Hollywood tried to run over my pet gerbil

Forgive for the provocative title of this entry. It was only the gimmick for the attempt to make the reader more excited about reading these very words you are just now reading, congratulations. Be at rest, for I do not even own the gerbil for pet, nor do I have any idea what sort of animal is being a "gerbil." That is just a word I heard person use once. I think it is like a rabbit or a sow. Anyway, Mr. Fando have the interesting idea about what might make a movie extra good for Hollywood, about how it could be a movie about people writing on a blog. I take the suggestions of Fando serious because, as you will learn in due time, he has a most good education in the USA college system. I think maybe he went to Southwestern North Carolina State College, with a BA in something about money and papers, but he can clarify that whatever he wants to do. My point is that I change my screenplay. Really, I didn't know where to go with my first script because I killed the main character, Fernando, on the first page. I thought maybe to have a ghost come back, the Ghost Fernando, who begin to haunt a house of a lady who will fall in love with him and make him back into the real person from the ghost, but it all get too convoluted, like pie filling with too many ants in it. So I will make screenplay about blog. Here is a hint and a taste.

EXT -- STREET -- DAY

Lady in Red -- Ooh, Reginaldo, I see something so huge rolling down the highway! Eek!

Reginaldo -- Dear lady, it is the blog! It is going to crush us!

Lady in Red -- Darn blast those USA government radiation experiments they do on gerbils. It create a giant blog rolling down the street!

Reginaldo -- We are running but cannot get away! Our legs are too short!

!!Squish!!

I like the first scene very many, but now I must consider where to go for scene two. Will Roseanne Barr be available to play the blog? Maybe throw in a good old fashioned Lon Chaney to play Lady in Red, and for the topping of whipped cream and dulce de leche, we could get Marky Mark for the Reginaldo part. Hurray for money I will get from this project!

Hollywood Unoriginality

There are many things one can say about Hollywood's refusal to embrace originality, wit, and artistic creativity. Fortunately, this is a PG blog, and so we'll pass over all 62 pages of those things and get to the meat of the crux of the heart of the matter, etc.

Hollywood is populated by shameless, lazy copycats. I left out greedy and corrupt, but I want to work there eventually and don't want to burn any bridges. Besides, who in Hollywood (or the known galaxy for that matter) is reading this now anyway?

There, I've said it and I feel better for having done so. They made "the Brady Bunch" into a movie. They made the "Beverly Hillbillies" into a movie. They're making "Bewitched" into a movie. They even made "M.A.S.H." into a movie! (Wait, scratch that last one...)

Anyway, why not try something original. Why not a movie about struggling Comedy Blog writers and their trivails as they attempt to entertain the desperate masses of people cruising Blogger for amateur art and poetry, political dirt, and semi-risque' travelogues. I can see it now. Thrill to the shocking exploits of a young man fighting with the ftp server as he tries to load a graphic of William Shatner with a fake handlebar mustache onto a blog! Swoon to the horror of e-mailers attempting to correctly spell the word "Zimpter"! Warm your hearts with the feel-good story of a bunch of blog writers as they win the 1969 World Series and simultaneously develop a cure for osmosis!

All right, these need a little work. But Bewitched? Really! No one can replace Elizabeth Montgomery. I admit Jim Carrey might do a passable imitation of Dick York, but who's going to play Endora? Helen Thomas?

*************************

Update: It's Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. I like both of them, but why do I sense their presence will turn this into the nude version of Bewitched?

Jorge Carlito to the Rescue

So I was a sitting there in my chair with the overstuffed pillow under butt, eating an empanada de carne and considering all of that which is so terrible wrong with the corporation of Hollywood. I have the laundry list I could put, like the phony pretend actor special effect ostrich egg Danny Devito, or the terrible bad writing of the movie where nobody is speaking like the normal person, or romantic movies where ugly people getting to kiss the pretty person which never happened in the real life except maybe for the one Fando talked too much about called Mr. Trump. So then a thought spring into my head. It go like this: SPROING!!! And I say to myself, "Jorge Carlito, brother man, you need to write your own movie script and make your own quality high value movie." So after eight hour of writing, here is what I come up with.

INT -- CAFE -- DAY

Fernando is eating empanada de carne at small table, sitting across from shadowy figure named Jorge Vargas.

Fernando -- This time we will not fail to destroy the evil person.

Jorge -- Yes, Fernando, I have the big gun for to shoot him before he steals more neighborhood dogs and cats to eat them.

Fernando -- Be careful out there, Jorge. It is the jungle.

Jorge -- I am always careful. That is why gun so big.

Jorge exits cafe. Fernando drinks coffee.

Fernando -- Oh, no, Jorge poisoned coffee. He was the double agent. Ack!

Fernando die.

Anyway, that is all I have written so far. But I think it could be far above whatever is coming to the local cinema near to you. It will not have any Danny Devito style pretend actors in it but rather real person like David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson Lee and guest star Mr. Jack Nicholson as Jorge. I think I could be the save of Hollywood. What you think?

Record Setting Record Spinner Record Something

A college DJ in Florida is attempting to set the record for the longest continuous broadcast ever by a single DJ.

My secret contacts in the radio world have provided me with the latest transcript from this amazing broadcasting feat:

"...So come on down to Winter Park Ford!" [bumper music]
[loud snoring] [sounds of poking in the ribs, large quantities of caffeinated drinks spilled on electronic equipment]
DJ: "Hmmm, whazzzit...am I late for class?"
Background voice: "The guy from Guiness is watching...come on dude!"
DJ: "SSSS...whaaa? Mom? Is that you? Why are all these circus clowns in here?"
[sounds of smelling salts being applied to someone's nose]
DJ: "[undechiperable] Who painted the walls with Pepto-Bismol?"
[sounds of smelling salts being stuffed up someone's nose]
DJ: "That was a really great sooonnnggg....bats, bats everywhere!"
[sound of someone's noggin hitting a hard composite desk]
[sounds of someone slapping someone across the face]
[sounds of a large bucket of water being thrown on someone's head]
[sounds of fire hoses]
DJ: "Now...ferrrr...somethinnn...Smashmouth...song...Morissette...thingy"
[music accompanied by various sounds of paramedics restarting someone's heart...think Emergency and Randolph Mantooth]

Trump to marry again...

Am I the only one fervently praying these two will not reproduce?

If they do though, let the children get their mother's hair, that's all I ask.

DeVito, Shore, Frodo, Smeagol

I distinctly remember describing hobbits in an earlier post as "tiny, testosterone enhanced Vulcans" and here comes Senor Vega to deftly (if obtusely) challenge my thesis. I must admit that Juan Carlos has, in his usual idiosyncratic, garbled-yet-highly expressive mode of correspondence, captured a central flaw in my precious...ahem, previous reasoning.

Clearly Mr. DeVito (Italian for "of Vitamins") is as close to hobbit as we can come. Small of stature, and despite a distinguished bald spot, as hairy as Robin Williams on a Rogaine I.V., Mr. DeVito has "hobbit" written all over him. However, Mr. DeVito is the furthest thing from Vulcan that I can think of. Danny DeVito is the anti-Vulcan. I can easily imagine him getting along well with McCoy and driving Mr. Spock completely mad, to the point where he is sitting around in Roman garb, playing soft, sappy music on the harp with lyrics that almost certainly have to the be uncredited work of Rod McKuen.

Also, Mr. DeVito's ears are not pointy like a Vulcan's. I realize that hobbits' ears are pointy. You can't have everything in life. Clearly he's had them done.

What is it with these persons

Hollywood is foisting another one of those ideas which is being clearly deceptive, one of those things where you know they are somewhere with the big money rolling around in a pile of the golden coins saying the thing like, "We have collected $8 from every person in the world to see our newest idea." That is the way of which Hollywood is always working at trying to get into the pocket part of our wallets. What is this newest idea, you might probably at this point be willing to allow me to ask myself, what is the newest fraud of which they will try to get our money for cheap? Is it a new Pauley Shore movie, please Creator forbid it? Well, yes, they are doing that (http://www.paulyshoreisdead.com), but that is not what this article is about. Is it the return of Capulina, the Mexican comedian most funny of all time (http://www.santostreet.com/posterpix/capmonstOS.jpg)? Sadly, no. What, then, you might allow me to ask myself at this point, are you trying to get at here, Mr. Carlos Vega? You might also add that you only have patience for one more paragraph of this sorts of poorly English writing. There four, one more paragraph you get.

The problem I am referring of which to is this process in Hollywood where real actors are replaced with special effect phony actors that are foisted upon the screens of your favorite movies and mine in the guise of being real persons. No, I refer not to Jar Jar Binks. Indeed, friends and neighbors, I have it on the authority that is good that Jar Jar Binks of Star Wars infamy was in fact a real person named Horace Powderton Brinkley. They were just putting some orange style make-up on the face of him and make him to talk like the woman and nance about in the fruity fashion. No, what I am talking about is this thing they are calling Danny Devito. They will put in this special effect call the Danny Devito in the otherwise classic film like "Twins" and "Batman Returns" and pretend that it is really an actor person, but if you are on the inside in the know, it can be safely pointed out that Danny Devito is, in fact, an ostrich egg with little shoes glued to the bottom. Do you need proof? Check out www.jskldywhngmd.gov/proof/devito/truth.html or something like to that effect. Maybe that link don't working no more, but it should. Yes, Danny Devito is an ostrich egg with shoes on the bottom and not a real actor, safely I can say to you. So beware of this lie from Hollywood, and please write a letter to someone who might do something about this, I don't know who.

18,000,000 Dollars a year??? American Money?

I just wanted to see that number with all the zeroes next to it. Really big that.

Why do I get the disturbing feeling that Roger Clemens will be in a wheelchair, in his nineties, with his forearms curled up with paralytic arthritis, and some baseball executive will be standing at his door, in the only poorly fitting Armani suit in existence, with a check for seven figures and a well oiled team cap.

I am not a baseball fan by any means, though I respect the sport, as I do all sport except for dressage and bumper pool. So the idea of a baseball pitcher recieving more money than the leader of an industrialized nation (OK...Chirac probably tops that under the table...but this is only a strong suspicion held by myself and 50 million French), seems to me the equivalent of paying Adam Sandler truckloads of gold boullion for being nice enough to show up at the catering truck during the shoot of someone else's film.

I realize that in my lifetime the only way I will ever see that much money is if I hit the Powerball, the National Lottery, and someone starts mistakenly sending Jerry Seinfeld's syndication royalties to my address, simultaneously. My one other shot is if Dan Radcliffe finally gives up the Harry Potter role and Warner Brothers calls. That was not a subtle attempt to draw audience from the Harry Potter crowd. That was an obvious attempt. (Mr. and Mrs. Google, do your stuff!)

Trump Hair = Chaos Theory

I was glancing about at Yahoo! today. Is the exclamation point really necessary in "Yahoo!"? Can we discern for ourselves whether this site excites us enough to require such punctuation? The only thing worse is the search engine actually named "Excite". It sets very high expectations. It reminds me of the trailer for the movie version of Stephen King's "Maximum Overdrive", the one where King, looking disheveled and slightly deranged, announces to the camera that his movie will "Scare...the...hell...out...of...you". Funny that... I don't remember the film being nearly as frightening as that close up of Stephen and the look on his face.

Anyway, I was glancing at Yahoo! and noticed an ad for Donald Trump's show "The Apprentice". I realize millions of people have already had a say in this, but what is the appeal of this programme? I mean, I've never really watched it, primarily because I can't get over "The Donald"'s (Apologies to Donald Duck, Donald O'Connor, and Ronald McDonald) ridiculous hair. It's awful in a way that makes you want to tremble and die. The Clash had better hair. A Flock of Seagulls had better hair. Brother Theodore's coiffe looks like a classic Vidal Sassoon creation by comparison.

Yet, for many people, this seems to be one of the drawing points of the show. Millions of Americans seem to tune in asking, "How bad can it get?" I'm fearful that there will be injuries soon, with deaths to follow. Trump and his crack team of demon troll hairstylists will find the one hairstyle that throws people into seizures and massive coronary failure. I don't want to be watching when that happens. I don't want the coroner's report on me to read "death by hair". I sense that would invite all sorts of inappropriate questions.

The other sad possibility is that the styles will catch on with a certain impressionable type of uber-capitalist or left-wing anti-social chic (the two are not so far off). We'll see businessmen and women walking around looking like their hair was cut with a rotary saw.

The other fascination people have with the show is watching Trump utter the words "You're fired!" at the end. I'm confused by this, since it is likely that hundreds, if not thousands, of people have heard this statement up close and in person. If it's such a thrill to be pink-slipped by this dementia-haired, real-estate mogul, why not expand the premise of the show to celebrities and other people the average citizen would like to see terminated from their job? "Andy Rooney? You're fired!" "Michael Moore? Fired!" "Ann Coulter? Fired!" Why waste such a thrill on the anonymous dregs of colleges of business education when we can humiliate famous people?

Beisbol, been bery, bery good to me!!

Chico Escuela never had it THIS good though. News is breaking of a deal that would make Roger Clemons the highest paid pitcher in baseball history at a whopping $18 million for one year, and you thought Al Sharpton had a sweet gig. Now, anyone who is sports inclined knows that "one year" to a baseball pitcher is like an eight hour day to a government worker. To call it work would be the same as saying that the World Workers Party is actually concerned with workers or anything to do with work.

In order to wrap our minds around the concept of $18 million per season let's look at the statistics. That would mean poor Roger would slave away at approximately $600,000 per game or $87,805 per inning, picking up a cool $94,737 per strike. I have nothing against Roger and wish him all the best as he cashes those big checks and wallpapers his house with $100 bills. I would just wonder where this madness will end and why, besides my lack of any skill at pitching, I'm not somehow getting a piece of the pie.

What if these exorbitant salaries were lavished on others, for instance, if Bill O'Rielly made $75,000 every time he contradicted himself, if Al Franken made $94,500 every time he made a bad joke, if Oprah made $50,000 every time she cried, or if Gallagher made $116,252 every time he smashed a watermelon. (That last example could actually be correct, can someone in research check that out?) These people would be multi-billionaires in weeks and we may never have to see them again. Hey, maybe this isn't such a bad idea but it didn't work with Oprah so I'm not holding my breath.

Needless to say it's probably just hyperbole, Oprah aside, but it is fun to dream. Bloggers could receive $20,000 per word, shoe salesmen can get $12,000 per pair sold, podiatrists would make $5,000 per in-grown toenail, etc etc etc. All I know is the Astros better hope that novelty foam hand sales skyrocket next season.

Rejected Names for This Blog

While waiting for my colleagues to join us, I have decided to share with you the top rejected names for the blog. I hope that you will find them all far more atrocious than the one we decided on. If not, and you decide to use one yourself, please remember copyright law applies to Blogger (according to the enormous Use policy that no one else reads) and that we will happily accept money orders and wire transfers sent to our actual names.

Anyway, here are just some of the names we rejected (and some reasons why):

Bloggin’ Pink Lumberjacks (for obvious reasons)
Tutti Frutti Blogante (fear of Univision's legal team)
Hadley Hasbro’s Habenero Highball (too alliterative, and also too spicy)
Not Your Mothers Blog (We didn't want upset Mother...haven't you seen Psycho?)
The Disciples of Paul Bacon (Maybe in his dreams...)
Blogapalooza (probably taken)
Commedia dell Arte It Ain’t (Can you really tell the difference?)
Evidently Disturbed (too obvious)
Square Pegs in Round Holes (Droll yes, but not a real philosophy)
Mendicants R Us (Some of you are racing over to Dictionary.com right now to see what the word "R" means!)
The Travelling Willburys (It's been done)
Bloggin Our Brains Out (Fear that depressed Lemony Snicket fans who navigated here by mistake would misunderstand and commit suicide in droves)
Kermit the Blog (Fear of the Children's Television Workshop's legal team)
Blincoln Blogs (Fear of Hasbro [or whoever makes the real toy]'s legal team)
Nougat Love (We don't even want to go there)
Where's my Sasquatch? (Even we can't handle the web traffic a Bigfoot website would bring)
Oprahoma! (Fear of Ms Winfrey's legal team - she can hire the best)
Bilbo Bloggins (Fear of tiny people with extremely hairy feet and pointed ears. Let's face it , they're like tiny, testosterone enhanced Vulcans)
JK Rowling Reveals How the Harry Potter Series Will End At Last!!! (It's a massive audience. It was tempting. Ms. Rowling though can afford even better lawyers than Oprah.)
Zimpter Fiforg's Challenge to the Man! (A close second)
The Tony Dow Memorial Ad Agency (Fear of Tony Dow's legal team. Especially since we found out he wasn't killed in Vietnam or by drinking soda with Pop Rocks in it.)
Cranston's Book of Poorly Written Limericks (Fear of Alan Cranston's legal team)
The Bus Driver Ate My Money (Isn't that the name of Marion Barry's blog?)
The Scrumtrilescent Seven (Too something... I'm looking it up right now.)
Triple Bypass Surgery Productions (Too corporate)

Meet the Authors!

Greetings,

I am Earl Fando, administrator and Secretary General of this blog. Let me just tell you right off the bat that this blog has absolutely nothing to do with anything written by Lemony Snicket (apart from the blog's innate capabilty to depress minors). This blog is the product of Triple Bypass Surgery Productions and also Waste of Time Productions. As you can see, we spent a great deal of time on the production names.

I will be joined here in the coming days by my collaborators (no, not in the Vichy sense). I'd like to tell you a little about them and myself, but as this is at worst a PG-13 blog, I'll have to make stuff up instead.

Earl Fando - What can I say about myself that hasn't already been said? Well, everything of course, because you've never heard of me. I fancy myself mysterious and bear a striking resemblance to Harrison Ford after a botched plastic surgery. I love everything about Britain except her hair and that nasty, blotchy bit around Weston Super-Mare (just to the left of Bristol). I am also an amateur raconteur, which is French for "Masseuse".

Stew Miller - Born in the Capital of the United States of America (Hollywood), Stew is not merely someone unfortunately named after Ireland's number one meal. He is a legend on the playgrounds of some town or another somewhere where he did something really spectacular in athletics once. He tells the story so much better than I though. He is capable of anything, and nothing, and everything, and all at once, which is really spectacular when it comes off. He is also astonishingly tall for his age.

Zimpter Fiforg - Zimpter is a complete mystery to most people including his immediate family, who , for the first 12 years of his life mistook him for an underripe radish. His first word was "Tranya" which got him mistaken for Clint Howard on occasion, despite the fact that Clint Howard looks far more like a radish than the dashing Zimpter. He is an exceptional song and dance man and knows the lyrics to every song ever written except for all the ones not beginning with the letter X.

Jorge Carlito Viejo - Star of the wildly popular and unseen television programme "What Is the Line that Is Mine?" Jorge Carlito divides time between his duties as President of Waste of Time Productions and personal man-servant to one "Cakey, the Jacked Up Clown" (Don't ask about Cakey. If you must know, Google him and make the Blogger home office happy). Despite once being nicknamed Juan Carlos, he is not related to the current King of Spain, although he does feel he could handle the job if called upon.

Chico y Jose - This deeply misunderstood, tragic, champion of a man has for years been the only thing standing between the Earth and several light-years worth of hostile intergalactic bacon. Amazingly trim for one whose off hours are spent ridding the universe of extraterrestial smoked pork products, Chico is proud to share the name of the eldest Marx Brother, and his hat as well. He is also immensely fond of golf. Really. Don't even bring up the subject around him or he'll get distracted and we'll be up to our nostrils in alien, thick-cut, peppered slices.

There will be other key contributors as well. These however are the founders, the, if you will (and if you won't, why not), bedrock of this "Dictionary". Memorise their names, and should you see them, their faces. Report them to the police immediately.