Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

The Bigger the Lie...

My friend, Jay Amicarella, sent this out on September 11. Prepare to be infuriated. He writes:

I've been stewing about this off and on for a couple weeks. My incredibly social daughter has friends at all the schools around here, and she and a guy she pals with met a pair of exchange students staying at a friend's house -- one young guy from Lebanon, another from Afghanistan.  She brought them home one night with some other kids, and I liked them right off, so polite, but also funny and very intelligent.

She met them again a week or so later, when a bunch of the kids got together at another friend's house to hang and watch the movie "Borat." The film prompted one of the exchange students to remark that the Jews are responsible for 9/11.  The other exchanger calmly agreed, like it was common knowledge. The U.S. kids were shocked into silence, until someone asked "how?" The exchange students explained how the World Trade Center employs over 3,000 Jews and, on the morning of 9/11, every single one of them called in sick. 

Naturally, this raised a rather brisk discussion, as my daughter tells it, but the exchange kids stuck to their guns, amused at how little American kids know about their own country.  Apparently, this tale is common in the Middle East.  My daughter and I talked about this, and I asked her not to hate them.  She said she didn't; because she still couldn't believe that stuff came out of their mouths.

You would think that 9/11 would be a straightforward story and that if you're going to claim that all 3,000 Jews stayed home and called in sick that there is a burden of proof involved in that claim. And that, 9/11 being one extremely well-reported story by reporters from all over the world, someone would have turned up the evidence for that one. It's not that hard to check out if it really happened, right?

I'd like to hear them explain how this conspiracy worked. Apparently it must have been set up ahead of time, right, so these 3,000 people would know to stay home. And yet no one has talked in all this time. That's JFK times 100 as far as cover-ups must go.

I guess when you want to believe in hate, you don't need evidence and you get to reverse the burden of proof and smugly assume that it is up to someone else to disprove every crazy thought you've had.

In my opinion, these smug "exchange" students  and their ridiculous anti-Semitism can be exchanged back to where they came from, the sooner the better. And these were the "polite" ones...

Conspiracy? JFK's Got Nothin' on Jim Morrison

Oliver Stone has made one movie about a conspiracy, "JFK," that probably isn't true at all, and another supposedly true story, "The Doors," which isn't about a conspiracy but should have been because that, in fact, is what really happened.

Ah, the irony...

Regular readers know I'm something of a conspiracy buff. I once called the Warren Commission Report "the greatest work of fiction that American literature has ever produced." Then I proceded to create a TV series, "Dark Skies," that had, as its basis, that President Kennedy was assassinated because he knew the truth about Roswell and was going to come clean with the American people in his second term (and, no, I never actually believed that -- it was a TV series!). We even did an episode of that series, by the way, where Jim Morrison was a character.

Now we have two news stories that are upending what people believe about JFK's assassination and about Jim Morrison's death.

Former LA prosecutor Vincent Buglioisi has a new book out, "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy."  It's over 16-hundred pages and I'm not done but it make a very persuasive case that Lee Harvey Oswald was, indeed, a lone nut-case who acted alone. Just like the Warren Commission said.

Then there's Time magazine which has a new article, "How Jim Morrison Died" by Vivienne Walt that says the idea he died in his bathtub in Paris is a complete fabrication. The truth, according to Walt, is that Morrison overdosed in a Paris nightclub and that about five or six people participated in taking his body back to his apartment and putting it in that bathtub and that Paris authorities just looked the other way and never did an autopsy.

Imagine how that would have energized the ending of Oliver Stone's movie. Could have happened, too. Sam Bernett who ran the Paris nightclub was described by Time this way.

Bernett says he once met Oliver Stone's mother, and told her: "Tell your son to call me and I'll tell him how his movie should end." Stone never called.

And, yet, just as I'm accepting these new facts, there's something from each story that keeps me guessing.

First, Bugliosi, also writing in an earlier issue of Time about "What We Can Learn From JFK" had this to say about the subject of the vast conspiracy it would have taken to bring down JFK:

"Three people can keep a secret but only if two of them are dead."

Bugliosi has used this line in the famous mock-trial of Oswald he participated in for the BBC, in his book and in most interviews. It's his standard-issue one-liner and it works because, well, it generally is true.

Now let's go to the article about Jim Morrison's death.

"We carried him in a blanket and got him the hell out of there," recalls Chauvel, who was a friend of Morrison. Explaining the cover-up, Chauvel says: "I guess if you have a nightclub and Jim Morrison dies in your toilet, it is not good p.r. The five or six people who knew, who were there that night, agreed to just forget about it."

So, let's see. These six people kept this secret for 36 years now and it only broke because one of them, who's getting on in years, decided to write a book and the others have confirmed it. And they joined the conspiracy because Morrison's drug dealers didn't want their product tied to the rock star in a nightclub. Bad for business.

Maybe Bugliosi's wrong. Maybe even six people can keep a secret, provided nobody thinks there is one in the first place.

The "Pandemic" Crystal Ball: Quarantine, Selfishness & TB

Over the weekend, "Pandemic" aired on the Hallmark Channel across the United States, both Saturday and Sunday night. My wife and I wrote the screenplay which tells the story of a passenger who dies on a plane flight from Australia to Los Angeles of a bird-flu type of illness, infecting his fellow passengers, causing a quarantine first of the plane, then the entire city. And, without revealing the ending completely, the ending resolution has something to do with TB.

Today comes word from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about a case involving a U.S. citizen who traveled on two international flights, probably infected his fellow passengers with a rare form of TB (XDR-TB) which was recently defined as a subtype of multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis. It can be fatal. In any case, Here is the story as CNN reports it today.

As with all TB, the disease can be spread through the air. "In this case, the infected patient traveled on two trans-Atlantic air flights and, in doing so, may have exposed passengers and crew to XDR-TB," the agency said.

"A federal quarantine order has been issued and CDC is currently collaborating with U.S., state and local health departments, international ministries of health, the airline industry, and WHO (World Health Organization)."

Sometimes life imitates art and vice-versa. The Fox News article has a couple of other similarities. For starters, the man who carried the disease has been put in respiratory isolation.

"I don't recall us doing this since 1963," said Gerberding. "We want to balance personal liberties with public health and, because this organism is so potentially serious, especially to those who have reduced immunity, our responsibility is to err on the side of caution."

Imagine, by the way, if he wasn't the sole incident but was one of thousands and thousands who needed this level of care or isolation. The other thing is that this particular passenger doesn't appear to have been very concerned about anybody else's exposure.

"The patient felt his personal agenda was highly relevant to him," she said. "The CDC was not aware he was traveling. We were surprised the patient left the country."

This is very consistent with the story we told in "Pandemic." We had a character, Jack Hendler, who felt his work as a Brentwood real estate agent was more important than public safety and broke the quarantine, becoming a "Typhoid Jack" across Los Angeles. All you have to do is to observe people's selfish, immature and dangerous driving habits around here to imagine that someone who is supposed to cool it in a quarantine would decide the rules didn't apply to them.

Should we be afraid? Yeah, probably...

Columbine: The Opening Volley Mass Murder in Our Schools

With the eyes of the nation riveted on Virginia Tech now, Columbine is tossed out in the news coverage as a footnote to the latest massacre. People have noted it happened eight years ago this week on April 20. This is a bad time of year for evil: Columbine, Oklamoma City, Waco, Hitler's birthday and now Virginia Tech. Here's what Time looked like in the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine tragedy. The cover article was called, "... In Sorrow and Disbelief."

I think it's a sad cover, seeing the two demented killers featured in full color and  their victims all in smaller photos in black-and-white. There's something about the choice that sits wrong with me, even though I know journalistically that the news value is on trying to understand how violent killers can live among us. Still...

There is a chilling passage in the first few paragraphs of this article. It is simply awful to contemplate:

A girl was asked by the gunman if she believed in God, knowing full well the safe answer. "There is a God," she said quietly, "and you need to follow along God's path." The shooter looked down at her. "There is no God," he said, and he shot her in the head.

That young girl's heroism still makes me cry. Here's something that makes you scared.

Some members of Harris' and Klebold's clique, tagged in derision a few years before as the Trench Coat Mafia, had embraced enough Nazi mythology to spook their classmates. They reportedly wore swastikas on black shirts, spoke German in the halls, re-enacted World War II battles, played the most vicious video games, talked about whom they hated, whom they would like to kill. Harris and Klebold liked to bowl: when Harris made a good shot, he would throw his arm up, "Heil Hitler!"

What lessons can be learned? Well, we can debate gun control again, or argue for better reaction times among school officials. But there is a universal lesson that the close survivors of Columbine and of Virginia Tech can teach us.

Her friends began writing notes to their parents, saying that they loved them, that they thought they were going to die. Everyone was praying. "In a world where there are so many religions," says Lexis, "everyone was praying the same way." One friend made a vow. "If I ever get out, I'm going to be nice to my little brother."

Take a moment after you've read this, think about the people you care about, maybe about how you haven't hugged them or held them or just told them you care. Then do it. Just because.

Otherwise, lessons are probably going to continue to be as hard to come by now as they were then.

The hardest thing about the search for an explanation was the growing fear there might not be one. There would be lots of talk about the venomous culture that these boys soaked in--but many kids drink those waters without turning into mass murderers. There would be talk of deep family dysfunction, something in their past or their present, but nothing in the first days of archaeology turned up anything tidy that explained something so massively wrong. These were parents who came to all the Little League and soccer games. They even came to practices.

My wife is working with a trio of filmmakers on a documentary about the aftermath of Columbine. It's called "13 Families" and deals with those who were left behind and how they have dealt with the death of their loved ones. It does not include the two Columbine shooters in the documentary at all. They have had enough publicity.

Our hearts go out now to the new victims in Virginia.

Reign Over Me (2007) -vs- The Upside of Anger (2005)

The Smackdown. Writer/director/actor Mike Binder tells a couple of heartfelt stories about people dealing with pain, about loved ones who have left, and the power of damaged people to heal each other. Oh, and each of the main characters' families consists of three daughters.

   
"Just keep laughing. If enough people see the trailer, they'll think we're in a comedy."

The Challenger.  Apparently, the Powers-That-Be have decided that, yes, enough time has passed where we can tell stories about 9/11. In this one, Adam Sandler plays Charlie Fineman, a New York dentist who lost his wife, his three daughters and even his dog when the aircraft they were on smashed into the World Trade Center on that ugly day. Five years later, Sandler still needs help bad, but won't accept it from anybody, and has cut himself off from the world so much that the only constant companion in his life is a pair of noise-cancelling Bose headphones. I have some of these headphones, too, and I can testify that if you wore them all the time, you would be authentically out-of-touch. My kids wear them on long car-trips and when we arrive, I'm exhausted and they barely know we've left. Anyway, Fineman's salvation comes from, oddly, another dentist Alan Johnson, played by Don Cheadle. It isn't their shared history, or dental skills, that binds them together, but their mutual need to move beyond the broken stalemates their respective lives have become.

"No. That actually is a baseball in my pocket."

The Defending Champion. In "The Upside of Anger," the characters who need fixing are Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) and Denny Davies (Kevin Costner). Terry is trying to keep it together after he husband has run off to Sweden with his secretary, and Denny is trying to keep it together after his baseball career's end and his mid-life crisis have hit him like a perfect storm. They have one thing in common -- booze -- and they're slowly drinking their problems away. They, too, need to move on from the broken stalemates their own lives have become. Additionally,Terry has three girls who all have problems of their own, plus mom being there, and dad being gone.

The Scorecard. I really liked both of these films because they managed, more or less successfully, to blend a sense of humor with characters who are dealing with the awful problems life can throw at us. They feel like a full-course meal that makes you think, feel and laugh. And they make you believe that life will go on past the worst problems because there is, basically, no choice. Each film is manipulative, of course, and neither is perfect. "The Upside of Anger" is burdened with an ending that just didn't work for the majority of people who saw it, and "Reign Over Me" has to deal with the specialness of 9/11. But, as a director, Mike Binder gets the best out of his actors: Costner, Allen, Cheadle and Sandler have rarely been as good as they are in these two films. By the way, Binder appears in both. He's Shep, the loutish radio producer in "The Upside of Anger" and Sugarman, the nebbish attorney in "Reign Over Me." Honestly, he's so good as an actor he could have his own TV show.

The Decision. This is tough. Fortunately, a "Movie Smackdown!" doesn't have to tell you to see one and not the other. So, the short answer here is to see both of them and, given that you will only see "The Upside of Anger" on DVD now, you should pay your ten bucks and see "Reign Over Me" in the theater. But which is best? "Reign Over Me" has a great relationship at its core without the ending that makes you almost angry at the movie like "The Upside of Anger." So I'm going with "Reign Over Me" -- get to a theater and see it now.

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Crash-and-Burn: The Lisa Nowak Story

Word today that NASA has fired astronaut Lisa Nowak. Okay, will everyone who is surprised please raise your hand. Nobody? Okay, then...

The Lede blog on the New York Times web-site has NASA's statement if you want to look at that. The space agency clearly seems relieved to pass Nowak back to the U.S. Navy to deal with, acting like they're not really firing her as much as re-assigning her. Okay, Navy, your move.

When the story broke just over a month ago, my first reaction was to blog about it.

Talk about the wrong stuff. Wigs, trench coats, pepper spray, rubber hose, latex gloves, large garbage bags, air cartridge BB gun, steel mallet, four-inch folding knife and diapers. Sounds like she was getting ready to conduct an interrogation worthy of Jack Bauer!

So now this woman who fell to Earth won't be making any giant leaps for mankind or anyone else since she gets to wear a GPS ankle bracelet to keep her from stalking anyone while she's out on bail. That's the spirit. Use satellite technology to keep her in line. The Space Shuttle program just keeps paying dividends!

The other thing I pointed out back then was that as a Hollywood screenwriter type if I'd pitched the story as fiction, people would have said that it was too loony to be believable. So, of course, I pitched the non-fiction version!

I called up Frank Von Zerneck, the producer I'd worked on "Fall From Grace: The Neil Goldschmidt Story" with for USA Network. It seemed like a natural, right? After all, that was the story of illegal behavior, tied into forbidden sex.

We decided to give it a shot and I wrote this treatment ASAP to get it on the market. So far, no takers. Maybe someone else has sold it, but neither "Daily Variety" nor "Hollywood Reporter" have had any articles to that effect. Here's what that treatment for "Crash-and-Burn: The Lisa Nowak Story" was like for those of you who care about such things:

Crash-and-Burn.pdf

We obviously had no rights at that time, certainly not to Nowak, and even the astronaut who was in the middle of the love triangle wasn't going to option his rights if he wanted to stay employed at NASA. What we had was me, so to speak, as I'd covered NASA while at CNN and PBS, and I'd been an investigative reporter who'd actually won a few awards. We also had a take on the movie, that it would tell the story while tracking her preparations for two major trips: the first being her maiden Space Shuttle flight the summer before, and the second being her ill-fated drive to Florida.

The thing you have to understand is that the TV movie business has changed dramatically over the last decade or so. Networks (the big ones) are not so much into the "ripped from the headlines" movies anymore; it's just not their business model. They prefer series. In fact, when I was the TV Academy chairman, I was approached by several network presidents who simply wanted the TV movie category to go away, or to at least not be featured on the primetime broadcast.

That leaves cable but that part of the business is in its own transformation. It's hard to sell there, too, because the cable networks see themselves as having very specific identities.

The upshot? A film that probably would have been a slam-dunk to be on TV when the Space Shuttle was first on the scene is a non-starter today.

Crash-and-Burn: Lisa Nowak's Crazy Descent

• UPDATE NOTE:  To read a post about Lisa Nowak's firing by NASA, and to read "Crash-and-Burn: The Lisa Nowak Story" a treatment for a TV film, please CLICK HERE. Posted March 7, 2007.

The story of astronaut-gone-wild Lisa Nowak and her star-crossed romance may be even better than the Runaway Bride saga of a few years ago. In terms of hatching a bad plan and then executing it incompetently, it certainly takes the prize.

Talk about the wrong stuff. Wigs, trench coats, pepper spray, rubber hose, latex gloves, large garbage bags, air cartridge BB gun, steel mallet, four-inch folding knife and diapers. Sounds like she was getting ready to conduct an interrogation worthy of Jack Bauer!

So now this woman who fell to Earth won't be making any giant leaps for mankind or anyone else since she gets to wear a GPS ankle bracelet to keep her from stalking anyone while she's out on bail. That's the spirit. Use satellite technology to keep her in line. The Space Shuttle program just keeps paying dividends!

If there was ever any doubt that love can drive someone nuts, this case would have to be it. Just last July this woman (psychonaut?) was orbiting the Earth on the ride of a lifetime. Now she's going to end up divorced, without the man she loved, disgraced in front of her kids, booted out of NASA, and she'll probably have to plead her case and spend a couple years in jail. Houston, we definitely have a problem...

I write for a living, but if I'd pitched this as fiction, I think most people would have said I'd gone too far. It's probably a moot point anyway. A few years ago it would have been a slam-dunk TV movie but the Big 4 networks have all pretty much gotten out of that business. Maybe cable...

Here's something else to think about, though. If a seemingly rational person like Nowak can fall so far so fast here on Earth, what would be the consequence of a similar crack-up on a long-term space mission, say, to Mars? Something for NASA to think about...

Ten Thoughts Inspired by the Saddam Deathwatch

1) Most days I'm opposed to the death penalty, but not this time.

2) The CNN anchor who asked the reporter, "How does this work? Do they just take him out back and kick over a milk crate or what?" really should be fired.

3) Why did George Bush Senior always mispronounce his name? Wasn't there somebody in the White House to correct him?

4) As far as mass murderers go, he looked better with the beard.

5) People who are worried that somehow Iraq will become more violent because he was executed are so out of touch with reality they should be ashamed of themselves.

6) It's possible to believe that the Iraq War has been a grand misadventure and still be relieved this scumbag got what he deserved.

7) Man, those Iraqis don't waste time, do they?

8) If he was a dictator for 35 years, then why do they keep showing that stupid picture of him with the Rocky Balboa hat and the rifle? Did they think it was more dignified than, say, the one where he was pulled out of the spider-hole with a beard longer than Moses, or the jail photos where he was in his underpants?

9) His two sons were screwed up beyond belief but how could they not have been? Did they go to their own deaths thinking he was a great dad?

10) It's such a drag for good old Gerald Ford, a decent man who believed in mercy enough that he pardoned Richard Nixon, that he have his own death associated forever with Saddam Hussein because they happened at the same time. I guess the same goes for James Brown. That just really sucks.

Marilyn Monroe: Like Mother, Like Daughter; Like Daughter, Like Mother

Okay, this one is either a brain bender or, as one of our readers noted, "the silliest thing I've ever seen in my life." In any case, there is a major story in the Los Angeles Times that is being mailed all over the place by people about Marilyn Monroe. Or, more specificially, the woman who claims to be Marilyn re-born.

The whole story has to do with reincarnation and, specifically, past life regressions. There is a woman, Sherrie Lee Laird, 43, who while under hypnosis seems to be Marilyn Monroe. At least this is the reality according to the doctor who hypnotized her, Dr. Adrian Finkelstein. He's written a book -- "Marilyn Monroe Returns: The Healing of a Soul."

Speaking as "Marilyn," the hypnotized Laird recalled love affairs with John and Robert Kennedy, including a tryst with JFK in the White House; she said JFK told her state secrets about Fidel Castro and Cuba; and she gave details about the actress' death at age 36 from a drug overdose on Aug. 5, 1962, dismissing conspiracy theories that Monroe had been murdered.

As it turns out, Sherrie Laird was born mere days after Monroe's death (time for a body jump?). Now that's pretty weird but it gets weirder. Dr. Finkelstein also believes that Sherrie Laird's daughter, Kezia Laird, is the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe's mother, Gladys Baker (who died soon after Laird's daughter was born).

Let me say that again. The mother was reincarnated as the daughter and the daughter was reincarnated as the mother.

And I thought normal family relationships were messed up these days! I produced a TV series, "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven" that dabbled in reincarnation but our writing staff never would have tried that one. Who would buy that?

Laird's case is similar to the Bridey Murphy case which was all the rage in the 1950s. Back then, a 29-year-old housewife named Virginia Tighe, under hypnosis, became an Irish woman named Bridey Murphy who had been born in 1798, complete with an Irish brogue. Of course, Murphy wasn't a sex symbol like Marilyn Monroe (to the best of our historical knowledge).

For that URL again, in case you're bold enough to want to know more, you can just CLICK HERE.

We report. You decide.

FWIW, though, I put the chance of this being true at approximately .00001 percent.

{Photo: LA Times, Peter Tym}
{Read Previous Post: Marilyn Monroe: Not Suicidal Despite Signs of Sag}

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MOVIE SMACKDOWN! | My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006) -vs- Mystery Men (1999)

The Smackdown. Lately, we've been awash in super-hero films: "Spider-Man"..."The Hulk"..."Fantastic Four"..."X-Men"..."Daredevil"..."Batman Begins"..."Superman Returns" and there seems to be no let-up in sight. That, of course, should make the whole genre open to a good spoof but, apparently, a good spoof is hard to find. Our match-up pits two films that have tried to take that title -- "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" which tries to send-up the genre as a romantic comedy and "Mystery Men" which aims to skewer the super-hero group film.

"You want to do WHAT? Up here?" Is that...possible?"

The Challenger. "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" has a very simple premise and it's a good one. Stan Lee taught us that super-heroes can be messed up with problems like you and me, but what if they are also completely needy, jealous and sore losers, too? What if you date one and before you know it she reveals her secret identity and you realize you just don't want to be with this person? Like I say, good premise, a set-up for some good comedy. Unfortunately, hot as Uma Thurman is a G-Girl, the story is a one-trick pony that gets old fast. Plus, it takes a by-the-numbers approach to its story, so there are no surprises at all. Everybody learns their lessons and ends up with the exact right person...for them. Boring.

"My God, I had no idea you could even do that without ripping your spandex."

The Defending Champion. "Mystery Men" had something going for it and the same thing going against it when it came out. Because it preceded this super-hero film glut, its irony and sarcasm weren't as easy to understand. And, because it did lead a wave, it still felt original. The truth is, looking back, the film really doesn't hold together well, most of it doesn't work, but there are moments of high comedy often enough to almost make you forget. It's the classic story of the B-team that must rise up beyond their capabilities, only these guys happen to have super-powers like flatulence, spoon hurling, nasty temper and bowling. And it has Ben Stiller, Bill Macy, Greg Kinnear and Paul Reubens.

The Scorecard. The thing is there just isn't enough there in "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" to get a firm recommendation. It's just light-weight cotton candy and it's a harmless way to spend a Friday night at home, but it doesn't justify going out. At the time, "Mystery Men" was worth a night out, and it's still a pretty decent rental. Neither one is fabulous. Both are sort of okay.

The Decision. These two films are featherweights, fighting in the heavyweight division. On points, in a dull fight, you have to give the decision to "Mystery Men" just because it's less tedious (but not by a lot). The champion here never made it in the ring. That would be "The Incredibles." Skip both of our films and see it again.

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