Modern Kicks

our swingin' pad

If you will indulge me: one of the worst parts of moving is that period after you're in but before the cable (let alone internet) has been hooked up.  Nothing this time compares to my last move, six years ago this past summer, when the only two stations we could get in with the rabbit ears were the local NBC and CBS affiliates.  Night after night they were showing nothing but season one of Big Brother and the Olympics, respectively.  Yup, nothing to choose between but "Chicken" George losing his shit or gymnastics, every freaking evening.  God, I hate reality tv and the Olympics.

Like I said, nothing that bad this time, though enough to make me feel grateful when one of the Law and Order franchises came on, even the skeevy Law and Ordern: Snuff Films Unit or whatever it is.  Stuff like that at least was better than the non-stop crap CBS shows.  I was sort of dimly aware of this, but a few days watching brought it home more clearly: CBS targets the stupid demographic.  How else to explain something like Vegas?  The mix of storylines, some lighter, even attempting humor, while the main arc deals with a straightforward action scenario, wasn't exactly unfamiliar--it's pretty much standard fare.  Perhaps it's the stress of trying to combine both a boosterish view of Las Vegas as a family destination and Sin City that makes the show so bad.  Vegas, the town where they'll do their darnedest to see you have a good time--unless you cross them, then they'll whack you The Vanishing-style.  A problem of tone, if you will.  My favorite sub-plot, however, involved a Buddhist monk visiting the casino to teach a member of the staff that only by losing everything could one hope to begin to find happiness.  Someone I don't think that's a lesson the real Vegas usually teaches, but would probably like to.  Thanks, I think I'll just stay home.

Jonathan Richman - Our Swingin' Pad

ratings magic

So your political drama has lost a third of its audience since it switched nights, how do you recapture that audience?  Gripping plot twists?  Compelling stories?  How about: a live debate between candidates for office!  Good lord, a wedding would have been better.  I always thought the idea behind NBC's "must-see tv" slogan was that the shows were so enticing, you had to watch; evidently it's really meant to make you feel like it's your duty as a citizen to stay and fidget through a snoozefest.  Perhaps The West Wing can have a future episode that consists of a public policy roundtable.  People can't get enough of those.

you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here

I remember a number of years ago having a conversation with a friend and both of us agreeing that if we never heard Bob Dylan again, it would be too soon.  It wasn't about feeling burned by so many lackluster records - though I'd like my money back for Knocked Out Loaded - so much as a rejection of, reaching the point of revulsion toward, any of his "classic" records.  I hate to admit it, but I've relented slightly in recent years, allowing three or four songs back into (light) rotation.  Still, I planned on ignoring WGBH's broadcast of Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home, until freakin' Denver put the beatdown on Kansas City in less than a quarter.  After that, I found my interest in the game dwindling and, with nothing much else apparently on offer, drifted on over to PBS to see a good chunk of the first installation.

It was not without its moments.  Hibbing, Minnesota looked not unlike a lot of older small towns, but the isolation of the place came through.  I'm not sure any other depiction of Dylan's life could bring home in quite such a rich and suggestive way both the scene of his beginnings and his feeling for entertainment traditions of a different America, even as he moved away and out of it.  Even better, the palpable enjoyment and pride that popped out of his usual reserve while  describing his return to Minneapolis after spending time in New York.  Before, he had been just another faceless guy on the scene; when he came back, after absorbing what was happening in Greenwich Village, he killed.  Dylan liked that, and it was hard not to share his pleasure, still alive more than four decades later.

But, oh, the music.  So much of it - so awful.  I'm not talking only about Bob, who often came across as the best of a bad bunch, but the folk music scene.  Horrible, horrible, horrible, to a point in which you wonder if that's not the point.  To be a bit fair, part of the problem stemmed from the need to rely on television performances for footage.  Given the governing conventions, these clips couldn't help but come across as stagey and false, whatever virtues the performers possessed.  But far too often, "stagey and false" described what the performers on view actually had to offer.  The hamming didn't help: in contemporary interview footage, Liam Clancy acting out the cliches of a poetic, or musical, or drunken Irishman, was an recurring irritant.   It can't surprise anyone, after viewing the show, that the folk scene grabbed hold of Dylan and his songs so quickly; however longwinded or tedious he ran, his stuff was tougher in spirit.  A movement in search of authenticity needed that.

And so at the end we see them all at Newport, warbling, with their absurd autoharps, rallying around their new star, singing his songs.  Most of which are too long and repetitive, but have a certain force nonetheless.  He'll move on, as we're reminded throughout by selected clips of fans irate over his electric performances, while they're consigned to the dustbin.  Or at least, to the fate of waiting a couple of years to figure it all  out and get with the times.  Most of the clips shown of the legendary UK tour with the Hawks disappoint; too many close-ups of Dylan's face.  Head held to the side, gazing upward, he looks stoned.  Or deeply bored.

be more funny

Crossposted at Grammar.police

So evidently a lot of people are excited that Fox is bringing back “The Family Guy” after canceling it.  I can’t really see why – while I always like to see a RISD grad make good, I could never get into that show.  The character of the baby is not as funny as the creators seem to think, and the son’s voice is extremely grating, never a good feature.  Can’t watch it.

I’m also a little bitter that a mediocre production like “The Family Guy” is getting a second chance when the true comedy gold, “Greg the Bunny” was axed without a second thought.  Sarah Silverman, Eugene Levy, and puppets?  C’mon!  Warren Demontague is a monkey god.  How anyone can get through life without slipping “I’m going to be spending the weekend in wine country . . . that’s what I call the room above my garage” into casual conversations, well, I just don’t understand.  But there it is, Fox kicked the show around for a few months and then killed it.  A tragedy.

Other things no one in their right mind has any use for: Star Wars, anything involving any form of the word “Hitchhike” in the title, movies in general.

black cat crossed my path

Crossposted at Grammar.police

My earliest political memories revolve around “Bewitched.”  It was my favorite tv show back in the day, and I remember getting very upset when it would get pre-empted so that some boring old people could sit around desks and talk about some “Watergate" crap no one could possibly care about.  So it was with mixed feelings that I read in today’s Globe about plans for a statue of Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha to be erected in Salem, MA (check for registration):

. . . some in Salem are upset over plans by the TV Land cable network to honor the late Montgomery with a 9-foot bronze statue in a city infamous for its 17th century persecution of people feared to be witches. The statue would depict Montgomery sitting sidesaddle on a broom. It would stand in a downtown park at the corner of Essex and Washington streets.

''It's insensitive to what happened in 1692," said Jean Harrison, one of several Salem residents opposing the plan. ''She was a fictional witch, but the people who died were not witches."

True enough, but it seems to me that Salem long ago lost the battle of good taste in dealing with its past.  Especially in the fall, some of the tourist traps up there seem like they came out of the old SNL skit “Goth Talk.”  But it is worth noting that the intersection in question is pretty much in the heart of town, not exactly an inconspicuous location one could overlook.  And what about this?

The Samantha Stephens role, which is about to be reprised by Nicole Kidman in a ''Bewitched" movie, would join a cast of characters immortalized in bronze across America by TV Land, including Ralph Kramden, Andy and Opie Taylor, and Mary Richards. TV Land, which shows reruns of old television programs, calls the statues TV Land Landmarks.

Some critics oppose the statue on other grounds, saying the series was set in Westport, Conn.

First, this is just freaking weird.  How messed up must we be when a cable TV network is putting up statues across the country?  I mean, screw art used in ads – this is ads as art.  Pretty kitschy art, too – which is not to say all of the shows lacked value (though “Bewitched” did, I have to admit.)  And do you think Westport would let them put the statue there?  I doubt it.  The Mary Richards statue is located in downtown Minneapolis – I’ve seen it, actually, though I didn’t know the story behind it.  But hell, people liked that show.  The Ralph Kramden statue, on the other hand, was not placed in Brooklyn, where the character worked, but in front of the New York City Port Authority bus terminal.  To emerge from that dank hellhole – how sweet it is!  Whatever one think of the broader situation, it has to be taken as an intentional insult to put a statue of anyone in front of the Port Authority.  If I were related to Jackie Gleason, I’d be pissed and wouldn't forget it.

"You're finished."

Who the hell does Ted Koppel think he is, the Godfather?

Obamamania

Josh Marshall has a typically good post among the countless others written last night and today about Barack Obama's speech last night.  Consider this another addition to the pile.  Josh focuses on Obama's lack of self-consciousness, his rapport with the crowd and confidence of manner.  All true, and no doubt from the floor it was even more impressive.  Watching at home, one of the things I found remarkable about his performance was how skillfully he balanced playing to the crowd in the hall and to the camera.  While sweeping the live audience along with him and building on their rising enthusiasm, Obama never forgot to play to the viewer at home.  While passionate, his voice did not become a yell that wouldn't play well in the living room; and his eye contact with the camera was steady and warm.  Yeah, he's got it.

Well, someone needed to say it

So leave it to Jon Stewart.  Somehow I doubt the event occurred exactly as described, but nonetheless, this is priceless:

The tightly wrapped comic's harangue included a blast at the media's ''absolute acceptance of being stage-managed'' and an attack on Washington as a city of ''absolute self-delusion and arrogance.'' When Howard Kurtz, who covers the news media for The Washington Post and CNN, protested, Stewart stopped him with, ''Your network is silly.''

(From Romensko.)