The Master Entertainer

When regular people mourn a celebrity’s death it always rings a little false to me. When David Carradine died recently, my office filled with gasps when the news was read aloud off of MSN. It was as if a good friend had passed.

“Oh my God,” someone said, “I can’t believe he’s gone. What was he in again?”

“Kung Fu,” I replied. Silence. “I mean, Kill Bill.”

“Oh he was so good in that!”

This person whom my coworker couldn’t even place in whatever film was shocked - SHOCKED! - to discover that he was dead. A part of me thinks that people live vicariously through celebrity culture in general and when one of the Hollywood elite falls it’s like a part of those living by proxy die with the celebrity. I think Michael Jackson is one - if not the only - celebrity to escape that blanket statement, because I think of why anyone would want to live vicariously through him, but I know he’s definitely going to be missed.

I’ve always like Michael Jackson as an entertainer. He was unbelievably unique to me. His moves were out of this world and once I saw that moonwalk I was hooked. I think Thriller was the first music video I can remember watching. Apart from being scared out of my mind at seeing zombies for the first time, I was literally amazed at watching awesome dance choreography for dead people. After that, I would actively look for Michael Jackson videos on MTV - this was back in the days when MTV still played music videos - and I was always disappointed when the video didn’t live up to the production value of Thriller.

On a related note, an ex-coworker of mine showed me this video a while back and I think it’s only apropos that I share it here now:

As I got older and had to start defining myself as a male, I began moving away from Michael Jackson. I think it was the Black or White video that really put me off. Don’t get me wrong; I was impressed by the technical achievements of the video. It was the first time the whole CGI morphing gimmick was to good use and done so well. As someone who has struggled with my own ethnic identity and dark skin color, I was also intrigued by how White Michael Jackson had become and wondered if this was something that just anyone to undergo. It’s amazing how attuned preteens can be to racial inequities. Ultimately, the whole skin color thing - but mostly the plastic surgery - weirded me out too much and I joined the mob that dubbed him Wacko Jacko.

Years later, I was sitting in an acting class at the Van Mar Academy (now called Visions Unlimited) taking a lesson from one of the acting coaches named Mark. He was bemused Brit that loved to play audio recordings of celebrities thanking Van Mar for their help. These were the free promotional acting classes the “academy” gave to attract new talent, so it made sense that they’d try to sell even during the classes. Anyway, one of the many personal anecdotes that Mark gave was a time that he was “in the presence of greatness.” He was talking about Michael Jackson. The class for the evening was focused on hitting marks. In the film and television industry, “marks” are spots on the floor that actors need to stop at so that they’re framed correctly and in focus. To practice, we would take coins and toss them on the ground and walk after them, trying to hit our marks without looking directly at it. Anyway, back to Mark’s anecdote: Apparently, he worked briefly with Michael Jackson or at the very least got to watch him rehearse. According to Mark, Michael Jackson’s marks were single points made by a blue felt tip marker on a gray stage and Jackson was able to hit all of them flawlessly. Now that I’m recounting the story it does sound a little exaggerated, but I’m sure Jackson was still remarkable in this regard.

More recently, my father bought a DVD of Michael Jackson’s greatest music videos and I sat down to watch a couple of them. Despite all of the bad press he’s received - not entirely undeserved, mind you - I was still transported back to my childhood and filled with wonder and awe at his amazing performances. I remember watching the video Scream and thinking to myself, “This guy is a living anime character.” I think the fact that the video featured anime helped in my assessment, but I don’t think I’m incorrect. Anime characters transcend their ethnic features to look wholly Caucasian and they have the uncanny ability to move their bodies in the most flatteringly photogenic ways.

Nani???

All things considered, I think Michael Jackson’s willingness to truly pursue what he wanted - in spite of social mores and folkways - was the key to his success and what the world will miss the most.

Here’s my all-time-favorite Michael Jackson music video:

Get it done.

A cousin of mine remarked on Facebook today that business people like to say, “I’ve been swamped” way too much. I think a lot of different industries have different phrases when it comes to being busy. In the restaurant industry, when a server is overwhelmed by his or her tables, the server says, “I’m in the weeds.” When writers have too many deadlines, they say, “I’m buried.” Actually, I don’t really know that writers say that. The writers in the movie Shattered Glass said that and I thought it was pretty cool so now I try to say it.

I haven’t had time for personal writing lately, because I’ve been buried. As much as I’d like to think that I’m the kind of writer who can just come home from my day job and put in another eight hours in front of another computer, the reality is that I’m not quite there. That could very well mean that I’m not driven enough, but I think there’s something to be said for trying not to burn out. I love writing - I do! - I just need a little time away from it once in a while. I will say this: There are few better feelings than finishing an article I’m proud of. No matter how late it is or how tired I am, the small accomplishment of knocking out an article always lifts me up and is always an occasion to celebrate. Typically, I’ll just step outside for a smoke.

Recently, I watched Woody Allen’s new film Whatever Works. The following Monday, I had to be in LA for Press Day at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, where most Press Days are held - or so I’ve experienced thus far. Anyway, Patricia Clarkson, Evan Rachel Wood and Larry David made up the panel and there were about 30 journalists in the room. Like any Press conference, no one reporter can really control the interview. As such, you get a wide range of questions that don’t necessarily cut together into a compelling story angle. One of the journalists - I think she said she was with E! - threw out a really random question about vampires and what the Hollywood industry finds so interesting about them. How in the hell that works out into something people want to read or watch on E! is beyond me. Then there are also the foreign journalists who speak in slow, sometimes broken English. One Asian lady didn’t realize that Larry David was Jewish and asked him about his preparation for playing a Jewish character, going so far as to ask if he spent more time with Jews in order to study them. Larry David of course responded with something sardonic about learning the Jew’s mysterious ways and even getting bar mitzvah’d again. Anyway, the point of all this is to convey how it’s sometimes difficult to find a coherent narrative thread throughout the interview to put down on paper. So that usually means I’m up all night listening to portions of the entire Press conference over and over again, mixing and matching segments in my head until I can find convenient segues to tie them together. With that in mind, it’s nothing short of a small victory that these articles turn out as readable as they are.

On top of the writing, there’s also the long commute to and from LA. I used to dread the idea of living in the big city. Now it’s all I can think about whenever I’m stuck in traffic. Imaginary signs that read: “You’d be home by now if you lived here” supplant all of the billboards for gentlemen’s clubs that line the freeway as I crawl along. If I should see flashing fire truck or ambulance lights in the distance, my first thought is, “Somebody better be dead to justify this traffic.” And if I’m headed home from a late night event, I mentally prepare myself to do a slow paced slalom from hell on the freeway as Cal Trans night crews shut down lanes first on one side for one stretch of the freeway and then the other side for a another stretch down a ways. All of this time and energy put into driving really kills my productivity. On the upside, all of this experience on the freeways means I make amazingly great time no matter the distance I have to drive.

Of course none of this is to say that I dislike what I’m doing. On the contrary, I love going to special events and screening movies. Recently, I got to go to the Young Hollywood Awards, which is the first time I’ve seen Adam Lambert post-American Idol. I’m still impressed that I covered him before his fame and fortune while he was cutting his teeth with The Zodiac Show. Also, recently I got to screen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen at IMAX no less. With any luck you’ll see my review up on Buzzine late tonight.

Brief Celebrity Opinions

Vixens of the silver screen.

I recently caught a blurb that quoted Megan Fox, saying, “Stop comparing me to Angelina Jolie.” On one hand, I think that’s a fair request. Being an A-list actor is a tough career to come by and I can imagine how bitter of a pill it must be to swallow when you climb to the pinnacle of your personal mountain only to find it overshadowed by someone else on a greater mountain. On the other hand, I think that Megan Fox still has a lot of ground to cover in terms of her profession as an actor. She’s pretty to look at - no argument there - but let’s see her carry a melodrama. I can almost guarantee that it wouldn’t be as pretty. So when Megan Fox is compared to Angelina Jolie, who is far and away a better actress, Megan should take it as a compliment and start branching out into roles that will challenge her acting chops.

Sexy in a submissive kind of way.

Selling the sexy attitude.

As for pure hotness between the two ladies, I think that’s a toss-up if we’re being fair and comparing Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox in their respective physical primes. If, however, we take into account personality then Angelina wins hands down. Megan is sexy, but Angelina pulls off the attitude better.

My all-time-favorite picture of Angelina Jolie.

Working Author

I’ve recently been working on the Web design for another site that’s similar to this one and I’m thinking of following the design I’m making for them. Basically, I want to turn the top portion of the front page of this site into a kind of hub for the entire site. That way, visitors can be instantly updated on what’s new without having to look in respective sections. Moreover, it’ll seem like my site is updated more frequently. Anyway, look for changes soon.

UCR Professor Christopher Buckley

When I was in school at UC Riverside, one of my creative writing workshops was taught by Professor Christopher Buckley - a different, less famous Christopher Buckley than you’re probably thinking of. Anyway, one of the pieces that he would constantly refer to was something he wrote called “The History of My Hair.” I never read it, but I guess he was a little self-conscious about his balding pate. Nevertheless, Professor Buckley was a fine teacher and a credit to the profession. I only bring him up because I was thinking about the title for this blog post and synapses started firing in my brain, unlocking memories I hadn’t had the occasion to recall until now.

A friend of mine - she’s Black - made a comment recently about how Black people have a “special” relationship with their hair. Recently, I sympathize with them, because I can’t seem to get a decent haircut when I go to the salon. Finding a good hairstylist is kind of like finding a good mechanic or a good doctor: Once you find one, you really don’t want to let go of them, because this is a person who can handle your unique issues well. This is especially important for me since I’m Asian and I’m told that Asians are the second hardest kind of hair to cut since it’s straight and coarse. It’s the kind of hair that turns into annoying hair splinters that pierce the skin and dig under fingernails. With that in mind, I like to know that the person cutting my hair understands where my cowlick is and that the hair on the left side of my head grows faster than the right side, because I sleep on that side. I like the person to know that if we’re going short to keep the front of my crown longer than the back so I can spike everything up without looking like a porcupine. Sure, it seems obvious that I could just tell any random hairstylist these details, but whenever I do there seems to be something lost in transit from my mouth to their ears, because I never quite get what I want.

My first hairstylist was my Dad. I guess he was more of a barber, because he didn’t really do any of the things I’ve come to associate with hairstylists, like shampoo and rinse or ask if I wanted gel or blow hair splinters out of my eyes with a hairdryer. Furthermore, he used to cut my hair in the middle of the kitchen while I sat on rickety stool, trying to keep my back as straight as possible. Every few minutes he’d yell, “Stop slouching!” to which I would immediate sit up, usually driving the tops of my ears in between the scissor blades mid-cut. At the very least, he didn’t use a bowl. I’m pretty sure this spectacle repeated itself up until I was in the sixth grade.

I’m not sure what the exact reason was that convinced my parents to start taking me to a bona fide hairstylist, but they eventually did. I think my Dad realized that he wanted me to fit in and that contemporary haircuts were beyond his skill. So I started seeing this Filipino hairstylist and she introduced me to the amazing world of clippers. I always loved getting haircuts from her and then running my hand across the hairline on the nape of my neck all day. I think her daughter may have had a thing for me as well. She was probably a couple of years older than me, but I didn’t care since she was cute. She used to pour baby powder down the back of my neck and into my shirt to ease the itching of errant hair splinters. I don’t think she did that for everybody. She didn’t even work there, as far as I knew, but in the end it didn’t matter since I didn’t know how to talk to girls back then and was too busy affecting a standoffish personality, thinking girls were attracted to that since brooding anti-heroes always got the girls in movies.

The only really bad experience I had at that salon was when I had come down with shingles. I don’t know if you’ve had shingles before, but they’re almost like chicken pox except highly concentrated in grotesque clusters all over your body - at least mine were. In fact, I had an unsightly cluster just south of my neck hairline. So when this hairstylist would use the clippers, she’d cut right into that sensitive cluster. For a ten-year-old, the pain was excruciating, not to mention embarrassing. How could I brood for the daughter with tears welling up in the corners of my eyes? My Dad finally stepped in and yelled, “Stop being a sissy!” Afterwards, while I waited for my brother to finish getting his hair cut, I stood outside, head hung low, neck on fire, feeling ashamed, humiliated and ugly for the very first time in my life.

A couple of years later, my parents started taking me to the mall for haircuts. It was one of those department store salons - JCPenney’s maybe - when department stores still had salons. Maybe they do still. I don’t know. Anyway, I was in the eighth grade and starting to come out of my shell and I discovered the singular joy of salon banter. I loved talking to my hairstylist. I think this was due to a couple of things: 1. I’m too mature for my age, so I tend to enjoy speaking to older people rather than younger people. 2. No one really cared for what I had to say at home and it was nice to have an adult listen to me for a change. As a bonus, 3. I was a bit of a novelty item at the salon since I was young and opinionated, so the girls always let me talk if only to laugh at my naiveté.

This is about the time I started to shave the sides of my head, leaving the top as long as possible. My friend and neighbor, Dave, had that same cut and I liked its look. I eventually became a regular of one particular hairstylist. Her name was Mitra and I think she was newly immigrated from Palestine or somewhere around there. She still had an accent and so did her daughter who would spend time at the salon after school. I can’t remember her name, but she was around my age. She was also cute. So if I ever had to wait for another family member to finish, I’d pass the time with the daughter. We’d talk about school or whatever else preteens talk about and I’d smile and she’d smile back. It was nice. One moment was a little weird though. It was around Christmas time, I think, and she wanted to write a thank you Christmas card to one of her teachers. Since even then I considered myself a good writer, I offered to dictate a proper thank you message. She had the card out in front of her on the table that separated us and she asked me if I would just write it for her. I thought it was a little weird and felt that she might be taking advantage of me, but what the heck, I agreed. After I finished I told her that all she had to do was sign it. She said she’d do it later. I playfully prodded that she should sign it right then, but she insisted that she’d do it later, which I thought was a little odd since the card and the pen and the person were all right there. Why not just get it over with? Another haircut later, while engaging Mitra in salon banter and talking about where she’s from, Mitra told me about how dangerous her home country was. Apparently, it’s the kind of place where people plant bombs inside buildings on a weekly basis. Her daughter had been caught in a blast, severely mangling one of her forearms and hand. I wasn’t sure how to feel knowing that. I felt sorry for the daughter while my attraction for her fell off a cliff. I wanted to help her somehow, while knowing that there was nothing I could really do that wouldn’t come off as self-serving pity. Like most internal conflicts, it didn’t matter in the end. Her daughter stopped coming to the salon after that. So did I.

On an interesting side note, this all happened around the first time I witnessed my Dad possibly having doubts about how well he was doing as a father. We shared the same stylist and when Mitra was engaging him in salon banter, like, “Do you think it’s going to rain?” lets say, he’d respond with, “I’m a good father.” Then they’d be silent for a minute or so while Mitra cut his hair, trying to make sense of that response.

Throughout most of high school, I was set on growing out my hair and all I really needed was to have the sides shaved. Since my buddy Dave shaved the sides of his own head, I had him cut mine as well. So for the next four years, he was my hairstylist and my salon was his filthy garage that smelled like cat excrement. Throughout the years, however, he kept shaving the sides higher and higher to near Mohawk dimensions, but my long hair hid any of his mistakes. In my junior year, I gave my mom a pair scissors to cut my pony tail - which she always hated - as a Christmas present. I still went to Dave for haircuts though and he’s responsible for the very best haircut I’ve ever had. Beautiful girls I shared classes with would put their arms around me, stroking the back of my head, telling me how handsome I looked. Guys I knew would stop me in the hall and say, “That’s a great haircut.”

On a related note, during this time I let a girl I was dating cut my hair once. We went to Dave’s and used his equipment. After she cut my hair, the girl ran her fingers through it and said, “It’s got that get-up-and-go look.” Afterwards, people would stop me and ask, “Who cut your hair? It’s all uneven and the back doesn’t look finished.”

The only really bad experience I had with Dave was shortly after high school. I had gone through a terrible rollercoaster romance at the end of my senior year where I lost what I thought was the love of my life to another guy who was now living with her. So Dave’s cutting my hair with clippers, I’m talking about the girl and Dave says to me, “I hear they’re having sex every night.” That was probably the worst thing to say to me at the time. Back then I think I was like most people and when most people go through difficult times, like a breakup, a divorce or a death, the worst place for them to be is in their own head. It’s too much to feel for one person. That’s where friends come in: to get you out of your head in a non-destructive alternative to drugs, alcohol or bad poetry. By saying what Dave said, he put me in a reality where nowhere was safe. Still, I futilely tried to escape the reality. So with the vibrating teeth of the clippers firmly wedged into my scalp, I yanked my head away and defiantly cried, “No!” The clippers carved out a bald spot that must have looked awful, because Dave exclaimed, “Oooh…that was bad.” I stumbled down his driveway and collapsed in a pathetic heap on the sidewalk and wept.

"Just do whatever you think looks good."

Dave couldn’t cut my hair forever, so I bounced around different chain salons, not really caring about the kind of haircut I got. My hair grows back pretty fast so I’m never stuck with a bad cut for too long. I used to frequent a Fantastic Sams in Corona, CA where the owner - a beautiful redhead named Kimberly or maybe Jennifer - would cut the hair of her seven children in the store after hours. I immersed myself in the salon gossip and found out whom in the store the rest of the girls hated and thought was full of shit. It almost reached Cheers levels where the girls would call out my name when I walked in. I had considered hitting on one of the girls there who was a temporary transplant from another store. She had big beautiful eyes and was studying forensic science because she wanted to get into CSI work. She also had a typical meathead boyfriend, so I never pursued her.

When I moved to where I currently live, they had just opened up a new Fantastic Sams. My very first haircut there was a terrible experience. My hairstylist was a Cyclops. I wasn’t sure at first, because she stylishly combed her bangs over her missing eye, but when I sat in the chair and got a good look at her - sure enough - mono-eyed. Now I’m not one to discriminate just because someone looks different or functions differently as long as that person is still effective. After all, the drummer from Def Leppard only has one arm and he does fine. My experience was terrible because she was just a terrible hairstylist. It seemed like she didn’t want to touch me. You know how when hairstylists cut around your ears, they’ll typically use one hand to bend your ear out of the way? Yeah, she wouldn’t do that. The whole event left such a bad taste in my mouth that I didn’t come back for months, but I’m glad I did.

Bar none, the very best professional haircutting experience I’ve ever had was at that same Fantastic Sams. Typically, when the hairstylist doesn’t speak fluent English, I don’t get the haircut I want. One of the things I appreciated about the Corona Fantastic Sams was that Kimberly (or Jennifer) had a rule that all of the girls working for her spoke nothing but English while in the store. So when I came back to my current Fantastic Sams, I was a little disheartened to get this girl that clearly didn’t speak English very well. Her name is Catalina and she’s cute as hell. I’ll go so far as to say that she scores high marks in every physical category that matters to me. On the other hand, her looks aren’t going to help her give me a better haircut and her inability to communicate with me effectively could only guarantee a worse one. As it turns out, however, the whole English thing wasn’t that big of a problem and the substance of the conversation quickly revealed that I would dig this chick.

When it comes to salon banter, like most conversations between strangers, I look for common ground. So my patter usually consists of asking if they’re married and have kids in order to bait them into asking me the same questions so that I can tell them I don’t want either. The stylist will then inevitably tell me how I’m missing out on a complete life and, in this manner, we have the illusion of conversation. When I put Catalina - who’s seven or so years younger than me - through her paces, she told me she had a boyfriend and a kid with him. When I told her I didn’t want a kid she agreed that that was a wise decision - how refreshing! - since kids are too expensive and too hard to raise. From there, things just clicked. We got to talking about our lives and families and our hometowns. We complained about our parents and work. Luckily for me, I know a bit of Spanish so she could openly talk about el jefe while he was in earshot. In short, I felt like I was talking to an old friend, but better in some ways because she was still new and still appreciated my corny humor. I was just happy that my humor came across at all.

What sold me on this girl, though, was the care she took with cutting my hair. I don’t necessarily want to say that it was intimate, but the haircuts she gave me definitely went beyond your run-of-the-mill professional haircuts. For one, she stretched the haircuts out for an hour just so we could keep talking. For another, she did things like tussle my hair to get a smile out of me or she’d use a finger to wipe away a strand of hair from my cheek or nose instead of a hairdryer. She’d give me relaxing scalp massages while she shampooed my hair. I’d take a haircut from her over a lap dance any day. I understand, of course, that many will probably think that these are all red flag indications that I’m just one lonely guy. My only refutation of that assumption is that I’m pretty good at comparing what I normally get from your average hairstylist and what Catalina gives. It’s night and day.

Regrettably, she quit, found work doing something else, moved away, who knows? So now I’m left with getting haircuts that only barely resemble what I asked for when I plop down on their stool. Recently, I asked the hairstylist to leave the front of my crown long, but I guess she thought I only wanted the bangs long, because she was quick to shave down the front of my crown. Maybe she thought I was going to pull off liberty spikes or something. These days I often resign myself to just asking for “Whatever you think looks good.”

The lengths of entertainment journalism.

I really enjoy being an entertainment journalist. Not only does it have that diamond-rare ring to it in the way that astronaut or brain surgeon does, but it also connects me to a vast network of creativity. I’ve always found that when I’m surrounded by creativity, I become more creative. The last time I really experienced this phenomenon in any tangible way was when I was collecting debt for Sears back in 2000 (or around there). When you’re on the phones every minute of the workday, you try to keep your mind entertained by multitasking, like when you’re on long drives. You keep part of your consciousness focused on the road, but the rest of your mind floats around to other matters, like your to-do list, an argument you’ve recently had or, in my case, the next scene to your screenplay. At the Sears debt collection call center, I focused on my sketches while I listened to delinquent customers offer up ridiculous reasons as to why they couldn’t pay. Sometimes they would alter their voice to convince they were someone else - as if I knew what their original voice sounded like in the first place. Most of the time they just yelled at me. Anyway, I sketched. People started to notice and I was slowly absorbed into a circle of artists within the call center. We’d pass around a leather-bound sketch book and compile our art. The pieces I added weren’t groundbreaking or even that skillfully rendered, but what I learned was how to produce just to produce. I got into the habit of creating. When you want to get into a creative field, there’s no greater skill than to be habitually creative so that when Joe Producer asks you for an idea or Joan Editor asks you for a story pitch you’ll be able to cough up something decent. In short, now that I’m doing what I do - such as it is - I’m loving every moment.

I’m even enjoying the long drive in to Los Angeles. There’s something absurdly exciting about driving towards LA during rush hour and seeing the other side of the freeway crawling along. The feeling is kind of like that scene in Gattaca where two of the characters are trying to out-swim each other into the ocean and the narrator states, “…knowing each stroke forward meant another stroke back.” In my case, each minute towards LA meant another five minutes back. It’s also like that scene in Independence Day when the protagonists are in the only car headed toward the Capitol while the other side of the highway is at a standstill trying to get out. Now that I think about it, that last image isn’t very comforting. In any event, I’m getting to know Los Angeles a lot better. I’m approaching the point where I take detours on the fly when the freeway jams up and not get lost without a map.

Then there are the publicists and the other journos. I love talking to these people. You know how people in general like movies? So you can typically find someone to talk about movies with in a very broad, high level conversation. If you’re looking for more dispassionate and deeper discourse, however, entertainment journalists cannot be beat. I think that’s one of the reasons I love arriving early to junkets - sitting at the roundtable and dishing and bloviating about films and celebs. The other reason is the free food. More than for just the esoteric information that entertainment journos have, I enjoy conversation with these people because they’re very articulate and naturally amateur standup comedians in their own right. I think that last bit is from too many years of trying to cleverly phrase something in an article. Even better, it’s probably from too many years of having too many clever phrases that they won’t all fit into articles so these writers naturally work them into conversations just so their cleverness wasn’t wasted.

Lastly and probably most importantly, I simply enjoy writing. It’s the least frustrating way to express myself. I think that frustration is part and parcel to any creative person’s being, because it’s very rare that people are able to communicate exactly what they’re trying to express. I witness and experience communication breakdown on a daily basis, which is frustrating in and of itself. Now imagine how a singer feels when he or she can’t hit a particular note or how a dancer feels when he or she isn’t limber enough to pull off a move. It’s the same frustration except amplified tenfold because creativity is the mode of communication these people are passionate about. Such is the way with me. I can’t relate to you how many wasted nights I’ve spent hunched over pieces of paper with pencil in hand, waiting to draw. Then when inspiration finally comes I watch helplessly as my mind refuses to communicate with my fingers and I turn out a garbled mess. Sure, I’m occasionally able to turn out something that won’t make eyes bleed, but they’re rarely what I had intended to create. They’re just happy coincidences, but how can any artist really be happy with that outcome? So while I sometimes experience the creative frustration of not having the right word for something I’m trying to write, most of what I pen is exactly what I wanted to say - excluding the numerous typos and grammatical errors, natch.

In many ways, writing is very ritualistic for me. I typically don’t perform well during the day, which is why I’m continually impressed at my output at my day job where I’m sat underneath a loudspeaker that’s constantly used to page people. I’m also right next to the sales department and filtering out their sales calls is a daily battle. In any event, I think my best work comes at night or close to it. I function best with a caffeinated beverage and two cigarettes - or a cigarette and clove - make for great simple rewards after I finish a difficult passage or the entire piece. The other day I was smoking on my patio, watching the sun set and I remember thinking to myself that this was the life! I’m not looking for riches or fame, but I won’t reject them either. At the end of the day, I just want to live comfortably and do what I love.

Barbra Streisand 2006

Scratch that. I think maybe I am looking for fame. The other day I was writing a review of Barbra Streisand’s 2006 concert and I was working on some compliments about her performance and I was overwhelmed by this notion that all I do is write about other people’s lives. Sometimes I’m critical. Most of the time I celebrate the success of their projects. The entire time, however, I’m jealous. When will the day come that someone else is writing about me? I’m hopeful that that day isn’t too far off. In the meantime, I have to resign myself to keep plugging away and jumping on the opportunities that present themselves.

In 2005 I was talking with a fellow journo, Rick, from the Fresno Bee. We were at a press conference and we had some downtime while talent was being rotated out. I remember raising the point that perhaps our roles as journalists are ultimately meaningless, because all we do is follow the lives of other people. He retorted that while our subjects aren’t as important as, say, politics or human rights events, people still want to know about these particular people, so in that sense he feels like he provides an important public service. I try to remember that every time I write.

It's good to see how far you've come.

After graduating college and realizing that I wasn’t going to instantly be a published creative non-fiction book author, I resigned myself to a soul-draining day job while I sought freelance gigs on the Internet. The very first publication that gave me a chance was SWITCH Magazine, founded by my friends Gerry Garcia and Danny Safady - though I didn’t know who they were at the time. The Editor-in-Chief was Kristopher Dukes and she enjoyed my college samples enough to bring me on board. The magazine was just starting out so payment was offered in bylines, which was fine for me.

Kristopher asked for story pitches so I tossed out this idea of doing bar reviews. My hope was to have a standard column titled Social Lubrication and I’d be the guy checking out all the new scenes. This was, of course, a great sacrifice on my part since I can’t stand alcohol. Anyway, my idea was approved and I dragged some friends out for some drinks. My first draft didn’t turn out so well even though my friends liked it. Kristopher kicked it back to me with supportive but concise criticisms and asked me to rewrite it, stating that she wanted it to be “more professional.” I pared myself down in the reviews and tried to mimic a few reviews I’d read online, while still trying to maintain my voice. Kristopher loved it and I sat back and waited for my first officially published work to go to print.

Sam Sarpong

A few weeks later, Kristopher left the publication and moved to New York. I was dismayed, but when I contacted Gerry all of my concerns were wiped away by his request that I interview Tatyana Ali. Again, I sat back in my chair to take it all in. Sure, Tatyana Ali wasn’t Angelina Jolie, but it was more than I could have expected from my very first time interviewing anybody. I’ve told this story many times before so I won’t go into too much detail in this retelling, but you can read my interview with Tatyana if you’d like. Anyway, the bigger surprise was that Gerry wanted me to interview an actor/model friend of his - Sam Sarpong - as well. It was a big surprise not because of Sam’s acclaim or notoriety, but because Gerry decided to spring this news on me day of, leaving me in a pretty pickle since I didn’t know anything about Sam at all. I was already nervous as hell, trying to fake it like I’d been doing this journalism thing for ages. Now I had to come up with questions on the fly without even really knowing what entertainment journalists ask. Luckily for me, Sam likes to talk so I got plenty of good material. Luckily for the article, I write good copy. You can also check out my Sam Sarpong interview if you like.

I mention this moment because that first-time nervousness never really left me. Anytime I’ve sat down to interview someone, whether it be a one-on-one or a roundtable or a press conference, I’ve always felt this need to impress the interviewee. It was as if to prove to them hey, I’m legitimate. I deserve to be sitting in the same room as you.

Steve Hofstetter

Then there were the dry spells. SWITCH never got off the ground so I freelanced here and there for different regional publications of varying credibility, none of which paid me with anything more than a byline. Publication after publication folded and it was hard to pick up freelance work, so I promoted myself through my Web site, asking people on social networks to advertise me to their friends lists. One such person, who actually found me, was comedian Steve Hofstetter. We were both using the now defunct TagWorld and I guess he saw that I was a writer, so he invited me out to one of his Sunday shows, which I found out much later are free shows that he likes to do with no scripted material. Anyway, I told him that I’d be willing to interview him and pitch the article to random editors around LA if he’d advertise me on his page. He refused, stating that he found it “unethical” that I’d even consider writing a review of someone only for personal promotion. I admitted to him and myself that it was pretty tacky and felt deeply ashamed. I was turning into a hack.

Fast forward to several years later. For some reason, I’d always wanted to show Steve Hofstetter that I was a serious writer. I felt that I had made such a terrible first impression that I owed it to myself to prove that I was above that level of writers. So for one of my very early articles for Buzzine, I made sure to pitch an interview with Steve. I think the article went over very well. Steve was happy with it and when Buzzine was invited to an industry comedy showcase, which Steve hosted, I now had a tenuous relationship with him. So when he came by my table to chitchat, it was totally cool and natural. He probably doesn’t remember any part of our first encounter back in 2006, but the important thing is that I do and I think I’ve made up for it.

Even more recently, I had to cover a launch party for Catch Boutique, which is an online fashion retailer that offers video conferencing for style advice among other services. The host of the party and founder of the company, Natalie Howell, was floating around the event and I thought it’d be good to get some quotes from her for my editorial. The problem was that she was constantly surrounded by PR staff and celebrities. The situation reminded me of grade school, with me wanting to just talk with the cute, popular girl, but never did because she was always surrounded by people that would scrutinize everything I said. So I hung back and just took in the party. That’s when I saw Sam Sarpong. He hadn’t changed one bit, but of course he didn’t recognize me. When we performed what Danny calls the “hip hop hug,” which consists of a handshake, pull-in and one arm hug, Sam asked me, “Where do I know you from?”

For whatever reason, I suddenly felt empowered. To be more accurate, I felt the field was level - that I had value within the industry. More than that, I think it also has to do with just overall comfortableness that I never acknowledged before. When you go to enough events, you start running into the same people. It’s like college. When you’re taking classes related to your major, you run into familiar faces. I run into Corinne Kaplan at almost every event I go to, which makes me wonder if she’s on the same mailing lists. Anyway, the feeling of being overwhelmed by Sam’s star power (such as it is) from our first meeting in 2004 had given way to just being two professionals running into each other on our journey through the industry. This will probably sound odd, but when I gave him my card, I felt grown up.

Right after that, I hunted down Natalie for a few quotes. Entourage be damned.

When people use the term “full circle” it typically means a return to the beginning. I can’t say that I’ve simply returned to the beginning, because that would discount the tremendous growth I’ve experienced over the last couple of years. So instead I’ll categorize my writing career thus far as having made one full revolution up a spiral staircase.

So far, the view looks pretty good.

This isn't half as bad as I've seen.

For me, all roads lead to Los Angeles. Whether it’s for work or play, I think I’ll end up in the city on a permanent basis eventually. This could be years down the line or tomorrow if things don’t pan out with this Redlands writing gig and I find steady work out in LA. This is a little ironic for me since I don’t generally like being in the big city.

Visiting is nice because I get to see places I don’t normally get to see, there’s a lot of people everywhere and my time spent in Los Angeles feels like a mini-adventure. What I don’t enjoy is the actual work of visiting. Since I live in the Inland Empire, getting to where I need to go in LA can take anywhere between 45 minutes to two hours. That’s because I have to take the freeway in and any time you use a route frequented by a lot of people is mostly unpredictable. So driving on Southern California freeways is a lot like gambling: if you do it long enough, you’re going to lose. It’s almost a given that some moron who’s been putting off an oil change for two years will break down a mile ahead of you or some jerk is texting while driving and causes a 10-car pileup. So to guarantee that I’m not late, I have to leave my apartment two hours ahead of my check-in. Usually, this means I’m just sitting around on some side street in LA waiting. Budgeting for possible traffic is as bad as scheduling cable service.

While waiting around for an hour, playing my Nintendo DS does feel like a waste of time, I’d rather be doing that than sitting in traffic. At least I’m entertained. When I get stuck in traffic - and it happens often - the situation is simply atrocious. For one, there are just too many cars on the road. Americans love society, but at our cores we’re all very individualistic, which means carpooling is next to nonexistent. Secondly, if sheer congestion doesn’t cause the traffic then it’s something completely out there, like car fires, an entire biker gang 50 motorcycles strong getting pulled over, some guy’s hood coming unlatched at 75 mph flipping back into his windshield blocking his view and causing him to slam into the median, or two Park and Eat lunch trucks getting into road rage and careening into each other. And these are just the crazy things I’ve seen driving the few stretches of road that I do. Imagine all of the other insane things that the entire Southern California freeway system has to endure, like freeway killers that drop cinderblocks from overpasses and low-speed pursuits of ex-football players.

My last few trips out to LA have churned my bile and reminded me of why I hate driving out there. A couple of weeks ago I rolled out for a screening of the film Gigantic starring Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel, who looks cute as ever. Anyway, after the screener I went to the hipster diner Fred 62 with a buddy of mine. I had been there before and I parked in relatively the same area as I had on my last visit since the public parking lot looked full. My buddy did the same. After a fine meal I went back to my car to find that the city had left me a nice little parking ticket for parking without a permit. I looked up at the sign next to my car that stated the hours of parking and sure enough they added a third green sign with small print that stated a permit was required. That was definitely a new addition since it had only been a few months since my last visit. On top of that, I had forgotten to affix my car registration sticker to my license plate so the city added another $25 on top of the $53 parking ticket. Eating at Fred 62 was one of the most expensive meals I’d had in a long time. On the upside, Los Angeles makes it easy for you to let the city gouge you by providing a convenient envelope for you to mail in your payment. Alternatively, you can pay online with either a Visa or Mastercard.

Just make everything "permit-only."

Just recently, I had to get over to the swank Four Seasons hotel for a roundtable interview with James Toback whose film Tyson was well-received at Cannes and is going to be released here in the States on April 24. I showed up late because I didn’t stick to my two-hour traffic budget and also because I stopped to get some cash so I could tip valet. Anyway, drive-time there was about an hour and a half. The interview lasted about twenty minutes or so. Then I drove home during rush hour traffic, which took me about two and a half hours. That’s four hours of driving for a twenty minute interview! Now tell me that isn’t dedication.

Before I blogged, I mass-mailed. It started with just a few friends. I’d email them all a brief summary of what was going on with me, but then my narcissism and egomania took over and I started building a list of readers, which basically consisted of anyone I met who had an email address. My summaries turned into lengthy missives. Did you know that if you compose too long of an email in Microsoft Outlook that the spellchecker will actually stop functioning? Email was never meant to be a tool for writing novellas it seems. Anyway, I bring this up because when I turned 30 I remembered part of a passage I wrote when I was 20, thinking about turning 30.

René Garcia, Jr.  12/18/1999:

I helped celebrate my brother’s birthday recently.  He’s 26.  In 4 years he will be 30.  Wow, that’s crazy.  30.  The very number screams “established life.”  I dunno, maybe this is just me and my great misconception of life as a whole, but I feel that if you’re not that person you met at Career Day when you were 8 by the time you’re 30, then man you blew it.  Unless of course, you’re trying to be a doctor or a lawyer or some other profession that requires obscene amounts of schooling.  It suddenly clarifies why so many of my “peers” try to get college out of the way so quickly.  They want to get their life underway.  Man, thinking this way really puts my life into perspective.  I wonder if I’ll be able to make the deadline.  Then again, I have no idea what the Hell I want to do with my life.  You’re supposed to know these things, right?  I mean, you NEED to know these things, right?  Because if you don’t, then why do you do the things you do?  We need an impetus after all.  We need something to strive for.  We need a goal.  If not, then living is useless.  Then there is no point to life.  There is no point to my life at the moment.  I think that really bothers me, but I carry the burden well.

Well that’s interesting. I was expecting to read that and see how different my thinking is now. I do think differently, but not by much. I agree with having life goals, but I think I’ve relaxed a bit on the timeline. I think that a person should always strive for his or her goals and not feel ashamed or feel like a failure for not having achieved them by 30. On the other hand, am I only writing that now because I haven’t reached my goals yet? The 20-year-old version of me is nodding vigorously.

The last bit of that passage brings back memories. I really did feel like I lived a pointless life at 20. Nothing inspired me. I was working fulltime and only going to school off and on. I lived with my brother who was going through a weird phase of his own, hosting parties in our apartment for his worthless friends night after night. I felt trapped, but not in the fully enclosed, claustrophobic sense. It was more like being on one side of a giant river and not knowing how to cross. So I did what I do best, which is to let my ego and narcissism decide for me. I tried to become a professional actor.

The management team I auditioned for in Burbank was impressed by my performance to the tune of $300 they required to pay their photographer for my headshots. I actually thought I was going to star in movies and press my hands into soft cement in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater and have Leno hanging on to every word on the Tonight Show. That was before I realized that Filipino actors don’t typically get big parts in film. Oh well. I don’t necessarily regret my misadventures in Hollywood. It was a fun experience despite the time investment and financial cost. If someone had walked up to me then and said that I would become a writer, I certainly wouldn’t have believed them. On the other hand, my path as a writer may eventually lead back to becoming an actor once I’m able to write myself into my films as the lead dramatic role, with just a little martial arts on the side.

30 does have its privileges.

In case you’re wondering, my birthday wasn’t recent. I’ve purposely held off writing this post so that readers wouldn’t be able to approximate the day for next year. Most of the people I had hoped would remember remembered and the one person I hoped would forget forgot, so overall I was pleased. I am, however, a little disconcerted about how I’m advertised to now that I’m aged. When I use social networking sites, I typically keep my personal information to myself, but I’ve relaxed a little on that rule and have revealed bits here and there, like relationship status and recently my true age. Before, I’d be lightly prodded by ads that asked in bold font, “STILL SINGLE?” Or the ad might simply command me to “GET A GIRLFRIEND!” There’s a special place in the marketing part of my heart for these ads because they’re so ingenious. Not only do they have the appearance of publically ridiculing you for being single, because they appear on your page when you visit it, but they also feature hot girls and marketing copy that makes it seem like all you need to do is click a button to hook up with them. Anyway, as soon as I hit 30, all of the thumbnail ads I used to get me through lonely nights had been converted to “Meet Women in 30 and Older Groups.” Alas. My wild and crazy days of casual sex with teenage girls are permanently behind me now. Bizarrely, I’m also getting ads for Russian mail order brides. I’d be interested to be part of the marketing meetings when whoever decides on the ad packages for different age groups. I wonder if at 50 I’ll be bombarded with ads for young girls again, but placed next to ads for Cialis and Just for Men.

I’m a 30-year-old writer. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I have a few regrets. And I’m not exactly where I want to be in terms of my career goals. Thankfully, I’m not worried. There’s still plenty of time.

What this guy has to do with jobs, I have no idea.

Looking at the job market from a high level, it’s really tough out there. Last I heard, unemployment in California was somewhere around 10%. It’s not every day that one can say that something was decimated without exaggerating. As my brother astutely pointed out, that figure only takes into account recorded unemployment, meaning people who applied for unemployment benefits. The actual figure is probably higher, which is a scary thought. Finding any job is pretty hard right now.

A writing job is particularly hard to find, because the market is flooded with wannabe writers who think that writing is a cushy job that anyone can do. Technically, anyone can write, but not everyone can write well. Even though polished writing should stand out from the crowd, it still takes a hiring manager to physically sort through résumés and countless writing samples to determine who’s good and who’s garbage. There’s a real danger then for your talent to be overlooked because your résumé was 101 out of the 100 that the hiring manager was willing to look at. So when you multiply these inherent terrible odds with the artificial terrible odds of a slow economy, you’re looking at a horrible situation as a writer trying to find work.

When you crawl Craigslist, you’ll find job postings more predatory than usual. There are still the ubiquitous ads for writing partners, ghostwriters and transcribers. Typically, they promise payment after the project gets picked up and makes millions of dollars. I discourage every writer worth his or her weight in words from taking such writing jobs. Now, however, even the bona fide writing jobs that pay - like copywriters, content writers and technical writers - are becoming miserly. One writing position in Orange County that required years of copywriting experience in addition to Search Engine Optimization knowledge only offered a meager $8 an hour. In parentheses, the company explained “due to the economy.” I can appreciate that it’s an employer’s job market right now, but $8 an hour is ridiculous. Personally, I think it’s a dumb move on the company’s part. No professional writer with that skill set will work for that little pay. A person can make more money hourly at In-N-Out or Starbucks.

You know things are terrible when these are the type of jobs Monster is sending you.

If you’re a fresh-faced writer just out of college or you’re looking to change careers to become a writer, you’re probably screwed. My best advice is to hang on to whatever day job you have while freelancing to build up your portfolio. Note the stress on the “free.” If you can find paying freelance work that doesn’t require published clips then more power to you. My point is that don’t be surprised/ashamed/disheartened if you have to work for a byline. In the meantime, try to pick up as many skills as possible to complement your writing. Search Engine Optimization is all the rage right now and many companies are just beginning to dabble in online rankings, so getting trained in SEO is a wonderful way to make you more attractive and valuable as an employee.

On the other hand, if you’re an experienced writer looking for a job, the very best advice I can give you is to modify your résumé constantly on the job boards you use. Imagine all of the people who use a site like Monster.com. If and when these people find jobs, how many of them actually go back online and take their résumé off? Maybe a few, but certainly not most. So what happens is that Monster has a bunch of old useless résumés sitting in their database. When a potential employer searches for something like “copywriter” he or she doesn’t want to waste time looking at six-month-old résumés of people who may or may not still be looking for work. Instead, the employer will most likely just consider “fresh” résumés. In order to keep your résumé fresh, you should modify it on a daily basis on sites like Monster or Careerbuilder.com. You don’t even have to actually change anything. As soon as you save or re-upload your résumé, the site will update the “Modify Date” of your document pushing you closer to the top of the list. When it comes to trying to attract anything, visibility is key.

This little pearl of wisdom comes from my friend Efren who is friends with a hiring manager, so I have to assume this information is solid. Since I’ve been following this advice, my résumé has been getting more views than I’m used to just letting it sit there so something must be working. Also, I’ve recently been contacted by a company out in Redlands and I’m currently going through some phone interviews. I don’t want to pull a Cisco Fatty here so I’m not going to say much else except that I’m excited.

Wish me luck.

The 4 makes it awesome.

My Saturday plans went straight to hell. After a couple of grueling weeks at work and a long hiatus from blogging I was looking forward to sitting down for a solid writing session. Unfortunately, distractions got the better of me and now I’m hopped up on so much caffeine it’ll be amazing if I sleep before sunrise. So, to redeem myself, I’m putting this post up and hopefully I can sleep - when it finally happens - not feeling too guilty for having wasted a day.

The biggest time-sink today was playing Crysis on my new computer rig. I know the game is pretty old, but now that I have a stable machine I can play it having it look the way it was meant to, with decent framerates to boot. Bioshock and Fallout 3 still crash like they did and where they did before, which is heartbreaking, but misery loves company and, if the respective game forums are to be believed, it’s comforting to know that thousands of others are experiencing the same issue. So I’m probably going to donate Bioshock to my father, who in his advancing age has become a video game junkie. How ironic it is that he should acquire the vice he chastised me for as a child.

So with most of my day gone and my twitch reflexes fried, I decided to hunker down and work on my Web site until the late evening when I would grab some Starbucks and blog. I’m trying to add a JavaScript to my homepage that will rotate the content of the five most recent posts and preload the images. Unfortunately, I can’t find a script that I can just plug in. So I resolved to just learn JavaScript outright. Even though it seems like a little overkill for such a small section, I figure having another Web development skill can only help me in the future.

In the middle of studying, my buddy Danny Boy called me because he was going to be in town to visit a friend. He lives in Burbank and I enjoy his company, so when he’s in town I try to make some time for him, so he picked up some Subway and I got some coffee. If I’ve never described him, just know that Danny is an Adonis. He’s cool and he’s down to earth, but he still has looks to kill for. I only mention this now, because I’m always impressed by the kind of access he gets to things just because of his amazing physique and facial construction. You know those good looking guys who get to date the top 10% of beautiful women while the rest of barely scratch the top 40%? Or, if you look like me, the bottom 5%? Danny Boy gets the top 1% without having to hone a magician’s patter or drive a nice car. He just has to look pretty. So it’s always a treat to live vicariously through him as he recounts his exploits with women who are Perfect 10’s. It’s even more delicious to hear him dismiss girls that are into him over reasons that any average man would endure forever without complaint just to be seen with this women.

Tonight Danny and I talked at length about some girl who found him online on some models Web site and struck up a conversation. We looked at her pictures and she’s pretty hot. I didn’t recognize her name, but that’s because it’s not the name I would recognize her by. I won’t name her here, but it turns out that she’s an ex-porn star. So he’s trying to make that work and we spent the majority of the night rehashing the relationship thus far, which has been short since this is a recent development. I counseled him to ensure that her expectations were lowered for the amateur model if and when the time comes since I’m sure she’s used to cervix-bruising tree trunks.

Danny Boy took off around midnight and I’ve been wasting time on YouTube ever since. It was until 1:45 a.m. that I looked down at the time and didn’t feel the least bit sleepy. My immediate problem is that I’ve been trying to be healthier lately, which means cutting out caffeinated drinks. This development has been going on for about two months now, which is probably long enough to get through the withdrawals and lower my tolerance for caffeine. So this sudden injection is definitely going to last a while and ruin my Sunday as well - just what I needed before I wade back into my day job on Monday.

Great.

• Year: 2008
• Directed by: Ulli Lommel
• Starring: Victoria Ullmann, Pia Pownall, Jaquelyn Aurora, Lauren Carter, Jana L. Laurin, Jon E. Nimetz, Devex Oozer
• Written by: Ulli Lommel

It’s amazing what gets distribution deals these days. With Baseline Killer Ulli Lommel once again plumbs the depths of low-budget and delivers a film that is just barely above the production value of an extended Youtube video made with a webcam. In fact, the most charitable thing to be said about Baseline Killer is that it makes the viewer curious to see just how a film this poor can possibly last for 90 minutes.

Supposedly based on the real Phoenix, Arizona killer/rapist, Baseline Killer follows a group of young women gathered for a reunion, which is happened upon by the titular misanthrope. The Baseline Killer proceeds to pick the girls off one by one, leaving fresh corpses behind for the survivors to stumble upon. That’s really the whole plot and it’s as straightforward as a story can possibly be.

Ulli Lommel does the bare-minimum in set design and it seems he takes advantage of whatever location he can shoot at for cheap. So, for example, if a police station looks like it was shot in a factory, it probably was. If an apartment scene looks like a floor display in a furniture store, it probably is. In fact, viewers familiar with Lommel’s work will recognize the Images Furniture Store that was used for every internal shot in 2004’s Zombie Nation. This time around, Lommel doesn’t even bother pretending it’s an apartment by keeping his shots tight. Instead, according to the dialog, the protagonist actually lives in a furniture store, forcing the viewer to swallow this fact as something believable within the universe of the film.

What audiences will come to despise, however, is the seemingly utter lack of a script. It becomes most apparent when the female victims unwittingly gather in the warehouse for their 5-year reunion. In a typical movie, this would be the scene where characters and/or the plot(s) are developed. Instead, viewers will be treated to fifteen minutes of impromptu mindless banter intercut with shots of the Baseline Killer slowly approaching, navigating through a maze of furniture. Imagine listening to a cacophony of conversation between eight young women about how their hair looks or what high school classmates they’ve recently run into and most viewers will start siding with the killer, urging him on to his grisly task just to shut the girls up.

The Baseline Killer delivers the exact opposite of fear with his performance as he menaces the girls with a toy shotgun that has a scope and a laser sight mounted on it. He periodically turns off the lights and yells from the darkness, “Hey you bitches and ho’s!” A failed rapper turned serial killer comes to mind. Also, apparently, killing people is tiring work, because the Baseline Killer often takes lengthy breaks, which allows the girls to sit on a couch and have calm conversation about what they were doing before coming to the party. This is a paltry attempt at character development, but ultimately it has nothing to do with the story. Instead, it’s a setup for the poorly written and misspelled epilogue.

The female cast does an admiral job with the dearth of direction they were no doubt given. Unfortunately, without a script, all of the girls develop the same character and become indistinguishable. So while typical survival-horror films have definite archetypes, like the pessimist, the hero, the sidekick, the given-up and others, in Baseline Killer, all of the girls individually play all of the archetypes at one point or the other. Ultimately, the film is pointless.

The world is a cynical place and it’s obvious that Ulli Lommel is capitalizing off that reality. With over 50 films under his belt and all of them presumably just as terrible, he’s no doubt found out what the bare minimum of viewers is who will rent or buy his films for whatever personal reasons. Perhaps these viewers are misled by attractive box art or a well-written synopsis. Whatever their reasons are, these viewers guarantee a certain dollar figure that Lommel obviously makes sure to stay below when budgeting his films in order to turn a profit. Considering how poorly produced Baseline Killer is, there can’t be that many people watching.