Bruce Sallan gave up a show biz career to parent his two boys and now writes about his experiences on "A Dad's Point-of-View" and is the house dad at "Mom Logic."
For some of us, “of a certain age/generation,” every new tech thing is yet another time we can get flummoxed and frustrated. How often have you opened that new tech device, camera, digital picture frame, or new “smart” phone, and felt anything but “smart?” I sometimes put the “thing” aside, stare at it a few days, and then finally get the courage to open it up.
What often follows, more often that I’d like to admit, is something doesn’t work right. Even learning the so-called simple things, like attaching and sending a photo via e-mail can sometimes be confusing. My favorite is when the only help you can get is online, but you can’t get online because of some connection problem. Or better, when you take their suggestion to call them for help before you return the darn thing.
Call them? Are you kidding me? Do you really want to be connected to someone who doesn’t speak English all that well, in a far-away time zone. That’s, of course, after you’ve gone through the voice-menu options, and typed in your life story, which when you finally do get someone on the line asks you for all that information again! ARGH!
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.
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:
There is a revised version of the video that just went up on You Tube and looks like it's getting a lot of traffic. But you don't even have to go yourself because For What It's Worth is a full-service blog, and we offer it to you below...
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):
My friend, Lauren Kessler, is not only an incredibly prolific published writer, she is also a ridiculously trusting mother. I say this with great affection for her but I simply can't ignore her insanely risky choice to co-write a blog with her teenage daughter.
"Yes...it's true. Lizzie and I have launched a mother-daughter blog. We're writing our way through the sturm und drang of teenagehood... about the things that divide and unite us... offering our distinct teen girl/ midlife mother slant on such subjects as: hot guys, junk food and what we want to be when we grow up."
You can visit it now and watch and read about Lauren's high-wire act of parenthood "live," as it's happening. Or maybe LIzzie is the brave one here; I'm not so sure.
As I understand it, though, Lauren and Lizzie will be blogging about the regular stuff --movies, music, Facebook surveys -- as well as those other things that cause moms and daughters to, well, yell at each other, often loudly. I take Lauren at her word that her relationship with Lizzie has been "sometimes stormy." This means, to me, that there'll be some juicy conflict ginned up from time-to-time about everything from homework, to online overdosing to school night bedtimes -- and even the challenging stuff like boys & sex.
But back to the Two-L's and the method to their madness. There's also a book coming out on August 5 which -- surprise -- can be pre-ordered now from Amazon. Here's the blurb on that.
A bestselling journalist navigates the stormy seas of the mother-daughter relationship as she strives to understand her charming, alarming almost-teen daughter.
The book that tries to answer the question plaguing every mother-of-a-teen: What is the worst time in a woman’s life – when she was 13… or when her daughter is?
With the keen eye of a reporter, the deep curiosity of an anthropologist and the open – and sometimes wounded – heart of a mother, award-winning author Lauren Kessler embeds herself in her about-to-be-teenage daughter’s life. In seventh and eighth grade classrooms, at home, online, at the mall, and at summer camp, Kessler observes, investigates, chronicles – and sometimes participates in – the life of a 21st century teen.
As she begins to better understand and appreciate her mercurial daughter, their often troubled relationship – at first a mirror of the author’s difficult relationship with her own mother – slowly, bumpily moves in new directions. With the help of a resident teen expert (her daughter), teachers, doctors, therapists and other mothers, Kessler illuminates the age-old mother-daughter struggle from both sides, gracefully interweaving personal experience with journalistic inquiry. Funny, harrowing, poignant and invariably insightful, My Teenage Werewolf explores the fascinating and scary world of today’s teen as it comes to grips with the single most important relationship in a woman’s life.
My only regret as the father of a daughter who just survived teenhood and is about to graduate spectacularly from UCSB and make her father very proud is that I didn't have Lauren's book as a reference. My wife and I had to do this flying blind!
I've been thinking a lot about the end of the world lately. Not the end in a "2012" kind of way, but the end of the world in an "end of the world as we know it" kind of way.
A few months ago, I was asked to give the keynote speech at the "What is Film?" conference sponsored by the University of Oregon that takes place in Portland next Friday and Saturday, November 6 & 7 at the new Turnbull Center. After some thought, the title of my speech hit me, "Technocalypse Now?"
So let's get out the dictionary, shall we, and create a new word...
Technology. The application of science and engineering, especially to industrial or commercial objectives that interrelate with life, society and the environment.
Apocalypse. A prophetic disclosure or revelation of cataclysm that brings universal or widespread destruction or disaster to life and society.
This means that when we put the two words in a super-collider to see what they create together, we get something like:
Technocalypse. The cataclysmic destruction of the entertainment industry through the creation of digital products that undermine and destroy the economic models that show business was based on.
Although I've got a pretty spiffy presentation digitally simmering on my computer (using Mac's "Keynote" program), the more I work on this talk, the more I realize there are multiple answers to the question "Technocalypse Now?"
There is no doubt whatsoever that people are suffering during this disruption. I know or have heard of plenty of people who used to be high-level types in Hollywood who have kicked it in and moved on to try something else. Everything's in flux, downsizing is going on all over the place, and anybody who tells you they know exactly how it's all going to shake down is simply lying. There are educated guesses, informed theories, and wishful thoughts. There are few hard facts.
As I get down to the last days, I'm filling in these hi-tech digital slides with some pithy content from reading, researching and thinking. I'd love for readers, in and out of the Hollywood game, to be part of that process by posting their own thoughts about what's going on and how it's going to shake down.
Bruce Sallan gave up a show biz career to parent his two boys and now writes about his experiences on "A Dad's Point-of-View" and is the house dad at "Mom Logic."
E-mail is so ubiquitous that we forget that it isn’t talking on the phone or having a conversation in person. Subtlety, facial expressions, or tonality are all lost in an e-mail message. I have found this has gotten me in trouble when I think I’m being funny, subtle, or sarcastic in an e-mail. And, the habit many of us have of forwarding a joke, photo, or an article creates even greater problems in many cases.
I think e-mail should probably be treated as Eliza Doolittle was advised in “My Fair Lady” about making conversation. “Stick to the weather and health” was Professor Higgins’s caution. Even that proved problematic as Eliza went into too much embarrassing detail about her own family’s health, before she completely blew it with her expletive encouraging one of the racehorses to “move your bloomin’ ass!”
I read recently that e-mail, like so many new technological innovations, may be receding in popularity among the younger generation in favor of instant messaging (on cell-phones and computers) or “tweeting” via Twitter, which is limited to something like 140 characters of text. Acronyms are the norm and the list of these short cuts, like “ttyl” (talk to you later) or “btw” (by the way), just keep growing and growing.
Correspondence, like in the days of pen and ink, has gone the way of the horse and buggy. But, e-mail is its own special creature and I’ve found it rampant with potential misunderstandings and strains on relationships. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stung by an e-mail reply to something I’ve sent out that I felt that person might really enjoy--or maybe, God forbid, learn something from. “My bad” to quote my son as I’m learning that almost no one but those closest to you want such e-mail.
Screenwriter Robert J. Elisberg writes about culture and technology issues for theHuffington Post.
Some days, you wish you didn't answer the phone. Today was that day. It was a friend telling me that Larry Gelbart had died.
I can't do justice to Larry Gelbart, even if I had several months to write something about it. He was an amazing writer and probably a better person. There may have been more renowned writers in a single medium, but his versatility was breathtaking, and so he may have been the most successful and best writer ever in America who wrote in all three major media -- the theater, movies and television.
On stage, he won Tony Awards for his musicals, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and City of Angels. And he wrote the big hit play, Sly Fox.
For television, he had an amazing 12 Emmy nominations, and an additional one, wining the award for M*A*S*H, the series he developed. He wrote the HBO movies, Barbarians at the Gate, Weapons of Mass Distractions and ...and starring Pancho Villa as Himself (all three of which got Emmy nominations). And he was part of the legendary writing staff for the equally legendary series, Caesar's Hour.
And for movies, he got Oscar nominations for Oh, God!, and his co-written script, Tootsie.
And none of this gives a hint who Larry Gelbart was. None of that even gives a hint to all that he wrote, he was that prolific, and talented. Do yourself a favor and check out his film and TV credits on IMDb. As a friend said, describing Larry Gelbart would take Mount Rushmore.
We all know how much NBC has riding on its debut of "The Jay Leno Show" in primetime. You can read all about it in, like, a billion places.
Now, however, the truth can be told. In the ultimate conspiracy theory, NBC had Jay cloned years ago to protect its comedy investment in case the unthinkable happened. And now, as the new show prepares to go on-the-air, that investment gets his big break. Or break-out, as it were. You'll see.
It's "The Adventures of Jay Clone," a short video that stars Jonathan Zabel as "Junior" and Don Most as "Doc." Did we mention there's a rubber chicken and a Leno mask?
The video was directed by USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate Kareem Dimashkie. Jonathan Zabel played Young Jay and Jay's Son in nearly a dozen "Tonight Show" appearances in the Clinton Years. Trained in improvisation, Jonathan now lives and works in the heart of Silicon Valley.
"The Adventures of Jay Clone" was just picked by eGuiders as its "Featured Comedy Pick for the week of September 14 to 20." It's also, as you can see, on "Funny or Die." We hope, if you like it, that you'll visit that site, vote for it as "Funny" and list it as a "Favorite." Thanks!
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