Grab Bag

This is sort of a grab bag blog.

First, for those of you that have been reading my blog.  Thanks.  To both of you.

In reference to some past columns:

The TV one – add SCTV, early Saturday Night Live (RIP Belushi and Radner), Police Squad (Only six episodes, but it’s the equivalent of reading an early Mad magazine TV spoof.  There’s stuff to watch not only in the foreground, but the background as well).  Does anyone remember a TV show called The Associates?  It had Martin Short as a member of the cast.  I recall an episode called (I think), the Censor, about a network show that goes from uproariously funny and bawdy to white-bread bland due to censorship.  It guest-starred John Ritter.

The Yard Sale one – My son is slowly mounting a Napoleonic campaign to collect every old game system in existence.  He just needs to keep a poker face during negotiations when he is getting a great buy.

Sublimity – At a recent yard sale, I picked up some Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Big Band, and Debussey CDs for about a buck a piece.  Davis’s Jack Johnson is revelatory.  My son, the musician, said that Davis is playing multi-tonic (?), two notes at once.  Again, great stuff.  The Debussey CD included a nocturne called the Sirens.  He uses a female choir; it's enchanting.  Added this to my MP3 along with a ton of other stuff.

Gaming – My son is reliving his Game Cube days and is picking up a lot old titles.  Serious Soul Calibur II and Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters grudge match time again.  The latter game is cool if your old like me and remember watching Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra on your local UHF channels on Saturday afternoons.  Soul Calibur is one of the best fighting games ever.  My son’s favorite is Ivy, the Brit S/M chick with the sword that becomes a razor whip.  Nasty.  I usually play against him with either the fast characters (Taki, Talim) or just try to bull rush him with the big slow guys (Astaroth, Berserker).

See you soon!

Cleveland, I Feel Your Pain.

I think Cleveland has surpassed Philadelphia as the losingest (is this a word, spellchecker says no) sports city in the country.  Nothing, however, beats my sports memories of growing up in Philadelphia in the late sixties and early seventies.  At around that time, Philadelphia had the worst professional sports teams ever.

                After Wilt Chamberlain left the ‘76ers, slept with a couple thousand more women and appeared in the second Conan movie, the Sixers set the single season record for the least amount of wins with 9.  According to Wikipedia, the Providence Steamrollers lost 6 back in the forties, but honestly I never even heard of that team before I read this.  Wikipedia is somewhat haphazard with the facts, but even so, whenever a team challenges this unfortunate record, the Sixers are mentioned, not the Steamrollers.

                In the early seventies the Eagles had three quarterbacks, John Reaves, Pete Liske and Rick Arrington, who collectively did not add up to one third rate quarterback.  John Reaves was notable for something called the “Florida Flop”.  (Look it up.  No team could get away with something like that today.  Only in the SEC.) The Eagles most popular player was Tim Rossovich, who did stuff like set himself on fire, jump naked out of birthday cakes and run motorcycles off of piers.  Fun guy.  He made the Pro Bowl once and later became an actor.  Nuff said.  Even bringing in hired gun/quarterback Roman Gabrial (who had seen better days with the Rams) couldn’t quite turn the Eagles around.

                Which brings me to the Phillies.  Every baseball fan is aware of the famous flop in 1964.  They were in first place, up 6/12 games with 12 to play.  They proceeded to lose 10 straight and ended up in second place (This record for futility was later surpassed by the Mets.  Heh!).  What makes this particularly devastating is that the Phillies had never won the World Series and up until that point had only played in the Fall Classic twice.  At least the Sixers and Eagles won championships in the 1960’s.  The Phillies, nada.

                The Phillies best player Richie (sorry, Dick) Allen was difficult.  He was reviled by the fans (not much of stretch there).  He would draw cryptic messages in the dirt around first base.  He injured his hand moving a boat.  He got into fist fights in the clubhouse and was eventually traded.  After that it was a steep decline downhill.  When Roger Freed is your most feared power hitter, something is wrong.  It wasn’t until Steve Carlton was traded to the Phillies (Curt Flood refused to be traded to the Phillies, whined to the United States Supreme Court and started this free agent thingy) that they started to bounce back.  In Carlton’s first season, he won like 75% percent of the games (sorry 46%, I’m getting punchy).

                Anyway, things did eventually turn around for Philadelphia.  So take heart Cleveland and until you start winning some championships, you can at least root against Lebron James.

Maybe the Phillies needed Bo Belinsky "Mr. Party Guy" himself in 1964.

Jim Bunning is thinking, "Really, Mamie Van Doren?"

The History You Don't Know

Harry Truman once said “The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.”  After being questioned by Dwight Eisenhower in a cabinet meeting about the strategic importance of aiding a certain part of the world, Truman basically outlined for him the history of area and why it was incumbent for the U.S. to aid the nation.  After the lengthy lecture, (and a round of laughter), Eisenhower had to relinquish the point.

As an amateur student of history, it’s still surprising to see history repeat itself.  I’m currently reading a book by David Fromkin titled, “A Peace to End All Peace.”  It details the fall of the Ottoman Empire and creation of the modern Middle East.  The Ottoman Empire, like most empires built upon rapid acquisition by a warrior people (the conquests of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane are other examples) couldn’t effectively manage their conquered territory.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was collapsing faster than a cheap deck chair beneath a fat man.  One of the architects of the new order was Mehmed Talaat.  He was described by a British diplomat with, “a light in his eyes rarely seen in men, but sometimes in animals at dusk.”  The diplomat was, I believe, trying to be nice, but revealed the British knack for the patronizing (yet funny) remark.

After World War I, the Europeans essentially did the same thing to the Middle East that they had done to Africa a few decades earlier.  They carved it up like a thanksgiving turkey without any thought to the indigenous people who already lived there; thus, creating border s and nations that had no logic beyond the drawing room.  And of course this created problems that plagued the Middle East (and Africa) and by extension the rest of the world to this day.  Of course, I am greatly simplifying the rather complex events (also, I haven’t finished reading the book), but as President Truman once said (and I paraphrase) history can open you up to, and explain, current events.

Highlights of TV watching, A List

When I was a kid, the networks would run old sitcoms during weekday mornings.  This was my first exposure to a lot of the classic sitcoms.  I want to come up with a list (I love lists) of the funniest shows on television; the one’s that made me laugh the first time I saw them and bear up to repeated watching.  I realize these are my opinions on pop culture (something I did not initially want to but in blog format), but here goes.  If anyone is reading this blog, I would like to hear your opinions in the comments section.  In no particular order:

1)      Monty Python’s Flying Circus – Not a traditional sitcom, but a sketch show.  This saved my life in high school.  I was an extremely depressed and isolated kid and coming upon this on the local PBS station was a revelation.  Laughter was my ticket out of Bleaktown.  I immersed myself in everything Python, records, books, movies and slowly climbed out of a severe depression.  Thank you, PBS.

2)      Fawlty Towers – Micheal Palin used to be my favorite Python, but I have gained an appreciation for John Cleese, thanks to this limited series (sadly, only twelve episodes).  I even went so far as to co-write, co-produce and co-star in a thinly-disguised Off-Off Broadway ripoff tribute to this show.

3)      The Honeymooners – I have the DVD set and my wife and I still watch this regularly.  Jackie Gleason assembled a brilliant cast (except for Joyce Randolph) and was smart enough to give them plenty to do.  You can still see shades of Art Carney’s Ed Norton character all over pop culture.

4)      The Simpsons – I have the same quibbles that most fans have, that it just isn’t what it used to be; however, when this show was firing on all cylinders it was the funniest thing on TV.  Ever.

5)      The Office – I can appreciate the BBC version, but unlike the American version, it is not a big belly laugh show.  The American version at its peak (a few years ago) was unrivaled.  Steve Carrell and a great supporting cast (Creed, Merdith, Kevin, Kelly) made this a must watch for me and my son.

6)      Parks and Recreation – Currently, the funniest show on TV.  Ron Swanson, you are my hero.

7)      Curb Your Enthusiasm – This is the show that Seinfeld should have been.  Larry David is the anti-PC everyman we sometimes wish we were. 

8)      Barney Miller – This is one of the rare sitcoms that actually got funnier as it got older.  They got rid of dead weight actors (Abe Vigoda, I’m looking at you) and turned it into a hilarious character study, as the once heroic Barney Miller slowly revealed chinks in his armor.  A top notch ensemble cast.

9)      The Odd Couple – I’m revealing my New York bent here with the last two choices.  Its first season was filmed on a sound stage.  From the second season on it was filmed in front of an audience and the difference was profound.  The series’ fine actors (Jack Klugman and Tony Randall) gelled when in the presence of an audience.  Some quality writing and acting make this one a personal favorite.

10)   Home Movies – My son and I watch this animated series as old episodes are available on demand.  It’s about a group of kids who video tape their own movies.  Coach McGurk is one of the funniest characters (anime or live) ever.  Some exceptional writing and voice work here.

Honorable Mentions – The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart.  Bob Newhart is the master of deadpan.  Cheers  - another fine ensemble show that lost nothing when Shelley Duvall left.  The Beverly Hillbillies – used to love this when I was a kid.  A great showcase for some fine character actors.  I Love Lucy – Here, for it’s influence and historical value.  My sisters watched this show to death.  Lucille Ball was a master comedienne.  Roseanne – Good writing and a good supporting cast.  Never cared much for Rosanne Barr.  Two and A Half Men – Charlie Sheen’s recent problems notwithstanding, I would watch this show when I saw it and was rarely disappointed.  The Dick Van Dyke Show – Dick Van Dyke is a very funny man.  Green Acres – It’s weirdness is underrated.

A Life in the Theater, Part the first

When I was in college, I had a roommate who happened to be a theatre major.  I would go to his school productions and marvel at the girls who were in the theatre department, so I decided to take an acting class.  Ostensibly it was to meet girls, but because I was then trying my hand at screenplay writing, the reasoning I gave publically was to better understand the people who would eventually be saying my words.

The acting class was taught by a young guy who had once been a protégé of Lee Strasburg.  So it was method, method and nothing much else.  You did the chair exercise, sense memory stuff, and if you were “lucky” you could graduate to the “Room exercise”.

In this class you either had to do a monologue (I picked something from “The Knack”) or a scene.  As luck would have it, a dance major asked me (I lacked the courage to ask her or anyone else to be my scene partner) if I wanted to do a scene with her.  I was reading the collected works of Neil Simon Volume 2 and suggested a scene from “The Prisoner of Second Avenue”, ignoring the part where the character was a middle-aged man and I was a mere lad of 20.  To my clueless sensibilities, it just seemed like a funny scene to do.

After memorizing and rehearsing, it was finally the day of the scene.  Another student did a monologue before us and he was eviscerated.  The instructor could find nothing positive to say and just ripped the poor guy to shreds.  For the instructor, this was the rule rather than the exception.  Our turn came and it thankfully went better that expected.  The instructor “loved” what we did, gave us a few suggestions and had us re-do it.  Afterwards we were held up as examples of what you could accomplish if you showed up to class and worked hard.

Being the incredibly insecure person that I was, this was heady stuff and  I took this to heart, as I did any amount of praise, and plunged head first into acting. Here was my calling and for better or worse, I was on the road to a life in theatre; a road which would eventually lead me to New York City and a slew of misadventures.  But first I felt that I actually have some experience acting.  More on this in a future blog.

"No, really" or Why Al Gore invented the internet.

Back in the early seventies after the Beatle broke up.  Paul McCartney and John Lennon exchanged sniping songs referencing each other, with Lennon’s, as would be expected, the more stinging and interesting.

Today, you don’t need to write a song in order to reveal the hypocrisy of others.  The internet:  Facebook, Blogs, websites, it’s all there with the user giving themselves a generous supply of their own rope.

If you would believe what people post on their Facebook accounts, everyone is happily married or in the relationship of their dreams, have the dream job, and are just loaded with friends.  Not real “friends”, of course, but friends you collect like I used to collect baseball cards of semi-talented ball players.  “Gotta collect ‘em all”  It’s all about quantity over quality, getting as many as you can, the more you have, the better it looks, ad nauseum.  It’s a county fair and circus all rolled into a nice superficial package.

Examples from Facebook, “I have recently started my own non-profit company”, should read “I am currently unemployed and living on my ex-girlfriend’s couch.

Another:  “I am married to the love of my life” needs to say “My husband is a full blown alcoholic, who I can’t trust with my own children.”

I love when people reminisce about the past via some internet outlet; withholding and re-inventing facts to suit their whim and re-introducing themselves to a whole slew of new internet “friends” who have no idea of the truth.  The ironic thing is they were lying and manipulating in real life all those years ago.  Now it becomes some self-flagellating/masturbatory exercise for millions to see, the Hall of Mirrors and Fun House refracted back until the user no longer recognizes where the truth ended and the lies began.

There’s an old Russian proverb that says, “With lies you may get ahead in the world - but you can never go back.”  The old Russian, of course, never blogged or had a Facebook account.