Design the US/Mexico Border Fence Contest – Win a Trip to Yucatan

I’ve got a great idea. I want to pitch a reality show to TLC or HGTV or Bravo network. A group of designers compete to create a design for the fence on the US border with Mexico. I think it’s brilliant. With the popularity of interior design, who wants an ugly fence?

Grand prize winner spends a week in the Yucatan peninsula where he or she can burn their skin on tourist-infested beaches, visit Mayan ruins where one can imagine (thanks to Mel Gibson) graphic human sacrifices once took place and lose at least 10 pounds drinking local tap water. I can attest to this because I once visited the Yucatan and ate Sopa de Lima (Lime Soup). It looked like pond water and I was rewarded with a vicious case of explosive diarrhea that made long bus trips through the peninsula’s interior particularly adventurous.

So, send in your design ideas! Get crazy! Don’t be afraid to be bold!

Here are a few spit-balled ideas…

Pink Floyd Border… “All in all it’s just another…”

It’s a little plain and could get monotonous after 700 miles but I think it’s classy.

But nothing says classy like a white picket fence. Our fence could be so dainty and elegant that any of our Southern friends would be ashamed to vault over it.

If that doesn’t work. If we can’t make an aesthetic appeal to our neighbors, we could always go with a cost-effective chain-link.

It is a little white trash. When I was a kid, it was understood that only rednecks put chain-link fences in their front-yard, but the backyard was fair game. And the border to the South is America’s backyard. So, I doubt the rest of the world would view us as rednecks for this design.

We could take a page out of Israel’s book and go with something a bit more in the popular penitentiary style.

In fact, if you’re into the metallic look, why hold back? Make it electrifying… It’s almost like Christmas.

Or we could just refuse to spend money on the 700 miles of Senate-approved fence and make it the individual’s responsibility to fence themselves. Less government in our lives. If you live close to the border and have safety concerns about the illicit activities of immigrantes, it should be your own responsibility to buy a fence for each of your loved ones. Something portable, yet secure…

That may be extreme.

Maybe the classic designs are the best. A Southwestern style, rustic, barbed wire fence can be adorable…

                                         photo by: Derrald Farnsworth-Livingston

The old Berlin Wall allowed for artistic expression and could be considered a government sponsored program for the arts…

Ireland’s stone walls are nice…

How about a little, old-fashioned Americana? A border fence modeled on a baseball outfield wall. We can rent out ad space for 700 miles. We can keep Mexicans out and sell shit to them at the same time.

My favorite outfield wall… Fenway Park’s Green Monster Border…

I’m afraid that we must again look to China as a trend-setting country. Not for social concerns or human rights but for no-nonsense practicality. The Great Wall of China is the perfect inspiration for our new border. 700 miles? That’s nothing. The Chinese could construct our wall in a week. The Great Wall was finished over 2000 years ago and spans 4000 miles and a mountain range.

Drawing inspiration from the practicality of the Chinese, we should hire Mexican laborers to build our wall. This idea is also inspired by the time my family built a wood fence around our backyard. We asked the neighbors to chip in and  finish both sides of the fence with nice wood slats. The cheap family on one side of us didn’t want to chip in, so we left their side unfinished.

So, here’s how it works.  We have Mexican laborers work on our side, first. Add a nice stone finish – we can get cheap supplies and labor from Mexico. Once they begin working on their own side of the wall, we cut funding.

It sounds a little cold, but Mexico should pay if they want their side of the fence beautiful, too. It’s only fair. And if we want to compete with China, we need to start by building the Great Wall of America.

These are just ideas. I want to see America’s designs.

Good luck! Let’s make a beautiful border!

We Don’t Make up Things Here in Hollywood

“We Don’t Make Up Things Here in Hollywood.” I overheard a studio exec saying that in a hallway at Paramount. I don’t know what he was talking about… but I can imagine…

The other day, I found myself lying to executives in a pitch meeting. That is not unusual. I don’t find it unethical, either. This business is built on lies. In fact, I never let the truth get in the way of a good story. But here’s the interesting thing about it, truth never gets in the way of a good story anymore.

Let me explain. I was pitching this idea. A comedy. As I pitched, they smiled politely. Just courtesy smiles. That happens with executives sometimes. In fact, you can’t be discouraged and assume that you’re bombing in these situations. Good sales can come from a coldly stoic and straight-faced room of executives.

One of the executives stopped me and asked, “Is this real? Did this really happen?”

I saw their eager faces. They wanted this ridiculous story that I was telling to be real.

“Yes,” I said. “It really happened to me.”

They all laughed.

There it is. We want everything to be real, now. Even comedy. If it isn’t real, no one seems interested anymore.

It’s a strange thing to lie about an imaginative story being reality-based. I actually took credit away from myself… from my own imagination… and I got the laugh. Now, I do it all the time. I preface everything with, “True story…”

But why does everything have to be real? What’s happened to our imaginations?

Borat is a very funny comedy. Jackass has it’s moments, too. But, particularly with the latter, since when is this material for a feature, motion picture? Reality comedy.

A lot of my friends have been fans of improv comedy for quite a while. Is improv comedy really that great? Let’s be completely honest with one another. It usually sucks. Really bad. I’ve seen enough bad improv to last a lifetime. I don’t want it anymore. I hate it. It’s painful to watch untalented comedians panhandle an audience for courtesy laughs. Or worse, those silly improv audience members who guffaw at every inane plot-twist and joke that were really created because the actor doesn’t know what the fuck to do next.

I want to see well-scripted, well-acted scenes with thoughtful direction. I think we can still laugh at material presented this way.

Do we have to sit and watch unskilled, hyper contestants open suitcases every night with dollar amounts inside? And honestly, don’t the contestants seem to be more interested in being famous for their TV appearance than walking away with prize money?

Okay, I’m not gonna’ harp on it too much. But really, we are more interested in people’s used experiences than creating imaginative scenarios on our own. People will sit and watch a webcam of someone talking about stupid shit rather than read a novel or play an instrument. I read that non-fiction books outnumber published fiction titles, 4-1. We’re also obsessed with memoirs.

Enough of real life. We should be sick of real life. I pitched a TV comedy about repo men (based on the film I shot, The Almost Guys). The networks weren’t biting. But now I keep seeing advertisements for a Spanish language show, Operation Repo, a reality show about repo guys.

Basically, you can get any family or group of jackasses to allow cameras to follow them around and document their real but manipulated lives. It’s exploitative, cheap production and forgettable fluff.

C’mon guys… C’mon Hollywood… make some shit up… let writers write stories. Let actors act. Allow the imagination back into storytelling.

I got an idea for you. True story…