Another TV Debut

Seems Prince Bunny Rabbit Tricks Are For Kids Bean Johnson Esquire is not the only Bean getting into show business. My brother Chris has been working the ropes, literally, at the Winchester Community Theater's production of Peter Pan. Apparently the people behind the scenes wanted to blow it all out this year and actually have Peter fly. It's great in theory until you realize some poor bastard has to be behind the scenes to make those little f*ckers fly. Here are the backstage magicians being interviewed. (It's 40 seconds in.)
Please note that it is a huge HUGE deal to be interviewed by Joyce Kulhawik. Or as Kay would call her Joycekul Hawik. Either way works.

Bunny's TV Debut

It's been a big week here on The Game. First with The Six Million Dollar Man and now with Bunny making his screen debut. He and I will be "atmosphere" in the exterior street scene we are shooting tonight.

Bunny has been very patient. His call time was 10am and his won't shoot his scene until 8pm tonight.

He waited in my office all day.

If anyone gets any crazy emails from me, you'll know who was messing around on my computer.

Easter '08

Every year for about the past 4 or 5 years Sam & I have spend Easter with the Groels. We did so again this year and, as always, it was awesome. Delicious food, terrific cocktails, an Easter egg hunt -- all of it a blast. This year the Easter egg hunt was a little easier than usual only because we really only had one kid hunting. And he was 19 months old. Basically we just threw the eggs in a pile on the ground under the kid's nose. He was awful cute picking up the eggs, opening them and handing me the chocolate inside. (Good boy.)

I did however miss what sounds like a stupendous Easter in Boston. Along with all the usual suspects: Chris, Colleen, Devin, Hayden, Larry, Garret and Samantha; were Jimmy, his wife Cathy, their granddaughter Alexis and a couple of dogs. (Michelle was in New York again so she missed out. Please click on the link to your right named Scenes From A Notebook to read about her adventures in NYC.) It sounded like chaos when I called. The best kind of chaos. People crammed into my mother's tiny kitchen trying to help her prepare while they get a load on. Good times.

Here's a picture of my nieces Samantha and Devin and my great niece Alexis. (GREAT NIECE?! You got to be f*cking kidding me.)
It seems impossible that these three girls are related, doesn't it? I love that Alexis wants no part of that hat. She's all, "You can drag my little butt all the way up here to Boston but don't be clowning me with your silly lids." I so wish I was there to meet her.

Steve Austin

Lee Majors, aka Steve Austin, aka The Six Million Dollar Man is in my episode which we are shooting today. Obviously he's a much older man now, but he definitely seems much older than his 69 years. He's had so many chemical peels that his lower eyelids look like they are melting. That said, he's a nice man who really does try hard. Today when he messed up a take the director yelled, "Where would you like to take it from?" He came back with, "From my trailer." Still a quick wit.

However a few takes later when the camera was turned around on Mr. Majors, the actor who was in the scene with him was trying to play around and ad-libbed the line, "F*ck you, Lee Majors." The quick wit was thrown for a loop. He just blinked a few times like an old man who had just been slapped. Silence fell like a freezing cold blanket of snow over the whole stage. It was awkward to say the least.

If you're gonna say "F*ck you, Lee Majors" it needed to be said to the man when he looked like this:

Not this:

StepDogger Scores 2050 On SATs

Yes, you read that right. Out of a possible score of 2400, my brilliant stepdaughter scored a 2050. I believe that score provides excellent argument for the nurture vs nature debate. Obviously my nurturing gave her those brains. If she had to go simply of nature and heredity who knows what kind of lowball score she would have gotten. Those two generations of Yalie blood coursing through her veins got nothing on me and what I've taught her about the streets. In fact I think the new section on the test is all about street smarts. I just wish they had that section on the test when I took it. I might have done better than a 790. And that's with the 200 points they give you just for getting your name right.

444 Redux

Okay, so I thought that by writing about 444, I could shake it's steely hold on me. I was wrong.

This morning we table read my latest Game script. (A table read is when all the actors, producers, director, network executives, etc sit around a large table and listen the script being read out loud.) Anyway, we table read my script and it went very well. All the emotional highs and lows (it's a very dramatic sitcom) were on point and the jokes funny. The one big problem was that the script was a little long. Four minutes and forty four seconds long to be exact!

Weird.

StepDogger Takes The SATs.

A few weekends ago my step-daughter, Ivy (Dogs or Dogger), took the SATs. If I remember correctly, when I took them the highest you could get was like 1600 or something. Now a perfect score is 2400. More test, more to get wrong.

I asked Dogs what the essay question was. She said she was asked to debate whether or not groups or organizations are successful when individuals pursue their own hopes and wishes. I told her I would have said that, yeah, organizations like, say, a volleyball team or something, are successful when the individual players use specific dreams/goals of personal success towards a greater (team) win.

Not bad for an answer on the fly when walking into a bar. I popped my collar and listened to what she had to say.

Apparently Dogger had other ideas. Her answer was that they were most successful and cited Abraham Lincoln following his much more radical hope than the rest of the Republican party and making the party be the most successful than its ever been and Reverend Hooper from Nathaniel Hawthorne's the Minister's Black Veil who followed his own wishes instead of just sticking to the church's.

Yeah, that's good, too.

The Latest Bean Addition

My brother Jimmy is a grandfather AGAIN! Here is a picture of Alexis, his daughter Jamie's baby. Don't you want to take a bite out of her?

I Want One.

Not So Generous Pour?

Well, it finally happened, Vito got hip to the ways of the drinking world and bought new martini glasses for the bar. The switcheroo from a 9 ounce to a 7 ounce glass happened the weekend I took off. At first, I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I kept over pouring my first few cocktails and then I realized: This f*cker is smaller. Mary, my co-tender, confirmed my suspicions. One morning Roberto, Vito's cheap brother, sneaked into the bar and replaced all the martini glasses in the freezer. (I wonder if he did this before or after he filled all the premium vodka bottles with the cheap stuff?)

My first thought was; is this my fault? Are me and my friends burning through so much vodka that a measly two ounces will make a difference? (When I pour for friends and family I use the good stuff -- I know which bottles are filled with rubbing alcohol and which are the real deal.)
Then I realized, yes, it is our fault but not for that reason.

Almost no one (except my friends) orders more than one martini because they are so huge. By making the glasses a little smaller, people are more likely to order a second. In trying to figure out how to get the rest of the restaurant to drink the way my friends drink, they needed to shrink the drink. A shrewd business move to milk the lightweights. I'm proud to say my friends have set the pace at Vito.

Bully Tactics

I've been asked politely (and not so politely, STACEY!) to start posting again. I know I've been incommunicato for a while and I apologize. I believe I am truly suffering from writer's block. You should see that state of the pilot I should be working on but that's another story.

Today, two things inspired me to post again:

1) On stage, the script supervisor, Ellen, writes down little inspirational sayings and tapes them to her rolling podium. Today's was: "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments." I swear to god that little card was right behind me every time I turned around. I've had no discipline since going back to work. Just last week I started to incorporate working-out into my life again. And that's something I NEVER let lapse. Being back to work since the strike has been a difficult transition. The hours are long and when I do get home, I need to be a wife of some sort so I let things, important things, like writing, fall to the wayside. But I can't do that anymore. I might have to give up my nightly games of Scrabulous with Sam and Uncle Balls. (If you don't know what Scrabulous is, don't Google it. You'll lose hours of your life.)

2) The thing that really pushed me over the edge, though, was this email from my brother Chris.



Extinction occurs when a behavior (response) that had previously been reinforced is no longer effective. In the Skinner box experiment, this is the rat pushing the lever and being rewarded with a food pellet several times, and then pushing the lever again and never receiving a food pellet again. Eventually the rat would cease pushing the lever.

Post to your blog


I'm so grateful that people care about this blog and I will do my best to honor your loyalty.

p.s. Stacey, I ain't scared of you.

Hilarious

Not sure if any of you watched the Sarah Silverman video I posted here a while ago. (Yeah, I know everything was a while ago because I haven't posted in forever - but that's a discussion for another time.) Anyway, this is the video response Jimmy Kimmel had to Sarah's "Im F*ing Matt Damon" video. Stick with it. It's hysterical.

It's Over

The Writer's Guild strike is over. Today the membership voted unanimously to go back to work. As much as I need the paycheck, I will really miss this weird time. I told Sam today after I cast my vote to lift "the restraining order" (that's what they call a strike in the Constitution apparently), it was one of the best times of my life.

I know I bitched about it while it was happening but I met some great people on that picket line. It's amazing what 3 hours of walking in circles can do for a friendship.

I report back to The Game tomorrow at 10am. It seems impossible. I pouted about it today but I need to shake out the sillies and realize that I am one of the luckiest motherf*er's on Earth. A lot of people aren't going back to work tomorrow and I should count my lucky stars that I'm not one of them.

How's that for a positive attitude?

For Patriots' Fan

Ron Weiner's Ode to the Patriots

Rick - The Pickle Man

As a lot of you know, Rick of Rick's Picks (aka The Pickle Man) stayed with me & Sam this week. He was in town because his delicious product is being carried by Whole Foods now and he had to do some in store demos for the Los Angeles crowd. Rick is an eccentric dude who spent years as a television director doing, among other things, those totally addictive 100 Greatest Video shows. He then got sick of the business and decided to follow his passion: pickles. I'm not exaggerating when I say I can't open a jar of Windy City Wasabeans without eating every last green bean. (Uncle Balls can attest to that. I eat all of his every time I stay with him in New York.)

Anyway, I'm proud to say I can now buy these awesome snacks at my local Whole Foods. (But you can get them online, too. Awesome Valentine's Day pressie. I'm just saying...)

Here's some video of Rick on Martha Stewart. Oh, and did I mention how awesome the Smokra is? Today I re-purposed (Rick's word, not mine) the brine from the Smokra to make some ass-kicking pinto beans to add to my Huevos Rancheros. Delish. But I'll let Rick tell it.

Rick & Martha make some Phat Beets

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LOST

If you read any of the comments that are posted to my entries, you might have noticed someone named Meredith complaining that I haven't blogged about this season of LOST. You see, Meredith worked on the show this season. Yes, she got to live for 6 months in Hawaii coordinating one of the best shows on TV. It sounds all glamorous and whatnot until you ask her how she liked Hawaii and you realize that she saw not one inch of it. She pretty much never left the production office. It was grueling work -- long, long hours and wicked amounts of organizing, hand-holding, and track covering.

I can see all that hard work on the screen. I really can. LOST is a very complex, ambitious production. It's why I love to watch it. That said, I'm a little disappointed this year. I'm lost. I don't really understand what's going on. I also can't stand when things aren't logically connecting and "supernatural" becomes an element (or a crutch?). Once you go all sci-fi on my ass, anything can happen. Some people love this aspect of the show, I don't. I need things to make sense in order to feel connected to the story. But rest assured, I am not giving up on the show. I still love it. I'm just waiting for the light to go off in my head and I understand it all.

I interviewed for LOST once. It was before it ever aired and I was writing drama with a partner, Stephanie. Stephanie and I were scheduled to meet Damon Lindelof the Friday before Memorial Day weekend which is traditionally the last day of hiring season.

When you go on these meetings, you usually wait about a half hour to be seen. Not this time, I was shown right into Lindelof's office. Problem was, Stephanie wasn't with me. She was running late. So for about fifteen minutes (which of course felt like 6 hours) I entertained this little dude with as many stories as possible. In these kinds of meetings you can usually trot out a Paul Simms/NewsRadio/Crazy Hours story and people lap it up. Dude wasn't buying my schtick. I think the thing that really turned him on me was the fact that I was about a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than him. I felt like a monster when I was shaking his hand.

Anyway, after doing the song and dance bit, Stephanie finally showed up. Like always, Steph and I had talked previously about what we would say when we got into the room. She liked the pilot much more than I did and had lots to say. My only stipulation was that she not mention the polar bears. I didn't get that part of the show. It was a little too supernatural for me. If we got on the topic of the bears, I wasn't sure how I was gonna fake my way through that part of the interview. So what happens? Steph walks in, shakes Lindelof's hand, sits beside me on the couch and I immediately jump in with, "So what's the deal with the fucking polar bears?"

End of interview. End of partnership. End of drama writing career.

The Face Pose

Awhile ago I posted this picture: It's the "chin-down, eyes-up" pose that guarantees lovely bone structure and optimum thin face in a photo. Everyone always makes fun of me for doing it. Thats what my mother and Colleen are doing in this picture -- making fun of me. I always take the ribbing in stride because I know how bad things can go in a photo when you don't prepare.

Take a look when I'm caught off guard:




Awful. Simply awful. I look like I just got caught off guard hopping off the short bus. Take your chances, ladies, but I know of what I speak.

Carrot Cake

I used to only love chocolate desserts. Now, as I get older, I'm finding a palate for other sweet things. The weekend before last when I went away to Tahoe, we made carrot cake from scratch for Kathy's birthday. I wasn't as jazzed as everyone else was about the cooking project (and it was a project -- we nearly burned down the log cabin cooking it), but in the end, I think I ate most of the cake. It was out of this world. It was the richest, densest thing I have ever eaten in my life. I ate a huge piece after dinner and then polished a few more pieces off the next day for breakfast. I wouldn't normally admit to that kind of compulsive eating but there is evidence of me doing so. With an accomplice.
Happy belated birthday, Kath.

p.s As I look at the picture more closely I see that it was taken at 12:04pm. Then it was lunch not breakfast and that makes everything okay.

I Love Sarah Silverman

I do. And it makes me crazy that I do because I pride myself on not really liking other woman. But she's so funny she's like a dude.

Stacey sent me this clip of Sarah Silverman singing a song on Jimmy Kimmel. Stick with it even if you're not a fan of hers.

Step Monster

That has to be the title of the show since that is what my step kids call me. I'm touched by the thought people have given my request and I appreciate the free ideas. My biggest problem is how do I get the kids in the same house as the stepmother. I know this seems like a totally easy thing to do but since I need to be able to write from my own experience to make it real, I need the living situation thing solved. Or maybe I don't. Long distance step-mothering? Communicating via IM, video conferencing and blog? Maybe I just keep the kids in the same city as the stepmother and not worry about being in the same house. Some times getting together when we are in the same city is just as hard as getting together when we are separated by a country.

(Having reread this post about 10 times it seems like same city, different town is the way to go. Then you can still incorporate all the technology if you wanted. You don't need to be all that separated to IM. Sam & I have video-conferenced one another from different floors of the house. But the city/suburb thing seems like a direct rip-off of the 1998 Julia Roberts/Susan Sarandon classic, StepMom? ** I'm not being ironic. I love that movie and I will watch it anytime it's on. Sort of the way I will watch Bridget Jones or Die Hard over and over again.)

Anyway, I know this is all a little boring and I apologize for trying to work something out on the blogosphere. I should probably just go back to doing my "Morning Pages" (from The Artist's Way) instead of treating my blog like a brainstorming session. But, come on, what else you got to do today?