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February 13, 2010

The Hypocrits of Haitian Relief

Yep, Ben Stiller spent a bunch of time in Haiti. Yeah, yeah. He looked so clueless I almost felt bad for the guy. Madonna? Come on, if Madonna ever went there, she would have adopted some of them instead of searching the Congo for rental offspring. The "Billion-Dollar Man," Steven Speilberg "donated" time to ask ordinary Americans for $10 bucks a pop? Wow! Say it isn't so! Such a benevolent act...I think I'm about to vomit.

I think this goes back to my problem with "celebrities," and the f'd-up priorities people have around here. I can bet people made calls to the event for the sheer possibility of speaking to someone like Julia Roberts. If old Brainclogger called, he would have given the candy-ass, primadonna Hollywood types a tongue lashing about sticking their hands into their gold-lined pockets and kicking-in some of their own dough instead of being the hypocrites they are. I'd like to see a number of them thrown into the octagon with Kimbo and Silva! If they can reach into their wallets before they succumb to the rear naked choke, they only have to donate half the required amount.

You could tell some of the performers only did it to get a chance to be seen on TV, as a couple of the songs may not have been appropriate to the event. Also funny how the 20-million-per-picture crowd sat quietly answering the phone. In the end, the event raised $64 million. If a few of the A-list made a decent contribution they could have done that on their own...but they didn't. Well, reportedly Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie forked over seven figures with no fanfare, proving some of them can actually count. However, that's a pittance to them and they know it. Don't even get me started on that bleeding-hearted hypocrit Springsteen. (Hey Bruce! As a side note, please don't send the Haitians any copies of Diesel and Dust...the last thing we need is a mass suicide)

Enough about this. Oh, and whatever my issue is with these hypocritical ass-wipes...Kid Rock was still cool.

Where are the "Quotation Marks?"

"Celebrity" Rehab. The word "celebrity" should have quotation marks, but it doesn't. Look at the "D" list "celebrities" they refer to on "Celebrity" Rehab, and quotes become even more justifiable. Dennis "pin-cushion" Rodman? Rodney King? Heidi "what the hell did I do to my lips" Fleiss? Bridget "rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" Nielsen? Wow! I guess the A-list celebrities either do better drugs, have better doctors, or pay their publicists enough to not sell their clients out to a tacky, pathetic, reality show about how screwed-up their gravy train is. Maybe that's a testament to the trustworthiness of people that represent "celebrities," or maybe an indication of the ridiculousness of the whole "celebrity" thing in the first place.

Who are we calling "celebrities" in this instance? Singers, actors, a former whore (come-on, "madam's" don't start out as madam's), models...basically people who wouldn't be missed if they just went away. In that world, there's someone ready at any time to take your place in the "celebrity" mill of Hollywood. So "starved" for attention, they'll take any sort of "interest" in them, even at their lowest point. Apparently they don't realize that after a life of "look at me, look at me," there comes a point when you really don't want someone to look.

Maybe the rehab show is made up by "higher profile" people as a deterrent in order to have something where they can look at a guy like Tom Sizemore and say "wow, poor bastard, better him than me." If you want people to say "wow, people that have so much money they can live in a "rehab center," looking either for pity or to squeeze the last bit of coin out of their fleeting "celebrity," ...you're doing a good job. I say "take a baseball bat to all of you." Fame, fortune, and a life of privilege, but with a mind too weak to handle it. Old Brainclogger would love to feel the need to "handle" having money and adoration thrown at him. I bet my "anger management" issues with "celebrity" losers would lighten-up a bit. Or maybe not.

I know! A show called "Celebrity Downward Spiral," where you chronicle a "celebrity's" self-destruction. Go all the way from where they soil themselves on whatever drug they feel is important enough to trade for their self respect, have all their expensive crap repossessed, find out who they thought of as a friend thought of them as a meal ticket, ending in a dramatic climax where your last performance would be "etched" into the minds of people...for at least for 30 seconds. Some ideas include: a leap from a bridge holding an anvil and dressed like Bugs Bunny;a swim with sharks with a dead seal tied to your leg;stepping into a cage full of starving Rottweilers with a raw t-bone tied around their neck;skydiving with golf umbrella as a parachute, trying to outrun an avalanche (quite the metaphor for a drug addiction), painting yourself as an American flag and streaking through the Haj; dressing as a terrorist and taking a dump on the hood of a car on the starting line of a NASCAR race while yelling "rednecks are all fags"; or getting caught in the rope on an episode of "Deadliest Catch?" Now that's "entertainment"---in quotation marks.

February 8, 2010

Want a book about...

...the fight between good and evil? Want to go along on an adventure with a team of soldiers that takes them to Panama, Cuba, Jamaica, Florida? Like to get to know two guys from Philadelphia, one an orphan and renowned ass-kicker, and his best friend from a good Italian family? Would you like some evil, corrupt types and some death and destruction? How about a real story of friendship? What about some quirky personality traits like using the names of songs in their regular speech, quoting works of literature and historic people, using every spare moment to go fishing and surfing, or in search of a great cup of coffee? Want to laugh and cry reading the same book and come away feeling the main characters are good guys with unique personalities and you can't wait to read the next in the series? Want this all in the same book?

You'll have to wait. Looks like I have to publish it myself.

Agents make me mad!!!

I'm not talking about doing things I feel ashamed about, or find pleasurable in guilty, behind closed-door ways. They make me mad because they force me to do something I despise, deplore, loathe, and out-and-out detest...they force me to try and sell, and both inevitably and unfortunately..to think like a salesman. It's called a "query letter," and I'd like to kill the next guy that offers me advice on how to write one.

In layman's terms, it sucks. I wrote a book recently. Probably not a great book. Hopefully, a marginally good yet entertaining work that someone, somewhere, someday might read on an airplane or spill beer on while sitting on the beach, or if you're like my dad, use for a coaster along with any other thing I may bring into the house, be it however important only to me...but I digress.

I want to write the next book, not put on my white shoes and play Death of a Salesman! I think it's safe to say, be it ever so bold, that agents now find themselves in the cottage industry of selling the "secrets to getting published," and have turned the publishing industry into a "make it big or not at all," bureaucratic freak show. Why not say "if you're not David Baldacci, then go away" on your agent information and be done with it?

I could be the next "somebody or other," and could have a series of books ready to go that can keep an agent making money for years, but without huckstering properly, no one will ever know. This book might make a great movie, but without spending the time learning how to sell it to someone whom obviously doesn't care and won't take the time to look past the first five pages, I'm just a guy with a year's worth of nights I could have spent doing something else!

I'm starting to wonder when the first person will use the term "how droll," or tell me I'm sophomoric, pedantic, or some other high-brow phrase rather than say "it's not for me" like the hundred+ agents have so far? Thanks for the form letter, automated response, don't call us-we'll call you crap sent by your starry-eyed little coed assistant. See the potential in someone based on an 88-word blurb. Yep, that makes sense. Next time you buy a car, don't even get in before you buy it. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to give someone money and they're telling me to pack it up my ass. No, it's not "chick-lit." No, it isn't a book about how great it is to be gay, or some young-adult teen beat bullcrap. Funny how agents choose books based on the needs of their portfolio and the current market trend as opposed to entertainment value, if the author has anything else planned, and if someone who isn't trying to get on Americal Idol would read it. Agents can be as much the impedement as they are the access to the process. After all, what the hell is commercial fiction really?

I'm starting to get mad, my brain is clogging. You see, I've read some real shit published by big publishing houses, and some real stinkers by people with big names, but little old Brainclogger can't catch a break! Oh, if you're an agent, why not review my blog to see if I have the creativity necessary to send you a query letter. I know! Why not just come over my house and kick me in the face.