While it's possible this could be a spectacularly bad idea (or just an ignorable one), I thought I would take my new found semi-knowledge of Twitter and try to Tweet from this year's Primetime Emmy telecast.
This will be my 13th straight Primetime Emmy show that I've attended. I got to go for four years as the "Writers" peer group Governor of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, then I got elected Chairman/CEO and actually appeared on three of them. Besides the obvious service aspect of the job, the other great perk of the Academy chairmanship gig (besides sitting with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks one year, and introducing Walter Cronkite another) has turned out to be the lifetime awards show tickets. Jackie and I go every year and we love the going, even when the show is sometimes off.
During the commercial breaks, however, while you're going to the bathroom or fixing a new plate of nachos, we usually sit more or less silently. You don't usually know who you're sitting next to, plus you really don't want to be too vocal in your opinions. Tweeting seems like the perfect pastime to avoid boredom and to occupy the mind.
If you're Twitter savvy, I invite you to join me and follow by clicking on the link above. Help me answer the age-old question: "If an ex-Chairman tweets from the Emmy theater and no one receives, did he make a sound?" So, if you're game, follow, re-Tweet and comment as you see fit.
P.S. A few years ago, I put together a photo album from my time as Chairman of ATAS that I'd like to share. It was an eventful time, 2001-2003. As you might recall, the Emmys had to be postponed twice after 9/11, something that happened on my watch, the month after I got elected.
Dark Skies is, finally, for real, and without qualification, coming out on DVD. It will be released by the Los Angeles based Shout! Factory on DVD on January 18, 2011. This coincides with the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. Fans will remember that JFK's assassination in the pilot episode is tied in to his interest in disclosing UFO reality in his second term.
Shout! Factory is a successful home video company that was originally started by an exodus of employees from Rhino Records. It has evolved into a premium supplier of content, including a full-line of classic TV series, like the recently released Max Headroom. Dark Skies is just the kind of product they love to bring to market -- an overlooked gem with passionate fans.
Dark Skies -- the 1996-1997 NBC UFO series -- is composed of twenty hours (18 one-hour episodes, and a two-hour pilot) that tells an epic story of suspense and danger, set against the colorful backdrop of the 1960s. The UFO cover-up unfolds from the point of view of John Loengard, a naive congressional staffer who comes to Washington D.C. to be a part of JFK's "New Frontier" but ends up reluctantly working for the secret organization Majestic-12 as an undercover operative from 1961-1967. Because of its period and the incredible set design and wardrobe, some fans consider it a forerunner of Mad Men, but with aliens!
On DVD, we believe that audiences will finally get to see the series the way its creators intended, free of the scheduling challenges it faced on its network run. Back in the pre-DVR mid-90s, Dark Skies was on Saturday nights, suffered numerous pre-emptions and spotty promotion that started great, then dropped off a cliff.
From the moment the series begins, however, you'll know you're in for a special ride. The main titles, for example, won the Emmy award the year the series debuted, and the pilot that was written by Brent Friedman and myself was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award in the "Outstanding Original Longform" category.
The Shout! Factory release will have all the episodes, mastered to be the highest possible quality. While the extras are being developed, they will be substantial, and I'll be involved in helping to make sure they meet the same high standards that all of us involved in the television series brought to that endeavor.
A special note to all the fans who have seen people try to rip them off over the years with bogus versions of bad quality. The two companies listed above are the only places to get the approved, high quality, with extras, version of this series. Do not buy it anywhere else or from anybody else. Shout! Factory and Medium Rare are the two companies to look to, depending on where you live, period.
First off, thanks for dropping by. As it turns out, I'll be on Coast-to-Coast AM with George Noory on Monday night, August 9 with UFO researchers Stan Friedman and Don Schmitt. They've got us slated to talk about "Hollywood and UFOs" in general, and specifically about a new film project, Majic Men.
Coast-to-Coast AM has monumental importance to the Disclosure movement, so this should be something to look forward to.
Along with my fellow producer Don Most, we have optioned both the life rights to Stanton Friedman and Donald Schmitt but also the book rights to Friedman's Top Secret/Majicand Schmitt's (along with Thomas Carey) Witness to Roswell.
From this we are now beginning to develop and find the right creative partnership to make Majic Men which will be the story behind the story of breaking the Roswell mystery into the open secret it is today. We hope to do for this story what All the President's Men did for Watergate and to use some of the same visual energy as was found in JFK. But with just enough humor to justify saying it's about two down-to-Earth guys who are breaking a story that is out-of-this-world. Lots more coming on this Monday...
There are some other highlights to look forward to in that show, however...
First,there will be a major announcement about Dark Skies, the NBC series I co-created with Brent V. Friedman in the 1990s. It told the story of the UFO mystery through the eyes of a young man recruited into Majestic-12 in 1961. The first season told his story (and the UFO cover-up's) until its final episode which took place in 1967 during the "Summer of Love" in San Francisco. I've been waiting years to say the words I'll get to say Monday night out loud and the fans who have written me so regularly about the series should be happy to hear them. Details, coming up on Coast-to-Coast -- a place that is close to my heart -- because during the production of the series I appeared twice on Art's show as his guest, and returned the favor by casting Art as member of the Majestic-12 control group.
Second, and this is very real and very immediate, the book that I am co-authoring with UFO historian Richard M. Dolan, A.D. After Disclosure: The People's Guide to Life After Contact, is nearly finished, and goes to the printer later this month and will be published by Keyhole Publishing on September 23. We believe that it is the first non-fiction book to be devoted entirely to discussing the impact that Disclosure will have on the world and how it will change everything: politics, military, economy, culture, industry, science, religion, media and particularly government. We have some breaking news about a bold new way that book will be presented to the public, too, and hopefully I'll be able to share that as well Monday night.
Richard Dolan and I met professionally when my company -- Stellar Productions -- optioned Richard's outstanding first two volumes of his UFO trilogy as the basis of a television series (UFOs and the National Security State). While that is still the plan, we realized we shared a mutual vision about the post-Disclosure world and we've thrown all our efforts into this coming book first.
If you join our Facebook page, however, that's where you'll find over 1300 like-minded people discussing this topic, links to this site and other places of interest, and discussion groups. You can click on the image in the right-hand sidebar and it'll take you right there.
Finally our first promotional video has just debuted on Youtube and we want to invite you to give it a watch. The music is the trance-like instrumental background track of "Need-to-Know: The UFO Disclosure Song" as written and performed by Damian Valentine. The pictures come from the Hubble telescope.
We have a second trailer, as well, this one uses the full "Need-to-Know" song complete with lyrics and some very interesting classic UFO photos.
Thanks for coming by. Here are a couple of other links you may want to check out:
Friday at 12:01 a.m., the first batch of non-critic moviegoers will see "Inception", Christopher Nolan's new sci-fi existential heist flick. This week, critics spiralled into an ego war, some lauding the film as a cinematic masterpiece while others decried it as a cinematic con job. Even now, tempers are flaring with the RottenTomato meter hanging in the balance.
Meanwhile, industry execs have kept a wary eye on "Inception"'s marketing campaign, and are even more eager to see the film's opening box office numbers. What has garned all this interest and controversy?
As many reviews have stated, "Inception" is one of too few original films coming out recently that is not based on any pre-existing property and seems to be marketed mainly for adults. If you take a moment, most moviegoers would be surprised by just how many "adapted" materials hit the screens nowadays, as opposed to say the 80s or 90s when spec scripts so frequently were bought and produced.
On top of this, "Inception" has kept many of its main plot points secret, relying on the unusual visuals of its trailers and the star power attached to it to garner audiences interest. The traditional industry tracking agencies have struggled to track interest in "Inception," somehow unbelievingly ignoring it's trending on Twitter and other social networking sites. The hype and interest surrounding "Inception" -- from an industry standpoint -- resides in the abysmal box office summer where nearly every film -- regardless of its proven market pre-existing property or star power attached -- has underperformed miserably. Even "Twilight: Eclipse" saw a 60+% drop-off in tickets its second weekend, spelling doom for the film's box office longevity. The only films so far to over-perform are children's flicks, which guarantee at least two tickets for every targeted member of the demographic (parents have to accompany their kids).
You may know Stanton Friedman for any number of reasons. He's a former nuclear physicist, one of the most influential voices in ufology since the 1960s, and he has a new book out called Science Was Wrong.
Stan is also a friend and colleague and, oddly, I have his life rights under option for a film, more of which we'll talk about at the end of this post. I guess I should call him Stanton out of respect, but that makes him sound like a Civil War general, and I prefer Stan because that sounds more like the regular guy that he is. I digress...
For now, consider this a shout-out for his new book, co-authored with Kathleen Marden, who has also become a strong voice in telling this story. Stan and Kathleen have collected fascinating insights about the pioneers who created or thought up "impossible" ideas that were deemed crazy nonsense, yet ultimately revolutionized our world.
This is not a flying saucer book, although it does have a single chapter, "UFOs," where Stan pulls his research career into a concise line of reasoning.
The impossibilists have had a field day with UFOs for more than 60 years. There has certainly been no shortage of strong, negative proclamations from debunking groups and individuals who refuse to examine the evidence. These proclamations include the false assumption that there is no convincing evidence, only anecdotal data, to support the notion that some UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin; that eyewitness testimony cannot be trusted; that it would be impossible to get to Earth from another star or another galaxy; that the reported maneuvers would be impossible; that governments can't keep secrets; and many other equally foolish statements. It is truly amazing how often one finds scientists making claims about the evidence relating to UFOs.
Okay, then, you may ask, why do I have Stan's life-rights under option? It's for a film project called Majic Men, and Stan, Roswell researcher Don Schmitt, my producing partner Don Most, and I will all be at the International UFO Museum in Roswell on July 2 to talk about it in depth.
My co-author, Richard Dolan, spoke on Monday, May 10 -- just two blocks away from the White House -- as part of the X-Conference held in Washington, D.C. He announced our book A.D. After Disclosure and even gave a plug to the song Need-to-Know: The UFO Disclosure Song. This video got an editing "upgrade" and has some fun stuff and easter eggs in it, so please check it out.
Feel free to embed this in your own blogs. By the way, both A.D. AFTER DISCLOSURE and NEED-TO-KNOW: THE UFO DISCLOSURE SONG both have their own Facebook pages. Join up if you're on Facebook, we'd love to have you!
Bottom line: At least some UFOs are real physical craft from some place that isn't here. A cross-section of people in and out of government know a lot more about what's really going on than they're letting on. That's just the truth of the matter.
Although my knowledge on the subject has definitely increased over the years, my passion to tell this story has been strong for decades. I've written a movie about this important issue ("Official Denial," Sci-Fi, now Sy-Fy) and created a series about it ("Dark Skies," NBC). Now -- and I realize this is slightly, as they say in Hollywood, "out of my wheelhouse" -- I've co-produced a song about it with my friends Cherish Alexander, Damian Valentine and my wife, Jackie Zabel.
It's called "Need-to-Know: The UFO Disclosure Song" and I'd like you to have a listen. It's a professionally produced song that makes the case for finally ending all the UFO secrecy we've been living with.
You can find it right now on iTunes, Amazon and eMusic. But first, the reason behind the song...
The issue that got hushed up by one generation and turned into an object of derision by another now demands to be heard straight up in ours.
The battle for UFO disclosure has been a political movement without a rallying standard for too long. To bring people together and create change, we need an anthem that gives voice to our feelings through the powerful medium of music. We need our "Blowin' in the Wind" and "We Shall Overcome."
Maybe it exists, but I hadn't ever heard such a song before in the way I needed to, so I rolled up my sleeves with some talented musician friends and we've done our best to provide one. It speaks to us, maybe it will speak to you.
Those of us who worked on it for these past few months want you to hear it, then hopefully turn your friends on to it. If enough of us start talking to others about what it means, we may just change the world.
Like the song says, we're ready to be told and, yes, we do need-to-know.
"Need-to-Know" features another knock-out performance by the extremely talented Los Angeles singer-songwriter Cherish Alexander. She and I first met and collaborated on the television series I developed and executive produced, "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven." Cherish and her band performed several important songs for that drama series. Her work was haunting and soulful, and it also rocked with power and passion.
It made me think. Who better to bring the UFO disclosure anthem to life? When you hear her vocals on this one, you will see why she was my first and only choice.
Jackie and I co-wrote the lyrics to “Need-to-Know” and Cherish and music producer Damian Valentine gave them life in song. Damian really brought some intense mood to this party, giving us a hypnotic, trance-like power-drive.
For a parting shot, here's the "Wordle" for all the song lyrics (which you can read at the site):
I'm not the world's biggest football fan, I don't really know or understand all the rules, I have only a basic clue about who's on most teams, but I do know an exciting game when I see one and 37-33 qualifies.
As a native Oregonian (born in Lincoln City, raised in Hillsboro) and a University of Oregon graduate (schooled in Eugene), I can barely find the words to describe how it felt last night when the Oregon Ducks defeated the Oregon State Beavers in the "Civil War" to earn a ticket to this year's Rose Bowl against Ohio State. All I can really do is show you...
I'll always remember October 7, 2001 but not the way you might think. It was a Sunday morning and we were about to do the Emmy Awards that day. As the newly elected chairman/CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, I'd already been involved -- as my first challenge in office -- with the first cancelation ever of an Emmy broadcast. When the September 11 attacks happened, it had been a no-brainer to immediately postpone the planned September 16 show. I was putting on my running shoes, about to go for a quick spin to settle the nerves in anticipation of speaking to a worldwide audience of 90-million people that day, when the phone rang. The voice on the other end said, "Turn on your TV."
Bryce Zabel, ATAS CEO; Les Moonves, CBS President; Don Mischer, Emmy Producer (Photo by Mathew Imaging, Craig Mathew)
I turned on the TV in my home office and it was immediately apparent that America was at war in Afghanistan and that the Emmys probably weren't going to happen that day either. That photo above is the news conference that would be held hours later to postpone the Emmy Awards a second time! Even though I've been a CNN correspondent, this was the largest group of cameras I'd ever seen in a single location. The rule of thumb, of course, is that if you come to cover a story and the story's not happening, cover the reasons the story isn't happening and that story becomes your new story.
That morning we went through the motions or, as they like to call it, we did our "due diligence" and called nominees, agents, managers, network executives, everybody we could think of. It became clear that not only was the nation's attention focused on the beginning of war, post 9/11, but the very people we would expect to come to the Emmys were having grave doubts. They did not want to be seen as thinking that getting an award was as important as an issue of life-or-death.
So we gave over three-thousand gourmet dinners to homeless shelters, told the limo drivers not to come, asked the stars to put their tuxes and gowns back in the closets and told the media we'd think about what our future plans were.
The next day I appeared as a guest on "Politically Incorrect" and got in an argument with Bill Mahrer who said we should have just done them anyway. My feeling was (and is) that you don't want to be the host of a party that nobody wants to come to and that having the Emmys that day would have done serious damage to the Academy.
As it turned out, the third time was the charm. We did the Emmys on November 4, 2001 with Ellen DeGeneres hosting and going up against the seventh game of an exciting World Series. The whole show probably gets an asterisk in the history books.
Eight years later, I've been out of the Academy for years, moving on with my life, and a thousand nominees have come and gone. The war in Afghanistan is still with us.
Let's be glad that President Obama and his team are practicing their "due diligence" even as we speak.
Lee Goldberg is a working screenwriter, novelist and blogger who writes regularly on A Writer's Life.
Roman Polanski drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13-year-old girl and then fled to Europe to avoid imprisonment. If his name was Tyrell Washington, and he was black, and did everything Polanski did except direct movies, people would be thrilled that he was arrested. But because Polanski is an Oscar-winning director, we get abhorrent comments like these:
France's culture minister Frederic Mitterrand also criticized the U.S. "Seeing him alone, imprisoned while he was heading to an event that was due to offer him praise and recognition is awful," he said. "He was trapped. In the same way that there is a generous America that we like, there is also a scary America, and that has just shown its face."
In Germany, there was also support for the director. The Berlin Film Festival demanded Polanski be freed. "The Berlinale protests the arbitrary treatment of one of the world's most outstanding film directors," the fest said in a statement. "We declare our deep respect for Roman Polanski and we demand his immediate release."
The German Film Academy also condemned Polanski's detention. Academy presidents Senta Berger and Guenter Rohrbach said in a joint statement: "The German Film Academy finds it revolting that Roman Polanski has been arrested for an act committed more than 30 years ago."
I'm the father of a 14-year-old girl, maybe that's why I find all this anger over the arrest of a child rapist disgusting and infuriating. I don't care if he's made good movies. Why?
Because Roman Polanski drugged, raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl...and fled the country rather than go to jail for his horrible crime.
What is truly "revolting" is the defense of this criminal and the stunning hypocrisy that it represents.
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