What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Tuesday, November 20, 2007

   THEY WANT YOUR EYEBALLS

The words "sexy" and "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation" aren't often used together but that's what I'm hearing at the media launch for the CBC's "winter season" beginning in January, with a batch of new shows hoping to follow The Tudors' lead in sexing up our public broadcaster.

I'm led in by women from the CBC's PR firm Media Profile. There's over a dozen attractive women in headsets, like some power-lesbian secret service, leading journalists into a large, white-draped room. I sit in the second row, behind Due South star Paul Gross. He looks better now than he did as the hot Mountie, the bastard. We watch a slick montage of trailers for 12 new shows, including MVP, a hockey soap opera clearly modeled on the saucy UK hit Footballers' Wives.

Writing for fab, I'm viewing all this with a Queer Eye, like some pink filter. I'm forced to ignore the creators of gritty drama The Border and even the very cute David Kopp, star of the new comedy jPod. No gay office mate, David? I must move on, though I do have to stop and chat with Nicholas Campbell, Canadian TV veteran (if not icon). "You mean I have to play a gay character to be in your magazine?" he asks. Pretty much, I tell him, unless you want to come out, right here. He laughs.

I go looking for the very gay Chris Hyndman and Steven Sabados, stars of their own new daytime talk show. The former Designer Guys are thrilled. "This really is a step up for us," Hyndman says, "We feel like The Jeffersons!" Any pressure from their new masters to tone down the gay? None, says Sabados: "They keep saying, 'Just be yourself.'" Hyndman laughs, "As if they’re going to hire me and ask me to play it straight! They’re going down the wrong street!" The Steven and Chris Show will have the occasional celebrity guest -— who’s topping their wish list? "Pamela Anderson!" they announce in unison.

"We just want them to be themselves," CBC programming head Kirstine Layfield later tells me. (Did they rehearse?) But I point out that the CBC's gayest show, the British sci-fi drama Torchwood, has been airing with no promotion, buried in the Friday-at-9 time slot that MVP will occupy in January. Layfield insists they’re happy with Torchwood's half-million viewers and that limited funds for ads should be spent on Canadian shows. "We try to reflect Canadians back to themselves and diversity is obviously part of that," she says, "but we want to be natural about it."

The bubbly Natalie Brown has dubbed her single-girl show Sophie a "conflamady" (conflict-drama-comedy) and agrees that including a gay character felt natural: "Really, who doesn't have a gay best friend? Why would Sophie not? I do. It's not a cliché, it's true." My Gay Agenda satisfied, I'm ultimately forced to agree with Brown when she says, "After watching all those trailers, I have to say -- CBC is looking kind of sexy."

Labels: Canada, fab, homo-a-go-go, Trawna, TV

There’s been a lot of fuss this fall about the decline in ratings for last year’s hit show Heroes. In its first season, the show I was prepared to ignore as an X-Men retread won me over with its offbeat characters, crackerjack pace and wild cliffhanger-ending plot twists. How many times did an episode have us saying, "Whoa. Didn’t see that coming!" Gorgeous!

Consider then, however, the painful tedium of this season’s big plot arc (spoilers follow, be warned!):

-- A shadowy, cloaked figure starts bumping off the shifty parents of the main characters.
-- They all warn of one of their own who went bad: the mysterious Adam Munroe.
-- Our engaging time traveler Hiro Nakamura is separated from the other characters in an endless subplot set in feudal Japan. The samurai hero whose legends he heard as a boy is revealed, oddly, to be a British man.
-- Hiro makes a mess of history and this new man, who seems to heal from any injury, vows revenge.
-- That man is then shown in the present day and introduces himself as Adam Munroe.
-- Hiro returns to the scene of his father’s murder and discovers the cloaked assassin is...Adam Munroe.

And this blindingly obvious tale has taken nine hours to tell, why?

Personally, I was hoping the killer would be Nathan Petrelli. Why? Because that would make no sense and it’d be fun to see the writers come up a reason. Also because, nine episodes in, they haven’t done a damn thing with the character yet. I hope actor Adrian Pasdar is being paid well, because he must be as bored as the audience by this point.

But here’s an interesting thing: Tim Kring, the show’s creator, has actually apologized for the season so far, admitting: "We didn't give the audience enough story to justify the time we allotted it...The message is that we've heard the complaints — and we're doing something about it."

Whoa. Now there’s a plot twist. You don’t hear sentiments like that coming out of Hollywood every day. Alright, Mr. Kring, since the writer’s strike leaves Heroes with only two more episodes left, that and your apology will keep me on board.

Oh, and Claire’s dad coming back from the dead?
Whoa. Didn’t see that coming.

Labels: comic books, TV, writing

Obviously, it's a big nostalgia kick for we fans to see Peter Davison step back into the role of Doctor Who after more than 20 years but, upon watching the sketch filmed for the BBC's annual charity telethon Children in Need, it's clear that new Doctor David Tennant is just as giddy as the rest of us:

Doctor Who: Time Crash

It's a terrible risk for any actor to step back into a role from long ago, especially one so identifiable (who can forget cringing through Sean Connery's ill-advised return as James Bond in Never Say Never Again?). Davison, however, manages to recapture his mix of older-brother grumpiness and breathless urgency from the early '80s and Tennant, for his part, doesn't have to work too hard to convey a sense of delight at seeing him again.

And I love how the ending suddenly stops being about the characters or the silly universe-in-peril 'plot' and becomes a dialogue between them as actors. Davison did inspire Tennant, just as he was a role model for little 13-year-old me (not to mention the trainers). The All Creatures Great and Small star had the unenviable task of following on from the bizarre and iconic Tom Baker (much like Roger Moore having to succeed Connery) but he made the part his own and is now being honoured for it while raising money for sick kids. Absolutely lovely to see.

Labels: back in the day, Doctor Who, England, TV

Just got back from TV night at James' place. Very few of us, it seems, are willing to go to a movie by ourselves, so why is television always such a solitary activity? Single people flop down in front of the tube after a long workday and even families, with precious few shows geared to all ages, tend to have separate TV sets in the home.

It's too bad because watching TV with friends is always more fun. Last night, I was talking to my landlady in the hall when Brad and his friend came bursting out of his apartment, begging her to tell them she was able to tape Heroes. It was adorable. I still have fond memories of watching Melrose Place in my university common room with about 16 girls, all of us yelling at the screen. And, of course, the old Sunday night tradition of turning out all the lights and watching The X-Files with my old flatmate Josh. Nattering about the show during the commercials was half the fun.

It's been nice to keep the trend going as best I can. James and Daniel have been inviting me over on Tuesdays to watch The Tudors and it's been great fun: Daniel points out all the historical inaccuracies while I make wisecracks about the dialogue and James makes catty comments about the actors. Plus, James is a great host -- tonight, he served up a fine chocolate cheesecake and poured me a glass of whiskey. He's awesome.

In a similar vein, I've been trying to make time to watch Dexter with Brian (he digs the creepy), Bionic Woman with Trevor (everyone loves women who kick ass) and, as always, Doctor Who with Robert and James. Then there's my Sunday mornings at the dog run with Janet -- while our beasts roam free, we natter about Reaper and whatever Bill Maher was digging into on Friday.

TV is just a good excuse to meet up with friends once a week. As much as I'm loving Friday Night Lights, it'd be more fun to watch it with someone else. Of course, then again, it's made me cry once or twice and no one needs to see that.

I just wish someone else was loving Life as much as I do? Who can I trade theories with about who the real killer is?

Labels: friends, TV

The Colbert Countdown will let you know the exact minute the "Best of" DVD arrives this Tuesday. Viral internet marketing in its purest, truthiest form!

Labels: media, politics, silliness, tributes, TV

There's a charming interview with David Lynch in Entertainment Weekly on this week's release of the beautiful "gold box" DVD set of my favourite TV show, Twin Peaks (oh how I need this!). Lynch explains how the series was hobbled in mid-stream by the network's panicky insistence on wrapping up the show's central mystery as quickly as possible:

"[The] question of what happened to Laura Palmer was the goose that laid the golden egg. Then ABC asked us to snip the goose's head off, and it killed the goose."

This is ironic to me for two reasons: first, ABC is now the home of Lost, a maddening show that has remained popular over three seasons by constantly unveiling more mysteries than it solves.

Second, and more important, is the example of artists treated badly by their business partners. Companies like ABC are now panicking over the writers' strike set to begin on Monday. There's been some terrific new TV this fall (I'm loving Life and Reaper) but it's all about to dry up for quite some time because producers can't see why they should share profits from DVD and Internet versions of shows with the writers who created them. They argue that the whole Internet distribution thing is so new, there's no guarantee they'll make any money from it. This thought obviously occurred to them while passing the owners of Amazon and Google panhandling for change on Sunset Boulevard.

Here's the point: since I won't be buying the Twin Peaks set just yet (not until someone can explain to me why this brand-new product is $90 in Canada and $65 in the States), I decided to soothe my lust by buying the fabulous new soundtrack album from iTunes. I could have easily found it for free on the BitTorrent sites but I happily paid the ten bucks and had it playing on my computer within a few minutes. The network people, along with the movie studio executives, record industry thugs and software developers, don't understand this because they view their customers as potential criminals. They refuse to understand if you treat talented people badly and fill the marketplace with crap, the public will respond with the same amount of respect, no matter how many "you're a pirate thief" ads they place before the movie begins.

David Lynch created a weird and wonderful little series and I'm happy to reward him for it...well, him and the pack of corporate weasels who killed the golden goose but still get 95% of its egg. Stay strong at the bargaining table, Writers Guild of America!

Labels: media, music, technology, TV, writing

After it tidily yet completely skewered the excesses of Torchwood, the UK sketch comedy show Dead Ringers offers a unique escape clause for failed Prime Minister Tony Blair:

Labels: Doctor Who, England, silliness, TV

Oh, to be in England with my unrequited love, Alistair Appleton. We could listen to Talking Heads together (see question 11), cook up a paella for dinner (courtesy of the hilarious hosts of Posh Nosh -- thanks to Gil for the intro!) and perhaps stay at one of the charming seaside inns.

Then again, better not. I made this little video to show how frightening it can be:

Labels: England, friends, oh l'amour, silliness, TV

After all the boosting I did for the premiere of Torchwood last fall, it would seem a bit odd that I never brought it up again, no? Well, picking on it would be like hitting a puppy that's just peed on the carpet. It just didn't know any better.

It's not that Torchwood was bad, per se -- the first two episodes were fine, the last two terrific, but there were nine in the middle that ran the gamut from interesting to dreadful. It's as though the show that was billed as 'Doctor Who for adults' was so bent on matching its parent's incredibly-flexible storytelling format that it forgot to establish any kind of identity first.

Episodes included a police investigation into a decades-old rape/murder case, a Texas Chainsaw Massacre gorefest, a quirky mystery involving the ghost of a bumbling loser, a Fight Club with aliens, and a couple of doomed love affairs -- one straight, one gay. The writers were so busy showing how Torchwood could do anything that it didn't always do it well.

All of this would be forgivable if the characters weren't having the same problem. 51st-century omnisexual con man Captain Jack Harkness had made a great foil for the upright and asexual Doctor, mainly due to the great charm of John Barrowman, who turned a character that could've been smug and smutty (especially on a children's show!) into someone heroic, endearing and fascinating. Giving Jack his own show, turning him loose on modern times, was a saucy and hilarious idea but, as leader of Torchwood, Captain Jack was suddenly solemn and angst-ridden. Being trapped on Earth had apparently given him a joy-ectomy.

As for the rest of the gang, this group of super-secret alien hunters working "outside the government, beyond the United Nations" displayed some maddeningly-stupid behaviour. These five nitwits are responsible for the fate of mankind? That was the scariest thing on the show! Burn Gorman's character was staggeringly unlikable yet dominated the screentime, while Naoko Mori was given nowhere near enough to do. Ditto for cute Welsh actor Gareth David-Lloyd whose character proved most frustrating. He blames Jack (in part) for the death of his girlfriend in episode four and is seen mourning her in the next three episodes. Then, in episode eight, there's a last scene with some heavy innuendo that he and Jack are having sex. Their romance seems to carry on from there. Normally, I'd be pleased but I just can't stop thinking, where did THAT come from?

I suppose it was inevitable that a show that promised to fill the TV void left by The X-Files, Angel AND Queer as Folk could only disappoint, but it's painful to watch a show you want to love but can't quite (I'm having a similar issue with Battlestar Galactica this year). I think a lot of Torchwood's problems come from the fact that it was rushed onto our screens in a fit of enthusiasm following the massive success of Doctor Who. Despite everything I've said, the spin-off was a ratings hit of its own, thankfully, so there will be a second season in January 2008. I'm hoping the extra time will allow the writers to tighten up the scripts. Sure, it's just TV but, with shows like BSG and Heroes raising the bar on this kind of stuff (and, in the latter case, in a big way), we fanboys just want Torchwood to work. Right now, the 'show for adults' is more of a show for 15-year-olds -- I suppose there's nothing wrong with that but, with the talent Torchwood has behind it, they really should aim higher.

But just to show there's no hard feelings, to prove that I really do love the strange little show, I edited together another one of my YouTube bits -- consider it the sports highlight reel:



Now here's a silly postscript: I edited that to one of those angst-rock songs by The Calling that somehow seemed to fit perfectly with the theme of the show but, after doing so, I played around with iTunes and found other songs of a similar length. Since your average pop song format is pretty strict -- verse-chorus-verse with a 4/4 beat -- I turns out that a disturbing number of songs fit my little trailer quite well! I tried out Queen, AC/DC (ha ha) and Franz Ferdinand, before getting loopy with Ella Fitzgerald, the Sex Pistols, a James Bond song and, of course, the requisite Big Gay Version.

After all that, I got frightened and had to stop. It's fun to see how a different tune can completely alter the mood and pace of the imagery but more than a little depressing to see how Lego-like all this video and music have become. One more reason to hope a Welsh sci-fi bisexual cop show can break the mold!

Labels: Doctor Who, MeTube, music, TV

...last summer, I wondered if the entire country wasn't insane.
Fortunately, this TV clip from 1978 lets me see just how much progress they've made!

Labels: comic books, insanity, Japan, silliness, the 70s, TV

Since I posted my little "Cybermen/Pet Shop Boys" creation on YouTube, I've received a couple dozen positive comments and nearly 150 people have added it to their 'favourites' list, but nothing compares to yesterday's 'Pet Text' on the official Pet Shop Boys site:

20 February 2007
A friend has drawn our attention to two unofficial videos on YouTube for "Integral" and "I made my excuses and left". We quite like them.

I think that's the highest possible praise you can get from the British. I'm thrilled! I got my Nightlife CD signed by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe in 1999, amidst the usual throng of other people, but Neil took a minute to chat with me. This mention on their site is almost as exciting.

Labels: Doctor Who, England, MeTube, Pet Shop Boys, TV

...yet completely perfect.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. George Takei:

Labels: homo-a-go-go, silliness, TV

Love it or hate it, the TV show 24 sure has everyone talking. By coincidence, my friend Darrell, my 'Ottawa correspondent' Guy in DKNY and Vanity Fair's mighty James Wolcott all weighed in this week on 24 and the depressing 'torture is fun' debate we're all subjected to these days.

Darrell linked to an article in the New Yorker on the show's producer Joel Surnow, a self-described "right-wing nut job" who smugly decries the liberalism of Hollywood while he makes a fortune within it:

Surnow, for his part, revels in his minority status inside the left-leaning entertainment industry. "Conservatives are the new oppressed class," he joked in his office. "Isn't it bizarre that in Hollywood it's easier to come out as gay than as conservative?" His success with 24, he said, has protected him from the more righteous elements of the Hollywood establishment. "Right now, they have to be nice to me," he said. "But if the show tanks I'm sure they'll kill me." He spoke of his new conservative comedy show as an even bigger risk than 24. "I'll be front and center on the new show," he said, then joked, "I'm ruining my chances of ever working again in Hollywood."

I love the logic: if The 1/2 Hour News Hour fails, it's because the liberals can't handle his manly take on politics, not (not!) because his "Daily Show for conservatives" just isn't funny:



Wow, I never thought anything would make me wish for PJ O'Rourke but hey, torture is moral and Joel Surnow is oppressed -- clearly, we're living in Bizarro World:

Labels: comic books, friends, politics, TV

This one goes to Josh and Darcy, fans of the respective shows -- the logo made me laugh out loud!

Labels: friends, silliness, TV

That line, right there, is reason enough to see this movie.

It's the funniest thing I've seen this week, along with (wow, again) Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock. His character was asked if he liked Phil Collins' music and he replied, "I've got two ears and a heart, don't I?"

That's just genius.

Labels: movies, silliness, TV

Hey, I think I've nearly kicked that flu (and not a moment too soon)!

I note with much amusement that, a mere day after I posted that video clip of Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock, I received this e-mail from the fine folks at YouTube:

Dear Member:
This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by NBC Universal...

Apparently, I am stealing the network's property. I suppose it's an honest mistake -- I thought was helping them out by drawing public attention to their charming little TV show, rather than the press they normally get as a massive free-speech-suppressing media subsidiary of a toxic-waste-dumping, weapons manufacturer and arms dealer. My bad.

Fine then, don't watch their crappy show. See if I care.

Labels: health, Orwell says hi, TV

Despite once knowing a guy who insisted that government-sponsored flu shots were part of a grand science experiment on the public, I've faithfully taken one for the last few years. That guy was too paranoid -- even for me -- and I knew that the government's motives were more mercenary: the cost of flu shots is far less than the cost of nursing a public epidemic. Even with doubts as to their efficacy, I always got the shot.

This year, however, a packed work schedule combined with an apathetic 'oh, what's the worst that could happen' mentality and I skipped the shot. One week into the new year and I have been destroyed -- brought low by the worst thing I've had in years.

So yeah, I think the flu shot works.

This past week has been a nightmare of phlegm, no sleep, body pain, cough syrup, diarrea and...oh why go on? We've all been there.

If there's any bright spot, it's that my cover story on New York photographer Joe Oppedisano was already put to bed before I was, and I've certainly been able to catch up with what's on TV. I've been watching Dexter and The L Word and Nip/Tuck -- all them fascinating, clever and taboo-busting in various ways -- but I confess it's the sitcoms that have really helped me through this flu.

First up, I was able to track down 30 Rock, the new show from former Saturday Night Live headwriter Tina Fey, who also wrote the witty movie Mean Girls. As a parody of her former workplace, I expected her new show to be more snide but instead, it's like soda pop, sweet and fizzy like its adorable 50s-pop credits. The best thing about the show is that it's providing a solid showcase for the man-who-can-do-anything, Alec Baldwin. If Fey's aiming to be a 21st-century Mary Tyler Moore, Baldwin is playing Ed Asner and Ted Knight at once.

Of course, it also reminds me of the days when Fey and Baldwin first met -- he's always been great hosting SNL and this National Public Radio parody still makes me laugh out loud:



Meanwhile, there's the aforementioned How I Met Your Mother, a show that seems like a standard Friends clone until you realize that, with each week, it's getting smarter, funnier and stranger -- like this bit with the gang worried for Robin's little sister, followed by the now-nearly...wait for it...legendary "Slap Bet" episode where she reveals her dark Canadian secret:





Of course, if that's all just too silly for the rest of you, there's always the intense 24, a show I've long avoided, out of a belief that its politics and mine wouldn't get along. From what I'd heard, the show's hero was way too fond of using torture as a quick-and-simple way to foil terrorist plots (by that logic, the horrors of Abu Gharib should've ended the War on Terror by now) and the show is absolutely beloved by right-wingers. Last summer, the Heritage Foundation hired Rush Limbaugh to host a panel discussion called "24 and America's Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does it Matter?" "Does it matter?" What the hell kind of question is that? Oh wait...next week's seminar is "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11." Never mind.

At any rate, all this had me avoiding a TV show that people have talked about for years, one that then won the big Emmy awards this year -- Best Drama, Best Actor. Meanwhile, in his Entertainment Weekly column, Stephen King echoed my misgivings about the show's "gleeful" use of torture while still calling it "the best thing on TV" so when the first four episodes started floating around the Internet this week -- in advance of this weekend's two-night, Sunday-Monday premiere -- the curiosity finally got to me:



Hours later, I can see exactly both why I resisted the show and why so many people love it. The opening episode hinges in part on whether or not the nice Muslim family down the suburban California street are terrorists. That's the kind of paranoic race-baiting that makes my teeth clench. Meanwhile, an innocent Muslim leader is unfairly detained (okay, some balance, I guess) but wait -- he uncovers part of the terrorist plot while in custody. You see? Locking him up was a good thing!

Yes, the underlying biases in 24 are unsettlingly fascist if you stop to ponder them but the reality is that the show never stops moving long enough to let you. I've never seen anything so relentless -- not on TV, not on film. Kiefer Sutherland is indeed terrific and the plot grabbed me in, held me there and then, at the end of episode four, threw out a truly-jaw-dropping climax to an hour that was already the most harrowing thing I'd seen on TV since the infamous car-jacking on Six Feet Under. Yep, I'm forced to admit it -- I'm hooked, dammit. I was already watching too much TV as it is!

Labels: Canada, fab, health, Orwell says hi, silliness, TV, writing

But enough about Ted Haggard. Or Mark Foley. Or Ken Mehlman. Or Charlie Crist. Or any other of the seemingly-endless parade of right-wing anti-gay closet-cases (as comedian Bill Maher joked last week, if any more Republicans come out of the closet, they'll have to change their symbol from an elephant to a moth!).

I come not to bury cowards, but to praise Doogie, as actor Neil Patrick Harris came out on Friday. I phoned my friend Tara on Saturday to say hello and see if she'd heard. Before I could say a thing, she said, "Did you hear about Doogie?!" We're fans.

Long ago, Tara and I worked at a movie theatre in Hamilton with a boy named Darryl, of whom Tara was fond and I was...fonder. He was a fantastic guy -- funny and overly-confident but just decent enough to keep from being an outright jerk. It helped that we all thought he looked like Neil Patrick Harris' TV character so the name 'Doogie' stuck to him like glue. Doogie Howser MD was by means great TV but we liked Darryl and became fond of the show by extension (there's a soft spot even now -- Doogie was the first blogger, after all).

It helped that Harris was a wonderful kid actor and, by all accounts, a good guy. After the show ended, he got stuck in that image but, even so, he didn't go bad like the Diff'rent Strokes gang or the Coreys. He did a lot of theatre and later appeared in Starship Troopers, wearing a long black coat and looking like the leader of the Hitler Youth. There, I thought, is an actor desperate to get un-typecast!

Sure enough, he did it, by developing a Shatneresque sense of humour about himself. He first tweaked his image, playing the "white culture" expert in Undercover Brother ("I owe all of you a huge apology. I just watched this show...Roots? Maybe you've heard of it?"); he then destroyed his image, playing a horny, drugged-out asshole named Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle ("Yeah, I've been craving burgers, too. Furburgers. Come on, dudes, let's pick up some trim at a strip club. The Doogie line always works on strippers!"). The producers of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother were looking for a Jack Black-type actor to play Barney, a disturbingly-cheerful womanizer, but they liked the 'White Castle' bit enough to audition Harris and he won them over. Barney's a jerk but Harris' dorky charm makes him funny and oddly endearing.

I'm whittering on like a fan but here's the point: Neil Patrick Harris has paid his dues and has a solid career. He's only 33 and he's on his second hit TV show, making lots of money and playing a wildly-popular ladies' man. Actors, singers, athletes (anyone making money, really) are only allowed to come out after their careers have run dry, not right in the middle, so following some press speculation (you just can't trust those Canadians), his publicist issued the usual weird Hollywood non-denial: "Neil Patrick Harris is not of that persuasion."

I saw that in the paper last week and was disappointed. I prefer it when actors just avoid the question rather than lie -- kind of like how Ricky Martin was interesting when people wondered if he was gay, as opposed to how boring he became when he kept going on about the ladies in that completely hypothetical 'who are you kidding?' way. It's sad. In Harris' case, the denial was especially pointless, considering how people had been commenting for a while now on the guy he keeps being seen with around New York. I could understand why the publicist would try to suppress the story but it irritated me that, in 2006, a TV actor still can't say he's gay.

Happily, it seems that Harris was annoyed, too. Rather than start playing that fame game -- hiding his boyfriend, showing up at parties with random women, jumping on sofas and yelling about his lady love -- he silenced his handlers and simply issued the briefest, classiest statement possible:

The public eye has always been kind to me, and until recently I have been able to live a pretty normal life. Now it seems there is speculation and interest in my private life and relationships.

So, rather than ignore those who choose to publish their opinions without actually talking to me, I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with wonderful people in the business I love.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done. I can only hope the Republican party is paying attention. Bravo, Doog!

Labels: back in the day, evolution, friends, homo-a-go-go, movies, the 80s, tributes, TV

In all my TV-party glee yesterday, I never stopped to consider the lives of those without high-speed Internet. For them, YouTube is a torture. Hell, even my "ultra high-speed" service chokes up on them from time to time.

With that in mind, here's the links to the stuff I've posted lately:

Videos I've created

Thursday, September 22, 2006
Me and my little dog hit the streets

Doctor Who: 43 years, 10 Doctors, 5-and-a-half minutes
The greatest TV show ever, in a nutshell

Integral: Pet Shop Boys vs. Cybermen
The British government's ID scheme gets a sci-fi disco takedown

Videos I've posted

Pet Shop Boys: It's a Sin
live from the Hummingbird Centre, October 11

Nina Simone: Feeling Good
The way-cool promo for Six Feet Under season four

Nina Simone: If You Knew
A beautiful little gem

Stephen Colbert: The Word
Republican scandals explained with Russian dolls

Lily Allen: LDN
A delightful-yet-grim ode to London

Dane Cook: What men really want
It makes a kind of sense

Dancing
Where the hell is Matt?

D'Agostino supermarkets
Move closer!

Russell T. Davies on Torchwood
Starts Sunday! Can't wait!

Torchwood BBC 3 promo
Have I mentioned this?

Philip Olivier on Hollyoaks: In the City
It's not a crush, it's true love!

South Park: Trapped in the Closet
The boys take down Tom Cruise and the 'Church'

Jesus Camp
This lady keeps me up at night

The Daily Show: Tangled Up in Bleu
Jason Jones discusses gays in the military

Scissor Sisters: I Don't Feel Like Dancing
The '70s in a blender -- gorgeous!

Keith Olbermann: September 11th commentary
The man's on fire, and so very necessary

Labels: Doctor Who, England, MeTube, music, Pet Shop Boys, silliness, TV

I fear YouTube is making me soft.

For a man who calls himself a writer, there's been precious little writing lately! While I love my new job, I also worry that most of my energy has been going into improving the work of others rather than my own. I get home and there's nothing left. Plus, like I said, making these little YouTube clips has been great fun, a terrific distraction. It had to stop. So I decided to hold a little TV party here, showing you the stuff I've loved lately, before I hunker down and start working on the next article.

First up, I was blue for a day because a perfect storm of work, schedule and money conflicts kept me from catching the Pet Shop Boys' visit to Toronto last week. Having seen them twice now soothed the sting, but along comes a YouTuber named uccbob who apparently recorded the entire show in little 2:57 bursts. Shame about the sound but hey, look at that stage set...



The link I'd posted to a Six Feet Under promo a couple years back is long gone, so coming across it again feels like a little present. It's the only ad not included on the DVDs but, more importantly, it's a cool blast of Nina Simone...



This of course left me wanting more, and this one's a tiny gem...



I adored Stephen Colbert's brilliant visual aid explaining the media's coverage of Republican political scandals (Josh Marshall has been keeping a list of indictments and wow, it's even bigger than I thought!)...



Pixieish singer Lily Allen's new ode to London is utterly delightful and completely depressing at the same time -- just like the city itself...



There are smarter, funnier comics than fratboy Dane Cook but do they fight monkeys? I didn't think so...



I think everyone on Earth has now seen Matt dancing everywhere on it but, in case you haven't, give the guy a cheer...



I'll never travel that much, sadly, but my name is well-known in New York City, thanks to the D'Agostino supermarket chain. Move closer!



In a follow-up to my last post, here's Russell T. Davies talking about Torchwood -- I love that a guy writing a sci-fi show is so set on telling stories about ordinary people. I find his enthusiasm endearing and infectious...



And finally, my own little creation. I actually got an e-mail from someone who loved my Doctor Who video and asked me to make more! Flattered, I began thinking of a stream of Who videos I could craft but reason thankfully kicked in. While I would've absolutely adored and exhausted all this YouTube video editing stuff when I was a repressed and dorky teen, these days, I do have a life (okay, sort of). I just don't have the time.

So I decided to take everything I love about Doctor Who -- the character, the show, the institution -- and cram it all into one clip. Whether you love it, laugh at it or don't have a clue, consider this a tribute, a warning or a primer. I called it 43 years, 10 Doctors, 5-and-a-half minutes and it does what it says on the tin:



That's it! I'm spent! No more TV!
Well, except for Heroes, which Josh tells me I should be watching.
Oh, and Dexter, which looks nastily funny.
Oh, and Lost Of course.

Sigh.

Stephen King says that people are always asking him where he gets his ideas. I want to know how he writes 1400-word novels every month and still finds time to write essays on Veronica Mars!

Labels: Doctor Who, England, MeTube, music, Pet Shop Boys, Trawna, tributes, TV, writing

British writer Russell T. Davies is one of my pop-culture heroes.

First, he creates the original (and still superior) version of Queer as Folk.
Then, he upsets his new gay fans with Bob and Rose, a comedy-drama about a gay man and a straight woman who fall in love.
Next, he scandalizes England with Christopher Eccleston as the reincarnation of Christ in The Second Coming.
Then, just to finish up, he transforms the entire UK TV industry by not only deciding to revive BBC's silly relic Doctor Who but making it a massive success, proving that Saturday night family viewing is still possible (or Monday on CBC, hint hint).

Now, he's throwing his whole career into a blender (along with a splash of The X-Files) as he debuts his sci-fi/horror cop show Torchwood, with John Barrowman reprising his instantly-beloved role of Captain Jack Harkness from the first season of Who. When I mentioned the proposed show in an article a few months back, I quoted Davies promising a "dark, wild and sexy" series and now, as BBC 3 starts its promos, we can judge for ourselves:

Labels: Doctor Who, England, evolution, tributes, TV, war - what is it good for?

I'm lucky to have a small but diverse fanclub here as we ramble on, so I imagine many of you will have little interest in Philip Olivier. The rest, however, certainly might. Allow me to introduce you to the man who, as I said to Robert today, would be my husband in a perfect world. "No," said Robert, "In a perfect world, he'd be my husband."

While we armwrestle, I'll let the rest of you know that Mr. Olivier is a British soap opera actor, athlete and Doctor Who sidekick -- clearly a concerted plan to make me fall in love in him. Plus, he has the endearing habit of apparently leaving his clothes behind whenever he leaves the house. Last year, he posed for his own beefcake calendar and a gay magazine recently informed him that 70% of the buyers were men. "I've never known why gay men like me so much," he says, "but they've kept me working!"

More importantly, this straight man has hosted Pride parades in the UK and said, "I used to think my gay friends had a choice, but it isn't their choice. When you are gay it affects your whole life."

You see? A concerted plan! Now here he goes, dropping his pants again. Thanks, Phil!

Labels: comic books, Doctor Who, friends, homo-a-go-go, tributes, TV

It took a while but I've grown to completely adore the South Park guys. The endless stream of lowbrow poop jokes and snide cheap shots left me cold until, after being exposed to enough of it, I began to see the sharp minds and warm hearts lurking behind the construction-paper animation.

This little highlight reel of last year's "Trapped in the Closet" episode makes me laugh out loud -- who knew such a cheap yet devastating takedown of Scientology could be kind of sweet?

Labels: religion, silliness, tributes, TV

Back in July, I wrote about the US Army discharging gay soldier (and Arabic translator!) Bleu Copas, saying that the whole sad issue was "post-satire." Well, leave it to the fine folks at -- you guessed it -- The Daily Show to try anyway.

In particular, it's Jason Jones, who I actually used to know. We went to Hill Park high school in Hamilton and starred in plays -- he was the hero and I the villain in Leader of the Pack and I wonder if he, like me, is still trying to get "76 Trombones" from The Music Man out of his head. I never felt compelled to keep acting but he did and I've been delighted to see him end up on one of the best shows on television.

I just didn't think I'd have to see so much of him:

Labels: back in the day, homo-a-go-go, TV, war - what is it good for?

I've never seen the TV series Weeds but this clip makes me wonder what the hell I'm missing. The wonderful Mary Louise Parker is a single mom who, in this bit, discovers her 12-year-old son has ruined the home's plumbing by flushing gym socks down the toilet. Her brother Andy steps in to counsel the kid and goes way above and too far beyond the call of duty:

Labels: silliness, TV

When David Tennant replaced Christopher Eccleston as Doctor Who last year, I complained that the new guy had stolen my dress sense. At least I could console myself that, while his Converse sneakers were the classic white, mine were earthy brown.

Today, the BBC released a press release for Season Three and, well, look at his feet! Grrrr.

But with that off my chest, let me now say ask, "How cool does newcomer Freema Agyeman look with Tennant?" They're like a 21-century John Steed and Emma Peel (which is kind of Doctor Who in a nutshell, but still...) and the producers "promise new thrills, new laughs and some terrifying new aliens. The Doctor and Martha are destined to meet William Shakespeare, blood-sucking alien Plasmavores, The Judoon - a clan of galactic stormtroopers - and a sinister intelligence at work in 1930's New York."

Could there be a TV show better than that? Well, yes -- Battlestar Galactica begins its own Season Three in October, following a cliffhanger in which the writers took their own highly-successful format and blew it up:



The US Sci-Fi Channel will debut the new season on October 6th, with Season 2 of Doctor Who premiering the week before. The two shows will run together -- the greatest reason to stay home on Friday nights I've ever seen!

Meanwhile, our pokey CBC will debut Season 2 of Doctor Who on Monday, October 9th (but since they're helping to pay for the show, I'll forgive them). So if you're looking at that photo and wondering where the goodlooking blonde girl went, you obviously didn't download the traumatic second-season finale with Rose Tyler's teary goodbye (watched it with four friends and not a dry eye in the house) but now's your chance!

Okay then, I've geeked out and squealed over my doggy pictures -- back to making fun of hateful warmongers!

Labels: Doctor Who, TV

When I used to work at Britnell's Bookshop, Toronto's oldest and fanciest-schmanciest, I would often tell people buying a book that I'd heard the author would be on Talk Show X that week or that PBS was doing a televised version. They'd look at me like I had something hanging out of my nose and say, "I don't watch television," or better yet, "I don't own a television."

I always found this attitude strange since -- like books, movies or any other media -- 80% of television is indeed crap but some of it is very, very good. Some may think my 80% figure is too kind but even so, why dismiss an entire outlet when you can just be selective about it?

James Poniewozik, the TV critic for Time magazine agrees with me but far more authoritatively:

It's easy to knock the TV Turnoff Network as Quixotes, Luddites and naifs -- I've taken my own shots at them in the past -- but here's their dirty secret: they don't actually want you to turn off your TV. Not for good anyway. In a chat on the Washington Post web site, the group's director allowed that what they really want is for families to spend fewer hours in front of the tube: 1 or 2 hours per day, perhaps.

You can argue with the number (OK smart guys: America's Next Top Model, The Amazing Race, Lost and South Park are all on Wednesday night -- which ones am I supposed to drop? Am I made of stone?). But it's reasonable to say that people should be more selective about what they watch, and, especially, teach their kids to watch it critically.

So why not make that the goal of the week -- Watch TV Smarter Week, etc. -- rather than a kill-your-TV crusade that is, rightfully, almost bound to fail? Probably because, by asking people to turn off the TV altogether for a week, the group gets more publicity. But much of the publicity focuses -- again, rightly -- on how little success the group has: the Nielsens show no dent attributable to its efforts. Year after year, the group comes off like cranks, and incompetent ones at that.

Their message should be not that people should watch less TV but that they should work harder at choosing the TV they and their families watch. I have little patience for people who dismiss TV across the board: it's ridiculous to claim there's no qualitative difference between, say, The Sopranos and Date My Mom. But I also have little patience for people who let their young kids run the remote unsupervised.

Electronic media is a big part of modern life: rather than shield your kids from it, teach them about it just like you'd teach them about hygiene or traffic safety. Talk about what commercials are, why they're trying to get your money, and whether you can believe them. Talk about what they like and don't like on TV and why. In other words, teach your kids to be their own media critics, because that's what we all need to be these days.

In the end, that's a more realistic goal than unplugging your TV set--and, truth be told, much harder work. If there's a legitimate complaint about TV as a medium, it's that it too often discourages critical thinking and offers easy, simplistic answers. Ironically, that's also exactly the problem with TV Turnoff Week.

Labels: back in the day, bookworm, TV

No, not more Pope-bashing but, on a lighter-yet-vaguely-related note, my aforementioned plug for the new TV version of "Battlestar Galactica" (stay with me here). Like many children-of-the-70's, I eagerly tuned in to the weekly "Star Wars" rip-off from Glen A. Larson, creator of 'classics' like "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Knight Rider." I adored the show's fancy special effects yet found my TV affections constantly reverting to the bargain-basement rubber monsters of "Doctor Who." What had gone wrong?

A night fifteen years later answered the question. Mildly drunk and wildly nostalgic, a group of us in university rented a batch of 70's videos, including "Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack," a two-parter stitched together and featuring Lloyd Bridges as a rogue spaceship captain. It was, we realized, absolutely and irreedemedly stupid. What was shiny chrome to children was tin to adults. One brutal-yet-entirely-accurate summation of Larson's career refers to the show's "idiotic" plots and argues that: