Sopranoland
New York Magazine has gone crazy for "The Sopranos" this week. Seek a copy in a bookstore near you or read their Season 6 preview articles
here and
here, then the tragic story of actor Lillo Brancato Jr., in his own words,
here.
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Staying in the true crime genre (You: Were we in it?), here's a little-told
story from the recent pasts of new Cardinals' infielder Aaron Miles and Astros' All-Star 3B Morgan Ensberg.
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I'll gladly eat my words from a couple weeks ago if the "Arrested Development"/Showtime deal comes off. How much do you trust
TV blogs? The
New York Post reports rumors of a 26-episode order.
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Why in the world is Major League Baseball inducting 17 Negro League players and executives into the Hall of Fame in the same year? I'm not against their inclusion, mind you, and I have no doubt that they're all worthy candidates who have theoretically waited long enough. But let's spread out the enshrinements over a period of years so we can get a chance to know each one of them and their individual accomplishments. They're all dead already, anyway. Nobody's waiting by the phone.
Death of a lawman
In a 2000 "60 Minutes" profile, Dan Rather asked Billy Bob Thornton to name his favorite actor of all time. Thornton replied resolutely, "Don Knotts." Why Don Knotts? "Don Knotts gave us the best character, the most clearly drawn, most perfect American, most perfect human ever-- the most quintessential American character of all-time, with Barney Fife."
Knotts died Saturday at the age of 81. His role as the fidgety police officer Fife spawned five Emmys over five years and a long performance career after for Knotts portraying underachieving, overcompensating bumblers you couldn't help but love.
Just a month ago, with my brother in town to watch the Super Bowl, we flipped past the classic Andy Griffith episode "Barney Joins the Choir," in which the Mayberry deputy's off-key singing threatened to sabotage the community concert. We both convulsed with laughter as Knotts' character discreetly offered to move around the choir stand and determine which singer was out of tune, completely oblivious to his own shortcomings. No one in the idyllic small town wanted to be the one to hurt Barney's feelings. Finally, just before the performance, Andy convinced Barney that he would be using a special state-of-the-art microphone for his solo-- one so acutely sensitive that Barney would barely have to mouth the words to deliver a commanding performance. Meanwhile, a talented bass singer had been positioned behind the curtain to perform the actual solo. When Barney opened his mouth to sing, the contrast of that deep off-screen voice with Knotts' rail-thin face and physique produced hysterics, and the look of pride in Barney's face nearly brought me to tears. The concert wound up a rousing success.
Knotts made "The Andy Griffith Show" the blockbuster television show it was, evidenced by the lower quality of the seasons that followed after he left the show to do films, but Knotts owes much to the show and its creator as well for the public's love affair with him. The marriage of Barney and Mayberry was made in heaven. Lovable "Barn" was plopped down in a fantasy 1960's North Carolina town that had no racial conflict or social unrest. Yet, the characterizations on the show debuted and then aged with such grace and humility of spirit that no one ever thinks twice about the program's lack of realism. The situation may not have been realistic, but the people were-- their foibles, their vanities, their pastimes, and their dreams. Indeed, those of us in the know find it a most remarkable achievement that a television program actually exists that could be called the favorite show of both Oprah Winfrey and my grandfather-- take my word, two very disparate human beings.
Don Knotts scored big laughs as Barney Fife, screaming bombastically at speeding motorists, jaywalkers, and town drunks, but I'll remember both the actor and the character just as much for their quiet dignity, displayed on-screen during the relaxed moments in Mayberry-- the dull afternoon at the sheriff's office or barbershop, or on the Taylor's porch during a charmed country evening. The characters on the Griffith show were real. Barney Fife was real. We wouldn't have loved him if he wasn't.
Free speech without borders
The Organization of Islamic Conference, the Saudi-based religious body that first condemned the inflammatory depictions of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, has stirred up extraordinary unrest, setting off what the Danish foreign minister calls "a growing global crisis that has the potential to escalate beyond the control of governments." On February 4th, the Conference described the publication of the cartoons as blasphemous, noting that blasphemy is a crime punishable by death, according to "Sharia law."
The Conference's goal of intimidating the global press has been widely, and sadly, achieved. With the exception of a couple courageous newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer, a virtual blackout of the cartoons is in effect across America. Even within the context of explaining the controversy, editors have largely chosen to describe the pictures with words. (Let's hope it's at least a thousand.) Now the Conference is pressuring the U.N. to "criminalize insults to Islam and its prophet," and our own former president, one Bill Clinton, is urging Denmark to convict the publishers of the caricatures.
What I hope is being considered in response to this terrorist threat is the sheer practicality of surrendering free speech rights across the globe to a population that's offended by women wearing pants. Where are the liberals in speaking out this month for the fundamental right of expression in this case? Many were bold enough to see Bush's war in Iraq for the fraud that it was in advancing Western ideals and demonstrating our resolve, but this struggle should cut to the core of our principles, just as did the physical attack within our borders. I speak for my own moral relativism when I acknowledge its limits at the enslavement of women, torturing of gays, and slaughtering of innocents. Nobody should be jailed or punished on the basis of their ideas or their perogative to express them. Period. Not newspaper publishers in Denmark. Not war protesters in America. Not political dissidents in China. Not Holocaust deniers in Austria. And not religious reformers in the Middle East.
I don't post pictures, but here's a
link to the controversial cartoons. Decide for yourself. That's the point.
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Now a major gear switch, back to the topic of television: The media onslaught is underway in advance of "The Sopranos'" sixth and penultimate season, beginning March 12th. Sunday's New York Times has
this compelling preview.
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The long-awaited "Strangers With Candy" movie, based on the Comedy Central TV series of the same name, and produced by David Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants, has at last
found a distributor. Expect a late June/early July theatrical release.
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It's been months since I drew your attention to an injury by a Cubs' pitcher, so I'm overdue.
A reliable baseball blog tells us that, despite contradicting team reports, Mark Prior is having shoulder problems. He's on the same mound routine he was on last spring when his Achilles was acting up, and the "best sources in Mesa" say he looks "weak and sick."
If you read further down in the link, you saw that the Cubs' other brittle starter, Kerry Wood, is expected to report back to the team rotation in May, rather than to a second career out of the team bullpen. It's their funeral. I respect that the team believes in Wood's stopper mentality, but his arm is crying out to be rescued. The one-time phenom turns 29 this year. It's time to turn the page.
'Cocksucker' University: The Deadwood-to-English dictionary
It took some digging and the further-fostering of a now-bordering-on-dangerous program obsession, but I've pinpointed from on-line sources the tentative DVD release date of HBO's "Deadwood- Season 2." Having been delayed, due to the re-scheduling of Season 3 on the pay-cable network, the discs are now expected to be released May 23rd, just in time for Memorial Day and the debut of the show's new season.
In advance of your purchase, here's a handy language translation guide so that you might better determine just what in the hell these strange-speaking David Milch creations on "Deadwood" are actually saying...
Episode 1 excerpt--
GOLD PROSPECTOR ELLSWORTH: Now, with that limey damn accent of yours, are these rumors true that you're descended from the British nobility?
SALOON OWNER AL SWEARINGEN: I'm descended from all those cocksuckers.
ELLSWORTH: Well, here's to you your majesty. I'll tell you what, I may have fucked my life up harder than hammered shit, but I stand before you today beholden to no human cocksucker, and workin' a payin', fuckin' gold claim. Not the U.S. government sayin' I'm trespassin', or the savage fuckin' red man himself, or any of these limber-dicked cocksuckers passin' themselves off as prospectors had better try to stop me.
SWEARINGEN: They'd better not try it in here.
ELLSWORTH: Goddamn it, Swearingen. I don't trust you as far as I could tho you, but I enjoy the way you lie.
SWEARINGEN: Thank you, my good man.
Translation:ELLSWORTH: Are you descended from British royalty, Al?SWEARINGEN: Yes.ELLSWORTH: I come from humble stock myself, but I've worked pretty hard to get what I have.SWEARINGEN: I know that's true.ELLSWORTH: Here's to you, Al.SWEARINGEN: Cheers.---
Episode 13 excerpt--
SWEARINGEN (gesturing to the construction of telegraph poles): Messages from invisible sources. Or what some people think of as progress.
HIS 'MUSCLE', DAN DOHERTY: Well, ain't the heathens use smoke signals all the way through recorded history?
SWEARINGEN: How's that a fucking recommendation?
DOHERTY: Well, it seems to me like a letter posted to another person's just a slower version of the same general idea.
SWEARINGEN: When's the last time you got a fucking letter from a stranger?
DOHERTY: Bad news about Pa.
SWEARINGEN: Bad news. Tries against our interest is our sole communications from strangers, so by all means, let's.. let's plant poles all across the country, festoon the cocksucker with wires to hurry the sorry word, and blinker our judgments and motive, huh?
DOHERTY: You've given it more thought than me.
SWEARINGEN: Ain't the state of things cloudy enough? Don't we face enough fucking imponderables?
DOHERTY: Well, by God, Al, you give the word-- them fucking poles will be kindling.
Translation:SWEARINGEN: I despise the fact that telecommunications technology has arrived in town. Major changes in the community are a disconcerting reminder that my lucrative gambling and prostitution operations won't last forever.DOHERTY: I didn't mean to anger you by speaking up. Do you want me to sabotage the construction process?---
Episode 11 excerpt--
HOTELIER E.B. FARNUM (spying through a peephole at a newcomer to town): The man's a charlatan, Richardson. A cheat. A broadtosser, and a clip. I only wonder if the daughter's been in it with him. Or she's his pigeon?
HIS ASSISTANT, RICHARDSON: May I look, Mr. Farnum?
FARNUM: Yes. When you've grown a full head of hair.
Translation:FARNUM: I don't trust this visitor, Richardson.RICHARDSON: May I look through the keyhole at the man?FARNUM: No.---
Episode 15 excerpt--
SHERIFF BULLOCK (to his dead brother's son): Good morning, William.
WILLIAM: Good morning, Mr. Bullock. You got your gun and badge back.
BULLOCK: I did. I put them in that basket for you to see.
WILLIAM: Did you fight that man again?
BULLOCK: No. We didn't have to fight.
WILLIAM (gesturing to an acquaintance on the street): That boy's going to Oregon.
Pause.BULLOCK: There's a trout. Loiters just downstream there.
WILLIAM: Boy called him 'Jumbo.'
BULLOCK: Maybe after work, we can make him pay for his slothful ways.
Translation:BULLOCK: Good morning.WILLIAM: Good morning, Seth. I see that you got your gun and badge back.BULLOCK: Yes. Notice how I followed through on an earlier promise in an effort to be a positive influence on your life.WILLIAM: I'm lonely. There are no other boys to play with in this town.BULLOCK: Let's go fishing when I get home from work.---
Episode 9 excerpt--
THE WIDOW ALMA GARRETT: I'm certain Mr. Ellsworth's in very capable hands but I hope you're not disassociating yourself from my affairs.
BULLOCK: I already got my impression of this fellow, Mrs. Garrett. This meeting is how you form yours.
GARRETT: I see.
BULLOCK: Then we'll compare notes and decide how you proceed.
GARRETT: Fine.
BULLOCK: For the future point, when you tell me my thinking's so consistently wrong-headed, it's a waste of your valuable time having to deal with me.
GARRETT (smiles): In any case, I know you have many claims on your attention.
BULLOCK: A couple.
GARRETT: Thank you
very much.
BULLOCK: I'd lean more on what I felt about this fellow than what I saw.
Translation:GARRETT: I want to have sex with you, Mr. Bullock.BULLOCK: And I want to have sex with you.GARRETT: Very good then.BULLOCK: I'll clear my schedule, and we'll meet soon in your room.
Moeller TV Listings 2/20
Tonight, "American Experience" on PBS profiles one of the most important Americans that ever lived-- Henry A. Wallace of Adair County in IA. The show airs at 8pm central. It'll be better with pictures, but if you can't watch it, read the
transcript here. Tomorrow night's "Frontline" investigation is entitled "The Insurgency."
Also tomorrow, the comic I told you about, Brian Regan, guests on Letterman.
Weekend reading for radicals and derelicts
The following are some of the interesting stories I've run across this week...
-- First, the numerous hypocrisies of drug testing in our favorite sports continue unabated. The World's Anti-Doping Code bans a substance if it meets two of the following three criteria: 1) it endangers the participant's health, 2) it enhances performance, and 3) it violates "the spirit of sport."
William Saletan thinks the third is bogus, and the other two are murky. How, indeed, can human growth hormone be banned if the FDA, National Institute of Health, and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists have vouched for its safety? I still want to know why laser eye surgery isn't banned in competition.
-- The efforts of First Amendment hero Larry Flynt to stamp out government hypocrisy
continue unabated, as well.
-- The fascinating life of
Leo Lazarus ended last month.
-- Whatever happened to our all-time favorite "actor-slash-magician-slash-comic-slash-Mel Torme aficionado" Harry Anderson? He rode out Hurricane Katrina on the second floor of his New Orleans nightclub and
is now busy rebuilding the French Quarter joint.
Mardi Gras
returns to New Orleans this weekend. Gather ye vices while ye may.
Cardinals country
The geographical center of Major League Baseball's 30 stadiums is Tuscumbia, Missouri, a hamlet of roughly 250 people along the Osage River in central MO. The precise center is by the Pea Ridge Road southeast of town. According to Mapquest, the spot is located 160.23 miles from the new Busch Stadium, and 161.54 miles from Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.
That's a winner! The Cardinals lie, literally, at the heart of American baseball.
The unemployed goofballs at baseballtoaster.com have calculated this and
other geographical baseball centers by plugging in the latitudes and longitudes of ballpark locations.
Come on, people! Cheney was drunk!
It's terribly obvious. The Vice President has acknowledged only a single beer at lunch before Saturday's mishap, but he walked away from the scene of the crime, claims to have had another cocktail only later, back at the house, and he never had to submit to an alcohol test. The LA Times originally got reports from the owner of the ranch that there was Dr. Pepper served at lunch, but the same person later modified her statement to say there may have been beer in coolers during the hunting "expedition." Hospital officials have refused comment on whether or not the shooting victim's blood-alcohol level was tested, and to top it all, we have Cheney refusing to go public with the story until that same ranch owner finally broke the news to the media 18 hours later. Just as with the financial bookkeeping and narcotics laws of the land,
they have
their rules, and we have ours.
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Quote of the day: Cheney, responding to Brit Hume's softball question about whether he'll continue to enjoy hunting--
"I can't say that. You know, we canceled the Sunday hunt. I said, look I'm not, we were scheduled to go back out again on Sunday and I said I'm not going to go on Sunday. I want to focus on Harry."That's right up there with the tale of Brian Piccolo and Gayle Sayers.
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Park the kids in front of the TV and read
this story.
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Goodnight, Sammy: Only four men in history have hit more home runs than Sammy Sosa. Their names are Aaron, Bonds, Ruth, and Mays. Today, the only foreign-born slugger in that fivesome quietly announced his retirement.
For 13 years, Sosa was the big blue wall I pushed against in the Cardinals/Cubs rivalry. At varying, and often overlapping, times, he inspired feelings of hatred, fear, awe, begrudging respect, and excitement. Particularly excitement. Cardinals fans were always keenly aware of Sosa's position in the lineup, and the rivalry between the two teams suffered in his absence when he left for Baltimore in 2005. Sammy personified the Chicago Cubs during his tenure in Wrigley's right field. He owned the team. He owned the town. He spoke choppily and carried a big stick. In the City of Big Shoulders, no shoulders were ever bigger.
He shared an almost equal status with Mark McGwire during Big Mac's record-breaking home run assault. If the narrative of the most globally-relevant event in the history of the Cardinals' franchise were told as a Hollywood production, Sosa's name would appear above the title. His legacy, even to a team whose uniform he never wore, is nothing less than that.
Sosa smiled. Sosa swaggered. Sosa slammed. He was a baseball hero.
Aaron Burr rides again
I miss the old days when Dick Cheney simply called people "assholes." Now he's shooting the elderly in their faces and chests with shotgun pellets. We don't know very much yet, other than the fact that the American people didn't find out about the incident for nearly 24 hours, and neither the White House nor the Vice President's staff released the intial information about the alleged "accident." It remains unclear just how much more embarrassing our nation's government can become to its citizens, but at least we now know how much help Cheney would have been to the cause in Vietnam.
Twelve unpopular facts
1) The Mullahs in Iran will control Iraq by decade's end.
2) The viability of the Social Security trust fund is not in peril.
3) Howard Stern has had a more positive impact on the culture than Oprah Winfrey.
4) Betting on other sports is just as dangerous to the integrity of your sport as betting specifically on your sport.
5) The preservation of the planet will come only at the expense of some deeply-held capitalist ideals.
6) There are just three major team sports in America and hockey is not one of them.
7) Tonya Harding is the best thing that ever happened to the Winter Olympics.
8) "Deadwood" is richer and more entertaining than "The Sopranos."
9) Party leaders have already determined our 2008 Presidential candidates.
10) No rock-n-roll tune from the '70s sounds as good today as "How Deep Is Your Love" by the Bee Gees.
11) "Arrested Development" will never again produce new episodes-- on Showtime or any other network.
12) Johnny Carson's not coming back.
Not wild about Harry
Hall of Fame baseball broadcaster and University of Iowa grad Milo Hamilton has
little good to say about the late Harry Caray in his new book.
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Recently, I keep coming back to this piece of dialogue from "Curb Your Enthusiasm"---
Larry's Muslim private investigator: "That's very funny. Muslims do have a sense of humor."
Larry: "They do?"
"Faking It/Family Ties/Exit Strategy/Development Arrested"
Reminder: The final 2 hour "Arrested Development" airs Friday night at 7pm central on Fox.
Come walk the night
Rejoice, O fellow fans of television DVDs, for Tuesday marks the product release of the best of the best. I speak of none other than ABC's epic romance "Moonlighting," and specifically of its finest hour, benchmark Season #3. Before Maddie Hayes sashayed-- and David Addison strutted-- into our lives, romance on American screens large and small had been long lost. Sure, Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers were heating up Saturday nights for the metamucil set on "Hart to Hart," but Sidney Sheldon just wouldn't cut it for the trend-setting young men and women of the "go-go '80s"-- like me. The grand tradition of "screwball" comedy, its fast-paced, overlapping dialogue, and electric picture stars, had gone out with the Second World War. Two generations had grown up without movies like "The Front Page," "His Girl Friday," and "Bringing Up Baby," without Hawks, Lubitsch, and Sturges. With "Moonlighting," the most glorious American film tradition in the lexicon was reborn, in living color, with comtemporary style and flair, and coming straight into our living rooms.
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Cybill Shepherd was a has-been of the previous decade, her co-star Bruce Willis, a prematurely-balding never-was. She played a cool, elegant supermodel robbed of her earnings by a crooked accountant. He was the brash, incorrigible head detective of the money-hemorrhaging "City of Angels" private investigation agency, one of her few remaining financial assets. Together, they were "a tablespoon of moonbeams," to quote the product line of the "Blue Moon" shampoo Maddie Hayes made famous. Sparks flew. Dialogue flew. Tempers raised. Doors slammed. They spied and solved, wined and dined, struggled and scraped, laughed and cried.
Stars like Tim Robbins and John Goodman passed through before they had made their names. Others, like Whoopi Goldberg and Demi Moore, passed through at the peak of their star wattage. Orson Welles made an appearance, paying his final respects to the moving pictures he revolutionized. All the rules were broken. The fourth wall, obliterated. In one episode, the screen turned to black and white, and creator Glenn Gordon Caron paid homage to not one, but two of the great Hollywood film studios. In another, Bill Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" took on its most imaginative retelling, in full period costume and combined with the great works of the Young Rascals. One week's plot would ascend into slapstick. The next would evolve into a gripping character drama worthy of The Actor's Studio, even calling upon the master practitioners of the Method in guest roles-- the likes of stage legends Eva Marie Saint and Robert Webber. In still another episode, America's greatest choreographer, Stanley Donen ("Singin' In the Rain,") was called upon to direct a pair of musical sequences. You never knew what was coming next.
TV viewers and ABC didn't know
when it was coming next, either. Production was slowed by overruns and delays, vicious spats between cast and crew, Shepherd's real-life pregnancy in Season 4, and an industry-wide writers strike that impacted parts of two seasons. Loyal viewers waited weeks for new episodes. Caron's production company had been granted unprecedented creative freedom by the struggling network, and scripts were often being modified, and scenes re-shot even one day before they were scheduled to air. On occasion, the network wouldn't receive an episode at all, and viewers tuning in to see the new episode promoted during the week would find a re-run instead. If new episodes were particularly late in coming, the characters would appear as themselves before the episode, apologizing to viewers. The closest the show ever came to its season order of 22 episodes was 16.
By the beginning of Season 3, the show was peaking. Al Jarreau sang the show's theme over new souped-up credits. The stars were tabloid fodder on and off the set. Cybill was the new queen of prime-time, and Bruce Willis was taking the electrifying path to superstardom before our very eyes. America wanted David and Maddie to hit the rack, and their moment of truth was drawing near. And then it happened, near the end of Season 3, after two years of foreplay in front of millions of people, after two years of what Rodgers and Hart called in their tune "I Wish I Were In Love Again," "the broken dates, the endless waits, the lovely loving and the hateful hates, the conversations with the flying plates."
They did it. The sheets rolled and the Ronettes roared. The Earth shook.
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Critics are fond of citing "Moonlighting" as the classic example of the show that tinkered with its chemistry and blew the deal. Once the sexual tension had been released, they argue, the essence of the series couldn't be recaptured.
They, first, fail to acknowledge the heartbreaking narrative that kept us still spellbound for the next six months, well into Season 4. The failed attempt at dating, Maddie's escape to Chicago, David's self-destruction (which earned Willis an Emmy,) and the characters' alternating attempts at coping. The theory also presupposes that a television program's only mission is to lead a long, durable life-- hitting the 100 episode mark so that the series can leave a lasting imprint on the culture in syndication.
"Moonlighting" was not that kind of show. It was a shooting star, darting across the television galaxy. It burned faster because it burned hotter and brighter. As the TV producer, Sy, explained from the shadows of the screening room in the series finale, before Ray Charles and Betty Carter played them all off forever-- America fell in love with David and Maddie falling in love. But David and Maddie couldn't keep falling forever, anymore than could their public. At some point, they had to land. And they did so hard, with some bitterness and a few regrets.
But, ladies and gentlemen, when "Moonlighting" was at its best, no show was better. We can look back with fondness now, just as we do with past relationships-- older and wiser, grateful for having had time together when we each felt like we were burning at our hottest and brightest. We fell unexpectedly and helplessly, "head over heals," in love, and something is sweeter when you meet 'long the way.
The last first word on the Oscar nominations, and much, much more
I'm ahead of schedule in my film viewings of 2005 releases, but it's still several months until the CMFAs will be announced. It won't be difficult to pick my horses on March 5th, though. I'm pulling for thrice-nominated and overall good guy George Clooney and his masterful "Good Night, and Good Luck." They should be a cinch in the cinematography and art direction categories. "Crash" was so contrived and incredulous to be rendered meaningless (a writer on Slate.com called it-- the movie for white people who use the expression, "Some of my best friends are black,") but Matt Dillon has been the best thing in just about everything he's ever done. I also have soft spots, generally, for Reese Witherspoon and Catherine Keener.
This year's nominations were even more devoid of comedic films and performances than usual. Of the major awards, I would classify only Judi Dench's role in "Mrs. Henderson Presents" as comedic, and since the film is British, it hardly counts. Woody Allen was rewarded with his first screenwriting nomination in quite some time for making serious with year's end "Match Point." I hope you'll join me in rooting for Noah Baumbach and "The Squid and the Whale" in that original screenplay category. I took some perverse laughs out of that flick. Maybe we should count Felicity Huffman's performance in "Transamerica" as well. No one has actually seen that movie yet, so it's obvious she's being rewarded for her work on the TV satire "Desperate Housewives." For shame, academy voters!
Things have changed quite a bit since 1977. Woody still won't show up at the ceremony, as he likewise neglected to do when "Annie Hall" topped "Star Wars" for Best Pic three decades ago, but things have changed for "Star Wars" creator George Lucas. His sixth and final Jedi installment now failed to muster a nod for special effects. Hard to fathom, in a way.
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Have any of you watched "TV Land" recently? It has gradually become the most socially-conscious network on the satellite spectrum-- short of only C-Span or C-Span II, or as I call it,
The Deuce. This morning I watched a panel discussion show on African-Americans on television called "That's What I'm Talking About," hosted by Wayne Brady and featuring Harry Belafonte, Diahann Carroll, Paul Mooney, and Aaron McCruder, creator of the "Boondocks" comic strip. The network has aired a series of documentaries on the history of political and social-oriented programs, and the night-time lineup is peppered with Bunkers, Sanfords, and Evanses. Three cheers to Nick and Co. over at Viacom, but what does it say about the rest of our non-premium channels, as well as our corporate programming guardians, that a network committed to nostalgia leads the way in promoting socially-provocative entertainment?
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Here's a heading on today's
Washington Post website: "Ability to Wage 'Long War' Is Key To Pentagon Plan." This is why you should always read the newspaper on Saturdays. Politicians notoriously choose Fridays to reveal unpopular information to the public. (An official commitment to two decades of war operation being only one example.) The idea is that people don't pay attention to the news during the weekend, and the media will have moved on to something else by Monday morning.
But I caught you, Rumsfeld! The truth about perpetual war will be blogged! ---
It seems to me that ole' Grandpa Munster lived life to its fullest.
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I had an interesting afternoon. I visited the Iowa Historical Museum near the state capitol. They had a Black History Month display recalling the old Center Street African-American community in Des Moines. The area, it turns out, was right in my backyard. From the 1920s until the mid-60s, there was a jazz club called the Billiken six blocks away from my apartment building, at 1200 Center. In 1939, Josephine Baker performed there as part of a U.S. tour of her Paris stage act, and Louis Armstrong brought his band through the place two years later. When I got home from the museum, I found
these two related web links. If you're familiar with Des Moines, the site now claims the northeast corner of Iowa Methodist Hospital's parking lot. Cool stuff, huh?
