Indie TV

I've been obsessed for a long time with the idea of "indie TV" or "indie serials".

I keep thinking one day it'll be a thing, if only a minor thing.

In the early '90s, as shows like Twin Peaks and The X-Files were working in the world of commercial TV in the US and having continuity. I could go into the longer history, but what was important at that moment was that it felt fresh and exciting to many viewers, including me.

And, at that time, I was young and my dreams went to creating series in the system.

I had an original cyberpunk idea that wavered in what I wanted it to be, but was most often supposed to be a series. I still cannibalize the many ideas that I had for that.

One of them I carried around for a while was a guy who was in a padded room that he had decorated ceiling to in crayon drawings. At that time, I'd seen nothing like that. Now, it would be hilariously cliché. Such is life.

I also thought a series telling the complete Robots/Empire/Foundation saga would be good. It's one of the reasons I'm excited for the upcoming Foundation series on Apple TV, and I'm only slightly disappointed that they didn't go with that more expansive idea.

But as time went on, I felt less like that felt like my path.

In the late-'90s/early-'00s, I thought of an idea for a public access show. A workplace sitcom in a restaurant/bar type setting that would revolve around a location. Characters could come and go around the place, which would work well with amateur or semi-professional actors needing to do other things. Of course, well before crowdfunding, there wasn't an obvious way to raise the money. Indeed, for a public access show, the Internet would be a limited help, because the show would only be valuable to people in that specific region.

As time went on, it starts to look possible, formats like QuickTime, RealPlayer and eventually YouTube and Vimeo made the idea more plausible.

And yet, we've seen very little progress in this. I've paid less attention recently than I used to, but I can't think of anything aside from a couple of short run series, most of which have ten minute episodes or so or ongoing fan fiction for things like Star Trek. All of which show that, with the right interest, it could be done, but, as far as I can tell, it never has.

I was Twitter ranting the other day on this subject and thought of a larger than necessary, but woefully incomplete, group of indie movies -

The Hitch-Hiker, A Bucket of Blood, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, El Topo, Pink Flamingos, The Harder They Come, Phantasm, Battle Beyond the Stars, Knightriders, Born in Flames, The Toxic Avenger, Stranger Than Paradise, Re-Animator, Border Radio, Hollywood Shuffle, Deadbeat at Dawn, Slacker, Reservoir Dogs, El Mariachi, Clerks, Cube, The Blair Witch Project and Ichi the Killer

- that could be expanded, adapted or just provide inspiration for a low budget series. In the cases in which it's not obvious how, I sort of roughed some ideas out in my head to see if I thought it could be done. Try it yourself.

She's Gotta Have It and From Dusk Till Dawn are obvious other examples where they have made expanded shows, although with substantially increased budgets as well.

I also wish there were more examples of indie space opera. Perhaps I should have used Space Truckers as my Stuart Gordon selection. Indeed, I have a specifically indie, specifically space opera idea that I'd like to work out with a group of people one day.

But why aren't there indie series of note yet?

YouTube is filled with indie versions of "reality TV" and the advantages of that are obvious.

But now, when you could raise an initial budget for a pilot and then have a Patreon account or any of a variety of similar ideas, to continue it, I'm not sure I understand why there seems to be no indie drama serials at all, even only modestly successful or wild attempts that got attention and crashed. Or am I missing them?

Some of those ideas would be bigger challenges than other, but look at Clerks up there, which was at least some of the inspiration for that public access idea I touched on above. All someone would need is regular access to a location. That could be hard for some, but some other aspiring moviemakers parents own a store or a restaurant or an office. If you're able to play nice, you could make that work on regular overnight shifts. Or, if you did a Space Opera, as I said, you could build a couple of sets and use them creatively, like they do for those Star Trek fan shows or do CGI, if that's your skill set.

As should be clear, I'm wondering for my own creative purposes.

I watched the famously disappointing Veronica Mars movie and then the excellent fourth season that followed it and wondered if the issue was whether a longer serial format was what the characters and situation needed to play out properly, which led me to wondering if the project I'm working on plotting, outlining, planning and whatever else might have that exact problem, and I'm not sure what that means quite yet.

But more importantly, I think about what a positive creative force independent movies have been and can be and, as a viewer, I'd like to see serials added to their toolbox.

So, the most important question is, are these out there and I'm missing them?

If they aren't, as it appears to me, is it for lack of trying or is there something wrong with the entire concept that I'm simply not seeing?

Or are all of the streaming services out there leaving everyone "saving themselves" for the next one that they can pitch to?

I wish I had any kind of answers here.

Politics (I guess)

Starting a blog with the intention of avoiding politics around the time of a presidential election is a dumb idea, I guess.

All I know is that when I read James Carville unloads on the Democratic Party by Sean Illing, I think how much of an idiot James Carville is, but then he helped get Bill Clinton elected and that succeeded at getting a punishing slough of Republican bills deregulating banks and accelerating mass incarceration, ending welfare, of any president from up until perhaps Trump, so Democrats would be fools to think he's a friend to their goals.

So, if you know Democrats, you know they're going to take this bullshit very seriously indeed.

In the meantime, I read An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter by David Freedlander and think, that matches pretty close to my experience of the events of my lifetime. Mind you, I think these things are more complicated than any one theory can hold.

[Rachel] Bitecofer’s theory, when you boil it down, is that modern American elections are rarely shaped by voters changing their minds, but rather by shifts in who decides to vote in the first place. To her critics, she’s an extreme apostle of the old saw that “turnout explains everything,” taking a long victory lap after getting lucky one time. She sees things slightly differently: That the last few elections show that American politics really has changed, and other experts have been slow to process what it means.

In the 24-hour news cycle world that Ted Turner brought us and Al Gore shepherded forward, we are all hungry for an answer that can be summed up in teaser promo spot or a clickbait headline, but I don't think the answers can be found on any of the news networks or, for the most part, on the Internet, because the business of neither is helped by people gaining anything like an understanding of their world.

But, yeah, I feel like you can look at that group of people above, and, even if you can't put your finger on what it is, see what they lack, even though large swaths of party members thought each of them were "electable".

And now we have Mike Bloomberg jumping in. I'll probably vote for the Democratic nominee in November, even if some will make me grit my teeth a lot. In a race between two billionaires, however, I'll only vote for The Guillotine.

I know that any mainstream Democrats who accidentally stumble of this post will think I'm being a dick in some way and that any Democrat is better than Trump, and I'm saying the choice between two billionaires is morally indistinguishable from one between two Nazis. You could say that one is smarter, more competent, has fewer disagreeable beliefs or is even a nicer person than the other, but both have interests that are deeply contrary to mine.

I know that many people will say that's not a reasonable line. I have alleged working class champion John Mellencamp interrupting my YouTube joy to champion the glories of plutocracy, so I know they're out there. And I know that, in the unlikely event that he makes it, the Democratic scolds will be out in force explaining it as well. I'll just never buy it.

Frankly, the scolds have made me somewhat regret my decision to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016, despite my many moral reservations, rather than to feel bad about those who made another choice. The fact that she hasn't caught fire from the white hot rage those people should be feeling toward her and her absolutely incompetent campaign is a tribute to how far separated they are from me, which leaves them in poor position to scold or instruct me.

I genuinely think she should be specifically, individually held responsible for all of the evils of the current administration. The extremity of her laziness and overconfidence should make it unsafe for her to go in public again.

She chose Tim fuckin' Kaine!

Fuck her!

Sure, it's no Gore picking goddamn Joe Lieberman, but still. Tim fuckin' Kaine!

Those mainstream Democrats really do love sticking it in and twisting it on the party faithful, don't they?

Don't get me wrong, I agree very much with Mitt by Mark Evanier.

Here's my take on it. I believe that at some low level in our government — maybe some folks who sit on a city council somewhere — men and women act out of conscience and put the needs of The People ahead of their own careers and certainly their own parties. But it doesn't happen much higher than that. Probably at the state level and certainly above it, there is only one consideration: "How will this benefit me?"

They may put personal wealth ahead of personal power or vice-versa. They may care about fame more than money. They may even convince themselves that's what good for them is good for their constituents and for the nation. (That's kind of the Alan Dershowitz defense of, I suppose, all wrongdoing.) No matter why they want to serve, when it comes time to vote Yes or No, they vote based on what's better for themselves. That may or may not match up with what's better for the majority.

I do not mean almost everyone thinks like that. I do not mean everyone except the candidate I support. I mean absolutely everyone and I don't think I'm being overly cynical to say that. It includes Trump, Obama, Biden, either Clinton, Sanders, anyone named Kennedy or Bush…and of course, Mitt Romney.

This is handy to have in mind. It's easy to make one cynical, which is how many people take it, but it offers a certain clarity. If none of them are "on my team", then I only have who will find it in their best interest to do things I believe in. I'm not not tied to any feeling of loyalty to them that I don't feel they have toward me and people like me.

I can look and see that Carville is just Karl Rove Lite™ and his arguing for "centrists" might serve his interests, but it definitely doesn't serve mine.