Today's A Day to Check Your Bucket

AS MY FRIEND Andrew Toth reminds me, it's not all about TV sturm and drang and wha. Sometimes, in life, we must pause. We must pause for the passing of the funk. Eddie Bo, Rest in Peace.

Don't know the name? Don't matter. It also strikes me in these times that one of Bo's signature tunes sounds downright prescient.

We are very sad to learn that pianist Eddie Bo, one of New Orleans' greatest and most beloved performers, passed on Wednesday, March 18 at the age of 79.

His legacy is profound, and he was considered the last of the "junker"-style pianists, fusing jazz, R&B, funk, soul, and blues seasoned with New Orleans flavor.


Eddie Bo (Edwin Bocage to his mama) is one of the most important ­ and least known ­ of the great funksters of the 60's and 70's. His recording career, stretching from the mid-50's on started out in New Orleans R&B like "Twinkle Toes" and "Check Mr. Popeye" and moved on, in the mid-60's to some of the grooviest soul and funk made in New Orleans, or anywhere else for that matter. While he made plenty of his own records ­ among them the mighty and legendary "Hook & Sling Pts 1&2" which was a minor national hit in 1969 ­ he was also a major producer, arranger and collaborator on scores of other records. His importance to the New Orleans scene can not be overestimated.

The fact that he wasn't better known nationally is a crime, and probably due in large part to the fact that most of his records were made for small independent labels like Scram, Seven B, and Bo Sound. Some of his best stuff did see national distribution but with the exception of "Hook & Sling" and "Check Your Bucket" not many got anywhere near the charts outside of the Big Easy.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure my bucket's got a hole in it.

What Did You Expect?

WELL BY NOW you've seen it. It's a pretty odious piece of tape. FOX News Types mocking the commitment of Canada's military in Afghanistan -- in a week when 4 more soldiers came home in body bags. Body bags that we weep, and watch on our screens, and silently line up on overpasses on the Highway of Heroes to bear witness to, as the hearses rumble beneath -- not hide under cover of darkness, unquestioning and unreported, yet somehow "fair and balanced."

On the show, Gutfeld mocked comments from Canada’s commander of land forces, Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, who said on March 10 that the military would need a year to recover from its Afghan deployment because of the wear and tear on its equipment and personnel.

Gutfeld suggested the Canadian military would use the year to "do some yoga, paint some landscapes and run on the beach."

"Isn’t this the perfect time to invade this ridiculous country," Gutfeld continued. "They have no army."

"I didn’t even know they were in the war," said Benson, a panelist on the show. "I thought that’s where you go if you don’t want to fight."

"It's a comedy show." "Oh, it wasn't serious." Mmm. Hmm. Imagine if a foreign program had made the same jokes coinciding with the death of an American soldier in Iraq, or Afghanistan. FOX News would take that in stride too, right? No? Well, then...How could they be so cavalier, so terrible, so awful, so downright inhuman? Is there no sense of decency there, at long last?

And my answer to you is, "what did you expect?"

The United States is many things. But at its best, and worst -- it has always been an insular nation. It has the collective ego and force of populus and prosperity to look inward first, and mesmerized by what it sees, it rarely finds the time to turn the gaze outward. Americans, shocked to the core by the attacks of 9/11, woke up and asked, "why did this happen to us?" and
"Why do you hate us so?"

And the world scratched its head and said, "You mean you really don't know?"
On every blog, every Canadian news site, every posting where there's false breast beating and crocodile tears now, I wish you'd remind the right wing, sad neocon trolls that this is the fruit they asked for -- every time they mocked and derided their own artists, and writers, and reporters, and storytellers. So desperate they were to be approved of, to be liked, to show that -- far from being Anti-American -- they loved America as much as Americans did!

The pure, unvarnished, terrible, awful truth? You want it? Really? Here goes.

You're not American.

It doesn't matter how much FOX News you watch, or how you ape and applaud George W. Bush or Cheney, or how you beat your chest when PM Harper plays from the Karl Rove book. You are not American, and you never will be American, though you eschew any cultural product from your home save the occasional hockey game; though you whinge and look down on your national broadcaster and rush headlong to embrace the programming arm of that same news channel that spits on your war dead...you will never make up for the truth that is this: you are not American and they do not care about you.

Your lives, literally, are not worth as much as American lives. That is why they could mock so easily on Faux News. You are not worth thinking about. You are ... the other. That's why they could make fun of Canada's sacrifice...because it's not theirs. You are foreign. You are separate.

I want you to remember that, and think on that the next time you type about the programs that "no one wants to watch." I want you to remember that when American audiences turn on the influx of Canadian made shows popping up on their airwaves and reject them because "they're not about us." I want you to remember that the next time Canadians need to know something about how their parliamentary democracy works and doesn't know because their TV is too full of Law & Order cops reciting MIRANDA rights that your citizens could not claim. Remember it the next time someone is turned away from the border for "taking an American's job," even though that's not what's going on. Remember that the next time someone makes fun of what's close to the bone for you.

Don't expect them to care. They are not you. And you most certainly are not them.

I love my American roots, but it does make for a divided self. And I rage when something like this happens because I see the bloody connection that leads straight from the horror of seeing the deaths of your soldiers belittled to having to beg to get your stories on the air beside that third rate, warmed over U.S. procedural that nobody asked for.
Stop the crocodile tears. This is the culture you made. You made it when you gave your country's airwaves away. Now live with it.

Or, having done so much to sneer and belittle and mock those who'd tell the stories of your people, who'd maybe show the heroic side of those fallen from Afghanistan if you gave them half the chance, repent. Repent not for the silly, low stakes idea of Canadian TV and cultural sovereignty. Repent instead for the mothers and families who had to endure hearing that on the day of inconceivable sacrifice, a U.S. News channel chose to make fun of them.

Repent, shut your mouth, and haul your ass out to that overpass. Your airwaves are gone and colonized for good. Your local stations are soon to follow. Your national broadcaster is bloody and crumbling.

Get thee to an overpass and repent in silence. It's the least you can do for young people braver than you. Better than you.

Repent. And think of how those families' stories shall be told. Because FOX NEWS, or NBC, or CBS, or ABC or DISNEY isn't going to do it for you.

And the next time some fucktard sounds off in the comments section about the waste of money to the CBC and how the arts is a luxury and doesn't matter, remember how you felt when you heard them laughing at the sacrifice of your honoured dead.

The Nasty Spat

THE DAILY BEAST is full of the juicy internecine Hollywood-warfare battle between old privileged establishment media and newfangled web-based media.

Peter Bart vs. Nikki Finke -- go read it at the Beast.

There may be a great deal of validity in Variety’s discussion of blogging in general and Finke in particular. But she is largely inoculated by the simple phrase, “consider the source.” Variety’s Bart—who obviously ordered up this assault—would be in a far better position if he were not guilty of two cardinal sins: transparently carrying the studios’ water on many occasions and ceding so much of the turf of real news coverage that there was plenty of soil in which a blogger with Finke’s news chops and outsized personality could take root.

Finke is truly a larger-than-life figure in Hollywood, a place thickly populated with big personalities. The former debutante is much discussed but rarely seen; no photograph of recent vintage has found its way onto the Internet. She is accused of being many unpleasant things: shrill, vindictive, self-promoting and more. But what can’t be disputed is that she has broken some important news, notably NBC-Universal’s hiring of Ben Silverman to run the network and more recently, the fact that Peter Chernin was leaving his job as Rupert Murdoch’s number-two man at News Corp.

Thanks in part to a loyal cadre sources and to the enormous vacuum she filled during the writers’ strike, Finke’s column has become a must-read in Hollywood. And clearly, Variety’s Bart cannot take it any more.

Bart's weirdo weekend Variety column.

More piling on.

And the Finke, the whole Finke, and nothing but the Finke.

For my part, I have to say, that it's clear Variety still has no idea how much it hurt its credibility by being so in the tank for the congloms during the WGA strike.

Note to dead tree media: the whole populist anger against big business thing is growing... if EVER there was a time to not be shackled to the old elites, it's now. Finke's gone from 'whodat?' to first read in a startlingly small amount of time. You can ask why, or you can......oh, right, okay, you can write hit pieces in your increasingly irrelevant rag. Right. Choice made. Next!

EDIT: Finke responds. Oooh. Did Variety really try to BUY DHD? This looks uglier with every passing second.

Special Pleading and the World of Canadian TV

THERE'S A FALLACY of argumentation that's known as "special pleading." It's a tricky one, and it takes many forms, but the basic definition of special pleading comes down to this:

A presentation of an argument that emphasizes only a favorable or single aspect of the question at issue.

"Special Pleading" is often offered up as a way to try to deflect or change the subject, rather than rationally or coldly examine the issue at hand with logic and a full examination of the facts. As a tactic, it's as old as the hills. But there's something about our age that, far as I can tell, has lead to the spreading of Special Pleading like kudzu.

First, you remove the control rods. For all the faults of contemporary journalism, the way it's supposed to have gone for the last few decades is that you don't take sides. You try to maintain neutrality and present both sides.

That sort of fell by the wayside in the last few years, as the rise of talk radio, and the internet, too, made it OK to retreat into eddies and cul-de-sacs where only one view was ever expressed. When people talk about the death of civility in politics, I think a lot of the time what they're reacting to is the rise in the unchallenged tactic of special pleading.

Sometimes special pleading takes the form of trying to frame the argument in such a way that refutation is impossible, or meets such an impossible standard of proof that there's no way back.

"You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists," is an example of this kind of thinking. Now, simple logic should tell you that there's a whole lot of daylight between these two extremes, but when a top government official maintains that this statement is so, the premise of the argument is so extreme that, if enough people accept it, it becomes a powerful disincentive to explore or challenge the premise. Similarly, "if you don't support the war in Iraq, you are against the troops." This is classic special pleading. There is no burden of proof with which you could refute that argument to someone who believes it.

Part of the reason why "Special Pleading" arguments are so hard to crack, and people who believe them so hard to reach, is because of the built in walls that deliberately shut out any of the avenues of logical debate. If someone says, "You can't judge cops' behavior in the course of their duties unless you've been a cop, because you don't know what it's like," there's no way to counter that argument.

Of course, the problem with arguments that rely on Special Pleading is that their very insularity almost guarantee that there can be no fresh thinking or data, or news, or reality that permeate and change that thinking.

Now, as is my cant (and by dint, I would say, of the current historical moment) the examples I use above come mostly from the left or liberal side of the political spectrum. But I don't mean to suggest that arguments of special pleading are the exclusive province of the right. I find myself frustrated with people I agree with politically all the time, when I hear them utilizing arguments that amount to Special Pleading. If I can't immediately conjure up lefty arguments of special pleading, maybe it's because they fit so nicely into one of the political right's other fave argument tactics of the last few years, the "appeal to authority." But that's getting off on another horse...

The basic rule that's violated in argumentation by special pleading is this principle in philosophy: if you claim a distinction, there should be a relevant and substantive basis for making that distinction. It should be verifiable. When something is not verifiable, because "access to the truth" is claimed by one group, or you ignore any evidence that doesn't support your claim, the way forward is nearly impossible.

So, for instance, claiming that any criticism of Israel's actions in the Palestinian Territories or Gaza comes from a place of anti-semitism -- should be something that is verifiable. If youcan't verify it, then besides being slanderous, it's a form of special pleading.

Special Pleading is ripe now for all sorts of reasons -- one of the big ones being the fact that the internet tends to flatten out facts and truth. At first glance, it may be difficult to tell whether someone's making sense, or is some sort of loon.

I think everybody in the Canadian broadcasting firmament should keep special pleading in mind this week. We're going to be entering a very interesting time.

We have a Conservative Heritage Minister, James Moore, who is very much of the opinion that the CBC should be forced to compete more, and should "live within its means." He doesn't think that it should compete with the Private Networks for advertising or for programming.

There's plenty of people who agree with him, both Inside the CBC and out. They will make all sorts of arguments that the CBC has lost its way, is now chasing ratings, betraying its foundations by not having a service that plays classical music, etc. This ignores the fact that a few short years ago the main argument used against CBC Television was that no one was watching. Now ratings are up, but it's still not good enough.

A full examination of the CBC 's mandate and what would need be done to rationalize it for the 21st century would probably be healthy. In fact, there's been plenty of those studies made in the past. Most of them have been ignored by governments of the day because they usually seem to suggest that the CBC is being asked to do too much with too little. No one wants to take on the politically difficult task of whittling down that mandate, and nobody wants to own up to funding it at a level where it can accomplish everything you're asking it to do.

When you see huge articles about the layoffs at CBC this week -- for they are coming -- I want you to ask yourself if you're hearing all sides of the argument, or if there's a bit of special pleading going on.

The other fascinating thing that's going on in the cultural sector is that the Private Networks,Global and CTV, are agitating heavily for relief from their obligations, blaming the economy and a broken business model. The Heritage Minister has indicated that he's amenable to these arguments. How will that relief come? Carriage fees? Direct investment? I have no idea. But when the news comes down, you owe it to yourself to see if you're getting the full picture of what is going on.

Canadians pay 34 dollars a year for the CBC. Free market types use a type of "special pleading" when they talk about how the CBC has all these advantages and doesn't "compete" like the private networks do. But what does that actually mean? After all, Kirstine Leyfield, the CBC Executive, unearthed a fairly interesting Nordcity study in an op ed she published in the National Post this weekend.

So the CBC competes with private broadcasters. But what is a private broadcaster in Canada anyway?

Nordicity, an independent firm specializing in broadcasting, valued the federal regulations that provide private broadcasters with the right to substitute U.S. content at between $270-million and $330-million. Other provincial and federal government subsidies such as tax credits and the Canadian Television Fund add another $165-million in cash support to the privates. Canada, in short, has a heavily subsidized media industry in which private companies compete for public money, and the CBC, in turn, competes for advertising dollars.

When viewed in that light, suddenly the framing of the argument changes. James Moore is talking about offering relief to the private broadcasters -- who already receive substantialpublic investment. By what token, then, can he entertain that notion, but slam shut the very same considerations for the CBC? Special Pleading.

Here's another case of Special Pleading at work, broadcasting style: and this one hits a bit closer to home. I've mentioned a few times lately that the level of flak I've gotten has risen. Along with the flak there's been plenty of contradictory statements made. I've been told by people that I can't stop blogging because too many people read what I read and nobody else says what I say. I've also been told by people that they could never do what I do. We've seen anonymous letters go around in the last week about the Canada Media Fund that are extremely alarmist, and based in no fact whatsoever. Yet producers won't speak up. ACTRAspeaks up, God love'em, they always do, and not always wisely, but what I hear everywhere I go is that somehow what I do, nobody else could do because they have too much to lose.

This is the very essence of Special Pleading at work. Cause I'm going to tell you this right now: I aint special. I read about what's going on in the industry. I talk to people. I say things on this blog and sometimes I have to walk 'em back. I'm also, essentially, a self-employed freelancer. So you would think that if anybody had something to lose by sticking a head up and saying something about the industry, it's me.

And yet....my phone still rings. I'm getting jobs. I'm busy. I'm not a pariah.

Now, either that means I must be the most talented sonofabitch who ever lived and worked in Canada, or the whole idea that you can't speak up and add your voice to the debate in this industry is a bunch of bullshit. A copout. An appeal to special pleading.

I'm gonna pull the pin out here. I am not the most talented sonofabitch who ever lived and worked in Canada. In fact, I dare say that I've ate and drank and spent time with several people I think are way more talented than me in the last five days alone.

On Friday night, a group of writers gathered together, and one of the people in the group had a very heartfelt thing to say. He told me that it wasn't that he was scared to say something -- it was that he felt overwhelmed. He didn't know what it was possible for him to do.

Well, I think that's a fair proposition. It's so easy to feel helpless, and like you can't do anything. I know what that's like.

The next few weeks are going to be crucial for the direction of the industry. So what can you do, you yourself, without any power?

You can read the coverage. You can be that reality check and make sure that both sides of the argument are getting told. If they're not, you can write a letter to the editor. (#1 thing you can do.)

In your groups of friends and relatives, when you hear the cant about how the CBC should live within its means, and how the private broadcasters need relief -- you can speak up and ask people to examine their feelings about that. What do they really mean? What assumptions do they make? What do they get from the CBC? What do they get from the private networks? What does each cost them? What does each give back? Make sure all sides are represented and discussed. If the broadcasters are offered relief, what should they be required to give back? And do we accept their assurances that this is an unmitigated disaster at face value? Once you give up something, it's very difficult to get it back. Don't allow the arguments to descend to Special Pleading. You have a right to question whether these companies deserve relief. Broadcasting is a public trust. That's the way it's supposed to be, anyway. (#2 thing you can do.)

Pay attention to the Heritage Committee, who will be holding hearings on changes to the TV landscape in a few weeks. This is the process that got the odious provisions of Bill C10 stripped out last year. There is power in the process. Write a letter. Keep informed. Do not leave it to someone else to do. (#3 thing you can do.)

You can forge a relationship with your constituency office, and your MP. Sooner or later there is going to be an election. And culture will be just as unlikely an issue this time as it was last time. Introduce yourself as a constituent and a taxpayer. Get them thinking of you as a worker, as a taxpayer, and not as that boogeyman living high off the hog on the government dime, going to galas. (#4 thing you can do.)

If that little voice of yours has been silent for this time, up til now, then I'm afraid to tell you that you have now lost that luxury. The changes that are going down now are real, they are systemic, they are major, and they will decide whether you have a job within five years. All the special pleading you've done up to now to justify not raising your voice? It's over.

It really is now...or it's never. And then all that safety-silence will have bought you out of the industry, anyhoo. Welcome to the endgame, cutlets.

Pushing Links

REGULAR BLOGGING here resumes, hopefully, tomorrow. We'll see, anyway. But for today here's a few thoughtful links for you from the NYTimes.

Bill Carter has a reflective and interesting retrospective of E.R.

IN the long tradition of cultural touchstones forged from ignored or rejected television scripts, the story of “ER” stands out. “Every network had passed on it, twice,” John Wells, the show’s original and longtime executive producer, recalled. “It had all these characters and medical dialogue, and they found it utterly impossible to follow.”

At the time — the early 1990s — “ER” was labeled a “trunk job,” a script that had languished in some forgotten slush pile for years. And indeed it had, somewhere in the dark reaches of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment production company. Written in 1974 by Michael Crichton, who died last year, the original version of the show included a scene in which a few doctors, working in a Boston hospital, were listening to a basketball game with Bill Bradley playing for the Knicks and Tommy Heinsohn playing for the Celtics.

Then, in 1993, the project attracted new interest when the Warner Brothers studio, which had gained the rights, began pitching the series anew, using Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Crichton as inducement. (The two had just collaborated on the enormously successful “Jurassic Park.”) After an initial round of rejections, NBC — given the big names attached — reluctantly agreed to produce a pilot and put it on the schedule.

In hindsight the early doubters, as they often do, missed a transitional moment in television history — not to mention a blockbuster hit. In the mid-1990s “ER” attracted more than 30 million viewers a week, at its very peak in 1998, 47.8 million. By comparison today’s most-watched dramas rarely reach 20 million viewers. It was the most-watched show in television for three seasons, and even now remains the second-most-watched drama on NBC (after “Law & Order: SVU”).

Tired of hearing about Apatown? That cabal of Rogen and Apatow and Paul Rudd et al. What about this portrait of Diablo Cody and the distaff side. I thought this group profile was really sweet. Nice to see writers supporting each other. Apparently it is actually, like, you know, possible.

And then there was this essay that I just think is a lovely piece of writing, and a wonderful character study. Surprising right til the end, like any good story.

Beyond that, Frak!

...but that's another story for another time.

EDIT: Oh, and Henshaw's got a video that's just going to make your life a little bit better.

Don't Get Used To Me, Babe

IT WOULD BE FALSE advertising to say that I was back. I'm not. Not really.

Things are just too weird right now.

Professionally, I've been kind of like a tank that threw a tread over the last week. Every page, every line seemed hard-fought, til the clouds mercilessly cleared the other day and I was able to start producing at my normal levels.

But besides that, there's a whole bunch of stuff going on out there on the hustings that's just downright weird It makes me uneasy and tense, like the man to my left here.

First of all, let's talk about this guy. I thought we were done with him. Weren't we? No more trampling the constitution and shooting people in the face with the torn up remnants. But no. It's weird. Suddenly he's back.

He's back saying the same kinds of unhelpful, crummy, yesterdays proven-bad strategy thanks-for-driving-us-all-into the toilet trash that we put up with for eight years. And he's getting play on it. Actual play. Not only that, but when the Press Secretary calls him out on it, all these reporters get puffy because they think he's being disrespectful.

To Dick. " Go Fuck Yourself." Cheney.

Who DEFINITELY suborned the U.S. Constitution, engaged in criminal acts, and maybe committed WAR CRIMES. Like I said ... weird.

And then there's the AIG bonus thing. I mean, c'mon. People are at full boil and then the story about all the bonuses breaks, and AIG's spin, about it being to retain the geniuses who sunk the company in the first place doesn't even last a day til somebody figures out that many of the people who got the huge bonuses aren't even with the company. And then some Republican dude comes out and says that the AIG guys are without honor and should kill themselves.

That's Weird. Isn't it? I mean, really. I can't figure out if he's trying to reference the honorable ways of the Japanese, or the Klingons.

Meanwhile, an honest to God socialist has to write an Op-Ed piece to explain why President Obama isn't, you know, like him.

And then Sci-Fi says it's going to be all hip and great and stuff and rebrand as....SyFy. Really?

Is that weird, or just pathetic? I don't know. I think I'm starting to lose the plot, here.

Meanwhile, up here in Clowntown, there are much sturm-y and drang-y emails flying about regarding the newly formed Canada Media Fund, and how it's the end of everything. There are no details....won't be for a while, but it's the end of the world, you see.

Only...as usual when the end of the world comes to the Canadian TV industry, nobody has the balls to go on the record about it.

Yessir. Weird.

It's weird that the CRTC dudes are being hauled before the Heritage Committee to talk about the implosion of Local TV. It's weird that I've heard from about six people today that apparently CBC has frozen all checks for 45 days. It's weird that Canwest Global might not be around by the time their license renewals start.

It's really weird that the Heritage Minister, who if you believe the whispers, (they're always whispers, nobody acutally SAYS anything, remember...) is a lot more forthcoming about his disdain for the CBC in private than in public, seems to have gotten himself into a war of words with Alex Trebek. Is it just me? Is that not weird? Anybody? Bueller?

It's weird that at the time when Canadian homegrown drama is having its most success, its future seems less secure than ever.

It's weird that CBC is fighting an endless culture war between the Priggish Giller-Culturecrat crowd who's generally run things cultural in this fine nation and the philistine forces who have the temerity to think that maybe they should try to get people under the age of 60 to watch.

It's weird that anybody thinks that commercials on CBC Radio would be the end of the world.

It's weird that people who trade in stories and words won't express themselves or stand up for themselves, even though writers have the most to lose if things change too much. (Unlike Actors and Directors and Crew who can get service work, and CFTPA producers who can do lifestyle and reality, writers in this country only get to work on shows that are Canadian, through and through.)

It's weird that the Canadian public don't realize that they get nothing from the Canadian private networks, for the most part, except what they already get from the U.S. networks, and that they're OK with that.

It's weird that Conservatives here sound like Republicans in the USA from 2001 or 2002. It makes me think maybe there is some sort of temporal disturbance somewhere out there on the Prairies.

It's weird that I managed to start work at 3:30 this morning after getting a grand total of 9o minutes sleep, and yet powered through my insomnia to finish a script, and yet I'm not dead tired.

It's weird, you see. Or can it be...just me?

Mostly, it's weird just...how nasty it is out there. People are mad. People are scared. You can't say anything without getting snarked at. The crazies in my email box, and the rude and snarky jerkowads have increased by a factor of 2.

I don't know how to tune a message to an industry where all the things that need to be said aren't getting said, and everyone thinks someone else should be saying them. Where nobody seems to be willing to put their money where their mouth is. And writers won't speak up for themselves but will go behind backs to take offense at the most innocuous shit in the world, from someone who spends an inordinate amount of time trying to big up the very subjects that will directly benefit them.

And where the biggest discussions and decisions about the future of the industry tick closer, ever closer, and nobody seems to be talking about the real issues.

It's so weird, that I'm no longer sure I know what to write here. I don't know what to say, anymore. Maybe I've finally gotten beat. Maybe it's easier and safer to say nothing of consequence.

Maybe it's time to just keep your head down and work like a good little short poppy.

Weird.

I'll be back when I can be, chickens, but don't hold your breath. I know the good Doctor said that when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. But I'm already pro. And I don't know where to go from here.

Where I Shove a Bunch of Links At You

STILL THE SAME. But out on the hustings, others are rumbling.

Jim Henshaw post another eye opener at his digs.

Had the virtue of getting down with a bunch of writers at the Paddock on Friday, and what struck me about all of them was that none of them were snobs, but almost none of them were currently in charge of the shows they were doing. Change comes so slowly. Writers should be clear-eyed realists about their work, and dew eyed optimists about telling stories. It's a privilege. And the minute you get an attitude about your craft or yourself, you're a liability.

If you need something TeeVee to be intrigued by this evening, may I suggest Kings?

And the Globe & Mail this weekend had an article about "The Flashpoint Effect." Or something.

Now I have to do something about the 'slave to the keyboard' effect.

Welcome Birders

I'M PROFOUNDLY IMPRESSED by the recent traffic I'm getting from Chris Bird. But that still doesn't help me with my first draft. Lots of stuff to talk about. Maybe that's the problem. It's going to be a few days yet.

Gone Fishing

I'M TIRED. I HAVE lots and lots of work to do.

And I'm tired of all the pettiness. I really am.

Gone fishin till I'm through the weeds. At least.

Tale of the Tape

GREATEST MOMENT in comedy? Maybe not. But what's interesting is that it plays pretty much like every other one of those sketches. And before you fuckers start with the wingnut "Greg is an alien the laughs are sweetened" shit....they're not.

I think there's a lesson here. Your mileage might vary. There's a lot of that these days.

22 Yoo-hoo

BILL BRIOUX does some nice work contextualizing the Geri Hall 22 Minutes imbroglio, which I took on here, over at his digs, TV Feeds My Family.

Farrell sent her to Queen`s Park at the invitation of the Queen`s Park Press Gallery, who suggested McGuinty needed tweaking about his self imposed five foot personal space limit. The local press wags even offered to keep her hidden until it was time to pounce. She waited for a signal that the session was about to wrap, which she always does. She did her ambush thing, and McGuinty was appropriately awkward. Mission accomplished.

Except NDP MLA and former Sunshine Boy Peter Kormos went ballistic, spinning the comedy ambush into some sort of assault on working people in Ontario. `Get the hell out of here!`he brayed, bringing the encounter to an end.

It all got posted at thestar.com and other places, packaged as a CP video hit. Hall`s crime was that her intrusion took place as McGuinty was speaking to job losses at Stelco in Hamilton and Nanticoke, which definitely is no laughing matter. But this was at the end of the session and this wasn`t the joke Hall or 22 Minutes were ever going to tell.

Still, Hall was quickly tried and convicted, guilty of bad timing. Too bad Kormos never dared to pick on Mary Walsh in all her Marg Delehunty thunder. She would have cut him in half.

I'm still surprised by the amount of vitriol this generated, and how out of hand the whole thing seemed. You know, it adds to my unease generally about news spin, as I've got to say that every news story I've ever had first hand knowledge of has seemed like a massive distorto-fest -- no matter how I was involved -- as an observer, journo, bystander, or participant.

I didn't make too much of this in the other piece I wrote, well, mainly because I was into my own froth about journalists and the Parliamentary Press Corps (which, I now have to say, looks like it was hyperbolic over-reaction in the other direction, in light of Brioux's subsequent reporting. Note to Queen's Park press gallery: Daddy is sorry. [more of a retraction than you'll get at some places. Oh, I kid. I kid because I love.])

Then again, those news organizations did run with the...no, no, no, no, no, Daddy is sorry. Sorry.

But baby, why you make Daddy so mad?

Anyway, having done that kind of producing work for years and years, the least convincing argument I heard from people was, "look at the footage. she bombed."

I've seen about, oh, 5000 hours of raw footage in my time. It always sucks. Part of what I used to be paid for was to make it awesome. It's part of the gig. Also, I think it's awesome that Brioux goes for it and makes the point that I almost made and pulled back from: you would have never pulled that shit on Mary Walsh. Mary Walsh would have taken Peter Kormos downtown and dropped him in the drink, bad back or no.

I heard from a number of people quite close to the show in the aftermath, but didn't feel like quoting or getting into that game, since this isn't a journalism blog, and I'm not really a journalist. I'm glad a real journalist tracked down one of the nicest guys in Canadian show business, 22 Minutes Executive Producer Mark Farrell, for their side of the story.

But I'm also glad Mark didn't talk to me because he (being aforementioned nicest guy in show business) would probably not want me to end by reiterating the following point:

Peter Kormos is a giant douche.

I'd forgotten he was a Sunshine Boy. Goof.

Minister of Heritage Visits Flashpoint Set.

There's very little point of speculating about what will really happen down the road with this Canada Media Fund, because none of the details seem to be worked out.

The major changes are that the Board will change -- now the BDU's will get to appoint who sits on the board.

This is not a bunch of new money. It's the same money -- CTF plus Canada New Media Fund money rolled into one.

Plus, the loss of a guaranteed CBC envelope may not be the disaster it first seems, either. The fund envelopes will be based on performance, but the CBC will be in a strong position, supposedly, because they run more original programs, longer orders, less repeats, etc.

Bottom line:

Heritage's decision is better than the cockamamie two-fund solution proposed by the CRTC.

In the current climate, that's the biggest win you could probably hope for. It remains to be seen how the details will work out -- it's definitely a big reward for the BDU's, but there you go.

The Minister came, he toured, he talked to the writers. Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern, Flashpoint's co-creators, were engaging, and the actors joked around with the Minister, too.

WGC's press release on the visit is available here.

EDIT: An earlier version of this post apparently mischaracterized elements of the Flashpoint tour by the Minister. The Management regrets the error and has dutifully redacted all colour from the post.

Tweet Tweet, Flash, Burn, Bury, TweetBLAM, Feathers,

WELL, LET'S DO it this way, then. (Damn you, Freedom! I didn't launch you fast enough!)

There'll be more later, but for now, here's your announcement by Heritage Minister James Moore from the Flashpoint set, via Twitter. (@Flashpoint_TV)

1. 310 million over two years1 minute ago from TwitterBerry
2. Cbc guaranteed envelope removed6 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
3. Ctf consolidated with new media april 2010 to create new media fund of 310 million7 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
4. A level playing field. In house production allowed. No guaranteed envelopes. Ctf will operate seperately this year8 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
5. Commitment to canadian artists8 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
6. Support programs that canadians watch on prime time and all mobile devices9 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
7. Support production in new media and emerging platforms9 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
8. A new board of appointeers to manage the fund made up of nominations by the government and by the largest contributrs10 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
9. New canada media fund11 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
10. Government recognizing new media in culture12 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
11. Heritage Minister James Moore to visit Flashpoint and make announcement this morning. Will try and live-twitter updates.about 4 hours ago from web

Whee.

NOW, I'm unplugging.

Talking 'Can't Make The Business Model Work Cause We Paid Attention to the Wrong Crap' Blues

IT'S NOT LIKE Canadian media companies were alone in this -- remember how AOL TIME WARNER was going to do everything cause of "synergy?" Riiight. But U.S. media companies also invested heavily in Content by becoming their own TV studios: FOX now feeds FOX and F/X, NBC Universal, ABC Studios and CBS Productions also pump product.

I don't know Angelo Persachilli, but I do find it a little shameful that it's an op-ed columnist who puts forth the clearest explanation of Canadian broadcasting's woes. Then again, with the concentration at work in the Canadian media, maybe it's not so unusual.

To understand the problems broadcasting is experiencing it helps to compare it with the changes that took place 30 years ago in the computer industry.

At that time, the market was controlled by IBM, the corporate leader in producing hardware. In a few years, however, everybody was able to build computers and IBM became only one of several manufacturers. Then Bill Gates came along and software took over the industry.

The same has happened with broadcasting. Thirty years ago, the sector was controlled by the companies that owned the medium through radio or TV broadcasting licences. Then something happened. New technology – fibre-optic cable and satellites – came along and viewers were flooded with hundreds of channels, many from abroad, mainly from the United States. The sudden abundance of channels (hardware) and shortage of programs (software) changed the game. Quality content became the dividing line between success and failure.

Unfortunately – and contrary to what Gates did – broadcasters ignored the software, meaning programs, and tried to maintain their control of the industry by buying new channels and asking the CRTC for more. Imagine IBM trying to control the computer industry by buying clone computer makers and leaving the opportunity to fill them with content to others – that's what it was like.

Private Canadian broadcasters (the CBC is in a different category because of public financing and unique regulatory demands) increased their capacity to broadcast but reduced their ability to fill their outlets with quality Canadian-produced programs. They looked for easy profit by flooding Canada with American-produced shows and got around the CRTC's Canadian content requirements by airing cheaply produced ethnic programs and repeats of Canadian-produced shows to the point that viewers have memorized them.

But new technology allows us to bypass their stations and watch programs directly on foreign channels. It's the same with ethnic programs. There are so many channels from around the world broadcasting quality programs in every language that Canadian production, aside from some newscasts, is useless.

Broadcasters didn't invest heavily in production because, they say, we can't compete with American companies whose audience is 10 times bigger than ours. In this lame defence is concentrated the core of the problems affecting our broadcasters: They ignored the fact that new technology long ago crashed geographic barriers, and they have always seen the 300-million-strong American market as a threat rather than an opportunity. We speak the same language, after all.

Instead, the broadcasters cocooned themselves inside Canada's borders and chose the easy way out, asking the CRTC to tax their viewers while buying more American programs. They complained that their over-the-air channels were less profitable than specialty cable channels and asked for permission to charge a fee to cable companies carrying their programs. Why not improve the quality of their programs to woo viewers back from the specialty channels? Because they own most of the specialty channels and would have been competing against themselves. So instead of improving quality, they sought to subsidize their over-the-air channels by charging viewers for programs they don't watch. This request, denied by the CRTC, came last year when the economy was booming. I'm sure they will try again, this time blaming the recession for their problems.

In fact, you could argue that the conventional broadcasters are doubling down on their bad strategy right now. How? They're trying to get out of local news. It would be funny if it weren't so sad. Hey CRTC, are you listen...never mind, they're not. We know that already.

Meanwhile, later today, if my information holds up, another cavalierly disastrous decision for the Canadian creative industry is coming down. We'll return to that later. For now, I'm running my little Freedom app and unplugging for a few hours to get work done.

The sky can always fall later.

Notes On a Frog

WILL DIXON had some Friday Fun and posted my favorite Cartoon ever. And today I started futzing around with a comment on his piece which just sort of metastacized into this. So thanks, Will.

First, again, here's the Cartoon in question:



And here...are The Notes.

I was just looking at the Froggy Even cartoon again, and while I appreciate your enthusiasm that it is some sort of "classic," in the making, I'm afraid there are a few notes that I really think we should deal with before moving forward.


-First, in the scene with the "Free Beer," the men rush into the theatre having been promised free beer. And when the curtain comes up they see the frog and get angry. Does this track? Are they getting angry about the frog not being able to sing, or the lack of free beer? In fact, the whole concept of the "free beer" and the loss of it seems to get lost.


-Where do they get the rotten fruit to throw at the guy? They came in looking for free beer. Why would they suddenly have fruit? Could you rework so this makes sense, please?


-I'm not feeling I know enough about the backstory of the construction worker. Who is he and where does he come from? Presumably, since we see his apartment and it seems to be modest, he is single, and you drop a hint that he is very mistrustful of traditional authority (ie: he hides money under the bed) Am very excited by this. Could we make more of this?


-re: the frog. Have you done research on Frog's lifespans? Does it track that this frog could survive from 1892 to 2056? Is his long lifespan tied into his ability to sing?


-Do they allow mental patients to keep pet frogs? Is it a companion animal thing? Will have to explain this, I think. The audience will want to know.


-Please reconsider the choice to have the frog be the only one who speaks. I think this keeps the audience at a distance. Could you perhaps take a look at Family Guy, where they have animals who talk and other people can hear them? Just a thought.


-Is the frog singing the right songs? Could we have him sing something that speaks to our demo better?


-I'm just throwing this out there -- wouldn't it be more satisfying if, in the end, maybe by accident, the guy actually gets the frog to sing for someone else? Might make for a more uplifting ending -- give the guy more of a 'win.'


We're very excited by this Froggy Project and we're sure that with these few minor changes it's going to be something really special.


Best.

"Kentucky's Gonna Fry Tonight."

JUST IN CASE you missed it. Not for the faint of PETA. Jimmy Kimmel makes them vids funny, yes he do.

And From the Bone-Chilling Department...

APPARENTLY EVERYBODY at Canwest just got an email saying, "it's such a beautiful day why doesn't everybody leave at three?"

Whatever can it mean?

PS -- Currently in Toronto it is overcast and kind of smeggy out.

PPS -- How long does it take to change the locks, anyway?

PPPS -- I'd take a stapler and your fave pen if I were you.

I See Your Lead and Raise You

JOEL RUBINOFF, from Torstar, does a driveby as the lede in an article on Rick Mercer today:

Say what you will about the sorry state of Canadian TV, a beleaguered U.S. satellite pumping out generic comedy and drama series that shamelessly mimic the rhythms of American blockbusters: you gotta love Rick Mercer.

Say what you will about lazy journos. Hey Joel, two points:

1) Your newspaper sucks.
2) Go Fuck Yourself.

Toronto at 175

THE CITY WHERE I live, Toronto, turns 175 years old today. Torontonians complain about the place almost as often as the rest of Canada does (forget it, even I can't sell that one.) But it really is a nifty little city. Here are some pics of my favorite things about the place:


Palmerston Avenue, in the Annex, is the most beautiful stately street. At night, walking down past the old-fashioned globed streetlights always makes me feel wistful. Man, I'd love to live on this street one day.


The great thing about Toronto is that its always changing. Almost 20 years ago, I lived in a neighbourhood that was just starting to feel a Korean influx. Now, it's Little Korea. I find that ebb and flow, and the fact that the neighbourhood doesn't decline, just changes, special. Right now, you're seeing collisions and gentrification in two neighbourhoods close to my heart, Roncesvalles and Parkdale. It makes for an interesting urban collision. Those little back and forths and old residents smacking against new, that's the feeling and the vibrancy of urban renewal.

Streetcars. They're annoying when you're driving and get trapped behind them. But man, I'm glad we have'em.


The Palais Royale. On the Lakeshore, this venue has been around since the 1930's. It was a DanceHall. Duke Ellington played there. You move around and you can feel the history, and then go outside and you can stare into the Lake Ontario night. I've only seen a few shows there, and I've never been to a wedding there, but I bet it's special. Between the Palais Royale and Massey Hall, all my concert going needs would be covered.


Sigh. I still can't talk about it.

Well, this was never meant to be a definitive survey. There's so much more I love about the city, but I guess we'll just leave it there and add one more thing I love about Toronto.

Our Mayor is a MAD twitterer. How cool is that?

Happy Birthday, T.O.

Less Than Kind Online

BACK IN THESE parts, we sometimes joke that having a show on the Citytv stations is sort of like being in the Canadian Television Witness Protection Program.

Less Than Kind is a winning comedy that premiered earlier this year.

The ads and promo for it were spotty, so don't worry if you haven't heard of it. Even if you did tune in, chances are you didn't see it the way it should have been seen -- this show had the most unlikely, unlucky series of technical glitches I've ever heard of -- with audio tracks run out of sync, episodes swapped, aspect ratios being wrong -- the whole magilla of possible screw ups.

Well, now you can overcome all that and watch it at your leisure.

Less Than Kind is online.