The comic art world has been mucho impressed with the paintings of Alex Ross...and I guess it's no secret that Alex often uses live models in his work. One of them is his friend, Frank Kasy. Here's an article about how Frank gets transformed into Superman. Thanks to Bruce Reznick for the link.
I don't do book reviews here. I just recommend books written by friends and I'm way behind in doing this.
Most of these are easy because they fall into the category of "If you have any interest in the topic, you should buy this book." That's the case with Monty Python's Tunisian Holiday, a new volume by Kim "Howard" Johnson, who's easily the world's foremost authority on all things Python. During the making of Life of Brian, Kim went over to be a part of the filming as a stand-in, aide and diarist. He kept detailed notes on everything that happened on the set and this new book is based on those notes.
Kim is an excellent reporter and that's darn near all you need to know. It means you get an intimate and fascinating account of how that wonderful movie was made, with insights into all the Pythons and their supporting players. So what are you waiting for? Order a copy from Amazon by clicking here.
David Sirota has been tracking a talking point which is turning up increasingly in the news, courtesy of Conservative pundits. It's the one that insists that this country — which just elected a more Democratic House of Representatives, a more Democratic Senate and a new president who these same pundits called a radical socialist — is "still" a "center-right" nation. In fact, some even argue that this trend in voting proves that Americans want governance to skew rightward.
While I'm near the topic, I'd like to restate my opinion as to why "Liberal Talk Radio" isn't a big hit in this country. Two or three times since Election Day, I've tuned in Air America and each time, what I heard was Randi Rhodes whining and telling us how awful things are. From the tone of her voice, you'd think voters had swept McCain-Palin and every G.O.P. candidate into office in a landslide. By contrast, the one time I let my dial drift over to Rush recently, he was talking about how this election was the best thing that could possibly happen to the Conservative movement because it'll force the Republicans to purge their ranks of the Liberal Republicans-in-Name-Only who cost them the election...and meanwhile, Democrats will take all the blame for The Obama Recession. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Limbaugh is actually somewhat entertaining because nothing fazes the guy. All news is good news for his side. Ms. Rhodes, by contrast, had me wondering: If she isn't happy now, when might that ever occur? I don't agree with everything she says but even when I do, it's too damn depressing to hear her say it. Rachel Maddow, who follows her on KTLK here in L.A., is a lot better but she still doesn't cheerlead for her side the way right-wing Talk Radio does for its team. Which is why, I think, she doesn't have as many listeners.
Lastly in this area, we need to change things on Los Angeles radio. Limbaugh is on KFI, which is 640. That's all the way on the left of the radio dial. Air America is on KTLK, which is 1150, all the way over on the right. These broadcasts need to change places. It's just got to be too confusing for anyone whose I.Q. is low enough to listen regularly to either.
Can you name anyone alive who's better at their job than Vin Scully is at his? As we near sixty years of "The Ol' Redhead" doing play-by-play for the Dodgers, I'm still stunned by this perfect match of man and mission. My interest in the team (in baseball at all) plunged when my local team no longer consisted of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills and others of that era. To this day, when I tune in a game, it's not because of whoever's currently wearing the Dodger uniforms. It's to enjoy the sheer beauty of Vin Scully describing whatever the hell those guys out there pretending to be Dodgers are doing.
Yesterday afternoon, I attended a luncheon in Mr. Scully's honor. Most of it consisted of colleagues heaping praise on the man and him turning the color of his hair in humble embarrassment. The first speaker was Jonathan Winters who, I'm happy to report, looked to be in pretty good health. The last before the honoree was Tommy Lasorda, who was nice enough to leave some food for the rest of us. Vin told a hilarious story about Dodger history which I can in no way recreate here...and anyway, you'd have to hear him tell it.
This was a function of the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters, a group which among its other activities, honors three "legends" of TV or radio each year with these luncheons. Sometimes, the criteria for honorees seems a bit thin and you can tell that some in the hall are pondering, "Why are we toasting that guy?" Not this time. This time, everyone was asking why they're only now getting around to Vin Scully. The sheer unanimity of respect was something to behold.
In this post, I typoed the date when Turner Classic Movies is running the movie, The Runaway. I've corrected the post so it has the correct date, which is Sunday, November 30.
One of the big lies of the TV business is that "reality shows" are unscripted. Just about every such show has a couple of folks who oughta have the title of Writer but aren't called that because the producers don't want to work under the auspices of the Writers Guild of America, West. I'm not sure how much of this is because they want to pretend everything on the show is spontaneous and how much is because they just don't want to pay WGA rates and abide by the list of things that the WGA says you can't do to its members.
It doesn't have to be like this, of course. Some "reality shows" (I'm deliberately using the quotes) are WGA signatories and in the eighties, when the term was coined for a certain new kind of program, almost all were, including a show I worked on. We wrote narration. We wrote seeming ad-libs for the on-camera participants. We also helped work out scenarios for what would be filmed and helped structure the storylines created in the editing room.
It is not true that a "reality show" points its cameras at things that would have happened even if the video crew wasn't present. Someone arranges for the participants to be there, someone "casts" them, someone plots (in the same way a writer plots a screenplay) the challenges and problems they will confront. Writers may or may not write some of what the people say, and of course someone writes narration and introductions and voiceovers. In the editing process, the footage is structured to create a narrative and during that process, someone may be doing much the same kind of work that a Writer does when involved in the editing process on a fiction show.
The Writers Guild is attempting to bring down the lie that "reality shows" don't have Writers. One effort towards that end is this video, which explains how Writers participate in the creation of the WGA-signatory series, Intervention. Give it a look...
November 23, 2008
