I’m considering various names for my fictional production company.
Five South
Global Wig Out Productions
Fugue State Expeditions
Sacromonte Productions – Hay que tener arte
Pyroclastic Events Management
King Thistle
Disposable Ensign
Stop Drop & Roll
Rude Boy
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Here are some projects I’d like to tackle.
My Life on the Holy Mountain: Manolín in Granada (the Gypsies of Granada, Spain)
A Good Man is Hard to Find: Luis in El Salvador (the effect of the civil war on a wealthy Salvadoran family)
State of the Nations (visit each of the over 500 federally recognized Indian tribes in the U.S.)
Dope: From Seed to Stem (follow marijuana from a seed planted in the Hawaiian highlands to a joint being smoked by a buyer in L.A.)
The Scorpions: South Africa’s Modern Day Untouchables (the Directorate of Special Investigations is said to be uncorruptable and impossible to intimidate)
Among the Peoples of the Book: Three Years of Study with Christians, Muslims & Jews
Ask Jeeves: The Start Up, Fall and Rebirth of an Internet Company (pretty self-explanatory; I was the ninth full-time hire at Jeeves)
The Memory Palace: Andalucia in Muslim Memory
Hugo Ball: The Man in the Gray Metal Suit (the very first documentary about dadaism and a dadaist that does not reduce everything to a tidy explanation: punch yourself in the face and drop dead)
Afro Punk
Berlin: there’s a great deal of talk, especially by the German political and cultural establishment, about the “new Jewish” Berlin, though most of it consists of non-observant Russian refugees; it would be interesting to counterpoint the hand-wringing enthusiasms of Der Mann with the wry attitudes and experiences of members of this grand new renaissance and the possible realities of yet another episode of Slavophilia.
Getting a House: a series that tackles the history and meaning of home ownership.
How we define a home and who we allow to own one says a great deal about our society, about who is included and excluded. Various episodes would cover the following topics:
- Classical Greece and the seclusion of women.
- Rome: the enfranchisement of slaves, disenfranchisement of farmers and property awards to soldiers; the “public” and “private” rooms of a Roman house.
- The “closed gardens” of Arabic Spain.
- The reconstruction era of the American South: freed slaves and the Exodusters.
- Pre-independence southern Africa and the experience of later leaders with initial housing injustice.
- Contemporary predatory lending practises.
- Booms and busts in housing speculation, including the current one.
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I’ve written up basic pitches for several television shows, including Dressing for Dinner, Hell Hole and The Siam Society.
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