TV Fest program report 2014
Aaron and I each prepare a welcome page each year for the Moeller Television Festival program. Here's what we came up with for this year's rousingly- successful event. Aaron's first...Two Timelines
Future Obituary
TV Festival Pioneer Dies
Aaron Moeller, one half of the famed duo that invented television festivals, passed away peacefully on Sunday at the age of 104, surrounded by his loving wife, Alexandra, his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The pioneering events, begun by Moeller and his brother, Chris, were known as the Moeller Television Festival, a title which also included a Roman numeral that changed strategically every year, and represented an annual gathering of TV-watching friends. Aaron Moeller, compared to his brother, was known as the younger, more vibrant and creative twin, the one who notoriously contributed less to the food catering, but leant more genius to the programming.
Moeller often suggested he got the idea for TV festivals from a conversation he had in 1961 with former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, while at a United Nations event encouraging the channeling of aid for third world countries toward research into creating a type of "clicker" for "changing the channel on the TV box without getting up", but historians agree that that claim was unrealistic as Moeller wasn't born until 1975. Instead, researchers are now mostly in agreement that the idea actually originated when a two-year-old Moeller was the youngest guest ever on the PBS version of the old Dick Cavett Show in 1977, replacing an ailing Groucho Marx (as the youngster was already considered the world's foremost expert on the life of then recently deceased, Zeppo Marx), and he signed off with the remark, "Hey Dick, why don't you come over to my crib on Saturday? We'll watch some old Lucy episodes".
He left behind the aforementioned family; his favorite shows, Cheers, WKRP in Cincinnati, and The Wire; his favorite actor, Bob Newhart; his favorite actress, Fran Drescher; and the haunting theme song to Taxi, the hearing of which he considered perhaps his earliest memory in life. It was his Rosebud. His sled.
Alternate Future Obituary
Aaron Moeller, Inventor of Nothing, Dies, As If You Care
Aaron Moeller, brother of Chris, who died unknown years ago, died his own self on Sunday. I can tell you're really bummed about it. Moeller was a nice enough guy, but relatively dull and uninteresting and I'm not sure why you're even reading this online obituary. You can go back to googling fetish porn now if you want, nobody's stopping you.
His therapist, Dr. Bob Smartly, offered some insight to this unremarkable fellow. "I always got some paperwork done during our sessions. He mostly liked to watch television. He actually had the makings of a megalomaniacal dipshit, but he lived such a rudder-less existence, nothing ever came of those tendencies. With any loss in life, there's always a need for grieving. It's always untimely and tragic when a person dies, but not really in this case." Dr. Smartly also quoted something Moeller would frequently state, "Yes, it's true I have my loving friends, my wife and family, but I don't want that to define me. I prefer my legacy be the things I might have potentially invented, but never did."
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And mine from page 2...
Theatrical star Gilda Gray started a national dance craze in 1922 when she introduced the “Shimmy” to audiences on the Ziegfeld circuit. This “new” step, however, had already been heating up theaters and dance halls since at least 1909. Gray’s was a variation on an old dance pattern called the Shimmy Sha-Wabble.
That’s all I have written so far of my rough-hewn biography of the legendary and “roaring” 1920s. I call the book “The Decade of the American Grain.” Somebody’s going to finally get this historical period right-- and that person is me, but convincing publishers of the fact has been like convincing a Sig Ep to stop dressing like a truck driver. I’ve been knocking myself out sending proposals by email, but unless you’re interested in assaulting the market with more boorish lady porn, or with another “Think Like a Man” self-help monstrosity, the marrow-suckers in the New York houses are only motivated to spit in your eye.
What I need is a five-figure advance, some of that old-fashioned folding money. The story I’m telling requires research in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Berlin. It requires palm-greasing and backscratching, palm-scratching and back-greasing, tip money for porters. My literary agent believes I’m really on to something. According to her, the book has the potential to leave a large cultural footprint. It may just turn the entire community of letters onto its ear, like when Gilda Gray brought back the Shimmy Sha-Wabble on stage at the Ziegfeld Follies. This book is to be my triumphant return to respectability, my Mildred Pierce, my middle finger to the Paris Review. La revenir de l’enfer. The pot of gold at the end of a drab and colorless rainbow.
Now, short of a holiday crowdfunding miracle-- that’s where you all come in-- “The Decade of the American Grain” will not be written. The ‘20s will remain forever misunderstood. Expressionism will fade, and art deco will be euthanized. Valentino’s corpse will need to be dug up and reburied. Women will be allowed to vote. I have recently taken to drink, and been told that I must leave Miss Emery’s rooming house at once or else enjoy only the privileges of the paying guests. In addition to spirits, I’ve begun nursing an addiction to essence of peppermint. I have found that the aroma pleasantly distracts me from my daily trials, but has also caused me terrific discomfort in the general area of my diagonal flaps.
I have never asked you for anything before, and I am drawing now only from my last breath. Traditional avenues of investment have been exhausted. An anonymous donor from New Zealand has already made a goodly contribution for this story that cries out to be told. It’s a chance for a few generous souls to be a part of history and to feel the warm feeling of charity. You may also donate your car, truck, boat, or RV to claim a substantial tax deduction and to provide much-needed transportation support for literary research.
Thank you all for your interest in erasing just a little of the pain from our troubled lives,
Chris Moeller
posted by CM @ 8:03 PM
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