Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

READY TO BELIEVE: Free MP3 of Obama Fight Song!

Last January, while we were still on strike as members of the Writers Guild of America, my wife Jackie and I sat down in a Los Angeles coffee shop with our good friend, musician Cherish Alexander.

Before the coffee was cold, we decided, improbably given the time frame -- as a couple of striking screenwriters and a singer-composer -- to write, produce and distribute the song you'll soon hear.  It happened over a five day period and we released it immediately before the California primary.

So far, "Ready to Believe" has cumulatively had its video versions viewed close to 100,000 times on YouTube.  Plus, it's available on iTunes.  You, however, don't have to buy it in the closing days of the 2008 campaign.  We want you to download it for free and to send it to your friends.

It was written to stand-up for Barack to the Clinton campaign's charges claiming he wasn't ready for the presidency.  We find that the need for this song is as solidly right-on today as it was last February (only Clinton is on the team now and the argument's being made by John McCain).  It needed rebuttal then, and it needs rebuttal now. 

Please give it a listen.  Click the link below to just hear it.  Otherwise,right-click to actually... we'll say it again... download "Ready to Believe" for free.  Again, you have our express permission to download it and to give it away. 

Download_Ready_to_Believe_Song.mp3

Some have asked for a PDF of the actual lyrics.  Here you are:

Download_Ready_to_Believe_Lyrics.pdf

Here's the You Tube version:

Please also visit the web-page of singer-composer Cherish Alexander (http://www.cherishalexander.com/ready_to_believe/) where all the goodies are also available.  She and fellow producer Damian Valentine did an awesome job with this project as you can hear for yourself.

We know the hour is late but if you support Barack Obama, we'd urge you to join us and expose as many people as you can to this song.  Especially Obama volunteers.  We've received a good deal of email from campaign workers who thought it was like an anthemic "fight song" for the cause.  That's certainly what we intended it to be.

Remember to vote.  Even if the polls say he's ahead, you have to vote.  Take nothing for granted. 

Still fired up and ready-to-go for Obama!

Cherish Alexander, Jackie Zabel, Bryce Zabel

Movie Smackdown Comix presents... THE 9/11 FILMS

Two films about 9/11 were released in 2006 on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack.

To read the full review, go to United 93 -vs- World Trade Center.  A reader's poll has just gone up, too, so please do express your own opinion.

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! - Two Reviews... One Film... No Holds Barred!

Review and Comix by Bryce Zabel.

I'd Rather Have Been Wrong...

Hostages. It's bad enough to see the daily terrorist bombings out of Iraq, but now we have to deal with troops who are being set up for capture and God-knows-what after that. The word out of Iraq today, of course, is that U.S. aircraft dropped leaflets seeking information about three U.S. soldiers feared captured by al-Qaeda, as troops intensified the search. Of course, the al-Qaeda PR team has kindly issued a warning that the hunt will endanger the captives' lives. As if doing nothing wouldn't...   {Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubayel / AFP - Getty Images}

This is all very familiar to me because I wrote the script for this kind of terror -- for HBO, no less -- back in 2003. The pilot I wrote for them actually dealt with, among other things, the capture of American soldiers by Islamic terrorists. It also predicted the car bombings that have taken so man lives.

It all started the year before, while the war drumbeats out of Iraq were only being heard in the distance, I pitched HBO a TV series that would be set in Afghanistan at the fictional military base "Camp Big Stick." It would deal with a company of soldiers, including a group involved in psy-ops, and would be called "Hearts and Minds."

Download "Hearts & Minds" PDF

HBO works differently than the broadcast networks. Rather than order a pilot first, they ordered a "bible" about how the series would work. The executive explained the theory as being how they already knew I could write a great pilot, they wanted to know how the series would work once I had done so. Of course, it's also cheaper to order a bible than a full pilot script. So, at HBO, they would read the bible then, if they liked it, they would order the pilot script.

Iran Decides Not to Party Like It's 1979

Iran has decided to let its most recent hostages go. The 15 British sailors who've been detained in Teheran are going home. Maybe Iran has learned something from its own history. Back in 1979, Iran first took hostages, paraded them on TV, threatened to put them on trial, forced them to confess their crimes and generally behaved badly. Only instead of holding them for a couple of weeks and moving on, back then they held them for exactly 444 days.

Monday, November 19, 1979

The Time magazine above, "Blackmailing the U.S." is the first issue to come out in the immediate aftermath of the Iranian hostage crisis which basically dragged on for 14 months, cost Jimmy Carter his presidency, and gave it to Ronald Reagan. Remember that it ended literally on the day Reagan took office and the Iranians knew either the hostages came home or the missiles started flying. Here's how the article began:

It was an ugly, shocking image of innocence and impotence, of tyranny and terror, of madness and mob rule. Blindfolded and bound, employees of the U.S. embassy in Tehran were paraded last week before vengeful crowds while their youthful captors gloated and jeered.

On that gray Sunday morning when 60 Americans were imprisoned by their Iranian student captors, the world changed. President Carter said at the beginning that "These last two days have been the worst I've had." Well, they didn't get better. Carter was seen as weak already, and this just made things seem even clearer to the public.

As frustration about the plight of the hostages increased, there was a sense that the Administration should do something —anything—to free them. The White House, for sound tactical and strategic reasons, rejected the military options. There were demands for the mass deportation of the 50,000 Iranian students in the U.S.—or at least those who had taken advantage of their visas to picket and demonstrate against the U.S. That was also rejected, since it would blatantly violate U.S. immigration laws. Instead, as it has had to do in a number of other recent crises, the Administration decided on restraint.

Around the U.S. though, there was the beginning of push-back. Iranian students were here in the U.S. in large numbers as the article indicated above, and they were largely out protesting against our country for letting the hated Shah of Iran in for medical treatment.

In New York City, at the close of an Iranian student demonstration, a Columbia University undergraduate shouted: "We're gonna ship you back, and you aren't gonna like it! No more booze. No more Big Macs. No more rock music. No more television. No more sex. You're gonna get on that plane at Kennedy, and when you get off in Tehran, you're gonna be back in the 13th century. How you gonna like that?" The Iranians, who stared back glumly, did not respond.

This situation was a key illustration of how the terrorism game was set up to work. One of the Iranian hostage-taking "students" was quoted in Time saying: "If the Marines don't shoot, we take over. If they do, we have our martyr. Either way, we win." Then there was the White House aide who talked like a Pentagon war gamer: "It's a classic case of gaming versus an irrational opponent. As the irrationality approaches 100%, your ability to game nears zero."

Not that I think the current leader of Iran is any more rational than Khomeini or the students were, the optimism that was felt three decades ago actually was warranted this time. Here's how it played in 1979.

Still, by week's end the Administration was feeling a bit more hopeful about the situation. Having avoided any sort of response that might have worked to the disadvantage of the hostages, the U.S. was increasingly counting on growing pressure from the international community and from Iran's own middle class to exert some influence on the religious leaders and the students. One goal of the American diplomatic strategy was to isolate Iran and make it appear as an irrational outlaw in world opinion.

I'm not sure if the Iranian hostage crisis quite rises to the "Where Were You?" level of 9/11, JFK or Challenger, but I have vivid memories. I was the weekend anchor at KVOA-TV in Tucson, Arizona and I remember reading the first wire copy, and then doing the update on the news. I worked the late shift in those days, and I also remember coming back and watching that new ABC late-night show, "America Held Hostage" with some guy named Ted Koppel who had even bigger hair than I did back then.

Yes, the times they were really changing. Time really nailed it with the very last two sentences of their article, capturing the wave of the future. Worth reading again.

However the embassy affair ends, it is a sharp reminder of the degree to which the traditional rules of international conduct can no longer be taken for granted. The world is changing; the unpredictable is becoming the commonplace.

Anyway, that's how they reported it some 28 years ago during the grand-daddy of all hostage crises.

Newsweek #1: When Roosevelt & Hitler Came to Power

I have a strange hobby. Other people collect coins, stamps, comic books, Beanie babies, you name it. I collect classic issues of Time and Newsweek magazines. This is one of the best...

74 years ago when this magazine hit the newstands, it was called Vol. I , No. 1. The exact day of release was February 17, 1933. 

The issue, all 32 pages of it, could be had for a dime, but you could get it discounted for a year's subscription at $4.  You'll also notice it was called "News-Week", not Newsweek as we know it now.

Although both Time and Newsweek have become virtually indistinguishable to the average reader these days, both had a different cover philosophy when they started.  Originally, Time was always that red-border with the famous person inside (at the beginning, always a photo).  Newsweek, in contrast, was about the week in news.  On this first cover, for example, you'll see seven pictures, each one representing a different day of the week.  Monday started off with a speech by Adolf Hitler before 15,000 in Berlin's Sports Palace where he declared "the German nation must be built up from the ground anew."   On Wednesday, for example, Franklin Roosevelt's election in the electoral college was certified by Congress. Clearly, these were monumental times for this new magazine: Hoover was out of office this week, Roosevelt was in -- and across the Atlantic, the Nazis were consolidating their grip.

What you won't find inside is a single word about how this is a new magazine.  It pretty much just hits the ground running.  The so-called "Front Page" -- page one -- has this headline: "Easing Burdens of Debut and Foreclosure."  The first words Newsweek ever wrote are as follows:

The spectre of the auctioneer stalks throughout the land, haunting debtors in city, town and country.  Next to life itself, a home is man's most prized possession.  To save it, rugged individualism has grown gregarious, and harried citizens are banding against foreclosure.  Some are violent, grimly taking the law into their own hands.

The last word in this issue, by the way, was an article about Islam, in Turkey, where Arabic had just been officially banned.

Something I found particularly interesting in this issue, however, was commentary on the subject of democracy -- in Germany where it was under attack by Hitler, and in the United States where it was far less important than surviving the Great Depression.

The article, "A Blank Check for Roosevelt: Congress Proposes, Weighs, Then Delays Grant of Extraordinary Powers to the Next President", actually begins with a quote from Alfred E. Smith, delivered in New York the previous week. It's a whopper:

"In this depression we are in a state of war. The only thing to do now is to lay aside statutes, and do what a Democracy must do when it fights. During the World War we wrapped the Constitution of the United States in a piece of paper, put it on the shelf and left it there until the war was over."

That's quite a statement. The one that followed by James M. Cox a few days later hit the same point.

"We are at war with forces that threaten to destroy our civilization. We are a democracy. While we reflect on its virtues, it has many shortcomings. One is that in time of stress it cannot re-adjust to conditions as rapidly as necessary."

Meanwhile, over in Germany, the newly appointed Chancellor Adolf Hitler was singing a similar tune, showing up for that Sports Arena rally in his brown Nazi uniform, "banked by blazing Nazi banners." He argued for a "break" with a "rotten brand of Democracy" and asked the German nation to "give us four years' time and then pass your judgment." Most people assumed this meant that even if the elections went badly, Hitler and his cabinet would cling to power.

Newsweek chose to print a baby picture of Hitler (it's there on the left) on its photo page which, honestly, is a very strange editorial choice. It also filed a gossipy little piece about "Hitler and Frau Wagner Coupled in Romance."

But anyhow, one of Frau Wagner's relatives says the family wouldn't be surprised to see Adolf and Winifred married "at some later date."

It's an odd read, like "Entertainment Tonight" covering the rise of fascism with bubbly enthusiasm.

Still, there's a lot of content in this magazine, crammed into its slender first volume. As a time capsule into the way we were, it's a great read.

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MOVIE SMACKDOWN! | Children of Men (2006) -vs- 28 Days Later (2003)

The Smackdown. The apocalypse has gone post(al) in both of these films set in England. The action in both starts in London then moves to the country where the living is not easier. In both of these sci-fi thrillers, man's command of science and control over his environment seems to have brought with it some terrifying and unexpected consequences.

"I read that book What To Expect When You're Expecting...twice...and none of this was in it!"

The Challenger. Just spreading now to theaters nationwide is CHILDREN OF MEN based on a book I actually read when it was first published by P.D. James. I found its central premise thrilling then, that mankind suddenly and completely goes infertile. I found the idea that if there are no people left in a few years that the sheer sadness that no one will ever hear Mozart or read Shakespeare again to be almost overwhelming. In the hands of director Alfonso Cuaron, this intellectual idea becomes gritty, dangerous and even more provocative. Clive Owen has been cast in one of his best roles here as Theo -- his face seems to register all the injustice and pain with a resignation to keep on living anyway finally giving way to a resignation to give it all up in a way that his life will have mattered.

"When I said that being a bike messenger was a great way to meet people, this was not what I had in mind."

The Defending Champion. While it's not impossible to think that infertility could bedevil mankind, I'm not particularly worried that 28 DAYS LATER premise will come to pass. This film basically has animal activists setting some lab animals free from their cages only to set loose a "rage" virus that transmits to humans. It turns into a zombie movie then, but probably the best one I've ever seen. And I was blown away by how awesome the "empty city" shots of London were when Jim (Cillian Davis) first realizes that something has gone wildly and insanely wrong.

The Scorecard. Both of these films are structured similarly: the opening in London, important mission of survival takes them into the country, fighting off zombies or immigrants who stand in their way, giving us a black woman as a main character who seems to be the toughest of the bunch, and ending with a sense of small hope for society after scaring the crap out of us along the way. Both were directed so intensely that they deliver their particular apocalyse believably and credibly. This is a close one. CHILDREN OF MEN, however, is a film that I could actually talk my wife into seeing while 28 DAYS LATER was dismissed by her as a genre movie she had no interest in seeing. And she had a point. Although the truth is CHILDREN OF MEN is actually scarier because it feels like a lot of it could come to pass if we're not careful.

The Decision. Years from now, CHILDREN OF MEN is going to be included in the group of films that include BLADE RUNNER. 28 DAYS LATER, though, is going to be compared to films like DAWN OF THE DEAD. Despite their structural similarities, this is still apples and oranges. I just hope there will be humans alive to listen to Mozart, read Shakespeare and watch CHILDREN OF MEN. It's a close decision on points...

{To read more of these MOVIE SMACKDOWN reviews, please CLICK HERE.}

Ten Thoughts Inspired by the Saddam Deathwatch

1) Most days I'm opposed to the death penalty, but not this time.

2) The CNN anchor who asked the reporter, "How does this work? Do they just take him out back and kick over a milk crate or what?" really should be fired.

3) Why did George Bush Senior always mispronounce his name? Wasn't there somebody in the White House to correct him?

4) As far as mass murderers go, he looked better with the beard.

5) People who are worried that somehow Iraq will become more violent because he was executed are so out of touch with reality they should be ashamed of themselves.

6) It's possible to believe that the Iraq War has been a grand misadventure and still be relieved this scumbag got what he deserved.

7) Man, those Iraqis don't waste time, do they?

8) If he was a dictator for 35 years, then why do they keep showing that stupid picture of him with the Rocky Balboa hat and the rifle? Did they think it was more dignified than, say, the one where he was pulled out of the spider-hole with a beard longer than Moses, or the jail photos where he was in his underpants?

9) His two sons were screwed up beyond belief but how could they not have been? Did they go to their own deaths thinking he was a great dad?

10) It's such a drag for good old Gerald Ford, a decent man who believed in mercy enough that he pardoned Richard Nixon, that he have his own death associated forever with Saddam Hussein because they happened at the same time. I guess the same goes for James Brown. That just really sucks.

If It Shoots Like a Duck...

There's a lot of continuing discussion about whether what's happening in Iraq can be called a "Civil War" or not, but not at the Los Angeles Times. Apparently -- despite having their newsroom turned upside down by budget cutbacks and layoffs -- somebody has boldly decided to just call it like it is. In their opening sentence of today's article, the Times reports:

"Iraq's civil war worsened Friday as Shiite and Sunni Arabs engaged in retaliatory attacks after coordinated car bombings that killed more than 200 people in a Shiite neighborhood the day before."

The editors over at The Los Angeles Times are ahead of the curve on this because, as of Friday, reporters on "Washington Week in Review" were still dancing around the issue saying that if things kept up like this, well, maybe it would be a civil war or could turn into a civil war. Even in Bill O'Reilly's "No Spin Zone", guest host John Kasich didn't quite say it although both of his guests said that, yes, you'd have to be brain dead not to realize Iraq is having a civil war. But they were guests. To the best of my knowledge, none of the evening newscasts last week out-and-out called what's going on a "Civil War."

Only a few hours ago, Reuters was reporting that the UN envoy to Iraq was warning about "a slide into civil war." See? Nobody quite can bring themselves to say it outright.

For a year or more now, the poobahs and pundits of the Potomac have been saying that if the situation turned into a civil war in Iraq, it would make it difficult to maintain American troops in the middle of it. So designating something a civil war spins in a "get out now" direction. Like everything else in America, it seems, even calling something what it looks like is political.

I just have one question: If it is a civil war, then this guy Muqtada Sadr who's seen above and to the left is the closest thing to Jefferson Davis, I guess, but where, oh where, is Iraq's Abraham Lincoln?

Return to Germany

Guten Tag Meine Freunde!

150 years ago, my great-great-great grandparents left a town about 100 miles east of Berlin for a better life in the United States. Like a lot of Americans whose ancestors immigrated to this country, I never really gave much thought to where I came from. We're all about living in the present and moving on. When people asked where my family was from, my answer was always "Oregon."

Then I got invited to Germany last month to work with some outstanding German TV writers, producers and executives. And as I started packing, I started remembering. Hadn't my grandparents told me their parents spoke German? In fact, what's up with my last name -- Zabel -- isn't there a German bicyclist who spent years almost catching Lance Armstrong named Erik Zabel? Where was that book somebody had sent me years ago, something called "The Heritage of the Zabel Families in Germany & America"? Didn't it tell me that my grandfather who I always knew as John Zabel was actually Johannes?

So a casual trip to work with some other TV writers turned into something else for me. Not exactly a "roots tour" but something more than a one-week gig in a foreign country. 

As it turns out, the Zabels that my family came from started out in the mixed German-Polish village of Doelitz which was in Pommerania, an area that is now just barely in Poland but has also been Prussia or Germany, depending on who's drawing the borders. It lies along the Baltic Sea, a land that is very flat and considered only suitable as average farmland. The area was devastated three times: by the 30 Year's War in the 1600s, by Frederick the Great in the 1700s, and by Napoleon in the 1800s. So it's really no mystery why so many Pommeranians decided to pack their bags and seek a new life elsewhere. Many headed for the United States. Mine did in 1856.

Okay, enough history lesson. My wife, Jackie, came with me on this latest trip and airline schedules dictated we fly into Munich instead of Berlin. So we never got to see where all these relatives came from but we definitely got closer than I've ever been before.

Anyway, Jackie and I decided to add a little touring to the front and back of the work assignment. We got to Munich a few days after Oktoberfest, toured around the various "must-see" sights, went into the Alps for a day, then trained up to Cologne for the German TV work, then a final day or so in Frankfurt.

The Hills Were Alive
Neuschwanstein Castle

By the way, check out that weather. It was like we were still in Southern California when we arrived. Warm, clear, perfect. The unfortunate but enjoyable Upside of Global Warming! So we took advantage and went touristing to the Olympic Park, castles, museums, beer gardens, farmer's markets. Most of the time it was shirtsleeve weather. It cooled off a little when we got to Cologne.

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, we have left no international incidents in our wake, but on on our first night in Munich we almost started one. We got on a subway and when the doors closed we realized that virtually everyone else had just gotten off and we were the only passengers! At the next stop, we tried to get off, but the doors were locked! Then the train went into a dark tunnel and started to slow down. It was like the beginning to a horror film. I ended up pulling the emergency alarm and after a few minutes a man came back and told us to sit tight (well, actually, he said something else and it was in German and the way he shook his head made me suspect profanity was used). I guess the train was scheduled to turn around and everyone who takes the subway regularly knows this. It all turned out okay, but we definitely got smarter about things as we went on.

We actually liked the idea that for nearly two weeks we had no personal car and no need for one. We took the subway or a train everywhere we went, supplemented by a taxi here and there. It was a blast. We met a lot of locals that way and even a couple of Americans who were married to Germans who introduced themselves. The picture below is the closest I came to driving on the autobahn!

Outside the Olympic Park, Munich

Food-wise, Jackie loved all the pastries that are everywhere, and I liked the chance to start the morning with a bratwurst from a fast-food place. We also enjoyed getting hot chestnuts on the streets of Munich (which we initially surmised were round sausages!). Plus, I had an awesome goose dinner one night in Cologne. After I was done, a second plate was brought out with the rest of the goose that they'd been keeping hot until we were done with the first part of the meal.  And, of course, the Germans know how to brew a fine glass of beer, so there's always that.There also seems to be a lot of smoking going on in Germany, it's like the default has been reversed from the U.S. where smokers are segregated.

The work was very fun, working for a company that facilitates interaction between U.S. writers and international clients. The idea here was to share some of the tricks of the trade the U.S. television industry has learned in order to crank out orders of 22 episodes a season at a factory-like pace. More on that in future posts, I'd imagine. Let me just say that if anything is holding back German television it's not the energy, creativity or ideas of their writers but the structure of their system which doesn't allow them to work together often enough to achieve the greatness they're capable of. That seems to be changing. Everybody I met was extremely bright, talented and motivated to make a better product so the chances are they will, soon.

My bottom line is that Germany seems to be a place that is on the move -- intellectually, politically and even, it seems, in the world of TV and film. It works better than most European countries on many levels, the people I met were very friendly and warm, and it's a trip I'd be glad to have taken even if I didn't feel that family tree connection. Sehr gut.

Aufwiedersehen und bis bald!

The Real Question

Readers of For What It's Worth know that several days before the election, I predicted the defeat of Joe Lieberman by Ned Lamont in Connecticut. So I'm certainly not surprised at all, and as a believer that the status quo needs to get kicked in the ass from time-to-time, I'm actually okay with the change. Still, since everybody wants to make this about Lieberman's Iraq record, Lamont's victory may be a perfect time to ask what the replacement policy is going to be.

Terrorism isn't going away... what's the plan?
{photo by Blackwater Security}

In today's Slate, editor Jacob Weisberg writes in an article called "Dead with Ned". Weisberg thinks if the Democrats hard-core activists don't start distinguishing between a failed Iraq policy and the real need to get our act together over the larger issue of terror that they will sink their party's electoral prospects just at the time when they look like they could make major gains.

The problem for the Democrats is that the anti-Lieberman insurgents go far beyond simply opposing Bush's faulty rationale for the war, his dishonest argumentation for it, and his incompetent execution of it. Many of them appear not to take the wider, global battle against Islamic fanaticism seriously. They see Iraq purely as a symptom of a cynical and politicized right-wing response to Sept. 11, as opposed to a tragic misstep in a bigger conflict. Substantively, this view indicates a fundamental misapprehension of the problem of terrorism.

This hits home with me because I'm a Democrat who has long felt that hating Bush is not a policy. So many of my fellow Democrats ridicule Bush for saying that Iraq was related to 9/11. Fair enough. Then it follows that opposing the Iraq war is not a plan for dealing with global terrorism, particularly of the Islamic fundamentalist fanatic variety in a time when their largest sponsor is going nuclear.

I want to know that Democrats who hate Bush and want to leave Iraq ASAP also have an understanding about the nature of terror and Islamic militants' preference to target civilians. When people like Michael Moore so smugly argue that, well, we should get Osama since he did 9/11 to us, it just seems so incredibly glib. Yes, we should (and we are, in fact, still trying) but what else should we be doing? I want Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to convince me that it's safe to vote for their party because they have my back.

I am not interested in getting rid of George Bush and hiring Neville Chamberlain. That needs to be understood by anybody who wants my vote.