Chopped Liver

So, I recently shot a sizzle reel about Liver Transplant for Al Roker Ent, yes that Al Roker. He's actually a very nice guy. A sizzle reel is kind of like a pilot but shorter and more like a commercial for the show than the actual show. The idea is you give it to various cable networks and hopefully they say, "oooh, ahhh, give me more of that." Then, they pay Al Roker Ent to make a whole bunch of them, a series even, and everyone's happy provided that the shows rate well among breastfeeding women between the ages of 28 and 60 or whatever demographic the network thinks it's going after at that moment.

Back to the liver transplant. This lady gave half of her liver to her father who was slowly dying from end-stage liver disease and encephalopathy (look it up!). Did you know the liver regenerates? I had no idea. So does this mean the Prometheus myth was true? The classics department should really get in on this. We're talking about scientific evidence that one of the Greek myths was non-fiction. And if you believe that, I've got a three-headed dog to sell you.

Anyway, if you ever have a chance to watch liver transplant surgery I completely recommend it. Just make sure to eat tons of lasagna before you go. After hours of operating the surgical team pulled a beautiful, living, bleeding half-liver from the donor and placed bets on how much it weighed. And yes, Price Is Right rules were in effect. Then the chief of surgery carried the liver in a bucket into the OR next door where another team sewed it into the recipient. Within a week, the recipient who hadn't read a book in over two years was 86 pages into Merle's Door: Lessons from a freethinking dog. Sizzling, no?

Happy Memorial Day!!

The United Nations: Still Smoking

I was at the UN the other day on an assignment and was pleased to find that the Delegates Lounge is one of New York City's last refuges for what is fast becoming a lost art: smoking indoors. Located on the north end of the UN General Assembly building, the bar offers enviable views of the East River, a groovy modernist decor, and a smorgasbord of foreign nationals if you're into that kind of thing. The UN Security Council is just down the hall, but UN insiders say the real negotiations happen in the Delegates Lounge over stiff drinks and, preferably, in a haze of smoke. But that haze may soon lift.

This past fall under the leadership of Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, the UN passed a resolution banning smoking in all UN buildings. So far the UN's call for a cease fire has been generally ignored by those generally assembled which is pretty much what happened when Koffi Annan tried a ban in 2003. Recently, Secretary General Moon showed alarmingly unilateral tendencies when he strategically withdrew all ash trays from the Delegates Lounge. The smokers countered with coffee cups. Perhaps fire-extinguisher wielding Peacekeepers are next? Talk about in harm's way. Real courage is getting between the French Ambassador and his Gitanes.

Those who love to criticize the UN despite their noble mission (ending human suffering and all that) will find great comfort in the organizations inability to police smoking in their own headquarters. I'm not pro-smoking, but I do like the idea of a small tribe on the brink of extinction (extinguishment?) holding out against a world class bureaucracy despite all the odds even if they happen to be part of that bureaucracy. Something tells me we need smoke-filled-rooms where people sort out matters of great importance. Let them smoke, just as long as it's a peace pipe.

Water

Dear Fords,

Just back from an amazing trip for Discovery Networks to London, Paris, Athens, Madrid, Monaco and Kathmandu, but I'm not going to talk about that now.

The photo above is of my son, Clyde, enjoying a dip with his cousins in a pristine Adirondack lake . That brings me to my subject and our most precious resource: water. Earlier this fall I finished a short film for and about an innovative company called Earth Water Global. If you're interested in water issues and potential solutions, you should know about them.

Earth Water Global has developed The Megawatershed Paradigm, a completely new way of looking at the earth's potable water balance, and they're finding water in places where no one believed they could. With a little luck they could become a solution to the Global Water Crisis. Here's the link to Earth Water Global: Megawatershed Development. I hope you like it.

David

Your New Office

Howdy Neighbors,

I want to tell you a little bit about the modern production office experience: it's pretty lame. I'm not talking about the people or the job itself, but the whole office space thing just isn't working out so well for us these days. Watching Mad Men (A MUST SEE!) made me think about how far we've fallen since the days when a guy (it used to be just guys) could walk into his office, shut the door, pour some bourbon, light up, lie down on his couch and stare out the window. When I was at HBO (ah HBO) I had my own office and a door for shutting out the world, but no couch and certainly no booze or tobacco, as far as you know. Nowadays I count myself lucky if I get a cubicle where I don't have to play twister with my neighbor to get to my chair.

My personal nadir definitely came this past Spring at NBCs world famous 30 Rock: great place for a comedy lousy space for an office. As you'll see in the attached photo, the genius who designed the space failed to take into account that producers often have sensitive, nuanced conversations on the phone with people around the world. Producers need to time to read and reflect, and producers also always need to have something (like the proximity of their neighbor) to complain about. None of the above are easy to do when your neighbor in front, behind and across from you can hear everything you're saying, and vice-versa. This kind of set up may work well for wall street traders but not for human beings. And forget about any personal privacy. I guarantee you the woman who sat next to me at NBC knows way more about my son Clyde than she wants or needs to. "BUT HE'S SO CUTE!"

This fall I'm producing an as yet unnamed series for TLC, and my latest production office has Magill-like carrels which allow for a kind of "cone of silence" privacy thing. Our team of APs and producers all sit together and that makes for some fun. Still, if someone bumps into my chair one more time or sticks their butt in my ear while they're talking to my neighbor, I may say something that's like really rude.

I understand that space is at a premium, especially in NYC, and I don't frankly have any immediate solutions. I just know there's got to be better way. Tune in next time when I complain about how my office chair is giving me Spina Bifida, and my computer is giving me Acne and Cataracts.

Peace,

David

A Great Bridge

There's nothing quite like a good walk to clear your head. My favorite stroll takes me from Brooklyn to Manhattan across one of the finest examples of 19th century engineering in the New World: The Brooklyn Bridge. I love the bridge. I love the Hassidic couple who huff and puff their way past me every morning: their 19th century coats rendering them oddly period-appropriate. I love that on some days our mother tongue is seldom heard. Italians, French, Spanish and Germans gawk daily at the view their newly empowered Euro affords them. I love that in the twenty minutes or so it takes me to get up and down the mile-long span, my mind dreamily floats in a meditative state.

Meditative states don't go over too well in television. Meditative states are not, to quote Hot Lips Houlihan, "consistent with maximum efficiency." So this is why I'm grateful for a space suspended hundreds of feet above the East River where the pressure of deadlines for pitches, scripts and edits magically lifts...for a moment.

May you all have Brooklyn Bridges wherever you are.

David

The Sonny Bono Incident

Happy New Year All!

I just recently read Steve Martin's biography, "Born Standing Up, " and I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the creative process. Martin does a great job telling the story of how for nearly two decades he developed his amazing stand-up act. He also reveals many of the personal setbacks that shaped his character and his routine.

When I was a kid I spent hours listening to, laughing at, and memorizing his iconic albums. I recently started doing some standup in New York, and reading this book gave me a whole new appreciation for this genius who created hours of hilarious original material with almost no punch lines.

One story in particular popped out at me. Martin wrote and performed on the Sonny and Cher show for a spell, and he tells about the time when Sonny and his producer took him aside to say they loved his work, and that they were going to develop a show around him. Naturally, Martin was thrilled and looked forward to great things. The punch line here is that nothing happened. Sonny and his producer never said another word to Martin about their big plans.

So what lesson should you draw from this? People, especially television and entertainment people, are often totally full of it. They say things without thinking or because they're high on drugs or because they have a pathological need to please or whatever. At Haverford we like to think we can take people at their word, but I'm sorry the rest of the world (and sometimes Haverford) just doesn't work that way.

Having spent my entire academic life in a relatively honest Quaker cocoon, this kind of behavior (and not returning phone calls) was perhaps the most difficult for me to understand. How could someone not say what they mean?! Even though my eyes have been opened by some of the magnificent jerks I've come across, I still like to take people at their word. Only now I try to live by the great words of that terrible President, Ronald Reagan, "trust but verified."

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

David

P.S. In case you were wondering. I am completely honest.

TV BAD

Hope all is well. Things are picking up around here at Peacock Productions. Working on live programming for the Travel Channel which will air on New Year's Eve. They're running a string of No Reservations (Chef Anthony Bourdain eats his way around the world), and starting at noon we're doing live segments at the top of the hour about New Year's traditions in countries that Anthony is visiting and some others too. I'm actually supposed to be scripting some of those right now, but this is a great way to procrastinate.

I'm going to tell you a few bad things about television, show you some cute video and then get back to work.

According to Time Magazine, "The average U.S. household has more televisions (2.73) than people (2.6)." The survey goes on to report that we spend over two and a half hours a day watching television, that's more time than we spend doing everything else in our lives besides working and sleeping.

I can't emphasize enough what a waste of time this is unless you happen to be watching any combination of the following: The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ugly Betty, Chef Gordon Ramsay, Project Runway, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Talk Soup, The Closer (sometimes) and House (Hugh Laurie is great, but I watch less and less as the show gets muddled with too many characters). Should mention that Back to You is good theater and Keith Olbermann has his moments. So, again, I can't emphasize enough what a waste of time television is.

In other TV BAD news, Gawker has an item about Viacom, the owners of MTV, VH1, CBS and on and on. According to a Viacom staffer nearly 50% of their employees are freelancers. This means they make tv for the company without benefits and can be fired at will. The rest of the employees are "staff" and get full benefits, contracts and nicer holiday gifts. I'm a freelancer hoping to be made staff at NBC. I get no benefits and could easily get canned for blogging while I should be working leaving me without any immediate means to support little baby Clyde who you'll see in action later.

Previously at Viacom you had to work for a year before getting any kind of health benefits. Now they're upping the work-week to 50 hours but giving benefits to employees who work 25, 50 hour work-weeks in a given division. On the surface it seems like a better deal. Employees get benefits faster, BUT, and there's always a BUT, if they get shifted from their division (a regular occurence) they lose all their hours and have to start at the beginning again. Something tells me our friends at Viacom will be working the shell game like you read about in the months to come. Anything to keep from paying benefits and making it look like you have too many staff employees which makes investors nervous and drives your stock down. Almost forgot to mention that Viacom plans to give freelancers the news when they go to pick up their Christmas party invites. Now that's classy.

Also salaries for the tv entry level positions in television (this means you soon to be college graduates) are so low that unless you have inherited money or some ongoing support from family you can't afford to work in television in New York. The system insures that, by in large, only people with money can work in television. This means the vision will tend to be homogenous and the product will suffer accordingly. I am, of course, an exception to that rule, no really.

Enough about TV. I've decided to put the medium to good use. Here's a clip of my son Clyde taking some of his first steps. 9 months and 3 weeks, a Felsen family record, but who's counting.

Clyde the Glide

Happy Finals!!

DF