Thursday, February 21, 2013

Not By Choice - Episode 4

In this episode, Dave must flee from the cops when his illegal cable operation is discovered.


Check it out, I wrote it with my producer Brandon:


Stickup #8


Consistency makes me weird

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Comments are welcome. How can I get better?

Thanks!

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Lena Dunham: Mythical Networking Creature?


Everybody's been talking about Lena Dunham lately.

Some journalists see her as this "Tina Fey by way of Seth Rogen" voice of her generation.

Other people make her to be an elitist example of New York nepotism. "A Janeane Garofalo by Marie Antoinette" example of bohemian bourgeois, if there ever was one. 

So, I did my digging. I see James Franco has issues with her. So does Kareem-Abdul Jabbar. If Ryan Gosling chipped in with these guys and said Lena Dunham sucked, by default I would have to accept this opinion as fact.

Not going to lie, I wanted to hate on her.

But, I noticed that Lena did some work on House of The Devil.

I love House of the Devil. I even talked about it on Twitter.

And she did work on The Innkeepers. I can't get angry at someone who works on Ti West films.

And it wasn't some vanity stuff either. It was a couple contribution parts.

A long time ago, I remember eating at a teppanyaki restaurant, and I was seated next to a father and his daughter who was about to go to a university. The father brought up that a friend of his had a distant relative who made a movie that got into a major film festival.

The movie he described, was Tiny Furniture.

Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture.

That makes me three degrees away from Lena Dunham. That makes you four degrees from Lena Dunham by reading this blog.

Judd Apatow. James Franco. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Joyce Carol Oates sponsoring her. David Mamet's daughter, Brian Williams' daughter, and Donald Glover. 

What kind of guest star special did this turn into?

I haven't seen Girls (I can't afford the expensive channels outside the trial period), but from the little clips HBO has provided, it seems like a fun TV show. One, that, has a lot of children of famous people in it.

When Malcolm Gladwell wrote The Tipping Point, he talked about the interconnectedness of Hollywood, and he used Rod Steiger as the most connected actor of his generation due to his wide array of roles.

I don't think Lena is "the voice of her generation", but I do think she's in Steiger territory. (As a sidenote, I believe Dunham attended an event with Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah).

I can't hate on someone with these advantages. Some people are born to sing. Some are born with large penises. Lena was born with connections.

I will say this as my only criticism of Lena:
She suffers from what I call "Mitt Romney Syndrome" i.e. Lena cannot relate to normal people.

Anytime someone has criticized her, Lena responds with a story about her time in Oberlin college. I don't want Mitt Romney talking about his yacht when I'm trying to nail a job interview. Or about borrowing $7000 to start a company. If Mitt told me to read the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, that would be one thing. But borrowing $7000 like it's only a matter of paperwork is ridiculous.

Last holiday season, I saw my co-worker, who works three jobs, ring up a customer, who also works three jobs. It was interesting to see two dead tired people communicate information about consumer goods. Sort of explains why zombies are so popular lately.

Normal people don't have time to listen to someone's existential crisis. Yes, I know showrunning's hard. But complaining to the interviewer about it is blood in the water to the Internet.

I can't hate Lena Dunham. She can get drafted now. I might see her in a foxhole. Hell, she might even be naked. 

Check out the episode of Not By Choice I wrote.

Check out my ebook Weight Loss Terrorists.