The Motion Picture Television Fund, Volunteer Work, and Pimping

Went to the TAG (The Animation Guild) general membership meeting last night. Wished Earl Kress good luck with his radio show appearance today. The meeting had a nice presentation about the Motion Picture and Television Fund - the group that helps entertainment industry seniors and runs the famous Woodland Hills Retirement Facility. Very cool stuff - they do some great work.

Then they showed a really nice, touching promotional video from an event in 2006 where their organization helped a senior couple's home, installing a wheelchair ramp and giving it a fresh coat of paint. Among the celebrities there giving a hand and talking about the cause were Jodie Foster and Thora Birch - which is kinda cool, since they're both famous actresses and seeing them doing volunteer work is nice.

Then they showed Xzibit helping out with the cause. Yes, Xzibit, the rapper who hosts Pimp My Ride.

And suddenly I wondered... exactly how would Xzibit improve this senior couple's home? Do you think he was happy just building a wheelchair ramp and repainting? Or was he itching to do something bigger?

Hydraulics for the guy's wheelchair, so he can just bounce up the steps?
24inch rims for the guy's wheelchair?
Does this ramp have enough BLING?

Anyways, don't see this as a slag on Xzibit - he deserves props for doing some cool volunteer work for seniors. But if I'M a senior and I have people coming to fix my house? If I see the host of Pimp My Ride at my door? I'm going to be all, "Oh, HELL no..."

On Writing : Getting Fired

No, I didn't just get fired. But I saw a bit on television about actress Annabelle Gurwitch and her new documentary, Fired!. Most people know Gurwitch from her years as the original host on TBS's "Dinner & a Movie" - but after she was fired by Woody Allen from a play she was in, she started to collect stories about people getting fired. The stories provided the material for a book and now a documentary.

Of course, we all know Gurwitch's REAL claim to fame is that she was an animation writer. When she was in college, her best friend got her a job writing on the original Thundercats series. What a great gig, huh? I earned drinking money in college working at the Jewish Community Center - she wrote dialogue for Lion-O, Mumm-ra, and Snarf. I think she wins this round pretty handedly.

But even before I heard about the documentary, I was thinking about what happens when writers get fired. You see, writers get fired all the time. We may not get the Donald Trump-type "You're Fired" moment, but writers often lose jobs. It happens. So I started to think about how to get fired. Not HOW to get fired - but how to handle it when it happens. Because if it hasn't already happened, someday it will probably happen to you. Case in point-

I know of a writer who was recently fired. After they were fired, they thanked the story editor for giving them the chance and chalked it up as, "We just weren't on the same page." It was handled in a classy, professional manner - and while the situation is cruel and unfair, the writer's good reputation is intact.

I know of another writer who was recently fired. After they were fired, they threatened to sue the story editor, the production company, the studio, the union, etc. It was handled in a spiteful, unprofessional manner - and the writer's reputation is completely shot.

I wish I'd gotten a chance to tell that second writer how to better handle things in case they were fired. With that in mind, if you get fired from a writing gig, please please PLEASE keep these in mind.

1. It's not the end of your career. It may feel like it, but the odds of it being the end are pretty unlikely. Everybody gets fired - chances are that you'll bounce back.

2. You will work with them again someday. Hollywood is a small town and as long as the same bosses are in charge, chances are you'll get hired again and again by the same people to work with the same people. Unless you threaten to sue them, which brings us to-

3. Don't sue. It's uncool.

Believe me, I wasn't always so zen about this. Early on in my career, when I was let go from a project, I thought it was the end of the world. But it's not. As long as you can keep your wits about you and continue doing good work, it'll just be a bump in your rear-view mirror.

I'll end this with this. After Joe Barbara's recent passing, Margaret Loesch told a story where she asked Barbara what she needed to learn. He told her, "The ability to handle disappointment."

And there it is in a nutshell. Joe Barbera - one of the most successful creative forces to ever walk the face of planet Earth - stressed the need to handle disappointment.

Keep that in mind. Especially if you found this blog post disappointing...

Wii have a Deadline and a Smogged Car

Still up against a writing deadline. But very briefly-

WII
Sigh. The UPS guy delivered my new Nintendo Wii to me today. I got a few tantalizing moments of geek heaven, but I've got a deadline. I don't want to oversell this, but every other great invention in the history of mankind is USELESS GARBAGE compared to the Nintendo Wii.

Smog
I finally got my car smogged today. Didn't know where to go, so I went to a place in North Hollywood that got several glowing reviews on the Internet. When I got there, it was instantly clear why a smog check station got such great reviews.

The guy who runs the place is ludicrously good-looking. He looked like a cross between Brad Pitt and that Eastern European dude on ER. Tall, dark, swarthy, charming, huge smile, perfect hair - I'm a straight male and even I wanted to have his babies. The entire time I was at that place, I could only imagine how many satisfied straight female and gay male customers he's had breathlessly run home and leave a positive review on the internet of their "best... smog... EVER..."

Anyways, if you're a straight female or a gay male and want to see this Adonis while getting your car smogged, email me and I'll send you the 411. In the meantime, back to work for me...

January 2007 Music Diary

According to iTunes, here's what I'm listening to this month-

Jane Fonda - Mickey Avalon
Amsterdam - Guster
You Know I'm No Good - Amy Winehouse
Le Disko - Shiny Toy Guns
Hang Me Up to Dry - Cold War Kids
Lost One - Jay-Z
Beach Chair - Jay-Z
Walking After You (Acoustic/Live) - Foo Fighters
Next Year (Acoustic/Live) - Foo Fighters
Best of You (Acoustic/Live) - Foo Fighters
Everlong (Acoustic/Live) - Foo Fighters
Bend and Break - Keane
Somewhere Only We Know - Keane
Everybody's Changing - Keane

Yeah, it's not great art ("1, 2, 3, 4, get your booty on the dance floor"), but Jane Fonda is the first unbelievably catchy tune of 2007.

Found the band Guster by accident - good stuff. Amsterdam came out a few years ago, but I'd never heard it til this month.

I love the iTunes free tune of the week. Every week they make some catchy tune available for free. The Amy Winehouse song has some great soul, Le Disko sounds like a lighter version of Peaches, and people are saying good things about the Cold War Kids and so far, I like what I hear.

The new Jay-Z album isn't his best, but it's still got some great great tracks. Lost One and Beach Chair are two of my faves. Also have to prop the new Foo Fighters - I'm really digging the acoustic live versions of their songs on the new Skin & Bones album.

As for the Keane tracks, they just released a new semi-acoustic live album. I debated buying it - instead, I just went through and re-listened to their older albums. I might still break down and buy the live album. We'll see.

Tales from the Dojo

At a break point in what I'm working on. I'm writing a longer blog post now about the writing business, but in the meantime, I figure I'd regale you with what you all really want to hear.

Stories about me getting injured and humbled in amusing ways.

I'm now through five martial arts classes - and so far, so good. It's really hard, but I'm learning a ton. Again, I've never been a martial arts guy. Never had any interest in it, but I'm doing this for research purposes for something I'll be writing soon (hopefully!). Anyways, a few observations-

-The sensei doesn't just like to show HOW to do things - he likes to explain WHY things should be done that way. He frequently uses you as a prop to show what happens if you don't do things the way he teaches. So picture the 85 year-old sensei coming up to you and saying, "Now watch. Eugene, I want you to hit me in the head."

Now I know that I'm not going to hit him - he's going to block it. I know this. I KNOW this. But I don't want to hit an 85 year-old man in the head. So I hesitate, then half-heartedly try to slow motion move towards him. The sensei laughs and says, "Go ahead and just hit me."

So I try again and try to hit him... but I just can't do it. I am just not wired that way. I repeat - I am just not wired to be able to hit an 85 year-old man in the head. I realize that it may make me look weak, but if there's a GOOD way to hit an 85 year-old man in the head, please let me know.

-Never realized how much martial arts is like dancing. There's one guy in the class who has terrible coordination. He's slowly picking up all the stuff being taught, but his coordination makes it impossible for him to walk in a straight line. Whenever we're practicing anything involving movement, he's flailing all about the place like a drunk trying to walk a sobriety checkpoint. Which wouldn't be bad except that he's usually next to me in practice, meaning I've got to avoid getting blindsided by .08.

-Finally, I've got my second really painful blister on my left foot. The good news is that sensei told me that the location of the blister is actually a good sign of whether my footwork is good - bad footwork leads to a blister on the side of the foot, while good footwork leads to one in the center of the foot. YAY! I have good footwork! I mean, OW - I think I'm dying!

I'm really behind schedule

Now that I'm feeling better, I'm up against a deadline. I was given plenty of time to finish, but since I spent the better part of the last week bundled up in bed, I'm now behind schedule.

So no foreseeable blogging for the next week.

I'm sick

I'm supposed to be writing a script right now, then watching some playoff football with my buddies, and doing some other prep work for some other writing gigs. Instead, I've got an annoying cold - complete with sore throat, hacking cough, uncomfortable restless nights of sleep, and an overly dramatic sense of impending doom.

So apologies that I haven't been blogging. Even if I was healthy enough, I've had nothing interesting happen to me to blog about - unless you consider coughing up one of your lungs to be interesting (and who doesn't?).

And if I wasn't feeling any more blah, it's freezing! 32 degrees outside. Stay warm everybody and try not to get sick. Take my word for it - it sucks.

Meet the Players 2007

Went to the L.A. Kings Meet the Players party Tuesday night. It was crazy crowded as usual. Since my friend Rick couldn't make it, I got Dustin Brown's autograph on his jersey.

Got nine more autographs on my game-used Jason Labarbera goal stick - Lubomir Visnovsky, Tom Kostopolous, Alexander Frolov, Scott Thornton, Marty Murray, Barry Brust, Brent Sopel, Oleg Tverdovsky, and Michael Cammalleri. My goal was to get the entire team on that stick, and as of this moment, I have the entire 2005-2006 team on the stick - including two future hall of famers - plus a handful of other 2006-2007 guys on it. Not sure yet if I'll keep getting autographs on it or not, but it sure looks nice on my wall in the office.

It never ceases to amaze me how friendly hockey players are. Considering I'm a big fan and I can't stand most fans, it's a wonder these guys can smile and sign autographs and pose for pictures for hours on end.

And from the People are Stupid category, I overheard this gem of a conversation this evening...

INT. STAPLES CENTER - NIGHT

Man and woman look at pictures of the L.A. Kings.  

                    MAN
          Konstantin Pushkarev.  He scored
          his first NHL goal last night. 
          He's from Kazakhstan.  

                    WOMAN
          Where?

                    MAN
          Kazakhstan.  You know, the country
          where Borat is from?  

Pause.

                    WOMAN
          But he doesn't look anything like
          Borat...  

Sigh. Remember when the Borat movie came out and the Kazakh government got angry? And we all thought they were over-reacting and that no person would ever confuse Sacha Baron Cohen's character with the real Kazakhstan? Guess we all owe the Kazakh government a big apology.

Life of Eugene

Hope everybody had a great holidays. I'm settling back into work mode and have an outline due that I'm working on now. But before I head into the writing cave, a few quick bits from the life of Eugene-

-New Year's Eve was spent at a party where I got to see a bunch of my old friends from college. The best part was watching two my friends who are new moms talking about motherhood... and all I could think was, "I ONCE SAW YOU TWO DOING DRUNKEN TEQUILA BODY SHOTS OFF OF [name withheld] FOR HIS BIRTHDAY! NOW YOU TWO ARE MOMS?!?!!?!"

It just goes to show that all stuffy uptight moms were all bat-$#!# crazy when they were younger...

-Went to the post office to pick up all the holiday mail that I had held while I was out of town. While waiting at the counter, the guy at the counter next to me was talking loudly on his cell phone. Not the best behavior to begin with, but the conversation was like this-

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DON'T ANSWER THE QUESTION... IT'S A SIMPLE QUESTION... JUST TELL ME. WERE YOU SEEING SOME OTHER GUY AT THE SAME TIME?"

He didn't like the answer, because he immediately hung up the phone and then asked to buy some stamps. What DID we do before cell phones?

-Much thanks to Disney's marketing department for sending me a "For Your Consideration" CD of Randy Newman's original score to Cars. Normally, I'm very easily bribed - but I just can't consider the score... since I just can't PLAY the durn thing. No computer I've put it can recognize the CD - it just ejects with no error message.

Oh well. If there's an award category for best coaster/frisbee, Randy Newman has my vote.

-Went to the first class of a martial arts class. For many reasons, I've never taken any martial arts in my life. But I'm doing this one for research purposes for a project that I might be writing on. Though, I'm worried that now that I'm doing research, the project is going to die or go elsewhere.

AWKWARD: It's a Japanese martial art, and I'm not Japanese. But people seem to assume that since I'm Asian I must know what I'm doing. And we all know I don't.

REALLY AWKWARD: The instructor explains that he's old fashioned regarding colors that students are allowed to wear. In his day, dark blue was only worn by masters, while students wore white. Few people now adhere to those rules, but he still does. He says that if he sees a beginner wearing blue, he takes it personally, doesn't let up, and isn't afraid to teach him a lesson.

REALLY REALLY AWKWARD: Instructor looks at me. I look down and realize I've worn a dark blue shirt to the first class. And I think, "Oh great. My first martial arts class. And I'm going to die."

The first class was fun, but I'm just not enamored with martial arts. It's never been something that's called out to me. But I'm going to stick with this and try this out for at least a few months. Of course, I'll blog about the whole experience.

Assuming the sensei doesn't kill me first.