Author: Ellen

Former ‘Glee’ star reveals gender identity is male

Ellen

10/17/2014   Toronto Sun

Charice

Former Glee star Charice has revealed she’s slowly becoming a man – but she won’t be changing her body.

The Filipino star has taped a new interview with Oprah Winfrey, who discovered the singer/actress almost a decade ago, and she told the TV titan she’s changing her look to embrace her “male soul”.

Charice, who announced she was gay last year , insists she’ll never follow Cher’s son Chaz Bono, who underwent gender reassignment to become a man – but she wants to look like one.

She explains, “I’m not exactly transitioning to a male, but basically my soul is, like, male. But I’m not going to go through that stage where I’m going to change everything – not change my body.

“(I’ll) cut my hair and wear boy clothes and everything, but that’s all.”

Charice also recalled the moment when she realized she was gay, adding, “‘I knew when I was five. I was in grade school and I saw this girl and I felt different. I didn’t know what it was but I just knew that time, like, it felt special. And when I was 10 I was like, ‘Oh, that’s it, I’m gay’. I found the word.”

The interview will air in America on Sunday.

 

http://m.torontosun.com/2014/10/17/former-glee-star-reveals-gender-identity-is-male

Ken Tucker: An Open Letter to MSNBC President Phil Griffin

Ellen

10/17/2014   The Hollywood Reporter   by Ken Tucker

Phil Griffin

Cultural critic Ken Tucker offers MSNBC’s president, Phil Griffin, some free, unsolicited advice on how to get his channel back on track

Dear Mr. Griffin,

You are in ratings trouble. From Morning Joe to Rachel Maddow, you’re losing chunks of audience. You recently told The New York Times’ Bill Carter, “we’ve got to adjust; we’ve got to evolve.” May I suggest five ways to do so?

1. Look at a list of frequent guests on Fox News. Now book them all, on your shows, across all day-parts. But also look at a list of leftist thinkers, analysts and essayists. Now book them on those same shows, alongside those right-wing talking heads, and let the blood flow. By which I mean, get viewers’ blood boiling, stir things up, hear some spirited debate (not shouting), some extreme opinions uttered articulately from both sides. Fox has succeeded in convincing CNN and your network that “liberal” equals “left wing extremist,” cowing you into booking too many centrists. Centrists make for dull TV. Here’s your opportunity to reacquaint America with what real, patriotic-left opinions are.

2. Start a pop culture roundtable talk show. I thought that was what The Cycle would turn into, but, except for hiring Toure, you blew it there. You can afford to schedule a non-news show, because the intrinsic timeliness of pop culture frames many news stories these days. At a time when Gone Girl raises issues about gender roles, or ABC’s black-ish about race relations, there’s a lot to talk about, both on a fan-level and a more elevated, newsworthy level. Plus, it will be fun to hear smart cultural commentators champion, condemn and argue — just think of the Fox News jokes you can make during a Walking Dead discussion!

3. Think NPR. In at least three different ways:

• You don’t need a new business model as much as you need a new talent model, a new pool to draw from, a different way of thinking about on-air personalities. Look/listen to National Public Radio. You’re never gonna get another Terry Gross, but you can try to emulate her mix of high/low, political/entertainment bookings, with a host who’s not out to score her/his own laughs, but who rather relies on deep knowledge and research in a conversational manner.

• Want a way to program against CNN’s increasing reliance on personalities like Anthony Bourdain and Mike Rowe? Those guys are storytellers. NPR shows like This American Life are full of storytellers — that show made stars of storytellers. There are hundreds of young people doing long-form journalism and personal histories on shoestring budgets who’d love to become part of a show that would regularly showcase that kind of work.

• For God’s sake, would it kill you to program something light in the afternoon? In the midst of the networks’ game shows and syndicated talk shows, put something on your channel that is a smarter, swifter, snarkier version of NPR’s quiz show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!

4. Your Morning Joe Problem: The sitting-around-reading-newspapers-and-yelling-at-each-other thing is no longer working because people at home are doing enough yelling getting the kids out to the bus stop. Here’s the morning show for MSNBC: Steal CBS This Morning’s “Eye-Opener” two-minute summary of hard-news headlines and stick your own rubric on it. Then ignore all the recent social media festooning the network shows (“Tweet us your opinion!”), and set up an old-fashioned-yet-new morning “family” in the tradition of old Today and GMA line-ups: The avuncular/dad figure; the working-mom; the smart-aleck kid; the weatherperson who knows from humor and headlines (never underestimate the value of an Al Roker). Make their discussion of the morning’s news relatable, quick and lively. Don’t ask the audience to tweet their opinions to you; that’s just embarrassing.

5. Your biggest evening draw is, according to the Times piece, Chris Matthews (who is 68). This should tell you something: Don’t be afraid to put people over the age of 40 on the air. You chase the youth demo at your peril, and here’s the thing about the 25-54 demo that is your desired audience: They don’t care how old someone is, they just care about whether that person is saying something provocative, enlightening, fresh, and/or funny. Of course Fox beats you all the time — they don’t care if a guest is 21 or 81 as long as he or she makes an impact.

You need to make a different kind of impact, Mr. Griffin.

Good luck,

Ken Tucker

 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ken-tucker-an-open-letter-741759?mobile_redirect=false

Clinton adversary has change of heart

Ellen
Hutchinson and Bill Clinton first encountered each other in law school in the 1970s. | AP Photo

By KATIE GLUECK | 10/16/14 | Politico

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — As a federal prosecutor in the 1980s, Asa Hutchinson sent Bill Clinton’s brother to jail. As a member of Congress in the late 1990s, Hutchinson steered impeachment proceedings against the president from his home state.

But to hear him tell it now, Hutchinson — likely the next governor of this state — has the utmost respect for Hillary Clinton, and he’s downright fond of Bill.

That posture is a testament to the enduring power of the Clinton name here. But it’s also driven by the complicated relationship Hutchinson has had with Clinton dating back to the 1970s, long before they faced off over Monicagate or became household names in Arkansas politics.

Now the favorite to defeat Democratic candidate Mike Ross in the governor’s race, Hutchinson has the potential to be a serious thorn in both Clintons’ sides if Hillary Clinton runs for president as expected. But in a 40-minute interview here, the 63-year-old Hutchinson showed little interest in becoming a surrogate for Clinton antagonists.

If their opposing political parties make them adversaries by default, Hutchinson made clear he harbors no grudge against the Clintons — even if the former first couple’s allies hold one against him.

“I ran in 1996 for Congress, and [Bill Clinton] came in and campaigned, of course, for my Democratic opponent,” Hutchinson recalled with a smile. “He’s always been on the other side from a political standpoint,” adding that Clinton’s fervor for politics, even as he nears age 70, is “something that’s perhaps even refreshing to see.”

To say Clinton has “always been on the other side” may be an understatement. In Congress, Hutchinson, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, chose to serve as one of the House managers handling Clinton’s impeachment — something many Democrats here have never gotten over.

About 10 years after the impeachment, Hutchinson told The Associated Press that he initially wasn’t interested in joining the proceedings, though many of his colleagues on Judiciary were spearheading the effort. And though reports from the time indicate that Hutchinson wasn’t as excited about the impeachment drive as some of his fellow Republicans, he opted to play a central role in it just the same.

“I’m grateful for this opportunity, although it … comes with deep regret to be before you,” Hutchinson told senators in the opening remarks of his impeachment presentation in 1999. But then he proceeded to dive in, outlining the “seven pillars of obstruction” Clinton allegedly perpetrated.

“I knew it wasn’t good politics for Arkansas, being the president’s home state,” he said a decade later, reflecting on the impeachment experience in the AP interview. But he concluded that “I could actually help our country go through a difficult time, and so I accepted that responsibility reluctantly.”

“Anybody who observed me at that time knows I was just trying to help the country through a difficult time,” Hutchinson added during the interview with POLITICO last week.

To which many Arkansas Democrats respond: Please. They were outraged then and say they haven’t forgotten that Hutchinson chose to help prosecute the president who put their state on the map.

“There’s no love lost, that’s for sure,” said Little Rock’s Democratic Mayor Mark Stodola, a longtime Clinton supporter. “There’s a substantial number of people who believe Asa did not have to go do that extra step by being part of the impeachment team, that the piling on was gratuitous coming from Arkansas.”

A spokesman for Bill Clinton did not return a request for comment on the former president’s relationship with Hutchinson.

Hutchinson was courteous, if somewhat reserved, during the interview last week, joining a reporter in a dark-paneled conference room in a building that houses his campaign headquarters after walking his grown daughter — whose child stars in one of Hutchinson’s best-received ads — to the door. The former congressman, who is 6 feet 1 inch, sat tall, with his thinning, nearly white hair neatly combed back, and invited the interviewer to “ask me anything you’d like.” There was no fire-breathing rhetoric: Hutchinson, trained as a lawyer, talked about Arkansas and his opponent in a cool, analytical tone. And when he didn’t want to discuss a subject — like Hillary Clinton — he declined to answer questions witha broad smile.

Hutchinson’s brother, Tim Hutchinson, lost his Senate seat in 2002 to Arkansas Attorney General Mark Pryor, as Democrats called Tim Hutchinson a hypocrite for vocally backing impeachment even as he divorced the mother of his children to marry a much younger staffer. Now Pryor is locked in one of the closest Senate races of the year against GOP Rep. Tom Cotton.

Asa Hutchinson, who represented a conservative district in an otherwise Democratic-tilted state, escaped the impeachment politically unscathed (though there were rumblings of anger from some constituents at the time).

Skip Rutherford, the dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas and a longtime friend of the former president, said he doesn’t think people “wake up in the middle of the night and pace the floor over it. But do they recall it? Yeah. I recall it.”

Ross, Hutchinson’s opponent, has brought up impeachment on occasion, though in an interview with POLITICO, Ross said his campaign is “not about reliving the past.” Clinton campaigned for the Democratic ticket in Arkansas last week and will do so again over the weekend.

Hutchinson and Bill Clinton first encountered each other at the University of Arkansas Law School in the 1970s, when Hutchinson was a student and Clinton, fresh out of Yale Law School, was teaching (though he was not Hutchinson’s professor). Hutchinson’s politics hadn’t yet jelled: He recalled going door-to-door for David Pryor, the former Democratic senator and governor of Arkansas, who is the father of Mark Pryor.

As it turned out, that was the last time Hutchinson campaigned for a Democrat, he said, but his interactions with Clinton continued.

“Our paths crossed [again] when I was U.S. attorney and he was governor at that time,” Hutchinson said of Bill Clinton in the interview. I remember him calling my home [about] this terrorist group up in northern Arkansas. We worked together [on a stand-down].”

In the 1980s, Hutchinson, then a Reagan-appointed U.S. attorney, “had the unfortunate responsibility” of prosecuting Clinton’s half-brother, Roger, who eventually went to jail on drug charges. But in the former president’s memoirs, published after he left office, Clinton wrote that the jail time probably saved Roger Clinton’s life — and he had praise for Hutchinson’s conduct.

“Asa Hutchinson was professional, fair and sensitive to the agony my family was experiencing,” Clinton wrote. “I wasn’t at all surprised when later he was elected to Congress from the Third District.”

Hutchinson was for a long time one of a handful of Republican voices in a Southern state with a strong Democratic tradition. As Clinton climbed the ranks, Hutchinson lost three statewide races.

“Whether it’s Dale Bumpers” — the beloved former senator, to whom Hutchinson lost in 1986, and who delivered the final speech on behalf of Clinton in the impeachment proceedings — “or Bill Clinton, they’ve had a very strong farm team, and populist-type candidates on the Democratic side,” Hutchinson said.

In the early 1990s, Hutchinson served as state GOP chairman while Clinton was governor.

“So we’ve always been very respectful adversaries, respectful political adversaries,” he said. “That’s how I viewed that relationship.”

In 1996, Hutchinson won his first House race. His opponent was Ann Henry, a personal friend of the Clintons who hosted the couple’s wedding reception at her home; her top campaign strategist was also Clinton’s former chief of staff, according to a report from the time.

From the House, Hutchinson was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. His nomination sailed through the Senate on a 98-1 vote, with Hillary Clinton, then a senator, voting yes.

She “did me the great honor of supporting my confirmation,” Hutchinson said. And after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the two had “very professional” interactions when he served as undersecretary in the Department of Homeland Security and she was in the Senate.

Hutchinson declined repeatedly to assess a potential Hillary Clinton 2016 candidacy or to say whether he’d be a surrogate for the eventual GOP nominee. He skirted questions about his party’s criticism of her on issues like the Benghazi attacks. “This race is about Arkansas, not about what happens three years from now, it’s about what happens next year,” Hutchinson said.

“I think they’ve looked at me as somebody who’s very committed to our country,” he later said of the Clintons. “We have different viewpoints, I respect them the same ways. And so I would just urge anybody who’s worried about the past to take the same fair approach and look at my heart.”

 

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/asa-hutchinson-2014-arkansas-election-111922_Page2.html

Dan Savage on infidelity, Hollywood, “yes means yes” and more

Ellen

—Updated       MSNBC Generation to Generation

By msnbc staff

The msnbc original series ”Generation to Generation” takes a side-by-side look at the work of civil rights leaders from the 1960s and their modern-day counterparts. This week, the series paired LGBT activists Dan Savage and Larry Kramer. Savage will be participating in a Q&A with the msnbc community.

Savage’s “It Gets Better Project,” a campaign aimed to prevent suicide among LGBT youth, has grown to a community of nearly 600,000 people who have taken a pledge to speak out against discrimination and provide hope for LGBT teens. In a different light, Savage has been tantalizing readers with his sex advice column, Savage Love, since 1991.

Take a look at the responses he had to your questions.

@Casey_A_Schmidt: #gentogen Dan, what is your take on the new affirmative consent law recently passed in to law in California? @fakedansavage

Dan Savage: I’m in favor of affirmative consent — I’ve been talking up “yes means yes” (YMY) for years. “Yes means yes” is much better than “no means no.” Sex should be opt-in, not opt-out. (And once you’ve opted in, you should be able to opt-out whenever you want.) So I support the law. It’s problematic that the law only applies to colleges and universities. I have some trouble with the idea that there’s one kind of consent over here (for us college students) and another kind of consent over there for everyone else (and for us when we’re not college students anymore). And the law won’t he-said/she-said-proof disputes about consent and whether it was affirmatively granted in a given encounter. But the “YMY” law has driven a dialogue about affirmative consent that is important and I support it.

Egreen29: Your career has given a voice to the “fringes” of the sexual community, and through your column you’ve been able to express a uniquely accepting attitude about kink, sexuality, and sexual expression. But have you found over the past 20 years that you’ve become more conservative on any sexual or relationship issues?

Dan Savage: How’s this for a brain teaser: I’m more conservative about marriage than many people would assume … and my desire to see marriages survive leads me to take a far less harsh position on infidelity than I once did and a less harsh one than most of my fellow advice-slingers. People cheat. Men and women cheat—and men and women cheat pretty much equally when you look at people under 40. So we can take a hard line on infidelity (always wrong! unforgivable! divorce the jerk!) or we can regard cheating as something that happens and as something that a halfway decent marriage should be able to survive. We should regard cheating as something we expect marriages to survive. And in many cases, of course, cheating is not that big a deal. If the couple is open, cheating isn’t even cheating. And if one person is done with sex and the other isn’t, the latter isn’t cheating the former out of anything the former values when the latter does it with someone else.

Elisabeth Walters: I would love to hear your opinion on Barney Frank’s recent comments about Chad Griffin’s apology to transgender people and the version of ENDA drafted in 2007 that did not include trans people.

Dan Savage: Can both Barney and Chad be right? Barney was thinking like a politician—get what you can get, press for what you didn’t get next time around—and Chad was right to apologize on behalf of HRC [Human Rights Campaign] for supporting a deal that was unfair to trans folks. I don’t think Barney was or is against trans rights. It was a difference about strategy and, yes, about unity.

pattiofurniture: Your commentary to the asexual community, while hilarious, seems pretty harsh at times. These are obviously people who are struggling with self-identity in a sexual world. I’m crass and cutting, and proud of it, but sometimes I feel sensitive toward people’s feelings and cringe a bit when you react to folks. The fat people thing comes to mind, too. Do you ever feel guilty about hurting people’s feelings?

Dan Savage: My harsh commentary is reserved for asexuals who date sexuals without disclosing their asexuality—that is, people who lie (even by omission). An asexual allowing someone to assume they’re sexual (a not unreasonable assumption to make, as most people are sexual) and initiating a romantic relationship is guilty of romantic fraud. It would be like me dating a woman and letting her think I’m straight. Not cool. But asexuals who are out and open? No problem. I made some comments that were more perplexed than anything else when asexuality first blipped onto the radar about a decade ago. But as I’ve learned more about it, my readers and listeners have learned more about it too. I’ve had David Jay, the founder of the Asexuality Visibility Network, on my podcast numerous times, and he’s given advice in my column.

Do I feel guilty when people get hurt reading me or listening to me? No, I don’t. My listeners and readers engage with me, they argue with me, and they give me hell when they think I’m wrong—and I listen and sometimes I learn, as I did on the issue of asexuality, because sometimes I am wrong. It’s a process and so long as people are being honest, and going at it with open minds, I don’t think anyone has anything to feel guilty about.

Eee_Lo: When will we see the first big-budget Hollywood gay romantic comedy – one where it is NO BIG DEAL that the protagonists are gay? I feel like that will be a watershed moment in mainstream LGBT acceptance.

Dan Savage: That will take a long time. Gay people can live vicariously through the experiences of straight couples in romantic comedies. We can see ourselves in straight people. For a long time we had no choice, as there were no representations of gay or lesbian love in mainstream films, TV, or fiction. What few there were ended tragically. If we wanted to watch something with a happy ending, if we wanted to watch something we might like to experience ourselves, we had to watch straight romantic comedies. And it wasn’t hard for us to do: because we grow up around straight people, because we were raised by straight people, we know we’re really not that far off. The plumbing may be different but the emotions, the longing, the heartbreak, the elation—all of that is the same.

The question now—the question for any major studio thinking about bankrolling a big-budget romantic comedy about two men or two women falling in love—is whether straight people can see themselves in our lives and our experiences. Straight people aren’t surrounded by gay people (despite the impression “embattled” right-wing Christian organizations seek to create) and they’ve never had to see themselves in our lives and our stories. Will they ever? I think so. But it will take some time.

@Equal4Kentucky: How do you feel about the impact you’ve made on teens and young adults struggling with their orientations and homophobia?

Dan Savage: I feel like I’ve had a positive impact and I feel good about that. Some of the most gratifying mail I get is from straight people—young straight people—who tell me that reading my column and listening to my podcast helped them overcome their homophobia. Nothing unravels someone’s homophobia faster than knowing a gay person and—for better or worse—I’m the gay person a lot of young people know.

VIDEO: Up with Christ Hayes, 12/8/12, 7:00 PM ET

It Gets Better as public opinion shifts

Dan Savage, co-founder of “It Gets Better,” talks about the evolution of public opinion on marriage equality, and how it is likely to change.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/dan-savage-taking-your-questions

Vox Is the Conde Nast for Next Generation: CEO

Ellen

7/1/2014   Bloomberg

VIDEO: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/vox-finds-its-voice-in-the-future-of-digital-media-A5gPfZdWTHSy18NWOysDVg.html

July 1 (Bloomberg) — James Bankoff, Chief Executive Officer and chairman at Vox, talks with Erik Schatzker about new branding opportunities created by digital media, their focus on transforming news presentation for an online audience and the importance of social media platforms in growing their brands. He speaks from the Aspen Ideas Festival on “In the Loop.”

Video text:

Digital content is anybody i can think of.

I think i know what buzzfeed is, what clock — gawker is, but what is vox?

We create media brands, high-quality, large media brands like the ones you mentioned, for new generation of consumers prefer to consume their content digitally.

If you think about it in a simple way, great magazine companies like “timing” and great cable companies like usa networks or disney, now we are creating new media titles in the same way.

And we’re doing it within this medium as opposed to cable or magazines, obviously.

It’s funny you mention condon asked because they operated a portfolio of magazines.

The people know them better for vanity fair or “folk.” do you see yourself more as digital publishing as opposed to say the kind of company that “feiss” is becoming?

We think spnation, you can command more authority.

We don’t want to be another portal where everything is just general.

We believe individual variance — rinse convey and their subject matters.

TAPP TV VRP

Ellen

TAPP TV

– Subscription TV connecting super-fans to the personalities they can’t get enough of

 

TAPP is building online video channels around celebrities, allowing super-fans close-up access to the people they adore. Fan-supported subscription channels you can watch on any device – your phone, tablet, pc, or TV.

 

Location: San Francisco

Size: 11-50 employees

Funding: Round in 2014 (Unknown Amount)

Markets: Digital Media, Television, Subscription Businesses

Type: Privately Held

Founders: Mike Greer, Jon Klein, Jeff Gaspin

 

Sarah Palin’s Tapp Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTp8qdzlLWw

 

(From TAPP’s website) BRAINCHILD OF TWO LIFELONG DISRUPTERS

partners

Jeff Gaspin and Jon Klein first met 20 years ago while pioneering reality television at NBC and CBS, respectively. They were ahead of the curve then, and they’ve stayed there – helping to usher in the era of online video in the 2000’s, and now turning their sights to media’s next frontier: subscription television.

Digital media enables stars to reach their biggest fans directly on a smartphone or tablet – eliminating the network, studio, and cable system middlemen. Plummeting production costs mean that subscription channels built around ultra-niche personalities and their super-fans can become highly profitable in a very short time. Glenn Beck, Louis CK, Jon Stewart, Rand Paul, and WWE, among others, have all entered this lucrative arena.

Now imagine a single platform featuring scores of these subscription TV channels, showcasing the biggest names in endless niches all the way down the long tail. A niche Netflix. Sirius for subscription television. Generating big data troves about viewer behavior. That’s TAPP.

For personalities, we supply soup-to-nuts service – creating and producing their channels, distributing them over the Web and on apps, handling the marketing, and managing the back-end technology, payment processing, and data analytics. For consumers, we’re making a fantasy come true: the chance to watch micro-channels built around their interests and their idols.

For the television industry as we know it today, it’s a major disruption. Just as reality TV and online video were when Jeff and Jon blazed those trails.

 

TAPP – LIST OF SERVICES

-Preogramming Strategy

-Production (provide studio space and crew)

-Back-end Technology (Updates and enhancement on platforms; lower streaming cost)

-Front-end UX Design

-App Development (apps for each channel)

-Payment Processing

-Marketing

-Distribution

-Customer Service

 

Channels:

The Sarah Palin Channel

https://sarahpalinchannel.com/

The Sarah Palin Channel is a member-supported online channel offering supporters of the candidate for Vice President of the United States and former Alaska Governor unprecedented access to and interaction with Governor Palin.

Governor Palin serves as executive editor, and oversees all content posted to the channel, which includes timely videos and her commentary on important issues facing the Nation. Additionally, the channel offers subscribers a behind-the-scenes look into Sarah’s personal life as mother, grandmother, wife and neighbor.

The Sarah Palin Channel is a community where Americans who share her ideals can share ideas, discuss the issues in-depth, and find solutions. Channel members will also have the ability to post their own videos, send questions to Sarah and participate in online video chats, where they can talk directly with her and other subscribers.

New Life TV with Steve Arterburn

Steve Arterburn is an American author, speaker, counselor and radio talk-show host. His popular radio call-in show, New Life Live, features Arterburn, a human relationship expert, and his co-hosts, dispensing Christian-based advice to three million weekly listeners who call in on a variety of problems—marriage, anger, grief, anxiety, abuse, addictions and other issues.

New Life TV delves into subjects such as Life Recovery, Sexual Addiction, Relationships and Marriage, and Counseling, teaching one how to live a better, more fulfilling life. New Life TV offers members the opportunity to interact with Arterburn and his co-hosts during regular video chats.

Steve has a large and very passionate following of fans who are hooked on his radio show, devour his books, flock to his workshops – and are eager to see more from him. He talks about things you just can’t discuss on traditional television. His shows on New Life TV are more jarring, honest, and emotional, thanks to the authentic connection he has with his audience.

 

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAPP_TV

TAPP TV – “TAPP” stands for TV APP – is a subscription-based online video content network, home to individual “channels” built around public personalities with large followings. It was founded in 2013 by Jeff Gaspin, former chairman of NBC Universal Television, and Jonathan Klein, former president of CNN US. Michael Greer, former CTO of the Onion, is TAPP’s co-founder and CTO.

TAPP TV subscribers pay $9.95 per month or $99.95 per year to receive daily video content from subscribed video channels. Each channel is sold separately.

TAPP TV’s investors include Discovery Communications and Demarest Films, as well as individual investors including Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, and investment bankers Ken Moelis, Peter Ezersky and Michael Huber. In addition to Gaspin and Klein, the TAPP TV board includes Sean Atkins, senior vice president and general manager, Digital, at Discovery Communications.

In March 2014, Gaspin and Klein announced plans to launch of roster of channels on the TAPP platform in 2014. TAPP launched its first channel on March 20: New Life TV, featuring Steve Arterburn, an American syndicated radio host with 2 million weekly listeners to his New Life Live program. Arterburn is a Christian counselor, author and motivational speaker, focused on relationships, family and addiction. He is the founder of New Life Ministries and Women of Faith.

TAPP’s founders have cited Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV (http://www.theblaze.com/tv/), which launched in 2012, as one inspiration for their business model. Reports have put The Blaze’s subscriber base at 300,000 people paying $9.95 per month.

 

In The Media:

TheGrill: Innovators Talk Opportunities, Pitfalls for Video Content in the Digital Age (Video)

10/7/2014   The Wrap

http://www.thewrap.com/thegrill-innovators-talk-opportunities-pitfalls-for-video-content-in-the-digital-age/

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM9FBBP2Pa8

Traditional programmers “really have to throw out the playbook and start fresh,” Jeff Gaspin tells TheWrap’s annual leadership conference

Creating digital content in the age of digital can be an extremely liberating experience for young filmmakers — but it can also pose numerous challenges when digital and traditional media are still trying to reach common ground and a mutually beneficial way of working together.

That was a big topic at the innovators’ panel at TheGrill conference at the Montage Beverly Hills on Tuesday, where MiTu Network Beatriz Acevedo, BuzzFeed Motion Pictures president Ze Frank, TAPP co-founder Jeff Gaspin and indie film producer Sev Ohanian discussed the opportunities and stumbling blocks as they attempt to bring compelling video content to an audience with entirely new viewing habits than the previous generation.

The panelists were among the pioneers from TheWrap’s second annual Innovators List, which acknowledges rule-breaking, risk-taking mavericks who are thinking differently about the rules of film and television production.

As someone who’s had his feet in both traditional and digital media, Gaspin, the former NBC Universal Television Entertainment Chairman, offered his perspective on what challenges making the tradition entails.

Hint: It requires a lot of adjustment.

In the past, Gaspin noted, programmers were in the position of defining what viewers watched. It’s a whole different ballgame these days.

“That has changed 180 degrees in that the viewer will watch only what they want to watch,” Gaspin noted.

Those with backgrounds in traditional programming “really have to throw out the playbook and start fresh,” Gaspin said — adding that he envied his fellow panelists because “They don’t have the same learnings that I have that I’m trying to unlearn.”

Acevedo conceded that she too had experienced a teachable moment or two in the development of MiTu. She recalled one early project where “we made the classic mistake” of hiring traditional talent that, according to conventional wisdom, should have worked. But didn’t.

“After two views we learned that this show was not very successful,” Acevedo recalled. “We decided we needed to take a cue” from young content creators.

Frank, whose BuzzFeed recently expanded into mid-form and long-form video, said that he views such “oops moments” as an essential part of the growing process.

“For us, it’s constant; it’s literally our process baked in, is that you fail,” Frank said, “So yeah, there’s a lot of oops moments, but it’s kind of critical to the process.”

But while there are plenty of potential pitfalls to navigate, the rewards can be plentiful — particularly for the new breed of content creators, who find themselves not only to be able to make the content they want without creative restrictions, but also receive outside support while doing so.

“These latino millennials have been craving new content for a long, long time we do have our soaps and our game shows and our soccer, and that is fantastic, it still does really, really well on broadcast, as you all know. But we still craved something else,” Acevedo said. “These latino content creators decided to take it into their own hands and create the content they’ve been craving themselves. We wanted to be that new generation media company with MiTu who would sort of nurture them and foster them and help them grow. And this is the principle with which we have built MiTu.”

“As a young filmmaker — only a couple of years ago I was making YouTube videos in my backyard with my friend — what Ze and Beatriz are doing now is shocking,” noted Ohanian, who made headlines earlier this year with “Seeds,” a short film that was shot on Google Glass. “It’s literally mind-blowing to people who are just starting off to be able to make their own content and have that freedom, but have the support that comes with both of your respective companies — that’s not a small point for us at all. I think that is incredibly admirable, and the fact that you guys are giving opportunities to young filmmakers who are just starting off and giving them the support that they would never have otherwise — that’s huge.”

TheWrap also named to its Innovators List TAPP co-founder Jon Klein, Seriously CEO Andrew Stalbow, Whisper CEO & co-founder Michael Heyward, Techstars managing director Cody Simms, actress-director-philanthropist Angelina Jolie, “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon, General Assembly CEO & co-founder Jake Schwartz, and Is or Isn’t Entertainment founders Dan Bucatinsky and Lisa Kudrow.

 

TheWrap’s 2014 Innovators List: 11 Thought Leaders Who Are Changing Hollywood

10/1/2014   The Wrap

http://www.thewrap.com/thewraps-2014-innovators-list-11-thought-leaders-who-are-changing-hollywood/

Jeff Gaspin & Jon Klein, Co-Founders, TAPP

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-IdEyhu-GM
TAPP Chairman Gaspin (formerly of NBCUniversal) and CEO Klein (formerly of CNN and CBS) see a TV future ruled by subscription channels.  The two long-time friends launched TAPP (short for “TV App”) as a subscription-based, online video platform for big personalities such as Sarah Palin.  For $9.95 a month, Sarah Palin Channel subscribers get to watch the former Alaska Governor and GOP VP nominee discuss everything from Obamacare to her “award winning BBQ salmon recipe.”  TAPP’s backers include Discovery Communications and Google’s Eric Schmidt.  While it’s not yet clear how many people will pay $9.95 a month for such programming, TAPP is targeting a range of personalities in categories like sports, politics, religion, entertainment and fashion. – Jon Erlichman

 

Sarah Palin Launches Her Own Channel Online

7/27/2014 Variety

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/sarah-palin-launches-online-video-channel-1201269982/

Sarah Palin — former governor of Alaska, erstwhile candidate for VP of the U.S. and polarizing public figure — has unveiled a new subscription-based Internet TV network that promises direct access to her and her supporters.

The Sarah Palin Channel, which costs $9.95 per month or $99.95 for a one-year subscription, will feature her commentary on “important issues facing the nation,” as well as behind-the-scenes looks into her personal life as “mother, grandmother, wife and neighbor.” Palin serves as executive editor, overseeing all content posted to the channel.

“I want to talk directly to you on our channel, on my terms — and no need to please the powers that be,” Palin, who is also a Fox News contributor, said in a video announcing the channel. “Together, we’ll go beyond the sound bites and cut through the media’s politically correct filter.”

Palin is producing the channel in partnership with Tapp, the online-video venture formed by Jeff Gaspin, former chairman of NBCUniversal Television, and Jon Klein, former president of CNN U.S.

The conservative pol’s online network is modeled on TheBlaze, the online-video network and website that ex-Fox News host Glenn Beck launched in 2011. TheBlaze TV is now also carried on Dish Network and regional cable systems.

Subscribers to the Sarah Palin Channel will have the ability to post their own videos to the website, submit questions to her, and participate in online video chats with her and other subscribers. The site includes a national debt ticker, and a countdown clock showing the number of days left in President Obama’s second term.

Active U.S. military members can subscribe free of charge, according to Tapp. For both monthly and yearly subscription plans, the first two weeks are free and users can cancel at any time during the trial period.

Gaspin, Klein and co-founder Michael Greer, former CTO of The Onion, announced Tapp in March 2014. The company’s first channel is Steve Arterburn’s New Life TV, hosted by the relationship counselor and radio host. According to Tapp, the Arterburn channel became profitable less than four months after launching.

Tapp investors include Discovery Communications and individuals including investment bankers Ken Moelis and Peter Ezersky. They were recently joined by Luminari Capital, a venture fund founded by Daniel Leff focused on digital video investments.

Other TV personalities that have jumped to the Internet include ex-CNN host Larry King, who now has an online talk show produced with Ora.tv, and Katie Couric, who joined Yahoo as global news anchor. Paula Deen, who lost her show on Food Network after racial comments that she made came to light, is planning to launch her own cooking channel online this fall.

 

Is Sarah Palin the founder-in-chief of her own TV channel?

3/17/2014 Upstart

http://upstart.bizjournals.com/companies/media/2014/03/17/is-sarah-palin-launching-tv-channel.html

The UpTake: Sarah Palin may be about to prove her entrepreneurial spirit once again but by seizing yet another media opportunity.

Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is preparing to launch her own TV channel, according to a report on Friday by Capital New York, a blog that covers New York business.

The channel, tentatively called “Rogue TV,” will be hosted by Tapp TV, launched last week by former CNN chief Jon Klein and former NBC Universal entertainment executive Jeff Gaspin.

Capital New York’s source told the site that Palin’s channel, which is expected to cost $10 per month, and will be like a “video version of her Facebook page,” including video commentaries from the former governor herself, discussing current events and political issues.

In spite of resigning from her role as governor of Alaska and losing in her bid for the vice-presidential office with presidential candidate John McCain, her endorsement among other political candidates remains sought after.

Already this year she has endorsed Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.); Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R), who is running for governor of the Texas; and tea party politician Katrina Pierson, according to a Huffington Post report.

 

Sarah Palin plans ‘Rogue TV’

CAPITAL 3/14/2014

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/03/8541966/sarah-palin-plans-%E2%80%98rogue-tv%E2%80%99

Fox News contributor and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will be launching her own digital video channel, tentatively called “Rogue TV,” a source familiar with the project told Capital.

The channel will be available through Tapp, the digital video service founded by former CNN chief Jon Klein and former NBC Universal entertainment executive Jeff Gaspin. Subscriptions will cost $10 per month.

Rogue is expected to launch in April or May, and it would be one of the first of the digital channels offered by Tapp.

Palin’s channel will feature video commentaries from the former Republican vice-presidential candidate, discussing current events and political issues.

It will also have advice and guidance from Palin, such as tips for parents and recipes. There are also tentative plans to have subscribers engage in regular video chats with Palin.

Representatives for Tapp did not respond to a request for comment on the plans.

Palin’s large social media presence (four million Facebook fans, one million Twitter followers) is probably a big factor in Tapp’s recruitment of her. She may not have a daily radio or talk show, but she clearly has loyal fans.

The New York Post reported early this week that Palin was approached by Gaspin and Klein, but that she hadn’t committed to doing the channel for Tapp. In fact, our source says, production has already started on her channel, and she has recorded a number of segments.

Palin is currently a contributor to Fox News Channel, after re-joining the cable network last June. She also hosts a reality show for The Sportsman Channel called “Amazing America.” Rogue is a different beast, however, with daily updates, focusing on more personal messages. It isn’t clear whether Rogue would affect either of Palin’s existing deals.

The addition of Palin raises questions about what sort of content Tapp channels will feature.

The W.W.E. and Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze have confirmed that subscription digital-video products can be good business. But the wrestling company has decades of archival video and hours of original content each week to fill its channel, and TheBlaze has hours of original content every day, including shows hosted by people other than Glenn Beck. Both also hew to high production values in their products. In other words, successful implementations of the business model have also demonstrated a significant commitment of time from talent—and money from the backers—in the long run.

What other talent Tapp is lining up has not yet been revealed, but we hear that Tapp has been casting a wide net, seeking out both political personalities like Palin, as well as entertainment and lifestyle personalities.

The company’s website paints a picture of what to expect, with a word-cloud featuring topics like “paranormal,” “faith,” “relationships,” “fantasy sports” and “science.”

 

TAPP Scores Funding From Eric Schmidt For Subscription Video

3/12/2014

http://www.socaltech.com/tapp_scores_funding_from_eric_schmidt_for_subscription_video/s-0053987.html

Los Angeles-based TAPP, a new startup co-founded by Jeff Gaspin, the former Chairman of NBC Universal Television, and Jon Klein, former president of CNN/U.S., said this morning that it has scored funding from a number of high profile investors. TAPP said that its investors include Discovery Communications, Demarest Films, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, as well as Ken Moelis, Peter Ezersky and Michael Huber. Details on the funding and backing of the startup were not anounced. According to TAPP, it will offer up a subscription video platform featuring “thought leaders” in the areas of sports, politics, religion, relationships, entertainment, lifestyle, fashion, and fitness, offering up daily content and subscription-only access to those thought leaders. The company also said its co-founder and CTO is, Michael Greer, who was head of technology and product development for The Onion.

 

(Jon Klein interview) Amazon Wants You to Fire Your TV Provider: Klein

4/3/2014

http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2014-04-03/amazon-wants-you-to-fire-your-tv-provider-klein

 

Former CNN, NBC Execs Want to ‘TAPP’ Palin for New Streaming Video Service

3/11/2014

With an appearance on Bloomberg TV Tuesday, Former CNN president Jon Klein and former NBC entertainment chairman Jeff Gaspin announced their new online streaming video venture called TAPP, short for “TV App.” As for the types of personalities the pair hopes to feature on the service? According to Klein, Sarah Palin is exactly the type of person they are looking for.

“We are not talking about specific talent,” Klein said in response to rumors that they have been in talks with Palin about the venture. “I will tell you that Sarah Palin is the kind of personality who has a massive social presence, and a core group of followers and supporters who hang on to her every word. That is exactly the characteristic that these channels are looking for.”

Similar to Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze.com, TAPP will consist of multiple channels and shows that users can stream online for somewhere in the $10/month range. “Everybody’s got someone, one person at least, that they would pay $10 per month to get more of,” Klein added. He envisions a world in which “everyone has a TAPP channel” the way anyone can have a YouTube channel today.

TAPP’s initial batch of investors includes Discovery Communications, Demarest Films and Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt.

 

 

(VIDEO) Former CNN, NBC Chiefs Launch Video Channel ‘Tapp’

3/11/2014 Bloomberg

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/former-cnn-nbc-chiefs-launch-video-channel-tapp-5IsVQhFRS6Kp6QLludit_A.html

 

 

CNN, NBCU Alums Jon Klein, Jeff Gaspin Team Up for Online Video Venture

3/1/2014 Variety

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/nbcu-cnn-alums-jon-klein-jeff-gaspin-team-up-for-online-video-venture-1201129490/

Sarah Palin reportedly target by firm for channel akin to Glenn Beck’s the Blaze

Two of the biggest names sitting on the sidelines in the media business are teaming up for an online video venture.

Jeff Gaspin, formerly chairman of NBC Universal TV Entertainment, and Jon Klein, previously president of CNN, are launching Tapp, a series of digital subscription channels that will be built around particular celebrities.

“Not every celebrity or talent out there has the ability to get on cable but they still have rabid fans,” said Gaspin, who will serve as chairman of Tapp, which will be run day-to-day by CEO Klein. “We think this will allow all those people to have an outlet.”

Former vice presidential aspirant Sarah Palin was identified as one such individual they were approaching, according to a report Monday in the New York Post. Gaspin and Klein declined comment on any specific individuals being courted.

Such a venture is not unlike the Blaze, a successful subscription service launched by former Fox News Channel personality Glenn Beck. Given the challenges of monetizing ad-supported content, paid channels are becoming more in vogue, from YouTube’s own experimentation with that format to the Chernin Group’s investment in Crunchyroll, a company that specializes in that business model.

Gaspin and Klein have lined up well-known investors including Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Discovery Communications and Demarest Films, in addition to investment bankers Ken Moelis, Peter Ezersky and Michael Huber. Tapp’s founders dclined to specify the level of investment but made clear it will be a lean operation.

“This is my third startup and you learn early that you want to spend as little as possible to make sure as much of that investment ends up on the screen,” said Klein, who counts the Feed Room among the companies he’s started.

The first of what they describe as dozens of channels will be launched in the coming months. Talent involved will range from household names to more niche attractions.

For $9.95 per month, or $100 a year, per channel, Klein and Gaspin are betting on luring enough subscribers to make Tapp a booming business. “Glenn Beck and the WWE are proof that passion drives subscription,” said Gaspin. “We’re very confident that the fans who feel the most passionate about certain personalities will pay for access to a high-quality product.”

Gaspin exited NBCU in late 2010 after Comcast acquire the conglomerate. Klein left CNN in 2010, and was later succeeded by Jeff Zucker — who happened to be Gaspin’s boss when he led NBCU as CEO.

In addition to the Discovery investment, the company also has the company’s senior VP and GM of digital, Sean Atkins, sitting on Tapp’s board. Klein indicated that the Discovery, which knows a thing or two about personalized channels from its launch of OWN, could collaborate with Tapp in the future.

 

Jeff Gaspin, Jon Klein to Launch Online Video Platform TAPP

3/11/2014   The Hollywood Report

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jeff-gaspin-jon-klein-launch-687588

The television veterans are building a subscription video platform around personalities with super-fan followings.

Two longtime television executives are making a bet on digital with the launch of online video platform TAPP.

Jeff Gaspin, former chairman of NBC Universal Television, and Jon Klein, former president of CNN, tell THR that the subscription-based platform will be centered on personalities with super-fan followings. TAPP, which stands for “TV App,” will launch its first channel in the coming weeks.

“We really wanted to come up with channels that were talent-based and that were really geared toward the super fan,” says Gaspin. “As opposed to long-form scripted or reality content, we really wanted an intimate experience between the channel lead and the fan base.”

The New York Post on Monday reported that Gaspin and Klein were courting Sarah Palin for one of those channels. They tell THR that they are not ready to announce the personalities that they plan to work with, but they envision a wide-ranging group that comes from lifestyle, sports, politics, arts, sciences and other backgrounds.

Initially, each personality will have their own channel available on mobile devices, laptops and Internet-connected smart TVs. The company plans to eventually create a TAPP hub where someone could subscribe to and watch multiple channels.

TAPP is acting as a full-service shop for its talent and will provide back-end technology, app development, production, marketing, distribution and data analysis.

“There are a lot of stars that have an intense following and would like to connect with that following and monetize it in more ways, but they don’t know where to start,” says Klein. “We’re trying to provide an end-to-end solution for them. That leaves the stars free to do what they do best, which is delight their biggest fans.”

Klein and Gaspin have assembled a robust group of initial investors that includes Discovery Communications, Demarest Films, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and investment bankers Ken Moelis, Peter Ezersky and Michael Huber. Sean Atkins, Discovery senior vp and general manager of digital, has joined the TAPP board.

The online video space has become densely populated in recent years with players such as Google’s YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and others. But Gaspin says that TAPP sets itself apart through its talent.

“You can’t duplicate our personalities,” he says. “We believe having a series of personalities keep us in a separate and distinct marketplace.”

Adds Klein, “Unlike YouTube, we’re not trying to create stars out of total unknowns — we’re trying to take stars and give them a foothold and presence on a whole new platform. I think everybody is looking for what the next big disruption in media is going to be. Our investors see TAPP as uniquely positioned to lead that next big disruption.”

 

What This Former CNN Head Learned From Glenn Beck About One-Person Media Brands

Co. Creative

http://www.fastcocreate.com/3028412/what-this-former-cnn-head-learned-from-glenn-beck-about-one-person-media-brands

Jon Klein doesn’t care that you haven’t heard of Steve Arterburn.

That might seem surprising, since Arterburn is the first personality to anchor a “channel” of online video content on Tapp, Klein’s newest venture. Impressed by the success that personalities like Oprah Winfrey and Glenn Beck have had by striking out on their own to create personal TV channels, Klein–a former president of CNN–teamed up with former NBC chairman Jeff Gaspin to create Tapp.

The long-term vision of Tapp is to build a digital platform that serves as host to many such personality-driven channels. Earlier this month, Tapp launched its first channel, centered around Steve Arterburn, a syndicated radio host and the founder of New Life Ministries. New Life TV, the new Tapp venture, is a subscription-only digital channel that viewers can access for $9.95 a month. Currently incarnated a standalone website, New Life TV launched with such programs as “Bible Integration” and “Women Can be Holy and Horny.”

All of which brings us back to why Klein doesn’t care if you’re not an Arterburn fan, and are therefore unlikely to shell out more than a Netflix monthly subscription rate to saturate your life with his thoughts. All that matters to Klein is: Enough people are. Arterburn has a strong enough base of “superfans”–people who simply trust Arterburn to parse the world more than anyone–to make an Arterburn-centered channel a viable business proposition.

And the world is saturated with countless Arterburns, niche celebrities you can expect to see launching Tapp channels soon.

We caught up with Klein to learn more about Tapp, the echo-chamberization of media, and why Glenn Beck is the ultimate example of the modern celebrity-as-network.

FAST COMPANY: What’s been the most eye-opening thing you’ve experienced since launching Arterburn’s channel this month?

JON KLEIN: The fervor that superfans feel for their idols. What we’re trying to do is connect superfans to the people they adore by using the medium of online video and membership in this exclusive club. But what’s surprising is how personal the audience feels that is. One subscriber was so moved she asked if she could do a Skype chat with Steve on the channel. She went and did that. She told a story about how she was in love with her pastor, and though she felt he was in love with her, they can’t hook up. She was feeling a lot of pain from that, and wanted Steve’s counsel. The reason she felt comfortable doing that was because of the exclusive nature of the channel. She knows exactly who the audience is, where they’re coming from–it feels like a safe environment for her. And that happened on Day Two of the channel’s existence. It bears out a hunch that superfans are out there yearning for a deeper connection to the people they admire most.

When did you first start thinking about superfans as a niche market?
I was at Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver and was walking around with one of our CNN contributors, Roland Martin. Though Martin was very good on air, he wasn’t a household name. But we were stopped every five feet by someone calling out his name, people hugging him, stopping him to say how much he affected their lives. I thought, “Wow, there’s a breed of person out there for whom Roland Martin, of all people, has taken on a special meaning.” Soon after that I was in the office of Sanjay Gupta, the noted chief medical correspondent. Sanjay had a hundred ideas, many of which had nothing to do with television–projects he wanted to start, books he wanted to write, films he wanted to make. By the time I left, I thought, “Boy, it’s gonna hit Sanjay at some point that he no longer needs CNN as much as CNN needs him. He has his band of followers, and technology enables him to reach that audience and monetize it.” I was worried a company would come along and create that, and lo and behold, that’s the company I created.

People already worry about media silos–that we have two Americas only listening to their own echo chambers. Doesn’t this take that to a new level?
That phenomenon is happening with or without Tapp. There’s no fighting a trend. When you watch Jon Stewart, you don’t think you’re in an echo chamber. You think he’s right. And that is true of everybody inside their own echo chamber. Our theoretical subscriber is a blend of both: they’re paying eight bucks a month to Netflix for a wide variety of input, they’re probably also going to a general news source online as a starting point, and then they’re also indulging their appetite to drill down more deeply, to burrow down into a silo. Tapp channels a form of online binge viewing, giving you as much material as possible from the person you most idolize.

What metrics do you look at when deciding to approach someone for their own channel?
We look at some quantifiable indicators, and some ineffable ones. We look at things like, not only the size of social footprints, but also the engagement: the Klout score and other signs of a highly engaged, motivated fanbase. We look at what their fans pay for. And then we look at the “burn” that the talent has. How driven are they to communicate and stay in touch with their biggest fans? How much of this is a way of life, not just a calculated business decision? Lots of fan sites and fan clubs crop up, then die quickly, because they lack the soul of the celebrity they were built around. They come off as arid, cynical spaces. Then you look at people like Glenn Beck, who just throw themselves into every touchpoint with their followers, with everything they’ve got. It’s that spark, that passion–that sense that they don’t know how to do it any other way.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

 

 

Alan Cumming talks about his abusive father, bisexuality, monogamy, and why he doesn’t want children

Ellen

10/8/2014   FourTwoNine Magazine

Alan Cumming talks about his abusive father, bisexuality, monogamy, and why he doesn’t want children

Alan Cumming not only is multitalented but also has become rather brilliant at multitasking. His versatility demands it. Who else could star in a critically acclaimed one-man production of Macbeth as well as furnish the voice of Chuck Masters, a paralyzed HIV-positive man, on Logo’s stop-animation sitcom Rick & Steve and serve as the host of PBS’s Mystery! series? While also starring again on Broadway as the emcee in Cabaret and welcoming patrons into the Kit Kat Klub eight times a week, he has begun filming the next season of The Good Wife, in which he appears as Eli Gold, the Chicago political macher who, he admits, is based on Mayor Rahm Emanuel. And if that is not time consuming enough, he is about to embark on a book tour for his heartbreaking, brutally honest memoir, Not My Father’s Son, to be published on October 7.

In the book, Cumming tells the story of his hardscrabble Scottish childhood, as the child of a violent man who abused him both physically and emotionally and left him in a constant state of fear and shame. It is a wrenching story beautifully told, one that even has an air of, yes, mystery about it, so much so that at times it seems as if Cumming is eloquently playing host to the tale of his own life even as he unspools it for us.

Acting and writing are not Cumming’s only passions. He is also known for his social activism. He has been honored with the American Foundation of AIDS Research Award of Courage, the Making a Difference Award from the Matthew Shepard Foundation, the Live Out Loud Star Award, the Point Foundation Courage Award, the Leadership Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Lambda Liberty Award, and the Trevor Project Hero Award. Indeed, when he received his OBE in 2009 as part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, the citation read “Alan Cumming. Actor, Producer, and Presenter. For services to film and the arts and to activism for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community, USA.”

He has even received a Fleshbot Award for the sex positivity of his “Cumming, the Fragrance” ad campaign. And his latest political passion has been to become involved as a foreskin activist—or “intactivist,” as he called it when I visited him in his dressing room after a Sunday matinee performance of Cabaret (whereas on other matinee days, he concocts soups in a Crock-Pot and feeds the young cast members who gather there and use his dressing room as the show’s clubhouse).

Cumming is a contributor to NORM-UK and is on the board of advocates of Intact America. Does this newest form of activism spring from his anger at having been circumcised himself or from his solidarity with those who have not been? “Oh, I have it. I have foreskin,” he says with his usual candor. “I think circumcision is genital mutilation. There is a reason you have foreskin. It was only when I came to America that I realized what a common practice circumcision is. I’d show my penis to people, and they’d go, ‘Oh my God! What’s that?’ They were so amazed and utterly unused to and unexposed to the natural body of a man. I thought that was a shocking thing. I was gobsmacked by that. I mean, you lose sensation there if you’re circumcised. From my point of view as a sexual and sensual person, the idea that you would hack away at that and lose sensitivity and nerve endings on the most pleasurable and sensitive part of your body is terrible. It all builds into my idea of America being shameful about sex and so puritanical,” he says, even though he is proud to have become a naturalized American citizen in 2008.

Cumming is also a vegan. A couple of days before my visit with him in his dressing room, we met for lunch at the vegan restaurant Blossom on Carmine Street in New York’s West Village, where we talked about even more subjects.

—Kevin Sessums

Alan Cumming: For the last couple of weeks, I haven’t been eating the way I should. My dog Honey died, and I’ve been in mourning. Because of that, I haven’t been eating proper meals. I’ve been grazing. She was fourteen. A collie/shepherd mix. She was lovely. She had a great life. She had cancer, and it got really awful toward the end. But she had this really beautiful last weekend. I had all the Kit Kat Klub boys up to my house in the Catskills, and you could tell she was really happy to have them around.

Kevin Sessums: In the past, those kinds of stories about pets dying would go right over my head, even though I’d acknowledge how sad it must be. But now that I have two dogs of my own, hearing about a pet dying breaks my heart. You’ve got another dog named Leon. How is he taking the death of Honey?

AC: He’s become much more needy and clingy. He’s had to be with me a lot. In fact, he just went with me to Corsica to a wedding. He’s barking a lot more and has become really demanding. But it’s this weird thing about mourning which I’m still in the midst of about Honey. Yesterday, doing Cabaret, I was doing my number with the gorilla, “If You Could See Her,” and I went, “Up! Up!” to the gorilla, and I heard myself say it exactly the way I used to say it to Honey. I was still in character, but tears began to stream down my face. It was this weird moment of duality, of grieving and yet being able to completely function in the world. I have this friend who’s a priest—a nondenominational one—who is also, by the way, transgender—female to male. He’s a kind of grief counselor. He’s told me that the only thing you can do is to go through it.

KS: You do tend to cry a lot, Alan. I noticed that when reading your book.

AC: Well, that was a very tearful summer. But I do cry really easily.

KS: Does laughter come just as easily?

AC: Yes. More so. But I do get very affected by stuff.

KS: You’re like a divining rod?

AC: Yes.

KS: And how is your mother? I love that you call her by her original name, Mary Darling. May I?

AC: Sure.

KS: How is Mary Darling?

AC: She’s great . She was so cute and comforting when Honey died. She told me she just wanted to come over here to America to give me a big hug. She’s in good form. This book of mine—for both her and for my brother—is obviously a big deal for them as it is for me. Yet they have both been so supportive. We all are a bit nervous about it coming out since it’s a very personal book, and I’m making myself very vulnerable in it. I think this book will perhaps change who people think I am.

KS: I think it will too. But I also found it interesting to discover how you were going through all this personal stuff while getting on with your work which, as an actor, is about accessing your emotions, even though sometimes they are not the emotions that you are going through at that particular moment in your life. So it is a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach. You have to either access the emotion…

AC: …or push it away.

KS: Yes. That is when it becomes really interesting and complicated—the shutting down of the emotion you’re going through—so you have access to the other different emotion you might need in that moment as an actor. It’s the separating out of your emotional arsenal. But let’s get back to your mother. Would you have published the book if, after letting her read it, she had told you she didn’t want you to publish it?

AC: No, I wouldn’t have published it.

KS: Would you have waited until she died?

AC: I don’t know. I do think my mom understood why I needed to do it. She did give me a few things she was uncomfortable with. I certainly wouldn’t have written it if my father were still alive.

KS: That’s interesting. It’s as if he’s still exerting some control over you. Is it because he would have sued you? Or would you have considered it too vengeful? The revenge is the same if the person on whom you are exacting the revenge is alive or not.

AC: But there is not going to be a reporter showing up at my father’s house to ask him about it all and what he thinks of it.

KS: Is there a part of you, then, that didn’t want to give him that chance to answer all that you write about him in the book?

AC: I guess. But I’m nervous enough about it as it is. And I’ve been questioning why I’m feeling so nervous about it. Am I nervous about people knowing all this stuff about me, or am I just nervous about their being snide about it? Actually, I was nervous about my father’s anger about my deciding to write about it. But he’s not going to be angry because he’s not here. He had to be dead, in a way, though, for me to do it. It all had to be contained thoroughly in the past. The past had to be its own entity. What I wanted to say is that all this happened to me. It is a part of who I am. If you think you know who I am, it will shock you. Even if you don’t know who I am, it is shocking. But if you do have an idea of who I am, there is this whole other part of my life that got me to where I am today. It was crazy.

In the course of documenting it all and writing it down, I realized that what is really weird about abuse in any form is that for the abuser and the person who is abused, the more it goes on—the more it goes unchecked and is not commented on or dealt with—it becomes regular. It becomes normal. It becomes acceptable. So what I am doing with my story is that by putting it out into the world, it will never be acceptable. People will be reading it and going, “My God,” and maybe some people will realize that their own abuse in their own lives is not acceptable either.

KS: Speaking of God, I was struck in the book when your mother decides to drive you through a snowstorm to see the movie Jaws, and you write about how free you felt in that moment alone with her. How you sensed God for the first time. And how God to you was the absence of your father. Was writing this book freeing yourself of your father, or did he take even greater possession of you in the writing of it?

AC: It’s a combo. He did possess me even more for a while. And I was kind of infused with him. But by the end of it, it was gone. Well, not gone, exactly. He will, in a way, be part of my life forever. And he will become a presence once more, and it will all become churned up again, because people will talk about it once the book is out. But I don’t know why my mother and brother and I have to continue to protect him, which is what I discovered we were doing as I was writing the book. It was such a huge thing that happened to us. We should acknowledge it.

KS: Do you think the “protection” to which you refer is another way of saying you felt complicit in your own abuse in some way? That if you told on him, that you would be telling on yourself?

AC: Yes. That’s why you don’t talk about it as it’s going on. That’s why you’re ashamed of it. That’s why you can protect such a person. And also there’s the feeling that it’s the only time you have any contact with the person. When he was abusing me, it was the only time he really noticed me. So there’s that whole weirdness that was going on. My whole life has been imbued with the fact that my father didn’t love me. It’s a huge thing in my life.

KS: Or is it possible he loved you and didn’t know how to express it?

AC: Maybe.

KS: He was certainly monstrous toward you.

AC: Well, okay. My father was a monster then, whether he loved me or not.

KS: And yet there had to be some tenderness in him because you write about all the affairs he had. Did he reserve his tenderness for the affairs he had in his life?

AC: I think that was just all about sex. He was salacious. That’s one thing I do understand about my father. He was very sexual. And I am too.

KS: So you didn’t inherent his monstrous qualities but…

AC: …I certainly got his voracious sexuality. Yes.

KS: And you got your own tenderness, then, from your mother. I am very moved in the book how your love for her comes through so beautifully. And how her love for you does as well. But when she tells you that she didn’t know your father had such evil in him, I did wonder how she initially fell in love with a man who possessed such evil, which then leads me to the question that is hard to ask because you do love each other so much: why did she stay with him and continue to put you all in such danger? She was certainly aware of the abuse that was going on.

AC: That’s an area that’s hard to go to. She was living in fear as well and in the same position as my brother and me. But we were living in a feudal society on that estate where we lived in Scotland, and the fact that my mother did finally get away from him is to me really amazing.

KS: Let’s talk about some happier things. I loved when you first mention your husband, Grant, in the book. It’s just dropped into one sentence matter-of-factly. Nothing much is made of it. You just happen to have a husband. No big deal. You’ve discussed your views on monogamy in the past. And you just said you’re sexually voracious. Do you and Grant have an open relationship?

AC: No. We don’t have an open relationship. What I do believe is that monogamy is not a natural state, and it is not something we are conditioned to do as animals. So in my own life, I realized it’s not possible, and I don’t pretend I can do it. And also if you are kind and you are honest and you are faithful in a true way, then it is not the worst thing that could happen—that you have a little something on the side.

KS: Well, that’s certainly spoken like your father’s son.

AC: Except if I do it, I do it with honesty and kindness.

KS: And how is something like that done honestly and kindly?

AC: Because if something were to happen, you could say I shagged someone, but you know I love you and I find you sexy.

KS: Or is it kinder not to say one has shagged someone and keep it a secret?

AC: Or you have a relationship and an understanding where you’ve talked about such a possibility. It’s all about being kind to the other person. Above all else, kindness is what is most important to me. I mean, I don’t expect Grant only to have sex with me for the rest of his life. Don’t get me wrong—we have fabulous sex and a great relationship. I don’t mean to be a show-off about it. But we do have a really great relationship. We’ve been together for ten years. We really like each other. We really love each other. The sex is great. But I don’t think it’s realistic to think that we are only going to have sex with each other for the rest of our lives. Shit happens. And I don’t think that’s the worst thing in the world. That’s not to mean that we’d do what some of my friends do—go out together and then leave with different people. We’d never do that.

KS: But there is also the factor of fame. You have to be careful that such behavior won’t show up in the press.

AC: But, you know, there is no story if you say this is my life, and this is what I believe. If you are prepared to be that open and honest, then there is no story.

KS: Would you and Grant ever have kids? Or are you just too old now?

AC: Too old. We thought about it. Obviously.

KS: It is too bourgeois?

AC: What happened was I got older, and I got content. I see so many people who have children as some sort of way to fulfill something in their lives. And I feel fulfilled.

KS: But it’s their lives, not yours. Maybe that’s what they need. I don’t think we can make such a sweeping statement.

AC: That wasn’t a judgment. That was an observation.

KS: Do you still identify as a bisexual?

AC: Yes. I do.

KS: Some people have trouble with those who identify as bisexual because it connotes choice, and for political reasons they don’t want our political enemies to see our lives as a choice. I always have to remind them there is a “B” in LGBT for a reason. Some people are truly bisexual and therefore were born with choice as part of their makeup.

AC: It’s also because I think we’re so willing and eager to just wear the uniform and belong to one thing or the other. But for me, it is not as simple as that. As for choice, I have no choice but to be bisexual. But in America, especially, everything has to be black and white. Even when you say you’ve watched a movie, people ask you what it’s about. I always go, well, why don’t you watch it and see? Everyone wants to know everything ahead of time. People are afraid of the unknown, so there is an element of that which goes into this sexuality question because people are freaked out if they can’t put you in a box. And even when they put you in the bisexual box—if you are living with a man—it doesn’t make sense to them.

KS: Do you think your bisexuality helps in your portrayal of the Emcee in Cabaret?

AC: Definitely. He understands all that. If you’re trying to portray someone from that time in history, which was kind of progressive sexually and hedonistic, it helps. I just have such fun at work. I really do. I get to go onstage and touch people’s genitals.

KS: Do you think you could revisit the part of the Emcee for years to come? You’ll be like Carol Channing playing Dolly Levi.

AC: I did feel like Carol Channing when I did my five-hundredth show a few weeks ago. I’ve now done if for over twenty years—in London and now twice in New York.

KS: The age difference doesn’t matter in this production at all. Could you do it again in another twenty years?

AC: I would definitely have to do it differently. I would be seventy by then.

KS: It would demand your being even more degenerate, perhaps.

AC: Yes. It would get sicker the older you are.

KS: That’s true, Alan, about everything. Trust me.

AC: I do think my being a bit older there is more of a darkness to it. But it’s still fun. I’ve been thinking a lot about why I am doing this again. It’s because it’s about two things I feel really, really strongly about. First, it is about how important it is to embrace difference and to provoke people and to make people look at things they are maybe not too comfortable with. But also be careful. Be vigilant. Because any second now we could be up against a wall and shot. I really do believe that. This country could go so, so bad unless we are vigilant.

KS: Do you think you would ever play the role of Herr Schultz in a future production?

AC: I did say that in twenty years’ time, when they are doing the revival of the revival of the revival, I’m going to be Fräulein Schneider.

KS: Let’s circle back to your book. Not only is it a story about the abuse you experienced from your father, but there is parallel narrative about learning the truth about your maternal grandfather. Within that story line is a lovely tribute to his wife, your granny. If you are not your father’s son, you are certainly your granny’s grandson. You say that you inherited three things from her: your mischief, your joie de vivre, and your passion. There is a wonderful story you tell about showing up with your hair dyed a crazy color to visit her with other members of your family, and she says if she were younger, she’d be a freak just like you. I love a granny who thinks of “freak” as a term of endearment.

AC: I know. Wasn’t that lovely? Wasn’t that great?

KS: Was she right? Are you a freak?

AC: I guess I am a freak in that I am not conventional.

KS: Because you’re a freak, are you amazed you are having the career you are having?

AC: I think I am having the career I am having because I am a freak.

http://dot429.com/articles/5261-alan-cumming-talks-about-his-abusive-father-bisexuality-monogamy-and-why-he-doesn-t-want-children

 

Could an Undocumented American Land an Oscar Nom This Season?

Ellen

10/7/2014    The Hollywood Report   by Scott Feinberg

Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, has made a doc about his experience as an undocumented person in America that is generating serious buzz

Last week, I had lunch in New York with Jose Antonio Vargas, the undocumented immigrant who is a leader in the fight for immigration reform in America and whose recent documentary feature, Documented, which debuted on iTunes and other digital platforms Tuesday, could factor into this year’s Oscar race. Even if you haven’t yet seen the film, which received a brief Oscar-qualifying theatrical run and aired several times over the summer on CNN, you’ve probably heard of Vargas, a prominent journalist who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2008, outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in The New York Times Magazine in 2011 and appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in June 2012. Documented, Vargas’ debut as a film director, shows what led him to make that decision and how it has impacted his life ever since. He and I spoke about the film and his ongoing efforts.

Vargas, who is 33, was born in the Philippines and sent from there by his mother to live in America with his naturalized grandparents when he was just 12. He was a precocious kid who developed a love for reading — especially James Baldwin — and the movies: “My America was shaped by Robert Altman, by Frederick Wiseman, by Mike Nichols, by films — that’s how I got to know this country,” he says. “I decided in 8th grade that I wanted to be a filmmaker.” However, when the youngster tried to obtain a driver’s license and was turned away, he confronted his grandparents, who finally informed him that he was undocumented. It was the turning point of his life. “I spent all of my teenage years and my twenties hiding from this government,” he told me.

Then he began hiding in plain sight. His writing abilities led to opportunities to work as a professional journalist and, though still fearing discovery, he couldn’t pass them up. (There was something about seeing his name in a byline that made him feel legitimate, something that much of the society around him suggested an undocumented person could never be.) His career quickly skyrocketed. “I covered the presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008 as an undocumented person,” he recounted, “on Hillary Clinton‘s campaign plane, following Sarah Palin in Ohio, following Mitt Romney in Iowa. I was scared as shit, man.” He added, “I covered a White House state dinner in 2005 for the Japanese prime minister, and when I gave them my Social Security number — because you have to give your Social Security number when you go to the White House — I was sure somebody was gonna check.”

In 2008, he was part of the team from The Washington Post that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. It put him more in the spotlight than he had ever been before, which was scary — but he also felt optimistic that America, under President Barack Obama, would become a more welcoming place to him and others living in America without documentation. However, in the years that followed, he concluded that he had been mistaken. “If you had told me that Barack Obama, the first minority president, would be responsible for deporting more immigrants [than any other U.S. president before him], I would have told you you were nuts. I still can’t believe it, especially as somebody who covered his campaign in ’08,” he said with a sigh. “He sold and told his story so well to the American public. And how that amazing storyteller could miss one of the biggest stories of America — the story of a demographically changing America — that, to me, is what I can’t connect.”

As the immigration debate exploded across America, Vargas was no longer willing to remain in the shadows. “Every day people like me are being detained and deported,” he remembers thinking to himself. “What do I do?” He decided to “out” himself and become an activist. In the last three years he has traveled to 44 states, visited 110 college campuses and been a part of nearly 300 events, all with the objective of communicating to Americans that the vast majority of their 11 million neighbors, whom many refer to as “illegal aliens” — a term he abhors — are actually upstanding and tax-paying members of American society. To spread that message to even more people than he could ever meet in person, he decided to make a documentary as well.

“I thought I was gonna make Waiting for Superman meets the Dream Act,” Vargas explained. “I’d direct it and stay out of it.” But eventually he realized that the most effective way he could illustrate the undocumented immigrant experience to people who have not lived it would be by showing what it has been like for himself. This forced him to consider: “How do you marry the personal and political and not get dogmatic and not get self-indulgent? That’s what I wanted to avoid. I learned that the hardest stories we tell are the ones about ourselves.” He told me that Sarah Polley‘s 2013 doc Stories We Tell, which is about her own family history, was a major inspiration for how he approached Documented.

Vargas describes the film — which he made through Apo Anak Productions, a production company that he founded in honor of his mother and grandparents, and which is a project of Define American, the nonpartisan media and culture campaign he founded — as “an artistic act of civil disobedience.” The film reached a wider audience than most documentary features thanks to its CNN airings, and it has had an interesting effect on its filmmaker’s daily life: It made many more people aware of the fact that he exists and is undocumented, but it also grew his profile as an immigration reform leader, which appears to have made the American government less inclined to go after him. (He was recently detained for eight hours near the Texas-Mexico border, where he was visiting children from Central America who were being held after crossing into the U.S., but was then released back into the U.S. because, The New York Times was told, he was deemed nonthreatening — even as hundreds of children, who were no more threatening than him, remained in the incarceration facility.)

However, Vargas realizes that his life in America could come to an end any day, so he hopes for the best but prepares for the worst, while continuing to lead a cause that has made some headway (prior to the 2012 presidential election Pres. Obama took executive action that allowed hundreds of thousands of peo,ple who were brought to this country illegally to remain here without fear of deportation), even if it hasn’t directly benefiting himself (the action applied to people who were no older than 30 at the time, while Vargas was 31). “Once I decided to go public, all bets were off,” he told me. “I had to be prepared for whatever repercussions or consequences could happen. I was prepared to get arrested, to get deported, for someone to knock on my door. What I was not prepared for silence, which is basically what’s happened.”

Will the Academy embrace or turn away from a film about such controversial subject matter? Only time will tell. In December, its documentary branch will announce its shortlist of 15 films, from which five will ultimately be chosen as nominees. One encouraging fact for Vargas — and for CNN films, which was snubbed last year for Blackfish — is that Documented wouldn’t be the first film about immigrants or immigration to earn a nom in the category. In fact, there have been several: Against Wind and Tide: A Cuban Odyssey (1981), The Long Way Home (1997), Balseros (2002), Daughter from Danang (2002), The Betrayal (2008), and most recently, Which Way Home (2009).

As for Vargas, he’s already on to his next project. “My next film,” he volunteered, “is going to tackle quote-unquote ‘whiteness’ in America — what it means to be young and white in post-Obama America. We’re gonna start filming this fall. I’m doing it for a network — I can’t say which one yet. I always get asked where I’m from, so I’m gonna turn the tables around and ask, ‘Where are you from?’ White is not a country.” In the meantime, despite the daunting obstacles that suggest that immigration reform will not happen in the foreseeable future, Vargas is doing his very best to remain positive. “I think I’m getting closer to who I always wanted to be.”

 

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/could-an-undocumented-american-land-738172

Miles to go before we sleep: Bringing LGBT homelessness into the spotlight

Ellen

9/24/2014   The Daily   Dylan Teague McDonald

With the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2011, and 19 states now allowing same-sex marriage, there is much worth celebrating in the struggle for LGBT rights. The last three states to begin issuing same-sex marriage certificates (New Mexico, Oregon, and Pennsylvania) did so as a result of court decisions. In fact, every time same-sex marriage has gone to the courts, it has eventually been upheld. A further 12 states have made rulings in favor with decisions stayed, pending appeals, but if the track record holds, we can expect well over half the country to have legalized same-sex marriages in the near future.

It’s time to turn the impressive network of LGBT activism toward another, even more urgent cause. On Aug. 27, Dan Savage of “The Stranger” posted a now-infamous video of Daniel Ashley Pierce being rejected by his religious family for being gay. It’s a high-profile instance of homelessness among LGBT youth, an all-too extensive problem.

LGBT youth constitute five percent of minors overall, but 40 percent of homeless minors, a discrepancy commonly attributed to ostracism by religious families. As homeless shelters across the board are underequipped, the services catering to homeless youth are even more limited. An estimated 1.7 million minors are homeless in America, yet only 4,000 shelter beds are set aside for youth at all. Even those meager resources are not an option to many LGBT youth, who are often singled out for abuse by other homeless youth because of their sexual orientation. The youth shelter, when it exists, can be just as hostile as the home. Current government-run systems, such as child services, shelters, and foster programs, take almost no account of sexual or gender identity, and  LGBT youth sometimes find themselves placed in intolerant foster families.

Back in 2010, Savage spearheaded the “It Gets Better” project, which addressed the tide of rising suicide among LGBT youth by having LGBT adults show how life can improve. But homelessness is a different sort of problem. Sticking it out can be hard enough with a roof overhead and food in the fridge. On the street, young people often turn to crime to survive, have their health deteriorates, and no longer have a permanent address. These factors and more weigh a person down, making it difficult to get a job and a place of one’s own.

It’s time for increased activism from LGBT people and allies in this area. For homeless youth, it doesn’t simply “get better.” It has to be actively made better. This is an opportunity for the community to really pull together and provide for those in the greatest danger.

We shouldn’t stop campaigning for increased acceptance and legal protections, but we also need to expand in certain other directions. Those with the greatest means should found nonprofits and open shelters specifically catering to LGBT youth. As adoption rights are won and expanded, LGBT and allied households can adopt or at least foster homeless youth.

The issue of LGBT youth homelessness reveals that there is still much work to be done in LGBT activism. Amid television images of affluent gay couples, it can be easy to think that homophobia is nearly done; it can be disconcerting to think of how many pockets of hatred remain, and how intense they are. Youth homelessness also exposes the many cracks in the old systems of welfare for minors, but we should see this as an opportunity. With these systems’ failures, the LGBT support network can present itself as a solution to the lack of mercy in more socially Darwinian corners of American life.

 

http://dailyuw.com/archive/2014/09/24/opinion/miles-go-we-sleep-bringing-lgbt-homelessness-spotlight

More Munchies: High Maintenance, Everyone’s Favorite Marijuana Procedural, Returns

Ellen

9/24/2014   New York Magazine   By

Blichfeld and Sinclair filming in Prospect Heights last month.

A New Yorker’s apartment is his kingdom, but for many of us, it’s a solitary domain. Inviting someone into your home forces you to gaze upon it with fresh eyes, and it inevitably looks squalid: too small, too dark, shabbily decorated, oddly shaped, and weird-smelling. The default solution is to socialize externally and keep the front door closed. I can count on two hands the number of friends who’ve stepped inside my fifth-floor walk-up, and I’d sooner cry in public than ask a neighbor in for coffee.

The magic of High Maintenance, a web series on the cusp of its second—or first proper—season, is that it penetrates these fortresses, both door-shaped and ­human-shaped. The creation of married couple Katja Blichfeld (an Emmy-­winning casting director for 30 Rock) and Ben Sinclair (an actor and editor), the series debuted in late 2012 and released new installments over the following months. Its morsel-size ­episodes—each between five and 15 minutes long—and quick-twists-of-the-knife storytelling attracted a small but strong viewership, which attracted critics, who took up the kind of urgent championing that indie creators pray for. From the first season’s 13 snippets, all available for free on Vimeo, came a development deal with FX, attention from networks, and, finally, a chunk of cash from Vimeo to fund season two.

High Maintenance may also be the first indie web series that could plausibly launch its own genre. The premise of the show is simple: A weed dealer bikes around the city delivering to customers. As with emergency-room medicine and organized crime, the world of weed delivery lends itself beautifully to dramatization—there’s voyeurism, jargon, journeys across the spectrum of human need. Sinclair plays the nameless pot-dealing angel of mercy. Among the tokers introduced in season one are a cult member, a Helen Hunt–obsessed recluse, a cross-dressing dad (played by Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens), and a traumatized stand-up comic (played by Hannibal Buress). Episodes can be nibbled à la carte or swallowed whole in one sitting. Together they add up to less than two hours.

When the Vimeo deal was announced in May, it represented the company’s first foray into original programming. Vimeo had already established a service where filmmakers could set a viewing price and take 90 percent of the proceeds; Kerry Trainor, the company’s CEO, says it was just a natural step toward advancing some money to High Maintenance, a show he thinks “shows off everything we think Vimeo is in the world to do.” For Blichfeld and Sinclair, who glued together season one of High Maintenance with their own funds and through favors from friends, it represented an ideal way to keep a good thing going. Vimeo has been an extremely hands-off partner: “That’s the coolest thing about being here,” Sinclair says. “They haven’t even read a single script. They haven’t asked.”

Blichfeld: “No one’s looking over our shoulder.”

Sinclair: “No one can tell on us.”

On an afternoon in August, the crew was staked out near a conference room at Vimeo’s Chelsea headquarters to film an office segment involving a martial-arts instructor. The nameless weed guy was performing a suite of ass-kicking moves on the instructor. Sinclair, who is wary-eyed and bearded, has a vocal slur that makes him sound three beers deep at all times and an intensity that he can flick on and off like a light switch. Blichfeld directed two takes of the scene (yelling, body-slamming) while 50 or so Vimeo employees typed quietly behind her, paying no mind. The atmosphere on-set was one of giddy and furtive productivity, as though the crew were trespassing and had to move quickly before the cops rolled in. (They also took heavy advantage of the tech-office snack bounty: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, a machine that dispenses every kind of soda.) Greg Clayman, Vimeo’s general manager of audience networks, occasionally wandered from his office to watch the action.

Blichfeld and Sinclair insist the cash injection hasn’t changed the couple’s process. They’re still working with actors whom they meet through mutual friends, like Orange Is the New Black’s Yael Stone, whom they met recently at a play. They’re still writing about topics that bubble up over dinner. (Upcoming episodes will have a heavier emphasis on career.) Sinclair had some mild concerns about editing episodes in an office, rather than at home in Ditmas Park, because he prefers to edit when “fucking stoned,” but he concluded that edibles would do the trick while at Vimeo.

What distinguished season one from the anarchy of indie web TV was its visual sheen and lean, reversal-laced plotlines. The episodes could have served as a launchpad for a conventional network show, sort of like how a short video Christmas card morphed into South Park on Comedy Central. ­Blichfeld and Sinclair went on a tour of studio meetings in L.A. last year, which led to a nine-month deal with FX to develop a 30-minute version of the show. Before writing any scripts, they pitched characters (Sinclair: “A shitload”), but the network consistently gravitated toward the more recognizable stock characters. It didn’t pan out. There were other potential homes, too, like Comedy Central, but as Blichfeld puts it, “We were like, ‘Oh, shit, they’re gonna want an episode full of jokes every week when sometimes we want to do an episode about a sad shut-in that isn’t actually laugh-out-loud-funny.’ ” In the end, Vimeo’s offer won them over. Even though the deal only fronts the production costs of six episodes, they hope that charging viewers an as-yet-undetermined price for each episode will create a healthy revenue stream.

And staying indie, at any rate, will allow the show to keep doing what it does well: showcasing undervalued actors, lollygagging in corners of Brooklyn, and chronicling the everyday indignities that city dwellers—not just New Yorkers—endure. Like the houseguest who leaves a pair of filthy Q-tips on the bathroom counter, or those freaks who walk among us clipping their fingernails on the subway. “Katja’s model public citizen is Danish,” Sinclair explains. “Quiet, respectful. Hygienic. Almost anything in New York violates one of those rules.”

Also technically verboten in New York: weed. But there’s nothing shady about Sinclair’s dealer, who has all the emotional intelligence of a gifted therapist and, like any good salesman, remembers flattering details about his clients (“Where’s your lady friend, man? That redhead?”). When the new season debuts in early November, ­Blichfeld and Sinclair will find out whether their own customers mind paying for something they used to get for free—whether those first beloved episodes, maybe, were exactly the right gateway drug.

*This article appears in the September 22, 2014 issue of New York Magazine.

 

http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/more-munchies-the-return-of-high-maintenance.html