Poster child

A couple days ago, my screenwriter friend Cameron Young put up a Facebook post about a great tagline he'd seen for CrossFit training (the line was "It's awful").

Since Cameron writes movies, it got me thinking about the delicate art of movie tag lines. The ones you see on one-sheets that sum up the essence of the picture in a few well-chosen words. Having worked at an entertainment agency where I had to do just that, I appreciate how difficult it really is.

One I wrote that I liked was for the Nic Cage movie Snake Eyes that took place in Atlantic City. The line was "All bets are off." It's not the line they finally went with. What're you gonna do?

Anyway, I know whenever anyone opens the discussion of movie posters, the one for the original Alien showing the egg with the line "In space no one can hear you scream." is always a top contender. No argument here, it's definitely one of the greats. Yet for me, it's the equivalent of hearing a joke, and instead of laughing, nodding my head and saying, "Oh, that's very funny." I appreciate the cleverness and eeriness of it, but it just doesn't get me on a gut level like some others do.

I usually find myself gravitating to the funny, punny and plain stupid. So here are a few lines I had a laugh out loud reaction to (as I did the CrossFit line).

I'd also like to know which movie poster lines you, dear reader, think are funny, clever or just get to you in some way. Leave them in the comments, and I'll do another post with the ones that get the most votes.

For me, funny lines make me feel good. Which makes me feel good about the movie. Then the movie makes me feel good. It's the marketing circle of life.

Compound interest

For reasons unknown, I seem to be a magnet for neighbors that are, shall we say, less than ideal. It wasn't always that way. When we first moved into our house, we had great neighbors - and great relationships with them - on both sides of us.

But time and circumstances change. Over the last sixteen years, the house to our left has sold twice, the house to our right five times.

I know what you're thinking - maybe it's us. Trust me, it's not.

I won't go into the all the gory details, but I'll go into a few of them. The neighbors to the left started their relationship by calling the police on us (when I politely asked one of their workers to take his equipment off my property), had their lawyer send us a letter telling us to stop harassing said workers, then served me to appear in small claims court because they didn't believe the property line was where I said it was, so they paid for a survey to find out.

SPOILER ALERT: It was exactly where I said it was. And they dropped the suit, which they were guaranteed to lose for any number of reasons.

Fast forward. The fence they built on their side of the line is great, and while no one's coming to either house for coffee, we now have a cordial smile-and-wave relationship with them.

The neighbors to the right bought the house, spent a year gutting it and redoing the yard and swimming pool. In the process, they cleared all the growth that had blocked our garage on that side, and built a cement deck and attached it to our garage wall. Which they also painted to match their house.

Needless to say, this didn't go over to well with us. We have since come to an agreement, which they've broken twice at last count. Let's just say nothing good comes of building on and painting someone else's property.

However everyone now agrees on the property line, and, with our tenuous agreement in place, we'll use the strategy of waiting them out.

All of this is to explain why I've become a huge fan of the compound way of living. You know, the Kennedy compound? The Bush compound? I'm all for it.

Sure, to some owning your own six-acre piece of oceanfront property with homes that house only friends and family may seem like a rich indulgence. But if you've lived with the neighbors we have, surrounding yourself with people you know and trust seems like, oh, what's the word, oh yes - heaven.

So I'll continue to invest heavily in stocks, bonds and lotto - mostly lotto - and hope that I hit it big one day. Big enough to either buy and build my own compound, or start snapping up the homes on my block as they go up for sale.

Like I pray every day the one on my right will soon.

The other fugitive

Before Harrison Ford brought his own brand of "I am not Han Solo" to the role of Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive, it had been a long-running, successful television series ("A Quinn Martin production") starring David Janssen.

I was a big fan of Janssen. He was a throwback to a time of leading men and movie stars. Very Humphrey Bogart in his approach, Janssen was the strong, silent, man of few words.

While it's not fair to compare, which I'm going to do, I always felt he was a more believable Richard Kimble than Ford was. What helped was that unlike the movie, the series wasn't burdened by a subplot involving faked samples for a new pharmaceutical drug - a distraction I never felt Kimble would be going after when his life was on the line. Janssen's portrayal was a pure story of a man on the run, trying to find his wife's real killer, and the adventures and experiences he had in the process.

At the time, the final two-part episode was the highest watched television show in history. I like to think part of the reason was because the building that stood in for the courthouse in the final episode was my junior high school auditorium (see the clip).

A few years after The Fugitive, Janssen starred in another successful show, Harry O, playing a private investigator working in San Diego. He brought many of the same character qualities to that part, and even though it didn't have the longevity or mythology of The Fugitive, I enjoyed it too.

Janssen was only 48 when he died of a heart attack in 1980. I'll miss seeing the performances he would've given.

Can we talk?

It's easy to take cheap shots at Joan Rivers. What with all the plastic surgeries that've gone both right and wrong, the raspy voice, the machine gun delivery of her material and the tacky red carpet shows, she practically invites it.

Plus she's been known to take a few cheap shots of her own (if you don't believe me, Google "Elizabeth Taylor fat jokes Joan Rivers"). All of that makes it easy to forget what Joan Rivers really is.

A pioneer woman.

Without her, there's no Sarah Silverman, Roseanne, Kathy Griffin or dozens of other female comics. Women like her, along with Phyllis Diller, broke through a comedy barrier by doing three things. Having great material, persistence and ignoring the fact there was a barrier at all.

There's no doubt that she's a polarizing figure. Her jokes seem to have gotten more pointed as she's gotten older. Or maybe she just continues to prove what a genuinely unfrightened comedian she really is.

And if she goes off the rails or crosses the line occasionally, she's earned the right to be forgiven for it.

Yesterday, during a routine procedure on her vocal chords, she stopped breathing and was rushed to an ER a mile away. On the way she went into full cardiac arrest, but the EMT's were able to bring her back. As of this writing, she's in serious but stable condition, and in a medically induced coma.

Love her or hate her, Joan Rivers legacy is every comedian who came after her, every woman (and man) she inspired to stand up at a mic and make people laugh.

She's also, like Don Rickles, the last of a breed of comedian from the golden age.

The night before her surgery scare, she joked to an audience, "I'm 81. I could go at any minute."

Let's hope not.

Get back

© Universal Pictures

I overheard a conversation, well, okay, I was eavesdropping on this conversation between a couple of businessmen-at-lunch-wearing-yellow-power-ties today. I feel sorry for anyone who has to wear a starched shirt and a tie on a 93 degree day.

But then I remembered that this is America damn it, and we all can make our own choices. Then I didn't feel sorry anymore. I just felt sad for their poor weather-related fashion choices.

Anyway, the part of their chat that caught my ear was when one of them said, "If I could go back twenty years I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't want to live through those years again."

It struck me as strange, because if you tell me I can go back twenty years, I'm saying, "What time do we leave?"

Of course the one caveat I have is that whole "If I knew then what I know now..." thing. I'd have to be able to take back everything I've learned in the back twenty.

For starters, Apple stock at 1994 prices. And lots of it.

Same for homes. And lots of 'em.

I'd lock up long-term CD bank accounts for as many years as I could.

I'd eat better and exercise more (well, it sounds good).

I'd buy up that run down warehouse district, and develop it. If you gentrify it they will come.

Finally, I'd be nicer to the people I knew I was going to lose. I'd make a point of spending more time with them. I'd make their lives easier in any way I could, knowing full well what the road ahead held for them. I'd be less cynical around them, despite how often it's required - they don't need the negativity. I'd steer them towards the personal habits and medical studies that might help prolong their lives, if only for a short while.

And I'd write down all my memories of them. The little turns of phrase, or crooked smiles or knowing looks exchanged. It would be a detailed journal that would keep them vividly alive for me, even after they'd departed twenty years on.

I'd also love them more. I'd be demonstrative and free with it. I'd let them know as often as I could. And when they looked at me with that "Who the hell are you?" expression, and asked why the love fest, I'd tell them the one bit of wisdom that I brought back with me from the future.

Life's too short.

The best offense

There's a line of thought in advertising that creative work isn't really effective unless it makes someone mad. By that standard, I'm living a very effective life.

The problem with writing a blog, posting snarky little quips on Facebook and Twitter, and just generally mouthing off without a filter is that you're bound to offend someone. Still, that's no reason to quit doing it. In fact, just the opposite.

It's always teenage fun seeing how far you can push things. And getting a rise out of people, well, that's just icing on the cake. It's more than that - it's encouraging and enabling.

I try at all times to delineate between being a jerk and being funny, although I'm sure there's a long line of people who will vouch that I wouldn't know the difference if it hit me in the head.

Also something there's a long line for.

Anyway, let me apologize in advance for any future posts, comments, off-the-cuff remarks or unfiltered punchlines I blurt out.

Know that going forward, I'll try to be more considerate, and restrain from saying or doing things that offend your delicate sensibilities.

Whiner.

Here come da judge

I don't expect nor would I want everyone to agree with me on everything. But it does strike me odd when people disagree with me over nothing.

Here's the thing about social media: You have to be willing to suffer the slings and arrows of people who don't like what you're saying, posting or advocating.

Everyone has an opinion. And we know what opinions are like.

Nevertheless, I understand having a forum where everyone sees what you post is the price of admission for being able to post it. I get it.

I've never been thin skinned. After all, I'm in advertising. I have a superhuman tolerance for rejection of things I think are funny.

Plus I'm all over the interwebs with my little musings, things that strike me funny just because they do. Once in awhile they mean something more than face value. But most of the time they don't.

Yet for some reason, some people who should know better (was that a judgement? Sorry, you know how I hate that) make the decision to run their blood pressure up forty points, start calling me names and get all medieval on my ass for posting meaningless things.

Meaningless to me anyway.

The thing about it is, there's no hidden agenda to postings that just strike my funny bone. No political statement being made. Not even a lot to get angry about (another judgement, sorry about that).

But like ghosts, UFOs and truth on FOX News, sometimes people see things that aren't there. They start frothing at the mouth, hurling judgments about me, my work, my humor or my political leanings (BTW, I'm for whichever party likes bacon) based on something I just thought was funny.

They attach meaning where there is none.

Whatever. If you believe you're the arbiter of my taste, capabilities and standards, and if you see some deeper message in the crystals and think you're fighting the good fight by judging my talent, intellect, sensibilities and unloading on me with lots of exclamation points, have at it.

Or even better, be a little discerning, realize it's not worth the effort, say "There he goes again" to yourself, roll your eyes and move on.

It's not that I don't stand by what I post. I do. I stand by it and laugh.