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Wednesday, November 23, 2005
DEJA VU'
I was was sitting on the couch with Sally the other day and watching some sort of bad tv show via WGN Chicago. And out of the tv came this familiar music. At first I was unsure as to what it was. Then I realize that it is a PSA I storyboarded. I have most but not all of the tv stuff I 'boarded on "my reel". I had never seen it aired before so my brain at first knew it but not in that context.
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Monday, November 21, 2005
IF WOLF BLITZEN IS NOT A MADE UP NAME I WILL EAT MY HAT.
I think I could go with the nickname "Lefty". Mostly because I am right-handed.
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Friday, November 18, 2005
THEY CALL ME MR. TIBBS.
Or Slappy. Sometimes they call me Slappy, too.
I have been thinking about getting a nickname. I know nicknames are usually given to you by someone else. But since I never really got one that I thought I liked, I thought I would pick one for myself. I have had nicknames for short periods of time in my past but again nothing I really liked. Like at camp I was called Loser, Chubby, and Wetty McBedwetter. Children can be so cruel.
That's the hard part. What name to choose for yourself? Do I want a tough guy appellation? Like
Dutch? Killer? Rocky, Duke or Snake?
What about a name that makes me sound like an individual character? Like Chip? Doc? Or Buzz?
Have you noticed how characters with nicknames in movies are always credited with the nickname in quotes in the middle of the name? Such as John "Fried Gumbo" Smith? You know this is incorrect English? Everybody understands what is being told but it is still incorrect. People should be described as "Captain Fancy-Pants", Joe Jones.
I thought about trying a moniker that reflects my love of drawing. Call me Rob "Pencil" Zailo. Like Jimmy "Guitar" Watson. Or "Stick". Or "Inky"
I don't know, maybe I should just go with my old tag, earned during the war. My uniform said "Corporal Zailo" but everybody on base knew me as "Capt. Calzone!!"
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Wednesday, November 16, 2005
HE'S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS INFERNAL HANDS
And when I looked I saw one set of cloven hoof prints.
And Satan said "For that is when I carried you."
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Batman is not a happy camper. Perhaps at one time he thought he could actually win the war and take off his mask but that day has long passed. He is obsessive compulsive in the extreme. This is the guy who sits on the edge of a rooftop in the freezing rain never taking his eyes off of the doorway across the street. Waiting. Waiting for a certain person to come to that door.
He is no longer Bruce Wayne dressing up as Batman to fight crime. He is Batman pretending to be a layabout millionaire to fight crime. Bruce Wayne is his cover so that nobody would connect his affluence with his ability to wage a rather expensive war on crime.
And the movies. Oy! Don't get me started. I really haven't liked any of them. (I am only considering the live action movies starting with Burton's Batman in 1989.) I remember people being upset by the idea that Keaton was playing Batman either because
A) He is of a smaller physical stature
B) Up until that time he was known primarily for light comedies not action films.
But compared with the films that followed he is the only good thing about the franchise.
Jack Nicholson was awful. I remember reading (I wish I could remember where exactly) years ago of when they were casting the movie and didn't know who to use as the Joker. Bob Kane came up with Nicholson. He had apparently taken a Xerox of a photo of Nicholson's face from the Shining. The "Here's Johnny" scene, and colored it with markers. Nicholson looking crazy with green hair, red lips, and copy paper white skin apparently sold Warner Bros. I am not sure how true that story is. And I don't care. Jack Nicholson was an awful Joker.
I would rather have had them dig up poor old Cesar Romero for the part. Anything but Nicholson. Chortling and jumping around, fake laughing/ howling does not a Joker make. And that fat face? No offense to all the Garth Brooks out there but I prefer my Joker with an elongated face like in the comics. The Joker traditionally has always had a long thin face.
Just Imagine Leonard Nimoy as the Joker. It's not like he can't act. He Is Not Spock. Or Peter O'Toole or anybody else.
If they asked me to write a Batman screenplay I would in fact write a crime drama. A crime drama where the criminal element of the story is versus Dracula. When finished I would go back and replace each "Dracula" with "Batman".
Batman and Dracula have a lot more in common than bats. Even Thematically. Long capes, only comes out at night, incredibly strong, you can't stop them. What I don't like in my Batman stories (which in this case are mostly the comic books) is this illogic where Batman instills legendary fear into criminals but is cheered on by law-abiding citizens. I realize that criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot but come on. Just because you stoop to breaking the law doesn't mean that you give up rational thought. I believe in boogey men because I transgress the law of the land but if I am good the boogey man is a hero?
And who would I cast as the Dark Avenger? I would choose Kevin Spacey circa 1999. I never really paid a lot of attention to Mr. Spacey until LA Confidential. Best death scene ever. In K-Pax he plays a cavalier alien, a distraught husband, a surly teenager, a child and a catatonic. American Beauty? He can be athletic and intelligent. He is just physical enough to be Batman but has that calculating intelligence and a look of world-weariness about him. And that is how I would do Batman.
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Saturday, November 12, 2005
The Twilight Zone theme is perhaps the one piece of music that can evoke a physical and emotional response from me. Growing up in the seventies, the local television station would show Twilight Zone four times a day during the summer. Twice at noon and twice at midnight.
But today if I happen to hear it being played on Sci Fi channel (who like every other channel apparently uses the credit roll to advertise something else) I still react.
This is the only song I know where if I hear it, the hackles on my neck begin to rise. My fingers dig into the armrest and my heartbeat picks up the pace.
It brings back the feelings of the comfort of childhood summers as well as the spine-tingling anticipation of being creeped out/ scared/ amazed. It has a macabre hipster beat. And the crescendo at the end gets me every time. If I had never seen a single episode of Twilight Zone and I heard the theme for the first time I am sure I would still get the chills.
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Wednesday, November 02, 2005
I always seem to catch on too late. I have only become a true Adam Carolla fan recently. By recently I mean in the last six months. I have been aware of him for years I just never gravitated to his work.
I caught Lovelines off and on. I think Poorman kind of turned me off so I never really paid attention. The Man Show just wasn't my cup of tea. Crank Yankers wasn't funny.
Then I happened to tune into Lovelines while working late. And I realized that Adam was both funny and the ultimate bottom-liner. No medical training, just bottom-lining people's situation for them.
And his home improvement show on TLC shows you that he is a average joe type. You truly think he is the same guy he was before he became rich and famous.
But all things come to pass.
This-is-my-last-week.mp3
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