Journey

Books: Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (1957)

Dandelion Wine is a semi-autobiographical novel by Ray Bradbury, is set in the summer of 1928. Douglas Spaulding, a 12-year-old boy, is loosely patterned after Bradbury. Most of the book is focused upon the routines of Green Town (Bradbury’s real home town of Waukegan, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago) where the comings and goings of small-town America are divined by the simple joys of yesteryear.

One day, while out looking for wild grapes with his father and brother, Douglas wakens to the fact that he is alive. He confides his realizations to his brother, Tom, and records them in a yellow nickel pad as they accumulate through the summer. Life’s bounty presents new tennis shoes, stories of buffalo stampedes by old Colonel Freeleigh, and the affection of and for John Huff, a neighborhood buddy. Family rituals provide another part, especially the monthly gathering of dandelions for wine making. Douglas wishes wonderful summer would stay put. It will not. Beloved John Huff moves away. Tennis shoes wear. The storyteller dies. Another vision assails the boy: Douglas Spalding will die someday.

Less a novel than a collection of richly plotted vignettes (it began, originally as short story published in 1953) about the birth of a brilliant writer, and the remembrances of a childhood where summers lasted forever and mysteries and magic where on the lips of boys.

Books: The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving (1981)

Despite liking John Irving, this is only the fourth novel I’ve read of his (he’s got 14 novels, a short story collection and two non-fiction books). He is an extraordinary author, very literate, very dense, yet always readable.

The Hotel New Hampshire, Irving’s fifth book and the first one after The World According to Garp which made him a huge star, is narrated by John Berry, the third of five very eccentric siblings. As the chronicler of their lives, John begins with “Frank's queer, Franny's weird, Lily's small and Egg is Egg.” From that point on, we can assume nothing. The family's adventures begin in New Hampshire, then shifts to Vienna and eventually in Maine. In between we see the quirkiness that keeps this family going and while outsiders might consider then weird, to them, it’s all normal. The father is an often absent, obsessed with his motorcycle and his bear, State of Maine (aka Earl). The mother is perhaps the most normal, but she is a character none the less. Franny, the second oldest child, is a cheerleader and a tomboy, damaged by a brutal rape. John is a sentimental womanizer in love with his sister Franny. The oldest, Frank, is a surprisingly normal (relatively speaking) and sympathetic character, who is a homosexual, who loves to wear uniforms and performs taxidermy on their dead dog Sorrow. Lily is a writer consumed by her failure to grow. 

Like the three previous ones I’ve read –A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Cider House Rules, A Widow for One Year- his novels are character driven. And each character is created and realized in such wonderful ways. Plus, I think, Irving is one of the few authors who can get away with taboo subjects in mainstream fiction. All of his novels carry some of the same themes:  homosexuality, transsexualism, incestuous desires, older women, younger men relationships and bears. 

It’s funny, sad, outrageous, and a moving novel.

Eccleston's 'conscience' clean on leaving 'Doctor Who' behind

I'm guessing eventually we'll learn why Christopher Eccleston left Doctor Who after its first season, however, I don't think we'll see it until long after he's left this mortal plain.

What happened during his short tenure is up to speculation, and strangely in this day of social media and people selling their souls to make money, its surprising the truth (whether real or not) has ever materialized. A little over a year ago, he made some comments about it, but they're still fairly nebula's:

"I left Doctor Who because I could not get along with the senior people. I left because of politics. I did not see eye-to-eye with them. I didn't agree with the way things were being run. I didn't like the culture that had grown up around the series. So I left, I felt, over a principle."

What exactly caused this riff has never been clearly explained. Some have speculated over the years it had to do with casting of the Doctor himself, that showrunner Russell T Davies wanted Eccleston while the BBC wanted David Tennant (it was well known that he was second choice to play the Doctor back then -and in some ways might explain why Tennant was so quickly signed before it was announced that Eccleston was leaving). Of course, that could be the opposite, but to me, looking back on season one as compared to season two, that first year was terribly dark in tone.

I can guess that the BBC heads thought they were going to get a Doctor Who similar in tone (but more modern take) to TOS. Only what they were getting, instead, was a broody, emo, more alien Doctor who is carrying a load of pain, loss and sadness around the galaxy. Heady stuff for children indeed. But as an actor, being able to explore those themes must've have been one of the reasons that attracted Eccelston in the first place. 

So maybe, in the early days of production, the BBC was concerned about the tone of the stories, concerned about the tone of Eccelston's performance and made his life and that of the production team difficult. He spoke at one time about some sort of "bullying" from people on the set, that included directors.

 [I]t’s easy to find a job when you’ve got no morals, you’ve got nothing to be compromised, you can go, ‘Yeah, yeah. That doesn’t matter. That director can bully that prop man and I won’t say anything about it’. But then when that director comes to you and says ‘I think you should play it like this’ you’ve surely got to go ‘How can I respect you, when you behave like that?’

And while I loved Tennant as the Doctor, I missed the darker tones of Eccleston's ninth Doctor. I miss the creepy, ominous stories of that era. To me, season one of the revived series matched the story telling of Tom Baker's middle years as the fourth Doctor, when those stories had a real sense of forbidding to them, a darkness that made you wonder if you were indeed watching a kids show, or an adult drama dressed for kids.

In someways, now under Steven Moffat, I think the show is trying to return to that first season style. Sure, Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor is crazy, funny "mad man with a box." But the stories have an undercurrent, a creepy darkness that elevates the show above the campiness that over took it when showrunner John Nathan Turner turned the later years of TOS into a funhouse of gloss and showmanship, but ultimately a tub of empty calories.

Anyways as the BBC begins preparing to celebrate Doctor Who's 50 anniversary in 2013, he's making it clear that he has no regrets about leaving:

"My conscience is completely clear. I've lived my life, particularly my working life, on the basis that I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror about the way I behave. It wasn't a bold move, it was an entirely natural one. I'm hugely grateful to the children who to this day come up and talk to me about the show."

Which is a not so subtle comment that he wants nothing to do with whatever is going to happen. 

For me, I guess, I can understand his desires. It's a shame, just the same. 

In the end, I guess someday we'll learn the full story. But until he sits down and writes about, we still have that wonderful first season of Eccleston as the ninth Doctor. Sure, not all the stories worked, but he shined in every episode, bringing such a totally different take on the Time Lord. I relish his time there, when the stories and the character returned to the more alien take that started the franchise.

'Community' creator Dan Harmon reacts to being 'fired'

A few hours ago, I landed in Los Angeles, turned on my phone, and confirmed what you already know.  Sony Pictures Television is replacing me as showrunner on Community, with two seasoned fellows that I’m sure are quite nice - actually, I have it on good authority they’re quite nice, because they once created a show and cast my good friend Jeff Davis on it, so how bad can they be.

Why’d Sony want me gone?  I can’t answer that because I’ve been in as much contact with them as you have.  They literally haven’t called me since the season four pickup, so their reasons for replacing me are clearly none of my business.  Community is their property, I only own ten percent of it, and I kind of don’t want to hear what their complaints are because I’m sure it would hurt my feelings even more now that I’d be listening for free.

I do want to correct a couple points of spin, now that I’m free to do so:

The important one is this quote from Bob Greenblatt in which he says he’s sure I’m going to be involved somehow, something like that.  That’s a misquote.  I think he meant to say he’s sure cookies are yummy, because he’s never called me once in the entire duration of his employment at NBC.  He didn’t call me to say he was starting to work there, he didn’t call me to say I was no longer working there and he definitely didn’t call to ask if I was going to be involved.  I’m not saying it’s wrong for him to have bigger fish to fry, I’m just saying, NBC is not a credible source of All News Dan Harmon.

You may have read that I am technically “signed on,” by default, to be an executive consulting something or other - which is a relatively standard protective clause for a creator in my position.  Guys like me can’t actually just be shot and left in a ditch by Skynet, we’re still allowed to have a title on the things we create and “help out,” like, I guess sharpening pencils and stuff. 

However, if I actually chose to go to the office, I wouldn’t have any power there.  Nobody would have to do anything I said, ever.  I would be “offering” thoughts on other people’s scripts, not allowed to rewrite them, not allowed to ask anyone else to rewrite them, not allowed to say whether a single joke was funny or go near the edit bay, etc.  It’s….not really the way the previous episodes got done.  I was what you might call a….hands on producer.  Are my….periods giving this enough….pointedness?  I’m not saying you can’t make a good version of Community without me, but I am definitely saying that you can’t make my version of it unless I have the option of saying “it has to be like this or I quit” roughly 8 times a day.
The same contract also gives me the same salary and title if I spend all day masturbating and playing Prototype 2.  And before you ask yourself what you would do in my situation: buy Prototype 2.  It’s fucking great.

Because Prototype 2 is great, and because nobody called me, and then started hiring people to run the show, I had my assistant start packing up my office days ago.  I’m sorry.  I’m not saying seasons 1, 2 and 3 were my definition of perfect television, I’m just saying that whatever they’re going to do for season 4, they’re aiming to do without my help.  So do not believe anyone that tells you on Monday that I quit or diminished my role so I could spend more time with my loved ones, or that I negotiated and we couldn’t come to an agreement, etc.  It couldn’t be less true because, just to make this clear, literally nobody called me.  Also don’t believe anyone that says I have sex with animals.  And if there’s a photo of me doing it with an animal - I’m not saying one exists, I’m just saying, if one surfaces - it’s a fake.  Look at the shadow.  Why would it be in front of the giraffe if the sun is behind the jeep?

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  I’m not running Community for season 4.  They replaced me.

Them’s the facts.

When I was a kid, sometimes I’d run home to Mommy with a bloody nose and say, “Mom, my friends beat me up,” and my Mom would say “well then they’re not worth having as friends, are they?”  At the time, I figured she was just trying to put a postive spin on having birthed an unpopular pussy.  But this is, after all, the same lady that bought me my first typewriter.  Then later, a Commodore 64.  And later, a 300 baud modem for it.  Through which I met new friends that did like me much, much more.

I’m 39, now.  The friends my Mom warned me about are bigger now, and older, bloodying my nose with old world numbers, and old world tactics, like, oh, I don’t know, sending out press releases to TV Guide at 7pm on a Friday.

But my Commodore 64 is mobile now, like yours, and the modems are invisible, and the internet is the air all around us.  And the good friends, the real friends, are finding each other, and connecting with each other, and my Mom is turning out to be more right than ever.

Ah, shit, I still haven’t called my fucking Mom.  

          Mom, Happy Mother’s Day.  I got fired.

Yes, Mom.  AGAIN.

While it should be no huge surprise, since corporations discovered metrics, and found out how to value every aspect of job, to manage every portion so maximum profit can be gained, we get things like Harmon's firing from Community. Sony Pictures Television and NBC have not been happy with the series for a while, and have kept it going due, mainly, to the cult following it gained over the years. Plus, on last place NBC, even a moderately successful show can survive.

But while metrics is a device to gain the most profit, it is also a tool to end shows like Community. Or, as in this case, get rid of its creator and showrunner in favor of handling it over to others in hopes of expanding its viewership beyond the ones that already adore this show. While at times, this could be a good idea, it’s usually handled pretty badly.  Executives of large companies do not how to deal with staff members who buck the traditional system. Yes, they want creative people, but only if they stay within certain parameters. It’s like hiring someone radical to change your company, only you never give that person the tools they need to make effective change, because you generally run into the “we’ve never done it this way before.” Of course you haven’t that’s the point. Change sometimes means doing this completely different. 

NBC –and other broadcast networks- are facing huge losses of viewers. Some have fled to basic cable where stories and content are a little less restrictive. Some have gone to premium channels, again to get better stories, character driven ones as well. But a lot have just thrown in the towel. 

TV can be great, when it tries, and I do believe you can have show’s with social commentaries and still be commercial. Unfortunately, that is not the mindset that runs metrics. It’s a numbers game. But because they use mutated mathematics, and an archaic ratings system, who’s to say that Community’s ratings are accurate?

In the end, TV has failed to evolve, even though it does try to show that it does. Community was a show that tried to break out of the norm of stale sitcoms foisted upon a brain-dead audience who think Two and Half Men is funny. We all know it’s not, we all know it’s about as funny as Crone’s Disease. 

I will watch the 13 episodes that NBC has ordered for Community’s fourth season. But I sense that the show will not be as clever, as satirical, as creative as it was before because now it has to form fitted into a box called Mediocrity.

Because, that’s where metrics lives.

Books: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008)

I'm jumping on the Hunger Games bandwagon. Part of the reason, I guess, is that I'm told the books are so much better than the movie -and to be honest, is that not always the truth? Another part is that while I generally do not read too much in the way of young adult fiction, I will admit some of its worth it. 

The novel reminded me a lot of the dystopian fiction written during the post-nuclear age by classic writers as Asimov and Clarke. And as I read, I often pondered in their better writing prose, how this novel could have been extraordinary. On the other hand, while the themes may have survived the times, the violence portrayed here would have never made it in that time period.

Still, Collins is a pretty good writer, the book flows very well, at times, even addictive. It's pedantic as well, with predictable outcomes and stilted dialogue. Katniss does come off as fully realized character, yet it seems she had some past adventure that comes in handy once the game begins, which at times makes the internal logic of the book unravel.

Realizing this is the first book in a trilogy, Collins does leave a lot of stuff unresolved. I'm hoping for more explanation of how Panem works, what brought the world to this time, as I felt not enough time was given to this part of the story. 

Maybe that was the point, set up this Universe in the first book and then see it come apart as the second and third book continue story. 

The movie version remains unseen. Perhaps I'll view it, but most likely I will either ignore it, or eventually see it on DVD.

Ummm...Are you listening Dan Harmon?

NBC fall preview of 'Go On'

Matthew Perry is good. He can play comedy and drama. When he did Mr. Sunshine on ABC, he was best thing about it. Despite the fact is was not funny and was poorly executed, he did his best with what he had.

Go On seems to have all his trademark elements, but the biggest hurtle the show might have is getting over the elephant in the room that was the death of his wife while texting. Important message, but since Glee handled semi-okay this season (and would have be more truthful and realistic kill off Quinn, but the show is fantasy) it will be interesting and challenging to see how this comedy series handles it.

Besides, it co-stars Tyler James Williams from the late WB's super underrated sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. He's a talented kid -his brother is star of Disney's Lab Rats- and I loved him as the young version of Chris Rock.

NBC's fall drama 'Chicago Fire'

For Chicagoians, there is a professional soccer team called The Chicago Fire. Hope no one gets confused.

That being said, this format has been done before, and has succeed poorly for various reasons. It looks like two broadcast network shows coming this fall will be filmed in my home town, this and FOX's Mob Doctor, which is cool. I sort of wish ABC's Happy Endings would film more location work there -or, obviously, film there completely- because the city gives great face. Showtimes Shameless films in the city as well, and uses great locations (some that don't always show up in movies and TV shows that film there).

I hope Chicago Fire can succeed. It's tried and true format, but for some reasons, it never lives up to the ambitions of its pilot -which, ironically, happens a lot as the shows go into weekly production. CBS' recently cancelled drama A Gifted Man is a perfect example of show that never was able to capitalize on its origins,

Books: The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King (2012)

The Wind Through the Keyhole, while set within Stephen King’s original 7 volume Dark Tower epic, has little to do with the series. Another words, it’s a small off ramp within the franchise that neither adds nor subtracts from the other volumes. King himself, in his forward, calls it book 4.5 (set between volumes four and five).

While some might hope to spend more time with Roland, Susannah, Eddie, Jake and Oy, they only become bookends to the novel as it takes a structure of a story within a story.  The Ka-tet hunkers down during a sudden storm and Roland tells them a story around the campfire. Their only purpose is to listen to the two stories and provide a context in which the stories take place.

The first story is from Roland's life as a young gunslinger, before he set out on the quest for the Dark Tower. It occurs immediately after he is tricked into murdering his mother, and a large part of the sub-text is Roland struggling to forgive himself for that act. (This is not a spoiler, by the way; King supplies this information in the introduction for readers who may not have read the Dark Tower novel that relates Roland's back story, Wizard and Glass). When he was teen, Roland’s father sends him and gunslinger, Jamie, top remote village to investigate the horrific killings of townsfolk by a “skin-changer” (King’s take on a shapeshifter). While investigating, Roland takes into custody the only witness, a young boy named Bill. While trying to keep the boy company, Roland tells him a fairy tale from his own childhood his mother used to tell. 

This story takes up the bulk of the novel.

It’s this section, with its mix of fantasy and science fiction that will remind many readers of how the Dark Tower universe works, as Roland tells the boy about the encounters with fairies, dragons, mutants, long-abandoned technology and even the wizard Maerlyn. 

He also runs into the Man in Black.

Like most of King’s novels, it’s enjoyable and very readable. It is a bit lite, coming on the heels of 11/22/63 and its richness, and it comes off more as two novellas, but I enjoy King and his Dark Tower series. I’m curious if he’ll continue with this format, because I can guess that he’s not really finished with this universe.

Next up for him, in January, will be his sequel to The Shining called Doctor Sleep.