Blogged Down

Not many new entries as Christmas arrives on merry feet. This Monday I had breakfast with my agent, the lovely and financially-astute JKR. I learned that animation buyers now want writing samples that consist of original, live-action, sit-com scripts. It makes no sense.
Sit-com writers excel at funny dialogue. Their scripts are little more than a series of character names followed by set-ups and punch-lines. That's what the medium calls for. Animation writers must sling their jokes while rendering a blueprint that artists can board. In any case, I must now create a free, half-hour calling card for a medium in which I have bales of produced material.

As James Donald said at the end of Bridge on the River Kwai:

"Madness!"

His Brain's Overloading

Freakazoid! was the most fun I've had writing animation. A DVD of the first season will be released soon. Not that I'll see a cent, but it sure was a blast.

A Break

The first five chapters of Dummy Fever percolates in a second-draft stew. Next week I'll tidy it up and start my beta test process. So far I have a book club agreeing to give me feed back. As the story features a 13-year-old protagonist, I'm trying to line up a pair of high-school, freshman English classes. Given my general level of immmaturity, I find it quite easy writing as a teenager.

In the meantime, I'm blasting through a short story called Behind the Scenes. A rewrite of something I started two years ago, Scenes has Hollywood meet Washington, D.C. in a genetic engineering experiment gone wrong. There's nothing like crafting a light-hearted romp about massive fraud, incompetence and bio-engineered monsters to take my mind off holiday stress.

Coach

Me? It looks that way. I've agreed to be an assistant running coach for the San Gabriel Valley Team in Training. I'll find out more about my job this Friday at a meeting for mentors, captains, coaches, and commodores. (I threw in the "commodores." To my knowledge, TNT does not have a naval arm.) Hopefully, I can transmit my enjoyment of the sport to new runners.

I'll tell 'em about the injuries later.

Pearl Harbor: The Real McCoy

"A day of infamy," said President Franklin Roosevelt about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. (On a documentary, a surviving sailor recalled his feelings less poetically: "Holy smokes! Those are Japs! This is the real McCoy!") Reams have been written about what FDR knew and when he knew it. As the United States had broken the Japanese diplomatic code, there was speculation that the president deliberately withheld knowledge of impending attack from the military so as to use the bombing as an excuse to enter World War II.

But we were already fighting German U-boats in the Atlantic. Not to mention that a Japanese mini-sub was sunk inside Pearl Harbor by one of our ships hours before the aerial assault. Mostly we battled a mindset that said, despite two years of war all around us, we'd be just fine.

December 7th changed all that.

Be the Ball, Danny.

Joined TNT folk for their track workout tonight. Coach Katie suggested 200 meter repeats where I just concentrate on form. Odd feeling, running on a track and not keeping time. But that's the sort of workout I'll do for awhile. This year I turned running into a job and resented it. Maybe when it's fun again, I'll check my watch.

So I got that going for me.

Ken Burns Burned in Video

If you like parodies of Ken Burns, this mockumentary is a honey.

Fun?

Had lunch with Coach Katie yesterday. We talked of many things, including running. Katie felt I'd lost all sense of joy when it came to this sport of ours. Very true. Most of 2007 was spent training, being injured, and training again. So tomorrow I set out on a five-mile run without my watch. I'll run, finish whenever, and just chill. Mid-January I'll train again.

Next stop: May 4, 2008 - the Eugene Marathon! (That's Eugene, Oregon, a city that is to running what South Bend, Indiana is to college football.)

Blast From My Improv Past

In the early 80s I performed improvisational comedy with a group called the L.A. Connection. Our cast worked Friday nights. Afterwards, we'd buy a lot of beer, head over to someone's apartment and wait for SCTV to air at 12:30 AM. When it came to parody, they lived in the zone. Here's an old favorite starring Martin Short.

Happy T-Day!

A brisk run, writing, some phone calls to friends and family then off to the in-laws for chow and the Southern Cal game.

At some point this weekend, my darling wife and I will sit down to watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Starring Steve Martin and John Candy, this film is our Thanksgiving favorite. Released in 1987, "Planes" celebrates its 20th birthday. Next year, it can buy liquor.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Robots and Seniors

Oz didn't give nothing to the Tin Man, certainly not old peoples' medicine.