Stop Online Piracy Act

It's a bad idea.

I'm all for protecting the rights of artists and intellectual property, but I believe it is the responsibility of the individual websites and owners to protect its users.  And the burden is on the user/consumer to make intelligent, researched decisions.  I know I'm oversimplifying, but you get the point.  Leaving the policing up to Uncle Sam will just really fuck things up.

I do not trust laws that in any way, shape or form begin to infringe on free speech and artistic expression.  There are too many dangerous agendas out there.  Someone, something, some cunt always turns these laws upside down; they find loopholes and back doors to expedite agendas that ultimately do more damage than good.  

Take a hard look at the Patriot Act. 

No, I don't have the solution.  I just know SOPA isn't it.  So I support Wikipedia and the others who are blacking out today. 

SEASON 5

I've returned to my office in the asshole of North Hollywood.  Feels like only yesterday that season 4 ended (that's sarcasm).  Taking meetings, hiring a couple new writers.  Slowly slipping on the leathers.  And the ball-gag. 

I'm back with my writing team at the end of the month and we'll go back into production mid-May.  

Here's what I know about season 5.  No spoilers.  Just thematics.  I've always seen the show as the Prince's journey.  Jax is a man, but he's been unsure of the kind of man he will be.  He has yet to decide on his legacy.  Season 5 will force him to make those decisions.  This season will be a pivotal one in the arc of the series.  Not that all the seasons haven't been essential in shaping the mythology, but this season will begin to lay track for how the series ends.  In a feature film, season 5 would be the end of act two.  Where the hero has been faced with the primary conflict and obstacles and is forced to make a decision that either ends well or not-so-well.  

I see season 5 as being a more deliberate season.  I'm not sure how to expand upon that other to say that the decisions our hero makes will be less impulsive and more permanent.  The stakes will be ratcheted up while the pace will be slowed down.  Not that we won't have all the pulpy goodness we have every season (we will still blow shit up), it'll just have a different rhythm.  

I'm also working with the network, studio and home entertainment group to get something to the fans much earlier this season.  Some kind of behind-the-scenes project that will plug folks back in as early as June.  I know how long of a wait it is to September and I'm thinking of a weekly segment with the actors that teases the new season without spoiling.  Basically bringing you into our world as we produce the show.  We'll make it available on the app, the website and I'm hoping to actually get it on air (although that's me talking out of my ass right now).  I'll keep you posted about that and anything else that falls out of my ass.

And I'll try to blog more.  Twitter is really spoiling my blogging.  Every time I think of something to blog, I'll say, "fuck it", and tweet the 140-character version.  My father was right, I'm a fat, lazy fuck.

Happy new year, bitc...

Oh, yeah, one of my new year's resolutions is not to call my kids, "bitches".  I'm lumping you into that as well. 

Happy new year, kids. 

CRITICS LAMENT...WHAT IS SONS OF ANARCHY?

 

It seems that SOA continues to delight and frustrate critics/reviewers/bloggers/guys-that-haven't-been-laid-since-911.  As you can imagine, that fact also delights and frustrates me.  Time after time, reviewers will complain that Sons always flirts with greatness, yet never achieves it.  It lays the track to perfection, but always derails.  Perhaps.  In some ways, I guess it parallels it's creator.  I'm a half-smart guy with a flare for the absurd, but I'm more than a few runways short of brilliant.  But, self-deprecation aside, I think the bigger issue is a lack of understanding of what the show really is.  And that isn't to say that critics are stupid.  Some are.  Most aren't.  But a lot of critics don't seem to understand what I'm trying to do season after season.  It's like going to see a Summer blockbuster movie and being disappointed because it's not as complex as the Godfather.  

Some critics get it.  Ken Tucker, Matt Zoller Seitz revel in the giddy truth.  Sepinwall and others continue to bang their heads against a wall, applying a level of analysis that is best reserved for a David Simon show.  The Wire, we ain't, nor do we aspire to be.  For the record, SOA is an adrenalized soap opera, it's bloody pulp fiction with highly complex characters.  Often, I think the depth of the characters, the emotionality of the writing and the amazing performances is what confuses critics.  Those qualities put the show on par with other great dramas.  But then I'll go and cut the balls off a clown or turn a plot point absurdly upside down and I will most certainly blow something the fuck up.  It's those things that drive critics crazy.  Why can't I just stay the course.  Be what they want me to be -- measured and predictable.

So why don't I do that?  Why lean so heavily on the pulp?  Maybe this backstory will shed some light: When John Landgraf wanted to move ahead with SOA, he went to his then boss, Peter Chernin, and told him he was going to greenlight the show.  Chernin told him it was a mistake.  No one would watch a show about a bunch of dirtbag bikers.  He thought it was a nasty, unpleasant world.  But Landgraf knew the operatic Hamlet approach of my pitch might be able to avoid the ugly, meth-reality and deliver the thematic attractiveness of the subculture.  Yes, the MC world can be a dark, brutal place.  It doesn't have the glamor of the Mafia or the urban sway of street gangs.  Chernin was right, a straight up drama, no matter how well done, wouldn't have lasted more than a season.  I knew instinctively, as did John Landgraf, that dark humor and pulp operatic storytelling would be the best way to open up this world to viewers.  That to balance the danger and brutality of the world, the show needed to be entertaining and, dare I say, fun.  The truth is, I have a very healthy ego.  I have no desire to run a show that only a few hundred thousand people watch.  I'll go do theatre if I want an audience that size.  My challenge as a showrunner, season after season, is to balance art and commerce.  How do I keep the show rich, complex and authentic and yet entertain the fuck out of people?  It sounds easy, but it's not.  Trust me, it would be much easier to write a straight ahead drama to please the critics.  You guys are easy.  But I'm not writing the show to convince people how brilliant I am.  I'm writing it to excite, thrill and engage an audience.  And I can only hope that my talent as an artist and producer shine through.

Clearly, sometimes it doesn't.  As I look at the WGA Award nominees this morning, I realize the thing that frustrates critics is probably the same thing that keeps us an arms-length away from awards.  I'd confidently put the quality of our writing, acting and directing up against any other show.  But the pulp, entertaining nature of Sons will always keep us a few rungs down the ladder from the obvious choices.  Or maybe we just suck and I'm delusional.  That's very possible.  

Anyway, I'll keep writing the show the way I always have and hopefully the audience will continue to show up.  And the critics will lament how imperfect and frustrating the show is to watch and yet they'll continue to watch it and write about it, week after week, after week, after week... it's almost as if they're being entertained.

I was going to tag this entry by calling them all cunts, but maybe that's a little harsh. 

Half-cunts.