Lazy Sunday # 205: Debunked

During Friday night’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” on HBO the panel discussion degenerated into chaos as all the speakers insisted they alone knew the facts and everybody else was living in a bubble that prevented them hearing the truth.

Now in most political discussions “truth’ is kind of a relative concept.

But earlier in the evening, I’d been bemused by the following tweet from a CBC Radio listener…

It would appear that no matter how often the CBC Ombudsman assures the public there is no “Left-leaning” bias at the network, some of the audience is still exercised by a diversity of views.

We all have our own prejudices and unshakable beliefs. And despite the wealth of information now available, many of us just don’t want to question the truths we hold to be self-evident.

We cling to our myths no matter how much proof is provided to debunk their existence.

And since our myths are the strands on which we’ve built the warp and woof of our cultural fabric, maybe that’s a good thing.

Or perhaps failing to debunk them is what keeps us from evolving and creating an even stronger culture…

What follows are not misconceptions which might shake our society to the core. But since I heard two of them offered on CBC News Network this week as statements of fact, it makes you wonder how much of what we’re told by any media outlet is as reliable as we might have once believed.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

The Crabby Old Man

There is a poem floating –- more correctly –- flying around the internet these days. It was first shared between caregivers in nursing homes and geriatric wards. 

But now its readership is growing among those of the “sandwich generation”, people in middle age caring for both their children and their aging parents.

It was found following the death of an elderly man in North Platte, Nebraska. He had died penniless and alone, a ward of the state with no relatives or close friends anyone could find.

He owned nothing of value, but in disposing of his few belongings, a nurse found a hand-written piece of paper. She was so overwhelmed by what she read, she copied it for everyone else on the ward. From there it spread.

And now it’s available to you to share…

“The Crabby Old Man”

What do you see nurses? What do you see?
What are you thinking when you're looking at me?
A crabby old man, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food and makes no reply,
When you say in a loud voice 'I do wish you'd try!'

Who seems not to notice the things that you do.
And forever is losing a sock or a shoe?
Who, resisting or not lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding the long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see? 
Then open your eyes, you're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am . As I sit here so still,
As I do all your bidding, as I eat at your will.
 
I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters who love one another.

A young boy of sixteen with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now a lover he'll meet.

A groom soon at twenty my heart gives a leap
Remembering, the vows that I promised to keep.

At twenty-five, now I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide and a secure happy home.

A man of thirty my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.

At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my woman's beside me to see I don't mourn.

At fifty, once more, babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me my wife is now dead,
I look at the future and shudder with dread.
 
For my young are all rearing young of their own.
And I think of the years and the love that I've known.

I'm now an old man and nature is cruel. It’s jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles grace and vigor depart.
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass a young guy still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells.
 
I remember the joys. I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living life over again.
I think of the years, all too few gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

So open your eyes people, open and see.
Not a crabby old man. Look closer, see ME!!

Lazy Sunday #204: Scoring

Those who have been paying attention know Matt Catingub as a Polynesian composer whose music has appeared in “A Beautiful Mind”, “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Good Night And Good Luck”.

Others might know him as the conductor of the Honolulu Symphony or the musical director and arranger who toured for many years with “easy listening” artists like Rosemary Clooney.

He’s widely recognized as an expert in an era of popular music that featured the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.

It’s a genre he comes to honestly as the son of Jazz vocalist Mavis Rivers, the first female artist Sinatra signed to his renowned Reprise label.

Catingub grew up around Reprise studios and the “Rat Pack” and now keeps that music alive by taking local symphony orchestras and transforming them for an evening into the orchestras made famous by Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Count Basie.

For those who work in television, those evenings are a mix of nostalgia and musical forensics.

Because at the time Sinatra’s Rat Pack were dominating the showbiz scene and hip culture, the band leaders who composed and arranged their music were the creators or primary influence of most of the music on television.

Riddle began scoring TV series in 1962 with “Sam Benedict” and went on to “The Naked City”, “The Untouchables”, “Route 66”, “Tarzan” and many others.

May was best known for “Batman” and “The Green Hornet”  as well as seasons of “The Mod Squad”, CHiPs” and “Emergency”.

They were of a time when series television was scored like movies, an entire orchestra coming into the studio and playing to projected sequences of edited film every week.

Later the process evolved to synthesizers and sampling and the same cues being recycled from episode to episode to cut down on costs.

These days it often seems like the concept of creating music to reflect and enhance the emotional intent of TV scenes has been tossed aside in favor of previously released music the audience already knows.

“Oh, there’s Nora Jones! And here comes Radiohead! Everybody cry on cue now!”

Attending one of Matt Cutingub’s concerts reminds you of the power of original orchestral music played by artists contributing their own interpretation of what the writer, director and others have put on screen.

It’s not yet a lost art, as the following clip of music from a pretty good but not much attended film exemplifies. Perhaps a reminder of how much a great score can enhance the audience experience.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

White Out / Black Out

As I write this, storms blanket the American Pacific Northwest and Western Canada. It’s a virtual white out across the Left side of the continent and the people who live there have a “snow day”.

I love snow days. When I was a kid it was a day off school where you could head out to toboggan or build snow men. Or you could just hole up in front of the TV or catch up on comic books.

Snow days were our best chance to be left to our own devices and our own creativity.

As an adult, they’ve become the days when I know meetings will be cancelled, I’m less likely to be interrupted and I can maybe spend a little more time researching online to enhance a current project.

But I can’t do the latter very easily today because most of the websites which might assist my creative research aren’t available.

Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, WordPress and several hundred other branded sites are on strike today as they participate in an internet blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA, two American bills designed to place control of the internet in the hands of large (mostly American) media conglomerates.

PIPA (the Protect IP Act) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are legislation that will criminalize many of those using the internet with laws written by politicians trying to please deep-pocketed copyright holders.

And if these bills are passed, your inability to find the information you need online today will become the way it is everyday  -- along with seeing people being fined and jailed for doing nothing more than telling you where you can find some of what you’re looking for.

This is not about stopping online piracy or protecting jobs. It’s about forcing you to give Hollywood more of your money and making some creative endeavours against the law. Laws which reverse our current “innocent until proven guilty” way of justice.

SOPA and PIPA are designed to protect broken business models and discourage innovation. They are the Hollywood studios best hope of remaining the controlling gate-keepers of our culture.

But they are something even more troubling. They are a way for how Hollywood does business to subvert the way our governments do business.

Much has been written about the concept of “Hollywood Accounting”, the way it screws honest, hard-working people and even operates counter to laws designed to guarantee equality of employment.

In just the last year, a group of Hollywood studios were forced to admit to Ageism, that they had actively prevented screenwriters over the age of 40 from being contracted to write scripts.

The first class-action suit against the practice earned WGA writers over 40 a $90 Million settlement. Two more suits totalling $120 Million in settlement payments are in process.

Other class actions are forming to penalize the same studios for discriminatory hiring practices against women and minorities.

Are these really the kind of people politicians want to admit to befriending the next time they have to get re-elected?

And if they are, maybe those same politicians need to understand just how friendship operates at the studio level in Hollywood.

Last year, Harvey Weinstein, recognized as Hollywood’s new “God” at Sunday’s Golden Globes, attempted to purchase his old company, Miramax, back from the Disney Corporation.

He still owned a share of many of the Miramax titles he’d produced with Disney and Disney was looking to offload the imprimatur.

But in doing his due diligence, Weinstein discovered discrepancies in the earnings reports of several of those titles. Disney eventually rejected his bid. But they ended up paying him more than $75 Million in previously unreported income.

These guys can’t even be honest with one of their own.

That’s something every politician accepting not only their donations but their arguments for how or why a law should be written need to seriously consider.

For more on why SOPA and PIPA need to be stopped, please take 15 minutes to listen to one of the most internet savvy people in the world – Clay Shirky…

UPDATE: Here…

Warming Winter

There’s a theory that much of what passes for Canadian artistic exceptionalism can be credited to Winter.

Yeah, the season’s a nice change when it starts. You want a white Christmas and a crisp, fresh day to start the New Year. But after that…

It’s cold. It’s dark. It’s messy. Sometimes even accomplishing the smallest errands or tasks can take forever. The Canadian Winter becomes an endurance test and experiment in isolation that forces you to hunker down and do the work – because there is no escape.

And for me, that January “We’re not even half way done” feeling hits about now. We’ve felt the lash of the first real cold snap and our options seem to narrow to Havana or hermit.

The trapped feeling usually peaks on a Monday morning like this with me staring out my window and realizing I cannot will the weather away. Time to zip into the cocoon of creativity for the duration.

Yet, those creative fires need to be stoked and what better way than with some warming music.

Harry Manx is a Toronto Blues man most of the world has never experienced. And that’s odd because he travelled the world searching for a way to match the music he loved with the music he felt inside.

He found it in India in the form of a 20 stringed instrument called the Mohan Veena which sparked an inspired musical journey, transforming not only his love of the Blues but his flat top guitar and banjo into East/West and frigid/balmy bridges.

If you’ve never heard Harry Manx, you’re in for a treat. Lay out your creative tools for the day and prepare to be swept away by a muse that will inspire and enrich your efforts.

No matter the temperature, you’re about to feel a whole lot warmer.

Lazy Sunday # 203: Shake On It

The 49ers beat the Saints with 9 seconds to go after the lead changes four times in the last four minutes.

The Patriots crush a team half the country was rooting for.

And there will be more of the same today.

Monday is gonna be rough on a lot of guys.

Enjoy Your Sunday…

Tim Tebow’s Fire

There’s probably nothing more American than jumping on a bandwagon.

America loves winners. Loves rubbing shoulders with them. Loves being identified as a winner by association.

It explains a lot about their politics, their celebrities and the culture.

And it feeds the need of a consumer society to keep innovating change to keep people buying something new thus keeping the money circulating.

Two months ago, barely anybody outside of football had heard of Tim Tebow.  The name might’ve rung a bell from when he and his mom did a Pro-Life TV commercial. Or he was that pro-athlete who publically admitted being a virgin.

To most Americans, he was just some fringe doofus.

And then he started to win football games. Win them in the final seconds. Win doing things most people in football were certain he wasn’t capable of doing.

But instead of spouting the game theorems and cliché phrases appreciated by the Jockaucracy, Tebow didn’t talk much in the “Me” realm and credited his achievements to his spirituality, something considered wildly out-of-fashion by most in the mainstream media.

His detractors scoffed, sometimes too harshly it felt, given he was just a guy playing on a fringe football team barely hoping to make the playoffs. Who was he going to influence? What difference would he make in the grand scheme of things?

And when Tebow lost a game, there was a sudden burst of celebration from the bellwethers of the culture. A kind of sneering Edward G. Robinson, “Where’s your Messiah now, Moses?” glee.

I wondered why it was so important to marginalize this guy and even turn  him into the Sarah Palin of the gridiron.

Yet Tebow kept pulling victories out of the fire, just sticking to what meagre talents he had.

And his fan base heat continued to grow, far from being fanned by a supportive media, most of whom considered him a “flash in the pan”.

Yet numbers released this week revealed that Tebow jerseys are the top seller in the league and the company whose underwear he endorses has seen its sales increase by 2000%.

When Tim Tebow won his first playoff game last Sunday -– again in a spectacular overtime sudden death display, the ratings indicated it had been seen by 25% of the country, achieving numbers only previously reached by the Super Bowl.

Suddenly the American media seemed to realize it had been ignoring a winner and better get on the bandwagon.

Those still dumping on Tim Tebow were chastised. His marketing power was touted. Presidential candidates sought his endorsement.

Others whispered that the 316 passing yards gained in his playoff win matched the number of the Bible verse the NFL forced him to remove from his eye black. Could it mean there really is a God?

If you want an answer to that question, look no further than the photo leaked this week of Tim’s girlfriend. In spiritual terms, this is what’s known as “Proof Positive, Brother!”

Unfortunately, Tim Tebow’s winning streak will likely end tonight. He’s up against a powerful team the Vegas money insists will triumph by a couple of touchdowns.

If the Denver Broncos do manage to win, expect Caesar’s Palace to add a Sistine Chapel replica to hedge its bets.

And a Denver loss will also probably cause the MSM to hop off the Tebow bandwagon and get on with doing what it appears to do best –- remain out of touch with the people who make up their audience.

But in losing, Tim Tebow will have reminded those who truly understand spirituality, the warrior’s spirit or any true faith that their belief does not provide access to some kind of magical vending machine that dispenses exactly what you want.

It’s just a way of living a life based not on wins or losses but on how well you live it and how well you treat those around you. In those terms, guys like Tim Tebow are never defeated.

The Epiphany

If there’s one word every writer dreads and every story executive demands, it is “Epiphany”. That moment when the penny drops for the lead character and he realizes what the point of his cinematic journey has been, understands how to overcome the obstacles placed in his path, discovers what will bring about a successful resolution.

Without that moment the development exec knows the story probably won’t work. For cinema (and TV) is about transformation – facing a fear and finding a way to overcome it and go on to a better life.

But for the writer, scripting that scene is a bitch.

The audience can’t see it coming, but have to have all the information to know it when they see it. It’s gotta be a surprise, a revelation, a moment of blinding awe and inspiration.

Writers beat their heads against the Epiphany for hours, days, weeks even years. It demands they look at their story and their characters from every conceivable position plus a few that didn’t even make it into the Kama Sutra.

It’s hard work. The kind that makes writing painful and scary for many, causes more than a few to avoid the task at all costs and probably accounts for most cases of writer’s block.

Sometimes it wears down the development executives and the producers as well. The clock is ticking. The set needs pages. Why not just go with this. It’s worked before.

Such decisions let everyone get on with their lives – and ensure that actors like Steven Seagal maintain a career.

Safe mode is only a keystroke away.

But the reality of writing is that when you sit down to write you are taking a journey. It’s going to be long and hard. You may know exactly where you want to go. But the journey will be the one who determines what awaits you at the end.

So many elements of any journey are beyond our control. The weather changes. Planes get delayed. While you’re in the air there’s an earthquake at your destination or the economy collapses.

What we think we’re looking for is not always what we find.

But when you look back on the journeys you’ve taken – aren’t the ones with the unplanned for, unexpected twists and turns those you remember the most?

It’s the same for an audience.

I’m betting that in the last few days, a lot of writers reading this made a commitment to write something really good in 2012. To finally start or finish that story they’ve always wanted to write.

Now it’s a week into the new year. The house has never been cleaner. Everything on the “Honey-Do” list has been crossed off. You’ve even sorted all your socks and tax receipts.

But that story is still tapping its foot inside your subconscious –- waiting to hit the road.

Because the road is hard and it wears you down. And there’s always that one big hill you know you won’t be able to avoid.

Maybe you need to look at the other definition of Epiphany. The original meaning in ancient Greek -- “A Vision of God”.

In the Christian Calendar Epiphany was this weekend, January 6th – 12 days after Christmas and symbolizing the Magi (on their journey) discovering God in human form.

Whether you believe in that stuff or not is up to you. The point is, in a movie about the three wise men that discovery is their moment of…

They didn’t see it coming. It changed them completely and it made all they’d been through and still had to face worthwhile.

That’s how you have to approach your writing. Accept and try to enjoy the trials and tribulations of the journey. When you arrive at an unexpected place, don’t give up and go back and try to find the Interstate.

Let the journey take you where it wants to go.

Because when you arrive at that dreaded “E” moment, it will be so much better than what you thought you were seeking. It’ll be a surprise to you and perhaps a revelation. Which means it’s gonna awe the shit out of your audience and development exec.

The journey’s joys always outweigh the pain.

Lazy Sunday # 202: Riusuke Fukahori

Good screenwriters work in layers. You don’t ever reveal a character all at once.

I mean, you can. But in an odd way, that defeats the purpose. Because knowing all there is to know about somebody from the get go turns them from a three dimensional character into one that seems flat and uninteresting.

If there’s nothing left to look for, what’s the point of watching what they do next.

So you give them a little here and a little there. The spine of the character one place and the shading in another. And as the layers overlap, the audience forms the three dimensional character you laid out for them in deft strokes of action and dialogue.

Riusuke Fukahori does much the same thing. Only he does it with paint, constructing three dimensional drawings from layer upon layer of what seem like unrelated brushstrokes.

It’s just that easy -- and that hard. Enjoy Your Sunday.

And here’s the technique…

Natural Born Filler

The arrival of television's "Second Season" this month also marks the return of the overblown hyperbole machine known as Network PR.

As new series debut, the same people who mere months ago insisted "The Playboy Club", "Pan Am" and "Prime Suspect" would forever alter the television landscape are back declaring that every member of the new crop will have an even greater impact on the popular culture.

It always amazes me that those watching Entertainment News and Gossip never get tired of hearing that everybody the latest flavor of the month star or celebrity is working with is "brilliant" and a "genius". Nor do they seem to catch on to the continual disconnect between the sizzle and what's passed off as steak when it's finally delivered.

What's more, nobody every gets rude and says, "Why should I even listen to you idiots anymore after the lemon you sold me last time?"

I guess at some level we all really do want to believe we're not being toyed with and that our search for thoroughly satisfying entertainment will at last be rewarded.

And I suppose newspapers who can't afford stories written by actual journalists anymore can still attract advertising by filling up pages with unedited press releases.

But still…

Among the filler pieces I came across this week was an interview with best-selling author John Grisham hyping the upcoming premiere of the series version of his 1991 novel "The Firm" which spawned the successful 1994 film version starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman.

Of course, Cruise and Hackman are not in the TV sequel, nor is its plot the one that fans of Grisham's book or the resulting Robert Towne scripted film may recall.

In this version, brilliant Harvard lawyer Mitch McDeere emerges from a decade in witness protection after exposing his mob-connected law firm and suddenly finds himself partnered with another firm who ("Oh no, it's happening again!) are apparently also up to no good.

I guess Harvard Law doesn't offer a course in conducting "Due Diligence".

And you'd figure a guy who's really smart might realize that the Witness Protection Program is there because there really are people who don't forgive and forget.

A few years ago, I wrote a pilot that had me hop-scotching the USA to interview real people in real Witness Protection. They weren't the nicest folks I've ever met. And none of them liked the places to which the Federal Marshals had dispatched them for their own safety. But not one was dumb enough to think bygones would one day be bygones.

Now, I have no idea whether "The Firm" is or is not good television. It might well be the kind I hate and a whole lot of other people really like -- or vice versa. I'm led to believe its "Canadian" although few of the creative 'above the line' appear to be legitimate frostbacks.

But in a world where "The Tudors" and "The Borgias" are "Canadian" with even fewer bodies on staff who might have once attended a hockey game or bobbed their heads to "Nickleback", I guess that's possible.

No. My beef is with the bullshit.

Despite a number of reviews which can best be described as tepid at best, John Grisham insists "The Firm" will (unlike his last TV foray "The Client") be a hit, also stating that he's a big fan of all the other lawyers turned writers or producers staffing the show and has been having great fun watching the characters come to life on set.

But you gotta wonder if that's what he really feels in his heart. Or at least the heart we've been led to believe he wears on his sleeve.

Those who know Grisham's history might recall that he once took on an Oliver Stone movie called "Natural Born Killers" after a pair of copy-cat teens brutally murdered one of his close friends claiming they'd been inspired by the movie's mayhem.

Grisham wrote a scathing essay in a magazine he published demanding a First Amendment (Freedom of Speech) exception be made so that those involved in the film could be called to account.

"The notion of holding filmmakers and studios legally responsible for their products has always been met with guffaws from the industry. But the laughing will soon stop. It will take only one large verdict against the likes of Oliver Stone, and his production company, and the screenwriter, and the studio itself, and then the party will be over! Once a precedent is set, the litigation will become contagious, and the money will become enormous. Hollywood will suddenly discover a desire to rein itself in. The landscape of American jurisprudence is littered with the remains of large, powerful corporations which once thought themselves bulletproof and immune from responsibility for their actions. Sadly, Hollywood will have to be forced to shed some of its own blood before it learns to police itself".

Grisham's displeasure with those in any way associated with "Natural Born Killers" was so great that he personally stopped the studio filming his next novel "A Time To Kill" from hiring "Killers" star Woody Harrelson.

And yet, he now seems positively tickled to death that Harrelson's co-star, Juliette Lewis, is part of the cast of "The Firm".

Odd when you consider that for several years, the death of his friend had caused Grisham to forbid his publisher from selling the film rights for any of his books to a Hollywood Studio.

Or maybe time heals all wounds. Eventually we all realize we need to forgive and forget. At least that sentiment might explain the inexplicable "The mob's probably over it by now" premise of the series.

And perhaps, like a lot of writers, Grisham's characters are based on his own self. Maybe like Mitch McDeere, he sometimes just goes along to get along.

If not, he might've noticed that Executive Producer John Morayniss sat for many, many years atop the Writers Guild of Canada's "Unfair Engagers" list.

Now, I don't know what producorial faux pas or Guild misdemeanor Mr. Morayniss committed to earn this ignominy. But it meant Canadian screenwriters were forbidden from being contracted by him for a very long time and it became somewhat of an industry joke that the thing never seemed to get settled.

You really wondered what the poor bastard could've done, given that other Guild Grievances were being dropped without serious penalty (literally by the hundreds).

But around the time The Firm's production company (Entertainment One) came along, he finally disappeared from the list. I asked my Guild rep what had happened, but never got an answer.

Maybe at the heart of Grisham's gushing over "The Firm" there's a lawyer's implicit understanding that we all deserve the chance to one day freely return to society. Maybe he's just happy he dodged his own bullet because no parent blew away their kid's rapist and claimed they were inspired by "A Time To Kill".

Or -- he's just another guy with a 275-Million-copies-sold gift for fiction moving some product. Which -- kinda flies in the face of the image constantly painted of a man with a passion for truth and justice.

And that leaves me feeling "The Firm" might not be what it's being cracked up to be. Meaning in a few short months the hyperbole machine will be back, once more promising me something else it likely won't deliver.

New Year / New Music

Nobody told me this was a Stat Holiday…

I’m thinking it’s some kind of plot to make people feel they don’t really have to get started on their New Year’s resolutions. Some automatic cheat day or 24 hour grace period.

As for me, I stuck with the program. Got up earlier than the dog for a change. Hustled her butt through the park. Turned up showered, shaved and wearing a crisply starched shirt. Only to discover nobody else was ready to play.

So now I’ve got time on my hands – always a dangerous state for yours truly. That “Idle hands are the devil’s tools” thing was coined with me in mind.

So the idle hands plugged in one of the new albums I bought over the holidays and then I figured why not tempt others away from what they thought they’d accomplish today.

I’m Satan. Plain and simple.

And as we all know, I’m a fan of Country Music.

But there are some interesting new breezes blowing across that landscape. Some of the bands I’m introducing you to today have been around a while. But they’ll probably be new to most of you.

So think of this as “Out with the Old – In with the New” for your 2012 listening habits.

First up, The Avett Brothers, Country Music Television’s “New Artist of 2011”. They’re followed by “Mumford & Sons” and “Old Crow Medicine Show”. I know you’ll like ‘em. I hope you’ll want to hear more of what they do.

The Avett Brothers

Mumford & Sons

Old Crow Medicine Show

Lazy Sunday #201: Starting 2012 With A Bang!

Yes, what better way to welcome in a new year than with the first fireworks extravaganza of 2012 from Sydney Australia’s inner harbor where it’s already January 2nd…

Toggle full screen and turn up the speakers if you’re able.

And if that’s a little bit dangerous today, knock back some ASA and Gatorade and try to – Enjoy Your Sunday.

Regular blogging at The Legion resumes on Tuesday. Hope you had a great holiday –- and my best wishes for 2012. May it make all your dreams come true.

And what’s more…