LEVERAGE promos up

The character stuff has been up for a while, but now some behind the scenes stuff is up.  The two that are, well, the geekiest --

and



Apollo's new website is a bit spare still (it doesn't mention his recent work in the cognitive science of magic), but his site for his old show is up, including his very cool reading list.

(Yes, I know they choke in Firefox, particularly on Mac.  Explorer or Safari will stream them just fine.  Considering how extensive the TNT promo has been, it would be petty of me to keep harping on my streaming video obsession. )

Streaming Mac to 360: Rivet

I've written before that consoles are the stealth players in the coming media landscape. For the vast majority of Americans, the console is a box attached to your TV, and the computer is a box in the room over there. This has been particularly vexing of late because the house I've moved into in LA is way, way waaaay smaller (and therefore only twice as expensive) than the house I was living in in Ottawa. Among other things, I want to rip my DVD's and leave the physical artifacts in my storage unit. This is not to mention the addiction I've developed consuming TV online (I LIKE three ad-breaks a show).

I've been using PlayOn to stream Hulu and Netflix from my BootCamped iMac to my XBox 360 -- you still need bloody Windows XP for that functionality. However, the new update in the 360 allows direct streaming from Netflix. It's dead simple to set up. As in, "watching my streaming queue movies within four minutes and fifteen seconds" easy. There's a limited amount of TV on Netflix right now, but when/if people smarten up -- or Microsoft cuts a deal with Hulu -- then the "broadcast" landscape is only going to get more chaotic.

Considering the licensing and royalty issues involved, that problem isn't going to get solved soon. However, I'm constantly buffaloed when I talk to fellow Hollywood types about "when the techology arrives". The tech is here. The only thing stopping the consoles from ruling the entertainment landscape is, as far as I can tell, a general unwillingness to get involved in an industry far less profitable, with far more headaches, than their own.

The tone of voice when I talk about these things tend to be a disdainful "Well, sure but how are we supposed to monetize this?" Right question, wrong tone. We. Don't. Have. A. Choice.

All this to say, streaming digital entertainment from your Windows computer to an XBox was always pretty simple but if you had a Mac you had to deal with Connect360. It's a fine program, but the menu system is a bit primitive, and I personally ran into some connectivity issues. So I'd like to recommend Rivet. It installs in a flash, it's about $20, and it works off the internal file structure of your Mac -- so however you arrange your media on your Mac, that's what shows up on the XBox. Managed to set it up within a few minutes, possibly even easier than the Netflix setup. Was watching my ripped Inspector Lynley mystery in no time.

In the Comments, your latest tech hacks.

Somali Piracy for Newbies

(h/t Matt Yglesias)

The Somali pirates were the centerpiece of my Pirate Tale for Boom! a couple years back. Studying the fringes of functioning society now, for writing ideas ... well, you know how Gibson said "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed"? That's usually taken as a bromide about Good Shiny Tech. The Somali Pirates are part of the future, too, and it's worth considering how, if and when they might be coming to a neighborhood near you.

Tauren Shammy lfg White House Run

Thanks to spiffy new BoingBoing game blog Offworld, I now know that --

Obama's just-appointed FCC transition team co-chair Kevin Werbach has been recognized as verifiable "virtual worlds nut" and World of Warcraft Level 70 Tauren Shaman Supernovan Jenkins ...

... and as right thinking players, he is for the Horde.

The Xbox generation is coming faster than you think.

Fun Fact: At one point in this season of Leverage, you will hear "For the Horde". Un-ironically.

You know, the expansion's out just as I hit hiatus. I guess loading it up again, just trying out the new build wouldn't hurt ...

DNA as fiber optics

Courtesy of Warren Ellis, we are shown once again that reality is not only cooler than you imagine, it's cooler than you can ... etc. etc.:

Thanks to a new technique, DNA strands can be easily converted into tiny fibre optic cables that guide light along their length. Optical fibres made this way could be important in optical computers, which use light rather than electricity to perform calculations, or in artificial photosynthesis systems that may replace today's solar panels.

In the comments -- your favorite recent weird science story.

Survivor Corps

Occasionally new, worthwhile charities cross my email account. Survivor Corps is dedicated to creating locally-based community support for returning veterans who are dealing with emotional issues after the end of their deployment. Physical injuries are one thing, but it's crucial that we help men and women who have seen and experienced the unimaginable re-integrate successfully back into their post-deployment lives.

There's a tragic culture of shame around suicide and depression in this country, making it very hard for people to reach out for help without feeling as if they've failed in some way. The idea that veterans will be dealing primarily with other veterans with shared experiences is a great way of mitigating that vulnerability.

Not everyone needs this help, of course, but those who do need it desperately. I know that times are tough, but if you can, please swing by and toss the price of a large pizza in the pot for them. Thanks.

BLUE BEETLE: We Don't Need No Stinkin' Floppies

The same day I'm reminded that our version of Blue Beetle is the first co-star with Batman in the premiere of the funky new animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold, premiering tonight at 8 pm --

-- I heard that the book itself is cancelled.

Wow. It's almost as if basing your entire business model around a series of must-buy big event crossovers in a market with limited purchasing resources hurts your midlist.

Although I've gotten some outraged e-mails from fans, I have to say this isn't unexpected. Both DC and Marvel are in a weird place right now -- are they publishing companies in a dying market or IP companies in a growing one? The answers to these questions demand different strategies, neither of which are necessarily the best circumstances for the creative participants.

Time to go creator-owned, and digitally distributed. Because that's the only solution that makes sense for our side of the equation.

There's a reason I like comic books so much, and plan on working quite a bit on digital distribution in the upcoming year. It relates somewhat to this essay by Cory Doctorow, discussing how new media forms are evolving from the net. Cory focuses primarily on video, and how commercial structure often bends stories into forms which don't necessarily serve to best tell the story. Although I'm pretty comfortable working within that structure, no TV writer will deny that he's said "Dammit, I wish there wasn't an act break here," only slightly less often than "Jesus, did that PA go to fucking Vegas to pick up lunch? I'm starving."

On the business side, there are a million great stories out there that aren't being told, because of a.)the high cost of breaking into the business of storytelling in mass media and b.) the high cost of producing and distributing those stories once you've broken in.

My point being -- a lot of those great untold stories make the best sense told in a serialized nonstandard page length, with accompanying art. When I was working on Blue Beetle, the final two issues originally plotted out to 50 pages. A tight fifty pages. They had to fit into 44. Now, setting aside that it's always better to edit, we can still ask -- was the book better for losing those six pages of character and story? I don't know. But it seems damn silly to bend storytelling to a format sold almost exclusively in low-attendance, often creepy specialty shops scattered across the nation.

Even if it's a fool's errand, I'd rather bend my storytelling to fit boxes that almost everyone has in their living room or back pocket.

Will you get even the paltry tens of thousands of paying customers that comics now get? I don't know. But without the publishing overhead, you may not need that many. Let's put it this way -- stripping out distribution costs and our share of the rent for those nice DC offices in Mahattan, Blue Beetle could have cost fifty cents an issue at its worst sales level, and still paid Rafael and myself more than we made on the run of the book.

Blah blah, just start wrapping your head around the Coasean Floor, while we start poking around with format and distribution. My goal here, by the way, is slightly different than most peoples. I don't want to figure out a way to build a company around this format. I want to figure out a way for a writer in Arkansas and an artist in Cairo to tell stories for a living.

In the Comments, your beefs with comics and your bright thoughts on non-traditional storytelling - including "Why there's no way this could work." Bonus points for bringing up hostage-ware and a patronage system.

Wrapped

Saturday morning, 5 am. Wrapped.


The writers' board on the last day:

Two-part season finale, 225 scenes*, 100 pages shot in 14 days over roughly eight multi-set locations. The season finale is ... biggish.


Yes, that is Mark Sheppard yelling at a couple hundred extras outside an art gallery we built from the ground up in Pasadena. Because that's how we Rolo.

Once I'm through all 2000+ emails in the mailbox and my bodyclock jams back (night shoots, bloody hell), we're back to normal. Thanks to all the subscribers and readers who put up with the brown-out. Hopefully soon I'll be adding a new contributor or two here to keep volume up on the whole new media/geek culture conversation.

And, for the record, since it's popping up on IMDB anyway, and people are getting it wrong -- the first episodes before the New Year break are:

"The Nigerian Job"
"The Homecoming Job"
"The Two Horse Job"
"The Miracle Job."








* That sound you hear is every television 1st AD in Hollywood throwing up in their mouth at those numbers. Our 1st, Paul Bernard, is a god among men.

LEVERAGE-Y STUFF

First: the press kits are in. Spiffy.




Second: wardrobe was strangely retro today, very 40's French Resistance Fighter and Cigarette Girl. Or as the photo's known around here -- "Bill Cunningham, you're welcome."

What Happens When Socialism Doesn't Come?

One of my favorite little Chunks o' History is The Great Disappointment. Short version: William Miller uses hints from the Bible to predict a specific day for the return of Jesus -- October 22, 1844. Thousands of people waited, some climbing up on their roofs so as not to miss the Arrival...

Unfortunately, Jesus decided to hit Skybar instead. His movement ridiculed, his followers dispersed into other sects (including the Seventh Day Adventists), Miller coined this day "the Great Disappointment."

I bring this up only because I've recently received batches of e-mails asking how I can be compliant in the coming socialist/Marxist government of Barack Obama. That's odd enough, but the McCain campaign has actively used the idea that Obama is some sort of closet Marxist, or open socialist. Not only that, a lot of the rhetoric by mainstream conservative leaders has been about how America will be fundamentally changed if Obama wins. I don't think I'm far off in pointing out that a lot of the mainstream conservative rhetoric here is downright apocalyptic. A lot -- not all, but a lot -- of McCain/Palin supporters are utterly convinced that Barack Obama's America will be the socialist wasteland they've been fearing their entire adult lives.

So what happens when ... it doesn't happen?

Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein can disagree all they want, but when push comes to shove, most of Obama's policies are magnificently boring. I had a friend just today say "But John, you're in that top 1%! Your taxes are going to go up!" To which I replied: "Strangely, I can live with the idea of my taxes going from 36% to 39.5%. That's not exactly nationalizing the means of production."

Obama's health care plan was the most conservative of the three major Democratic candidates' plans, the only one that left the insurance companies not only intact but with a major role in providing guaranteed coverage. If you have employer-based health care, your life will not change one jot. As noted, taxes will go down for the middle class and jump to from 36% to 39.5% for the top -- and frankly, that ain't gonna fund the re-education camps. His proposed capital gains tax rate is lower than Ronald Reagan's.

Supreme Court appointments will probably insure Roe v. Wade survives, but that's just a stasis from the 70's. Gay rights will remain the provenance of individual states. I personally wouldn't mind harsher prosecution of churches that blatantly violate the separation of Church and State, but frankly that's unlikely. Evolution issues will continue to be resolved at the state court level ... in short, barring unspeakable terrorist acts or some sort of natural disaster, the next four to eight years are going to look a lot like right now, but with more science guys hanging around in government offices and nominally fewer closeted-gay sex scandals in politics.

All to say -- what happens when the Socialist Nightmare never arrives? I mean, it's been a useful shadow threat for years, a lurking monster that lost a little power after the fall of the Soviet Union, but still had some spark thanks to several generations raised with a primal reaction to the very word. It was the last big wrench in the toolbox, and not one you wanted to pull out ot often.

But the best monsters are always the ones just offscreen. In their thrashing for purchase against Senator Obama, Senator McCain's campaign may have over-reached. An awful lot of conservative leaders have declared that an Obama presidency is October 22, 1844 in the great battle of freedom versus socialism. Interesting to see what happens when the people who've been fed a steady diet of terror images -- state-run medical care with month-long waits, abortion kiosks in the mall and forced gay-friendly kindergarten education -- encounter instead a higher minimum wage, guaranteed health care, and the occasional bit of science-based policy.

This, indeed was why McCain's campaign could never score a serious hit. Despite the cries of "Marxism" and waving the bloody shirt of 60's radicalism, Senator Obama has cultivated a studiously boring policy presence. Chris and I were talking in the writer's room the other day, about the 30 minute ad buy that aired tonight. Chris was wondering what it was supposed rto accomplish.

"Nothing," I said. "In the best possible scenario, it's so boring that people turn it off halfway through. He's already got the people he inspired. What he has to do now is get people who used to be uncomfortable with the idea of a black president, and make them so comfortable that they're even bored with the idea."

" 'Obama's not like those other black people.' He's like Rob down in Accounting.' "

"Precisely."

I think the same thing will happen now, with the Socialist door the McCain campaign opened. Eight years from now "Socialist!" will be met with "There you go again."

Book Review: SAVE THE CAT

Alex Epstein hopped ahead of me on this one, so I'll try not to double up on anything he covers.

Blake Snyder's had a pretty spiffy career rocking out the spec sales over the last fifteen-twenty years. He's taken the time to codify his approach in his book Save the Cat. StC takes you through a full development process, from logline through outline to final script, with some some script wrenches as bonus prizes at the end.

There are two sections here that really stood out for me. The opening section on loglines, and the near-closing section on breaking out scene beats on The Board. As regular readers know, I like The Board.

The section on loglines is remarkably clarifying. It's parallel to our exercise here, when we talked about summarizing stories based on one word. You really can't hammer this home enough, as far as I'm concerned. Until you have that northstar -- your logline -- you shouldn't start writing. Now, Snyder's approach is very much based around the marketability of your concept based on the logline, but I'll spot him that just such a hard-headed approach may be needed for a lot of spec monkeys. If you're going to do your shaggy dog "my sexual awakening at summer camp" spec, God bless, but if you're aiming for your "into the business" sale, this is probably a more effective approach.

The middle sections are based around his 10 Story Genres, and then his 15-point Blake Snyder beat sheet. I'm not sure if I buy his Story Genres, but I'll give him this -- they're amusingly counterintuitive. They're based around the conflicts within the story rather than the settings -- which is smart -- but seem inherently limited to the approach Snyder himself would take to the story. That said, anyone who can argue Die Hard and Schindler's List are the same genre damn well deserves some kudos for cajones alone. If nothing else the genres sparked some lengthy debate between myself and some other writers in the office. Considering we've all been doing this for 15+ years, that idea's at least worth a spin.

The Beat Sheet is kind of a personalized hybrid of Syd Field and Paul Gulino's sequence approach (was that really in 2005? Geesh ...). Snyder admits here that even though he knows a section of the story calls out for a certain kind of execution, he's not sure why. While an experienced writer can look at his structure and apply his own conflict tools to these sections, some newbies might be left a little adrift. Basically, I think he's shorthanding a little here.

He wraps with a plotting approach using scene cards. Refreshingly he moves past just using them to plot; he uses them to track emotional change and opposition, beat by beat. I will say this over and over, and often scrawl it atop the script that I'm working on myself -- a scene without opposition and emotional change is not a scene you need in the show. Or, as I've bellowed in my writers' room countless times:

"Who wants what, why can't they get it, and why do I give a shit?"

I believe Chris even found my card ...


Snyder has another book -- Save the Cat Goes to the Movies -- which explores his 10 Genres further, with examples from modern flicks. He also has a blog, here, that I'll be adding to the sidebar pretty soon.

So, recommendation for the Spec Monkey? I'd give it a strong recommend (I actually prefer Goes to the Movies a bit more, myself). I do, as always, suggest that it be part of your balanced diet of influences. Read it as a basic text, glean what you can from it, then put it down and pick it back up once you've gotten a few hundred more pages under your belt.

THE CORE, BITCHES!

Cueva de los Cristales in Mexico from National Geographic. (h/t i09) Argh, to have a screengrab at work ...

Hollywood Conservatives: The Thoughtful Post

The idea that Hollywood is the only place where co-workers feel uncomfortable talking politics at work -- adorable.

Seriously? I get back after 14 hours on location with no internet, and apparently people are unclear what I meant on the last post? Let me go into the comments ...

... okay, that's pretty hilarious. I have Josh Olson not only swearing that in his experience working with many conservatives he's never seen or heard of any of these problems, but he's using his own infamous reputation as an asshole as his cred. That, my friends, is self-awareness.

I also like how he calls out the bullshit Kelsey Grammer peddles about US veterans hiding their service. He's right -- that doesn't pass the smell test if you've spent five seconds on an actual set. That set is full of TEAMSTERS, sparky, and these days probably includes several ex-servicemen (we had some Iraqi vets on our first episode crew). Anyone dissing US soldiers on a set in Hollywood ain't gonna make it away from the craft services table in one piece. The claim is equally ridiculous if set in the executive suite.

Right, let me do two versions of this post.

SHORT VERSION:

1.) If you are a Hollywood conservative who feels uncomfortable talking about politics because most of your co-workers are aggressively, vocally liberal --you are a person with whom I sympathize.

To be honest, I don't sympathize to any great degree, because frankly you should grow a pair. But I get it. I would urge you, however, to go ahead and bring it up in conversation if you feel so inclined. It'll be fine. It's been fine for the last 15 years I've been having arguments in writers' rooms. It'll make an interesting lunch. Just don't mistake argument for oppression, because that's punk shit.

If you think I can't empathize with your plight, you have not been at the shabbat dinners where I suggested that Israel clusterbombing Lebanon was a war crime. To be fair, the time I asked how much longer Jews could "legitimately play the Holocaust card" was probably a wee more awkward ...

2.) If you are a Hollywood conservative who feels you may lose work because liberals will torpedo your career -- you are a person with whom I sympathize ...

... but doubt that it will be a problem in 99.9995% of situations, based on my 15 year career of hiring, and being hired by, and working with conservatives in Hollywood. Counter-examples of career damages are anecdotal (I mean that in the statistical, not disparitive sense), and no system can correct for individual intolerant douchebags.

I understand your unease, even if I think it's generally unjustified. A bit like liquid explosives on planes, if you get my drift. Oh, and you kind of have to pretend that post 9/11 Hollywood never happened. But cool.

3.) If you are a Hollywood conservative who believes that conservatives in Hollywood currently suffer widespread, organized and systemic career damage at the hands of liberal Hollywood to an extent which is in any way comparable to a blacklist, never mind The Blacklist -- which as noted involved Congressional hearings, public disgrace, federal jail time and the utter termination of your working careers -- you are the self-pitying self-indulgent narcissist with your head super-far up your ass to whom I was referring.

You may also be a manipulative hack who enjoys the publicity that comes with being a contrarian. Either/or. Possibly one spiced with the other. Or you may not actually understand the meaning of the word "blacklist." I'm down with any of these.

I would note there seems to be a non-negligible difference in how these things are handled in the TV and film worlds -- film seems to be more extreme. Also, there's definitely a generational issue. Where Baby Boomers seem to hold their beliefs quite passionately, Gen X was the Reagan Generation. The majority of us are conservatives, we grew up in a pretty conservative context as far as politics and culture go, and so even liberal Gen X'ers tend to have a bit more of a get-along vibe.

Most of you can move on. If I seemed like I was being glib, before, it was because I assumed everyone would understand the last post was addressed to that third category of humans. For those of you who want me to "engage", fine -- but this is time I'm not getting back on my deathbed, and you owe me. Some of my conservative readers raise some good points -- and seem to be getting spooked unnecessarily -- so let me see if I can hack this out.

LONG VERSION:

Right.

We have to do a couple things, here when looking at articles like the one in The Hollywood Reporter: "Republicans in biz feel stifled, bullied", or the various arguments about the plight of conservatives in Hollywood. We have to parse out the claims, by severity and intent. Now, this is sometimes tricky, because perfectly justifiable claims -- discomfort, anecdotal evidence of discrimination, etc. -- are often in these articles lumped in with arguments of a larger scope. Not only that, these larger arguments are often put forth by people who seem to have ulterior motives, or are linking smaller examples in an attempt to imply patters of behavior unsupported by statistics or common sense.

For example, the article somehow moves from a general discussion of the social plight of conservatives in Hollwyood to Andrew Klavan's argument that liberals (apparently all of us) think all conservatives are "evil", persecute them as if they were indeed evil, and then neatly moves on to Klavan's claim of how movies made by "people who sit around at Skybar discussing their pacifist world view" have seeped into culture excessively and been subsequently rejected.

I mean, seriously, step back -- what the hell does that section about Iraq movies have to do with the rest of the article? Nada. But it is some goddam tasty message discipline. The whole "there isn't conservative entertainment because we are actively being foiled" argument has neatly hijacked, for a few lines, what might otherwise be a pretty interesting piece on Hollywood culture.

(NOTE: I have been to Skybar, and there's very little political discourse going on. However, big bonus points for the "effete dissolute Hollyweird elitism" card being played by an actual Hollywood screenwriter. That is some populist jujitsu there.)

In a a cumulative, ascending ladder of severity:

Social discomfort -- you feel uncomfortable bringing up your political views in mixed company, and when you do you feel "bullied."

Well, okay, sorry. Like I've said, most of my encounters of this kind are nothing more than heated lunch conversations. Then you get back to work , because you are making television and there is no goddam time for anything else occupying the brain pan. If you feel the argument is crossing into actual hostility, it's fair to call"foul" -- but hey, that's common sense you'd use in any other argument in any other setting.

However, please remember -- you belong to a group which so demonizes your career and co-workers that the mere mention of your city of employment is a one-word shorthand for "life-destroying sodomites and traitors". Hollywood Conservatives are like Log Cabin Republicans: "Oh, yeah, they hate us and everything we stand for -- but not us specifically. So that's cool." It can seem a bit inexplicable, and things may get a bit spiky.

Career Damage -- as noted in the comments, there seem to be a few incidental anecdotes of people losing jobs once they become high-profile Republicans/conservatives. Yet I and multiple other commenter have years of experience countering those few stories. You want to know when I met Mel Gibson? In the office of Dean Devlin, the dude who produced Who Killed the Electric Car? When I met Stephen Baldwin? When he started working with Ross Richie, owner of BOOM! comics, who is politically so far left I could argue he's Molly Ivins' brain transplanted into a Texas halfback's body. Working with or hiring a conservative is so common, there's even a shorthand for it I've heard countless times: "Great guy. Just don't talk politics with him." At which point you nod knowingly and hire the person, becaue they are the best person for the job, and the job is everything. If you become very good friends you argue over wrap party drinks.

Now, if it seems like I'm arguing from anecdote, I am. Because that's what the opposing argument is. And as we here at Kung Fu Monkey know: the plural of anecdote is not data, so if the argument is based on trading anecdotes, it is no argument at all. So you can either listen to some people (oddly the same five people who show up in all these articles) who always seem bend the discussion around to their own specific agenda, and you can be freaked out -- or assume it's chill and just put your head down and work.

However, I will put this out there, publicly: if this happens to you, if you lose a gig because you are a conservative, you e-mail me at kfmonkey@gmail.com. If it seems real, I will dedicate a separate blog post to every single incident that crosses my desk.

On a side note, there was one commenter who noted that in some jobs, as a low-level dude, you need to keep your mouth shut, or you'd be fired. You are Category Two, and I sympathize. However, I will point out -- I once saw somebody fire a five year old. I've seen people fired because they didn't go get their boss's blow fast enough. Welcome to Hollywood. It's awful. Politics will be the least of your worries in your hopefully long career.

Collusion on top of discrimination in order to further a specific entertainment agenda: The industry infrastructure -- either social or professional -- needed to support this sort of widespread collusion frankly just doesn't exist. I'm going to revisit the flaws in the latest versions of this argument (apparently, the entire Hollywood entertainment industry was bent to the singular mission of making In the Valley of Elah, only to be foiled) in a later post, but for now just review here and here where I use actual data to make my point -- something you will see sadly but consistently lacking in all counterarguments. And I mean all.

But right now it's 1:30 in the goddam morning. Work on your spec, and we'll be back soon with some media and writing discussions.

In the Comments: your favorite "fired in Hollywood" story.

Hollywood Conservatives: The Not-So-Gentle Post

Courtesy Pandagon, this bit of business from The Hollywood Reporter:

One "Big Hollywood" blogger is Andrew Klavan, an accomplished novelist-screenwriter who made a splash with a Wall Street Journal article comparing Batman and the "The Dark Knight" to President Bush and the war on terror.

"It's not easy being different," he said. "The liberals aren't all that liberal. We think they're wrong, but they think we're evil, and they behave like it."

Klavan said a producer, worried that Klavan's political reputation had become common knowledge, asked recently whether he could pitch something Klavan wrote but under an assumed name. Klavan declined.

"I don't want to be the Dalton Trumbo of the right," he said.

Quick history lesson for you kids fresh off the film school boat -- back in the late 40's the United States Congress hauled screenwriters in front of nationally broadcast hearings where they were essentially accused of treason. There, in front of flashing cameras and some very angry Congressmen, you were given a choice: finger a Commie to prove you weren't a Commie, or ... well, that was pretty much it. Some of the people who refused to rat out friends as members of the non-existent Hollywood Communist Conspiracy, like Dalton Trumbo, served time in federal penitentiaries. Over 300 were blacklisted by studios eager to kiss a little government ass. Their reputations, lives, and careers were publicly and permanently destroyed. Trumbo wound up writing under a pseudonym, and some fifteen odd years later found himself one of the few to be rehabilitated, primarily because he was a helluva writer.

Let me reiterate the bullet points:

• nationally broadcast interrogation in front of the House of Representatives.
• Implied treason.
• Federal prison time.
• Career and reputation permanently and utterly destroyed.

You know, folks, maybe your Hollywood friends seem to treat you a bit rudely not because they're illiberal, narrow-minded and judgmental, but perhaps -- just perhaps -- because you are such a self-pitying self-indulgent narcissist with your head so far up your ass that you equate "occasional discomfort during cocktail party conversations" with "BEING ON THE FUCKING BLACKLIST".

There. Glad to clear that up.

Hollywood Conservatives: The Gentle Post

Shorter Hollywood Conservatives: Hollywood society is so liberal, mean and narrow-minded we are made to feel uncomfortable expressing our support for the policies of George Bush, unlike out in mainstream America where he enjoys widespread support.

The Giant Pool of Money

It behooves you as a citizen --

-- stop giggling, I'm goddam serious. Citizenship comes with responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to take time and learn about complicated Very Bad Things we need to deal with as a nation. The financial complicated Bad Thing is the current financial crisis. In an entertaining and marvelously clarifying podcast, Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson explain how this all came to be with the NPR show "The Giant Pool of Money."

Stream it over lunch, or go buy it for a buck on iTunes, dump it in the mp3 player. Get some knowledge while you're commuting to work, or instead of zoning out and surfing for Russian gun girl porn. You'll understand what happened, and even more importantly a.) be able to communicate what happened to your friends and b.) understand when a politician is full of crap when he talks about this particular Very Bad Thing.*


The same guys did a podcast about the recent stock market crash and Credit Default Swaps -- Another Frightening Show About the Economy. It's not up for purchase yet, but you can stream it.

Good citizenship in under an hour. How can you beat that?

Links:

The Giant Pool of Money

Another Frightening Show About the Economy

Their weekly podcast.









* One candidate is, indeed, full of crap, by the way. Blaming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the financial meltdown is like blaming the dead canary for the mine explosion. They were leading symptoms, not causes.

Air Quotes Are Dangerous Things

Gut reacton: Dude, those are actual living people you're talking about.

Setting aside the atypically far-right stance on abortion he took last night (he usually hedges his bets a bit better) what's kind of interesting here is that odds are, Senator McCain is blind to the emotional connotation of the air quotes. He wanted to highlight the word "health" -- like I just did right there -- banged out the air quotes and those combined with his really, really angry tone last night pushed the delivery into outright scorn.

You can see it happening, too. McCain think he has Obama, (based on a lie, but we'll let that ghost on by) but then Obama's giving one of his grown-up nuanced answers, which in McCain's head is "That sonuvabitch is trying to weasel out of the question like he always does and no one's going to notice-why-doesn't-anyone-notice-GAAARRGHHHH".

McCain monomaniacally goes after what he feels is the "weasel" part of Obama's argument, completely ignoring what the "weasel" part of the means to people in the sense of the larger argument.

Unfortunately, that part of the argument is the one that keeps a woman from dying in the delivery room against her will. Whoops.

And -- as is often ignored -- from a man's point of view: that part of the argument is the one that keeps your wife from dying in the delivery room because some asshole said she had to. Big fucking whoops.

According to a Time poll, "Health of the mother" along with exceptions for rape or incest victims jumps support for abortion rights from 46% to 86%. "Health of the mother" is one of the few terms which punches an empathic hole right through the walls of the abortion factions, because, well, see above.

Again, I don't actually believe McCain is openly scornful of the "health of the mother" in this issue, but his anger towards Obama made him seem so. It's fascinating -- in fiction we often create characters undone by a single, glaring flaw, for illustrative purposes. But here in the real world, we can see that every problem John McCain had in his presidential campaign was created by his lack of impulse control. A life, a character literally unravelled by his own anger.

I Only Learned One Thing From That Debate ...

... man, do I want to play poker against Senator McCain.

He's got a poker face like Mummenschanz.






(Mandatory bit credit: "Poker face like Mummenschanz" originated by DJ McCarthey, in reference to Ricky Bronson's gambling skills)

THIS is Why I'm Not Answering Your Goddam Phone Calls

The script for Episode #113 was completed this morning at roughly 8 am. Two episodes written in two weeks, without a staff.

And yes, that is Scotch. And no, I don't have a problem. I waited until 10 am.

Truth Invaders Web Game

A friend of mine, Jeremy Bernstein, is a writer/game designer living in LA; he's done some work in political games in the past with the aptly, if unimaginatively, named Redistricting Game (www.redistrictinggame.org). Now he's put together a game targeting all the dirty, dirty lies being spewed out of the presidential campaigns.

I'm fascinated by this stuff, because I'm always a little puzzled why we don't use the addictive nature of gaming more as part of an educational technique.

The game is called Truth Invaders, www.truthinvaders.com. If you enjoy it, let people know, 'cause this kind of thing is all the publicity it's gonna get.

And so we keep it participatory -- in the Comments, favorite computer/console game of the moment. Bonus points for obscurity or age.