"The World Exists Between the Beats of Wings ..."

In the spirit of samurai who wrote poetry, I'm always pleased at how the web allows people to show off their multiple interests. South Knox Bubba isn't just blogging about progressive politics and local economic minutia, he can pull off shots like this as a hobby. Just thought it was worth applauding.

Writing: Jargon Preservation 4

Alex reminded me a of a few I've used in conversation, confirmed with the 4 writers I had lunch with today as widespread enough to include here. Also, another very specific term which is so elegant, it cries out for further use.

"a couplet": Two lines of dialogue -- one character speaks, another responds. Call and response, setup/punch, question/answer. Considered the basic molecule of script dialogue.

"first blurt": the very first pitch on a joke, and it makes everybody in the room laugh. You then spend 15 minutes trying to beat that joke, only to realize that writer's first instinctive joke was the best. When in doubt, first blurt wins. You can call "first blurt" in order to avoid --

"a joke spiral": the room's pitching on a joke, and no, that's not it, and pitching and pitching and now there's now way you'll come up with something funny and now it's a half-hour later on this one line and none of you feel funny and your energy's -- PULL UP, PULL UP IN THE NAME OF GOD before you spiral into the ground with one wing on fire!

"sock barrel": a collection of roughly identical jokes all about the same thing. Pick one, cut the rest.

"hang a lantern on it": Instead of trying to hide a script/credibility problem, address it in full measure, so it can be dealt with and discarded. "How does she break into the base?" "Hang a lantern on it, how tough it is to get the codes, but that makes her twice as cool for pulling it off." This is often a bit of sleight-of-hand, but hell, you're probably using it to address some --

"fridge logic": a logic problem in the script that the average viewer would only ask themselves about, say, an hour later when they're at the fridge getting a snack during commercials. TV is a very tight little medium time-wise, with an enormous amount of hand-waving to begin with. Often a logic problem that seems to smack you in the face because you've had the time to read the script, reread it, give notes, break it down, etc. is going to fly by your average -- and hopefully emotionally engaged -- viewer.

"Well, how'd she get from Dallas to Houston."
"Commuter flight."
"Could she make the drive to the airport in time?"
"That's fridge logic."

Note that you're not trying to be lazy here -- you're just dealing with the fact that every line of exposition is a line that isn't active or particularly interesting, and you only get so many of those in 44 minutes before your show is now boring. Logically flawless, but boring.

"backstory": Information of absolutely no interest to an audience. But, it gives executives something to talk to writers about. (apologies, I believe, to Mamet)

"cheadle": as a verb. When a character laughs along with othe characters, then does a big physical head turn away from them and simultaneously his face reveals his inner rage/anguish/dismay.

From the Rat Pack movie, where Don Cheadle plays Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy's going along with this racist sketch at the Dunes, everyone's having a great time, big group laugh -- then Cheadle turns and his face falls, revealing (to the audience) Sammy's inner torment.

"The Scoutmasters laugh. Kevin cheadles. Making excuses, he exits."

Oh, and there's been some confusion, so:

"day player": A character with speaking lines crucial to this week's story, but not a regular. More than an extra, less than a guest star. They chatty guy who runs the dry cleaners when our hero goes to get a suit, the surly (but not-big-name) murderer on this week's CSI, the girl your guy is trying to pick up at the bar, most of the "other" castaways on LOST ... so named because they are paid a day-rate, not by the episode. This term leads to two others.

"day player theater": When a day player over-acts or otherwise tries to make the most of his brief moment in the sun. Welcome ... to Day Player Theater.

"sucking on the day player crack pipe": Over-writing a day player's role, until they have all the best lines and the focus of the scene. Almost always a sitcom situation.

This comes about because, well, TV's a frikkin' grind. Assume you're no farther than even halfway through the second season of a show. Wow, that's still pretty early, right?

35 episodes. That's THIRTY-FIVE STORIES about these same characters, and you've written oh 4-8 scens for each character permutation in the show, PLUS you can't significantly arc or change the characters (this is changing, but slowly). You know every trick, every rhythm of the actors you now work with. You know the lines they can hit, the jokes they don't know how to do, you know their parameters.

Now, along comes the day player. A new character, who you can do ANYTHING with, can have any backstory, their actions have no permanent repercussions for the show. The actor himself has all these neat new little rhythms, they're happy to get the job so they really sell the lines, it's all fresh and shiny, and if the person is actually GOOD, well then, all bets are off. It's FUN to write for a good day player, and you can write the big funny for them, they're there to service the plot and comedy, not the other way around, you're pitching jokes and situations you've never tried before and you're all laughing and when's the last time you all LAUGHED so hard in the writer's room you write them bigger and bigger, and you just can't stop --

You're sucking on the day player crack pipe. Put it down, and step away. Otherwise, you will have your star standing there with his thumb up his ass while the day player gets alllll the laughs. And that is not a happy day for anyone.

Maud Newton

It's not all BitTorrentFutureworldAnimeWhackityWhack here. Soon to be added to the blogroll is Maud Newton, literary editor and critic-type blogger, author, etc. etc, working from her tony salon in high-falutin' Brooklyn, New York. Anyone whose current page has The Little Prince, Guantanamo Bay internee poetry, the Roald Dahl Museum, and the vagaries of Southern Belle subtextual animosity is worth checking out.

FIREFLY - the movie

I give up.

I surrender my geek soul to the Whedon. I have no pride, no shame.

I give unto my friends the boxed set, and they say, "Verily, this kicks ass, why is there not more of it?"

And I tell unto them "Because American television can barely find it's own ass with the help of Ass-detecting Assometers run by Assy Asserton, Asstronomer and Winner of the Ass-Centric Assembly's Golden Ass-Finding Trophy Three Years Running."

And even DJ McCarthy, whose soul is black as Warren Ellis' left lung, who I once saw threaten to put a cigarette out in the eye of a five year old*, even he gnashes his teeth and weeps at the injustice.

But now, salvation has come.

The trailer to Serenity.



*to be fair, the five-year-old had it coming.

Wednesday "Funnier than I" Edition

All hail Fafgblog! They interview the Constitution -- and not the sissy Constitution you think you know, but the real original one judges of faith are even now struggling to return to life!

"CONSTITUTION: Oh, it gets worse! Church and state were never supposed to be separate! In the original Constitution, the president wasn't elected by the people. He was directly appointed by God during the sacrifice and ritual disembowelment of the Speaker of the House, according the grand traditions of parliamentary godmocracy!
FAFBLOG: We have fallen so far from the intentions of the Founders. But what about a hot topic like abortion? Is it covered by our right to privacy.
CONSTITUTION: A right to privacy? My goodness gracious, Fafnir! The Founding Fathers didn't want Americans to have a right to privacy! Privacy was what the British were trying to force down the throats of good patriots!"

And for those of you in Boston, do you go to Rick Jenkins' Comedy Studio in Harvard Square, widely acknowledged as the last of the great old-school comedy clubs? You do? Then you may have seen comedian Eugene Mirman when he was first starting out. Eugene's conversation with a Christian long distance company has started circulating the Interwebs. You can find a link at the always pants-tingling Jesus' General.

A word of warning: if you go to Rick's club and mention I sent you, he will tell you lies -- LIES -- about me. Believe none of it. Especially the "bi-curious" bullshit. It was Maine. Weird things happen in comedy condos in Maine.

That's the Gubmint's Sky!

As a follow-up to the Senator "I'm a high class escort at crack whore prices!" Santorum post, the Sideshow links to an article about the large benefits the US has reaped by making weather info free. I hadn't realized this was a two-for-one: Santorum's not only taking away public access to information they've already paid for, he's contributing to the radical right's already mighty attacks on the U.S.'s position as a leader in technical innovation.

The new motto of the RR: "America -- we won't stop until Pakistan's better at science!"

You Can Know Jesus ...

... through any way other than, apparently, reading the Bible.

There's sort of a long road into this post, which like most of my posts will turn out to be half sick joke and half sincere. This is probably a habit I should curb, for I get several e-mails a week asking me to repost sections of previous essays for quotation without the attendant nastiness. ("Dear John: Is there any way you can post the argument for gay marriage without the 'Stephen Harper is a bottom-bitch' part? Thanks!")

So, I'm in one of the glorious Canadian bookstores in the coffee shop, working on my laptop. Sitting opposite me are a boy and girl -- and I mean that in the 1950's "boy and girl" sense. Squeaky clean-cut, maybe 16. They're talking about the Jesus and their faith. Plainly evangelicals, all the buzzwords are flying around.

Despite what you may assume, I found this very, very sweet. When fat old bastards in suits are screaming about the downfall of youth and society, they are, well, lying. There's less teen sex -- except, of course, among kids in abstinence-only sex education programs -- a rise in social awareness and spirituality ... anyway, I dug it. "Evangelical" doesn't mean "radical" -- it's just where a lot of them come from. It's a brandy/cognac, cognac/brandy thing.

Then they started talking about the Rapture. The Girl asked about it, the Boy explained, the Girl asked another question, the Boy was stumped ... don't get me wrong, they in no way seemed less sure what they were discussing was absolute truth. But it was readily apparent that their entire understanding of Revelations came from the Left Behind Series and mainstream Dominionist prophecy.

I couldn't help myself. I stepped in, and explained how Revelations was laid out, what sequence the Rapture, Tribulations, etc were ordered in, and which sections were actually in the Bible, and which were sort of tacked on as cultural artifacts. (I'm a fair hand with this not because of my faith -- I was working on a one-man show about the End of the World for a while, and did a helluva lot of research ...) They were very appreciative, and we had a lovely chat. They seemed a little wary when I suggested that they read a few things about the history of the Bible. Seeing as they actually couldn't be bothered to read a book they were using as the basis of their life and faith, I could hardly complain. We parted amicably.

I have an odd emotional relationship with the Bible. I'm a lapsed Catholic (post-Catholic?), and we didn't so much read the Bible as go to Church every Sunday and have sections of it explained to us. But I'm reading it again now, an excellent student-annotated NIRV. Not as soaring as the King James, but with slightly less "10 guys sitting a room making shit up" factor. For both non-believers and the more devout folk who come here (and we have more than a few), I can not recommend strongly enough Don't Know Much About the Bible. Kenneth Davis examines the history of the Bible as it was assembled over the centuries* without ever losing sight that it's an important document of faith.

*(and if you don't believe it was assembled over centuries, you;re not using the brain God gave you, and you need to crawl back into whatever Dominionist compound you escaped from and let the adults talk)

Anyway, I'd honestly say Davis' book may be one of the few "must-reads" I ever push.

So, putting aside the Bible, which I view ambivalently as both inspiration and cudgel, connection with the Holy Spirit and framework of Organized Religion which does Many Things What That I Do Not Dig, how can one get closer to God? Well, there's ...

Clown Ministry. Clown. Ministry. This actually made me scream and back out of my chair, as if suddenly on my computer screen Samara had risen from the well with big, floppy shoes.

Or Gospel magic.

Or, my favorite, Gospel Juggling. Where:


"A running hedge trimmer, a sword, and a set rat trap are juggled to discuss the fact that we were created to know God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. (John 3:36)

Whatever it takes to get you through the day. Or night. Or more specifically, 3 a.m. But, just, if it's Clown Ministry, don't share. I don't know if we can be friends any more.

I do find myself drawing a line, however. Personally, I don't much care for Revelations, where the modern theocrats live. Too many flaming swords and vengeance. Seems a bit, oh, I don't know, out of character with the four frikkin' Gospels that are supposed to be the foundation of faith. But lordy lord, those guys sure live in Revelations when it comes to their preaching. Revelations or the Epistles, with Paul laying down the law. Just don't expect them to bring up the words "peace." or "poor." They'll usually keep hopping back and forth between Leviticus and Revelations, skipping over the tranquil waters of the Gospels proper, pants-legs pulled up lest they get stained with any unsightly pacifism, or sacrifice, or tolerance.

Luke, by the way.

Luke, this agnostic's favorite Gospel. Lots of singing. I never noticed that the first time around.

I don't know if I'll ever quite believe in God. But I know that I believe we can rise, through intangible Spirit or inspired Reason, to something closer to God.

Closer to love, or acceptance. Or simple damn joy in the unexpectedness of the new, or the different. Closer to a place where we help because we take "Do Unto Others" to heart, where we see the world differently. Because while they see a world where "they are damned,they are the enemy, because they are not us", we see a world where "we have to help them, because they are ALL us." In the New Testament, as my sainted nuns taught me, Jesus basically broke it down as "All right, I'm going to make this so simple you screwheads can't POSSIBLY misunderstand. One word -- empathy. Got it?"

And the sonuvabitches still screwed. it. up.

That's my fatal flaw, of course. It's only, on these very rare occasions, when I consider the uplift of humanity be it by the concept of God or humanity's own potential for joy -- only when I consider the height of such a possibility, and for one moment discard the safety of reason and hope ...

... do I then really consider the anchor, the chain around our necks that these manipulative, terrified, close-minded self-righteous pharisees yank down, how they spike our ascent, keep people suspicious and angry and clannish in a world of wonders -- and I hate, I hate with all my heart, the black hate of the Irish.

Huh.

I only truly, truly hate ... when I believe there might be a God.

That's a hell of a thing to realize sober.

Blggrrlz Gallery

Hey, I didn't name it. But a nifty way of perusing a couple dozen progressive blogs written by women without leaving one page.

The Bloggrrlz Gallery.

Swearingen for Senate

Hey, this is fun. Senator Santorum has introduced a bill that would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel. That is, no more free National Weather Service website where you could, oh, get the service of finding out the weather. Nationally. Which would seem to be their territory.

Yes, I know you paid for that National Weather Service info with your tax dollars. But no, you can't have access to it. Sen. Santorum says "Your money doesn't count. Just because you paid for it, you don't have any right to it. The government is not here to serve you."

You see, Santorum received $4,000 in campaign contribution from the Accuweather humans. (Thanks Raw Story). Coincidence? Wellll, he was the only Senator the Executive Vice President of AccuWeather contributed to. So draw your own conclusions.

But that's not the really great part of the story.

They bought a Senator for four thousand dollars. They bought a Senator for less than a big-screen TV. In the old days, you'd have to pony up fifty to a hundred grand to buy a Senator. But now, you can buy Rick Santorum's vote in the upper chamber of America's democracy WHOLESALE.

Making corruption accessible to the working man -- bravo, sirrah, bravo. Hey, I got a tax refund of a couple grand coming, Rick, can I get a goddam holiday named after me?

Al Swearingen for Senate. He'd set the joint right.

New Links

Adding Wordplayer, which is Elliot and Rossio's joint. Everything you liked in movies over the last five years? Yeah, they wrote that.

And The Thinking Writer, who answers questions quickly and succinctly. This is a similar name to and a vast improvement over my original blog, The Weeping Drunken Writer Who Sobers up Just Long Enough to Type Two Pages, Masturbate, Then Collapse Weeping Again.

Our friend at Respectful Insolence (aka "Orack Knows) is a surgeon and scientist who fights the good fight against pseudoscience. I enjoy the way he crotch-kicks modern medievalism with reason and science, while he seems to be amused at the way I just mercilessly mock it into submission. Despite our differing approaches, go hang with the smart guy.

Television Without Pity ... huh, how to convince you to go there ... it's not just the best TV site on the web, it has, bar none, the highest laugh per post ratio for me. They do recaps of each episode of TV shows, which not only allows you to catch up on a show you missed but, well, allows each writer to develop a personal comedy take on each show's foibles. One of my favorite bits was the writer who covered X-Files the last season. She refused to acknowledge Mulder was gone, and instead during her recaps created explanations of how he was actually still around, but we were always just missing him on-screen. I know, I know, it sounds insider-y. Just go, find the forums for your favorite show, and read. Many of the writers have their own sites, and they're worth checking out.