GUESTS OF GUESTS DO NOT BRING GUESTS

NYC Prep. on Bravo was my favorite show of the summer. Sure, I also loved True Blood, Entourage, and Burn Notice this summer, but nothing came close to NYC Prep. NYC Prep. is a shameless "reality" show based on GOSSIP GIRL (which I also LOVE). In a nut shell, both shows are about wealthy teenagers who attend private high schools in Manhattan and their social lives outside of school. (I guess at 38 what I really want to be is a wealthy teenager in high school living in New York City...hmmm, I don't know wht to make of that).

First of all, parents in middle America would be shocked by this show, and I like that. It's never been harder to be a teenager than it is today. These kids drink, smoke, swear, have sex, hook up, go on dates, make up and breaking up, are constantly texting, IMing, using their IPods, shopping at the most expensive stores in New York City, planning charity functions, renting penthouse suites in luxury hotels, and trying to get into college or move forward from their high school years.

What I really like about the show is it reminds me of my own teenage years. These kids make the same mistakes that every other teenager makes. They all give each other advice, whether asked for or not. The advice is never heeded and always ends in disaster for all the characters (people? cast? I'm not sure what to call them....). But each cast member is endearing in their own way.

PC is the resident gay who hasn't yet come out and is developing a pretty serious drug & alcohol problem. Jessy is in such a hurry to be an adult, she has long since lost any aspect of the joy of being a kid. Camille is a know it all who really doesn't know anything. Kelli thinks she's going to be a star, but she's not. And Taylor is just trying to make it through "public school" with so much on her plate (studying & homework, gymastics, dance, and a boyfriend) that she's falling behind in her grades.

And my favorite cast member is Sebastian. Sebastian is a player in very sense of the word. Sebastian brings girls out to French restaurants so he can speak French in front of them and impress them into bed. He goes out with a lot of girls on dates, and while pretty successful, still makes a lot of rookie errors. But he's honing his craft and you can see by the time he's a senior in college he'll have the ladies eating out the palm of his hand.

The most interesting part of the show for me is when they are in "the confessional chair" telling their side of the conversation that just went on. It's priceless. But if you want to get insight into what the modern world is like for today's teenagers living in New York City, this is as close as you can get. The quote of the blog comes from Jessy, who was berating PC for bringing an uninvited entourage to the fashion show she was working on during Fashion Week. See what I mean by crazy?

DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS

After spending a weekend in Dallas last March and then this past weekend in Austin, I can honestly say I don't get what the big deal is about Texas.

Dallas was nice, but it seemed like a sleepy city and sort of had an old money feel to it. I liked Dallas, but 1 weekend there was enough for me. It was a good time. The gay scene is small, there are a couple of cool buildings like the Bank of America building. Downtown Dallas is dominated by the energy (Read - oil) companies, Exxon Mobil has several sculptures and buildings named for the company, including a Pegasus statue.

I was really excited about visiting Austin. Austin has really come up in the American urban scene as a fast growing, young city. It hosts 2 very successful music festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) and Austin City Limits. The very large University of Texas is right there. Everything I heard about Austin was true. It was a very young city that really came alive at night. Austin has a vibrant downtown, again, a couple of cool buildings, but still was a sleepy city. Austin is like a little patch of blue in what is clearly the reddest of states. Austinites really like their city. They feel it's the best city in the state, very similar to what San Franciscans feel about their city. And it is a young city. The gay scene is bigger than Dallas, but it still has a very small town feel to it. (As an aside, I had a GREAT weekend in Austin, but that had everything to do with the company and almost nothing to do with the city).

The feeling I got from both cities is that Austin or Dallas is where you go if you're from Texas, but you don't want to leave Texas. The state itself is HUGE. I had to drive across Texas on my way to California when I drove across the country, and it's like driving up Florida....it takes forever. Both cities were nice cities in and of themselves, but my Texas city visits are over. The only other city I wanted to visit in Texas was Houston, but I hear from other people that Houston is disappointing.

The next American cities I want to visit are Seattle and Portland. I still have to visit San Francisco to visit friends now that I'm back on the West Coast. And of course, the final East Coast city I want to visit is Philadelphia.

Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QltlctqfY4E

THE 80'S JUST DIED TODAY

Despite the untimely and very sad passings this year of Michael Jackson, Bea Arthur, Walter Chronkite, Dom Deluise, Farrah Fawcett, Nathasha Richardson, Ricardo Monotalban, and Ron Silver, the saddest death of all for me has to be the death today of John Hughes.

I know, who?

For his time (the 80's and early 90's), John Hughes was a very famous screenwriter and film director who's most successful film was Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone (but that film was trash, a good kid empowerment film, but trash nonetheless). I remember John Hughes from my 2 favorite 1980's film of all time, The Breakfast Club and the less successful, but even funnier and better written film, Sixteen Candles (with Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall in both casts). But he also wrote and/or directed, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Curly Sue, and Uncle Buck (John Candy's final film).

I distinctly remember seeing both The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles in the 1980's and both films made me laugh out loud and cry. They were both amazing films for their time. It was actually from those John Hughes films and others like St. Elmo's Fire that created the Hollywood's party and drug fueled "Brat Pack" (Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall) of the 1980's. John Hughes did what only 1 other writer I know of has ever done, and that's successful capture on film the way teenagers actually talked and thought. This was no small achievement for a older man from the MidWest. And it began Hollywood obession with the youth market. Prior to John Hughes films of the 1980's, teenagers were not specifically targeted in films. But John Hughes' films changed all that.

I would like to say a little prayer for Mr. Hughes. His films had an enormous impact on my life and definitely shaped my career view of wanting to work in an industry that produced such well written and timely films. And I have to say, I have the DVD's of both films, and even though they are classically "stuck" in the 1980's, his films are just as relevant to the problems every teenager faces, even in the 21st century. And that's the real test of any film. Of course you can speak to the time and the generation when the film was made, but how does it play in the next decade, or the decade after that? Specifically, The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles still make me laugh and cry today.

Below is the final voice over from The Breakfast Club:

"Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us. In the simpliest terms, in the most convenient definitions, what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours - The Breakfast Club"

Rest in Peace Mr. Hughes.

UPDATE: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/fashion/17obits.html

Rest In Peace Patrick Swayze. I loved you in The Outsiders and Dirty Dancing.

AND THEN THERE WERE 2.....

The biggest news of last week had to be Yahoo selling its Search business to Microsoft. That now leaves Microsoft's Bing and Google to fight it out for search. Poor Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is going to sell off the other crown jewels of Yahoo (Music, Sports, etc.) in what will basically amount to a 1980's style LBO. After a great decade long run, Yahoo is soon to join AOL in the internet history books of failed companies.

1. I need to revise my first blog about Microsoft's Bing versus Google. I am actually using Bing, but only for travel searches. Their flight predictor and ease of booking travel is really taking over my travel needs from Expedia.

2. Steve Ballmer proved himself a worthy successor to Bill Gates recently abdicated Microsoft throne. After wanting to overpay for Yahoo with it's initial $45 billion bid for the whole company, all Microsoft really needed was the Search business, which it got for a song. Definitely the best business deal of any company in the last 5 years.

Which gets us right back to Google. Google Chief Eric Schmidt just quit the Apple Board. Given the long simmering tensions and business overlaps, this resignation was a long time coming. Apple also finally has a competitive threat from the Palm Pre. Apple recently blocked Pre phones from having access to ITunes. But don't count Apple out yet....Mark my words, and you heard it here first......drum roll please.....

Apple is releasing a new phone next year. Not a next generation (like the 3GS), but whole new phone. Apple must have watched in horror as it new competitiors - LG, Motorola, Blackberry all rolled out IPhone clones. Nothing to do for the Apple design engineers but to come up with a new phone altogether. Mind you, I could be wrong, but I think we'll see a whole new IPhone come July 2010.

3 DIFFERENT TYPES OF TV VIEWERS

In the television research industry, much of the latest research surrounds what we call the "3 Screens," that all consumers interact with on a daily basis. The 3 Screens are your television screen, your computer screen, and your cell phone screen. At any point during the day, you're spending enormous amounts of time looking at 1 of your 3 screens. How many per screen and how much it varies is one of the most debated about topics. How to capture it, measure it and most importantly, advertising to it, is the new frontier of 21st century of TV Research. (Exciting, isn't it?)

But rather than talk about the 3 Screens, I would rather talk about the 3 different types of TV viewers. Currently, there are 3 types: the linear TV viewer, the DVR viewer, and the TV DVD & VOD viewer. (I'm talking exclusively about TV viewing on a TV, and not taking into consideration computer or cell phone viewing).

The linear TV viewer just comes home, pops on the TV, channel surfs and watches whatever is on. This person isn't really attacted to the TV too much, but enjoys it. I would say that in the U.S. and U.K., that's probably 60% of the TV population. 30% is the DVR viewer. They don't watch linear TV at all, they just watch what they recorded. And 10% is the TV DVD & VOD users. These people don't have a lot of time to watch TV, but they usually take a night or weekend day/night to watch 4 or more episodes of their favorite show all in 1 sitting. Now none of these groups are mutually exclusive. There is some overlap, but almost everyone fits into 1 of those 3 categories. There are also live sporting (Super Bowl) and live entertainment events (Academy Awards) that all 3 viewers are watching the linear feed. Big new events, ie. Michael Jackson, also radically reshift viewing habits almost exclusively to linear.

The fact is, no matter which bucket you fall into, most are consuming large amounts of television, just in very distinct ways.

COUNTING CROWS

Last night I watched what has to be my 50th plus Counting Crows concert. I remember first seeing the Counting Crows in 1993 when they had just burst onto the music scene with their first hit, "Mr. Jones" off of their debut album, August and Everything After. In 1993, I was 23 years old and dating a screenwriter in Los Angeles. My boyfriend at the time somehow knew lead singer Adam Duritz and so we ended up backstage at several LA concerts. I watched the then unknown Counting Crows have a blazing set at the Henry Ford Theater, which is the most intimate outdoor concert space in Los Angeles. It was mesmerizing. Soaring music, a piercing guitar, emotional lyrics, all at the height of what was then the grunge movement. I had a front row seat watching someone go from complete unknown to the height of lead singer fame. It must have been quite a difficult ride for lead singer Adam Duritz.

Off stage lead singer Adam Duritz was piling on the ladies. First he dated Courtney Cox, then trading up to Jennifer Aniston (who continued her love affair with lead singers with John Mayer). I even watched in awe as Adam Duritz and Charlize Theron hooked up one night. The man has some game. He's been called this generations' Van Morrison, and that's not too far off the mark.

Although the Counting Crows now tour all over the world, they're a distinctly American band. Duritz writes about girls. Make no doubt about it, every song is about a girl or a relationship, finding love, falling in love, losing love, but the root is always a song about a girl. Another interesting point that was brought up to me is that Counting Crows is now a band with 7 members, with the other 6 backing up Adam Duritz.

What's interesting is that in between the time I first saw the Counting Crows, I have now seen them in Los Angeles, Miami, and London. Their music and subsequent albums (while often uneven always have some great music) have been part of the soundtrack of my life for the last 15 years.

STUPIDIEST IDEA I EVER HEARD

The move back to LA has definitely been interesting. First of all, I cannot stand the corporate housing apartment I am living in for the month of July. The last time I was in LA, I only knew of 2 Oakwood corporate apartments in LA - the Burbank & Century City apartments - both sucked. When I looked again this year for where I wanted to live temporarily, Oakwood had over 60 different properties in LA from the Valley all the way down to Playa del Rey. I wanted to be centrally located and near where I thought I would want to live. The best available property was the Palazzo West on 3rd Street, right across the street from The Grove. Well, I made a good decision to explore the neighorhood because I did get an apartment right up the street, making The Grove my walkable neighborhood. But the Palazzo West is terrible.

First of all the apartments are fine, but the floor plan is awkward, the light switches are not where they should be. Where I am directly overlooks what basically passes for "the projects", I can hear the footfalls of the people upstairs from me. But beyond the construction, what I didn't know is that this is where they filmed that horrible MTV show "The Hills." So now, everyone who can afford an apartment, and this is usually people from out of town who are here trying to "make it" in LA thinks that some magic from "The Hills" will wash over them and make them as successful in Hollywood. Rubbish, but that's what people think. So all day long, by the pool, in the gym, it's all wanna-be's and posers. Awful. Thank God I am not actually living here.

And with my return to LA, came the inevitable weekend pool party. First some quick background. Hollywood is the only legitimate businss industry I know of that has almost a "Shadow Hollywood" attached to it. If you work in finance on Wall Street, you can't just hand a sign outside you apartment, print up some business cards and call yourself an investment banker, you actually have to work at Goldman Sachs or Merrill Lynch. If you work in energy in Texas, you can't just say you do, you actually have to work at Exxon or BP, but not so in Hollywood. You can just say you're a Director or a Writer or a Producer with having actually been paid for directing, writing or producing anything. Consequently, you get a whole group of people that want to work in Hollywood. And what is their "In"? Their million dollar idea. This is the idea that people have thought about their whole life and are determined that if they just meet the right person, they will make millions of dollars from their idea. So that's the set up, here's the story.....

I'm at the Saturday pool party and the guy hosting the party (a Brit), says to me, "Hey Mike, you work for a big studio, can I get your reaction to my idea?" (Oh boy, here it comes). And this was his idea: "What do you think about a 3D dance movie?"

This was my response: "3D is fine, but it has to be organic to the script and the movie, rather than a gimmick. Audiences today don't like gimmick 3D movies - witness the failure of the horror 3D remake of My Bloody Valentine. 3D is working in kids animated films, but animated films are very adaptable to a 3D environment and the box office proves it. We'll see how live action 3D movies perform in December when James Cameron's Avatar comes out in December."

Don't get me wrong, someone will make a 3D dance movie, but definitely not this kid. Why would anyone pay $15 to see a 3D dance movie? What would that even look like?

Regardless, don't just come up with what you think is a million dollar idea and just have the idea. To make a movie you need little things.......like a script, talent attached, financing, a talented choreographer lined up, anything more substantial than just an idea.

Later telling this story to a friend of mine, he asked why I just didn't call him on it and call a 3D dance movie the stupidest idea ever? And the fact is that I used to do that in Hollywood when I was younger. It always turned out that I crushed someone's dream, and then had to endure the inevitable comeback: "You'll see when my movie ends up making $100 million." Now to this day that's never happened, but when I end up crushing people's dreams, I usually wouldn't end up with additional invitations to their pool parties.

Stupidiest idea ever, right?

UPDATE: Disney is making a 3D dance movie, as I predicted almost a year ago. Behold Step UP 3D: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89TLbK6o-og