I, Your humble Heywriterboy, Have Changed The Face of Canadian Television Forever.

Today, speaking to the Canadian Film and Television Production Association's annual meeting in exciting and exotic Ottawa, CBC VP Richard Stursberg announced that CBC is going to change the way they do things when it comes to drama.

For the humor impaired, I'm kidding. I don't for a millisecond believe that I had anything to do with this. Even if that Dithering and CBC article I wrote did get Antonia at Canada's largest Newspaper to go, "Oh, Snap!"

The reality is that the whole thing's been so broken for so long that even a monkey could realize that clearing the decks was a good way to go.

Except...

In the aftermath of the cancellation of This is Wonderland, The Tournament, and DaVinci's City Hall, ACTRA, the Canadian Actors' Union, has come out with their usual hysterical condemnation that doesn't really help things.

I love the Actors' Union. Seriously, I do. But it's funny how, just like the Directors' Guild of Canada, and IATSE, the whole banging the drum on indigenous Canadian production chorus has gotten a whole lot stronger in the last few years, since all those juicy U.S. service productions that employed all their members dried up.

All of a sudden now -- well Gosh Golly -- the Actors and the Directors and the Crews have started getting behind what the Canadian Writers have been saying for years, "um, guys...maybe we should, you know...have a domestic industry too."

Don't get me wrong. It's great to have them onside. But like Actors always do, if we start to make inroads now, I'm sure they'll take a lot of credit for winning the battle...even though they came pretty late to the party, once all the Relic Hunters dried up, and that dollar of ours started flirting with parity, and the pressures against "runaway production" made the whole counting-on-the-U.S. thing seem a little dicey.

So hell, if that's the way it's going to go, might as well get in front of the curve:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

(Toronto, February 18) Richard Stursberg, VP of CBC, is implementing a whole new way of doing drama at the CBC because of what I, Denis McGrath, wrote on my blog. I am clearly awesome.

Take that ACTRA, and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting!

Anyway, once you look at the Broadcaster report on what Stursberg said today, it's less champagne-cork popping and more sad-little-noisemaker-going-pffft.

A few key sentences from the article I linked to above:

Today, CBC Television unveiled its new program and development commissioning process at the annual meeting of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association. With appropriate funding, the new process would help CBC Television to vastly increase the amount of original prime-time drama and entertainment programming it broadcasts.

Emphasis above is mine. *Sigh.* See? On some level, all this could be cynically read as more window-dressing for a cash grab. From a Conservative Government. Okay everybody, pinky to the lips and do your best Dr.Evil/Lorne Michaels:

"Riggggghhhht."


The CBC's answer to everything is "we need more money." Oh...uh....and "we need to lock our employees out." And...um..."wanna rent our building?" Is this change-of-heart for real or more dog-and-pony? Remains to be seen.

The new process will improve turn-around times for new program pitches; improve the ratio of programs developed to programs produced; and bring increased rigor to the development process.

Well, the turn-around time was pretty much what I wrote about. The ratio of development is good, too. But the "increased rigor to the development process" thing just makes my blood run cold.

Canada is a billingual country, so let's see if I can reach for my French here. Okay. Here goes.

What. The Fuck. Does that mean?

"Increased rigor" is something that just sounds like...well...I don't know what it sounds like. But it's a perfectly formed bureaucratic phrase that really means not a lot of anything. The problem with CBC is that everything is developed by committee. There are no uniform standards...money doesn't drive it - except when it does...ratings don't drive it - except when it does...and quality certainly doesn't drive it. Sadly, a lot of the time -- geography drives it. Welcome to the Pleasuredome. "Increased Rigor" isn't the problem, guys..."Decisiveness" and "Having a Clue" is the problem.

But I'm sure it's a lot less fun to say in a speech. And, you know, you might get called on that. Rather than "increased rigor," which means, um, you know, whatever you want it to mean.

Over the next four years, CBC Television would increase to 250 hours the amount of original Canadian drama and entertainment programming it brings to air.

"Achieving this goal," said Stursberg, "would solidify CBC Television's position as the cornerstone of Canadian dramatic programming, just like the public broadcasters in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia and New Zealand."

Unless you don't give us the more money, in which case, my fingers are crossed.

The words are okay. The words are good.

The words have been said before.

Now let's see what the follow-through is. I'm rooting for them. Lord knows I am.
After all -- I'm the guy responsible for all of this...right? Right?

I'm going to go have a lie down.

In The Jungle, The Mighty Jungle, The Lion Sleeps Tonight (or at least his heirs do.)

Well it appears to be South African day here at Dead Things on Sticks Labs.

When I was working in S.A. in 2004, I was pretty entranced by the story of Solomon Linda. You've never heard of him, I'm sure. Why would you?

Except that he wrote one of the most famous songs in the world.

From the 1939 Mbube -- definitely the most famous song to ever come out of South Africa, came the Weavers and the Tokens "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Disney made a bit of money on that tune courtesy of "The Lion King."

Linda, as these stories always seem to go, died mostly penniless in 1962. But thanks to the kind of Copyright Laws at work in the British Commonwealth at the time, the rights to Mbube and that famous "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight," and that memorable chorus, should have reverted to the family 25 years after Linda's death. (There's a lesson in there somewhere for the real pirates at the RIAA trying to ram-through copyright provisions that enrich corporations, not people.)

Anyway, while I was in S.A. the story took a funny turn. S.A. courts decreed that while the case proceeded, the Disney trademarks in S.A. might attach to ... the Linda family. Ho ho.

There was much bluster from the mighty corporation at that point.

Lo and behold...two years later, they've finally settled with Linda's heirs.

Now, some of Mbube's (Zulu for Lion) money might finally start going where it belongs.

UPDATE-Y DO: Alex is clearly better at Googling than I am. Way to work it, Epstein. This is an article that the South African Journalist Rian Malan (My Traitor's Heart) wrote for Rolling Stone about the Linda story.

Helluva Towne

Checked out Robert Towne's talk last night at the Art Gallery of Ontario's Jackman Hall, as presented by the Toronto International Film Festival Group and Cinematheque Ontario.

Host Geoff Pevere reined in his more annoying side, and proved to be a very able moderator. He actually did an excellent job - I've been left twitching in the past at those kinds of things by the double whammy of bad moderator/bad questions from the audience. But mercifully, not this time.

The stories from Towne were definitely worth the journey on a very wet and rainy Vancouver winter night (made marginally more disturbing by the fact that, um, I live in Toronto, so heavy rain in February is...um...out of place.)

They showed a bunch of clips and one of the highlights, of course, was that scene from The Godfather between Michael and Vito in the garden, where Vito expresses regret that he never wanted this life for Michael.

Towne said that he got a call from his friend Francis Ford Coppola to come to New York. They were about to lose Brando from the picture, and they realized that Puzo hadn't written any scenes between father and son. Puzo was in no condition to do it - he had other troubles.

Towne was ushered into a screening room in the Gulf & Western building on Columbus Circle and shown 45 minutes of Godfather footage.

Here's the most interesting part of the story for me: at this point, Coppola was a beaten dog. The studio and everyone was saying that the Godfather was a disaster. When Towne saw it he told Coppola it was "the best daily footage he'd ever seen." And Coppola shook his head. He didn't believe it at this point.

Just goes to show. Those brilliant executives being so supportive of their talent.

Oh, I hope there's a special slab in hell for those types of executives.

Anyway, Coppola said he wanted some sort of scene where the father told the son that he loved him. And Towne immediately said, "I can't do that." And Coppola agreed. Towne took the part that said "at that meeting you will be assasinated" and split the speech, shoehorning all the gold in between about "I never meant this life for you" and all, and then ended with the "whoever comes to you will be the assassin" line from the original script.

When they went out to shoot, Brando made Towne read the scene to him twice. He then went through every line with him and asked what it meant. Then he did the scene.

What a fucking scene.

There were other entertaining blind alleys and half-steps -- Towne got involved with the film version of The Firm, for instance, when his next door neighbor Sydney Pollack asked him for help one day. They were both outside, and Pollack was taking out the garbage -- Towne thought he needed help with the cans. I liked hearing about The Firm because years later just about the only thing I can remember about that film was the jazz score and the fact that Towne's ending in the screenplay was so much better than Grisham's ending in the book. Every time the bookists break out the "how the book is always better" canard, I'm right there with, "Oh yeah? What about The Firm?"

Someone in the audience asked Towne if when he was doing the work on Godfather, Shampoo, Chinatown, etc, if he wanted to direct even then, or if he was happy screenwriting. He replied instantly, "No, I was happy screenwriting. Very happy." That made me feel kind of good. Occasionally I've had friends ask why I don't seem particularly interested in directing right now. I've always had this vague sense that maybe I'd want to direct -- someday -- but I guess it took hearing Towne to realize that my reluctance has nothing to do with fear -- it has to do with marshalling energy. I need to focus my energy and work on making my scripts great first, before I go off on a tangent and start trying to direct. The word at this point in my career is more important to me. That's not fear. That's focus.

After the session, they showed Towne's latest film, which he wrote and directed, called Ask The Dust. That was a bit of a treat because the film isn't supposed to open til March, and they had only said they'd be showing 15 minutes. Also, there was a weird sense of things coming full circle screening that film, since it was shot in South Africa while I was there shooting Charlie Jade.

To my everlasting dismay, I never did see Selma Hayek, but the Cape Times was full of Colin Farrel sightings, and I even saw the guy once as he sidled up beside me to wait for his Sushi order at my beloved Beluga Restaurant, whose bar and fine wine cellar I still miss.

Ask the Dust is an interesting, strange, weird, messy film. It really is all over the place, strangely paced -- but with something compelling at the core. It makes me want to read the book, which Towne apparently has been trying to film for 30 years, and which was one of the inspirations for the L.A. he painted in Chinatown. If you're a Towne buff, I think it's something you have to see -- but it's a strange film. Stranger still seeing a bunch of places that four years ago would have been exotic to me, but now are as familiar to me as my own street.

Traffic Spike, Ho!

Hi to anyone surfing in for the first time from Antonia Zerbisias' Toronto Star Media Blog which linked to my Dithering & CBC piece.

Here at Dead Things On Sticks Labs, we endeavor to provide the finest chatter about TV writing, Canadiana & General foolishness, with occasional sidetrips into Politics and other weirdness. Please stay awhile, look around, kick the tires, and jiggle the handle on the toilet after flushing.

For the record, I actually kind of like the CBC. I do not want to see it privatized. I just want them to make fewer stupid decisions.

'Och Aye Buh-bye

Wow, some days the news just wants you to procrastinate.

One of the odd quirks of Canadian life is this strange little undercurrent of Scottishism.

I think it may go back to Mike Myers' So I Married An Axe Murderer, where he played a character who was Scottish, based on his Dad. (This is years before he pulled the same trick as Fat Bastard in one of the Austin Powers movies, but a few years after he kicked off the trend with the "If it's not Scottish, it's crap" sketches on SNL.)

For my money, neither was as funny as the incarnation of the angry wacky Scot he did when he was trying to kill time between sketches at Second City in Toronto back in the 80's. Then, he'd get up there and say, "Okay, here's my impression of Sean Connery starring in Anne of Green Gables." He'd then take a pigtailed wig, put it on, and say in a pretty passable Connery: "I'm Anne of Green Gables, ya bashtard..."

I guess you had to be there.

Anyway, point is, however it started, for years now, Canadian airwaves have been filled with Ads featuring "angry/wacky Scots."

It completely replaced the other trend in Canadian advertising from a few years ago, which was the "voiceover-actor-with-a-British-accent-for-no-discernable-reason."

The "Angry/Wacky Scot" shows up all over the place. Mostly in bad radio ads. It's an easy Go-To (a term I really should post about) because in craven copywriters' minds, just the sound of the Scottish accent is funny -- which means you don't actually have to write anything with wit or humor. The funny voice will carry it. Ugh.

Probably the worst example of the trend right now is a gum ad where an animated piece of gum runs after a woman running a marathon. For some reason, the whole time, this piece of gum talks in a Scottish accent. It's not funny. It's not motivated. It's just weird.

It probably made the client swoon.

On the other hand, the most ubiquitous "angry/wacky Scot" in Canadian television for the last few years has been the shill for Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale. (right) He's a full-on Scot in sporin and everything, berating people in bars for not treating their beer with the proper respeck. The ads are really annoying, and a little bit funnier than...mm...cancer.

Anyway... my friend Rob and I now humbly predict the end of the Wacky/Angry Scot in Canadian TV. From Today's Toronto Star:

A 40-year-old Toronto comic better known as the obnoxious Scot who berates bartenders and pub patrons in television commercials for Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale has been charged with possessing child pornography and making it available over the Internet.

Whoops. This actor also stars in lots of other Canadian ads. (Casting directors up here, for some reason, always cast the same twelve people. Hmm...in light of this story, maybe that trend can go away now, too. After all, you never know what those crazy actors will do when they're away from set...better to spread the work around...)

You can read the full story in the Toronto Star. Warning: High Ick Factor.

Rabbittown Goes Down

Hey, remember that CBC Pilot I praised when they ran the three pilots in January? It was the only one of the three that wasn't brain dead or stillborn. It was actually quite charming. It was called Rabbittown, and I wrote about it here. Some excerpts:

The template is simple: two girls, best friends, who probably shouldn't be friends, because they're destined to bring the worst out in each other. Their competitiveness means poison for the relationship...I've seen articles written about toxic female friendships. I've seen them in action among some female friends. But I've never seen a TV show about it, with the exception of AbFab. It's a rich, comic area...Rabbittown weaves through logical, rich, consistent character development...every scene in the half hour promises more... If this sucker doesn't get at least six episodes, then there's no hope.

Well, Alex, let's go for item (b.) I've just heard through an impeccable source that CBC passed.

CBC President Robert Rabinovich has bloviated that he wants to be "audacious."

ZZZZZt. Failed right out of the gate. What a load of hooey. Plus ca change, plus ca meme CBC.

What Happens When You Don't Have A Story Room.

I've got a big post brewing about spec scripts and how to start one - and also a little about the TV writer/Movie Writer demarcation point. But those posts will be heavy-lifting and heavy committment (which, by the way is the one word, after all these years, that I can never remember how to spell, so if I got it wrong there, then great: the streak is alive.)

So instead today I offer a wafer.

I've written before about development, and how lonely and crazy-making it can be...and how sometimes you really find yourself jonesing for the story room.

What I didn't share was this: a couple years ago, a writer friend and I were bitching over the difficulties of breaking story by yourself. There's no trick to it, there's no back and forth, and you never know if you're really going in the right direction.

So anyway, she confessed at that point that when things got really bad, really lonely, sometimes she'd dig out her childhood teddy bears and arrange them around the table so it seemed like she had company, or people to bounce ideas back and forth with.

Hearing this, I did what any self-respecting man would do in the situation with a girlfriend with whom he was not currently canoodling: I passed about three inches of vodka through my nose and mocked her mercilessly for the rest of the night.

To her credit, not only did she take it, she bought me a new vodka. And then she fixed me with a vengeful gleam in her eye and she said five words that chilled my soul:

"You laugh now. But wait."

Well, now here it is February 2006. I'm trying to break an important story for one of my shows. It's going very slowly. I have the corkboard out. I have the index cards with beats on them. I have the coffee. I have the laptop.

Hell, I even broke out the Magic Guinness Hat.


Sometimes, it helps me to focus. Not today.

Today, nothing seems to be working. So... *sigh*








Opus has an absolutely foolproof bullshit detector, and surprisingly, Marvin the Martian is really good with story. Although he does go for the ray-gun vaporization deus ex machina climax a little too often for my taste.

If this series goes, and these guys sue me for story credit, there's gonna be scissors.

So basically, I guess what I'm saying is...
Dorothy Parker*, you win.

*not her real name

Monkey Spins Plates!

Meetings today. Lots of meetings.

Talk amongst yourselves.

For Toronto-based Cinephiles...

This Thursday, Feb 16, The Toronto International Film Festival Group is presenting a conversation with Robert Towne. Sounds like it could be interesting.

Details here.

Uh oh.

Cheney's victim just had a heart attack.

Paging Aaron Burr...

If You Speak Up, then the Quail Will Win

Well Jon Stewart sure didn't disappoint. But watching the Cheney-shooting-a-guy-in-the-face story play out in the news cycle, it amazes me that right there in there, again, is the root of all the trouble that people seem to have with this administration.

This is a nothing story. It's so obviously a hunting accident, unfortunate, but not anything sinister. (EDIT: Well, except if you have something against shooting canned, pen-raised animals rather than actually, you know, going hunting -- the part of the story that isn't getting much play outside of The Daily Show. Thanks to Alex for that catch.) Point is, It's a one-day story.

Except the conduct of the administration makes it more:

• Wait a day to disclose something that they should have gotten out in front of immediately.
• Spin it so that you blame the victim, which leads to the refutation stories by wildlife officials.
• Keep the VP out of sight and unwilling to comment, insuring that you can't put it behind you
• Change your story a couple of times about how and when the President found out.

The mania this administration has for secrecy knows no bounds. How is it possible that these guys haven't learned in more than thirty years, that it's not the event itself, but the cover-up you have to watch out for?

In other news -- I know it's Valentine's Day, so before I tell you how much I love each and every one of you in my special way in my secret places, let me tell you that I love this post.

It's beautiful to see someone make an argument, and then see a bunch of commenters prove the argument for him.

Burning Grey

The conclusion to Grey's Anatomy's two-part Code Black-bomb episode actually managed to outdraw Desperate Housewives on Sunday. Overnights point to 25.3 million viewers 18-49 -- that's a 25 share, 5 points and 3 million viewers more than Housewives got.

With the first season coming out on DVD tomorrow, and a post-Superbowl audience of 38 million, I'd say a couple of things are clear:

• Start writing that Grey's Anatomy spec. Stat.
• This sucker's the next huge, huge hit.

Now -- to me, that brings a bit of trepidation. I like Grey's well enough. It's a guilty pleasure and the women are hot, but there's no one that I really identify with on the show, with the possible exception of George, and that's only my geek-past coming back to haunt me.

In fact, Grey's is a pretty good example of the weird, feminized man I talked about in an earlier post. Let's look at the male characters:

Dr. McDreamy/Shepherd - the idealized, unavailable sex object. He's sensitive as all get out. He doesn't always know the right thing to say, but he does seem to always be on the verge of tears.
Dr. Burke - constantly trying to push Yang to define their relationship; the first to say "I love you." Capable of expressing his emotions to the more witholding Yang.
Alex Karev - the one reliable 'bad-boy' in the beginning, who's now that kind of cuddly bad-boy lite.
George O'Malley- great actor. Great comic chops. The standard "let's be friends" guy. Practically one of the girls. The one time he gets to have sex on this show where everyone has sex constantly, he gets chlamydia.
Dr. Webber - nominally the 'big guy in charge.' But he's evidently terrified of his wife. And it looks like in his early affair with Meredith's mother, he wasn't exactly in the driver's seat, either.

I've watched this show from the beginning, and it's amazing how much the "strong male" characters (Burke, Webber, Karev) have been slowly feminized as the show progressed. The level of sensitivity among the men in Seattle Grace Hospital now runs the gamut from A all the way to B.

I mean, fair enough -- it's a show aimed mainly at women, and the head writer and creator's a woman. And yup, we've had years of stereotypical females in every show under the sun. But would it have killed them to keep Alex a jerk? Really?

Carla on Cheers took eight years to become a cream puff. Karev didn't last 22 episodes.

Just sayin. 18-49 year old men, meet Halo...Halo, 18-49 year old men...

Further to the below...

Now the reports are that the mock-doc series The Tournament, which followed a small town's kids hockey team, will also be axed.

On the one hand, I never really got into The Tournament. I thought there was a subtle disconnect in tone. Unlike The Office or Trailer Park Boys -- other examples of the faux doc genre -- The Tournament seemed implicitly to judge its characters -- which unbalances the whole thing and steals both the heart and the funny.

But Howard Busgang, one of the creators, is a guy who should have a series on CBC. Oh wait. He did -- it was called An American in Canada, and it was funny. CBC canceled it three years ago. Hmmm.

Drama and Dithering: A CBC prescription

This one's about TV. I promise.

Canada's recently-departed Prime Minister, Paul Martin, was widely referred to in his short tenure as "Mr. Dithers," a rather unflattering (and occasionally unfair) categorization of his propensity for going back and forth over an issue. (What would be known in some circles as "consideration" and in the United States as "flip-flopping."*)

It always struck me as a funny kind of criticism, since Canada is pretty much a nation of ditherers. Always has been. Faced with the catastrophic breakdown of civility and statehood that was the U.S. Civil War, they dithered their way into Confederation. Canadians dithered over creating a Constitution for about a hundred years. Even Quebec doesn't so much really talk about separating, as dither over it. And we dither over keeping them from separating. Dither, Dither, Dither.

About the only time Canadians don't dither is on the ice, or when they commit their armed forces to a war -- where they go in and kick major ass.

But the Dither Disease is well-entrenched. There's an old joke about how you spot a Canadian once they've died. The punchline's something like, on the way to heaven there's a fork in the road and one way says "Heaven" and the other way says "Royal Commission Studying the Possibility of Going to Heaven." The Canadians will opt for the latter way.

Lame, I know. I much prefer my favorite Canadian joke: "How do you get 200 Canadians out of a pool? Say, "okay guys, pool's closed, get out." (Bonus: Count how many times they say 'sorry' as they get out of the water.)

Anyway...If press reports are to be believed, the CBC is taking a step away from dithering today. Later today, the dramas "This is Wonderland," and "DaVinci's City Hall" will be canceled.

This is Wonderland -- an odd little series now in its third season, never really did it for me. It was set in and around the courts in Toronto. And it was supposed to chronicle the futility and capriciousness of the system. But the series was entirely too shrill -- the poor, luminous lead Cara Pifko (right) constantly found herself paired with one shouting lunatic after another. Having to play off that most frequently leaves you just no place to go. Wonderland boasted some great characters and some good acting, but the stories had an odd structure to them and there was entirely too much shouting for it to be really compelling, appointment viewing.

DaVinci's City Hall, on the other hand, continued the downward slide that its parent show, Davinci's Inquest, had fallen into in its last couple of years. It's a dense narrative, and probably wasn't very welcoming to new viewers. There's some talk that it may continue as a series of yearly movies -- a format that would probably fit it better anyway.

The cancellation of DaVinci is probably more political, anyway. The network has done something smart and ordered 13 episodes of Intelligence, the Chris Haddock-written TV movie that premiered last fall, which I picked as one of my ten best things of the year. With the limited series slots available on the CBC, it probably wouldn't look good to give two hours a week to the same guy.

All this, of course, also has something to do with the desire of new CBC executives to put their stamp on the network. VP Richard Stursberg, the beloved doyenne of last year's lockout, hasn't had a kick at the can yet. And after a long search, Kirstine Leyfield was finally named to the Director of English Language Programming position. (Thanks to Matt Watts for the link.)

Now she's got her chance to make some changes to the drama slate, and hopefully draw new audiences back to the national broadcaster. Corner Gas' numbers are embarrassing to CBC - -or at least they should be.

But this is where the dithering comes in.

No one. But no one - dithers more than the CBC.

In the U.S. right now, they're right in the middle of Pilot Season. Scripts are being written, people are being cast, shows are being shot. They'll be whittled down to a few, which will be announced at the upfronts. Then, in the fall, we'll ignore most of them and they'll fade into deserved obscurity.

This process happens every year. Yeah, okay. The CBC does not have that kind of money. They are not going to do tons of pilots and chuck most of them. But the thing about that robust process of development, shoot, cull -- is that occasionally a show gets on the air that actually does manage to speak to the zeitgeist. That's in the right place at the right time.

CBC can't compete on the most important playing field -- being up-to-date, because of dithering. Because by the time the average drama makes it onto the CBC schedule, it's been picked over and 'developed' and dithered -- for years. Two, three years sometimes.

Now. I'm going to state something here that shouldn't be controversial, but probably will be. Television is a responsive medium. There is no such thing as the TV series that is improved by two years of talking about it. Write. Discuss. Rewrite. Cast. Shoot. Air.

LOST went from a vague idea by Lloyd Braun to a show on ABC's schedule in under six months. Frigging LOST! Please don't tell me that in light of that story, you can defend six months where you don't read the script, another six where you wonder what to do, another six to do it, and six more before anyone sees it. Get off your ass. Get out of your office in Fort Dork and get those creative juices pumping. Pretend you're playing hockey. Give'r.

Yes, the stakes are high. Yes, it's hard to commit that amount of money on something that won't necessarily work. But what CBC has been doing up to now obviously isn't working. Audience numbers for drama on CBC continue to go down.

By dithering as a matter of course (as well as doing other dumb things, like consistently ordering hour long pilots for half-hour comedies...which is just plug-stupid, and which CBC did for years) is anathema to getting a show on the air that might -- might just spark something in the people's minds and hearts.

Law & Order's "ripped from the headlines" formula has more than paid off for them.

24 had 5 episodes in the can when 9/11 happened. It didn't start out that way, but because they were on the air at the right time, 24 became the reflection of Americans' post-9/11 unease.

If that show had been Canadian, they would have pulled it. And dithered over what to do. And they would have missed the boat.

CBC may not have the money of a US studio, but it does have resources that the private sector doesn't have. If it wanted to, it could go into rapid-response mode. It could do TV projects that were on the air while Canadians were still thinking about the issues contained within them. . Rather than what happens now -- where dramas have a slightly musty, picked over, and bland cant to them when they premiere. CBC could do Life On Mars. For pity's sake, take a chance and do something original. And if you do do something original, don't be ashamed of it, like you were with Cara Pifko's previous (delightful) series Our Hero.

It would mean an end to the dithering. If Kirstine can resist the dither-impulse, and streamline her commissioning process, maybe CBC dramas could become relevant again.

It's a big if. We'll see.









*only if you're a Democrat, tho.

Brokeback Mountain DOES NOT play in the Red States!

Mickey Kaus has got a teriffic piece in Slate today.

He talks about the "Brokeback Mountain" meme and how it damages progressives by leading them down feel-good roads that lull them into a false sense that their message is getting through. I've often said that my number one problem with a lot of the people I agree with politically is how smug they are. I love Michael Moore. But the guy does not help.

It's funny, but lately I've noticed the same pragmatism and "come on, really?" attitude coming off Jon Stewart on The Daily Show (Two references in one day. I really should send him that Valentine.)

When so many Americans choose to vote against their own interests and buy a line of obsfucation and lies -- at what point do you stop wrapping yourself in comfortable memes like "Bush is stupid," "the people will see the truth," and, yes, "Brokeback Mountain is changing Red State perceptions of Gays and Gay marriage in the Red States," and start actually focusing on a way to get you elected?

If this was a script, I would say the Dems have got the worst second act problems I've ever seen, because they don't even know the story they're telling. They've got a few months left to make it a feel good redemption story. We don't need another black comedy. Enough already.

Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm hunting Wiberals.

Okay. So VP Dick Cheney stops clutching his bum ticker long enough to shoot a guy on Saturday, and the White House doesn't think, um, maybe someone should tell the...you know...um...press?

I think we have to seriously consider the possibility that God has joined the writing staff of The Daily Show.

UPDATE:
Salon and others are reporting how interesting it is that the spin is already out -- and people are going to great lengths to explain how Cheney did nothing wrong. Yup. They're blaming the victim...the guy who got shot.

Now...remember driver's ed? Remember how you heard that if you rear-end somebody, no matter what happens, it's kind of your fault? Remember?

If we can agree on nothing else, can we perhaps agree that if you SHOOT SOMEBODY, IT'S YOUR FAULT?

No?

This opens a real Pandora's box. Seriously. Just wait for the return of the, "I'm sorry I hit you baby, but why you make Daddy so angry?" defence.

Seriously. I'm peeing myself waiting for Jon Stewart on this.

Jane Espenson!

One of my fave TV writers has kind of an interesting blog. She has credits and everything. Y'know like Buffy and Firefly and The O.C. and Angel.

Jane Espenson is the real deal.

She's got a pretty interesting take on the perils or payoffs of doing a novelty Vintage TV Show Spec.

Go. Go on. I'm serious.

Well whaddya know?

Someone set up a Charlie Jade page on Wikipedia.

Feel free to go edit it.

Travel & Worldview

Commenter Webs posted down in the "Chihuaha" comments something that was too good to just keep to the sidelines:

I'm an anglo Quebecker, and I've had a sequence of francophone friends in my life, federalist and separatist.

If there's one factor that is responsible for whether a francophone is federalist or separatist, it's travel. Francophones who have traveled outside Quebec - never mind outside Canada - are nearly always federalist. Those that stay inside Quebec, where "going out west" means a visit to Gatineau, tend to support separatism.

I have a similar story.

When I was in South Africa, one weekend just before I left we traveled to Durban, which was on the Indian Ocean, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. We drove into the Zulu country one day -- very beautiful -- and on the way came to a craft village. There was a store there run by a couple who made beautiful toys out of wood. On the wall, they had a map of the world. Little push-pins marked the places of origin of all the visitors who'd bought something at the store.

When one looked at the map of the United States, the most striking thing about it was that practically all the pins came from the so-called "Blue States." (States that had voted for Al Gore in 2000.) There were very few pins from any of the "Red States." Funnily enough, the Redder the state, the fewer pins there were. For instance, in Texas, there were a bunch of pins from what I assume was Austin -- a blue district in a very red state.

This was the summer of 2004, and I just thought it was a funny, interesting anecdotal observation. Overwhelmingly, the people from the U.S. who had strayed this far from home were from heavily Democratic-leaning areas.

Now, of course, there's other stuff going on there -- Democrats do better in big cities, and cities have more people, so there would be more pins...but still. It was striking. I kept looking for a break to the pattern -- a Red place with pins...and there was none.

I never forgot that. Then, a few months later, the election of 2004 went the way it did. And in the election result number crunching, one of the most interesting stats I saw was people who held valid U.S. passports supported Kerry, by almost a two-to-one margin.

Just sayin.

Zeitgeist

See. It's not just me.