WOOFS OF SORROW, WAGS OF JOY

It was a year ago today, on what would have been my mom's eighty-second birthday, that I somewhat reluctantly drove down to the Animal Rescue League to see this beagle puppy Tabbatha had told me about.  I had no intention of bringing it home with me, but as we all know, the puppy had other ideas.

And Isabella T. Beagle (there's nothing excessively cutesy about that name, is there?) has brought me more joy in that year than I would have thought possible.  She does this in all the standard dog ways--bouncing, rolling, barking unexpectedly, deploying the big brown soulful eyes to get whatever she wants.

Mostly, though, she's just there when I need her.  I mean, cats are great and all, and for that matter, so are girlfriends, but there are some problems in life that can only be solved by hugging a dog.  And the great thing about Bella is, after a minute or so of hug-time, she starts squirming furiously, as if to say, "OK, sad time's over.  Let's go play."  And she's right, of course--after hugging her, I always feel better, and playing with her always makes me happy.

Which isn't to say she can't be a pain in the ass, because she can.  Janie and the cats would all be perfectly happy if she wasn't around.  On the other hand, there was the time Janie was scared to the point of crying, and Bella gently climbed onto her lap and carefully licked away her tears.  And though Staley--who, incidentally, is one of the greatest cats in the history of the species--doesn't exactly like the dog, the two of them are nuzzling each other even as I write this.

The main thing bout Bella--look, I'm kind of reluctant to bring this up, because it sounds like so much sentimental bullshit, or feel-good semi-mystical hooha, or something.  But it's to do with the day she came into my life.  I'm quite sure Tabbatha wasn't giving any thought to the fact that I was going through my annual Mom's Birthday Sadness when she called to tell me about this adorable puppy.  That was on a Friday night, and I didn't care to head out that night, waiting instead until the next day to take a look--April 10th.

As I drove home with this tiny, helpless beagle snuggled against my side--the last time she'd be so calm in my presence!--the day was suddenly transformed.  No longer would April 10th be a signifier of the loss of the most important person in my life.  It would be a day celebrating a new chapter, a day of joy, of happiness.

Of life.

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

I'm no prude, okay?  Nor am I some Bill O'Reilly conservative type, or a fundamen6talist Christian nutjob.  Nonetheless, I must ask: Do we need jokey cameos from Hugh Hefner in a movie aimed at kids?

I'm speaking, of course, of Hop, the new animated/live-action mongrel that is, as the ads proclaim with a certain level of pride, "from the director of Alvin & The Chipmunks," which you may remember as the movie in which semi-beloved characters from an earlier era are reduced to eating shit and conspiring to get their human buddy laid.  So expectations are already low.

Still, this is a movie about the Easter Bunny, which is one of those childhood concepts that ceases to have any significance once you reach the age of, I dunno, seven or so.  So presumably, if you're making a movie about the Easter Bunny, you're setting your sights on really young kids as your target audience.

Now I realize that when millions and millions of dollars are spent on a movie, it has to try to reach as large an audience as possible.  Presumably the filmmakers wanted to provide some sort of entertainment for the adults who are accompanying all those kids.  They could have done this by creating a well-crafted, witty film that would enrapture everybody, the kind of thing Pixar can do without even trying.

Or they could take the most cynical route imaginable and make a bunch of cheap semi-dirty jokes, trot out the likes of Hefner and the deplorable Chelsea Handler, and give audiences a cameo from David Hasselhoff because...wait.  Why would you do any of that?  Even for b-level celebrities, haven't Handler and Hasselhoff long passed their sell-by date?  Would anybody in any audience conceivably welcome their presence?

Probably not, but it's not like the maker of Hop give a sweet shit.  If they did, they would have made a good movie.

CATS! ALSO, DOG!

Do any of you--specifically, the two remaining readers I still have--remember the old days of this site?  When leftist political screeds (laced, sadly, with frequent Star Wars analogies) would alternate with painfully detailed explorations of the minutia of my personal life?  Man, with a surefire combo like that, no wonder this thing took off!

I mention this because, first of all, it seems weird that I never even mention things like the assault on Libya by The Coalition Of The Still-Willing, or the non-existent economic recovery, or radiation leaking over from Japan.  The world could end tomorrow, and I'd still spend all my time here complaining about that stupid fucking Spider-Man musical.

What's even more mystifying is my inability or unwillingness to write about my life.  That is, my life now; God knows, I've spent plenty of time turning over the rocks of my past.  (Talking about past suicide attempts: a positive way to embiggen your readership!)  I mean, for crying out loud, she's been here for weeks now and I still haven't said a word about new cat Cookie.

Cookie is Janie's cat--because Janie has officially moved in, and hey, I haven't mentioned that, either--and, man oh Manischewitz, she's the furriest cat I've ever known.  But the thing is, unlike other recent feline addition Staley--who I should also talk about more often, because she's awesome--Cookie barely sheds at all.  If she sleeps on my pillow, I'll be able to get up the next morning breathing clear.  If Staley's next to my head all night, I'll spend the day hacking up hairballs.

Since there are now three cats roaming around the house (beloved malcontent Delmar is still here, of course, and dealing with all this as best he can), the poor beagle is forced to spend more time in her kennel, just to allow the cats some wandering around time without a rambunctious dog trying to stomp them.

At first, I was kind of opposed to this idea.  Isn't it terrible to confine a dog for long periods of time?  But actually, as many dog trainers can tell you, it is in fact a good idea.  Isabella loves her kennel--she jumps into it willingly, and immediately curls up.  It's kind of her home inside her home, and more importantly, it helps establish a routine for her.  There are rules around here, just like any other household, and this is one Bella is expected to follow.  When she obeys, she is rewarded with love.  And biscuits, which frankly count for more in her world.

It occurs to me that if Bella has rules she is expected to follow, and if Janie and I have certain responsibilities we have to carry out each day, the cats are pretty much free to do whatever the hell they want, any time of day.  As they would no doubt tell you, this is part of the natural order of things.

PRETTY SURE I'VE USED THIS AS A TITLE BEFORE, BUT THERE'S NOTHING ELSE TO SAY: AAIIEEEE!

Looking back, it seems kind of impressive that I used to post here every day, but let's face it: Much of what appeared here was merely padding.  There were lazy, single paragraph posts, there were lame "can't think of a premise" posts and there were shitloads of clip jobs.

And many--too many?--of those clips showcased random numbers from TV variety specials of the seventies.  And yes, many of those numbers featured the barely competent Lynda Carter, because she served as a shining exemplar of seventies celebrity.  Enormous breasts aside, she had no particular reason to be a star, yet there she was on TV anyway, and worse, she was singing.

One might have thought I had exhausted the available library of Lynda clips, and even I thought I had, but the internet is a bottomless pit of unnecessary things, so there's always the dreaded More: More Lynda, More singing, More dancing, More campy Peter Allen songs that aren't even very good on their own terms.

But hey, enough with the talking.  Take it away, Carter Miranda!

IN WHICH I GO OFF ON ANOTHER WEIRD TANGENT

Look, I have no control over the types of things that pop into my head.  That's the only way I can explain why I found myself wandering around the other day singing The Hut Sut Song.

If you, quite sensibly, wonder what the hell I'm talking about, you clearly didn't know my mom, who would break into this from time to time.  As to how or why the damned thing ever came to exist, as Dr. Floyd said of the monolith in 2001, its origin and purpose remain a total mystery.  Posting this on St. Patrick's Day makes no sense whatsoever, but what do you want?  At least I'm not going on about El Brendel again.

CAN'T SEE NO SKY

There was never blood, not any of the times I slashed my wrists.  Oh, I wanted there to be: rivers of crimson, my very essence visibly departing.  I wasn't some fucking cutter.  This wasn't done for cheap effect.  I wanted to die every single time.

Unfortunately, as the great philosopher Daffy Duck once observed, pain hurts.  Sure enough, the more pressure I applied to my wrist, the greater the pain.  Well, I'd think, what if I mess this whole thing up?  What if I don't die, but somehow lose the use of my hands, or otherwise have to continue to live in a state of unbearable agony?

The fact that I could never take that permanent step raises the possibility that I didn't, if fact, want to die.  Okay, maybe a few of those times, when I was just trying to send some kind of message to my mom and dad, or my wife, or whoever was unfortunate enough to be in my orbit at that particular time.  Maybe.  But there were so many other times when I floundered all alone with my despair, when the only shred of hope I could cling to was the promise of sweet oblivion--oh yes, those were the times when I did indeed wish to leave this world permanently.

Funny, though...like so many things in my past, I remember the details--my cat Monika sitting at my feet, the mocking sunshine outside the window, the tender flesh of my wrist growing whiter and whiter as I drove the blade down harder--but I can't recall the context.  What overwhelming depression could have led me to such feelings?  What could have prompted me to want to say The Big Adios?  What emotions were so intense, what could have gone so wrong, what was my fucking deal?

I can remember plots of TV shows from thirty years ago.  I can remember details of aimless car trips my brother and I took when I was in junior high.  I can remember a thousand voices and songs and conversations.  But the circumstances and emotions that made me want to kill myself--sorry, no.  Those are the things I can't recall.

So I continue to live, relatively happily.  There are plenty of down days, sure, but the thought of ending it all never crosses my mind.  Why would it?  That's not a rational way of thinking.  Still, from time to time I'll notice the scars on my wrists, up and down and crisscrossed like a subway map, and I'll wonder what it felt like to hate myself so much.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE TURN OFF THE DARK

Of all the unfortunate things to come from the whole Charlie Sheen affair, the worst by far is that it has stolen the nation's pop cultural spotlight away from that godawful Spider-Man musical.

Really, they might as well start billing it as "That God-Awful Spider-Man Musical" but until they do, it's still called Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, which, as I've said over and over again, is the worst title of anything conceived in human history.  Turns out, the title was contributed by Bono, who is perfectly happy to have people call him Bono, so the sheer stupidity of it becomes a bit more understandable.

But not acceptable.  The annoyingly pretentious Irishman dreamed up the title based on a story he vaguely recalled about a kid who said "Turn off the dark" instead of "turn on the light".  Ha, ha.  That's cute, Bono, but what the fuck does it have to do with Spider-Man?  By that logic, I could write a terrible musical adaptation of Taxi Driver and call it "Travis Bickle: Masho Peetato" and explain that the title comes from my inability as a child to properly pronounce "mashed potatoes".  Would that have anything to do with the character at hand?  Of course not.  Does "turn off the dark" have anything to do with Spider-Man?  Of course not.

Bono's indulgence is clearly typical of the show right down the line.  Seriously, read this synopsis of the plot.  Sure, a typical Marvel Comics plot could be ridiculously convoluted, but it would at least be straightforward.  This...this makes no damned sense.  And worse, it's obvious that Spider-Man/Peter Parker is a hapless bystander in his own show, that director Julie Taymor (who was referred to in every story about this thing until previews began as "visionary director Julie Taymor") is more interested in the whole Arachne/mythology thing and grafted some shit she was already working on onto the Spider-Man show because there was funding for it.

Taymor deserves all the mockery she's been receiving--did I mention the show includes a supervillain fashion parade?--but to offer a half-hearted defense of her position, the show as it stands is only partially her fault.  Sure, the creative debacle is entirely her doing, but there's no way anyone should have let the show get that far.  Once anybody with any business sense read her script, they should have clearly said, "Thanks, not what we're looking for."  Nobody could have thought that fake-poetic hooha about Greek mythology was a good idea in a show about a contemporary superhero.  Maybe they were waiting around to get some idea of Taymor's staging concept--her, uh, vision, if you will--but again, once they saw this crap in rehearsals, the producers should have either pulled the plug or started over with an entirely different concept.  All the wirework in the world can't save a bad idea.

Now that Taymor has been shown the door (or metaphorically snapped her cable and plunged to the stage) it's unclear how the new creative team can possibly salvage this thing.  They are so far only being given a three-month window to work this into shape, so there's no time to start from scratch.  (Everyone who has seen the damned thing agrees that the whole Arachne thing needs to be dropped, but given how much of the physical production is built around her, that seems unlikely.)  And really, why should they change it?  Taymor's show is already considered one of the worst things in Broadway history; bringing it to the level of respectable competence would reduce a legendary disaster to a merely dull failure.

REFLECTIONS IN THE WAVES, OR SOME DAMN THING

Oh, this is a crappy song.



I was twelve when this came out, and I hated it then.  I hated the neo-classical piano and the whooshing synthesizers and the whole aliens-and-shit angle, which just comes out of nowhere and...everything about it, basically.

Except.  That whole "reflections in the waves spark my memories" bit.  "Some happy, some sad/I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had."  When I'd hear this song in the middle of the night on the AM radio in my bedroom, those lines seemed authentically rueful, the lament of someone who'd been around, a message to me that everything in life doesn't always turn out for the best--after all, if Dennis DeYoung's friends could miss out on the pot of gold, what hope did the rest of us have?

These days, obviously, I realize that part of the song is just as phony as everything else.  But once upon a time it served its purpose--it injected a bit of melancholia into a profoundly stupid pop song, and it made me realize that even the most placid surface could mask troubling depths.  Which means on some level I'll always be grateful for a Styx song. My life, consequently, has been lived in shame.

HOW I SPENT MY WEDNESDAY

Standing with the other suckers roped into jury duty for twenty minutes or so, waiting for the court house to open.  When the doors are finally unlocked, we shuffle obediently through the metal detectors, find the restrooms, make note of all the vending machines and finally make our way to Room 303.

"We'll validate your tickets when you're dismissed for the day.  Please take a badge and have a seat," says the pleasantly efficient blond in the surprisingly low-cut silver top.  She'll say it a hundred times or more as the jury room continues to fill.  It is now a quarter to eight, and the wait begins.

And how lucky for me.  Though most people in the packed room sit quietly, reading or messing with their phones, I'm sitting in front of two right-wing nutjobs.  They don't seem to know each other, but they feel amazingly comfortable sharing their noxious world views with each other.

It starts out with one of them going on about the "cowardly" Democrats in Wisconsin, which leads nicely into some anti-union bullshit, and then it goes downhill from there.  By the time one of them is waxing nostalgic for the eighties--"We had a good president, and kids could fight.  None of this fucking stuff about bullying.  Who is some committee to decide what a bully is, anyway?"--I start to loathe the criminal justice system.  Imagine having your guilt or innocence decided by these goofballs.

Fortunately, the Donald Westlake/Richard Stark book I brought along provides excellent distraction--damn, that guy could write!--at least until the person in charge appears at the front of the room and instructs the right side of the room to follow her for orientation.  Unfortunately, I'm on the left side, which means I get to listen to more pearls of wisdom from the cornfed Glenn Becks behind me.  It's not even eight-thirty.  Shit.

I'm already up to page 50 in my book when the person in charge--who tells us her name, and it confirms that she is not in fact the woman I once had a mild crush on many, many years ago--reappears and leads us down the hall to a surprisingly disheveled courtroom, with boxes piled in one corner and a rack of folding chairs against a wall.  She rolls out a vintage Zenith, pops in a VHS tape and our orientation begins.

As befits a tutorial presented in an obsolete format, the video walks us in the most dated way imaginable through the essential stuff we need to know about being a juror.  One of the most important things it stresses is to avoid reading newspapers or watching TV.  Uh, right.  This tape is being played to a room full of people with cellphones and iPads, who can easily find out anything they need to know in seconds, and we're being told that we can have loved ones cut out any relevant stories from newspapers before we read them.  I know that Polk County has had to make some pretty severe budget cuts, but would it be too much to ask that our orientation material be produced in this century?

The tape ends, and we're addressed by a judge, who reiterates half of what we've already heard, then apologizes for the age of the video.  The idea of skipping the video altogether and merely having the judge address us from the get-go apparently never occurred to anybody.  After all, that would speed up the process, and God knows we wouldn't want that.

Back to the jury room, where names are called for potential jurors for specific trials.  I'm one of thirty potential jurors for a trial being overseen by Judge Rosenberg, whose name is mentioned half a dozen times, as in "Judge Rosenberg jurors, please line up in the hallway," or "Judge Rosenberg jurors, please wait to the left of the jury room," or "Judge Rosenberg jurors, please wait."

So we wait in the hallway.  And wait.  And wait.  Conversations start, then peter out from lack of interest.  People lean against walls or marble columns, walk around briefly, the lean some more.  All thirty of us watch, mesmerized, as an elderly gentleman polishes the balustrade, and shortly after wondering whether "polishing the balustrade" works better as a euphemism for oral sex or masturbation I realize it has been years since I've been quite this bored.

What was supposed to be a fifteen minute wait stretches to an hour.  It's obvious that the case we were to hear is being settled, but nobody keeps us informed.  Finally some functionary who is different from all the other functionaries we've seen this morning gathers all the Judge Rosenberg jurors together and tells us the obvious: The case is settled. "However," she adds, "this does not mean you are being released from service.  There is one other trial scheduled, and we may yet need alternates for the two other trials getting underway"--and here she checks her watch in an absurdly theatrical manner--"shortly, so please return to the jury room and wait."

Which we do, for another hour or so, until another yet another functionary appears, telling us to go home.  I wait for the line to thin out before having my parking ticket validated by the blond in the surprisingly low-cut top, which is now covered by a white shirt buttoned to the neck.

Someone must have said something.

NOTHING'S GONNA CHANGE MY WORLD

Suddenly, it's five years.

I'm forty-five.  Five years is a long time, a considerable chunk of my life.  And yet five years is how long I have lived in this world without Mom.

LiFe without her comforting words, her wise counsel, her fiercely-held opinions?  It once seemed unbearable.  And how I would miss her sense of humor--she could make me laugh anytime I talked to her.  She was--and I hesitate to use the term, but there's really no better description--a life force: everyone who came into contact with her was better for knowing her.  She was the center of my life, my world, my universe.  Life without her would be no life at all.

Still, here we are.  Life has gone on, and I might make note of the fact that the first sentence of this paragraph was a lift from the Bob Seger song We've Got Tonight, which has nothing to do with what I'm writing about.  In fact, I hate Bob Seger, and I particularly hate that song, and maybe it only popped into my head because I'm trying to think of something, anything, to distract me from the subject at hand, because I don't want to start grieving all over again.

Or maybe it popped into my head because I'm frankly kind of bored.  I don't want to be writing another tribute to Mom.  What else is there to say?  This site came into being as a way of dealing with my grief, but it quickly became something else, because after all, how long could the grieving process last?  I still remember so many little details, and still do all I can to honor Mom's memory, but the simple fact is, that memory doesn't mean as much to me now as it once did.  It just doesn't.  It can't.  If it did, I'd live under it every single day, unable to move forward.

It is, after all, the nature of all things to move forward.  And so I have--I rarely think of Mom anymore.  Life goes on, things in their season, and all that.  Letting go is a natural and inevitable part of the process.

Still, something stings my eyes.  Couldn't be tears, though.  Not after five years.

NOTHING SO APPALLING IN THE ANNALS OF HORROR!

More passings of people I'd always hoped would be around forever.

Betty Garrett, for instance, has died at 91.  She was a mainstay of MGM musicals in the late forties and fifties, but the famously conservative studio cut her loose when her husband, Larry Parks, was blacklisted for pro-Communist sympathies.  (He named names, which made him a pariah of the right and the left.)  Garrett found work at other studios, she and Parks did a ton of summer stock, and she finally became a much-loved character actress.  I couldn't find my favorite moment Garrett had on film (her performance of It's Fate, baby, It's Fate from the otherwise undistinguished Take Me Out To The Ballgame) but this will do nicely, as she effortlessly takes charge of an amazing ensemble including Tommy Rall, Janet Leigh and Bob Fosse in a number from Richard Quine's wonderful 1955 musical My Sister Eileen.



Pancreatic cancer took the great character comedian Kenneth Mars at 75.  Like Garrett, he made anything better simply by being in it, whether it was an episode of Murder, She Wrote, the cult favorite Fernwood 2Nite, or, the roles that granted him immortality, Mel Brooks' The Producers and Young Frankenstein.  That last film, in particular, has a cast full of great comic performers, but Mars, in a relatively small role, steals it from them all.



Finally, heart failure finally took producer David Friedman, the distinguished impresario behind some of the finest films ever made.



That was, of course, Blood Feast, one of several movies Friedman produced for writer-director Herschell Gordon Lewis.  The almost-competent cinematography and dime store effects came courtesy of Lewis, but that patently insincere warning at the top of the trailer was pure Friedman, a master of selling the sizzle without the steak.  So many of his titles--Trader Hornee, The Erotic Adventures Of Zorro--sound entertaining, but most of the inventiveness was spent on the titles and ad campaigns.  Still, they generally at least delivered on their promise to show gorgeous naked babes, so there's that.  Friedman flourished during a more innocent time of exploitation cinema, though he later produced the notorious Ilsa, She-Wolf Of The S.S., from which he removed his name, as well as some hard-core porn.  But he always had a sense of humor about what he did, and never took himself seriously. 

And it was a sense of humor that united Friedman, Mars and Garrett.  The world is worse without them.

DON'T TRY TO FIGHT IT

It was called the music room, mostly because it was the only available space left in the whole school for the band and choir to rehearse.  No one was fooled, though.  The awful acoustics and overhead door on the north side marked it for what it originally was--a garage.

It was, therefore, the only sheltered area in the entire building that could temporarily house a pickup, and so that was where we gathered: seventh and eighth graders being allowed for the first time in school history to build a float for the homecoming parade.  This honor had previously only been bestowed on freshman and up, and the significance wasn't lost on us.  It meant we were practically in high school, which meant we were practically adults.

Normally we would have been outside working on this, but a furious rain pounded the ground, as it had the whole previous night, as it was scheduled to do all day.  If it continued, the parade and all related events scheduled for that afternoon would be canceled, but none of the twelve and thirteen-year-olds gathered inside the music room were thinking of that.

Most concentrated on the papier-mache figure taking shape on the back of the pickup, some sort of angry bird wearing a YJB Raiders helmet.  Others, less ambitious, hung on the periphery, happy just to have been granted a period full of extended goof-off time, free from the burdens of the classroom.  I was one of those, though I wasn't all that celebratory about my freedom.  I hated gatherings like this, feeling perpetually isolated from most of my classmates, so non-social it hurt.

Still, somehow I found myself leaning against the driver's side door of the pickup when Dale, one of my classmates, and Marty, a grade ahead, slid into the cab from the other side.  They motioned me inside, handed me the key--how had they gotten hold of it?--and Marty said, "We need some music."

I turned it to auxiliary.  Dale punched buttons on the radio until he came to KIOA, the local Top Forty station, the one station everyone listened to.  We suffered through some commercials and the top of the hour newscast, then, finally, music.

Well I was sixteen, sick of school
Didn't know what I wanted to do
I bought a guitar
I got the fever
That's rock & roll

I was twelve, and I already knew Shaun Cassidy was nothing but a TV pretty boy, that this song, this product, had nothing to do with real rock & roll.  But Dale and Marty were bopping their heads in time to the music, and damned if I didn't start pounding out the beat on the steering wheel.  By the chorus, we were all three singing along.

Come on everybody, get down and get with it
Come on everybody, get down and get with it
Come on everybody, get down--that's rock & roll

We kept swinging our bodies back and forth in time to the rhythm, and pantomimed playing along to the cheesy sax solo.  For three minutes, we freed ourselves to wild abandon.

That song ended, some Neil Diamond crap came on, we emerged from the pickup.  Dale and Marty went off to do something else, and since I wasn't explicitly invited to join them, I crept back to the periphery.  I had briefly glimpsed something new and different, a kinship with people I barely even knew, but now I stood in the corner by the big windows, watching the rain, falling, falling.

PUSSYCATS

A friend was moving, she couldn't take all of her pets with her, so please welcome to the stage another player--new kitty Staley.  I don't really need another critter around here, what with the cat and the dog I already have, and Janie's cat, which will presumably be joining us shortly. 

But Staley is fuzzy and gray, and darned if she doesn't look a bit like much-beloved and still much-missed Monika and...and she's just insanely lovable, is what she is.  She's already shown she can hold her own against a leaping Beagle, and even though Delmar hates her, that's not too troubling, because of course Del hates everyone.  (Except me, of course.)  It's a little disconcerting to be reading in bed and suddenly have a fuzzy gray presence appear in my peripheral vision--for one brief moment, I think Monika's still around--but there's comfort in that presence, as well.

So again, welcome to Staley, but a sad farewell to Tura Satana, the iconic, magnetic star of one of Russ Meyer's greatest films, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!  Unfortunately for Satana--her real name, incidentally, which is one of the many awesome things about her--that film was released in 1965, a time when nobody in the filmmaking establishment was paying any attention to the disreputable likes of Russ Meyer, so her amazing performance, which should have led to a long, well-earned career, pretty much led nowhere.

She wasn't a great actress, but she was an astonishing presence--would it be too much to compare her to Cyd Charisse?--and she certainly deserved better than the Al Adamson crapfests she wound up doing.  Later in life, as appreciation for Faster, Pussycat! became more common, she became famous for simply being, adored by fans for one great role. 

And while it would have been great if she'd done more, what she did was more than enough.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Some time ago, in the wake of multiple posts lamenting the punishingly dull, relentlessly self-important botch that was Superman Returns, I mentioned my regret that the shift toward dourly serious superhero movies meant it was extremely unlikely that we'd ever again see a movie like Richard Lester's Superman 3, which is a whole lot worse than Superman Returns but a lot more interesting, as Lester's obvious contempt for the genre and discomfort at handling a summer tentpole were palpable.  The days had long passed, I thought, when a studio would hire a director as obviously incompatible with this kind of material.

I was wrong, apparently, although in the case of The Green Hornet, it's hard to know who is more incompatible with the mechanics of superhero machinery, director Michel Gondry, more noted for his decidedly low-tech whimsy, or co-writer/star Seth Rogen, whose slacker/stoner persona is rapidly approaching its sell-by date.  To their credit, neither men seems remotely interested in making a big dumb action movie.  In fact, they don't quite seem to know what the hell they're doing.

That's mostly intended as a compliment.  It would be impossible to describe The Green hornet as a good movie, exactly, but it's a lot of fun, with some of the go-for-broke inventiveness of Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, albeit without the visual and thematic unity of that film.  Half of what happens, plot-wise and character-wise, seems utterly random, and not always intentionally so, but that makes it wonderfully free of Screenwriting 101 conventions.  A late scene where Rogen puts together the motivations of the two main villains is the closest it even comes to pretending to care about the storyline. 

So the movie rises and falls on its individual scenes.  Some of them, particularly anything involving Rogen or co-star Jay Chou hitting on Cameron Diaz, are pretty squirm-inducing.  But the scenes revealing Chou's abilities as a crackpot inventor as well as an ass-kicking martial artist (and incidentally, Gondry shows a real flair for filming and editing action scenes; who knew?) are delightful, everything involving Christoph Waltz's insecure villain Chudnofsky (or Bloodnofsky, as he later decides to call himself) is solid gold, and how can you not love the fact that Gondry sticks a homage to the sped-up threeway scene from A Clockwork Orange into this would-be franchise movie? 

The Green Hornet did unexpectedly well in its opening weekend, but I suspect it won't have legs, and any kind of sequel seems unlikely.  That's okay.  It's reassuring to know that the Hollywood development process even allowed something this eccentric to get made in the first place.

I REALLY LOVE TO WATCH THEM ROLL

This is a not-untypical day off: Janie and I went out for breakfast, we came home and hung out, took epic-length naps...That's about it.  Right now she's watching Underworld on cable, a movie I don't care for but which I'm finding to be a perfect zone-out movie, something that can be on in the background and I can dip in and out of without any concern that I'm missing anything.

That's kind of the point of my life that I've reached, and honestly, I'm good with it.  I'm no longer nagged by the feeling that I'm supposed to be doing something else.  I haven't seen as much of the world as I might like, I've never finished, much less published, any of those novels I started, and I've sentenced myself to a life with a job, not a career, which means I'll never earn as much money as I thought I needed to be happy.

Thing is, though, I am happy.  Mostly, anyway.  It doesn't matter how worldly we are or what our income level is, life will always be made up of small, individual moments.  And if more of those moments are joyous than sad, well, that's a life well-lived.  As long as Janie and I can inexplicably burst into songs from Mary Poppins while snuggling in bed, as long as beloved beagle Isabella leaps like an overgrown bunny through snow banks, as long as Delmar growls, hisses and finally purrs when curled up on my lap...At times like those I feel love, both given and received.  And what could produce greater happiness than that?

DISTURBING, SURE, BUT STILL CRISPLY

In the past, I've tended to use terms like "Lovecraftian nightmare" to describe vintage TV commercials that featured edible objects coming to terrifying life.  I mean, a talking, disembodied hand or a lumbering pitcher of fruit-flavored drink would be, if we saw them in our everyday lives, a horror beyond comprehension.

Still, you know what?  I say, good for Mr. Salty! 



Though I doubt he ever really served in the Navy, he at least found someone willing to rent him a costume, and through sheer pluck, and without actually accomplishing anything more than being "crisply"--which, you know, he's a pretzel; it's like congratulating a human for having skin--he manages to get the all-white citizens of this anonymous city singing his praises.  Of course, presumably after the ceremony, everyone will gather 'round and consume him, and his bland smile won't be enough to cover the unbearable pain, but at least he had his moment.

GRAY

A great day yesterday, spent almost entirely in the company of Paul--we went to a movie, we ate out, mostly we made each other laugh.  (Yes, my sense of humor is like an eleven-year-old's.)  In all we did, the radio and computer were barely utilized, and the TV was used for entertainment purposes only.

It wasn't until this morning, glancing at the headlines at The New York Times, that I even became aware of the shootings in Arizona.  And the horrifying details filled me with...nothing, really.  A vague sadness, a faraway sense of despair.

But no grand emotions.  Just made me feel sort of numb, and the feeling continues.  I'm all alone here now, Paul is back with his mom and Janie's gone for the weekend, so I hunker down here with the beloved cat and dog, staring out the window at the gray day, waiting for the snow.

MAYBE I'M CRAZY TO SUPPOSE

The darkness is always there, always visible. I know myself well enough to know it will never go away, not completely.

Still, there is light and warmth, more than I've known for so long. There is Janie, the woman I've been looking for without even realizing it, so full of love and acceptance. There is wonderful Isabella, the greatest dog in the history of dogs. And, as always, there is my beloved little malcontent, my heart and soul, my psychokitty Delmar.

There are great friends and nodding acquaintances, there is music and movies and long drives on lazy days. There is a sense that I've found something like my place in the world, and there is a feeling of contentment.

So what am I doing New Year's Eve? Probably not much, but whatever it is, I'll be doing it with the knowledge that I'm loved, and that I can love back.

I'M REALLY OVERTHINKING THIS

I originally wanted to post this commercial break from ABC's 1976 Saturday morning cartoon lineup as an excuse to go on about the second ad here, for the long-forgotten (and little-missed) cereal Grins And Smiles And Giggles And Laughs, possibly the most misbegotten breakfast food of all time.  Seriously--"the cereal that smiles back at you"?  Happy little faces piled in your bowl, waiting to be eaten?  And, if the commercial is to be believed, vomited up by some large-brained supercomputer?  What a wonder that this thing didn't go over!



Possibly even more disturbing, if only as a comment on the state of the nation in the year of the Bicentennial, is the McDonald's ad.  Everybody wants to go out for a morning meal, but only Ronald seems to know that McDonald's is now serving breakfast.  Most baffled of all is Mayor McCheese himself...but wait!  Mayor McCheese presumably runs McDonaldland.  How can he be unaware of this seemingly momentous change in restaurant policy?  Did he not sign off on it?  Was it drafted by others?  A secret cabal, perhaps, working in shadows to ensure that things would go the correct way?  Was Mayor McCheese even duly elected, or did he merely assume the position when McDonaldland's previous ruler was forced to resign in disgrace, perhaps fearing impeachment? 

Not that I spent any time thinking about any of this when these ads originally aired.  I wasn't that cynical as a kid.  Still, I remember all these things, so they obviously had an impact on me, though I dearly wish they hadn't.  There must have been plenty of time spent on weekends back in '76 when eleven-year-old me was outside playing with the dog or having adventures or...I dunno, something.  But any such memories are lost.  But puking computers and badly-costumed politicians ruling fast food empires...that stuff's with me to death.

THE WORLD IN SILENT STILLNESS LAY

The day grew short, as winter days will. It was late in the afternoon when my brother John realized he needed to do some last minute shopping, so I rode along as he drove into Perry and headed for Gibson's Discount Store, the only place open so late on Christmas Eve. He found what he was looking for, and bought himself a present as well--Simon And Garfunkle's Greatest Hits on 8-track, which he listened to on the way home.

It was nearly dark when we got back to the farm, the sky turning ever darker shades of blue. Mom had turned on both the yard light and porch light, which we didn't really need to find our way, but the gesture was appreciated. John immediately vanished to his room, as my oldest brother Keith had already spent the day in his, and my sister Julie was in the kitchen talking to Mom, who made last-minute preparations for the next day's feast. Dad and I were the only ones in the living room, numbly sitting in front of the television, watching without interest the typically awful animated specials run endlessly in syndication, killing time until dinner was served.

After eating, there was some wrapping to be done--I was used mostly to tear off pieces of tape, while Mom and Julie did most of the real work--and then...well, and then, I just couldn't wait to go to bed.  I was all of ten, too old for Santa Claus, but not too old to enact the comforting ritual of snuggling in the darkness, anticipating all the wonders the next morning would bring.  I could hear voices downstairs, and the TV, and the hum of our fuel oil stove.  My family was here, and the next day was Christmas.  For the moment, at least, all was right with the world.

TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!

You know, there are so many reasons to slog on the truly dreadful-sounding Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, it almost seems unnecessary to list them.  You can start with the fact that it recently endured its fourth injury of a cast member, continue with the practice of charging full ticket prices for preview performances of a show that is nowhere near completion (its creators cheerily admit that they STILL don't have a final act), continue by pointing out that its songwriters, Bono and The Edge (who, incidentally, continue to call themselves Bono and The Edge, a fact which calls their very intelligence into question), are touring with U2 and are thus unavailable to provide the new material a preview period might demand, and of course, there's no overlooking the fact that it's called Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, the stupidest title of anything in recorded history.

The greatest venom would have to be reserved for the show's director and co-writer, Julie Taymor (or, as she's apparently contractually required to be called, "visionary director Julie Taymor").  While it is undeniably true that the producers of this thing deserve some of the blame for indulging her too long--the budget is still listed at sixty-five million, though that was the official count on opening night, and numerous revisions (and hospital stays) have no doubt driven the costs up considerably since then--it is Taymor's inability to see the show as anything other than a monument to her own hubris that is so infuriating.  Whatever fans may want or expect from a Spider-Man musical (and I'm not sure many of them would want one in the first place, but whatever), that is not want Taymor intends to give them.  She apparently is determined to use the character as a jumping-off point for a fantasia on Greek mythology, pop culture and whatever else pops into her head.  Such basic concepts as "story" or "characterization" or even "entertainment" seem foreign to her.

Which is all well and good, and I'm not at all opposed to Taymor's ambition (except when, you know, it could cost the life of a cast member), but, boy, is it misplaced.  She's not making some semi-avant garde piece to be seen by the season's subscribers at BAM this time out, she's making a fucking Broadway musical about a superhero.  Given that, yes, she does have an obligation to meet an audience's basic expectations.  She could exceed those expectations, go beyond them, yes, but only if she shows any understanding of what people like about the character in the first place. 

But we're talking about the director of Across the Universe here, so...

I'M EASILY DISTRACTED

I had a long piece in mind about director Blake Edwards, who died this week at the age of 88.  Basically, I intended to state my deeply-held belief that A Shot In The Dark is one of the best comedies ever made, that Days Of Wine And Roses, Experiment In Terror, Wild Rovers and That's Life are damn good movies, that Darling Lili is crushingly underrated...and that almost everything else Edwards ever did (and he was nothing if not prolific) was incredibly problematic.  But there are serious gaps in my viewings of Edwards' films (I've never actually sat through Breakfast At Tiffany's, mostly because as soon as Mickey Rooney's buck-toothed Japanese caricature appears, I bail), and the whole thing never quite came together and...

Then yesterday came the news of the death of Captain Beefheart, and again, it seemed like I should have something to say about one of the most important musicians of the twentieth century, but I was busy last night, and the computer was acting screwy again, and...it didn't happen.

Then...hey!  This morning I wake up and discover Neil Patrick Harris and Eric Braeden are having a feud on Twitter, and suddenly life is good.  Apparently Braeden was set to do a cameo on How I Met Your Mother, then bailed, prompting Harris to call him a D-bag.  Braeden offered some mildly caustic rejoinders, Harris half-ass apologized...and that's about it, really.

But it's Neil Patrick Harris and Eric Braeden, people!  Dr. Horrible vs The Actor Formerly Known As Hans Gudegast!  The cool, funny guy with the beautiful singing voice for whom geeks everywhere have a (metaphorical and strictly hetero, thank you) boner is squabbling with that guy from The Young And the Restless who used to play that Nazi on The Rat Patrol who kind of became the only sympathetic character on that show, because who could blame him for wanting to kill a dick like Christopher George?

So it's not really a big deal, and not really worth writing about, especially when I couldn't bother to summon any thoughts on Blake Edwards, but it amused me.

JUST LIKE STARTING OVER

The other night I dreamed I stood in a buffet line at some small town community center.  I accompanied Mom, and it was somehow understood that when we got through the line and sat down, we had important but unspecified matters to discuss.  The line was slow, and food kept piling up on my plate.  Mashed potatoes and dressing, a high pile of tuna casserole, a grilled cheese sandwich, comfort food staples of my childhood.  I wondered what Mom and I would talk about, but I was also distracted by the dessert table, which featured brownies and chocolate chip cookies and all manner of cakes--

--Then, suddenly, I woke up.  And, in those few moments of altered perception experienced between the dream state and the real world, I did not find myself wondering what Mom and I needed to discuss.   All I could think was, I didn't get to eat.

Which means...well, it could mean any number of things, but for now I'm going to use it as a metaphor for this site.  It started out as a way to grieve Mom's loss, but it quickly turned into whatever the hell it is now, a forum for me to rage or observe or purge whatever feelings I had at the moment.  For awhile there, I needed this space, the compulsion to write every day was overpowering.  And invigorating.

Lately, though, that urge to fill space is no longer there.  My life has undergone some major changes, and I find that I am--for lack of a better word--content.  There are still any number of free-floating anxieties, but they no longer overwhelm.  As I look back at so much of what has been written here over the past four and a half years, it seemed to reflect my quest to find a place in the world, to somehow belong somewhere.

And I think I've accomplished that, more or less.  So what is there to write about?  Lots of things, of course--but specifically, what to write about here?  Is this site even necessary anymore?  I honestly don't know.  I still love writing, on those increasingly rare occasions when my ability and my interest combine to produce good work.  I enjoy it, but  no longer feel the need to do it.

So--again--what does this mean?  I'm not shutting this down, I'm not signing off.  I'm honestly trying to figure out what this space needs to be, how it can keep me interested, what it will become.  I would like to post more frequently, but I would need to find a reason to do that, and so far, I'm too busy doing other things.  But soon enough, I'll be back here doing whatever the hell I do.

Say, what DO I do around here, anyway?

ISN'T IT INSPIRING HOW A MAN BORN WITHOUT A SPINE CAN BECOME PRESIDENT?

Let us say there is a political party determined to preserve tax breaks for the super-wealthy at the expense of benefits for the nation's most desperate, wretched souls--hard to believe, I know, but let's pretend--and if such a nakedly rapacious force existed, it shouldn't be difficult for anyone with even a bit of imagination and a mere trace of rhetorical skill to depict them as, you know, kind of villainous.

Or they could do what President Obama has done, and make a deal with them.  He gave them everything they wanted and more, and all they had to do in return was promise to extend unemployment benefits for barely more than a year.  So the downtrodden will continue to eke out a miserable existence, and the obscenely wealthy are free to fill up their swimming pools with gold coins and dive right in, Scrooge McDuck-style, and even the faintest glimmer of "hope" and "change" fades a little more, a faint memory of a promise we once naively believed, or tried to believe. 

WHAT IS THIS AUTOSAVE OF WHICH YOU SPEAK? AND WHY DO YOU WEEP WHEN IT FAILS?

So I had this thing I was working on here, and it's not like i was that far into it or anything, just a couple paragraphs, but still.  The point is, I managed to start cranking out something halfway decent at a pretty good clip, when suddenly--

DA-DA-DUUUMMM

--my computer froze.  Which it's been doing a lot lately, and it's getting pretty damned--oh, look, let's not get into that.  The point is, Blogger is supposed to autosave these things, but when I returned, it was gone.  Gone!  As though my thoughts had never stirred, as though...well, again, it really wasn't that big a deal.  Just kind of annoying, really.  Hardly worth mentioning.

You know what?  Let's just pretend this whole thing never happened.  Instead, enjoy this...the most disturbing thing you'll ever see.

LIVING IS EASY WITH EYES CLOSED

I remember the details of individual moments surrounding my father's death--the foggy morning, the flashing lights of the police cars and ambulance, already lined up at Mom and Dad's apartment building before I even arrived, the dread coiled in the pit of my stomach as I called various siblings to tell them the news--but I can't recall the bigger picture, the larger context.

What did I do that night, or the next day, or the day after that?  What was on TV, what music played on the radio, what did I eat, how did I feel?  These are the kinds of things I can recall without even trying.  I can conjure vividly not only the superficial details from when my mom and my brother died, but the continuity surrounding those events.  I can still replay in my mind tiny details of the days before and after, the life I led that was disrupted by these awful circumstances, and the time spent after trying to make sense of that which makes no sense: Conversations ignored, music half heard, minutes dragging on and on, as though time itself had stopped.  And the better parts of those events, time spent with family and friends, memories shared and laughter erupting at unexpected times. 

In other words, these are things that happened to me.  I remember; I was there.  Dad's passing seems more like a dream, arrived at without beginning or end, viewed like a movie but not actually experienced, certainly not felt.  Maybe I was simply in shock from the first Big death of my adult life, or maybe I was unmoved because Dad's condition had deteriorated long before he died, or...

Or maybe there are no reasons.  Details that have been forgotten can't be simply remembered.  There's nothing to do, except to carry on every day with the odd, faintly disturbing feeling that a milestone in my life remains unmarked, and to perpetually wonder what that means.

AND HARDER TO CLIMB

The memory just appeared fully-formed.  The other night, while talking on the phone with my brother John, I mentioned how hearing certain songs could trigger a very specific memory, even if that memory was unconnected to anything else. 

For instance, I could very specifically remember hearing the Bee Gees' Too Much Heaven while we drove lazily along in his '76 Chevette, just before we reached a certain hill along Highway 141. 

"And that's all you remember?" John asked.

Well yeah, I answered, then corrected myself: No.  It was overcast, it was a Sunday, we'd left home a little later than we usually would have.  We didn't have a movie we were going to see, we were just going to hit the record stores in the malls.  I remember I was fired up to buy the soundtrack to Taxi Driver...

I stopped.  John paused for a second, then asked, "And you remember all this why?"

I didn't have an answer.  I still don't.  For whatever reason, the past is becoming more vivid to me every day.  Memories are becoming more distinct.  Maybe I've become unstuck in time, like Billy Pilgrim, or maybe I'm just learning to appreciate all the little things that made me who I am. 

In any event, I'm wondering if such things are going to become the focus of this site, as much as this site has any focus.  Guess we'll have to wait and see.

SHE SERVES THE SMOOTH RETSINA

Just taking a moment to be by myself, to reflect and be grateful.

I've only mentioned her in passing, but I seem to be spending all my time with Janie.  She's here pretty much non-stop, and though she hasn't formally moved in, she's always here in spirit.

It's odd because on paper, this all seems wrong.  She doesn't like The Simpsons, for crying out loud.  And she can only name three Beatles!  And for God's sake, she watches reruns of Little House On The Prarie--not ironically, either, because I don't even think it's possible to watch that show ironically.  She just, you know, likes it.

Which probably tells you something about her personality--she's a genuinely nice person.  Good, kind-hearted, warm.  She's supportive of me no matter what I do, and she's there for me because...well, because she loves me.  And, whatever else has been going on in my life for God knows how long, I haven't been in a mutually loving relationship, and, to quote the sage poets Peaches & Herb (or, alternately, Chuck Mangione), it feels so good.

So whenever posting is light around here, it's because, good times or bad, I'm busy living my life.

SERIOUSLY? THAT'S THE TITLE YOU WANNA GO WITH?

Originally I was going to structure this as one of my increasingly-rare Random Thoughts posts, complete with a fake Larry King quote for a title and everything.  I thought it would be a good catchall way to mention a few things in passing, like the death of writer Monica Johnson (who co-wrote most of Albert Brooks' films and contributed scripts to the best sitcom of all time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show) and the results of Tuesday's election.  But the more I thought about those election results, particularly here in newly-Red State Iowa, the more depressed I got, and that's the kind of thing I'm trying to get away from, in my writing and my life.

Besides, there's something much more important to talk about.  Like this Spider-Man musical.

The mounting disaster known as Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is nicely detailed here, but the brief version is: Thanks to an incredibly drawn-out conceptual period imposed by "visionary" director Julie Taymor, who is apparently uninterested in such niceties as telling a story or keeping actors safe, this seemingly foolproof money-spender is burning through millions of dollars a week even as its opening date keeps getting pushed back.  It was supposed to open in a few days (hell, it was originally supposed to open last February, but whatever), but apparently Taymor and the show's composers, U2's Bono and The Edge, haven't even figured out how to integrate the songs into the thing yet, which would seem to be Priority One for a musical, but again, whatever.

Now I could use this story as a pretext to indulge my irrational hatred for Bono and The Edge.  It's nothing compared to my seething contempt for Jason Mraz or Marc Fucking Cohn, but aside from the fact that one's a pretentious, self-important douchebag and the other one has been recycling the same damned riff for decades now, there's the sad fact of guys in their fifties calling themselves Bono and The Edge.  Face it, guys, even Johnny Cougar is a less embarrassing rock star name.

And I could point out that whatever alleged innovations Taymor has in mind seem wildly misplaced, because really, who gives a sweet shit?  It's a Spider-man musical; get the Flying By Foy guys to figure out how to make him climb walls, write a stirring power ballad that includes the phrase "with great power comes great responsibility," market the whole thing to families and comic book geeks and call it a day. 

But what really pisses me off about this show is the title: Turn Off The Dark?  What does that even mean?  And why should anybody care?  I mean, yeah, Marvel Comics manages some hilariously overwrought titles on their own, but this is just ridiculous.  It's the kind of would-be poetic nonsense you'd expect from some cheap poseur who desperately wants you to think he's much deeper than he is.

But again, it's co-written by Bono, so I guess it's appropriate after all.

SAY, I REALLY HAVE WASTED MY LIFE, HAVEN'T I?

You know what's really sad about this?



This ad campaign ran back in '79, and yet my brother and I will still find ourselves occasionally, and for no reason whatsoever, saying, "Dave Parker's turning 7 Up!"  When we say this, and other things like it, to each other, it kind of makes sense--a shared ironic take on a bit of ephemera from the past.

But the thing is, we'll say it to other people, too, fully realizing that they won't have the slightest idea what we're talking about.  After all, most people don't remember what their lives were like over thirty years ago, much less  commercial that served only to fill in gaps between TV shows.  Some of us, unfortunately, do remember, because, well, this was the only life we had at the time.

Actually, what's even more depressing is, I only stumbled across this ad because it came up as a sidebar recommendation while I was looking for this:



Had no life then, have no life now. 

SOMETHING'S GONNA HAPPEN

I forget sometimes.  To me, it's Sunday morning, and I have to leave for work before long.  But to the rest of the world, it's still Saturday night.  The bars have all closed, but the traffic still flows, a steady stream of cars making their way down my street as I walk my dog.

The faces can't be seen as they speed by in darkness, but I know them.  Some are young and some are old, most are male, black, white, Latino, all of them chasing the promise of the night, hoping that one more drink, one more bar, one more visit to wherever they're going, one more anything will be the magic bullet, the elusive and indescribable something that will make everything better, at least for the moment and maybe beyond.

There's an appeal to it, maybe, and I almost feel like jumping in one of these cars as it passes, to go where it will take me, to live in a moment utterly unconcerned with the future, to live, however briefly, in a world in which consequences are never considered.

But no car, no drink, no nothing could ever take me to such a place.  I'm always thinking ahead, I'm always aware of the fallout to my actions, I'm never able to just relax and enjoy the moment for whatever it is.  Sure, the Saturday night crowd sometimes only find happiness in superficial ways, and it may be fleeting, but at least it's there.  They know a bliss not attainable to me, not quite, not really.  What am I missing, and how can I find it?

Isabella pulls at her leash.  She's caught a scent of something and means to follow it.  She turns to me, wondering why I simply stand, why I don't run with her to track down her prey.  She tilts her head as she regards me, one ear flopping inside out, her nose quivering.

Oh, I think as I bend down to hug her.  This is what happiness feels like.

WHILE THE POOR PEOPLE SLEEPIN' WITH THE SHADE ON THE LIGHT

Thanks to a link provided by The Huffington Post (the only news source you'll ever need if you're vaguely liberal and kind of shallow), I found myself at People magazine's website, where I learned that Jenny McCarthy is determined to be totally honest with her new boyfriend.

Honest?  As in, "It will be creepy to watch my plasticized face and tits stay firm and unyielding even as the rest of my body inevitably decays"?  Or, "My theories about autism have more in common with the writings of Joe Mengele than reporters for infotainment-related websites are quite willing to admit"?  Because, yeah, if she was willing to come right out and say either of those things, she'd deserve credit for honesty, if nothing else.

But no, it's all about the little things, according to Jenny: "If he wants Chinese food and I don't, I say it."

Ah.  Thanks for the insight, which is the sort of profundity one might expect from somebody who is, as near as I can tell, still famous primarily for an MTV dating show from a decade-and-a-half ago.  But really, I'm not here to bash McCarthy so much as note that her new Chinese-food-loving boyfriend, Jason Toohey is, according to People's breathlessly bland prose, a "Las Vegas-based pirate performer." 

I'd make a joke about that, except a) a joke would be redundant and b) Toohey will almost certainly parlay his brief semi-fame as a guy who is fucking a has-been publicity whore into some sort of career, a reality show, a book deal, something.

Once Toohey inevitably dumps her, McCarthy will make more sad faces--to the extent that her plastic surgery allows her to register any emotion at all--and People will be there to write about it, The Huffington Post will link to it.

And yeah, I'll probably click on the link.

THIS SITE HAS MORE UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCES THAN A PINTER PLAY

Things happen, life continues.  Milestones and mundane things.  Lennon's birthday, passings of well-loved public figures.  No comments appearing in this space. 

Don't know what to say.  I don't have an iPhone or a laptop or any kind of mobile device that would allow me to post thoughts here when inspiration strikes.  I still just have my clunky old home computer, and I find myself spending less time in front of it than I used to.

Why?  Well, probably because much of my time is focused on Janie.  I should be writing about her, or composing odes to the transformative powers of love, or some damned thing, but when I'm with her, I'm happy just to be with her, and when I'm not with her...well, I'm just kind of here.

Not that, you know, this space will remain a void forever.  I've been struck into silence before, and I always come back.  Sooner or later the Associated Press will run yet another brain-dead interview with Pete Wentz, and I'll go on and on about it at needless length. 

Because, hey, that's what I do.

STILL I REMAIN TIED TO THE MAST

Again, it's been awhile--hasn't it?--since new content appeared in this space.  Heaven knows, it's not like there's been a shortage of things to discuss.  There were, for instance, the deaths of the brilliant film editor Sally Menke, the great director Arthur Penn, astonishingly prolific TV genius Stephen J. Cannell (who created everything from the legitimately great The Rockford Files and Wiseguy to guilty pleasure favorites like Hardcastle And McCormick, as well as the entirely forgotten Broken Badges, and for those of you who never had the pleasure of hearing my mom go on and on about the transcendent stupidity of that last one, I pity you), not to mention Tony Fucking Curtis.  There's the nation's stunned disbelief that Christine O'Donnell can even remember to breathe, much less be nominated to high office.  There was a health scare involving my beloved puppy Isabella, who apparently has epilepsy.  Oh, and there's Janie, the current (and hopefully future) love of my life.

I really intend to go on and on about here sometime, especially since women I've barely dated or merely slept with have received more space here than seems necessary.  But for now, let me just say she is probably the main reason there have been fewer postings here lately.  With her, I'm finally learning to--what's the word?--relax.  I'm finding some measure of calm and, if I may, contentment.  And I'm finding that much of my writing in the past was fueled by melancholy, or anger, or feelings other than joy.  Not always, of course, but often enough.

So if I'm entering some sort of mellow phase here, the obvious challenge to my writing life is to figure out how to balance happiness--and by happiness I mean the lack of crippling depression--with creativity.  I'm not used to feeling more good than bad, and who knows how long the feeling will last, but for now it's a whole new journey.  Hopefully, I'll file reports along the way.

YOU MIGHT THINK I'M CRAZY

Even classic rock stations don't play The Cars' You Might Think as often as they used to, and that's good.  Not for aesthetic reasons, but because as soon as I hear the very eighties keyboard riff that kicks it off, I'm immediately transported to the day room of the psych ward at University Hospitals in Iowa City, where I half-glimpsed the video for the song in one of my few forays out to mingle with my fellow inmates.

I couldn't even tell you when this was, exactly.  '85, I remember, probably late summer or early fall.  You Might Think was no longer a new song, it had been released much earlier, probably around the time of my first suicide attempt.  Evidently it was still popular enough to see airplay on MTV, because it is the only concrete memory I have of my time there. 

Oh, there are other memories, but they've become so vague.  There was a cute girl who actually tried to talk to me a few times, though I was too messed up to respond, but I don't remember her name, or what she looked like, or anything about her, really.  There was a brooding Sean Penn-in-Bad Boys type, who seemed to have been there awhile.  There was my assigned counselor, most likely a grad student, who was so fucking earnest I found myself making  stuff up just to get more sympathy from her.

And there were windows, which offered views of not much, but beyond the trees and institutional buildings of the immediate area there was much more out there, I just knew it.  I didn't know Iowa City, had never been there, but as Mom drove me to the hospital I caught glimpses of restaurants and book stores and record stores, and I thought if I could just move into one of those, if I could stay there and never leave, I wouldn't have to be making this trip.  My life would be magically better somehow, somehow.

Those windows were temptations, a possible exit, a way out.  And if instead I cut myself on the glass, if I bled and died, well, hey, that would have been okay, too.  I didn't want to be there, in the hospital or in my skin, or anywhere, really.

I was utterly, unbearably miserable, and yet when I heard You Might Think on the radio the other day, I found myself overwhelmed with nostalgia for a time I barely remember.  It seemed at the time that life was a constant downward drift, misery endured only to be ultimately, blessedly ended.  But now it seems my lost years were some sort of necessary crucible, forming me into the whatever-it-is I'd become.  I didn't know it then, but a future awaited, experiences wonderful and terrible, and very soon I'd learn to live.

OR MAYBE THIS IS IT

Uh, yeah, new content is becoming increasingly rare around here, innit?  I'm hoping that will change here soon--I have ideas!  Honest!--but first, for regular readers (both of you!), a bit of an explanation for the silence.

First of all, there's Janie, who really deserves to be mentioned in more than passing, but for now I'll just say that when there's a sweet, warm presence sharing time with you, it makes it harder to excuse slipping away to a keyboard to tap out a few hundred words on whatever the hell it is I usually write about.  So there's that.

Also, beloved puppy Isabella is suffering from a not entirely diagnosed medical condition.  She's mostly fine (and adorable, of course), but trying to get to the bottom of it will involve spending money I don't really have, which brings on financial stress, which is already triggering something vaguely resembling depression, an old friend I'd hoped to never again encounter, but there you go.

Anyway, posting will presumably resume on a more regular basis at some unspecified point in the future.  Or, you know, not.  That's about as solid a promise as can be made right now, and hey, you can hold me to it.  Or, again, not.

DON'T YOU CRY NO MORE

You don't think I enjoy this sort of thing, do you?  You don't think I have nothing better to do than monitor the Associated Press' entertainment news wire, waiting for goofy stories that are easily mocked?  Don't I have better things to do?  Don't I have a life?

To answer these questions: No, kind of, sadly, no and...I'm sorry, what was the question?

Anyway, the Pulitzer=chasing scribes at the AP have done it again, this time with a story imaginatively headlined Rockers Kansas Carry on, Play With College Groups.  (I have no idea why the good folks at the AP failed to capitalize "on" but there it is.)  And it is indeed about Kansas, regarded by decent people everywhere as one of the worst bands ever, and their pathetic attempt to stay down with the kids by playing with college orchestras. 

There's a Noble Cause at the heart of all this--the concerts raise money for the schools' music programs--which is all well and good, but who gives a sweet shit?  I mean, this is Kansas.  The highlight of their miserable existence was Carry On, Wayward Son, which--I've mentioned this before, right?--is simply the worst song of the rock era.  I realize it has plenty of heavy-duty competition, what with the entire songbooks of Journey and Panic! At The Disco and whatnot, but between the idiotic lyrics, preening vocals, cheeseball keyboards and THE worst guitar solo ever recorded, its crown will likely remain in place forever and ever.

Anyway, now they're back.  Well, not so much back as still around, and willing to pander to anyone who will play their music.  And the Associated Press, which didn't spend a whole lot of time getting to the bottom of that whole Weapons Of Mass Destruction thing, did assign a reporter to cover this story. 

Who says journalism is dead?

WHAT A SHAME ABOUT ME

Randy Quaid Arrested For Squatting In Old Home reads the somewhat inelegantly phrased headline Reuters has chosen for this story, and viewers who know Quaid primarily as Cousin Eddie, his character from the National lampoon's Vacation series, would be forgiven for assuming Quaid was squatting to take a dump.

But no, he and his wife were arrested for squatting like hobos in a bad thirties social realist play, living in a house they no longer own, claiming they belong there despite all evidence to the contrary.  It's the latest in a string of bizarre incidents involving Quaid, who seems to be working to erase all memories of the great actor he used to be.  He was the sad, sad heart of Hal Ashby's magnificent The Last Detail, a member of Peter Bogdanovich's stock company back when that meant something, and a welcome player in such cult favorites as The Long Riders, Quick Change and The Ice Harvest.  

Unfortunately, his dickish real-life behavior and apparent readiness to accept any script he's offered (Balls Out?  Seriously?) threaten to infect his career like a virus, making his very presence a cause for groaning, and retroactively making even his best previous work seem lesser in stature.  He's turning into latter-day Dennis Hopper, only at least Hopper's history of self-immolation was spectacular, whereas Quaid's is just kind of pathetic.

Still, The Last Detail--man, that's a great movie.

STOP THE PRESSES! WE'VE GOT AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SPENCER PRATT!

I've saluted the excellent entertainment reporting from the gutsy journalists of the Associated Press before, but somehow, they always manage to top themselves.  Sure the obits they ran over the weekend for the great filmmaker Claude Chabrol and wonderful character actor Kevin McCarthy were short and seemingly uninformed, in their brevity almost dismissive of each man's considerable accomplishments.

But yesterday they came through like champs, taking the time to let us know the really important stuff.  First, they broke the story that John Mayer has shut down his Twitter account--well, not so much his Twitter account as an account set up exclusively to promote his new album, which has apparently run its course, commercially--and then came the really big news, a breathless interview with fast-fading reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who spoke excitedly about a possible reunion with his soon-to-be-ex, pop culture footnote Heidi Montag, after they were both detained in Costa Rica for possession of firearms and...oh hell, you know what?  I just read the story, and I can't remember the details.

Well, of course I can't, because who gives a sweet shit about Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag?  The Hills was precisely the type of show destined to be forgotten as soon as it left the air, and while it's perfectly understandable that Pratt and Montag may have a hard time dealing with their sudden, crushing drop to obscurity, it is wholly inexplicable that a supposedly respectable news gathering organization like the AP would do anything to prolong their moment in the sun.  Just because a chucklehead like Pratt calls a news conference doesn't mean you need to cover it, folks.

Besides, the AP needs to get back to covering real news: What's Pete Wentz up to these days?

THEY ARE ALL THAT'S UNCHANGED

What the world would come to call 9/11 happened, as nearly everyone remembers, on a Tuesday.  I can recall that day, that evening, the next morning as everyone else can, as a continuous loop of time spent trying to make sense of something that seemed utterly incomprehensible.  But it's funny--I don't remember how the rest of the day after played out, or the day after that, or the day after.

I mean, I lived in the D.C. area, so the next few days were certainly infused with an increased sense of paranoia, a feeling that the other shoe could drop anytime.  But that feeling lingered for months, especially with the anthrax scare that followed so soon after.  But the actual specifics of the days that followed The Day That Changed Everything...no, I can't recall those at all.

My memory is gone, until the following Sunday.  My wife and I were newcomers to the area, had in fact only lived there a little over three months when the attacks occurred.  But we had carved out our little place in the world, and certain rituals had evolved.  And one of those rituals involved me rising much earlier than her, and carrying out some of the day-to day necessities of life.  I'd do laundry while she still slept.  Or wash dishes.

Or shop for groceries.  Heading out to the market on those dark, slightly chilly mornings of early autumn meant choosing between the Food Lion a few blocks away, or the Safeway just down the street.  Food Lion had more varieties of frozen pizza--always an important consideration!--and the prices were slightly cheaper, but Safeway had the advantage of being closer.  I'd usually alternate.  On the morning of September 16th, I chose Safeway.

Not many people out that early, and the aisles were piled with merchandise waiting to be stocked.  I shopped according to the usual script, picking up the same items I always picked up, and one I only occasionally bought: The Sunday Washington Post.

The tired-looking woman at the register scanned the items, and the clerk bagged them.  He was the same guy who usually worked there on Sunday mornings, a doughy, shapeless middle-aged guy with thinning white hair.  He looked like he might have come from a fairly rough-and-tumble background, but he was always unfailingly polite and talkative.

This morning, though, he paused briefly to examine the cover of The Post, which inevitably featured a photo of the rubble that had once been the Twin Towers.  "3000 people," he said softly, as though to himself.  "3000 people.  Christ.  In America.  We..."  He shook his head, as if snapping out of a dream, and rolled the paper and placed it in a bag.  His eyes glistened as they peered into mine, as if searching for answers he'd never find.  "How could that happen?  How...here?"

I just shrugged, and said something non-committal.  I took my bags and headed to the car, where I sat for several minutes, crying so hard it seemed the tears would never stop.

INSERT OBSCURE LYRICS HERE, THEN CALL IT A TITLE

According to the calender, it's been--zoinks!--two weeks or so since any kind of new content appeared in this space.  There are reasons for this, the most prominent among them being named Janey, who is occupying a lot of my time, and about whom I'll no doubt be writing in the future.  Then there are various little hiccups involving Blogger, which sometimes makes even attempting to post here a pain in the ass, and the slowness of my computer, which...eh, I don't even wanna get started on that.

And then there's the other reason I haven't been doing much here, the real reason, which is that I seem to be having a paralyzing bout of writer's block.  It's happened a few times since I started this site, but the feeling this time is different.  I can't even get words down without growing disgusted with the tone and wiping them all away.  There have been aborted posts here that I deleted in draft phase, consisting of no more than a paragraph or two, which is all the further I could get before I deleted them from memory.  More than likely, they will never be missed, but who knows?  Writing doesn't seem to agree with me now.

But, you know, that's just for now.  Presumably this will pass, and I'll be back to...whatever the hell it is I do around here.  And if this site still has any readers at all, my sincere thanks for sticking with it, even when nothing is going on.   I'll try to make it more interesting soon.  Honest!

IF YOU LIVE IN THIS WORLD, YOU'RE FEELIN' THE CHANGE OF THE GUARD

The passing of writer Jackson Gillis at the age of 93 could be viewed, if one were prone to overwrought metaphors, as symbolic of the death of a whole era of television.

His list of credits is astonishing.  He wrote for more prestigious shows like Perry Mason and Columbo, but he also contributed scripts to Lost In Space, Longstreet and, for God's sake, Jason Of Star Command.  He penned many episodes of the old George Reeves Superman series, as well as a script for its snarky modern update, Lois & Clark.  In a way, he was TV history.

But now, it seems, ancient history.  Though Gillis occasionally landed regular gigs on particular shows--he was a story editor on Perry Mason--he mostly made his living as a freelancer.  Until sometime in the eighties, most programs depended on freelance writers for scripts, particularly one-hour dramas.  (Sitcoms were more likely to be written in-house, but even then, most of them would routinely feature a few episodes per season written by outsiders.)  Then as now, the vast majority of programming was formulaic--cop shows, medical shows, lawyer shows, westerns.  The regular characters were pretty much set in stone, unchanging from episode to episode, there only to drive this week's storyline. 

That's where somebody like Gillis came in.  Unlike some of the more densely-packed series of today, when even the relentlessly disposable likes of CSI: Miami comes complete with a ton of backstory to its characters, it didn't really matter to a freelancer if they weren't up on the show's bible.  If Gillis sold a spec script to Barnaby Jones, but producer Quinn Martin was short on storylines for Cannon that season, eh, no problem, it was easily retooled.

If Gillis could devise an airtight plot, producers were interested--that's what their shows were about.  It was the story that kept a viewer hooked.  Nowadays, almost every TV drama is primarily character-driven--not just the good ones, like Mad Men and Breaking Bad, but shows like House and the Law & Order franchise, which spend way too much time on the ongoing personal lives of not very interesting characters, and give short shrift to the stories they presumably mean to tell.  Almost all of these shows are scripted by staff writers, and then filtered through the sensibilities of whatever powerful writer-producer is in charge.

Which is fine, for shows where it makes sense.  The Sopranos and Deadwood, or to go back farther, Wiseguy and Homicide: Life On The Streets, were mostly written by a small staff who knew the characters intimately, and produced some of the best dramas ever.  But when the same approach is taken to what should be fun junk food, something's wrong.  A program like Criminal Minds has pretensions it hasn't earned, and its undernourished storylines, buried under a mountain of character details, are grindingly predictable.

Which is why producers use to wisely depend on Jackson Gillis.  If nothing else, he knew how to tell a story.

IT BRINGS ON MANY CHANGES

Noel Murray's A Very Special Episode series at The AV Club has been indispensable from the get-go, but the latest installment, on the history and influence of MASH, is less interesting for the article itself than the response of its readers.

Murray's article has generated over 400 comments as I write this, and the big surprise is how obviously familiar with the show the readership of The AV Club appears to be.  Though it is popular with people of all ages (hey, I'm a regular!), the site is geared largely to people in the early twenties to late thirties demographic.  Many of its readers would not even have been born when MASH was in production.  They would have to come to it through syndication, or DVD.  And evidently it struck a chord in many people.  Which is a surprise to me, because this show is a prime example of a once-revered program that simply doesn't hold up..

When it originally aired, MASH was regarded as an example of "Quality Television", one of the few bastions of quality writing and acting to be found in the vast Wasteland of primetime TV.  But it was always a bit of a mongrel, aspiring to innovation while remaining thoroughly conventional, straining for pathos while relying on punchlines.

Early in its run, it tried for a looser, more free-form vibe, somewhat akin to the Robert Altman film that inspired it.  But the show's developer, Larry Gelbart, while a certified comedy genius (and I'd like to take this moment to heap mountains of praise on his script for Stanley Donen's Movie Movie, one of the greatest comedies of the seventies), had the instincts of a Catskills tummler, always ready with a snappy quip or pun.  Thus the show always felt self-consciously written, which tended to clash with its more serious war-is-hell attitude.  The best early episodes have the feel of a more acerbic Sgt. Bilko, only not as good.

Because Bilko, after all, had no particular pretense to realism--it was shot in front of a studio audience.  MASH was shot one camera-style, on locations or on relatively detailed sets, and seemed to be striving for...what?  Authenticity?  No, that can't be right--the very seventies hairstyles of most of the actors undermine any such notions.  And the performances were anything but subtle, with the actors braying the dialogue as if trying to project to the back rows.

In a way, MASH most closely resembled the work of Gelbart's old writer's room cohort from the Sid Caesar days, Neil Simon.  His plays--wildly popular in the seventies, almost completely forgotten now--were similarly machine-tooled for laughs and pathos, with the comedic and dramatic beats arriving at exactly the expected times.  It could be effective, but it was inorganic by nature.  Gelbart's jokes were funnier than Simon's, but his show felt similarly forced--characters were constantly having dramatic revelations that would be completely forgotten about by the next episode.

Of course, that was the convention of the time.  TV shows in the seventies lacked the continuity of even the least distinguished shows today.  There were no continuing storylines or callbacks to previous incidents.  Every episode was self-contained.  Or at least, that's what many TV historians claim.  But it's not entirely true.

For instance, there was episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show where perpetually wisecracking loser Murray risks everything--his marriage, his job, his happiness--by openly declaring his crush on Mary, his co-worker.  She's flattered and embarrassed, doesn't know how to deal with it, and the whole episode is kind of squirmy and uncomfortable.  And, in true seventies sitcom fashion, after that installment, it's never spoken of again.  BUT...if you saw that episode, you could never look at Murray and Mary, sitting side-by-side at their work desks, the same way again.  It was a character revelation that continued to resonate and didn't need to be stressed.

On the other hand, MASH would have its characters have some sort of epiphany just because it made for a nice dramatic storyline.  They'd remember a childhood trauma, or become obsessed with death, or have a crisis of faith--the type of thing that, in anything resembling the real world, would pretty much define your very existence--then have a little speech at the end of the episode (perfect for an Emmy highlight reel) and be ready for next week's episode.  Nothing ever resonated, nothing ever mattered.

After Gelbart's departure, MASH became much, much worse, limping along year after year in a neverending loop of static camera set-ups, mechanical wisecracks and high school play-level dramatics.  The last three or four seasons--with the actors visibly much older, and situations often repeated from earlier episodes--were and are actually painful to watch.  Yet the show's acclaim seemed to grow exponentially.  Why?

Seventies TV was much maligned at the time, and still is now, sometimes unfairly.  The best shows of the era--just off the top of my head, Mary Tyler Moore, Columbo, The Rockford Files, WKRP In Cincinnati--stand up to even the very best of what's being done now.  But yeah, there was a lot of crap, and in particular, there were a lot of shows essentially designed to be nothing but time-killers.  And as sometimes happens, in a sea of mediocrity, something that aspires to better things stands out.  In concept and execution, MASH wasn't really significantly better than anything else, but it claimed to be, and once upon a time, good intentions really were enough.

NOT QUEEN, NOT DUKE, NOT PRINCE

So I made an offhand comment on my Facebook page last night suggesting that anyone who uses the word "chillax" deserves to be taken out and shot.  A number of friends responded with what I'm going to hope was mock indignation, and I offered a half-assed apology, and that was that.  Still, as close as I've come to being involved in one of those exciting internet dust-ups the kids seem so fond of these days.

But it also got me thinking--if use of meaningless slang terms could be punishable by death, what other Draconian laws would be enacted if I were in charge of things?  Obviously, Marc Cohn and Jason Mraz would be subjected to slow, exquisite punishment--they'd be forced to listen to their own music.  Other grave offenses would include use of Ke$ha songs as ring tones, wearing flip-flops to work and of course, cleaning your gutters at 5 AM.  (That last one would only apply to my neighbors.)

But I wouldn't be wholly despotic.  Many would benefit from my rule.  Joe Dante, Brad Bird and Paul Thomas Anderson would be given unlimited funding to make whatever the hell movies they want.  Donald Fagen and Walter Becker would be hustled into a recording studio on a regular basis, thus assuring new Steely Dan albums would appear more frequently than every decade or so.  (There would, however, be a bylaw mandating Becker play every bass and guitar part himself, and forbidding him from ever singing.)  TV would be full of however many shows Jay Tarses wants to create.  Best of all, a team of scientists would work around the clock trying to figure out how to bring Kurt Vonnegut back to life, because I can't stand living in a world without him.  Also, though polygamy would be illegal for the general public, it would certainly be allowed for me, thus freeing me up to marry Lauren Graham, Thora Birch and Neko Case simultaneously.  (They'd all be cool with it, I'm sure.)

Cracks would eventually appear.  I'd become hated, my regime despised.  An underground resistance would materialize, and Walking In Memphis would become a song of defiance.  Jason Mraz, his dead eyes betraying the emotional scars of someone who has spent years in a dungeon listening to an endless loop of I'm Yours, would appear in the palace (I'd have a palace, right?) with vengeance on his mind, and not even my personal bodyguard--Kurt Russell, of course--would be able to stop him.  It would be a thuddingly obvious twist ending, like a bad M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Of course, there'd be none of those in my personal world, either.

TROUBLE EVERY DAY

Presumably his spiritual heirs have been too busy protesting gay marriage and spreading lies about Islam to note the death of James J. Kilpatrick at the age of 89.

A long-time spokesman for the lunatic right, he spent the forties and fifties toiling at various newspapers in the segregated south.  When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brown vs. The Board Of education, Kilpatrick thrust himself onto the national stage, becoming a go-to spokesman for segregation.  As late as 1963, when it must have been obvious to Kilpatrick that the tides of time and common sense were turning against him, he submitted an article to The Saturday Evening Post arguing that, in his words, "the Negro race, as a race, is in fact an inferior race."

That piece never ran, but the fact that a blandly mainstream publication like The Post even considered it proves that the hijacking of the media by right-wing extremists is nothing new.  Indeed, Kilpatrick parlayed his noxious celebrity into a sweet gig on 60 Minutes, on which he and the supposedly liberal Shana Alexander indulged in pointlessly argumentative back and forth of the exact kind so favored by news networks today.

60 Minutes producer Don Hewett would no doubt have claimed that he used Kilpatrick as a way of proving that his show had no agenda, that it aired all points of view.  But do all points of view need to be aired on a network forum, especially when those views are hateful and ill-informed?  Kilpatrick's run on CBS was an inspiration for CNN's Crossfire, which gave Pat Buchanan a forum for launching his hateful bile, which led, inevitably, to Fox News--ideology presented as fact.

And we are living with the results of all this.  When the views of hate-minded lunatics are given the patina of legitimacy by the mainstream press, they become part of the mainstream debate, and open hatred of other religions and races is made acceptable.