Met two of my biggest influences tonight, @AlYankovic and Carl Gottlieb. When I was a kid my favorite radio show was Dr. Demento. (Yes, this was when there were such things as radio shows.)  It was on every Sunday night from 10-midnight, so it’s appropriate I’m writing about it now. He played the weirdest, strangest, and most obscure music, stuff nobody had, and that’s where Weird Al’s songs were played. I knew all of them, and never stopped listening to him, he’s just one of my favorite people. When I was at NYU I was part of the student activities board (I was the film chair) and helped roadie for Weird Al just to say I did it and to watch his concert from the stage.  It was awesome.  Tonight was the first time I’ve ever met him, and it turns out he’s a fan of mine, so we had a great time talking.  I even referenced sketches he did when he took over MTV and did “Al T.V.”  Yeah, I’m that much of a Weird Al geek.

I also met the great writer Carl Gottlieb, who has written many movies, but the two most influential for me are “Jaws” and “The Jerk.”  The Jerk is one of the films I’ve never stopped quoting, and even used a Navin R. Johnson quote as my high school yearbook quote. He wrote a great book called “The Jaws Log,” and it was one of those books I read as a kid and just kept with me all through film school, about all the difficulties they had making Jaws.  It’s a seminal book for geek directors.  I was with Rich Kelly, we were all at a screening of “Young Adult” which was unbelievable.  It’s really painful to watch at times (in the best possible way) because I saw too many things I’ve done over and over.  It’s an amazing film, Rich put it best, he said it reminded him of a Hal Ashby movie.  It’s not a comedy, but it’s hilarious if that makes sense.  So smart and well done.  A great evening all around.