Year End List: Fuel for Inspiration, 2006

When I sat down last year at this time, I didn't have a bad head cold. And I seem to remember being not quite as tired. I hadn't just spent a few weeks dealing with a family member's illness. And, of course, like everyone else, I'd yet to see Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears' vee jay jay.

My 2006 was very different from my 2005. I worked for multiple vendors this year, doing a bit of animation, a bit of comedy development, and a lot of rewriting. I passed a milestone -- a show I co-created was greenlit and shot, an experience that sometimes felt like passing a kidney stone. But that's the magic of show business.

I continued to learn oodles about my craft, not just from working it in the trenches, but from pros like Artful Writer and Jane Espenson and Ken Levine. 2006 was also the year that the Canadian screenwriting conversation got more interesting. Alex has been plugging along, of course -- he had his great new TV writing book out in 2006 -- it told me some stuff I knew already but forgot and stuff that I'd never even thought to consider-- but this year the Canadian side was joined by Will and Jim and I discovered a bunch of other blogs from CanTV types, like David Moses. And we managed to infect a civilian. And the next generation's going there too. Writers. You can't shut us up.

Sitting down to write a best of list can be considered a cliche right up there with posting the cat. But I soldier on for the same reason I did last year: because inspiration is precious, and it needs to be celebrated for what it it is: fuel. Wait. I said it better last year. (Damn head cold.) Okay, I'm just going to quote myself:

But amidst all that in the year, there's fuel. Fuel exists all around us; it's writing that makes you learn and writing that makes you want to write. For me, I recognize and love writing regardless of media -- it inspires me in the same way, it makes me want to work in the same way. So if I'm going to to a year-end list, by its very definition it needs to be cross-disciplinary. So then, in no particular order, here are ten written works that inspired or fueled me this year

So. Let's get going. This is, of course, in no particular order. An exhibition, not a competition. So Please. No Wagering.

1) Ten Minutes at The White House Correspondents Dinner

Okay, you've seen this picture, I'm sure. And most of you have probably seen the thing on YouTube, so I won't link to it again. I'm simply going to run a few edited excerpts below:

Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert and tonight it's my privilege to celebrate this president. We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book.

Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term..

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias...

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.

And on, and on, and on.

By now the story is well known. The people in the room didn't laugh. Bush looked tight-lipped and peevish. The mainstream media pronounced it a flop, and spilled all sorts of ink over Bush's lame sketch with a Bush impersonator. Then YouTube made the video a sensation.

The writers for Colbert and Daily Show are simply the finest political comedy writers working today. It takes a lot to satirize America. For most of the world, America is already so self-satirizing that it's hard to get a toehold to say anything beyond the obvious. (The French, for instance, seem to do a particularly poor job.) But when you unpack the turns of phrase in the remarks Colbert delivered that day, you see the unsheathed knife. The United States was so far through the looking glass that it took someone wrapped in the flag and form of FOX News to pierce the bubble of truthiness surrounding the woefully out of touch chief executive.

It is always thrilling, and dangerous, and courageous to speak truth to power. But the grenade Colbert threw into that room wasn't just to Bush. I think things changed that day too -- the mainstream media looked bad. They reported as they always do, but this time, the people got to see it for themselves, and they saw the bias caught out and exposed.

The rest of the year, to me, played out in ripples from Colbert's speech. When they went after Clinton on FOX News, people didn't buy it. Even those who reported Clinton as "peevish" had to be quaking, knowing that the people were going to judge it for themselves. In years to come, some measure of shame will be reserved for the media, that they didn't stand up to this President until the poll numbers told them that maybe it was Ok to do so. Colbert's incendiary satire was thrilling to behold. Months later, it still is. For all we know, it's the only time Bush has ever been criticized to his face.

2) Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy"

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place. Even your emotions have an echo in so much space.

It's only two minutes and fifty eight seconds long. And it gets the "Hey Ya!" award. Dead people tapped along to this song. And yet at its core it's bruising, tough, and sad. But the beat.

Writers all want to be rock stars. It's just the way it is. When I sweat and toil over thirty or fifty pages, part of me wishes I could come up with just three verses and a chorus like that. The album that followed, the tour which I saw this summer -- all of the kudos they've received are well worth it. But this three minutes? Crazy.

3) Life On Mars

Most of the goodness I have to say about this series from Kudos Entertainment can be read in this post, and maybe this one, too. I have always had a secret yen for time travel stories, mainly because they're so hard to do well. From its inventive cross-pollination of the Twilight Zone and The Sweeney, to transcending the jokes about not having cellphones by Episode Two, Life On Mars was fresh, yet familiar. And sorry guys, but that's the business we're in. Every once in a while you can push the audience toward something they've never seen before. But most of the time, our job is to serve up something that feels like they understand it -- and then blow their minds with the differences. Life On Mars did that for me. And apparently, for David E. Kelley, too. Can his American version ever capture the spirit of this show? I guess that's something we have to wait til 2007 to see.

4) "My Name Is Hiro Nakamura, and I'm from the future."

And I have an enormous fucking sword. Exhibit A.

Yes, it's kind of the same idea as X-Men. No, if you're a comics geek, this is nothing really that new. Yup, the stripper mom plot is easily the least satisfying plot thread. But from the pithiness of "Save the cheerleader, save the world.." to those amazing twist endings (Future Hiro with sword was cool...Claire on the autopsy table was just...just...wow) Heroes is a perfect example of how a TV show becomes a hit when everything clicks: characters are cool, production is slick, marketing was on the ball -- with everything from Hiro's blog, to the comic book, to running those three episodes back-to-back before Ep.4 aired -- NBC knows exactly what it has, here. Note to Canadian networks: this is what popular looks like.

5) Critical Mass

I spent a lot of time on this blog yakkin on Canadian TV. It's a messed up industry to be sure. But one thing that's going to help is good print writers who tell it like it is. Canada sometimes suffers from having a very snobby culture that worries about things like The Giller Awards and The Governor General's awards -- for books that, yes, people will read -- but in fractional numbers compared to those who will watch a show on TV that's a flop. Everyone talks about Intelligence underpeforming. But even if only 250 000 people watch it a week, I'm going to guess that's a whole hell of a lot more than will ever buy Vincent Lam's Giller Winning book. (at least in Canada, and certainly in a week.)

The point is not to pooh-pooh Canada's literary scene. But with TV as the dominant art form that most people consume, you can continue to treat it as wallpaper or filler, or you can get serious about it. U.S. papers have learned this. Canada's been very late to the party.

John Doyle of the Globe and Mail is deadly serious about TV, and that's made a huge difference in the discussion of the medium in this country. His love for TV comes from a pure place -- he even wrote a book about it. His writing is trenchant and thoughtful. He's fast becoming for TV in Canada what Jay Scott was for Film. It's a shame that the Globe keeps him behind the firewall. But sometimes you can..uh...search and get around that. Shh.

Jaime J. Weinman, on the other hand, is a guy who just writes very thoughtful things about TV in general. He's got a depth of knowledge about old tv, movies, cartoons that's always entertaining and thoughtful, both on his "TV Guidance" blog on Macleans.ca, and on his own blog. It's daily reading for me, and I always learn something.

6) Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Sarah Vowell was the one who first cottoned me onto one of the strange quirks of the American history geek. Everyone goes through an "obsessed with Lincoln" phase. Mine never ended.

Kearns Goodwin published this intriguing biography that I've been reading on and off for months. It's a profile of the contenders for the Republican nomination in the 1860 Presidential election. Sounds like a snore, I know. But it's not. Because, of course, that's probably the most important election in U.S. history. After a period of drift in the Presidency, a do-nothing phase that did nothing to dampen the fires that led to the Civil War, Lincoln inherits a fractious country, after a bruising nomination fight.

He's the man nobody expected, a complete compromise candidate. And all three of his challengers thought they were the better man. Now...here's the lesson for today, kids. Lincoln brought them into his cabinet: New York Senator William H. Seward became Secretary of State, Ohio Senator Salmon P. Chase went to the treasury, and Missouri State House Representative Edward Bates became Attorney General.

What follows is a fascinating portrait of a leader who was always pragmatic, and who slowly and surely won over every one of his rivals. It's a book that can teach you a lot about dealing with conflict, management, and vision. It's the kind of book that shows us just how denuded our stock of great leaders has become.

Then again, it's the kind of book that maybe, just maybe, could convince a few people to demand better. I don't care how challenging the road ahead is. America's own Civil War's got trump.

Oh, the short version: Lincoln listened to people with differing views, and let it inform his position. Imagine that.

The book's out now in paperback.

7) Battlestar Galactica's Podcasts

The show itself is great, of course. Everyone's written that already. But if you're a writer, BSG offers so very much more. Weekly Podcasts from Exec Producer and showrunner Ronald Moore discuss the writing choices regularly, while they're fresh. Often, he's watching the cut of the episode just completed, so unlike the distance that attends most commentaries, he remembers and can discuss specific choices. And he's merciless when he thinks they might have bobbled something. When was the last time you heard that on a commentary?

Then...Then... Moore went and upped the ante, by doing something that I just can't believe he did. Over the summer he posted a long, long series of three podcasts that were actual recordings of the BSG writers room, as they worked out the end of Season 2. You may still be able to get them on the Sci Fi Channel site, but you can definitely get them under Podcasts on Itunes.

The first writing room I was ever in was the first writing room I was ever in. If you're starting out now, you can get a headstart by listening to these podcasts. In fact, if you don't, you're kind of retarded.

Moore is a secret evangelist. He wants TV writing to be better, and he wants it to be more open. The guy's taken it in the neck from some crazy Sci-Fi fans, and I still fear for his wife, who seems to have waded into the online BSG community with gusto. But there's no question that as showrunners go, Ronald D. Moore is the man. He's the guy taking care of all the people coming up who want to learn how to do this. Go. Let him teach you. (This should probably be called the Joss Whedon award.)

8) Spike Lee: When the Levees Broke

I can't even say anything about this documentary. Just...it's on DVD. Go buy it. It makes me want to go back to Documentary writing.

9) Shining City by Conor McPherson

I only got down to Broadway once this year, and saw three shows. The Faith Healer was fine. The production of Sweeney Todd was everything everybody says it was, but it was this lovely, affecting little ghost story about people at a crossroads that really packed the punch. Everybody's putting it on their ten best lists of Broadway. Oliver Platt's accent may have slipped from time to time, but his grief and the long monologue he delivers is a tour-de-force. And Brian O'Byrne, for the second year in a row, delivers a tightly focused and tremendously affecting performance. (The photo at right is by the NYTimes' Sarah Krulwich.)

It's hard to describe a Conor McPherson play if you haven't seen one. Luckily, they read well. They ooze humanity, in the way that live theatre is supposed to. I probably can't say it better than Ben Brantley did in his review in the NYTimes. So I'm going to defer to the cold and just quote him:

The anguish and inadequacy with which these people approach the basic art of conversation give "Shining City" an almost unbearable air not only of poignancy but also of familiarity. At some point watching it brings to mind one of those moments when you realize that the awkward, raw-looking, unhappy person you've just glimpsed in the shop window across the street is nobody but yourself...

Like much of Mr. McPherson's work, "Shining City" is a ghost story, literally as well as otherwise. At its heart is a tale told by a widower, John (Mr. Platt), a middle-aged businessman who turns out to be the first patient of Ian (Mr. O'Byrne), who has recently left the priesthood and set up practice in downtown Dublin. John's most immediate problem — the one he does and does not want to talk about — is that he keeps seeing his wife, Mari, who died not long ago in a car crash. The sight of her has so terrified him that he has abandoned the house they shared and taken up residence in a bed and breakfast.

In these visions, he says, "her mouth is open like she was trying to. ..." The sentence trails off. What was Mari trying to say? Even when she was alive, communication between her and her husband was close to nonexistent, although he now wonders if the mere fact of her living presence wasn't as close to human connection as life allows.

John's meetings with his dead wife aren't all that different from the other encounters described and enacted in "Shining City." In Ian's conversations with the play's two other characters — his girlfriend, Neasa (Ms. Plimpton), and Laurence (Mr. Scanavino), a scruffy young father who is hard up for cash — and in his subsequent sessions with John, patterns of unheard voices, of isolation and displacement, keep repeating themselves.

In terms of construction, "Shining City" is as close to perfection as contemporary playwriting gets. As elliptical as the conversation is, there's not a word or pause that doesn't feed the work's theme or its interconnected, disconnected stories. The same is true of even small physical details, like the malfunctioning downstairs buzzer in Ian's office building, and what turns out to be the most shocking ending on Broadway. And, no, I won't say anything more about it except that Mr. McPherson has found an inspired alternative to those inadequate tools of communication called words.

Those damn words, you see. They haunt us so, because they're all we have. And they're never enough.

10) This American Life's Podcast

Because sometimes other people's words can make you forget how your own are never enough. (Available at Itunes, and at thisamericanlife.org.)

So that's it. Looking back, I'm aghast and ashamed at how little I read in 2006. I love novels, yet there wasn't one this year that knocked my socks off, which now seems like tremendously wasted opportunity. Oh well. Add that to the resolution pile.

A Happy and Safe New Year to You All. I'm going to spend the next couple of days packing, cleaning, writing, and trying to get rid of this delightful lung butter. See you in the future.

For my 2005 list, click here.

You Either Break the Story...

...or the story breaks you.



Mommy, make it stop.

St. Elsewhere Season One on DVD

Over the holidays, I've managed to finally dip into my DVD set for St. Elsewhere, which I got a few weeks back.

The set contains all 22 episodes for the 1982 season, with commentaries from Mark Tinker on some, and a couple of featurettes. 1078 minutes total program content. (Yes, chickens, shows were longer in the olden days. We'll get to that.)

I approached this with some trepidation. St. Elsewhere isn't just a show -- to a lot of TV writers working today it can almost seem like the Rosetta Stone.

St. Elsewhere was the show that Joshua Brand and John Falsey created before Northern Exposure. It was Tom Fontana's big break. Bruce Paltrow produced it, back when he was a big TV producer, and not just Gwyneth's late dad. 15 Emmy Awards, and over 60 nominations during its six year run.

It mixed realistic (for the time) medical conditions with social commentary, with character, and with offbeat humor in a formula that was completely new for network TV, which had become calcified into restrictive, unbending 1970's dramas. (To compare: the only other medical drama that was on at the time was Trapper John, M.D. Go, try to watch an episode of that today, see if you get through it.)

In short, this was a show where a group of talented people cast off the soap opera pretensions and general dopiness of 70's TV and started blazing the trail to The Sopranos.

But then again, we said that about Hill Street Blues, too, and when you watch the early episodes of that show, they just don't hold up. Too much has changed in policing, in our culture, in...everything. Hill Street seems, sadly, like a relic.

I'm happy to report that St. Elsewhere fares a lot better. There are still dated elements that clang every once in a while, but there's plenty to enjoy from a story and a character point of view. And if you were a fan of the early years of E.R., you'll be blown away by how much the latter show owes to the former. For one thing, Anthony Edwards and Noah Wyle need to send David Morse a fruit basket.

David Morse, of course, was the centrepiece of a strong ensemble cast which included Denzel Washington (in a smaller part than his placement on the DVD box suggests -- naughty, naughty marketers) Howie Mandel, pre-game show bald, Ed Flanders, and Ed Begley, Jr. to name a few.

David Morse also apparently did this series when he was twelve. Oi. He looks young.

I tend to watch older TV shows with a historical eye, trying to see where the lessons for what we do came from and seeing if, perhaps, we missed some things along the way.

With St. Elsewhere, looking back, I have to say that a lot of the revolutionary things about it now seem directorial instead of writerly. The "hand-offs," as Tinker calls them, where you'd be in one plot, a character would walk by and you'd follow them to another plot -- that seems natural today, but back then it was a big deal. Although I guess scripting them to be that way would seem a bit bold. St. Elsewhere doesn't have E.R.'s ever-moving steadicam, which makes the handheld work all the more impressive: long takes following people onto elevators and off, long runs of dialogue make for a fluid, faster-paced show than just about anything else you saw at the time.

Which is not to say that St. Elsewhere looks modern. It doesn't. And the sniggers go beyond the sartorial quirks, like, "did everyone wear glasses the size of satellite dishes?"

There's a bad synth quality to the score that's unfortunate. They didn't have the money to license songs back in the day (though they were forward thinking in trying) so they had a guy do sound alikes. Well, on this set, even the soundalikes have been stripped out and replaced by soundalikes of the soundalikes, which are pretty awful.

The other thing that's sociologically interesting is seeing the change in acting styles. The less said about David Birney, the better. The guy walks through every scene looking like he's waiting for Marcus Welby to drop by. But even Morse, in the pilot, has a scene that I remember being very emotionally affecting back in the day, which now seems like scenery chewing. It's not a bad performance -- it's just a performance from another time, when the demands of TV were different.

Coming out of the 1970s, TV's main acting influence, it seems, was still soapy. And when scenes called for emotional, everyone went big. Compare Morse's recent run on House to his work here and you'll see what I mean. The one exception is Ed Flanders -- always understated, always sad-eyed.

It sounds like I'm ragging -- but I'm not. Let's be clear: the advantages of this set massively outweigh the disavantages. The Cora & Arnie episode is still as great as I remember. This is an episode which -- unheard of for the time -- actually did a plot about the Homeless. Doris Roberts and James Coco both won Emmys, and their performances are stellar. It's wonderful to see Roberts do drama like that again. (And hilarious to listen to her self-promotion on the commentary track. What. An. Actor.)

You also get to see what, in his words, is Tim Robbins' first onscreen appearance, playing a "terrorist." Lay aside for a moment the sense of queasy dislocation you get hearing that word thrown around about a spoiled rich kid who set off a bomb in a bank. Robbins is good as a young punk. You can see his charisma, you can see the beginnings of the talent he would later bring to bear -- but he's still way unformed. Between the commentaries and a small featurette on Robbins, you get to hear differing interpretations of how green he was and what that meant to the set. (Let's just say it involves a Clash concert.)

The episodes tackle stories that put them way ahead of the curve, like addressing the spiralling costs and limitations of the U.S. healthcare system. But the stories, again, sometimes drag. I found myself wondering, simultaneously, what could we do with that extra seven minutes today, and marveling on how, even in a quality show like this -- how little the audience was trusted to put two and two together. I guess Steven Johnson was right about how TV has gradually made us smarter. (No, I still haven't read the book. I'm getting to it.)

In the past few years, St. Elsewhere has become mainly known for its mindblowing ending. (And some scary, scary internet fans have gone to town and taken that to a scary place.) But it's nice to see the show again. I enjoyed my stay at St. Eligius. Skip the spoonful of sugar. This medicine goes down just fine on its own.

My Boys

Everyone I know is sipping eggnog and playing with edible body paint or watching DVDs or something. I am indeed feeling sorry for myself having to work. I never worked in this week when I had a job. But now...

I know. I know. You don't care. Nor should you. Yes. I'm complaining about having work. It's bad form.

Bite me.

So, TV. Thanks to a l'il TBS mini-marathon this week, I've finally gotten the chance to see My Boys. I tuned in mainly because of the incandescent Jim Gaffigan, of course. But the lead, Jordana Spiro, was apparently a big deal in that Must Love Dogs movie. I will take this as read since, of course, I've never seen the movie. Because I have a penis.

Spiro plays, in a nice twist, the real male fantasy woman:

The sexy, sports-loving tomboy who gets along (for the most part) better with men than women, and who has a gaggle of male friends to prove it.

Just to drive the point home, they take it to a ridiculous extreme: she's a sports reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times.

I know.

If Sex in the City was a female fantasy (and ladies, it was: it was your world as filtered through the sensibilities of gay men, though I'd argue the show became much more interesting in its later seasons when a group of very talented female writers took over), then My Boys is the straight male version. The guys are allowed to be guys, and care about guy stuff, and lo and behold, the centre of the piece is a woman who thinks vaguely the same way -- the kind of woman who maybe you would have as your best man -- and who would understand you wanting to hang with your friends every once in a while; but who's also female enough to set you straight and not judge your ex-fiancee just because that woman who liked to wear a Ramones shirt at 23 turned out different at 30.

Reviews have been good to middling, with Virginia Heffernan's NY Times damn-with-faint-praise take being pretty representative of the bunch:

Her posse of buddies — a ragtag gang that includes her brother and a bunch of other dudes — surround her without hitting on her, which seems at first implausible, but makes sense as her persona emerges as a mix of sisterly, collegial and abrasive.

There seem at first no pitfalls to this guy-friendly act. Isn’t this the kind of easygoing bonhomie that young men always say they want from women? No makeup, no pressure, just insults, beer, nights of poker, sports talk?

The show goes with that hypothesis only so far. On tonight’s episode, P J, after serious scheming, finds herself in bed with Bobby (Kyle Howard), another sports writer. She comes on strong, to say the least, and clearly doesn’t understand even the most elementary push-pull of seduction. Her odd behavior is almost startling — but she takes Bobby’s unease as evidence only that he has problems, and concludes that the whole world of dating is just badly rigged.

As she puts it in voice-over, speaking of sports: “Can you imagine what it would be like if the foul line was always moving? Or if sometime it was two strikes and you’re out?”

And then she wraps up, “If you’ve ever tried to date someone, you probably can.”

At this point, her character — a woman who is intrinsically rule-bound and who prefers well-built games to emotional improvisation — comes into sharp focus. Her boyish swaggering seems to reflect almost a cognitive impairment. But that impairment is absorbing, even attractive. P J may yet be a terrific character, and “My Boys” is certainly a charming knockoff.

See? Spiro's character doesn't get it and can't review emotional cues, so therefore it's a cognitive impairment. Because, you know...women's emotional intelligence never steers them wrong, ever, dude.

Sex in the City was based around the trope of Carrie discovering some sociological quirk and detailing it in her column. The quirk was usually external -- Women making sense of "the city" around them. That struck a chord with its audience.

What's nice about My Boys is that it's a more classic setup; it's internal and intrapersonal conflict at play - P.J. is wrong more than she's right, and most of the problems come from within the dynamic of the friendships, or the neurotic nature of P.J. herself (which, in itself, is a more male comedy trope than female. The neurotic male usually gets to be lovable. The neurotic female is usually portrayed in unflattering terms.) This gender reversal is actually what makes My Boys fresh.

But just like a lot of women don't like/get/trust women who have more guy friends than girls, I think you'll probably continue to see a lot of dismissal of My Boys by women who prefer, say, the documentary-like portrayal of relationships on Grey's Anatomy.

In the end, the show's as much a ripoff of Friends as SitC, and therefore, by my TV math, it's not really a ripoff of either.

And just to go a little further through the looking glass? Sex in the City, which gave women their voice, was brought to TV by a gay man, Darren Star. My Boys' creator is Betsy Thomas.

Take that, easy categorizing stereotypes!


What My Boys is, is well written and familiar, peopled with a truly likable cast of characters (would that anyone on The Class was this likable.) And it's a little shaggy, too.

Not everything works.

The Sex-In-The-City/Grey's Anatomy voiceover thing needs to be taken out behind the building and given the Old Yeller. But considering the fact that TBS is new to the original programming game, this is a pretty impressive first entry. Considering that there are so few great sitcoms right now, you could do a whole lot worse than spend time with My Boys. It's a solid base hit. A double, with a good chance of stealing third down the line.

(Part of the reason I crashed together this review today when I should be doing something else is that the last two eps in Season 1 run tonight at 10pm on TBS. Give it a look and let me know what you think.)

Reprint: The Importance of Knowing Your Franchise

Originally published April 17, 2006.

Last week I was in a room for a series that's plotting out its second season. What amazed me, off the top, was how clearly they knew their characters and franchise -- what stories worked, what it was about, how to complicate the plots, etc.

This show was a comedy. I flip back and forth in my career between comedy and drama. (I meant in the shows I write, but now that I think about it, that phrase could actually just as cleanly refer to the actual state of my career.)

The first lesson I took out of the room was this: how to use coincidence.

One of the notes you're going to get from execs all the time in Canada (maybe everywhere) is isn't that coincidental?

If you go through comedy, you're going to find a lot of coincidence. It's one of the shorthands you simply need to make plots work. And out of the discussions in this room came what I call the coincidence rule: In comedy, coincidence can always kick off a plot. It can sometimes complicate a plot. But it can never provide the solution to a plot.

If you employ coincidence as your solution, you're going to leave the audience unsatisfied -- and it's going to smack of deus ex machina -- which hasn't worked too well since the Greeks leaned on it so heavily back in the day.

The temptation to use coincidence to solve your problem can be strong. Because on first blush, it seems like a great, neat, all items tied in a bow thing. I give you Escape: The Pina Colada Song. Go. Google the lyrics. I'll wait. Now, that seems tied up nice and neat, doesn't it? But really, admit it, deep down in your bones, doesn't it suck? Just a bit? It's glib and trite, isn't it?

To put it another way:

Frasier and Niles can run into their fencing instructor who terrorized them as children in Cafe Nervosa. That's a coincidence, but it's doable. The Fencing instructor can be married to the woman who runs the publishing house where Frasier's trying to get a book published. That's fine. But Niles can't come in at the end of an episode where he's been challenged to a duel and say it's no problem because he just happened to run into their old fencing instructor, and he told Niles what he and Frasier have been doing wrong in their fencing technique all these years, so now Niles has the confidence to win the duel. Or...even better -- the fencing instructor will stand in for him in the duel.

That would suck. But...if the fencing instructor shows up and finds out that Niles' opponent has engaged a second, and the second is the Fencing Instructor's Fencing Instructor -- well...that's not solving the problem, it's a big coincidence -- but it still plays. See? Because the solution is what comes next, and involves Frasier and Niles getting out of the mess they've gotten into.

As I said, this is comedy. I think Drama is a lot less tolerant of coincidence. Even if you pile tons of them on top of each other and pretend like you're making it all a deep allegory. (Yes, Best Picture 2005, I'm looking at you.)

The other thing that I learned in this room is that there's two ways to come up with a plot. Because I'm a drama writer, too -- I tend to try to come up with a workable structure and story and then try to make it funny. That can sometimes work, especially in comedy/drama hybrids.

Far more effective, however, is to try to come up with plots and situations that are inherently funny in and of themselves. Story funny. That way, you're not working hard to hang jokes on a plot -- you're laughing because the situation or dilemna your characters are in is funny even before you come up with dialogue. Again, sounds simple... in practice, sometimes, not so much.

What doing it this way also gives you is it probably makes you aware of mining that which is unique about your franchise. This is a drama example, but I thought the nadir of the post-Aaron Sorkin West Wing era was the episode where "there's a bomb in the White House..." just because I'd seen that plot on E.R., or any other John Wells show. If the plot you're working could graft just as easily into any other show, you're probably going to have to work really hard to make it funny/interesting, and about your characters.

When you're trying to come up with a new show, or even a unique spec idea for an existing show, it really helps to try and come up with the thing that could only happen to your characters, or someone in their specific situation. That is your franchise.

And if you figure that out quickly, you can save a lot of heartache.

Finally, one other thing I learned, or at least heard said very well, last week. This was said at the University class I spoke to by one of my fellow panelists, a successful Canadian animation, children's, and comedy TV writer. On the subject of having your characters change and grow:

"Comedy characters can't grow the same way characters in a drama can..the kind of growth a character on a comedy will go through in five or six years is about the same as one season of Desperate Housewives or Grey's Anatomy."

Like I said, I'm aware of that sentiment, and have had painful meetings where I tried to explain it to people who were hell-bent on killing the comedy by having the character "learn something," but I just think that's a very elegant way to lay it out.

I Still Say it Was the Wolverines

My paranoid friends insist that he covered up JFK's assassination as part of the Warren Commission. But to me he will go down as the doddering guy who was the first President I ever saw lampooned on SNL, and the first President I ever saw who got beat in the election. I didn't even know, back in that bicentennial year, that that could actually happen. Maybe I was a child autocrat or something. But hey, it was Florida. I was young. So long Gerry. Hope you were wearing your helmet.

More Labour Pains

Further to the post directly below, commenter Caroline made a lot of good points below. So I'm exercising Executive Privilege and promoting them to post-status.

See what I did there? Got a day's free content? Hey, this broadcasting thing is easy!

Caroline writes:

I think the producers are pushing back because they're getting squeezed harder than ever before by the broadcasters, who won't put up full budget and most are looking to recoup their investment in first profit position in order to greenlight a show. And because the broadcast landscape has centralized so much here, producers are forced to make bad deals and cut corners. I think your point about companies who got fat on service work is valid, but maybe 40% of companies did foreign service work so it isn't fair to tar and feather them all as fat cats.

I sympathize with ACTRA but have also found first-hand that their negotiators are less than, well, flexible, and if you want to be treated like a partner you'd better treat others that way, too. I've always found that the compromise position with everyone feeling they gave a little is the best course, but they won't give. I also figured that a small piece of any pie is bigger than none and again, that argument didn't fly with ACTRA.

I've worked on treaty co-pros where we made up our points on everything but actors and never hired an ACTRA performer in the production.

For a long time, I think all the unions have been at cross purposes. If they spent more time working together to lobby, they would be more effective as a whole, not just with the CFTPA/AFTPQ, but also in raising their concerns to higher planes like the CRTC.

And for the record, I've been following the press release chain on the negotiations this round and all sides have conducted themselves shamefully.

I can't really quibble with any of those points. So I won't. No quibbler, I.

Labour Pains

It's amazing how, after a while, when you have to read lots of outlines in a row, everything seems to become boring or unoriginal, even when it's not.

This flattening of experience and judgement really makes me both feel for and fear Network executives and Readers who have to do this stuff all the time. It makes me think that the critical disease -- where something, anything that's different stands out, sometimes undeservedly, is one of the greatest problems facing continued storytelling in this medium. Between out there and one-in-a-million and Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, there's a huge middle ground of solid, interesting stories that might be getting hosed just cause, you know, we've all read too much of this stuff in one sitting.

It's also humble-making, because I'm reminded again that no matter how good a teleplay or an outline may be, it's still just a blueprint, not a whole work. It's important to keep that top of mind, always.

Anyway, I was all set to hiatus for a bit more. There's the list of the next three topics I want to blog about all on sticky-note -- and this post isn't one of them. But suddenly the call I thought I had got pushed, and I've got a bit of time, and a commenter below asked a really interesting question in regards to my post on the looming possibility of a Canadian actors' strike:

The offer, according to other sources was actually 1/2/1, same as agreed to with the WGC, albeit with a year freeze on 10 out of 10 drama (which I guess would make it 0/1/2). Two questions: as a writer, would you be willing to take less of a raise than the performers? And working on a 10/10 show, would a freeze help spur more Canadian drama?

This is the problem with Canadian TV. Eventually it always comes to this -- arguing over formulas and arcana. It's our version over the endless, useless, fruitless fight over the possessory credit in the WGA.

I happen to think that the last contract for the WGC was a pretty good one, not stellar, but certainly okay to good. Most other WGC members agree with me, since it passed by a wide approval margin. Also, the thing to keep in mind was that the main issue for writers in Canada in the last negotiation wasn't necessarily wages. MOW wages got a bigger bump, and more insurance contributions, and that's great. But one of the main things we were going for was one unified agreement between the two producer's unions in Canada -- the CFTPA and APFTQ (which covers Quebec.) It was a pain in the ass, and it delayed the agreement, but it went through.

Why is that important? Well, ask the actors. They've got multiple agreements right now. The B.C. performer's union doesn't expire until March 31. That has implications for films that might have filmed elsewhere in Canada. So long as they can get them lensed by the end of March, suddenly Vancouver looks way better than Toronto right now.

The WGC also got all animation writers covered, and we got the producers to agree to WGC jurisdiction over things like webisodes, mobisodes, blah blah blah.

That's part of what ACTRA's fighting for. I'm going to lay aside the "I heard through sources" since I'm just going with what was reported. But to your first question:

as a writer, would you be willing to take less of a raise than the performers?

This is my opinion only, but I'd give that a qualified yes. Why? Well, honestly? I think if you can write, you're actually already further ahead than most actors. I think you also probably have a longer average career.

There are way more actors than writers, and way, way, way, way less of them are going to be working at any one time. As much as we complain about their outrageous and borderline personalities and insatiable egos, I do sometimes think that the average actor gets a rawer deal than the average writer. I feel sorry for them when they come in and audition. It's hard. And so few of them make any money doing it. And every time they do something, it's up there forever and they have the burden of being typecast.

On the other hand, having the actors set the agenda for the industry isn't necessarily the best strategy either. You hint a bit at that in your second question, which I'll get to in a minute. But I tend to look at it in terms of writers vs. the crew unions.

NABET/CEP and IATSE have been at war in Canada for the last few years, fighting over turf on shoots. And for the longest time, their crew agreements were tailored to the service productions that came up from the USA. Most of the crew agreements really spoke to those kinds of shows. The WGC members, who were locked out of that kind of work, were kind of lone-ily talking about the domestic industry, and getting drowned out because there were way more people working crew (or acting) than writing.

Writers were the canary in the coalmine for the downturn in the Canadian business. We got kicked first. Things sucked for us way before they dried up for the actors and the crew people. So, you know, it shouldn't be surprising that our issues as writers are a little different. We're playing a different game.

And working on a 10/10 show, would a freeze help spur more Canadian drama?

Again. My opinion only, your mileage may vary. I doubt it would do so on its own. There is a way that the Producers' have a point here, though. If you can't raise all your money domestically (which you can't) then you have to have something to deal with. And one of those things you might have some leverage on is casting an American star (or British, point is, a "name.") If you could do that, and still be 10/10, then maybe you could raise that last bit of money. I have sympathy to that position, which is something ACTRA is dead set against. I'm not sure ACTRA is totally realistic on that point.

Then again -- there are lots of sleazy dodges that the producers have pulled on writers, too. One of the reasons why we have a dearth of Canadian showrunners is because there was a fast and loose push to "certify" a lot of American guys who'd fly in and be the top Exec on a show here. They'd use courtesy credits to back door in on a 10/10 show and the real decisionmaking power wouldn't be in the Canadians' hands.

Or what about all those shows a few years ago that were shot in Toronto, but had their writing rooms in L.A., employing L.A. based writers with Canadian passports? That flouted the spirit of the agreement, but it was pretty commonplace. Labour is Labour and Management is Management, and traditionally, the adversarial system does tend to go to the "if they give a centimetre, they take a kilometre." (We're in Canada. We're metric. Deal.)

I think probably it would be good to help out the producers a little. I believe them when they say they need a bit more flexibility with casting if they're going to sell the project abroad.

Just don't give away the store.

But none of that has to do with the fact that the Producers have, for some reason, decided that they're going to go in ultra hard line and not give away anything to the actors this round, because their business is so hard. Well, it is hard. But then again, where were they when they were growin fat off all those service jobs in the 80's and 90's?

Suddenly they woke up and decided that TV is hard. And they want everyone else to pay. Well, you know what? You guys are the producers. Produce. Sweat a little.

No one's going to get anywhere in this country by screwing a group who's supposed to, ultimately, be your partner. See: CBC Lockout, Employees, Ratings, One Year Later...

Reprint: This Cup Can Make You a Better Writer

Working on a new post about my "Best of the Year." But since Boxing Day's a holiday in Canada too, well... slack. Cut me some.

Originally published 03/01/2006

Do you recognize this cup?

If you're a New Yorker, I'm sure you do. In fact, if you've spent any time in New York at all any time in say the last forty years, you probably recognize this little sucker right away. And I'm betting that there's a hint of a smile on your face.

In the pre-Starbucks days, this is the coffee cup you would get when you grabbed a coffee at any deli anywhere in Manhattan. I've gulped from a cup just like this walking through the East Village. I downed a mouthful of cold coffee out of a cup like this outside CBGB's (along with a handfull of Advil.) One time, when I was about twenty, I picked a cup like this off the ground and put it in the garbage precisely two seconds before the karmic lightning bolt hit and I caught the impossible- to-find-cab- in-the-middle-of- the- rainstorm- when-you're-late- for- the-theater-matinee- because- your-girlfriend- took- such-a-long-time-on -her-hair.

In its own weird way, it's as much an icon of New York City as the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, or the Twin Towers.

I got thinking about this little cup the other day when my friend Rob was over at Dead Things HQ. Awhile back, I was checking out the MoMa reno in the City, and found this little cup in the gift shop. It's a ceramic replica of the famous paper-coffee cup. At ten bucks, it made me smile. (If it does the same for you, you can get info about how to purchase one here.)

Anyway, Rob was over and we were trying to break a nettlesome story for his series for, like, the sixth time, and he complimented my coffee-making skills. It was good coffee. (Yes, the entire conversation went like this. Very Grade-three-Gay. And don't give me shit for describing it thus...Dan Savage says I'm in the clear.) Anyway, more than the coffee itself, Rob really liked the cup. It evoked in him the same feeling it evoked in me, an instant nostalgia for all things New York.

What struck me later was not how he instantly recognized and responded to the cup the same way I did. I found that utterly unsurprising. Of course he'd dig it. It's yet another case of how our sensibilities are similar.

See, at that point, that little cup could be considered the objective correlative of both our friendship, and of our separate, warm memories of New York.

It's been a while since I talked about the Objective Correlative. Even then, I didn't get into it too much. Danny Stack followed up on the idea with a longer post here.

I guess the reason why I'm returning to the idea again is because lately I've been reading a lot of scripts where people talk about things, but where there isn't a real clear sense of the objective correlative working through the drama. It reads as flat. The simple realization that a tiny object like a coffee cup could make me think of my past, and reaffirm a friendship...well, that's interesting stuff. It's not just drama -- it's life.

T.S. Eliot came up with the Objective Correlative, in his writings on Hamlet. Here's what he said:

The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.

That's exactly what happened with me and the coffee cup.

My reaction to the cup evoked everything I mythologize about New York. And later, it indicated camaraderie between me and my friend -- so it took on a separate, instant meaning in a different situation.

Interestingly enough, this little cup's gotten quite a workout -- because now that I think about it, I remember that about six months ago I had a woman over and we were chatting. We'd been out a few times, and it was at that point where you're not sure which way it's going to go. She asked about the cup. I told her the story, and she was utterly unimpressed. She'd been to New York several times. She vaguely remembered the cup. She just thought it was a little...stupid.

Guess what I realized in that moment?

"Damn You, Objective Correlative! Damn You to Hell!"

As I've gotten older, I'm fascinated by the fact that I'm much more interested in Sports than I was when I was younger. My Dad and My Uncle used to take me to Yankees and Blue Jays games, and my Grandfather was a huge Mets fan -- some of my earliest memories of him are watching the game with him on an old black and white TV set. He died when I was seven, so that's a pretty potent memory. But still, I managed to sail through my teenage years and most of my twenties without reading the Sports section daily. Not anymore.

I think part of it is that as we get older, Sports increasingly becomes the objective correlative of male friendship. The game allows you to express emotion, bond, catharsis, the whole magilla. The Poker Craze, I believe, is part and parcel of the same thing. I read Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch and laughed my ass off, and I don't give a fig about Soccer.

By looking and finding the objective correlative of emotions in your life you start to unlock the inner life; the one you don't express consciously, but imbue to objects or situations. I think that helps you to unlock a trove that can help you weave the objective correlative more successfully into your art.

Understanding and recognizing the objective correlative in life makes you a better writer.

One totally non-scientific thing I've noticed, for instance, is that women who understand men's attachment to sports, or who appreciate men's penchant for silly or gross humor, kind of tend to understand men better in general.

An acquaintance of mine was having problems in his marriage, at the same time that his old car was constantly breaking down. This went on for a couple of years. One night, like a bolt out of the blue, he realized that he and his wife fought every time there was a problem with the car. Sometimes it was when she had the car -- and he probably blamed her. Sometimes it was when he was driving it, and it made him irritable. It went on and on, and they fought and made up. Then he got a new car. For two months, they didn't fight. But one night, when they did -- they nearly broke up. Their marriage was at the brink, and it caused them to finally face some of the big, structural, ugly things at the core of their marriage. His wife said a lot of the same stuff she'd said before...but finally, finally, he got it. (They're still together, by the way.)

Now...did that have anything to do with the car? Did the car being there offer a valve, a distraction, a symbol that kept them from getting to the core of things? Did removing it remove that valve and force a confrontation? I don't know. What do you think?

I'll tell you what, though, it's a damn sight more interesting than any of the other stories I've heard from half a dozen guys about how they fight with their wives (or ex-wives, as the case may be.)

Writing drama is about coming up with an effective shorthand for life, and putting it down on the page.

Seems to me that old T.S. Eliot gave us a great gift. I knew he did a lot more than come up with those damn singing cats.

I was going to come up with a few more examples from movies and TV -- but maybe that could be the audience participation portion of the post. So come on: what are your favorite filmic examples of the O.C. at work?

Now, I have to go and write a one-pager that basically demonstrates how the O.C. works in my choice of venue for a series pitch I did recently. They bumped on the setting in the meeting, but thanks to a conversation I had last night, I think there may be a way to better explain what I mean. The O.C. is everywhere.

Remember the Cup, Luke.

Hit It One More Time, Then Quit

Please, Please, Please, Please, Please Remember him Always for What He Did Best.
The Godfather of Soul.
Goodbye, JB.

By the way, I think this officially now makes Ryan Seacrest the hardest working man in show business.

I know. I know. Don't get me started.

Yup, I did.

When I was about three or so, we lived in an apartment on Broadway, in the South Bronx. A nice section of the Bronx called Riverdale. Well, apparently one Christmas, I got this fire truck. This was 1970 or so, so toys were still big and made of actual metal, not formed plastic.

I was a rambunctious kid, and did a lot of rambunctious kid stuff, like running around and going crazy because it was, you know, Christmas. Well, anyway, this fire truck, which was cool, but made of metal, had a jagged part. And I fell down on it, and sliced my ear open pretty good. Wound up in Emergency. Needed stitches. A plastic surgeon had to look at the ear. That was fun. I think maybe I woke up on the table, too, and probably gave the doctor and my dad a fright.

By way of contrast, tonight I watched Night of the Iguana, which I taped off TCM, had a coffee with some accoutrements added in for flavoring and festivus, and changed my blog template.

On the whole, I gotta say I prefer this Christmas to the bullshit with the fucking truck.

Happy Christmas to everybody. Be gentle to each other.

And don't bitch out the template. I was bored, yo.

Zero Zero One

There's not too often that I find myself agreeing with a bunch of actors, but the title of the above post is what the Canadian producers offered to Actors for a 3 year deal. One percent in the third year. No wonder ACTRA got a 97.1 percent strike mandate from its members.

I hate it when people play games with my livelihood. I'm with the actors on this one. Now, we may be days away from an Actors strike everywhere but B.C, which is under a separate agreement. That agreement expires the end of March.

This freaks me out a little, because I'm actually heading out to work in B.C. This is probably the first time in my life that timing has somehow worked out for me. I may, in fact, be asleep right now. That would suck.

A Very Pale Christmas

Still working, but what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't share the Gaffigan-y Goodness of the Pale Force Christmas Special?

Develop Me Baby

Why is it sometimes so hard to just sit and read?

Will has got the Broadcasting & Cable rundown on stuff in development, plus some interesting commentary. I'm looking forward to the American version of Manchild and...mmm... Mad Men.

Still loving AMC and TCM. I know that parts of Canada had them a few months ago, but really, chickens, if I don't have it, it doesn't exist. When I fall in the shower, y'all don't even make a sound.

The Number of the Blogger?

Wow. I was just going to post that I'm super happy with my early Christmas gift:

American Movie Classics and Turner Classic Movies are finally on Canadian cable.

My PVR is filling up fast.

But then I noticed that the last post I made here was number 666. So maybe I should have thanked Satan Claus for the new TV goodness. And now I've finally gotten the chance to switch to the spiffy new blogger.

Still reading scripts for the new show -- will try to post more Tomorrow or Thursday.

Hive-Who Mind, Assemble!

I'm going to pull a Kung Fu Monkey or Alex and ask the Hive Mind rather than spend an hour Googling. I'm trying to work my way through something I want to pitch regarding heroes and likability -- and I need to know the lay of this:

In the new Doctor Who, how do fans feel about David Tennant's performance in the role? Is there a consensus about it? Is he well liked, and how do fans generally compare it to Christopher Eccleston?

I'm wondering if this question is one where there's a million different opinions and no clear consensus, or if it's more like, you know, the general drift that, for instance, of all the Bonds, Connery was best, etc.

Answers to the comments below, thanks!

It's Just A Jump To The Left

Well, as we all hump into Christmas week, seems like there are new winds blowing through Sticksville.

At about the time that most people are winding down for the year, I find myself winding up. Bombing through drafts of scripts, getting up to speed on a new project.

Part of the nice thing about being a freelance writer is that your schedule is your own and you never know what you're going to be working on next.

Part of the terrible thing about being a freelance writer is that your schedule is your own and you never know what you're going to be working on next.

So in between decking the halls and dealing with the aforementioned family stuff, I'm now contemplating a new gig, a new room, and for the short term at least, it looks like a new city.

As I did on Across The River, I'm all about the separation of bloglife and realworld; otherwise all that trust I talk about you needing in those writing rooms would be a bit bogus. So I won't be spinning many specifics here about the new gig. In fact, at least initially when January comes, I may have to restrict the old procrastinometer and throttle back a bit. We'll see. You've been warned.

In the meantime, I'm brushing up on my Shakespeare - or my production drafts; contemplating a good solid Christmas cleaning, and oh yeah, trying to take it easy this week and next. There'll be a couple of new posts, a review of my spiffy new St. Elsewhere DVD set, and maybe a few walk ons from your General Electric guest stars. But a lighter schedule for the holidays, to be sure.

Whereever you're going, and whatever you're doing this week -- don't get too stressed, remember to always drink a glass of water, and be decent to those who deserve it, and even some who don't.

Rescue Courtney

Interesting article in the NYTimes today about Courtney Cox's new series for FX, DIRT.

Edward Wyatt does a great job of tracing the vagaries of development -- even with a high powered Friend at the helm. Lisa Kudrow didn't do too well with the "non sympathetic" cable choice -- but everybody knows from those Scream movies that Cox has the evil in her.

No idea if we'll get it in Canada, 'course. Probably on Showcase in six months.

At first, Lucy Spiller, the tabloid editor played by Ms. Cox, was not intended to be at the center of the series. Instead, the focus was on a schizophrenic photographer, Don Konkey, played by Ian Hart, and an actor, played by Josh Stewart, who sells out his celebrity friends to further his own career.

At the time the idea was born, Coquette had a contract with Warner Brothers Television to come up with ideas for new shows. Because the new series was conceived as a no-holds-barred look at a world filled with sex, drugs and, if not actual murder, plenty of backstabbing, Warner Brothers suggested taking the new series to FX, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox entertainment empire and a specialist in racy, offbeat fare like “Nip/Tuck,” “The Shield” and “Rescue Me.”

But before the deal was completed, Coquette moved to Touchstone Television, which is part of the Walt Disney Company, the owner of the ABC network. Touchstone executives realized the series was far from the usual Disney fare (in the first episode, a womanizing professional basketball star appears in a kinky sex scene with a stripper), but its executives thought the show held promise and, despite never having produced a show for FX, agreed to pursue it.

FX, however, wanted changes. The network did not want a show about the price of fame to center on a fictional celebrity, because it would be too easy for the audience to dismiss the action as made up. Similarly, the executives felt the questions faced by a tabloid photographer were not morally complicated enough to drive the series. And, not least, FX already had three successful shows centered on 40-something white male antiheroes.

Think Cox can pull off the Leary maneuver? I wouldn't bet against her.

Daybreak is Dunzo

Let us all join hands and pray together.


"Moon Bloodgood, Moon Bloodgood, why hast thou forsaken me?"


Amen.

Stop Pushing The Vegetables, Start Working The Funny

Last night I found myself in one of my favorite urban hangouts here in Toronto. It's a chic, but unpretentious bar where they know how to pour a Guinness and mix a cocktail.

I was there with a few writers - a couple friends I hadn't seen for a while, and another guy who I've met and talked to a few times before. We ruled the corner booth and had way too many drinks and laughed and laughed. I could certainly see why these guys are pretty much top of their game in this country.

It was a bit of industry night. At another table was a writer I know (and taught, years ago) who's just wrapping his movie. A group celebrating their CBC pilot's wrap was in the centre of the room. There were actors I knew, a couple of development guys from companies I've worked with, and a passel of network execs from at least two Canadian networks. In the corner were a bunch of people from the Globe & Mail, gnawing dead things on sticks, god love'em.

Toronto really is terribly small.

Anyway, the thing that struck me is the way I had the same conversation five times: all about Little Mosque on The Prairie. Everyone's amused by the coverage. Everyone's worried. Everyone is holding their breath and wondering how CBC will react, or overreact, if the show doesn't do well.

I have to say that the drumbeat of articles is starting to make me nervous. It would be easy to fall into the pattern of thinking that the pre-press can only help the show. There's only one problem with that. Having been a journo myself, you have to separate out newsworthy from buzzworthy. Little Mosque is a great news story, no matter how it's played - the creator's story is interesting. The idea behind it is very interesting. But none of that is going to get an audience to stay tuned after minute one if the material isn't also funny, and relatable.

Jim Bawden takes up the case of Little Mosque today in the Toronto Star:

Storylines poking fun at small-town life are mixed with problems unique to Canadian Muslims trying to fit in. Sort of like Corner Gas, but with a difference.
What's missing are the usual stereotypes.
"The stories come from my own experiences and observations," says creator Zarqa Nawaz, who was born in Liverpool, grew up in Toronto, and now lives with her husband and four children in Regina.
"The feeling out there — the media's caricature — is of Muslim extremists," said Nawaz, who is creator as well as co-executive producer. "I'm showing a group of Canadian Muslims trying to keep their religion and family together, but facing everything with a lot of fun."

As far as it goes, that's great. But the dark thing is that Bawden's article is titled, "Comedy With A Mission."

In the New York Times article last week, which set off the round of international attention Mosque is getting, an even more telling quote snuck in in the last couple of 'graphs, where Neil MacFarquhar wrote:

In an earnest manner not atypical of Canadians, one goal of the show is to explain Muslim behavior, or at least make Muslims seem less peculiar, much as humor about Jews, Italians or gays helped those groups assimilate.

“On the news all you ever hear are voices from the extreme end of the spectrum,” Ms. Darling said. “This gives voice to ordinary people who look just like other ordinary people.

Does anyone see the problem here? MacFarquhar seems to get it, though he softpedals it by burying this observation near the article's end:

Selling the social responsibility will not work.

Traditionally, in Canada, we have done this a lot. We talk about how "worthy" the series is, not how engrossing or entertaining it is. There's no wonder Stephen Colbert wants to talk about Mosque -- it's a great story. But a great story is not neccesarily a great show - or a show that I want to tune in. Shows do not succeed or fail based on their news coverage or how worthy they are...they will succeed or fail based on how entertaining they are. How funny they are.

I worry about Mosque because I think, if you're a viewer looking for something to tune in in the New Year, you're going to choose what to watch based on what sounds entertaining and funny. But they're not making that case strongly -- the P.R. of this show is playing into the angle that's good for the people writing the stories -- but not for the audience who might tune in.

Imagine an alternate universe where all these articles still appear, and the lede is the same, about how this show could change people's views of Muslims blah blah blah, but all the relevant quotes from the show were, "You have no idea how funny this stuff is. We laugh all the time. I mean, if your faith dictates you must be veiled in front of a man, how do you take a swimming class when they change the teacher from a woman to a man?" "If you're just a regular person going through security, and you know you're a fourth grade teacher and they're looking at you like you're a shoe bomber, it's scary, but there's also something ridiculous about it, isn't there?"

The angle of the article doesn't change: just the sell. If I'm a reader, now my takeaway message is, "Man...that might be something to watch. Sounds like it could be funny."

Listen. Nobody wants this show to be funny more than me. I want CBC to have a big, fat, monster hit that pushes the envelope and kicks open the doors, and has people laughing at the foibles of intra-Muslim problems, and the misunderstandings with the larger community. It's a great idea, it's cutting edge, it's time, and it's daring.

But none of that matters if it's not funny. I just wish they spent a little more time selling the funny, and a little less time telling us how good this show is going to be for us.

Or as one of the people at the bar said last night, "If the show is all about how stupid all the white people are, I am so out of there."

A Modest Proposal

Well, Christmas has just come early for Canada's broadcasters:

Canada's broadcasting industry has won a major victory against the federal government that will save the sector more than $100-million a year -- and may force Ottawa to provide a lump-sum refund worth seven times that amount.

A federal judge ruled yesterday that Ottawa has been unlawfully taxing television and radio broadcasters, along with cable and satellite distributors, for the past eight years by charging fees for their licences.

In his decision, Mr. Justice Michel Shore ordered the government to stop charging the fees and said it may be incumbent on Ottawa "from a moral standpoint" to negotiate a full refund for the money that has already been collected.

Since the money was flowing directly into the federal government's coffers without a specific service provided to the industry, Ottawa was levying a tax without the proper laws in place, the judge said.

Glenn O'Farrell, president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, said the industry was pleased with the decision, as many companies had been paying the fees under protest since they were introduced.

"This was a huge consideration for the industry as a cost of doing business, which was basically imposed unlawfully and for which there was no justification," Mr. O'Farrell said.

Read the full article here.

Now, let's lay aside for a second that these fees going to general revenue was, in fact, a bit of a cash grab. You know, unless you actually believe the stuff about broadcasting being a public trust and stuff. Canadian broadcasters have made record profits over the last few years; rates of profit higher than many other industries, largely because they enjoy a series of very, very protected favorable regulations from Ottawa.

Should Ottawa really have to repay the Broadcasters $790 million?

If I was a bigwhig at ACTRA, the DGC, or the WGC, I would be writing the relevant ministers, calling the press conferences right now...

We just found 79o million dollars for Canadian programming! Think about it...it'll provide jobs, it'll reduce the costs of developing Canadian programming. You could use it for the Canadian Television Fund (which is already kind of welfare for the broadcasters) or...or... it's a big enough fund that we could do something bold with it. What about a pilot fund? A fund for marketing?

Point is, the Broadcasters are making lots of money -- this is money that's already been paid. Maybe the government shouldn't use it for general revenue, but if they were to use it to subsidize Canadian programming, that would help the broadcasters a lot, wouldn't it? I mean, you know, them being Canadian and all?

No?

Yeah. You're right. They should probably just write a cheque. The moguls need new shoes.

Bring On The Desk

I don't know how it's going to translate.

My sister doesn't know how it's going to translate.

No one I know who's a fan knows how it's going to translate.

But nonetheless, This American Life is coming. Soon. To TV.

And if this article's to be believed, maybe it just might work.

Holy Sheep! The Office!

I just found out that Harold Ramis is directing tonight's episode of The Office. Awesome!

Go Union or Go Home?

Friend of the Blog Callaghan asked an interesting question below:

DMc - a possible future column: how long a young writer should wait before he/she joins the WGC/WGA. I noticed that you waited a few years.

Yeah. I did. Now, I'm going to do the caveat up front:

I am not a member of the Writer's Guild of America, West or East. When it comes to specifics about going union in the USA, there are many other writers whose advice I would consult first, as well as the excellent resources provided by the Guilds themselves.

That being said, I think the question about going union, and when, is a good one -- and involves some generalizations that are common to Canada, the USA, and probably other jurisdictions besides.

There's really only one thing to keep in mind when you're deciding when you should join the guild:

• Where's your work coming from?

The truth of joining the guild is this: once you go union, you can't go back. If you are a member of the union, you can't take non-union work. Period.

Now, in a perfect world, anyone who's producing anything for the public to see should be a signatory to the IPA (the Independent Production Agreement, in Canada, in the USA, the Minimum Basic Agreement.) They should want to work with the best writers. But, you know, Producers will always find a way to try and cut corners. And one of them is to use non-union writers.

You'd think this was because they want to pay you nothing, but that's sometimes not the case. In fact, most non-union productions, if they're reputable, will scale their payments at or close to what the Guild rate would be. (At least in Canada they will.) Often, believe it or not, they're just trying to save the "fringes" -- the percentage they're required to pay into your insurance, CPP, and pension if they're a signatory.

Now, the thing is, when you're starting out and have no credits at all, it's really hard to get hired. Getting them to hire you is a difficult slog, even if you're good. Because no one has taken a chance on you, no one wants to take a chance on you. Catch 22. If you're a good writer, but you're not yet union, well...maybe that's a way to score something starting out. If there's a non-signatory opportunity that you want to take, it could work out for you. Just so long as you know that if you ever really want to graduate to being a top-level writer, you're going to have to leave the non-union work behind.

But that might take a while.

In my case, the market for drama had just tanked after that 1999 CRTC policy change, and there just were no jobs. I worked lifestyle shows for over a year to keep afloat. They paid pretty well for the amount of work they were to do. That whole lifestyle narration game -- it's all very, very non-union. The WGC would love to make inroads into that market, but the reality is that I don't think there are too many new writers who'd be able to get writing jobs on just the signatory shows. There are companies that are also playing a bit of a game, in the sense that they'll sign on to the WGC for drama and comedy projects, but try to stay non-union for documentary and lifestyle stuff. Sleazy, but so long as they're separate numbered companies as the actual production entity, not illegal.

There is a TON of this kind of work out there -- and most of the writing on that makeover/dating/soapy shows is just bollocks. (I know more than one of those shows where they don't even hire a writer -- they make the poor editor write "guide script" that somehow never gets changed. Bleah.)

During the time before I went union, I did have a few contracts on WGC shows. I was contracted as a permitee, and the difference was basically that I didn't get the RRSP contribution, and they took 3% more of my cheque (5% instead of 2 or 3%, I think.)

The contracts on the WGC shows were always short term, and for development projects. None of them got picked up. Now, you can technically join the guild on your first contract. I didn't because, when calculating where my income was going to come from, far more was from non-union sources than signatory sources. If the contract I'd been offered was lots of weeks on a series, or a couple of freelance scripts, even, it might have prompted me to join earlier. You have to weigh how much that 2 or 3 percent is going to cost you, and if you can slam the non-union door yet. I finally joined when I scored a longer term job, where that money would have added up, where I would have really missed out on good RRSP contributions, and where a guild person really should have been filling that job.

But there's another reason why I think when you're starting out, you should try to get a bit of non-union work -- and this has nothing to do with the bottom line:

You need to get kicked.

I mean, you need to get screwed over. Yelled at, abused, taken advantage of, forced to toil at the whim and caprice of the deluded, the hateful and the insane.

Because it will happen.

TV attracts a lot of crazy people. Some of them are numbers people who want to be creative and don't have the talent and will make you pay for every second you spend with them so they don't have to face that ugly truth. Some are creative people who have somehow gotten into positions of responsibility with no idea how to motivate, manage, or even communicate with other people. Some (and these are the refreshing ones) are salespeople, and you will be a tool to them, like a hammer, or a pen, or a buzzswaw. Get used to it, word monkey.

I'm not saying you can't learn a lot from these people, and I'm not saying it won't be ultimately a rewarding experience on your way to learning your craft. But you will be taken advantage of, and in a very real sense, I think you have to be.

I know a few baby writers who managed to score a union gig right away, and joined up, and were lucky enough to never have to toil in the non-union ghetto. To a one, they seem to not really understand what it is the union does for them, and how things like minimums and RRSP contributions and working rules actually do benefit them. They take them for granted, like that girlfriend you had when you were 22 and now wish maybe you'd been a little nicer to. Until you've been pushed and messed around and burned a little, you don't really appreciate the sweet order the union brings to things. Producers will always try to squeeze -- that's their job. The fact that there's a body that draws a line in the sand for you and says, "You can't go past this," the fact that when some dork tries to go past it, they will actually step up and stand up for you -- all that is better understood when you've seen the other side.

I paint the non-union world in stark terms here. Now I've got to walk it back a bit: 90 percent of the gigs I worked non-union, I was treated very well. And the people were wonderful. And I learned a lot. But there's a lot of sorrow in that 10%. And new writers are often so focused on "breaking in" that they don't realize that, you know what, part of breaking in probably involves somebody being unpleasant to you down the line. Sometimes, you break in by getting broke.

Ask Will Dixon about the screamers. I mean, instead of me. I'm actually not ready to talk about my screamer experiences yet. Still too fresh. But I have had the egos. I've had producers who I found out were mad at me because I was not sufficiently deferential to them for them "giving me my start" in the business. (This, after being in the business for fifteen years, and giving way more value to them in the gig I did for them, than I got in return.) I've had gigs where most of my payment was "deferred" until...well....let's face it, until Christ returns and leads us to the New Jerusalem, or Branson, Mo. Or wherever.

You deal with all these people - the egos, the assholes, the bad managers...and don't kid yourself...once you go union, a lot of them are still there. But you have dental.

There's one side of the business that I haven't touched on yet. One way where maybe you don't ever want to go union.
Are you an entrepeneur?

A lot of writers are really bad businesspeople. But some aren't. Are you looking to make films and market stuff, and really sell sell sell? Are you looking to make your bones in indie craft where maybe the Guilds haven't gone yet? Are you looking at new technologies? Delivery systems? Are you somebody like the Mad Pulp Bastard, ready, eager, and able to work both those sides of the fence? Then maybe hold off on joining up. Why be restricted by the tenets of the agreement if you think you can get a better deal yourself, or if you're your own producer?

Bill is the kind of guy who could speak to this side of things better than me. Because the truth is that there are those out there who'll say that being union restricts your freedoms, too. I've heard those arguments. There are lots of people who say, for instance, that the fact that the WGC establishes minimums for script fees in this country means that no one ever makes more than the minimums. That may be so. But I bet you anything the minimums would be lower without 'em.

But in the end, I think it's about being part of a community. You can participate in things like the awards process, or go to the parties and actually meet other writers. It's important. It means that you're part of the group. You're serious. You're a pro. That's why I think, in the end, you've gotta know when to join up...but you've gotta join up.

Just don't think it's going to solve everything.

Now...there are some caveats I have about the whole union thing in the Canadian context that I haven't been able to weave in above, so I'm just gonna throw them in here.

The first is this: if you're an animation writer, I think you should join the Guild as soon as you can. Why? Because the WGC fought really hard to get animation covered over the last couple of agreements. The conditions for animation writers in Canada were vastly different before the Guild got jurisdiction. Most of the reputable companies have been organized, and gone signatory. If there are holdouts, then they're swimming against the tide and I don't think they should be supported. Animation in this country is a great way to break in, and there are lots of people doing lots of episodes. The WGC actually didn't establish a basic minimum for an animation script, because there was some play in there, and the likely minimum was going to be less than what some people were making. That will likely resolve itself over time. Also, the Writer's Guild of Canada is offering an incentive for animation writers to join right now. If you're writing animation, call'em and talk.

Secondly, in the just completed new IPA, the WGC has put in a new clause that takes away one of the obstacles to going union. It's a new waiver that allows a writer to fully negotiate any fee on a low budget project, under $60 000. So in other words, if you and your buddies want to do a short film, and everybody believes in it, and say you want to pay yourself as the writer the same as the crew because nobody's doing it for the money -- you're doing it with the hope that it will pay off down the line, well, now you can do that and not get in trouble with the union. This is a great positive step, I think, which allows you to try something different and not being forced to choose between the project and your Guild commitments. It's a testimony to the Guild's desire to be as flexible as possible for its membership that this got done. If only ACTRA would be as flexible...

So that's it. You've gotta choose when to go union. You don't want to do it too early, because then you're competing with people like me and trust me, Gwendolyn, I will rip out your still beating heart and show it to you before I let you take my freelance episode of that A-level supernatural thriller away...

...Oh God. Sorry. I don't know where that came from. Kittens. Fluffy Kittens. On a Beach.