My Blog

I Found a “Fucktard’

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Weekly27Each Sunday, my brother Tod dissects the letters to Parade Magazine’s Walter Scott and, from among that collection of idiots, christens someone a "fucktard." But this week, I’ve got Tod beat, whether he picks Jan G. from San Diego ("Robert Redford is as blond as ever. Why doesn’t he let his hair go gray?") or E. Zimmerman of Amana Iowa ("What’s with those tabloid photos of Jennfer Aniston cuddling Vince Vaughn? Are the two lovers?").Fred_thompson Because the biggest fucktard of all this Sunday won’t be found in Parade but in the TV Q&A column in the TV Times. J. Higa of Carson, California asks:

I see former Sen. Fred Thompson in the news and he looks just like the Fred Thompson on the TV show "Law and Order." Is he the same person?

No, Mr. or Mrs. Higa, it’s not the same person. They are identical twins with identical names, you fucktard.

What is Foreplay?

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Here’s some sex advice from my sister Linda, amateur Sex Inspector:

While most women in America (or at least every woman we know) seem to be
totally irritated by their husbands making moves on them while they
make dinner, do dishes or are otherwise engaged in anything that requires both
hands (putting the cover on the duvet),  women in England don’t seem bothered by
it. What is that about? Being groped while you chop carrots is not
foreplay! Foreplay would be the husband coming into the kitchen and
announcing that you should go watch all those episodes of Oprah and Laguna Beach
that you TIVO’d while he does the dishes and folds the laundry.

Doug Lyle Likes to Kill People

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Doug Lyle may be Orange County’s most prolific serial killer.

He’s smashed 18-wheelers into station wagons, tossed dynamite into mine
shafts, hung victims by their ankles, or plain, old-fashioned shot them.

He is also a willing accomplice to hundreds – perhaps thousands – of other
murders.

That’s the opening of a great profile of Dr. Doug Lyle in today’s Orange County Register and his work as a consultant to mystery writers like me. Without him, Dr. Mark Sloan would be an LA screenwriter in his early 40s.

Crimetime Television

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From Variety today…

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES creator Marc Cherry is teaming up with CHUCKY creator Don Scardino to develop an "hour-long suspense" drama for ABC called KILL/SWITCH (which features a "dead heroine").  Cherry is also mulling a DH spin-off called VICIOUS CHEERLEADERS.

24 creators  Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran are developing a private eye series for FOX. The series is described as a modern-day LA CONFIDENTIAL and will track a single case for 13 episodes.

Surnow said he and Cochran were also inspired by everything from "The Maltese
Falcon" to Raymond Chandler.

"We’re going to steal from as many movies as possible," Surnow quipped.
"There’s a wonderful, visual style to it that we haven’t really seen on TV. What
we like about film noir is it’s very sexy – we hope to do to that genre what we
did with the spy genre."

Meanwhile, things aren’t looking good for the critically savaged E-RING, which was fourth in it’s timeslot, and the ratings for CSI:NY were down 37% compared to last season.

The Plotting of LOST

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There are creative squabbles on every show. Former LOST producer David Fury has made his public in a recent Rolling Stone interview, and my friend Javi, supervising producer of the show,  isn’t happy about it. But the squabbles aside, Javi’s lengthy post (which refutes Fury’s assertions) offers a fascinating insight into the development of LOST. While the details are unique to LOST, the process is applicable to most TV shows I’ve ever worked on…especially when it comes down to how individual episodes are crafted:

a good example of how the writers room works in a series such as
"lost"- and one that is extremely appropriate to this situation – is
the creation of the story that eventually became david’s emmy-nominated
episode "walkabout."

now, let me make one thing perfectly clear.
david wrote the living hell out of that episode. he deserved the emmy
nomination (and in my opinion, the emmy itself) for an episode which is
rightfully hailed as a turning point in the series and a signature
moment of "lost."

however, like all episodes of this – and
almost any television show – that story was "broken" in the writers
room. it was discussed, conceived and divided into acts and scenes in
an environment where a group of writers sat together, shared their best
ideas and thoughts, and collectively filtered out the chaff to come up
with the best possible version of that story: which david – to his
complete credit – then turned into one of the best hours of tv that i
have ever seen.

More on Bond

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Lkc2SamVariety reports that screen tests are ongoing this week for the new James Bond. The latest front-burner names, as reported here a few days ago, are Daniel Craig and Henry Cavill, with a couple new faces thrown in the mix: ER’s Goran Visnjic and Aussie actor Sam Worthington. The lack of stars in the running (like Clive Owen) is due, Variety reports, to the producers’ unwillingness to pay gross points to their leading man. They want to snag their next 007 for a fraction of the $25 million paid to Pierce Brosnan.

Used Books — The Hot New Thing

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Publisher’s Weekly reports that used books are rapidly becoming one of the biggest growth areas in the bookselling business.

In findings that will surprise few in publishing, the Book Industry Study
Group report on used books found a rapidly growing segment that is likely to
continue to be one of the biggest growth areas in the industry. The size of the
used book market for non-education books– trade and professional titles–was
$589 million in 2004, while sales of used textbooks added another $1.6 billion,
putting the total used book market at $2.2 billion last year, a 11.1% increase
over 2003. Total unit sales were 111.2 million last year, with trade and
professional unit sales hitting 72.6 million, while education unit sales were
38.6 million.

Growth in the last few years has been fueled by online retailers. BISG estimated
that sales of used books through online retailers rose 33% in 2004, to $609
million, while sales through bookstores rose 4.6%, to $1.57 billion. In the
trade/professional segment, online used book sales were $429 million last year,
while sales through bookstores were $115 million. Sales through other outlets,
such as yard sales, were $45 million.

Wait a minute… sales of used books at garage sales are netting $45 million? I think I’m going into the used book business. There’s also some scary news in the report for authors:

Used books are now considered mainstream and the industry is approaching a point
where consumers may choose to delay their purchases of a new book for a few
weeks–until a used copy becomes available.