LAZY SUNDAY #1: THE ROLLERSUIT

One of the things I like best about the Internet is the chance to discover and experience things you'd never have the opportunity to encounter in film or television.

Sundays seem to be the days when blogging and blog reading are lightest, so -- mostly in the interest of just keeping the lights on, I've decided to start posting some of my discoveries every Sunday from now on. Sort of my own antidote if your day of rest has deteriorated into one of boredom. I hope these vignettes will inspire and delight you as much as they do me.

First up -- the Rollersuit. Enjoy!

glumbert - Rollersuit in the Swiss Alps

GALLOWS HUMOR

With Hollywood frozen in fear by an impending work stoppage by its writers, a few members of the WGA have released the following...



"Above all else: go out with a sense of humor. It is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life." ~Hugh Sidey

LETTERS...WE GET LETTERS!

Apparently a number of Writers Guild of Canada members got form letters from Cable Honcho Jim Shaw this week in response to their having sent form letters to the CRTC (distributed by the Writers Guild last month) which took Shaw to task for his recent attacks on the Canadian Television Fund.

This was followed by the WGC sending the entire membership an email letter suggesting Mr. Shaw's letter was an attempt to "bully" those opposed to him and appending yet another form letter they could forward to the authorities.

Simultaneously, DMC launched another salvo in opposition to Mr. Shaw, in the process calling me out because of my past support for the Shaw offensive.

Now -- getting called out by DMC is not a matter to be taken lightly. I put it on a level with being that hapless sheepherder who suddenly has to go up against Jack Palance in "Shane".

You know the scene. Unarmed sheep farmer. Gunslinger Jack tosses a gun to his feet...

              JACK

Pick it up! Pick up the gun!

Sheep herder picks up the gun. Jack blows a hole in him, turns to the townsfolk...

             JACK

You saw him! He had a gun!

Trust me. DMC and Jack Palance are not dissimilar. Imposing guys. Tend to dress in black. Seldom back from a fight and awful good at shooting from the hip.

Okay...

So there's the gun...

There's the Guild folk looking on to see what I'll do...

Maybe it's time to reveal I'm really a wolf in Sheep herder's clothing...

But first...

I want to make it clear that I didn't get a letter from Jim Shaw this week. Or last. Or anytime since I wrote so intelligently, passionately and glowingly in his support.

No cards. No flowers. No invitations to skip to the head of the "Rocket Fund" queue. And he didn't offer a cable discount, perhaps because I don't live within his monopoly jurisdiction, but that's beside the point.

I mean -- thanks a lot, Jimbo! I nominate myself for Pariah status on your behalf and what do I get in return?  Zip!  Nada!  Nothing!

You Rich guys are all alike...

And Mr. Shaw -- one other thing -- you're still right to be going after the CTF and anybody else who doesn't want them to be accountable for their decisions.

You know what really bugs me about all this? Just how God-damned Chickenshit the Guild I helped found and so many of its members seem to be.

Ohmigawd! The big bad cable guy is after me! He's mean and angry and he knows where I live! Somebody save me!

Hey! The guy wrote you a fucken letter! You don't like it? Write him back!

Or phone him up! You can even do that toll free: 1-888-472-2222. I don't know for certain, but I'll bet he's in the office from about 9:00 a.m. onwards.

Tell his Assistant that he contacted you, so you're just returning. He wanted to talk about the CTF and you have much to tell him.

Honestly people, if you feel you're being pushed around -- PUSH BACK!

Stop asking me to carry your torch and pitchfork!

I mean, is there some reason why you can't speak (and maybe think) for yourself?

You're supposed to be Writers for Christ's sake! Why do you even need somebody else to compose a letter for you?

Aren't you good enough to write what you feel on your own? Are you so out of touch with your own industry that you wouldn't know what to say?

Are you maybe this out of touch because you don't actually live here and are distracted by more immediate local concerns like California wildfires and couldn't care less whether the Guild passes your form letter off as a vote of support from a real Canadian writer?

Or are you like so many members of the WGC, anxious not to rock any boat that might one day ferry you a meager development deal via some CTF funding envelope?

I understand strength in numbers and union solidarity and all that -- but why is this attack on Jim Shaw coming from union management down and not from the membership up?

Who's running the WGC -- writers -- or the same kind of cloistered bureaucratic thinking that appears to be running the CTF and almost every arts funding outfit in this country? 

"Don't ask questions! We know what's best for you! Trust us! We have the best interests of you artist types at heart!"

And since the inception of the Fund, the average income of Canadian writers and the number of work opportunities for those telling Canadian stories has gone in which direction...?

If there really is accountability and open public reporting and no cozy or even casual deals between CTF board members and network reps or anybody else who benefits from the Fund's largess, then what's wrong with having a look at that?

And what's wrong with examining the process to see if it can be improved?

Why is my Guild asking me to sign and send a form letter which states, "The CTF needs to be left alone to do its job and not spend significant resources defending itself from attacks in the media."

I mean -- if there was no reason to look into the CTF -- why has the CRTC already decided to do just that? And why do the loudest voices opposed seem to belong to those who have been the major beneficiaries of the Fund?

Sure, some fine TV programs have come about because of CTF funding. But their costs and budgets make up a miniscule percentage of the funds allotted.

Don't we have a right to know why the lucrative development deals that were killed were killed?

Do we, as the folks funding the Fund through our cable levies, not have the right to ask why the creators of failed shows keep getting new deals, why the same executives keep green-lighting the same production companies and never through their joint "expertise" create a show that makes it to air, let alone becomes a hit?

Is there no public right to see why shows that are successful somehow never seem to return a profit to either their investment partners or the Fund?

Wouldn't our industry be better if all that was a little more out in the open?

No wonder Jim Shaw questions your commitment to the cause. He knows you don't really have any commitment. And so do all those people who got your form letter.

Any idiot can sign a petition demanding a cleaner environment or an end to hostilities in Darfur. The people Politicians listen to are the ones who actually pick up the tools and do something.

Okay, DMC.  Your turn.

First, I have to compliment you on having the courage to say what you think and what you feel. That's a rare trait above the 49th. I may disagree with you on some stuff, but you sure as hell have the strength of your convictions and you're a thing of beauty expressing them. If this country had ten more writers with half your guts and a third of your passion, we'd have an industry that could challenge the world.

But you gotta kick off the cutting edge blinkers, Pal. You gotta stop looking at the business through the prism of Queen Street West, the Film Centre and what they like to hear down at the CBC. Trust me, none of those folks will be there when you really need them or when it counts. Because none of them care about the one constituency that truly matters -- the audience.

I know that you do care about the guys on the other side of the tube. I can see it in your work and in your passionate advocacy of "Trailer Park Boys", "Corner Gas" and a host of shows I suspect you personally can't stand.

Hard as it may be to accept, you and Jim Shaw are fighting for the same cause. Yeah, you're doing it for art and he's doing it for money. But it's the same cause -- the right of the audience to have access to a variety of programming they actually want to watch.

I can't believe you printed what the man had to say in his form letter response, but clearly didn't read the sentiment...

"Neither I nor my colleagues at Shaw Communications want to determine what Canadian programs are to be funded by the CTF. We do not want to control decisions on content. We believe television should entertain us, inform us, inspire us, and make us all think – as Canadians. We support the development of original Canadian programming and we want to ensure that money is well spent to produce programming that matters.

That means the CTF should be an active participant in supporting shows that people actually watch. They should be as great as this country; they should tell our stories and they should be aimed at commercial success."

I'm walking away now, DMC. I'm leaving your gun in the dirt and taking a pass on this showdown. My fight isn't with you any more than yours is with Jim Shaw.

Let the rich guy have his day. Use his love of money to help our cause. I honestly believe we'll all be better off if he gets what he wants.

THE STRANGE POWERS OF ANDRE BERNARD BERGÉ

The other night, I watched an ordinary young actor hyping his very ordinary TV series and referring to the showrunner as a “Genius”. Well, maybe in his world. But I have a feeling in his world, a guy who can work the Latte machine at Starbucks has a shot at the Nobel Prize in Physics.

A couple of years back, I saw a similar interview that featured Dakota Fanning sitting between Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise as they publicized “War of the Worlds”, both men reacting with resigned humility as she referred them as “Geniuses”.

Guys, for crying out loud! The kid’s eleven!!!

There are a lot of very bright and capable people in show business, few of whom, I think, feel they’re particularly gifted. And you’d figure the average audience member who has sat through a lot of ordinary television or Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” wouldn’t be encouraged to tune in again just because somebody involved is considered to be a genius.

But they do. And the scary thing is – nobody buys into the concept more than the media and the critics.

I tend to think it’s the desire among those fraternities not to be late for the next big thing. None of them want to be the last guy on the Sudoku bandwagon and I believe they receive some sort of professional bonus points for being the first with something.

It’s not unlike the way you just had to be impressed by the first kid in Kindergarten who actually ate a bug or later felt sorry for that geek in the lunchroom who was still trying, years after the fad, to get the sides of his Rubik’s cube to match.

The quest for the new, the ground-breaking, the “edgy” next thing is the critic’s job – and also their Achilles heel.

Nobody knew that better than Andre Bernard Bergé.

Bergé was a French Post-Existentialist writer obsessed with American cinema. He longed to write tawdry detective movies and taut thrillers in a post-war culture obsessed with Buňel, Goddard and Truffaut. Unable to find producers for his screenwriting, Bergé crafted a play entitled “The Theatre of the Film Noir” which became a critical sensation when it opened in Paris in the late 1950’s.

Unfortunately, Bergé did not live to enjoy his newfound fame. The morning after his theatrical triumph, he was crushed by a Citroën, while peddling his bicycle home from retrieving his morning baguette.


The only other thing you need to know about Bergé is that he didn’t actually exist.

In 1982, theatre Impresario Garth Drabinsky decided to organize a World Theatre Festival in Toronto. Over the month of June, more than a dozen of the planet’s National Theatres, along with dozens more of the most respected companies in the theatrical firmament, would descend on Toronto to present their best work. Famous names from the textbooks of almost any Drama 100 class would also be appearing and financing was found to make sure many of Canada’s theatres could be there too.

I was working with Toronto’s Factory Theatre at the time and we were going to do a new George Walker play entitled “The Theatre of the Film Noir”, a dark comedy set in Paris just days after its liberation in WW2. We’d been work-shopping the play for over a year and it was drop dead funny and a terrific evening of theatre.

Problem was, though barely into his 30’s, Toronto’s critics were feeling George was passé. His last couple of productions had been savaged. He just wasn’t staying within the genre box that they and the media had built for him. He was supposed to be Toronto’s quirky working class playwright. Nobody thought he should be directing, attempting larger themes or doing any of those things real artists do.

Imagine the art world if Picasso had stuck to Bullfight posters.

So, it was decided that in honor of the Festival, the Factory, which only performed Canadian plays, would, instead of riding one of its stable of writers, present the lost work of a lost genius, “Theatre of the Film Noir” by Andre Bernard Bergé.

Now, in the realm of World Theatre we were really small potatoes, made smaller in our home town by the arrival of international heavies our local critics and media hungered to embrace. And attempting a hoax like this could be seen as immature and inappropriate. But then – that’s what we mostly were.

We also knew George had written a really, really good play and that if it could get decent notices in the midst of the raves that would inevitably be given the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Steppenwolfe Theatre or the Seattle Rep, well -- we had a shot at taking the Gold.

To the flurry of press releases and background material being compiled for the throngs of arriving critics and media, we added a detailed bio of our deceased theatrical genius -- with pictures. The pics were snapshots of one of the Artistic Director’s relatives, who’d been obsessed with cycling and even included a shot of Bergé’s crushed bicycle – although I think the real one had been run over by a bus in Calgary.

One of my jobs was to go around to all the libraries and insert index cards for both the translation of Bergé’s play and his limited edition biography into the stacks. These cards indicated the volumes had been borrowed and unreturned. I also persuaded the French Consul and his wife to accept free tickets for opening night, a fact we also made sure got around.

With every available theatre venue booked, we ended up in a small 100 seat space that had once been a courtroom. And on opening night we peeked through the curtains to see those seats filled with 100 critics, our guests from the Consulate standing diplomatically at the back.

Now, having a couple of critics in the audience always makes actors nervous. Having an audience of nothing but was insane. We retired to the wings, wondering just what the hell we had been thinking. But we went for it – and the show was a smash.

The reviews were absolute raves across the board. Yes, this truly was a work of “Genius”, a silenced voice of the theatre that deserved to be heard. Yada-Yada-Yada.

The entire run sold out within a couple of days and the extended weeks in a much larger space not long after. There were actually editorials praising this plucky company of locals who had shown that Canadians could hold their own in such auspicious company.

We waited until the weeklies and the magazine reviews were in and then revealed the playwright’s true identity. Needless to say, it created a second wave of press and ticket buying. Some of those we had duped took it in a good natured way. Many even understood the point we were trying to make about homegrown talent. Others falsely claimed they’d been in on the joke. A few got downright nasty.

In the end, “Theatre of the Film Noir” toured across the country and all over the world. It’s become a popular piece in more than one language and is undoubtedly still playing somewhere tonight, more than 25 years after it made its debut.

Would it have been a hit without the foreign artiste who had ostensibly created it? I’d like to think so, but knowing Canada, I wouldn’t bet on it.

More than once, I’ve heard the marketing for the original production referred to as “pure genius”. But as one of the conspirators, I can assure you there wasn’t a genius in the bunch. It was simply a theatre company, a talented writer, a gang of actors and technicians who all had the courage to challenge the status quo, find the weak point of the system and exploit it.

Genius gets you nowhere in this business. Creativity can take you places you never imagined possible.

TWILIGHT OF THE JOURNALISTS

Early in my professional life, I had the good fortune of working with a very socially conscious director. The project we were working on endured hideous opening reviews and was in danger of failing at the box office. So a strategy was developed to get around the critics and find an audience. The process was difficult and one night I asked him if it was worth it, I mean -- maybe the critics were right.

"I don't believe what's on the front page." he said, "Why would I buy what's in the entertainment section?"


We've just been through an election in Ontario. One that should have caught the attention of voters. But it didn't.

The current government has been up to its eyes in broken promises to the parents of autistic children, outright lies on taxation, failed strategies on aboriginal issues and corruption.

Less than a month before the campaign, it was learned $32 Million had been handed out to "minority" charities with political ties to the ruling party. In one case, a cricket club seeking $150,000 was awarded $1 million, no strings attached.

I found it odd that this didn't get a lot of press. Now, government corruption isn't exactly a unique story in Canada. In fact, it's almost a way of life here, with every one of our political parties mired in one or two super juicy scandals. But we just went through a fairly spectacular financial impropriety that brought down the Federal government, so you would have thought somebody would run with it.

But nobody did and the prevailing wisdom was that the various media didn't want to "offend" the ethnic minorities that made up the bulk of the cash recipients.

I'm not exactly sure how anyone can place any blame on a struggling cricket club for not passing on a windfall donation. In the immortal words of Marlon Brando, when offered $3 Million for 10 minutes work as Superman's dad, "If somebody's dumb enough to pay me that much, I'm not dumb enough to say no."

But it got me wondering when journalists became timid and concerned that their reporting might upset the readers. It made me realize that we're not getting the kind of journalism we deserve because newspapers, radio and television can no longer risk alienating any among their dwindling audience.

And maybe that's exactly why their audience is dwindling.

The crusading reporter used to be a mainstay of drama. From "Citizen Kane" and "The Harder They Fall" through a thousand film noirs to "All the President's Men", we were taught that the pen was mightier than the sword.

I'll never forget the look on CIA chief Cliff Robertson's face in "Three Days of the Condor" when Robert Redford told him he was taking his story to the New York Times, or that of any number of villians faced with the same prospect in "Serpico".

Nowadays, the Times is better known for firing reporters who've made stuff up than actually going for the social or political jugular. And worldwide, news media are being exposed as being either in bed or embedded with their subjects and less than accurate in their reporting.

Last summer, there was a political frisson as Russia laid claim to the North Pole with newspapers worldwide printing color photos of Russian subs encroaching under the polar ice cap. It took a 13 year old Finnish kid to point out the photos distributed by Reuters didn't come via military sources but were actually from a scene in "Titanic".


So were there actually Russian subs lurking under the Great White North or was everybody just taking Vladimir Putin's word for it because it sold newspapers?

A month later, Yahoo and others published the following photograph of an Iraqi woman bemoaning the "shoot first" tendencies of American soldiers in Iraq by holding up two bullets which had hit her house -- shells the photos clearly reveal, had never been fired.


Photos are now emerging that suggest this same woman has been the subject of AP photos of Palestinian suffering in the Gaza strip. I realize that in wars, truth is the first casualty. Now, it appears you can make a modeling career out of it.

Or you can pretend you're practicing hard-hitting Journalism, when you're not. Last Sunday, "60 Minutes", brought into life by the Watergate scandal and long the flagship of crusading journalists, advertised an in depth interview with Erik Prince, CEO of Blackwater, the ultra-right-wing Security Contractor suspected of causing untold misery in Iraq while simultaneously bilking American taxpayers for Billions.

I'd recently seen the magnificent Robert Greenwald documentary "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers" a blistering expose of the truth behind Blackwater, Halliburton, Titan and CACI, the major private contractors involved in the Iraq war. And I'd been following the lawsuit filed by the families of deceased Blackwater employees.

With the Iraqi government both seeking compensation from Blackwater and trying to boot them from the country, it seemed CBS and "60 Minutes" had scored a journalistic coup in landing the Prince interview.


Instead, the story that aired barely touched the sensitive issues and consisted primarily of reporter Lara Logan stumbling over her words to ask such hardball questions as "You said the loss of innocent life is a tragedy. Do you regret it, do you wish it never happened?" and in reference to the American people "...they want to know from you, from Blackwater, that you wish innocent people didn’t have to die as a result of anything that you’re involved in."
Well, who's going to disagree with any of that?

Ed Bradley would not have been proud and it appears that even such staunch defenders of the responsibilities of the Fifth Estate as "60 Minutes" have realized they can't afford to speak truth to power if it alienates even one of their viewers.

A few years ago, I bought a story that had appeared on "60 Minutes" for an MOW. It was a tough piece that terrified the network lawyers. But because "60 Minutes" had the courage to run it, they acquiesced. In the process, I became friends with the reporter who had initially broken the story. At the time, he was researching a piece about multiple suicides which had allegedly occurred inside Ontario casinos.

He was having difficulty getting official substantiation or interviews. Having done a lot of police stuff, I knew that, in Ontario, Homicide detectives are required to attend at the scene of all suicides to determine if the death was indeed self-inflicted. I encouraged him to find a couple of nearby Homicide cops, buy them lunch and have a chat. He did and felt he'd firmly confirmed his facts.

But the story was spiked. Maybe it still had holes in it. Maybe it was determined to be not all that newsworthy. And maybe it was killed because it upset somebody important. I know the reporter believed his editor was influenced by the potential loss of ad dollars. He moved on to another newspaper.

It certainly isn't a revelation that all forms of traditional media go easy on those of their own particular political persuasions or their heavy advertisers. But as the internet grows and the availability of information expands, more people see through that kind of bias and begin to seek their information elsewhere.

Is it any wonder that millions more people have seen "Loose Change" or "Zeitgeist: The Movie" than read the official 9/11 report.

As newspaper readership declines, radio stagnates and television news plummets in the ratings, it would seem to be a time for real journalists to show courage, demand that their venues be scrupulous about delivering information, no matter who it offends or impacts; and deliver it in a manner that serves the needs of their overall audience rather than kowtowing to private corporate interests or special interest groups.

Maybe the internet and bloggers are less reliable than traditional media. But in the circle of blogs I regularly surf, I find a desire to tell the truth that I don't see much in traditional media anymore. There's also a passion among these people I don't sense in those actually earning a living from the same process.

That crusading spirit is out there. It just doesn't reside in journalists anymore.

THE RIDEALONG

I can't remember the last time I read a book. I used to read at least one or two every week, sometimes more. But once you get into the habit of writing six hours a day and producing, where your every minute is dominated with reading scripts and budgets and notes and memos; the thought of curling up with a good book isn't atop your list of favorite recreations.

Back when I did read, one of my favorite authors was Joseph Conrad ("Heart of Darkness", "Lord Jim", "Nostromo"). Conrad was an interesting guy, didn't learn English until he was 20, spent half his life as a merchant seaman and still created a writing style and body of work that would influence virtually every major writer of the 20th Century and especially Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, William Burroughs and Jerzy Kosinski.

The first time I was asked to lecture on screenwriting, I went looking for an explanation of the craft and found it in Conrad's description of what he did -- "My job is to make you see."

That wasn't how I saw what I did when I started writing. My first scripts were purely mercenary and primarily ego driven. I was an actor repeatedly cast in roles where I was either going off to war or losing my virginity (sometimes both). I wanted to do something different, to stretch, to show off my talents (either real or imagined).

I had the good fortune of doing plays with some of the most talented writers in Canadian and American theatre. I also had the cutie pie looks that kept me busy on an endless stream of television and film material written by complete hacks.

During theatre rehearsals, I experienced the rewriting and polishing process as the playwrights sweated out the daily agony of hammering their work into performance shape. And on film sets, I had the down time to look at the day's pages and think, "Fuck, I can do better than this!"

And so I used the experience of the former combined with the ease of the latter to forward my own career by writing a couple of films to exhibit what I felt I did best.

Joseph Conrad felt he truly became a writer while serving as the captain of a Congo steamboat, the Roi des Belges. His experiences and the insight he gleaned into human nature evolved into "Heart of Darkness", his most acclaimed novel.

I think I became a writer by riding around in a police car.

When I was hired to write the pilot for "Top Cops", I knew very little about police work and I didn't like cops that much. The few I'd met had hassled me for having long hair, searched me for drugs, wrote tickets for speeds I wasn't traveling or pulled guns on me on lonely country roads.

I looked on cops as a necessary evil, bigoted or societally blinkered, power drunk and prone to throwing their weight around or outright bullying.

But I liked the show concept, the money was great and I had an offer to do something better before the summer was over. Luckily, I knew enough about drama to get the show on the air and vamped my way through a few more episodes learning what made the network happy -- and how much I didn't know about the world of cops.

Then one hot July night, I was driving home at 3:00 in the morning and pulled alongside a Toronto police cruiser at a stop light. My windows were open and so were those of the cop car. I glanced over at the two young constables. One nodded back as the other ignored me, listening to a call crackling over their radio. An instant later, their toplights and siren kicked on and they rocketed away.

I sat at the light, suddenly realizing that I didn't have a clue what those guys might be feeling at this moment. I could write that scene. Cruiser at night. Toplights. Siren. Destination unknown.

But I couldn't put myself in the shoes of the characters. And that meant I couldn't put the audience there either.

"My job is to make you see".

The Executive Producer of "Top Cops", Sonny Grosso, was a former NY Cop made famous when one of his cases was turned into a film entitled "The French Connection". Sonny made a couple of calls and a day later, I was in New York, scheduled to spend a weekend riding along with cops patroling the most crime ridden precinct in Harlem.

Sonny always believed you jumped in at the deep end.

I turned up at the precinct dressed, as instructed, in jeans, T-shirt, sneakers and baseball cap. The Black desk Sergeant took one look at my Toronto Blue Jays cap and sneered, "You tryin' to get shot?"

I was outfitted with a kevlar vest, given a quick briefing on what I was supposed to do in an emergency ("How fast can you run?") and signed a paper saying the City of New York wasn't responsible for my sorry ass.

My first night was in an NYPD cruiser. I was introduced to the two cops I'd be shadowing and informed that my first duty was to pay for coffee.

We got coffee and parked on an overpass overlooking evening rush hour traffic. This was their first assignment of each night shift, a half hour in which they could catch up on wants and warrents while remaining handy for one of the inevitable fender benders. I'd barely cracked the lid on my coffee when the radio dispatcher snapped off a nearby address along with..."Man with a gun, shots fired". Their coffees went out the window and mine went all over my vest as the cruiser took off.

My first thought was, "We're not going to this..."

But we were. And my second thought was, "I'm not ready for this..."

Then I wondered how they could be. One minute, complete calm and a casual coffee. The next, siren screaming, weapons drawn and a crime scene coming on too fast to think about what you were going to do when you got there.

By the time we covered the two blocks to the scene, we were back up to two officers who already had a man spread-eagled on the sidewalk, a Saturday night special with a duct taped handle firmly under the foot of one of the uniform cops. Two other cruisers rolled up right behind us.

The perpetrator was taken away, the other cops ribbing the arresting officers. Much of their night would be spent doing the necessary paperwork to charge and arraign their arrest. That meant more turf to cover for the remaining radio cars.

As I watched these guys goof with each other, I realized they were no different from the other tribes of which I'd been a part, sports teams, bands, theatre companies. Black guys, White guys, Asians and Hispanics, united by the uniform they wore and defined by their job.

Our next few calls were domestic disputes. A drunk husband at the first, a mentally disturbed wife behind the second and at the third, a young Black man I will always remember.

His girlfriend had just broken off their relationship and he had resisted her request to leave her apartment, certain he could change her mind. Unbeknownst to either of them, her mother had called the police. The two cops and I now stood in the apartment as it was explained that he could either leave on his own or come with us.

To the pain of his heartbreak was added the humiliation of a couple of cops giving him the bum's rush. He wavered for a long time, fighting back his hurt and embarrassment, edging toward that line where the choice would no longer be available. His girlfriend glared at her mother, angry that she hadn't left well enough alone. I could see that both officers hated having to be part of this ridiculous and unnecessary drama. But it was their job and they did it.

Four hours later, they spotted the kid in a coffee shop and went in to sit with him for a while, assure him they knew he wasn't what his girl's mom thought he was, that they'd lost girlfriends too and unfortunately, it wasn't fatal.

An hour earlier, we'd chased a crack dealer into an abandoned tenement, losing him in the rubble and the darkness and finding ourselves walking on a carpet of broken syringes and discarded needles. It was a shooting gallery. And at the height of the AIDS epidemic, we were ankle deep in detritus that was a pin prick or glass shard away from infecting all of us.

We cursed a lot, silently accepted our predicament and walked out like soldiers navigating a minefield.

An hour before that we'd found a lost kid and then assisted another of 12 as she was loaded into an ambulance in the final stages of labor. The father hovered nearby, high on something and insisting she shouldn't be allowed to come home unless she had a boy who could play for the Knicks. Scared to death, she promised her mother she would, perhaps hoping that would also make life easier for mom, who was the father's real girlfriend.

We went for lunch after that, talking about abortion laws, wondering how many Pro-Lifers would feel that way after seeing a 12 year old in labor. We talked about a lot of things in the half hour we had to down Arbie's sandwiches and Snapple. They wanted to know about making movies and TV -- not from any desire to be part of that scene, but because they'd both just read "Nobody's Fool" and thought it would make a really good movie.

They talked about other best sellers they were reading, how one of them had gotten the whole Times crossword last Sunday, how hard the Yankees sucked and how difficult it was to understand 14 year olds, especially when they were yours.

After lunch we took sandwiches to a rookie, who like all rookies was assigned to stand at a post (a street callbox) all night for his first week, learning to watch and listen and understand the ebb and flow of the neighborhood. My Ridealong cops tried to coax him into doing things that would get him into trouble, shared spooky stories on their own rookie nights on a post and otherwise made the kid feel like he was already a part of the tribe and they'd be there for him.

Our last call of the night was a rain drenched race to that post to rescue the same rookie after somebody started shooting at him.

A little after midnight, my first ridealong was over. It would take me until dawn to record all the experiences, in the process realizing I didn't know a damn thing about cops, and neither did anybody else who had been raised on a diet of TV cop shows or what was most often said about police officers in the various media.

First thing next morning, I called to pass on that "better offer" that was waiting.

Over the four seasons of "Top Cops", I did several hundred ridealongs in just about every major American city. I hung with narcotics squads, gang units, homicide detectives and beat cops. In the process, I realized that the world was a whole lot bigger than it appears on television, and to be "good" on television you had to take the audience somewhere they had never been or give them an insight they'd never had.

"My job is to make you see".

Writing for television is as simple (and as complicated) as that.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Canadian Thanksgiving arrives a month before it does in the USA. I like to believe that's because the frost gets on the pumpkin a little earlier up here.

But I'm told it had something to do with a bunch of our politicians positioning a Holiday about halfway between Labor Day and Christmas, while not wanting to match what "they" were doing further south.

No matter what side of the border you're on, however, the sentiments and the traditions are the same. Family and friends. Pumpkin pie and Turkey. It's a chance to express your gratitude for the good things life has given you and share some of that abundance with your neighbors.

This past year's been rough on a number of people that I care about, many of them American. And in the midst of our celebration it's good to remember that there are those with less reason to be thankful, less able to have a table heavy with the bounty of the harvest.

Hopefully, they too will soon have reason to be Thankful.

SO FAR, NOT SO GOOD

The 2007-2008 TV Season officially kicked off a couple of Sundays ago. Unofficially, it began about 6 weeks earlier when pilots for about a dozen shows, including NBC's "The Bionic Woman", ABC's "Pushing Daisies" and "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" from Fox, were mysteriously leaked online.

I use the term "leaked" advisedly, because it was odd that none of the escapees, which also included CW's "Reaper" and the first two episodes of Showtime's "Dexter", were work prints, rough cuts or bore the other watermarks of material clandestinely spirited from their rightful owners.

In other words, 12 pristine, DVD quality pilots for series whose debuts impact the bottom lines of several networks in a major way, all got loose at exactly the same time.

Sounds like a marketing plan to me.

And one that was both useful and necessary for the studios and networks involved.


This is a make or break season for television as we've known it. Audiences are receding, budgets are exploding, advertisers are cautious and the usually dependable media hype has been diluted by the disappearance of TV writers and critics in many markets and an increasingly concentrated focus on Celebrity misbehavior in the television and magazine arenas.

There was a time when "Entertainment Tonight" and fan mags could be counted on to create TV stars. Now, they get more mileage by trying to destroy them.

An AOL/Time Warner poll conducted in late September found 62% of Americans holding the opinion that TV was getting worse, with a mere 7% indicating a desire to sample even one of the new offerings.

In a situation like this, an imaginative approach is essential. And since not much imagination had been evident in the announced pilots, most being takes on previous hits or well worn TV paradigms; the hype machine needed to create buzz, controversy and spin in a short period of time. And what better bunch to do that with than the less-discerning-than-journalist fan bloggers and genre geeks.

At some level, I think the Studios and Nets got what they wanted, for a number of the leaked shows were soon re-tooling ("Caveman") throwing staff overboard ("Bionic Woman") or taking out full page ads ("Pushing Daisies") to trumpet their imminent arrival.

One thing that caught my attention during this whole exercise was that anybody who took the time to assess and respond to the material would have to have been, in Hollywood terms, "A Pirate". Yet, there was Hollywood now embracing such rogues when it fit their needs.

Ever since Jean Lafayette, American desperation has begot strange bedfellows.

It'll be interesting to see if the next kid charged with illegal downloading by the MPAA will have a lawyer smart enough to ask how his client is supposed to differentiate between pirated material and that placed on P2P sites by the studios themselves.

It'll take a few more weeks to know for certain if the online buzz created by "The Great Escape" will make a difference where it counts most -- in the Ratings. But if the first week's numbers are an indication -- it wasn't much help.


On the season's debut Sunday, the highest rated prime time program was a football game. By the second week, the numbers were saying that the overall audience had declined a full 7% from the same week in 2006.

Last month, the networks handed their advertisers $150 Million in "Give Backs", representing the 8% dip in audiences they'd suffered for all of last season.

While the numbers confirm that the audience hasn't found a reason to come back to Network television, perhaps of greater concern is that, so far, none of the new series has generated any real excitement.

We're now 2 episodes into most with nary a "Desperate Housewives", "Lost", "Heroes" or even an "Ugly Betty" emerging from the pack.

This is significant for two reasons. First, if there is no breakout hit, how is anybody supposed to know what to copy for next season?

And second -- if the first wave of shows underperforms as badly as they appear to be doing, the Nets are faced with throwing a new slate of programs (deemed over the summer to be of even lesser appeal) into the breach. But few, if any, of these series have banked episodes. And with a Writers Guild of America strike imminent, failure by the reinforcements will mean we're in for a long winter of dance contests, spelling bees and bug eating.


Canadian audiences seem to be following the same path as those parked on American couches. Hockey Night In Canada's season debut was down 41% from last year. I'm not going to blame that one entirely on a disinterested audience. The season debut was on a Thursday, a night now so dominated by programming aimed at women that it's long been "Boy's Night Out" for most of the married or attached men I know.

I'm also one of a growing number of guys who won't be watching any hockey on CBC this season.

As I endured play-by-play stalwart Bob Cole stumbling over names and losing track of what was happening on-ice, as well as three times refering to players as "that guy" -- as in "That guy misses the pass" and "Wow, that guy hit the crossbar"; I realized that the amazing hockey coverage I'd seen from ESPN and NBC during the playoffs hadn't budged the traditionalists at HNIC. Don Cherry's anti-Francophone opening line confirmed that the same-old-same-old is what's on tap over there.

So this year, I'll be watching hockey online at www.nhl.com. Their Center Ice (No Canadian Spelling Here) package costs less than the cable/satellite versions and will also help wean me off the masochistic relationship with the Toronto Maple Leafs that the CBC and I seem to have shared.

Go Penguins!!! I think...

Losing me won't pitchfork the numbers at Hockey Night, but I'm certain I'm part of the same trend that already has the National Football League scheduling more of their games on their own network and online, despite being offered a king's ransom in TV license fees for them by several US Networks.

The NFL also introduced new rules for the media this season. To protect the internet operations of their 32 teams, they informed news organizations that they can post no more than 45 seconds per day of video online on any team. That includes player interviews, news conferences and comments by coaches.

When one of the strongest brands and most reliable suppliers of a captive audience begins to shift content away from traditional televised media and also makes sure they are the "Go To" source that gives fans what they want when they want it, you know the handwriting is on the wall for broadcasting as we know it.

And when guys like me, who spend half their alloted TV time watching hockey to start with, begin to watch it online -- how much longer until we start questioning how badly we really need most of the channels we're paying for but hardly ever watch.

That's when a trickle of audience depletion turns into a flood.

Unfortunately, the people in broadcasting, though clearly under threat, don't seem to be diverging from their traditional development and scheduling paths. Despite acknowledgment that their lunch is being eaten by cable services like HBO, Showtime, AMC and even Turner, nobody in the free-to-air executive suites seems motivated to pick up the gauntlet or use the awesome strength they still have to join the battle.

At the CBC, "Little Mosque", which did well last season (though not in an earth shattering way) was simply supplied with fresh horses, but not adjusted to expand its reach. It debuted down 25% from last season's average and "Intelligence", a series which had no business (beyond dubious artistic merit) being renewed, saw its audience decline by a full 50%.

Whether the audience opinion is wary interest or outright rejection, if you're going to renew a series, you also need to give them a reason to suspect their first opinion might have been lacking and they need to give the show more attention.

That doesn't seem to be happening anymore. And did I miss a meeting or is there a resurgence of 70's style television going on in Canada? Because CBC has two offerings about to debut which clearly reflect that ambience and style.

I'm not sure how "Triple Threat" and "Heartland" will fare, but after watching the online promos, I can't see either of them threatening anything scheduled opposite, and I sure wouldn't want to be aboard the shows that follow them.

Meanwhile, a nasty scrap has broken out between CTV and Global over who programs the better selection of American series. While such dust-ups are common in most competitive markets, it caught us off-guard in Canada, where all our networks are more or less publicly subsidized and therefore expected to be courteous in polite company.

But it further exemplified just how high the stakes are this season.

No matter what the Canadian ratings are for US series, our viewing habits won't impact on their potential cancellation or demotion to an alternate time slot. Those cancellations and time shifts wreak havoc with the Canadian simulcast system, so advertisers for specific demographics need to be locked in before the cull commences.

Both Canadian Nets are also strapped for cash after a summer of corporate take-overs and with little product to market to ipods or on DVD, immediate ad cash is all that's keeping the lights on.

Job cuts might hide the bleeding for a quarter or two but after that...

To be sure, DVR numbers(once tabulated)will pretty up the picture for everyone. But I'm still not exactly sure how they know I watched "Chuck" later the same night, the following Saturday afternoon, or intend to catch up over the Christmas holidays -- let alone whether I fast forwarded through all the commercials or just the boring ones.

The spin going on in our industry isn't just Networks pretending their product mysteriously escaped online, it's in their pretending that nothing's wrong, that band-aids are enough and things can go on just like they always have.

In a way, "Cavemen" isn't just the name of the first new series that's likely to be cancelled this season. It's a description of the TV Executives occupying the boardrooms.

WE'RE STILL IN TIGER COUNTRY

TIGER COUNTRY:(SLANG VIETNAM ERA) A place where nothing can be trusted or depended upon....


The first rush of press/blog reactions to the recently issued CRTC report on the state of Canadian television were heady stuff for us creative types.

After years of being whipped by a perfect storm of reduced funding, fewer time slots for drama and a propaganda campaign insisting "Canadians won't watch Canadian programs"; it was heart-warming to learn that somebody inside the Commission had realized the truths we've known and lived with far too long.

In their report, lawyers Laurence Dunbar and Christian LeBlanc, in addition to proving there are still some trustworthy lawyers in the world, had the courage to confirm that the Canadian television industry is predicated on principles that ensure there will never be a real Canadian television industry.

D&L came out firmly opposed to simultaneous transmission and genre protection of specialty channels while fully in support of prime time content quotas and consumer choice in purchasing channels. And while that earns them the gratitude of creative artists, it also makes you wonder:

a) What they were smokin'?

b) Where will the poor shmuck who hired them be working next week?

and

c) Does the law firm they partner in after nobody else will touch them specialize in anything other than lost causes?


It's still unclear if the CRTC will act on any of the report's recommendations or whether it will end up mouldering amid the previous interventions, comments and Royal Commission findings that have championed many of the same things. But I'm fairly certain that's where it's headed.

I hope I'm not overdoing the cynical here, because I'm just being realistic. These things won't happen because...

They can't.

Simultaneous Transmission or Simulcasting has been standard practise as long as there have been TV networks in Canada. And although our guys trumpet their independence while rebranding the imported show with their own logos and colors and promo stylings to make them appear of local vintage; they operate as little more than "per-show" affiliates of the American Nets from which they purchase the broadcasting. Watching CTV or Global or CITY is often no different from catching the feed from the Tribune station in Toledo or Fresno, instead of the crisper version on ABCNBCCBSFOX.

Basically, we're the grindhouse circuit, taking whatever's thrown off the truck and augmenting it with stuff the geeky kid next door makes in his garage.

An additional benefit our nets accrue is the ability to coat-tail on the costly marketing campaigns necessary for launching and maintaining a hit show -- often having to do little more than slap their logos on that material as well.

But the big advantage is the CRTC rule which allows them to substitute Canadian Ads in the commercial breaks, a perk that has made them fortunes.

What the Dunbar/LeBlanc report addresses for the first time is the obvious reality that people making massive commercial profits off shows they pay less to broadcast aren't going to lessen those profits by placing Canadian programming that costs them more to acquire in these lucrative prime-time time-slots.

And on a purely bottom line, "Buy Low Sell High", that's only good business level -- who can blame them?

I'm always amazed by Canadian producers insisting how well they're doing on Saturday nights on Global or CTV or CITY opposite hockey. Because you know that coming in a consistent 2nd or 3rd or 4th in that one horse race is the equivalent of being a lounge act in Vegas, where everybody is either passing through on their way to catch the big show or concentrating on the craps table.

God, American networks don't even program Saturday nights anymore and here, that's the showcase position!


In other moves to back Canadian creatives, the report recommends content quotas in prime time and the elimination of genre protection for specialty cable. The first would see even more of those simulcast slots replaced while the second probably allows Lonestar to follow the History/CSI roadmap and bill itself as a "history" channel or alternate to the Aboriginal Network because of all the Westerns they run.

Let's get this straight. The CRTC can't offer Canadian nets financial assistance in the form of additional commercial breaks and six months later saddle them with fewer cheap shows to exploit and more competition.

It just won't happen.

So why did Dunbar and LeBlanc write this report? I don't know. They had a free summer. They're young and needed the money. They have an uncle who once won a Gemini and never worked again. Maybe all of the above.

What they missed is -- the entire concept of broadcasting as we know it is over.

We're in Tiger Country here.

Think about it. Minutes after a new episode of "Lost" airs in the Eastern time zone, it is available online to anyone anywhere else in the world. Maybe not completely legally available, but it's available. The concept that you can move the CTV simulcast to Tuesday, Friday or opposite hockey is a suicidal choice for either the show owner or the broadcaster or probably both.

And yeah, you could have five versions of Life/Slice/Whatever (given the current CBC schedule, it seems there are already two). But when that programming is about as bargain basement as it gets, will competition in the genre really spur an increased investment in the creative community?

I mean we've already got about 11 sports channels and I defy anybody to either tell them apart or define the cultural contribution of their non-game programming.


Point is -- what this report clarifies more than anything else is just how ill-conceived and protectionist Broadcasting policy has been in Canada; designed not to nurture or present a Canadian perspective to the world -- but to make sure a handful of well connected corporations pocketed a few extra bucks.

And now, when the US networks are already implementing business models that say the future is in downloading and streaming, our protected little fiefdoms have become islands that will soon have no goods to import for resale and nowhere to create their own after paving everything over so the "Etalk" celebrity limos and design show smart cars have someplace to park.

To even enter the download game, our nets need the equivalent of 2-3 original shows per night and that's simply beyond the factory design of plants that have only had to create 2 or 3 per season (at a reduced production run of 13).

I mean, we're here with the raw material if they want to gear up the line. But I'm thinking that might be a long wait.

Face it. Canadian Broadcasters are already done and their future looks even worse.

For starters...

IPTV is a technology currently sweeping Europe and debuting stateside very soon. The acronym stands for Internet Protocol Television which delivers television content and VOIP through a broadband internet connection. I tried it last month in France and it's very cool. Crack a beer. Hit the couch. Watch a show. Send an email or place a VOIP call during commercials. Check out the storm warning crawl by linking directly to the weather satellite and then order the cool boxers Jim Belushi was wearing on "According to Jim" from JC Penny.

The French version of IPTV also has 60 premium Channels not available on their standard broadcast systems -- meaning new players, new markets, new possibilities in a format that will definitely attract new viewers.

Added to this, the Telecoms who own many of our current broadcasters face the double barrelled profit threat of new competitors like Quebecor, who promise to lower rates with increased services and a lawyer from Saskatchewan named Tony Merchant, who has filed a class action suit (join here) to force repayment of Billions allegedly illegally collected from cell users by Bell, Rogers and Telus.

If their corporate owners are looking at competition reducing their income or a divestiture of major assets to repay their customers, how much money do you figure there will be for some edgy little TV show set in Moose Factory?

Nope. As this grizzled vet of the Canadian network wars hunkers Sgt. Rock style in a muddy fox hole dead center of "Tiger Country", my rain-soaked compass is telling me the true way out for Canadian artists is to stop playing this game.

Forget the interventions and the letter campaigns. Forget fighting for funding that mostly goes to somebody else. Forget searching for greener pastures in other countries and start selling your stuff directly to your audience.

Who says your show can't be the foundation of an IPTV channel, an AMAZON UNBOX download stream or an ad supported presence on JOOST, CHIME.TV, SPIRALFROG or one of the dozens of imitators already re-inventing those models?

That's a far brighter future than anything the CRTC might deign to allow -- and we all have better places to be on Saturday nights.

WHEN A MIME FALLS IN THE FOREST...

Marcel Marceau, probably the world's most famous mime, died last night in Paris and will be buried this week in Pere Lachaise Cemetery among people who were a lot noisier in life like Edith Piaf, Chopin and Jim Morrison of The Doors.


I took a class from Marceau once. He was a very funny and generous guy, full of jokes and giggles. And gosh, what can you really say when a mime dies. I mean...









...and that's about it... ;)

THE BURKA

When I was still acting, I was doing a play in London, England. One afternoon, I wandered into Harrods. Their book department included one of the largest magazine displays I’d ever seen and I often dropped by to pick up reading material I'd never encountered before.

This particular afternoon, I stumbled across something far more interesting.

A very wealthy looking Arab guy walked in, followed closely by a woman dressed in the complete burka, veiled and robed so heavily and completely, you could only see her eyes. He said something that I took for “Wait here!” and left her by the magazines as he went off to find a clerk.

He was looking for something apparently hard to find for the clerk had soon taken him deep into the stacks. The woman purused the magazine stand for a moment, looked around to make sure nobody was watching and moved to the Fashion section. Then, making sure she couldn’t be detected, she took the corner of an issue of "Vogue" between two fingers and peeled it back ever so slightly so she could peek inside.

From where I was standing, I could see the utter amazement in her eyes as she stared at the high fashion models visible inside the barely open pages. Taking another glance to make sure she hadn't been seen by her male companion, she cautiously fingered her way onto another page, staring again at images clearly forbidden to her.

A moment later, the guy and the clerk were back, sorting through a number of books, so she had to turn from the magazine and stand around like she wasn’t looking at anything.

As the two men haggled over something or another, I went over, picked up the copy of "Vogue" and stood near the woman, flipped it wide open and slowly turned page after page as if I was studying each photograph in detail, but making sure she could see the pictures.

This went on for about 20 minutes. He glanced at me a couple of times, probably assuming I was gay or some kind of haute couture perv and finally called her over as he bought his book.

I put the magazine back and went back to browsing. A couple of minutes later, they left, with her once again following a few steps behind him. As the woman passed, she turned her eyes toward me with the warmest look I’ve probably ever had from a woman.

I wonder if any of these guys have any idea what’s really going on the heads of their wives, sisters and daughters -- or how much better their marriages and their lives would be if they did.

A TOAST TO JIM SHAW

I've always thought of Jim Shaw as our own version of Al Swearengen, the completely immoral brothel owner of "Deadwood".

Like his fictional counterpart, Jim is wealthy, cunning, manipulative and doesn't mince words. Neither is afraid of throwing his weight around or viciously attacking those who don't see things their way. And both achieved success by owning pretty much the only game in town, a game that was also pretty much rigged in their favor.

That said, there's a thin line between "Bullying" and having a clarity of vision that might give a Jesuit pause. You may not enjoy dealing with somebody who's always on your ass. But sometimes the constant riding and jerking of the chain gets you where he (and maybe you) wanted to be all along.

In the world of "Deadwood", Al Swearengen's robber-baron and feudal warlord attitude is the chaotic spark that leads to civilization and I'm thinking that Jim Shaw's recent salvos at the CTF are the kind of insurgent wake up call we need to get a baseline of creativity back into Canadian television before its too late.

The Writers Guild of Canada sent me a letter this week, suggesting I write the CRTC and much of the immediate world to chastise Jim for suggesting Canadian TV isn't as good as it could be and that the CTF is spending a lot of money on shows most Canadians don't watch.

Normally a firm a supporter of the Guild, I'm not getting with their program this time. Because, quite frankly, Canadian TV isn't as good as it could be and the CTF is spending a lot of money on shows most Canadians don't watch.

Don't get me wrong! I don't begrudge the CBC (or any other broadcaster) getting financed for programming I'll never watch, as long as somebody's watching it -- either in enough numbers to ultimately justify its production or as part of an audience that would have never gotten the programming they want or need without it.

I believe that's what Jim Shaw really wants from the CTF because that would make his customers happy and it might encourage them to purchase more programming, or at least have that option as opposed to getting the same damn thing on 10 different channels.

I believe that's also really what was behind the CTF when it was created.

But I think most of us know that's not how the Fund's being used.

The painful truth is, that an annual infusion of $250 Million for this long should have built some stability in the industry, greater variety of choice and more than a handful of hits by now.

We should all be asking why those things aren't happening, why you can still count the number of current Canadian hit shows without taking off your sox and most importantly why OUR AUDIENCE isn't being served -- instead of lobbying to keep the status quo.

The Fund was founded to support the creation of high-quality and culturally significant programming, to cover the risk gap on shows that might not get made for any number of reasons -- including being "too" Canadian. But now broadcasters regularly include what funding a producer might receive from the CTF in calculating how much they can lower their own contribution to development costs and licensing fees.

The Fund wasn't supposed to replace broadcaster investment. It was put there to encourage niche projects (like "Trailer Park Boys" before it found an audience) as well as enhance productions with higher production values so those shows could find wider (as well as foreign) markets.

Shouldn't we all be asking how so much of that money ended up funding bland MOWs that make up the bulk of programming on Lifetime, or why our broadcasters have so little faith in their own development choices (or staff) that most of their annual 'envelopes' are spent on renewing series that couldn't find an audience of any kind in their initial seasons.

Mr. Shaw's most cogent point for me to date has been this -- "Where is the incentive to produce anything good if you're gifted everything?"

Our current system does not require Canadian broadcasters to base their homegrown programming choices on ratings and their development decisions on filling needs within the Canadian market. If it did, and the CTF were really there to support programs considered culturally valuable but demographically risky, we'd end up with a much broader spectrum of choice -- and work opportunities.

I also get the impression both Jim Shaw and I are being jobbed a little by what feels like an orchestrated outcry against his position. Because he's listed shows he apparently doesn't like, it's said that he wants to be the one who decides what gets made -- and I haven't seen him say that anywhere.

Now, I wouldn't want Jim Shaw's tastes deciding what gets funded any more than I want that job done by you or me. But more than anything, I don't want those choices to be made by faceless bureaucrats through a funding system that isn't accountable for its choices.

And when somebody who has to answer to irate customers that want to know why their cable dollars aren't buying them anything fresh or exciting raises the issue, I get suspicious of the motives behind those telling him to shut up, be happy with the cards he was dealt and to put some more money in the pot.

It's like some other Al Swearengen is running the game.

So, I'm backing Jim Shaw here. Never met the man. Don't know much about him beyond his apparent good taste in Cowboy boots. But he's right!

The system isn't working and the CTF has created a virtual welfare system where a thriving industry once existed. I firmly believe that's all Jim Shaw really wants to change -- and so do I.

A TALE OF TWO ANIMALS

This is my friend Alexandra. Lexie for short.


She's not my dog, but we're pals. She belongs to friends who travel frequently and sail, activities at which she does not excel. So, on those occasions, she stays at my place. I refer to this as "joint-custody". Her owners say she's "sleeping over with the boyfriend".

Lexie is a very well-trained animal.

I'm not.

Therefore, when she's around we do the stuff she's not allowed to do in her properly domesticated home life.

I've always owned or been around dogs, so I long ago learned that they're intelligent, sentient beings capable of many of the interpretive processes and emotions you and I share. I'm sure we don't think or feel in the same way but I'm not prepared to say whose version is the best.

I'll never forget walking her in the woods one afternoon after a week of heavy rain and coming across a massive mud puddle. We shared a look and I swear the same simultaneous thought -- then we dove in to splash around and get absolutely filthy.

It's an amazing feeling to sense you've communicated with another species, getting a window, even for a moment into how they might perceive and relate to the world.

On another walk, Lex and I came across a very bored horse grazing alone in its paddock. The horse took an immediate interest in us and the dog in particular. They sniffed each other, followed one another along the fence line, each making feints and dodges as if wanting to play.

Along with the bales of hay and water that had been left for it, the horse's paddock included a large heavy rubber ball. As we turned to leave, the horse kicked it through the fence rails to us. Lexie corraled it and I threw it back in the paddock. The horse kicked it back to us again.

We spent a long time repeating the process.

If you can understand the thrill of communicating with one species, consider interacting with two, who are also interacting with each other...


This is Michael Vick. Scumbag for short.

Michael used to be an athlete I admired, easily the most exciting player in the NFL and maybe all of professional sport.

Michael will not be playing in the NFL season that opens on Sunday because he's going to jail for participating in dog fighting and killing many of his animals.

If Michael and Lexie had ever met, I'm certain she would have seen him as a creature she should befriend and he'd see her as one he could brutalize, turn into a fighting dog and then enjoy watching as she either tore apart another dog in the fighting ring or was torn apart herself.

If she had survived the ordeal, but not shown the agression that would win her the opportunity to fight to the death again -- Michael would have taken her for a walk in her beloved woods and either hung her from a tree or held her under that mud puddle until she drowned.

A lot of people are wondering how Michael Vick could have thrown away the $130 Million dollars he was being paid to play his sport and his once respected reputation as the new face of the NFL for the transitory thrills of a dog fight.

Others analyse the aggressive, competitive nature and elite status of professional athletes, attempting to unearth the source of Michael's downfall.

The answer to all those questions is simple. Residing in Michael's magnificent athlete's body is the mind of a twisted little fuck.

Something in Michael enjoys seeing other sentient beings suffer. The sight of another creature in agony or desperation gives him a woody. In short, some part of him is just plain evil -- and I'm quite happy that he'll never play football again.

I long ago learned to trust the art not the artist and that many of the people I admired for their work in movies and on television are not the people you want close by in the flesh. But few of them repeatedly sink to the level of depravity that Michael Vick practised.

Talent can buy you incredible privilege, but it also comes with enormous responsibility. Many choose to ignore those responsibilities. It doesn't deminish their talent, but it certainly removes them from the list of those we should emulate.

There are those who claim Michael will be back one day and people will cheer for him again, but I doubt that will happen. In the funny way our world works, he'll do most of his time for gambling, a crime nobody really thinks of as major and not much for the acts which truly sicken most people.

Therefore, the basic concept that if you've done the time you're done with the crime won't come into play here. If Michael isn't seen to be doing time for abdicating his humanity, (as well as making a few bucks off it) then people just aren't going to forgive him.

I'm not a fan of life sentences or eternal damnation, and god knows there are things I wish some people would forgive me for -- but I also believe that you're not totally off the hook until you can convince those people the demons that got you in trouble in the first place have been finally dispatched.

Please, please, please do not click on the link I'm about to post if you are easily shocked or harbor even the slightest homocidal tendencies. But this is what Michael did to his dogs. Forward it to Michael's apologists, the moral relativists who insist there are 'worse' crimes he could've committed and all those other sports fans who can only get a woody from watching guys like Michael play football.

Unlike the whack-jobs of PETA and their ilk, I know there's a difference between us and the other species with which we share this planet. But when we choose to torture and degrade them for sport, we degrade ourselves and any claim we make to being superior.

Perhaps Michael Vick will realize the error of his ways and find a path to redeem himself. I truly hope that ending awaits him. But that achievement won't encourage me to watch him play again and I hope he does both of us the favor of directing his talents elsewhere.

Now excuse me while I go and scratch this silly old dog's belly.

PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES

I've worked in Paris before. Previously, it was for the usual Canadian reasons: tax credits, co-pro requirements, spending money somebody otherwise can't get out of the country. This time it's for all the right reasons -- Paris made sense for the series and my Execs said "Go for it!"

My first visit here was for all the right reasons too. I came to get laid.

I was 18, going to school in London, had a new girlfriend and figured a trip to Paris was the ticket to get the relationship headed in the right direction.

Like all 18 year olds plotting a romantic weekend, I invited all my buddies and their girlfriends to come along. We decided to go to Paris for Bastille Day, July 14, 1968.

1968 was a rough year in France. A student uprising in May had rocked the city. The Sorbonne had been occupied. This was followed by a general strike and a lot of social unrest. I never fully understood the politics. But a bunch of French Filmmakers made great movies about it all (Goddard's "Tout La Bien", Malle's "Milou et Mai", Bertolucci's "The Dreamers").


When you're 18, you don't consider that you're walking into a war zone -- especially when there's a chance you'll get laid.

We caught a train to Dover, a ferry to Calais and another train to the Gare du Nord. We'd booked a cheap hotel and the lady and I checked into a snug 2nd floor room overlooking St. Mark's Square. It was going to be a special night.

As the sun set, we found a sidewalk cafe, blew through a few bottles of wine and set off to watch the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. Despite being warned that the city was a powderkeg, all we saw were the happy throngs partying in the streets. The music, the wine and the soft summer night soon had my girlfriend and I cuddling close and we caught the Metro back to our hotel.

As we climbed the subway steps near St. Mark's Square, I thought I heard another street party. But this one was louder and the only music was a heavy rythmic drumming.

We stepped onto the street facing a phalanx of angry students, many wearing masks and bandanas, others pounding the street with clubs a little longer than baseball bats and just as big around. The Mob blocked the street ahead, so I turned to see if there was a way to go around them and saw a solid line of blue uniformed Paris police in riot helmets carrying large grey shields and rubber truncheons.

We were right between them and the Mob. Instinct told me to move toward the cops (after all, we were tourists who hadn't done anything wrong). No sooner had we begun to move than tear gas cannisters came arcing over the Police line. One hit my girlfriend in the shoulder and bounced to our feet. I moved to kick it away. My soccer skills being what they are, it went right back at the cops.

The Mob cheered and the Police charged. The Girlfriend turtled and I tried to cover her as the Cops ran right over us, one of them making sure we stayed down by whacking me with his truncheon as he passed.

Hey, I was a long-haired and blue-jeaned kid like the students. How was he to know I had innocent bystander status.

Choking on tear gas now, unable to see, we somehow got up and kept moving. A couple more blows and few screamed epithets in French and we were far enough from the chaos to make a run for the hotel.

We were just yards from the entrance when we were tossed back by a sudden rush of air. I didn't hear the explosion until we were on the pavement, glass raining down around us.

The chaos seemed to go into hyper mode. Sirens wailed, bullhorns blasted and people shrieked. When I could see again, I realized the front doors and window of the hotel were gone. We learned later that someone had tossed a concussion grenade into the lobby.

Chipped by the glass, bruised and still choking from the gas, we managed to get into the relative shelter of a shop doorway; where for the next hour we watched a pitched battle between the students and the police. At one point the cops appeared to be getting the upper hand. Then a second mob burst from a sidestreet, out-flanking them and clubbing several down as they attacked from behind.

Soon after, more police and soldiers arrived, the students scattered and things began to quiet. We picked our way to the hotel as our friends rolled in as well. The manager was in his shirt-sleeves, supervising as a couple of Firemen hosed the broken glass and debris from the lobby. He assured us everything was fine upstairs and we went to our rooms.

My girlfriend bandaged our cuts and put some ice on the welt on my back. Then the rest of the evening went pretty much as planned.

Next morning, I woke to hear her talking to someone on the balcony. I figured it was one of our friends but emerged to find a French soldier perched on the turret of a tank lighting her morning Galois and less than happy to discover she had company.

French Guys! Honestly!

Our train left early in the afternoon and we walked to the station passing more tanks and machine gun toting soldiers in the street. We also encountered small groups of students distinguished by their camo gear and red bandanas. No matter what the uniform, the response was universal; a dismissive look to the guys and an appreciative one accompanied by a wink or whistle to the ladies.

I took it as a sign that Paris was quickly getting back to normal.