Mighty Big Memorandum
TO: Wing Chun, Head of Programming, Mighty Big TV
FROM: Strega, Network Executive
RE: article about Martin Sheen in St. Anthony Messenger
As I may have mentioned to you, recently a copy of the magazine, St. Anthony Messenger, featuring a cover story about Martin Sheen's role on The West Wing, came into my hands. To be slightly more specific, a friend of mine noticed the magazine while attending a wedding and, ahem, liberated it for me. When I expressed shock that he had stolen reading material from a house of God, he insisted that there was a pile of copies on display, and that interested people were almost certainly welcome to take one. Since this friend is, at least ostensibly, a good Catholic, his identify will remain secret. Needless to say, we're all praying for him.
Regardless of the moral questions surrounding my acquisition of the magazine, I looked forward to preparing a humorous essay regarding the article. A summary of its points, with some additional sarcastic commentary, and perhaps a few cheap shots at Rob Lowe, would provide the legions of The West Wing fans with some much-needed new reading during the long, hot summer reruns. Admittedly, there have been other stories about the show in periodicals such as Brill's Content and Entertainment Weekly, as well as major (and minor) metropolitan newspapers. However, without casting aspersions upon anyone's character, I suspect that the St. Anthony Messenger is not regular reading for most of our readers, and so a summary of this article would be more likely to provide them with information they had not already seen. In addition, publishing a new piece as an "Extra" would help to shore up my depleted bank account, allowing me to restock my supply of Flaky Flix cookies. (I generally have to bribe people to ship them to me, since they're not available on the East Coast. They're worth it, though. Silly name, I admit, but they're the very definition of chocolatey goodness, and well worth the expense. But I digress.) For all of these reasons, I looked on the article as, if you'll forgive my saying so, manna from heaven. Upon review, however, I have encountered a few difficulties with this project, which I will detail below.
First things first. The article is titled "Martin Sheen: Catholic President on Prime Time," and was written by Greg Heffernan, a friend, or at least, acquaintance and co-parishioner of the man who portrays President Jed Bartlet. From Mr. Heffernan's reminiscences, I've learned some things about Sheen that simply do not lend themselves to snarky, satiric commentary. For instance, Mr. Heffernan mentions that the Malibu parish youth group journeyed to Mexico to volunteer at an orphanage. Upon reading this, I prepared to sink my teeth into a premise that sounds ripped right out of or The Real World: Spoiled California teens feeling noble about actually speaking to the poor, and manage to get a nice tan while doing so. But, alas, then I read this sentence: "Martin encouraged [the author] to let the children in Mexico minister to the teens from Malibu -- not just the reverse." For some reason, that took the wind out of my sails.
There's more along those lines. Without belaboring the point, I quickly abandoned all hope of satirizing Sheen's sincerity. (Say that three times fast.) There were, however, a few other bits of trivia which might merit further exploration. For instance, the article mentions that Martin Sheen and Moira Kelly previously worked together in a movie called Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story. Who Dorothy Day is, and why she entertained angels, not to mention how, is currently under investigation by my research team. Unfortunately, the expense of shipping cookies cross-country has forced me to make some budget cutbacks, and so my research team currently consists of several Animaniacs Happy Meal toys who sit on top of my bookcase. Despite their purported "animated" status, their efforts to assist me are rather disappointing, and thus far I have not received any updates from them regarding the identity or hobbies of Dorothy Day.
Returning to the article, Martin Sheen's family was mentioned a few times. I must admit that, forgetting my source, I was briefly optimistic that, at the very least, some salacious gossip could be found. Even if Martin Sheen is every bit as great a guy as portrayed, surely there is some comedic material in Charlie's many encounters with the legal system, or Emilio's former Brat-Pack status. Instead, Martin Sheen related an anecdote about a lesson in humility provided by his son, Emilio Estevez, while Sheen was in India for the filming of Ghandi. Already you can see my problem, because I've been forced to write a sentence containing the words "India," "Ghandi," "humility," and "Emilio Estevez." This is the story, as told by Martin Sheen himself:
"I had a week off from filming and I wanted to go to Calcutta to meet Mother Teresa. Emilio looked at me and said, 'Dad, you just want to meet her so you can say you met her.' And he was right. So I decided it was more important to stay and spend some quality time with my boy. I've never regretted that."
The best I can do with that is to think that only a saint would pass up meeting Mother Teresa in order to spend more time with Emilio Estevez.
, we come to the topic of political activism. The article mentions that Martin Sheen:
- is a spokesman for the United Farm Workers;
- frequently pickets outside the Nevada Nuclear Test Site;
- performs this picketing in the company of Franciscan friars;
- marched on Fort Benning in November, 1999 to protest human rights abuses in Latin America;
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I hate to complain, but there's a whole wide world full of celebrity activists like Alec Baldwin, Woody Harrelson, and Rosie O'Donnell, whose self-promotion and holier-than-thou lecturing make them eminently mockable. Yet I have to find something to say about Martin Sheen, who rarely mentions his personal beliefs in interviews unless specifically asked, and who, to the best of my knowledge, has never demanded that anyone else take action for one of his pet causes. It's a bit frustrating.
I will add that, near the end of the article is another story which, while not ripe for mockery, actually relates to the show, and might be of interest to our readers. Sheen reveals that a change was made to The West Wing's Christmas episode, "In Excelsis Deo." In that episode, Toby arranges for a homeless Korean War veteran to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with a full honor guard. On re-reading that sentence, perhaps I should clarify that the man in question was definitely dead when Toby planned his burial. In the show as aired, Toby and Mrs. Landingham attend the funeral while the President and the rest of the staff listen to children singing "The Little Drummer Boy" at the White House. (I think we can safely assume that Aaron Sorkin's middle name is not "Subtle.") It seems that the original storyline called for the President to attend the funeral as well. According to Sheen, the change was made because the President's presence "would have taken away the poignancy of the scene. His presence makes everything too big -- the Secret Service, the press. And that's why I like this show. We try to play honest moments with real characters." No real humor value, but at least some interesting background for the fans.
If you'll pardon another brief digression: a member of my research team (it was, in fact, Yakko) just got back to me with an update. Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement, died in 1980, and is currently a candidate for sainthood. I suspect that further investigation on this topic is unlikely to turn up any humorous material. In fact, if I learn anything more about Martin Sheen, I may be physically unable to make even the smallest joke about him or any of the characters he portrays. It's gotten so bad that I'm starting to have misgivings about some of the comments I've made about Moira Kelly, simply through her association with Martin Sheen.
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I hope this explains why I am unable to produce an "Extra" on the St. Anthony Messenger article. No matter how much rambling about cookies and my home decorations I include, I don't see how I can write an entire article based on one bit of moderately interesting trivia about the The West Wing and some inspiring facts about Martin Sheen. When I've recovered from this effort, I'll take another look at the Brill's Content article and see if it has material more suited to our needs. In the meantime, I'm going to curl up with some old issues of Spy and read them until my cynicism is fully restored.
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