Dicks In Your Ear

"Politics" is a dirty word.

The common conception is a collection of disinterested, rich guys paddling each other off in a dimly-lit back room somewhere, conspiring to 'dick over' people in the outside world.

Like a frat's rush week ritual, where it's the old, 'legacy' members who run out into the world and see how many people they can stealthily, surprisingly stick their dicks in the ear of.

You'd think a rash of old white men running around the quad in broad daylight, brushing their flacid wangs against someone's unsuspecting ear would immediately marshal the campus police.

But, while nobody could possibly appreciate getting a dick in their ear... they seem to become numb to it.

That's just "politics", seems to be the prevailing attitude.

You're lying on a grassy knoll, cloud watching and some stranger sidles up to you and drops their dick in your ear.

Shrug..... that's just how it goes. That's just "politics".

This is all by way of saying of course, if you don't already subscribe to CSPAN's "After Dark" coverage of the senate floor... you really should.

But, that's actually not at all politics.

Politics, by definition, is a group of people coming together to make a decision.

It's the process by which we make decisions. The process by which we make change.

The "Let's Make Politics!" blog, and it's partnered website, is the place where I document the process of making a tv show called.... wait for it...; "Let's Make Politics!".

It's about the process of making a show, here in Toronto, Canada.

In some cases, the blog, and the site, will be a place to share insights into the process of making a tv show.

'Creative' meetings, for instance... and likewise, brain storming sessions or 'think tanks' can all be fantastically 'fuck-tarded'. Yielding those alternately sad and hysterical stories that you can't wait to run home with to bitch and moan to your girlfriend... to laugh but for crying.

But again... that's just the way it goes. It's the cost of doin' business.

You don't share that with the 'outside world', anymore than you'd take a fifth grade class on a field trip to a sausage factory.

No. Instead, you just bury your feelings deep down where they can metastasize into a tumor. And, you kill what remains of your conscience with the hard drug of your choosing. (I'm personally partial to the whole opium den experience.)

Now, I'm not gonna call anyone out or slag anyone personally because, I'm not actually retarded.

You don't jump up and down on the heads of people you're trying to work with, just to earn cool points with your audience. But, without getting too personal, or too specific, there's just too much funny there not to try to share it.

William Goldman wrote "All The President's Men" and "The Princess Bride".. and then, wrote his behind-the-curtain, hollywood confessional "Adventures In The Screen Trade". Even then... it wasn't like, he could afford to just say "I'm Bill Goldman. I wrote Butch and Sundance and Marathon Man, and if you don't like what I have to say, you can feel free to floss with my greying pubes."

He'd never say that. Firstly, he's too classy a gentleman to invoke mention of his pubes. Second, he too is not retarded and, would never engage in such pointless self-sabotage.

But, as we do our transparent approach to making a show here, and on the site. We'll return occasionally to this theme of 'dicks in your ear'. Because, in my experience in the entertainment industry, I can think of no more fitting metaphor for this process.

Mostly though, "Let's Make Politics!" is about the process of making a show. A show that will be a new, collaborative tv and on-line marriage.

We'll discuss, dissect and re-evaluate why things are done certain ways. How we design the look and feel of a show... how, and why, we design a set a certain way... why we design and incorporate graphics like we do.... or, even the 'design' and nature of the host.

The "Talk Soup" (now, just known as "The Soup") model of a tv show was truly novel when the E! network pioneered it. A host standing in front of a green screen is super cheap, almost infinite in it's potential to be visually dynamic and mostly, pretty easy to manipulate... so, it spread like wildfire.

In fairness, put someone funny like Joel McHale, John Henson (a personal favorite) or even Chris Hardwick (of the new splinter faction; "Web Soup").... really, put anyone funny in front of a green screen, or a blue screen, or a brick wall at The Laugh Factory, and I'll surely watch and giggle along.

But now... that idea and aesthetic has become a template. Much like the blog template-'box' that I'm colouring inside of right now. It's the way you do things now.... because... it's the way you do things now. And, it's cheap.

But, this is where we explore, and change, that logic.

In some instances, this will be the place where we highlight or preview stories and concepts like the ones we'll explore on the show. Blog posts as 'unproduced segments-to-be'.

See.... We're makin' a show.

And, although it may be called "Let's Make Politics!"... it's not about politics.

Instead, we're gonna reclaim and redefine that word. Just like we're gonna reclaim the airwaves... I shit you not.

At least, for a half-hour... and, that's assuming the 'underground tv complex establishment' that's made up of old jews and 'skull and bones' members (your Freemasons and your Jackie Masons :)... don't put out a hit on me. Some relentless albino assassin that's flagellating himself in the boiler room beneath the CTV corporate offices, right now.

But.... for right now.... with the blog, and the partnering site to come... I just want you to share this with people you think might be engaged by it... or, interested in it... or, might want to actively participate in it.

For now... all I ask is that you spread and share it. Share it with people, not 'cause I asked you to... but, if.... and, only if... it engages you, amuses you, interests you, or occasionally even tickles you.

'Cause, that tickle might just be a dick in your ear... and, you don't have to take that lying down.

That's not just the 'cost of doin' business'. That's not something to which you just have to just shrug your shoulders, and say; "That's just politics."

"Politics" (the word and the concept) is what we decide it is..... literally.

And, so is this show.

So... who's with me?!

C'mon... Let's Make Politics!