My children’s book “Have You Seen the Tickle Bug?” celebrates its fifth anniversary this year.
The story of the little purple creature whose sole ambition in life is to make people laugh, is available from Amazon.com and other online retailers.
If you are so inclined, you can purchase a copy here.
Episode Two in our Poetry-to-Video series CineVerses.
Poem and music by Jerry Danielsen, http://www.busysignalstudios.com/
Video directed, photographed and edited by Braddon Mendelson.
http://www.noisivision.com
Visit the CineVerses website: www.CineVerses.com
© 2014 Jerry Danielsen and Braddon Mendelson
I’m playing the part of Inspector Hubbard in the 1952 Broadway thriller, “Dial M for Murder.” The play opens tonight, September 27, 2013, at the Canyon Theatre Guild in Newhall and runs through the end of October.
This is the first play I’ve been in in over twenty-five years. (The last being “Diary of Anne Frank” in 1987 — egads, that’s 26 years ago!)
I was honored to have some of the articles I write for TheSkunk.org included in this great new eBook. According to the press materials, “This collection of media stories brings together some of the funniest, most insightful pieces of parody and sharp irony available. Comprised of nearly 70 individual humor pieces by 28 authors, the book offers a burning critique of everything that happened in 2011.”
Adult content, not intended for readers under the age of 18.
Media pundits and the general public have long been at a loss to explain the rise of the Tea Party over the last couple of years. Outsiders have pondered whether or not it is actually a third party, in and of itself, or just a branch of extremists within the Republican ranks.
To most reasonable people, the behavior of those who associate themselves with this movement may seem odd and outside the bounds of reality, but if we shift the context of the Tea Party, moving its manifestation beyond the pall of everyday politics to that of classic psychological behavior, we discover a surprisingly reasonable, logical explanation for its existence.
In her 1969 book, On Death and Dying[ref]Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying. (New York): Macmillan, 1969.[/ref], Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of grief that we all experience following a painful loss: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
If we view the Tea Party as the embodiment of Republican grief over losing the 2008 presidential election, it all starts to make sense. This is a group of people who simultaneously experienced agonizing emotional suffering when their candidate, John McCain, was soundly defeated by Barack Obama, and they have been slowly working their way through the griving process.
“At some point in our lives, each of us faces the loss of someone or something dear to us. The grief that follows such a loss can seem unbearable, but grief is actually a healing process. Grief is the emotional suffering we feel after a loss of some kind. The death of a loved one, loss of a limb, even intense disappointment can cause grief.”
Thus, we can understand the conduct of Tea Partiers by examining their behavior in the context of Kübler-Ross’s breakthrough research.
By identifiying the five stages of grief in the Tea Party, it becomes evident it was not formed as a political movement at all, but as a way for its participants to grieve a devastating loss:
At first, we tend to deny the loss has taken place, and may withdraw from our usual social contacts. This stage may last a few moments, or longer.
After the 2008 elections, a large segment of the Republican Party could not accept their candidate’s loss to Barack Obama, America’s first African-American President. They were in denial that he was the legitimate president and commander-in-chief. Their denial was so strong, they even questioned his parentage and authenticity of his birth certificate.
These grieving Republicans withdrew from the mainstream, isolating themselves in a fringe political organization called the “Tea Party,” which separated them even further from society
The grieving person may then be furious at the person who inflicted the hurt (even if she’s dead), or at the world, for letting it happen. He may be angry with himself for letting the event take place, even if, realistically, nothing could have stopped it.
GOP anger was directed at fellow Republican John McCain, their candidate who they blamed for losing the White House. They were furious with him and rebuked him as a RINO (“Republican in Name Only”), one of the worst epithets to attach to a Republican.
Their anger was also directed at the amorphous “Government,” for allowing a system where their views could be defeated in such an overwhelming manner, especially by someone who they didn’t even accept as being American.
Their anger was also directed at the Democrats and at Obama, in the form of oppositional defiance and hatred. In the congressional session after Osama’s victory, Republicans refused to go along with any Democrat initiated legislation, even if they were the ones who originally proposed it. Remember the “Party of ‘No'”?
Now the grieving person may make bargains with God, asking, “If I do this, will you take away the loss?”
The Tea Party congressional members’ refusal to increase the debt ceiling was their form of bargaining with God: “If we are inflexible and unyielding in our commitment to cutting spending and lowering taxes — even to the point where it may cause harm to others — will you take away the loss (of the 2008 presidential election)? If we stand firm on all these other extreme positions, will you make Barack Obama go away? Please God, make him go away. What if I signed my name to a pledge that I will never raise taxes? If I did that, will you make George W. Bush the president again?”
The person feels numb, although anger and sadness may remain underneath.
Numbness and sadness are already taking hold, as Tea Partiers realize their extremism is getting them nowhere. There will no doubt soon be a rise in anti-depressants filled by D.C. pharmacists.
This is when the anger, sadness and mourning have tapered off. The person simply accepts the reality of the loss.
A handful of mainstream Republicans seem to have only recently gotten to the stage where they accept the reality of 2008. Hopefully the Tea Partiers will not be stuck in stages 3 and 4 much longer, so our government can once again be functional.
While we can shake our heads in bafflement at the Tea Party movement and those who associate with it, if we understand where they’re really coming from, perhaps we can help them reach Stage 5 in an expeditious manner.
That is why Speaker John Boehner and others in the Republican leadership are having so many problems wrangling concensus among Tea Partiers — they are not dealing with a political faction joined together by common ideals, but rather a group of hurting individuals recovering from the throes of emotional distress.
Hopefully their government-provided health care benefits will allow them to afford a professional who can help them navigate the remaining stages of grief.
Once they have accepted the political realities of the 2008 elections — the fact that their candidate lost to an African-American Democrat — their journey through the grieving process will be complete, and Tea Partiers will be able to rejoin the mainstream of American Conservatives.
In laymen’s terms, “they need to get over it.”
And then the Tea Party will exist only as an odd narrative in American history books and back issues of Psychology Today.
Signs that Broadcast Network Television is disintegrating are abundantly evident. Prime time ad revenues for the broadcast networks dropped 15% in the last quarter or 2008, according to TargetCast, with CBS experiencing the deepest decline. In 2009, ad revenues continue to decline. In August, one headline revealed: TV networks cut ‘upfront’ prices for ad time but still sell less.
In an article entitled “Ten Big Companies That Are Veering Toward Bankruptcy” (The Business Insider, Sept. 18, 2009), CBS was listed as number 7, right behind Goodyear.
Although the authors of the article weren’t sure whether CBS’s “weak advertising and falling license fees [which] have sent CBS’s earnings off a cliff in 2009,” were due to a) a cyclical trend; or b) the fact that “traditional TV is dying” — two possibilities which are worlds apart — the answer is obvious.
If you were an advertiser, would you rather spend a) $300,000 to air one 30-second prime-time spot that will never reach its intended 20 million viewers, because they will be fast-forwarding past them on their DVRs, or b) $30,000 to reach 20 million Internet users, who can click on your ad to get more information, can bookmark your ad if they want to come back to it, and can actually order your product online? (While Internet users are able to turn your ad off if they find it intrusive at the moment, they continue to see your product off to the side and can turn the ad back on at their will.)
Choosing “b” for both of the preceding paragraphs will put you on the correct side of history.
That the television industry, itself, is in a state of sheer panic was evidenced on the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards telecast on Sunday, September 20, 2009, where presenters playfully mocked the presumption that broadcast network TV will meet its demise.
During her presentation of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy series, Julia Louis-Dreyfus quipped, “Amy [Poehler] and I are proud to be presenting on the last official year of network television.” The audience responded with laughter, as the truth behind their mass denial was revealed.
Host Neil Patrick Harris performed in a sketch where he played an evil scientist declaring that audiences preferred watching shows presented in a tiny aspect ratio on on a tiny computer monitor than on their huge flat screen televisions, and that they enjoyed waiting for a computer to “buffer” while viewing an Internet video stream.
The sarcasm is lost, of course, because the writers of the sketch – and presumably the top network executives – don’t get it. The technology is here. The same satellites or cables that bring you Two and a Half Men will bring you the Yahoo! search page you’ve grown accustomed to on your PC. The progamming that audiences will be watching in a year (or two) from now will look just as beauitful in high definition and play just as smoothly as an episode of House.
Soon, when you press the “on” button of your Samsung, hi-def 60” TV, you will be able to select from anything you can get on the Internet today, including high-end series, dramas, comedies, musicals, classic films, performaces by emerging artists. These prgorams will not be presented or produced by ABC, CBS and NBC, but from companies like Google, Netflix, JibJab, Noisivision and iTunes, to name a few.
Like a star getting sucked into a black hole, Broadcast Network Television – long conisdered the center of the entertainment galaxy — is collapsing under its own gravity, taking with it advertisers and everything within its vicinty, while the Internet — formed from the vast nebula of technology — has emerged as the new star, with millions of opportunites for information and entertainment orbiting it.
Note the use of the term “Broadcast” Network Television to distinguish it from “Cable” Network Television, whose models of doing business may very well allow HBO and SHOWTIME to survive in the era of convergence, and perhaps even thrive. It all boils down to two areas where they beat their Broadcast cousins handily: a) their current usage of the Interent as an interactive tool to complement and enhance their programming; and b) their ablity to produce high-quality shows on smaller, tighter budgets.
TO BE CONTINUED
“Charlie” had been trying to break into the television market for years. An accountant at a small entertainment CPA firm, he often found himself resentful of the successful writer clients who weren’t half as talented as he was. Each evening he would spend typing out his spec scripts and sending them off, hoping that one day — one day — he might get his break.
When he first came to see me, he seemed distraught and displayed signs of acute anxiety. He emptied a bag of scripts onto the table and plopped himself down on the sofa.
“I’ve been at this game for years,” he lamented. “I’ve been working at it really hard and I just can’t get my break.”
“Why do you think that is?” I asked.
“I haven’t a clue.”
“That’s quite a stack of scripts. You must write a lot.”
“Every day.” He picked up one from the top of the stack. “I just finished the best spec script I’ve ever written.”
“Good for you,” I replied. “What is it?”
“It’s a Gilligan’s Island.”
At first I thought he was pulling my leg, but he seemed to take genuine pride in his accomplishment. Nevertheless, I prodded him.
“Did you say Gilligan’s Island?”
He held the script out. Sure enough, on the cover were the words: “Gilligan’s Island,” with the patient’s name centered carefully underneath. “I don’t want to give away the plot, but basically, the castaways are just about to be rescued and Gilligan does something to screw it up.”
I looked at Charlie as if he had just landed on earth from the Heaven’s Gate UFO. “Now, I don’t profess to know everything about the television business, but is it wise to write a spec script for a thirty year old show?”
“No one cares. They only want to see how well you can write the characters.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“One of those seminars. You know, ‘How to Break into Sitcoms.’ And if I may be unmodest for a moment, I really aced the characters. You can really visualize them saying these lines. Except for Mary Ann. I really had trouble getting into her character, so I killed her off. And the Howells catch a virus that renders them temporarily mute, so I didn’t have to write too much dialogue for them.”
“I see. What else have you written?”
“Well, I’m just finishing up an I Love Lucy.”
“Of course you are.”
“Man, it’s so funny. Ricky brings home a new laptop computer, and he won’t let Lucy use it. Meanwhile, Fred secretly starts a website for swinging couples. I still need an ending.”
I turned to him and spoke in a soothing, but direct manner. “Perhaps if you tried writing for a more contemporary program…”
He thought for a moment. “I have a Mad About You.”
Okay, I thought. That show was current within the last two decades. Now we’re getting somewhere. “Tell me about it.”
“The Paul Reiser character gets hit by a car and dies, and Jamie marries somebody else — another comedian. I’m thinking Paul Rodriguez; he hasn’t done a sitcom for awhile and we can bring in the whole ethnic element.”
“You think it’s wise to change the format of the show like that?”
“Who’s changing the format?” he protested. “I’m just replacing one of the characters. It’s still the same format. A married couple. Only now, one of them’s Hispanic, which opens the door to a wider array of amusing situations. An I Love Lucy for the nineties. What do you think?”
I hesitated to ask, but knew, if I were to be effective at all in his treatment, I must continue the inquiry. I took a deep breath, braced myself and inquired: “What else do you have?”
“Here’s an episode of Friends. It’s fifty years in the future, they’re all old and kind of saggy, but they live in the same building.”
“But the actors in the show are all young people.”
“Aha!” he retorted, bouncing up and down on the sofa like a child. “Characters in television age faster than in real life.”
“So, would you get older actors to play the parts, or would you put the cast in old age make-up?”
“Neither. You wait fifty years before filming the episode. That way, you can use the original cast. Save money on auditioning new people.”
“What else do you have?”
“I wrote a spec Dateline.”
“That’s a news program.”
“They still need scripts. In this episode, Jane Pauley banters with Sam Donaldson.”
“He’s on a different network.”
“Not in my episode. In my episode, all the networks have merged into one huge conglomerate. You think it’s okay that I have her speaking with a French accent?”
“Jane Pauley doesn’t have a French accent.”
“Then they’ll have to cast someone who does. Maybe Robin Williams. He can do Jane Pauley in a French accent. Man, I gotta write that down.” He scribbled a few notes onto the script cover. Fortunately, our time was up.
“I think our time is up,” I told him. “I’ll see you next Thursday.”
“You think you can help me? You think I’ll ever break into television?”
“Given time, anything’s possible.”
“Thanks, Doc.” He loaded up his scripts and departed.
A few moments later, I realized he had accidentally left his Gilligan’s Island script. Was it really an accident? Or was he seeking my approval of his talent? I picked up the document and began reading. Halfway through the story, Mary Ann was killed off, the Howells contracted a virus that rendered them mute and Gilligan did something to screw up their chances of being rescued. To be honest, it was a very well-written, humorous script. And yes, I could visualize the characters saying these lines. There was the Skipper, rotund and chipper, slapping his hat at Gilligan’s whimsical antics. I could hear the professor, babbling on about some pseudo-scientific discovery. Ginger was as sexy as ever, and Mary Ann — alas, poor Mary Ann.
The kid had talent, no doubt, yet something prevented him from attaining his goal. Often, in these cases, it is a matter of self-sabotage. The client subconsciously makes decisions that are completely counter to his goals. In this instance, it wasn’t clear at all, but given time and a continuation of therapy, I am confident we can unlock the reasons together, and Charlie can lead a fulfilling life as a staff writer.
Miracles come in assorted varieties. They don’t have to be huge “Parting of the Red Sea” spectacles or “walking-away-from-a-car-crash-unscathed” events. Tiny miracles surround us everywhere. Most of them are translucent; you can’t see them with your eyes, but if you reach out, you can touch them and feel them and they will affect your life in ways never before imagined.
Just look into your baby’s eyes when you take him out of the crib in the morning. As sunlight washes his curious face, he expresses his approval with a smile, delighting in the bountiful opportunities of a new day. There is nothing bad or commonplace in the world; only wondrous gadgets of imagination — to be tugged upon and pulled and tasted — and his mommy and daddy, who are always there, holding him and comforting him and helping him navigate his little universe.
The day is joyful and wondrously amazing, replete with new surprises, smells, tastes, sights and sounds, yet he chooses to begin his morning by doing something familiar and comforting — touching his hand to your face. You have become part of his day, part of the adventure, part of the miracle.
As he amuses himself by banging two plastic bowls together, you think that someday he’ll want a bright red car with big chrome wheels. But right now, those two bowls bring him as much enjoyment as a person could know. How odd it is that watching him makes you cry.
In that instant, you discover the brilliant shades and hues that parenthood has added to your palette, and then it hits you: from this day forward, your life will be comprised of one suprising new color after another.
You rock your baby to sleep at night. He resists and fusses, but that is only because he doesn’t want the day to end. Surely he might miss something if he shuts his eyes too soon. He reminds you there is more to see, more to learn, every day.
The moment is unique; it will never be repeated, but the miracle remains forever, in your memories and in the moistness of a teardrop.
— Braddon
Next year will be end of the major broadcast television networks. They will meet their demise with no fanfare, no melancholy send-offs, no bittersweet memorial at the Staples Center. Their influence over contemporary culture will cease to exist, save as foggy memories in textbooks recounting the history of electronic media.
While that’s bad news for network executives, who for seventy years have arrogantly dictated which shows their ever-dwindling audiences can watch and at what time of day they can watch them, it’s great news for everyone else.
The death of the networks and their antiquated programming matrices will be a renaissance for electronically delivered entertainment and a golden opportunity for advertisers, as the difference between traditional television and your Internet-connected computer become virtually indistinguishable.
Viewers will keep their TVs, but instead of being spoon-fed from a limited variety of shows at predetermined times from the Big Three Networks, they will dine on an endless spectrum of news and entertainment from thousands of producers around the world, via the Internet, conveniently viewing them at a time of their choosing.
This shift from Network Television to Internet Television is referred to as “convergence,” and there’s not much disagreement that it’s coming.
What executives don’t seem to grasp is how quickly it’s all going to converge. It won’t happen in ten years; it won’t happen in five years. It will be happening by the end of next year.
As I write this, it’s August 2009. My prediction is that by next summer it will be all over for the big guys. The 2009-2010 television season will be the last one that we recognize as such. (Okay, maybe they’ll manage to stay on life support for an additional year, but it’ll be in a vegetative state, in which case they will be declared dead in 2011.)
So, if a year from now network television ceases to exist, what does that mean for ABC, NBC and CBS (yes, and Fox – although after 20 years or so, it’s still hard for me to think of them as a major network). In short, they will be out of business, and their parent companies will suffer immeasurable losses.
The Big Three Networks are all owned by major studios. Disney owns ABC, Universal owns NBC and VIACOM owns CBS. Corporate directors should start thinking about liquidating these assets now, or risk losing everything for their stockholders. And don’t expect Congress or President Obama to bail them out. Unlike the auto industry, there will likely be more jobs created without them.
Some contend that the Big Three will still exist, but in a different form. Perhaps, but that difference will have to be radical and immediate, two adjectives I don’t suspect have ever been attributed to network television without being followed by a rim shot. In their current configuration, it seems impractical for networks to compete viably with independent Internet producers, who are leveling out the entertainment playing field every day.
My 78-year-old father recently underwent an ordeal on the return leg of a round-trip he and my mom took to Cincinnati. An airport security agent pulled him aside and strip-searched him in public, a procedure that included a double fisted anal probe, followed by a lengthy waterboarding in Crisco Oil.
Okay, so I exaggerate, but what really happened was probably only a tad less humiliating, as the inspector actually ran his gloved fingers underneath the elastic band of my dad’s underwear. (What did he think he’d find, an exploding Fruit-of-the-Loom tag?) And yes, I know we all have to make sacrifices to assure the safety of everyone who flies. But is punking an old guy really making travel safer?
There is a way to ensure air travelers are treated respectfully, while maintaining an even higher level of security.
Let’s rethink the entire security process, from the time the passenger arrives at the terminal, to the time they depart on their flight.
What if the security officer who screens the passengers was required to get on the plane and fly with them to the next destination? That officer would have the greatest incentive imaginable to make sure dangerous people are discovered before boarding: his or her life.
Here’s how it could work: Passengers would pass thought an initial x-ray screening on the way to their respective gates. There would be no frisking, no profiling, no pulling passengers out of line unless something suspicious showed up on the x-ray. It would be many times quicker than the current process.
When the passengers regroup at their respective boarding gates, they will be screened by a second security agent, the “Airline Chaperon” — the one that will accompany them on the plane.
The time a passenger spends at the gate is normally wasted anyway, as they sit and wait for the boarding call. The Airline Chaperon would take advantage of this time to screen each passenger one-on-one, utilizing a hand-scanner when deemed appropriate. Signs would be posted, as in restaurants, advising passengers: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” The Airline Chaperon will have the authority to pull suspicious passengers aside for more thorough scrutiny or to deny them passage altogether.
After all the passengers have been interviewed and have boarded the flight, the Airline Chaperon will join them on the plane. Once at the destination airport, the Airline Chaperon will then repeat the procedure with a new group of returning air travelers.
Requiring the person who screens the passengers to get on the plane with them will ensure that all passengers are scrutinized equally and increase the likelihood that suspicious ones will be weeded out before they become a threat in the air.
In case anyone asks,
Braddon