Bonding With Bond

I stood on the sunlit sidewalk outside Regina’s Capitol theatre, staring at the poster and lobby cards for the movie “Now Showing” in its plush velvet interior. Barely 13 years old, I was certain that the matinee I’d just seen had to be the best movie ever made, “Dr. No”.

I knew nothing of spies, espionage or the Ian Fleming novel on which “Dr. No” had been based back then. What had drawn me was the concept of a man with a “Licence to kill”.

Movies back then stuck to a stronger moral code than they do now. And while today’s action heroes blast away with impunity, a contemporary hero in the 60’s had to be law-abiding and responsible. So the idea that James Bond had been given the okay to kill whoever he wanted without having to answer to anybody was unique indeed.

Looking at “Dr. No” now, it’s hard to believe it had the impact it did. The level of action and production values aren’t far beyond that of an average hour of television –- from the 1970’s.

And for all of his vaunted “License to kill”, the film’s half over before Bond dispatches his first bad guy.

But there was something about it.

All the trademarks of the Bond franchise were there at the beginning. The opening shot through the gun barrel, the stylized title sequence, the theme music with its infectious guitar riff, “Bond. James Bond” and Martinis “shaken not stirred”.

And there was the first “Bond Girl”. I still credit the moment when Ursula Andress’ “Honey Ryder” rose from the ocean in her white bikini as the moment I entered puberty.

I knew I was going to see this movie again. But it was a long wait until the next Saturday matinee. That problem was solved halfway up the next block, when I saw the paperback version of “Dr. No” on a drugstore rack.

I was a couple of chapters into the book before the bus from downtown got me home. Hard as it was for me to believe, it was even better than the movie.

Bond was a rougher, tougher guy. But still with his devil-may-care roguish flair. Dr. No was far more evil, his secret island not a Bauxite mine but a quarry for mining Bat Guano. Who knew bat shit was even called Guano, let alone how much work went into processing it. Fleming was a sucker for detail.

Everything in the book was richer. The inner workings of MI6 and the flavors of Jamaica were knitted throughout. Dr. No’s victims weren’t just thrown in the ocean or fed to sharks. They were staked out on a beach to be set upon by ravenous crabs. And Honey –- Oh My God – when Honey Ryder stepped out of the ocean she wasn’t wearing nothing at all!!!

That copy of “Dr. No” was utterly dog-eared by the time school rolled around on Monday.

And by the end of that first weekend I had become a confirmed James Bond fanatic. By the time “From Russia With Love” came out a year later, I’d read all every one of Fleming’s novels. And I found the second Bond film even better than the first.

But Bond and I were still relative outliers. The films were successes, but didn’t reach “must see” status for the general public until “Goldfinger” came along.

It was followed by what I still think is the best Bond caper, “Thunderball”. But then things started to get into a pattern  where you felt you’d seen it all before. The iconic moments were still highlights, of course. But everything else seemed a re-tread of what had been done before.

The magic of the books and the first films had been replaced by the Hollywood process of turning a plot into a sequel string of familiar touchstones. I always thought that was the real reason Sean Connery walked away from the franchise.

In a way, I walked away too. I didn’t even have an interest in seeing George Lazenby’s turn in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.

Part of me figured maybe I’d just grown up.

Then, during a break in shooting a scene on “The Last Detail”, Clifton James started talking about the part he’d just played (Sheriff J.W. Pepper) in what would be the next Bond film “Live and Let Die” with the new Bond, Roger Moore.

I pressed him for details and he said the franchise was going in a “different direction”. It was going to be more “tongue in cheek”, more fun.

That didn’t feel right to me and after I saw the movie I knew I was right. Moore’s Bond was a wise-cracking cad who didn’t even drink Martinis and almost seemed to enjoy killing.

I still went to see his Bond films. Back then I saw everything. But I recall leaving both “Moonraker” and “View to a Kill” vowing I’d never see a Bond movie again.

The rugged humanity and unflinching decency that would need to be there for a man to be granted a “License to Kill”, a permit to operate beyond the rules of society in the first place, were gone. Without that, James Bond was just another psychopath. A sophisticated one to be sure. But not a hero.

And that wasn’t the guy who had first gained the trust of both me and Honey Ryder.

Yet, proving just how out of step I was with the Zeitgeist, the popularity of the franchise just seemed to grow.

And while I longed for the Bond of the books and the first films, each new release was accompanied by magazine spreads on the new “Bond Girls” and the “Gadgets” sandwiched between ads for Bond’s new Breitling watch, his special edition Florsheim shoes and the bullet shaped suppositories he could shove up his ass if he came down with a case of the piles.

Commerce had overtaken and corrupted what had been (at least to me) pure art.

By then, luckily, I was on my own espionage series, “Adderly” where fellow story editor Carl Binder and I would do all we could to keep our spy character in the Connery mode while the network kept pushing him ever closer to Roger Moore.

To be honest, both we and the network were deluding ourselves, since our secret agent operated on a far lower level than the double O’s of MI6.

Still, there was a moment late in the second season when we finally got “Adderly” into a white dinner jacket and seated at the Baccarat table of a Moroccan Casino. It was a small victory. But one we savored to the hilt.

I felt the Bond franchise began to turn back to its roots with Timothy Dalton and sensed a perfect balance developing between the Connery and Moore camps in Pierce Brosnan.

But the harsh reality of the character’s life as an espionage agent and what he sacrificed to keep the free world free was still missing.

And then along came “Casino Royale”, reminding all who had been there from the beginning of the magic inherent in Ian Fleming’s creation.

I don’t know if any movie has ever made my movie-going tastes feel more redeemed. A redemption confirmed by “Quantum of Solace”. And hopefully by “Skyfall”.

It’s hard to believe that a movie franchise is still with us, the arrival of its next instalment as anticipated as it is a half century after the first one appeared.

But that’s the bond we all seem to have with Bond. Hopefully, it will continue for many more episodes and incarnations to come.

It’s Never Too Late For An Awesome Childhood

A couple of weekends back, I was a “Special Guest” at one of those skyrocketing in popularity Comic Con affairs.

While others sold memorabilia or promoted coming attractions, I was there to talk to fans and sign autographs in the spectrum now known as “Genre” –- so named since it has surpassed all the other available genres in its effect on popular culture.

Given that my career includes many years as an actor, some of that giving voice to well-known animated characters and then writing and producing several hundred hours of TV that included Sci-fi, horror, fantasy and adventure formats, it was a varied and multiple personality experience.

It’s also one for which I have to prepare on the scale of a presidential debate. From experience, I’ve learned that there’s always somebody at these events who knows my oeuvre far better than I do and still wants more detail. 

Much as I’ve been ingrained with respect for the audience and appreciation of a fan base, many of those with an undying dedication to one show or another don’t understand that we who create for a living tend to create and move on, often with less emotional attachment to the work we’ve done than they have.

For us it’s a job, their moments of magic either too hard won, constructed with cold calculation or just the result of dumb luck to hold much ongoing personal investment.

Of course, I still appreciate the appreciation. And unlike many in the media, I don’t classify Genre fans as “nerds” or “geeks”. Because there’s a lot more behind being a Genre fan and it’s integral to what makes all of us happy.

Allow me to explain.

The show began in the early morning hours as the vendors showed off their wares to appreciative competitors and VIPs. These are the folks who either make their living in the Genre after-market or whose dedication to collecting, promoting or blogging its content is well known.

It was during this portion of the day that I witnessed one guy count out a few hundred dollars for a set of Hot Wheels cars he’d wanted since he was eight years old. Nearby, another guy climbed into an adult sized Orc costume he insisted would make next Halloween the kind he’d always imagined enjoying as a kid.

As he stalked around ferociously, the guy with the new Hot Wheels tried them out on a loop-the-loop accessory, the look on his face letting you know he was right behind the wheel of each vehicle as it rocketed up the ramp into an inverted 360.

That’s because the embrace of memorabilia and genre is linked to either rekindling imaginations or offering the exercise of imagination to those who, through one circumstance or another, didn’t have the chance to do so when they were kids.

Down one aisle sat a display of priceless comics from what is now known as those publications’ “Golden Age”. As I scanned covers I recalled from my own childhood, I pondered the King’s ransom the titles once stacked in my bedroom closet would bring today.

But I also wondered if the teenaged or young adult me would have bothered dragging the contents of that closet through life. Comics back then were consumed until repeat readings offered no new flights of fancy and then traded to a friend for what he’d read.

Those comics had helped me bring Batman’s battles with The Joker to life in my own mind. Unlike the Hot Wheels and Orc guys, that part of my need for creative expression had been met and encouraged in childhood.

And the thrill of what your own imagination can create is at the core of Genre love. It’s a reminder of how important it is that we all find ways to creatively express ourselves and exercise our imaginations.

The fantasy, horror, Sci-Fi genre by definition requires a greater suspension of disbelief than is asked of those drawn to detectives or historical fiction. It demands we give more credence to what “could happen” rather than what logically “should” or “would have”.

Embracing a childlike willingness to accept the impossible and the implausible is what drives Genre. Unfortunately, that great leap of faith and the desire to be inspired is widely misinterpreted as an unwillingness to mature.

But it’s not. For the original experience inspired some of us to continue playing in that sandbox and allowing ourselves even greater levels of intellectual openness.

Wanting to dress as Princess Leia or an Imperial Storm Trooper is not about being an extrovert or safely practicing fascist tendencies. Do you think any woman wanders the halls of a Comic Con half naked in the hope of attracting the attention of guys already terminally addicted to video games?

Of course not. She’s just having fun. And maybe hoping to meet somebody conversant in Wookie or Klingon.

That kind of playful interplay was exemplified in many of the fans for whom I signed scripts, animation cells, old props and logo’d apparel.

In addition to those who’d found a typo on Page 32 of the script for Episode 63 that had escaped God knows how many weeks of rewrites and wondered if that made it more valuable; there were those who had been inspired to venture beyond where the show, character or iconic item that sparked their imagination ended.

There was one whose research had revealed that the first sighting of the Loch Ness monster took place mere days after the original movie version of “King Kong” had played in Scotland.

Talk about imagination inspiring imagination.

Another had come to own a city miniature created for some series and begun constructing his own town, one that now occupied 833 cubic feet and was still growing; a construct so detailed that town planners dropped by to study the potential impact of their own potential civic improvements.

Most rewarding were those who credited a certain story for healing a long carried wound or inspiring them to overcome a real life version of the obstacles that faced our fictional hero.

And even when I sensed the anecdote might be somewhat embellished itself, you still had to appreciate the exercise in imagination and the desire to share it.

Like all of these weekends, there was a dominating presence by the heavy hitters, the “Star Wars”, “Star Trek”, “Marvel” and “Transformers” franchises. X-Men and Gaming icons wandered every aisle.

Once high-flyers like “Barbie” and “Mickey” were there as well. But a significant segment of the floor space was held by worlds and characters I’d never seen before.

At first, I thought I was just out-of-touch. But on further exploration, I discovered that these were people with brand new creations. None of them had a major studio, game platform or deep-pocketed venture capitalist behind them.

There was the guy who makes his own Zombie movies –- on his days off –- with friends -- and makes enough money at shows like these to keep making them.

There were the twin sisters with a web series. A guy with his own original trading card game. People with online series, graphic novels or a book that could be the start of the next Harry Potter or Twilight franchise.

None had either a studio development contract, interest from a publisher or a deal with a Chinese toy factory. They had just thought up or made something cool and had come to find an audience who might like it.

And I’m sure some of them did. For I know their passion and imagination inspired me. And I’m one of those jaded showbiz guys who’s fairly certain he’s seen it all.

As the show closed and the displays on the floor began coming down, I walked out past vendors breaking down the now empty boxes that had carried in their wares and counting wads of cash and credit card receipts.

It was a reminder of the economic power of imagination and a sad reminder of how so few in the Canadian entertainment industry have understood the value of Genre production.

Yeah, it’s maybe not the stuff any self-respecting exec dependent on funding from a government bureaucracy can easily pitch. They all insist on putting away “childish” things and leaning toward that which fits a societal or demographic need.

But Genre makes money, sometimes for generations to come. While those seeking out “Republic of Doyle” action figures or the “Holmes on Homes” graphic novel will be rare.

But more important, Genre fires imaginations, allowing adults to live or relive what inspired them as kids. And those ideas are what makes an industry vital and viable – and popular.

Beyond The Paywall

This is my second week going cold turkey on the Globe and Mail, Canada’s National newspaper. I admit I was never a devout follower of the “Grey Lady of Front Street” as she was once called, since the Globe was frequently “shocked and appalled” by things that didn’t upset me in the least.

The paper also featured a regularly disappearing and then appearing revamped before disappearing again sports section suggesting a complete lack of interest in issues which interested me deeply.

But it was generally available on the seat next to me on the bus or in the coffee shop. And based on what I found on those occasions, I paid for it from time to time.

And then it was online and it was free and the ink didn’t come off on my hands, so I dropped by the website with increasing regularity.

Recently, however, like a lot of struggling newspapers, the Globe put up a paywall, insisting I pay for its stories, whether I found anything of interest or not and even if the content might be plagiarized or printed to serve little more than the personal needs of some Globe employee.

So now I’m getting my news elsewhere and, far from surprising, have found more than enough information on virtually any story that has caught my attention –- for free.

Somebody who has given more thought than I about Newspaper paywalls is Anthony Marco, who most who visit this site know as the co-host of the inimitable “TV-Eh?” podcast as well as my fave Canadian podcast “Dyscultured”.

These and Mr. Marco’s other online activities are aggregated here.

Anthony is also a teacher from Hamilton, Ontario, heavily involved in Labor issues and has run as an NDP candidate. So he comes to the issue of access to information both honestly and with greater depth than I’ll ever have.

He’s also agreed to share his views here. They’re well worth the read. Have at ‘em Anth!

News Site Paywalls:The Decade Old Box of Baking Soda in the Back Corner of Your Fridge

I've been wrestling with the idea of paywalls on news websites over the last few weeks. That's not to say they haven't been around longer than that, but the practise seems to have ramped up in Ontario and Canada as the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail announced their most recent forays.

As I'm working through my feelings on podcasts and during impromptu discussions, I find that I never quite capture everything I want to say.

First of all, I do believe that the people who work for publications should get paid, and get paid well. That's the social democrat in me.

I get the sense that traditional print publications don't get the first thing about how to monetize on the web. They make some piddling amount on web ads, but their business is still floated by print advertising to a huge degree over subscriptions.

I've always been against any restriction of my travels on the web, but somehow I've had an instinctive problem with it on news sites. I believe, after much consideration, I've drilled down to my major objection:

The product by which these giant media conglomerates are making money is one of the few protected businesses in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the U.S. Constitution. The reason we protect such an enterprise is because the public have a right to know the affairs of government through an independent body that does not work for that government.

If such a paradigm is so important that we have enshrined it into the living documents that create a road map for our countries and cultures, why are we allowing roadblocks to be thrown up in front of this information? If freedom of the press is a right then surely access to the content the press produces should be essential to an informed and literate society.

When I buy a newspaper (not regularly), I've always assumed that I'm buying the delivery system of the content, not the content itself. I'm clearly not buying the content or I would have a transferable right to use the content without citation. If I choose a tree-based product as my choice delivery system of content, I should expect that the cost of paper, ink and delivery is a necessary evil.

I have no doubt that maintaining a newspaper's website is a time-consuming enterprise that has costs attached, but if it is a loss leader in the "news" enterprise, why have a website? If the answer is "That's because our readers want to read our content there," then surely they will pay. So why aren't they?

Perhaps it's because a huge percentage of people who read news on a website cherry-pick stories and don't see read the news like a retiree who devours each page over a three hour period every morning. If I only read a story or two each day from the Toronto Star, I would never buy the print edition based on a such a practise. Why would I pay for a full-blown web subscription?

When newspapers try to translate to the web, they are trying to shove a widely general-themed product into a readily niche-utilized environment. Who wants to read a web edition, in its entirety, the way one might read a print edition?

I can't justify the value model of paying for a single newspaper's web portal when I get my news from all over the web.

In trying to sum up my basic problems of paywalled news sites:

1) You're making money from constitutional protections that don't extend to average citizens. You are holders of a public trust and, as such, your fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder profits by blocking the most democratic form of access we've had to information is highly problematic.

2) The most impoverished of our citizenry, who could, until now, try to maintain a grasp of current events by having access to a web where most content was accessible. How can those who cannot afford a print edition subscription afford a digital subscription when the alternative may be rent, heat or food?

3) You've never tried a "pay what you can" strategy or a system for micropayments. If I read one article on your website and find it informative, I might pay a nickle or a dime for it even though I wouldn't pay ten bucks a month on the chance I may find nothing. By asking readers "how much is this worth to you?" you may find you're surprised. But that's not a model that acceptable to the corporate overseers.

4) I love the concept of supporting local businesses. Local newspapers have been subsumed by national publisher silos. In Hamilton, the daily, The Spectator, is owned by the Toronto Star's parent company Metroland. The weekly hyper-local papers are also owned by Metroland. The Spec has more stories aggregated through wire services than local stories on a daily basis. I can find endless sources which will allow me to read wire stories for free. It used to be that a local paper's success often ran parallel to a city's successes. Now the dollars are fed into the silo and the viewpoints have become homogenized by corporate interests.

I can't give news sites the right answer, but I can spot a wrong one: paywalls.

Neither the work, the employees or the content have become irrelevant. The monetization model is, however, more questionable than the ten year old box of baking soda in the back corner of your fridge. It's well past it's "best before" date and so is the idea that your masthead will carry the day on a user-defined information medium.

Mr. Marco’s piece is published under a (cc) Creative Commons license.

Lazy Sunday # 245: Penciling It In

With the explosion of new technologies, we’re all constantly offered fresh and innovative ways to alter or improve the ways we work. There’s always yet another cutting edge way to do the job faster, easier and more efficiently.

But a lot of us resist. Not because we wouldn’t like the grunt work made simpler. But because we’ve already found what works for us.

A couple of years ago, I shot a documentary about a well-known Canadian artist. During a break of an interview we were conducting at a gallery, a young fan approached and asked how he decided what was going to be his next canvas.

He replied, “It’s not up to me. The paint decides”. Those of us who work creatively know he wasn’t kidding.

For all of the ways computers have improved the work of writing screenplays, I still sit down with a first draft and a red pen, eschewing the “click of a button” highlighters and post-it notes for a process that connects more directly with my own creative energies.

Recently, I worked with a comic book artist who draws all of his first pages with a red pencil. To anybody else, his images are almost indiscernible. But the feel of that pencil in his hand is what draws the illustrations to the page in the first place.

The same must be true for American artist Chris LaPorte. Once a sidewalk portrait and caricature artist from Grand Rapids, Michigan, LaPorte now works on massive murals, which he draws ---- with a pencil.

There are a ton of easier and quicker ways Chris LaPorte could accomplish his task. But the simplest of creative tools, the pencil, is what works for him.

It’s always about the final product –- and the tool that best connects it to your muse.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

…and follow the progress of Chris’ latest work online here.

The Final Installment

No, not from me. Sorry if I got your hopes up.

But somebody far more notable did say good-bye to his own loyal audience yesterday, British DJ Danny Baker.

Baker, a screenwriter, comic and what the BBC likes to call their show hosts, a presenter, for more than 30 years and until yesterday at the helm of a popular gig on BBC Radio London known as “The All Day Breakfast Show”, was fired without notice just before he went on the air.

Said “sacking” also occurred less than a week before Baker will be inducted into the UK’s Radio Hall of Fame.

Since he was done and since nobody in management had even had either the courtesy or courage to tell him to his face, let alone supply a reason for the dismissal; Baker used his final broadcast to unleash a multi-hour rant against the “pinheaded weasels” and out-of-control bean-counters who have taken over not only the BBC but the entertainment industry as a whole.

For anyone who has been fired or even just forced to sit through a meeting with some pencil necked geek more familiar with spreadsheets than what attracts or moves an audience, Baker’s rant is pure gold.

If the Canadian entertainment industry had ten people with half his disdain for those who pretend to “manage” what artists create, it would be a whole different ballgame.

What follows is a thing of beauty. Enjoy.

Shush! The Adults Need To Talk Now

A couple of days ago, I met a guy I was certain I knew. But I just couldn’t place the face. We got talking and I learned he had been a local news anchor during one of my sojourns in Los Angeles.

But now he was doing something different in a completely different country and I asked what caused him to change careers. He said he wasn’t sure if he’d stopped being pretty or had simply gotten tired of being petty.

Like Will MacAvoy on HBO’s “The Newsroom”, he was disenchanted with what I’ve come to call the “Gentrification” of news gathering –- that place where journalists take pride in their social position and level of recognition instead of the job they’re supposed to do.

Coincidentally, on the night of the above encounter, the brilliant 1976 film on the Watergate crisis “All The President’s Men” (written by William Goldman) was on television. It reminded me that while the Watergate scandal is now accepted fact, the first revelations were not widely reported and the push back against two plodding reporters struggling to find the truth was intense.

I wondered if the truth would ever have come out if the Washington Post back then had been staffed by today’s leading lights in news gathering.

Early on in the current US election campaign, I decided to bail on what was clearly being turned into a circus, where zingers, words misspoken and outright lying took precedence over substance -- for both sides.

I long for a day when no one will any longer take a call from Donald Trump or provide a time slot for Piers Morgan. Perhaps on that same day, Ann Coulter and Bill Maher will dump the witty, flirty point counterpoint repartee and finally just get a room.

I think the final straw for me was an early Obama ad suggesting that during Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital he’d shut down a factory and thereby caused a woman to die of Cancer.

By the twisted logic required to get to that conclusion, the unfortunate woman who died last night in Toronto during Hurricane Sandy is also a Romney victim.

For if Bain Capital had not saved Staples from bankruptcy, the wind flung store sign which ended a life would not have even been there.

But much as you may want to, you can’t eliminate an American election from your radar screen or social interactions. And recently, in disagreeing with a friend over one of the issues, I discovered that I didn’t have any respect for his “reliable sources” and I doubted he had much time for any of mine.

How did we come to a time where everybody in the media is picking a side instead of plucking at the loose thread that might lead somewhere?

I put it down to the kind of lazy reporting that would rather rely on what’s on Twitter or Youtube than dig out the facts.

Things have gotten so bad in that regard that this morning’s coverage of a downtown fire in the Toronto Star consisted of only what had been tweeted by the fire department and pedestrian witnesses with cellphones instead of any actual reporting from the scene.

Has nobody in an ownership position over there bothered to wonder why anyone would buy a paper when they can just link for free to the TFD twitter feed or flickr?

The result of all this focus on social media and what those in somebody’s particular circle want to hear has led to a daily triumph of the inane over the important and an electorate Stateside inundated with arguments that can only be described as infantile.

Yesterday’s media sensation was a Youtube clip of kids singing an anti-Romney ditty in which sick people “just die”, Polar bears are slaughtered and the oceans run thick with oil.

In my world, this borders on child abuse. And it’s barely removed from the poor, starving Chinese school kids Chairman Mao regularly trotted out to sing his virtues for visiting dignitaries and later rewarded with a bowl of rice and maybe a piece of fish.

Although I’m sure for these particular kids it’ll be Brown Rice and Salmon flavored Tofu that has been organically farmed.

Earlier in the week we had “Girls” creator Lena Dunham’s gushy account of her “first time” with the President.

As far as journalism may have fallen it’s maybe sadder to feel that artists who have traditionally spoken truth to power now become blissed out at the mere thought of politicians fucking us.

As one wag opined, “If you’re equating voting with sex, you’re doing one of them very wrong”.

There was pushback on Dunham from women inclined to conservatism. Including this…

But let’s be honest. Both of those ads preach to the choir and neither forwards any real examination of the issues. Indeed they just push what’s of burning importance further aside while implying childish discussions are the only ones we’re capable of understanding.

Elections are an adult activity and maybe it’s time we started discussing them like adults.

Cat Paw Diem

With half the continent shut down today (and maybe tomorrow) it’s the perfect time to either catch up or get ahead.

Yeah, you could hunker with the rest of them. Or you could reach out and seize the day.

My favorite line from the John Frankenheimer movie “Grand Prix” came from the French driver played by Yves Montand. Asked by a reporter how he reacts at the sight of a bad accident, he replies, “I put my foot down on the accelerator. Because I know everybody else is letting up on theirs”.

Words to live by. Stay Safe. But look beyond the pain.

Lazy Sunday #244: Monster Roll

A few days before Halloween, I start trying to figure out what I’m going to hand out to the visiting ghosts and goblins.

That process has been made simpler in recent years by the arrival of big boxes of single serving packs from the various manufacturers of chocolates, liquorice, gum and potato chips.

It’s also been made more difficult by all the parents and do-gooders insisting they’d rather we shelled out items that are nutritious, sugar free and/or better for the planet.

When I was a kid, the only person in our neighborhood who leaned in that direction was a dentist, who dropped tiny tooth-brushes branded with his office phone number in our goody bags. I was never sure if he was well-meaning or just looking to cash in on our candy jones.

Either way, he didn’t come up with any treats, so somebody always egged his house.

Anyway. My local grocery store had a big pile of the big box options at the front door today. I looked them over and decided to make my choice once I’d done the rest of my shopping.

Then as I walked the aisles, I considered what might be a better option. Y’know, something healthy and good for you but still reflecting the scary fun of the holiday.

Trail Mix? Protein bars? How about Sushi?

What? You don’t think there’s anything scary about Sushi?

Have you not heard of a “Monster Roll”?

Enjoy Your Sunday.

Lazy Sunday #243: Skynyrd

35 years ago last night, a twin engine plane carrying the members of the “Southern Rock” band “Lynyrd Skynyrd” took off from Greenville, South Carolina following their concert there.

Riding high on a string of hits including “Freebird”, “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Saturday Night Special”, they were touring to promote a just released sixth album, which would spawn future hits “What’s Your Name?” and “That Smell”.

But their flight, destined for Baton Rouge, Louisiana and the next night’s gig at LSU never made it, crashing into a wooded swamp in Mississippi.

Lead singer Ronnie Van Zandt, guitarist Steve Gaines and back up singer Cassie Gaines died on impact along with a member of the road crew and the pilot and co-pilot. The only uninjured passenger, drummer Artimus Pyle, stumbled from the wreckage to find help and was shot by a farmer who mistook him for a prowler.

Pyle and the others survived. But the band named after a Florida gym teacher who forbid male students to wear hair that touched their shirt collars was no more.

Ten years later, the survivors decided it was time to launch a comeback. But their numbers were then further diminished by a series of events reminiscent of one of the “Final Destination” movies.

A car accident left lead Guitarist Allen Collins paralyzed from the chest down and dead of pneumonia two years later.

Bass player Leon Wilkeson died of liver failure while on tour and Keyboardist Billy Powell was discovered dead in his home of undetermined causes.

Today, guitarist Gary Rossington is the only founding member still playing and touring with the band.

Despite the tragedy that ended its short, four year career, “Skynyrd” as it is affectionately known in the musical community, left a legacy that continues to inspire.

Not long ago, a tribute album was released featuring some of Country music’s youngest stars, none of whom was even born when “Lynyrd Skynyrd” fell to earth. Yet, their versions of their classics reveals the band is part of their DNA.

And walk into any country bar on a Saturday night like last night and there’s always a voice calling out “Play Freebird” before the band or the jukebox gets unplugged.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

And the original incarnation…

Those who want more might like this.

The Paradox

This just might be the nicest thing you read all day. Visit The Oatmeal and when you’re done, buy the poster.

Lazy Sunday #242: The Divide

The other day, I flipped on an American news channel to get an update on a breaking news story I thought might be better reported there. Forty minutes later, I was still waiting, having sat through a continuous “He said. No, He said.” between those from opposing ends of the political spectrum.

These people have earned a new title this campaign season –- “Surrogates”, which I assume means “Somebody sitting in because we couldn’t get anybody with actual knowledge, insight or the ability to be rational.”

Actually, I find Rolling Stone political reporter Matt Taibbi’s description of them more apt, “obnoxious opinion merchants”.

The way Americans have been going at each other lately, it becomes easier by the day to understand how their Civil War ended up pitting brother against brother. Some are already predicting riots in the street no matter who wins in November.

Hopefully, that’s as deranged as some of the political invective being flung around. But sometimes I wonder how these two sides  are ever going to learn to live together again.

Maybe it’s all just a family argument that sounds a lot more lethal to the neighbors than to those taking part. But it appears I’m not the only one thinking the healing needs to begin right now and the divide chasm needs to narrow.

What follows may well be the strangest Public Service Announcement ever made. But there’s something well worth considering at the heart of it – whether you’re an American or not.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

ARrrrrrrrrGOoooooos!!!

My first summer in Toronto, I went to see a football game. Having grown up in Regina, I was a huge fan of the Canadian Football League and my beloved Roughriders.

But I was living in a new town and figured I had to give the new team a chance to win me over. The Toronto Argonauts weren’t very good at the time and hadn’t been for a while. But I wasn’t prepared for the derision heaped on them that afternoon by their fans.

It was the first time I had ever heard a home crowd jeer and boo their own players. But it got worse late in the contest as a mournful cry echoed back and forth across the stadium.

“Arrrrrrrrrrrgoooooooos.”

It was like some ancient Viking wail of defeat, full of suffering and disillusion and the implication that the men on the field were misbegotten losers destined to forever dwell in a netherworld where they would never taste victory.

Today that plaintive cry might be applied to the Canadian film industry and perhaps the culture itself.

Today, Actor/Director Ben Affleck releases a new movie entitled “Argo” promoted as being the true story of the rescue of American diplomats from Iran after their embassy there was overrun in 1979.

Those paying attention or alive at the time might recall that six Americans escaped the hostage taking and took refuge with the Canadian ambassador, who managed a few months later to spirit them out of the country.

That story was a sensation at the time, igniting an outpouring of appreciation for all things Canadian in America.

I was living in LA when the story of the rescue broke and by the next morning there were billboards all over town with “Thank You, Canada” sentiments and Canadian flags flying proudly alongside the Stars and Stripes.

The Greyhound bus line even offered Canadians free travel anywhere in the US that they wanted to go.

I settled for the free drinks you got just by ordering in a Canadian accent.

A few months later, CTV produced a TV Movie of the event, “Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper” written by Lionel Chetwynd and directed by the late Lamont Johnson. The film starred Gordon Pinsent as Taylor and Chris Wiggins as the ambassador’s right hand and co-conspirator John Sheardown.

In the new Hollywood version, however, the Canadian component of the story has been marginalized almost to the point of elimination. Instead of Canadian diplomats and government officials doing the grunt work of the rescue, that task falls to a character played by Affleck named Tony Mendez.

In reality, Mendez was not a field agent nor any kind of action hero but a member of the CIA’s Graphics and Authentication division, tasked with providing phony visas and documentation for the operation; some of which he got wrong, his mistakes caught by a Canadian consular official before they blew the escapees’ cover.

Now, I don’t know Tony Mendez and I’m sure he was a capable member of the CIA and remains a fine and respectable gentlemen.

And while he has a right to his version of the events, I’m not buying it. That’s mostly because I met a lot of law enforcement people while writing and producing the CBS series “Top Cops” and we frequently dealt with those who made themselves a bigger part of the story than they actually were.

I soon realized that law enforcement, like the film business (and perhaps International diplomacy) is a collaborative enterprise. Many contribute to the final outcome. Yet a few always somehow feel they have not gotten their full due.

Of course, movies require an even further contraction of time, characters and events to fit inside the running length of a feature film. Big movies with big budgets also need stars and star turns. Therefore what really happened can become further lost.

As attracted as he was to telling the Mendez version of the story (available on the CIA website) Affleck still changed much of it. Especially the ending.

For while the climactic moments of the film feature car chases and last minute escapes, the real departure of the fugitives from Tehran was about as eventful as catching a flight from Halifax to Moncton.

When “Argo” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, it was well received. Yet some were aghast to learn Affleck had never contacted Ken Taylor or other Canadians involved regarding the Mendez version of the events.

Many in the audience were shocked by a tail credit which implied the CIA and US government had allowed the “Canadian Caper” to go unchallenged because it made for a better cover story.

All the Presidential and Congressional awards presented to Taylor and his compatriots were apparently just so much window dressing.

Realizing a diplomatic crisis with one of his nation’s few remaining friends might be brewing, Affleck finally contacted Taylor to chant the “It’s only a movie!” mantra while pointing out that any changes would be too expensive to contemplate, Hollywood-speak for “The train has left the station”.

He eventually offered Taylor a private screening, a couple of seats to the Washington Premiere and said, "Because we say it's based on a true story, rather than this is a true story, we’re allowed to take some dramatic license. There’s a spirit of truth."

In the end, only the title card was altered.

Now, I’m quite certain that “Argo” is a fine way to spend a couple of hours. Affleck’s past directorial work on “Gone, Baby, Gone” and “The Town” have made clear he’s an eminently talented filmmaker.

But he’s also an LA bullshit artist. So ultimately my issue is less with his movie than the official Canadian reaction to it. The way those who govern and control our industry would rather chow down on an Affleck turd sandwich than fight back.

Telefilm Canada, which puts hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Toronto Film Festival each year didn’t voice the least disappointment in the fact that a movie was programmed which impugned not only a lot of Canadians but rewrote our history.

Additionally odd is that a Department of Heritage that has insisted all year we learn more about the War of 1812 remained utterly silent on more recent events long acknowledged as one of our nation’s proudest moments.

Your tax dollars spent rather than put to work.

The Film Festival itself long ago made it clear that any piece of crap with an American or International celebrity quotient deserves more screen time and media attention than the best produced cinema from within our own borders.

No surprise that such a message now endlessly replicates throughout our distribution and exhibition players.

Perhaps it should be no surprise that no one within our television community took the opportunity to use the high-visibility marketing of “Argo” to hype a re-run of “Escape from Iran”.

A few months ago, when “Battleship” was released, SyFy, the American Science Fiction channel coat-tailed that media hype storm by releasing its copycat movie “American Battleship” on the same day, reaping a ratings bonanza.

But then, to do that, Bell Media, which owns the rights to the original film (and about half the channels on your home remote) would have had to pre-empt one of its US simulcast series that will probably be cancelled in a couple of weeks anyway.

So it’s clear that those in a position to fight for and support Canadian film, Canadian culture and Canadian history on virtually every level no longer think those toiling on those fields have any hope of success.

Instead of cheering us on or taking our side or even that of Canadians in general, they are somewhere on the sidelines, whining their indifference.

“Arrrrrrrrgooooos!”

Lazy Sunday # 241: The Butterfly Effect

The Ray Bradbury short story “A Sound of Thunder” was originally published in Collier’s magazine in 1952. By 1984, it had become the most republished short story of all time and made popular a scientific theory known as “The Butterfly Effect”.

In the story, a party of hunters from the distant future travels back to prehistoric times to hunt a T-Rex. The kill has been timed to occur an instant before the beast is killed by a falling tree, giving the participants the thrill of the hunt while not altering the past.

But panicking at the sight of the dinosaur, one of the party steps on a butterfly with the ripples of this tiny change massively altering the future.

The scientific basis of this theory is known as “the sensitive dependency on initial conditions” meaning that any outcome can be altered by the smallest change in what set it in motion or impacted it along the way.

Nothing is a foregone conclusion.

One man’s vote can make a difference.

One voice can change minds, move hearts and completely alter what happens next.

Silence and apathy can have the same effect.

The course of destiny can be blown in a new direction by the beating of a butterfly’s wings

Your choice is to be the butterfly or the one buffeted.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

The Scroungers

Although Steve McQueen achieved icon status with his role as “The Cooler King” in “The Great Escape”, my favorite character in that film was James Garner as Hendley, “The Scrounger” .

Hendley could get you anything you wanted. Didn’t matter that he was just another lowly dogface in a heavily guarded Nazi POW camp, you wanted something, he found it for you.

State of the art forgery tools, cameras and dark room chemicals, classified documents. Didn’t matter. You wanted it, Hendley made sure you got it.

There’s something irresistible about somebody who can deliver whatever you want whenever you want it. It’s like having your own private Las Vegas.

We apparently have a lot of people like Hendley in Canada these days. All of them either work in broadcasting or at regulating it.

For starters, we have a network delivering “Everything Entertainment”.

While most people may define music, movies, sitcoms and dramas as entertainment, the E! network doesn’t actually have any of those.

It features talk shows, red carpet shows, shows where people stalk celebrities and even get makeovers to look like them. But it doesn’t have anything that’s technically what it claims to have in abundance.

In reality, E! is a repository of the kind of cheap, copycat and knock-off time-filler that allows broadcast conglomerates like its owner, Bell Media, to achieve their Canadian content quotas without actually making much of it.

So, of course, the other conglomerates all want one too.

A few months ago, Rogers filed an application to the CRTC for its version of E! to be called “The Entertainment Desk”.

Like E! and like Hendley, the new network would scrounge around the fringes of actual entertainment for cheap programming that could be passed off as the real thing when the regulators came calling.

Given the current state of Canadian television, it should have been a slam dunk. Only it wasn’t. After reviewing the application and holding hearings, the country’s regulator, the CRTC, shrugged and said, “Sorry, we already got one!”

What? We already got one?

Yep. Here it is in crisp, bureaucratic B&W, direct from the CRTC decision center (er, that would be centre in Gatineau, wouldn’t it?).

Conclusion

10. In light of all of the above, the Commission finds that the proposed Category B service would compete directly with E!. Accordingly, the Commission denies the application by Rogers Broadcasting Limited for a broadcasting licence to operate the national, English-language niche specialty Category B service The Entertainment Desk.

Secretary General

Now, there won’t be many tears shed in the actual entertainment industry over the loss of “The Entertainment Desk”, since its product would have been shared across as many channels and platforms as possible reducing the shelf space for what we do.

But here’s the first interesting thing about this. The CRTC just said it doesn’t want one media conglomerate competing with what another media conglomerate is already doing –- even though that’s exactly what these guys do.

And it’s doubly odd, because they have never had a problem with sports networks spawning ad infinitum or pay movie channels or networks morphing to copy some other conglomerate’s lifestyle network success.

As recently as last month, Bell Media sweetened its application to take over Astral by offering a new French language News network in direct competition to both TVA and Radio-Canada.

Nobody on the commission stuck up a hand to say, “Wait, we already got two of those!”

So –- is Bell getting some kind of preferential treatment here, where its clone networks are given a pass while anybody cloning them is stopped in their tracks?

Well, of course not.

Because that’s not how a fair-minded arm of the Federal government works. I mean, look how they’ve protected the other players in the industry –- the artists, the independent producers, the audience…

Um. Yeah. Not so much, huh?

Which brings me to the second interesting thing about this week’s decision. Something I’m hoping is all a matter of disconnected coincidence…

This is Tom Pentefountas, Vice-Chair of the CRTC, out enjoying himself on a night on the town.

We all assume CRTC Commissioners work hard and deserve some down time. Problem is, in an incident little reported by the media, Vice-Chair Tom spent a night last winter enjoying the hospitality of Bell Media in its private Box in Montreal’s Bell Centre (do these guys own everything?) to watch a Montreal Canadiens game.

And yes, Bell also owns the team. Although that night they were humiliated by the Canucks, who play in an arena named after Rogers. No corporate noses were put out of joint, I’m sure.

Now everybody involved says there was nothing untoward about the evening and that “no business” was discussed.

And that’s undoubtedly true.

You see, I’ve been a guest in a private box for major hockey and baseball games. And I always knew I wasn’t there just because the guys who owned the box liked me. They either wanted something or wanted me onside for the next time they wanted something.

We didn’t have to talk about it. The understanding was implicit. Enjoy the game. Enjoy the food. Appreciate the cleavage of the young lady refilling your glass. We’ll talk in the morning.

Like the guards who traded for the chocolate and cigarettes from Hendley’s Red Cross packages, I knew something would be extracted in return. And if I didn’t want to play along there’d be no more chocolate and cigarettes –- or games in private boxes.

I’ve had a special liking for Pentefountas since he joined the CRTC. He was a breath of fresh air, often getting to the heart of a discussion and not given to silently accepting the kind of obsequious Bullshit that is spread around the hearing room.

He didn’t buy into the broadcaster’s “whining”. And from the beginning, he seemed far more objective than many of his co-commissioners and far less influenced by anyone’s practiced self interest.

But during the Astral hearings I was struck by a lengthy discussion he engaged in regarding the possibility that Bell would shutter a local Montreal sports radio station. He was clearly a listener and a fan, familiar with the station’s on-air personnel.

He was also clearly a Habs fan. I could forgive him that. But it made me wonder if it might color his decision on the issue.

Maybe it was something somebody far smarter than me at Bell Media had noticed long before that Montreal game night.

I’m not saying that Pentefountas has become Bell’s Hendley on the Commission. Maybe its only Bell’s enormous size and the massive impact of an Astral takeover that causes others to suddenly treat them differently than what we’ve been used to.

But there’s enough here to give you pause. The optics, as they say, are not good.

It’s something the Commission needs to address – publically.

In “The Great Escape”, Hendley was ultimately captured and returned to the camp in which he’d done his scrounging. I’m sure the guards he’d traded with and betrayed weren’t as friendly toward him for the rest of his stay.

And that’s something else the CRTC might need to address if they want to retain anyone’s respect.