Category Archives: Popular culture

Meanwhile, back on the dusty trail…

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    This blog post takes place between 11 p.m. and midnight on the day of the California primary…

…And even though I haven’t shot anybody or been wounded even once myself today, I’m starting to feel a little tired. So you can imagine how Jack Bauer feels.

Anyway, while we wait to see whether Sen. Palmer — I mean, Sen. Obama — wins the Democratic primary way out yonder where even time itself is distorted, I’m thinking on popular culture again. By a coincidence, both Warren Bolton and I saw "3:10 to Yuma" over the weekend, which I felt gave me all the excuse I needed to talk about that in our last two days’ morning meetings, instead of the state budget and stuff like that that Cindi likes to talk about.

Good cowboy flick, despite the violence being somewhat over-stylized in the modern mode. Two points stuck out:

  • When you saw it, weren’t you ready for that scuzzy yellow-bearded fella with the crazy eyes to get shot about an hour before the final shootout? He was just beggin’ for it.
  • Speaking of that climactic scene — wasn’t it amazing that the protagonist was suddenly able to run just as fast as Russell Crowe, despite the inconvenient fact that, supposedly, he only had one leg? But I surmise that was in keeping with the unities of the Western. Just as the action must never stop for Gene Autrey to reload, it can’t be inconvenienced by a main character missing a leg; he’ll just have to sprint for cover like everybody else.
  • The credits confused me. If this was indeed based on a Glenn Ford Western of the same name, how was it based on a short story by Elmore Leonard? Well, interesting thing about that. Seems ol’ Elmore was writing stories WAY before I knew he was, and certainly before Quentin Tarantino ever thought about teaming up with him.

In short, not a bad shoot-em-up. Now, back to the primaries…

‘… on the day of the California primary.’

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    This blog post takes place between 11 a.m. and noon on the day of the California primary.

Is anyone besides me flashing on that intro (OK, so I paraphrased) from every episode in the first season of "24" today? Probably not. It’s probably just because I only saw that season recently. Not being a tube watcher, I had never seen it until I rented it a couple of months back.

Of course, I’m not going to bring it up without some editorial observations:

  • I was really disappointed by "24." I had heard for years that the series was high-quality stuff, but there was nothing special about it in my book. Its central conceit — that everything takes place in real time — is undercut by packing an entire conventional TV action-genre episode worth of extreme action into each hour. Come on. A guy doesn’t run out and have a physically exhausting shootout running around through a bunch of warehouses, in which his best friend is killed, while the hero is slightly wounded while simultaneously carrying on an extremely nerve-wracking, frustrating attempt to track down his endangered wife and daughter on his cell phone — and then do it all over again the next hour, and then again 22 more times, without a moment’s rest. It’s so absurd that you cease to think of these as real people pretty quickly, and just morbid fascination keeps you watching. A true-to-life, high-quality series that showed real time would have hours of relative tedium in which the plot isn’t advanced at all, but character would be revealed in ways that would keep you interested. You might even have the hero catch a couple of hours of snooze time while things went on elsewhere.
  • Before long, I got really, REALLY irritated with Jack’s wife and daughter for seeming to go out of their way to make stupid decisions that placed them in completely unnecessarily dangerous positions. (Eventually, I just started fast-forwarding through those parts, which had no point other that to step up the viewer’s anxiety without advancing the main action.)
  • I felt positively violated by the completely cheesy, completely unnecessary horrible thing that happened at the very end of the last episode of that season.
  • Speaking of manipulation: How about the way one episode goes to great lengths to show you that a certain character, despite suspicions you may have had, is really decent and even noble — then, in order to surprise and shock you thoroughly, that person turns out to be the embodiment of evil later on. We’re not talking the shades of gray that make a character real. We’re talking about wild, extreme, completely inexcusable swings from cartoon good to cartoon evil, just to shock you, the viewer.
  • But it wasn’t bad enough to keep me from watching the second season, which went a lot faster since I was fast-forwarding through the parts with the daughter (even though she was portrayed by Elisha Cuthbert; being cute didn’t make her character any smarter).
  • That second season contained the most absurd compression of highly complex plot developments yet seen. Within an hour (OK, within two), Jack is pulled out of seedy inactivity back to active duty; cleans up and shaves; is called in to interrogate a guy, shoots him, cuts his head off; takes the head in a bag to another guy to get into that guy’s good graces; locates, gains the trust of and completely infiltrates a terror cell, and heads out with that cell to commit an act of terror on his own headquarters… Come on, people — in real life, he MIGHT have been able to accomplish the cleaning up and shaving part, but probably wouldn’t have been able to get through L.A. traffic to the office. And infiltrating the terror cell, even though he had previous contacts with it? A year, if he was lucky. Maybe if you see these things a week apart from each other it helps with suspending disbelief. But one after another as a way of turning off the brain on a weekend? Forget about it.
  • This is the scary part. Dennis Haysbert was SO good as a presidential candidate — WAY more presidential than either Ronald Reagan or Fred Thompson, to mention other actors who played or tried to play the part — that it was spooky. Without telling us a thing about his background or positions, he came across as a guy who would actually win the California primary and then the presidency, with none of this uncertainty we face today. A Nixon-in-68 type campaign of total control of media access to the candidate, having him speak only rehearsed lines, could put a guy with that kind of presence into the White House. My only consolation is that nowadays it’s hard to imagine controlling access to a candidate to that extent.
  • Oh yeah, one more thing: Jack’s in trouble over torture (and cuttin’ guys’ heads off and stuff) and the series is supposedly being revamped as a result. OK, whatever. If the series had been more credible, I’d take that more seriously. Who, besides Tom Tancredo, actually sees Jack Bauer as being for real?
  • Oh, and did you know that "24" is now, like, totally committed to fighting climate change? I am not making this up.

Now you see why I blog. I just barely scratched the surface of things I wanted to say about a TV series that I don’t really think is all that interesting. Imagine what I could write about "House." Or "The Sopranos." My advice: Don’t get me started.

‘Yes, We Can:’ Obama music video

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A colleague brought this excellent music video set to the words of a Barack Obama speech. I don’t know where this speech was made, but it has a lot in common with his victory speech right here in S.C.

Great words. Now, as to the esthetics… artistically, this one beats the "Obama Girl" all hollow. Sure, that one had much to recommend it, by traditional MTV standards. But unless I’m mistaken, this new one has Scarlet Johansson, who’s way more Babelicious than that other chick (OK, at least SOMEWHAT more so). And I’d like to see the Obama girl try to beat Kareem Abdul-Jabbar under the boards!

But can Ah-nold whup Chuck?

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Ahnold

Now that the GOP nomination has come down to a simple, pedestrian question of whether Mitt Romney canMccain_2008_arnoldwart
spend enough on California TV ads to raise his chance of getting the nomination above snowball-in-hell status (I picture Ritchie Rich just shoveling the cash out of his swimming-pool full — or am I thinking of Scrooge McDuck?), all true, plainspoken, vicariously macho men find themselves wondering the following:

  • Maybe Mike Huckabee’s an also-ran in the pantywaist, artificial world of politics, but in nature, red in tooth and claw, couldn’t Chuck Norris whup Ah-nold without breaking much of a sweat?
  • Why has Jerry "The King" Lawler remained silent, letting Ric Flair hog all the glory?
  • If Gary Cooper were alive, and took on the whole lot of ’em, all by his lonesome (which you know he would if it came right down to it), would he prevail?
  • Is it just me or does Rudy Giuliani, who took on all Five Families and just missed getting whacked by a single vote on the Commission, actually look happier now that he’s given up? And what does that mean for America future, when a quitter is happier than a scrapper? Could Gary Cooper ever have been happy if he’d quit? I don’t reckon so.

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Harpootlian says he’s ‘handcuffed’ in opposing Clintons’ ‘Eddie Haskell’ campaign

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"We’re handcuffed," moans Dick Harpootlian about his role in "truth-squadding" Bill Clinton’s whoppers about Obama.

"I’m ready to rip ’em a new one," he says, but the Obama campaign is holding him back. But entirely, though, this being Dick.

"I’ve dubbed the Clinton campaign the ‘Eddie Haskell Campaign,’ for claiming to want to run a clean campaign, then trashing Obama in the next breath. It’s like they’re saying, "Nice dress, Mrs. Cleaver," and as soon as she leaves the room, "Hey, Beav, your Mom looks like s__t." He says the strategy clearly is to turn voters off enough to suppress turnout.

So how, exactly, is Dick being restrained? "No one’s talked about 8 years in the White House," he says. OK, Dick, so what about their 8 years in the White House?

Dick says he can’t say. Apparently, if he does, Mom and Dad will give him the business.

On a personal note, let me add that today is Dick’s birthday, and he’s 59. I guess that’s why he’s expected to act all grown up and stuff now. This has him saying unDicklike things such as, "I really, really, really was shocked at the tactics they’ve employed in recent weeks."

Next thing ya know, he’ll be referring to Lumpy as "Clarence."

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Happy Elvis Day!

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Chris Roberts no longer works for this newspaper, but every year on this day, that former colleague somehow gets through the crack security of our isolated campus, and the motion detectors protecting my sanctum sanctorum itself, and leaves a jelly donut on my desk.

So it is that I never forget Elvis Presley’s birthday — which, as I’m sure you know, is today.

Yes, folks, it’s time to take a breather from our earthly striving and try to get in touch with our essential Elvisness.

Huckabee gets shave and haircut, Capone-style

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Shave3

We’ve all heard about John Edwards’ tycoon-priced haircuts. But no one would ever think Mike Huckabee would make such a big deal about getting his ears lowered. With his regular-guy persona,Shave
you sort of picture him sitting, unnoticed, reading dog-eared copies of "Field and Stream" while he humbly waits his turn to sit in Floyd’s chair.

Who’da thunk we’d ever see Huck holding court like a king as he is shorn and shaved, like Robert DeNiro in Brian DePalma’s "The Untouchables?" (These photos were taken at the Executive Forum Barbershop — how’s that for a Ritzy-sounding name — in Des Moines, Iowa, on Dec. 31.)

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You remember that scene, early in the film (sorry, I’ve tried to find a clip on the Web without success, and I don’t know how to get it off my DVD, but I did find this photo). It was meant to show Capone as the master of Chicago — the barber coming to him in his hotel room, and the Boss holding court with a fawning press that chuckles at his thuggish witticisms. It was a scene meant to show Capone as being everything Mike Huckabee is not supposed to be.

So I thought these pictures moved by The Associated Press a bit incongruous. Maybe they should just go back to moving snaps of the (New) Man from Hope grinning with his Fender bass.

But given his success in Iowa, paired with the press’ guilt over having neglected the man heretofore, I guess we’ll have to get used this this sort of wall-to-wall coverage of every instant of the candidate’s daily life. I just hope I’m looking somewhere else when they move the pictures of him holding court in the bathtub.
Shine

Separated at birth?

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Huckabee_014

Mike Huckabee, with that friendly Everyman face of his, seems to remind everybody of somebody. In a column coming up Sunday, George Will compares him to Richard Nixon — which I can sort of see, although I’ll warn you that Mr. Will doesn’t mean it in a nice way (but you sort of knew that, right?).

I’ll tell you who he reminds me of — so much so that, when I was flipping channels the other day on the off chance that there’d be something worth watching before popping in the DVD (there wasn’t), I saw this guy and stopped, thinking for a second that it was Gov. Huckabee.

But then I realized it wasn’t. It was another guy, pretending that he already was the president. I did a little research to get specifics.

It was Gregory Itzin, who portrays "President Charles Logan" on "24." Check out his picture, and imagine Mr. Huckabee frowning, rather than wearing his seemingly perpetual smile. See the resemblance? Maybe it’s just me, but I thought it was a little spooky.

By the way, here’s a fun fact to know and tell: At this moment, there are about 210 pictures of Huck on Grin1
the Associated Press wire. And in almost every single one of them, he’s captured with a friendly grin. I just thought I’d tell you that, in case you doubted that Gov. Huckabee is this year’s Jimmy Carter. Remember in 1976, when, if you went by what was printed, you’d think the man was always grinning?

And no, it’s not a conspiracy. The thing is, that’s just the way everybody thinks of this guy who has just fully burst onto the national consciousness. So far, his imageGrin2_2
is one-dimensional. Photographers think, "This is the guy who grins," so they go through their exposures looking for the grinning shots, so they will look like him, and that’s what their editors put on the wire, and that’s what newspaper editors use, because those are the ones that "look like" Huckabee.

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It’s something you don’t even notice unless you do what I just did, which is deliberately look for a frowning shot. Here’s one of the few exceptions without the winning smile (below), and it still doesn’t quite meet my needs for the comparison to Mr. Itzin. But watch — if the Huckabee candidacy lasts a few weeks longer, we’ll start to see the image take on a fuller set of moods.

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Cops and tattoos

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Coptattoo1

A letter on today’s page addressed an issue that we’re going to face more and more as today’s youth enter the job market:

Tattoos shouldn’t be taboo for troopers
    I am writing this in response to W.N. Kennedy’s letter, “Lawmakers should hire more troopers,”
    I agree 100 percent; however, some rules in the state trooper hiring regulations are outdated and therefore prohibit qualified individuals from obtaining a job.
    Around May 2006, I sat down for an informal interview with a state trooper to see if I should pursue a career with the Highway Patrol. I was a summer semester away from obtaining my associate’s degree and had five years of service with the Marines under my belt.
    The trooper liked what he saw; unfortunately, I have two inoffensive tattoos on my right forearm. And the rule for state troopers is that no tattoos will be showing while in uniform.
    He and another trooper suggested that I just get the tattoos removed. However, they were unaware of the cost and process of getting them removed. I told them I was willing to wear long sleeves year round, but that was against regulations.
    South Carolina really needs to get with the times. Tattoos are not taboo anymore. More and more people of all ages are getting them. If a person is qualified, tattoos should not be a factor in any hiring process. Tattoos do not inhibit a person’s ability to perform tasks and get his or her job done correctly.
KYLE OSTRANDER
Chapin

This reminds me of two things I noticed about the NYPD during the sweltering week I spent in the cityCoptatoo2
during the 2004 Republican Convention:

  • New York has more cops than I thought existed in the entire world.
  • A lot of them have major, in-your-face tattoos.

Sometimes, as with the officer depicted above and in the inset detail, they were decorated to the point that you noticed the tattoos more than the uniform. It was distracting until you got used to it. But I didn’t notice in impairing their ability to do their duty.

Oh, as a postscript I should probably point out that distracting images tend to multiply in our memories. While I know I saw more than one cop with tattoos that week, they were the exception. Looking back through all my images that week (and there are lots of cops in those pictures) most were not thus decorated where you could see it (and thereby probably less threatening to the older tourists):

Cops4

Ditch the Farm Bill

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Yesterday, Senators rejected the Fresh Act, which sought to reform the mad waste embodied in the Farm Bill currently up for consideration. They said the sensible approach, proposed by that wild-eyed radical Dick Lugar, "just moves too far, too fast." Those are the words of Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

OK, so you don’t like the alternative. So just don’t pass a farm bill, say I. If any true needs go begging as a result, we’ll address them as they come. In the meantime, we’ll say goodbye to such scenarios as the one that the WSJ mocked Tuesday in "Green Acres" terms:

    The Environmental Working Group has a map of New York City making the rounds on the Internet that shows 562 dots, each representing a Manhattan resident who gets a USDA farm payment. Who knew that growing cotton, corn and soybeans was such a thriving industry near Central Park? We don’t know the incomes of these people, but it’s a fair guess they’re not homeless.
    What we have here is a real-life version of the 1960s TV show "Green Acres," but in reverse. In the fictional series, Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor play a fancy couple who flee Manhattan to live down on the farm among the pigs and goats, while she pines for the glitter of Times Square. In the 2007 version, they flee the farm for Manhattan and get a subsidy check at their Park Avenue penthouse. What a deal.

Hooterville was an absurd nightmare for Oliver Wendell Douglas, who learned episode after episode that everyone saw madness as perfectly normal. So it is with Washington and farm bills.

Maya Angelou — when is HER show on?

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Poor Zac over at Clinton HQ sent this out today, with timing that invites (probably intentionally, but set me straight on that if I’m wrong, Zac) comparison to the Double-O show yesterday:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 10, 2007

Contact: Zac Wright

Dr. Maya Angelou Hits SC Airwaves for Hillary
‘My Girl’ Radio Spot Airs Statewide
(COLUMBIA) – Dr. Maya Angelou took her support of Hillary Clinton to the South Carolina airwaves as Clinton launched her fourth radio spot in the state, entitled “My Girl.”  The 60-second spot began playing on radio stations across the state over the weekend.

In the spot, Dr. Angelou describes her personal support of Hillary and focuses on Hillary’s experience as an advocate for families.

A complete transcript is included below.  The radio ad can be heard online at: www.hillaryclinton.com/hq/southcarolina.

Maya Angelou:   Hello South Carolina, this is Maya Angelou. Let me tell you about my girl… Hillary Clinton. 
    As a child, Hillary Clinton was taught that all God’s children are equal, so as a mother she understood that her child wasn’t safe unless all children were safe.
    I know what kind of president Hillary Clinton will be because I know who she is.  Hillary Clinton has always been a strong woman and a passionate protector of families.  For 35 years, that’s exactly what she has been doing.
    Each generation of African Americans stands on the shoulders of those who came before.  Today, the challenges facing us threaten the dreams we have had for our children.  We need a president with the experience and strength to meet those challenges.
    I am inspired by Hillary Clinton’s commitment and courage… a daughter, a wife, a mother… my girl.

                        I’m Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.

                        ###

So, how does that match-up play out? Oprah vs. Maya? I think I’d choose the endorsement that Obama got, if I were running for the Democratic nomination.

The elves are restless

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On Thanksgiving, after the turkey, I accompanied my family — or the portion able to join us to visit my youngest up in Pennsylvania — to see "Fred Claus." (Vince Vaughan cracks me up, OK?) Anyway, we enjoyed it for the light entertainment it was.

The next day, we bopped up to NYC because my youngest had never been there. Yes, we visited the shopping capital of the world on the busiest shopping day of the year. We weren’t buying; looking was overwhelming enough. And it turns out that, while "Fred Claus" exposed certain problems with Santa’s toy production process, it failed to reflect the deep unrest among some of the elves — or at least, the elves we found on the sidewalk outside Macy’s. (Like an explorer drawn into the heart of darkness, I couldn’t resist leading the kids that way in awe and fascination, after we got off the New Jersey Transit train across the street at Penn Station.)

They were very angry — and unexpectedly tall, I found. Maybe they were Middle Earth elves, rather than the kind from the North Pole. In any case, they didn’t seem to have the ol’ Santa spirit.

In case you went shopping on Friday and think it was hectic, I share with you this video, which still doesn’t quite show what it was really like to be in that bedlam. As one of my daughters said looking over my shoulder at the portion of the video inside Macy’s (the part right after the angry elves), "You had to be there." A very different scene from during the parade the day before, but just about as crowded.

I really spoiled the hectic effect by throwing in some restful parts — the skaters at Rockefeller Center, for instance — because I’m a big believer in giving The Full Picture.

I’m withholding judgment until I hear from Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler

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What’s with the preacher man lining up endorsements from all the tough guys? First Chuck Norris, and now it seems that Ric "The Nature Boy" Flair also ♥s Huckabee.

It just gets weirder all the time. A natural conservative Christian candidate like Huckabee watches as theLawler
religious right lines up behind Romney, Giuliani and Thompson, and the guys who make a living making the OTHER guy turn the other cheek are going with the ex-clergyman.

I’m not going to be swayed by any of it — especially not by any grappler out of Charlotte. When it comes to professional wrestling and martial arts, I go the same way that I go on barbecue — Memphis style, all the way. Get back to me when Jerry "The King" Lawler (at right) and Kang Rhee make their endorsements.

Snopes says anti-God rumor is TRUE

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Just got one of those e-mails that warn folks about some wicked, anti-Christian conspiracy out there, but this one was different. Often, I check such things out at Snopes.com, and send the debunking results back to the sender to prevent him/her from perpetuating the hoax any further.

This message, from a fellow parishioner at St. Peter’s, included its own link to Snopes, validating the rumor. The e-mail I received was along these lines:

You may already know about the kids movie
coming out in December starring Nicole Kidman. It’s called The Golden Compass,
and while it will be a watered down version, it is based on a series of
children’s books about killing God (It is the anti-Narnia). Please follow this
link and then pass it on. From what I understand, the hope is to get a lot of
kids to see the movie – which won’t seem too bad – and then get the parents to
buy the books for their kids for Christmas. The quotes from the author sum it
all up.

The books are written by one Philip Pullman, who according to Snope characterizes his books thusly: "My books are about killing God." Here’s the more complete quote, from the The Sydney Morning Herald:

"I’ve been surprised by how little criticism I’ve got. Harry Potter’s
been taking all the flak. I’m a great fan of J.K. Rowling, but the
people – mainly from America’s Bible Belt – who complain that Harry
Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven’t got enough in
their lives. Meanwhile, I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things
that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My
books are about killing God."

So there you have it. Forget all those Dark Arts fears regarding Harry Potter; this guy’s the real deal. As rumors go, this one appears to me of the man-bites-dog variety.

There’s something refreshing about having a proper, no-bones-about-it villain for a change.

And after all that perfectly good sucking-up, too…

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The Dems have officially said no to Stephen Colbert.

Bet he regrets all that free champagne poured on Sunday. Or not. This is, of course, a no-lose deal for Mr. Colbert. He can just as well run a sham write-in campaign as a sham conventional one.

Actually, this is a win-win for him on another level. He told the assembled Dems Sunday that he, for one, is not worried about the threatened Hollywood writers’ strike. If the writers are gone, he just keeps "campaigning," and his character’s story line progresses without missing a beat, and without recourse to reruns.

Meanwhile, not that it matters, but I wonder what the reasons were for the committee stiffing my most fameful fan? Could it be that they didn’t want anyone making a joke of their primary? If so, they’re far too late.

Don’t take the brown museum!

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My man McCain keeps going on about this proposal Hillary had for a Woodstock museum, and I can’t help that the old dude’s missing the real problem here. I keep thinking: a museum? For Woodstock?

There’s something extremely uncool about that. Museums are where established, older-generation culture is stored and entombed in cold marble, right? It’s where the Man puts his stuff.

Wasn’t Woodstock — to the extent that it was about anything other than being a rip-roarin’, get-high-and-get-nekkid sort of party — sort of about the opposite of that?

Where was Hillary’s head at?

Oh — and in case you’re not digging where my headline is at, here’s a link.

Was it all Democrats? You betcha

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A reader noted that he saw no Republicans in the photos or videos from the Stephen Colbert brunch, and he’s absolutely right.

The invitations to the event were sent out by Dwight Drake, and seemed to include a lot of his friends. Beyond that, it was staged as though "Candidate" Colbert were making a pitch to S.C. Democrats to let him onto the ballot for the state’s presidential primary.

Dwight had hinted ahead of time that one Republican would be there for a special presentation, but it didn’t work out because the GOP token had a family emergency.

See the above video as a partial guide to who was there. At bottom, you’ll see a clip that shows Colbert making his "pitch" to the party honchos.

Emile DeFelice to Colbert: Put Your State on Your Neck

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We all know that Emile DeFelice, hog farmer and sloganmeister extraordinaire (when I told him I had missed his twice-monthly alternative farmers market yesterday because we were having a garage sale, he responded "Put your Junk in your Trunk"), is a real consciousness-raiser when it comes to putting S.C. first.

Here, he takes advantage of Stephen Colbert‘s having mentioned South Carolina peaches to present the South Carolinian comedian/presidential candidate with neckwear more appropriate to his surroundings. (Note the slogan Emile put on the box the tie came in, below.)

Candidate Colbert, ever ready to pander, immediately effected a change, without pausing in his patter.

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Reserving judgment on Colbert

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Having just received an e-mail solicitation to this effect…

Adam invited you to join the Facebook group "1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T Colbert".

… I am faced with the necessity of making a decision: Do I want to be associated with such tomfoolery?

I’m just not ready to decide, though. I’ve been invited (by his attorneys) to brunch Sunday with this Mr. Colbert, so I’m going to wait until then to gauge how seriously I want to take him. Between now and then, I have got to get access to cable TV, and find out who he is… For all I know, he’s some empty name-dropper.