SEASON 4 PREMIER CHALLENGE/PROMISE (ANOTHER UPDATE)

8/30/11 UPDATE:

So I've intrigued the folks at the network with my offer and if we pull off the ten percent bump, we're thinking about turning the "fan challenge" into a DVD extra in the season four package.  Record it like a "live commentary" of 410.  Which could be a really cool way to say to the fans -- "all this shit is for you, bitches." 

Also I realized that there are a lot of international followers on Twitter and the blog.  They assume they are shit out of luck for the challenge.  Well, they are.  Not because of the cost to schlep them out here, but because season four is only airing in the states now (and I guess parts of Canada, too).  And if I include you, I'm basically condoning illegal downloads; which is really the only way you could be watching it.  Having said that, I will send two international fans a huge "swag basket" with a season 3 DVD, official Sons merch, an autographed script of the pilot and a list of all the tweets that will forever put me out of the Emmy race.  Hopefully that will take the sting out of the exclusion.

Here's another confession.  I'm also looking for a graceful re-entry into Twitter that doesn't make me look like a complete fucking douchebag for pulling the plug, then a month later, coming back.  Truth is, I miss the fan interaction and since my Facebook hacking, unplugging from Twitter has been counter-intuitive to keeping an SOA presence in social media.  Also, how else will those moronic, archaic cave dwellers at the Television Academy know what I'm thinking.  I've tried the 1/4 million followers challenge, but that will NEVER happen, even by 2027.... I'm a fucking writer, not an actor.  And the twenty percent bump in seasons will never happen either.  So here's my dark, evil on-ramp... wait for it... 66666 followers.  See ya then. 

8/26/11 UPDATE:

If we blow up twenty percent or more... I'll TWEET about it.
 
ORIGINAL BLOG:

We noticed last season, actually with every passing season, that more and more fans are watching Sons off their DVR.  Such is the future of television.  There will be no programming, only content.  SOA had a huge jump when the show caught fire between seasons one and two.  We grew almost 90%, which was fucking crazy.  It settled back down the next season; we only had a marginal bump between seasons two and three.  I was actually thrilled to get back all the viewers we had picked up the previous season.  

When it comes to season four, I'm trying to run the trend, but there's a wild card in the mix.  I'm sure my friends at TV by the Numbers will have some predictions, but the trend indicates that we will flatline or drop off in numbers -- as many returning shows have.  Usually by season four of a series, the viewing audience is pretty much locked in.  Not many new viewers showing up.  So with that base viewing number purchasing more DVR's, it suggests that our numbers could drop a bit in the live viewing, then spike in the +7.  But the wild card is Netflix.  I've gotten so many tweets and Facebook messages from fans who just discovered the show when it was released on Netflix a few months back.  Now I don't know if this will impact live viewing in any real way; perhaps it's a push more for the season three DVD than the season four premier, but it's something to at least consider.  

Anyway.  Here's my challenge/promise: If we can see at least a ten percent bump in the season four premier -- in both total viewers and the 18-49 key demo -- I will pick a loyal SutterInk Twitter follower (I'm not tweeting but my account is still active) and a SutterInk blog follower -- fly you and a guest out to Los Angeles, put you up in a non-shithole hotel and invite you to my house to watch episode 410 of Sons (After a thorough security check by Fox of course).  I believe that is Thanksgiving week so I might even be able to convince a few cast members to join us.  Perhaps we'll call it a party.  My wife, not only is she beautiful and loving, she puts out a nice spread.  

So pass it on to the cyber-universe and all orbiting bodies with Nielsen boxes -- watch September 6th.  Let's blow this shit up.

LONGER SEASON 4 PROMO

HAMLET MAYBE

 

As I close in on writing the last three episodes of the season, I am beginning to clearly see the final act of Sons.  This awareness took me back to the Hamlet archetype that inspired the show and I'm trying to envision how much of the series will eventually come back around to that homage.

Some.  I think.

There are big character shifts in season four.  We knock people off the fence and we make them choose.  The finale for season four will feel like a series end in a lot of ways, but the truth is, it will create a new beginning.  The beginning of the end.  Season five and six, if I'm lucky enough to get, will explore that new dynamic.  Season seven will be all about the fall of heroes and the rise of men. 

As far as potential shit I may actually steal from the Bard, it comes down to themes.  I will definitely continue to play out the ghost of Hamlet's father theme, the conflicted son theme and the plotting mother theme.  As well as some others.  And there may even be a few narrative lifts from the Shakespearean playbook as well.  I won't spoil those.  I can tell you this, the show doesn't end in a pool of blood with all players dead.  

That will happen in season six... just kidding.  I think. 

And in light of my recent social media extraction, I thought I'd leave you with this from Act 1, scene 3:

"Give thy thoughts no tongue."

TWITTER PROMISE

I've stopped Twittering, as perhaps you've noticed.  Some fans are disappointed, but most people who know me and care about me are relieved.  Very relieved.  So, I deactivated my account, then I logged on to open an anonymous account and realized that by logging on, I reactivated my account.  So SUTTERINK is there, it's just dormant.  

Which is kinda prophetic.  You know?  

I'm getting many requests to rejoin Twitter.  People are calling me a quitter and a coward.  I just heard that Damon Lindelof, Brent Lang and Ryan Murphy want me back on.  But here's the curious thing.  My Twitter account has gotten a lot of buzz over the past few months and yet the amount of my followers basically stays the same.  You'd think my numbers would be blowing up.  But they don't.  Meaning that all the hype is kinda bullshit.  Maybe here in LA it's buzzy, but to the rest of the world, no one gives a shit about a television writer.  All they care about is the writer's work.  This is a double edged sword for me.  Part of me is relieved to know that most people don't pay attention to the ridiculous coverage and judge me by my talent.  Then a part of me, let's call it my big ego, is pissed off that people don't pay attention to the ridiculous coverage.  C'mon, man.  I'm being smeared in tiger blood here, where are my numbers?  

So here's the deal, at the rate of my added followers, I should hit the QUARTER MILLION mark in 2027.  That's when I'll re-engage Twitter, 250,000 followers or 2027, whichever comes first.  Either way, by then I'll be retired and won't give a shit.  I'll be tweeting about colostomy bags and weed killer.  So until then, the little bird on my computer remains silent.  And the rest of the world could care less.

Adieu, ladies.

WTF SUTTER #16

Not quite sure what's going on with the hair.  I look like an Hasidic Skaterboy.  Enjoy.

LITTLE SELF

I was at the shrink yesterday.  Like that should come as a surprise to anyone.  I've been going a lot lately.  What brings me to the couch?  It's not the stress of the show.  On the contrary, work is my escape.  I crave 16-hour days.  It's not the noise I create with my big opinions.  If I'm being completely honest, all that shit kinda fuels me.  It makes me feel vital.  Gets me sporting Lenny Bruce wood.  It's not my marriage.  That's the one thing I've done right in the past 8 years.  So what brings me to therapy?  My kid.  I'm sure this is every parent's dilemma, so I know it's nothing new, but my developing relationship with my daughter brings me face to face with my own, unresolved, fucked-up, juvenile pain.  

My frustration and challenges with Esme rarely have anything to do with Esme.  I am becoming very aware that children give us the opportunity to work shit out we couldn't when we were young.  I don't mean that I'm not attentive or present for her, I just mean that as I grow as a father and struggle giving her what she needs, I realize that it's often something I needed myself and never received.  And until I acknowledge that need in Kurt, I can't fill it in Esme.  In other words, I have to grow up to be a grown up

The truth is, I would never have taken the time or energy to go back to therapy if it wasn't for my kid.  I desperately do not want to fuck her up.  Katey's done a remarkable job raising her two kids and I want Esme to have that same chance.  I just want her to land on the right side of happy.  The pursuit to achieve that is turning out to be incredibly revelatory.

By example: I know I have a reputation for being aggressive and angry, and I've clearly earned that sway.  But the truth is, it's more a persona than it is the person.  I'm a pretty quiet dude and I really dislike confrontation.  The problem that I struggle with in pretty much all areas of my life is balance.  I have trouble finding the middle range in anything.  I often go from a one to a ten in a single thought.  So my behavior can be erratic and unpredictable.  Then I made this simple discovery when I was working on some patience issues around my daughter -- When I was a kid, I couldn't get anyone to listen to me.  I had a voice, it just wasn't connecting to any ears.  So I learned at an early age that if level one wasn't working, two through nine sure as hell weren't gonna work, so let's go right to fucking ten and stir shit up.  That was the only way I could get an audience.  That's not a skill set that I consciously established or one that I was even fully aware of until my kid forced me to look at it.  So now I have some context for behavior.  Clearly awareness alone isn't enough.  One must actually take contrary action to apply change.  And as usual for me, it's always one tweet forward, three tweets back.

I share all this here because this stuff is just as important as my gripes.  More importantly actually.  My rants are the results of circumstance hitting my character.  These personal entries are slow to percolate and speak to my journey.  Process is always much more interesting and revealing than results.  All my work, hard and soft, defines me as an artist and a man.  As I grow.  As I change.  As I fall down.  As I slide back.  As I burn.  As I resurrect.  As I shave the bunny.

SEASON 4 UPDATE

As we close in on the premier, I wanted to bring folks up to speed on the show.  The one I write.  Sons of Anarchy premiers of September 6th and the 90 minute episode kicks off what I think will be a very satisfying season for fans.  The feedback from folks who have already seen it has been very positive.  

I want to thank the SOA fans for making this job so satisfying.  Really, your enthusiasm and support is unparallelled.  Some days knowing how much you dig what we do is my greatest motivator.  It's the only thing I miss about Twitter, talking to you... or I guess talking at you.  

I know it's difficult for fans to wait nine months between seasons so I've tried to keep folks plugged in through social media and the iPhone and Android app.  The additional content scenes were a way to give fans an inside peek at the season as well as provide some backstory to the 14 month narrative time gap between seasons 3 and 4.  The third additional content scene, TARA AND PINEY, will hit the FX Facebook page first on 8/22, then the app on 8/24.  We promised marketing the exclusive first on this one, that's why it's hitting social media before the app.  The first two additional content scenes, PAYPHONE and SECOND SON are available now on the FX Facebook page.  

Above is the banner that will be flying over a beach near you.  I hope you join us.

TWITTER, DARABONT, WEINER, SHAVED BUNNIES AND OTHER THINGS

After a few weeks of bad spin about my Frank Darabont comments and in the light of AMC making a deal for Breaking Bad, I figured I'd try to fill in some of the blanks that were not communicated in my 140 characters.  

Let me begin by saying that there is a bigger issue at hand regarding all this Twitter bullshit.  It's a separate blog, but in short, main stream media is going to kill Twitter by using it as a source of on-the-record documentation.  When you have douchebags like Brent Lang at The Warp taking my three tweets and building a story around them, you have news that ends up being ten percent fact, and ninety percent subjective conjecture about, "What I meant".  Lang should be fucking fired for what happened next -- When I tweeted my frustration about the fact that he was too lazy to pick up a phone and actually call me for context, he updated his column, infusing more nasty opinion and pulling older tweets to support his anger.  By his third or fourth "update" his news story was more of an angry tirade than any of my blogs or tweets.  All this in the name of journalism.  This is indicative of what's happening in cybernews.  There is such a need for instantaneous reporting, to be the first to get it up, that truth and fairness are falling lower and lower on the list of priorities.  Using Twitter as a news source is accelerating the demise of real journalism.  Lang is a cunt who should have his credentials pulled.  Or at the very least, someone should beat the shit out of him with an AP Stylebook.

Months ago when Matt Weiner made his deal at AMC, I commented about the need for showrunners to take some responsibility for the bigger picture.  Meaning, yes, a show is the creator's vision, but it also becomes something more.  In my case, SOA doesn't belong to me anymore.  It has a life of it's own.  It belongs to the fans, my cast, my crew, everyone associated with it.  It's my job to steer and not crash it, but I don't own the bus.  So when Matt was holding out for more money, I felt for his cast and crew who had to wait another six months to go back to work.  Then when the specifics of the deal were revealed, I was kinda stunned.  I know Mad Men is a valuable commodity, but the amount they were paying Matt felt unsustainable for a ad-driven cable network.  My initial thought was, "Man, that's a little greedy.  Someone else is gonna take a hit for this."

When news hit of the massive budget cuts on Walking Dead and AMC trying to force Vince Gilligan to finish Breaking Bad in only seven episodes, my reaction was, "Okay, that's who's taking the hit."  It wasn't a stretch of logic, and even though AMC denies the money they paid Weiner had nothing to do with their decisions about WD or BB, I find it hard to believe that the deep payout to MM didn't in some way influence those creative bitch slaps.  

If you're looking for a reason why AMC caved to Weiner, just look at your stock ticker -- AMC is now a publicly traded company.  So how are you going to tell stockholders that your most famous product is potentially going away?  It would be like Apple telling stockholders that iPhones are being discontinued.  Mad Men identifies AMC.  Even though no one really watches it, it is still the most prestigious, award-winning television show in history.  They couldn't let it go.  So, they caved.  Then, like any other corporation, they were forced to apply that loss to their bottom line.  Again, do I have financial documentation to back this up?  No.  I'm not a fucking journalist.  I'm a guy in the business, who is formulating an opinion based on documented facts, history and some inside knowledge.  Am I completely right?  Probably not.  Am I completely wrong?  Probably not.

I know for a fact that when Breaking Bad was being forced to end their award-winning series in only seven episodes, Vince Gilligan approached other networks.  I know for a fact, when AMC got wind of that, they caved.  At the end of the day, I believe the deal they made with Vince was not because they believe in the show, it's because they are afraid of more negative backlash.  Darabont's firing, boggling Breaking Bad, cancelling Rubicon, AMC is really struggling.  Not to stroke the hand that feeds me, but they should take a page from Landgraf's handbook -- empower the artist.  Pretend that it's a forum for creativity not a multinational corporation.  Mad Men is coming to an end, if AMC doesn't figure out how to develop, how to nurture and maintain relationships with writers, they are going to be know an the network who used to have that really good show.

Why is this any of my business?  It's not.  I don't work for AMC.  I don't know Vince.  I know Frank a bit, but he's not a close acquaintance.  Why am I ringing the bells?  I don't know.  I think what started out as just a desperate need for attention has turned into something greater.  Perhaps, my bombastic opinions are my service to fellow creatives.  There's a large part of the entertainment community that would just like me to shut the fuck up.  They think I'm a loud-mouthed, arrogant douchebag who should just collect my big check and stop rocking the boat.  To them I respectfully say, "Suck my dick."  This Twitter thing has reignited my fire to blow the balls off of shit.  And even though I'm doing it anonymously on social media, I will continue to proudly own it here.

Thanks for reading.  

FOOL ME TWICE SHAME ON ME

So I did this interview yesterday for some bullshit Internet show that a friend of mine executive produces.  I was told I'd have a forum to help clear up some of the controversy and address the AMC comments.  We taped for about forty minutes and by the end I felt confident that I was able to articulate a well-rounded point of view.  

The bigger issue I wanted to discuss was how Twitter is being co-opted by the main stream media and that eventually they're gonna kill it by manipulating information into titillating stories.  What aired this morning on the Internet show was just that -- a titillating manipulation of facts.  So they took the forum and spun it into soundbites that ultimately just continued to fuel the controversy.  They avoided the bigger problem, because they are part of the bigger problem.  

I'm such a fucking jackass.

CHARLIE

I guess there was something in the LA Times about me beefing with Charlie at the TCA's.  It's a little late, but it's true.  Interesting that it shows up during all this Twitter nonsense.  Charlie and I had an email exchange that got misinterpreted on both ends.  When we saw each other the morning of the TCA panel, we both sounded off.  We're fucking alpha males, what else were we gonna do?  We fucking put it on the table, we used the word "cunt" as frequently as possible, and we moved on.  Charlie passed on the panel.  I unfortunately had to sit through it. 

Charlie Hunnam is the consummate professional.  I am blessed to have him as number one on the call sheet.  I'm on record dozens of times praising him for his commitment and passion to SOA.  I truly love the guy.  So when Charlie has a bad day, I pay attention, because it's an anomaly.  So afterwards I had to go back and re-read the email and then take a look at my part.  Because at the end of the day, anything going south on this show is on me.  I discuss that in more detail in this previous blog, HALFWAY. 

Charlie and I followed up our TCA chat with a great conversation about process.  It was the kind of discourse that every showrunner should have with their talent.  He was able to share with me the stress and challenges of carrying a show and I was able to share my process as well.  More importantly, I was able to listen.  He's a really sensitive, bright guy and a learn from him every day.   

Running a show is a continuous learning experience.  The things I learned last season may not apply to challenges I have this season.  I'm a lucky guy to have actors like Charlie, Katey, Ron and Maggie.  All my actors, all their idiosyncrasies makes the Sons set one of the most fun sets in town.  Ask anyone who guests on this show, it's pretty badass.

Anyway, I'm sure the gossip whores will be all over this, so I just wanted to share my point of view before TMZ turns it into some kinda warlock fight.

REALLY?

Clearly, I've struck a nerve if me pulling my Twitter feed becomes a DHD headline.  People are nervous and they should be.  It's all getting very messy. 

It's amazing that people just assume that FX threatened me to leave Twitter.  Really?  Do you think that's how it works?  I get a call from Landgraf saying I'm denying you a voice and free speech?  And more improbable, do I really seem like a guy who would listen?  I'm the guy who called out Chuck Zito, clearly I have no regard for self-preservation.  On my show, I've learned to conduct myself with restraint, respect and dignity.  I give the job my 100% effort and attention.  What I do beyond that is no one's business. 

Wow, this more than 140 characters thing is great.

The Rise and Fall of @Sutterink: Showrunners [Off] Twitter III

Bigger picture presented by a bigger mind.  

The Rise and Fall of @Sutterink: Showrunners [Off] Twitter III

August 14, 2011

By Myles McNutt 

 

With Sons of Anarchy showrunner Kurt Sutter’s announcement on Saturday that he would be “pulling the plug” on his now deleted Twitter feed, it is the end of an era (albeit a short one). When I looked at Sutter’s twitter feed in the first installment of this series last fall, I posited that there might come a time when Sutter’s brash online persona would overshadow his own show, and it seems that we have reached that point. However, while it was perhaps inevitable that Sutter’s lack of a filter would result in his Twitter account becoming a liability, I can’t shake this feeling that the rise and fall of “@sutterink” has more to do with public perceptions of Twitter than with his actual commentary.

In recent months, online media outlets have taken a sudden interest in Sutter’s Twitter feed, with sites ranging from The Hollywood Reporter to TMZ taking series of tweets and presenting them as news. It started in July when Sutter went on an extended rant regarding the Emmy nominations (where his show, including his wife Katey Sagal, was ignored), and it continued last week, when Sutter shared his opinion on the recent controversy surrounding AMC and The Walking Dead showrunner Frank Darabont. TMZ shared the former story with the headline “’Anarchy’ Creator PISSED Over Emmy Snub,” while THR.com pitched the latter tweets as “‘Sons of Anarchy’s’ Kurt Sutter Goes Off on Frank Darabont’s Firing,” and both stories were picked up by multiple outlets.

What’s interesting is that Sutter’s rants have not really become more prominent in the past year. As I noted in my initial post, Sutter has ranted about the Emmys before, just in the form of a blog post instead of a series of tweets. Sutter has even recently added outlets for his rants, including a YouTube series entitled “WTF Sutter” that features the same kind of profanity-laden honesty his fans have come to expect. However, Sutter’s blog has not been subject to the same media scrutiny, and these outlets have also ignored his YouTube videos.

In what Sutter has pitched as his final tweet, he suggests that Twitter is simply the wrong outlet for someone without a filter. He writes that “ultimately, me having an instantaneous outlet for my darker impulses is not a good thing. i’m a guy who needs filters. lots of them.” In his latest WTF Sutter video, where he foreshadowed his departure from Twitter, he expands on this logic before answering some fan questions: 

Sutter’s departure from Twitter says less about Sutter and more about the ways in which Twitter is perceived by media outlets and by the public at large. Over the course of the past year, we’ve seen the media start to notice Twitter, and they’re starting to find ways to use it: the service has become a resource for cable news outlets (which Jon Stewart has criticized on The Daily Show), and I’d argue that the increased attention to Sutter’s tweets is a product of the media’s search for the best way to leverage this form of social media.

However, I’d also argue that the way Sutter’s tweets were presented is a reflection of a public understanding of Twitter as a soapbox. Sutter’s lament in his YouTube video is that he is no longer able to have a “conversation,” which might refer to the fact that the reports about his tweets rarely include any discussion of the context in which they appeared: TMZ wasn’t talking about the people on Twitter who were encouraging Sutter’s comments about the Emmys (including critics and other showrunners), and The Hollywood Reporter wasn’t interested in the fact that Sutter retweeted a number of critical responses to his AMC-related comments in the days following his initial statements.

I would not necessarily say that this has resulted in Sutter’s comments being taken “out of context,” because even he argues that he has not necessarily been misrepresented by these reports. What I would say is that Sutter’s comments have been filtered through a perception of Twitter as a place for rants and provocations, a place where a Twitter feed is a direct glimpse into the Id (as reflected by coverage of the Anthony Weiner scandal). The story isn’t the actual nature of Sutter’s comments or what they say about the Academy system and the situation at AMC: rather, the story is that someone famous has said something controversial in an outlet that has become known for its controversy, and that has now become publicized based on this perception.

As someone who has written about Sutter’s tweets in the past, I am not suggesting that his tweets should be beyond reproach: he is responsible for what he says within this online space, and I think holding him accountable for that is perfectly reasonable. However, these news reports aren’t interested in holding him accountable; they’re interested in exploiting his comments as gossip, turning them into news without exploring the context of the conversation or even considering their veracity.

Kurt Sutter hasn’t changed since his Twitter feed first appeared, or since my first Antenna piece about it was published. What has changed is the amount of attention paid to Twitter outside of Twitter – Sutter has four times as many followers now than he did then, but that doesn’t take into account (as Sean Duncan noted in the comments on the initial piece) the people who are made aware through outside sources reporting these tweets. And now that this includes major media outlets interested in tapping into the zeitgeist, public figures like television showrunners must reconcile their comments with a mass media that is still trying to figure out what Twitter is, what it’s used for, and how they can best exploit it.

And when you’re Kurt Sutter, that’s a situation in which pulling the plug might be the only viable option if you don’t want your Twitter feed to become a story in and of itself. While it’s possible that Sutter is simply posturing, and that this is a bluff designed to reframe the media narrative (and draw the sympathy of his followers who are pleading him to reconsider), it nonetheless reflects on the changing state of Twitter as discourse.

CAPTAIN QWITTER AND THE BATTLE OF THE SUPER CUNTS

Catchy title, right?  I'm envisioning a Saturday morning cartoon.  

Not that anyone asked, but I figured I'd elaborate on my social media detachment.  My exit from Twitter was quite simple and, c'mon, let's face it, pretty fucking obvious -- I'm a guy desperately in need of buffers.  I have big feelings, big reactions, big emotions.  All the things that serve me as an artist, but challenge me as a socially-responsible human being.  I've learned in most areas of my life, to bounce heated choices off other people.  Co-workers, my agent, my wife, a sponsor, etc.  A majority of the time, that keeps me on the right side of things.  With Twitter, there was no buffer, just me, my big feelings and my big opinions.  I don't regret any tweet, nor do I apologize.  Everything I said was done in the spirit of social conversation, free speech and was my opinion.  Right or wrong, I said it, I own it.  

I also don't blame anyone for my exit.  No one chased me away except me.  Yes, the lazy blogosphere has given up on journalism and now trolls Twitter for their on-the-record in-depth articles.  Yes, the hate outweighs the love.  But my deactivation was pretty much self-preservation.  Eventually, I would have said something that got me or someone else buried in a suffocating pile of irrevocable toxic man shit. Regular man shit is bad enough, but irrevocable toxic man shit, wow, that never washes out of the BVDs.  Just saying. 

I had dinner with Skeeter Rosenbaum tonight and we were talking about how the whole Twitter phenomenon is really indicative of what's happening in this country.  And I say this in condemnation of myself as much as anyone else -- we are growing into a nation that has no time, desire or capacity for truth.  All we can handle is 140 characters of knowledge.  Headlines, spin, soundbites.  We want other people to tell us what we should think.  It's just cleaner and easier that way.  Awareness, compromise and understanding are no longer tools in our social toolkit.  And clearly the haters outweigh the lovers.  How can they not, when pain-peddlers like TMZ and Radar thrive while community-based newspapers and time-honored periodicals crumble.  America is dying of a broken heart.  And we all sit on the sidelines, eat ourselves into obesity and wonder what celebrity fucked their dog today. 

Wow.  Sorry.  Never expected that to end with dog-fucking.  Anyway, I'm climbing down from my soapbox, now.  Maybe I should get a radio show.  NPR, Sirrius, what d'ya think?  Kurt Sutter's Happy Hour? 

Maybe not... 

Until then, this is Captain Qwitter signing off.

Tune in tomorrow for a new episode: Captain Qwitter and the Undercover Dildo.  

HALFWAY

It was brought to my attention the other day that if we get the luxury of playing out our seven season arc, we are halfway to completing that task.  Like all midpoints of a journey, it's often a good time to restock, refuel and reflect.  Sons of Anarchy has been an amazing trip for me, as an artist but even more so, as a man.  I'm a highly flawed individual.  Recovering drug addict and alcoholic, ex-400 pound fat kid, loner and just a generally angry fuck.  I don't present that backstory as an excuse for bad behavior, just as insight into my daily struggle to be a decent human being.  There's a lot of noise in my head and a lot weight in my bags.  Most people I work with are genuinely afraid of me.  Not because I'm abusive or harsh, but because I appear to be a guy who is desperately struggling not to be those things.  When your psyche is in a constant state of effort, no matter what that effort is, one appears unapproachable.  On this show, that is my waking persona.  

I am guilty of embracing that effect.  I don't particularly like people.  And by people I don't mean individuals, I mean a collective body of human beings who might require me to make inane small talk.  I don't do small talk.  I do heartfelt connection or silence.  I'm not a very good first date.  I bring up these defects of character because they clearly are what's in my face as I reach the 50 yard line of my MC saga.  

The greatest gift god has given me is the ability to learn.  When I stop being teachable, I'm dead -- creatively and personally.  Running a television show requires a level of authority and control unlike any other job in Hollywood.  You are king of your little television realm.  All decisions big and small pass your desk.  From the words on the page, to the color of a porn set, to the montage music, I make or sign off on every decision.  That vision and that authority is needed for a show to run smoothly and to be successful.  A singular vision is key.  Shows fail when that vision is lost.  That's why so many big network shows tank, because executives refuse to empower their creatives.  So how does one be a teachable king?  How do you instill confidence in your cast and crew that you have a sure hand on the rudder while still being vulnerable enough to learn from your mistakes?  There's the big fucking rub.

The bigger question is how does one grow as an artist?  In my opinion, the same way any other human being does, by pushing past fear.  I'm terrified of failure.  I'm terrified of change.  I'm terrified of being unloved.  These are the things that usually kick in my default defenses -- isolation, arrogance, denial.  Sometimes I'm neck-deep in them before I realize there's even a problem.  On a show like Sons, strong leadership is crucial to initiate and maintain the intense work schedule.  Seven day shoots, one week of prep, one week of post.  It's not a lot of time to make a 42 minute independent movie.  In that movie, every line, every action has a purpose.  I'm able to cram an incredible amount of story into those episodes because I've learned how to craft these scripts in such a way to utilize every minute of screen time to advance the narrative.  I have extensive tone meetings with my director to ensure that he or she is aware of my intentions in all these scenes.  Then my writer-producer on set is expected to protect those intentions.  What's recently been brought to my intention is that sometimes the specificity of my crafting is leaving key members of my team feeling like they don't contribute enough.  The run and gun nature of our show isn't allowing talent to have their process of discovery.  And yes, our schedule leaves little time for discovery, but that's probably all that's required -- a little time to make shit their own.  Some space to allow other creatives to take what I've done and make it better.  People just want to do a good job.  They truly want to make me happy and proud.  When I ask why didn't anyone tell me this was going on, I get the sheepish reply, "Because they were afraid to."  It's in those moments I really wish I was a different a different individual.  I also wish I still drank. 

But I'm not and I won't.  What I've learned is that leadership requires a strong hand and a good ear.  My credo has always been -- never compromise vision, but be willing to change the execution of that vision.  I can't control how people perceive me.  I lead with my intensity and that's never going to change.  What I can change are my actions.  I am not what I say or write, I am what I do.  And today, as much as it fucking irks me, I choose to do better.  

See what happens when you stop for gas.