Other Random Posts

The site Beautiful Agony is the YouTube of masturbation — where hundreds of men and women have submitted their own videos of their faces as they jerk off.  Despite the subject matter, there’s nothing explicit about the site. There’s no nudity whatsoever, just lots of moaning,  squirming, grimacing and shrieking. It’s porn for people with vivid imaginations. The reason I’m mentioning this is because my old post about the site is getting a bunch of hits today. Why the renewed interest in, um, self-gratification?

This guy should follow Nick Bold’s lead and take out an ad for himself in Variety.

William Simon sent me this link to a Chris Cornell song "You Know My Name" from for the new 007 movie CASINO ROYALE.  I hope this isn’t actually the theme song…because if it is, it’s the dullest 007 title tune since Garbage’s "The World is Not Enough."

Bill and I actually wrote an episode of this show.

I spent an hour or two today catching up on some of the "back-blog" debates here… the discussions going on in the comments to my posts. I tend to post, watch for a day or two, and then not look back. Well, today I looked back and I was surprised at how the discussions have eroded into name-calling and personal attacks.  I prefer not to meddle in the discussions, even when people are calling me names and criticizing my work, but now things are getting out-of-hand.  You can feel free to disagree with me and one another — I think that’s great. But I am going to start deleting name-calling and personal attacks (unless I am the one doing it. Hey, it’s my blog, after all).  I am also seriously considering either holding comments for approval before they are posted or going back to Typekey authentication to prevent anonymous posts. I’d rather not do either of those things so please, try to be civil, okay?

How do you download clips from YouTube? I’m a moron and can’t seem to figure it out.  Please explain it to me in the comments. Thanks!

And thank you again, William Simon, for hooking me on the video crack. I can’t seem to get enough of all those main title sequences, which I often use as part of my course when I teach TV writing.

The Kansas City Star and the AP reported today about an innovative new film-making program at Stephens College in Missouri that my writing partner Bill Rabkin is actively involved in as an instructor. The students learned by doing — they worked as the crew on an hour-long pilot directed by Bill and written by Ken LaZebnik, who is also dean of the School of Performing Arts at the Stephens College.

Director Bill Rabkin, whose credits include a stint as director and
executive producer of "Diagnosis Murder," called the student crew
members eager to learn and overwhelmingly positive – even in the face
of lunches on 16-hour days that often consisted of bologna and cheese
sandwiches on white bread.

For LaZebnik, who co-wrote the "Prairie Home Companion Movie" with
Garrison Keillor, the film camp is more than just a teaching exercise.
He hopes to shop "Triangle" – his story of a family struggling to cope
with the death of a 6-year-old child while adopting a new daughter from
China – to studios as well as regional film festivals.

"This is an educational experience. But it’s also for real," he said.

I am sitting in the Swiss Air business class lounge at JFK, awaiting my flight to Germany. On the LA to NY flight, I sat across from Norman Lear. I managed not to stare or chat him up. What could I have said that he hasn’t heard a thousand times before? Still, it was cool to see that he picks his nose just like the rest of us.

More later…

Typepad, the service I use to host this blog, had a major database crash yesterday. As a result, some of the comments you left here in the last 24 hours have been lost (along with a couple of my posts). Sorry for the inconvenience.

You can’t miss this — David Hasselhoff’s "Secret Agent Man" video. I laughed all the way through it, because I know that’s really how he sees himself. Back when I was doing BAYWATCH, he told me all about his efforts to star in a new version of PETER GUNN.  He felt he was perfect for the role because he "embodied it."

(Thanks to Sara for the link)