Distractions Come And Go, but Lolcats are Forever.

SIX HARD fought pages. Not bad for a Saturday with some, but not a lot, of sleep. Sadly, though, this is a bad time to be fighting to get a first draft done if you live in Toronto.

That's because there's this new arts festival that's just started called Luminato.

It's a major event in the Toronto arts firmament because this city has badly neglected both the arts and the resultant effect on tourism for several years now. (All you boneheads out there, save the comments below: spending on the arts has been proven to be an extraordinarily effective economic lever in just about every study of the last ten years. Grumble somewhere else. Eejit.)

Compared to a city like San Francisco, Toronto's Arts Commitment has been extraordinarily sporadic. Then we got hit with SARS a few years ago, and the bottom dropped out of the tourism industry. The Lord of the Rings musical was supposed to save it, but didn't, cause it was bad. So lately they've been scrambling. They finally gave some money so that Toronto got a proper Opera House and they've added a swanky new crystal by that hoity-toity architect to the Royal Ontario Museum... but the latest and greatest volley is this brand new arts fest that lights up Toronto for ten days in June.

And when I say "lights up" I'm not kidding. Among some of the events is a light show above the waterfront condos that is user-controlled. There's floating art installations in places like the train station;
there's also a new piece by Leonard Cohen with music by Philip Glass; Not the Messiah, a not-so-reverent piece conceived by Python Eric Idle, and any one of a number of other artistic fooferaws happening around the smog-choked city.

Last night, thanks to my sister, who's been working her patootie off for his festival for the last six months, I went to the opening party.

And there were friends of mine there relaxing, and we chatted with my parents, and they raved about Eric Idle, and it was all very nice, and a perfect gateway to a weekend of enjoying the arts.

Except...

This is the writer version of the kid with the broken leg watching through the window while everyone plays in the snow.

What can you do? Pages is pages. Enjoying the writing, though it tortures. Spoke to a bunch of students from top colleges and film programs around Toronto yesterday. You never know at the time if it's going to pay off for one of those people, but you just hope it does.

I've been thinking about karma lately, and how to make mine better. I'm sailing along pretty good right now, all tickety-boo, and so my "yeah, okay" filter - that's been closed on account of busyness lately, has turned into a right spigot. And hey, I even got called a "thinking blogger," which is nice, I think, once I take the time to figure out what it all means. I'm not buying a timeshare in Jacksonville, I'm telling you that right now.

See what happens when you're in a city where weird art things are going on all around you and the sun is out? You get all soft and suggestible.

And sure, six pages wasn't great, but it was six! pages!...I'm closer and closer...and provided that tomorrow goes well, I'll be in good shape on my script.

So if you're a Torontonian this week, I hope you're enjoying Luminato. What do y'all think of the crystal?

But if you're like me, and you're shackled to your deadline, all I can say is, Russel Smith aside, the whole explosion of regular media interest in the whole blood/brain/cat/net barrier this week has been something to behold. Still..this is the best LOLCat joke ever. Alex put it on Facebook but he didn't blog it. So it's mine. Sucker.

Come on. That's some awesome right there, my son!

Hey one more thing. Does this mean we can all stop talking about awesome Ronald Reagan was?

Blood Ties in Canada: Now With Actual Air Dates!

PLEASE NOTE: this post has been EDITED because dates have CHANGED.

For Canadian fans, the series I worked on in Vancouver, Blood Ties, is finally getting its homegrown premiere...

Since it's on a bunch of local terrestrial stations, there isn't one date and time -- each station is programming locally. Nevertheless, the dates and times are...

Citytv Toronto and Winnipeg - Mon @ 8PM, starts August 20

Citytv Calgary and Edmonton - Thurs @ 8PM, starts August 23

Citytv Vancouver - Sundays @ 8PM, starts August 26

*the reason why the dates were changed was so that for the premiere, they could run both halves of the 2 hour pilot movie. So for this first broadcast, it will be 2 hours, followed in subsequent weeks by the regular 1 hour eps.

I'm sorry if you don't receive any of these Citytv's on your cable or satellite (although I think they're all available on cable and satellite,) and I don't have any word as to whether or when the show will air on Space.

Still, good news all around. I managed to get a peek at some of the last batch of episodes I worked on -- and they're really, really strong. I'm thrilled with the eps I wrote -- probably among the first things I've ever written where the translation from page to screen was better than I thought it would be.

Now, probably a bit more radio silence from me. I really do have to pound out a draft. Later.

You Think I'VE Got the Canadian Industry's Number?

JIM HENSHAW iz up in my grill, pwning! my 'tood. Seriously, even if you're American and care not a whit when I start going on about the industry in this country -- you'll want to read this one just because... well... it's so... focacta. And every word is true.

In the words of the immortal LOLCATS, I can has induztree?

If you think about any film industry in any other nation, it tends to center in two or three places, for all kinds of logical business reasons.

Not here.

The concept of Regionalizing production may satisfy politicians who want to see their constituents tax dollars spent locally. But you can't build a viable film industry that way. In fact, it's a sure-fire recipe for making sure it never happens.

Imagine asking most of the production companies in Hollywood to relocate to Pismo Beach if they want their project green-lit. Consider what Woody Allen or Spike Lee's films would look like if they had to be shot in Newark. Take your life in your hands and tell Robert Rodriguez he's giving up Austin for Padre Island.

And maybe give some thought to the "suppliers" of the industry. The people who have no say in what gets conceived or made. They rent cameras, build props and costumes, or sustain state of the art post houses. Now imagine how their profit margins (which have always been thin) are impacted by having to serve customers who have no choice but to work in areas where such operations are not resident because they couldn't survive and everything has to be shipped in.

This week a Producer friend said, "They're spreading things so thin, nobody can survive anymore." She's right. And as far as I'm concerned that's the plan. The juicy side effect is that the Bureaucats also get to murder some of us in the process.

As Sting and Andy Summers taught me on Sunday and Monday, "It's Murder By Numbers, One Two Three, It's as Easy to Learn as your Eh, B, C's..."

Cough. Cough.

WOW, THIS city sure is smoggy. It's hard to believe that less than forty-eight hours ago I was sitting on Locarno Beach, watching windsurfers framed against a blue-blue sky.

Here in Toronto, the sky's a kind of sickly white and mustard yellow. The light hitting the ground is a bit chunky. Even the greens of the trees are a bit...well...muted.

And you breathe in, and there it is...the unmistakable scent... of ass.

How the hell do you Angelinos do it? I feel like I want to put on a mask.

Save me, Al Gore. Save me.

Alright, Alright. I Take It Back...

SWEET JEBUS, this is a different city when the sun is out. Even the drivers seem less crazy.

I managed on this trip to avoid most of the places I haunted when I lived here in the winter, and visit some of the places I'd stayed away from. So no Commercial Drive, but a whole lot of Yaletown. I also learned for certain that GM Place and BC Place are not the same thing (really, you could have made that clearer,) had a nice lunch at Sophie's Cosmic Cafe (Hippies Please Use Side Door,) bought a couple CD's at Zulu, naffed some truly excellent oysters, paid three bucks for a tiny minibar can of Pringles, learned to hate the Canada Line construction, discovered a new favorite girl drink; talked shop and traded stories at the Fringe Cafe, and even got told a pretty good industry joke:

Q: What's the difference between a working Canadian screenwriter and a pizza?
A: A pizza can feed a family of four.

Heh heh. Oh, and then to top it all off, an all-too-brief drink with some of the fabulous writers from J-Pod. Good times. Good times.

I like Vancouver in the spring. That much is true. But now it's back to Toronto, a waiting set of notes, working through the weekend and batting away the smog with my hands.

Shit. Maybe I should delete the pizza joke. If I leave it here, I can't tell it to people individually. Moral dilemma...blog or life?

Now there's a question to contemplate on the plane.

So long Van. I'll give Toronto your usual regards.

(I'm not gonna hock the loogie, tho.)

The Police, Or Busting the Surprise With That Pesky 'Ol Series of Tubes

PRACTICE MAKES perfect. We've all heard that since we were in short pants. But recently, this wonderful series of tubes has been getting me twitterpated.

What if all the info floating around out there just makes things worse?

I muse on this (I can't help it, staying in a hotel makes me all muse-y) largely because of the events of the last few days. It's got a screenwriting application -- but it'll take a few 'graphs to get there, m'kay?

So, Sunday night I went to see the fan club show for THE POLICE at GM Place in Vancouver. It's billed as the first time the band has played together for 25 years, even though that's stretching the truth a bit. Somewhere on a dusty VHS tape I still have a recording of the set they did at the Amnesty International show back in 1986. But that's probably too Poindexter-y a point to make.

Moving on...

GM place was fun and kind of eerie looking. They had only sold some of the floor and some of the stands -- 4000 total, so the entire show was dwarfed by a maw of empty seats staring down at you.

It started low key, with the three band members coming out and saying 'hi' and 'thanks for coming to our final dress rehearsal.'

They explained that there probably would be mistakes, and that they might even have to stop and start a bit as the night wore on. Then they went backstage, and a few minutes later the lights went down and they ripped into "Message in a Bottle."

It was great to see them. I had an ear-to-ear grin on my face most of the show. I had great seats, dead center floors, about fifteen rows back.

The set is stripped down, minimal...most of the effects are limited to lighting and live projection above -- one screen for each member.

They walked through the set and there were glitches, but none that could make them stop. Stewart Copleand in particular showed a rangy, puckish energy that really make you believe that he's been dying to be able to play these songs again, this way, for a very long time. He bounced around from giant gong to percussion (put to its best use on "Wrapped Around Your Finger" and "King of Pain,") and hit the drums hard. That's the thing the fifteen year old me always loved about Copeland..he beat the shit out of those drums. When that hormonal anger crested, somehow watching him do that helped.

Andy Summers scowled his way through the whole performance. He kept bringing the guitar tech on -- he obviously wasn't happy with the way the guitar sounded. And to be fair, it was pretty low in the mix. You also read a lot into these situations, and part of me thought, "wow, Summers really has the hardest job here..." remembering all those solos and whatnot.

Which is entirely separate from my realization that drummers are to rock and roll what writers are to film and tv. Sure we don't get respect, but take us away, buddy. See how you fuckin do then.

Sting, for his part, seemed loose through the first part of the set. He wasn't pushing his voice, so a lot of the old Police material that was sung in that high falsetto -- well, for the 2007 version you would just have to get used to the 56 year old, down octave version. But he also experimented with singing ahead of the beat, and giving the songs a more jazz-inflected feel.

A few of the songs seemed to be played a bit slower than you wanted. Especially "Truth Hits Everybody", which I remember flailing around to in my basement bedroom more times than I care to recount, back in the day. Yes, his guns were buff. But this is not a band of 25 year olds anymore. Copeland's youthful face, set against his completely gray hair (good for him for keeping it) was an often potent reminder of just how much time has passed. As was the projected images of Iraqi devestation combined with imagery of playing children during "Invisible Sun." I had to reach back to remember that this song was originally written about Northern Ireland. Now Eire is at peace, mostly. And the song takes on new meaning. Plus ca change...

Anyway, by the second half of the concert, things had kicked into a different gear. Copeland's energy became infectious. Summers cracked something that could forensically be described as a smile. By the time they finished up, they seemed satisfied, and relieved, and ready.

Time was that would be it. We would wait and wait for the news reports on the first concert. But that was before the series of tubes, you see. I got on the tubes briefly Sunday night and saw that there was a lot of carping and disappointment. Sting was singing too much like his jazz days, the band was sloppy, etc, etc.

Flash ahead to last night.

The lights went down to the sound of "Get Up, Stand Up," and a few moments later, there they were, kicking into "Message in a Bottle."

Except...

Holy SHIT. The song was faster, the bass more muscular. Stewart still beat those skins like a red headed stepchild, and Andy actually cracked a smile. Maybe because his guitar sounded good.

The set list was exactly the same...but the show was completely different...there was nothing eerie about GM Place now. The din was deafening, the band was louder. And the songs that had seemed slow now found their tempo. Sting lay aside the jazz phrasing and accepted the mantle of rock singer ...maybe the falsetto was gone but that doesn't mean he didn't hit the high notes. The bass chugged along in the mix, and songs like "Don't Stand So Close To Me" reached for what I thought was a nice blend of time gone by..the chorus had notes of the '86 remake, but the verse was pure Zenyatta Mondata.

People ate it up. They tore through everything...the songs that clicked the night before were even better. And even the mistakes were fun. Sting, setting up the call and response for "Walking on the Moon" started in a key so bizarre that the incredulous expression on Copeland's face said it all. But they got past it. They got past it all. This band, who seemed to be forever defined as the band who didn't seem able to get past anything. One after another, like a freight train, they delivered the goods on some of the tightest, smartest, most muscular pop of the 1970's and 80's -- from the era when Pop was smart.

By the way, Sting, I never did thank you for Nabokov, The Sheltering Sky, and Jung.

All in all, the two shows were like night and day. Because, of course, they were night and day. One was a rehearsal. (Yes, they charged for the tickets, but at $50 instead of $250 a pop,

I wonder if in our desire to lift the curtain in entertainment -- not just the gossip sites, but the ET insiders, and the Aint It Cool Previews and reviews of early drafts, and forensic pick-aparts of test screenings and trailers; the endless machinations of trying to divine spoilers for TV shows by their upcoming guest stars and TV loglines -- have we turned into a bunch of people ripping the paper off the presents before Christmas morning?

And what happens to we who actually, you know, need to work some stuff out before we push our little darlings out into the world to be judged? What happens when we don't have the cover to do that anymore?

Can anything live up to scrutiny before it's truly on its feet? Time was, your Chicago or Toronto tryout would proceed in the shadows, giving you the freedom to work things out, to tinker, to make things better. Now, you've got negative reaction the moment you do your very first, pre-pre-preview. And I'm worried that it's not making anything better. I think it may be making people less willing to test. Which would be disastrous, because the last thing we need is more first drafts out there.

Also, the minute we spend more time trying to keep things from getting out, rather than make things good -- something's lost. Take Battlestar Galactica. The way they managed leaks of Starbuck's fate and the shocking reveal in order to protect the true ending of the season - well that was a post internet, 2007 style P.R. masterstroke. But at the end of the day, don't you think that time might have been better spent if Ron Moore and co. could have just taken more time to make the show?

In the end, all the pre-hype over SNAKES ON A PLANE couldn't make it a crossover hit.

I think of the movies I saw when I was first into The Police, like the one I went to see at a sneak preview with my Dad back in 1981. It ran one Saturday night two weeks before it opened, and from the opening frame, this thing, this thing I had never heard a word about -- with a guy with a hat running from arrows and afraid of snakes and fighting guys with a bullwhip...

..I mean, I went insane. I spent two weeks babbling about this show that no one had seen yet, and got to say, "just you wait, just you wait..."

So there, the impulse to be the first to weigh in, it was there, even then. It's just that the lack of info everywhere made it easier for things to be a surprise.

I miss surprises. Don't you? Truth?

After all...Truth Hits Everybody, y'know.

(And there's no names on the photos, but you can see a whole selection of Vancouver Police photos on Flickr .)

Bow Down Before Your New Comedy Overlord

THERE'S NOTHING like being able to read the entire Sunday New York Times in a captive, I'm not going anywhere anyway context. And a four hour flight to Vancouver certainly qualifies. So whilst I parse the very pleasing shade of yellow in my hotel room, and compose my note to the Gods of boutique hotels: "Dear Sirs," it reads, "It's 2007. Gouging people for internet in their room is simply not cool," I would like to draw your attention to a superior profile of the patron saint of misunderstood TV writers everywhere, the driven and prickly Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up.)

There's so much that's great about this profile, especially if you're somebody who's just starting out. There's a lot of great lessons and a lot of perennially-nagging questions every writer has to face, including "how do I balance this weird obsession I have with making strangers laugh with the fact that I frequently ignore or neglect people who are close to me in the service of that?" Martin Amis, of course, famously opined on the subject that writers couldn't really have relationships with other people since they're always more or less having a wank. You can see Apatow's struggling against the writer-turtling impulse, and it's kind of bracing. But from a craft point of view, here's a bunch of other stuff you'll hopefully get out of the article:

1) It takes a long time.

Apatow spent years studying comedy, going to comedy clubs, interviewing comics like Garry Shandling (now one of his best friends) and Jerry Seinfeld. He haunted comedy clubs, honing, honing, honing that craft. And still, it took him a long time to find his voice, and even longer to translate that voice from critical darling and audience poison to being the new face of comedy, 2007 edition. (Along the way he got to see his roommate, Adam Sandler, blow up bigtime.) I see so many people who want what they want right now -- and get frustrated by not making after working for a year or so, that I think (I hope) Apatow's a bit of a cold water reality check. If you want to be the next Apatow, you gotta want it like he did, and I don't see that around too much.

2) Good enough is not good enough

A lazy comedy writer is a shitty comedy writer.

3) Trust the people you trust, and don't worry about the other people.

They're probably going to think you're a weirdo anyway.

Some choice excerpts from Stephen Rodrick's profile:

On casting:

Once everyone sat down, Goldberg switched on a DVD of “Superbad” auditions. For half an hour a parade of pretty faces read lines about scoring fake IDs and hooking up. Eventually, the brother of a famous movie star read for the part of Fogell, the school dweeb. He delivered his line a little too perfectly.

“Who would think this kid would have trouble getting girls?” Rogen said. “I want to have sex with this kid. I bet he’s getting pleasured right now, right below the frame line.”

Everyone laughed except Apatow, who kept devouring an overloaded plate of macaroni and cheese and chocolate cake. Apatow has few vices, but he self-medicates with food. The progress of “Knocked Up” could be traced by the expansion of Heigl’s prosthetic belly and Apatow’s real one. Rogen started picking at his fingernails waiting for the boss to chime in, but Apatow remained quiet. Another actor’s audition was cued up. This one was the talented son of a pop icon. Apatow finally put his fork down and sighed. “This isn’t going to work,” he said. “On film, he is going to look like an Adonis.”

He turned to Rogen and Goldberg and spoke slowly, as if trying to get a point across to two special-needs children: “Look, you guys have to be hard, you have to be brutal with this. You have to do open auditions in Vancouver and Chicago, see a thousand guys and look for the weird kid and see which one you can teach to act. They have to be the characters. We’re not looking for the kids who can do Froot Loops commercials. This is not how we found Seth.” (The part of Fogell would eventually be filled by a newcomer, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who was found after the casting director, Allison Jones, a longtime Apatow regular, created a MySpace profile and asked kids to send in their own videos. Mintz-Plasse was one of 4,000 who did).

On conduct:

Apatow’s childhood hero was Steve Martin. On a summer trip to L.A., Apatow persuaded his grandparents to drive by Martin’s home until Apatow spied his hero in the driveway. Martin wouldn’t give him an autograph, so Apatow wrote him an angry letter saying it was his patronage of Martin’s projects that allowed him to live the high life. A few weeks later, Martin sent Apatow a copy of his book “Cruel Shoes” with an apology: “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was speaking to the Judd Apatow.”

On being such a weirdo stress bunny that you cause yourself back pain:

Apatow talked to his therapist about the anxiety attacks. The therapist told him that they were a sign of a larger problem: he was neglecting his emotional needs by burying himself in work. While Apatow’s 1997 marriage to Mann and the subsequent birth of their first daughter eased his discomfort, it didn’t vanish completely. He still found it difficult to set aside his comedy persona and just be a family guy.

I have met a few well-adjusted, pain free, non-neurotic TV/Film comedy writers in my time. Most of the time, they're not funny. The few who were, I'm not entirely convinced they weren't also serial killers. Part of the fun of reading the Apatow profile is "spot the personality." The guffaw of recognition, followed by the existential dread of what that recognition really means. All in all, not bad for a Sunday read.

And online, you can see clips of Apatow and Seth Rogen, as well as an archival recording of a teenage Apatow interviewing a pre-Seinfeld Jerry Seinfeld.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see The Police now.