Best. Headline. Ever.
“We Blew up the Moon…And It Was Boring”
For some reason, I found this article hysterical…lol…
Michael Palin
Any fellow Monty Python aficionados will recognize the title of this blog, “How Not To Be Seen,” as the title of a classic episode and skit from the original Monty Python’s Flying Circus. I’m a relatively recent convert to the Python faith (or should I say “philosophy”…?), but you know how it is with people who discover religion later in life. (Well, okay, later than baptism, but earlier than, say, midlife-crisis…or even quarter-life crisis, almost…) Anyway, I’m pretty obsessed so I’ve been tearing through everything Python I can get my hands on through Netflix (which is pretty much everything, as it turns out). Great fun. I’m becoming an especially big fan of the TV series, not just because it’s hilarious in its own right, but because I think watching the series and becoming closely acquainted with the sketches and the Pythons themselves gave me a whole new perspective on the films. I’ve always had to fake my enthusiasm when people would quote such classics as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, because of course, it would have been sacrilege to admit that I didn’t really care for it. Sure, I saw the humor in a few isolated bits, but as a whole, I simply didn’t get it. It was too random, too weird — I just didn’t know what to do with it. But watching the television skits and the way the shows were strung together helped me to find glorious order in the randomness.
I’ve also developed a huge crush on Michael Palin. They’re all hilarious, of course, he certainly wasn’t one of the ones I would have recognized before I started watching the series (John Cleese and Eric Idle were the only ones I was really familiar with), but he won me over pretty quickly. He has this way of making you really feel for his characters even (perhaps especially) when they’re the butt of the joke. Even his smarmy asshole characters are adorable in a sort of cheeky way. Anyway, my newfound love of Michael Palin has led me not only to seek out other things he’s been in, but also to start reading his published diaries — Michael Palin Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years. It’s some 600 pages long, but totally fascinating — I’ve been spending way too much time reading it lately when I should have been doing other things. The behind-the-scenes glimpses of Python and its constituent characters is great, but I’m equally engrossed by the anecdotes about his family and reflections on various political and social events that happened to be taking place around the same time. And of course, it’s funny. One of my favorite bits so far:
Saturday, August 12th, Southwold
Sun shone in the morning and tempted us down to the beach. We took the windbreak and an axe, which is Grandfather’s traditional instrument for knocking the windbreak into the sand. It may save him money on a mallet, but one does feel rather sinister taking a wife, two small children and an axe down to the beach.
And in case you’re not yet convinced, a very classic performance of a very classic skit (Michael is the one who keeps cracking up… ;)):
A couple of weeks ago, this article from The Village Voice was making the rounds:
“I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script,” by screenwriter Josh Olson.
I read it. I digested it. I even waded through a good portion of the comments (though there are a hell of a lot of them) — and I have to say, I thought it was brilliant.
The thing is, I’m not a professionally published writer, though I hope to be one someday. I’m also not a professional screenwriter, though I have some aspirations in that area as well. I get the frustration of the struggling writer completely, and I totally understand the importance of networking and finding someone who will give you a chance to prove yourself. That was one of the main points that the commenters took issue with, arguing that no screenwriter (such as Olson) would ever be able to make a career for himself without the help of a successful writer taking the time to look at his work.
On the other hand, while I am not a professionally published author, I am a relatively established fanfiction author.
(I’ll wait while you finish chuckling… ;))
Seriously though, I’ve been writing fanfiction for the same fandom (Inuyasha) for almost six years now, as well as helping to moderate a fandom community and participating in other aspects of the fandom — and although I don’t have the overwhelming popularity of some other authors, I’m at least a relatively recognizable name, and I have a small following of my own. I’ve done a good deal of “beta” (editing/proofreading) work, which has ultimately led me to pursue a career in publishing, and I get requests from readers for advice on their own projects on a semi-regular basis. Unfortunately, in nine cases out of ten, the material that people ask me to look at is…extremely flawed. But I nearly always say yes when they ask me, because I hate disappointing people — especially people who regularly rave to me about my own writing. I feel guilty saying no…
I’m not a mean person by nature — I honestly like to help people whenever I can, and I actually really enjoy taking a piece of written work and finding ways to improve it. But the thing is, there has to be something there to work with in the first place. If the existing material is so thoroughly flawed that it would basically be easier to throw the whole thing out and start from scratch, there’s not a whole lot an editor or advisor can do to help — other than give the author an honest opinion. Which probably isn’t going to be much fun for either party. I get so frustrated in these situations, because I can’t help thinking how much it would suck to get the kind of feedback I feel I have to give from someone whose opinion I really value.
I guess, for me, the moral of the story for aspiring authors (myself included) is that it’s all well and good to be ambitious and seek out the advice of people who might be able to help you — but please, please, please make damn sure that what you’re giving them is the best it can be. And even if it is, please, please, please prepare yourself (genuinely) for the fact that they really might not like it. Doesn’t mean you can’t improve it — doesn’t even mean it’s not already good — but all they can do is give you their honest opinion. Anything less would be disrespectful to you, wouldn’t it?
So don’t blame the messenger; if you have to blame somebody, blame the one who asked for the advice — you.
(The good news for me is that I’m really good at that…)
The Jester of Late-Night
I’ve recently become enamored of Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show. He strikes me as sort of the Jon Stewart of network late-night — he’s just so much funnier and more consistently entertaining than Jay or Letterman or Conan. (Well, Letterman’s monologue last night was pretty entertaining, but there was an obvious reason for that…) Their material is always so stale — they have this safe, hackneyed feel to their shows. Granted, I really don’t watch any of them regularly — but there’s a reason for that ;). Conan has always annoyed me, and Letterman just never caught my interest, but I used to watch Jay back in the late 90s (I remember, because 80% of his material revolved around the Lewinsky scandal. And I was like ten or eleven, so pretty much everything I knew about the scandal I learned from Jay. Even the stuff I wouldn’t actually understand until years later…lol…). I got out of the habit after a little while (and even when I watched it regularly, I mostly just stuck around long enough to see the monologue and “Headlines”), and I really didn’t see his show again until he started his new primetime slot (which, frankly, is pretty much the same show I used to watch ten years ago). I don’t know what it is, exactly — it just all feels so staged. I mean, obviously it’s staged — it’s television — but it feels staged in such a way that it draws your attention to it. And they try to pretend things are unplanned when they obviously have to have been planned, as though they think they’re actually fooling you. And all the little gimmicks…eh. I don’t know — my theory of late-night comedy is that it’s always at its best when the format stays as close to stand-up as possible. You know, one smart, witty, self-deprecating comedian performing for and reacting to an audience. Even on The Daily Show (which I swear by), I can sort of take or leave most of the interviews (although some of the more confrontational ones are pretty damn entertaining) — it’s the monologue that keeps me coming back. Most of all though, I think it’s Craig’s style that I really like. It’s very improvisational and informal — I mean, you know he (or someone, at least) must have written most of what he’s saying beforehand, but some of it is also clearly off the top of his head, in reaction to the audience, and he handles it all in such a relaxed fashion that you can’t be sure which is which — which, in turn, makes it all feel fresh and improvised. There’s a sense of participating in late-night comedy, while also commenting upon it — like he’ll make a cheesy joke, and then send up the joke itself. And that whole style of making fun of himself and laughing at his own jokes or the audience’s reaction (or lack of reaction, as the case may be) is very Stewart-esque. (Yes, that is a word.) He’s anything but squeaky clean (he often makes reference to the fact that he spent some ten or twenty years as a blackout drunk…), and I like that. I like my comedians to be human. You can chuck stones from a glass house as long as you’re not trying to pretend it’s brick, like all the suckers you’re aiming at do…
But alas, I really don’t need a good reason to stay up until 1:30 in the morning. I do that way more often than I should without a good reason. Why couldn’t he be on at 10pm like Jay? Then he could be my lead-in to Stewart and Colbert…
How Not To Be Seen 