A script I won't write, but you might.

Screenplay: The Voice
Queens or some other New York neighborhood, now or a few years past. 20-year-old Dominic Romano is a waiter at a popular Italian restaurant. He's handsome, likable, optimistic. His greatest vice: Hesmokes far too much. And while he loves to sing, he doesn't have much of a voice. Early in the film we see him annoying management by taking too many cigarette breaks and offending other servers with his singing.  One day he develops a throat problem. After several tests he finds he has a tumor that has to be removed. When it is he, remarkably, has a great singing voice. Collage: him moving from small clubs to the big time and record deal. He's thrilled, he's famous, he's rich. His career is moving along swimmingly for years. Then the biggest break of all; Carnegie Hall. Tons of publicity, rivers of ticket sales.  A dream come true. Followed by a disaster one week before the concerts.  Another lesion. More tests. The diagnosis. He needs another throat operation to save his life. After this one, he may even lose his speaking voice. He has to decide quickly. He does. Rather than surrender his greatest moments of glory to a life of ignominious anonymity,  he chooses to go forward with the concert even if it means possible death shortly after. Naturally he last scene is him on stage basking in the adoration of the crowd and singing what is sure to be the Academy Award winning theme song.

A play I cannot write, but maybe you can.

My second plot is for a play that I am not qualified to write. This is best served by a passionate Jewish playwright. If you're that playwright, please get in touch.
The Play: Homeroom.
Any Midwestern city. 1969. The setting, the homeroom of a local high school. A Jewish male student has been staying late to have a talk with his 40-year-old homeroom teacher, Miss. Stein. She finds it difficult to get the initially uncomfortable student to express his reason for wishing to talk to her. Finally he blurts it out: "I think you're Anne Frank." An astonishing statement that she does not dismiss out of hand, but challenges  him to defend this strange statement. Over the course of the play he says he believes that Anne was saved from Bergen-Belsen when it was liberated by the British on April 15, 1945. He posits that she was in a delirious, uncommunicative condition and sent to a sanitarium.  By the time she recovered her health several years later, she realized that she had become an important  symbol of courage and endurance that was very important to the Jews of the post-Holocaust.  Not wishing to diminish the importance of her diary first published in Dutch in 1947,  she assumed a new identity and came to America where she eventually became a teacher. For every challenging question Miss Stein asks, the student has a reply. How would I have seen my father who survived? Why has no one recognized me? The clever student has an answer for each question. Miss Stein never denies his theory, so the audience can draw any conclusion it chooses after an evening of spirited and emotional debate and disturbing facts about the Holocaust.

My creative ideas that may be your creations.

At nearly 70-years-old, it is obvious to me that some of my best ideas will never see the light of day. On the other hand there is no reason that somebody else with talent might not take some of my ideas for scripts, plays, or products and take them to some kind of fulfillment. So one of my newest features will be placing some of my ideas out there for anyone to read. If you think you can make something of it and are quallified to do so, please respond with a phone number.
Screenplay: Snapped!

A leading movie star (or pol, or designer like Versace) steps out of the front door of his mansion. A man runs to him and shoots him dead. Fortunately a celebrity hunter was nearby and snapped a photo of the horrible event. Once the police develop it, they search it for clues, try to recognize the killer, chase down any possible connection to the jacket, the slacks, the shoes of the killer. But most important was the motive. Who were his enemies, his ex-wives, his rivals? After many goose chases our hero detective finally solves the case. The murder was designed so that the passerby could take the photo that would earn millions of dollars from the ever-ghoulish media. Both criminals are captured. Mystery solved.

Note:  This is the Versace mansion on Miami Beach that give me the idea for this screenplay.

A nation bent on suicide.

I keep hearing from both Democrats and Republicans that Romney will win in November. This sounds no less dire to me than the prediction by the Sumerians that the world will end on December 21, 2012 when Earth is struck by the plan Nibiru.  If you have a brain, or—let's be fair—half a brain, why would you vote for a goofy, robotic, magic underwear draped plutocrat whose greatest successes have been buying companies, firing their hardworking employees, decimating their pensions and then selling what's left for a huge profit to be divided among the other Bain  cannibals?  This is what Romney calls job creation. Only an idiot could believe that and only a liar would claim it. Do you really want a president who is either and idiot or liar, or possibly both? If you're a woman, a vote for Romney is like saying, "I am dying to be a second-class citizen like I was in the past. I don't think I'm smart enough to make decisions about my body.I need a man to help me with such important concerns.In fact, I'm not sure I'm even worthy enough to vote." If you're African American, your vote for Romney means, "I have absolutely no respect for myself. If Republicans treated our first black President of the United States and attendee of both Harvard and Yale like a 1930s shoeshine boy, I might as well forget any plans I had for the future." If you're gay—well I don't think we have to worry about the gay vote, other than closeted capitalists and Log Cabin Republicans who are their own special freak show." Ah, Hispanics. The very fact that Romney is considering chubby choir boy Rubio suggests he thinks you are so malleable and gullible that just the nomination of a Cuban for VP will throw you into raptures of Republican adoration. The list goes on for Romney voters. Seniors can kiss many of their Social Security and Medicaid benefits goodbye (thank to draconian calculations of vampiric economist Paul Ryan). The jobless can expect to remain so because any excess amounts of money will be poured into the coffers of those already rolling in millions and billions and most of the work will be done for pennies an hour overseas.  In short if you are fool enough to vote for Romney, you had better already be a multimillionaire who doesn't give a shit about the working class and has more interest in dressage than poor children with potentially fatal illnesses. So, if you're a Republican or, like so many middle-class people mistaking think they're Republican because daddy said so, think very carefully before you vote for Romney. Because I assure you , it he wins you will be facing the worst case of buyer's remorse that could ever occur in your life.

Note: If you to want know what he's laughing at, it's anyone who is gullible enough to fall for all his lies about Obama, and that's he and his friends are so rich they can buy anything they want, including your vote.

Cruise commercials. Empty shells?

Cruising is a wonderful experience and a whole lot easier and less expensive than other vacations. So why is it that cruise lines can't seem to up with truly appealing commercials?  I don't know about you, but I think this "The sea is calling" is a really stupid concept, though not nearly as stupid as their previous misconception, "The Nation of Why Not." Okay, so you see a lot of desperate for escape people on city streets joyously holding up mysteriously appealing conch shells to their ear. Wowie. How about showing us a ship, an island, a munificent buffet, a spa, or a spacious stateroom with a balcony? Do they really think a conch shell, which you pick up at any island souvenir shop is the ideal image for their product?  Give me a break. The amazing thing is the other cruise lines aren't much better. Celebrity has done some good spots in the past. Carnival in recent years has really dropped the ball my making their cruises look like a wet and colorful nightmare of screaming children. I know from personal experience that powerful non-creatives at the Miami agency were convinced the were wiser than their creative team and quickly lost the multi-million dollar account with their lousy concepts.  NCL has done some nice recent commercials (though not as brilliant as their print material) pushing Cruising Norwegian Style. Although I personally don't relate superior cruising to Norwegians other than war-like Vikings so this analogy is lost on me. I still think the best commercial of its type was the first one with Kathie Lee doing a full sing of Ain't We Got Fun (or We've Got the Fun). In 30-seconds it musically showed you a Carnival ship: all the fun you can expect; attractive, relaxed and involved passengers; and reminded you of how affordable the experience was. Brilliant! Who came up with this commercial?

What does this guy want?

This commercial is filled with peculiar mixed messages. At first it seems that the customer is developing and interest in the agency, which the agent seems only to willing to comply with. But by the end of the commercial the customer seems more interested in going chick-hunting with his new pal despite what appears to be his wife in the background Can't imagine what message State Farm wants to get cross with this spot—but it sure ain't savory.

A really stupid commercial..

I really hate commercials that start with a false premise in order to create a gag. He said that his kids wanted a puppy, "but they can be really expensive." What a stupid comment.  Puppies in many cases are free. Even forgetting that does he really want his kids to have a pet that is frankly ugly and just might be dangerous?  Geico does a lot of very clever commercials and a lot of crap. This goes in the crap column.

How did such a horrible thing happen?

I have nothing trenchant to say about this creature. But he is so repulsive, dishonest, slimy, unctuous and inhuman, I think he should be dragged out for viewing every now and then like an unusual tumor in a bottle a medical school.

Who's really running?

Come November, Americans will go the poll and vote for a president. Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. Except they won't be voting for Mitt Romney. Because while Obama is his own man, Mitt is the Pinocchio of many, many Gepettos. This explains why he waffles so often: too many masters to please. While I admit I have no affection for Republicans, I am also aware that there are decent honest members of the once-existent GOP who do not subscribe to the sick and divisive party that exists today.I only hope those persons realize who they will actually be voting for in November if they choose Mitt

Romney.

What's their definition of "Buy the Farm"?

How did they ever come up with the expression, "Summer Bucket List"?  Don't they know a bucket list is a series of things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Are they so ignorant of the term that they think it means any wish list.? And does that mean that everyone who works on the Naples account is equally unaware of the term?  It's particularly odd because in Naples, Florida, there are many elderly rich who, in fact, probably have bucket lists with its correct meaning.

Kraft, anything but crafty.

I've written about these Kraft Cheese commercials before, but I driven to do it again because I find them so creepy. As a kid we liked Kraft's dinner. It was cheap, tasty enough and easy to make, though I don't remember even going into raptures because I knew we were having it for dinner. I know that Kraft commercials were among the best on television. They were often recipes, narrated by actor, Dan O'Herlihy, and though I've never been interested in cooking I found them fascinating. So these new commercials with bitter, angry, duplicitous children astound me.  What agency thought this was a great idea. Must be the same one that that though a mother in describing Oreos in front of her children uses a euphemism for "Shut the fuck up" The latest. which wasn't on YouTube,  shows a neurotic, paranoid boy who, to make sure his parents don't make Kraft dinner during his sleepover, has stolen all the pots and pans. Whimsical? No.
Sicko. As a ex-copywriter, I think the ideal slogan for Kraft commercials should be: Dinner for Dysfunctional Families.

"Could we get some more candles over here?"

There are lots of irritating cliches in movies today. Perhaps because there have never been so many bad directors given a camera decades before they were ready, if they were every ready. But one of the most frequent and tiresome cliches is candles. How many movies have you seen with a beautiful woman sitting in a bathtub surrounded by the glow of dozens of candles? It seems to be the scene bad directors use when they need some filler. Of course they never show the woman lighting the candles as that would probably take an hour or so, or buying the candles, which must cost quiet a lot when you have to have this many. No she's just luxuriating in their glow, usually for no good reason. Of course one is always impressed that this beauty even has an old-fashioned bathtub in these days of glass-doored window boxes,  but I am sure the director yelled at the scenic designer, "I must have an old-fashioned tub, with claw legs...for the candle scene." Not only do I hate this because it's so trite and overused, but I think it's particularly insulting to women to suggest so many of them indulge in this costly and insipid vanity. These directors must be Republicans.

The Stepford Couple

One of the lowest forms of political advertising is also one of the most transparent. It isn't the nasty, mean-spirited comments, I can live with that. Republicans don't know any other way. They're full of hate. No. What I really hate is the obviously false claim. Right now of the most frequently ruun—and mediocre—commercials has a woman with a couple of dorky kits playing basketball. Thouth they have a nice home, she's bitching that Obama is spending too much money and her little darlings can't find a job. I would suggest one of the reasons is that her grown daughter is far too old for pigtails, but that's me. The thing I find detestable about this commercial and any others like it is this whining woman making the totally false claim that she once supported Obama. Give a break! How stupid do the think we are.This broad's voice is dripping with venom.  I don't why this commercial is run so often. It's really dippy and when they show this stupid woman go grey (Obama's fault, I'm sure) it looks about as fake as it can be. I'd love to show you this goony commercial, but I guess they're not proud of it enough to put it on YouTube. If I ever find it I'' be sure to add it.

Note: Sorry since I couldn't find that commercial, I thought you might like to see two of the most spoiled, shallow and out-of-touch-with-reality people since those two Frenchies who lost their heads on the guillotine.

A definite leg up on other hotel ads.

Today when so many commercials completely lack wit, intelligence and, often, even clarity, La Quinta is very refreshing.
This one is particularly amusing since they took an age-old cliche and made in work beautifully in this spot. I always appreciate a commercial when I can't predict what's coming, and this ending came as a complete surprise.  What I especially like about this spot is that, unlike so many others today, this is not mean spirited and reliant on someone cheating a friend to get what he wants. This is funny at a time when not many commercials truly are.

Really goofy trios.

A fond, fond memory.

One of the most important things we are taught when we are young is to not to take joy in another's misfortune. We learn early that it is wrong to gloat over someone's misfortune or take delight in the death of someone we didn't respect. If someone you disliked was in a tragic accident or faced a tragedy because of ill health the thing to do is forget your differences, to feel terrible for their family and friends and, if you are religious, which I am not, hope they have reached a better place. Taking all these noble thoughts into account, I can only report something that I feel on a frequent basis: I am so damn glad that Andrew Breitbart is dead.