MOVIE & TV EXPERIENCE

I write about stuff on this blog that I have some experience with. I started it thinking it might be interesting to some of my friends—and anyone else who wanted to listen in—if I shared some of my opinions and observations (of which I have many, obviously) about things I know something about.

When I don’t know so much, I include a link to someone with more expertise. But I do have experience in politics—radical and more conventional, local and national, including running for office—and music (studied it, played a few instruments, made part of my living at it when I was young), theater (wrote plays, directed them, acted in them, house managed them, etc.), poetry (published in hundreds of magazines, many anthologies, dozens of books, won awards, read all over the U.S. and Europe), and other kinds of writing (including published fiction, nonfiction, plays, reviews (for The Washington Post, The Village Voice, etc.) articles, interviews, etc.[plus worked as publisher, editor, teacher, etc. of all kinds of writing]), and acting in films (and writing them or parts of them [many of which have yet to be made so aren't included here]) and on TV, and the rest of the topics I cover on this blog.

So in response to some folks asking what the experience is that I base some of my comments on I came up with a list that may seem self-serving, or self-important, but at this stage of the game definitely isn't. I just thought it might be interesting since the Oscars and last years movies were the focus of several recent posts—and even though it’s just a TV show to me too since I’m far from Hollywood or whatever careers I had there (or were connected to the idea of Hollywood I had as a kid), still, when I watch the the Golden Globes or the Oscars I’m not just watching celebs and movie producers etc. but people I’ve worked with or for, or hung out with or more.

So when the garbage men woke me up at 4AM, to help me fall back asleep last night, I made as much of an alphabet list as I could of movies or TV shows I either acted on or contributed some (or a lot of) writing to. There’s actually a bunch more (including many I’m deliberately omitting that I worked on one way or another but never got paid or credit for and many short films I acted in, I only included three of them here because they got some exposure and/or meant something, at least to me), but I can’t remember them all (like the name of a TV show Ice-T had for a while on which I had a small role, but it was such a bad experience I asked for my credits to be removed).

A?
BODY DOUBLE, BERRENGERS, BASIC INSTINCT, BAYWATCH, BROOKLYN SOUTH, BIG APPLE
CAGNEY & LACEY, CAUGHT IN THE ACT, COOL WORLD (Ralph Bakshi’s)
DRACULA’S LAST RITES (originally just LAST RITES), DRUGSTORE COWBOY, DIAGNOSIS MURDER, THE DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN, DEADWOOD, DO NOT DISTURB
ED
FATHER DOWLING MYSTERIES, FOGBOUND
GREENPOINT TAVERN
HOLLYWOOD MAGIC (video of my stage version of some of my poetry, with characters etc. released in England but never here), HARDCASTLE & MCCORMICK, HUMAN CONDITION (award winning short)
IT/LL BE BETTER TOMORROW (a documentary on Hubert Selby Jr. in which I appear very briefly)
JAG
K?
L. A. LAW, THE LAUREATE (short film), LAW & ORDER
MY MOTHER’S SECRET LIFE, THE MILKMAN (short film)
NESTING, THE (originally PHOBIA), NYPD BLUE, NOT AGAIN
O?
PUMP UP THE VOLUME
Q?
RAMONA!, THE RAPTURE (played the president, but it got cut out except for one image at the end as “Man on TV”)
SOMETHING SHORT OF PARADISE, STAR TIME, SOMEBODY IS WAITING
TEXAS (a shortlived NYC based soap opera c. 1980 if I remember correctly), THE TECHNICAL WRITER
U?
V?
WHITEY! (the first AFI funded feature film c. 1968-‘69), WHITE FANG
X?
Y?
Z?