Each region of the world has its climatological cross to bear. The paradise of Island life (Caribbean or south Pacific) is annually wracked by hurricanes or typhoons. For southern Californians, it's the constant knowledge that an earthquake is possible, and the devilish offshore flow, known colloquially as the Santa Ana winds. These super-heated winds that blow like hell from the northeast, make this rain deficient part of the country a literal tinderbox. As I put this week's thoughts down, I can smell the smoke from Malibu, one of 5 areas at this end of the state that has burst into flames, whipped to a frenzy by those winds. It puts my planned topics into perspective--it's strictly for amusement. Worse things are happening right around me.
Fortunately out of harm's way, regardless of the smell and the ash that floated down like snowflakes, I spent the day napping like an aging cat, catching pieces of two football games between the fire coverage which, though urgent, can get tedious. A lot of ad-libbing broadcasters with nothing to describe (you can see the picture) and little fact to provide, start filling the air with a lot of needless verbiage. The one TV anchor who never failed to share incisive expertise during these events was Hal Fishman, who died unexpectedly, earlier this year.
To show you how immensely local television news depends on the physical appearance of its reporters, even I kept thinking that the stellar ad-lib work done by an early morning weekend anchor on KNBC-TV would be a major star if she looked like a less competent reporter on KCBS-TV, Channel 2. This same gorgeous Asian woman had been at different local station 15 years ago, reporting on yet another Santa Ana fire in Malibu. As I recall, she was with her news crew, beaming back pictures from Pacific Coast Highway, as flames licked close to Pepperdine University. The anchor asked her question after quest about the location of the blaze, where it was approaching, etc. To paraphrase what Johnny Carson once said of a would-be competitor, she couldn't ad-lib a fart. She bumbled and phumphered and stumbled along. But, she was so stunning in casual clothes (a jacket and, as country folk say, "tight-fittin' jeans), it almost took your mind off the fire.
I can't protest too much, because I've watched it affect my viewing habits. Without question, in Los Angeles, KCBS and KCAL, two stations co-owned by the same company, utilizing the same reporters, employ a cadre of Miss America contestants. They are so good looking you almost look past the fact there's not a story about sex, molestation, a car chase, kidnapping, or other violent act that doesn't fill up the late newscast. KABC employs attractive anchors, but seems to offset its tabloid stories with those less titillating. KNBC seems to not give a fig about looks. Fox 11 is...well, it's Fox. ..what can I add? Mind you, this is coming from someone who just wants to get the news. There's nothing scientific about what I've surmised. This is just how it looks to someone not associated with the world of TV Journalism.
*
In my youth, the World Series would be over by now, before weather turned inclimate around the country, making players not the boys of summer, but the Icicles of late fall. Two things happened today that were not necessarily unexpected: It snowed in Denver and the Boston Red Sox beat Cleveland for the American League pennant.
It's always an event when the Red Sox make the World Series because of the team's schlep-rock history as the most cursed of the cursed. they won the Series in '04. The curse is done, but their park is so steeped in tradition and quirkiness, and their fans so rabid, it's like you know the team. It also helps that ESPN, located in Bristol, Connecticut, positioned between NYC and Beantown, is so East Coast-centric, it's as if the Red Sox and Yankees play in your home town.
No one, however, could have predicted that Denver's Colorado Rockies would be the Sox' national League opponent. The Rocks have been sitting on their duff's since last Monday, having vanquished the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League Championship series. As a Dodger fan, this hurts like a glutial pimple...to see expansion teams vie for a Series spot. Yet, after having watched the Rockies step up and beat L-A with the skill of their name-less but sensational players, I respect them. It didn't hurt that Vin Scully, the legendary voice of the Dodgers, pointed out the talents of each sensational Rockie player has they planted a foot firmly in the ass of Dodger pennant hopes. It's not easy to listen to, but helps you appreciate your opponent. Announcers in other cities don't do that. I'm sure while Arizona was castrating the Chicago Cubs en route to their series with Colorado, the Cubs announcers weren't pointing out how talented the Diamondbacks were. Chicago broadcasters have a tendency to describe anything that goes against the Cubs like unsuccessful surgeons greeting an apprehensive family.
I can handle the Rockies in the series. It's more interesting to chew over how the World Series will turn out played in Denver, in that park where the ball flies far, where October snow can happen any minute, than to endure the teeth gnashing I'd experience had the Giants or Padres or Angels made it. Their fans gloat with too much relish when their teams are hot, and the Dodgers are not. Not appreciated by this writer.
*
Finally, I've spent a lot of spare time since October 5th, wrapped up in Journals: 1952-2000, the compiled journals of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the renowned historian. It's 858 pages long, and I've enjoyed 714 of them so far. His commentary and assessment of events as they happened over all those years is eye-opening and honest. Schlesinger passed away in February of this year(he'd have been 90 on the October 15th). Two of his sons assembled stacks of his typewritten journals that are a behind the scenes look at how politics , academia , and the society set functioned, and how all it evolved during one man's public lifetime.
Of his impressions of the politicians and Presidents, it's memorable to note that, as opposed to a memoir, a journal is related in real time. What Schlesinger thought of some of these men and women stands the test of time. He worked in the Kennedy Administration as historian, speechwriter, policy maker. He apparently knew nothing about JFK's celebrated indiscretions when they were happening, and later, after they were revealed, thought they were nothing more than titillation.
In one 196o's entry, Schlesinger shares that Kennedy often quoted a Chinese Proverb: "Many are on the stairs but no one's in the room ."
The author was prescient on most of his observations, but was wrong in 1980, when, distressed over the Carter Presidency, surmised that a Reagan Administration could be contained by a Democratic Congress. He was wrong, there. But he was quite right concerning another twice-elected President.
The biggest kick I've gotten out of this tome is that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a scholar, professor, historian; a man of letters and a reservoir of words, would choose the following to put Richard Nixon in crystal-clear perspective: "He's a shit." Schlesinger was also prescient in his ruminations about Nixon's Administration. In an eerie way, they mirror the machinations of our current White House occupants.
I laughed out loud as I read that, in 1979, Schlesinger and his family got new neighbors on New York's East Side: The Nixon's. The author's descriptions are priceless, as Nixon douses the lights on Halloween to avoid trick or treaters. He's hilarious when he relates looking out his bedroom window to see "the unmistakable visage" of Nixon in profile, skulking around the house. One afternoon, Schlesinger's 8 year-old-son was climbing a jungle-jim in the backyard, and scaling the fence. Schlesinger's wife later reported that Nixon began waving feebly at the boy, who later told his parents Nixon was telling him to get off the fence. Soon, the secret service had established a presence, and installed cameras.
The descriptions of Nixon walking back and forth, lugging firewood, only to take it back for smaller logs, then locking himself out makes you think of Tricky Dick as Mr. Wilson of Dennis the Menace fame. Schlesinger looking out his window to see a semi-clad Nixon sunning himself, only to have his wife ad, "It looks like a sunbather in a Nixon mask," had me on the floor. That and Nixon playing catch with a grandchild in a three piece suit and tie. You can't make this sort of stuff up.
*
Speaking of Halloween, we'll try and jot down some notes before the holiday about the fun of fall. If I could just stop laughing about Nixon, jowls flapping, chasing kids off the backyard fence!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
They open their traps, and yap!
When I was a kid, hilarious, countrified songs by Jerry Reed would come out of nowhere and waft out of the radio, in between The Rolling Stones, The Carpenters, Isaac Hayes, and whatever else was on the KHJ Top 30 survey ("Boss" had become passe by this time frame...1971-72). Funny, songs like "When you're hot yer hot," "Amos Moses," and "Alabama Wild Man," appealed to me because they were amusing. Reed's story-fueled records were rich with corn-pone accents, and characters who might easily have been from gene pools close enough to nudge each other at the elbow and ask to pass the grits. I'm pretty certain they missed the mark with my peers, but such was the nature of Top 40 radio, at the time. If it hit the top 40, a novelty hit would be there right next to Neil Diamond and The Staple Singers.
It's the title of one of Jerry Reed's comic send-ups that makes me invoke his name: "Lord Mr. Ford, what have you done?" The song was about air pollution, traffic accidents, all of what motor transport has brought us, despite the convenience of conveyance and the occasional back-seat soiree. I began to think of the title in terms of every other technological breakthrough that's delivered bad along with good. The medium I work in, for example.
Middle-aged Dave is not tuning around looking for funny ditties by the likes of Jerry Reed. And when playing music on the radio is your means of support, you don't go looking for music at all. I listen mostly in the car, and tune around for something that interests me. There's baseball, when in season. Without a local NFL team in greater Los Angeles, there's no local football broadcast that appeals to me (USC's success over the span of this decade has made college football a delight, though).
There is, increasingly, talk. Sports and politics, politics and sports. Regardless of the topic, it's talk. Just talk. Unfortunately for me, most of it is talk with little intelligence, profundity, insight or depth.
What about NPR, you might ask. If you want to be lectured to, and feel educated, how about public radio? Ehhhhh...not so much. I worked at an NPR affiliate just after college. Though there is earnestness, I couldn't get past the fact that all the news and information was disseminated with the delivery of a Kindergarten teacher reading "Dick and Jane," aloud.
That leaves a precious few, three or four hour shows of interest that may amuse or entertain. I'm fairly certain these are shows with listenership so thin, the accumulated audience could be invited over for Cheetos and Beer, during the broadcast.
Somehow, somewhere, sometime when content on the AM band was dying, and the rules and regulations administered by the FCC were loosened, Opinion took a stranglehold on all that was talk on the radio. In the past, commentary had been labled as such, and was pretty much limited to fifteen minute bursts of bombast. Dating back to what seems like the birth of the vacuum tube, a neanderthal like Paul Harvey would ramble during his time period each day, alternately relating his sunshiny homilies, and bemoaning things, like the fact a song called "I shot the Sheriff," was number one in the country. I used to think that had 'Ol Paul (decaying, even in 1974) been around at the advent of bathroom tissue, he'd have decried that real Americans , if they were Americans at all, would continue to use the good old corn cobb to cleanse their nether regions. That's an exaggeration, of course, but it's also how evolved he seemed to be.
The men and women who purveyed talk radio forty years ago, had to work within the limits of neutrality, while guests would take one side or the other. That's, of course, no longer the case. It's one ideology versus the other, with the lion's share of the mouthpieces being of one, vitriolic bent. My unique perspective, with a view from the inside, enables me to understand that as long as this creates ratings and profits, it will not change. That's fair. That's business, that's capitalism, that's American. It's entertainment, though a distressing number of listeners mistake it for news.
It also means, irrespective of topic, sports or politics, any loudmouth with a functioning larynx can wind up with a show. A cavalcade of cretins has emerged to bellow and coo for hours every day. Halitosis of the intellect with a big voice can impress and persuade, rile and incite, peak interest, compel, sell, and sustain the "numbers." Amidst those numbers are intelligent, grounded individuals who "get" the act and laugh, or listen simply to get an idea of what "the other side" is centered on for a particular day.
I don't listen to the political end much, because I find it sad to realize so many who are woefully uninformed, can't cut through the bull and form their own opinions. And I'm one of those who unfortunately allows himself (when my guard is down) to be riled by folks like the bloated beast from the Northeast, a particularly obese blowhard, one with a weakness for...concentrated tablets. Not just him, but a host of angry, verbose, largely uneducated zanies who have proliferated with his success, and replicated into a daily cacophony, all day and most of the night. And they've propagated their species faster than the guys in the NBA.
That leads me to sports. Again, formerly limited to post-game shows, engaging the faithful following some titanic (or less than stellar) team performance, you can now get your fill for 24 hours a day from two national networks, and in some major cities, two locally-manned stations focusing on local teams and sports issues. And, again, there were a couple of guys in particular who patented the 15 minute daily sports show. In 1940's and '50's Los Angeles, it was Bob Kelley, who broadcast "Sports at Six," until his death in 1966. He offered sports, opinion, and barbed shots at his crosstown competition, Sam Balter. One of Kelley's writers, Jim Healy, went on to his own 15 minute show that went from sports reports and opinion to a half hour of hard sports journalism and riotous commentary, laced with drop-ins and wild tracks of sports celebs and other noted figures caught in spontaneous moments. It was hilarious, though Healy was despised by many, he was listen to by millions, including me. He once did a talk show, but he'd never have had the same impact if he had to spread his material out over three hours. His show evolved from about 1970 until April of 1994, when he left the air, and died shortly thereafter.
That sports talk shows make me turn the radio off completely has to do with the template Healy set. By design, the host has to engage, and drag the listener through commercial breaks, and still compel the small percentage of those who will actually pick up the phone and participate. You can't do Healy for three hours.
This is why so much sports talk sounds like a couple of troglodytes full of beer and invective: because their employers demand it. A bunch of guys at the corner bar, belching platitudes and ale, simultaneously popping off and proving themselves intemperate, intolerant, raging dimwits. Add to that the fact that they have to spout political beliefs, sing songs, and sink to all manner of self-delusion outside the realm of sports to soak up three hours, and believe me, the reasons to turn off the radio are many.
It's probably unfair of me to just zero in on the bad and not talk about what I find fun and amusing. There are some great hosts who do appeal to my intelligence. You don't have to agree with their opinion or ideology to be entertained by a talented performer. In Sports, Big Joe McDonnell in Los Angeles is a journalist by trade, who never fails to keep you listening. He's out front with who he likes and dislikes, he doggedly supports his friends, and because he's a sports journalist, aside from his caustic humor, you get meticulously sourced sports news.
Late at night, Ray Taliaferro comes bolting across the ionosphere on KGO, eagerly taking on political hacks who call his show under assumed names, immersing himself in arguments so heated, the actual thought entered my mind that his heart might explode, right there on the air. He's fond of saying he prefers the nether hours, that his show on KGO is four hours, not three, and that he only requires four hours of sleep a day. This may account for his crankiness, but the man's in earnest--he said the following, after jousting some inane insomniac who no doubt wishes everybody not from his general DNA should leave the country, and they are words I wish were mandatory for every host, of every ideology, to reinforce (though they won't, because it would be bad for the bottom line):
"This is not the news. Use different sources--READ! Read newspapers, magazines, and other places to get your news, and try to separate it from supposition and opinion. O-PIN-ION!"
Unfortunately, for some, that would be like drawing back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz to find a guy who looks like the Janitor on "Scrubs," eating a donut and clipping his nails with mixed success.
It's the title of one of Jerry Reed's comic send-ups that makes me invoke his name: "Lord Mr. Ford, what have you done?" The song was about air pollution, traffic accidents, all of what motor transport has brought us, despite the convenience of conveyance and the occasional back-seat soiree. I began to think of the title in terms of every other technological breakthrough that's delivered bad along with good. The medium I work in, for example.
Middle-aged Dave is not tuning around looking for funny ditties by the likes of Jerry Reed. And when playing music on the radio is your means of support, you don't go looking for music at all. I listen mostly in the car, and tune around for something that interests me. There's baseball, when in season. Without a local NFL team in greater Los Angeles, there's no local football broadcast that appeals to me (USC's success over the span of this decade has made college football a delight, though).
There is, increasingly, talk. Sports and politics, politics and sports. Regardless of the topic, it's talk. Just talk. Unfortunately for me, most of it is talk with little intelligence, profundity, insight or depth.
What about NPR, you might ask. If you want to be lectured to, and feel educated, how about public radio? Ehhhhh...not so much. I worked at an NPR affiliate just after college. Though there is earnestness, I couldn't get past the fact that all the news and information was disseminated with the delivery of a Kindergarten teacher reading "Dick and Jane," aloud.
That leaves a precious few, three or four hour shows of interest that may amuse or entertain. I'm fairly certain these are shows with listenership so thin, the accumulated audience could be invited over for Cheetos and Beer, during the broadcast.
Somehow, somewhere, sometime when content on the AM band was dying, and the rules and regulations administered by the FCC were loosened, Opinion took a stranglehold on all that was talk on the radio. In the past, commentary had been labled as such, and was pretty much limited to fifteen minute bursts of bombast. Dating back to what seems like the birth of the vacuum tube, a neanderthal like Paul Harvey would ramble during his time period each day, alternately relating his sunshiny homilies, and bemoaning things, like the fact a song called "I shot the Sheriff," was number one in the country. I used to think that had 'Ol Paul (decaying, even in 1974) been around at the advent of bathroom tissue, he'd have decried that real Americans , if they were Americans at all, would continue to use the good old corn cobb to cleanse their nether regions. That's an exaggeration, of course, but it's also how evolved he seemed to be.
The men and women who purveyed talk radio forty years ago, had to work within the limits of neutrality, while guests would take one side or the other. That's, of course, no longer the case. It's one ideology versus the other, with the lion's share of the mouthpieces being of one, vitriolic bent. My unique perspective, with a view from the inside, enables me to understand that as long as this creates ratings and profits, it will not change. That's fair. That's business, that's capitalism, that's American. It's entertainment, though a distressing number of listeners mistake it for news.
It also means, irrespective of topic, sports or politics, any loudmouth with a functioning larynx can wind up with a show. A cavalcade of cretins has emerged to bellow and coo for hours every day. Halitosis of the intellect with a big voice can impress and persuade, rile and incite, peak interest, compel, sell, and sustain the "numbers." Amidst those numbers are intelligent, grounded individuals who "get" the act and laugh, or listen simply to get an idea of what "the other side" is centered on for a particular day.
I don't listen to the political end much, because I find it sad to realize so many who are woefully uninformed, can't cut through the bull and form their own opinions. And I'm one of those who unfortunately allows himself (when my guard is down) to be riled by folks like the bloated beast from the Northeast, a particularly obese blowhard, one with a weakness for...concentrated tablets. Not just him, but a host of angry, verbose, largely uneducated zanies who have proliferated with his success, and replicated into a daily cacophony, all day and most of the night. And they've propagated their species faster than the guys in the NBA.
That leads me to sports. Again, formerly limited to post-game shows, engaging the faithful following some titanic (or less than stellar) team performance, you can now get your fill for 24 hours a day from two national networks, and in some major cities, two locally-manned stations focusing on local teams and sports issues. And, again, there were a couple of guys in particular who patented the 15 minute daily sports show. In 1940's and '50's Los Angeles, it was Bob Kelley, who broadcast "Sports at Six," until his death in 1966. He offered sports, opinion, and barbed shots at his crosstown competition, Sam Balter. One of Kelley's writers, Jim Healy, went on to his own 15 minute show that went from sports reports and opinion to a half hour of hard sports journalism and riotous commentary, laced with drop-ins and wild tracks of sports celebs and other noted figures caught in spontaneous moments. It was hilarious, though Healy was despised by many, he was listen to by millions, including me. He once did a talk show, but he'd never have had the same impact if he had to spread his material out over three hours. His show evolved from about 1970 until April of 1994, when he left the air, and died shortly thereafter.
That sports talk shows make me turn the radio off completely has to do with the template Healy set. By design, the host has to engage, and drag the listener through commercial breaks, and still compel the small percentage of those who will actually pick up the phone and participate. You can't do Healy for three hours.
This is why so much sports talk sounds like a couple of troglodytes full of beer and invective: because their employers demand it. A bunch of guys at the corner bar, belching platitudes and ale, simultaneously popping off and proving themselves intemperate, intolerant, raging dimwits. Add to that the fact that they have to spout political beliefs, sing songs, and sink to all manner of self-delusion outside the realm of sports to soak up three hours, and believe me, the reasons to turn off the radio are many.
It's probably unfair of me to just zero in on the bad and not talk about what I find fun and amusing. There are some great hosts who do appeal to my intelligence. You don't have to agree with their opinion or ideology to be entertained by a talented performer. In Sports, Big Joe McDonnell in Los Angeles is a journalist by trade, who never fails to keep you listening. He's out front with who he likes and dislikes, he doggedly supports his friends, and because he's a sports journalist, aside from his caustic humor, you get meticulously sourced sports news.
Late at night, Ray Taliaferro comes bolting across the ionosphere on KGO, eagerly taking on political hacks who call his show under assumed names, immersing himself in arguments so heated, the actual thought entered my mind that his heart might explode, right there on the air. He's fond of saying he prefers the nether hours, that his show on KGO is four hours, not three, and that he only requires four hours of sleep a day. This may account for his crankiness, but the man's in earnest--he said the following, after jousting some inane insomniac who no doubt wishes everybody not from his general DNA should leave the country, and they are words I wish were mandatory for every host, of every ideology, to reinforce (though they won't, because it would be bad for the bottom line):
"This is not the news. Use different sources--READ! Read newspapers, magazines, and other places to get your news, and try to separate it from supposition and opinion. O-PIN-ION!"
Unfortunately, for some, that would be like drawing back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz to find a guy who looks like the Janitor on "Scrubs," eating a donut and clipping his nails with mixed success.
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