THE BOXING DAY MIRACLE?

   

I decided to turn on my television this evening.  I was flipping through the precious few channels I receive as I'm an over-the-air kinda guy.  I then found myself looking at CBS.  I swear that eye still looks at me like it hasn't already seen me enough over that past 50 years.  I was look at an episode of the TV series reboot of "The Equalizer."  I believe there were a few big screen adaptations also made.  Anyway, I see the actor Adam Goldberg and I'm thinking 'I really miss The Jim Gaffigan Show' but I digress.  One of the next scenes shows the star Queen Latifah talking to Chris Noth.  Is she telling him to lay low until all of the sexual predator stuff blows over?  No, this is an actual episode, albeit a repeat.  How can he still be in a network's prime time lineup?  

    Hmmmm. I changed the channel as the show isn't for me (most aren't) and now I'm ABC and there showing a repeat episode of "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune."  I'm a game show geek and the episode they were airing again was the episode featuring Jeff Garlin.  Really?  He got sacked from "The Goldbergs" for reasons that may or not become much clearer over time.  How can he be still 'over-the-air?'

    Do these networks think we don't care what's on now because it's the day after Christmas and Mom is tired from having to kiss Santa in exchange for gifts to give the kiddos?  Or is it because Dad is snuggled up on the couch and petting his nearly empty bottle of Vodka?  Is it because there is absolutely nothing else to show on Sunday evenings?  Those networks could burn off those unsold pilots like they used to do during my childhood.  Or run a pre-taped special looking back at the life of Archbishop Desmond Tutu?  All of the networks have those stored away somewhere.

    Or is it a day after Christmas miracle?  I'm sure it all depends on who you ask.

MISSION INFLAMMABLE: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

     Gee, fellas, it's difficult to sum up the year 2021 in one word but I'm gonna give it a go......EX-HAUST-ING.  Sensory Overload.  Sensory Overreaction.  Sensory Pantload.  All are apt descriptions for the past 12 months.  Everything someone said or did or thought was blown up to illogical and mostly absurd proportions.  Some with good reason.  Some with no reason at all other than to make money.  I read a recent Pitchfork interview with Devo founder and current TV and Film music composer Mark Mothersbaugh who said:    

      After the shootings at Kent State, we realized that rebellion wasn’t the way to change things anymore. Once the government gets irritated enough, they just lock you up or kill you. There’s no such thing as democracy—it’s all just corporations and the ebb and flow of capitalism. We were thinking, “God, the way it’s going, we could have a movie star or a sports guy as president. People are getting stupider.”                      

         

   The freedoms we have as Americans are vast and wide and that's why people from other countries want to come here.  If we narrow these freedoms, many which have certainly been proposed by certain politicians, the number of people wanting to come to America will likely decrease much to these lawmakers' eternal contentment.  When people say that 'freedom isn't free', this is true but not just for fighting in wars when our government says so but also for stepping up and doing the right thing in times of domestic crises such as when certain people are not paying their fair share of taxes or when there are medical emergencies and certain citizens decide to opt out of their civic duty to help save other citizens lives.     Yes, it is our right as Americans to protest or debate as long as it is done in a responsible manner.  Also, in my personal view, it also has to be done in a non-volent way; regardless of what end of the political spectrum you find yourself drawn towards.  The trend towards 'cancelling' each other is a very dangerous game to play because it may look and feel that it's being handled by the right side (or whoever's side you think you're on) right now but where does it all go from here?  I'm not sure anyone will want to stick around for the conclusion as the entire spectacle has a 'mob full of pitchforks and torches' type of vibe to it.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to this:  Can we resist the outside forces that are doing their best to divide us, or can we overcome this charlatan's ruse and find a way to work together despite all of our differences?   Please turn off whatever device on which you're reading this (I know that this lovely blog and cat videos are your only sanctuary right now but still......) and really think about it.

    

COMMENTS.....AND THE OVERABUNDANCE THEREOF.

 

        Obviously, the title of the post does not refer to the number of replies I received from my previous posts. No, I'm alluding to the number of comments that seem to have piled up on the information superhighway causing enlightenment, entertainment, and even an occasional sense of 'meh' but also irreversible damage to the heart, mind and soul.  Does our desire to harm outweigh our desire to help?                                                             I seem to remember a time before social media (does anyone else?) when it was common and decent to say "no comment" whenever someone asked someone else something that they didn't want to answer because they had no opinion (imagine the unmitigated gall of someone like that), because they didn't want to offend anyone, because they hadn't yet come to a place where they felt their opinion was fully formed, wanted or needed, or just simply didn't want to waste their time on something so trivial or inane.                                                                                                                                        Once social media started this trend of leaving those dreaded comment sections, traditional media wasted no time jumping on the bandwagon with millions of actually unwanted cries of "Let Us Know What You Think About (???) by calling, emailing, etc."  Imagine if at the end of War and Peace, Tolstoy had said "okie dokie...story over.  Whaddya think now dudes and dudettes?  Strap your thoughts to Josef the Carrier Pigeon and tell him to drop it off at the second yellow colored shack on the right."?    Personally, I have never wanted to know what someone else thought about the series of snowballs that displayed a vague resemblance to the twelve disciples because there are only so many hours in a day.  I know I possess a vulgar lack of curiosity and or voyeurism which is why something like The Jerry Springer and its offspring was the visual version of a flaming bag of feces on the doorstep of television for me. But if you prick me, do I not bleed out enough to satisfy your need for the taste for the good stuff? Or is that not sufficient for you?  What then will it take for your morbid cups of crap to runneth over?  I'm just asking for a friend.

HOW THINGS WORK (GAME SHOW HOST EDITION)

     

        Game shows have been around forever, either on radio or television, and they will not be going away soon.  Some things have changed, and some things have remained basically the same.  The competition for ratings is much more dire and desperate these days with hundreds of TV channels, streaming and other things vying for viewers shorter and shorter attention spans.                                                                                                            If you look at a brief history of TV game shows (they're all on YouTube so go look now.....I'll wait............................................................glad you're back!), you will see that the pacing has incrementally become faster over the decades because every second of dead air is a second of a network's earnings wasted.                                                                            Also, if you haven't noticed, what is being allowed on TV in regard to language and content has also changed quite a bit, especially when it comes to the major networks who traditionally were the last ones to 'work blue', as opposed to HBO who surprises me whenever it does the exact opposite.                                                                         Finally, the traditional game show host has taken a giant flying leap out the window in the 21st Century and it comes down to ratings.  Networks and studios have supposedly whittled this process down to an exact science.  Focus groups, Q Scores, sex appeal, knowledge of the game you're hosting (just kidding-that's what cue cards are for, you dummy!):  all of these are taken into consideration in some shape or form.                              When Regis Philbin was picked to host the U.S. version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in 1999, many people were shocked for several reasons.  First, many people assumed he had never hosted a game show before.  It had been over 25 years but, yes, he had hosted a game show before.  Secondly, other people thought he might be too old for the job.  That might be somewhat debatable as he was 68 at the time but, hey, if Bob Barker was still going strong, why not Reeg?     

  In the case of Jeopardy, when the syndicated version started in 1984, my best guess is that Merv Griffin auditioned several veteran game show hosts and a couple wild cards and then went with his gut on who should get the job.  Things were so much different 40 years ago.  Remember, Merv Griffin WAS Merv Griffin Productions.  To whom did he have to answer?  No one, except maybe his conscience and even that has never been scientifically proven.  No network, just a pretty solid and proven concept and very a new syndication company eager to make some cash (King World at the time).                                               Today it's all different.  Almost no one wants veteran game show hosts.  They want proven entertainers.  Except Sony, I guess.

    

MY FAVORITE GAME SHOW THEMES

      Being a huge game show fan, I also happen to have been smitten with quite a bit of the theme songs that go along with these programs.  I would like to tell you mostly about the ones I really like (in no particular order) and maybe a few that irritate the hell out of me.                                                                                                                                                 1.  The Price Is Right (1972-present):  To me, this is the ultimate game show theme.  Written by Edd Kalehoff, this tune is one of the first game show theme songs to use a Moog Synthesizer and and is a very intricate theme with several chord changes and not just a bouncy little tune that tells you that "hey, my show is on now!".  When Bob Barker retired in 2007, Kalehoff was asked to do a rerecording of the song to 'update' it for modern audiences.  He didn't update it much.  Thank God!                                                       2. Scrabble (1984-1990):  This is the first game show theme that actually sounds like the 1980s!  Cheesy synths and primitive drum machines are all over this one.  And I wouldn't change a thing.  Written and performed by Ray and Marc Ellis; otherwise known as the Ellis Brothers.                                                                                                                         3.  Match Game (1973-present):  Gene Rayburn also hosted a 1960s version of the show with the same name but a slightly different format.  The contestant still had to fill in the blank and match answers given by a celebrity panel, but the questions were not supposed to be silly; for example: 'The largest breed of dog is the (blank).'  The phrases got more humorous as the decade passed but never as risque and double-entendre filled as the 70s version.  The theme was udpated too.  1970s viewers wanted funk...and then some upbeat filled Latin music for some reason and they definitely got both!  This score was written by Ken Bichel and is still used on the current version hosted by Alec Baldwin.                                                                                                                                           4.  Jeopardy (1984-present):   I know what you're thinking; you're missing the earlier versions of the show hosted by Art James.  Precisely.  That's because the current day theme song called 'Think' was only used during the Final Jeopardy and other various songs (all written by creator Merv Griffin) were used for main theme music.  Only when Jeopardy started its syndicated run in 1984 did Griffin decide to use it for both the main theme and Final Jeopardy music.  This little ditty alone made Griffin $70 million during his lifetime!                                                                                                                                         5.  To Tell The Truth (1969-1978):  This version of the the long running panel-based quiz was recorded in 1969 and seemed to be aiming for a younger audience with its AM Radio pop-based theme complete with lyrics about someone's loved one who just doesn't 'know how to tell the truth.'  I can't believe this didn't make the pop charts.  It's a perfect combination of the era: The Association meets The 1910 Fruitgum Company!

THE WORST GAME SHOW THEME (THAT I'VE HEARD):

      Chain Reaction (1980; 1986-1991):  This game show, whose reboot on GSN since the mid 2000s has become a big success (with a different theme, obviously), originally was a very short lived affair that was hosted by Bill Cullen.  It was revived later in the decade as a program shot on the cheap in Canada (hence the re-use of the horrible theme song) and first hosted by Canadian Blake Emmons and then by American Geoff Edwards (who subbed for Cullen for two weeks on the original version.  The tune is a prime example of the worst of generic disco music that was written for many TV series of the era.  The show itself  has a very sold premise and has had many successful international versions produced.  

WALTER MATTHAU'S BAD ASS TRILOGY

     

Walter Matthau would be my favorite actor if he had only done "The Sunshine Boys" but he did so many great movies and even not-so-great movies where he still gave incredible performances that there is no doubt that if an actor who looks as mis-shapen as Matthau does could be so talented, there is hope for all of us.  Plus, it doesn't hurt that Matthau is the creator of one the greatest quotes in showbiz history when he said of his co-star in 1969's "Hello, Dolly", Barbra Streisand: 'I have more talent in my smallest fart then she does in her entire body', even though I think he might have only been half-joking......                                                                                                                                                           At the beginning of his career, he played his share of bit parts of creeps and heavys and now that he became famous in big time Hollywood productions and hilarious comedies, he wanted to stretch his wings a bit. In 1970, he played in elderly man who takes in a free-spirited pregnant young woman (weren't they always free-spirited in that era?) in the drama "Kotch", the only movie directed by his frequent co-star Jack Lemmon.  He then made two romantic (but dark) comedy-dramas, "Pete'N'Tillie" with Carol Burnett and "A New Leaf" with Elaine May.  Matthau as a romantic lead?  Anything went in the 70's, man!  Then Old Walt decided to show off his darker side in three sraight action movies.  Guys who loved donuts; is there anything they couldn't do?                                                                                         First up was 1973's "Charley Varrick" directed by frequent Clint Eastwood collaborator Don Siegel.  Here Matthau plays a former crop-duster turned bank robber.  After robbing a Nevada bank with his two partners in crime and with his wife Nadine in tow, something goes wrong and only Varrick and his inexperienced accomplice Harman end up surviving...and with shitloads more money in the bags they got away with leading Varrick to suspect that the bank was a money laundering front for the Mafia.  What first strikes me about Varrick is how little remorse he shows after Nadine's death.                     Next, young and wild Harman develops plans on how to use his share of the money.  Varrick knows the Mob are their trail so he devises a plan on how to help the Mob 'dispose' of Harman as I don't believe Charley ever had any plans to ever share the money.  The Mafia apparently outsources now as they hire a  big and burly hitman named Molly (Joe Don Baker) to knock off the pair quickly and take the money and probably not run but trot back since this is Baker we're taking about.  Well, Varrick soon disappears with the loot leaving Harman dead after Molly finds Varrick gone and Harman not knowing where the cash went.  Finally, Molly catches up with Charley in a showdown for the ages and a stuntman's dream (or nightmare).  Let's just say that the film ends with brains and ice water veins winning the day.                                                                                                                                                  The next flick is "The Laughing Policeman", also from 1973.  Based a a Swedish novel (kinky!), the action moves from Stockholm to San Francisco with Seargent Jake Martin (Matthau) who just lost his partner Dave Evans after he is gunned down by a ruthless cross dressing killer who he had privately been tailing to find out why the killer murdered a previous victim.  Martin is assigned a new partner named Leo Larsen (played by Bruce Dern), a loose and easy going guy who clashes with Martin's brash and blunt persona.  During the film Matthau argues non-stop with his wife, finds his son in a porn theater and throws him out in the street, almost strangles a ladyfriend of the killer played by Cathy Lee Crobsy and also finds time to butt heads with another Inspector played by Louis Gossett Jr., who is even meaner than Martin.  Catching the killer is only half the fun in this dark time capsule of San Francisco just a few years after the Summer of Love.                                                                                      The final film is 1974's iconic "The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three" in which a group of sadistic theives that hijack a New York City Subway Train headed up by Robert Shaw who plays the head of the gang who are only known by their colorful last names, Blue, Green, Grey and Brown (which Director and professional copycat Quentin Tarantino used again in a similar style for his movie "Reservoir Dogs").  This time Matthau's character Lieutenant is a more methodical and less tightly wound  individual who works together who works together with fellow Lieutenant Rico Patrone (played with dramatic panache by usual funnyman Jerry Stiller) and Subway Engineer Frank Correll (a great Dick O'Neill) to stop these evil men.  Everything works brillaintly here even though some over-the-top buffoonish local politicians played by Lee Wallace and Tony Roberts threaten to, uh, derail the perfect rhythm of the story but can't.                                                                                                                              All three movies have become cult if not outright genre classics and are highly recommended.  And , remember, don't let the goofy looking face fool you.

IT'S THE NEW SENSATION THAT'S SWEEPING THE NATION

      Have you ever seen the Mel Brooks movie  "History Of The World: Part One"?  I think it's one of the most overlooked films in the Brooks canon.  Mel can sure write a funny and catchy tune.  One of his best,  "The Inquisition", comes from this film.  A satirical song based upon the Catholic Church's quest to forcefully convert all Non-Catholics to Catholicism or be punished (with death being the ultimate example).                                                                                                                                                            The words 'Inquisition' and 'Insurrection' have the same number of syllables and both activities share some similar and very unsavory traits like taking over something and making your beliefs the only beliefs as well as the new law of the land.  The Insurrection that occurred earlier this month will be a sad chapter in our nation's history but certainly not the first sad one.  In fact, the history of this country shows things like this happening over and over again.  Maybe on a different sized scale but definitely very similar events.  I believe that a lack or an indifference to a decent education is to blame.  And, no, you shouldn't have to be an elite to to get one.  And, yes, this is from where much of the confusion arises.                                                                                                                                                 Education is something that is being taken less seriously by the general public at large.  Joe and Judy Six-Pack are working more hours a week for less pay and when they home do they want to learn anything.  No.  They want ideas and opinions pre-packaged and syndicated straight into their brain cells by those clusters of pixels they stare at until they pass out drunk and/or fall asleep for the evening.  I been watching documentaries from the 1960s and 1970s where the filmmaker talks to the average man or woman on the street.  They don't necessarily talk like Patrick Stewart or Dame Maggie Smith but many of these people sound like executives from Fortune 500 companies with their higher than average IQ levels.  It's no surprise that many of the wealthiest people (including many who just happened to be born into it) have done their best to make sure the under-educated stay that way permanently.  How?  By having people work more hours a week for less pay and making sure they stay on that treadmill until retirement or death (whichever comes first).

“If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them."-George Orwell

WELCOME TO THE LAND OF FEAR

     

I know what you're thinking and I fear it as well.  You might think this post is about our current cultural climate.  Yes, but only to a degree.  It's interesting that I mention the word 'degree' because I'm about to drop a cold hard truth.....about me.  I don't think I exist without fear.  I am neuroticism personified.  I worry, I fret, I freak out; you name it-I own up to it.  I actually fear the concept of fear.  Fear is the ultimate paralyzer.  Once it works it way inside you can only hope for temporary relief because it never completely leaves you.  Three decades of therapy and medication keep it somewhat at bay but it is always leering over your shoulder.  Perhaps that why I dislike horror movies.  I'm my own ultimate fright fest.  I'm not completely this way 100% percent of the time.  I live.  I laugh.  I love.  Or maybe my best simulation of these.  I can't be sure.  Fear has kept me from achieving all I wanted to achieve in this life.  Fear has kept me from growing as a human being.  Fear of rejection is the ultimate poisoned apple.  Because of this I live on the outside looking in and between the margins of society.  It's safer but lonelier.  I think one can be lonely and unsafe but can one be safe and not lonely?  Society seems to say yes but I'm not completely convinced.  Who will convince me?  I may not find out in this life.  Isn't that a little scary?

INTERESTING READ-I'M TIRED OF WRITING RIGHT NOW.....

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/us/carl-lentz-hillsong-pastor.html