Watching that TV show again

There is even research to suggest that re-watching television shows is good for you.

good-wife-the-second-season-dvd-coverOne of the joyous experiences I have had recently is periodically watching episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966) with The Daughter. I bought the complete five seasons a couple of years and we’re down to the last half dozen of 158 episodes. It’s interesting watching what she finds funny, or mystifying. I’m also fascinated by what programs I remember very well (the Christmas show early on, the ventriloquist Paul Winchell near the end), and others not so much. Mark Evanier has been revisiting the classic show too.

In some ways, I’m like this columnist who sometimes would rather re-watch a program she enjoyed, rather than venture out and try new stuff, even though there is a lot of quality stuff out there (The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad) I’ve never seen. Especially, as she does (and I don’t) when she binge-watched it in the first place. Of The Good Wife, one of the few shows I now watch regularly, she notes:

I’d binged… on some excellent series… But by the time I was finished with “The Good Wife,” I was spent. No more new characters, please. No more new cliffhangers. I needed some consistency and predictability in my life.

A better person than I would have seen my exhaustion as a sign that it was time to finally read “Middlemarch.” Instead, I re-watched all of “The Good Wife” and made a discovery: It was better the second time around. No need to gobble up an episode just to get on to the next. One episode, maybe two, in an evening, and then sleep.

I already knew what Peter Florrick was up to, how things would play out with Alicia and Will. Free from the suspense, I could savor the subtleties of dialogue and acting, marvel at how much I’d missed in my initial mad dash from episode to episode.

In exchange for the adrenaline of the first watching, I got the comfort of the re-watching. It was like hanging out with old friends: predictable, but not without pleasure and surprise…

My survey of friends suggests that a lot more people are re-watching shows rather than hopping from series to series without a breather.

There is even research to suggest that re-watching shows is good for you. A couple of years ago, a researcher at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions published a paper claiming that watching a rerun of a favorite show – not just any show, but one you like – gives you a mental boost. Human beings seek novelty, but we also crave familiarity.

Yes, she points out something I feel may be true, but since I don’t do myself, I cannot verify: you miss out on the subtleties when you binge-watch.

This clip of the congregation in The Simpsons singing an I. Ron Butterfly hymn still makes me chuckle, more than 20 years later.

One of the shows I used to watch religiously was MASH. Indeed, I liked it so much, I’d often watch the summer reruns. But somewhere about season 8, I stopped watching the reruns. This article by Ken Levine, who wrote for the show in the later years, touches on why; they started, generally inadvertently, recycling plotlines. Why would I need to watch the rerun when the story itself was being replicated?

Also, the chronology of the stories was too incredible; Trapper in a story referencing 1952, a Winchester story mentioning Christmas 1951. I’ve long thought the show should have ended when Radar went home early in season 8, though there were some great episodes after that, such as Dreams.

So, I’ll catch an occasional random MASH episode, but there’s no compulsion on my part to watch it in order.
***
Lost Cartoon Pilot: “Black, Kloke & Dagga” (1967) from Morey Amsterdam’s cartoon studio.

George Harrison Week

Dhani Harrison works on keeping his father’ George’s legacy.

george_harrisonIn late September, Conan O’Brien devoted a week to the music of George Harrison, in honor of some of his music being re-released. I’ve mentioned before that my realization of how much I experienced George’s loss was much more gradual than the shock of John Lennon’s murder.

LISTEN to:
Conan Kicks Off George Harrison Week

Beck – Wah-Wah.

Paul Simon – Here Comes the Sun, and talks about singing it with George on Saturday Night Live

Dhani Harrison & Friends featuring Big Bad Delta – Let It Down

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Dhani Harrison & Friends Featuring Big Black Delta -Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)

Dhani Harrison On Preserving His Father’s Legacy. I’m not a watcher of the show, but evidently, Dhani and Conan are old friends.

Dhani Harrison Presents The George Harrison Guitar App (February 2012)

Norah Jones -Behind That Locked Door.

Interesting that everyone, except Simon, picked something from that classic album All Things Must Pass.

Slightly off-topic:

Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne, Dhani Harrison, and others – While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Listen to The Beatles’ isolated vocal tracks for Abbey Road medley

I’ve become newly interested in the Beatles song Piggies since its inclusion in a musical review at church. Here’s the Anthology 3 version. “Harrison’s mother provided the line ‘What they need’s a damn good whacking’, and [John] Lennon contributed the line ‘clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon,” instead of the original lyrics “to cut their pork chops.” Here’s Piggies from the white album.

The Quarrymen – That’ll Be The Day and In Spite of All The Danger (1958)

How to make Beatles pancakes

‘4: John Paul George Ringo’: Beatles release free iTunes EP of solo music.

A signed copy of Beatles’ Please Please Me sells for $36,655.

What is patriotism?

Hyperpartisanship, which is rampant in America, often paints people like me as unpatriotic; this, perhaps unsurprisingly, really ticks me off.

American flag background - shot and lit in studioRight before Independence Day, PARADE magazine ran this poll of the “most patriotic cities” in the United States, which was actually based on Amazon.com’s “comparison of America-themed flag sales between Jan. 1. and June 24 on a per capita basis among cities with more than 400,000 residents.” I don’t find literal flag-waving to necessarily equate with patriotism.

Indeed, I was taken by this piece by Daniel Nester in the Albany Times Union, A flag stirs feelings of uncertainty, which is also about human relationships.

Flag-waving, depending on whom you talk to, is either something one overthinks or doesn’t think about at all…

I’ve never owned any flag, unless Phillies pennants or rainbow Gay Pride banners count.I’m not what you would call a flag-waver. Now that I had one, I felt more puzzled than partisan. What if I spilled something on it? Burnt it in the fireplace by accident?

This debate turned into an allegory for my relationship with my country. Right wingers like my father revere flags and distrust government; lefties like me find flag-waving an empty gesture and place more importance on public trusts. I was of the same mind as Samuel Johnson, who wrote that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

I’m rather of the same mind as Nester, who I have met in real life, though, in fact, I do have some little US flags in our house, almost all of them secured by The Daughter

Rex Smith, the editor of that same publication, what my friend Dan Van Riper calls the local Hearst rag, wrote on July 4:

Real patriotism demands accommodation of our vast differences. American democracy is fueled by disagreement: Losers and winners are equally entitled to express and hold their conflicting beliefs. You’ve got to love a country that really delivers on that promise.

So it’s hard not to view the rise of hyperpartisanship as an unpatriotic development. It’s not enough nowadays to argue passionately over issues. Now the path to victory usually includes character assassination and vows not to have anything to do with the other side. Instead of viewing issues pragmatically, and resolving conflicts with a solution that works best for the most people, politicians and thought leaders now pitch arguments as moral conflicts and demand dogmatic allegiance.

Hyperpartisanship, which I noted a few days ago is rampant in America, often paints people like me as unpatriotic; this, perhaps unsurprisingly, really ticks me off. I mean What IS American culture? I may spend the rest of my life figuring that out.

I’d probably be categorized as a liberal – though I wouldn’t necessarily write that in my Times Union blog, like Ken Screven did – I find it useful to read other points of view. That doesn’t mean that I need to read/listen to Rush Limbaugh, because I’ve deemed him an unreliable reporter, let’s say. Still, I find no need to sign online petitions to have his show canceled.

Wish I had written this: glorifying war is a sin.

I see myself as a patriot. I vote, ALWAYS. I do really well on those online citizenship tests, such as this one (50/50, thank you very much) and this one and even this one, as an old political science major should.

Blind allegiance, though, is not my thing. Which reminds me, I know the fourth verse of the Star-Spangled Banner, from memory, and more songs deemed patriotic than most – did you know Hail, Columbia [LISTEN] was essentially the national anthem before 1931? – a function of learning them in fourth and fifth grade.

Speaking of music, here’s Only in America, performed by Jay & the Americans from 1963, which was controversial in its creation. It was banned by some stations for the shocking suggestion that Only in America can a kid without a cent get a break and maybe grow up to be President, though it was embraced by the nascent Cuban refugee community.
***
“Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote.” – William E. Simon (63rd U.S. Secretary of Treasury, Philanthropist)

Baseball legend Hal Trosky

Hal Trosky suffered from migraines for a number of years, before retiring in 1941,

Hal Trosky c. 1936
Hal Trosky c. 1936

There’s this guy playing for the Chicago White Sox this season named Jose Abreu. After being a star for the Cuban team, he defected and is now tearing up Major League Baseball. I read that he’s become the fourth rookie in major league history to record at least 30 doubles, 30 home runs and 100 RBIs, joining Hal Trosky (1934), Ted Williams (1939), and Albert Pujols (2001).

I know who Pujols is, a likely Hall of Famer, long with the Cardinals, now with the Angels. Williams IS a Hall of Famer who I saw at the end of his splendid career, all with the Boston Red Sox.

But who was Hal Trosky? He was a fine first baseman who came up with Cleveland at the end of the 1933 season. But 1934 was his official rookie season, and, as noted, he did well. He never made it to an All-Star Game, however, because he played in the era of Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg.

Unfortunately, he suffered from migraines for a number of years, before retiring in 1941, though he returned to baseball with less successful stints in 1944 and 1946 with the Chicago White Sox. Still, he finished as a career .302 hitter, which is impressive. Save for those nasty headaches, he might have been more than a baseball footnote.
***
Looking at Ted Williams’ record, it’s amazing how well he played both before and after WWII, as though he hadn’t missed a day, let alone three seasons. He also lost time during the Korean War.

 

The Lion: Mbube to Wimoweh

Pete Seeger expressed concerns about the copyright laws associated with the song Wimoweh.

Mbube1938Way back in December 2008, Coverville, one of my favorite podcasts, presented an episode, #535, Mbube to Wimoweh – The Lion Sleeps Tonight Cover Story. It’s the narrative of a particular song you’ve probably heard.

This Wikipedia post tells how Mbube was a song written by Solomon Linda and recorded by him originally with the group the Evening Birds for the Gallo Record Company of South Africa in 1939.

In 1949, Alan Lomax, then working as folk music director for Decca Records, brought Linda’s 78 recording to the attention of his friend Pete Seeger of the folk group The Weavers.

In November 1951, after having performed the song for at least a year in their concerts, The Weavers recorded an adapted version with brass and string orchestra and chorus as a 78 single entitled “Wimoweh”, a mishearing of the original song’s chorus of “Uyimbube”, Zulu: You are a lion… It reached Billboard’s top ten and became a staple of The Weavers’ live repertoire. It achieved mass exposure (without orchestra) in their best-selling The Weavers at Carnegie Hall LP album, recorded in 1955 and issued in 1957, and was covered extensively by other folk revival groups…

I always preferred the non-orchestrated version myself; here’s the live reunion version at Carnegie Hall.

Then:

In 1961, two RCA producers…engaged Juilliard-trained musician and lyricist George David Weiss to fashion an arrangement for a planned new pop music cover of “Wimoweh”… Weiss wrote English lyrics:

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight…
and
Hush, my darling, don’t fear, my darling, etc.

He also brought in the soprano voice of opera singer Anita Darian to vocalize (reprising Yma Sumac)… her eerie descant sounding almost like another instrument. The Tokens, who loved The Weavers’ version of the song… were appalled and were initially reluctant to sing the new arrangement. But ultimately, they allowed themselves to be persuaded. Issued by RCA in 1961, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” rocketed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Why am I thinking about this again? Because that copyright course I took a couple of months ago had a reference to the history behind the controversy over “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and links to these three YouTube videos:

Linda’s “Mbube” – 1939 (start at 0:21)
The Weavers with Pete Seeger “Wimoweh” – 1952 (start at 1:13)
The Tokens “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” – 1961 (start at 0:15)

Pete Seeger expressed concerns about the copyright laws associated with the song… Although Linda’s name was listed as a performer on the record, The Weavers assumed that the song was traditional. The Weavers’ managers and publisher and their attorneys, however, knew otherwise, because they were contacted by and reached an agreement with Eric Gallo of South Africa… As early as the 1950s, when Linda’s authorship was made clear, Seeger sent him a donation of one thousand dollars and instructed TRO/Folkways to henceforth donate his (Seeger’s) share of authors’ earnings.

But that did not happen.

“In July 2004, as a result of the publicity generated by [Rian] Malan’s Rolling Stone article and the subsequently filmed documentary, the song became the subject of a lawsuit between Solomon Linda’s estate and Disney,” who had used the song, albeit briefly, in the movie The Lion King. Linda’s heirs are finally getting rewarded for the use of a song that had gone through a tremendous transformation.

Kirby

As mentioned, there’s been a legal settlement between the heirs of Jack Kirby (at minimum, co-creator of half of the early Marvel Comics universe including X-Men, Fantastic Four, and The Avengers) and Disney/Marvel. A lot of fanboys have it wrong that Kirby sued Marvel, or that Kirby’s heirs are just greedy. Here’s the report in Reuters, and Geeky Universe, and Kurt Busiek’s comments on CBR, which begin: “The amount of misinformation presented in this thread is staggering.”

SOMETHING must have spooked Disney/Marvel. They had won several preliminary decisions in lower courts, and the current composition of SCOTUS, where the Kirbys appealed, tends to support the corporations. In spite of it all, Dis/Mar thought it could lose, and worse, set precedent for other creators of that period. Maybe the amicus briefs noted by Busiek helped.

Maybe I can finally start seeing those Marvel movies again, which I had been avoiding until this case was settled. First up, The Avengers.

Ramblin' with Roger
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial