This week, I’ve been spending entirely too much time working on a Power Point presentation for WILL’s “Show Me a Story” initiative. It’s a six-week program in which we take a group of kids from a local boys & girls club through various aspects of storytelling, culminating in the videotaping and possible broadcast of their finished performance.

Anyhow, next week I’m giving a presentation about movie and TV production techniques, with specific emphases on green screen technology (which we’ll be using in lieu of constructed sets) and nonlinear storytelling (in other words, shooting scenes out of chronological order). That may sound dry, but the actual Power Point is pretty fun, with behind-the-scenes video clips, animated graphics (including a whooshing Flash Gordon rocketship) and a silly joke involving what happens when you put Shrek in front of a green screen.

I was particularly happy with the series of graphics I cobbled together to illustrate how a story is shot out of order. It’s your typical boy-meets-girl, dragon-kidnaps-girl, boy-defeats-dragon tale, told entirely through clip art cribbed from Power Point. And this one, in which the Dragon pines for the Princess, amused me so much I wanted to share it.

Dave General

Dave Doctor Who

Oh my gosh, the media is a-buzzin’ about the final episode of The Sopranos. You’d almost think it was some universal cultural touchstone instead of a niche TV show on a pay cable channel. (A bit of perspective: at its height in 2002, the show peaked at 13.4 million viewers, approximately as many as the average number of folks who watched Extreme Makeover: Home Edition during the 2006-07 season. By the time the final run of episodes began this April, it was down to 7.7 million, about the same number of viewers as Wife Swap.)

Many of the people who actually have an opinion regarding The Sopranos are furious about the final scene of that last episode. An abrupt cut to black left them forever wondering whether Tony Soprano was alive or dead; in that moment, he became Schrodinger’s Mobster. And fans are not happy about being left hanging.

I say, welcome to the club.

The history of TV drama is punctuated with hanging ellipses. Whether by design or–more frequently–sudden cancellation, there are scores of series which lack proper closure. I’ll never know whether Agent Cooper was able to overcome the malign influence of the demonic Bob (Twin Peaks), whether the Resistance finally threw off the yoke of the Visitors (V), or whether Blake’s 7 survived their final shootout with the Federation (Blake’s 7, natch). And yes, I sometimes do lie awake at night thinking about it.

At least Sopranos viewers can take solace in knowing that the ambiguous ending of their series was intentional, and not merely the product of a last, desperate attempt to create enough buzz to gain a pickup for the fall season. With that, it has more in common with the series finale of the vampire drama Angel, which left its bloodied, battered demon fighters about to face a no-win throwdown against the assembled hordes of evil.

In both cases, it seems that ambiguity is the point. Life goes on, or it doesn’t. To find out which, you’ll have to open the Schrodinger’s box inside your own imagination.

Dave TV

Beware the Weeping Angel. Don’t blink; blink and you’re dead. Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and don’t blink. Good luck!

Dave Doctor Who

Alabama Senator Charles Bishop punched an opponent in the head, and Alabama Public Television caught the whole thing on tape.

Honestly, I’d prefer this sort of thing to all that phony “the honorable gentleman from Missouri” dialogue we hear on C-SPAN.

Dave Weird

My taste in women runs much closer to the readers of AfterEllen.com than the editors of Maxim.

Dave General

Yesterday, Vic and I went on one of our regular walks around campus. As I don’t get much exercise outside of mowing the lawn every week or so, this is our way of keeping me fit (kinda) and trim (mostly).

We set out from the parking lot at WILL-TV and walked down Goodwin Avenue. Just after crossing Green Street, we were startled when a student on a bike came pedaling up. The conversation went something like this:

Him: “Excuse me, could you help me out? I lost my I-Card and I don’t have enough money to get back to Melrose.” (The I-Card is the University of Illinois’ ID card. Students can use it as an ATM or debit card.)

Me: “Melrose?” (Thought bubble: Is there a city named Melrose? Does he want me to give him a ride?)

Vic: “He means the Melrose Apartments.”

Me: “Oh.”

(pause)

Me: “But you have a bike!”

Him: Blah, blah…some lame excuse there being no sidewalks on Lincoln Avenue and not wanting to get hit. I’d really stopped listening by this point.

Me: (Speechless. Thought bubble: “But you have a BIKE!”)

Vic: “I’m not sure we even have a dollar on us.”

Me: (Recalling that I in fact have four or five singles in my wallet.) “Nope. Sorry.”

And so we went on. I don’t know what happened to the kid on the bike. For all I know, he’s still pedaling around campus like some two-wheeled Flying Dutchman.

But here’s the thing. Vic and I are two fortysomethings who regularly take walks much further than the distance between Goodwin & Green and the Melrose Apartments. And this kid was not only half our age and presumably fit enough, but…

HE HAD A BIKE.

Like this.

Possibly not this one.

Anyhow, at the risk of going off the deep end, here is a map I compiled of the area:

The arrow numbered “1″ is where we met Mr. Bike. The arrow numbered “2″ is the location of the Melrose Apartments. The purple line is the route that Vic and I take around campus.

Pop geography quiz. Question #1: You are a twentysomething male on a Barbie bicycle. You have to travel 1.5 miles to your apartment complex, but you have lost your debit card, your wallet, your spare change and all your friends. You are concerned about the lack of sidewalks and bike paths on Lincoln Avenue, even though it’s the middle of a sunny afternoon. Do you:

• a) Ride your bike up Lincoln Avenue, taking care to observe the rules of the road and watch out for traffic?
• b) Ride your bike until you reach Lincoln Avenue, then hop off and walk it the rest of the way?
• c) Find an alternate route that avoids Lincoln Avenue, say a back street such as Goodwin?
• d) Ride in the opposite direction, hoping to hit up people twice your age for spare change like a velocipeding panhandler?

Write your answer in the form of a question, then send it to me. I’ll get back to you with your test results. Please remember to include a dollar for handling costs.

Updated: By the way, I’ve since driven down Lincoln Avenue and noted that there are, in fact, sidewalks all the way down both sides of the street. So he was just a lying panhandler on wheels.

Dave Rant

As you may have surmised by now, I like the word “fuck.” It rolls off the tongue nicely. It’s versatile. It’s so overused that it’s all but lost its original meaning and serves as a handy intensifier. I’ve eloquently argued against those who would strike it from our national vocabulary.

Yesterday, a major blow was struck against the government appointed nannies who want to see all of television limited only to what can be appreciated by the youngest and most sensitive of viewers. The Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals smacked down the FCC’s indecency rulings over “fleeting expletives” used during the Billboard Music Awards 2002 and 2003 broadcasts. Jeff Jarvis does a better job dissecting it than I could. It’s only the first step in returning some semblance of sanity to the regulation of over-the-air free speech, but at least it is a first step.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin released a statement in which he opined:

If we can’t restrict the use of the words “fuck” and “shit” during prime time, Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want.

That’s true. It’ll be almost like they’re protected by some sort of bill.

Dave TV

Okay, turns out that Edward James Olmos knew what he was talking about when he spoke out of turn. Battlestar Galactica will indeed come to an end after the upcoming fourth season. And again, I’m good with that. Television history is littered with the broken debris of series that never manage to reach their promised end point, so it’s good to know that this one will have an opportunity to achieve proper closure.

Dave Sci-Fi