Friday Trailer Park

CBC'S PROMOS HAVE been anemic at best. So, just in case you might have missed it (Why dat?) here's the promo for the first of my Border episodes this season, which is on Monday night:

Math is Hard

THOMAS SCHALLER in Salon today has a very trenchant, short piece on one of the big problems in McCain's stump speech. In a week where lots of 'illions have been thrown around, it's worth getting into:

A sage Washington observer with whom I dined this week pointed out to me something that politicians and even the media are not allowed to say, so I will: Too many Americans struggle with basic math and, knowing this, politicians prey on widespread innumeracy to manipulate facts and distract people from more important debates.

Take, oh, John McCain, he of the repeated stump line about the government wasting $3 million to study bear DNA. For the sake of argument, let’s concede that money spent studying bear DNA is wasteful. But $3 million during a week in which the government is set to approve a $700 billion bailout -- are you kidding me? McCain had the audacity in last Friday's debate to fret publicly about that? What a joke.

Millions, billions and trillions all sound the same. But a million seconds takes about 11 days to expire; because a billion is a thousand million, a billion seconds takes about 30 years to expire; because a trillion is a thousand billion, a trillion seconds takes about 30,000 years to expire. These are not interchangeable orders of magnitude, folks.

Our federal debt is headed toward $10 trillion, which means if we stopped adding to it immediately, and all credit holders (yeah you, China) stopped charging us interest, and we started paying down the debt at $1 per second, it would take about 300,000 years to retire.

Millions, billions, trillions -- they aren't the same. But McCain doesn't care about that, and he is perfectly happy to suggest that ridding the budget of small pork-barrel projects is a big idea. In a campaign already scarce on big ideas, it isn't. And a million more ideas like it wouldn't make much difference, either.

Slow on the Uptake

FUNNY THING, Canadian Politics. Though the campaigns here are lightning fast (usually about 33 days, total) the actual speed at which engagement happens in this country seems to me to be slow, slowwww, slowwwww.

First, there's the fact that the CBC didn't jump to get its comedy shows on the air earlier -- even in a special version.

Next, here's -- and I kid you not -- the first EVER personally created election themed YouTube thingie I have EVER been sent. I got drubbed by a few people a couple months back for suggesting that Canadian fans weren't as ... I don't know ... quick to jump on and engage and go out and create fan-like things as U.S. fans. But this is politics. Where are the YouTube Videos and fan forums and stuff? Seriously. Nobody's making anything. Is it that Canadians are really that passive? I don't know.



Finally, here's a Liberal site, presumably, that takes that strong "Liberal" band and does the thing to Steve Harper and his (Neo) Conservative Party that should have been done MONTHS ago...

22 Woo Hoo

I HONESTLY DIDN'T think that I was really missing Canadian political satire. And then, dragging my ass home at 10:30 P.M. after pushing out a draft revision, I settled in for the hour or so before sweet, sweet unconsciousness settled in to catch the season premiere of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
And I laughed like a drain.

Seriously, Geri Hall's character "Avery Adams" -- who made news a couple weeks back when she was briefly hoosegowed thanks to the Harperites -- rocked two segments, both with Harper and later, Stephane Dion. Harper seemed briefly nearly human (though clearly about as spontaneous as any statement of his that eventually gets arount to blaming the previous Liberal government) and Dion seemed like, well, a dork. But a well meaning dork.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May forcing her way into a high school debate plus a sharp satire on Maple Leaf Meat Scandals and a whole bunch of other goodness made for about an hour's worth of entertainment packed into the 22.

So much, in fact, that I didn't stay up the extra half hour. Yes, my quality of life was raised enough by the show that I happily blew off my 30 minutes of free time, and trundled off to sleep dreaming of Avery Adams.

You can see the best clips for yourself on the 22 Minutes website. Thank god somebody's back and ready to make Canadian news look as ridiculous as it should.

Stephen Harper mistaking a baby for a ATM. Seriously. You have to see it to believe it.



(and no, none of the clips will make much sense if you're not Canadian)

EDIT: supposedly the embed is dead but if you click the link above you should be able to see it.

Oh Dear. Then there's This.

ALL I CAN say for certain is that I promise you, I have never been to either a dog, or a cockfight.

For reals.

Ahem.

TORONTO — When it comes to attracting voter attention, don't underestimate the cringe factor.

The prospect of a spectacular crash-and-burn by U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin in Thursday's televised debate is too good to resist for many Canadians, even though their own leaders will be vying for votes in a debate the same night, say observers.

The scheduling of Canada's English-language leadership debate had political junkie Denis McGrath ranting over the "boneheaded" decision to pit it against the U.S. vice-presidential debate. Despite his ardent interest in Canadian politics, he declared would not be watching the Canadian tussle.

"There's no way in hell I'm watching that thing," said the Toronto-based McGrath, an American screenwriter with dual citizenship.

"Compared to the fake Tina Fey? Is (Palin) going to be bad, is she going to be good? This is actual drama. It kills me again that the United States manages once again to trump Canada in terms of the great political narratives," McGrath added.

"I couldn't write something as wacky as the Sarah Palin rise to power, and I'm looking forward to that debate on Thursday kind of like some people look forward to a cock fight or a dog fight."

Indeed, a perverse curiosity seems to pervade much of the lead-up to the Palin showdown, in which the Republican Alaskan governor/hockey mom will spar with the more experienced democratic candidate, Senator Joe Biden.

Many pundits predict a poor showing by Palin, who has been skewered on both sides of the political spectrum for her dubious grasp on the issues and was famously mocked in a "Saturday Night Live" sketch featuring look-alike comedienne Fey.

Still, there are some who suggest the bar has been lowered so much that Palin could do well against Biden, who himself has been known to put his foot in his mouth when left to ramble. Alternatively, Biden could trounce Palin so decisively that he could come away looking like a bully, said McGrath.

and on, and on. and on...

Hey, You Know Something Else Ordinary Canadians Aren't?

F@#%ING PLAGIARISTS.

TORONTO — Stephen Harper plagiarized from a former Australian leader's speech when he supported the Iraq war as Opposition leader in March 2003, the Liberals alleged Tuesday in releasing transcripts and video of striking similarities in the two speeches.

The speech delivered by former Australian prime minister John Howard on March 18, 2003 and one by Harper two days later in the House of Commons share the same tone, ideas and, in some instances, have phrases that are nearly identical, according to the transcripts.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion called it "plagiarism" but added the context in which it occurred is "even worse."

"It's about Stephen Harper saying that Canada should go with the war in Iraq," Dion said in Gatineau, Que.

"He's unable to choose his own words, he chose the words of (U.S. President George W. Bush's) coalition of the willing."

Even Harper's critics thought the speech was eloquent at the time, but now it appears to be a case of lifting someone else's words, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said in Toronto, where the material was released.

"(Harper) couldn't and didn't find Canada's voice, so he begged borrowed or stole someone else's voice," Liberal Bob Rae said.

"This isn't just deeply embarrassing for Mr. Harper. I suspect he would've been expelled from (his high school) Richview Collegiate, let alone a university, for pulling this kind of a stunt."

The only thing I'd like to add to that as a former resident of Etobicoke who lived within the Richview Collegiate school area but didn't go there...ahem...

Richview Sucks.

Drifting Out to Sea

WELL. THERE'S A BIT of nailbiting going on. Would viewers come back to TV? Has the blood pouring out of the open wound of broadcast TV been stanched, finally? Or is gangrene setting in? (Okay, I'm setting aside that metaphor right now. )

The pre-spin about the TV season started to sound increasingly like the McCain campaign trying to defend Sarah Palin; it's too early to judge, it's not as bad as it seems, when you factor in PVR's the picture is rosier.

And based on Mediaweek's analysis, that just might be true. (Except for NBC, which is like, totally screwed, dude.)

If anything, the first four days of the official start of the 2008-09 broadcast prime-time season has affirmed one basic truth: When the networks produce programming viewers like, they will draw a big audience.

CBS procedurals CSI: Miami (with 17.2 million viewers), CSI: NY (14.5 million), NCIS 18 million) and Criminal Minds (17 million) all drew a bigger audience this year on premiere week than last year. Same for the net’s hit Monday sitcom Two and a Half Men, which drew 14.8 million viewers, up from 13.5 million last year.

Among the new series to premiere last week, the CBS drama The Mentalist pulled in 15.6 million viewers leading out of NCIS, nearly 5 million more than The Unit attracted last season leading out of the same show during premiere week.

So much for the disappearing TV viewer. While four days is not enough to make season-long projections, of course, those numbers indicate that it’s still possible for the networks to draw a mass audience.

Not every returning show came back stronger, but the big shows of last season nevertheless fared well. ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy pulled in 18.4 million viewers, 10 percent fewer than last season’s premiere, while CBS’ Survivor drew 13 million viewers, down 7.7 percent from last season.

That's great news. I guess. Except. Except.

I've read people suggesting that the slump in comedy, and the death of the broad-audience hit sitcom, can be fobbed off on the fact that there just isn't enough mass experience to draw upon. We are penned in our niches, all of us, and the days where a Cheers or even a Seinfeld could make people of differing economic, social, and educational levels laugh is over. Whatever one says about hit comedy Two and a Half Men, the fact remains that it's remarkably middle of the road.

So what to make of the great debut of The Mentalist? I watched it, or part of it. Yes, Simon Baker is an appealing lead, much as he was on The Guardian. And yup, it's a perfectly serviceable show. But that's it. It's wallpaper. There's nothing about it that sets a fire, that hooks me, nothing that makes me excited to be watching it, instead of something else.

And maybe that's what you need to do to be a network hit in 2008. Maybe the days of the challenging-in-any-way network drama truly are over. But that causes a problem for me. Because I don't really want to watch that kind of show, much less write it.

Let's also add this little local log to the fire: a show as straight-ahead and been there done that as The Mentalist, were it to debut as a Canadian show, would most likely get murdered by critics in this country.

What to do? What to do?

I'm really asking. I don't know.

What I do know is that the few shows that I do enjoy watching now on network tv seem almost to be refugees from a cable universe: House is forumlaic, but the character interactions keep it fresh. (Even if I am a little disturbed that the House-misanthropy seems to be dialed up to 11 this year, almost daring you to stop watching.) The Office eschews punchlines for moments, and I love them for it. But what in heaven's name is it doing on a network? Same too to 30 Rock. Oh, 30 Rock, writers everywhere may have a secret case for worshipping their replica Tina Fey glasses, but that doesn't mean you're a hit show. Far from it.

Beyond that, I've been lost utterly to the wilds of Cable. Californication, a show that I'd given up on early last year, I now recant. I've seen the first two episodes of Season 2 (as well as the last four of Season 1 which I'd never bothered to watch) and the scabrous, ludicrous elements are more than balanced by the strangely compelling relationship between Madeleine Martin (as the daugther) and David Duchovny. Then they drop in Callum Keith Rennie, and the most over-the-top coked-up argument between Pamela Adlon and Evan Handler that I've ever seen -- and that's it. I'm laughing. I'll follow you, Duchovny and Tom Kapinos, I'll follow you to the ends of the boner-snipping, sex addicted earth.

Then there's the only women I could ever love: Holly Hunter on Saving Grace. Kyra Sedgwick on The Closer. Mary McCormack on In Plain Sight. Jennifer Carpenter on Dexter. Heck, even Gabrielle Anwar on Burn Notice does it for me. Then, from that show, add in the cool spy takeaways, and Bruce Campbell. Dude! Bruce Freaking Campbell...and it hits me...

I'm drifting, drifting, drifting. There's the mass audience. I can see them there, on the shore. They seem shiny, shiny as ever. But maybe they're a mirage. Maybe I'm really in an innertube and I've been here for thirty days and I'm delirious and dehydrated. And I close my eyes and think I'm Don Draper or the one guy at Sterling Cooper who sees Joan for truly who she is, a woman out of her time and trapped in her limited role, and then maybe I score a bit of meth from Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad or Nancy Botwin on Weeds slips me a load of chronic, but it's not enough. Now I want the pure stuff. I want Skins, or stuff we can't even begin to get on the air here yet.

And I don't want to do a series wank that's all self important. I just want to do good work. I want to be able to write the things I like to watch.

And that shit just aint The Mentalist -- no matter whether it gets 15 million viewers or not.

And that's when I realize the cold, hard truth:

I might be fucked.

Border's Got Back

WAITING, WAITING, WAITING. You spend a lot of time waiting when you're a writer. Waiting for people to read the outline. Waiting for people to read the draft. Right now I'm waiting for the Story Coordinator to finish fixing the typos and send me the file of my script so I can do one more set of changes before sending off the draft to CBC.

Edit: Okay, now that's done. Now I get to wait for notes. Again. Tom Petty was right. The Waiting is the hardest part...

Hmm. It's very weird to be sitting here contemplating the broadcast premiere of Season 2 of The Border, cause right now I'm struggling to get out the 2nd to last episode of the season.

(I just got told that I have a couple of sentences in my dialogue "that are like Cormac McCarthy, but bad." On the one hand, hahahahahahhaha. On the other? Ulp.)

Every season of TV has its challenges and triumphs, and this certainly is no exception.

Sure, Sure, would have been great if CBC had managed to get the Season 2 website up in time for the launch, but, you know, it's not like this is Prime Time or anything. Sigh.

Just pimpin today, that's all. And hoping that you tune in tonight for the premiere, and return next week for my first episode of the season.

First here's the promo:



Next, some link lovin.

James McGowan talked to the Canadian Press.

And here's a lovely little profile of Graham Abbey (Gray Jackson) from The Toronto Star.

"This show presents a great forum for Canadians to debate and think about what that border means. Usually we hear the voices from the south, so it's nice to give voice to our point of view as well."

During the first season, Abbey mainly dealt with what he calls "the action stuff," which gave him enough to worry about.

"I joked with the guys on the show that I spent 10 years learning how to fight with a sword, and now I have to learn how to carry a gun."

Having done a convincing job of that, Abbey has been rewarded by having the scripts delve more deeply into his personal life.

"Nick Campbell has been brought on to play my dad, which is great. On stage, I learned from Bill Hutt. Here on TV, I'm learning from Nick. You don't get luckier than that."

This year he also gets a relationship with Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica).

Abbey jokes, "Hey, you even get to see my apartment. You look at the set they've designed for the first time, and you say, `Oh, that's what my character is supposed to be like!'"

Meanwhile we got some stone cold love from people looking at the social issues raised in the shows, and whether it was realistic, or TV realistic.

OTTAWA — "The Border," CBC-TV's drama about terrorism and smuggling that kicks off its second season Monday, has "its fingers on the right pulse," says a top security expert.

"It handles (issues) in quite a sophisticated manner . . . (and) works out some of the difficulties faced by Canada as well as some of the moral questions and the political realities of issues," says Jez Littlewood, director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies at Carleton University.

In particular, Littlewood said he was impressed by the way the show deals with border security and intelligence in Canada.

"This is definitely not an American-made TV series, partly because you get debates or discussions characters are having - there's nuance in issues," Littlewood said.

"(The show) gives a flavour of some of the main issues there, the tensions between bureaucracies, the importance of having to consider politics in decision making."

Littlewood hopes "The Border" becomes classic water-cooler TV that gets people talking about the issues raised.

"If it gets people thinking about the national security of Canada, (that) it can sometimes be a necessary and compromising business, just as the security of any state can be a necessary and compromising business - that's a good thing."

"Things aren't always clear cut and . . . it's good that people can understand that. It's not always a simple question of what's right and what's wrong. Tough decisions have to be made."

And if you're just interested in the stone-cold critic carnage...you can always take your choice between smiley Bill Harris, or the frowny thumbs- downy from main man John Doyle in the Globe. (Though I have to admit I agree with some of what he says.)

That long ago adage says, hey, so long as they spell your name right, right? And get the timeslot right, too! Cause it's not like they can get that info off the website! Sigh.

Won't you tune in tonight and see what you think? Tell them Mr. Bombastic sent you.

The Border Season Two: Behind the Scenes

THE SECOND SEASON of The Border starts tomorrow night (Monday, Sept 29th, 9pm) on CBC. Here's a little behind the scenes promo from the making of Episode 1.

For a Moment There, I Thought We Were In Trouble.

"I PICTURE MY EPITAPH: "Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown".”

Well, they never did. And the epitaph is liable to be far sweeter than that.

"I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried — tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out."

And he never did that, either.

Rest in Peace.

The Extraordinary Ordinary

IF YOU LOOK to the left, you can see in the sidebar a link that will give you all the details of the Writers' Guild of Canada Election Rally in support of Canadian Culture -- October 8, 2008. 11:30 A.M. in Toronto. Come down and meet an extraordinary group of writers, gaffers, composers, flautists, electrics, drivers, wig makers, fight coordinators, special effects makeup artists, producers, composers, riggers, stage technicians, singers, dancers, painters, sculptors, graphic designers, costume designers, box office managers, ushers, program researchers, camerapeople, floor directors, sound recordists, runners, actors, stage managers, artisans, draftspeople, educators, metalworkers, advertising copywriters, entertainment lawyers, comedians, artistic directors, opera singers, glassblowers, dramaturges, foley artists, carpenters, art therapists, folklorists, props masters, curators, architects, production designers, casting agents, publishers, offset printers, choir leaders, journalists, set decorators, focus pullers, appraisers, arrangers, transcribers, projectionists, PA Announcers, production assistants, illustrators, colorists, choreographers, poets, armourers, conductors, 3D renderers, photoengravers, window dressers, closed captioners, clearance researchers, level designers, motion capture artists, gallery assistants, proofreaders, documentarians, ballerinas, boom operators, songwriters, silkscreen artists, stonecutters, carvers, continuity persons, airbrush artists, script coordinators, web designers, jewellery makers, art teachers, dressers, online editors, literary agents, archivists, vocal coaches, tattoo artists, booking agents, weavers, location managers, distributors, roadies, salespeople, music producers, translators, DJs, record promoters, cartoonists, performance artists, acrobats, art directors, assistant directors, puppeteers, production accountants, librarians, organists, stock shot researchers, stuntmen, props masters, flash programmers, hair stylists, makeup artists, animators, acting coaches, character designers, publicists, dolly grips, key grips, coders, photographers, copysetters, fashion designers, camera operators, front of house managers, playwrights, radio hosts, story editors, picture editors....

Dirty Sexy Pay TV Programming

IT'S FUNNY, WHEN I wrote briefly about Dexter a little while ago I thought I would return to the subject before the premiere. But here we are, coming up on Sunday at 10pm (HBO in the USA/TMN or Movie Central in Canada) and I find that I can't really think of more to say about it. Well, not that I can't think of more to say, but just that it strains my brain to try and think of what to say about what I'd like to talk about, and explain why I liked the premiere so much, without getting horribly spoiler-y. So instead I will just say tune in on Sunday if you want to see a textbook lesson in how to set up a season of TV and deepen and introduce new themes.

This is a big weekend for people with Pay. Besides Dexter on Sunday, the premiere of Season 2 of Californication is Monday at 9pm. Now I was hot and cold on this show last year, but I've got to tell you, does it make me a bad person to say that I'm totally going to be there simply because I know that Duchovny's Hank Moody portrayal was going down while he was spiralling down into his sex addiction? I hate the tabloidization of our culture, I really do. I watched Letterman last night dutifully and guffawed over the 2nd straight night of McCain funny, but I flipped right off when Paris Hilton came out. Yet here I am, watching a show that I didn't even really like that much last year just because I know that just like the character he plays, David Duchovny can't control where he puts his junk. Clearly I'm going to hell.

Then after Californication next Monday night, there's a premiere that's probably the biggest don't-miss of the three.

I've always been fascinated by Little Britain. Not just because of the phenom it was in the UK, but because of that peculiarly English way of doing the same sketch over and over. Behind all the grotesque makeup, the strange thing about every sketch in Little Britain -- and behind the catchphrases -- every bit, every punchline is exactly the same.

I don't mean the sketches are all the same, I mean the shows are all the same. Every week the same characters appear and do the tiniest riff on the jokes and the sketches they're always in (hence the reliance on the catchphrases.)

Now when Saturday Night Live does this, I approach it with nothing but pure contempt. So why is it so frequently funny on Little Britain?

Now let's turn to the subject of Little Britain USA. (9:30, Monday) Not quite as unwieldy a title as The E True Hollywood Story Canada -- it nevertheless raises a serious question about whether this most British of comedy series could ever transplant.

The answer is resoundingly yes. Shockingly so. There are many of the same characters, and a few new ones. The trope of exploring the heritage of Britain and America is thin gruel, sure, but it's still fun to see Vicky Pollard at a youth boot camp. Some of the America-only sketches are dead on the money and totally off the charts (the sheriff demonstrating his gun collection is a particular favorite, as is the Mum saying goodbye to her porn-influenced daughter as she goes to grade school (trust me, it's hilarious)) but I'm guessing that the sketch everyone is going to be talking about is the one where Rosie O'Donnell attends a Fat Fighters meeting as herself. Marjorie's obvious horror with O'Donnell's sapphic orientation is ... so offensive ... and really, really funny. O'Donnell's more than a good sport -- it's almost...majestic.

All in all, Little Britain USA is every bit the equal of its forebear. And yup, the punchlines to the jokes are still just as funny. I know that maybe this is what Ricky Gervais was lampooning in Extras, and I do feel the occasional pang of "why are you laughing when you've seen this a thousand times before?" but I guess that's why laughter is such a mystery. Good fun.

Of course, there's ... ahem ... another show I hope you'll watch Monday night. But that's a subject for another post.

Now Here's an Interesting Question...

DID I REALLY, really enjoy the 3rd episode of the new season of Entourage because it was really, really funny and great, or because I've spent every day since Saturday not sleeping, typing, typing, typing, looking at the screen, drinking coffee, sleeping, checking fivethirtyeight.com, typing, typing, showering, and going to a read through before typing typing typing END OF SHOW?

Who Are We Kidding?

CANADIANS CAN'T RELATE to artists.

That's a perfectly true statement.

No one can relate to artists. Artists do often operate on the margins. Even people like me -- writers for television, who are arguably toiling in the most relatable, populist form of the arts, tend to be irascible, ornery, opinionated. It's our job to reflect the world or truth through invented characters. Other artists work in weird media, perform or paint or draw or display works that critique or criticize or provoke.

But that's not what Harper waded into the other day when he talked about "ordinary Canadians" not caring about the arts. About it not resonating when they come home and see people prancing around at galas.

Well, I don't go to galas. But this isn't about me. And it's not about you either. And it certainly isn't about Gordon Pinsent and Wendy Crewson. Set that aside.

Harper threw down the gauntlet. It's about "ordinary Canadians."

The problem with the sneering Harper strategy is that it's based on ideas that a majority of Canadians do not support. So the only way he can shore up his support is to put people at war with each other. He's at war with his civil service. He's at war with scientists, and Doctors, and Elections Canada, and any number of other identifiable groups.

It's just our turn. Doesn't make us special.

But this time he poked a group that gets pissed off at consistently being told that they're elitist and don't matter to the country. So cultural workers, going forward, remember in all things the Harper characterization and sneer. It's time to speak of the real incomes, the real lives, the real jobs that Harper is sneering at here: a world that includes carpenters, drivers, costume makers, seamstresses, production assistants, recording engineers, front of house managers, camera operators, electricians, designers, graphic artists, animators, coders, administrators, clerks, lighting designers, caterers, chefs, photographers, violinists, and all the people who plan and execute all those small town cultural festivals, fairs, and concerts that Canadians are so rightly proud of.

Wendy, Colm, I love ya, God knows I do, but when you give your press conferences and go on Canada AM you're at least partially playing into his rhetoric. Why not step back -- just this once -- or better yet, use your voice to tell the story of the "Ordinary Canadians" Harper tars with his brush.

J. Kelly actually came up with some figures from Statscan in a comment below. Why not say something more like this:

"Earnings... are generally lower for cultural workers than the rest of the labour force. While average employment income in Canada was $31,757 in 2000, actors earned $21,597, painters and sculptors earned $18,666 and musicians and singers earned $16,090. In comparison, senior government managers earn $65,020. As Statistics Canada indicates: “for every successful creative and performing artist there are many with earnings below those of the average Canadian worker."

And remind people, that if cultural workers are "Ordinary Canadians" too, then why is Harper so hell bent at attacking such a wide swath of the economic engine of this country? Aside from the "cultural" arguments [which members of the government have said, outright and privately to representatives of the creative unions DO NOT MATTER TO THEM IN THE LEAST] when you argue the economic reality you point out how foolish his wedge-making rhetoric is, and how much his contempt is out of touch, and exactly the mean-spirited nature that's dogged him his whole career. This is NOT an admirable man. I don't care how many sweaters they put him in.

Connect yourself to the other 30 million people in this country. We are ordinary, Mr. Harper. You are not. But Shame on You for making ordinary-ness, and not excellence, the yardstick by which things are supposedly judged.

It seems like you're uncomfortable with anyone who seems to express a vision for the future. Could it be because you have none, other than the ruinous free markets to the rescue cant that has brought our neighbour to the south to the brink of economic collapse?

I'm an ordinary Canadian -- with some pretty ordinary contempt for you, sir. Thanks for spending 240 million of our dollars on an election we didn't need. Asshole.

What It's All About

POLITICS SHMOLITICS. Crashing markets, sturm and drang, crushing disappointments, it's hard to remember why you do this.

This is why.

What attracted him to “The Office,” Mr. Novak said, besides the possibility of steady employment, was the idea that he would be part of a show that was “aspiring to do something truly great.”

“Most things on television weren’t, at that time,” he said. “Most things were aspiring to be mediocre. They were imitating shows too, but they weren’t even imitating good shows. At least we were aspiring to be like the best of the best.”

Mr. Novak has written some of the most memorable episodes of “The Office,” including “Chair Model,” last season’s gem in which Michael, the regional manager of the Scranton, Pa., branch of Dunder-Mifflin, falls in love with a woman in an office-supply catalog; “Safety Training,” the third-season episode that featured an inflatable castle in the office parking lot and watermelons being tossed off the office roof; and “Diversity Day,” the program’s first broadcast episode that was not an almost direct copy of a British “Office” script.

“That was B. J.’s first script, and it was a classic right away,” said Oscar Nuñez, who plays Oscar Martinez on “The Office.” The episode featured an exercise in which the office workers taped index cards to their foreheads, each with the name of an ethnic group written on it, and then had to experience how others reacted to them upon seeing their race.

Mr. Novak said that initial script was fun because, for the first time, he was encouraged to write “whatever I thought was funny.” It was the opposite of an earlier writing experience, for a sitcom called “Raising Dad,” he said, when he would sometimes get a real laugh from writers for a line, “and they wouldn’t even consider putting it on the screen.”

That WB show, he added, “had a different mandate. They weren’t writing for their peers, they weren’t writing for themselves. They were writing for the network, or what they thought the network wanted.”

Mr. Novak contrasts that with his current experience. “If there is a best joke of the day, it will be in the show, unless there is not time for it,” he said. “It will never be because people thought they couldn’t pull it off or they had other priorities.”

Hands up if you've got that job right now.

Right. I thought so. Back to plugging away, then. Carrot officially dangled.

Don't Be The Wedge He Wants You To Be

CANADIAN RIGHT WINGERS got their Christmas wish when Stephen Harper ascended the Tory throne to power. For years they'd been sitting on the sidelines watching the craziness of the culture wars in the USA, forlorn that in Canada, that kind of weeping and gnashing of teeth didn't go on as much.

Well, it's here. And as I started to say yesterday, I think every time we try to make the intelligent, reasoned arguments about the value of the arts, we make it it worse.

Jill Golick has some further thoughts today, including a list of the battleground ridings where the majority/minority and who's in control will play out.

I think we need to give some thought to who our audience is — the undecided and the voters in the 45 battleground ridings in BC, Ontario and Quebec. Then we need to craft a message that will help them decide to vote our way.

That message isn’t about our needs or what we think Harper will do to us. Maybe it’s about the needs of other Canadians and how a Harper government will effect them. Or maybe we should be painting a vision of Canada as it could be; a Canada that those voters want to share.

Reading her post, though, one little thing does nag at me. We are supposed to be storytellers. And we're the ones who are getting framed here. And our response is to talk about our problems?

That's not just solipsistic, it actually IS a little elitist.

The message artists -- not the Paul Grosses who are speaking for you right now, but YOU -- should take forward in this election is not OUR issues. It's small stories observed of ordinary Canadians, as it were. If Stephen Harper wants to get into a discussion about Ordinary Canadians, well, let's use our nouns and verbs and adjectives and powers of observation and letter writing, and storytelling, and flood radio shows and internet boards, and give them to him. Because the truth of those arguments don't look good for his party, or for this out-of-touch, mean spirited leader. Don't let them frame the argument.

Harper's policies are shit for the very Canadians he's courting. Arm yourself with the facts. Get out and tell THOSE stories.

Which is, you know, kind of our job, right?

EDIT: Now that I think about it, there's a perfectly valid counter to this latest harper "niche" thing accusing artists of elitism. It means arming yourself with a few facts about the average yearly salary of an "arts worker" in this country. I don't know where you get that stuff..maybe StatsCan. Anyway, the thing that occurs to me is that right now in the middle of this campaign, Harper better HOPE he can keep the discussion on things like demonizing artists.

You know why?

Because essentially his vision of the Conservative party is cut from the same ideological cloth as the neo-cons in the states -- the ones who've pushed "market force, shrink the government, deregulate, deregulate" for a generation.

This week we see the wreckage and hypocrisy that has wrought in the USA. Even now as they discuss bailout, it's a bailout that protects the people who burned down the system in the first place, and does nothing to help the actual working people.

If that was my legacy, I'd want to talk about artists too.

Arts as an Election Issue

REMEMBER C10? BACK in those old days, I started out arguing that the best argument to make was NOT the censorship one, since that played right into the base -- but to attack the very real and legitimate argument about the crushing reality that uncertain funding or financing would bring to the sector. Even I fell down on constantly hammering that argument home. That's the thing about wedge issues. They're designed to overload your reason circuits.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but the Conservative Party of Canada is going to win the Canadian Federal Election. Barring some game-changing, incredible clearing of the decks. And the Liberal Party platform, announced yesterday (Yesterday? Really?) probably isn't it.

So again, as I sit in my WGC Council Meeting, and talk to other people (in and among the grinding out of script pages, which is another story. My condo for an uninterrupted 23 hour writing day, and, uh, 12 cc's of adrenaline, I guess) there seems to be a concerted effort toward the practical matter of: how do you talk to these people? Because they do not understand your issues.

As a friend put it recently, "they look at all of you as bought and paid for ten times over by the Liberals anyway."

I tend to think, again, the economic arguments about industry and job creation are going to fly better with this crowd than any notion of culture as society-builder. They simply don't think that way. They don't care.

In Today's Globe & Mail (which, for all I tend to criticize the press these days, really has been all over this culture issue -- they deserve praise for that) Jean-Daniel Lafond, the husband of Canada's Governor General, is profiled by Michael Posner. And besides a bon mot about culture to make us all feel good: "Culture is oxygen," he says some of the smartest things I've seen about culture in the current campaign:

Fundamentally, he said in a recent interview, "it's a problem of education," and the fact that the Conservative government could slash funding for a variety of arts programs and organizations and do it without a large-scale reaction indicates just how much education is needed.

"We need to sensitize people to the importance of the arts. Don't forget, culture is oxygen. We have to protect it and [spending on it] is not wasting money. But it's a dead end to make a confrontation between artists and politicians. The only possible end is demagoguery."

Until the population understands the vital importance of the arts, not just its economic power but its cultural force, "it's very safe for a politician to destroy culture. We have to go further with education. Culture is not elitist. For me, it's an essential part of life. Otherwise, it's dead. But as it is, for more than half the population, culture is not a necessity. We have to go further ... The debate is not just for election campaigns. It's bigger than that. So maybe this is a good crisis. I think it's dangerous to tie the culture only to nationalism. ... Culture is coast to coast. Diversity is easy to talk about, but our country is made with that and if we want solidarity, we have to recognize real diversity, not just to save Quebec or Alberta."

Part of the problem is the very notion of "culture" as "special." Because to the swath of people who are likely to decide this election, it's not. They simply don't care. Yes, if you're an activated, pro-culture voter, you may know why that is ultimately short-sighted, self-defeating, even -- dare I say it -- un-Canadian -- but that case has not been effectively made, which is kind of why we're in this fix. And the problem is that the less culture matter the more provincial Canada becomes and the more the close-minded appeal of the Tory message will resonate. The only possible end is demagoguery.

Right now, the Conservatives' chance is based upon the fact that the left is split and the right is united. But that doesn't have to remain so forever. A few more cycles with these guys in charge and the oxygen sucked out of anything cultural (perhaps to be put to Sports -- and let's not kid ourselves, a dynamic that pits amateur sport funding versus the Arts would be like Christmas and Baal rolled into one for these guys) and that socially progressive Canada that most of us treasure will look as quaint as crackly old Newsreel footage.

There is nothing, after all, Progressive about these Conservatives.

But if they're driving, you have to talk to them.

So the attacks that are shrill and hysterical have to go. Yes, check things like the WGC's Election Page, and try to figure out if you're in a riding where your vote really could make a difference. And ask questions of your candidates and go to all candidates' meetings. But after that, spend some time thinking about the future, and how you're going to build a bridge to two audiences -- 1) Canadians. And 2) Conservatives.

Jill Golick discovered an interesting new front when a canvasser came to her door. She wrote about it on Weinman's Macleans site:

The NDP canvasser at my door the other night was a biologist and breast cancer researcher. He says the Harper government treats his industry in exactly the same way; decimating it with a thousand small cuts.

The sciences and arts aren’t the only ones being slowly strangled by Harper’s cuts. Perhaps the arts community would be more effective telling those stories than our own.

Harper is at war with the civil service, and cutting lots of industries that don't immediately resonate in his orbit. Finding those people, building bridges to those issues might offer another way.

Because trust me when I say this: they love it when we talk about how special we are and how important we are. They want more of that. It makes us deliciously easy to ignore.

The Alberta-bound Conservative mindset is a pure distillation of quid pro quo politics. "What does supporting your issue get me?"

In the end, we're going to need to figure out the answer to that question. We ignore it at our peril.

That Sharp Intake of Breath You Hear...

FROM HEAVEN TO THE SOUTHLAND, is people waiting for the overnights on HEROES. I didn't watch myself-- I still have about half of Season Two to get through on DVD -- but the strength or relative weakeness of the return of this once-mighty freshman phenom might offer tea leaves for the season to come.

NBC is pretty much in freefall, and an audience that's fickle enough to love something as intensely as Heroes one minute, grow disenchanted during a strike-shortened season and NOT come back at all...

...well, if that's the case we might just be looking at a Baseball Effect. You know, like fans after the 1994 strike. My friend Jeff still hasn't forgiven them.

Anyway, I'll be in a Council Meeting when that news comes down, so feel free to post'em in the comments here.

But like I said, there's a whole lot of folk mouthing "Save the Cheerleader, Save the Nework" this morning...

I Am Reliably Informed

THAT THEY TORE down the Irish Heather in Vancouver.

Seriously, what is wrong with you people?

If you mess with the Railway, I'm gonna have to come out there and kick some ass.

Truth and Bling

WELL, TOMMY SMOTHERS is officially my hero. Again. And Tina Fey. What do you say? I mean, really? Man.

Shame about The Wire diss, but you know, you knew that was gonna happen.

I have a script that's behind and a WGC Council Meeting tomorrow, so there's not much more I can say. But let's throw open the thread below. What did you think of the Emmy Awards?