Chicken Wings & Sauce to Go Around: Less Than Kind

IT'S  A PUB in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood on a weekday night, and the table's swapping stories of the 2nd, newly charmed season of LESS THAN KIND.  (2nd Season premieres tonight, 8:30 p.m., HBO Canada, also available on Demand.  And you can watch the 1st show online here.)

It's me, Showrunner Mark McKinney, and Creators Marvin Kaye & Chris Sheasgreen.  

I have a lot of time for LTK, and not just because it's funny, well made, and now comes with a Cinderella-rebirth story attached.

And it's not cause I beat my friend Marvin's ass at the poker table on Superbowl Sunday. Seriously. Like a redheaded stepchild. He left before the game was over a broken, chastened man. (Full disclosure: when the show was first in development, I did a brief round of story editing on it. This was before McKinney's involvment)

Nope.  LESS THAN KIND is, at almost every level, a shining example of what can happen when everything goes right in the Canadian system.  Which is to say, as McKinney puts it, "We got lucky. Crazy lucky."

Let's stack up that luck looking backward.  LTK2 was supposed to be an orphaned show. The original broadcaster, Rogers-owned CityTv -- canceled the show before the 2nd season even aired.

"The people at City were great," says Kaye. "They ordered the show, they liked it, they were really supportive of it and let us make the show we wanted to make, and they picked up a second season even before the first went to air."

But when the show did go to air, the problems started.  Sandwiched after seasons-old reruns of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and plagued by City's chronic bad promotion of homegrown fare, it floundered in a Monday night timeslot, and was subject to technical gaffes galore.  Shows aired in the wrong aspect ratio, out of order, with the music & effects track mixed higher than the vocals -- and then the show went away suddenly when City needed to simulcast The Bachelor for an extra half hour. It was a Canadian TV horrorshow tale.

Those few people who saw the show in its first season saw something that was, in many ways, the anti-Corner Gas.  Centred around the Winnipeg Blecher family, the show chronicles the coming of age of teenage son Sheldon.  Sheldon's sensitive, overweight, and adamantly refuses to learn how to drive.  (His father owns a Driving School.)  Sheldon desperately wants out of his crazy family, which includes a pyromaniac mother, his overbearing father, and newly-bounced back older brother -- a washed up actor who's still trading off minor fame from his seminal role in Thunder Bay, O.P.P.

You don't often see families like the Blechers on Canadian TV.  They're as dysfunctional as Roseanne Connor's brood -- and the eps have just about the same mix of the outrageous & the heartfelt as the best of the high-water mark of Roseanne's career.  The mordant wit of LTK, and its loopy, confident Canadianness is signalled straight from the start, with the theme song -- The Weakerthans' "One Great City," (whose chorus builds to the immortal refrain, 'I Hate Winnipeg.')

So if nobody saw it, how could it be called lucky?  Well, take your pick.  Maury Chaykin as the father.  Newcomer Jesse Camacho as the son.  Wendel Meldrum, an actor who's actually believable -- and heartbreaking -- as Sam Blecher's wife. "We found her through L.A.," says McKinney, who tapped the casting director he'd worked with as part of his season long stint on Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60.  But they also found local Winnipeg actors -- some of them with very little experience (including the standout Brooke Palsson as Miriam) who turned in hilarious, gifted, piquant and vibrant performances.

But on this night over Chicken Wings, the luck they're talking about is the move to HBO Canada.  As McKinney relates the story, they had shot the entire 2nd season, and were busy posting when the notes started to come in from City. They were odd notes.  They seemed to strike at the heart of the comedy, watering it down.  Eventually, the truth came out. Over the course of the year, Rogers strategy toward Citytv changed. They wanted to go for a more family friendly audience -- but LTK was a harder edged, unsentimental show.

What happened next wasn't supposed to happen.  Thanks to a friendly exec at HBO Canada, (who'd been involved with the show initially at Rogers) a deal was struck between the cable net and City to take over the show. The cut scenes were restored, leading to tonight's premiere.  Even McKinney admits that the show was always really a cable show at heart. And now it's come home.

Point is, that kind of wheely-dealing rarely happens in Canada.

The luck doesn't stop there. In fact, the funny thing about the luck of LTK, is that so much of it is actually not luck at all -- it's simply the best case scenario of the way things are supposed to work -- but rarely do.

The show was based on an autobiographical play by co-creator Kaye.  Kaye and Sheasgreen went through the National Screen Institute's training program with the property.  They found a network exec who was passionate about the show. They hooked up with a production company, Breakthrough, whose development and producer staff let the show be what it wanted to be.  They brought on Mark McKinney, who brought his perfectionism and two decades of comedy experience to running the creative.  McKinney & the creators worked together well, with mutual respect both for the material & each other.

In fact, another way you can see the "luck" of Less Than Kind at work is with the free and generous praise McKinney, Kaye and Sheasgreen pile on everyone involved.  Maury was fantastic...the production designer created a flooded basement that worked miracles this season...the writing room was stacked with greats like Garry Campbell and toward the end of the season, when they suddenly had to rewrite some scripts, Rob Sheridan.  "Rob saved our ass" says McKinney.  From the music, to the crew, to Directors like Kelly Makin, there's plenty of credit to go around.

McKinney marvels at a 2nd season scene of Sheldon's first kiss -- that had the whole crew practically in tears.  The show might have had to shoot in -50 Winnipeg winter weather, but in many other ways, it seems like a charmed production.

"We were also men alone," says McKinney, explaining the degree to which scripts were worked and reworked.  Long separation from families (All three have children, & Sheasgreen & Kaye's wives both had babies during the shoot) may have made for long nights, but it certainly meant that settling for "good enough", wasn't.

It shows.

The 2nd season opens with Sam in the hospital, close to death, picking up where Season 1 left off.  It features a very funny guest shot by McKinney's fellow Kid in the Hall, Dave Foley.

Less Than Kind's charmed rebirth on HBO Canada may have a few more chapters to it, still. The show's about to get some recognition (more I can't really say because of an embargo; I'll correct this sentence to be less cryptic next week.)  and they're currently breaking stories for a possible third season. Though it hasn't been greenlit yet, all three are optimistic.

And after the ride this show's had, they probably have every reason to be.  Interestingly enough for students of the comedy form, too, this year the LTK writers room is a real anomaly in scripted comedy -- there's a majority of women -- including writer/director Adriana Maggs (fresh from screening Grown Up Movie Star at Sundance,)  Morwyn Brebner (the upcoming Copper), Jenn Engels (who returns from season 1) and story coordinator Kim Coghill.  That's a lot of estrogen, and a chance to bring new energy & focus to the lives of the bold Blechers.


Less Than Kind airs Fridays on HBO Canada.


An earlier version of this story contained an error.  Bruce McDonald directed episodes of LTK. Incorrect info appeared earlier.

Own The Couch!

WE NOW INTERRUPT this Olympic blog break to bring news that Gordon Lightfoot is d...er, that I'll be yakking about the Olympics on several CBC Radio morning shows tomorrow.

You should hear me pop up sometime in your morning show if you live in the following cities: Ottawa (where I am right now) around 6:20 a.m., followed by Thunder Bay, Cape Breton, Moncton, N.B., Corner Brook, NFLD, Winnipeg, parts of Ontario that get Ontario A.M., Edmonton and Prince George/Prince Rupert.

Freelance TV critic Bill Brioux (who's got an interesting article here on those PPM ratings) will be doing other markets -- then later we have to meet under the clock in Union Station, play back the tapes, and whoever was more awesome gets to pants the other while Nikki whatshername sings O Canada and Stephen Colbert points and laughs and calls us a couple of iceholes.

Well. Not really. But that would be cool.

First day of the Prime Time conference in Ottawa was alternately depressing and interesting, but there'll be time to talk on that later.

Also, LESS THAN KIND, the fabulous comedy that finds a new home on TMN / Movie Central, bows tomorrow night -- look for it.  I've seen the first few eps and they're wonderful. I'll hopefully get a piece up about it when I'm on the train back to Toronto. But we'll see.  And that, as they say, is it.

Off into the Ottawa night now.

Five Strong Rings (May Be Made of Onion)

I'M AT A critical point in an outline right now, and I seem to have lost a bit of enthusiasm for this -- as well as a bit of good nature. I wrote and trashed three posts over the weekend because I thought them rather curmudgeonly. They read like something you'd expect from a dyspeptic crank,  without reflecting the passion for good TV that maximizes the talents of a vibrant and unique country & a peculiar yet ever-changing culture.

That, and the leaks you hear from this quarter & that -- unhappy bitching, silly bitching, complaints by wannabes and neverweres & petty recriminations from people who judge but do not read have me feeling a bit -- off.  And determined not to join in on those particularly petty reindeer games.

With that bit of weekend #fail also came a tiny flicker of joy -- reading the work of a good friend, who's searching for her light & her centre in something.  Sharing thoughts on that -- on the work of those I love who do -- who chance, who write -- seems more important to me now than this.

And, I've also bitten the bullet and decided that next-phasing my career means making the trek to Ottawa for the Canadian Film & Television Producers Association Prime Time Conference.  

I've got a meeting later today talking about online storytelling, and the whole conference has sessions on the same thing, and I guess I just think it's time Jill Golick wasn't the only one giving it the old "how do I monetize this?" try.   So before I run to that meeting and my train, I just wanted to wish you all a good games. I'll be playing Network during this time & taking a bit of a head break -- even as I work to fill it from other quarters.  That's the life of the freelancer, is it not?

So, I might pop back to give a bit of virtual ink to the great folk over at Less Than Kind, coming Feb 21 -- but otherwise I think I'm gonna marshall my energies elsewhere for a week or so, and see how it goes.

Go Canada.  Go Lindsey Vonn. (Rowr!)  See you after the 28th.

Yup. That's About The Size of It.

Responsible Canadian Drinking Game

THE RULES ARE very simple.  Take a drink every time CTV promotes one of its upcoming homegrown shows (Dan For Mayor, The Bridge, Flashpoint, Hiccups) during an Olympic commercial break.  

It's fun, and the best part is, you can still drive home at the end of the night!

Blind List Friday

ALL THESE PEOPLE have something in common today.

1. Ivan Fecan
2. Ricky, Julian & Bubbles
3. Anyone looking to apply for the CMF
4. Yours truly
5. Opponents of Pay Per View Porn

Have a great weekend!

#Fail#Fail#Fail...Wait...

JUST GOT BACK from a very clarifying, enriching & exciting creative meeting with a Producer -- where there were incredibly insightful notes from another producer. There are times when the creative process really does work the way it's supposed to. 


Anyway, in the in-betweens of focus, the usual shit-shooting turned to the well-worn topic of "things that people who don't write for a living don't understand about people who do..." 


I said one of my standard lines -- I hope it's actually one of MY standard lines, though for all I know maybe I'm half-remembering something I read somewhere long ago -- anyway.  I said, "I kind of look at it as -- it's my job to fail until I don't. You try something, fail, fail, fail, keep failing, and hopefully eventually you look at something and say, 'that's not a total failure' and then you nurture that little ember and follow it and hopefully you get somewhere."


And the Producer nodded and said, "That's what separates real, effective writers from those who just have "ideas." Regular folk hit that first fail and either refuse to see it, or freak out about it."


And you sure can't do that for very long, now, can you?


So to all my peeps in rooms or pounding out pages today, wherever you are, here's to today's #fails.  


Lucky, lucky, lucky us.

You Can Make It If You Try

THE HBO SERIES "How To Make it In America" which I wrote about here, now has its first episode up for preview on the HBO Canada website.  (The Link in the Blog goes to the Canadian site; I presume if you're in the USA you can go to the main HBO site and see the preview there.)

Enjoy.

The Dum Dum Bullet Bouncing Round The Brainpan

LAST WEEKEND, Toronto Globe & Mail Theatre critic Kelly Nestruck wrote a very interesting article comparing Toronto & Chicago theatre.  It found Toronto seriously wanting for a number of factors that anyone with even glancing familiarity with the theatre scene here couldn't really deny.  They basically boiled down to a lack of Comprehensive Criticism, Collegiality, Civic Leadership & Confidence.

Others have noticed this article & it's started a long-overdue discussion.

But what I haven't been able to get out of my head is how neatly the article parallels the malaise that infects writers, producers, production companies & funders in the Domestic Television Industry, as well. Add in the pointless energies wasted on regional infighting, and you've got the whole wax ball.

I was going to write about that, but ... why?  I've written about it before.  If you read Nestruck's article, and you work in film/tv in the city, you can probably tick off the parallels yourself.  So I'd say go read it. And think on it.

And then -- what needs to happen next?  Because the Canadian default of whining endlessly and bitterly without ever doing anything about it isn't going to ameliorate the situation.

Uh, What?

Y'KNOW, this isn't exactly the feel good follow up to that last post I wanted, but, um...
Could someone please explain this Google most-linked or queried predictive text to me?  First result.  Seriously, I'd love to hear any theories that won't send me diving for a heating pad and a bottle of bourbon.

Bon Temps Rouler

WELL I WAS pounding out a 12 page summary from 7:30 A.M. til 3pm yesterday, when men started arriving in droves for the Superbowl Poker Game. (Up, thanks.) And there was much rejoicing over N'Awlins & much consternation over the fact that the new digital aerial streaming over the air HD to my computer kicks Rogers' HDTV signal in its coax ass. And then this morning I was up and off to a day of WGC Council Meetings. So I haven't had much time to consider the Superbowl ads.


But between this and Jersey Shore, I think ... I feel ... boom. Here's a gauntlet for engaging storytelling... Oh my Canadian scribes, do you dare to pick it up? (Myself most DEFINITELY included.)


This doesn't do something to you, your heart is a dead stone thing. Enjoy.

Let A Thousand Corners Bloom

FROM THE "Way It's Supposed To Work" file...

Time was that the talented would find the scary truth of Canadian TV -- getting your first break wasn't the problem ... sustaining a career was. Too often "breaking in" meant finding that there was no second or third job down the road for a TV writer or actor. No matter how good your notices or scripts or work was, the smallness of the hatbox industry & the tendency to "spread it around" meant that the mid-career stall often drove you down and south. (To L.A.)

But then Corner Gas changed everything.  By training a stable of writers, CG has made the unlikely tenable -- the chance to think of having a comedy writing career in Canada, if that's what you want to do.

So that show's six season run trained a group of comedy writers; and follow up opportunities allowed those people to stay, so that the next generation of Canadian scripted comedies don't start over from zero. Again.

Already upcoming is Hiccups, CTV's next series from Brent Butt, starring his wife, Nancy Robertson, and Dan For Mayor, a charming little show starring Fred Ewanuick (Hank from CG), created and written by three generations of CG Showrunners -- Paul Mather, Kevin White, and Mark Farrell.

Now today from CBC comes the next drop of the shoe:

TORONTO -- The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has picked up a sitcom from E1 Television based on the popular Canadian curling movie "Men With Brooms."

The TV adaptation follows an earlier pilot written by Paul Mather ("Corner Gas") about four regular joes who hang out at the local curling rink. 

Canada's public broadcaster also picked up a second half-hour comedy, "Insecurity," from Verite Films and produced by Virginia Thompson. 

Virginia Thompson also produced Corner Gas, & Insecurity's creator is Kevin White.  Sounds like Kevin & Paul will be busy for the next little while.  Of course, Mark Farrell I think is also back involved with 22 Minutes... slackers.

Now all these shows won't be clones of Gas, to be sure.  I've known Kevin for 20 years and he's one of the funniest guys I know. It'll be interesting to see the nuanced differences in each of the shows. Still, from one successful training ground spawns four shows -- and those shows will train more writers, and actors, and maybe more producers & directors who understand how to make half hour comedies -- one of the hardest genres out there.

Sniff. It's almost like we have a merit-based industry all of a sudden.

So thanks, Corner Gas.  Whether you were a fan or not, it's the gift that keeps on giving by giving people the chance to do what they love without automatically becoming expatriates.

Oh, The Ennui

FOR SHEER LAUGHS in the morning, the combination of designed-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives living spaces & existential regrets -- well, Unhappy Hipsters, I salute you. I really do.

Reverse Simulcast, Meet CTV's Olympics Eyeballs

"REVERSE SIMULCASTING" was the catchy phrase coined when the first of the "made in Canada, broadcast in the USA" shows, FLASHPOINT, hit the scene after the end of the last WGA strike.


Over the years, the Canadian practice of tying their schedules up in pretzels to try and air the U.S. shows at the same time as the U.S. network (so they could block out their cable signal,) had become fraught.  The age of downloading meant that the other practice that went hand in hand with simulcasting, pre-releasing, (where the Canadian net that couldn't simulcast because of a conflict would sometimes air the show a day or two earlier than in the USA) went out the window.


So Ivan Fecan's coining of that phrase held a certain swagger to it -- now we were going to be able to have one of our shows on at the same time as in the USA -- and we'd have the control.


Except, of course, it didn't work out that way.


Flashpoint first season episodes were held back because CBS wanted to bench them for a few months.  CTV went along.  That created some difficulty for the writers in that an ep that wasn't meant to be a finale had to serve as one, and an ep that wasn't meant to be a premiere had to serve as one.


(Non writing producers have an easy fix for this. They say things like, "every episode should be made so it could be a premiere! OR a finale!!!"  Wow. What a great idea! <glish>  (Glish, by the way, is the sound that results when every writer who's ever written an episode of TeeVee rolls their eyes at once.)


Anyhoo, the Flashpoint fun continued with the second season split up the same way. Though produced all at once, the 2nd season was aired in simulcast, with CBS holding back on scheduling the back half episodes.  They held them back, and back, and back, and to this day they're still holding them. And finally CTV gave up and aired the episodes here first and held their breath, and lo and behold, over a million people watched because Canadians actually like Flashpoint. So yay Flashpoint.


Problem was, CTV also had another cop show in the can that was a co-pro intended to be "reverse simulcast" -- but their U.S. partner wouldn't commit.


So, the "savior" that is the new Canadian-U.S. partnership fatally shows its limitations. No matter what, no matter how cost effective they are (pay $400 000 an ep, and get control because the Producers are so gosh-darn happy to please you!) these shows are always going to be treated as filler by the U.S. network. Because they ARE filler.


And you know that old saw about, "how much are you gonna love somebody who'll take anything from you, who'll change anything about themselves to be with you, because they just want you to love them, damnit!?" Geez. Sounds to me like the CFTPA should be packing copies of "He's Just Not That Into You" into the Prime Time Gift Bags this year. Glish.


Anyway, what do you do if you're CTV, and you paid a jillion dollars for the Olympics, and you know you're going to have massive eyeballs and you have all these series you want to promote -- well, you schedule them right after Olympics, right? I mean, that's the smart thing to do.  Except oh. Right...one of them, "The Bridge," was supposed to be one of them reverse-simulcast thingies.


Well CTV decided to do something smart. They said "Eff It":

Toronto– CTV announced today it has strategically scheduled three new Original Canadian series to debut next month, immediately following the conclusion of theVANCOUVER 2010 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES. The three series will benefit from weeks of promotion during what is to be one of the most-watched television events of the year.

First, CTV’s hit Monday night comedy block expands to two hours on March 1, the day following the close of Vancouver 2010. At 8 p.m. ET, Brent Butt is back in HICCUPS, starring CORNER GAS’ co-star Nancy Robertson as children’s author Millie Upton. Then, at 8:30 p.m. ET, CORNER GAS alumnus Fred Ewanuick stars as a hapless electoral candidate in DAN FOR MAYOR. Both comedies join Top 10, smash-hit, laugh-makers TWO AND A HALF MEN and THE BIG BANG THEORY, which follow at 9 p.m. ET and 9:30 p.m. ET, respectively.

Later that week it’s the much-anticipated premiere of CTV’s newest one-hour original drama series, THE BRIDGE. Starring BATTLESTAR GALACTICA’s Aaron Douglas, THE BRIDGE is an authentic and unique twist on the police procedural told through the lens of a charismatic police union leader. The series debuts Friday, March 5 at 9 p.m. ET with a special two-hour series premiere before moving to its regular Fridays at 10 p.m. ET timeslot beginning March 12 on CTV (visit CTV.ca to confirm local broadcast times).

So it's certainly not the death of the reverse simulcast idea...but maybe it's more of an "eyes wide open" teachable moment in the Canadian network game.   

There's no guarantee that any of these shows will be hits, of course, but CTV is doing the right thing by serving them up when there are lots of eyeballs to watch.  That's a good thing.

And there's plenty to be excited about, too.  Both of the comedies have a Corner Gas pedigree, CTV's highest rated original show til Flashpoint came along.

If you're interested, the WGC recently held a special screening & discussion for members to get a sneak preview of Dan For Mayor.  The podcast of the discussion with two of the Creators & Producers, Kevin White & Paul Mather (Mark Farrell was out of town) is available here.

And again, if you want to program your PVR's, the CTV premieres are:

Hiccups & Dan For Mayor -- March 1, 8 & 8:30, before Two and a Half Men & Big Bang Theory

The Bridge -- March 5, 9-11, before moving to its regular slot the next week, Fridays at 10pm.

State of the Digital Nation

WELL FIRST OF ALL, I have to say I am tremendously relieved.  I have often thought that the only thing LOST was missing was an inscrutable Japanese guy trimming a bonsai tree.

The other program I watched last night managed to both not live up to, and exceed my expectations.  The Frontline doc DIGITAL NATION was excellent. And lo and behold, if you didn't manage to see it, you can watch it online at the PBS site.  And lo and behold Canadians, this means you, too.  PBS does not geoblock its broadcasts.  Thank you, public television!

I do think that the most interesting and provocative parts were the earliest ones, where correspondent Douglas Rushkoff and Producer/Director Rachel Dretzin, broke down the reality of our distracted age -- the falling critical thinking skills of even our top students, the inability to write connected coherent paragraphs -- and the revelation that studies show that multitaskers suck at multitasking, utterly.  We all can agree that the scourge of texting while driving is bad, but it's notable and interesting to see how much our digital appendages are hurting us in other ways.

The other thing that got to me was the passage on video game addiction.  Not because of the subject itself. I've seen it, it's all rather played out for me -- but because they had this whole passage where a South Korean kid was sent to camp for a couple of weeks without the computer, and admitted that (while he seemed to be having fun) he was really thinking about getting back to the games.

I think back to my own childhood and the amount of unstructured play it contained -- running around in the woods behind my house in New City, New York, or swimming or riding bikes through the neighborhood in Orlando, or climbing trees & hide & go seek in Canada -- and I can't help but feel bad for today's kids.  I was never athletic, except for a couple years when I swam in Florida.  But in addition to bumbling my way through Little League games & Soccer -- there was just a whole lot of running around without a plan.  And I still managed to watch too damn much TV.  There's an image in the Doc of Dretzin in her kitchen cooking dinner, looking out at the living room where one son is on a laptop, her husband's on another, and the two younger kids play with her Iphone -- that's just a little bit heartbreaking.

But I should have known that with Doug involved, the balance would ultimately tip positive. And the Doc does a great job of telling that side of the story, too.  Failing schools in the Bronx that have reversed falling test scores through re-imagining the role of technology, better work environments through virtual spaces, and the continuing drive for community -- which is the part of it that fascinated me all those years ago when I was on MediaTelevision.

I write these entries quick and tend not to edit them too much, so they are usually first blurt. And sometimes that means I look back on the entries like the one I did yesterday promoting this Doc and think, "mmm, did you mean to be that negative?"   And I didn't. So I'm glad that the doc is ultimately balanced about what is gained and lost in the Digital Nation.

But the point that I made regarding the Social Media Week still stands. The worst sin of those promoting new media has always been the "throw the baby out with the bathwater" evangelism that assumes too much.  Like the fact that everyone is a great multitasker or will be, going forward.  What I took from the Doc last night was that the ubiquity of new communication tech has indeed changed us -- not always for the better. But the connections and stories we crave are still rooted in the same space.  It is, as McLuhan always maintained, evolution not revolution. One media does not replace or cannibalize another.

So I don't know where Television is going or what the thing we now think of as Television will be in a few years. But the people who insist it's going to die need to take a step back and separate the hype from the research of how people respond to creativity.

One of the most interesting things I think has come out of the digital space lately is the quiet realization that the technology can't drive it alone.  As games get more complex, game companies are starting to realize that yes, they actually do need writers to come up with stuff -- the designers can't drive the bus by themselves.

And as distractions mount and defeat us all, some of us have learned to seize back the ability to concentrate on just one thing at a time.  What is the Pomodoro technique if not that?  I've just had the three most focused days of work I've had in months -- truly exhausting days. And they were defined entirely by 25 minute countdowns where I couldn't check email or be distracted in any way, shape or form.

Anyway, Digital Nation is good brain food.  Again, everybody should watch it.

You're Not the Taskmaster You Think You Are

I HAVE SEVERE OUTLINE-head.  There is no way I'll be following LOST tonight. I wonder if that'll make it better?

But just a wee little program note to any and all of you cavorting through Social Media Week this week in Toronto...

Tonight at 9pm on PBS Frontline is a doc I think you should probably see.  A long time ago, back in my pre-writing, I like TV storytelling days, I was a producer on this forward looking, big buzzword show. I did a bunch of think tanks back in the SHIFT magazine days with a guy named Douglas Rushkoff. Great guy, wonderful writer, big enthusiast for the brave new digital world and how it was all gonna change us all and how we were going to be big old multitaskers...

In the early 1990's Rushkoff wrote regularly for Wired Magazine, and wrote books that chronicled the changing mind of the digerati.

Well tonight, he's participating in this doc, and throwing a bit of cold water. The pre-release hype for this doc has focused on one fairly salient piece of info: all that hype about everybody younger growing up being big multitaskers -- turns out to be bullshit. Not borne out by the data.  Turns out when you're doing nine things at once, you're not very good at any of those things -- no matter what your age or demo or how hip to the lingo you are.

I point this out because I think one of the articles I read about Social Media week today said something about how all the people who watch TV will be dead in a few years.

Well, jinkies, I was there the first time we started talking that foolishness. Sometimes, hype is just hype.  And for those of us watching the CaseCamp Digital Media rah rah space from the "seen it before" seats, it's all rather...twee.  I know you think that makes us all haters, and out of touch. But then again, we've been talking about this stuff since you were trying to find out where babies came from.

Watch the Doc. See what you think.  If Doug Rushkoff can come to doubt the gospel, then man, you need to check yourself, dude.  Cause once upon a time...

Humbled

YOU KNOW the more I think about it the more I think that for the rest of 2010 at least, when I watch something scripted or try to judge whatever it is I've just written, the yardstick I'm going to try to resist reaching for is, "Yeah, but is this as enjoyable as Jersey Shore?"

I know it's one month down already, but still...it is going to be one looong year.

What Kind of Cheese?

ANDREW POTTER posted this first on Macleans.ca, but I'm fairly certain that a lot of you animals don't read the news. What's particularly odd about this clip is that the woman doing the demo -- at least through the degradations of the kinescope, at first glance kinda sorta looks like my Mom. Sorta. Eh...not really.

Except, uh, see, ahh, I'm pretty sure, coming up in The Bronx, that my Mom knew how to pronounce "pizzeria" -- and knew enough not to pronounce it, "Eyetalian." I didn't move here til the 1970's, so it's nice to see that in the 50's Canada was still coming through the '20's.

From this to JWoww in just over 50 years. There's progress for you.





Gosh, I hope everyone doesn't get too filled up. We're supposed to go skurfing later.

How To Make It America

SO I SPENT most of the weekend working long days grinding out outline stuff.  When it comes to those precious few hours you get before unconsciousness, you want to spend them right.  I got lucky with a pretty great Jon Hamm-hosted SNL this weekend... but it's the other thing I wanted to really crow about.

TMN sends me promo discs for its upcoming show sometimes, and so it was that I've managed to see the first few eps of a new HBO half hour comedy series called "How To Make It In America."

The show stars Bryan Greenberg and Victor Rasuk, was created by Ian Edelman and was Directed by Julian Farino. It comes to HBO from Mark Wahlberg's production company, and there are moments where it seems like they're going to try to promote it as a kind of east coast Entourage.

But it's not. It's not even particularly a comedy, though it's pretty funny.  From the opening titles, with its bold sans serif type & chunky early 70's soul theme song, How to Make it in America is HBO's announcement that it's right back at the center of the zeitgeist as tastemaker.

Everything about this show is tremendously appealing. It's about two guys in their twenties trying to make it as entrepeneurs in the fashion world in New York. But what gets me about it is that there isn't a false note anywhere in the show.  It cooks along as the perfect of the moment show about the difficulties and disappointments of the American dream -- even hinting at the darkness underneath, that behind that facade of you can make it with hard work and grit lies worlds and clubs and secret handshakes that stack the deck against you.  It's sincere but not naive, unsentimental but not cynical.

The top-flight cast includes Martha Plimpton, Sharyn Sossamon, Kid Cudi, and Luis Guzman.

This is a show where your unreliable friend still has your best interests at heart, where your Ex-Girlfriend isn't a harridan or simply a sex object; where people who other shows categorize as the foil or the antagonist can show a redeemable side.  Every character is appealing, their stories and struggles are engrossing, and the rainbow of people you see actually reflect the reality of a 21st century urban center. The reality of daily disappointments are counteracted by friends who cancel plans just to be there for you, and cut with the sadness of people who maybe lost a little too much, maybe even their sanity -- on their way to their dreams.  I don't know where they're going with the show, but I will follow them without hesitation.

As America freaks out over the jobless recovery, this -- not Hung -- is the show that puts HBO back on the map because it's about people you care about, facing challenges of achievement and ambition that are instantly relatable.  I found myself thinking about it all day today, suffering to think that it'll be weeks before I can see a new episode.  I don't think I've been this excited or charmed by a show since Mad Men. 

How to Make it in America premieres February 14th.  Do whatever you can to see it. It's an absolute winner -- with great Direction that makes New York come alive, note perfect casting and acting -- and an easy, genuine, and sincere writing style that is just unvarnished goodness from top to bottom.

Good tv makes me happy, and this show did that in spades.

And Jesus Was a Crossmaker

GOOD OLD ALEX EPSTEIN up there in Montreal there is giving it the good fight, trying to figure out new ways to have difficult conversations.  In this case, how to communicate the old, "Uh, no, I can't polish your niece's script because it's not really a script, y'see" problem.

This is the real groanworthy stuff, and there's not a pro writer out there that doesn't have a miserable time when they find themselves taking one of those jobs because you need the money.

But why, specifically, is it such a pain in the ass?  Well, Alex takes a stab at explaining it with a nifty carpentry metaphor:

A dialog polish is like slapping paint on a cabinet or dresser. It makes it look better. But it doesn't make it work better if it's not working right. If it's not working right, you have to take the thing apart, usually all the way, and recut or replace some or all of the pieces, and then put the whole thing back together again before you paint.

Likewise, if an aspiring writer asks if I'll write with them, then the answer is almost always "no." I'll consult, or I'll do the writing myself, but I can't co-write with someone who's not a pro writer.

I find that once you start using carpentry metaphors talking to producers, they start to understand better why you can't "polish" an amateurish script, or "co-write" with an amateur. Try using this metaphor yourself, let me know how it works out.

Whole piece is worth reading; and it has a nice takeaway that may or may not work the next time you have to have an awkward conversation about doing a "polish" on something.

The Bully Pulpit & The President of the United States

WOW. YOU DON'T see this often in America. You don't even see this very often in Question Period in Ottawa -- and it's supposed to be a part of our political system in Canada. Contrast this with prorogation of government business and it looks even more notable.

It will be interesting to see how the media screws this up. But for now, here's one of the most astonishing exchanges I've seen in recent American politics. The President of the United States went to Baltimore to meet and answer questions from GOP Congressmen -- and he just spoke plain truth.

Will anybody have the guts to pick up the glove he just laid down?

Not if Rush & Bill & Michelle have anything to say about it, I'm sure. But what happens on CNN the next time somebody goes off the reservation and starts talking socialism and "death panels?"

Guess we'll see.



...At its core, if you look at the basic proposal that we've put forward: it has an exchange so that businesses and the self-employed can buy into a pool and can get bargaining power the same way big companies do; the insurance reforms that I've already discussed, making sure that there's choice and competition for those who don't have health insurance. The component parts of this thing are pretty similar to what Howard Baker, Bob Dole, and Tom Daschle proposed at the beginning of this debate last year.

Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and, certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that's not a radical bunch. But if you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot. No, I mean, that's how you guys -- (applause) -- that's how you guys presented it.

And so I'm thinking to myself, well, how is it that a plan that is pretty centrist -- no, look, I mean, I'm just saying, I know you guys disagree, but if you look at the facts of this bill, most independent observers would say this is actually what many Republicans -- is similar to what many Republicans proposed to Bill Clinton when he was doing his debate on health care.

So all I'm saying is, we've got to close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality. I'm not suggesting that we're going to agree on everything, whether it's on health care or energy or what have you, but if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don't have a lot of room to negotiate with me.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America.

And I would just say that we have to think about tone. It's not just on your side, by the way -- it's on our side, as well. This is part of what's happened in our politics, where we demonize the other side so much that when it comes to actually getting things done, it becomes tough to do...

 ...I mean, we've got to be careful about what we say about each other sometimes, because it boxes us in in ways that makes it difficult for us to work together, because our constituents start believing us. They don't know sometimes this is just politics what you guys -- or folks on my side do sometimes.

So just a tone of civility instead of slash and burn would be helpful. The problem we have sometimes is a media that responds only to slash-and-burn-style politics. You don't get a lot of credit if I say, "You know, I think Paul Ryan is a pretty sincere guy and has a beautiful family." Nobody is going to run that in the newspapers.

2040Haha

GREAT ARTICLE in Huffington Post (by Omri Marcus) about what's going to be funny in 30 years...(further to the below, I guess.)  I'm not going to excerpt because you really should go read the whole thing.  (H/T to Jill Golick via Twitter)

On the other hand, here's an article that really isn't very funny at all.  What, now, 52% of the population, and 58% of the TV audience or something?

Oh, and the delightful Jude Klassen passes along this link that goes very spicily with the article above.

What Ipad Tells Us About Writing in the Instant Age

WITHIN FIVE SECONDS of Jobs' announcement Wednesday, the jokes started flying on Twitter & the other Social Networks.


Yes. Ipad. We get it. Like with Menstruation. 


After ten minutes, just about every piece of low-hanging fruit had been picked -- multiple times -- from quips about wings and flow to musings about how clearly no women worked at Apple, etc, etc, etc.


Aside from the icky quaintness of it all (one female friend of mine sniffed, "are these people straight out of Mad Men? I've seen a pad like, twice,") I found two things monumentally numbing and depressing:  1) how quickly it all went down, and 2) how many people reached for the same, unfunny, instantly stale observations -- and how proud everybody was to make them.


The democratization of punditry sure aint pretty.


By mid-afternoon, the only joke I'd laughed at, even a bit, had grown stale -- the one about how people from Boston were going to have trouble telling the difference between the "Ipad" and the "Ipod."


Not a great line, to be sure...but at least it went a different way.


And that's where we reach our teachable moment. 


See, even in the age where everyone's potentially a publisher & a content creator, the relationship between wheat & chaff exists.  Digging up a two-year old MadTV sketch that anticipated the Ipad -- and played out every single possible funny permutation of the joke -- before it was news -- just drove the point home.


Just because we all use pens & computers, and can tweet our thoughts, doesn't make us wits ... or, for that matter, writers.


Even in abundance, there is scarcity. For the scarcity comes from those who can make truly original observations about things -- be they events, or trends, or even just the reality of life.  In the dark days of the 1980's, when comedy clubs with red brick walls sprung up like kudzu all across North America, the very embodiment of the lame, hack comedian was doing jokes about airplane food. 


Flash ahead to 2010, and you don't need to have your tray table locked and upright to see that true wit, or an original take -- isn't really any more common than it used to be.


Lame Ipad jokes will always die beside fresher comic takes, like this one from The Onion on Apple Mania.


The comics I worshipped in my youth -- George Carlin, Richard Pryor -- got to where they were because they made the connections no one else made.  Someone once described George Carlin as the guy who pointed out stuff you already knew, but forgot to laugh at the first time.


Now, comedy burns out fast sometimes.  Anyone watching an archived Lenny Bruce set might have trouble getting their head around why he was so groundbreaking. He doesn't even seem funny.  Steve Allen is another one.  I can appreciate contextually why he was so important, but time has not been kind to his routines.


Then you look at a guy like, say, Michael O'Donaghue or Bill Hicks, and you think, "wow, I'm not sure society's ready for those guys even now."


I found sitting on my ON DEMAND channel a couple of days ago, a 2006 special from Louis C.K.  And he has routines about his four year old kid, where he calls her an asshole for being so selfish. And it's terrible and it's wonderful, and it's laugh out loud funny because it's just so original and fresh a take.


And as a writer, that's what your "brand" is. That's what you get paid for.  Your "take."


Now, from Dane Cook on down, there's any number of examples that prove that there's plenty that get somewhere without that original a take; but the writers were the ones looking at the low-hanging fruit in those immediate post-Ipad announcement moments and thinking, "uh...no. Not funny...lame."


(What's more, one of the more interesting conversations I had on Wednesday afternoon was actually quite meta, about how Twitter's 140 character limitation actually encourages the hacky-joke rhythms of an earlier time.  Thanks to @julie_bush and @weinmanj for that. Although there are still some writer friends who consistently make me laugh on Twitter. And no, I'm not saying who.)

Civilians will often get quite shirty when you point out that the idea they just expressed is lame, or not very original. (Which of course you don't do unless they make a deal of it. Psychic self-preservation demands they be the asshole, not you.)  Writers do so in a much lower percentage, because there's always a gut-check going on, an internal voice asking, "is this lame?"


One of the best pieces of advice I ever received about identifying and eliminating cliché was this: "Do you find yourself asking, "Is this a cliché?" Then strip it out. It's a cliché."


The second guesser's version of this, of course, is plugging a line you've just written into the Google.  Less than three hits?  Congratulations -- your line may not be funny, but it's at least fairly original.  Ten thousand hits?  Wow? Really?  Did I just say that out loud?  Wow, that went well. I guess you better talk to the hand, then.


So for the thousands of people who are funny at parties, to the cab drivers who have great ideas for movies, to so and so who causes you to smile tightly at a party when they joke, "you gotta watch this one, they're writing everything we say down," thanks for the reminder that the struggle to mine from a different place, to offer something new and different and not a retread of what everybody's already thinking, is not a vain pursuit.  Well that's not exactly true. It's pretty vain.  One of the raps that writers get is that we can be elitist.  To which the only possible answer is, "OF COURSE we are elitist. We actually think you should listen to what we say! We make money off our thoughts."


In an age of ubiquity, I guess it's just kind of nice to remember that it's not so easy to join that club. 


Especially since, for most of the writers I know, it was back to self-loathing by Five P.M. Wednesday, anyway.


Now where's my Ipad?