"An M. Night Shyamalan Film"

Tonight, as I was once again being bombarded with commercials for the new Will Smith/Jaden Smith movie, "After Earth", I noticed something. The director wasn't mentioned. And then I did an image search for the posters, and the director's name isn't mentioned there either. In fact, it's nowhere to be found.

Normally, this wouldn't be that interesting. I mean, it's a Will Smith movie. But in this case, it is. Because "After Earth" was directed by the next Steven Spielberg: M. Night Shyamalan.

It's hard to pick the exact moment when he stopped being the next Spielberg, but it was probably around the time he had Mark Wahlberg running away from wind.

So now, even though was able to get job of directing this big budget summer movie, they won't allow his name to be associated with it.

Can you imagine the meeting where the marketing department tells him they don't want people to know he directed a movie he directed? "Sorry Mr. M. Night, but we think it's better if no one knows you worked on this. In fact, we didn't even tell Will Smith, he thought we let his daughter direct it and told him you were a gaffer". That probably went well.

Here are 2 questions: 1) What if this movie is a huge success? Will we suddenly see M. Night out in the public, talking up his "film"? Will he try to take retroactive credit? It would seem like he would have to, so this doesn't keep happening.

2) What if this movie is a huge failure? What's next? I guess he'd have to go back to his roots, and write something original and direct it. And it would have to be very low budget. I think that's the only place left. If you can't make a Will Smith sci-fi summer movie a hit, then it's time to book your tickets to Sundance. Or maybe kickstarter.

Maybe he's not the next Spielberg, maybe he's the next Braff.

A hit or a bomb, either way it will be interesting to watch. 

Musings

-In the upcoming Arrested Development episodes, the actors didn't do scenes together and were green screened to look like they did. I'm sure there's no way that's not gonna be good. 

-Wait. Alice Eve is in her underwear in that Star Trek movie, and people are complaining about it? Fuck you, America.

-Fred Armisen is a much bigger loss to SNL than Bill Hader. Meanwhile, Kenan Thompson will be back for his 37th season.

-I don't think Anthony Weiner did anything wrong. Like, at all. What? You can't flirt now? That's a rule? That Republican dude, while acting as Governor, secretly left the country to go fuck a chick, and he got elected to Congress. Weiner flirted on twitter. Shut up.

-You know how there's always been that thing that "parents don't understand their kid's music". I always thought that meant that they didn't understand what was cool, and were turned off by the edginess, etc. But now that I'm older than Jim Walsh was at the beginning of 90210, I realize it's not true. I watched the Billboard Music awards, and Taylor Swift and Bieber are hella corny. 

-If you motherfuckers ruin Google Glass by labeling it a dorky thing like you did with the Segway, I'm gonna be pissed. 

-Of all the screenwriters for people to hate, it feels like Damon Lindelof should be far down the list. If you want to hate a screenwriter, hate Craig Mazin.

-An 80 year old got to the top of Everest today, so can the rest of you knock it off now? It's not that hard. 

-There's a common note that writers get from executives that we hate, and it's this: "your character has to be good at his/her job". Execs think the audience will not like anyone who isn't good at their job. Normally, I think that's complete bullshit. But let me tell you something, I only like Mad Men when Don Draper is good at his job. 

-There's only one thing that will fix American Idol: taking a couple of years off.

-I've been reading about all of these Obama scandals...haven't seen a scandal yet. This might be a bad comparison, but something happened with this tornado thing that reminded me of Benghazi. Right as I was going to bed last week, I was told that 91 people were dead. That was straight from the medical examiner. When I woke up, that number became 21. Point is, it was a crazy, unpredictable, insane situation, and in the days following, the exact truth is not known. It's easy to go back in hindsight and point out all that was wrong, but at the time, it's fucking confusing.

-Where does Vince Vaughn go from here?

-I wish Jennifer Aniston had taken all of these sexy roles back when she was sexy.

-I don't understand why anyone, anywhere, would donate money to a kickstarter of any kind.

-I've been not working for months, and as you know, I've watched more TV than just about any other human. And the commercial I've seen the most, by a mile, is that one for the Vaginal Mesh lawsuit. I feel like we're 2 years away from a 60 Minutes expose on why this is some sort of scam. Don't know what the scam is, but I know more of you have a mesh in your vaginas than I thought.

There Must Be Some Mistake

Apparently, this is Aimee Teegarden, aka Coach Taylor's daughter from Friday Night Lights...

I must not be looking at this picture with clear eyes, because that does not look like the same girl. Someone put out an APB for her boobs.

This must be the reason Saracen left her for Carlotta (in my fan fiction).

Also helping matters for her face? The bangs are gone. Also, Six can walk! Also, Texas forever.

My Hiatus - A Bibliography

My vacation is ending. Here are the books I read while I was off. None of them are as long as their titles.

"The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend" by Glenn Frankel

I thought this book was going to cut back and forth between the making of the movie "The Searchers", and the actual events that inspired the film. Didn't really turn out that way.

Boring.

"The Hit Man: A True Story of Murder, Redemption and the Melrose Diner" by Ralph Cipriano

This is a short book, and is worth it for one chapter. It's about the time this mafia guy was shot in the head. The scene should be in a movie, but the problem is no one would believe it.

John Veasey was sitting in a chair, talking to 2 guys. One of the guys gets up and goes to the bathroom - similar to Michael going to the bathroom in the first Godfather. He comes out with a gun, and puts it to the back of Veasey's head and shoots.

But he doesn't die.

He shoots him a second time in the head, then a third...but Veasey doesn't die! Instead, he fights back. Then he gets shot in the heart! But it just pisses him off more.

The other guy comes at him with a knife. Veasey takes the knife away and stabs that dude in the eye, then runs out. He passes out in the ghetto. An ambulance doesn't come for an hour and a half. But he lived.

"The Way of the Knife: The CIA, A Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth" by Mark Mazzetti

Basically, our government and military should not be meddling in any country anywhere in the world. It is a complete waste of time, money, and lives, and always makes things worse.

"Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Gagnster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice" by Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy

Turns out I lived 3 blocks away from Whitey Bulger for 5 years. He never murdered me once.

"Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Story of a Perennial TV Guest Star" by Fred Stoller

This guy wrote that ebook about writing for Seinfeld for a year, this is the expanded version.

No One Could Think This is Good

My First Staffing Season

The TV network schedule runs from September to May. Writers work from May/June to March/April. Then, in May, the networks go to New York and reveal which existing shows have been renewed for next season, what pilots have been chosen, and what the fall schedule will look like.

Before that announcement, hardly anyone knows what is going to live or die. Especially with the pilots. That means that TV writers are scrambling for meetings and collectively freaking out, not knowing whether or not they're going to have a job for the next year or not.

That is staffing season.

This year was my first one. Last year was different. I already had a job, on a cable show, which doesn't work in the same way. I met for a network show early (in early April) because they already knew they were coming back. So I was able to secure the job before I left the security of my other gig.

This year, however, was different. Everything was up in the air for everyone, and I was sitting here NOT getting a paycheck. But I was pretty confident it was all going to work out.

Last week, on Monday, my agent called me. He was just saying "hi". I brought up that I felt like I was in the dark and was a little nervous. He laughed at my nervousness. Called me crazy. He said things were great and there was absolutely nothing worry about.

That made me feel a lot better. And I enjoyed my day at the beach.

The next day, I was feeling so good I hopped on the ol' beach cruiser and cruised the boardwalk. My headphones were in my ears and happily sang along to this. But suddenly, the song was interrupted by R. Kelly. My phone was ringing - because R. Kelly's verse from "I'm a Flirt" is my ringtone, because of course it is.

It was my agent.

His tone had changed. And he said these infamous words "We need to revise our conversation from yesterday..."

The "revision" involved me needing to worry. Mortgage payments for the next 9 months started stacking up in my brain. That trip to Hawaii was suddenly off the table. I wondered how much I could get for the beach cruiser. I even shit my pants a little.

But there was nothing I could do but wait. And refresh Deadline Hollywood every 15 seconds.

The NBC pilots that were getting ordered started to leak out on Wednesday. Lots of NBC news. But nothing that involved me. I was told Friday would be the day that I would know.

Friday morning. Nothing. Lunch. Nothing. Then, at 3:30pm, I got the phone call. It was my agent, Mr. "Revise Our Conversation". Actually, it wasn't him, it was his assistant. She wanted to know if I could go to a meeting for a new show NBC had ordered. She wanted to know if I could go, not next week, RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

Kids, it was Friday. At 3:30pm. I live in Hermosa. The meeting was in Burbank. So I said what any unemployed writer with a dump in his pants would say: I'll be there!

I said I could do 5:30. That was a lie.

But do you know what that meant? If my agent is suddenly sending me out on a meeting for another show, that means he knows my other gig is dead. It's panic time. A late friday meeting. Seemed like a Haily Mary. I was fucked.

Of course, I still had a 2 hour drive to Burbank to contemplate this turn of events. And during that drive, I did what every jittery commuter on the freeway does, I looked at my phone. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

It was 6pm when I got through the gates. I quickly parked my car. Sprinted into the building, and found the office. I took one step in, and the guy said, "Irwin...?" I nodded. He said: "Your show just got picked up, guess we don't need to meet".

And I turned around and drove home.

Ladies and Gentleman, staffing season!

Top 5 Oddest Wiener Cousins

Howard Stern recently had Mike Tyson on as a guest, and they talked for an hour and a half straight. It was a good interview, and they covered everything. Well, almost everything. One part of Tyson's life was completely overlooked: his marriage to Robin Givens.

This is interesting because it's a little known fact that sandwiched between Howard Stern's 2 long marriages, he and Robin Givens were a couple. That means Howard and Mike Tyson are wiener cousins (hopefully you understand this concept, but if not, wiener cousins are guys that have had sex with the same girl).

It got me thinking, those are some pretty strange wiener cousins. Usually a woman (or a man) has a wheelhouse that they don't stray too far away from. Lord knows that's true for me. But Robin Givens, you can't pin that girl down!

But is there an even crazier example out there? I don't know, let's find out with a very rudimentary and not well thought out at all top 5 list:

TOP 5 ODDEST WIENER COUSINS

5. Dave Coulier, Ryan Reynolds = Alanis Morissette

4. Bill Clinton, everyone else Monica Lewinsky has ever had sex with = Monica Lewinsky

3.  JFK, RFK, Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller = Marilyn Monroe

2. Vanilla Ice, Warren Beatty, Sean Penn, Jose Canseco = Madonna

1. Howard Stern, Mike Tyson, Brad Pitt = Robin Givens

Sorry, it's just too random. It is number 1.

In case you haven't heard, Mike Tyson is going around the country doing a one man show. One of the stories he tells is that he came home one day and found Brad Pitt banging Robin Givens, and Brad Pitt basically shit his pants in fear (as anyone would).

So you throw Pitt into that mix, and those are hard cousins to beat. You've got one of the ugliest dudes, the best looking dude, and the funniest talking rapist dude. Even Ice, Beatty, Penn, Canseco and every hunk in Latin America can't deal with that.

The Bill Clinton/Lewinsky one might feel like a cheat, but seriously, think about every random  guy Lewinsky has had sex with in her life, and yet, they are all related, by wiener, to the former President of the United States.