and the Pussycats” franchise. Jan and I quickly adapted our story to fit the “Josie” world, we made our pitch, and they bought it. See? It’s gotta have already been something, or it’s nothing. Unfortunately, months later, dear Josie flatlined on the operating table and our brilliant idea died with her.

Writing is like prostitution: the only way you have a shot at getting paid is if you put out. So I wrote another script. This one, called “Keg Stand,” was a cross between “”Beetlejuice” and “Animal House.” Two very funny, very successful films. We went out with the script last month on a Thursday, and over a year of hard labor was buried six feet under by Monday afternoon. Incidentally, a few weeks later, the movie rights to a not-yet-published novel about a ghost in a fraternity house were purchased for a hefty sum. Shoulda wrote the damn book.

Luckily for me, though, I recently managed to get a gig writing, of course, another sequel to a very successful film. I’m thrilled to have the work, but in between drafts, you better believe I’ll be working on my next big, original idea, hoping to convince some studio exec that it’s exactly like one of her favorite movies, just totally different.

For a brief history of my film career, see Pie and Peckinpah

With the exception of cycling, I’m pretty much a traditional fan of the big three American sports: football, basketball, and to an ever-lessening degree, baseball. That said, I do like to watch Wimbledon, The Masters, and every four years…The World Cup.

My greatest involvement in soccer was as the starting keeper for the Florence, KY YMCA Strikers for one year when I was seven, so clearly, I don’t know a whole lot about the game. But since this is absolutely the worst time of year on the sports calendar, and because I have an extremely enthusiastic friend who follows U.S. soccer religiously (and sings “Olé, Olé, Olé” all day long) I was fairly excited to watch.

This was a chance for the #5-in-the-world-ranked U.S. team to prove it belongs amidst this planet’s largest, most-beloved sporting event. A chance to shine a positive light on our nation in a time when much of the globe reviles our very existence. This was to be the best soccer team ever assembled under the Stars and Stripes…and they blew it.

The Czech game was an unmitigated disaster. Against Italy, our boys showed the fight, heart, and passion this nation expects from its athletes, but still they failed to score (an Italian own-goal was the only tally). And today, in a must-win finale against an unproven Ghana side, the U.S. squad was simply not equal to the task. Our most experienced player, Reyna, gave up the ball just outside his own goal box. Bocanegra attempted to clear a ball on the far right wing, but sent it directly in front of his own goal, leading to a foul and a penalty kick. Sure, the foul was an atrocious call, but the failed clearance was more to blame than the referee’s decision in this disheartening 2-1 defeat.

Announcers, commentators, former players – they all say we have enough talent to compete with the world, but our players and coaches simply fail to finish. I have to agree with them. We do have enough talent to compete. But all of our best athletes happen to play for teams like the Heat, the Steelers and the White Sox. And given that fact, I’m not sure if even a Miracle-On-Ice-like run in 2010 could pull our young athletes off the grid iron, hard courts and diamonds, and onto the pitch. That’s okay though, because we’ve still got T.O., Barry Bonds, and Ron Artest to cheer for every year.

The most important film of the year is one that stars a man widely thought to be terribly lacking in charisma and screen presence. Disputes over hanging chads, voter fraud and the Supreme Court aside, Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election because he had all the personality of a lobotomized android, and couldn’t decide on what image to present to the public. The election shouldn’t have been close, but his bumbled campaign and identity crisis left the door wide open for Bush 43 to win.

Gore suffers from such a crisis no longer. His loss has become this planet’s greater gain. Tirelessly traveling the globe, Gore has made it his mission to spread the truth about climate change. The new movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” documents the high-tech slide show about global warming that Gore continues to deliver in cities across the world. Short transition stories and cutaway scenes detailing elements of his personal life are often strained for relevancy and detract from the message, but the power of this film is in the facts. I already believed that mankind is wreaking havoc on this planet, but until I saw “An Inconvenient Truth,” I had no idea to what extent, nor did I realize how much I can do to help reverse it.

This is not a political movie, and climate change is not a political issue. It is a moral issue. Watch this movie. No matter where you lay on the political spectrum, allow yourself the opportunity to understand how you are impacting the future, and to discover what you can do to change it. If we don’t do something now, who will, and when?

For more detais visit: www.climatecrisis.net

First it was The Police, then U2, R.E.M., The Sex Pistols, The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, back to U2, and strangely, even Mötley Crüe owned the number one slot in my cassette case for a while. But my new favorite band is, without a doubt, The Submarines. Their first album, “Declare a New State,” was released today, and I encourage all who are reading to buy it in stores or download it from iTunes. Not only are they a great band, but they are fantastic people worthy of your support.

Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti (real names) were once a couple, but broke apart in 2004 and went their separate ways. Blake and John both wrote songs independently of each other during this sad time in their lives, and fortunately found their way back together, realized the power of the work they had done and the love they still had, got married and formed The Submarines.

This is a break-up album with a bright silver-lining of hope. Blake’s voice is enthralling, John’s arrangements are brilliant (sometimes harkening of The Cure), the songs are poignant, and the album as a whole leads us through the “Darkest Things” to “Declare a New State.” Up periscope. Sound the alarm. The Submarines are surfacing.

Stay tuned for info on a “Behind the Scenes” documentary I shot during the making of their “Peace and Hate” video.

Visit The Subs at: www.thesubmarines.com