Hello I must be going

I don't usually drop names. Don't get me wrong, I could. I could drop a lot of them ok? I was born and raised in L.A. I'm a Hollywood brat. I know people.

And my people know people.

But because of a film I saw, I am going to drop one: Groucho Marx.

From the minute I first saw Night At The Opera I was hooked on the Marx Bros. It won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me that the brother I related to most was Groucho. Cynical, sarcastic, biting, brilliant, a ladies man.

When I was growing up, the Marx Bros. films were having a resurgence. There were festivals, retrospects, screenings of long lost footage. My friend David Weitz and I used to slather on the black moustache and eyebrows, slip into the cut away tuxedo jackets and impersonate Groucho at the festivals they used to have at the Universal Amphitheater, back when it was a real amphitheater (look it up). There was also a theater on La Cienega and Waring Avenue called the Ciné Cienega that played Marx Bros. films all the time. David and I would show up there too.

One day, we had the bright idea that we wanted to meet Groucho. So we got in my car - a 1965 Plymouth Fury, the first and last American car I'll ever own (don't get me started) - and drove up to Sunset Blvd. Back then, there was a guy on every corner selling "Maps To The Stars Homes". We bought one and found out where Groucho's house was in Trousdale Estates.

As I write about it now, I realize it reads kind of stalker-esque. It wasn't. Well, maybe it was. But a different time you know?

There used to be a costume shop on Melrose next to Paramount Studios. David and I decided to buy an old cutaway coat like Groucho wore in the movies and give it to him as a gift. It never occurred to us he probably had several of them gathering dust already.

The first attempt didn't go well. We drove up to Trousdale Estates, sat in the car awhile, then finally found the courage to knock on Groucho's door.

His assistant and companion Erin Fleming answered.

We told her we were huge Marx Bros. fans, and we had a gift for Groucho. She thought it was sweet.

From behind her, we heard an elderly but recognizable voice say, "Who is it?" Erin said, "It's two of your fans and they want to give you a gift." To which Groucho replied, "Tell them to go away and never darken my doorway again."

Not exactly the welcome we expected.

Erin told us to come back the next day when Groucho would be in a better mood, and she'd get us in to meet him. So we did. And she did.

David and I wound up having lunch with Groucho. We talked about everything from the movies, to the Israeli athletes who'd been killed by terrorists, to Sandy Koufax. The real life Groucho spoke slower and softer than the one in the movies, but the brilliant mind was working just as fast.

Many times after that first meeting, Erin invited me up to the house. She even had me watch Groucho a few times when she'd have to go out.

When another Groucho fan, Steve Stoliar, organized the Committee to Re-release Animal Crackers (CRAC) - a Marx Bros. film that hadn't been seen in thirty years - and staged a protest at UCLA, Groucho wrote a note excusing me from my theater class to be there (Groucho included a copy of the letter in his book The Grouchophile). And when Universal finally re-released it, Erin had the studio hire David and I to impersonate him at the premiere.

She also had us impersonate him and greet arriving celebrities at a live performance she'd convinced him to do, An Evening with Groucho at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion (I still remember David opening the car door for George Burns. As Burns was getting out he said, "That's very nice of you." David said, "Certainly. Age before beauty." Burns said, "You're not kidding."). Thanks to Erin, we were also at the pre-release party for the soundtrack of the show at the Bistro in Beverly Hills (star-studded affair. Nicest celebrity: Tommy Smothers. Biggest jerk: Carroll O'Connor). She also had us front and center in the audience, in full costume, when Groucho appeared on the Merv Griffin show.

To say the least it was a heady time.

After Groucho died, I lost touch with Erin. I know she went through hard times, with accusations of being a golddigger and abusive to Groucho.

These accusations came from Groucho's son Arthur, who although an author and playwright, primarily made a career of being Groucho's son.

The many times I saw them together, at the house and at studio events, I never saw any indication that any of Arthur's accusations about Erin were true.

Nevertheless, Arthur sued Erin for all the money Groucho had paid her, and the house he'd bought her, and eventually bankrupted her with attorney fees and debt. Sadly she wound up committing suicide years after Groucho was gone.

I'm blessed to have had the chance to meet one of my heroes. It could never happen today, certainly not the way it did then.

Although if anyone has Springsteen's address, I have this guitar I'd like to give him.

"You want them to what?"

Every good copywriter I know, and I know a lot of good ones, has at one time or another been on the receiving end of the comments I got a couple days ago.

It's not the first time I've heard them. And, sad but true, it won't be the last. It never ceases to amaze me that someone can actually have such a lack of situational awareness that they say them out loud in front of other people.

The comments usually come from an account person, more often than not a junior one (although in my case it was a senior person. The definition of "senior" can range anywhere from surviving the last round of lay-offs to going to the same college as the client's wife).

I presented an ad with a headline I liked a lot. Clever. Unexpected. Something different for the brand, yet still in character.

First, with a straight face, the account person said, "I don't get it."

I'll wait while every copywriter reading this nods their head in recognition.

Fortunately for account people, when a headline's cleared for takeoff over their head, and they don't like the glare of the spotlight for being the only one in the room who doesn't get it, they have a go-to follow up comment they can always take refuge in.

"People might have to think about it for a minute."

Well, we wouldn't want that would we? Thinking bad.

Since this particular shop is an account driven agency, can you guess how the story ends? Of course you can. Since the account person "didn't get it", she generously offered up a suggestion as to how it might read.

Let's just say it wasn't exactly a "why-didn't-I-think-of-that" moment for me.

So she got her way. Thanks to her suggestion, the headline got dumbed down. Way down. But at least she can take comfort in the fact that now there's absolutely no risk of anyone having to think about it.

In fact, there's no risk of anyone reading it.

Guilty pleasures Part 1: The Final Destination movies

Developing a blog post that can be turned into an ongoing series is not a new idea. My fellow blogger at Round Seventeen has a series of posts called Things Jews Don't Do. And I've done it as well with a couple posts, like Why I Love Costco, and The Luckiest Actor Alive. Now I'm doing it again with Guilty Pleasures. It's like what Hollywood does over and over. Take one idea, recycle it, and wait until people are sick and tired of it.

Then do it again.

So here we go. First up, the Final Destination movies. I’ve seen them all. I'm not proud. But I sure am entertained.

I'm the first to recognize that the money I spend on tickets for these movies could be spent on better things. Like books. Or dry cleaning. Or the college fund (just kidding: what college fund?). But then I wouldn’t have the pure joy and satisfaction of watching a bunch of snotty teenagers who're just asking for it get what’s coming to them.

And by that I mean death. Dead as disco.

Seriously, who doesn’t like to see that?

Every Final Destination movie has the same group of four or five kids. You know the ones: the brainy guy. The smarmy guy. The good girl. The slutty girl. The nerd.

Somehow, they all manage to avoid dying in a plane crash, or a roller coaster derailing, or a race car crashing into the stands. You know, everyday stuff.

Well apparently Death has a quota to make and a timecard to punch. And he gets pissed when people don't die when they're supposed to. So he has to track the kids down and off them one by one.

The great part about these movies for me is the Rube Goldberg way the killings are done. Intricate, clever and way over the top. I don't know which I liked better - the girl stuck in the car wash with her head out the sunroof that won't open, or the guy getting acupuncture who winds up falling off the table and impaling himself on the needles.

I know I'm not doing these scenes justice. You have to see them for yourself. Or not.

On the New Rules segment of his show, Bill Maher had a joke about all these movies. He said the producers of Final Destination need to look up the meaning of the word "final."

For my sake, I hope they don't.

Flush with pride

This isn't an actual picture of my house. But it might as well be.

When I woke up this morning, the trees on my front lawn and the street-side parkway were green, and the toilet paper was in full bloom.

For the second time in three weeks, one of my son's or daughter's friends thought highly enough of them to get together with even more of their friends, find someone with a driver's license and drive over here at 2:30 in the morning to TP our house.

I know it was 2:30 because before they sped off, one of the little f..darlings came up and rang our doorbell a half dozen times.

Is there a higher compliment? Apparently not.

I keep being told by my wife, and neighbors who don't have to clean up the aftermath, that it's a sign of fun and affection. They don't do it to houses of kids they don't know or like. That wasn't the case when I was growing up on the mean streets of west L.A. (north of Wilshire).

Where I lived, when a house got TP'd it was because people didn't like you. It was a "let's get 'em!" kind of thing.

A junior high lynch mob with Charmin instead of torches.

I keep getting told it'll probably happen again, usually runs through the school football season and I should just lighten up about it and ride it out.

I'll try to remember that in the coming Friday and Saturday nights, when I'm sleeping on the living room couch with baseball bat in hand, German Shepherd at my side, and the garden hose unkinked and set on jet spray just outside the door.

A game of tagline.

My pal Rich writes a cripplingly funny blog of his own called Round Seventeen. And more than once, he's posted on the always fun, highly debatable subject of taglines. For example here and here.

All copywriters approach taglines with mixed feelings of excitement and possibility, as well as pain and frustration. The pressure is always on trying to come up with that elusive combination of 2 to 7 words that will perfectly, humorously/dramatically, instantly and memorably encapsulate the essence of a brand.

We're all hoping for the next Think Different. Just Do It. Got Milk. And we've all written thousands of lines looking for it.

Eventually, we hit the wall at one point or another.

That's why I'm so excited to share what will inevitably be a valuable resource.

I've discovered a man, nay, a guru, we can now turn to for the tagline help we all so desperately need now and again.

He calls himself the Tagl!ne Guru. I can tell he's excited about that title because he put an exclamation point right there where the "i" should be (Get it? Like an upside down "i").

You don't do that if you're not excited about something.

I know what you're thinking: what's the Tagl!ne Guru's tagline? I had the same question. Obviously, anyone who's narrowed down their copywriting expertise to such a specific aspect of the craft, and who positions themself as a guru, clearly isn't going to go for a cheap, smarmy, punny line any junior copywriter fresh out of ad school with a book and a dream could come up with.

Gurus don't settle for that.

Instead, I'm guessing the Tagl!ne Guru will have a pithy, memorable, awesome line that will have every copywriter reading this slapping his/her forehead and wishing he/she had come up with.

But I could be wrong about that.

The end justifies the mean

Even with the Tea Party and the Republicans, apparently mean spiritedness isn't as in vogue as it used to be.

Yesterday I did a post about Jonah Hill. I said I didn't think he was either funny or a good actor. And I might have made some slight reference to his former weight.

While I was writing it, apparently one thing I didn't take into consideration was his big, fat fan base.

More than any other post I've done, this one has resulted in my being deluged with all kinds of comments saying how mean spirited it was. How it was so unlike me. That it was a cheap shot. A side of me people hadn't seen before.

Let me say this in all sincerity: Don't you people have better things to worry about?

Here's the thing. If you've followed this blog at all, or even if you haven't, I make it pretty easy to navigate. You can tell what direction my posts are going from the get go (unlike M. Night Shyamalan's blog. His posts always have that surprise ending). One paragraph in, and the road ahead is perfectly clear.

Nonetheless, I can tell the outrage is genuine (something I find disturbing in it's own way, but still).

So first, let's all take a big cleansing breath. Innn...and out.

My suggestion would be this: if after reading the first paragraph you don't think you'll like the rest of the post, stop. Click to another page. Click the link at the top that says "Next blog." That was easy wasn't it? After all if you don't like what's on one TV channel, you change the channel. Maybe something you like will be on the first channel tomorrow.

Also, and I really mean this, don't shed too many tears for Jonah Hill. I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this blog, so his feelings are probably still intact. If his career ended today, he'd still have made more money than I'll ever make. He'll still weigh less than me, even though he used to weigh tons more than me (see what I did there?).

Jonah Hill will live to screw up another film. He'll be fine.

Now of course, the one thing all bloggers want more than readers is readers' comments. We love getting them and we love reading them, even the ones that don't agree with us. I don't want you to think I'm being dismissive or cavalier about the ones I've received regarding Jonah.

I'm sincerely concerned what my readers think. You're the reason I do this. That and the love.

The very last thing I'd want to do is upset or offend anyone.

The luckiest actor alive Part 1: Jonah Hill

Welcome to the first in a series of "luckiest actor alive" profiles, highlighting actors that ought to drop to their knees and thank God every day for studio executives who have even less taste than they have talent, and who for some inexplicable reason continue to give them work.

I decided to start with someone I think we can all agree on: Jonah Hill.

In what alternate universe is he funny? It's not because he's fat: there have been plenty of fat, funny guys. John Goodman. John Candy. Oliver Hardy. James Gandolfini (well, it was funny when he whacked Ralphie). Kevin James. Chris Farley. John Belushi.

I'm not going for the fat jokes. First, they're too easy. Second, I could stand to lose a few myself. And third, he's not fat anymore.

Well, he's not that fat.

He's still as grotesquely out of proportion as he was, only in a different way. Look at his upper torso. That tucked in shirt and jacket isn't fooling anyone. He's still plenty wide, only now he has thinner legs that presumably don't chafe nearly as much when he makes his midnight runs to the refrigerator (alright, maybe one fat joke).

Let's put it this way. I still wouldn't want to try to catching him when he flies over the bar and out of the coaster at Magic Mountain.

With the vibe he puts out, he needs to come out with a line of men's cologne.

Off-putting. By Jonah.

It wouldn't sell. No one wants to smell like a bad actor.

The good news is that people are already tired of how bad and unfunny he is. Even though there's less of him to see, a few more movies like Cyrus and Funny People and we'll be seeing a lot less of him.

Pretty soon he'll be doing more voice over work than on camera, just like his pal Seth Rogen.

Ooops. May have just spilled the beans on the next installment.