Shall we recap what’s been going on over in North Korea these past twenty-four hours? So much action has hit in the fan in just a single DPRK day it’s rendered me positively doolally. To wit,

• former President Jimmy “Give the Palestinians Their State Already!” Carter flew into Pyongyang on a mega-publicized rescue mission to escort long-time North Korean prisoner and born-again US preacher Aijalon Mahli Gomes back Stateside. Check out the photos.
• Bam Bam is rumored to be in China yet again as we speak, visiting with heir apparent Kim Jong-un. The two are likely getting a dressing-down from PRC President Hu Jintao along with a list of precise marching orders on how to formulate DPRK’s statecraft over the next couple of months to avoid bloodshed on the Korean peninsula once more.

Two major events to rock the region.

Don’t tell me, though, that you’re surprised any of this is happening. Didn’t I warn you that September’s set to be a month of thrills, chills, and pratfalls as the Korean Workers Party (KWP) is set to convene for the first time in dog’s years to announce Kim Jong-un’s ascendancy to the NK throne and Bam Bam’s official “retirement” from the scene, a la Fidel Castro?

Yet more important to our purpose is the why all of this is happening now.

Can it all really be this simple?! Is the hardline recalcitrant pygmy dictator having anxiety attacks as he flits like a hummingbird between Pyongyang and Beijing aboard his special armed choo-choo train? Can the DPRK be coming apart at the seams? Better yet: are we witnessing history in the making on the Korean peninsula?

Let’s examine the issues…

The Cheonan Sinking:

On March 26, 2010, someone — or, rather, something — sank the South Korean navy corvette Cheonan in open South Korean territorial waters. The UN hastily appointed a commission of inquiry which laid the blame squarely on Kim’s tiny shoulders — regardless of whether a rogue faction of his generals were responsible for the sinking.

The Russians appear to doubt the veracity of the commission’s claims and have gone on record denying North Korean involvement in the naval tragedy which lead to forty-six maritime deaths. Naturally, the North Koreans forcefully deny the report’s findings, demanding to see a hardcopy of the report which the Blue House is reluctant to pony up. For now, the incident remains at a sweaty tense standstill. Everyone is on tenterhooks, especially Bam Bam Malone.

Recently, the US and their ROK allies have buddied up on seaborne exercises in what appears to be a prelude to a second “Korean War,” which has Kim and his court fearing for their mortal lives. If push comes to shove, are the North Koreans well-provisioned enough to resist and disrupt a northward thrust by a combined US/South Korean naval and land force?

The Cheonan fiasco has so far proved nothing but a crippling embarrassment to Kim Jong-il. Moreover, it has his Chinese comrades-in-arms biting their long nails to the quick realizing that if hostilities were to break out again on the peninsula, their nation’s economic plans and superpower aspirations are in danger of being disrupted.

If Kim is indeed in China right now as we speak — his second highly irregular “secret” visit in three months — this can only mean one surefire thing: the Chinese are taking the US/ROK military threat very seriously and they don’t trust Kim has the sanity nor the intelligence to navigate the rocky shoals of what’s sure to come over the next few weeks (or less?).

Kim Jong-un’s Long-Awaited Succession:

A succession, I add, which is hardly assured come September, given the dreadfully tenuous hold Jong-un has upon DPRK’s military strata.

Kim likely dragged along his youngest on this most recent “secret” Chinese visit to formally introduce the Chinese Central Committee to his country’s next supreme leader. The Chinese, for their part, will likely use this golden opportunity to reassure the Kims of their continued commitment to financial and diplomatic support to weather this current diplomatic crisis despite Pyongyang’s seeming efforts to do everything in its power to aggravate Beijing and stick it fulsomely to the Chinese leadership. It must be noted that the North Koreans hate getting schooled by Beijing. Despite it with a vengeance, in fact, even if they know it’s a devil they know well and reluctantly acknowledge as their lifeline.

Kim’s “secret” visit was likely planned during his previous visit back in May, custom-tailored as an open show by the Chinese to signal to the rogue elements of North Korea’s military that if they harbor coup-y thoughts against Jong-un following his succession (or in the event of Bam Bam’s sudden croaking), the Chinese won’t let the incident pass unchecked.

The KWP All-Party Congress:

All of this is seemingly coming to a head in advance of the summit next month. Efforts are being made to shore up support for the astonishingly inexperienced Jong-un, reassuring him that, in essence, he has a Big Brother bully backing him up in case things get all uppity in the North Korean capital come September/October.

Releasing Aijalon Mahli Gomes now:

With Gomes’ Friday release in the wake of Carter’s Pyongyang milk run, there are no longer any American citizens locked away in DPRK prisons for illegally crossing North Korean frontiers and no flies in the ointment straining US-DPRK non-relations. The slate now cleared for the North Koreans to rejoin the on-again, off-again 6-Party talks and return to the denuclearization table.

Without zero moral debts to the Americans stemming from the detainments of Euna Lee, Laura Ling, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, or Robert Park, the lone stumbling block impeding a peaceful settlement of the Cheonan incident has now been decidedly eliminated. Hence Kim’s China visit.

So are there going to be instructions from the Chinese again?

Can all this be so lickety-split?

The skeptic in me doesn’t want to gobble the floating oily Kim chum so easily.

I mean, that’s it?

• invite Carter to Pyongyang for the photo op and baby kisses (he was supposed to have been there to see Lee and Ling released, but a last-minute snag had Bill Clinton there instead)?
• release the near-suicidal Gomes and fly him back with the former President to great fanfare and grab-assing?
• schlep Kim Jong-un to the next four-eyed meeting with Hu Jintao for the official Chinese sign off on the succession, declaring to the rest of the world that North Korea is fully-prepared to go nuke-free?

And all because of a the Cheonan‘s untimely sinking? All this because of some ape-like saber rattling in South Korean waters off the coast of North Korea, brandishing the allied US/ROK fleets of might?

Can Kim be really this scared of what the future holds for his own father’s “Paradise on Earth?”

The Equalizer:

Kim has proven again and again that he’s willing to gamble the entire (Kim) farm on a single “kamikaze”-like bet.

That he’s perfectly prepared to imperil his entire population to bitter starvation, place his army on a perpetual war-footing, and threaten to bring calamity down upon the heads of the entire region by aiming one of his purported uranium-tipped warheads at Seoul, Japan, or worse (the existence of which hasn’t been independently verified by the IAEA).

I witness all of these events on the news ticker today and my “North Korea-watching” mind sudden contrives umpteen different contingency scenarios the Dear Leader might have cooking in the back of his soggy noodle, all carefully rehearsed and orchestrated to achieve maximum bang for the buck and PR sizzle.

Can we be witnessing history-in-the-making? A straightforward Bam Bam mea culpa begging for forgiveness?

Has Kim suddenly realized:

• the frailty of his addled physical condition,
• the inability of his chosen heir to rule if he passes, and
• the determination of both the US and the South Koreans to witness the dismantlement of his dictatorship, even at the cost of a small naval skirmish that will likely result in several hundreds of military casualities?

It goes without saying that veteran North Korea watchers typically demand slightly more convincing proof that this isn’t another one of Kim’s little shams in advance of some down-home September Pyongyang pageantry. Ach…

Welcome home, Aijalon. Welcome home in any event.

Double, double toil and trouble;
fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Yes, once again Denise Chong, that best-selling author and fellow Canuck, stirs the ol’ hot pot again with her latest snipe at Zhongnanhai’s corrupt geriatric set over their handling of the whole so-called “6-4 Incident.” Enter her latest smashing volley, Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship.

Recounted through the heartfelt memories of Lu Decheng, the intellectually dullest of the trio of wayward Liuyangers who one-timed oil paint-filled egg shells from a local jian bing stand at the Forbidden City’s omnipresent portrait of the Great Helmsman, Chong spins a vivid tour-de-force tale depicting the aftermath of their arrest and subsequent incarceration in the dying days of the late-’80s student democracy movement.

During the spring of what would become that fateful ‘89 year, Lu along with his friends Yu Zhijian and Yu Dongyue were caught up in the fervor of ousting the Party leadership once and for all. They became drunk on the idea of setting the People’s Republic’s sails firmly on a course for integration with the West along with the abolition of China’s corrupt glad-handing society.

Heeding the poetic words of student leader, Uighur activist Wu’er Kaixi, the “sun shining off of Mao’s portrait was so bright that the people couldn’t open their eyes to what was going on around them.” Hopping on the overnight choo-choo via Changsha, the three impressionable young cats — caught up in the inexorable flow of thousands from all across the nation descending on Beijing (or Peking as it was still then known in the West, still stuck in Wade-Giles mode) — somehow found themselves in the thick of it at the center of T-Bone Square, rocking it on ’til the break of dawn against the Big Bad Red Machine.

Chong employs a nifty literary technique shifting back and forth between what was and what is, flashbacking to our impressionable ones’ preparations as they eagerly anticipate traveling north to the capital, matched against their deep-seated doubts about what they were monumentally about to do. The portrait vandalizing incident was only an afterthought, can you believe it?

I found the most harrowing portions of this book — quite expectedly — to transpire inside the jail where the three were sentenced to life imprisonment for defacing the People’s Property. A couple of the guards sympathized with their cause, while many others were tasked with the deplorable job of smashing their willful spirits and crushing the resistance out of them via a daily slew of humiliation, physical abuse, and in several cases, unmitigated torture. Their prison authorities somehow remained convinced that they’d succeed in luring the young men, especially the brilliant Zhijian, from of their “counter-revolutionary” paths, by inculcating in them the values of Mao’s Homo Sineticus, the “ideal” modern Chinese super-ego.

Decheng, a bus mechanic and driver by trade, was the least educated of the bunch at the outset. His journey is magnificent because his life changes by 180-degrees by story’s end. Dongyue, youngest and most impressionable, was a mere wet-behind-the-ears type at the crime’s time, a mere teenager. Zhijian was the one with all the bright ideas and coffee house theories, the one who read all the European classics, and the one who became most disillusioned by the end thanks to the students’ perfidy in refusing to come to the three’s aid by secreting them away from the lurking plainclothes PSB goons at the time, instead offering them up like sacrificial lambs.

Given that Decheng was our narrative vessel in Egg On Mao, we came to learn of the harshness of the boys’ prison conditions through his arduous journey in his own words. As he arrived at the stark realization that the West was absolutely powerless (or unwilling?) to convince the PRC’s Party higher-ups to spring him and his mates from the cavernous clink, Decheng set out to improve his skills and brain power while living out the typical prison double life.

Compelled to undergo the routine Maoist ideological indoctrination and daily hammering of Marxist-Leninist Thought, Decheng would mechanically nod his noodle during classes, only to “raid” the prison library later in the evenings to feast his eyes on anything he could get his meat hooks on: well-thumbed, outdated tomes on all manner of Western theory and thought — all in English which the guards couldn’t read — realizing that eventually his salvation would come and he should be prepared for that eventuality. Guards would needle him for his seeming craziness; the mere sight of Decheng reading stuff that looked as if though it could maim, rather than educate, him elicited many giggles. In time, howe3ver, this strategy would prove ultimately successful, confounding the dastardly designs of the prison system.

By 1998, Decheng was a free man — first, gaining asylum in Canada, where Chong learned of his story.

There’s a lovely parallel story in this book, and that’s the love affair between Lu and his young bride Qiuping, a woman he eventually weds prior to performing the fateful deed.

Even before the first yolk is hurled at Mao’s grim, moled likeness, Decheng and Qiuping have birthed their first tot — a XX Chromosomal Child Unit. His subsequent imprisonment, despair, and eventual divorce from his wife who fears her man will never be released for the ignominy caused to the Party’s international image, is a touching counterpoint to the violence taking place within the prison compound’s walls. The brutal and repeated attempts by Decheng’s prison warders to destroy his rebellious soul do nothing to diminish his abiding passion for his wife and their oft-stated commitment to “never accept a divorce, neither in life nor in death.” When news of Qiuping’s request for a divorce trickles through to Decheng via a letter he receives from a guard, it momentarily sidelines him as he struggles to reason out the rationale for her irrational behavior. When she eventually remarries, it nearly slays him, though he soldiers on knowing that in the aftermath of Deng Xioaping’s October 1992 demise — the man responsible for approving the murderous actions by soldiers on the Square against their own citizens — changes may be soon afoot in the “peaceful” People’s Republic.

Author Chong was censured for this book in the PRC. No surprise there. While she doesn’t personally do any of the criticizing about the events which took place on T-Bone Square — nothing is couched in her own words save for her parting caustic remarks in the Epilogue and Acknowledgments — the mere fact that she’s chosen Lu Decheng as the vessel of her apparent disapproval with the septuagenarians inhabiting the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee have now branded her as a PRC persona non grata. She won’t be able to return now, though she likely made her peace with this reality the instant finger touched laptop keypad.

Given that she had a year and a half to contemplate her fate — the duration of all her interview sessions with Lu Decheng in Canada, where he now lives — this was a well-designed goal.

Why you should read this book, friends?

Egg on Mao was likely the first straightforward and direct account about the actions of the perpetrators of the portrait defacement, told in their own words. No third-party stuff here, folks, or PRC spin-meistering for our ravenous Western investigative appetites.

Also, for those of you late-arriving (and young) Western stragglers who are convinced that TAM was a student-lead and directed protest crushed by the heavy-handed Chinese state apparatus, complete organized student hierarchies and chains of command on T-Bone Square itself, you’ll be shocked to discover that chaos was more the order of the day during those fateful two months. Chong does well to highlight this through the authentic recollections of Lu himself. Good job.

At 249pp, your bottom-line cost to purchase this brand new is just a few cents shy of a short paper route (wink, wink). The copy isn’t crafted to wallop you over the noggin from its apparent brilliance, and Chong, for lack of a better term, “keeps it real.”

This is a mean-slugging account of a very unusual time in China, an era when things were still in flux and the regime was deathly afraid of losing its balls years before Hu Jintao’s policy of China’s “harmonious rise” was even promulgated. I polished the book off on the trusty exercise bike over the course of a few days, wagging my head in several spots as I made my way through in astonishment, careful not to permit sweat droplets to damage its pristine acid-free (and lovely-smelling) pages. Cautious, as well, was I to ensure that my neighbors didn’t think I was becoming a closet Maoist, what with the Chairman’s identifiable head on its cover, even if it was smeared in a cocktail of egg and paint goo.

If you’ve already read the book and digged it hard, let us know.

If you haven’t caught it yet, it’s not the sort of “China book” that will make you dizzy-busy (so busy, you’re dizzy) from its girth and heft. ;-) Try it, Mikey, you’ll like it. I promise.

And, oh yeah…my name is Adam Daniel Mezei and thanks again for tuning in.

Love,
ADM

ps I’m in search of a new “China book,” friends, so if you’ve got any suggestions for me — which I promise to subsequently review — kindly let me know.

huxia juqui

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  The Party: The Secret World Of China’s Communist Rulers

  Book review of the banned book by Richard McGregor that talks about the Chinese Communist Party. What did McGregor write that earned the ire of the Chinese censors? Point-by-point summary of what to expect when you get yourself a copy (if you don’t get arrested for buying it).

CATNAPPING (2009, feature, IndieFlix, runtime: 86 mins., director: Thorsten Chris Gritschke, trailer)

It’s not often I watch a European movie which has the capacity to crossover into the film-going mainstream. You know, a film that tells a story appealing not only to an overly-ponderous serious European crowd, but one which is willing to pony up real money to give the film a shot of breaking even and — G.od forbid — making a profit at the box office.

Yet Thomas Chris Gritschke‘s Catnapping is one clever little tale, and his protagonist Otto, played convincingly and hilariously by American actor Ian Lyons, is a leading anti-hero all of us can somehow relate to.

Set bizarrely in Brussels, Belgium, Europe’s sleepy capital with the decidedly infamous reputation for being Europe’s most mind-numbingly boring city, Otto is set to kickstart a ho-hum internship with his uncle Frank’s (played by the deadpanning Ted Fletcher) video-production company, StarVision. This is Otto’s big break into the local Belgian industrial video market. But poor Otto is a dude without a mission: early on, we’re left wondering why the hell he’s even in this do-nothing town in the first instance, and moreover, what exactly does he plan to do with this idiotic job, a position he appears completely unqualified for although no one seems to notice, least of all Frank?

Otto is a dreamer, but an idle one. For now, he’s content to merely coast along, sailing under the radar, happy to humor Frank during their joint editing sessions as the latter waxes poetically about the old days when he didn’t have to bust his butt to earn his daily nut. Now, as Franks recounts, SuperVision has to work twice as hard to land a marketing account, which is the reason why he’s decided to inject fresh talent in this moribund operation. Ah, so that’s why Otto’s here. Now it all makes sense. Or does it..?

Given that Otto has zero marketable skills, save for spinning some mighty convicing yarns and fibbing the pants off of everyone, can this be the end of our movie? Hardly.

Stuffed at the office and totally clusterfucked in his personal life, Otto dragoons his childhood buddy Lars (Ran Yaniv) into his plan to shoot and cut “the best industrial video ever!” O. cooks up a cockamamie scheme to break into Frank’s Fort Knox-like office to steal a mayonnaise-producing machine that promises to grant him and Lars precisely the corporate advantage they need to kickstart the money flow at the newly christened Atomium Productions. Yet the moment Otto dons his black balaclava and cracks the seal on Frank’s door with his crowbar is the very instant all hell breaks loose in Catnapping.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, and during one of his frequent jaunts into town looking for a bit of excitement in this one-horse town, Otto takes notice of Maria (played by the ultra-charismatic Valérie Muzzi), an underachieving “Madame Pi-Pi” (Belgian washroom attendant) harboring distant dreams of becoming a sophisticated airline stewardess. Fed up with the pittance she earns cleaning human waste off of the latrines, she’s in desperate need of a new gig. Otto has the eye for her so he proceeds to do everything in his power, short of an outright bribe, during his subsequent visits to the toilet to concince her to go out with him. Yet Maria isn’t even budging. In fact, she couldn’t care less! So bribes her (yep!) with the promise of a sweet job offer as he overhears how Frank’s in search of additional hands-on-deck to help SuperVision process their new overflow after fortuitiously landing several hot accounts. When Maria hammers her interview, Otto’s apparently in like Flynn and yet another step in his plan falls into place. Or does it…?

Out of the blue, Frank shocks Otto with the recorded evidence of Otto’s earlier vandalism. Rather than can him on the spot, Frank oddly congratulates his nephew for his brilliant business coup in helping to land one of Frank’s more recalcitrant clients. Not knowing how exactly to react, Otto, aghast, thanks his uncle profusely, vowing to never attempt similar shenanigans again after fobbing Frank off on some silly excuse about testing the security procedures at the office. Frank buys it.

Back and forth, one thing after another, and Otto, in time, succeeds in doing what he does best, which is totally screw up. In short order, he loses his job at SuperVision, compromises his long-standing friendship with Lars after betraying his trust during one of their jobs, and finally destroys any chance he has whatsoever with Maria following a pair of otherwise promising passionate dates over drinks and sultry conversation. Unable to sink any lower, O. begs the assistance of his pot-smoking (and cuckolded) detective friend Karl (the all-too-funny Stefan Sattler) for some work to shatter his bordeom. Karl quickly puts Otto to work surveiling his ex-wife, while Otto uses this opportunity to enact another plan he has in mind, which is to win Maria back and regain his respectability with her, Lars, and Frank.

As for how he fares in this mission, well, that’s what you’ll have to catch the movie for.

What I enjoyed about this film?

Catnapping was unique in that it marked the first time in a while I’ve seen an all-European non-mainstream picture that I didn’t have the sudden urge to want to flip right off after being cheesed right off. The dialogues were snappy and well-penned and I, for one, appreciated the combination of European actors playing opposite American actors in a casting selection that’s not often attempted on the Continent. When’s the last time European actors were permitted to plainly be and sound just like themselves when starring opposite American ones? Think back now, really…

Gritschke does such a marvelous job with his casting that we’re locked into this story from the get-go. The actors do a stellar job in selling us on the plot, one which hardly seems contrived, and — like I said — rare in its compellingness for a European indie flick.

I found both Stefan Sattler and Valérie Muzzi to be extraordinary underdog finds who deserve a chance to portray roles in even larger productions. Sattler’s asides as Karl were so typically phlegmatically Belgian French — as per my personal experience — that I couldn’t help but admire him. Muzzi possessed that hard to find quality of being totally impossible to peg: where is this girl from? What does she sound like? And, haven’t I seen her before? As Maria, Muzzi was more than the girl-next-door and it’s so clear why Otto falls for her like a blathering fool. She’s so lovely and what a casting score for Gritschke.

After 86 minutes of viewing, the Brussels of Catnapping seems so much more beautiful than the city I’d personally experienced many years ago, and therein lies this film’s magic.

Another sensational IndieFlix find.

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Informative post the other day from The Daily NK which discusses the infamous trianglar nuclear axis of evil running from North Korea through Pakistan all the way to Iran.

While the nuclear issue and the DPRK’s refusal to rejoin the Six Party Talks remain the key stumbling blocks preventing NK from joining the democratic league of nations, perhaps it’s important to restate several of the article’s salient points for those who aren’t up-to-speed on the latest and greatest.

Its main thrust deals with HEU — highly-enriched uranium — and the sophisticated technology used to process this raw material into the dodgy stuff which can be packed into the tip of a missile and launched as WMD against neighboring nations like Japan and South Korea.

Most of the article’s content contains rumor and speculation, with a heaping dose of official denial and disinformation, since none of its assertions can be corroborated by “independent” sources like the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). But the basic gist is that North Korea is the specialist in WMD delivery mechanisms like modified ’70s-era former Soviet Scuds and its own Rodong-2, while Iran and Pakistan possess the enriched uranium and the centrifugal separators (those large spinning machines) to enrich uranium into the weapons grade material which has the United States and the UN shaking in their boots.

The Islamic Republic denies it’s helping North Korea. Mohamed Reza Bakhitiari, Iran’s Ambassador to the ROK, claims that “there is no special cooperation related to either nuclear or missile issues.” North Korea denies it’s helping Iran.

None of the denials, however, eliminate the fact that these countries have likely reached the upper limits of what they’re capable of domestically with their nuclear programs, and therefore remain the only three nations willing and able to assist each other surmount their respective deficiencies.

Pakistan historically has played an instrumental role in pushing North Korea towards the nuclear path by supplying the hermit kingdom with its first 20 uranium centrifugal separators during the 1990s, of which literally thousands are required to collect the necessary amount of stuff for a WMD-caliber bomb.

Of the triumvirate, Iran appears to have the most HEU — 5.7Kg of the stuff, according to a May 2010 IAEA report — not enough for its own domestic purposes. NK has acquired 30-40Kg of plutonium, which it appears set to process into fissile material, and given the collaboration between Iran and DPRK since 1983 on ballistic missile technology there’s enough evidence to support the rumor that exchanges on delivery mechanisms for a nuclear weapon may have already occurred. Iran needs the technology to produce more of its own HEU, which it may have received from North Korea via Pakistan. You following?

What remains unexpressed by Kim Yong Hun‘s review is the reason why Pakistan and Iran haven’t directly transacted for HEU-processing equipment and why they need Kim Jong-il’s isolationist dictatorship as their middleman.

Oh, the lovely speculation…

For those who haven’t yet read Jon Reiss‘ DIY distribution “primer-plus” Think Outside the Box Office (TOTBO), I’ll spare you the usual shill-y spiel which goes along the lines of “get yours today, because it’s so [fill in favorite superlative]!”

Truth be told — if you’re anything into the DIY, DIWO (Do It With Others), or DIFY (Do It For Yourself) movements — you’re very late out of the starting gates.

Given the shelf-life of online-only information contained within real (not e-) books these days, Jon has announced he’ll be getting into the habit of issuing what he refers to as updated “bonus chapters,” or addenda, that aim to map the latest relevant changes, industry moves, and vertical shakes for specific sections of his book.

Reiss’ latest issuance is a revamped chapter on “fulfillment.”

What’s fulfillment, you ask? Well, indie sports fans, indie mavens who can’t be bothered with this sort of thing…have I got some dreadful news for you! It’s time to bone up and pronto! The days of attending Sundance with The Chase brothers (Vinny and Johnny Drama) with E and Turtle in tow, hoping and praying to the Film Gods that Ari — the scallywag — will somehow finagle one of the mini majors to scoop up your picture in a negative pickup aren’t necessarily dead and gone — but the odds are stacked heavily against you. If you’re game to take a running start at a brick wall, like the old adage says: have at it, Hoss! I hope you’ve got good medical.

If you sell product — and if you’re an indie filmmaker interested in extending your brand and delving into transmedia campaigns for your film (I can just hear it now: what’s transmedia?) — you should definitely consider outsourcing to a fulfillment company. And the reason is simple: seeing as you don’t have the clout (yet!) to be stocking thousands of units of your DVD in your basement or walk-up apartment, you need a company to handle this task for you: from picking the stock off a shelf, packing it in a box, adding other your accessories and documents, and shipping the product by USPS (if you’re in the US) or via expedited courier (if you’re somewhere internationally).

These companies, with names like The 4th Way, Neoflix, The Connextion, and — of course — Amazon, provide this service to you, aspiring filmmaker, for a grab-bag of hefty fees and commissions, so it’s best to bone up if you’re planning on making moving pictures into your chosen career.

The additional chapter is a precise breakdown of a hypothetical fulfillment scenario for Bomb It!, Jon and Tracy Wares‘ kickass whirlwind documentary about street art, graffiti, tagging, and art in the public domain. In it, Jon asks a series of typical what-if questions — if I sell 2,500 units of my movie’s DVD in Year One, but suffer from slow sales in Year 2 only having sold 200 units, what happens? How much have I earned in total, and how much am I out-of-pocket? He provides answers, showing you via spreadsheets and a step-by-step companion guide how this very scenario would function in reality.

But there’s a catch to all of this…you can’t get your mitts on the addenda unless you purchase the original bound or PDF title from TOTBO’s online store. And if you think that’s too expensive at under twenty bucks, then I suspect you’re not serious enough about getting a heap of advice from a DIY specialist celebrated by indie giants the likes of Filmmaker Magazine‘s Scott Macaulay and Lance Weiler, with the testimonials to prove it. Full disclosure: I like Jon Reiss. I respect Jon Reiss. However, I am not an employee of Jon Reiss’; ergo, I make the above affirmations of my own volition without any prodding from Jon’s fulfillment company. ;-)

For those of you who have read TOTBO before, I’d love to know some of your opinions about it in the comments below.

• 

Miles Maker‘s Convercinema podcast recently hosted those twin dynamos at Film Courage studios.

Film Courage? Huh? You know, that popular L.A. radio show hosted by David Branin and Karen Worden?

Ah, I knew it’d ring a bell!

I knew it! I knew you were going to ask me to define Film Courage in a sentence! Okay, if I must: well, it’s not so much a radio show (which it technically is) as much as it’s a rec room where aspiring and “made it” indies come over for a drink and a spirited chinwag. It’s the place where independents sometimes kvetch about the state of affairs in the biz, commiserating and comparing notes about what works and what doesn’t for those of us weighed down by our as-yet unfulfilled cinematic dreams.

The name David and Karen chose for their show isn’t accidental: courage (sorry if I sound like Bryant Gumbel).

Joining David and Karen (Karen and David?) in the ambiance of their delectable little green room and engaging them in a discussion about your projects, it’s almost like you’re breathing the courage in. What — mere moments ago — seemed totally unattainable, now seems possible. What seemed downright Sisyphean when you rolled out of bed that morning, is now well within your grasp. And all because the F.E.A.R. (that mendacious “False Evidence Appearing Real”) which branded itself on your psyche just melted away under the searing intensity of David and Karen’s (Karen and David’s?) infectious feelgood.

Can you dig it? So. Bring. It. On!

Without going into the content of Miles’ broadcast, which is quite long (though definitely worth a listen, kids!), I thought I’d list my personal Top Ten Reasons why you, too, should be regularly catching up on your Film Courage clips. And when you do, please make sure to get to the entire canon, not just tiddly-winks style, kiddo. Why, pray tell? Because courage is only to the brave. For those willing to prostrate themselves at the Cinema Gods’s altar of joy, grinding away, persistently, at the cinematic millstone.

TOP TEN REASONS TO FAN FILM COURAGE:

#1) Get to know your industry, dude!: Ever asked yourself why cliches persist? I mean, if they’re so inane, why don’t they just disappear? Well it’s because they’re honest and true. So when I tell you now that “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” take a Coke, and a smile, and my advice and duly apply it to your independent film’s odyssey. Because if you want to be good at any industry, even the experts say it takes ten years (or 10,000 concerted hours, take your pick, Malcolm) of dogged mastery and relentless pursuit of your chosen craft, to be considered knowledgeable. And the indie scene is no different. While it certainly has its fair share of chart-topping exceptions to the rule, becoming a maven in the indie world is akin to a steady, though steep, climb. It’s a worthy one, however, for those who roll with the blows. So get out there and get to know who’s doing all the cool stuff in indie. Watch fellow indies’ films. Read blogs and mags. Research, parse, and analyze them, then repeat the entire process anew. And do it every day. All day. Forever. Breathe it in like air. Simply revel in the world of film. Since Film Courage is rapidly becoming a compendium of the best on indie offer, pretty soon anyone who’s anyone will have appeared on the show. So you know what that means: you miss Film Courage, you miss what’s going on. Now is that any way to start a career? I doubt it, Frankie…

#2) Useful tips and (completely legal!) tricks of the trade: Puff pieces, mental strokage, Vitamin D blasts up the sphnicter muscle, and other assorted grab-assing never takes place on the storied Film Courage casting couch. What you instead get is a pot-pourri of valuable takeaways you can apply to your very own projects. All from the folks who have been there and succeeded. The women and men who stared down “Angst” squarely into its dripping maw, yet who didn’t hesitate to brandish their spherical sacs of venom when summoned. So pay attention, kids. There’s a lesson to be learned here.

#3) Pringles-sized bites of info: Truth be told, you will get the occasional 5-7 minute piece, but it’s rare. What Karen and David have instead attempted to do with their “interactives,” as they call them, is pump you hard with a deft film-y fix for two to three minutes, intro and outro included, then, er…release. Suddenly imbued with, um…knowledge, you leave the session better off than when you arrived. For the time-challenged or those hapless control freaks out there, what could be betta’?

#4) Rump-shaking vibes: Whether it’s the infectious beats of Tha Deviants or them bass-heavy throbbing cadences of Tyshawn Bryant, David and Karen have branded their interactives with distinctive choonz that’ll slap a smile on anyone’s face, even Scrooge’s. So if you’re not getting up off your swivel chair the instant the soundtrack cues, you’re either tone deaf or stuck an eighties time-warp. Either way, you’ll miss out on those feet-movin’ beats which might otherwise brighten up your day.

#5) The venues, baby, the venues: Yes, I know, it’s not just you. I, too, feel like I’m in Mission Impossible as we cut from film festival to film festival, repertory theater to press conference, exterior location to L.A. Talk Radio‘s green room, and all the while David and Karen intrepidly chase down all the breaking stories. Still, though, I appreciate it, even though at least one other listener I know mentioned how they were coming down with a chronic case of Film Courage-induced vertigo. Poor guy…more for us, then!

#6) Karen’s “radio voice”: There’s a rumor going around indie circles that Karen Worden employs a variety of different tones, depending on who she decides to be on a given day. I hardly know if this is true, and, personally, I can’t discern any differences. But, um…might this have something to do with the fact she’s an actor? Could be…could be, my overly inquisitive friends. However, Karen definitely is the right person for the job, given how charismatic females have the edge over XY Chromosomal Units on interviews. With males, it’s just a congenital defect. We don’t seem to have the required sensitivity. Something to do with our D.N.A.

#7) The guests: Face the facts: where else but on Film Courage would you ever get the chance to get this up-close-and-personal with players like Jeff Bridges, Clifton Collins Jr., and Gabourey Sidibe? Artists like Mo’Nique or Mariah Carey? Nowhere else. Full stop.

#8) A perfect way to spend your script writing breaks: Veteran screenwriters already know this, but for those just wading out into the wild torrents of writing for the screen, try to take ten minute breaks every hour-and-a-half. During those precious 600 seconds, do something to get your gray matter the hell off the script. My recommendation? Listen to music, do some pushups, or, better yet, watch archived Film Courage clips! Lookit, I’m not just blowin’ sunshine up your ass here: these things will inspire you and propel you to the next level. It’s like not like I’m telling you to watch something you shouldn’t watch. ;-)

#9) Film Courage swag: Whether it’s the SNORG Tees Karen is fond of giving to her show guests, the free DVDs, the books, tchotchkes, or the other delicacies on offer in the green room, it’s always a surprise to see what will the two of them think of next.

And, of course, the best reason to watch Film Courage?

#10) “It’s about the community, stoopid!”: Most important of all, Film Courage is about David and Karen giving something back to the community which has offered them so much. The photos on the wall prove it. Like Norm at Cheers, their kind of L.A. is a place where “…everybody knows your name.” Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!

SMASH CUT TO:

Nice job, Miles. Nice job, David and Karen. Nice job everybody.

• 

Nineteen seventy-two was a milestone year for geopolitics.

Events that took place in 1972 included the signing of the landmark SALT I treaty in May between US President Nixon and Soviet Premier Brezhnev, a pact whose aim was to drastically reduce the staggering volume of atomic warheads in both US and Soviet stockpiles. The Vietnam conflict was still violently raging across Southeast Asia with no apparent end in sight for the assisting US Army. Relations between the US and the Soviet Union might have been on the mend, but events at home in Washington would soon take a decided turn for the worse in June as Republican burglars were apprehended at the Watergate Complex, a scandal Nixon initially attempted to cover up.

All in all, Richard Nixon found his Administration in a political fix on the home front and needed a string of wins to get him off the hot seat. It would come from a very unlikely quarter: Mao‘s People’s Republic of China.

During two secretly-convened negotiations — in July and October of 1971 — Nixon dispatched trusty National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger to Beijing to lay pipe for what would soon become his Administration’s earth-shattering hallmark: the President would be visiting forbidden China in February 1972, an event which would pave the way for the resumption of diplomatic ties which had been irrevocably severed for more than two decades. But why was the Shanghai Communiqué so appropriate for its time? What conditions were extant in February 1972 which made a Nixon-Mao meeting so inevitable?

A mortal fear of the Soviet Union, perhaps very similar to the US’ mortal fear (although for completely different causes) of the Chinese.

Mao Zedong — in his ailing dotage — like the US, was paranoid of Soviet designs in his backyard, and internationally. Mao would agree to do the abominable by inking a deal with the Americans to keep the Russian bear firmly in situ only because he was worried how much worse things could get if China continued to go it alone in a bipolar superpower-dominated world. It would be the kind of political sleight-of-hand that made statesmen out of mere political hacks, vaunted leaders from wannabe glory hounds and amateurs.

Cut to eight Presidents later.

President Barack Obama (BHO), the US’ 44th, finds himself in a similar situation up in Washington. He could use a sprinkling of that good old Kissinger-Nixon pixie dust right about now given the handful of domestic and foreign policy failures that have transpired on his watch. Among them Obama can count his grossly inflated health reform bill, his Administration’s highly questionable — and lackadaisical — handling of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the firing of former US Afghanistan Supreme General Stanley McChrystal, and, lately, his double-clutching on the mysterious Cordoba mosque in New York City.

Yet help might be forthcoming from one of the most unexpected quarters imaginable: Pyongyang.

Let’s lay some pipe so you know what’s at stake:

• Kim Jong-il, 68, purportedly suffers from a mild case of dementia and has kidney failure. Bam Bam will likely not be the public face of the country his father built out of the ruins of the Korean War come early 2011. In September, the Korean Workers Party Congress will be convening to officially herald Kim’s youngest son’s succession to to the North Korean “throne.” But it’s a risky gambit: Kim Jong-un has never held political office before and his ability to secure the loyalty of the DPR Korea’s military remains firmly in doubt. If Kim departs the scene early (retirement, croaking), Jong-un might not succeed in holding down the fort. A vacuum will suddenly be created, much to the chagrin of the Chinese, the South Koreans, and — for our purposes — the Americans.
• the South Korean corvette, Cheonan, was sunk in March of this year. Blame has already been squarely laid at Pyongyang’s feet. Yet given how the report’s 286pp finds have not yet been made public, both North Korea and the Russians doubt the veracity of the report’s claim that the DPRK is responsible. Still, the rest of the world is convinced, given Kim’s track record, that Pyongyang is the primary culprit in the death of 46 ROK seamen.
• the US and South Korea have been stepping up their military manoeuvrings in the Cheonan‘s aftermath, actions which the DPRK has been characterizing as provocations towards all-out war. That usually results in threats to make use of its purported nuclear arsenal against South Korea and neighboring Japan, but — again — given Kim’s track record this could be nothing more than mere bluster.
• Beijing remains unsettled by these joint US/ROK military moves and threat of instability on the Korean peninsula. Together these can be taken as disruptions to China’s harmonious economic rise (hexie jueqi) , its long-term superpower aspirations, and as threats to its preeminent position in the region.
• in the aftermath of the Cheonan‘s sinking, the south severed all trade ties with Pyongyang. Given how North Korea’s critical food and economic aid now comes courtesy of the Chinese, a fact which the North Korean propaganda machine works doubly hard to obscure, this has only served to strengthen the hand of North Korea’s hardliners who deeply resent Chinese beneficence. Relations with China could prove to be Kim’s undoing, and if not his, then that of Jong-un.

Taken in combination: an opportunity indeed seems to have presented itself…

BHO has worked intently on currying favor with the PRC ever since his landmark November 2009 visit to Beijing and Shanghai. The trip would ultimately end in humiliation for the US — some pundits even claimed the President made a right mockery the office by kowtowing to the Chinese during his trip. Since that visit, several shots have been fired across the bow: the Google China fiasco, Chinas’ enviro-snub of the President at COP15 in Copenhagen, and the on-again, off-again looming trade disaster as China’s remains resolute in its unwillingness to float its renminbi on the open market. By maintaining a fixed rate of exchange vis-a-vis the USD, the balance of international trade remains abnormally skewed in the PRC’s favor.

Accommodating Beijing on these counts might prove to be Obama’s ultimate undoing — the final nail in his political coffin, as it were. But an opening for BHO’s redemption may have presented itself in the form of a disgruntled North Korea.

Given Kim’s borderline state of health, coupled with the US’ full awareness of the DPRK’s love-hate brotherly relationship with China, Washington could step into the breach to avert a more widespread, possibly nuclear, catastrophe on the peninsula in retaliation for the Cheonan‘s sinking. Negotiating with Pyongyang now might be the last remaining way Kim succeeds in maintaining his family’s iron-fisted rule north of the 38th, preventing his 24 million-strong statelet from teetering into an irreversible economic tailspin which would destabilize his domestic front beyond repair.

Negotiating with Pyongyang today — while understandably stealing some of Seoul’s rightfully-deserved thunder — would deliver the following immediate benefits to all parties:

• a clawing-back of China’s close-knit oversight of its “younger” brother’s domestic and foreign agendas. China would thereby lose its lone trump card in the region that helps the PRC to maintain some of its own stubborn hardline policies in contravention of its international obligations. If North Korea were to be suddenly divested of its nuclear hammer, what excuse would China have to maintain its inscrutable domestic clobbering methods?
• a superpower guarantor — though not China. The United States would have plenty of valid reasons for preventing the DPRK from imploding in the wake of Kim Jong-un’s unsuccessful ascension to the leadership, namely, a removal of a perpetual strain on its military resources in Southeast Asia. If China can no longer intervene in the DPRK’s affairs, North Korea might have a shot at developing peacefully along South Korean economic principles, perhaps paving the way toward eventual peninsular reunification as a long-term agenda on the German post-Cold War model.
• the elimination of the rogue North Korean nuclear threat as a precondition for signing any accord with the US/ROK. This benefit alone would alleviate tremendous tensions in the region and permit all players — especially the US, which has its fighting forces internationally overstretched — to scale back their deployments by removing the need to keep forces and navies on constant high alert.
• reduced tensions with Japan and South Korea which would permit Korean family reunifications from all sides.
• an additional side benefit which is the creation of one of the world’s largest nature reserves. In the intervening six decades since the Korean War’s 1953 end, untold scores of endangered species have flourished within the Demilitarized Zone/DMZ. If the rival Koreas sign a peace accord, think of what this could do for tourism?

If Obama were to ink a deal with Kim Jong-il, it’s win-win all the way. It could very well be the President’s “September 11th” moment. And by the looks of things, the White House could do a hell of a lot worse than bail the President out of the searing hot seat.

As I’ve been saying, the next couple of weeks are going to be very interesting…