GOODBYE TO AN OLD FRIEND

     Okay, so I never met the man but whenever I heard a Fats Domino song, it always sounded like he was talking to me.  He was a musical innovator in every sense of the word.
     He was also a icon of the civil rights movement whether he knew it or not.  He would regularly play segregated concert halls and theaters (which means he would have to use a separate entrance among other humiliations) but when he would take the stage and start playing, all fears would melt away and you could only hear and see unbridled joy coming directly from him.  Joy can be a weapon of peace and most certainly of harmony.
     Thank you for making me feel this joy, Antoine.  Pass it on to everyone above now.

A POSSIBLY MANGLED BUT MUCH BELOVED QUOTE

"I don't know the game.
 I don't understand it.
 I don't feel like I want to play it.
 I never have."
             -Mark Arm

CAN YOU 'DO IT'?

     Can you do it?  Can you separate the artist from his/her art?  There was a recent exchange between Jerry Seinfeld and Stephen Colbert on Colbert's show (actually one of the few bright spots on the program lately)  where Colbert asked Seinfeld who some of his comedy idols were.  When he said he loved Bill Cosby you could hear a pin drop in the Ed Sullivan Theater.  Seinfeld continued by saying the he memorized all of Cosby's classic albums and that he thought he was influenced by Cosby.  Colbert said that he just couldn't listen to Cosby's comedy anymore after all of the sexual abuse allegations came out in the news.  Seinfeld replied by saying something about never really linking the two 'acts' (his comedy and his private behavior) together in his mind.  In my opinion, he was being open and honest; not flippant.
     Do people always link the artist and his/her personal life from their public business model?  Should we?  They say that tragedy plus time equals comedy.  Both Bob Hope and Johnny Carson were comedy icons.  Would it shock you if I said that they were also adultery icons?  Were they just a 'product of their times'?  I often hear verified tales about the era where it was fine to pinch a woman's posterior as they walked past a man's office space.  I understand that some men felt they were giving the woman high praise (or much more in some cases).  I also understand that some women actually took it that way (or much more in some cases).
      In today's highly sensitized society, it seems that both Hope and Carson would be publicly lambasted, be told to go away but yet somehow come back at a time of our choosing and made to do the 'walk of shame' for the rest of their lives; wearing their special version of the 'scarlet letter' for all to see.
     Do I refuse to watch Roman Polanski films because of his allegations of rape forty years ago even if the woman in question has said that she would support him being allowed to enter the U.S. again?  If he was allowed to move back, would he be placed on that list of 'sex offenders' that said Mr. Roman Polanski would be moving into your neighborhood?   How many people would move out of that neighborhood?  How many would like to move but couldn't because of financial limitations or other such 'roadblocks?' 
     I must admit that when watching the classic films 'Rosemary's Baby" or "Chinatown" I do not think 'man oh man, this rapist really knows how to crank out a fine movie!'  I also do not think about how emotionally damaged Polanski may still be after finding out his young wife who was eight months pregnant at the time was brutally murdered by a member of the notorious Manson family almost fifty years ago.   I do look at these films as works of art.  Sometimes I even forget who made them.  Did YOU know he made these movies?  However, I'm pretty sure I would think twice about watching these films if I found out that Polanski was found guilty of genocide.  But even then, I might pause to think 'Gee whiz, Nicholson is one of the greatest actors of the modern era so maybe I'll just sneak a peek at this one.'
     It's not everyday common knowledge but Volkswagen was founded by the German Labour Front which was spearheaded by none other than Adolf Hitler.  Do I hop in a Passat and wonder 'How can I drive a car from a company that was originally funded by Nazi Germany?'  I do not.
    I think it's safe to say that I believe every event or occurrence is a bit different and structurally complicated than the next and that every one of these nasty little things should be handled on a case by case basis and not simply by the court of public opinion even though most of us believes that a person is guilty until proven otherwise and thus disobeying our own system of justice in this country.
     If it is true that Mr. Cosby did actually drug and rape the women who accused him, I would be very angry and sad that a person who provided so much laughter could also be the same person who caused so much pain.  But would it change my belief that his "Noah" skit is one of the most brilliantly constructed comedy bits of all time?  It would not.

MY TWO SHITS WORTH: EPISODE SEVEN

     This year is the 45th Anniversary of some very memorable TV shows including "M*A*S*H", "Maude", "The Waltons",  and the current incarnation of the daytime staple "The Price Is Right."  However, I'm focusing my admiration today for "The Bob Newhart Show."  This was Newhart's 1st sitcom after hosting the critically acclaimed but low rated variety show from 1961 also with the same name that earned him 'an Emmy, a Peabody and a pink slip from NBC' as he likes to tell it.
     This new show would be one of the first sitcoms to show a happily married couple.....without any children.  It would be a risk that would pay off big in large part to the great chemistry between the 'button downed' Newhart and the straight shooting Suzanne Pleshette.  The supporting cast was also crucial to the success as well.  Newhart, who played Dr. Robert Hartley; a psychologist with an emphasis on support groups, shared a floor of an office high rise with the happy-go-lucky bachelor dentist Jerry Robinson, played by Peter Bonerz.  They also shared a sardonic and feisty receptionist, Carol Kester, played by Marcia Wallace.  The other major cast member would be their absent minded neighbor, airline navigator Howard Borden, played by Bill Daily.
     These characters would be around for the entire six year run and of the series.  I was born in 1972 so I mostly found this show in reruns.  I liked the fact that it mostly stayed away from current events and trends an focused on relationships between friends, relatives and patients.  Simple but smart.
     The group sessions were almost like a second show at times.  Between foul tempered and neurotic Elliott Carlin (Jack Riley), bashful and obedient Emile Peterson (John Fiedler),  good self-image deficient Ed Herd (Oliver Clark) and nice, elderly and blunt Mrs. Bakerman (Florida Freibus), one would never know where the prepared topics would go but we all knew it would lead to somewhere with a well intended but hilariously wrong result that would somehow get resolved by the end of the show.  I also think it was one of the first shows to portray mental health patients as real people with everyday problems and not inmates in an asylum.
      The fourth season episode "Over The River And Through The Woods" is my favorite one even though Emily (Pleshette) is barely seen as all the guys bond at Hartley's apartment over Thanksgiving because everyone is alone on this special day.  Cerebral and physical comedy are all on display here as the gang proceeds the get more and more drunk as the day goes on while attempting to watch the holiday football games and try to cook something up for a meal.
     There are too many great moments in 142 episodes to mention so if you're a fan of intelligent and slightly warped humor, go out and purchase the complete series box set.  And, to overuse a phrase, this is 'my prescription for hours and hours of laughter,'  Just don't OD, okay?

P.S.  Did you know that Howard Borden's brother, Gordon is a game warden?  That's right, he's warden Gordon Borden. 
     

R.I.P. TO THE CARMICHAEL SHOW

     The critical success and commercial failure of "The Carmichael Show" is something that probably can and will be discussed for some time but I would rather remember it as a great sitcom that started and ended on its own terms.
     Jerrod Carmichael wanted his show to be exactly the way it was.  The choice to star in a multi camera sitcom wasn't some form of self-parody;  it was deliberate.  The choice to hire the best writers, directors and producers was deliberate.  He intentionally mixed sitcom veterans with relative newcomers to create something truly unique.  The choice to surround himself with acting veterans like Loretta Devine and David Alan Grier and rising stars like Tiffany Haddish and Lil Rel Howery was also a great decision as these actors all had something special to bring to the table.
     Carmichael was a devoted fan of Norman Lear's great comedies of the 1970s but where Lear's controversial topics could be a bit over dramatic and sermonized, Jerrod's type of show was able to seamlessly weave a hot button topic into the mix without forgetting how to 'bring the funny.'  His type of humor wasn't ironic, cringe worthy or simply pandering to the right demographic.  And it was frankly refreshing.  This fact alone may have turned off some young millennial viewers who were either offended or confused by the humor.   This also may be why NBC kept airing the show during the summer when typical viewership is at its lowest.  I believe Carmichael was as forgiving as he could be to the network who gave him great creative freedom until they refused to air an episode regarding a shooting at nearby mall the same day an actual shooting happened during a congressional softball practice.  The episode wasn't making light of mass shootings but rather was dealing with how to cope with the aftermath of such an event.
     Most of the actors have already moved on to other projects but Mr. Carmichael, who has only just recently turned 30, will hopefully have more than one joker card up his sleeve.

MY TWO SHITS WORTH: EPISODE SIX

     I've always been attracted to different types of music.  Sometimes it can be difficult to tell because I mostly listen to rock music so you'll just have to trust me.  I tend to feel that labeled genres are just a business creation anyway.
     When I was about 11 years old, the USA Network started airing a program on Fridays and Saturdays called "Night Flight."  For awhile this was the ONLY place I could watch music videos as MTV was not yet available in my area .  However, this show wasn't just about music videos.  They aired old movies like "Reefer Madness" and W.C. Fields classics mixed in with experimental short films and full length concerts.  This was also the first time I realized that there was new music that wasn't being played on my local Top 40 station.  And some if it was actually good.
     One of the first videos that caught my eye was called "Close (To The Edit)" by something called The Art of Noise.  The music (as well as the unique imagery) was unlike anything I'd ever heard up to that point in my short life.  The group made their sounds by sampling voices, musical instruments and and everyday natural and machine made sounds and then 'manipulating' them through a new device called a Fairlight synthesizer.  I've been a huge fan ever since.
     Their second album, 1986's "In Visible Silence" has just been re-released in deluxe edition form.  I'd listened to their first album , 1984's"Who's Afraid of The Art of Noise?" so many times that kids my age covered their ears in fear every time I brought my boom box on the school bus for road trips.
     Since I was used to new music from my favorite artists arriving every year, I thought this group had broken up since it took them two years to make second album.  It was much later that I learned that founding member Trevor Horn had left the rest of the group and there was a bit of mess in that divorce.
     However,  I loved the second album just as much as the first (at least at the time).   They had even decided to cover an old classic in "Peter Gunn" (which was already a live staple for Emerson Lake and Palmer)  and invited guitar legend Duane Eddy to play on it.  This would be the first time I would actually hear one of their songs on my local Top 40 radio station.  And it wouldn't be the last.  Just a few months later they re-worked one of the albums' tracks "Paranoimia", adding some spoken word computer generated magic from Max Headroom (voiced by Matt Frewer).  This version would be their first US Top 40 single.
     This new deluxe edition contains several remixes of their singles and also B-sides and other rarities.  It's only available as an import and I wouldn't hold your breath waiting on a stateside release so if you're an AON fan, get it while you can.
      
    

MY TWO SHITS WORTH: EPISODE FIVE

     Saturday Night Live.  Those three words can conjure up many sounds and images.  Some strange; some fantastic; some outright pathetic.  Most people who have been fans at any point in time choose to prefer the ones that please them.  Almost like life itself, it seems.  People tend to remember 'the good years' over and over again.  I'm not going to rain on your parade unless your parade happens to be the 2016-17 season.  If so, you may want to move on or you might want to read this anyway.
     Statistics say that ratings for this past year were the best in 23 years.  It's not hard to figure out why.  Yes, there were some good hosts and Dave Chappelle made his long awaited TV return as well.
However, our current President had something (or pretty much everything) to do with this upturn in viewers.
     Alec Baldwin was pretty much a cast member this past year.  Playing the candidate and then President Trump seems to be a thrill for him and he certainly does gets some good digs in at Trump's expense.  However, the political humor can be a bit scattershot at times and even a bit tiring.  Making media figures like Lester Holt and Jake Tapper into major players in sketches can be tricky and sometimes irrelevant to someone who watches these programs as reruns ten years down the road.
    Kate McKinnon was perhaps the major cast member this year.  As Hilary Clinton and Kellyanne Conway, she channeled the anger and madness of this past election cycle.  However, opening the show with Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" twice?  Enough already.
     The other cast members performed respectably but none rose to McKinnon's manic level.  I still don't understand why they let Jay Pharaoh go at the end of last season when he did such great celebrity impressions.  With all of the talk of the lack of cast diversity, this still boggles my mind.
It's very apparent that with the ongoing political correctness entering the comedy world,  the field on which to create laughter keeps getting smaller and smaller.  Sketches done twenty years ago would certainly offend more people today.  Why?  The ability to be laughed at seems to be shrinking.  Just ask the President.  On second thought, please don't.
     The area of dark comedy on the program also keeps getting more and more rare.  Why?  It's hard to say but I think it's more difficult to get the tone just right and therefore gets pushed aside in the course of the show's hurried weekly production schedule.  The filmed "Dead Poet's Society" parody with Fred Armisen was one the best examples of a good dark sketch this past year.
     Because of pressure to keep ratings up, the musical guest lineup keeps getting less and less daring ae well.  Were there any actual rock bands and/or performers over 50 years old last year?  I don't remember one.  The precious 18 to 49 demographic simply wouldn't stand for it.  To use an oft quoted Presidential lament, 'sad.'
     Finally,  the Weekend Update portion of the show seemed to be the most improved part of the show.   Jost and Che have finally found a natural give and take feel to the segment.  Again, however, the political part of the bit threatened to drag things down at times.  Believe or not, there are other things happening in the world.  
      My final words.  Dare to be a little less proud and a tad more silly.  It still can be done.  Melissa McCarthy's take on Sean Spicer was perfect to me.