Tuesday, January 10, 2006

This won't work


So don't even think about it.

Television as a medium I can take or leave, but not ignore.

Like global warming or The Blob or the creepy, corrosive cultural kudzu of Conservative Christopathism (and take that Alliteration Police) we turn our backs on The Glass Teat at our own peril.

We can suffer the slings and arrows of the Wheel of Fortune. Or each in our own small way take up arms against a sea of ”Elimidate”’s and “Fear Factor”’s and the rest of the tube’s screaming hillbilly/bug-eating fare, and do our little part to oppose them (or at least change the channel), but it is here to stay. It's how the baseline of our social parameters are bulk-mailed to the multitudes and it's how millions of our fellow citizens know what’s going on.

Hell, it's how some of them know they’re alive.

So, yes, the vast majority of tee vee is ka-ka, but then again so is the vast majority of everything. And the Very Best of that medium – like “Playhouse 90” or “Homicide” or “Fawlty Towers” or “The Singing Detective” – can stand toe-to-toe with the best of world literature and concede no ground in terms of excellent writing, humor, tragedy or insight into the human heart.

And neither the scale of a medium, nor its ubiquity or everydayness, are compelling arguments for or against that medium. A little, stone counterweight called netsuke blossomed into exquisite art in the hands of great artisans, and screwing around inside of the tiny frame of 17 syllables has produced haiku that will stand sturdier and endure longer than fortresses.

And for a lot of us, "The West Wing” was (and still sorta is) that kind of television.

It's why we dare not look too far down our noses when grandma says, “Hush honey; I’m watchin’ mah stow-ries.” Its our Liberal Alternate Universe -- where Spock doesn't have a goatee and Kirk isn't homicidal (but Uhura is still waaay hot) -- and written as such (even though the writing got kinda sucky and the plots got gimmick-laden once Sorkin left the show). It was something around which other things got scheduled. It was oxygen for us when the world was at its darkest.

It has been our catnip -- our Lefty NASCAR and “700 Club” rolled into one, where the Gospel was preached and shit blowed up real good -- our literate, Liberal consensual-experiential oasis in the middle of the cultural and political deserts through which we now slog…and, of course, that's all just gravy. A yummy-yummy layer of icing on top of the real reason we watch: the Very Important Sekrit Liberal Message that is embedded in every episode.

(And remember kids, your very own Official Barbra Streisand Sekrit Liberal Decoder Ring can be yours for a mere $8.00 and five box tops from “Progressive-O’s” cereal.

Allow 2-4 election cycles for delivery.

Offer void in Alabama, Mississippi and the rest of the usual suspects.

“Progressive-O’s: they help DLC-ers grow a fucking pair 12 different ways.” )

It is important to us, which is why, when I heard Richard Schiff being interviewed on Air America this weekend and say that people were still not sure what they were going to do about the passing of the magnificent John Spencer, I thought, well, maybe they could use a suggestion or two. Or maybe with the air stiff with the scent of “Eau du Ailto” the concepts of incoming, outgoing and replacing are just much on my mind.

So file this under, “Whither Matt Santos’ Vice President?”

First, and in reference to the picture above, finding a “New Darrin” ain’t gonna work. John Spencer’s character of Leo McGarry was too damned good -- too sui generis -- to be ‘replaced’ in any conventional sense. So the question for me is, how does one fill the massive hole that he left behind in such a way that creates that “West Wing”-y vibe of creative casting, good acting, and buzz-inducing cleverness that’ll make you smile when whoever-it-is walks on-stage, and will bring more people into the audience for this unapologetically literate and liberal entertainment.

A few suggestions, and perhaps you have more…

Starting with my prohibitive favorite…

Sipowicz!

Anybody not wanna see Dennis Franz -- a genuine “man of Chicago” -- brought on to “Blue Collar Balance” the Santos ticket? A maybe-not-100%-clean, Union-candidate who can tell Santos, “da’ Mare sez, ‘hey’. He tinks maybe I’m your new guy, but he sez whatever you do, don’t ‘Cubs’ dis up”. The guy that can deliver the Rust Belt in exchange for a “few favors”.

Anybody not think that hooking him up with former “ NYPD Blue” acting buddy Jimmy Smits wouldn’t create a monster buzz?

And let’s be honest: Anybody not think that seeing the veep in a short-sleeved, blue work shirt, skull-walloping the shit out of a recalcitrant, pussy congressman with a D.C. phone book while munching an egg sammich, saying, “You sure you doan wanna back ‘da bill? ‘Cause I kinda tink ya do.” wouldn’t be incredibly cool?


Trapper John.



Crossing-promoting with the excellent choice of Alan Alda as “Arnold Vinick”, bring in Wayne Rogers.


I have no idea if he has the chops for the role.

I do know that I’d sure as hell make it a point to be in front of Mr. TeeVee the night he and Alda were back on together.




BJ.



Also cross promoting Mike Farrell to make this the “After MASH” we were all promised but never got.

And make Beej an evangelical: A genuine, liberal born-again Christian who wears it right out on his sleeve.



Mary Tyler Moore



A very good dramatic actress, gifted comedienne and genuine 70s star, not currently being used effectively anywhere.

I’d also have suggested Dick Van Dyke, but the show already skews a little whitebread, and he’s more clown than thespian…

...although I remember him starring as a DT alcoholic in a very good and never-seen-again movie from 1974 called “The Morning After”, where he did a pretty credible job of scaring the crap outta young driftglass.

So, OK, maybe Dick Van Dyke, but no tripping over any damned ottomans.



Pam Grier



Oh please.

Do I even have to explain why?

OK then, four words:

Vice
President
Jackie
Brown.

What, you got a problem with that?




William H. Macy. Junior.

Big star now, but sort of part of the Sorkin posse from back on the “Sports Night” days, both by inclination and marriage.

Also get him to beg Mamet to come in and write a script or two. Hell, he did it for "Hill Street Blues".

Shit?
You a big star now, eh?
You fuggit you friends now, eh?


Of course I’d take Redford or Newman (maybe even playing themselves) in a heartbeat. Morgan Freeman would kill in this slot, so would Judy Dench, or Peter Falk doing the rumpled (Vice) President Mario Cuomo we never had, or a hundred other skilled actors, but from “The West Wing” I expect wonky genius, meta-caffinated writing and smart, smokin’ curveballs cannoned in out of far left field.

It is a place I go to get my flywheel spun back up again and for entirely selfish reasons I want it to keep right on rolling.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

I admit I dropped away from the show when Sorkin left, after investing years in never missing an episode. They started to become sort of a disaster-of-the-week kind of show, a la "ER" (how many freaking helicopers are going to fall on that hapless hospital, anyway?). That said, it also breaks my heart to see Alan Alda, progressive-extraordinairre, playing a Republican (I never miss his Scientific American Frontiers show).

Broke my heart when I heard about John Spencer. In many ways, he was the heart of the show, all the thigs we want and never get - moral, loyal, smart, dedicated - nothing like a **real** politician. He's left some massive shoes to fill.

And Jimmy Smits will have a LOOOOOONG line of very willing interns...

Anonymous said...

Great choices so far ...have a look to 'Pulp Fiction' for perhaps a Black VP .........how very evilliberal that could be ..
.."gon get medieval on their ass" .......

Anonymous said...

It can't be Glenn Close... she's Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Baker Lang.

And who'd give up a lifetime gig to be VP? Anyone who'd do that should never, ever be trusted to be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

And Ed Asner can't ever be allowed in the same building as Martin Sheen, ever, or it'd be too tempting for Homeland Security to round up two of the most activist lefties in Hollywood and send them to one of their gulags. (Hey, has anyone seen Tim and Susan lately? I'm worried about them).

Leonard Nimoy... the Vulcan Veep. Well, I suppose there's precedent in Al Gore (that is before he got his emotion chip installed after the 2000 election).

One more thing... my family and I were all struck by how well written the dialog on Sunday's West Wing was. It really did capture the sparkling patter (and chemistry between characters) that Aaron Sorkin patented. And that's been attempted before, but I don't think I've seen it as well realized... major props to the writer on that episode.

In fact, I could swear that Joshua Malina's Will Bailey morphed into Sports Night's Jeremy Goodwin - a much more appealing character, and more like the one that I hoped he'd be when he signed on to West Wing.

And it didn't hurt that the plot was centered on John Spencer, and showed off his chops to great effect.

Whether the writers for West Wing have figured out how to handle Spencer's death or not isn't something that's going to be discussed by anyone associated with the show. They're trying to build up suspense for the election... as if the producer's choice between having Jimmy Smits or Alan Alda be your leading man were a difficult dilemma. I love Alda (not as a Republican, though) but c'mon... this is TeeVee.

My choice for replacement Veep? Well, too bad CCH Pounder is busy with "The Shield".

jurassicpork said...

At the end of my last post, I called for us to turn off American fucking Idol and turn democracy back on. We've anaesthatized by TV and the unctuous assurances of politicans that we're really still in control that we don;t enough that we have to wrest back the powere that we've ceded all these years.

But just because we've lost the real power in this country doesn;t mean the GOP can't still fear us for still retaining the capability to take it back.

Just go check out my last post. It's possibly my angriest and most eloquent one, yet. I had to get a millstone off my chest and this was it.

Or maybe it was the chip on my shoulder.

So many metaphors, so little time! AAAAGGGHHHH!

Shit, where's my Ritalin?

Anonymous said...

Franz, I like as a choice--bare-knuckled northern/eastern pit bull--with politically incorrect tendencies, but his heart in the right place. Good, solid move--and the potential for tension via his gruffness in an office that screams for tranquility is soooo tempting as to be almost too good.

Rogers? Fine for a M*A*S*H reunion, but legendarily capricious, temperamental on set and easily distracted. You'd find yourself replacing him in a year.

Farrell is a pretty good choice--especially if he plays against "type" a bit. It would give him something to sink his teeth into. Critics however, would rail against the show anew--chiding it for being "stuffed with Hollywood lefties". Is it worth it? Maybe.

And Mary. Mary, Mary, Mary...who I have carried a torch for since I was seven years old and fell in love with her traipsing about in those capris and big, dark hair framing that face. A face that sadly, looks very little like the Season One MTM show promo still you put up. Not that she's old...she's just had too many (bad) plastic surgeries and looks like...well, like a burn victim who's had their face "rebuilt" after many, many surgeries. (I was at a record launch party my old boss' significant other had thrown for an up-and coming artist this past summer and noticed a heavily made-up woman sitting off to my left. I commented sotto voce to a friend about how odd the woman's face looked and asked if he knew who that poor woman I assumed was a rebuilt accident victim was. It was the once luminous Faye Dunaway. "Eyes of Laura Mars?", nowadays it's "The Eyes Of Something FROM Mars". She's that bad.) Sad. Her chops are there...but God, she looks awful on camera these days.

Pam Grier. Pam f*cking-Grier. Lord. I used to sneak into the Loews Victoria on 125th St. (Down a few doors from the Apollo) to check out the "latest" Grier flicks back in the day. We snuck in to see her in "The Big Bird Cage"--one of her "my waist-tied-top-will-be-torn-from-me-by-the-second-reel-women-in-prison" classics and inadvertently saw the double-feature lead in.

That lead-in was a piece of...well, cellulloid I guess--called "Welcome Home Brother Charles" that I simply cannot describe--other than to say that it is the sick, crazy, violent, fever dreamt, insane uncle of a movie to Jon Voight's "Coming Home" a few years later. And when brother-man cmes home...ugh...let me just say, Holmes was NOT QUITE the same cat he was when he left...mentally OR physically. A creepily bad and scarring (for me and my boys) use of bad horror-film prosthetics. Google it somewhere for the awful details. Brrrrr.

That said, great a choice as she'd be (and she is a damned good actress), there is no way a Latino man and Black woman would ever be elected, or put on the same ticket to run as Prez and Veep probably in my lifetime--and I ain't that damned old, either. A nice dream though.

Bill Macy would be a spectacular choice for his chops, his look (which is almost painfully populist--no pretty boy, he) and the pragmatic edge he could bring to the character. His whole demeanor screams "hard workin' behind the scenes fella". Trouble is, he's so good, it'd be difficult to pry him away from films for which he is paid a lot more than he'd get for episodic TV. He does do a lot of MFTV flicks and rocks doin' em, so maybe he's got a soft spot for the medium--I'd suuuuuure like to hope so.

The other issue with this spot is one that TV would rather we not discuss--and that's how whenever something like this happens, the rule of thumb generally is to get a younger actor than the one you lost so that health issues are then out of the picture. So older actors get pushed outta the way. "Eclipsers" are also not considered either, because they have a tendency via their sheer star power to blind an audience from seeing their co-stars--which rules out the likes of a Newman or Redford (who notoriously grew to hate TV work in his TV heyday from '61-'66) gracing that set for anything other than stunt-y "arc"-length cameos.

My choices?
Randy Quaid: Talented, bigger than life, but not a scene stealer--with a wit and nonetheless, an edge to him. I saw him once play the living hell out of LBJ in a TV movie. He could really work a role like this. Nicely, too.

Alan Arkin: A verbal gymnast, sardonic, witty and intelligent who'd have fun playing and mocking the "thankless" Veep role. A joy to write for and to play against.

Ellen Barkin: Yeah, it'd be a cheesy "Switch" reunion (an absolutely forgettable Blake Edwards implosion from the 80s she was in with a younger, more feral Smits), but she projects such a ballsy, "I-ain't-no-frail" energy while still remaining sexy--in that odd, off-kiltered smiley way of hers. She'd be a meta-Hillary, and I think, would tear that role up something fierce.

Will Patton: A grossly underrated actor who many people know, but don't know. He practically excels at playing edgy, loyal--but fierce aide-de-camps in films (most remember him as the creepy right arm of Gene Hackman in "No Way Out"), but he's done numerous turns on the wise, sometimes at-odds, interesting comrade-in arms. If they let him play midwest-ish and to his strengths (as he did in "Remember The Titans" "Armageddon" and "Gone In 60 Seconds"), he could make the role his own.

And yeah, Drift...I have a thing for these "Who To Cast?" type discussions...as if you haven't already guessed. :)

Best,
LowerManhattanite

Anonymous said...

Damn LoLo!!! I was going to go with Driftie's first choice, Dennis Franz - then you jumped up with Ellen Barkin and I went all gooey inside.

driftglass said...

LowerManhattanite,

Damn J.T Walsh for checking out too soon. Past that, I love the idea of Will Patton: he can do that edgy, Renfield thing or dropshift into straight-arrow with ease.

Yeah, Ellen Barkin would do it for me.

Randy Quaid is incredibly gifted and stays under the radar. And nnybody who can move comfortably between "The Last Detail", "Frankenstein" and "Kingpin"?

Amen, Alan Arkin (or, really, anybody from "Glengarry...")

Id also throw in my lot with Ving Rhames, or the until-recently-overused Lance Henrickson.

Fast eddir,

Nimoy? I dig Nimoy...or Martin Landeau. Sorta the "Revenge of the Nonspecifically 'Exotic' Actors who were forced to play the sinister kinda-asian-kinda-swarthy Other during the 50s and 60s" :-)

Unless Bobby Duvall's available, and will reprise his "Apostle" persona...

Anonymous said...

Bobby Duvall would work better as a Pat Robertson. I haven't watched the show in a few years though, so I'm sure there's already someone like that.

I think it'd be hilarious if Al Gore was the replacement. Maybe if he had some practice with real dialogue, sparks could fly? Damn the typecasting! Same goes for any currently out of work Dem star that isn't too old (the guy Saxby Chambliss beat?). On the same note, give Warren Beatty some more practice before he takes out the Governator!

Ellen, while great, wouldn't work. Latino + woman just doesn't work yet. It's a pity that the VP office lends itself so well to witty, aging character actors, while we obviously can't pick British stars. What if we could naturalize Bill Nighy?

- Tim

Anonymous said...

Damn! I haven't thought about Ellen Barkin in months and now someone goes and mentions her.
It will now be months before I get her out of my mind again.
And I'll watch "Sea Of Love" over and over.

Anonymous said...

Holy smokes ABSOLUTELY FREAKIN' BRILLIANT!!

SIPOWICZ FOR VEEP!

My god how that would rule, in all the ways you've already described. I'd never have thunk it. It makes perfect teevee sense.

Runner up is Bill Macy. Another great choice.

This would make me tune back in, without a doubt.

jurassicpork said...

DG:

Email me. I have a favor to ask of you. If you can do this, it'll make my upcoming Assclowns of the Week something to remember.

Anonymous said...

I miss HOMICIDE, and I only watched it on DVD *sigh*. How about Andre Braugher? Call it the "Screw Triangulation - We're Not Your Daddy's Country, Why Should We Be Your Daddy's Party?" ticket. Besides, wouldn't you like to see Braugher laser the first pundit numbwit (yeah, redundancy) who prattled some Is-Amurka-ready-for-two-Not-White-guys talking point at him? This is television, home of the talking horse, the talking car, the talking Farrah Fawcett -- I say we should go with truly Outside the Realm of Possibility casting just for the buzz!
Ellen Barkin would be good, too, but IMO an older woman would be more "believable"... how about Ellen Burstyn? Or, if she's got the time, Kelly Bishop... or Frances Conroy? "Vote for us, dear -- or do I have to Speak to Your Parents?" (spoken sweetly, but with steel... ) -- Anne Laurie

Anonymous said...

P.S. I believe Pam Grier still has her gig on THE "L" WORD going. You wanna see tiny heads explode, combine "vice-president Foxy Brown" and "soul singer Kit Porter, last seen screwin' a married man while carrying a torch for a cross-dressing female wrench monkey"... Best, Anne Laurie

driftglass said...

Anne,
Andre Braugher would be effing brilliant.

Thanks

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