One Last Sandbag

So here we are: 1/4 of a basis point from free money. Thank heavens the banks are still making 2% on whoever they deign to give money. Otherwise this whole creaky thing will wobble, fart and fall down.

How in the name of all that's holy was this allowed to happen? Was it a handful of genies chained in the basement of Darth Goldman Sachs? Magic Beans? Vast Psychotic Irresponsibility? WTF?

How do trillions of dollars go *poof*? And, does the Kurrent Keystone Government have any idea what they're doing? I'm not confident. Indeed, after rejecting tax relief as folly, half-assedly budgeting 'stimulus' and, well, just waitin' to see what the other feller does, things look grim for Mr.Harper.

So my guess is this puts the Klowns in a real bad place. So bad that they're willing do to make a deal with )gasp( Socialists!

When there's only one sandbag left, one throws it wherever they can, I suppose.

The Original Six

So, 'E.R.' is gone. Everybody who cares knows. I was never a real die-hard watcher but, still, have to admit that what I saw was mostly pretty good. A little soapy, but well-written, well-shot, edited and produced. So, now, what I assume to be it's replacement has begun to air. The production team behind 'E.R.' seems to have gone outside the ward, left Chicago's meaty fist and submarined their steadicams into the un-rarified air of the howling, violent, trash-tattooed and freak-filled streets of Lost Angeles.

'Southland', at least the episode I've seen, seems pretty good. It's real gritty. And the characters are watchable. The 'Training Cop', the guy that looks like T.J. Hooker, is my favourite. Plus, other characters kept asking 'The Rookie' - who looks like a '90210' character - if he's Canadian. Nice touch. The super-plot was pretty compelling, and the sub-plot was bile inducing. But what really struck me were the production values: Great cinematography and camera work, subtle editing, some really good writing in parts and sympathetic characters. Bonus points for the fact that they used The National's shiver-making "Fake Empire" for the wrap-up montage. Truly inspired.

So far so good, then. What remains to be seen is how they get past the 'Original Six' .

After a show get's the greenlight for its pilot, if that's up to snuff they get the go ahead to make six episodes that will then go out into the world and try to make it on their own. Since failure is always an orphan, everybody stands back and lets the show's creators do their thing. The result is usually some pretty good television because everybody involved is working their asses off to make the most of the limited funds they have. So you get six episodes of really creative Teevee. This is the Test Pattern that I've observed

If a show vaults that six-episode hurdle, well, victory has a thousand fathers. So the thumbprints start becoming apparent: Stories get weaker, craft slips and the budget is pulled places it ought not go (payroll for the six new Executive Producers anyone?). More voices, more second guessing, more at stake for more egos and the thing can potentially get feeble. I really hope it doesn't happen with 'Southland', but my bets are it's off by summer.

It makes me wonder about the British model. Generally, the really good stuff I can recall - 'Hidden Agenda' for example - were six episodes total. As was the original of 'State of Play'. The Gervais 'Office' was, I think, 14 episodes in total. They get in, do the series, and get out before there's a chance for any shark jumping. It just seems like a way better model. It's been used to some effect in Canada - 'Water' or 'Durham County' for example - but we should use it in here more often. More people would be employed, more production would be in play and we could start to really reinforce the industry here.

That said, after five seasons, Brent Butt and David Storey left the crowd wanting more 'Corner Gas'. 'Flashpoint' is in for 26 episodes, I guess. And 'The Listener' has U.S. pick-up. So the model seems to be working for some. I just think it's way too hard to maintain quality over that kind of stretch. People get too fat and happy. A constant onslaught of really compelling Original Six series would, I think, really pick domestic production up and put it on the pedestal it deserves.

Meanwhile, it's 'Southland', 'The Unusuals' and old saved episodes of 'Intelligence'.

The Humorous Right

Whatever happened to them? I mean, of course, those conservatives who actually had a good point and were able to articulate and argue it an engaging and witty way. I personally know one, a lawyer, who can systematically dismember idiotic leftist arguments, bread them in corn flour and swallow them whole. All done with a hearty grin n' guffaw. Mind this person is a rarity: A Red Tory, whose breed is being mercilessly hunted out of existence by Gun Nuts, Theo-Cons and certain senior female Conservative Senators.

Canada, sadly, seems bereft of this breed these days. Those 'conservatives' prominent in the blogosphere (Canadian branch plant division) are either shrill and annoying (Levant), Crazee and Racist (Shaidle) or just plain mean (Small Dead Animals - though she(?) can be pretty funny on occasion.) Coyne is an able shredder of lefty - and, occasionally, right-y tropes, but he has as much humour as a head nun flexing a hickory switch.

And down south? My gawd. There's a whole movement who call themselves 'tea-baggers'. Except, well, they don't really see the humour in that. These 'TeaBaggers' are being goaded on by a 'Rodeo Clown' named Glen Beck. Have you seen or heard of this guy? He stands in front of a giant screen, his pasty pudge topped with a Bircher's crew cut ("Two on the top, one on the sides. There's an extra quarter in it for you, Wilson.") while a Riefenstahl loop plays in the BG. He then alternatively a) weeps for his country, b) warns that the USA is sliding towards fascism or c) seemingly advocates that militias take up arms - Soon! Now! - because the gubmint is gonna take 'em away any day now. He's a gas if you like watching psychological train wrecks. But, this dude has one of the highest rated shows on cable-outlet Fox News, also home to the Laughin' Coughlin Twins, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. That said, critiques of American foibles are always best left to 'Muricans

Here at home, I must admit that the Prime Minister displayed an able sense of humour when he blustered that the leader of the opposition lacked a 'moral compass'. Why? Because Mr. Ignatieff had the temerity to call former PM Mulroney on the occasion of his 70th Birthday. It wasn't just the slapstick fact he did so while reports of the Keystone Konservatives scrappin' over the very same ex-PM began to surface. I also found it high-larious that any politician should lecture anybody else about moral compasses. Let alone Mr. Harper. I would suggest our current PM needs an 'irony GPS'.

Meanwhile, Conservative humour here seems to be jokes about 'death by a thousand cold cuts' during a fatal outbreak caused by...wait for it...tainted deli meats. Snort. Mind you, the whole 'shifting the goalposts' schtick with that guy stuck in the Canadian Embassy in Sudan has a certain humour, Kafka-esque though it is. It would be a funny screenplay - like 'Observe and Report'....oh, wait.

So where are the commentators like Tom Wolfe and P.J. O'Rourke? Wolfe, for example, ably skewered liberal silliness over and over again - most memorably in 'Radical Chic: Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers'.

Neither Wolfe nor O'Rourke needed talking points to pants their targets. They made sly observations, articulated them with acid humour and left the field while the objectives of their mirth could still pick themselves up, re-fasten their suspenders and slump sheepishly off.

See, Conservative Humour shouldn't be an oxymoron. Step up to the plate, people. Otherwise, all we've got is the unintentional stuff like *snicker* Rex Murphy's G&M columns, 'Daryl Kramp', 'Have a Blast' and 'Moral Compass'.

Birth, Work, Flu

I have been tardy in my updates, thanks largely to an astounding simultaneous convergence of those things mentioned in the title. However, back at 'er.