• John B Whalen Jr Esq •
Billy Bob Thorton
Born August 4, 1955
American actor, filmmaker, singer, songwriter, and musician
First of all
We have to do itand second of all
it’s either the worst idea I have ever made
and my career is over
or it’s genius
“Tabloid Nation”
Episode 15, Season 4, Release date: April 8, 2008
Boston Legal
… just think for yourself …
… still relevant today, if not more …
… television stations just want the ratings …
… they manufacture division …
I remember the movie, “Network” by Paddy Chayefsky.
It depicted the extremes and perversities that television would resort to for the sake of ratings.
It was a film way ahead of its time, and yet now it seems dated given the depths to which television has sunk.
I doubt even Chayefsky could ever have imagined putting contestants on a program to eat worms or raw animal parts, or women humiliating themselves to marry fake millionaires.
One network made a deal for OJ Simpson to do a Prime Time Special on how he might have killed his ex-wife.
Television is a noble beast, isn’t it?
Well, the shame is it once was.
To many it still should be.
Television took us to the moon.
It let us cry together as a nation when a beloved president was assassinated.
Its unflinching and comprehensive coverage of Vietnam served to end that war.
Television gave us Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Rod Serling, Ernie Kovacs.
We had shows like The Defenders, All in the Family.
One could argue that the steep decline of TV began with a show called A Current Affair which introduced tabloid journalism.
There used to be standards of excellence in television.
I’m not talking only about Emmys and Peabodys, but not so long ago broadcasters had a real sense of responsibility.
They took their statutory obligation to operate in the public interest very seriously.
Now the networks look for our guilty pleasures and morbid curiosities and pander to those with the hope that they’ll get us addicted.
Once you get people hooked, you’ve got ’em!
And you have to get people hooked because everything today is ratings, demographics, market share, money.
Even the news divisions are now profit centers which means that if good-looking, white-toothed anchors have better TVQs than credentialed journalists, you get the eye-candy!
And if positive coverage of the war in Iraq reaches more households, you get Fox News.
In fact today you can switch back and forth between the right-wing news and the left-wing news.
Whatever happened to Huntley? Brinkley? John Chancellor?
To news that was just the news?
Now we have partisan junk appealing to the lowest common denominator which brings us currently to the program at issue, Dr Ray!
Mr. Palmer said his client couldn’t possibly have seen this coming.
Well, that simply isn’t true.
This tragedy was inevitable.
It’s practically scripted!
It’s happened before.
Talk show ambushes have gone awry leading to murder or suicide.
This isn’t a first.
But here’s what’s truly horrifying.
A tragedy occurred here, a woman was killed, but for the show – for the show – the real tragedy was that the killing didn’t happen on the show!
That would have been the ratings blockbuster.
That would have been the big score everybody was hoping for.
But they had to settle for the next best thing which was that the murder became news.
The nightly news was perfectly happy to do the job for them.
They gave Dr. Ray all the promotion it could possibly want airing sensational clips and graphics from the show again and again and again.
You see how it all works so beautifully together!
The girl was killed!
The show benefits!
The news benefits!
And we eat it up!
Psychologically damaged people are paraded on stage to be exploited, ridiculed, taunted.
Of course this is what we get!
And we stand to get a lot more of it because it sells.
And it costs almost nothing to produce.
And what’s not to love?
Here we have an emotionally unstable ex-boyfriend with a history of violence, armed with a marriage proposal certain to be rejected in front of the world.
And the fact that an innocent young woman ended up butchered was good business for all.
Just business.
Well, so is a lawsuit.
The most memorable part of the movie Network was when Howard Beale started shouting on national television, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”
And the country joined in with him.
You need to join in now.
You need to go back to that room and say you’re not going to sit quietly and let these networks assault decency for profit.
You’re not going to stand for the exploitation of the disenfranchised.
You’re sick of the networks debasing a medium they’re supposed to be guardians of.
Don’t take it anymore.
Please. Please. Get mad as hell!
And don’t take it …
anymore
“James Leer” – “Wonder Boys” (Tobias Vincent “Tobey” Maguire)
Born June 27, 1975
American Actor, Film Producer
Hannah Green: James will know about George Sanders.
James Leer: George Sanders?
Hannah Green: Mr. Crabtree was saying how George Sanders killed himself, only he couldn’t remember how.
James Leer: Pills. April 25, 1972, in a Costa Brava hotel room.
Terry Crabtree: How comprehensive of you.
Hannah Green: James is amazing. He knows all the movie suicides. Go ahead, James. Tell him.
James Leer: There are so many.
Hannah Green: Well, just a few. The big ones.
James Leer:
Pier Angeli, 1971 or ’72, also pills
Donald “Red” Barry, shot himself in 1980
Charles Boyer, 1978, pills again
Charles Butterworth, 1946, I think. In a car. Supposedly, it was an accident, but, you know, he was distraught
Dorothy Dandridge, pills, 1965
Albert Dekker, 1968. He hung himself. He wrote his suicide note in lipstick on his stomach
William Inge, carbon monoxide, 1973
Carole Landis, pills again. I forget when
George Reeves, “Superman” on TV, shot himself
Jean Seberg, pills, of course, 1979
Everett Sloane – he was good – pills
Margaret Sullavan, pills
Lupe Velez, a lot of pills
Gig Young, he shot himself and his wife in 1978
There are tons more
Hannah Green: I haven’t heard of half of them.
Terry Crabtree: You did them alphabetically.
James Leer: It’s just how my brain works, I guess.
The Big Kahuna
Released 1999
American comedy-drama film adapted from the play Hospitality Suite.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or ‘How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down
That doesn’t make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep
If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids … Find out what his dreams are – just to find out, for no other reason
Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it’s not a conversation anymore – it’s a pitch
And you’re not a human being – you’re a marketing rep
I’m saying you’ve already done plenty of things to regret, you just don’t know what they are
It’s when you discover them, when you see the folly in something you’ve done, and you wish that you had it do over, but you know you can’t, because it’s too late
So you pick that thing up, and carry it with you to remind you that life goes on, the world will spin without you, you really don’t matter in the end
Then you will gain character, because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself across your face
This is quite possibly Danny DeVito’s best performance. This clip takes place at the end of the movie between Phil and Bob. I recommend watching the whole film to truly appreciate the discussion about character and honesty.
Billy Bob Thorton
Born August 4, 1955
American actor, filmmaker, singer, songwriter, and musician
I’ve been to prison once
I’ve been married twice
I was once drafted by by Lyndon Johnson
and had to live in shit-ass Mexico
for two and a half years for no reason
I’ve had my eye socket punched in
a kidney taken out
and I got a bone chip in my ankle
that’s never going to heal
I’ve seen some pretty shitty situations in my life
but nothing has ever sucked more ass than this
If I’d known I was gonna have to put up with
a bunch of screaming brats pissing on my lap
for thirty days out of the year
I would have killed myself a long time ago
come to think of it
I still might
where I come from
we didn’t celebrate Christmas
not because we were Jewish
but my dad was a worthless coward fuckin’ asshole
who’s idea of a present
was a daily punch
to the back of to the back of the head
he did teach me how to crack a safe, though
my dad never did shit with his life
so he took it out on me
you could say I’m no different
and I’d have to say you were right
but at this point, it’s too late to start over
funny how things work out
it’s fucking hilarious