On Thursday March 30, Stephen will discuss experiences and insights from his illustrious career along with his close friends and associates he has worked with over the years. This will be followed by a one-on-one question and answer forum. The evening will conclude with a reception in the theater lobby.
Panelists will include: Tom Selleck, Michael Chiklis, Jeff Goldblum, Len Hill, Charles Johnson, Tawnia McKiernan, David Greenwalt, Don Michael Paul, Stepfanie Kramer, and Mario Van Peebles.
He does seem cool in interviews. (I have a PDF of an online writing seminar he did and it's fun.) And a lot of people that have worked with him say nice things about him.
It occurs to me that he was probably the first TV writer whose name I knew. Because he had that little thing at the end with him at the typewriter and the piece of paper that turned into his logo. I think that I probably watched a lot of Cannell Productions shows when I was a kid.
How is it it's been so long since Cannell's had a show on television?
Is he retired?
He sold his production company a few years back. I think he's mainly focused on writing novels these days.
So, I've skipped-and-skimmed, but wanted to share: How I Still Didn't Get to Watch "The Inside", or How One Weakness Beat Another.
My friend T decided to replace her laptop (it was still working great, but she started carrying it around everywhere and it weighed too much and she wanted a lighter one). Since it was still in excellent shape, she wanted to sell it, and since I didn't have a computer at home, I bought it from her. No, I didn't forget the subject. I'll be there in a minute.
As I was cleaning up old files on her-now-mine computer, I bumped into the 9th episode of "The Inside". T has none of my prudish issues with regards to downloading tv shows off the internet. She does this happily, she did this with "The Inside" from the very first episode, and she loved it very much indeed. I have no idea why she didn't delete the file of this specific episode from her computer. She usually does. However, it was there, all of it, beginning to end, at my fingertips.
It was hard. It was a struggle. I can avoid the tv shows I'm curious about when they're far away, on some server I don't have access to, even on some CDs on the shelf in somebody else's place. But on now-mine computer, right in front of me, doing anything but calling my name out loud and nodding a "you can do it! Come on! You know you want to!" electronically, it was much harder.
I've never seen anything of this show but the few pictures that Kristen put on her site. I have no idea if I'll like it or not, when (when! not "if"!) I'll ever get to watch it. But I do know that I'm very curious. And there was a possibility to answer some of that curiosity, right in my lap, on my laptop.
I want to say that my moral values have won. I want to say that I remembered what I try to stop myself from doing, due to the legal uncertainties, that I knew what I wanted and didn't want to do and was able to follow through with all of those. Alas, I'm a much weaker person than I one day hope to become. None of these high principles and constant self-prudifying helped me in that moment of truth, when the file stared at me invitingly.
So, have I watched it, after all this talk about falling prey to my own weaknesses? Um, no. And the reason is my own greediness, not any sort of (false or not) virtue.
It was just, with my finger hovering over the one-click-away from beginning, that I realized that this is the 9th episode. Nineth. With Eight full episodes before it. With characters being introduced, storylines being developed, relationships being formed, evolving and changing as things went along. With things done that may have future results that couldn't be fully taken in without having the whole story. And I want my whole story! I want to be able to pick up on nuances (is that how you spell this?), small moments between the characters, that sort of continuity that doesn't scream "previously on" but is still there to be picked up. I want the whole cake, with the icing and the cherry on top, before I get to eat it, too.
So, a victim to that bigger weakness of greed, I didn't watch the episode. I deleted the file from the computer, I have no hacking abilities to reconstruct it after it's erased, even though the bits and bytes are still there. It's gone. Until I get to see the whole story, in order, the way it's supposed to be seen, I'm not going to see it. And I know now, too, that I'm very far from being the person I once want to be.
My only regret in this is that I didn't skip straight to the end of the episode and watched its last few seconds. Not of the episode itself, not with the spoilers or anything like that. The seconds at the end of the credits. I wanted to see the logo that Allyson designed. Oh, well. Lacking that is like a "silly you!" from above, for being the prude greedy little baby that I sometimes am.
Nilly, you're absolutely amazing.
I think it's Survivor : Lost :: The Amazing Race : Drive.
Add in Fight Club.
First rule of the race, you do not talk about the race.
Second verse, same as the first.
I'm watching
Aidan
for the first time. I'd forgotten how disturbing this show was. I'm *so* glad I didn't see this last summer - definitely wouldn't have been able to handle it. But, it's good, right? I'm going to be impressed?
Okay, that was really, really good. I was not a big fan of the Inside last summer - too gruesome for me. But that was really good.
Nilly needs to follow your immoral example, Stephanie. Submit! Submit to piracy!
(endorsed by moi)
