I’ve seen fandom do beautiful things. In point of fact, I can see because fandom (and some great friends) did a beautiful thing. And as we approach Thanksgiving, I wanted to revisit the story of something I’m thankful for every day.
You see, I have a degenerative, incurable eye disease called keratoconus. It’s relatively rare, and the causes of it are still not known for sure. In brief, keratoconus causes a thinning, malformation, and scarring of the corneas, leading to not only the typical bad vision one might correct with glasses or contacts, but also wacky fun stuff like “monocular polyopia,” other streaking and flaring around light sources, and sensitivity to light. Due to the way keratoconus distorts the cornea, once it reaches a certain point vision is not correctable with glasses or soft contact lenses. Hard (rigid gas permeable) lenses are required to, essentially, provide the proper shape for the corneas.
For some people, the disease will plateau and they may not reach that point. Or they may reach that point and live with hard lenses. For others, like myself, the disease keeps going. It is at that time that options narrow dramatically.
In 2010, my quality of vision and ability to wear hard contact lenses with any degree of comfort had lessened (imagine weirdly blurred vision and sudden, random stabbing eye pains every day and you’ll have my daily life), to the point where my specialist and I were seriously discussing the possibility of corneal transplants.
As you can imagine, I was dreading the possible need for a transplant. The recovery time is over a year, results are not guaranteed, and there’s a 20% chance of rejection, along with risks of detachment, displacement, and infection. So imagine my excitement when my dad found another option.
Remember how I said the disease is incurable? It is. However, my dad had learned of an experimental procedure called corneal collagen cross-linking, which had been in trials for about two years in the United States – 12 years in other countries – at the time. This procedure is much less invasive that a transplant, with a shorter and less difficult recovery time, as well as being less risky. And while it doesn’t fix your vision, if successful it can halt the corneal degeneration, and, in some cases, improve eyesight slightly through rebuilding the bonds between the layers of the cornea.
We looked into it further, and were happy to learn that I was a candidate for the clinical trial. However, the big downside to this procedure was that, due to it still being in the trial stages (only about 300 people had been treated in the U.S. by 2010), my insurance wouldn’t cover it. I would have to pay all$8,000 of the cost of the procedure; not to mention the costs of the medications, lost income from missed work during the recovery periods, and special scleral contact lenses that I now wear (which are, incidentally, what they use in special effects for things like whited-out or black eyes). And the plain fact of the matter was that I did not have the money for the procedure.
Although I had been living with the diagnosis of the disease for several years at that time, I rarely mentioned it. However, this difficulty was so distressing that I wrote about it in my online journal. And then, wonderful things began to happen. The first was that several friends in the broader LiveJournal community of which I am a part through my various fandom interests, including those I knew in person and those I only knew online, asked if they could contribute funds for the surgery.
Although I was touched by the generosity, I was raised to believe I should make my own way in the world, and didn’t know that I could be comfortable accepting the offer. So I called up my wonderful friend Cleolinda to talk it over. As we talked, she wisely pointed out to me that this was an unusual medical situation, and that, basically, yes, if nice friends wanted to help, I should let them. After I agreed with her point, she then surprised me by posting about my situation on her journal, and asking if people might want to help me.
Cue wonderful thing number two. Immediately, people began to donate; and after Cleo posted, Heather, an online friend of Cleo’s who I did not know but have since become good friends with, understood my discomfort with just accepting straight funds and suggested a fandom auction on LiveJournal – in which people could donate fandom or handmade items, and others could bid, and the resulting funds would go towards the surgery, with the donators of funds getting some return value for their contribution. She offered to run the whole thing, and did so with great efficiency, jumping right in to get the ball rolling on setting upa community and spreading the word with Cleolinda.
The auction ran for a little over three months, and was a great success. Many cool items were offered and purchased, many kind good wishes came my way (which meant a lot to me as well!), and by the end of the auction, fandom, consisting of some people I knew but many I didn’t, had raised the entire $8,000. Add to that a few other generous donations from friends who had learned of the online fundraising secondhand (as I still hadn’t really felt comfortable mentioning it outside of the online forum), and my recovery and medication expenses were covered as well. I could hardly believe it, but there it was. This tremendous burden lifted from my life by the kindness of a community.
Seeing fandom come together to help me like that was, and to this day is, one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced. I can’t even begin to describe how much it means to me that both friends and total strangers banded together to make it possible for me to see.
I can, however, describe the results (and if you are really interested in the blow-by-blow saga of both surgeries and the results, start from the bottom of this and scroll up. Although Cleolinda’s recap of my first surgery is way more amusing than mine). Although of course the procedure was no picnic and the recovery time was over six months, by the end not only had the deterioration been halted (presumably for good), but vision in my right eye, which was 20/400 uncorrected, had been vastly improved, and vision in my left had improved slightly as well.
On top of this, after the procedure I was fitted for special scleral lenses, sometimes prescribed for cases of advanced or very irregular keratoconus. They are the most wonderful thing imaginable for a keratoconus patient like me. Yes, they are a real annoyance to get in and out, but with them, I am able to see better than I had for about six years prior to the surgery; and there is no pain. So although I still live with the disease (and its quirks, which still include occasional and unpredictable vision problems), this procedure vastly improved my quality of life; and it was all thanks to a group of people who were brought together primarily by their enjoyment of various sci-fi, fantasy, comics, or other genre fandoms, and by the online fandom community that resulted from that enjoyment.
Yes, fandom can be, and in this instance certainly was, a beautiful thing. Not only is my daily life improved thanks to fandom, but my fandom life is as well. As Marvel artist Reilly Brown pointed out when he generously donated a gorgeous Deadpool sketch to the auction, a comics fan no longer being able to see comics would be very sad. Now, not only can I continue to read comics, but I can also continue to pursue favorite hobbies like making tiny clay sculptures. And for those blessings and so many more, I am so, so thankful.
It’s been just over three years since my cross-linking procedures, and even if I don’t say it every day, I am constantly grateful for the help and kindness of those who contributed to those procedures; and I want each of you to know that through your caring, you touched a life forever. And I want everyone else who reads this to know what a great thing happened thanks to a bunch of awesome nerds and geeks and fans and friends caring enough about another one of their community to give something of themselves. I hope one day to be able to pay that forward in some manner. But until that time comes – a Happy Thanksgiving to all, and an eternal thank you to everyone who gave me such an amazing gift to be thankful for.
And until next time, Servo Lectio!
Editor’s Note: Due to other commitments, Emily will be shifting to a monthly posting schedule through May of 2014. So look for her column on a monthly basis, starting in December. Emily will be back to her weekly posting schedule after May of next year. And we can hardly wait to have her back fulltime.
It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame.
Whatever the cost.”
The Warrior Doctor (John Hurt), The Day of the Doctor, November 23, 2013
After all the press, after all the hype, after a week of BBC America’s Doctor Who Takeover, I was really afraid that actual episode was going to suck, that I was going to be miserably let down, wretchedly disappointed.
I. Was. Absolutely. Completely. Totally. Utterly. Positively.
Blown. Away.
The whole wide world became the whole wide Whovian world yesterday, as the BBC simulcast The Day Of The Doctor in over 75 countries – Angola, Australia, Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde Islands, the Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, the Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Russia, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania & Zanzibar, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
I mean, seriously, has the United Nations ever been able to bring about such a coalition? I mean, seriously, I think the last time so many countries and their citizens came together to celebrate and raise a glass or two as they did on Saturday was for the end of World War II 68 years ago.
I mean, seriously, think about it, people. So many of these nations are embattled and torn apart by violence and terror and war—and yet the Doctor, fictional character though he may be, hits such a powerful chord of hope and peace and unity among the peoples of this Earth, is it possible that even in places like Somalia and Myanmar and Colombia and the Congo that a truce was called for one hour and twenty minutes on Saturday, November 23rd, 2013?
Once before has the world been stopped on this date. 50 years ago President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot dead in Daley Plaza, Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, and the world held its breath for the next four days as his body was returned to Washington, where it laid in state, first in the White House and then at the Capitol Rotunda, to finally come to rest in Arlington Cemetery across the Potomac River in Virginia – and so in England no one, or very, very few, saw the BBC’s debut, on November 23rd, 1963, of a science fiction television show about a grandfatherly man and his niece and her two teachers adventuring in time and space in a contraption called the TARDIS, which was an acronym, the niece informed us, for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, and which looked like an English 1950’s police box.
But the BBC reran the premiere episode of Doctor Who and its ratings took off, and when William Hartnell, the first actor to play the Doctor, became too ill to continue, an innovative idea was born to explain the introduction of Patrick Troughton as his replacement—regeneration.
And now Doctor Who, the series, has regenerated.
I won’t go into depth, so as not to spoil it for those who were unable to see The Day Of The Doctor this past weekend, but I will say this – the driving force behind the Time Lord has been changed.
The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story by Vivek Tiwary and Andrew C Robinson, with Kyle Baker. 144 pages. Dark Horse. Available in both hardcover and electronic editions.
This week, I’m kvelling all the time. The Fifth Beatle is finally in the stores.
Let me explain. About a dozen years ago, I met Vivek Tiwary and we quickly became friends, even though it’s only recently I’ve pronounced his name properly. We met because we had friends in common, friends who inspired us to do some good, in Vivek’s case quite amazingly. (Really, watch the video at the link. It’s wonderful.)
Community service is all well and good, but what really bonded us was comics. We are totally geeks together. We would walk around various conventions (both Book Expo and the San Diego Comic-Con), sharing the kind of fangasms such events inspire. I even helped him take his young son around.
During these walks, and on other occasions, we would often talk about his various projects, He was working on turning Green Day’s American Idiot album into a theatrical musical, and he was working on a screenplay about Brian Epstein. Vivek is quite passionate on the subject of Epstein, the Beatles’ first manager. He first looked tried to find out about him 21 years ago, when he was in business school. There was hardly any information. Over the decades, he pulled the story together. Vivek had a lot of experience as a theatrical producer, but film was a new medium for him. He had written a screenplay, but getting it made was an arduous process.
Why not make it into a graphic novel while you wait, I suggested.
And so he did. He found Andrew Robinson to collaborate on the art (and I introduced him to Kyle Baker, who drew the hilarious scene in the Philipines), and off they went. Thanks to my ComicMix co-columnist Michael Davis, we got the book to Dark Horse.
Vivek didn’t fall into the trap that catches too many writers from other media, including me. He doesn’t cram the page with words. He knows how to let the pictures tell the story. He trusts his artist to convey the pace, the emotions, the energy of the story. Andrew doesn’t let him down. The likenesses are evocative without being overbearing. People who knew some of the characters in real life tell me he nailed the body language as well as the bodies. The use of Beatle lyrics is lovely.
There is a rhythm to the story that is like a great rock’n’roll song. You get caught up in the energy when you read it the first time, and then you can’t get it out of your head.
And now, you have the book in your hands. You’re welcome.
Almost Human,J. H. Wyman’s new science fiction crime drama which is being produced by J.J. Abrams, premiered in two parts on Sunday and Monday on FOX. The series centers around the Los Angeles Police Department, where a detective who dislikes robots is partnered with an android capable of human emotion – a very I, Robot-esque premise with the potential to result in an interesting dynamic.
I can’t speak about the premiere, not having seen it as yet. But I did sit down and discuss the show with Karl Urban, Michael Ealy, Minka Kelly, Lili Taylor, and Naren Shankar while in San Diego this summer. Read on to see what they had to say about the pilot and the upcoming season!
Karl Urban (John Kennex)
What drew you to this project, and what are your thoughts on the concept and the character?
What drew me was primarily the script. I read the script and I was drawn to the character of John Kennex – a character who’s been in a coma for two years; who wakes up to find that he has a completely robotic leg, that he is responsible for a massive loss of life within his team, and is pushed into the front line of trying to protect and serve humanity. I found that infinitely interesting. A character who is searching for himself, and finds answers in the most unlikely source, which is his synthetic partner. He’s a character who has an aversion to technology and he’s partnered up with a robot, and ironically, the robot is almost more human than humans.
Character and story aside, it was the opportunity to work with Joel Wyman, who I’m a huge fan of. I loved Fringe. It was a really smart show. It wasn’t a stereotypical dumbed-down show. So I knew going into this that the stories were going to be smart; that we’re not going to talk down to an audience. And then obviously, it was my continuing relationship with J.J. Abrams, who really drew me into the project. I wasn’t looking to do television; but once I started looking at all of the elements involved, I thought, “How can I turn this down? This could be really, really cool.”
How has the experience been different, between movies and TV?
So far, the process is fundamentally the same; and if you’ve seen the pilot, you only have to look at that to be blown away by the production elements involved. It looks and feels like a movie, and I feel that it’s going to be really fun to explore the narrative of a character over a season, instead of just two hours, where things are condensed. So I’m excited; I’m looking forward to it.
What do you hope that John learns from Dorian over the course of the show?
It’s my hope that Dorian kind of puts John in touch with himself, with his humanity. In the best world, they learn from each other; because in a way, they’re both searching for what it is to be human. John does not remember vast tracts of his life. He is a character who has a lot of pain; of bitterness; of anger; of torment; of guilt; of frustration – all these emotions, this baggage that he has; and I think consequently, he’s quite closed off. And I think that Michael Ealy’s character, Dorian, is a wonderful mechanism for opening him up a bit, softening him up a bit over time. At the point where we discover John in this pilot – John’s not John yet. He’s just coming off a really heavy deal. I’m really thrilled and excited to see where we go from here.
Doing a movie, you know the whole story going into it. What do you think about doing a TV show, where you might not know where things are going?
I think it’s exciting. It’s just like life – we don’t know what’s just around the corner. And I certainly am aware of the through line for my character for the first season, and that’s enough for me. I just want to concentrate on making the best show we can, and delivering really interesting, compelling characters who are accessible and identifiable; and dealing with stories that we can all related to and empathize with, showcased against the canvas of this slightly futuristic world. And to me, that’s interesting – the technology that is in Almost Human, it’s coming. It’s down the pike. We’re putting stuff into the show that has been fully researched, and this technology is just around the corner. I don’t think of the show as a science fiction show. It’s a slightly futuristic show. It’d be like, “we’re a cop show in the early nineties that has characters walking around with cell phones.” You know? “That’s never gonna happen!” And here we are.
Michael Ealy(Dorian)
What appealed to you about the show, and what are your feelings about your character?
First and foremost, obviously the pedigree of the producers is there. These guys know how to drive a ship. My first meeting with Joel was three hours long; and I went from feeling like, “Eh, I’m not sure about this,” to “Dude, that’s crazy. That’s crazy. Okay!” So the fact that he’s driving the ship makes me confident that the story is going to go in the right direction and it has the potential to last.
The way the material was written was very interesting to me, because despite all the cool stuff, and the technology, and the idea that this guy is a synthetic; there’s so many little things that I find interesting and relatable to what it is we’re going through now. There’s discrimination; there’s political correctness: “Don’t call me a fucking robot!” You can’t say that to Dorian. It’s offensive. And the idea that a robot, a machine could be offended? I’m like, “Okay, you gotta wrap your head around this for a second.” This is something where we’re not there yet right now; but because the show is set in the near future, it’s right around the corner.
Someone asked me, “Have you ever been interested in the future like this?” I was like, “No. Never been interested in the future.” Not that I didn’t care about my future – it’s just that I never really thought about the future, like where we’re going to be. But this show has made me think, “Well, my kids will be living in a world that could be similar to this.” My son could potentially be partnered with a Dorian, if he becomes a cop – you don’t know. So it’s one of those things where it provokes so much thought and intrigue that instantly, it’s like, “This is the project you sign on to.”
As an actor, how do you balance trying to show the emotions but also be a “machine”?
It is by far the most difficult role to try and play human / machine, machine / human. Which one is he in this scene, and which one is he in that scene? And Joel and Brad Anderson, our director on the pilot, have been very helpful in helping me find those fine lines. I based Dorian on three particular characters in movie history: Jason Bourne, Robert Patrick’s Terminator, and Starman, from the Jeff Bridges movie. Doing that has helped me gauge how far I can go in this particular moment, or how small I can be in this; and it’s been incredible. I look forward to where he’s going to be in other episodes, and the levels that I can play with this guy.
In the pilot, it looks like there’s a skosh of humor between John and Dorian. Is that going to continue?
I think the humor plays nicely in the show, without being forced. You read the script, and you might go, “heh,” and that’s your reaction; and I think that’s enough. It never feels sitcom-y or like it’s a setup. It’s more…usually the humor is inadvertent or it’s just the irony of the moment. Especially from John’s perspective, it’s like, “Wow. Really?” Like, “You’re offended that I called you a robot?” Detective Paul, played by Michael Irby, he constantly refers to me as “Bot.” And that is, to Dorian, the equivalent of certain terms that we don’t say anymore in this day and age. So it’s like, “Sigh.” He has to kind of check himself before responding to that. But the humor itself, I think we have a nice blend of that right now. I think it’s honest; it’s truthful. And there is truth in jest. I think that is what we’re playing with right now.
What do you think that Dorian will learn from John over the course of the series, and John learn from Dorian?
I think John will grow. I’m hoping that Dorian’s hunger for humanity will cause John to understand that he’s blessed, and that what he has is special. And what I hope Dorian understands is that everything human is not good, and sometimes being able to do what he’s able to do…because it’s so “natural,” being programmed in him, to be able to figure out the pixels in this particular canvas, he doesn’t appreciate that. I’m hoping he learns to appreciate some of that, and I think, based on what I’ve read so far, that’s going to come; especially in the relationship between him and Rudy, played by Mackenzie. Their relationship is going to grow. We’re going to understand those two a little bit more.
In the pilot, your character said “I want to be a cop.” For an android to want something that we’d think of as distinctly human is interesting territory. Can you talk about exploring the humanity through the eyes of this non-human, and how he might be in pursuit of a more recognized state of humanity? Is that something you try to bring into the character?
By all means. I’d like to describe him as a reflection of the humanity that we all take for granted, daily. There are people in this world who don’t understand the preciousness of what it is to have a child, and they walk away or run from that responsibility. And that lack of humanity is something that Dorian cannot fathom; because he wants it so bad. I like to consider him as very observant. Not so much intuitive, but observant of human behavior, and so if he sees you make a sad face, he wants to know, “Okay, what does that sadness feel like?” Because he really wants to feel it.
And ultimately, where he’s going to go remains to be seen. But I feel like his desire to embrace humanity sets him apart from other machines that we’ve seen in the past, and I think it gives a hopeful tone to the show. Oftentimes in futuristic or sci-fi shows, you see that man and machine don’t co-exist. I think what we’re trying to say is that these two, hopefully, can co-exist and create a model for the masses of society to understand that man and machine can work together. You know, Dorian would love it if there were more Dorians out there! But he is coming out of being decommissioned, and that’s a hard thing for him to swallow.
That’s interesting, too. The newer models of the robot partners are less appealing and more robotic. I hope they look at Dorian and say, “We need to get back to this model.”
That’d be cool, wouldn’t it? It’s interesting, because those guys, the MX43s, they look like superheroes. They’re all like, 6’4”…and Dorian looks at them and he goes, “Ooh, intimidating.” He’s such a smart-ass! Because he knows, at the end of the day, “They are machines, and they can’t do what I can do. And they can’t think like I can think, and they will never be able to feel like I can feel.” He has a certain amount of pride in that, and at the same time, I think what John has to learn is, Dorian can be more helpful than hurtful. Because he’s not an MX43. And that’s a slow grind for him. So we’ll see how it goes.
Minka Kelly(Valerie Stahl)
What drew you to the show?
When they present a show to you that’s produced and created by Joel Wyman and J.J. Abrams, you know it’s going to be something pretty cool; and not only does it look cool, it’s a beautiful subject matter. The way that they explore the direction we’re going technology-wise – it’s growing so fast and I think the fear is that we’re going to lose touch with each other and the ability to connect, on a human emotional level; and I’m afraid of losing that.
I feel like we’re already sort of in a place where kids aren’t being taught how to write in cursive anymore, and they’re not learning how to write a letter and put a stamp on it and mail it, because they just text, or email, and this show really explores the risk of that. I love that my character really fights and believes in not losing touch with humanity, and not losing that human emotional contact and connection, and so that’s what drew me to the story and to the character; because I feel like that’s a really real subject and issue that we’re facing.
Will we get to learn more about your character as the season goes on; and what can you tell us about her background?
You’re going to learn a lot about my character throughout the season. There’s so much about her; there’s a lot more to her than meets the eye. It’s going to be a really fun character to play, and definitely the most challenging I’ve ever played, with what they’re telling me they’re going to do. There are a lot of different sides to her, that you’ll see, which is as much as I can say. She’s not an android; but there are some really fun aspects to her that will be revealed; and you’ll know why she’s there, why she does what she does and why she fights for what she fights for, and as far as Detective Kennex goes, she just looks up to him in such a big way, because he really also believes in those same things – humanity, and his morals and beliefs, she has in common with him. So a lot of that will be revealed.
It seems like they’re setting up an interesting relationship dynamic between your character and Karl’s. Can you go into a little bit more detail about that? Are we going to see some romance, or…
I think when you’re working with these guys, nothing is off the table; you can’t say never to anything. Right now, as it is, there’s no romance that we know of. I’ve asked Joel that same thing. Right now it really is an admiration. She just looks up to him. He’s a hero of hers, and so she’s just very excited to meet him, and work alongside him; and maybe one day be as great as he is at what she does.
Are you enjoying the sci-fi aspect of it? That whole “creating whole new worlds” thing?
Sure; it’s so funny because working on the show, being there on the day, shooting these scenes, it doesn’t feel like a sci-fi show, because we are also telling a beautiful story, and we’re all connecting on a human level; so then when I see the show, I’m reminded it’s a sci-fi show, and the world that they’ve created is so cool and exciting. I think that you can’t really put this show in a box. It’s not just sci-fi; it’s not just procedural. There’s also a lot of humanity that we’re exploring. I’m attracted to that aspect of it.
It sounds like there are a lot of serious themes; is it fun on the set? Are there going to be fun parts to the show as well? What is the overall tone?
I think there’s a little bit of everything. Even in the pilot, you see Michael Ealy and Karl Urban, they’re great together, and I think there’s a lot of humor involved. I mean, even the scene with him in the car; that was my favorite part, I love that. And I think if you don’t have that, you’re in trouble, because it can’t just always be so serious. I don’t think that’s why you tune in. You want to laugh, and you want to feel all kinds of things. And I think this show really does cover all of that. There’s something for everyone there.
How much ahead of time do you like to know about where your character is going?
I used to think I didn’t want to know ahead of time, but in this case, I’m really glad that I know, because it’s even gotten me more fired up. When Joel told me where we were going and what we were doing, it just got me really excited to go to work; and I just feel so lucky that I’m a part of a team that has such great imagination. So I’m excited to see how far they go with what they’ve said they’re doing. We’ll see!
Lili Taylor (Maldonado)
What drew you to the show?
I think Joel and J.J., their imaginations are pretty great, and that’s exciting to me. And one other thing was, my character was originally a man, and they were open to making it a woman; and I thought that said a lot about, again, their imagination and flexibility.
Was the material appealing to you?
Yes; I’ve always wanted to play a cop! But so what, you know – I can do that in an acting class or something. I don’t have to bother everyone else with my little dream. But what interests me is, I loved Children of Men; and I thought that template was just perfect. And I know that’s what they’re talking about here; and find that this show wrestles with some interesting questions. We know this is a really wild time to be living in, just crossroad-wise, and this show might get into some of that stuff that we’re wrestling with.
If it was originally a man, how did you end up with the part?
I have to verify this…I think my manager suggested it, and they were open to it. And that just is fantastic.
The role that was being written – did they change much when they made it a female part, or did they keep the character much the same?
Sort of the same, but obviously because I am who I am, it’s changing a bit. But what I like is that whoever she’s become, she still has a real strong feminine side. Because sometimes women in those positions of power, they just, like: they have balls. It’s like, “Are you a woman?” Where’s the femininity? So she’s able to be a boss and still know that she can do it without suppressing that. Like what Helen Mirren was doing in Prime Suspect; and I love that template also. And I’ve talked to them about that, and they’re open to that kind of thing as well.
Talking about the dynamic between your character and John – they seem to have kind of a close relationship, but yet it’s not necessarily a good relationship at all times…
To me, they almost seem more like sister and brother in a way, than like, mom, or boss/employee. And I think they have a bond because they experienced a tragedy together, and that’s an interesting place to start from. But she is still his boss…so it’s like, older sister.
What can you tell us about your storyline?
I know that they’re going to be talking to us about it. Joel was saying that he was sort of more secretive on Fringe, and that he’s doing it different now. Because it just does work better, when you have open lines of communication; everybody sort of wins.
How much ahead of time do you like to know where your characters are going?
I like to know, because it’s a house of cards. I’ve gotten used to not knowing, and I’ll accept that; but if I had known certain things that a character did in episode 11, in episode 3, or earlier, I might have created some different choices. Like if all of a sudden you find out your character is a psychopath, in episode 13, but you didn’t have any glimmers of that happening, that’s hard.
You mentioned that the show is going to be touching on some interesting questions. Can you elaborate?
Well, climate change, some of the neuroscience stuff, the Google Glass – I mean, that’s sort of on a lower level, but that can open doors to the ethical dilemmas. Even bringing an extinct species back, like recreating the dodo. On so many levels, I feel like we’re just in a can of worms. Like you do one thing, like bring back an extinct species, and all of a sudden another species gets threatened. Just all sorts of wild questions are being raised.
What backstory do you know?
I don’t know any. I know there was a bad raid two years ago, and we lost a lot of officers.
It sounds like the show is exploring humanity and what it means to be human. If you could set it up so that your character got to make one comment on what it means to be human, what do you think that would be?
To be human? I think it’s to fall down and get back up; and then fall down and get back up. And on and on and on.
Naren Shankar (former executive producer and co-showrunner)
Note: On September 9, 2013, it was announced that Shankar, who joined the series after the production of the pilot, would depart the series due to creative differences. However, I think he said some really interesting things about the show, many of which will presumably still hold true, so I’m including his interview. Also, won’t it be interesting to see in what ways they take a different direction after the change in personnel?
How did you get involved in the project, and why did it appeal to you?
I was on CSI for many years. I ran the show with Carol Mendelsohn for about eight years. I came off it, and I was looking for a way to get back to my roots; because my first shows were all science fiction. That was a huge chunk of my career and the stuff that I love. I was on Star Trek, and The Outer Limits, and Farscape; and after eight years of dealing with dismembered corpses and real-time drama, it wears you down a little bit. And I saw the pilot, and it really was a great combination, and perfect for me. Because it was futurism, and it was a police procedural. It had great relationships in it. Very much in keeping with NYPD Blue; I mean, these were all shows that I loved. And then I met with Joel and we hit it off really, really well. So it was a great match and I’m delighted to be here.
It sounds like you’ll be able to blend a bit of your current procedural background with your sci-fi background…
Yeah, and also, I used to be an engineer. So, there really isn’t a show on television right now that really deals with futurism. And I think it’s kind of amazing; it’s actually hard to pull off. Because what we really want to do, in the absolute best version of this show, is give people a little glimpse of what’s coming down the road.
We really are trying hard to maintain relatability to the present. Because you want to see a little bit of the seeds of present day technology, extrapolated thirty, thirty-five years in the future. Because it’s very easy to create a world that is unrecognizable to people, and that world, we can’t really attach to. And then you just go, “Ehh, it’s just stuff.” I think it also narrows the appeal of the program pretty substantially. Whereas, if people can actually relate to it, understand that this is the world that might be coming, it gives them a totally different way to attach to the program. And if they can see that it’s not about futuristic crime-solving, it’s about people in the future dealing with the future, they can relate to that. That’s, I think, a really important distinction; and I think that’s what we’re trying to achieve.
So as the show goes on, are you going to continue keeping an eye on cutting-edge science and incorporating that? Can you give us an example of something that’s on the cusp right now, that you might have brought into the show?
Absolutely we are. And for an example, people right now are worried about location tracking, and privacy. Episode two deals with these issues, but extrapolated into the future. Taking that notion and doing some pretty nasty things with it. We’re going to try to do that as much as possible; and yeah, you have to keep up with it, because things change so incredibly fast. It’s actually super-difficult to come up with.
Can you talk about the episode structures? Is it going to be similar to a police procedural, or more with long-term serial arcs throughout the season?
We’ve talked a lot about that. With Fringe, it was super mythologized, and tightly, tightly serialized. CSI was literally at the opposite end of that spectrum. We’re trying to work for a combination of those things. But I think the best example that we can give you – and we’ve had many discussions about it – NYPD Blue had really interesting and compelling cases and criminals, but the mythology of the show was really the mythology of the characters’ lives. That’s what the serialization came from. It was really the continuing character arcs. Was Sipowicz going to fall off the wagon; or he’s having prostate cancer; and how is his partner dealing with his girlfriend who’s in the precinct. .. It was maybe a little soapier than what we’re going for; but I think we are trying hard to focus the mythology on the continuing aspects of the characters in the show. There are going to be some very lightly serialized arcs; but the idea is to give people a great case every week, with people who are continuing to develop in terms of their relationships, and their relationship to the world.
I understand you want to be cutting edge, but being a sci-fi show, and given your background on Star Trek and all, what about opportunities to sort of comment on where we are now?
You’re hitting the core of it – we want to comment on things as they are now, or where we feel things might go. With Star Trek, we were so remote in terms of where we were relative to the present day. Star Trek was positing a future where people had evolved past their baser instincts and were actually not quite as barbaric or as violent, and everybody had plenty, because you had a replicator. And that is not the future that we’re talking about.
We’re talking about a future where technology has done a lot of good and a lot of ill. If you’re talking about the broader message of the show, in a way it’s like, you’ve got a synthetic who’s kind of human, and a human who has synthetic parts. And n the long arc of the show, we’re talking about, where is humanity going? Are those two things coming together? Because a lot of people believe that they are; I’m actually one of them. But that means things can go really good, or things can go really bad. But maybe that’s the only chance for survival of the species, is some combination of technology and biology. And I think in a larger sense, that is what the show is dealing with.
How far in advance have you mapped out ideas for the future of the series?
We’ve mapped out quite a bit. We’ve laid out character arcs for the first thirteen episodes for all of our guys. We kind of dug into the backstories of all of our characters very well. We’ve got some very interesting stuff coming up; and it’s dealing with, like, you know everybody in the world who’s a regular in the show has a very particular relationship with technology. And you’re going to see that as the show goes on. And we have tons of ideas for cases. It’s a great combination. I think you’re really going to like how the John and Dorian relationship evolves; and there’s going to be some interesting codependence as the show continues. We’ve been busy.
Have you mapped out any general ideas for where you’ll go past the first thirteen?
Definitely. But we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, and we do want to keep ourselves open to possibilities. If people get hyper-dogmatic about where their shows are, it kind of hurts them. Because then you start writing towards results as opposed to keeping yourself open to unexpected things that you never anticipated. I think when you have a cast of the quality that we have on this program, that’s going to happen. Because in the pilot, just watching, for example, Mackenzie Crook – Rudy, the lab technician – when he plugs Dorian in, he’s nervous. He seems like he doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Well, when I saw that, I was like, “You know, what if?” What is the reason underlying that nervousness? And that led to some very interesting discussions. I think that kind of thing is essential. You can lay out big arcs, but you have to stay open to the possibilities. Because magical things can happen.
Looking at the Dorian character, have you come up with any parameters as to how human-like he can be or become? Are there certain aspects you would never cross?
It’s an incredibly tricky performance. Michael did an amazing job in the pilot; but when you think about it, he’s a guy, playing a robot, playing sort of a human. I kind of liken it to Robert Downey’s performance in Tropic Thunder – an American playing an Australian playing a black man. It’s like, “Whaaat?” But you see the layers of the performance; and when you talk to Michael, he’s always thinking that. So it’s really fascinating.
And when we’re talking about Dorian the character, and writing him, we’re going through the same process on the writing side. You go, “He’s got to be precise, because he’s a cop, and he’s gotta talk like a cop; but he shouldn’t talk too much like a cop, because he’s going to be kind of, like, not human…but not completely; but he’s got to be a little bit of a robot.” So the answer is: we’re finding it. And it’s really, really tricky. But I think at this point, we’ve decided he must have been programmed by a hipster; because he says things like “hey, man,” and I think it episode two we threw in a, “That’s cool.” So we’ll see what happens.
How much of that is led by Michael’s performance?
That was exactly led by Michael’s performance. I don’t know if Joel wrote “hey, man” into the script; or Michael said that and Joel put it into the script; but that is really where that was coming from. I think it was actually J.J. [Abrams]’ note, that was like, “That’s cool.” And we were like, “Yeah, that’s a great line!”
At the end of the pilot, you get the sense that they’ve resolved a lot of their issues. I would imagine that dynamic won’t be static, though?
Here’s the thing; I think that when people come up with shows that are like, “Two people that hate each other but must work together!” it becomes the most false kind of drama; because in reality, that gets resolved almost instantaneously. Because the audience, when they like the characters, they like to see them together, and then all the conflict feels very forced. The issues with John and Dorian is not so much that they are completely resolved; because John has feelings about technology; he just comes to the decision that, “Hey, I can work with this.” And he’s not a guy who doesn’t use computers. John isn’t a Luddite. He understands the world, and what tools are.
But what’s going to happen as the show goes on is, these guys are going to help each other. Dorian needs John because he wants to be a cop. Keeping John on a healthy path to healing himself, sort of dealing with the ambush and all the guys that he lost, and sort of re-integrating with the world is good for Dorian as well. And what we are going to see, as we get into more of Dorian’s backstory – and I’m not going to tell you exactly where that’s going, obviously, because Bad Robot would kill me! But what you’re going to see is, their “conflict” is going to be in terms of that codependency. So we’re not going to have ridiculous arguments: “I hate you!” “You’re not a human!” That’s kind of bogus and it goes away fast.
You were saying you’ve got these great cases lined up. Are some of those to do with the idea of technology as it is in their world? Will we see it on the police side and then in some of the cases?
Absolutely. I think you’re probably going to see more of it on the crime side. It’s like whenever bad guys have a new tool, they’re incredibly innovative in how they use it. It’s like the porn industry. Porn always leads technology. You have to remember, dystopian futures are easier to imagine, because people have an innate fear of technology. What we’re trying to do is dystopian in some respects, but also – I’ll use the word “utopian” only as its opposite. We’re trying to be optimistic about where technology can go as well. We don’t want to create a world where everything is bleak and terrible and awful because of technology. Joel doesn’t feel that’s realistic; I don’t either. It has absolutely got dangers inherent to it; but in many ways it also represents the only thing that people can do to fix things and make things better; and it’s both of those things. So the show has to express that, and we’re trying to.
Well there you go, folks! It all sounds fascinating to me! So check out Almost Human if you haven’t already.
“You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’”
George Bernard Shaw
“Back to Methuselah” (1921)
President Barak Obama is a visionary. Which is great. It’s important for the President of the United States to be a visionary, to be able to inspire. That’s how Barak Obama became President in 2008.
But once elected, it’s not enough to be a visionary. You need to know how to put that vision into effect.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy knew how to do that. Ronald Wilson Reagan knew how to do that.
President Barak Obama – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – does not.
The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, is in real trouble. The website is a disaster – where is Oracle when we need her? – and those who have been able to sign up are finding that their personal health care providers are not participating and that only a limited amount of hospitals are participants. A woman speaking to Brian Lehrer on NPR a couple days ago told him that the only hospital she can go to under the ACA is Lenox Hill in Manhattan, and while Lenox Hill is a very fine institution, the woman lives out on the Island, as in Long. (And for those of you not in the metropolitan New York City area, trust me, when you are sick enough to need hospital care, you do not want to drive on the Long Island Expressway as your life is ticking away and you are crawling along the asphalt at as much as 10 miles an hour.) Meanwhile insurance companies are happily cancelling policies because they don’t measure up to the ACA’s parameters because the premiums for ACA approved policies are more expensive.
(Once again the insurance companies have figured out how to make a buck off of people’s miseries – I can just hear the board of directors of Horizon, Aetna, Oxford, Cigna, and all the rest at their meetings: “Okay, no more lifetime caps, no more pre-existing condition bans, but here, look at Paragraph IV for example – everyone has to have maternity care in their plan, which means we can charge the client for that even if the client is male. And that’s just Paragraph IV. Yes, no worries, we can make up for any potential losses and we have the ACA and the President to thank for that.”) And the Repugnanticans are having a field day, gleefully attacking our Marxist, Maoist, Socialist, Kenyan Muslim President every which way they can. And though you, my faithful readers, know that I am a staunch Democrat and supporter of the man currently living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I gotta say…
What the fuck, man!
You go and approve the hiring of a Canadian tech company to build the web site? And to make matters even worse, it’s a company that has a botched record! To quote from the Washington Times (granted, a very conservative paper, but they are right in this):
“Canadian provincial health officials last year fired the parent company of CGI Federal, the prime contractor for the problem-plagued Obamacare health exchange websites, the Washington Examiner has learned.
“CGI Federal’s parent company, Montreal-based CGI Group, was officially terminated in September 2012 by an Ontario government health agency after the firm missed three years of deadlines and failed to deliver the province’s flagship online medical registry.”
For someone who is about jobs, jobs, jobs for Americans, I just don’t get it. Why didn’t the President just go to Microsoft or Apple? Why didn’t he call up Bill Gates or Steve Jobs (before he died, of course) and ask them for advice, i.e., give me the names of the best and the brightest in the IT biz. I want them to build what I believe will be the most important website in American history.
That’s what I would have done.
Seriously, man, what the fuck?
Now I hate working for a micro-manager. You know the type – he or she has got his or her nose in your face every second of every hour of the workday, and just won’t leave you alone to get your job done.
But the President of the United States has to be, in so many ways, a micro-manager. A hands-on guy. He – or she? Go, Hillary! – has to know what’s going on, has to have his – or her. Go, Hillary! – nose in your face every second of every hour of the workday. The President always has to be one step – or a hundred yards, or a million-zillion miles – in front of the crowd.
Because ultimately, as that plaque on Harry Truman’s desk read – The buck stops here.
And it doesn’t do any good to admit to that after the fact, as Obama did last Wednesday.
How often does one get to go to both the West and East Coast premieres of a movie – if you’re not involved in it, that is? Probably not that often. But I just did, and that was pretty darned cool. This past week, I got to experience the world premiere ofI Know That Voice at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood; and then two days later, the East Coast premiere of the voice acting documentary at The National Press Club right here in D.C.
It was fun to watch the red carpet go by before the show, particularly since everyone was having such a great time and a lot of folks were goofing off for the photographers (and I did take some pictures, but was mostly enjoying the atmosphere). And it was a total trip to sit there and watch the documentary with all of the folks in the film – who cheered the first time each of their peers appeared on the screen, and I cheered right along with ‘em. The theater was full of the happy, positive energy of a group of people who were really excited to be featured in this one-of-a-kind film; and once the film got rolling, the room was also full of laughter, since there are a lot of great funny bits in the documentary. It was a good time all around.
After the screening, director and producer Lawrence Shapiro and producers John DiMaggio and Tommy Reid were joined at the front by Andrea Romano, Rob Paulsen, Maurice LaMarche, and Tom Kenny for a question and answer session; and that was a different kind of experience too, given that the voice actors were asking each other questions at this particular Q&A, with predictably great results. At one relevant point in the conversation, John DiMaggio also pointed out June Foray, who was in attendance sitting just a couple of rows in front of me, and the entire theater gave the accomplished thespian, still working at the age of ninety-five, a well-deserved standing ovation.
And, then, of course, there was the afterparty – where I barely ate any of the lovely food that was available, despite being super hungry, because there were so many fun conversations to be had. Rob Paulsen, always a delight, mentioned a project he’ll soon be working on for which he’s been hired primarily as a singer (Hurrah!). Carlos Alazraqui shared that although Off the Curb is no longer in production at this time, he’s working on a new independent animated project that we may hear more about shortly. Jess Harnell introduced me to his lovely fiancée, Christine (Congrats! You guys are too cute!). Bill Farmer was happy to hear that I’d enjoyed his appearance on Rob Paulsen’s live show, and was all around the warmest, nicest human being you could possibly want to talk to. And so was Fred Tatasciore, who is happily less imposing in person than one of the main voices he’s known for, The Hulk.
I discovered that Tom Kenny is a most excellent conversationalist, of the sort one could talk with for hours; and if you are lucky enough to be in conversation with both Dan Povenmire and Dee Bradley Baker, you will automatically feel more intelligent just for being there, and probably learn something, too. It was great to talk with Maurice LaMarche again, who I’d last chatted with after midnight in a diner at Dragon Con (ah, conventions), and James Arnold Taylor, looking as dapper as when we met at SDCC. And of course it was wonderful to see John DiMaggio, Larry Shapiro, and Tommy Reid enjoying the success of the project they’ve poured so much of their time and energy into.
And to top it all off, I got to meet a couple of excellent Twitter friends in person, a.k.a. Hayley, and Kristy of Voice Chasers, who became my premiere-buddy for the evening, and also took some really great photos. I really couldn’t have asked for a better night.
And then… twodays later… it was time to see John and the film again for the East Coast premiere, which I was happy to have put together at The National Press Club. We had a great crowd, and it was really neat to be able to experience a fan audience reacting to the documentary and laughing in all the right places. I don’t have to speculate as to whether they enjoyed the film because, at the end, they gave John and the film a standing ovation!
I know I’ve devoted several columns to this documentary over the past few months; but that’s only because it really is worth watching – so check it out this December, when it will be available on Video On Demand, iTunes, and DVD.
When it comes to reading, what is “age appropriate”? I’ve been thinking about this lately, especially after that school in New Mexico pulled Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere from its reading list and library after a mother complained about a certain passage in it.
Yes, when taken out of context, I can see how the passage might alarm a parent on first glance. It’s about sex, and it contains cursing.
However, as pointed out on the Tor blog, in context the passage is more than the smutty little interlude the complaining mother presumably thought it to be. It’s an “intimate” moment between a couple who probably wouldn’t be behaving that way if they knew there was someone sitting next to them, intended to show how literally invisible the book’s main character, Richard Mayhew, has become to those in Gaiman’s “London Above.” This scene also furthers the relationship between two characters, Richard and one of his guides in “London Below,” Anaesthesia. In the context of the book, it makes sense and it adds to the development of the story.
It’s all about context, something that seems to be ignored by those complaining about this book or demanding it be banned. Have these people even read the books in question all the way through? Maybe, but somehow I doubt it.
Now I’m not saying parents shouldn’t have a care for the media their children are consuming. I do. But, 1) parents should read the entire book before requesting it be banned; 2) parents shouldn’t use their own value system to affect what an entire school’s worth of children have access to; and 3) parents should trust a little more in the nature of print media and of children.
In regards to point three – there’s something about things that must be read that makes them different and more wonderful than any form of visual media: the reader’s imagination must be used. No matter how much the author spells out the scene, the reader must still imagine, even if not consciously, the exact way a character looks, or the smells being described, or the tone of voice being used, or the look of the scary old house on the hill, or what–have–you. Each page is another adventure for the imagination, and this element of intellectual involvement naturally and deeply engages the reader in the action. It personalizes the experience for the reader. This leads to a deeper connection with the characters and the themes at work, and with what is really important in the story.
If I was reading Neverwhere straight through, and came to the offending paragraph noted above, I would not be so concerned with what the couple was doing and the fact that the word “fuck” is used than I would be with poor Richard and his situation – his extreme loneliness, his outsider status, and the question of what is going to happen to him next. I know this because I have read Neverwhere, and, while I barely remembered the questionable passage until it became a news story, I distinctly remember Richard walking the streets of London Above and having a series of encounters like that one. I remember feeling sympathy for him, and concern, and, in terms of the two people on the bench, anger and disgust that they and the others in London Above could be so self-involved as not to see this character I’d begun to care about. That was the importance of that paragraph; not titillation or a scheme to corrupt today’s youth.
It is in the nature of print media that, if you engage with it the way the writer intends, i.e. read through the scenes in the context in which they were written, you will get something else entirely out of them than if you were to read just one paragraph, or even a few pages. In most cases, what you will get is something deeper than incidental curses used for emphasis, or a description of a slightly vulgar display used to highlight another’s loneliness. You may get an understanding of the feelings the character is dealing with – his desperation or his confusion. You may get a window into his soul and a deeper connection with the story. That is a valuable thing to experience, because in understanding others or sympathizing with them, you grow as a person.
Now, if a parent reads the whole of a book and determines that it is not something they want their children to read because it is badly written or repugnant overall, then, okay, it is their choice whether they want to shield their child from that story. Although I do not think that choice should be allowed to affect others by removing a book from a school library.
This brings me to my second point – that with most books, parents should trust a little more in the nature and intelligence their of children. Children won’t generally want to read what they’re not ready for, which is why “age appropriate” varies from child to child.
I have been a voracious reader all of my life. I read many things at ages where they would probably have been considered “inappropriate” by somebody, somewhere.
For years, I never picked up a book without finishing it. But when I was in the sixth grade I began reading The Grapes of Wrath. It was so. Darned. Depressing. Despite my innate feeling that it was somehow wrong to not finish a book once begun, I couldn’t bear to keep reading it because I wasn’t ready for it yet. I remember being actually angry at it for being something I loved, a book, and yet being full of dust and death and depression. I literally chucked it under my bed, something I would never do to a book – books are sacred! I left it there.
Two years later we were assigned The Grapes of Wrath in school. I started it again. This time I kept reading, and I wanted to. The story was still full of dust and death and depression, but now I got it. I got why it was important to read about these characters, and I cared for them because I had the capacity and maturity to care for them. I was ready.
As another example, my favorite book as a fifth grader was Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Did I understand, at that age, all of the nuances of Twain’s humor and satire? Undoubtedly not. I did, however, get enough of Hank’s humorous narration of the Arthurian court to enjoy it. I very likely learned more about humor and satire by reading it. Because I both enjoyed it and sensed that I didn’t get all of it the first time, I re-read it several times over the years, gaining more understanding of the text and of the nature of satirical humor with each reading.
That book also got me interested in the world of King Arthur, which led to my reading classics such as Le Morte d’Arthurat an age where I probably would not have otherwise. It led to my picking up Mary Stewart’s The Wicked Day on one of the pilgrimages I made with my mother each year to the storeroom where she counted up the school’s books. (My mother, being an English teacher, would go before school started each year to count up the books she wanted to teach and determine whether she needed to order more. I would go along and was allowed to wander around and borrow any books I wanted. It was a wonderful thing for a reading child.) Now that book certainly had some things in it that shocked me – there was incest and intrigue and there were family members lying to each other and literally fighting to the death. But those story elements didn’t harm me. They just expanded my worldview, as did so many other stories.
The ability that books have to expand a person’s worldview and understanding of people and places otherwise not within their immediate experience is one of the most valuable things books have to offer. Books reflect the patterns of thinking of their authors, or they reflect the writers’ views on history, or on family situations, or on any other topics you can think of. They are windows into the minds of others and into other worlds as seen through the authors’ eyes. Each of us has to grow up and live in a world filled with a mishmash of people who are not like us, but the more encounters we’ve had with people (even if they are book characters) who are not like us, or perspectives that are not like ours, the better able we may be to understand the other people we encounter in life, and to find our own places in the world. I’m not a parent, but I was a child; and I can’t even enumerate all the ways books helped me with this, and continue to help me.
So what is “age appropriate”? I don’t know, and more to the point, I don’t care. What I do care about is that children be allowed access to the books for which they are ready. I really do believe that allowing such freedom will make each child’s life, and our whole world, better.
So when you “think of the children,” think about the value they gain from reading something new and different and, yes, occasionally a little adult or shocking. Think of how much being able to see different perspectives and understand other people will help them in this world. Think about being an advocate for literature, instead of against it.
“Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country”
Horace Greely
Editor, New York Tribune
July 13, 1865 Editorial
The New York Tribune, established in 1841, was the most progressive and influential newspaper of its day. Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the paper, was a notable social reformer and political activist and through his leadership, the Tribune advocated for abolition, the legal protection of unions, protectionism (known today as anti-globalization or anti-free trade), and against nativism, the political position of demanding a favored status for certain established inhabitants of a nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. (In modern America Greely would be considered a leftist liberal Democrat, though in the antebellum, Civil War, and eras those beliefs belonged to the Republican nee Whig Party.)
Today a statue of Greeley sits at 33rd Street and Broadway in Greely Square, directly across the street and south of Herald Square, home to Macy’s and the end point of the Thanksgiving Day parade where the Rockettes do their famous line kick dance every fourth Thursday of November.
I know that statue well, for Greely Square is also across the street (and above) from the 33rd PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) terminus. And the PATH train was the way I commuted into New York City whenever I needed be at DC Comics, back when the company “lived” at 666 Fifth Avenue.
Last week – Tuesday, Tuesday, October 22, to be exact – Diane Nelson, President of DC Entertainment, sent a memo to DC employees. You might have seen it already, but here it is:
Dear DCE Team,
As I hope you know, I and the entire DCE exec team work hard to offer transparency about as much of our business plans and results as we possibly and responsibly can. In an effort to continue to do that where possible and to ensure you are hearing news from us, rather than a third party, I am proactively reaching out to you this afternoon to share news about our business.
I can confirm that plans are in the works to centralize DCE’s operations in 2015. Next week, the Exec Team will be in New York for a series of meetings to walk everyone through the plans to relocate the New York operations to Burbank. The move is not imminent and we will have more than a year to work with the entire company on a smooth transition for all of us, personally and professionally.
Everyone on the New York staff will be offered an opportunity to join their Burbank colleagues and those details will be shared with you individually, comprehensively and thoughtfully next week. Meeting notifications will be sent tomorrow to ensure the roll out* of this information and how it affects the company and you personally.
We know this will be a big change for people and we will work diligently to make this as smooth and seamless a transition as possible.
Best,
Diane
My first reaction when I saw it was “Oh, maaaaaan.” My second reaction was “knew it was going to happen.”
My third reaction was sadness, and, surprisingly, since it’s been thirty (!) years since I first stepped onto the PATH train in Jersey City (New Jersey) and took it to 33rd Street and Greely Square to walk up the Avenue of the Americas and west on 53rd Street to 666 Fifth Avenue and the offices of DC Comics, a feeling of dislocation. I felt cast adrift, even though 99% of my friends and co-workers no longer work at DC, and, in fact, the office itself has long since moved to 1700 Broadway, across from the Ed Sullivan Theatre, home of the David Letterman Show.
Many people on various websites have commented on the move. The news media picked it up, including a rather stupid, no, correct that, very stupid piece on WPIX Channel 11 (CW-NYC) while on break at work on Wednesday. I suppose the segment producers thought they were being clever, because they tied the news into some guy who wants to start a “superhero” school in the city, although actually it looked more like self-defense classes for kids. As far as the DC thing, they showed animated Superman and Batman, etc. on the screen, and then the reporter signed off and “flew off.”
But no one thought of the history behind the thousands of four-color pages produced by DC. No one thought of interviewing Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel that chronicles the rise of the comics industry in New York City though thinly veiled characters based on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and dozens of other early comics professionals. No one thought to interview those writers and artists who made their name at DC.
And no one thought of the history behind the hundreds of thousands of four-color adventures that started out as a way for those writers and artists to earn a living during the Depression and became the mythology of the 20th century, a doorway into imagination for generations, for hundreds of thousands of dreamers who grew up to become artists and writers and police officers and f, refighters and astronauts and astrophysicists because of those four-color pages, those adventures of Superman and Batman and the Flash and Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and the Martian Manhunter and so many, many more, inspired them.
Yes, Marvel Comics is still here. (But for how long?) Yes, many of those who created those adventures never lived in New York City or its surroundings, originally mailing in their work, then faxing in it, then e-mailing their pages over the internet. Yes, Marvel Comics is still here. (But for how long?) And, yes, New York City will always be the city of dreams for the millions who come here to start or restart their lives.
But the citizens of the great metropolis will never again look up in the sky and cry, “Look! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”
No, it was DC Comics, home to the supermen and superwomen who lived here, if only in the imaginations of those who loved them.
*By the way, Diane, there’s a typo in the memo. It’s “rollout,” not “roll out.”)
In my apparent continuing quest to interview all the great voice actors living today (because they are the most fun, okay?), I now bring you my interview with the talented and Emmy-winning Maurice LaMarche, a.k.a. The Brain, Squit, Kif Kroker, Morbo, Lrrr, several Futurama robots, Dr. Egon Spengler, Dizzy Devil, Yosemite Sam, Mr. Freeze, Victor von Doom, General Var Suthra, Mortimer Mouse, Chief Quimby, and more.
It was a real pleasure to speak with Maurice, who I’ve been listening to in various guises since I was a wee thing (I was a big Inspector Gadget fan as a child; and then with Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and Futurama being amongst my other favorite shows through the years, I guess I’ve pretty much been listening to Maurice all my life!). It was also great to see him do many of his excellent voices and impressions both during the interview, and at “An Evening with Pinky and the Brain,” which I attended at the Plaza Theatre while in Atlanta for Dragon Con. That event featured Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche together, and was just a total joy to experience. It also resulted in some fantastic video clips like this reading of Who’s on First by Pinky and the Brain, a couple more of which I’ve linked below.
So without further ado, I bring you my interview with Maurice! Read on for the transcript, and click here for the video, which is really worth watching for all the fun voices.
• • • • •
Let’s start with Futurama, and Kif, who you voice on the show. That voice seems more delicate than some of the voices you’re known for; how did you come up with that one?
We were recording episode three or four, and Matt was very hands-on as we built the show. He knew exactly what he wanted in terms of who the character was; but he wasn’t sure about a sound. His tagline for Kif was, “He’s Mister Spock, if Mister Spock had to deal with William Shatner.”
So we tried a few things. I tried going (as Nimoy) “Sir, it seems the rest of the crew doesn’t share your passion for velour,” very deep and in the Nimoy range, and it sounded too much like The Brain; and we realized that he sounded tired; you know, we had the sighs. So I thought… I played a character in a very short-lived show called The Adventures of Hyperman, where the chief of that was very much, “Truman Capote. He’s Truman Capote.” So I thought that (as Capote) “the whole voice quality of Truman Capote had a sort of sighing sound to it, and so I decided that he would sound like Truman Capote,” and Matt said, “Well, too effeminate. I also want him to have some of the sarcasm and pissiness of Jon Lovitz.” So it went from this (demonstrating Capote) to this (demonstrating Lovitz) and became this (in Kif’s voice) “Sir, the rest of the crew doesn’t share your passion for velour, ugh.” So that’s where Kif came from. We kind of threw Jon Lovitz and Truman Capote in a blender, and out came Kif.
Now that Futurama is… doing whatever it’s doing [coming back again, I hope!], what are you working on right now?
My self-esteem. No, currently, I’m working on a project for Disney called The 7D, which are the seven dwarves about twenty years before they met Snow White. So they all have all their hair, and their hair is its original colors; nobody’s grey. And of course, needing to fixate on a beautiful female figure, they live to serve Queen Delightful, who is the queen of the kingdom.
And they’ve done a very different take with them. We’ve gone away from the Snow White movie, and it looks almost like a 1960s Jay Ward cartoon, kind of Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle. Very simple drawings. And each one’s voice is very distinct. Kevin Michael Richardson is Happy, and he just plays it so happy; and when Kevin is full of joy, the room bursts with it. And Bill Farmer is Doc. Billy West is Bashful, and Billy uses his upper, upper, upper range, and he’s like, so adorable that even though he’s a 62-year-old man, you just want to pinch his cheeks.
And I do Grumpy; and, again, I do a lot of my voices by throwing two things into the hopper and coming up with a unique voice. There’s a little George Costanza in him, and there’s a little bit of one of my best friends, Kenny Lombino, who’s a Brooklyn by way of New Jersey guy, and he’s an investment guy, but (as Kenny Lombino) “he came up through the streets. So Kenny is very much like this guy,” and then (as George Costanza) George Costanza’s like this: “I don’t know, Jerry! People think I’m smart, but I’m not smart!” (In Grumpy’s voice) So then Grumpy is kinda this guy right here: “Alright. Okay, Fine. I’m Grumpy, and I accept it, but I gotta help Queen Delightful anyway!” So he does a lot of, like, “Oh, this guy again.” He gets all the sarcastic lines.
It’s a thrill to be in a show where I am actually getting the good lines. Because I’m usually the setup guy. Even in Pinky and the Brain, Rob Paulsen got all the great lines, while I gave him the, (as The Brain) “Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” And then he got to say the funny thing. So The Brain’s humor had to come from being put-upon, and having to deal with this knucklehead named Pinky – who may have been the genius; and The Brain may have been the one who was insane.
But Brain did get his funny lines in there…
He did. He had great lines like (as The Brain): “If I could reach you, I would hurt you.” Or, “Yes, that is a pain that is going to linger.” Or, “It must be inordinately taxing to be such a boob, Pinky.” Little sarcastic things like that. I love playing the sarcastic note. Because I’m really actually very kind in real life.
Do you have a favorite episode from Pinky and the Brain?
It’s kind of a tie. “Bubba Bo Bob Brain” was the one where I think we found the stride with the characters. We’d done two or three episodes before, but we recorded “Bubba Bo Bob” and two things happened there: the voices changed. Rob got out of the buck-toothed thing that he was doing the first few episodes, and really found that almost lady-like voice that he did; and Brain stopped being a straight Orson Welles impression, and there are little Vincent Price-ish kind of highs in there. And their relationship became…the annoyance became stronger, and I realized “that’s the note I have to play with Pinky. And yet I still have to have affection for Pinky.” So “Bubba Bo Bob;” and the Primetime Emmy-winning Christmas Special. Which was a big folderol, because that special was the first time that a daytime cartoon had come into primetime and beaten The Simpsons. So those are my two favs. I’ve never been able to quite choose between them.
So what about “You Said A Mouseful”?
That was interesting. Rob and I are doing “An Evening with Pinky and the Brain” at the Plaza Theatre; and for our finale we are actually going to do a staged reading of “You Said a Mouseful,” with a cast from the audience. [Note: I got part of it on video! Watch it here!] “You Said a Mouseful” was a fun, and funny, and challenging episode to do; it was the only episode where I ever left the booth, walked into the control room, and slugged the writer in the arm – in the way you’d hit your little brother, a Lucy/Linus kind of slug. I just punched him in the arm for writing something so difficult. Then I went back, sat down, and went, “I feel better now. Rubber baby buggy bumpers, rubber baby buggy bumpers…”
You’re originally from Toronto; how do you find the South?
I have a GPS! …Well, I’ve only been here a day; I got here late last night; and Pinky and the Brain went out for dinner, to Morton’s. There was definitely a flavor of Southern hospitality; but then again, if you’re Captain Kirk and you’re beamed into any Morton’s on Earth, you don’t know what city you’re in because every Morton’s looks the same. (as William Shatner) “I don’t understand where they get all this wood paneling from!” And the steaks were all delicious and fantastic.
But people have been very nice here. This is my first Dragon Con, and my first time in Atlanta. And I’m not even going to complain about the humidity because Toronto, being on Lake Ontario, is just as humid as this in August; so I’m fully used to it. Haven’t lived in it in thirty-three years; but I’m loving Atlanta. I’m having a great time. People are so nice. And the Dragon Con people – I have to say, there’s a real difference between the Comic Con vibe and the Dragon Con vibe. Comic Con is Comic Cannes film festival, it’s there to sell projects – and this is all about fan love. This is completely fan-driven. Comic Con is very studio-driven and publisher-driven. But this is just the fans expressing themselves and truly paying tribute to the genres, and it’s wonderful to see. So, I’m really enjoying my time here.
Have you worked on games?
I’ve only been on a handful of games. Games beat up my throat; and unlike a lot of voice actors who seem to be invulnerable, I seem to get a lot of cases of laryngitis, etcetera by having to do repeated lines over and over again. So I really limit myself, and am very blessed and fortunate that I can afford to. I can turn down a lot of the work because I’ve gotten to be on shows like Futurama or be the voice of Lexus. So I’m very selective. I do things that I think my son will think are cool; like Mr. Freeze in Arkham City.
Or General Var Suthra in the [Star Wars:] Old Republic game, which had literally a phone book of script for every character. It was unbelievable. But I think it’s the world’s largest online game right now. You can join up. So I play this Mon Calamari general named Var Suthra, and the whole thing takes place 3,000 years before the continuity of Star Wars. So I wasn’t locked into (in character), “It’s a trap!” So I decided he sounded (as Gene Hackman) “more like Gene Hackman. Greatest criminal mind of our time.” But that was a lot of days of work on that. Although they break it up. I’ve never done a war game where I have to do a lot of dying, falling, being blown up, being shot, that sort of thing. I guess they don’t think of me for those things, but just as well, because my throat gets beat up very easily. (In a delicate voice) It’s a very sensitive instrument.
I know you probably get asked this a lot, but what really pulled you into voice acting? And what was your first job as a voice actor?
It was a weird sort of gravity that pulled me in, and it really was a pull. I never thought of myself primarily as a voice actor; I was going for the big stand-up comedy enchilada. I started in 1977 at a club called Yuk Yuks in Toronto, which also birthed Howie Mandel, Jim Carrey, and Norm MacDonald. I was chasing after that. I’d done a couple of voiceovers up in Toronto for a company called Nelvana Films. They were annual specials. One was Easter Fever, with Garrett Morris from Saturday Night Live, who’s now on 2 Broke Girls; and I played Steve Martin and Don Rickles as animals. So it was Steed Martin and Don Rattles, and it was a roast of the Easter Bunny. That was the very first time I heard my voice come out of a cartoon character. I was nineteen; and it was magic, to hear that, and to see that, and go, “Wow, that’s me.” It was like, “I’m Fred Flintstone now.” It was astounding. I remember seeing Alan Reed on an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies when I was a kid and going, “He sounds like somebody. Who does he sound like?” And I realized halfway through the episode, that’s the man who plays Fred Flintstone. That’s when I first realized it was a human being behind those moving drawings. So that was my first job.
Then I came down here for stand-up comedy, and a voiceover agent from the William Morris Agency, who I was with for my personal appearance stuff, was in the audience, and it was Nina Nisenholtz, and she said, “With all of these impressions you do, you’d be a natural for voiceovers.” And I said, “Well I was always told that was a closed shop,” and my friend was Frank Welker, and he told me he was going to try to get me started – and Frank really did talk me up around town for about a year before I got my first job; but Nina also started sending me out right about that time.
It took me a year to get my first job, and my first job was Inspector Gadget. I did one episode of The Littles, and one episode of something called Wolf Rock TV, just as a guest star thing to test me and see how I was, and then they ended up putting me on Inspector Gadget, where I was The Chief, and Henchman No. 2, and then right after that, Real Ghostbusters. So that was my entrée into cartoons. And it just kept coming. Voice acting is as close to a meritocracy in show business as you can get; if you’re good, the work will keep coming. Because they love to work with people who can do the skill of coming up with multiple characters – in animation, at least, so they don’t have to hire five actors. They can hire you and have you play five parts in the episode. So if you can deliver those goods, the work comes. So it was a steady thing; and I got sort of pulled into it, rather than taking a bunch of voiceover workshops. I’ve got a lot of friends who did study. Nancy Cartwright studied with Daws Butler – you know, Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear. I just never took a lesson. I don’t know why, I just seem to have a knack for doing this.
I know that you based The Brain in part on Orson Welles; and I’ve heard that you used to recite the “Frozen Peas” outtake as a warm-up exercise. Where did that come from?
We were on the job from hell. We were dubbing a French puppet show – lifesized puppets, people inside costumes – into English, and it was the longest day. It started at nine and ended at nine on New Year’s Eve. I was supposed to do the job for two hours and then make a 1:00 flight that would get me to New York. Howie Mandel was hosting an MTV party and I was supposed to go party with the MTVers, back when that was brand new. And the thing just took for-bloody-ever, and I missed the party. And I was so depressed at the end of the night, that Phil Proctor, from the Firesign Theater, who was making college students laugh when I was still in junior high school, said, “Here, this’ll cheer you up.” And he gave me a cassette with Orson Welles doing this frozen peas commercial.
So my consolation prize was, I didn’t get to party with Sting and Howie Mandel; but I did get to have a career. Because this tape that he gave me had this gold on it. Orson Welles being himself. Being a curmudgeon; and yet the more you listen to it, the more you go, “He’s right! These guys don’t know what they’re talking about.” So I listened to it backwards and forwards, and couldn’t get enough of it. And eventually I began to ape it, because that’s what I do, and it made its way into my bag of tricks. And whenever there was down time, if they were listening to the playbacks, I’d just sit there and try it out on mic, because I’d wear headphones, and (as Orson Welles) “Get me a jury and show me how you can say in July, and I’ll…go down on ya.” It was hysterical. So it amused me to do it and I wanted to see how close to the timing I could do it; because when you get somebody being themselves, that’s the best was to grab them as an impression; and get all facets of them from there on up. So that’s how that happened. [To see Maurice do the Frozen Peas impression live, click here.]
Going back to Futurama; you do many voices. Which ones did you start out with, and which were added later, and…how many do you do? Do you know?
I don’t know. A couple of years ago when we were making the direct-to-DVD movies, there was a website that somebody came out with, where they had actually listed and counted all of our characters. I think I was at seventy-two characters, counting everything – all one-offs, all recurring, all regulars. But Tress MacNeille had me beat; she had seventy-five.
What about Billy?
Billy was in the fifties; but he does the heavy lifting on the show, because he’s Fry, he’s Zoidberg, and the Professor, so he’s three people in the break room at Planet Express; and then you throw in Zapp, who’s in every fifth episode or so; and Smitty… he’s got so many characters. He topped out with fifty-something.
So your characters – you’ve got Kif, and Morbo, and Calculon, and the Mafia robots…
(In the characters) “I got the Donbot. I got Clamps! I have the country Hyper-Chicken lawyer, and oh, Hedonismbot. And Lrrr.
Which one do you enjoy the most? Do you identify with any of them?
Oh, I identify with most of them. Because any actor is only giving you parts of himself. There’s a great line in a movie called My Favorite Year, that my friend Dennis Palumbo wrote. At the end of the film, Peter O’Toole, who plays this Errol Flynn character, tells Benjy Stone, his handler from the King Kaiser Show, which is really the Sid Caesar Show, that he can’t go on. He chickens out. He’s hiding, and he’s drinking, and he goes, “I’m scared, Stone.” And Stone says, “You don’t get to be scared. You are that damn hero; and you couldn’t play that hero if you didn’t have him somewhere inside of you.” And O’Toole goes on to save the day, in the film.
But every actor gives you what’s inside of him. So every character I play is a piece of me. So even though they may draw Lrrr, the Lrrr I voice and the Lrrr I play is my own angst about being in a midlife crisis. Kif is my own shyness and my own sense that (as Kif) “maybe I’ll never quite rise to Zapp Brannigan’s rank, but certainly I hope that I may one day save Amy with a buggalo,” you know, or something like that. Morbo is…very different from Lrrr. Completely different.
Do you really want to eat kittens?
(As Morbo) “They give me gas!” You know; there are foods that give me gas. So I relate to that. Everybody’s a little piece of me. (As Clamps) “I won’t tell you where Clamps comes from!” It’s my parenting skills.
Let’s go back to Animaniacs. You did other characters on there as well, didn’t you?
I was the Ray Liotta-based Squit, in the Goodfeathers. (As Squit) “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a Goodfeather. If you were a Goodfeather, you had it all.” Martin Scorsese apparently loved the Goodfeathers. He and Spielberg were friends, and when that was on, Spielberg would just send him tapes of the Goodfeathers episodes as they came out. He dug that we were paying tribute to him.
And you did that West Side Pigeons episode…
I had a lot of singing in that. But they really worked with me; I’m not a natural singer. So Steve and Julie Bernstein and Rich Stone, God rest his soul, really walked me through it, and we rehearsed for a couple of days, and worked with the tapes. The way I practice singing, you’ve got to give me something that has only melody on it. If you give me anything with harmony, I’m lost. Because I start singing up in the harmony, and then back down to the melody; I’m not a natural musician, like my son. So I did that.
One of my favorites was playing Michelangelo in “Hooked on a Ceiling.” It was a nice little twist. It was Michelangelo, but we didn’t go Charlton Heston; we went Kirk Douglas. So it was like, (as Kirk Douglas) “What have you done to my ceiling? My beautiful ceiling!” Or Miles Standish as Richard Burton, (as Richard Burton) “Ohh, my Petey Pajamas, I loved him so.” So all the people that the Warners annoy, I got to play.
Now that Animaniacs is back on TV, do you see a resurgence in interest? The younger generation finding the show?
The Hub has just started running the original Animaniacs again, and they’ve got a big viewership. I’ve got another show on The Hub called Transformers: Rescue Bots, where I play the patriarch of a family of first responders, and the Transformers that come pick our vehicles; so there’s a police car character, and a fire truck character, a tractor character, because one of the sons is a civil engineer, and a helicopter. So The Hub putting these on is giving it a resurgence; but it’s yet to see quite the impact – I’m not quite sure where it is yet.
I think the cartoons are timeless. We did a lot of timely references, and there are maybe a few too many Clinton jokes in there; but with Clinton being back in the news – Obama keeps pulling him back into the spotlight – he’s hip again. Other than that, I think the show has legs. If a 1990s generation loved it, why wouldn’t a twenty-teens generation love it? Especially since the Pinky and the Brain piece of it is so relationship-based; it’s not based on timely humor. It’s based on the dynamic between these two characters, and that plays no matter what – an odd couple that really do love each other even if they are annoyed with each other, That was always the fun.
What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened between takes; because I’ve heard that that’s when the most fun happens.
We-ell, it’s got a dirty word in it.
Okay, shoot!
It’s a moment that came from Tress MacNeille. At one particular time we were all on a show where the executive producer had become extremely religious, almost overnight; so there was to be no sexual innuendo, and certainly no swearing. So the executive producer was there, we did the table read, we read through, and then he said, “Alright, I guess you guys have got it. I’m going to go back to the studio.” And we all watched as he left, and then we were quiet as the door closed behind him; and then Tress breaks the silence with: “Now we can say fuck!” in that old lady voice that she’s got; that smoker’s voice? And I must have laughed for five minutes.
Just the way she hit the word now. It’s like, the door closed, and then: “Now we can say fuck!” That might be my favorite studio story. Tress MacNeille is unbelievable. I think – and I’ve worked with so many greats, and everybody’s really at the top of their profession – but to me, Tress is the pinnacle. Man or woman, it doesn’t matter, she’s the pinnacle of what a voice actor is. She’s the best. I say to myself, “I gotta get as good as Tress.” That’s the way I feel.
I haven’t ever seen her at a con…
We finally got her out to Comic Con this past year, because Matt Groening asked her especially, because we had the full cast of Futurama, and we showed the first third of the last episode, then we table-read the second act with the full cast – Dave Herman, Phil LaMarr, Lauren Tom, myself, Tress, and Billy, John, and Katie. The first time we’d all been assembled at Comic Con. It was pretty legendary. Tress went specially for Matt; and it was also our goodbye, too.
But you know what; at the end, they gave us a standing ovation. And when 5,000 people get on their feet because you’ve done a good job since 1999, it’s kind of touching, and moving. I think for Tress, it showed her that people really do care about the work, because she kind of keeps to herself, and I think she’s understanding that people do care; people do love the show and our work. And that’s great.
Well I certainly do love your work! And thank you so much for your time!
I hope everyone enjoyed this interview with the amazing Maurice LaMarche; and until next time, Servo Lectio!
Yes, this past Thursday I hit the big 6-0. Yeah, yeah, I know a woman isn’t supposed to reveal her age, but just who the hell would I be fooling? Not my family. Nor any of my friends. Not even those who read my comics back in the 80s and 90s and care to do a little homework and math – IIRC, the New Talent Showcase issues included bios by all the tyros whose work appeared in that book. Mine lists my birthday. And as long as I talking about that bio, for the record I was not particularly inspired by Star Wars or – with absolutely no disrespect intended, and I’m not saying I don’t love their work – to George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Gerry Conway, or Doug Moench. This is how I remember it happened.
Joey Cavalieri (who wrote the bios) asking me who my favorite writers were. “Edna Ferber, Herman Wouk, James Michener, John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser… “ I said off the top of my head.
He laughed a little and said something about readers not getting that or caring or not knowing who they were. (Which I still find hard to believe.)
“How about Gerry Conway and Doug Moench?”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “They’re good, too.”
“How about movies?”
Again off the top of my head. “Oh, The Searchers. Bridge On The River Kwai. Sunset Boulevard. Casablanca.”
Joey didn’t seem too happy.
Oh, wait, I get it, I thought. And wanting to please, being the good little Jewish girl, I said,
“Star Wars, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Alien.”
So after thirty years, I’m glad to get the chance to correct that little bio. Although if it was happening now, I wouldn’t be the “wanting-to-please good little Jewish girl.”
By the time you get to 60, you just don’t give a crap.
Oh, I still give a crap about a lot of things. This country and its future. (It doesn’t take a writer’s imagination to think that a second Civil War is not exactly out of the range of possibilities.) This Earth and its future. (Whether you want to call it global warming or climate change there is no denying that we, the population of this planet, have majorly bug-fucked Mother Gaia.)
And when I think of the future, I think of my niece Isabel and my grandson, Meyer Manual (who was five weeks old on Saturday) and I really give a crap.
And then I get really scared.
But then again…
We Baby Boomers have lived through temptuous times when many believed the end was nigh. The Bay of Pigs. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The assassination of Martin Luthor King. The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. The social revolution of the 60s. The Vietnam War. Richard Nixon and Watergate. Jane Fonda workouts. Disco.
So fuck the Tea Party and fuck Ted Cruz and fuck all the racists who can’t believe a nigger is our President.
Yeah, I can’t believe I wrote that word either, but that’s the damn truth of it, that’s what’s really driving those bastard ignorant asshole Confederate punks and you know it as well as I do, only you won’t, but I will because I’m 60 and I don’t give a crap.
And if you think I’m feisty now…
Well, like a certain Whovian told me recently:
“60 years is nothing for a Time Lord. Just look out for Daleks.”
I’ve seen fandom do beautiful things. In point of fact, I can see because fandom (and some great friends) did a beautiful thing. And as we approach Thanksgiving, I wanted to revisit the story of something I’m thankful for every day.
