To be fair, the government and the taxpayers are not going to be bailing out Countrywide. It appears that those with deeper pockets and a more long-term view of the situation think that their assets are worth acquiring, hence Bank of America is buying them out.

In point of fact, Countrywide's amazing mismanagement, greed and stupidity, have created a great opportunity. The company's value has declined to a fraction of what it was worth a few years ago, yet it holds assets in the form of property and mortgages which are likely to return to its former value or far more within 5 years.

In buying them out BofA pays relatively little for an investment which is likely to appreciate in value at a rate far faster than any other investment of similar solidity.

As you point out, the only real losers here are Countrywide's employees, but since they were largely party to the kind of rapacious business practices the company engaged in I don't feel too sorry for them. Do you, Marlowe, honestly shed any tears for the guy who sold a front-loaded ARM to a family of immigrants on a house made out of cardboard whose monthly payment was 50% of their family income? He knew what he was doing and is as much at fault as the CEO. Maybe moreso.

Dave

Big Dave! Glad to see you've survived the Dallas storm so far!

This was a quick post... I didn't have time to explain my assertion that "we" would be paying for Mozila's Mistakes... You're right - as a taxpayer I won't see this. But as a consumer I will. We're all going to pay - hell, we already ARE paying... The COST of these "mistakes" will be passed on to us - don't think they won't...

A perfect example of this (and there's so many) is found up here in Portland, Oregon. Back in the day when Enron owned Portland General Electric and was at the height of rigging the power infrastructure to make it seem as if there were "power outages" etc., PGE had to TEMPORARILY implement a HUGE rate hike. We were all assured this would only stay in place until the "power emergency" was over...

Well, it's been over for YEARS now and that rate hike has NEVER been reversed.

Bank of America sure as hell isn't going to pay for Countrywide's idiocy. We will, some how, some where. Countrywide's customers are obviously already paying. Certainly the 11,000 employees that have been axed in the past few months are paying. Countrywide's AVERAGE shareholders are screwed...

Seems the only person coming out of this smelling like a rose is Mozila.. Oh, wait... He has given up 7% of that $400+ million. And he won't be paid $400K per year to remain on as a CONSULTANT to Countrywide...

Really, I GOOOTTTTTAAAA wonder... What astute observations would he be giving Countrywide's senior management? Tips on how to cash out their stock portfolio before the company crashes further? How to get paid outrageous amounts of money for being a raging, monomaniacal idiot?

Some of us should call Mozila up... See if he wants to go out for a round of golf... Sure he's feeling down...

Marlowe

I'll give you that last point. Why they'd pay a consulting fee to this fuckup is beyond me. I do, on the other hand, understand why they'd pay him a nice fat severance package just to go away and not darken their door again. Paying the money is easier than going through a struggle to force him to leave.

Dave

First and foremost I want to be a CEO of a corporation. It doesn't have to be GM, or anything so grandiose. Just a mid level corporation with just a few billion dollars in yearly revenues would be fine. I don't know jack shit about running a corporation - well, except that I am the president of a S corporation and my wife the secretary/treasurer. We've had no vice-presidents since our dog died - but never mind that. I just want the job for a year or two, long enough to put aside a shit load of money - say a couple hundred million or so - and then in order to keep the company from going completely into the shit bin, they can buy me out for, say another hundred million or so. Or, hey, I'm not greedy, I'd settle for seventy five.

Then while I'm counting my money living perhaps in the south of France, the corporation can go belly up for all I care, just as long as I get mine.

Dave invariably knows how to make lemonade out of sour lemons. So, when it comes down to it, all this sub-prime bullshit is really a good thing. While the employees, who Dave claims to be the real bad guys are in line for their unemployment checks, and thousands of people have been kicked out of their homes, the rich have a brand new opportunity to get fucking richer. Maybe B of A can hire Mozilo so he can make it happen all over again. Golly, life is great!

B-tone

Irrational anticorporatism is all lots of fun and everything, but I don't see anyone proposing a better alternative. And with good reason since the alternatives are invariably much worse for workers., the economy and the nation.

Lumpy,

"Irrational anticorporatism is all lots of fun and everything, but I don't see anyone proposing a better alternative. And with good reason since the alternatives are invariably much worse for workers., the economy and the nation."

From a January 23rd NY Times article, Anxiety Crashes the Party at Davos.

It was reported that Klaus Schwab, Executive Chair of the World Economic Forum, said:

"It's not that the pendulum is now swinging back to Marxist socialism," he said in the interview, "but people are asking themselves, 'What are the boundaries of the capitalist system?' They think that the market may not always be the best mechanism for providing solutions."

Alternatives, 'invariably worse'? Here's a dude nervously looking over his shoulder. People are looking, and demanding, alternatives.

This system is NOT working. Rather than denying there can be alternatives, it is about time we start discussing what alternatives there can be. This discussion will not be found in the current presidential debate.

Les

Sorry 'bout the multiple posts. I'm getting osting errors.

So Les. Which do you prefer, a command and control centrally planned system, a nice fascist corporate government alliance or perhaps some form of collectivist/syndicalist model?

The problem with all of these alternatives is that they have the state imposing an artificial structure on trade and overriding the natural impulse towards free trade. And the hard reality is that thosw artificial systems are oppresive and inefficient amd fall apart eventually.

Your pal from Davos just sees the current largely fictional economic crisis as an opportunity for another eurosocialist power grab.

Given the topic of this article, I am amused that as I write there are 2 google adds directly above for Countrywide Home Loans (One actually says "Hoam" Loans. I guess in all the turmoil that spelling skills are the first things to go.)

Again, we get into the monstrous disparity between what big corporate CEOs and other high level executives make compared to the rank and file workers. There's no reasonable way to graph it.

Apologists for the people who make the obscene amounts of money big corporate mucky-mucks make do so in part because in their dreams they see themselves ascending to that kind of money, and they don't want anybody raining on their parade.

I feel fairly comfortable in saying that I could have led Countrywide to over two billion dollars in losses. How special is the skill set that the typical CEO possesses over and above the lesser minions of executives? Are they really worth hundreds of millions a year more than what others contribute to a corporation's operation?

It seems to me that what is typically valued most in our economy is risk. What is the risk that a corporate CEO encounters? - That if they fail their severence packages might only be say, fifty million instead of a hundred million? That's a tough thing to consider. It might force the Mrs. to start clipping coupons.

B-tone

B-tone, you or most of us, could probably have managed Countrywide and NOT taken the huge losses they did. All it would have required was some basic common sense and the ability to see the pretty damned obvious line between exploitative greed and reasonable business profits.

Dave

Dave,

"All it would have required was some basic common sense and the ability to see the pretty damned obvious line between exploitative greed and reasonable business profits."

That's not their job. It is to maximize profits. When everybody else is greedy and you're not, then you're not doing your job. You will fall behind.... and be replaced.

There is no way you or B-tone could survive such an environment.

Les

Dave,

You know this scenario has taken place probably hundreds of times over the last several years. Most don't get media attention, but when the corporations are already in the spotlight as Countrywide has been, these separation deals always make the news. Everytime these things are publicized it just creates a wider rift between the haves and have nots. It's just ugly. It's the kind of thing that foments mistrust and hatred. What it says essentially is "Let them eat cake." Someday, it may catch up with all of them.

B-tone

B,

"Someday, it may catch up with all of them."

Let's make it happen.

Les

I don't mean to be over dramatic. But history would suggest that people will only take so much. Audacity, arrogance and greed can have it's price.

B-tone

Fuckin' rich bastards. Let's kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out.

But get their money first.

Corporations have been granted extraordinary powers by the legislature and the courts, and especially by the Executive, as the budgets of the FTC and the Justice Department and anti-trust have been diminished. One of the worst offenders is the "de-regulation" mania which has swept the country for 30 years.

With such extraordinary power and such invulnerability to regulation and prosecution the corps have, naturally, attracted the attention of criminals, most of them in fine suits, well groomed, and well spoken. But they are criminals nevertheless. As someone in the old "Godfather" movie said "you can steal more with that briefcase than with a gun".

Their personal mission is to cash in the retained earnings and "blue sky" (goodwill) of the company for their own benefit.

These are pirates, not founders, builders and pioneers who raise a company and make it more profitable and a better employer.

How do they do it? By using lies and connections to gain some measure of control and then develop a Board Of Directors that they favor with bonuses and golden parachutes in exchange for even bigger perks for themselves.

Yes, they lie on their resumes. Carly Fiorina lied about her stint at Lucent, for example. And if you know better and try to expose them they will scandalize YOU. And people will accept their scandal, even tho they may know better, because they fear the power of such ruthless characters.

This stunt is so rampant in corporate management that it is laughable. In fact, the exec who doesn't lie and scandalize is at a distinct disadvantage and will not get the job. It's a variation of the old Greshams Law: Bad management drives out good.

The looting mechanism is so deeply entrenched that Enron was handing out 'retention bonuses' worth $150million to the corrupt execs even as Enron was going thru bankruptcy, thus depriving shareholders and clients of that money too.

It's on automatic pilot now. Nobody can stop it.

The congress is suborned by lobbyists, the courts are ideologically loaded by the executive, and the executive is drunk on childish theories of a capitalism that actually penalizes real capitalists who build real companies in favor of politically connected Influence Peddlers. The result is no longer Free Markets but a top-down administered market.

The USA economy is being sovietized as surely as if it was being done by Joseph Stalin.

In an unregulated administered economy there is no opportunity for market forces to correct abberations.

The citizenry is drunk on childish fantasies about "free enterprise", and "free to choose", without bothering to study the hard facts of government and economy, that are relentlessly broadcast by a mendacious government through a compliant press.

It happens because they are lazy and can't be bothered to study and struggle, so they go with the flow and contrive convenient but spurious moralities that justify their prejudices.

And the employees, for the most part, did not profit. Only the most unscrupulous. My friend L worked for Countrywide the last 3-4 years and did not profit thereby. In fact he lost money, because he's honest and didn't practice the tactics his associates did.

The technique that Countrywide used to fleece L is at least as old as the used car business, and probably goes back thousands of years to the used camel business. The company will hire ANYONE as a salesman (commission only, perhaps preceded by a brief salary period) because they know he'll make two sales: one to himself and one to his uncle (or his bro-in-law, or his best friend, or his cousin, or...) then the company picks up the 'fees' commissions and up-front interest, etc. The employee thinks he's in fat city because he gets part of his money back as a commission, so he keeps trying, and finally qiuts of his own accord after a period of no commissions or poor commissions.

So, lets suppose L buys himself a luxury condo in Acapulco for $1million with $100k down generating a 15k commission for himself (and a like amount for the company, plus fees, plus kickbacks from title insurance, plus...). Pretty good for an afternoons work. next month he sells something to his uncle and it looks good. he keeps trying, but when he runs out of people pre-disposed to trust and like him he doesn't make more commissions and besides that his investment is Under Water, as they say. So is his uncles.

Pretty soon it's 3 years of work with only two paychecks.

Essentially what happened in the entire real estate market - not just the sub-prime zone - was/is CHURNING. I worked in the real estate business - on the legal side and saw this first hand.

When Reagan began the Age of the Great Deregulation that's when it all started. Restrictions on CREDIT and WHO could be offered CREDIT became virtually non-existent.

The Real Estate market - by its very nature - must DRIVE the price UP, UP, UP. They CHURN THROUGH the AAA credit worthy population, the AA, the A, B, C... Now it's into the SUB-PRIME...

WHEW! Thank GOD the Republicans have made sure that the credit industry is COMPLETELY unregulated! Others arrive at this feeding frenzy. Hedge funds, banks, domestic and international, securities companies... It's all a game. Pass the RISKY LOANS all bundled up on down the line... Bobby and Karen Sub-Prime my find eventually that their "loan" is owned by a bank in Indonesia...

But eventually, to the surprise of no one that has eyes to see and half a brain the CHURNING stops.

In the case of Countrywide Mr. M knew this was coming. That's why he began cashing out his stock options 3 yrs ago. The American population had been completely strip-mined.

Smart boy that Mozilo...

Marlowe

That's not their job. It is to maximize profits. When everybody else is greedy and you're not, then you're not doing your job. You will fall behind.... and be replaced.

Les, there are LOTS of CEOs - by far the majority - who can see the line between greed and fair profit, and live by at least some standard of ethical conduct. Some highly publicized negative examples

There is no way you or B-tone could survive such an environment.

Did I ever mention my brief stint as president of a small corporation? With some able assistance I managed to keep the company alive and profitable and fold it with a profit and without going bankrupt. I'm actually in my second term as president of a charitable corporation now, but that's a different kettle of fish.

Dave

P.Marlowe,

And... of course, the FED saw this too. They just kept on feeding it.

I read the economic news quite carefully. It is God-damned surreal.

Les

me I just enjoy this 'best of all possible worlds' that results when each of us acts in his own interest without considering those of others

I must say that I have absolutely NO desire to be a part of the corporate environment. I'm too old, too crusty and too independent to be able to meld into cubicle hell.

While I have to play the game to some extent - virtually all of my work comes from big corporations including Countrywide, Wells Fargo, Chase, etc. - I have the luxury of working out of my home, more or less setting my own schedule. I don't go to meetings. The greatest "penance" I suffer is taking required class work to maintain my license.

Nevertheless, I suppose there are those who would think me a hypocrite - biting the hand that feeds. But, then, there's the rub. As they say at "Rallys" - Ya gotta eat!

I've chosen not to be an ascetic, a "back to the lander." While that had some appeal for me, it just didn't offer enough of the things I cater to in life. So I earn a living primarily from the corporate world. I just keep myself at least one step removed from it, so I can sit at my computer in my basement - in my underwear if I choose (it's not a pretty picture,) and work well removed from the hive.

As we go through life, we all tend to find our niche. I am just enough of loner and an iconoclast that I don't fit into the mold cast for the majority of folks.

By the way Clav. I don't suggest that all the rich should be done away with. Many rich folks do very well by those less fortunate. But there also many who don't. While legally, it is anyone's option to be altruistic or not, from a moral or ethical standpoint the Scrooges of the world are not highly regarded and ultimately may pay for their avarice. Most probably won't. They'll just die with all their riches stuffed into their coffins. But again, sometimes, the hoards just might come a callin'.

B-tone

Dave... I applaud your successes. You're obviously a person with a strong moral/ethical core.

When insisting that this unmitigated greed be crushed I am not implicitly suggesting some bizarre form of communism. Someone earlier suggested, rude tongue firmly in cheek, that we all "go kill the rich" and take their money.

That doesn't work and has never worked. All that happens is that you replace one group of legalized thugs with a (soon) new group of legalized thugs...

THERE'S NOTHING WRONG with wealth. There better not be - because I'm working my ass off to attain it...

But there is something VERY wrong with a society that rewards/allows grotesque amounts of wealth to someone while the very workers he depends on are barely making ends meet. (The arch-conservative rhetoric that it's a "free market" and said employee can march down the street and MIRACLE OF MIRACLE find a job in the same industry - or some such that he/she can match his or her education/training skills and be paid loads more is just a flat out LIE.)

There is something wrong in a society where those with the means and the political/economic powers continue to suck the wealth right out of the country, out of the middle class, out of the government in general - leaving us with an ever shrinking middle class, an infrastructure that has been falling apart for decades, an non-existent health care system for a population that is nearly DOUBLE that of Canada...

There is NOTHING wrong with attaining wealth Dave... There is EVERYTHING wrong with INSATIABLE GREED.

Marlowe

Dave sez: "Les, there are LOTS of CEOs - by far the majority - who can see the line between greed and fair profit, and live by at least some standard of ethical conduct. Some highly publicized negative examples"

Uh, Dave, they all died in the 70s. I know, because I worked for some of them.

It is utterly naive to believe that CEOs pursue profits: they do not and haven't for 30 years. Executives, like shareholders, seek to increase cap value, i.e., share price. they sometimes use 'profit' as a lure for share buyers, especially when a company is overripe, e.g., GM which, while faced with failing sales and $400billion debt uses $5billion dividends to prop up stock price.

Since the 70s CEOs have pursued stock price, not profit. In fact, profitability (for a large corp) became the mark of a poorly managed company. To make up for an unfortunate profit they would often acquire an unprofitable company as compensation, whereupon their corp taxes would go to zero and the CEOs Revenue Bonus would go up. How neat!

Since the 90s the goal of CEOs has shifted to Personal Risk Avoidance, i.e., for the CEO and his cronies on the BoD to win no matter what happens. If sales go up they win Revenue Bonuses. If sales go down they cut employment and get Cost Bonuses. They can't lose. But other people can.

the childish notion that CEOs pursue 'profit' is simply laughable and should be abandoned.

Bliffle,

"the childish notion that CEOs pursue 'profit' is simply laughable and should be abandoned."

Not so fast. First of all, all corporations must ultimately make a profit, or else they fail. I watch the stock market. It is quite speculative and it may seem, at times, there is no relationship between profits and stock price. But those that consistently don't make a profit, are hemorrhaging resources, eventually get dumped. Some have turned a profit by increasing market share, at a loss, selling stock to finance it. It doesn't work forever. Amazon is a good example. A company, if well funded, can lose money for an extended time, IF .... IF, they can convince stockholders that they WILL turn a profit ultimately.

The management sets up all sorts of schemes, hedges if you will, so THEY can't lose. But it is generally their job to make the company profitable. There are specialty jobs like getting a company, or division, ready to sell, spin off, raid pension funds, etc. Ultimately the stockholders want to see profitable results. Even the technicians ultimately depend on profitability.

Profitability can go up or down. Stocks do too. Big money can be made on shorting. Either way, money can be made. It is speculation.

Again, a company must make a profit, or it will ultimately fail.

Les

Mr. Mozilo. Isn't he still getting royalties from Firefox too?

"Again, a company must make a profit, or it will ultimately fail."

Quoted for Truth.

Marlowe: "But there is something VERY wrong with a society that rewards/allows grotesque amounts of wealth to someone while the very workers he depends on are barely making ends meet."

Hear, hear Marlow ... especially when CEOs, board meambers and senior excecutives are pocketing outrageous bonuses and golden parachutes for the dubious honour of running companies ionto the ground.

So when the thing goes belly-up, the workers lose their jobs, their entitlements are put at risk and their way of life threatened - while the corporate leaders walk off with dollars spilling from their pockets.

We have a saying for that in Australia: "I'm alright, Jack (and bugger you)".

Doesn't make sense to me, and it's about time shareholders started jacking up about it all as well. It's NOT in their interests in the long-term, and we've seen the results of this madness on US markets in recent months.

By all means offer great salary packages to clever senior execs ... just not at the expense of the rest of the staff. Somewhere along the line, the process needs a tad more balance.

And the truth is, many CEOS - despite what they'll tell you - are really running companies that virtually run themselves. In other words, most of them aren't doing a great deal except holding the tiller. Yes, they have the responsibility, but does it correlate with what many of them are paid? I don't think so.

The other given: many of those companies are built on the blood, sweat and tears of low-paid workers, the people who do all the real work and are ultimately responsible for bringing in the profits and who are arguably being manipulated even if it's only terms of the obscene disparity between their pay packets and those of their bosses.

Well, I have a few minutes to spare before I go meet a producer from Warner Brothers who I HOPE will see the light of day and buy my show...

Which is proof enough I would think that I have NO issues with "making money".

But let's get a few things straight...

"Making money for the 'shareholders'". The SENIOR MANAGEMENT, along with the Board of Directors, along with the extended Old Boy Network ARE major shareholders.

"So," you say, "these guys are motivated to still make that profit, or so goes their fortune!"

No. This is not the way it works for them. Esp., for the CEO, CFO, COO, CHO-CHO and others the PRICE of the STOCK is FIXED. It will go UP but it will never go below the agreed upon price. This is STANDARD for compensation packages for the Fortune 1000.

People, People, People! Do your HOMEWORK. You're woefully ignorant if you think, for ONE INSTANT that the Realm of the Super-Rich resembles, in ANY way the (by comparison) sad, tattered and grayish world WE inhabit.

Indeed one of the BIGGEST lies ever pulled was the one these Brahman on those occupying rungs within sight of their cloud-shrouded castles.

They managed to turn hard working small and ESPECIALLY MEDIUM SIZED business owners into neo-con shock troops - carrying forward the Gospel of Reaganism. These are the small republicans - not allowed within the hallowed realm of the Cheney's, Bushes, Rove's and others. They tossed you JUST enough scraps to make you feel as if you TOO were a part of this elite. But you never were.

Now that they've managed to suck dry this economy and are turning lustful eyes across the seas YOU get to inherit their wastelands.

You get to answer to the ever growing millions of angry, disenfranchising American workers... You get to inherit the wreckage of their CUT TAXES battle cry that has left state and federal infrastructures resembling something out of Eastern Europe rather than the America of yesteryear.

The more clumsy, the more greedy have lost the LAST of the BILLIONS. They are wrecking 401Ks.

And on an even more insidious level those intent on making SURE no one from the shrinking ranks of the middle class sound the cry for REFORM or even REVOLUTION to redress these crimes we see our civil liberties being erased. We see the White House frantically attempting to use its old scare tactics in order to have Congress blindly pass the new amendments to the FISA bill... We see strange new bills passing speaking vaguely about "ideological THREATS" to America... The definition to be filled in later, when annoying targets become better identified...

Wake up people...

"When fascism arrives in America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."

Sinclair Lewis

Marlowe

So Marlowe, is your show about sticking it to the man?

Let us know how your meeting with the weasels at WB goes.

Dave

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist. I don't particularly buy into the notion that there is a "cabal" or some other kind of identifiable group working in unison to take over the country via corporate/government collusion. There may be a de facto movement toward something similar to what Marlowe suggests. How that may eventually manifest itself is a question yet to be answered.

B-tone

By the way. I didn't watch the entire debate, but what I did see was Hillary and Barack playing nice with each other. Only a few comparatively gentle barbs were passed compared to what was happening in South Carolina.

Wolf Blitzer made several attempts to bait both of them with little success. I think that is just what Dave feared. Their deference to each other did get a bit syrupy at times, but I think it did allow both of them to give more complete and thoughtful answers to most of the questions without all the bickering that marred the last few debates.

B-tone

Hey Dave... Well, the meeting was short with WB... We'll see.

Then I was dragged to a film debut - couple of indie pieces going to the Beverly Hills Film Festival...
Nice guy. Earnest. He had a helluva DP... But...

Well... The guy can't write his way out of a bad sentence...

We're supposed to meet in a week or so... Who knows. He has a good eye in some respects... But lord, the writing...

Actually one of the shows that has a good shot is a satirical look at corporate America... But most of the other scripts (4 of which Salma Hayek's people have looked at and one of which they're still mulling over...) range from romantic comedy to comic book to science fiction...

Gotta run for now. Thanks for asking Dave and I had a lot of fun on the show today and my friend who was listening thought the shows are getting better!

Marlowe

Sounds like fun. Check out my thrilling IMDB entry sometime. There was a brief moment when I was a scriptwriter myself. At least if you count PBS.

BTW, do you think that the writers strike gives you an edge? It seems like they're grenlighting anything if it's already written.

Dave

They index uncredited font designers on IMDB?????

Someone has waaay too much free time...

I think I must be one of the few people left on the planet who doesn't have an IMDB entry.

That's primarily there because of a pretty well exposed article about that particular font. In fact, IMDB only has listings for a few font designers and they are rarely credited in the titles of the movies either, no matter how large a role the font plays in the movie. For example, the da Vinci font (designed by the Kegler brothers at P22) which is about the coolest thing in the movie 12 Ghosts and has more screen time than any of the actors is not credited in the movie or on IMDB.

Font designers are rarely credited even in books. We're a persecuted minority, dammit!

The IMDB listing isn't entirely accurate, but their interface for entering info is so complex that I got stumped trying to fix anything in there. It ought to list the name of the font and how it was used at the very least.

For example, in Corpse Bride my Buccaneer font was used for the credits, but the main title was hand drawn by someone else (also not credited). I was later commissioned to design a font for marketing and packaging for the film based on the main title, but it wasn't actually used in the film, only on merchandising products and the DVD box for foreign distribution. But IMDB has no way to represent any of that, so it's just 'font designer (uncredited)'.

Apparently not everyone cares about fonts as much as I do. But without them we'd all be reading nothing but Courier and Helvetica, and that's the path to madness.

Dave

(for the show - good stuff...but remember to identify yourselves more frequently - this will make the NSA's job easier and save us all some tax dollars)

LOL, troll! (and I needed a good one this morning; tks!)

I'm really bumbed that I didn't get credit for my stint in the film "Eight Men Out." I appear in it for several seconds - er, well, the lower half of me does as I descend a staircase arm in arm with someone else's legs - but still! Later in the film you can't see me exactly, but you can see (I swear) my exhalation of cigar smoke during a news conference scene. It was a brilliant piece of breathing, let me tell you.

I did get a call back for the film "Hoosiers" but I guess in the end they just didn't recognize genius when they saw it. What can you do?

B-tone

(for the show - good stuff...but remember to identify yourselves more frequently - this will make the NSA's job easier and save us all some tax dollars)

You make the mistaken assumption that we actually KNOW who we are.

And B-Tone, I had an appearance in a TV show that's not on my IMDB listing. I actually had a line that wasn't cut and everything.

IMDB is far from perfect. My sister has directed a documentary film and scores of TV shows and doesn't even have a listing.

Dave

Dave... Good question about the strike and opportunity... It does create it. NBC's already said it is going to ditch the ancient Pilot Episode strategy. Go straight to several episodes and see how the show evolves...

No doubt there is going to be a lot of focus groups done immediately after the strike... If they're done well I think Hollywood and the networks are going to discover that the American audience DOES want well written dramas and comedies. That will be INSTANTLY translated by the network execs to mean MORE CIRCUS ACTS with CHIMPS and CHIMP STRAIGHT MEN - i.e., celebs that didn't make it all the way through Trump's APPRENTICE...

God help us.

Marlowe

I was a Featured Extra (whatever that means) in the movie "Ali," which was mostly shot here in Miami.

Though I shot several different scenes, I only made it past the cutting-room floor in one; the press conference scene where Don King (played by Mykelti Williamson) announces the "Rumble in The Jungle." I'm a reporter in the front row, and appear in a couple of brief shots where the camera angle is shot from behind the principals, who are lined up at a table on the dais, toward the audience of reporters.

The scene took several hours to shoot, and the really cool thing about it for me was that I was seated right in front of Jon Voigt (Howard Cosell), whom I admired greatly even before that shoot. Naturally, there was a lot of waiting time involved, so he and I and some of the other extras talked a lot during the waits.

He's a very warm and funny man, and unlike many really big stars, totally unaffected and unassuming. He treated all of us extras as if we were his equals and kept us all laughing with his wit.

Another actor who kept everyone laughing on that set, not surprisingly, was Will Smith (Ali). He also is very warm, very funny and a really "regular guy".

I've been an extra and have done local commercials on TV for years; that was by far the most enjoyable such experience I ever had on a movie set, specifically because of those two actors.

No entry on imdb, though.

Very cool Clavos!

Marlowe

I attended HB Studios in NYC back in '69 & '70. I studied briefly with Uta Hagen and at greater length with her hubby, Herbert Berghoff, for whom the school is named. I had to audition for Uta's class and was really pumped when I was accepted. But about 3 weeks into the term, she up and left to do a show. However, Austin Pendleton took her place.

For those who don't know the name, Austin has been a journeyman actor for many years on stage and in both film and the tube. His first big break in films was his casting as General Dreedle's son in "Catch 22." Dreedle was played by Orson Welles. Pendleton is kind of a geekie looking guy which has helped him continue to work.

Attending HB allowed me to rub elbows with a number of mainly Broadway luminaries of the time. Pretty heady stuff, I must admit. New York is a hell of a town.

B-tone

Countrywide may crash, but the top execs will be protected by the Conservative Nanny State. They will not suffer the consequences of their bad policies and bad management. Other people, those who have no power, will suffer the consequences. And plenty of 'pundits' will jump up to say why it's all the fault of the lowest people in society.

Didn't I tell you guys years ago that the motto is "socialize the risk and privatize the profit"?

I really envy you that experience B-tone!

I've been a stage actor since my teens; mostly unpaid, community theater stuff, but also a fair amount of regional theater (several Florida dinner theaters, the Coconut Grove here in Miami, etc.), though I don't have an Equity card.

I have read "Respect for Acting" so many times I've practically worn my copy out. I never met Hagen, but I think her book is one of the most important texts on the craft ever published, right up there with Stanislavski's much more famous work, despite her later rejection of it.

Cool stuff, B-tone!

I'm jealous too. Of both of you, really. With all my other obligations I had to give acting up some years ago. It's just too time consuming. BTW, I gave my daughter who's interested in acting a couple of Hagen's books for Christmas.

Dave

Uta was a very good teacher. (I see one bio states that she died in 2004. I hadn't heard that.) I do wish she could have finished that term. Herbert was also very good, but he was very Austrian and very full of himself. But he had a million great stories.

A play titled "Casper," a one man show debuted at HB with E.G. Marshall playing the lead. I went to see it, but having arrived a bit late, I was obliged to stand through the performance. Two other late arrivals standing in front of me were Eli Wallach and his wife, Ann Jackson, so I was at times literally rubbing elbows with some famous folk in that instance. Wallach had some kind of ear problem at the time and he kept leaning back and asking me what Marshall had just said much to Ms. Jackson's annoyance.

Clav, I do envy you your experience, though. It's great to mix with people like that when they feel freer to let their hair down as it were.

During my little stint with "Eight Men Out" I did sit at table with the actor John Anderson who played Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, along with a dozen or so other extras. He was funny, but also did a lot of pontificating. Maybe he was just trying to stay in character.

I suppose my year and a half, or so, in NYC stands out as my most memorable period of my little life.

I haven't performed for several years. Actually, if I had my druthers, I'd sing jazz in smokey bars or some such. For now, I must be content with crooning in the shower.

(Hey, this isn't off topic, is it? I'll scroll up and take a look. Hold on. Oops! Sorry Marlowe. I'll see if I can tie all this together.)

Damn those corporate bastards!

B-tone

By the way, Marlowe, I have an old college chum from my days at the Indiana University Theatre Department who has had some success in La La Land.

David Chambers has done a good deal of mainly comedy series writing. I think his first notable stint was writing for a few episodes of "Bosum Buddies." His latest credit I found was an episode of "The Simpsons." I guess he's also done some producing, although I've never quite understood what that means. I remember he and I had a lengthy discussion of how to turn Buchner's "Danton's Death" into a musical.

Another classmate of ours was Howard Ashman who told a group of us in a playwrighting class how he wanted to make a musical out of the pulp horror film "Little Shop of Horrors." Of course, we laughed and assured him of what an absurd notion that was.

Oh, well.

I mean it! Damn those corporate sons a bitches!

B-tone

Y'know, B, Doc's done quite a bit of acting, too. I think he must be out actually doing constructive things this afternoon, or we would have heard from him by now.

There probably are at least a couple of actors over in the Culture section. We might have enough right here on BC for a small cast.

My wife, BTW, directs (stage, not film), and unlike moi, has actually won several awards for her directing, presented by regional theater associations.

Marlowe #42: Thanks! I'll stop helping B-tone hijack your thread now.

Heard you on the BTR show last night. Good show, all of you. It's always great to put a voice to the writer.

Marlowe, you sounded so much more reasonable on the air! :>)

Here I am. Not sure about constructive things, but I have been in one of those meetings... you know, the ones which should last ten minutes but everybody wants to gasbag about something and they drag on for an hour and a quarter...

[nods to lackey, who brings over stool, thus enabling DD to climb down off high horse]

...Anyway. I've been an amateur actor for over 20 years. In fact, my recent trip back home was to perform in the 20th anniversary show of the little theatre company a few friends and I started back then.

I've done very little acting since I moved to the US because most community theatre here involves long production runs and, as Dave says, it's just too time-consuming. I did do an acting class last summer during which we watched a few videos of Uta Hagen's classes: I can well believe the glowing testimonies of her as a teacher, although her full charisma doesn't really come across on a TV screen.

Wait, are we not hijacking Marlowe's threads any more? Understandable - you know how he gets...

;-)

Clav: Marlowe, you sounded so much more reasonable on the air!

BTR is a great leveler. It makes even Bambenek sound reasonable...!

This confirms it. All of us are a bunch of "wanna be" performers.

The closest I can come to it now is through my son who is in an opera company in Germany, and who currently has the lead in a production of "Cabaret" - the Joel Grey role, not Lisa Minelli's. He's living the dream. It's tough, but somebody's gotta do it.

B-tone

Sounds like the 20th Anniversary was fun. You should think about getting a documentary made about your theater company.

My company specializes in these kinds of projects.

Best wishes,

RJ McHatton
Inventive Productions

I saw that dreadful...

8-p~~~~~~~

You're welcome, John!