Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Monday, June 24, 2024
A Hat Trick of Bad Health
Ever since my return from way down yonder in New Orleans, my health has been many things, none of them positive.
My wife took ill on the plane-ride back to Los Angeles. Naturally, that meant that I would take ill several days hence. Sure enough, I came down with a bad fever, much worse than COVID. It was like having mononucleosis once more. I slept, napped, woke up, then went to bed. However, I did drop ten pounds, a poor man's weight loss program.
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Just as the fever abated, I came down with a urinary tract infection. Spending the night peeing out five drops of bloody urine helped eliminate my recent sleep overage. As a male, UTIs often mean trouble in the kidneys and/or bladder. At an UrgentCare, I was given a kidney/bladder ultrasound, a cocktail of antibiotics injected into my butt and a prescription for big plump antibiotic tablets. I took them all, but it felt like the injected obliterated the infection.
So, feeling good, except I noticed a rash developing all over my body. At first, I thought it was some kind of prickly heat. But that night, I woke at 2 AM unable to sleep, because the stinking rash itched like blazes. I pressed the skin, took cold showers, thought of picnics and adorable kittens, but nothing checked the relentless itching.
And the rash and itching were spreading to unrashed body regions.
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Anyway, several days have passed without me visiting a doctor. I'm delighted. If this keeps up, I might even start running again.
Getty Images |
Thursday, June 06, 2024
Disturbing Good Cheer
Tuesday, June 04, 2024
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
A 10k along the Sand
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
O.J. and Sgt. Friday in the Same Room
O.J. back in the day, before Naked Gun and double homicide, listens to Sgt. Joe Friday telling it straight.
Monday, May 13, 2024
Marvels Pitch Meeting Restarts the Sun
Friday, May 10, 2024
Adrift in a Sea of Unfinished Stories v.2
Haven't finished a short story in over six weeks. Not even a first draft. Zip. I have no idea what I'm waiting for. Certainly not inspiration. Or the perfect metaphor. Or a really ironic Twilight Zone ending. I'm not even pushing the cursor around the screen, filling pages with swill that I'll edit later. Can't be fear. Whatever it is, I'm not producing.
Only a single short story remains under consideration with a magazine. Maybe I should switch to Flash Fiction until this malaise passes. "Death Honk" was fun, a thousand words, and still floating about online in Microliterature. I recall writing it very quickly. Could not other tales be written equally fast?
Back running and walking again, using my new chi running techniques. This morning, a friend called during my post-run stretch. I took the call and finished tasking my hamstrings, realizing that I'd become the person I swore I'd never be: one who combed physical activity and a phone call. At least this transformation took place in Griffith Park and not a gym, where those nearby would be hostages to my infernal chattiness.
Okay. Away. Keep it short.
Wednesday, May 08, 2024
Sea Dentist v.3
( From around 14 years ago, a brief example of things I wrote when I wasn't being paid to write—TV animation, that is. I was writing a whopping great amount of marketing copy.)
(Part one of a Write Enough series on TV animated shows that never quite made it to air.)
With the growing success of "SpongeBob"
in 2000, the TV animation industry sought out a nautical-themed show
that hopefully would absorb success vapors from the popular Nickelodeon
series. The race was on and Cartoon Network appeared to be leading after
staff artist Cleve Metapontum pitched a series idea revolving around a
rude veterinary dentist who lived aboard ship and serviced various sea
creatures—willing and unwilling.
Metapontum had been working as a background artist on I Am Weasel and conceived the idea after an unstable Burbank dentist flung salt water in his face. (There was a law suit, later settled.)
Cartoon Network executive Laudi Krate quickly spotted the potential of
"Dentist" and wasted no time calling Atlanta for instructions. A pilot
was ordered and Krate told to 'hustle this one along.'
Under pressure, Krate promoted character designer Higgins Benzine to
produce. Benzine was controversial. Despite many years in animation, he
could not draw an oval head. Worse, he despised Metapontum whom he
considered a 'cubicle ape,' lacking the skill to 'draw a game of Hang
Man.'
Often great art emerges from a clash of personalities but not this time.
After a series of loud arguments and flung pencils, an angry Metapontum
produced a dark 22-minute script in which Sea Dentist extracts the
teeth of a tiger shark and cements them into the mouth of a harbor seal
who then proceeds to kill and eat a wind surfer. Sea Dentist, employed
by "The United Nations Sea Counsel," denies having anything to do with
the incident and sails to Panama.
Krate was horrified. The script lacked several key elements considered
necessary in children's animation. Among them were likable characters,
humor, and no wind surfers slashed to pieces. Metapontum defended his
script, claiming, "Dentists are really like that. Seriously." More
drafts were ordered and eventually the story acquired a child character
while deaths were changed to prat falls, and Sea Dentist became 'crusty
but lovable.'
Nevertheless, the caustic chemistry between Benzine and Metapontum
poisoned the production. Factions formed and artists would lunch with
either producer or show creator. So intense was the hatred that artists
in the Benzine camp began losing the ability to draw oval heads.
Meanwhile, Metapontum supporters voiced a hatred for dentists and oral
hygiene in general.
After
several contentious months, an episode was completed in which an
acerbic but kindly Sea Dentist aids a killer whale by installing a fixed
partial denture (or bridge). Later, in a battle with anti-aquatic
dental forces, Sea Dentist falls overboard and is saved by the very
whale whom he earlier helped. The story and artwork were a compromise
enforced by Krate. Metapontum hated having a dentist portrayed in a
positive light while Benzine loathed the art work, claiming the oval
heads "looked all wrong."
By now, Atlanta was demanding the pilot. In a frenzy, layouts, model
sheets, etc. were shipped to a Korean animation house. But no one
figured on Benzine. At his own expense, he flew into Seoul and tinkered
with the models. As a result, the human characters lacked oval heads.
Sea Dentist had a head that was pumpkin-round with what appeared to be a
ramp extending out above his right ear.
Krate and Metapontum went ballistic when they saw the footage, but there
was no time or budget for retakes. Krate shipped the program to her
Cartoon Network bosses with a cover note praising the 'quirky animation
that is also iconic in an unspecified way.'
Despite a compelling all-lute music track, the project was mercifully put down. Like The Day the Clown Cried, grainy copies of Sea Dentist circulated quietly throughout the animation world and became the stuff of dystopian legend.
Not surprisingly, Cleve Metapontum, Higgins Benzine and Laudi Crate
resurfaced at different studios. And while they would never work
together again, this trio was involved with other animated TV shows that
managed to miss the airwaves.
Images: fossilsforkids.com and istockphoto
Monday, May 06, 2024
When Shriners Attack v.3
(Every seven years or so, I like to repost this nugget from an earlier time.)
From two years ago, this is a slightly augmented version of my last—to date—offering from the Slush Pile.
(Here is the third edition
of Tales From The Hollywood Slush Pile exploring the quarter million unsolicited screenplays that
perish each year, passed over and forgotten along with their authors.
This week we examine a work that sought to explore the depths of paranoia, but just didn't.)
“Dawn and a small Oregon town sleeps deeply like a sloppy drunk on New
Year’s day. Suddenly the early morning peace is split by the sound of
many tiny engines.
Then they appear.
A young women out jogging is the first to see them, riding out of the
mist. She screams a forlorn scream of terror and despair and a darker
emotion too primal to name but sometimes heard in Costco.
But it is too late.
They are many.
They are Shriners.
And they have come to rule.”
Image: betterphoto.com |
The above passage was taken from an outline prepared by Lisa Manly-Guam. Author of the screenplay, They Came in Little Cars, (originally titled Mark of the Fez). Manly-Guam was a 24-year-old activist from Salem, Oregon. Other than writing this cryptic photo play, she remains a cipher. All we know for certain is that Lisa believed passionately in odd things.
One of her outré fears involved a patriarchal coup undertaken by the Shriners, an offshoot of the Masons. Formed as a fraternal order in 1870, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, or Shriners, are noted for charitable works, wearing silly hats and riding little cars in parades. In Manly-Guam’s opus, they are the hidden hand behind the world’s ills, infiltrating politics and banking; biding their time, tugging strings from the shadows.
And then one day they strike.
In her 1997 tale, the small town of Pine Head, Oregon is overrun by a Shriner horde. Shocked citizens cannot escape and must endure a reign of enforced fun. Our protagonist is the same jogger from the outline, Jenny Loam. In the wake of invasion, she find herself isolated as her parents and siblings embrace the Shriner ethos of good times and service. Loam stays silent, outwardly complying, even joining a Shriner women’s auxiliary, the Daughters of the Nile.
But inwardly, she vows to throw off the Shriner yoke.
Eventually Loam forms a guerrilla band, obtains automatic weapons and ambushes the Shriners at their weekly parade. Steel-jacked slugs riddle the invaders. Little cars crash, bursting into little flames. The Shriners attempt to fight back, hurling water balloons, but they are cut down like bunch grass. The film ends on a close shot of a bloody fez.
Registered with the Writers Guild of America West, Manley-Guam's screenplay landed at Sun Nova Pictures, a small independent production company. The coverage was puzzled.
“The Shriner Menace failed to deliver. They came across as goofy but benign.”
“Didn’t the Shriners build a hospital in Pine Head? Killing them sends a mixed message.”
“Perhaps the story would make more sense if Jenny’s parents were maimed by a little car.”
Out of the slush pile and into the wastebasket.
No more is know about the subsequent life of Lisa Manly-Guam and her Shrinerphobic epic. She remains anonymous. But that happens. Unknown authors are as common in this town as…well…unknown screenplays.
But now a lost tale has finally been told.
Free Republic |
Friday, May 03, 2024
Disney's Prehistoric Business Model
From a few weeks ago, we learn that poor old Walt Disney thought you needed to appeal to parents. Today Disney hires ironwitted wokies and crafts films that appeal to them. A fascinating peek at what no longer exists.
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