WHY THE THREE NAMES?

I'm not being pretentious, or excessively Irish...or a serial killer. I'm just distinguishing myself from these tools.

And the 33 other guys on IMDB.

COOL STUFF BY PEOPLE I KNOW

The Knightmare

Pulpy goodness from the Mad Pulp Bastard himself. I likes me a little pulp now and then, but this guy is the pulp master and he proves it in The Knightmare.

As a fan of the old timey Shadow radio shows, this audio drama by Bill Cunningham and produced by the Decoder Ring Theatre is right up my alley and the Bastard nailed it. Check it out, it's free and awesome and it comes in two chapters, two chapters.

Fury of Solace

Originally begun as an entry for the Dr. Horrible contest that had fans producing their own applications for the Evil League of Evil. Now, creator and star Emmett Furey is hard at work spinning it into a multi-media empire. In July he starts it as an online series, but with the twist that not every episode is int he same format. Some are videos, some are comics, there's music and minisodes. I can't wait for this to get underway. Emmet is also one of the brains behind Bumps In the Night on Strike.tv. Check it out, for 'tis a fine ghost hunting comedy.


In Plain Sight

"A Frond in Need" was written by Brynn Malone. She's cool and an awesome giver of notes in my writers group. Watchable online at the moment.


The Commune

I only know her internetularly, but I'm sure that will change sooner or later, but Elisabeth Fies has made what is, by all accounts, a kick-ass horror flick. I really wanted to see it at the Dances With Films festival, but couldn't make it, so I'm hoping that sooner, rather than later, I'll get another opportunity. Theatrical release, DVD...just gimme some creepy.

I'm even more excited to see Pistoleras. A female spaghetti western, How cool izzat? She's gotta make it first, though.

I intend to make this cool stuff a recurring feature, so people I know should get crackin' on making cool stuff.

MASTERMIND @ ECT

Mastermind will be plying his villainy at the Eclectic Company Theatre in July. Specifically, July 10-12 and 17-19. A total of six performances. Tix are fifteen bones. Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM and Sundays at a delightful 2PM. Have some lunch, go see Mastermind.

Written by me. Directed by Susan Lee. Starring Brad Wilcox and Beth Ricketson.

GEEK THEORY #3: THE WEST WING

In the West Wing Universe, the elections happen on different even numbered years and there are past fictional presidents, yet real life U.S. and presidential history is referred to as well. At one point did the real world diverge into the Sorkinverse? With the aid of some TV history, some real history, some conspiracy theories and a little too much Cherry Dr. Pepper, I shall endeavor to answer this conundrum that has plagued mankind for the last 18 seconds.

First, the facts.

Nixon is mentioned by name at least twice in the series. Specifically, in "17 People" and "Access." There is no mention, that I recall, specifically of Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, or Bubba. While there may be mention of policies or something that might be tied to those administrations, that can be reattributed to a fictional president. Also, in regards to Nixon, in "Six Meetings Before Lunch" there is mention of the panda(s) gifted the U.S. by China, which could lead one back to Nixon, but I'm not going to assume that and we already have a couple of Nixon references (only one actually puts him in the White House though).

We know of two predecessors to Bartlet. Lassiter, a two-term Republican, and D.Wire Newman, a single term democrat.

This only accounts for half the years between Nixon's resignation in 1974 and Bartlet's election in 1998. We know that Bartlet succeeded a Republican, so it was likely Lassiter. This would put his administration running from 1990-98. Thus, Newman's term was probably (but not necessarily) 1986-1990.

The change is narrowed from 1974-1986. With no mentions of who was in office in that period, it could be fictional or reality-based. Or both. Rather than take a full-on dump in sandbox I do not own, let's just pee a little by basing the shift from our world to Sorkin's on something already existing in reality. And then spinning it wildly like a coked-out ballet dancer.

Let's say that Ford took over for Nixon and was succeeded by Carter who then lost to Reagan as it was in real life. But what happened after that to move the election cycle two years and cause Democratic and Republican eras to essentially become reversed? That's some fuckin' upheaval, son.

These are also facts. Reagan was shot by John Hinckley. John Hinckley's brother is Scott Hinckley who knew Neil Bush, son of George Bush (I). They were alleged to be friendly and were set for a dinner engagement that was cancelled after John went bat-shit crazy. The Hinckley's had an only company. We know that the Bush family likes oil companies (Neil worked for Amoco at the time) and have worked for and/or owed them.

Hinckley had a history of being a little bat-shit already. He was prescribed drugs by a psychiatrist. He had previously been detained in what was likely an attempt to kill Jimmy Carter. He had guns with, crossed state lines and a journal detailing his plan. He was released.

Bush (I) was a former director of the CIA for year, not that long before running with Reagan. The CIA ran mind control experiments.

Here's where I go off the rails.

While in he was the DCI, perhaps he went noodling around in the files of people he and his family knew. He found John Hinckley was part of a program to create sleeper assassins in an extension of MK-Ultra, called MK-Omega. There were given bizarre psychoses (impress young actresses) to mask their underlying program (in his case, eliminate troublesome presidents). His programming misfired or accidentally activated at one point and he tried to go after Carter, but rather than lose the asset, the Company had him set free.

Reagan taps Bush for the Veep spot in '80 and, as in real life, they win. Now he's in a power position, more so if that pesky former actor were dead. Bush activates Hinckley. Hinckley is successful. Reagan is dead, Bush is now in position to carryout his family's fascist leanings (Prescott Bush was a huge dick too). It's now April 1st (apropos, no?) 1981 and Bush is sworn in.

However, John Chancellor on NBC news first uncovers the Neil Bush/Scott Hinckley connection. It is followed up and eventually the whole conspiracy is unraveled. Coming so soon after Watergate, the nation can scarcely take this level of shenanigans (to put it lightly). Bush in impeached and indicted. Bush's appointed vice president, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig gets to finally utter the words he did in real life "I'm in control here." But Tip O'Neill ain't having it. Trust has deteriorated too far in the country and in a special joint session of congress, a special election is enacted. Haig vetoes. The veto is overturned by the required majority and in 1982, the presidential cycle is reset.

Who was President from 1982-1990?

Julia Mansfield.

It was such a disaster that no one talks about it...ever. Whoever the next female president is, that's the first one.

NEXT GEEK THEORY:
I don't have one. I'm open to suggestions.

MK Omega is ©2009 Michael Patrick Sullivan

GEEK THEORY #2: DOCTOR WHO

If you don't watch Doctor Who, just don't bother.

And by the way, you're missing out on one of the most fun and best written shows currently in production. You...Dave...are you watching this? Why not?

So, in the original series of Doctor Who, it had been expressly stated that Time Lords can regenerate 12 times, allowing for a total of thirteen possible incarnations. It has been demonstrated that this limit can be cheated by a few means.

The Master employed some of the nastier ones, like hijacking bodies for his own use. The High Council of Time Lords had at one point offered the Master a new cycle of regenerations for his cooperation and success in a mission to save the Doctor. He cooperated...for a while. Then he tried to kill him, so no new cycle for him.

This is the key to my theory. Time Lords are not born with regenerative abilities. In fact, let's not even call Time Lords a race, even though that's what the Doctor does. Gallifreyans might be a race, but Time Lords are what they become, through selections and training. There have been references to Time Lord Academies, after all.

In the only Eighth Doctor adventure, the Master had plotted to steal new regenerations by jacking something called the Eye of Harmony. It is an artificial black hole that powers all the Time Lord's endeavors, including, apparently, all the TARDISes. Either there's a mini one on board or it's a connection to the main one or something, I dunno. I don't care.

My theory is such that the Time Lords grant themselves regenerations using the power of the Eye of Harmony. They capped it at twelve for philosophical, legal, and/or practical reasons but ultimately, since they control it, they can change their own rules and offer the Master more regenerations of they want. General rule though: You get twelve and then you die.

Since Time Lord's are linked to their TARDISes psychically, then they can access the Eye whenever they get killed, inside or out of the TARDIS. most of the Doctor's have happened outside.

When the Master regenerated from Derek Jacobi to John Simm in the new series, he'd already gone past his twelve and at least two hijacked bodies. Who knows how he wound up looking like Derek Jacobi. He did it anyway. He was in a TARDIS at the time. Not his, but being a Time Lord, it's not unreasonable to think that he could establish a link to one when he's fucking in it.

But what of the limit?

Well, the Time Lords are all dead. There's no one around to enforce the limit. The Master went to town. Kid in an infinite energy candy store. He not only regenerated for an umpteenth time, he seemed to even choose his appearance (something that had been established when Romanaregenerated in the original series).

So, no worries that the Doctor is starting to run out of lives like a Super Mario player who's gone well past his level of Troopa-trampling competence. He's about to hit his eleventh incarnation. (i.e. ten regenerations). He's only got two left. Nope. he's got as many as he wants as he has the only (known) remaining access to an/the Eye of Harmony. So we get to the end of the thirteenth Doctor (let's call him James) and a little writhing and pretty pretty lights and we get a fourteenth doctor (let's call him Russell). Business as usual.

NEXT GEEK THEORY (maybe):
At what point did the West Wing universe divert from our own and what caused the presidential election cycle to shift two years and was it the same thing in both cases?

GEEK THEORY #1: LOST

This has spoiler's for "The Incident," the last episode of the fifth season of Lost. It's that fucking simple. You read any further, it's your damn problem. Why do I keep apostrophizing plural s's. Not that one, though.

By the way, on an unrelated note, my personal rule about spoiler warning is: After one year from date of release or transmission, there are no spoiler warnings. Suck it. You've had time and obviously, you didn't care about it that much to watch/read/ingest it. It doesn't come up that much. The only time I remember being called on it was revealing that "Jack" is Tyler Durden three years after the Fight Club flick came out. This being in a group of people who I knew had pretty much all seen it...apparently except that guy. He had at least 1,100 days to see it. NO guilt.

For some reason, I've spent inordinate amounts of time thinking about some aspect or another of certain shows. Now, for a television writer, on the surface, this doesn't sound too odd. It could be mental spec prep or meeting prep or something.

No. This is me totally geeking out in a way I've not been prone to that much unless provoked...by other geeks. Unless I am spec'ing something, I generally try not to overly speculate on things. Largely because if I'm right, I feel kind of cheated. I start thinking "If I could have written that, why didn't I get paid to do it." I want it to be something I would never think of...and yet be totally perfect, set up and pay off.

So this is first in a series of, I dunno...three or four. Also, use the comments to suggest things for me to theorize about. Like "What was in Inara's syringe if it wasn't for suicide?" in Firefly? But not that, because that's been outed (and not about Book's past either. It's kind of obvious. He was an Operative. End of story).

Now, on to it. This isn't so much a theory of what the smoke monster is as who it is.

It's that guy.

The guy on the rock, not the guy on the log.

And now he's using his smoke monstery abilities to be this guy.

The guy with the orange shirt, not guy with the paper hat.

This is not exactly supported by the following but fits the following:

• That Locke is not Locke, because Locke is dead and unceremoniously dumped out a cargo box.

• When last Ben Linus tried to call upon the smoke monster (or Cerberus, as named by Radzinski on his glow in the dark map), it didn't come out to play. Because he was already standing right there, looking like Terry O'Quinn.

• When Locke first encounter Smoky, he saw a bright light. When Eko encountered him, he saw flashbacks of his life and was killed for not confessing his past sins. For not being evil enough? Because, yeah, it's probably Jacob is the good and his black shirted friend is the evil, in plain simple visual terms. Maybe he saw light because smoke monster was checking him out to kinda be his tool for...whatever he's doing. Maybe it was a brain scan. Maybe it knew it was going to have to be Locke one day. With all the timey-wimey stuff going on, I'm sure there's some possibility of knowing this.

• Smoky can only take the forms of the dead, maybe. Kinda like The First on Buffy. He appeared as Eko's dead bro-ham. And that's why fake Locke told Richard to tell real Locke he had to die.

• Smoky lives in an underground temple. Jacob lives under an old statue. There's some parity in that. Suggests they've both been there quite a while. Both are are full of Egypty stuff. Side note: I think Richard Alpert is Egyptian or something. Explains the eyeliner. I've seen that mentioned elsewhere though and has no real bearing on this.

• They both wear black.

NEXT GEEK THEORY: DOCTOR WHO
Why we don't have to worry about the Doctor running out of regenerations and why the Master had no problem doing so despite the fact that he ran out of 'em a long time ago.

NO REASON

THINGS THAT ARE THE WAY THEY ARE

• I am currently exactly halfway through my Fringe spec, currently titled "The Gain." The Leverage spec that had been mentioned previous has been mothballed...for now anyway. Area Four's initial vomit draft is completed and will be put through the notes ringer...later, right now I'm returning to a previous pilot for tweaking.

• A feature script is in the preliminary stages. It may either be a feature version of The Black House or of Mastermind.

• Mastermind will be produced in July by the Eclectic Company Theatre in North Hollywood. There will be six performances as a part of their Hurricane Season Festival of New Plays. There will be more about that later.
  

• And it also appears that Mastermind may be produced this summer in Canada. More on the "international premiere" as it develops.

• There's one thing that I'm not going to tell you about. But it was huge. For me.

• I've got to dash off a new Auslander shortly. Likely set in Mexico and titled "Viva El Extranjero!" Also, there is news pending regarding The Auslander...watch out for that at some point.

• Had a bunch of meetings around town, all of which went in varying degrees of well, however the staffing environment being what it is, all are likely all just groundwork for the future.

KHAAAAAAN!

A meditation on the greatest moment in the history of film. (LA Weekly)