A LOT OF people didn't see it the first time because the promo wasn't that great. (Whaaat? On Canadian TV? I'm shocked! Shocked!) but the TV movie on the terrible 2005 killings of RCMP officers at Mayerthorpe repeats tonight at 9pm on CTV, a few days shy of the 4th anniversary of the event.
The movie was written by Andrew Wreggit and Directed by the redoubtable Ken Girotti and it's really a great piece of work. Worth PVR'ing and checking out. Just saying.
And I tried to find a good still to go with this, but I've just hit five minutes Googling without finding something decent. But there's no problem with PR. Pffft.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The Fallon Flies at Midnight Monday (12:35 actually)
THREE TAKES ON the ascendancy of Jimmy Fallon to Conan (and the once-Dave) Late Night throne @NBC.
(Photo: Diane Bondareff/Associated Press)
Andrew Ryan has a take in the Globe that, to my great surprise, got me rooting for Fallon:
Demonstrating rare network foresight, NBC made its decision looking to snag the young and restless Web generation. Nice suit notwithstanding, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will be a show aimed at younger viewers, most of whom network executives believe are watching TV and surfing the Web simultaneously.
“We grew up with the Internet,” says Fallon, 34. “I'm into tech and gadgets and I want those kind of people on the show, whether it's Bill Gates or the guy who designed the new Palm Pre. I want to know what makes it so great. I think that's interesting for people who are awake at 12:30 a.m.”
The new and improved Late Night will still boast some of the standard antiquities – the big host desk, the studio audience setup, the wacky staff announcer, the house band (Fallon himself approached the hip-hop group The Roots for the honour) – while simultaneously moving into heretofore untouched pop-culture areas. Say, for example, video games.
“Video games are important to a lot of people these days,” Fallon says. “The video game industry now makes more money than the movie business. We want to cover the big video game premieres almost like they were movie premieres.”
Then there's the always-reliable Bill Carter's insider-y version in the NYTimes:
He said the intimacy of late-night shows demands early modulating. “First you ask, ‘Can I come into your house?’ After a while you take your shoes off, you have a couple of drinks, and by the end of the night you’re singing and dancing, and it’s crazy. You just have to figure a way to get into the house.”
So, yes: first a monologue emphasizing the day’s events, perhaps as long as 13 minutes. Mr. Fallon has been polishing his stand-up skills in clubs. Then some other comedy ideas, which he hopes will eventually include out-of-studio pieces. “You look at Conan’s ‘best of” clips, it’s mostly remotes,” he said. “We got to get out there.”
Then the guests. Mr. Fallon said he decided to “call in favors” early. So his old “SNL” partner from “Weekend Update,” Tina Fey, is on Night 2.
The guest list on opening night includes Robert De Niro, Justin Timberlake (talking, not singing) and Van Morrison, singing “Sweet Thing” from his classic album “Astral Weeks.”
Mr. Fallon has already dived into the Web. He is the first late-night host to start a video blog, latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video, running snippets of comedy bits and background reports on how he was building the show. He even took his blog followers along when he had eye surgery.
Mr. Fallon has also been courting fans through Facebook and Twitter, where at last count he had more than 100,000 people following him. He said that Questlove, the leader of the Roots, his house band, will be “sending tweets during the show.”
“The Internet has been awesome,” he added. “They’ve got my back.”
And finally, in the same paper, Allessandra Stanley's lament over how Late Night remains the province of the White Male. (That's probably not a totally fair characterization of the article...especially toward the end, her characterization of the tropes of Late Night are quite winning.)
The charm isn’t seeing a host discomfited by an ill-prepared celebrity, it’s watching an experienced entertainer draw a sliver of comedy out of an uncomfortable moment or humorless guest. It’s diverting, and effortlessly so. The hosts — male, middle-American, middlebrow, middle-aged or close to it — are easy to like: subversive enough to poke holes in pomposity or pretension and make us laugh, but not so offbeat or marginal that they seem to be laughing at us. Mr. Fallon may seem more boyish and antic than his predecessors, but he shares their engaging good manners. (He made Martha Stewart laugh while making chili on her show, and she is rarely distracted.)
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, meanwhile, are too steeped in political satire and current events to let us forget our troubles. And the best comedians — Larry David, Dave Chappelle or Sarah Silverman — don outré comic personas that discomfit as well as amuse.
A host who is daringly different breaches the contract: it’s not civility, it’s the breakdown, and however funny and cathartic that can be for a while, the pleasure is not a lasting one. In 1986 Joan Rivers tried to host her own late-night show on Fox and flopped. Mr. Chappelle was brilliant on his own Comedy Central series, but he flamed out after two years and disappeared.
Talk show hosts are just that: hosts who make viewers feel welcome. They are not angry, eccentric or crazy (at least, not on the air). At the close of each show they convince us that everything is all right in the world, and Mommy and Daddy still love each other.
(For my part, I think Chelsea Handler notwithstanding, any man who's ever seen three women cut up a fourth on her appearance and choice of footwear understands why a broad-based female late night host is a way tougher sell. I'm pretty sure Senator Pam Wallin is still smarting over all those letters she'd get about her haircuts.)
All I know is, as a once and future insomniac otherwise subject to the hegemony of infomercials (I am NOT buying the %@#% snuggie, OK?) the late night shows are a godsend. Bring on the video game premiere, Jimmy. I'll give it a shot.
Friday, February 27, 2009
If This is Wrong Than I Don't Wanna ... Wait, no. I'd Still Like To Be Right, I Think.
WHEN CBC CHANGED the timeslot of Being Erica three weeks ago, they had every reason to think they were doing something good. The show was performing well, but they thought it could do better.
They hit upon moving it into a slot behind The Week The Women Went, which drew more of a younger women demo, and was drawing over a million viewers.
Only one problem. It never hit that number again. And every Wednesday Erica since has shed more and more viewers. Bill Brioux enjoys the death spiral here.
This whole "bold CBC" thing -- where rather than let underperforming shows run three years, they cancel them; or move them -- that's all still new. Maybe we're hurtling toward the "timeslots don't matter" age, but the rapidly cratering fortunes of the freshman drama show we're not there yet.
Any move the CBC makes is always met with a great big storm of complaints. Whatever it is. So that shouldn't be the metric here. In retrospect, you look at the competition and the truth is that the reason why Fifth Estate was better in that slot was because of the very reason it's "pooh poohed" -- all those over 55 viewers. See, Wednesdays at 9 crushes Erica because there are at least three shows splitting that younger female demo. Unfortunate, but true.
What to do?
Move it back. Period. Clearly the show did better Monday at 9. The CBC doesn't have the most flexible schedule anyway because of the need to show the news at 10.
Yes, there will be 'tsk'-ing. But there was going to be that anyway. Right now you have to stop the freefall. Right impulse, wrong decision. Ah well. Live and learn.
Meantime, it also bears repeating that the other freshman drama on CBC, Wild Roses, has built audience every week. And it's way outpacing Erica since the timeslot change. So I guess there's good news for that show too.
Of course, good news is relative. Look at that pretty glinty thing on the horizon. Is that an iceberg?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Plus ca Change, Plus c'est la meme chose
THE CANCON DEBATE.
From 1970, CBC radio. It's shocking how little has changed. Marshall McLuhan pointed out how new media don't replace old, they just recontextualize. It's a shame that the arguments don't move similarly forward.
From 1978. TV footage -- Albert Johnson, then CBC President, testifying to the CRTC.
"Most of our kids know more about the Alamo than they do about Batoche or Crysler's farm. They know more about Davy Crockett than they do about Louis Riel. What I'm trying to say quite bluntly is it does matter whether our kids are watching American rather than Canadian television. For they are being influenced by the values and attitudes reflected on American television, instead of Canadian values, attitudes, and Traditions."
John Louis Gagnon, the CRTC commissioner, goes on to recount the hostility met when French language service was extended across the country, and when Cancon was extended, and asks the simple question, "are you sure people want to be Canadian?"
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Now back to your Jonas Brothers 3D movie.
(For the record, I had to look up Crysler's farm. But then again, I was born in the USA.)
Who Doesn't Like a Nice Statue Now and Then?
STILL BURIED, but I thought I'd stick my head up and post some awards info. Yes, I know, I know, the Oscars, blah blah...didn't even post the screenwriting winners but I didn't watch this year and so am exercising my full prerogative not to care.
But I do care about the fact that a very fine young actor I had the pleasure to work with on the Ex-show has been nominated for a Young Artist Award for his guest starring role. The awards, presented to actors under the age of 18, celebrate their 30th year this year, and will be given out in March. Congrats once again to Isaiah Grant for his excellent work in that episode (for which he was also nominated for a Gemini!) (And thanks, as always, to TV-Eh? for the tip.)
Next, nominations are out for the Canadian Screenwriting Awards, which will be presented in Toronto April 20 (hosted by the vivacious Geri Hall from 22 Minutes)
Word of caution, though. Pump some iron. The award itself is actually surprisingly dense and heavy. And people have been known to steal them. Sneaky people.
For more information on the Awards, including tickets, check out the WGC site.
ANIMATION
6Teen “Date and Switch”
Written by Robin J. Stein and Alice Prodanou
6Teen “Whoa Baby!”
Written by Alice Prodanou
Ricky Sprocket, Showbiz Boy “The Perfect Family”
Written by Shane Simmons
CHILDREN OR PRESCHOOL
Captain Flamingo “Comic Slip”
Written by Christin Simms
Captain Flamingo “The Gobbler Robbler”
Written by Suzanne Bolch & John May
Future is Wild “Monkey Brains”
Written by Jeremy Winkels
DOCUMENTARY
FLicKeR
Written by Nik Sheehan
Passage
Documentary Script Written by John Walker
The Strangest Dream
Written by Barry Cowling & Eric Bednarski
EPISODIC ½ hour
Corner Gas “Bed & Brake Fast”
Written by Kevin White
Corner Gas “Bend It Like Brent”
Written by Andrew Carr
Corner Gas “Full Load”
Written by Brent Butt
Rent-a-Goalie “Eva Has a Dot Dot Dot”
Written by Josh Gal
EPISODIC 1 hour
Flashpoint “Attention Shoppers”
Written by Tracey Forbes
Flashpoint “Who’s George?”
Written by Adam Barken
Murdoch Mysteries “Elementary, My Dear Murdoch”
Written by Jason Sherman
ReGenesis “The Truth”
Written by Tom Chehak
FEATURE FILM
Blindness
Screenplay by Don McKellar
One Week
Written by Michael McGowan
Passchendaele
Written by Paul Gross
MOW or MINISERIES
Everest
Written by Keith Ross Leckie
Mayerthorpe
Written by Andrew Wreggitt
Would be Kings
Written by Tassie Cameron & Esta Spalding
RADIO DRAMA
Afghanada “Over the Ridge, Far Away - Parts 1 to 3”
Written by Jason Sherman
Afghanada “Special Forces”
Written by Greg Nelson and Adam Pettle
Afghanada “Man of Iron - Parts 1 to 3”
Written by Emil Sher
Afghanada “The Lotus Eater - Part 1 of 3”
Written by Greg Spottiswood
SHORT FILM
Awkward
Written by Kellie Ann Benz
How Are You
Written by Martha Burns & Susan Coyne
Spoiled
Written by Sherry White
VARIETY
History Bites “Celine Dion”
Written by Rick Green, Duncan McKenzie
This Hour Has 22 Minutes XVI “Episode 1”
Head Writer: Jennifer Whalen / Written by Mark Critch, Gavin Crawford, Kyle Tingley, Jennifer Whalen, Albert Howell, Tim McAuliffe, Dean Jenkinson, Geri Hall, Nathan Fielder
This Hour Has 22 Minutes XVI “Episode 2”
Head Writer: Jennifer Whalen / Written by Mark Critch, Gavin Crawford, Kyle Tingley, Jennifer Whalen, Albert Howell, Tim McAuliffe, Dean Jenkinson, Geri Hall
This Hour Has 22 Minutes XVI “Episode 8”
Head Writer: Jennifer Whalen / Written by Mark Critch, Gavin Crawford, Kyle Tingley, Jennifer Whalen, Albert Howell, Tim McAuliffe, Dean Jenkinson, Nathan Fielder, Joanne O’Sullivan, Peter White
YOUTH
Life With Derek “Two Kisses, One Party”
Written by Daphne Ballon
The Latest Buzz “The Gala Issue”
Written by Brent Piaskoski
The Latest Buzz “The Showdown Issue”
Written by Darrin Rose and Fraser Young
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Free-for-all
I AM POSITIVELY snowed under and panicky right now about all I have to do. So this little space is going to be dormant for the next few days. I leave you this pristine open thread to vandalize and use as you see fit.
A few potential conversation starters:
There. That, or anything else. Amuse yourselves. Really. Daddy's gotta go pound keyboard.
A few potential conversation starters:
- Does comedy have to be mean to be funny?
- How much could the CBC get for selling ad space on Mansbridge's head?
- Is anyone really that excited about the BSG spinoff Caprica?
- Is that picture of Stephen Harper walking through Times Square like Mary Tyler Moore hilarious or just creepy?
- Could someone please explain the Hugh Jackman thing because I just don't get it?
There. That, or anything else. Amuse yourselves. Really. Daddy's gotta go pound keyboard.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
WGC makes the Case
FROM THEIR PRESS RELEASE:
Some key points:
Like the broadcast system, ISP's are protected telcos and cablecos who are shielded from competition. They receive regulatory advantage every day they operate. The question is whether they should be made to give something back to the system. The WGC made a presentation for the 'Yes' side, and what's more, they did it without hysteria, and showing that they understood how the internet differs from the traditional broadcast system.
It will be interesting to see if opponents to the levy idea can bring themselves to argue their point on a level playing field, or if they'll conveniently omit how ISP's benefit from the kind of "protectionism" that they're decrying in the cultural community.
EDIT: Heard from a few more folks, and yup, I did think the questions were a little odd. The CRTC seemed to throw a lot of very technical questions at the Writers group. Considering the fact that they had the CFTPA this morning, who have more staff and resources and who co-sponsored the report, it was an odd area to focus on with the Writers.
The whole notion of "what is CanCon in the new media world" got only a cursory glance. Very strange.
Anyway, with that, I think we're capped here at Dead Things Labs about writing about these hearings. There'll be plenty of coverage of the ISP's and Broadcaster submissions that you can parse for yourself, and people like Michael Geist cover the whole Net Neutrality thing better than I could ever hope to.
It will be nice not to type the letters "C-R-T-C" for awhile. And anyway, I just got a go-ahead to go to script on one of my projects, so Daddy gets to be a real live screenwriter again. Yaaaay!
The WGC asked the commission to recognize that consumer behaviour has changed, and that the Internet is now an integral part of the Canadian broadcasting system. They can do this, asserts the WGC, by implementing a new framework bringing more Canadian TV programming online and fostering the creation of original online content.
“Canadian audiences want to be able to access Canadian television content on any platform,” says Rebecca Schechter, President, WGC. “Their demand has pushed ISPs to become part of the Canadian broadcasting system. Yet only a fraction of Canadian TV content is available online – and just try to find it, buried as it is under mountains of U.S. programming.”
The WGC is advocating for a minimum level of 60% streamed Canadian TV content on broadcasters’ websites and branded channels, and policies ensuring Canadian content is more accessible. In addition, the WGC is proposing incentives and other ideas to foster promotion of Canadian content online. Despite the ISPs claims that they are not broadcasters, the cultural relevance of the Canadian broadcasting system is not diminished because there is a new pipeline.
The WGC made it clear that it has no desire to see user-generated content regulated, and its proposal will in no way restrict what people can see and do on the Internet.
The WGC is also calling for the creation of a new fund – established through a modest ISP levy – to support the development of professionally produced Canadian new media content.
“Because Canadians want this content,” says Maureen Parker, Executive Director, WGC, “the few public funds devoted to new media in Canada are drastically oversubscribed. The levy will support new original programming, and strengthen the ISPs’ offering to their customers, Canadian audiences. The ISPs are the gateway to the Internet. They are protected from foreign competition, but are completely unregulated and charge whatever they want for Internet services. We are asking for 1.5% of their total revenues – which last year was $5.7 billion. This will not break the bank or the Internet.”
In their appearance, the WGC reps looked prepared. They tried to show some examples of sites that "broadcast" in new media now (Degrassi and the ZOS site) -- with limited success due to the orientation of the room -- but they made a presentation that was considerably more nuanced than many of the arts groups that have gone before.
Some key points:
- The WGC thinks that any content levy could easily be absorbed by the ISP's -- because it proposes exempting smaller ISP's who might have trouble paying. Driving an increase in bandwidth due to increased demand for video traffic will increase the profits of the ISP's -- who already charge more for people who download more heavily. It's in their interest to drive people to download more so they can charge more.
- Fund could fund Broadcaster add-ons for existing shows, or all-new shows for the internet only.
- ISP's are trying to pull a bait and switch. They are not broadcasters, but they are part of the broadcast system, and they are trying to avoid their responsibilities to contribute to that system like every other player in the system.
- CanCon on the internet should be defined as 75% of the money spent in Canada, and the top 5 creative positions going to Canadians (recognizing that diff projects might have different creative needs, ie: a designer not a director, a writer who also codes, etc.)
- Proposing a system by which new web-broadcasting ventures could "opt in" to a voluntary CanCon cert. system where they would then be able to access funds for new media production. Let's call this the "Jim Henshaw point." :)
Like the broadcast system, ISP's are protected telcos and cablecos who are shielded from competition. They receive regulatory advantage every day they operate. The question is whether they should be made to give something back to the system. The WGC made a presentation for the 'Yes' side, and what's more, they did it without hysteria, and showing that they understood how the internet differs from the traditional broadcast system.
It will be interesting to see if opponents to the levy idea can bring themselves to argue their point on a level playing field, or if they'll conveniently omit how ISP's benefit from the kind of "protectionism" that they're decrying in the cultural community.
EDIT: Heard from a few more folks, and yup, I did think the questions were a little odd. The CRTC seemed to throw a lot of very technical questions at the Writers group. Considering the fact that they had the CFTPA this morning, who have more staff and resources and who co-sponsored the report, it was an odd area to focus on with the Writers.
The whole notion of "what is CanCon in the new media world" got only a cursory glance. Very strange.
Anyway, with that, I think we're capped here at Dead Things Labs about writing about these hearings. There'll be plenty of coverage of the ISP's and Broadcaster submissions that you can parse for yourself, and people like Michael Geist cover the whole Net Neutrality thing better than I could ever hope to.
It will be nice not to type the letters "C-R-T-C" for awhile. And anyway, I just got a go-ahead to go to script on one of my projects, so Daddy gets to be a real live screenwriter again. Yaaaay!
WGC on the Stand
FROM THE "This shouldn't be this hard" file -- Mighty Maureen Parker and her group of secret WGC Ninjas present today on behalf of Canadian writers. Hopefully the WGC's more nuanced case for the need for New Media support will demonstrate that somebody in the arts realizes that the net is all diffrent and stuff.
We'll have deets later.
We'll have deets later.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Like "The Wonder Years" - but with track marks!
THIS SHOULD be good:
Multihyphenate John Sayles has been tapped to write HBO's series project based on the childhood of Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis.Drama, tentatively titled "Scar Tissue" (the name of Kiedis' autobiography), centers on the rocker's early years living in West Hollywood with his father. At that time, Kiedis' dad, known as Spider, sold drugs and mingled with rock stars on the Sunset Strip, all while aspiring to get into showbiz (Daily Variety, Nov. 12).
Parsing the CRTC: Say 1 to 1, or "Control" Again and I'll Throttle Ya!
I AM POSITIVELY queasy about the fact that I'm writing about the CRTC again. But here we go.
An unfortunate and persistent side effect of the times that we live in is that activism finds itself up against money, all the time. In the current hearings going into whether the CRTC will assert any jurisdiction over televised content over the internet, lobbyists for broadcasters and cable types blanketed the commission for months.
Currently on Twitter, if you search the comments regarding the CRTC, you won't see as many tweets about "keep your hands off the net" or "stop trying to control the net!" as you did a few days ago -- but they're still there.
The truth is that these are only the first set of hearings this year that will be dealing with the internet. And here's where the wisdom of the mob breaks down. Many of the same people who are currently crying that the CRTC should do nothing, and keep your hands off the net, are going to be arguing in a few weeks that the CRTC do something about net neutrality.
Well, folks, that's a load of bullshit. Either you're for free expression on the net or you're not. Either the CRTC has regulatory authority here, or it doesn't. Either you're with the corporate agenda of the Bells and the Rogers or you're not. Things are being decided in a windowless rooom in Gatineau. They will affect you. It's time you put down the tweet deck and read a few articles first.
Here's something else: the same artists and "arts groups" (not cultural workers or industry representatives, because that would make it sound like, um, you know, we were taxpayers or stakeholders or something) that are currently arguing for support are going to be the same people on your side in a few weeks when all that talk about "net neutrality" comes down. They're fighting for a place at the table. And your interests align with them -- not with Rogers, Bell, and the other ISP's. Just saying.
The other thing that came up last week was the potential change to the licensing requirements for OTA broadcasters. The CRTC has signalled that they're going to renew everyone for a year, and then when the hearings resume, they want broadcasters to present as a group. So over the air channels and specialty channels will be renewed at once. This is a good thing because it will hopefully put an end to the semantic games where people claim their channels are in the toilet, when the reality is that the viewership has largely shifted to other properties they own anyway.
Now, the other piece of info that was buried in that little call to action was the commission's idea that maybe for a year they would require a 1 to 1 spend on foreign to domestic programming.
This is an attempt to subtly reframe the debate that is going to require vigilance from the cultural industry.
The reality is when you talk about "foreign" spending versus "domestic" spending, it changes things. The ratios aren't that far apart. That's because "Domestic" spending includes things like local programming, news, and sports programming -- stuff that you can't exactly buy elsewhere. Believe me, if the Calgary Global affiliate had found a way to buy local Calgary news from L.A., they would have done it by now.
What's good about this from a broadcaster and commission point of view is that maybe, just maybe, you can kick up a catfight between those who are worried about local news, and the cut in spending and jobs there, and sports fans, and those who want spending on drama and comedy to be increased. You know, those programs that Vice Chair Arpin would rather read a book than watch.
Make no mistake. The place where the spending has gotten out of control in the last few years is foreign -- mostly American -- scripted programming. Ten years ago they spend 6 dollars on American shows for every dollar they spent on homegrown. That went up to 12 to 1 in the last few years. In the last year it's ticked up a bit -- more like 9 to 1 -- because the license renewals were coming up, and the broadcasters always spend more to pretty up before they have to traipse up before the commission.
The battle in these cases is always "How do you define the issue?"
The ISP's so far have been really good at throwing down a smoke bomb, and saying they're "fighting for your rights" in the fight against creating any sort of content fund. In a few weeks, you'll see how much they're fighting for you as they patiently explain why they should be able to prioritize sites, shape your traffic, and control -- there's that word -- what you can and can't do with your internet service.
And down the road, when everyone starts talking "1 to 1" -- we have to all be vigilant and say, "isn't this really about what we get to see on TV? " What good is it having only the same shite we see on the U.S. channels? Who cares if they're on a Canadian or US channel at that point?" Maybe point out that all those specialty channels they bought that are supposed to be showing History or whatever just shovel the same old reruns. That Showcase is NOT a better channel just because it's one more place for House and CSI reruns.
A lot of the younger, wired people will quibble because they look at CanCon alternatives and see shows that they don't watch. I know I haven't had a whole lot of success talking to twenty-one year olds about Corner Gas. But if you want a cutting edge show like they have in Britain, say...if you want your own Mighty Boosh or maybe a shot at a Canadian Robot Chicken, this is why it's your fight, too.
Someone gets to define the future. Is it you? Or the people who've benefited so clearly from the past?
An unfortunate and persistent side effect of the times that we live in is that activism finds itself up against money, all the time. In the current hearings going into whether the CRTC will assert any jurisdiction over televised content over the internet, lobbyists for broadcasters and cable types blanketed the commission for months.
Currently on Twitter, if you search the comments regarding the CRTC, you won't see as many tweets about "keep your hands off the net" or "stop trying to control the net!" as you did a few days ago -- but they're still there.
The truth is that these are only the first set of hearings this year that will be dealing with the internet. And here's where the wisdom of the mob breaks down. Many of the same people who are currently crying that the CRTC should do nothing, and keep your hands off the net, are going to be arguing in a few weeks that the CRTC do something about net neutrality.
Well, folks, that's a load of bullshit. Either you're for free expression on the net or you're not. Either the CRTC has regulatory authority here, or it doesn't. Either you're with the corporate agenda of the Bells and the Rogers or you're not. Things are being decided in a windowless rooom in Gatineau. They will affect you. It's time you put down the tweet deck and read a few articles first.
Here's something else: the same artists and "arts groups" (not cultural workers or industry representatives, because that would make it sound like, um, you know, we were taxpayers or stakeholders or something) that are currently arguing for support are going to be the same people on your side in a few weeks when all that talk about "net neutrality" comes down. They're fighting for a place at the table. And your interests align with them -- not with Rogers, Bell, and the other ISP's. Just saying.
The other thing that came up last week was the potential change to the licensing requirements for OTA broadcasters. The CRTC has signalled that they're going to renew everyone for a year, and then when the hearings resume, they want broadcasters to present as a group. So over the air channels and specialty channels will be renewed at once. This is a good thing because it will hopefully put an end to the semantic games where people claim their channels are in the toilet, when the reality is that the viewership has largely shifted to other properties they own anyway.
Now, the other piece of info that was buried in that little call to action was the commission's idea that maybe for a year they would require a 1 to 1 spend on foreign to domestic programming.
This is an attempt to subtly reframe the debate that is going to require vigilance from the cultural industry.
The reality is when you talk about "foreign" spending versus "domestic" spending, it changes things. The ratios aren't that far apart. That's because "Domestic" spending includes things like local programming, news, and sports programming -- stuff that you can't exactly buy elsewhere. Believe me, if the Calgary Global affiliate had found a way to buy local Calgary news from L.A., they would have done it by now.
What's good about this from a broadcaster and commission point of view is that maybe, just maybe, you can kick up a catfight between those who are worried about local news, and the cut in spending and jobs there, and sports fans, and those who want spending on drama and comedy to be increased. You know, those programs that Vice Chair Arpin would rather read a book than watch.
Make no mistake. The place where the spending has gotten out of control in the last few years is foreign -- mostly American -- scripted programming. Ten years ago they spend 6 dollars on American shows for every dollar they spent on homegrown. That went up to 12 to 1 in the last few years. In the last year it's ticked up a bit -- more like 9 to 1 -- because the license renewals were coming up, and the broadcasters always spend more to pretty up before they have to traipse up before the commission.
The battle in these cases is always "How do you define the issue?"
The ISP's so far have been really good at throwing down a smoke bomb, and saying they're "fighting for your rights" in the fight against creating any sort of content fund. In a few weeks, you'll see how much they're fighting for you as they patiently explain why they should be able to prioritize sites, shape your traffic, and control -- there's that word -- what you can and can't do with your internet service.
And down the road, when everyone starts talking "1 to 1" -- we have to all be vigilant and say, "isn't this really about what we get to see on TV? " What good is it having only the same shite we see on the U.S. channels? Who cares if they're on a Canadian or US channel at that point?" Maybe point out that all those specialty channels they bought that are supposed to be showing History or whatever just shovel the same old reruns. That Showcase is NOT a better channel just because it's one more place for House and CSI reruns.
A lot of the younger, wired people will quibble because they look at CanCon alternatives and see shows that they don't watch. I know I haven't had a whole lot of success talking to twenty-one year olds about Corner Gas. But if you want a cutting edge show like they have in Britain, say...if you want your own Mighty Boosh or maybe a shot at a Canadian Robot Chicken, this is why it's your fight, too.
Someone gets to define the future. Is it you? Or the people who've benefited so clearly from the past?
The Deacon and the Damages Done
HEY, SO YES, I know we're behind up here. But I was watching DAMAGES last night. (What? Was there something else on? The correct answer is 'no, not really.') Anyway, nothing is too arch or out there for that show. It's already proved a friendly environment for actors to re-invent themselves. But one of my favorite recurring figures has to be the shady "fixer" character who's charged with doing all sorts of nefarious doings for the oil company at the heart of this year's conspiracy.
He's malevolent and still in every scene he's in. A guy who's one hundred percent coiled threat. Not because he's all buff and lunked out. No no no, this is corporate America, providence of the soft and pasty white man.
So the assassin figure, who has to fly under the radar and not get noticed, ever, when he's meeting with executives and other types, has to be a slightly pasty, white, and unassuming guy. The key is, he communicates that bone chilling degree of threat simply by force of personality: dead eyes, a flat affect, and a way of calmly looking through you that leaves no doubt that you are in the presence of an extreme sociopath.
The actor they chose to play the role, credited as "The Deacon," is Darrell Hammond.
Yup. That Darrell Hammond. The reliable, rubber faced comedian who's impersonated Clinton and Rumsfeld and Cheney, and so many others so well in his tenure on Saturday Night Live.
The key to his portrayal: stillness. For a guy who spends a lot of time contorting his face under makeup, it's a chance to do very little and do it all with a look.
An impressionist works through exaggeration. And in Damages, every moment he's on screen, Hammond does very little at all. And he's thoroughly creepy doing it.
He must be having an absolute ball. He's becoming my favorite part of the show.
Go Deacon!
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Elegy for the Magic
WHEN I WAS in my last year of University, I shared a house with two friends. One of them was finishing up an undergrad degree in Astrophysics, and I can honestly say without equivocation that it was James who introduced me to the Internet.
He'd come home some nights with pages and pages of all this stuff -- interesting stuff; canonical lists of jokes and references in Monty Python, and episode guides and arguments about the physics of Star Wars. He explained that they were from Newsgroups on the Internet -- which at that point was really still the province of University Students and government researchers. The .com domain was hissed through clenched teeth. When asked what the Internet was, James would reply "it's a computer network designed to let scientists argue about Star Trek."
He didn't tell me about the porn til later.
I nodded my head and went back to writing my Psych essay on my Typewriter. Or if he wasn't busy, on his Coleco Adam computer. Sweet.
Flash ahead to a couple of years later, and my first experience with BBS'es. Bulletin Board Systems were these little walled communities full of people with like interests. It seemed to me like those printouts I'd seen James bring home, but with people who were more or less closer by. Realer.
The two "boards" I got most into were both run on a software platform called FirstClass, which was great because it was actually Mac based. Nothing in those days was -- and I was now the proud owner of a Mac that I still miss -- a beautiful little MacSE. Sigh.
The best board was called MAGIC. It was a Macintosh User Group, and on there I "met" a whole bunch of interesting, literate, fascinating folk -- musicians, computer nerds, media types, ad guys and various and sundry other users. It was in the offices of MAGIC, a few years after I joined, that I finally got to see this World Wide Web thing that I'd seen Tim Berners Lee and other guys talk about in my new job... we gathered around the 14.4 modem and watched as a picture drew, page by page, on our screens. It was like our little BBS, but not -- because anybody could access it, from anywhere. The walls were down. We looked at that crude drawing scanning painfully slowly into place, line by line, and we saw the future-- with a hint of sadness and trepidation. But also excitement.
The other FirstClass BBS I was part of was one at my then place-of-work, TVOntario. It was a grass roots project by a group of three editors, who thought it would be an interesting way to foster community within the spread out organization. TVO (Ontario's PBS) had a famously dysfunctional corporate culture. The TV people and the Education people were always at each other's throats; the offices were spread out over several floors over two buildings at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto, and the whole place had a kind of 'tail wagging the dog' feel to it.
The board that was TVOnline was the first time the Internet got me in trouble, and the first time I heard the phrase, "You should watch what you say." It seems incredibly ironic to me now, twenty years into a career in the media and communications, that variations on that phrase is the single most oft-repeated thing I've come across in my travels, but there you go. That's Canada for you.
What got me in trouble was speaking up on the board. I'd comment on subjects and point out what I thought was right and wrong. I was a junior story editor at this time, only about two years out of University. I had a wonderful, incredibly encouraging mentor in my boss, an Executive Producer who, in his own words, "had hired or fired, or been hired or fired by just about everybody working in the Canadian media." In story meetings, he was the first guy that introduced me to the idea that "best idea wins." I carried over that attitude onto the board.
Such is the strangeness of the TVO corporate culture (at least at that time) that it was only through that board that I started to get to know the other people who were making TV just down the hall from me -- producers like Mark Askwith and Stan Lipsey, and Daniel Richler -- who were making interesting and low budget TV like Imprint and Prisoners of Gravity. My section was Public Affairs, and one of the other things I remember is the grumpy then-host of a documentary show who'd come in to shoot his links every couple months. Some Harvard egghead named Michael Ignatieff. Whatever happened to that dude?
Anyway. The other feature that TVOnline had was an "Anonymous Forum." This was a forum where you could log in as anonymous, and only in this one forum, post a message about anything. It was the virtual version of the bulletin board that everyone could see, where you could sneak up a broadside.
And people did. Oh my God, they did. This was my intro to both the dynamics of an unhappy corporate environment, and the peculiarity of the last moments of the pre-internet mindshift. Also the value and the limits of Anonymous commenting on the Internet -- where people were always a little too free to let their freak flag fly, if you get my meaning.
It soon became clear that the manager of the network -- a tin pot, dour grey suit best forgotten -- was livid at the free expression on this board -- and especially the Anonymous forum. I started to hear whispers attached to fingers that were pointing -- at me. Quoi?
See, I guess the logic went because I was vocal on the board, I was probably also the person who was doing all the most anonymous complaining. People said that the "anonymous" posts "sounded" like me. Around the same time, there were oodles and oodles of links to FRANK from TVO. FRANK was a satirical, Private Eye like magazine that flourished for a while in the late 80's and early 90's, before falling to the gossip sink that the internet became.
Even all these years later, I get tense at the thought of it. That there were people thinking that I was some kind of mole. The weird thing is, nobody ever stopped to ask themselves why the guy who seemed to be saying all this honest stuff, attributed, would also need to use the veiled cloak of anonymity to...what? Complain more? And then leak to the papers? Odd. I just wanted to make good tv.
Anyway, suffice to say that I didn't really see the need to complain anonymously, and I never once fed information to FRANK. But that didn't matter. At one point my contract was not renewed and that was that.
I had a choice at that time. Knuckle under, or keep holding to that stubborn ideal that the best idea wins. After six months unemployment, I picked up another contract in a different department at TVO, but I was never really loyal to the place again. When I got an offer to go work for CityTV on a cutting edge show they were doing about new media, I leapt and never looked back. It was the middle of the summer -- and I actually gave my notice by voicemail, and slipped my resignation letter under the door of my boss. Everyone was on vacation. Nobody said goodbye. No tears were shed - least of all by me.
Thus I started my eight years at the end of the glory days of the CityTV empire. CityTV proved what I'd learned about corporate culture at TVO -- that it was the unhappy units you had to watch out for. There were tons of leaks from Citytv to FRANK, but luckily, they were from the Newsroom, which was an awful sinkhole of a place. Totally toxic environment.
I saw, and heard so much crazy shit over the next few years that never made it into the pages of a satirical weekly because the witnesses were all happy in their jobs. And so was I.
But it was around this time too, that the first romance of the BBS was fading. See, MAGIC, and TVOnline (where everyone was very nice to me now that I'd gotten a better job and gotten out. Typical.) had started experimenting with "Gateways" to the internet. And in the old tradition of "how do you keep'em down on the farm once they've seen Paris?" the general-interest BBS world was starting to become a ghost town.
The commercial service CompuServe went down. AOL was mighty, then not so much. People wanted the internet -- all of the internet. And the 'Net began its exponential monthly growth. It was the Wild West.
In the Internet-based early discussion boards that followed, it quickly became apparent that there was no way to replicate those early days of smart people talking about Star Trek. The cartoon of the time, that I had beside my desk at Citytv for three years, was a hound in front of a keyboard saying to another pooch, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Discussion was impossible because you had no way of knowing whether you were talking to a 12 year old in Topeka or a novelist in Nantucket. The Noise to Signal ratio flipped off the charts.
These were the days where the biggest challenge was getting a handle on everything. Nobody had the right way to search the internet; it was impossible to find anything. There was no Google yet. And Infoseek, Hotbot, Yahoo, Lycos, Altavista were all poor substitutes.
So naturally the next iteration was web-based message boards that clustered around a basic interest. The lugwrench board. Parents' groups. Alumni groups. People self-segregated again, only this time not so much like a community. It was more like an endless series of shareholder meetings.
In this climate, I moved from one job inside Citytv to help start up the Canadian Sci-fi Channel, Space. It was a fun time. I was working with people I liked from Muchmusic and City and various other corners of the building -- and I'd even managed to get thrown together with one of the guys I'd met virtually, on that TVO board years before -- Mark Askwith.
One of the first duties I had while we were getting the channel on the air was to be the "official presence" on the "Space board." This was going to be a web-based message board in anticipation of the launch of the channel.
The three or four months leading up to the channel's October 1997 launch were probably the best days of that board, never to be repeated. A great cross section of posters and personalities rapidly made themselves known. Some had inspiring and freaky levels of knowledge in areas that I knew nothing about -- like Manga or Anime. There were a few scientists, too -- flashback to my days reading those printouts from James.
From the beginning, I adopted a persona that was avuncular when met that way, and sarcastic when you came in hot, fronting that you knew better. Because the thing about Sci-Fi fans is, they always think they know better. In those lead up months, there were plenty of interesting questions about how you run a station and set it up that I tried my best to answer. There was also lots of arguing and advice that I said I'd pass on. I tried trying to explain how buying broadcast rights for a series wasn't like going to Blockbuster and renting a video tape (as they then were.) Some people listened. Some didn't. It was fun.
And then the station launched.
Over the next few years, the boards gradually...there's no way really to put this...slid. The persona I'd adopted became unwieldy because you had new people coming in who didn't get the context that had been around since the start. I was locked into the role of being a fierce defender of the station, lest the rabble get out of hand and start marching with torches. I still tried my best to engage with readers and posters who had legit questions or wanted to know how things worked. But those were being edged out by the hostiles.
There comes a time in the life of every message board where the internet lion syndrome takes over. That's where people who are milquetoast and unassuming in real life decide they can be raging assholes or know it all's online, because they can be. (I always took pride in the fact that my personality on and offline was pretty much the same. Maybe I was more charming in person. Okay, probably. But that's because emoticons are bullshit.) When you see messages and opinions laid out side by side, no differentiation, it's hard to tell at first glance someone who has a lick of sense from somebody who doesn't. "Best idea wins" becomes impossible because people become instantly enraged if you suggest that, in fact, that theory they're spouting is somewhat devoid of logic and sense. "How dare you challenge me and my opinion?" takes over. Subjects descend into flamewars. And people say things that they would never, ever, ever say in person, face to face.
And at a certain level, especially on a network level, an uncomfortably high percentage of the posts become people just there to bitch and moan about how you suck, and do everything wrong, and how much better a chimp could do if they were in that position, blah. blah. blah. Level of entitlement = staggering.
So...Neighborhood blight sets in.
And the worst part about it is that just like with neightbourhood blight, the good neighbours are the first to leave...people who could save it, the thoughtful, interesting, witty, well-informed posters look around and say, "Eff this."
So you're left with just the rabble and the yahoos. The membership rolls may say you have 3 or 4000 members, but there's only 20 or 30 who post. And they're all hardened into basic types. There's the Professor, who corrects everyone's grammar, doesn't really contribute much -- but points out every possible inconsistency no matter how small -- and posts links to more thoughtful articles but never really has much to say about them. There's the quipper, who makes lame one line jokes about everything that aren't half as funny as they think they are. There's Roid Rage, who decides that their mission in life is to slam and complain and sturm and drang and point out what an asshole you are -- proving what an asshole they are. And a few other misfit toys here and there.
In the case of the Space board, it went through several different software lives, shed moderators here and there, gained some interesting personalities but could never, ever keep them. After I left, Mark Askwith took over as the "official voice" and tried to take the complete opposite tack -- killing everyone with kindness. The dead enders loved him best, but it did nothing to tamp down the general idiocy, negativity, or sheer disinformation fluffing across the transom. Mark and I would meet solemnly in the pub now and again, the Evil master of Evil and Mr. Polite, and laugh and whoop it up about the same idiot posts we'd read. Rarely did we actually, well...disagree.
So this whole long history now comes because in the wake of the CTV sale of CHUM assets, I heard they're finally shuttering the Space board for good. It's probably overdue. It just doesn't make sense to support a platform where 99 percent of the conversation is either critical of you or irrelevant to your business.
But the funny thing is that the time for that kind of board has also passed; supplanted by threads on news stories (which still generate 90 percent idiot opinions) or the more elegant solution -- personal management tools -- things like Twitter or Digg or Ilike, where you can start to build, from the vastness of the net, a smaller community of your own interests. Finally the Net has gotten to a place again where it can be tamed. The time of big open forums like OpenSalon or The Well is probably gone for good. But now you can manage your own conversations in real time, and create a board with the people you like or trust or find to be interesting thinkers.
So it's all come full circle.
I wouldn't trade my experience with boards like that for anything. It's taught me a lot about how creators should and shouldn't interact with fans (leave 'em alone to talk amongst themselves, control the interaction and don't go in one-on-one, because then it becomes about "showing you up and taking you down.") and it's also taught me about how communities evolve and change, and how technology can help shape them.
It's one of the reasons why through all the uncertainty about how TV will go in the future, I'm not worried. I have no idea how it will work itself out yet. But I know it will work itself out.
And I know that occasionally, as I have over the years, I'll run into one of those early net posters and BBS people, or more likely, they might come up to me and introduce themselves. And we'll nod and smile and remember the early days when it was all just....Magic.
He'd come home some nights with pages and pages of all this stuff -- interesting stuff; canonical lists of jokes and references in Monty Python, and episode guides and arguments about the physics of Star Wars. He explained that they were from Newsgroups on the Internet -- which at that point was really still the province of University Students and government researchers. The .com domain was hissed through clenched teeth. When asked what the Internet was, James would reply "it's a computer network designed to let scientists argue about Star Trek."
He didn't tell me about the porn til later.
I nodded my head and went back to writing my Psych essay on my Typewriter. Or if he wasn't busy, on his Coleco Adam computer. Sweet.
Flash ahead to a couple of years later, and my first experience with BBS'es. Bulletin Board Systems were these little walled communities full of people with like interests. It seemed to me like those printouts I'd seen James bring home, but with people who were more or less closer by. Realer.
The two "boards" I got most into were both run on a software platform called FirstClass, which was great because it was actually Mac based. Nothing in those days was -- and I was now the proud owner of a Mac that I still miss -- a beautiful little MacSE. Sigh.
The best board was called MAGIC. It was a Macintosh User Group, and on there I "met" a whole bunch of interesting, literate, fascinating folk -- musicians, computer nerds, media types, ad guys and various and sundry other users. It was in the offices of MAGIC, a few years after I joined, that I finally got to see this World Wide Web thing that I'd seen Tim Berners Lee and other guys talk about in my new job... we gathered around the 14.4 modem and watched as a picture drew, page by page, on our screens. It was like our little BBS, but not -- because anybody could access it, from anywhere. The walls were down. We looked at that crude drawing scanning painfully slowly into place, line by line, and we saw the future-- with a hint of sadness and trepidation. But also excitement.
The other FirstClass BBS I was part of was one at my then place-of-work, TVOntario. It was a grass roots project by a group of three editors, who thought it would be an interesting way to foster community within the spread out organization. TVO (Ontario's PBS) had a famously dysfunctional corporate culture. The TV people and the Education people were always at each other's throats; the offices were spread out over several floors over two buildings at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto, and the whole place had a kind of 'tail wagging the dog' feel to it.
The board that was TVOnline was the first time the Internet got me in trouble, and the first time I heard the phrase, "You should watch what you say." It seems incredibly ironic to me now, twenty years into a career in the media and communications, that variations on that phrase is the single most oft-repeated thing I've come across in my travels, but there you go. That's Canada for you.
What got me in trouble was speaking up on the board. I'd comment on subjects and point out what I thought was right and wrong. I was a junior story editor at this time, only about two years out of University. I had a wonderful, incredibly encouraging mentor in my boss, an Executive Producer who, in his own words, "had hired or fired, or been hired or fired by just about everybody working in the Canadian media." In story meetings, he was the first guy that introduced me to the idea that "best idea wins." I carried over that attitude onto the board.
Such is the strangeness of the TVO corporate culture (at least at that time) that it was only through that board that I started to get to know the other people who were making TV just down the hall from me -- producers like Mark Askwith and Stan Lipsey, and Daniel Richler -- who were making interesting and low budget TV like Imprint and Prisoners of Gravity. My section was Public Affairs, and one of the other things I remember is the grumpy then-host of a documentary show who'd come in to shoot his links every couple months. Some Harvard egghead named Michael Ignatieff. Whatever happened to that dude?
Anyway. The other feature that TVOnline had was an "Anonymous Forum." This was a forum where you could log in as anonymous, and only in this one forum, post a message about anything. It was the virtual version of the bulletin board that everyone could see, where you could sneak up a broadside.
And people did. Oh my God, they did. This was my intro to both the dynamics of an unhappy corporate environment, and the peculiarity of the last moments of the pre-internet mindshift. Also the value and the limits of Anonymous commenting on the Internet -- where people were always a little too free to let their freak flag fly, if you get my meaning.
It soon became clear that the manager of the network -- a tin pot, dour grey suit best forgotten -- was livid at the free expression on this board -- and especially the Anonymous forum. I started to hear whispers attached to fingers that were pointing -- at me. Quoi?
See, I guess the logic went because I was vocal on the board, I was probably also the person who was doing all the most anonymous complaining. People said that the "anonymous" posts "sounded" like me. Around the same time, there were oodles and oodles of links to FRANK from TVO. FRANK was a satirical, Private Eye like magazine that flourished for a while in the late 80's and early 90's, before falling to the gossip sink that the internet became.
Even all these years later, I get tense at the thought of it. That there were people thinking that I was some kind of mole. The weird thing is, nobody ever stopped to ask themselves why the guy who seemed to be saying all this honest stuff, attributed, would also need to use the veiled cloak of anonymity to...what? Complain more? And then leak to the papers? Odd. I just wanted to make good tv.
Anyway, suffice to say that I didn't really see the need to complain anonymously, and I never once fed information to FRANK. But that didn't matter. At one point my contract was not renewed and that was that.
I had a choice at that time. Knuckle under, or keep holding to that stubborn ideal that the best idea wins. After six months unemployment, I picked up another contract in a different department at TVO, but I was never really loyal to the place again. When I got an offer to go work for CityTV on a cutting edge show they were doing about new media, I leapt and never looked back. It was the middle of the summer -- and I actually gave my notice by voicemail, and slipped my resignation letter under the door of my boss. Everyone was on vacation. Nobody said goodbye. No tears were shed - least of all by me.
Thus I started my eight years at the end of the glory days of the CityTV empire. CityTV proved what I'd learned about corporate culture at TVO -- that it was the unhappy units you had to watch out for. There were tons of leaks from Citytv to FRANK, but luckily, they were from the Newsroom, which was an awful sinkhole of a place. Totally toxic environment.
I saw, and heard so much crazy shit over the next few years that never made it into the pages of a satirical weekly because the witnesses were all happy in their jobs. And so was I.
But it was around this time too, that the first romance of the BBS was fading. See, MAGIC, and TVOnline (where everyone was very nice to me now that I'd gotten a better job and gotten out. Typical.) had started experimenting with "Gateways" to the internet. And in the old tradition of "how do you keep'em down on the farm once they've seen Paris?" the general-interest BBS world was starting to become a ghost town.
The commercial service CompuServe went down. AOL was mighty, then not so much. People wanted the internet -- all of the internet. And the 'Net began its exponential monthly growth. It was the Wild West.
In the Internet-based early discussion boards that followed, it quickly became apparent that there was no way to replicate those early days of smart people talking about Star Trek. The cartoon of the time, that I had beside my desk at Citytv for three years, was a hound in front of a keyboard saying to another pooch, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Discussion was impossible because you had no way of knowing whether you were talking to a 12 year old in Topeka or a novelist in Nantucket. The Noise to Signal ratio flipped off the charts.
These were the days where the biggest challenge was getting a handle on everything. Nobody had the right way to search the internet; it was impossible to find anything. There was no Google yet. And Infoseek, Hotbot, Yahoo, Lycos, Altavista were all poor substitutes.
So naturally the next iteration was web-based message boards that clustered around a basic interest. The lugwrench board. Parents' groups. Alumni groups. People self-segregated again, only this time not so much like a community. It was more like an endless series of shareholder meetings.
In this climate, I moved from one job inside Citytv to help start up the Canadian Sci-fi Channel, Space. It was a fun time. I was working with people I liked from Muchmusic and City and various other corners of the building -- and I'd even managed to get thrown together with one of the guys I'd met virtually, on that TVO board years before -- Mark Askwith.
One of the first duties I had while we were getting the channel on the air was to be the "official presence" on the "Space board." This was going to be a web-based message board in anticipation of the launch of the channel.
The three or four months leading up to the channel's October 1997 launch were probably the best days of that board, never to be repeated. A great cross section of posters and personalities rapidly made themselves known. Some had inspiring and freaky levels of knowledge in areas that I knew nothing about -- like Manga or Anime. There were a few scientists, too -- flashback to my days reading those printouts from James.
From the beginning, I adopted a persona that was avuncular when met that way, and sarcastic when you came in hot, fronting that you knew better. Because the thing about Sci-Fi fans is, they always think they know better. In those lead up months, there were plenty of interesting questions about how you run a station and set it up that I tried my best to answer. There was also lots of arguing and advice that I said I'd pass on. I tried trying to explain how buying broadcast rights for a series wasn't like going to Blockbuster and renting a video tape (as they then were.) Some people listened. Some didn't. It was fun.
And then the station launched.
Over the next few years, the boards gradually...there's no way really to put this...slid. The persona I'd adopted became unwieldy because you had new people coming in who didn't get the context that had been around since the start. I was locked into the role of being a fierce defender of the station, lest the rabble get out of hand and start marching with torches. I still tried my best to engage with readers and posters who had legit questions or wanted to know how things worked. But those were being edged out by the hostiles.
There comes a time in the life of every message board where the internet lion syndrome takes over. That's where people who are milquetoast and unassuming in real life decide they can be raging assholes or know it all's online, because they can be. (I always took pride in the fact that my personality on and offline was pretty much the same. Maybe I was more charming in person. Okay, probably. But that's because emoticons are bullshit.) When you see messages and opinions laid out side by side, no differentiation, it's hard to tell at first glance someone who has a lick of sense from somebody who doesn't. "Best idea wins" becomes impossible because people become instantly enraged if you suggest that, in fact, that theory they're spouting is somewhat devoid of logic and sense. "How dare you challenge me and my opinion?" takes over. Subjects descend into flamewars. And people say things that they would never, ever, ever say in person, face to face.
And at a certain level, especially on a network level, an uncomfortably high percentage of the posts become people just there to bitch and moan about how you suck, and do everything wrong, and how much better a chimp could do if they were in that position, blah. blah. blah. Level of entitlement = staggering.
So...Neighborhood blight sets in.
And the worst part about it is that just like with neightbourhood blight, the good neighbours are the first to leave...people who could save it, the thoughtful, interesting, witty, well-informed posters look around and say, "Eff this."
So you're left with just the rabble and the yahoos. The membership rolls may say you have 3 or 4000 members, but there's only 20 or 30 who post. And they're all hardened into basic types. There's the Professor, who corrects everyone's grammar, doesn't really contribute much -- but points out every possible inconsistency no matter how small -- and posts links to more thoughtful articles but never really has much to say about them. There's the quipper, who makes lame one line jokes about everything that aren't half as funny as they think they are. There's Roid Rage, who decides that their mission in life is to slam and complain and sturm and drang and point out what an asshole you are -- proving what an asshole they are. And a few other misfit toys here and there.
In the case of the Space board, it went through several different software lives, shed moderators here and there, gained some interesting personalities but could never, ever keep them. After I left, Mark Askwith took over as the "official voice" and tried to take the complete opposite tack -- killing everyone with kindness. The dead enders loved him best, but it did nothing to tamp down the general idiocy, negativity, or sheer disinformation fluffing across the transom. Mark and I would meet solemnly in the pub now and again, the Evil master of Evil and Mr. Polite, and laugh and whoop it up about the same idiot posts we'd read. Rarely did we actually, well...disagree.
So this whole long history now comes because in the wake of the CTV sale of CHUM assets, I heard they're finally shuttering the Space board for good. It's probably overdue. It just doesn't make sense to support a platform where 99 percent of the conversation is either critical of you or irrelevant to your business.
But the funny thing is that the time for that kind of board has also passed; supplanted by threads on news stories (which still generate 90 percent idiot opinions) or the more elegant solution -- personal management tools -- things like Twitter or Digg or Ilike, where you can start to build, from the vastness of the net, a smaller community of your own interests. Finally the Net has gotten to a place again where it can be tamed. The time of big open forums like OpenSalon or The Well is probably gone for good. But now you can manage your own conversations in real time, and create a board with the people you like or trust or find to be interesting thinkers.
So it's all come full circle.
I wouldn't trade my experience with boards like that for anything. It's taught me a lot about how creators should and shouldn't interact with fans (leave 'em alone to talk amongst themselves, control the interaction and don't go in one-on-one, because then it becomes about "showing you up and taking you down.") and it's also taught me about how communities evolve and change, and how technology can help shape them.
It's one of the reasons why through all the uncertainty about how TV will go in the future, I'm not worried. I have no idea how it will work itself out yet. But I know it will work itself out.
And I know that occasionally, as I have over the years, I'll run into one of those early net posters and BBS people, or more likely, they might come up to me and introduce themselves. And we'll nod and smile and remember the early days when it was all just....Magic.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Cavalcade of Writer Randomness
I WISH I could, with a button, cause it to snow. Just because seeing flurries swirl violently out there, obscuring Lake Ontario and the Gardiner expressway, just makes me want to not go anywhere and hunker down and work. Yes, I know that this would terribly inconvenience and add to the daily misery of my fellow Torontonians, but do you hear me it means I could get more work done.
So after the mid-afternoon pause for Obamawa, I've got to psych it up for another session that I hope will take me through to 30 Rock. But in the meantime, a few random little bits for the day:
So after the mid-afternoon pause for Obamawa, I've got to psych it up for another session that I hope will take me through to 30 Rock. But in the meantime, a few random little bits for the day:
- I'm not entirely sure why, but one of my favorite parts of the day is when fellow screenscribe Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder calls me and we talk and it always ends the same way -- with me feeling a whole lot better and him telling me that he's hanging up because I've ruined his day, sapped his will, and driven him into a deep depression. I think this says a whole lot about both of us, and is also proof of why our bromance will never die.
- I watched Being Erica last night out of a sense of slacker duty, but kind of wound up enjoying it. Interestingly enough, it's also another ep where they mixed up and riffed on the original theme. Erica goes back not to a day that sucked but a day that she remembers as perfect. And of course, it wasn't, til it was. Good emotional stakes, nice acting, fun and diverting and a good payoff that still left room for ambiguity.
- On the same topic, tonight is the show's premiere on ABC Soapnet down south in the USA, which means we now have some U.S. reviews. Here are the three bits that most caught my eye: from Variety:
Which is a criticism you've heard here on this blog, and elsewhere too, I think -- and also why the show this week and the Bat Mitzvah ep (where another actress plays Erica as a 13 year old) were the ones I liked best -- because they stretch the world of the show just a bit. It needs it."Being Erica" is also refreshing in the sense that it's one of the few shows filmed in a Canada that isn't pretending to be the U.S. -- though the show's heritage is notable only in casual drug references, and a slightly cheekier and more risque treatment of life's more awkward moments.
Karpluk, as Erica, is like a Canadian version of Jennifer Aniston -- a plucky girl-next-door type who can morph easily between sexy and silly.
Even in her cosmic do-overs, Erica makes mistakes, begging the question whether or not she needs to go back and change some of these moments in the first place. With that in mind, writer and creator Jana Sinyor seems to be suggesting that Erica's wasting her life on regrets when she should just be moving forward.
If the premise is that easy to figure out in the first episode, it doesn't leave much wiggle room for the future of the character, or the show.
Look what the Boston Herald had to say:Here’s the thing about shows not emanating from the United States: The characters look more real. Maybe it’s less Botox and plastic surgery. Maybe it’s less time in makeup and hair. Maybe it’s because they aren’t a size 0. The characters on “Being Erica” look like people you could know.
There it is again...the very thing that Americans respond to in Canadian shows are the things that self-hating Canadians point to and hate. (Or executives try to avoid, like, um, calling Toronto Toronto.) Oy vey. In this new world order of Canadian-shows-trying-to-sell-to-Americans, which audience do you please? Maybe we should forgo a CTF injection or two and buy our fellow Canadians some Zoloft, make 'em feel better about themselves. Seriously, we could slip it into the water supply. Who would know?
I'm not even going to link to the U.S. blogger who talks about the "prestigious" CBC. Seriously.
You can follow other U.S. takes on Erica by visiting TV-eh. They're all there. - Tv-Eh? also has the deets on the worst-kept secret in the Canadian TV biz for the last month -- CBS has picked up its second cop show from CTV, The Bridge. This one's from Alan Di Fiore and I believe several friends of the Dead Things are on the staff, fine Writer Mafia types all...so congrats!
- From great news to the old-usual, Canwest just sent out a press release bragging about ratings for M*A*S*H reruns. No. I'm not kidding:
TORONTO, Feb. 19 /CNW/ - History Television delivered all-time record
Um. Yeah. Wow, History. Congrats. You should be very, very proud. Way. To. Go.
ratings for the channel with an all-day marathon of popular M*A*S*H* episodes,
making it the third-ranked English channel in Canadian television on Monday,
February 16, 2009. This triumphant victory also sets the record for the
highest single-day audience (2+) in Canadian specialty viewing.* The day's
audience averaged 234,000 viewers (2+), and pulled in 130,000 viewers in the
coveted A25-54 category. - Jamie Weinman has a good little piece that raises a point I've thought for some time -- that the once-invaluable cast panels presented at the Paley Festival (which I've been visiting since it was the Museum of TV and Radio in NYC) have just become a photocopy of the Upfronts. Which sucks.
- John Doyle has posted his semi-annual "Why TV is better than film" rant, which I always love to read, and sincerely hope is enough to drive Canada's own Diablo Cody, Karen Walton, back into the loving and embraceful arms of the bitch goddess that is Canadian TV. Help us, oh Inky one, you're our only hope.
- When I get around to it, on further thinking and (someone else's) crunching, there's stuff to say on why that 1:1 foreign to domestic spend the CRTC proposed isn't what you think. Not saying it's bad...it's just not the bombshell change you think it is...and it might require a lot more due diligence on the part of people who don't think quasi-on genre, 25 year old reruns are the ultimate cause for celebration.
- My current read: "How We Decide." It's utterly fascinating.
- Yogurt is quite delicious.
Oui, Nous Pouvons
IF ONE OF the questions is "How do you like Canada?"
I'm going to poop.
Just sayin'.
The CRTC and a Tale of Two "Daily Show" Sites
SO CRTC NEW MEDIA hearings continued Wednesday with presentations on music. As usual, there were mangled definitions a-plenty, and some dumb things said and suggested. If you Twitter, it's not hard to find one hysterical tweet after another complaining about the CRTC trying to "censor" the net, or "taxing" people to support CanCon. There are still people angry about how the hearings aren't about Net Neutrality -- even though they weren't supposed to be about that. That comes later...
So in all that, let's stop. Let's have a little mint. The reason why cultural industry workers such as myself are saying, "maybe it's a good idea to get some money flowing for people to create content for this arena" is because, contrary to what some would have you believe, there isn't much here currently that's very good, or very well thought out or designed in the realm of supporting TV-like ventures on the net. I had a good steam of a rant about this awhile back.
Today let's look at the issue in micro. Let's take one property.
We'll even take the emotion out of it, and have it not be a "CanCon" thing.
Instead, let's talk about a little program called The Daily Show.
Now, if you're an average habitue of the series of tubes, you've probably come across some news site or other where they talk about a bit Stewart did on this subject or that subject -- Bristol Palin, the latest dumb thing Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh said, the histrionics around the stimulus...whatever. On blogs or on Facebook or Twitter or on any news site, Comedy Central -- the originating cablecaster of Stewart's show, cleverly manages to insert itself into the discussion of these real life breaking news events while building buzz for the show.
It does this by cataloguing topical clips from the previous night's broadcast on the Comedy Central site. Clips are up-to-date and embedable, so you can share them on your website or blog. You can stream full episodes too, but Comedy Central "gets it" in the sense that they know that the way this content is used on the net is in a YouTube, mash-y kind of way. People want a short hit that they can pass around, comment upon, repurpose and add their own spin to. It's flexible, in other words.
Now, if you're reading any of those blog posts or news articles with an embedded Daily Show clip from Canada, you're probably familiar with what I'm going to say next. When you click on that embed link, it doesn't play. But it's not that it doesn't play with the dreaded geoblock boilerplate "this video is not available from your location."
It doesn't play because the message reads, "In Canada, Comedy Central Videos are Available on The Comedy Network."
And they are.
Sort of.
But in another way, sort of not. Because when you go to the Canadian Comedy Network site and try to find Daily Show clips, they're not arranged by subject, embeddable, ready to plop into your Facebook or drop into your blog post.
You can watch a full episode. On their proprietary player. Or maybe you can search by a bit. Or, um. A correspondent. But. Um. Er. That's it.
In other words, it's shoveled onto the web like you're going to watch it just like you watch it on TV, but only in crappier quality in a tiny window.
The Comedy Network relaunched their site awhile back and actually ran on air promos and a contest saying, "our website doesn't suck anymore," if you can believe it. And it sure is a lot better. But what it isn't is current. And that's purely because of money, and a lack of attention to the product and the different medium.
I don't know what their license terms are for embedding clips, but I do know that cataloguing the clips would have to mean you were paying someone to do that. And the whole point of Canadian broadcasting is to pay as little as possible for everything. Er. Except U.S. programming, which you can buy and put on the shelf to let your competitors not get it.
It's not just with CanCon. The Private nets would be nowhere if they couldn't rely on the advertising and promo spillover from American magazines and promotional efforts.
Let's keep in mind the various comparative ideas about how to meet the challenge of reducing revenue in the challenging broadcasting environment. In the USA, FOX and NBC, not exactly best friends, team up to launch Hulu -- a relatively forward looking streaming site with a kickass, puckish sense of why the Net is cool and friendly to video:
In Canada, Global and CTV band together for what big idea? Carriage fees -- just like the cable channels that...um...they already own. In the former case, viewers at home get a great site with a deep playlist of favorites you can watch, including classic and current shows and embeddable clips. In the latter...um...well, you don't get anything really. Sorry. But they get to stay in business. For a while.
I mean, at least the ISP levy we're proposing goes to creatives, and at the end of it you'll have something new to watch, if you want to. And you will, because I hear we're going to promise Elisha Cuthbert in her scanties. But keep that under your hat. I'm not sure the deal's signed yet.
Now. Let's take a look at what the Comedy Network is doing to maximize its exclusive right to Daily Show online content in Canada.
If you go through the "Latest News" section of the Daily Show minisite on the Comedy Network website, their idea of "latest" is the clip Stewart did on the proroguing of parliament.
That was what, 10 weeks ago?
Don't worry though -- the 3rd item down on the "Latest News" portion of the Daily Show microsite is a scorcher! It's Bill Clinton's appearance on the Daily Show -- on September 23, 2008! Oh man! Can't wait to blog about THAT!
So The Daily Show doesn't get to be a vibrant part of the internet discourse in Canada, because it's not thought through and serviced right for the medium.
And that's the whole point. Money. It costs money to do that.
If you're making a program today, you have to have a logical and coherent web and mobile strategy. But the Canadian nets don't pay for it. They have trouble keeping episode descriptions up to date. And Lord help you if you try to navigate and find that show you want to stream easily. It's clunky. It's badly executed. It's ill thought out.
And increasingly, it's going to be the key to connecting with your audience.
It is absolutely essential that that money flow so that when you're making content, you have the room and the spirit to be able to back up the good ideas that you have. It's not enough to have a brilliant idea for how to tie in with your property if the site's not going to be updated in a timely way.
So part of what's being talked about this week from a creative side is, here's something new that needs to be done now. It's definitely an extra cost if you want to do it at all well. How do you pay for it? You can't pay out of your program budget. Those budgets are already screamingly tight.
In the end, the least complex scheme is to say that the ISP providing the pipe, and making the big bucks partly by pulling you in with promises of access to great online content, has some place in paying for it.
"But it's a dumb pipe," the big ISP's like Rogers and Bell and Shaw will say. "We're not broadcasters." Yup. It's just a dumb pipe. Except when it's not. Say one thing when it suits you, one thing when it doesn't.
"Well okay," the next argument comes, "you assess us a levy, and we're just going to pass it on to the consumer and they'll hate you because it's an extra tax." To which we say, you are given protected access to your market under the Telecom act. The government protects you from competition. Competition that might result in lower rates for you and me. And in the spirit of that, the tradeoff -- just as it was for Cable TV, and Broadcasters -- is that you have responsibilities to support the indigenous cultural industries. It is, in fact, part of your cost of doing business.
Yes, the technology and the function the service the ISP's provide is different. But in this case, their responsibilities are the same.
And in the end, maybe it's not just about CanCon shows or Webshows getting funding. Maybe you'll finally get those Daily Show clips served up in the way it makes sense to do for the net.
Ah yes, but wait...there is one more, extreme position... "why am I restricted at all? Why can't I view Comedy Central. Why can't I just visit the U.S. site. Why do I have to bother with Canadian stuff at all! The CRTC is useless."
To which I say: Tough. Fucking. Shit. You DO NOT LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES. If you want to live in the United States, start the process of immigration and good luck. If you are, in fact, Canadian, then man up, grow a pair, and accept that this is the way it is because it's good for your economy and for jobs in one of your largest cultural sectors, full of taxpayers who pay taxes just like you do.
The worst outcome in all this is to be successfully snowed to the point where you shout down the claims and the grabbiness of all the greedy, awful artists, who demand pennies here and there, but give a big fat old pass to the big ISPs and Broadcasters and their much larger shares of corporate Canadian welfare.
I watched FRONTLINE this afternoon. PVR'd it last night. Inside the Meltdown was all about the steps of the Bailout from Bear Stearns to Lehman Brothers to the Bailout.
GREAT website support, BTW. See? There's money for that. Oh, what a 300 Million population will give you! And it's not even geoblocked!
Anyway, It's absolutely sickening to me to look at a situation where trillions of dollars is being hoovered away by people with NO sense of responsibility, who still get bonuses and not a one of them with an ounce of remorse or a prayer of doing jail time...
...but what we really have to get mad at is the Artists. Cause they're going to break the economy. Yup, THEY'RE the ones who have to "face the market."
The MARKET didn't even face the market! Really, what are you people talking about?
Man, sometimes things are so ridiculous I just have to turn to Jon Stewart to make sense of it all.
And I bet I could find the right clip, too. If only...If only...If only...
So in all that, let's stop. Let's have a little mint. The reason why cultural industry workers such as myself are saying, "maybe it's a good idea to get some money flowing for people to create content for this arena" is because, contrary to what some would have you believe, there isn't much here currently that's very good, or very well thought out or designed in the realm of supporting TV-like ventures on the net. I had a good steam of a rant about this awhile back.
Today let's look at the issue in micro. Let's take one property.
We'll even take the emotion out of it, and have it not be a "CanCon" thing.
Instead, let's talk about a little program called The Daily Show.
Now, if you're an average habitue of the series of tubes, you've probably come across some news site or other where they talk about a bit Stewart did on this subject or that subject -- Bristol Palin, the latest dumb thing Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh said, the histrionics around the stimulus...whatever. On blogs or on Facebook or Twitter or on any news site, Comedy Central -- the originating cablecaster of Stewart's show, cleverly manages to insert itself into the discussion of these real life breaking news events while building buzz for the show.
It does this by cataloguing topical clips from the previous night's broadcast on the Comedy Central site. Clips are up-to-date and embedable, so you can share them on your website or blog. You can stream full episodes too, but Comedy Central "gets it" in the sense that they know that the way this content is used on the net is in a YouTube, mash-y kind of way. People want a short hit that they can pass around, comment upon, repurpose and add their own spin to. It's flexible, in other words.Now, if you're reading any of those blog posts or news articles with an embedded Daily Show clip from Canada, you're probably familiar with what I'm going to say next. When you click on that embed link, it doesn't play. But it's not that it doesn't play with the dreaded geoblock boilerplate "this video is not available from your location."
It doesn't play because the message reads, "In Canada, Comedy Central Videos are Available on The Comedy Network."
And they are.
Sort of.
But in another way, sort of not. Because when you go to the Canadian Comedy Network site and try to find Daily Show clips, they're not arranged by subject, embeddable, ready to plop into your Facebook or drop into your blog post.You can watch a full episode. On their proprietary player. Or maybe you can search by a bit. Or, um. A correspondent. But. Um. Er. That's it.
In other words, it's shoveled onto the web like you're going to watch it just like you watch it on TV, but only in crappier quality in a tiny window.
The Comedy Network relaunched their site awhile back and actually ran on air promos and a contest saying, "our website doesn't suck anymore," if you can believe it. And it sure is a lot better. But what it isn't is current. And that's purely because of money, and a lack of attention to the product and the different medium.
I don't know what their license terms are for embedding clips, but I do know that cataloguing the clips would have to mean you were paying someone to do that. And the whole point of Canadian broadcasting is to pay as little as possible for everything. Er. Except U.S. programming, which you can buy and put on the shelf to let your competitors not get it.
It's not just with CanCon. The Private nets would be nowhere if they couldn't rely on the advertising and promo spillover from American magazines and promotional efforts.
Let's keep in mind the various comparative ideas about how to meet the challenge of reducing revenue in the challenging broadcasting environment. In the USA, FOX and NBC, not exactly best friends, team up to launch Hulu -- a relatively forward looking streaming site with a kickass, puckish sense of why the Net is cool and friendly to video:
In Canada, Global and CTV band together for what big idea? Carriage fees -- just like the cable channels that...um...they already own. In the former case, viewers at home get a great site with a deep playlist of favorites you can watch, including classic and current shows and embeddable clips. In the latter...um...well, you don't get anything really. Sorry. But they get to stay in business. For a while.
I mean, at least the ISP levy we're proposing goes to creatives, and at the end of it you'll have something new to watch, if you want to. And you will, because I hear we're going to promise Elisha Cuthbert in her scanties. But keep that under your hat. I'm not sure the deal's signed yet.
Now. Let's take a look at what the Comedy Network is doing to maximize its exclusive right to Daily Show online content in Canada.
If you go through the "Latest News" section of the Daily Show minisite on the Comedy Network website, their idea of "latest" is the clip Stewart did on the proroguing of parliament.
That was what, 10 weeks ago?Don't worry though -- the 3rd item down on the "Latest News" portion of the Daily Show microsite is a scorcher! It's Bill Clinton's appearance on the Daily Show -- on September 23, 2008! Oh man! Can't wait to blog about THAT!
So The Daily Show doesn't get to be a vibrant part of the internet discourse in Canada, because it's not thought through and serviced right for the medium.
And that's the whole point. Money. It costs money to do that.
If you're making a program today, you have to have a logical and coherent web and mobile strategy. But the Canadian nets don't pay for it. They have trouble keeping episode descriptions up to date. And Lord help you if you try to navigate and find that show you want to stream easily. It's clunky. It's badly executed. It's ill thought out.
And increasingly, it's going to be the key to connecting with your audience.
It is absolutely essential that that money flow so that when you're making content, you have the room and the spirit to be able to back up the good ideas that you have. It's not enough to have a brilliant idea for how to tie in with your property if the site's not going to be updated in a timely way.
So part of what's being talked about this week from a creative side is, here's something new that needs to be done now. It's definitely an extra cost if you want to do it at all well. How do you pay for it? You can't pay out of your program budget. Those budgets are already screamingly tight.
In the end, the least complex scheme is to say that the ISP providing the pipe, and making the big bucks partly by pulling you in with promises of access to great online content, has some place in paying for it.
"But it's a dumb pipe," the big ISP's like Rogers and Bell and Shaw will say. "We're not broadcasters." Yup. It's just a dumb pipe. Except when it's not. Say one thing when it suits you, one thing when it doesn't.
"Well okay," the next argument comes, "you assess us a levy, and we're just going to pass it on to the consumer and they'll hate you because it's an extra tax." To which we say, you are given protected access to your market under the Telecom act. The government protects you from competition. Competition that might result in lower rates for you and me. And in the spirit of that, the tradeoff -- just as it was for Cable TV, and Broadcasters -- is that you have responsibilities to support the indigenous cultural industries. It is, in fact, part of your cost of doing business.
Yes, the technology and the function the service the ISP's provide is different. But in this case, their responsibilities are the same.
And in the end, maybe it's not just about CanCon shows or Webshows getting funding. Maybe you'll finally get those Daily Show clips served up in the way it makes sense to do for the net.
Ah yes, but wait...there is one more, extreme position... "why am I restricted at all? Why can't I view Comedy Central. Why can't I just visit the U.S. site. Why do I have to bother with Canadian stuff at all! The CRTC is useless."
To which I say: Tough. Fucking. Shit. You DO NOT LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES. If you want to live in the United States, start the process of immigration and good luck. If you are, in fact, Canadian, then man up, grow a pair, and accept that this is the way it is because it's good for your economy and for jobs in one of your largest cultural sectors, full of taxpayers who pay taxes just like you do.
The worst outcome in all this is to be successfully snowed to the point where you shout down the claims and the grabbiness of all the greedy, awful artists, who demand pennies here and there, but give a big fat old pass to the big ISPs and Broadcasters and their much larger shares of corporate Canadian welfare.
I watched FRONTLINE this afternoon. PVR'd it last night. Inside the Meltdown was all about the steps of the Bailout from Bear Stearns to Lehman Brothers to the Bailout.
GREAT website support, BTW. See? There's money for that. Oh, what a 300 Million population will give you! And it's not even geoblocked!
Anyway, It's absolutely sickening to me to look at a situation where trillions of dollars is being hoovered away by people with NO sense of responsibility, who still get bonuses and not a one of them with an ounce of remorse or a prayer of doing jail time...
...but what we really have to get mad at is the Artists. Cause they're going to break the economy. Yup, THEY'RE the ones who have to "face the market."
The MARKET didn't even face the market! Really, what are you people talking about?
Man, sometimes things are so ridiculous I just have to turn to Jon Stewart to make sense of it all.
And I bet I could find the right clip, too. If only...If only...If only...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)