television Archives - Page 24 of 43

The struggle is long, and its path uneven

Kentucky is arguing a philosophy that was struck down by SCOTUS nearly 50 years ago.

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook about some local bit of bigotry; there are so many, I can’t keep track. At some level, I become a tad inured, which I reckon is not a good thing. Still, these news stories caught my attention.

ITEM: Tom Cotton Says Critics Of Indiana Should Get ‘Perspective,’ Be Thankful State Doesn’t Execute Gays. It’s amazing! Before he organized that letter that was signed by 47 Republican senators that was sent to Iran during the US government’s negotiations with that country, I didn’t even know who he was.

Now I do recognize the name and face of the freshman senator from Arkansas, but not for any good or noble reasons.

BTW, that so-called Religious Freedom Indiana law was well explained on FOX News. Seriously

ITEM: Lawyers for the state of Kentucky actually put this in legal papers:
“Kentucky’s marriage laws are not facially discriminatory to gays and lesbians based upon their sexual orientation. Kentucky’s marriage laws treat homosexuals and heterosexuals the same and are facially neutral. Men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are free to marry persons of the opposite sex under Kentucky law, and men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, cannot marry persons of the same sex under Kentucky law.”

Seriously, I laughed out loud. It was because they were using the exact same structure of an argument as was used by courts in the mid-1960s when trying to uphold rules against mixed-race marriage. “Because its miscegenation statutes punish equally both the white and the Negro participants in an interracial marriage, these statutes, despite their reliance on racial classifications, do not constitute an invidious discrimination based upon race.”

On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled, in Loving v. Virginia, that the anti-miscegenation laws of Virginia and 15 other states were unconstitutional. Kentucky is arguing a philosophy that was struck down by SCOTUS nearly 50 years ago. This is not just bigoted thinking, it’s bad lawyering.

ITEM: There is a strong relationship between having higher income inequality in a community and the life expectancy of the people who live there. Moreover, that income inequality in the United States is far greater than most people realize.

And one of the WORST places is the Albany, NY metro, which ranked last in US for black children’s healthy development, according to a front-page story in the Times Union on April 2.

ITEM: Two school districts in Kansas announced that the academic year would end early because they lack sufficient funding to keep the schools open.

“The school closures are just the latest in a series of drastic measures that Kansas public services have been forced to take in recent years, as [Governor Sam ] Brownback’s radical tax cuts have drained state coffers of much-needed revenue.” AND he was re-elected in 2014 by four percentage points.

ITEM: If You Don’t Have a Smart Phone, You Don’t Exist – At Least, Not According to Hollywood. Subtitle: “In TV and film, the idea that only bad guys have flip phones is making the tech divide even wider.”

As my friend Alan noted, “When only poor people and villains are depicted as having non-smartphones, it’s sending a message that I think is probably harmful in the long term. I noticed Reddington [the amoral lead character played by James Spader] was using a burner flip phone last night on The Blacklist. Would not have noticed if I hadn’t read the article.”

ITEM: Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaire Koch Brothers. This is not a particular surprise to me. “In 2002, the Kochs and tobacco-backed CSE designed and made public the first Tea Party Movement website under the web address www.usteaparty.com;” THAT I did not know.

ITEM: Noam Chomsky on the Roots of American Racism.
“It’s easy to rattle off the usual answers: education, exploring and addressing the sources of the malady, joining together in common enterprises — labor struggles have been an important case — and so on. The answers are right and have achieved a lot. Racism is far from eradicated, but it is not what it was not very long ago, thanks to such efforts. It’s a long, hard road. No magic wand, as far as I know.”

November Rambling: Eddie, the Renaissance Geek, turns 50; Jaquandor’s book now available for purchase

The official video for Cuts Like a Winter by Rebecca Jade and the Cold Fact

John Oliver’s Complicated Fun Connects for HBO. Perhaps John Oliver Is Outdoing The Daily Show and Colbert. In any case, Yet Another Study Shows US Satire Programs Do A Better Job Informing Viewers Than Actual News Outlets.

The Motion Picture Academy chose to bestow a special award to Harry Belafonte, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. “Belafonte’s remarks offer both a pointed and powerful rebuke of Hollywood’s past and a stirring inducement to continue the industry’s more recent progress on human rights issues.”

Re the Ferguson protests, which I saw described as “mind-bogglingly incomprehensible”: It’s Incredibly Rare For A Grand Jury To Do What Ferguson’s Just Did, as even Antonin Scalia could tell you. So Mark Evanier’s thoughts largely echo mine. Related: video showing the moments leading up to the fatal shooting by police of a 22-year-old Saratoga Springs, Utah man, Darrien Hunt.

6 Things You Might Not Think Are Harassment But Definitely Are (BECAUSE APPARENTLY WE NEED TO CLEAR A FEW THINGS UP).

Eddie, the Renaissance Geek turns 50 this month and deals with melanoma on his birthday AND a disappointing Election Day with amazing good humor. No brain cancer, but there is cancer in the liver. Here’s a piece about the Purple Power Port. Insight into how Eddie’s brain works.

Why your brain loves rewards and how playing an instrument benefits your brain.

Jaquandor’s book STARDANCER is available for purchase. Now he’s off working on the next one. Please note, the book will NOT be available in all of these formats!

The Unbelievable Skepticism of the Amazing Randi, Uri Geller’s archrival.

I thought the Grimm fairy tales I own were rather grim, but the Grimm brothers’ fairytales have blood and horror restored in new translation. Also, fairy tale truths revealed.

Rise of the “Dones” at church.

Dustbury notes Kickstarter duds and password rules.

8 things you should never feed to cats and dogs. Such as chocolate, which we’re running out of, anyway.

Stamping Out Danger and a spy needed a perfect passport — down to the staples.

On Veterans Day, Marvel Comics saluted Jack Kirby… for his military service.

New Bill Watterson comic because we can’t have enough Bill Watterson.

Someone was doing a search for sources of vinyl records and discovered this image. “Damn, if Sonny Rollins doesn’t have a doppelganger right here at Corporate Woods.”

The Science Behind Why Some People Can Sing And Others Can’t.

Nice piece about Grace, who sings in my church choir.

The song Boy in the Bubble irritates me. More correctly, the fact that the 12″ version [LISTEN] hasn’t appeared on any Paul Simon album that I’m aware of bugs me. The only version I have I copied onto a cassette from a friend’s 12″.

The official video for Cuts Like a Winter by Rebecca Jade and the Cold Fact. Also, Bang Bang (Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj) cover by Siren’s Crush, featuring Rebecca Jade (the first niece).

Music by Jayne Mansfield, backed by Jimi Hendrix.

When some network news program comes back from the break playing some old song, there’s a good chance the artist has died. Such was the case for Jimmy Ruffin.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Dolly Parton has long been an icon to the gay community.

You know it’s All About That Baste and All About That Base (No Acid). This has become a cottage industry!

Elvis Costello goes grocery shopping, 1978.

Elvis Presley is dead, but how did he die?

Fans of music who like to flatly say U2 is no longer relevant need to define what they mean by that.

The Crosby, Stills and Nash cover photo. As opposed to Famous Album Cover Photos Uncropped to Reveal ‘The Bigger Picture’.

Remembering the pugilistic power of Rod Serling on the Twilight Zone.

A story about Welcome Back, Kotter’s John Sylvester-White who played the cranky school principal, Mr. Woodman.

Noel Neill is 95. Here are pictures from an earlier time.

It’s a floor wax AND a credit card.

Muppet galore: Quongo and Roosevelt Franklin (who I LOVED) and Frazzle and Gonzo’s enlightenment and Cookie Monster and John Oliver and clap, clap, clap. Also, “Sesame Street has a series online called Welcome to the Furchester Hotel, which is British but also features Elmo and Cookie Monster. It’s cute, and there’s a new 11-minute episode each Friday.”

Unlock the Secrets of your Poop.

GOOGLE ALERT (me)

A whale of a tale. Hat tip to Mr. Frog.

GOOGLE ALERT (not me)

Hanceville to seek a $160K grant for firefighter equipment. “Fire Chief Roger Green asked the council to approve applying for $159,547.76 through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program. The Cullman County Economic Development agency will write the grant for the fire department, Green said.” This is in Alabama, BTW.

37th Annual Kennedy Center Honors

I’m sure I first heard The Police on WQBK-FM, my favorite radio station in 1979.

I’m on the record being a real sucker for the Kennedy Center Honors, an “awards show” like no other. Five legendary performers get to sit with the President and First Lady and watch others honor them by singing their songs, saying their words, and the like, with the performers, kept secret from the honorees until the curtain opens. The event will be recorded Sunday, December 7, 2014, and broadcast on CBS-TV on December 30, 2014, at 9:00-11:00 p.m., ET/PT. This year’s honorees, like most years, features four people I know quite well, and one, I must say, who is unfamiliar to me.

The one is Patricia McBride, “renowned American ballerina.” However, my wife has seen her perform when the New York City Ballet would perform at the Saratoga Performing Art Center.
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Barack Obama famously sang Let’s Get Together by Al Green; expect a mention of that fact. The running joke I’ve had is that Al Green is my cousin, “cousin Al,” but I stopped because people actually believed me. He was born Albert Greene, but “corrected” the spelling later. If I were to sing karaoke, I might pick Take Me To the River, but it’d be more like the Talking Heads’ version because I can’t sing like cousin Al. (There, I did it again!)

The back catalog of Hi Records, Al’s label, was distributed for a time by Motown, which explains how an Al Green song ended up on a Motown compilation I own.

Need to LISTEN to:
Tired of Being Alone
Let’s Get Together
Take Me To the River
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When I was watching Bosom Buddies, starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari, I had no idea that the former was going to become a huge star. What have I seen him in? Splash, Nothing in Common, Dragnet, Big, Punchline, A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, That Thing You Do!, You’ve Got Mail, The Green Mile, Cast Away, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, Charlie Wilson’s War, and Saving Mr. Banks. I’ve heard him as Woody in three Toy Story movies, plus the TV episode Toy Story of Terror.

I remember watching him on some late-night show talking about the Johnny Seven OMA (One Man Army) toy gun, which I used to have when I was a kid, which oddly endeared him to me.

WATCH:
There’s No Crying in Baseball – from A League of Their Own
Houston, We Have a Problem – from Apollo 13
La Mamma Morta – from Philadelphia
***
I have only a vague recollection of Lily Tomlin before her breakthrough appearances on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, starting in 1969, where Ernestine the telephone operator, and Edith Ann, the six-year-old in the massive big rocking chair, came to prominence. But I’ve watched her regularly ever since, from her comedy specials to Nashville, Nine to Five, All of Me, The Player, I Heart Huckabees, and A Prairie Home Companion.

She had supporting roles on TV shows such as Murphy Brown and The West Wing. Go to YouTube and put in “magic school bus full episodes” to listen to her voice as the awesome teacher, Ms. Frizzle

According to the bio, “she is the recipient of numerous honors, including the 2003 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, and two Peabody Awards.”

WATCH:
Violet and the boss in 9 to 5
Edith Ann’s sandwich from Sesame Street
The soul transference scene from ALL OF ME
My Minnesota Home – A Prairie Home Companion
Texas Monthly Talks: Lily Tomlin
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I’m sure I first heard The Police on WQBK-FM in the Albany area, which was my favorite radio station in 1979. The bass player, lead singer, and principal songwriter was a guy with the unlikely name of Sting. I bought all their albums, twice, actually, since their CD box set included the albums plus rarities.

I still have his first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles from 1985, but I’ve gotten more than a few of his subsequent albums on CD. One of his best songs, I Hung My Head, got covered by Johnny Cash, and that became the definitive version of the song.

LISTEN to:
Roxanne- the Police
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic – the Police
I Hung My Head
We’ll Be Together
When We Dance

The Bill Cosby disintegration

The Cosby Show helped to redefine, for a while, what black people on TV were like.

Kennedy Center Honors winner Bill Cosby (1998)

Mark Evanier was right when he wrote: “You can kind of tell Bill Cosby is in serious trouble because the photos of him have all gone from looking like” the Cosby of thirty or forty years ago “to looking like” the 77-year-old man that he is. “Much the same change has occurred in a lot of minds.”

Bill Cosby was someone I looked to, not just because I found him funny. Though I did find his stories hilarious, especially on his comedy albums of the mid-1960s.

He was, at least as a public figure, a decent person, supportive of education in particular, for which he received a Ph.D. It’d be difficult to overstate the importance of his role on the TV show I Spy. I suggest that he was as significant an entertainer, and specifically a black performer, as Harry Belafonte or Sidney Poitier.

I enjoyed the Bill Cosby Show, where he played a teacher. His role as a doctor, husband, and father with an upwardly mobile family on the Cosby Show helped to redefine, for a while, what black people on TV were like.

While I barely care what the Duggar family, or that Duck Dynasty guy, or someone from Honey Boo Boo, or Kirk Cameron say or do, Bill Cosby engendered a lot of goodwill. Heck, he could sell us Jello pudding.

So these accusations of rape are increasingly credible, with story after story of similar detail.

One can ask why there were hints and allegations going back years, yet no charges were filed, and the statute of limitations has passed. It’s reasonable to assume it was from the horrible embarrassment the women would likely have gone through. As proof, note the verbal abuse the accusers are currently experiencing.

As The Atlantic put it: “Lacking physical evidence, adjudicating rape accusations is a murky business for journalists. But believing Bill Cosby does not require you to take one person’s word over another—it requires you take one person’s word over 15 others.”

Or as Cynthia Tucker put it: “Cliff Huxtable And Bill Cosby Are No Longer The Same Man.” And quite possibly, never were.
***
Dirty little open secrets: How the Jian Ghomeshi scandal helped turn the tide against Bill Cosby.

Mike Nichols

I found out about Mike Nichols’ death because my TV was possessed.

I don’t what surprised me more: that our college undergraduate intern knew who Mike Nichols was (he’s a film buff and LOVES The Graduate) or a guy I know in this thirties who knows a lot of stuff but didn’t recognize the name.

When I was growing up, it seemed that Mike Nichols and Elaine May were on the TV talk shows and variety shows all the time. This followed 306 performances on Broadway of An Evening with… for nine months in 1960 and 1961. “The LP album of the show won the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.” Here’s Nichols and May on the Jack Paar Show.

Nichols then got into directing plays on Broadway, winning several Tony Awards for Best Director of the original productions of Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, and The Prisoner of Second Avenue, among others. He also won Tonys for producing Annie, and later, for directing Spamalot and a revival of Death of a Salesman.

He got into directing movies, and his first attempt was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Watch the dance scene. His second directing attempt was The Graduate, for which he won his only Oscar. I’ve seen that movie, plus Catch-22, Working Girl, The Birdcage, Charlie Wilson’s War, plus Silkwood, Heartburn, and Postcards from the Edge, the latter three which he also produced. Here’s the hit song from Working Girl, Let the River Run by Carly Simon. Read Mike Nichols’ five rules for filmmaking.

Nichols’ two Emmys came from fairly serious fare: the TV movie Wit (2001) starring Emma Thompson, and the TV miniseries Angels in America from 2003. This means he is one of a dozen people to win the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003.

I found out about Mike Nichols’ death because my TV was possessed on Thursday morning. Usually, I watch two minutes of the CBS Morning News at 7 a.m., but the DVR was stuck on the ABC affiliate. The lead was about the death, a story that didn’t show up on my New York Times and LA Times news feed until a half-hour later. The news was released, after the story on the air, by the ABC News president. Diane Sawyer, former GMA and World News anchor, and Nichols’ wife of 26 years, apparently arranged an exclusive for her network, noted not as criticism but just an observation.

The GMA folks – heck, EVERYONE who knew him, such as Meryl Streep – said he was always “the smartest and most brilliant person in the room,” rather like his Nichols’ third cousin twice removed on his mother’s side, scientist Albert Einstein. But he also a wonderful raconteur, and I feel as though I would have enjoyed being in his presence.

Mike Nichols died of a heart attack a couple of weeks after his 83rd birthday.