the slack daily

How (Not) to Make It In Hollywood

I received this email yesterday:

I responded:

He replied:

The point:                    ------------------>

Him:                               x

I realized I had written about this a few years back. With a quick re-read, it all still pretty much rings true.

I bring you from the 2005 archives of theslack.com: So You Wanna Be in Showbiz?

Et Tu, When in Rome?

There's a little RomCom coming out called "When in Rome."  You probably know this from hanging out around the bus stop and wondering why Kristen Bell is chewing on her finger "seductively" (who decided the finger chew was seductive? FREUD HAS GONE TOO FAR, PEOPLE) while Josh Duhamel lurks over her, deciding apparently whether to date her or serve her for dinner.

In the grand tradition of Commedia Macchina Del Pagliacci, Big People + Little Car = Nonstop Laughs.

I imagined that this movie would deliver exactly what they've promised. 

OR WOULD THEY?

Tonight! BetheMarriage LIVE (On Ice)

Will and I are back with an all-new show tonight at 5pm PST (8pm EST.) You can watch & participate in the chat on the show page or just check it out below!

And that very wrong thing is: DID MISS PIGGY HAVE A FACELIFT?

Last night, accepting a Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay* for Up In the Air, Dave Grohl Jason Reitman said the reason that he writes women so well is thanks to his lovely wife,

Alas, I am married to a man. So I would have to get a divorce, change teams and secure the right to legally marry so that one day, I, too, can write rich, multifaceted female characters.

Dear Hollywood,

A good writer should be able to write anything. However, there's an easy way to improve the landscape of female characters in Hollywood, and writing in Hollywood in general.

Here's a hint: hire someone sans penis.

C'mon, just try it. Tina Fey is not a fluke.

Big love,

Nina Bargiel

My Golden Globes LiveTweet starts here (at the bottom.) Some of my personal favorites:

 

 

 

You can follow me on Twitter here.

*An interesting tidbit over writing credits for Up in the Air, here.

As many of you know, Will and I got married at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on May 10, 2007. The wedding photographer came with the wedding bundle and did a great job. Well, mostly.

HOLY PHOTOSHOP, BATMAN!

The Mandalay Bay (or the adjoining THEhotel) is hands-down my favorite place to stay in Las Vegas. Maybe the Mandalay Bay secretly knew this, because I received an email yesterday that had the subject line You Have a Friend with Benefits at the Mandalay Bay.

Now, every time I've stayed at the Mandalay Bay, it's been with a boyfriend (then fiance, then husband.) So I think I'd remember if I had a "Friend with Benefits" lurking in a cabana by the Lazy River.

I investigated further.

Aha, the HOTEL ITSELF is the "Friend with Benefits"

So I'm being hit on by a hotel. This would mean a lot more if I was an Objectophile.

You can follow Mandalay Bay for deals on Twitter.

Note: I was not paid for this post. I just like the Mandalay Bay and being hit on by inanimate objects. However, if the Mandalay Bay would like to offer Will and I complimentary stay, who am I to say no? I probably won't take photos of me making out with the building.

When I was in the 7th grade, SlackMom took me to have my colors done.  

We drove from one white middle-class suburb to another white middle-class suburb, where rows upon rows of beige houses were set back onto green lawns in a never-ending maze of cul-de-sacs. I sat someone's kitchen table while she explained that I was a "winter."

Yes, I know that there's been a horrific earthquake in Haiti (Partners in Health is an organization that has been successfully working in Haiti under impoverished conditions for years and are putting up medical tents to deal with injured survivors) and children don't have clean drinking water all over the globe, but this was the suburbs in 1983. Your colors (and your perm and who was going to ask you "out" even though my parents strictly forbade any type of dating in Junior High) were LANDMARK ISSUES.

I can't find a scanned photo of me in junior high, so imagine this photo, but, y'know, LESS COOL.

It's this sort of early childhood education that puts me ahead of the rest of my class, because now I don't have to ask what color labial lipstick Genital Cosmetic Colorant to purchase. I'm clearly a Bettie!

Dear Women,

Your vadge is fine.  No, really. Have you ever seen a flaccid penis? I mean, C'MON.

Love,

the slackmistress

(Please print out and place on your mirror if needed.)

You'd think that after nearly three years of marriage, I'd know everything that needed knowing about my husband. But apparently he has deep dark secrets, one of which I discovered last Saturday night on our show*. Apparently, he's made a ham. Whether it was worth a Ham Party (like a Lisa Jane Persky-style ham) or was sans hamfare, I'll never know. It's a ham, lost to the ages.

Or so I thought.

In 2006, there was an article in Wired Magazine about a robot in Japan that was gastronomically inclined. Simply put, he could identify different types of food. When a cameraman put his hand in the robot's mouth, the robot identified it...as bacon.

We all know Will likes robots.

Now we know that Will makes Secret Ham.

It's nice to know that one of us is preparing for the robot apocalypse.

Gort protects the booze at the Detective Agency, but soon, we'll be working for him.

*BetheMarriage LIVE! (On Ice!) is back on Saturday nights at a NEW TIME! 5pm PST/8pm EST

...is the alternate name of our show, according to my husband:

Remember the weekly chat show that Slackmistress and I used to do on Saturdays? You remember…the one where we told stories and occasionally sang songs. It’s called Be The Marriage (except in Japan where it’s called Man in Hat vs. Girl with Big Boobs) and it went away at the end of last year due to scheduling issues and a few holidays.  Well, it’s coming back again!

We quietly restarted our show last Saturday at a new time, 8:00 PM Eastern Time, 5:00 PM Pacific (you can do the math on the other time zones). We’ll be back this Saturday night at the same new time so join us. You can tune in live or watch archived episodes here.

You can also find some background info on what we do here.  We’ll see you on Saturday.

This post

1. Is self-absorbed
2. Mentions boobs
3. Talks about my husband

TRIFECTA!

You can continue to ask me anonymous questions of the insulting and non-insulting variety here.

If you'd like to witness how much more self-absorbent I am over the leading brand, swing by BetheMarriage LIVE! (On Ice!) tomorrow at 5pm PST/8pm EST on UStream!

Over the weekend, I started to map out my writing goals for 2010.

Last year's were derailed, but they were derailed by something known in the business as "a job." Although I did ghostwrite two books, create an entire online universe that I maintained for months as well as a blog and online presence for another show. So it's not like I was home picking my nose.

Anyway, hopefully this "job" will return, but now that I recall what "jobs" of their kind entail, I'm ready to attack my problem* in a calculated fashion.

When I'm working on a project, I don't generally let the universe know the steps I'm taking. Some writers like to talk about their projects, working them out in front of a studio audience. I've never done that, unless it's a HIYOUWONTHEARFROMMEFORABITBECAUSEIHAFTAGETTHISDONE and then I disappear to, y'know, get it done.

On occasion I find it useful to take a class to finish a project. My first screenplay was completed in Writers' Boot Camp back in 2003, and as I look down the road to finish my second (as well as multiple TV specs and a novel, oh my!) I was considering going back.

In a bizarre twist of fate, I received an email from them in the last weeks of 2009. It turns out that I can still log into the site as an alumna, and while my password was emailed to immediately, I didn't log into the site until today.

My correspondence from my 2003 class is sitting in my inbox, just where i left it. I scanned the subject lines and clicked on an email labeled "HAVING PROBLEMS" where a classmate was worried that they didn't understand the assignment as given. One of the answers was as follows:

Personally, I wouldn't get too worked up about it. My guess is that this is simply to clarify what it is that makes our project unique rather than something that has to wholly make sense at this juncture.

From my experience in the writing world, I've found that many writers fall back on stock experiences and canned characters that leave a "been there, done that" taste in my mouth.

Even if one has a stock sitation or canned character, it's how you as the writer interpret their world that makes them unique. Fr'example, I saw Kissing Jessica Stein last night (ah, cable!). Her mom seemed like the "Stock Jewish Mom Character" and was written that way through out most of the movie until she let on that she knew Jessica was having a lesbian affair and that it was okay. But she still did it in the "Stock Jewish Mom Character" way. So the character you've seen a billion times, the reaction that you're not expecting that colors it in a whole new way. That's what I'd consider a character conceit.

If you were approaching a TV script, then I'd look for story conceits, simply because you're given a cast of characters that you already have to work with. Even the "Same Old Stories" can get a new breath of life when they're being inhabited by different sets of characters.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for, or even remotely helpful. My only advice is not to get so wrapped up in the nomeclature that you become paralyzed and what's "right" and "wrong." It's just an exercise to help you focus. At least, that's how I'm approaching it.

That's good advice, I though. I scrolled down to see who had written it, wondering what this person had been doing for the last seven years.

Cheers,
Nina 

Okay, so we all don't  get wiser with age. But I'm off to try.

*This is a good kind of problem. Like too much candy.

THERE IS SOMETHING VERY WRONG WITH THIS.

And that very wrong thing is: DID MISS PIGGY HAVE A FACELIFT?

A Girl Can Dream...

Last night, accepting a Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay* for Up In the Air, Dave Grohl Jason Reitman said the reason that he writes women so well is thanks to his lovely wife,

Alas, I am married to a man. So I would have to get a divorce, change teams and secure the right to legally marry so that one day, I, too, can write rich, multifaceted female characters.

Dear Hollywood,

A good writer should be able to write anything. However, there's an easy way to improve the landscape of female characters in Hollywood, and writing in Hollywood in general.

Here's a hint: hire someone sans penis.

C'mon, just try it. Tina Fey is not a fluke.

Big love,

Nina Bargiel

My Golden Globes LiveTweet starts here (at the bottom.) Some of my personal favorites:

 

 

 

You can follow me on Twitter here.

*An interesting tidbit over writing credits for Up in the Air, here.

This Would Mean More If I Was an Objectophile

As many of you know, Will and I got married at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on May 10, 2007. The wedding photographer came with the wedding bundle and did a great job. Well, mostly.

HOLY PHOTOSHOP, BATMAN!

The Mandalay Bay (or the adjoining THEhotel) is hands-down my favorite place to stay in Las Vegas. Maybe the Mandalay Bay secretly knew this, because I received an email yesterday that had the subject line You Have a Friend with Benefits at the Mandalay Bay.

Now, every time I've stayed at the Mandalay Bay, it's been with a boyfriend (then fiance, then husband.) So I think I'd remember if I had a "Friend with Benefits" lurking in a cabana by the Lazy River.

I investigated further.

Aha, the HOTEL ITSELF is the "Friend with Benefits"

So I'm being hit on by a hotel. This would mean a lot more if I was an Objectophile.

You can follow Mandalay Bay for deals on Twitter.

Note: I was not paid for this post. I just like the Mandalay Bay and being hit on by inanimate objects. However, if the Mandalay Bay would like to offer Will and I complimentary stay, who am I to say no? I probably won't take photos of me making out with the building.

What Color is Your Ladychute?

When I was in the 7th grade, SlackMom took me to have my colors done.  

We drove from one white middle-class suburb to another white middle-class suburb, where rows upon rows of beige houses were set back onto green lawns in a never-ending maze of cul-de-sacs. I sat someone's kitchen table while she explained that I was a "winter."

Yes, I know that there's been a horrific earthquake in Haiti (Partners in Health is an organization that has been successfully working in Haiti under impoverished conditions for years and are putting up medical tents to deal with injured survivors) and children don't have clean drinking water all over the globe, but this was the suburbs in 1983. Your colors (and your perm and who was going to ask you "out" even though my parents strictly forbade any type of dating in Junior High) were LANDMARK ISSUES.

I can't find a scanned photo of me in junior high, so imagine this photo, but, y'know, LESS COOL.

It's this sort of early childhood education that puts me ahead of the rest of my class, because now I don't have to ask what color labial lipstick Genital Cosmetic Colorant to purchase. I'm clearly a Bettie!

Dear Women,

Your vadge is fine.  No, really. Have you ever seen a flaccid penis? I mean, C'MON.

Love,

the slackmistress

(Please print out and place on your mirror if needed.)

Some Husbands Play Golf; Mine Prepares for the Robot Apocalpyse.

You'd think that after nearly three years of marriage, I'd know everything that needed knowing about my husband. But apparently he has deep dark secrets, one of which I discovered last Saturday night on our show*. Apparently, he's made a ham. Whether it was worth a Ham Party (like a Lisa Jane Persky-style ham) or was sans hamfare, I'll never know. It's a ham, lost to the ages.

Or so I thought.

In 2006, there was an article in Wired Magazine about a robot in Japan that was gastronomically inclined. Simply put, he could identify different types of food. When a cameraman put his hand in the robot's mouth, the robot identified it...as bacon.

We all know Will likes robots.

Now we know that Will makes Secret Ham.

It's nice to know that one of us is preparing for the robot apocalypse.

Gort protects the booze at the Detective Agency, but soon, we'll be working for him.

*BetheMarriage LIVE! (On Ice!) is back on Saturday nights at a NEW TIME! 5pm PST/8pm EST

MAN IN HAT vs. GIRL WITH BIG BOOBS...

...is the alternate name of our show, according to my husband:

Remember the weekly chat show that Slackmistress and I used to do on Saturdays? You remember…the one where we told stories and occasionally sang songs. It’s called Be The Marriage (except in Japan where it’s called Man in Hat vs. Girl with Big Boobs) and it went away at the end of last year due to scheduling issues and a few holidays.  Well, it’s coming back again!

We quietly restarted our show last Saturday at a new time, 8:00 PM Eastern Time, 5:00 PM Pacific (you can do the math on the other time zones). We’ll be back this Saturday night at the same new time so join us. You can tune in live or watch archived episodes here.

You can also find some background info on what we do here.  We’ll see you on Saturday.

This post

1. Is self-absorbed
2. Mentions boobs
3. Talks about my husband

TRIFECTA!

You can continue to ask me anonymous questions of the insulting and non-insulting variety here.

If you'd like to witness how much more self-absorbent I am over the leading brand, swing by BetheMarriage LIVE! (On Ice!) tomorrow at 5pm PST/8pm EST on UStream!

HAVING PROBLEMS

Over the weekend, I started to map out my writing goals for 2010.

Last year's were derailed, but they were derailed by something known in the business as "a job." Although I did ghostwrite two books, create an entire online universe that I maintained for months as well as a blog and online presence for another show. So it's not like I was home picking my nose.

Anyway, hopefully this "job" will return, but now that I recall what "jobs" of their kind entail, I'm ready to attack my problem* in a calculated fashion.

When I'm working on a project, I don't generally let the universe know the steps I'm taking. Some writers like to talk about their projects, working them out in front of a studio audience. I've never done that, unless it's a HIYOUWONTHEARFROMMEFORABITBECAUSEIHAFTAGETTHISDONE and then I disappear to, y'know, get it done.

On occasion I find it useful to take a class to finish a project. My first screenplay was completed in Writers' Boot Camp back in 2003, and as I look down the road to finish my second (as well as multiple TV specs and a novel, oh my!) I was considering going back.

In a bizarre twist of fate, I received an email from them in the last weeks of 2009. It turns out that I can still log into the site as an alumna, and while my password was emailed to immediately, I didn't log into the site until today.

My correspondence from my 2003 class is sitting in my inbox, just where i left it. I scanned the subject lines and clicked on an email labeled "HAVING PROBLEMS" where a classmate was worried that they didn't understand the assignment as given. One of the answers was as follows:

Personally, I wouldn't get too worked up about it. My guess is that this is simply to clarify what it is that makes our project unique rather than something that has to wholly make sense at this juncture.

From my experience in the writing world, I've found that many writers fall back on stock experiences and canned characters that leave a "been there, done that" taste in my mouth.

Even if one has a stock sitation or canned character, it's how you as the writer interpret their world that makes them unique. Fr'example, I saw Kissing Jessica Stein last night (ah, cable!). Her mom seemed like the "Stock Jewish Mom Character" and was written that way through out most of the movie until she let on that she knew Jessica was having a lesbian affair and that it was okay. But she still did it in the "Stock Jewish Mom Character" way. So the character you've seen a billion times, the reaction that you're not expecting that colors it in a whole new way. That's what I'd consider a character conceit.

If you were approaching a TV script, then I'd look for story conceits, simply because you're given a cast of characters that you already have to work with. Even the "Same Old Stories" can get a new breath of life when they're being inhabited by different sets of characters.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for, or even remotely helpful. My only advice is not to get so wrapped up in the nomeclature that you become paralyzed and what's "right" and "wrong." It's just an exercise to help you focus. At least, that's how I'm approaching it.

That's good advice, I though. I scrolled down to see who had written it, wondering what this person had been doing for the last seven years.

Cheers,
Nina 

Okay, so we all don't  get wiser with age. But I'm off to try.

*This is a good kind of problem. Like too much candy.