The Jason and Shane Variety Hour
July 30, 2004
[JAY] Though successfully usurping Brad’s weekly front-page rants (check and mate) was the first step towards completion of my internal Dead End Days coup (first you get the front page, then you get the power, then you get the women), from the sound of the posts on a recent forum - instigated by one of Shane’s whiny Regina friends - apparently not all that many people bother to read the front page rants. Well firstly: FOR SHAME! We’re giving you the best year of our life here; pouring our sweat, blood, and salty tears into each and every episode, sacrificing our slim figures, respective social lives, and hair pigmentation for your entertainment and edification. Don’t you think we deserve a few minutes of your undivided attention to blow off some steam? Wax, chat, discuss, debate. We’re linking you to stuff, aren’t we? Cool animation, alternative news, hot flicks, technological advancements, the latest trendy tween fashion. Aardvarks. The only thing we haven’t linked to is… Oh. I see. You’re waiting for celebrity porn. Like Paris Hilton is really all that attractive.
And for those of you who do take the time to peruse every episode-accompanying text-block: I AM THE NEW BRAD! KNEEL DOWN BEFORE ME!
Truth be told, everyone down here at DED HQ (and I can call it that now that I sleep on the official DED HQ Couch) saw thorugh my transparent ploy for power, and forced me to share this post with resident hunk Shane “Pipes” Arbuthnott. Now if only I could come up…with some kind of…clever segue…
SHANE! IF YOU WERE A TREE, WHAT KIND OF TREE WOULD YOU BE? (That’ll work)
[SHANE] I will start my portion of this front page diatribe by saying that capital letters do not a segue make. And I would be a cypress.
While Jay and I hunch over the glow of a laptop screen, Matt and Brad are at work on Editing Machine 3000, considering hundreds of options for the sound of a body crossing the camera. The joys of filmmaking. Rob is floating around here somewhere, and from time to time he comes in to ask if any of us need drinks, being the conscientious host that he is. This is, by and large, the standard configuration of a Thursday night: a handful of tired men, toiling into the wee hours to bring you the latest in zombie satire. Jay, however, is a new addition to the Thursday crew, which I heartily approve of. (It’s so much easier to point out inane, useless potential changes in his scripts when he’s right at my side.
As for the discussion I have started on the material on our front page, I still say the jury is out. Some say yea, some say nay, some didn’t show up for the town meeting because they had better things to do. Keep those opinions coming, if you have any to share.
And now, I suppose I must hand the reigns back to Jay. So, Jay, if you were a Canadian province, would you privatize health care?
[JAY] (Fool! Don’t you know you always say ‘poplar’?)
And speaking of inane, pointless changes, anybody checking out the Democratic National Convention on the uper echelons of cable? I, like the majority of hip politically-minded and socially disengaged members of Generation X (read: target demographic) get all of my news from Jon Stewart’s consistently brilliant The Daily Show. (I’m not even kidding here, apparently there are polls that show the majority of “young people” get their news hence) It’s been a long time since “appointment television” was in my vocabulary, but when there’s a suitably connected television at hand, I’m loathe to miss their invigorating and insightful satire. Furthermore, this is, as far as I’m concerned, the least biased news show on television. And it’s fake! I was heartened to see tonights Boston audience (the show has relocated to cover the convention) greet Mr. Stewart with a well-deserved standing ovation. (Anyone else out there get the feeling that Stewart’s getting a little bit fed up from the asinine major-network news convention coverage?)
As per your query, Shane, as an erstwhile Albertan, of course I would privatize health care. And then I’d secretly bury any and all BSE infected cattle, throw millions to the meat-packing industry and turn a blind eye to their bilking the farmers, plagarize an essay, get soused, storm into a homeless shelter, and berate some homeless people, and get outright belligerent if anyone dares question my wisdom. All in a day’s work, I say.
My political stripes showing yet? I notice Shane’s about sixty-seven pages into Harry Potter: and the Goblet of Fire (man, Shane is soooooo 2000), so my “back-to-you Shane” question is, which of the following secrets would you rather I reveal:
- The winner of the Tri-Wizard Tournament
- What Draco, Ron, and Harry get caught doing with a cookie
- The father of Hermione’s baby
[SHANE] Most likely we should wrap this up, before people get so tired of playing front-page-post tag that they sick horrible, crippling viruses on us. If you have read this far without checking out the episode, go back now and download it, as it’s shaping up to be a zinger. Menacing zombies, ill-made lattes and cars full of cult members await. (Even more entertaining than Harry Potter, I assure you.)
And Jay, in answer to your question, I’d much rather you spent your time calculating just how old all the actors in the films will be by the time all seven are out. My bet is 42. (”I don’t want to play Quidditch today. My lumbago is killing me.”)
Goodnight all. Say goodnight, Jay.
[JAY] One last question, do you think that joke from Wayne’s World - you know: “Such and such is really cool and well-dressed… NOT!” - should be permanently retired. I mean, I still come across lamewad’s (most recently a National Post columnist) trying to pawn this off as pseudo-ironic humour. Agreed?
[SHANE] Agreed.
Jay and Shane. Improving the world, one lame joke at a time.
[JAY] Not.
(See! That joke’s deader than River Phoenix!)
Gone fishing…
July 27, 2004
This past week at Dead End Days, we’ve pulled something of a switcheroo. At the same time as Jay finally arrived in Toronto to join in the action first hand, Matt and I were whisking away to our respective homes. Matt, being the dynamo he is, went to help his mother move and after that to direct/stage manage The Imponderables as they made their appearance in the Montreal Just For Laugh’s Festival. I went just to remind myself that, despite the fact that I rarely get to see them or talk to them, my family does indeed still exist. Oh, and to get a nice healthy dose of unpolluted air.
This means that for the past week, I have not only been out of the loop, but have been in an entirely different province than the loop. And Brad, for the week, is filling about sixteen pairs of shoes, rather than his usual eleven. (Someone cue the ‘Charles In Charge’ theme song please) It’s strange, having been in the thick of it for so long, to see things coming together without my helping hand. It feels a bit like stepping off a bullet train while it’s still moving at full speed.
So as the project whizzes past me, what can I do? I can admire the paint job. I can see where the tracks might be getting a little rickety. And I can talk to a few of the people in the station. (Of course, I know most of the people in the station, but their opinion still counts, despite that.)
It has been an interesting experience, getting in-depth reactions to Dead End Days, and having my wits about me enough to take them in a little better than usual. There are a few opinions that seem to be universal:
1. Sam and Bridget are pretty darn cool.
2. Bruce sure is a nice young fellow.
3. Something big is about to happen, and if that something involves Bruce being hurt even the slightest bit, we will all be lynched.
Nice to know the characters are coming across so well, and I can’t say I disagree with any of the points. But as nice as it is to get compliments, that isn’t necessarily what I wanted. As always, however, it took a little prodding to get anything negative from my ever-supportive family and friends. But prod I did, and one small worry came up time and again:
We sure do talk a lot on our main page.
Which is something I never would have thought to consider as a problem. Aren’t most websites plagued with a lack of updates? The more the merrier, right? Besides, we’re all articulate, intelligent individuals. We have valuable opinions to share, don’t we?
Well, yes, but isn’t the central focus of the website the episodes?
Which, when you think about it, is a valid complaint. Sure we have a ‘First Time Here’ button, and the most recent episodes flagged at the top, but how much of our front page is really devoted to Dead End Days? Perhaps less than makes sense. Especially considering many of my friends have told me that they’ve spent a good couple of hours on our site, and never downloaded an episode. (Then again, maybe my friends are just lazy)
It’s a problem that comes up in almost any long-term endeavor. When you work on something long enough, it becomes very comfortable. And if you’re like me, the place where you’re most comfortable often becomes the place where you’re most cluttered. (Walking into my childhood bedroom was something like swimming upstream in a river of library books and underroos)
So, do we keep the soapbox on our front stoop, or move it further inside the house? And does any of this matter considering right now, Sam & Bridget have a contract to kill everyone’s favourite zombie?
Either way, remember that the reason we’re all here taking up bandwidth is for the sake of Dead End Days. So if you’ve only gone this far to date, make sure to press that ‘First Time Here’ button and see what we’re really all about.
[Shane raises an interesting point. The front page conceit is very much borrowed from the Webcomic convention invented by a certain Danish Astronomer. It's pretty much a given on comic sites that the front page blogs are superfluous to the actual "main" content, and are provided as a service to those looking for a little more "behind the scenes" insight into the making of said content, but also the issues the creators have been thinking about, the works they've been enjoying... that kind of thing. It also lets us regularly update more than once a week, for thos who need a little added incitement to keep us bookmarked. Much like the forums I don't think we ever expected even a small portion of our viewership would take part... but they're nice features for those who like that kind of thing. Then again, if people are actually offended that we've filled up the empty space under the "new episodes" section at the top of the page, I'd be interested to know about it. - Brad]
Jason Rothary Presents: The Internet
July 24, 2004
Doubtless you’re expecting another front-page rant from resident techno-\graphic-novel-\internet-\latte-phile Brad Fox. Well Brad’s dead. I mean, Brad’s tired. With Matt and Shane off gallavanting around in more french and female-genetalia-sounding Canadian cities respectively, he’s been doing the work of more than Brad. And while I’d like to say I’ve been of some help in these long and lonesome days, I mostly just sit around and watch other people do stuff. I’ve got to say, these newfangled computer editing software programs sure look complicated. I remember the good old days when editing meant shooting everything in sequence and then re-taping the raw footage off of the television while playing grunge music on a stereo set up next to the camcorder. Boy, was that ever caveman stuff.
Since I know next to nothing about the latest techno razzle-dazzle, and my knowledge of graphic novels is nil, and coffee is strictly Brad’s department, I can’t say I’m entirely sure what’s expected of me for this front page diatribe. But since typing is just about all I’m qualified to contribute to this vast and glorious enterprise, I’ll just have to fall back on my extensive Creative Writing training (and I’ve got a god-damn BFA to prove it, biatch!) and write a captivating stream-of-consciousness accompaniment to Mr. Episode Thirty-Four…what I’m told is our most complicated episode thus-far (post-production wise).
First and foremost: hats off to Brad. Doing the work of More Than Brad is more that we can rightly expect of Brad or anyone other than Brad. So here’s to Brad, and all the burgeoning Brad’s out there whose dedication to their respective crafts will see them physically and emotionally crippled far before their time.
So! Some thoughts on things that could potentially be linked to other stuff. Where to begin…
I know this is old hat to you hard-core dedicated internet surfers out there, but to my luddite-leaning kin who are but toe-dipping in the ocean of non-porn related entertainment the world wide web has on tap, why not check out homestar runner. I’d had this site sent to me by friends a few times over the years, but never gave it the time it deserved, and now I’m wholly addicted. For They Might Be Giants fans, this quirky band has teamed up with the homestar cartoonists on a wee delicious video. And check out the “Strongbad e-mail” section for hours of absurd flash-animation goodness.
One of my favourite flash-animation sites for some time now is operated by one Mark Fiore, who I discovered through Salon.com, an intelligent lefty political news site. Mr. Fiore unleashes one gorgeous satirical gem every Friday, and like all great political humorists, somehow manages to distill entire issues into a mere one-minute episode. And if anyone has lost track or hasn’t been paying attention, why not re-discover Gary Trudeau’s brilliant Doonesbury strip on-line, which - though identical to the ink version featured daily on pulped wood mass - can be deposited directly into your e-mail account each and every morning. Over the last couple of weeks Mr. Trudeau has gone on a fantastic tear, taking a huge illustrated dump all over Rupert Murdoch. This was prompted, of course, by the release of the new anti-Fox News documentary “Outfoxed“, which can be purchased on-line for a pittance. Track it down on DVD, as it won’t be released into theatres.
Speaking of documentaries, while my opinion of Michael Moore skews more Linda Ronstandt than Michael Wilson, we must agree to give the man props for bringing the documentary into mainstream prominence. It’s only through Moore’s popularity that many doc’s that would otherwise be consigned to minor video release in obscure alternative urban videostores are finally seeing decent theatre runs at quasi-mainstream theatres. And I’m not just talking “Super-Size Me“, but the fascinating “Control Room“, a searing inside-look at Al Jazeera’s reporting during the second Gulf War. And though I have next-to-no interest in Metallica’s music or their pointless efforts to criminalize the file-swapping fans who made them filthy rich in the first place, I thoroughly enjoyed “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster“. It’s so rife with both sincere and unintentional Spinal Tap-esque ego absurdity that it may well represent a new genre of film: the non-fiction mocumentary. Joe Berlinger - one half of the filmmaking team who shot “Some Kind of Monster” (along with Bruce Sinofsky, with whom he made “Paradise Lost” and “Brother’s Keeper” the latter of which I’ve seen and is well worth a rent) was responsible for the reprehensible “Blair Witch II: Book of Shadows“. I wouldn’t want to lapse into hyperbole and declare “Book of Shadows” the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it’s the worst film I’ve ever seen. To his credit, Berlinger attests to having spent the six months following “Book of Shadows” curled up ina fetal position in the corner of a dilapidated apartment. That, along with “Monster” goes some distance towards redeeming him in my eyes.
Winding back to Doonesbury and Mark Fiore for a moment, I remember discussing with my dad the fact that for a country as socially and politically screwed-up as the United States seems on occasion, it also happens to produce some of the best, most incisive political satire on the planet. Of all the admirable, intelligent, and pioneering American folk from every field and industry, their humorists are no exception. As with Brad, I am duly impressed.
Please Stand By…
July 23, 2004
Just to ward off frantic e-mails from the truly addicted - Episode 34 will be out today but likely much later tonight. Sorry for the delay, but as “Team Dead End Days” is scattered across the country this week it’s taking a little longer than usual to pack all four metric tonnes of fun into the episode by hand.
- Brad
Bi Coastal Curious
July 20, 2004
It’s been one year less a week since I was last in Toronto. I can’t remember what movie, if any, played on my flight back to Vancouver. Yesterday, however, my otherwise triumphant return to Canada’s epicentre was dealt ominous undertones by the in-flight presentation of The Whole Ten Yards. I haven’t seen the original Whole Nine Yards – I tend to play it safe and avoid the feature-length exploits of sitcom stars (not that I’ve got a problem with sitcoms or their stars, but there are certain undeniable rules of cinematic avoidance: don’t see movies featuring sitcom actors or the recipients of Best Supporting Actress Oscars. Don’t believe me? Mira Sorvino!) – and perhaps much of my confusion as to how a random series of unrelated scenes makes a movie might be resolved by doing so (though I doubt it), but it got me thinking about sequels.
After thinking about sequels for awhile, I decided it wasn’t a very interesting topic. Yes there have been a rash of high-calibre big-budget mainstream sequels that – contrary to how these things are supposed to go – are equal to, if not superior than, the originals (X-2, Spider-Man 2, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), but movies are such a frequent front page topic that I’ve decided to go a slightly different route. Though if I ever write a “Movies You Ought to Like, and if You Don’t, You Suck” column, you can be damn sure it’ll be Bride of Chucky, all the way.
I’m in Toronto both to get my hands dirty on two of the remaining three Dead End Days shoots, and lay the groundwork for our sophomore project. Coming from a theatre background, I’m well accustomed to the superstitious aspects of that particular medium. Doubtless many of you are aware that theatre artists must not utter the name Macbeth inside the theatre. (Macbeth was, by all accounts, a respected Scottish king. Eager for leverage to increase her control of Scotland, Elizabeth recruited Shakespeare to write what is essentially a smear campaign to sully the name of the then departed king, and portray Scotland as a den of iniquity badly in need of English intervention. For anyone who has been to Scotland, and knows the popular opinion re: England, you might be inclined to agree that if there were to be a vengeful spirit wreaking havoc in the world, it would be a Scottish king fucked over by the British.) If my experience is any indication, those who are frequently engaged in creative mediums don’t really know how they do what they do, and as with any form of ignorance, we can easily turn to supernatural explanations for the otherwise inexplicable. Be it muse or curse, the spiritual side of the creative arts is very real.
In film, there exists the Sophomore Jinx. That is those artists who establish themselves with a successful first effort are invariably doomed to failure with their second. Upon scrutiny, of course, the theory falls apart. For every Heavens Gate, you have your Pulp Fiction. American Graffiti blew THX 1138 out of the water. And yet the superstition persists.
As has been discussed in earlier production journals, Matt and Shane and Erin and I met in two separate productions of a show called On Deaf Ears, which was a collection of short works that we toured to several Canadian fringe festivals in the summer of 2000. Back at UBC that fall, I set to work on the script for our follow-up fringe tour. Holding firmly to the adage of “write what you know”, I decided to explore the ins and outs of our experiences as a fledgling company about to embark on its sophomore effort. The resultant play, Menace, is about a young screenwriter, Glen Lewis (loosely based of Christopher McQuarrie, of The Usual Suspects fame), whose second film (which he also directed) has just hit theatres. Buoyed by high expectations, increased studio pressure, and the overzealous diligence of his personal assistant Rupert, Glen is crushed as the dismal reviews pour in. With a treatment deadline looming, Glen finds himself struck with a severe case of writers block. Rupert packs Glen off to teach a seminar, and he returns with a script from one of the more eager attendees – Hayden. Much to Glen’s surprise, the script is good. Damn good. Rupert recruits two young recently married hit-people (sound familiar? They are indeed none other than Sam and Bridget) to kill Hayden so that Glen can take credit for the script himself.
Hijinks ensue.
The play is about being young and ambitious, about how much effort and energy goes into the creative process (whether you’re a writer or a killer for hire), how getting that first good gig can seem like the most important thing in the world, and how daunting following up a successful project can seem. It’s also about criticism – what strange bedfellows art and criticism are, and what a bloated sense of importance we artists bestow our critics. The power of opinion.
We immediately started having problems casting the show. (Keep in mind from writing the play, through rewrites rehearsals, our first production and departure was a nine-month process all-told.) I had originally written roles specifically for myself and four other actors, three of whom (including myself) were part of the first tour. Though the two other actors had expressed interest, a three-month tour making just under living wage isn’t the most enticing way to spend one’s summer. We recast three times, waited on one actor for over a month (he eventually declined), and had our lead drop out three weeks before rehearsals began. Matt miraculously cast the part with a friend he knew from Improv competitions – Adrian Prime – and with our full cast in place (myself, Matt, Adrian, Luisa Jojic, and a Vancouver friend – Steve Handelsman as Hayden) we undertook rehearsals.
Though there’s little point rehashing the details here, we had a falling out with our director, and parted ways one week into our three-week rehearsal process. Tobin Mollet, the co-writer and co-director of On Deaf Ears stepped in to helm the second week of rehearsals before leaving for Alaska. For the third week our frazzled cast agreed bring in my friend and MFA directing student from UBC – Stephen Drover (aka Drove). Drove kicked the play into gear and we mounted a five-day run at the (sadly now defunct) Vancouver Little Theatre.
We spent the next five days packing and preparing for our trip and left Vancouver the following Thursday for Montreal, the first stop on our tour. Vancouver’s arts and entertainment weekly – The Georgia Straight – hit stands just as we were leaving the city. Infamous theatre critic Colin Thomas gave the show a great, if not glowing, review.
To set the scene: as for the previous tour, we were driving my grandparents’ 1983 Colony Park station wagon. This is an enormous car with couches for seats, spacious trunk space, and killer faux-wood panelling. Matt was transporting all his worldly possessions back to Calgary (to store at his mom’s house in prep for an upcoming trip to Europe) in a U-Haul rent-a-trailer. All-told, I believe we represented a good thirty feet of vehicular stylin’.
An uneventful three-odd hours go by. A half-hour outside of Kamloops, BC, we hear a loud bang. I pull over, and we discover a tire on the trailer has blown. Matt calls the BCAA, who arrive to replace the tire. After ten or fifteen minutes, we notice our trusty BCAA tire-replacer looks somewhat perplexed. He confides in us that the tire that blew doesn’t seem to be the same size as the other. Regardless, he patches the tire, and we make our merry way into Kamloops to the Kal Tire, where they can replace the tire proper.
As it turns out, it wasn’t so much the tires being different sizes as the wheels. (This is illegal). Not only are the wheels mismatched, but they’re not even trailer wheels. And they’re not even the same kind of not-trailer wheels. One is seemingly off a wheelbarrow. We begin placing calls to the toll free U-Haul customer service phone numbers, of which there are three. Of those three, none seem particularly interested in providing customer service. Eventually an incredible Kal Tire employee convinced the automaton on the other end that we had grounds for a lawsuit. U-Haul reneged, and gave us directions to the local U-Haul dealership. Which was closed. Kindly enough, they’d left another trailer out front.
We loaded all of Matt’s worldly possessions out of the first U-Haul trailer and into the second U-Haul trailer. Though the wheels on this new trailer seemed (to the naked, untrained eye) to match – and, as an added bonus, to be trailer wheels (not wheelbarrow wheels) the brake light wires were not, in a word, working.
Eight hours after arriving in Kamloops, and eleven since leaving Vancouver, we were once again on our way. With no brake lights, but on our way nonetheless.
We drove nine hours through the night, with nothing out of the ordinary save for the strange, sulfury smell the car began to emit. This smell we could not locate, but assumed it wasn’t important because…well…we didn’t have any other choice.
Half an hour outside of Calgary, going a conservative ninety-five kilometres, the rear passenger-side wheel fell off our car.
Well, it didn’t so much fall off as the ball bearing split clean in half, all thirty feet of vehicular stylin’ spun 180 degrees, the trailer containing all Matt’s worldly possessions flipped upside down and the roof tore off like the lid of a tuna can.
Now, facing in the opposite direction, the car in a ditch, we bailed, and fast.
A truck pulled over, and the driver leapt out of the car, fire extinguisher in tow, and proceeded to spray down the rear passenger-side wheel well – sans wheel – which had caught fire. His work done, he leapt back in his truck, and drove away.
The next day (the rest of that day in fact) was something of a blur. I visited the insurance agency in the morning, started contemplating how I might finance purchasing or leasing a car (which, given my credit rating was a patently ridiculous notion). My parents graciously lent us their Pathfinder, but we had to find a trailer to make up from the reduction in space.
Long story short, we drive straight through Alberta, Sakatchewan, Manitoba, and the endless corridor of northern Ontario to Samuel Champlain Provincial Park (just north of Algonquin) to stop for a well=deserved day of rest. We pull into the park at two o’clock am, set up the tent, and everyone except for Adrian trundled off to take a shower. He goes to bed. Bad move.
Luisa and I are making our way back to the campsite in the relative pitch blackness when we hear a car horn honking. “How thoughtless,” we mumble before Adrian’s voice pierces the night: “Help! Help! For the love of God! Help!” (He might not have said “For the love of God!”, but I’m keeping it for dramatic effect.)
With little visibility, and a vague idea of where we’re going, Luisa and I run back at the campsite to find Adrian, tent-pole in hand, fending off six raccoons. The raccoons had infiltrated the tent, scared the living shit out of Adrian, and then proceeded to open my backpack and retrieve my vitamins. Indifferent to Adrian’s pole-swinging, one of the more dexterous raccoons was immersed in an effort to twist the cap off the vitamin container. If the cap hadn’t been childproof, I’d wager he’d have done it.
Long story short, the raccoons proceeded to terrorize our weary band of fringe tourists for the rest of the early morning. They seemed particularly keen on unzipping the door, and climbing on to people. Perhaps they were starved for affection, I’ll never know.
Next day – our “day off” – we decide to go swimming in the lake. A half-hour into our relatively relaxing sojourn, we begin to notice, amongst ourselves, the odd bead of blood appearing at random spots on each others’ exposed skin. Steve’s got one on his forehead, Luisa on her leg, Adrian on his leg and arm, and two on my face. We depart the lake post-haste, and realize that we’re under assault by black flies.
A staple of the Canadian wilderness, these affable little insects literally bite off chunks of your flesh. They’re like mosquitoes, but without the charm. For most, the black fly causes minor irritation and naught else, for others who are allergic – like, apparently, me – these flesh-chunk removals causes the surrounding flesh to swell. After the second night of raccoon terror, I awoke to find a melon-sized welt on my forehead, and my right eye swollen shut. For anyone familiar with the Toxic Avenger, this is pretty much what I looked like. There are pictures somewhere. They are horrifying.
We packed up the truck, and drove the remaining four hours into Montreal. Half-an-hour outside of Montreal, Matt received a call from the Fringe office on his cell phone. Our billeter has backed out. We have no place to stay.
(A billeter is a person who provides accommodation to poor travelling artists free of charge. Of course, like anything in life that’s free, sometimes you get what you pay for. This billeter back-out precipitated an entire summer of accommodation falling-through. Our accommodation did not work out in one single city. Not even Calgary, where both Matt and I are from.)
The next day, en route to tech our show, we got a flat tire. On the plus side, the wheel itself remained in tact.
Now, Fringe Festivals are comprised of anywhere from twelve to one-hundred-and-twenty shows. Montreal, at this point, featured upwards of eighty. Either way, you don’t get much time to tech your show. Three hours is standard. Our tech had been running relatively smoothly – we were behind schedule, but otherwise optimistic – until ten minutes from the end, our venue tech threw up her hands and announced that she couldn’t tech the show. It was just too complicated.
Damn.
To her credit, though I’d written what I’d hoped was not a tech-heavy show, there were a multitude of sound cues that were quite specific. And we’d made the mistake of recording these on a mini-disc, the player for which was small, its buttons smaller and difficult to make out in the pale-blue light of the tech booth, not to mention that, for some reason, there was a delay on the player. Not elements conducive to smooth operating. But given what we’d been through over the past five days, our spirits were not exactly buoyed by this good news.
Good but gruelling events followed. One of the beer-tent volunteers turned out to be a sound designer, and he agreed to run sound on our show. We spent seven hours in the condemned back annex of an abandoned box factory doing sound run after sound run. The show went up, wonkily, and over its six performances coalesced into a reasonably entertaining piece of theatre – so much so that we won the award for best English-language play, and a fall remount at Montreal’s esteemed Centaur Theatre. (This remount was to be overshadowed by the events of September 11th. The Montreal theatre community wasn’t so much in the mood for a black comedy about killers for hire as they were for the despicable but remarkably successful English premiere of Mambo Italliano. The theatre was so not keen to be presenting our “killer comedy” that they refused to allow us to use our poster. I understand that people often confuse tongue-in-cheek homage’s to pulp fiction novel covers with terrorists crashing planes into buildings.)
This isn’t the end of the story, but the remainder is a series of peaks and troughs that plays out over the following three months, and isn’t worth recounting here. I have often wondered if I irresistibly tempted fate by writing a sophomore show about a sophomore jinx. I am not an overly superstitious person, but I will not say Macbeth inside a theatre, I won’t whistle on stage, and I won’t deny that our sophomore effort, at least in this case, was an extraordinary test of endurance. Jinxed? Perhaps. But then, it was no The Whole Ten Yards.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…
July 16, 2004
First order of business is that I neglected to credit musical maven Kevin Dworak for the excellent piece of Sam and Bridget music we used in episode 32. At the time I expected to use it again in 33 and credit it accordingly, but it didn’t quite work the way we wanted it to, and it ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. I’m sure we’ll tap the rich musical vein of Kevin again before all is said and done so you certainly haven’t heard the last of him (incidentally Kevin also should have won many acting awards for his role as “annoyed guy trying to eat french fries”) in episode 22, which literally seems like yesterday.
There, now my conscience is clean.
This weeks new episode starts off a whole sequence that I’m really excited about. I don’t want to talk it up too much but it’s a real rollercoaster ride from now until the end of day three, and I hope you all enjoy the ride!
With our (not so) humble Co-Creator J-Ro arriving in the big smoke this weekend, and Matt and Shane coincidentally being out of town on the weekend, I’m sure we’ll have lots of wacky hi-jinx to share with you all next week. I’m sure Jay’s next production journal will read like a “Road To…” script, complete with requisite musical extravaganza and “escape through the marketplace” chase sequence.
On to the ranting! I can generally assume, either through direct knowledge or inference that a large portion of our regular audience have at least some skill in matters technological. As a barrier to entry, at least anyone who visits can at least put together how to download a video file off the web and play it. Directly I know many of you are IT wonks, basement tinkerers, or (as the kids say) have the “mad phat skillz“. So many of you have likely had a day like I did today where you become de-facto tech support for some type of group by nature of your skills. It’s common, when people have computer problems to turn to an authority with more knowledge, a co-worker, family member, the kid of the family next door… it’s such a common occurrence it’s cliche.
We’ve moved into a temporary office at work so there were lots of people setting up laptops and desktops this week and it just so happened that today I got called on several times in a two hour span to help co-workers with (mostly) mundane problems… setting up on the new network, transferring files, upgrading software. Nothing that required any serious geek work-out. However about the third time I tossed my handy USB Key Drive to someone I actually took a step back and looked at the situation. 90% of the office was convinced that the technology (a completely vanilla 3 year old 64mb drive) was miraculous. Some kind of intense technological secret that implied brilliance by those who wield it’s mighty power. This got me thinking about two things:
1. We loose focus living in the middle of what, I have no doubt, history will record as an information revolution. In less than a decade and a half, I’ve gone from trying to program a x80386 to play the theme song from “Silver Spoons” in Basic and looking forward to the release of DOS 5 to wirelessly accessing the internet on my powerbook to write a blog post (ostensibly) about the live action digital video series we edit, post-produce, and stream to hundreds of homes every week. From CGA to full fram DV. From Commander Keen to Doom 3. It’s easy to lose sight of the amazing advances that technology allows us with the everyday hassle of things not quite working 100%, but every time you e-mail a digital picture from your cell phone you should feel just a little bit impressed, don’t you think?
2. If we dust off Arthur C. Clarks famous “Third Law it’s easy to see how people can often assume their technological problems are beyond their reckoning and try to find a “tech wizard” to sort them out. I’ve often noodled with a concept for a short story about a future where a technologically trained elite are indistinguishable from Tolkien’s wizards bestowing boons and tribulations on an uneducated lower class who regard their “powers” with awe. However I stumbled across an interesting essay on McGees Musings about some of the dangers of allowing people to comprehend technological prowess with Magic. In my experience “technology as magic” is a double-edged sword - it can lead you to getting kudos, respect, and praise for finding easy solutions to problems that the other party assumes will be complex, but alternately, it can also lead them to expect your ability to perform miracles on every request and not understand when a request to get something working a certain way is just not feasible.
It’s a poor example of the latter, but during the Canadian election, due to some very unfortunate events in the news, Child Pornography on the Internet became a hot-button topic. Constant groups were interviewed bemoaning the lack of censorship by ISP’s on the content downloaded by their clients, and furious that such pornographic material was allowed to be available in Canada. Almost to a man these groups stated that they had no idea how the Internet worked, or how to fix the problem “but that it should be simple for someone to figure out how to remove this material.” And there’s the rub. By accepting technology as a magical infrastructure that is there, and the technically minded as Wizards, you distance yourself from the need to be informed on the operation and limitations of that technology. One report I listened to, even vaguely suggested that USB keychain drives (such as mine) were really only used by people looking to hide data from the police. I can only imagine what the segment would have been like had they realized that fingerprint secured automatically encrypted key drives exists… ignoring the huge list of legitimate uses for this technology.
While organizations such as the EFF work long and hard to protect the technological rights of everyone, there are (as I repeat over, and over, and over, every week) important issues of law, governance, and precedent that are being set every day on the Internet that will have a huge impact on all of our futures. It’s important to not be blinded by the magic, and forget about our responsibility to safeguard instead, this amazing thing humanity has built.
Something wicked this way comes…
July 9, 2004
[8:30pm Edit - Links are now fixed... sorry about that!]
And behind door number three we have… a new episode!
A quick note on decision2004 - at the “request’ of the Ninja party (who exit polls reveal are badly trailing in the vote) we will accept votes up until the end of the day Saturday, and then announce the results sometime next week. I don’t know about you guys, but there’s something strangely unnerving about hoards of angry ninja, peeved that they’re losing a glorified popularity contest.
All right so I haven’t waxed poetic about technology in a little bit so indulge me. ere’s some interesting news out of the EU that makes it seem possible that the very troubling EU “Competitiveness Council’ directive on software patents may be overturned. This is politically interesting as it would be one of the first cases of nations exercising their rights to change their votes retroactively because a domestic parliament felt it had been misrepresented by it’s EU representative, but also clearly signals that European governments are starting to listen to the very real concerns the general public has about software patents.
If you are coming late to the party on software patent controversy the executive summary is that while patent law is generally a question of libertarian vs conservative economic leanings there are very real companies that make a living as sort of “patent extortionists” by registering overly-broad patents for concepts such as “the scroll bar” or “one-click shopping” or “the desktop icon” and then threaten legal action to any developer who subsequently uses “their” idea in their own completely independent software – even if the implementation is completely different. The goal is to find targets that are large enough that they will just pay off the complaining party rather than get involved in a costly legal fight.
But Brad, you may ask, what does all this legal wrangling have to do with me? Well I can actually guarantee that it affects you because according to the fine folks at Acacia Technologies, we are violating a whole bucket-full of their patents at the moment by transmitting video and audio information over the internet. Note that it’s not because of how, or why, or a particularly clever way we do this. Just the simple fact that we are sending video over the Internet has gotten sites other than ours much harsher letters from Acacia’s lawyers. This kind of “overly broad” patent bullying has even earned the good folks at Acacia the number one spot on the EFF’s top 10 most wanted patents project.
If such esoteric concepts are already butting up against sites like ours it’s not hard to see that a monumental battle to determine the future of software is going to take place over the next few years. In one corner the free and open-source software advocates believe that you should have the right to see, use, examine, learn from, modify, and redistribute every aspect of the software you use daily. On the other end is folks like Acacia who think that not only should every program be inscrutable and proprietary – but even the underlying conceptual elements of each program should net hefty licensing fees for those who get to them first.
I suspect (as is usually the case) that the ultimate solution lies somewhere in the middle of the two points, but given the behaviour of the various camps in the last couple of months – I certainly know which side of that spectrum I’d rather err on.
July 6, 2004
Well, it’s time for another Tuesday production journal, and I guess it’s finally my turn again. Judging by the length of time since my previous journal, I’m guessing that Brad doesn’t think too highly of my talents. Egotistical jerk.
Anyway, since (as per normal) I find myself trying to write something as the deadline rapidly approaches, I’ll stick with a centuries-old writing technique specially designed to deal with a lack of creativity – namely, plagiarism.
So, without further adieu, I present to you the first (and possibly only) installment of:
FILMS YOU OUGHT TO LIKE (BUT FOR THE WRONG REASONS) by Rob Fox
Yes, you know what I’m talking about. Those “classic” films that are in one way or another so incredibly bad or completely bewildering that one can’t help but admire them. Those sub-par films that you will likely watch many times in your life simply because they are thoroughly entertaining - but not neccesarily for the reasons that the filmmakers intended. I’m sure that many of you can think of a good half-dozen such movies right off the top of your head, but for me, the title of “Heavyweight Champion” in this collection belongs to but one film…
DOLEMITE (1975) – Starring (and written by) Rudy Ray Moore.
What do you get when a bunch of small-time, b-list filmmakers take on the blaxploitation genre (introduced to a wide audience four years earlier with the release of “Shaft”) with a fraction of the budget, shooting locations almost entirely located in South-Central L.A., and a star/writer who was best known for his “proto-rap” poetry and African-American comedy of the 60’s and 70’s? Well, you get this gem of a film.
The premise is simple: Dolemite, a renowned pimp, hustler, and general badass, is released from prison several years early. The reason is that the prison warden (and local “generic fed”) needs his help in tracking down “Mr. Big”, who has been pushing drugs on the street and generally treating the neighborhood hoes poorly.
Needless to say, after being released, Dolemite actually does very little crime fighting. He eventually tracks down the infamous Willie Green (played by the film’s director, D’Urville Martin), but it’s less about getting drugs off the street and more about Dolomite getting “The Total Experience” (his strip club) back. No sir, Dolomite has no time for crime fighting; what with all the time he spends partying with his hoes, who incidentally possess killer Kung-Fu skills. This shortage of time is exacerbated even further by the fact that he appears to change his clothes every 2-3 hours. But I digress. Early in the film, he also vows to discover who is pushing illegal guns on the streets, since one such weapon led to the death of his young nephew. However, although it becomes painfully clear that a local preacher is responsible, Dolemite apparently decides that it isn’t that important after all, and ignores this side plot for the rest of the film.
Several colourful side-characters add to the dramatic tableau that is this film: the heroin-addicted “Creeper”, who is affectionately referred to as the “Hamburger Pimp”. No, I am not making this up. In fact, he’s so bad that he kicks his own ass “twice a day”. No, I didn’t make that up either. There’s also Mayor Daley, who is obviously corrupt from the first time he takes the screen, but don’t tell Dolomite – that would ruin all the fun! There’s the corrupt, bumbling pair of coke-addicted narcs who continually get the crap kicked out of them by Dolomite. And of course, we have “Queen Bee”, who is… well… the “queen bee” of Dolomite’s hoes. Making the film even better is the fact that in virtually every scene, a boom mike, crew member, or equipment shadow is visible.
In short, anyone who claims to be an expert at the best of the worst can’t truly be if they haven’t experienced Dolemite. The movie (and Rudy Ray Moore) have developed a kind of cult following among some. I own the DVD, and have watched the entire movie at least 2-3 times over the last couple years. And each and every time I fire it up, it never fails to deliver, in the words of the film’s official tagline, “Bone-crushing, Skull-splitting, Brain-blasting ACTION!”
And isn’t that what it’s all about?
The opposition rebuts
July 4, 2004
As the donut party seemed to have no interest in providing us an ad for tomorrows decision 2004 vote the spot went to their opposition who have provided us with their take on their opposition.
The vote starts tomorrow… so you won’t likely want to miss that will you?
[Edit]The voting booth is now open, so go vote!
Fire in the hole!
July 2, 2004
First, a little house-keeping:
I’ve given up on the third party for decision 2004 getting us any promo material to post… in fact, they haven’t returned any phone calls. In fact, I’m not sure they can talk. So instead I offered their space to the competition and the Ninja and DeadEndDays parties have agreed to work together to get us something for tomorrow evening. I don’t know what common ground those two camps may share, but it should be interesting.
Also for those of you dependent on our text re-caps, our apologies for getting a little behind but the ‘Story so Far’ section is now caught up again.
Finally, we have a new episode. But you’re starting to take that for granted aren’t you? AREN’T YOU?
Well with that out of the way, on with the post. There was a lot to celebrate this Canada Day in Dead-ville. For starters Double-Double is now an official entry in the Oxford Canadian English Dictionary, all Canadians were sent holiday greetings by the Sultan of Brunei and Austrians are finding innovative excuses to blow up soccer-playing-robots with land-mines. Into such a festive atmosphere I really couldn’t bring myself to write about anything to weighty, so instead I’d like to take this opportunity to salute a young man who in the past week has come to signify all that is good about youth: that unique blend of guts, intelligence, ingenuity, and complete lack of common sense that leads to greatness. Some train for greatness their whole life. Some have it thrust upon them. Some build home made flame throwers out of PVC and get their Mom’s to video-tape them as they strap pressurized tanks of denatured alcohol to their backs and launch 25-foot flames down a residential street.
Certainly the concept of “home made weaponry” is not new. the potato cannon is almost a rite-of-passage for the budding mechanical engineer. And there are those out there whose DIY projects are more epic in scope or more complex, but I think what captured my imagination about the achievement of Mr. RolandTower is the amount of panache with which he carried off the affair.
I am certain that when historians from the future sift through the ruins of the “digital revolution” the world will finally come to recognize the tremendous impact the Something Awful forum goons have had on influencing many influential humour, news, and e/n sites and within that hallowed subset a seat of honor should be reserved for RolandTower, truly carrying off the dangerously ill-advised with style, grace, and veracious gusto. Congratulations Roland - should you ever come to the Great White North, look us up and the Doublt-Double will be on our tab! Incidentally, try not to blow yourself up dude.
