I Bruise Easily

I was at stick-time at Pickwick ice rink, standing around behind the net, minding my own business when I got smacked in the arm by a slapshot. The puck hit me in the back of my left bicep - right between the shoulder pad and the elbow pad.

I went down whimpering, which drew a crowd of people. Then I got up saying, "I'm okay I'm okay" in that faux manly voice, trying to act macho and hide how much it hurt. At that point, the guy who shot the puck, feeling guilty, comes up and squeezes my bicep saying, "You're all right. See? All muscle" or something positive and complimentary like that. I couldn't quit hear him, because as soon as he squeezed, I went deaf and blind from SHEER AGONIZING PAIN.

The next day - I have no visible bruise on my arm from the shot. It still hurts, but no bruise. But for some reason, I've got a nasty bruise on my shoulder from where I carried my hockey bag - no pain, but a huge bruise.

I bruise easily.

On Writing: Wannabe Writer Gurus

Hadn't planned on another writing rant so soon, but this was on my mind. So this weekend, I was clicking around and I don't know why - but I clicked on one of those linky-links that brought up someone's blog.

It was a blog filled with screenwriting tips and advice. Every other post was titled something like "building character through dialogue" and "escalating conflict in the second act". The advice appeared to be sound, but it came off as mechanical and phony. Then it hit me - would a REAL writer talk like this? I hang around writers all the time and we don't talk about writing like this. Writers gab about what new tv show or film they've discovered, writers talk about their agent's obsessive-compulsive habits, writers talk about great places to have lunch, writers talk about stupid executives they've worked with. Writers don't talk about "supporting character motives" and "better outlining for a better tomorrow".

I googled the blog's author. In 0.37 seconds (Tangent rant - why does Google bother to tell us how long it took to search? Am I supposed to be impressed?), I discovered that this person wasn't a writer - this person was a WANNABE WRITER GURU. This wannabe (details changed to protect the foolishly innocent) lives in the middle of South Dakota, is a Human Resources assistant by day, and by night works on his screenplays with a writers group that meets on nights that American Idol doesn't air. This person's listing of favorite movies in their blogger profile is like a who's-who of mediocre films. Would you trust a screenwriting teacher who listed a Michael Bay movie as one of the BEST of all time? I think not. And yet this wannabe somehow feels like he's qualified to give out screenwriting advice.

I realize the old saying - those that can't do, teach. For that reason, I will now give out advice as a professional childbirth instructor. Just because I've never actually given birth (seeing as I'm male), that's no reason why I can't teach women how to give birth to children. And I can keep a childbirth blog with professional-sounding tips like, "building character through dialogue" and "escalating conflict in the second act".

In all seriousness, there are writers online who have blogs and give out advice on writing. REAL writers. Guys like Craig Mazin and John Rogers. Read them. They've experienced far more success than most of us can ever dream of having. When one of them tells me something about writing, I pay attention.

And no matter what you do, under no circumstances should you EVER... take my advice. I write cartoons for a living. Unless you want to know if it's Wabbit or Duck season. Or maybe how to have a baby...

March 2006 Music Diary

If you want to weird yourself out, find out what song was #1 on the day you were born. Apparently, I was born under "Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks.

I'm scared.

Another slow month for new music for me. If anyone has any new music suggestions, please post them in my comments.

Pickin' It Up - Hot Hot Heat
Sound and Vision - David Bowie
Steal My Kisses - Ben Harper
Gone Til November - Wyclef Jean
Another White Dash - Butterfly Boucher
A Question of Time - Depeche Mode

On Writing: After You Get In

My first writing related post. Hope it's useful to someone out there.

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"Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around."
-Herman Mankiewicz to Ben Hecht about Hollywood

One of the interesting things you learn after joining the WGA is that each year, only one out of every three WGA members earns enough money to live off from writing. Kinda sobering, isn't it? That TWO-THIRDS of WGA members earn no money writing and many are working second jobs. And these are the ones that got into the guild because they sold something - these aren't even counting the millions upon millions of aspiring writers.

Only ONE-THIRD of WGA members earn money writing. That's the bad news.

Here's the good news. A lot of writers are out of work from time to time. Screenwriters can go years between sales. TV writers can go years in between being staffed. A writer like myself is considered earning no money, since all my animation writing work is (currently) non-Guild. From personal observation and from talking to other writers, it's not as bleak as it appears. And perhaps most importantly, from what I can tell-

One out of every three WGA members is an idiot.

There are out of work writers who are NOT idiots. These writers aren't earning money, but they're still competent, they're still connected in the business, and they still have that burning desire to write something and get it out there. I'd say that about half of the out-of-work writers (or for you math wizzes, one-third of the WGA) fall into this category. These are the writers who are likely going to get staffed next year, or make another spec sale, or nail down one of the OWAs out there. Maybe they're victims of ageism, but they're still sharp and if all things were equal, they'll be back on top.

But there are a large number out of work writers who are idiots. Many of them lucked into one sale or one job, then when it was over, fell to the side of the road because they didn't know what to do next. And now they don't have the skills or connections or luck to get back into the game. Their last agent was in 2002 and has last been seen hiding in Argentina - their last manager changed their number and left no forwarding address. When they were a "hot" writer, they never managed to make friends and contacts within the industry. Maybe they're just untalented jerks that no one wants to work with. For whatever reason, these are the writers that I affectionately refer to as idiots. And these idiots desperately want back in.

A few months ago, I went to an event sponsored by one of the Writer's Guild committees. It was open to Guild members only - an interesting panel discussion with some producers. As soon as the Q&A started, hands shot up all over the room - and the air in the room was thick with desperation. Every question asked was some sad form of, "Why don't you hire me?" and "Where can I send you my samples?" and "Me so writer! Me write you long time!" It was really eye-opening.

If making it as a writer in Hollywood is like a climbing a mountain, you want to reach the top of the mountain and shout down with glee at all the people who doubted you. But here's one of those things that I never learned in any writing book. That top of the mountain? It's an illusion. When you reach the top of the mountain and think you've made it, you learn that there's another mountain behind that one that you have to climb if you want to keep writing in Hollywood.

And if you reach the top of THAT mountain, there's a summit there where there's a really nice stairmaster waiting for you. You stay on that stairmaster til you collapse, or until ageism kicks in and the Sherpas kick you off.

Anyways, my point is that after you start to taste some writing success, you have to work even HARDER to keep it up. All those dull and boring things like writing specs, networking, researching, and keeping up on industry news? You have to do it BEFORE you make it and you have to do it AFTER you make it. If you do, your chances of staying in the good 1/3 are good. If you don't, you're going to end up in the wrong 1/3.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a Tibetan stairmaster with my name on it.

Wizardworld LA wrap-up

So on Saturday, I headed down to Wizardworld L.A. at the L.A. Convention Center. Nice little show. I spent most of the day bored, but things got better as the day went on.

Spent a couple bucks on a few of those beat-up 50%-off graphic novels. Saw writer Marv Wolfman across the room - didn't get a chance to say hi to him. Hung out with my writer-friend Anne Toole. Met character designer Stephen Silver, who did the designs on Kim Possible. Met writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who's writes on Lost. Caught up with writer John Rogers, whose Kung Fu Monkey blog is one of my favorite blogs.

After Wizardworld, I wandered over to Staples Center next door to watch the Kings take on the St Louis Blues. Since I got there early, I got to watch the whole warm-ups. Watched Keith Tkachuk get smacked in the rear by a puck shot at him - he turned around ready to kill somebody, then saw Jeremy Roenick pointing and laughing at him. I love J.R..

Then came the game. My voice was hoarse from booing the Kings for two awful awful periods, but then they came back with three goals in the third period to win it 3-1.

Worst part of the day? Carrying around a stack of beat-up 50%-off graphic novels in my bag all day long. The harsh physical consequences of being a comic book-reading dork.

Blogging Hurts

So last night I'm clicking around and came upon a particular blog. This blogger talked about their new super-secret project that they'd just been hired to write on. As a result of it being super-secret, the writer was intentionally vague about what project it is.

Unfortunately, I know EXACTLY what project it is... because I was up for the same job.

So reading that this other person got the job means that I didn't get it. It isn't a HUGE deal, in that being a writer means you get used to rejection pretty quickly. But man, what a way to find out.

I hate blogs.

Adventures in Bomb Sniffing

So this happened today-

SAN DIEGO -- Hundreds of people were evacuated from Cox Arena, site of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, today two hours before the first game was to start after a bomb-sniffing dog detected a suspicious package.

Yikes. Scary, huh? A week after the Federal Government issues a warning about terrorist attacks at sporting events, a bomb sniffing dog finds something suspicious.

Thank goodness for bomb sniffing dogs. They cost a fortune to train, but it's worth it. With their expertise, our canine friends are making the world safer for people like... oh wait...

At around 9:30 a.m. the dog "indicated there was a possible problem at a hot-dog stand," said Lorena Nava, a spokeswoman for San Diego State University.

So the dog smelled something.... at the HOT DOG STAND.

Anyone want to bet money that some police guy forgot to feed Rover? And Rover was really hungry and smelled scrumptious Farmer John hot dogs? And all the money and time spent training him went out the window when he smelled FOOD? And the entire arena was evacuated and the bomb squad called in because a doggy had a craving for snausages?

Bad dog. Bad bad dog.

Great Hockey Ad

I DIG this commercial. It's a Nike Canada ad with Markus Naslund and Ilya Kovalchuk, and it's courtesy of the good folks at YouTube. Though it also kinda irritates me that no one in the U.S. NHL offices can make a commercial this catchy.



Apologies for the lack of updates this week. I'm up against a deadline that I have to get done before Wizardworld L.A. this weekend.

Back to whatever it is I do...

Sorry for Not Blogging

Crazy week. Brain fried from all this writing. A few quick bits to catch you up on the Life Eugene.

-Watched the opening monologue of the Oscars - haven't had time to watch the rest. And now that it's been a week, chances are that I won't watch it. Oh well - the opening monologue was good, though.

-So some point this weekend, some spammer selling pirated software sent out a few thousand junk emails. For the "From:" address, he put a bunch of email addresses @eugeneson.com. Why would a spammer do that? So for all the the bouncebacks and undelivereds from incorrect addresses, guess where they go to? That's right - ME.

So I got bombarded with "Could not deliver" email notices. I stopped counting around 250 or so. I hate hate HATE spammers.

-My (relatively) new Windows PC that I put together? It crashed and burned last weekend. It wouldn't boot - so I had to take the thing apart and isolated it to either a bad IDE cable or a bad secondary hard drive or both. So I trashed the bad cable and hard drive - but the system still wouldn't boot. So I had to wipe the hard drive and re-install Windows from scratch. A few hours later, everything is up and running again.

As for my mac, it's solid as always. If I can somehow legally marry my mac, we'll be registered at Crate & Barrel.

-Had lunch with writer Seth Walter this week at the Daily Grill. Never been to it before, but I've heard all sorts of stories about it (lots of Hollywoody deals go down there, apparently). I recommend the French Dip - the bread is mmm-mmm toasty.

We traded stories about our days as script readers. I don't want to share our "worst script we ever read" stories here, since with the power of google, there's a good chance the writers of these classic-for-all-the-wrong-reason scripts will find me making fun of them. But let's just say I'll never look at Jesus and lollipops the same ever again.

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Have a good weekend everybody!

Tip-A-King 2006

They've been doing these Tip-A-King charity events since around 1990 after Wayne Gretzky came to L.A.. Basically, it's an event where fans can get their autographs and pictures with the Kings players - and all the money goes to charity.

This is the first year I've actually gotten my act together and gone to this thing. It was at the Home Depot Center (same place as the Meet the Players party last month).

My goal was mostly to get my team autographed stick finished off. To recap, I have a game-used Jason Labarbera goal stick that I wanted to get the whole team to sign. I got nine players to sign it at the Meet the Players party. This time, I needed another 13, including the guys that this could be my last chance to meet - future hall-of-famers Luc Robitaille and Jeremy Roenick.



I got in line to meet J.R. first. He's always been one of my favorite players, and even though he's had a disappointing first year in L.A. (so disappointing that I wouldn't be surprised if he's not brought back next year), I'm still really happy that he's on my favorite team. So meeting him was one of those geeky moments where I didn't know what to say and just kinda smiled.

After J.R., I met and got auto-de-graphs from Matty Norstrom, Sean Avery, Dustin Brown, Jeff Cowan, Eric Belanger, and Craig Conroy. All very cool, especially Craig Conroy. That guy is so chipper, upbeat, and outgoing - when his playing days are over, he's got a great second career ahead of him talking jumpers down from ledges.

Finally, I went and stood in the longest line there - the Luc Robitaille line. Took about an hour in line. And wouldn't you know that the longest line had the most annoying people in it. Two knuckleheads behind me thought they were the funniest guys on earth. Bad joke after bad joke after bad joke. When they start talking about the movie 'Corky Romano'... I start saying it's time to legalize murder.

But thoughts of murderous rage not-withstanding, I had a great time at Tip a King. I've got five more players left to get on the stick - which I'm in no hurry to finish.

Now if only the team could beat the Red Wings more than once every, I dunno, SIX OR SEVEN YEARS, I might go back to Tip a King next year.

Up Against a Deadline

Will try to blog later this week, where I'll talk about the spammer who sent out software ads using MY EMAIL ADDRESS as their FROM address (I've gotten 200+ bounce backs to their spamming), the Oscars (Tivo-ed it, haven't watched it yet), how my brand new PC just bit the dust and now I have re-format the drive and re-install Windows (later this week), and Tip-A-King 2006.

Okay - back to whatever it is I do.

My Scooter Blenny

I haven't blogged anything about my saltwater fish tank, and since I don't have anything else to blog about, I thought I'd mention it. A few months ago, I was at the Petco on Sepulveda Blvd in Van Nuys. It's a dinky Petco and only has a handful of mediocre saltwater fish tanks. I looked into the tank and saw the saddest fish I'd ever seen.

It was a Red Scooter Blenny that was tiny and emaciated - its stomach was so sunken that it looked like it was holding in its breath. It broke my heart. In the wild, Scooter Blennies only feed on tiny live microscopic pods. Tiny live microscopic pods that are NOWHERE to be found in a Petco holding tank. He fluttered around the tank on his tiny side fins, moving gracefully about the tank, looking in vain for something to eat.

I watched that poor little guy and saw that he was only $6. I had room for another small fish in my tank - and because I've got a lot of live rock in my tank, I knew that I had a collection of some of the pods that it feeds on. So even though he's not the prettiest or flashiest saltwater fish, I bought the guy - not knowing if I'd be able to keep him alive long term, but knowing that he'd stand a better chance in my tank than in the Petco tank.

I took the guy home and put him in my tank. In the first few weeks, I started reading everything I could about the feeding habits of the Scooter Blenny. Most of the information recommends building up a colony of the pods, because Scooter Blennies won't eat regular fish food. In rare cases, owners have gotten Scooter Blennies to eat regular fish food, but it involves a lot of work to wean them off the food they eat in the wild to something completely foreign to them.

While I researched, the Blenny disappeared from my tank. I wasn't sure if it was just hiding amongst the rockwork - or if it had died. I would only be out $6, but I felt bad for the poor little emaciated guy. I wondered if I should have just let him die at Petco and hope that maybe Petco would stop ordering unhealthy fish to die in their store.

A week later, I spotted movement in the rockwork of my tank. He was ALIVE! My Scooter Blenny was alive!

And he was FAT. Like ORCA FAT. My little fish had suddenly gone from being a tiny, emaciated Clay Aiken - to Ruben Studdard after having EATEN Clay Aiken.

In the next few days, whenever I fed the tank, I would watch him veraciously attack the frozen fish food. Somehow, my little guy had gone from eating tiny microscopic pods - to eating huge chunks of fish food about half his size. As best as I can tell, the movement of the chunks of fish food simulated the movement of his live food that he usually feeds on, so he made the switch. From all the reading I've done, teaching it to accept new food is extremely difficult if you're trying to do it - let alone, if you're like me and not trying to do it.



Alas, my digital camera doesn't take good pics underwater, so this is a pic of a Scooter Blenny I grabbed from an online saltwater fish store. This Scooter Blenny in this pic is like Aretha Franklin circa "Freeway of Love" and "I Knew You Were Waiting For Me". My guy is Aretha Franklin circa RIGHT NOW.

Now the guy moseys around my tank all the time - just kicking back til feeding time. I suppose I should feel happy that he's well-fed and alive - but I feel a bit guilty.

Before he moved around with grace and form on his tiny fins, now he just kinda meanders around, sliding around on his enormous belly. He's happy and alert, but he doesn't move like he used to - though, how could he? He's HUGE now. He's like a fat guy trying to dance ballet. I don't suppose there's any sort of diet and exercise plan I can put him on. I just have to hope that his little fish body can handle the extra pounds.

Sigh. Even my pet fish are overweight and out-of-shape.

Bleak House

It's U.S. run just ended and now Bleak House is out on DVD.



After being forced to read Charles Dickens in school, it's easy to overlook that the guy was a heck of a storyteller. And while I'm still bitter and angry at the hours I had to waste reading Great Expectations, I was on the edge of my seat watching this new BBC version of Bleak House, as it moved easily back and forth between suspenseful mystery... and wonderfully decadent soap opera. Plus it's got amazing performances from Scully and Wedge, errrrrr, Gillian Anderson and Denis Lawson.

Anyways, it's out on DVD now. Take my advice - add it to your rental queue. It is a TRIP.