Steve Martin/The New Yorker

Studio Script Notes on "The Passion".

Dear Mel,
We love, LOVE the script! The ending works great. You'll be getting a call from us to start negotiations for the book rights. Love the Jesus character. So likable. He can't seem to catch a break! We identify with him because of it.

One thing, I think we need to clearly state "the rules." Why doesn't he use his super powers to save himself? The creative people suggest that you could simply cut away to two spectators: Spectator one: Why doesn't he use his super powers to save himself? Spectator two: He can only use his powers to help others, never himself.

Does it matter which garden? Gethsemane is hard to say and Eden is a much more recognizable garden. Just thinking out loud.

Our creative people suggest a clock visual fading in and out in certain scenes like the last supper bit: Monday, 12:43pm." or later, "Good Friday, 5:14pm." Love the repetition of "is it I?" Could be very funny. On the eighth inquiry, could Jesus just give a little look into camera? Breaks frame, but could be a riot. Also could he change water into wine in last supper scene? Would be a great moment, and it's legit. History compression is a movie tradition and could really brighten up the scene. Love the flaying. Could the Rabbis be Hispanic? There's lots of hot Latino actors now, could give us a little zing at the box office. Research says there's some justification for it.

Is there somewhere where Jesus could be using an IMac? You know, now that I hear myself say it, it sounds ridiculous. Strike that. But think about it. Maybe we start a shot in heaven with Jesus thoughtfully closing the top? (Reminder: heaven is timeless) The studio is very high on Johnny Depp right now. Just saw him in "Pirates." He was hilarious. Might be right for Jesus? Not so straightforward. He could bring a lot of pizzazz to the role. I think a meeting would be warranted. Love the idea of Monica Belluci as Mary Magdalene (Yow!). Our creative people suggest a name change to Heather. Could skew our audience a little younger. Love Judas. Such a great villain. Our creative people suggest that he's a little "conflicted." Couldn't he be one thing? Just bad? Gives the movie much more of a motor. Also, 30 pieces of silver is not going to get anyone excited. I think it's very simple to make him a "new millionaire." Bring in the cash on a tray. Great dilemma that the audience can identify with.

Minor spelling error: on page 18, in the description of the bystanders, there
should be a space between the words "Jew" and "boy."

Merchandising issue: it seems the cross image has been done to death and we can't own it. Could the crucifixion scene involve something else? A Toyota would be wrong, but maybe there's a shape we can copyright, like an ellipse?

I'm assuming "the dialogue is in Aremeic," is a typo for "American." If not call me on my cell or I'm at home all weekend.

By the way, I'm sending a group of staffers on a cruise to the North Pole, coincidentally around the time of the release date. Would love to invite your
dad! * * *

Bush Haiku

This is a short poem made up entirely of actual quotations from George W. These have been arranged, only for aesthetic purposes, by Washington Post writer, Richard Thompson.


MAKE THE PIE HIGHER

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!



Finally there's a radio network for the other 50% of the nation.

The End? Not yet!!

Finding truly unique, funny sites on the net isn't easy. In January I seriously considered quitting the weekly link while I was ahead...

Good thing I didn't. Here's another wonderful site. This internet thing is really catching on, eh?

This story is one of the most linked stories on the internet yesterday.

Find the Popes in the Prophecy...

In the year 1139 Saint Malachy supposedly went into a trance and wrote down the names of all the Popes who would exist from then until the end of time. The list was hidden away in the Vatican for hundreds of years.

When John Paul II dies, there are only two Popes left and we're done! Fascinating!

Sometimes a LoTW isn't chosen for it's comedy. It's chosen just because I marvel that we live in a world where such a link exists. Such is the case this week with Imaginary Girlfriends. Gone are the days of the mythical "Canadian girlfriend."

The Beat Goes On...

At 8am Friday morning I awoke to the sound of loud drums. Okay, technically I was already awake, but the point is: 8am – loud drums. I will hear them tomorrow too, and every weekday at exactly 8am.

Apparently it is a tradition at the middle school across the street. The 8am bell rings, the school drum line plays a long ditty, then the principal gets on the speaker. It’s like clockwork.

Interesting that even when the kids are in summer school, I continue to hear the drums as powerful as ever. This would seem to validate the stereotype that drummers are a bunch of slacker skateboard hooligans who must attend summer classes to make up for their bad grades.

I don’t like morning drums. I would really like them to go away.

Sometimes I envision myself calling the school and complaining.

“How about playing the drums at 3pm?”

“Sir, the school gets out at 2:30.”

“Wow,” I’ll say, “you guys are really inflexible on this.”

Maybe I could canvass the neighborhood with a petition to get the drums stopped. It would be a great way to meet my neighbors. I could be the cool, neighborhood activist that lives on the corner.

Finally, someone’s going to get rid of those damn drums. That guy really cares about our community and I like him.

The fear, of course, is that my activist plans would backfire and I would be labeled a kid-hater who isn’t supportive of the local schools. Maybe the drummers would find out about my petition and begin to harass me. First, they’ll egg my car, then it will escalate to death threats. Middle school kids can be particularly vicious, especially in large numbers – complicated by the added juvenile delinquency of their being drummers.

And why is he still asleep at 8am? Get a job, loser!

These kids think they can bait me? I'll show them. I'll just wrap the pillow around my head and grumble like an angry old man!

Ya take that hoodlums!

Tassajara Time

I wondered where it was... and it finally arrived this week. I got my Tassajara registration book in the mail the other day.

Tassajara is a Buddhist monastery in the mountains of California and this will be my 3rd year going. The first year, I was just an average paying guest. Last year I upped the ante and did nearly a week of Guest Practice where I worked for the facility from 5:30am till noon. There are some disadvantages to doing this, but the fellowship of the monks and others working there is just too amazing to pass up.

Everyone in the country world who goes to Tassajara is most definitely pouring over their booklets this weekend, too, and scrambling to figure out when they can go. The place books up fast and everyone has to make first, second, and third choices in order to get in.

The last two years I went the same week in June and so I saw many of the same people (HEY to Ruth, Debra, Robin, and Jennifer!). That was cool, but maybe I want to see the monastery at a different time this year?

Will the creek be more full earlier? Will there be less rattlesnakes and deer flies later? These are all questions for me to obsess about.

Each time I go, Tassajara changes my life in an amazing way. I can't wait for it to do the same again. This is going on year four my life needs an overhaul.

Reality TV Strikes Again

Thanks to Donald Trump, the phrase "You're Fired!" will now be replaced by:

"You will be unable to continue working here any longer."

He Can’t Be Serious…

I’ve really been thinking lately… need less politics and more funny in this forum. But sometimes I just can’t help myself.

President Bush wants to know who these world leaders are who are quietly backing Kerry. He wants Kerry to name names and destroy already frayed foreign relations with our European allies, or else he has no choice but to assume Kerry is making it up.

He can’t be serious.

I would put the question back into Bush’s court: Can you name one (one!) single pro-American, pro-Bush country in Europe who wants to see you re-elected?

No wonder Bush doesn’t read the papers here or anywhere else… he’d see articles like this one from Canada. Or how about this comment from press in Germany?

"Kerry's vision of his administration's foreign policy have been greeted with enthusiasm from many in Europe, where anti-Bush sentiment is high. The Bush administration has alienated many of its closest allies, particularly France and Germany, over the Iraq war and its dismissive attitude toward the "Old World." Though Bush and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder recently met at the White House and publicly put their differences over Iraq behind them, relations between them cannot be described as close."

What? says Bush, Who doesn’t like me?

The people of Spain have voted. We'll get our turn soon enough.

A Little Nostalgia

My friend Stu sent me this link which brings back all those memories of Jason of Star Command and the Lost Saucer. Be sure to listen to their theme songs.

This week's new link is Brendon's Perplexing Times. See the world through the eyes of a child.

Beware: Malware

I have been wanting to post on spyware, scumware, and malware in general for a while. In case you don't know what that is, these are programs that get into your computer, track what you do and send it to advertisers (which means pop-ups).

My computer has been possessed for some time now (ever since the roomy used my comp to play in his online casino). Even as I type this post, I have been interrupted by windows putting this page to the background. I have discovered that Ad-Aware and Spybot are wonderful free programs which have helped me a lot in the past. Alas, something has crawled up very deep inside and embedded itself.

I highly suggest Ad-Aware. When I first ran it, I had over 200 pieces of Scumware running through the memory.

My latest find is a program called HijackThis, which sadly requires more expertise than I currently have.

Final word of advice, never click "YES" to either GAIN or GATOR. Those are the big, bad ones. I am convinced that these turkeys are no longer asking me before they load themselves on now.

More as I learn it...

Confederate President Captured Wearing Dress

At work the other day, I was proofing the closed captioning on an episode of The Unfinished Nation (yes, I get paid to sit around and watch TV). As the narrator wraps up the history of the Civil War, he mentions the capture of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, and the video pans across the rendering below. I had to stop the video to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing…

It sounds like quite an exciting story! Consider the scene in 1865… Knowing that the Union Army has invaded Georgia and his armies are broken, the President of the Confederacy, along with his family and a few trusted guards, slips into the night to escape. They will take their war into the shadows! They will regroup in the west, assess the situation, and fight on another day.


The rendering of the scene reveals an added part of the plan, perhaps not so glamorous (or rather it's a little TOO glamorous). You can’t not notice that the person in the picture is wearing a dress. With lace. And pettycoats. And a mustache.

My company’s program does not mention this little factoid. Nor do any of the online sites regarding Jefferson Davis. I could find no mention of him to be a cross dresser, nor a drag queen. And yet some very deep studying reveals it's likely true. Jefferson Davis was arrested by US troops who found him wearing a garment of his wife's, though his wife claims it was her cloak.

My guess is that most Southerners don’t know that the capture of the Confederate President resembled something of a Monty Python sketch. But I can't help but wonder how such a plan was concocted? Who was it with the lightbulb over their head and the “Heeey, I know what we'll do” statement?

Yes, yes I know. Don't start!

Here's a hilarious link from Aevetare to make up for it.

Well, my aforementioned horoscope predicted a wonderful event for March 6... I suppose it could have been a reference to the fact that I had the gang over for blackjack last night.

Mac, Nina and Brian had not met the regular card crew, and it was a huge success. Friday night was a real kick too, as I ventured into Hollywood with some of the work crowd. I experienced my first trip on the Los Angeles subway (the idea of the LA subway always struck me as the first act of a really bad disaster movie) was pretty cool. The station at Hollywood and Highland even had a stench of urine, (a purposeful homage to New York City, I think).

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend... the best in a very long while.

This week's link salutes the upcoming "No Pants Day." Best we start planning now.

Ooh, BURN!!

John Glenn blasts the Bush space plan...

Two words for today (and tomorrow): John... Kerry.

A couple of really cool links to pass along today. These are parts of a Mario Brothers feature of sorts. Part One and Part Two are very entertaining. Part Three is a little slow, but worth it.

Enjoy.

Eye in the Sky

In just a few minutes, NASA will have a press conference to announce its “significant findings” regarding water on the planet Mars. Pretty darn exciting!

It is also a new month and I must admit a guilty pleasure... Independently, I had two people I know tell me about a website called Astrology Zone. Now, I should say that I don’t believe in horoscopes. Though my interest was piqued in college when a friend had a book from the early 70’s (old!) that described a Scorpio (me) in remarkable detail. I confess that I could not say the same when reading about the other signs.

Reading this dusty book gave me the feeling that Astrology was a lost art – a true science whose finesse had given way to the bubblegum and fast buck of the Reagan Era.

“Scorpio: Your rocky relationship will enter an exciting new Glasnost!”

Anyway, each new month I can’t help myself and I report to the Astrology Zone to read a multi-paged prediction for the “dear Scorpio.” And how can I ignore it when this astrologer targets me specifically? She says that if your birthday falls on November 7, (c’est moi) pay extra special attention to March 6, plus or minus four days!

The seeds are planted and there’s no turning back. The calendar is marked. I'm sure it will rain gold... I've never disappointed with these things.

The Reason They Call it a School Night

The Oscar party was great. Too great. So great that I found myself guzzling water from the bathroom faucet at 5am. So great that I’m wondering if I can just sit here at my work cubicle and not get up all day. Maybe I can finagle it so everyone brings me what I need.

Hey dude, if you’re going to the tape room can you bring me tape UN426?

I’m not going to the tape room.

Oh… (long pause)… Can you?

It just might work.

Meanwhile, I’d like to pass along a link to a site called Prettywitty.com. It’s a monthly internet zine that’s just getting off the ground and I’m hoping to be a regular contributor. Please visit it frequently!