The Means of Distribution, Part I

Over the last few days, after the broadcast of “Phil’s Deli” and in reaction to a post and comments on Baby Got Books, I’ve started thinking about how works of art get distributed, particularly in regards to books, movies and TV shows, and audio plays.  Each is being affected by the Internet and the digitized life, but none, it seems to me, has caught up with technology yet.  What finally pushed me over the precipice to write this post was getting an email forwarding a link to Michael Moore’s new film, Slacker Uprising.

Moore is trying something different here.  He’s giving his movie away.  (And, just for the record, I’m not endorsing, condemning, exfoliating, or cleansing the film.  I haven’t watched it and haven’t decided whether I will or not.  If you don’t care for Michael Moore, I would suggest that you not watch it and that you don’t bother leaving angry comments on this post.  I’m concerned here with art, society, and technology, not politics.)  He’s not the first show biz figure to try giving some content away; Radiohead got some very nice news coverage doing so, and a couple of others have apparently tried it out.

What is occurring to me is that we are about to see a vast–and quite possibly useful–change in the way that works of art are distributed.  I don’t claim that this is some kind of original insight; I’m just trying to work through this, and this blog has become the medium through which I think through these things.

Let’s start with movies.  Film, as an art form, is all but dead.  Oh, sure, you can see loads of violence, trillions of dollars-worth of special effects, and computer animation out the wazoo, but precious little of it even aspires to art.  The economics of the movie business have gotten to the point where, not only would Citizen Kane not get made today, neither would Stagecoach, On the Waterfront, The Hustler, or Five Easy Pieces.  And yet, there might be hope.

The most public face of this hope is, of course, YouTube.  People are already making short films and releasing them on YouTube or its equivalents and hoping that viral marketing will get them the attention they desire.  And now we’re getting a feature film.  And some TV shows.  People are starting to figure out how you can make money–and show business is, in the end, a business–by doing things online.

This is a major change in the means of distribution.  And being the means of distribution is the whole point of being a movie studio or a TV network.  If someone takes that away from you, your goose is cooked.  Just look at the record companies.  iTunes and iPods and programs like Garage Band and Audacity have made it possible for anyone to produce music and to distribute it without a record company.  Paul Simon discusses this and the evolution of recorded music from the vinyl album to the mp3 in a discussion with Charlie Rose (starting at minute 43:00 of the video).  He indicates that he’s no longer thinking in terms of making another CD, but instead releasing new songs individually and less as groups of songs and more as lone items.

The implication is that the record company is no longer a part of the equation.  The means of distribution have changed.

Phil’s Deli

The Shoestring Radio Theatre has produced and broadcast a production of my radio play, “Phil’s Deli,” to a hungering world, first this past Wednesday on KUSF in San Francisco, and then nationally starting on Friday.  The show will be available for download via Real Player and as an mp3 through this coming Friday, September 26th.  Anyone and everyone is encouraged to download the show.  You won’t be disappointed.  It’s pretty funny.  (If you don’t come across this until after September 26th, just email me at rudyvalue at nextintheseries dot com, and I will supply an mp3.)

And now for the story behind the story.

A few years ago, I had a scheme that involved developing a radio campaign for my then employer, a mid-sized telecommunications carrier.  Well, I developed a sample radio spot with my partner-in-audio, Tom O’Neill, and submitted it to the marketing department.  They declined to use it, and, after a short negotiation, I came away with the right to use the spot as long as we did not use the name of the company.  Fair enough.

I told Tom this, and he sent me a version back almost immediately where he had dubbed himself saying “Phil’s Deli” over the name of the telecommunications company.  I thought it was hysterical.  And I started thinking about how to use it in a script.

What I came up with was a script about pipe dreams and the power of belief.  It is also, I think, a solid example of the craft of writing a sitcom.  It’s farcical and funny.  In the best of all possible worlds, I would probably direct my own version of it, most likely for podcasting.

I really wish I had better understood the future of podcasting when I was trying to develop the radio show.  I’m pretty sure that my concept would do well as podcasts, perhaps would even expand the limits of what people think of as podcasts.  The kind of layering of sound and the establishment of a sense of place would really be enhanced in a podcast.

And maybe it will still work out.  You never know.  I have a bagful of scripts and the desire to pursue it.  What I need is a competent producer.  I write well, I act well, I can do a decent job of directing.  What kills me over-and-over again in show business is my complete lack of talent for producing.  Anybody who has a knack for it, however, is welcome to drop me a line.

My News Addiction

The Internet made me a news addict.  It’s always up, always there, just lurking behind a tab or a bookmark or as a memory in the address bar.  There are newspaper websites, news-related blogs, and news magazines.  There are feeds and summaries and convenient links.  It’s everywhere, news as entertainment.

And none of it matters.  At least not to me.

Let me give you an example.  In recent days, we have seen the American financial markets implode, the stock market experience a nervous breakdown (it’s gone from depression to mania quicker than you can say “government bailout”), and a slapdash and inconsistent government response.  I’ve read reports, and I’ve read commentaries.  I’ve looked at charts and listened to experts.  And I have no more control over these events now than I did before Lehman Brothers failed.  And yet I worry over them.  How can that be healthy?

The same goes for the Presidential campaign.  I know who I’m voting for based what I’ve gleaned from the policy papers published on their websites and with no thanks to the news cycle whatsoever.  In fact, all I ever see in the news are distractions.  Stuff and nonsense.  Meaningless gloop.  It’s all been reduced to the level of a reality game show, one that could be called Survivor:  White House.  It’s an odd way to choose our leaders and ought to be beneath us.

But nothing is beneath the news game.  Although we like to think of the news as something that is presented in the public interest, it is actually just the honey that attracts the flies to the trap of advertising.  And there’s no way of getting around this.  If the government owns the news organization, you end up, most likely, with mere propaganda.  If you leave it to the whims of the market, you end up with pabulum and pap.

Of course, as is the case with so much, The Firesign Theatre summed it up beautifully, this time on their album, Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers.  They have a newsreader say the following:  “Those are the headlines, and now for the rumors behind the news.”

I don’t know what the answer is, and I’m not trying to prescribe a cure for everyone.  I just know that I have to wean myself off.  The news eats up my attention, makes me crabby, and gives precious little in return.  It is the enemy of enlightenment and peace, and has a tendency to narrow the mind rather than to expand it.  We’ll see how it goes.  If I write a post on Monday about the Federal bailout of a Presidential campaign, you’ll know that my plan will still need work.

Satire in Whole, Not Part

Over the last few days, I’ve posted a smattering of videos that demonstrated what I think of as satire. It seems to me that in this postmodern aren’t-we-all-so-damned-sardonic world of ours that the whole concept of satire has become weakened, watered down, and enfeebled. This has been on my mind for while, but I didn’t have any examples to demonstrate what I am talking about until just a few minutes ago.

And then I came across a review of a new musical called “What’s That Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling” on the website of The New York Times.  The review is a positive one, and I am glad of that.  I wish the show, its cast, creators, and producers nothing but luck and success.  What set me off was the following sentence in the review:

For connoisseurs of atrocious musical theater — and/or whip-smart satire — the fictional Jacob Sterling is a godsend to be eternally grateful for.

What I object to is the phrase “whip-smart satire.”  While the show may be “whip-smart,” it is not, to my mind, satire.  It is a spoof.  And that’s fine.  The world needs spoofs.  There is nothing wrong with spoofing a subject.  It is just not satire.

Satire speaks to power.  Two-bit show biz hacks possess no power.  However silly or self-indulgent they may be, they are not a measurable source of the world’s misery and deflating their tiny balloons will have no discernable effect on the Powers That Be.  And this has been forgotten.

Quite often, these days, I come across something being described as a satire when it is not.  It’s meaning has been reduced to being merely “something that makes fun of something,” which is just a plain lousy definition.  Satire, in its true sense, is a quest, however Quixotic, to make a given society a better place.  It rails at power and exposes its flaws.  It get people to think.  And maybe think differently.

Now, Mark Twain, in the video I posted on Monday, wasn’t speaking to political power.  He was speaking to the power and pretensions of religion and the uselessness of war.  And he does it in such a way that you almost don’t even notice that he’s really telling most of the people of his day–and perhaps ours–what fools they are.  “Man is the reasoning animal.  Such is the claim, though I do think that’s open to dispute.”  How true and how wonderful.  It is funny, wise, and timeless.  Watching it again for probably the tenth time, it occurred to me that he was doing what Eddie Izzard does, only 90 years earlier and with more depth and sorrow.  (And I’m not knocking Eddie.  He might get there one day.)

The second and third videos that I chose were from the British series Blackadder.  Interestingly, I’m not really a Blackadder fan.  It’s generally more mean-spirited than I prefer.  However, in this fourth series–Blackadder Goes Forth–the show moves into new territory.  It truly becomes satire.

There is no satire in kicking the small and the weak.  There is no satire in trashing Britney Spears or in spoofing the latest hit TV show.  True satire attacks hypocrisy and power and the few who would dare rule the many.  It is republican in the sense that it believes that the government serves the people and not the other way around.  It is democratic in that it knows that no man, no leader is above the law.  It is wise and profound, and yet makes its point with delicious laughter.

It occurs to me that the problem with our current politics is that we take it too seriously, that we do not laugh at it enough.  So much of what gets bandied back-and-forth on the op-ed pages is such utter and complete nonsense that those of us who read those pages should never stop laughing.  The evening news is a master class in absurdity regardless of which channel you watch.  And the only things sillier than CNN are MSNBC and Fox News.

It all cries out for satire, which seems, sadly, to be in short supply.  Oh, of course, there’s The Daily Show, but not much else.  But maybe the time will come.  And in the meantime, let’s not debase the word “satire.”  Let’s retain its true meaning and therefore its true function.

Satire, Part 3

Reaching

I’m sorry if the posts seem a bit scattered this week (if they don’t already, they will after this one), but my mind is going in myriad ways lately.  I’m just catching stray thoughts as they pass, chloroforming them, and pinning them to the virtual corkboard of the Internet.

In two posts a couple of weeks ago, I discussed my personal experiences with organized sports and acting and my ultimate abandonment of both.  The acting post in particular had me thinking.  Unlike with sports, I was actually good at acting, good enough to, in theory, make a career out of it.  I was a dependable player in both supporting and leading roles and always an audience favorite.  One of the pleasures of doing theater was hearing the bump in applause when I came out for the curtain call, and I often got notes from directors on opening night praising both my performances and my general ability.  Acting, most of the time, was as easy as breathing.

And then I gave it up.  I gave it up without worry and without regret.  I simply turned my back and walked away.

In recent months, I have been in crisis in regards to my job.  Despite pleasant working conditions, good coworkers, and varied duties, I have been lacking in motivation, depressed and moody.  I haven’t been able to diagnose what had gone wrong, which only compounded the malady.  That is, until last night and this morning, when I finally figured out what had gone wrong in my job and with acting all those years ago.

Part of the reason why I have had 52 jobs in the last 32 years is that once I master a job–and frankly, that usually happens pretty quickly–I grow bored and restless.  I waste time and push deadlines in order to make something that has become simple more challenging, and the very act of procrastination aggravates the boredom and the restlessness, and it all devolves into a kind of depression.  I’m hoping that having this knowledge in the forefront of my mind will make it easier to fight the battle and to get through the work day.

What ties this to those earlier posts is my realization that the one work-type activity that I indulge in that is not susceptible to this problem is writing.  I started writing seriously 34 years ago, and it has never, in all that time, not been challenging.  Even down to the level of the humble sentence (as much of my work on this blog will attest), it is never easy, never simple.  As a result, the satisfactions are deeper, the victories more stunning, and the challenges ever-present and real.

Satire, Part 2

Don’t Not Hate Me Because I’m Not a Woman

I typically don’t care to bring politics into this blog because there is enough of that drivel on the Internet, and it’s really, essentially boring, and because I’d rather think about things that are–I don’t know–interesting and worth wasting one’s time on.  However, since the Republicans have decided to campaign as a steaming sack of lying, hypocrital shits, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to post useful links and videos as they come to my attention.

Thank God for the Daily Show and their huge collection of TiVo boxes.  The Daily Show and TiVo, two things that make you proud to be an American.  Just watch:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card

Satire, Part 1

I’m going to start all this with a few video examples.  If necessary, I will follow with a few words in a couple of days.

But first, Mark Twain, as channeled by Hal Holbrook:

I’d Like to Know

Ever since last Friday, the new Republican nominee for Vice President has been described consistently as being “hot.”  (“Hot” is a term that I hate because it doesn’t actually mean anything.  Like it’s cousin, “awesome,” it is a vague artifact of a post-literary culture.)  The problem I have is that she really isn’t.  Is anybody else looking at her?  What’s so damn hot about her?  Anything?  Somebody help me out here.

What I’ve seen is a lady with a rather plain face that is hidden behind hip glasses and a mound of make-up.  Where’s the hotness?  Does “hot” really only mean “not fat”?  I mean if she were just walking down the street, would heads turn?  Other than away, I mean.  I don’t think so.

Now, I’ll admit that she’s more attractive than Sen. McCain, but so is a ‘47 DeSoto.

I really only bring this up because it speaks to The Selling of Sarah Palin, a PR campaign the likes of which have not been seen since the deception that the Allies pulled on the Germans before D-Day called Operation Bodyguard.  And that speaks to the Republican belief that the great mass of Americans are witless nits who can be controlled through a continuing campaign of lying and obfuscation.

This Republican convention was a sad thing, hypcritical, mendatious, and libelous.  It was a whole great convention center’s worth of people who can, should, and probably will go to hell.