I just found this letter to and response from Bruce Lee – whose 72nd birthday would’ve been today -  via the always fantastic LettersofNote. I put Bruce Lee in the headline because he’s got the name recognition, but the real star of this exchange is Roland Lee. The turn of phrase “Furthermore, he picked up a hammer and hit himself all over” is brilliant, and I could read it ten times over and still laugh every time. I want that worked into my epitaph somehow. “He had four loving children, having retired after working for the Illinois Railroad Company for 42 years. Furthermore, he picked up a hammer and hit himself all over.”

As to the what/where of the letter, Shaun from LettersofNote says: “In the 1960s Bruce Lee answered a bunch of fans’ letters via Black Belt magazine. Many are reprinted in this book (‘Dear Bruce Lee’).”

Anyway, great letter, and happy birthday, Bruce. We’d trade that crusty old sack of farts Chuck Norris for you in a heartbeat.

The always-great Letters of Note today has an old letter from Gene Wilder (who’s 79 now) to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate factory director Mel Stuart (ironic that Mel Gibson shares a name with so many classic Jewish filmmakers, isn’t it?). But first, they open with another Wilder anecdote which I’d also never heard:

In the early-1970s, when originally offered the lead role in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory by director Mel Stuart, the great Gene Wilder accepted on one condition:

“When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.”

Asked why, Wilder explained: “Because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”

Meanwhile, the main letter concerned Wilder’s input about his costume for the film:

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, I’m going to level with you folks, this headline was slightly misleading. The letter in question wasn’t written to THE Chris Farley, the famous fat dead comedian (whose poster I had on my wall for about 10 years), just a guy who happened to be named Chris Farley. Still, today is Henry Rollins’s 51st birthday, and Henry Rollins is awesome, and this letter is also awesome, ergo I REGRET NOTHING. The story goes, back in 1995, Rollins had to cancel a gig in Maryland due to rain. A couple jokers, Farley and Ken Meekins, sent Rollins an email from the contact form on his website, including some name-calling: “We put stuff like ‘Why did you have to cancel the show? Were you home eating soup with your mommy?’ I think we may have called him a ‘punk-ass bitch.’”

As we all know, the only person who might cancel a stormy show over soup is Glenn Danzig. And while Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig have been depicted as gay lovers in a comic book, there are a lot of things they don’t have in common. The following is Rollins’s even-handed but menacing response, sent via snail-mail to Farley and Meekins’ address, and addressed to the fake name they provided:

BOB. HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED. THE PROMOTER SETH HOROWITZ WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THE WEATHER EVEN WHEN HE PROMISED HE WOULD BE. BY THE TIME IT WAS FOR HELMET TO GO ON, THE POWER GENERATORS WERE SUBMERGED IN WATER. THE STAGE WAS MOSTLY METAL AND THE RISK OF BANDS & CREWS GETTING FRIED.
SETH REALLY BLEW IT FOR US. WE WERE THERE ALL DAY INTO THE NIGHT WAITING TO PLAY. IT WAS THE LAST SHOW OF THE TOUR WITH SAUSAGE & HELMET AND WE WERE ALL LOOKING FORWARD TO HITTING IT. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN #80 FOR THE YEAR.
TO LEAVE THAT PLACE W/O PLAYING SUCKED.
NEXT TIME YOU SEE ME, CALL ME WHAT YOU CALLED ME IN YOUR LETTER AND WE’LL SEE HOW IT GOES.

— HENRY ROLLINS

Yes, Henry Rollins writes in all caps. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Anyway, long story short, Henry Rollins f*cking rules. Happy 51st, Henry, please don’t tear my arms off like a daddy long legs. Though let it be known, if I had to choose a way to go, that would probably be it.

[see the actual letter at LettersofNote]

Read the rest of this entry »

MEMO - To: ALL. RE: "Gays in There"

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you because you already know the movie by heart because it’s your favorite, but one of the crucial plot points in Jerry Maguire is Jerry’s decision to write and disseminate a heartfelt memo about getting back to the company’s roots and focusing on personal relationships. The memo wins him a slow-clap from his agency’s staff, but eventually leads to him getting fired, just like that asshole Jay Mohr predicted. What many people might NOT know is that that fictional memo in Cameron Crowe’s movie was inspired by a real memo Jeffrey Katzenberg (then head of Disney, current CEO of Dreamworks) sent around to his fellow Disney executives in 1991.

LettersofNote have gotten their hands on the original memo, and above all else, it’s super long. 28 freakin’ pages worth. Based on every exec speech or communique I’ve ever heard, it seems like the key to success in business is being able to stretch a two-word thought into ten and repeat it at least six times. Nonetheless, it’s interesting, and I’ve tried to excerpt some of the more poignant/relevant/ironic parts.

Back in 1984, our initial success at Disney was based on the ability to tell good stories well. Big stars, special effects and name directors were of little importance. Of course, we started this way out of necessity. We had small budgets and not much respect. So we substituted dollars with creativity and big stars with talent we believed in. Success ensued.

With success came bigger budgets and bigger names. We found ourselves attracting the calibre of talent with which “event” movies could be made. And, more and more, we began making them. The result: costs have escalated, profitability has slipped and our level of risk has compounded. The time has come to get back to our roots.

It used to be that there was a reliable criterion for a film’s success — whether or not it had “legs.” Studios would toy with different strategies for opening a film, all with the goal of helping it develop “legs” through positive word of mouth. Now the term “legs” has all but disappeared from the Hollywood vocabulary. Thanks to the dictates of the blockbuster mentality, the shelf life of many movies has come to be somewhat shorter than a supermarket tomato.

Sadly, relying on big opening weekends has only gotten worse since then. Though to Katzenberg’s credit, Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots only dropped 3% from its opening weekend this weekend, one of the smallest second-weekend drops anyone can remember. Yet somehow I doubt that’s a result of seeking out creativity at the expense of special effects…

On ticket prices:

Read the rest of this entry »

Not that it makes me unique, but I’m a huge fan of these old letters. They’re such a neat little snapshot of place and time and people, and I wonder if the next generation will have any equivalent (“Ooh look, it’s the original emoticon Brett Ratner Blackberry messaged Nick Cannon on the set of Party Barge!”). Anyway, last time we posted a Marlon Brando letter, he was the sender, of a

You can see the full-sized letter at LettersofNote, but here’s the transcript:

Monday

Dear Marlon,

I heard you were back from the South Pacific; but I didn’t want to call you because I always feel stupid bringing up the matter of the Godfather. I know you return my calls on a personal and friendly basis, and so I can’t bring myself to misuse that and bring up what is bothering me.

My problem is simply that I am stalling and stalling because I have the inkling that it may be possible that you will play the young Vito Corleone. I’ve seen in the past, that even a slight possibility may blossom into a fact, and so I’ve tried to kindle this as best I could. I’ve become a real behind-the-scenes monster playing Yablans and Evans and Bludhorn; trying to get them to do what I want. I tell Yablans that he’s the only one who can do it. Then I tell Evans the same thing.

I tell them the movie cannot be made without you; I tell Yablans he has to apologize to you. Now Yablans says that he’s trying to do this, and get together on the money and stuff, but you don’t return his call.

Evans wants to approach you; but Yablans is terrified that Evans might make it work, where he failed…so he keeps preventing that.

But what it really comes down to is me. Marlon I respect you enormously; and if you told me that you did not want to do it under any circumstances, whatsoever…of course I would accept that, and never mention it again. And if you liked, I wouldn’t tell anyone else.

I learned a lot from you…one thing being that it’s only a movie, and what’s that compared to everything else there is in the world.

At times, I try really hard to imagine what you’re like in your thoughts. I realized that you’ve been in the strange state of adoration and exhibition for 25 years now, intensely…and I think that would have driven me crazy. And the fact that you’re really a good man, and warm, and love people is a tremendous achievement considering that you’ve been in a glass box for half your life.

Read the rest of this entry »