BLOGGING IN THE BUSINESS

Link to my KCRW interview.  Discussing why I began to blog and how it evolved into the clusterfuck it has become.

SON BASHING

There's been a recent article that's surfaced bashing this season of Sons of Anarchy.  I haven't read it, but I'm told it borders on abusive.  I've gotten a lot of comments and tweets asking me to respond.  Here's what I know -- TV shows have unique characteristics and personalities.  What I've painfully learned is that you can't be all things to all people.  

"Having said that" (my homage to last night's Curb), I also know that online reporters make coin for every "hit" they get.  That's why I always point viewers to reporters who support the show.  I want to help the people who help me.  

So if I were a desperate columnist at a near-defunct magazine/site, I'd probably find something well-liked and pontificate a highly controversial point of view.  After all, conflict=drama=readers.  And let's face it, you can't go after a show like Mad Men, it's a near-perfect show and there's nothing really controversial at stake.  But there's enough moral gray area and highly dramatic plot complication on Sons to pick apart.  Truth is, if I needed to pay the rent, I would have written the same piece.   Hell, it's cyberspace, who knows, maybe I did.

CREATION IS AN ACTION... DOUCHEBAG.

It's that time of year, when the parasites emerge from the woodwork looking for nourishing blood and a strong back to carry them to celebrated glory.  Maybe it's the holidays and people are just expecting free shit from folks they barely know, but it always happens around the finale, some embittered biker/writer/actor/producer surfaces with an official looking document on legal letterhead -- claiming that somehow, some way, through a wormhole or some kind of creative-calibrated vortex, FX and I undermined/stole their brilliant idea for an outlaw motorcycle show by creating Sons of Anarchy, 

Here's a little fact y'all should be aware of -- any semi-literate, shit-throwing monkey can have a fucking idea, it's the EXECUTION of the thought that matters.  

Creation is an action.  

The truth is a TV series about outlaw bikers is not a new idea.  People have been trying to create one for years.  The concept has been pitched to networks every season and there have been probably a dozen scripts that have circulated Hollywood.  They didn't get made because there was either no execution or the execution of those ideas failed.  Sometimes they failed because of quality, sometimes because of timing, sometimes because of the personalities involved.

SOA succeeded because the execution worked.  I was able to create interesting characters, organic relationships and dynamic story arcs.  Then I surrounded myself with people who were a fuckload more talented than I was -- great directors, great actors, great crew and a studio and network who knew how to support and market the show.

I'm sure this happens to creators all the time.  Someone has probably tried to sue JJ Abrams claiming the idea for Lost came to them in a dream while lying on Jones beach.  I guess I should be flattered, but my are-you-fucking-kidding-me button gets pushed when folks blatantly lie for profit.  And when I look at the list of folks who claim Sons was their idea -- it's never anyone with talent, it's always some poor, delusional clown who thinks the fucking world owes him a cookie.  There's one guy who still posts on his website that the character of Jax is based on him.  This guy was a 1%er who turned rat, then cashed in by becoming an "expert" and writing fairytales of the MC life.  How in any way shape or form is that life remotely similar to Jax Teller?  It's not, but he doesn't give a shit, because if it helps him sell a few more pages of fiction, who the fuck cares about the truth, right?  

Douchebag.