New Reality Show

Watch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taNTnxtgWTc)

Here is the basic perfect pitch to CNN, FOX, MSNBC and even the Discovery Channel. It appeals to Al Gore and Sarah Palin, the Death guy from Texas and those concerned with global warming. Basic premise: Okay, okay..it has to be a Discovery Channel thing first…because you really need to show the plight of the polar bear…how they starve…cannot find enough seals to eat and how the hunting ground is being diminished by global marming…er…warming. Once you have set that context and shown emaciated white bears forced to look at their own cubs for food….THEN comes the fun part (for the audience).

You helicopter in 200 Death Row inmates from Texas with full gear…I mean top-notch REI gear (sponsored)…and drop them in he middle of the diminishing ice-flow with the polar bears. Reality Show meets Texas justice meets Environmental Awareness meets WEEKS for hunt and chase between hungry polar bears and mostly guilty men who were gonna die anyway. I was about to say “everybody wins”…but what of the 200 Death Row guys..?

Okay…..three of them have to survive and be transported via Virgin Airlines to Tahiti WITH the full understanding that any future miscues at all in the future will result in their immediate transportation into the Polar Bear habitat at the San Diego Zoo…

Okay…so who is gonna executive produce?

Azotusland: The Novel

With a new opening series of chapters, Azotusland is in full-on edit phase. That means I am shopping for an agent. You can go here  starting a week from now.

“The Natural” Comes to the Bay

Oscar winner Robert Redford does narration for Saving the Bay: The Story of San Francisco Bay, on Wednesday March 25, 2009

It’s rare, okay…never, that I wake up and my first real agenda item of the day is a meeting/session with Robert Redford.

But that was my day yesterday, meeting at Command Productions in Sausalito, along with the Saving the Bay crew (Executive Producer Ron Blatman, Writer and Producer Miles Saunders, Editor Blair Gershkow, Composer Mitchell Covington and myself – Christopher “Mac” MacDonald) and sound engineer extraordinaire Robbie Dickson…oh yeah…and Redford.

An unassuming and pleasant man, The Natural doesn’t show up with an entourage. He drives up in a modest Lexus doning a pull on cap, t-shirt and jeans with leather jacket. I note his tennis shoes are as old and well worn as mine (considerable). His brief case is made of old leather and is probably 25 years old.

He exchanges quick pleasantries, but wants to get into the batting cage and work.

Before he arrived, Blair, Miles and myself were engaged in the usual banter about Spring training and the prospects for the Giants this year. Not great news, but we all agreed that baseball is far more than just winning and losing. There is something healing about the game, which is the real reason that people are so dismembered about Roid use. They keep trying to make it about who lied, covered up blah blah blah. The reality is that baseball has an inherent Zen-like purity that the large majority of fans are afraid we are losing: first to money and greed; second to drug use; worse…to the Dodgers this year if Ramirez stays healthy.

At the end of the narration sessions yesterday, watching Redford fall  behind on a few takes 1 and 2 or 0 and 2, then watching him dial it in like The Natural he is and drill the third version up the alley, or under the first baseman’s metaphorical glove, and occassionally just plant one in the seats…clean and neat (like knocking back a shot of Woodford Reserve) then humbly trotting around the bases I saw I was watching a very serious man with an acute eye and directness.

He was there to hit the pitches thrown him from the sound booth (see pictures) and also promote a great four-part documentary on how the San Francisco Bay estuary, once polluted and in serious danger of being filled in, was saved by the courageous activism of a few elderly women in the 60s. Saving the Bay: The Story of San Francisco Bay, is a stunning piece that I feel privileged to be a part of as I have loved and Northern California, the Bay, and Giants baseball since I was a kid and Willie Mays was in center field with the parking lot visible through a chain link fence.

Before baseball season starts again this year, rent or buy The Natural. It’s a quiet film that will endure just as baseball will endure. All true baseball fans know this and enjoy a day at the Yard whether we are on a tear or taking it on the chin. It’s a communal event where you have time to get to know those sitting around you. A “third space” if you are open.

Who is our Roy Hobbs gonna be this year? I dunno. Sure could use one in the number 4 slot so we can move Molina to 5th where he belongs.

God I love baseball. I also love the Bay and encourage all to visit the savingthebay.org site and learn more about our own history and how you can get involved. Please feel free to write me with any comments or questions of interest.

~Mac

P.S. and yes, I did get him to autograph my DVD copy of The Natural…get real!

Death to all Sequels (for the Tone)

"Um..I think I found your tooth..."

By Christopher C. MacDonald

The Highlander plus 40 new immortal pounds

I hate sequels. I assume they are fun for the reunited cast and lucrative for the producers, but they are generally awful for the audience. Just mentioning City Slickers 2 or Highlander 2: The Quickening, evokes that sickening feeling of being duped by a dreadful second production.

The problem with sequels is that there is usually no more story to tell. The original film had a beginning, a middle and a definitive end. But as quick as you can say “box office grosses” writers are being hired to resurrect dead characters and figure out ways of doing the same successful story over again…yet…um…differently.
Where will it end? Can we be saved from Gump 2: Forrest Through the Trees and Notre Dame 2: Return of the Hump?

We can. It seems George Lucas has figured out how to give people more of what originally delighted them. We now have Star Wars: The Special Edition.  Opening on January 31, this re-mastered version of the 20 year-old hit has added scenes, improved visual effects and better sound. Scenes with Jabba the Hut, Bobba Fett and a more “scummy and tyrannical” Mos Eisley space port promise to greatly enhance the ground-breaking original. What fun!

We need a new cinematic saying: “What goes around comes around in the director’s digital re-master with additional scenes,” (DDRAS).  The rule should be: If the story isn’t truly over, do the sequel; but if it’s over, do a DDRAS.

And who says it has to stop with just one re-mastering of the original? The Star Wars trilogy invites a host of possible “alternate versions” for re-release. Here are just a few I’ve come up with.

The Renegade Droid version
Flashback scenes show that C3PO was originally a hairstylist (R2-D2 was 3PO’s professional styling caddie). In the Renegade Droid Version, C3PO is publicly ridiculed for his participation in the Princess’  Horns ‘O Plenty hairstyle debacle. When no one proves able to disassemble her braided pastry-like structures, the droids are arrested and scheduled for exile to the spice mines of Kesstle. The droids escape during the confusion of Vader’s attack on their ship and plan to open a beautician’s school in Mos Eisley. When 3PO and R2 discover rampant droid racism amidst the scum and tyranny of the space port, they hire mysterious stranger Han Solo to bust up the locals and restore order and commerce.

At the end of the film we see R2-D2, bitter and despairing over his lot in life, drinking himself to disassembly with gallons of WD-40 in his own private version of Leaving Mos Eisley.

The Mythopoetic version
George Lucas’ own studies with Joseph Campbell aided in this classical re-casting of the male myth of Iron Obi-Wan. Young Luke discovers the “hairy man” (Chewbacca) at the bottom of a Sarlac pit and enlists his help. Chewie leads him to his “male mother,” Iron Obi-Wan, who reveals that Luke’s father, Darth Vader, and controlling twin sister, Leia, are responsible for  abandoned him on the planet Tattoinne (which means “never-ending ball of dust”).

After Luke, Han and Chewie have captured Leia from her father’s Death Star and she says, “Will someone get this big walking carpet out of my way?”  Chewie demonstrates the “Rite of the Hairy Man” by ripping off one of Leia’s horns ‘O plenty. Luke follows suit, thus enacting the breaking-away ritual from his controlling twin sister.

True spiritual masculinity is re-established when Iron Obi-Wan defeats Lord Vader in battle and Luke self-publishes his first chapbook of poetry, Stories my Father Never Told Me.

The Original Face versions
Star Wars remains the same, but The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are completely re-mastered with actor Mark Hamill’s original “before-the-crash” face morphed onto his character’s body. These versions will not only replace the “pug-faced Luke” that Hamill’s plastic surgeon created after his car crash, but may answer the question, “How come Harrison Ford gets $5 million a picture while Mark Hamill is doing voice-overs for Batman?”

The Realist Version
Normal movie conventions are set aside in the Realist Version. For example, could aged Obi-wan really fight Darth Vader long enough to cause a diversion? The Realist Version goes like this:

Vader: I’ve been waiting for you Obi-wan
Obi-wan: You can’t win Darth, If you strike me down I shall…
PAPHHHHHISSSSSSTTTTT! With a flash of Vader’s lightsaber Obi-wan is disintegrated.  (tap tap)

There is no diversion, and as Vader steps down on Obi-wan’s empty cloak the rest of the rebel party are quickly arrested.

Han gets shipped off to Jabba in an overnight bag, the Droids packed off to the spice mines of Kesstle, Luke joins the Dark side and leads a rout of the rebellion forces (in exchange for 18 years of back allowance his father has neglected to pay), and Chewbacca becomes a throw-rug under the Emperor’s mantle.

The only problem with the Realist Version is the outcome. With no one left to fight and conquer, the Evil Empire has nothing left to do.

Vader: What is thy bidding my Master?
Emperor: I want you to wax the Shuttle.
Vader: It shall be done as you command, my Master.
Two days later.
Vader: I have finished waxing the Shuttle. What is thy bidding, my Master?
Emperor: I want you to clean all the windows of the Death Star!
Vader: You are indeed evil, my Master.

In the final scenes we find Darth in his boxer shorts, popping Hoth-filtered Tuscan Pale Ale, and channel-surfing through the 37,000 channels on the Death Star’s satellite array while muttering about the good old days of the Clone Wars.

While some of these DDRAS versions may be questionable, every one of them is better than a typical sequel. And if you still doubt me, rent Highlander 2: The Quickening, and watch it alongside the new 10th  Anniversary DDRAS of the original Highlander.

I don’t know. You tell me. Hehe…

Content Management Systems: Bottling

You may have been frustrated the last few days with Twitter, with Facebook, with Youtube..then with trying to actually get work done and published online (which is my business) because suddenly they won’t respond on your browser, or decline your graphics or simply ignore you.

Let me assure you it is a middle manager who took a shortcut on bandwidth or co-location. Worse, others avoided paying for a  real CMS that is robust and user servicing (not just friendly) or they had the cute idea that it might actually have worked if they had realizing beforehand that bringing a bicycle to race a Mustang 20101GT is not gonna work in anyone’s wildest dreams.

I sound bitter don’t I?  Which is atypical.  I think my issue is the pretense and utter waste of our time. I took a job as a “Little Rock Examiner” in an area I am adept at and have published often professionally: spirituality. It was not about the money (which is nill). It ws about writing well and giving people a good read.

You cannot do that via Examiner.com.

How do I know? I was nominated for a Webby for  my retooling of a good CMS for mavericksssurf.com from Epic Cycle; and succeeded in major work-arounds in a bad CMS at Bolt.com in New York. Like one of the mechanics on Top Gear (BBCA) I can make almost anything work/run.

Until now

Take a look at my articles (Examiner.com/littlerock). I spend twice as long trying to get half of them to format in something like remedial English. It was originally ghastly hard work that was always somehow OFF.

So I learned and adapted. I wrote my series tonight on U2 in wordpad (no formating..simple) and got tready to add easy art.

Suddenly it will not format in anything but Microsoft IE explorer. Welcome aboard the Titanic folks..here are your decks chairs and the shuffleboard equipment.

Flock? No. Firefox? No. Netscape? No.

Well Examiner.com here is my reply to your utter incompetence: NO.

Come back when you have funding and wanna play at least semi-pro ball. Until then? Shut down and watch others play real baseball.

Social Marketing Fringe

FOX tried an experiment with FRINGE fans last night calling on  cast members Josh Jackson (Peter) and John Noble (Walter, his father) and producers Jeff Pinker and J.H. Wyman to answer Tweets during the rebroadcast of the penultimate episode of Fringe from season one.  These “tweet-peats,” scrolled down with Fringe-folk answer questions,  joking and adding some questions of their own.

Some viewers, and certainly new viewers, probably found the exchanges distracting or even intrusive as they appeared on the screen. Given the nature of Twittering, the questions and answers were limited and fairly fast-paced. To actually enjoy Twittering you would have to know the series and the episode fairly well.

In that regard, the use of Twittering with a show has an obvious benefit, then one not so obvious, but perhaps even more enjoyable.

First the easy one: Use the Twitter feature with cast or crew during rerun season alone. This gives regular viewers the chance to see things they may have missed the first time around (obviously this works with a series like Fringe, or Lost etc.).

The second benefit is simple enjoyment. I realized about halfway through the “experiment” that I was enjoying watching the show with the cast members and two of the producers. Watching their work alongside them was slightly exhilarating…a bit like the DVD features that have running commentary..only this was way better as it was live.

There is the real story from Fringe last night. Oh, that and parallel realities of existence given String Theory. Almost forgot that.

___________

Note: Tonight is the same experiment with the ” ‘tweet-peat’ re-run of Fringe is followed by the pilot of the show Glee, which will also get the insight via Twitter messages from cast members,” according to PC World. “The Glee pilot, a repeat that previewed in May, is aired on Friday at 9 p.m. If you want to get involved in Fox’s “tweet-peats,” all you have to do is follow the show Fringe on Twitter (http://twitter.com/FRINGEonFOX) and Glee (http://twitter.com/GLEEonFOX).”

Please comment if you watched or watch tonight!

~Mac on media

Azotus Consulting Little Rock Part 1

Azotus has come to Little Rock Arkansas, which was never expected. Interesting to me that the whole idea of “Azotus” as a cafe…a “third space” where those of different ethnic backgrounds, ideas, philosophies, faiths or non-faiths, generations and all the questions big and small should perhaps flower in the South.

Azotus, with it’s cool and rather obscure origins, was hatched out of suburban Roseville, California (albeit on the other side of the tracks in old town.) From there it seemed that a Cafe might be possible in Marin or the Bay Area. Unexpected was the insular and cocoonish nature of those in Marin. The Azotus Idea simply expanded into various Internet outreaches for forward-thinking companies like GuerillaPR, Mavericks Surf Ventures, Gplay.com, Greenhouse (on the East Coast) and finally the upcoming Saving the Bay (a visionary four-part PBS documentary on the saving and restoration of the San Francisco Bay.)

The idea of the Cafe was set aside in the Bay Area. The costs too high, competition too massive in SF, and audience non-existent in Marin (just 20 minutes North of San Francisco on the far side of the Golden Gate Bridge).

Instead I wrote a novel Azotusland. Need a publisher after a rewrite. So the Azotus Cafe lives…just in people’s heads for now.

“Why Little Rock?” Mike Roe (77s lead man and long-time friend of 30 years) asked immediately over the phone. “It has to be either God or a woman,” he said with resignation. “Both,” I said. “To be sure I was enticed by a woman…you and I both know that story. But I am prolly here for other reasons as well.”

Now you cannot say/print stuff like that publicly in the Bay Area, because while it is cool to be into anything and everything in the pinnacle City of Pluralism, that is in fact a lie. It is not okay at all to talk matter-of-factly about God.

(Now there are good reasons for this perhaps…and I empathize…but not today).

As long as it is hip and secularized, or at best sifted through popular New Age thought (please see Chogyam Trungpa’s Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, for a debunking of both Christian materialism and Eastern Materialism) then you can be in any business you want and feel free to allow your “spiritual” life to be at one with your “secular” vocation.

But do not do that as a “Believer” unless you are Bono. Well, given who we are as human beings that is simply nonsense if for no other reason that we are all “Believers” in something or someone. There has never been a separation between spiritual life and our vocation, or our relationships, etc. To be sure, if you try and market your vocation with a Jesus stamp on it that is a big mistake (unless you are a church, and that seems out of vogue), you risk pissing off both God an humanity.

But here in the Bible belt it is part of a cultural understanding…perhaps backdrop. That has advantages for a guy like me..and no doubt, disadvantages yet to be seen.

Anyway, I love The Rock (checkout 360Littlerock.com) . More reflections to come.

And you local “Rockers” (nothing “little” about you) hit me back with your impressions, advice, criticism (I did learn to take a punch or two in urban NorCal).

DogHouse Diaries Debut via Podcast

http://spoke.podbean.com/2009/07/28/the-haunt-of-jackals-final-audio-pt-1/

Saving the Bay

Saving the Bay is an ambitious and expansive four-part PBS series on the saving of the San Francisco Bay estuary. Narrated by acclaimed actor/director Robert Redford, the series recounts how the Bay was transformed from an growing ecological disaster by the most ambitious rural restoration project in American history.

Azotus Consulting is now working with Saving the Bay to promote the four-part documentary on the Internet and run the content on the website.

SFGate…The Crazy Crab

See today’s Daily Mac on SFGate.com