Kenneth Atchity's Blog, page 92
August 7, 2019
Listen: How Walden Media Navigates the Mega-Budget Film Era
“Dora and the Lost City of Gold” is just the kind of family-friendly movie you’d expect to see from Walden Media, which teamed with Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon to bring the iconic kiddie character to theaters (premiering Aug. 9). But while the company is as dedicated as ever to burnishing the inspirational fare-focused brand it has built over the past 16 years, the strategies CEO/president Frank Smith has employed to keep Walden in the game have evolved considerably in recent years. “The industry has changed so dramatically around us and so quickly, you realize to continue with your mandate, to be relevant, you have to change with the industry,” he explained in the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business.”
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August 5, 2019
August 2, 2019
Calling it quits: When leaving your job is the right thing to do
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In 2009, Bill Murphy Jr. landed a top-level law job making big bucks. But when he showed up for work, he realized pretty quickly that he wasn't the right person for that spot. On his very first day, Murphy already wanted out.
Correspondent Tony Dokoupil asked, "What was it about a competitive, six-figure income that wasn't attractive to you?"
"Yeah, I know, that's a question a lot of people would ask," he replied. "I recall going to the orientation, and one of the speakers got up, 'Hi, I'm John Smith, I've been here for 21 years and three months, so that means I have, you know, eight years-plus to retire.' And that became a running joke with a few of the others speakers that got up. But that's not really what you say if you love your work and you really want to come in there every day."
So, rather than count his own days behind a desk, he did something you won't find in most career playbooks: He quit on Day Two, telling his boss, "I'm really very sorry, I can tell that I made a big mistake in accepting this job."
The move was radical, but the mindset is not so uncommon. According to a recent CBS News poll, more than half of Americans with full time jobs say they daydream at least once in a while about leaving those jobs behind.
Michelle Singletary, who writes about personal finance for the Washington Post, says the fantasy of quitting your job is more prevalent today than it was a generation ago. "And for many people, it is a fantasy unfortunately," she said.
Singletary said employers are largely to blame: "I think the companies broke the contract, because they made us expendable at every level. I mean, it got to the point where they could boost their stock prices by firing people. And people are saying, 'If that's the case, I don't owe you my entire life.'"
That may help explain why some employees now put early retirement at the top of their to-do list. But making that happen takes work, and a whole lot of savings. Singletary said, "You've got to save a substantial amount of your salary, upwards of 40, 50, 60%."
Dokoupil asked, "If you're 25 right now and you have it in your head that you want to retire early, to be clear, the things you would have to do in order to save are, sounds like, not have kids?"
"You can have kids. You can't have five," Singletary replied.
House? "Not too big."
Can you go out to eat at restaurants? "You can every once in a while. You're not gonna be taking a $5,000 cruise, no."
"You essentially have to ignore every cue from our culture, every commercial on TV?"
"My husband and I keep our cars until we're on a first-name basis with the local tow truck drivers," Singletary laughed. "And we don't care!"
That's the sort of thing Susan Emmerson might do. She remembers telling her accountant, "'I'm gonna save half of my income.' He said, 'No, you're not. Don't give me that.' And I said, 'Watch me.'"
Before retiring at age 47, she kept close tabs on everything she spent, and we do mean EVERYTHING. In her little notebook she wrote down every expenditure, even a Coke.
calling-it-quits-susan-emmerson-promo.jpg
Frugality helped Susan Emmerson quit her career as a physician at age 47, to take up a second calling: art. SUSAN EMMERSON
Thanks to that tight budget and some savvy investing, Emmerson, now 61, has spent more than a decade pursuing her lifelong passion of art. To do that, she walked away from a career as a physician. "The best part was turning in the beeper, because they can't get me anymore!" she laughed.
But can someone who isn't earning a doctor or lawyer's income afford to retire early? Singletary said, "Yes, absolutely. Early retirement isn't just for people making six figures. It's you. But it's you making different choices. Your early retirement may not be some big villa in Florida. It may just be a nice two-bedroom condo where you live, and the car that you have had for 20 years."
Emmerson said when she announced her early retirement to her mother, "Oh God, she had a fit! She told her friends that I had gotten sick and had to retire, because that, I guess, seemed like a more acceptable reason to retire."
Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi may help explain her mom's reaction. A famous quote attributed to him is woven deep into the fabric of American culture: "Winners never quit."
Author Seth Godin is the anti-Lombardi; he says quitting is often the best possible move, because it frees us up to thrive where we're better suited.
"We've been brainwashed into thinking that quitting is somehow wrong, it's somehow weak," he said. "If you have a choice between being unemployed for one, two, three years or sticking with a job that's a dead-end, most people are afraid of the unknown, so they will stick with that job."
Dokoupil asked, "We met an individual who quit on his second day of work. Would you advise such a thing?"
"I'm not sure what the difference is between the second day and the 200th day," Godin said. "If I got a job working at a payday loan company, I wouldn't even last two days."
Which brings us back to Bill Murphy Jr. After quitting as a lawyer, he went all-in on a childhood dream: Journalism.
He's now a contributing editor at the publication Inc. "I would not go back. I have no regrets."
And one thing's very clear: He's happy now, having quit his way to a better life.
"I call it the joy of quitting," he said.
July 30, 2019
July 29, 2019
New From Story Merchant Books: Educating Marston: A Mother and Son's Journey through Austism
LOS ANGELES, CA—Story Merchant Books releases its newest work of nonfiction: Educating Marston: A Mother and Son’s Journey through Autism by Christine Weiss. In 1995, Marston was born five weeks premature but otherwise “fine.” As days turned into weeks (and months), Christine realized her son was not like the other so-called normal kids. With her husband, Dr. Eric Weiss, taking a second job in an ER on the weekends, Christine began her journey of researching and implementing every therapy and treatment out there to help heal Marston’s injured brain.
“Autism wasn’t widely talked about back then, and Facebook (networking) didn’t exist. We were on our own. This memoir is our journey of educating Marston through programs like The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, Vision Therapy, the Tomatis® Method, Marion Blank’s approach to reading, hypotherapy, ballroom dancing, and the list goes on…until we discovered STEM CELL REPLACEMENT THERAPY.”
In PART II of Educating Marston, Eric Weiss, MD details his history studying stem cells, how they work, and how he put their healing potential to the test with an experimental surgery, and then with Marston.
“For the first few weeks after ‘Gail’s’ surgery, the umbilical cord strips just lay there, neither hurting nor helping her open wounds. We needed more time. Three months later, she walked into
my office for the first time without assistance in years. She was healed. The affected regions contained 95 percent new tissue, and only about 5 percent of her skin had scarring. The umbilical cord stem cells had programmed her body to regenerate healthy skin cells. That’s when we knew stem cells could heal our son—and we had to try.” Not only did the Weiss family find a doctor to help Marston, they went on to devote part of Eric’s private practice to administering stem cell transfusions. He’s been treating people for autism, physical traumas, and other diseases and disorders through stem cell replacement therapy since December 2018.
“The pain, obstacles, and victories over the last twenty-four years have brought us one step closer to our son living a life of purpose with as much normalcy as possible. We’ve cracked the glass wall separating us from Marston, but we believe stem cell replacement therapy will ultimately shatter it. NOW, IT’S OUR JOB TO SHARE OUR STORY WITH THE WORLD BECAUSE ONE WIN FOR AUTISM IS A VICTORY FOR US ALL.”
To request a review copy or inquire about an author interview, please email chris@storymerchant.com
July 25, 2019
Super-Sized Fun Screening of The MEG!
Just in time for Shark Week, a 70-foot prehistoric megalodon shark – let’s call him “The Meg” – will invade the beaches of South Florida.
Think of its as a float-in theater. “The Meg” will play on a 14-foot inflatable screen, floating offshore along the beach near the park’s Oleta River Outdoor Center. Moviegoers at their own (ahem) peril must watch from the beach or from pool floats.
Perhaps only one screening is needed. “The Meg” is essentially “Jaws” on steroids, an over-the-top fin flick featuring a wet-suited Statham hunting a prehistoric monster-fish with a harpoon gun. During one meaty sequence, the Meg chomps its way through a beach resort crowded with bathers in pool floats.
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July 24, 2019
What You Need to Know About Steve Alten’s ‘Meg’ Series
There are currently seven books in the series: 1997’s awesomely-titled Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (recently republished with the 2011 e-prequel Meg: Origins), followed by The Trench (the only Megless title, and digitally released as The Trench: Meg 2) in 1999, then Meg: Primal Waters, Meg: Hell’s Aquarium, Meg: Nightstalkers and this summer’s Meg: Generations, and Meg: Purgatory. Alten, a doctorate of sports administration turned voraciously prolific wordsmith, doesn’t appear to have any plans to slow down.
The Meg is loosely based on the first book (excuse me, novel of deep terror) in the series, with Alten cheerfully signing off on the changes to the source material. Here we’ve got new characters, newly named old characters, a no-longer-albino megalodon and an entirely different backstory explaining protagonist Jonas Taylor’s PTSD. But even though the film diverges wildly from the book that inspired it, it might still help you to know the following about Alten’s Meg series before you watch Jason Statham wrestle a giant prehistoric shark on the silver screen.
They’re FunAlten’s writing tends to the prosaic and weirdly sexist (boyyyyy, is Jonas Taylor’s wife a real piece of work! Fortunately, she's been completely updated in the film, as has the book's character Terry, whom Book Jonas derisively calls "Gloria Steinem." The movie is much better about this stuff). But while these books might not be **pushes glasses up nose, over-enunciates** highbrow literature, there’s no denying they're a blast. The chapters fly by, the energy is propulsive and the premises are uniformly intriguing, from Meg’s deep sea dive redemption story to Primal Waters’ daredevil reality TV plot. And Jonas himself is undeniably compelling, the sort of terse, grizzly antihero with a heart that Statham was born to play.
They’re ScaryWhile Alten may not adequately sell romance or profound human sentiment in these books, there’s one emotion he’s very good at generating, and that’s fear. Meg opens with an account of the Meg back in her Late Cretaceous days. A Tyrannosaurus rex stalks a couple of hadrosaurs into the surf when “a six-foot gray dorsal fin rose slowly from the sea, its unseen girth gliding silently across their path.” Soon the T. rex gives up on the hadrosaurs because it has bigger fish to fry, and we’re treated to a completely gnarly T.rex vs. Megalodon battle that ends with this note-perfect sentence:
A moment later the dinosaur surfaced again, drowning in its own body fluids as its rib cage crushed and crumbled within the powerful jaws of its still-unseen hunter, its gushing innards strangling it to death.
GUSHING INNARDS STRANGLING IT TO DEATH. These books rule.
They’re Science-yLook, I’m not a scientist. The only science class I took in college was called “Science For Liberal Arts Majors.” But these books seem very scientific! There’s tons of paleontological speak, a litany of jargon matched only by the lovingly rendered technical specifications of submarines. Alten goes to great lengths to establish that Megs could still exist in the deep recesses of the ocean, of which we know less than we do outer space. He reminds us in Meg’s preface that dead sharks sink, their carcasses eaten and dissolved, and that less than 5% of the world’s oceans, and less than 1 percent of the deep abyss, have been explored. I’m convinced! Megalodons exist and we need Jason Statham to kill them!
They’ll Make GREAT MoviesOne chapter into Meg and I couldn’t wait to see The Meg. Having now flown through the series and cheered my way through the ridiculously fun film, I already can’t wait for any sequels that Hollywood wants to throw our way. This is fun, silly, thrilling stuff, and as big as Carcharodon megalodon feels in my imagination, she's even bigger on that big ol’ screen.
Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror
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July 22, 2019
July 20, 2019
Check out Story Merchant Kenneth Atchity's Advice to Writers Playlist!
Story Merchant's goal is to discover exciting books and help them reach maximum audiences in all media. Playlist
