Hollywood's Great Right Hope

Joel Surnow is the executive producer and creative force behind the Fox's undeniably entertaining flagship show 24. He's long been a Hollywood player, getting his big break in 1984 as the head writer for that decade's flagship show Miami Vice. Surnow is also a "right-wing nut job."

He called himself exactly that without a bit of irony in a February 26, 2007 New Yorker interview. Well maybe a bit of irony. After all, his latest creation is The 1/2 Hour News Hour, a right-leaning fake news show Fox News launched in February to counter the perceived liberal bias of The Daily Show. Should we be worried? Does Surnow's creative horsepower mean a regime change in left-leaning Hollywood? It's not as improbable as you might think.

Fake News Is About Jokes, Not Politics
It's easy to cast off Surnow and his Fox News ilk as desperate fools after a quick view of 1/2 Hour News Hour clips. The anchors haven't gotten into character (a basic prerequisite of fake news), and the laugh track in place of a studio audience is laughable.

But Fox News just bought 13 more episodes of the fake news show, so they may yet have time to find their feet. Doing so won't be about studio audiences nor great anchor performances. Success hinges on the answer to one question: Is The 1/2 Hour News Hour loyal to political strategy or loyal to the joke?

Let's hope it's the former because that guarantees failure in satire. Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin and Stephen Colbert are widely credited for the current formula of The Daily Show (and The Colbert Report). They are just as widely quoted saying that their only loyalty is to the joke. They live and die every show as comedians, not pundits.

Loyalty to laughs over liberalism is why The Daily Show became so successful since Jon Stewart took over in 1999, and that's why they're as strong as ever -- even after Democrats recently took over two-thirds of Washington.

Limbaugh/Coulter Are Satirists, Not Pundits
The Washington political game is mostly a game of media. Sure politics are focused on law, diplomacy, economy, military, etc., but it’s all driven and sold by media. Few people in Hollywood know this better and have more resources than Surnow.

He's done with fiction exactly what Stewart/Colbert/Karlin did with fake news in that 24 flawlessly straddles political content and pure entertainment. The show takes you deep inside Washington’s war on terror without ever taking a forthright partisan position. Every week (or hour as it were) on 24, Cheney-like sociopaths in plush offices battle with honorable soldiers in the field to make impossible decisions in the thick of worst-case terrorist scenarios.

Heavy political issues like torture, suspension of civil rights and racial profiling are all integral to the show. Yet even the most liberal people I know love 24 for it's entertainment value, and it has even become a (somewhat) safe topic for me to bat around with right-wing nut jobs at work.

This is why it's highly probable that Surnow could make his right-leaning fake news show a success. In one way, success of The 1/2 Hour News Hour would be positive because it would expose Surnow's fellow nut jobs like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter as satirists rather than actual political pundits. At least that way, it would be easier to attack their credibility.

Some might also argue that a right-wing competitor to the Comedy Central power hour would pull Stewart and Colbert deeper into politics and punditry -- which could be positive. But it's never going to happen. Remember: they deliver jokes, not talking points.

However it shakes out, we need to keep a close watch on Surnow. If media controls politics and Surnow increasingly controls Fox media, then I am worried. He is Hollywood's great right hope.

State Of The Union, Idiocracy Style

State of The Union speeches are an American institution. Through the generations, presidents delivering them open with a brief appraisal of the present then follow with longer plans for a more prosperous and smarter future.

But George W. Bush's speech Tuesday night was the exact opposite. In the core of his address, he used just 431 words to suggest how smart new technology in the future might reduce our dependence on foreign oil, then followed with a staggering 2536 words justifying an immediate increase of our military presence in the world's oil epicenter.

Bush flipping the historical State of The Union formula on its head is an ominous sign of a nation in decline ... a nation headed for a less prosperous and dumber future. This is exactly what Mike Judge prophesizes in his latest movie Idiocracy. It takes place in the year 2505, and the President of Uh-merica is former pro wrestler Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.

President Camacho's America is hurting a lot worse than ours but he goes back to basics in his stirring 141-word State of The Union performance. He begins, as our forefathers templated, with a brief appraisal of the present: "Shit. I know shit's bad right now." Then he follows with a masterful three-point plan.

See for yourself below. And since we can't prevent our leaders from taking us to hell in a fast food bucket, let's at least thank Judge for entertaining us along the way.

President Camacho's State of The Union-Idiocracy

Tom Delay's New Blog

In a feeble attempt to salvage any political relevance he might have, Tom Delay launched a blog today. I tried to post a comment, but shortly after learned that they shut down comments. For now, I am posting my comment below, but better yet, huge kudos goes to blogger James Risser who created a site this morning chronicling the first 111 comments on Delay's blog, "a tribute to the 75-minute period where tom delay actually received feedback from America. The experiment has now ended, but, this blog has taken a snap-shot". Go see this site. The truth is priceless.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Tom: Welcome to the real world of mainstream media - or MSM as you call it. I was moved by your mission statement on the importance of the blogosphere in "breaking through the liberal MSM clutter" and keeping "our elected officials true to principle."

Now that you've removed the big media shield between you and the mainstream (yea, that's us, your actual constituents), it will be interesting to see how you talk about how your criminal indictment for "conspiring to inject illegal corporate contributions into state elections," "re-ordering Texas congressional maps" and other such true-to-principle Republican pastimes. As you say, the importance of the blogosphere in shaping and motivating these GOP movements is unquestionable...

Ballpoint Boxing Now Called 'The Pentender'

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we made this absurd video called Ballpoint Boxing Championships -- which is a boxing match between two boxing pens -- and it's gotten almost 300k views on youtube. So we decided to step it way up for fight number 2. We've renamed the series The Pentender and posted below ... embrace the absurdity.

Beckham Critics Are Deluded Fools

ESPN just ran a great piece countering objections to David Beckham eventually playing for MLS. Beckham critics say MLS signing him is fiscally irresponsible, that he's a has-been, and that he'd only give MLS a temporary and minor boost.

To say it like this Brits, this is absolute rubbish. When Baywatch was in its prime about 10 years ago, a Playboy story famously said "Baywatch critics are deluded fools, 2 billion viewers can’t be wrong." This couldn’t be more applicable to the global David Beckham enterprise, and even if he totally sucked (however unlikely), his first MLS season alone would singlehandedly give U.S. soccer the final push it needs to break into the mainstream. That’s worth any price the league has to pay.

And of course, it certainly wouldn't hurt if Posh was constantly on the cover of every magazine.

Ballpoint Boxing Gets 246k Views & Counting

I made the Ballpoint Boxing video below a couple weeks ago in a fit of procrastination. It took less than an hour to film, edit and post. I didn't want to post it because it was more for practicing video editing than anything else, but did anyway. Then it got featured on youtube's homepage and it's gotten almost 250k views. The comments are interesting because there's NO middle -- either love or hate. But the response was surely enough motivation to do another, and with some refined concept ideas from other guerillas and commenters (and a few more weeks of video editing under my belt), the next version should be much improved. I will post it here but until then, here is installment one of Ballpoint Boxing (soon to be re-named):

Bearvolution Green Screen Challenge

Stephen Colbert's "not-a-contest" green screen challenge just ended and a winner was crowned, but that was before the deadly Barry Ours migrated down to the studio to do a green screen of his own. So watch Barry kill everything in his path, then head over to Bearvolution to download the .mov or .mpg files for editing. Upload to youtube, and send a note to [guerilla @ guerillasphere.com] so we can post it on the Bearvolution site.

Dennis Miller: More Laughable As Comedian or Pundit?

Last night, Dennis Miller was on the Daily Show and Jon Stewart asked him if sometimes he woke up late at night in a cold sweat wondering if he "got on the wrong horse." This was a very diplomatic way of asking why Miller got on his self-described libertarian high horse (translation: right-wing horse). Miller diffused the question with humor, and for the first time since the 1990s, I was entertained by him.

It got me to thinking about why he went wrong, around 2000 or so, after being funny for so many years. His embarrassing Monday Night Football stint aside, Miller went wrong not because he hung his hat on political commentary, but because he betrayed his comedic roots. He spent twenty years being a comedian then tried to reinvent himself as a legitimate pundit. And like most pundits, he conjured more laughability than laughs. Miller's low point was when he launched a pubilc affairs talk show on CNBC in 2004, which couldn't have been less comedic even when he was trying. But he rarely tried. Instead, he tried to be a high-brow informer and the show lasted just over a year.

My theory is that he looked at how Bill Maher parlayed his political comedy into credible political punditry. The thing Miller missed is that Maher, for however serious he has been on Politically Incorrect and Real Time, knows he's a comedian at the core. He's quiet about it because appearing on cable news shows as a pundit is good for his bank account. But he ultimately knows that comedy brings home the thickest bacon, the finest hookers and the kindest weed. If he didn't know, why would he joke about hookers and weed all the time? What true pundit would, or could?

Stewart and his Comedy Central ilk have known the answers to these questions for years. They're so successful because they are true to only one thing: the joke. Stewart, Colbert and producer Ben Karlin have made this public record in countless interviews. Sure, there's political bias in their material, but even with new White House or Capitol Hill occupants, they would still thrive -- because it's not about punditry nor bias. It's about the joke.

Miller was truly a joke last time he was on The Daily Show (about a year ago) because he was on a comedy show trying sell himself as a pundit. Many episodes like that made Miller a guy I love to hate in recent years, but I will admit, there was a time he was one of my favorite comedians. At least last night, he showed a few signs that he's still loyal to the laugh.

GSfm

Test, test. My most recent Lastfm playlist. Matthew Shaer shunned music recommendation sites on Slate last week. The piece had a decent underlying how-will-these-sites-make-money story angle, but never mentioned that recommendations are one small component of a site like Lastfm. I must say, from from the perspective of a music geek using the site rather than a writer trying sell a story, Lastfm keeps getting better.

Weird Al Is Dope

Parody or not, Weird Al's new rap proves he can rhyme (and write) better than most self-labeled real MCs. Nice Seth Green cameo too.

Weird Al Yankovic: White & Nerdy

Bloodsport: So Fresh And Full of Life

Nothing gets to Dux. He's staying fresh, staying cool even as a coupla goons try to prevent his predestined Kumite victory.

Olbermann Apes Murrow, Finally

Liberals deserve the soft, weak, with-the-terrorists definitions given to them by conservatives ... unless they're willing to defend their own, equally forthright views. Keith Olbermann provided a template for doing so Monday night in his Edward Murrow-esque 9/11 editorial, speaking pointedly about the difference between politics and leadership. The irony is that Olbermann's editorial wasn't liberal at all. It was the first non-partisan, populist and non-satirical stance big media has taken in years. Of course it will be labelled liberal by neocons too lost in their own bluster to know any better, but that's fine. Liberals should take this while they can get it.

Video and full text below...



Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?

A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."

And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you.

[Then, in a fully-earned ape of Edward Murrow, Olbermann concluded with a noticably humble "Good night, and good luck."]

Maher Clarifies Gibson's Jew Issues

In a comment on the last post, I said that Comdedy Central was perhaps the only reliable source for compelling, entertaining political content with a left or centrist or even logical slant. But I forgot about Bill Maher. The last I saw him was when he did a skit of a White House press conference on his show when Scott McLellan had just quit as press secretary. It was funny, but downright lackluster compared to Stephen Colbert's same treatment of the topic on that same week.

Colbert blew Maher away (begins in minute 16:00).

Granted, skits are Colbert's career-long territory and nobody can touch him. Maher's untouchable territory is when he's weaving accessible pop culture events into the broader political discussion using his own voice. He's not out there everyday, which is why his messages and his approach get lost in all the noise ... but his piece yesterday called The World IS Mel Gibson is a nice reminder that liberals and centrists can put out content that's easily as entertaining and compelling as what the conservative machine pumps out. Or, if these adjectives don't satisfy conservatives, I'll just label the content with a euphemism they can understand: provocative.

Maher is that if nothing else. And just so we're clear: Maher is definitely "with us" or "on our side" or whatever else you want to call the opposite of some this-or-that rubric from Karl Rove's memo pad.

What's News: Mel Gibson's Arrest or Who Broke The Story?

What's bigger news? Mel Gibson's recent drunk driving arrest and the surrounding anti-semitic fallout? Or is it TMZ, the site that broke the Gibson story? Newsweek's top feature today about AOL/Telepictures' joint venture TMZ makes this seemingly black and white question much more grey. The Newsweek piece is only the latest example in the media world's ongoing and rapid migration from traditional journalism to straight-up entertainment.

In the piece, Newsweek says that TMZ "has the look and feel of a blog with a journalistic pedigree. A typical day includes updates on the marital status of Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, video footage of Ashlee Simpson arriving at a Hollywood hotspot and whether Ben Affleck caught a Red Sox pop fly launched into his section at Fenway Park."

Not sure where the "journalistic pedigree" is in this typical TMZ "news" day, but clearly Newsweek has joined the migration. They've probably realized that the model TMZ copied and refined from sites like Gawker and The Smoking Gun has taken over. Site editor Harvey Levin says that TMZ is a news site. He says it simply depends on how you define news. Seems Newsweek's definition of news is no longer coverage of breaking stories but rather coverage of who's breaking the stories.

This Time It's Personal

"This time it's personal" ... "We finish this now" ... "It's gotta be that way" ...

All such crime flick edicts manifest tonight, 6:35 pm, in the Director's Hall at The Bridge. A crew of four converge in the City of Angels. Our score? Opening night of Miami Vice. Two live here. One drove all night Thursday. One paid $489 to fly.

Advance tickets were $65, and the subsequent nightlife this weekend will cost hundreds -- maybe thousands -- more.

Foolish by some standards, but no less foolish than the $150m it cost to bring us 2.5 hours of film. Cool by some standards, but not as cool as we could be if we had $150m to dispose of as we pleased. Sometimes taking down scores in the real world is less captivating than doing so in Michael Mann's world.

But for us, like Mann, this is personal. It all started with this cameraphone picture one of the four took in a theater lobby about six months ago. From there, the Vice weekend was predestined. In the end, nobody will remember the money or the effort or even if Vice sucks ass. We will only remember the convergence of far flung crew members, the vices that were consumed, and the aura that it left us with.

The aura of complete selfishness that you can only get from complete trust in your core crew. The dichotomous mindset that Mann has made a career documenting. The outright display of ego that he evangelizes: "I like working with people who are good at what they do. People who have a strong point of view. Healthy egos."

That's what this weekend is about. Egos clashing in search of the best one-liner. Eleven dollar drinks clanking as we praise our own genius for slacking at the highest level. And THX-enhanced explosions cracking our THC-enhanced domes to kick it all off.

To that, all I can say is: It's gotta be that way.