Ramblin' with Roger

I Write Like HP Lovecraft, DF Wallace or J Joyce?

My more informational pieces are very David Foster Wallace.

To show that, when you peruse this blog, you are reading the finest quality reading material, per instructions from Dustbury, I went to the website I Write Like, where one can supposedly “check which famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers.”

I took the first ten blog posts of this month as a typical sampling.

The War On Christmas post and the reviews of the Walter Cronkite autobiography and the Vince Guaraldi biography, I write like Lovecraft:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

A couple of newsier pieces my life on a treadmill and the FantaCon update are Joycean.

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

My more informational pieces, politics and commerce, and the Baseball Hall of Fame and the UHF TV are very David Foster Wallace, who, I must admit, I’ve never read.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

No time to blog is in the style of Cory Doctorow, who I read regularly these days. (Note to Dan: so is your December 2 post.)

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Finally, my World AIDS Day piece is like William Gibson, whose writing style I am not familiar with.

I write like
William Gibson

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Whose writing style do YOU emulate?

The Dave Brubeck webpage. I wanted to say something clever about Brubeck, who died earlier this month, like this piece by EJ Dionne. He was a real ambassador of jazz. I DO remember hearing, and liking, Take Five on the radio when it first came out. My favorite of his songs, though, is Blue Rondo a la Turk. Also, SamuraiFrog links to a Disney song.

Like most Americans, I became aware of sitar master Ravi Shankar, who died this week, via his relationship with Beatle George Harrison. Still cracks me up when, at the Concert for Bangladesh, the 1971 event that Ravi encouraged George to initiate, Shankar says to the clueless Western audience, “If you enjoy the tuning so much, I hope you enjoy the playing even more.” The official recording label of The Ravi Shankar Foundation is East Meets West Music. “With unique access to an archive featuring thousands of hours of live performance audio, film footage, interviews, and studio masters, EMWMusic releases rare recordings and provides audiences with the definitive portrait of Ravi Shankar’s long career. And, in keeping with Ravi’s dedication to looking forward and not back, EMWMusic provides a vibrant platform for new artists, projects, and collaborations.”

Disney/Marvel, SONY and copyright overreach

I vigorously oppose the proposed “Six Strike” copyright punishment system, in which ISPs voluntarily agree to penalize their customers if the entertainment industry ACCUSES them of piracy. Entertainment media have been known to claim copyright for items they do not actually own.

I’ve long been concerned about the expanding length and reach of copyright protection in the United States, and elsewhere in the world. The US Constitution, in Article I, Section 8, empowers Congress to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” [Emphasis mine.]

These ever-increasing terms have the effect that media conglomerates have developed a sense of entitlement towards intellectual property, even when it’s not warranted.

Back in the 1980s, when I used to buy and sell comic books, Marvel Comics had this lovely line called EPIC. It was a place that creator-owned work, comic art NOT owned by Marvel Comics, as well as selected other items, could be published.

One of the products was called Starstruck, created by Michael William Kaluta and Elaine Lee, based on Lee’s 1980 play. Starstruck the comic book, which I used to collect, was subsequently published by other comic book companies.

This fall, Marvel’s parent company, Disney, sent Lee and Kaluta a cease and desist letter regarding Starstruck, which Marvel DID NOT and DOES NOT OWN. Fortunately, Kaluta had all the pertinent paperwork from nearly three decades ago. Possibly because of the bad publicity, on Facebook, at the Bleeding Cool forum, and elsewhere, Disney quickly recanted on its legal claim, acknowledging Lee and Kaluta’s ownership.

This is just one reason I vigorously oppose the proposed “Six Strike” copyright punishment system, in which ISPs, acting as cops, “voluntarily agree to penalize their customers if the entertainment industry ACCUSES them of piracy. As shown, entertainment media have been known to claim copyright for items they do not actually own.

The Starstruck incident scare tactics may have arisen because the work is now over 30 yrs old. There is a way for people who created “work for hire” to reclaim copyright after 35 years.

Does Sony Pictures own your art portfolio? Good question; apparently so. The agreement one signs “states that Sony takes ownership of your portfolio material when you apply for the job. If you are submitting samples of work you have done for other companies, Sony wants you to assign the rights to them. You clearly don’t have the authority to do that for work you don’t own, so that means that you are not legally allowed to show Sony the work you’ve done for other companies… What’s clearly disturbing though, is that any original work in your portfolio becomes their property. This does not depend on whether they hire you or not, they get ownership because you applied.”
***
In another bit of corporate excess: Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook?

(Thanks to Stephen Bissette’s Facebook page, which contained some of these links.)

12/12/12: The last time in your life, probably

12/12 is December 12, everywhere in the world. No doubt, no conflict.

12-12-12.

Today is the last time for 88 years there will be a date as perfect as this one. At 12:12 today, I plan to stop and acknowledge it. If my daughter is alive on 01/01/2101, she’ll practically be 97. I’d be almost 148, so I’m not counting on that.

What is it about repeating number dates that’s so cool? As I’ve indicated previously, consecutive numbers are interesting, but they don’t mean the same thing worldwide. Next year, for instance, there will be 11/12/13; in the United States, that’ll be November 12. But in the civilized world (or the civilised world, if thou prefereth), it’ll be the 11th of December.

12/12 is December 12, everywhere in the world. No doubt, no conflict. Unified front, the world in agreement, when the world seems incapable of agreeing on much; and it’ll be nearly another century before we’ll all be in sync. If we survive that long. Isn’t that Mayan calendar doomsday thing supposed to be this month? Not that I believe it.

Lots of folks appreciate this specific date. This is Time for the Golden Age. And it’s a memorable date to get married.

The 12-12-12 concert for Hurricane Sandy relief from 7:30 pm (Eastern)-midnight.

(Happy birthday, GC.)

V is for The Dick Van Dyke Show

The Dick Van Dyke Show was a critical success but hardly a ratings bonanza, mired in 80th place.

According to Vince Waldron’s book (pictured), which I read this past summer (I recommend it), when asked to play the part of comedy writer Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1961, longtime actress Rose Marie asked “What’s a Dick Van Dyke?” The 35-year-old actor had been a pantomimist, radio DJ, and local talk show host. He was even the anchor of the CBS Morning Show, but like many before and after him, that program was a failure, even with Walter Cronkite as his newsreader.

Whatever real success he had had up to that point was on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie. Producer Sheldon Leonard caught the show and signed Van Dyke. Impressively, and fortunately for him, the actor was also a partner in the show’s production company, named Calvada for creator Carl Reiner, Leonard, Van Dyke, and financial backer Danny Thomas.

Carl Reiner, after he left working with TV skit show legend Sid Caesar in the mid-1950s, was offered a number of sitcoms; he said most were terrible. His wife Estelle said, “Why don’t you write something yourself?” So he did. Not satisfied with writing one script, he penned 13 as a bible for the show. He then starred in a pilot called Head of the Family, about a head comedy writer named Rob Petrie, a pair of co-workers and his wife and son, which failed to be picked up by the networks. Reiner thought his work was in vain until Leonard suggested that the big problem with the pilot was…the star.

The show was recast with Van Dyke, Rose Marie, and her suggestion of jokester Morey Amsterdam as writer Buddy Sorell. For his wife, that “girl with three names,” as Danny Thomas referred to Mary Tyler Moore was cast, after Thomas had rejected her for his own show, primarily over her too-perfect nose. Van Dyke was skeptical; she was a decade younger than he was and he wasn’t sure the audience would accept them as a couple.

The show was a critical success but hardly a ratings bonanza, mired in 80th place. I’ve read that the show survived due to the persuasive nature of producer Sheldon Leonard with potential sponsors, or that the wife of CBS honcho William Paley really liked the show. Maybe both were true. Also, fans seemed to find the show in the summer reruns.

In any case, the cast was surprised to be picked up for a second go-around. Between seasons, Van Dyke squeezed in making the film version of Bye Bye Birdie.

By the fourth episode of the second season, The Dick Van Dyke Show had made it to ninth place, in part because of a new time slot, right after the phenomenon that was The Beverly Hillbillies. That second season also had a new opening sequence replacing the photo montage. Rob Petrie comes into the living room and trips over an ottoman, deftly dances around it, or rarely, gets around it but stumbles; this opening became as legendary as the TV theme by Earle Hagan; here’s Dick Van Dyke and the Vantasticks singing the theme a couple of years ago.

Despite changing writers (which would include Garry Marshall, later of Happy Days fame) and directors, the show ran five successful seasons, the perfect blend of work and home life. It is one of only two complete series I own on DVD, the other being The Twilight Zone. Interestingly each show has someone from Binghamton, TZ host/creator Rod Serling, of course; and Richard Deacon, who played put-upon brother-in-law of Alan Brady/producer of his TV show, Mel Cooley. Reiner himself would have the occasional role of Brady.

Notable episodes in season 2 included the one I remember the best, What’s In A Middle Name, when young Ritchie Petrie (Larry Mathews) discovers why his middle name is Rosebud; and It May Look Like a Walnut, which involves Laura body surfing on a wave of walnuts, discussed in In Praise Of Laura Petrie’s… capri pants. Walnut was ranked at #8 on TV Guide’s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. After that season, Van Dyke costarred in the movie Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews.

One of the funniest episodes of the whole series was “That’s My Boy?”, the season opener for season three; the full script appears in the book The Dick Van Dyke Show: Anatomy of a Classic by Weissman and Sanders (1983). Also, read what Ken Levine wrote about the episode 100 Terrible Hours.

Hope you can watch all the shows here. I’m in the midst of rewatching them at home, but I’ve only gotten through the first six episodes of Season 1 plus Head of the Family.

Dick Van Dyke went on to do other television (notably Diagnosis: Murder, with his son Barry) and movies, but the Dick Van Dyke Show is certainly a highlight in his long career, in which he has received a Tony, a Grammy, and five Emmys. He will receive the Screen Actors Guild’s Life Achievement Award on January 27, 2013. Van Dyke is the artist of the cast drawing above, which appears in the DVDS DVD set.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Book Review: A Reporter’s Life by Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite as a morning show newsreader had dialogues with a lion puppet and Dick van Dyke.

At some point a year or two ago, I bought a whole bunch of books for not very much money; can’t remember where. They sat on my bookshelf en masse, all but untouched until I got into this recent reading binge. First up had to be the 1996 autobiography of Walter Cronkite (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009), for he was my all-time favorite news anchor.

The early chapters, about him growing up in Kansas City and later Houston, I found to be a bit bloodless, even as he tells about murderous racism. It seemed very “that’s the way it was.” His World War II retelling was somewhat livelier. When he described being stationed in Moscow for CBS News, he realized “how effective lies can be when the truth is suppressed,” so that his Russian driver was convinced that the Soviets had invented baseball and the Jeep.

When he gets to the issue of television, though, he lets his personality, and his opinions, shine through. He believes that the press’s focus on the “sizzle rather than the steak” of politics created a cynicism that resulted in an “international embarrassment” of low voter participation.

During Cronkite’s tenure as the anchor, US government officials were looking for the network to take a more supportive role toward the Vietnam war. He replied, “It is not the journalist’s job to be patriotic. How can patriotism be determined anyway? Is patriotism simply agreeing unquestioningly with every action of one’s government? Or might we define patriotism as having the courage to speak and act on those principles one thinks are best for the country…?”

My favorite parts of the book are the insights about the early days of television, where folks established in radio and print figuring out the new medium, including his tenure as a morning show newsreader having dialogues with a lion puppet and Dick Van Dyke. Later, he recognizes that he had become an “800-pound gorilla” of news trying not to upstage his news colleagues. When he retired, he developed disgust with the new CBS News ownership of the early 1980s over its concern with profits over content.

Of course, he tells about reporting the important events of the times, including the John Kennedy assassination and the landing on the moon. He namechecks his college physics teacher, who would be amazed how well Cronkite explained the technical aspects of the space missions.

I think that the state of television news, from the time he wrote this book until he died, must have filled him with despair for his chosen profession. Still, it was a most interesting read by a most stellar individual.