Sunday, December 31, 2006

Hollywood Quad - Landon Tribute (episode 3)

Episode 3 - Michael Landon Tribute - Jim Troesh, who acted for three years as the quadriplegic attorney on Highway to Heaven, talks candidly about TV icon Michael Landon.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

PODCASTING

Last weekend I released Episode 2 "The Hollywood Quad - The Q Word." (just click to check it out) It's about navigating in Hollywood as a quadriplegic guy and how executive producers react to me. This weekend I will release the third webisode "The Hollywood Quad - Michael Landon Tribute." I'm sure you can guess what it's about, but it's a side to him I'm sure you never heard about. I haven't done any publicity on the series yet but so far I have gotten close to two thousand downloads. I'll be doing a big publicity push right after the first of the year when I have about four episodes floating around out there on the Internet highway.

I really enjoy doing these and I get a terrific reaction from my industry friends who have seen them, but it takes two days and sometimes three to get them produced and distributed throughout the Internet. I am getting the speed down, but I wish I had more time to work on my screenplays. Oh well, the best I can do is the best I can to.

My Christmas Day was uneventful. I spent the day with my family back on December 9th. We do Christmas early. That way we avoid the Christmas rush. If you are interested, check back to this blog in a couple weeks and there should be a Link to a video I'm editing that I will mail out to my family who couldn't make it.

Its always rough around holidays for me because my caregivers want to spend time with their families. We do the best we can to work through the holidays but I am usually stuck with people I don't know well a lot at this time of year. I hesitate to complain because there are a lot of people out there with no care givers. I'm not really complaining anyway, I thank God for these people. If it wasn't for them and people who gone before them, there would be no "The Hollywood Quad", or career for me.

Future podcasts will focus on my struggle to move from playing hospital patients to playing doctors. I will also talk about how being quadriplegic helps me to overcome certain obstacles that able-bodied people struggle with. and, yes, there will even be a podcast about my sex life. I've heard for years it's something everybody wants to know, but no one wants to ask.

Sorry it's such a short blog this week, I'm really backed up with work (it's a good thing). Until next time ... thanks for checking in!

Friday, December 08, 2006

"The Hollywood Quad"

That's right, I am "The Hollywood Quad." I went to a seminar about the future of television at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences a few weeks ago. Among other things, I learned all about podcasts, how to create them and how to distribute them on the Internet.

I came up with the title and the concept of the show pretty quickly. The pilot is a little over seven minutes, but future episodes will probably be three to four minutes. Each one will have some insight into me or my journey toward success in the entertainment business. There may also be interviews with celebrities. The difference between my interviews and the interviews you can see everywhere else is that on the "The Hollywood Quad" the celebrities will be interviewing me.

I really love doing the show because I get to be the producer, director, writer, performer, editor, and distributor. I control all the content and it comes out exactly the way I want it to. I look forward to hearing what you think of my vision.

I did it mainly to promote Jim Troesh, but during the process of the pilot episode I realized it was an excellent way of addressing the elephant in the room. The biggest obstacle I face is the attitude, and the preconceived notions that are in the minds of the people who hire me. If I can put my persona out there in a place where they can see what I'm about without actually having to meet me, I am one step ahead. It's almost as if they get to know me before they meet me.

I purposely shot it so you see all the moving parts of me and none of the things I can't move. That way, they focused on me and not my disability. I don't try to hide it, there are several shots of me in my wheelchair, but it's not a focal point in most of the episode. I also joke around and deliver my message with humor so hopefully people are enlightened rather than be co-head with an idea.

I released it last week and it has had about 1500 Hits at the time of this writing. In about two weeks when I have more episodes I'm going to put it up on iTunes where people can subscribe to it for free and it will automatically go on to your computer every time you open iTunes.

I encourage you to take a look at and share it with as many of your friends says would be interested and when it gets on iTunes or one of the other places you can subscribe to it, please do. The more downloads it gets the higher it moves on YouTube and thereby generates even more downloads.

Other than that, I've just been writing. Thanks for reading this ...