Posted 10:21 AM by Blah blah

More: Magazine for Women Aged 40 to 60

From SALTY, the supermodel blog (in Paris):

"Over 40s shunned by women's magazines"
By Mary Stevens, The Press Gazette

Women in their 40s and 50s have been abandoned by magazines which celebrate youth and fertility rather than experience, according to US publisher Myrna Blyth.

The lifestyle of women in this age group, which is a rapidly growing demographic across the world, has changed dramatically in the past few decades, but most magazines on the market alienate the Baby Boomer generation, Blyth told delegates at the Worldwide Magazine Marketplace conference.

“This is an age group that remembers the way life used to be for women in their 40s and 50s and realises that life is so much better today,” she said.

Blyth is the editorial director of Meredith Corporation’s New York magazines and four years ago she launched More, the title for women aged 40 to 60. More has doubled in circulation and revenues since its launch and now sells 850,000 copies a month.

Publishing ventures which have tried to cater for this market in the UK, such as Eve Pollard’s Aura, and Chic, have been unsuccessful, as have previous magazines in the US, such as Mirabella and Lears.

Part of the reason More has succeeded, said Blyth, is because it is celebratory. It doesn’t feature models who are younger than 40. “Part of what we wanted to say is that it is not about looking young, it is about looking good, because that is how women of this age feel. It is not about wanting to be younger, it is about wanting to enjoy life at this stage, and it is a very positive stage.”

More published pictures of Jamie Lee Curtis, the 43-year-old Hollywood actress, without any make-up, hair-styling or air-brushing. The story and pictures were picked up by media all over the world.

Blyth said that women were no longer valued only for youth and beauty. “And that is one of the great differences today. For the first time, women are valued for experience---really the first time in the history of the world.”

She denied that women stayed loyal to magazines they had read when they were younger. “Marketing used to say ‘get a consumer when she is young because she’ll stay loyal to her brand.’ Well, we always say this is the most divorced generation in history. They can change their husband---they can change their brand.”

The magazine covers health, beauty, relationships and travel. Blyth said: “One thing that is so interesting about this age group in the States---it’s the largest demographic and it is the richest demographic. That has never really happened before. This is a rare combination.”

Posted 4:24 AM by Blah blah

TV: Where the Content Creator is Rich

Hollywood's Idea Moguls, complete article from Forbes (Sept. 21, 1998):

NEW YORK - Kevin Williamson, Hollywood's hottest writer-producer of the moment, was in mid-banter when an aide popped into his office. Bob Weinstein, the powerful cochairman of Walt Disney's Miramax Films, was on the phone.

"Does he know I'm here?" Williamson asked. "Good. Tell him I'll call back as soon as you find me."

Why didn't this 33-year-old phenomenon drop everything for a studio mogul? He didn't need to. He already has Weinstein's signature on a three-year, $35 million guaranteed development deal.

Work-for-hire scriptwriter is not his job description anymore -- he's one of the powerful new breed of Hollywood talent -- a "hyphenate," as in "writer hyphen producer." In the last two years, Williamson, a onetime high school loner, has taken Hollywood by storm with a very marketable literary gimmick: self-absorbed youngsters who speak in adult psychobabble. Since 1996, when his Scream, a slapstick take on teen slasher flicks, debuted, the four movies he's written, produced, directed or just been adviser for have collectively grossed more than $500 million at the box office. Three more are in the works. Before he turns 40 Williamson will have earned more than $100 million from a 10% cut of his movie creations.

But that's not the real pot of gold. His first TV series, Dawson's Creek, is now a signature show on Time Warner's hot WB network. And before the love-tossed youngsters of that serial have moved on to adulthood, Williamson will have other fare aimed at the highly desired 18-to-34-year-old audience.

Says he, eyeing a television sitcom project: "You can make so much more money in television; it dwarfs the movie business."

He's not boasting. Nor is he miscalculating. Take a look at the Forbes Top 40 this year. Half of the top ten names on the list are creators or stars of television shows. Fifteen of the 40 are paying for their beach houses with television riches. Ten years ago there were five.

In media -- and in the general economy -- the idea is king. In films -- and even more so in television -- where increased competition has been furiously bidding up the cost of hits, content sells. Williamson himself will likely vault into the top ten in a year or two. Not bad for the son of a cash-strapped North Carolina commercial fisherman. Living in near-poverty in his teens, Williamson pounded the pavement in New York and Hollywood for acting jobs in his 20s. His first writing effort, a gory short tale of date rape and the injustice of being a teenage outsider, earned him an "F" in a high school English class. He still reads Mad magazine.

Today he's on location with the Dawson's Creek cast in the Carolinas, in the movie editing suites of Los Angeles, or in a bustling Hollywood office scribbling some new dialogue. His second hour-long series, Wasteland, premieres on ABC next year [and was cancelled January 2000]. And if the sitcom he's developing performs as well as the rest of his work, his 30% cut of receipts will be worth hundreds of millions. Sitcoms -- cheap to produce, easy to syndicate and easily digestible for impatient audiences -- are the mother lode of TV.

It's hardly high art, but in a country stocked with 37 million free-spending teens and people who just think like them, Williamson's creations are candy for television, where networks and advertisers have little appetite for anyone even remotely close to wrinkles.

These are indeed gilded days for TV's idea talent. Thank six national networks, 164 cable channels, 400 independent television stations and a digital future that promises an even greater fragmentation of the viewing audience.

In a way, it's just the concentrated payoff from an information economy, where distribution (in this case the studios and the networks) risks being commodified while the benefits of technology flow to those who own the content. That's why, down the food chain from the Microsofts and the AT&Ts, through the TCIs and newer delivery channels such as Yahoo!, big money is going looking for stuff to serve up to the world's waiting eyes and ears.

"All the networks are nothing but distribution vehicles," says Viacom Chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone. "Take away the hits and they lose money. People don't watch distribution."

Redstone would know. His Comedy Central joint venture with HBO was ailing until it started airing the hit cartoon South Park. Within a year ratings were up 30% and network subscriptions up by nine million. In the three seasons since Dawson's Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 7th Heaven began airing on the WB, ad revenue tripled to $300 million.

Losses will drop a third by next season.

Consider this: In just nine years as a property, the sitcom Seinfeld has netted close to $1.7 billion in profits. Cha-ching! The most profitable single piece of entertainment in history -- far more profitable than Cosby, a predecessor hit from the 1980s. More profitable than Jurassic Park. More profitable, even, than Titanic, the biggest-grossing movie of all time.

And where does all that booty go? Castle Rock Entertainment, the show's producer, and Columbia TriStar, the distributor, will share close to $1 billion. No one says the studios can't still be collection machines. But creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who took no financial risk at all on the show, will walk off with about $500 million total. And that's after earning more than $100 million in fees during nine seasons of network production. The rest goes to the various managers who helped form the show in its early days (see box, p. 209).

Now consider this: Since it aired Cosby in 1984, The Carsey-Werner Co., the only remaining TV production company not affiliated with a movie studio, may have earned more money from television than Steven Spielberg has from 14 years of blockbusters. If not more, it's a dead heat (see box, p. 211).

So who can blame the studios for lavishing the idea-bearers with millions? A decade ago a young writer would have to work for years on a hit show like Taxi, Cheers or Who's the Boss before being allowed to "run" a program. That was then. There are now close to 80 half-hour TV programs being produced in Hollywood every year. A decade ago there were fewer than 50.

As a result young writers with little experience have been winning a kind of insiders' jackpot: $3 million-a-year guarantees plus a cut of any potential profits from shows they have yet to think of. No wonder everybody in Los Angeles is supposedly working on a screenplay (see box, p. 244).

Television drives studio profits now more than ever. Just take a look at Warner Bros., the number one television producer in the country. As its movie business suffered a precipitous fall last year, the studio was chalking up profit gains of 10% from hit shows like Murphy Brown and The Rosie O'Donnell Show.

Executives at Warner Bros. didn't talk about it, but Rupert Murdoch did. Murdoch's Twentieth Century Fox TV studio spent more than $60 million chasing television writers in 1993 so it could fill its studios with people who just might have a hit like The Simpsons in their heads.

"We've been very aggressive about buying talent," Murdoch says. "When the money from the syndication comes in, it offsets the unpredictable risk of the movie business. We view talent as our partners."

Murdoch recently negotiated a deal with David E. Kelley (creator of Ally McBeal, The Practice and Chicago Hope) that will give the offbeat writer $7 million a year, plus half of syndication profits. He once gave 60% of profits to Steven Bochco, creator of Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue. Jim Brooks' Gracie Films got a 50% cut of The Simpsons, a deal that netted the company more than $100 million.

Viacom's Redstone crows about the hundreds of millions James Burrows' Frasier is bringing in today. Thanks to the sitcom and other properties like Star Trek and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, the value of his TV production arm has doubled since 1996 to $3.3 billion.

So it's no wonder that when the government allowed them to do so in 1995, the television networks quickly began striking deals to own the shows they air, instead of just collecting ad revenue for them. It was self-preservation.

Remember the ER deal at the end of last season? When the show's owner, Warner Bros., made it clear there was no shortage of interest from the other networks, NBC at gunpoint ponied up almost $300 million a season to keep it, close to eight times what it was paying before. The network, which owns no piece of it, will likely only break even on all of its future airings. If the ratings drop when star George Clooney leaves next year, it could end up losing a fortune.

No fretting among the creators, though. Before the show even hits syndication, executive producer John Wells, creator Michael Crichton and rights holder Steven Spielberg, who bought the original idea from Crichton, will split a reported $300 million in fees between them.

"Television used to be a cozy club of insiders, but now it's scorpions in a jar," says battle-weary Don Ohlmeyer, NBC's West Coast president, as he puffs heavily on an endless string of Marlboros.

"People have reported that NBC made a $200 million profit on Seinfeld last season. Well, we didn't. The truth of it is Jason Alexander [the actor who played George on the show for a $15 million annual fee] made more than we did."

Maybe that's why creative talent from the movie business is rushing to TV. CBS Television Chief Executive Leslie Moonves recently signed deals with producers Sydney Pollack, Mark Johnson and John Lee Hancock, and former Spielberg protgs Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall.

Imagine Entertainment, the production company of director Ron Howard, is set to air its first teen drama, Felicity, on the WB this year. Brad Grey, owner of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, says he expects to make about $8 million from the film The Wedding Singer, which grossed $116 million worldwide. But if his NBC sitcom Just Shoot Me holds up, his paycheck could be 30 times greater.

"ER opened a lot of eyes," says CBS Television President Moonves.

"Everyone saw that there is a lot of money to be made around here."

It's all happened rather suddenly. Stephen J. Cannell, one of Universal Studios' most prolific TV writers of the 1970s and 1980s, exemplifies the shift. He remembers getting $1 million a year plus a cut of the back end at his peak. His output: Adam 12, Baretta, and The Rockford Files.

The trouble was that in calculating the net, Universal was charging him for everything on the lot, including the caterers in the commissary and the tram drivers working the back lot tour. In eight years of service, he saw little more than his fee.

So in 1979 Cannell financed his own company with a $60 million line of credit and went on to produce 35 hour-long series, including The A-Team, Hunter and The Greatest American Hero. Suddenly the profits were real, but he was a little ahead of the boom and on the wrong side of the business. Cannell had no sitcoms to sell. In 1996 he sold out to New World Communications for $30 million, a modest windfall by current standards.

He's since decided that this market is too hot to let even his old shows languish in a vault. A rapidly expanding pay-TV market overseas has given life to libraries of hour-long dramas that historically had limited resale value. Earlier this year Cannell reacquired his library from News Corp., New World's parent, in exchange for an 8% distribution fee.

In August, a few days before flying off on a Westwind jet to his 150- foot yacht docked in the Mediterranean, Cannell signed a deal that brought him $5 million from a handful of European territories.

Before this gilded age of television, the creative talent was at least as good, but the opportunities for riches not nearly as great.

Norman Lear, Grant Tinker and a few other smart-minded writers were packaging intelligent comedies that spoke to a young and affluent audience that until then had been ignored by the networks. With only 3 networks to play off one another and about 50 independent stations vying for off-network syndication rights, All in the Family sold for about $400,000 an episode -- versus $6 million this year for Seinfeld, its second time around in syndication. Mary Tyler Moore, another of the golden comedies of the 1970s, generated just $120 million in syndication profit for Tinker's MTM Productions. (They didn't starve. When Lear sold his company in 1985, he and partner A. Jerrold Perenchio took home $500 million.)

But Hollywood can't necessarily celebrate today's riches as a demonstration of the creative mind as business model. What we're seeing now is not an entrepreneurial payoff so much as a windfall. Lear risked his own capital on All in the Family and the shows that followed. Today?

"There are no entrepreneurs left in this business," says Kenneth Ziffren, a partner at Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca & Fischer, an entertainment law firm. "What's entrepreneurial about taking a $5 million-a-year guarantee, plus profits?"

In fact, young writers are just waiting for lightning to strike. Matt Williams was the creator of the Roseanne show before being fired by the cantankerous star. Shortly after, Williams was hired by Walt Disney in a $10 million, three-year development deal. In nine years, his production company, the Wind Dancer Production Group, has had just one breakaway hit, Home Improvement. But with a 70% cut of the profits of the show, Wind Dancer has so far taken in $350 million.

The unabashed 47-year-old says the windfall is a boon to creativity: "I'm very responsible with other people's money, but at the end of the day, it ain't my money. That means I can afford to be a little bit bolder creatively." That's today's content tycoon: bold, brash and rich.

Posted 4:12 AM by Blah blah

Comedian (Jerry Seinfeld)

This week I ran to see Comedian, a documentary (not movie) about 18 months in the life of comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Made by the same guys who brought you Seinfeld's TV commercials for Visa, this film really inspired, intrigued, and entertained me. GO SEE IT!

Unless you've lived in a bedroom closet for the last 10 years, you've heard of Seinfeld. He created and starred in one of the most watched TV shows of the 1990s (nine seasons on NBC). At the height of his popularity, he walked away from the show, despite NBC's reported offer to pay him an unheard of $5 million per episode.

From Forbes (1998): "Consider this: In just nine years as a property, the sitcom Seinfeld has netted close to $1.7 billion in profits. Cha-ching! The most profitable single piece of entertainment in history---far more profitable than Cosby, a predecessor hit from the 1980s. More profitable than Jurassic Park. More profitable, even, than Titanic, the biggest-grossing movie of all time.

And where does all that booty go? Castle Rock Entertainment, the show's producer, and Columbia TriStar, the distributor, will share close to $1 billion. No one says the studios can't still be collection machines. But creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who took no financial risk at all on the show, will walk off with about $500 million total. And that's after earning more than $100 million in fees during nine seasons of network production. The rest goes to the various managers who helped form the show in its early days."

Seinfeld wanted to return to his standup comedy days as a struggling unknown performer. After giving a sold-out tour that was shown as an HBO special, he retired all of his old comedy material. He returned to the cramped, beer-filled comedy clubs in 1999 and only used jokes he had newly wrote. Comedian tells the tale of his painstaking attempts to create a new act, openingly showing his insecurities, mistakes, and great discipline behind the scenes. You see him talking shop with other masters, like Jay Leno, Chris Rock, Robert Klein, and his idol, Bill Cosby. It shows his kindly old manager, George Shapiro, who has dealt with many of the great comedians. (Shapiro reminded me a bit of Jay Leno's old executive producer for the Tonight Show, Fred De Cordova. I've been to Burbank, California to see the Tonight Show and saw Cordova's fatherly relationship with Leno and the other staff members.)

I wrote this user review on Yahoo! Movies: "To really get a sense of the comedian's standup life, run and see this! I loved it. In contrasting the cool professionalism and modesty of Seinfeld with the whiny brattiness of Orny Adams, this film speaks volumes about how to handle success gracefully." The film contrasts suave Seinfeld with Adams, a rising 29-year-old comedian on the brink of entering the national spotlight. Adams is a man who always seems miserable. The more successful he gets, the more miserable he becomes. He sports a room full of meters of filing cabinets, crammed with alphabetized jokes for every possible situation. Lesbian jokes, ethnic jokes, classic jokes. He speaks in a brusque, uptight way, and you can see the stomach ulcers written on his face.

Near the end of the film, Seinfeld returns to TV for a brief appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. You may actually watch his whole performance on the Net: go here to March 21, 2001.

Read the collection of reviews of Comedian on Metacritic. Metacritic is now my favorite place (after Yahoo! Movies) to check out new movies and instantly find reviews. It's fantastic.

Bottom line: Comedian is well worth your time. It's not only entertaining but enlightening. It teaches us lessons about not only how to become a success, but how to deal with life after it. It shows a select group of folks who bow at the altar of their demanding craft.

Posted 2:18 AM by Blah blah

Turkish Star Trek

Scott posted this on RBJ. Incredible and very funny! Video review: Turkish Star Trek: "Once again, Turkish cinema takes an American classic, turns it on its head and kicks the living crap out of it....

By now, you’ve hopefully heard of Turkey’s proud history of stealing American films and remaking them with no money and their own unique set of production values. When they remade Superman, Superman became a homemade doll dangling on string in front of a black and white TV, and when they remade Star Wars, Luke Skywalker fought an army of Cookie Monsters on a field of trampolines. And even if you do speak Turkish, their remakes of films are confusing madness, but invariably end up being twice as entertaining as the original.

Turkish Star Trek continues this cinematic tradition. In Turkey it’s called Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda, which probably translates literally to 'Tragic Mistake.' "

Hahaha! This is the first time I've heard of a TV show going from big budget production to cheapo independent film.

Posted 11:02 PM by Anonymous

The Matthew Perry Phenomenon

As I was flying back from Seattle this past week I sat on the airplane in eager anticipation of the movie announcement. Normally I prefer to read on the flight home, but today that was just too much effort. I was a little sick, tired and stressed. I'm currently reading Baudolino by Umberto Eco, which is great book but just too complex for my state of mind at the time. I needed something mind numbing to keep me occupied for the 4 hour flight.

The loud speaker crackled and the flight attendant came on to announce that the movie of the day was going to be Serving Sarah. Serving Sarah?!? Sounds like a porn movie title to me. I was thinking: "Well if the movie is bad at least I can read the skymall catalog again for the millionth time or something".

The TV's in the aisle flickered on and lo and behold it was a movie staring Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley. The Theory: Matthew Perry always stars in really bad grade B movies with really hot women. Every movie I have seen Matthew Perry star in he plays basically the same role. He is a sappy funny guy that eventually gets the girl in the end, and the girl is always hot. Example: Serving Sarah and The Whole 9 Yards. In this case the girl was Elizabeth Hurley, *raWr*.

The movie itself was completely stupid, and only mildly funny. It was about a process server that got convinced by one of his marks (Elizabeth Hurley) to go after her husband instead. I can't say I blame him, Elizabeth Hurley could convince me to do about anything. So off to Dallas, Texas they go to serve her husband divorce papers. I bet American Airlines though they were overly cute by playing a movie about going to Dallas, TX on a flight to Dallas, TX. Some of the Texas stereotypes in the film were mildly amusing and regrettably most of them are true. How I loathe Texas these days. An added bonus was that Vincent Pastore (Pussy from the Sopranos) served as Perry's competition and comic relief.

So I think I'll make it a point to catch any future Matthew Perry flicks in the future, midless entertainment is always better with hot women.

Posted 8:17 AM by Anonymous

San Francisco and our Tiger Café leader

I am leaving tomorrow morning for San Francisco to accomplish two things

1) Preliminary meetings with SFAI and Academy of Art College. To see if I have what it takes to get into art school for photography
2) To finally meet fellow online journalists I have met through The Rice Bowl Journals. Including our leader, Raymond!
.... Raymond is all mine Saturday. He will be too busy taking me and Raven around town to even think about posting on Tiger Café ;) He will have help from Chris, our other tour guide.

Below is a sample of My Portfolio I will submit to art schools. My goal is to go back to school within the next year and leave the world of cubicles.

Posted 7:22 PM by Blah blah

He Who Has the Best Grades…Loses, by management guru Tom Peters.

From the book Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins: The Paradox of Innovation, by Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes.
___________________
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's biographer, John Gunther, observed that, "The boys who were the best 'Grotties' [the prep school Groton, which FDR attended] usually turned out to be non-entities later. Boys who hated Groton did much better."

"In his career-long study of millionaires, Thomas Stanley has not only found no correlation between success in school and an ability to accumulate wealth, he's actually found a negative correlation. Few of Stanley's millionaires got good grades or high SAT scores. His wealthy subjects rarely showed up in any ‘most’ category during high school (most talented, most popular, most likely to succeed). After graduating from college (seldom a prestigious one) their lack of sparkling academic records kept many from getting hired by top corporations. As a result, they were forced to start their own enterprises. … ‘It seems that school-related evaluations are poor predictors of economic success,’ Stanley concluded in The Millionaire Mind.

"What did predict economic success was a willingness to take risks. By contrast, the success-failure standards of most schools penalized risk takers. As we've seen, in business, sports, science and the arts, there's a certain regard for gallant failure by those who take big chances. In school, however, an F is an F: Bad news. You flunked. You're a failure. Far from rewarding those who take chances, most educational systems honor those who play it safe. They're the ones who get good grades. As a result, those who do well in school find it hard to take risks later on. That's not what won them academic honors. The ones who do take chances have a hard time in school and are often penalized for their independent ways. Many of Stanley's subjects said teachers told them, ‘You'll never succeed,’ or ‘That's the dumbest idea for a new business I've ever heard.’ "
____________________
Also see the March 25 issue of Newsweek. The cover story is on the recovery of Silicon Valley. P53 Headline: "Failure Is the Best Medicine. The Silicon Valley of today is built less atop the spires of earlier triumphs than upon the rubble of earlier debacles."

Posted 1:29 PM by Blah blah

More Links

Check out all the links I've added in the left column, from ways to get paid for blogging (Weblogs4Hire) to awesome blogs (Emily, Josh the wunderkind, and Chris) to discussion communities (Kuro5hin.org) to geek delights (java.blogs, jini-blogs, ShareMe, and Dave Winer)! I've marked them with *'s.

Also, check out Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics, a critical look at the physics behind the stunts we see in movies. Very good!

I mentioned Chris (Sexy Porky) a while back. His emotion page cracks me up! Like that silly site Eric Conveys an Emotion, you email him a request and he acts it out on camera.

Eric, first day at his new job.
Eric, second day at his new job!
Realizing it's NOT toothpaste.
Hamster dance.

Posted 9:54 AM by Blah blah

Girls Who Don't Call Back

One of my pet peeves is girls who don't call or write back. Or if they do, it's with few words and a haughty, princess attitude. Sometimes it's timid, suspicious girls who must be reassured and drawn out at every step. As a guy, you must do ALL of the pursuing, planning, and sustaining of the relationship. I used to waste a lot of time on these girls, calling or writing, especially if I thought they were worth it.

No more. I don't care how good-looking they are, or how sweet they may seem during the precious five minutes they spare for you.

Whether timid, stuck-up, bitchy, or plain lazy, I don't need them in my life. I REFUSE to take them seriously, either as potential friends or more. I've met a couple of girls like this recently, and I felt the old wheels turning, the old impulses throwing me into the old pattern.

But I stopped myself. I deleted their phone numbers and email addresses. I erased them from my memory. No more being dangled on the end of a stick for me. Let other suckers line up at that circus tent. From now on, I'M the dangler. If they really had any iota of interest, they must come to me, in some way.

Girls who are genuinely busy but interested in you (as friends or more) will send you nice notes explaining how sorry they are to be unavailable. They'll return your calls with equally nice regretful statements, promising more later. They will sound excited and happy to hear from you. They will find a way to get in touch. Not like it's hard to find me. They WILL set aside time for you.

I only want these girls. And happily, I HAVE met some that fit this description, recently.

As a guy, so should you. How do YOU decide when to stop bothering about a girl? Is it three unreturned calls? What are YOUR criteria?

Posted 7:07 PM by Duke

Why I blog:

Today marks something like my one year anniversary of blogging. I've always been a bit of a writer, scribbling lines and verses whenever inspiration struck. My freshman year roommate taught me how to use the University's webserver to host my website. And so it began.

Last year I decided to finally buy my own domain, but I couldn't think of any one particular name to which I could commit. So I chose Duke-Kim. Not because I'm egotistical (I am), but because I couldn't think of anything else. So that was my birthday present to myself, a year of hosting on FatCow and a two-year name registration.

Why do I write?
   It helps me sort through my issues, unpack my baggage, and ease my heart. I worry a lot about things, and writing is my vent. Getting things down on digital paper helps me think through problems and issues I might be facing as a young adult, Christian, son, brother, Korean-American, single male, or all/any of the above. I've been called out on being shallow, sheltered, stupid, gay, anti-Asian, and just an ass in general. Maybe I really am any or all of those things. The real issue is that I am trying to figure myself out, and if the world wants to read about it, let them.
   It is my silent cry for help. Just kidding, sheesh.
   It is my white flag to other writers and authors. I would love to get published in GQ, author a book of short stories, or write freelance. I'd love all of those things. But I also love to eat and wear clothing. So I know it may be a while in coming before I can actually say that I'm a writer. But I would love to have a mentor either tell me I'm a hack or help me hone whatever skills I may possess.
   It's me. I've always loved reading and I've always loved writing. I can't judge for myself, but people say I'm good at it. So I keep doing it. Along with good bourbon, it is my passion.

My readership is fairly large (I think), I get upwards of 150 hits/day on my main page. I don't know who most of you may be. Old high school friends? New Michigan friends? The government? Sometimes I get supportive emails, sometimes I get not-so-supportive emails. I only hope that most of the people who come to read me do so not to make fun of me or make themselves feel better, but because I happen to hit upon something interesting or insightful.

And I will continue to write. And maybe one day after years of hard-work consulting or lawyer-ing, I'll get my photo taken for the jacket cover of my first book. I'll start saving for that leather-patched tweed jacket now.

Thanks to everyone (silent or not-so-much-so) for making this past year important to me.

Posted 1:13 PM by Blah blah

Fotolog (Photos in Blog Format)

Check out Fotolog! It's not a normal photo album. It's a place to post your photos one at a time in blog format. As the FAQ says, "Fotolog is Blogger for people that don't write well." Hehe... It lets people leave comments for each photo.

Browse others' fotologs by state and by country. Blogging in Brazil has exploded recently, I've read. You can see that Brazil has the greatest number of fotologs outside of America.

I think it's an excellent way to supplement your written blog. For me, I don't post a lot of photos because I'm almost out of space on my Berkeley account. But with a side blog to complement my written entries, I could post photos on a regular basis! For all of you who don't have server space for photos, please check this out. If you do set up a fotolog, please let us know your URL.

Posted 9:55 AM by Blah blah

Fuck That Job

This site cracks me up! It lists all sorts of delightful low-paying jobs you can expect to find in today's economy: Fuck That Job.

For example:

"Experience:
Comprehensive knowledge of Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Illustrator, and all nuances of sophisticated web site design. Exceptional design skill and demonstrated ability to create cutting edge websites that have strong and concept driven design. Great people skills and ability to work with demanding clients. We work with the top 10% of the legal and medical industries. Our designers interact with some of the biggest players in these industries. You need to be smart, eloquent and perceived as an expert by clients who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to work with you.

Salary: Low to Mid 30's w/potential for bonus"

Maybe I SHOULD become a stripper.

Posted 6:08 PM by Blah blah

Sex Writer: Dubberley.com. Cliterati. Becoming a Stripper.

[Read this from Cliterati: "Jo King runs the London School of Striptease. After meeting her at a Cake Soiree where she was training women how to strip seductively for their lovers, Cliterati caught up with her to find out more....

We move on to the exploitation issue. 'When I was a stripper, I was never taken advantage of or made to do something that I didn't want to. However, I would say that I was exploited when I was a personal assistant in a big city company, some years back; too much work, too many hours, and not enough pay. Mind you, to "exploit" can also mean to make the best use of something so perhaps I have exploited me! Most of the girls in the striptease industry have made an informed decision to become a dancer for a variety of intelligent reasons!'...

Having taught over 400 people to strip and been featured on TV and radio regularly, Jo clearly knows her stuff. 'I've received many letters and calls saying that I've changed the student's life for the better...how fab is that!? A lot of my students stay in contact with me. Every couple of months, we have group outings to strip clubs. It's a fun way to catch up and stay connected.' Has she ever taught men? 'Yes but now I have trained a male teacher to do so. As I am not a man, I'm not a very manly stripper. I prefer to teach the men who want to strip as a woman.' "

Some of her courses:

- Strip-Geezer - Beginners Striptease Workshop (for men) - £50
- The Bare Essentials - Basic Striptease Workshop - £60
- Strip-Teaser - £15 for 1 hour
- Undress To Impress - Beginners Striptease Course - £100
- Pole Stars - Beginners Half-Day Workshop - £80
- Stripability - Individual Striptease Tuition - £150 - 2 and a half hours (approx.)
- Party Pieces - prices on request]

Mona T, you're gonna love this.

Check out Emily Dubberley, in London. She's been an editor, marketing manager, and a writer. She also writes scripts for the adult film business. Her blog is funny, witty, and filled (recently) with stories of her watching strangers have sex. God, what a life. I like her combination of business savvy and cheekiness.

She also runs several sex-related sites on the side. Check out Cliterati, which is erotica (no pix) for women. It's "a site which dares to admit that women like sex too." Mona, I remember you recommended your favorite erotica site on RBJ once. What was that?

Not only, that---Emily has media power. She writes on sex for Cosmopolitan, has been interviewed on British TV, and helped this writer for Cliterati get noticed by some literary agents and publications.

Because of Emily's endorsement, the writer, Catlin Gunn, just published her first piece for the Guardian, How I Became a Stripper! Good, down-to-earth stuff. Here are Catlin Gunn's pieces for Cliterati:

The Stripper Diaries (Part 1)
The Stripper Diaries (Part 2)
The Stripper Diaries (Part 3)

What a small world. Emily is also a London Ryze member.

Posted 1:31 AM by Clementine

Change of Heart

When I was a kid until early college (thus the mom-you-forced-me-to-go-to-UST-pre-med-and-give-up-my-UPD-slot drama), I wanted to be a journalist. After which I planned to take up law. Sophomore year college, after reading Erich Segal's Doctors, I realized medicine was the field for me. I didn't know what residency to go for, though, but I had legal med in mind. Everyone kept telling me I'd do good in OB [Obstetrics] (I don't know why, but I suspect it's because of my being a big bitchy girl - they said I fit the OB's usual profile) so around the time I took the NMAT [Philippines National Medical Admission Test], I must have convinced myself it was the field for me. That was the start of my there's-no-greater-fulfillment-but-helping-mothers-deliver-their-angels dream.

And then a month ago, I took the OB module, and while I didn't really find it that difficult, I had a hard time staying awake in class. I even skipped a lot of lectures and lost the whole 5% allocated for short quizzes after them - and, please God no, I'm in the risk of taking the removals even if I passed all the major exams and did okay in the case discussions. Okay, arguably, I don't really attend lectures, be it on Respiratory or Ortho or Neuro modules because most of the time I just sleep through them. I actually learn more by reading, but if OB is going to be my field, I should have itched to go to class every darn morning right? But I didn't. All those partographs just left me bored comatose.

Now I think I've found my calling.

All my life---until recently anyway---I've been shying away from anything, for the lack of a better term, "girly." I admit that I'm the most girly girl in the field of medicine, but my friends from college would attest that I was such a dead-to-the-world kid back then. I didn't care about fashion and make-up and just wasted my dough and time on the Eraserheads. I had the biggest crush on Ely Buendia (frontman of the phenomenal Philippine band during the mid 90s, the Eraserheads) and Jessica Zafra. I thought of myself as a radical feminist, which may give you a clue why my mother didn't want me in the state university especially since a good friend went there ahead of me and mom thought I'd follow her footsteps (she became a prominent student leader there). I was going to be a doctor, I knew it, but I had legal med or maybe TCVS surgery in mind.

Senior year, my road forked with the guy who later became my biggest obsession---at that time I thought he was the love of my life. His mom's an OB [obstetrician], and as much as I don't want to admit it, that contributed to my OB dream. I fantasized about someday taking my residency under his mom, and she'd fall in love with me and want me for his son---badly. I had a drastic haircut, which turned out to be the best decision I've ever made in my whole life, kikay-wise. Tweezers started to become my new best friend, and though I was still a jeans-and-shirt girl, I knew I was becoming, well, girly.

But still, no pink furry soft things or giggling or elaborate display of emotions for me.

I still am dead-to-the-world and according to Gerry, a "bitch," until now. I still hide my true emotions in real life as much as I can. My friends would probably gag and find it unbelievable that I am Danielle Nicole. I wear pretty tops, low-rider jeans, and boots, sure, but emotionally, people still think of me as a rock with the coldest heart. Rhome has me on a pedestal because of this and because he doesn't read this blog. Actually, none of my friends, except Karolina and Gerry, know about my site---although recently, the man I truly, madly, deeply loved despite the insanity of our situation discovered this and raised hell because of the way my friends tried to comfort me---by convincing me that I'd find someone else who'd love me and that I deserve so much better, during that bleak moment in my life.

So what the hell is my point?

To cut that annoying flight of ideas, I've always thought I wouldn't be in pediatrics. I thought I wouldn't be able to endure the sight of screaming babies day in, day out. That I wouldn't last a day feigning joy and genuine affection and concern even if deep inside I really wanted to kill the baby in front of me.

But now, I'm in pedia module, and I'm enjoying it like hell. And this morning, while discussing Respiratory Distress Syndrome, I realized what I want to be: a neonatologist.

And trust me. The fact that our tutor always has gorgeous shoes doesn't have anything to do with my decision.

* * *
Several days after, I had another change of heart and I wanted to go into Surgery.

Oh well, I will decide after the boards---I have more than two years left anyway.

Posted 3:01 AM by Blah blah

Charlie Kaufman's brilliant new movie, Adaptation

Read New York Times review. I saw Kaufman's funny original Being John Malkovich and bet he infused this movie with that same infectious sense of play.

"At one point in The Orchid Thief, Ms. Orlean asks a park ranger named Tony why he thinks people find orchids so seductive. His answer matches both the nonchalance and the insight of this remarkable, impossible film: 'Oh, mystery, beauty, unknowability, I suppose. Besides, I think the real reason is that life has no meaning. I mean, no obvious meaning. You wake up, you go to work, you do stuff. I think everybody's always looking for something a little unusual that can preoccupy them and help pass the time.' "

Here is Susan Orlean's original New Yorker piece that inspired her book The Orchid Thief.