Batson's Blog

Wow, has this Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman story ever hit the airwaves? The beginning of last week, I didn’t know who either of them was. Now, when I type “George” into Google, the first result is “George Zimmerman.” The second is “George Clooney.” As for Trayvon? Hoodie protests are happening all over the place. It’s a sad situation all around. One person is dead. The other had to go in hiding, for fear of his life. Trayvon Martin’s family is dealing with their loss. George Zimmerman’s family has been receiving death threats. That’s a sad state of affairs. Perhaps the most disappointing thing to me is the extreme reaction people are having. On one hand it’s nice to see that people can get so passionate about something. It’s a nice reminder to politicians and government officials that the people do have power. The media does have power. They can’t get away with whatever they want. On the other hand, there are death threats and bounties being talked about. Am ...

It was a Redbox double feature once again last night. I wasn’t going to rent anything, but Redbox e-mailed me a special weekend-only offer: get $.50 off your purchase of two or more movies. I took the bait. This time I went with two remakes: Neverland and The Three Musketeers . Neverland I’d never heard of Neverland , but the cover looked pretty cool on Redbox.com. Despite what they say, I do judge a book (or in this case a DVD) by its cover. It usually works too. I guess it was successful with Neverland as well. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t what I was expecting. I could tell that something was up as soon as I saw the previews, which were straight-to-DVD SyFy channel releases. Then the menu screen pops up and says “Play Part 1” and “Play Part 2.” Great. I was done with a day of work, it was 7 in the evening, and I just rented a two-part TV series. All I wanted was regular movie – with some special effects, a decent story and cool action scenes. I hit “Play” any...

I haven’t talked much about my creative writing prospects in this blog yet. I have a lot of writing goals I’d like to accomplish. When my time on this planet is up, I’d like to have written a successful Broadway play, a TV show, a movie, a couple of New York Times best sellers, and a variety of children’s books. One goal at a time, though, eh? Right now I’m focusing on a TV pilot I’ve been working on. Since I started writing it, I’ve been watching a lot of sitcoms, studying the format. One show I’ve been watching a lot of is The Beverly Hillbillies . Definitely Amaaazing. It’s such a simple concept (a rags-to-riches story), but it’s a hilarious one at the same time. A family of hillbilly folk striking oil and moving to Beverly Hills? Hilarity is sure to ensue. One of my favorite things about it though is the clever wording in the title. Combining “Beverly Hills” with “Hillbillies” to get “Beverly Hillbillies” gives anybody reading a TV Guide a clear indication as to wha...

Anyone who has a desk job can tell you that it certainly seems hard to stay healthy and even harder to lose weight when you sit at work all day. You’re not burning many calories at work, but you don’t want to hit the gym right after work either. On those days when the job was crazy you’re so mentally exhausted from work that the motivation to go out for even a quick jog just isn’t there. I’ve been learning that recently. I worked as a television reporter for two years, lugging the equipment all over the place and conducting interviews. Then, when I got back to the newsroom, it was up-and-down out of my chair, getting file footage and editing the video. Some days I wasn’t sitting for probably more than 10 minutes at a time. Now it’s pretty much the opposite. I get up every now and then to walk 20 feet to the copier. I am stuck inside the 50x50 foot office. I’ll walk to the break room a few times a night to fill up my water bottle or I’ll go to the bathroom once or twice an...