Author, Ursula K. LeGuin once said, “There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.” In the modern world, technology has progressed far beyond the wheel, and aspects of storytelling have also evolved by making use of advanced technology. For writer, director, producer, and all-round filmmaker extraordinaire, Christopher Coppola, technology and storytelling complement each other like PB & J. A member of the famously talented Coppola family, Christopher has been using cutting edge technology to impart meaningful stories on film for years. I was thrilled to be able to chat with Coppola to discuss his current ventures.

DigiVangelist is more than just Coppola’s new show on the ReelzChannel. THE DigiVangelist is Christopher Coppola, himself. The name was given to him by journalist, Xeni Jardin. While directing a movie called The Creature of the Sunny Side Up Trailer Park, Coppola experimented with not only HD and different temperatures, but also every-day, consumer equipment. More important to the director than technology, however, was the actual story. Hence, he became the DigiVangelist—a digital, movie master with a message. Coppola’s message with his new show is simple: “Whatever Hollywood is doing, you can do.” But, in doing so, when utilizing advancements in technology to create indie movies, Christopher says not to lose sight of that ever important, age-old tradition of the story. “Communicate from the heart, to the heart… Say things honestly,” he reminds us. DigiVangelist is making strides in spreading these messages by seeking out lay people and giving them the technology to document their own stories. Christopher travels the world with technology tools in tow, meets various, everyday people, and teaches them how to use the equipment. In one episode, Coppola travels to Italy and gives a camcorder to an Italian man on a golf-cart-like vehicle. After learning how to use the camera, the man travels through the village and captures life as he knows it. In another episode, Christopher works with middle school kids, giving them two cameras to shoot a short film for a 3D film festival. The kids meet with specialists who teach them the techniques of shooting in 3D. Even though they’re young, Coppola treats the young filmmakers as equals, essentially giving them a great deal of responsibility. Yet, he jokes with them and brings a lighthearted, humorous quality to the show, making it entertaining, inspirational, and educational to watch. And I must not be the only one who thinks so—the ReelzChannel ordered another eight episodes after the original four aired.

Perhaps, DigiVangelist is proving successful because it documents a truly exciting time in history—Coppola calls it a technology “evolution,” because technology is constantly being reinvented and improved. Christopher explains to me that when Hollywood was first created around 1911, everything was experimental because film was never used before. There was no such thing as a close up shot until someone played around with a camera and invented it. The only people who were able to take part in the film world back then were those who were directly involved with the Industry. Today, anyone who has access to a cell phone with a camera can take part in movie making…at least in some fashion. The digital age makes Hollywood less inclusive, especially since outlets like YouTube and Facebook allow everyone to showcase their pieces to a worldwide audience. The DigiVangelist says he’s hopeful for a “Digital Renaissance” but also stresses the importance of not letting technology get the best of us by allowing it to rule our lives. Coppola reminds us that it’s important to remember and appreciate the old school of filmmaking as well. The new school and old school “have to work together,” he says. “One needs the other.” In this way, it’s possible to use the easily-accessible tools of modern technology in order tell age-old stories that celebrate humanity. Going into the holiday season, this seems a poignant lesson to keep in mind, whether we’re unwrapping the latest technology toy or sharing a tale or two around the dinner table.

And speaking of technology toys, I wonder how it is The DigiVangelist keeps up with the ever changing abundance of products on the market. Instead of a technology “geek,” the filmmaker considers himself a regular guy with a love of technologic gadgets and gizmos. He usually hears about the latest devices through word of mouth, or sometimes a specific company will approach Coppola and ask if he will use or show a particular product on television. What’s great about DigiVangelist is that for technologically deficient people like me, product functions and their instructions for use are described. After a couple of episodes, a technologically challenged person could easily learn the basics of how to operate various pieces of equipment.

I delve further to ask how Coppola goes about finding people and locations to film. The DigiVangelist says sometimes it’s spur of the moment, on the fly. Other times, he finds his subjects through PAH—Project Accessible Hollywood. PAH is a festival that Coppola started, which has similar aims as the show itself: “Through a variety of free contests, [PAH invites] local participants to create their own short digital films with cameras and video-enabled mobile phones that are provided by the Festival.” While DigiVangelist sometimes features people who already have an interest in filmmaking, most of the time, those who appear are completely uninvolved in the Industry. Coppola and his sidekick producer, Nicolas Paine, will often do research to find their next target. In one case, the duo wanted to find out where the largest HD screen in the world was located? Their search brought them to the Dallas Cowboys’ Stadium where they filmed a segment that included Coppola talking and joking with some of the players in the locker room. The show definitely has its humorous moments.

Funny AND inspirational, DigiVangelist is imparting both technological wisdom and storytelling insight to aspiring filmmakers and laypeople alike. Coppola’s advice to those wishing to be the next big filmmaker is to “constantly be shooting” and to “do it your way.” Essentially, don’t try to imitate what you’ve learned in a textbook; instead develop your own unique voice and eye. With sophisticated technology available to the masses, anyone can get in on the Hollywood action. After all, as Coppola says in the opening of DigiVangelist: “You’re a star.” Christopher Coppola is a true star for showing the world the wonders of technology, storytelling, and the relatively modern art form of filmmaking. His work as The DigiVangelist will be one of his legacies, as it serves to remind us all that passing stories from generation to generation holds together the very fabric of our society.

DigiVangelist airs on the ReelzChannel every Sat. at 12:30pm ET / 9:30am PT

http://www.reelzchannel.com/show/115/digivangelist

http://www.crcoppolaproductions.com/

http://www.facebook.com/ChristopherRCoppola

http://www.pahnation.org/

Famed for her pencils, Mercedes Helnwein colors her future in oil pastel. Her exhibition, Temptation to Be Good, is now on view at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles until December 11.

“It’s a title that makes me think of a Midwestern girl being taken advantage of by Jesus and the Devil,” says Mercedes Helnwein of her series, Temptation to Be Good, which finally turns on the on-and-off romance with oil pastels.

Pencils play coconspirators, as they did in last year’s East of Eden, but Mercedes also appoints dominion to each instrument, allowing the pastels to govern the grace of their own pages, and the pencils to remain in office and draft that cryptic comedy of errors. All parties prevail — particularly the artist — who destroys disinterest by adapting.

“I had done one pencil drawing too many, and thankfully found a box of Sennelier oil pastels in a drawer,” the artist recalls. “It was a pretty dramatic day in the studio and thankfully nobody was around for me to physically attack. After I ripped up my drawing and found the box of oil pastels, I pulled out a huge roll of paper an artist friend of mine had given me a couple years ago. I taped it to the wall and started drawing the outlines to a huge face. I had to do something totally different in order for me to survive that day.”

Survival accomplished, the artist continues her overachievement — publishing her first novel, The Potential Hazards of Hester Day (2008) before the age of 30 and architecting art of increasing incredibility. Her shows sell internationally and famously as Damien Hirst purchased her collection, Whistling Past the Graveyard (2008), earlier this year.

Temptation to Be Good inherits qualities of East of Eden (2009) — criminal coteries (“Easy Company”), antipodal emotions (“Jim and Summer”) — but yet is an independent sibling, not erecting the full-bodied postures of East. It may floor the damsel (“Missouri II”), classic in Mercedes’ art, but it is all grown up in personality.

Know their gaze and know the women — not as many sidelong glances as before and not as much anxiety, but more dreaming and more meditation. In The Book of Disquiet (2005), Mercedes used color pencils for finely etched faces, hushed in dark tones of shadow and hair. Temptation tears apart tradition with oil pastels, the palette vibrant and the dimensions titanic at around 45” x 60.” Deem them deities — these women — and in their countenance, read their folklore and cosmic quest, for the grandeur makes this possible.

We here at Forth pride ourselves on digging deeper than the surface most other publications merely scratch. Without oppressive printing-costs to cut us off at the knees, we can indulge ourselves above and beyond the claustrophobic brevity that is generally imposed on standard Q & A’s. For those of you with a crippling case of A.D.D. your time is probably better spent watching the latest cute animal blunder on Youtube. For the rest of you: pour yourself a choice glass of wine, kick your feet up, and enjoy this one-of-a-kind conversation about failure, perseverance and how a writer boldly chose to follow-up his enormously popular novel-turned-Academy-Award-winning-movie.

Continuing the Dionysian exploits of Miles & Jack, Vertical – Pickett’s long-anticipated sequel to his now iconic Sideways — had me alternately laughing and crying through this hilarious, heartbreaking and ultimately moving meditation on Fame, Friendship and Family. I found it equally poignant and profound the way this epic road novel slowly but surely strips Miles down to his naked, sober soul — a bittersweet, existential deconstruction of everything this man is. Vertical managed to break my heart and then put it back together again, piece by piece, and should abolish any lingering doubts whether the author just got “lucky” with Sideways. This is a work to be both admired and savored like the great Willamette Valley Pinots Miles exults over (**Quoted on the back of Vertical’s hard-cover edition**). A story such as this, about real human beings experiencing real emotions, is unfortunately considered High Concept at a time when most “literary” adults are reading about vampires and wizards. Bravely dipping a pen in the ink of his own soul, Pickett’s novels chart a winding path from divorced, struggling writer in the throes of a mid-life crises, to celebrated author coming to grips with his success. A journey that should serve as inspiration for any underdog artists who feel that time — and hope — is running out for them.

I recently sat down with Rex at a coffee shop in Santa Monica to discuss Vertical and all the wine, sweat & tears that lead up to it. At 6’ 1” and with a full head of hair, the San Diego native is the complete antithesis to the nerdy portrayal of his alter-ego in the film.

MM: I admire what you’ve been through, Rex. You’ve fought the good fight.

RP: I’m blogging about it now (verticalthenovel.com), but you know, even after Sideways life wasn’t rosy. Success isn’t like one of those pianos that play themselves. No. There’s a blank page. People think they’re going to write that one thing and it’s going to be the be-all, end-all, well… think again.

MM: So for those who are unfamiliar with your background, describe the catalyst behind the writing of Sideways.

RP: My life was pretty much in the shit-can. My agent had died of AIDS; my mother had a massive stroke that rendered her left-side totally paralyzed; my younger brother took over her care out of ostensible altruism and then proceeded to gut all of her savings in a mere two years. I went through an amicable, albeit disorienting, divorce with my wife – who won an Oscar for a short-film I wrote in 2000 [My Mother Dreams the Satan’s Disciples in New York.] So I was pretty much nowhere when I wrote a novel called La Purisma – named after a golf course up in Santa Ynez – and it was a mystery novel. First novel I had written since some epigone avant-garde experiments in the ‘70s. It got me a publishing agent who took it on, but we couldn’t sell it. So that’s the other thing: if you have an agent and he likes your work, you can still have trouble getting published; it’s no guarantee just because you have representation. And in the novel world, things move slowly, unlike with screenplays. The rejection letters trickle in like a slow morphine drip.

MM: The frustration of Miles Raymond comes into focus.

RP: So thus we have Miles, the guy who can’t publish his novel. I started spending a lot of time up in Santa Ynez Valley. Initially I went up just for the golf – uncrowded and beautiful — then I started staying overnight at, where else? The Windmill Inn, just like Jack and Miles. Then I had to have a place to eat, so I ambled over to the nearby Hitching Post, now an iconic landmark because of Sideways. I would always go up mid-week when there was no one on the golf course, and practically no one dining at the Hitching Post. After a few glasses of their Pinot I’d strike up a conversation and suddenly I realized: “Oh my God, there’re wineries around here!” So, frustrated with my novel La Purisima, I took frequent sojourns up there. Then, because it was so beautiful and uncrowded I started taking friends. Once I went up with a buddy of mine, Roy, and we went from tasting room to tasting room, cracking each other up. He’s the inspiration behind Jack and he said, “Rex, you gotta write this as a screenplay”, and I thought, “Yeah!” So I wrote Sideways as a screenplay but it didn’t work. It so didn’t work, I didn’t give it to my agent.

Lindsay’s arrest on July 24th 2007 for drunk driving was an unwanted punch-line to an already overlong joke. Before my current “glory days” at Forth, I was a cheap entertainment journalist, desperate enough to do a stint at the National Enquirer but contemptuous enough to piss people off and not keep the job for longer than a month. I never DID publish a single word with them, and in hindsight getting paid to sit at a desk in their corner and pretend to look busy was the easiest money I have made so far. Back in those days, I was hungry for dirt, worms and all, and my research into the ’07 Lohan case yielded some shocking revelations. Revelations that a sorry excuse for a rag like the Enquirer could not comprehend.

If the Santa Monica Police Department’s blood-tests of the troubled starlet were true, it would indicate that she was not only above the legal blood/alcohol limit and had traces of cocaine in her system, but that she also shares the same basic DNA of “Periplaneta Americana” …also known as the American cockroach. Such insight suggests genetic tampering for “youth retention” purposes, or perhaps some extraterrestrial origin that we are too afraid to contemplate. Either way, this information spells trouble, as Lindsay’s resilience could render her indestructible to the penal system, tabloid criticism, and worst of all, fire and pitchforks.

“We’ve tried everything,” said an anonymous source working at the undisclosed treatment center Lohan was located in ’07, “Electro-shock therapy, synthetic cerebral injections, even exorcism.”

Exorcism?

“Well, yes, a priest was called in and performed a seven hour purification.”

And the results?

“He packed up his things and shook his head.”

If such reports were true, if she was really locked up in some secret facility in the outskirts of the Utah desert region, and if she was really beyond the helping hands of science and Jesus… the question for 2010 is: what now? At 24 years-old, Lohan has already been to rehab three times, faced two DUI arrests and served approximately 84 minutes in jail. Her recent 90-day sentence is either the poisonous crescendo to a cursed life, or the set-up for a sordid porn to be shot on prison guard’s iPhones — maybe both. How long will this poor fair-skinned creature be left to wallow in such heartbreaking conditions? Would you let your dog suffer this long? Or would you take pity and finally have her put down, the humane way? Here’s a glass of warm milk, Lindsay, good girl Lindsay, drink every last drop Lindsay…

“Just look at her mug-shot,” James Butts, chief of the SMPD told me in a phone interview after her ’07 arrest, “Look at her expression. I’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of mug-shots in my day, but this one really stands out.”

How so?

“Just look at how her eyes are pleading to us. Her eyes are begging us, please, please world, please believe in me. Don’t give up on me yet. I am a mixed-up little girl and I have a lot of love to give…” Butts cleared his throat and resumed a professional tone, “At least, that’s what I see.”

The jury is out on whether Lohan is, in fact, mortal, or if when she dies she will simply implode and instantly re-appear in some other terrestrial form, like a jellyfish or a cloud. Reincarnation is NOT the prevailing theory at the local church, as His Eminence Roger Cardinal Mahony attested over the phone. As the archbishop of Los Angeles, Mahony speaks for nearly five million members when he says, “Nonsense. This girl is flesh and blood. If we burned her at the stake, she would very much catch fire and not come back.”

Could Lindsay have been sent among us to be punished for all our sins?

“If you are insinuating that this troubled young woman is the Second Coming, I am afraid this interview is over.”

Well, if God’s first and only son was a poor carpenter who partied at weddings and hung out with prostitutes, is it really such a leap in logic that perhaps his only daughter might come in the form of Lindsay Lohan?

“My son, there is no redemptive quality within that girl. If anyone has sent her among us, it was the devil.”

Brittany may have shaved her head and flashed her hot-pocket all over town, and Paris may have released a porn and done her stint at prison, but all of these things seem to pale in comparison to Lohan’s current state of affairs. She has remained in the unflattering limelight long after her peers have all but faded into irrelevance. Perhaps Brittany and Paris were mere test-patterns, perhaps Lindsay is the devil’s TRUE magnum-opus — as the Archbishop would attest — his David or Sistine Chapel of cocaine sluttery. It is true that Lohan is not the first and only celebrity train-wreck to hit rock-bottom. Robert Downey Jr. is no stranger to the Man Downstairs himself, but Downey is removed from Lohan by one slight distinction: he can act, and act well, whereas Double L has freckled cleavage and… that’s about it. Watching the verdict being laid down on her on CNN was like watching an anguished baby seal realize that the club looming over her head is not for providing shade, after all. Her pathetic balling showed signs of some base instinct still kicking around her addled head, a tiny echo of an ember of the little girl who once had a bright future in front of her and has no idea how it all went wrong.

Surely if the actress was a 24 year-old black male, none of this would have happened. She would have been maced, tasered, arrested and thrown behind bars back in ’07 faster than she can do a bump in the bathroom at Hyde. Her privileged stature has gotten her this far, and how much mileage is left in her withered karma is hard to say. It is the opinion of this humble journalist that the collective media perform a “Lohan Blackout” effective immediately. No more reports, articles, pictures or sound-bytes. No updates, interviews, rumors or hearsay. Maybe, just maybe, if we all ignored her she would cease to exist… poof …out of sight, out of mind. The real question remains: how can we expect Lohan to overcome her addictions when WE are incapable of overcoming our own? Can it be that we are all locked into some kind of sick, symbiotic relationship from which there is no escape?

Deep thoughts and heavy questions on a topic that has as much nutritional-value as a worm’s semen. But in 2010 America, worm-semen can be quite the lucrative commodity, and a strung-out 24 year-old girl the perfect target for our sins.

courtesy of Showtime

So Showtime has a little series called “Californication” about a compulsively hedonistic writer who also happens to be a devout family man. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Tom Kapinos created the splendid walking contradiction that is Hank Moody, who is played with mellow charm by David Duchovny in a performance that makes us forget he once chased aliens for a living. Struggling to reignite his earlier success, Hank is constantly torn between settling down with his girlfriend and daughter, or letting his raging id steer him into one sexual collision after another. Currently en route to its fourth season, the series has become one of the hottest on cable and has recently spawned a literary spin-off in the form of Hank’s infamous novel, “God Hates Us All”. That’s right. You can now purchase and read the book that put Hank on the map, with his very name on the cover and a brief bio on the back. And it’s not only a bona fide work of fiction, but a damn good one at that.

Jonathan Grotenstein taken by Marco Mannone

Fans of the raunchy-yet-bittersweet comedic series will be able to decipher some semi-autobiographical back-story on Hank’s youth in New York, but the novel defiantly stands alone as its own narrative, independent of the show. This is thanks exclusively to the novel’s real writer, Jonathan Grotenstein, whom I had the pleasure of sitting down with at a coffee shop in Eagle Rock to discuss the nuts and bolts of his creative process. Jonathan’s story centers around a young, nameless narrator living in New York City in the late 80’s. He is a blue-collar kid with a psychotic ex-girlfriend, an adulterous father, a flirtatious best friend and no real direction in life. Recklessly quitting the food-service industry, he finds himself running pot all over the city for a powerful dealer called The Pontiff. This new vocation affords our narrator the ability to move into the famous Chelsea hotel, and to begin consorting with a colorful cast of characters that shade-in the term “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll”. But his newfound life in the fast-lane comes with its heavy share of heartache and stark, personal revelations.  From one writer to another, our conversation went something like this…

MARCO MANNONE: How did you get the job to write Hank Moody’s infamous novel?

JONATHAN GROTENSTEIN: I got the job because of the relationship I have with the editor on the book. The first book I ever wrote was “Poker: The Real Deal” with Phil Gordon, and the assistant editor was a woman by the name of Cara Bedick. Cara became an editor in her own right, and she was given “God Hates Us All” as sort of her first book that she was going to shepherd through the process. She needed to find someone who could work quickly and cheaply.

MM: How long did you have to write it?

JG: It’s for a division of Simon & Shuster called Simon Spotlight, that generally has really, really tight deadlines. Probably not more than four months (for a nearly 200-page work of fiction).

MM: Were you a fan of the series before you ever got this job?

JG: Yeah, I watched all of the first season, and when I started writing it, the second season was just about to get underway. I liked the show. I have to confess I didn’t love Season One, but as I was writing the book and watching Season Two, which I thought was much stronger, I very much fell in love with the show. Also getting to meet Tom Kapinos, who created the show, and sort of hearing his voice and realizing what he was trying to do with it, helped develop an appreciation for it. But yes, I had seen all of the episodes (at the time) before I was ever approached to write it.

MM: What aspects of the show did you connect with — as a male, as a writer, also living in Los Angeles… any specific aspects you could identify with?

JG: Yeah. I mean, I like to think that one of the reasons Cara thought of me was… Hank and I are similar in certain ways and very different in other ways. I’m not in any way the ladies man that Hank is, or as brilliant as Hank is supposed to be, but I definitely have my angry moments, my darker moments. I didn’t have an old, beat-up Porshe that I was driving around, but I did have an old, beat-up Mercedes convertible that I was driving around. I’m a guy from New York who’s been out in L.A. for a while, and sort of has the same kind of love-hate relationship with the city that he seems to have. I’m also a recovering entertainment industry person. I found that industry to be a lot more bullshit than I could tolerate. I think that helped me relate to where Hank was coming from, as well.

MM: In the series the book’s story is never revealed. How much freedom were you allowed to create it from scratch?

courtesy of Showtime

JG: A lot. An insane amount of freedom. I’m not even sure how much a huge fan of the book Tom Kapinos is. First of all, it’s very hard for him because Hank is his baby, and has a very specific voice, and he thought of the book in a very specific way.  And having someone else write that, I think… He wasn’t going to write it, not in three months or four months. But he had a very definite idea of how he wanted it to be, and the sort of tone it should have. We met once and talked about it on the phone a couple of times and exchanged a bunch of e-mails. Ultimately, I latched onto the idea that Hank was a writer in the 1980’s, the late 80’s in New York City. The book that Tom and I sort of hit on was (Jay McInerney’s) “Bright Lights, Big City”, and he thought that was a book that Hank might have written. There’s another book called “The Fuck-Up” (by Arthur Nersesian) so I went back and read “Bright Lights, Big City” and “The Fuck-Up” and I thought, alright, if Tom thought that Hank would have written those kinds of books, then I’m gonna sort of go in that vein. But you know, I’m not the writer that Tom is, especially when it comes to Hank’s voice, so I was forced to go with things that I knew. And a lot of the book are things that are semi-autobiographical to my life, or people that I’ve met or encountered and I had as much leeway as I wanted. Especially with the first draft. With the second draft after Tom had a chance to read it, we sort of figured out some ways to help what I had written converge with the idea he had for the book all along.