Odds, Ends

Cancer "didn't beat" Patrick Swayze, wife Lisa says

Swayze, nearby but invisible, helplessly cries "But it did! How can I make her see!"

Anna Nicole Smith hearing nears end

If convicted, Nicole Smith to be exhumed and reinterred in state-controlled cemetary.

Rapper releases video directed by Heath Ledger

No, not Tupac. Why would you even THINK that?

Jackson collaborators seek debt payments

They didn't approach him while he was alive, for fear he would rough 'em up.

Happy Halloween - Top-Earning Dead Celebrities

Forbes compiles an annual list of the dead who walk, if by "walk" you mean earn more money dead than you'll make in your lifetime. It's a top 13 instead of top 10, for obvious reasons.

At #13, Andy Warhol! Pulling down $6 million, it's proof that the difference between Andy alive and Andy dead is pretty hard to discern.

Jimi Hendrix comes in next with $8 million. #11 is Aaron Spelling also at 8 bills, no doubt earning more this year because of the revivals of Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place. Michael Crichton comes in 10th place with $9 million. As soon as he drops below a certain level, they will clone him.

Einstein dead is worth $10 million. Dr Seuss, $15 million. Says something, doesn't it? John Lennon ties with Seuss coming in at #7.

Charles Shultz dead is worth $35 million... now that's good grief!

Top five time, kiddies! J.R.R. Tolkien brought in $50 million this last year, even without any new movies. Perennial dead wage-slave Elvis made $55 million, but he's facing stiff competition from newcomer Michael Jackson, who took the #3 slot with $90 million. I bet there are parts of the original Michael somewhere that are still alive, which would disqualify him. I think. The rules are a little hazy on this.

Speaking of hazy rules, Forbes says Rogers & Hammerstein is #2 on the chart with $235 million. What's up with that? What about money earned by Rogers when he wrote with Hart? I'm filing a protest.

The top o' the chart, the richest dead guy of the year, taking it with him... Yves St. Laurent! $350,000,000 kids! He's new to the top 13, apparently due to an especially lucrative estate sale. Doesn't seem fair to me. Still, I don't make the rules, I just report the results. You got a problem with it, talk to the dead guys. And note the gender inequality... its not likely to get better until Oprah dies, and that's gonna be a long time comin'.

...hide the deadly (orange) tarantula

I know it has nothing to do with showbiz, but the darn things were so delicious.

Checking Back With Jay

Following up on the Jay Leno Show, which is that thing on NBC five nights a week that you ignore while you're brushing your teeth. Nothing too surprising. Variety examined the effect that Leno is having on the whole NBC schedule:

Though decidedly unpopular with many in TV's creative community, NBC's bet on "Leno" could be easily chalked up as the best offense being a good defense: Leno posed a threat to NBC if he left for another network, while keeping him in a cost-efficient program freed funds for NBC to rebuild its scripted slate.

In contrast, the axing of cop drama "Southland" appears to be a more overt retreat. NBC pulled the plug on the John Wells Prods. drama amid circumstances that leave many observers scratching their heads.

For starters, "Southland" was the best-reviewed and highest-rated freshman series in 2008-09 on a network that has been starved for fresh hits.

Further, instead of keeping other networks from using an NBC-developed asset, as was the case with Leno, the axing invites rivals to take the product and run, as CBS did earlier this year with "Medium."

...Some observers have said NBC realized (perhaps better late than never) that "Southland" was too darkly themed to air at 9 p.m. ...But even if NBC were correct about "Southland" being too grim, the network still must contend with the perception of some producers who see the network as being at a nadir of creative vision. The network will still be a port in the recessionary storm for some new projects, but for creators that have their pick of outlets, NBC figures to be the port of last resort.

What's more...

Since the season kicked off Sept. 21, "Leno" has been holding about 75% of what NBC has averaged from 8 to 10 p.m., compared with holds of more than 90% for CBS and roughly 85% for ABC in the 10 o’clock hour.

This means that while ABC and CBS occasionally deliver their strongest numbers at 10 p.m., NBC is consistently peaking earlier -- and those 8-10 p.m. numbers ain’t pretty. As the network stares down the barrel of another fourth-place finish this season, here’s a look at the early trickle-down effect of "The Leno Show" on other programming:

-- NBC’s "Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien," which had consistently been beating CBS’ "Late Show With David Letterman" in adults 18-49 over the summer, lost during premiere week -- "Late Show’s" first weekly triumph over original "Tonight" segs since 2005.

A primary reason for the shift is that CBS is now much stronger than NBC at 10 p.m. among the coveted 18-49 crowd (3.4 to 1.9 in rating), helping funnel more viewers to Letterman. In the summer, by comparison, CBS held a much smaller edge.

Of course, you still can't deny that NBC is filling 5 hours of primetime a week for peanuts. It's no disaster. Then again, not all ships go down like the Titanic. Some just rust prematurely and are decomissioned.

What Austin is Like, Vol. 1

I was going to post this picture first:


With the caption "Look what I won! And my wife won one too!" Decided it might be a tad confusing.

Those Grammy awards we're pretending we won are actually the belong to my friend David E. Miller, bass player for Texas Swing band Asleep At The Wheel, old car enthusiast (he has a '55 Panel truck) and owner of Ebony, The World's Best Dog. These two and two more, in fact.

Austin is the music capital of the Southwest, a modest-sized city with more live venues then I have ever seen anywhere. Music is a thriving industry there as well-- they don't host South by Southwest there for nothin'. It's almost unsurprising that the only person I know in Austin has four Grammys.

So yeah-- in a corner of David's lovely, modest Suburban home, atop the piano, sit these four gold gramophones. It's all as casual as can be. Gotta admire that.

I guess this is a big thanks to David for showing us around South Austin Monday and letting us handle his Grammys, his lovely wife Sherry for her hospitality, and Ebony for... Well, for being the World's Best Dog.

Back From the 2009 AFF

Good GOD, I had better post something!

Yeah, I'm back from Austin, with many, many stories to tell and pictures to show. I'll start unspooling them as soon as the crushing amount of work I blew off in order to go to Austin eases up a bit. And my epic hangover dies down.

It was an amazing weekend.

Oh hell, I'll give you one right now as a preview. In the Driskill Hotel, the heart of the Screenwriter's convention, I was taking a tiny elevator to an out-of-the-way meeting room for a seminar on agents with Gayla ("no, I am not reading scripts") Nethercott. There were three of us in there, then it stopped, and then there were eight of us, shoulder-to-shoulder, all badged attendees. Everyone was dead quiet, as often happens in elevators.

I had little reason to be quiet. 24 hours previous, The screenplay I co-wrote won it's category, beating about 675 others. I was in a darn good mood. So I counted everyone and dropped down to my best Don LaFontaine: "Eight screenwriters-- riding a tiny elevator... heading to a room nobody has ever heard of..."

Big laughs. Some guy looked up at me and said, perhaps seriously, "Hey, I'm going to use that idea!"

I replied "You only have a movie if it ends... in... the... same... elevator!"

I get the feeling that somewhere out there (alright, probably in LA) seven laptops are blazin' away right now.

More to come.

One of The First Lanterns I Ever Saw

Conal Cochran: From an ancient, sacrificial circle... Stonehenge. [Shows Chaliss the rock] Ha ha. We had a TIME getting it here. You wouldn't believe how we did it.

- Halloween III, Season of the Witch

And you know what? He never explains how.