We need American Gladiators now, more than ever

Hot off the success of my terribly conceived and poorly writen Hayden Panettiere post the other day, I thought I’d try to stick with another NBC show for my latest. Of course, all fans of this blog know that NBC shows have shown up quite often in my first thirty posts. I believe I mentioned Cheers, Frasier, Friends, The Cosby Show, Ed, and Scrubs, and probably all in the same post.

ANYWAY, I believe now is a time for Americans to take a moment to reflect the current state of our country. With increasing gas prices, bridges collapsing, a supposed “global warming” scare, the rise of secularism, and a black man running for President, most Americans don’t know where to turn for answers or comfort. This post-9/11 world reminds us every day that Everything’s Changed. Stars are dancing, idols are singing, and sub sandwiches can be purchased for an even five dollars. Last year CNN dedicated an unbelievable amount of hours to the death and funeral of Anna Nicole Smith, whose contribution to society was, what, exactly? Of course, there are no more easy answers.

That is why, now more than ever, we need American Gladiators. The hit show grabs somewhere around 113 million viewers every week, dazzling the citizens of this great country with feats of athletic Americans squaring off against unbelievably large and/or attractive Gladiators. Normal, everyday people, who mostly hail from upper middle class backgrounds, are the contenders who face off against the Gladiator powerhouses. Those contenders are there to tell us that everything is going to be okay. Your dreams of being on television do not have to submit to the disgusting standards of Tila Tequila or The Littlest Groom. You too can one day be upper middle class, or athletic, or a Gladiator. Maybe all three.

When the liberal mainstream media shows us a world where people are dying on the street and babies are having babies, where politicians want to tax you just for living, where suicide bombers blow up dozens of innocent people and our young men and women fight for our freedom in some mystical far-off desert wasteland, where it’s alternately in vogue and out of style to crack jokes about Starbucks, this country will always have American Gladiators to show us that things can be simple. Nothing is more straightforward than Joust, where contenders must hit or be hit with sticks. Survive for 30 seconds or knock a Gladiator into the water to score points. Fall in the water yourself, you get nothing. If only life could be so black and white.

But that’s the point. Most often, life is not like going head to head against Justice on Pyramid, racing up The Wall hoping that Venom does not pull you off, or wrestling Wolf on Earthquake. But for those brief thirty seconds, those contenders represent what is great about America. They represent perseverance, optimism and surmounting great challenges. In short, those contenders represent the American Way of Life. The battles in the Gladiator Arena are not battles of good versus evil, they are more like battles of man versus self than man versus man. We are idealized through those contenders.

The battle inside is not whether or not you will pinch the occasional office supply. The battle is deciding whether or not pinching those binder clips is unethical to you. We must answer the bigger challenges inside of ourselves. Every day we must battle the Titan or Crush inside to help us choose to help our fellow man, use manners and be polite, make someone smile, or tip over 15%.  The world is full of too many gray areas, the Gladiators must show us who we are really made of and if we will accept the losses along with the victories. We need them now, more than ever, to reach self-actualization.

Thank you, Gladiators. Show us the way.

Pro Tips: How Not to Make an Indie Movie!

Okay producer! You’ve got the budget finalized, you’ve hired your production staff, casting is complete, location contracts are signed. You’ve spent months on these pre-production details, making endless changes to multiple drafts of the script, hiring the department heads, negotiating with dozens if not hundreds of different individuals, hiring some people for a pittance or no pay at all, and appealing to the creative people to stick with you for an entire month and shoot 135 pages in 24 days in and around Chicago or some other metropolis. Your independent movie is about to shoot!

And while you think you’ve got everything squared away, you’re still getting that nagging feeling in the back of your mind. You may be asking yourself what are some things you should avoid doing to help you be a better filmmaker? Here some ideas that you should stay away from:

1) When you’re working with a crowd of extras, absolutely do not speak to them as a group and make them feel as part of the production. Say virtually nothing, instead of attempting to make them feel like they are contributing to something most of them have never even done before (making a movie, being on a set, meeting C-level celebrities). Completely turn people off of the idea of making movies or doing anything with a collaboratively artistic bent.

2) Hire craft services that will consistently underestimate the amount of water needed on location, especially on hot summer days. Be sure to give them an extremely limited budget to feed the cast and crew who will be working for you for 12+ hours per day. And certainly be okay with the fact that caffeine is not provided most days.

3) If you’re the executive producer, be on set and give orders to department heads. Make certain that you give direction to people on their staff while they are in the midst of doing other things. Do not attempt to understand that you’re meddling with the flow of the production staff, especially when department heads or your assistant director confronts you about it and asks you to stop.

4) While shooting is well under way, be sure to come up with and express good ideas that can only be easily implemented if you thought of them during pre-production and not on day 15.

5) Absolutely refuse to tolerate the needs and directives of the assistant director, whose job is to run the set, keeping everybody on track and on time.

6) Alienate everyone who does not think just like you by making zero effort to understand their point of view, especially because you hired them to do their job well just to make your film.

7) Constantly end conversations, disagreements, creative differences, and arguments with phrases like, “Well, that’s your problem,” “Do a better job of keeping me on time,” and “I understand, but I’m in charge and this is how we’re going to do it.”

And remember, you can make movies and do any or all of the above, but if you do, you’re a complete dick.

So, congratulations, champ! Go out there and shoot that movie!

America Gearing Up to be Interested in Hayden Panettiere Again

With less than three months left before the Season 3 premiere of HEROES, America is getting ready to bring Hayden Panettiere, the young star of the NBC hit phenom, back to the forefront of its consciousness. Filming has already begun for the next season of the hit series and according to Tim Kring, the show’s creator, everybody involved is excited to have Panettiere (and to a lesser extent, the show itself) regularly grace the covers of sci-fi magazines, Entertainment Weekly, the weekend pop culture section of local newspapers, and the LIFE section of USA TODAY. “It’s been a dry six months for Hayden,” Kring said in a conference call to any and all reporters and fans who would listen. “But she is ready to be back in the last story of the early evening local news broadcast.”

The last time more than 2 million people were even aware of Penetierre at one single moment was during the HEROES season finale, which aired on December 3, 2007. All data collected since then indicates that no more than eight dozen people at one time have thought about, researched, Google-searched, or fantasized about Panettiere since December 4, 2007 at approximately 2:30pm EST.

“Sure, there were some press releases and human interest stories about Hayden’s charitable efforts to save dolphins or something earlier this year,” Kring said. But those stories failed to capture the hearts of Americans who would much rather hear about Panettiere’s work on HEROES, and her previous work on GUIDING LIGHT and ALLY MCBEAL. There was a slight buzz when one of the press release headlines read “HEROES Star Leads Cheer to Save Dolphins,” and it included a publicity photo of Panettiere dressed as her Cheerleader character from the first season, but that quickly faded as the release only mentioned that she is cast member on HEROES and neglects say anything about the new season.

“I can’t believe that cute little Hayden has grown up into this beautiful young star in Hollywood,” says one fan. “It’s almost like she is an indestructible force, much like her character Claire on NBC’s hit show HEROES. I just wish the media would remind me of that every week before and after the show comes back on the air. I’d also like to know which superpower she would most like to have, whether it’s a power that’s been featured on the show or something else entirely.”

“Masi [Oka, who plays Hiro Nakamura on the hit show HEROES] is also excited to talk to entertainment reporters and news magazines this fall,” Kring told reporters. “From what I understand, his agent has not heard from anyone since the week before last Christmas,” where a young researcher from Entertainment Weekly called to see if the star knew how Panettiere might be spending her time during the holidays. The story was bumped from the issue for a 65-word ‘Quick Hit’ piece on Seth McFarlane, creator of FOX’s FAMILY GUY. Masi Oka usually enjoys a nice boost in media coverage while the show is on the air and he regularly fields questions about playing endearing hero Hiro, who helps his fellow heroes – inlcuding Panettiere’s Claire – on HEROES with his time-controlling abilities. “America is just about ready to talk about Oka’s command of the English language and his heritage again,” Kring said. “The country needs to be reminded that while Oka is Japanese-born, he has lived in the U.S. since he was six years old and speaks English and Japanese fluently.”

Come August, there will be a massive demand for new information on Panettiere and HEROES, and the media is prepared to ask the hard questions like, “We’ve been hearing ‘save the cheerleader, save the world,’ for quite a awhile, and while Claire was saved in the first season, does that means the world is safe?” And Kring says he will let the hints fly at the end of the summer, but right now he wants to get the first half of the season complete. “Hayden will be available to answer that question and many more once we have episodes in the can,” Kring promises.

The third season of HEROES, starring Hayden Panettiere, premieres on NBC on September 22 at 9/8c.

Yeah, you got it tough

You little punk, sit down before I knock you down.

Christ, you think it’s tough being you. Truth is, you have too many choices. “Oh, but it’s so hard.” Yeah, it’s hard to make tough choices. You wanna know a tough choice? What about being in the trench and being the only one to see a grenade fall between your commander’s feet? Do you push him out of the way, fall on it and give that sonuvabitch another chance lead his boys to victory? Or do you take cover and pray that maybe you will make it back to hold your baby girl again? That’s a tough choice, kid. What makes it easier is knowing if he made it out of there, he would probably go home to drink like a fish and beat his wife for years until she shoots him dead. They don’t tell you about that part in the recruitment office, and it sure as hell doesn’t get you a ticker tape parade.

You jump around like a retarded kangaroo, shouting to everyone that life’s unfair. Yeah, sure it’s unfair. Unfair for you is an 11pm curfew. Unfair for me is being in the muck and watching Charlie gunning down my pals and skull fucking their corpses, laughing like hyenas. That’s unfair, but I ain’t crying about it.

Sure, life’s tough. Daddy only bought you a used Lexus for your 16th birthday. That’s real a tough thing. Trauma like that will make you strong, make you a man, right? Well, see these? My old man never bought me a car, he only used my arm as an ashtray to put out his cigarettes. Yeah, poor me, right? Fuck that, son.

You think you can sit there forever and be a itty bitty kitten and mew until your mommy comes and gives you a drink from her teet. Grow up, kid; the milk’s dried up. Your Mom’s a whore and she secretly resents you for your youth and your freedom, so get used to it and move on.

No, I get it, you’ve got anger. Nobody understands you, you’re all alone in this world. But here’s the fact kid: Nobody understands you, and nobody wants to. Yeah, that’s right, nobody wants to understand poor little you, boo hoo. When did you make an effort to understand your old man, anyway, huh? You’re mad that your parents lied to you over the years? They kept your sheltered and safe from the world for as long as they could and you think you have a right to be mad about it? You feel betrayed that there’s really no Santa Claus? Betrayal, yeah, I’ll tell you about betrayal.

You know what betrayal feels like? It’s like being in a Beijing nightclub, feeling the business end of an eight inch blade plunge through your ribs. Betrayal is your partner telling you that it was either him or you; the Deng family did not take kindly to our truancy and that this was the only way one of us could stay in their employ. Yeah, that’s betrayal, kid. And taking down a traitorous friend and sleeping with his wife doesn’t make it any easier to swallow or forget.

Do me a favor, kid. After you get that pretty college degree and start your own family, try not to spoil your demonspawn and make them into ungrateful little bastards like your parents did to you. I’d hate to have to put a foot up their asses too, understand?

Bush approval rating down

A recent USA Today poll asked 1012 Americans:

“Which do you disapprove of the most?
a) blowing up the moon
b) the job Preseident Bush is doing
c) the Holocaust.”

Surprisingly, 39% of Americans most disapprove of the job Bush is doing, while 33% disapprove of the Holocaust the most, and 22% least approve of blowing up the moon. Three percent were undecided/no opinion. The margin of error is +/- 4%. Bush’s job performance is actually worse than the Holocaust or blowing up the moon.

When asked, “If President Bush turned out be responsible for the Holocaust or if he tried to blow up the moon, would you disapprove of his job performance more, less, the same, not sure/don’t know?” 84% respondents answered “more,” 6% responded “less,” 3% answered “same,” and 7% answered “Not sure/don’t know.”