Chris Kirkman

“316″ Recap and Analysis …

Previously, on Lost: Ben’s been a busy little beaver, bribing, grifting and cajoling all of the Oceanic Six to go back to the island. Sun’s got a little idea of her own, though – an idea that involves popping a cap in Ben’s conniving ass. She has to put her cold dish back on ice, however, when Ben tells her he has to take her to see the magical time lady at the church. Jack tags along, because he hates being left out of ridiculous situations in which he can constantly call everyone crazy for believing the ridiculousness. At Mrs. Hawking’s neighborhood, Desmond shows up at the same time as everyone else and says he’s got some bizness to take care of. So, they get to it, and Mrs. Hawking gets all cryptic and just a bit pompous before the final thonk!

This week, on Lost: It all starts with the opening of an eye – Jack’s eye, to be precise.

He’s in the jungle. He stumbles to his feet. We get deja vu. In his hand is a torn piece of paper with the words “I wish” scribbled upon it. Off in the distance, he hears screams for help and, being a man of action, tears ass through the jungle to do what it is that Jack does – I mean, besides bitch at people and get all blowhardy. He rounds into a clearing and we half expect to see a big, hulking wreckage with mass chaos all around. Instead, it’s a cliff with a waterfall, and down below is Hurley, clinging desperately to a guitar case. Jack dives in, wrangles Hurley to the shallow end of the pool and then notices Kate is crumpled up on some rocks by the shore. She appears to be unconscious. It’s time for the swirling LOST…

46 HOURS EARLIER

This week’s drink recipe honors everyone’s favorite murdering bastard, Benjamin Linus. We don’t know yet exactly what went down in his vendetta against the Widmores, but from the look of his face, it ain’t good. Take it easy with this drink, now, cuz it’s a killer. In fact, it’s a … Lady Killer 1 ounce gin 1/2 ounce Cointreau or similar orange liqueur 1/2 ounce apricot brandy (regular brandy will work, too) 2 ounces passion-fruit juice (mango will also work in a pinch) 2 ounces pineapple juice Violently sling all the ingredients with ice into a shaker, then beat the hell out of it. Drain the dark and bruised liquid into a champagne flute or a long drink glass with some ice to reduce swelling. Throw a sprig of mint and a cherry into the grave. Offer up a eulogy and toast to life – or death.

Back in LA, Ben has lead Jack, Sun and Desmond into a church to meet with the ever-unsettling Mrs. Eloise Hawkings. Desmond, of course, has been formerly acquainted with the resident time queen, seeing as how she told him back in Season Three that he wouldn’t marry Penny and would end up on an island, pushing a button. Anywho, Eloise leads the quartet down some stairs and into a Dharma station called The Lamp Post. In it is the infamous pendulum we spied at the beginning of the season. It’s really quite large, the pendulum, and there are computers and little flippy tile boards like those down in The Swan, and the map over which the pendulum is swinging is very ornate and appropriately moody. It’s all very impressive, really. After letting all the impressiveness sink in, Eloise starts in with the science and we get to watch Jack’s eyes get all big as his tiny brain is filled with ever-increasing ridiculousness. Basically, the gist of Eloise’s information is thus: the island is unstuck in time and the pendulum exists to not tell where the island is at any given moment, but rather WHEN the island is, and the probability of where it will appear next. Like I said, it’s all very impressive.

All filled up with enough bullshit for one night, Desmond pulls a Jack and tells them all that they’re being used and he’s done with the island. Mrs. Hawking promptly tells him that the island isn’t quite done with him yet – which can only mean that pushing a button down in a hole for three years wasn’t nearly enough, and he must pay the remainder of his pound of flesh at a later date. Desmond storms off.

After Desmond’s tizzy, Eloise hands Jack a binder and points out a specific air flight that will intersect the next predicted coordinate of the island. He must be on that flight – he and all his friends. Eloise then takes Jack into her office and closes the door. Once there, she hands Jack a note – Locke’s suicide note – and informs him that he needs to recreate the original flight of Oceanic 815 as closely as possible in order for this all to work. Amazingly, after five seasons of running from smoke monsters, dealing with hostile, baby-snatching natives and watching Locke’s crazy-ass plans go from incredulous to impossibly true, Jack manages to listen. Eloise informs him that he must give Locke something of Jack’s father’s. Jack starts to be Jack again, what with all the doubting, but Eloise simply tells him “that’s why it’s called a leap of faith,” just as Locke said, long ago, down in that dark Hatch before that first button was pushed. What a long, strange trip, indeed.

Eloise dismisses Jack and he returns upstairs to the church. Ben’s there, and they do a little symbolic song and dance where Ben tells Jack the story of Thomas the Apostle and basically tells Jack that he’s going to have to believe, whether he wants to or not. He then tells Jack that he has to fulfill a promise to an old friend – in other words, he’s off to off Miss Penny Widmore.

Later, in a bar, Jack gets a little ringy dingy from someone at the old folks’ home, informing him that his grandfather has made the Great Escape once again. Jack goes over there and visits with his grandpap Ray, and finds a pair of old shoes in Ray’s suitcase. They’re Christian’s and so Jack asks if he can have them. Ray says of course.

Jack returns to his apartment and finds Kate lying on the bed, trying her best to get back to being that person who was on Oceanic 815 – namely, a manipulative whore. They get it on. Allegedly. He makes her pancakes with little smiley faces in the morning and she plays Ice Queen, and it’s like they have a little slice of the Island right then and there. The phone rings, which is apparently Kate’s Pavlovian response to get the hell out of Dodge, and Jack picks up the phone, alone once again. It’s Ben. Turns out he’s a bit delayed, what with all the killing and maiming he’s been up to, and he needs Jack to pick up Locke’s casket. Locke’s been in a meat locker all this time, staving off rot so’s he won’t be one of those unsightly undead walking around the island.

Over at Ben’s butcher, Jack goes into the meat locker and opens the casket. He removes Locke’s shoes and places his father’s shoes on Locke’s feet. Jack smirks and tells Locke that wherever he is, he must be laughing that Jack is actually doing this. For the first time since he taught Kate that little breathing thing for when you’re scared, I actually like Jack. Just for a second, mind you. I half expected him to die right there, as actually liking a despicable character is totally the kiss of death on this show. Alas, he got right back to the land of the living by being his usual dick self when he put the unopened suicide note inside Locke’s jacket and told him “I’ve already heard everything you have to say.” Oh, Jack, please go die in a fire.

We’re at the airport now, and Jack’s trying to use this thing called “charm” to get Locke’s body past the Ajira Airways attendant. He notices Kate’s arrival at the gate, and finally gets cleared to fly, himself. Leaving the line, he is offered condolences by a man that is only credited as “Caesar” in the credits.

There are others that have made their way to the airport independently. Sayid pops up, handcuffed and being led past the security line by a woman marshal. Hurley also got the memo, it seems, as he shows up at the Ajira counter and makes sure that the 78 seats he bought on the plane remain his and his alone. Hurley is carrying some essential elements – a comic book and a guitar, presumably one of Charlie’s. They all board and there’s a brief family reunion until Ben gets on board and Hurley starts to lose it. Hurley was informed that Ben was not supposed to come on the trip. Jack assures Hurley that Ben needs to be there and is there to help, which Hurley knows is simply code for lie, cheat, steal and stab when Ben is around.

They all take their seats and a flight attendant comes up to Jack to let him know that they found something of his in Locke’s casket. It’s the suicide note. Hah ha, you’re going to have to read it after all, you jackass. Jack grumpily sticks the note in his jacket pocket and the jet is up, up and away.

Once in the air, the captain comes over the intercom and introduces himself as Frank Lapidus. Well, I’ll be dipped in butter. Jack’s brain turns sideways and he finds a stewardess so he can say hello to his old buddy Frank. Frank comes out of the cockpit to say hi and notices all the other Oceanic Six members on board and simply says, “We’re not going to Guam, are we?” I love that guy.

Now back in his seat, Jack engages in a little repartee with Ben. He tells Ben of the suicide note, and Ben leaves him alone so that Jack can read it. Finally, with an air of defeat, Jack pulls the note from his jacket pocket, opens it and begins to read: “Jack, I wish you had believed me. JL.”

The plane gives a slight jolt and it seems to be about that time – time to go back. The turbulence picks up and soon the plane is engulfed in a white light and …

… and there’s a closed eye. It opens. It’s Jack. He’s in the jungle. He stumbles to his feet. We get deja vu – again. In his hand is the torn piece of paper from Locke with the words “I wish” the only ones left. Off in the distance, he hears screams for help and, being a man of action, tears ass through the jungle to do what it is that Jack does – try to help people. After the dive into the water to save Hurley, Jack heads over to Kate and revives her. The trio remark that they don’t remember crashing and there’s no wreckage. Jack wants them all to split up and look for survivors. They don’t get very far, as a blue Dharma van comes chugging quickly along the road by the side of the river. A man in a dashing Dharma jumper gets out and levels his gun at them. Jack, Kate and Hurley all stand there, dumbfounded. The camera pans around to reveal that the Dharma security agent is, indeed, Jin. And his mind is just as blown as ours.

Cue the thonk!

I’ve got to hand it to the creative team behind Lost – even though this episode would have been considered a cross between filler and transitional in the old 22+ episode format, they really made this one pack a punch. It not only got the Oceanic Six back to the island, it also introduced a whole slew of new questions that we’ll hopefully see answered over the next season and a half. Also, despite being a transitional episode, we have a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get this party started.

DEM LINES, DEM LINES, DEM … LEY LINES
Well, I’m not usually one to say I told you so, but, dangit … I told you so. I’ve been harping about ley lines – those mysterious connections between key spots along the surface of the Earth – for at least a couple of seasons. In “316,” Mrs. Hawking explains that the Lamp Post – the Dharma Station that houses the probability pendulum – is situated over a unique pocket of electromagnetic energy … a pocket which is connected to other, similar pockets all over the world. The Island rests on top of one of these unique pockets, and it presumably derives its power from it. Since it is connected to the other pockets of power throughout the world, it’s possible to predict both when and where the Island might pop back into our space-time continuum. Basically, in her description of these pockets of energy, Eloise Hawking is all but calling them ley lines, by their classic definition.

I go into much detail about ley lines and how they can relate to the Dharma Initiative and the Island back in the post The Head Case, The Ghostbuster, The Anthropologist and The Drunk. Feel free to go back and read some of that post, if you like, but in order to expedite things and allow me to do a little analysis in the here and now, I’m going to quote my own words. Then we’ll look at a couple of maps and you’ll see what I’m driving at.

“For the uninitiated, ley lines are a metaphysical collection of mapped coordinates that span the globe and intersect at selected intervals. These intersections are often referred to as places of power and mystery. Many believe that the Salisbury Plains of England are positioned above one of those intersections, and it is here that the Druids long ago built Stonehenge. Contemporary scholars and anthropologists have written off Stonehenge as an ancient calendar, but those with a little more imagination have never quite given up the idea that Stonehenge was a place of enigmatic energy that factored into the druids’ arcane rituals. The Great Pyramids of Giza are another such ancient site that supposedly rests upon one of these great ley lines.

“For a closer look at the current, broad view of major ley lines, I have created a map based on the Becker-Hagens geodesic distribution maps that are accepted as canon by many ley line enthusiasts. Within each of the distinct geodesic areas, many subpatches of ley convergences can be extrapolated. In other words, the main divides of the earth can be further broken down into other lines that connect to a point, creating minor points of power. I wouldn’t waste too many brain cells trying to figure out this puzzle, as the main grid map will work fairly well for our purposes.”

“If you’ll refer to our main map, the main vertices are signified by white dots, with secondary vertices marked by squares. The vertices are all coded by number in the main Becker-Hagens map, and I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting our favorite numbers from Lost on the map I created. Whether these might correspond with Dharma locations is anyone’s guess – I doubt highly the Lost writers took a close look at this kind of map before setting up the mythology. However, it’s a fascinating scenario, nonetheless. The circled areas in yellow are three of the locations that many have speculated to be the location of the island. One, of course, corresponds with one of the fabled numbers. For those that might be a bit curious, and even know what I’m talking about, the number four on the map corresponds to the location of the great Tunguska blast of 1908. For the uninitiated, Google it. It’s worth it.”

Okay, now, with the full reintroduction of ley lines out of the way, and a look back at that map, we can now take a look at the map in relation to the probability pendulum at the Lamp Post.

There are two trains of thought we can take in further relation to the ley lines:

1) Might it be possible that the Island is able to spatially displace and reappear somewhere on top of one of these main vertices?

-or-

2) The Island only moves through temporal space, much like Mrs. Hawking suggests in this episode, and the Island can only shift spatially very slightly, in accordance to natural fluctuations in the energy vertex upon which it rests.

Right now, neither trains of thought are completely integral to our story, but they’re still fascinating to think about. And, hey, speaking of shifting only in temporal space, let’s move onto the next thing that’s probably bugging the crap out of everyone …

WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO THE PLANE?
Surviving the crash of Oceanic 815 was a pretty improbable happenstance, to be sure. Surviving a second crash, unscathed, on board Ajira Airways 316, is bordering on the impossible. Unless, of course, you’ve got time on your side.

It’s logical to infer from Jin’s appearance at the end of the episode in a Dharma suit that Jack, Kate and Hurley have jumped back in time, probably sometime around the early ’80s during Dharma’s heyday. The white flash we saw during the plane’s turbulence was, of course, a time shift over the temporal vertex during the Island’s reemergence. Since the Oceanic Six are intimately entwined with the Island, they essentially jaunted down the same “leapline” as Jin, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles and Daniel. They all remarked, however, that they don’t remember crashing and that there was no sign of wreckage.

There are a couple of ways this all can go down. First, the plane actually did crash on the island, but we just haven’t seen the wreckage yet. For this to have happened, we would have to remember the “upside down house” rule I mentioned last week, where the plane would jump with the Oceanic Six because of their proximity. It’s also possible that only part of the plane actually jumped with the six, leaving the back half of the plane back in the “current” timeline. This means, of course, that it still crashed. The other way we can think of this is if the Oceanic Six, along with Ben, Frank Lapidus, the female marshal and Caesar were the only ones on the plane to timejump, leaving the plane intact back in the current timeline with no pilot, but a co-pilot that could take over. That would mean the plane actually didn’t crash and only the people I mentioned left behind on the island.

Of course, we still have that damn water bottle in the mix. You know, this one:

Unless that belongs to Hurley or one of the other main characters, that means that the plane went down sometime in the island’s history, and there are other survivors out there. When Sawyer, Juliet, etc. timejumped and came across the boat on the beach, they were also chased, presumably by the survivors of that Ajira Airways flight.

So, to summarize, I think the flight did go down, but it may have gone down in a different time than Jack and the others. Who knows, they could become the next set of survivors to make their way on the island, much like the Oceanic gang did, starting the time cycle anew.

As for how Jack, Hurley and Kate managed to survive a crash or a fall or whatever from that height, it either has to be some Island magic, or it has to do with the Earth being in a different spatial position when the six, or the plane, came out of its timejump. You may remember my reference to things shifting spatially because they reemerge in a spot in the Earth’s history when it isn’t exactly in the same spot from which it left. I talked about it a bit back in the review for The Little Prince. Check it out, it’ll explain how someone who is a mile up can find themselves suddenly a mile down when they pop out of the temporal continuum 20-some odd years in the past.

WORKING FOR THE MAN
From the looks of things at the end of this episode, Jin is in the employ of Dharma. Now, it’s possible that Jin could have stolen that jumpsuit, rifle and Dharma buggy, but it’s far more likely that he, Daniel, and the gang may be stuck back in the early ’80s, and they’ve infiltrated Dharma. It would certainly explain why Daniel is bebopping around down in the basement of the Orchid in the season premiere.

I believe that what might have happened when Locke turned the Great Wheel is that Daniel and Co. jumped to the early ’80s. After he unstuck the Wheel and created a flash, it may have locked all of them into that particular time period. After awhile, when it seemed as though they weren’t jumping any longer, they needed to infiltrate Dharma and see if they could access the Great Wheel once again, so that it might be possible to get back to their own time. Of course, they could all still be jumping and they set a plan in motion to infiltrate Dharma and get access to the wheel so that they could try and stop the Island from skipping. It’s really too early to tell, but it’s going to be an awesome set of developments now that the rest of the Oceanic Six are back.

As for what station Jin is working at, it’s hard to say. The Dharma logo on his jumpsuit doesn’t really correspond to any existing logo that we’ve come across so far in the show. Here, take a look:

The most likely station would be that of the Arrow, since he’s driving around, looking for disturbances and keeping the peace. Of course, in the season premiere, Marvin Candle is just making the orientation film for the Arrow (a lot of you needed to straighten me out, apparently, when I mistakenly mentioned it was for the Swan – well, he was wearing a smock with the Swan logo!), so it might not have existed in its full form just yet. There were probably some initial stations built by Dharma before they became aware of the “hostiles,” and before the “incident” occurred that turned the Swan from a research and science headquarters into the containment confines for the button. It looks very likely that the Dharma logo on Jin’s jumpsuit is a five-cornered star, sort of like what a sheriff or deputy would wear. Maybe it was a security station that was a precursor to the full-time security station of the Arrow. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I will say, however, that the people behind the show just love to screw around with us detail hunters. They purposefully turned down Jin’s collar to hide his full Dharma logo. Punks.

Oh, I almost forgot. You regular readers probably know that I really don’t spend a ton of time looking around online for Lost tidbits, but I did happen across something interesting. Someone had a selected recording from the episode “The Little Prince,” specifically of the moment that Rousseau’s French team is picking up a radio broadcast of the number sequence. Well, if you haven’t seen this or heard this already, it’s a dead ringer for Hurley’s voice. I’m embarrassed to say that I totally missed that. Now that Hurley’s back on the island and they happen to have timejumped right into the Dharma Initiative time, it would make total sense that the number sequence could have been put together by Hurley. That’s another example of a timeloop paradox, but we won’t go back into those right now.

The Little Prince - Hurley [ 0:12 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

UNFINISHED BUSINESS
One other huge question that’s itching my brain from this episode is what the hell was Ben up to back in LA? The obvious answer is living up to his promise to Charles Widmore by killing Charles’s daughter, Penny. That’s a horrible line of thought to even follow, but it makes the most sense. Does Ben succeed? What’s happened to her, Desmond or even little Charlie?

Mrs. Hawking told Desmond that the Island was not finished with him yet, so he will likely make his way back to the Island before too long. Obviously, he wasn’t on the plane, so he’ll need to get back there some other way. He’ll also need a motive. I’m truly hoping that motive isn’t revenge, but it’s one possible reason. Desmond could have come around too late to save Penny from Ben, and he beat him to a bloody pulp before Ben dove off Desmond’s boat and into the water. If that’s the case, Desmond may be returning to the island for vengeance.

If Ben does get to Penny, the other reason that Desmond may return to the island is so that he can put things right. Daniel told Desmond that he’s a bit special, and the normal rules of time travel and temporal theory don’t seem to apply to him. Desmond may be able to change something in the past and create a different outcome where he saves Penny.

Of course, Ben could have tried to get to Penny, Desmond showed up in time, beat the ever-loving crap out of him, tossed him off the boat and sailed off on his merry way. In that case, the only reason we may see Desmond again is if Daniel asks for Desmond’s help yet again. That may convince Desmond that he can’t ignore the pleas.

STOP THE WORLD, THERE ARE TOO MANY QUESTIONS
Here’s a collection of some of my random thoughts, and answers to some questions that were brought up by my friend Sandy, and by Mr. Joel Murphy, of Hobotrashcan.com fame.

Why do you think Sayid is in custody?
I don’t know for sure, but if I were a betting man, I’d put down odds that Ben had something to do with it.

How do you think Hurley got released?
With a little help from his friends, of course. Namely Charlie, Ana Lucia, Libby …

How did Hurley find out about the flight? And has he known for a long time? It seems unlikely that he would be able to buy 78 tickets at the last minute, so could he have known before the rest of the Oceanic Six? (Or will having him secure all of those tickets at the last minute be something that the writers expect us not to question?) I guess the most logical answer would be Widmore told Hurley – or perhaps he sent Matthew Abaddon to talk to Hurley on his behalf.
Like I said above, he probably learned about all this from Charlie or Libby. He can see dead people, and they always have something interesting to say. As for the tickets – creative liberty, I would guess. It’s not very realistic, but they sometimes make crazy things happen just for Hurley.

What do you think happened to Kate and Aaron?
I’m pretty sure Aaron is back with Carole Littleton – his grandmother. At least for the time being.

How does whatever happened to Aaron play in to the psychic’s prediction that only Claire could raise him and Claire’s plea to Kate not to bring Aaron back to the island?
That’s an excellent question … one in which I will put some thought into once I go back and watch “Raised by Another” from Season One.

Do you think Jack got Kate pregnant on their last night away from the Island?
Yeppers, I do. It’d only be fitting. I’ll withhold any crazy theories I might have about their child growing up in another time and eventually becoming Jacob. Oh, crap, I just said it. Oh well.

Can you believe Sun deserted her daughter?
Yes, because she has hope that she can bring Jin back home. It’s a hard choice to make, but she had to make it for her family.

Why do you think Locke killed himself?
I don’t really know, but I’m guessing we find out next week!

Who was the shady guy on the flight that talked to Jack in line? Did he make it to the island?
For right now, all I know is that his name is Caesar. You can bet, though, that he’ll be back and he’s probably jumping with the Oceanic survivors since Daniel and Co. are, as well. I’m willing to be that he’s been on the Island before, too.

Do you think Christian will get his shoes back?
Haha … yes, he might just.

Speaking of Christian, it will be interesting to see how next week’s episode pans out with Locke. From the previews, it appears as though Locke is resurrected once he’s on the Island. I figure most of you assumed that would happen. What I want to know, though, is if he will exist in a sort of semi-phase state as Christian appears to. If you’ll notice, Christian only interacts with his environment in a very limited way, and when Locke asks for help in the Great Wheel chamber, he can’t offer any. Is this because Christian is somehow “out of phase” with the normal spatial and temporal continuum? Will John be completely healed and restored to life as he was before he left the island, or will he exist as Christian does? This will be interesting to see.

That about wraps it up for this week. I covered a lot, but there’s still more thoughts a-bubbling. If any of you have some epiphanies, please let me know. For now, I will simply leave you with this:

Namaste.

Chris Kirkman is a graphic designer/photographer/journalist/geek extraordinaire with way too many Bruce Campbell movies in his library. He is still hoping that Lost will end when Bob Newhart wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette, complaining of a strange, strange dream. You can contact him at ckirkman@hobotrashcan.com.

Similar Posts:

• Lost: Down the Hatch – Never let the bastards get you down
• Lost: Down the Hatch – Six little Indians
• Murphy’s Law – Lost action figures I’d like to see
• Lost: Down the Hatch – A Quantum Leap forward
• Lost: Down the Hatch – The summer of ’77

Brian Murphy

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what it’s like to root for a basketball team that has a fucking clue.

Seeing well-run franchises like the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs able to effectively run their teams on both an immediate and long-term basis is almost disheartening to a Washington Bullets/Wizards fan.

The Spurs land a number-one pick and draft a cornerstone like center Tim Duncan. Washington gets Kwame Brown. The Celtics acquire a grizzled veteran like Kevin Garnett and sail to yet another NBA championship. The Wiz somehow convince the greatest player of my lifetime, Michael “Freaking” Jordan, to play in D.C. and they can’t even sniff .500. Seriously, it’s embarrassing.

But at some point you get used to the ineptitude. You embrace the mediocrity. I mean, the franchise surely did when they dropped confetti and threw a party just for qualifying for the playoffs a few years ago. And who cares if the current version of the Wizards is, at best, good enough to qualify for the postseason but flawed enough to ensure the second round is a pipedream? When they’re this bad for this long, a first-round exit is a welcomed distraction.

That’s why I was able to live with the stories coming out of D.C. this week about our beloved basketball team. Comcast Sportsnet did a sit-down interview with general manager Ernie Grunfeld in which he said (with a straight face) that he wouldn’t change a thing if he knew then what he knows now about signing a one-legged Gilbert Arenas to a six-year, $111 million deal this past offseason and I didn’t even hit up the liquor cabinet. During the same interview Grunfeld said he isn’t second guessing any other moves that led to his Wizards’ 12-42 record and I somehow managed to avoid throwing the remote at my television.

Unfortunately, a day later, I lost it. You see, I can put up with a lot, but the Washington Post pushed me over the edge when they ran a story on Grunfeld that started with the following paragraph:

Ernie Grunfeld’s plan was to sprinkle talented youngsters and veteran role players around a core of three star players. Then he would watch the team progress deep into the playoffs, perhaps to a long-awaited second NBA championship.

Now I’ve never met the gentleman who wrote this particular story, but he clearly, unlike me, was unable to avoid drinking when the topic of the Wizards came into play.

Anyone who thought this team of streaky jump shooters who continually refuse to play defense was capable of doing anything more than selling popcorn at the NBA Finals should be forced to wear a helmet while riding the school bus. For this writer to even mention the word “championship” in a Washington Wizards article is a more egregious foul than anything Jayson Blair ever did.

Later in this same article, the writer suggests that there’s a silver lining to this pitiful season because the team “has a good chance at landing a high pick in the draft lottery.” That statement is then followed up with this turd in the punch bowl:

However, because the Wizards already have such huge financial commitments, there is a decent chance Grunfeld will consider trading the pick.

Um … what?

The only reason people are willing to live with this lost season is because there’s hope that Oklahoma forward Blake Griffin or someone of his caliber will ride into town and save this sinking ship. Now the Wizards are floating the idea of trading away the draft pick in order to rid the franchise of Etan Thomas’ bad contract? Really? Someone thinks that’ll go over well?

Just last week the San Francisco 49ers floated the idea of possibly bringing in Michael Vick if/when he’s reinstated to the NFL. Head Coach Mike Singletary was given multiple chances to say “there’s no way in hell that bastard will ever play on my team” and declined. The team might never admit it, but by refusing to shoot down the possibility they were gauging public reaction to the possibility of Vick one day joining the Bay area. If the fans don’t go ape shit and the team thinks he can help their once-proud franchise return to glory, then they’ll take a shot. If they’re greeted with public backlash – like when the Redskins nearly hired Jim Fassel this past offseason – they’ll quickly move in another direction.

That is why, for the first time in recent memory, Wizards fans cannot show apathy. Indifference right now will only give Grunfeld and friends the false impression that we’re okay with giving away any hopes of brighter days. You, Ernie Grunfeld, were the one who decided to match the Milwaukee Bucks contract offer to Etan Thomas. You, Ernie Grunfeld, were the guy who ultimately decided to sign, draft, re-sign or trade for every player on the current roster.

While teams like Oklahoma City and New Orleans smartly build around young and inexpensive talent you opt to turn your team over to 32-year-old Antawn Jamison (given a four-year, $50-million deal this past offseason) and Arenas (who should officially be referred to as Chris Webber 2.0). Folks around town are used to seeing the Redskins blow off the draft in favor of overpaying over-the-hill players, but wouldn’t it be wiser to follow the blueprint of the Capitals in this case?

The Caps got rid of overpriced underachievers and rebuilt their team with an emphasis on the draft. A few years later, the Verizon Center is routinely sold out as fans flock to see the town’s only legitimate championship contender. Wouldn’t it be nice if some of those same fans also came back on nights when your team was in the building? It can happen. But in order to do so, you must admit your mistakes, Ernie.

Blow this team up.

The Bullets/Wizards franchise hasn’t won a damned thing in 30 years, so folks won’t mind three or four more years of lottery picks if they know you’re building the team the right way. Convincing yourself that getting Arenas and Brendan Haywood back into the lineup automatically has this team “competing for championships” is ridiculous. You can’t put a band-aid on a ruptured spleen and you can’t build a winner around a one-legged, me-first point guard. Stop wasting our time and your money building perennial losers and get with the program.

Brian Murphy is an award-winning sportswriter who also goes by the name Homer McFanboy. Contact him at murf@homermcfanboy.com.

Similar Posts:

• Note to Self – Only in Washington
• Note to Self – A novel approach
• Note to Self – Eight things
• Note to self – Not good times
• Note to Self – NBA trade winds

You can’t stop Jack Bauer, you can only hope to contain him. Dennis Hopper couldn’t kill him, the Chinese government couldn’t keep him imprisoned and even Congress seems unable to force him to testify about his previous transgressions.

However, there is one man who Jack Bauer answers to – Bill Buchanan. Buchanan was Bauer’s boss at CTU until the government agency was disbanded and this season Buchanan is back as the leader of Bauer’s ragtag faction operating outside of the government that is attempting to bring down Colonel Iké Dubaku.

Playing Buchanan is accomplished stage actor James Morrison, who recently talked to us about the new season of 24, guest starring on crap TV shows and his former career as a satanic, drug-addicted clown.

Where are you originally from and where do you call home now?

Originally I’m from Alaska. I actually moved there from just north of Salt Lake. We’re in LA now. We have a little house here and are sort of settled in, but we’re looking to get out.

How long have you been there?

Far too long. I got here in the early 80s.

Is it true that you began your acting career as a clown and wire walker for the Carson and Barnes Wild Animal Circus? If so, what was that experience like and what did you take away from that experience?

Yeah, that was one of my early jobs. I started out acting in college and I don’t know what possessed me to want to be a circus clown. I guess I was always influenced by Marcel Marceau and W.C. Fields – guys like that – and Red Skelton I loved when I was a kid. So I guess it was natural that I’d want to do that. But I also just thought it would be romantic to run away and join the circus. I actually for a while wanted to be a clown in the rodeo, be a bullfighter. But it was a little bit easier to find a circus that would take me in and probably a little less dangerous. I guess ultimately I valued trying to keep the structure of my spine and things like that intact as much as I could.

Ironically, I ended up hurting my spine when I was in the circus, so I had to leave. I was in a mud show – it’s a huge tent service that starts in the wintertime and then travels through spring and summer. It was right at the beginning of the season. We were in Alabama where it was really cold and rainy in February and the mud show means that you just set up your tent in the vacant field and it doesn’t matter if it’s raining. You just play in the mud. I took a fall. I slipped on a wet ring curb and landed on the curb on my back and it was so cold that my back went into a spasm. It knocked my spine out of alignment and I may have actually fractured my fourth lumbar. Later on, it turned out that I actually had a fractured spine and they told me it was genetic, but I think it probably happened then, I just didn’t know it.

It was pretty damaging. I kept performing with the show for as long as I could. Through the pain and the addiction to the pain pills and bourbon at the time just to get through the day, I sort of became a really satanic, horrifying clown, as you can imagine, to the kids who would come to the circus. They would encounter this creepy, cracked white face clown that was all messed up on drugs. (Laughs.) So it was kind of an ordeal for them at the time, but I didn’t really care, I was in too much pain until finally I just left the circus and went back to Alaska to recuperate.

What drew you to acting? How did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?

It’s funny because I just memorialized my friend Pat Hingle. He’s one of the last of the original Actors Studio guys. He was in the Actors Studio back in the day when Jimmy Dean and Ben Gazzara and Andy Griffith and Eli Wallach and all of those guys were there back in the 50s. So he was sort of a piece of American theatre history and he made tons of movies, all kinds of Clint Eastwood movies and [Elia] Kazan used him a lot in his movies. But he was an old friend of mine. We did Cat on a Hot Tin Roof together in 1983 here in LA, so I knew him since 1983. He was family to me.

The reason I bring him up is because he stated it like this one time and when I heard him say this I realized that it was similar to me and I think most actors actually. He said at one point that God intended him to be on the stage. At one point in my life when I was in college or just starting to act, I was doing a lot of plays and I realized that I just felt more at home on the stage than I did anywhere else. I felt like I belonged with the people that I was working with and the community of these insane actors who got together and put on plays and the similar mindset of creating worlds that didn’t exist before we got together really except on the page. We brought them to life. I think I just found a kindred spirit there.

It took me a long time when I came to LA to figure out how to act for the camera because I just felt more at home on the stage and I think ultimately what I discovered is that I just came to the wrong coast. I should have gone to New York and I did actually for a while in the mid-70s and I just couldn’t do it because I’m a western soul, I think. But I think that I’ve always been drawn to the stage and never really felt at home until the last 10 years or so in front of the camera. It took me a long time to adjust to the lens.

Why did you decide to transition to film and television? Did you just feel like it was what you were supposed to do?

You really can’t make a living as an actor on the stage. You can make a meager living working on the stage. You have to do film and television to make any kind of decent living as an actor if you’re going to be a professional. You live hand to mouth working in regional theatre or solely on the stage. You have to mix it up a little bit so that you can afford to do theatre. If you’re just a working stiff like I am, you really have to supplement your stage career with television work.

You’ve been a bit of a journeyman actor, appearing in episodes of shows like Quantum Leap; Doogie Howser, MD; LA Law; Walker, Texas Ranger and The X-Files.

I did as much crap TV as I possibly could.

What were those experiences like for you? Are you someone who enjoyed the journeyman aspect of going on all of these different sets?

Journeyman to me just means someone who’s been doing it a long time. What I decided early on was that I was going to work on the stage a lot and get a solid foundation as an actor and become a proper actor. I truly don’t believe that somebody who hasn’t worked in the theatre, especially the young actors, is a proper actor. In the first place you don’t learn discipline – learning how to be prepared, show up on time, do your job without all kinds of nonsense.

If you’re doing a play and you don’t show up by eight o’clock, somebody else goes on in your place, man. But if you’re working on TV or film, sometimes you have to wait for these jokers to come to the set. I always get to the set and the guys that are there waiting for somebody are the real pros. If you keep somebody waiting, you’re just sort of half-assed. That’s the way I look at it. There’s just no excuse for it. So I think you learn that on the stage. You learn that in the theatre. You learn discipline. You learn that it’s about the work first and the story first. That’s what I decided early on, I just wanted to create a solid foundation.

In direct answer to your question – no, I didn’t enjoy going from episodic guest star role to episodic guest star role because you walk into a situation where you’re new. It’s like you’ve been invited to dinner at somebody’s house and when you get there, they ignore you or they just treat you like you’re the unwanted date of the good-looking sister. It’s a terrible feeling. Very rarely does a set of a television show even make you feel like part of the ensemble for the week that you’re there. It’s an uncomfortable thing.

And plus, the material mostly in those TV shows – come on, it’s just crap. It’s barely written and they treat it like its Shakespeare, so you can’t really change it and adjust it or make it as though a human being actually says it. It’s just awful.

The great thing about 24 is that those of us who have a background as writers or we do improv or we know how dialogue works and we know the value of the story, we actually sit around and rehearse and change dialogue according to what the character would say and make sure it’s appropriate to the situation. And then you rehearse it and get up and they shoot it like a little play. They shoot from beginning to end and then they go back and set up the camera angles differently and shoot it again from beginning to end. They really place a lot of value on the acting and the contribution of the actors. For the most part, they make you feel like a true collaborator and that doesn’t happen on most television sets, at all. In fact, quite the opposite.

Speaking of 24, when you came in to play Bill Buchanan, did you realize you were going to be such a big part of the show? How was the character described to you originally and what did they tell you about Bill Buchanan’s future?

They gave me nothing. Well, first of all, they did a makeup test and hair test because I couldn’t look like myself because I was doing another Fox show, so I was hired under the stipulation that they make me look “different.” So that’s why I had dark hair, they put rinse in my hair. First, they tested me, they put a goatee and a beard on me, they wanted me to look like Jon Cassar evidently. That didn’t work. I walked in and it looked like I had road kill on my face, which was awful. So we took that off. Then I remember sitting in the makeup chair one day and Joel Surnow came in and introduced himself and said something about “I thought you were dead” in reference to my name – which is always really clever. (Laughs.)

You probably never heard that one before.

Never. (Laughs.) And then he said something like, “It’s going to be a really good part.”

And I said, “Oh, okay, great. Thanks a lot for having me.”

And then he left. And sure enough, it turned out to be a pretty good part. They were great though. I’ve said it before, one of the high points of the experience was at a party when Joel took me aside at one of the wrap parties, I think it was the wrap party for season five actually, and he said, “We really love your work. We want to have you back as a regular next year for all 24 episodes.” That was a nice moment. The best response you get from somebody is not praise or affirmation. The best affirmation you can get is that they hire you and keep bringing you back. You don’t need to get all of the warm fuzzy stuff.

At the end of last season, Bill Buchanan resigned in exchange for a pardon. Many fans were pleasantly surprised to discover that Buchanan is back this season working with Jack Bauer and Tony Almeida. Did you know that you would be coming back this season or were you surprised as well to find out that Buchanan was still in the mix?

They said goodbye at the end of last season. We sat and talked and they said, “We’re going to shake it up. We’re not sure what we’re going to do yet, but we know CTU is going to be gone. We’re going to move on. The sad thing about this is because this is a one-person show – its Jack’s world and the rest of us are just visiting – and it’s a plot driven show, we lose a lot of actors that we really love. So adios and thank you.”

And then, I don’t know what happened to change their minds, but to me it just seems like one of the best decisions they could have made, not just because it’s me, but because people need the characters that they’re familiar with and that they enjoy watching to make this world familiar to them.

You look at these shows that people like and you go: “What is it about these shows that you really enjoy?” It’s the people; the characters. You could name all of the characters and what you love about them before you could name the specific plot points in the episodes and the storylines. I think it’s the people that draw us back, just like in life. It’s family.

This might be a bit of a random question, but is Bill still married to Karen Hayes?

Yeah, I’m still married. We’re still married.

Will there be any of her in the show this season?

No. I think it’s safe to say without it being a spoiler that Karen is not going to visit Bill. There’s too much going on. It never really was about us, even when we were 3,000 miles apart, we talked on the phone. And I think that’s just not a storyline that interested them, frankly. And I think also that she was unavailable and had other things to do. She’s on Broadway now, Jayne Atkinson, and it just didn’t work out.

But I still wear the ring. In fact, when I first got back there, I said, “Am I still married? What’s going on?”

And they said, “Oh yeah. Here’s the ring, put it on.”

And then again, you see it through the effusion of love I have for her deep in my heart. But that’s about it.

We’re glad that you two were able to stay together though. So many Hollywood couples don’t work out.

It’s a tough town to stay married in. And DC is even harder.

Kiefer Sutherland has mentioned a desire to do an eighth season of 24 and alluded to possibly killing off Jack Bauer in a film after season eight wraps up. If that ever happens and we’re forced to live in a world without Jack Bauer, can you please tell us Bill Buchanan is ready and willing to step up and take over the role of kicking ass and saving the world 24 hours at a time?

(Laughs.) I sincerely doubt it. But it wouldn’t hurt for you to write a letter saying, “I’d like to see Bill take over Jack’s job.”

I do have some stuff coming up where you might actually go, “Hmmm, yeah this is an ass kicker.”

We would definitely like to see more Bill ass kicking.

The fact remains that there’s a lot of ageism in this business and they’re not going to let the white-haired guy go out and kick ass.

It still works for Clint Eastwood though.

You know what though? Of all of the actors in the universe, it only works for Clint Eastwood. The odds are against me.

Obviously you can’t give much away, but what else is in store for your character and the show this season?

I think it’s safe to say we’re out in the field now. I think it’s safe to say that I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with Jack and Tony and we’re in full ass kicking mode. That’s something to look forward to, I think, to see the old guy mixing it up with the young studs.

Is Chloe going to get involved in any of the ass kicking?

Well Chloe is a mom now, so she has to be careful. She doesn’t want to strain her milk, you know what I’m saying. I think that’s the expression.

Having played Bill Buchanan for so long, are you going to look to do something different with your next role?

Oh yeah, I’m definitely going to go different. If I didn’t play a guy wearing a tie for 10 years, I would be happy. I know that I’m not in a tie this year. It was very refreshing for me to go back and say, “I want to look really different. I want to just let myself go like I’ve been at this for a while and we’ve been on this job now for at least a week without even any sleep.”

Bill is looking much smoother this season too.

Yeah. I’m not working for the government anymore for the first time in probably 25 years. After I was fired and they disbanded CTU and went through all of the hearing and stuff, I think, like Jack too seems a little bit more relaxed. Kiefer’s work is a little different this year. It’s very nice. It’s much more thoughtful, there’s a lot more sense of irony and there’s kind of a world-weary quality to it that we haven’t seen, I think. It’s actually very nice work.

There is definitely a different energy this year and the show seems fresher this season.

I also think that LA is just LA. There’s only so much here to sustain anything. I think it needed to break out of LA and go somewhere else and DC was a good move, in my opinion.

It’s good that you are working outside of the government this season, since there is always a mole inside every government agency working with the villains.

Yeah and they recycle that with the mole in the FBI now. There are standard things and let’s face it, there are only 36 dramatic situations and I think they’ve examined at least 45 of them already on 24. So you can only do so much.

In 1996, you wrote and directed a short film called Parking, which screened at 25 film festivals and was featured on the Sundance Channel. What was that experience like for you and do you see yourself doing more writing/directing in the future?

It was a great experience. It actually came about from the experience I had with that short play with Ensemble Studio Theatre based in New York and LA. It was a great success critically, and audiences loved it. So I said I’m going to make it my first film. It’s going to be a 10-minute film based on my play. It was a wonderful experience to be able to make a film. I also just wanted to be able to get my writing out there.

As a matter of fact, my partner Riad Galayini, to whom I’m also married, and I are making our first feature-length film right now called Showing Up. It’s a documentary wherein we talk to actors about the audition process.

How far along is that project?

We’re cutting now. We’re editing. We’ve got about 60 interviews of some really great actors. Sam Rockwell, Eli Wallach, Lois Smith, we talked to Pat Hingle a couple of years ago, when we were just in New York we talked to Margo Martindale and Bill Irwin, Kristin Chenoweth – we talked to some amazing actors. We’ve talked to 60 of them now, we’ve got about 100 hours of footage to cull through and come up with a three or four hour cut. Then, from there we’re going to come down to an hour and a half.

We have quite a task ahead of us. It’s turning out to be a really revealing project in terms of going after what you dreamed to do and to be. There’s a built-in audience with showpeople, but I think it reaches beyond that. At least I hope it will. I’m pretty sure it will appeal to people who aren’t in the business.

People have different feeling about how they approach it. There are different aspects to this too. The audition process – some people love it, some people hate it, some people get burned out on it, some people don’t do it anymore, but they still take meetings, which they consider auditions. Some people talk a lot about how if they hadn’t shown up for something they didn’t get, something wouldn’t have happened 10 years down the road. So we examined that undercurrent of blessings that follow each of us through our lives. It’s going to be a pretty interesting project and I think it will include some amazing insight from some of our best actors and actresses.

What would you be doing for a living if you never got into acting?

I think I might be teaching. I know I’d be teaching because I actually wanted to be a teacher since I was in high school. I’ve always taught something. I’ve always done workshops since the time I was in college. Now I teach Hatha Yoga. I would have taught something probably.

But I’m also working on some music now. I did that too back in the 70s. I started performing as a guitar player and singer and I’ve written a lot of songs now in the last couple of years and I’m going to start to lay some tracks down of my own stuff.

And I look at teaching as a performance art too because I think there’s just no way to escape that. So I think that it would have been something to do with performing. As I said, I feel as if I was chosen to have been offered the gift of wanting to do it and when I’m afforded the gift of being able to do it, I truly feel gifted.

Tell us something most people don’t know about you.

Well, you know, most people don’t know anything about me. (Laughs.) It’s kind of a trick question. I’m still relatively anonymous.

I think that most people don’t know that my father was named James Morrison too. His father’s name was James Morrison too. So I come from a long line of James Morrisons. It’s a very common Scottish name. You remember the poem from A.A. Milne Disobedience, right? “James James / Morrison Morrison / Weatherby George Dupree.”

I think that’s about the extent of the secrets in my life that I’m willing to reveal. The other secret that I might reveal is that I have to be really careful about keeping a lid on it when I’m asked that question because I’m usually far too honest and I end up saying far too much.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. 24 airs Monday nights on Fox. Please send your letters to Fox now demanding an all-Bill Buchanan season nine of the show.

Similar Posts:

• One on One with Jason Isaacs
• One on One with Alan Dale
• Murphy’s Law – What I’ve learned from watching eight seasons of 24
• One on One with Diedrich Bader
• Positive Cynicism – The Typo Channel

Joel Murphy

When I heard that Seth Rogen was already remaking Paul Blart: Mall Cop, I knew Hollywood was scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas, but it wasn’t until I saw a trailer for Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li that I realized just how bad things have gotten.

How do movies like this get made? Who decided that we needed another Street Fighter movie? What genius movie executive convinced himself that the American public was really clamoring for a movie based on an outdated video game with an incredibly flimsy plot that only serves to set up boring, repetitive 2D fight sequences?

It’s not even like the characters in the game are remotely interesting – sure, they all had unique powers and fighting styles, but the characters themselves are mostly generic racial stereotypes (a white clean-cut U.S. soldier, an Asian woman skilled in martial arts, a skinny Indian pacifist, an African American boxer, etc.) And the fight scenes in the game were interesting, but not as memorable as those found in Mortal Kombat (which, not coincidentally, was also made into a terrible movie).

Making matters worse, they already made a Street Fighter movie back in 1994 and even though it starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and the late Raul Julia, it still tanked. The new film stars Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk as Chun Li. Kreuk is from Vancouver, but if you squint (not that we endorse racial stereotypes), I guess she looks vaguely Asian enough to play the Chinese character.

In case you were wondering about Chun Li’s backstory (which I know you weren’t, but please play along), according to Wikipedia, she is an undercover Interpol agent who enters the Street Fighter tournament to get to its founder, M. Bison, who she believes is responsible for her father’s death. Wikipedia goes on to say that she was the first playable female character in a fighting game and was named fourth on Gamefly’s “Hottest Chicks Ever” list (and yes, I’m still talking about the fictional character and not the actress Kristin Kreuk – apparently the people over at Gamefly have a lot of free time on their hands).

Who is this M. Bison, you are no doubt not asking yourself right now because you have most likely given up on this article two paragraphs ago? Again, according to our old friend Wikipedia, M. Bison is a crime boss who aspires to one day be a world dictator. Apparently, one afternoon he got tired of trying to rule the world and decided to host a brutal fight tournament to amuse himself (I believe UFC was created in a similar fashion). M. Bison wields “psycho power” (much like Courtney Love), “an evil energy which manifests as blue or purple flames and electricity.” PC World named him the 30th most diabolical video game villain of all time (and I’m sure he was pissed to not make Gamefly’s list of “Hottest Dudes Ever,” which could be how he came to be so diabolical).

M. Bison is played by Neal McDonough, who was fantastic as the unstable David McNorris in Boomtown, which sadly got canceled after just 24 episodes. After that, he was great playing the villain in The Rock’s remake of Walking Tall, but hasn’t done much since. It’s a shame that he hasn’t had a bigger career, since I think the guy is immensely talented, but something tells me that his role as M. Bison isn’t going to be the job the catapults him into superstardom.

Speaking of actors I like who should have better careers, Michael Clarke Duncan is also in this film playing Balrog. Balrog wears boxing gloves and trunks in the game and is basically a Mike Tyson clone (in fact, in the Japanese version of the game, this character was named Mike Bison – a.k.a. M. Bison – but the American version of the game switched the names around to avoid getting sued by Tyson for copyright infringement). As the Green Mile proved, Duncan is such a capable and charismatic actor, so it seems like a waste to give him such a boring, stereotypical thug role.

So if you want to see Michael Clarke Duncan hulk-smash things or Neal McDonough act cartoonishly villainous while Lana Lang does Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style fight scenes, then this is certainly the movie for you. However, I will be staying far away from this film.

The irony is that I’m not even against mindless action films. I am someone who will gladly sit down and watch a ridiculous Jason Statham movie like Crank or Transporter 2 and I’m one of the few people in the world who actually owns Demolition Man on DVD, so I’m no stranger to ridiculous action movies. However, I draw the line at a crappy sequel to a movie based on a video game that is directed by a guy whose last film was a shitty adaptation of a video game (Doom, which is one of the worst films I’ve actually paid money to see in the theater).

So how about you spice it up a little bit Hollywood? No one has made Tekken or Virtua Fighter movies yet, why not option one of those? Or better yet, why not at least attempt to make your next mindless action movie slightly original? Because I have to be honest, all of these lazy video game adaptations are enough to make me want to start my own brutal fighting tournament – one where I force all of you uncreative Hollywood types to fight each other to the death.

If nothing else, I figure the tournament is a good first step on my way to being a dictator.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

Similar Posts:

• Murphy’s Law – Scott Pilgrim vs. The Expendables
• Hobo Radio 181 – Climb inside my Snuggle Truck
• Murphy’s Law – Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
• Hobo Radio 130 – A team of expendable losers
• Guest Blog Post – Game Review: Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Editor's Note: Ned Bitters is sleeping off a hangover in an alley somewhere, so today we bring you a special guest column written by Zach Cumer. In 2007 we profiled Cumer, who had just had his breakout role in the film Smokin' Aces. We decided to give Cumer a chance to catch us all up on what he's been working on since then and this time we let him do it in his own words.]

Hey Guys! Thought I’d blog it out tonight and give everyone an update on what I’m up to. First I’d like to say that the best way to keep up with everything I’m doing is by going to my imdb.com page.

Now, onto what’s been goin’ on. I currently am doing a show called Family Dinner with the lovely and legendary Phyllis Diller. She plays my grandmother in the show. I play Jeremy, an emo kid who can’t wait to move away from his crazy, dysfunctional family. He is very quiet and is always crankin’ up his iPod. The show’s shot very similarly to a reality show. There’s a lot of improv goin’ on. The storyline is a reporter, John, comes to document a “normal” family dinner once a week at our house. What he finds though is anything but normal. Keep your eyes peeled for that soon.

I am also currently on two web shows. The Hustler with Mark Fuerstein and Ghost Town. The Hustler is about a very strange man (played by Mark) who hustles people in very odd games (like a hot dog eating contest). I play Joe Meat, just a normal kid who gets wrapped up in one of his hustles and actually hustles him! So yes, I am his archenemy in a sense. Ghost Town is geared more towards kids and is about exactly what you think – ghosts! I play Jacob, a ghost hunter. Along with my three friends, I track down ghosts and get them to go into the light. And to stop haunting little kids! There are a few other projects in the works as well but let’s save that for a later date.

Now, many have questions on the life of a child actor, especially when that actor is really no longer a child. Hollywood loves to use kids to play kids but not when they have a tight budget or they’re a tight ass – ha – their solution to this dilemma is to cast someone older to play younger. Older usually means 40 to play 16 (no I’m kidding – but not by much). It’s been a while, hobos … I am 17 now. I find at casting sessions my competition is 18-year-olds who are not very tall and still have some baby fat. The 18-year-olds usually get cast because they can work as adults (which means they can work more hours on set and don’t have to have a teacher on set, which saves a lot of money).

In order to work as a 17-year-old, you have to find your niche. I guess I have found mine since I am working. The role I played in Smokin’ Aces (Warren) has served me well. Whenever there is a edgy, crazy type role for a kid, people call “Cumer” (pronounced KOO MER by the way, not Cum-mer like most people think). Some of my latest work is in projects that are really different and unique – roles you can really sink your teeth into.

I just finished a horror/thriller film called Necromentia, directed by Pearry Reginald Teo. My character Thomas is a very sad, depressed and disturbed young man. He is physically disabled (in a wheelchair). He lives with his brother. His parents are dead. He lives in a world separated from all outside life. Because he has no one to talk to (no friends), he doesn’t really talk. But he does have conversations in his mind with other people. He has an imaginary friend … a very deadly imaginary friend.

The director, Pearry, is so creative he tells you what he expects in a scene, but then allows you to do your interpretation as well, which is nice. He understands what his audiences want to see and he always delivers. His movies are bloody and scary but they are beautiful as well.

Another film I recently finished was Finding Bliss, a comedy/ romance written and directed by Julie Davis. This film stars Jamie Kennedy, LeeLee Sobieski and Denise Richards. I play Bobby Daples, he is the love interest that Jody Balaban (LeeLee) never got over as a child. So she is haunted for life by me!

Some upcoming films that I am attached to include The Science of Cool, a modern day twist on the 80’s movies that people loved so much like 16 Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science. Tamara Tunie is attached as director. You may remember her from The Devil’s Advocate with Al Pacino.

The other film I am attached is Holly, Jingles and Clyde. This is a hilarious Christmas tale about Santa’s daughter and two accident prone elves trying to save a Christmas tree farm. DJ Perry is producing.

Our thanks to Zach for putting together this special guest post for us. For more information on Zach Cumer, visit his official website.

Similar Posts:

• Getting to Know … Zach Cumer