Short Note to American "Blood Ties" Viewers

THIS WEEK is the first week that Blood Ties is not up against a new Battlestar Galactica on Sci-Fi, so it would be a really awesome thing to suggest to any and all your friends who might have been Galactica watchers to give BT a try this week.

If, by chance, you happen to know someone with a Nielsen box, well, this would probably be a good week to invite yourself over to watch Blood Ties. Bring s'mores. The s'mores probably won't have any effect on the ratings, but they're delicious, so yay s'mores.

/Shilling

Would You Like That Wrapped, Or Are You Going to Eat It Here?

They're for the crew.

That's the first thing you learn about a wrap party when you're a writer.

All those in-jokes that happened on set, the bonding between endless takes, the day-player who couldn't remember the lines or had weird B.O., the arrangement of words that stopped meaning anything on take four, the cast member who always had the giggles and couldn't ever seem to stop...The day it rained and rained and there was no rain cover and you just had to be outside for the shot - you're never part of that. Most likely you're up in the office surrounded by empty cans of Diet Coke, staring at the bile yellow walls and that picture of David Hasselhoff and Gary Coleman doing the 'thumbs up,' pounding out pages. (Alright, that last part is pretty specifically me, but let's just zoom past that.)

Someone clever who I work with recently opined that writers are kind of like the leper priests of a television production: no one was really sure what we did or how we did it, but we do not walk among you. We perform a vital function, but are very much apart. Very occasionally someone would wander by the room where we were breaking story and say something like, "you guys have a great job" or something like that. But most of the time, it's not like that. It's just a small group, you don't get to join in on the reindeer games, and like the misfits and weirdoes of old, it's left to you to make your own fun. It's hard to explain to anybody how half the useless, filthy crap we talk about -- all the YouTube mashups, hotlinks, downloadable outrages, and images you can't ever unsee (grim operatic abstractions that stupefy everyone) lead to story breakthroughs, but they do.

About a month and a half ago, they installed a nice wardrobe seamstress in a corner desk near the writers room. I can only pray that her sewing machine was very loud.

The other thing that's interesting about writing on a production train is that things ease off for you first. Episode 21 was my script. I kept the prep crew there late one night going from a WHITE draft to a BLUE draft to incorporate changes that grew out of something I had screwed up in the writing. It took longer than I thought to fix it after the cast read through. They never once complained (to me, I mean.)

But then they shot the blue. There were no other major changes. I was mostly...done. The last episode was written by the Showrunner. We all gave our notes, and moved on, and now it's shooting, and...

...we sit and wait for something to go wrong.

And it rarely does. Because once a script goes to production it's just a blueprint like the one-line schedule or the call sheet. I'll always remember the first set I was on when I was handed one of my scripts reduced to the tiny sides they use for reference. To see the script reduced to its tiny little form -- perfect for sitting unread in your back pocket -- well, that was a serious eye-opener. A great little attitude shift. There may be a call to fix a line here or massage something there...but they tend to be easy fixes.

(One example from my Episode 21: a line that referenced the characters as children going to somewhere specific -- it tracked in the script because the character was written as early forties. They cast an actor who was considerably older. It works for the part, but not for the line. I'm sure you can see that any fix for that line is not particularly onerous.)

I always intend to go to set more than I do. When the train's still running, it's cause you just don't have the time...there's another draft, and notes on someone else's draft, and then you have to read a second or third draft...) And once the script train slows down you're up against the very real sense that on a set there's nothing for you to do. You're the only person there not doing a job. And that gets a little weird. At least it does for me. You can of course learn by watching how things are staged, and seeing the director work, and I guess if you had active pretensions toward directing it might be useful...but I'm not sure I've got any of that impulse now. When I think about directing, it's way down the road. I'm learning too much about the thing I'm good at. I feel I'm at a point in my career where I can finally play Smoke on the Water like a pro on the guitar. Why would I now pick up the clarinet?

So the leper priest slinks off to the edges of Molokai, and thinks about the packing he's got to do, and what he's going to ship back first, rather than try and buy another suitcase. I've got a little over a week left in Vancouver, and suddenly there's a bit of sun, and there's other reasons to stay, too. But... my home's back in Toronto, and I know that eventually the odds will be against me and one of you nutbar Vancouver drivers are going to take me out, so... What to do? What to do?

Well, even though there's still four days left to shoot, on account of Easter being next weekend, tonight's the wrap party for Season One of Blood Ties. So, you know, I guess I'll go to that.

There's an element of gearing up for the wrap that's kind of like the leper priests showing up at the potluck. I've been at parties where I barely came up with a couple of concepts and had a wonderful time. And I've been at a wrap where I co-created the series, and felt like I had less connection to it than the stills photographer.

That's just the way it goes. It's nothing personal. And wrap parties do have one amazing thing going for them, if you're a writer: free booze. I know at this point in my life, there is absolutely no reason to still get excited by the prospect of cost-free libation, but I can't help it. Writing is hard. And cocktails are just so yummy.

So tonight, the priests conclave for Sushi at the legendary Vancouver sushi place I haven't been to this trip, and then we head en masse for the party where we'll undoubtedly be greeted like...

...those weird people who nobody really understands what they do.

It's okay. Fans will continue to think that the actors come up with their own best lines, Online trolls will continue to blame anything they don't like on the writers, Day Players will continue to suck up to the stars by talking about how much the stars "fix" the scripts. Everyone will continue to obsessively read the online reaction, blow past all the positive stuff and pick on that one mean, awful, ignorant, bile-ridden turd blossom; followed immediately by swearing off anything on the 'Net for a week. Human nature will out.

There are the other compensations. Sometimes, like now, as they shoot Episode 22, you get to see an actor be really excited by having something new and different to do. Sometimes another actor comes up and shows you just how closely they're reading the script by a telling comment and suggestion that work.

Sometimes maybe it's just seeing the exhausted showrunner grabbing a microsleep in his chair, the pressure easing, knowing the end is near. Or maybe it's the fact that when he's not dozing, he's taken to shouting "Spartans!" every few minutes.

Tonight we drink in hell! Anybody? No. Mm. Okay.

When it works, when you've got a good team, and the egos support and mesh and don't clash, you kind of get to have your own wrap party all the time. And all you have to do for that is face the blank page. Every...single...day.

Okay, maybe it's not a great trade.

But at least the drinks are free.

Sopranos in Seven Minutes

What a long strange trip it's been. And now we wait for April 8. But let's face it, cause there have been a couple of YEARS between seasons, it's tough to keep all the goings in the Sopranos in mind. It's almost like we need a refresher.

Done. Thanks YouTube. H/T to "L'il" Rob Sheridan.

Blogger Sucks Bum

Does anyone out there know why Blogger has suddenly decided the default setting for posting is "comments off?"

Somewhere Inside the Walt Disney Company, a Lawyer's Head Just Exploded

So watch this while you can. I'm not responsible for what it does to your kids. Nor do I expect this link to work for very long. The audio is safe for work, the video...depends on where you work.

You have to promise to watch to the end.

The thing that's my favorite? There's actually a genuine, touching moment in here. But admit it -- you always knew there was something hinky about that Rainbow Connection. The lovers, the dreamers and me, my ass.

Ah Genius. In the YouTube era, the bar, she is so very very low.

H/T to "Evil" Dennis Heaton.

B.C. Actors Settle

In the end, the B.C. Union of Performers got a contract without any of ACTRA's drama.

From Variety:

Terms of the new deal, inked Wednesday by negotiators for the Union of British Columbia Performers and those repping the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the B.C. Producers' Branch of the Canadian Film & Television Production Assn., will not be made public until the union's members have seen and ratified it.

The process is expected to take about a month.

Okay, I would like to know now, from people smarter or at least more plugged in than me, what does UBCP do right that ACTRA does wrong? How, in this case, did two unions looking for much the same thing get such different results?

Anybody?

Culture vs. Commerce, Again.

An interesting up and back today for CTV.

Let's break it down. Because of the simulcasting goldmine, CTV tries to run the Amazing Race at the same time as they run it in the USA. That way they get to substitute their commercials over the US network feed in Canada. This is standard practice; it's done all the time.

The problem comes when CBS, the originating network decides to run a special two hour episode on Sunday night. The problem? CTV has already committed to broadcasting the JUNO AWARDS, the Canadian music industry's version of the Grammy Awards. CTV has been promo'ing this for weeks, with ads and promos featuring the show's host, the very comely and once-again-hot Nelly Furtado.

What do you do?

Well, the first thing CTV tried to do was make their money. They announced that they were going to tape delay the awards in the east, so that the show wouldn't air live anywhere. (Like the Grammys, the Junos have traditionally always aired on tape delay for the West Coast, so they get to be seen in Prime Time.)

That set off a bit of a contretemps. Here's part of the Canadian Press reportage on the incident as it ran this morning:

Mar 28, 2007 04:30 AM

TORONTO–Canada's premier music awards show will be pre-taped for much of the country when it airs this weekend, a controversial turn for the much-hyped Junos that has raised the ire of industry critics who question CTV's commitment to homegrown talent.

In most parts of the country, viewers will see a delayed version of the annual awards gala, to be hosted by pop superstar Nelly Furtado in Saskatoon.

The unusual situation is all because of a two-hour episode of the hugely popular reality show The Amazing Race.

CTV wants to simulcast CBS's broadcast of The Amazing Race, which airs at different times across the country. As a result, the Junos will air at 10 p.m. in Ontario and Quebec and as late as 11 p.m. in the Maritimes on the main network.

"It definitely sucks that the most important event in Canadian music and an important Canadian cultural event has to take a backseat to a cheesy reality television show," said Aaron Brophy, managing editor at Chart Magazine.

By midday, though, after a storm of protest, CTV reversed itself. Again, Canadian Press explained:

The network announced Wednesday afternoon that Sunday's show will now air live at 7 p.m. local time in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

So what's going on here? Well, as it turns out, the Toronto Sun's Bill Harris explains it pretty well:

CTV discovered it had a problem when this Sunday's Amazing Race became a two-hour instalment rather than one hour. CTV asked CBS for permission to air The Amazing Race early, but that request was denied.

So CTV had two choices:

1) Annoy its regular Amazing Race audience by splitting up the show, or running it at a later date. The problem with this from CTV's perspective was that anyone really devoted to The Amazing Race simply would watch it on CBS.

2) Annoy its Juno audience, which admittedly might not be as big as the audience for a simulcast of The Amazing Race. (Actually, with Furtado hosting, the Junos numbers might have been really good. Ratings may be impacted negatively now, though.)

In a backhanded way, this whole mess could be seen as an argument for the continued existence of a public broadcaster like the CBC. Then again, CBC prompted similar outrage last year when it bumped its nightly newscast for a short-lived U.S. talent show called The One.

Harris also points out that since CTV took over the Junos broadcast from CBC, it's been very good for the show. It's had a much higher profile, better advertising, more pizazz. They really have done well by the property.


But that pesky culture vs. commerce thing keeps rearing its ugly head, too, all because of the peculiarity of broadcasting in Canada: private broadcasters make their money by aping and piggybacking on U.S. nets, NOT by developing and broadcasting their own programs.

A couple years ago, the Junos conflicted with a special ep of Desperate Housewives. If I remember correctly (and I might not be getting this right; that's the nice thing about blogging vs. journalism, I can put that caveat right there and wait for the hive mind to correct me in comments) they took an hour long episode and showed it over an hour and a half slot, cutting away for Juno "updates" throughout the show. It might have been another awards show, now that I think about it. I don't know. Anyway, bottom line is that it was desperately clunky and served neither property particularly well. (Marc Cherry, DH showrunner and creator, was horrified when he was told about the scheme.)

What makes this story more than the usual interesting is a couple of other ripples going on out there.

First, there's Hockey Night in Canada. Earlier on this year, there was much speculation that the CBC might lose the valuable Saturday night broadcast to CTV's much bigger pursestrings. This week, the NHL re-signed with CBC, so the hockey's place on the national broadcaster is preserved. (News junkies who hate it when The National is delayed, grumble now.) Apparently CBC dealt away some of the first round playoff games involving Canadian teams in order to make the deal, but we won't deal with that here.

The problem is that, if that deal went the other way, there could easily be a similar Juno-like problem somwhere down the line with the playoffs. What happens when American Idol butts up against the Habs vs. The Canucks? Given a choice between cultural icon and dollars, what would CTV do? Would Canadians without TSN on Cable be out of luck? Thanks to that deal we, don't have to ask that question til 2016.

The other issue, is, ironically, a cultural parable. The fact that this is a difficult choice for CTV at all is due to the fact that a Canadian music awards show is a viable viewing choice. Why is that? Because Canadians like Canadian music. The domestic music industry has produced a number of robust acts with mass appeal, including Juno host Nelly Furtado herself. The Junos is not a 'good for you' broadcast; it's a moneymaker, because it's a product that Canadians like.

And how did the Canadian music industry get that way?

Protectionism.

Cancon.

Quotas and play rules instituted in the late 1960's by people like (trivia alert here!) Pierre Juneau, for whom the Junos are named.

Blows your mind a bit, hey?

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: the very same arguments made against continuing subsidies and support for the domestic TV industry were made against Cancon in music. Yet Cancon rules for radio allowed the Canadian industry to mature, grow, and eventually become popular; popular enough that a Canadian private network would face a difficult choice between two properties. (You can bet that if it was a choice between the 2 hour Amazing Race and a Very Special Jeff Ltd, that this would be a very different conversation in the CTV boardrooms. Aw who are we kidding. It wouldn't be a conversation at all.)

If Canadian TV hasn't reached a popularity point with audiences yet that rivals the Junos, it's a problem of implementation -- NOT basic philosophy.

CTV is not the villain here; they face a difficult choice, and the reversal of their decision shows that they weren't sure they were doing the right thing anyway.

As CRTC hearings start, and people bat around the battered Canadian TV ball again, I hope the Junos and CTV's problem is brought up somewhere, by someone. Because the one thing I'm sure of is this:

The Viewers don't benefit from this business model.

U.S. networks are already on the air in Canada. Amazing Race fans could just watch the show on CBS, without inconveniencing Juno fans watching Nelly on CTV.

All the usual suspects like to talk business models and stakeholders, and boy oh boy, I would love to know what happens if anyone ever brought up this weird up and back with the Junos: what that says about our culture, and our interests, and maybe, just maybe, about making more shows like Corner Gas.

But it's likely we won't hear much about that ... we'll probably instead hear 'bout how all those huge profits Canadian companies make with the public's airwaves...that's right....The PUBLIC'S airwaves...are going down and that's why they can't invest in domestic program...what? Oh. Wow, that was fast.

And the CRTC, who are supposed to protect the public interest? Yeah...uh...we'll get back to you.

Will Dixon's peeved. I seem to have sand in my tear ducts. I just got nothing left. I'm just gonna look at pictures of Nelly Furtado.

And wish that someone would take the example of the Junos and run with it.

UPDATE: Wow.

If it wasn't already a great symbol of something, here's the kicker. The Amazing Race and CTV's need to simulcast it has actually caused them to change the start time of the actual, real live physical awards show so it starts two hours earlier. (For people going to the show in Saskatoon, that means 5pm! Rock out!)

And what of the production people, who now have to scramble to put together a highly complicated broadcast with a completely different timeframe?

"There are large complications, as you can imagine," said Stephen Stohn, chair of CARAS. "This will require a massive effort from everybody involved. This has not been undertaken lightly."

Sigh. Words fail. Agin.

The Maple Leaf List

FROM the moment I heard about it, I was fascinated by the concept of The Blacklist. No, not the 1950's purge of screenwriters with supposed communist sympathies. This blacklist was more about the cool side of black -- more black ipod than black mark.

Each year, ninety Hollywood executives are polled and asked to mention their favorite scripts of the past twelve months. Although the organizers make it clear that the list does not represent the best only favorites, it is difficult to separate the two in a town where subjectivity rules.

The fact that one of the most hated terms in Hollywood writer lore has been repurposed to shine a klieg light on talent, is, for me, the proof that the great thing about America is that everything finally does come around.

But in Hollywood, looking for great new material is the norm. Okay, there's nothing normal about it, but you know what I mean. In Canada, we suffer from a number of odd and strange structural problems in our industry. (Discussed ad infinitum elsewhere, or go take a gander at Jim Henshaw's latest . (Jeez, Jim, the way I hear you tell it, the mistake I seem to be making is that I've yet to feel that cold metal gun barrel right in my mouth...)

Indulge me here with a bit of personal history. For a little while, a period of say about a year, when I wasn't getting work, I was a reader for one of the Canadian networks. In that time, I read a bunch of pretty bad, undercooked scripts and did reader's reports. Several of the undercooked scripts I read were subsequently made into a few undercooked movies and MOW's.

But there is this one script which haunted me.

It haunts me still. I loved this script. I know the writer who wrote it, and he's a successful Canadian TV writer. He's worked on many big budget one-hour Canadian dramas. But this script... it was a Canadian story about Canadian themes that nevertheless would have total universal appeal. It's about a forgotten icon and time in Canadian Cultural history. It's about Canada's place in the world, but in the same way that The Full Monty was about British de-industrialization. It covers similar ground to a novel that was a breakout hit a few years ago, and which won the Pulitzer Prize.

This story, though...this story was true. Damnit, I wish, I wish I could see that movie.

But the network passed. And as far as I know, (I've never talked with the writer about this,) the project's dead. I wonder....are there more out there?

Let's find out.

Announcing the First Maple Leaf List.


Here's how this will work.

Accounting for Canada's smaller population and less vibrant industry, the thesis is nevertheless that there are excellent projects out there that for whatever reason, were passed over and not made. The hope is that we can discover some of these forgotten gems and maybe shine a little light on them.

1. What sort of project is eligible for the Maple Leaf List?
   
   The project can be any feature screenplay, 1/2 hour comedy/drama television series (based on pilot epsiode), 1 hr television series (based on pilot episode) or animated series (based on bible & sample script.) The project must have been under paid option to a production company or network in Canada in the last five years. (So, anything from Calendar year 2002 on.)
   
2. What sort of projects are not eligible?
   
   Spec scripts of any kind. Stage plays. Documentaries. Projects that were written on spec and never received any option money/development funding. This is not a search for new writing talent. This is a search for passed-over projects. Projects by people who are not Canadian Citizens or Landed Immigrants residing in one of Canada's 10 provinces and 3 Territories as are also ineligible.
   
   
3. Who can nominate a project?
   
   Theoretically, I'm going to leave the ability to nominate a project open to anyone, with this proviso: You cannot nominate your own work. I also state here that I will, as the organizer of this little game, recuse my own work from consideration. In practice, I will give special attention to any project that is submitted by a Development Executive, Network Executive, or Agent. If you feel a piece of work has been criminally underattended, here's your chance. ONLY ONE PROJECT MAY BE SUBMITTED PER PERSON.
   
   
4. What do I need to do to nominate a project for the Maple Leaf List?
   
   You may submit an ADOBE PDF of the script in question to MAPLELEAFLIST@GMAIL.COM. Dead Tree Scripts (paper) will not be accepted, as I have neither space to store them nor help to organize them. The PDF of the script should not contain identifying features such as the writer's name, on the document itself. Along with the script, a separate document should be submitted with the following information (which will be kept completely confidential:)
   
   • 1) Nominator's name and position/occupation/relationship to script
   • 2) Project's development history (dates of development/option)
   • 3) Project's current status
   • 4) Synopsis/description (200 words or less, including genre & length)
   • 5) Impact Statement: why you think this project has been unjustly passed over. (300 word max)
   • 6) Author's declaration: contact information from the author
     
     
   Please note that projects that do not contain these elements (or any script that identifies the writer by name) cannot be considered for the Maple Leaf List.
   
   
   
5. How will the list be determined?
   
   After the submission deadline, a shortlist will be prepared by me. Then scripts will be forwarded to a selection of confidential judges who will be asked to pick their #1, #2, and #3 choices for inclusion on the list. The judges decisions will be collected and averaged out, and the list will be determined from that.
   
   Since this is new and unknown, I have no idea how many projects will be received, therefore I cannot currently speculate on the number of judges, or in fact, the number of projects that will appear on the list. Because the projects will be of different types and genres, the list will not be ranked hierarchically.
   
   Right now, I would be ecstatic to be able to come up with a Top 5 list. If there's more, then there'll be more. If there's less, there'll be less. As I said, this is new. It's entirely possible we won't get enough entries and I'll conclude that either the naysayers are right and there are no good projects being passed over out there, or that Canadian Creatives are as cowed as everyone says we are. We're doing this as a lark. I'm making omelettes and breaking eggs. What are you doing?
   
   Judges will be drawn from different disciplines in the Canadian Broadcast Industry.
   
   
6. What is the Deadline for submitting a project to the Maple Leaf List?
   
   The deadline will be May 18th, 2007, at Midnight. Results will be announced June 10, 2007, on this blog -- just as the Banff TV Festival Gets Underway.
   
   
7. What do I win?
   
   Absolutely nothing but bragging rights. Okay, and if you are in and around Toronto or anywhere else I happen to be and pin me down, I will buy you a drink and an Appetizer of your choice.
   
   All listers will also be profiled on this blog (unless they choose not to be.)
   
   
   Are there diamonds in the rough? Let's see. Let's see. My guess is, any notable scripts will not shamelessly deploy the icons of Canadiana as I have here. But who knows? Maybe somewhere out there is a script about a maple syrup guzzling beaver who chomps back bacon while prepping for his role in the big hockey game. You just never, ever, ever know.
   

(Canadian bloggers, please feel free to publicize this on your shingles.)

Are You Kidding Me?

Do I really have to start watching The Simpsons again?

The Joker, The Thief, and the Geek (Me)

Dude! Battlestar Galactica finale! Dude!

Well, while I'm trying to wrap my head around that, here's something interesting from Ronald D. Moore, via Salon, Laura Miller:

Creatively, serialized dramas are tricky because you can plan some of it out in advance, but not all of it. Do you have story arcs plotted out over the whole series or over the season, and how much of it do you decide as you go along?

A good amount of it is improvised in terms of how we develop story, which is how I like to do it. At the beginning of the season, we arc out about 10 episodes. I can think in groups of 10.

Then we break all the interior shows. But as those shows get translated into teleplays and we get into production, things will change. We'll get different ideas or get inspiration in the middle of a scene I'm writing and think, "Oh, know what? We should make a hard left turn here." Then all the planning goes out the window and we have to make a change on the fly. But we still try to maintain that goal. We still aim to get to that same place by the end of the 10th episode, but the path to get there I consider much more flexible.

As you get deeper into the series and start planning the next 10 and what's the season finale, it's the same process. You think you've laid out a path, but as you do it you find that there's this other more interesting path to get there. It causes chaos and you have to scramble to change things that you've already set in motion. But I find that it's just a more organic way to do it. It's more interesting, it's more fun, it allows the writers' creativity to come to the fore. It certainly has its downside, because sometimes you make big mistakes. Something that sounded really good at that moment, and you grabbed onto it, doesn't really pan out. Then you have a bad episode.

What's an example where that process really worked well for you?

In this season's finale, I decided on the fly to give Laura her cancer back. It's been bubbling in the back of my mind for a while. When we cured her cancer in the second season, I knew I didn't want that to be a permanent thing. I knew at some point I wanted to bring it back, because we'd changed her character in a way I wasn't happy with. But it wasn't until I was sitting down doing a rewrite of the finale that I decided this is the moment, let's do it. Tigh losing his eye was done in the same way. I was writing the teaser for the season opener and I decided on the fly that Tigh's lost an eye. That became a huge thing for the character and shifted a lot of things in the show. It just worked.

And when did this method not work so well?

We'd developed a whole story line this season about a colony called the Sagitarions, and they were going to be an issue in the trial of [former president] Gaius Baltar. During the missing year on New Caprica, when Baltar was president, a massacre had taken place among the people from this one colony that had isolated themselves from the rest of the people. It was this long intricate back story built into a lot of the previous episodes of the show and it just didn't work. And I basically decided to throw it out while I was writing the finale, on the spur of the moment. We then had to go back into previous episodes and take that out, reshooting and re-editing. Some of those episodes suffered from that decision. It was important because it saved the finale and made it much stronger, but certain episodes in the second half of the third season are weaker as a result of that.

Here it is, the faultline in the viewer/writer conundrum. This is undoubtedly all the ammo needed for the "they're just making it up as they go along" army. My friends, my friends...that is indeed...the POINT.

More from Laura Miller's article here.


PS -- we're cooking up something big(ish) here at Dead Things Labs..stay tuned.

"Well," he said, Sheepishly...

I haven't even seen the season finale of BSG yet, so I'm sure as heck not blogging. However, in my pique of a few days I made a request, and darnit if all you pot smoking, left coast praising, birkenstock wearing, bad driving, gluten-free, nuclear-free, free love, love the mountains, mountains are pretty, pretty serious about your coffee lower mainlanders didn't come through with the sun. Just in time for my weekend in Victoria.

So...uh...thanks.

You need more ferries, though.

Not Spending Enough Time With Your Kids?

And torn because you haven't had enough time to go see blockbuster film "The 300?"

I know. Life is tough. I've fallen behind in my TV shows and my reading. But I'll tell you man, I'll definitely get out to the theatre to see this: the PG recut of The 300. I hear this is also the version they'll be showing on airplanes.

Shmoppyright Now!

Jonathan Lethem has done pretty well by copyright. Motherless Brooklyn is being made by no less a conscientious adapter than Edward Norton. Lethem himself is helping with the adaptation of The Fortress of Solitude.

Still, he's gone and done something pretty bold for the film rights to his seventh novel, "You Don't Love Me Yet."

He's offering the rights, for free (and a percentage of the back-end) to whoever comes up with the best proposal.

On his Web site, he offered an option on the film rights free to the filmmaker who presents him with the best proposal by May 15. In return, the filmmaker will agree to pay Lethem 2 percent of the film's budget when the film receives a distribution deal, and allow the rights to the novel to return to the public domain -- for the free use of anyone, including other filmmakers -- within five years of the film's release.

Lethem also wrote an essay for the February issue of Harper's called "The Ecstasy of Influence," in which he argues for a new approach to copyright law, based on the recognition that "appropriation, mimicry, quotation, allusion and sublimated collaboration consist of a kind of sine qua non of the creative act."

Salon.com continues a fine tradition of iconoclastic and interesting arts journalism today with a very interesting interview with Lethem by Amy Benfer.

What struck me reading this interview is that I've now heard three or four really, really interesting conceptualizations of how copyright and rights should work in the new era. They've all been from writers and artists. The only proposals you ever hear from the people on the other side of the table are proposals that benefit big corporations and demand clunky DRM schemes; all these things that accrue no benefit to the user whatsoever.

Half of us have entered the new world and are trying to figure out how to make it work. The other half have lawyers plunging 300-page fingers into ever widening holes in the dyke. After me, the deluge...

Mr. Hunt, Mr. Jones, Ms. Atkinson, Mrs. Salgo, Mr. Hamilton, Mrs. Bixley, Dr. Gardner, Ms. Diamond, and Mr. Castricone

Bunch o'writers eating lunch on a Friday and this comes up. As I once wrote in an op-ed -- wonder who I'd be if I had 20 more names I had to try to squeeze into the title of this post?

For we who work with words, there is no greater debt we have than to those who pushed us in school. Who made the difference for you?

Let Taylor Mali break it down for you.

Okay, Enough is Enough

WHEN Vancouverites start telling you that the rain that has not let up for weeks is getting THEM down, and saying stuff like, "by now we should have had a week of solid sunshine," it's hard to keep up one's spirits. Without spirits, I mean.

The thing is, it's almost time for me to go back home. And if the sun doesn't shine soon, and if I can't see those mountains and all that beauty y'all go on about, I'm afraid I'll just have to go back to Toronto and talk about how awful the weather is. You know, we'll all drive our Toronto cars and sit at our Toronto cafes and have our Toronto conversations about Toronto things and we'll chuckle, oh yes, we'll chuckle our Toronto chuckles and feel all...Toronto. And we all know how much you hate that.

Unless you make the sun come out.

(This Picture shows the view from the window of the writer's room in the Blood Ties Production Office in Maple Ridge, B.C. Allegedly there are mountains just over the horizon.) Yeah. Right.

Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!

She never lets me have a bump!

And she's the reason why Cindy's hooked on cough syrup!

Exxxxcelllent.

It's like finding out that Batgirl had a penis.

Dave, I Want To Go Home

Aw, nuts.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Calvert DeForest, the roly-poly character actor with the black-framed glasses and seemingly clueless delivery who developed a cult following as Larry "Bud" Melman on "Late Night with David Letterman" in the 1980s, has died. He was 85.

DeForest, who continued appearing with Letterman under his own name after the late-night comedian moved to CBS in the early 1990s and last appeared on the show in 2002, died Monday in a hospital in Babylon, Long Island, N.Y. after a long illness, said a spokesman for Worldwide Pants, which produces "The Late Show With David Letterman."

"Everyone always wondered if Calvert was an actor playing a character, but in reality he was just himself--a genuine, modest and nice man," Letterman said in a statement Wednesday. "To our staff and to our viewers, he was a beloved and valued part of our show, and we will miss him."

Like a lot of people my age, one of my first memories ever of DeForest was a couple of appearances on the original "Late Night" -- on the third anniversary special, maybe, when he was tasked with interviewing someone, welcoming them to New York, and then giving them a hot towel.

He couldn't master the actions. At all. He'd point the mike away from the interviewer and toward himself when they answered a question, point the mike to them when he asked a question, so most of the thing was off mike. Then he'd fumble the towel, and remember too late to tag it with the awkward laugh at the end. The clumsiness of the action reduced Letterman to hysterics. And me too. And probably a whole generation of Gen X'ers staying up too late so they'd be tired in homeroom the next morning. And maybe a few older kids for whom a couple of bong hits only increased the hilarity.

I encountered Calvert DeForest personally exactly twice. The first time was on a University trip to NYC. He was taping what would be the kickoff of the "Goodwill Tour" that was supposed to take him via Winnebago to Tierra Del Fuego. A few weeks later, a clearly unhappy DeForest would petulantly beg Dave on the air to let him come home. But on this night he trundled out big as life and did his bit where he entered the Winnebago, and triumphantly left New York.

The night before, I had stupidly tripped and gone over on my ankle in a very dimly lit nightclub. So I was on crutches. We were hanging around 30 Rock, after having failed to get into Letterman. Then I noticed the Winnebago parked on 51st Street. I think it might have said something about Calvert DeForest on the side of it. This was right after he dropped the Larry Bud appellation and started going by his own name on the show. (Though news reports frequently get it wrong, they actually had mostly dispensed with the Larry Bud name before he left the NBC show.) In fact, the reason I remember that is because I clearly recall having to argue with a few classmates that "Calvert DeForest IS Larry Bud Melman,"-- hence the sign on the Winnebago was a Letterman thing. This, in the pre-internet, pre-Celeb24hournewsworld, pre-Google age, was how knowing useless shit paid off.)

I was depressed about being in NY on crutches, but when I saw that Winnebago I was stoked. I'd been watching Dave and I'd heard him primping for the upcoming tour -- and I knew that if we just hung around, pretty soon we'd see the next best thing to Dave.

When he finally came out, he was not surrounded by handlers or people. He was just a short, small, scared actor trundling across a street in midtown Manhattan. I don't know what he thought as he saw a six foot three guy lumbering toward him in a dark trenchcoat on crutches, but to his credit, when I touched him, and threw my crutches down and said, "I can walk!" he smiled. And then, when I took a couple of tentative steps (obviously still in pain) he said, "Are you really hurt?" with something like real concern.

It's hard when you straddle that netherland between being someone who's being laughed at, and laughed with... and I'm not sure how much comfort DeForest ever had in that role. I'm not even sure what side of that line he thought he was on.

We've gone so far past the age of Larry Bud Melman. We now regularly know from the rhythms of Springer and Reality TV that there are some people you want to hate; and some people the medium practically demands that you laugh at, because of their venality, or cluelessness, or arrogance.

But Calvert DeForest wasn't like that. He was always a little lost. And what made his bits so joyously funny wasn't just the absurdity of him -- that voice and that white hair and the seeming willingness to do anything -- it was the sense you got, the very real sense, of displacement. You weren't sure where the character stopped and the man himself started. He was guileless.

The second time that I met Calvert DeForest, it was when his second career, his non-Letterman career, had really taken over. His appearances on the Letterman show had grown more infrequent since the move to CBS anyway, and now you were as likely to see him in a music video or pitching something as in the role where he'd always shone the best: as a slightly befuddled older man doing the puckish bidding of another cranky man who just happened to have his own late night TV show.

I rode around with DeForest for most of a day in Toronto, when he was up doing media appearances for a series of Pizza Hut commercials. (I was doing a story for the show I was a producer on, mediatelevision.) We shuffled from radio Station to TV Station to newspaper interview... Everyone who met him was delighted to meet him. And everyone who met him obviously had his own view of the man himself. They had their own favorite bits. The radio guys tried to get him to say lines from favorite movies. While I have to admit, hearing him say, "Don't ask me about my business, Kay!" brought a smile to my face -- he didn't seem to relish the experience very much.

As I talked to him in that limo that day, it became more than clear to me that DeForest really wasn't dialled in to what his place in the culture truly was. It reminds me of a story that Paul Simon once told about meeting Joe DiMaggio and Joe DiMaggio complaining about Mrs. Robinson: "You say I've gone away, but I haven't. I'm still here." Commented Simon wryly: "I guess Joe hadn't really accepted his place as cultural metaphor."

Well, neither had DeForest. He might have been asked to hit his marks (which he never could) remember his lines (uh uh) and emote (please) but no amount of Pizza Hut cash could make him more sanguine about his life as a shill and a punchline.

He had always wanted to be an actor -- had dreamed of it. But even five hundred miles and sixty years away from his native Brooklyn he couldn't quite escape the reach of his disapproving mother -- who he talked about in alternatively hushed and reverent tones that were kind of heartbreaking. She had been an actress for a short time, and she said it was no life for anybody.

His Dad was a Doctor. His uncle actually helped invent the technology which made broadcasting possible. (Check out this site for more on that.) DeForest's mom died when he was forty, and it was only then that he got the courage to branch out, follow his dream, and quit his job in the pharmaceutical industry. He volunteered, and did a few dumb things in the 70's -- which was a nasty time in NY and no time to try to be an actor, of all things. I think he did a lot of extra work.

As we bounced around Toronto in the back of that limo, he talked about another, way more fateful limo ride -- the one that brought him from his job as a file clerk at a rehab clinic to his first meeting with David Letterman. Letterman had seen him in a couple of staffer's NYU films - and thought he saw comedy gold in action.

It was DeForest, and not Letterman, in fact, that opened the very first episode of Late Night With David Letterman. Merrill Markoe had come up with the "Larry 'Bud' Melman" moniker, and when people tuned in to that legendary first show the first face they saw was DeForest's, doing a riff on the prologue to Boris Karloff's Frankenstein.

DeForest, by the time I really met him, was a lifelong bachelor. He spoke reverently not of Letterman and his own showbiz life, but of the theater, and Broadway, and old film starlets of the 30's and 40's -- stars that maybe he could imagine his mother acting with, all those years ago in a time and a New York that had long since faded into... well... the postmodern city where a gap-toothed, wry and cynical Midwesterner could use an aging Walter Mitty as an endless -- and endlessly amusing -- visual punchline.

I don't want to leave the impression that DeForest didn't appreciate the turn his life had taken. He did. He was downright serious when he talked about the rehab clinic and the horrible and sad people that he saw there, and how glad he was to be rid of that. His speech, in person, had that same nasal Brooklyn honk. The glasses were just as thick as you think. He was stout, but impeccably tailored -- his hair was straight and clean and neat. And he carried with him, as all great comics do, the whiff of melancholy.

I don't know if DeForest was always in on the joke, but at least for the day I spent with him, he was a guy who knew what he had. But it had never stopped him from wanting something else. He showed me a picture of his mother, and a picture of him -- as a young man -- and does it need to be said that the guy who was such a funny looking dude on Letterman wasn't bad looking in his youth?

I got out of the limo, having gotten my story, and sure as I could be that DeForest would have traded everything for a chance to have one great scene in black in white with one of those fine old Hollywood legends like Lana Turner, or Ava Gardner.

He signed a picture for me. It got smudged, and now probably it's lost. An ephemeral end to an artifact for a man with a kind of ephemeral fame.

But Good Lord, when he smashed through the Berlin Wall? I laughed like a drain.

Good Night, Calvert. I hope wherever you are, the Bijou's playing the movies you love, and someone else is handing out the hot towels.

Bravely Waving to and Fro

I've talked about hand waving, its uses and its troubles, before. This post is the kind of hand waving you do when you're tired from production rewrites and really just want to spend some time watching people say things you wrote and make them seem better. So in no particular order here's a couple of chunks of red meat for you to chew on:

It's appropriate, as my last episode of Blood Ties goes to the floor today, to point to this lovely essay on the blog of writer Doris Egan (House, Smallville, Numbers) about what TV is really like when you work on a show:

It's not unusual to see a writer/producer running through the halls during prep, hurrying to casting meetings, tone meetings, production meetings; rushing back to put out new pages; rushing off again before somebody drives somewhere without them -- because nothing can wait. And once shooting does begin, the train only goes faster. There's no time to do anything but field each potential disaster as it comes, and if something goes wrong while shooting a scene -- well, that's it, that's what the world's going to see. There's no budget and no time to re-do anything...

I remember watching an episode of Smallville where an actress said the word "ancestors" instead of "descendants." People made fun of the writer, but not for a second did I think that was what was in the script -- if it were, about fifty people would have commented on it before shooting. I can well believe it happened while shooting the scene, however. Actors are not machines, though they're expected to perform as if they were; and the wrong words will come out way more often than you think. Consider: they're only given about fifteen minutes to rehearse, a little bit of time while lighting's being set up, and then they're tossed into the lion's den. And then there's the pressure of filming -- and it is pressure; if someone were to point a camera at me I'd forget my name. And it's not as if we were asking them to simply perform a task; no, we're saying, "And by the way, could you be wonderfully talented and entertaining while you do that? Starting… now." I'm continually in awe of how consistently actors take all this straw and hand you gold back...

And the train speeds on. Thirteen, fourteen, sometimes fifteen hours a day. You've got enough time to drive home, wind down, get your six hours of sleep, and hurry back...

As you can tell from this, I hope, my respect for television directors, crews, and actors is enormous, and whenever I hear rumbles from the heartland that suggest those Hollywood folks are lollin' around by their pools getting stoned, I think, if only you knew. The Puritan work ethic is alive here more than anyplace I've ever seen, and I worked on Wall Street during the 90s, when they assumed associates were there to put in endless hours. Try going to a party where television people are gathered; by 11:00 pm they're on their way home, because it's going to be a long day tomorrow. The usual end of the workday, for a writer, is about 7:00-8:00 pm; and we're spoiled and cosseted children of privilege compared with the production crew. Whenever we're filming an episode of mine, I look at the people around me and think how remarkable they are, and how fortunate I am to be in their company.

Amen to that. The full post is really worth reading, as is everything on Egan's LiveJournal. She's a self-described "process nerd," which is what every TV writer needs to be, at least on some level.

Then, I thought to myself, you really shouldn't let the premiere of The Riches go by without saying something about it. But then there's Allesandra Stanley's review in the NY Times, which says it far better than I ever could:

So much research is devoted to studying whether violence on television desensitizes children. Yet nobody seems to worry that adults are becoming inured to excellence.

“The Riches,” a new series that begins tonight on FX, could serve as the control in a much-needed experiment. It’s so compelling it deserves to be a hit, generating as much media attention and Internet chatter as “Deadwood,” “Nip/Tuck” or “24.” (It would be blasphemy to invoke “The Sopranos,” since no show is that good, not even “The Sopranos.”)

So if “The Riches” does poorly, then it can only mean that there is too much high-quality television driving away the bad.

Stanley's tongue is planted firmly in-cheek, but not too far. I was just blown away by this premiere. Not just Eddie Izzard, but the freshness of the story area (I've never seen anything about American Travelers, or Roma...) The con-angle has been played before, sure, but the culture of these people has not; and the oddness, the alien-nature of this world, to me, is everything that Big Love wasn't. I want to see more of how these people see the world: and our world, too.

When Hugh offers Wayne a job as a lawyer in his real-estate empire, Wayne isn’t sure what “in house,” means and repeats the words thoughtfully until Hugh supplies the rest, “in-house counsel.” But Wayne cements the deal with a con man’s bluff, taming the bullying Hugh with a game of Russian roulette.

“A good lawyer makes you believe the truth,” Wayne says after aiming a gun at his future employer’s head. “But Hugh, you know what a great lawyer does? He makes you believe the lie.”

Hugh gives him the job, telling Doug that he’s a sick fellow, “and I like that in a liar.”

Viewers will also learn to like these liars.

“The Riches” is that rare thing, a dark, sophisticated series that speaks to our most childlike natures. Just as little boys and girls dress up as the Little Mermaid or pretend they are enrolled at Hogwarts, the Malloys tempt even stand-up adults to assume a new identity and live it to the fullest — on someone else’s MasterCard.

Well, I can't do better than that. So I'll just say The Riches is worth watching, and I'll probably have more to say once I've seen a few episodes.

I also think in all the "avenge me while you see my ghost" subgenre (Medium, Ghost Whisperer) Raines clearly stands out. Two words: Jeff Fucking Goldblum, bitches. The twist got me. It all got me. It's new on the list.

And finally, if you're in the USA, tonight you get to see my non-sexual hetero mancrush spread his wings. The much anticipated This American Life TV show premieres on Showtime tonight. David Carr had a nice profile of host Ira Glass in the Times.

That's it. Now, I'm going to watch people work harder than me.

David O. Russel and Lily Tomlin are Having A Very Bad Day

I can remember the latte I was drinking when I read the article where this video was referred to obliquely. This has been making the rounds in Hollywood apparently for years.

But in Canada we're not used to hearing these words. Thinking them, yes. Just not saying them out loud.

On set.

In front of everybody.

Oyyyyyy.

This is so totally NSFW.

UPDATE: as fast as these links go up, they come down...but here's another one.

Damn You, Comedy Week! Part VII, The Final Laugh

Man. You try to make a graceful exit from the week, and then the New York Times profiles not only Amy Poehler, but Jim Gaffigan, too? An embarrassment of comic goodness!

The Poehler article is interesting for hanging a lantern on the "she's funny for a girl" trope while still kind of saying, um...she's funny for a girl.

When Ms. Poehler, a native of Burlington, Mass., and a graduate of Boston College, first arrived in Chicago in 1993, the scene was in flux. “You’d hear, ‘Oh, women aren’t funny,’ and most of the improv teams were eight guys and one woman,” said Rachel Dratch, a Chicago veteran who would later join the “SNL” cast. “But within like four years it had kind of switched up.”

As Ms. Poehler rose through the ranks at ImprovOlympic (now known as I.O.) and Second City, gender divisions within these institutions’ comedy teams began to even out, and she found herself in the company of strong female performers like Ms. Dratch and Tina Fey, the future “Saturday Night Live” head writer and “30 Rock” creator and star, who appeared with Ms. Poehler in an I.O. group called Inside Vladimir.

Soon Ms. Poehler was invited to join the Upright Citizens Brigade, a sketch comedy troupe whose formidable roster included Adam McKay, another future “SNL” head writer and the director of “Talladega Nights,” and Horatio Sanz, soon to be one of the show’s stars.

“We were a group where I think our shortest guy was like 6 foot 1,” recalled Matt Besser, a founding member. “So it’s not just intimidating to perform with us because of our experience, but also because we were literally towering above most people physically. But Amy was able to get onstage with us, and that just didn’t seem to matter.”

On the other hand, the Gaffigan article goes into an aspect of his act that I was unaware of:

He also said he was gratified by his fans’ repeated support for the decision he made about five years ago to quite literally clean up his act and purge it of the “cussing,” as he calls it, that he found he was using as a crutch. (On the meet-and-greet-line in Charlotte, he tried to warn some unsuspecting audience members about to buy one of his older CDs that his language was coarser.)

“The topics I’m discussing — there’s no reason to curse when you’re talking about escalators,” he said. “Among comedians, George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce are, in a way, the martyrs who fought for us to have the right to curse. I feel like they also made it possible for us not to.”

Mr. Gaffigan’s big break came in 1999, when he was booked to perform a stand-up set on “Late Show With David Letterman” after five years of trying. As a fellow Indiana native (Mr. Gaffigan grew up in Chesterton, in the northwest corner of the state), he said that he had regarded merely shaking hands with Mr. Letterman as something akin to “meeting Mark Twain.” Among the jokes he told that night was this one: “I’m from Indiana. I know what you’re thinking. Indiana. Mafia.” From behind him, he could hear the host giggling. After Mr. Gaffigan was finished, Mr. Letterman rewarded him with an honor that to this day he bestows only rarely: he invited Mr. Gaffigan to sit down next to him at his desk.

“Literally, that night, my life changed,” Mr. Gaffigan said.

The article also goes into how his wife was instrumental in developing many of the hallmarks of his act -- including the "inner voice." In its own way, I think that's as much a refutation of the whole "women aint funny" trope, even if it, at the same time, resurrects the whole "behind every great man is a..." thing. Now, if he would only tour to Canada...

Anyway, go about your business.