Bleeding Neon

What’s the name of that song? I have no idea either. But man, Sesame Street in the 1970s felt REAL. I don’t know how else to put it. You watch children’s shows today, including Sesame, and they just feel so … sanitized, so dumbed-down. Does Oscar even still live in a trash can anymore, or was it deemed to be too representative of a homeless derelict so they moved him to a condo or something? I’m not sure. But I wouldn’t be surprised.

There’s something about the 1970s that makes me insanely nostalgic. When I pop in Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions (both on cassette, naturally), it instantly takes me back to a decade for which I was only alive four years but feel as though it’s … home. I don’t know how to explain it. I guess the early 1980s in Philadelphia weren’t much different than the decade previous, and I do retain a fondness for my extremely early years growing up there, but there’s something about the whole urban soul vibe that seems to call out to me.

Also: Northern Calloway rocked some badass sideburns back in the day.

(Clip via Mark Evanier)

It’s not exactly an Emmy, Pulitzer or Eisner, but as someone not used to winning anything, I figured I had to share this with you fine people: Yesterday, The Write Blog announced the winners of the Write On! Online/Write Environment Query Contest. And who won first place in the Teleplay category?

Me, bitches.

Will it get that pitch anywhere? Who knows. Part of taking first place is having the query read by David Boxerbaum, a senior literary agent at APA talent agency. So, maybe. Or not. If nothing else, it got that TV series pitch out of the growing pit known as my Google Docs account and in front of someone’s eyes.

In the meantime, I’m on deadline for two stories at two different publications, trying to get caught up with The Utopian before San Diego Comic-Con sneaks up on me (in two weeks!), working with my band to find a producer with whom to record and closing on a house. Oh, and apparently, failing to get paid by What’s On magazine.

Speaking of Comic-Con, if you’re going to be there, I have semi-complete details on how to hook up with me there posted over at the Pop! Goes the Icon website.

Getting your week kicked off with a little bit of harsh (but funny) reality courtesy of Jon Stewart and the Daily Show (via Mark Evanier):

I’ll have an awesome, senses-shattering post about stuff that doesn’t matter later.

Guys, ease up! He doesn't even have any powers now!

NBC’s Heroes has come back strong from its season break with a new volume, “Fugitives,” and it seems to have shaken off a bunch of its discombobulated storylines with overcrowded characters, leaving viewers with something much more streamlined: New York Senator Nathan Petrelli is rounding up all powered people as a campaign to keep America “safe” for normal people, and the central “heroes,” on the run, have teamed up to oppose his efforts.

While the plot is basically a convolution of several X-Men comic book storylines (including “Days of Future Past,” in which mutants are rounded up into internment camps), it works pretty well. Gone (for the most part) are the wildly varying character personae, the confusing continuity and the unclear objectives of each sub-plot.

Whereas Season Two was … nearly unwatchable, the first volume of Season Three, “Villains,” was entertaining but draining. I look at “Villains” as nothing more than a set-up for “Fugitives” — a way to clean the slate and reboot the show. And now I find myself not just tolerating Heroes with hope for something better, but thoroughly enjoying every twist and turn and dangling on every cliffhanger ending.

To Tim Kring and his writers: Stay the course. You have a good thing going here, and might even see a return to those vaunted Season One numbers (or as close to in this attention-scattered age) if good word spreads around.

Who wants to be a camera whore?

I received a phone call from a colleague today.

“Was that you I saw on ‘Millionaire’ last night?” she asked.

It was. Kind of. It was my picture, and my voice, though it was my friend Mike who was actually “on” the syndicated edition of popular TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Last fall, Mike sent me an e-mail asking if I’d be one of his lifelines on Millionaire. I was honored and a little surprised, because though I certainly wouldn’t consider myself dumb, I’m not outstandingly smart, either. I just fake it. But I agreed, and Mike rushed over to my house with paperwork I needed to sign so he could overnight the agreements and whatnot to New York right away.

When the day of his taping came around, one of the producers called me early in the morning to make sure I would be available within about a two-hour time span, during which I basically waited for the phone to ring like a mother hen sitting on her incubating eggs. On my web browser, I had tabs opened for Google and Wikipedia. The phone rang.

“Hi, Pj, it’s Meredith Vieira.” She was live, with Mike, and he was going for $100,000.

Mike’s a smart guy. Real smart. Whenever we get together to play Trivial Pursuit, his team inevitably wins. He does things with computers I’m sure I can’t even spell let alone understand. So it was no surprise that he made it to $100,000. But it was a little surprising he’d call me at that point.

The question basically asked what moon dust smells like, according to the Apollo moon astronauts. I forget all four options, but two of them were “mothballs” and “spent gunpowder.” Those were the top two in my mind, and after talking to Mike last night after the broadcast, they were his as well.

I had 20 seconds from the time he started reading me the question and answers to respond. You’d think I could have easily typed “moon dust smell” into a Google search box and whammo — answer in .28 seconds. But put under pressure, the brain doesn’t work that way. I did what I would have done were I in the hot seat and not Mike: listened to all four options, mentally eliminate the obviously wrong ones, try to reason it.

There was no time. Mike urged, “two seconds!” and I just said, “mothballs.”

Mike went with my answer. And then … he went home. Not with $100,000, but $25,000.

Do a Google search for “moon dust smell.” Notice something? In that first page of results, there are conflicting results. And when you click on the first result — the official NASA Apollo Chronicles site — you would have found the correct answer, but it would have been too late. On my broadband connection, it took about 10 seconds for the NASA page to load. Figure a few seconds for me to type the query on top of that, and even had my fingers moved after Mike took a few seconds to ask me the question, I would have not been able to confirm the answer. It’s not as easy as it seems.

I was wracked with guilt for letting my friend down. Plus, I couldn’t tell anyone and Mike has had to sit on his results for almost four months (part of those confidentiality agreements they have you sign). Surprisingly, he did not murder me upon his return to Las Vegas. And not yet since.

Unwittingly, Mike got me back. Sort of. See that picture at the top of this post? Yeah, that’s the mugshot that Mike’s girlfriend Daniella sent to the producers to use. Not the “official” head shot I gave her. A goofy photo taken as I was partying down at 944 magazine’s two-year anniversary party at the Hard Rock Hotel. Likely intoxicated.

So for those of you out there watching Millionaire last night thinking “is that THAT Pj?,” yes. Yes it was. And thankfully, after yesterday’s broadcast, no one will ever ask me to be their lifeline on a game show ever again.

• • •

In other news, someone searching for “young girls bleeding photos” arrived at this website. Dear FBI: I have the IP address if you want it.