Funny things happeninging...

Interesting day. Well, aside from work, which was its usual uninteresting self.

Late Tuesday evening, I was contacted by somebody from 'Superheroes Anonymous', which seems to be a league of Real Life Superheroes - and for those of you who haven't heard about this phenomenon yet, the term refers to a special breed of folks who actually condone and practice the habit of going out in public, dressed to the nines in their best spandex, etc., to help people, fight crime, rescue kittens, etc. While not actively denounced by police, these folks are generally forbidden to carry anything more powerful than a can of pepper spray. Most of them put themselves in more danger than the folks they're trying to protect.

OK, now that you have the background, here's the setup. One of the organizers of this league, Ben Goldman, wrote me on MySpace about getting involved with his project as a 'supervillain'. Ben and his crew had been shooting a documentary about their illustrious league, and apparently this project has since landed in the hands of MTV Networks, who are developing a reality TV show around the characters and concepts (apparently they believe they can do better than Stan Lee & Sci Fi Channel's 'Who Wants To Be A Superhero' from last year, and after suffering through viewing that show myself, I can give them the benefit of THAT doubt.) Anyway, 'supervillain' is a role that ol' Pinkerton can play with ease, and I'd almost always welcome the opportunity to get paid for some screen time promoting the band; however, a few unanswered questions remained.

Ben called me this morning to set up a conference call Wednesday afternoon. After assuring me that MTV had really changed a lot, wasn't out to screw anybody these days, and wanted a quality show, etc. he gave me the details and we signed off until the afternoon.

At 2pm, I got on the conference call and was introduced to the MTV producers (at no point did they ask me to keep mum or hold to a nondisclosure agreement, and so I'm blogging this!) They seemed the standard confused, condescending Hollywood types, and I played along with them for a while to scope out what they had to offer. At first they seemed intrigued by me... they clumsily explained that they wanted a villain to take down their superheroes (hmmm, another 'attrition' type reality show setup. Joy.) I asked them several times where the dividing line would be between reality and fantasy on this show, and they were pretty much unable to pin it down... apparently they themselves are confused about their show's structure at this point.

But I could hear crests falling as it slowly dawned on them that I wasn't 'living it' like so many of these costumed do-gooders; I explained that I was an entertainer, that my own group was contructed as a vehicle for music and comedy, and that my participation in this project would necessarily be without relinquishing any character rights (which Ben insisted was a baseline necessity of everybody else's participation too, BTW. Weird!) Oh, and my participation would also be contingent upon the ability to promote my music. It also came out that they had confused the Consortium of Genius with a bunch called the Consortium of Evil. Heh. Looks pretty humorous, but it couldn't be farther from what I'm doing (or at least it had better stay that way! I bet they ripped off our name after the 'Bad Horse' contest last fall.)

We got the pleasantries out of the way and they thanked me for talking with them, saying they'd be in touch. My impression of the whole thing - ridiculous, with the promise of more bad TV to come, and another peek inside the travesty that is the entertainment industry machine. There's something to be said about producers that just don't get the hot new property that they're attempting to exploit! I could dissect this six ways to Sunday, but when it comes down to it, I suspect that Ben and the rest of these well-meaning folks are going to end up a bunch of patsies embarrassing themselves in what was undoubtedly pitched as 'Jackass with a Cape'.

Uhhh... I think I'll pass.