They didn't have "time outs" when I was a kid. You just got spanked/yelled at/grounded/whatever and life went on.

We've been through a pretty rancorous week in this country. Not quite Brother on Brother stuff, but friendships have been strained, trust fractured and feelings definitely hurt. And much as I'm no fan of the Monarchy, I'm kinda glad the Queen had a local BFF who sorted through all the arguments and hate mail yesterday and said, "Okay, let's everybody take a minute to calm down."

I believe her instructions could be expanded to read, "Catch up on your Christmas shopping. Send those cards and letters. Sit down with the family and pass around a little turkey. Drink too much and eat too much and maybe -- just maybe -- some of that 'Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men' thing might sink in as you realize just what a special country you live in."

No matter where you stand on the issues, I don't think anything is accomplished by attending rallies and marches and continuing to stir the pot. Sometimes you just need to let things simmer for a bit so the true nature of what you're cooking can be determined.

"Hey, maybe all we need is a little less betrayal of principles!"

Most of all, I really hope the Main Stream Media stops banging the regional drum. Honest to God, have you ever seen so many people reach for the played out old tapes so quick? I'm becoming convinced the MSM think Quebec is some hot exotic dancer who'll walk out of the VIP room the minute the country runs out of $20 bills, while the West is one big oil-rich doofus Jethro Clampett.

So, why don't we use this time-out wisely. Skip the rallies and do your Christmas shopping. Buy that Grit or Tory you apparently despise a tall cold one and talk to him likes he's that best friend who's about to screw up a pretty good marriage.

And if you'd rather just heckle or kick my ass, I'm center stage for one of those "Drinks with..." sessions INK CANADA hosts around the country tomorrow night.

Fynn's of Temple Bar
489 King Street West
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1K4

Saturday, December 6th. 5pm to 9pm.

I'm mostly there to impart whatever the Ink Interns need from me. But I'm sure we'll end up talking about television, culture and a whole lot of things far more interesting than who gets to call themselves a "Right-Honorable".

And just to be certain you youthful Weisenheimers turn up, I want to make it clear that Karen Walton referred to me as "legendary" in her invitation for a reason.

She said she wouldn't talk about it. But she has. So "It's On!"

For those who can't turn up. Here's a little something to get your laugh track rolling again. If you don't know the "Super Mario Brothers" click through for the rest of their oeuvre. They're a guaranteed smile on the downest of days and this time they're doing Cancon with a message for all of us from our political leaders.



Legendary...?

I better go get the cape dry-cleaned.

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If you need any further evidence that our lives are run by trolls, just watch any newscast out of Ottawa this week. My God people! Maybe the Prime Minister we've got is an ill-tempered, ideological bore and not the best guy to be running this country. But these other guys....

Gilles Duceppe -- a man who hates Canada!

Jack Layton -- a man who hates the free enterprise system!

And Stéphane Dion -- a man who hates that he's such an endless fricken loser!

Yeah, Canadians are going to be better served by that combination.

Elsewhere, those supporting the Coalition keep pointing out that 62% of Canadians voted for a more "progressive" option -- including the 13% who voted to take Quebec out of Canada. Yeah, that's a real progressive agenda!

Play with numbers all you want, folks. Sure, Harper only got 37% of the popular Vote. But through 12 years in power, Jean Chretien never got above 38%. That's democracy in a multi-party system. Which is supposed to mean that YOU get a say in how your lives are governed, not have those decisions made for you by people who had a different set of goals when they campaigned for and won your vote.

I'm originally from Western Canada, though I've lived far more of my life in Ontario. But I remember clearly, as all Western Canadians do, how our needs and concerns were eternally back burnered over a greater need to keep the country united. And we understood that and (albeit grudgingly sometimes) went along with it.

We went along with it even when we sensed most Quebecers were not much different from us and didn't really want to leave, in the process enriching and empowering a governing mentality that panders to regionalism over what might be the correct course of action.

Regionalism just might be the greatest handicap this country has. In our own TV and film business, people who live and work in one province can't work in another without economically penalizing the production. What kind of apparently "Free" country doesn't allow its people to work wherever their skills are needed?

Regionalism has allowed a culture to develop in this country where one part of the country can be played against another for the benefit of those who enrich themselves and solidify their power bases on the fear they can generate in the rest of us.

And fear always leads to only one outcome -- defeat. Because this constant chaos drives us further apart and further from the kind of cultural and industrial critical masses that historically are what make things happen in the world.

Last night, driving to a meeting before the party leaders "urgent messages to the people", I heard a CBC radio reporter ask one politico whether his calling Bloc Quebecois members separatists might not offend some in Quebec.

And I thought, "Wow, here we go again!" Somehow it's wrong for Canadians to call out the people who want to destroy their country. And some of that long forgotten Western Canadian in me stirred and said, "Gee, as far as the CBC is concerned, a Canadian from Quebec has more value than pretty much everybody who lives North and West of Toronto".

Well, of course, following that line of thinking leads to madness.

But replaying the old tapes continues the Culture of Defeat that has too long burdened any effort to create something new and exciting in this country.

Perhaps -- and I'm calling on every try-to-be-fair-minded cell in my body here -- perhaps -- a coalition will better and more fully represent the views of the country. Maybe a guy who can't even get a DVD from one office to another on time and frames himself with a book entitled "Hot Air" over his shoulder will run the country more effectively.

And maybe Jack won't stage a coup within a coup like he almost did last night by demanding he also get TV time to speak for a coalition that had already been spoken for by its designated leader.

And maybe Gilles Duceppe won't demand that every Tax dollar collected goes to Quebec.

And maybe the Premier of Alberta does not have the "Plan B" he's inferred to protect his people from being pillaged.

And maybe this will only last until the Liberal party appoints Michael Ignatief their leader -- a guy who has written in favor of torture and now opposes free elections -- Gee, we can have our own Robert Mugabe!

And in all this chaos, is anybody going to deny the desires of Broadcasters they will depend on come election time or provide funding for "arts projects" which are always short term endeavors when auto workers are losing their homes?

No -- the Culture of Defeat will triumph once more, because it's more reliable and predictable than change.

Viva the Three Amigos!

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In 1885, William R. Travers, prominent New York businessman and builder of Saratoga Race Track, was taken out for lunch by a Wall Street broker anxious to impress him and win his business. The broker took Travers to a nearby marina to show off his yacht and those of the other brokers who worked for his firm. The businessman looked down the line of beautiful craft and asked, "Where are the clients' yachts?".

The broker didn't have an answer. Travers took his investment business elsewhere.


For all of the detailed media coverage of celebrity lifestyles, star salaries and box office grosses, not many people in show business actually own yachts -- nor mansions, nor exotic vacation properties or private jets. Those remain mostly in the hands of the corporate executives who control our industry.

The same guys who never pay us what they promised to pay us in our contracts. The same guys we're always chasing for earnings that even massively successful films and TV series somehow never earn. The same guys who courier script notes via executive limo but send the cheques by mail.

In a lot of ways, these are the same kind of people who ran the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers and Bears Stearns investment banks, who supervised now defunct insurance companies and hedge funds or hold the reins of any number of once profitable industries now struggling to stay alive through massive infusions of public funds.

At the moment, we're going through a bit of a constitutional crisis here in Canada precipitated by political parties that would be unable to survive if they had to depend on their own supporters to pay for their campaign funding. Maybe that's democracy at its finest, insuring everyone has the means to run for office. Maybe it's just another way the entitled help themselves to our money.

Anyway, the more I watch this current world-wide Financial crisis, the more it feels like a familiar case of class warfare. A battle between those who feel they have a right to an exceptional lifestyle -- and -- those of us who are expected to pay (via money or blood) to support it.

There are also those who feel they are entitled to be in charge (even if they can't actually run things) and that the rest of us should stop demanding that they live up to the commitments (contractual, political or simply moral) which they made in order to be in line for the big paydays.


At the moment, we're about a month away from another entertainment industry strike. This time it's SAG, the Screen Actor's Guild. And in exactly the same way that the AMPTP (The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) painted the members of the Writers Guild of America as greedy and ignorant of industry realities, the Producers are now saying our Actor brethren's demands would bankrupt the system.

At the same time, news is coming out that WGA members are not being paid the new media earnings they won during the last strike. A couple of days ago, the AMPTP admitted that was true -- because doing so was "too complicated".

The next time I'm in a story meeting and somebody asks for a change, I wonder how far I'd get by saying the alterations were "too complicated".

There's a definite US and THEM thing going on here. And some of us believe the reality is the media conglomerates (and perhaps their counterparts in other industries) can't continue to function unless they are permitted to lie, cheat and steal to cover their incompetence. We're supposed to keep delivering the product they sell without interruption. Paying us fairly -- yeah, that's a little harder to figure out.

I get a palpable feeling that what those people in charge supervise in order to make their fortunes has become secondary, almost an annoyance because it takes their focus off their other priorities.

Now, I gotta back up before I go forward here:


Last summer, I had the good fortune to film a Canadian TV show in Paris and the surrounding countryside. We needed palaces like Versailles and Vieux le Vicomte, which had been built by members of the French aristocracy. I'd seen them in books and movies, but nothing prepared me for the reality of standing on the immaculate grounds of those limestone monstrosities.

And I was even less prepared for the countless great homes that surrounded them. There were hundreds, all built by the sweat and tax money of thousands for the benefit of a minuscule handful. Sometimes the hundreds of rooms and manicured acreages were intended to be enjoyed by only two or three residents.

During shooting I learned that virtually every original owner had met his end under the Guillotine of the French Revolution, victims of a people whose capacity to be overburdened or used had reached their limit.

One thing I also learned about the French Revolution is that pretty much everybody could see it coming, but the guys on top simply refused to corral their excesses or even show a modicum of understanding for the needs of the people supporting them.

If you haven't had the pleasure, there's a terrific French film entitled "Ridicule", written by Remi Waterhouse, Michel Fessler and Eric Vicaut which perfectly captures the self-absorption, skewed priorities and terrible short-sightedness of the time.

Well, those French Dukes and Marquises may be gone, but their ilk seems to still inhabit our ruling and executive classes, including those who run the entertainment media. Yes, even those who run the Canadian entertainment media.

A couple of week's ago, Canada's broadcast regulator, the CRTC, ruled against allowing our Free to Air networks collecting carriage fees. Days later, the execs of these companies began culling staff and making noises about reducing their "Broadcast obligations".

At this point, nobody is certain whether that means cutting back local news, Canadian content or any number of things the Broadcast Act requires which our broadcasters find onerous.

And since they're going to be trekking up to Gatineau with a wish list, maybe it's time for us Creative Types to be putting together a list of our own -- a list of the business practices in the industry which have severely curtailed our ability to earn a living.


I'm going to go through several of these in the weeks to come. But first up is something called "Fair Market Value".

Fair Market Value means that a studio or network sells its movies or TV series for the best prices it can get. To many people that would seem to be a given. But it's not.

In 1999, "X-Files" star David Duchovny filed suit against 20th Century Fox Film Corp., seeking $25 million he claimed the studio had cheated him in profit participation. Duchovny maintained that when Fox sold the successful series into syndication, it deliberately minimized revenues by selling to its affiliates and Fox-owned FX instead of selling to the highest bidder. Fox settled in order to sign Duchovny to the series' eighth and final season. It was reliably estimated that he was paid an 8 figure sum.

Two years ago, the writers of "M*A*S*H" received a settlement in a similar suit that amounted to tens of millions of dollars. "M*A*S*H" writer Ken Levine details the suit here.

As Media conglomeration in the US has resulted in fewer players owning more media outlets, the practice of self-dealing to lower costs and raise profits within the parent companies has become more prevalent. But the practice also eliminates payments and profit sharing to the very artists those parent companies are dependent on for their product and contractually obligated to pay.

At the moment, a bill to ensure films and TV series are sold for fair market value is near passage by the California State Legislature. And we need a similar bill here.

A few years ago, my accountant was having trouble understanding why one of our media conglomerates continually provided financial statements where the expenses and fees for distributing their product always exceeded the payments they received for use of the films.

"It costs them more to sell this stuff than anybody pays them," he said, "Who stays in that business?"

I explained that self-dealing their product to a network they owned allowed them to maximize the profits the network made from advertisers. He was still confused.

"But that's cheating you and the government. You're both profit participants." I agreed with him, acknowledged that my lawyer and I were beating our brains out trying to get answers. He still couldn't fathom what was going on. "Where's the government in all this? This is public money!"

A lot of Canadian artists are waiting for that answer. And if our Broadcasters want to approach Ottawa about adjusting their obligations to improve their bottom lines, perhaps questions needs to be asked about how their profits have been achieved in the past.

Quite simply, if our Members of Parliament feel they are entitled to $2 for each vote we cast in electing them, then maybe we're owed the same kind of consideration in our financial dealings.

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