ARGGHH

I just typed up half a ramble and it vanished.....

THE GATHERING 2004 - Friday, August 6 (Part One)

And we're back...

Friday was an eventful day, so I'm breaking it down into two rambles.

I got my wake-up call, lingered for a few minutes, showered and shaved (or trimmed, I should say). Then I went upstairs for my big interview with David Grabias and the DVD guys (Howard the DP and Thierry on sound, I think). David asked me some questions, I'm sure looking for some great short pithy responses that would make nice sound bites for the DVD documentary.

Of course, I have many talents, but being short & pithy ain't one of them. My 45 minute interview lasted an hour and a half. At one point, David sent me back to my room to change shirts so that he could pretend that a little intro I was doing for the original Gargoyles pitch (which will also be on the DVD) was shot on a different day. The thing that interests me is that you'll be seeing me intro the thing at age 40 and then jump back to me at age 30 pitching. I think as an Easter Egg or something they should create a little mini-morph of me aging rapidly.

After that I brought Erin & Benny's art down to Cindy. We took a few minutes to figure out which piece went with which title card. But it was all fairly self-evident.

I saw Zehra at that point, I think. I was really glad she came back this year. Also saw Noelle somewhere in here and Lexy & Marty and others.

Next up was the Voice Acting Seminar. I brought the same old stuff to cover. Stuff I developed doing a Seminar for Telemarketers (waves at Sapphire), a.ka. that time I was truly doing the Devil's Handywork. I've used it for at least a couple years now, but I wasn't afraid of it getting old, because the plan was for Keith and I to do this seminar together. His take on the stuff (his take in general) would provide us with a unique experience. Problem was that Keith hadn't arrived on Thursday night as planned. His movie in Miami was rained out a couple days which caused a delay in his flight for said couple days.

So I'm doing this on my own. Which isn't a problem, per se, except that it's the same old stuff. But there were enough newbies to let me get away with it.

I began by reciting my meager qualifications as stage actor, stage director, voice actor and voice director. Then I broke out the scenes.

We started with the Demona audition side, which Jen read -- way too well. It was frustrating as my schpiel sort of depends on some amount of badness in order to allow me to riff on how to improve. She didn't really provide that. Damn her talent!!

Anyway, Seri got up and read Demona. And she did a good job, but I was able to force her to read the last line over and over in order to make a point about acting choices.

Then we did a few others scenes. The Tea Scene from MIA is one of my favorite acting lessons. The tag from Thrill of the Hunt. And the "Friend" scene from Awakening 1. It was all fun. The DVD crew came in and filmed a bit, which was a running theme throughout the con. It actually made everything feel fresher and more exciting.

I think I have a new reality series to pitch....

Anyway, next up was our first round of auditions. Of course, I had forgotten the audition forms in my room. So I searched for the elevator. BTW, the hotel was great, but the entire weekend I had some kind of weird trouble finding my bearings, i.e. the elevators and/or restrooms. I constantly found myself walking in circles.

Jen and I ran the auditions, like old times. I get to force people to bark like a dog or meow like a cat and when I remember to speak with either English or Scottish dialects. Every year is unpredictable. There have been years when almost no men audition and I have to drag Hudson off the street to play a part. This year, at the Friday audition, we have tons of men and only two women. It's panic time as this particular radio play has an IMMENSE cast of 31 (not counting me). And at minimum (even with some cross-gender casting) I feel I need at least seven women for clarity.

Throughout the day, Keith's flight keeps getting pushed back.

And people keep giving me stuff.

Maui gives me a box of Godiva chocolate bars. Not a box of chocolates, mind you, but a box of chocolate BARS.

Kathy feeds my Buffyverse obssession by giving me a Buffy Companion book.

Tony gives me his Annual Gathering CD. (Which I listened to on the way back from San Diego. It's great.)

Wingless gives me a Banana Splits CD. (Which I listened to on the way to San Diego. It's VERY Cool.)

Michael gives me his Demo CD. (Which I haven't listened to yet, but I will. But Michael, here's my question: I already know you're good. But are you planning a move to L.A.? What good is your CD if you're not here to audition if and when I get something (please God anything) to have you audition for?)

I got four cool con t-shirts and pins (which I had paid for) from the staff, as well as a staff t-shirt from Jen (which I did not pay for).

I got Subway from Alan, which I also paid for, cuz frankly Alan still intimidates me a bit. It must have something to do with how cosey I get with his wife.

I got my con badge and the VERY cool program that Si put together. It includes a picture of me with a pillow over my head. I'm told this is a great picture. I find it interesting that the best picture of me is one where my face is covered.

I got a G2005 Vegas t-shirt from Chris at some point.

I got a UPS package which contained stuff from the Buena Vista Home Entertainment folk for use at the Opening Ceremonies.

And best of all, I got BLACK ROSES from Christine. Which is cool. But cooler still, is the dedication, to me and Salli and I guess all of you. I have never had a book dedicated to me before. I can't tell you what that feels like. It really makes my day on a day that makes my year.

NEXT UP: OPENING CEREMONIES (the never-ending story)

GATHERING 2004 JOURNAL - Thursday, August 5

Time to journal.

As usual, let me open with a few caveats, apologies, etc.

I'll try to be as complete as possible, but inevitably I may forget a few names or forget to include a few people or events. My apologies. Please don't feel slighted. The con for me is always a great time, but also a whirlwind of people. With few exceptions, I only manage a few minutes with everyone. Sometimes it takes me two or three years to really nail a name to a face. (The fact that many of you have multiple names doesn't help either.)

I'd also like to mention a few of the people I didn't see, people I hope to see next year. Former con-chairs like Jubes and Batya and especially Mae Lee. People who made an impression, like Spike and Vanessa and many, many others. I'd like to ask all of you who did attend and/or all of you who are reading this now to reach out to fans who have wandered. As many of you know (and as Friday's G-Journal will soon make clear) this is really a make-or-break year for the series. We need to re-energize, rejuvenate and REAWAKEN the fandom. Especially those who have drifted away. We need everyone!

Speaking of which, here's ANOTHER reminder to post your GATHERING JOURNALS here at ASK GREG. Cut & Paste. If necessary, enter them a con-day at a time as I'm doing. If you're reading this and you know of people who attended the convention who haven't yet posted their journal, get on their cases. I think we've got about a dozen so far. I appreciate them all, but that's NOT nearly enough. We had 200 people attend the con. If we can't get at least 100 journals here at ASK GREG, I'm going to be VERY disappointed.

Finally, as most of you know, my diaries tend to center around food. Basically, I love to eat, and it's something I really have a talent for. I love great food and horrible junk. And I'm often obssessive about the subject. Strangely, or perhaps not-so, my memories of this adventure do NOT revolve around food. In part, because I didn't get to eat as often as usual. Just not enough time. In part, because I had such a blast just spending time with all of you. Thanks.

ANYWAY, enough preamble. Let's get gathering.

The week before the Gathering had been extremely eventful. Good things and bad things were happening to my family, especially my siblings. For more info on both check out the very well-written websites of Robyn Weisman...
http://barbaricmysticalandbored.blogspot.com/
and/or Jon Weisman...
http://www.all-baseball.com/dodgerthoughts/

Over at my house, things were almost as crazy. We had taken out a loan to paint the exterior of our house. Right after we were financially committed to that endeavor, our upstairs bathroom cracked its shower pan, creating (ultimately) a hole in the ceiling of our entry hall. We have had to totally demolish that bathroom in order to repair it, which caused further damage to our bedroom, living room and powder room. Even our doorbell has stopped working.

Plus, I got a stye in my eye. For a couple of days, it was swollen up, and I thought: "YAY, MY DISFIGUREMENT CAN BE IMMORTALIZED FOREVER ON THE DVD!" Fortunately, it faded by Thursday and was all but gone by Friday.

Also, there was that ladder thing. How many Gargoyles-Creators does it take to screw in a light bulb? I was up on a ladder changing a ceiling bulb. I had the old bulb out and in hand, when the ladder (which is missing three out of four rubber feet) tipped me off. I landed on the hand holding the lightbulb, which <SHATTERED> on the brick floor. Blood and glass everywhere. The wounds, such as they were, turned out to be very superficial once they were cleaned off and the imbedded glass was tweezered out. I was wrapped in gauze for a night and my daughter took to calling me "Daddy Mummy" or "Dummy" for short. Smart kid. Anyway, by the next day, I was down to two band-aids. By Thursday, the puncture wounds were barely noticable.

More seriously, there's Norman, our ten-year-old Bassett Hound. Earlier this year, Norman was stricken with a life-threatening ear infection. We tried multiple courses of anti-biotics (including some human versions). Nothing worked. Finally we had to have his ear canal surgically removed. Then last month, the other ear got infected. It soon became clear that we were going to have to have his remaining ear canal removed, rendering him completely deaf. It was very upsetting to all of us, and I felt horrible that I was going to be out of town during the surgery. Of course, I had made a commitment, and to be honest I really didn't want to miss the Gathering.

And the fact was, I was already planning to miss a portion of it. My daughter's birthday is August 8th, 1994. I wasn't going to miss her tenth birthday, which meant I'd be leaving VERY early on Sunday morning in order to make it home in time for her birthday dinner. That meant that I was going to have to stuff all my G2004 fun into a few short days.

So, Thursday morning I got up at 7am, reminding myself that I couldn't use my own demolished bathroom. I showered in the kids' bathroom, and made my way downstairs. I had been vaguely Atkinsing for the last three weeks and had in fact lost about eleven pounds. But the diet was done for the duration. I had Cereal and banana.

I was picked up at the house at 9:30 am. The trip to the airport was uneventful. Got to LAX and got through all the various lines without incident. Then I bought a loaf of sourdough bread and ATE the entire thing. Also had a Three Musketeers bar and a bottled water. Obviously, I was craving carbs and sugar.

Aboard the plane, I began to read "I DREAMED I MARRIED PERRY MASON" by Susan Kandell. This is a very well-written murder mystery by a friend of ours. The protagonist is Cece Caruso, a biographer who stumbles onto two murders (one old, one new) while researching the life of Erle Stanley Gardner, the creator of Perry Mason. I definitely recommend it.

On the plane, I had Tomato Juice and toyed with my meal: beef, biscuits, cole slaw, rice and a roll.

The movie was "Day After Tomorrow" and even though it was free, I couldn't bring myself to watch it. Though I did get curious about how it would end -- about what could possibly be considered a coda for it, so I ear-phoned up for the last ten minutes or so. Uggh.

The flight, like the whole trip, was easy. Customs in Montreal was a long line, but had the advantage of non-stop movement, which at least makes the wait FEEL more palatable.

Patrick, Jen & Rob were waiting for me. I was already in a good mood, but I immediately felt better. Now, the Gathering had really begun for me.

We had a completely uneventful ride to the Delta Centre-Ville (our G2004 Hotel). In the lobby, I saw Carol, Kathy & Kelly. Mandi, I think? Abram. A Fan. I checked in, and hit my room to do a VERY quick unpacking before meeting everyone in the consuite. I saw Becca right away, and asked where her parents were. Christine was standing just behind me and gave me a big hug.

The constaff had planned in advance to go to dinner as soon as I got in. There was some miscommunication, which I really regret, as some non-staffers were waiting to join us and the restaurant we were heading toward couldn't accomodate us all. Sad irony, we didn't even end up at that restaurant (as its kitchen was closed) and the place we did eat at had plenty of room. In the future, I'm gonna make an effort to be more inclusive at these things.

Not to rub it in, but those of us who did attend: Lanny, Derek, Michael, Karine, Cindy, Rob, Jen, Alan, Kaylee, Shawn, Patrick, Laurean, Liz, Carol and I had a great meal. We had taken a long walk to get to the crepe place that Karine wanted us all to enjoy. The weather was lovely but just a tad cool for a guy from California in a t-shirt. If I had just brought my sweatshirt along, it wouldn't have been a problem, but I was shivering by the time we sat down in our second-choice restaurant.

Which was great, by the way. Lobster Bisque, Fettucine Alfredo, Bread, bruschetta, a mussel and coke.

And great company. I enjoyed the walk back a bit more, even though I was still freezing. Karine offered to lend me her sweatshirt, but I'm still enough of a gentleman (just barely) to refrain from taking a pregnant woman's wrap.

Back at the hotel, I ran into Lynati, Mara, GXB, Alex, Eric, Hudson, Ethan, Maui, Kyt, Chris & Aaron. I hung out in the lobby with a few of them for a bit. But it was getting late, and I wanted to call Beth and the kids and talk to them before they went to bed.

So I headed up to my room. Called home. Then tried to sleep. Wound up watching TV until at least 3 or 4am, though that was only midnight or one my time. Then I finally went to sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A Plea and/or Reminder

I'm back in Los Angeles after an amazing trip to Montreal and a fun family half-week in San Diego.

My own Gathering Journal will be forthcoming in installments, as usual.

But in the meantime, I'd like to remind everyone who attended G2004 to please, PLEASE, take a few minutes and write up your experiences in as much detail as possible.

Were you on staff? Were you a dealer? Were you there for the whole weekend or just for a few hours? Whatever your situation, please write up a Gathering Journal and post it HERE at ASK GREG. It's great if you have your own website or livejournal and want to post it there or even in the S8 Comment Room, but please CUT & PASTE your journals and put them here as well. No links please. Cut & Paste.

For those of you who've already done this, thanks. For those of you who started but didn't quite make it through the weekend, please don't run out of steam. For those of you who haven't started, START. Trust me, your memory isn't going to improve with time.

We had about 200 people at the Gathering. I'm hoping to get at least 100 diaries/journals here at ASK GREG. AT LEAST. (Frankly, I'd be thrilled with 100% journaling.) Getting them all here allows me to direct the Disney/Buena Vista powers-that-be to this site as a single clearing house.

Guys, this is important. Prove that you are going to do what it takes in the coming year to support the show by taking this simple first step.

It will be very much appreciated at this end.

GATHERING 2004

Okay, gang,

I'm going to be off-line for a while.

I leave early tomorrow morning (8-5-04) for Montreal and the Eighth Annual Gathering of the Gargoyles.

I come home on the 8th, but then the family is immediately going to San Diego for some SeaWorld/Legoland action.

So I won't be back at ASK GREG for over a week.

But when I come back, you can look forward (I would hope) to my ramblings about the Gathering.

PLEASE, PLEASE post your own Gathering Journals, Gathering Diaries, etc. as well.

Seriously, I'm using this as a tool with Disney. We have about 200 people attending the Gathering this year. I'd like to see at least 100 Gathering Diaries posted here at ASK GREG.

Thanks.

P.S. Remember, if you see me at the Gathering, don't hesitate to come up to me and say hello. Don't be shy. Please introduce or re-introduce yourselves. I know many, many of you, but I'm traditionally not great with names. Sometimes it takes me a couple gatherings to remember. For that I apologize, but please don't take offense. I really do want to meet all of you. See you soon.

Greg

some REAL rambling...

Okay, this is not GREG SPEAKING FROM THE MOUNT...

This is just me thinking aloud. (Well, not really aloud. I'm sitting here typing.) I don't even know if I like these ideas. They're definitely not canon.

But the following notions occured to me today...

Gargoyles don't seem to have a native language. They acquire human language ... perhaps much the same way that they acquire names. Naming is clearly addictive. And language, in many ways, is just sophisticated naming.

Clearly gargoyles are just as intelligent as humans. Before humans developed tools, Gargoyles were at the top of the food chain. They may not have created/invented as much "stuff" as humans have, but they also had way fewer needs. Necessity being the mother of invention, they had less motivation for inventing sophisticated shelter, clothes, tools, etc. But that in and of itself isn't a comment on their brain-power.

So why no need for language and names?

When it comes to naming, gargoyles clearly felt that names were superfluous if not somewhat limiting, if not downright harmful to the spirit. Humans must define things. Gargoyles know that things just are.

We are friends. What other name do we require, etc.

It fits in with their animistic/monotheistic view of a higher power. A higher power that requires no name.

Does beg a question, though if you go back far enough.

Does the sky need a name? Does the river?

Elisa responds: "The river's called the Hudson."

But she could have responded: "The river's called a river."

Did the gargoyles have a language that they ABANDONED in favor of human words -- even if those human words were Atlantean (like the term "Gorlois", the true Atlantean etimology for "GARGOYLE")?

Or perhaps...

Gargoyles are so attuned to the earth. They have biological clocks that match the seasons. They have relationships that require no names, until those names have been imposed.

Is it possible, that gargoyles once... long ago... had mild psychic abilities that left them with no need to create language? It wasn't words that they intuited (or transmitted or read or whatever) but emotions, maybe images or sensations.

Maybe it was tied to magic. Not that Gargoyles are magical creatures, but if magic was free-flowing before the Will-O-The-Whisps evolved into the Children of Mab (or whomever) and somewhat confiscated that power for their own, perhaps that magic was just part of the Earth that gargoyles were so attuned to, and allowed for some psychic congress.

Or perhaps, it is a biological ability -- based on biio-elecricity and brainwaves -- that has faded with disuse. Perhaps the very language skills that Gargoyles learned from the human race dampened their psychic intuitiveness, much as Fox's natural magical abilities were stunted by her human upbringing.

Either way, it suggests that this ability could be latent.

I'm NOT saying that the gargs we know are psychic. They've all been fooled enough, even by the INTENSELY emotional Demona (who would theoretically be broadcasting as well as receiving) to bely that notion.

But I wonder if this isn't an interesting area of speculation.

If you see me at the Gathering THIS WEEKEND, it's a topic I'd be interested in discussing.

REBORN!!

As I'm sure many of you have noticed, Gorebash has rebooted ASK GREG in a major way. It's still a work in progress, so feel free (politely) to offer your input to Gore.

But don't forget to thank him as well for his hard, hard work.

Thanks, Gore! It's very much appreciated.

Gregs

Buffy Season Two Character Countdown

As noted yesterday, I'm as big a geek -- if not bigger -- than anyone in the room.

So now, for no particular reason, I've put together a countdown of the GREATEST BUFFYVERSE characters from Seasons One & Two.

I thought about doing Season Two separately, as if it stood alone, but that felt artificial. (Like the rest of this feels natural? Yeah, right.) Think of the Buffyverse as an eight year horse race. You're not sure which nag is going to go the distance... But cumulatively, you begin to discover things.

So here's the top 30 characters of the Buffyverse for Seasons One & Two combined. In reverse order...

#30 - The Judge. Medieval demon raised by Spike & Dru to burn the humanity out of, well, humans. Killed by a rocket launcher. (Previous Rank: Did not appear in first season.)

#29 - Mr. Norman Pfister, a.k.a. Worm Guy. One of the assassins hired by Spike to kill Buffy. Could transform his whole body into worms. Stomped by Xander & Cordy. (Previous Rank: Did not appear in first season.)

#28 - Dalton. A relatively brainy vampire flunky, who appeared in a couple of episodes working for Spike & Dru. Burned by the Judge. (Previous Rank: Did not appear in first season.)

#27 - Luke. Still a fairly memorable first opponent for Buffy even a year later. (PR: #14. Okay, he's memorable, but not that memorable, falling 13 rankings with no where to go but down.)

#26 - Harmony Kendall - Made another humorous appearance. (PR: Honorable Mention.)

#25 - Hank Summers. Still, if barely, a part of his daughter's life. (PR: Honorable Mention.)

#24 - Willy. The weasley guy who runs the demon-bar hangout and plays both sides of the fence. (PR: Did not appear in first season.)

#23 - Amy. Back as a full-fledged witch. (PR: Honorable Mention.)

#22 - Ethan Rayne. Giles old chaos-worshipping "friend". (PR: Did not appear in first season.)

#21 - Uncle Enyos, a.k.a. Gypsy Man. Jenny Calendar's vengeance-seeking Gypsy uncle. Killed by Angel. (PR: Did not appear in first season.)

#20 - Jesse. (PR: #13. Drops seven rankings, and counting, as he's been totally forgotten.)

#19 - Jonathan (variously spelled Johnathan and Jonathon, a.k.a. Student and/or Hostage Kid and/or Freshman (which he later turns out not to be, unless he skips a couple grades by the time Buffy graduates). Jonathan with something like 6 appearances but VERY little screen time in each really makes an adorable impression, thus it's not surprising that he winds up playing an increasingly larger role with every year. (PR: Did not appear in first season.)

#18 - Whistler. The demon, played by the always interesting Max Perlich, who helped redeem Angel from the gutter. This guy interested me a LOT, but never (as I recall) returned. I always wondered if Doyle was a reworking of Whistler when they couldn't get Perlich to be a regular on Angel. (PR: Did not appear in first season.)

#17 - Kendra the Vampire Slayer. Came and went. But before you know how interesting Faith can be, she was very cool. (PR: Did not appear in first season.)

#16 - Principal Bob Flutie. (PR: #9. Drops 7 places and being still dead, likely to keep heading south.)

#15 - Darla. Appears in a wonderful flashback, where she sires Angel. (PR: #11. Only drops 4 ranks, and is likely to make a comeback, because death plays much more fast and loose with Darla than with Principal Flutie.)

#14 - The Annointed One. Spike just overwhelmed this guy (and then flambéd him). I suppose it was also a liability to have an eternally youthful child in an ongoing series. It won't take long before a growth spurt changes the kids looks significantly. (PR: #10. Another four rank drop and falling.)

#13 - The Master. Influence still being felt... (PR: #8. Down five rankings.)

#12 - Oz. Becomes Willow's guy after a slow burn. And gets to be a Werewolf to boot. (PR: Did not appear in first season.)

#11 - Jenny Calender, a.k.a. Janna the Gypsy spy. Becomes SO important that Angel has to snap her neck, breaking Giles heart -- and falling into a Buffy/Angel trap that is common to most TV dramas (except Gargoyles) which states that no relationship really has long term potential. (PR: #15. Actually moves up 4 rankings, while most are moving down.)

#10 - Principal Snyder. (PR: #12. Also moving up a bit.)

#9 - Spike, a.k.a. William the Bloody. Enters the list in the top ten.

#8 - Drusilla. This surprised me a bit. Would not have guessed that Dru would beat out Spike. But in their first season, she's actually a tad more important. His villainy culminates in hers. (Of course, both are overshadowed by Angelus) (PR: Did not appear in first season.)

#7 - Joyce Summers. (PR: #7. Holding her spot.)

#6 - Angel, a.k.a. Angelus. Really starts to come into his own here, but missed a couple episodes and Cordy had a headstart from season one. (PR: #6)

#5 - Cordelia Chase. And Cordy also begins to truly come into her own in this season. Evolving out of her funny but one-note stereotype from Season One and beginning a relationship with Xander that I was sorry never got to be played again in Angel (even historically). (PR: #5)

#4 - Willow Rosenberg. Xander's headstart kept him ahead in a season where they had a much more neck-and-neck pointscore. (PR: #4)

#3 - Xander Harris. (PR: #3)

#2 - Rupert Giles. Still a bit surprised how he continues to rank above X&W. (PR: #2)

#1 - Buffy Summers. (PR: #1)

Honorable mention goes to the following (for making one or two memorable appearances):

Catherine . Okay, normally, I'm not going to honorably mention someone in consecutive seasons, but that great scene where Oz is watching the Cheerleading trophy follow him with his eyes, is priceless continuity.

Absalom. Vampire working for the Annointed One trying to raise the Master. The last champion of the Season One storyline. Buffy burns him.

Nurse Greenliegh. Eaten by fishboys. Probably gets extra juice because I like actress Conchatta Ferrell in just about anything.

Ted Buchanon - Psycho Robot Serial Killer. Lots of evil fun. Trashed by Buffy.

Devon - Dopey lead singer of Oz's band.

Inca Mummy Girl, a.k.a. Empada. Poor kid. She just fell apart on us.

Larry. School bully who turns out to be a sensitive gay guy.

Lyle Gorch - Cowboy vampire, barely smarter than his brother.

Chanterelle - Goofy vampire wannabe.

Detective Bob & Detective Stein - Each appeared twice. Bob was Snyder's cop. The one who helped Snyder cover up the macabre doings at the school. Stein was Buffy's vague nemesis. The one who questioned her about Ted's "death" and suspected her of Kendra's. Both are interesting and feel more important than they wind up being.

The Mayor. Doesn't appear at all. But Snyder's both scared of him and desperate to impress him.

And that's it. But Season Three just came in the mail today. It'll obviously take me some time to watch it. But eventually, I'll be continuing this pointless exercise...

Aren't you glad?

Buffy Season One Character Countdown...

Yes, that's right, I'm as big a geek -- if not bigger -- than anyone in the room.

I bought the 1st and 2nd Seasons of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER on DVD. And I've been watching the episodes. Or studying them actually.

So now, for no particular reason, I've put together a countdown of the GREATEST BUFFYVERSE characters from Season One.

(WHY, you ask? Because it amuses me and appeals to my geeky mind. <Yeesh, what a dopey question.>)

Now, this is a truly subjective (if not pointless) exercise that I've tried to reduce to an objective task. I've awarded points per episode to each character based on a number of criteria. Then I totalled up the points for each character for the season. In case of a tie, I made a subjective call.

I tried NOT to make the point totals reflect what happened with characters in subsequent seasons. This is a countdown reflecting Season One only. Though I won't deny the fact that if a character reappeared later in the series, it probably meant that said character was memorable to the creators (and the viewers) in his or her original appearance(s). So I allowed some bias to filter in. But I tried to be strong.

Most of the results aren't particularly shocking, but a few things surprised me a bit.

Originally, I was just doing this for myself. But I figured, what the heck, might as well share my obssessive behaviour with you poor victims.

So here's the top 15 characters of the Buffyverse for Season One in reverse order...

#15 - Jenny Calender. In season one, she's merely the computer teacher/techno-pagan. But she already seems to have some interest in Giles.

#14 - Luke. The vampire who was the surrogate for the Master's "Harvest" during the 2-part pilot. An impressive first foe, who'd be topped many times over. But he set the bar well. He received the same point total as Jenny, and long-term she's MUCH more important, but in the first season, I think Luke's role was much more crucial.

#13 - Jesse. Jesse was Xander's best friend, who became a vampire in the pilot and was accidentally staked. Jesse would have been more important if anyone had EVER mentioned him again -- even in episode three. It strikes me as a very un-Joss like thing that Jesse completely faded from memory... INSTANTLY.

#12 - Principal Snyder. The new and harsh replacement principal makes an immediate impression.

#11 - Darla. The vampire who served the Master and was revealed as Angel's sire. Jealous, vulnerable, greedy and sweet all rolled into one. She was staked in her third appearance, but it's not surprising she came back both in flashbacks and in ANGEL.

#10 - The Annointed One. Also known as Colin and/or the Boy. This guy was built up to be VERY important in Season One, though he wound up not being important at all.

#9 - Principal Bob Flutie. The conflicted original principal of Sunnydale High. For obvious reasons, adjusted to be MOST sympathetic just before he was eaten by the quartet of Hyena-Avatars.

#8 - The Master. The main recurring villain for Season One. Staked at the end of the season, though his influence would continue into Season Two and beyond. (FYI, one of the DVD extras revealed that his real name was Heinrich Joseph Nest.)

#7 - Joyce Summers. Buffy's mom.

#6 - Angel. Made a pretty big impression in relatively few appearances. Obviously.

#5 - Cordelia Chase.

#4 - Willow Rosenberg.

#3 - Xander Harris. This surprised me. I would have thought that Willow and Xander would have been neck and neck -- impossible to declare as anything but a tie. But at least in Season One, Xander really got more screen time and a much bigger overall role in the series.

#2 - Rupert Giles. This surprised me a bit too, as I would have guessed that Xander & Willow would have both scored ahead of Giles. But nope. Not when you break it down.

#1 - Buffy Summers. Duh.

Honorable mention goes to the following (for making one or two memorable appearances):

Catherine & Amy, mother & daughter witches. Amy obviously will become more important, but Catherine's end, forever imprisoned in the cheerleading trophy, was too cool.

Dr. Gregory. Buffy's biology teacher. Made two appearances before being killed by the She-Mantis. Was the only teacher who believed in Buffy.

The She-Mantis. A fun villain.

Harmony Kendall. Only made two brief appearances, but she stood out enough as one of Cordelia's "Cordettes" that she would wind up being brought back again and again. A certain comic timing, probably.

Hank Summers. Buffy's dad.

Joy. The Senior Cheerleader.

Sid. The human trapped in the body of a ventriloquist's dummy.

That's it. I'll have Season Two shortly. I bet you can't wait.

Announcement for August...

Hey gang,

Just wanted to let everyone know that Gorebash, Todd & I will be re-opening the Question Submission function for the month of August 2004.

Gore is working on revising the whole site. We're not 100% sure that the new version will be ready by then, but either way, you'll be able to submit questions and rambles from August 1st to August 31st.

I'm going to ask (and pray) that people NOT post frivolously. I'm still over two years behind on answering questions. Try and do your homework just a bit before posting a question. Check the Archives or at least the FAQ. Heck, it wouldn't hurt to pre-post your question at the Station 8 Comment Room. Give your fellow fans a chance to direct you to the answer, before you post it for me. Keep in mind that it will take me a LONG time to get to your questions, so if you can get them answered another way, it'll be MUCH FASTER for all concerned.

But with that caveat in mind, I'm very pleased to be reopening the site to you, if only for one month. In particular, I'm anxious to get as many GATHERING 2004 DIARIES as possible. Seriously, we have close to 200 people attending this year, and my goal is to get at least 100 diaries posted at ASK GREG as an historical record. So please, that's one kind of post that I'm really looking forward to. So don't hesitate.

Thanks,

Greg

What else can I do?

"Sure," you say, "I'd love to come to the Gathering, but..."

There are always reasons, I suppose. Some good, some not so good, some very good.

I'd still like you to come. Even now. With less than a month left, I'd like to see you make the effort and show. It's a great year for it, what with the Disney folks there shooting footage for the DVD. Heck, don't we want them to see how strong our fanbase is?

The Gatherings have been the lifeblood of this fandom. Why are we getting DVDs this year. Because of the annual Gathering. Just that simple.

And, yes, I am talking to you. And you in the back there too, trying to sneak out.

But let's say you just CAN'T make it this year. This happened. Or that happened. You just can't. You ask me to understand, by saying, "What else can I do?"

Here are a few things...

1. Buy a supporting membership. It's much less expensive than a trip to Montreal. It helps support the convention. And you're entered for a free t-shirt.

2. Heck, just ORDER THE T-SHIRT. It's also much less expensive than the trip. And you get a T-shirt.

3. Order a pin or the Phoenix Gate Anthology.

4. At least go to the website and check these things out:

http://www.gatheringofthegargoyles.com/

5. Start planning now to attend G2005 in Las Vegas. Start saving. Show your true support for the series and the fandom.

Thanks.

SPIDER-MAN 2 - SPOILERS

Took the kids to see Spider-Man 2 yesterday.

SPOILER WARNING

The murder of all those doctors seemed gratuitous to me. Trashing them, sure, but why did the arms (particularly at this early stage) feel the need to kill. I know, I know, self-defense. But in a movie like this, where otherwise I thought it was more-or-less okay to bring my kids, I thought it was really unnecessary.

The death of Otto's wife didn't bother me. Except that it became gratuitous as nothing at all was done with it. Her entire character became gratuitous. And I like Donna Murphy.

I've already talked about my whole Kirsten Dunst would make the perfect Gwen Stacy but is unconvincing as Mary Jane Watson thing. Nothing in this movie convinced me otherwise, despite the "Go get 'em, Tiger" line at the end. I guess you just have to get used to the idea that they've combined these two characters into one and chosen MJ's name.

Peter's objection to dating MJ, because it could put her at risk seems a little preposterous given how much risk she's been put in over these two movies even though they haven't been dating. I don't mind this, I just wish that someone, specifically MJ in their last scene together would have pointed that out.

The theme of this movie is "LET'S REVEAL MY SECRET IDENTITY TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE". At the end of the previous film, it was beyond clear that MJ had figured out that Peter was Spider-Man. This is somewhat successfully slid by in this film. But by the end of the second film, the list of people who have seen Spidey's face is nearly endless:

MJ
Doc Ock
Harry
The New Green Goblin
About thirty-seven people on the train

and let's face it, even Aunt May seemed to be strongly implying that she had figured it out.

A little bothered by the way some of Peter's late-arrivals were staged.

Did he really lose THAT much time delivering Pizza.

But more importantly, it seems clear that being Spider-Man aside, he just flat out didn't leave enough time to get to MJ's show in the first place. Face it, he lost his mo-ped but arrived in the bad-guys car. And it took less than a minute to capture them. And he was still late. This bugged me because he was blaming Spidey for screwing up his life, when clearly if he had left for the play in a timely fashion, he would have arrived on time (and missed the crime completely).

I didn't quite know what to make of the whole thing with the landlord's daughter. Kept expecting her to see Peter with MJ in the last scene and turn into a super-villain or something. She was sweet. Didn't catch the character's name, though it's a very similar character to the character that same actress plays on Joan of Arcadia.

Everyone seems wowed by Molina's performance and by Doc Ock, especially as compared to the last film's Green Goblin. I have no objections to either Molina or Doc, but I don't get the raves. Green Goblin's motivations made a lot more sense to me than Ock's. Sure the arm effects were cool. But the whole AI thing effecting his brain seemed forced. And frankly, a bit unnecessary.

From all of the above, I'm sure it must seem like I didn't like the movie. But in fact I did. I even liked how nearly everybody now knows Parker's secret. How did it help any of those people to not know?

Gwen vs. Mary-Jane

Okay, I haven't seen the second Spider-Man movie yet, so this is mostly based on the first (and commercials for the second).

But am I the only guy out here who thinks Kirsten Dunst is a perfect Gwen Stacy?

I think she's wonderful in the first film. Bu I mean, aside from the hair color (which, from other movies, we know is artificial), her persona is totally Gwen. Yeah, yeah, she's an actress, but she's got nothing of that John Romita tigress that is Mary-Jane Watson.

She's Gwen Stacy.

Right?

BIG NEWS ON THE DVD FRONT

HEY GUYS...

BIG NEWS. SO BIG I'M LOCKING DOWN MY CAPS.

AS MANY OF YOU KNOW, THE FIRST SEASON OF GARGOYLES IS BEING RELEASED THIS YEAR ON DVD TO COINCIDE WITH THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SERIES.

I'VE JUST BEEN INFORMED THAT DISNEY IS SENDING A VIDEO CREW TO THE GATHERING OF THE GARGOYLES, OUR ANNUAL CONVENTION, TO TAPE THE FANS, GUESTS, EVENTS, ETC. FOR THE EXTRAS SECTION OF THE DVD.

THAT MEANS IF YOU ATTEND THE CONVENTION THIS AUGUST 6-8 IN MONTREAL, YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO ACTUALLY BE ON THE DVD. LET THAT SINK IN FOR A SECOND.

IF YOU'RE ALREADY SIGNED UP, GREAT. BUT IF NOT -- WELL -- WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!!!!

CHECK OUT THE CON'S WEBSITE AT:

http://www.gatheringofthegargoyles.com/

DON'T MISS THIS GATHERING!!!!!!!!

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SECOND & THIRD BASE?

The following RANT is somewhat ADULT. You've been warned.

There are two prime time television series that I'm fond of that I'm annoyed with for a very specific reason.

One is GILMORE GIRLS. The other is JOAN OF ARCADIA.

Last week, on Joan of Arcadia, 16-year-old Joan nearly decided to lose her virginity with Adam.

Last week on on Gilmore Girls, 19-year-old Rory lost her virginity with Dean.

In both cases, it's not the losing or not losing that bothers me.

It's just that in both cases, we've more or less been witness to these girls sexual awakening. And I've never gotten any indication that either girl has done anything beyond kissing, that neither guy has ever gotten past what we used to call first base.

One of my biggest pet peeves about television is that second & third base (including anything and everything in between kissing and sexual intercourse) do not exist. Oral sex? Doesn't exist. Touching and/or nudity without intercourse? Doesn't exist.

I don't need to see it. (Not that I'd object, but this isn't about me being a pervert for once.) But I would think that two shows as smartly-written as Gilmore & Joan should be able to find a way to suggest that such "intermediate steps" DO exist. I mean if they can talk about full-on intercourse, why can't they talk about things that are safer, younger, more exploratory, with FEWER consequences.

I feel it's TERRIBLY irresponsible to teach kids and teens that there's no way to express themselves sexually, once they've gotten past a kiss, except by going all the way. By hitting home runs, by scoring, so to speak.

Look, when I was a teen, there was a LONG, LONG gap between my first kiss and my first time engaging in sexual intercourse. There was a pretty substantial gap between my first kiss with the girl that I would end up losing my virginity to and the actual act of losing said virginity. In fact, in every relationship I ever had, up to and including my wife, kissing was a prelude to touching, etc., which was in turn a prelude to "making love"... assuming the relationship lasted that long.

The frustrating truth is that I really like both Gilmore Girls and Joan of Arcadia. I even really liked the episodes that are currently annoying me. But I'm still waiting for someone to brave the taboo and bring back second and third base.

PROPS TO "THE WONDER YEARS" for the only example of Second Base on a Prime Time series that I recall. But what was that -- ten years ago? Has there been no progress since?

A Farewell to Joss...

Let me get this out of the way first:

I love the television work of Joss Whedon.

Love Buffy.

Love Angel.

Love Firefly. (I'm very much looking forward to Serenity too.)

I am stunned that after eight years (thirteen seasons worth of television) that I won't be able to get new episodes of a Joss Whedon series next year.

Yes, they claim they'll bring back Buffy or Angel or both in t.v. movies. But frankly, I don't want to get my hopes up too high.

This season of Angel was brilliant in episode after episode. The insane Slayer. The Angel muppet. The return of Cordelia. The return of Conner.

And last night's finale... was stunning.

---SPOILERS---

The really smart thing was what they left out -- ironically, mostly action. I mean face it, do we really need to SEE Gunn take out six vamps? Do we really need to see Illyria take out four demons in a car? Do we really need to see Spike take on a cult? (Well, actually it might have been fun to get a little more of this -- what with his Lone Wolf & Cub dilemma of fighting while holding a baby.)

Harmony was a bit weak, i.e. I don't mind that she betrayed Angel or that Angel knew she would, but how did she know anything to betray him with. And I've never understood the transition between the Lyndsey who left L.A. at the end of season two and the Lyndsey who came back midway through season five. Why was he suddenly Angel's enemy again? It was cool that Lorne shot him, but I have to admit I wasn't sure if it was justified. Didn't he deserve a chance at redemption? And what was the deal with Eve at the end?

But that's quibbling.

Wesley had a decent death. And an even better end. The Illyria stuff was all great.

And of course, the final final ending, with the four warriors against the horde and Angel's last line, "Personally, I'd like to
slay a dragon." was just brilliant.

This was, in my opinion, much superior to the Buffy series finale. Both had the problem of only having one hour to stuff a ton of content in. But again, Angel was much smarter about what it LEFT OUT. Buffy's finale just seemed VERY rushed to me. Anya's death barely registered, even with Xander. And did the First get any comeuppance at all?

And sure, I'll admit that the last couple seasons of Buffy suffered from a real one-step-forward-two-steps-back-then-the-SAME-step-forward syndrome.

But all these negatives are quibbling based largely on the superior quality of Joss' series in general.

How did this happen? (Not the great work. But the absense of it next year.)

Just a couple years ago, I was in Whedon heaven. Buffy. Angel. Firefly. And any minute the Buffy Animated Series (which I was SO dying to work on, but couldn't even get my foot in the door) and Ripper. How did five series (four set in the Buffyverse) drop down to zero in just 18 months?

Yes, thank god for Serenity, which is in production.

But whether he likes the grind or not, Joss was born for Series TV not one-shot movies.

I'm really going to miss him.

Guess it's time to buy the DVDs.

Congratulations, Monique!

Went to a wedding today.

My good friend Monique Beatty married Tim Eldred.

Monique, as some of you may know, was my assistant and a script coordinator during the Gargoyles years. She was literally invaluable to me then, keeping my schedule (known then as "Greg's Nefarious Plan to Take Over the World") and keeping me on track. Among other things, she offered tremendous moral support. She's now a Line Producer at Nick. Tim is a story board and comic book artist.

They are both, great, great people. And I am so happy for them.

It was also nice to see Deirdra, Shan and Kevin at the wedding.

Jumping sharks...

My brother e-mailed me this link:

http://www.jumptheshark.com/g/gargoyles.htm

so I decided to check it out for myself. Might do a couple rambles on the commentary there, but today let's just look at the vote tally as to when people think the series "Jumped the Shark" (i.e. started to suck)...

Network Switch (SYN to ABC) - 8 votes
Never Jumped - 7
The third season - 3
The Goliath Chronicles - 2
They found the Island of Gargoyles - 1
Time Slot (They moved it to the morning) - 1
Xanatos repents - 1
Gargoyle of the Week - 1
Thailog - 1

Of course, four of those categories are really one and the same. The "Network Switch (SYN to ABC)" and "Time Slot (They moved it to the morning)" was for "The third season", which was subtitled "The Goliath Chronicles". So if you add up those votes, you get a whopping (if any number out of 25 can be called whopping) 14 out of 25 votes for TGC as our shark jumping moment. Since I have to agree and since another 7 voters (bringing the total up to 21 out of 25) think that the show didn't jump at all, I'm feeling pretty good right about now.

So let me obssess about the remaining four votes.

I'll try to take them in chronological order...

One person thought we jumped the shark by introducing Thailog. I don't know what to say, except that I disagree. I think Thailog was a pretty cool addition to the series. A great villain and a complex character. I'd tend to think that the fanbase would agree.

(I know that at this time the submit function here at ASK GREG has been suspended, but I invite folks at the Station 8 Gargoyles comment room at:

http://s8.org/gargoyles/comment.php

to entertain this topic.)

Another viewer thought we jumped the shark when "They found the Island of Gargoyles", (i.e. Avalon, I assume). Hard to figure exactly what the person didn't like about this. Don't know if it's Avalon itself that bothered the viewer or the addition of more gargs, or Angela or the World Tour that followed. Maybe it got too fantasy. But again, I have no regrets on this score.

Our third rogue shark-sighter cites "Gargoyle of the Week" as our problem. I can only guess that this refers to the World Tour. Of course, we certainly never intro'd anything close to a gargoyle a week. We intro'd four new clans (Avalon, London, Ishimura & Mayan) over twenty-three episodes (which initially aired over something like a six month period). But maybe Gargoyle-A-Month is a more accurate criticism. Did we make a mistake saying that our sextet (plus Demona) weren't the only survivors of the gargoyle race? Maybe. It does remove some drama. But I liked adding hope into the equation for the gargoyle race. And I definitely liked how the World Tour (and not just the new clans, but especially the new clans) widened the scope of our tapestry/series. But many have disagreed.

Finally, our last shark-sighter cites "Xanatos repents". But I'm not sure that Xanatos ever really repented. He called a truce certainly, but not until the fourth to last scene of the last episode of the 2nd season. And I don't think anyone really thinks that we jumped the shark during "Hunter's Moon". So I'm going to be generous to myself and assume that it was how X was handled during TGC that this guy was voting for. (That may include my episode "The Journey", but I'll have to live with that and the notion that if people had been able to see where _I_ would have taken David in subsequent episodes, they might be less inclined to even think he repented, let alone that it caused the series to jump.)

Well, that was fun. I'll try to tackle the commentary tomorrow...

Gary Sperling remembered...

I wrote this whole thing up yesterday, before I realized that the server (or whatever) was down... So I'll try to recreate it now. I hate recreating things that I write. You can take for granted it was much better written yesterday. *Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.*

So...

On Sunday, I went to the unveiling of Gary Sperling's grave marker. It's nearly impossible for me to believe that he's been gone an entire year.

The day, the weather, was very reminiscent of the day of his funeral, i.e. hot, hot, hot. Gary's family seems to be doing well, to have found some equilibrium. They miss him, but it's also clear that he is an ongoing and wonderful presence in their lives.

I still catch myself, have to remind myself that he's gone.

Spent some time with some old Disney buddies. We talked about Gary. Talked about Disney (then & now). It was really kind of great. But many of them I hadn't seen since his funeral, and it's a bit appalling that we haven't gotten together for a year, and that the only thing that brings us in contact is another bittersweet occasion.

I ask myself what I've done with this year. What Gary might have done with another year. I don't really feel like I've achieved much, have much to show for being on this planet for twelve months longer than my friend. Except for this: I got to spend that time with my kids. Not that I'm that spectacular a father, but I think my mere presence (fairly active presence) in their lives has to be a good thing. I'm guessing if Gary ever envied me anything (cuz that wasn't his nature at all), he'd envy me that. It's damn hard not to conclude therefore that I am one lucky sonovabitch.

And that conclusion, I think, is worth the price of admission right there. Another thing to thank Gary for, I guess.

Thanks.

A recommendation...

FIREFLY THE SERIES ON DVD

I watched it over the last week, and it's so great. Most of you know, I'm a big Joss Whedon fan anyway. But seeing all 15 hours of Firefly in order was just great.

I despair for television when a series like that doesn't find an audience. It's easy to blame Fox for the haphazard way they aired the eps. No surprise, the series is MUCH stronger aired in order. But I watched it when it was on (missing only one episode) and even out of order, the series was so amazingly great.

Where was the audience?

The good news is that Joss is making "Serenity", a movie that picks up 6 months after the last episode of Firefly with all of the original cast.

I don't know how they justify making this movie, if they couldn't justify giving the series a chance, but I'm not complaining.

Still, I wonder: WHERE WAS THE AUDIENCE?

Star Sighting &tc...

I just saw wecently wed Wesley & Willow walking arm-in-arm down Wittle Santa Monica Blvd. It was pretty cute...

Have I mentioned this before?:

I think one (though certainly not the only) visceral appeals of the E-Street Band is its archetypal relationship to Robin Hood & his Merry Men.

Bruce Springsteen = Robin Hood (complete with a "rob-from-the-rich-and-give-to-the-poor" mentality)
Miami Steve Van Zandt = Will Scarlett
Max Weinberg = Friar Tuck
Patti Scialfa = Maid Marion

and of course

The Big Man, Clarence Clemons = Little John

I'm not sure which of the following is Alan a Dale...

Garry Tallent, Roy Bittan, Danny Federici or Nils Lofgren.

(The truth is Bruce/Robin is his own Alan, I guess.)

When it comes down to it, I don't know the names of enough Merry Men to make every parallel work. But I'm sure you can see the connections.

Discuss.

Spalding & Paul

We lost two greats yesterday.

Actually, we lost Spalding Gray over a month ago, we just hadn't confirmed the loss until yesterday.

I was (and continue to be) a huge Spalding Gray fan. His acting was decent, fun. But his monologues were always brilliant. I remember once laughing so hard at "Gray's Anatomy" during the Indian Sweatlodge riff that I thought I was going to die of asphyxiation. Everyone should rent his seminal "Swimming to Cambodia". Everyone. Then move on to "Monster in a Box" or some of his other great filmed monologues. They're amazing. But nothing like seeing him live. He will be missed.

As will Paul Winfield, a truly amazing actor. I met him twice when he came in to perform the roll of blind novelist "Jeffrey MacClain Robbins" on GARGOYLES. It was a joy to watch Paul and Ed Asner play off each other. Winfield brought tremendous dignity and humanity to Robbins. And he helped us tell our tale of literacy without making it too preachy. I still remember fondly the following exchange when Hudson is amazed at how Robbins can find Macbeth's address in the phone book.

Hudson: Magic book.
Robbins: Aren't they all?

Simple, but mighty.

Spalding, man... Paul... You left us too soon.

More rambles on Angel...

Well, I'm glad I chose to trust them Angel writers. I thought last night's episode of Angel, with the new Illyria/Fred was another extremely powerful and well done hour of television.

It was a nice variation on a theme in that Illyria ISN'T going to be the big villain for the season. She's now just another lost soul. An ancient demon who has to start over.

I do have a couple quibbles:

I wasn't fond of the artificial way they wrote Lorne out of the episode until the montage at the end. It just seemed like they felt they were too crowded to give his character any screen time.

It bothered me that no one could acknowledge that what was happening to Gun was an exact parallel to what happened to Wes when he stole Connor, because no one remembers Connor. That whole nobody-remembers-Connor thing still strikes me as only a step above the Bobby-Ewing-reappearing-in-the-shower/it-was-all-a-dream ploy on Dallas. But the Connor thing is more a fault of LAST season (which had its share of problems) as opposed to this season.

So I'm very optimistic that Angel will continue to be brilliant throughout its final year.

Death of Fred - SPOILERS

Last night, I finally got around to watching last week's Death of Fred episode on Angel.

Very powerful, very powerful stuff.

And yet....

You see, I'm conflicted, because Angel's writers have certainly earned my trust this year with powerful episodes, including:

--The Death of Cordelia (one of the best hours of tv and endings that I've ever seen)
--The lunatic Slayer (another great, great ending)
--Angel's turned into a puppet

But I'm a little tired of the "One of our regulars goes bad" storylines. Hell, Smallville, which I don't watch because it sucks, seems (judging by their commercials) to do this every week.

And Buffy/Angel has had it's fair share of the same thing. Just last season they did evil Cordelia and the return of Angelus. (Plus there's Angelus' original appearance in Buffy Season 2, Dark Willow and various episodic evil versions of everyone from Xander to Anya.)

So I'm just not looking forward to seeing another evil version of one of their characters. Been there. Done that. If this is Angel's last season -- as it reportedly is, then I'd have liked to push a different way. Lyndsay and the Senior Partners, for example.

But on the other hand, how can I not trust Joss and the Angel writing staff. This season has been jam-packed with amazing episodes, and last night was no exception.

So I'll just cross my fingers, and in any case, try not to weep as the last of Joss' amazing series goes off the air.

OSCAR HINDSIGHT

Back in January, I listed my choices for the Oscars -- hampered by how few movies I had seen. I made a point of saying that these were preferences, not predictions.

But just for fun, let's you and I revisit my choices and see how I did.

Again, keep in mind that I wouldn't allow myself to pick anything from a film I hadn't seen. And since I hadn't seen MOST of the nominated films, that left me with few choices in many categories.

PICTURE:
GW: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
WINNER: LOTR: ROTK
Comment: No-brainer. I'm 1 for 1.

ACTOR:
GW: Johnny Depp
WINNER: Sean Penn
Comment: Didn't see Mystic River. Have no doubt that Penn was probably great. But I still feel that the academy does not appreciate comedy and a win for either Depp or Murray would have been nice to see. I'm 1 for 2.

ACTRESS:
GW: Keisha Castle-Hughes
WINNER: Charlize Theron
Comment: Everyone tells me she was amazing, but I never saw Monster. In fact, Keisha was the only nominated performance I saw. This is no big surprise. I'm 1 for 3.

SUPPORTING ACTOR:
GW: Alec Baldwin
Winner: Tim Robbins.
Comment: I liked Robbins speech. Again, I didn't see his performance. I'm sure he was great. But I know Baldwin was great. I'm sinking here at 1 for 4.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
GW: No pick.
WINNER: Renée Zellweger
Comment: Didn't see ANY of the nominated performances. I'm 1 for 5.

DIRECTOR:
GW: Peter Jackson
WINNER: Peter Jackson.
Comment: I pretty much stuck with the ROTK horse and scored well, obviously. I'm 2 for 6.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
GW: Walsh, Boyens, Jackson
Winner: Ditto
Comment: I'm 3 for 7.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
GW: Coppola
Winner: Coppola
Comment: I'm 4 for 8. Batting 500 now after the acting awards decimated me.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
GW: no pick
Winner: The Barbarian Invasions
Comment: I'm 4 for 9.

ANIMATED FEATURE:
GW: Finding Nemo
Winner: Finding Nemo
Comment: I'm 5 for 10.

ART DIRECTION:
GW: ROTK
Winner: ROTK
Comment: I'm 6 for 11.

SOUND MIXING:
GW: ROTK
Winner: ROTK
Comment: I'm 7 for 12.

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
GW: Master & Commander
Winner: M&C
Comment: Hey I even won in a tech category where ROTK wasn't nominated. I'm 8 for 13.

SOUND EDITING:
GW: Pirates
Winner: M&C
Comment: Oh, well. I'm 8 for 14.

ORIGINAL SCORE:
GW: Shore
Winner: Shore
Comment: Duh. I'm 9 for 15.

ORIGINAL SONG:
GW: Into the West
Winner: Into the West
Comment: Okay, now I've heard all five songs. Sting's song seemed really great. But at the time I'd ONLY heard Into the West. I liked it, so I picked it and it won. I'm 10 for 16.

Documentary Feature:
GW: no pick
Winner: The Fog of War
Comment: I'm 10 for 17.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT:
GW: No pick.
Winner: Cherno0byl Heart.
Comment: I'm 10 for 18.

FILM EDITING:
GW: ROTK
WINNER: ROTK
Comment: I'm 11 for 19.

MAKEUP
GW: ROTK
WINNER: ROTK
COmment: I'm 12 for 20.

COSTUME:
GW: ROTK
WINNER: ROTK
COMMENT: I'm 13 for 21.

ANIMATED SHORT:
GW: no pick
winner: Harvie Krumpet
Comment: I wonder now if I did see that Ice Age short somewhere. Like on the DVD maybe? Doesn't matter. I know a lot of people were routing for Roy to win. Wonder what he would have said? High road or low road? Anyway, I'm 13 for 22.

LIVE ACTION SHORT:
GW: Two Soldiers
Winner: Two Soldiers
Comment: I think this was the single award that I had the most invested in. Turns out it was favored. I had no idea. It was the only short I had seen, but I went out of my way to see it because "Two Soldiers" by William Faulkner is my all-time favorite short story ever. The movie isn't quite as good as the story, but it definitely does it justice. I was so happy when it won. And I'm 14 for 23.

VISUAL EFFECTS:
GW: ROTK
WINNER: ROTK
Comment: Final tally: 15 for 24.

Eleven of those fifteen were the ROTK sweep. The other four were for Two Soldiers, Nemo, Translation's script and M&C's Cinematography.

Of the nine I missed, five were in categories I made no pick whatsoever, per my self-imposed rules. One of those five plus three other misses were in acting categories, where I hadn't seen the winning performances, so couldn't vote for them. That means that the only category where I feel I really "guessed" wrong was in Sound Editing where I went with Pirates over M&C.

Not too shabby.

Wanna hear about my day?

Keep in mind I usually go to bed at about 2am. Last night/this morning was no exception. I had to set the alarm for 4:30am in order to get to the airport and get through security (which is ever-mutating and unpredictable) in time to catch my flight outa this burg.

Did I mention that today is Friday the 13th?

I'm not usually superstitious about Friday the 13ths, because my wife was born on a Friday the 13th, so I kinda consider it a lucky day for me.

But my flight was cancelled. Not delayed. Cancelled. Some equipment malfunction and no back-up plane to take it's place. The current plan is to try again tomorrow. Wish me luck.

So anyway, came home and we decided to go to the movies: "MIRACLE".

Many of you are too young, but many of you are old enough to remember the 1980 Winter Olympics and the "Miracle on Ice" U.S. victory over the unbeatable Soviet Union team. I was 16 and saw the game on ABC. My father had also only recently bought our first VCR, and we actually have the game on tape.

This movie brought back SO many memories. It is incredibly well-made, and Kurt Russell is amazing in it. The truly phenomenal thing about the film is that I knew exactly how it was going to end, but I was nevertheless on the edge of my seat the entire time. Not as seat-edgy as I was 24 years ago, of course, when I DIDN'T know the outcome, but still...

I recommend this film to anyone, whether or not they are interested in hockey.

Meanwhile, I have a headache and am, for obvious reasons, quite tired. So if I start to ramble, well...

Last week I had three celebrity sightings over a three day period.

Saw what's-his-name (I'm blanking out) the Quantum Leap guy who plays Jonathan Archer on Star Trek Enterprise at the Yellow Balloon, which is a kid's haircutting place. I was there with my two kids. He was there with his two sons. (Or at least I assume they were his sons.)

Later that afternoon, I saw Nancy Travis from "Becker". I was at a bowling alley with my two kids. She was at the alley with her son. (At least I assume it was her son. Maybe she traded kids with Archer for the day.)

Two days later, I saw Melissa "Laura Ingalls" Gilbert at Jamba Juice. She's currently the president of the Screen Actors Guild. She's about my age. She ordered a smoothie. The Jamba guy asked her what size, and I wanted to say "Give her a half-pint." But I figured she didn't need that joke from me. And it wasn't that funny anyway. My kids weren't there. Neither were hers or Archer's.

Disney. I probably shouldn't comment on this AT ALL.

I'm afraid I'm not one of the big Eisner-bashers. I worked for him during the Eisner/Katzenberg team-up years. And I'm not saying it was a piece of cake, but I had to pitch to the man once every six months, and I have no complaints about that era. He bought Gargoyles afterall. Course, I had to pitch it to him three times, but he still let us make the show. And for me personally, things got worse when Eisner STOPPED making the final decisions about which shows Disney TV Animation should make. Back then, when he gave the green light, other divisions either got on board or got out of the way. Now, all decisions are made by committee. I don't envy TVA's current execs and creative types. It's much harder to get a green light. And much harder to get a show made. The buck of course ultimately stops with Eisner -- even for this new way of operating, but people bitch about his micro-managing. And he never did that to us. But his complete removal from our process created a system which I think is arguably much worse.

In a war between Eisner and Roy Disney, it's hard not to want to side with the guy who literally carries the Disney name. But I have to admit that my Disney concerns are more parochial. The division I'm still (after all these years) most interested in is the TV Animation Division that (I like to think) I helped build with guys like Gary Krisel, Bruce Cranston, Jymn Magon, Tad Stones, Karl Geurs, Alan Zaslove, Tom Ruzicka, Michael Webster, etc. And frankly, I just don't know what Roy thinks of our old stuff. I know that back in the day, he WOULDN'T let us use characters like Mickey, Donald, Goofy, etc. He didn't think we could do them justice, I guess. He didn't stand in the way of a show like Gargoyles, but I never once heard an attaboy from him. And I did from Eisner.

Does that mean anything ten years later. Probably not. But it makes the whole sitch kinda gray and murky for me loyalty -wise.

But in a war between Eisner and Comcast? Well, I have no idea what would truly be best for the company, but it would be hard for me to see Disney lose it's independence and become merely a subsidiary of a larger conglomerate... and frankly aren't these conglomerates LARGE A DAMN NUFF ALREADY?

I don't have the answers to any of this.

Disney vs. Pixar. Or more accurately Eisner vs. Jobs. Again, hard not to want to side with Jobs, but I've been reading the Business sections on this, and Jobs seems to have made the deal impossible to make financially. Now the reason he may have done this may be because Eisner pissed him off beyond the ken, I have no idea, but there was no way anyone acting in Disney's fiduciary interest would give up 50% share of two Pixar movies in exchange for an on-going relationship with Pixar that would only have amounted to fixed Distribution fees. That just doesn't make financial sense to me as a Disney *but not a Pixar* stock holder.

I'm tired and murky. And you know what, I didn't see Brother Bear, but my kids liked it. And I LIKED TREASURE PLANET!!! Quite a bit, actually. So I wish people would stop knocking the movie. I think Disney botched the marketing on it and then sabotaged the thing by writing it off after one weekend before word-of-mouth even had a chance to help them off.

I'm bummed that Disney dismantled it's Tokyo Animation division. For personal reasons, that bums me out more than what they did in Florida and even to their Burbank Features staff. But it's all a bad sign.

Just depressing.

I'm not even coherent now, am I ?

I'll stop rambling and try to answer a couple questions.

See you next week ... unless the plane doesn't take off again tomorrow.

Heading out of town...

I'll be out of town tomorrow and all next week.

No internet access while I'm gone, so I'll be back here at ASK GREG on 2/23/04.

Have a great Valentine's Day,

Greg

LAST NIGHT'S CHAT

I'd like to thank everyone who participated in last night's chat.

Props especially go out to Mooncat for moderating and logging the thing.

To Matt for suggesting it (more-or-less) in the first place.

And for Gorebash for hosting it.

Finally, I'd like to send a personal shout out to "Beth Maza". I had forgotten that that was your screen name, and I'm afraid I was so busy answering questions that it didn't register when you came in the room. Of course, I remember you and your REAL name.

Beth Maza was the con-chair for the very first GATHERING in Manhattan in 1997. She almost single-handedly organized the convention and got me there (against all odds, I should add). We all owe her a huge debt of gratitude. Me most of all.

Next to Gorebash, no one besides Beth did more to bring me into the fandom at the beginning. Thanks. (And I hope you see this.)

FEELING CHATTY...

Hey gang,

Just letting everybody know that I'll be stopping by the Station 8 Chat Room (http://s8.org/chat/gargs/) on Thursday, February 5th, 2004 from 4pm-6pm PST (that's 7-9pm Eastern).

Hope to see you all then.

OSCAR NOMINATIONS

This is an interesting exercise for me. One which mostly demonstrates how few movies I get to see.

The Oscar Noms came out and are in today's paper. So I'm going to list my choices.

But here's the main rule. I can only choose from movies I've actually seen. The result is that there are entire categories (including at least one major category) that I can't vote in at all:

Supporting Actress
Foreign Language Film
Documentary Feature
Documentary Short
Animated Short

Of course, I reserve the right to make changes later if I see more movies. Also, these are NOT predictions. I'm not trying to guess who the Academy will chose. I'm simply stating my preferences...

PICTURE: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
Haven't seen Mystic River or Seabiscuit. Didn't care for the tiresome Master & Commander. I enjoyed Lost in Translation, a movie which snuck up on everyone, but I don't think it was quite as good as everyone said. I'm sorry that The Cooler didn't get nominated, but in any case it's hard not to vote for LOTR: Return of the King over either Master or Translation. I think that both of the first two movies were better than the third, but as I've stated, this isn't a Return of the Jedi scenario. This is an amazing movie on every level. The bar was set incredibly high by Jackson's first two films. And he still made it over by any reckoning.

ACTRESS: Keisha Castle-Hughes, WHALE RIDER
Well, I haven't seen In America, 21 Grams, Monster or Something's Gotta Give. So Keisha was my only option. But that's okay. I wasn't too wild about the 2-D movie, but the kid was great. Doubt she'll win, but, hey, I'm routing for her.

ACTOR: Johnny Depp, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
Haven't seen Mystic River, Cold Mountain or House of Sand and Fog. That leaves Depp in Pirates and Murray in Translation, both terrrific comic performances. I'm choosing Depp, the more obvioulsy comic turn, because (a) comedy is rarely rewarded by the Academy and like to break that barrier and (b) as good as Murray is, he's kinda playing himself. But this was a VERY tough choice for me.

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Alec Baldwin, THE COOLER
Haven't seen 21 Grams, In America, Mystic River or the Last Samurai so all that leaves is Alec in Cooler. But even more than Keisha above, I'm thrilled to have Alec as my choice. I saw The Cooler this past Saturday and REALLY loved it. William H. Macy and Maria Bello are also brilliant in it, but I'm not at all surprised that Baldwin was nominated. He's a great actor.

DIRECTOR: Peter Jackson, RINGS: KING
Haven't seen Mystic River or City of God. Didn't care for Master & Commander. Liked Lost in Translation, but Jackson's efforts on Return of the King are stunning.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Walsh, Boyens, Jackson, LOTR: ROTK
Havent's seen American Splendor, City of God, Mystic River or Seabiscuit, leaving Rings my only option. But again, I like the screenplay so it's a fine choice. Looking forward to the extended version though.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Coppola, LOST IN TRANSLATION
Haven't seen Barbarian Invasions or Dirty Pretty Things or In America, which leaves me a choice between Lost and Finding Nemo. No contest. Nemo is a cute little movie, but it's far from being my favorite Pixar script. Translation is fascinating.

ART DIRECTION: Hennah, Lee, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen Girl with a Pearl Earing, Last Samurai or Seabiscuit. Which leaves me with a contest between LOTR and M&Commander. This was actually a tougher call. I didn't care much for M&C, but it looked damn good. But I think LOTR was a greater overall achievement.

ANIMATED FEATURE: FINDING NEMO.
Haven't seen Brother Bear or Triplets of Belleville. So that leaves Nemo only. Again, not a brilliant film, but it has some brilliant stuff in it, so I can vote this way with a vaguely clear conscious.

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Boyd, MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD
Haven't seen City of God, Cold Mountain, Girl with a Pearl Earing or Seabiscuit, which leaves only M&C, which again looked great. So, fine.

SOUND MIXING: Boyes, Semanick, Hedges, Peek, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen Samurai or Seabiscuit, but it leaves three great choices, M&C, ROTK and Pirates. I'm gonna give the edge to ROTK. I seem to be sweeping with them. Can't help it. Note that Christopher Boyes is up for bother Pirates and Rings. That's pretty good odds, but an even bigger bummer, I'd imagine, if he loses.

SOUND EDITING: Boyes, Waters, PIRATES
Boyes is looking good for some award. Sound editing on Nemo, Pirates and M&C were probably all great. But I have a softer spot for the fun of Pirates. One of the few categories where I HAVE seen all of the nominees.

ORIGINAL SCORE: Shore, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen Big Fish, Cold Mountain or House of Sand & Fog, which leaves Howard Shore's brilliant ROTK work and Nemo, which was just okay.

ORIGINAL SONG: "Into the West", Walsh, Shore, Lennox, LOTR:ROTK
Well, I'm a big Annie Lennox fan to begin with, and the song was very moving to me, so this is an obvious choice. Throw in the fact that I haven't seen Mighty Wind, Cold Mountain, Cold Mountain or Triplets and it was also my only option. The good news is that so far, there hasn't been a category where I have declined to pick a winner because I only had one option. So far, even in categories with only one option, I've genuinely liked that one option.

COSTUME DESIGN: Dickson, Taylor, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen Girl with Pearl, Samurai or Seabiscuit, which again leaves M&C and LOTR. Went with LOTR for cause. Great costumes across the board.

FILM EDITING: Selkirk, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen City of God, Cold Mountain or Seabiscuit, leaving YET again M&C and LOTR. No brainer. Half the time in the M&C battle scenes I couldn't keep basic track of who was doing what.

MAKEUP: Taylor, King: LOTR:ROTK
Another of the categories where I have seen all the nominees. Pirates had great make-up, truly. And I came very close to giving this one to Pirates. But just that one Orc was so damn good, and he was just the tip of the iceberg. M&C is also in the running, but why?

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: "Two Soldiers"
I haven't seen the other four options, but I have seen Two Soldiers, based on a William Faulkner short story that just happens to be my all time favorite short story ever. I made a point of seeing this short and was not disappointed. It's really great.

VISUAL EFFECTS: Rygiel, Letteri, Cook, Funke, LOTR: ROTK
And the last of three categories where I've seen all the nominees. Any other year and Pirates (but not M&C) would have challenged for this award. But ROTK, right?

So what's the final tally...

11 for LOTR: ROTK, including picture, director, song, score, screenplay and a half-dozen tech and craft awards. I think that's a clean-sweep. And I'm not generally a sweepy kinda guy. But the true geek in me has been awakened by this trilogy.
2 for Pirates, including Depp's brilliant performanceand a tech award.
1 for WHALE RIDER's kid actress.
1 for THE COOLER's Alec Baldwin.
1 for LOST IN TRANSLATION's keen screenplay by Sofia Coppola.
1 for FINDING NEMO. Best animated feature, won perhaps by default, though I liked the movie.
1 for MASTER & COMMANDER for cinematography, another default win perhaps, though it certainly looked gorgeous.
1 for "Two Soldiers", a personal favorite that may be the award I'm most routing to be right about.

And then five categories where I couldn't vote at all.

That's it.

Bye.

Stuff...

ASK GREG isn't exactly a BLOG. I'm not always sure what's appropriate to put here...

For example, I had a weird thought last night. It occured to me that I'm old enough (based on my sexual history) to have a 22-year-old child. (My actual kids are 9 and 6.) That freaked me out. But I'm not sure it's appropriate for this forum. Still -- I guess it doesn't hurt to be advocating protected sex over unprotected sex, right?

(I know that's gonna come back and bite me on the ass. I just know it.)

Saw RETURN OF THE KING. And I really, really liked it, although I didn't really, really like the first hour. Overall, I enjoyed the first two movies more, but don't get me wrong. I'm not comparing this to the awful Return of the Jedi, at all. I still loved it, and I can't wait to see the extended version.

I do wish there had been some mention of what the dwarves were up to. And some indication of where the elves went who fought at Helm's Deep. How come they didn't lend a hand in Gondor? Even a line of dialogue would have been helpful to me.

The movie that actually caught me by surprise was PETER PAN. I really liked it a lot. It's so melancholy and bittersweet. Peter looked terrific (and was about 50/50 on the acting). Some things may have been a bit on the head, but it's Neverland, not Subtletyland. Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's a better movie than LOTR, but I thought the reviews of Pan were way harsh.

HATED CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN. But there was one VERY FUNNY scene in it when the twins confessed. Otherwise, as a dad, I thought the message it sent was EXTREMELY dubious -- and extremely unrealistic.

Had a great vacation. Hope you all are having a happy new year.

Random stuff...

Random ramblings before I go on vacation...

*I am DYING to see "LORD OF THE RINGS: Return of the King". I can't believe how much I want to see this movie. It has been ages since my geeky self has been this desperate. I literally can't remember the last time I so NEEDED to see a movie.

*I bought both extended DVDs for the first two films. (The first one, a year ago of course.) Honestly, what I really can't wait for is the Extended version of Return of the King, but since that's a year off, I'll settle for seeing the "short" version on the big screen. All I can say is that I hope to hell that there's a movie theater on Marco Island, and if so it damn well better be playing ROTK. (And that's right. I'm cussing! Oh, don't look so shocked.)

*I'd like to see a music video featuring Demona to Dido's
"White Flag".

*I'd like to see a music video from Goliath's POV -- but featuring Elisa -- of "Amazing". (I think that's the title. I'm not sure who the artist or band is.)

*I've seen an interview with Peter Jackson saying that originally -- a long time ago -- he wanted to make "The Hobbit" but found that the rights were a mess. He wanted to make "The Hobbit" to demonstrate that he could do "Lord of the Rings". But discovered that the rights to the latter were free and clear, so switched his ambitions to the LOTR, which he wanted to make as TWO films, as he felt he couldn't do justice to the story in one film. Thank God, he got to make three. And, yes, I'm desperately hoping that after "King Kong" (which I'll trust him on, since he's earned that trust, but if ever a movie did NOT require remaking...) he'll do "The Hobbit" as a prequel with the Ians and JR-D and Serkis.

*I can personally vouch for the rights to Hobbit being a mess. When I was a development exec at Disney -- and again, later, at DreamWorks -- we looked into acquiring the rights to do a new animated Hobbit Movie. The rights were hopelessly mired. I understand it isn't quite as bad now. But at the time, a huge number of people/groups had a claim (some more legitimate than others) to the thing. After looking into the situation, my boss wouldn't touch the thing with a ten foot pole.

*I'd really love to do a WWII Blackhawk movie someday.

*Last week, I saw a short film based on William Faulkner's short story, "Two Soldiers". This is my all time favorite short story EVER. I highly recommend it. HIGHLY. And the movie was pretty darn good too. The kid was amazing.

*Saw Clancy Brown again today at a recording session. He kicked ass, as usual. I'd love to tell you what he played, but I honestly don't know if it's confidential or not, and I don't want to get in trouble. Hopefully, I can talk about it soon. I'm not sure he remembered me though, which was a little depressing.

*Saw George Segal walking down the street in Beverly Hills. He didn't seem to remember me either. Of course, we've never met.

*Saw Diane Lane and Christopher Lambert tonight at my daughter's school "Winter Program". They're kid goes to the same school. I've never met them either, but I'd love to ask them what it was like working with Sir Laurence Olivier ("A Little Romance") and Sir Ralph Richardson ("Greystoke"). I wonder if it would bug them that the movies I'm MOST interested in are more or less the first one's each of them ever made.

*I realize I'm intentionally name-dropping. And I also realize it's kind of obnoxious. But, hey, I live in L.A. and I work in the biz, sort of. So I might as well go all out. I also met Steve Harris ("The Practice") and Ming Na ("e.r.") at the Recording session today. And I saw Rino Romano (Johnny Rico from "Roughnecks: Starship Troopers"). Rino, at least, remembered me, thank god.

*The funny thing about LOTR and my passion for the movies is that I'm not a massive Tolkien fan. I read the Hobbit and the Trilogy when I was in my early teens. And I liked them all right. But I wasn't rabid about it. And I could never get through the Silmarillion, though I tried at least three times. I reread the Hobbit to my kids about two years ago. And again, I liked it. But I TOTALLY LOVE THESE MOVIES. Totally obssessed!

*I ate way too much candy at the recording session today.

*It's been a long time since I really rambled on this site. It's been fun. Have a great holiday, guys.

Seeya soon,

Greg

Happy Holidays...

Seasons Greetings everyone...

I'm heading out of town for awhile. I'll be back answering ASK GREG questions no later than January 5th.

Have a great holiday season.

Greg

A TOUCH OF CANMORE IN THE NIGHT...

For those of you who missed the controversy over the following set of questions... You're lucky.

These questions waited a long time in the queue, but were deleted...

What follows is a bit difficult to read, so here's a primer.

<Lynati lists topics -- or perhaps they are old questions -- inside these carrots.>

[She then quotes ASK GREG inside brackets.]

Then she asks new numbered and lettered questions inside parens, e.g. 1a).

MY NEW RESPONSES FOLLOW IN ALL-CAPS.

From Lynati:

I'm in a Canmore mood this evening. Err, morning.

<Of Fiona's relationship to Robyn and her siblings, posted at two different times>

[Fiona is the twin sister of Jason, Robyn and Jon's grandfather. That is, she's their great aunt.]

DID YOU CUT AND PASTE THIS QUOTATION OR RETYPE IT YOURSELF? DID I REALLY MAKE THAT GLARING AN ERROR, SUBSTITUTING JASON FOR JACKSON.

[But I'm pretty sure that Jackson is Fiona's twin brother. That Jackson was the father of Aron who was the father of Charles
who was the father of Jason, Robyn & Jon. And I know Fiona's great-grandfather was Angus.]

This second list would make her their great-great-aunt. When you have a chance, will you look it up in your Canmore-bloodline list and clarify for us:

(1a)Is she Jackson's twin brother, or Aron's?

THE TWINS, JACKSON AND FIONA CANMORE WERE BORN IN 1888.

(1b)How many "great"'s properly belong in front of her name in relation to Robyn?

IN 1908, JACKSON'S SON ARON CANMORE WAS BORN. FIONA WAS HIS AUNT.

IN 1936, ARON'S SON CHARLES CANMORE WAS BORN. FIONA WAS HIS GREAT AUNT.

IN 1964, CHARLES' SON JASON CANMORE WAS BORN. FIONA WAS HIS GREAT-GREAT AUNT.

IN 1966, CHARLES' DAUGHTER ROBYN CANMORE WAS BORN. FIONA WAS HIS GREAT-GREAT AUNT.

IN 1972, CHARLES' SON JON CANMORE WAS BORN. FIONA WAS HIS GREAT-GREAT AUNT.

<At the time of 'Hunter's moon' were Jason, Jon and Robyn Canmore the only descendents of Canmore? Do they have any other family out there that they are unaware of?>

[There are probably a lot of Canmore descendants. They probably know some and don't know others, just like anyone. But they were the three who had carried on the tradition of the Hunter.]

(2a)Were Robyn and her siblings chosen to continue the Hunter tradition, or did they get a choice?

THEY WERE CHOSEN. AND THEY HAD A CHOICE IN THEORY, BUT GAUGE THAT RELATIVE TO WHAT YOU SAW IN "HUNTER'S MOON".

(2b)As they were trained by the "Canmore clan", does that mean that a large part of the family knows about "the Demon" and
the pledge to hunt her down, or is it kept a secret from anyone not pledged on the Hunter path?

IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU DEFINE "CANMORE CLAN". IF YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ANY AND ALL OF THE DESCENDANTS OF DUNCAN & CANMORE -- THAN NO, I DON'T THINK MOST STILL KNOW ABOUT DEMONA. BUT IF YOU'RE REFERRING TO THE BRANCH OF THE CLAN THAT RECREATED THE HUNTER TRADITION, THAN YES, MOST KNOW.

(2c)Were any of Robyn's cousins (and second cousins, etc.) offered the choice to become Hunters, and if not, did they receive similar training anyway?

I TEND TO THINK THAT THE MANTLE OF THE HUNTER FALLS ALONG A DIRECT LINE OF DESCENT AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE.

(2d)Was Fiona Robyn, Jason, and Jon's primary teacher and trainer?

NO. BUT SHE PARTICIPATED.

[But I've charted so many Canmores that I get confused sometimes, and I don't have that chart with me. I can't remember for
sure. Ask me again later. ]

[She [Demona] was hunted (a) because she was the only one left (as far as they knew) and (b) because of a little mishap with
Canmore and one of his sons that I haven't told you about yet.]

(3a)Will you tell us about all of the Canmore's you have charted at 2002 (or whichever con is "next" by the time this post gets
through), including the above-mentioned "incident" that you have not previously told us about?

NOPE.

(3b)If not, will you tell us about most of them?

NAH.

Hmm...maybe you should just sell copies of the Canmore family list at the Gathering.

IT'S A THOUGHT.

<So what happened in Paris, 1920 that was so significant to the Atlantis and Gargoyles universes? >

[Come to G2002 and find out.]

<origination of the word "Gargoyle".>

[The etimology of the word gargoyle goes back a long way. It evolved at least in part from an Atlantean word. That's all I want
to say at this time. But hold tight. More will be revealed at the Gathering 2002 in Virginia Beach.]

<Who created the Praying Gargoyle? >
[If you come to G2002, you'll find out.]

<How powerful is its magic?>
[Potentially, very powerful.]

(4a)So, was the Praying Gargoyle created on Atlantis?

IT WAS CREATED BY ATLANTEANS -- BUT I'M NOT SURE IF IT WAS LITERALLY CREATED IN ATLANTIS.

(4b)Did the first gargoyles develop on Atlantis?

NO. GARGOYLES PREDATE ATLANTIS. AS DO HUMANS.

(4c) What did you have for lunch today?

NOTHING. TOO BUSY ANSWERING QUESTIONS.

(4d)In 1920, were Fiona Canmore and Demona fighting over the possession of the Praying gargoyle?

NOT REALLY, THOUGH IT PLAYED A ROLE IN THEIR CONFLICT.

(4e)If yes, and the Praying Gargoyle was hidden this year, was there any particular reason that Demona had to wait 60
years to reclaim it, or did she just figure it was too good a hiding place to leave the statue in until she needed it?

THE PRAYING GARGOYLE WAS DESTROYED IN 1920. IT TOOK 60 YEARS TO REGENERATE.

And, while I'm here...

(5a)...Does Demona really "know every remaining gargoyle" as she claims in "the reckoning", or was this just another one of her "I am right about everything (and therefore there can be no more gargoyles than I know of)" delusions?

IT SEEMS CLEAR TO ME THAT SHE DOESN'T KNOW EVERY REMAINING GARGOYLE, AS SHE CLEARLY DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT AVALON.

(5b)Which clans is she actually aware of at the time she makes that proclamation?

I'M NOT GOING TO TIE MY HANDS BY LISTING THEM AT THIS TIME.

(5c)As Angela learned about Demona's immortality in "Sanctuary", why was she crying after Demona's "death" in the reckoning?

IT'S ONE THING TO KNOW SOMETHING INTELLECTUALLY, IT'S ANOTHER TO TRULY ABSORB IT. ALSO, AS I'VE STATED MANY, MANY TIMES BEFORE, THE MANHATTAN CLAN KNOWS THE BASIC RULES REGARDING DEMONA AND MACBETH, BUT THEY ARE NOT AS SURE AS I AM THAT DEMONA CAN NEVER BE KILLED EXCEPT UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES. THIS IS ALL NEW TO THEM.

(5d)Did Angela and Goliath honestly believe that Demona was permanently killed by the roller coster collapse/fire, even
knowing that Demona is only able to truly die at Macbeth's hands?

THEY JUST WEREN'T 100% SURE.

(5e) Was Angela not aware of that stipulation?

SEE ABOVE.

(5f)Since Goliath knew, did he deliberately keep the knowledge that Demona would survive from Angela?

SEE ABOVE.

(5g)Have I forgotten something that makes a flaw in my reasoning here?

ONLY THAT YOU ARE THINKING IN ABSOLUTES. MOST PEOPLE (AND GARGOYLES) GO THROUGH LIFE WITH SOME DOUBTS, INSECURITIES AND UNCERTAINTIES. EVEN IF THEY ARE TOLD SOMETHING, THERE'S ALWAYS ROOM TO QUESTION IT.

Yes, I plan to attend the Gathering in 2002.

The last question is, will you have read this post by then?

OBVIOUSLY, NOT. BUT AT LEAST I GOT TO IT BEFORE G2004.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING...

Have a great holiday, everyone.

See you in December!

TOP FIVE POLL

As many of you know, I stopped by the Station 8 Comment Room last week, asking the fans to list the top five reasons that they were drawn to the Gargoyles series. My post received 470 responses in one week: pretty good on short notice.

The responses can be viewed at http://s8.org/gargoyles/cmntarch2.php. They'll be on that site through this coming Sunday
(11/23/03), at which point the room clears.

I copied and pasted the entire room over to a Word Document and found it to be nearly three hundred pages long and full of very
gratifying bites about the series, but it's a lot to wade through, so I put the following statistics together. [Note: some people gave more than five reasons, and many reasons overlapped. I just tried to count everything. But this is far from scientific.]

"WHAT ARE THE TOP FIVE REASONS THAT YOU ARE DRAWN TO THE GARGOYLES SERIES?"

Out of 470 Total Responses…

#1 - Characters.
An amazing 437 people cited the Characters and the series' complex characterization as one of their top five reasons for being drawn to the series. They discussed, often in great detail, how real and believable the characters seem, how detailed their backstories were, how major and minor characters grew, changed and evolved, and how complex they were, reflecting shades of grey. They liked the relationships/bonds/dynamics between the characters, as well. They even liked their names. 35 respondents specifically noted and appreciated the diversity of our cast (multi-racial and multi-species, and all of very different body types). 16 respondents noted our depiction of strong and non-stereotyped female characters. Another 35 respondents listed our villains as their favorites. Many individual characters were listed simply as examples, but many were also singled out by the fans, voted as one of their top five reasons for liking the show: Demona (39), Brooklyn (30), Xanatos (29), Goliath (23), Puck/Owen (22), Elisa (17), Lexington (13), Macbeth (9), Broadway (9), Bronx (7), Hudson (5), Thailog (5), Fox (4), the Mutates (4), The Pack (3), Oberon (3), the Tricksters (3), the Hunters (3), Angela (2), the Illuminati (2), Jackal & Hyena (1), Desdemona (1), Titania (1), the Clones (1), Una (1), Fang (1) and Matt (1).

#2 - Plot Development.
228 respondents listed the series' ongoing saga, its story arcs, as one of their top five reasons for liking the series. They liked its dynamism and twists. How stories built on past stories and presaged stories yet to come: the tapestry of events that created the Gargoyles Universe. In fact, 23 people specifically listed the "Gargoyles Universe" as one of their top five draws. 88 people specifically referred to Gargoyles' Continuity as being a plus. They liked, in essence, that the show had a memory - it made events more real and seemed to reward the fans for both sticking around and paying attention. It also encouraged them to watch episodes over and over to pick up tidbits that they might have missed on a first viewing. 18 also liked how actions had repercussions and consequences. 3 people praised the series' "epic scope". 6 talked about how it seemed to be filled with possibilities for yet more stories.

#3 - Literary, Mythological, Historical & Biblical References.
201 people loved the integration of various characters and concepts from myth, history, literature and the Bible. A whopping (and gratifying) 104 specifically mentioned all the various Shakespeare references and characters as being a plus. Many felt the show was educational, inspiring them to read Shakespeare's plays or study Scottish History, etc.

#4 - Animation.
199 people loved the series' animation. Many consider it the best or among the best that American television animation has ever produced. Many people compared it favorably with Japanese anime and Batman: The Animated Series. Two people specifically praised the pacing.

#5 - The Voice Cast.
158 people listed the voice cast and voice acting in their top fives. 38 people specifically mentioned that the presence of so many Star Trek actors in Gargoyles was a major initial draw. As with the characters, many individual actors were singled out by the fans in their lists: Keith David/Goliath (32), Jonathan Frakes/Xanatos (19), Marina Sirtis/Demona (15), Salli Richardson/Elisa (4), Michael Dorn/Coldstone (3), Edward Asner/Hudson (2), Jeff Bennett/Brooklyn (2), Jim Cummings/Dingo (1), Tim Curry/Sevarius (1), Thom Adcox-Hernandez/Lexington (1), Frank Welker/Bronx (1). Three of our international fans even praised the foreign dubs.

That takes care of the top five, but this'll fill out the top twenty:

#6 - Series Intelligence.
140 people specifically stated how much they appreciated how "smart" the series was. They liked that it was written on multiple levels so that it could be appreciated by kids as well as by teens and adults. That's one of the reasons why they're still watching it ten years later. They liked how Gargoyles respected its audience and its audience's intelligence.

#7 - Design.
122 people cited the show's design work and art style as part of their top five. They liked the looks of the individual gargoyles and the other characters as well, with 12 people actually praising how "sexy" the characters were. They liked the backgrounds and the overall look of the show. 12 people specifically gave credit to the series' color palette.

#8 - Writing.
76 people cited the series' writing for praise (this is in addition to those listed above who liked the characters, overall story arcs, literary references, etc.). They praised the writing's attention to detail, its substance, layers and intensity. 32 people praised how "believable" and "realistic" the show seemed, despite its fantasy premise. 28 specifically noted the mystery and intrigue, liking the risk-taking twists and turns that kept the audience coming back for more. 27 praised the show's humor and comedy (and one person even liked all the in-jokes). 24 specifically praised the dialogue. 11 praised the emotional depth. 5 praised its timeless quality. 3 praised its scary sequences.

#9 - Issues/Values/Themes.
71 respondents were impressed by Gargoyles ability to introduce real world issues and teach values without preaching. They cited episodes that dealt with gun safety, illiteracy, environmental concerns, etc. 24 people also specifically cited the shows pro-social themes, again noting how the show got its messages across without hitting the viewer over the head with them. Specific themes were even listed on occasion. 10 people hailed the idea of our using monsters as heroes and exploring the theme of "not judging a book by its cover." Four liked the show's theme of hope. Another four liked its theme of protection. One person listed "the fish out of water" theme. Another listed the theme of Family as being important.

#10 - Romance.
67 people responded to the romance in the show. In particular, the slow-boiling Beauty and the Beast relationship between Goliath and Elisa.

#11 - Core Concept.
65 people listed the core concept as one of their reasons. They liked the whole idea of medieval Gargoyles waking up in the modern world. They liked how fully realized the Gargoyles species was, from how they looked to how they acted, their history, culture and behavior. An additional 30 people specifically cited the series' "Originality".

#12 - Music.
62 respondents listed Carl Johnson's music score and opening theme as one of their top five reasons for liking the show. (Though one person was happy that there was no singing.) Many of the fans spontaneously requested that Disney release the music on CD. [Of course, many, many others noted that they would like to see the whole show on DVD.] 7 additional people listed "Sound" in general, including music and sound effects.

#13 - Multi-Genre storytelling.
62 individuals liked how the series elegantly combined multiple genres, including fantasy, science fiction, comic book action hero, comedy, drama, horror, etc. They liked how science went hand-in-hand with sorcery. They liked the use of magic and technology, time travel, robots, gods, monsters, etc.

#14 - Episodic Stories.
60 respondents praised the storytelling of individual episodes. How each was able to stand alone, while still fitting into the larger tapestry of the series' arcs. 17 people praised the stories from the Avalon World Tour set of episodes. Many individual episodes were also cited in the fans' lists: "Deadly Force" (9), "The Mirror" (6), "Temptation" (2), "Future Tense" (1), "M.I.A." (1), "Awakening" (1), "City of Stone" (1), "Hunter's Moon" (1), "The Edge" (1), "The Hound of Ulster" (1). One person specifically stated that he liked how not a single episode was filler.

#15 - Setting.
46 people cited the setting, usually the combination of medieval gargoyles in modern New York City. They liked how we depicted the city, how we got it right. Many people also enjoyed the flashbacks to medieval Scotland, and the World Tour episodes that took our cast to locations across the globe.

#16 - Atmosphere.
34 respondents praised the series' gothic atmosphere, running through the writing, design and animation.

#17 - Action.
30 people liked the action. The pure excitement - without being gratuitous.

#18 - The Fandom.
29 people noted that they were either drawn to the show or have remained with it at least in part because of the loyal fandom. An additional 20 found the show inspirational for their own creativity. Another 18 listed the show and its characters as "Aspirational" (although most didn't use that word). 14 more cited personal reasons for why the show was important to them. And it seems that we have many couples who met through the fandom, including multiple married couples who credit the series with bringing them together. 17 people were specifically impressed by the passion and dedication of the Gargoyles cast and crew and their participation in the fandom.

#19 - New for Disney.
28 people were impressed with the show simply for being something new and different for Disney.

#20 - Original Publicity.
11 people cited the series' original publicity for getting their attention and getting them to sit in front of their televisions in the first place. 5 more cited the old syndicated "Disney Afternoon".

That's pretty much it. There were a few other random and/or hard to qualify answers, but the above 20 reasons pretty much cover why the fans still love the series. I know all this sounds incredibly immodest coming from me, but all it takes is a quick skim of the fans' actual responses to see that I'm not exaggerating at all.

Thanks to everyone who participated...

Art Carney (1918 - 2003)

Growing up and living most of one's life in Southern California makes having a number of so-called "Brushes with Greatness" inevitable.

Sunday, I saw Tony Shaloub in Larchmont Village, but since I had recently seen him at Los Angeles International Airport AND spoken with him at Logan International Airport, I refrained from accosting him again, lest he think I was stalking him or something.

And just yesterday, I rode up an elevator with Florence Henderson, who looks great, by the way.

So the fact that I once met Art Carney is, in and of itself, not particularly remarkable. But his passing seems an appropriate time to relate this story.

In the mid-seventies, I was in Junior High. I read a LOT. I had somewhat eclectic, and geek-leaning tastes, but most of what I read were mystery novels, especially mystery novels that were part of on-going series. One such series was Harry Kemelman's Rabbi David Small mysteries. (This is a series that I highly recommend. The more recent books aren't quite as strong, but the original seven are terrific.) Each book's title began with the day of the week. And the first mystery was called, "Friday the Rabbi Slept Late."

One day, I came home from school and found that my street was, as they say, "bustling with activity". An army of humans and trailers and equipment had descended on Queen Florence Lane. In the seventies, in the San Fernando Valley, this was still something of a rarity. But in any event, I was fascinated. They were filming a movie in and around the house directly across the street from ours.

Soon, I discovered that the movie was a telefilm called, "Lanigan's Rabbi". It was an adaptation of "Friday the Rabbi Slept Late." I'm not sure how I managed this, other than persistance and the chutzpah that comes with not knowing anything at all, but I kept telling people that I had read the book that the movie was based on. At some point someone grabbed me and introduced me to the director. I have no idea if he was humoring me or truly interested, but he asked me a number of questions about the original novel, claiming that he -- and that in fact NO ONE on the set -- had actually read the thing. There were, I was told, certain things in the script that weren't tracking for him. So I answered his questions and told him how the mystery played out in the book. He took it all in and seemed grateful for the insight.

In any case, he then did something fairly astounding. He let me hang out. That's it. But I was allowed to watch filming. I was allowed to get food from the catering truck. I was allowed to sit with the actors and talk with them. Now, this couldn't have gone on for very long. It's not like I was employed by the movie company or anything. I didn't follow the shoot to its next location. But they spent at least three or four days in the cul-de-sac where I lived. They gave me a copy of the shooting script, which I then had autographed by the movie's two leads.

One of those leads was Stuart Margolin, who's probably most famous for playing "Angel" on THE ROCKFORD FILES. "Lanigan's Rabbi" wound up spinning off into an on-going series, and for some reason Margolin didn't end up playing Rabbi Small in the series. But he was terrific in the movie. And he was an extremely nice guy, who didn't seem to mind chatting with a thirteen-year-old, who was hanging around the set.

But the part of Police Chief Lanigan was played by Art Carney. Now Art Carney is a certified genius. Emmy winner. Oscar winner. Of course his performance as "Ed Norton" in THE HONEYMOONERS is nothing short of brilliant. His on-screen teaming with Jackie Gleason, a match-made in sitcom heaven. Among other things, Ed Norton was the clear inspiration for any number of cartoon characters, ESPECIALLY "Barney Rubble". People often forget, however, what a wonderful dramatic actor Carney was. How he brought a touch of humanity to every role he played. Rod Serling knew this. Art is unforgettable as a drunken department store Santa in "The Night of the Meek" episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. A part that Serling wrote especially for Carney. He is also truly wonderful in a number of movies: "Harry & Tonto" and "The Late Show", among others.

I knew almost none of this at the time. I didn't even know Ed Norton. In New York, the Honeymooners has probably NEVER been off the air, but Los Angeles was and is an I LOVE LUCY town. It would be nearly a decade before I would move to New York and learn to appreciate Ralph and Ed and Alice and Trixie.

What I knew at the time, all I knew at the time, was that this was a big time star -- in the middle of shooting a movie -- who spent time with me. Time by the catering truck. Time on the set. He explained how things worked. He explained why things were done the way they were done. He was just so damn nice -- nice enough that as ignorant as I was -- I didn't take it for granted. It impressed me even then.

A few days later, they were gone. Stuart, Art, all of them. The movie finished shooting in my neighborhood and moved on. Some time later, the movie went on the air. We didn't have a VCR back in those days, so I don't have a copy. I followed along on my shooting script and took note of all the little changes in it. It seemed to me (though I might have been seriously kidding myself) that the final version of the film leaned a bit closer to the original novel than the shooting script in my hand. I was certainly kidding myself when I took credit for that somewhat dubious conclusion. And without a doubt the coolest moment was watching Rabbi Small and Chief Lanigan (Stuart and Art, as I called them) walking down the hill of my street and turning a corner and suddenly being at the Rabbi's Temple. There was no temple around the corner from Queen Florence Lane, but the transition was so seamless, it seemed miraculous. A true bit of movie magic before I understood movie magic. Before I was even vaguely jaded.

I just now spent a half hour looking for that shooting script. I couldn't find it. I hope it turns up eventually. I'm sure I wouldn't have thrown it out, but there's a good chance it was in one of my boxes that was in my parents' basement, part of my past which was destroyed by a flood caused by the Northridge Earthquake. I hope not. I haven't thought about any of this in years, but now it's something I'd like to revisit in more detail.

I wrote about Bob Hope a couple of months ago, when he passed, and I suppose this is a very similar kind of tribute. Others will, I'm sure, write more important, more personal and more informed things about Art Carney in the next few days. But I wanted to add my bit.

Not just for the incredibly talented performer, a loss we should all feel, though not too intensely as he has achieved a meta-Xanatosian immortality through the many great performances we will always have to rewatch time and again. And not for the friend and/or family member, because he was none of these things to me, and I was none of these things to him.

But oddly, I wanted to write a tribute to the stranger. To the nice man, who was patient with a dopey know-it-all kid. He was warm and funny and made me feel welcome.

And for that I am truly grateful. Thanks, Chief.

THE TOP FIVE REASONS YOU WERE DRAWN TO GARGOYLES

Yesterday, I made the following request at Station 8's Gargoyles Comment Room:

Hey everybody,

I really need some help. Without going into details about the why, I'd love to get the answer to the following question:

"WHAT ARE THE TOP FIVE REASONS THAT YOU ARE DRAWN TO THE GARGOYLES SERIES?"

We don't need fancy answers -- and of course there's no right or wrong answers -- so don't feel like you need to compose elegant
responses. Just RESPOND, please.

Also, please, spread the word around and have as many fans as possible stop by THIS WEEK and give their answer right here at the S8 Comment Room. It would be much appreciated. Very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Greg Weisman

The responses so far have been very gratifying. I'm particularly impressed with how many people have stopped by the Comment Room that usually don't.

But (with good reason) I'm greedy. I'd like to get even more people to stop by. So please SPREAD THE WORD. E-mail/telephone/snail mail anyone you know who was EVER a GARGOYLES fan and ask them to stop by the Comment room and post their own personal top fives. We really, really, really need something akin to 100% participation.

Here's the address:

http://s8.org/gargoyles/comment2.php

Thanks again,

Greg

CHAT

I'll stop by the Station 8 CHAT ROOM this Friday, November 7th, 2003 at 4pm PST. (That's 7pm on the East Coast. The rest of you figure
out your own time zone.)

Please spread the word. (Nothing's more depressing than when the so-called "pro" stops by and there are no fans who want to chat.)
Maybe we can get a big crowd and hang for a bit.

Hope to see you there,

Greg

Chapter XLIV: "GRIEF"

Time to ramble...

I watched "Grief" the other night with my wife Beth, my nine-year-old daughter Erin and my six-year-old son Benny.

This episode was directed by Kazuo Terada & Takamitsu Kawamura, story edited by Michael Reaves based on his story. The teleplay is by Michael and Brynne Chandler Reaves.

Though Brynne co-wrote the teleplay, this strikes me as a VERY Michael episode. I remember how excited he was to be using the Tanna Leaves and the Avatar, plus all those other references to Thoth, Osiris, Isis and Set. I think it was something he had wanted to do on a Batman episode, but it hadn't survived someone's interference (my memory is hazy). But these MUMMY trappings suited our purposes perfectly. The Tanna leaves even gave Hyena hay fever.

The one word title, as usual, was one of mine. I liked it because it had that double meaning, covering the Emir's grief over his son, and all the grief (trouble) that this was causing. I have a vague memory that Michael wasn't thrilled by the title, but, hey, I gave him his Tanna Leaves...

One of us had Wolf speak to the second meaning in the episode when he says he's tired of the Gargoyles giving the Pack grief. Just to give things a bit of clarity.

THE PACK

The new Coyote 3.0 surfaces, complete with a slightly new design and that now iconic Xanatos robot head (smashed in his last appearance) displayed on a video screen. (Goliath mentions seeing it, although in the ONLY scene where Goliath could have seen it, it's not visible. Arggh...)

The new Coyote design obeys Frank Paur's general rule of robots, which states that if you're not trying to fool anyone into thinking that the robot is actually a human being, then the design should clearly be inhuman enough so that you'd never think it could be a guy wearing an armored suit.

Coyote's an odd bird in many ways. So like Xanatos, but without his drive and with more of a vengeful nature. Programmed in, I believe, so that he doesn't let anyone or anything stand in the way of X's missions. He's got some fun lines ("Shoot first and ask questions later."), in particular his exchanges about the chain of command...

Coyote: "I'm not programmed to kill without orders.
Wolf: "I'm giving the order!"
Coyote: "You don't qualify."

or

Coyote: "Is that an order?"
Emir: "YES! Get rid of them!"
Coyote: "Cheerfully."

Hyena continues to be attracted to a Coyote that doesn't seem interested but also never closes the door on the possibility of hooking up with the cyborg. ("Wanna make sparks fly?" "Later, perhaps.") It's sick and twisted and hard to get your head around, but it sure is fun, culminating with her wonderful complaint to her brother after Jackal destroys Coyote: "Every time I meet a guy I like..." (I also like those buzzsaws on her arms.)

It's important to note that Dingo is already missing from the group. Clearly, during and after "Upgrade" he was rethinking his association with the other members. This doesn't bode well for the Pack as a unit. They're already talking about going their separate ways after the Emir's work is through and are only still together because they owe Xanatos for busting them out of jail. After this, Wolf will head to Scotland, answering the call of his ancestor Hakon. Jackal & Hyena will take a job with Cyberbiotics and head for Guatemala. Dingo will go to work for Fox in his native Australia. Coyote 4.0 will be rebuilt and head for Arizona with Xanatos.

So "Grief" is the Pack's swan song -- that is until a new Coyote forms the Ultra-Pack with Wolf, Jackal & Hyena and a new member... someday...

THE EMIR

To be perfectly honest, the Emir entered the Gargoyles Universe as a throwaway line of dialogue to indicate how powerful Xanatos was in "The Edge". If he could keep an Emir waiting, X must be a real bigshot. But Michael and I remembered the line, and used the Emir again as a semi-throwaway in "Double Jeopardy". But by that time, I think we might have already known we'd be seeing him on the World Tour. It's just an example of how the Tapestry seemed to be working for us. Creating opportunities that were so right, it almost seemed as if we were truly tapping into the Gargoyles Universe. How many of you were surprised to see the Emir actually appear?

The Emir was a very successful and poignant character (at least in my opinion). I give most of the credit for that to actor Tony Shaloub and Voice Director Jamie Thomason. Not to knock our wonderful designers and animators who brought that voice to life. But let's face it, he's just a guy in a robe. Now over the course of the ENTIRE production of Gargoyles, I would say that I only missed two voice sessions EVER. But one of them was this pick-up session with Tony. NOW, of course, everyone knows that Tony is an Emmy-winning brilliant actor of movies and television. I just love MONK. But back then, the only thing that Tony was really known for was the Italian immigrant cab driver on WINGS. Pretty cool in and of itself, of course. But having missed the session, I was unprepared for just how wonderful he was as the Emir. Everything from the grief-stricken sighs to the bursts of anger are just wonderful.

And while we're on the subject of voice, how about that other Tony, Tony Jay, as Anubis. He's delicious in three different personae -- as the neutral and imperious Anubis, as the crazed Jackal/Anubis and as the exhausted Emir/Anubis. That vocal effect we did of having both actors (Tony & Tony or Tony & Matt Frewer) read the Avatar lines and blending them together was a bit of accidental brilliance, in my opinion. I'm also glad that they do NOT quite synch up. It's better. The lines basically fit, but they ebb and flow around each other like the magical melding it's supposed to be. It was a bit of a bitch to mix, but I love it.

But I digress. The Emir's heartbroken love for his son is, I think, one of the cleanest and most purest emotions (unencumbered by too much fantasy) that we ever presented. Something very real. When the Emir first pulled out the photo of his son, Erin said "Who is that? Is that his son?" She immediately knew the photo had meaning. (Again, Tony's big sigh really helped.)

And at the end, we (along with Goliath) really hope that after gaining true understanding upon becoming Anubis' Avatar, he is now at rest with his son.

JACKAL

Jackal also truly comes into his own in this episode. I love how he flat out has a thing for jackals. How he admires the Anubis hieroglyph and Anubis himself, calling him "The original model". It's cool and creepy. We also truly get to see Jackal as a sociopath here. I think I've mentioned before that I view Hyena as a psychopath and Jackal as a sociopath, i.e. someone with enough sense to know he's got to do his evil within a schema that allows him to get away with it. But what happens when you free the sociopath from all restrictions. What happens when you give him (Matt & Tony, remember) the powers of Death itself? Well, you see what happens. People die. Lots of them, in theory.

Getting away with that was interesting. I think maybe in Adrienne Bello's mind, everything was set right. Or the fact that we see that Egyptian town age into a ruin didn't count because we weren't seeing ANY human beings die. But we had much more trouble getting those two skeletonized crocs past her than the implied death of an entire town. Misdirection. Or she was just being cool. Or both, i.e. she thought the misdirection was sufficient that she COULD be cool.

I love when Jackal/Anubis says: "Life and Death at my command. I LIKE it!" I also like that he's smart enough and sociopathic enough to co-opt the most dangerous guy in the room: The Emir. The Emir? you ask. Well, yes, it's the Emir who does in fact end up defeating him by rereading the scroll. And Jackal keeps the Emir in his place by holding out the hope to him that he will restore his son.

SPHINX

Seriously, how could we not go to Egypt on the World Tour. How could we skip visiting what Angela refers to as the World's Biggest Gargoyle. So we stuck a fictional temple inside it -- and then trashed it. I think dedicated archaeologists must hate our show, because we're constantly trashing these amazing hidden chambers of antiquity. Maybe I'm getting older or something, but I find myself wincing everytime Goliath and Wolf bust a sacarphogus during a fight, everytime a pillar cracks or the roof falls in. I'm just glad we didn't destroy the Sphinx itself.

Goliath's entrance into the temple isn't one of our most brilliant animated moments. For starters, when Coyote is touching the hieroglyphs, he seems to miss every one. Goliath than claims to be repeating the sequence, but it looks nothing like what Coyote did. Yet it works for both of them. Maybe getting into that temple isn't as hard as it looks.

I love how the power of death flows from Jackal/Anubis and then through the Sphinx's own eyes before striking out at Egypt at large. Almost makes the Sphinx seem to come to life in those shots.

And I do love that shot at the end where the gargs are in stone in front of the stone Sphinx.

ANUBIS

Love Wolf's reaction: "Shave my head and call me baldy." (Or something like that, all ramble quotations are approximate.)

The animation effects on this episode are all fantastic, particularly the lighting during tranformations (very reminiscent of "Shadows of the Past"). Gorgeous. Another reason for me to be bummed that Disney closed its Tokyo studio.

I like how Anubis has no real mouth. Certainly no synch to his dialogue. My kids both commented on it. It fascinated them. But I also think it puts him on another level. His speech is that of a god. He requires nothing as mundane as a mouth movement to get his meaning across. (That's why it's so disconcerting in "THE GATHERING, PART ONE" when his mouth opens to laugh. He seems above something as petty as laughter, non?)

And how about Tony Jay and those great lines of godlike neutrality: "I grant but one boon." "Death is always pointless. That is the point." "All are equal in death." "You would not like to see the Jackal God play favorites." Etc.

ACTION

All right, once again, let me acknowledge my screw up. I should have let Coyote shoot Elisa, Goliath, Bronx and Angela dead. And have nothing happen. At that moment in the ep, no one can die. Emir and Anubis are just covering that in dialogue. Instead, Elisa pulls off a fairly elegant move that allows them to escape. But how much cooler if the distraction were the mere fact that they survived the Pack's barage unscathed? I blew it.

Otherwise, there is some pretty cool action.

Coyote advises Elisa to take her best shot. She does and it's kinda cool. But less cool because she then comments on it.

Coyote's limp afterwards is a nice touch, I think.

RANDOM FLOTSAM

When Elisa and the gargs wake up in chains, Erin says: "They all wake up at the same time suddenly." Leave it to a nine-year-old to point out an obvious cheat.

Erin said, "Yuck, disgusting." when Jackal first transformed.

Benny: "He wants to be the strongest, I'm guessing."

Benny didn't quite get why the Gargs were turning old. (Designing a demonstably old Bronx was NOT easy, by the way.) Or for that matter why Hyena and Wolf turned into Cyber-baby and wolf-cub. (Though both kids thought they were cute.) So the exchanging of energies lacked a bit of clarity for our younger audience, perhaps. Still any excuse to give Keith David an opportunity to do a variation on a theme is fun. Like hearing Keith play Thailog, it was also cool to hear him play a very old Goliath. The guy's a maestro of his own voice.

I do remember arguing with Reaves about the Baby and puppy moment. I thought (a) that it was funny and (b) that it was necessary to illustrate Jackal/Anubis' power. Michael simply thought it was too silly in tone. Now, I'm very glad I held firm. I think it's a great moment. And a little in-context humor really helps any episode. (I also love Jackal's "Baby sister" line that prefaces the change.)

I think in hindsight, Goliath's explanation that the gargs aged at half-speed and Jackal didn't know it, is a cheat. They are visibly very old. Internally, they'd be no less old. It's not like Jackal was thinking, "Hmmm, if I age them fifty years that should be enough." He just kept aging them until they were old and feeble. It's also not like biologically a gargoyle's exterior ages faster than his or her interior.

Ironically, commenting on that was not necessary for the purpose of explaining the action. If there had been no explanation and Goliath had used sheer will power to drag himself up for one last feeble attack, I don't think anyone in the audience would have balked. Rather, I think that dialogue was put in by me to definitively establish the fact that Gargs age at half speed. Oh, well...

Anyway, that's my ramble. Where's yours?

Chapter XLIII: "M.I.A"

Time to ramble...

Haven't done this in a while (over a year, actually), and I definitely feel rusty. Anyway, I watched "M.I.A." last night with my wife Beth, my nine-year-old daughter Erin and my six-year-old son Benny.

This episode was directed by Kazuo Terada, story edited by Gary Sperling and written by Robert Cohen.

The (semi) one word title, as usual, was one of mine. (As was the springboard, but more on that later.) It's appropriate both because of Griff's disappearance and because of the wartime setting. Although I don't know if they actually used the M.I.A. acronym as far back as WWII. I associate it with Vietnam. Does anyone else know?

Benny read the title and thought it said Mia. He has a friend named Mia, whose birthday party he had gone to earlier in the day. So the title required a bit of explaining.

INTO THE MYSTIC

This was one of my ideas that I really fell in love with. The idea that a magic shop never goes out of style. The idea that these gargoyles have been running this shop right in the midst of London's teeming humanity for a millenium. I just love the idea that you could stop by there in 1940 or 1996 or 1809 or 1776 or 1595 or whenever. Different gargoyles manning the store, of course. But the store itself largely remains the same. It's a place where Lennox Macduff and Will Shakespeare might have ended up after a night of carousing together.

My notion, which I've stated here before, is that the London Clan has an estate in the burbs, and that the shop helps fund them.

Responding to the guys line about the shopkeepers having "incredible" masks, Benny takes a good look at Una and says: "That's a unicorn. A real one."

And Erin: "Those aren't masks."

Of course, these kids have both seen the episode before. But it was so long ago and they were so young it's like they're seeing it for the first time.

LONDON

We get some gorgeous shots of London. So gorgeous that when the animation on PENDRAGON came back weeks later looking not so good, we reused some of the "M.I.A." footage for that ep.

[Of course the animation here was done by Walt Disney Television Animation Japan, GARG's Best studio. It still kills me that Disney has shut down that unit. They did SUCH great stuff.]

Elisa talks to the Cabbie. In my mind, this Cabbie appears during the 1940 sequence as a little boy, running downstairs and into a bomb shelter with his sister. It's not important, but that's how I saw it.

And we explain (include) another legend. That of Gremlins. Not Gremlins from the Spielbergian movie. But gremlins that caused damage to airplanes during the war. This was/is a very famous legend among pilots. Roald Dahl (of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame) wrote a book about them, which Walt Disney himself optioned. Eisner once had us develop a tv series based on the idea. I handed it off to a couple of producers who COMPLETELY redeveloped the idea. They came up with a good show, but it was unrecognizable to Eisner. (It also had a toupee joke, which probably didn't go over well.) Anyway, he didn't buy it.

SOHO

Actual racists thugs. We didn't do much of that. We usually went with anti-gargoyle types, who were metaphors for racists. But here we actually go with the real thing.

Their attack is very reminiscent of Awakening 3.

I love Brigitte's work here. Angela sounds like a tough warrior one minute, like a naive innocent the next. All within her character.

And that shot of Bronx leaping down from the roof is just gorgeous.

Leo and Una come out and confront Goliath, whose confusion is a lot of fun.

They're all in conflict, but everyone can agree with Elisa to take the argument inside...

We go inside and see the portrait of Griff.

Benny makes a connection: "There's a statue of him on the airplane."

UNA

I love Una's line: "I know my merchandise."

Throughout this episode, I think she comes across a bit like a junior Demona. I don't know if I felt that way at the time. But we have a female garg with sorcerous powers in denial about her own feelings of guilt and rewriting history to blame Goliath for things that were really not his fault.

Una was in love with Griff. And still is. But in the interrum, in my mind, she mated with Leo. She LOVES Leo. But she never got over being IN LOVE WITH Griff.

AWKWARD MOMENTS

Two of them.

One is having Goliath black out and instead of using it as our act break, we just go to black, wait a beat and then come back. We had a much better act break coming up, so I guess I don't regret it, but I also don't like it much.

The other awkward moment is giving Goliath that voice over of his interior thoughts, where he states his plan to use the Gate to figure out what the hell happened in 1940. I'm sure I resisted doing that VO. But we just didn't have a better solution.

I do love Goliath's frustrated: "I don't know any Griff!" line.

G uses the gate and Benny asks "What did he just do?" Beth explains it to him, but it illustrates my point that it has been so long since the kids last saw an ep, that their memories of the show are very vague.

WWII

We meet Clive and Douglas Bader. I've stated this before, but Douglas Bader was a real person. A true war hero. Douglas Bader lost both his legs in a plane crash, and became a war hero and fighter ace AFTER he recovered and learned to walk on two artificial pins. He was a hero during the Battle of Britain. Later, he was shot down over enemy territory and put in a POW camp. He escaped twice but was recaptured both times. Years later, he was knighted.

I met him once. My father, Wally Weisman, is a real Spitfire afficionado, and Bader was one of his heroes. My dad eventually met Sir Douglas in London and at the RAF Museum outside London. When I was a kid, Sir Douglas and his wife came to Los Angeles and we all went to Disneyland together. He never used a wheelchair. Always just moved along with his hip-swinging walk. An amazing man.

So there was no way I wasn't going to pay tribute to him here (and indirectly to my father as well -- in my mind, this ep is dedicated to my dad). I gave Gary Sperling the Bader biography, "REACH FOR THE SKIES," knowing that it would be tough for him to incorporate much into the episode. But we tried to base the design of Bader on one of his photographs. And we made sure that his first and last name were both used in dialogue so that he could be indentified by those paying attention.

And most of all, we tried to show that these pilots were the true heroes. Sure, Goliath and Griff save them. But Bader saves the gargoyles too, and he's the one who takes out the most dangerous of the Nazi fighter pilots.

This was important to me. Influenced by both Dahl's Gremlins book and my father and Bader, I'd wanted to do a Battle of Britain story pretty much since the series' inception. It's even listed in the bible. This came out of the notion we once had that (while the other gargoyles may have been asleep for a thousand years) Goliath had been awake and alone for 1000 years.

Imagine, if you will, that scene in Awakening-2, when Goliath comes back and finds Hudson, Bronx and the Trio asleep. Instead of joining them, he watches over them for a millenium. (This was back when we had a more magical view of Garg biology.) I thought Goliath would have largely spent a thousand years brooding. But that during WWII he might have ventured forth to fight the Nazis, if for no other reason than to prevent the bombing of Wyvern.

We, obviously, didn't end up going that way, but the visual of Gargoyles fighting in the Battle of Britain stuck with me. (And man, is that visual brought to life here beautifully.)

But having decided to do that, I didn't want to give the gargs all the credit. Real men and women gave their lives during the Battle of Britain. I didn't want to undercut their contribution in order to make my fictional gargs look good. That just seemed like it would be both irresponsible and disrespectful. A betrayal of the very reasons why we were doing the ep in the first place.

GRIFF

Casting... we had used Neil Dickson to tremendous evil effect as Duncan and Canmore in City of Stone. Here he gets to play Errol Flynn. Neil is a Brit. As is Charles Shaugnessy who played Bader and Sara Douglas who played Una. (Leo/Gregg Berger, on the other hand, is a Yank.) And they all really brought life to their respective roles. I have to admit I was worried about whether Neil would be right for the role. I should no better, but Duncan especially was so memorable, I really had that fixed in my head. But Neil's voice just worked perfectly for Griff. I'm still sorry we didn't get to see more of Griff with King Arthur in the Pendragon spin-off.

Griff was conceived as a real swashbuckling hero. A Robin Hood of the 1940s. As opposed to our rough-hewn "Scottish stock", this was a good-old-fashioned patriotic English Hero to put up against the Nazis. His costume was influenced, I think by the Blackhawks. And his look was inspired by British Heraldry. He was the Griffin to Una's unicorn and Leo's lion, three of the most striking heraldic beasts. Again, going back to my earliest development of the series, I thought that adaptations of heraldic beasts might be the English version of gargoyles. So Griff has Eagle and Lion qualities. Feathered wings. A mohawk-like main. An eagle-like beak, but lionesque limbs.

I know that Greg Guler, Frank Paur and I went over and over Griff's model. We were never 100% satisfied with it. But it must work, as I've never any complaints from the fan. And I think Neil (and Jamie Thomason's voice direction) deserve much of the credit for that. Because even with the great Japanese animation, he still looks a bit too Foghorn Leghorn for my tastes.

TIMELOOPINESS

Goliath (after Griff saves his life): "It was supposed to work the other way."
Erin: "I think this is how it started in the first place."

So, hey, she got it!!

Benny even jumped ahead, figuring out: "So he can take Griff back forward in time."

So he got it too. Did you guys get it right from the beginning? That Goliath would take Griff "back forward" to the present to reunite him with Leo and Una?

I love the scene between Griff, Leo, Una and Goliath over tea in the shop. Everyone's motivations are so clear that I often use this scene when I do voice seminars.

Griff wants to sell everyone on going on the offensive.
Leo wants to sell everyone on sticking with defense.
Una is more subtle. She'll use any argument that will promote Griff's safety.
Goliath is trying to stay out of trouble.

But I love his line: "In my experience, human problems become Gargoyle problems." How true... (witness the cancellation of the show...)

And then later, Goliath AGAIN realizes a lesson that he and the audience would have to relearn again and again. Fate cannot be cheated. History cannot be changed.

And once again, we show our lack of imagination and/or our desire to stick with something once we find it works by using the line "Not where, when."

We can say "1940" but we were discouraged from referring to the present by an actual year -- so that reruns would still sound current. I'm surprised that Goliath got to use the phrase "the 1990s". How short-sighted of Disney to not think we'd still be airing these reruns in the 21st Century. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

Griff almost gets hit by a car in the present and Goliath says "Let's not start that again." A mini-tribute to the English Vultures in "A Jungle Book".

At the very end, Elisa's confusion is fun: "Just explain it one more time." That probably came out of my fear that the audience might not get it. If Elisa didn't get it either, the audience wouldn't have to feel so bad about it.

DOGFIGHTS

Everything I could have asked for.

I have a VERY vague memory that we were discouraged from using Swastikas. I can't remember why or even if this is true.

But the skull-like pilot with the skull & crossbones on his plane certainly looks like a bad guy, doesn't he?

The planes themselves just look great. I found out later that Bader didn't fly Spitfires during the Battle of Britain. He flew Spitfires later, but flew Hurricanes during the Blitz. This fact drives me crazy.

But I love his line about the Gargoyles (which in my mind, he viewed as Gremlins): "They're real, and they're on our side!"

Benny noticed that they shot a hole through Goliath's wing. I had to reassure him that he'd be okay after getting some stone sleep.

Parachutes. No one dies in this episode. At least not in theory. Of course, we KNOW people died during the Blitz. But we couldn't show or even imply that.

THE WORLD TOUR

We end of course by creating new heroes out of old. Griff has returned. And Leo and Una have been reinvigorated. They take back their neighborhood.

Leo: "Or we'll make it our business." Leo's spent years worried only about business. Now he remembers what his business is supposed to be. The nation of shopkeepers is once again ready to defend the realm. So to speak.

Anyway, that's my ramble. Where's yours?

As requested...

Todd sent the following to me in response to my request for a quick info fix...

Dear Greg,

I hope that you don't mind me e-mailing you directly about Roger Lancelyn Green, but I thought that this was the quickest way
of getting the information to you (given the length of the queue and the fact that I know that you don't dare read much of the
comment room because many of the people there post "creativity demons" there).

At any rate, you're correct about the spelling: it is Roger Lancelyn Green. The title of the book is "King Arthur and his Knights
of the Round Table".

Todd Jensen

Proofreading/Apologia...

I just received the following e-mail from my brother:

Subject: proofreading
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 13:56:49 -0700
From: "Weisman, Jon"

Just my two cents, but I do feel you're a little strident about the proofreading. I'm completely sympathetic to the annoyance/frustration, but your discussion of your own errors undermines your argument. You misspelled a word in the very sentence about proofreading being good training. Then you say there's no point in identifying errors that you make, because you're dyslexic and because you make an effort. Who's to say that your reader isn't dyslexic or doesn't make an effort, either? All "Dan" did in his first sentence was leave out the word "have."

Personally, I think it's fine to ask your readers to proofread better, but I simply think you could be nicer about it. Since your replies do contain errors, good intentions or not, it just doesn't make sense to me to cop an attitude.

- Jon

Jon is, of course, correct. And so I apologize for my rant. In particular, I apologize to "dan" for taking my frustrations out on him.

My only defense is that all the lousy proofreading -- and there really is a lot of it -- creates a kind of cumulative frustration. I really do ignore it most of the time. I make fun of it (I hope in a good-hearted way with a smart-ass response) occassionally, and I only rarely blow a gasket. But that's not much of an excuse.

So let's all try to proofread a bit more, including me -- hell, especially me -- and I'll try to keep my temper.

Again, dan, sorry.

SCOTLAND TRIP: September 7th, 2003

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2003

When last we left our intrepid hero (i.e. me), he was spending his last night in Scotland at the Edinburgh Airport Hilton Hotel. This is his story:

I maybe got two hours sleep. I had called downstairs for a wake-up call, and they told me they didn't do wake-up calls and that I'd have to set the alarm in my room. I looked around and told them the only clock was the digital readout on the t.v. They said that the alarm was one of the television's functions. (This is progress, I suppose.) So I attempted to set the t.v. to wake me up. But I had little confidence in it or me, so I barely slept.

3:45am
Sure enough, the t.v. went off as scheduled. I showered (probably the best shower of the trip, if you're keeping track). Dressed and ate my last Loch Torridon apple and Hilton cookie.

4:45am
My dad and I took a shuttle to the airport. There we waited in line with a bunch of Rugby fans in kilts, all headed to Germany.

I went through security and was stopped. They had spotted the two hand-painted rocks in my duffle, which I had purchased on Skye. The lady was very nice as I unpacked them for her. I told her what they were before she saw them. She pointed out that rocks could be used as weapons and that I might have to put them in my checked luggage. I told her that I hadn't checked any luggage. She told me that I might have to check my duffle then. But when she saw the cute little cottages painted on the rocks, I could tell she felt that I was hardly likely to use them as a weapon. Still I would have obviously done whatever they felt was necessary. She showed the rocks to her superior, who waved them off. I put them back and wondered whether I'd have as much luck in Germany.

6am
Boarded the plane to Frankfurt. Biz class aisle seat. Tomato Juice, Eggs, "Bacon", mushroom, spinach, cheese, apple, grapefruit and mango slices. A croissant.

9:30am
Arrived in Frankfurt (having picked up another hour).

I said goodbye to my dad, who was going into Frankfurt for his day of meetings (which had been the financial justification for the whole trip). I don't think I've talked much about my dad here, but Scotland aside, I really just enjoyed spending all this time with him. We talked for hours and didn't come close to running out of topics until somewhere around day five or six, and even then we managed. It's nice when even the silences aren't awkward. We took pictures, which largely came out great despite the fact that on the first day in LAX he put all his film through the X-ray machine. (A tech genius he ain't.) We drove for hours and hours and hours and enjoyed every minute. We saw some gorgeous scenery and a few other interesting tidbits. We followed a couple of my obsesssions, had a bunch of great meals, listened to a terrific murder mystery and talked about that. Truly, though I'll try, I can't thank him enough for the trip and the camradery.

Anyway, after he had gone, I took a long walk to a different terminal. There I changed my remaining pounds to Euros and bought some snacks for later: Pringles, a Snickers, an Evian and some Peanut M&M's.

Then I went to McDonalds. I bought a Quarter-Pounder, which they called a "Hamburger Royal", fries and a FRIED apple pie. (In the States, they only have baked pies now. I hadn't had one of McDonald's fried pies in years and years.) Now on this trip I had eaten McDonalds three times in three different countries. Once at LAX, once in Edinburgh and now once in Frankfurt. I love McDonalds.

I then went through another security check (putting my burger and fries and pie through the x-ray machine). I was sure they were going to make me take out my rocks again, and it seemed to me like the guy on the machine studied the screen with extra attention. But they let the bag go through. Me on the other hand... They didn't have a metal detector for me to walk through. So I got thoroughly searched. Shoes off. Belt. Wallet. Watch. Tube of blistex. Coins of course. It was very touchy-feely too. I don't begrudge it of course, but that doesn't make it fun.

Grabbed up my stuff and went to the Biz Class Lounge, where I ate my Mickey D's with a free coke that they had there. Also ate a free cookie and my snickers.

I left the lounge to wait for my plane and finished Faulkner's "Sanctuary", which I had been nursing the entire trip.

Boarded the plane. I was in Biz Class near the very front (3H). (First class was upstairs.) Boy, that landing gear makes a lot of noise when you're right on top of it.

I started reading "Shakespeare's Kings", a non-fiction book which compares Shakespeare's treatment of the monarchs (from Edward III through Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI to Richard III) to the actual history. I got through Henry V on the flight. It was fascinating.

I also watched "Bruce Almighty", which was considerably less fascinating. (Largely shallow and annoying, but it killed some time.) There were other movies too, but I decided my book was much more interesting.

I think I slept for about an hour.

Ate Venison & Cheese, Tortelline, a chocolate bar, Berry Pudding, cake, tomato juice and a concotion called "Multi-Fruit Juice" which at first taste I hated and then decided I liked it so much I had glass after glass after glass. Water too, sparkling and still. (I like to keep hydrated). A couple of ham & cheese sandwiches and another apple. (Not all this at once.)

4pm (Los Angeles time)
We landed. Went through the long lines at Immigration and customs.

A car was waiting for me and took me home.

Reunited with Beth, Erin and Benny. Which was great. I gave Beth her sweater, which she loved -- and which she felt was the exact right size. So I was vindicated there. I'm not sure the kids new what to make of the two rocks with the cottages on them. But they like getting stuff, so they were happy too.

I ate my German-bought Pringles and M&Ms that night.

And so ends my Odyssey.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

SCOTLAND TRIP: September 6th, 2003

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2003

When last we left our intrepid hero (i.e. me), he was spending his last night at the posh Loch Torridon Country House Hotel and had gone to bed at 11:30pm. This is his story:

4am
Woke up. Went back to sleep.

Just before 7am, I woke again.

8am
We loaded up the car and had breakfast: Apple, Tomato AND Orange Juice. Corn AND Bran Flakes. Croissants w/Apricot Puree AND Strawberry Jam. A big AND morning.

We hit the road for the final leg of our trip, largely making good time, listening to Tup's mix tape again.

From the hotel and Annat we headed northeast on the A896 to Kinlochewe. There we turned southeast on the A832 through Achnasheen. Somewhere along here (I think overlooking Loch Luichart) we stopped at a "Passing Place" to take photos of one of the ubiquitous "Passing Place" signs. We maintained our south-easterly heading past Garve on the A835 and made our way past Tore and onto the A9.

We crossed the bridge that separated the Beauly Firth from the MORAY FIRTH. Seeing the word Moray was the first sign that we were in Macbeth territory. And generally, in Gargoyle territory.

We headed into Inverness. I ate one of the apples I had copped from the Loch Torridon hotel room. Someday, I'd like to spend some time there, but this wasn't going to be the day. We took a few minutes to walk down to a bridge across the River Ness (which leads eventually to Loch Ness). We walked up to Inverness Castle, but we didn't really have the time to do much more than take a quick glance around.

We soon were back on the road. We got caught here and there behind some slow drivers (who didn't pull over as the signs instructed), but generally we made good time. We passed a town called Killiecrankie. And I thought, "I know a lot of people who get Killiecrankie sometimes."

We passed BIRNAM WOOD too. And signs for Glamis Castle. Someday I want to come back for the full-on Macbeth tour of Scotland.

Then we drove into Perth, looking longily at the fast food places. But by this time, I was on a mission: STONEQUEST. Last time I was in Britain the Stone of Destiny was still in Westminster Abbey. I've been to the Abbey at least a half-dozen times over the years, but I didn't (back then) know the Stone's significance. I certainly didn't know it could talk like Frank Welker. So I never took any notice of it. Now, I really wanted to see it.

For those of you who don't know or don't remember, the Stone is theoretically "Jacob's Pillow". The stone that Jacob rested his head on the night he saw the ladder leading up to heaven for the angels to climb. The stone found it's way to Ireland and thence to Scotland, where Kenneth MacAlpin was crowned upon it as the first King of Scotland. After that, all the Scottish Kings, including Kenneth, Constantine, Maol Chalvim, Duncan, Macbeth, Luach and Canmore, were crowned upon the Stone of Destiny on Moot Hill in Scone. Later, the stone was taken to London by the English. And used to crown English/British monarchs. It was briefly stolen in the fifties, but returned to Westminster Abbey in time for Elizabeth II's coronation. (Although some believe that the real stone is still in hiding.) GARGOYLES, of course, posited that this was also the famous "Sword in the Stone" from which Arthur drew Excalibur. In the episode "Pendragon", we showed Arthur and Griff communicating with the Stone at Westminster. But in 1997, the English returned the Stone to Scotland. But not to Scone. Rather it was taken to Edinburgh, so that it could be kept with the Honors of Scotland and the Crown Jewels in Edinburgh Castle. So today, I was determined to drag my dad to Scone Palace to see Moot Hill and the replica Stone they kept there and then later to Edinburgh Castle to see the real thing.

So anyway, we got a little bit lost in Perth. But got directions to Scone Palace from a very nice tourist info lady on West Mill Street. We made our way to Old High Street, Atholl Street and Charlotte Street to the Perth Bridge. We crossed the River Tay and then headed north on A93 to the Palace.

Now Scone Palacce was definitely a place I would love to spend a half day exploring in and out. The Grounds were just lovely, and the Palace itself looked very cool with some cool things inside. And there's a maze! But we really didn't have time if we were going to get to Edinburgh Castle before it closed. So a few minutes later, I was standing on Moot Hill leaning over the faux Stone of Destiny in my Gargoyles sweatshirt (half-hoping someone would come up and make the connection). It was cool. We took some pictures and left.

Back on the A93 (south now) to the A90 to the M90. Down to exit 4, where we pulled off in Kelty. Now most of this trip was planned by my father's assistant Anita Kelty Nitta. So in tribute to her, we stopped at her ancestral home and took pictures near the "Welcome to Kelty/Drive safely" sign. Then it was back on the road until we took the Forth Bridge across the Firth of Forth to Edinburgh. We found, with amazingly little trouble, the Edinburgh Airport Hilton and checked in. Compared to the Classy, Cozy and Posh places we had been staying, the room at the Hilton seemed quite the unpleasant little box. But it did offer a pre-packaged shortbread cookie, which I was happy to eat. It was servicable. It would do.

We drove across the street and returned the Beetle. We walked back to the hotel and called a cab to take us to Edinburgh Castle.

This cab ride took a ridiculously long time and a very circuitous route only to run smack into a huge crowd emerging from the Rugby finals. Hundreds of people wearing shirts celebrating "The Famous Grouse" blocked our path. Our cab driver then explained that he had intentionally taken a circuitous route in order to avoid this very traffic... and that if the game had gotten out five minutes later, we'd have thought he was brilliant. As it is, we were stuck. It took forever to finally get us to the Castle.

Now, I've been to Edinburgh Castle twice before, so I've seen the sights. And yet I still wish we had more time, because it's truly worth exploring over and over. But we had arrived close to closing, and we still hadn't eaten anything since breakfast (cookies and apples aside), so time was short. We took a few pictures. Another couple shots by a cannon (a running photographic theme on the trip), a picture of me in my Garg Sweatshirt by a lion gargoyle that definitely reminded me of Leo. Then we headed in to see the actual Stone of Destiny. It was cool to see it. But no pictures allowed in there. And I waited to hear if it would talk to me, but I guess there were too many people around. No one commented on my sweatshirt either, but I was still very glad to have seen it.

We started walking down the Royal Mile, but we were sorta past sight-seeing and so we headed down to Princes Street to look for a nice non-touristy place to eat dinner. We passed the Train Station (with it's killer staircase) and Scott's Monument. But nothing presented itself dinner-wise. So we decided to eat dinner back at the hotel and had a VERY late lunch at McDonalds (1/4-Pounder, fries & coke).

We had passed a taxi stand earlier with literally a dozen taxis waiting in line. After McDonald's there were NONE there. But we found one a few minutes later and took it back to the Airport Hilton.

6:15pm
Dinner was Tortelline, Steak (which barely compared favorably to a Sizzler), fries, Mushrooms and an Apple/Blackberry Crumble, all of which might have been better if we hadn't just had McDonalds about a half hour earlier.

We were back in our rooms by 8pm. I talked briefly to Beth. I was tired, but I just couldn't go to sleep until after midnight.

TUNE IN TOMMOROW (or possibly Wednesday) for the conclusion of our adventure. *Here's a preview: "We don't do wake up calls" "The Trouble with Rocks" "Frankfurt, Germany" "McDonalds in three countries" "Shakespeare's Kings"*

SCOTLAND TRIP: September 5th, 2003

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2003

When last we left our intrepid hero (i.e. me), he was staying in the posh Loch Torridon Country House Hotel and had gone to bed after a dinner of Sea Trout at 10:30pm. This is his story:

3am
Woke up. Just flat out couldn't sleep.

3:30am
Called Beth, Erin & Benny. It was 7:30pm (the previous day) their time, so I finally got a chance to talk to the kids, who had just finished their first day back at school. (Erin in 4th grade, Benny in 1st.) After that, I tried the TV and reading. Finally slept again, on and off.

7:30am
Woke up, very tired. Showered. This shower was okay, but still not great. The nozzle was difficult to adjust.

8am
Breakfast at the Hotel. Orange & Tomato Juice. Toast, Cornflakes, Oatmeal Porridge with Brown Sugar & Cream.

9:15am
After taking a few pictures around the gorgeous and gorgeously situated hotel -- and once again putting up with the car alarm -- we were back on the road. This was the first day we weren't simultaneously en route to our next hotel. We were staying a second night in Annat at the Loch Torridon.

We drove from Annat to (the southern) Shieldaig to take a loop from Tornapress to Applecross to Fearnmore to Kenmore and back to Shieldag. That was the plan anyway. But we wound up making a wrong turn. We were still on the loop, but we wound up going in the opposite direction from our original intent. It wound up working out well, if not better. We passed by Kenmore and Fearnmore, driving the high coastal cliffs of the peninsula overlooking the Inner Sound and the Isles of Rona and Raasay. We stopped to take some pictures, and an older couple in a mobile home (coming from the opposite direction, as we had originally planned) pulled over beside us. The man got out and took one of the few pictures we got of the two of us together. He was incredibly nice, with great stories about his distant relatives in America. But the thing that struck me the most was his voice. He had great timber, and an even greater accent. A real Scottish brogue, but perfectly understandable. Very rich. (He was, incidentally, from just outside Edinburgh.) The voice director in me wanted to get him into a recording booth immediately. He warned us that the road ahead was steep quite steep with a number of sharp turns. He said had he known, he'd have never had taken his mobile home there. It didn't have the engine to carry the weight and there were moments when the wind felt like it was going to carry him over the side. He also recommended that we stop in Applecross for fresh baked bread. It sounded really appealing, but the truth was we had just had breakfast. I would like to go back though and have lunch there sometime.

The views on route to and coming out of Applecross were just spectacular. And he hadn't been kidding about the steep winding and very windy roads of the Bealach-na-Ba which rises to 2,053 feet with many hairpin turns. Bealach-na-Ba means "Pass of the Cattle" in Gaelic, and it is an old drover's trail for taking cattle to market. It was a little intimidating even in our little round Beetle. But man... gorgeous. Generally, on the whole trip we had extremely cooperative weather. And today was no exception. We never really got rained on. But the day was a touch misty over the ocean, and from an altitude standpoint, we were pretty high up. It might have been nice to really have a clear day to see forever, but still and all, I have nothing to complain about. And there's something right about the mist and the wind, the sharp, grey day. We stopped a couple times for more pictures.

We completed our loop, again passing Tornapress without ever actually seeing Tornapress. Passed Shieldaig again, stopped for gas and then returned briefly to the hotel. I had another apple in my room. Then we drove northeast on the A896 along Glen Torridon, passing as usual the ubiquitous sheep that move with impugnity around the country. I also spotted a raptor of some sort, almost literally hovering in one place in the strong wind. My dad commented that considering how many sheep were all around, there was surprisingly little lamb on the menus. I don't like lamb, but I tried to come up with some explanation. My favorite was that all the sheep we were passing were pets.

But we also considered the possibility that lamb on the plate ONLY comes from literal lambs, i.e. baby sheep. Maybe these sheep were all too old at this point.

Anyway, we drove along the Glen to Kinlochewe (a town I could never figure out how to pronounce). There we took the A832 north. It wound around the coast of Wester Ross passing near Loch Maree, the more northerly Shieldaig and Loch Gairloch. We passed through Charlestown, Gairloch and Poolewe. Drove along Loch Ewe to Aultbea and Laide. Drove around Gruinard Bay and crossed over to Little Loch Broom, before turning south through the stunning Dundonnell Forest.

We took the A835 north, planning to stop at Corrieshalloch Gorge and the Falls of Measach, but we passed the pull off before we could react. And since we were coming back the same way later, we decided to press on.

We stopped at Ullapool on Loch Broom. We had lunch at the Calley Inn. Tomato Soup and Mussels (again). The food was good. It started to rain a bit, while we were inside. (It had rained some nights, both while we slept or while we dined, and we had driven few small showers here and there along our route, but we had literally never been rained on. My dad never used his umbrella the whole trip.) Walking back through Ullapool, I put on my hat due to the very light rain, but it ended soon enough.

I stopped at a local knitting store that didn't look too touristy and bought Beth a sweater. (I should say, it was really amazing of her not to balk or squalk about this trip. It was not a great time for me to be going. She's a teacher, and she had to spend the week prepping her classrom for this week's start of school. The kids, on the other hand, were off until Thursday. My mom pitched in. But it was still a lot for Beth to cover.) Anyway, I picked out a wool sweater in colors I knew Beth would like. There was no medium available, so I chose a large, knowing that Beth liked loose-fitting clothes over tight. The saleslady, however, really tried to talk me into the small, saying that she thought the large was too big. I was pretty confident I was right, but she really started to make me paranoid about my choice. I stuck to my guns, and the woman surrendered reluctantly, telling me I could come back and exchange the sweater if Beth didn't like it. I thought that would be a nice trick. Though a tad expensive.

We had had some vague thoughts of heading further north, perhaps to Achiltibuie or even Lochinver. But it was already getting late, and we didn't want to push our luck. So we headed "home".

We backtracked to the Corrieschalloch Gorge and the Measach falls. The midges were out in force. Though we had been warned about them, they hadn't been a problem before now. So although I had bug repellant, I had left it at the hotel -- along with our other rolls of film. We got one picture of the Gorge from the swaying suspension bridge that spanned it. But that was it for the day, as the roll was used up. (This hadn't been an issue before, as every other day we were driving from one hotel to another, so we always had ALL of our stuff with us in the car. But today we were returning to the same hotel, so we had brought almost nothing with us.) Anyway, as with everything, the Gorge and falls were truly beautiful. But the back of my neck was getting eaten alive, so we beat a hasty retreat back to the car.

We headed south now, staying on the A835 past the Loch Glascarnoch Dam, the Black Water River and the Strathgrave Forest. Somewhere around here we finished "The Zebra-Striped Hearse". We had both enjoyed it immensely. Ed Asner's last scene as Colonel Blackwell had really been great.

We headed west on the A832 past Lochluichart, Achnasheen and Glenn Docherty, where we ran into a bit of construction on the one-lane road that caused some extremely minor delays. We rejoined the A896 at Kinlochewe and drove back through Glen Torridon to Loch Torridon, Annat and our hotel. I had another Shortbread cookie in my room.

Dinner brought Cheese souffle appetizers, like the little cheese crumpets in "The Great Mouse Detective". Another little teacup of soup, this time Mulagawtany. I ordered Mushroom Soup and Roast Beef with potatos and broccoli. Desert was Apple Pie and berries.

Later in my room, I returned a couple of business calls and talked for awhile with Duane Capizzi (my friend and the writing producer/story editor of such shows as "Men In Black" and "Jackie Chan"). He has a new series at Warner Brothers and was offering me some freelance scripts. I said yes. I don't know whether the project is confidential or not, so I won't say anymore about it at this point.

I talked to Beth and went to bed around 11:30pm.

TUNE IN MONDAY for more adventure. *Here's a preview: "The River Ness" "StoneQuest" "Birnam Wood" "The Famous Grouse" "McDonalds"*

SCOTLAND TRIP: September 4th, 2003

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2003

When last we left our intrepid hero (i.e. me), he was staying in the homey Greshornish House Hotel and had been summoned to dinner by bagpipes. He's about to begin his day on the Isle of Skye. This is his story:

6:15am
Wake up and lounge in bed. Got 6 & 1/2 hours sleep which is good for me.

Showered. Sort of. There really was no shower in my room. Just a bathtub with a hose that you could hold over your head. Seriously, how hard is it to install a hook or something so that you can open a bottle of shampoo and keep the water on you at the same time.

This is one of the two things that demonstrates America's ultimate ascendancy over the U.K. THE SHOWER. The U.K. has just (largely) not mastered the concept or the essential nature of a decent shower. Baths? Bah!! America is superior because it showers. I may be a Britophile (as opposed to a mere Anglophile), but I am not blind! The showerhead. The combination valve. These are not difficult high-tech concepts. Get with the program!!!!! *end of first rant*

8:30am
Breakfast at the Hotel. Toast w/butter, strawberry jam & honey, Cornflakes, Orange Juice, Scrambled eggs on toast and that darn vaguely-undercooked English Bacon. (I could easily label their bacon a third proof of American superiority, but I think that's more a matter of taste.)

My dad and I took pictures by the cannon, overlooking the Loch. We talked briefly to Claire from Guernsey, who has a VW Beetle at home. We were trying to figure out why the car alarm kept going off. She confirmed that it was overly sensitive, but that seemed an inadequate explanation. Overly sensitive to what? How does this thing work? It continues to go off randomly. Plus the radio is haunted and the air conditioner sucks too. And yet, we really like the car.

We hit the road, touring Skye.

We head back down A850 to A87. Head north at Portree to begin our loop of the coast of Skye's Trotternish Peninsula. We stopped multiple times to soak in the scenery and take pictures.

The Old Man of Storr is 49m pinnacle adrift from its parent cliff.

Kilt Rock is a cliffside formation that looks like the pleats of a kilt. Mealt Falls is stunning.

At Kilt Rock, I bought a couple of souvenirs for the kids. Rocks actually, handpainted to look like quaint Scottish cottages. The guy hand-painted Erin & Benny's names over the doors of the cottages. He was so sure-handed, I found it very impressive. He told me that I could now say I had bought my kids a cottage on Skye. I've been using variations on that line ever since.

We continued around the Trotternish to the ruins of Duntulm Castle. There's not much there. A few walls, a window. A cellar of some sort that's been gated off so that no one dies down there. But I love this kind of thing. Of course, the stunning cliffside location reminds me of Wyvern (or Tintagel) though this site isn't big enough to be a model for Wyvern, which in any case is theoretically on the mainland. But I just love climbing around these places.

We made our way back down the Peninsula, taking the B8036 back to the A850 to make a loop of the Waternish Peninsula. We passed Greshornish again, but our first stop was Dunvegan Castle. In contrast to Duntulm, this is no ruin. It's still inhabited by the Chiefs of the Clan Macleod. It was the single most touristy place we visited until the last day of our trip. It was also the most disappointing. Although it's location is unsurprisingly (at this point) stunning, the castle itself is unimpressive. The gardens are nice enough, and there was one truly bizarre tree that one could easily expect to see on an alien planet. But touring this kind of place just wasn't the point of this particular place.

We did get to see the Fairy Flag. There are a number of legends connected to the flag. Some say that it was a gift to the 4th clan chief from his Fairy wife. Others that a nurse who was supposed to be looking after a long ago heir, left the boy alone to attend a party. When she returned, he was wrapped in the fairy cloak. Science tells us that the silk was made in Rhodes or somewhere around there. So it may be a prize from a crusade or something. All things are true though.

We headed around Waternish on the A863. Got back on the A87 at Sligachan.

2:30pm
Back in Broadford, we stopped for lunch. The "chips" were good with salt and vinegar. And I had this amazing Peach Ice Cream Sundae for dessert. Plus a coke and some still (but not tap) water. But the hamburger....

The WORST HAMBURGER ever. We saw someone else enjoying one from a distance and both of us ordered burgers. But I had forgotten that the U.K. makes lousy hamburgers. When I was living in Oxford in 1984, the only place where you could get a decent burger (until the first McDonalds opened there right before I returned to the States) was a mini-chain called Bretts. There was a Bretts by the Train station and one just on the edge of town near where we lived at 65 High Street. I think us Yanks kept that latter Bretts in business. Even in London in those days, there were only two places besides American fast food chains like Burger King and McD's where you could get a good burger. One was Wolfs or Wolfies. The other was the Hard Rock Cafe.

Now you need to understand, I love hamburgers. And I'm not picky. I love everything from big thick restaurant burgers to crappy fast food burgers and everything in between. But what we were served in Broadford was inedible. I literally couldn't finish it. My dad says it's because they press the meat instead of grinding it. Maybe he's right.

But unlike the bacon, this can't possibly be a matter of taste. I'm now convinced that America is the world's lone super-power because we shower and know how to make a decent burger. *end of final rant*

Back on the road, we crossed over the bridge to the Mainland at Kyle of Lochalsh. We drove north-east up the coast of Loch Carron. And we got lost in Plockton. We missed a sign and found ourselves driving up a residential road that dead-ended. (Thank God. If it had been open-ended, we might never have figured out we were headed the wrong way.) We doubled-back and thought we got on the right road, only to find that this one literally dead-ended in a parking lot. We double-backed again, and finally admitted defeat, stopping at the train station. A very nice couple eating in the cafeteria set us back on course.

We took the A890 to the A896 past Lochcarron and Tornapress (though I never actually saw Tornapress). Another little bit of confusion was caused by the fact that there are two small villages named Shieldaig (one off Loch Torridon and one off Loch Gairloch). But we managed to find our way to Annat and our second-to-last hotel. This was the extremely POSH Loch Torridon Country House Hotel. If our first hotel (Castle Inverlochy) was classy, this one was Posh. Less elegant, friendlier, but WOW!

Again, my room and bathroom was huge. Their was a lovely Waterhouse print of Echo and Narcissus hanging over the bathtub. (You can see it at http://www.artmagick.com/paintings/painting1399.aspx) Echo just seems so lovely and forlorn. I really liked it.

And there was a separate shower, thank god. The grounds, which included a pasture for castle, looked over the Loch with the Moutains of Wester Ross rising abruptly above it. They had fresh apples and shortbread in the room, so I partook of both.

7pm
Dinner was formal, but no coat and tie required. I had sparkling water and a free appetizer: a little teacup of Pea Soup. I also had Potato Leak Vichyssoise. Then I took a chance and ordered the Sea Trout. As I've mentioned, I like trout, but I don't like other (non-shell) fish. I didn't know whether SEA trout would taste more like trout or more like fish. But I loved it. Trout rules. Sea or river or whatever. It came with potatos and green beans. Dessert was Apple Cider Sorbet w/a few berries.

10pm
Talked to Beth.

10:30pm
Went to bed. Just nothing on television, you see.

TUNE IN TOMORROW for more adventure. *Here's a preview: "Oatmeal Porridge" "Raining in Ullapool" "Midges in the Gorge" "Bealach-na-ba" "I want to get that guy in a recording studio."*

SCOTLAND TRIP: September 3rd, 2003

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2003

When last we left our intrepid hero (i.e. me), he was staying in the stunning Inverlochy Castle and forced to wear a coat and tie to dinner. Life is hard. He's about to begin his first full day in Scotland. This is his story:

I woke up to geese honking. Dozed a bit longer.

6:30am
Wake up call came in. I went to take a shower and like my father before me found that the darn thing was too complicated. Couldn't for the life of me strike a balance between frigid and scalding water.

8am
Room service brought me the breakfast I had ordered the night before. Scrambled eggs on toast. That English Bacon which really is more like ham and way undercooked for my tastes, despite the fact that I had asked for it "crisp". Wheat toast, a chocolate-chip croissant and a regular croissant. Corn flakes.

We hit the road... w/ a couple of problems.

1. While walking to the car, the sole of one of my great old hiking boots split away from the boot itself. I'm now clomping along, with every step. This is actually very upsetting to me. I've had these boots for twenty-five years and they fit like a glove. I've had them resouled once before. But the opportunity to have them fixed doesn't look like it's going to present itself here.

2. As we're driving away in the Bug, its car alarm goes off. Now, let's just consider the wisdom of putting a car alarm in a rental. Now let's consider the wisdom of not having any kind of owner's manual in a rental with a car alarm that seems to go off for no reason whatsoever. This becomes a daily problem for us. Usually in the mornings, but frankly anytime we turn off the engine, we run the risk of the car alarm going off again when we restart the car. And not just once, but usually two or three times. It takes us multiple trial and errors just to figure out how to turn the damn thing off. But we can never quite figure out why sometimes it goes off and sometimes it doesn't.

Our first stop is Neptune's Staircase. A series of locks on the Caledonian Canal. We watch a large boat traverse a couple of the locks. It's really kind of impressive. Cool, slow and impressive.

We leave Torlundy and drive back through Fort William on the A82, unaware that we're also driving through our best chance to fix or replace my boots. We head back along Loch Linnhe and catch a small ferry at Corran across the Loch.

From there it's the A861 past Strontian (the town that gave its name to the element Strontium). The roads now begin to take on a single lane character. That means that when a car's coming in the other direction, one of you needs to pull over. There are plenty of passing places, however, so it's never really a problem for us. But I do think that had we been travelliing in July or August, when there were more tourists about, it might have been a different story.

At Salen, we detour down the B8007 into the Ardnamurchan Penninsula. Our hope is to take this to the Point of Ardnamurchan, the westernmost point of mainland Scotland so that we can see the Egyptian lighthouse there. But we have a time constraint. We need to catch a 2:40pm ferry at Mallaig, and we want to get to Mallaig a bit early, so that we can see about repairing or replacing my boots. So we stop at Ardslignish, look around and take some pictures of the Inner Hebrides in the distance where the Loch turns into the Ocean. Then we turn around without making it to the lighthouse.

From Salen, we head north to Mallaig. We stop at a Tourist Info Center to get boot advise. They send us to the only store they can think of that might have boots. At this store, they literally only have one pair of boots, which are a size too small for me. We ask where else we might go, and the guy suggests Fort William. That's the exact wrong direction for us at this point, so I'm still clomping around. D'oh!

We grab some lunch. I have an amazing plate of Grilled Split jumbo prawns with Goat Cheese. And a coke. One of the best meals of the trip.

Then we board the Ferry to the Isle of Skye. While we're up on the deck, we hear a car alarm go off, and afraid that it's our car, we go to investigate. It's not our car, but it's a good thing we checked. My dad left the parking break off. Woops.

The Ferry ride to Skye takes about a half hour, and the view crossing the Sound is wonderful. (I'm gonna start to sound very redundant about the views. But it truly was gorgeous about 99.9% of the time.)

The ferry lands at Armadale. We try another store for boots there. It's another no go, but the lady recommends a store called Walker & Welles in Broadford, which is at least in a direction we're heading.

We head south a half-mile to stop in at Ardvasar, which is the traditional home of the Macintyre clan, the clan of my good friend Tuppence Macintyre. We stop by the hotel that I believe the Macintyre's used to run (for centuries). Then we head north again on the A851.

Tuppence had recommended another detour, an inland loop toward the northwest coast of the Sleat Penninsula in order to see Dunsgaith Castle. So we headed toward Tarskavaig. Took a right turn there and headed toward Tokavaig. The castle was supposed to be between Tokavaig and Ord. But we hit Ord without spotting either the castle or even a sign for the castle. We thought about turning around, but we had no real hope that we'd find it the second time, so we just kept going and reconnected back up to the 851.

I know it sounds like the day was full of abortive failures. No lighthouse. No castle. No boots. But we didn't really feel that way. We saw so much beautiful scenery. And we just were enjoying the trip.

By this time, we had finished Tup's mix tape. So I popped in the beginning of the KCRW unabridged production of Ross Macdonald's "Zebra-Striped Hearse". This is a Lew Archer novel, directed and starring Harris Yulin, who was great. It also featured Ed Asner as Colonel Blackwell. Plus Jennifer Tilly, Tyne Daly, Kathryn Lloyd, Jodi Thelen, Joey Pants, etc. I had read the book some time ago, and although I remembered the gist of it, it was great to hear. And my dad really enjoyed it too. It's a six cassette tape production, so it would last us nearly the entire trip.

At Broadford we found Walker & Welles. As promised, they had plenty of boots. I found a pair that fit very nicely right off the bat. (And they had many other options.) So I got 'em. Then I... I... I toss my great old boots in a dumpster that stinks of fish. They truly deserved better. I still feel guilty about it. I hope someone found them and salvaged them before they got too smelly.

Back on the road (the A87 now) we drove through Sligachan and headed north to Portree. Now this trip was almost entirely planned by my father's assistant Anita Kelty Nitta (with a few recommendations from Tuppence and Carol Wagner). Anita provided us with directions, and a map that highlit our route and had stickers for all the hotels. But the sticker for our next hotel was in the wrong place. Horrors! We'd have to figure this out for ourselves for once. Fortunately, finding the hotel wasn't a problem. We took the A850 past Skeabost, Flashader, Edinbane and Blackhill and found the Greshornish House Hotel off Loch Greshornish. Dad was given "The Clydesdale Room". I got "The Palomino Room". It's not quite Castle Inverlochy, but it is a big room with a lovely view of the Loch. The people are very nice, as is the short bread cookie.

After checking in, Dad & I went for a short walk. The Midges make their first appearance, but a wind is blowing and they don't bother us much.

We went back to our rooms briefly. I talked to Beth and left a message for the kids.

7:30pm
We head down to the lounge, but cigarette smokers drive us back upstairs until Campbell, the son of the owner, begins playing his bagpipes to summon us to dinner. It's fun. He's standing out by the old cannon in full regalia, playing. Campbell's a very nice, self-deprecating guy.

Dinner is Mussels, Venison, Potatos, Broccoli, Rolls, Chocolate Mousse.

After dinner, we meet some of our fellow guests (the non-smokers) in the Lounge. An older couple from Lincolnshire and a family from Guernsey.

I stayed up that night until 11:45pm watching "Sex and the City". Then went to sleep.

TUNE IN TOMORROW for more adventure. *Here's a preview: "The Old Man of Storr" "Duntulm Castle" "Two reasons why America is ascendant" "The Fairy Flag" "Posh"*

SCOTLAND TRIP: September 2nd, 2003

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2003

When last we left our intrepid hero (i.e. me), he was suffering through an airline trip from LAX to Heathrow Airport in Business Class. He had just changed his watch to match London Time. This is his story:

2am
I read the L.A. Times over a glass of Tomato Juice.

Dinner was soon served. Sourdough rolls & butter, Prociutto & Salmon appetizer (though I didn't eat the Salmon). Prociutto & Shrimp maincourse. There was also a Salad, but the dressing was Ginger, which I'm allergic to, so I skipped that too. Skipped the Rice and Broccoli also. Ate the tomatos. Dessert was Apple Pie with a glass of milk.

Sitting next to me, was a woman flying with her husband. Her daughter and grandson were also on the flight in the first row of coach. They were all on their way to explore London, Oxford, etc. The woman and her husband were both retired professors from UCSD. (He was physics; she was bio-physics.) They were all quite nice. For awhile, Alex, the grandson switched seats with her. He was pretty cool. And I'm not just saying that because both he and his mom were fans (or at least appreciators) of Gargoyles. Though, heck that didn't hurt. Seemed like another good omen. Alex was a bigtime STAR WARS fan, who was writing his own comic book.

Watched three movies on the flight.

IDENTITY - I had seen commercials for this and had predicted the big twist from the commercials. This movie had a great cast led by one of my favorite actors, John Cusack. Rebecca DeMornay was in it too. At first I asked myself if that was her, then I decided it wasn't. Then I found out it was. Weird.

THE ITALIAN JOB - I'd heard good things about this, and I guess it was okay, but I wasn't particularly impressed. Still, the Mini-Coopers were fun. And since the plan for our trip was for my dad and I to rent a Mini-Cooper in Edinburgh and tool around Scotland in it, it seemed to be another good omen that this was on. Best laid plans, as you'll soon see...

ROUTE 60 - A quirky little film that alternated between being annoying and fun. Still, I love allegory and you don't see much of it these days. So I'll thumbs up it.

I tried to sleep a few times, but basically couldn't.

I started reading "SANCTUARY" by William Faulkner. A brutal little pot-boiler that he wrote for the money, then initially couldn't get published because it was too, well, everything. Of course, being Faulkner, even his pot-boilers are high literature. A tough read.

Drank a lot of water.

Eventually, they served breakfast: Grapes, three types of melon (honeydew, cantalope, water), kiwi, croissants w/butter, Peach yoplait, Orange Juice.

We landed at Heathrow in London and had a considerable trip (both by bus and on foot) to change terminals for our connecting flight to Edinburgh.

While waiting, I had an Apple Juice that had the unique taste of the apple juice in the U.K. It's different than in the U.S. It reminded me immediately and viscerally of my semester in Oxford.

Boarded our flight to Scotland. Business class again, bulkhead seat. Don't like the bulkhead, but at least it was Biz.

Fortunately, I was able to sleep. Slept through most of the flight, which was only an hour. So I was still pretty tired.

We arrived in Edinburgh and went to the rental car desk to pick up our Mini-Cooper, which my father had special ordered in advance. It wasn't there. In fact, they had no car for us. Major screw up. My dad was furious, and I just felt bad for him.

But the good news was they had a Grey Volkswagon Beetle available for us. And since it wasn't a special order it cost CONSIDERABLY less. It wound up being a terrific car for us (with a few minor exceptions I'll get to later). So all was for the best. And when I told my kids about it, they got very excited. "Grey punch-buggy, no punch backs," they yelled!

We started our drive. My dad behind the wheel. Me navigating.

We passed through Stirling, the only other Scottish town (besides Edinburgh) that I had ever been to before. But we didn't stop. It was already late afternoon, and we had a ways to drive before we got to our hotel.

We entered the Trossachs area (home to Rob Roy), passing numerous Lochs.

We passed through Glen Coe. My dad is from Glenco, Illinois, and we tried to imagine how Scottish trappers might have seen Lake Michigan and felt like it was home.

We crossed Loch Leven and then drove up the coast of Loch Linnhe, passing through Fort William. The scenery was just gorgeous. And that's exactly why we came. This wasn't going to be a museum trip. With very few exceptions, we weren't here to see anything man-made. My dad's plan for the trip was to see Scotland's natural beauty. Since he was footing the bill, I wasn't complaining. But in truth, I wasn't complaining, cuz it was just terrific. Driving past Linnhe, God parted the clouds and put a spotlight of late afternoon sun on the water. I watched it intensely, half-expecting to see a Selkie or something emerge. No luck. But it was still very gorgeous.

My good friend (and Gargoyles researcher) Tuppence Macintyre had provided us with some travel tips and a mix-tape of Scottish music (modern and otherwise) and even a Robin Williams comedy routine. We played the tape on the way to our hotel. It was great. Only one problem. I couldn't figure out how to get the thing to eject. It literally took me two days to manage it. The stereo was very strange. Every once in a while, for no apparent reason, it would switch off the tape and start playing the radio instead. Other times, when we had it switched off, it would just turn itself on. We'd turn it off again, and it would turn on again. I have no explanation, beyond gremlins. The air-conditioner also sucked. The worst was... well, I'll hold off on that... but those three things were the only problems with the bug. Otherwise, we liked it. In fact, my dad liked it so much, he's considering getting one.

We passed many, many animals. You don't see a lot of sheep alongside the 405 or the 101, so it was kinda novel to us. The sheep in Scotland are nearly ubiquitous. We also saw cows and other "robust cattle", which look almost like Oxen or Yaks or something. We saw rams, swans, horses, geese, etc. No shetland ponies though.

As we got closer to our hotel, my dad, who's only been to Scotland once before, began to say how it was starting to look familiar. Then when we arrived at our hotel, he realized that he had been here before to this hotel. (Don't ask me how he didn't realize it before that moment. It's not surprising if you know him, but it's still goofy.) We were staying at Inverlochy Castle. An actual castle that had been remodeled into a hotel years before. It was, to say the least, an extremely classy joint. (One of the advantages of traveling with my dad is that he tends to go first class all the way.) Dad remembered it as the place where he had a fight with his shower. Being unable to work it, he had started yelling at it. (Now you guys can see where I inherited my limited technical abilities. My dad doesn't even have e-mail.)

My room was amazing. HUGE. With a bathroom bigger than most of the hotel rooms I've ever stayed in. I changed for dinner, as this place required a coat and tie in the dining room. I also left a quick voice mail for Beth to let her know we had arrived.

For Dinner I had sparkling water, mustard seed rolls w/butter, a Lobster cocktail, terrific Potato/Leek soup and Sea Breem with Mussels, shrimp and spinach. Now, the only non-shellfish I really like is trout. But I also don't like lamb which was the other option, so I tried the Sea Breem. Nope. But the mussels, shrimp and spinach were great. Dessert was an Apple tart served with apple puree and fresh pressed apple jus.

Back in the room, I called the kids and talked to them and my Mom, who was baby-sitting. I also called Beth again and talked to her. There was a toffee on my pillow. So, what the heck, I ate that too.

Finally, I went to bed...

TUNE IN TOMORROW for more adventure. *Here's a preview: "English Bacon..." "Neptune's Staircase..." "They deserved better..." "The Zebra-Striped Hearse..." "Campbell on bagpipes..."

SCOTLAND TRIP: September 1st, 2003

Hey gang,

I'm back from Scotland. As some of you might know, my father (who without exageration has nearly a half-million frequent flyer miles from years and years of business travel) was going to Germany on business and decided to take advantage of the free trip to spend a week in Scotland. I offered to go with him (cuz I'm SO generous), and as my 40th birthday is coming up, he agreed to use some of his miles to take me along.

Thought you might like to hear about my trip. So I'll put together a little Scotland journal. Cover a day per day, that sort of thing. Mostly, I'll talk about what I ate.

And if you're not interested. Well. Then don't read it.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2003
Wasn't going to work, so I got up late (10am). Very slowly showered and shaved. Wasn't even bringing a razor on the trip, so this would be my last shave until today. (For those who haven't seen me since the con, I've shaved off the beard.)

The only problem was that I shaved with a "dead" razor and really cut up my face.

12pm - Walked into Larchmont Village to get a haircut. As an experiment -- and since I wouldn't be seeing anyone but my dad for a week, I got a complete buzzcut. #1 Plastic clippered the whole thing. I think I looked damaged. But Beth and the barber liked it. Though my kids did not. It's still VERY short and takes some definite getting used to.

I went home and packed my duffle bag. And the zipper ripped. Not a good omen. So I repacked in Beth's duffle. Packed my briefcase. Checked the internet briefly.

3pm - The car arrived. I said goodbye to my wife and kids and left.

3:30pm - Arrived at the airport. Checked in. Grabbed some food at McDonalds. Quarter-pounder with cheese, fries, Coke, bake apple pie. Started eating at the gate.

My dad met me there. He saw my haircut and liked it. I was able to upgrade to Business Class at the gate, which was a GOOD omen. Then he and I sat and talked.

5:30pm - We boarded. He was in First Class (payed by the German company he works for). I was in the last row of Biz. The seats are almost too high tech to figure out, but man biz-class rules. Had a glass of water and we took off.

Immediately, I reset my watch to Scottish time. Which means that's it for Monday.

Read about Tuesday tomorrow... (Here's a preview: "sourdough..." "Route 60..." "No punch backs..." "Inverlochy Castle...")