Wow, what a big screening....it was packed wall to wall, folks were even sitting on the floor because the setas were all gone! Thank you all for that, that's BIG. We'll try to get an encore show out there, and I'll try to see to it that everyone gets a seat this time.
Also, we did lots more radio today....Started off with Vancouver the Team 1040 show with B MACK, recorded the DAN PATRICK SHOW (which will be on tomorrow from 9-12am....eastern time I think? It's right here www.DanPatrick.com there's also a place where you can check which local radio it will be on.) did Seattle 1000 radio with Corwin Haeck and I'm 2 minutes away from going on RADIO LOS ANGELES.
So I'm just grateful to all...the great fans, the listeners, the shows, the press....the thousands who watched this thing at the stadium today...I tip my cap to you all. You're all rock stars in my book.
Here's the recent article:
At the end of the movie "Leaf," there is a series of juxtaposed scenes that should make Chargers fans cringe.
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning is seen being hoisted in the rain, the hero in his first Super Bowl victory in 2007. Cut to a goofy looking guy holding a golf flagstick as he watches a tap-in putt go wildly past the hole.
Manning.
Goofy guy.
Manning.
Goofy guy.
That goofy guy would be Ryan Leaf, the most notorious bust in the history of a proud San Diego franchise. The quarterback who, in the span of eight years, went from Heisman Trophy candidate and perceived NFL savior, to national joke, to coach of a West Texas college golf team.
Sitting in the darkened auditorium on the third floor of the downtown San Diego Library last night, dressed in a vintage Kellen Winslow jersey, Jonathan Verdugo didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"It was so sad!" Verdugo would say later with a broad smile. "I felt like crying! When you compare those two guys . . . Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf. Wow."
"Leaf," a low-budget hybrid documentary that was written and directed by Tim Carr, who also stars as Leaf, drew a packed house of about 160 to the library for the free viewing of the West Coast premiere, some sitting on the hard tile floor when all the seats were gone.
Businessmen in ties were there, along with fans in their jerseys and a few disoriented folks who seemingly wandered in from the ranks of the homeless.
For 82 minutes they sat, laughing in the right spots, groaning in others, as Carr laid out the sad NFL career of Leaf, drafted No. 2 overall by the Chargers in 1998 after the Colts took Manning at No. 1. The movie mixes the undisputed facts of Leaf's downfall with speculative thoughts and theories by actors playing sportswriters, agents and fans.
The viewers twittered with laughter when the story is recounted about how Leaf, as a rookie, wouldn't pick up a restaurant check for Junior Seau, who then drilled him to the ground in practice the next day.
There was uncomfortable silence when San Diego Union-Tribune writer Jay Posner – one of only two nonactors in the movie – recounted the locker-room lambasting he got from Leaf that made national news. That incident would forever mark Leaf in the public's eyes as a hot-headed bad guy.
The movie ends with the Manning-Leaf scenes, as well as recounting the happiness Leaf had found coaching quarterbacks and the golf team at West Texas A&M. It was completed before Leaf resigned from the school on Nov. 7 for "personal reasons."
Christina Sandoval of Eastlake was the only moviegoer wearing a No. 16 Leaf Chargers jersey. An avid fan, she bought the shirt for her 12-year-old son when Leaf was drafted.
"I was a fan of Leaf when he got here," Sandoval said. "But I'm really sad about the stuff I didn't know about him. I knew he had a terrible attitude, but I had no idea it was that bad.
"He had a lot of talent, and it's sad he threw it all away."
Sandoval wondered if some people had come to take out their frustration about the Chargers' current bad season.
"It seems like people were making fun of the Chargers," she said. "Nobody deserves to be made fun of."
David Bart, 30, of downtown San Diego said he thought the movie was "hysterical."
"If I was (Leaf,) I'd want to crawl under a rock after watching that movie," Bart said. "He really looked like an ass."