Better people than I are covering, in more detail, the following:
a) General Wesley Clark talked about how much he honored and appreciated Senator McCain's wartime service, but mentioned that getting shot down and taken POW were not automatic qualifications for being, say, President.
b.) The press, all aswoon over McCain's manliness -- many of whom obsess over this because they're still working out their Boomer man-issues -- claimed that General Clark was somehow "attacking" Senator McCain or even more hallucinegenically "swift-boating" him.
c.) Then, even more trippily, McCain's camp actually hauled out one of the Swift Boat guys to run interference, claiming Clark was somehow distorting or attacking Senator McCain's war record. Which he didn't do, either explicitly or implicitly.
Let's make this perfectly clear. The Swift Boaters claimed Senator John Kerry lied about his war record. General Clark pointed out that serving in the military did not mean you were automatically a genius at international relations or national security. A five year old with a head injury could tell the difference between those two statements. Yet the press scurries about, buzzing like binge-puking sophomore girls over how Wesley totally dissed John at lunch hour and how this is totally THE BIGGEST THING EVUH.
This is what you get when you combine massive insecurity, a desperate need for the approval of authority figures (hellllo pretty much everyone working in entertainment/news), and a culture of people generally unfamiliar with those who serve in the military. My grandfather, who I loved dearly, got his ass shot up in the Batle of the Bulge. If you said that somehow made him more eligible to be President than, well anyone, we both would have laughed ourselves silly. But for many Americans, servicemen and women are fetish dolls upon which we project our insecurities and craving for heroism rather than being, say, very nice brave people who need some goddam medical care and maybe a better GI Bill.
If anything highlights that there's a whole segment of modern men in American society seriously fucked up about their identity, it's this knee-jerk reaction to currying favor with the cool jock who's got the testes-cred they feel they lack.
Please, please, in my adult lifetime, could I have a presidential election where Vietnam isn't an issue? Just one where people's service in a war that ended over thirty damn years ago isn't one of the over-riding psychological factors of the election?
Christ, I can't wait until we have the first Boomer Candidate-free election. Not because I don't like Boomers, but I desperately want to at least argue over some different goddam issues.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
LEVERAGE Weeks 8 & 9
Right then, a few double week posts to catch up. This is where things get grindy and repetitive anyway, so I don't think you're missing much.
Week 8: Albert is out writing 104, and Chris Downey heads out to write 103. By "out" I mean he's working out of the tiny supply closet upstairs, as he likes to be able to bomb in and check on the room's progress on a regular basis. Chris spent six years on staff on King of Queens, before a year off working alone, doing features and pilots (he sold quite a few pitches, actually). While I enjoy the quiet time of solo writing, he doesn't dig it. Zipping into the room for a few minutes every hour is like a drug for him.
Berg, Boylan, Rieder and Mrs. Glenn and I plow along getting the plot breakdown for 107 into shape, even as Rieder and Mrs. Glenn shine their episode story into shape for the pitch. 107 is one I was going to write, but have now handed it off to Boylan She struggled heroically with the broken outline for two weeks, so she's currently without a developed storyline. Her writing style is a good match for this episode, and the outline comes together very quickly. We slot her in for an end-of the week pitch to Dean, while Rider and Mrs. Glen have a mid-week slot.
The big day arrives. Dean comes down to the Writers' Room. Rieder and Mrs. Glenn divvy up the story outline into alternating scenes, with Mrs. Glenn tending to handle the plotty stuff while Rieder pitches the heart. (And by "heart" I mean "Chris Kane's sex scene." Make of that what you will.) The move through nice and steady, very similar to Chris' pitching style. When they're done Dean gives them maybe three notes, conrgratulates them, and heads back to his office upstairs.
During the post-pitch buzz, Berg looks at me. "Now are you going to tell them?"
"Tell us what?"
"What you just did? Baby writers pitching to the studio head? That's considered insane. Pitching's one of the hardest things to do in the job. You could screw up, get fired, wreck your rep with the studio -- but you guys did a fantastic job, and now you've got your first pitch behind you."
The writing team looks a little shaken, but takes it all in stride. "Thank God you didn't tell us what was at stake before we pitched! We would have been terrified!"
"You mean, a baby writer pitching the studio is crazy and can go horribly wrong," Boylan pipes up.
"Yes," I answer as I fiddle with the top of a Snapple Diet Iced Tea. Damn plastic-wrap.
"As in, the thing I'm doing two days from now is crazy and can go horribly wrong," she says carefully, staring at me.
" ... shit."
The remainder of the week is spent hacking 107 into pitching shape, alternatively getting Boylan to breathe into a brown paper bag. We break the show all the way down to scene/sluglines (the white cards) along with some jokes, speeches, etc. Friday morning comes, and although I'd like to drop you with another cliffhanger, the resultant action is hardly deserving. We all went upstairs into Dean's office for the pitch (all the writers present for support), Boylan pitched out the story, and she did just fine. All the writers are now on draft or off writing submission outlines (those 15-20 pagers) for studio review.
That afternoon, Dean and Chris and our line producer Phil Goldfarb head out to check the soundstages. We're in a small facility in the Valley, recently converted over from factory/warehouse space. Empty spaces, where our permanent sets will be built, our swing sets -- out home away from home for about 14 hours a day, July 14th through November. It all begins to get a bit boggling. It gets all too real. Money will now be spent. Ungodly amounts of money, based on whatever little bullshit tales we spin out in 50 page increments. 12 hours of television in four months. That's six movies in four months. I engage in the longstanding tradition of all first-time showrunners and quietly throw up in my mouth.
Phil shows us offices attached to the main building. "You can finally give the writers offices." I sigh in relief. Finally, a little breathing room, after two months of eight people crammed in one conference room for 10 hours a day. We've been promising the kids this expansion since Day One. Just hold on a bit, and soon you'll have offices. And phones. Maybe even staplers.
But yet ... we've been ferociously productive in those two months. A writing staff's a delicate thing, chemistry's so crucial ... and, most importantly, we know all the good restaraunts around the Doghouse on Highland. There's nothing more important to a writers' room than lunch.
Chris and I make an executive decision. Come Monday, we return to the room and announce that we won't be leaving the Highland office. For the remainder of their contracts, they'll continue to work in one room, a room that conveniently heats to 90 degrees at 1 pm every day and stays that way until approximately 11:45 am the next day.
What do you know -- the crazy newbies don't mind.
Week 9: Right, at the beginning of Week 9 (Tuesday, because of Memorial Day), this is where the writing staff stands.
Downey: writing 103
Berg: launched on 106. She's called 105 and 106, and as 106 could possible be a bottle-show, we're going with that script first, possibly to even shoot first. Also, she's been working on the draft on her own time for a while now, but this is her official "launch" date."
Boylan: outlining 107
Rieder and Mrs. Glenn: outlining 108
Albert: just turned in a rough draft of 104 for notes.
Rogers: ... uhhhh ... stuff. Showrunner ... stuff.
In between giving Albert notes on his script and looking over drafts of outlines, most of this week is spent hiring people. Pre-production starts in just a couple weeks, so we need to nail down our UPM, location manager, our set designer, etc. Luckily for us our set designer from the pilot, Lauren, is available, so we can jump straight to the concept meeting. A concept meeting is where the executive producers explain to a department head how much ridiculous value they want for the show, and the department head tries not to laugh as they look at the avilable budget.
We leave the week with Albert off to do his second revisions, and Chris' script due in Monday. We are six weeks away from Production. Although I cannot yet hear the train on the tracks, somehwere an engine is being stoked.
All right, let's see if we have any spiffy questions from Week 7.
Coren: Why shouldn't the Indefensible writer talk about how his show came into being? Is it because of how out of the norm getting a show that way is, or will it piss people off, or what?
You usually spend ten years or so of your writing career gettign a show on the air, if you ever do. David Feige's happenstance could crush souls.
Coren: And totally unrelated, but something in the post just sparked a thought in my head: What's the next project you've got in the pipe for DC? And now that I think of it, are you ever resuming Blue Beetle, or is it a permanent departure for you?
With all the ... suspense at DC, implied or real, I have no idea what's going on. My projects weren't going to start until after Final Crisis concluded anyway, soooo ... let's just say I'm in flux. I will return to Blue Beetle someday, and in the meantime will do a little wrap-up post about my time on the series and what the fine folks at DC have told me is coming next from the very talented mister Matt Sturgess.
Jason: You make this whole business sound like an awful lot of fun.
Writing a television show on a good day, is the best goddam job in the world. On the other hand, there is no shortage of hell stories, which may prompt a post later. If anybody has any hellacious staffing stories they want to add to my collection, drop a line at kfmoneky@gmail.com, and I'll ad them to the upcoming post after appropriate anonymization.
Berg: You see, boss? This is exactly why I don't have a blog... so Wesley Crusher can't give me shit.
And yet, you blushed like a child-bride when Frakes came into the room to say hello. So off the high-horse.
Mark: No B plot?
Multi-character shows usually have A, B and sometimes C plots. The A-plot is the main story of the episode. The B plot is usually another storyline in the same style of the usual show conflicts -- for example, in a lawyer show, the Case of the Week is the A plot, while the other, quirky case is the B-plot. The C plot is usually some character quirk runner. There are several show styles vis a vis the plot/character interrelationships of the A/B/C stories.
Now, these plots serve another purpose besides storytelling -- they split up your goddam cast into manageable chunks of two or so people per scene. All our characters are involved with every heist/con, so we need to keep them all "alive", or active in the main story, over every scene. That is, to be short, a bitch. We can't say "Okay, this story doesn't really lend itself to Parker's skill set. We'll send her off on another case or runner this week." Nope. Our format means you find a way to use all the cast, all the time, on the main story. That's a bit easier for investigatvie shows -- just split your detectives up interviewing different witnesses -- but ours is a bear.
Mike Cane: Now that I know who (Beth Riesgraf) is, Rogers, I'm like all homina-homina-homina-OMFG!!!!!
She does seem to be getting a lot of geek love already off the leaked pilot. Hope she's ready. Which, of course, finally leads me to that Warren Ellis fanfic story --
-- whoops, it's midnight. Next time.
Week 8: Albert is out writing 104, and Chris Downey heads out to write 103. By "out" I mean he's working out of the tiny supply closet upstairs, as he likes to be able to bomb in and check on the room's progress on a regular basis. Chris spent six years on staff on King of Queens, before a year off working alone, doing features and pilots (he sold quite a few pitches, actually). While I enjoy the quiet time of solo writing, he doesn't dig it. Zipping into the room for a few minutes every hour is like a drug for him.
Berg, Boylan, Rieder and Mrs. Glenn and I plow along getting the plot breakdown for 107 into shape, even as Rieder and Mrs. Glenn shine their episode story into shape for the pitch. 107 is one I was going to write, but have now handed it off to Boylan She struggled heroically with the broken outline for two weeks, so she's currently without a developed storyline. Her writing style is a good match for this episode, and the outline comes together very quickly. We slot her in for an end-of the week pitch to Dean, while Rider and Mrs. Glen have a mid-week slot.
The big day arrives. Dean comes down to the Writers' Room. Rieder and Mrs. Glenn divvy up the story outline into alternating scenes, with Mrs. Glenn tending to handle the plotty stuff while Rieder pitches the heart. (And by "heart" I mean "Chris Kane's sex scene." Make of that what you will.) The move through nice and steady, very similar to Chris' pitching style. When they're done Dean gives them maybe three notes, conrgratulates them, and heads back to his office upstairs.
During the post-pitch buzz, Berg looks at me. "Now are you going to tell them?"
"Tell us what?"
"What you just did? Baby writers pitching to the studio head? That's considered insane. Pitching's one of the hardest things to do in the job. You could screw up, get fired, wreck your rep with the studio -- but you guys did a fantastic job, and now you've got your first pitch behind you."
The writing team looks a little shaken, but takes it all in stride. "Thank God you didn't tell us what was at stake before we pitched! We would have been terrified!"
"You mean, a baby writer pitching the studio is crazy and can go horribly wrong," Boylan pipes up.
"Yes," I answer as I fiddle with the top of a Snapple Diet Iced Tea. Damn plastic-wrap.
"As in, the thing I'm doing two days from now is crazy and can go horribly wrong," she says carefully, staring at me.
" ... shit."
The remainder of the week is spent hacking 107 into pitching shape, alternatively getting Boylan to breathe into a brown paper bag. We break the show all the way down to scene/sluglines (the white cards) along with some jokes, speeches, etc. Friday morning comes, and although I'd like to drop you with another cliffhanger, the resultant action is hardly deserving. We all went upstairs into Dean's office for the pitch (all the writers present for support), Boylan pitched out the story, and she did just fine. All the writers are now on draft or off writing submission outlines (those 15-20 pagers) for studio review.
That afternoon, Dean and Chris and our line producer Phil Goldfarb head out to check the soundstages. We're in a small facility in the Valley, recently converted over from factory/warehouse space. Empty spaces, where our permanent sets will be built, our swing sets -- out home away from home for about 14 hours a day, July 14th through November. It all begins to get a bit boggling. It gets all too real. Money will now be spent. Ungodly amounts of money, based on whatever little bullshit tales we spin out in 50 page increments. 12 hours of television in four months. That's six movies in four months. I engage in the longstanding tradition of all first-time showrunners and quietly throw up in my mouth.
Phil shows us offices attached to the main building. "You can finally give the writers offices." I sigh in relief. Finally, a little breathing room, after two months of eight people crammed in one conference room for 10 hours a day. We've been promising the kids this expansion since Day One. Just hold on a bit, and soon you'll have offices. And phones. Maybe even staplers.
But yet ... we've been ferociously productive in those two months. A writing staff's a delicate thing, chemistry's so crucial ... and, most importantly, we know all the good restaraunts around the Doghouse on Highland. There's nothing more important to a writers' room than lunch.
Chris and I make an executive decision. Come Monday, we return to the room and announce that we won't be leaving the Highland office. For the remainder of their contracts, they'll continue to work in one room, a room that conveniently heats to 90 degrees at 1 pm every day and stays that way until approximately 11:45 am the next day.
What do you know -- the crazy newbies don't mind.
Week 9: Right, at the beginning of Week 9 (Tuesday, because of Memorial Day), this is where the writing staff stands.
Downey: writing 103
Berg: launched on 106. She's called 105 and 106, and as 106 could possible be a bottle-show, we're going with that script first, possibly to even shoot first. Also, she's been working on the draft on her own time for a while now, but this is her official "launch" date."
Boylan: outlining 107
Rieder and Mrs. Glenn: outlining 108
Albert: just turned in a rough draft of 104 for notes.
Rogers: ... uhhhh ... stuff. Showrunner ... stuff.
In between giving Albert notes on his script and looking over drafts of outlines, most of this week is spent hiring people. Pre-production starts in just a couple weeks, so we need to nail down our UPM, location manager, our set designer, etc. Luckily for us our set designer from the pilot, Lauren, is available, so we can jump straight to the concept meeting. A concept meeting is where the executive producers explain to a department head how much ridiculous value they want for the show, and the department head tries not to laugh as they look at the avilable budget.
We leave the week with Albert off to do his second revisions, and Chris' script due in Monday. We are six weeks away from Production. Although I cannot yet hear the train on the tracks, somehwere an engine is being stoked.
All right, let's see if we have any spiffy questions from Week 7.
Coren: Why shouldn't the Indefensible writer talk about how his show came into being? Is it because of how out of the norm getting a show that way is, or will it piss people off, or what?
You usually spend ten years or so of your writing career gettign a show on the air, if you ever do. David Feige's happenstance could crush souls.
Coren: And totally unrelated, but something in the post just sparked a thought in my head: What's the next project you've got in the pipe for DC? And now that I think of it, are you ever resuming Blue Beetle, or is it a permanent departure for you?
With all the ... suspense at DC, implied or real, I have no idea what's going on. My projects weren't going to start until after Final Crisis concluded anyway, soooo ... let's just say I'm in flux. I will return to Blue Beetle someday, and in the meantime will do a little wrap-up post about my time on the series and what the fine folks at DC have told me is coming next from the very talented mister Matt Sturgess.
Jason: You make this whole business sound like an awful lot of fun.
Writing a television show on a good day, is the best goddam job in the world. On the other hand, there is no shortage of hell stories, which may prompt a post later. If anybody has any hellacious staffing stories they want to add to my collection, drop a line at kfmoneky@gmail.com, and I'll ad them to the upcoming post after appropriate anonymization.
Berg: You see, boss? This is exactly why I don't have a blog... so Wesley Crusher can't give me shit.
And yet, you blushed like a child-bride when Frakes came into the room to say hello. So off the high-horse.
Mark: No B plot?
Multi-character shows usually have A, B and sometimes C plots. The A-plot is the main story of the episode. The B plot is usually another storyline in the same style of the usual show conflicts -- for example, in a lawyer show, the Case of the Week is the A plot, while the other, quirky case is the B-plot. The C plot is usually some character quirk runner. There are several show styles vis a vis the plot/character interrelationships of the A/B/C stories.
Now, these plots serve another purpose besides storytelling -- they split up your goddam cast into manageable chunks of two or so people per scene. All our characters are involved with every heist/con, so we need to keep them all "alive", or active in the main story, over every scene. That is, to be short, a bitch. We can't say "Okay, this story doesn't really lend itself to Parker's skill set. We'll send her off on another case or runner this week." Nope. Our format means you find a way to use all the cast, all the time, on the main story. That's a bit easier for investigatvie shows -- just split your detectives up interviewing different witnesses -- but ours is a bear.
Mike Cane: Now that I know who (Beth Riesgraf) is, Rogers, I'm like all homina-homina-homina-OMFG!!!!!
She does seem to be getting a lot of geek love already off the leaked pilot. Hope she's ready. Which, of course, finally leads me to that Warren Ellis fanfic story --
-- whoops, it's midnight. Next time.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
In The Room #432: Also, "shame"
Rogers: -- a game we used to play. Sum up a movie in one word.
Rieder: One word.
Rogers: The idea is, you're trying to develop your writing compass. It helps you figure out the theme in your own work, so you can always make sure you're on beam. When in doubt, you focus on that word. What's the movie about?
Boylan: What if you get it wrong?
Rogers: You can't get it wrong. It's whatever you think the movie's about. Sometimes the word you pick says more about you than the movie you're discussing.
Rieder: Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Rogers: "Change."
Rieder: Huh. I see that. The English Patient.
Rogers: "Loss."
Albert: Can you do it with TV shows? Maybe individual episodes.
Rogers: I don't know, I'd say Buffy is "solitude."
Boylan: I would have said "loneliness."
Rogers: Better, actually.
Berg: What was the one word in your head for Catwoman?
Downey: "Mortgage."
Rogers: ...
Rogers: Nicely done.
Downey: Thank you.
Rieder: One word.
Rogers: The idea is, you're trying to develop your writing compass. It helps you figure out the theme in your own work, so you can always make sure you're on beam. When in doubt, you focus on that word. What's the movie about?
Boylan: What if you get it wrong?
Rogers: You can't get it wrong. It's whatever you think the movie's about. Sometimes the word you pick says more about you than the movie you're discussing.
Rieder: Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Rogers: "Change."
Rieder: Huh. I see that. The English Patient.
Rogers: "Loss."
Albert: Can you do it with TV shows? Maybe individual episodes.
Rogers: I don't know, I'd say Buffy is "solitude."
Boylan: I would have said "loneliness."
Rogers: Better, actually.
Berg: What was the one word in your head for Catwoman?
Downey: "Mortgage."
Rogers: ...
Rogers: Nicely done.
Downey: Thank you.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Quick Fisher House note
Just to let everyone know: when we started matching for Fisher House, they didn't have an online donation form. Knowing that one-click tended to provide more revenue, I set up an escrow-y paypal account, matched the donations that came into there, and then sent the whole package on to the nice folks there. We also matched any receipts that were sent our way from direct donors.
A while ago they set up an online form. I finally got around to yanking my button now that it's not needed. However, whatever you send, they'll pop back an e-mail receipt. forward a copy on to me at kfmonkey@gmail.com, and I'll still match. Many thanks in particular to Mary Considine there at the Fisher House, who helped with a bunch of tax stuff.
That said, I realized I haven't done a total in a while. This was all in for the last year or so, starting with the drive last summer. This number is higher than usual because, tragically, one of our regular readers lost a loved one in the war, so we're matching all the donations raised by his family.
All in, you guys kicked in $12,459. Matching and rounding up, the Kung Fu Monkey readers sent a check for $25,000 to the Fisher House folks. If I may -- that's an appreciable fraction of what the studios donated to Fisher House after the Transformers shoot. Power of the small donor, indeed.
I think we'll leave Fisher House up there as our constant charity. I'm looking at some micro-loan stuff to vary things up. But again, nicely done.
A while ago they set up an online form. I finally got around to yanking my button now that it's not needed. However, whatever you send, they'll pop back an e-mail receipt. forward a copy on to me at kfmonkey@gmail.com, and I'll still match. Many thanks in particular to Mary Considine there at the Fisher House, who helped with a bunch of tax stuff.
That said, I realized I haven't done a total in a while. This was all in for the last year or so, starting with the drive last summer. This number is higher than usual because, tragically, one of our regular readers lost a loved one in the war, so we're matching all the donations raised by his family.
All in, you guys kicked in $12,459. Matching and rounding up, the Kung Fu Monkey readers sent a check for $25,000 to the Fisher House folks. If I may -- that's an appreciable fraction of what the studios donated to Fisher House after the Transformers shoot. Power of the small donor, indeed.
I think we'll leave Fisher House up there as our constant charity. I'm looking at some micro-loan stuff to vary things up. But again, nicely done.
Friday, June 20, 2008
LEVERAGE promo up
NOTE: EMBED DELETED
Bare bones of the site up over on TNT.tv, with a promo clip from the pilot (I suggest going over there, the embedding's a little wonky). Considering we're at least four months out from airing, you gotta love the TNT people's commitment to promoting their shows. Certainly as hell beats the "we'll push one show like hell, and everything else, good luck" strategy the networks have been hammering lately.
Bare bones of the site up over on TNT.tv, with a promo clip from the pilot (I suggest going over there, the embedding's a little wonky). Considering we're at least four months out from airing, you gotta love the TNT people's commitment to promoting their shows. Certainly as hell beats the "we'll push one show like hell, and everything else, good luck" strategy the networks have been hammering lately.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Ryan v. Dorkman
I know, I know, I'm 2 years behind. But I have a very hard time arguing that this isn't the best swordfight on film in ... a loooooong time. Certainly better than anything in the official prequels. Please note, action fanatics -- it's the little flourishes that make a great fight, not the big stunt-y moments.
Go widescreen for the full effect.
Go widescreen for the full effect.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
BLEG
"Where is the money?" in phonetic Russian and Japanese. Or, whatever language you rock. I have a bet on you, people.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Not Me
From the USA Network press release:
Thanks for the congratulatory e-mails and calls -- but that's not me. So, although I enjoy the fruit baskets, I assure you running one show is freaking me out enough.
ROYAL PAINS (working title/ fna UNTITLED CONCIERGE MEDICINE/ SICK RICH)
Anyone who's anyone in the Hamptons has a lawyer on retainer. Now meet the newest accessory -- the concierge doctor. Young doctor Hank Lawson had it all...thriving career, beautiful girlfriend, and swank NYC apartment. With one fateful and principled decision in the ER, Hank loses it all. Months later, single and blackballed from the medical community, Hank goes for a weekend in the Hamptons with his best friend. Crashing a party at a mega-mansion on the beach, Hank jumps into action when a guest requires medical attention that only he is able to diagnose. The next morning, Hank is summoned to another mansion. And then another. Hank's career is revived, but in a way he's not exactly happy about, as he becomes the on-call doctor for the rich, famous and infamous. The project is written and co-executive produced by Andrew Lenchewski and executive produced by Rich Frank and Paul Frank with John Rogers serving as producer.
Thanks for the congratulatory e-mails and calls -- but that's not me. So, although I enjoy the fruit baskets, I assure you running one show is freaking me out enough.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
"Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You ..."
Yay, another post where I'll lose some friends.
I am, by nature and vocation, ungracious. I need to get this out of the way .
If ever there was a nation that needed "It Is Not All About You" tattooed on the inside of their fucking eyelids, it is the citizenry of United States of America.
First off, it is worth noting that the Crazification Factor is relativistic. 27% of Obama supporters will be -- not seem, be, that's the tricky bit of relativity, you know -- crazy as seen by Cinton supporters. 27% of Clinton supporters will be -- not seem, be -- crazy as seen by Obama supporters. And, apparently, 150% of those people are the ones commenting on blogs.
I've been surveying the various blogs, particularly the comments, as the Democratic Nomination process wound down. I've avoided commentary here primarily because an awful lot of the conflict has occurred in the very urgent, relevant contexts of racism and feminism -- and as a winner in the lucky sperm lottery, I try not to engage in issues which I can address at best in a limited, empathy-at-a-distance manner. There was this moment over at MYDD when a younger female commenter suggested that Senator Clinton would be a great Senate Majority Leader and an older female commenter tore into her, accusing her of betraying decades of feminist achievement by urging Senator Clinton to "settle" ...
Senate Majority Leader is settling?
... and I realized that the tempest had gotten hyperweird.
As I've mentioned before, I'm voting for anyone who's Not-McCain in November. The Senator's foreign policies are abysmal, his domestic financial policies are muddled, and his social policies have tacked hard right in his pursuit of the Republican nomination. If a three-legged dog were to somehow be nominated for the Democratic candidacy and chose as his running mate a gopher with a penchant for monocles and Victoriana, I would wear my "Tripod/Lord Whiskerkins '08" button with pride and pull the lever with cheerful alacrity. Secure in such a position I happily tuned out the primaries, focusing on my work.
But as the race went on, I found myself disagreeing with Digby, of all people. And now tonight, one of the blogs I love dearest, one of the first to link to me and I them, Shakespeare's Sister, has a post up by Melissa that is masterfully constructed, heartfelt, and moving.
And has ... bugged me.
I would never disagree with Melissa's argument that misogyny against one woman hurts all women, just as racism against one person hurts us all, as a society and individuals. We are always poorer because of it. But there's something I do want to explore here.
Melissa writes:
Let's set aside for a second the kind of generalization that the misogyny of the current culture, particularly that of the MSM, was mainstreamed as a "legitimate strategy" by the Obama campaign. Although some people may disagree, I think it's disengenuous to mix the misogyny of the mainstream news/political structure and the behavior one way or another of the Obama campaign. They're separate issues.
But back to the point. The link above leads to Father Michael Pfleger's guest sermon at Obama's church. And Senator Obama's disavowal of a sermon he never attended. That's a far cry from waves of liberal bloggers saying "ROCK ON FATHER PFLEGER" and cutting up YouTube videos which put these comments in a spiffy Obama '08 campaign video. Can you find some? Sure. 27%, as I mentioned. Just like this lady is one of Senator Clinton's 27%.
Melissa mentions farther on in that quote that she was dissatisfied that Obama simply disavowed the statements of the priest, but didn't explicitly address the misogyny of the comments. And you know, I absolutely agree there's a helluvan argument to be made here that Senatar Obama should address misogyny in the same way, to the same degree, with which he so magnificently addressed race.
Many people would argue that he should have already done that during the primaries.
My question is, exactly when should he have done that?
When Senator Clinton was claiming, in her official campaign, common cause with Senator McCain over the "Commander-in-Chief" threshold? When she was touting her support among "among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" in her official campaign? When she played the elitism card, hammered him on "bitter-gate" and in her official campaign ran ads for Pennsylvania voters claiming the Senator looked down them? When her actual campaign supporters, humans who she sent out to talk for her, lectured us that "He's got to stop with all the arguments for the Volvo drivin', NPR totebag totin' liberals, he needs to talk to middle class working people," and "We can't win with eggheads and African-Americans." When Geraldine Ferraro -- who I'm pretty sure wasn't off the reservation in Senator Clinton's campaign -- spewed her particular brand of idiocy (and then wrote a seriously dumb op-ed to boot)? When Senator Clinton's proxies staked her campaign on continually trying to change the rules of the Democratic nomination process, accusing Senator Obama of trying to "disenfranchise" contests she herself said would never count. And then, in her official campaign, argued that her struggle to suddenly count these primaries was akin to the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe? When the Senator was busy as part of her campaign lying to people about having the popular vote count majority, which at the very LEAST undermines the legitimacy of the winning candidate?
At what point was Senator Obama supposed to take his eye off Senator Clinton and Senator McCain and attack the mainstream press and elements of the political culture all while Senator Clinton was attempting to kneecap him?
Was I one of those "indifferent" to the spectacular misogyny evinced by both the MSM and some political operatives (sadly, btw, I think this level of misogyny is so commonplace in America as to be pretty unspectacular) and "eliminationist rhetoric" that cropped up in this campaign, directed at Senator Clinton? Certainly not. But whatever outrage I had at such elements was completely, apocalyptically, fire-hosed out of my eyeline by the sight of Senator Clinton suddenly running like a Republican in the middle of our Democratic primary.
And let's make this clear -- I'm not trading "racist Clinton" for "misogynist Obama." This is about her tactics and her tone, separate from any racial aspects.
If I may quote both Digby:
and Melissa:
I am pretty sure that Jackson and Kennedy didn't come into the conventions attacking the presumptive nominee from the right and spewing Republican talking points. Not to mention, I should be so lucky as to be "hustled" off the national stage after 54 goddam primaries and caucuses. Many, many, many of us who wanted Senator Clinton "hustled" off the stage wanted her gone not because a hotly contested primary race was the issue, but because of the way she ran it.
I didn't want a female senator out of the race. I didn't want a universal health-care advocate out of the race. I wanted the weirdly Republican-lite, crazy rules-changing, stereotype-reinforcing panderer that had somehow burrowed into Hillary Clinton's skull out of the race. Hell, the Republicans are actually using her "Commander-in-Chief threshold" argument in one of their ads against Senator Obama.
In short, Senator Clinton had my respect, based on her accomplishments and independent of her gender -- then she spent it, tossed it away in fistfuls, in trade for dirty borrowed blades with which to cut her way to the nomination. She Liebermaned on us. And what is particularly galling to me, positively enraging, is that if she were not indeed a woman, with all that entails to feminist politics in America, Melissa and Digby would be the first in the trenches calling out those tactics for the bullshit they are. Although they, and many like-minded bloggers, did indeed call fouls on such behavior, Senator Clinton would be dead to them in any other context. If there is a "lack of respect" for Senator Clinton, I assure you that for many of us, she came by it honestly.
To the same degree Melissa and her fellow travellers are shocked and disappointed at our apparent indifference to Senator Clinton's treatment by a certain percentage of the population, people like me are shocked and disappointed at their apparent indifference to Senator Clinton's reprehensible campaign tactics and rhetoric.
But there's the goddam trap. All I see on every damn blog is "What can Obama do to win over Clinton supporters?" and "Why won't Clinton supporters snap out of it?" and we're both waiting for the other side to "validate" us. I swear, if I see the word "validation" in context to this race one more time, I will go on a neck-punching tour of America.
It is time to stop taking this stuff so personally -- and I'm not admonishing you (us) "like children" but exactly opposite. I'm saying it to adults. Adults who are able to separate their own personal pain, their own trials and tribulations, their own struggles, from those of the nice person who they will never meet, who have their own shit going on, and who occasionally convince you that their shit is really your shit, too, honest.
If we want our lives changed, if we want the world changed, we have to let go of that infantile need to assign such potent symbolic powers to our leaders. The bizarre hero-Daddy Bush worship that morphed into proxy-machismo for a lot of insecure Americans is what drove us down the off-ramp to a grand national K-hole in the first place. The struggle of Hillary Clinton is neither the struggle of feminism in America nor inextricably tied to your own personal journey -- it is her own, as an individual. In the same way, Senator Obama winning or losing the Presidency (independent of resultant policies, natch) will not in any significant material way change the lives of the majority of African-Americans, or those of his Millenial followers. We only derive from their struggles what value in our lives that we assign them. Senators Clinton and Obama are powerful symbols in addition to being generally admirable humans. But that can only go so far.
The saddest thing I read today was one of the comments on Melissa's blog:
The idea that just because one single individual woman got within inches of being elected to the Presidency of the United States but couldn't close the deal, that this somehow means women as a whole aren't taken seriously, that this casts entire generations of women's relentless work in doubt is ... tragic. It is a fucked up way to look at the world.
Melissa has every right to her pain, and her sadness, and it's patently unfair of me to single out this post. But every discussion concerning this election about validation, and about whether the bad people on my used-to-be-favorite-web-site hurt my feelings, is another nail in the coffin of our emotional maturity as a society. (This is also tied into some age-oriented issues, but that's another post. This election's a bloody Gordian knot of transference)
As the Boomer-fetish president John F. Kennedy once said: "... ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. " That call to sacrifice has led generations of Americans to fight and die for their country, to abandon comfortable lives and dedicate themselves to service or to the eternal struggle for justice and human rights. I would suggest that the least we can do, for our country, is to stop being so goddam precious. What we can sacrifice right now is our need for validation, our narcissm, our cultural addiction to weaving ourselves and our emotional journeys into some grand historical high-drama (and I mean that in the narrative sense, not in the perjorative sense) epic.
We are small, our time is limited, people are shitty, death claims us all. The only lasting marks we leave in this world are the results of our actions, not our internal monologues.
I am, by nature and vocation, ungracious. I need to get this out of the way .
If ever there was a nation that needed "It Is Not All About You" tattooed on the inside of their fucking eyelids, it is the citizenry of United States of America.
First off, it is worth noting that the Crazification Factor is relativistic. 27% of Obama supporters will be -- not seem, be, that's the tricky bit of relativity, you know -- crazy as seen by Cinton supporters. 27% of Clinton supporters will be -- not seem, be -- crazy as seen by Obama supporters. And, apparently, 150% of those people are the ones commenting on blogs.
I've been surveying the various blogs, particularly the comments, as the Democratic Nomination process wound down. I've avoided commentary here primarily because an awful lot of the conflict has occurred in the very urgent, relevant contexts of racism and feminism -- and as a winner in the lucky sperm lottery, I try not to engage in issues which I can address at best in a limited, empathy-at-a-distance manner. There was this moment over at MYDD when a younger female commenter suggested that Senator Clinton would be a great Senate Majority Leader and an older female commenter tore into her, accusing her of betraying decades of feminist achievement by urging Senator Clinton to "settle" ...
Senate Majority Leader is settling?
... and I realized that the tempest had gotten hyperweird.
As I've mentioned before, I'm voting for anyone who's Not-McCain in November. The Senator's foreign policies are abysmal, his domestic financial policies are muddled, and his social policies have tacked hard right in his pursuit of the Republican nomination. If a three-legged dog were to somehow be nominated for the Democratic candidacy and chose as his running mate a gopher with a penchant for monocles and Victoriana, I would wear my "Tripod/Lord Whiskerkins '08" button with pride and pull the lever with cheerful alacrity. Secure in such a position I happily tuned out the primaries, focusing on my work.
But as the race went on, I found myself disagreeing with Digby, of all people. And now tonight, one of the blogs I love dearest, one of the first to link to me and I them, Shakespeare's Sister, has a post up by Melissa that is masterfully constructed, heartfelt, and moving.
And has ... bugged me.
I would never disagree with Melissa's argument that misogyny against one woman hurts all women, just as racism against one person hurts us all, as a society and individuals. We are always poorer because of it. But there's something I do want to explore here.
Melissa writes:
I'm sad because there are women at this blog, in my personal life, across this nation, and—if my inbox is any indication—across the globe, women of all races and sexualities and socio-economic classes, many of whom weren't even Hillary Clinton supporters, many of whom voted for Obama in the primary, who have watched with horror the seething hatred directed at Hillary Clinton just because she is a woman.
...
And these women have witnessed this despicable but spectacular marriage of aggressive misogyny and their long-presumed allies' casual indifference to it, and wondered what fucking planet they were on that dehumanizing eliminationist rhetoric, to which lefty bloggers used to object once upon a time, was now considered a legitimate campaign strategy, as long as it was aimed at a candidate those lefty bloggers didn't like.
And these women felt, quite rightly, like feminist principles were being thrown to the wolves in a fit of political expedience.
And these women felt personally abandoned. By people they had considered allies.
And while they struggled to understand just what was happening, while they were losing their way along well-traveled paths that no longer felt familiar or welcoming, they were admonished like children to stop taking things personally. They were sneered at for playing identity politics. They were demeaned as ridiculous, overwrought, hysterics. They were called bitches and cunts. They were bullied off blogs they'd called home for years.
Let's set aside for a second the kind of generalization that the misogyny of the current culture, particularly that of the MSM, was mainstreamed as a "legitimate strategy" by the Obama campaign. Although some people may disagree, I think it's disengenuous to mix the misogyny of the mainstream news/political structure and the behavior one way or another of the Obama campaign. They're separate issues.
But back to the point. The link above leads to Father Michael Pfleger's guest sermon at Obama's church. And Senator Obama's disavowal of a sermon he never attended. That's a far cry from waves of liberal bloggers saying "ROCK ON FATHER PFLEGER" and cutting up YouTube videos which put these comments in a spiffy Obama '08 campaign video. Can you find some? Sure. 27%, as I mentioned. Just like this lady is one of Senator Clinton's 27%.
Melissa mentions farther on in that quote that she was dissatisfied that Obama simply disavowed the statements of the priest, but didn't explicitly address the misogyny of the comments. And you know, I absolutely agree there's a helluvan argument to be made here that Senatar Obama should address misogyny in the same way, to the same degree, with which he so magnificently addressed race.
Many people would argue that he should have already done that during the primaries.
My question is, exactly when should he have done that?
When Senator Clinton was claiming, in her official campaign, common cause with Senator McCain over the "Commander-in-Chief" threshold? When she was touting her support among "among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" in her official campaign? When she played the elitism card, hammered him on "bitter-gate" and in her official campaign ran ads for Pennsylvania voters claiming the Senator looked down them? When her actual campaign supporters, humans who she sent out to talk for her, lectured us that "He's got to stop with all the arguments for the Volvo drivin', NPR totebag totin' liberals, he needs to talk to middle class working people," and "We can't win with eggheads and African-Americans." When Geraldine Ferraro -- who I'm pretty sure wasn't off the reservation in Senator Clinton's campaign -- spewed her particular brand of idiocy (and then wrote a seriously dumb op-ed to boot)? When Senator Clinton's proxies staked her campaign on continually trying to change the rules of the Democratic nomination process, accusing Senator Obama of trying to "disenfranchise" contests she herself said would never count. And then, in her official campaign, argued that her struggle to suddenly count these primaries was akin to the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe? When the Senator was busy as part of her campaign lying to people about having the popular vote count majority, which at the very LEAST undermines the legitimacy of the winning candidate?
At what point was Senator Obama supposed to take his eye off Senator Clinton and Senator McCain and attack the mainstream press and elements of the political culture all while Senator Clinton was attempting to kneecap him?
Was I one of those "indifferent" to the spectacular misogyny evinced by both the MSM and some political operatives (sadly, btw, I think this level of misogyny is so commonplace in America as to be pretty unspectacular) and "eliminationist rhetoric" that cropped up in this campaign, directed at Senator Clinton? Certainly not. But whatever outrage I had at such elements was completely, apocalyptically, fire-hosed out of my eyeline by the sight of Senator Clinton suddenly running like a Republican in the middle of our Democratic primary.
And let's make this clear -- I'm not trading "racist Clinton" for "misogynist Obama." This is about her tactics and her tone, separate from any racial aspects.
If I may quote both Digby:
... I think the thing that has most exacerbated the fervent Clinton supporters' frustration, and frankly astonished me a bit, has been this endless drumbeat since February for her to drop out even though she was still winning primaries ...
... I should point out that Obama hasn't quite clinched and nobody should expect Clinton to concede until he crosses the finish line. I could be wrong, and she'll decide to take it to the convention like Jackson did in 88, Kennedy did in 80 and Reagan did in 76. But I doubt it.
and Melissa:
And now, at long last, even now, when Clinton cannot win, she is being pushed out, carelessly, rudely, with little regard for the implicit message in hustling a historic candidate off the stage and demanding her graciousness in defeat, despite offering her no graciousness in victory. Right to the end, there is a lack of respect that hurts to watch.
I am pretty sure that Jackson and Kennedy didn't come into the conventions attacking the presumptive nominee from the right and spewing Republican talking points. Not to mention, I should be so lucky as to be "hustled" off the national stage after 54 goddam primaries and caucuses. Many, many, many of us who wanted Senator Clinton "hustled" off the stage wanted her gone not because a hotly contested primary race was the issue, but because of the way she ran it.
I didn't want a female senator out of the race. I didn't want a universal health-care advocate out of the race. I wanted the weirdly Republican-lite, crazy rules-changing, stereotype-reinforcing panderer that had somehow burrowed into Hillary Clinton's skull out of the race. Hell, the Republicans are actually using her "Commander-in-Chief threshold" argument in one of their ads against Senator Obama.
In short, Senator Clinton had my respect, based on her accomplishments and independent of her gender -- then she spent it, tossed it away in fistfuls, in trade for dirty borrowed blades with which to cut her way to the nomination. She Liebermaned on us. And what is particularly galling to me, positively enraging, is that if she were not indeed a woman, with all that entails to feminist politics in America, Melissa and Digby would be the first in the trenches calling out those tactics for the bullshit they are. Although they, and many like-minded bloggers, did indeed call fouls on such behavior, Senator Clinton would be dead to them in any other context. If there is a "lack of respect" for Senator Clinton, I assure you that for many of us, she came by it honestly.
To the same degree Melissa and her fellow travellers are shocked and disappointed at our apparent indifference to Senator Clinton's treatment by a certain percentage of the population, people like me are shocked and disappointed at their apparent indifference to Senator Clinton's reprehensible campaign tactics and rhetoric.
But there's the goddam trap. All I see on every damn blog is "What can Obama do to win over Clinton supporters?" and "Why won't Clinton supporters snap out of it?" and we're both waiting for the other side to "validate" us. I swear, if I see the word "validation" in context to this race one more time, I will go on a neck-punching tour of America.
It is time to stop taking this stuff so personally -- and I'm not admonishing you (us) "like children" but exactly opposite. I'm saying it to adults. Adults who are able to separate their own personal pain, their own trials and tribulations, their own struggles, from those of the nice person who they will never meet, who have their own shit going on, and who occasionally convince you that their shit is really your shit, too, honest.
If we want our lives changed, if we want the world changed, we have to let go of that infantile need to assign such potent symbolic powers to our leaders. The bizarre hero-Daddy Bush worship that morphed into proxy-machismo for a lot of insecure Americans is what drove us down the off-ramp to a grand national K-hole in the first place. The struggle of Hillary Clinton is neither the struggle of feminism in America nor inextricably tied to your own personal journey -- it is her own, as an individual. In the same way, Senator Obama winning or losing the Presidency (independent of resultant policies, natch) will not in any significant material way change the lives of the majority of African-Americans, or those of his Millenial followers. We only derive from their struggles what value in our lives that we assign them. Senators Clinton and Obama are powerful symbols in addition to being generally admirable humans. But that can only go so far.
The saddest thing I read today was one of the comments on Melissa's blog:
I had hoped that women would be taken seriously in my lifetime. It doesn't appear that will happen. To the younger generation, I charge you with the duty to make sure it will happen.
The idea that just because one single individual woman got within inches of being elected to the Presidency of the United States but couldn't close the deal, that this somehow means women as a whole aren't taken seriously, that this casts entire generations of women's relentless work in doubt is ... tragic. It is a fucked up way to look at the world.
Melissa has every right to her pain, and her sadness, and it's patently unfair of me to single out this post. But every discussion concerning this election about validation, and about whether the bad people on my used-to-be-favorite-web-site hurt my feelings, is another nail in the coffin of our emotional maturity as a society. (This is also tied into some age-oriented issues, but that's another post. This election's a bloody Gordian knot of transference)
As the Boomer-fetish president John F. Kennedy once said: "... ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. " That call to sacrifice has led generations of Americans to fight and die for their country, to abandon comfortable lives and dedicate themselves to service or to the eternal struggle for justice and human rights. I would suggest that the least we can do, for our country, is to stop being so goddam precious. What we can sacrifice right now is our need for validation, our narcissm, our cultural addiction to weaving ourselves and our emotional journeys into some grand historical high-drama (and I mean that in the narrative sense, not in the perjorative sense) epic.
We are small, our time is limited, people are shitty, death claims us all. The only lasting marks we leave in this world are the results of our actions, not our internal monologues.
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