Things I learned in 2013

* It’s been a year now and I’m not saying I regret saving the world from the Mayan apocalypse but you folks could show a little more gratitude.

 * Ben Affleck is free to do anything he wants after winning an Oscar.

Except play Batman. 

* NFL locker rooms are like LORD OF THE FLIES for grown-ups.

* If Walter White had killed Dexter both series would have ended better.

* 2013 was the year America’s retailers learned how to run Back to School and Christmas sales simultaneously.

* Syria. I know where it is on a map now. Thanks CNN.

* Kim Kardashian & Kanye West had a kid.

First time I’ve seen a baby cry when it was born for the right reasons.

* I bought too much Halloween candy again. 

Want a fun size Snickers?

* Blockbuster Video closed their last retail stores.

This is something I should have learned in 2009.

* If you compare our studio deals Grumpy Cat gets a bigger trailer than I do. Co-incidentally I have a litter box in mine too.

* That I am little disappointed Harrison Ford is going to take a paycheck and appear in the new Star Wars film after badmouthing the franchise for years. I know Han shot first but maybe he should have saved better?

* The producers and writers of THE OFFICE know how to end a TV series. Most satisfactory ending to a show I loved in years. It was to me anyway.

* I didn’t want to love Chuck Lorre’s new sitcom MOM, but I do.

* Toronto is a much more interesting city than I ever knew, eh Mr. Mayor?

* Andy Kaufman, Jerry Garcia and Elvis: all still dead.

* There is no frequent flier miles program for drones at The Pentagon.

* BROOKLYN NINE-NINE has the best opening credits music on TV.

 

* Every time the Red Sox win the World Series I expect the world to end the next day. Then I’m kind of disappointed that it doesn’t.

 

* No more real Mexican Coke? Damn. 

Wait, are we talking about the same thing?

* That I can’t watch Chris Pine in the new STAR TREK films without constantly thinking he really is William Shatner’s secret bastard love child.

* As soon as you think nothing will surprise you anymore, something will surprise you.

* 58% of Americans are FOR the legalization of marijuana.

The other 42% were too paranoid to answer the phone when the pollster called.

* I bought too much Easter candy again. 

Want a hard marshmallow Peep?

* If you hate the idea of government even existing maybe you shouldn’t ask people to put you in charge of it.

* That I still don’t care who won the Stanley Cup.

* That I want to open a restaurant with Cindy Williams and call it Tavern & Shirley.

* Chris Christie’s campaign film will literally be a ROCKY type training montage of him working out in the New Jersey wilderness.

* That too many people at the mall dress like they shop at FOREVER 21 when they should shop at a store called I'M ACTUALLY 50.

* Netflix was nominated for Emmy Awards this year. Amazon, Hulu, Microsoft and more are going to get into the game now too. 

Everything you know about TV is about to be re-invented...again.

* We can bring a knife on a plane but not a soda? I feel safer already.

* I want to open a food truck that only sells desserts and call it Wheelie Sweet.

* That I am more secure in my sexuality than Hallmark because I still don my gay apparel at holiday time.

* A 0-6 start to a season for your NFL favorite team sucks donkey scrotum. I’m talking to you NY Giants.

* If Chris Christie doesn’t win the Presidential election in 2016 he has a standing offer to host THE BIGGEST LOSER.

* 3-D movies are here to stay. Until they go away again.

* I bought too much Valentine’s candy again. 

Want a heart shaped Reeses?

* Since Congress only works about 27 days a year I didn’t even notice the government shutdown. I’m sorry, alleged government shutdown.

* If Hillary actually is running for President and consequentially will be on the road for weeks at a time 2016 can’t come fast enough for Bill Clinton.

Publicly Defending Racism. Really?

http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/nyt-food-network-wont-renew-paula-deens-contract-after-racial-slur-dilemma/

This is a Hollywood trade website but every now a then Drudge or some other right wing websites link to articles that embody the "liberal Hollywood attack" on good old Christian values like the right to call someone the N-word.

There are 300 comments from folks claiming they will "never watch The Food Network again!" and defending Deen's use of the word because "the blacks use it" and other stupid, hateful, ignorant reasons.

I get the feeling most of these folks never watched The Food Network in the first place because their dials have been stuck on FOX News since Obama was elected.

But if these crackers do follow through with their boycott the Food Networks demographics are going to rise a few IQ points.

So basically having a black President makes some folks so crazy-crazy they will publicly defend a person's racist language.

The speech is free in this country people but it is not without consequence.

Sometimes payment is deferred but the bill eventually always comes due as Ms. Deen has discovered.

Mickey Freiberg

No one can be successful in Hollywood without someone giving you an opportunity and/or taking you under their wing at the beginning of your career. Lisa Lindo gave me the opportunity but Mickey Freiberg really took me under his wing when that door was opened.

Mickey became an agent at ACME Talent & Literary about a week or so after I did.
He was already a veteran and a legend in Hollywood, Mickey "Cowboy" Freiberg, last of the old school agents. He had done it all and repped the biggest stars until he got sick of babysitting them so he switched to literary and was just as successful at that side of the biz.

I honestly had no idea what I was doing in the beginning. I was brought in because I knew comic book people & book authors and could sign them as clients.
Our mutual love of books connected Mickey and I and he became a true mentor to me during my time there.  He taught me the fine art of literary deal-making in Hollywood and much more.

Once I brought him a book that I thought would make a great movie and he told me I would just embarrass myself if I tried selling it in Hollywood because it was too big,crossed too many genres. So a couple weeks later right after I optioned the book to Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures he walks into my office and says:
"Congratulations, I knew you were smart enough not to listen to me. Always stick with your gut instinct and don't listen to anybody else if you believe in it."
It was the best advice I ever got and I apply it in my work every day.

The last deal I ever did as an agent was with Mickey.
He signed the life rights of the last men, transit police officers, who were rescued from the rubble on 9/11 2001.
When everyone else in town was saying it was too soon to sell a 9/11 project Mickey shared their story with us and soon after I pitched it to my client (and another huge mentor in my life) producer Debra Hill. She jumped all over it and long story short that project became the film WORLD TRADE CENTER directed by Oliver Stone.

Mickey's rule "don't listen to anybody else if you believe in it." was enforced successfully once again.

Mickey was a loving husband & father who was incredibly proud of his kids and justifiably so. I am proud to be able to say he was my friend, partner and mentor at an important time in my life. Rest in peace Cowboy, and thank you.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/12/mickey-freiberg-dies-longtime-hollywood-agent-was-7r-i-p-mickey-freiberg/

Things I learned in 2012

* The Fiscal Cliff is not a hot, new reggae band.

* I can’t walk into a store and buy a Twinkie.

* STAPLES doesn’t sell binders full of women.

* Taylor Swift holds a grudge.

* Granting yourself dictatorial powers in Egypt is done with the same basic authority as calling "shotgun" on a beer run.

* Chuck Lorre is always dealing with a TV star hopped up on coke or Jesus.

* Coca-Cola is still way better than Pepsi.

* Everybody thinks they look cool dancing Gangnam Style.

* Nobody looks cool dancing Gangnam Style.

* I'm Team Katniss.

* If there's a "War on Christmas", Christmas is winning.

* State polls matter, national polls don't.

* Notre Dame football is back baby!

* In the case of a legitimate election you should lay back and accept God's will.

* Hunting vampires and freeing slaves made Abraham Lincoln one of our busiest Presidents.

* Even after a billion airplay's on the radio, I'm not sick of CALL ME MAYBE.

* The NY Mets still suck. :(

* If you go clubbing with Lindsey Lohan don't forget to bring brass knuckles and bail money.

* Twinkies & Ho-Ho's have a "street value".

* I have an alarm clock and a dog because my life is full of redundancies.

* In Hollywood that competitive project will actually help your project, not hurt it but it's still going to feel like a kick in the crotch when you hear about it.

* FaceBook is not worth as much as people thought it was.

* The NY Giants are the current NFL Super Bowl Champions. :)

* The Secret Service and Army Generals have a lot sex while they are working but porn stars in LA are the ones the law says need to wear a condom.

* Nothing says Christmas like club music & a light show.

* I never need to hear the song "Moves Like Jagger" again.

* Tic-Tacs are not medicine.

* You CAN fool all of the people all of the time, as long as they are Republicans and you are FOX News.

"THE CHAIR" CLAUSE #FAIL

Get the Xanax. An empty desk panics network executives.

It's the thing that David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Ann Curry all have in common.

It creates the foundation for the problems that manifest when talent retires or leaves the network's core daily TV programs like THE TODAY SHOW and THE TONIGHT SHOW.

It's The Chair Clause, the ultimate contractual pacifier of talent in television to promise them the "legacy" job of hosting or co-hosting their dream job in the big show when a Johnny Carson, Jay Leno or Katie Couric moves on, retires or is forced out.

It is also the ultimate sign of corporate folly to even use the clause in the first place as a "tool" to mange the network talent.

To promise any Curry or O'Brien a host chair at a point 3-5 years or more in the future is to ignore whatever the circumstances of the marketplace or environment are going to be at that time for the network. These same execs can't commit to more than 13 episodes right now in prime time but know exactly what they will need 5 years from now in late night or the morning show?

Would anyone like to be locked into any preemptive future business decision they made 5 years previously, forced to ignore current events and conditions?

No NFL team guarantees a back-up quarterback the job when the 1st stringer retires or is hurt.
The back-up gets a chance to win it with everyone else.
They fill-in, evaluate, recruit and and try-out all available talent and find the best person for the job.

The Chair Clause never seems to work out the way you want it. 
Letterman had it and Leno didn't.
Jay has been a winner with the job Dave had locked in his contract.

The clause doesn't work to help keep the talent long term either.
Conan had the clause so NBC could keep him and now he's at TBS.
Dave had it at NBC and he is at CBS now so there is a pattern here too.
At this point we could put even money on Ann Curry hosting 20/20 on ABC within a year or two.

The correct answer and strategy for any TV network to replace a core host is this:
Wait, Test, Guest and Hire.

Wait until your current host announces a retirement, doesn't renew their contract or quits.
Don't promise the job away before this point ever!

Test the market.
Who is available? What is the market like?  Is it where you thought it would be 5 years ago? What are your networks needs going forward for the next 5-10 years? They call it due diligence for a reason people.

Guest hosts are your friend.
Hey network executive, you just got divorced from your talent. You don't want to date around a little before you walk down the aisle again? Steve Allen just up and left the Tonight Show and NBC hired Jack Paar after six months of testing guest hosts. The show's ratings doubled.

Hire "the One".
The same thing happened when Jack Paar left the Tonight Show.
6 more months of guest hosts and another 6 months to wait for Carson's contract with ABC for Who Do You Trust? to expire. The show's ratings doubled again.
Then Carson ran for 30 years at #1 in the ratings so the wait was worth it wasn't it?

More recently this process worked out quite well for CBS and THE LATE SHOW.
They found Craig Ferguson after a long guest host testing period.

The major difference in the two approaches can be looked at thus:
One is forced and preemptive, the other is organic and reactive.
One says let's fix what isn't broken and the other says let's cross that bridge when we get there.
The business of Television is like a journey, daily, weekly, seasonal so take the latter approach.

I know network execs who will argue with me on this especially about challenges presented by the "idiosyncrasies" of on-camera talent..
"Kevin, you don't know the ego's these people have. I'll lose the talent if I don't make this promise and that will make me look bad at work."

To this I respond:
1. Yes, I know the egos. You can't control them, you can only feed them.
2. You will lose the talent anyway eventually if they don't get everything they want including success.
3.  All you're doing with the clause is preventing yourself from building and profiting off your next Jimmy Fallon or Craig Ferguson with the added benefit of creating enough "public scandal" to fill two books, endless gossip columns, blogs and an HBO TV movie.

Right now we may not know who NBC has already secretly promised Matt Lauer and Jay Leno's jobs to just yet and hopefully for NBC they don't either.

The simple rule for NBC executive's and those at other networks regarding similar core legacy news/entertainment shows should be, like their shows are named, to think about TODAY and TONIGHT.  Just don't ever think about tomorrow until it comes.

My unannounced appearance on THE COLBERT REPORT...

I was pretty sure I was one of the first people to donate to Stephen Colbert's Super Pac when the FCC approved it recently.

Tonight on his show he started a "HEROES" scroll with the names of all the folks who donated in the order the donations came in. I showed up a few minutes or so into the scroll.
I'm one of many people lining up to "create a better tomorrow, tomorrow".

And I wasn't the only Hollywood person on the early list.
Claudia Lonow, who's dad Mark Lonow, a former partner in thTHE IMPROV comedy club used to be a client of mine when I was an agent, was also listed a few minutes after me.

Above is my proud screen shot from the Colbert Super Pac Heroes List.

You're welcome Stephen. Spend that eight bucks well.

KC

The Space Shuttle and Me (STS-42)

It was June 1991 and my ex-wife Kathie and I were in Orlando Florida at DisneyWorld. My sister in law Sheila worked for a Navy contractor Task Industries and had been down to FL the week before for a shuttle launch that had been postponed.

Kathie was sick as a dog with the flu when Sheila called us to let us know she had pulled a few strings and gotten us VIP passes to the rescheduled launch the next day at Cape Kennedy.

The trick was we were going to have to meet a bunch of other Air Force and Gov't VIP's at Patrick Air Force Base at 3am the next morning to be bused over to Cape Kennedy and the special VIP viewing area for the 6am launch time.

Kathie didn't care as much as I did but went through the whole thing for me because NASA and Neil Armstrong were some of the main inspirations in my life. I even wound up setting up a Neil Armstrong bio-pic years later at SONY TV and TNT, that's how much I love NASA and space travel.

So Kat was sick but we got up super early (1am)and I poured her into the car and drove 2 hours to Patrick Air Force. We got on the bus with a lot of guy in fancy uniforms and lots of medals on their chests. The bus drove us past all the Launch Lookers parked by the sides of the roads and highways into the Cape. There were thousands of people, families mostly, in cars and tons of campers lining the side of the road up and down the coast waiting for the launch.

We get inside the Cape and the bus delivers us to an outdoor area with a several metal bleachers set up facing the shuttle in the distance. Facing the stands were two giant ten foot  wide TV screens and a loudspeaker with audio directly from Mission Control. There were two trucks parked behind the stands. One was a food truck with coffee, sandwiches and snacks. The other was a little souvenir truck selling pins, tshirts and other memorabilia commemorating the mission which was STS-42, the 42nd launch of the shuttle.

Upon arrival we are told the launch is delayed due to weather again. It's about 5am at this point. I'm hoping that it won't be a total rescheduling and Kat uses it as an excuse to take another nap. So I'm just killing time chatting with a nice AF Captain and some other officers. I buy some pins and stuff and get some hot chocolate from the truck.

 During this time I find out these bleachers are exactly two miles from the launch pad and we are the closest humans to the pad except for the emergency rescue team stationed in a concrete bunker one mile from the pad. I also realize these bleachers are the ones they use to show the people's reactions shots from every launch I've ever seen on TV, like when they used to roll the TV into my classroom in elementary school for the Apollo launches. So I'm really digging this scene and hoping the launch isn't going to get cancelled.

Four hot cocoas and a bagel later they start up the final countdown around 10 am. The speaker from Mission Control is blaring out the numbers and at "1" the engines start up and the smoke starts billowing out the bottom of the launch pad.

A loud rumble in the distance starts and the ground shakes like an earthquake and amid the fire and smoke 4.5 million pounds of Space Shuttle starts to rise off the pad. Strangers reach out to the people next to them and hold their hand. Men, women, officers, civilians are all connected in this one moment as our fellow humans leave this planet.

The shuttle starts to rise and I start taking my pictures (that's one of them above this article) and about a minute or two after ignition a wall of hot air, superheated from the fires of the blast off, hits us on the bleachers like a opened oven. The shuttle keeps going up, up and up into the sky.

Mission Control keeps us informed about the crafts progress even after it's up in the atmosphere and out of site. I'm still in awe. Amazed by the power of the vehicle that I just saw and by the fact the we, just humans, did that.

There's a lot of handshaking and congratulations among the military types and eventually they round us all up for the bus ride back to Patrick AFB.
On the bus folks are happy but tired. Some nap, some just keep chattering about the launch. We finally get back to our hotel around 4pm and we both went back to bed exhausted.

It was one the most amazing, inspiring, best days of my life.

I do hold a special sadness this morning as I watched the last shuttle launch on TV. There is a unique quality in the human condition that sends us places we need to go. Columbus, Magellan and Neil Armstrong embody that quality. It takes us into the unknown on a search for knowledge and enlightenment. I hope we don't lose that and someday future generations get to see the power and greatness of the accomplishments I witnessed. It's amazing what we can achieve if we work together.