The fall blog

I am not, as you may have noticed, an assiduous blogger -- for which most of the world seems grateful. But it is time to catch up. I've been asked about major league baseball, steroids, and Barry Bonds. My answer is I don't know. His situation is yet to be legally resolved, and until it is, I'll simply observe that he is one of the best players in the history of the game. . . and if he did in fact enhance his natural talents in some chemical way, he certainly made more of it than anyone else did. . . . should there be an asterisk by his record? I am happy to say I don't have to decide that. . . .  I share the view that DOUBLE PLAY should be a movie . . . I pitched it with a producing partner all over LA before it came out, and succeeded only in firming my resolve to give up show business. But, one never knows. . . . We do have Jesse Stone # 5 shooting in Nova Scotia. And Appaloosa begins principal photography in Santa Fe in a couple of weeks. . .  I have little opinion on the quality of writing on TV, because I don't watch it. Basically I only watch ball games and an occasional movie on The Western Channel. I can say that Joe Buck is the best play by play guy in America, and that the combo of Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy who do the Sox games are the best pair in America. Remy is a damned legend around here. . . . As for the difference between TV and feature films, it is rooted in money (there's a surprise). To stay inside budget on a TV movie they often shoot in a maybe 19 or 20 days. A feature has more money and more time. . . you can afford better directors, better writers, you can frequently attract bigger stars: If Appaloosa were a TV movie, it is less likely that it would star Ed Harris, Viggo Mortenson, and Rene Zellweger . . . or be directed by Harris. This is not always the case (e.g. Lonesome Dove), but it is often so. If a story is too long for a feature film, it might go to a mini series format on television. As was the initial plan for All Our Yesterdays. Which of course didn't work out. In either case, it often depends on who wants to do it. On the Jesse Stone movies, Tom Selleck initiated proceedings. On Appaloosa, Ed Harris did so. People write books on this subject, and even I, who know very few things, and have a small vocabulary, could go on for pages. But if you get the idea that it has to do with money and luck, than you know what I do. . . . remember that NOW AND THEN (Spenser) will be published on October 23. . . I will be speaking at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University on October 24. . . . Daniel T. Parker was said to have stolen the show (Tempest) at the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival this summer . . . David Parker and the Bang Group will be appearing at the Roberts Theater in the Calderwood Center in Boston on November 7 thru the 10th . . . talk to you soon (or pretty soon, maybe)
rbp