Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

At Least They Spelled My Name Right...

Google sent me an alert this morning that my name was in the New York Times.  It's an article called "World Falls for American Media, Even as It Sours on America" which pretty much explains the gist of the whole thing.  The author, Tim Arango, had called me up a few months ago to talk about such matters, based on the fact that I was chairman/CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences when 9/11 hit.  He was interested in the fact that I'd attended those high-level Hollywood meetings that were called by Karl Rove in the immediate blow-back from the attacks. 

I'm not a big Karl Rove fan but, at the time, there was nothing insidious about the meetings.  After 9/11, everybody wanted to talk about what they could do to help.  Hollywood knows how to communicate and a lot of people out here were wondering if there was a piece of that in a solution.

In any case, here's my bit from the article:

Bryce Zabel, a television producer who was chairman of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at the time and a participant in the 2001 meetings with the White House, argued then that the United States needed to regard itself like a consumer brand.

“Products like Coca-Cola are far more effectively branded around the globe than the United States itself,” he wrote in a memo that was circulated around Hollywood. “The American entertainment and communications industry has the technological and creative expertise to improve relations between our country and the rest of the world."

It seems like a perfectly fine quote, I think, except for the context which may cause some people to think I was advocating the dreaded "P" word, or propaganda.  So, for the record, I most emphatically was not doing that.

My point then, and now, is simply that while every freaking corporate enterprise in the entire damn world spends time, money and effort on their "brand," the United States of America, arguably one of the potentially strongest brands on the planet, acts as if it's an irrelevant concept for us.

Personally, I think we have taken a massive step forward in "re-branding" America by our election of Barack Obama.  Let's hope so.

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.

The Bigger the Lie...

My friend, Jay Amicarella, sent this out on September 11. Prepare to be infuriated. He writes:

I've been stewing about this off and on for a couple weeks. My incredibly social daughter has friends at all the schools around here, and she and a guy she pals with met a pair of exchange students staying at a friend's house -- one young guy from Lebanon, another from Afghanistan.  She brought them home one night with some other kids, and I liked them right off, so polite, but also funny and very intelligent.

She met them again a week or so later, when a bunch of the kids got together at another friend's house to hang and watch the movie "Borat." The film prompted one of the exchange students to remark that the Jews are responsible for 9/11.  The other exchanger calmly agreed, like it was common knowledge. The U.S. kids were shocked into silence, until someone asked "how?" The exchange students explained how the World Trade Center employs over 3,000 Jews and, on the morning of 9/11, every single one of them called in sick. 

Naturally, this raised a rather brisk discussion, as my daughter tells it, but the exchange kids stuck to their guns, amused at how little American kids know about their own country.  Apparently, this tale is common in the Middle East.  My daughter and I talked about this, and I asked her not to hate them.  She said she didn't; because she still couldn't believe that stuff came out of their mouths.

You would think that 9/11 would be a straightforward story and that if you're going to claim that all 3,000 Jews stayed home and called in sick that there is a burden of proof involved in that claim. And that, 9/11 being one extremely well-reported story by reporters from all over the world, someone would have turned up the evidence for that one. It's not that hard to check out if it really happened, right?

I'd like to hear them explain how this conspiracy worked. Apparently it must have been set up ahead of time, right, so these 3,000 people would know to stay home. And yet no one has talked in all this time. That's JFK times 100 as far as cover-ups must go.

I guess when you want to believe in hate, you don't need evidence and you get to reverse the burden of proof and smugly assume that it is up to someone else to disprove every crazy thought you've had.

In my opinion, these smug "exchange" students  and their ridiculous anti-Semitism can be exchanged back to where they came from, the sooner the better. And these were the "polite" ones...

Try to Remember (That Kind of September)

It's Tuesday, September 11th again. This is the first anniversary of that day that has fallen, like the original, on a Tuesday. So, let's take a moment and remember that 2,974 died that day. Let's never forget them or the families and friends who have felt their loss every day since.

So much has happened since that awful September morning, but those images are seared into our brains. I had saved these into my computer back then and they rock me back on my heels as much today as then, maybe even more so.

Where were you? Do you remember how you felt? I think this is the ultimate "where were you day?" There are only a few others that get close: JFK's assassination for my generation, Pearl Harbor for my parents. In the positive memory category, there's the Moon Landing. Somewhere below all of these -- because they were less universal -- you have the O.J. verdict and the John Lennon murder.

I was on a morning walk/jog with my friend Zach. We go out early, around 6:00a, P.S.T. I remember when we started that Zach has driven to my place that day and he'd just heard something on the news about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. But what he'd heard was that it was a light plane, some kind of macabre accident. We shrugged it off and headed out.

About forty minutes later, we were on our way up the hill that leads to my house and my wife raced our car up. She said that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, that it was a big one. She usually doesn't give orders. This time she said, "Get in the car." We did.

Watching the news was awful. When somebody mentioned that people were jumping out of the Towers it seemed impossible. I remember literally shivering at that news. Jumping out of the World Trade Center! Jesus...

I simply was not prepared when the first Tower went down. Buildings don't fall down unless we dynamite them. This was impossible. Seeing the people running, covered in the white dust. It wasn't long before the second one came down. It felt like Armageddon. A memory that strikes me as completely odd and inappropriate now is that the school which our kids attended did not cancel classes but still asked that the kids come in. So we got our kids in, they watched TV in the classrooms until the first tower fell down and then we just went and got them and brought them home. Then we all watched TV together. My kids were pretty young and I don't think they quite got it or, if they did, they didn't want to think about it. I remember them giving my wife and me grief about "obsessing" about it. Even today, they don't seem disposed to talk at length about it.

I'll just say this straight out. When I saw what had happened, I didn't for a second think it was anything except something that had been masterminded by Islamic terrorists. I just knew. It was obvious. I also knew we were at war.

Nobody had to tell me this was like Pearl Harbor. We knew. But it was worse. It was on American soil and it was aimed specifically against innocent civilians.

Then the Pentagon got hit, too. And there was the news about United 93. When it crashed, my mind told me that we'd had to shoot it down. The true story of the heroism of the passengers wasn't obvious right away.

It was a terrible, awful, unforgettable day. Americans may disagree on the best method for fighting terrorism, but make no mistake we have to fight it. The kind of people who did this haven't given up. They're planning the next one, and they want it to be even bigger and bloodier. Just listen to what Osama (or Usama) has to say in his latest video postcard. Given the scope of 9/11, you can only imagine the nightmare that he and his ilk are contemplating. It's a hard thing to accept but there are people in the world who simply want to see you and your family dead.

Please leave your own memories in the comment section. It's all way too important to forget and, with five years, maybe you have a different perspective now than you did then.

I'm really tired of the partisan bickering that defines the aftermath of this sad event, but for one day, can we all just remember this reality?

2,973 died. Let's never forget that.

{PHOTOS: I saved these at 9/11 and I don't remember where they came from. If anyone knows, please let me know so I can give proper credit to the photographer or news organization.}

For a Movie Smackdown review of "World Trade Center" versus "United 93," please CLICK HERE.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007) -vs- Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

Two Films -- One Review -- No Holds Barred.
For more film-on-film reviews, visit MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

The Smackdown. Sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, or as Bruce Willis's John McLane explains in "Live Free or Die Hard," he's that guy who's just crazy enough to do what no one else will do, and so he does it because there's no other choice. It's pretty much the same philosophy that Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs brought to the "Lethal Weapon" franchise. Both "Die Hard" (1988) and "Lethal Weapon" (1987) ushered in that late 80s zeitgeist of the cop, pushed to his limits, who is willing to fight the bad guys by being as bad as he needs to be. Both franchises have made it to a #4 installment. This is a dangerous time for these kinds of movies. The actors are aging out of their prime, the jokes are funny now through repetition not originality, and the action is expected and often perfunctory. So we put both of them in our Smackdown ring together and let them fight each other. Two Heroes, One Review, No Ties...

"Listen, before we do this thing, do you think these people are running this operation with Windows because, well, Microsoft's not really my thing, you know."

The Challenger. John McLane has had the time since 1988 to grow into a world-weary cop who knows that no matter how many times he saves the world he's never going to get a proper thank you. "Live Free or Die Hard" has a plot that is about a disgruntled hacker causing a "fire sale" where all the systems in America crash simultaneously. On paper that probably looks a little forced, but in execution it works. It works because it sets up a series of increasingly violent and spectacular action sequences, but it also works because it gives a chance for Bruce Willis to hang out for a movie with Justin Long who's currently so much fun in those Apple commercials. There's nothing in this film that's actually real but Willis plays it straight, Long is charming, and it's fun because you really start to care about these two.

"Riggs, I gotta tell ya, I really, truly, honestly am getting too old for this shit, okay?"

The Defending Champion. Martin Riggs also grew up a little since his debut in the first film as a cop in the middle of  nervous breakdown, to the point that in this last iteration, he was more a fearless risk taker than somebody who was commitable. In "Lethal Weapon 4," the franchise still has the same buddy-cop formula with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover and, so, it has a feeling of familiarity which can be good and bad. But even Joe Pesci is back. He was a revelation in "Lethal Weapon 2" and deserved an Oscar but, by this film, he's just supporting cast with a schtick we've come to like and expect. The new energy comes from Chris Rock and he delivers a jolt of fun that the film uses to great effect. Did I mention that Jonathan Lemkin and Shane Black wrote a nicely plotted script about Chinese gangsters who smuggle peasants into the U.S. and sell them into slavery? It almost doesn't matter because it's really only about setting up the action sequences.

The Scorecard. Now that we are in the digital age, a copy of something can be identical to the original on a technical level. But in the age of analog videotape, each copy lost a little something in quality. And a copy of a copy really started to show its degradation. But a copy of a copy of a copy, well, forget about it. This is the challenge. Even though both these films are made possible by the digital effects tsunami we're living in, the story-telling is still in the analog age, and that "generational quality loss" is a real danger.

Bruce Willis plays John McLane without hair in "Live Free or Die Hard" and that choice tells us something. It means that the actor is willing to acknowledge his own aging, and that, by extension, he has to play the character as having done the same thing. In the same way that "Rocky Balboa" completely worked for Sly Stallone and became, in my view, the best sequel of that franchise, this choice works for "Die Hard." This is not to argue that "Live Free or Die Hard" is the equal or superior of the original "Die Hard" because it is not. That first time out was so fresh, and the scale was reasonable enough to feel real jeopardy. If there is a problem with "Live Free or Die Hard," it is that the producers have let it grow outside the margins a bit too much. Having John McLane in a semi-truck take down an Air Force jet fighter is fun on one level, but it also means we have created a superman who cannot really be stopped by anything.

"Lethal Weapon 4" had the same problem. It, too, had all the technical skills of the first three films in the series and the action scenes were equally outrageous, absurd and beautifully executed. But while Willis gave a little more heart to McLane, Gibson seemed to be trying to re-capture the glory days of Riggs and everything felt like a shadow.

Two high-octane action franchises -- two cop heroes who will risk anything -- one winner:

The Decision.  "Lethal Weapon 4" had its supporters and fans, but it also was showing its age, enough so that somehow the actors, producers and studio all must have known that their time was over and they were lucky to make one last film that wasn't an embarrassment. In contrast, the team behind "Live Free or Die Hard" has, like "Rocky Balboa," let the franchise show its character's life arc. It's the reason that Bruce Willis and Justin Long work so well together -- Willis is analog and Long is digital -- they have real issues. It's possible to actually see a "Die Hard 5" some day, although if they do it, they ought to go back to their roots and scale the action down to something like that first office building, or else Bruce Willis will have to stop nuclear war by riding a bomb like Slim Pickens. In any case, one film is running out of gas in this Smackdown and the other is picking up steam, and the decision goes to the new champion, in the theaters now, and that's "Live Free or Die Hard."

Studio 60: My Own Personal Flashback in a Flashback

What is the right way to deal with a tragedy like 9/11 when you're doing a comedy show? When can you get back to business? How do you strike the right tone?

These are the questions that Aaron Sorkin wrote about in last night's "Studio 60" and they're also ones I faced back in 2001 with the Emmys.

As "Studio 60" continues its fade-out, my TiVO grabbed last night's episode which had, as a story-line, the flashback to the days right after 9/11. It dealt with the characters wondering just how to be funny in light of the tragedy and the reality that we would now be living in the shadow of terrorism.

As the chairman/CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, I spent some time with Aaron Sorkin, following 9/11 -- on panels, at other public events, at the Emmys. He was one of the people we talked to on October 7 (when we canceled the Emmys a second time) and, as I recall, he said it was unclear what his people felt but he thought a lot of his stars and producers were going to take a pass on attending. Since I thought "West Wing" was going to win several Emmys, that made a an impact. Later, Aaron and I were on several panels together, notably an Academy panel, "Hollywood Goes to War" and a Writers Guild of America panel about terrorism and entertainment. He's one of the brightest guys I know, a terrific writer and always a very nice guy. Honestly, I've been waiting for him to write about this experience in some way. I certainly haven't been able to avoid it.

Anyway, the day that Sorkin wrote about in last night's episode, it pretty much came down to a decision by the Academy and CBS President Les Moonves to cancel the Emmys (twice!) in 2001. Sorkin, given his role as the executive producer of "West Wing" was a key player.

As I said, the flashback occurs on October 7, 2001 as the cast prepares to go to the Emmy awards only to realize that we are bombing Afghanistan and the show is likely to be canceled. That morning I was getting ready to go for a morning run to lose a little stress before appearing on the show when the phone rang. "Turn on your TV," my friend said. Once I saw the news, I knew it was going to be a long day.

I may have missed this, but I think "Studio 60" made it seem like this was the first cancellation when it was the second. The original Emmys were scheduled to air on September 16, 2001 -- a date that became impossible the moment the towers were hit.

Anyway, on the day in question, Moonves and I (and others, of course) were busy canvassing the community to see if we should go ahead with the Emmys. We got a lot of ambivalence, but we made the decision to put the brakes on again because we really thought that as the day wore on more and more people like Sorkin would decide not to come. The next day I appeared on "Politically Incorrect" and got in an argument with Bill Mahrer about this. It was my contention that you shouldn't "throw a party nobody wants to come to" and that if we went ahead and nobody showed up it could have terribly tarnished the Academy's reputation. Mahrer argued that we should have just done it anyway, that we wussed out. Of course, this was the time that he was also in trouble with ABC for suggesting that the terrorists on the planes were acting in a less cowardly way than people who fire off cruise missiles.

We finally did put the Emmys on, a month later, on November 4, 2001.

Anyway, revisiting those memories in this dramatic format made last night both fun and nostalgic for me.

I'll never forget how they handled the issue "Studio 60" posited in real life. On "Saturday Night Live" they brought on Rudy Giuliani and asked him if it was okay to be funny again. He shrugged and said, "Why start now?" That is one of the world's greatest and most memorable lines in comedy, rising from the ashes of tragedy.

By the way, that's what has always made Aaron Sorkin's work so wonderful. He manages to pull that balance between the two into everything he writes.

New York State of Mind

It's been alternately drizzling and drenching here in New York which makes it pretty miserable to be out walking around, especially given how hot it's been the past few days. After three days of walking the floor of the Javits Convention Center, schlepping books all over creation, going to two Broadway plays, and barely missing one terrorist event, Jackie and I are back in the hotel. We're kicking back, watching the New Hampshire Democratic debate unfold and waiting for the final episode of "The Sopranos."

I'll tell you one thing about the Book Expo. If Americans are supposed to be losing their taste for reading, you sure can't tell it here. Someone is reading all these books, there are thousands and thousands of new titles on display, and if I start tonight to read just what I'm taking home, I won't be done until Christmas. And, yes, I did get an autographed copy of Dr. Ruth's Sex for Dummies.

Saw a musical comedy and a great play here on Broadway. First up was Spamalot which I went into with low expectations, but came out with a big smile on my face. It just perfectly fit the mood I was in. My friends Scott and Andie had told me how much they enjoyed it and I'm glad we took their recommendation.

This afternoon we scored tickets to Inherit the Wind with Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy. I really enjoyed it but, given the spectacle we expect from Broadway, this felt like a high school play (it's performed everywhere) with great actors. I thought both Plummer and Dennehy were excellent as the Old Lions and worth the price of admission but the supporting cast had a few that could have been on a high school stage and nobody would have blinked. 

"If we could just agree that God used evolution to get the job done, then we could get out of this damnably hot courtroom and grab a cold beer."

Tomorrow we're doing meetings during the day on various projects, then eating with friends. Almost time to go home. I know we're over the weight limit with books, still have to figure that part out.

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.