I'm just really happy and honestly excited
for the world that every Muslim i'm aware of who's seen the show has really
loved it (including several who work at the post-production place where
they're cutting it; and the 3 intelligent men on the panel on CNN). That's
rather significant. I also feel it's funnier than Corner Gas ,
and more entertaining because it explores new, topically-hot
territory (a tonic to my chronic sitcom fatigue syndrome.)
Soon after 9/11 happened, i proclaimed to my colleague at [other Canadian network that is not the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] we needed a Muslim comedy - we needed
to see Muslims with a sense of humour. i maintain(ed) that this could have
an enormous impact on Muslim/non-Muslim relations. (my colleague basically
dismissed me like i was a joke, myself...) so imagine how heartened I was
last night - just imagine, Denis! me, heartened! - when, after seeing a
series of truly funny clips from the show, the 3 intelligent Muslim men on
CNN said (laughing/smiling) that this kind of show "will have a much greater
positive effect than any think tank or interfaith counsel could ever
have..." - or words to that effect.
i live by the credo that humour can help us overcome almost anything.
so i hope this show succeeds because it would be a kind of victory for Humour.
and yes, let's hope people find it funny. trust me, if Corner Gas is funny,
Little Mosque is funny.
NYC Subway Savior: Someone Had to Help
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By DEEPTI HAJELA Associated Press Writer
January 04,2007 | NEW YORK -- Wesley Autrey said he made a quick decision to jump into a subway track to rescue a stranger from an ongoing train, an act he hopes other New Yorkers would follow.
"I did it out of a split-second reaction. And if I had to do it again, I probably would," he said on CBS' "The Early Show' Thursday. "I was like, 'Wow, I got to go get this guy ... somebody's gotta save this guy but I was the closest one.
"I'm still saying I'm not a hero ... 'cause I believe all New Yorkers should get into that type of mode," the 50-year-old construction worker said. "You should do the right thing."
Autrey's phone has been ringing off the hook since he helped the man on Tuesday by pushing him into a gap between the rails. Some callers were complete strangers so inspired by his bravery that they offered rewards.
Besides appearing on several morning television shows Thursday, he was set to tape an appearance on David Letterman's CBS "Late Show" and visit City Hall to be honored by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In hindsight, even Autrey was somewhat startled by his dramatic decision. But knowing he narrowly escaped injury or possibly death, he didn't regret his choice.
"I did something to save someone's life," he said Wednesday.
On Tuesday, while waiting for a downtown Manhattan train, Autrey saw Cameron Hollopeter, a 19-year-old film student, suffering from some kind of medical episode. After stumbling down the platform, Hollopeter, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks with a train on its way into the station.
Autrey, traveling with his two young daughters, knew he had to do something.
"If I let him stay there by himself, he's going to be dismembered," the Navy veteran remembered thinking.
He jumped down to the tracks, a few feet below platform level, and rolled with the young man into a drainage trough -- cold, wet and more than a little unpleasant smelling -- between the rails as the southbound No. 1 train came into the 137th Street/City College station.
The train's operator saw someone on the tracks and put the emergency brakes on. Some train cars passed over Autrey and Hollopeter with only a couple of inches to spare, but neither man suffered any harm from the incident.
Hollopeter was taken to a nearby hospital; Autrey refused medical attention -- and then went to work.
Autrey went by the hospital Wednesday afternoon for a visit with Hollopeter and his family. Afterward, he and Hollopeter's father addressed reporters.
"Mr. Autrey's instinctive and unselfish act saved our son's life," Larry Hollopeter, his voice choking up, said Wednesday.
But amidst all that in the year, there's fuel. Fuel exists all around us; it's writing that makes you learn and writing that makes you want to write. For me, I recognize and love writing regardless of media -- it inspires me in the same way, it makes me want to work in the same way. So if I'm going to to a year-end list, by its very definition it needs to be cross-disciplinary. So then, in no particular order, here are ten written works that inspired or fueled me this yearSo. Let's get going. This is, of course, in no particular order. An exhibition, not a competition. So Please. No Wagering.
1) Ten Minutes at The White House Correspondents DinnerMadame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert and tonight it's my privilege to celebrate this president. We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book.And on, and on, and on.
Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term..
Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias...
I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.
The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.
I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place. Even your emotions have an echo in so much space.
Sarah Vowell was the one who first cottoned me onto one of the strange quirks of the American history geek. Everyone goes through an "obsessed with Lincoln" phase. Mine never ended.
The anguish and inadequacy with which these people approach the basic art of conversation give "Shining City" an almost unbearable air not only of poignancy but also of familiarity. At some point watching it brings to mind one of those moments when you realize that the awkward, raw-looking, unhappy person you've just glimpsed in the shop window across the street is nobody but yourself...Those damn words, you see. They haunt us so, because they're all we have. And they're never enough.
Like much of Mr. McPherson's work, "Shining City" is a ghost story, literally as well as otherwise. At its heart is a tale told by a widower, John (Mr. Platt), a middle-aged businessman who turns out to be the first patient of Ian (Mr. O'Byrne), who has recently left the priesthood and set up practice in downtown Dublin. John's most immediate problem — the one he does and does not want to talk about — is that he keeps seeing his wife, Mari, who died not long ago in a car crash. The sight of her has so terrified him that he has abandoned the house they shared and taken up residence in a bed and breakfast.
In these visions, he says, "her mouth is open like she was trying to. ..." The sentence trails off. What was Mari trying to say? Even when she was alive, communication between her and her husband was close to nonexistent, although he now wonders if the mere fact of her living presence wasn't as close to human connection as life allows.
John's meetings with his dead wife aren't all that different from the other encounters described and enacted in "Shining City." In Ian's conversations with the play's two other characters — his girlfriend, Neasa (Ms. Plimpton), and Laurence (Mr. Scanavino), a scruffy young father who is hard up for cash — and in his subsequent sessions with John, patterns of unheard voices, of isolation and displacement, keep repeating themselves.
In terms of construction, "Shining City" is as close to perfection as contemporary playwriting gets. As elliptical as the conversation is, there's not a word or pause that doesn't feed the work's theme or its interconnected, disconnected stories. The same is true of even small physical details, like the malfunctioning downstairs buzzer in Ian's office building, and what turns out to be the most shocking ending on Broadway. And, no, I won't say anything more about it except that Mr. McPherson has found an inspired alternative to those inadequate tools of communication called words.
bad form.Her posse of buddies — a ragtag gang that includes her brother and a bunch of other dudes — surround her without hitting on her, which seems at first implausible, but makes sense as her persona emerges as a mix of sisterly, collegial and abrasive.
There seem at first no pitfalls to this guy-friendly act. Isn’t this the kind of easygoing bonhomie that young men always say they want from women? No makeup, no pressure, just insults, beer, nights of poker, sports talk?
The show goes with that hypothesis only so far. On tonight’s episode, P J, after serious scheming, finds herself in bed with Bobby (Kyle Howard), another sports writer. She comes on strong, to say the least, and clearly doesn’t understand even the most elementary push-pull of seduction. Her odd behavior is almost startling — but she takes Bobby’s unease as evidence only that he has problems, and concludes that the whole world of dating is just badly rigged.
As she puts it in voice-over, speaking of sports: “Can you imagine what it would be like if the foul line was always moving? Or if sometime it was two strikes and you’re out?”
And then she wraps up, “If you’ve ever tried to date someone, you probably can.”
At this point, her character — a woman who is intrinsically rule-bound and who prefers well-built games to emotional improvisation — comes into sharp focus. Her boyish swaggering seems to reflect almost a cognitive impairment. But that impairment is absorbing, even attractive. P J may yet be a terrific character, and “My Boys” is certainly a charming knockoff.
What My Boys is, is well written and familiar, peopled with a truly likable cast of characters (would that anyone on The Class was this likable.) And it's a little shaggy, too.| My paranoid friends insist that he covered up JFK's assassination as part of the Warren Commission. But to me he will go down as the doddering guy who was the first President I ever saw lampooned on SNL, and the first President I ever saw who got beat in the election. I didn't even know, back in that bicentennial year, that that could actually happen. Maybe I was a child autocrat or something. But hey, it was Florida. I was young. So long Gerry. Hope you were wearing your helmet. | |
I think the producers are pushing back because they're getting squeezed harder than ever before by the broadcasters, who won't put up full budget and most are looking to recoup their investment in first profit position in order to greenlight a show. And because the broadcast landscape has centralized so much here, producers are forced to make bad deals and cut corners. I think your point about companies who got fat on service work is valid, but maybe 40% of companies did foreign service work so it isn't fair to tar and feather them all as fat cats.
I sympathize with ACTRA but have also found first-hand that their negotiators are less than, well, flexible, and if you want to be treated like a partner you'd better treat others that way, too. I've always found that the compromise position with everyone feeling they gave a little is the best course, but they won't give. I also figured that a small piece of any pie is bigger than none and again, that argument didn't fly with ACTRA.
I've worked on treaty co-pros where we made up our points on everything but actors and never hired an ACTRA performer in the production.
For a long time, I think all the unions have been at cross purposes. If they spent more time working together to lobby, they would be more effective as a whole, not just with the CFTPA/AFTPQ, but also in raising their concerns to higher planes like the CRTC.
And for the record, I've been following the press release chain on the negotiations this round and all sides have conducted themselves shamefully.
The offer, according to other sources was actually 1/2/1, same as agreed to with the WGC, albeit with a year freeze on 10 out of 10 drama (which I guess would make it 0/1/2). Two questions: as a writer, would you be willing to take less of a raise than the performers? And working on a 10/10 show, would a freeze help spur more Canadian drama?This is the problem with Canadian TV. Eventually it always comes to this -- arguing over formulas and arcana. It's our version over the endless, useless, fruitless fight over the possessory credit in the WGA.
I happen to think that the last contract for the WGC was a pretty good one, not stellar, but certainly okay to good. Most other WGC members agree with me, since it passed by a wide approval margin. Also, the thing to keep in mind was that the main issue for writers in Canada in the last negotiation wasn't necessarily wages. MOW wages got a bigger bump, and more insurance contributions, and that's great. But one of the main things we were going for was one unified agreement between the two producer's unions in Canada -- the CFTPA and APFTQ (which covers Quebec.) It was a pain in the ass, and it delayed the agreement, but it went through.
as a writer, would you be willing to take less of a raise than the performers?
This is my opinion only, but I'd give that a qualified yes. Why? Well, honestly? I think if you can write, you're actually already further ahead than most actors. I think you also probably have a longer average career.And working on a 10/10 show, would a freeze help spur more Canadian drama?Again. My opinion only, your mileage may vary. I doubt it would do so on its own. There is a way that the Producers' have a point here, though. If you can't raise all your money domestically (which you can't) then you have to have something to deal with. And one of those things you might have some leverage on is casting an American star (or British, point is, a "name.") If you could do that, and still be 10/10, then maybe you could raise that last bit of money. I have sympathy to that position, which is something ACTRA is dead set against. I'm not sure ACTRA is totally realistic on that point.
