Thursday, September 04, 2003

 

I linked to Brian Flemming's blog a while back but forgot to mention it. You should check it out for his new one-act, Fair & Balanced, available on line (the link is on his site). It's all about Bill O'Reilly and the dimwitted lawsuit his employers engaged in. I'm going to buy and read as soon as I get back from vacation, which starts in a few hours. I'll post on it next week.

It's a little late in blog-time to be commenting on the O'Reilly-Franken lawsuit, and I don't use this blog as a straight commentary. But I must say that, until recently, I was baffled by Fox's behavior. Franken was so clearly protected by the first amendment, it seemed to me that the network was being insanely bone-headed, even for a network. Despite pundits warning of out-of-control intellectual property laws that could make the suit legit, I thought it was a dead mule. I thought three things would happen:

1. The suit would be laughed out of court. It was.

2. O'Reilly and Fox would get mocked, mercilessly, throughout the globe. They were.

3. People would write "Fair and Balanced" on their toilet paper, just so they could wipe on it. Don't know if that came true. Don't want to.

And surely, if a chimp like me could see all that coming, the smartypants lawyers at Fox could too, right? Right?!?

I read an article in the last issue of The New Yorker about the suit. The author, Ben McGrath, speculated that the whole suit was Fox's attempt to placate the wounded pride of its star, Bill O'Reilly. It's the first explanation I've seen that makes sense out of the whole thing. It doesn't require a mass case of stupidty on the part of Fox, just a mass case of greed and toadyism.

BIG CHIEF LAWYER: But, Mr. Murdoch, O'Reilly wants the complaint to state that Al Franken a "ninny doo-doo head, no backs."

MR. MURDOCH: Whatever he wants! Just make sure he's on at eight!

This I can buy. Or maybe I'm naive. Maybe they all just had honey-roast peanuts for brains.

posted by Dan 11:26 AM
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Wednesday, September 03, 2003

 

His Big Chance

(A rocky outcrop. There’s a large stone slab, center stage. IKE, a teenage boy, enters.)

IKE (shouting off:)
I didn’t want to come on this stupid camping trip anyway, Dad!
(He crosses to the rock and sits.)
I’m not gonna pretend I’m having a good time. I’m having the worst time ever with you, Dad, you hear me? Worst Camping Trip Ever! Like I could expect better from an old fart like you. You’re an old butt-hoot, dad. Just stop telling me what to do! I ain’t takin’ no advice on girls from a withered old hangnail like you, that cheated on his wife. That’s right, mom told me! You perv! Why don’t you go back to that piece of Egyptian ass you used to sleep with!
(ABE enters.)

ABE
Those were different times, son. Your mother and I had what was called an open marriage. I know better now.

IKE
Oh, sure, now you know better, now that you can’t get it up without massaging your weasel with olive oil for like two hours, now you know better. It’s okay for you to smoke hash with an Egyptian, but if I’m all up in a Canaanite honey with a blunt -- and I told you, she said it was clove!

ABE
Son, that girl is on the express camel to Nowheresville, and its hump is filled with broken dreams and gonorrhea.

IKE
I wish I’d known you when you used to party with Uncle Lot down in Sodom. You were probably all right then. Now you’re just Old Man Abraham to everybody in the hood.

ABE
Lot may have run with a tough crowd, but he never made himself unclean, and I don’t want you to either.

IKE
Why would I be unclean, Dad? ‘Cause my lady’s not from our tribe? You’re such a patriarchal racist.

ABE
I wanted this weekend to be special. It’s our last camping trip together.

IKE
Thank God!

ABE
Yes, exactly.

MORE...

posted by Dan 3:57 PM
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Tuesday, September 02, 2003

 

I spent most of Labor Day weekend hunched over a computer, finishing draft two of my new full-length play, At Sea With Sieves and Liars. I know, not a title that jumps off a poster. Processing, please wait...

I'm currently sending it out to my cabal of critics, who will tear it apart. Then I'll have a reading, tear it some more. Then draft three. But, for your dining pleasure, dear reader, here's the first scene.

posted by Dan 3:23 PM
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