Matthew Teardrop (the frontman for Manhattan Murder Mystery) has a lo-fi EP out now for Pay What You Want. (I suggest $6.66.) It’s not produced by Steve Albini.
Sometime in the spring of last year, I wrote my second spec script. I’d submitted a 30 Rock script to a couple writers fellowships and needed a follow-up should I make it past the first round (I didn’t.) Modern Family had wrapped its second season and it was a fresh show that looked to have some longevity, so I picked that. I finished the script in July, it looks like.
Just six months later, Modern Family is the “glut” show, the show where readers are sick of reading Modern Family specs. And last week, the show’s creator joked at the TCAs that Lily, the infant on the show, would say “fuck” in season three. Haha. That was the centerpiece of my script. But it turns out, he wasn’t joking. It aired this week.
Two months and change of work have been nuked. The script is useless as a submission to anybody — fellowships, contests, or prospective managers. It happens.
Parallel development happens. There are no original ideas, only execution… and who you know. It’s not a tremendous loss because I don’t really want to write for major network sitcoms, and I’ve “found my genre” in sci-fi and fantasy pulp… where I should have started all along.
Still, what a frustrating development.
With nigh-infinite creators publishing nigh-infinite content, nobody ever earns your eternal admiration anymore. What Have You Done For Me Lately? is always an appropriate question to ask an auteur who sells their wares through a multi-national corporate apparatus. Wes Anderson.
I always felt Bottle Rocket and Rushmore were over-rated. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of my favorite movies, and is much more substantive than those first two efforts. Life Aquatic left me nonplussed and I thought The Darjeeling Limited was lazy. I thought The Fantastic Mr. Fox was phenomenal. You probably feel differently about some of those pictures one way or another, but a fair assessment of Wes Anderson is that his record is spotty and inconsistent, if at least usually worth talking about.
So let’s talk about this Moonrise Kingdom trailer.
Ho there! My contract on Shark Tank is up and the company I work for doesn’t quite yet have the next show green-lit, so I am getting let go for at least a month, maybe longer.
I am looking to accept short-term or long-term work in television and film, development or production. I have extensive experience as an entertainment assistant, but I’m not too proud for PA work if it’s for a great show or company.
Please download my resume and send it to your coordinator friends! References available upon request.
Internet happiness is increased by the culling of RSS feeds one routinely ignores and the addition of new sources. Here’s some stuff on the internet I’ve loved as of late:
When You Motor Away - This is the last music blog I’ll ever need. It’s the post-nuclear apopcalypse orbital refugee camp for rockist rebels laying in wait to spill the blood of poptimist usurpers and take back the sundered earth. Its contributors are broadcasting the blog I always wished I had the musical knowledge to make. Godspeed, you black prophets.
The Anonymous Production Assistant’s Blog - A very down-to-earth, in the Hollywood trenches blog. Refreshing sincerity in a blog genre usually poisoned with Nikki Finke-style snark.
Benjamin Hoste’s Blog - Hoste is an old show buddy of mine, and one-time photo contributor to CGT. He left LA for grad school in Mizzuruh. I’m not a photography guy, but I don’t like a lot of photography from my age cohort. So much of it seems to say “Look at this thing I found. Here’s what I think about it.” Ben’s photos, to me, seem to ask questions instead. They’re curious; they don’t pose answers. That’s more of where I’m at these days.
Our Valued Customers - Caricatures of actual comic store geeks with their actual quotes said inside a real comic book store. Sometimes, I really fucking hate geek culture. OVC just savages it.
Terrible Minds – Chuck Wendig is a published writer who is more or less the professional writer I wish I was. I find his blog, often times about writing itself, extremely entertaining.
Wax - 13 Unlucky Numbers - You forgot about this one, didn’t you? Thank me later.
I need to update my links page, badly.
Another year spent mostly looking back. I got caught-up on Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, and The Wire (one disc into season 4 as of this writing). My favorite movie experience was watching Il Grande Silenzio, an Italian film that is almost 45 years old. I don’t think I went to go see local music but six or so times, while I reveled at veteran artist sets at Coachella.
There are no gods, and men make for an imperfect pantheon. Christopher Hitchens was sexist, racist, and a bully. I first learned of him when he wrote a detestable essay on the moral necessity of the Iraq War. Sometimes, he made me want to puke.
He also gave a critical public voice to all non-believers: agnostics, atheists, anti-theists, and me; people who are essentially banned from serving public office and instead left to write. His clarity, conviction, and courage were inspiring to those of us who know that there is no master plan; that humans are together stranded on a small, wet, warm rock all alone in an oblivion of cold black space, and left to our own devices, we must create good wherever we can with our own hands and minds. It’s up to us. Shouting at the skies is a foolish thing to do.
Reading Christopher Hitchens taught me existential courage. He impressed upon me individual agency. His essays challenged me to be a better man. He was a beacon of honesty and wit. His death is a loss of precious cognitive resource for the humans of earth.
This is just a thought experiment. I haven’t really sorted it all out, and I don’t mean to make any sort of proclamation. There’s a lot of hypothetical and theoretical in this post. But here is a basic fact: the music industry is broken. It needs bigger ideas. So what if all the recording artists unionized?
I haven’t heard El Camino yet, but the Pitchfork review gets one thing exactly right: “you can enjoy their early work tremendously and never retain five consecutive seconds of it”. They’re still one of the greatest bands of their era.
It makes me happy that The Satellite has booked Manhattan Murder Mystery for their December residency. I always thought my favorite post-punk in the garage rock band would forever be relegated to art galleries, house parties, and midnight sets for headliners in the know. Their following is strong. The Movies had a December residency once.
In case you’ve forgotten: Mondays, at the Satellite, are free. I recommend Manhattan Murder Mystery because their music makes me feel more alive, and their fans are wonderful and devoted. Always a fun live show.
My friends at Thrillhouse Productions have been working on a video for the MMM track “Owen Hart”. I love the guitar hook in that song. Preview clip for the video after the jump.
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