Category Archives: Popular culture

What makes a good “Father’s Day movie?”

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My daughter noted to me that there were a number of WWII movies on cable today, probably because that’s the TV industry’s idea of what Dads want. I like me a good WWII flick, but I think that having recently dragged out all the good ones for Memorial Day, the programmers were sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel today. The first one I ran across was the execrable “Pearl Harbor,” for instance. Boy I had really looked forward to that one, based on the preview where you see the kids playing baseball (an odd thing to be doing at 7:55 a.m. on a Sunday, but whatever) and the Japanese planes flying by at eye level. And it was visually impressive. Sort of the way “Top Gun” was visually impressive at the time. But even less well-written. And with Ben Affleck.

I saw that TCM was showing “Father of the Bride” (the Spencer Tracy version) which is the opposite end of the spectrum of TV’s concept of Dads and their tastes. I think that particular classic is more entertaining to daughters and  mothers than to Dads, though. I mean, Dad looks like an affectionate idiot, right? Now, I see, “A Few Good Men” is showing. Well, that’s a good flick, no doubt. But who is Dad? Jack Nicholson? Not a flattering picture… Oh, wait, doesn’t Tom Cruise have kind of a father issue in that? But it’s kind of backstory.

So I got to thinking: What WOULD be a good “Father’s Day movie?”

Well… Dads would enjoy “Tin Cup,” which was on today on TCM. Although it doesn’t actually have a fatherhood theme. Speaking of Kevin Costner, there’s always “Field of Dreams” — that certainly has a Dad theme (“Hey… Dad?… You wanna have a catch?” And everyone tears up.)

Speaking of WWII movies, I did record “Saving Private Ryan” on Memorial Day weekend, and watched it again a few days ago. Not exactly about fatherhood, but Capt. Miller does have a sort of model fatherly relationship with Ryan, and with his own men.

On the lighter side, “Overboard,” which TCM showed, is the sort of romantic comedy guys tend to enjoy, and the central character is a Dad, desperate for a Mom for his kids. Really desperate.

OK, it’s not a movie, but how about a “Sopranos” marathon? That’s definitely about being a Dad — and the “head of a family.” Of course, the kids can’t watch it with you. So let me see if I can come up with some better stuff:

  • “Raising Arizona.” ‘Nuff said.
  • “The Natural”… “”My Dad always wanted me to be a baseball player…”
  • “The Paper,” with Michael Keaton. A newspaper editor (whom I really identified with my younger self), struggling with balancing work and familial responsibilities in the 24 hours before his child is born.
  • “The Wind and the Lion.” The Raisuli becomes a surrogate Dad to the Pedicaris boy.
  • “Tender Mercies.” Awesome portrait of a failed Dad, trying to become a good stepdad.
  • “Life is Beautiful.” This should probably top the list.
  • “Mr. Mom.” Which the whole family can enjoy.
  • “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Why must it only show at Christmas time?
  • “Hoosiers.” Surrogate-Dad stuff again.
  • “A Man for All Seasons.” An exemplary Dad and a saint.
  • “A River Runs Through It.” Very strong Dad figure in that one — little good it did the Brad Pitt character.
  • “Gran Torino.” Yeah, he’s a dysfunctional Dad, but… the plot’s about him making up for that with the Hmong kid.
  • “Air Force One.” A Dad who’s the president, and can kick bad guy butt!
  • “Say Anything.” Dad turns out to be a crook, but it’s still a strong father-daughter relationship.

That’s a good start for the networks for next year, don’t you think? Have anything to add?

Coming soon: The Alvin Green graphic novel

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OK, now I’m feeling bad about an idea I let slide awhile back.

Corey Hutchins of the Free Times brings this to my attention:

Current and former Columbia Free Timeswriters are teaming up to produce a black-and-white graphic novel on the bizarre rise and fall of South Carolina’s Alvin Greene.

Last year the unemployed Greene unexpectedly won the South Carolina Democratic Primary for the U.S. Senate, giving him the chance to face off against — and eventually lose to — incumbent Tea Partier Jim DeMint. Greene’s primary victory came despite the fact that he didn’t campaign, didn’t have a website, and was virtually unknown to the voting public.

“What happened in the summer of 2010 was the strangest American political story in modern times,” says Free Times staff writer Corey Hutchins, who gained national attention by exposing Greene. “It’s no wonder that it came out of South Carolina, the state that James Petigru famously called ‘too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum’ more than 100 years ago.”

Hutchins is teaming up with former Free Times staff writer David Axe and artist Ryan Alexander-Tanner to serialize the comic online beginning in early 2012, following with a print edition in the spring.

In order to secure funding for the project, they’re using the crowd-funding site Kickstarter to attract backers. As of this writing, the team is halfway towards reaching their goal of $1,000.

That’s pretty cool. Cool enough that it make me feel bad I never followed through on my own idea.

You know, I wanted to do a graphic novel about Mark Sanford back in 2009. I even had a couple of exchanges with someone with publishing contacts in New York. But when I didn’t find an artist who was interested right away (I felt like it had to be done immediately for readers to be interested), I dropped it. I was really busy job-hunting and stuff at the time. The images were key, and while I could have written the whole thing without them, I think it would have been an inspiration to see some sketches as I went along.

I had this one really vivid image in my mind as I tried to picture the visual style of the book. It was NOT of Mark Sanford, actually. It was black-and-white. It would have been an extreme closeup, taking about half a page, of Jake Knotts as he began the process of spreading the report that Sanford was missing, in his big bid to bring down his nemesis…

The image was inspired by images of The Kingpin in Spiderman (see this or this or this or this) … Only darker…

Anyway… I actually wrote a sort of treatment for my New York contact. I was really riffing on it at the time. I wanted it all to be told by a seedy, self-hating ex-journalist narrator, sort of based on Jack Burden from All the King’s Men. The narrator would be all conflicted and guilt-ridden, because he felt responsible for having created the central character. This would give his narration a certain bitterly ironic tone. (This character would of course in no way be based on any living former editors who maybe sorta kinda endorsed Mark Sanford in 2002.)

It had levels. It had edge. It had irony. Sort of Gatsby meets Robert Penn Warren meets “Citizen Kane” meets, I don’t know, “Fight Club.”

But now I can’t even find the blasted treatment. I think I lost it in that major Outlook meltdown of my e-mail.

But it would have been good.

Drat! Foiled again! Curse you, Snidely Obama!

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I was WAY busy last night with real-life stuff until about 1:30 a.m. (just wait until YOU have five kids and four grandchildren and everybody’s coming and going and having to be picked up at the airport in the middle of the night), and barely found time to watch some of that presidential debate. I didn’t even have time to think about Nikki Haley’s national TV appearance. Good thing, too.

I did glance at the coverage of it on CBS, and even managed to read on a bit after the horrible shock of the opening words:

Four of the biggest names in the Republican Party – Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Rep. Allen West of Florida, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahom…a

Really. “Biggest names.” Take THAT, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Jeb Bush… I could go on, but what does it matter? They’re nobodies! The peanut gallery is taking over!

It is just absolutely stunning how little one has to accomplish to be one of the “biggest” these days. In fact, in the GOP, accomplishing anything actually counts against you. Look at Romney and health care.

Of course, Nikki Haley is about as accomplishment-free as anyone can get, and by the new standards, that makes her golden. Of course, she likes us to think that she wants to accomplish stuff, but that uncontrollable forces prevent her.

What, you ask, has kept our gov free of the blemish of achievement? Could it be that she lacks good ideas? Could it be that she is clueless when it comes to working with other people who would have to be involved in making these things happen, such as the Republican leadership of the General Assembly? Could it be because of her inept, ham-handed approach to everything from USC trustee appointments to her own tax returns?

No, it’s none of that. There’s another villain, one that no rational person would have suspected in a million years:

Haley went on to say that “everything I’ve tried to do to govern in South Carolina has been stopped by President Obama,”…

Yep, it’s her favorite Snidely Whiplash, the guy she ran so hard against in her election last year (Vincent Sheheen? Who’s he?). He is still foiling her beautiful plans! Curses!

The Perpetual Adoration of the Dysfunctional

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I’m at Barnes & Noble, engaged in my favorite leisure activity of getting a cup of coffee and wandering among the books and maybe blogging a bit. And moments ago I got a text from my wife. She is out of town, has been for several days. She’s somewhere in the Ozarks having a reunion with her high school friends from St. Agnes Academy in Memphis (37 in the graduating class, all girls). Here’s what she texted:

Who directed & starred in easy rider & supported andy warhol?

This is my function in the world. Perhaps it is why she married me. Anyway, I quickly responded, “Dennis Hopper. Why?” That was an easy one. We just saw him in that Warhol thing last week.

It was at Spoleto. There was this show that was very, um, Warhol. It was called, “13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests.” We went with my artist daughter and a friend of hers. It was enjoyable, even artistically impressive. But if you thought about it too much, it was disturbing. And I tend to do that. That’s the other thing I do. I keep trivia in my head, and I think about stuff until I ruin it.

Warhol did these things he called “screen tests” in which he had various people in his orbit sit in front of a camera loaded with a short piece of film — I want to say about 100 feet; in any case, it would last exactly four minutes. In this way, the artist fulfilled his own prophecy to a certain extent — immortalizing these people for at least four minutes of their allotted 15. He shot people he thought were beautiful in one way or another. Some were quite conventionally beautiful the way I would use the word, such as this one (who bizarrely kept her eyes open the whole time, causing tears to flow). But all were interesting.

You had Dennis Hopper doing his thing. Jane Holzer brushing her teeth. Lou Reed drinking a Coke. Edie Sedgwick being big-eyed and lovely. The live, original music performed on the stage below the screen was very engaging. The hall was pretty full, and the crowd seemed engrossed. On the row in front of me I thought I recognized Allison Skipper from the Ports Authority. And sure enough, after we exchanged Tweets about it, she was to share this account with me:

13 MOST BEAUTIFUL…SONGS FOR ANDY WARHOL’S SCREEN TESTS

Call Andy Warhol what you will – genius, whack job, or some combination of the two – the man certainly had an eye for pretty people.

In 13 Most Beautiful, indie rock/pop musicians Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips pair hypnotic musical compositions against a backdrop of black and white projections of some of Warhol’s famous (or infamous) screen subjects. The footage itself is grainy and subjects range from the familiar (Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick, Dennis Hopper, Nico) to the obscure. You can imagine Warhol himself off-screen, directing the subject to spontaneously cry, drink a Coca-Cola, look melancholy, or choreographing a slow curl of cigarette smoke or light reflected from the lens of sunglasses. Wareham and Phillips give an understated performance, demonstrating a conscious effort to take a backseat to the screen stars. The music serves to connect the audience with the subjects, in doing so achieving what they wanted all along. We love them, we adore them, we are fascinated by them. They are all famous, for at least 13 songs.

Our arty barometer says: It’s Warhol. It’s weird. Embrace it – with or without some mind-altering substance.

While the screen is dark for the show’s run at Spoleto, a recorded version is available to Watch Instantly on Netflix. Happy viewing.

–Allison Skipper

I pretty much agree with that. But at first, I didn’t think I would be able to sit through it. The very first “test” consisted of the totally impassive, androgynous Richard Rheem doing nothing but staring at the camera for the full four minutes. The band had not yet come out, so I didn’t have them to watch (of course, when they did come out, the stage was dark enough that all you could see really clearly was the whiteness of Britta Phillips’ shapely legs below her very short black dress as she played guitar and sang, but that was quite enough to make up for anything lacking on the screen), and this period was extremely tedious.

But it got better. Lots better. We weren’t bored again. And the experience was greatly enhanced by Dean Wareham’s narration, telling us a bit about the subject we were to see or had just seen.

And we watched, and were fascinated, as master showman Warhol had intended us to be.

But as for the disturbing part… well, look no further than “Ingrid Superstar’s” obsessive fingering of her face (and giving us the finger, but we don’t mind, the poor girl) throughout the four minutes, in which we see her with her hair cut to look like Edie Sedgwick. Right after we were told she was a junkie. And a sometime prostitute and temp (I liked the way he added “temp” anticlimactically). She was to go out for cigarettes years later and not come back — presumed dead, but her body never found. Her dysfunction is on display on the screen, we stare at it almost as unblinking as Ann Sheridan. Her being so obviously f___ed up is a source of entertainment for us, or of aesthetic edification if we choose to dignify it that way.

Then there was the guy who that same summer, deep in his own problems, was taking a bath at a friend’s house when he heard his favorite piece of music playing in the next room, upon which he leapt from the bath, ran into the room and danced about naked to the music, then jumped out a window to his death.

And here we were, staring at him making self-conscious faces for the camera. And I thought about this. Eventually, I was struck that what we were doing, sitting there so patiently, was a form of worship. Modern-day secular worship of celebrity, of hipness, of the various forms physical beauty can take, and of tragedy and dysfunction. I got to thinking of the Catholic practice of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. This is a practice I’ve never been able to get into — not that I’ve ever tried. As a post Vatican II convert, it is alien to me, and smacks of idolatry. I recently heard that Pope Benedict wants it to make a comeback, which does not surprise me. But hey, I didn’t vote for him.

But while Perpetual Adoration to me seems strange and even vaguely wrong, here we were staring, for a period lasting longer than a Mass, at all these seriously messed up, self-involved people. And I found it fascinating, even enjoyable. What does that say about me, about us? I decry Reality TV, but I got into this.

It suggests that my priorities are seriously out of whack.

But at least it helps me keep the part of my brain devoted to cultural trivia sharp and active. My wife relies on me for that.

Doug Nye, and the things we remember…

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A few days ago, I saw on Facebook where a mutual friend had visited Doug Nye, and he wasn’t doing well. And I thought, “I need to check on him,” and now he’s gone. My mom called me last night to say it was announced at the USC baseball game…

It’s funny the things you remember about people. Doug was a great guy to talk to about all sorts of things, and not just westerns. To many people he will be remembered as the Father of the Chicken Curse, in terms of having popularized the concept. There are complex permutations on the Curse beyond what Bill Starr wrote about this morning that I could get into, but that’s not what I remember best about Doug.

Here’s what I remember best, and most fondly: Doug and I had a number of conversations sharing our childhood memories of watching “Spaceship C-8,” a kiddie show on WBTW out of Florence, hosted by the late “Captain Ashby” Ward, who was also the news anchor. I really didn’t have all that many specific memories about the show (Doug, being older, remembered more), despite having spent many an hour watching it during the summers I spent with my grandparents in Bennettsville. (Doug watched it from another end of the coverage area — I want to say Sumter.) But I enjoyed talking about it with Doug on multiple occasions.

It was about way more than one kid’s show; it was about remembering an era, a time before media saturation. A time when WBTW was the only station you could reliably get clearly in B’ville with a home antenna (WIS also came in, depending on the weather). Then, in the late 60s, along came cable to small town America, LONG before it came to cities. That way, you could get all three networks, plus some duplicates from different cities. There was less demand in cities, because they could already get three or four channels.

Consequently, we spent an awful lot of time doing stuff other than watching TV, or engaging any other mass medium. A time that in many ways was about as close as Huck Finn’s fictional existence as it was to what kids experience today.

Odd, I suppose, that the thing I would remember best from knowing the longtime TV writer was talking about days that were practically pre-TV. But that’s what I remember. It won’t really mean anything to you, I suppose, but I’m confident it would make Doug smile.

I remember that, and the fact that, as I said, Doug was a great guy to talk to about anything. Always a ready grin (that’s why I know he’d smile at my trivial remembrance), the kind of naturally affable guy who you took a moment to chat with rather than just rushing past in the course of getting through a day’s deadlines. He stood out among newspapermen that way. Not that newspapermen were so awful; I just mean Doug stood out. Which is why so many will remember him fondly.

Half a century, and still no flying cars

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Yeah, I know it’s a cliche — here we are in the high-tech future, a whole other century from when most of the sci-fi we grew up on was written, and there are no flying cars. It’s been said many times before.

But I just got to thinking about it in terms that hadn’t occurred to me before.

My wife was reading a book out on the deck this morning (while the weather was still pleasant), and referred to it having been written 50 years ago.

That’s the shocking thing, you see. It seems that 1961 is no longer just a brief while back. It’s 50 years ago now.

As anyone who has read Gene Sculatti‘s delightful and authoritative Catalog of Cool knows, 1962 was the Last Good Year. But the year before had much to recommend it as well. It’s the year that the iconic 60’s cult novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, made its appearance. Heinlein assumed that by the end of the 20th century (there is one vague reference to the date that places it at the end of a long, hard century — and Jubal Harshaw had served in North Africa in WWII), there would be flying cars — flying cars that flew to one’s destination without being guided by a human occupant. Say your destination aloud, and the car would take you there.

Now we have the technology for most of that. We can do voice commands, and something like Google Maps and GPS working together, along with the ability that SUVs and some other cars have now for sensing the proximity of other vehicles, etc. — we could make the car go where we wanted without guiding it, although personal I wouldn’t want to be one of the first few thousand people to trust my life to it.

It’s the flying part that’s tricky. Heinlein wasn’t specific about how the cars flew. He mentioned the “Lyle Drive” for spacecraft, but not the means for making the cars fly. Aldous Huxley, years before, had had people routinely flying helicopters, but Heinlein was not so explanatory, although one gets the impression that they flew Jetson-style. His characters took such transport for granted, suggesting the technology had been around awhile, so we are expected to take it for granted as well.

There were other things — such as a form of 3D TV called “stereovision,” which I sort of gathered was holographic, and watched in a “tank” like an aquarium. And videophones — although apparently landline-based. And most dramatically (and centrally to the plot) there had been two rather significant manned flights to Mars, the second one leaving colonists.

The assumption in those days seemed to be — with jets relatively new, and JFK pushing us to the moon — that our main technological advances would be in the area of transportation. Little thought was given to information technology. While a number of the things he imagined would have been unlikely without computers — such as doors that opened to spoken commands, and “bounce tubes” replacing elevators — the idea of the personal computer, as an important element of the typical consumer’s life, from the desktop to the smartphone — was completely absent. No email, no texting, no Skype (except from the landline). Hilariously, when a character wanted to send a written message and have a record of it rather than speaking by TV phone, he went to something that sounded like a telegraph office and sent a “statprint.” Ben Caxton, a nationally syndicated columnist in the novel, has such an advanced office that it has its own “statprinter.”

A lot can change in 50 years. Especially the future. What I can’t believe is that it’s been so long.

Take your towel to lunch today

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See? There it is...

Do you know where your towel is?

You should. And you do — if you’re a hoopy frood. After all, a towel is so useful:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

Mine is on the back seat of my car, all wadded up with a bunch of other junk. But I know where it is. Because today is Towel Day.

I don’t see any scheduled events here in SC. But Burl, there’s a guy who’s inviting people to join him for Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters at sunset in Waikiki. So we know where you’ll be…

Slight delay in the end of the world

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A couple of quick pop-culture references, and Kathryn will be grateful that neither is to “The Godfather” (don’t worry, fans, I’m sure I’ll get back to the Corleones soon enough). The first is that I’m feeling sort of like Billy Jack…

I want you to know… that I try. When Jean and the kids at the school tell me that I’m supposed to control my tendency to be a wiseacre, and be passive and respectful of other people’s beliefs like they are, I try. I really try. Though when I see this guy… who should know to keep quiet after this weekend… and I see him speaking up again, and getting quoted, and I think of the number of months that we’re probably going to have to keep hearing about it… I just go BERSERK!

I’m referring, of course, to the news that this Harold Camping guy is saying, Oops, the Rapture’s gonna come in October now.

The second cultural reference is more obscure. It’s to The Dirty Dozen. No, not the movie, but the (much superior) E.M. Nathanson novel on which it was based. The novel is so little-remembered that I had trouble finding a full preview of it on Google Books to check my quote. But near the end of the book, when Samson Posey, a Ute Indian, tries to perform a Sun Dance to get the weather to clear over Normandy, and one of the other 11 guys starts making fun of him, suggesting he’s doing a rain dance by mistake, an Army chaplain standing nearby says “Don’t mock him, fellow! Whatever your beliefs — if you have any — do not mock him!”

Which I’ve always thought was a pretty good thought to live by. (Look, if you want a blog that quotes Shakespeare, there are plenty of them out there.) A lot of people believe a lot of unlikely things. In this case, we have some people believing something that is directly refuted by the Bible. Which is inexplicable. OK, so Camping isn’t a biblical literalist. Cool. But we’re talking about a quote attributed to Jesus Christ himself saying No one knows the day or the hour…

But I try, I really try, not to make fun. You’ll note that I did not do so last week.

But this guy is really, really trying my patience, and my resolve to be tolerant and respectful…

Bush was Sonny; Obama is more like Michael

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I said this as a comment back on a previous post, and liked it enough to say more prominently…

After reading that quote I cited in the WSJ about how the Obama administration is, ever so quietly, without saying anything overt, taking advantage of its stunning effectiveness in taking out bin Laden:

This month’s military strike deep inside Pakistan is already being used by U.S. officials as a negotiating tool — akin to, don’t make us do that again — with countries including Pakistan thought to harbor other terrorists. Yemen and Somalia are also potential venues, officials said, if local-government cooperation were found to be lacking…

… I got to thinking how this was similar to the effect that Bush’s invasion of Iraq had on thugs like Moamar Qaddafi — for a very brief time, before everybody around the world figured out that (given our internal dispute over that invasion) W. wasn’t likely to get the chance to do that ever again…

And then it hit me: In terms of the politics of projecting a credible threat that gets others to do what you want (an idea that I realize makes a lot of us squirm), George W. Bush was like Sonny Corleone. The blusterer, the guy you just know is going to jump in the car and come after you in a mad, blind rage if you touch his sister. The guy who doesn’t want to negotiate; he just wants Sollozzo dead. And ultimately, the guy who has trouble achieving all his goals.

Barack Obama, by contrast, is more like Michael. The clean-cut college kid who was never involved in the muscle end of the business, who held himself aloof from that, even expressed distaste for it. The guy who was supposed to be “Senator Corleone, President Corleone,” and not a wartime don. The guy who speaks softly and reasonably, and never utters a threat. The guy who takes out the heads of the other four New York families in one stunning stroke, right when you’ve forgotten about the bad blood. The guy who keeps on speaking reasonably after that, but nevertheless everybody respects him now, in the uomo di rispetto sense…

Not that, you know, I’m saying either president is a criminal. Far from it. I’m just using very familiar fictional characters in order to draw a comparison…

Keynes & Hayek throw down, bust some rhymes

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Just got around to viewing this hilarious video, which my son sent me several days ago.

Nothing like economist humor.

By the way, I suspect that the makers of this video are Hayek fans. Nothing against Keynes (I suspect their theories both have their places, depending upon circumstances), but at least in the hip-hop format, Hayek seems to make more sense..

There. So much for y’all who think I’m such a big-spender type…

Quick survey: Do you like clowns? Did you EVER?

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We all have our prejudices. Me, I don’t like clowns. Never did. I was afraid of them when I was a kid. You know the axiom about how bigots tend to dehumanize members of the groups they don’t like? Well, that’s what I did. Sort of. Actually, it was the other way around. It’s not that I didn’t like them, therefore I thought of them as not being human. It’s that I really didn’t get that they were humans, and I didn’t like them.

In fact — and I was right on this point — they didn’t seem like anything natural. They weren’t dogs, or cats, or horses, or cows, or any other species that I found totally nonthreatening. They were like something from another world, and a pretty freaky, inexplicable one, too. (Later, I was to see “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” — or some of it, anyway — and it made a lot of sense to me.)

Funny thing is, I don’t remember being afraid of much as a kid. At least, not of real things. I never had the fear of nuclear war that so many who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis shared. I do recall having an unreasoning fear of that Snidely Whiplash guy who was on the kiddie show on WIS… when we lived in Shandon back around 1957, I was convinced that that guy lived in the bushes behind the duplex we lived in. Not the one on Heyward Street, the other one we lived in… But I wasn’t afraid of much else. Except clowns.

I have this early memory — this was probably the mid-50s, ’57 at the latest — of being in the Colonial store in Bennettsville (remember Colonial stores, you oldsters?) and there was some sort of promotion going on, and there was a clown giving out popcorn. I remember wanting to check out the popcorn, but not wanting it badly enough to go anywhere near that clown. I did my best to keep at least an aisle between him and me. Or rather, between it and me. This seemed to me a completely rational response. Still does, looked at from a little kid’s perspective.

I don’t know when it was, but I remember that eventually I did finally realize that they were people, only with makeup. I think it took awhile because the premise seemed unlikely. Why would people want to make themselves look so FREAKY?

Anyway, I got to thinking about that again when I read that Ronald McDonald is in trouble:

The 48-year-old, red-haired mascot has come under fire from health-care professionals and consumer groups who, in recent days, have asked the fast-food chain to retire Ronald McDonald. But McDonald’s Chief Executive Officer Jim Skinner staunchly defended the clown at the company’s annual meeting on Thursday, saying, “Ronald McDonald is going nowhere.”

He kept his job, and I’ve got mixed feelings about that. I hate for anybody to lose their job in this economy, but… well, you know… he’s a clown…

Anyway, somewhat more seriously… I’ve always sort of wondered about this concept that clowns are a great way to appeal to kids. Because they certainly weren’t in my case. So I put it to you: Do you like clowns? And more to the point, did you ever like clowns?

Let’s double the downloads on this one, OK?

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Today at the Columbia Rotary Club, Jim Sonefeld, of Hootie and the Blowfish fame, was our main speaker. He and David Kunz of the Cooperative Ministry were talking about the ministry’s efforts to help our community’s working poor. Mr. Kunz spoke a bit at the beginning about the plight of the working poor in our community — something he said is far more extensive, and has a much greater impact on us all in terms of our overall economic and social health, than homelessness.

Mr. Sonefeld spoke glowingly of the Ministry’s work, and told the story of how he was blown away when he heard the Benedict College Gospel Choir’s a cappella rendering of Hootie’s signature hit, “Hold My Hand,” and decided immediately that he wanted to get the choir into the studio so that everyone could hear it. That led to asking his bandmates to go along (the four co-wrote the song) with an idea for helping the working poor in our area…

A video was commissioned, which you can view above. Watch it. And read more at the website.

And then, click here to go download the song from iTunes (or from the platform of your choice) — and the .99 you pay will go entirely to Cooperative Ministry.

I think Jim Sonefeld said it had been downloaded about 1,700 times. (I say “think” because I didn’t write it down, wrongly thinking I could see on iTunes how many times exactly.) I figure we could double that. Don’t you?

And it’s not hard. Even I did it. Actually, that is the FIRST thing I’ve ever downloaded from iTunes. I mean, you know, I own most of the music I want on vinyl, and what with my USB turntable, I can digitize any of that…

I really felt old when Jim Sonefeld started talking about how HE was kind of old for this downloading stuff, that he is still a vinyl kind of guy… because I think of him as a kid. So I saw that as a challenge to demonstrate my adaptability.

Which I just did. So should you.

By the way, a word about Mr. Sonefeld… Why does he do this? Well, he’s motivated to a great extent by his faith, to which he made numerous references. But someone asked how he got involved with public service. I think they were thinking that there was a road-to-Damascus story involving a hedonistic rocker suddenly seeing the light and becoming a servant to the poor — perhaps about the time he cut off all that hair and went for the David Carradine in “Kung Fu” look.

But no — he said that’s just the way his parents raised him. He always saw them doing for others, and so that’s what he tries to do.

I like that story…

Oh, I guess we really CAN do stuff like that

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Channel-surfing over the weekend, I noticed that Wolfgang Petersen’s “Air Force One” was showing. I didn’t stop to watch it. I own it on Blu-Ray — so I can actually hear Gary Oldman saying “smart bomb” in his extreme Russian accent any time.

But it reminded me of something.

Back in the late ’90s, I mentioned that movie in a conversation with then Secretary of Defense William Cohen. I was in Washington on one of those things where senior government officials invite journalists from the boonies to interviews as a way of trying to bypass the Washington press corps and speak straight to the people — or relatively so. The idea being that we’re less cynical, or more gullible, or something.

Anyway, at one point I suppose I confirmed Cohen’s faith in my lack of sophistication — thanks to my own odd sense of humor. There were several of us at the table speaking with the secretary, and someone was talking about some intractable international situation — Saddam Hussein, perhaps, or maybe Moamar Qaddafi — and expressing the American people’s supposed frustration. There was an implication in what this guy was saying that there was some simple solution that the Clinton Administration was simply failing to employ. I couldn’t resist facetiously saying, “Yeah, after all, everyone who has seen the opening of ‘Air Force One’ knows we can just send in a SEAL team and snatch a troublesome foreign leader neatly and cleanly and with no U.S. casualties, right out of his own house, any time we want to.” (To see what I’m talking about, start at about 2:50 on this clip.)

I expected Cohen to get that I was kidding, that I was making fun of Hollywood and the way it can unrealistically shape public expectations, and give me an ironic smile before patiently explaining reality to the other guy. Instead, he looked at me and explained very patiently and without a crack of a smile that it wasn’t that easy in real life.

I was so embarrassed that he thought I was that unsophisticated that I didn’t realize how difficult and rare, even impossible, such a coup de main operation can be. I think I muttered something about, “I was kidding…,” but I don’t think it did any good.

But here’s the wild and ironic thing: Cohen and I were both wrong. The bin Laden raid proved that — conditions being right — we CAN do stuff like that. This thought has occurred to me a number of times since May 1, and I was reminded of it again over the weekend.

Tell you what, though — I still don’t think a man swinging back and forth as he dangles from a parachute can shoot a guard on a roof in the back of the head with one shot, from hundreds of yards away — laser sight or no laser sight…

Great movie scene (which I missed when it first came out)

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When it came out in 2004, I had little urge to see the latest Hollywood interpretation of “The Alamo” — the one with Billy Bob Thornton portraying Davy Crockett. Partly because I was almost half a century past my coonskin-cap phase, partly because I had heard that the portrayal of Davy was somewhat… postmodern… which I didn’t really need even if I had put Davy-worship behind me, and partly because I just generally didn’t hear much good about it. On Netflix it only gets about two-and-a-half stars.

That was a mistake on my part. I caught some of it on TV recently, and have now ordered it from Netflix so I can see the first third or so, which I had missed.

The centerpiece is the portrayal of Crockett, which is really awesome. It’s deep, and appealing. And very human. This is the iconoclastic politician who (as confirmed by my favorite-ever historical plaque, on the courthouse square in Jackson, TN) told voters who had refused to re-elect him to Congress, “You can go to hell, but I am going to Texas!” This was one of the nation’s first larger-than-life celebrities.

I don’t know whether the real man was anything like this, but watching this movie I am persuaded by Thornton that he IS Davy Crockett. Even more so than Fess Parker, which means a lot coming from a child of the ’50s.

This scene, in which Davy muses on the price of living up to public expectations, encapsulates the performance well. Check it out. The interplay between Jim Bowie’s taunting cynicism and Davy’s sincere, patient self-awareness is pretty powerful. And in case this violates any copyright — come on, guys, I’m trying to get people to check out your movie!

Whew! I feel SO much better…

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No doubt you, too, will sleep more soundly once you read this:

Haley dismisses risk of debt
ceiling disaster

… Haley was asked Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” whether the debt ceiling should be raised.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “We are seeing total chaos in D.C. right now. The very first thing they need to do is make sure that they stop raising the debt.”

However, the federal government finances itself partly by selling debt to investors and other countries through Treasury bills that must be paid back, Obama said in a town hall style meeting shown on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“If they thought that we might renege on our IOUs, it could unravel the entire financial system,” he said, and the result would be a recession worse than the last one.

“So we can’t even get close to not raising the debt ceiling,” Obama said.

Asked about the possibility of damaging America’s credibility, Haley said, “Government is notorious for saying the sky is falling.”…

And remember, our gov knows about money stuff like this. She is a way skillful accountant. Just ask her; she’ll tell you.

Also, she never makes mistakes. Ever. We are in such good hands…

And if you read further in that same story, you encounter this:

“I find it silly,” Haley said about talk of her joining a Republican presidential ticket in 2012.

Right again, governor! Nothing sillier… Told you she was awesome.

Of course, there is a downside to this good news:

Haley said she is committed to serving out her term as governor.

“The people of South Carolina took a chance on electing me,” she said. “It is my job and my family’s job to prove to them that they made a good decision.”

Geronimo, bin Laden, history and popular culture

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That headline sounds like the title of a college course that might be briefly popular among those trying to fulfill a requirement in history or sociology or the like, doesn’t it?

Just ran across this WashPost piece from six days ago, stepping away from emotion over the use of “Geronimo” as the name of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, and noting the parallels between the U.S. military’s pursuits of the two men. I found it informative, so here it is. An excerpt:

The similarities are not in the men themselves but in the military campaigns that targeted them…

The 16-month campaign was the first of nearly a dozen strategic manhunts in U.S. military history in which forces were deployed abroad with the objective of killing or capturing one individual. Among those targeted were Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein.

The original Geronimo campaign and the hunt for bin Laden share plenty of similarities. On May 3, 1886, more than a century before a $25 million reward was offered for information on bin Laden’s whereabouts, and almost 125 years to the day before the al-Qaeda leader’s death, the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a joint resolution “Authorizing the President to offer a reward of twenty-five thousand dollars for the killing or capture of Geronimo.”

In both operations, the United States deployed its most advanced technology. Whereas a vast array of satellite and airborne sensors was utilized in the search for bin Laden, Gen. Nelson Miles directed his commanders to erect heliograph stations on prominent mountain peaks, using sunlight and mirrors to transmit news of the hostiles. Neither system helped anyone actually catch sight of the man who was sought.

Small raiding forces … proved more decisive than large troop formations in both cases. In 1886, Lt. Charles Gatewood was able to approach the 40 Apache warriors still at large with a party of just five — himself, two Apache scouts, an interpreter and a mule-packer. He convinced Geronimo and the renegades to surrender on Sept. 4, with a deftness that would have been impossible with 5,000 soldiers. Similarly, the United States could never have deployed the thousands of troops necessary to block all escape routes out of Tora Bora — the deployment of 3,000 troops three months later to Afghanistan’s ShahikotValley in Operation Anaconda failed to prevent the escape of the targeted individuals from similar terrain — but a lightning strike by a few dozen commandos was successful.

Both campaigns also demonstrated the importance of human intelligence to manhunting. Gatewood was alerted to Geronimo’s location near Fronteras, Mexico, by a group of Mexican farmers tired of the threat of Apache raids, but he also needed the assistance of Apache scouts familiar with the terrain and with Geronimo’s warriors to close in on his quarry. So, too, according to administration officials, did the success in finding bin Laden depend upon the interrogation of his former confederates in al-Qaeda and upon the efforts of local agents in Pakistan to track the courier who led U.S. intelligence officers to the Abbottabad compound….

And so forth. By the way, on a related topic, here’s a piece written by a paratrooper on the history of U.S. soldier’s tradition of yelling that name when jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. Apparently, it all came from a 1939 movie starring “Chief Thundercloud,” a.k.a. Victor Daniels (not to mention the immortal Andy Devine!).

And talk about your coincidences… I had been clicking around through my Netflix instant queue one night recently and watched a few minutes of the ubersilly “Hot Shots Deux,” starring Charlie Sheen and Lloyd Bridges. (Hey, in small doses, I very much enjoy the whole “Airplane!” comedy genre — even when Leslie Nielsen is absent.) The scene below was part of what I saw. The very next morning, I first read of the controversy among some American Indians over the “Geronimo” operation… Seemed ironic. You know, what with Charlie Sheen being such a paragon of sensitivity and all.

Oh, and what do I think of it? The same thing I think about the Redskins, the Braves, et al. It’s a tribute, not a sign of disrespect. You really have to want to be insulted to take it that way. But as you know, I have little sensitivity toward — or, admittedly, understanding of — the complex resentments than can be felt by people to whom Identity Politics is important. And I hate arguing with people like that, because I’m willing to grant that in many cases such people DO actually feel hurt, with or without justification that makes sense to me. But it seemed like it would be a cop-out if, after bringing up the subject, I didn’t share my own opinion, for what little it’s worth, and however lightly I may hold it.

Keep a clean nose; watch the plainclothes…

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Cindi Scoppe — who, to my memory, doesn’t cite popular song lyrics all that often herself — liked this NPR item and shared it with me, and I share it with y’all:

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

How many times can a judge cite a song to adorn some obscure point of law? And how many times can a lawyer cite songs for the client he’s arguing for? Yes, and what if the song is a Bob Dylan song? Could it be a hundred times or more? Well, the answer, my friend, was 186 times. The answer was 186 times.

That is how often Bob Dylan lyrics were quoted in court filings and scholarly legal publications according to a study in 2007 by University of Tennessee law professor Alex Long, who joins us now from Knoxville.

You should go check it out. Apparently, neither the Beatles nor Springsteen nor anyone else comes close to Dylan, in terms of the number of times cited in legal documents. Apparently, the California court of appeals says “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” so often “that it’s almost boilerplate.”

The Rolling Stones come in sixth. You can probably guess what that would be. Yep. Because it’s true, in the law as in life: You can’t always get what you want.

Osama bin Laden is dead. So what happens now?

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I originally wrote this BEFORE the president’s announcement. As you can see, I’ve now updated it with the video…

Waiting for President Obama to make the announcement that Osama bin Laden is dead.

And wondering what happens now. I’ve wondered that for 10 years: If bin Laden is dead, what does it change? Does the struggle end? Of course not. He’s now a martyr. But it’s still a huge moment.

And what will the president tell us it means, as he sees it? This is so un-Obama — Under my leadership, we have killed our enemy — what will he say? And what will he tell us to expect next? What will he say HE intends to do?

What does this mean NOW, against the context of the turmoil, the rise of democracy, sweeping through the region?

If I were the president, I’m not sure what I would say. So I’m preparing to watch, and listen.

I expect you are, too.

If you’d like to react, here’s a place to do it…

Best way to get a good grade — have a great relationship with the teacher…

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Did you see that our governor has taken a break from writing her memoirs to grade her performance in the few days she’s been in office:

By Dawndy Mercer Plank – bio | email

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – Governor Nikki Haley is touring the state talking about her first 100 days in office, and her hits and misses so far.

The governor is boasting of changing the leadership of the Budget and Control Board, getting Medicaid reform passed, on-the-record voting permanent law, changes to the budget and getting agency directors approved within six weeks time.

We asked Governor Nikki Haley to grade herself on her first 100 days in office. “Effort, absolutely A+++!” she said. “I sleep and breathe this every day. I want everything done yesterday. For accomplishments, I’d honestly give myself an A. We are so excited for what we’ve done in 100 days. We really, really are.”…

Actually, I only heard her say “A-plus,” not “A-plus-plus-plus.” But still…

So now you know what it takes to be a great governor. That, I suppose, is why our past governors haven’t been as “fabulous” as we might have liked: they weren’t “great” wives and moms.

At least, they haven’t been as wildly fabulous as Nikki. Which she has been. Just ask her, she’ll tell you.

I tell you, folks, I’ve encountered a lot of manifestations of ego and narcissism in my going on 4 decades of closely following politics. But I’ve never encountered anything quite like what Nikki Haley has become.

Some of this might actually be a gender thing: Women can get away with a certain over-the-top enthusiasm, even about themselves, that would brand a man a major jerk. Things that a man could NOT get away with can sometimes be seen as charming when said by a woman with a nice smile.

Or maybe I’m completely off-base. I’m just groping here, trying to figure out why she gets away with this stuff…

A defense of public broadcasting, from one who knows whereof she speaks

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Sometime today, Senior Correspondent Gwen Ifill of PBS is accepting, on behalf of the PBS Newshour, the 2011 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

She was to be accompanied by Political Editor David Chalian. I don’t know what he was going to say, but here’s a copy of her prepared remarks:

CRONKITE AWARD CEREMONY
Norman Lear Center
(GWEN IFILL’S PREPARED REMARKS)

University of Southern California
APRIL 26, 2011

ON BEHALF OF JIM LEHRER, JUDY WOODRUFF, LINDA WINSLOW OUR EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND DAVID CHALIAN, OUR POLITICAL EDITOR…

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THIS WONDERFUL AWARD, AND FOR ALLOWING US TO JOIN ALL OF THESE AMAZING JOURNALISTS ON THIS STAGE.

IT DOES US ALL GOOD TO SEE THAT – NO MATTER WHAT YOU READ, SEE AND HEAR OUT THERE – SERIOUS JOURNALISM STILL MATTERS.

IT’S ALL I EVER WANTED TO DO, AND I THINK I SPEAK FOR EVERYONE HERE IN SAYING THAT WE ARE DRAWN TO JOURNALISM FOR THE NOBILITY THAT CAN BE FOUND IN TELLING UNTOLD STORIES, OR IN SHEDDING LIGHT RATHER THAN HEAT ON THE OVERTOLD ONES. MOST OF US GOT INTO JOURNALISM TO SAVE THE WORLD…AND THEN REALIZED WE OFTEN HAD TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM US.

I REALIZE I AM PREACHING TO THE CHOIR HERE TODAY, SO I PROBABLY DON’T HAVE TO TELL THE PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM, THIS IS TOUGHER THAN IT SEEMS.

FOR MOST OF US, IT MEANS DOING MORE WITH LESS ON A DAILY BASIS. RESISTING THE LURE OF A CHARLIE SHEEN STORY ONE DAY OR ANOTHER ROYAL WEDDING CURTAIN RAISER ON ANOTHER.

AT THIS POINT IN MY CAREER, I’VE WORKED FOR NEWSPAPERS, AT A COMMERCIAL NETWORK AND NOW AT PUBLIC BROADCASTING, WHERE LIKE CLOCKWORK, WE ARE PERIODICALLY ACCUSED  BY THOSE ON THE RIGHT AND THOSE ON THE LEFT
OF BIAS. TOO MANY OF THESE CRITICS DON’T ACTUALLY WATCH OR LISTEN TO WHAT WE DO.

THIS IS WHAT WE DO.

JUDY WOODRUFF AND I TAKE YOU AROUND THE COUNTRY TO GET TO THE HEART OF OUR NATIONAL POLITICAL DEBATE…MARGARET WARNER AND RAY SUAREZ TAKE YOU TO NORTH KOREA AND GUATEMALA AND EGYPT AND SOUTH AFRICA TO TALK ABOUT GLOBAL HEALTH AND GLOBAL CHALLENGES.

ROBIN MCNEIL JUST COMPLETED A SIX-PART SERIES ON AUTISM, DEVOTING THE KIND OF TIME AND CARE TO THE TOPIC THAT FILLS A VOID IN THE DEARTH OF DOCUMENTARY TELEVISION.

AND AFTER 35 YEARS, WE’RE JUST GETTING STARTED. LAST WEEK AT THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE GULF OIL SPILL, WE LOOKED BACK AND COUNTED 232 STORIES WE’D DONE ON THE TOPIC….AND NOT JUST ON THE AIR.

OUR ONLINE OIL SPILL WIDGET WAS EMBEDDED ON MORE THAN 6,000 WEBSITES AROUND THE WORLD AND WAS VIEWED MORE THAN 20 MILLION TIMES.

WE ARE CONVINCED THAT TELLING THE STORY WELL MATTERS – WHETHER IT’S JEFF BROWN’S CONVERSATION LAST YEAR WITH THE WAR PHOTOGRAPHER TIM HETHERINGTON, WHO WAS KILLED LAST WEEK IN LIBYA… OR JOHN MERROW ON EDUCATION… OR PAUL SOLMAN MAKING SENSE OF ECONOMICS… OR HARI SREENIVASAN HONCHOING OUR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COVERAGE.

IF IT SOUNDS LIKE I’M BOASTING, YOU’RE RIGHT. WE ARE JUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF WHAT WE DO, AND ARE CONVINCED THAT EVEN IN A DRASTICALLY SHIFTING MEDIA ENVIRONMENT THERE IS A HUNGER FOR THE WORK WE DO.

WHEN I VISIT COLLEGE CAMPUSES, STUDENTS OFTEN TELL ME “I ONLY WATCH JON STEWART.” AND I TELL THEM: “JON STEWART WATCHES ME.”

NOT TO WORRY. WALTER CRONKITE ONCE TOLD ME HE WATCHED THE PBS NEWSHOUR EVERY NIGHT TOO.

THAT’S BECAUSE JOURNALISM, AND EVEN FAUX JOURNALISM, CAN ONLY FLOURISH WITH A FIRM FOUNDATION.

AT THE PBS NEWSHOUR, OUR FIRM FOUNDATION IS JIM LEHRER. FROM THE DAY HE CREATED THE PROGRAM WITH ROBIN MACNEIL UNTIL NOW, WHEN HE APPLIES HIS CONVICTIONS AND HIS CORE BELIEFS TO THE BROADCAST EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, HE IS OUR GUIDING STAR – TRULY THE CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM.

SO THAT’S WHAT WE DO. THAT’S WHAT MORE OF US CAN DO. AND ON DAYS LIKE TODAY, I AM REMINDED OF HOW MANY MORE WHO ARE DOING IT. AND WELL.

WE MIGHT NOT BE SAVING THE WORLD, BUT AT LEAST WE ARE MAKING IT A MORE UNDERSTANDABLE PLACE TO LIVE IN.

ONCE AGAIN, THANK YOU TO THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER AT USC ANNENBERG FOR THIS MARVELOUS WALTER CRONKITE AWARD.——-

Admittedly, I don’t see PBS as much as I listen to NPR, but to a great extent the praise I often offer to NPR can apply to the television counterpart: I seldom encounter better journalism anywhere. Ms. Ifill mentions the interview with Tim Hetherington… one of the things that consistently amazes me is how comprehensively public broadcasting covers things that just happened (often fleshing it out with a recent interview with the person who is in the news). They present information so thoughtfully, so soberly and completely, that it generally exceeds the best that print can offer. And I can’t say that about anything else on broadcast media.