Film Directing as Political Football

If movie directing is becoming a political football, it must be what we call soccer. The goal here will be to diffuse outright falsehoods being promoted. 1. The CBC has already committed to hiring women for at least fifty percent of its positions for directing TV shows. 2. If a script is submitted for funding to the Canadian Film Center or any other entity in Canada, there is an opportunity to indicate gender and visible minority. http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/entertainment/lack-of-canadian-female-directors-a-political-issue-researcher-says-1.3071157 3. In TV especially, the writers/producers have more say about the content of an episode than the guest director of an episode. So it is false to assume that power resides in the director to turn a scripted lesbian triumph over the patriarchy into a hard-edged macho cop show that condones racism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDHqDEa1ed4 4. There is a "get the job done" work ethic in Assistant Directors, and a "never miss tiara Tuesdays" crew-service perspective that is of great human value on a set but does not have any relationship toward that person directing the audience through the frame once elevated to the job of "Director." Some comedy directors I enjoy keep it simple, keeping the cast in focus while they improvise, but there isn't much room for directing as an art form, by which I don't mean "fancy shots" (a term I hate) but the most appropriate shot for each beat or transition. https://youtu.be/3FOzD4Sfgag?list=PL2w4TvBbdQ3sMABf317ExCob_v6rW2-4s 5. Even though it may be true that having a "beer with the right person" or being "the kind of person people want to have a beer with after a long shoot," may result in getting hired as a Director on a project, it is questionable whether or not that is good news for the craft. Who has time for a beer after each shoot day, and even if that means the wrap party, it is movie lore that Steven Spielberg skips the last shot and wrap party on everything since Jaws - initially out of fear the crew would prank him or get revenge for a long shoot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q4X2vDRfRk 6. The argument that a writer or director must have empathy certainly is valid, but it is more important that the material is presented in a way that engages empathy and it is nearly impossible to tell just how much "empathy" any ambitious person in the film or TV business actually has. If that refers to male empathy for the plight of women who are not employed enough as directors, that is a First World Problem anyone can identify with who does not have that job. Many women hate Woody Allen because of his personal life and the writings of Mia Farrow, but some of the best acting roles for women have his name on them. Some of us might weep in life only when watching a movie or play or reading a book but in life respect ourselves and others enough to put up layers. As the line goes at the end of The Madness of King George, "I have remembered how to seem." So an actor or director feeling something is not the same as an audience feeling it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqFd_niDWA4 7. It has been said that, "Once the script is solid and the casting is appropriate, Ninety percent of the director's job is done." As vital as those aspects are, for the sake of evaluating a movie director, I would focus only on that remaining ten percent which makes as much difference as the microscopic difference of an extra chromosome at conception makes to the grown adult that results. Coppola talks about "performance" meaning the way a director presents on the set as only half of the actual directing and the other is preparation or vision. Being a social butterfly isn't part of it. Coppola has also said that, "A dictatorial reputation comes from the fact that an experienced crew after a while can do certain things by rote" and introducing something new can meet resistance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1D2_bovy20 8. There is little difference between having no script and having no storyboards. Unless the point of excess dialogue is to eat up time and be able to claim a huge number of pages have been covered on a given shooting day. For most of us who are slowly developing projects, there is time to do what we only need time for: sketch the shots to see the movie, how to visually introduce characters, what we need to see and what is more powerful without being focused on. The argument that storyboards "imply a cut" and may cramp the style of the editor may be something to discuss when choosing an editor. Or assistant editor who can be elevated to full credit after the fact and circumvent any politics. For low budget, storyboards respect the time crunch. A look book may additionally be provided to the art department but it is secondary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egwLenvNG0E 9. Anecdote: In a system where the statistics for women in film where far worse than they are now, in the Nineteen Nineties, Ruba Nadda was publishing poetry and making shorts with her sisters using a Bollex and 16mm film and spending her wages from Ontario Hydro to send prints to festivals overseas. She made a feature on black and white 16mm, another in colour, took a producer's course at the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and cast Arsinee Khanjian in her next feature which became Sabah. Atom Egoyan became her mentor. Christine Vachon became executive producer of her next few films. When people talk about influencing cinema to be more diverse, all they have to do is look at Christine Vachon's producing credits or read her books like Shooting to Kill. That's a producer with a voice and ideology that is rare. It comes from an individual and her own networking, not imposed from the top down with false expectations. https://www.facebook.com/The-Adventures-of-Porno-the-Clown-1561237830831389/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel 10. Do some Canadian productions put ideology before aesthetic? When Vincenzo Natalie submitted Cube to the Canadian Film Center Feature Film Project, it would become its biggest success but there was resistance to it because of the attitude, "This isn't the kind of thing we do." In other words, a major statement of visual invention almost didn't make the cut because it wouldn't blur together with small character pieces that pretty much all blend together. I had the pleasure of working on a CFC feature called Clutch toward the end of their shoot in 1998, and made a point to see the film when it was released. There were quirky elements, and it is the last CFC film to date I can remember finding and watching. I have tremendous respect for Norman Jewison's directing. I have And Justice For All, Moonstruck, and Fiddler on the Roof. I respect In the Heat of the Night, and got to see Jewison speak before a screening of Hurricane at the former Bloor Theater in Toronto. But even with my own politics leaning to the left (not leaning so far I topple), buzz words like story and character can ring hollow if over-shadowed by mission statements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfZYVLRoPTo

Rape and Blog Panic Buttons

They say that if you are being attacked by a rapist it is more likely to draw help yelling "Fire!" than, "Rape!" I wonder if that has changed over the years. We ignore car alarms. I have not seen anyone scamper away guilty when a car alarm goes off. It is likely just the average car owner who may or may not know how to use the controller and shut the damn alarm off. This last half of the year a couple of blogs hit me as very annoying car alarms. One was about Louie CK's TV series and the other was about the (at the time of this writing) unaired Family Guy episode which crosses over with The Simpsons. The Louie episode reportedly involved a scene where (writer-director-star) Louie playing version of himself attempts to rape his co-creator, co-star Pamela Adlon!!!!!!!!! (animation trivia: Pamela was the voice of the boy Chris on King of the Hill; she's better known as Marcie Runckle from Californication though) I had not yet seen that episode, despite being a regular viewer, and I thought this was a disaster. I could not reconcile that image. The still was simply Louie and Pamela at the door and he is leaning on the door to block it. Well, I saw the episode with reduced entertainment value because of the misleading blog and lo and behold leaning on the door is the absolute worst of it. The episode was about his vulnerability and his sputtering lack of game in trying to re-introduce an interest she had in him previously. It was an awkwardness with which many of us are familiar, the need to be heard out, as if there is something reasonable you can say to make a moment happen. Yeah, he gave her an awkward kiss and she ket him with a wince. And yeah, it is rude to push a door closed and seem to trap someone even though realistically there is no trap. He is guilty of attempted sex, or attempted seduction - and failing to do a good job of it, and having poor timing - but not attempted rape. She ends up moving in and they are a couple an episode later. The danger of a blogger sounding a false alarm is that, frankly, if what I saw on Louie is "attempted rape" then the term is of less concern. The Family Guy or Simpson Guy "rape joke" people were up in arms about was not a joke about rape after all. Having seen excerpts from the episode, it was a scene where Bart is showing little Stewie (his guest on the show) how he has fun doing crank calls. He does one of his trademark phone calls to Moe at the bar with a name that sounds like a sentence when spoke in full so that Moe can be embarrassed after asking patrons. Then Stewie takes a turn, calls Moe, and instead of a harmless play-on-words he tells Moe, "Your sister has been raped" and hangs up telling Bart that yes indeed it is fun to do crank calls. The joke is not making light of rape; it is actually a stark contrast between benign brat Bart and the evil Stewie, obviously intended to address the accusation that one is too much like the other. While these trivial things are going on, in reality a 36 year old woman participated in a rap contest and apparently her rhyming improvisations won a contest which caused some of her male competitors to attack, rape, stab, shoot her and leave her for dead. She survived, but it is ghastly to think that such a demonic sort of poor losers would have that reaction. It wasn't what she wore. She went to a music competition and got targeted for being talented. This underscores a signature quality of a rapist: a loser mentality. I don't know what the campaigns against rape and exploitation will do to communicate with rapists. Peer pressure won't persuade them, because their peers are likely rapists/losers too. I don't know the solution, and saying this in a blog is ineffective because it won't be solved by blogs. Especially crying over TV shows when the real thing should get more coverage. I don't know if people need to get angrier. Like there is a house currently ablaze and you can actually yell "Fire!" to get any attention.

Painfully Bad Wonder Woman - 1967 Pilot

One of the worst 5-minute segments I have ever seen.  Just keep in mind that

a professional TV producer once thought this was okay.  It botches the

character completely and imposes on it whatever dated cobwebs were

tangling up the brain of the writer.  I don't know what they were thinking.

You will never get that five minutes back.  This is NOT the WW I

grew up watching, which may have been corny but was also right.

Writer-director

Over Easter, I had beer with a few high school friends. It's the kind of thing where you expect to account for the last 20 or 30 years of your life. Even though the broad strokes are already known. Graduated from Film and TV Production at Humber, did a lot of volunteering and being unemployed, and kept writing and making my little movies even while taking on a job as a security guard, which I thought would be temporary. ************** Some helpful and supportive thoughts and ideas were offered. I won't mention one business plan which might easily be used by others. But along with that came the opinion that a person has to decide whether he/she is a writer or a director. I keep remembering what one of my instructors said to me as graduation approached and he asked what I planned to do. He asked, "So you're going to pass yourself off as a writer-director." Since this was someone who might still be able to mess with my grades, I must have said something polite instead of, "Better than passing myself off as writing and directing instructor." He must have failed upward because he became head of the department. I could have also said, "Yes, I'll pass myself off by writing a screenplay and then directing it; that will surely fool people into thinking I am a writer-director." :):):):):);):):):):) What I have been seeing typically for years is that many directors develop their own projects. If they have found an already written screenplay, it is considered a draft and they will want to "work with" the writer or just walk away. It is like the old joke of producers or executives lining up to take their turn pissing on a script. It's not like I have people lining up with excellent scripts for me to direct. But I have participated in readings over the years and given detailed notes on many scripts. It is enough to know that you either click with something or you don't. I may not have time to see every story idea through to completion. I have too much in my inbox anyway. I have directed another writer's work and the process was the process. Once a script is ready, it can basically be locked. Especially after group readings and storyboards have drawn out possible areas of improvement or necessary tweaks. All of my own scripts go through that process. And once I have drawn it out and had to meditate on each beat of the story or of a scene, I can relax as long as everybody else is open to actually looking at my plan rather than just trusting the whims of the day. ________________________________________________________________________________________Being the writer and the director does not mean that I do "everything." I have had a few people offer me scripts to "produce" which they would want to direct, but that is like hiring me to do many of the chores I only reluctantly do for myself or for which I have waited years to delegate. I would be the wrong person to finance a film, given that it is mostly guard income I survive on. But I have had to do just that many times. Even if you get a producer, you have to have that awkward talk about whether you both understand the duties and responsibilities of that post. If suddenly the director has to recover funding that had not been properly locked down while a project is near or in progress, that could be a disaster. If you start revising a script because it has to be done with no resources, you are wearing the producer had and Murphy's Law is not co-writing and co-directing. There are a lot of opportunities or windows to shoot something I have let go by because now I am not as naive and certain of my destined path. But for me it is a matter of keeping an eye on the expected final result. A compromise on one end of the time-line will have its result on the other end. Each crew member is important. Each is a link in the chain. ________________________________________________________________________One logistical snafu and nothing can nor should be shot without the necessary element. I have in the past accommodated people leaving early from a big shoot and I've had to shoot around them to disguise the fact that they were not present. At that point, the best shots for those moments may be lost. Except that I was in the habit of doing storyboards and it helped the re-organization considerably. What may be lost is subtle. A room full of people has a certain energy. At this point I've caught on to how certain shots can't be easily achieved in reality. Even a 360 degree pan of people might not give the smooth other-worldly mood necessary and build viewer confidence in the project. So those elements become part of preparation. Too much emphasis these days is on simply "covering" the content of a scene, and assumes that it is two people talking. I am going to blog about this in more detail. But on the subject of writers handing over their scripts to a director, each project is its own. If I have written a stage play, I am oddly open to someone or several someones directing and re-staging it however they like. Perhaps because of the expectation that plays will be remounted or go on the road indefinitely. A movie is rarely remade. Even if it seems like the Seventies and eighties are being raided constantly for remakes. Also, part of my interest in directing a script is its potential for necessary invention and use of cinema language. So many movies are just master shot, over shoulder of everyone, close-up of everyone, and the scene from top to bottom. Flipping a burger. In those cases it seems like the director's role is merely symbolic or a matter of reviewing whether the actors are sticking to the plan from rehearsal or casting discussions. Jon Favreau has said that often studios would give him storyboards and say "just shoot this." Or he has hired the animator from Samurai Jack and the first style of Clone Wars cartoon to "direct" on paper the movements and framing of a battle in Iron Man 2. To be honest, the proper application of cutting and shooting is the key to my love of movies. MANY articles and interviews I've studied pay lip service to storytelling and visual elements but then run a camera merely recording conversation - as Hitchcock said, "pictures of people talking." Ironically, I am poised to do something that simple perhaps just because I have no production team and nothing to pay them so I will be writing like the wind and confining everything to the simplest location for the sake of. . .well not just savings of money but the Aristotelian unities of time, place and conflict. Then at least I won't be doing my "first feature" when I tackle the larger project I have been developing. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________I would LOVE to have a decent income. I would LOVE to have more of my titles from the past 10 years on imdb. I envy an enemy of mine who was savvy enough to start a film festival and once it was recognized by imdb simply put her own film titles up there - even at least one I know to be some sort of inside joke (a so-called doc that isn't anything more than an interview of her boyfriend). Much of my play and my passion has gone into preparing projects that at least were my own and/ or had an interesting element. I would be doing more for other people, but in my nerves I feel I am out of place in that capacity. If you advise anyone else on directing you are pissing up a rope. Everyone thinks he or she can direct, so this may not be unique. I won't co-write the work of others, so the idea of working on someone else' script to direct is not on the immediate horizon for me. Maybe after I've gotten my stuff out of my system. Most projects I should have done in my twenties or thirties. I know how sane I felt immediately after completing a film shoot in late 2003 and my brain felt more free to write. I got a lot of good work typed up, and some that still needs to be fixed up. I would certainly give certain scripts to another director and let them stage them and even cast them while I am directing one of my other scripts. As long as I'm not expected to pay for the pride of being a writer-john. I haven't given in to the vanity press. For now all I can do is be thankful for the people who have taken an interest in what I am doing and have helped. _______________________________________________________________________________You know, as I recall, the Canadian Film Center had its Feature Film Projects that as a rule only budgeted for an individual to be paid for one of the positions he or she held. This meant that it made great economic sense for the writer to also be the director. I know that if I were merely surrendering a script I would consider my job done. It would be all over but the compromise. So better to have me doing something, actually directing. As a producer I would be a liability because there are producer-minded people who could be going to bat for the project. You need a load bearing member of the team to be the producer. Obviously the cinematographer and first A.D. are essential. People expect a producer to be production manager as well. There are many positions that I have occupied, but the only one where I feel I am actually the best for the job (for the money) is writer-director. Even then, when directing it is to an extend acting if the scope is large. I wouldn't want some pip squeak wandering along and sizing me up and trying to spread dissent in the ranks. George Roy Hill was much like a general. Apparently so was Milius (who is recently featured in a great doc by Chop Shop). But I tend to be more quiet and hope to plan enough in advance that we don't miss anything. It is a cause for concern that I have not climbed up the imaginary ladder of the DGC for be a PA/AD, then a 3rd AD, then a 2ND AD, with payments and minimum numbers of hours on set in between. Unless I get in straight as a director, I might have to forget about union shoots. I can't be playing that game at age 45. I pretty much have to stick to what I am doing. ___________________________________________________Every now and then you will see a directing credit like Vincenzo Natali on Hannibal that you recognize and you can settle in and watch more carefully, but for most shows it just seems arbitrary who comes in to direct. The shows have good image quality, so the shooters know what they are doing, but I think it will only be taken as a grouchy position to evaluate the quality of TV directing or movies at least in an open forum. I need to be doing this more often, though I have no love of logistical tensions and politics. I feel like I am getting back into it and starting over each time. I keep seeing posts (by female directors) saying there are not enough female directors. I can understand someone boosting the stock of something they've got. But the one thing definitely needed is more excellent directors and a better image for directors. There is clearly an impatient view of directors by and large and a perception that they are all doing something by rote that is so standardized that they are redundant. Whether it is me or someone else, we need to see the DIRECTING evaluated as directing and not so much for content and politics. Some films are more fun to watch than others. The writing is often a meandering mess, which might make it closer to life but also makes the proverbial natives restless. Anyone can do it, so why am I merely wasting my time blogging on a Saturday when my time and my ind are my own? I am either hyper-ambitious, or hyper-apathetic.

terrible scrapped intro for Six Million Dollar Man

Looking at the Season 1 discs, the second TV movie had this intro with what sounds more like a "jingle" than a theme. Even though I agree with the sentiment that "he's the man" I can see that this never would have become as enduring as the intro The Six Million Dollar Man ended up with. Still, interesting to see. The song is in the last 20 seconds of this 60 second temporary intro:

Glee creator and sour grapes

Here are a couple of posts I left responding to this news of a show creator griping about bands who have denied him permission to use their music, and his obligatory down-play of his rejected feelings. Not everyone wants to jump aboard the Glee bandwagon. I liked the show better when I was a teen myself, when it was called Fame. Back then there was a stronger message – work. The Glee thing is more of a counter-myth suggesting that everyone is special and deserving of fame – especially if they are considered outcasts. It makes Grease 2 look like West Side Story.

Jawsphobia Tue, Apr 5, 2011, 1:40 PM

Even as "musicals" go, Glee is poorly done. Simply covering the acts in a talent show or showing people rehearse a song just to get the songs in there is a cheat. The premise is lame. Madonna, Britney Spears and Olivia Newton-John I can understand participating; it's not like they could be any less relevant. If Victoria Jackson had kept quiet about being "grossed out" by gay kissing, she might have ended up singing on the show herself. As for the story-lines? A gay kid is bullied by one kid, so he transfers to another school which makes ensemble is even more unfocused. No unity of time, conflict and location. And how many talent competitions are going on in that area? Good for the Kings of Leon and anyone else who says no to Glee. John Travolta has to be the best, saying he needs 6 months to relearse. Like he got 6 months to dance in Pulp Fiction or Be Cool. LOL.

Read more: http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/b234676_glee_guru_ryan_murphy_apologizes_kings.html#ixzz1IgTyqMrr

Jawsphobia Tue, Apr 5, 2011, 1:51 PM

I remember the full Ryan Murphy thing went beyond f-you to something like "They're not looking at the big picture, the awkward kid out there watching Glee and being inspired by it and Glee clubs starting up in schools." As if that is the big picture. There are a few token "outcast" characters on Glee, the man-ish female coach who was serenaded, the morbidly obese girl who is routinely also serenaded, and the guy in glasses in a wheelchair, as well as the gay boy who used to wear a cheerleader outfit and who won a Golden Globe for "acting" last year thanks to the belated reaction to gay suicides and the rush to prop-up gay as hip. Sorry. Neil Patrick Harris he is not. Sir Ian McKellen he is not.

Read more: http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/b234676_glee_guru_ryan_murphy_apologizes_kings.html#ixzz1IgTs78PR

V for Vagnerian, Veneration, Vegetarian. . . .

A twit on the imdb.com discussion board for Scott Peters the current producer of the reboot of Kenneth Johnson's V found an old post of mine where I was rejecting the show and calling it an anti-Obama tract. But that was in the earliest episodes of the reboot where frankly it wasn't a well written show. The plotting and transitions were very scattershot and I think the scenes had an arbitrary rushed pace to them. The show eventually found its way. But the thing about an imdb post is that people find the old ones and reply as if they were written yesterday.
I still kinda prefer the old 1980's version with its World War II analogy, but I also think whatever had been intended as a subtext for the current V for Version of V isn't much there anymore and we're better off without that. Subtext worked for Battlestar Galactica's reboot, but now that the Bush era is over there is not as much to seeth over.
Here is my reply to that imdb user:

Actually the show has improved vastly since its first few episodes. And one thing that has eased off and then disappeared is any connection to that subtext. Now that the fuss over the flu is done there isn't much in V to mirror it anymore. Any connection between blue energy et cetera and healthcare would be laughable. There is nothing sinister behind universal healthcare in Canada. Let alone big, sharp teeth and pointy tails to impail people.

I'm not the one with something to cry about. I don't live in America where the people who still have a stranglehold are the Republicans. And by the way Ms ALLCAPS Esplin obviously by "EVERY OTHER TV SHOW" you skip Fox "News" and CNN, which is surprizing considering the Republican tendancy to cower from anything other than their own camp. In most TV there isn't any such thing as absolute right or absolute left. Just because someone supports Obama doesn't mean we TiVo Glee hoping to swoon each week as two guys sing to each other. There is just enough smart-Liberal stuff is out there that we don't have to settle for Pandering-Liberal.

Somehow I get the sense you are not an avid fan of Bill Maher or even Jon Stewart. V has become a fun show, shocking and interesting, and my boycott stopped after it corrected course returning from its abrupt break in the middle of season 1. Season 2 with Jane Badler is outstanding and they've shown excellent taste in the gesture of filling the void of her departure with the inclusion of Marc Singer. I no longer read any Republican underpinning into the program.

I do however think that it is vital that people "kill" their idols or heros in the sense that they say the highest level of Buddhism encourages adherants to "kill the Buddha" and Christians can get more out of our own stated values if we "Kill" our image of Christ and the facts of stories so we can see the forest through the trees. People need to band together and not expect an indivual to be the perfect saviour and solve all problems. Interestingly enough in the case of Obama you mention -- his biggest FAULT has turned out to be his bipartisan approach. Had he been as underhanded as Republicans had been for 8 years and had he shoved all left-wing policies down the throats of Americans during his first year while he had a Democratic house (which he should have) then I can understand the Right demonizing him as a V. Instead he let himself be mired in bipartisanism so even his allies at the Left are drifting to the middle (ironically, that's where he is and yet it is hurting his team).

So I wouldn't say that I'm "crying" but I am concerned. More about the real world than what has now turned out to be a pretty cool show more in the spirit of classic V than the mess it was during the first few reboot episodes.

Too much free time: yellow journalists

I know I have too much free time when I'm clicking the response button and talking back to lame "entertainment columnists."

I haven't gotten around to chastising hack Ryan Porter for his blurb about Gwenyth Paltrow supposedly not being everybody's chum on the set of Iron Man 2 and not palling around with the new girl Scarlett Johansson who plays one of the villains. I expect that there are any number of reasons that she might feel stand-offish to SOMEONE on the set - like whoever fed the story to reporters. Like maybe she has developed a good asshole-detector over the years. And maybe there is a method in her - Method - keeping apart from a character that she is supposed to have anymosity toward. Even the releationship between Pepper Potts and Iron Man has tension. Why losen up? The trend is to try to "make fun of" Goop the website of Paltrow, but after looking at it I don't see it as being any worse than other similar sites. It's not my cup of tea. I'd like to read journals from her about acting. But it's the kind of thing only a queen like Ryan Porter could pretend to find fault with.

Here is what I wrote to some other gossip hound about an unrelated story.

Amber, your blurbs aren't as bad as Ryan Porter but I'm considering not having sympatico as my home page after so may gossipy, catty little "reports" even if and when they actually originate with TV Guide.

Jeff Goldblume being a TV and movie star of some note, charismatic and well liked, it would possibly be a news flash if he was dating a 60 year old matron.

Is Ellen Degeneres' wife Portia younger and prettier? Yes.

Does Rosie O'Donnell look for prettier and fitter women? Yes.

Did Ian McKellen ever show up at an awards night with a very young man beside him? Yes.

So it's not even like it's an affectation of straight males in power. There is no scandal or strangeness in an older established star attracting and enjoying a younger mate.

Nor is it all that unusual for a young woman to look for someone more mature.

If Jeff has a young chick - score. Otherwise why bother dating? The myth I think these kinds of "issues" perpetuate is that a younger lover is disposable and superficial whereas an "age appropriate" (my gossip standards) pairing is automatically deep, meaningful and lasting.

In reality, starting a new relationship over 40 years old with someone in your own age range guarantees nothing except the chance to share declining years. People may actually be more likely to "use" someone in their "league" as a maintenance date until something better comes along (in which case a lot of need and baggage may be at stake). They are less likely to discard someone who is igniting lust and vitality.

Anyway, that's my reaction to Jeff's perfectly normal choice of girlfriend.