going postal

For. the. love. of. all. that. is. holy:
STOP sending me unsolicited crap!!!!!

please.

This is a desperate plea directed to all the misinformed freaks and psychopaths out there that think that blindly sending off movie ideas to random companies is a good idea. Might get lucky! Make a million billion dollars on the next Armageddon! Couldn't hurt?

But it does hurt. It hurts me. Personally. Very very personally. Becuase for every single person from New Mexico, or Montreal, or small German towns I can't pronounce, I am the one who gets the distinctive pleasure of mailing back all of the material and informing these aspiring whomevers that we cannot even so much as look at it.

Sometimes, some of these brilliant people decide that me responding to their query is an opening for more correspondence! A phone call, perhaps? No! That is INcorrect! My letter is to inform you that your correspondence is not requested, desired, or sanctioned AT ALL! If you send me another piece of mail, I will still be the one sending it back to you. I will still be the one committing hari kari because you fedexed a bubble-wrapped box containing some random manuscript that I now have to figure out how to send back to you.

I am not even getting into the ideas or loglines behind the gems that find their way to my inbox each day. But here's my one piece of advice. You think you have the next $100 million blockbuster movie? Get an agent. Preferably one anyone working in the industry will return phone calls to. That's all. I'm not going to tell you how to go about finding one, or how to submit your material. That's your job. And there is this glorious learning resource called 'the internet'. Use it before you call me and ask for any and all knowledge I have on the matter of getting your screenplay looked at.

In the meantime, please don't send me any more unsolicited mail. I beg of you.

Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. There's never a letup, It's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more, but the more you get out, the more it keeps coming. And then the bar code reader breaks. And then it's Publisher's Clearinghouse day.

- Newman, Seinfeld, 1990s.

Special Edition Guest Blog: Melancholia 5.1

So, as a special treat to fans of the Heathernet, today we have a guest blogger, our very own Mr. Paul Lyons! After I told him I was a little bummed out, and certainly in no mood to blog, he took it upon himself to write up the little entry below to share with all you impatient readers! I hope you enjoy, it made me think, reflect, and feel a little better. And if that doesn't work, there's always cheesy potatoes!*

- Haj

*(see last blog entry)

Alright, let’s face it….we have all experienced sadness and disappointment in our lives at one point or another. I’ve had a plethora…a cornucopia….a King’s ransom’s worth of disappointments, let-downs, put-downs, put-upons, frowned-upons, dissings, ditchings, dumpings, teasings, tauntings, tortures, and general melancholy. You would think by now, I would be some sort of expert on the subject. That I would have an innate, superhero type-ability to detect the upcoming disappointment well in advance, and as a result I would either avoid it….or manage it in a way that would have me coming out ahead. But no….I experience life’s shortcomings just like everyone else…. No special concessions for us world-weary veterans. No hats, nor t-shirts nor souvenir badges….seerslee, nothing…nada. So what does one do in such times of sorrow…knowing that one’s suffering, one’s sadness, one’s disappointment is no different than anyone else’s? Well…you could, I suppose, start a worldwide contest to see who is really the person who has had the biggest disappointment, or the greatest sadness in life….ever. The judges could be famous experts on the subject(s)…or maybe the judges can be non-famous people picked at random, like TV’s Nielsen system. Whatever. People could be judged by Style, Depth of Pain and/or Sadness (measured by a machine designed by NASA, or perhaps Microsoft…..no Apple), Ripple Factor (i.e. husband dies, then wife and family gets kicked out of house, etc…), and of course…the wildly popular “My Life Is Sad and Hopeless” essay, monologue, verbal ranting, picture collage and/or diorama presentation. Now I am thinking Donald Trump could be involved….Okay, now I’ve completely gone off track….Where was I? Oh…yes….sadness. The way I see it….life would not be life without sadness and disappointment….Our lives are shaped by both good and bad experiences…I believe both are of equal importance. Too much of one, or the other is horrible. If all one experiences is nothing but good good and good….well….my guess is that one would eventually no longer appreciate the value of the good….and so to…would at some point, no longer be able to identify that it’s a good at all….It would become….standard. You win a million dollars every single day of your life….after awhile….it becomes standard issue…no big deal….whatever. Today I read in the L.A. times about a rich dude who crashed a $million dollar Ferrari in Malibu. The mf crashed the car, and ran away. To most of the world….it’s beyond belief, not crashing the car…but actually owning a $million dollar Ferrari! Yet to the billionaires of the world….who cares? I mean….car is a car is a car….why not race it, crash it…whatever. Point is…too much good is, well….not so good. Look the Paris Hilton’s of the world….she has everything, but have you met anyone who really, truly wants to be her? It is my feeling that we should embrace what we have in our lives…including the bad stuff. Own it. I read somewhere that Jack Nicholson said he is proud of the marks and lines on his aged face….he said something to the effect of “I’ve earned every one of them.” I happen to agree with that sentiment. Own your life…earn your success and failures….and failures, in themselves, are always disguised opportunities….to learn and grow. So, I am sad today….no big deal. I will live through it…and get over it…but more importantly….I earned it, I own it. It’s mine. It’s me….and only I can take my sorrow away. So what the F am I waiting for????