We all heard Obama's speech tonight. Eight is enough, he said. We all heard his reference to the number one movie in the country, "Tropic Thunder". For like the Robert Downey, Jr. character passionately reciting words from the theme song to the TV show, "The Jeffersons," just as if they came from him, but then caught at it, and then defending himself, "Just 'cause it comes from 'The Jeffersons' don't make it not true", so Obama spoke the words, "Eight Is Enough", the name of a TV show, and then laughed. Just 'cause it's the title of a TV show don't make it not true, that was the message I heard.
This brings me to my 1993 screenplay, "Gosk", posted July 3, 2007 on the Internet at http://www.archive.org/details/GoskTheScreenplay (Archive.Org shows right there, that's when I posted it). Go to page 90 of the PDF (indicated as page 88 of the screenplay), Scene 30. Here we find the characters stranded in a rowboat, each grasping a corner of a jacket in order to make a sail. Until they learn that the idea came to one of them, Clerp, from watching the TV show, "Gilligan's Island". They then each let go of their corner of the jacket. Apparently, Clerp had been unaware that the characters on "Gilligan's Island" never escaped from the island, and so had failed to see that the idea was thusly fundamentally flawed.
Another example of evaluating the seriousness of an idea based on whether it comes from a TV show and/or a movie occurs yet again in "Tropic Thunder": the Jack Black character offers as a plan an idea borrowed from a movie he (his character) was in, wherein the panties gained from a panty raid are made into a catapult (Stuart Cornfeld, "Tropic Thunder" producer, who I half-knew in 1975, and who used to read all of my emails and pass them to "SNL", "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report", and who I refer to in my August 13th blog: how could you have missed this opportunity to present a visualization of this?).
Yes, Obama, you have picked a very interesting week to work the name of a TV show into a speech. And yes, you are quite correct: just 'cause it comes from a TV show don't make it not true.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Wolf Man Who Turned Back Normal Whenever Someone Screamed
This is my new video, "The Wolf Man Who Turned Back Normal Whenever Someone Screamed." I consider it an optimistic piece, as in reality screaming rarely serves its desired purpose. I recommend organized protest as the best means for achieving success in overcoming our enemies.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
A Piece of the Mask
This April 2008 Cornfeld/Steinhoff videoclip, which I will be updating once the Cornfeld- produced "Tropic Thunder" can be edited through it being broadcast on television, can already be seen in relation to "Tropic Thunder":
- In this April 2008 videoclip, a Steinhoff-related work shows a man with a gorilla mask complaining that his mask/costume doesn't come off. In "Tropic Thunder", the Robert Downey, Jr. character undergoes a special treatment to make a change to his face/skin (he is made African American) something that cannot (easily) be altered (the special treatment is portrayed as a first that transcends the concept of theatrical makeup);
- In the April 2008 videoclip, Jack Black in "Tenacious D" is shown beaten up and lying on the ground, opening his eyes to see Kyle standing over him - which the I correlate in the videoclip to an incident in 1975 on an AFI film shoot when I was knocked unconscious by an exposed live wire, opening my eyes to see Cornfeld standing over me. In "Tropic Thunder", we again see Jack Black's character lying on the ground, opening his eyes to several of the other characters standing over him.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Talk French When Intellectuals Are Present
A recent controversy one may or may not wish to be in the middle of, the "retard" reference in the upcoming (end of this week) "Tropic Thunder", is one I actually do feel myself to be in the middle of. This has nothing to do with me being a retard. What I mean is, I am not a retard, besides which, with regard to those who are "retards", I believe in using different language, English of course, unless one isn't English, I have nothing against the French.
The person leading the protest against the use of the word "retard", Timothy Shriver, who is perhaps quite smart (a word occasionally used with a derisive inflection by the more stupid among us, who will often replace it with the insult, "intellectual"), is the brother of one of Rick Natkin's oldest friends. Rick Natkin was with me at Stuart "'Tropic Thunder' Producer" Cornfeld's house during the incident described in my "No. 1" August 10th blog about "Heard Shout-Outs".
I am long-accustomed to being some kind of news story missing link, or in direct relation to some kind of news story missing link, so this Tropic-Thunder-protest-leader's-brother-is- close-friend-of-person-I-encountered- in-relation-to-Tropic-Thunder-producer-in-1975 seems particularly un-random to me. It leads to thoughts of doing-it-to-generate-publicity-for-the- film, i.e., secret promotion. If one's mind "wanders" in this inevitable direction, one may then find of interest the fact that on Saturday, 8/9/08, I posted on YouTube my "Monk's Secret Promotion" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rw7PLpY_xY), the word promotion being used in the context of advertising.
The person leading the protest against the use of the word "retard", Timothy Shriver, who is perhaps quite smart (a word occasionally used with a derisive inflection by the more stupid among us, who will often replace it with the insult, "intellectual"), is the brother of one of Rick Natkin's oldest friends. Rick Natkin was with me at Stuart "'Tropic Thunder' Producer" Cornfeld's house during the incident described in my "No. 1" August 10th blog about "Heard Shout-Outs".
I am long-accustomed to being some kind of news story missing link, or in direct relation to some kind of news story missing link, so this Tropic-Thunder-protest-leader's-brother-is- close-friend-of-person-I-encountered- in-relation-to-Tropic-Thunder-producer-in-1975 seems particularly un-random to me. It leads to thoughts of doing-it-to-generate-publicity-for-the- film, i.e., secret promotion. If one's mind "wanders" in this inevitable direction, one may then find of interest the fact that on Saturday, 8/9/08, I posted on YouTube my "Monk's Secret Promotion" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rw7PLpY_xY), the word promotion being used in the context of advertising.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
A Few Words About My "Statement of Blog Purpose"
In re-reading my "Statement of Blog Purpose", it suddenly occurred to me that one or two people might find certain statements difficult to believe. I feel strongly about those one or two people. Life teaches most of us that there are those who tend towards making unlikely things happen, and those who tend towards keeping things predictable, and that on a scale of 1 to 10, or better yet, 1 to a million, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are at the top of the list of people who tend towards making unlikely things happen. This does not prove my statements true, however, it does serve as a necessary preface, as it should prepare those one or two people for the idea that my statement is fundamentally as plausible as the possibility of it raining tomorrow, as opposed to the possibility of Martians landing tomorrow.
At the time that the Beatles and the Stones were doing songs because of me, I did not consider it possible. In fact, my ego was such that when I received a letter from Paul McCartney a week after Billy Joel sat next to me on an airplane, I assumed it was a fake. At one time I would concoct some extremely absurd explanations to rationalize that The Beatles, the Stones, and others were NOT doing anything appropos of my doing something, in spite of how directly things pointed and point that way.
While I will not go into every one of the countless details that have cumulatively formed my perspective on this particular Beatles and Stones matter, I would nevertheless like to share some interesting elements "for posterity". In not sharing every one of the countless details that led to this perspective, I realize that skeptics will always be given a seat at the table. As will those claiming to be skeptics, who in reality are acting on behalf of the many important people implicated by the statement that something is due to me that I have not received. That list of important people goes well beyond the Beatles and the Stones, who are implicated the instant one accepts that I am neither a crackpot nor a con man nor a fool.
My 1965 story, "Endless Voyage", is about how the world governments, faced with the dire threat of overpopulation, devise a scientific solution: a pill that permits people to breathe underwater. Those who take it can never breathe air again. And so, dispassionately, the human race would be divided in half, and the question of what to do with all the people resolved, by sending half to live beneath the sea, to become a group of strangers to the other half of the human race. All we had was a photograph, with the instruction to write a two-page story. I wrote a 15-page story, which was treated like a thousand pages. "Eleanor Rigby", "Yellow Submarine" and "Paperback Writer" resulted from this story. "Yellow Submarine" was the flipside of the 45 rpm record containing "Eleanor Rigby". Donovan would later describe how these two songs were worked on by Paul McCartney simultaneously. "Eleanor Rigby", which raises the question of what to do with all the lonely people and where they all belong, contains a theme that can be found in the very creation of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". When Lennon felt he had to justify that "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" was not code for LSD, he described the entire song as having originated from a single image, not a photograph, but a drawing that his son Julian made for school. An entire song from a single image.
The Rolling Stones have been known to pick up on and then change things originating from The Beatles. It is no controversy that they made "Her Satanic Majesty's Request" appropos of "Sgt. Peppers", nor is it a controversy that they made "Let It Bleed" appropos of "Let It Be". Lennon and Jagger were good friends, and when people make such clear connections no anomosity against the Stones is assumed. On my tenth birthday, my best friend, Dan, picked a fight with a classmate. Dan was as much the troublemaker as I was the introvert. Yet he set up the situation such that if I didn't join with him after school to fight this kid who he'd picked a fight with, my very loyalty to my best friend would be in question. When my mother saw me with my first bloody nose ever, she grabbed the arm of the kid who had hit me and began marching him back to his house to tell his mother. In the true spirit of adding insult to injury, the kid screamed all the way there that my mother was a hag. The Rolling Stones a few months later, and a few months apart, released "Street Fighting Man" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash", the latter of which contains the lyric, "I was raised by a toothless bearded hag". Five years later, at George Harrison's "Concert For Bangladesh", Leon Russell did a medley of two songs, the Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash", and the Coasters song, "Young Blood", the latter of which contains the lyrics, "I met her dad, He said 'you better leave my daughter alone.'" Unfortunately, the dna sample from the song "Young Blood" gives no indication of whether its title contains blood from anyone's first bloody nose. It is also not known whether, in spite of it having been my tenth birthday, Mick Jagger felt, with regard to my bloody nose, that everyone should have just "let it bleed".
Since then, I have made no small number of contributions to the work of Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, the ex-Beatles, and many, many others. In most cases I find it considerably more easy to demonstrate than the incidents referred to here.
At the time that the Beatles and the Stones were doing songs because of me, I did not consider it possible. In fact, my ego was such that when I received a letter from Paul McCartney a week after Billy Joel sat next to me on an airplane, I assumed it was a fake. At one time I would concoct some extremely absurd explanations to rationalize that The Beatles, the Stones, and others were NOT doing anything appropos of my doing something, in spite of how directly things pointed and point that way.
While I will not go into every one of the countless details that have cumulatively formed my perspective on this particular Beatles and Stones matter, I would nevertheless like to share some interesting elements "for posterity". In not sharing every one of the countless details that led to this perspective, I realize that skeptics will always be given a seat at the table. As will those claiming to be skeptics, who in reality are acting on behalf of the many important people implicated by the statement that something is due to me that I have not received. That list of important people goes well beyond the Beatles and the Stones, who are implicated the instant one accepts that I am neither a crackpot nor a con man nor a fool.
My 1965 story, "Endless Voyage", is about how the world governments, faced with the dire threat of overpopulation, devise a scientific solution: a pill that permits people to breathe underwater. Those who take it can never breathe air again. And so, dispassionately, the human race would be divided in half, and the question of what to do with all the people resolved, by sending half to live beneath the sea, to become a group of strangers to the other half of the human race. All we had was a photograph, with the instruction to write a two-page story. I wrote a 15-page story, which was treated like a thousand pages. "Eleanor Rigby", "Yellow Submarine" and "Paperback Writer" resulted from this story. "Yellow Submarine" was the flipside of the 45 rpm record containing "Eleanor Rigby". Donovan would later describe how these two songs were worked on by Paul McCartney simultaneously. "Eleanor Rigby", which raises the question of what to do with all the lonely people and where they all belong, contains a theme that can be found in the very creation of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". When Lennon felt he had to justify that "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" was not code for LSD, he described the entire song as having originated from a single image, not a photograph, but a drawing that his son Julian made for school. An entire song from a single image.
The Rolling Stones have been known to pick up on and then change things originating from The Beatles. It is no controversy that they made "Her Satanic Majesty's Request" appropos of "Sgt. Peppers", nor is it a controversy that they made "Let It Bleed" appropos of "Let It Be". Lennon and Jagger were good friends, and when people make such clear connections no anomosity against the Stones is assumed. On my tenth birthday, my best friend, Dan, picked a fight with a classmate. Dan was as much the troublemaker as I was the introvert. Yet he set up the situation such that if I didn't join with him after school to fight this kid who he'd picked a fight with, my very loyalty to my best friend would be in question. When my mother saw me with my first bloody nose ever, she grabbed the arm of the kid who had hit me and began marching him back to his house to tell his mother. In the true spirit of adding insult to injury, the kid screamed all the way there that my mother was a hag. The Rolling Stones a few months later, and a few months apart, released "Street Fighting Man" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash", the latter of which contains the lyric, "I was raised by a toothless bearded hag". Five years later, at George Harrison's "Concert For Bangladesh", Leon Russell did a medley of two songs, the Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash", and the Coasters song, "Young Blood", the latter of which contains the lyrics, "I met her dad, He said 'you better leave my daughter alone.'" Unfortunately, the dna sample from the song "Young Blood" gives no indication of whether its title contains blood from anyone's first bloody nose. It is also not known whether, in spite of it having been my tenth birthday, Mick Jagger felt, with regard to my bloody nose, that everyone should have just "let it bleed".
Since then, I have made no small number of contributions to the work of Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, the ex-Beatles, and many, many others. In most cases I find it considerably more easy to demonstrate than the incidents referred to here.
Recently Heard Shout-Outs From The Makes-Sense-Cumulatively File, No. 1
- "The Mummy 3" - Producer Sean Daniel, who was the first person from whom I heard of the college I attended, CalArts, is also responsible for his longtime friend Spielberg referencing/using my material (http://www.archive.org/details/MallManSpielbergSteinhoffInterestingMallManFacts). Because of the fact that in this round Spielberg's Steinhoff reference involved a hat being returned to its owner (in "Indiana Jones"), special significance is attached by me to the moment in "Mummy 3" when the soldier returns a head to its owner. Were one to look further, one might even consider whether "Dark Knight" and the masking/unmasking of Batman doesn't fit in there somewhere. I appreciate that there might have also been a George Lucas/Star Wars shout-out contained in the Mummy moment, however, there are no rules against shout-outs that multi-task.
- Stuart Cornfeld's new movie, "Tropic Thunder" opens in a few days. Stuart Cornfeld movies generally make Steinhoff references. I first met Stuart in 1975. Several hours after the one time I was in Stuart's house (1975), I went with several people to a movie showing at the Century City mall, where Ann Meara with her young son walked by. Years later her young son turned into Ben Stiller, the Red Hours production partner of Stuart. Jack Black, a star of "Tropic Thunder", was on the Craig Ferguson show several days ago, where he referenced something I had said a few weeks ago at a screening of "Calistra Zipper". In the clip shown from "Tropic Thunder", one saw something resembling a scene in the Cornfeld/Black movie, "Tenacious D": Black lying on the ground unconscious, opening his eyes to people/person standing over him. This takes me back to the time I had a hole in my glove on an AFI film set, was electrocuted and knocked unconscious, opening my eyes to Stuart Cornfeld standing over me. Black recounted yet another example of a similar experience a few years ago on a talk show in describing something that happened to him in the set of "Nacho Libre".
- This week's weekly reference to my material on "Monk" can again be found on "YouTube", where I am Zoomsteinhoff.
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